Just before six o’clock Europa—you could no longer see Io; Europa covered it—as I was saying, Europa kissed the shadow, which by now was round, just one shadow.
Four or five minutes later the shadow had crawled up on top of Europa; they were all lined up—and I knew I was seeing the most extraordinary sight I would ever see in my life, Sun, Jupiter, and the four biggest moons all perfectly lined up.
I let out a deep breath: I don’t know how long I had been holding it. “Gee whiz!” was all I could think of to say.
“I agree in general with your sentiments, Bill,” Dad answered. “Molly, hadn’t we better get Peggy inside? I’m afraid she is getting cold.”
“Yes,” agreed Molly. “I know I am, for one.”
“I’m going down to the lake now,” I said. The biggest tide of record was expected, of course. While the lake was too small to show much tide, I had made a mark the day before and I hoped to be able to measure it.
“Don’t get lost in the dark,” Dad called out. I didn’t answer him. A silly remark doesn’t require an answer.
I had gotten past the road and maybe a quarter of a mile beyond when it hit.
It knocked me flat on my face, the heaviest shake I had ever felt in my life. I’ve felt heavy quakes in California; they weren’t a patch on this one. I lay face down for a long moment, digging into the rock with my finger nails and trying to get it to hold still.
The seasick roll kept up and kept up and kept up, and with it the noise—a deep bass rumble, deeper than thunder and more terrifying.
A rock rolled up against me and nipped my side. I got to my feet and managed to stay there. The ground was still swaying and the rumble kept on. I headed for the house, running—like dancing over shifting ice. I fell down twice and got up again.
The front end of the house was all caved in. The roof slanted down at a crazy angle. “George!” I yelled. “Molly! Where are you?”
George heard me and straightened up. He was on the other side of the house and now I saw him over the collapsed roof. He didn’t say anything. I rushed around to where he stood. “Are you all right?” I demanded.
“Help me get Molly out—” he gasped.
I found out later that George had gone inside with Molly and Peggy, had helped get Peg out of the stretcher and back into her room, and then had gone outside, leaving Molly to get breakfast. The quake had hit while he was returning from the barn. But we didn’t have time then to talk it over; we dug—moving slabs with our bare hands that had taken four Scouts, working together, to lay. George kept crying, “Molly! Molly! Where are you?”
She was lying on the floor beside the stone work bench that was penned in by the roof. We heaved it off her; George scrambled over the rubble and reached her. “Molly! Molly darling!”
She opened her eyes. “George!”
“Are you all right?”
“What happened?”
“Quake. Are you all right? Are you hurt?”
She sat up, made a face as if something hurt her, and said, “I think I— George! Where s Peggy? Get Peggy!”
Peggy’s room was still upright; the reinforcements had held while the rest of the house had gone down around it. George insisted on moving Molly out into the open first, then we tackled the slabs that kept us from getting at the air lock to Peggy’s room.
The outer door of the air lock was burst out of its gaskets and stood open, the wrong way. It was black inside the lock; Jupiter light didn’t reach inside. I couldn’t see what I was doing but when I pushed on the inner door it wouldn’t give. “Can’t budge it,” I told Dad. “Get a light.”
“Probably still held by air pressure. Call out to Peggy to get in the stretcher and we’ll bleed it.”
“I need a light,” I repeated.
“I haven’t got a light.”