“Go ahead and laugh!” Cargraves continued, seeing their expressions, “It strikes you as funny as a The-World-Is-Flat theory. But I heard an aeronautical engineer, as late as 1943, say just that.”
“No! Not really!”
“I certainly did. He was a man with twenty-five years of professional experience and he had worked for both Wright Field and the Navy. But he said that in it. Next year the Nazis were bombing London with V-2s. Yet according to him it couldn’t be done!”
“I’d think any man who had ever felt the kick of a shotgun would understand how a rocket works,” Ross commented.
“It doesn’t work out that way. Mostly it has no effect on his brain cells; it just gives him a sore shoulder.” He started to lift himself out of his semi-reclining position in his pilot’s chair. “Come on. Let’s eat. Wow! My foot’s gone to sleep. I want to stock up and then get some sleep. Breakfast wasn’t much good for me — too many people staring down our necks.”
“Sleep?” said Art. “Did you say `sleep’? I can’t sleep; I’m too excited. I don’t suppose I’ll sleep the whole trip.”
“Suit yourself. Me, I’m going to soak up shut-eye just as soon as we’ve eaten. There’s nothing to see now, and won’t be until we go into free fall. You’ve had better views of the moon through a telescope.”
“It’s not the same thing,” Art pointed out.
“No, it’s not,” Cargraves conceded. “Just the same, I intend to reach the moon rested up instead of worn out. Morrie, where did you stow the can openers?”
“I-” Morrie stopped and a look of utter consternation came over his face. “I think I left them behind. I put them down on the sink shelf and then some female reporter started asking me some fool question and-”
“Yeah, I saw,” Ross interrupted him. “You were practically rolling over and playing dead for her. It was cute.”
Cargraves whistled tunelessly. “I hope that we find out that we haven’t left behind anything really indispensable. Never mind the can openers, Morrie. The way I feel I could open a can with my bare teeth.”
“Oh, you won’t have to do that, Doc,” Morrie said eagerly. “I’ve got a knife with a gadget for-” He was feeling in his pocket as he talked. His expression changed abruptly and he withdrew his hand. “Here are the can openers, Doc.”
Ross looked at him innocently. “Did you get her address, Morrie?”
Supper, or late breakfast, as the case may be, was a simple meal, eaten from ration cans. Thereafter Cargraves got out his bedding roll and spread it on the bulkhead- now a deck -which separated the pilot compartment from the hold. Morrie decided to sleep in his co-pilot’s chair. It, with its arm rests, head support, and foot rest, was not unlike an extremely well-padded barber’s chair for the purpose, one which had been opened to a semi-reclining position. Cargraves let him try it, cautioning him only to lock his controls before going to sleep.
About an hour later Morrie climbed down and spread his roll beside Cargraves. Art and Ross slept on their acceleration hammocks, which were very well adapted to the purpose, as long as the occupant was not strapped down.
Despite the muted roar of the jet, despite the excitement of being in space, they all were asleep in a few minutes. They were dead tired and needed it.
During the ‘night’ Joe the Robot slowly reduced the drive of the jet as the pull of the earth grew less.
Art was first to awaken. He had trouble finding himself for a moment or two and almost fell from his hammock on to the two sleepers below before he recollected his surroundings. When he did it brought him wide awake with a start. Space! He was out in space! — Headed for the moon!
Moving with unnecessary quiet, since he could hardly have been heard above the noise of the jet in any case and since both Ross and Cargraves were giving very fair imitations of rocket motors themselves, he climbed out of the hammock and monkey-footed up to the pilots’ seats. He dropped into Morrie’s chair, feeling curiously but pleasantly light under the much reduced acceleration.