“Under us, of course,” Morrie informed him.
“Better try for it with radar, Morrie,” Cargraves directed.
“Cheek!” Morrie switched on the juice, waited for it to warm, then adjusted it. The moon showed as a large vague mass on one side of the scope. “About fifteen thousand miles,” he declared. “We’d better do some checking, Skipper.”
They were busy for more than an hour, taking sights, taking readings, and computing. The bearing and distance of the moon, in relation to the ship, were available by radar. Direct star sights out the port established the direction of drive of the ship. Successive radar readings established the course and speed of the ship for comparison with the courses and speeds as given by the automatic instruments showing on the board. All these factors had to be taken into consideration in computing a check on the management of Joe the Robot.
Minor errors were found and the corrections were fed to the automatic pilot. Joe accepted the changes in his orders without comment.
While Morrie and Cargraves did this, Art and Ross were preparing the best meal they could throw together. It was a relief to have weight under their feet and it was a decided relief to their stomachs. Those organs had become adjusted to free fall, but hardly reconciled. Back on firm footing they hollered for solid food.
The meal was over and Cargraves was thinking sadly of his ruined pipe, when the control alarm sounded. Joe the Robot had completed his orders, his cam had run out, he called for relief.
They all scrambled up to the control station. The moon, blindingly white and incredibly huge was shouldering its way into one side of the port. They were so close to it now that their progress was visible, if one looked closely, by sighting across the frame of the port at some fixed object, a crater or a mountain range.
“Whee!” Art yelled.
“Kinda knocks your eyes out, doesn’t it?” Ross said, gazing in open wonder.
“It does,” agreed Cargraves. “But we’ve got work to do. Get back and strap yourselves down and stand by for maneuvering.”
While he complied, he strapped himself into his chair and then flipped a switch which ordered Joe to go to sleep; he was in direct, manual command of the rocket. With Morrie to coach him by instrument, he put the ship through a jockeying series of changes, gentle on the whole and involving only minor changes in course at any one time, but all intended to bring the ship from the flat conoid trajectory it had been following into a circular orbit around the moon.
“How’m I doin’?” he demanded, a long time later.
“Right in the groove,” Morrie assured him, after a short delay.
“Sure enough of it for me to go automatic and swing ship?”
“Let me track her a few more minutes.” Presently Morrie assured him as requested. They had already gone into free flight just before Cargraves asked for a check. He now called out to Art and Ross that they could unstrap. He then started the ship to swinging so that the port faced toward the moon and switched on a combination which told Joe that he must get back to work; it was now his business to watch the altitude by radar and to see to it that altitude and speed remained constant.
Art was up at the port, with his camera, by the time he and Morrie had unstrapped.
“Goshawmighty,” exclaimed Art, “this is something!” He unlimbered his equipment and began snapping frantically, until Ross pointed out that his lens cover was still on. Then he steadied down.
Ross floated face down and stared out at the desolation. They were speeding silently along, only two hundred miles above the ground, and they were approaching the sunrise line of light and darkness. The shadows were long on the barren wastes below them, the mountain peaks and the great gaping craters more horrendous on that account. “It’s scary,” Ross decided. “I’m not sure I like it.”
“Want off at the next corner?” Cargraves inquired.
“No, but I’m not dead certain I’m glad I came.”
Morrie grasped his arm, to steady himself apparently, but quite as much for the comfort of solid human companionship. “You know what I think, Ross,” he began, as he stared out at the endless miles of craters. “I think I know how it got that way. Those aren’t volcanic craters, that’s certain — and it wasn’t done by meteors. They did it themselves!”