“Huh? Who?”
“The moon people. They did it. They wrecked themselves. They ruined themselves. They had one atomic war too many.”
“Huh? What the-” Ross stared, then looked back at the surface as if to read the grim mystery there. Art stopped taking pictures.
“How about it, Doc?”
Cargraves wrinkled his brow. “Could be,” he admitted. “None of the other theories for natural causes hold water for one reason or another. It would account for the relatively smooth parts we call `seas.’ They really were seas; that’s why they weren’t hit very hard.”
“And that’s why they aren’t seas any more,” Morrie went on. “They blew their atmosphere off and the seas boiled away at Tycho. That’s where they set off the biggest ammunition dump on the planet. It cracked the whole planet. I’ll bet somebody worked out a counter-weapon that worked too well. It set off every atom bomb on the moon all at once and it ruined them! I’m sure of it.”
“Well,” said Cargraves, “I’m not sure of it, but I admit the theory is attractive. Perhaps we’ll find out when we land. That notion of setting off all the bombs at once-there are strong theoretical objections to that. Nobody has any idea how to do it.”
“Nobody knew how to make an atom bomb a few years ago,” Morrie pointed out.
“That’s true.” Cargraves wanted to change the subject; it was unpleasantly close to horrors that had haunted his dreams since the beginning of World War II. “Ross, how do you feel about the other side of the moon now?”
“We’ll know pretty soon,” Ross chuckled. “Say — this is the Other Side!”
And so it was. They had leveled off in their circular orbit near the left limb of the moon as seen from the earth and were coasting over the mysterious other face. Ross scanned it closely. “Looks about the same.”
“Did you expect anything different?”
“No, I guess not. But I had hoped.” Even as he spoke they crossed the sunrise line and the ground below them was dark, not invisible, for it was still illuminated by faint starlight — starlight only, for the earthshine never reached this face. The sun capped peaks receded rapidly in the distance. At the rate they were traveling, a speed of nearly 4000 miles per hour necessary to maintain them in a low-level circular orbit, the complete circuit of the planet would take a little over an hour and a half.
“No more pictures, I guess,” Art said sadly. “I wish it was a different time of the month.”
“Yes,” agreed Ross, still peering out, “it’s a dirty shame to be this close and not see anything.”
“Don’t be impatient,” Cargraves told him; “When we start back in eight or nine days, we swing around again and you can stare and take pictures till you’re cross-eyed.”
“Why only eight or nine days? We’ve got more food than that.”
“Two reasons. The first is, if we take off at new moon we won’t have to stare into the sun on the way back. The second is, I’m homesick and I haven’t even landed yet.” He grinned. In utter seriousness he felt that it was not wise to stretch their luck by sticking around too long.
The trip across the lighted and familiar face of the moon was delightful, but so short that it was like window shopping in a speeding car. The craters and the “seas” were old familiar friends, yet strange and new. It reminded them of the always strange experience of seeing a famous television star on a personal appearance tour-recognition with an odd feeling of unreality.
Art shifted over to the motion-picture camera once used to record the progress of the Starstruck series, and got a complete sequence from Mare Fecunditatis to the crater Kepler, at which point Cargraves ordered him emphatically to stop at once and strap himself down.
They were coming into their landing trajectory. Cargraves and Morrie had selected a flat, unnamed area beyond Oceanus Procellarum for the landing because it was just on the border between the earth side and the unknown side, and thereby fitted two plans: to attempt to establish radio contact with earth, for which direct line-of-sight would be necessary, and to permit them to explore at least a portion of the unknown side.