The Black Pits of Luna
The Black Pits of Luna
THE MORNING after we got to the Moon we went over to Rutherford. Dad and Mr. Latham – Mr. Latham is the man from the Harriman Trust that Dad came to Luna City to see.
Dad and Mr. Latham had to go anyhow, on business. I got Dad to promise I could go along because it looked like just about my only chance to get out on the surface of the Moon. Luna City is all right, I guess, but I defy you to tell a corridor in Luna City from the sublevels in New York-except that you’re light on your feet, of course.
When Dad came into our hotel suite to say we were ready to leave, I was down on the floor, playing mumblety-peg with my kid brother. Mother was lying down and had asked me to keep the runt quiet. She had been dropsick all the way out from Earth and I guess she didn’t feel very good. The runt had been fiddling with the lights, switching them from “dusk” to “desert suntan” and back again. I collared him and sat him down on the floor.
Of course, I don’t play mumblety-peg any more, but, on the Moon, it’s a right good game. The knife practically floats and you can do all kinds of things with it. We made up a lot of new rules.
Dad said, “Switch in plans, my dear. We’re leaving for Rutherford right away. Let’s pull ourselves together.”
Mother said, “Oh, mercy me-I don’t think I’m up to it. You and Dickie run along. Baby Darling and I will just spend a quiet day right here.”
Baby Darling is the runt.
I could have told her it was the wrong approach. He nearly put my eye out with the knife and said, “Who? What? I’m going too. Let’s go!”
Mother said, “Oh, now, Baby Darling-don’t cause Mother Dear any trouble, We’ll go to the movies, just you and I.”
The runt is seven years younger than I am, but don’t call him “Baby Darling” if you want to get anything out of him. He started to bawl. “You said I could go!” he yelled.
“No, Baby Darling. I haven’t mentioned it to you. I-”
“Daddy said I could go!”
“Richard, did you tell Baby he could go?”
“Why, no, my dear, not that I recall. Perhaps I-”
The kid cut in fast. “You said I could go anywhere Dickie went. You promised me you promised me you promised me.” Sometimes you have to hand it to the runt; he had them jawing about who told him what in nothing flat. Anyhow, that is how twenty minutes later, the four of us were up at the rocket port with Mr. Lathani and climbing into the shuttle for Rutherford.
The trip only takes about ten minutes and you don’t see much, just a glimpse of the Earth while the rocket is still near Luna City and then not even that, since the atom plants where we were going are all on the back side of the Moon, of course. There were maybe a dozen tourists along and most of them were dropsick as soon as we went into free flight. So was Mother. Some people never will get used to rockets.
But Mother was all right as soon as we grounded and were inside again. Rutherford isn’t like Luna City; instead of extending a tube out to the ship, they send a pressurized car out to latch on to the airlock of the rocket, then you jeep back about a mile to the entrance to underground. I liked that and so did the runt. Dad had to go off on business with Mr. Latham, leaving Mother and me and the runt to join up with the party of tourists for the trip through the laboratories.
It was all right but nothing to get excited about. So far as I can see, one atomics plant looks about like another; Rutherford could just as well have been. the main plant outside Chicago. I mean to say everything that is anything is out of sight, covered up, shielded. All you get to see are some dials and instrument boards and people watching them. Remote control stuff, like Oak Ridge. The guide tells you about the experiments going on and they show you some movies – that’s all.