He sensed that its nature and its purpose were pure destruction. Destruction of life in any form. It was a thing of death, and life and it could not exist in the same universe.
He sensed how it had come and why it had come, and the partial defeat that had sent it into dormancy because there was no life of the kind it knew in the universe through which it hurtled.
Now—it was once again aware of life.
The three of them went back to the tracking station laboratory together. Jim managed to obtain a clearance for Tom to see what they were doing. "I want to move the Prospector a long distance and try one more hole," he told Sam.
"What do you mean by a long distance?"
"A hundred miles."
"A hun—! You think you'll still find this thing that far away?"
"We'll find out. Can the Prospector travel that far?"
"Sure. If you wait long enough. Its maximum speed is two miles an hour."
"A little better than two days. Let's pick the direction of the flattest and lowest terrain. I don't want to get it up into the mountains."
During the following two days, Jim considered what his next move should be. He had to present his data and evidence to a conference of men who mattered, who could make the necessary decisions. It had to be brought to the attention of the top levels of NASA. The Department of Defense and the Presidential advisors should be in on it, too.
His thoughts came to a stop and he felt more than a little hysterical. Who was he? A third-string chemical researcher on one of dozens of current NASA projects. Who was going to let him call a conference of the nation's brass and instruct them to close down the moon program?
Nobody.
In the Civil Service hierarchy to which he belonged there was absolutely no way on earth by which he could bring his story to the attention of the people who could act on it.
No way at all. But he had to try.
He tried to reach the Director of NASA. The Director's secretary told Jim the Director was out of town and could not be reached except for emergency or other top-priority communications. Jim said that was exactly the nature of his message. The Secretary told him to get his Project Director to approve the message and an effort could be made to get it through.
That meant Hennesey.
Hennesey laughed in his face, and told him that one more fantasy like that would get him fired.
Jim had known that's the way it would be, but he had to try.
By this time, the Prospector had traveled more than ninety miles from the last probe. It was far enough, Jim decided. They'd put down one more probe, then—he didn't know where he'd go from there.
Sam saw the bleakness and bitterness on his face when he came into the tracking station. "No luck?" said Sam.
"What do you think? Have you ever realized that there is no way whatever for the ordinary citizen to get through with a message that requires action at the top? Channels, supervisors' approvals, okays by supervisors' supervisors—the only communication the top level has is with itself; generals talk to other generals, Bureau Directors talk to generals and other Bureau Directors, the President talks to his advisors who talk only to each other. The communication barrier is complete and absolute."
"I could have told you that," said Sam. "I've been here longer than you have. But some of them may still read a newspaper now and then."
"What do you mean by that?"
"Call a news conference of the science editors and reporters of the major press services and big-city newspapers. Your reputation is big enough that they'll listen to you."
"You saw what they did to me last time!"
Sam shrugged. "Maybe you know a better way."
Jim took his seat at the console and watched the slow progress of the Prospector across the moon's surface. It was winding its way through an area of small, low crags. Ahead was a smooth, level plain. Jim determined to halt there and make the next probe.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw Hennesey moving toward them. He could think of nothing that would make the day more unpleasant than Hennesey's presence.
The Project Director scanned the panels and the meters that showed the distance traveled by the Prospector.
"Why have you moved the machine so far?" Hennesey demanded. "You've used up valuable machine time that could have been used in additional probes. We may be approaching the end of the useful life of the Prospector very rapidly."
"I am aware of that," said Jim icily. "The stock of reagents aboard is nearly exhausted. I wanted to make at least one comparison probe at a considerable distance from our original site."
Hennesey grunted and remained silent, watching. Then, suddenly he cried out, "Look out! You fool—!"
Jim had seen it, too. At the edge of the crags was a ten-foot wide fissure spreading darkly on either side of the Prospector. The drives of the machine were upon it before he realized it was there. In fact, the crazy thought echoed in the back of his mind that itwasn'tthere an instant before.
He slammed his hand against the switches that sent out a reversing signal to the drives of the Prospector. But it was too late. The worm drives bit into nothingness as the machine toppled slowly at the edge of the crevasse. And in that moment, as the image on the television screen teetered crazily, Jim had the impression that he was looking into the black depths of utter horror. There was a blackness oozing and writhing faintly in the depths—that could have been thirty or a hundred feet deep. But he had seen just such a black horror once before.
When the EEG signals from the moon first smashed into his brain!
He glanced at Sam. Sam was staring in a kind of intense horror that told Jim he recognized it, too.
The image tilted abruptly against the black moon sky. Then the screen went dark. And Jim had the feeling that the blackness had closed over him.
But Hennesey had sensed nothing of this. He was cursing and raging beside Jim. "You blind, brainless fool! You wiped out a billion-dollar experiment because you weren't looking! You're through, Cochran! Get everything that's yours and be out of here in ten minutes!"
Hennesey whirled and strode away, his rage reeking through the atmosphere of the room.
Jim stood up and moved to the back of the panel. He opened the plastic doors and clipped the last ten feet from the spool of TV recording tape and slipped it in his pocket. When he returned to the other side of the console, Sam was waiting for him.
"Where are you going?" said Jim.
"With you."
"Where's that?"
"I don't think you know, but I do. I'll tag along and see if I'm right."
"You're crazy. Didn't you just hear Hennesey fire me?"
"Yeah. I quit at the same time."
"You're really crazy."
Jim had a few textbooks and scientific papers in his desk. He arranged for one of his men to clean them out. He didn't feel that he could endure remaining in the station any longer.
Tom Banning followed them out into the sunshine of the parking lot. "I'm sorry," he said, "but it looked as if what happened back there was rather inevitable."
"It was," said Jim. "I'd have kicked his teeth in sooner or later. It's better this way."
"What will you do now?"
"Ask Sam. He seems to think he has some crazy idea of what I'm going to do next. I sure don't."
"The news conference," said Sam. "You'd better call it right away before news of your dismissal gets out. They may think you just want to unload some sour grapes if they hear of that first."
"Yeah, I guess you're right. Will you back me up in the conference, Tom?"
The doctor nodded. "Gladly. It's pretty hard to believe, but you've got me believing."
Jim was personally acquainted with most of the newsmen who showed up for his conference. He had met them and helped them get stories on the Prospector during the past two years. They were sympathetic toward him.
He began his story by reviewing his initial discovery of the difference in moon elements. He explained the analysis and showed them samples of the telemetry record. Then he eased slowly into his discovery of fossil hydrocarbons and finally the living hydrocarbons. He watched carefully as he moved deeper into the story. He didn't want to lose them here.
They stayed with him, incredulous but confident that he knew what he was talking about. It was when he spoke of the fluctuating potential measurements, that proved to be interpretable as EEG recordings that he almost lost them. But he introduced Tom Banning quickly to verify his statements. And Tom introduced the EEG machine itself. He offered to demonstrate. A half dozen of the reporters tried it.Theyhad no doubts, afterward.
"You can almost draw your own conclusions," said Jim in winding up the conference. "That thing is out there in our sky. There's no doubt about it. I've shown you what we know. Now let me tell you what I believe:
"There is some form of life in the moon. It is not merelyinthe moon. Itisthe moon. I believe its bulk occupies almost the entire volume of the moon. I believe this nemesis was spawned incalculable eons ago in a time and a space that is literally outside our own. It was driven out of that time and space by intelligent beings who could not destroy it, but who could at least exile it in a state of dormancy. Or perhaps they thought they had destroyed it and wanted not even the remains in their own domain. Perhaps the craters of the moon were caused by bombardment intended to destroy the thing.
"But it is not dead. Itwasdormant. Now, our laser probings have stirred it to feeble life. It made a deliberate effort to capture or destroy the Prospector by opening a fissure beneath it. My TV film recording proves that the fissure was not there previously.
"What are we to do about it? That is why I have called you here. Consider that the science of the intelligences in the domain that spawned this thing could not destroy it. What chance has our feeble science and powers against such a force? Hydrogen bombs would probably serve only to feed it the energy for which it is starved.
"We must cease our lunar exploration program at once. We can hope that it is not too late. If it is not, this thing may relapse into the dormancy from which it has been shaken. We can only hope.
"But if we persist in our explorations and our probings of the moon we are certain to loose upon ourselves a living force that our entire world of science will be helpless to overcome.
"We must stop the moon program now!"
They kept him for another two hours with questions and demands for further information. He gave them everything he knew, and when they finally left, he felt that a sane and correct story of his findings would be published. He waited for whatever results would be published by the news services the following morning.
He waited.
There was nothing.
Eddie Fry called him two days later. Eddie was the reporter who knew him best. "They killed the story," said Eddie. "We had to clear it with government sources, and they persuaded every press association and newspaper that knew about it to kill it. They said it would destroy the national economy that was being built up on the space program. We tried to make them believe it, Jim, but we couldn't do it. It was hard enough to be convinced when we were listening to you. Second hand, it just wouldn't go over. You really can't blame them.
"They're doing something else, too. They're really going to nail you for this thing. A story is being released about your dismissal. It is said that you were released for fantastic and unreliable theories and for incompetence that resulted in the loss of the Prospector. I'm sorry as hell, Jim. I wish we could kill that one, but there's not a thing we can do for you."
"It's o.k., Eddie," said Jim. "I know how it is."
Crackpot. He was finished.
He called Allan at his base that night. His brother-in-law's voice was icy as he answered. "What do you want, Jim?"
"Come down over the weekend, can you, Allan? I've got something important I want to talk to you about."
"Listen, Jim. Stay away from me! Don't call; don't try to see me. Don't send me letters or telegrams. Nothing! Do you understand that?"
"What the devil—?"
"They're investigating me. Because of you. They want to know how much I've been listening to your crackpot notions. They're afraid maybe it will produce an instability that will make me unfit for the moon trip. If I lose out, it will be because of you!"
"That's what I want to talk to you about. Allan, you've got to listen to me! You won't get off the moon alive—"
The phone went dead. Jim hung up slowly and went back to the living room where Mary sat in tense, white fear. She had heard Jim's side of the conversation. She guessed what Allan had said.
"It's no use," said Jim. "Don't try to reach him. He'll hate you forever."
It was no use to run, but they ran anyway. This was what Sam meant when he said he knew what Jim was going to do. Jim Cochran was completely blackballed in his own profession. As he said, he couldn't have gotten a job stirring with a wooden paddle in a soap factory.
Tom Banning and his family went with them. They went as far north as they could and finally stopped running on the edge of the Canadian wilderness. They pooled their funds and bought some wheat land and some cattle stock and tried to stop thinking beyond the end of each day.
They were grateful for the absence of television, but they kept a radio. Through it, they learned when the Apollo finally took off with its three-man crew. They followed its two and a half day journey through space and heard the voice of Captain Allan Wright announce they were in lunar orbit.
A few hours later the landing capsule was disengaged from the spaceship and Captain Wright and William Chambers rode it down. Their voices were heard in exultation as they announced their first steps on the surface of the moon.
It was night in northern Canada when the landing was made. Jim and Sam and Tom and their families were outside watching the full moon, trying to imagine how it was up there. From the house they heard the radio relaying the voices of the astronauts. The voices were relayed to earth through the more powerful transmitter of the orbiting Apollo, but as the spaceship circled the moon the voices of the men on the surface were lost. Then they returned once more as the ship came over their horizon.
For five orbits their voices came and went as they described their sensations and exulted in the first minutes of their achievement. Then, on the sixth orbit, there were no voices. There was only the sudden, shrill cry of the third crewman, Don Anderson, who manned the orbiting ship.
"Allan! Bill! Apollo to capsule: Come in, please. Bill—where are you—I can't even see your capsule. I'm passing right over the spot. Apollo to Base: I can't locate the capsule through the telescope. It looks like a big crevasse right where the capsule was, but it wasn't there before. Allan—Bill—Come in! Come in!"
Jim heard the sudden sob that shook Mary. He put his arm about her shoulders and led her into the house.
Don Anderson remained in lunar orbit for two more days. Then he was ordered home. He landed safely.
There were expressions of national sorrow over the unexplained loss of the two astronauts, but plans were renewed for the next voyage. The President said that sacrifices must be expected if this great goal were to be achieved, and that it would be a betrayal of those who had already given their lives if the work were to stop now.
In Canada that winter, Jim was sure the wolves howled on cold, moonlit nights more than ever before. And something new was happening to the moon. The silver light was taking on a faint tint of orange. The radio told of a very learned report by some astronomer who spoke obscurely of changes in albedo and percentages of atmospheric dust and angstroms of sunlight. Any fool could see the moon was changing color.
Jim listened to the wolves howling in the forest, and he thought of Cramer's Pond when he was a boy, and of a machine tumbling into a crevasse where a terrible darkness lay, and he wondered how long it would be.
THE END