A. Bertram Chandler - Jetsam

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JETSAM

A. Bertram Chandler

WITH DECEPTIVE EASE the rocket drifted down, down, the flare of her exhaust vivid against the

black sky, the long, downreaching streamer of incandescent gas stirring the fine pumice dust to a

coruscating flurry, then, as she lost still more altitude, fusing the almost impalpable powder to a slag that

glowed red, red beneath crusty, thickening gray, for minutes after her passing.

Auxiliary jets flared briefly, fiercely, to kill her lateral drift. Again they flared, and a third time. The

rocket was all of ten feet above the almost featureless surface when, suddenly main and auxiliary jets

went out like a snuffed candle. She fell—but with an odd, almost nightmarish slowness. She landed as

silently as she had come, tilting heavily at first, then slightly, first one way and then the other as the

powerful, fluid-damped springs, not unlike the recoil mechanism of a piece of artillery, took the weight

and the shock and, after the preliminary swaying and quivering, allowed her to assume an upright

position.

She stood there, then, gleaming in the harsh sunlight, a bright ovoid suspended in to tripod that was

her vaned landing gear. She should, perhaps, have looked strange, alien—but she did not. She was as

much part of the scheme of things as the plain of pumice dust, as the ring craters, as the serrated ridge of

the distant mountain range above which hung, seeming almost to touch the jagged peaks, looming huge in

the black, diamond-spangled sky, the great, cloudy opal that was Earth. She was new and bright, her

shell plating barely scarred by her swift, screaming passage through the atmosphere of her mother world

—but she belonged. She was new, the first of her kind—but the dream was old, old.

She was part of the dream.

Inside the rocket, inside the cramped living cabin that was also the control room, the men pulled their

bulky, cumbersome spacesuits on over their thick, porous plastic underwear. The biggest of them all, the

Captain, adjusted clips and zippers stolidly, did not so much as glance out of the now unscreened ports

on the shadowed side of the rocket. The Pilot, the Radio Technician and the Engineers tried to follow his

phlegmatic example. Only the Navigator—his slight body was still almost that of a boy and he had yet to

lose his boyish enthusiasm—stood staring out at the Lunar landscape, his fingers fumbling as he stared,

groping vaguely and clumsily through the routine of the airtight fastenings, making foolish mistakes that

brought a frown to his commander's face.

This was all part of the dream—and he was living it.

"Sparks," said the Captain, "you'd better make sure that the Stargazer has done his suit up properly.

Otherwise I don't know how we shall find our way home."

"We can do without him, sir," said the Radio Officer. "Earth's too big to miss—at this range."

"That's what the boys of the garrison'll be saying," laughed the Pilot. "When we get the launching site

established."

"If they give us time," said the Engineer.

"Enough of that," said the Captain. "We're here, and that's all that matters just now. We have our job

to do—preliminary survey, samples of soil and rock, as much exploration as we have time for. As far as

our friends on the other side of the Curtain are concerned—this is no more than a scientific expedition.

Understand?"

"We understand," said the men.

"Hurry up, Stargazer," said the Captain. "It'll all look better outside."

"Yes, sir," said the Navigator, clicking the last fastenings of his suit tight. Then, almost

whispering—"But this is all wrong. It should have been what you said, sir—no more than a scientific

expedition. . . ."

"Don't be a fool!" snapped the Captain. "You told me yourself that this had always been your

dream—ever since, as a kid, you used to read those trashy books with the gaudy covers. You've got

your dream. . .

It's been taken from me, thought the Navigator.

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A. Bertram Chandler - Jetsam

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