his name and the date. His signature was right beneath Dixon’s.
He frowned when he thought of Dixon and slid back the catch on the top of the bag and locked it. They should never have sent a kid like Dixon to the Moon.
He had just locked the bag when he heard the rumble of the airlock and the soft hiss of air. Somebody had come back earlier than expected. He watched the inner door swing open and the spacesuited figure clump in and unscrew its helmet.
Dahl. He had gone out to help Dowden on the Schmidt telescope. Maybe Dowden hadn’t needed any help, with Bening along. Or more likely, considering the circumstances, Dahl wasn’t much good at helping anybody today.
Dahl stripped off his suit. His face was covered with light beads of sweat and his eyes were frightened.
He moistened his lips slightly. “Do—do you think they’ll ever have relief ships up here more often than every eighteen months, Chap? I mean, considering the advance of—”
“No,” Chapman interrupted bluntly. “I don’t. Not at least for ten years. The fuel’s too expensive and the trip’s too hazardous. On freight charges alone you’re worth your weight in platinum when they send you here. Even if it becomes cheaper, Bob, it won’t come about so it will shorten stopover right away.” He stopped, feeling a little sorry for Dahl. “It won’t be too bad. There’ll be new men up here and you’ll pass a lot of time getting to know them.”
“Well, you see,” Dahl started, “that’s why I came back early. I wanted to see you about stopover. It’s that—well, I’ll put it this way.” He seemed to be groping for an easy way to say what he wanted to. “I’m engaged back home. Really nice girl, Chap, you’d like her if you knew her.” He fumbled in his pocket and found a photograph and put it on the desk. “That’s a picture of Alice, taken at a picnic we were on together.” Chapman didn’t look. “She—we—expected to be married when I got back. I never told her about stopover, Chap. She thinks I’ll be home tomorrow. I kept thinking, hoping, that maybe somehow—”
He was fumbling it badly, Chapman thought.
“You wanted to trade places with me, didn’t you, Bob? You thought I might stay for stopover again, in your place?”
It hurt to look in Dahl’s eyes. They were the eyes of a man who was trying desperately to stop what he was about to do, but just couldn’t help himself.
“Well, yes, more or less. Oh, God, Chap, I know you want to go home! But I couldn’t ask any of the others; you were the only one who could, the only one who was qualified!”
*
Dahl looked as though he was going to be sick. Chapman tried to recall all he knew about him. Dahl, Robert. Good mathematician. Graduate from one of the Ivy League schools. Father was a manufacturer of stoves or something.
It still didn’t add, not quite. “You know I don’t like it here any more than you do,” Chapman said slowly. “I may have commitments at home, too. What made you think I would change my mind?”
Dahl took the plunge. “Well, you see,” he started eagerly, too far gone to remember such a thing as pride, “you know my father’s pretty well fixed. We would make it worth your while, Chap.” He was feverish. “It would mean eighteen more months, Chap, but they’d be well-paid months!”
Chapman felt tired. The good feeling he had about going home was slowly evaporating.
“If you have any report to make, I think you had better get at it,” he cut in, keeping all the harshness he felt out of his voice. “It’ll be too late after the relief ship leaves. It’ll be easier to give the captain your report than try to radio it back to Earth from here.”
He felt sorrier for Dahl than he could ever remember having felt for anybody. Long after going home, Dahl would remember this.
It would eat at him like a cancer.
Cowardice is the one thing for which no man ever forgives himself.
*
Donley was eating a sandwich and looking out the port, so, naturally, he saw the ship first. “Well, whaddya know!” he shouted. “We got company!” He dashed for his suit. Dowden and Bening piled after him and all three started for the lock.
Chapman was standing in front of it. “Check your suits,” he said softly. “Just be sure to check.”
“Oh, what the hell, Chap!” Donley started angrily. Then he shut up and went over his suit. He got to his tank and turned white. Empty. It was only half a mile to the relief rocket, so somebody would probably have got to him in time, but.... He bit his lips and got a full tank.
Chapman and Klein watched them dash across the pumice, making the tremendous leaps they used to read about in the Sunday supplements. The port of the rocket had opened and tiny figures were climbing down the ladder. The small figures from the bunker reached them and did a short jig of welcome. Then the figures linked arms and started back. Chapman noticed one—it was probably Donley—pat the ship affectionately before he started back.
They were in the lock and the air pumped in and then they were in the bunker, taking off their suits. The newcomers were impressed and solemn, very much aware of the tremendous responsibility that rested on their shoulders. Like Donley and Klein and the members of the Second group had been when they had landed. Like Chapman had been in the First.
Donley and the others were all over them.
*
How was it back on Earth? Who had won the series? Was so-and-so still teaching at the university? What was the international situation?
Was the sky still blue, was the grass still green, did the leaves still turn color in the autumn, did people still love and cry and were there still people who didn’t know what an atom was and didn’t give a damn?
Chapman had gone through it all before. But was Ginny still Ginny?
Some of the men in the Third had their luggage with them. One of them—a husky, red-faced kid named Williams—was opening a box about a foot square and six inches deep. Chapman watched him curiously.
“Well, I’ll be damned!” Klein said. “Hey, guys, look what we’ve got here!”
Chapman and the others crowded around and suddenly Donley leaned over and took a deep breath. In the box, covering a thick layer of ordinary dirt, was a plot of grass. They looked at it, awed. Klein put out his hand and laid it on top of the grass.
“I like the feel of it,” he said simply.
Chapman cut off a single blade with his fingernail and put it between his lips. It had been years since he had seen grass and had the luxury of walking on it and lying on its cool thickness during those sultry summer nights when it was too hot to sleep indoors.
Williams blushed. “I thought we could spare a little water for it and maybe use the ultraviolet lamp on it some of the time. Couldn’t help but bring it along; it seemed sort of like a symbol....” He looked embarrassed.
Chapman sympathized. If he had had any sense, he’d have tried to smuggle something like that up to the Moon instead of his phonograph.
“That’s
