Miko for a time had been at my side in the turret. I had not seen
Coniston or Hahn of recent hours. I had slept, awakened refreshed, and
had a meal. Coniston and Hahn remained below, one or other of them
always with the crew to execute my sirened orders. Then Coniston came
to take my place in the turret, and I went with Miko to the radio
room.
"You are skillful, Haljan." A measure of grim approval was in his
voice. "You evidently have no wish to try and fool me in this
navigation."
I had not, indeed. It is delicate work at best, coping with the
intricacies of celestial mechanics upon a semicircular trajectory with
retarding velocity, and with a makeshift crew we could easily have
come upon real difficulty.
We hung at last, hull down, facing the Earthward hemisphere of the
Lunar disc. The giant ball of the Earth lay behind and above us--the
Sun over our stern quarter. With forward velocity almost checked, we
poised, and Snap began his signals to the unsuspecting Grantline.
My work momentarily was over. I sat watching the radio room. Moa was
here, close beside me. I felt always her watchful gaze, so that even
the play of my emotions needed reining.
Miko worked with Snap. Anita too was here. To Miko and Moa it was the
somber, taciturn George Prince, shrouded always in his black mourning
cloak, disinclined to talk; sitting alone, brooding and sullen. This
is how they thought of Anita.
Miko repeated: "By the infernal, if you try to fool me, Snap Dean!"
The small metal room, with its grid floor and low arched ceiling,
glared with moonlight through its window. The moving figures of Snap
and Miko were aped by the grotesque, misshapen shadows of them on the
walls. Miko gigantic--a great menacing ogre. Snap small and alert--a
trim, pale figure in his tight-fitting white trousers, broad-flowing
belt, and white shirt open at the throat. His face was pale and drawn
from lack of sleep and the torture to which Miko had subjected him
earlier on the voyage. But he grinned at the brigand's words, and
pushed his straggling hair closer under the red eyeshade.
The room over long periods was deadly silent, with Miko and Snap
bending watchfully at the crowded banks of instruments. A silence in
which my own pounding heart seemed to echo. I did not dare look at
Anita, nor she at me. Snap was trying to signal Earth, not the Moon!
His main grids were set in the reverse. The infra-red waves, flung
from the bow window, were of a frequency which Snap and I believed
that Grantline could not pick up. And over against the wall, close
beside me and seemingly ignored by Snap, there was a tiny ultra-violet
sender. Its faint hum and the quivering of its mirrors had so far
passed unnoticed.
Would some Earth station pick it up? I prayed so. There was a
thumbnail mirror here which would bring an answer.
Would some Earth telescope be able to see us? I doubted it. The
pinpoint of the _Planetara's_ infinitesimal bulk would be beyond
vision.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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