Thus fed, he sat down and began to map out his course. I must do things
systematically, he told himself. I must keep track of time, set up a
regular pattern of living, find a permanent base of operations. I shall
have to explore this cavern and those beyond it, find all possible
enemies and invent ways and means of defending myself. I shall have to
breed my rabbits in quantity, find a way of using their pelts and fur.
I shall have to determine a use for everything left from the rocket's
material--metals and the like.
For, he continued telling himself, my one aim shall be to stay alive
long enough to be found some day by exploring rockets from Earth. I
am a Robinson Crusoe of a new world. Crusoe waited twenty-eight years
for rescue, I must be as courageous. In his case, he had no evidence
that any ship would ever bother to call on him. In my case I know that
rockets are being made that will eventually lead to further Moon trips.
I know that men are planning to come here. I must wait it out, even for
twenty-eight years.
But it was not that simple and he knew it. But first things first, and
the first task was to survive.
With the monkey scampering on ahead, he set out to walk to the
cavern wall. He found it to be dark and glistening, a lavalike sheet
resembling the bubble it was. Leaning against it and looking upward,
he saw that it curved gradually up, and that indeed he was in a flaw
within a very porous world. Like the inside of a Clark candy bar, he
thought, with a wry smile.
Astronomers on Earth had always been puzzled by the lightness of the
Moon. They had speculated on it as being mainly pumice. Lately there
had been much speculation and opinion holding forth the theory that the
Moon was porous, had these bubbles and air pockets all through it, that
the Moon's water and atmosphere had all gone underground to be sealed
off in these hollow spaces. He now knew they were right.
Most of these Moon bubbles, large enough to hold cities, must be
entirely sealed off. But others were linked, sometimes broken into by
quakes or the volcanic action which was still going on in the depths of
what had once been considered a dead world. This particular cavern was
such a bubble.
Robin walked along the outer wall and saw a dark black spot in it, and
then others. He came to them, found they were breaks in the surface,
pocks caused by smaller bubbles. He looked into one that opened at the
base. Using his flashlight, he could see that it was a small, almost
entirely spherical cave. He found others pocking the walls of the
cavern bubble.
This then was the ideal spot for a permanent home. Not that he needed
shielding from the elements, for obviously there were no elements
here--no rain, snow, clouds, or weather oddities. Neither was there
night or day.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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