Interstellar travel -- Fiction; Science fiction; Television programs -- Fiction
They saw Lunar City as they approached it. It was five giant dust-heaps,
from five hundred-odd feet in height down to three. There were airlocks
at their bases and dust-covered tunnels connecting them, and radar-bowls
about their sides. But they were dust-heaps. Which was completely
reasonable. There is no air on the moon. By day the sun shines down with
absolute ferocity. It heats everything as with a furnace-flame. At night
all heat radiates away to empty space, and the ground-temperature drops
well below that of liquid air. So Lunar City was a group of domes which
were essentially half-balloons--hemispheres of plastic brought from
Earth and inflated and covered with dust. With airlocks to permit
entrance and exit, they were inhabitable. They needed no framework to
support them because there were no stormwinds or earthquakes to put
stresses on them. They needed neither heating nor cooling equipment.
They were buried under forty feet of moon-dust, with vacuum between the
dust-grains. Lunar City was not beautiful, but human beings could live
in it.
The jeep-bus carried them a bare half mile, and they alighted inside a
lock, and another door and another opened and closed, and they emerged
into a scene which no amount of television film-tape could really
portray.
The main dome was a thousand feet across and half as high. There were
green plants growing in tubs and pots. And the air was fresh! It smelled
strange. There could be no vegetation on the rocket and it seemed new
and blissful to breathe really freshened air after days of the canned
variety. But this freshness made Cochrane realize that he'd feel better
for a bath.
He took a shower in his hotel room. The room was very much like one on
Earth, except that it had no windows. But the shower was strange. The
sprays were tiny. Cochrane felt as if he were being sprayed by atomizers
rather than shower-nozzles until he noticed that water ran off him very
slowly and realized that a normal shower would have been overwhelming.
He scooped up a handful of water and let it drop. It took a full second
to fall two and a half feet.
It was unsettling, but fresh clothing from his waiting baggage made him
feel better. He went to the lounge of the hotel, and it was not a
lounge, and the hotel was not a hotel. Everything in the dome was
indoors in the sense that it was under a globular ceiling fifty stories
high. But everything was also out-doors in the sense of bright light and
growing trees and bushes and shrubs.
He found Babs freshly garmented and waiting for him. She said in
businesslike tones:
"Mr. Cochrane, I asked at the desk. Doctor Holden has gone to consult
Mr. Dabney. He asked that we stay within call. I've sent word to Mr.
West and Mr. Jamison and Mr. Bell."
Cochrane approved of her secretarial efficiency.
"Then we'll sit somewhere and wait. Since this isn't an office, we'll
find some refreshment."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account