<h2 id="c3"><br/><i>THE SPACE MAIL RUN</i></h2>
<p>The way he felt now, Jerry
Welsh was almost sorry he had left Earth. The
Moonship landing seemed to be crushing the
very life out of him, although he lay flat on a
couch to ease the strain.</p>
<p>Jerry turned his head toward his father, who
was strapped down like himself, and suffering
too. The craft was under its own control, for
no human could withstand the rocket’s present
speed and still be able to steer in for a landing.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_40">40</div>
<p>Capt. Welsh was on his bi-weekly mail run
to Luna, the Moon, and for the first time in
ten years of service he had a passenger—his
own twelve-year-old son.</p>
<p>At last Jerry felt a hard jolt under him. He
knew the rocket’s tail fins had finally touched
ground. Jerry unstrapped himself with rubbery
fingers and sat up. Then he tried to stand,
but flopped down again.</p>
<p>“Wow, I feel giddy!” he groaned.</p>
<p>His father laughed. “You’ll get your bearings
presently, Son.”</p>
<p>How long Jerry had waited to make this
space mail run with his father! Then finally
last year, Capt. Welsh had said that Jerry
could go with him when he became twelve,
as he was especially husky and strong for his
age.</p>
<p>But now that the great moment had come at
last, Jerry wasn’t sure he was enjoying it as he
had expected, for he had found space so vast,
so dark, and so frightening.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_41">41</div>
<p>“Do you still want to be a spaceman, Jerry?”
his dad asked suddenly, as though Jerry had
spoken his thoughts aloud.</p>
<p>“I—I think so, Dad,” he replied hesitantly.</p>
<p>“I see you’re doubtful, Jerry,” Capt. Welsh
said. “I won’t put you on the spot so early.”</p>
<p>They climbed into space gear—electrically-heated
suits and clear plastic helmets fitted
with radios. Lastly they donned oxygen tanks
and flooded their suits with the life-sustaining
gas.</p>
<p>They gathered up the mail sacks and
climbed down the ladder to the ground, heading
for the largest of a group of buildings
which made up Moonhaven, center of Earthmen’s
activity on the airless planet.</p>
<p>The stars burned fantastically bright overhead.
Traces of frost topped the distant Lunar
Alps. It was incredibly cold out here, for the
Moon was in its two-week period of night.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_42">42</div>
<p>Capt. Welsh got a receipt for the largest
mail bag, and then he and Jerry went out a
rear door of the building carrying the rest. An
atom-powered mail car awaited them. It had
an open top and huge wheels that looked like
saw-toothed gears.</p>
<p>“Climb aboard the Moon jeep, Jerry,” his
father said. “We’ve got ten mail deliveries to
make.”</p>
<p>Inside, Capt. Welsh pulled down a section
of the dash panel revealing a map. “Here’s a
map of our route. There aren’t many mail
stops on the Moon yet, but they are all important.”</p>
<p>“And the mail must go through!” Jerry
added.</p>
<p>Capt. Welsh nodded soberly. “That’s the
first law, Jerry.”</p>
<p>As they moved off Jerry saw the big friendly
globe of Earth hanging like a green jewel halfway
up the jet black sky. He wondered what
his mother and baby sister were doing this moment
a quarter of a million miles away.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_43">43</div>
<p>Capt. Welsh showed Jerry how to run the
jeep. Jerry found this easy for he had already
had a course in mechanics in preparation for
his future career as a space man. But sometime
later their peaceful ride was interrupted
when Capt. Welsh suddenly leaned over and
grabbed the wheel.</p>
<p>Jerry was thrown to the side as the car
swerved. The vehicle straightened out and
slammed to a halt as his father controlled the
wheel and applied the brakes.</p>
<p>“What happened?” Jerry breathed, his
heart pounding.</p>
<p>His father pointed behind them. “Look.”</p>
<p>Jerry turned and saw the edge of a treacherous
ditch running right across the roadway
where they would have passed over. The gorge
was several feet wide.</p>
<p>“I didn’t even see it,” Jerry murmured, sick
with fear at what might have happened.</p>
<p>This wasn’t the first time he’d been shaken
on this journey. It made him wonder as he
had once before if he had what it took to be
a space man, or if this adventure would make
him decide never to leave the atmosphere of
Earth again.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_44">44</div>
<p>“Scared?” his father asked. Jerry nodded.</p>
<p>“Don’t worry. I was too for a moment.”</p>
<p>“You were?” Jerry asked with surprise.</p>
<p>“Fear was given to man, so he could save
himself from danger, Jerry,” Capt. Welsh
said. “Don’t be ashamed of it. Fear is nothing
to be ashamed of unless you let it get the best
of you. Never forget that.”</p>
<p>They arrived at their first delivery point, an
engineering project on a plateau surrounded
by mountains. There were the foundations of
great buildings to come, constructed of hard
Lunar granite.</p>
<p>The space-suited figures came running
when they recognized Capt. Welsh and his
mail car. Jerry marveled how the formerly
stern expressions of the workmen brightened
when the foreman handed mail out to them.</p>
<p>“It must be fun bringing mail to men who
are so far from their homes and families,”
Jerry said when they were on their way again.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_45">45</div>
<p>“I guess that’s why I’ve put up with the
lonely hours of seeing nothing but stardust
for the past ten years,” Capt. Welsh answered.
“But I love it, Son, and I wouldn’t trade jobs
with any man.”</p>
<p>Their next delivery site was a cavern where
men were prospecting for uranium. They too
were overjoyed at receiving messages from
home. The jeep rolled on from there to a huge
plain which was being prepared for a future
spaceport. Capt. Welsh and his helper dropped
off another mail sack and then were on their
way again. Some hours later, all but two deliveries
had been made.</p>
<p>“Next stop is the astronomy observatory,”
Capt. Welsh told Jerry.</p>
<p>They crawled over sandy hills that taxed
the gripping power of their spiked wheels,
wound in and out of towering buttresses of
black basalt, and bored through natural tunnels
like a pair of human moles. Then the observatory
came into view.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_46">46</div>
<p>A smiling little scientist with thick glasses
signed for the mail at the door. He invited
Jerry to come back and visit the place before
he returned to Earth.</p>
<p>“You haven’t seen anything until you look
through their great telescope,” Capt. Welsh
told Jerry as they drove off.</p>
<p>“What’s our last stop?” Jerry wanted to
know.</p>
<p>“A geology camp where some scientists are
digging into ancient rocks,” his father said.
“It’s only about seven miles away, but the going
will be a little rough before we get there.
It’s a good thing it’s our last stop because we
don’t have any too much oxygen left in our
shoulder tanks. I usually don’t take this long
on a mail run.”</p>
<p>The roadway carried them through a narrow
pass with a high hill of loose rock on one
side and a sloping embankment on the other.
Jerry’s first warning of trouble came when he
was flung suddenly forward. He heard the sickening
drag of the wheels as his father’s boot
hit the brakes. Just ahead of them he saw a
cascade of rocks sliding down the hill.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_47">47</div>
<p>The next moment Jerry felt an even harder
blow as the jeep was grazed by one of the large
boulders. The small car was swept out of the
roadway like a toy and rammed against a pillar
at the cliff edge.</p>
<p>Jerry screamed in fear as he felt himself being
thrown out of the car. He struck the
ground hard and began rolling head over heels
down the precipice.</p>
<p>When the numbing shock of his fall had
worn off, Jerry climbed dazedly to his feet and
looked up the slope down which he had been
thrown.</p>
<p>“Dad!” he cried. He slipped and scrambled
up the incline in reckless haste. He found
Capt. Welsh sprawled unconscious just below
the upper brink of the precipice. Jerry knelt
and looked into his face through the clear
plastic helmet. His father’s eyes were closed
and there was an ugly bruise on his forehead
where it must have struck the helmet in his fall.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_48">48</div>
<p>“What am I going to do?” Jerry groaned
aloud.</p>
<p>He himself would have to make the decisions
and carry them through if the two of
them were to survive. It was a shocking
thought. Then it came to him what his father
had said about fear: a person need never be
ashamed of fear so long as it was not permitted
to get the upper hand.</p>
<p>Jerry pulled his father up onto the roadway
and tried to bring him around, but without
result. Jerry examined the jeep. One side was
badly smashed, but the engine still appeared
sound. The car was tipped over against the
rock column. Jerry was thankful that the jeep
was only one-sixth of its Earth-weight on the
moon. It was a tremendous effort but he finally
righted the car and got it back on the road.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_49">49</div>
<p>He jumped into the front seat and started
the engine. It sputtered, then hummed into
activity! Jerry studied the map on the panel.
He located their present position by the giant
crater, Plato, at his distant right. Then he
traced the winding route leading to the geology
camp. He was closer to the camp than the
observatory, but ahead lay a rugged route, one
with which Jerry was totally unfamiliar. He
got out and went back to where Capt. Welsh
lay.</p>
<p>“Which way should I go, Dad, ahead or
back?” he asked helplessly, just as though his
father were able to answer him.</p>
<p>Something told him that Capt. Welsh would
want him to go ahead—to finish the mail run
that had never missed a round in ten years.
Jerry got his father into the back seat, then
gunned the jeep and struck off into the unknown
ahead.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_50">50</div>
<p>He was thankful for the old worn trail that
led the way for him. It presently carried him
through a gloomy valley. Jerry switched on
his headlights, but the twin spears of brightness
gave him little comfort in the spooky
place. Grotesque rock columns rose like menacing
ghosts on both sides of him.</p>
<p>At last he was out in the open again. The
road led him around the steep ledge of a yawning
crater, evidently caused by a huge crashing
fireball from outer space.</p>
<p>Jerry carefully guided the jeep along the
dangerous cliff. If one of his wheels should
slip over the side, it would be a fall to frightful
death a hundred feet straight down. At
last even this peril was past, and Jerry drove
up a gradual incline over bare rock to a bluff
that overlooked the distant land for many
miles.</p>
<p>“The camp!” he said joyfully. “That’s it below—only
a few miles away!”</p>
<p>He followed a curve that swept onto the
plain below. When he was on a level again, it
seemed that all his troubles were over. He felt
better by the moment as he drove closer and
closer to his destination.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_51">51</div>
<p>Then, without warning, his wheels began
to bog down in a pumice mire. His heart did a
flip-flop and he checked the map. He saw a
warning to drivers to avoid this spot. In his
overconfidence, he had blundered right into
it!</p>
<p>He gave the little jeep full power. It jerked
crazily through the clinging stuff. Over to the
right the pumice seemed to thin out, and farther
over he could see the roadway he should
have taken. He swung his wheels to the right
and the jeep lurched through the gray sand,
using up a lot of power, but making little
progress. For minutes on end Jerry gave the
jeep all it had, and he could hear its engine
laboring tiredly.</p>
<p>Suddenly the motor died. Jerry tried to start
it again but could not. He checked his temperature
gauge. The engine was extremely hot
from the continual use of top power. From his
mechanical school course, Jerry realized the
rotors had “frozen” and that it wouldn’t run
again until they had cooled off.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_52">52</div>
<p>As he waited impatiently for the engine to
cool, a warning voice in his mind was saying:
“Your oxygen is getting lower by the second.
If the jeep doesn’t get out of here within the
next fifteen minutes, you and your dad will
never make it.”</p>
<p>Jerry shook off the terrible thoughts. He
stamped his feet to warm them. The electric
circuit in his suit seemed to be breaking down.
If it collapsed completely, he would be frozen
instantly by the Lunar cold.</p>
<p>Jerry massaged his dad’s hands and legs
in case his suit, too, was getting colder. He
worked steadily until his hands ached. Then
he checked the gauge again. It was falling
slowly, but heavy insulation was still keeping
the engine hot.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_53">53</div>
<p>At last Jerry decided he should not wait
any longer. With a prayer on his lips, he
pressed the starter button. The engine rumbled
sluggishly, coughed, then quickened to
full strength. He jammed the fuel pedal hard
and tried to guide the jeep’s swirling, spinning
motion through the Lunar sand. Slowly the
little car pulled itself like a weary swimmer
toward the firm bank. Finally the wheels
found good traction and the jeep lurched onto
the roadway.</p>
<p>Jerry heaved a tremendous sigh and sped
down the path toward the geology camp.</p>
<p>Less than an hour later Jerry was being permitted
into the room of one of the huts where
his father had been carried for examination
by the camp physician. Jerry had been told
that his father had suffered a slight concussion,
but that he would be all right.</p>
<p>Capt. Welsh smiled from his cot as Jerry
walked in.</p>
<p>“Hi, space man,” his father greeted. “The
doctor says the men here were mighty happy
to get their mail on time.”</p>
<p>“I’m glad I came on here, then, instead of
going back to the observatory,” Jerry murmured.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_54">54</div>
<p>“You did the job in the best tradition of the
Space Mail Service, Jerry,” Capt. Welsh said,
smiling proudly. “If I had any doubts that
you’d be able to follow me some day, Son,
they’re gone now.”</p>
<p>Jerry nodded happily. A few doubts had
been removed from his own mind in the past
hour.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_55">55</div>
<div class="fig"><ANTIMG src="images/chapter.jpg" alt="" width-obs="400" height-obs="27" /></div>
<div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />
1 of 2
2 of 2
Previous
Next
Update Required
To play the media you will need to either update your browser to a recent version or update your Flash plugin.