Read Online A Meeting With Medusa by Arthur C. Clarke - Free Book Online

to forward vision. There was nothing ahead except stars—which was as it should be. At least he had taken off with most of his planned speed, and there was no danger that he would crash back to the Moon’s surface immediately. But he would crash back sooner or later, for he could not possibly have reached escape velocity. He must be rising out into space along a great ellipse—and, in a few hours, he would be back at his starting point.
    ‘Hello, Cliff,’ said Launch Control suddenly. ‘We’ve found what happened. The circuit breakers tripped when you went through section five of the track. So your take-off speed was seven hundred miles an hour low. That will bring you back in just over five hours—but don’t worry; your course-correction jets can boost you into a stable orbit. We’ll tell you when to fire them. Then all you have to do is to sit tight until we can send someone to haul you down.’
    Slowly, Cliff allowed himself to relax. He had forgotten the capsule’s vernier rockets. Low-powered though they were, they could kick him into an orbit that would clear the Moon. Though he might fall back to within a few miles of the lunar surface, skimming over mountains and plains at a breath-taking speed, he would be perfectly safe.
    Then he remembered those tinkling crashes from the control compartment, and his hopes dimmed again, for there were not many things that could break in a space vehicle without most unpleasant consequences.
    He was facing those consequences, now that the final checks of the ignition circuits had been completed. Neither on MANUAL nor on AUTO would the navigation rockets fire. The capsule’s modest fuel reserves, which could have taken him to safety, were utterly useless. In five hours he would complete his orbit—and return to his launching point.
    I wonder if they’ll name the new crater after me, thought Cliff. ‘Crater Leyland: diameter…’ What diameter? Better not exaggerate—I don’t suppose it will be more than a couple of hundred yards across. Hardly worth putting on the map.
    Launch Control was still silent, but that was not surprising. There was little that one could say to a man already as good as dead. And yet, though he knew that nothing could alter his trajectory, even now he could not believe that he would soon be scattered over most of Farside. He was still soaring away from the Moon, snug and comfortable in his little cabin. The idea of death was utterly incongruous—as it is to all men until the final second.
    And then, for a moment, Cliff forgot his own problem. The horizon ahead was no longer flat. Something more brilliant even than the blazing lunar landscape was lifting against the stars. As the capsule curved round the edge of the Moon, it was creating the only kind of earthrise that was possible—a man-made one. In a minute it was all over, such was his speed in orbit. By that time the Earth had leaped clear of the horizon, and was climbing swiftly up the sky.
    It was three-quarters full, and almost too bright to look upon. Here was a cosmic mirror made not of dull rocks and dusty plains, but of snow and cloud and sea. Indeed, it was almost all sea, for the Pacific was turned toward him, and the blinding reflection of the sun covered the Hawaiian Islands. The haze of the atmosphere—that soft blanket that should have cushioned his descent in a few hours’ time—obliterated all geographical details; perhaps that darker patch emerging from night was New Guinea, but he could not be sure.
    There was a bitter irony in the knowledge that he was heading straight toward that lovely, gleaming apparition. Another seven hundred miles an hour and he would have made it. Seven hundred miles an hour—that was all. He might as well ask for seven million.
    The sight of the rising Earth brought home to him, with irresistible force, the duty he feared but could postpone no longer.
    ‘Launch Control,’ he said, holding his voice steady with a great effort, ‘please give