Read Online The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke by Arthur C. Clarke - Free Book Online

generation, she had learned to take the incredible for granted.
    That, as it happened, was scarcely true. The things she had seen on the Moon—above all, her glimpses through the giant telescope of the sky’s countless wonders—were beginning to fire Daphne’s imagination. Now at last she understood that science was not merely an affair of dry equations and dull text-books, but had a poetry and a magic of its own. A new world had been opened up before her—it was a world she could enter if she wished.
    She had never realised, until Professor Martin had mentioned it casually, how many well-known women astronomers there had been—right back to the most famous of them all, Caroline Herschel, who had helped her brother Sir William record his observations during the long winter nights, even when the ink was freezing in its well.
    In the twentieth century more and more women had made their names in this rapidly advancing field of science, until in some of its branches they had outnumbered the men. All these facts had been quite unknown to Daphne, and they were beginning to fire her with a new ambition.
    Two days at the Second Base passed very swiftly. There was, Daphne discovered, a spirit here quite unlike that at the Observatory. Perhaps the fact that the Earth was no longer visible in the sky, giving not only light but a kind of moral support, provided part of the explanation. Here indeed, it seemed, was the true frontier of the unknown—and it was an exciting experience to be living on it.
    Almost every day the little pressurised tractors were setting out on their raids into unexplored lunar territory, or returning from earlier expeditions. Daphne attended the briefing of a crew about to leave on a ten-day trip that would cover over a thousand miles. She had once seen a film showing how bomber crews in the Second World War were prepared for their missions. There was the same atmosphere of adventure coupled with scientific efficiency as Norman and his companions consulted their maps and discussed their route with Dr Anstey.
    The conversation was too technical for Daphne to follow much of it, but she was fascinated by the wonderful names of the regions across which the expedition would be travelling. When the far side of the Moon had been mapped, men had continued the tradition already set on the visible hemisphere and had used the most poetical names they could imagine for the great plains, while calling the craters themselves after famous scientists.
    Before he left, Norman gave Daphne a souvenir to take back to Earth. It was a beautifully coloured mass of crystals growing out of some strange lunar rock; he told her its name, although it was much too long to remember. As she stared at it in fascination, Norman explained: ‘Pretty, isn’t it? We’ve found it on only one part of the Moon—the Gulf of Solitude—and it doesn’t occur on Earth at all. So it’s really unique.’
    Then he paused and said awkwardly, ‘Well, it’s been awfully nice showing you around. I don’t think that anyone else has ever seen quite as much of the Moon in such a short time! And—I hope you’ll be coming back some day.’
    Daphne remembered these words as, through the observation windows of the dome, she watched Norman’s little tractor disappear over the edge of the Moon on its way into the unknown south. What would he find on this expedition? Would he be as lucky as Hargreaves?
    It was still early in the long lunar morning when they began the homeward journey. Professor Martin had finished his official business, and in any case they could wait no longer—they had a spaceship to catch. That was something to be proud of! Not a mere train or a commonplace aircraft—but a spaceship !
    Daphne was fast asleep when they finally reached the Observatory. She woke with a start when the steady vibration of the bus finally ceased, and found to her surprise that they were once more back in the big underground garage. Sleepily clutching her