The wireless said, “We interrupt this program to relay to you a puzzling news flash from the United States.”

Chapter Eight

Hunter and Doc were jabbering together as they watched the Wanderer. Doc’s bald dome had a weird magenta glow as Hunter’s shaggy head and bearded face momentarily cut him off from the golden half of the body in the sky.

Paul, suddenly flooded by a strange, reckless energy, sprang up on the platform beside them and said loudly: “Look here, I’ve got some inside information on star photos showing areas of twist that completely confirm what you—”

“Shut up! I’ve got no time to listen to the crackpot claims of you saucer bugs,” Doc roared at him, not unkindly, and instantly went on: “Ross, I’ll grant you that if that thing is as far away as the moon, then it’s as big as the earth. Has to be. But—”

“Provided it’s a sphere,” Hunter put in sharply. “Could be flat like a plate.”

“Sure, provided it’s a sphere. But that’s a natural, sane assumption, don’t you think? I was going to say that if it’s only a thousand miles up, then it’s only—” he shut his eyes for two seconds — “thirty miles across. You follow me?”

“Sure,” Hunter told him. “Similar triangles and eight thousand miles divided by 250.”

Doc nodded so violently he almost lost his glasses and had to grab at them to steady them. “And if it’s only a hundred miles up — that’s still high enough for it to give a general illumination, though not from reflected sunlight—”

“Then it’s only three miles’ across,” Hunter finished for him.

“Yes,” Paul agreed loudly, “but in that case it’ll be moving in a ninety-minute orbit. That’s four degrees a minute — enough so we’ll notice it pretty quickly, even without stars to judge it by.”

“You’re absolutely right,” Doc said, turning to him now as if Paul were an old colleague. “Four degrees is as long as Orion’s Belt. We’ll see that much movement pretty fast.”

“But how do you know it’s in any kind of orbit?” Hunter asked. “How do we know anything like that?”

“It’s just another natural, sane assumption,” Doc told him, rather bitterly and roaring a little. “Like we assume the thing’s reflecting sunlight. Wherever it came from, it’s in space now, so we assume it obeys the laws of space until we know different.” He switched to Paul. “What were you saying about star photos?”

Paul began to tell them.

Margo hadn’t followed Paul onto the platform. People were pushing and jabbering around, her, two women were kneeling by the Ramrod and rubbing his wrists, the Little Man was hunting behind chairs for something, but Margo was staring across the dun sand at the eerie amethyst and topaz wake of the Wanderer in the waters of the Pacific. The fancy came to her that all the ghosts in her past, or perhaps it was the world’s past, were going to come marching toward her along that jeweled highway.

The She-Turban’s face came in the way and said to her accusingly, “I know you — you’re the girl friend of that spaceman. I saw your picture in Life.”

“You’re right, Rama Joan,” a woman in a pale gray sweater and slacks said to the She-Turban. “I must have seen the same picture.”

“She came with a man,” Ann volunteered from her Rama Joan’s side. “But they’re nice people; they brought a cat. See how it stares at the big velvet saucer, Mommy?”

“Yes, dear.” Rama Joan agreed, smiling twistedly. “It’s seeing devils. Cats like them.”

“Please don’t try to scare us any more than we are,” Margo said sharply. “It’s stupid and childish.”

“Oh, you think there won’t be devils?” Rama Joan asked, quite conversationally. “Don’t worry about Ann. She loves everything.”

Ragnarok, slinking by, reared at Miaow with a snarl. The Little Man, still feeling under chairs, snapped out: “Down, sir!” Margo fought to hold on to the cat and minimize scratches. Rama Joan turned her back and looked up at the Wanderer and then at the moon emerging from eclipse. The Little Man found what he’d been hunting for and he sat down and settled it on his knees — something the size of a briefcase but with sharper edges.

On the platform Doc was saying to Paul: “Well, yes, those photos sound pretty suggestive of emergences from hyperspace, but—” His thick glasses magnified his frown. “I don’t see how they’re going to solve any problems here and now. Especially the one of how far away the damn thing is.” The frown deepened.

Hunter said loudly to Doc: “Rudolf! Listen to me!”

Doc grabbed up a furled umbrella, saying: “Sorry, Ross I’ve got to do something else,” and jumped rather clumsily off the platform into the sand.

Paul realized what the strange energy flooding him was, because he could see now that it possessed everyone else: plain exhilaration.

“But this is important,” Hunter went on, loudly speaking half to Paul and half past Paul down to Doc kneeling in the sand. “If that thing’s just a hundred miles up, it’s in Earth’s shadow and can’t be reflecting sunlight So suppose we figure it’s just ten miles up. That’s altitude enough for illumination of a wide area. And then it would be just three-tenths of a mile across — only five hundred yards. Rudolf, listen — I know we all laughed at old Charlie Fulby’s idea of a fire balloon, but balloons over a hundred yards in diameter have been flown to altitudes of twenty miles and more. If we assume a gigantic balloon carrying inside itself a tremendous light source, which perhaps adds to the lift by heating the balloon’s gas…” He broke off. “Rudolf, what the hell are you doing down there?”

Doc had thrust the furled umbrella deep into the sand and was crouched behind it, peering up toward them through the curve of the umbrella’s handle. The Wanderer was reflected fantastically in his thick lenses.

“I’m checking that damn thing’s orbit,” Doc called up. “I’m lining it up with the corner of the big table and this umbrella. Don’t anybody move that table!”

“Well, I’m telling you,” Hunter called back, “that it may not have an orbit at all, but simply be floating. I’m telling you it may be nothing but a balloon as big as five football fields.”

“Ross Hunter!” Rama Joan’s voice was ringing and carried the hint of a laugh. The bearded man looked around. So did the others.

“Ross Hunter!” Rama Joan repeated. “Twenty minutes ago you were telling us of great symbols in the sky and now you’re willing to settle for a big red and yellow balloon. Oh, you children, look at the moon!”

Paul copied those who held up a hand to blank out the Wanderer. The eastern rim of the moon glowed whitely, almost one-third out of eclipse, but even that area had colored flecks on it, while the brownishly shadowed margin around it was full of purple and golden gleams. Unquestionably, the light of the Wanderer was falling at least as fiercely on that side of the moon as on the Earth.

The silence was broken by a sudden rat-a-tat-tat. The Little Man had unfolded a collapsible portable typewriter on his knees and was pecking away at it. To Margo, that irregular clicking sounded as lonely and incongruous as a tap dance on a tomb in a graveyard.

General Spike Stevens snapped: “O.K., since HQ One isn’t taking it, we are. Jimmy, crash this order through to Moon-base: LIFT A SHIP AND SCOUT THE NEW PLANET BEHIND YOU. ESTIMATED DISTANCE FROM YOU 25,000 MILES. (Add the lunacentric spatial coordinates there!) VITAL WE HAVE INTELLIGENCE. SEND DATA DIRECT.”

Colonel Griswold said: “Spike, their ship senders haven’t the power to reach us.”

“They’ll relay through Moonbase.”

“Not through the thickness of the moon they won’t.”

Spike snapped his fingers. “O.K., tell ’em to lift two ships. One to reconnoiter, the other — after a suitable interval — to relay to Moonbase. Hold that. They’re supposed to have three ships operational, aren’t they? Good, make it two to scout the new planet, north and south, and one to orbit the moon as cover point and relay. Yes, Will, I know that just leaves ’em one man and no ship to hold down home, but we’ve got to get intelligence even if we strip the base.”