The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke by Arthur C. Clarke Page A

been living entirely on meals already prepared in the Observatory, which could be heated at the turn of a switch. They did not believe in unnecessary hardships. If a psychologist had examined the machine’s stores he would have been convinced that its passengers suffered from an almost pathological fear of starvation.
    Since it was always daylight they slept, ate, argued and drove whenever the spirit moved them. For nearly thirty hours they worked their way slowly along the foot of the Bay’s mighty cliffs, pausing now and then to don space-suits and carry out explorations on foot. They found little but minerals, although Wheeler was greatly excited by the discovery of a peculiar red moss his friend had never seen before.
    So little of the Moon had been explored in detail that it was quite possibly new to science and Wheeler pictured himself receiving all kinds of honours from the botanical world. These hopes were rudely shattered by the staff biologist a couple of days later but they were enjoyable while they lasted.
    The Sun was still high when they were once again on the Alpine slopes though noon was long past and the thin rind of the crescent Earth was visible in the sky. Wheeler had enjoyed the trip but was getting tired of the cramped quarters. Also he was becoming more and more aware of accumulated aches and pains caused by the bumping of the vehicle over the worst ground any machine could possibly travel.
    It was pleasant to get back to the bustle of life in the common-room, even though the same ancient magazines were displayed and the same people were monopolising the best chairs. Very little had happened, it seemed, during their short absence.
    The main topic of conversation was the complete breaking off of diplomatic relations between the Director’s young and extremely pretty private secretary and the chief engineer, generally supposed to be her most favoured suitor. This quite outshadowed more important items such as the recent discovery, by an incredible feat of mathematics, that van Haarden’s planet possessed a system of rings like that of Saturn.
    And not until they had heard the first news broadcast from Earth did Wheeler and Jamieson learned that the Federation’s latest request for reconsideration of the uranium agreement had been received and rejected. ‘That will make old Mole excited,’ commented Wheeler.
    ‘Yes—who would have thought the old boy took such an interest in politics. Let’s have a word with him.’
    The old astronomer was in the far corner of the room, talking volubly with one of the junior physicists. He broke off when he saw the newcomers. ‘So you’re back. I thought you would break your necks out in the Mare . Seen any mooncalves?’
    The references to H. G. Wells’ fabulous beasts was a lunar joke of such long standing that many terrestrials took it quite seriously and thought the creatures actually existed.
    ‘No, or we would have brought one back for the menu. How are things going?’
    ‘Nothing out of the ordinary as far as I’m concerned. But Reynolds here thinks he has found something.’
    ‘Think—I know ! Two hours ago all my recorders went haywire and I’m still trying to find what has happened.’
    ‘Which recorders?’
    ‘The magnetic field strength meters. Usually the field is pretty constant except when there is a magnetic storm and we always know when to expect those. But today all the indicators have gone clean off the graph paper and I’ve been running around the Observatory to find if anyone has switched on something outside in the way of electro-magnetics. I’ve eliminated everything, so it must be external. It’s still on and Jones is trying to get a bearing on it while I come up for a breather.’
    ‘Sure it’s not a storm? You could find out from Earth—it would have hit them too.’
    ‘I checked on that—in any case there has been no unusual solar activity so that’s ruled out. Also it’s far too intense and it must be man-made for