The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke Read Online Free PDF

the Moon and the stars would be visible.
    The Moon! Where was it? She moved to another window, and there it was, still looking just the same as she had always seen it from Earth. Of course, it wouldn’t be any bigger yet: the journey had scarcely begun. But in the next two days it would slowly grow until it filled the sky and they were dropping down towards its shining mountains and great, dusty plains—towards that strange and silent world that had now become Man’s first stepping-stone on the road to the stars. What would it be like? Who would she meet? Daphne’s excitement was so great that she felt certain this was one night when sleep would be impossible.
    It was a lovely dream. Daphne was flying—gliding effortlessly over the ground, able to move as freely as a bird in whatever direction she pleased. She had experienced such dreams before, of course, but they had never been as vivid as this, and even the fact that, somehow, she knew she was dreaming, did not destroy the beautiful illusion.
    A sudden jolt broke the spell of sleep and dragged her back to reality. She opened her eyes, stretched herself—and gave a shriek of pure terror. There was darkness all around, and wherever she reached she could feel nothing at all, only the empty air. The dream had turned suddenly to a nightmare: she was in truth floating in space, but helpless, without any power of movement…
    The cabin light came on with a ‘click’ and the rocket pilot pushed his head through the curtains round the door.
    ‘What’s the fuss?’ he said. Then he shook his head reprimandingly. ‘There! And after all my warnings!’
    Daphne felt very sheepish. It was her own fault, of course. She had loosened the broad elastic bands that held her in the bunk, and while she had been sleeping she must have gently drifted out into the room. Now she was floating in mid-air, slowly revolving, but unable to move in any direction.
    ‘I’ve got a good mind to leave you there as an object lesson,’ said the pilot. But his eyes were twinkling as he grabbed a pillow from the empty bunk. ‘Catch!’ he said.
    The gentle impact set Daphne moving again, and a moment later she had reached the wall and was no longer helpless. Mrs Martin and Michael had now awakened and were rubbing their eyes sleepily.
    ‘We’re landing in an hour,’ the pilot explained. ‘We’ll have breakfast in a few minutes, and then I suggest you go to the observation windows and make yourselves comfortable.’
    Breakfast was soon finished. In space, because the absence of gravity reduced physical effort to a minimum, one never had much appetite. Even Michael was satisfied with two pieces of toast and a quarter pint of milk, stored in a flexible container so that it could be squirted straight into the mouth simply by squeezing.
    Pouring liquids was, of course, impossible where there was neither ‘up’ nor ‘down’. Any attempt to do so would simply have resulted in a very large drop drifting through the air until it reached the wall and spattered over everything.
    The Moon was now only a few hundred miles away, and so enormous that it seemed to fill the sky. It was, indeed, no longer a globe hanging in space but a jagged landscape spread out far below. Michael had got hold of a map from somewhere and was trying to identify the chief features in the tremendous panorama towards which they were falling.
    ‘That’s the Sea of Rains—I think,’ he said doubtfully, pointing to a great plain flanked on two sides by mountains. ‘Yes, you can see those three big craters there in the middle. I wish they didn’t use such funny names—I can’t pronounce them. That biggest one’s Archie—Archimedes.’
    Daphne looked critically at the map, then at the landscape below.
    ‘ That isn’t the sea!’ she protested. ‘It’s just a big dry desert. You can see hills and ridges in it—and look at those canyons. Gosh! I hope we don’t fall into one of those!’
    ‘Well, the map calls it a