MOON DUST

By OLIVER SAARI

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Thrilling Wonder Stories Winter 1954. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

"Come in, Jessup.... Come in, Jessup ...." the voice said over and over.

He reached out blindly to push it away until the tearing pain in his side cleared his mind of smothering fog.

"I ... I...." he croaked.

The voice droned on unheeding for an interminable time, then:

"Jess!" it deafened him "Hey, Colonel! I've got him! He's alive! Jess—"

The voice of Colonel Markley broke in, "What happened, Jessup?" Then there was a deathly silence, a waiting.

"I ... I don't know," said Jessup. "It's dark out there—the bull's-eye's dark. Or maybe I can't see—"

He checked his voice as he sensed its rising pitch. His groping hand found the emergency switch, and the panel lights came on before him like round eyes in the dark.

"Jessup, what's wrong?" roared the colonel's voice. "You've been silent for an hour. We watched you land, but lost you and now we can't see you. Where are you?"

He asked himself the question, and the answer trickled slowly into his mind.... I'm in a very small, padded place. My head and side hurt like fire. All I can see are those owl-eyed dials....

There should be more to see than that.

His hand next felt what his eyes now saw: the plastiglass gleam of the bull's-eye only a few inches from his face. Beyond the transparency was a darkness like the bottom of a mine.

"I don't know where I am, Colonel," he said finally. "It's dark outside. I must have gone over the terminator."

He could sense the colonel waiting like a trapped hawk. There was only a three-second time-lag, but it seemed like more. It had made itself felt, like a growing sense of distance, all the way from the Station.

"You 

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