Chapter I: Front Matter

TROUBLE ON TYCHO

By NELSON S. BOND

Isobar and his squeeze-pipes were the bane of
the Moon Station's existence. But there came
the day when his comrades found that the worth
of a man lies sometimes in his nuisance value.

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories March 1943.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

The audiophone buzzed thrice--one long, followed by two shorts--and Isobar Jones pressed the stud activating its glowing scanner-disc.

"Hummm?" he said absent-mindedly.

The selenoplate glowed faintly, and the image of the Dome Commander appeared.

"Report ready, Jones?"

"Almost," acknowledged Isobar gloomily. "It prob'ly ain't right, though. How anybody can be expected to get _anything_ right on this dagnabbed hunk o' green cheese--"

"Send it up," interrupted Colonel Eagan, "as soon as you can. Sparks is making Terra contact now. That is all."

"That ain't all!" declared Isobar indignantly. "How about my bag--?"

It _was all_, so far as the D.C. was concerned. Isobar was talking to himself. The plate dulled. Isobar said, "Nuts!" and returned to his duties. He jotted neat ditto marks under the word "Clear" which, six months ago, he had placed beneath the column headed: _Cond. of Obs._ He noted the proper figures under the headings _Sun Spots_: _Max Freq._--_Min. Freq._; then he sketched careful curves in blue and red ink upon the Mercator projection of Earth which was his daily work sheet.

This done, he drew a clean sheet of paper out of his desk drawer, frowned thoughtfully at the tabulated results of his observations, and began writing.

"_Weather forecast for Terra_," he wrote, his pen making scratching sounds.

The audiophone rasped again. Isobar jabbed the stud and answered without looking.

"O.Q.," he said wearily. "O.Q. I told you it would be ready in a couple o' minutes. Keep your pants on!"

"I--er--I beg your pardon, Isobar?" queried a mild voice.

Isobar started. His sallow cheeks achieved a sickly salmon hue. He blinked nervously.

"Oh, jumpin' jimminy!" he gulped. "_You_, Miss Sally! Golly--'scuse me! I didn't realize--"

The Dome Commander's niece giggled.

"That's all right, Isobar. I just called to ask you about the weather in Oceania Sector 4B next week. I've got a swimming date at Waikiki, but I won't make the shuttle unless the weather's going to be nice."

"It is," promised Isobar. "It'll be swell all weekend, Miss Sally. Fine sunshiny weather. You can go."

"That's wonderful. Thanks so much, Isobar."

"Don't mention it, ma'am," said Isobar, and returned to his work.

South America. Africa. Asia. Pan-Europa. Swiftly he outlined the meteorological prospects for each sector. He enjoyed this part of his job. As he wrote forecasts for each area, in his mind's eye he saw himself enjoying such pastimes as each geographical division's terrain rendered possible.

* * * * *

If home is where the heart is, Horatio Jones--known better as "Isobar" to his associates at the Experimental Dome on Luna--was a long, long way from home. His lean, gangling frame was immured, and had been for six tedious Earth months, beneath the _impervite_ hemisphere of Lunar III--that frontier outpost which served as a rocket refueling station, teleradio transmission point and meteorological base.

"Six solid months! Six sad, dreary months!" thought Isobar, "Locked up in an airtight Dome like--like a goldfish in a glass bowl!" Sunlight? Oh, sure! But filtered through ultraviolet wave-traps so it could not burn, it left the skin pale and lustreless and clammy as the belly of a toad. Fresh air? Pooh! Nothing but that everlasting sickening, scented, reoxygenated stuff gushing from atmo-conditioning units.

Excitement? Adventure? The romance he had been led to expect when he signed on for frontier service? Bah! Only a weary, monotonous, routine existence.

"A pain!" declared Isobar Jones. "That's what it is; a pain in the stummick. Not even allowed to--Yeah?"

It was Sparks, audioing from the Dome's transmission turret. He said, "Hyah, Jonesy! How comes with the report?"

"Done," said Isobar. "I was just gettin' the sheets together for you."

"O.Q. But just bring _it_. Nothing else."

Isobar bridled.

"I don't know what you're talkin' about."

"Oh, no? Well, I'm talking about that squawk-filled doodlesack of yours, sonny boy. Don't bring that bag-full of noise up here with you."

Isobar said defiantly, "It ain't a doodlesack. It's a bagpipe. And I guess I can play it if I want to--"

"Not," said Sparks emphatically, "in _my_ cubby! I've got sensitive eardrums. Well, stir your stumps! I've got to get the report rolling quick today. Big doings up here."

"Yeah? What?"

"Well, it's Roberts and Brown--"

"What about 'em?"

"They've gone Outside to make foundation repairs."

"Lucky stiffs!" commented Isobar ruefully.

"Lucky, no. Stiffs, maybe--if they should meet any Grannies. Well, scoot along. I'm on the ether in four point sixteen minutes."

"Be right up," promised Isobar, and, sheets in hand, he ambled from his cloistered cell toward the central section of the Dome.

He didn't leave Sparks' turret after the sheets were delivered. Instead, he hung around, fidgeting so obtrusively that Riley finally turned to him in sheer exasperation.

"Sweet snakes of Saturn, Jonesy, what's the trouble? Bugs in your britches?"

Isobar said, "H-huh? Oh, you mean--Oh, thanks, no! I just thought mebbe you wouldn't mind if I--well--er--"

"I get it!" Sparks grinned. "Want to play peekaboo while the contact's open, eh? Well, O.Q. Watch the birdie!"

He twisted dials, adjusted verniers, fingered a host of incomprehensible keys. Current hummed and howled. Then a plate before him cleared, and the voice of the Earth operator came in, enunciating with painstaking clarity:

"Earth answering Luna. Earth answering Luna's call. Can you hear me, Luna? Can you hear--?"

"I can not only hear you," snorted Riley, "I can see you and smell you, as well. Stop hamming it, stupid! You're lousing up the earth!"

The now-visible face of the Earth radioman drew into a grimace of displeasure.

"Oh, it's _you_? Funny man, eh? Funny man Riley?"

"Sure," said Riley agreeably. "I'm a scream. Four-alarm Riley, the cosmic comedian--didn't you know? Flick on your dictacoder, oyster-puss; here's the weather report." He read it. "'_Weather forecast for Terra, week of May 15-21_--'"

"Ask him," whispered Isobar eagerly. "Sparks, don't forget to ask him!"

* * * * *

Riley motioned for silence, but nodded. He finished the weather report, entered the Dome Commander's log upon the Home Office records, and dictated a short entry from the Luna Biological Commission. Then:

"That is all," he concluded.

"O.Q.," verified the other radioman. Isobar writhed anxiously, prodded Riley's shoulder.

"Ask him, Sparks! Go on ask him!"

"Oh, cut jets, will you?" snapped Sparks. The Terra operator looked startled.

"How's that? I didn't say a word--"

"Don't be a dope," said Sparks, "you dope! I wasn't talking to you. I'm entertaining a visitor, a refugee from a cuckoo clock. Look, do me a favor, chum? Can you twist your mike around so it's pointing out a window?"

"What? Why--why, yes, but--"

"Without buts," said Sparks grumpily. "Yours not to reason why; yours but to do or don't. Will you do it?"

"Well, sure. But I don't understand--" The silver platter which had mirrored the radioman's face clouded as the Earth operator twirled the inconoscope. Walls and desks of an ordinary broadcasting office spun briefly into view; then the plate reflected a glimpse of an Earthly landscape. Soft blue sky warmed by an atmosphere-shielded sun ... green trees firmly rooted in still-greener grass ... flowers ... birds ... people....

"Enough?" asked Sparks.

Isobar Jones awakened from his trance, eyes dulling. Reluctantly he nodded. Riley stared at him strangely, almost gently. To the other radioman, "O.Q., pal," he said. "Cut!"

"Cut!" agreed the other. The plate blanked out.

"Thanks, Sparks," said Isobar.

"Nothing," shrugged Riley "_He twisted_ the mike; not me. But--how come you always want to take a squint at Earth when the circuit's open, Jonesy? Homesick?"

"Sort of," admitted Isobar guiltily.

"Well, hell, aren't we all? But we can't leave here for another six months at least. Not till our tricks are up. I should think it'd only make you feel worse to see Earth."

"It ain't Earth I'm homesick for," explained Isobar. "It's--well, it's the things that go with it. I mean things like grass and flowers and trees."

Sparks grinned; a mirthless, lopsided grin.

"We've got _them_ right here on Luna. Go look out the tower window, Jonesy. The Dome's nestled smack in the middle of the prettiest, greenest little valley you ever saw."

"I know," complained Isobar. "And that's what makes it even worse. All that pretty, soft, green stuff Outside--and we ain't allowed to go out in it. Sometimes I get so mad I'd like to--"

"To," interrupted a crisp voice, "what?"

Isobar spun, flushing; his eyes dropped before those of Dome Commander Eagan. He squirmed.

"N-nothing, sir. I was only saying--"

"I heard you, Jones. And please let me hear no more of such talk, sir! It is strictly forbidden for anyone to go Outside except in cases of absolute necessity. Such labor as caused Patrolmen Brown and Roberts to go, for example--"

"Any word from them yet, sir?" asked Sparks eagerly.

"Not yet. But we're expecting them to return at any minute now. Jones! Where are _you_ going?"

"Why--why, just back to my quarters, sir."

"That's what I thought. And what did you plan to do there?"

Isobar said stubbornly, "Well, I sort of figured I'd amuse myself for a while--"

"I thought that, too. And with _what_, pray, Jones?"

"With the only dratted thing," said Isobar, suddenly petulant, "that gives me any fun around this dagnabbed place! With my bagpipe."

* * * * *

Commander Eagan said, "You'd better find some new way of amusing yourself, Jones. Have you read General Order 17?"

Isobar said, "I seen it. But if you think--"

"It says," stated Eagan deliberately, "'_In order that work or rest periods of the Dome's staff may not be disturbed, it is hereby ordered that the playing or practicing of all or any musical instruments must be discontinued immediately. By order of the Dome Commander_,' That means you, Jones!"

"But, dingbust it!" keened Isobar, "it don't disturb nobody for me to play my bagpipes! I know these lunks around here don't appreciate good music, so I always go in my office and lock the door after me--"

"But the Dome," pointed out Commander Eagan, "has an air-conditioning system which can't be shut off. The ungodly moans of your--er--so-called musical instrument can be heard through the entire structure."

He suddenly seemed to gain stature.

"No, Jones, this order is final! You cannot disrupt our entire organization for your own--er--amusement."

"But--" said Isobar.

"No!"

Isobar wriggled desperately. Life on Luna was sorry enough already. If now they took from him the last remaining solace he had, the last amusement which lightened his moments of freedom--

"Look, Commander!" he pleaded, "I tell you what I'll do. I won't bother nobody. I'll go Outside and play it--"

"Outside!" Eagan stared at him incredulously. "Are you mad? How about the Grannies?"

Isobar knew all about the Grannies. The only mobile form of life found by space-questing man on Earth's satellite, their name was an abbreviation of the descriptive one applied to them by the first Lunar exployers: Granitebacks. This was no exaggeration; if anything, it was an understatement. For the Grannies, though possessed of certain low intelligence, had quickly proven themselves a deadly, unyielding and implacable foe.

Worse yet, they were an enemy almost indestructible! No man had ever yet brought to Earth laboratories the carcass of a Grannie; science was completely baffled in its endeavors to explain the composition of Graniteback physiology--but it was known, from bitter experience, that the carapace or exoskeleton of the Grannies was formed of something harder than steel, diamond, or battleplate! This flesh could be penetrated by no weapon known to man; neither by steel nor flame, by electronic nor ionic wave, nor by the lethal, newly discovered atomo-needle dispenser.

All this Isobar knew about the Grannies. Yet:

"They ain't been any Grannies seen around the Dome," he said, "for a 'coon's age. Anyhow, if I seen any comin', I could run right back inside--"

"No!" said Commander Eagan flatly. "Absolutely, _no_! I have no time for such nonsense. You know the orders--obey them! And now, gentlemen, good afternoon!"

He left. Sparks turned to Isobar, grinning.

"Well," he said, "one man's fish--hey, Jonesy? Too bad you can't play your doodlesack any more, but frankly, I'm just as glad. Of all the awful screeching wails--"

But Isobar Jones, generally mild and gentle, was now in a perfect fury. His pale eyes blazed, he stomped his foot on the floor, and from his lips poured a stream of such angry invective that Riley looked startled. Words that, to Isobar, were the utter dregs of violent profanity.

"Oh, dagnab it!" fumed Isobar Jones. "Oh, tarnation and dingbust! Oh--_fiddlesticks_!"