One Against the Moon

by Donald A. Wollheim

"Well, it's possible, but it might take a little doing. You get in the Air Force, let us train you for a good job, say you work to be a mechanic for jets and rockets, then maybe you might be assigned here. But there are lots of stations for men, and you might not. Still, if you were to work for it, say after a year in service, you might apply for a transfer to White Sands; it could be that you could get it. But there's no guarantee, none at all. If the force needs you more somewhere else, that'll have to be it. Why not sign up and try for it?"

But Robin shook his head. "Not yet. I want to see if maybe I can get a civilian job there first, or maybe just visit it once."

The sergeant nodded. "You can try. After that, come around and see me again." Robin nodded, and left.

He thought about that as he walked the streets. It might be a good alternative. It did offer at least a chance at the work he dreamed of, at being near the rockets. Yet—to be so near now and be stopped. A year, even in the Air Force, still seemed a mighty long time to wait.

He found the civilian employment office for the White Sands Proving Grounds, but it was not only closed, it being Saturday afternoon, but there was a sign saying, No Help Wanted.

That night he began to notice men in Air Force dress blues, others in GI khaki, and even some in ordinary olive-drab fatigues appearing in the streets. He realized it was Saturday night and the streets were beginning to show the signs of life for the men's one night a week in town. Ranchers were driving in, their cars lining the curbs. Buses bearing the name of White Sands would come in, unload their pleasure-hungry men, and park somewhere or else go back. White-capped MP's were appearing at corners to augment the local police.

Nevertheless, there was mighty little disturbance. There weren't the noisy carryings-on that usually marked towns near army bases when soldiers had a night off. These were picked men, and they behaved themselves.

Robin was not a drinker and not a roisterer, yet that evening he wondered if he oughtn't to have been. For if he could have learned to hang around some of the livelier bars, he might have been able to strike up conversations with the men of White Sands. After a while, he did indeed enter one, sat nursing a lone beer while listening to the men.

But they did not talk business. They talked the talk that soldiers on leave talk everywhere. Their girl friends, their pals, their latest jokes, gossip, but never a word about rockets, never a word about satellites, never a whisper about their work.

Robin drifted with the crowd in the streets for several hours, finally again found another corner in a dim tavern where he sat, by this time a little tired, a little confused, wondering whether he had not made a mistake in coming here at all. The whole day had been frustration and his spirits were at low ebb.