He came down in the Crater Plato, tail first but far too fast. The tailfins crumpled and the sifting pumice drove up into the exhaust and packed like cement. A seam whistled far below to let out some air from a sealed compartment, cracked in the bump.
The crash staggered him a bit, but all he suffered was a nosebleed and a set of sprained chest muscles. He sat up and looked around.
The radio. He snapped it on and called: "Lady Luna Gordon Holt reporting. Made a crash landing. May be dangerous. Will check and call at 0300."
He eyed the radio thoughtfully; it only took about three seconds for an answer, but in that time Gordon considered smashing the radio in the middle of the next broadcast and then discarded the idea because it might lead people to think that he, too, had been smashed. Gordon wanted to be rescued, not given a hero's brief hail and farewell.
"Calling Lady Luna. Holt! Are you all right? Explain!"
"I am all right. I am not hurt. Crash landing rather rough but nothing broken. No air leakage, nothing completely ruined that I can tell. Landed as per program in the dead center of Plato, but a little too hard."
That ought to do it. Let 'em get excited slowly. They'll forget me less slowly.
"Lady Luna what happened?" They were worried.
"I don't know. I have a hunch that the pumice does not provide a true ground-plane for the radar. We landed as though the ground were about thirty feet below the surface."