The operator attacked his keyboard. Tape chattered through the transmitter wildly. "Asking New York to check with Mount Palomar," he explained soberly. Val Crane's freckles emerged from their camouflage as his cheeks paled. The moon had gone haywire.
"Come up above," urged Bonwitt. "In the dome you can see—"
"Right," Crane approved, switching off his transmitter as the tape snipped out, his message completed.
The beryllium steps resounded again as two pairs of heavy Lunar boots clattered upward. Black velvet of the heavens loomed above the blacker braces of the crystal dome breaking the scene into an intricate network. Earth, a huge ball overhead, was swinging across space, when it should have been stationary.
"Cripes!" swore Crane. "What the—"
Luna quaked mightily and Earth slowly swung back to normal with a snap that jarred their insides almost loose.
Stunned, breathless, they ducked as the Atomic I blazed away from the base of Tycho's rim, her twin jets spouting trails of blazing magnificence in a double arcing trail earthward. A dazzling sight under ordinary circumstances, inconsequential now.
A furious chattering of the ethertype below sent them to the room of the radio with more echoing thumpings.
Crane grabbed the tape, reading aloud as it fluttered through his trembling fingers. "Mount Palomar reports Luna shifted three and one half degrees eastward from normal by unaccountable rotation on her axis, returning suddenly to original position. More later from here. Keep us advised of any further developments there. Atomic, N.Y."
"Three and a half degrees!" gasped Bonwitt. "Sixty-six surface miles in as many seconds."