Read The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke for Free Online

the sky. Daphne would never have guessed that they were telescopes, for there was no sign of the silver domes which were the trademark of observatories on Earth. Of course, it had been silly to expect them; here on the Moon there were no winds or rains, and the most delicate scientific equipment could be left out in the open for ever without the slightest danger of it coming to harm.
    The astronomers themselves, however, lived in a brightly lit, underground world fifty feet below the surface of the Moon. To reach it, the bus drove down into a deep cutting, which ended in wide metal doors that opened slowly as they approached.
    They found themselves in a chamber just large enough to hold their vehicle, the doors closed behind them, and there was a hiss of air. Then the doors ahead opened, and the bus slid forward into a large underground garage. There was air around them again; Daphne could tell that by the sudden return of sound from the outside world.
    ‘There’s Daddy!’ shouted Michael excitedly, pointing through the window of the bus.
    Professor Martin was waving back at them from the middle of a small reception committee waiting in the corner of the garage. A moment later he had come aboard and there was much kissing and hugging as he greeted his family.
    ‘Well,’ he said, ‘did you have a nice trip? Nobody space-sick?’
    There was a chorus of indignant denials from the seasoned travellers.
    ‘I’m glad to hear it. Now, come along to my rooms. I expect you can do with a rest and something to eat.’
    For the next five minutes Daphne was learning to walk again. The Moon’s low gravity gave her only a sixth of her normal weight, and every step took her a yard into the air. But there was a cure for this—the visitors were all given wide belts to which were attached heavy lead weights. Even with these, they were still abnormally light, but walking was a good deal easier. Daphne no longer felt that the first draught would blow her away.
    ‘When you get used to it here,’ said Professor Martin, ‘you can leave off the weights; you’ll notice that none of us wears them. It’s simply a matter of practice, just learning not to move too quickly. But when we want to, we can jump all right!’
    Without any apparent effort, he shot up to the ceiling, a good twenty feet above, and came falling gently back a few seconds later.
    ‘But don’t try this sort of thing yourselves,’ he warned, ‘until you’re quite used to it here—or you may land on your head! Now come along and meet my staff.’
    Daphne had always assumed—although she couldn’t have said why—that astronomers were usually old men with beards and far-away expressions, caused through too many hours of looking through telescopes. (Daddy, of course, was an exception—he always was.)
    She soon found, however, that none of the Observatory staff fitted this description at all. Most of them were in the twenties or thirties, and almost half of them were women. And the expressions of some of the younger men were not at all far-away; quite the reverse, in fact.
    After these introductions they followed Professor Martin through a series of wide passages that branched into numerous intersections, bearing such signs as Central Air, Administration III, Medical, Dormitory Block , or intriguingly, Danger! Keep Out! They might, Daphne thought, have been inside some large building on Earth. Only that curious feeling of lightness, which in a few days she would no longer notice, told her that she was now on another world.
    Professor Martin’s private suite consisted of four large rooms in the residential section of the colony. They were light and airy, despite the fact that they were so far underground. Mrs Martin took one look at the decorations and decided that something would have to be done about them.
    As soon as they had settled down in the flimsy but very comfortable chairs, Professor Martin lit his pipe again and began to blow clouds of smoke at the ceiling,