Authentic Science Fiction, December 1951 — page 50: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

48 THE MOON IS HEAVEN tresses to the door and tip them out down to the air-lock, Atah carefully unscrews the chronometer from the wall and carries it gingerly over to the door. He’s not taking any chances with his present from the London Circle. Leeson and you climb down the ladder past the fuel tank. You both do it quickly, getting used to the one-sixth gravity. But, looking back, you see Atah coming down a rung at a time, one hand steadying the chronometer, which he has strapped to his chest anyway. You glance at Leeson and smile. He smiles back. You both understand Atah. Getting the mattresses through the damaged air-lock is a bit difficult but you finally manage it, Then there’s the slow climb down the rock with them. At length you get them over to the dome, but Clavier won’t let you go in. It appears he has let the air out. You ask why the blazes he did that and he tells you.” “A brainwave, Mike. A veritable brainwave. Why, I say to myself, why make zee oxygen out here and pump it into the dome, when I can release it in there immediately? It would be foolish, my friend.”’ He shakes his head and says it as if it had been your idea from the start. Apparently he let the air out by getting Schnabel to weld a pipe through the wall. This pipe leads to. a tank outside which will be filled with snow. Inside the dome, the pipe will drip water into a smaller tank in which the anode will be lodged, run throngh the present oxygen alitube. - Another pipe from the outside tank will lead straight from the compressor, where the cathode will give off hydrogen. As Clavier said, a veritable brainwave!’ Just 30 long as the compressor and the two tanks remain in electrical contact. But Clavier probably knows how to deal with that. “‘ Fetch some snow,’’ he says. ‘‘ Fetch lots of snow. We must start electrolysis as soon as possible.’’ Leeson looks at you and grins. ‘‘ No snowball fights,’’ he says. ‘‘ This is serious!’ comicbooks.com