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Its rockets splashed, but the flame did not extend out to the edge of the clearing that had been burned off at first. The rocket-flames, indeed, did not approach the proportion to be seen on rockets on film-tape, or as Cochrane had seen below the moon-rocket descending on Earth. The ship settled within yards of its original landing-place. Its rockets dwindled, but remained burning.
The corporation that had built it went profitably bankrupt. Cochrane had been working feverishly to find out who owned that ship now. Just before the torp-test he'd mentioned, he found that the ship belonged to the hotel desk-clerk, who had bought it in hope of renting it sooner or later for television background-shots in case anybody was crazy enough to make a television film-tape on the moon.
He went up another flight, and Holden went with him in a sort of stilly, unnatural calm. Cochrane ran the film-tape through the reversed camera for examination. Outside, there waved long green tresses of extraordinarily elongated leaves. The patches of reed-like stuff stirred in the breeze. Jamison appeared in the control-room. He began to question Holden hopefully about the ground-cover outside.
She tried to keep him from doing too much damage by exercising the knowledge she had of what was fair and what was not. Cochrane grimaced and told Babs to make a note to talk to Holden. But there were other matters on hand, too. There were waivers to be signed by everybody who went along off Luna. Then Cochrane said thoughtfully: "Alicia Keith would be a good name for film-tape ..."
See anything alive down below?" Bell shook his head. He stayed at the camera aimed out a blister-port, storing up film-tape for later use. There was the feel of gravitation, now. Actually, it was the fact that the ship slowed swiftly in its descent. Cochrane went to a port. The ship continued its descent. "Living creature? Where?" Jamison shrugged. He had used it as a sign-off line.
She showed him a neatly typed statement. For the original run of the torp-test film-tape, so much. It was to be re-run with a popularization of the technical details by West, and a lurid extrapolation of things to come by Jamison. The sponsors who got hold of commercial time with that expanded and souped-up version would expect, and get, an audience-rating unparalleled in history.
The colonists and moon-tourists became familiar with forty-two new tunes dealing with prospective travel to the stars. One work of genius tied in a just-released film-tape drama titled "Child of Hate" to the Lunar operation, and charmed listeners saw and heard the latest youthful tenor gently plead, "Child of Hate, Come to the Stars and Love."
Bill Holden swallowed. He was still white. But he managed to grimace. "You're right. Lucky I was outside. You're not a bad psychologist yourself, Jed." "I'm better," said Cochrane cynically, "at putting on shows with scrap film-tape and dream-stuff. So I'm going to look at the films Bell took as we landed on this planet, and work out some ideas for broadcasts."
"We're not up here to film-tape a show. Our job is psychiatry craziness." To a self-respecting producer, a psychiatric production would seem craziness. A script-writer might have trouble writing out a psychiatrist's prescription, or he might not. But producing it would be out of all rationality! No camera, the patient would be the star, and most lines would be ad libbed.
And he did look forward, too, to freedom from his family's legal representative and the constant reminder of ethical and moral values which Johnny preferred happily to ignore. Film-tape came up, and cameras to use it in. Every imaginable item an expedition to space could use or even might use, was thrust upon Spaceways, Inc.
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