“I’ll just flip this omelette,” said Mrs. Lambchop, making breakfast in the Star Scout, “and then— Oh, dear!” The omelette hovered like a Frisbee in the air above her.
Mostly, however, after weeks in space, the Lambchops remembered that gravity, the force that held things down, did not exist beyond Earth’s atmosphere. Mr. Lambchop often read now with his hands clasped behind his head, allowing his book to float before him, and Stanley and Arthur greatly enjoyed pushing from their chairs to drift like feathers across the room.
Raising her pan, Mrs. Lambchop brought down the omelette. “After breakfast, what?” she said. “A game of Monopoly?”
“Please, not again.” Arthur sighed. “If I’d known this adventure would be so boring, I’d never have come.”
“The worst part,” Stanley said, “is not knowing how long it will last.”
“The beginning wasn’t boring,” Arthur said as they began their breakfast. “The beginning was fun.”
The first days had in fact been tremendously exciting. They had spent many hours at the Star Scout’s Magnifying Window, watching the bright globe of Earth grow steadily smaller, until it seemed at last only a pale marble in the black of space. And there had been many special sights to see: the starry beauty of the Milky Way, the planets—red Mars, giant Jupiter, cloudy Venus, Saturn with its shining rings.
The third evening they appeared on TV news broadcasts on Earth. Word of their voyage had been released to the press, and all over the world people were eager to learn how this extraordinary adventure was proceeding. Standing before the spaceship’s camera, the Lambchops said they felt fine, looked forward to meeting the Tyrrans, and would report nightly while they remained in TV range.
The fourth evening they floated before the camera, demonstrating weightlessness. This was greatly appreciated on Earth, and they floated again the following day.
By the sixth evening, however, they were hard-pressed to liven their appearances. Mr. Lambchop recited a baseball poem, “Casey at the Bat.” Stanley juggled tennis balls, but the Earth audience, knowing now about weightlessness, saw the balls float when he tossed them up. Arthur did imitations of a rooster, a dog, and a man stuck in a phone booth. After this, while Mrs. Lambchop was singing her college song, he went behind the plastic curtain to undress for a shower and accidentally pulled the curtain down. He was mortified, and she tried later to comfort him.
“We will be remembered, Arthur, for our time in space,” she said. “Nobody will care about a curtain.”
“I will be remembered forever,” Arthur said. “A hundred million people saw me in my underwear.”
The next day was Stanley’s birthday, and just after dinner the screen lit up. There was the President in his shirtsleeves, behind his desk in Washington, D.C.
“Well, here I am working late again,” the President said. “It’s a tough job, believe me. Happy birthday, Stanley Lambchop! I’ve arranged a surprise. First, your friends from school.”
There was silence for a moment, broken only by the clearing of throats, and then, from all the millions of miles away, came the voices of Stanley’s classmates singing, “Happy Birthday, dear Stanley! Happy Birthday to you!”
Stanley was tremendously pleased. “Thanks, everybody!” he said. “You too, Mr. President.”
“That was just the U.S.A. part,” said the President. “Ready over there in London, Queen?”
“We are indeed,” the Queen’s voice said cheerfully. “And now, Master Lambchop, our famous Westminster Boys’ Choir!”
From England, the beautiful voices of the famous choir sang “Happy Birthday, Stanley!” all over again, and then other children sang it from Germany, Spain, and France.
All this attention to Stanley made Arthur jealous, and when the President said, “By the way, Arthur, you entertained us wonderfully the other night,” he was sure this was a tease about his appearance in underwear. But he was wrong.
“Those imitations!” the President said. “Especially the fellow in the phone booth. Darn good!”
“Indeed!” the Queen added from England. “We were greatly amused.”
“Oh, thank you!” said Arthur, cheered. “I—”
The screen had gone blank.
They had traveled too far. There would be no more voices from Earth, no voices but their own until they heard what the Tyrrans had to say.
“Suppose the Tyrrans have forgotten we’re coming?” Stanley said. “We might just sail around in space forever.”
They had finished the breakfast omelette, and were now setting out the Monopoly board because there was nothing more interesting to do.
“They don’t even know our names,” Arthur said. “What will they call us?”
“Earth people!” said a deep voice.
“Very probably,” said Mr. Lambchop. “‘Earth people’ seems—Who said that?”
“Not me,” said both Stanley and Arthur.
“Not I,” said Mrs. Lambchop, correcting. “But who—”
“Earth people!” The voice, louder now, came from the Star Scout’s radio. “Greetings from the great planet Tyrra and its mighty people! Do you hear?”
“Oh, my!” Mr. Lambchop turned up the volume. “It’s them!”
“They,” said Mrs. Lambchop.
“For heaven’s sake, Harriet!” Mr. Lambchop said, and spoke loudly into the microphone. “Hello, Tyrra. Earth people here. Party of four. Peace-loving family.”
“Peace-loving?” said the voice. “Good! So is mighty Tyrra! Where are you, Earth people?”
Stanley checked his star maps. “We’re just where the tail of Ralph’s Comet meets star number three million and forty-seven. Now what?”
“Right,” said the Tyrran voice. “Keep going till you pass a star formation that looks like a foot. You can’t miss it. Then, just past a lopsided little white moon, start down. You’ll see a pointy mountain, then a big field. Land there. See you soon, Earth people!”
“You bet!” Mr. Lambchop said, and turned to his family. “The first contact with another planet! We are making history!”
They passed the foot-shaped star formation, then the lopsided moon, and Stanley piloted the Star Scout down. The darkness of space vanished as it descended, and at last the Lambchops saw clearly the planet it had taken so long to reach.
Tyrra was smallish as planets go, but nicely round and quite pretty, all in shades of brown with markings not unlike the oceans and continents of Earth. A pointy mountain came into sight, and beyond it a big field.
“There!” Stanley pressed the “Landing” button.
Whrooom! went the Star Scout’s rockets. The spaceship hovered, then touched down.
Peering out, the Lambchops saw only a brown field, with tan trees at the far side and brownish hills beyond.
“Curious,” said Mr. Lambchop. “Where are—”
Suddenly a message came, but not the sort they expected.
“Surrender, Earth people!” said the radio. “Your spaceship is trapped by our unbreakable trapping cable! You are prisoners of Tyrra! Surrender!”