The Merchandise Guide
Annual 1976

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The huge video-screen dominates the vast hall of Main Mission. There, bathed in the artificial light, sustained by the artificial atmosphere, living by the artificial seconds of an automatic clock, the chief officers and staff of Moonbase Alpha turn their white faces, their anxious eyes, towards the recorded image of a planet that can mean home. A new home. New and different for these survivors of the terrifying upheaval that wrenched our Moon from its orbit. That tore it bodily from the protection, the safety, the companionship of Earth.    It happened on September 9, 1999. The violent explosion of nuclear waste--an explosion perhaps caused by alien forces beyond human understanding--but an explosion that hurled the Moon, and those on it, on an odyssey into the void. An odyssey that took them--is still taking them--to the realm of the unknown. The mysterious areas of deep space, where time means nothing, where distances are beyond the measurement of human figures. Where the time-warp and the hyper-acceleration of matter are commonplace. Where even the calming, logical influence of a computer can sometimes fail to assess every problem.    "Activate long-range probe." Commander John Koenig's voice cuts through the tense silence of Main	Mission. "Planet has atmosphere. Rate of rotation indicates gravity similar to Earth's"    Sandra Benes runs her fingers over the buttons of the control console in front of her, and invisible rays strike deep ahead of the Moon, assessing, penetrating, analysing. . . .    She turns. "Oxygen, Nitrogen, Carbon Dioxide. Ratios 80, 5, 5 per cent. Remaining 10 per cent Hydrogen and other gases, only in upper atmosphere."    Koenig smiles, and he's aware of the tension that's suddenly around him. His eyes catch the glint of Professor Bergman, his friend and close associate. He nods, faintly. Helena Russell, chief doctor of Moonbase Alpha. "John. . . ?" He says, "Yes, Helena." Controller Paul Morrow already has his finger on the switch that will put the Commander in instant touch with all Moonbase personnel. Not just the technicians. Not just the scientists, doctors, researchers--but the ordinary people who live and work there. The gardeners, tailors, laundrymen, engineers, cleaners and security men. Wives and children. Printers and writers and artists who group together to make life on the lost Moon as bearable as possible, and as like life on an ordinary earthbound town as can be.    "Tell them, Paul. Prepare for Operation Exodus!"