The Other Side of the Sky Read online

  The first change of plan was forced upon us by the Ziolkovski being put out of commission when the ground beneath one of her landing legs suddenly gave way. The ship managed to stay upright, but the hull was badly twisted and the pressure cabin sprang dozens of leaks. There was much debate about on-the-spot repairs, but it was decided that it would be far too risky for her to take off in this condition. The Russians had no alternative but to thumb lifts back in the Goddard and the Endeavour; by using the Ziolkovski’s unwanted fuel, our ships would be able to manage the extra load. However, the return flight would be extremely cramped and uncomfortable for all concerned because everyone would have to eat and sleep in shifts.

  Either the American or the British ship, therefore, would be the first back to Earth. During those final weeks, as the work of the expedition was brought to its close, relations between Commander Vandenburg and myself were somewhat strained. I even wondered if we ought to settle the matter by tossing for it….

  Another problem was also engaging my attention – that of crew discipline. Perhaps this is too strong a phrase; I would not like it to be thought that a mutiny ever seemed probable. But all my men were now a little abstracted and liable to be found, if off duty, scribbling furiously in corners. I knew exactly what was going on, for I was involved in it myself. There wasn’t a human being on the moon who had not sold exclusive rights to some newspaper or magazine, and we were all haunted by approaching deadlines. The radio-teletype to Earth was in continuous operation, sending tens of thousands of words a day, while ever larger slabs of deathless prose were being dictated over the speech circuits.

  It was Professor Williams, our very practical-minded astronomer, who came to me one day with the answer to my main problem.

  ‘Skipper,’ he said, balancing himself precariously on the all-too-collapsible table I used as my working desk inside the igloo, ‘there’s no technical reason, is there, why we should get back to Earth first?’

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘merely a matter of fame, fortune, and seeing our families again. But I admit those aren’t technical reasons. We could stay here another year if Earth kept sending supplies. If you want to suggest that, however, I shall take great pleasure in strangling you.’

  ‘It’s not as bad as that. Once the main body has gone back, whichever party is left can follow in two or three weeks at the latest. They’ll get a lot of credit, in fact, for self-sacrifice, modesty, and similar virtues.’

  ‘Which will be very poor compensation for being second home.’

  ‘Right – we need something else to make it worthwhile. Some more material reward.’

  ‘Agreed. What do you suggest?’

  Williams pointed to the calendar hanging on the wall in front of me, between the two pin-ups we had stolen from the Goddard. The length of our stay was indicated by the days that had been crossed off in red ink; a big question mark in two weeks’ time showed when the first ship would be heading back to Earth.

  ‘There’s your answer,’ he said. ‘If we go back then, do you realise what will happen? I’ll tell you.’

  He did, and I kicked myself for not having thought of it first.

  The next day, I explained my decision to Vandenburg and Krasnin.

  ‘We’ll stay behind and do the mopping up,’ I said. ‘It’s a matter of common sense. The Goddard’s a much bigger ship than ours and can carry an extra four people, while we can only manage two more, and even then it will be a squeeze. If you go first, Van, it will save a lot of people from eating their hearts out here for longer than necessary.’

  ‘That’s very big of you,’ replied Vandenburg. ‘I won’t hide the fact that we’ll be happy to get home. And it’s logical, I admit, now that the Ziolkovski’s out of action. Still, it means quite a sacrifice on your part, and I don’t really like to take advantage of it.’

  I gave an expansive wave.

  ‘Think nothing of it,’ I answered. ‘As long as you boys don’t grab all the credit, we’ll take our turn. After all, we’ll have the show here to ourselves when you’ve gone back to Earth.’

  Krasnin was looking at me with a rather calculating expression, and I found it singularly difficult to return his gaze.

  ‘I hate to sound cynical,’ he said, ‘but I’ve learned to be a little suspicious when people start doing big favours without very good reasons. And frankly, I don’t think the reason you’ve given is good enough. You wouldn’t have anything else up your sleeve, would you?’

  ‘Oh, very well,’ I sighed. ‘I’d hoped to get a little credit, but I see it’s no use trying to convince anyone of the purity of my motives. I’ve got a reason, and you might as well know it. But please don’t spread it around; I’d hate the folks back on Earth to be disillusioned. They still think of us as noble and heroic seekers after knowledge; let’s keep it that way, for all our sakes.’

  Then I pulled out the calendar, and explained to Vandenburg and Krasnin what Williams had already explained to me. They listened with scepticism, then with growing sympathy.

  ‘I had no idea it was that bad,’ said Vandenburg at last.

  ‘Americans never have,’ I said sadly. ‘Anyway, that’s the way it’s been for half a century, and it doesn’t seem to get any better. So you agree with my suggestion?’

  ‘Of course. It suits us fine, anyhow. Until the next expedition’s ready, the moon’s all yours.’

  I remembered that phrase, two weeks later, as I watched the Goddard blast up into the sky toward the distant, beckoning Earth. It was lonely, then, when the Americans and all but two of the Russians had gone. We envied them the reception they got, and watched jealously on the TV screens their triumphant processions through Moscow and New York. Then we went back to work, and bided our time. Whenever we felt depressed, we would do little sums on bits of paper and would be instantly restored to cheerfulness.

  The red crosses marched across the calendar as the short terrestrial days went by – days that seemed to have very little connection with the slow cycle of lunar time. At last we were ready; all the instrument readings were taken, all the specimens and samples safely packed away aboard the ship. The motors roared into life, giving us for a moment the weight we would feel again when we were back in Earth’s gravity. Below us the rugged lunar landscape, which we had grown to know so well, fell swiftly away; within seconds we could see no sign at all of the buildings and instruments we had so laboriously erected and which future explorers would one day use.

  The homeward voyage had begun. We returned to Earth in uneventful discomfort, joined the already half-dismantled Goddard beside Space Station Three, and were quickly ferried down to the world we had left seven months before.

  Seven months: that, as Williams had pointed out, was the all-important figure. We had been on the moon for more than half a financial year – and for all of us, it had been the most profitable year of our lives.

  Sooner or later, I suppose, this interplanetary loop-hole will be plugged; the Department of Inland Revenue is still fighting a gallant rear-guard action, but we seem neatly covered under Section 57, paragraph 8 of the Capital Gains Act of 1972. We wrote our books and articles on the moon – and until there’s a lunar government to impose income tax, we’re hanging on to every penny.

  And if the ruling finally goes against us – well, there’s always Mars….

  Publicity Campaign

  First published in London Evening News, 1953

  Collected in The Other Side of the Sky

  For the first few decades after the Martians lowered New Jersey real estate values [referrring to Orson Welles’ famous War of the Worlds broadcast], benevolent aliens were few and far between, perhaps the most notable example being Klaatu in The Day The Earth Stood Still. Yet nowadays, largely thanks to E.T., friendly and even cuddly aliens are taken almost for granted. Where does the truth lie? …

  Of course, hostile and malevolent aliens make for much more exciting stories than benevolent ones. Moreover, the Things You Wouldn’t Like to Meet of the 19
50s and 1960s, as has often been pointed out, were reflections of the paranoia of that time, particularly in the United States. Now the Cold War has, hopefully, given way to the Tepid Truce, we may look at the skies with less apprehensions.

  For we have already met Darth Vader – and he is us.

  The concussion of the last atom bomb still seemed to linger as the lights came on again. For a long time, no one moved. Then the assistant producer said innocently: ‘Well, R.B., what do you think of it?’

  R.B. heaved himself out of his seat while his acolytes waited to see which way the cat would jump. It was then that they noticed that R.B.’s cigar had gone out. Why, that hadn’t happened even at the preview of ‘G.W.T.W.’!

  ‘Boys,’ he said ecstatically, ‘we’ve got something here! How much did you say it cost, Mike?’

  ‘Six and a half million, R.B.’

  ‘It was cheap at the price. Let me tell you, I’ll eat every foot of it if the gross doesn’t beat “Quo Vadis”.’ He wheeled, as swiftly as could be expected for one of his bulk, upon a small man still crouched in his seat at the back of the projection room. ‘Snap out of it, Joe! The Earth’s saved! You’ve seen all these space films. How does this line up with the earlier ones?’

  Joe came to with an obvious effort.

  ‘There’s no comparison,’ he said. ‘It’s got all the suspense of “The Thing”, without that awful let down at the end when you saw the monster was human. The only picture that comes within miles of it is “War of the Worlds”. Some of the effects in that were nearly as good as ours, but of course George Pal didn’t have 3D. And that sure makes a difference! When the Golden Gate Bridge went down, I thought that pier was going to hit me!’

  ‘The bit I liked best,’ put in Tony Auerbach from Publicity, ‘was when the Empire State Building split right up the middle. You don’t suppose the owners might sue us, though?’

  ‘Of course not. No one expects any building to stand up to – what did the script call them? – city busters. And after all, we wiped out the rest of New York as well. Ugh – that scene in the Holland Tunnel when the roof gave way! Next time, I’ll take the ferry!’

  ‘Yes, that was very well done – almost too well done. But what really got me was those creatures from space. The animation was perfect – how did you do it, Mike?’

  ‘Trade secret,’ said the proud producer. ‘Still, I’ll let you in on it. A lot of that stuff is genuine.’

  ‘What!’

  ‘Oh, don’t get me wrong! We haven’t been on location to Sirius B. But they’ve developed a microcamera over at Cal Tech, and we used that to film spiders in action. We cut in the best shots, and I think you’d have a job telling which was micro and which was the full-sized studio stuff. Now you understand why I wanted the Aliens to be insects, and not octopuses, like the script said first.’

  ‘There’s a good publicity angle here,’ said Tony. ‘One thing worries me, though. That scene where the monsters kidnap Gloria. Do you suppose the censor … I mean the way we’ve done it, it almost looks …’

  ‘Aw, quit worrying! That’s what people are supposed to think! Anyway, we make it clear in the next reel that they really want her for dissection, so that’s all right.’

  ‘It’ll be a riot!’ gloated R.B., a faraway gleam in his eye as if he was already hearing the avalanche of dollars pouring into the box office. ‘Look – we’ll put another mllion into publicity! I can just see the posters – get all this down, Tony. WATCH THE SKY! THE SIRIANS ARE COMING! And we’ll make thousands of clockwork models – can’t you imagine them scuttling around on their hairy legs! People love to be scared, and we’ll scare them. By the time we’ve finished, no one will be able to look at the sky without getting the creeps! I leave it to you, boys – this picture is going to make history!’

  He was right. ‘Monsters from Space’ hit the public two months later. Within a week of the simultaneous London and New York premières, there could have been no one in the western world who had not seen the posters screaming EARTH BEWARE! or had not shuddered at the photograph of the hairy horrors stalking along deserted Fifth Avenue on their thin, many-jointed legs. Blimps cleverly disguised as spaceships cruised across the skies, to the vast confusion of pilots who encountered them, and clockwork models of the Alien invaders were everywhere, scaring old ladies out of their wits.

  The publicity campaign was brilliant, and the picture would undoubtedly have run for months had it not been for a coincidence as disastrous as it was unforeseeable. While the number of people fainting at each performance was still news, the skies of Earth filled suddenly with long, lean shadows sliding swiftly through the clouds….

  Prince Zervashni was good-natured but inclined to be impetuous – a well-known failing of his race. There was no reason to suppose that his present mission, that of making peaceful contact with the planet Earth, would present any particular problems. The correct technique of approach had been thoroughly worked out over many thousands of years, as the Third Galactic Empire slowly expanded its frontiers, absorbing planet after planet, sun upon sun. There was seldom any trouble: really intelligent races can always co-operate, once they have got over the initial shock of learning that they are not alone in the universe.

  It was true that humanity had emerged from its primitive, warlike stage only within the last generation. This however, did not worry Prince Zervashni’s chief adviser, Sigisnin II, Professor of Astropolitics.

  ‘It’s a perfectly typical Class E culture,’ said the professor. ‘Technically advanced, morally rather backward. However, they are already used to the conception of space flight, and will soon take us for granted. The normal precautions will be sufficient until we have won their confidence.’

  ‘Very well,’ said the prince. ‘Tell the envoys to leave at once.’

  It was unfortunate that the ‘normal precautions’ did not allow for Tony Auerbach’s publicity campaign, which had now reached new heights of interplanetary xenophobia. The ambassadors landed in New York’s Central Park on the very day that a prominent astronomer, unusually hard up and therefore amenable to infuence, announced in a widely reported interview that any visitors from space probably would be unfriendly.

  The luckless ambassadors, heading for the United Nations Building, had got as far south as 60th Street when they met the mob. The encounter was very one-sided, and the scientists at the Museum of Natural History were most annoyed that there was so little left for them to examine.

  Prince Zervashni tried once more, on the other side of the planet, but the news had got there first. This time the ambassadors were armed, and gave a good account of themselves before they were overwhelmed by sheer numbers. Even so, it was not until the rocket bombs started climbing up toward his fleet that the prince finally lost his temper and decided to take drastic action.

  It was all over in twenty minutes, and was really quite painless. Then the prince turned to his adviser and said, with considerable understatement: ‘That appears to be that. And now – can you tell me exactly what went wrong?’

  Sigisnin II knitted his dozen flexible fingers together in acute anguish. It was not only the spectacle of the neatly disinfected Earth that distressed him, though to a scientist the destruction of such a beautiful specimen is always a major tragedy. At least equally upsetting was the demolition of his theories and, with them, his reputation.

  ‘I just don’t understand it!’ he lamented. ‘Of course, races at this level of culture are often suspicious and nervous when contact is first made. But they’d never had visitors before, so there was no reason for them to be hostile.’

  ‘Hostile! They were demons! I think they were all insane.’ The prince turned to his captain, a tripedal creature who looked rather like a ball of wool balanced on three knitting needles.

  ‘Is the fleet reassembled?’

  ‘Yes, Sire.’

  ‘Then we will return to Base at optimum speed. This planet depresses me.’

  On the dead and silent Earth, the posters
still screamed their warnings from a thousand hoardings. The malevolent insectile shapes shown pouring from the skies bore no resemblance at all to Prince Zervashni, who apart from his four eyes might have been mistaken for a panda with purple fur – and who, moreover, had come from Rigel, not Sirius.

  But, of course, it was now much too late to point this out.

  All the Time in the World

  First published in Startling Stories, July 1952

  Collected in The Other Side of the Sky

  This was my first story ever to be adapted for TV – ABC, 13 June 1952. Although I worked on the script, I have absolutely no recollection of the programme, and can’t imagine how it was produced in pre-video-tape days!

  When the quiet knock came on the door, Robert Ashton surveyed the room in one swift, automatic movement. Its dull respectability satisfied him and should reassure any visitor. Not that he had any reason to expect the police, but there was no point in taking chances.

  ‘Come in,’ he said, pausing only to grab Plato’s Dialogues from the shelf beside him. Perhaps this gesture was a little too ostentatious, but it always impressed his clients.

  The door opened slowly. At first, Ashton continued his intent reading, not bothering to glance up. There was the slightest acceleration of his heart, a mild and even exhilarating constriction of the chest. Of course, it couldn’t possibly be a flatfoot: someone would have tipped him off. Still, any unheralded visitor was unusual and thus potentially dangerous.

  Ashton laid down the book, glanced toward the door and remarked in a noncommittal voice: ‘What can I do for you?’ He did not get up; such courtesies belonged to a past he had buried long ago. Besides, it was a woman. In the circles he now frequented, women were accustomed to receive jewels and clothes and money – but never respect.

  Yet there was something about this visitor that drew him slowly to his feet. It was not merely that she was beautiful, but she had a poised and effortless authority that moved her into a different world from the flamboyant doxies he met in the normal course of business. There was a brain and a purpose behind those calm, appraising eyes – a brain, Ashton suspected, the equal of his own.