Islands in the Sky Page 13

  Our ship spun round in space as we began to make the course correction. The rockets fired for a few seconds, our new path was rechecked, and the rockets operated again. After several shorter bursts, we had come to within a mile of the mysterious object and began to edge toward it under the gentle impulse of the steering jets alone. Through all these maneuvers it was impossible to use the telescope, so when I next saw my discovery it was only a hundred yards beyond our port, very gently approaching us.

  It was artificial, all right, and a rocket of some kind. What it was doing out here near the moon we could only guess, and several theories were put forward. Since it was only about ten feet long, it might be one of the automatic reconnaissance missiles sent out in the early days of spaceflight. Commander Doyle didn’t think this likely, because as far as he knew, they’d all been accounted for. Besides, it seemed to have none of the radio and TV equipment such missiles would carry.

  It was painted a very bright red, an odd color, I thought, for anything in space. There was some lettering on the side—apparently in English, though I couldn’t make out the words at this distance. As the projectile slowly revolved, a black pattern on a white background came into view, but went out of sight before I could interpret it. I waited until it came into view again. By this time the little rocket had drifted considerably closer and was now only fifty feet away.

  “I don’t like the looks of that thing,” Tim Benton said, half to himself. “That color, for instance, red’s the sign of danger.”

  “Don’t be an old woman,” scoffed Norman. “If it was a bomb or something like that, it certainly wouldn’t advertise the fact.”

  Then the pattern I’d glimpsed before swam back into view. Even on the first sight, there had been something uncomfortably familiar about it. Now there was no longer any doubt.

  Clearly painted on the side of the slowly approaching missile was the symbol of death—the skull and crossbones.

  10 RADIO SATELLITE

  Commander Doyle must have seen that ominous warning as quickly as we did, for an instant later our rockets thundered briefly. The crimson missile veered slowly aside and started to recede once more into space. At its moment of closest approach, I was able to read the words painted below the skull and crossbones—and I understood. The notice read:

  WARNING!

  RADIOACTIVE WASTE!

  ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION

  “I wish we had a Geiger counter on board,” said the commander thoughtfully. “Still, by this time it can’t be very dangerous and I don’t expect we’ve had much of a dose. But we’ll all have to have a blood count when we get back to base.”

  “How long do you think it’s been up here, sir?” asked Norman.

  “Let’s think—I believe they started getting rid of dangerous waste this way back in the 1970s. They didn’t do it for long; the space corporations soon put a stop to it! Nowadays, of course, we know to deal with all the by-products of the atomic piles, but back in the early days there were a lot of radio isotopes they couldn’t handle. Rather a drastic way of getting rid of them, and a shortsighted solution too!”

  “I’ve heard about these waste containers,” said Tim, “but I thought they’d all been collected and the stuff in them buried somewhere on the moon.”

  “Not this one, apparently. But it soon will be when we report it. Good work, Malcolm! You’ve done your bit to make space safer!”

  I was pleased at the compliment, though still a little worried lest we’d received a dangerous dose of radiation from the decaying isotopes in their celestial coffin. Luckily my fears turned out to be groundless, for we had left the neighborhood too quickly to come to any harm.

  We also discovered, a good while later, the history of this stray missile. The Atomic Energy Commission is still a bit ashamed of this episode in its history, and it was some time before it gave the whole story. Finally it admitted the dispatch of a waste container in 1981 that had been intended to crash on the moon but had never done so. The astronomers had a lot of fun working out how the thing had got into the orbit where we found it. It was a complicated story involving the gravities of the earth, sun and moon.

  Our detour had not lost us a great deal of time, and we were only a few minutes behind schedule when we came sweeping into the orbit of Relay Station Two, the one that sits above Latitude 30° East, over the middle of Africa. I was now used to seeing peculiar objects in space, so the first sight of the station didn’t surprise me in the least. It consisted of a flat, rectangular lattice-work, with one side facing the earth. Covering this face were hundreds of small, concave reflectors, focusing systems that beamed the radio signals to the planet beneath, or collected them on the way up.

  We approached cautiously, making contact with the back of the station. A pilot who let his ship pass in front of it was very unpopular, as he might cause a temporary failure on thousands of circuits, while blocking the radio beams. For the whole of the planet’s long-distance services and most of the radio and TV networks were routed through the Relay Stations. As I looked more closely, I saw that there were two other sets of radio reflector systems, aimed not at earth but in the two directions sixty degrees away from it. These were handling the beams to the other two stations, so that altogether the three formed a vast triangle, slowly rotating with the turning earth.

  We spent only twelve hours at the Relay Station, while our ship was overhauled and reprovisioned. I never saw the pilot again, though I heard later that he had been partly exonerated from blame. When we continued our interrupted journey, it was with a fresh captain, who showed no willingness to talk about his colleague’s fate. Space pilots form a very select and exclusive club and never let each other down or discuss each other’s mistakes, at least, not to people outside their trade union. I suppose you can hardly blame them, since theirs is one of the most responsible jobs that exists.

  The living arrangements aboard the Relay Station were much the same as on the Inner Station, so I won’t spend any time describing them. In any case, we weren’t there long enough to see much of the place, and everyone was too busy to waste time showing us around. The TV people did ask us to make one appearance to describe our adventures since leaving the hospital. The interview took place in a makeshift studio, so tiny that it wouldn’t hold us all, and we had to slip in quietly one by one when a signal was given. It seemed funny to find no better arrangements here at the very heart of the world’s TV network. Still, it was reasonable enough because a “live” broadcast from the Relay Station was a very rare event indeed.

  We also had a brief glimpse of the main switch room, though I’m afraid it didn’t mean a great deal to us. There were acres of dials and colored lights, with men sitting here and there looking at screens and turning knobs. Soft voices, in every language, came through the loudspeakers. As we went from one operator to another we saw football games, string quartets, air races, ice hockey, art displays, puppet shows, grand opera—a cross section of the world’s entertainment, all depending on these three tiny metal rafts, twenty-two thousand miles up in the sky. As I looked at some of the programs that were going out, I wondered if it was really worth it.

  Not all the Relay Station’s business was concerned with earth, by any means. The interplanetary circuits passed through here: if Mars wished to call Venus, it was sometimes convenient to route messages through the earth relays. We listened to some of these messages, nearly all high-speed telegraphy, so they didn’t mean anything to us. Because it takes several minutes for radio waves to bridge the gulf between even the nearest planets, you can’t have conversation with someone on another world. (Except the moon—and even there you have to put up with an annoying time-lag of nearly three seconds before you can get any answer.) The only speech that was coming over the Martian circuit was a talk beamed to earth for rebroadcasting by a radio commentator. He was discussing local politics and the last season’s crop. It all sounded rather dull.

  Though I was there only a short time, one thing about the Rela
y Station did impress me very strongly. Everywhere else I’d been, one could look “down” at the earth and watch it turning on its axis, bringing new continents into view with the passing hours. But here there was no such change. The earth kept the same face turned forever toward the station. It was true that night and day passed across the planet beneath, but with every dawn and sunset, the station was still in exactly the same place. It was poised eternally above a spot in Uganda, two hundred miles from Lake Victoria. Because of this, it was hard to believe that the station was moving at all, though actually it was traveling round the earth at over six thousand miles an hour. But because it took exactly one day to make the circuit, it would remain hanging over Africa forever—just as the other two stations hung above the opposite coasts of the Pacific.

  This was only one of the ways in which the whole atmosphere aboard the Relay seemed quite different from that down on the Inner Station. The men here were doing a job that kept them in touch with everything happening on earth, often before earth knew it itself. Yet they were also on the frontiers of real space, for there was nothing else between them and the orbit of the moon. It was a strange situation, and I wished I could have stayed longer.

  Unless there were any more accidents, my holiday in space was coming to an end. I’d already missed the ship that was supposed to take me home, but this didn’t help me as much as I’d hoped. The plan now, I gathered, was to send me over to the Residential Station and put me aboard the regular ferry, so that I’d be going down to earth with the passengers homeward bound from Mars or Venus.

  Our trip back to the Inner Station was uneventful and rather tedious. We couldn’t persuade Commander Doyle to tell any more stories, and I think he was a bit ashamed of himself for being so talkative on the outward journey. This time, too, he was taking no chances with the pilot.

  It seemed like coming home when the familiar chaos of the Inner Station swam into view. Nothing much had changed. Some ships had gone and others taken their place, that was all. The other apprentices were waiting for us in the air lock, an informal reception committee. They gave the commander a cheer as he came aboard, though afterward there was a lot of good-natured leg-pulling about our various adventures. In particular, the fact that the Morning Star was still out at the hospital caused numerous complaints, and we never succeeded in getting Commander Doyle to take all the blame for this.

  I spent most of my last day aboard the station collecting autographs and souvenirs. The best memento of my stay was something quite unexpected—a beautiful little model of the station, made out of plastic and presented to me by the other boys. It pleased me so much that I was quite tongue-tied and didn’t know how to thank them, but I guess they realized the way I felt.

  At last everything was packed, and I could only hope my luggage was inside the weight limit. There was only one good-by left to make.

  Commander Doyle was sitting at his desk, just as I’d seen him at our first meeting. But he wasn’t so terrifying now, for I’d grown to know and admire him. I hoped that I’d not been too much of a nuisance and tried to say so. The commander grinned.

  “It might have been worse,” he said. “On the whole you kept out of the way pretty well, though you managed to get into some—ah—unexpected places. I’m wondering whether to send World Airways a bill for the extra fuel you used on our little voyage. It must come to a sizable amount.”

  I thought it best not to say anything, and presently he continued, after ruffling through the papers on his desk.

  “I suppose you realize, Roy, that a goodly number of youngsters apply for jobs here and not many get them. The qualifications are too steep. Well, I’ve kept my eye on you in the last few weeks and have noticed how you’ve been shaping up. If when you’re old enough—that will be in a couple of years, won’t it?—you want to put your name down, I’ll be glad to make a recommendation.”

  “Why, thank you, sir!”

  “Of course, there will be a tremendous amount of study to be done. You’ve seen most of the fun and games, not the hard work. And you’ve not had to sit up here for months waiting for your leave to come along and wondering why you ever left earth.”

  There was nothing I could say to this; it was a problem that must hit the commander harder than anyone else in the station.

  He propelled himself out of his seat with his left hand, stretching out the right one toward me. As we shook hands, I again recalled our first meeting. How long ago that now seemed! And I suddenly realized that, though I’d seen him every day, I’d almost forgotten that Commander Doyle was legless. He was so perfectly adapted to his surroundings that the rest of us seemed freaks. It was an object lesson in what will-power and determination could do.

  I had a surprise when I reached the air lock. Though I hadn’t really given it any thought, I’d assumed that one of the normal ferry rockets was going to take me over to the Residential Station for my rendezvous with the ship for earth. Instead, there was the ramshackle Skylark of Space, her mooring lines drifting slackly. I wondered what our exclusive neighbors would think when this peculiar object arrived at their doorsteps, and guessed that it had probably been arranged especially to annoy them.

  Tim Benton and Ronnie Jordan made up the crew and helped me get my luggage through the air lock. They looked doubtfully at the number of parcels I was carrying, and asked me if I knew what interplanetary freight charges were. Luckily, the homeward run is by far the cheapest, and though I had some awkward moments, I got everything through.

  The great revolving drum of the Residential Station slowly expanded ahead of us: the untidy collection of domes and pressure-corridors that had been my home for so long dwindled astern. Very cautiously, Tim brought the Skylark up to the axis of the station. I couldn’t see exactly what happened then, but big, jointed arms came out to meet us and drew us slowly in until the air locks clamped together.

  “Well, so long,” said Ron. “I guess we’ll be seeing you again.”

  “I hope so,” I said, wondering if I should mention Commander Doyle’s offer. “Come and see me when you’re down on earth.”

  “Thanks, I’ll do my best. Hope you have a good ride down.”

  I shook hands with them both, feeling pretty miserable as I did so. Then the doors folded back, and I went through into the flying hotel that had been my neighbor for so many days, but which I’d never visited before.

  The air lock ended in a wide circular corridor, and waiting for me was a uniformed steward. That at once set the tone of the place: after having to do things for myself, I felt rather foolish as I handed over my luggage. And I wasn’t used to being called “sir.”

  I watched with interest as the steward carefully placed my property against the wall of the corridor and told me to take my place beside it. Then there was a faint vibration, and I remembered the ride in the centrifuge I’d had back at the hospital. The same thing was happening here. The corridor was starting to rotate, matching the spin of the station, and centrifugal force was giving me weight again. Not until the two rates of spin were equal would I be able to go through into the rest of the station.

  Presently a buzzer sounded, and I knew that our speeds had been matched. The force gluing me to the curved wall was very small, but it would increase as I got farther from the center of the station, until at the very rim it was equal to one earth gravity. I was in no hurry to experience that again, after my days of complete weightlessness.

  The corridor ended in a doorway which led, much to my surprise, into an elevator cage. There was a short ride in which curious things seemed to happen to the vertical direction and then the door opened to reveal a large hall. I could hardly believe that I was not on earth. This might be the foyer of any luxury hotel. There was the reception desk with the residents making their inquiries and complaints, the uniformed staff was hurrying to and fro and from time to time someone was being paged over the speaker system. Only the long, graceful bounds with which people walked revealed that this wasn’t earth. And above the
reception desk was a large notice:

  GRAVITY ON THIS FLOOR=⅓RD EARTH

  That, I realized, would make it just about right for the returning Martian colonists. Probably all the people around me had come from the Red Planet, or were preparing to go there.

  When I had checked in I was given a tiny room, just large enough to hold a bed, a chair and a washbasin. It was so strange to see freely flowing water again that the first thing I did was to turn on the tap and watch a pool of liquid form at the bottom of the basin. Then I suddenly realized that there must be baths here as well, so with a whoop of joy I set off in search of one. I had grown very tired of showers, and all the bother that went with them.

  So that was how I spent most of my first evening at the Residential Station. All around me were travelers who had come back from far worlds with stories of strange adventures. But they could wait until tomorrow. For the present I was going to enjoy one of the experiences that gravity did make possible, lying in a mass of water which didn’t try to turn itself into a giant, drifting raindrop.

  11 STARLIGHT HOTEL

  It was late in the “evening” when I arrived aboard the Residential Station. Time here had been geared to the cycle of nights and days that existed down on earth. Every twenty-four hours the lights dimmed, a hushed silence descended, and the residents went to bed. Outside the walls of the station the sun might be shining, or it might be in eclipse behind the earth—it made no difference here in this world of wide, curving corridors, thick carpets, soft lights and quietly whispering voices. We had our own time and no one took any notice of the sun.

  I didn’t sleep well my first night under gravity, even though I had only a third of the weight to which I’d been accustomed all my life. Breathing was difficult, and I had unpleasant dreams. Again and again I seemed to be climbing a steep hill with a great load on my back. My legs were aching, my lungs panting, and the hill stretched endlessly ahead. However long I toiled, I never reached the top.