Prelude to Space Page 3

  “Legally, it’s a non-profit making” (“And how!” interjected Matthews, sotto voce) “organization devoted, as its charter says, ‘to research into the problems of space flight.’ It originally obtained its funds from Spacewards, but that hasn’t any official connection with us now that it’s linked up with National Geographic—though it has plenty of unofficial ones. Today most of our money comes from government grants and from industrial concerns. When interplanetary travel is fully established on a commercial basis, as aviation is today, we’ll probably evolve into something different. There are a lot of political angles to the whole thing and no one can say just what will happen when the planets start to be colonized.”

  McAndrews gave a little laugh, half apologetic and half defensive.

  “There are a lot of pipe-dreams floating around this place, as you’ll probably discover. Some people have ideas of starting scientific Utopias on suitable worlds, and all that sort of thing. But the immediate aim is purely technical: we must find out what the planets are like before we decide how to use them.”

  The office became quiet; for a moment no one seemed inclined to speak. For the first time Dirk realized the true importance of the goal towards which these men were working. He felt overwhelmed and more than a little frightened. Was humanity ready to be pitchforked out into space, ready to face the challenge of barren and inhospitable worlds never meant for Man? He could not be sure, and in the depths of his mind he felt profoundly disturbed.

  4

  From the street, 53 Rochdale Avenue, S.W.5, appeared to be one of those neo-Georgian residences which the more successful stockbrokers of the early twentieth century had erected as shelters for their declining years. It was set well back from the road, with tastefully laid out but somewhat neglected lawns and flower beds. When the weather was fine, as it occasionally was in the spring of 1978, five young men might sometimes be seen performing desultory gardening operations with inadequate tools. It was clear that they were doing this merely as a relaxation, and that their minds were very far away. Just how far, a casual passer-by could hardly have guessed.

  It had been a very well-kept secret, largely because the security organizers themselves were ex-newspapermen. As far as the world knew, the crew of the “Prometheus” had not yet been chosen, whereas in actuality its training had begun more than a year ago. It had continued with quiet efficiency, not five miles from Fleet Street, yet altogether free from the fierce limelight of public interest.

  At any one time, there were not likely to be more than a handful of men in the world who would be capable of piloting a spaceship. No other work had ever demanded such a unique combination of physical and mental characteristics. The perfect pilot had not only to be a first-class astronomer, an expert engineer and a specialist in electronics, but must be capable of operating efficiently both when he was “weightless” and when the rocket’s acceleration made him weigh a quarter of a ton.

  No single individual could meet these requirements, and many years ago it had been decided that the crew of a spaceship must consist of at least three men, any two of whom could take over the duties of a third in an emergency. Interplanetary was training five; two were reserves in case of last-minute illness.

  As yet, no one knew who the two reserves would be.

  Few doubted that Victor Hassell would be the ship’s captain. At twenty-eight, he was the only man in the world who had logged over a hundred hours in free fall. The record had been entirely accidental.

  Two years before, Hassell had taken an experimental rocket up into an orbit and circled the world thirty times before he could repair a fault which had developed in the firing circuits, and so reduce his velocity enough to fall back to Earth. His nearest rival, Pierre Leduc, had a mere twenty hours of orbital flight to his credit.

  The three remaining men were not professional pilots at all. Arnold Clinton, the Australian, was an electronic engineer and a specialist in computers and automatic controls. Astronomy was represented by the brilliant young American Lewis Taine, whose prolonged absence from Mount Palomar Observatory was now requiring elaborate explanations. The Atomic Development Authority had contributed James Richards, expert on nuclear propulsion systems. Being a ripe old thirty-five, he was usually called “Grandpop” by his colleagues.

  Life at the “Nursery,” as it was always referred to by those sharing the secret, combined the characteristics of college, monastery and operational bomber station. It was colored by the personalities of the five “pupils,” and by the visiting scientists who came in an endless stream to impart their knowledge or, sometimes, to get it back with interest. It was an intensely busy but a happy life, for it had a purpose and a goal.

  There was only one shadow, and that was inevitable. When the time for the decision came, no one knew who was to be left behind on the desert sands, watching the “Prometheus” shrink into the sky until the thunder of its jets could be heard no more.

  An astrogation lecture was in full swing when Dirk and Matthews tiptoed into the back of the room. The speaker gave them an unfriendly look, but the five men seated around him never even glanced at the intruders. As unobtrusively as possible, Dirk studied them while his guide indicated their names in hoarse whispers.

  Hassell he recognized from newspaper photographs, but the others were unknown to him. Rather to Dirk’s surprise, they conformed to no particular type. Their only obvious points in common were age, intelligence and alertness. From time to time they shot questions at the lecturer, and Dirk gathered that they were discussing the landing maneuvers on the Moon. All the conversation was so much above his head that he quickly grew tired of listening and was glad when Matthews gave an interrogatory nod towards the door.

  Out in the corridor, they relaxed and lit cigarettes.

  “Well,” said Matthews, “now that you’ve seen our guinea pigs, what do you think of them?”

  “I can hardly judge. What I’d like to do is to meet them informally and just talk with them by themselves.”

  Matthews blew a smoke-ring and watched it thoughtfully as it dispersed.

  “That wouldn’t be easy. As you can guess, they haven’t much spare time. When they’ve finished here, they usually disappear in a cloud of dust back to their families.”

  “How many of them are married?”

  “Leduc’s got two children; so has Richards. Vic Hassell was married about a year ago. The others are still single.”

  Dirk wondered what the wives thought about the whole business. Somehow it didn’t seem altogether fair to them. He wondered, too, whether the men regarded this as simply another job of work, or if they felt the exaltation—there was no other word for it—which had obviously inspired the founders of Interplanetary.

  They had now come to a door labeled “KEEP OUT—TECHNICAL STAFF ONLY!” Matthews pushed tentatively against it and it swung open.

  “Careless!” he said. “There doesn’t seem to be anyone around, either. Let’s go in—I think this is one of the most interesting places I know, even though I’m not a scientist.”

  That was one of Matthew’s favorite phrases, which probably concealed a well-buried inferiority complex. Actually both he and McAndrews knew far more about science than they pretended.

  Dirk followed him into the semi-gloom, then gasped with amazement as Matthews found the switch and the place was flooded with light. He was standing in a control room, surrounded by banks of switches and meters. The only furniture consisted of three luxurious seats suspended in a complex gimbal system. He reached out to touch one of them and it began to rock gently to and fro.

  “Don’t touch anything,” warned Matthews quickly. “We’re not really supposed to be in here, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

  Dirk examined the array of controls and switches from a respectful distance. He could guess the purpose of some from the labels they bore, but others were quite incomprehensible. The words “Manual” and “Auto” occurred over and over again. Almost as popular were “Fuel.”
r />   “Drive Temperature.”

  “Pressure” and “Earth Range.” Others, such as “Emergency Cut-out.”

  “Air Warning” and “Pile Jettison” had a distinctly ominous flavor. A third and still more enigmatic group provided grounds for endless speculation. “Alt. Trig. Sync.”

  “Neut. Count” and “Video Mix” were perhaps the choicest specimens in this category.

  “You’d almost think, wouldn’t you,” said Matthews, “that the house was ready to take off at any moment. It’s a complete mock-up, of course, of ‘Alpha’s’ control room. I’ve seen them training on it, and it’s fascinating to watch even if you don’t quite know what it’s all about.”

  Dirk gave a somewhat forced laugh.

  “It’s a bit eerie, coming across a spaceship control panel in a quiet London suburb.”

  “It won’t be quiet next week. We’re throwing it open to the Press then, and we’ll probably be lynched for keeping all this under cover so long.”

  “Next week?”

  “Yes, if everything goes according to plan. ‘Beta’ should have passed her final full-speed tests by then, and we’ll all be packing our trunks for Australia. By the way, have you seen those films of the first launchings?”

  “No.”

  “Remind me to let you see them—they’re most impressive.”

  “What’s she done so far?”

  “Four and a half miles a second with full load. That’s a bit short of orbital speed, but everything was still working perfectly. It’s a pity, though, that we can’t test ‘Alpha’ before the actual flight.”

  “When will that be?”

  “It’s not fixed yet, but we know that the take-off will be when the Moon’s entering her first quarter. The ship will land in the Mare Imbrium region while it’s still early morning. The return’s scheduled for the late afternoon, so they’ll have about ten Earth-days there.”

  “Why the Mare Imbrium, in particular?”

  “Because it’s flat, very well mapped, and has some of the most interesting scenery on the Moon. Besides, spaceships have always landed there since Jules Verne’s time. I guess that you know that the name means ‘Sea of Rains.’ “

  “I did Latin pretty thoroughly once upon a time,” Dirk said dryly.

  Matthews came as near a smile as he had ever known him to.

  “I suppose you did. But let’s get out of here before we’re caught. Seen enough?”

  “Yes, thanks. It’s a bit overwhelming, but not so very much worse than a transcontinental jet’s cockpit.”

  “It is if you know what goes on behind all those panels,” said Matthews grimly. “Arnold Clinton—that’s the electronics king—once told me that there are three thousand tubes in the computing and control circuits alone. And there must be a good many hundreds on the communications side.”

  Dirk scarcely heard him. He was beginning to realize, for the first time, how swiftly the sands were running out. When he had arrived a fortnight ago, the take-off still seemed a remote event in the indefinite future. That was the general impression in the outside world; now it seemed completely false. He turned to Matthews in genuine bewilderment.

  “Your Public Relations Department,” he complained, “seems to have misled everyone pretty efficiently. What’s the idea?”

  “It’s purely a matter of policy,” replied the other. “In the old days we had to talk big and make spectacular promises to attract any attention at all. Now we prefer to say as little as possible until everything’s cut and dried. It’s the only way to avoid fantastic rumors and the resulting sense of anti-climax. Do you remember the KY 15? She was the first manned ship to reach an altitude of a thousand miles—but months before she was ready everyone thought that we were going to send her to the Moon. They were disappointed, of course, when she did exactly what she’d been designed for. So nowadays I sometimes call my office the ‘Department of Negative Publicity.’ It will be quite a relief when the whole thing’s over and we can go into forward gear again.”

  This, thought Dirk, was a very self-centered outlook. It seemed to him that the five men he had just been watching had far better reasons for wishing that the “whole thing was over.”

  “So far,” wrote Dirk in his Journal that night, “I’ve only nibbled round the edges of Interplanetary. Matthews has kept me orbiting around him like a minor planet—I must reach parabolic velocity and escape elsewhere. (I’m beginning to pick up the language, as he promised!)

  “The people I want to meet now are the scientists and engineers who are the real driving force behind the organization. What makes them tick, to put it crudely? Are they a lot of Frankensteins merely interested in a technical project without any regard for its consequences? Or do they see, perhaps more clearly than McAndrews and Matthews, just where all this is going to lead? M. and M. sometimes remind me of a couple of real-estate agents trying to sell the Moon. They’re doing a job, and doing it well—but someone must have inspired them in the first place. And in any case, they are a grade or two from the top of the hierarchy.

  “The Director-General seemed a very interesting personality when I met him for those few minutes the day I arrived—but I can hardly go and catechize him! The Deputy D.-G. might have been a good bet, since we’re both Californians, but he’s not back from the States.

  “Tomorrow I get the ‘Astronautics Without Tears’ course that Matthews promised me when I came. Apparently it’s a six-reel instructional film, and I’ve not been able to see it before because no one in this hot-bed of genius was able to repair a thirty-five-millimeter projector. When I’ve sat through it, Alfred swears I’ll be able to hold my own with the astronomers.

  “As a good historian, I suppose I should have no prejudices one way or the other, but should be capable of watching Interplanetary’s activities with a dispassionate eye. It isn’t working out that way. I’m beginning to worry more and more about the ultimate consequences of this work, and the platitudes that Alfred and Mac keep bringing up don’t satisfy me at all. I suppose that’s why I’m now anxious to get hold of the top scientists and hear their views. Then, perhaps, I’ll be able to pass judgment—if it’s my job to pass judgment.

  ‘‘Later. Of course it’s my job. Look at Gibbon, look at Toynbee. Unless an historian draws conclusions (right or wrong) he’s merely a file clerk.

  “‘Later Still. How could I have forgotten? Tonight I came up to Oxford Circus in one of the new turbine buses. It’s very quiet, but if you listen carefully you can hear it singing to itself in a faint, extremely high soprano. The Londoners are excessively proud of them, since they’re the first in the world. I don’t understand why a simple thing like a bus should have taken almost as long to develop as a spaceship, but they tell me it has. Something to do with engineering economics, I believe.

  “I decided to walk to the flat, and coming out of Bond Street I saw a gilded, horse-drawn van looking as if it had rolled straight out of Pickwick. It was delivering goods for some tailor, I believe, and the ornamental lettering said: ‘Est. 1768.’

  “This sort of thing makes the British very disconcerting people to a foreigner. Of course, McAndrews would say that it’s the English, not the British, who are crazy—but I refuse to draw this rather fine distinction.”

  5

  “You’ll excuse me for leaving you,” said Matthews apologetically, “but although it’s a very good film, I’d scream the place down if I had to see it again. At a guess, I’ve sat through it at least fifty times already.”

  “That’s O.K.,” laughed Dirk, from the depths of his seat in the little auditorium. “It’s the first time I’ve ever been the only customer at a movie, so it will be a novel experience.”

  “Right. I’ll be back when it’s finished. If you want any reels run through again, just tell the operator.”

  Dirk settled back into the seat. It was, he reflected, just not comfortable enough to encourage one to relax and take life easily. Which showed good sense on the part of the designe
r, since this cinema was a strictly functional establishment.

  The title with a few brief credits flashed on the screen.

  THE ROAD TO SPACE Technical advice and special effects by Interplanetary. Produced by Eagle-Lion.

  The screen was dark: then, in its center, a narrow band of starlight appeared. It slowly widened, and Dirk realized that he was beneath the opening hemispheres of some great observatory dome. The star-field commenced to expand: he was moving towards it.

  “For two thousand years,” said a quiet voice, “men have dreamed of journeys to other worlds. The stories of interplanetary flight are legion, but not until our own age was the machine perfected which could make these dreams come true.”

  Something dark was silhouetted against the star-field—something slim and pointed and eager to be away. The scene lightened and the stars vanished. Only the great rocket remained, its silver hull glistening in the sunlight as it rested upon the desert.

  The sands seemed to boil as the blast ate into them. Then the giant projectile was climbing steadily, as if along an invisible wire. The camera tilted upwards: the rocket foreshortened and dwindled into the sky. Less than a minute later, only the twisting vapor-trail was left.

  “In 1942,” continued the narrator, “the first of the great modern rockets was launched in secret from the Baltic shore. This was V.2, intended for the destruction of London. Since it was the prototype of all later machines, and of the spaceship itself, let us examine it in detail.”

  There followed a series of sectional drawings of V.2, showing all the essential components—the fuel tanks, the pumping system and the motor itself. By means of animated cartoons, the operation of the whole machine was demonstrated so clearly that no one could fail to understand it.

  “V.2,” continued the voice, “could reach altitudes of over one hundred miles, and after the War was used extensively for research into the ionosphere.”