Prelude to Space Page 8

  Richards (bored but still fairly affable): “Certainly, though I have to meet my wife in a few minutes.”

  “Have you been married long?”

  “About twelve years.”

  “Oh: any children?”

  “Two: both girls, if I remember correctly.”

  “Does your wife approve of your flying off from Earth like this?”

  “She’d better.”

  (Pause, during which interviewer realizes that, for once, her ignorance of shorthand is going to be no handicap.)

  “I suppose you have always felt an urge to go out to the stars, to—er—place the flag of humanity upon other worlds?”

  “Nope. Never thought about it until a couple of years ago.”

  “Then how did you get chosen for this flight?”

  “Because I’m the second best atomic engineer in the world.”

  “The first being?”

  “Professor Maxton, who’s too valuable to risk.”

  “Are you at all nervous?”

  “Oh yes. I’m frightened of spiders, lumps of plutonium more than a foot across, and anything that makes noises in the night.”

  “I mean—are you nervous about this voyage?”

  “I’m scared stiff. Look—you can see me trembling.” (Demonstrates. Minor damage to furniture.)

  “What do you expect to find on the Moon?”

  “Lots of lava, and very little else.”

  (Interviewer wearing a hunted look, and now clearly preparing to disengage.)

  “Do you expect to find any life on the Moon?”

  “Very likely. As soon as we land, I expect there’ll be a knock on the door and a voice will say: ‘Would you mind answering a few questions for the Selenites’Weekly?’ “

  Not all interviews, of course, were anything like this flagrant example, and it is only fair to say that Richards swore the whole thing had been concocted by Leduc. Most of the reporters who covered Interplanetary’s affairs were science graduates who had migrated into journalism. Theirs was a somewhat thankless task, since the newspaper world frequently regarded them as interlopers while the scientists looked upon them as apostates and backsliders.

  Perhaps no single point had attracted more public interest than the fact that two of the crew would be reserves and would be fated to remain on Earth. For a time speculation about the ten possible combinations became so popular that the bookmakers began to take an interest in the subject. It was generally assumed that since Hassell and Leduc were both rocket pilots one but not both of them would be chosen. As this sort of discussion might have bad effects on the men themselves, the Director-General made it clear that no such argument was valid. Because of their training, any three men would form an efficient crew. He hinted, without making a definite promise, that the final choice might have to be made by ballot. No one, least of all the five men concerned, really believed this.

  Hassell’s preoccupation with his unborn son had now become common knowledge—which did not help matters. It had begun as a faint worry at the back of his mind which for a long time he had been able to keep under control. But as the weeks passed, it had come to trouble him more and more until his efficiency began to fall. When he realized this, it worried him still more and so the process had gathered momentum.

  Since his fear was not a personal one, but concerned someone he loved, and since it had a logical foundation, there was little that psychologists could do about it. They could not suggest, to a man of his temperament and character, that he ask to be withdrawn from the expedition. They could only watch: and Hassell knew perfectly well that they were watching.

  6

  Dirk spent little time at Southbank during the days before the Exodus. It was impossible to work there: those who were going to Australia were too busy packing and tidying up their affairs, while those who weren’t seemed in a very unco-operative mood. The irrepressible Matthews had been one of the sacrifices: McAndrews was leaving him in charge. It was a very sensible arrangement, but the two men were no longer on speaking terms. Dirk was very glad to keep out of their way, especially as they had been a little upset over his desertion to the scientists.

  He saw equally little of Maxton and Collins, as the technical department was in a state of organized uproar. It had apparently been decided that everything might be needed in Australia. Only Sir Robert Derwent seemed perfectly happy amid the disorder, and Dirk was somewhat astonished to receive a summons from him one morning. As it happened, it came on one of the few days when he was at Headquarters. It was his first meeting with the Director-General since their brief introduction on the day of his arrival.

  He entered somewhat timidly, thinking of all the tales he had heard about Sir Robert. The D.-G. probably noticed and understood his diffidence, for there was a distinct twinkle in his eye as he shook hands and offered his visitor a seat.

  The room was no larger than many other offices which Dirk had seen at Southbank, but its position at a corner of the building gave it an unrivaled view. One could see most of the Embankment from Charing Cross to London Bridge.

  Sir Robert lost no time in getting to the point.

  “Professor Maxton’s been telling me about your job,” he said. “I suppose you’ve got us all fluttering around in your killing-bottle, ready to be pinned down for posterity to examine?”

  “I hope, Sir Robert,” smiled Dirk, “that the final result won’t be quite as static as that. I’m not here primarily as a recorder of facts, but of influences and motives.”

  The Director-General tapped thoughtfully on his desk, then remarked quietly: “And what motives, would you say, underlie our work?”

  The question, through its very directness, took Dirk somewhat aback.

  “They’re very complex,” he began defensively. “Provisionally, I’d say they fall into two classes—material and spiritual.”

  “I find it rather difficult,” said the D.-G. mildly, “to picture a third category.”

  Dirk gave a slightly embarrassed smile.

  “Perhaps I’m a little too comprehensive,” he said. “What I mean is this: The first men seriously to advance the idea of interplanetary travel were visionaries in love with a dream. The fact that they were also technicians doesn’t matter—they were, essentially, artists using their science to create something new. If space flight had been of no conceivable practical use, they would have wished to have achieved it just the same.

  “Theirs was the spiritual motive, as I’ve called it. Perhaps ‘intellectual’ is a better word. You can’t analyze it any further, because it represents a basic human impulse—that of curiosity. On the material side, you now have the vision of great new industries and engineering processes, and the desire of the billion-dollar communication companies to replace their myriads of surface transmitters by two or three stations out in space. This is the Wall Street side of the picture, which of course came a good deal later.”

  “And which motive,” said Sir Robert, pressing on ruthlessly, “would you say is predominant here?”

  Dirk was now beginning to feel completely at ease.

  “Before I came to Southbank,” he said, “I thought of Interplanetary—when I thought of it at all—as a group of technicians out for scientific dividends. That’s what you pretend to be, and you deceive a lot of people. The description may apply to some of the middle grades of your organization—but it isn’t true at the top.”

  Dirk drew back his bow, and took a long shot at that invisible target out there in the dark.

  “I think that Interplanetary is run—and always has been run—by visionaries, poets if you like, who also happen to be scientists. Sometimes the disguise isn’t very good.”

  There was silence for a while. Then Sir Robert said, in a somewhat subdued voice, though with a trace of a chuckle:

  “It’s an accusation that’s been thrown at us before. We’ve never denied it. Someone once said that all human activity was a form of play. We’re not ashamed of wanting to play with spaceship
s.”

  “And in the course of your play,” said Dirk, “you will change the world, and perhaps the Universe.”

  He looked at Sir Robert with new understanding. He no longer saw that determined, bull-dog head with its broad sweep of brow, for he had suddenly remembered Newton’s description of himself as a small child picking up brightly colored pebbles on the shore of the ocean of knowledge.

  Sir Robert Derwent, like all great scientists, was such a child. Dirk believed that, in the final analysis, he would have crossed space for no other reason than to watch the Earth turning from night to day above the glittering lunar peaks, or to see Saturn’s rings, in all their unimaginable glory, bridging the sky of his nearest moon.

  7

  The knowledge that this was his last day in London filled Dirk with a sense of guilty regret. Regret, because he had seen practically nothing of the place; guilt, because he couldn’t help feeling that this was partly his own fault. It was true that he had been furiously busy, but looking back on the past few weeks it was hard to believe that he’d found it impossible to visit the British Museum more than twice, or St. Paul’s Cathedral even once. He did not know when he would see London again, for he would return direct to America.

  It was a fair but rather cool day, with the usual possibility of rain later. There was no work he could do at his flat, for all his papers had been packed and even now were halfway round the world ahead of him. He had said goodbye to those members of Interplanetary’s staff he would not see again: most of the others he would meet at London Airport early tomorrow morning. Matthews, who seemed to have grown quite attached to him, had become almost tearful, and even his sparring partners Sam and Bert had insisted on a little farewell celebration at the office. When he walked away from Southbank for the last time, Dirk realized with a pang that he was also saying good-bye to one of the happiest periods of his life. It had been happy because it had been full, because it had extended all his resources to the utmost—above all, because he had been among men whose lives had a purpose which they knew was greater than themselves.

  Meanwhile, he had an empty day on his hands and did not know how to occupy it. In theory, such a situation was impossible; but it seemed to have happened now.

  He went into the quiet square, wondering if he had been wise to leave his raincoat behind. It was only a few hundred yards to the Embassy, where he had a little business to conduct, but he was rash enough to take a short cut. As a result he promptly lost himself in the labyrinth of side streets and culs-de-sac which made London such a continual source of exasperating delight. Only a lucky glimpse of the Roosevelt Memorial finally gave him his bearings again.

  A leisurely lunch with some of his Embassy acquaintances at their favorite club disposed of the earlier afternoon; then he was left to his own resources. He could go anywhere he pleased, could see the places which otherwise he might always be sorry to have missed. Yet a kind of restless lethargy made him feel unable to do anything but wander at random through the streets. The sun had finally secured its bridgehead, and the afternoon was warm and relaxing. It was pleasant to drift through the back streets and to come by chance upon buildings older than the United States—yet bearing such notices as: “Grosvenor Radic and Electronic Corporation,” or “Provincial Airways, Ltd.”

  Late in the afternoon Dirk emerged into what, he concluded, must be Hyde Park. For a full hour he circulated under the trees, always keeping within sight of the adjoining roads. The Albert Memorial held him paralyzed with frank disbelief for many minutes, but he finally escaped from its hypnotic spell and decided to cut back across the Park to Marble Arch.

  He had forgotten the impassioned oratory for which that spot was famous, and it was very entertaining to wander from one crowd to another, listening to the speakers and their critics. What, he wondered, had ever given people the idea that the British were reserved and undemonstrative?

  He stood for some time enthralled by a duet between one orator and his heckler in which each maintained with equal passion that Karl Marx had—and had not—made a certain remark. What the remark was Dirk never discovered, and he began to suspect that the disputants themselves had long since forgotten it. From time to time helpful interjections were provided by the good-natured crowd, which obviously had no strong feelings on the subject but wanted to keep the pot boiling.

  The next speaker was engaged in proving, apparently with the aid of Biblical texts, that Doomsday was at hand. He reminded Dirk of those apocalyptic prophets of the anxious year A.D. 1999; would their successors, ten centuries later, still be predicting the Day of Wrath as the year 1999 drew to its close?

  He could hardly doubt it. In many ways human nature changed very little: the prophets would still be there, and there would still be some to believe them.

  He moved on to the next group. A small but attentive audience was gathered around an elderly, white-haired man who was giving a lecture—a remarkably well-informed lecture—on philosophy. Not all the speakers, Dirk decided, were by any means cranks. This lecturer might have been a retired schoolmaster with such strong views on adult education that he felt himself impelled to hold forth in the marketplace to all who would listen.

  His discourse was on Life, its origin and its destiny. His thoughts, like those of his listeners, were no doubt influenced by that winged thunderbolt lying in the desert on the far side of the world, for presently he began to speak of the astronomical stage upon which the strange drama of life was being played.

  He painted a vivid picture of the sun and its circling planets, taking the thoughts of his listeners with him from world to world. He had a gift for picturesque phrases, and though Dirk was not sure that he confined himself to accepted scientific knowledge, the general impression he gave was accurate enough.

  Tiny Mercury, blistering beneath its enormous sun, he pictured as a world of burning rocks washed by sluggish oceans of molten metal. Venus, Earth’s sister planet, was forever hidden from us by those rolling clouds which had not parted once during the centuries in which men had gazed upon her. Beneath that blanket might be oceans and forests and the hum of strange life. Or there might be nothing but a barren wilderness swept by scorching winds.

  He spoke of Mars; and one could see a ripple of increased attention spread through his audience. Forty million miles outward from the Sun, Nature had scored her second hit. Here again was life: we could see the changing colors which on our own world spoke of the passing seasons. Though Mars had little water, and his atmosphere was stratospherically thin, vegetation and perhaps animal life could exist there. Of intelligence, there was no conclusive evidence at all.

  Beyond Mars the giant outer worlds lay in a frozen twilight which grew ever dimmer and colder as the Sun dwindled to a distant star. Jupiter and Saturn were crushed beneath atmospheres thousands of miles deep—atmospheres of methane and ammonia, torn by hurricanes which we could observe across half a billion miles or more of space. If there was life on those strange outer planets, and the still colder worlds beyond, it would be more weird than anything we could imagine. Only in the temperate zone of the Solar System, the narrow belt in which floated Venus, Earth and Mars, could there be life as we knew it.

  Life as we knew it! And how little we knew! What right had we on our puny world to assume that it set the pattern for all the Universe? Could conceit go farther?

  The Universe was not hostile to life, but merely indifferent. Its strangeness was an opportunity and a challenge—a challenge which intelligence would accept. Shaw had spoken the truth, half a century ago, when he put these words into the mouth of Lilith, who came before Adam and Eve:

  “Of Life only there is no end; and though of its million starry mansions many are empty and many still unbuilt, and though its vast domain is as yet unbearably desert, my seed shall one day fill it and master it to its uttermost confines.”

  The clear, cultured voice died away, and Dirk became once more conscious of his surroundings. It had been a remarkable performance: he would l
ike to know more about the speaker, who was now quietly dismantling his little platform and preparing to wheel it away in a dilapidated handcart. The crowd was dispersing around him, looking for fresh attractions. From time to time half-heard phrases borne down the wind told Dirk that the other speakers were still operating at full blast.

  Dirk turned to leave, and as he did so caught sight of a face which he recognized. For a moment he was taken completely by surprise: the coincidence seemed too improbable to be true.

  Standing in the crowd, only a few feet away from him, was Victor Hassell.

  8

  Maude Hassell had needed no elaborate explanations when her husband had said, rather abruptly, that he was “going for a stroll around the Park.” She understood perfectly, and merely expressed a hope that he wouldn’t be recognized, and would be back in time for tea. Both of these wishes were doomed to disappointment, as she was fairly sure they would be.

  Victor Hassell had lived in London for almost half his life, but his earliest impressions of the city were still the most vivid and still held the strongest place in his affections. As a young engineering student he had lodged in the Paddington area and had walked to college every day across Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens. When he thought of London, he did not picture busy streets and world-famous buildings, but quiet avenues of trees and open fields, and the wide sands of Rotten Row along which the Sunday morning riders would still be cantering on their fine horses when humanity’s first ships were turning homewards from the stars. And there was no need for him to remind Maude of their first encounter beside the Serpentine, only two years ago, but a lifetime away. From all these places he must now take his leave.

  He spent a little time in South Kensington, wandering past the old colleges which formed so large a part of his memories. They had not changed: the students with their folders and T-squares and slide-rules were just the same. It was strange to think that almost a century ago the young H. G. Wells had been one of that eager, restless throng.