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diff --git a/18361.txt b/18361.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f33b34b --- /dev/null +++ b/18361.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7501 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Operation: Outer Space, by William Fitzgerald +Jenkins + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Operation: Outer Space + + +Author: William Fitzgerald Jenkins + + + +Release Date: May 10, 2006 [eBook #18361] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OPERATION: OUTER SPACE*** + + +E-text prepared by Greg Weeks, L. N. Yaddanapudi, Geoffrey Kidd, and the +Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team +(http://www.pgdp.net/) + + + +OPERATION: OUTER SPACE + +by + +MURRAY LEINSTER + + + + + + + +CHAPTER ONE + + +Jed Cochrane tried to be cynical as the helicab hummed softly through +the night over the city. The cab flew at two thousand feet, where +lighted buildings seemed to soar toward it from the canyons which were +streets. There were lights and people everywhere, and Cochrane +sardonically reminded himself that he was no better than anybody else, +only he'd been trying to keep from realizing it. He looked down at the +trees and shrubbery on the roof-tops, and at a dance that was going on +atop one of the tallest buildings. All roofs were recreation-spaces +nowadays. They were the only spaces available. When you looked down at a +city like this, you had cynical thoughts. Fourteen million people in +this city. Ten million in that. Eight in another and ten in another +still, and twelve million in yet another ... Big cities. Swarming +millions of people, all desperately anxious--so Cochrane realized +bitterly--all desperately anxious about their jobs and keeping them. + +"Even as me and I," said Cochrane harshly to himself. "Sure! I'm shaking +in my shoes right along with the rest of them!" + +But it hurt to realize that he'd been kidding himself. He'd thought he +was important. Important, at least, to the advertising firm of Kursten, +Kasten, Hopkins and Fallowe. But right now he was on the way--like a +common legman--to take the moon-rocket to Lunar City, and he'd been +informed of it just thirty minutes ago. Then he'd been told casually to +get to the rocket-port right away. His secretary and two technical men +and a writer were taking the same rocket. He'd get his instructions from +Dr. William Holden on the way. + +A part of his mind said indignantly, "_Wait till I get Hopkins on the +phone! It was a mixup! He wouldn't send me off anywhere with the +Dikkipatti Hour depending on me! He's not that crazy!_" But he was on +his way to the space-port, regardless. He'd raged when the message +reached him. He'd insisted that he had to talk to Hopkins in person +before he obeyed any such instructions. But he was on his way to the +space-port. He was riding in a helicab, and he was making adjustments in +his own mind to the humiliation he unconsciously foresaw. There were +really three levels of thought in his mind. One had adopted a defensive +cynicism, and one desperately insisted that he couldn't be as +unimportant as his instructions implied, and the third watched the other +two as the helicab flew with cushioned booming noises over the dark +canyons of the city and the innumerable lonely lights of the rooftops. + +There was a thin roaring sound, high aloft. Cochrane jerked his head +back. The stars filled all the firmament, but he knew what to look for. +He stared upward. + +One of the stars grew brighter. He didn't know when he first picked it +out, but he knew when he'd found it. He fixed his eyes on it. It was a +very white star, and for a space of minutes it seemed in no wise +different from its fellows. But it grew brighter. Presently it was very +bright. It was brighter than Sirius. In seconds more it was brighter +than Venus. It increased more and more rapidly in its brilliance. It +became the brightest object in all the heavens except the crescent moon, +and the cold intensity of its light was greater than any part of that. +Then Cochrane could see that this star was not quite round. He could +detect the quarter-mile-long flame of the rocket-blast. + +It came down with a rush. He saw the vertical, stabbing pencil of light +plunge earthward. It slowed remarkably as it plunged, with all the +flying aircraft above the city harshly lighted by its glare. The +space-port itself showed clearly. Cochrane saw the buildings, and the +other moon-rockets waiting to take off in half an hour or less. + +The white flame hit the ground and splashed. It spread out in a wide +flat disk of intolerable brightness. The sleek hull of the ship which +still rode the flame down glinted vividly as it settled into the inferno +of its own making. + +Then the light went out. The glare cut off abruptly. There was only a +dim redness where the space-port tarmac had been made incandescent for a +little while. That glow faded--and Cochrane became aware of the +enormous stillness. He had not really noticed the rocket's deafening +roar until it ended. + +The helicab flew onward almost silently, with only the throbbing pulses +of its overhead vanes making any sound at all. + +"_I kidded myself about those rockets, too_," said Cochrane bitterly to +himself. "_I thought getting to the moon meant starting to the stars. +New worlds to live on. I had a lot more fun before I found out the facts +of life!_" + +But he knew that this cynicism and this bitterness came out of the hurt +to the vanity that still insisted everything was a mistake. He'd +received orders which disillusioned him about his importance to the firm +and to the business to which he'd given years of his life. It hurt to +find out that he was just another man, just another expendable. Most +people fought against making the discovery, and some succeeded in +avoiding it. But Cochrane saw his own self-deceptions with a savage +clarity even as he tried to keep them. He did not admire himself at all. + +The helicab began to slant down toward the space-port buildings. The sky +was full of stars. The earth--of course--was covered with buildings. +Except for the space-port there was no unoccupied ground for thirty +miles in any direction. The cab was down to a thousand feet. To five +hundred. Cochrane saw the just-arrived rocket with tender-vehicles +running busily to and fro and hovering around it. He saw the rocket he +should take, standing upright on the faintly lighted field. + +The cab touched ground. Cochrane stood up and paid the fare. He got out +and the cab rose four or five feet and flitted over to the waiting-line. + +He went into the space-port building. He felt himself growing more +bitter still. Then he found Bill Holden--Doctor William Holden--standing +dejectedly against a wall. + +"I believe you've got some orders for me, Bill," said Cochrane +sardonically. "And just what psychiatric help can I give you?" + +Holden said tiredly: + +"I don't like this any better than you do, Jed. I'm scared to death of +space-travel. But go get your ticket and I'll tell you about it on the +way up. It's a special production job. I'm roped in on it too." + +"Happy holiday!" said Cochrane, because Holden looked about as miserable +as a man could look. + +He went to the ticket desk. He gave his name. On request, he produced +identification. Then he said sourly: + +"While you're working on this I'll make a phone-call." + +He went to a pay visiphone. And again there were different levels of +awareness in his mind--one consciously and defensively cynical, and one +frightened at the revelation of his unimportance, and the third finding +the others an unedifying spectacle. + +He put the call through with an over-elaborate confidence which he +angrily recognized as an attempt to deceive himself. He got the office. +He said calmly: + +"This is Jed Cochrane. I asked for a visiphone contact with Mr. +Hopkins." + +He had a secretary on the phone-screen. She looked at memos and said +pleasantly: + +"Oh, yes. Mr. Hopkins is at dinner. He said he couldn't be disturbed, +but for you to go on to the moon according to your instructions, Mr. +Cochrane." + +Cochrane hung up and raged, with one part of his mind. Another part--and +he despised it--began to argue that after all, he had better wait before +thinking there was any intent to humiliate him. After all, his orders +must have been issued with due consideration. The third part disliked +the other two parts intensely--one for raging without daring to speak, +and one for trying to find alibis for not even raging. He went back to +the ticket-desk. The clerk said heartily: + +"Here you are! The rest of your party's already on board, Mr. Cochrane. +You'd better hurry! Take-off's in five minutes." + +Holden joined him. They went through the gate and got into the +tender-vehicle that would rush them out to the rocket. Holden said +heavily: + +"I was waiting for you and hoping you wouldn't come. I'm not a good +traveller, Jed." + +The small vehicle rushed. To a city man, the dark expanse of the +space-port was astounding. Then a spidery metal framework swallowed the +tender-truck, and them. The vehicle stopped. An elevator accepted them +and lifted an indefinite distance through the night, toward the stars. A +sort of gangplank with a canvas siderail reached out across emptiness. +Cochrane crossed it, and found himself at the bottom of a spiral ramp +inside the rocket's passenger-compartment. A stewardess looked at the +tickets. She led the way up, and stopped. + +"This is your seat, Mr. Cochrane," she said professionally. "I'll strap +you in this first time. You'll do it later." + +Cochrane lay down in a contour-chair with an eight-inch mattress of foam +rubber. The stewardess adjusted straps. He thought bitter, ironic +thoughts. A voice said: + +"Mr. Cochrane!" + +He turned his head. There was Babs Deane, his secretary, with her eyes +very bright. She regarded him from a contour-chair exactly opposite his. +She said happily: + +"Mr. West and Mr. Jamison are the science men, Mr. Cochrane. I got Mr. +Bell as the writer." + +"A great triumph!" Cochrane told her. "Did you get any idea what all +this is about? Why we're going up?" + +"No," admitted Babs cheerfully. "I haven't the least idea. But I'm going +to the moon! It's the most wonderful thing that ever happened to me!" + +Cochrane shrugged his shoulders. Shrugging was not comfortable in the +straps that held him. Babs was a good secretary. She was the only one +Cochrane had ever had who did not try to make use of her position as +secretary to the producer of the Dikkipatti Hour on television. Other +secretaries had used their nearness to him to wangle acting or dancing +or singing assignments on other and lesser shows. As a rule they lasted +just four public appearances before they were back at desks, spoiled for +further secretarial use by their taste of fame. But Babs hadn't tried +that. Yet she'd jumped at a chance for a trip to the moon. + +A panel up toward the nose of the rocket--the upper end of this +passenger compartment--glowed suddenly. Flaming red letters said, +"_Take-off, ninety seconds._" + +Cochrane found an ironic flavor in the thought that splendid daring and +incredible technology had made his coming journey possible. Heroes had +ventured magnificently into the emptiness beyond Earth's atmosphere. +Uncountable millions of dollars had been spent. Enormous intelligence +and infinite pains had been devoted to making possible a journey of two +hundred thirty-six thousand miles through sheer nothingness. This was +the most splendid achievement of human science--the reaching of a +satellite of Earth and the building of a human city there. + +And for what? Undoubtedly so that one Jed Cochrane could be ordered by +telephone, by somebody's secretary, to go and get on a passenger-rocket +and get to the moon. Go--having failed to make a protest because his +boss wouldn't interrupt dinner to listen--so he could keep his job by +obeying. For this splendid purpose, scientists had labored and dedicated +men had risked their lives. + +Of course, Cochrane reminded himself with conscious justice, of course +there was the very great value of moon-mail cachets to devotees of +philately. There was the value of the tourist facilities to anybody who +could spend that much money for something to brag about afterward. There +were the solar-heat mines--running at a slight loss--and various other +fine achievements. There was even a nightclub in Lunar City where one +highball cost the equivalent of--say--a week's pay for a secretary like +Babs. And-- + +The panel changed its red glowing sign. It said: "_Take-off forty-five +seconds._" + +Somewhere down below a door closed with a cushioned soft definiteness. +The inside of the rocket suddenly seemed extraordinarily still. The +silence was oppressive. It was dead. Then there came the whirring of +very many electric fans, stirring up the air. + +The stewardess' voice came matter-of-factly from below him in the +upended cylinder which was the passenger-space. + +"We take off in forty-five seconds. You will find yourself feeling very +heavy. There is no cause to be alarmed. If you observe that breathing is +oppressive, the oxygen content of the air in this ship is well above +earth-level, and you will not need to breathe so deeply. Simply relax in +your chair. Everything has been thought of. Everything has been tested +repeatedly. You need not disturb yourself at all. Simply relax." + +Silence. Two heart-beats. Three. + +There was a roar. It was a deep, booming, numbing roar that came from +somewhere outside the rocket's hull. Simultaneously, something thrust +Cochrane deep into the foam-cushions of his contour-chair. He felt the +cushion piling up on all sides of his body so that it literally +surrounded him. It resisted the tendency of his arms and legs and +abdomen to flatten out and flow sidewise, to spread him in a thin layer +over the chair in which he rested. + +He felt his cheeks dragged back. He was unduly conscious of the weight +of objects in his pockets. His stomach pressed hard against his +backbone. His sensations were those of someone being struck a hard, +prolonged blow all over his body. + +It was so startling a sensation, though he'd read about it, that he +simply stayed still and blankly submitted to it. Presently he felt +himself gasp. Presently, again, he noticed that one of his feet was +going to sleep. He tried to move it and succeeded only in stirring it +feebly. The roaring went on and on and on.... + +The red letters in the panel said: "_First stage ends in five seconds._" + +By the time he'd read it, the rocket hiccoughed and stopped. Then he +felt a surge of panic. He was falling! He had no weight! It was the +sensation of a suddenly dropping elevator a hundred times multiplied. He +bounced out of the depression in the foam-cushion. He was prevented from +floating away only by the straps that held him. + +There was a sputter and a series of jerks. Then he had weight again as +roarings began once more. This was not the ghastly continued impact of +the take-off, but still it was weight--considerably greater weight than +the normal weight of Earth. Cochrane wiggled the foot that had gone to +sleep. Pins and needles lessened their annoyance as sensation returned +to it. He was able to move his arms and hands. They felt abnormally +heavy, and he experienced an extreme and intolerable weariness. He +wanted to go to sleep. + +This was the second-stage rocket-phase. The moon-rocket had blasted off +at six gravities acceleration until clear of atmosphere and a little +more. Acceleration-chairs of remarkably effective design, plus the +pre-saturation of one's blood with oxygen, made so high an acceleration +safe and not unendurable for the necessary length of time it lasted. +Now, at three gravities, one did not feel on the receiving end of a +violent thrust, but one did feel utterly worn out and spent. Most people +stayed awake through the six-gravity stage and went heavily to sleep +under three gravities. + +Cochrane fought the sensation of fatigue. He had not liked himself for +accepting the orders that had brought him here. They had been issued in +bland confidence that he had no personal affairs which could not be +abandoned to obey cryptic orders from the secretary of a boss he had +actually never seen. He felt a sort of self-contempt which it would have +been restful to forget in three-gravity sleep. But he grimaced and held +himself awake to contemplate the unpretty spectacle of himself and his +actions. + +The red light said: "_Second stage ends ten seconds._" + +And in ten seconds the rockets hiccoughed once more and were silent, and +there was that sickening feeling of free fall, but he grimly made +himself think of it as soaring upward instead of dropping--which was the +fact, too--and waited until the third-stage rockets boomed suddenly and +went on and on and on. + +This was nearly normal acceleration; the effect of this acceleration was +the feel of nearly normal weight. He felt about as one would feel in +Earth in a contour-chair tilted back so that one faced the ceiling. He +knew approximately where the ship would be by this time, and it ought to +have been a thrill. Cochrane was hundreds of miles above Earth and +headed eastward out and up. If a port were open at this height, his +glance should span continents. + +No.... The ship had taken off at night. It would still be in Earth's +shadow. There would be nothing at all to be seen below, unless one or +two small patches of misty light which would be Earth's too-many great +cities. But overhead there would be stars by myriads and myriads, of +every possible color and degree of brightness. They would crowd each +other for room in which to shine. The rocket-ship was spiralling out and +out and up and up, to keep its rendezvous with the space platform. + +The platform, of course, was that artificial satellite of Earth which +was four thousand miles out and went around the planet in a little over +four hours, traveling from west to east. It had been made because to +break the bonds of Earth's gravity was terribly costly in fuel--when a +ship had to accelerate slowly to avoid harm to human cargo. The space +platform was a filling station in emptiness, at which the moon-rocket +would refuel for its next and longer and much less difficult journey of +two hundred thirty-odd thousand miles. + +The stewardess came up the ramp, moving briskly. She stopped and glanced +at each passenger in each chair in turn. When Cochrane turned his open +eyes upon her, she said soothingly: + +"There's no need to be disturbed. Everything is going perfectly." + +"I'm not disturbed," said Cochrane. "I'm not even nervous. I'm perfectly +all right." + +"But you should be drowsy!" she observed, concerned. "Most people are. +If you nap you'll feel better for it." + +She felt his pulse in a businesslike manner. It was normal. + +"Take my nap for me," said Cochrane, "or put it back in stock. I don't +want it. I'm perfectly all right." + +She considered him carefully. She was remarkably pretty. But her manner +was strictly detached. She said: + +"There's a button. You can reach it if you need anything. You may call +me by pushing it." + +He shrugged. He lay still as she went on to inspect the other +passengers. There was nothing to do and nothing to see. Travellers were +treated pretty much like parcels, these days. Travel, like television +entertainment and most of the other facilities of human life, was +designed for the seventy-to-ninety-per-cent of the human race whose +likes and dislikes and predilections could be learned exactly by +surveys. Anybody who didn't like what everybody liked, or didn't react +like everybody reacted, was subject to annoyances. Cochrane resigned +himself to them. + +The red light-letters changed again, considerably later. This time they +said: "_Free flight, thirty seconds._" + +They did not say "free fall," which was the technical term for a rocket +coasting upward or downward in space. But Cochrane braced himself, and +his stomach-muscles were tense when the rockets stopped again and stayed +off. The sensation of continuous fall began. An electronic speaker +beside his chair began to speak. There were other such mechanisms beside +each other passenger-chair, and the interior of the rocket filled with a +soft murmur which was sardonically like choral recitation. + +"_The sensation of weightlessness you now experience_," said the voice +soothingly, "_is natural at this stage of your flight. The ship has +attained its maximum intended speed and is still rising to meet the +space platform. You may consider that we have left atmosphere and its +limitations behind. Now we have spread sails of inertia and glide on a +wind of pure momentum toward our destination. The feeling of +weightlessness is perfectly normal. You will be greatly interested in +the space platform. We will reach it in something over two hours of free +flight. It is an artificial satellite, with an air-lock our ship will +enter for refueling. You will be able to leave the ship and move about +inside the Platform, to lunch if you choose, to buy souvenirs and mail +them back and to view Earth from a height of four thousand miles through +quartz-glass windows. Then, as now, you will feel no sensation of +weight. You will be taken on a tour of the space platform if you wish. +There are rest-rooms--._" + +Cochrane grimly endured the rest of the taped lecture. He thought sourly +to himself: "_I'm a captive audience without even an interest in the +production tricks._" + +Presently he saw Bill Holden's head. The psychiatrist had squirmed +inside the straps that held him, and now was staring about within the +rocket. His complexion was greenish. + +"I understand you're to brief me," Cochrane told him, "on the way up. Do +you want to tell me now what all this is about? I'd like a nice dramatic +narrative, with gestures." + +Holden said sickly: + +"Go to hell, won't you?" + +His head disappeared. Space-nausea was, of course, as definite an +ailment as seasickness. It came from no weight. But Cochrane seemed to +be immune. He turned his mind to the possible purposes of his journey. +He knew nothing at all. His own personal share in the activities of +Kursten, Kasten, Hopkins and Fallowe--the biggest advertising agency in +the world--was the production of the Dikkipatti Hour, top-talent +television show, regularly every Wednesday night between eight-thirty +and nine-thirty o'clock central U. S. time. It was a good show. It was +among the ten most popular shows on three continents. It was not +reasonable that he be ordered to drop it and take orders from a +psychiatrist, even one he'd known unprofessionally for years. But there +was not much, these days, that really made sense. + +In a world where cities with populations of less than five millions were +considered small towns, values were peculiar. One of the deplorable +results of living in a world over-supplied with inhabitants was that +there were too many people and not enough jobs. When one had a good job, +and somebody higher up than oneself gave an order, it was obeyed. There +was always somebody else or several somebodies waiting for every job +there was--hoping for it, maybe praying for it. And if a good job was +lost, one had to start all over. + +This task might be anything. It was not, however, connected in any way +with the weekly production of the Dikkipatti Hour. And if that +production were scamped this week because Cochrane was away, he would be +the one to take the loss in reputation. The fact that he was on the moon +wouldn't count. It would be assumed that he was slipping. And a slip was +not good. It was definitely not good! + +"_I could do a documentary right now_," Cochrane told himself angrily, +"_titled 'Man-afraid-of-his-job.' I could make a very authentic +production. I've got the material!_" + +He felt weight for a moment. It was accompanied by booming noises. The +sounds were not in the air outside, because there was no air. They were +reverberations of the rocket-motors themselves, transmitted to the +fabric of the ship. The ship's steering-rockets were correcting the +course of the vessel and--yes, there was another surge of power--nudging +it to a more correct line of flight to meet the space platform coming up +from behind. The platform went around the world six times a day, four +thousand miles out. During three of its revolutions anybody on the +ground, anywhere, could spot it in daylight as an infinitesimal star, +bright enough to be seen against the sky's blueness, rising in the west +and floating eastward to set at the place of sunrise. + +There was again weightlessness. A rocket-ship doesn't burn its +rocket-engines all the time. It runs them to get started, and it runs +them to stop, but it does not run them to travel. This ship was floating +above the Earth, which might be a vast sunlit ball filling half the +universe below the rocket, or might be a blackness as of the Pit. +Cochrane had lost track of time, but not of the shattering effect of +being snatched from the job he knew and thought important, to travel +incredibly to do something he had no idea of. He felt, in his mind, like +somebody who climbs stairs in the dark and tries to take a step that +isn't there. It was a shock to find that his work wasn't important even +in the eyes of Kursten, Kasten, Hopkins and Fallowe. That he didn't +count. That nothing counted ... + +There was another dull booming outside and another touch of weight. Then +the rocket floated on endlessly. + +A long time later, something touched the ship's outer hull. It was a +definite, positive clanking sound. And then there was the gentlest and +vaguest of tuggings, and Cochrane could feel the ship being maneuvered. +He knew it had made contact with the space platform and was being drawn +inside its lock. + +There was still no weight. The stewardess began to unstrap the +passengers one by one, supplying each with magnetic-soled slippers. +Cochrane heard her giving instructions in their use. He knew the +air-lock was being filled with air from the huge, globular platform. In +time the door at the back--bottom--base of the passenger-compartment +opened. Somebody said flatly: + +"Space platform! The ship will be in this air-lock for some three hours +plus for refueling. Warning will be given before departure. Passengers +have the freedom of the platform and will be given every possible +privilege." + +The magnetic-soled slippers did hold one's feet to the spiral ramp, but +one had to hold on to a hand-rail to make progress. On the way down to +the exit door, Cochrane encountered Babs. She said breathlessly: + +"I can't believe I'm really here!" + +"I can believe it," said Cochrane, "without even liking it particularly. +Babs, who told you to come on this trip? Where'd all the orders come +from?" + +"Mr. Hopkins' secretary," said Babs happily. "She didn't tell me to +come. I managed that! She said for me to name two science men and two +writers who could work with you. I told her one writer was more than +enough for any production job, but you'd need me. I assumed it was a +production job. So she changed the orders and here I am!" + +"Fine!" said Cochrane. His sense of the ironic deepened. He'd thought he +was an executive and reasonably important. But somebody higher up than +he was had disposed of him with absent-minded finality, and that man's +secretary and his own had determined all the details, and he didn't +count at all. He was a pawn in the hands of firm-partners and assorted +secretaries. "Let me know what my job's to be and how to do it, Babs." + +Babs nodded. She didn't catch the sarcasm. But she couldn't think very +straight, just now. She was on the space platform, which was the second +most glamorous spot in the universe. The most glamorous spot, of course, +was the moon. + +Cochrane hobbled ashore into the platform, having no weight whatever. He +was able to move only by the curious sticky adhesion of his +magnetic-soled slippers to the steel floor-plates beneath him. Or--were +they beneath? There was a crew member walking upside down on a floor +which ought to be a ceiling directly over Cochrane's head. He opened a +door in a side-wall and went in, still upside down. Cochrane felt a +sudden dizziness, at that. + +But he went on, using hand-grips. Then he saw Dr. William Holden looking +greenish and ill and trying sickishly to answer questions from West and +Jamison and Bell, who had been plucked from their private lives just as +Cochrane had and were now clamorously demanding of Bill Holden that he +explain what had happened to them. + +Cochrane snapped angrily: + +"Leave the man alone! He's space-sick! If you get him too much upset +this place will be a mess!" + +Holden closed his eyes and said gratefully: + +"Shoo them away, Jed, and then come back." + +Cochrane waved his hands at them. They went away, stumbling and holding +on to each other in the eerie dream-likeness and nightmarish situation +of no-weight-whatever. There were other passengers from the moon-rocket +in this great central space of the platform. There was a fat woman +looking indignantly at the picture of a weighing-scale painted on the +wall. Somebody had painted it, with a dial-hand pointing to zero pounds. +A sign said, "_Honest weight, no gravity._" There was the stewardess +from the rocket, off duty here. She smoked a cigarette in the blast of +an electric fan. There was a party of moon-tourists giggling foolishly +and clutching at everything and buying souvenirs to mail back to Earth. + +"All right, Bill," said Cochrane. "They're gone. Now tell me why all the +not inconsiderable genius in the employ of Kursten, Kasten, Hopkins and +Fallowe, in my person, has been mobilized and sent up to the moon?" + +Bill Holden swallowed. He stood up with his eyes closed, holding onto a +side-rail in the great central room of the platform. + +"I have to keep my eyes shut," he explained, queasily. "It makes me ill +to see people walking on side-walls and across ceilings." + +A stout tourist was doing exactly that at the moment. If one could walk +anywhere at all with magnetic-soled shoes, one could walk everywhere. +The stout man did walk up the side-wall. He adventured onto the ceiling, +where he was head-down to the balance of his party. He stood there +looking up--down--at them, and he wore a peculiarly astonished and +half-frightened and wholly foolish grin. His wife squealed for him to +come down: that she couldn't bear looking at him so. + +"All right," said Cochrane. "You're keeping your eyes closed. But I'm +supposed to take orders from you. What sort of orders are you going to +give?" + +"I'm not sure yet," said Holden thinly. "We are sent up here on a +private job for Hopkins--one of your bosses. Hopkins has a daughter. +She's married to a man named Dabney. He's neurotic. He's made a great +scientific discovery and it isn't properly appreciated. So you and I and +your team of tame scientists--we're on our way to the Moon to save his +reason." + +"Why save his reason?" asked Cochrane cynically. "If it makes him happy +to be a crackpot--" + +"It doesn't," said Holden, with his eyes still closed. He gulped. "Your +job and a large part of my practice depends on keeping him out of a +looney-bin. It amounts to a public-relations job, a production, with me +merely censoring aspects that might be bad for Dabney's psyche. +Otherwise he'll be frustrated." + +"Aren't we all?" demanded Cochrane. "Who in hades does he think he is? +Most of us want appreciation, but we have to be glad when we do our work +and get paid for it! We--" + +Then he swore bitterly. He had been taken off the job he'd spent years +learning to do acceptably, to phoney a personal satisfaction for the +son-in-law of one of the partners of the firm he worked for. It was +humiliation to be considered merely a lackey who could be ordered to +perform personal services for his boss, without regard to the damage to +the work he was really responsible for. It was even more humiliating to +know he had to do it because he couldn't afford not to. + +Babs appeared, obviously gloating over the mere fact that she was +walking in magnetic-soled slippers on the steel decks of the space +platform. Her eyes were very bright. She said: + +"Mr. Cochrane, hadn't you better come look at Earth out of the quartz +Earthside windows?" + +"Why?" demanded Cochrane bitterly. "If it wasn't that I'd have to hold +onto something with both hands, in order to do it, I'd be kicking +myself. Why should I want to do tourist stuff?" + +"So," said Babs, "so later on you can tell when a writer or a scenic +designer tries to put something over on you in a space platform show." + +Cochrane grimaced. + +"In theory, I should. But do you realize what all this is about? I just +learned!" When Babs shook her head he said sardonically, "We are on the +way to the Moon to stage a private production out of sheer cruelty. +We're hired to rob a happy man of the luxury of feeling sorry for +himself. We're under Holden's orders to cure a man of being a crackpot!" + +Babs hardly listened. She was too much filled with the zest of being +where she'd never dared hope to be able to go. + +"I wouldn't want to be cured of being a crackpot," protested Cochrane, +"if only I could afford such a luxury! I'd--" + +Babs said urgently: + +"You'll have to hurry, really! They told me it starts in ten minutes, so +I came to find you right away." + +"What starts?" + +"We're in eclipse now," explained Babs, starry-eyed. "We're in the +Earth's shadow. In about five minutes we'll be coming out into sunlight +again, and we'll see the new Earth!" + +"Guarantee that it will be a new Earth," Cochrane said morosely, "and +I'll come. I didn't do too well on the old one." + +But he followed her in all the embarrassment of walking on +magnetic-soled shoes in a total absence of effective gravity. It was +quite a job simply to start off. Without precaution, if he merely tried +to march away from where he was, his feet would walk out from under him +and he'd be left lying on his back in mid-air. Again, to stop without +putting one foot out ahead for a prop would mean that after his feet +paused, his body would continue onward and he would achieve a +full-length face-down flop. And besides, one could not walk with a +regular up-and-down motion, or in seconds he would find his feet +churning emptiness in complete futility. + +Cochrane tried to walk, and then irritably took a hand-rail and hauled +himself along it, with his legs trailing behind him like the tail of a +swimming mermaid. He thought of the simile and was not impressed by his +own dignity. + +Presently Babs halted herself in what was plainly a metal blister in the +outer skin of the platform. There was a round quartz window, showing the +inside of steel-plate windows beyond it. Babs pushed a button marked +"_Shutter_," and the valves of steel drew back. + +Cochrane blinked, lifted even out of his irritableness by the sight +before him. + +He saw the immensity of the heavens, studded with innumerable stars. +Some were brighter than others, and they were of every imaginable color. +Tiny glintings of lurid tint--through the Earth's atmosphere they would +blend into an indefinite faint luminosity--appeared so close together +that there seemed no possible interval. However tiny the appearance of a +gap, one had but to look at it for an instant to perceive infinitesimal +flecks of colored fire there, also. + +Each tiniest glimmering was a sun. But that was not what made Cochrane +catch his breath. + +There was a monstrous space of nothingness immediately before his eyes. +It was round and vast and near. It was black with the utter blackness of +the Pit. It was Earth, seen from its eight-thousand-mile-wide shadow, +unlighted even by the Moon. There was no faintest relief from its +absolute darkness. It was as if, in the midst of the splendor of the +heavens, there was a chasm through which one glimpsed the unthinkable +nothing from which creation was called in the beginning. Until one +realized that this was simply the dark side of Earth, the spectacle was +one of hair-raising horror. + +After a moment Cochrane said with a carefully steadied voice: + +"My most disparaging opinions of Earth were never as black as this!" + +"Wait," said Babs confidently. + +Cochrane waited. He had to hold carefully in his mind that this visible +abyss, this enormity of purest dark, was not an opening into nothingness +but was simply Earth at night as seen from space. + +Then he saw a faint, faint arch of color forming at its edge. It spread +swiftly. Immediately, it seemed, there was a pinkish glowing line among +the multitudinous stars. It was red. It was very, very bright. It became +a complete half-circle. It was the light of the sun refracted around the +edge of the world. + +Within minutes--it seemed in seconds--the line of light was a glory +among the stars. And then, very swiftly, the blazing orb which was the +sun appeared from behind Earth. It was intolerably bright, but it did +not brighten the firmament. It swam among all the myriads of myriads of +suns, burning luridly and in a terrible silence, with visibly writhing +prominences rising from the edge of its disk. Cochrane squinted at it +with light-dazzled eyes. + +Then Babs cried softly: + +"Beautiful! Oh, beautiful!" + +And Cochrane shielded his eyes and saw the world new-born before him. +The arc of light became an arch and then a crescent, and swelled even as +he looked. Dawn flowed below the space platform, and it seemed that seas +and continents and clouds and beauty poured over the disk of darkness +before him. + +He stood here, staring, until the steel shutters slowly closed. Babs +said in regret: + +"You have to keep your hand on the button to keep the shutters open. +Else the window might get pitted with dust." + +Cochrane said cynically: + +"And how much good will it have done me to see that, Babs? How can that +be faked in a studio--and how much would a television screen show of +it?" + +He turned away. Then he added sourly: + +"You stay and look if you like, Babs. I've already had my vanity smashed +to little bits. If I look at that again I'll want to weep in pure +frustration because I can't do anything even faintly as well worth +watching. I prefer to cut down my notions of the cosmos to a tolerable +size. But you go ahead and look!" + +He went back to Holden. Holden was painfully dragging himself back into +the rocket-ship. Cochrane went with him. They returned, weightless, to +the admirably designed contour-chairs in which they had traveled to this +place, and in which they would travel farther. Cochrane settled down to +stare numbly at the wall above him. He had been humiliated enough by the +actions of one of the heads of an advertising agency. He found himself +resenting, even as he experienced, the humbling which had been imposed +upon him by the cosmos itself. + +Presently the other passengers returned, and the moonship was maneuvered +out of the lock and to emptiness again, and again presently rockets +roared and there was further feeling of intolerable weight. But it was +not as bad as the take-off from Earth. + +There followed some ninety-six hours of pure tedium. After the first +accelerating blasts, the rockets were silent. There was no weight. +There was nothing to hear except the droning murmur of unresting +electric fans, stirring the air ceaselessly so that excess moisture from +breathing could be extracted by the dehumidifiers. But for them--if the +air had been left stagnant--the journey would have been insupportable. + +There was nothing to see, because ports opening on outer space were not +safe for passengers to look through. Mere humans, untrained to keep +their minds on technical matters, could break down at the spectacle of +the universe. There could be no activity. + +Some of the passengers took dozy-pills. Cochrane did not. It was against +the law for dozy-pills to produce a sensation of euphoria, of +well-being. The law considered that pleasure might lead to addiction. +But if a pill merely made a person drowsy, so that he dozed for hours +halfway between sleeping and awake, no harm appeared to be done. Yet +there were plenty of dozy-pill addicts. Many people were not especially +anxious to feel good. They were quite satisfied not to feel anything at +all. + +Cochrane couldn't take that way of escape. He lay strapped in his chair +and thought unhappily of many things. He came to feel unclean, as people +used to feel when they traveled for days on end on railroad trains. +There was no possibility of a bath. One could not even change clothes, +because baggage went separately to the moon in a robot freight-rocket, +which was faster and cheaper than a passenger transport, but would kill +anybody who tried to ride it. Fifteen-and twenty-gravity acceleration is +economical of fuel, and six-gravity is not, but nobody can live through +a twenty-gravity lift-off from Earth. So passengers stayed in the +clothes in which they entered the ship, and the only possible concession +to fastidiousness was the disposable underwear one could get and change +to in the rest-rooms. + +Babs Deane did not take dozy-pills either, but Cochrane knew better than +to be more than remotely friendly with her outside of office hours. He +did not want to give her any excuse to tell him anything for his own +good. So he spoke pleasantly and kept company only with his own +thoughts. But he did notice that she looked rapt and starry-eyed even +through the long and dreary hours of free flight. She was mentally +tracking the moonship through the void. She'd know when the continents +of Earth were plain to see, and the tints of vegetation on the two +hemispheres--northern and southern--and she'd know when Earth's +ice-caps could be seen, and why. + +The stewardess was not too much of a diversion. She was brisk and calm +and soothing, but she became a trifle reluctant to draw too near the +chairs in which her passengers rode. Presently Cochrane made deductions +and maliciously devised a television commercial. In it, a moon-rocket +stewardess, in uniform and looking fresh and charming, would say sweetly +that she went without bathing for days at a time on moon-trips, and did +not offend because she used whoosit's antistinkum. And then he thought +pleasurably of the heads that would roll did such a commercial actually +get on the air. + +But he didn't make plans for the production-job he'd been sent to the +moon to do. Psychiatry was specialized, these days, as physical medicine +had been before it. An extremely expensive diagnostician had been sent +to the moon to tap Dabney's reflexes, and he'd gravely diagnosed +frustration and suggested young Dr. Holden for the curative treatment. +Frustration was the typical neurosis of the rich, anyhow, and Bill +Holden had specialized in its cure. His main reliance was on the making +of a dramatic production centering about his patient, which was +expensive enough and effective enough to have made him a quick +reputation. But he couldn't tell Cochrane what was required of him. Not +yet. He knew the disease but not the case. He'd have to see and know +Dabney before he could make use of the extra-special production-crew his +patient's father-in-law had provided from the staff of Kursten, Kasten, +Hopkins and Fallowe. + +Ninety-some hours after blast-off from the space platform, the +rocket-ship turned end for end and began to blast to kill its velocity +toward the moon. It began at half-gravity--the red glowing sign gave +warning of it--and rose to one gravity and then to two. After days of +no-weight, two gravities was punishing. + +Cochrane thought to look at Babs. She was rapt, lost in picturings of +what must be outside the ship, which she could not see. She'd be +imagining what the television screens had shown often enough, from +film-tapes. The great pock marked face of Luna, with its ring-mountains +in incredible numbers and complexity, and the vast open "seas" which +were solidified oceans of lava, would be clear to her mind's eye. She +would be imagining the gradual changes of the moon's face with nearness, +when the colorings appear. From a distance all the moon seems tan or +sandy in tint. When one comes closer, there are tawny reds and +slate-colors in the mountain-cliffs, and even blues and yellows, and +everywhere there is the ashy, whitish-tan color of the moondust. + +Glancing at her, absorbed in her satisfaction, Cochrane suspected that +with only half an excuse she would explain to him how the several +hundreds of degrees difference in the surface-temperature of the moon +between midnight and noon made rocks split and re-split and fracture so +that stuff as fine as talcum powder covered every space not too sharply +tilted for it to rest on. + +The feeling of deceleration increased. For part of a second they had the +sensation of three gravities. + +Then there was a curious, yielding jar--really very slight--and then the +feeling of excess weight ended altogether. But not the feeling of +weight. They still had weight. It was constant. It was steady. But it +was very slight. + +They were on the moon, but Cochrane felt no elation. In the tedious +hours from the space platform he'd thought too much. He was actually +aware of the humiliations and frustrations most men had to conceal from +themselves because they couldn't afford expensive psychiatric +treatments. Frustration was the disease of all humanity, these days. And +there was nothing that could be done about it. Nothing! It simply wasn't +possible to rebel, and rebellion is the process by which humiliation and +frustration is cured. But one could not rebel against the plain fact +that Earth had more people on it than one planet could support. + +Merely arriving at the moon did not seem an especially useful +achievement, either to Cochrane or to humanity at large. + +Things looked bad. + + + + +CHAPTER TWO + + +Cochrane stood when the stewardess' voice authorized the action. With +sardonic docility he unfastened his safety-belt and stepped out into the +spiral, descending aisle. It seemed strange to have weight again, even +as little as this. Cochrane weighed, on the moon, just one-sixth of what +he would weigh on Earth. Here he would tip a spring-scale at just about +twenty-seven pounds. By flexing his toes, he could jump. Absurdly, he +did. And he rose very slowly, and hovered--feeling singularly +foolish--and descended with a vast deliberation. He landed on the ramp +again feeling absurd indeed. He saw Babs grinning at him. + +"I think," said Cochrane, "I'll have to take up toe-dancing." + +She laughed. Then there were clankings, and something fastened itself +outside, and after a moment the entrance-door of the moonship opened. + +They went down the ramp to board the moon-jeep, holding onto the +hand-rail and helping each other. The tourist giggled foolishly. They +went out the thick doorway and found themselves in an enclosure very +much like the interior of a rather small submarine. But it did have +shielded windows--ports--and Babs instantly pulled herself into a seat +beside one and feasted her eyes. She saw the jagged peaks nearby and the +crenelated ring-mountain wall, miles off to one side, and the smooth +frozen lava of the "sea." Across that dusty surface the horizon was +remarkably near, and Cochrane remembered vaguely that the moon was only +one-fourth the size of Earth, so its horizon would naturally be nearer. +He glanced at the stars that shone even through the glass that denatured +the sunshine. And then he looked for Holden. + +The psychiatrist looked puffy and sleepy and haggard and disheveled. +When a person does have space-sickness, even a little weight relieves +the symptoms, but the consequences last for days. + +"Don't worry!" he said sourly when he saw Cochrane's eyes upon him. "I +won't waste any time! I'll find my man and get to work at once. Just let +me get back to Earth...." + +There were more clankings--the jeep-bus sealing off from the rocket. +Then the vehicle stirred. The landscape outside began to move. + +They saw Lunar City as they approached it. It was five giant dust-heaps, +from five hundred-odd feet in height down to three. There were airlocks +at their bases and dust-covered tunnels connecting them, and radar-bowls +about their sides. But they were dust-heaps. Which was completely +reasonable. There is no air on the moon. By day the sun shines down with +absolute ferocity. It heats everything as with a furnace-flame. At night +all heat radiates away to empty space, and the ground-temperature drops +well below that of liquid air. So Lunar City was a group of domes which +were essentially half-balloons--hemispheres of plastic brought from +Earth and inflated and covered with dust. With airlocks to permit +entrance and exit, they were inhabitable. They needed no framework to +support them because there were no stormwinds or earthquakes to put +stresses on them. They needed neither heating nor cooling equipment. +They were buried under forty feet of moon-dust, with vacuum between the +dust-grains. Lunar City was not beautiful, but human beings could live +in it. + +The jeep-bus carried them a bare half mile, and they alighted inside a +lock, and another door and another opened and closed, and they emerged +into a scene which no amount of television film-tape could really +portray. + +The main dome was a thousand feet across and half as high. There were +green plants growing in tubs and pots. And the air was fresh! It smelled +strange. There could be no vegetation on the rocket and it seemed new +and blissful to breathe really freshened air after days of the canned +variety. But this freshness made Cochrane realize that he'd feel better +for a bath. + +He took a shower in his hotel room. The room was very much like one on +Earth, except that it had no windows. But the shower was strange. The +sprays were tiny. Cochrane felt as if he were being sprayed by atomizers +rather than shower-nozzles until he noticed that water ran off him very +slowly and realized that a normal shower would have been overwhelming. +He scooped up a handful of water and let it drop. It took a full second +to fall two and a half feet. + +It was unsettling, but fresh clothing from his waiting baggage made him +feel better. He went to the lounge of the hotel, and it was not a +lounge, and the hotel was not a hotel. Everything in the dome was +indoors in the sense that it was under a globular ceiling fifty stories +high. But everything was also out-doors in the sense of bright light and +growing trees and bushes and shrubs. + +He found Babs freshly garmented and waiting for him. She said in +businesslike tones: + +"Mr. Cochrane, I asked at the desk. Doctor Holden has gone to consult +Mr. Dabney. He asked that we stay within call. I've sent word to Mr. +West and Mr. Jamison and Mr. Bell." + +Cochrane approved of her secretarial efficiency. + +"Then we'll sit somewhere and wait. Since this isn't an office, we'll +find some refreshment." + +They asked for a table and got one near the swimming pool. And Babs wore +her office manner, all crispness and business, until they were seated. +But this swimming pool was not like a pool on Earth. The water was +deeply sunk beneath the pool's rim, and great waves surged back and +forth. The swimmers--. + +Babs gasped. A man stood on a board quite thirty feet above the water. +He prepared to dive. + +"That's Johnny Simms!" she said, awed. + +"Who's he?" + +"The playboy," said Babs, staring. "He's a psychopathic personality and +his family has millions. They keep him up here out of trouble. He's +married." + +"Too bad--if he has millions," said Cochrane. + +"I wouldn't marry a man with a psychopathic personality!" protested +Babs. + +"Keep away from people in the advertising business, then," Cochrane told +her. + +Johnny Simms did not jounce up and down on the diving board to start. He +simply leaped upward, and went ceilingward for easily fifteen feet, and +hung stationary for a full breath, and then began to descend in literal +slow motion. He fell only two and a half feet the first second, and five +feet more the one after, and twelve and a half after that.... It took +him over four seconds to drop forty-five feet into the water, and the +splash that arose when he struck the surface rose four yards and +subsided with a lunatic deliberation. + +Watching, Babs could not keep her businesslike demeanor. She was +bursting with the joyous knowledge that she was on the moon, seeing the +impossible and looking at fame. + +They sipped at drinks--but the liquid rose much too swiftly in the +straws--and Cochrane reflected that the drink in Babs' glass would cost +Dabney's father-in-law as much as Babs earned in a week back home, and +his own was costing no less. + +Presently a written note came from Holden: + +"_Jed: send West and Jamison right away to Dabney's lunar laboratory to +get details of discovery from man named Jones. Get moon-jeep and driver +from hotel. I will want you in an hour.--Bill._" + +"I'll be back," said Cochrane. "Wait." + +He left the table and found West and Jamison in Bell's room, all three +in conference over a bottle. West and Jamison were Cochrane's scientific +team for the yet unformulated task he was to perform. West was the +popularizing specialist. He could make a television audience believe +that it understood all the seven dimensions required for some branches +of wave-mechanics theory. His explanation did not stick, of course. One +didn't remember them. But they were singularly convincing in cultural +episodes on television productions. Jamison was the prophecy expert. He +could extrapolate anything into anything else, and make you believe that +a one-week drop in the birthdate on Kamchatka was the beginning of a +trend that would leave the Earth depopulated in exactly four hundred and +seventy-three years. They were good men for a television producer to +have on call. Now, instructed, they went out to be briefed by somebody +who undoubtedly knew more than both of them put together, but whom they +would regard with tolerant suspicion. + +Bell, left behind, said cagily: + +"This script I've got to do, now--Will that laboratory be the set? Where +is it? In the dome?" + +"It's not in the dome," Cochrane told him. "West and Jamison took a +moon-jeep to get to it. I don't know what the set will be. I don't know +anything, yet. I'm waiting to be told about the job, myself." + +"If I've got to cook up a story-line," observed Bell, "I have to know +the set. Who'll act? You know how amateurs can ham up any script! How +about a part for Babs? Nice kid!" + +Cochrane found himself annoyed, without knowing why. + +"We just have to wait until we know what our job is," he said curtly, +and turned to go. + +Bell said: + +"One more thing. If you're planning to use a news cameraman up +here--don't! I used to be a cameraman before I got crazy and started to +write. Let me do the camera-work. I've got a better idea of using a +camera to tell a story now, than--" + +"Hold it," said Cochrane. "We're not up here to film-tape a show. Our +job is psychiatry--craziness." + +To a self-respecting producer, a psychiatric production would seem +craziness. A script-writer might have trouble writing out a +psychiatrist's prescription, or he might not. But producing it would be +out of all rationality! No camera, the patient would be the star, and +most lines would be ad libbed. Cochrane viewed such a production with +extreme distaste. But of course, if a man wanted only to be famous, it +might be handled as a straight public-relations job. In any case, +though, it would amount to flattery in three dimensions and Cochrane +would rather have no part in it. But he had to arrange the whole thing. + +He went back to the table and rejoined Babs. She confided that she'd +been talking to Johnny Simms' wife. She was nice! But homesick. Cochrane +sat down and thought morbid thoughts. Then he realized that he was +irritated because Babs didn't notice. He finished his drink and ordered +another. + +Half an hour later, Holden found them. He had in tow a sad-looking +youngish man with a remarkably narrow forehead and an expression of deep +anxiety. Cochrane winced. A neurotic type if there ever was one! + +"Jed," said Holden heartily, "here's Mr. Dabney. Mr. Dabney, Jed +Cochrane is here as a specialist in public-relations set-ups. He'll take +charge of this affair. Your father-in-law sent him up here to see that +you are done justice to!" + +Dabney seemed to think earnestly before he spoke. + +"It is not for myself," he explained in an anxious tone. "It is my work! +That is important! After all, this is a fundamental scientific +discovery! But nobody pays any attention! It is extremely important! +Extremely! Science itself is held back by the lack of attention paid to +my discovery!" + +"Which," Holden assured him, "is about to be changed. It's a matter of +public relations. Jed's a specialist. He'll take over." + +The sad-faced young man held up his hand for attention. He thought. +Visibly. Then he said worriedly: + +"I would take you over to my laboratory, but I promised my wife I would +call her in half an hour from now. Johnny Simms' wife just reminded me. +My wife is back on Earth. So you will have to go to the laboratory +without me and have Mr. Jones show you the proof of my work. A very +intelligent man, Jones--in a subordinate way, of course. Yes. I will get +you a jeep and you can go there at once, and when you come back you can +tell me what you plan. But you understand that it is not for myself that +I want credit! It is my discovery! It is terribly important! It is +vital! It must not be overlooked!" + +Holden escorted him away, while Cochrane carefully controlled his +features. After a few moments Holden came back, his face sagging. + +"This your drink, Jed?" he asked dispiritedly. "I need it!" He picked up +the glass and emptied it. "The history of that case would be +interesting, if one could really get to the bottom of it! Come along!" +His tone was dreariness itself. "I've got a jeep waiting for us." + +Babs stood up, her eyes shining. + +"May I come, Mr. Cochrane?" + +Cochrane waved her along. Holden tried to stalk gloomily, but nobody can +stalk in one-sixth gravity. He reeled, and then depressedly accommodated +himself to conditions on the moon. + +There was an airlock with a smaller edition of the moon-jeep that had +brought them from the ship to the city. It was a brightly-polished metal +body, raised some ten feet off the ground on outrageously large wheels. +It was very similar to the straddle-trucks used in lumberyards on Earth. +It would straddle boulders in its path. It could go anywhere in spite of +dust and detritus, and its metal body was air-tight and held air for +breathing, even out on the moon's surface. + +They climbed in. There was the sound of pumping, which grew fainter. The +outer lock-door opened. The moon-jeep rolled outside. + +Babs stared with passionate rapture out of a shielded port. There were +impossibly jagged stones, preposterously steep cliffs. There had been no +weather to remove the sharp edge of anything in a hundred million years. +The awkward-seeming vehicle trundled over the lava sea toward the +rampart of mighty mountains towering over Lunar City. It reached a steep +ascent. It climbed. And the way was remarkably rough and the vehicle +springless, but it was nevertheless a cushioned ride. A bump cannot be +harsh in light gravity. The vehicle rode as if on wings. + +"All right," said Cochrane. "Tell me the worst. What's the trouble with +him? Is he the result of six generations of keeping the money in the +family? Or is he a freak?" + +Holden groaned a little. + +"He's practically a stock model of a rich young man without brains +enough for a job in the family firm, and too much money for anything +else. Fortunately for his family, he didn't react like Johnny +Simms--though they're good friends. A hundred years ago, Dabney'd have +gone in for the arts. But it's hard to fool yourself that way now. Fifty +years ago he'd have gone in for left-wing sociology. But we really are +doing the best that can be done with too many people and not enough +world. So he went in for science. It's non-competitive. Incapacity +doesn't show up. But he has stumbled on something. It sounds really +important. It must have been an accident! The only trouble is that it +doesn't mean a thing! Yet because he's accomplished more than he ever +expected to, he's frustrated because it's not appreciated! What a joke!" + +Cochrane said cynically: + +"You paint a dark picture, Bill. Are you trying to make this thing into +a challenge?" + +"You can't make a man famous for discovering something that doesn't +matter," said Holden hopelessly. "And this is that!" + +"Nothing's impossible to public relations if you spend enough money," +Cochrane assured him. "What's this useless triumph of his?" + +The jeep bounced over a small cliff and fell gently for half a second +and rolled on. Babs beamed. + +"He's found," said Holden discouragedly, "a way to send messages faster +than light. It's a detour around Einstein's stuff--not denying it, but +evading it. Right now it takes not quite two seconds for a message to go +from the moon to Earth. That's at the speed of light. Dabney has +proof--we'll see it--that he can cut that down some ninety-five per +cent. Only it can't be used for Earth-moon communication, because both +ends have to be in a vacuum. It could be used to the space platform, +but--what's the difference? It's a real discovery for which there's no +possible use. There's no place to send messages to!" + +Cochrane's eyes grew bright and hard. There were some three thousand +million suns in the immediate locality of Earth--and more only a +relatively short distance way--and it had not mattered to anybody. The +situation did not seem likely to change. But--The moon-jeep climbed and +climbed. It was a mile above the bay of the lava sea and the dust-heaps +that were a city. It looked like ten miles, because of the curve of the +horizon. The mountains all about looked like a madman's dream. + +"But he wants appreciation!" said Holden angrily. "People on Earth +almost trampling on each other for lack of room, and people like me +trying to keep them sane when they've every reason for despair--and he +wants appreciation!" + +Cochrane grinned. He whistled softly. + +"Never underestimate a genius, Bill," he said kindly. "I refer modestly +to myself. In two weeks your patient--I'll guarantee it--will be +acclaimed the hope, the blessing, the greatest man in all the history of +humanity! It'll be phoney, of course, but we'll have Marilyn +Winters--Little Aphrodite herself--making passes at him in hopes of a +publicity break! It's a natural!" + +"How'll you do it?" demanded Holden. + +The moon-jeep turned in its crazy, bumping progress. A flat area had +been blasted in rock which had been unchanged since the beginning of +time. Here there was a human structure. Typically, it was a dust-heap +leaning against a cliff. There was an airlock and another jeep waited +outside, and there were eccentric metal devices on the flat space, +shielded from direct sunshine and with cables running to them from the +airlock door. + +"How?" repeated Cochrane. "I'll get the details here. Let's go! How do +we manage?" + +It was a matter, he discovered, of vacuum-suits, and they were tricky to +get into and felt horrible when one was in. Struggling, Cochrane thought +to say: + +"You can wait here in the jeep, Babs--" + +But she was already climbing into a suit very much oversized for her, +with the look of high excitement that Cochrane had forgotten anybody +could wear. + +They got out of a tiny airlock that held just one person at a time. They +started for the laboratory. And suddenly Cochrane saw Babs staring +upward through the dark, almost-opaque glass that a space-suit-helmet +needs in the moon's daytime if its occupant isn't to be fried by +sunlight. Cochrane automatically glanced up too. + +He saw Earth. It hung almost in mid-sky. It was huge. It was gigantic. +It was colossal. It was four times the diameter of the moon as seen from +Earth, and it covered sixteen times as much of the sky. Its continents +were plain to see, and its seas, and the ice-caps at its poles gleamed +whitely, and over all of it there was a faintly bluish haze which was +like a glamour; a fey and eerie veiling which made Earth a sight to draw +at one's heart-strings. + +Behind it and all about it there was the background of space, so thickly +jeweled with stars that there seemed no room for another tiny gem. + +Cochrane looked. He said nothing. Holden stumbled on to the airlock. He +remembered to hold the door open for Babs. + +And then there was the interior of the laboratory. It was not wholly +familiar even to Cochrane, who had used sets on the Dikkipatti Hour of +most of the locations in which human dramas can unfold. This was a +physics laboratory, pure and simple. The air smelled of ozone and +spilled acid and oil and food and tobacco-smoke and other items. West +and Jamison were already here, their space-suits removed. They sat +before beer at a table with innumerable diagrams scattered about. There +was a deep-browed man rather impatiently turning to face his new +visitors. + +Holden clumsily unfastened the face-plate of his helmet and gloomily +explained his mission. He introduced Cochrane and Babs, verifying in the +process that the dark man was the Jones he had come to see. A physics +laboratory high in the fastnesses of the Lunar Apennines is an odd place +for a psychiatrist to introduce himself on professional business. But +Holden only explained unhappily that Dabney had sent them to learn about +his discovery and arrange for a public-relations job to make it known. + +Cochrane saw Jones' expression flicker sarcastically just once during +Holden's explanation. Otherwise he was poker-faced. + +"I was explaining the discovery to these two," he observed. + +"Shoot it," said Cochrane to West. It was reasonable to ask West for an +explanation, because he would translate everything into televisable +terms. + +West said briskly--exactly as if before a television camera--that Mr. +Dabney had started from the well-known fact that the properties of space +are modified by energy fields. Magnetic and gravitational and +electrostatic fields rotate polarized light or bend light or do this or +that as the case may be. But all previous modifications of the constants +of space had been in essentially spherical fields. All previous fields +had extended in all directions, increasing in intensity as the square of +the distance ... + +"Cut," said Cochrane. + +West automatically abandoned his professional delivery. He placidly +re-addressed himself to his beer. + +"How about it, Jones?" asked Cochrane. "Dabney's got a variation? What +is it?" + +"It's a field of force that doesn't spread out. You set up two plates +and establish this field between them," said Jones curtly. "It's +circularly polarized and it doesn't expand. It's like a searchlight beam +or a microwave beam, and it stays the same size like a pipe. In that +field--or pipe--radiation travels faster than it does outside. The +properties of space are changed between the plates. Therefore the speed +of all radiation. That's all." + +Cochrane meditatively seated himself. He approved of this Jones, whose +eyebrows practically met in the middle of his forehead. He was not more +polite than politeness required. He did not express employer-like +rapture at the mention of his employer's name. + +"But what can be done with it?" asked Cochrane practically. + +"Nothing," said Jones succinctly. "It changes the properties of space, +but that's all. Can you think of any use for a faster-than-light +radiation-pipe? I can't." + +Cochrane cocked an eye at Jamison, who could extrapolate at the drop of +an equation. But Jamison shook his head. + +"Communication between planets," he said morosely, "when we get to them. +Chats between sweethearts on Earth and Pluto. Broadcasts to the stars +when we find that another one's set up a similar plate and is ready to +chat with us. There's nothing else." + +Cochrane waved his hand. It is good policy to put a specialist in his +place, occasionally. + +"Demonstration?" he asked Jones. + +"There are plates across the crater out yonder," said Jones without +emotion. "Twenty miles clear reach. I can send a message across and get +it relayed twice and back through two angles in about five per cent of +the time radiation ought to take." + +Cochrane said with benign cynicism: + +"Jamison, you work by guessing where you can go. Jones works by guessing +where he is. But this is a public relations job. I don't know where we +are or where we can go, but I know where we want to take this thing." + +Jones looked at him. Not hostilely, but with the detached interest of a +man accustomed to nearly exact science, when he watches somebody work in +one of the least precise of them all. + +Holden said: + +"You mean you've worked out some sort of production." + +"No production," said Cochrane blandly. "It isn't necessary. A straight +public-relations set-up. We concoct a story and then let it leak out. We +make it so good that even the people who don't believe it can't help +spreading it." He nodded at Jamison. "Right now, Jamison, we want a +theory that the sending of radiation at twenty times the speed of light +means that there is a way to send matter faster than light--as soon as +we work it out. It means that the inertia-mass which increases with +speed--Einstein's stuff--is not a property of matter, but of space, just +as the air-resistance that increases when an airplane goes faster is a +property of air and not of the plane. Maybe we need to work out a theory +that all inertia is a property of space. We'll see if we need that. But +anyhow, just as a plane can go faster in thin air, so matter--any +matter--will move faster in this field as soon as we get the trick of +it. You see?" + +Holden shook his head. + +"What's that got in it to make Dabney famous?" he asked. + +"Jamison will extrapolate from there," Cochrane assured him. "Go ahead, +Jamison. You're on." + +Jamison said promptly, with the hypnotic smoothness of the practiced +professional: + +"When this development has been completed, not only will messages be +sent at multiples of the speed of light, but matter! Ships! The barrier +to the high destiny of mankind; the limitation of our race to a single +planet of a minor sun--these handicaps crash and will shatter as the +great minds of humanity bend their efforts to make the Dabney +faster-than-light principle the operative principle of our ships. There +are thousands of millions of suns in our galaxy, and not less than one +in three has planets, and among these myriads of unknown worlds there +will be thousands with seas and land and clouds and continents, fit for +men to enter upon, there to rear their cities. There will be starships +roaming distant sun-clusters, and landing on planets in the Milky Way. +We ourselves will see freight-lines to Rigel and Arcturus, and journey +on passenger-liners singing through the void to Andromeda and Aldebaran! +Dabney has made the first breach in the barrier to the illimitable +greatness of humanity!" + +Then he stopped and said professionally: + +"I can polish that up a bit, of course. All right?" + +"Fair," conceded Cochrane. He turned to Holden. "How about a +public-relations job on that order? Won't that sort of publicity meet +the requirements? Will your patient be satisfied with that grade of +appreciation?" + +Holden drew a deep breath. He said unsteadily: + +"As a neurotic personality, he won't require that it be true. All he'll +want is the seeming. But--Jed, could it be really true? Could it?" + +Cochrane laughed unpleasantly. He did not admire himself. His laughter +showed it. + +"What do you want?" he demanded. "You got me a job I didn't want. You +shoved it down my throat! Now there's the way to get it done! What more +can you ask?" + +Holden winced. Then he said heavily: + +"I'd like for it to be true." + +Jones moved suddenly. He said in an oddly surprised voice: + +"D'you know, it can be! I didn't realize! It can be true! I can make a +ship go faster than light!" + +Cochrane said with exquisite irony: + +"Thanks, but we don't need it. We aren't getting paid for that! All we +need is a modicum of appreciation for a neurotic son-in-law of a partner +of Kursten, Kasten, Hopkins and Fallowe! A public-relations job is all +that's required. You give West the theory, and Jamison will do the +prophecy, and Bell will write it out." + +Jones said calmly: + +"I will like hell! Look! I discovered this faster-than-light field in +the first place! I sold it to Dabney because he wanted to be famous! I +got my pay and he can keep it! But if he can't understand it himself, +even to lecture about it ... Do you think I'm going to throw in some +extra stuff I noticed, that I can fit into that theory but nobody else +can--Do you think I'm going to give him starships as a bonus?" + +Holden said, nodding, with his lips twisted: + +"I should have figured that! He bought his great discovery from you, eh? +And that's what he gets frustrated about!" + +Cochrane snapped: + +"I thought you psychiatrists knew the facts of life, Bill! Dabney's not +unusual in my business! He's almost a typical sponsor!" + +"When you ask me to throw away starships," said Jones coldly, "for a +publicity feature, I don't play. I won't take the credit for the field +away from Dabney. I sold him that with my eyes open. But starships are +more important than a fool's hankering to be famous! He'd never try it! +He'd be afraid it wouldn't work! I don't play!" + +Holden said stridently: + +"I don't give a damn about any deal you made with Dabney! But if you can +get us to the stars--all us humans who need it--you've got to!" + +Jones said, again calmly: + +"I'm willing. Make me an offer--not cash, but a chance to do something +real--not just a trick for a neurotic's ego!" + +Cochrane grinned at him very peculiarly. + +"I like your approach. You've got illusions. They're nice things to +have. I wouldn't mind having some myself. Bill," he said to Dr. William +Holden, "how much nerve has Dabney?" + +"Speaking unprofessionally," said Holden, "he's a worm with wants. He +hasn't anything but cravings. Why?" + +Cochrane grinned again, his head cocked on one side. + +"He wouldn't take part in an enterprise to reach the stars, would he?" +When Holden shook his head, Cochrane said zestfully, "I'd guess that the +peak of his ambition would be to have the credit for it if it worked, +but he wouldn't risk being associated with it until it had worked! +Right?" + +"Right," said Holden. "I said he was a worm. What're you driving at?" + +"I'm outlining what you're twisting my arm to make me do," said +Cochrane, "in case you haven't noticed. Bill, if Jones can really make +a ship go faster than light--" + +"I can," repeated Jones. "I simply didn't think of the thing in +connection with travel. I only thought of it for signalling." + +"Then," said Cochrane, "I'm literally forced, for Dabney's sake, to do +something that he'd scream shrilly at if he heard about it. We're going +to have a party, Bill! A party after your and my and Jones' hearts!" + +"What do you mean?" demanded Holden. + +"We make a production after all," said Cochrane, grinning. "We are going +to take Dabney's discovery--the one he bought publicity rights to--very +seriously indeed. I'm going to get him acclaim. First we break a story +of what Dabney's field means for the future of mankind--and then we +prove it! We take a journey to the stars! Want to make your reservations +now?" + +"You mean," said West incredulously, "a genuine trip? Why?" + +Cochrane snapped at him suddenly. + +"Because I can't kid myself any more," he rasped. "I've found out how +little I count in the world and the estimation of Kursten, Kasten, +Hopkins and Fallowe! I've found out I'm only a little man when I thought +I was a big one, and I won't take it! Now I've got an excuse to try to +be a big man! That's reason enough, isn't it?" + +Then he glared around the small laboratory under the dust-heap. He was +irritated because he did not feel splendid emotions after making a +resolution and a plan which ought to go down in history--if it worked. +He wasn't uplifted. He wasn't aware of any particular feeling of being +the instrument of destiny or anything else. He simply felt peevish and +annoyed and obstinate about trying the impossible trick. + +It annoyed him additionally, perhaps, to see the expression of +starry-eyed admiration on Babs' face as she looked at him across the +untidy laboratory table, cluttered up with beer-cans. + + + + +CHAPTER THREE + + +It is a matter of record that the American continents were discovered +because ice-boxes were unknown in the fifteenth century. There being no +refrigeration, meat did not keep. But meat was not too easy to come by, +so it had to be eaten, even when it stank. Therefore it was a noble +enterprise, and to the glory of the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon, to +put up the financial backing for even a crackpot who might get spices +cheaper and thereby make the consumption of slightly spoiled meat less +unpleasant. Which was why Columbus got three ships and crews of +jailbirds for them from a government still busy trying to drive the +Moors out of the last corner of Spain. + +This was a precedent for the matter on hand now. Cochrane happened to +know the details about Columbus because he'd checked over the research +when he did a show on the Dikkipatti Hour dealing with him. There were +more precedents. The elaborate bargain by which Columbus was to be made +hereditary High Admiral of the Western Oceans, with a bite of all +revenue obtained by the passage he was to discover--he had to hold out +for such terms to make the package he was selling look attractive. +Nobody buys anything that is underpriced too much. It looks phoney. So +Cochrane made his preliminaries rather more impressive than they need +have been from a strictly practical point of view, in order to make the +enterprise practical from a financial aspect. + +There was another precedent he did not intend to follow. Columbus did +not know where he was going when he set sail, he did not know where he +was when he arrived at the end of his voyage, and he didn't know where +he'd been when he got back. Cochrane expected to improve on the +achievement of the earlier explorer's doings in these respects. + +He commandeered the legal department of Kursten, Kasten, Hopkins, and +Fallowe to set up the enterprise with strict legality and discretion. +There came into being a corporation called "Spaceways, Inc." which could +not possibly be considered phoney from any inspection of its charter. +Expert legal advice arranged that its actual stock-holders should appear +to be untraceable. Deft manipulation contrived that though its stock was +legally vested in Cochrane and Holden and Jones--Cochrane negligently +threw in Jones as a convenient name to use--and they were officially the +owners of nearly all the stock, nobody who checked up would believe they +were anything but dummies. Stockholdings in West's, and Jamison's and +Bell's names would look like smaller holdings held for other than the +main entrepreneurs. But these stock-holders were not only the legal +owners of record--they were the true owners. Kursten, Kasten, Hopkins +and Fallowe wanted no actual part of Spaceways. They considered the +enterprise merely a psychiatric treatment for a neurotic son-in-law. +Which, of course, it was. So Spaceways, Inc., quite honestly and validly +belonged to the people who would cure Dabney of his frustration--and +nobody at all believed that it would ever do anything else. Not anybody +but those six owners, anyhow. And as it turned out, not all of them. + +The psychiatric treatment began with an innocent-seeming news-item from +Lunar City saying that Dabney, the so-and-so scientist, had consented to +act as consulting physicist to Spaceways, Inc., for the practical +application of his recent discovery of a way to send messages faster +than light. + +This was news simply because it came from the moon. It got fairly wide +distribution, but no emphasis. + +Then the publicity campaign broke. On orders from Cochrane, Jamison the +extrapolating genius got slightly plastered, in company with the two +news-association reporters in Lunar City. He confided that Spaceways, +Inc., had been organized and was backed to develop the Dabney +faster-than-light-signalling field into a faster-than-light-travel +field. The news men pumped him of all his extrapolations. Cynically, +they checked to see who might be preparing to unload stock. They found +no preparations for stock-sales. No registration of the company for +raising funds. It wasn't going to the public for money. It wasn't +selling anybody anything. Then Cochrane refused to see any reporters at +all, everybody connected with the enterprise shut up tighter than a +clam, and Jamison vanished into a hotel room where he was kept occupied +with beverages and food at Dabney's father-in-law's expense. None of +this was standard for a phoney promotion deal. + +The news story exploded. Let loose on an overcrowded planet which had +lost all hope of relief after fifty years in which only the moon had +been colonized--and its colony had a population in the hundreds, +only--the idea of faster-than-light travel was the one impossible dream +that everybody wanted to believe in. The story spread in a manner that +could only be described as chain-reaction in character. And of course +Dabney--as the scientist responsible for the new hope--became known to +all peoples. + +The experts of Kursten, Kasten, Hopkins and Fallowe checked on the +publicity given to Dabney. Strict advertising agency accounting figured +that to date the cost-per-customer-mention of Dabney and his discovery +were the lowest in the history of advertising. Surveys disclosed that +within three Earth-days less than 3.5 of every hundred interviews +questioned were completely ignorant of Dabney and the prospect of travel +to the stars through his discovery. More people knew Dabney's name than +knew the name of the President of the United States! + +That was only the beginning. The leading popular-science show jumped +eight points in audience-rating. It actually reached top-twenty rating +when it assigned a regular five-minute period to the Dabney Field and +its possibilities in human terms. On the sixth day after Jamison's +calculated indiscretion, the public consciousness was literally +saturated with the idea of faster-than-light transportation. Dabney was +mentioned in every interview of every stuffed shirt, he was referred +to on every comedy show (three separate jokes had been invented, which +were developed into one thousand eight hundred switcheroos, most +of them only imperceptibly different from the original trio) and +even Marilyn Winters--Little Aphrodite Herself--was demanding a +faster-than-light-travel sequence in her next television show. + +On the seventh day Bill Holden came into the office where Cochrane +worked feverishly. + +"Doctor Cochrane," said Holden, "a word with you!" + +"Doctor?" asked Cochrane. + +"Doctor!" repeated Holden. "I've just been interviewing my patient. +You're good. My patient is adjusted." + +Cochrane raised his eyebrows. + +"He's famous," said Holden grimly. "He now considers that everybody in +the world knows that he is a great scientist. He is appreciated. He is +happily making plans to go back to Earth and address a few learned +societies and let people admire him. He can now spend the rest of his +life being the man who discovered the principle by which +faster-than-light-travel will some day be achieved. Even when the furor +dies down, he will have been a great man--and he will stay a great man +in his own estimation. In short, he's cured." + +Cochrane grinned. + +"Then I'm fired?" + +"We are," said Holden. "There are professional ethics even among +psychiatrists, Jed. I have to admit that the guy now has a permanent +adjustment to reality. He has been recognized as a great scientist. He +is no longer frustrated." + +Cochrane leaned back in his chair. + +"That may be good medical ethics," he observed, "but it's lousy business +practice, Bill. You say he's adjusted to reality. That means that he +will now have a socially acceptable reaction to anything that's likely +to happen to him." + +Holden nodded. + +"A well-adjusted person does. Dabney's the same person. He's the same +fool. But he'll get along all right. A psychiatrist can't change a +personality! All he can do is make it adjust to the world about so the +guy doesn't have to be tucked away in a straight-jacket. In that sense, +Dabney is adjusted." + +"You've played a dirty trick on him," said Cochrane. "You've stabilized +him, and that's the rottenest trick anybody can play on anybody! You've +put him into a sort of moral deep-freeze. It's a dirty trick, Bill!" + +"Look who's talking!" said Holden wearily. "I suppose the advertising +business is altruistic and unmercenary?" + +"The devil, no!" said Cochrane indignantly. "We serve a useful purpose! +We tell people that they smell bad, and so give them an alibi for the +unpopularity their stupidity has produced. But then we tell them to use +so-and-so's breath sweetener or whosit's non-immunizing deodorant +they'll immediately become the life of every party they attend! It's a +lie, of course, but it's a dynamic lie! It gives the frustrated +individual something to do! It sells him hope and therefore +activity--and inactivity is a sort of death!" + +Holden looked at Cochrane with a dreary disinterest. + +"You're adjusted, Jed! But do you really believe that stuff?" + +Cochrane grinned again. + +"Only on Tuesdays and Fridays. It's about two-sevenths true. But it does +have that much truth in it! Nobody ever gets anything done while they +merely make socially acceptable responses to the things that happen to +them! Take Dabney himself! We've got a hell of a thing coming along now +just because he wouldn't make the socially acceptable response to having +a rich wife and no brains. He rebelled. So mankind will start moving to +the stars!" + +"You still believe it?" + +Cochrane grimaced. + +"Yesterday morning I sweated blood in a space-suit out in the crater +beyond Jones' laboratory. He tried his trick. He had a small +signal-rocket mounted on the far side of that crater,--twenty-some +miles. It was in front of the field-plate that established the Dabney +field across the crater to another plate near us. Jones turned on the +field. He ignited the rocket by remote control. I was watching with a +telescope. I gave him the word to fire.... How long do you think it took +that rocket to cross the crater in that field that works like a pipe? It +smashed into the plate at the lab!" + +Holden shook his head. + +"It took slightly," said Cochrane, "slightly under three-fifths of a +second." + +Holden blinked. Cochrane said: + +"A signal-rocket has an acceleration of about six hundred feet per +second, level flight, no gravity component, mass acceleration only. It +should have taken a hundred seconds plus to cross that crater--over +twenty miles. It shouldn't have stayed on course. It did stay on course, +inside the field. It did take under three-fifths of a second. The gadget +works!" + +Holden drew a deep breath. + +"So now you need more money and you want me not to discharge my patient +as cured." + +"Not a bit of it!" snapped Cochrane. "I don't want him as a patient! I'm +only willing to accept him as a customer! But if he wants fame, I'll +sell it to him. Not as something to lean his fragile psyche on, but +something to wallow in! Do you think he could ever get too famous for +his own satisfaction?" + +"Of course not," said Holden. "He's the same fool." + +"Then we're in business," Cochrane told him. "Not that I couldn't peddle +my fish elsewhere. I'm going to! But I'll give him old-customer +preference. I'll want him out at the distress-torp tests this afternoon. +They'll be public." + +"This afternoon?" asked Holden. "Distress-torp?" + +A lunar day is two Earth-weeks-long. A lunar night is equally +long-drawn-out. Cochrane said impatiently: + +"I got out of bed four hours ago. To me that's morning. I'll eat lunch +in an hour. That's noon. Say, three hours from now, whatever o'clock it +is lunar time." + +Holden glanced at his watch and made computations. He said: + +"That'll be half-past two hundred and three o'clock, if you're curious. +But what's a distress-torp?" + +"Shoo!" said Cochrane. "I'll send Babs to find you and load you on the +jeep. You'll see then. Now I'm busy!" + +Holden shrugged and went away, and Cochrane stared at his own watch. +Since a lunar day and night together fill twenty-eight Earth days of +time, a strictly lunar "day" contains nearly three hundred forty +Earth-hours. To call one-twelfth of that period an hour would be an +affectation. To call each twenty-four Earth hours a day would have been +absurd. So the actual period of the moon's rotation was divided into +familiar time-intervals, and a bulletin-board in the hotel lobby in +Lunar City notified those interested that: "_Sunday will be from 143 +o'clock to 167 o'clock A.M._" There would be another Sunday some time +during the lunar afternoon. + +Cochrane debated momentarily whether this information could be used in +the publicity campaign of Spaceways, Inc. Strictly speaking, there was +some slight obligation to throw extra fame Dabney's way regardless, +because the corporation had been formed as a public-relations device. +Any other features, such as changing the history of the human race, were +technically incidental. But Cochrane put his watch away. To talk about +horology on the moon wouldn't add to Dabney's stature as a phoney +scientist. It didn't matter. + +He went back to the business at hand. Some two years before there had +been a fake corporation organized strictly for the benefit of its +promoters. It had built a rocket-ship ostensibly for the establishment +of a colony on Mars. The ship had managed to stagger up to Luna, but no +farther. Its promoters had sold stock on the promise that a ship that +could barely reach Luna could take off from that small globe with six +times as much fuel as it could lift off of Earth. Which was true. +Investors put in their money on that verifiable fact. But the truth +happened to be, of course, that it would still take an impossible amount +of fuel to accelerate the ship--so heavily loaded--to a speed where it +would reach Mars in one human lifetime. Taking off from Luna would solve +only the problem of gravity. It wouldn't do a thing about inertia. So +the ship never rose from its landing near Lunar City. The corporation +that had built it went profitably bankrupt. + +Cochrane had been working feverishly to find out who owned that ship +now. Just before the torp-test he'd mentioned, he found that the ship +belonged to the hotel desk-clerk, who had bought it in hope of renting +it sooner or later for television background-shots in case anybody was +crazy enough to make a television film-tape on the moon. He was now +discouraged. Cochrane chartered it, putting up a bond to return it +undamaged. If the ship was lost, the hotel-clerk would get back his +investment--about a week's pay. + +So Cochrane had a space-ship practically in his pocket when the public +demonstration of the Dabney field came off at half-past 203 o'clock. + +The site of the demonstration was the shadowed, pitch-dark part of the +floor of a crater twenty miles across, with walls some ten thousand +jagged feet high. The furnace-like sunshine made the plain beyond the +shadow into a sea of blinding brightness. The sunlit parts of the +crater's walls were no less terribly glaring. But above the edge of the +cliffs the stars began; infinitely small and many-colored, with +innumerable degrees of brightness. The Earth hung in mid-sky like a +swollen green apple, monstrous in size. And the figures which moved +about the scene of the test could be seen only faintly by reflected +light from the lava plain, because one's eyes had to be adjusted to the +white-hot moon-dust on the plain and mountains. + +There were not many persons present. Three jeeps waited in the +semi-darkness, out of the burning sunshine. There were no more than a +dozen moon-suited individuals to watch and to perform the test of the +Dabney field. Cochrane had scrupulously edited all fore-news of the +experiment to give Dabney the credit he had paid for. There were +present, then, the party from Earth--Cochrane and Babs and Holden, with +the two tame scientists and Bell the writer--and the only two reporters +on the moon. Only news syndicates could stand the expense-account of a +field man in Lunar City. And then there were Jones and Dabney and two +other figures apparently brought by Dabney. + +There was, of course, no sound at all on the moon itself. There was no +air to carry it. But from each plastic helmet a six-inch antenna +projected straight upward, and the microwaves of suit-talkies made a +jumble of slightly metallic sounds in the headphones of each suit. + +As soon as Cochrane got out of the jeep's air-lock and was recognized, +Dabney said agitatedly: + +"Mr. Cochrane! Mr. Cochrane! I have to discuss something with you! It is +of the utmost importance! Will you come into the laboratory?" + +Cochrane helped Babs to the ground and made his way to the airlock in +the dust-heap against the cliff. He went in, with two other space-suited +figures who detached themselves from the rest to follow him. Once inside +the odorous, cramped laboratory, Dabney opened his face-plate and began +to speak before Cochrane was ready to hear him. His companion beamed +amiably. + +"--and therefore, Mr. Cochrane," Dabney was saying agitatedly, "I insist +that measures be taken to protect my scientific reputation! If this test +should fail, it will militate against the acceptance of my discovery! I +warn you--and I have my friend Mr. Simms here as witness--that I will +not be responsible for the operation of apparatus made by a subordinate +who does not fully comprehend the theory of my discovery! I will not be +involved--" + +Cochrane nodded. Dabney, of course, didn't understand the theory of the +field he'd bought fame-rights to. But there was no point in bringing +that up. Johnny Simms beamed at both of them. He was the swimmer Babs +had pointed out in the swimming-pool. His face was completely unlined +and placid, like the face of a college undergraduate. He had never +worried about anything. He'd never had a care in the world. He merely +listened with placid interest. + +"I take it," said Cochrane, "that you don't mind the test being made, so +long as you don't have to accept responsibility for its failure--and so +long as you get the credit for its success if it works. That's right, +isn't it?" + +"If it fails, I am not responsible!" insisted Dabney stridently. "If it +succeeds, it will be because of my discovery." + +Cochrane sighed a little. This was a shabby business, but Dabney would +have convinced himself, by now, that he was the genius he wanted people +to believe him. + +"Before the test," said Cochrane gently, "you make a speech. It will be +recorded. You disclaim the crass and vulgar mechanical details and +emphasize that you are like Einstein, dealing in theoretic physics only. +That you are naturally interested in attempts to use your discovery, but +your presence is a sign of your interest but not your responsibility." + +"I shall have to think it over--," began Dabney nervously. + +"You can say," promised Cochrane, "that if it does not work you will +check over what Jones did and tell him why." + +"Y-yes," said Dabney hesitantly, "I could do that. But I must think it +over first. You will have to delay--" + +"If I were you," said Cochrane confidentially, "I would plan a speech to +that effect because the test is coming off in five minutes." + +He closed his face-plate as Dabney began to protest. He went into the +lock. He knew better than to hold anything up while waiting for a +neurotic to make a decision. Dabney had all he wanted, now. From this +moment on he would be frantic for fear of losing it. But there could be +no argument outside the laboratory. In the airlessness, anything anybody +said by walkie-talkie could be heard by everybody. + +When Dabney and Simms followed out of the lock, Cochrane was helping +Jones set up the device that had been prepared for this test. It was +really two devices. One was a very flat cone, much like a coolie-hat and +hardly larger, with a sort of power-pack of coils and batteries +attached. The other was a space-ship's distress-signal rocket, designed +to make a twenty-mile streak of red flame in emptiness. Nobody had yet +figured out what good a distress signal would do, between Earth and +moon, but the idea was soothing. The rocket was four feet long and six +inches in diameter. At its nose there was a second coolie-hat cone, with +other coils and batteries. + +Jones set the separate cone on the ground and packed stones around and +under it to brace it. His movements were almost ridiculously deliberate. +Bending over, he bent slowly, or the motion would lift his feet off the +ground. Straightening up, he straightened slowly, or the upward impetus +of his trunk would again lift him beyond contact with solidity. But he +braced the flat cone carefully. + +He set the signal-torpedo over that cone. The entire set-up was under +six feet tall, and the coolie-hat cones were no more than eighteen +inches in diameter. He said flatly: + +"I'm all ready." + +The hand and arm of a space-suited figure lifted, for attention. +Dabney's voice came worriedly from the headphones of every suit: + +"I wish it understood," he said in some agitation, "that this first +attempted application of my discovery is made with my consent, but that +I am not aware of the mechanical details. As a scientist, my work has +been in pure science. I have worked for the advancement of human +knowledge, but the technological applications of my discovery are not +mine. Still--if this device does not work, I will take time from my more +important researches to inquire into what part of my discovery has been +inadequately understood and applied. It may be that present technology +is not qualified to apply my discovery--" + +Jones said without emotion--but Cochrane could imagine his poker-faced +expression inside his helmet: + +"That's right. I consulted Mr. Dabney about the principles, but the +apparatus is my doing, I take the responsibility for that!" + +Then Cochrane added with pleasant irony: + +"Since all this is recorded, Mr. Dabney can enlarge upon his disinterest +later. Right now, we can go ahead. Mr. Dabney disavows us unless we are +successful. Let us let it go at that." Then he said: "The observatory's +set to track?" + +A muffled voice said boredly, by short-wave from the observatory up on +the crater's rim: + +"_We're ready. Visual and records, and we've got the timers set to clock +the auto-beacon signals as they come in._" + +The voice was not enthusiastic. Cochrane had had to put up his own money +to have the nearside lunar observatory put a low-power telescope to +watch the rocket's flight. In theory, this distress-rocket should make a +twenty-mile streak of relatively long-burning red sparks. A tiny +auto-beacon in its nose was set to send microwave signals at ten-second +intervals. On the face of it, it had looked like a rather futile +performance. + +"Let's go," said Cochrane. + +He noted with surprise that his mouth was suddenly dry. This affair was +out of all reason. A producer of television shows should not be the +person to discover in an abstruse scientific development the way to +reach the stars. A neurotic son-in-law of an advertising tycoon should +not be the instrument by which the discovery should come about. A +psychiatrist should not be the means of associating Jones--a very junior +physicist with no money--and Cochrane and the things Cochrane was +prepared to bring about if only this unlikely-looking gadget worked. + +"Jones," said Cochrane with a little difficulty, "let's follow an +ancient tradition. Let Babs christen the enterprise by throwing the +switch." + +Jones pointed there in the shadow of the crater-wall, and Babs moved to +the switch he indicated. She said absorbedly: + +"Five, four, three, two, one--" + +She threw the switch. There was a spout of lurid red flame. + +The rocket vanished. + +It vanished. It did not rise, visibly. It simply went away from where it +was, with all the abruptness of a light going out. There was a flurry of +the most brilliant imaginable carmine flame. That light remained. But +the rocket did not so much rise as disappear. + +Cochrane jerked his head up. He was close to the line of the rocket's +ascent. He could see a trail of red sparks which stretched to +invisibility. It was an extraordinarily thin line. The separate flecks +of crimson light which comprised it were distant in space. They were so +far from each other that the signal-rocket was a complete failure as a +device making a streak of light that should be visible. + +The muffled voice in the helmet-phones said blankly: + +"_Hey! What'd you do to that rocket?_" + +The others did not move. They seemed stunned. The vanishing of the +rocket was no way for a rocket to act. In all expectation, it should +have soared skyward with a reasonable velocity, and should have +accelerated rather more swiftly from the moon's surface than it would +have done from Earth. But it should have remained visible during all its +flight. Its trail should have been a thick red line. Instead, the red +sparks were so far separated--the trail was so attenuated that it was +visible only from a spot near its base. The observatory voice said more +blankly still: + +"_Hey! I've picked up the trail! I can't see it nearby, but it seems to +start, thin, about fifty miles up and go on away from there! That +rocket shouldn't ha' gone more than twenty miles! What happened?_" + +"_Watch for the microwave signals_," said Jones' voice in Cochrane's +headphones. + +The voice from the observatory squeaked suddenly. This was not one of +the highly-placed astronomers, but part of the mechanical staff who'd +been willing to do an unreasonable chore for pay. + +"_Here's the blip! It's crazy! Nothing can go that fast!_" + +And then in the phones there came the relayed signal of the auto-beacon +in the vanished rocket. The signal-sound was that of a radar pulse, +beginning at low pitch and rising three octaves in the tenth of a +second. At middle C--the middle of the range of a piano--there was a +momentary spurt of extra volume. But in the relayed signal that louder +instant had dropped four tones. Cochrane said crisply: + +"Jones, what speed would that be?" + +"_It'd take a slide-rule to figure it_," said Jones' voice, very calmly, +"_but it's faster than anything ever went before._" + +Cochrane waited for the next beep. It did not come in ten seconds. It +was easily fifteen. Even he could figure out what that meant! A +signal-source that stretched ten seconds of interval at source to +fifteen at reception ... + +The voice from the observatory wailed: + +"_It's crazy! It can't be going like that!_" + +They waited. Fifteen seconds more. Sixteen. Eighteen. Twenty. The beep +sounded. The spurt of sound had dropped a full octave. The +signal-rocket, traveling normally, might have attained a maximum +velocity of some two thousand feet per second. It was now moving at a +speed which was an appreciably large fraction of the speed of light. +Which was starkly impossible. It simply happened to be true. + +They heard the signal once more. The observatory's multiple-receptor +receiver had been stepped up to maximum amplification. The signal was +distinct, but very faint indeed. And the rocket was then traveling--so +it was later computed--at seven-eighths of the speed of light. Between +the flat cone on the front of the distress-torpedo, and the flat cone on +the ground, a field of force existed. The field was not on the back +surface of the torpedo's cone, but before the front surface. It went +back to the moon from there, so all the torpedo and its batteries were +in the columnar stressed space. And an amount of rocket-push that should +have sent the four-foot torpedo maybe twenty miles during its period of +burning, had actually extended its flight to more than thirty-seven +hundred miles before the red sparks were too far separated to be traced +any farther, and by then had kicked the torpedo up impossibly close to +light-speed. + +In a sense, the Dabney field had an effect similar to the invention of +railways. The same horsepower moved vastly more weight faster, over +steel rails, than it could haul over a rutted dirt road. The same +rocket-thrust moved more weight faster in the Dabney field than in +normal space. There would be a practical limit to the speed at which a +wagon could be drawn over a rough road. The speed of light was a limit +to the speed of matter in normal space. But on a railway the practical +speed at which a vehicle could travel went up from three miles an hour +to a hundred and twenty. In the Dabney field it was yet to be discovered +what the limiting velocity might be. But old formulas for acceleration +and increase-of-mass-with-velocity simply did not apply in a Dabney +field. + +Jones rode back to Lunar City with Cochrane and Holden and Babs. His +face was dead-pan. + +Babs tried to recover the mien and manner of the perfect secretary. + +"Mr. Cochrane," she said professionally, "will you want to read the +publicity releases Mr. Bell turns out from what Mr. West and Mr. Jamison +tell him?" + +"I don't think it matters," said Cochrane. "The newsmen will pump West +and Jamison empty, anyhow. It's all right. In fact, it's better than our +own releases would be. They'll contradict each other. It'll sound more +authentic that way. We're building up a customer-demand for +information." + +The small moon-jeep rolled and bumped gently down the long, improbable +highway back to Lunar City. Its engine ran smoothly, as steam-engines +always do. It ran on seventy per cent hydrogen peroxide, first developed +as a fuel back in the 1940s for the pumps of the V2 rockets that tried +to win the Second World War for Germany. When hydrogen peroxide comes in +contact with a catalyst, such as permanganate of potash, it breaks down +into oxygen and water. But the water is in the form of high-pressure +steam, which is used in engines. The jeep's fuel supplied steam for +power and its ashes were water to drink and oxygen to breathe. Steam ran +all motorized vehicles on Luna. + +"What are you thinking about, Jones?" asked Cochrane suddenly. + +Jones said meditatively: + +"I'm wondering what sort of field-strength a capacity-storage system +would give me. I boosted the field intensity this time. The results were +pretty good. I'm thinking--suppose I made the field with a strobe-light +power-pack--or maybe a spot-welding unit. Even a portable strobe-light +gives a couple of million watts for the forty-thousandth of a second. +Suppose I fixed up a storage-pack to give me a field with a few billion +watts in it? It might be practically like matter-transmission, though it +would really be only high-speed travel. I think I've got to work on that +idea a little ..." + +Cochrane digested the information in silence. + +"Far be it from me," he said presently, "to discourage such high-level +contemplation. Bill, what's on your mind?" + +Holden said moodily: + +"I'm convinced that the thing works. But Jed! You talk as if you hadn't +any more worries! Yet even if you and Jones do have a way to make a ship +travel faster than light, you haven't got a ship or the capital you +need--." + +"I've got scenery that looks like a ship," said Cochrane mildly. +"Consider that part settled." + +"But there are supplies. Air--water--food--a crew--. We can't pay for +such things! Here on the moon the cost of everything is preposterous! +How can you try out this idea without more capital than you can possibly +raise?" + +"I'm going to imitate my old friend Christopher Columbus," said +Cochrane. "I'm going to give the customers what they want. Columbus +didn't try to sell anybody shares in new continents. Who wanted new +continents? Who wanted to move to a new world? Who wants new planets +now? Everybody would like to see their neighbors move away and leave +more room, but nobody wants to move himself. Columbus sold a promise of +something that had an already-established value, that could be sold in +every town and village--that had a merchandising system already set up! +I'm going to offer just such a marketable commodity. I'll have +freight-rockets on the way up here within twenty-four hours, and the +freight and their contents will all be paid for!" + +He turned to Babs. He looked more sardonic and cynical than ever before. + +"Babs, you've just witnessed one of the moments that ought to be +illustrated in all the grammar-school history-books along with Ben +Franklin flying a kite. What's topmost in your mind?" + +She hesitated and then flushed. The moon-jeep crunched and clanked +loudly over the trail that led downhill. There was no sound outside, of +course. There was no air. But the noise inside the moon-vehicle was +notable. The steam-motor, in particular, made a highly individual +racket. + +"I'd--rather not say," said Babs awkwardly. "What's your own main +feeling, Mr. Cochrane?" + +"Mine?" Cochrane grinned. "I'm thinking what a hell of a funny world +this is, when people like Dabney and Bill and Jones and I are the ones +who have to begin operation outer space!" + + + + +CHAPTER FOUR + + +Cochrane said kindly into the vision-beam microphone to Earth, "Cancel +section C, paragraph nine. Then section b(1) from paragraph eleven. Then +after you've canceled the entire last section--fourteen--we can sign up +the deal." + +There was a four-second pause. About two seconds for his voice to reach +Earth. About two seconds for the beginning of the reply to reach him. +The man at the other end protested wildly. + +"We're a long way apart," said Cochrane blandly, "and our talk only +travels at the speed of light. You're not talking from one continent to +another. Save tolls. Yes or no?" + +Another four-second pause. The man on Earth profanely agreed. Cochrane +signed the contract before him. The other man signed. Not only the +documents but all conversation was recorded. There were plugged-in +witnesses. The contract was binding. + +Cochrane leaned back in his chair. His eyes blinked wearily. He'd spent +hours going over the facsimile-transmitted contract with Joint Networks, +and had weeded out a total of six joker-stipulations. He was very tired. +He yawned. + +"You can tell Jones, Babs," he said, "that all the high financing's +done. He can spend money. And you can transmit my resignation to +Kursten, Kasten, Hopkins and Fallowe. And since this is a pretty risky +operation, you'd better send a service message asking what you're to do +with yourself. They'll probably tell you to take the next rocket back +and report to the secretarial pool, I'm afraid. The same fate probably +awaits West and Jamison and Bell." + +Babs said guiltily: + +"Mr. Cochrane--you've been so busy I had to use my own judgment. I +didn't want to interrupt you--." + +"What now?" demanded Cochrane. + +"The publicity on the torp-test," said Babs guiltily, "was so good +that the firm was worried for fear we'd seem to be doing it for +a client of the firm--which we are. So we've all been put on a +leave-with-expenses-and-pay status. Officially, we're all sick and the +firm is paying our expenses until we regain our health." + +"Kind of them," said Cochrane. "What's the bite?" + +"They're sending up talent contracts for us to sign," admitted Babs. +"When we go back, we would command top prices for interviews. The firm, +of course, will want to control that." + +Cochrane raised his eyebrows. + +"I see! But you'll actually be kept off the air so Dabney can be +television's fair-haired boy. He'll go on Marilyn Winter's show, I'll +bet, because that has the biggest audience on the planet. He'll lecture +Little Aphrodite Herself on the constants of space and she'll flutter +her eyelashes at him and shove her chest-measurements in his direction +and breathe how wonderful it is to be a man of science!" + +"How'd you know?" demanded Babs, surprised. + +Cochrane winced. + +"Heaven help me, Babs, I didn't. I tried to guess at something too +impossible even for the advertising business! But I failed! I failed! +You and my official gang, then, are here with the firm's blessing, free +of all commands and obligations, but drawing salary and expenses?" + +"Yes," admitted Babs. "And so are you." + +"I get off!" said Cochrane firmly. "Forward my resignation. It's a +matter of pure vanity. But Kursten, Kasten, Hopkins and Fallowe do move +in a mysterious way to latch onto a fast buck! I'm going to get some +sleep. Is there anything else you've had to use your judgment on?" + +"The contracts for re-broadcast of the torp-test. The original broadcast +had an audience-rating of seventy-one!" + +"Such," said Cochrane, "are the uses of fame. Our cash?" + +She showed him a neatly typed statement. For the original run of the +torp-test film-tape, so much. It was to be re-run with a popularization +of the technical details by West, and a lurid extrapolation of things to +come by Jamison. The sponsors who got hold of commercial time with that +expanded and souped-up version would expect, and get, an audience-rating +unparalleled in history. Dabney was to take a bow on the rebroadcast, +too--very much the dignified and aloof scientist. There were other +interviews. Dabney again, from a script written by Bell. And Jones. +Jones hated the idea of being interviewed, but he had faced a +beam-camera and answered idiotic questions, and gone angrily back to his +work. + +Spaceways, Inc., had a bank-account already amounting to more than +twenty years of Cochrane's best earning-power. He was selling publicity +for sponsors to hang their commercials on, in a strict parallel to +Christopher Columbus' selling of spices to come. But Cochrane was +delivering for cash. Freight-rockets were on the way moonward now, whose +cargoes of supplies for a space-journey Cochrane was accepting only when +a bonus in money was paid for the right to brag about it. So-and-so's +oxygen paid for the privilege of supplying air-reserves. +What's-his-name's dehydrated vegetables were accepted on similar terms, +with whoosit's instant coffee and somebody else's noodle soup in bags. + +"If," said Cochrane tiredly, looking up from the statement, "we could +only start off in a fleet instead of a single ship, Babs, we'd not only +be equipped but so rich before we started that we'd want to stay home to +enjoy it!" He yawned prodigiously. "I'm going to get some sleep. Don't +let me sleep too long!" + +He went off to his hotel-room and was out cold before his head had +drifted down to its pillow. But he was not pleased with himself. It +annoyed him that his revolt against being an expendable employee had +taken the form of acting like one of his former bosses in collecting +ruthlessly for the brains--in the case of Jones--and the neurotic +idiosyncrasies--in the case of Dabney--of other men. The gesture by +which he had become independent was not quite the splendid, scornful one +he'd have liked. The fact that this sort of gesture worked, and nothing +else would have, did not make him feel better. + +But he slept. + +He dreamed that he was back at his normal business of producing a +television show. Nobody but himself cared whether the show went on or +not. The actual purpose of all his subordinates seemed to be to cut as +many throats among their fellow-workers as possible--in a business way, +of course--so that by their own survival they might succeed to a better +job and higher pay. This is what is called the fine spirit of teamwork +by which things get done, both in private and public enterprise. + +It was a very realistic dream, but it was not restful. + +While he slept, the world wagged on and the cosmos continued on its +normal course. The two moons of Earth—one natural and one +artificial—swung in splendid circles about their primary. The nine moons +of Saturn spun about that planet’s divided rings. The red spot of +Jupiter and the bands on that gas-giant world moved in orderly fashion +about its circumference. Light-centuries away, giant Cepheid suns +expanded monstrously and contracted again, rather more rapidly than +their gravitational fields could account for. Double stars sedately +swung about each other. Comets reached their farthest points and, mere +aggregations of frigid jagged stones and metal, prepared for another +plunge back into light and heat and warmth. + +And various prosaic actions took place on Luna. + +When Cochrane waked and went back to the hotel-room in use as an office, +he found Babs talking confidentially to a woman--girl, rather--whom +Cochrane vaguely remembered. Then he did a double take. He did remember +her. Three or four years before she'd been the outstanding television +personality of the year. She'd been pretty, but not so pretty that you +didn't realize that she was a person. She was everything that Marilyn +Winters was not--and she'd been number two name in television. + +Cochrane said blankly: + +"Aren't you Alicia Keith?" + +The girl smiled faintly. She wasn't as pretty as she had been. She +looked patient. And an expression of patience, on a woman's face, is +certainly not unpleasant. But it isn't glamorous, either. + +"I was," she said. "I married Johnny Simms." + +Cochrane looked at Babs. + +"They live up here," explained Babs. "I pointed him out at the +swimming-pool the day we got here." + +"Wonderful," said Cochrane. "How--" + +"Johnny," said Alicia, "has bought into your Spaceways corporation. He +got your man West drunk and bought his shares of Spaceway stock." + +Cochrane sat down--not hard, because it was impossible to sit down hard +on the moon. But he sat down as hard as it was possible to sit. + +"Why'd he do that?" + +"He found out you had hold of the old Mars colony ship. He understands +you're going to take a trip out to the stars. He wants to go along. He's +very much like a little boy. He hates it here." + +"Then why live--." Cochrane checked the question, not quite in time. + +"He can't go back to Earth," said Alicia calmly. "He's a psychopathic +personality. He's sane and quite bright and rather dear in his way, but +he simply can't remember what is right and wrong. Especially when he +gets excited. When they fixed up Lunar City as an international colony, +by sheer oversight they forgot to arrange for extradition from it. So +Johnny can live here. He can't live anywhere else--not for long." + +Cochrane said nothing. + +"He wants to go with you," said Alicia pleasantly. "He's thrilled. The +lawyer his family keeps up here to watch over him is thrilled, too. He +wants to go back and visit his family. And as a stockholder, Johnny can +keep you from taking a ship or any other corporate property out of the +jurisdiction of the courts. But he'd rather go with you. Of course I +have to go too." + +"It's blackmail," said Cochrane without heat. "A pretty neat job of it, +too. Babs, you see Holden about this. He's a psychiatrist." He turned to +Alicia. "Why do you want to go? I don't know whether it'll be dangerous +or not." + +"I married Johnny," said Alicia. Her smile was composed. "I thought it +would be wonderful to be able to trust somebody that nobody else could +trust." After a moment she added: "It would be, if one could." + +A few moments later she went away, very pleasantly and very calmly. Her +husband had no sense of right or wrong--not in action, anyhow. She tried +to keep him from doing too much damage by exercising the knowledge she +had of what was fair and what was not. Cochrane grimaced and told Babs +to make a note to talk to Holden. But there were other matters on hand, +too. There were waivers to be signed by everybody who went along off +Luna. Then Cochrane said thoughtfully: + +"Alicia Keith would be a good name for film-tape ..." + +He plunged into the mess of paper-work and haggling which somebody has +to do before any achievement of consequence can come about. Pioneer +efforts, in particular, require the same sort of clearing-away process +as the settling of a frontier farm. Instead of trees to be chopped +and dug up by the roots, there are the gratuitous obstructionists +who have to be chopped off at the ankles in a business way, and +the people who exercise infinite ingenuity trying to get a cut of +something--anything--somebody else is doing. And of course there are +the publicity-hounds. Since Spaceways was being financed on sales of +publicity which could be turned on this product and that, +publicity-hounds cut into its revenue and capital. + +Back on Earth a crackpot inventor had a lawyer busily garnering free +advertisement by press conferences about the injury done his client by +Spaceways, Inc., who had stolen his invention to travel through space +faster than light. Somebody in the Senate made a speech accusing the +Spaceway project of being a political move by the party in power for +some dire ultimate purpose. + +Ultimately the crackpot inventor would get on the air and announce +triumphantly that only part of his invention had been stolen, because +he'd been too smart to write it down or tell anybody, and he wouldn't +tell anybody--not even a court--the full details of his invention unless +paid twenty-five million in cash down, and royalties afterward. The +project for a congressional investigation of Spaceways would die in +committee. + +But there were other griefs. The useless spaceship hulk had to be +emptied of the mining-tools stored in it. This was done by men working +in space-suits. Occupational rules required them to exert not more than +one-fourth of the effort they would have done if working for themselves. +When the ship was empty, air was released in it, and immediately froze +to air-snow. So radiant heaters had to be installed and powered to warm +up the hull to where an atmosphere could exist in it. Its generators had +to be thawed from the metal-ice stage of brittleness and warmed to where +they could be run without breaking themselves to bits. + +But there were good breaks, too. Presently a former +moonship-pilot--grounded to an administrative job on Luna--on his own +free time checked over the ship. Jones arranged it. With rocket-motors +of adamite--the stuff discovered by pure accident in a steel-mill back +on Earth--the propelling apparatus checked out. The fuel-pumps had been +taken over in fullness of design from fire-engine pumps on Earth. They +were all right. The air-regenerating apparatus had been developed from +the aeriating culture-tanks in which antibiotics were grown on Earth. It +needed only reseeding with algae--microscopic plants which when supplied +with ultraviolet light fed avidly on carbon dioxide and yielded oxygen. +The ship was a rather involved combination of essentially simple +devices. It could be put back into such workability as it had once +possessed with practically no trouble. + +It was. + +Jones moved into it, with masses of apparatus from the laboratory in the +Lunar Apennines. He labored lovingly, fanatically. Like most spectacular +discoveries, the Dabney field was basically simple. It was almost +idiotically uncomplicated. In theory it was a condition of the space +just outside one surface of a sheet of metal. It was like that +conduction-layer on the wires of a cross-country power-cable, when +electricity is transmitted in the form of high-frequency alterations and +travels on the skins of many strands of metal, because high-frequency +current simply does not flow inside of wires, but only on their +surfaces. The Dabney field formed on the surface--or infinitesimally +beyond it--of a metal sheet in which eddy-currents were induced in +such-and-such a varying fashion. That was all there was to it. + +So Jones made the exterior forward surface of the abandoned spaceship +into a generator of the Dabney field. It was not only simple, it was too +simple! Having made the bow of the ship into a Dabney field plate, he +immediately arranged that he could, at will, make the rear of the ship +into another Dabney field plate. The two plates, turned on together, +amounted to something that could be contemplated with startled awe, but +Jones planned to start off, at least, in a manner exactly like the +distress-torp test. The job of wiring up for faster-than-light travel, +however, was not much more difficult than wiring a bungalow, when one +knew how it should be done. + +Two freight-rockets came in, picked up by radar and guided to landings +by remote control. The Lunar City beam receiver picked up music aimed up +from Earth and duly relayed it to the dust-heaps which were the +buildings of the city. The colonists and moon-tourists became familiar +with forty-two new tunes dealing with prospective travel to the stars. +One work of genius tied in a just-released film-tape drama titled +"_Child of Hate_" to the Lunar operation, and charmed listeners saw and +heard the latest youthful tenor gently plead, "_Child of Hate, Come to +the Stars and Love._" The publicity department responsible for the +masterpiece considered itself not far from genius, too. + +There was confusion thrice and four and five times confounded. Cochrane +came in to dispute furiously with Holden whether it was better to have a +psychopathic personality on the space-ship or to have a legal battle in +the courts. Cochrane won. Jones arrived, belligerent, to do battle for +technical devices which would cost money. + +"Look!" said Cochrane harassedly. "I'm not trying to boss you! Don't +come to me for authority! If you can make that ship take off I'll be in +it, and my neck will be in as much danger as yours. You buy what will +keep my neck as safe as possible, along with yours. I'm busy raising +money and fighting off crackpots and dodging lawsuits and getting +supplies! I've got a job that needs three men anyhow. All I'm hoping is +that you get ready to take off before I start cutting out paperdolls. +When can we leave?" + +"We?" said Jones suspiciously. "You're going?" + +"If you think I'll stay behind and face what'll happen if this business +flops," Cochrane told him, "you're crazy! There are too many people on +Earth already. There's no room for a man who tried something big and +failed! If this flops I'd rather be a frozen corpse with a happy smile +on my face--I understand that in space one freezes--than somebody living +on assisted survival status on Earth!" + +"Oh," said Jones, mollified. "How many people are to go?" + +"Ask Bill Holden," Cochrane told him. "Remember, if you need something, +get it. I'll try to pay for it. If we come back with picture-tapes of +outer space--even if we only circumnavigate Mars!--we'll have money +enough to pay for anything!" + +Jones regarded Cochrane with something almost like warmth. + +"I like this way of doing business," he said. + +"It's not business!" protested Cochrane. "This is getting something +done! By the way. Have you picked out a destination for us to aim at?" +When Jones shook his head, Cochrane said harassedly; "Better get one +picked out. But when we make out our sail-off papers, for destination +we'll say, 'To the stars.' A nice line for the news broadcasts. Oh, yes. +Tell Bill Holden to try to find us a skipper. An astrogator. Somebody +who can tell us how to get back if we get anywhere we need to get back +from. Is there such a person?" + +"I've got him," said Jones. "He checked the ship for me. Former +moon-rocket pilot. He's here in Lunar City. Thanks!" + +He shook hands with Cochrane before he left. Which for Jones was an +expression of overwhelming emotion. Cochrane turned back to his desk. + +"Let's see ... That arrangement for cachets on stamps and covers to be +taken along and postmarked Outer Space. Put in a stipulation for extra +payment in case we touch on planets and invent postmarks for them ..." + +He worked on, while Babs took notes. Presently he was dictating. And as +he talked, frowning, he took a fountain-pen from his pocket and absently +worked the refill-handle. It made ink exude from the pen-point. On the +moon, the surface tension of the ink was exactly the same as on earth, +but the gravity was five-sixths less. So a drop of ink of really +impressive size could be formed before the moon's weak gravity made it +fall. + +Dictating as he worked the pen, Cochrane achieved a pear-shaped +mass of ink which was quite the size of a large grape before it fell +into his waste-basket. It was the largest he'd made to date. It +fell--slow-motion--and splashed--violently--as he regarded it with +harried satisfaction. + +More time passed. A moon-rocket arrived from Earth. There were new +tourists under the thousand-foot plastic dome. Out by the former +Mars-ship Jones made experiments with small plastic balloons coated with +a conducting varnish. In a vacuum, a cubic inch of air at Earth-pressure +will expand to make many cubic feet of near-vacuum. If a balloon can +sustain an internal pressure of one ounce to the square foot, a +thimbleful of air will inflate a sizeable globe to that pressure. Jones +was arranging tiny Dabney field robot-generators with tiny atomic +batteries to power them. Each such balloon would be a Dabney field +"plate" when cast adrift in emptiness, and its little battery would keep +it in operation for twenty years or more. + +Baggage came up from Earth for Johnny Simms. It was mostly elephant-guns +and ammunition for them. Johnny, as the heir to innumerable millions +back on earth, had had a happy life, but hardly one to give him a +practical view of things. To him, star-travel meant landing on such +exotic planets as the fictioneers had been writing about for a hundred +years or so. He really looked upon the venture into space as a combined +big-game expedition and escape from Lunar City. And he did look forward, +too, to freedom from his family's legal representative and the constant +reminder of ethical and moral values which Johnny preferred happily to +ignore. + +Film-tape came up, and cameras to use it in. Every imaginable item an +expedition to space could use or even might use, was thrust upon +Spaceways, Inc. Manufacturers yearned to have their products used in +connection with the hottest news story in decades. There was a steady +trailing of moon-jeeps from the airlocks of Lunar City to the ship. + +The time of lunar sunset arrived--503:30 o'clock, half-past five hundred +and three hours. Time was measured from midnight to midnight, +astronomical fashion. The great, blazing sun whose streamer prominences, +even, were too bright to be looked at with the naked eye--the sun neared +and reached the horizon. There was no change in the star-studded sky. +There were no sunset colorings. The incandescent brightness on the +mountains was not lessened in the least. Only the direction of the stark +black shadows shifted. + +The glaring sun descended. Its motion was almost infinitely slow. Its +disk was of the order of half a degree of arc, and it took a full hour +to be fully obscured. And then there was at first no difference in the +look of things save that the _Mare Imbrium_--the solidified, arid Sea of +Showers--was as dark as the shadows in the mountains. + +They still gleamed brightly. For a very long time the white-hot sunshine +glowed on their flanks. The brightness rose and rose, and blackness +followed it. At long last only the topmost peaks of the Apennines blazed +luridly against a background of stars whose light seemed feeble by +comparison. + +Then it was night indeed. But the Earth shone forth, a half-globe of +seas and clouds and continents, vast and nostalgic in the sky. And now +Earthshine fell upon the moon. It was many times brighter than moonlight +ever was upon the Earth. Even at lunar sunset the Earthlight was sixteen +times brighter. At midnight, when the Earth was full, it would be bright +enough for any activity. Actually, the human beings on Luna were nearly +nocturnal in their habits, because it was easier to run moon-jeeps in +frigidity and keep men and machines warm enough for functioning, than it +was to protect them against the more-than-boiling heat of midday on the +moon. + +So the activity about the salvaged space-ship increased. There were +electric lights blazing in the demi-twilight, to guide freight vehicles +with their loads. The tourist-jeeps went and returned and went and +returned. The last shipload of travelers from Earth wanted to see the +space-craft about which all the world was talking. + +Even Cochrane presently became curious. There came a time when all the +paper-work connected with what had happened was done with, and +conditional contracts drawn up on everything that could be foreseen. It +was time for something new to happen. + +Cochrane said dubiously: + +"Babs, have you seen the ship?" + +She shook her head. + +"I think we'd better go take a look at it," said Cochrane. "Do you know, +I've been acting like a damned business man! I've only been out of Lunar +City three times. Once to the laboratory to talk, once to test a +signal-rocket across the crater, and once when the distress-torp went +off. I haven't even seen the nightclub here in the City!" + +"You should," said Babs matter-of-factly. "I went once, with Doctor +Holden. The dancing was marvelous!" + +"Bill Holden, eh?" said Cochrane. He found himself annoyed. "Took you to +the nightclub; but not to see the ship!" + +"The ship's farther," explained Babs. "I could always be found at the +nightclub if you needed me. I went when you were asleep." + +"Damn!" said Cochrane. "Hm ... You ought to get a bonus. What would you +rather have, Babs, a bonus in cash or Spaceways stock?" + +"I've got some stock," said Babs. "Mr. Bell--the writer, you know--got +in a poker game. He was cleaned out. So I gave him all the money I +had--I told you I cleared out my savings-account before we came up, I +think--for half his shares." + +"Either you got very badly stuck," Cochrane told her cynically, "or else +you'll be so rich you won't speak to me." + +"Oh, no!" said Babs warmly. "Never!" + +Cochrane yawned. + +"Let's get out and take a look at the ship. Maybe I can stow cargo or +something, now there's no more paper-work." + +Babs said with an odd calm: + +"Mr. Jones wanted you out there today--in an hour, he said. I promised +you'd go. I meant to mention it in time." + +Cochrane did not notice her tone. He was dead-tired, as only a man can +be who has driven himself at top speed for days on end over a business +deal. Business deals are stimulating only in their major aspects. Most +of the details are niggling, tedious, routine, and boring--and very +often bear-trapped. Cochrane had done, with only Babs' help, an amount +of mental labor that in the offices of Kursten, Kasten, Hopkins and +Fallowe would have been divided among two vice-presidents, six lawyers, +and at least twelve account executives. The work, therefore, would +actually have been done by not less than twenty secretaries. But Babs +and Cochrane had done it all. + +In the moon-jeep on the way to the ship he felt that heavy, exhausted +sense of relaxation which is not pleasurable at all. Babs annoyed him a +little, too. She was late getting to the airlock, and seemed breathless +when she arrived. + +The moon-jeep crunched and clanked and rumbled over the gently +undulating lava sea beneath its giant wheels. Babs looked zestfully out +of the windows. The picture was, of course, quite incredible. In the +relatively dim Earthlight the moonscape was somehow softened, and yet +the impossibly jagged mountains and steep cliffsides and the razor-edged +passes of monstrous stone,--these things remained daunting. It was like +riding through a dream in which everything nearby seemed fey and +glamorous, but the background was deathly-still and ominous. + +There were the usual noises inside the jeep. The air had a metallic +smell. One could detect the odors of oil, and ozone, and varnish, and +plastic upholstery. There were the crunching sounds of the wheels, +traveling over stone. There was the paradoxic gentleness of all the +jeep's motions because of the low gravity. Cochrane even noted the +extraordinary feel of an upholstered seat when one weighs only one-sixth +as much as back on Earth. All his sensations were dreamlike--but he felt +that headachy exhaustion that comes of overwork too long continued. + +"I'll try," he said tiredly, "to see that you have some fun before you +go back, Babs. You'll go back as soon as we dive off into whatever we're +diving into, but you ought to get in the regular tourist stuff up here, +anyhow." + +Babs said nothing. Pointedly. + +The moon-jeep clanked and rumbled onward. The hissing of steam was +audible. The vehicle swung around a pinnacle of stone, and Cochrane saw +the space-ship. + +In the pale Earthlight it was singularly beautiful. It had been designed +to lure investors in a now-defunct promotion. It was stream-lined, and +gigantic, and it glittered like silver. It stood upright on its +tail-fins, and it had lighted ports and electric lights burned in the +emptiness about it. But there was only one moon-jeep at its base. A +space-suited figure moved toward a dangling sling and sat in it. He rose +deliberately toward an open airlock-hatch, and the other moon-jeep moved +soundlessly away back toward Lunar City. + +There was no debris about. There was no cargo waiting to be loaded. +Cochrane did see a great metal plate, tilted on the ground, with a large +box attached to it by cables. That would be the generators and the +field-plate for a Dabney field. It was plainly to remain on the moon. It +was not underneath the ship. Cochrane puzzled tiredly over it for a +moment. Then he understood. The ship would lift on its rockets, hover +over the plate--which would be generating its half of the field--and +then Jones would switch on the apparatus in the ship itself. The +forward, needle-pointed nose of the ship would become another generator +of the Dabney field. The ship's inertia, in that field, would be +effectively reduced to a fraction of its former value. The rockets, +which might give it an acceleration of a few hundred feet per second +anywhere but in a Dabney field, would immediately accelerate the ship +and all its contents to an otherwise unattainable velocity. The +occupants of the rocket would lose their relative inertia to the same +degree as the ship. They should feel no more acceleration than from the +same rocket-thrust in normal space. But they would travel-- + +Cochrane felt that there was a fallacy somehow, in the working of the +Dabney field as he understood it. If there was less inertia in the +Dabney field--why--a rocket shouldn't push as hard in it, because, it +was the inertia of the rocket-gases that gave the rocket-thrust. But +Cochrane was much too tired to work out a theoretic objection to +something he knew did work. He was almost dozing when Babs touched his +arm. + +"Space-suits, Mr. Cochrane." + +He got wearily into the clumsy costume. But he saw again that Babs wore +the shining-eyed look of rapturous adventure that he had seen her wear +before. + +They got out of the moon-jeep, one after the other. The sling came down +the space-ship's gleaming side. They got in it, together. It lifted +them. + +The vast, polished hull of the space-ship slid past them only ten feet +away. The ground diminished. They seemed less to be lifted than to float +skyward. And in this sling, in this completely unreal ascent, Cochrane +roused suddenly. He felt the acute unease which comes of height. He had +looked down upon Earth from a height of four thousand miles with no +feeling of dizziness. He had looked at Earth a quarter-million miles +away with no consciousness of depth. But a mere fifty feet above the +surface of the moon he felt like somebody swinging out of a skyscraper +window. + +Then the airlock opening was beside them, and the sling rolled inward. +They were in the lock, and Cochrane found himself pushing Babs away from +the unrailed opening. He was relieved when the airlock closed. + +Inside the ship, with the space-suits off, there was light and warmth, +and a remarkably matter-of-fact atmosphere. The ship had been built to +sell stock in a scheme for colonizing Mars. Prospective investors had +been shown through it. It had been designed to be a convincing +passenger-liner of space. + +It was. But Cochrane found himself not needed for any consultation, and +Jones was busy, and Bill Holden highly preoccupied. He saw Alicia +Keith--but her name was Simms now. She smiled at him but took Babs by +the arm. They went off somewhere. + +Cochrane waited for somebody to tell him what to look at and to admire. +He saw Jamison, and Bell, and he saw a man he had not seen before. He +settled down in a deeply upholstered chair. He felt neglected. Everybody +was busy. But mostly he felt tired. + +He slept. + +Then Babs was shaking his arm, her eyes shining. + +"Mr. Cochrane!" she cried urgently. "Mr. Cochrane! Wake up! Go on up to +the control-room! We're going to take off!" + +He blinked at her. + +"We!" Then he started up, and went five feet into the air from the +violence of his uncalculated movement. "We? No you don't! You go back to +Lunar City where you'll be safe!" + +Then he heard a peculiar drumming, rumbling noise. He had heard it +before. In the moonship. It was rockets being tested; being burned; +rockets in the very last seconds of preparation before take-off for the +stars. + +He didn't drop back to the floor beside the chair he'd occupied. The +floor rose to meet him. + +"I've had our baggage brought on board," said Babs, happily. "I'm going +because I'm a stockholder! Hold on to something and climb those stairs +if you want to see us go up! I'm going to be busy!" + + + + +CHAPTER FIVE + + +The physical sensations of ascending to the ship's control-room were +weird in the extreme. Cochrane had just been wakened from a worn-out +sleep, and it was always startling on the moon to wake and find one's +self weighing one-sixth of normal. It took seconds to remember how one +got that way. But on the way up the stairs, Cochrane was further +confused by the fact that the ship was surging this way and swaying +that. It moved above the moon's surface to get over the tilted flat +Dabney field plate on the ground a hundred yards from the ship's +original position. + +The Dabney field, obviously, was not in being. The ship hovered on its +rockets. They had been designed to lift it off of Earth--and they +had--against six times the effective gravity here, and with an +acceleration of more gravities on top of that. So the ship rose lightly, +almost skittishly. When gyros turned to make it drift sidewise--as a +helicopter tilts in Earth's atmosphere--it fairly swooped to a new +position. Somebody jockeyed it this way and that. + +Cochrane got to the control-room by holding on with both hands to +railings. He was angry and appalled. + +The control-room was a hemisphere, with vertical vision-screens +picturing the stars overhead. Jones stood in an odd sort of harness +beside a set of control-switches that did not match the smoothly +designed other controls of the ship. He looked out of a plastic blister, +by which he could see around and below the ship. He made urgent signals +to a man Cochrane had never seen before, who sat in a strap-chair before +many other complex controls with his hands playing back and forth upon +them. A loudspeaker blatted unmusically. It was Dabney's voice, highly +agitated and uneasy. + +"_ ... my work for the advancement of science has been applied by other +minds. I need to specify that if the experiment now about to begin does +not succeed, it will not invalidate my discovery, which has been amply +verified by other means. It may be, indeed, that my discovery is so far +ahead of present engineering--._" + +"See here!" raged Cochrane. "You can't take off with Babs on board! This +is dangerous!" + +Nobody paid any attention. Jones made frantic gestures to indicate the +most delicate of adjustments. The man in the strap-chair obeyed the +instruction with an absorbed attention. Jones suddenly threw a switch. +Something lighted, somewhere. There was a momentary throbbing sound +which was not quite a sound. + +"Take it away," said Jones in a flat voice. + +The man in the strap-chair pressed hard on the controls. Cochrane +glanced desperately out of one of the side ports. He saw the +moonscape--the frozen lava sea with its layer of whitish-tan moondust. +He saw many moon-jeeps gathered near, as if most of the population of +Lunar City had been gathered to watch this event. He saw the +extraordinary nearness of the moon's horizon. + +But it was the most momentary of glimpses. As he opened his mouth to +roar a protest, he felt the upward, curiously comforting thrust of +acceleration to one full Earth-gravity. + +The moonscape was snatched away from beneath the ship. It did not +descend. The ship did not seem to rise. The moon itself diminished and +vanished like a pricked bubble. The speed of its disappearance was +not--it specifically was not--attributable to one earth-gravity of lift +applied on a one-sixth-gravity moon. + +The loudspeaker hiccoughed and was silent. Cochrane uttered the roar he +had started before the added acceleration began. But it was useless. Out +the side-port, he saw the stars. They were not still and changeless and +winking, as they appeared from the moon. These stars seemed to stir +uneasily, to shift ever so slightly among themselves, like flecks of +bright color drifting on a breeze. + +Jones said in an interested voice: + +"Now we'll try the booster." + +He threw another switch. And again there was a momentary throbbing sound +which was not quite a sound. It was actually a sensation, which one +seemed to feel all through one's body. It lasted only the fraction of a +second, but while it lasted the stars out the side-ports ceased to be +stars. They became little lines of light, all moving toward the ship's +stern but at varying rates of speed. Some of them passed beyond view. +Some of them moved only a little. But all shifted. + +Then they were again tiny spots of light, of innumerable tints and +colors, of every conceivably degree of brightness, stirring and moving +ever-so-slightly with relation to each other. + +"The devil!" said Cochrane, raging. + +Jones turned to him. And Jones was not quite poker-faced, now. Not +quite. He looked even pleased. Then his face went back to impassiveness +again. + +"It worked," he said mildly. + +"I know it worked!" sputtered Cochrane. "But--where are we? How far did +we come?" + +"I haven't the least idea," said Jones mildly as before. "Does it +matter?" + +Cochrane glared at him. Then he realized how completely too late it was +to protest anything. + +The man he had seen absorbed in the handling of controls now lifted his +hands from the board. The rockets died. There was a vast silence, and +weightlessness. Cochrane weighed nothing. This was free flight +again--like practically all of the ninety-odd hours from the space +platform to the moon. The pilot left the controls and in an accustomed +fashion soared to a port on the opposite side of the room. He gazed out, +and then behind, and said in a tone of astonished satisfaction: + +"This is good!--There's the sun!" + +"How far?" asked Jones. + +"It's fifth magnitude," said the pilot happily. "We really did pile on +the horses!" + +Jones looked momentarily pleased again. Cochrane said in a voice that +even to himself sounded outraged: + +"You mean the sun's a fifth-magnitude star from here? What the devil +happened?" + +"Booster," said Jones, nearly with enthusiasm. "When the field was just +a radiation speed-up, I used forty milliamperes of current to the square +centimetre of field-plate. That was the field-strength when we sent the +signal-rocket across the crater. For the distress-torpedo test, I +stepped the field-strength up. I used a tenth of an ampere per square +centimetre. I told you! And don't you remember that I wondered what +would happen if I used a capacity-storage system?" + +Cochrane held fast to a hand-hold. + +"The more power you put into your infernal field," he demanded, "the +more speed you get?" + +Jones said contentedly: + +"There's a limit. It depends on the temperature of the things in the +field. But I've fixed up the field, now, like a spot-welding outfit. +Like a strobe-light. We took off with a light field. It's on now--we +have to keep it on. But I got hold of some pretty storage condensers. I +hooked them up in parallel to get a momentary surge of high-amperage +current when I shorted them through my field-making coils. Couldn't make +it a steady current! Everything would blow! But I had a surge of +probably six amps per square centimetre for a while." + +Cochrane swallowed. + +"The field was sixty times as strong as the one the distress-torpedo +used? We went--we're going--sixty times as fast?" + +"We had lots more speed than that!" But then Jones' enthusiasm dwindled. +"I haven't had time to check," he said unhappily. "It's one of the +things I want to get at right away. But in theory the field should +modify the effect of inertia as the fourth power of its strength. Sixty +to the fourth is--." + +"How far," demanded Cochrane, "is Proxima Centaurus? That's the nearest +star to Earth. How near did we come to reaching it?" + +The pilot on the other side of the control-room said with a trace less +than his former zest: + +"That looks like Sirius, over there ..." + +"We didn't head for Proxima Centaurus," said Jones mildly. "It's too +close! And we have to keep the field-plate back on the moon lined up +with us, more or less, so we headed out roughly along the moon's axis. +Toward where its north pole points." + +"Then where are we headed? Where are we going?" + +"We're not going anywhere just yet," said Jones without interest. "We +have to find out where we are, and from that--" + +Cochrane ran his hand through his hair. + +"Look!" he protested. "Who's running this show? You didn't tell me you +were going to take off! You didn't pick out a destination! You didn't--" + +Jones said very patiently: + +"We have to try out the ship. We have to find out how fast it goes with +how much field and how much rocket-thrust. We have to find out how far +we went and if it was in a straight line. We even have to find out how +to land! The ship's a new piece of apparatus. We can't do things with it +until we find out what it can do." + +Cochrane stared at him. Then he swallowed. + +"I see," he said. "The financial and business department of Spaceways, +Inc., has done its stuff for the time being." + +Jones nodded. + +"The technical staff now takes over?" + +Jones nodded again. + +"I still think," said Cochrane, "that we could have done with a little +interdepartmental cooperation. How long before you know what you're +about?" + +Jones shook his head. + +"I can't even guess. Ask Babs to come up here, will you?" + +Cochrane threw up his hands. He went toward the +spiral-ladder-with-handholds that led below. He went down into the main +saloon. A tiny green light winked on and off, urgently, on the far side. +Babs was seated at a tiny board, there. As Cochrane looked, she pushed +buttons with professional skill. Bill Holden sat in a strap-chair with +his face a greenish hue. + +"We took off," said Holden in a strained voice. + +"We did," said Cochrane. "And the sun's a fifth magnitude star from +where we've got to--which is no place in particular. And I've just found +out that we started off at random and Jones and the pilot he picked up +are now happily about to do some pure-science research!" + +Holden closed his eyes. + +"When you want to cheer me up," he said feebly, "you can tell me we're +about to crash somewhere and this misery will soon be over." + +Cochrane said bitterly: + +"Taking off without a destination! Letting Babs come along! They don't +know how far we've come and they don't know where we're going! This is a +hell of a way to run a business!" + +"Who called it a business?" asked Holden, as feebly as before. "It +started out as a psychiatric treatment!" + +Babs' voice came from the side of the saloon where she sat at a +vision-tube and microphone. She was saying professionally: + +"I assure you it's true. We are linked to you by the Dabney field, in +which radiation travels much faster than light. When you were a little +boy didn't you ever put a string between two tin cans, and then talk +along the string?" + +Cochrane stopped beside her scowling. She looked up. + +"The press association men on Luna, Mr. Cochrane. They saw us take off, +and the radar verified that we traveled some hundred of thousands of +miles, but then we simply vanished! They don't understand how they can +talk to us without even the time-lag between Earth and Lunar City. I was +explaining." + +"I'll take it," said Cochrane. "Jones wants you in the control-room. +Cameras? Who was handling the cameras?" + +"Mr. Bell," said Babs briskly. "It's his hobby, along with poker-playing +and children." + +"Tell him to get some pictures of the star-fields around us," said +Cochrane, "and then you can see what Jones wants. I will do a little +business!" + +He settled down in the seat Babs had vacated. He faced the two +press-association reporters in the screen. They had seen the ship's take +off. It was verified beyond any reasonable question. The microwave beam +to Earth was working at capacity to transmit statements from the Moon +Observatory, which annoyedly conceded that the Spaceways, Inc., salvaged +ship had taken off with an acceleration beyond belief. But, the +astronomers said firmly, the ship and all its contents must necessarily +have been destroyed by the shock of their departure. The acceleration +must have been as great as the shock of a meteor hitting Luna. + +"You can consider," Cochrane told them, "that I am now an angel, if you +like. But how about getting a statement from Dabney?" + +A press-association man, back on Luna, uttered the first profanity ever +to travel faster than light. + +"All he can talk about," he said savagely, "is how wonderful he is! He +agrees with the Observatory that you must all be dead. He said so. Can +you give us any evidence that you're alive and out in space? Visual +evidence, for broadcast?" + +At this moment the entire fabric of the space-ship moved slightly. There +was no sound of rockets. The ship seemed to turn a little, but that was +all. No gravity. No acceleration. It was a singularly uncomfortable +sensation, on top of the discomfort of weightlessness. + +Cochrane said sardonically: + +"If you can't take my word that I'm alive, I'll try to get you some +proof! Hm. I'll send you some pictures of the star-fields around us. +Shoot them to observatories back on Earth and let them figure out for +themselves where we are! Displacement of the relative positions of the +stars ought to let them figure things out!" + +He left the communicator-board. Holden still looked greenish in his +strap-chair. The main saloon was otherwise empty. Cochrane made his way +gingerly to the stair going below. He stepped into thin air and +descended by a pull on the hand-rail. + +This was the dining-saloon. The ship having been built to impress +investors in a stock-sales enterprise, it had been beautifully equipped +with trimmings. And, having had to rise from Earth to Luna, and needing +to take an acceleration of a good many gravities, it had necessarily to +be reasonably well-built. It had had, in fact, to be an honest job of +ship-building in order to put across a phoney promotion. But there were +trimmings that could have been spared. The ports opening upon emptiness, +for example, were not really practical arrangements. But everybody but +Holden and the two men in the control-room now clustered at those ports, +looking out at the stars. There was Jamison and Bell the writer, and +Johnny Simms and his wife. Babs had been here and gone. + +Bell was busy with a camera. As Cochrane moved to tell him of the need +for star-shots to prove to a waiting planet that they were alive, Johnny +Simms turned and saw Cochrane. His expression was amiable and unawed. + +"Hello," said Johnny Simms cheerfully. + +Cochrane nodded curtly. + +"I bought West's stock in Spaceways," said Johnny Simms, amusedly, +"because I want to come along. Right?" + +"So I heard," said Cochrane, as curtly as before. + +"West said," Johnny Simms told him gleefully, "that he was going back to +Earth, punch Kursten, Kasten, Hopkins and Fallowe on their separate +noses, and then go down to South Carolina and raise edible snails for +the rest of his life." + +"An understandable ambition," said Cochrane. He frowned, waiting to talk +to Bell, who was taking an infernally long time to focus a camera out of +a side-port. + +"It's going to be good when he tries to cash my check," said Johnny +Simms delightedly. "I stopped payment on it when he wouldn't pick up +the tab for some drinks I invited him to have!" + +Cochrane forced his face to impassiveness. Johnny Simms was that way, he +understood. He was a psychopathic personality. He was completely +insensitive to notions of ethics. Ideas of right and wrong were as +completely meaningless to him as tones to a tone-deaf person, or pastel +tints to a man who is color-blind. They simply didn't register. His mind +was up to par, and he could be a charming companion. He could experience +the most kindly of emotions and most generous of impulses, which he put +into practice. But he also had a normal person's impulse to less +admirable behavior, and he simply could not understand that there was +any difference between impulses. He put the unpleasing ones into +practice too. He'd been on the moon to avoid extradition because of past +impulses which society called murderous. On this ship it was yet to be +discovered what he would do--but because he was technically sane his +lawyers could have prevented a take off unless he came along. Cochrane, +at the moment, felt an impulse to heave him out an airlock as a probable +danger. But Cochrane was not a psychopathic personality. + +He stopped Bell in his picture-taking and looked at the first of the +prints. They were excellent. He went back to the vision-set to transmit +them back to Luna. He sent them off. They would be forwarded to +observatories on Earth and inspected. They literally could not be faked. +There were thousands of stars on each print--with the Milky Way for +background on some--and each of those thousands of stars would be +identified, and each would have changed its relative position from that +seen on earth, with relation to every other star. Astronomers could +detect the spot from which the picture had been taken. But to fake a +single print would have required years of computation and almost +certainly there would have been slip-ups somewhere. These pictures were +unassailable evidence that a human expedition had reached a point in +space that had been beyond all human dreaming. + +Then Cochrane had nothing to do. He was a supernumerary member of the +crew. The pilot and Jones were in charge of the ship. Jamison would take +care of the catering, when meal-time came. Probably Alicia Keith--no, +Alicia Simms--would help. Nothing else needed attention. The rockets +either worked or they didn't. The air-apparatus needed no supervision. +Cochrane found himself without a function. + +He went restlessly back to the control-room. He found Babs looking +helpless, and Jones staring blankly at a slip of paper in his hands, +while the pilot was still at a blister-port, staring at the stars +through one of those squat, thick telescopes used on Luna for the +examination of the planets. + +"How goes the research?" asked Cochrane. + +"We're stumped," said Jones painfully. "I forgot something." + +"What?" + +"Whenever I wanted anything," said Jones, "I wrote it out and gave a +memo to Babs. She attended to it." + +"My system, exactly," admitted Cochrane. + +"I wrote out a memo for her," said Jones unhappily, "asking for +star-charts and for her to get somebody to set up a system of +astrogation for outside the solar system. Nobody's ever bothered to do +that before. Nobody's ever reached even Mars! But I figured we'd need +it." + +Cochrane waited. Jones showed him a creased bit of paper, closely +written. + +"I wrote out the memo and put it in my pocket," said Jones, "and I +forgot to give it to Babs. So we can't astrogate. We don't know how. We +didn't get either star-charts or instructions. We're lost." + +Cochrane waited. + +"Apparently Al was mistaken in the star he spotted as our sun," added +Jones. He referred to the pilot, whom Cochrane had not met before. +"Anyhow we can't find it again. We turned the ship to look at some more +stars, and we can't pick it out any more." + +Cochrane said: + +"You'll keep looking, of course." + +"For what?" asked Jones. + +He waved his hand out the four equally-spaced plastic blister-ports. +From where he stood, Cochrane could see thousands of thousands of stars +out those four small openings. They were of every conceivable color and +degree of brightness. The Milky Way was like a band of diamonds. + +"We know the sun's a yellow star," said Jones, "but we don't know how +bright it should be, or what the sky should look like beyond it." + +"Constellations?" asked Cochrane. + +"Find 'em!" said Jones vexedly. + +Cochrane didn't try. If a moon-rocket pilot could not spot familiar +star-groups, a television producer wasn't likely to see them. And it was +obvious, once one thought, that the brighter stars seen from Earth would +be mostly the nearer ones. If Jones was right in his guess that his +booster had increased the speed of the ship by sixty to the fourth +power, it would have gone some millions of times as fast as the +distress-torpedo, for a brief period (the ratio was actually something +over nineteen million times) and it happened that nobody had been able +to measure the speed of that test-object. + +Cochrane was no mathematician, but he could see that there was no data +for computation on hand. After one found out how fast an acceleration of +one Earth-gravity in a Dabney field of such-and-such strength speeded up +a ship, something like dead reckoning could be managed. But all that +could be known right now was that they had come a long way. + +He remembered a television show he'd produced, laid in space on an +imaginary voyage. The script-writer had had one of the characters say +that no constellation would be visible at a hundred light-years from the +solar system. It would be rather like a canary trying to locate the +window he'd escaped from, from a block away, with no memories of the +flight from it. + +Cochrane said suddenly, in a pleased tone: + +"This is a pretty good break--if we can keep them from finding out about +it back home! We'll have an entirely new program, good for a +thirteen-week sequence, on just this!" + +Babs stared at him. + +"Main set, this control-room," said Cochrane enthusiastically. "We'll +get a long-beard scientist back home with a panel of experts. We'll +discuss our problems here! We'll navigate from home, with the whole +business on the air! We'll have audience-identification up to a record! +Everybody on Earth will feel like he's here with us, sharing our +problems!" + +Jones said irritably: + +"You don't get it! We're lost! We can't check our speed without knowing +where we are and how far we've come! We can't find out what the ship +will do when we can't find out what it's done! Don't you see?" + +Cochrane said patiently: + +"I know! But we're in touch with Luna through the Dabney field that got +us here! It transmitted radiation before, faster than light. It's +transmitting voice and pictures now. Now we set up a television show +which pays for our astrogation and lets the world sit in on the prettier +aspects of our travels. Hm.... How long before you can sit down on a +planet, after you have all the navigational aids of--say--the four best +observatories on Earth to help you? I'll arrange for a sponsor--." + +He went happily down the stairs again. This was a spiral stair, and he +zestfully spun around it as he went to the next deck below. At the +bottom he called up to Babs: + +"Babs! Get Bell and Alicia Keith and come along to take dictation! I'm +going to need some legal witnesses for the biggest deal in the history +of advertising, made at several times the speed of light!" + +And he went zestfully to the communicator to set it up. + +And time passed. Data arrived, which at once solved Jones' and the +pilot's problem of where they were and how far they had come--it was, +actually, 178.3 light-years--and they spent an hour making further tests +and getting further determinations, and then they got a destination. + +They stopped in space to extrude from the airlock a small package which +expanded into a forty-foot plastic balloon with a minute atomic battery +attached to it. The plastic was an electric conductor. It was a +field-plate of the Dabney field. It took over the field from Earth and +maintained it. It provided a second field for the ship to maintain. The +ship, then, could move at any angle from the balloon. The Dabney field +stretched 178.3 light-years through emptiness to the balloon, and then +at any desired direction to the ship. + +The ship's rockets thrust again--and the booster-circuit came into play. +There were maneuverings. A second balloon was put out in space. + +At 8:30 Central U. S. Time, on a period relinquished by other +advertisers--bought out--a new program went on the air. It was a +half-hour show, sponsored by the Intercity Credit Corporation--"Buy on +Credit Guaranteed"--with ten straight minutes of commercials interjected +in four sections. It was the highest-priced show ever put on the air. It +showed the interior of the ship's control-rooms, with occasional brief +switches to authoritative persons on Earth for comment on what was +relayed from the far-off skies. + +The first broadcast ensured the success of the program beyond possible +dispute. It started with curt conversation between Jones and the pilot, +Al--Jones loathed this part of it, but Al turned out to be something of +a ham--on the problems of approaching a new solar system. Cut to +computers back on Earth. Back to the control-room of the starship. +Pictures of the local sun, and comments on its differentness from the +sun that had nourished the human race since time began. + +Then the cameras--Bell worked them--panned down through the ship's +blister-ports. There was a planet below. The ship descended toward it. +It swelled visibly as the space-ship approached. Cochrane stood out of +camera-range and acted as director as well as producer of the opus. He +used even Johnny Simms as an offstage voice repeating stern commands. It +was corny. There was no doubt about it. It had a large content of ham. + +But it happened to be authentic. The ship had reached another planet, +with vast ice-caps and what appeared to be no more than a +twenty-degree-wide equatorial belt where there was less than complete +glaciation. The rockets roared and boomed as the ship let down into the +cloud-layers. + +Television audiences back on Earth viewed the new planet nearly as soon +as did those in the ship. The time-lag was roughly three seconds for a +distance of 203.7 light-years. + +The surface of the planet was wild and dramatic beyond belief. There +were valleys where vegetation grew luxuriantly. There were ranges of +snow-clad mountains interpenetrating the equatorial strip, and there +were masses of white which, as the ship descended, could be identified +as glaciers moving down toward the vegetation. + +But as the ship sank lower and lower--and the sound of its rockets +became thunderous because of the atmosphere around it--a new feature +took over the central position in one's concept of what the planet was +actually like. + +The planet was volcanic. There were smoking cones everywhere--in the +snow-fields, among the ice-caps, in between the glaciers, and even among +the tumbled areas whose greenness proved that here was an environment +which might be perilous, but where life should thrive abundantly. + +The ship continued to descend toward a great forest near a terminal +moraine. + + + + +CHAPTER SIX + + +Jamison declaimed, wearing a throat-mike as Bell zestfully panned his +camera and the ship swung down. It was an impressive broadcast. The +rockets roared. With the coming of air about the ship, they no longer +made a mere rumbling. They created a tumult which was like the growl of +thunder if one were in the midst of the thunder-cloud. It was a numbing +noise. It was almost a paralyzing noise. But Jamison talked with +professional smoothness. + +"This planet," he orated, while pictures from Bell's camera went direct +to the transmitter below, "this planet is the first world other than +Earth on which a human ship has landed. It is paradoxic that before men +have walked on Mars' red iron-oxide plains and breathed its thin cold +air, or fought for life in the formaldehyde gales of Venus, that they +should look upon a world which welcomes them from illimitable +remoteness. Here we descend, and all mankind can watch our descent upon +a world whose vegetation is green; whose glaciers prove that there is +air and water in plenty, whose very smoking volcanoes assure us of its +close kinship to Earth!" + +He lifted the mike away from his throat and framed words with his lips. +"_Am I still on?_" Cochrane nodded. Cochrane wore headphones carrying +what the communicator carried, as this broadcast went through an angled +Dabney field relay system back to Lunar City and then to Earth. He spoke +close to Jamison's ear. + +"Go ahead! If your voice fades, it will be the best possible sign-off. +Suspense. Good television!" + +Jamison let the throat-mike back against his skin. The roaring of the +rockets would affect it only as his throat vibrated from the sound. It +would register, even so. + +"I see," said Jamison above the rocket-thunder, "forests of giant trees +like the sequoias of Mother Earth. I see rushing rivers, foaming along +their rocky beds, taking their rise in glaciers. We are still too high +to look for living creatures, but we descend swiftly. Now we are level +with the highest of the mountains. Now we descend below their smoking +tops. Under us there is a vast valley, miles wide, leagues long. Here a +city could be built. Over it looms a gigantic mountain-spur, capped with +green. One would expect a castle to be built there." + +He raised his eyebrows at Cochrane. They were well in atmosphere, now, +and it had been an obvious defect--condition--necessity of the Dabney +field that both of its plates should be in a vacuum. One was certainly +in air now. But Cochrane made that gesture which in television +production-practice informs the actors that time to cutting is measured +in tens of seconds, and he held up two fingers. Twenty seconds. + +"We gaze, and you gaze with us," said Jamison, "upon a world that future +generations will come to know as home--the site of the first human +colony among the stars!" + +Cochrane began to beat time. Ten, nine, eight--. + +"We are about to land," Jamison declaimed. "We do not know what we shall +find--What's that?" He paused dramatically. "A living creature?--A +living creature sighted down below! We sign off now--from the stars!" + +The ending had been perfectly timed. Allowing for a three-second +interval for the broadcast to reach the moon, and just about two more +for it to be relayed to Earth, his final word, "Stars!" had been uttered +at the precise instant to allow a four-minute commercial by Intercity +Credit, in the United States, by Citroen in Europe, by Fabricanos Unidos +in South and Central America, and Near East Oil along the Mediterranean. +At the end of that four minutes it would be time for station +identification and a time-signal, and the divers eight-second flashes +before other programs came on the air. + +The rockets roared and thundered. The ship went down and down. Jamison +said: + +"I thought we'd be cut off when we hit air!" + +"That's what Jones thought," Cochrane assured him. He bellowed above the +outside tumult, "Bell! See anything alive down below?" + +Bell shook his head. He stayed at the camera aimed out a blister-port, +storing up film-tape for later use. There was the feel of gravitation, +now. Actually, it was the fact that the ship slowed swiftly in its +descent. + +Cochrane went to a port. The ship continued its descent. + +"Living creature? Where?" + +Jamison shrugged. He had used it as a sign-off line. An extrapolation +from the fact that there was vegetation below. He looked somehow +distastefully out the port at a swiftly rising green ground below. He +was a city man. He had literally never before seen what looked like +habitable territory of such vast extent, with no houses on it. In a +valley easily ten miles long and two wide, there was not a square inch +of concrete or of glass. There was not a man made object in view. The +sky was blue and there were clouds, but to Jamison the sight of +vegetation implied rooftops. There ought to be parapets where roofs +ended to let light down to windows and streets below. He had never +before seen grass save on elevated recreation-areas, nor bushes not +arranged as landscaping, and certainly not trees other than the +domesticated growths which can grow on the tops of buildings. To Jamison +this was desolation. On the moon, absence of structures was +understandable. There was no air. But here there should be a city! + +The ship swayed a little as the rockets swung their blasts to balance +the descending mass. The intended Mars-ship slowed, and slowed, and +hovered--and there was terrifying smoke and flame suddenly all +about--and then there was a distinct crunching impact. The rockets +continued to burn, their ferocity diminished. They slackened again. And +yet again. They were reduced to a mere faint murmur. + +There was a remarkable immobility of everything. It was the result of +gravity. Earth-value gravity, or very near it. There was a distinct +pressure of one's feet against the floor, and a feeling of heaviness to +one's body which was very different from Lunar City, and more different +still from free flight in emptiness. + +Nothing but swirling masses of smoke could be seen out the ports. They +had landed in a forest, of sorts, and the rocket-blasts had burned away +everything underneath, down to solid soil. In a circle forty yards about +the ship the ground was a mass of smoking, steaming ash. Beyond that +flames licked hungrily, creating more dense vapor. Beyond that still +there was only coiling smoke. + +Cochrane's headphones yielded Babs' voice, almost wailing: + +"_Mr. Cochrane! We must have landed! I want to see!_" + +Cochrane pressed the hand-mike button. + +"Are we still hooked up to Lunar City?" he demanded. "We can't be, but +are we?" + +"_We are_," said Babs' voice mutinously. "_The broadcast went through +all right. They want to talk to you. Everybody wants to talk to you!_" + +"Tell them to call back later," commanded Cochrane. "Then leave the beam +working--however it works!--and come up if you like. Tell the moon +operator you'll be away for ten minutes." + +He continued to stare out the window. Al, the pilot, stayed in his +cushioned seat before the bank of rocket-controls. The rockets were +barely alight. The ship stayed as it had landed, upright on its triple +fins. He said to Jones: + +"It feels like we're solid. We won't topple!" + +Jones nodded. The rocket-sound cut off. Nothing happened. + +"I think we could have saved fuel on that landing," said Jones. Then he +added, pleased, "Nice! The Dabney field's still on! It has to be started +in a vacuum, but it looks like it can hold air away from itself once +it's established. Nice!" + +Babs rushed up the stairs. She gazed impassionedly out of a vision-port. +Then she said disappointedly: + +"It looks like--" + +"It looks like hell," said Cochrane. "Just smoke and steam and stuff. We +can hope, though, that we haven't started a forest fire, but have just +burned off a landing-place." + +They stared out. Presently they went to another port and gazed out of +that. The smoke was annoying, and yet it could have been foreseen. A +moon-rocket, landing at its space-port on Earth, heated the tarmac to +red-hotness in the process of landing. Tender-vehicles had to wait for +it to cool before they could approach. Here the ship had landed in +woodland. Naturally its flames had seared the spot where it came down. +And there was inflammable stuff about, which caught fire. So the ship +was in the situation of a phoenix, necessarily nesting in a +conflagration. Anywhere it landed the same thing would apply, unless it +tried landing on a glacier. But then it would settle down into a lake of +boiling water, amid steam, and could expect to be frozen in as soon as +its landing-place cooled. + +Now there was nothing to do. They had to wait. Once the whole ship +quivered very slightly, as if the ground trembled faintly under it. But +there was nothing at which to be alarmed. + +They could see that this particular forest was composed mainly of two +kinds of trees which burned differently. One had a central trunk, and it +burned with resinous flames and much black and gray-black smoke. The +other was a curious growth--a solid, massive trunk which did not touch +ground at all, but was held up by aerial roots which supported it aloft +through very many slender shafts widely spread. Possibly the heavier +part was formed on the ground and lifted as its air-roots grew. + +It was irritating, though, to be unable to see from the ship so long as +the fire burned outside. The pall of smoke lasted for a long time. In +three hours there were no longer any fiercely blazing areas, but the +ashes still smouldered and smoke still rose. In three hours and a half, +the local sun began to set. There were colorings in the sky, beyond all +comparison glorious. Which was logical enough. When Krakatoa, back on +Earth, blew itself to bits in the eighteen hundreds, it sent such +volumes of dust into the air that sunsets all around the globe were +notably improved for three years afterward. On this planet, smoking +cones were everywhere visible. Volcanic dust, then, made nightfall +magnificent past description. There was not only gold and crimson in the +west. The zenith itself glowed carmine and yellow, and those in the +space-ship gazed up at a sky such as none of them could have imagined +possible. + +The colors changed and changed, from yellow to gold all over the sky, +and still the glory continued. Presently there was a deep, deep red, +deep past imagining, and presently faint bluish stars pierced it, and +they stared up at new strange constellations-some very bright +indeed--and all about the ship there was a bed of white ash with glowing +embers in it, and a thin sheet of white smoke still flowed away down the +valley. + +It was long after sunset when Cochrane got up from the communicator. +Communication with Earth was broken at last. There was a balloon out in +space somewhere with an atomic battery maintaining all its surface as a +Dabney field plate. The ship maintained a field between itself and that +plate. The balloon maintained another field between itself and another +balloon a mere 178.3 light-years from the solar system. But the +substance of this planet intervened between the nearer balloon and the +ship. Jones made tests and observed that the field continued to exist, +but was plugged by the matter of this newly-arrived-at world. Come +tomorrow, when there was no solid-stone barrier to the passage of +radiation, they could communicate with Earth again. + +But Cochrane was weary and now discouraged. So long as talk with Earth +was possible, he'd kept at it. There was a great deal of talking to be +done. But a good deal of it was extremely unsatisfactory. + +He found Bill Holden having supper with Babs, on the floor below the +communicator. Very much of the recent talk had been over Cochrane's +head. He felt humiliated by the indignation of scientists who would not +tell him what he wanted to know without previous information he could +not give. + +When he went over to the dining-table, he felt that he creaked from +weariness and dejection. Babs looked at him solicitously, and then +jumped up to get him something to eat. Everybody else was again watching +out the ship's ports at the new, strange world of which they could see +next to nothing. + +"Bill," said Cochrane fretfully, "I've just been given the dressing-down +of my life! You're expecting to get out of the airlock in the morning +and take a walk. But I've been talking to Earth. I've been given the +devil for landing on a strange planet without bringing along a +bacteriologist, an organic chemist, an ecologist, an epidemiologist, and +a complete laboratory to test everything with, before daring to take a +breath of outside air. I'm warned not to open a port!" + +Holden said: + +"You sound as if you'd been talking to a biologist with a reputation. +You ought to know better than that!" + +Cochrane protested: + +"I wanted to talk to somebody who knew more than I did! What could I do +but get a man with a reputation?" + +Holden shook his head. + +"We psychiatrists," he observed, "go around peeping under the corners of +rugs at what people try to hide from themselves. We have a worm's-eye +view of humanity. We know better than to throw a difficult problem at a +man with an established name! They're neurotic about their reputations. +Like Dabney, they get panicky at the idea of anybody catching them in a +mistake. No big name in medicine or biology would dare tell you that of +course it's all right for us to take a walk in the rather pretty +landscape outside." + +"Then who will?" demanded Cochrane. + +"We'll make what tests we can," said Holden comfortingly, "and decide +for ourselves. We can take a chance. We're only risking our lives!" + +Babs brought Cochrane a plate. He put food in his mouth and chewed and +swallowed. + +"They say we can't afford to breathe the local air at all until we know +its bacteriology; we can't touch anything until we test it as a possible +allergen; we can't." + +Holden grunted. + +"What would those same authorities have told your friend Columbus? On a +strange continent he'd be sure to find strange plants and strange +animals. He'd find strange races of men and he ought to find strange +diseases. They'd have warned him not to risk it. _They_ wouldn't!" + +Cochrane ate with a sort of angry vigor. Then he snapped: + +"If you want to know, we've got to land! We're sunk if we don't go +outside and move around! We'll spoil our story-line. This is the +greatest adventure-serial anybody on Earth ever tuned in to follow! If +we back down on exploration, our audience will be disgusted and +resentful and they'll take it out on our sponsors!" + +Babs said softly, to Holden: + +"That's my boss!" + +Cochrane glared at her. He didn't know how to take the comment. He said +to Holden: + +"Tomorrow we'll try to figure out some sort of test and try the air. +I'll go out in a space-suit and crack the face-plate! I can close it +again before anything lethal gets in. But there's no use stepping out +into a bed of coals tonight. I'll have to wait till morning." + +Holden smiled at him. Babs regarded him with intent, enigmatic eyes. + +Neither of them said anything more. Cochrane finished his meal. Then he +found himself without an occupation. Gravity on this planet was very +nearly the same as on Earth. It felt like more, of course, because all +of them had been subject only to moon-gravity for nearly three weeks. +Jones and the pilot had been in one-sixth gravity for a much longer +time. And the absence of gravity had caused their muscles to lose tone +by just about the amount that the same time spent in a hospital bed +would have done. They felt physically worn out. + +It was a healthy tiredness, though, and their muscles would come back +to normal as quickly as one recovers strength after illness--rather +faster, in fact. But tonight there would be no night-life on the +space-ship. Johnny Simms disappeared, after symptoms of fretfulness akin +to those of an over-tired small boy. Jamison gave up, and Bell, and Al +the pilot fell asleep while Jones was trying to discuss something +technical with him. Jones himself yawned and yawned and when Al snored +in his face he gave up. They retired to their bunks. + +There was no point in standing guard over the ship. If the bed of hot +ashes did not guard it, it was not likely that an individual merely +sitting up and staring out its ports would do much good. There were +extremely minor, practically unnoticeable vibrations of the ship from +time to time. They would be volcanic temblors--to be expected. They were +not alarming, certainly, and the forest outside was guarantee of no +great violence to be anticipated. The trees stood firm and tall. There +was no worry about the ship. It was perfectly practical, and even +necessary simply to turn out the lights and go to sleep. + +But Cochrane could not relax. He was annoyed by the soreness of his +muscles. He was irritated by the picture given him of the expedition as +a group of heedless ignoramuses who'd taken off without star-charts or +bacteriological equipment--without even apparatus to test the air of +planets they might land on!--and who now were sternly warned not to make +any use of their achievement. Cochrane was not overwhelmed by the +achievement itself, though less than eighteen hours since the ship and +all its company had been aground on Luna, and now they were landed on a +new world twice as far from Earth as the Pole Star. + +It is probable that Cochrane was not awed because he had a +television-producer's point of view. He regarded this entire affair as a +production. He was absorbed in the details of putting it across. He +looked at it from his own, quite narrow, professional viewpoint. It did +not disturb him that he was surrounded by a wilderness. He considered +the wilderness the set on which his production belonged, though he was +as much a city man as anybody else. He went back to the control-room. +With the ship standing on its tail that was the highest point, and as +the embers burned out and the smoke lessened it was possible to look out +into the night. + +He stared at the dimly-seen trees beyond the burned area, and at the +dark masses of mountains which blotted out the stars. He estimated them, +without quite realizing it, in view of what they would look like on a +television screen. When light objects in the control-room rattled +slightly, he paid no attention. His rehearsal-studio had been rickety, +back home. + +Babs seemed to be sleepless, too. There was next to no light where +Cochrane was--merely the monitor-lights which assured that the Dabney +field still existed, though blocked for use by the substance of a +planet. Babs arrived in the almost-dark room only minutes after +Cochrane. He was moving restlessly from one port to another, staring +out. + +"I thought I'd tell you," Babs volunteered, "that Doctor Holden put some +algae from the air-purifier tanks in the airlock, and then opened the +outer door." + +"Why?" asked Cochrane. + +"Algae's Earth plant-life," explained Babs. "If the air is poisonous, it +will be killed by morning. We can close the outer door of the lock, pump +out the air that came from this planet, and then let air in from the +ship so we can see what happens." + +"Oh," said Cochrane. + +"And then I couldn't sleep," said Babs guilelessly. "Do you mind if I +stay here? Everybody else has gone to bed." + +"Oh, no," said Cochrane. "Stay if you like." + +He stared out at the dark. Presently he moved to another port. After a +moment he pointed. + +"There's a glow in the sky there," he said curtly. + +She looked. There was a vast curving blackness which masked the stars. +Beyond it there was a reddish glare, as if of some monstrous burning. +But the color was not right for a fire. Not exactly. + +"A city?" asked Babs breathlessly. + +"A volcano," Cochrane told her. "I've staged shows that pretended to +show intellectual creatures on other planets--funny how we've been +dreaming of such things, back on Earth--but it isn't likely. Not since +we've actually reached the stars." + +"Why since then?" + +"Because," said Cochrane, half ironically, "man was given dominion over +all created things. I don't think we'll find rivals for that dominion. I +can't imagine we'll find another race of creatures who could +be--persons. Heaven knows we try to rob each other of dignity, but I +don't think there's another race to humiliate us when we find them!" + +After a moment he added: + +"Bad enough that we're here because there are deodorants and cosmetics +and dog-foods and such things that people want to advertise to each +other! We wouldn't be here but for them, and for the fact that some +people are neurotics and some don't like their bosses and some are crazy +in other fashions." + +"Some crazinesses aren't bad," argued Babs. + +"I've made a living out of them," agreed Cochrane sourly. "But I don't +like them. I have a feeling that I could arrange things better. I know I +couldn't, but I'd like to try. In my own small way, I'm even trying." + +Babs chuckled. + +"That's because you are a man. Women aren't so foolish. We're realists. +We like creation--even men--the way creation is." + +"I don't," Cochrane said irritably. "We've accomplished something +terrific, and I don't get a kick out of it! My head is full of business +details that have to be attended to tomorrow. I ought to be uplifted. I +ought to be gloating! I ought to be happy! But I'm worrying for fear +that this infernal planet is going to disappoint our audience!" + +Babs chuckled again. Then she went to the stair leading to the +compartment below. + +"What's the matter?" he demanded. + +"After all, I'm going to leave you alone," said Babs cheerfully. "You're +always very careful not to talk to me in any personal fashion. I think +you're afraid I'll tell you something for your own good. If I stayed +here, I might. Goodnight!" + +She started down the stairs. Cochrane said vexedly: + +"Hold on! Confound it, I didn't know I was so transparent! I'm sorry, +Babs. Look! Tell me something for my own good!" + +Babs hesitated, and then said very cheerfully: + +"You only see things the way a man sees them. This show, this trip--this +whole business doesn't thrill you because you don't see it the way a +woman would." + +"Such as how? What does a woman see that I don't?" + +"A woman," said Babs, "sees this planet as a place that men and women +will come to live on. To live on! You don't. You miss all the real +implications of people actually living here. But they're the things a +woman sees first of all." + +Cochrane frowned. + +"I'm not so conceited I can't listen to somebody else. If you've got an +idea--" + +"Not an idea," said Babs. "Just a reaction. And you can't explain a +reaction to somebody who hasn't had it. Goodnight!" + +She vanished down the stairs. Some time later, Cochrane heard the +extremely minute sound of a door closing on one of the cabins three +decks down in the space-ship. + +He went back to his restless inspection of the night outside. He tried +to make sense of what Babs had said. He failed altogether. In the end he +settled in one of the over-elaborately cushioned chairs that had made +this ship so attractive to deluded investors. He intended to think out +what Babs might have meant. She was, after all, the most competent +secretary he'd ever had, and he'd been wryly aware of how helpless he +would be without her. Now he tried painstakingly to imagine what changes +in one's view the inclusion of women among pioneers would involve. He +worked out some seemingly valid points. But it was not a congenial +mental occupation. + +He fell asleep without realizing it, and was waked by the sound of +voices all about him. It was morning again, and Johnny Simms was +shouting boyishly at something he saw outside. + +"Get at it, boy!" he cried enthusiastically. "Grab him! That's the +way--" + +Cochrane opened his eyes. Johnny Simms gazed out and down from a +blister-port, waving his arms. His wife Alicia looked out of the same +port without seeming to share his excited approval. Bell had dragged a +camera across the control-room and was in the act of focussing it +through a particular window. + +"What's the matter?" demanded Cochrane. + +He struggled out of his chair. And Johnny Simms' pleasure evaporated +abruptly. He swore nastily, viciously, at something outside the ship. +His wife touched his arm and spoke to him in a low tone. He turned +furiously upon her, mouthing foulnesses. + +Cochrane was formidably beside him, and Johnny Simms' expression of fury +smoothed out instantly. He looked pleasant and amiable. + +"The fight stopped," he explained offhandedly. "It was a good fight. But +one of the creatures wouldn't stay and take his licking." + +Alicia said steadily: + +"There were some animals there. They looked rather like bears, only they +had enormous ears." + +Cochrane looked at Johnny Simms with hot eyes. It was absurd to be so +chivalrous, perhaps, but he was enraged. After an instant he turned away +and went to the port. The burned-over area was now only ashes. At its +edge, charcoal showed. And now he could see trees and brushwood on +beyond. The trees did not seem strange, because no trees would have +seemed familiar. The brush did not impress him as exotic, because his +experience with actual plants was restricted to the artificial plants on +television sets and the artificially arranged plants on rooftops. He +hardly let his eyes dwell on the vegetation at all. He searched for +movement. He saw the moving furry rumps of half a dozen unknown +creatures as they dived into concealment as if they had been frightened. +He looked down and could see the hull of the ship and two of the three +take-off fins on which it rested. + +The airlock door was opening out. It swung wide. It swung back against +the hull. + +"Holden's making some sort of test of the air," Cochrane said shortly. +"The animals were scared when the outside door swung open. I'll see what +he finds out." + +He hurried down. He found Babs standing beside the inner door of the +airlock. She looked somehow pale. There were two saucers of greenish +soup-like stuff on the floor at her feet. That would be, of course, the +algae from the air-purifying-system tanks. + +"The algae were alive," said Babs. "Dr. Holden went in the lock to try +the air himself. He said he'd be very careful." + +For some obscure reason Cochrane felt ashamed. There was a long, a +desperately long wait. Then sounds of machinery. The outer door closing. +Small whistlings--compressed air. + +The inner door opened. Bill Holden came out of the lock, his expression +zestfully surprised. + +"Hello, Jed! I tried the air. It's all right! At a guess, maybe a little +high in oxygen. But it feels wonderfully good to breathe! And I can +report that the trees are wood and the green is chlorophyll, and this +is an Earth-type planet. That little smoky smell about is completely +familiar--and I'm taking that as an analysis. I'm going to take a walk." + +Cochrane found himself watching Babs' face. She looked enormously +relieved, but even Cochrane--who was looking for something of the sort +without realizing it--could not read anything but relief in her +expression. She did not, for example, look admiring. + +"I'll borrow one of Johnny Simms' guns," said Holden, "and take a look +around. It's either perfectly safe or we're all dead anyhow. Frankly, I +think it's safe. It feels right outside, Jed! It honestly feels right!" + +"I'll come with you," said Cochrane, "Jones and the pilot are necessary +if the ship's to get back to Earth. But we're expendable." + +He went back to the control-room. Johnny Simms zestfully undertook to +outfit them with arms. He made no proposal to accompany them. In twenty +minutes or so, Cochrane and Holden went into the airlock and the door +closed. A light came on automatically, precisely like the light in an +electric refrigerator. Cochrane found his lips twitching a little as the +analogy came to him. Seconds later the outer door opened, and they gazed +down among the branches of tall trees. Cochrane winced. There was no +railing and the height bothered him. But Holden swung out the sling. He +and Cochrane descended, dangling, down fifty feet of unscarred, shining, +metal hull. + +The ground was still hot underfoot. Holden cast off the sling and moved +toward cooler territory with an undignified haste. Cochrane followed +him. + +The smells were absolutely commonplace. Scorched wood. Smokiness. There +were noises. Occasional cracklings from burned tree-trunks not wholly +consumed. High-pitched, shrill musical notes. And in and among the +smells there was an astonishing freshness in the feel of the air. +Cochrane was especially apt to notice it because he had lived in a city +back on Earth, and had spent four days in the moon-rocket, and then had +breathed the Lunar City air for eighteen days more and had just come +from the space-ship whose air was distinctly of the canned variety. + +He did not notice the noise of the sling again in motion behind him. He +was all eyes and ears and acute awareness of the completely strange +environment. He was the more conscious of a general strangeness because +he was so completely an urban product. Yet he and Holden were vastly +less aware of the real strangeness about them than men of previous +generations would have been. They did not notice the oddity of croaking +sounds, like frogs, coming from the tree-tops. When they had threaded +their way among leaning charred poles and came to green stuff underfoot +and merely toasted foliage all around, Cochrane heard a sweet, +high-pitched trilling which came from a half-inch hole in the ground. +But he was not astonished by the place from which the trilling came. He +was astonished at the sound itself. + +There was a cry behind them. + +_"Mr. Cochrane! Doctor Holden!"_ + +They swung about. And there was Babs on the ground, just disentangling +herself from the sling. She had followed them out, after waiting until +they had left the airlock and could not protest. + +Cochrane swore to himself. But when Babs joined them breathlessly, after +a hopping run over the hot ground, he said only: + +"Fancy meeting you here!" + +"_I--I couldn't resist it_," said Babs in breathless apology. "And you +do have guns. It's safe enough--oh, look!" + +She stared at a bush which was covered with pale purple flowers. Small +creatures hovered in the air about it. She approached it and exclaimed +again at the sweetness of its scent. Cochrane and Holden joined her in +admiration. + +In a sense they were foolishly unwary. This was completely strange +territory. It could have contained anything. Earlier explorers would +have approached every bush with caution and moved over every hilltop +with suspicion, anticipating deadly creatures, unparalleled monsters, +and exotic and peculiar circumstances designed to entrap the unprepared. +Earlier explorers, of course, would probably have had advice from famous +men to prepare them for all possible danger. + +But this was a valley between snow-clad mountains. The river that ran +down its length was fed by glaciers. This was a temperate climate. The +trees were either coniferous or something similar, and the vegetation +grew well but not with the frenzy of a tropic region. There were fruits +here and there. Later, to be sure, they would prove to be mostly +astringent and unpalatable. They were broad-leafed, low-growing plants +which would eventually turn out to be possessed of soft-fleshed roots +which were almost unanimously useless for human purposes. There were +even some plants with thorns and spines upon them. But they encountered +no danger. + +By and large, wild animals everywhere are ferocious only when desperate. +No natural setting can permanently be so deadly that human being will be +attacked immediately they appear. An area in which peril is continuous +is one in which there is so much killing that there is no food-supply +left to maintain its predators. On the whole, there is simply a limit to +how dangerous any place can be. Dangerous beasts have to be relatively +rare, or they will not have enough to eat, when they will thin out until +they are relatively rare and do have enough to eat. + +So the three explorers moved safely, though their boldness was that of +ignorance, below gigantic trees nearly as tall as the space-ship +standing on end. They saw a small furry biped, some twelve inches tall, +which waddled insanely in the exact line of their progress and with no +apparent hope of outdistancing them. They saw a gauzy creature with +incredibly spindly legs. It flew from one tree-trunk to another, +clinging to rough bark on each in turn. Once they came upon a small +animal which looked at them with enormous, panic-stricken blue eyes and +then fled with a sinuous gait on legs so short that they seemed mere +flippers. It dived into a hole and vanished. + +But they came out to clear space. They could look for miles and miles. +There was a savannah of rolling soil which gradually sloped down to a +swift-running river. The grass--if it was grass--was quite green, but it +had multitudes of tiny rose-colored flowers down the central rib of each +leaf. Nearby it seemed the color of Earth-grass, but it faded +imperceptibly into an incredible old-rose tint in the distance. The +mountain-scarps on either side of the valley were sheer and tall. There +was a great stony spur reaching out above the lowland, and there was +forest at its top and bare brown stone dropping two thousand feet sheer. +And up the valley, where it narrowed, a waterfall leaped out from the +cliff and dropped hundreds of feet in an arc of purest white, until it +was lost to view behind tree-tops. + +They looked. They stared. Cochrane was a television producer, and Holden +was a psychiatrist, and Babs was a highly efficient secretary. They did +not make scientific observations. The ecological system of the valley +escaped their notice. They weren't qualified to observe that the flying +things around seemed mostly to be furry instead of feathered, and that +insects seemed few and huge and fragile,--and they did not notice that +most of the plants appeared to be deciduous, so indicating that this +planet had pronounced seasons. But Holden said: + +"Up in Greenland there's a hospital on a cliff like that. People with +delusions of grandeur sometimes get cured just by looking at something +that's so much greater and more splendid than they are. I'd like to see +a hospital up yonder!" + +Babs said, shining-eyed: + +"A city could be built in this valley. Not a tall city, with gray +streets and gardens on the roofs. This could be a nice little city like +people used to have. There would be little houses, all separate, and +there'd be grass all around and people could pluck flowers if they +wanted to, to take inside.... There could be families here, and +homes--not living-quarters!" + +Cochrane said nothing. He was envious of the others. They saw, and they +dreamed according to their natures. Cochrane somehow felt forlorn. +Presently he said depressedly: + +"We'll go back to the ship. You can work out your woman's viewpoint +stuff with Bell, Babs. He'll write it, or you can give it to Alicia to +put over when we go on the air." + +Babs made no reply. The absence of comment was almost pointed. Cochrane +realized that she wouldn't do it, though he couldn't see why. + +They did go back to the ship. Cochrane sent Babs and Holden up the +sling, first, while he waited down below. It was a singular sensation to +stand there. He was the only human being afoot on a planet the size of +Earth or larger, at the foot of a cliff of metal which was the +space-ship's hull. He had a weapon in his hand, and it should defend him +from anything. But he felt very lonely. + +The sling came down for him. He felt sick at heart as it lifted him. He +had an overwhelming conviction of incompetence, though he could not +detail the reasons. The rope hauled him up, swaying, to the dizzy height +of the air-lock door. He could not feel elated. He was partly +responsible for humankind's greatest achievement to date. But he had not +quite the viewpoint that would let him enjoy its contemplation. + +The ground quivered very faintly as he rose. It was not an earthquake. +It was merely a temblor, such as anyone would expect to feel +occasionally with six smoking volcanic cones in view. The green stuff +all around was proof that it could be disregarded. + + + + +CHAPTER SEVEN + + +In the United States, some two-hundred-odd light-years away, it happened +to be Tuesday. On this Tuesday, the broadcast from the stars was +sponsored by Harvey's, the national men's clothing chain. Harvey's +advertising department preferred discussion-type shows, because +differences of opinion in the shows proper led so neatly into their +tag-line. "You can disagree about anything but the quality of a Harvey +suit! That's Superb!" + +Therefore the broadcast after the landing of the ship on the volcanic +planet was partly commercial, and partly pictures and reports from the +Spaceways expedition, and partly queries and comments by big-name +individuals on Earth. Inevitably there was Dabney. And Dabney was +neurotic. + +He did his best to make a shambles of everything. + +The show started promptly enough at the beginning. There was a +two-minute film-strip of business-suited puppets marching row on row, +indicating the enormous popularity of Harvey's suits. Then a fast minute +hill-billy puppet-show about two feuding mountaineers who found they +couldn't possibly retain their enmity when they found themselves in +agreement on the quality of Harvey suits. "That's Superb!" The +commercial ended with a choral dance of madly enthusiastic miniature +figures, dancing while they lustily sang the theme-song, "You can +disagree, yes siree, you can disagree, About anything, indeed +everything, you and me, But you can't, no you can't disagree, About the +strictly super, extra super, Qualitee of a Har-ve-e-e-e suit! That's +superb!" + +And thereupon the television audience of several continents saw the +faded-in image of mankind's first starship, poised upon its landing-fins +among trees more splendid than even television shows had ever pictured +before. The camera panned slowly, and showed such open spaces as very +few humans had ever seen unencumbered by buildings, and mountains of a +grandeur difficult for most people to believe in. + +The scene cut to the space-ship's control-room and Al the pilot acted +briskly as the leader of an exploration-party just returned--though he +actually hadn't left the ship. He introduced Jamison, wearing improvised +leggings and other trappings appropriate to an explorer in wilderness. +Jamison began to extrapolate from his observations out the control-room +port, adding film-clips for authority. + +Smoothly and hypnotically, he pictured the valley as the ship descended +the last few thousand feet, and told of the human colony to be founded +in this vast and hospitable area just explored. Mountainside hotels for +star-tourists would look down upon a scene of tranquility and cozy +spaciousness. This would be the first human outpost in the stars. In the +other valleys of this magnificent world there would be pasture-lands, +and humankind would again begin to regard meat as a normal and +not-extravagant part of its diet--on this planet, certainly! There were +minerals beyond doubt, and water-power. The estimate was that at least +the equivalent of the Asian continent had been made available for human +occupation. And this splendid addition to the resources of humanity ... + +The second commercial cut Jamison off. Naturally. The sponsor was paying +for time. So for Jamison was substituted the other fiction about the +poor young man who found himself envied by the board of directors of the +firm which employed him. His impeccable attire caused him to be promoted +to vice-president without any question of whether or not he could fill +the job. Because, of course, he wore a Harvey suit. + +Alicia Keith showed herself on the screen and gave the woman's viewpoint +as written about by Bell. She talked pleasantly about how it felt to +move about on a planet never before trodden by human beings. She was +interrupted by the pictured face of the lady editor of Joint Networks' +feminine programs, who asked sweetly: + +"Tell me, Alicia, what do you think the attainment of the stars will +mean to the Average American housewife in the immediate future? Right +now?" + +Then Dabney came on. His appearance was fitted into the sequence from +Lunar City, and his gestures were extravagant as anybody's gestures will +be where their hands and arms weigh so small a fraction of +Earth-normal. + +"I wish," said Dabney impressively, "to congratulate the men who have so +swiftly adapted my discovery of faster-than-light travel to practical +use. I am overwhelmed at having been able to achieve a scientific +triumph which in time will mean that mankind's future stretches +endlessly and splendidly into the future!" + +Here there was canned applause. Dabney held up his hand for attention. +He thought. Visibly. + +"But," he said urgently, "I admit that I am disturbed by the +precipitancy of the action that has been taken. I feel as if I were like +some powerful djinni giving gifts which the recipients may use without +thought." + +More canned applause, inserted because he had given instructions for it +whenever he paused. The communicator-operator at Luna City took pleasure +in following instructions exactly. Dabney held up his hand again. Again +he performed feats of meditation in plain view. + +"At the moment," he said anxiously, "as the author of this truly +magnificent achievement, I have to use the same intellect which produced +it, to examine the possibility of its ill-advised use. May not +explorers--who took off without my having examined their plans and +precautions--may not over-hasty users of my gift to humanity do harm? +May they not find bacteria the human body cannot resist? May they not +bring back plagues and epidemics? Have they prepared themselves to use +my discovery only for the benefit of mankind? Or have they been +precipitous? I shall have to apply myself to the devising of methods by +which my discovery--made so that Humanity might attain hitherto +undreamed-of-heights--I shall have to devise means by which it will be +truly a blessing to mankind!" + +Dabney, of course, had tasted the limelight. All the world considered +him the greatest scientist of all time--except, of course, the people +who knew something about science. But the first actual voyagers in space +had become immediately greater heroes than himself. It was intolerable +to Dabney to be restricted to taking bows on programs in which they +starred. So he wrote a star part for himself. + +The bearded biologist who followed him was to have lectured on the +pictures and reports forwarded to him beforehand. But he could not +ignore so promising a lead to show how much he knew. So he lectured +authoritatively on the danger of extra-terrestrial disease-producing +organisms being introduced on Earth. He painted a lurid picture, quoting +from the history of pre-sanitation epidemics. He wound up with a +specific prophecy of something like the Black Death of the middle ages +as lurking among the stars to decimate humanity. He was a victim of the +well-known authority-trauma which affects some people on television when +they think millions of other people are listening to them. They depart +madly from their scripts to try to say something startling enough to +justify all the attention they're getting. + +The broadcast ended with a sentimental live commercial in which a +dazzlingly beautiful girl melted into the arms of the worthy young man +she had previously scorned. She found him irresistible when she noticed +that he was wearing a suit she instantly knew by its quality could only +come from Harvey's. + +On the planet of glaciers and volcanoes, Holden fumed. + +"Dammit!" he protested. "They talk like we're lepers! Like if we ever +come back we'll be carriers of some monstrous disease that will wipe out +the human race! As a matter of fact, we're no more likely to catch an +extra-terrestrial disease than to catch wry-neck from sick chickens!" + +"That broadcast's nothing to worry about," said Cochrane. + +"But it is!" insisted Holden. "Dabney and that fool biologist presented +space-travel as a reason for panic! They could have every human being on +Earth scared to death we'll bring back germs and everybody'll die of the +croup!" + +Cochrane grinned. + +"Good publicity--if we needed it! Actually, they've boosted the show. +From now on every presentation has a dramatic kick it didn't have +before. Now everybody will feel suspense waiting for the next show. Has +Jamison got the Purple Death on the Planet of Smoky Hilltops? Will +darling Alicia Keith break out in green spots next time we watch her on +the air? Has Captain Al of the star-roving space-ship breathed in spores +of the Swelling Fungus? Are the space-travellers doomed? Tune in on our +next broadcast and see! My dear Bill, if we weren't signed up for +sponsors' fees, I'd raise our prices after this trick!" + +Holden looked unconvinced. Cochrane said kindly: + +"Don't worry! I could turn off the panic tomorrow--as much panic as +there is. Kursten, Kasten, Hopkins and Fallowe had a proposal they set +great store by. They wanted to parcel out a big contest for a name for +mankind's second planet. They had regional sponsors lined up. It would +have been worldwide! Advertisers were drooling over the prospect of +people proposing names for this planet on box-tops! They were planning +five million prize-money--and who'd be afraid of us then? But I turned +it down because we haven't got a helicopter. We couldn't stage enough +different shows from this planet to keep it going the minimum six weeks +for a contest like that. Instead, we're taking off in a couple of hours. +Jones agrees. The astronomers back home have picked out another Sol-type +star that ought to have planets. We're going to run over and see what +pickings we can find. Not too far--only twenty-some light-years!" + +He regarded Holden quizzically to see how the last phases affected him. +Holden didn't notice it. + +"A contest--It doesn't make sense!" + +"I know it isn't sense!" said Cochrane. "It's public-relations! I'm +beginning to get my self-respect back. I see now that a +space-exploration job is only as good as its public-relations man!" + +He went zestfully to find Babs to tell her to leave the communicator-set +and let queries go unanswered as a matter of simple business policy. + +The sling which swung out of the airlock now became busy. They had +landed on this planet, and they were going to leave it, and there had +been a minimum of actual contact with its soil. So Jamison took his +leggings--put on for the show--and he and Bell went down to the ground +and foraged through the woods. Jamison carried one of Johnny Simms' +guns, which he regarded with acute suspicion, and Bell carried cameras. +They photographed trees and underbrush, first as atmosphere and then +with fanatic attention to leaves and fruits or flowers. Bell got +pictures of one of the small, furry bipeds that Cochrane and Holden had +spied when Babs was with them. He got a picture of what he believed to +be a spider-web--it was thicker and heavier and huger than any web on +Earth--and rather fearfully looked for the monster that could string +thirty-foot cables as thick as fishing-twine. Then he found that it was +not a snare at all. It was a construction at whose center something +undiscoverable had made a nest, with eggs in it. Some creature had made +an unapproachable home for itself where its young would not be assailed +by predators. + +Al, the pilot, went out of the lock and descended to the ground and went +as far as the edge of the ash-ring. But he did not go any farther. He +wandered about unhappily, pretending that he did not want to go into the +woods. He tried to appear quite content to view half-burnt trees for his +experience of the first extra-terrestrial planet on which men had +landed. He did kick up some pebbles--water-rounded--and one of them had +flecks of what looked like gold in it. Al regarded it excitedly, and +then thought of freight-rates. But he did scrabble for more. Presently +he had a pocket-full of small stones which would be regarded with +rapture by his nieces and nephews because they had come from the stars. +Actually, they were quite commonplace minerals. The flecks of what +looked like gold were only iron pyrates. + +Jones did not leave the ship. He was puttering. Nor Alicia. Holden urged +her to take a walk, and she said quietly: + +"Johnny's out with a gun. He's hunting. I don't like to be with Johnny +when he may be disappointed." + +She smiled, and Holden sourly went away. There had been no particular +consequences of Johnny Simms' inability to remember what was right and +what was wrong. But Holden felt like a normal man about men whose wives +look patient. Even psychiatrists feel that it is somehow disreputable to +illtreat a woman who doesn't fight back. This attitude is instinctive. +It is what is called the fine, deep-rooted impulse to chivalry which is +one of the prides of modern culture. + +Holden settled dourly down at the communicator to get an outgoing call +to Earth, when there were some hundreds of incoming calls backed up. By +sheer obstinacy and bad manners he made it. He got a connection to a +hospital where he was known, and he talked to its bacteriologist. The +bacteriologist was competent, but not yet famous. With Holden giving +honest guesses at the color of the sunlight, and its probable +ultra-violet content, and with careful estimates of the exactness with +which burning vegetation here smelled like Earth-plants, they arrived at +imprecise but common sense conclusions. Of the hundreds of thousands of +possible organic compounds, only so many actually took part in the +life-processes of creatures on Earth. Yet there were hundreds of +thousands of species prepared to make use of anything usable. If the +sunlight and temperature of the two worlds were similar, it was somewhat +more than likely that the same chemical compounds would be used by +living things on both. So that there could be micro-organisms on the +new planet which could be harmful. But on the other hand, either they +would be familiar in the toxins they produced--and human bodies could +resist them--or else they would be new compounds to which humans would +react allergically. Basically, then, if anybody on the ship developed +hives, they had reason to be frightened. But so long as nobody sneezed +or broke out in welts, their lives were probably safe. + +This comforting conclusion took a long time to work out. Meanwhile Babs +and Cochrane had swung down to the ground and went hiking. Cochrane was +armed as before, though he had no experience as a marksman. In +television shows he had directed the firing of weapons shooting blank +charges--cut to a minimum so they wouldn't blast the mikes. He knew what +motions to go through, but nothing else. + +They did not explore in the same direction as their first excursion. The +ship was to take off presently, as soon as this planet had turned enough +for the space-ship's nose to point nearly in the direction of their next +target. They had two hours for exploration. + +They came upon something which lay still across their path, like a great +serpent. Cochrane looked at it startledly. Then he saw that the round, +glistening seeming snake was fastened to the ground by rootlets. It was +a plant which grew like a creeper, absorbing nourishment from a vast +root-area. Somewhere, no doubt, it would rear upward and spread out +leaves to absorb the sun's light. It used, in a way, the principle of +those lateral wells which in dry climates gather water too scarce to +collect in merely vertical holes. + +They went on and on, admiring and amazed. All about them were +curiosities of adaptation, freaks of ecological adjustment, marvels of +symbiotic cooperation. A botanist would have swooned with joy at the +material all about. A biologist would have babbled happily. Babs and +Cochrane admired without information. They walked interestedly but +unawed among the unparalleled. Back on Earth they knew as much as most +people about nature--practically nothing at all. Babs had never seen any +wild plants before. She was fascinated by what she saw, and exclaimed at +everything. But she did not realize a fraction of the marvels on which +her eyes rested. On the whole, she survived. + +"It's a pity we haven't got a helicopter," Cochrane said regretfully. +"If we could fly around from place to place, and send back pictures ... +We can't do it in the ship ... It would burn more fuel than we've got." + +Babs wrinkled her forehead. + +"Doctor Holden's badly worried because we can't make as alluring a +picture as he'd like." + +Cochrane halted, to watch something which was flat like a disk of +gray-green flesh and which moved slowly out of their path with +disquieting writhing motions. It vanished, and he said: + +"Yes. Bill's an honest man, even if he is a psychiatrist. He wants +desperately to do something for the poor devils back home who're so +pitifully frustrated. There are tens of millions of men who can't hope +for anything better than to keep the food and shelter supply intact for +themselves and their families. They can't even pretend to hope for more +than that. There isn't more than so much to go around. But Bill wants to +give them hope. He figures that without hope the world will turn +madhouse in another generation. It will." + +"You're trying to do something about that!" said Babs quickly. "Don't +you think you're offering hope to everybody back on Earth?" + +"No!" snapped Cochrane. "I'm not trying anything so abstract as +furnishing hope to a frustrated humanity! Nobody can supply an +abstraction! Nobody can accomplish an abstraction! Everything that's +actually done is specific and real! Maybe you can find abstract +qualities in it after it's done, but I'm a practical man! I'm not trying +to produce an improved psychological climate, suitable for debilitated +psychos! I'm trying to get a job done!" + +"I've wondered," admitted Babs, "what the job is." + +Cochrane grimaced. + +"You wouldn't believe it, Babs." + +There was an odd quivering underfoot. Trees shook. There was no other +peculiarity anywhere. Nothing fell. No rocks rolled. In a valley among +volcanoes, where the smoke from no less than six cones could be seen at +once, temblors would not do damage. What damage mild shakings could do +would have been done centuries since. + +Babs said uneasily: + +"That feels--queer, doesn't it?" + +Cochrane nodded. But just as he and Babs had never been conditioned to +be afraid of animals, they had been conditioned by air-travel at home +and space-travel to here against alarm at movements of their +surroundings. Temblors were evidently frequent at this place. Trees were +anchored against them as against prevailing winds in exposed situations. +Landslides did not remain poised to fall. Really unstable slopes had +been shaken down long ago. + +"I wish we had a helicopter," Cochrane repeated. "The look of the +mountains as we came down, with glaciers between the smoking cones--that +was good show-stuff! We could have held interest here until we worked +that naming contest. We could use the extra capital that would bring in! +As it is, we've got to move on with practically nothing accomplished. +The trouble is that I didn't think we would succeed as we have! Heaven +knows I could have gotten helicopters!" + +He helped her up a small steep incline, where rock protruded from a +hillside. + +The ground trembled again. Not alarmingly, but Babs' hold of his hand +tightened a little. They continued to climb. They came out atop a small +bare prominence which rose above the forest. Here they could see over +the treetops in a truly extensive view. The mountains all about were +clearly visible. Some were ten and some twenty miles away. Some, still +farther, were barely visible in the thin haze of distance. But there was +a thick pall of smoke hovering about one of the farthest. It was +mushroom-shaped. At one time in human history, it would have seemed +typically a volcanic cloud. To Cochrane and Babs, it was typically the +cloud of an atomic explosion. + +The ground shook sharply underfoot. Babs staggered. + +Flying things rose from the forests in swarms. They hovered and darted +and flapped above the tree-tops. Temblors did not alarm the creatures of +the valley. But ground-shocks like this last were another matter. + +A great tree, rearing above its fellows, toppled slowly. With ripping, +tearing noises, it bent sedately toward the smoking, far-away mountain. +It crashed thunderously down upon smaller trees. There were other +rending noises. The flying things rose higher, seeming agitated. Echoes +sounded in the ears of the two atop the hill. + +There was another sharp shock. Babs gave a little, inarticulate cry. She +pointed. + +There was much smoke in the distance. Over the far-away cone, which was +indistinct in the smoke of its own making--over the edge of the distant +mountains a glare appeared. It was a thin line of bright white light. +With infinite deliberation it began to creep down the slanting, +blessedly remote mountainside. + +The ground seemed to shift abruptly, and then shift back. Across and +down the valley, five miles away, a portion of the stony wall detached +itself and slid downward in seeming slow motion. Two more great trees +made ripping sounds. One crashed. There was an enormous darkness above +one part of the sky. Its under side glowed from fires as of hell, in the +crater beneath it. There were sparkings above the mountaintop. + +Very oddly indeed, the sky overhead was peacefully blue. But at the +horizon a sheet of fire rolled down mile-long slopes. It seemed to move +with infinite deliberation, but to move visibly at such a distance it +must have been traveling like an express-train. It must have been +unthinkably hot, glaring-white molten stone, thin as water, pouring +downward in a flood of fire. + +There was no longer a sensation of the ground trembling underfoot. Now +the noticeable sensation was when the ground was still. Temblors were +practically continuous. There were distinct sharp impacts, as of violent +blows nearby. + +Babs stared, fascinated. She glanced up at Cochrane. His skin was white. +There were beads of sweat on his forehead. + +"We're safe here, aren't we?" she asked, scared. + +"I think so. But I'm not going to take you through falling trees while +this is going on! There's another tree down! I'm worrying about the +ship! If it topples--." + +She looked at the nose of the space-ship, gleaming silver metal, rising +from the trees about the landing-spot it had burned clear. A third of +its length was visible. + +"If it topples," said Cochrane, "we'll never be able to take off. It has +to point up to lift." + +Babs looked from the ship to him, and back again. Then her eyes went +fearfully to the remote mountain. Rumblings came from it now. They were +not loud. They were hardly more than dull growlings, at the lower limit +of audible pitch. They were like faint and distant thunder. There were +flashings like lightning in the cloud which now enveloped the mountain's +top. + +Cochrane made an indescribable small sound. He stared at the ship. As +explosion-waves passed over the ground, a faint, unanimous movement of +the treetops became visible. It seemed to Cochrane that the space-ship +wavered as if about to fall from its upright position. + +It was not designed to stand such violence as a fall would imply. Its +hull would be dented or rent. It was at least possible that its +fuel-store would detonate. But even if its fall were checked by +still-standing trees about it, it could never take off again. The eight +humans of its company could never juggle it back to a vertical position. +Rocket-thrust would merely push it in the direction its nose pointed. +Toppled, its rocket-thrust would merely shove it blindly over stones and +trees and to destruction. + +The ship swayed again. Visibly. Ground-waves made its weight have the +effect of blows. Part of its foundation rested on almost-visible stone, +only feet below the ground-level. But one of the landing-fins rested on +humus. As the shocks passed, that fin-foot sank into the soft soil. The +space-ship leaned perceptibly. + +Flying creatures darted back and forth above the tree-tops. Miles away, +insensate violence reigned. Clouds of dust and smoke shot miles into the +air, and half a mountainside glowed white-hot, and there was the sound +of long-continued thunder, and the ground shook and quivered.... + +There were movements nearby. A creature with yellow fur and the shape of +a bear with huge ears came padding out of the forest. It swarmed up the +bare stone of the hill on which Babs and Cochrane stood. + +It ignored them. Halfway up the unwooded part of the hill, it stopped +and made plaintive, high-pitched noises. Other creatures came. Many had +come while the man and girl were too absorbed to notice. Now two more of +the large animals came out into the open and climbed the hill. + +Babs said shakily: + +"Do you--think they'll--do you think--" + +There was a nearer roaring. The space-ship leaned, and leaned.... +Cochrane's lips tensed. + +The space-ship's rockets bellowed and a storm of hurtling smoke flashed +up around it. It lifted, staggering as its steering-jets tried +frantically to swing its lower parts underneath its mass. It lurched +violently, and the rockets flamed terribly. It lifted again. Its tail +was higher than the trees, but it did not point straight up. It surged +horribly across the top of the forest, leaving a vast flash of flaming +vegetation behind it. Then it steadied, and aimed skyward and +climbed.... + +Then it was not. Obviously the Dabney field booster had been flashed on +to get the ship out to space. The ship had vanished into emptiness. + +The Dabney field had flicked it some hundred and seventy-odd light-years +from Earth's moon in the flicker of a heart-beat. It might have gone +that far again. Whoever was in it had had no choice but to take off, and +no way to take off without suicidal use of fuel in any other way. + +Cochrane looked at where the ship had vanished. Seconds passed. There +came the thunderclap of air closing the vacuum the ship's disappearance +had left. + +There were squealings behind the pair on the hilltop. Eight of the huge +yellow beasts were out in the open, now. Tiny, furry biped animals +waddled desperately to get out of their way. Smaller creatures scuttled +here and there. A sinuous creature with fur but no apparent legs writhed +its way upward. But all the creatures were frightened. They observed an +absolute truce, under the overmastering greater fear of nature. + +Far away, the volcano on the skyline boomed and flashed and emitted +monstrous clouds of smoke. The shining, incandescent lava on its flanks +glared across the glaciers. + +Babs gasped suddenly. She realized the situation in which she and +Cochrane had been left. + +Shivering, she pressed close to him as the distant black smoke-cloud +spread toward the center of the sky. + + + + +CHAPTER EIGHT + + +Before sunset, they reached the area of ashes where the ship had stood. +Cochrane was sure that if anybody else had been left behind besides +themselves, the landing-place was an inevitable rendezvous. Only three +members of the ship's company had been inside when Babs and Cochrane +left to stroll for the two hours astronomers on Earth had set as a +waiting-period. Jones had been in the ship, and Holden, and Alicia +Simms. Everybody else had been exploring. Their attitude had been +exactly that of sight-seers and tourists. But they could have gotten +back before the take-off. + +Apparently they had. Nobody seemed to have returned to the burned-over +space since the ship's departure. The blast of the rockets had erased +all previous tracks, but still there was a thin layer of ash resettled +over the clearing. Footprints would have been visible in it. Anybody +remaining would have come here. Nobody had. Babs and Cochrane were left +alone. + +There were still temblors, but the sharper shocks no longer came. There +was conflagration in the wood, where the lurching ship had left a long +fresh streak of forest-fire. The two castaways stared at the round, +empty landing-place. Overhead, the blue sky turned yellow--but where the +smoke from the eruption rose, the sky early became a brownish red--and +presently the yellow faded to gold. Unburned green foliage all about was +singularly beautiful in that golden glow. But it was more beautiful +still as the sky turned rose-pink and then carmine in turn, and then +crimson from one horizon to the other save where the volcanic +smoke-cloud marred the color. Then the east darkened, and became a red +so deep as to be practically black, and unfamiliar bright stars began to +peep through it. + +Before darkness was complete, Cochrane dragged burning branches from the +edge of the new fire--the heat was searing--and built a new and smaller +fire in the place where the ship had been. + +"This isn't for warmth," he explained briefly, "but so we'll have light +if we need it. And it isn't likely that animals will be anything but +afraid of it." + +He went off to drag charred masses of burnable stuff from the burned-out +first forest fire. He built a sort of rampart in the very center of the +clearing. He brought great heaps of scorched wood. He did not know how +much was needed to keep the fire going until dawn. + +When he finished, Babs was silently at work trying to find out how to +keep the fire going. The burning parts had to be kept together. One +branch, burning alone, died out. Two red-hot brands in contact kept each +other alight. + +"I'm sorry we haven't anything to eat," Cochrane told her. + +"I'm not hungry," she assured him. "What are we going to do now?" + +"There's nothing to do until morning." Unconsciously, Cochrane looked +grim. "Then there'll be plenty. Food, for one thing. We don't know, +actually, whether or not there's anything really edible on this +planet--for us. It could be that there are fruits or possibly stalks or +leaves that would be nourishing. Only--we don't know which is which. We +have to be careful. We might pick something like poison ivy!" + +Babs said: + +"But the ship will come back!" + +"Of course," agreed Cochrane. "But it may take them some time to find +us. This is a pretty big planet, you know." + +He estimated his supply of burnable stuff. He improved the rampart he +had made at first. Babs stared at him. After four or five minutes he +stepped back. + +"You can lean against this," he explained. "You can watch the fire quite +comfortably. And it's a sort of wall. The fire will light one side of +you and the wall will feel comforting behind you when you get sleepy." + +Babs nodded. She swallowed. + +"I--think I see what you mean when you say they may have trouble finding +us, because this planet is so large." + +Cochrane nodded reluctantly. + +"Of course there's this burned-off space for a marker," he observed +cheerfully. "But it could take several days for them to see it." + +Babs swallowed again. She said carefully: + +"The--ship can't hover like a helicopter, to search. You said so. It +doesn't have fuel enough. They can't really search for us at all! The +only way to make a real search would be to go back to Earth and--bring +back helicopters and fuel for them and men to fly them.... Isn't that +right?" + +"Not necessarily. But we do have to figure on a matter of--well--two or +three days as a possibility." + +Babs moistened her lips and he said quickly: + +"I did a show once about some miners lost in a wilderness. A period +show. In it, they knew that part of their food was poisoned. They didn't +know what. They had to have all their food. And of course they didn't +have laboratories with which to test for poison." + +Babs eyed him oddly. + +"They bandaged their arms," said Cochrane, "and put scraps of the +different foodstuffs under the bandages. The one that was poisonous +showed. It affected the skin. Like an allergy-test. I'll try that trick +in the morning when there's light to pick samples by. There are berries +and stuff. There must be fruits. A few hours should test them." + +Babs said without intonation: + +"And we can watch what the animals eat." + +Cochrane nodded gravely. Animals on Earth can live on things that--to +put it mildly--humans do not find satisfying. Grass, for example. But it +was good for Babs to think of cheering things right now. There would be +plenty of discouragement to contemplate later. + +There was a flicker of brightness in the sky. Presently the earth +quivered. Something made a plaintive, "_waa-waa-waaaaa!_" sound off in +the night. Something else made a noise like the tinkling of bells. There +was an abstracted hooting presently, which now was nearby and now was +far away, and once they heard something which was exactly like the noise +of water running into a pool. But the source of that particular burbling +moved through the dark wood beyond the clearing. + +It was not wholly dark where they were, even aside from their own small +fire. The burning trees in the departing ship's rocket-trail sent up a +column of white which remaining flames illuminated. The remarkably +primitive camp Cochrane had made looked like a camp on a tiny +snow-field, because of the ashes. + +"We've got to think about shelter," said Babs presently, very quietly +indeed. "If there are glaciers, there must be winter here. If there is +winter, we have to find out which animals we can eat, and how to store +them." + +"Hold on!" protested Cochrane. "That's looking too far ahead!" + +Babs clasped her hands together. It could have been to keep their +trembling from being seen. Cochrane was regarding her face. She kept +that under admirable control. + +"Is it?" asked Babs. "On the broadcast Mr. Jamison said that there was +as much land here as on all the continent of Asia. Maybe he exaggerated. +Say there's only as much land not ice-covered as there is in South +America. It's all forest and plain and--uninhabited." She moistened her +lips, but her voice was very steady. "If all of South America was +uninhabited, and there were two people lost in it, and nobody knew where +they were--how long would it take to find them?" + +"It would be a matter of luck," admitted Cochrane. + +"If the ship comes back, it can't hover to look for us. There isn't fuel +enough. It couldn't spot us from space if it went in an orbit like a +space platform. By the time they could get help--they wouldn't even be +sure we were alive. If we can't count on being found right away, this +burned-over place will be green again. In two or three weeks they +couldn't find it anyhow." + +Cochrane fidgeted. He had worked out all this for himself. He'd been +disturbed at having to tell it, or even admit it to Babs. Now she said +in a constrained voice: + +"If men came to this planet and built a city and hunted for us, it might +still be a hundred years before anybody happened to come into this +valley. Looking for us would be worse than looking for a needle in a +haystack. I don't think we're going to be found again." + +Cochrane was silent. He felt guiltily relieved that he did not have to +break this news to Babs. Most men have an instinctive feeling that a +woman will blame them for bad news they hear. + +A long time later, Babs said as quietly as before: + +"Johnny Simms asked me to come along while he went hunting. I didn't. At +least I--I'm not cast away with him!" + +Cochrane said gruffly: + +"Don't sit there and brood! Try to get some sleep." + +She nodded. After a long while, her head drooped. She jerked awake +again. Cochrane ordered her vexedly to make herself comfortable. She +stretched out beside the wall of wood that Cochrane had made. She said +quietly: + +"While we're looking for food tomorrow morning, we'd better keep our +eyes open for a place to build a house." + +She closed her eyes. + +Cochrane kept watch through the dark hours. He heard night-cries in the +forest, and once toward dawn the distant volcano seemed to undergo a +fresh paroxysm of activity. Boomings and explosions rumbled in the +night. There were flickerings in the sky. But there were fewer temblors +after it, and no shocks at all. + +More than once, Cochrane found himself dozing. It was difficult to stay +in a state of alarm. There was but one single outcry in the forest that +sounded like the shriek of a creature seized by a carnivore. That was +not nearby. He tried to make plans. He felt bitterly self-reproachful +that he knew so few of the things that would be useful to a castaway. +But he had been a city man all his life. Woodcraft was not only out of +his experience--on overcrowded Earth it would have been completely +useless. + +From time to time he found himself thinking, instead of practical +matters, of the astonishing sturdiness of spirit Babs displayed. + +When she waked, well after daybreak, and sat up blinking, he said: + +"Er--Babs. We're in this together. From now on, if you want to tell me +something for my own good, go ahead! Right?" + +She rubbed her eyes on her knuckles and said, + +"I'd have done that anyhow. For both our good. Don't you think we'd +better try to find a place where we can get a drink of water? Water has +to be right to drink!" + +They set off, Cochrane carrying the weapon he'd brought from the ship. +It was Babs who pointed out that a stream should almost certainly be +found where rain would descend, downhill. Babs, too, spotted one of the +small, foot-high furry bipeds feasting gluttonously on small round +objects that grew from the base of a small tree instead of on its +branches. The tree, evidently, depended on four-footed rather than on +flying creatures to scatter its seeds. They gathered samples of the +fruit. Cochrane peeled a sliver of the meat from one of the round +objects and put it under his watchstrap. + +They found a stream. They found other fruits, and Cochrane prepared the +same test for them as for the first. One of the samples turned his skin +red and angry almost immediately. He discarded it and all the fruits of +the kind from which it came. + +At midday they tasted the first-gathered fruit. The flesh was red and +juicy. There was a texture it was satisfying to chew on. The taste was +indeterminate save for a very mild flavor of maple and peppermint mixed +together. + +They had no symptoms of distress afterward. Other fruits were less +satisfactory. Of the samples which the skin-test said were +non-poisonous, one was acrid and astringent, and two others had no taste +except that of greenness--practically the taste of any leaf one might +chew. + +"I suppose," said Cochrane wryly, as they headed back toward the +ash-clearing at nightfall, "we've got to find out if the animals can be +eaten." + +Babs nodded matter-of-factly. + +"Yes. Tonight I'm taking part of the watch. As you remarked this +morning, we're in this together." + +He looked at her sharply, and she flushed. + +"I mean it!" she said doggedly. "I'm watching part of the night!" + +He was desperately tired. His muscles were not yet back to normal after +the low gravity on the moon. She'd had more rest than he. He had to let +her help. But there was embarrassment between them because it looked as +if they would have to spend the rest of their lives together, and they +had not made the decision. It had been made for them. And they had not +acknowledged it yet. + +When they reached the clearing, Cochrane began to drag new logs toward +the central place where much of last night's supply of fuel remained. +Matter-of-factly, Babs began to haul stuff with him. He said vexedly: + +"Quit it! I've already been realizing how little I know about the things +we're going to need to survive! Let me fool myself about masculine +strength, anyhow!" + +She smiled at him, a very little. But she went obediently to the fire to +experiment with cookery of the one palatable variety of fruit from this +planet's trees. He drove himself to bring more wood than before. When he +settled down she said absorbedly: + +"Try this, Jed." + +Then she flushed hotly because she'd inadvertently used his familiar +name. But she extended something that was toasted and not too much +burned. He ate, with weariness sweeping over him like a wave. The cooked +fruit was almost a normal food, but it did need salt. There would be +trouble finding salt on this planet. The water that should be in the +seas was frozen in the glaciers. Salt would not have been leached out of +the soil and gathered in the seas. It would be a serious problem. But +Cochrane was very tired indeed. + +"I'll take the first two hours," said Babs briskly. "Then I'll wake +you." + +He showed her how to use the weapon. He meant to let himself drift +quietly off to sleep, acting as if he had a little trouble going off. +But he didn't. He lay down, and the next thing he knew Babs was shaking +him violently. In the first dazed instant when he opened his eyes he +thought they were surrounded by forest fire. But it wasn't that. It was +dawn, and Babs had let him sleep the whole night through, and the sky +was golden-yellow from one horizon to the other. More, he heard the +now-familiar cries of creatures in the forest. But also he heard a +roaring sound, very thin and far away, which could only be one thing. + +"Jed! Jed! Get up! Quick! The ship's coming back! The ship! We've got to +move!" + +She dragged him to his feet. He was suddenly wide-awake. He ran with +her. He flung back his head and stared up as he ran. There was a +pin-point of flame and vapor almost directly overhead. It grew swiftly +in size. It plunged downward. + +They reached the surrounding forest and plunged into it. Babs stumbled, +and Cochrane caught her, and they ran onward hand in hand to get clear +away from the down-blast of the rockets. The rocket-roaring grew louder +and louder. + +The castaways gazed. It was the ship. From below, fierce flames poured +down, blue-white and raging. The silver hull slanted a little. It +shifted its line of descent. It came down with a peculiar deftness of +handling that Cochrane had not realized before. Its rockets splashed, +but the flame did not extend out to the edge of the clearing that had +been burned off at first. The rocket-flames, indeed, did not approach +the proportion to be seen on rockets on film-tape, or as Cochrane had +seen below the moon-rocket descending on Earth. + +The ship settled within yards of its original landing-place. Its rockets +dwindled, but remained burning. They dwindled again. The noise was +outrageous, but still not the intolerable tumult of a moon-rocket +landing on Earth. + +The rockets cut off. + +The airlock door opened. Cochrane and Babs waved cheerfully from the +edge of the clearing. Holden appeared in the door and shouted down: + +"Sorry to be so long coming back." + +He waved and vanished. They had, of course, to wait until the ground at +least partly cooled before the landing-sling could be used. Around them +the noises of the forest continued. There were cooling, crackling sounds +from the ship. + +"I wonder how they found their way back!" said Babs. "I didn't think +they ever could. Did you?" + +"Babs," said Cochrane, "you lied to me! You said you'd wake me in two +hours. But you let me sleep all night!" + +"You'd let me sleep the night before," she told him composedly. "I was +fresher than you were, and today'd have been a pretty bad one. We were +going to try to kill some animals. You needed the rest." + +Cochrane said slowly: + +"I found out something, Babs. Why you could face things. Why we humans +haven't all gone mad. I think I've gotten the woman's viewpoint now, +Babs. I like it." + +She inspected the looming blister-ports of the ship, now waiting for the +ground to cool so they could come aboard. + +"I think we'd have made out if the ship hadn't come," Cochrane told her. +"We'd have had a woman's viewpoint to work from. Yours. You looked ahead +to building a house. Of course you thought of finding food, but you were +thinking of the possibility of winter and--building a house. You weren't +thinking only of survival. You were thinking far ahead. Women must think +farther ahead than men do!" + +Babs looked at him briefly, and then returned to her apparently absorbed +contemplation of the ship. + +"That's what's the matter with people back on Earth," Cochrane said +urgently. "There's no frustration as long as women can look ahead--far +ahead, past here and now! When women can do that, they can keep men +going. It's when there's nothing to plan for that men can't go on +because women can't hope. You see? You saw a city here. A little city, +with separate homes. On Earth, too many people can't think of more than +living-quarters and keeping food enough for them--them only!--coming in. +They can't hope for more. And it's when that happens--You see?" + +Babs did not answer. Cochrane fumbled. He said angrily: + +"Confound it, can't you see what I'm trying to say? We'd have been +better off, as castaways, than back on Earth crowded and scared of our +jobs! I'm saying I'd rather stay here with you than go back to the way I +was living before we started off on this voyage! I think the two of us +could make out under any circumstances! I don't want to try to make out +without you! It isn't sense!" Then he scowled helplessly. "Dammit, I've +staged plenty of shows in which a man asked a girl to marry him, and +they were all phoney. It's different, now that _I_ mean it! What's a +good way to ask you to marry me?" + +Babs looked momentarily up into his face. She smiled ever so faintly. + +"They're watching us from the ports," she said. "If you want my +viewpoint--If we were to wave to them that we'll be right back, we can +get some more of those fruits I cooked. It might be interesting to have +some to show them." + +He scowled more deeply than before. + +"I'm sorry you feel that way. But if that's it--" + +"And on the way," said Babs. "When they're not watching, you might kiss +me." + +They had a considerable pile of the red-fleshed fruits ready when the +ground had cooled enough for them to reach the landing-sling. + +Once aboard the ship, Cochrane headed for the control-room, with Jamison +and Bell tagging after him. Bell had an argument. + +"But the volcano's calmed down--there's only a wall of steam where the +lava hit the glaciers--and we could fix up a story in a couple of hours! +I've got background shots! You and Babs could make the story-scenes and +we'd have a castaway story! Perfect! The first true castaway story from +the stars--. You know what that would mean!" + +Cochrane snarled at him. + +"Try it and I'll tear you limb from limb! I've put enough of other +people's private lives on the screen! My own stays off! I'm not going to +have even a phoney screen-show built around Babs and me for people to +gabble about!" + +Bell said in an injured tone: + +"I'm only trying to do a good job! I started off on this business as a +writer. I haven't had a real chance to show what I can do with this sort +of material!" + +"Forget it!" Cochrane snapped again. "Stick to your cameras!" + +Jamison said hopefully: + +"You'll give me some data on plants and animals, Mr. Cochrane? Won't +you? I'm doing a book with Bell's pictures, and--" + +"Let me alone!" raged Cochrane. + +He reached the control-room. Al, the pilot, sat at the controls with an +air of special alertness. + +"You're all right? For our lined up trip, we ought to leave in about +twenty minutes. We'll be pointing just about right then." + +"I'm all right," said Cochrane. "And you can take off when you please." +To Jones he said: "How'd you find us? I didn't think it could be done." + +"Doctor Holden figured it out," said Jones. "Simple enough, but I was +lost! When the ground-shocks came, everybody else ran to the ship. We +waited for you. You didn't come." It had been, of course, because +Cochrane would not risk taking Babs through a forest in which trees were +falling. "We finally had to choose between taking off and crashing. So +we took off." + +"That was quite right. We'd all be messed up if you hadn't," Cochrane +told him. + +Jones waved his hands. + +"I didn't think we could ever find you again. We were sixty light-years +away when that booster effect died out. Then Doctor Holden got on the +communicator. He got Earth. The astronomers back there located us and +gave us the line to get back by. We found the planet. Even then I didn't +see how we'd pick out the valley. But Doc had had 'em checking the shots +we transmitted as we were making our landing. We had the whole first +approach on film-tape. They put a crowd of map-comparators to work. We +went in a Space Platform orbit around the planet, transmitting what we +saw from out there--they figured the orbit for us, too--and they checked +what we transmitted against what we'd photographed going down. So they +were able to spot the exact valley and tell us where to come down. We +actually spotted this valley last night, but we couldn't land in the +dark." + +Cochrane felt abashed. + +"I couldn't have done that job," he admitted, "so I didn't think anybody +could. Hm. Didn't all this cost a lot of fuel?" + +Jones actually smiled. + +"I worked out something. We don't use as much fuel as we did. We're +probably using too much now. Al--go ahead and lift. I want to check what +the new stuff does, anyhow. Take off!" + +The pilot threw a switch, and Jones threw another, a newly installed +one, just added to his improvised control-column. A light glowed +brightly. Al pressed one button, very gently. A roaring set up outside. +The ship started up. There was practically no feeling of acceleration, +this time. The ship rose lightly. Even the rocket-roar was mild indeed, +compared to its take-off from Luna and the sound of its first landing on +the planet just below. + +Cochrane saw the valley floors recede, and mountain-walls drop below. +From all directions, then, vegetation-filled valleys flowed toward the +ship, and underneath. Glaciers appeared, and volcanic cones, and then +enormous stretches of white, with smoking dots here and there upon it. +In seconds, it seemed, the horizon was visibly curved. In other seconds +the planet being left behind was a monstrous white ball, and there were +patches of intolerable white sunlight coming in the ports. + +And Cochrane felt queer. Jones had given the order for take-off. Jones +had determined to leave at this moment, because Jones had tests he +wanted to make.... Cochrane felt like a passenger. From the man who +decided things because he was the one who knew what had to be done, he +had become something else. He had been absent two nights and part of a +day, and decisions had been made in which he had no part-- + +It felt queer. It felt even startling. + +"We're in a modification of the modified Dabney field now," observed +Jones in a gratified tone. "You know the original theory." + +"I don't," acknowledged Cochrane. + +"The field's always a pipe, a tube, a column of stressed space between +the field-plates," Jones reminded him. "When we landed the first time, +back yonder, the tail of the ship wasn't in the field at all. The field +stretched from the bow of the ship only, out to that last balloon we +dropped. We were letting down at an angle to that line. It was like a +kite and a string and the kite's tail. The string was the Dabney field, +and the directions we were heading was the kite's tail." + +Cochrane nodded. It occurred to him that Jones was very much unlike +Dabney. Jones had discovered the Dabney field, but having sold the +fame-rights to it, he now apparently thought "Dabney Field" was the +proper technical term for his own discovery, even in his own mind. + +"Back on the moon," Jones went on zestfully, "I wasn't sure that a field +once established would hold in atmosphere. I hoped that with enough +power I could keep it, but I wasn't sure--" + +"This doesn't mean much to me, Jones," said Cochrane. "What does it add +up to?" + +"Why--the field held down into atmosphere. And we were out of the +primary field as far as the tail of the ship was concerned. But this +time we landed, I'd hooked in some ready-installed circuits. There was a +second Dabney field from the stern of the ship to the bow. There was the +main one, going out to those balloons and then back to Earth. But there +was--and is--a second one only enclosing the ship. It's a sort of +bubble. We can still trail a field behind us, and anybody can follow in +any sort of ship that's put into it. But now the ship has a completely +independent, second field. Its tail is never outside!" + +Cochrane did not have the sort of mind to find such information either +lucid or suggestive. + +"So what happens?" + +"We have both plates of a Dabney field always with us," said Jones +triumphantly. "We're always in a field, even landing in atmosphere, and +the ship has practically no mass even when it's letting down to landing. +It has weight, but next to no mass. Didn't you notice the difference?" + +"Stupid as it may seem, I didn't," admitted Cochrane. "I haven't the +least idea what you're talking about." + +Jones looked at him patiently. + +"Now we can shoot our exhaust out of the field! The ship-field, not the +main one!" + +"I'm still numb," said Cochrane. "Multiple sclerosis of the brain-cells, +I suppose. Let me just take your word for it." + +Jones tried once more. + +"Try to see it! Listen! When we landed the first time we had to use a +lot of fuel because the tail of the ship wasn't in the Dabney field. It +had mass. So we had to use a lot of rocket-power to slow down that mass. +In the field, the ship hasn't much mass--the amount depends on the +strength of the field--but rockets depend for their thrust on the mass +that's thrown away astern. Looked at that way, rockets shouldn't push +hard in a Dabney field. There oughtn't to be any gain to be had by the +field at all. You see?" + +Cochrane fumbled in his head. + +"Oh, yes. I thought of that. But there is an advantage. The ship does +work." + +"Because," said Jones, triumphant again, "the field-effect depends +partly on temperature! The gases in the rocket-blast are hot, away up in +the thousands of degrees. They don't have normal inertia, but they do +have what you might call heat-inertia. They acquire a sort of fictitious +mass when they get hot enough. So we carry along fuel that hasn't any +inertia to speak of when it's cold, but acquires a lunatic sort of +substitute for inertia when it's genuinely hot. So a ship can travel in +a Dabney field!" + +"I'm relieved," acknowledged Cochrane. "I thought you were about to tell +me that we couldn't lift off the moon, and I was going to ask how we got +here." + +Jones smiled patiently. + +"What I'm telling you now is that we can shoot rocket-blasts out of the +Dabney field we make with the stern of the ship! Landing, we keep our +fuel and the ship with next to no mass, and we shoot it out to where it +does have mass, and the effect is practically the same as if we were +pushing against something solid! And so we started off with fuel for +maybe five or six landings and take-offs against Earth gravity. But with +this new trick, we've got fuel for a couple of hundred!" + +"Ah!" said Cochrane mildly. "This is the first thing you've said that +meant anything to me. Congratulations! What comes next?" + +"I thought you'd be pleased," said Jones. "What I'm really telling you +is that now we've got fuel enough to reach the Milky Way." + +"Let's not," suggested Cochrane, "and say we did! You've got a new star +picked out to travel to?" + +Jones shrugged his shoulders. In him, the gesture indicated practically +hysterical frustration. But he said: + +"Yes. Twenty-one light-years. Back on Earth they're anxious for us to +check on sol-type suns and Earth-type planets." + +"For once," said Cochrane, "I am one with the great scientific minds. +Let's go over." + +He made his way to the circular stairway leading down to the main +saloon. On his clumsy way across the saloon floor to the communicator, +he felt the peculiar sensation of the booster-current, which should +have been a sound, but wasn't. It was the sensation which had preceded +the preposterous leap of the space-ship away from Luna, when in a +heart-beat of time all stars looked like streaks of light, and the ship +traveled nearly two light-centuries. + +Sunshine blinked, and then shone again in the ports around the saloon +walls. The second shining came from a different direction--as if +somebody had switched off one exterior light and turned on another--and +at a different angle to the floor. + +Cochrane reached the communicator. He felt no weight. He strapped +himself into the chair. He switched on the vision-phone which sent +radiation along the field to a balloon two hundred odd light-years from +Earth--that was the balloon near the glacier planet--and then switched +to the field traveling to a second balloon then the last hundred +seventy-odd light-years back to the moon, and then from Luna City down +to Earth. + +He put in his call. He got an emergency message that had been waiting +for him. Seconds later he fought his way frantically through no-weight +to the control-room again. + +"Jamison! Bell!" he cried desperately. "We've got a broadcast due in +twenty minutes! I lost track of time! We're sponsored on four continents +and we damwell have to put on a show! What the devil! Why didn't +somebody--" + +Jamison said obviously from a blister-port where he swung a squat +star-telescope from one object to another: + +"Noo-o-o. That's a gas-giant. We'd be squashed if we landed +there--though that big moon looks promising. I think we'd better try +yonder." + +"Okay," said Jones in a flat voice. "Center on the next one in, Al, and +we'll toddle over." + +Cochrane felt the ship swinging in emptiness. He knew because it seemed +to turn while he felt that he stayed still. + +"We've got a show to put on!" he raged. "We've got to fake something--." + +Jamison looked aside from his telescope. + +"Tell him, Bell," he said expansively. + +"I wrote a script of sorts," said Bell apologetically. "The story-line's +not so good--that's why I wanted a castaway narrative to put in it, +though I wouldn't have had time, really. We spliced film and Jamison +narrated it, and you can run it off. It's a kind of show. We ran it as a +space-platform survey of the glacier-planet, basing it on pictures we +took while we were in orbit around it. It's a sort of travelogue. +Jamison did himself proud. Alicia can find the tape-can for you." + +He went back to his cameras. Cochrane saw a monstrous globe swing past a +control-room port. It was a featureless mass of clouds, save for +striations across what must be its equator. It looked like the Lunar +Observatory pictures of Jupiter, back in the Sun's family of planets. + +It went past the port, and a moon swam into view. It was a very large +moon. It had at least one ice-cap--and therefore an atmosphere--and +there were mottlings of its surface which could hardly be anything but +continents and seas. + +"We've got to put a show on!" raged Cochrane. "And now!" + +"It's all set," Bell assured him. "You can transmit it. I hope you like +it!" + +Cochrane sputtered. But there was nothing to do but transmit whatever +Bell and Jamison had gotten ready. He swam with nightmarelike difficulty +back to the communicator. He shouted frantically for Babs. She and +Alicia came. Alicia found the film-tape, and Cochrane threaded it into +the transmitter, and bitterly ran the first few feet. Babs smiled at +him, and Alicia looked at him oddly. Evidently, Babs had confided the +consequence of their casting-away. But Cochrane faced an emergency. He +began to check timings with far-distant Earth. + +When the ship approached a second planet, Cochrane saw nothing of it. He +was furiously monitoring the broadcast of a show in which he'd had no +hand at all. From his own, professional standpoint it was terrible. +Jamison spouted interminably, so Cochrane considered. Al, the pilot, was +actually interviewed by an offscreen voice! But the pictures from space +were excellent. While the ship floated in orbit, waiting to descend to +pick up Babs and Cochrane, Bell had hooked his camera to an amplifying +telescope and he did have magnificent shots of dramatic terrain on the +planet now twenty light-years behind. + +Cochrane watched the show in a mingling of jealousy and relief. It was +not as good as he would have done. But fortunately, Bell and Jamison had +stuck fairly close to straight travelogue-stuff, and close-up shots of +vegetation and animals had been interspersed with the remoter pictures +with moderate competence, if without undue imagination. An audience +which had not seen many shows of the kind would be thrilled. It even +amounted to a valid change of pace. Anybody who watched this would at +least want to see more and different pictures from the stars. + +Halfway through, he heard the now-muffled noise of rockets. He knew the +ship was descending through atmosphere by the steady sound, though he +had not the faintest idea what was outside. He ground his teeth as--for +timing--he received the commercial inserted in the film. The U. S. +commercials served the purpose, of course. He could not watch the other +pictures shown to residents of other than North America in the +commercial portions of the show. + +He was counting seconds to resume transmission when he felt the slight +but distant impact which meant that the ship had touched ground. A very +short time after, even the lessened, precautionary rocket-roar cut off. + +Cochrane ground his teeth. The ship had landed on a planet he had not +seen and in whose choice he had had no hand. He was humiliated. The +other members of the ship's company looked out at scenes no other human +eyes had ever beheld. + +He regarded the final commercial, inserted into the broadcast for its +American sponsor. It showed, purportedly, the true story of two girl +friends, one blonde and one brunette, who were wall-flowers at all +parties. They tried frantically to remedy the situation by the use of +this toothpaste and that, and this deodorant and the other. In vain! But +then they became the centers of all the festivities they attended, as +soon as they began to wash their hair with Rayglo Shampoo. + +Holden and Johnny Simms came clattering down from the control-room +together. They looked excited. They plunged together toward the +stair-well that would take them to the deck on which the airlock opened. + +Holden panted, + +"Jed! Creatures outside! They look like men!" + +The communicator-screen faithfully monitored the end of the commercial. +Two charming girls, radiant and lovely, raised their voices in grateful +song, hymning the virtues of Rayglo Shampoo. There followed brisk +reminders of the superlative, magical results obtained by those who used +Rayglo Foundation Cream, Rayglo Kisspruf Lipstick, and Rayglo home +permanent--in four strengths; for normal, hard-to-wave, easy-to-wave, +and children's hair. + +Cochrane heard the clanking of the airlock door. + + + + +CHAPTER NINE + + +He made for the control-room, where the ports offered the highest and +widest and best views of everything outside. When he arrived, Babs and +Alicia stood together, staring out and down. Bell frantically worked a +camera. Jamison gaped at the outer world. Al the pilot made frustrated +gestures, not quite daring to leave his controls while there was even an +outside chance the ship's landing-fins might find flaws in their +support. Jones adjusted something on the new set of controls he had +established for the extra Dabney field. Jones was not wholly normal in +some ways. He was absorbed in technical matters even more fully than +Cochrane in his own commercial enterprises. + +Cochrane pushed to a port to see. + +The ship had landed in a small glade. There were trees nearby. The trees +had extremely long, lanceolate leaves, roughly the shape of grass-blades +stretched out even longer. In the gentle breeze that blew outside, they +waved extravagantly. There were hills in the distance, and nearby +out-croppings of gray rocks. This sky was blue like the sky of Earth. It +was, of course, inevitable that any colorless atmosphere with +dust-particles suspended in it would establish a blue sky. + +Holden was visible below, moving toward a patch of reed-like vegetation +rising some seven or eight feet from the rolling soil. He had hopped +quickly over the scorched area immediately outside the ship. It was much +smaller than that made by the first landing on the other planet, but +even so he had probably damaged his footwear to excess. But he now stood +a hundred yards from the ship. He made gestures. He seemed to be +talking, as if trying to persuade some living creature to show itself. + +"We saw them peeping," said Babs breathlessly, coming beside Cochrane. +"Once one of them ran from one patch of reeds to another. It looked +like a man. There are at least three of them in there--whatever they +are!" + +"They can't be men," said Cochrane grimly. "They can't!" Johnny Simms +was not in sight. "Where's Simms?" + +"He has a gun," said Babs. "He was going to get one, anyhow, so he could +protect Doctor Holden." + +Cochrane glanced straight down. The airlock door was open, and the end +of a weapon peered out. Johnny Simms might be in a better position there +to protect Holden by gun-fire, but he was assuredly safer, himself. +There was no movement anywhere. Holden did not move closer to the reeds. +He still seemed to be speaking soothingly to the unseen creatures. + +"Why can't there be men here?" asked Babs. "I don't mean actually men, +but--manlike creatures? Why couldn't there be rational creatures like +us? I know you said so but--" + +Cochrane shook his head. He believed implicitly that there could not be +men on this planet. On the glacier planet every animal had been +separately devised from the creatures of Earth. There were resemblances, +explicable as the result of parallel evolution. By analogy, there could +not be exactly identical mankind on another world because evolution +there would be parallel but not the same. But if there were even a +mental equal to men, no matter how unhuman such a creature might appear, +if there were a really rational animal anywhere in the cosmos off of +Earth, the result would be catastrophic. + +"We humans," Cochrane told her, "live by our conceit. We demand more +than animality of ourselves because we believe we are more than +animals--and we believe we are the only creatures that are! If we came +to believe we were not unique, but were simply a cleverer animal, we'd +be finished. Every nation has always started to destroy itself every +time such an idea spread." + +"But we aren't only clever animals!" protested Babs. "We _are_ unique!" + +Cochrane glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. + +"Quite true." + +Holden still stood patiently before the patch of reeds, still seemed to +talk, still with his hands outstretched in what men consider the +universal sign of peace. + +There was a sudden movement at the back of the reed-patch, quite fifty +yards from Holden. A thing which did look like a man fled madly for the +nearest edge of woodland. It was the size of a man. It had the +pinkish-tan color of naked human flesh. It ran with its head down, and +it could not be seen too clearly, but it was startlingly manlike in +outline. Up in the control-room Bell fairly yipped with excitement and +swung his camera. Holden remained oblivious. He still tried to lure +something out of concealment. A second creature raced for the woods. + +Tiny gray threads appeared in the air between the airlock and the racing +thing. Smoke. Johnny Simms was shooting zestfully at the unidentified +animal. He was using that tracer ammunition which poor shots and worse +sportsmen adopt to make up for bad marksmanship. + +The threads of smoke seemed to form a net about the running things. They +dodged and zig-zagged frantically. Both of them reached safety. + +A third tried it. And now Johnny Simms turned on automatic fire. Bullets +spurted from his weapon, trailing threads of smoke so that the trails +looked like a stream from a hose. The stream swept through the space +occupied by the fugitive. It leaped convulsively and crashed to earth. +It kicked blindly. + +Cochrane swore. Between the instant of the beginning of the creature's +flight and this instant, less than two seconds had passed. + +The threads which were smoke-trails drifted away. Then a new thread +streaked out. Johnny Simms fired once more at his still-writhing victim. +It kicked violently and was still. + +Holden turned angrily. There seemed to be shoutings between him and +Johnny Simms. Then Holden trudged around the reed-patch. There was no +longer any sign of life in the still shape on the ground. But it was +normal precaution not to walk into a jungle-like thicket in which +unknown, large living things had recently been sighted. Johnny Simms +fired again and again from his post in the airlock. The smoke which +traced his bullets ranged to the woodland. He shot at imagined targets +there. He fired at his previous victim simply because it was something +to shoot at. He shot recklessly, foolishly. + +Alicia, his wife, touched Jamison on the arm and spoke to him urgently. +Jamison followed her reluctantly down the stairs. She would be going to +the airlock. Johnny Simms, shooting at the landscape, might shoot +Holden. A thread of bullet-smoke passed within feet of Holden's body. He +turned and shouted back at the ship. + +The inner airlock door clanked open. There was the sound of a shot, and +the dead thing was hit again. The bullet had been fired dangerously +close to Holden. There were voices below. Johnny Simms bellowed +enragedly. + +Alicia cried out. + +There was silence below, but Cochrane was already plunging toward the +stairs. Babs followed closely. + +When they rushed down onto the dining-room deck they found Alicia +deathly white, but with a flaming red mark on her cheek. They found +Johnny Simms roaring with rage, waving the weapon he'd been shooting. +Jamison was uneasily in the act of trying to placate him. + +"----!" bellowed Johnny Simms. "I came on this ship to hunt! I'm going +to hunt! Try and stop me!" + +He waved his weapon. + +"I paid my money!" he shouted. "I won't take orders from anybody! Nobody +can boss me!" + +Cochrane said icily: + +"I can! Stop being a fool! Put down that gun! You nearly shot Holden! +You might still kill somebody. Put it down!" + +He walked grimly toward Johnny Simms. Johnny was near the open airlock +door. The outer door was open, too. He could not retreat. He edged +sidewise. Cochrane changed the direction of his advance. There are +people like Johnny Simms everywhere. As a rule they are not classed as +unable to tell right from wrong unless they are rich enough to hire a +psychiatrist. Yet a variable but always-present percentage of the human +race ignores rules of conduct at all times. They are the handicap, the +burden, the main hindrance to the maintenance or the progress of +civilization. They are not consciously evil. They simply do not bother +to act otherwise than as rational animals. The rest of humanity has to +defend itself with police, with laws, and sometimes with revolts, though +those like Johnny Simms have no motive beyond the indulgence of +immediate inclinations. But for that indulgence Johnny would risk any +injury to anybody else. + +He edged further aside. Cochrane was white with disgusted fury. Johnny +Simms went into panic. He raised his weapon, aiming at Cochrane. + +"Keep back!" he cried ferociously. "I don't care if I kill you!" + +And he did not. It was the stark senselessness which makes juvenile +delinquents and Hitlers, and causes thugs and hoodlums and snide lawyers +and tricky business men. It was the pure perversity which makes sane +men frustrate. It was an example of that infinite stupidity which is +crime, but is also only stupidity. + +Cochrane saw Babs pulling competently at one of the chairs at one of the +tables nearby. He stopped, and Johnny Simms took courage. Cochrane said +icily: + +"Just what the hell do you think we're here for, anyhow?" + +Johnny Simms' eyes were wide and blank, like the eyes of a small boy in +a frenzy of destruction, when he has forgotten what he started out to do +and has become obsessed with what damage he is doing. + +"I'm not going to be pushed around!" cried Johnny Simms, more +ferociously still. "From now on I'm going to tell you what to do--" + +Babs swung the chair she had slid from its fastenings. It came down with +a satisfying "_thunk_" on Johnny Simms' head. His gun went off. The +bullet missed Cochrane by fractions of an inch. He plunged ahead. + +Some indefinite time later, Babs was pulling desperately at him. He had +Johnny Simms on the floor and was throttling him. Johnny Simms strangled +and tore at his fingers. + +Sanity came back to Cochrane with the effect of something snapping. He +got up. He nodded to Babs and she picked up the gun Johnny Simms had +used. + +"I think," said Cochrane, breathing hard, "that you're a good sample of +everything I dislike. The worst thing you do is make me act like you! If +you touch a gun again on this ship, I'll probably kill you. If you get +arrogant again, I will beat the living daylights out of you! Get up!" + +Johnny Simms got up. He looked thoroughly scared. Then, amazingly, he +beamed at Cochrane. He said amiably: + +"I forgot. I'm that way. Alicia'll tell you. I don't blame you for +getting mad. I'm sorry. But I'm that way!" + +He brushed himself off, beaming at Alicia and Jamison and Babs and +Cochrane. Cochrane ground his teeth. He went to the airlock and looked +down outside. + +Holden was bent over the creature Johnny Simms had killed. He +straightened up and came back toward the ship. He went faster when the +ground grew hot under his feet. He fairly leaped into the landing-sling +and started it up. + +"Not human," he reported to Cochrane when he slipped from the sling in +the airlock. "There's no question about it when you are close. It's more +nearly a bird than anything else. It was warm-blooded. It has a beak. +There are penguins on Earth that have been mistaken for men. + +"I did a show once," said Cochrane coldly, "that had clips of old films +of cockfighting in it. There was a kind of gamecock called Cornish Game +that was fairly manshaped. If it had been big enough--Pull in the sling +and close the lock. We're moving." + +He turned away. Babs stood by Alicia, offering a handkerchief for Alicia +to put to her cheek. Jamison listened unhappily as Johnny Simms +explained brightly that he had always been that way. When he got excited +he didn't realize what he was doing. He said almost with pride that he +hadn't ever been any other way than that. He didn't really mean to kill +anybody, but when he got excited--. + +"What happened?" demanded Holden. + +"Our little psychopath," said Cochrane in a grating voice, "put on an +act. He threatened me with a rifle. He hit Alicia first. Jamison, trace +that bullet-hole. See if it got through to the skin of the ship." + +He started for the stairs again. Then he was startled by the frozen +immobility of Holden. Holden's face was deadly. His hands were clenched. +Johnny Simms said with a fine boyish frankness: + +"I'm sorry, Cochrane! No hard feelings?" + +"Yes," Cochrane snapped. "Hard feelings! I've got them!" + +He took Holden's arm. He steered him up the steps. Holden resisted for +the fraction of a second, and Cochrane gripped his arm tighter. He got +him up to the deck above. + +"If I'd been here," said Holden, unsteadily, "I'd have killed him--if he +hit Alicia! Psychopath or no psychopath--" + +"Shut up," said Cochrane firmly. "He shot at me! And in my small way I'm +a psychopath too, Bill. My psychosis is that I don't like his kind of +psychosis. I am psychotically devoted to sense and my possibly quaint +idea of decency. I am abnormally concerned with the real world--and +you'd better come back to it! Look here! I'm pathologically in revolt +against such imbecilities as an overcrowded Earth and people being +afraid of their jobs and people going crackpot from despair. You don't +want me to get cured of that, do you? Then get hold of yourself!" + +Bill Holden swallowed. He was still white. But he managed to grimace. + +"You're right. Lucky I was outside. You're not a bad psychologist +yourself, Jed." + +"I'm better," said Cochrane cynically, "at putting on shows with scrap +film-tape and dream-stuff. So I'm going to look at the films Bell took +as we landed on this planet, and work out some ideas for broadcasts." + +He went up another flight, and Holden went with him in a sort of stilly, +unnatural calm. Cochrane ran the film-tape through the reversed camera +for examination. + +Outside, there waved long green tresses of extraordinarily elongated +leaves. The patches of reed-like stuff stirred in the breeze. Jamison +appeared in the control-room. He began to question Holden hopefully +about the ground-cover outside. It was not grass. It was broad-leaved. +There would be, Jamison decided happily, an infinitude of under-leaf +forms of life. They would most likely be insects, and there would be +carnivorous other insects to prey upon them. Some species would find it +advantageous to be burrowing insects. There must be other kinds of birds +than the giant specimens that looked like men at a distance, too. On the +glacier planet there had been few birds but many furry creatures. +Possibly the situation was reversed here, though of course it need not +be ... + +"Hm," said Cochrane when the films were all run through. "Ice-caps and +land and seas. Plenty of green vegetation, so presumably the air is +normal for humans. Since you're alive, Holden, we can assume it isn't +instantly fatal, can't we? The gravity's tolerable--a little on the +light side, maybe, compared to the glacier planet." + +He was silent, staring at the blank wall of the control-room. He +frowned. Suddenly he said: + +"Does anybody back on Earth know that Babs and I were castaways?" + +"No," said Holden, still very quiet indeed. "Alicia ran the +control-board. She told everybody you were too busy to be called to the +communicator. It was queer with you away! Jamison and Bell tied +themselves in chairs and spliced tape. Johnny, of course"--his voice was +very carefully toneless--"wouldn't do anything useful. I was space-sick +a lot of the time. But I did help Alicia figure out what to say on the +communicator. There must be hundreds of calls backed up for you to +take." + +"Good!" said Cochrane. "I'll go take some of them. Jones, could we make +a flit to somewhere else on this planet?" + +Jones said negligently, + +"I told you we've got fuel to reach the Milky Way. Where do you want to +go?" + +"Anywhere," said Cochrane. "The scenery isn't dramatic enough here for a +new broadcast. We've got to have some lurid stuff for our next show. +Things are shaping up except for the need of just the right scenery to +send back to Earth." + +"What kind of scenery do you want?" + +"Animals preferred," said Cochrane. "Dinosaurs would do. Or buffalo or a +reasonable facsimile. What I'd actually like more than anything else +would really be a herd of buffalo." + +Jamison gasped. + +"Buffalo?" + +"Meat," said Cochrane in an explanatory tone. "On the hoof. The +public-relations job all this has turned into, demands a careful +stimulation of all the basic urges. So I want people to think of steaks +and chops and roasts. If I could get herds of animals from one horizon +to another--." + +"Meat-herds coming up," said Jones negligently. "I'll call you." + +Cochrane did not believe him. He went down to the communicator again. He +prepared to take the calls from Earth that had been backed up behind the +emergency demand for an immediate broadcast-show that he'd met while the +ship came to its landing. There was an enormous amount of business piled +up. And it was slow work handling it. His voice took six seconds to pass +through something over two hundred light-years of space in the Dabney +field, and then two seconds in normal space from the relay in Lunar +City. It was twelve seconds between the time he finished saying +something before the first word of the reply reached him. It was very +slow communication. He reflected annoyedly that he'd have to ask Jones +to make a special Dabney field communication field as strong as was +necessary to take care of the situation. + +The rockets growled and roared outside. The ship lifted. Johnny Simms +came storming up from below. + +"My trophy!" he cried indignantly. "I want my trophy!" + +Cochrane looked up impatiently from the screen. + +"What trophy?" + +"The thing I shot!" cried Johnny Simms fiercely. "I want to have it +mounted! Nobody else ever killed anything like that! I want it!" + +The ship surged upward more strongly. Cochrane said coldly: + +"It's too late now. Get out. I'm busy." + +He returned his eyes to the screen. Johnny Simms raced for the stairs. A +little later Cochrane heard shoutings in the control-room. But he was +too busy to inquire. + +The ship drifted--with all the queasy sensation of no-weight--and lifted +again, and then there was a fairly long period of weightlessness. At +such times Holden would be greenish and sick and tormented by +space-sickness. Which might be good for him at this particular time. For +a long time, it seemed, there were alternating periods of lift and free +fall, which in themselves were disturbing. Once the free fall lasted +until Cochrane began to feel uneasy. But then the rockets roared once +more and boomed loudly as if the ship were leaving the planet +altogether. + +But Cochrane was talking business. In part he bluffed. In part, quite +automatically, he demanded much more than he expected to get, simply +because it is the custom in business not to be frank about anything. +Whatever he asked, the other man would offer less. So he asked too much, +and the other man offered too little, each knowing in advance very +nearly on what terms they would finally settle. Considering the cost of +beam-phone time to Lunar City, not to mention the extension to the +stars, it was absurd, but it was the way business is done. + +Presently Cochrane called Babs and Alicia and had them witness a +tentative agreement, which had to be ratified by a board of directors of +a corporation back on Earth. That board would jump at it, but the +stipulation for possible cancellation had to be made. It was +mumbo-jumbo. Cochrane felt satisfyingly competent at handling it. + +While the formalities were in progress, the ship surged and fell and +swayed and surged again. Cochrane said ruefully: + +"I hate to ask you to work under conditions like this, Babs." + +Babs grinned. He flushed a little. + +"I know! When you were working for me I wasn't considerate." + +"Who am I working for now?" + +"Us," said Cochrane. Then he looked guiltily at Alicia. He felt +embarrassment at having said anything in the least sentimental before +her. Considering Johnny Simms, it was not too tactful. Her cheek, where +it had been red, now showed a distinct bruise. He said: "Sorry, +Alicia--about Johnny." + +"I got into it myself," said Alicia. "I loved him. He isn't really bad. +If you want to know, I think he simply decided years ago that he +wouldn't grow up past the age of six. He was a rich man's spoiled little +boy. It was fun. So he made a career of it. His family let him. I"--she +smiled faintly, "I'm making a career of taking care of him." + +"Something can be done even with a six-year-old," growled Cochrane. +"Holden--. But he wouldn't be the best one to try." + +"He definitely wouldn't be the best one to try," said Alicia very +quietly. + +Cochrane turned away. She knew how Bill Holden felt. Which might or +might not be comforting to him. + +The communicator again. The pictures of foot-high furry bipeds on the +glacier planet had made a sensation on television. A toy-manufacturer +wanted the right to make toys like them. The pictures were copyrighted. +Cochrane matter-of-factly made the deal. There would be miniature +extra-terrestrial animals on sale in all toy-shops within days. +Spaceways, Inc., would collect a royalty on each toy sold. + +The rockets boomed, and lessened their noise, and wavered up and down +again. Then there was that deliberate, crunching feel of the great +landing-fins pressing into soil with all the ship's weight bearing down. +The rockets ran on, drumming ever-so-faintly, for a little longer. Then +they cut off. + +"We're landed again! Let's see where we are!" + +They went up to the control-room. Johnny Simms stood against the wall, +sulking. He had managed his life very successfully by acting like a +spoiled little boy. Now he had lost any idea of saner conduct. At the +moment, he looked ridiculous. But Alicia had a bruised cheek and +Cochrane could have been killed, and Holden had been in danger because +Johnny Simms wanted to and insisted on acting like a rich man's spoiled +little boy. + +It occurred to Cochrane that Alicia would probably find recompense for +her humiliation and pain in the little-boy penitence--exactly as +temporary as any other little-boy emotion--when she and Johnny Simms +were alone together. + +The ship had come down close to the sunset-line of the planet. Away to +the west there was the glint of blue sea. Dusk was already descending +here. There were smoothly contoured hills in view, and there was a dark +patch of forest on one hilltop, and the trees at the woodland's edge had +the same drooping, grass-blade-like foliage of the trees first seen. But +there were larger and more solid giants among them. The ship had landed +on a small plateau, and downhill from it a spring gushed out with such +force that the water-surface was rounded by pressure from below. The +water overflowed and went down toward the sea. + +"I think we're all right," said Al, the pilot. But he stayed in his +seat, in case the ship threatened to sway over. Cochrane inspected the +outer world. + +"Well?" + +"We sighted what I think you want," said Jones. He looked dead-pan and +yet secretly complacent. "Just watch." + +The dusk grew deeper. Colorings appeared in the west. They were very +similar to the sunset-colorings on Earth. + +"Not many volcanoes here." + +The amount of dust was limited, as on Earth. A great star winked into +view in the east. It was as bright as Venus seen from Earth. It had a +just-perceptible disk. Close to it, infinitely small, there was a speck +of light which seemed somehow unlike a star. Cochrane squinted at it. He +thought of the great gas-giant world he'd seen out a port on the way +here. It had an attendant moon-world which itself had icecaps and seas +and continents. He called Jamison. + +"I think that's the planet," agreed Jamison. "We passed close by it. We +saw it." + +"It had a moon," observed Cochrane. "A big one. It looked like a world +itself. What would it be like there?" + +"Cooler than this," said Jamison promptly, "because it's farther from +the sun. But it might pick up some heat from reflection from its +primary's white clouds. It would be a fair world. It has oceans and +continents and strings of foam-girt islands. But its sea is strange and +dark and restless. Gigantic tides surge in its depths, drawn by the +planetary colossus about which it swings. Its animal life--." + +"Cut," said Cochrane dryly. "What do you really think? Could it be +another inhabitable world for people to move to?" + +Jamison looked annoyed at having been cut off. + +"Probably," he said more prosaically. "The tides would be monstrous, +though." + +"Might be used for power," said Cochrane. "We'll see ..." + +Then Jones spoke with elaborate casualness: + +"Here's something to look at. On the ground." + +Cochrane moved to see. The dusk had deepened still more. The smooth, +green-covered ground had become a dark olive. Where bare hillsides gave +upon the sky, there were dark masses flowing slowly forward. The edges +of the hills turned black, and the blackness moved down their nearer +slopes. It was not an even front of darkness. There were patches which +preceded the others. They did not stay distinct. They merged with the +masses which followed them, and other patches separated in their places. +All of the darkness moved without haste, with a sort of inexorable +deliberation. It moved toward the ship and the valley and the gushing +fountain and the stream which flowed from it. + +"What on Earth--" began Cochrane. + +"You're not on Earth," said Jones chidingly. "Al and I found 'em. You +asked for buffalo or a reasonable facsimile. I won't guarantee anything; +but we spotted what looked like herds of beasts moving over the green +plains inland. We checked, and they seemed to be moving in this +direction. Once we dropped down low and Bell got some pictures. When he +enlarged them, we decided they'd do. So we lined up where they were all +headed for, and here we are. And here they are!" + +Cochrane stared with all his eyes. Behind him, he heard Bell fuming to +himself as he tried to adjust a camera for close-up pictures in the +little remaining light. Babs stood beside Cochrane, staring +incredulously. + +The darkness was beasts. They blackened the hillsides on three sides of +the ship. They came deliberately, leisurely onward. They were literally +uncountable. They were as numerous as the buffalo that formerly thronged +the western plains of America. In black, shaggy masses, they came toward +the spring and its stream. Nearby, their heads could be distinguished. +And all of this was perfectly natural. + +The cosmos is one thing. Where life exists, its living creatures will +fit themselves cunningly into each niche where life can be maintained. +On vast green plains there will be animals to graze--and there will be +animals to prey on them. So the grazing things will band together in +herds for self-defense and reproduction. And where the ground is covered +with broad-leaved plants, such plants will shelter innumerable tiny +creatures, and some of them will be burrowers. So rain will drain +quickly into those burrowings and not make streams. And therefore the +drainage will reappear as springs, and the grazing animals will go to +those springs to drink. Often, they will gather more densely at +nightfall for greater protection from their enemies. They will even +often gather at the springs or their overflowing brooks. This will +happen anywhere that plains and animals exist, on any planet to the edge +of the galaxy, because there are laws for living things as well as +stones. + +Great dark masses of the beasts moved unhurriedly past the ship. They +were roughly the size of cattle--which itself would be determined by the +gravity of the planet, setting a maximum favorable size for grazing +beasts with an ample food-supply. There were thousands and tens of +thousands of them visible in the deepening night. They crowded to the +gushing spring and to the stream that flowed from it. They drank. +Sometimes groups of them waited patiently until the way to the water was +clear. + +"Well?" said Jones. + +"I think you filled my order," admitted Cochrane. + +The night became starlight only, and Cochrane impatiently demanded of Al +or somebody that they measure the length of a complete day and night on +this planet. The stars would move overhead at such-and-such a rate. So +many degrees in so much time. He needed, said Cochrane--as if this order +also could be filled--a day-length not more than six hours shorter or +longer than an Earth-day. + +Jones and Al conferred and prepared to take some sort of reading without +any suitable instrument. Cochrane moved restlessly about. He did not +notice Johnny Simms. Johnny had stood sullenly in his place, not moving +to look out the windows, ostentatiously ignoring everything and +everybody. And nobody paid attention! It was not a matter to offend an +adult, but it was very shocking indeed to a rich man's son who had been +able to make a career of staying emotionally at a six-year-old level. + +Cochrane's thoughts were almost feverish. If the day-length here was +suitable, all his planning was successful. If it was too long or too +short, he had grimly to look further--and Spaceways, Inc., would still +not be as completely a success as he wanted. It would have been much +simpler to have measured the apparent size of the local sun by any means +available, and then simply to have timed the intervals between its +touching of the horizon and its complete setting. But Cochrane hadn't +thought of it at sunset. + +Presently he wandered down to where Babs and Alicia worked in the +kitchen to prepare a meal. He tried to help. The atmosphere was much +more like that in a small apartment back home than on a space-ship among +the stars. This was not in any way such a journey of exploration as the +writers of fiction had imagined. Jamison came down presently and offered +to prepare some special dish in which he claimed to excel. There was no +mention of Johnny Simms. Alicia, elaborately ignoring all that was past, +told Jamison that Babs and Cochrane were now an acknowledged romance and +actually had plans for marriage immediately the ship returned to Earth. +Jamison made the usual inept jests suited to such an occasion. + +Presently they called the others to dinner. Jones and Johnny Simms were +long behind the others, and Jones' expression was conspicuously +dead-pan. Johnny Simms looked sulkily rebellious. His sulking had not +attracted attention in the control-room. He had meant to refuse sulkily +to come to dinner. But Jones wouldn't trust him--alone in the +control-room. Now he sat down, scowling, and ostentatiously refused to +eat, despite Alicia's coaxing. He snarled at her. + +This, also, was not in the tradition of the behavior of voyagers of +space. They dined in the over-large saloon of a ship that had never been +meant really to leave the moon. The ship stood upright under strange +stars upon a stranger world, and all about it outside there were the +resting forms of thousands upon thousands of creatures like cattle. And +the dinner-table conversation was partly family-style jests about Babs' +and Cochrane's new romantic status, and partly about a television +broadcast which had to be ready for a certain number of Earth-hours yet +ahead. And nobody paid any attention to Johnny Simms, glowering at the +table and refusing to eat. + +It was a mistake, probably. + +Much, much later, Cochrane and Babs were again in the control-room, and +this time they were alone. + +"Look!" said Cochrane vexedly. "Do you realize that I haven't kissed you +since we got back on the ship? What happened?" + +"You!" said Babs indignantly. "You've been thinking about something else +every second of the time!" + +Cochrane did not think about anything else for several minutes. He began +to recall with new tolerance the insane antics of people he had been +producing shows about. They had reason--those imaginary people--to act +unreasonably. + +But presently his mind was working again. + +"We've got to make some plans for ourselves," he said. "We can live back +on Earth, of course. We've already made a neat sum out of the broadcasts +from this trip. But I don't think we'll want to live the way one has to +live on Earth, with too many people there. I'd like--." + +Somebody came clattering up the stairs from below. + +"Johnny?" It was Bell. "Is he up here?" + +Cochrane released Babs. + +"No. He's not here. Why?" + +"He's missing," said Bell apprehensively. "Alicia says he took a gun. A +gun's gone, anyhow. He's vanished!" + +Cochrane swore under his breath. A fool asserting his dignity with a gun +could be a serious matter indeed. He switched on the control-room +lights. He was not there. They went down and hunted over the main +saloon. He was not there. Then Holden called harshly from the next deck +down. + +There was Alicia by the inner airlock door. Her face was deathly pale. +She had opened the door. The outer door was open too--and it had not +been opened since this last landing by anybody else. The landing-sling +cables were run out. They swung slowly in the light that fell upon them +from the inside of the ship. + +A smell came in the opening. It was the smell of beasts. It was a musky, +ammoniacal smell, somehow not alien even though it was unfamiliar. There +were noises outside in the night. Grunting sounds. Snortings. There were +such sounds as a vast concourse of grazing creatures would make in the +night-time, when gathered by thousands and myriads for safety and for +rest. + +"He--went out," said Alicia desperately. "He meant to punish us. He's a +spoiled little boy. We weren't nice to him. And--he was afraid of us +too! So he ran away to make us sorry!" + +Cochrane went to look out of the lock and to call Johnny Simms back. He +gazed into absolute blackness on the ground. He felt a queasy giddiness +because there was no hand-railing at the outer lock door and he knew the +depth of the fall outside. He raged, within himself. Johnny Simms would +feel triumphant when he was called. He would require to be pleaded with +to return. He would pompously set terms for returning before he was +killed.... + +Cochrane saw a flash of fire and the short streak of a tracer-bullet's +patch before it hit something. He heard the report of the gun. He heard +a bellow of agony and then a scream of purest terror from Johnny Simms. + +Then, from the ground, arose a truly monstrous tumult. Every one of the +creatures below raised its voice in a horrible, bleating cry. The volume +of sound was numbing--was agonizing in sheer impact. There were +stirrings and clickings as of horns clashing against each other. + +Another scream from Johnny Simms. He had moved. It appeared that he was +running. Cochrane saw more gun-flashes, there were more shots. He +clenched his hands and waited for the thunderous vibration that would be +all this multitude of animals pounding through the night in blind +stampede. + +It did not come. There was only that bleating, horrible outcry as all +the beasts bellowed of alarm and created this noise to frighten their +assailants away. + +Twice more there were shots in the night. Johnny Simms fired crazily and +screamed in hysterical panic. Each time the shots and screaming were +farther away. + +There were no portable lights with which to make a search. It was +unthinkable to go blundering among the beasts in darkness. + +There was nothing to do. Cochrane could only watch and listen helplessly +while the strong beast-smell rose to his nostrils, and the innumerable +noises of unseen uneasy creatures sounded in his ears. + +Inside the ship Alicia wept hopelessly. Babs tried in vain to comfort +her. + + + + +CHAPTER TEN + + +The sun rose. Cochrane noted the time, it was fourteen hours since +sunset. The local day would be something more than an Earth-day in +length. The manner of sunrise was familiar. There was a pale gray light +in the sky. It strengthened. Then reddish colors appeared, and changed +to gold, and the unnamed stars winked out one after another. Presently +the nearer hillsides ceased to be black. There was light everywhere. + +Alicia, white and haggard, waited to see what the light would show. + +But there was heavy mist everywhere. The hill-crests were clear, and the +edge of the visible woodland, and the top half of the ship's shining +hull rose clear of curiously-tinted, slowly writhing fog. But everything +else seemed submerged in a sea of milk. + +But the mist grew thinner as the sun shone on it. Its top writhed to +nothingness. All this was wholly commonplace. Even clouds in the sky +were of types well-known enough. Which was, when one thought about it, +inevitable. This was a Sol-type sun, of the same kind and color as the +star which warmed the planet Earth. It had planets, like the sun of +men's home world. There was a law--Bode's Law--which specified that +planets must float in orbits bearing such-and-such relationships to each +other. There must also be a law that planets in those orbits must bear +such-and-such relationships of size to each other. There must be a law +that winds must blow under ordinary conditions, and clouds form at +appointed heights and times. It would be very remarkable if Earth were +an exception to natural laws that other worlds obey. + +So the strangeness of the morning to those who watched from the ship was +more like the strangeness of an alien land on Earth than that of a +wholly alien planet. + +The lower dawnmist thinned. Gazing down, Cochrane saw dark masses +moving slowly past the ship's three metal landing-fins. They were the +beasts of the night, moving deliberately from their bed-ground to the +vast plains inland. There were bunches of hundreds, and bunches of +scores. There were occasional knots of dozens only. + +From overhead and through the mist Cochrane could not see individual +animals too clearly, but they were heavy beasts and clumsy ones. They +moved sluggishly. Their numbers dwindled. He saw groups of no more than +four or five. He saw single animals trudging patiently away. + +He saw no more at all. + +Then the sunlight touched the inland hills. The last of the morning mist +dissolved, and there were the dead bodies of two beasts near the base of +the ship. Johnny Simms had killed them with his first panicky shots of +the night. There was another dead beast a quarter-mile away. + +Cochrane gave orders. Jones and Al could not leave the ship. They were +needed to get it back to Earth, with full knowledge of how to make other +starships. Cochrane tried to leave Babs behind, but she would not stay. +Bell had loaded himself with a camera and film-tape besides a weapon, +before Cochrane even began his organization. Holden was needed for an +extra gun. Alicia, tearless and despairing, would not be left behind. +Cochrane turned wryly to Jamison. + +"I don't think Johnny was killed," he said. "He'd gotten a long way off +before it happened, anyhow. We've got to hunt for him. With beasts like +those of last night, there'll naturally be other creatures to prey on +them. We might run into anything. If we don't get back, you get to the +lawyers I've had representing Spaceways. They'll get rich off the job, +but you'll end up rich, too." + +"The best bet all around," said Jamison in a low tone, "would be to find +him trampled to death." + +"I agree," said Cochrane sourly. "But apparently the beasts don't +stampede. Maybe they don't even charge, but just form rings to protect +their females and young, like musk-oxen. I'm afraid he's alive, but I'm +also afraid we'll never find him." + +He marshaled his group. Jones had walkie-talkies ready, deftly removed +for the purpose from space-suits nobody had used since leaving Lunar +City--and Holden took one to keep in touch by. They went down in the +sling, two at a time. + +Cochrane regarded the two dead animals near the base of the ship. They +were roughly the size of cattle, and they were shaggy like buffalo. They +had branching, pointed, deadly horns. They had hoofs, single hoofs, not +cloven. They were not like any Earth animal. But horns and hoofs will +appear in any system of parallel evolution. It would seem even more +certain that proteins and amino acids and such compounds as hemoglobin +and fat and muscle-tissue should be identical as a matter of chemical +inevitability. These creatures had teeth and they were herbivorous. Bell +photographed them painstakingly. + +"Somehow," said Cochrane, "I think they'd be wholesome food. If we can, +we'll empty a freezing-locker and take a carcass for tests." + +Holden fingered his rifle unhappily. Alicia said nothing. Babs stayed +close beside her. They went on. + +They came to another dead animal a quarter-mile away. The ground was +full of the scent and the hoofmarks of the departed herd. Bell +photographed again. They did not stop. Johnny Simms had been this way, +because of the carcass. He wasn't here now. + +They topped the next rise in the ground. They saw two other slaughtered +creatures. It was wholly evident, now, that these animals did not charge +but only stood their ground when alarmed. Johnny Simms had fired blindly +when he blundered into their groupings. + +The last carcass they saw was barely two hundred yards from the one +patch of woodland visible from the ship. Cochrane said with some +grimness. + +"If his eyes had gotten used to the darkness, he might have seen the +forest and tried to get into it to get away from those animals." + +And if Johnny Simms had not stopped short instantly he reached the woods +and presumable safety, he would be utterly lost by now. There could be +nothing less hopeful than the situation of a man lost on a strange +planet, not knowing in what direction he had blundered on his first +starting out. Even nearby, three directions out of four would be wrong. +Farther away, the chance of stumbling on the way back to the ship would +be nonexistent. + +Alicia saw a human footprint on the trodden muck near the last carcass. +It pointed toward the wood. + +They reached the wood, and search looked hopeless. Then by purest chance +they found a place where Johnny had stumbled and fallen headlong. He'd +leaped up and fled crazily. For some fifteen yards they could track him +by the trampled dried small growths he'd knocked down in his flight. +Then there were no more such growths. All signs of his flight were lost. +But they went on. + +There were strangenesses everywhere, of which they could realize only a +small part because they had been city-dwellers back on Earth. There was +one place where trees grew like banyans, and it was utterly impossible +to penetrate them. They swerved aside. There was another spot where +giant trees like sequoias made a cathedral-like atmosphere, and it +seemed an impiety to speak. But Holden reported tonelessly in the +walkie-talkie, and assured Jones and Al and Jamison that all so far was +well. + +They heard a vast commotion of chattering voices, and they hoped that it +might be a disturbance of Johnny Simms' causing. But when they reached +the place there was dead silence. Only, there were hundreds of tiny +nests everywhere. They could not catch a glimpse of a single one of the +nests' inhabitants, but they felt that they were peeked at from under +leaves and around branches. + +Cochrane looked unhappy indeed. In cold blood, he knew that Johnny Simms +had left the ship in exactly the sort of resentful bravado with which a +spoiled little boy will run away from home to punish his parents. Quite +possibly he had intended only to go out into the night and wait near the +ship until he was missed. But he'd found himself among the unknown +beasts. He'd gone into blind panic. Now he was lost indeed. + +But one could not refuse to search for him simply because it was +hopeless. Cochrane could not imagine doing any less than continuing to +search as long as Alicia had hope. She might hope on indefinitely. + +They heard the faint, distant, incisive sound of a shot. + +Holden's voice reported it in the walkie-talkie. Cochrane nodded +brightly to Alicia and fired a shot in turn. He was relieved. It looked +like everything would end in a commonplace fashion. The party from the +ship headed toward the source of the other sound. + +In half an hour Cochrane was about to fire again. But they heard the +hysterical rat-tat-tat of firing. It seemed no nearer, but it could only +be Johnny Simms. + +Cochrane and Holden fired together for assurance to Johnny. Bell took +pictures. + +Again they marched toward where the shots had been fired. Again they +trudged on for a long time. Seemingly, Johnny had moved away from them +as they followed him. They breasted a hill, and there was a breeze with +the smell of water in it, and they saw that here the land sloped very +gradually toward the sea, and the sea was in view. It was infinitely +blue and it reached toward the most alluring of horizons. Between them +and the sea there was only low-growing stuff, brownish and sparse. There +was sand underfoot--a curious bluish sand. Only here and there did the +dry-seeming vegetation grow higher than their heads. + +More shots. Between them and the sea. Cochrane and Holden fired again. + +"What the devil's the matter with the fool?" demanded Holden irritably. +"He knows we're coming! Why doesn't he stand still or come to meet us?" + +Cochrane shrugged. That thought was disturbing him too. They pressed +forward, and suddenly Holden exclaimed. "That looks like a man! Two +men!" + +Cochrane caught the barest glimpse of something running about, far +ahead. It looked like naked human flesh. It was the size of a man. It +vanished. Another popped into view and darted madly out of sight. They +did not see the newcomers. + +"He shot something like that, back where we first landed," said Cochrane +grimly. "We'd better hurry!" + +They did hurry. There was a last flurry of shooting. It was automatic +fire. It is not wise to shoot on automatic if one's ammunition is +limited, Johnny Simms' firearm chattered furiously for part of a second. +It stopped short. He couldn't have fired so short a burst. He was out of +bullets. + +They ran. + +When they drew near him, a hooting set up. Things scattered away. Large +things. Birds the size of men. They heard Johnny Simms screaming. + +They came panting to the very beach, on which foam-tipped waves broke in +absolutely normal grandeur. The sand was commonplace save for a slight +bluish tint. Johnny Simms was out on the beach, in the open. He was +down. He had flung his gun at something and was weaponless. He lay on +the sand, shrieking. There were four ungainly, monstrous birds like +oversized Cornish Game gamecocks pecking at him. Two ran crazily away at +sight of the humans. Two others remained. Then they fled. One of them +halted, darted back, and took a last peck at Johnny Simms before it fled +again. + +Holden fired, and missed. Cochrane ran toward the kicking, shrieking +Johnny Simms. But Alicia got there first. + +He was a completely pitiable object. His clothing had been almost +completely stripped away in the brief time since his last burst of +shots. There were wounds on his bare flesh. After all, the beak of a +bird as tall as a man is not a weapon to be despised. Johnny Simms would +have been pecked to death but for the party from the ship. He had been +spotted and harried by a huntingpack of the ostrich-sized creatures at +earliest dawn. A cooler-headed man would have stood still and killed +some of them, then the rest would either have run away or devoured their +slaughtered fellows. But Johnny Simms was not cool-headed. He had made a +career of being a rich man's spoiled little boy. Now he'd had a fright +great enough and an escape narrow enough to shatter the nerves of a +normal man. To Johnny Simms, the effect was catastrophic. + +He could not walk, and the distance was too great to carry him. Holden +reported by walkie-talkie, and Jones proposed to butcher one of the +animals Johnny had killed and put it in a freezer emptied for the +purpose, and then lift the ship and land by the sea. It seemed a +reasonable proposal. Johnny was surely not seriously wounded. + +But that meant time to wait. Alicia sat by her husband, soothing him. +Holden moved along the beach, examining the shells that had come ashore. +He picked up one shell more glorious in its coloring than any of the +pearl-making creatures of Earth. This shell grew neither in the flat +spiral nor the cone-shaped form of Earth mollusks. It grew in a +doubly-curved spiral, so that the result was an extraordinary, lustrous, +complex sphere. Bell fairly danced with excitement as he photographed it +with lavish pains to get all the colors just right. + +Cochrane and Babs moved along the beach also. It was not possible to be +apprehensive. Cochrane talked largely. Presently he was saying with +infinite satisfaction: + +"The chemical compounds here are bound to be the same! It's a new world, +bigger than the glacier planet. Those beasts last night--if they're good +food-stuff--will make this a place like the old west, and everybody +envies the pioneers! This is a new Earth! Everything's so nearly the +same--." + +"I never," observed Babs, "heard of blue sand on Earth." + +He frowned at her. He stooped and picked up a handful of the beach +stuff. It was not blue. The tiny, sea-broken pebbles were ordinary +quartz and granite rock. They would have to be. Yet there was a +blueness--The blue grains were very much smaller than the white and tan +and gray ones. Cochrane looked closely. Then he blew. All the sand blew +out of his hand except--at last--one tiny grain. It was white. It +glittered greasily. Cochrane moved four paces and wetted his hand in the +sea. He tried to wet the sand-grain. It would not wet. + +He began to laugh. + +"I did a show once," he told Babs, "about the old diamond-mines. Ever +hear of them? They used to find diamonds in blue clay which was as hard +as rock. Here, blue clay goes out from the land to under the waves. This +is a tiny diamond, washed out by the sea! This is the last thing we +need!" Then he looked at his watch. "We're due on the air in two hours +and a half! Now we've got what we want! Let's go have Holden tell Jones +to hurry!" + +But Babs complained suddenly, + +"Jed! What sort of life am I going to lead with you? Here we are, +and--nobody can see us--and you don't even notice!" + +Cochrane was penitent. In fact, they had to hurry back down the beach to +join the others when the space-ship appeared as a silvery gleam, high in +the air, and then came swooping down with fierce flames underneath it to +settle a quarter-mile inland. + +Bell had a picture of the tiny diamond by the time the ground was cool +enough for them to re-enter the ship. The way he photographed it, +against a background which had nothing by which its size could be +estimated, the little white stone looked like a Kohinoor. It was two +transparent pyramids set base to base, and he even got color-flashes +from it. And Jamison, forewarned, took pictures from the air of the +blue-sand areas. They showed the tint the one tiny diamond explained. + +The broadcast was highly successful. It began with a four-minute +commercial in which the evils of faulty elimination were discussed with +infinite delicacy, and it was clearly proved--to an audience waiting to +look beyond the stars--that only Greshham's Intestinal Emollient allowed +the body to make full use of vitamins, proteins, and the very newest +enzymatic foundation-substances which everybody needed for really +perfect health. There followed the approach shots to this planet, shots +of the great beast-herds on the plains, views of luxuriant, waving +foliage, the tide of shaggy animals as they came at dusk to their +drinking-place, and there was an all-too-brief picturing of the +blue-tinted soil which the last film-clip of all declared to be +diamondiferous. + +Cochrane's direction of this show was almost inspired. The views of the +animal herd were calculated to make any member of his audience think in +simultaneous terms of glamour and adventure--with perfect personal +safety, of course!--and of steaks, chops and roasts. The more gifted +viewers back on Earth might even envision filets mignon. The +infinitesimal diamond with its prismatic glitterings, of course, roused +cupidity of another sort. + +There were four commercials cut into these alluring views, the last was +superimposed upon a view Bell had taken of the sunset-colors. And it +might have seemed that the television audience would confuse the charm +of the new world as pictured with the product insistently praised. But +the public was pretty well toughened up against commercials nowadays. It +was not deceived. As usual, it only deceived itself. + +But there was no deception about the fact that there was a new and +unoccupied planet fit for human habitation. That was true. And the +fretting overcrowded cities immediately became places where everybody +made happy plans for his neighbor to move there. But the more irritable +people would begin to think vaguely that it might be worth going to, for +themselves. + +The ship took off two hours after the broadcast. Part of that time was +taken up with astrogational conferences with astronomers on Earth. +Cochrane had this conference taped for the auxiliary broadcast-program +in which the audience shared the problems as well as the triumphs of the +star-voyagers. Cochrane wanted to get back to Earth. So far as +television was concerned, it would be unwise. The ship and its crew +would travel indefinitely without a lack of sponsors. But for once, +Cochrane agreed entirely with Holden. + +"We're heading back," he told Babs, "because if we keep on, people will +accept our shows as just another superior kind of escape-entertainment. +They'll have the dream quality of 'You Win a Million' and the +lottery-shows. They'll be things to dream about but never to think of +doing anything about. We're going to make the series disappointingly +short, in order to make it more convincingly factual. We won't spin it +out for its entertainment-value until it practically loses everything +else." + +"No," said Babs. She put her hand in his. She'd found it necessary to +remind him, now and then. + +So the ship started home. And it would not return direct to Earth--or +Lunar City--for a very definite reason. Cochrane meant to have all his +business affairs neatly wrapped up before landing. They could get +another show or two across, and some highly involved contracts could be +haggled to completion more smoothly if one of the parties--Spaceways, +Inc.--was not available except when it felt like being available. The +other parties would be more anxious. + +So the astrogation-conference did not deal with a direct return to +Earth, but with a small sol-type star not too far out of the direct +line. The Pole Star could have been visited, but it was a double star. +Cochrane had no abstract scientific curiosity. His approach was strictly +that of a man of business. He did the business. + +There was, of course, a suitable pause not too far from the second +planet--the planet of the shaggy beasts. They put out a plastic balloon +with a Dabney field generator inside it. It would float in emptiness +indefinitely. The field would hold for not less than twenty years. It +would serve as a beacon, a highway, a railroad track through space for +other ships planning to visit the third world now available to men. +Ultimately, better arrangements could be made. + +Jones was already ecstatically designing ground-level Dabney field +installations. There would be Dabney fields extending from star to star. +Along them, as along pneumatic tubes, ships would travel at unthinkable +speeds toward absolutely certain destinations. True, at times they could +not be used because of the bulk of planets between starting-points and +landing-stations. But with due attention to scheduling, it would be a +simple matter indeed to arrange for something close to commuters' +service between star-clusters. He explained all this to Cochrane, with +Holden listening in. + +"Oh, surely!" said Cochrane cynically. "And you'll have tax-payers +objecting because you make money. You'll be regulated out of existence. +Were you thinking that Spaceways would run this transportation system +you're planning, without cutting anybody else in on even the glory of +it?" + +Jones looked at him, dead-pan. But he was annoyed. + +"I want some money," he said. "I thought we could get this thing set up, +and then I could get myself a ship and facilities for doing some really +original work. I'd like to work something out and not have to sell the +publicity-rights to it!" + +"I'll arrange it," promised Cochrane. "I've got our lawyers setting up a +deal right now. You're going to get as many tricky patents as you can on +this field, and assign them all to Spaceways. And Spaceways is going to +assign them all to a magnificent Space Development Association, a sort +of Chamber of Commerce for all the outer planets, and all the stuffed +shirts in creation are going to leap madly to get honorary posts on it. +And it will be practically beyond criticism, and it will have the public +interest passionately at its heart, and it will be practically beyond +interference and it will be as inefficient as hell! And the more +inefficient it is, the more it will have to take in to allow for its +inefficiency--and for your patents it has to give us a flat cut of its +gross! And meanwhile we'll get ours from the planets we've landed on and +publicized. We've got customers. We've built up a market for our +planets!" + +"Eh?" said Jones in frank astonishment. + +"We," said Cochrane, "rate as first inhabitants and therefore +proprietors and governments of the first two planets ever landed on +beyond Earth. When the Moon-colony was formed, there were elaborate laws +made to take care of surviving nation prides and so on. Whoever first +stays on a planet a full rotation is its proprietor and +government--until other inhabitants arrive. Then the government is all +of them, but the proprietorship remains with the first. We own two +planets. Nice planets. Glamorized planets, too! So I've already made +deals for the hotel-concessions on the glacier world." + +Holden had listened with increasing uneasiness. Now he said doggedly: + +"That's not right, Jed! I don't mind making money, but there are things +that are more important! Millions of people back home--hundreds of +millions of poor devils--spend their lives scared to death of losing +their jobs, not daring to hope for more than bare subsistence! I want to +do something for them! People need hope, Jed, simply to be healthy! +Maybe I'm a fool, but the human race needs hope more than I need money!" + +Cochrane looked patient. + +"What would you suggest?" + +"I think," said Holden heavily, "that we ought to give what we've got to +the world. Let the governments of the world take over and assist +emigration. There's not one but will be glad to do it ..." + +"Unfortunately," said Cochrane, "you are perfectly right. They would! +There have been resettlement projects and such stuff for generations. +I'm very much afraid that just what you propose will be done to some +degree somewhere or other on other planets as they're turned up. But on +the glacier planet there will be hotels. The rich will want to go there +to stay, to sight-see, to ride, to hunt, to ski, and to fly in +helicopters over volcanoes. The hotels will need to be staffed. There +will be guides and foresters and hunters. It will cost too much to bring +food from Earth, so farms will be started. It will be cheaper to buy +food from independent farmers than to raise it with hired help. So the +farmers will be independent. There will have to be stores to supply them +with what they need, and tourists with what they don't need but want. +From the minute the glacier planet starts up as a tourist resort, there +will be jobs for hundreds of people. It won't be long before there are +jobs for thousands. There'll be a man-shortage there. Anybody who wants +to can go there to work, and if he doesn't go there expecting a +certified, psychologically conditioned environment, but just a good job +with possible or probable advancement ... That's the environment we +humans want! Presently the hotels won't even be tourist hotels. They'll +just be the normal hotels that exist everywhere that there are cities +and people moving about among them! Then it won't be a tourist-planet, +and tourists will be a nuisance. It'll be home for one hell of a lot of +people! And they'll have made every bit of it themselves!" + +Holden said uncomfortably: + +"It'll be slow ..." + +"It'll be sure!" snapped Cochrane. "The first settlements in America +were failures until the people started to work for themselves! Look at +this planet we're leaving! How many people will come to work that silly +diamond mine! How many will hunt to supply them with meat? How many will +farm to supply the hunters and the miners with other food? And how many +others will be along to run stores and manufacture things ..." He made +an impatient gesture. "You're thinking of encouraging people to move to +the stars to make more room on Earth. You'd get nice passive colonists +who'd obediently move because the long-hairs said it was wise and the +government paid for it. I'm thinking of colonists who'll fight and quite +possibly cheat and lie a little to get jobs where they can take care of +their families the way they want to! I want people to move to get what +they want in spite of any discouragement anybody throws at them. Now +shoo! I'm busy!" + +Jones asked mildly: + +"At what?" + +"The latest proposed deal," said Cochrane impatiently, "is for rights to +bore for oil. The uranium concessions are farmed out. Water-power is +pending--not for cash, but a cut--and--." + +Holden said uneasily: + +"There's one other thing, Jed. All your plans and all your scheming +could still be blocked if back on Earth they think we might bring +plagues back to Earth. Remember Dabney suggested that? And some +biologist or other agreed with him?" + +Cochrane grinned. + +"There's a diamond-mine. There are herds of what people will call +cattle. There's food and riches. There's scenery and adventure. There's +room to do things! Nobody could keep political office if he tried to +keep his constituents from food and cash and adventure--even by proxy +when they send expendable Cousin Albert out to see if he can make a +living there. We've got to take reasonable precautions against germs, of +course. We'll have trouble enforcing them. But we'll manage!" + +Al called down from the control-room. The ship was sufficiently aligned, +he thought, for their next stopping-place. He wanted Jones to charge the +booster-circuit and flash it over. Jones went. + +A little later there was the peculiar sensation of a sound that was not +a sound, but was felt all through one. The result was not satisfactory. +The ship was still in empty space, and the nearest star was still a +star. There was a repetition of the booster-jump. Still not too good. +Thereafter the ship drove, and jumped, and jumped, and drove. + +Jamison came down to where Cochrane conducted business via communicator. +He waited. Cochrane said: + +"Dammit, I won't agree! I want twelve per cent or I take up another +offer!--What?" + +The last was to Jamison. Jamison said uneasily: + +"We found another planet. About Earth-size. Ice-caps. Clouds. Oceans. +Seas. Even rivers! But there's no green on it! It's all bare rocks!" + +Cochrane thought concentratedly. Then he said impatiently: + +"The whiskered people back home said that life couldn't have gotten +started on all the planets suited for it. They said there must be +planets where life hasn't reached, though they're perfectly suited for +it. Make a landing and try the air with algae like we did on the first +planet." + +He turned back to the communicator. + +"You reason," he snapped to a man on far-away Earth, "that all this is +only on paper. But that's the only reason you're getting a chance at it! +I'll guarantee that Jones will install drives on ships that meet our +requirements of space-worthiness--or government standards, whichever are +strictest--for ten per cent of your company stock plus twelve per cent +cash of the cost of each ship. Nothing less!" + +He heard the rockets make the louder sound that was the symptom of +descent against gravity. + +The world was lifeless. The ship had landed on bare stone, when Cochrane +looked out the control-room ports. There had been trouble finding a flat +space on which the three landing-fins would find a suitable foundation. +It had taken half an hour of maneuvering to locate such a place and to +settle solidly on it. Then the look of things was appalling. + +The landing-spot was a naked mass of what seemed to be basalt polygons, +similar to the Giants' Causeway of Ireland back on Earth. There was no +softness anywhere. The stone which on other planets underlay soil, here +showed harshly. There was no soil. There was no microscopic life to +nibble at rocks and make soil in which less minute life could live. The +nudity of the stones led to glaring colors everywhere. The colors were +brilliant as nowhere else but on Earth's moon. There was no vegetation +at all. + +That was somehow shocking. The ship's company stared and stared, but +there could be no comment. There was a vast, dark sea to the left of the +landing-place. Inland there were mountains and valleys. But the +mountains were not sloped. There were heaps of detritus at the bases of +their cliffs, but it was simply detritus. No tiniest patch of lichen +grew anywhere. No blade of grass. No moss. No leaf. Nothing. + +The air was empty. Nothing flew. There were clouds, to be sure. The sky +was even blue, though a darker blue than Earth's, because there was no +vegetation to break stone down to dust, or to form dust by its own +decay. + +The sea was violently active. Great waves flung themselves toward the +harsh coastline and beat upon it with insensate violence. They shattered +into masses of foam. But the foam broke--too quickly--and left the +surging water dark again. Far down the line of foam there were dark +clouds, and rain fell in masses, and lightning flashed. But it was a +scene of desolation which was somehow more horrible even than the +scarred and battered moon of Earth. + +Cochrane looked out very carefully. Alicia came to him, a trifle +hesitant. + +"Johnny's asleep now. He didn't sleep at first, and while we were out of +gravity he was unhappy. But he went off to sleep the instant we landed. +He needs rest. Could we--just stay landed here until he catches up on +sleep?" + +Cochrane nodded. Alicia smiled at him and went away. There was still the +mark of a bruise on her cheek. She went down to where her husband needed +her. Holden said dourly: + +"This world's useless. So is her husband." + +"Wait till we check the air," said Cochrane absently. + +"I've checked it," Holden told him indifferently. "I went in the port +and sniffed at the cracked outer door. I didn't die, so I opened the +door. There is a smell of stone. That's all. The air's perfectly +breathable. The ocean's probably absorbed all soluble gases, and +poisonous gases are soluble. If they weren't, they couldn't be +poisonous." + +"Mmmmmm," said Cochrane thoughtfully. + +Jamison came over to him. + +"We're not going to stay here, are we?" he asked. "I don't like to look +at it. The moon's bad enough, but at least nothing could live there! +Anything could live here. But it doesn't! I don't like it!" + +"We'll stay here at least while Johnny has a nap. I do want Bell to take +all the pictures he can, though. Probably not for broadcast, but for +business reasons. I'll need pictures to back up a deal." + +Jamison went away. Holden said without interest: + +"You'll make no deals with this planet! This is one you can do what you +like with! I don't want any part of it!" + +Cochrane shrugged. + +"Speaking of things you don't want any part of--what about Johnny Simms? +Speaking as a psychiatrist, what effect will that business of being in +the dark all night and nearly being pecked to death--what will it do to +him? Are psychopaths the way they are because they can't face reality, +or because they've never had to?" + +Holden stared away down the incredible, lifeless coastline at the +distant storm. There was darkness under many layers of cloud. The sea +foamed and lashed and instantly was free of foam again. Because there +were no plankton, no animalcules, no tiny, gluey, organic beings in it +to give the water the property of making foam which endured. There was +thunder, yonder in the storm, and no ear heard it. Over a vast world +there was sunshine which no eyes saw. There was night in which nothing +rested, and somewhere dawn was breaking now, and nothing sang. + +"Look at that, Jed," said Holden heavily. "There's a reality none of us +wants to face! We're all more or less fugitives from what we are afraid +is reality. That is real, and it makes me feel small and futile. So I +don't like to look at it. Johnny Simms didn't want to face what one does +grow up to face. It made him feel futile. So he picked a pleasanter role +than realist." + +Cochrane nodded. + +"But his unrealism of last night put him into a very realistic mess that +he couldn't dodge! Will it change him?" + +"Probably," said Holden without any expression at all in his voice. +"They used to put lunatics in snake-pits. When they were people who'd +taken to lunacy for escape from reality, it made them go back to reality +to escape from the snakes. Shock-treatments used to be used, later, for +the same effect. We're too soft to use either treatment now. But Johnny +gave himself the works. The odds are that from now on he will never want +to be alone even for an instant, and he will never again quite dare to +be angry with anybody or make anybody angry. You choked him and he ran +away, and it was bad! So from now on I'd guess that Johnny will be a +very well-behaved little boy in a grown man's body." He said very wryly +indeed, "Alicia will be very happy, taking care of him." + +A moment later he added: + +"I look at that set-up the way I look at the landscape yonder." + +Cochrane said nothing. Holden liked Alicia. Too much. It would not make +any difference at all. After a moment, though, he changed the subject. + +"I think this is a pretty good bet, this planet. You think it's no good. +I'm going to talk to the chlorella companies. They grow edible yeast in +tanks, and chlorella in vats, and they produce an important amount of +food. But they have to grow the stuff indoors and they have a ghastly +job keeping everything sterile. Here's a place where they can sow +chlorella in the oceans! They can grow yeast in lakes, out-of-doors! +Suppose they use this world to grow monstrous quantities of unattractive +but useful foodstuff--in a way--wild? It will be good return-cargo +material for ships taking colonists out to our other planets.--I +suppose," he added meditatively, "they'll ship it back in bulk, dried." + +Holden blinked. He was jolted out of even his depression. + +"Jed!" he said warmly. "Tell that to the world--prove that--and--people +will stop being afraid! They won't be afraid of starving before they can +get to the stars! Jed--Jed! This is the thing the world needs most of +all!" + +But Cochrane grimaced. + +"Maybe," he admitted it. "But I've tasted the stuff. I think it's foul! +Still, if people want it ..." + +He went back down to the communicator to contact the chlorella companies +of Earth, to find out if there was any special data they would need to +pass on the proposal. + + * * * * * + +And so presently the ship took off for home. It landed on the moon +first, and Johnny Simms was loaded into a space-suit and transferred to +Lunar City, where he could live without being extradited back to Earth. +He wouldn't stay there. Alicia guaranteed that. They'd move to the +glacier planet as soon as hotels were built. Maybe some day they'd +travel to the planet of the shaggy beasts. Johnny would never be +troublesome again. He was pathetically anxious, now, to have people like +him, and stay with him, and not under any circumstances be angry with +him or shut him away from them. Alicia would now have a full-time +occupation keeping people from taking advantage of him. + +But the ship went back to Earth. And on Earth Jamison became the leading +television personality of all time, describing and extrapolating the +delicious dangers and the splendid industrial opportunities of +star-travel. Bell was his companion and co-star. Presently Jamison +conceded privately to Cochrane that he and Bell would need shortly to +take off on another journey of exploration with some other expedition. +Neither of them thought to retire, though they were well-off enough. +They were stock-holders in the Spaceways company, which guaranteed them +a living. + +Cochrane put Spaceways, Inc., into full operation. He fought savagely +against personal publicity, but he worked himself half to death. He +spent hours every day in frenzied haggling, and in the cynical +examination of deftly booby-trapped business proposals. His lawyers +insisted that he needed an office--he did--and presently he had four +secretaries and there developed an entire hierarchy of persons under +him. One day his chief secretary told him commiseratingly that somebody +had waited two hours past appointment-time to see him. + +It was Hopkins, who had not been willing to interrupt his dinner to +listen to a protest from Cochrane. Hopkins was still exactly as +important as ever. It was only that Cochrane was more so. + +It woke Cochrane up. He stormed, to Babs, and ruthlessly cancelled +appointments and abandoned or transferred enterprises, and made +preparations for a more satisfactory way of life. + +They went, in time, to the Spaceways terminal, to take ship for the +stars. The terminal was improvised, but it was busy. Already eighteen +ships a day went away from there in Dabney fields. Eighteen others +arrived. Jones was already off somewhere in a ship built according to +his own notions. Officially he was doing research for Spaceways, Inc., +but actually nobody told him what to do. He puttered happily with +improbable contrivances and sometimes got even more improbable results. +Holden was already off of Earth. He was on the planet of the shaggy +beasts, acting as consultant on the cases of persons who arrived there +and became emotionally disturbed because they could do as they pleased, +instead of being forced by economic necessity to do otherwise. + +But this day Babs and Cochrane went together into the grand concourse of +the Spaceways terminal. There were people everywhere. The hiring-booths +of enterprises on the three planets now under development took +applications for jobs on those remote worlds, and explained how long one +had to contract to work in order to have one's fare paid. Chambers of +Commerce representatives were prepared to give technical information to +prospective entrepreneurs. There were reservation-desks, and +freight-routing desks, and tourist-agency desks ... + +"Hmmm," said Cochrane suddenly. "D'you know, I haven't heard of Dabney +in months! What happened to him?" + +"Dabney?" said Babs. She beamed. Women in the terminal saw the clothes +she was wearing. They did not recognize her--Cochrane had kept her off +the air--but they envied her. She felt very nice indeed. "Dabney?--Oh, I +had to use my own judgment there, Jed. You were so busy! After all, he +was scientific consultant to Spaceways. He did pay Jones cold cash for +fame-rights. When everything else got so much more important than just +the scientific theory, he got in a terrible state. His family consulted +Doctor Holden, and we arranged it. He's right down this way!" + +She pointed. And there was a splendid plate-glass office built out from +the wall of the grand concourse. It was elevated, so that it was +charmingly conspicuous. There was a chastely designed but highly visible +sign under the stairway leading to it. The sign said; "_H. G. Dabney, +Scientific Consultant._" + +Dabney sat at an imposing desk in plain view of all the thousands who +had shipped out and the millions who would ship out in time to come. He +thought, visibly. Presently he stood up and paced meditatively up and +down the office which was as eye-catching as a gold-fish bowl of equal +size in the same place. He seemed to see someone down in the concourse. +He could have recognized Cochrane, of course. But he did not. + +He bowed. He was a great man. Undoubtedly he returned to his wife each +evening happily convinced that he had done the world a great favor by +permitting it to glimpse him. + +Cochrane and Babs went on. Their baggage was taken care of. The +departure of a ship for the stars, these days, was much less complicated +and vastly more comfortable than it used to be when a mere moon-rocket +took off. + +When they were in the ship, Babs heaved a sigh of absolute relief. + +"Now," she said zestfully, "now you're retired, Jed! You don't have to +worry about anything! And so now I'm going to try to make you worry +about me--not worry about me, but think about me!" + +"Of course," said Cochrane. He regarded her with honest affection. +"We'll take a good long vacation. First on the glacier planet. Then +we'll build a house somewhere in the hills back of Diamondville ..." + +"Jed!" said Babs accusingly. + +"There's a fair population there already," said Cochrane, +apologetically. "It won't be long before a local television station will +be logical. I was just thinking, Babs, that after we get bored with +loafing, I could start a program there. Really sound stuff. Not +commercial. And of course with the Dabney field it could be piped back +to Earth if any sponsor wanted it. I think they would ..." + +Presently the ship with Babs and Cochrane among its passengers took off +to the stars. It was a perfectly routine flight. After all, star-travel +was almost six months old. It wasn't a novelty any longer. + +Operation Outer Space was old stuff. + + +THE END. + + + + * * * * * + + + +Transcriber's notes + +The following typos have been corrected. Hyphenation adjusted to reflect +the most common usage in the text. + +Page Typo Correction +7 expendible expendable +8 calmy calmly +8 Takeoff's Take-off's +9 Takeoff Take-off +10 night-club nightclub +13 business-like businesslike +21 takeoff take-off +25 moonjeep moon-jeep +25 The pyschiatrist The psychiatrist +27 buisinesslike businesslike +33 Appenines Apennines +36 Arcturis Arcturus +37 Why? Why?" +39 tryin trying +40 stockholders stock-holders +41 possiblities possibilities +56 Columbus', Columbus' +57 Three of four Three or four +77 moonrocket moon-rocket +86 epidomologist epidemiologist +89 "Why? "Why?" +91 wrily wryly +93 chlorophyl chlorophyll +95 panic-striken panic-stricken +101 roup croup +109 Cochrone Cochrane +110 behind behind besides +115 wrily wryly +117 'We'd have "We'd have +118 back-ground background +120 sun-light sunlight +120 'We're in a "We're in a +125 virtures virtues +125 normal normal, +129 maintainance maintenance +135 extraterrestrial extra-terrestrial +136 collossus colossus +137 facsimilie facsimile +142 eveywhere everywhere +143 star-ships starships + +The following differently hyphenated words have been left as they were, +since there was no clearly predominant usage. + +air-lock airlock +food-stuff foodstuffs +ice-caps icecaps +moon-dust moondust +re-broadcast rebroadcast +roof-tops rooftops +side-rail siderail +space-ship spaceship +tree-tops treetops +ultra-violet ultraviolet + +There are one or more lines of text missing on page 57, marked by +[Missing Text]. 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