The Complete Short Stories: Volume 1

by J. G. Ballard

  Abel nodded, the wells of his unconscious memory flooding into his mind as Dr Francis spoke. The TV screen blanked and then revealed a new picture. They appeared to be looking down at an enormous top-like structure, the flanks of a metal pylon sloping towards its centre. In the background the starfield rotated slowly in a clockwise direction. 'This is the Station,' Dr Francis explained, 'seen from a camera mounted in the nose boom. All visual checks have to be made indirectly, as the stellar radiation would blind us. Just below the ship you can see a single star, the Sun, from which we set out 50 years ago. It's now almost too distant to be visible, but a deep inherited memory of it is the burning disc you see in your dreams. We've done what we can to erase it, but unconsciously all of us see it too.'

  He switched off the set and the brilliant pattern of light swayed and fell back. 'The social engineering built into the ship is far more intricate than the mechanical, Abel. It's three generations since the Station set off, and birth, marriage and birth again have followed exactly as they were designed to. As your father's heir great demands are going to be made on your patience and understanding. Any disunity here would bring disaster. The conditioning programmes are not equipped to give you more than a general outline of the course to follow. Most of it will be left to you.'

  'Will you always be here?'

  Dr Francis stood up. 'No, Abel, I won't. No one here lives forever. Your father will die, and Captain Peters and myself.' He moved to the door. 'We'll go now to Conditioning. In three hours' time, when you wake up, you'll find yourself a new man.'

  Letting himself back into his cabin, Francis leaned wearily against the bulkhead, feeling the heavy rivets with his fingers, here and there flaking away as the metal slowly rusted. When he switched on the TV set he looked tired and dispirited, and gazed absently at the last scene he had shown Abel, the boom camera's view of the ship. He was just about to select another frame when he noticed a dark shadow swing across the surface of the hull.

  He leaned forward to examine it, frowning in annoyance as the shadow moved away and faded among the stars. He pressed another tab, and the screen divided into a large chessboard, five frames wide by five deep. The top line showed Control, the main pilot and navigation deck lit by the dim glow of the instrument panels, Captain Peters sitting impassively before the compass screen.

  Next, he watched Matthias Granger begin his afternoon inspection of the ship. Most of the passengers seemed reasonably happy, but their faces lacked any lustre. All spent at least 2-3 hours each day bathing in the UV light flooding through the recreation lounge, but the pallor continued, perhaps an unconscious realization that they had been born and were living in what would also be their own tomb. Without the continuous conditioning sessions, and the hypnotic reassurance of the sub-sonic voices, they would long ago have become will-less automatons.

  Switching off the set, he prepared to climb into the sleeping cylinder. The airlock was three feet in diameter, waisthigh off the floor. The time seal rested at zero, and he moved it forward 12 hours, then set it so that the seal could only be broken from within. He swung the lock out and crawled in over the moulded foam mattress, snapping the door shut behind him.

  Lying back in the thin yellow light, he slipped his fingers through the ventilator grille in the rear wall, pressed the unit into its socket and turned it sharply. Somewhere an electric motor throbbed briefly, the end wall of the cylinder swung back slowly like a vault door and bright daylight poured in.

  Quickly, Francis climbed out onto a small metal platform that jutted from the upper slope of a huge white asbestoscovered dome. Fifty feet above was the roof of a large hangar. A maze of pipes and cables traversed the surface of the dome, interlacing like the vessels of a giant bloodshot eye, and a narrow stairway led down to the floor below. The entire dome, some 150 feet wide, was revolving slowly. A line of five trucks was drawn up by the stores depot on the far side of the hangar, and a man in a brown uniform waved to him from one of the glass-walled offices.

  At the bottom of the ladder he jumped down on to the hangar floor, ignoring the curious stares from the soldiers unloading the stores. Halfway across he craned up at the revolving bulk of the dome. A black perforated sail, 50 feet square, like a fragment of a planetarium, was suspended from the roof over the apex of the dome, a TV camera directly below it, a large metal sphere mounted about five feet from the lens. One of the guy-ropes had snapped and the sail tilted slightly to reveal the catwalk along the centre of the roof.

  He pointed this out to a maintenance sergeant warming his hands in one of the ventilator outlets from the dome. 'You'll have to string that back. Some fool was wandering along the catwalk and throwing his shadow straight on to the model. I could see it clearly on the TV screen. Luckily no one spotted it.'

  'Okay, Doctor, I'll get it fixed.' He chuckled sourly. 'That would have been a laugh, though. Really give them something to worry about.'

  The man's tone annoyed Francis. 'They've got plenty to worry about as it is.'

  'I don't know about that, Doctor. Some people here think they have it all ways. Quiet and warm in there, nothing to do except sit back and listen to those hypno-drills.' He looked out bleakly at the abandoned airfield stretching away to the-cold tundra beyond the perimeter, and turned up his collar. 'We're the boys back here on Mother Earth who do the work, out in this Godforsaken dump. If you need any more spacecadets, Doctor, remember me.'

  Francis managed a smile and stepped into the control office, made his way through the clerks sitting at trestle tables in front of the progress charts. Each carried the name of one of the dome passengers and a tabulated breakdown of progress through the psychometric tests and conditioning programmes. Other charts listed the day's rosters, copies of those posted that morning by Matthias Granger.

  Inside Colonel Chalmers' office Francis relaxed back gratefully in the warmth, describing the salient features of his day's observation. 'I wish you could go in there and move around them, Paul,' he concluded. 'It's not the same spying through the TV cameras. You've got to talk to them, measure yourself against people like Granger and Peters.'

  'You're right, they're fine men, like all the others. It's a pity they're wasted there.'

  'They're not wasted,' Francis insisted. 'Every piece of data will be immensely valuable when the first space ships set out.' He ignored Chalmers' muttered 'If they do' and went on: 'Zenna and Abel worry me a little. It may be necessary to bring forward the date of their marriage. I know it will raise eyebrows, but the girl is as fully mature at 15 as she will be four years from now, and she'll be a settling influence on Abel, stop him from thinking too much.'

  Chalmers shook his head doubtfully. 'Sounds a good idea, but a girl of 15 and a boy of 16 - ? You'd raise a storm, Roger. Technically they're wards of court, every decency league would be up in arms.'

  Francis gestured irritably. 'Need they know? We've really got a problem with Abel, the boy's too clever. He'd more or less worked out for himself that the Station was a space ship, he merely lacked the vocabulary to describe it. Now that we're starting to lift the conditioning blocks he'll want to know everything. It will be a big job to prevent him from smelling a rat, particularly with the slack way this place is being run. Did you see the shadow on the TV screen? We're damn lucky Peters didn't have a heart attack.'

  Chalmers nodded. 'I'm getting that tightened up. A few mistakes are bound to happen, Roger. It's damn cold for the control crew working around the dome. Try to remember that the people outside are just as important as those inside.'

  'Of course. The real trouble is that the budget is ludicrously out of date. It's only been revised once in 50 years. Perhaps General Short can generate some official interest, get a new deal for us. He sounds like a pretty brisk new broom.' Chalmers pursed his lips doubtfully, but Francis continued 'I don't know whether the tapes are wearing out, but the negative conditioning doesn't hold as well as it used to. We'll probably have to tighten up the programmes. I've made a start by pushing Abel's grad
uation forward.'

  'Yes, I watched you on the screen here. The control boys became quite worked up next door. One or two of them are as keen as you, Roger, they'd been programming ahead for three months. It meant a lot of time wasted for them. I think you ought to check with me before you make a decision like that. The dome isn't your private laboratory.'

  Francis accepted the reproof. Lamely, he said 'It was one of those spot decisions, I'm sorry. There was nothing else to do.'

  Chalmers gently pressed home his point. 'I'm not so sure. I thought you rather overdid the long-term aspects of the journey. Why go out of your way to tell him he would never reach planet-fall? It only heightens his sense of isolation, makes it that much more difficult if we decide to shorten the journey.'

  Francis looked up. 'There's no chance of that, is there?'

  Chalmers paused thoughtfully. 'Roger, I really advise you not to get too involved with the project. Keep saying to yourself they're-not-goingto-Alpha-Centauri. They're here on Earth, and if the government decided it they'd be let out tomorrow. I know the courts would have to sanction it but that's a formality. It's 50 years since this project was started and a good number of influential people feel that it's gone on for too long. Ever since the Mars and Moon colonies failed, space programmes have been cut right back. They think the money here is being poured away for the amusement of a few sadistic psychologists.'

  'You know that isn't true,' Francis retorted. 'I may have been over-hasty, but on the whole this project has been scrupulously conducted. Without exaggeration, if you did send a dozen people on a multi-generation ship to Alpha Centauri you couldn't do better than duplicate everything that's taken place here, down to the last cough and sneeze. If the information we've obtained had been available the Mars and Moon colonies never would have failed!'

  'True. But irrelevant. Don't you understand, when everyone was eager to get into space they were prepared to accept the idea of a small group being sealed into a tank for 100 years, particularly when the original team volunteered. Now, when interest has evaporated, people are beginning to feel that there's something obscene about this human zoo; what began as a grand adventure of the spirit of Columbus, has become a grisly joke. In one sense we've learned too much-the social stratification of the three families is the sort of unwelcome datum that doesn't do the project much good. Another is the complete ease with which we've manipulated them, made them believe anything we've wanted.' Chalmers leaned forward across the desk. 'Confidentially, Roger, General Short has been put in command for one reason only - to close this place down. It may take years, but it's going to be done, I warn you. The important job now is to get those people out of there, not keep them in.'

  Francis stared bleakly at Chalmers. 'Do you really believe that?'

  'Frankly, Roger, yes. This project should never have been launched. You can't manipulate people the way we're doing - the endless hypno-drills, the forced pairing of children - look at yourself, five minutes ago you were seriously thinking of marrying two teenage children just to stop them using their minds. The whole thing degrades human dignity, all the taboos, the increasing degree of introspection - sometimes Peters and Granger don't speak to anyone for two or three weeks - the way life in the dome has become tenable only by accepting the insane situation as the normal one. I think the reaction against the project is healthy.'

  Francis stared out at the dome. A gang of men were loading the so-called 'compressed food' (actually frozen foods with the brand names removed) into the commissary hatchway. Next morning, when Baker and his wife dialled the pre-arranged menu, the supplies would be promptly delivered, apparently from the space-hold. To some people, Francis knew, the project might well seem a complete fraud.

  Quietly he said: 'The people who volunteered accepted the sacrifice, and all it involved. How's Short going to get them out? Just open the door and whistle?'

  Chalmers smiled, a little wearily. 'He's not a fool, Roger. He's as sincerely concerned about their welfare as you are. Half the crew, particularly the older ones, would go mad within five minutes. But don't be disappointed, the project has more than proved its worth.'

  'It won't do that until they "land". If the project ends it will be we who have failed, not them. We can't rationalize by saying it's cruel or unpleasant. We owe it to the 14 people in the dome to keep it going.'

  Chalmers watched him shrewdly. '14? You mean 13, don't you, Doctor? Or are you inside the dome too?'

  This ship had stopped rotating. Sitting at his desk in Command, planning the next day's fire drill, Abel noticed the sudden absence of movement. All morning, as he walked around the ship - he no longer used the term Station - he had been aware of an inward drag that pulled him towards the wall, as if one leg were shorter than the other.

  When he mentioned this to his father the older man merely said: 'Captain Peters is in charge of Control. Always let him worry where the navigation of the ship is concerned.'

  This sort of advice now meant nothing to Abel. In the previous two months his mind had attacked everything around him voraciously, probing and analysing, examining every facet of life in the Station. An enormous, once-suppressed vocabulary of abstract terms and relationships lay latent below the surface of his mind, and nothing would stop him applying it.

  Over their meal trays in the commissary he grilled Matthew Peters about the ship's flight path, the great parabola which would carry it to Alpha Centauri.

  'What about the currents built into the ship?' he asked. 'The rotation was designed to eliminate the magnetic poles set up when the ship was originally constructed. How are you compensating for that?'

  Matthew looked puzzled. 'I'm not sure, exactly. Probably the instruments are automatically compensated.' When Abel smiled sceptically he shrugged. 'Anyway, Father knows all about it. There's no doubt we're right on course.'

  'We hope,' Abel murmured sotto voce. The more Abel asked Matthew about the navigational devices he and his father operated in Control the more obvious it became that they were merely carrying out low-level instrument checks, and that their role was limited to replacing burnt-out pilot lights. Most of the instruments operated automatically, and they might as well have been staring at cabinets full of mattress flock.

  What a joke if they were!

  Smiling to himself, Abel realized that he had probably stated no more than the truth. It would be unlikely for the navigation to be entrusted to the crew when the slightest human error could throw the space ship irretrievably out of control, send it hurtling into a passing star. The designers of the ship would have sealed the automatic pilots well out of reach, given the crew light supervisory duties that created an illusion of control.

  That was the real clue to life aboard the ship. None of their roles could be taken at face value. The day-to-day, minute-to-minute programming carried out by himself and his father was merely a set of variations on a pattern already laid down; the permutations possible were endless, but the fact that he could send Matthew Peters to the commissary at 12 o'clock rather than 12.30 didn't give him any real power over Matthew's life. The master programmes printed by the computers selected the day's menus, safety drills and recreation periods, and a list of names to choose from, but the slight leeway allowed, the extra two or three names supplied, were here in case of illness, not to give Abel any true freedom of choice.

  One day, Abel promised himself, he would programme himself out of the conditioning sessions. Shrewdly he guessed that the conditioning still blocked out a great deal of interesting material, that half his mind remained submerged. Something about the ship suggested that there might be more to it than - 'Hello, Abel, you look far away.' Dr Francis sat down next to him. 'What's worrying you?'

  'I was just calculating something,' Abel explained quickly. 'Tell me, assuming that each member of the crew consumes about three pounds of non-circulated food each day, roughly half a ton per year, the total cargo must be about 800 tons, and that's not allowing for any supplies after planet-fall. There should
be at least 1,500 tons aboard. Quite a weight.'

  'Not in absolute terms, Abel. The Station is only a small fraction of the ship. The main reactors, fuel tanks and space holds together weigh over 30,000 tons. They provide the gravitational pull that holds you to the floor.'

  Abel shook his head slowly. 'Hardly, Doctor. The attraction must come from the stellar gravitational fields, or the weight of the ship would have to be about 6 x 1020 tons.'

  Dr Francis watched Abel reflectively, aware that the young man had led him into a simple trap. The figure he had quoted was near enough the Earth's mass. 'These are complex problems, Abel. I wouldn't worry too much about stellar mechanics. Captain Peters has that responsibility.'

  'I'm not trying to usurp it,' Abel assured him. 'Merely to extend my own knowledge. Don't you think it might be worth departing from the rules a little? For example, it would be interesting to test the effects of continued isolation. We could select a small group, subject them to artificial stimuli, even seal them off from the rest of the crew and condition them to believe they were back on Earth. It could be a really valuable experiment, Doctor.'

  As he waited in the conference room for General Short to finish his opening harangue, Francis repeated the last sentence to himself, wondering idly what Abel, with his limitless enthusiasm, would have made of the circle of defeated faces around the table.

  '... regret as much as you do, gentlemen, the need to discontinue the project. However, now that a decision has been made by the Space Department, it is our duty to implement it. Of course, the task won't be an easy one. What we need is a phased withdrawal, a gradual readjustment of the world around the crew that will bring them down to Earth as gently as a parachute.' The General was a brisk, sharp-faced man in his fifties, with burly shoulders but sensitive eyes. He turned to Dr Kersh, who was responsible for the dietary and biometric controls aboard the dome. 'From what you tell me, Doctor, we might not have as much time as we'd like. This boy Abel sounds something of a problem.'