Space

by James A. Michener

  “We got you elected last time.”

  “Aren’t you giving yourself too much credit?” Grant said jokingly.

  Penny leaned forward. “There are only two kinds of senators. Those that get reelected and those that don’t. The first are of great value to this country. The others we can forget.”

  “I certainly intend to be reelected.”

  “Your type is also divided into two. Those like Senator Glancey, who fight and scratch and gouge, God bless him, and cannot be kept from winning, and those good men like you who need a great deal of clever assistance. You need Finnerty and me. We do the gouging.”

  So Norman Grant walked down two floors to meet with Michael Glancey, and the latter spoke without [202] equivocation. “I doubt if Stevenson can win, because this country is hungry for a military leader. Profound decisions will have to be made in the years ahead, and I’d rather see you representing Fremont than some dunderhead I couldn’t trust. Since there’s no chance the Democrats can win your seat, I’d be pleased to see Mrs. Pope helping you over the hurdle.”

  “Then why did you insist that I come down here in person?”

  “Because I want you to promise that you’ll stay put on my aviation and defense committees. I’d be proud to see you the minority leader of those committees one day, and you will be, Norman, if you get reelected this time.”

  “What big things do you see coming along?”

  “I’m not sure about specifics, Norman, but I’m sure that the Russians are way ahead of us in certain areas. And if they are, we could be in trouble one of these days.”

  “You believe I could help?”

  “Vitally. You know what war is. You know what national danger is. You, me, Lyndon, Symington, a handful of others. As the leading Republican, you’ll be crucially important.”

  Grant had been in the Senate long enough to comprehend basic values, so he asked, “What good would Fremont get if I stayed with the committee? I was planning to shift to Agriculture.”

  “Fight like hell to get Agriculture, Norman. Your people will love it. See you as their champion. But stay with me, too, and if what I see developing takes place, there’s going to be a lot of industrial expansion. I’ll protect you.”

  “Thank you for letting me have Mrs. Pope. She’s a wonderful woman.”

  “I know that better than you,” Glancey said.

  For these intricate reasons Penny Pope spent the summer of 1952 organizing the state of Fremont as it had rarely been organized before. She applied everything she had learned in Glancey’s election of 1950-he won by a landslide-plus some original ideas of her own, and in early October she flew to Alabama to talk with Larry Penzoss, then up to Detroit, where Gawain Butler was principal of a small black school.

  She had no trouble with Penzoss, who was immersed in the dull job of dispatching trucks; he could break away [203] for six weeks if needed. But with Butler, things were not so simple. Since his school was about to open he was needed on the job, and he had grave doubts about the voting records of Senators Grant and Glancey when black rights were involved. “Why should I break my back to help men who never help me?”

  “Mr. Butler, you’ve told me a dozen times about how Senator Grant helped you climb aboard that raft. Now he needs-”

  “You seem not to know, Miss Penny-”

  “Make it plain Penny.”

  “When men leave the raft, they must continue to grow. Senator Grant is exactly where he was that morning we were saved. No better. No worse. Me, I’ve been to college. I’ve seen a whole new world. I’ve acquired high standards as to how men should behave.”

  “Mr. Butler-”

  “Call me Gawain”

  She hesitated, then laughed freely. “That’s a crazy name for a Negro principal.”

  “It sure is. Know what the tough boys in my school sing? ‘He’s Gawain and he ain’t comin’ back.’ ”

  “Gawain, if we can get you and Penzoss and Finnerty on the stage again, Norman Grant has this election sewed up.

  “But what do we Negroes get out of it?”

  “You will have a friend in high places. You will have me to help you in Senator Glancey’s office.”

  “He will never vote for justice.”

  “Why do you suppose he hires me? I heckle him every week we’re in session.” Butler started to protest, but Penny cut him off. “Gawain, I have a powerful nose for politics, and I can foresee situations coming down the road when the votes of Glancey and Grant might be very important to your people ... to your school ... to you. I may not be able to get you two votes, but I’m absolutely convinced that on a just bill I can get you one. That means a standoff with my senators. It’s your job to handle the other ninety-four.”

  Penzoss spent four weeks in Fremont, appearing with a uniformed Tim Finnerty, medals shining, and they accomplished much, but Penny kept them in the smaller towns from Monday through Thursday. Over the [204] weekends, when Gawain Butler with his limp and his cane flew in from Detroit, she scheduled the three heroes into the major cities and onto the more important radio and television shows.

  They were handsome young men-Finnerty, twenty-seven; Penzoss, twenty-nine; Butler, thirty-one-and although Penzoss had had to have his uniform let out at various seams, they still created a heroic illusion. Their testimony to Norman Grant’s good character bore weight, and by the end of October it looked as if the senator would be reelected, just as it seemed certain that General Eisenhower would win the state and probably the nation.

  Grant and Butler had their serious talk in the western city of Calhoun. “Looks like we’re in,” the black man said.

  “How’s your school doing?” Grant refused to utter even one word which might indicate that he thought he was winning. He was running scared and refused to take any poll seriously.

  “We have many problems, Senator.”

  “Even in the North?”

  “I wasn’t speaking of Negroes. I was speaking of Detroit.”

  “I’m sorry. That was thoughtless of me, Gawain. Tell me, are you pretty well launched in the Detroit system? You’ll get a bigger school one of these days?”

  “I’m afraid Detroit’s going to face very serious problems.”

  “I’m confused. You mean black versus white?”

  “No! I mean things are changing so fast. Business moving out to suburbs. Off the tax rolls. Unemployment.”

  “They tell me that’s true of all cities.”

  “It is, and you must do something about it.”

  “Where do you come in?”

  “I’m a citizen of Detroit. But I’m also a black man. And every wrong thing that happens in a big city has double impact on us Negroes.”

  “What do you want me to do, Gawain?”

  “Vote occasionally to help us.”

  “Like what?”

  “Fair employment practices, so that Negroes can join unions. Better schools in the big cities. Urban renewal.”

  “That’s a pretty broad spectrum.”

  “That’s why I’m working to help elect you, Senator Grant. [205] With your background and your character, you ought to be able to handle a broad spectrum.”

  The two men sat silent. Butler had said everything that he was concerned with, so there was no need for him to speak further. Grant was thinking that this was about the fiftieth urgent agendum that had been pressed upon him, each more crucial than the other, and he was becoming powerless to evaluate them, but he did acknowledge that he had two personal obligations which had to be considered seriously. Senator Glancey had been invaluable in launching him properly in the Senate, and if Glancey needed help on aviation matters, he would get it, and Gawain Butler was one of the finest men he had ever known, in uniform or out, and if he felt that Negroes in the big cities needed help, he would have to weigh that claim studiously.

  “I think we have this election won, Senator Grant.”

  “If we have, I’ll want to hear from you.”

  “You will.”
<
br />   When Professor Mott received orders to move the Germans from El Paso in Texas to Huntsville in Alabama, he sent most of them by train, but Dieter Kolff and seven other families wished to drive their second-hand automobiles across country, so a caravan was approved, and as Mott watched the efficiency with which Kolff organized the expedition, he was reassured: when the American Army got these men, it was getting a bargain.

  Dieter had acquired a 1938 Oldsmobile touring car, the handsome one with the heavy chrome-steel bars across the grille and the overdrive which allowed the driver to shift the monstrous thing out of normal high gear, where the engine continued to grind, and into a superdrive in which the engine merely kept the momentum already in the car moving forward. It had not been much of a car when Dieter got it-twelve years old, a hundred and twelve thousand miles-but by the time he and a wizard engine man named Unger had rebuilt it with specially tooled parts, it was good for another two hundred thousand.

  There would be nine cars in the convoy, counting the Chevrolet in which Mott, his wife, their son Millard and their baby Christopher would lead the procession, but on the eve of departure they were joined by a tenth: three [206] soldiers under the command of First Lieutenant McEntee, whose job it was to see that the Germans made the transit to Alabama without saying anything to the press or straying about in idle sightseeing.

  The soldiers were not needed, because Dieter Kolff had devised mimeographed plans that accounted for every mile and every minute of the trip: “We shall go via Carlsbad, Dallas, Little Rock and Memphis. Each car will be numbered one through nine and will maintain position. Each piece of luggage in each car will be numbered and accounted for every night and morning. The cars will be kept clean, with large paper bags into which all litter will be thrown. At each stop throughout the day we will arrange for the next gasoline fill-up, and we will stop together.” And on and on.

  Lieutenant McEntee had his own orders, but they were ignored, Kolff having anticipated everything.

  The first clash of wills between the American Army and the Peenemünde Germans came at Carlsbad, where the safari stopped for gas. “Since we are here,” Kolff said as if the arrival had been accidental, “we should see the famous caravans.” One of the soldiers said, “You mean caverns. You’re not permitted to do that.”

  “Since we’re here,” Kolff repeated, his tense little body prepared to defend itself, “why don’t we just stop by?” He pronounced the innocent words chust stopp py, and when the Germans reached the entrance to the natural wonder. Mott found that the officials in charge were awaiting them with free passes and cold drinks. Kolff had written ahead, two weeks before, advising them of the exact minute his men would arrive.

  Lieutenant McEntee protested again, but the government official already had Kolff out of the Oldsmobile and was distributing pamphlets to the other cars, so that a visit to the caverns became inescapable. Mott, in looking over Kolff’s itinerary for the trip, had wondered why this day’s stage was so relatively brief. Now he understood, for the excited engineers spent two hours underground, bombarding the Carlsbad scientists with a barrage of questions, especially about the myriad bats which used the caves as a daylight refuge.

  “You go way down,” Kolff said to the attendants. “We go way up.”

  [207] “Do you fly?”

  “No, we-” Before Kolff could explain about rockets, Lieutenant McEntee intervened to forbid the conversation, so Dieter returned to the bats. “They fly at night. So do we.” The guard could make nothing of this, but when the tour reached the lowest level, where the Germans could marvel at the limestone points whose imperceptible downward dripping through the eons had created a subterranean cathedral, Kolff whispered to the guide, “Rockets,” and the man said, “No, stalactites.”

  Lieutenant McEntee, infuriated by Kolff’s deception, assembled the Peenemünde families at the night stop and reminded them: “No stopping. No sightseeing. Our job is to get to the Army base at Huntsville in good order.”

  As the caravan headed for Arkansas, Stanley Mott reflected on the years he had known these Germans, and he said to Rachel, “I wonder if there was ever a migration in this country of a more brilliant concentration of human power?”

  Rachel could think of two possible competitors:. “Maybe the Pilgrims on the Mayflower. Maybe the Mormons moving west to Utah. They were powerful, too.”

  “But those men up ahead and the ones on the train, they “hold the future in their hands.”

  “Do you really think so?”

  “I do indeed. I’ve lived with them for six years now, and I’m constantly staggered by the clear vision they have.”

  As they crossed the country he shared with her the dreams of these remarkable men, insofar as he had been allowed to know them: “You know that quiet Ernst Stuhlinger? What do you suppose he’s working on? No laboratory, no equipment but a pencil and a sheet of paper, and that incredible mind. An ion ramjet.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “We think of outer space as empty. No gravity. No atmosphere. But there is this solar wind. Not blowing the way earthly wind does. Just particles of energy flowing out from the Sun. Constantly. As long as the Sun lasts. Stuhlinger thinks he could build a device of enormous size, a huge mouth really, which would speed through the upper atmosphere, gathering up these stray ions the way a whale gathers plankton in the ocean.”

  “Can you see the ions?”

  [208] “Invisible. And almost nonexistent. One part in a billion, or something like that. But with an ion ramjet you could collect all there are in a given part of space, convert them to energy, and fly your machine for many years in the atmosphere.”

  Mott was always distressed, when he spoke of such speculations, by the fact that his son Millard showed no interest, even though Mrs. Mott, not trained as a scientist, could follow his explanations. The boy was diffident, interested in nothing, disgusted with Huntsville even before he reached it, and Mott wondered what deficiency in himself had created this intellectual vacuum. The constant moving about, perhaps, had dulled the lad’s capacity for enthusiasm, and when he watched the zest with which the Germans headed into new territory, he feared that Millard had failed to develop one of the most precious human attributes, wonder, and the ability to project oneself into unexplored dimensions.

  Hans Unger, who had helped Kolff rebuild the Oldsmobile, was devising in his head a better guidance system for the rockets he was convinced the Americans must build. “If we don’t,” he said, identifying himself with his new country, “we shall lose the race to the Russians.”

  “Is the race itself important?” Mott had asked, and he remembered the colloquium that Unger had once convened in the barracks at El Paso: “Chentlemen, Professor Mott bass asked a most benetrating qvestion. Duss it matter the Roosians, they are aheat of uss?”

  Mott would never forget the intensity of the replies: Von Braun, Stuhlinger, Kolff, Unger hammered at him, driving home their conviction that within the next decades someone would command space, and the military advantage derived therefrom, and the ability to predict weather, and the possibility of stationing a device of some kind to throw back radio signals to any spot on Earth. “But the most significant return,” Von Braun had insisted, “will be the encouragement of the spirit of exploration ... in all fields ... in all arenas.”

  Mott had asked point-blank, “Are you satisfied that with the rockets we could build now, we could get to outer space?”

  “Tomorrow,” Von Braun snapped. “If we’re set free.”

  “And the Moon? And Mars?”

  [209] “Give us six years. Professor Mott, we’re on the verge of tremendous accomplishments. But so are the Russians.” Mott remembered with chilling effect what Von Braun had said next: “Your United States has about one hundred of us Peenemünde men. Russia must have captured four hundred. Do you think that by accident you got all the bright ones? Don’t you think Russia got some able ones, too?”

  “But did they get any geniuses?” Mott
asked.

  “In this business a genius is merely a good engineer. I’m a good engineer. So is Kolff over there. You set Kolff free, by this time next year he could have something orbiting in space.”

  It was almost as if this caravan of used automobiles were heading purposefully to some powerful destiny. The fate of a good deal of mankind rode with these wandering scholars; one young man in a rebuilt Pontiac dreamed of throwing out from a potential spacecraft an immense gossamer construction made of the most delicate filament, infinitely finer than a nylon fishing line. As he explained it to Mott: “In outer space, you understand, with no wind, no gravity, no disturbance of any kind, a piece of my filament would be just as rigid as a steel beam eight inches through.”

  “I can’t believe it, but what would be the purpose?” “Collect radiation from the sun and convert it to electricity. Perpetual motion available at last.”

  “Is that practical?”

  “Would I work on it, otherwise?” Odderveiss, the young man said, returning to his sketches.

  The boldest idea rode with the driver of the 1938 Oldsmobile, for Dieter Kolff had never surrendered his vision of the A-10: the immense rocket, which should have come off the line in early 1945, with the ability to launch from Peenemünde and deliver Trialen bombs into the heart of New York or Washington. Now that he lived in those cities, figuratively, he had diverted his imaginary rockets to other targets: Moon and Mars and Jupiter.

  “It can be done,” he insisted to anyone who would listen. “We can do it now, and we must.” In German he had often discussed the step-by-step procedures with Mott, hoping that Mott would report his conviction to the military, but nothing had happened, and he was bringing to his new [210] job in Alabama not the equipment necessary for such shots into space and not even the plans, but only the moral conviction that whichever nation first mastered space might well master the world.

  It would be said later in Huntsville: “Over a hundred German scientists arrived here at eleven o’clock on an April morning and by nightfall more than sixty had applied for cards at the free library.”