The Big Eye

by Max Ehrlich

  An hour later the whole world knew about Planet Y.

  The shock radiated outward from Palomar and shuddered through the earth like a great earthquake.

  The phones at the observatory rang incessantly, and already the Highway to the Stars was choked with cars racing upward into the San Jacinto range, toward the new magnetic center of the earth. The military guard at the observatory was alerted for trouble.

  The people of Palomar were nearest, and they came to the observatory first. Almost with a single accord the stafE astronomers, the physicists, the mathematicians and calculators, the telescope mechanics and maintenance men, the janitors and Diesel workers had dropped whatever they were doing. They had gone to their homes, gathered their wives and children, and, like the Israelites drawn to the temple in time of crisis, had headed for the main observatory, as though somehow they would find salvation there.

  Now they gathered in little voiceless knots, their faces white and dazed. Some of them, without knowing why, had dressed in their Sunday best, they and their wives and children, as though it were a holiday. They searched each other's faces dumbly, looking for hope, but they saw no hope. All they saw in each other's faces were mirror reflections of their own. They wandered about aimlessly, like pale automatons, eddying and flowing through the corridors and foyers and reception rooms.

  They gathered before the closed door to Dr. Dawson's study, waiting for a word.

  But there was no word.

  And finally, inevitably, they climbed the parquet stairs toward the transparent partition blocking off the telescope from the rest of the observatory.

  The Big Eye seemed to hypnotize them. They pressed their noses against the glass wall and stared at it mutely, as though somehow it could rectify what it had done, as though, by merely stirring itself, it could make amends for its crime.

  "What have you done to us?" the staring eyes on the other side of the glass said. "What have you done to us?"

  But the monstrous apparatus, soaring up into the semi-darkness of the dome, was silent. It stood there, unmoved, vast and massive and triumphant. It seemed to leer back at the white faces malevolently, as though it were well aware of what it had done, as though it knew the havoc it had wrought.

  Yes, the great telescope was conscious of its power and proudly flaunted it. It had a right to revel in its own strength. After all, it had created all the havoc merely by producing only a tiny glint of light deep in its Pyrex cornea.

  To those who watched it through the transparent wall, it was a Thing, it was alive. Its massive piers, its yoke, its girders and cylinders were muscles which it flexed in glee on ball-and-socket joints. Its burnished eye was invisible, but they were aware that it was mocking them. They almost expected a bellow of triumph to roar up and out from the yawning mouth of the giant and echo through the dome.

  It was the telescope who was alive, not those who watched it. They were inanimate, dead. They could only stand and stare, like images of fleshy wax.

  Had the heavily armed soldiers not been there, as stunned as anyone else, but still watchful for the first sign of violence, the hatred might have bubbled out of the onlookers and exploded into hysteria. They might have come to life, a wild and avenging mob. They might have found axes and sledges somewhere, surged forward, smashed through the glass partition, and rushed toward their leering tormentor, chopping and hammering at it, blinding its eye and hacking at its muscles imtil it came crashing to the floor.

  Elsewhere the great observatories of the world were attacked by mobs. Unlike Palomar, they had been unprotected, caught off guard. The attacks came simultaneously, shortly after the announcement, and they came without warning. In the rioting, millions of dollars' worth of delicate precision instruments were smashed and destroyed before guards could be summoned.

  But at Palomar they could not move, they could not act. They could only stand and stare at the telescope through the partition. No one spoke; the silence was like that of a death watch.

  Finally a pair of lips in one of the white faces against the glass moved, muttered:

  "You big bastard. You big bastard. What have you done to us?"

  By early afternoon the observatory yard was choked with cars. And still they kept coming up the steep road to Palomar.

  They had no valid reason for coming, no real purpose, blindly seeking the oracle, perhaps hoping for a crumb of comfort from the same mighty source that promised them disaster.

  The observatory was crowded with newsmen, photographers, Army officials, public officials, and just plain people, dazed by the shock.

  Everyone wanted to see Dr. Dawson.

  But the Old Man would see no one. He was locked in his study with David, and they had Francis's small radio turned on.

  None of the regular programs was being broadcast. There was nothing but music -- somber music -- funeral music. David twisted the dial to station after station, with the same result.

  "You're sure the President is going to make a statement. Dr. Dawson?"

  The Old Man nodded. "He assured me he would, when I spoke to him over the phone yesterday, David. Just as soon as we couIg give him absolute confirmation of this phenomenon, beyond any element of doubt."

  The dirgelike music continued.

  David remembered something like this a long time ago when he was a boy. It was the day Franklin D. Roosevelt died, fifteen years ago. There was the same interminable music, like this.

  And yet it was nothing like this.

  Then, back in 1945, the people mourned for one man.

  Now, in 1960, they mourned for themselves, and the music was their own requiem.

  The music occasionally stopped and then resumed jerkily. Sometimes there were long blank spaces of dead air. Sometimes a hesitant voice came in from somewhere and then was cut off in the middle of a sentence. The whole radio frequency dial, from left to right, was uncertain, jittery, frightened. The networks had been caught short. Their organization had broken down. The studios were still there; the microphones, the transmitters, they were intact. It was the people operating them who collapsed.

  Like everyone else, they had been stunned by the blow, numbed by the shock; they had lost control.

  David and the Old Man listened to one station playing the same transcription over and over. Someone in a studio somewhere seemed to have gone out of his mind. He put the needle on the record, ran it through, began it all over again. It didn't occur to him to turn the record over or put a new one on the turntable. It was enough that something was on the air, anything.

  "They've gone crazy out there somewhere," David remarked to the Old Man.

  He recalled something Carol had once told him.

  Back in New York the networks had prepared and recorded dramatic obituaries of every living great man. When one of them died the studios could almost instantly broadcast his obituary. They'd been making up these transcriptions in advance ever since they got caught short when Roosevelt died.

  But this was one obituary they didn't figure on, thought David grimly.

  This was everybody's obituary.

  The music stopped abruptly and a shaky voice broke through:

  "Ladies and gentlemen, we bring you a special message -- from the President of the United States. The next voice you hear will be that of the President."

  The announcer's voice broke off. There was a long silence, perhaps a minute of dead air. Then suddenly they heard the President.

  His voice trembled with emotion; it was halting, still almost incredulous:

  "This morning, only a few hours ago, a dramatic announcement was flashed to the entire world from the Palomar Observatory in California. By now there are few in this country, and indeed in every other nation of the earth, who do not know that our days are numbered. At this very moment, this cosmic body, this Planet Y, is speeding toward us from somewhere out of the limitless heavens, bent on our complete and final destruction.

  "In this solemn hour, this hour of tragedy, there is nothing I can sa
y to give you comfort. To those of you who are still skeptical of this coming catastrophe, I bring bad news. I have been reassured that for us on earth, and for the earth itself, there is no possibility, no hope of escape.

  "No one can doubt that we have been visited with some kind of divine judgment. We must accept it as such and try to face it tranquilly, and with resignation.

  "I ask you now, the people of the United States, to remain calm in this great crisis. We cannot, we must not, fall prey to violent and destructive hysteria. We cannot, we must not, have anarchy or chaos. As Commander in Chief of the armed forces of this nation, I have already instructed the Army to keep order wherever necessary. I now call upon the governors of every state to alert the National Guard for any local emergency that might occur.

  "For some months we have faced the threat of terrible war, the prospect of possible destruction. Now -- this period of uncertainty is over. Now our destruction has been made certain and complete by a far higher Power than man -- perhaps in righteous retribution for our own sins. And we are powerless to avert our terrible destiny.

  "I ask you now to turn to God Himself for solace and forgiveness. I ask you now to go to your churches and temples and pray."

  The President had finished. There was a moment of silence after his last word had died away. Then a famous clergyman followed with a short prayer. And after him the mournful music again.

  And finally a news announcer, the first David and Dr. Dawson had heard, pouring out early fragments of information in an almost hysterical voice:

  "The whole world is stunned and dazed. In the cities throughout the country people have left the factories, the offices, the homes, and swarmed out into the streets, tying up traffic. All transport has been halted, all schools closed as hysterical parents called for their children. The streets are jammed with surging crowds. Authorities fear mass panic.

  "From China it is reported that soldiers of warring factions have throw down their weapons and embraced each other. . . . The Pope is preparing to address the world from Rome.

  "A report from Kirensk . . . The Leningrad astronomer. Professor Varanov, is already on his way to Russia by plane to report personally to the Soviet Premier. . . .

  "Members of both houses of Congress are now meeting in secret and emergency session somewhere in America. . . . Riots, violence, and looting have already begun in many sections. Observatories all over the world have been attacked, valuable instruments destroyed.

  "At Sing Sing, Dannemora, Leavenworth, and other prisons, inmates have begun to riot, demanding their freedom. The governor of New York State has postponed two executions scheduled for tonight. . . . Thousands of people are beginning to jam airports and railroad stations, moving back to their homes in the evacuated cities. . . . The Secretary of Defense has ordered every man in the armed forces, air, land, and sea, to stay at his post."

  There was a knock on the door of the study.

  The Old Man waved his hand, signaling to David to turn off the radio, and then admitted Francis.

  "Dr. Dawson," the steward began apologetically, "there's someone waiting to see you."

  "I told you I didn't want to see anyone else right now," interrupted the Old Man.

  "Yes, sir. But it's Professor Kellar."

  "Kellar? He's here at Palomar?"

  The steward nodded. He seemed to have aged ten years since the morning; his shoulders sagged under the alpaca coat.

  "He drove up from Los Angeles, sir. And he insists on seeing you."

  The Old Man hesitated for a moment. Then he said, "Show him in, Francis."

  David awaited the appearance of Kellar with more than ordinary interest. Andrew Kellar was a giant in his own field, recognized as the greatest physicist alive. He was reputed to know more about nuclear fission than any other man. It was he who had assembled the first bomb they had ever dropped in New Mexico, he who had been the scientific brain behind the vast Manhattan project of World War H, and more than any other single man, he had been responsible for the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki fifteen years ago.

  Since that time, however, Kellar had virtually dropped out of sight, along with many of his colleagues. He had been taken in hand by General Hawthorne, hemmed in and badgered, a virtual prisoner jealously guarded and secluded in a kind of rigid cocoon.

  And for fifteen years his genius had become impotent in everything except research for war.

  "Dr. Dawson!" The nuclear scientist, a tall spare man, came hurrying into the study, "Thank God, Doctor, for what you've -- "

  David stared at Kellar.

  His eyes were overbright. They shone behind his thick spectacles; they seemed a little wild, a little mad. Kellar's aged shoulders were straight back, his sunken cheeks unnaturally flushed. His step was springy and buoyant; he almost danced into the room.

  He was alternately laughing and sobbing, his voice cracking in falsetto. He grabbed the Old Man's hand, pumped it up and down, wouldn't let go.

  He's mad, thought David. He's surely mad.

  "I'm free!" babbled Kellar. "Do you understand. Doctor? I'm free now, and so are all of us -- Eckert, Davidson, Walker, and the rest of my colleagues on nuclear fission -- we're free! You set us free! For the first time since Hiroshima, we can sleep nights!"

  It was shocking, almost obscene, to watch him, a happy man, delirious with his happiness, mad with it, a lone celebrator in a world of mourners.

  "Thank God for that planet you found! Thank God for it, sir, we welcome it. We're out of it now, we're absolved. No one's going to use the bomb now. Doctor, thanks to you. The world may be blown up, yes, but not by our hand. Not by our hand, now!" He took the Old Man by the shoulders, almost shook him. "Do you realize what it's been like. Doctor, the fifteen years since Hiroshima? We've been haunted, living with a stone around our necks. We've seen what we've created desecrated into an instrument of slaughter rather than of new power, of curative medicine. We've been made to feel that we were responsible for the destruction of humanity!" He released Dr. Dawson and slumped back into a chair, exhausted. "But now it's out of our hands, thank God. No one can point a finger at us now!"

  Dr. Dawson watched Kellar. His face was set and hard, his eyes stern; they showed no sympathy. The physicist quieted down; he stirred uneasily under the Old Man's steady and accusing gaze.

  And when the Old Man finally spoke, his voice was as cold and sharp as the edge of a knife.

  "If you've suffered, Professor Kellar, you've no one to blame but yourself. You should never have let the atom get away from you."

  Kellar spread his hands. "What could we do? You know what happened. There was a war. The Army stepped m. They took the atom away from us! We had nothing to say; we had to stand by helplessly." He appealed to the Old Man. "We didn't have a chance. You remember, Doctor, back in the late forties and early fifties, how we tried to warn the world. You remember why we formed the Emergency Committee of Atomic Scientists."

  The Old Man nodded.

  "We raised a million dollars for propaganda to make the public aware of the destructive nature of the bomb. We told them that it would inevitably lead to war, that there was no particular secret about nuclear fission. We told them, again and again, that the only solution was international control, until the words we were trying to get across simply became cliches." He rose and began to pace the room. "But you can't say we didn't try, Doctor. We went before Congress, talked to a hundred committees -- to public meetings -- drove our message home over the radio and through the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists we issued. And don't forget one thing."

  "Yes?"

  "We weren't publicity men. We were scientists -- amateurs at this business of propaganda. We had to come out of the laboratory."

  "Very true," said the Old Man quietly. He lighted one of his small cigars very deliberately. "The trouble was, Professor Kellar, you didn't come out far enough."

  "I don't understand, Doctor."

  "The point is. Professor, that we scientists have been bli
nd for hundreds of years. We've dealt only in precise things -- pounds, feet, degrees, designs, formulas. We've been scientists in everything but the most important of them all -- the science of the human mind." The Old Man was emphatic. "But that's wrong, Kellar, wrong! It's not enough to be a good scientist any longer."

  "Are you suggesting that a scientist become a psychiatrist too. Dr. Dawson?"

  "More than that, Professor," snapped the Old Man. "He must become a sociologist, a philosopher, a humanitarian, a reformer, and yes -- even a preacher. Let's look ourselves straight in the eye, Professor. Let's own up to what we've done!"

  "Well?" asked Kellar. "What have we done?"

  "We've been criminally negligent. You and Eckert and Davidson and the others work out nuclear fission. And then instead of weighing the consequences, instead of going slowly and asking, 'What will they do with the atom, and are they ready for it?' you blithely give a fused stick of dynamite and a match to a schoolboy and go back to the comfortable and familiar sanctity of your laboratories."