Arthur C Clarke's Venus Prime Omnibus

by Paul Preuss

  Cliff twisted his left hand in a firm grip on the cargo net. “Right, then,” he croaked.

  “Look over to panel B-1, Cliff. There’s a big red button with a safety cover on it. Flip up the cover and push the button. Do it now.”

  The safety cover was painted in diagonal black and yellow stripes; the stenciled label beneath said MAIN ENG. With his right hand Cliff reached out and flipped it up. His left hand gripped the cargo net harder. The fingers of his right were trembling when he pushed the big red button.

  Nothing happened.

  “Nothing happened,” Cliff whispered.

  “Ain’t that somethin’, buddy?” Penney whooped. “Ya know, Cliff…” Then the controller’s glee suddenly drained away. “You’re just going to have to give us a few minutes with this. We’ll get back to you.”

  Cliff barely restrained himself from screaming, begging the controller not to go away. But the man wasn’t going anywhere, and there wasn’t anything for them to talk about. For whatever reason the capsule’s rockets, which a moment ago Cliff had believed would carry him to safety, were utterly useless. In five hours he would complete his orbit—and return to his launching point.

  Cliff floated weightless in the tiny tin can, peering out its window as the moon receded. I wonder if they’ll name the new crater after me, thought Cliff. I suppose I could ask them to. My last request: “Crater Leyland: diameter…” What diameter? Better not exaggerate—I don’t suppose it will be more than a couple of hundred meters across. Hardly worth putting on the map.

  Launch control was still silent, but that was not surprising. They clearly didn’t have any bright ideas, and what do you say to a man who’s already as good as dead? And yet, though he knew that nothing could alter his trajectory; even now Cliff could not believe that he would soon be scattered over most of Farside. If that were true, they would have more to be worried about than he did. He was still soaring away from the moon, snug and comfortable in this little cabin. The idea of death was incongruous—as it is to all men, even those who seek it, until the final second.

  For a moment Cliff forgot his own problem. The horizon ahead was no longer a mottled curve of cratered rock. Something more brilliant even than the blazing sunlit lunar landscape was lifting itself against the stars. As the capsule curved around the edge of the moon, it was creating the only kind of earthrise possible, an artificial one, no less beautiful for being a product of human technology. In a minute it was all over, such was Cliff’s speed in orbit. As his capsule climbed above the moon, the Earth leaped clear of the horizon and swam swiftly up the sky.

  It was three-quarters full and almost too bright to look upon. Here was a cosmic mirror made not of dull rocks and dusty plains but of snow and cloud and sea. Indeed it was almost all sea, for the Pacific Ocean was turned toward Cliff, and the blinding reflection of the sun covered the Hawaiian Islands. The haze of the atmosphere—that soft blanket that was to have uplifted the wings of the atmospheric shuttle bringing him home—obliterated all geographic details; perhaps that darker patch emerging from night was New Guinea, but he could not be sure.

  There was bitter irony in the knowledge that he was heading straight toward that lovely, gleaming apparition. Another thousand kilometers an hour and he would have made it. One thousand kilometers per hour—that was all. He might as well ask for a billion.

  The sight of the rising Earth brought home to him with irresistible force the duty he feared but could postpone no longer. “Launch control,” he said, holding his voice steady with great effort, “please give me a circuit to Earth.”

  “You’ve got it, buddy.”

  Cliff told launch control whom he wanted to talk to. For a moment the aether was filled with echoes and clicks.

  This was one of the stranger things he had done in his life: to sit here above the moon and listen to the ringing of the phonelink in his own home, 400 thousand kilometers away on the opposite side of Earth. To save money he’d only written faxgrams before; a direct phonelink was an expensive luxury.

  The phone kept ringing. It was near midnight down there in Africa, and it would be sometime before there would be any answer. Myra would stir sleepily; then, because she’d been on edge ever since he’d gone into space, she’d wake instantly, fearing disaster.

  But they both hated to have a phone in the bedroom, much less wear an earlink like half the self-important people in the world did these days. So it would be at least fifteen seconds before she could switch on the light, pull a wrapper around her bare shoulders, close the nursery door to avoid disturbing the baby, get to the end of the hall, and…

  “Hello?”

  Her voice came clear and sweet across the emptiness of space; he would recognize it anywhere in the universe. He detected at once the undertone of anxiety.

  “Mrs. Leyland?” said the Earthside operator. “I have a call from your husband. Please remember the two-second time lag.”

  Cliff wondered how many people were listening to this call on the moon, on Earth, or, through the relays, throughout the rest of the inhabited solar system. It was hard to talk to your loved ones for the last time when you didn’t know how many eavesdroppers were listening in, especially the mediahounds who could soon be splashing your dialogue all over tonight’s viddie news.

  “Cliff? Are you there?”

  As soon as he began to speak, no one else existed but Myra and himself. “Yes darling, this is Cliff. I’m afraid I won’t be coming home as I promised. There’s been a … a technical slip. I’m quite all right at the moment, but I’m in big trouble.”

  He swallowed, trying to overcome the dryness in his mouth, then went on quickly, overriding her time-lagged interruption—“Cliff, I don’t know what you…”—before it reached him.

  “Myra, listen for a moment. Then we’ll talk.” As briefly as he could he explained the situation. For his own sake as well as hers, he did not abandon all hope. “Everyone’s doing their best,” he said. “Maybe they can get a high-orbit tug to me in time. But in case … well, I wanted to speak to you and the children.”

  She took it well, as he’d known she would. He felt pride as well as love when her answer came back from the dark side of Earth.

  “Don’t worry, Cliff. I’m sure they’ll get you back, and we’ll have our holiday after all. Exactly the way we planned.”

  “I think so too,” he lied. “But just in case, would you wake the children? Don’t tell them that anything’s wrong.”

  There was a hiss of aether before she said, “Wait.”

  It was an endless half-minute before he heard their sleepy yet excited voices. “Daddy! Daddy!” “Hi, Dad, where are you?”

  Cliff would willingly have traded these last few hours of his life to have seen their faces once again, but the capsule was not equipped with such luxuries as a videoplate. Perhaps it was just as well, for he could not have hidden the truth had he looked into their eyes. They would know it soon enough, but not from him. He wanted to give them only happiness in these last moments together.

  “Are you in space?”

  “When are you going to be here?”

  It was hard to answer their questions, to tell them that he would soon be seeing them, to make promises that he could not keep.

  “Dad, have you really got the moondust with you? You never sent it.”

  “I’ve got it, Brian; it’s right here in my kit.” It needed all his self-control to add, “Soon you’ll be able to show it to your friends.” (No, soon it will be back on the world from which it came.) “And Susie—be a good girl and do everyth—”

  “Yes, Daddy?”

  “And do everything that Mummy tells you. Your last school report…”

  “I will, Daddy, I promise. I promise.”

  “…wasn’t too good, you know, especially those remarks about behavior…”

  “Dad,” Brian said.

  “But I’ll be better, Daddy,” Susie said, “I promise I will.”

  “I know you will, darling�
�”

  “Dad, did you get those holos of the ice caves you said you would?”

  “Yes, Brian, I have them. And the piece of rock from Aristarchus. It’s the heaviest thing in my kit…”

  He tried to put a smile in his voice. It was hard to die at thirty-five, but it was hard, too, for a boy to lose his father at ten. How would Brian remember him in the years ahead? Perhaps as no more than a fading voice from space. Six months was a long time to be away from a ten-year-old.

  In the last few minutes, as he swung outward and then back to the moon, there was little enough that he could do except project his love and his hopes across the emptiness that he would never span again. The rest was up to Myra. “Let me talk to Mom now, will you Brian? I love you, son. I love you, Susie. Goodbye now.”

  He waited out the heartbeats until they said, “’Bye, Dad.”

  “I love you too, Daddy.”

  When the children had gone, happy but puzzled, it was time to do some work—the time to keep one’s head, to be businesslike and practical.

  “Cliff?”

  “Myra, there are some things we should talk about…”

  Myra would have to face the future without him, but at least he could make the transition easier. Whatever happens to the individual, life goes on; and in this century that still involved mortgages and installments due, insurance policies and joint bank accounts. Almost impersonally, as if they concerned someone else—which would soon be true enough—Cliff began to talk about these things. There was a time for the heart and a time for the brain. The heart would have its final say three hours from now, when he began his last approach to the surface of the moon.

  No one interrupted them. There must have been silent monitors maintaining the link between two worlds, but the two of them might have been the only people alive. While he was speaking Cliff’s eyes remained fix on the dazzling Earth, now more than halfway up the sky. It was impossible to believe that it was home for seven billion souls. Only three mattered to him now.

  It should have been four, but with the best will in the world he could not put the baby on the same footing as the others. He had never seen his younger son; now he never would.

  “…I guess I’ve run out of things to say.” For some things a lifetime was not enough, but an hour, was too much.

  “I understand, Cliff.”

  He felt physically and emotionally exhausted, and the strain on Myra must have been equally great. He wanted to be alone with his thoughts and with the stars, to compose his mind and to make his peace with the universe. “I’d like to sign off for an hour or so, darling,” he said. There was no need for explanations; they understood each other too well. “I’ll call you back—in plenty of time.”

  He waited the long seconds until she said, “Goodbye, love.”

  “Goodbye for now.” He cut the circuit and stared blankly at the tiny control panel. Quite unexpectedly, without desire or volition, tears sprang from his eyes, and suddenly he was weeping like a child.

  He wept for his family, and for himself. He wept for his mistakes and for the second chance he wouldn’t get. He wept for the future that might have been and the hopes that would soon be incandescent vapor, drifting among the stars. And he wept because there was nothing else to do.

  After a while he felt much better. Indeed, he realized that he was extremely hungry. Normally he would have saved his hunger by sleeping until the capsule docked at L-1, but there were emergency rations in the capsule and no conceivable reason for dying on an empty stomach. He rummaged in one of the nets and found the food kit. While he was squeezing a tube of chicken-and-ham paste into his mouth, launch control called.

  “Leyland, do you read me?”

  “I’m here.”

  “This is Van Kessel, Chief of Operations.” The voice on the link was a new one—an energetic, competent voice that sounded as if it would brook no nonsense from inanimate machinery. “Listen carefully, Leyland. We think we’ve found a way out. It’s a long shot—but it’s the only chance you have.”

  Alternations of hope and despair are hard on the nervous system. Cliff felt a sudden dizziness; if there had been anywhere to fall he might have stumbled. “Go ahead,” he said faintly, when he’d recovered.

  “All right, we think there’s still some room for an orbital adjustment when you reach apogee…”

  Cliff listened to Van Kessel with an eagerness that slowly changed to incredulity. “I don’t believe it!” he said at last. “It just doesn’t make sense!”

  “Can’t argue with the computers,” answered Van Kessel. “We’ve checked the figures about twenty different ways, and it does make sense. You won’t be moving fast at apogee; it doesn’t take much of a kick at that point to change your orbit substantially. You’ve never taken a space walk?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Pity—but never mind, it just takes a bit of a psychological adjustment. No real difference from walking around outside on the moon. Safer, really. The main thing is you’ll be on suit oxygen for a while. So go to the emergency locker in the floor and break out a portable oxygen system.”

  Cliff found the square hatch stenciled with a blue 02 and a bright red EMERGENCY ONLY. Inside was an oxygen package that clipped into a valve on the front of his suit and augmented his suit’s built-in supply. It was a procedure he had practiced in drills.

  “Okay, I’ve got it hooked up.”

  “Don’t open the valve now. Just don’t forget to open it once you’re outside. Now let’s go through the procedure for the hatch trigger.”

  Cliff’s stomach began floating in a different direction from the rest of him when he confronted the big red double-action handle beside the hatch. DANGER, EXPLOSIVE BOLTS.

  “That handle pulls straight out and twists up to the left. The pressure hatch blows away. There’s going to be decompression, so the proper procedure is to brace your feet on either side of the hatch before you blow it, so you don’t bang something vital going out.”

  “I understand,” Cliff said softly.

  “You’ve got about ten minutes until apogee. We want to keep you on cabin air until then. When we give you the signal, seal your helmet, blow the hatch, climb out there and jump.”

  The implications of the word “jump” finally penetrated. Cliff looked around the familiar, comforting little cabin and thought of the lonely emptiness between the stars—the unreverberant abyss through which a man could fall until the end of time. He had never been in free space; there was no reason why he should have been. He was just a farmer’s boy with a master’s degree in agronomy, seconded from the Sahara Reclamation Project and trying to grow crops on the moon. Space was not for him; he belonged to the worlds of soil and rock, of moondust and vacuum-formed pumice. Most of all, he longed for the rich loam of the Nile.

  “I can’t do it,” he whispered. “Isn’t there any other way?”

  “There’s not,” snapped Van Kessel. “We’re doing our damnedest to save you. This is not the time to go neurotic on us. Dozens of men have been in far worse situations, Leyland—badly injured, trapped in wreckage a million miles from help. You’re not even scratched and already you’re squealing! Pull yourself together right now or we’ll sign off and leave you to stew.”

  Cliff slowly turned red. Several seconds passed before he answered. “I’m all right,” he said at last. “Let’s go through the instructions again.”

  “That’s better,” said Van Kessel with evident approval. “Ten minutes from now, when you’re at apogee, seal your helmet, clip your safety, brace yourself, blow the hatch, and climb out there. We won’t have communication with you; unfortunately the relay goes through the out-of-commission narrowband. But we’ll be tracking you on radar and we’ll be able to speak to you directly when you pass over us again. Now remember, when you’re out there…”

  The ten minutes went quickly enough. At the end of that time, Cliff knew exactly what he had to do. He had even come to believe it might work.

 
; “Time to bail out,” said Van Kessel. “The capsule’s still in a nose-up position and it hasn’t rolled-the pressure hatch is pointed pretty much the way you want to go. The precise direction isn’t critical. Speed is what matters. Put everything you’ve got into that jump! And good luck.”

  “Thanks,” said Cliff, feeling inadequate. “Sorry that I…”

  “Forget it,” Van Kessel interrupted. “Now seal up and get moving.”

  Cliff sealed his helmet. For the last time he glanced around the tiny cabin, wondering if there was anything he’d forgotten. All his personal belongings would have to be abandoned, but they could be replaced easily enough. Then he remembered the little package of moondust he had promised Brian.

  This time he would not let the boy down. He dived to the cargo net and ripped open the seam of his bag. He pushed aside his clothes and toilet gear until he found the plastic package. The minute mass of the sample—only a few ounces—would make no difference to his fate. He pushed it into his thigh pocket. There was something in the pocket he didn’t remember putting there, but this was not the time to worry about it. He sealed the seam.

  He clipped his safety line to the stanchion. He took hold of the emergency handle with both hands and squatted over the hatch, one boot on either side. Before he twisted the lever he craned his helmeted head over his shoulders to see whether there was anything floating loose in the cabin. Everything seemed secure.

  He pulled. The lever didn’t budge. He didn’t pause to worry; he yanked with all his might. It popped out and he twisted it. There was a simultaneous blast of six bolts that he felt through his feet. The pressure hatch vanished in a stream of vapor.

  Decompression was gentler than he expected. The volume of air in the capsule was small and the hatch relatively large, the outflow of wind dwindled quickly to nothing.

  With his gloved fingers, suddenly all thumbs, he hauled himself out of the hatch and carefully stood upright on the steeply curved hull of the little tin can, bracing himself tightly against it with the safety line. The splendor of the scene held him paralyzed. Fear of vertigo vanished; even his insecurity deserted him as he gazed around, his vision no longer constrained by the narrow field of the tiny windows.