Space, Space, Space - Stories about the Time when Men will be Adventuring to the Stars

by William Sloane

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning not for a childish goal!”

  Eserly looked shocked. He glanced at the others. General Werli spoke sharply. “Suggest you temper your language, major.”

  “Let him speak,” Eserly said. “Go on, Long.”

  The pilot plucked at a splinter on the table and glowered at it. “We’ve been hearing the Voice on ultra-high-frequency bands for years now. You say its trying to contact us. Well, it must be pretty patient, to keep talking that gibberish without an answer. All we know about it is: it’s on the Moon. Telescopes don’t pick it up. We can’t decode the language without a key. Our only answer to it is this rocket.”

  “What are you getting at, Long?” Denin asked unexpectedly.

  “You, colonel,” Long barked.

  “What are you talking about, major?” Eserly growled.

  “Just this. Dennie fought all his life for this rocket. But the rocket isn’t meant to be an answer to his fight. It’s meant to be an answer to the voice. The world wants to kick an invader off the Moon. Why? Is it because the world wants the Moon as a stepping stone to space? Or is it just a case of: ‘If I don’t want it, you can’t have it either?’ That’s what I mean by a childish goal.”

  “Is that all that’s bothering you?”

  Long slapped the table and reddened. “All! What do you mean all? You want us to sit on a U-bomb and detonate it maybe. What are we doing it for? If it’ll help man get to space, I’m willing. But I’m not willing to do it just on principle; not unless the government’s going to use a lunar station after we clear the ground! Yes, that’s all.”

  He glared defiantly at both the secretary and the general. He glanced it Denin. The moody colonel had been smiling sardonically throughout the burst of irritation.

  But Eserly looked relieved. “Don’t let that bother you, Long. Stop and think a minute. Some extraterrestrial life form is on our satellite. Where it came from, nobody knows. Very possibly, it’s been sitting there watching for a long time. When we hit the Moon with projectiles, it started trying to contact us. Very well, we respond through you. No matter what you do up there—even if you have to destroy yourselves, we know now that there are extraterrestrial life forms. And they might come again. We’re pretty well forced to establish a Moon garrison.”

  Long thought about it for a moment and began nodding. “Sorry,” he grumbled. “That makes sense. I guess I’m on edge.”

  “You reaffirm your pledge?”

  “Sure, chief.”

  “That’s about the only purpose of this briefing then. You’ve had all your other instructions. And when you land, you’ll be on your own. The decisions you make must come from your own judgment, unless you have a chance to contact us—which I doubt.”

  Eserly began a brief rehash of the technical instructions. Long was pilot and ship’s commander while in space. Gedrin was spokesman, once the invaders were contacted, and as long is negotiations proceeded peacefully, he was to act as chairman. Colonel Denin was to navigate, serve as ship’s engineer, and take charge in the event of hostility. His would be the duty of detonating the kamikaze cargo, if such became necessary or advisable.

  “Thirty minutes before Zero,” announced the public address system.

  “That’s all, men,” Eserly grunted. ” Get your gear and get aboard. Good luck.” He glanced toward the doorway. “Chaplain, would you—”

  A hoary-headed officer who had just appeared nodded quietly. The crew stared uneasily at the floor.

  The chaplain crossed himself. “In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost—”

  Soon they were striding across the brightly lighted ramp toward the ladder and the open hatch.

  Denin, having fought for this moment, was solemn, perhaps bitter, moving with his usual ungainly stride, his dark face waxen and heavy. The short rocket-pilot strutted a little, gnawing on a wad of gum, and waving to spectators beyond the fence. “I’m still nervous!” he confided to the tall colonel.

  Gedrin said nothing. He seemed frightened, and drawn into his shell. His plump face was mottled pink from the exertion of carrying his space gear, and he looked as if he wished he had never left the classroom.

  “What do you think the Voice is, Dennie?” Long called back as he climbed the ladder.

  “I’m not guessing.”

  The pilot chuckled. “Probably a dame with a flat tire, yelling for help.”

  Gedrin looked startled at the jest. “On the Moon?” he muttered thickly.

  Long stopped climbing. He looked back at Denin and slowly shook his head. Gedrin obviously wasn’t going to be of much use to them.

  “Hurry up,” Denin snapped.

  They climbed slowly, and disappeared into the compartment. A loading officer followed, saw that the hatch was secure from the outside. “Seven on the first shot,” he muttered, and paused to chalk a pair of dice on it for luck.

  “Five minutes before Zero. Clear the blast area. Five minutes before Zero.”

  Inside the cabin, the three men lay prone on the gravity padding, waiting for the signal. The controls and the navigational equipment were suspended overhead, so that the men could reach them while lying face-up toward the nose of the ship. Gedrin’s position was to one side. His eyes were closed and his lips were moving.

  “Why do you keep watching him, Dennie?” Long whispered to the colonel.

  “He may blow his top. Keep a wrench ready to club him.”

  Long shook his head. “Six Gs will hold him down.”

  They waited silently in the dim light from the instrument panels. “This feels like a circus stunt,” Long grunted. He tightened his hand, fingers spread wide, and looked at it, watching for a flutter.

  “Afraid of being afraid?”

  “Yeah, guess so. I could use a drink.”

  “Who couldn’t?”

  “Yeah. Well—everybody’s invited to my place when we get back. We’ll have a few—”

  “If we get back,” Denin murmured.

  “Good-by, good-by, good-by!” shrilled a voice.

  “What the—!”

  “Gedrin.” Colonel Denin nudged the linguist with his toe. “Gedrin! Snap out of it!”

  “Huh … wh-what?” quavered the linguist, opening his eyes.

  “You a hysteric?”

  Gedrin sputtered a protest and fell silent. His face was righteously angry, as if he failed to realize that he had cried aloud.

  “Two minutes before Zero.”

  ” Keep your hands in your pockets, Gedrin,” Long warned. “You, too, Dennie. Hands off the controls. Black out if you can. We’re just riders until we shed the last booster stage.”

  “You mean you won’t be controlling it?” the linguist whimpered.

  “Nobody piloted a V-2, did they? After we shed the last stage though, then I can take it.”

  Breathing became audible in the small hot compartment.

  “We don’t know what we’re doing!” Gedrin gasped. “Nobody’s done it before. We don’t know.”

  “Shut up, you sniveling coward!” snapped the colonel.

  “Take it easy, Dennie!” Long whispered.

  “Only way to settle him,” Denin murmured without interest. He stretched his long arms, grinned a little, and folded his hands behind his head.

  “Cocksure! Why—?”

  “One minute before Zero. Charging-pumps, please. One minute before Zero.”

  Long’s hand started toward the panel, then paused. “I feel small!” he gasped. He slapped the switch angrily. A motor wailed mournfully up to speed.

  “Good-by, good-by!”

  “Stop it!”

  “Ten years jockeying rockets. Wonder why I never got married.”

  “Forty seconds. Ignition spark please. Forty seconds.”

  Long cursed and slapped at the panel again. An angry chug rocked the ship, followed by a frying roar.

  “No, no, no,” whined the linguist. ” Stop, please—go back.”

 
“Quiet, you fool! We’re not off the ground yet.”

  Gedrin yelped and slipped off the couch. He started for the crawlway to the hatch. Denin moved like a cat, rolling after him. He caught the linguist’s ankle and hauled him back. Gedrin collapsed under a short chopping blow to the temple. “You can’t get out, the ladder’s down,” the colonel explained to the limp body as he dragged it back into place.

  “Your hour of triumph,” the pilot muttered sarcastically.

  “Couldn’t help it!” Denin snapped. “He’d have broken his neck.”

  “You’re eager, boy! Too eager for me.”

  “Zero time! Main pumps, please! Zero time!”

  The pilot laughed grimly and reached out to do the radio’s bidding. “Shall we go, gentlemen?”

  The fuel pumps raged, drowning the ship with their din. The growl became an explosive roar of sound, engulfing them. The growling monster pressed them heavily into the padding. Man became sky-borne.

  “What day is today?” shouted Long.

  “September 9, 1990.”

  “Should remember it. Historic day.” He paused. “All those nines—nine, nine, ninety. Ring of finality, eh?”

  “Precedes the millennial number.”

  “Unless it’s like a speedometer. Just goes back to zero.”

  “Don’t worry about the invaders,” Denin called. His eyes were closed, his big face calm. Too calm, Long thought suspiciously.

  He lay thinking about the voice. The twitter, cheep, cheep twitter that had been coming intermittently from the Moon, interspersed with long silences and variations in theme. For years the world had listened and shivered, and had grown angry, angry enough to build this ship which might never have otherwise been built. Hunt them down and find out what they want!— was the command issued to Denin and Gedrin and Long.

  It was impossible to decode the twittering language without some sort of clue or key. There was no Earthly tongue to which it could be related, no starting point for linguists. The government had built a station and had tried to answer. The venture had been useless.

  What were the Outsiders doing? Mining? Observing the Earth and its inhabitants? There was no satisfactory answer.

  There was a sudden lurch, then a cessation of sound. They became weightless. Muttering excitedly, Long shoved himself out from beneath the panels. “We shed the last combustion stage!” he barked. “Help me with the nuclears!”

  Colonel Denin was already pulling his lanky frame out into the cramped standing-room of the small compartment. They walked with their hands, feeling for new controls, fumbling about in the gravityless ship.

  “Hurry before we drop back into air.”

  “Not much chance,” muttered the colonel as he nudged a lever to quarter-scale. A sizzling throb passed through the ship.

  Long’s head ducked low to peer into a set of eyepieces. “Back it off a little!” he yelped. “Tube’s getting red.”

  “Can’t, man! Get your focusing voltage higher.”

  Long jerked a red knob down, pushing himself toward the ceiling. He clawed his way to the floor again and found the eyepiece.

  “How’s she look?” Denin called.

  “Nice! Tight stream! Red’s fading. Give us the juice.”

  “Keep watching it!” Denin eased the lever slowly forward. The reactors began whispering, purring, then singing a bass note. Weight returned as acceleration mounted. Soon they were standing normally.

  “Hold it! Beam’s spreading a little!”

  “Got to go higher.” The colonel pressed relentlessly at the handle. “Still a few air molecules around.

  They defocus it.”

  “She’s getting red again!”

  “When it gets white, let me know. Then you can jump if you want to.”

  Sweat was leaking from Long’s face and tracing black streaks down the rubber eyepiece. Denin watched him for a moment, then let the reaction-rate stay steady. The acceleration needle sat on 1.5 Gs.

  The radar altimeter floated past five thousand miles.

  “Beam’s tightening—tubes cooling off.” He lifted his head and waggled it at Denin. “That mean we’re safe?”

  “Safe from atmospheric defocusing.”

  Long staggered to the controls and began making adjustments according to the prearranged course.

  The accelerative-gravity shifted slightly, rocking the floor to an uphill grade, then settled back as before.

  Denin plotted a checkpoint, then went to feel Gedrin’s pulse. The man was still drowsing and groaning.

  “He’ll come around in a little while.”

  Long turned to shake his head and grin relief. “Thank God that’s over! Now tell me what happened.”

  “Our jet’s positively charged—helium nuclei. It focuses, like a cathode ray in an oscilloscope tube. If we don’t keep it in a tight stream, it can vaporize parts of the ship. A few air molecules defocus it.

  Something like when you get a gassy tube in your radio.”

  Long looked puzzled. “I never understood. We squirt out alpha particles for a rocket jet, but what keeps a negative charge from building up on the ship?”

  “It leaks off. Pair of electron guns on the hull.”

  “Another thing—if the alpha stream doesn’t touch the tubes, what does it push on?”

  Denin chuckled. “It pushes on the field that focuses it. Just think of the ship as a flying cathode-ray tube with no return lead, and with helium atoms instead of electrons. Of course that’s like comparing Niagara to a leaky faucet, but—”

  The major shook his head. “Never mind, Dennie. As long as the right thing happens when I shove the right stick—that’s all I want.” He stared at the colonel for a long moment. “Now that we’re out here, why don’t you tell me what’s on your mind?”

  For an instant, the colonel’s eyes gazed thoughtfully at the wall. But his mouth tightened, and he shook his head. “Let’s have a look behind us,” he growled, and began cranking aside the outer steel plate that covered a viewing port.

  They stared at it for a long time—a bright crescent, fading through twilight grays into a dark globe.

  “Mother of Man,” Denin murmured. ” We’re weaned, Jim.”

  Long turned to look at the awkward dreamer. What he saw made him go back to his controls. There was too much triumph in Denin’s face. Too much triumph for a man who should know that Man’s weaning might depend entirely upon the whim of the creatures of the Voice.

  “Sorry I slugged you, Geddy,” Denin growled suddenly.

  Long looked around to see Gedrin sitting up. The chubby linguist looked bewildered. He listened to the whine of drive for a moment, then rolled back on the padding as if to sleep. The rocket rushed Moonward amid monotonous silence. Long occasionally glanced up at the compartment’s ceiling.

  Somewhere overhead, the suicidal charge was stowed. And Denin’s gloominess seemed to indicate that he expected to use them. Gloom and triumph rolled into one.

  Long glanced at his watch. “Schedule says three more hours. We living up to it, Dennie?”

  “Yeah. We’re cutting the drive in a few minutes.”

  “What do we use for gravity?”

  “Centrifugal force. Start her spinning.”

  “And sit on the walls?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Hm-m-m—I’m going to start listening on the U.H.F.”

  “For the Voice? Don’t bother.”

  Long stared at the colonel for a long time. “Our instructions say—”

  “Don’t bother.”

  “Why?”

  Denin looked up with a sigh. “Because I know exactly where to look for it.”

  “You what? How?”

  “Because I put it there.”

  There was a long silence. Gedrin stirred on his cot, peered at the colonel, then uncomprehendingly turned his face to the wall. Denin’s fist was in his pocket; and he was armed. So was Long, but he kept his hands relaxed and watched Denin’s grim face.

  �
�The pilotless rockets!”

  “The pilotless rockets,” Denin echoed. “And a transmitter, and some timing devices, and—”

  “And the Voice is a wire recorder.”

  The colonel nodded. His eyes were narrowed and alert, watching the pilot carefully.

  “Why did you do it?”

  “The Lunar rocket is underway, isn’t it, Jim?”

  “Not a nice trick to play on Congress and the taxpayers. This bolt bucket cost three billion bucks, if you count all the research that had to be done. You have ceased to be a popular man, Dennie.”

  “Not at all. I imagine they’ll think of us as martyrs. They’ll never know, Jim.”

  Long’s eyes darted toward the ceiling.

  “That’s right. A kamikaze mission. They see the flash on the Moon. We died to get rid of the invaders.

  And so they build a Lunar station—to prevent any more invasions.”

  Long started to his feet. A gun appeared in Denin’s hand. Long sank back in his seat.

  “I hope you’ll accept the situation, Jim. But I really don’t need a pilot.”

  “No, I guess you don’t. Any kind of landing would do, wouldn’t it?”

  “Even a crash.”

  Long thought for a moment. “Why this twilight-of-the-gods effect, Den?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Why not dump the explosives in a bomb run, then head back for Earth? We can keep silent.”

  Denin hissed his disgust.

  “All right, if you don’t trust us—we can land at night, just off the African coast, say. Let the rocket sink. Swim ashore. Hit the jungle. They’d think we died in the Lunar explosion.”

  “Save your breath. And your tricks.”

  Long turned back to the controls, thinking quickly. Denin had spilled it because he could no longer contain it. That meant doubt, or guilt. He could have waited until the ship landed. It would have been safer for him.

  “You think I’m wrong, Jim?”

  “I think you’re nuts.”

  “Space is opened. I’m nuts because I tricked the world into space? O.K., maybe. So was the first ape to come down out of his tree.”

  Gedrin suddenly sat up. The colonel shot him a sharp glance, taking his eyes from the pilot.