I thought it best to remain silent here, and presently he continued, after ruffling through the papers on his desk.
'I suppose you realize, Roy, that quite a lot of youngsters apply for jobs here, and not many get 'em—the qualifications are too steep. Well, I've had a good eye on you in the last few weeks and have noticed how you've been shaping up. If, when you're old enough—that will be in a couple of years, won't it?—you want to put your name down, I'll be glad to make a recommendation.'
'Why—thank you, Sir!'
'Of course, there'll be a tremendous amount of study to be done. You've seen most of the fun and games—not the hard work. And you've not had to sit up here for months waiting for your leave to come along and wondering why you ever left Earth.'
There was nothing I could say to this: it was a problem that must hit the Commander harder than anyone else in the Station.
He propelled himself out of his seat with his left hand, stretching out the right one towards me. As we shook hands, I again recalled our first meeting. How long ago that now seemed! And I suddenly realized that, though I'd seen him every day, I'd almost forgotten that Commander Doyle was legless—he was so perfectly adapted to his surroundings that the rest of us seemed freaks. It was an object lesson in what willpower and determination could do.
I had a surprise when I reached the air-lock. Though I hadn't really given it any thought, I'd assumed that one of the normal ferry rockets was going to take me over to the Residential Station for my rendezvous with the ship for Earth. Instead, there was the ramshackle Skylark of Space, her mooring lines drifting slackly. I wondered what our exclusive neighbours would think when this peculiar object arrived at their doorstep, and guessed that it had probably been arranged especially to annoy them.
Tim Benton and Ronnie Jordan made up the crew and helped me to get my luggage through the air-lock. They looked doubtfully at the number of parcels I was carrying, and asked me darkly if I knew what interplanetary freight charges were. Luckily, the homeward run is by far the cheapest, and though I had some awkward moments, I got everything through.
The great revolving drum of the Residential Station slowly expanded ahead of us: the untidy collection of domes and pressure-corridors that had been my home for so long dwindled astern. Very cautiously, Tim brought the 'Skylark' up to the axis of the Station. I couldn't see exactly what happened then, but big, jointed arms came out to meet us and drew us slowly in until the air-locks clamped together.
'Well, so long,' said Ron. 'I guess we'll be seeing you again.'
'I hope so,' I said, wondering if I should mention Commander Doyle's offer. 'Come and see me when you're down on Earth.'
'Thanks—I'll do my best. Hope you have a good ride down.'
I shook hands with them both, feeling pretty miserable as I did so. Then the doors folded back, and I went through into the flying hotel that had been my neighbour for so many days, but which I'd never visited before.
The air-lock ended in a wide circular corridor, and waiting for me was a uniformed steward. That at once set the tone of the place: after having to do things for myself, I felt rather a fool as I handed over my luggage. And I wasn't used to being called 'Sir'…
I watched with interest as the steward carefully placed my property against the wall of the corridor, and told me to take my place beside it. Then there was a faint vibration, and I remembered the ride in the centrifuge I'd had back at the Hospital. The same thing was happening here: the corridor was starting to rotate, matching the spin of the Station, and centrifugal force was giving me weight again. Not until the two rates of spin were equal would I be able to go through into the rest of the Station.
Presently a buzzer sounded, and I knew that our speeds had been matched. The force gluing me to the curved wall was very small, but it would increase as I got farther from the centre of the Station, until at the very rim it was equal to full Earth gravity. I was in no hurry to experience that again, after my days of complete weightlessness.
The corridor ended in a doorway which led, much to my surprise, into an elevator cage. There was a short ride in which curious things seemed to happen to the vertical direction, and then the door opened to reveal a large hall. I could hardly believe that I was not on Earth: this might be the foyer of any luxury hotel. There was the reception desk with the residents making their enquiries and complaints: uniformed staff were hurrying to and fro: from time to time someone was being paged over the speaker system. Only the long, graceful bounds with which people walked revealed that this wasn't Earth. And above the reception desk was a large notice:
GRAVITY ON THIS FLOOR=1/3RD EARTH.
That, I realized, would make it just about right for the returning Martian colonists: probably all the people around me had come from the Red Planet—or were preparing to go there.
When I had been checked in I was given a tiny room, just large enough to hold a bed, a chair and a wash-basin. It was so strange to see freely flowing water again that the first thing I did was to turn on the tap and watch a pool of liquid form at the bottom of the basin. Then I suddenly realized that there must be baths here as well, so with a whoop of joy I set off in search of one. I had grown very tired of showers, and all the bother that went with them…
So that's how I spent most of my first evening at the Residential Station. All around me were travellers who had come back from far worlds with stories of strange adventures. But they could wait until tomorrow. For the present I was going to enjoy one of the experiences that gravity did make possible—lying in a mass of water which didn't try to turn itself into a giant, drifting raindrop…
Eleven
STARLIGHT HOTEL
It was late in the 'evening' when I arrived aboard the Residential Station. Time here had been geared to the cycle of nights and days that existed down on Earth. Every twenty-four hours the lights dimmed, a hushed silence descended and the residents went to bed. Outside the walls of the Station the sun might be shining, or it might be in eclipse behind the Earth—it made no difference here in this world of wide, curving corridors, thick carpets, soft lights and quietly whispering voices. We had our own time and no one took any notice of the sun.
I didn't sleep very well on my first night under gravity, even though I had only a third of the weight to which I'd been accustomed all my life. Breathing was difficult—and I had unpleasant dreams. Again and again I seemed to be climbing a steep hill, with a great load on my back. My legs were aching, my lungs panting and the hill stretched endlessly ahead. However long I toiled, I never reached the top… At last, however, I managed to doze off, and remembered nothing until a steward woke me with breakfast, which I ate from a little tray fixed over my bed. Though I was anxious to see the Station, I took my time over this meal—it was a novel experience which I wanted to savour to the fill. Breakfast in bed was rare enough—but to have it aboard a space-station as well was really something!
When I had dressed, I started to explore my new surroundings. The first thing I had to get used to was the fact that the floors were all curved. (Of course, I also had to get used to the idea that there were floors anyway, after doing without 'up' and 'down' for so long.) The reason for this was simple enough. I was now living on the inside of a giant cylinder, that slowly turned on its axis. Centrifugal force—the same force that held the Station in the sky—was acting once again, gluing me to the side of the revolving drum. If you walked straight ahead you could go right round the circumference of the Station and come back where you started. At any point 'up' would be towards the central axis of the cylinder—which meant that someone standing a few yards away, farther round the curve of the Station, would appear to be tilted towards you. Yet to them, everything would be perfectly normal and you would be the one who was tilted! It was confusing at first, but like everything else you got used to it after a while. The designers of the Station had gone in for some clever tricks of decoration to hide what was happening, and in the smaller rooms the curve of the floor was too slight to b
e noticed.
The Station wasn't merely a single cylinder, but three—one inside the other. As you moved out from the centre, so the sense of weight increased. The innermost cylinder was the 'One-Third Earth Gravity' floor, and because it was nearest to the air-locks on the Station's axis it was mainly devoted to handling the passengers and their luggage. There was a saying that if you sat opposite the Reception Desk for long enough, you'd see everyone of importance on the four planets…
Surrounding this central cylinder was the more spacious Two-Thirds Earth Gravity' floor. You passed from one floor to the other either by elevators or by curiously curved stairways. It was an odd experience, going down one of those stairs—and at first I found it took quite a bit of will-power, for I was not yet accustomed even to a third of my Earth weight. As I walked slowly down the steps (gripping the hand rail very firmly) I seemed to grow steadily heavier. When I reached the floor, my movements were so slow and leaden that I imagined that everyone was looking at me. However, I soon grew used to the feeling. I had to, if I was ever going to return to Earth!
Most of the passengers were on this 'Two-Thirds Gravity' floor. Almost all of them were homeward bound from Mars, and though they had been experiencing normal Earth weight for the last weeks of their voyage—thanks to the spin of their liner—they obviously didn't like it yet. They walked very gingerly, and were always finding excuses to go 'up' to the top floor, where gravity had the same value as on Mars.
I had never met any Martian colonists before, and they fascinated me. Their clothes, their accents—everything about them—had an air of strangeness, though often it was hard to say just wherein the peculiarity lay. They all seemed to know each other by their first names: perhaps that wasn't surprising after their long voyage, but later I discovered it was just the same on Mars. The settlements there were still small enough for everyone to know everybody else. They would find things very different when they got to Earth…
I felt a little lonely among all these strangers, and it was some time before I made any acquaintances. There were some small shops on the 'Two-Thirds Gravity' deck, where one could buy toilet goods and souvenirs, and I was exploring these when a bunch of three young colonists came strolling in. The oldest was a boy who looked about my age, and he was accompanied by two girls who were obviously his sisters.
'Hello,' he said. 'You weren't on the ship.'
'No,' I answered. 'I've just come over from the other half of the Station.'
'What's your name?'
So blunt a request might have seemed rude, or at least ill-mannered, down on Earth, but by now I learned that the colonists were like that. They were direct and forthright, and never wasted words. I decided to behave in the same way.
'I'm Roy Malcolm. Who are you?'
'Oh!' said one of the girls, 'we read about you in the ship's newspaper. You've been flying round the Moon, and all sorts of things.'
I was quite flattered to find that they'd heard of me, but merely shrugged my shoulders as if it wasn't anything of importance. In any case, I didn't want to risk showing off, as they'd travelled a lot farther than I had…
'I'm John Moore,' announced the boy, 'and these are my sisters, Ruby and May. This is the first time we've been to Earth.'
'You mean you were born on Mars?'
'That's right. We're coming home to go to college.'
It sounded strange to hear that phrase 'coming home' from someone who's never set foot on Earth. I nearly asked, 'Can't you get a good education on Mars, then?' but luckily stopped myself in time. The colonists were very sensitive to criticism of their planet, even when it wasn't intended. They also hated the word 'colonist', and you had to avoid using it when they were around. But you couldn't very well call them 'Martians', for that word had to be saved for the original inhabitants of the planet.
'We're looking for some souvenirs to take home,' said Ruby. 'Don't you think that plastic star-map is beautiful?'
'I liked that carved meteor best,' I said. 'But it's an awful price.'
'How much have you got?' said John.
I turned out my pockets and did a quick calculation. To my astonishment, John immediately replied, 'I can lend you the rest. You can let me have it back when we reach Earth.'
This was my first contact with the quick-hearted generosity which everyone took for granted on Mars. I couldn't accept the offer, yet didn't want to hurt John's feelings. Luckily I had a good excuse.
'That's fine of you,' I said, 'but I've just remembered that I've used up my weight allowance. So that settles it—I can't take home anything else.'
I waited anxiously for a minute in case one of the Moores was willing to lend me cargo space as well, but fortunately they must all have used up their allowances too.
After this, it was inevitable that they took me to meet Mr and Mrs Moore. We found them in the main lounge, puzzling their way through the newspapers from Earth. As soon as she saw me, Mrs Moore exclaimed: 'What has happened to your clothes!' and for the first time I realized that life on the Inner Station had made quite a mess of my suit. Before I knew what had happened, I'd been pushed into a brightly coloured suit of John's. It was a good fit, but the design was startling—at least by Earth standards, though it certainly wasn't noticeable here.
We all had so much to talk about that the hours spent waiting for the ferry passed extremely quickly. Life on Mars was as novel to me as life on Earth was to the Moores. John had a fine collection of photographs which he'd taken, showing what it was like in the great pressure-domed cities and out on the coloured deserts. He'd done quite a bit of travelling and had some wonderful pictures of Martian scenery and life. They were so good that I suggested he should sell them to the illustrated magazines. He answered, in a slightly hurt voice: 'I already have.'
The photograph that fascinated me most was a view over one of the great vegetation areas—the Syrtis Major, John told me. It had been taken from a considerable height, looking down the slope of a wide valley. Millions of years ago the short-lived Martian seas had rolled above this land, and the bones of strange marine creatures were still embedded in its rocks. Now new life was returning to the planet: down in the valley, great machines were turning up the brick-red soil to make way for the colonists from Earth. In the distance I could see acres of the so-called 'Airweed', freshly planted in neat rows. As it grew, this strange plant would break down the minerals in the ground and release free oxygen, so that one day men would be able to live on the planet without breathing masks.
Mr Moore was standing in the foreground, with a small Martian on either side of him. The little creatures were grasping his fingers with tiny, claw-like hands, and staring at the camera with their huge, pale eyes. There was something rather touching about the scene: it seemed to dramatize the friendly contact of the two races in a way that nothing else could do.
'Why!' I exclaimed suddenly, 'your dad isn't wearing a breathing mask!'
John laughed.
'I was wondering when you'd notice that. It'll be a long time before there's enough free oxygen in the atmosphere for us to breathe it, but some of us can manage without a mask for a couple of minutes—as long as we're not doing anything very energetic, that is.'
'How do you get on with the Martians?' I asked. 'Do you think they had a civilization once?'
'I don't know about that,' said John. 'Every so often you hear rumours of ruined cities out in the deserts, but they always turn out to be hoaxes or practical jokes. There's no evidence at all that the Martians were ever any different from what they are today. They're not exactly friendly, except when they're young—but they never give any trouble. The adults just ignore you unless you get in their way. They've got very little curiosity.'
'I've read somewhere,' I said, 'that they behave more like intelligent horses than any other animal we've got on Earth.'
'I wouldn't know,' said John. 'I've never met a horse.'
That brought me up with a jerk. Then I realized that there couldn't be many animals tha
t John had met. Earth would have a great many surprises for him.
'Exactly what are you going to do when you get to Earth?' I asked John. 'Apart from going to college, that is.'
'Oh, we'll travel round first and have a look at the sights. We've seen a lot of films, you know, so we've a good idea what it's like.'
I did my best to avoid a smile. Though I'd lived in several countries, I hadn't really seen much of Earth in my whole life, and I wondered if the Moores really realized just how big the planet was. Their scales of values must be quite different from mine. Mars is a small planet, and there are only limited regions where life is possible. If you put all the vegetation areas together, they wouldn't add up to much more than a medium-sized country down on Earth. And, of course, the areas covered by the pressure-domes of the few cities are very much smaller still.
I decided to find out what my new friends really did know about Earth. 'Surely,' I said, 'there are some places you particularly want to visit.'
'Oh yes!' replied Ruby. 'I want to see some forests. Those great trees you have—we've nothing like them on Mars. It must be wonderful walking beneath their branches, and seeing the birds flying around.'
'We've no birds, either, you see,' put in May rather wistfully. 'The air's too thin for them.'
'I want to see the ocean,' said John. 'I'd like to go sailing and fishing. It's true, isn't it, that you can get so far out to sea that you can't tell where the land is?'
'It certainly is,' I replied.
Ruby gave a little shudder.
'All that water! It would scare me. I should be afraid of being lost—and I've read that being on a boat makes you horribly sick.'
'Oh,' I replied airily, 'you get used to it. Of course there aren't many boats now, except for pleasure. A few hundred years ago most of the world's trade went by sea, until air transport took over. You can hire boats at the coast resorts, though—and people who'll run them for you.'
The Space Trilogy Page 14
