In twos and threes, laughing, talking and singing, the audience slowly dissolved into the night, Gibson and his friends started back towards the hotel, having said good-bye to the Chief and Mayor Whittaker. The two men who virtually ran Mars watched them disappear down the narrow streets; then Hadfield turned to his daughter and remarked quietly: “Run along home now, dear—Mr. Whittaker and I are going for a little walk. I’ll be back in half an hour.”
They waited, answering good-nights from time to time, until the tiny square was deserted. Mayor Whittaker, who guessed what was coming, fidgeted slightly.
“Remind me to congratulate George on tonight’s show,” said Hadfield.
“Yes,” Whittaker replied. “I loved the skit on our mutual headache, Gibson. I suppose you want to conduct a post-mortem on his latest exploit?”
The Chief was slightly taken aback by this direct approach.
“It’s rather too late now—and there’s no real evidence that any real harm was done. I’m just wondering how to prevent future accidents.”
“It was hardly the driver’s fault. He didn’t know about the Project and it was pure bad luck that he stumbled on it.”
“Do you think Gibson suspects anything?”
“Frankly, I don’t know. He’s pretty shrewd.”
“Of all the times to send a reporter here! I did everything I could to keep him away, heaven knows!”
“He’s bound to find out that something’s happening before he’s here much longer. I think there’s only one solution.”
“What’s that?”
“We’ll just have to tell him. Perhaps not everything, but enough.”
They walked in silence for a few yards. Then Hadfield remarked:
“That’s pretty drastic. You’re assuming he can be trusted completely.”
“I’ve seen a good deal of him these last weeks. Fundamentally, he’s on our side. You see, we’re doing the sort of things he’s been writing about all his life, though he can’t quite believe it yet. What would be fatal would be to let him go back to Earth, suspecting something but not knowing what.”
There was another long silence. They reached the limit of the dome and stared across the glimmering Martian landscape, dimly lit by the radiance spilling out from the city.
“I’ll have to think it over,” said Hadfield, turning to retrace his footsteps. “Of course, a lot depends on how quickly things move.”
“Any hints yet?”
“No, confound them. You never can pin scientists down to a date.”
A young couple, arms twined together, strolled past them obliviously. Whittaker chuckled.
“That reminds me. Irene seems to have taken quite a fancy to that youngster—what’s his name—Spencer.”
“Oh, I don’t know. It’s a change to see a fresh face around. And space travel is so much more romantic than the work we do here.”
“All the nice girls love a sailor, eh? Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you!”
That something had happened to Jimmy was soon perfectly obvious to Gibson, and it took him no more than two guesses to arrive at the correct answer. He quite approved of the lad’s choice: Irene seemed a very nice child, from what little he had seen of her. She was rather unsophisticated, but this was not necessarily a handicap. Much more important was the fact that she had a gay and cheerful disposition, though once or twice Gibson had caught her in a mood of wistfulness that was very attractive. She was also extremely pretty; Gibson was now old enough to realize that this was not all-important, though Jimmy might have different views on the subject.
At first, he decided to say nothing about the matter until Jimmy raised it himself. In all probability, the boy was still under the impression that no one had noticed anything in the least unusual. Gibson’s self-control gave way, however, when Jimmy announced his intention of taking a temporary job in Port Lowell. There was nothing odd about this; indeed, it was a common practice among visiting space-crews, who soon got bored if they had nothing to do between trips. The work they chose was invariably technical and related in some way to their professional activities; Mackay, for example, was running evening classes in mathematics, while poor Dr. Scott had had no holiday at all, but had gone straight to the hospital immediately on reaching Port Lowell.
But Jimmy, it seemed, wanted a change. They were short of staff in the accounting section, and he thought his knowledge of mathematics might help. He put up an astonishingly convincing argument, to which Gibson listened with genuine pleasure.
“My dear Jimmy,” he said, when it was finished. “Why tell me all this? There’s nothing to stop your going right ahead if you want to.”
“I know,” said Jimmy, “but you see a lot of Mayor Whittaker and it might save trouble if you had a word with him.”
“I’ll speak to the Chief if you like.”
“Oh no, I shouldn’t——” Jimmy began. Then he tried to retrieve his blunder. “It isn’t worth bothering him about such details.”
“Look here, Jimmy,” said Gibson with great firmness. “Why not come clean? Is this your idea, or did Irene put you up to it?”
It was worth travelling all the way to Mars to see Jimmy’s expression. He looked rather like a fish that had been breathing air for some time and had only just realized it.
“Oh,” he said at last, “I didn’t know you knew. You won’t tell anyone, will you?”
Gibson was just about to remark that this would be quite unnecessary, but there was something in Jimmy’s eyes that made him abandon all attempts at humour. The wheel had come full circle; he was back again in that twenty-year-old-buried spring. He knew exactly what Jimmy was feeling now, and knew also that nothing which the future could bring to him would ever match the emotions he was discovering, still as new and fresh as on the first morning of the world. He might fall in love again in later days, but the memory of Irene would shape and colour all his life—just as Irene herself must be the memory of some ideal he had brought with him into this universe.
“I’ll do what I can,” said Gibson gently, and meant it with all his heart. Though history might repeat itself, it never did so exactly, and one generation could learn from the errors of the last. Some things were beyond planning or foresight, but he would do all he could to help; and this time, perhaps, the outcome might be different.
Eleven
The amber light was on. Gibson took a last sip of water, cleared his throat gently, and checked that the papers of his script were in the right order. No matter how many times he broadcast, his throat always felt this initial tightness. In the control room, the program engineer held up her thumb; the amber changed abruptly to red.
“Hello, Earth. This is Martin Gibson speaking to you from Port Lowell, Mars. It’s a great day for us here. This morning the new dome was inflated and now the city’s increased its size by almost a half. I don’t know if I can convey any impression of what a triumph this means, what a feeling of victory it gives to us here in the battle against Mars. But I’ll try.
“You all know that it’s impossible to breathe the Martian atmosphere—it’s far too thin and contains practically no oxygen. Port Lowell, our biggest city, is built under six domes of transparent plastic held up by the pressure of the air inside—air which we can breathe comfortably though it’s still much less dense than yours.
“For the last year a seventh dome has been under construction, a dome twice as big as any of the others. I’ll describe it as it was yesterday, when I went inside before the inflation started.
“Imagine a great circular space half a kilometre across, surrounded by a thick wall of glass bricks twice as high as a man. Through this wall lead the passages to the other domes, and the exits direct on to the brilliant green Martian landscape all around us. These passages are simply metal tubes with great doors which close automatically if air escapes from any of the domes. On Mars, we don’t believe in putting all our eggs in one basket!
“When I entered Dome Seven yesterday, all this great
circular space was covered with a thin transparent sheet fastened to the surrounding wall, and lying limp on the ground in huge folds beneath which we had to force our way. If you can imagine being inside a deflated balloon you’ll know exactly how I felt. The envelope of the dome is a very strong plastic, almost perfectly transparent and quite flexible—a kind of thick cellophane.
“Of course, I had to wear my breathing mask, for though we were sealed off from the outside there was still practically no air in the dome. It was being pumped in as rapidly as possible, and you could see the great sheets of plastic straining sluggishly as the pressure mounted.
“This went on all through the night. The first thing this morning I went into the dome again, and found that the envelope had now blown itself into a big bubble at the centre, though round the edges it was still lying flat. That huge bubble—it was about a hundred meters across—kept trying to move around like a living creature, and all the time it grew.
“About the middle of the morning it had grown so much that we could see the complete dome taking shape; the envelope had lifted away from the ground everywhere. Pumping was stopped for a while to test for leaks, then resumed again around midday. By now the sun was helping too, warming up the air and making it expand.
“Three hours ago the first stage of the inflation was finished. We took off our masks and let out a great cheer. The air still wasn’t really thick enough for comfort, but it was breathable and the engineers could work inside without bothering about masks any more. They’ll spend the next few days checking the great envelope for stresses, and looking for leaks. There are bound to be some, of course, but as long as the air loss doesn’t exceed a certain value it won’t matter.
“So now we feel we’ve pushed our frontier on Mars back a little further. Soon the new buildings will be going up under Dome Seven, and we’re making plans for a small park and even a lake—the only one on Mars, that will be, for free water can’t exist here in the open for any length of time.
“Of course, this is only a beginning, and one day it will seem a very small achievement; but it’s a great step forward in our battle—it represents the conquest of another slice of Mars. And it means living space for another thousand people. Are you listening, Earth? Good night.”
The red light faded. For a moment Gibson sat staring at the microphone, musing on the fact that his first words, though travelling at the speed of light, would only now be reaching Earth. Then he gathered up his papers and walked through the padded doors into the control room.
The engineer held up a telephone for him. “A call’s just come through for you, Mr. Gibson,” she said. “Someone’s been pretty quick off the mark!”
“They certainly have,” he replied with a grin. “Hello, Gibson here.”
“This is Hadfield. Congratulations. I’ve just been listening—it went out over our local station, you know.”
“I’m glad you liked it.”
Hadfield chuckled.
“You’ve probably guessed that I’ve read most of your earlier scripts. It’s been quite interesting to watch the change of attitude.”
“What change?”
“When you started, we were ‘they.’ Now we’re ‘we.’ Not very well put, perhaps, but I think my point’s clear.”
He gave Gibson no time to answer this, but continued without a break.
“I really rang up about this. I’ve been able to fix your trip to Skia at last. We’ve got a passenger jet going over there on Wednesday, with room for three aboard. Whittaker will give you the details. Goodbye.”
The phone clicked into silence. Very thoughtfully, but not a little pleased, Gibson replaced it on the stand. What the Chief had said was true enough. He had been here for almost a month, and in that time his outlook towards Mars had changed completely. The first schoolboy excitement had lasted no more than a few days; the subsequent disillusionment only a little longer. Now he knew enough to regard the colony with a tempered enthusiasm not wholly based on logic. He was afraid to analyze it, lest it disappear completely. Some part of it, he knew, came from his growing respect for the people around him—his admiration for the keen-eyed competence, the readiness to take well-calculated risks, which had enabled them not merely to survive on this heartbreakingly hostile world, but to lay the foundations of the first extra-terrestrial culture. More than ever before, he felt a longing to identify himself with their work, wherever it might lead.
Meanwhile, his first real chance of seeing Mars on the large scale had arrived. On Wednesday he would be taking off for Port Schiaparelli, the planet’s second city, ten thousand kilometres to the east of Trivium Charontis. The trip had been planned a fortnight ago, but every time something had turned up to postpone it. He would have to tell Jimmy and Hilton to get ready—they had been the lucky ones in the draw. Perhaps Jimmy might not be quite so eager to go now as he had been once. No doubt he was now anxiously counting the days left to him on Mars, and would resent anything that took him away from Irene. But if he turned down this chance, Gibson would have no sympathy for him at all.
“Neat job, isn’t she?” said the pilot proudly. “There are only six like her on Mars. It’s quite a trick designing a jet that can fly in this atmosphere, even with the low gravity to help you.”
Gibson did not know enough about aerodynamics to appreciate the finer points of the aircraft, though he could see that the wing area was abnormally large. The four jet units were neatly buried just outboard of the fuselage, only the slightest of bulges betraying their position. If he had met such a machine on a terrestrial airfield Gibson would not have given it a second though, though the sturdy tractor undercarriage might have surprised him. This machine was built to fly fast and far—and to land on any surface which was approximately flat.
He climbed in after Jimmy and Hilton and settled himself as comfortably as he could in the rather restricted space. Most of the cabin was taken up by large packing cases securely strapped in position—urgent freight for Skia, he supposed. It hadn’t left a great deal of space for the passengers.
The motors accelerated swiftly until their thin whines hovered at the edge of hearing. There was the familiar pause while the pilot checked his instruments and controls; then the jets opened full out and the runway began to slide beneath them. A few seconds later there came the sudden reassuring surge of power as the take-off rockets fired and lifted them effortlessly up into the sky. The aircraft climbed steadily into the south, then swung round to starboard in a great curve that took it over the city. Port Lowell, Gibson thought, had certainly grown since his last view of it from the air. The new dome was still empty, yet already it dominated the city with its promise of more spacious times to come. Near its centre he could glimpse the tiny specks of men and machines at work laying the foundations of the new suburb.
The aircraft levelled out on an easterly course and the great island of Aurorae Sinus sank over the edge of the planet. Apart from a few oases, the open desert now lay ahead for thousands of kilometres.
The pilot switched his controls to automatic and came amidships to talk to his passengers.
“We’ll be at Charontis in about four hours,” he said. “I’m afraid there isn’t much to look at on the way, though you’ll see some fine colour effects when we go over Euphrates. After that it’s more or less uniform desert until we hit the Syrtis Major.”
Gibson did some rapid mental arithmetic.
“Let’s see—we’re flying east and we started rather late—it’ll be dark when we get there.”
“Don’t worry about that—we’ll pick up the Charontis beacon when we’re a couple of hundred kilometres away. Mars is so small that you don’t often do a long-distance trip in daylight all the way.”
“How long have you been on Mars?” asked Gibson, who had now ceased taking photos through the observation ports.
“Oh, five years.”
“Flying all the time?”
“Most of it.”
“Wouldn’t you prefer being in s
paceships?”
“Not likely. No excitement in it—just floating around in nothing for months.” He grinned at Hilton, who smiled amiably but showed no inclination to argue.
“Just what do you mean by ‘excitement’?” said Gibson anxiously.
“Well, you’ve got some scenery to look at, you’re not away from home for very long, and there’s always the chance you may find something new. I’ve done half a dozen trips over the poles, you know—most of them in summer, but I went across the Mare Boreum last winter. A hundred and fifty degrees below outside! That’s the record so far for Mars.”
“I can beat that pretty easily,” said Hilton. “At night it reaches two hundred below on Titan.” It was the first time Gibson had ever heard him refer to the Saturnian expedition.
“By the way, Fred,” he asked, “is this rumour true?”
“What rumour?”
“You know—that you’re going to have another shot at Saturn.”
Hilton shrugged his shoulders.
“It isn’t decided—there are a lot of difficulties. But I think it will come off; it would be a pity to miss the chance. You see, if we can leave next year we can go past Jupiter on the way, and have our first really good look at him. Mac’s worked out a very interesting orbit for us. We go rather close to Jupiter—right inside all the satellites—and let his gravitational field swing us round so that we head out in the right direction for Saturn. It’ll need rather accurate navigation to give us just the orbit we want, but it can be done.”
“Then what’s holding it up?”
“Money, as usual. The trip will last two and a half years and will cost about fifty million. Mars can’t afford it—it would mean doubling the usual deficit! At the moment we’re trying to get Earth to foot the bill.”
“It would come to that anyway in the long run,” said Gibson. “But give me all the facts when we get home and I’ll write a blistering exposé about cheeseparing terrestrial politicians. You mustn’t underestimate the power of the press.”
The Space Trilogy Page 30
