A Star Above It and Other Stories

by Chad Oliver

  “But you’re tearing them apart!” Bob said. “You’re not teaching them anything.”

  “Mr. Wistert,” Thunderton said quietly, “it is sometimes necessary to destroy before you can build. The old men were very conservative, and they ran the tribe. I had to give the young men a chance to change. There’s one group you haven’t seen yet. They may not be any wizards of finance, pal, but they know enough to get a lawyer.”

  “You’ll go to jail. You can’t set yourself above the law.”

  Thunderton laughed.

  “How do you know you’re right? Who are you to say you’re smarter than the United World Council?”

  “I never said I was right, Mr. Wistert. I do what I have to do. That’s all.”

  Anthony Thunderton put the pistol down on the table in front of him. He stood up. He turned his back on them and walked into his house, leaving them where they were.

  Bob Wistert picked up the pistol, looked at it, and put it back on the table.

  “I don’t know what to do,” he said slowly.

  Helen got up and took his arm. “Come on, honey.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Let’s take a walk.”

  He stood up. Together, they walked off the porch, feeling a tingle as they passed through the bug screen. They walked along a pathway under the pinelike trees, until there were no trees and there was only sand.

  They walked toward the sea.

  Bob Wistert tried to think. He didn’t understand. Why had Thunderton done it?

  What kind of a man—

  The sea was vast and lonely, silver-flecked beneath a million stars. It slid up the sand at their feet and made slow wet curves of phosphorescence and then whispered back to black depths and ageless currents.

  He tried to speak honestly, forgetting the hurt inside him. “Helen, we have twenty years ahead of us here, on this world, with this man. I don’t know whether he’s right or wrong. I don’t know what I should do, or shouldn’t do. We’ve got to think of ourselves.”

  “Yes. We must think of ourselves.”

  “I didn’t mean it that way.” He managed a smile. “Our pay is already deposited on Earth; that makes it easier to be brave.”

  She kissed him. “You have me, Bob. You just have to do what you think is right.”

  “I don’t know what’s right.”

  “Maybe there is no right or wrong here. Maybe there are just two different ways of doing things. Maybe nothing we do will make any difference in the end.”

  The night filled the world around them. It would be night for two hundred Earth-days. Out there, in the forests and the fields, another kind of night had begun for the peoples whose world this was. An ancient, bitter night of misery and despair. A cold night, a night of shadows and destruction.

  Still, the light would come again.

  Beyond every night there was a morning.

  “Who is he, Helen? Why has he come here?”

  “Look at his face, Bob. Look at his eyes and his hair. Look at that painting of his wife. It’s been almost six hundred years since the first Indian met Cortez. That’s a long time—but not too long to remember the white man.”

  Broad face, bronze skin, black hair, dark eyes—

  What kind of a man—

  “What are we going to do?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I haven’t got any answers, not now.”

  He hesitated. “We have twenty years to go. We can help him or not help him, but I hope we can be his friends.”

  “I know this,” she said quietly. “He is a lonely man.”

  They turned and put the dark sea behind them. Slowly, they walked through the sand toward the small light that burned in the trees.

  When they got back, Tony had the coffee ready, waiting for them.

  TECHNICAL ADVISOR

  Gilbert Webster, slouched down in a soft chair at the conference table, radiated a distinctly fluid impression that he was on the verge of cascading away into a puddle on the rug. His long, thin face wore a funereal air, as though he were perpetually preoccupied with World Problems. As a matter of strictly objective fact, however, he happened to be thinking about his incipient ulcer.

  “You are not a corpse, Webster,” stated the patient voice of Daniel Purdy Bell. “Let’s sit up and play Man.”

  Webster flowed into a more orthodox posture and cocked an eyebrow at the producer. “Whom are we impressing today, Purdy? If it’s the League again, I left my Eagle Scout badge in the washroom—”

  “Don’t play dumb, Webster. Just be yourself. Dee Newton is due here any minute.” Purdy Bell paused significantly. “Dr. Newton has a Ph.D.”

  “Oh, Dr. Newton!” exclaimed Webster in awed tones. “Is he bringing his gravity with him?”

  Bell sighed. “Brief him,” he told Cecil Kelley, the director.

  “Technical advisor on the science fiction deal,” Kelley explained shortly. “Physicist. Used to write the stuff. Won’t interfere with your script except for the science angle—”

  “Never mind, Cecil,” Webster interrupted, lifting his hands in surrender. “I was only kidding—you know, a joke. Like in an egg.”

  Cecil Kelley shot him a look reserved for subspecies.

  “It’s no joking matter, Gil,” said Purdy Bell, his face very tanned under his snow-white hair. “In this business you’ve got to keep up with the times. Science fiction is big right now, and it’s going to get bigger. You can’t pass off fool’s gold for the genuine article, not today. People know too much. Valley of the Moon has got my name on it, and it’s going to be Scientifically Accurate right down the line from Atom to Zygote. That’s what Newton is for—nice Joe, too; speaks English, got his feet firmly on the ground….”

  The buzzer on the table burped apologetically and Bell flipped a switch.

  “Dr. Dee Newton, sir,” announced a voice like distilled honey.

  “Send him in,” said Purdy Bell.

  Dee Newton didn’t look like a scientist. Of course, Gilbert Webster admitted to himself, such a thought raised the question of just what a scientist did look like. No doubt they came in all sizes, like Space Cadet hats. Nevertheless, they shouldn’t, somehow, look like Dee Newton. Newton was a rotund, cherubic little man, nattily dressed, who seemed to be bubbling with silent laughter that percolated just below the surface. Webster liked him on sight.

  “I’m not the man to waste words, Dr. Newton,” said Purdy Bell when the introductions had been completed. “I’ll run through the broad outline of Valley and you see what you think of it. Remember, what we’re after is Scientific Accuracy—you don’t have to pull any punches for us.”

  “Fine,” beamed Dr. Newton, obviously pleased. “Admirable.”

  “Here’s the set-up: Valley is going to be class, in color, with a good, sound story of a misunderstood guy who finds both himself and the girl he loves in the dark reaches of Outer Space.” Purdy Bell paused, in deference to Infinity. “Two ships have already reached the moon, you see, but have not been heard of since they landed. Something happened to them after they got there. This film deals with the Third Flight, sent by the U.S. Army to find out what happened to them.”

  “Martians, of course,” chuckled Dee Newton.

  “Of course,” agreed Purdy Bell. “What else? There’s no air on the moon—as I guess you know, Newton—so that rules out any moon people. Accuracy! That’s what this business needs more of.”

  “Agreed,” said Dee Newton, lighting up a virulent black cigar.

  “Yes,” said Purdy Bell. “Now—it all starts off with a bang, to hook the audience right from the beginning. This third job barely clears into Outer Space when she runs smack into trouble with a capital T—a blazing meteor swarm, great in Technicolor. The ship twists and turns, piloted by this guy nobody thinks is any good, and just barely manages to …”

  “Whoa,” objected Dee Newton, waving his cigar like a fiery sword. “That won’t do, I’m afraid.”

  “Something—um
mm—wrong?”

  “You might say that, yes. In the first place, Purdy, the chances of running into a meteor swarm between here and the moon are almost zero—the ship has a better chance of getting smacked on the noggin than you would have in your own back yard, but not much. And if the meteors did happen to be around, they wouldn’t be blazing in a vacuum. No friction. In the second place, that’s not a World War I Spad you’re flying out there—it’s a spaceship, jet-controlled. You’d do well to curve it in an arc at all in that short a time, much less do stunts in it.”

  “Hmmm,” observed Purdy Bell. “Well, that’s what we want—Accuracy! I tell you—suppose we cut it down to one meteor, just sort of glowing, and blast it out of the way. No fancy rays, of course; just some sort of radar-directed artillery—”

  “No dice.” Dee Newton smiled sadly. “At those speeds you couldn’t hit the Empire State Building with a howitzer. Why not just forget the meteors?”

  “No can do.” Purdy Bell got to his feet and began pacing the room, the eyes of the three men following him like spectators at a tennis match. He jabbed his finger, six-gun fashion, at Newton. “That meteor may be just a chunk of rock to you, but to me it’s Visual Appeal. Man versus the Unknown—in terms that the dumbest popcorn chewer in the third balcony can sink his teeth into, and no pun intended. The meteor stays in.”

  “You said you wanted accuracy,” the physicist shrugged. “I’ve nothing against space opera, God knows—used to write it myself—but I don’t see why it can’t be realistic.”

  “Well,” said Purdy Bell, “we’ll see.”

  Gilbert Webster smiled sourly. Purdy had meteor written all over him in indelible letters a foot high. Webster went back to thinking about his ulcer while Newton and Bell haggled over the costs of technical accuracy on sets, and then jerked back to attentiveness when Newton shot off on a new tangent.

  “Look here, Purdy,” Dee Newton said, banging his pudgy fist on the polished table. “Don’t you realize that space travel is almost in our grasp today? You can’t just throw a fake set together on chicken feed and get by with it. These things cost money.”

  “I am aware of that,” Purdy Bell assured him. “But I’m not in the gambling racket; an investment has to show returns. This business of building these fantastic sets over and over again …”

  “Wait a minute,” Dee Newton breathed, bouncing to his feet and standing there stock-still. “Wait—a—minute. Why do we have to go on faking these shots and rebuilding our sets? Why?”

  “Ummm? I don’t quite follow you.”

  Newton sat down again and leaned forward intently, eyes flashing with excitement. “Look here,” he said. “How would you like to clear about 15,000,000 bucks on this picture?”

  Purdy Bell smiled tolerantly.

  “Look,” Newton persisted. “Dammit, can’t you see? I said that space travel is almost within our grasp, and it is. What it lacks is financing. Now, the government doesn’t seem to be pushing it—and what’s the other source of big time financing?” He paused, then answered his own question: “Hollywood.”

  Purdy Bell’s smile vanished. “You mean—”

  Newton was breathing very fast now, his hands shaking. “You give me $4,000,000 and we can go to the moon and shoot the picture there. We can keep it strictly hush-hush; the very first shots of the moon will be in your picture!”

  “Four million dollars …”

  “Million shmillion! Purdy, I thought you were a businessman. Why, man, you’ll get the biggest audience in history—an exhibitor’s paradise—it can’t miss. Don’t you understand? It can’t miss!”

  “You mean—film it on location,” faltered Purdy Bell.

  “On the moon,” amplified Cecil Kelley.

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” said Gilbert Webster.

  One year later, a toy in fairyland, the ship rode a tongue of white flame into space. Ahead of her, waiting, hung the moon.

  Gilbert Webster surveyed the interior of the club room with quiet satisfaction. Comfortable modern chairs and couches in a soft pattern of contrasting greens were arranged snugly in the chamber and a neat chromium bar functioned against the far wall. There were no windows. The air was fresh and clean, vaguely pine-scented, and a green light set into a black check panel signified that the automatic pilot had everything under control.

  Dee Newton smiled, anticipating his thoughts. “It’s real,” he said.

  Webster shook his head. “I knew that space travel was a possibility,” he said, downing the last of his scotch and ice. “I believed in it, have for years. But it all went off with such precision, such clockwork! And artificial gravity and everything—more like a luxury liner than a pioneering vessel—”

  Dee Newton puffed happily on his cigar. “That’s one thing about a spaceship,” he pointed out. “Either it works or it doesn’t and there just isn’t much in between. Why be uncomfortable when you don’t have to be? I just used what knowledge I had, cut a corner or two with some notions of my own, and there you are—or more precisely, here we are. The ship is a bit unorthodox in some respects, but what’s the difference?”

  Gilbert Webster looked at the soft green wall that stood between him and nothing. “I’ve got to hand it to you, Dee.” He paused. “Dee—I’ve been meaning to ask you about that name. Where’d it come from?”

  The physicist hesitated, chewing on his cigar. “Long story, Gil,” he said apologetically. “I’ll try to cut it short. The D was originally short for Danton, and I always sort of felt like a fugitive from the French Revolution. Never could keep Danton and Robespierre straight anyhow, and the D just naturally evolved into Dee, which same I am stuck with.” He smiled engagingly. “One of those things.”

  Cecil Kelley stuck his head into the club room then, and Webster was surprised to note the flush of enthusiasm on the director’s face. Around the studios, it was legendary that Kelley hadn’t really been impressed with a picture since Gunga Din, and before that there was a gap that ran all the way back to Charlie Chaplin’s City Lights.

  “Shooting in the control room,” he advised them. “Come kibitz.”

  Dee Newton bounded to his feet, hot on the trail of technical flaws. Gilbert Webster uncoiled himself more slowly, not entirely elated at the prospect of hearing his own dialogue mouthed by Linda Lambeth and the current bobbysox dreamboats. In the best of times, trying to construct a workable script from one of Purdy Bell’s “outlines” was not his idea of Paradise.

  He followed the two men out of the club room and through a narrow metal corridor. It was hard to believe, in the cozy club room, that you were thousands upon thousands of miles in the middle of nowhere. Here, with the great emptiness whispering from the walls and the vertigo tugging at your stomach, it was different.

  You didn’t doubt it here.

  The control room was buzzing with activity. A sound effects crew had switched on a transcription of a screaming jet, which was intended to represent the noise of an atomic drive, inasmuch as the actual drive devised by Newton was unimpressively subdued. Prop men had already fitted a dummy instrument panel over the real controls, in order to supply the thumping relays, knife switches, rheostats, knobs, buttons, televiewers, spark gaps, and multi-colored flashing lights that were conspicuously lacking in the genuine article.

  Webster shook his head. Purdy Bell—who had judiciously elected to cheer them on from the safety of Mother Earth—even had to fake the real thing in the interests of Scientific Accuracy, which was an interesting exercise in semantics. But it was understandable enough, and Purdy did know his business, and had a private bank to prove it. It was just that he knew science in the same way that he knew Roman history—he had made a picture about it once. When Webster had ventured to suggest to him that perhaps Nero had not set fire to Rome at all, but had in fact been busily engaged in trying to put it out, Purdy had almost had him banished for heresy.

  Dee Newton looked daggers at the phony control panel and waved his cigar at Webster. “Why can’t t
hey play it straight?” he demanded. “They’ve got such a wonderful opportunity; this idiocy isn’t needed.”

  “The popcorn all tastes the same, you know,” said Gilbert Webster. “Sometimes I wonder why I don’t just open the airlock door and step outside.”

  “There’s no air out there, darling,” protested Linda Lambeth, overhearing the last part of Webster’s remark. “You couldn’t breathe.”

  “That’s the idea,” Webster replied, watching her fluttering eyebrows without interest. Linda was a beautiful woman, by Hollywood standards, but a few years past her prime and beginning to acquire a certain desperate glamour. She had been written into the script on Purdy’s orders; she was the lovely female reporter in love with The Guy That Nobody Understood. Webster had had nightmares visualizing a Purdy Bell Special in which Linda bathed in Martian goat’s milk, but the great man had spared him that final coup de grâce.

  Kelley clapped his hands together for order. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s take that discovery scene and let’s get it right. This is a take.”

  The room cleared as if by magic, and Gilbert Webster found himself seated on the sidelines next to Dee Newton. He relaxed, taking a secret satisfaction in the fact that his body was able to assume positions never intended for the human organism, and settled back to watch. The alchemy of drama never failed to fascinate him, even though the raw product you saw with your eyes was by no means what would later appear on the screen replete with music and special effects. There was silence now, except for the toned-down whistle of the pseudo-atomics. Four men and Linda Lambeth took their places on the set. The men, for some obscure reason no doubt connected with Visual Appeal, had shapeless flour sack garments over the top halves of their uniforms—Purdy presumably remembered Dawn Patrol and wanted to protect his actors from flying oil. Linda was in a neat correspondent’s uniform, as befitted a young girl reporter going to the moon.