The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke (11 page)

The tractor rolled to a halt and Jamieson got up from the controls, stretching himself mightily. ‘Well, that’s enough for today. Let’s have some food before I turn cannibal.’

One corner of the tractor was fitted up as a tiny galley but the two explorers were much too lazy to use it and had been living entirely on meals already prepared in the Observatory, which could be heated at the turn of a switch. They did not believe in unnecessary hardships. If a psychologist had examined the machine’s stores he would have been convinced that its passengers suffered from an almost pathological fear of starvation.

Since it was always daylight they slept, ate, argued and drove whenever the spirit moved them. For nearly thirty hours they worked their way slowly along the foot of the Bay’s mighty cliffs, pausing now and then to don space-suits and carry out explorations on foot. They found little but minerals, although Wheeler was greatly excited by the discovery of a peculiar red moss his friend had never seen before.

So little of the Moon had been explored in detail that it was quite possibly new to science and Wheeler pictured himself receiving all kinds of honours from the botanical world. These hopes were rudely shattered by the staff biologist a couple of days later but they were enjoyable while they lasted.

The Sun was still high when they were once again on the Alpine slopes though noon was long past and the thin rind of the crescent Earth was visible in the sky. Wheeler had enjoyed the trip but was getting tired of the cramped quarters. Also he was becoming more and more aware of accumulated aches and pains caused by the bumping of the vehicle over the worst ground any machine could possibly travel.

It was pleasant to get back to the bustle of life in the common-room, even though the same ancient magazines were displayed and the same people were monopolising the best chairs. Very little had happened, it seemed, during their short absence.

The main topic of conversation was the complete breaking off of diplomatic relations between the Director’s young and extremely pretty private secretary and the chief engineer, generally supposed to be her most favoured suitor. This quite outshadowed more important items such as the recent discovery, by an incredible feat of mathematics, that van Haarden’s planet possessed a system of rings like that of Saturn.

And not until they had heard the first news broadcast from Earth did Wheeler and Jamieson learned that the Federation’s latest request for reconsideration of the uranium agreement had been received and rejected. ‘That will make old Mole excited,’ commented Wheeler.

‘Yes—who would have thought the old boy took such an interest in politics. Let’s have a word with him.’

The old astronomer was in the far corner of the room, talking volubly with one of the junior physicists. He broke off when he saw the newcomers. ‘So you’re back. I thought you would break your necks out in the
Mare
. Seen any mooncalves?’

The references to H. G. Wells’ fabulous beasts was a lunar joke of such long standing that many terrestrials took it quite seriously and thought the creatures actually existed.

‘No, or we would have brought one back for the menu. How are things going?’

‘Nothing out of the ordinary as far as I’m concerned. But Reynolds here thinks he has found something.’

‘Think—I
know
! Two hours ago all my recorders went haywire and I’m still trying to find what has happened.’

‘Which recorders?’

‘The magnetic field strength meters. Usually the field is pretty constant except when there is a magnetic storm and we always know when to expect those. But today all the indicators have gone clean off the graph paper and I’ve been running around the Observatory to find if anyone has switched on something outside in the way of electro-magnetics. I’ve eliminated everything, so it must be external. It’s still on and Jones is trying to get a bearing on it while I come up for a breather.’

‘Sure it’s not a storm? You could find out from Earth—it would have hit them too.’

‘I checked on that—in any case there has been no unusual solar activity so that’s ruled out. Also it’s far too intense and it
must
be man-made for it keeps going on and off abruptly. Just as if someone’s working a switch.’

‘Sounds very mysterious. Ah, here’s Jones. By the look of him I’d say the Welsh Wonder has found something.’

Another physicist had just hurried into the room, trailing several yards of recording tape behind him. ‘Got it!’ he cried triumphantly. ‘Look!’ He spread the tapes out over the nearest table, collecting some dirty looks from a party of bridge players who were heading toward it.

‘This is the magnetic record. I’ve reduced the sensitivity to one of the recorders until it no longer shoots off the paper. You can see exactly what’s happening now. At these points the field starts to rise rapidly to over a thousand times its normal value. It stays that way for a couple of minutes and then drops back to normal—so.’

With his finger Jones traced the rise and fall of the magnetic field. ‘There are two things to note. The rise isn’t instantaneous but takes just over a second in each case. It seems to be exponential. That’s just what happens, of course, when you switch on the current in an electromagnet. And the fall is just the same while the plateau in between is perfectly flat. The whole thing is obviously artificial.’

‘That’s exactly what I said in the first place! But there’s no such magnet on the Observatory.’

‘Wait a minute—I haven’t finished yet. You’ll see that the field jumps up at fairly regular intervals and I’ve carefully noted the times at which it’s come on. I’ve had the whole staff going through the tapes of every automatic recorder in the place to see if anything else has happened at the same instants.

‘Quite a lot has—nearly all the records show some fluctuations. The cosmic ray intensity, for instance, falls off when the field goes on. I suppose all the primaries are being swept into it so that we don’t receive them. But the oddest of all is the seismograph tape.’

‘
Seismograph
! Who ever heard of a magnetic moonquake?’

‘That’s what I thought at first, but here it is. Now if you look carefully you can see that each of the little moonquakes arrives just about a minute and a half after the jolt in the magnetic field, which presumably travels at the velocity of light. We know how fast waves travel through the lunar rock—it’s about a mile a second.

‘So we are forced to the conclusion that about a hundred miles away someone is switching on the most colossal magnetic field that’s ever been made. It’s so huge it wrecks our instruments, which means that it must run into millions of gauss.

‘The earthquake—sorry, moonquake—must be a secondary effect. There’s a lot of magnetic rock round here and I imagine it must get quite a shock when that field goes on. You probably wouldn’t notice the quake even if you were where it started but our seismographs are so sensitive they’ll spot meteors falling anywhere within twenty miles.’

‘That’s about the best piece of high-speed research I’ve ever encountered.’

‘Thanks, but there’s still more to come. Next I went up to Signals to find if they’d noticed anything. And were they in a rage! All communication has been wrecked by bursts of static at exactly the same instants as our magnetic barrages. What’s more they’d taken bearings on the source—and with my ranges we have it pinpointed exactly. It’s coming from somewhere in the Sea of Rains, about five miles south of Pico.’

‘Holy smoke!’ said Wheeler. ‘We might have guessed!’

The two physicists pounced on him simultaneously. ‘Why did you say that?’

Remembering his promise Wheeler looked hesitantly at Jamieson, who came to the rescue. ‘We’ve just come back from Pico. There’s a Government research project going on out there. Very hush-hush—you can’t get near the place. It’s a big dome out on the plain, at least twice the size of the Observatory. Must have a lot of stuff in it from what they say.’

‘So
that’s
what those ships are doing out over the
Mare
. Did you have a chance to see anything?’

‘Not a thing.’

‘Pity—we must take a trip across.’

‘I shouldn’t if I were you. They were very polite to us—but next time I think it might be different. They told us they didn’t want visitors.’

‘So you got into the place then?’

‘Yes.’

‘What a waste. They
would
let in a couple of dumb astronomers who wouldn’t know a dynamo from a transformer. Now we won’t have a chance.’

‘Oh, I suppose you’ll know all about it some day.’

IV

It was one of those remarks that was to come true sooner than anyone could have expected. For the rumours had been correct—the greatest of all uranium deposits had been discovered on the Moon. And the Federation knew it.

Looking back from our vantage point upon events now safely buried in history we can see the merits of both sides. The rulers of Earth honestly feared the Federation and its revolutionary ideals. The fear was not entirely rational—it was born of a deeper subconscious realisation that Earth’s pioneering days were done and that the future lay with those who were already at the frontiers of the Solar System, planning the first onslaught against the stars.

Earth was weary after her epic history and the effort she had put forth to conquer the nearer worlds—those worlds which had so inexplicably turned against her as long ago the American colonies had turned against their motherland. In both cases the causes were similar and in both the eventual outcomes equally advantageous to mankind.

Only for one thing would Earth still fight—for the preservation of a way of living which, although outmoded, was all she knew. Let us not therefore too harshly judge those leaders who, fearing the mounting strength of the Federation, attempted to deprive it of the metal which would have given it almost limitless power.

For its part the Federation had not been free from blame. Amongst the idealists and scientists, who had been attracted by the promise of the outer worlds, were not a few men of more ruthless breed, men who had long known that a breach with Earth would one day be inevitable. It was these who had planned the research which culminated in the cruisers
Acheron
and
Eridanus
and later the superdreadnought
Phlegethon
.

Those ships were made possible by the invention of the Wilson or accelerationless drive. So universal is the Wilson drive today that it is difficult to realise it was being perfected in secret for ten years before the Solar System learned of its existence. Around that drive the Federation built its three warships and their armament.

Even today little has been revealed of the weapons with which the Battle of the Plain was fought. Atomic power and the tremendous development of electronic engineering during the twentieth century had made them possible. It was never intended that these fearful weapons be used—the mere revelation of their existence would, it was hoped, wring the necessary concessions from Earth.

It was a dangerous policy but one which might have worked had not Earth possessed a superb intelligence service. When at last the Federation put forth its strength, countermeaures had already been taken. In addition Earth had by supreme good fortune just discovered a branch of radiation physics which made possible a weapon of which its opponents knew nothing and against which they had no defence.

The Federation, expecting no opposition whatsoever, had made the age-old mistake of underestimating its opponent.

It was nightfall on the Observatory meridian. All the free members of the staff had gathered, as was the custom, around the observation windows to say farewell to the Sun they would not see again for fourteen days. Only the highest mountain peaks were still catching the last slanting light. Long since the valleys had been engulfed in darkness. The sun’s disc was already invisible. As the minutes crawled by the splendour died slowly on the blazing mountain spires as though reluctant to leave them.

And now only a blazing peak could still be seen, far out over the hidden ramparts of the Alps. The Sea of Rains had been in darkness for many hours but Pico’s inaccessible crown had not yet sunk into the cone of night sweeping round the Moon. A lonely beacon, it still defied the gathering dusk.

In silence the little group of men and women watched the darkness flooding up the great mountain’s slopes. Their remoteness from Earth and the rest of the human race made more poignant the sense of sadness that is the heritage of Man whenever he watches the setting of the Sun.

The light ebbed and died on the distant peak—the long lunar night had begun. When in fourteen days the Sun rose again it would look down upon a vastly different Sea of Rains. The astronomers had paid their last respects to the proud mountain that seemed the very symbol of eternity. When the dawn came it would have vanished forever.

During the next two weeks, there was little relaxation for anyone at the Observatory. Wheeler and Jamieson, who were studying the light curves of variable stars in the Andromeda nebula, had been allotted the use of the thousand-inch telescope for one hour in every thirty. Nearly a score of other research programmes had to be dovetailed according to an elaborate timetable—and woe betide anyone who tried to exceed his allowance!

The dome of the Observatory was now open to the stars and the astronomers were wearing light space-suits which scarcely restricted their movements. Wheeler was taking a series of photometer readings which his colleague was recording when their suit radios began to hum with life. A general announcement was coming through. These were very common and the two men took no notice until they realised that it was directed at them.

‘Will Dr Jamieson please report to the Director at once? Dr Jamieson to report to the Director at once, please.’

Wheeler looked at his companion in surprise. ‘Hello, what have
you
been up to? Bad language again on the station frequency?’

This was the commonest crime in the Observatory. When one was wearing a space-suit it was often difficult to remember that the person being addressed was not necessarily the only listener. The possible indiscretions were legion and most of them had been committed at one time or another.