The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke (3 page)

They must have searched the star-clusters as we have searched the planets. Everywhere there would be worlds, but they would be empty or peopled with crawling, mindless things. Such was our own Earth, the smoke of the great volcanoes still staining the skies, when that first ship of the peoples of the dawn came sliding in from the abyss beyond Pluto. It passed the frozen outer worlds, knowing that life could play no part in their destinies. It came to rest among the inner planets, warming themselves around the fire of the Sun and waiting for their stories to begin.

Those wanderers must have looked on Earth, circling safely in the narrow zone between fire and ice, and must have guessed that it was the favourite of the Sun’s children. Here, in the distant future, would be intelligence; but there were countless stars before them still, and they might never come this way again.

So they left a sentinel, one of millions they have scattered throughout the universe, watching over all worlds with the promise of life. It was a beacon that down the ages has been patiently signalling the fact that no one had discovered it.

Perhaps you understand now why that crystal pyramid was set upon the Moon instead of on the Earth. Its builders were not concerned with races still struggling up from savagery. They would be interested in our civilisation only if we proved our fitness to survive—by crossing space and so escaping from the Earth, our cradle. That is the challenge that all intelligent races must meet, sooner or later. It is a double challenge, for it depends in turn upon the conquest of atomic energy and the last choice between life and death.

Once we had passed that crisis, it was only a matter of time before we found the pyramid and forced it open. Now its signals have ceased, and those whose duty it is will be turning their minds upon Earth. Perhaps they wish to help our infant civilisation. But they must be very, very old, and the old are often insanely jealous of the young.

I can never look now at the Milky Way without wondering from which of those banked clouds of stars the emissaries are coming. If you will pardon so commonplace a simile, we have broken the glass of the fire-alarm and have nothing to do but to wait.

I do not think we will have to wait for long.

Holiday on the Moon

First appeared in
Heiress
magazine January - April 1951

This story was the result of arm-twisting by a charming lady editor for a magazine for young ladies,
Heiress
. It was published as a four-part serial (January to April 1951) as by Charles Willis. After half a century, I can’t remember why I used a pseudonym—perhaps I was afraid of losing my macho image.

It was a large, brightly lit room with a magnificent view, of which no one was taking the slightest notice. Beyond the wide window, which ran the whole length of one wall, a snow-flecked mountain-side sloped down to a tiny Alpine village more than a mile below. Despite the distance, every detail was crystal clear. Beyond the village, the ground rose again, more and more steeply, to the great mountain that dominated the sky-line and trailed from its summit a perpetual plume of snow, a white streamer, drifting for ever with the wind.

It was a wonderful panorama—and it was all an illusion. The Martins’ flat was in the middle of London, and outside the walls a November fog was curling sluggishly through the damp streets. But Mrs Martin had only to turn a switch and the concealed projectors would give her any view she wished, together with the sounds that went with it. Television, which had brought so many pictures into every home, had made this inevitable, and in these opening years of the twenty-first century most houses could have any scenery they pleased.

Of course, it
was
rather expensive, but it was such a good way of letting the family get to know the world. Mrs Martin looked round anxiously. At the moment everything seemed a little too quiet for comfort. What she saw was reassuring. Eighteen-year-old Daphne was tuned in to Paris on the TV set, watching a fashion display.

‘Mother!’ she called out. ‘You
must
see this gorgeous scarlet cloak! I’d love one just like it.’

Michael, who was fifteen, was doing his home-work—or pretending to—and the twelve-year-old twins were in the next room, being audibly thrilled by Grandma’s stories of the London Blitz.

There was a gentle ‘burr’ from the telephone in the next room.

‘Let me answer it!’ shouted Claude.

‘No, me!’ yelled Claudia.

There was a slight scuffle. Then Grandma’s voice could be heard speaking to the operator. ‘Yes, this is Mrs Martin’s flat. I’ll call her. Hilda! It’s a super-long-distance call for you!’

Super-long-distance! It had never happened before, but everyone knew what it meant. Michael looked up from his work. Even Daphne turned her back on the parade of winter fashion.

‘My goodness,’ said Claude, ‘it’s Daddy!’

‘Someone told me,’ said Claudia in a hushed voice, ‘that it costs £10 a minute to put through a call from the Moon.’

‘I hope Daddy isn’t paying for it!’ gulped Claude.

‘Hush, children!’ said Mrs Martin, taking the receiver from Grandma. ‘Yes, Mrs Martin here.’ There was a pause. Then, so clear and close that it gave her almost a shock, her husband’s voice sounded in her ear. It was coming to her across a quarter of a million miles of space, yet it seemed as if he were standing beside her.

‘Hallo, Hilda, this is John! Listen carefully, dear—I’ve only got two minutes! I’ve some bad news for you. I can’t come back to Earth next week as we’d hoped. Yes, I know it’s very disappointing after all our plans, but we’ve had some trouble here at the observatory and I simply can’t get away now. But don’t be too upset—I’ve got another plan that’s almost as good.
How would you like to come up to the Moon?
’

‘What?’ gasped his wife.

It took nearly three seconds for her husband’s laugh to reach her—three seconds for the radio waves, even travelling at their fabulous speed, to make the journey from Earth to Moon.

‘Yes, I thought it would surprise you! But why not? Space-travel is as safe now as flying was in Grandma’s day. Anyway, there’s a freighter leaving the Arizona port in three days and returning to Earth a fortnight later. That will give you time to get ready, and we’ll have almost ten days here together at the observatory. I’ll make all the arrangements, so be a dear and don’t argue. And I want you to bring along Daphne and Mike. There’s room for them as well. I’m afraid you’ll have to make peace with the twins, somehow—tell them they’ll have their chance when they’re older!’

‘But, John—I
can’t
…’

‘Of course you can—and think how Daphne and Mike will love it! I can’t explain now, but we may never have an opportunity like this again. I’m sending a telegram with all the details. You should get it in an hour or so. Oh, bother—there’s the signal—I must hang up now. Give my love to them all. I do look forward to seeing you. Goodbye, darling.’

Mrs Martin put down the receiver with a dazed expression. It was just like John. He hadn’t even allowed her time to raise a single objection. But, now she came to think of it, what real objections were there? He was right, of course. Space-travel—at least to the Moon—was safe enough, even though it was still too expensive for a regular passenger service. Presumably John had been able to use his official position to get their reservations.

Yes, John was quite right. It was too good a chance to miss, and if she didn’t go now, it might be ages before she would see him again. She turned to the anxiously waiting family and said with a smile, ‘I’ve got some news for you.’

In the ordinary way, a Transatlantic crossing would have been quite an excitement for Daphne and Michael, since it was something they had done only two or three times before in their lives. Now, however, they regarded the two hours’ flight from London Airport to New York as merely an unimportant episode, and occupied most of the time talking about the Moon clearly enough to impress the other passengers.

They spent only an hour in New York before flying on across the Continent, steadily gaining on the sun, until when they finally swept down over the great Arizona desert it was, by the clock, a couple of hours
before
the time they had left the flat that same morning.

From the air, the space-port was an impressive sight. Looking through the observation windows, Daphne could see, spread out below, the great steel frameworks supporting the slim, torpedo-shaped monsters that would soon go roaring up to the stars. Everywhere were huge, gasometer-like fuel-tanks, radio aerials pointing at the sky, and mysterious buildings and structures whose purpose she couldn’t even guess.

Through all this maze tiny figures scurried to and fro, and vehicles looking like metallic beetles rolled swiftly along the roads.

Daphne belonged to the first generation that had taken space-travel for granted. The Moon had been reached almost thirty years ago—twelve years before she was born—and she could just remember the excitement when the first expeditions had landed on Mars and Venus.

In her short life she had seen Man set out to conquer space, just as, hundreds of years before, Columbus and the great explorers of the Middle Ages had discovered the world. The first stages of the conquest were now over. Small colonies of scientists had been established on Mars and Venus, and on the Moon the great Lunar Observatory, of which Professor Martin was director, had now become the centre of all astronomical research.

On the Moon’s silent, lonely plains, beneath velvet skies, in which the stars shone brilliantly night and day, with never the least trace of cloud to dim them, the astronomers could work at last under perfect conditions, unhindered by the obscuring atmosphere against which they had always had to fight on Earth.

The next two hours they spent in the space-port’s headquarters building, being weighed, medically examined and filling up forms. When this was all over, and they were beginning to wonder if the whole thing was really worth while, they found themselves in a small, comfortable office, looking across a desk at a rather jolly, plump man, who seemed to be someone very important.

‘Well, Mrs Martin,’ he said cheerfully, ‘I’m glad to say you’re all in excellent health and there’s no reason why you shouldn’t leave in the
Centaurus
when she takes off. I hope all these examinations haven’t scared you. There is really nothing dangerous about space-flight, but we mustn’t take any chances.

‘As you know, a spaceship takes off rather quickly and for a few minutes you feel as if you weigh a ton—but if you’re lying down comfortably that won’t do you any harm, as long as you don’t suffer from certain kinds of heart trouble. Then, when you’re out in space, you won’t have any weight at all, which will feel very odd at first. That used to cause space-sickness in the early days, but we can prevent it now. You’ll be given a couple of tablets to swallow just before take-off. So there’s nothing to worry about, and I’m sure you’ll have a pleasant voyage.’

He looked at his littered desk and sighed deeply. ‘I wish
I
had time to go up myself. I’ve only been off Earth once in the last two years!’

‘Who was that?’ asked Daphne, as the waiting bus whisked them away across the desert.

‘That was the Controller of the Space Fleet,’ said her mother.

‘What!’ exclaimed Michael. ‘He runs all these spaceships and never gets a chance to fly in them?’

Mrs Martin smiled. ‘I’m afraid it’s often that way. Daddy says he’s too busy to look through a telescope nowadays!’

They had now left the built-up area and were racing along a wide road with nothing but desert on either side. About a mile ahead they could see the great streamlined shape of the
Centaurus
, the spaceship that was to take them to the Moon. The giant rocket was standing vertically on a concrete platform, with cranes and scaffolding grouped around it, and its needle-shaped prow pointing to the sky. Even from this distance it looked enormous—Daphne thought it must be almost as tall as Nelson’s column—and with the sunlight glinting on its metal sides it was a beautiful as well as an impressive sight.

The closer they came, the larger it seemed to grow, until when they had reached its base they appeared to be standing at the foot of a great curving metal cliff. A tall gantry had been moved up to the side of the rocket, and they were directed into the maze of girders until they came to a tiny lift just big enough to hold the three of them. There was the whirring of motors, the ground began to drop away, and the gleaming walls of the spaceship slid swiftly past.