The Outward Urge (12 page)

To Brazil, then, he went, offering his technical knowledge. Almost immediately he was put in charge of the then rudimentary Space Division of the Brazilian Skyforce to organize the annexation of the battered Satellites, to dispatch provision-missiles to the British Moon Station, and then to direct its relief, the rescue of its company - including his father - and its annexation, together with that of the entire Lunar Territory, to the Estados Unidos do Brasil.

The cost of this enterprise, particularly at such a time, was considerable, but it proved to be well justified. Prestige has varied sources. In spite of the fact that the Moon Stations and the Satellites had exerted an infinitesimal, and almost self-cancelling, effect upon the Northern War, the knowledge that they were now entirely in Brazilian hands - and perhaps the thought that whenever the moon rose one was being overlooked from Brazilian territory - undoubtedly made a useful contribution to the ascendancy of the Brasileiros at a time when the disordered remnant of the world was searching for a new centre of gravity.

Once he had the space project well in hand, my grandfather, though not yet a Brazilian citizen, was given the leadership of a mission to British Guiana, where he pointed out the advantages that an amputated colony would derive from integration, on terms of full equality of citizenship, with a powerful neighbour. The ex-colony, already uneasily conscious of pressure on its western border from Venezuela, accepted the offer. A few months later, Surinam and French Guiana followed its example; and the Caribbean Federation signed a treaty of friendship with Brazil. In Venezuela, the government, bereft of North American support and markets, fell to a short, sharp revolution whose leaders also elected for integration with Brazil. Columbia, Ecuador, and Peru hastened to sign treaties of support and friendship. Chile concluded a defensive alliance with Argentina. Bolivia, Paraguay, and Uruguay were drawn together into nervous neutrality, and declarations of goodwill towards both their powerful neighbours.

My grandfather took out his naturalization papers, and became a loyal and valued citizen of the Republic.

My father graduated from the University of Sao Paulo in 2062 with a Master’s degree in Extra-Terrestrial Engineering, and then spent several years at the government testing- station in the Rio Branco.

It had long been my grandfather’s contention that the development of space craft was not simply a matter of prestige, as some thought, and certainly not the expensive frivolity that others proclaimed it, but a wise precaution that would some day prove its worth. For one thing, he argued, if Brazil were to neglect space, someone else would take it over. For another, there would arise, sooner or later, the need for an economic space-freighter. The whole foundation of modern technology rested upon metals; and with the rich metalliferous areas of Canada, Siberia, and Alaska now unworkable; with Africa absorbing all she could mine, India in the market for all she could buy, and South America consuming at an increasing rate, the shortages already apparent in the rarer metals would become more extensive and more acute. The cost, when it should become necessary to seek them in sources outside the Earth, was bound to be great: at present it would be prohibitive, but he did not believe it need remain prohibitive. If practical freighters were developed it could mean that one day Brazil might have a monopoly of at least the rarer metals and metalliferous earths.

How much faith my father had in the argument behind the policy, I do not know. I think it possible that he did not know, either, but used it simply for the problems it raised; and out of all these his hardiest and most favourite concerned what he called ‘the crate’ - his name for an economical, unmanned freighter - and the space-assembled cruiser. Numbers of ‘crates’ of various types exist on his drawing-boards, but the cruisers - craft radically different in conception from those that must resist the stresses of take-off against the pull of gravity - still remain somewhat fluid in conception.

I myself, though I inherit my family’s almost pathological interest in matters beyond the ionosphere, do not share my father’s ability to sublimate it in theory and design, wherefore, after taking my degree at Sao Paulo, I attended the Skyforce Academy, and was duly commissioned in the Space Division.

A family connexion has its uses. I should not, I am sure, have received preference over better qualified men, but when the original list of twenty volunteers for the appointment of navigator aboard the
Figurão
had been whittled down to four, all equally qualified, I suspect that the name Trunho - and Troon before it - had some influence on the decision.

Raul Capaneiro, our Commander, very likely owed his selection to not unsimilar circumstances, for his father was a Marshal in the Skyforce. But it was not so with Camilo Botoes - he was with us simply because he was unique. His intention of visiting another planet seems to have been formed about the time he was in his cradle, and, not a great deal later it would appear, he had conceived the idea that some unusual qualification would give him an advantage over the one-line man. He set out to acquire it, with the result that when the call for volunteers came, the Skyforce discovered with some surprise that it had among its personnel a capable electronics officer who was also a geologist, and not merely a dabbler, but one whose published papers made it impossible to ignore his competence to produce a preliminary study in areology.

My own appointment to the crew troubled my mother, and distressed my poor Isabella, but its effect on my father was dichotomous. The
Figurão
, the Big Shot, was the product of his department, and largely of his own ideas. Its success would give him a place in history as the designer of the first interplanetary link; if I were to go with it, his connexion would be still more personal, making the venture something of a family affair. On the other hand, I am his only son; and he was sharply conscious that the very best of his skill, care, and knowledge must still leave the ship at the mercy of numerous unguessed hazards. The thought that he would be exposing me to risks he had been unable to forsee, and could not guard against, was in painful conflict with his awareness that any objections he might make to my going would be construed as lack of confidence in his own work. Thus, I put him in a rendingly difficult situation; and now I wish, almost more than anything else, that I had the means to tell him that it is not through any shortcoming of his that I shall not be going home to Earth....

The launch took place on the 9th of December, a Wednesday. The preliminary jump was quite uneventful, and we followed the usual supply-rocket practice in our intersection with the Satellite orbit, and in taking up station close to the Satellite itself.

I felt sentimentally glad that the station was Esatrellita Primeira; it made the expedition even more of a family affair, for it was the first space-station, the one that my great-great- grandfather had helped to build - though I suppose that most parts of it must have been replaced on account of war and other damage since those days.

We crossed over to Primeira, and put in more than a week of Earth-days there while the
Figurão
’s atmosphere-protection envelope was removed, and she was refuelled and fully provisioned. The three of us carried out tests in our various departments, and made a few necessary minor adjustments. Then we waited, almost wishing there had been more readjustments to keep us occupied, until Primeira, the Moon, and Mars were in the relative positions calculated for our take-off. At last, however, on Tuesday, the 22nd of December, at 0335 R.M.T., we made blast and launched ourselves on the main journey.

I shall not deal here with the journey itself. All technical information concerning it has been entered by Raul in the official log, which I shall enclose, with this supplementary account, in a metal box.

What I have written so far has two purposes. One is, as I have said, to cover the possibility that it may not be found for a very long time; the other is to provide factual material by which any more imminent finder may check my mental condition. I have read carefully through it myself, and to me it appears to offer sufficient evidence that I am sane and coherent, and I trust that that will be the opinion of others who may read it, and that they may therefore consider what follows to be equally valid.

The final entry in the log will be seen to record that we were approaching Mars on a spiral. The last message we sent before landing will be found on the file: ‘About to attempt landing area Isidis-Syrtis Major. Intended location : Long., 275: Lat., 48.’

When Camilo had dispatched that message, he swung the transmitter across on its bracket to lock it safely against the wall, and then lay back on his couch. Raul and I were already in position on ours. My work was finished, and I had nothing to do but wait. Raul had the extension control panel clamped across his couch in a position where he would still be able to operate it against a pressure of several gravities, if necessary. Everything had gone according to expectations except that our outer surface temperature was somewhat higher than had been calculated - suggesting that the atmosphere is a trifle denser than has been assumed - but the error was small, and of little practical significance.

Raul set about adjusting the angle of the ship, tilting her to preserve the inclination in relation to the braking thrust as we slowed. Our couches turned on their gimbals as the speed decreased and the braking thrust of the main tubes gradually became our vertical support. Finally, when the speed was virtually zero, and we were standing balanced on our discharge, his job, too, was over. He switched in the landing-control, and lay back, watching the progress of our descent, on the dials.

Beneath us, there now splayed downwards eight narrow radar beams matched for proximity, and each controlling a small lateral firing-tube. The least degree of tilt was registered by one or more of the beams, and corrected by a short blast which restored the ship to balance on the point of the main drive. Another beam directed vertically downwards controlled the force of the main drive itself, relating it to the distance of the surface below, and thus regulating the speed of descent.

The arrangement lowered us, smoothly, and there was only the slightest of lurches as our supporting tripod set down. Then the drive cut out, vibration ceased, and an almost uncanny peace set in.

No one spoke. The completeness of the silence began to be broken by the ticking and clicking of metal cooling off. Presently Raul sat up, and loosed his safety straps.

‘Well, we’re there. Your old man did a good job,’ he said to me.

He got off his couch carefully, cautious of the unfamiliar feeling of gravity, and made for the nearest port. I did the same, and started to unscrew its cover. Camilo swung the radio over on its bracket, and transmitted: ‘
Figurão
landed safely Mars 0343 R.M.T. 18.4.94. Location believed as stated. Will observe and verify.’ Then he, too, reached for the nearest port-cover.

The view, when I had my port uncovered, was much what I had expected; an expanse of hummocky, rust-red desert sand reaching away to the horizon. Anywhere else, it would have been the least exciting of all possible views. But it was not anywhere else: it was Mars, seen as no one had ever seen it before ... We did not cheer, we did not slap one another on the back....We just went on staring at it....

At last Raul said, rather flatly:

‘There it is, then. Miles and miles of nothing; and all of it ours.’

He turned away, and went over to a row of dials.

‘Atmosphere about fifteen per cent denser than predicted; that accounts for the overheating,’ he said. ‘We’ll have to wait for the hull to cool down a bit before we can go out. Oxygen content very low indeed - by the look of things, most of it has been tied up in oxidizing these deserts.’ He went over to a locker, and started pulling out space-suits and gear. He did it clumsily; after weeks of weightlessness it is difficult to remember that things will drop if you let go of them.

‘Funny that error about atmosphere density,’ said Camilo.

‘Not so very,’ Raul replied. ‘Just that someone’s crackpot theory about air leaking away into space got written into the assumptions, I reckon. Why the devil should it leak away unless there is a large body around to attract it? Might as well suggest that our own atmosphere is leaking to the moon, and then back again. Beats me how these loony propositions get a foot in, but I expect we’ll find plenty more of them.’

‘Were they wrong about gravity, too?’ I asked. ‘I seem to feel a lot heavier than I expected.’

‘No. That’s as calculated. Just a matter of getting used to weight itself,’ he said.

I crossed the floor, and looked through the port that he had uncovered. The view was almost the same as through mine - though not quite, for in that direction the meeting of sand and sky was marked by a thin dark line. I wondered what it was. At that distance I could see no detail - nor, indeed, judge how far away the horizon was. I turned back, intending to find the eyepiece that would adapt the telescope, but at that moment the floor shifted under my feet....

The whole room canted over suddenly, sliding me across the floor. The heavy port cover swung over. It just missed me, but it caught Raul, and sent him slamming against the main control-board. The room tilted more. I was flung back on the couch I had just left, and I clung to it. Camilo came sliding past, trying to grab at the couch supports to stop himself.

There were several thuds, a clatter, and finally a kind of crunching crash which set me bouncing on the couch springs.

When I looked round I found that what had, for the brief period since our landing; been the floor, had become a vertical wall. Obviously the
Figurão
had toppled over, and now lay on its side. Camilo was huddled in the angle made by the erstwhile floor and the curved wall, all mixed up with the space-suits and their accessories. Raul was spread-eagled over the control-board, and I could see blood trickling across it.