The Space Trilogy (19 page)

We also had a brief glimpse of the main switch-room, though I'm afraid it didn't mean a great deal to us. There were acres of dials and coloured lights, with men sitting here and there looking at screens and turning knobs. Loudspeakers were talking softly in every language: as we went from one operator to another we saw football games, string quartets, air races, ice-hockey, art displays, puppet shows, grand opera—a cross-section of the world's entertainment. And it now all depended on these three tiny metal rafts, twenty-two thousand miles up in the sky. As I looked at
some
of the programmes that were going out, I wondered if it was really worth it…

Not all the Relay Station's business was concerned with Earth, by any means. The interplanetary circuits passed through here: if Mars wished to call Venus, it was sometimes convenient to route messages through the Earth Relays. We listened to some of these messages—nearly all high-speed telegraphy, so they didn't mean anything to us. Because it takes several minutes for radio waves to bridge the gulf between even the nearest planets, you can't have conversation with someone on another world. (Except the Moon—and even there you have to put up with an annoying time-lag of nearly three seconds before you can get any answer.) The only speech that was coming over the Martian circuit was a talk beamed to Earth for rebroadcasting by a radio commentator. He was discussing local politics and the last season's crop. It all sounded rather dull…

Though I was only there such a short time, one thing about the Relay Station did impress me very strongly. Everywhere else I'd been, one could look 'down' at the Earth and watch it turning on its axis, bringing new continents into view with the passing hours. But here, there was no such change. The Earth kept the same face turned forever towards the Station. It was true that night and day passed across the planet beneath—but with every dawn and sunset, the Station was still in exactly the same place. It was poised eternally above a spot in Uganda, two hundred miles from Lake Victoria. Because of this, it was hard to believe that the Station was moving at all—though actually it was travelling round the Earth at over six thousand miles an hour. But, of course, because it took exactly one day to make the circuit, it would remain hanging over Africa for ever—just as the other two stations hung over the opposite coasts of the Pacific.

This was only one of the ways in which the whole atmosphere aboard the Relay seemed quite different from that down on the Inner Station. The men here were doing a job that kept them in touch with everything happening on Earth—often before Earth knew it itself. Yet they were also on the frontiers of real space—for there was nothing else between them and the orbit of the Moon. It was a strange situation, and I wished I could have stayed here longer.

But unless there were any more accidents, my holiday in space was coming to an end. I'd already missed the ship that was supposed to take me home, but this didn't help me as much as I'd hoped. The plan now, I gathered, was to send me over to the Residential Station and put me aboard the regular ferry, so that I'd be going down to Earth with the passengers homeward-bound from Mars or Venus.

Our trip back to the Inner Station was quite uneventful, and rather tedious. We couldn't persuade Commander Doyle to tell any more stories, and I think he was a bit ashamed of himself for being so talkative at the start of the return journey from the Hospital Station. This time, too, he was taking no chances with the pilot…

It seemed like coming home when the familiar chaos of the Inner Station swam into view. Nothing much had changed—some ships had gone and others taken their place, that was all. The other apprentices were waiting for us in the air-lock—an informal reception committee. They gave the Commander a cheer as he came aboard—though afterwards there was a lot of good-natured leg-pulling about our various adventures. In particular, the fact that the
Morning Star
was still out at the Hospital caused numerous complaints, and we never succeeded in getting Commander Doyle to take all the blame for this.

I spent most of my last day aboard the Station collecting autographs and souvenirs. The best memento of my stay was something quite unexpected—a beautiful little model of the Station, made out of plastic and presented to me by the other boys. It pleased me so much that I was tongue-tied and didn't know how to thank them—but I guess they realized the way I felt

At last everything was packed, and I could only hope it was inside the weight limit. There was only one good-bye left to make.

Commander Doyle was sitting at his desk, just as I'd seen him at our first meeting. But he wasn't so terrifying now, for I'd grown to know and admire him. I hoped that I'd not been too much of a nuisance, and tried to say so. The Commander grinned.

'It might have been worse,' he said. 'On the whole you kept out of the way pretty well—though you managed to get into some—ah—unexpected places. I'm wondering whether to send World Airways a bill for the extra fuel you used in our little voyage. It must come to a sizeable amount.'

I thought it best to remain silent here, and presently he continued, after ruffling through the papers on his desk.

'I suppose you realize, Roy, that quite a lot of youngsters apply for jobs here, and not many get 'em—the qualifications are too steep. Well, I've had a good eye on you in the last few weeks and have noticed how you've been shaping up. If, when you're old enough—that will be in a couple of years, won't it?—you want to put your name down, I'll be glad to make a recommendation.'

'Why—thank you, Sir!'

'Of course, there'll be a tremendous amount of study to be done. You've seen most of the fun and games—not the hard work. And you've not had to sit up here for months waiting for your leave to come along and wondering why you ever left Earth.'

There was nothing I could say to this: it was a problem that must hit the Commander harder than anyone else in the Station.

He propelled himself out of his seat with his left hand, stretching out the right one towards me. As we shook hands, I again recalled our first meeting. How long ago that now seemed! And I suddenly realized that, though I'd seen him every day, I'd almost forgotten that Commander Doyle was legless—he was so perfectly adapted to his surroundings that the rest of us seemed freaks. It was an object lesson in what willpower and determination could do.

I had a surprise when I reached the air-lock. Though I hadn't really given it any thought, I'd assumed that one of the normal ferry rockets was going to take me over to the Residential Station for my rendezvous with the ship for Earth. Instead, there was the ramshackle
Skylark of Space
, her mooring lines drifting slackly. I wondered what our exclusive neighbours would think when this peculiar object arrived at their doorstep, and guessed that it had probably been arranged especially to annoy them.

Tim Benton and Ronnie Jordan made up the crew and helped me to get my luggage through the air-lock. They looked doubtfully at the number of parcels I was carrying, and asked me darkly if I knew what interplanetary freight charges were. Luckily, the homeward run is by far the cheapest, and though I had some awkward moments, I got everything through.

The great revolving drum of the Residential Station slowly expanded ahead of us: the untidy collection of domes and pressure-corridors that had been my home for so long dwindled astern. Very cautiously, Tim brought the 'Skylark' up to the axis of the Station. I couldn't see exactly what happened then, but big, jointed arms came out to meet us and drew us slowly in until the air-locks clamped together.

'Well, so long,' said Ron. 'I guess we'll be seeing you again.'

'I hope so,' I said, wondering if I should mention Commander Doyle's offer. 'Come and see me when you're down on Earth.'

'Thanks—I'll do my best. Hope you have a good ride down.'

I shook hands with them both, feeling pretty miserable as I did so. Then the doors folded back, and I went through into the flying hotel that had been my neighbour for so many days, but which I'd never visited before.

The air-lock ended in a wide circular corridor, and waiting for me was a uniformed steward. That at once set the tone of the place: after having to do things for myself, I felt rather a fool as I handed over my luggage. And I wasn't used to being called 'Sir'…

I watched with interest as the steward carefully placed my property against the wall of the corridor, and told me to take my place beside it. Then there was a faint vibration, and I remembered the ride in the centrifuge I'd had back at the Hospital. The same thing was happening here: the corridor was starting to rotate, matching the spin of the Station, and centrifugal force was giving me weight again. Not until the two rates of spin were equal would I be able to go through into the rest of the Station.

Presently a buzzer sounded, and I knew that our speeds had been matched. The force gluing me to the curved wall was very small, but it would increase as I got farther from the centre of the Station, until at the very rim it was equal to full Earth gravity. I was in no hurry to experience that again, after my days of complete weightlessness.

The corridor ended in a doorway which led, much to my surprise, into an elevator cage. There was a short ride in which curious things seemed to happen to the vertical direction, and then the door opened to reveal a large hall. I could hardly believe that I was not on Earth: this might be the foyer of any luxury hotel. There was the reception desk with the residents making their enquiries and complaints: uniformed staff were hurrying to and fro: from time to time someone was being paged over the speaker system. Only the long, graceful bounds with which people walked revealed that this wasn't Earth. And above the reception desk was a large notice:

GRAVITY ON THIS FLOOR=1/3RD EARTH.

That, I realized, would make it just about right for the returning Martian colonists: probably all the people around me had come from the Red Planet—or were preparing to go there.

When I had been checked in I was given a tiny room, just large enough to hold a bed, a chair and a wash-basin. It was so strange to see freely flowing water again that the first thing I did was to turn on the tap and watch a pool of liquid form at the bottom of the basin. Then I suddenly realized that there must be baths here as well, so with a whoop of joy I set off in search of one. I had grown very tired of showers, and all the bother that went with them…

So that's how I spent most of my first evening at the Residential Station. All around me were travellers who had come back from far worlds with stories of strange adventures. But they could wait until tomorrow. For the present I was going to enjoy one of the experiences that gravity
did
make possible—lying in a mass of water which didn't try to turn itself into a giant, drifting raindrop…

Eleven
STARLIGHT HOTEL

It was late in the 'evening' when I arrived aboard the Residential Station. Time here had been geared to the cycle of nights and days that existed down on Earth. Every twenty-four hours the lights dimmed, a hushed silence descended and the residents went to bed. Outside the walls of the Station the sun might be shining, or it might be in eclipse behind the Earth—it made no difference here in this world of wide, curving corridors, thick carpets, soft lights and quietly whispering voices. We had our own time and no one took any notice of the sun.

I didn't sleep very well on my first night under gravity, even though I had only a third of the weight to which I'd been accustomed all my life. Breathing was difficult—and I had unpleasant dreams. Again and again I seemed to be climbing a steep hill, with a great load on my back. My legs were aching, my lungs panting and the hill stretched endlessly ahead. However long I toiled, I never reached the top… At last, however, I managed to doze off, and remembered nothing until a steward woke me with breakfast, which I ate from a little tray fixed over my bed. Though I was anxious to see the Station, I took my time over this meal—it was a novel experience which I wanted to savour to the fill. Breakfast in bed was rare enough—but to have it aboard a space-station as well was really something!

When I had dressed, I started to explore my new surroundings. The first thing I had to get used to was the fact that the floors were all curved. (Of course, I also had to get used to the idea that there
were
floors anyway, after doing without 'up' and 'down' for so long.) The reason for this was simple enough. I was now living on the inside of a giant cylinder, that slowly turned on its axis. Centrifugal force—the same force that held the Station in the sky—was acting once again, gluing me to the side of the revolving drum. If you walked straight ahead you could go right round the circumference of the Station and come back where you started. At any point 'up' would be towards the central axis of the cylinder—which meant that someone standing a few yards away, farther round the curve of the Station, would appear to be tilted towards you. Yet to them, everything would be perfectly normal and
you
would be the one who was tilted! It was confusing at first, but like everything else you got used to it after a while. The designers of the Station had gone in for some clever tricks of decoration to hide what was happening, and in the smaller rooms the curve of the floor was too slight to be noticed.

The Station wasn't merely a single cylinder, but three—one inside the other. As you moved out from the centre, so the sense of weight increased. The innermost cylinder was the 'One-Third Earth Gravity' floor, and because it was nearest to the air-locks on the Station's axis it was mainly devoted to handling the passengers and their luggage. There was a saying that if you sat opposite the Reception Desk for long enough, you'd see everyone of importance on the four planets…