The Space Trilogy (26 page)

“Five seconds, four, three, two, one…”

Very gently, something took hold of Gibson and slid him down the curving side of the porthole-studded wall on to what had suddenly become the floor. It was hard to realize that up and down had returned once more, harder still to connect their re-appearance with that distant, attenuated thunder that had broken in upon the silence of the ship. Far away in the second sphere that was the other half of the
Ares,
in that mysterious, forbidden world of dying atoms and automatic machines which no man could ever enter and live, the forces that powered the stars themselves were being unleashed. Yet there was none of that sense of mounting, pitiless acceleration that always accompanies the take-off of a chemically propelled rocket. The
Ares
had unlimited space in which to manoeuvre: she could take as long as she pleased to break free from her present orbit and crawl slowly out into the transfer hyperbola that would lead her to Mars. In any case, the utmost power of the atomic drive could move her two-thousand-ton mass with an acceleration of only a tenth of a gravity, at the moment it was throttled back to less than half of this small value. Atomic propulsion units operated at such enormous temperatures that they could be used only at low power ratings, which was one reason why their employment for direct planetary take-offs was impossible. But unlike the short-duty chemical rockets, they could maintain their thrust for hours at a time.

It did not take Gibson long to re-orientate himself. The ship’s acceleration was so low—it gave him, he calculated, an effective weight of less than four kilograms—that his movements were still practically unrestricted. Space Station One had not moved from its apparent position, and he had to wait almost a minute before he could detect that the
Ares
was, in fact, slowly drawing away from it. Then he belatedly remembered his camera, and began to record the departure. When he had finally settled (he hoped) the tricky problem of the right exposure to give a small, brilliantly lit object against a jet-black background, the station was already appreciably more distant. In less than ten minutes, it had dwindled to a distant point of light that was hard to distinguish from the stars.

When Space Station One had vanished completely, Gibson went round to the day side of the ship to take some photographs of the receding Earth. It was a huge, thin crescent when he first saw it, far too large for the eye to take in at a single glance. As he watched, he could see that it was slowly waxing, for the
Ares
must make at least one more circuit before she could break away and spiral out towards Mars. It would be a good hour before the Earth was appreciably smaller and in that time it would pass again from new to full.

Well, this is it, thought Gibson. Down there is all my past life, and the lives of all my ancestors back to the first blob of jelly in the first primeval sea. No colonist or explorer setting sail from his native land ever left so much behind as I am leaving now. Down beneath those clouds lies the whole of human history; soon I shall be able to eclipse with my little finger what was, until a lifetime ago, all of Man’s dominion and everything that his art had saved from time.

This inexorable drawing away from the known into the unknown had almost the finality of death. Thus must the naked soul, leaving all its treasures behind it, go out at last into the darkness and the night.

Gibson was still watching at the observation post when, more than an hour later, the
Ares
finally reached escape velocity and was free from Earth. There was no way of telling that this moment had come and passed, for Earth still dominated the sky and the motors still maintained their muffled, distant thunder. Another ten hours of continuous operation would be needed before they had completed their task and could be closed down for the rest of the voyage.

Gibson was sleeping when that moment came. The sudden silence, the complete loss of even the slight gravity the ship had enjoyed these last few hours, brought him back to a twilight sense of awareness. He looked dreamily around the darkened room until his eye found the little pattern of stars framed in the porthole. They were, of course, utterly motionless. It was impossible to believe that the
Ares
was now racing out from the Earth’s orbit at a speed so great that even the Sun could never hold her back.

Sleepily, he tightened the fastenings of his bedclothes to prevent himself drifting out into the room. It would be nearly a hundred days before he had any sense of weight again.

Three

The same pattern of stars filled the porthole when a series of bell-like notes tolling from the ship’s public address system woke Gibson from a comparatively dreamless sleep. He dressed in some haste and hurried out to the observation deck, wondering what had happened to Earth overnight.

It is very disconcerting, at least to an inhabitant of Earth, to see two moons in the sky at once. But there they were, side by side, both in their first quarter, and one about twice as large as the other. It was several seconds before Gibson realized that he was looking at Moon and Earth together—and several seconds more before he finally grasped the fact that the smaller and more distant crescent was his own world.

The
Ares
was not, unfortunately, passing very close to the Moon, but even so it was more than ten times as large as Gibson had ever seen it from the Earth. The interlocking chains of crater-rings were clearly visible along the ragged line separating day from night, and the still unilluminated disc could be faintly seen by the reflected earthlight falling upon it. And surely—Gibson bent suddenly forward, wondering if his eyes had tricked him. Yet there was no doubt of it: down in the midst of that cold and faintly gleaming land, waiting for the dawn that was still many days away, minute sparks of light were burning like fireflies in the dusk. They had not been there fifty years ago; they were the lights of the first lunar cities, telling the stars that life had come at last to the Moon after a billion years of waiting.

A discreet cough from nowhere in particular interrupted Gibson’s reverie. Then a slightly over-amplified voice remarked in a conversational tone:

“If Mr. Gibson will kindly come to the mess-room, he will find some tepid coffee and a few flakes of cereal still left on the table.”

He glanced hurriedly at his watch. He had completely forgotten about breakfast—an unprecedented phenomenon. No doubt someone had gone to look for him in his cabin and, failing to find him there, was paging him through the ship’s public address system.

He hurried back to the mess-room, and in his haste lost himself completely in the labyrinth of corridors. It was surprising how much space there was inside the ship: one day there would be notices everywhere for the guidance of passengers, but Gibson had to find his way as best he could. Since there was no up or down, no natural division of space into horizontal or vertical, he had an extra domension in which to lose himself. He made the most of the opportunity.

When at last he burst apologetically into the mess-room he found the crew engaged in technical controversy concerning the merits of various types of spaceships. He listened carefully as he nibbled at his breajfast. For some reason he had very little appetite: then he remembered that the absence of muscular effort in space often produced this effect—a very fortunate one from the point of view of the catering department.

While he ate, Gibson watched the little group of arguing men, fixing them in his mind and noting their behaviour and characteristics. Norden’s introduction had merely served to give them labels; as yet they were not definite personalities to him. It was curious to think that before the voyage had ended, he would probably know every one of them better than most of his acquaintances back on Earth. There could be no secrets and no masks aboard the tiny world of the
Ares.

At the moment, Dr. Scott was talking. (Later, Gibson would realize that there was nothing very unusual about this.) He seemed a somewhat excitable character, inclined to lay down the law at a moment’s provocation on subjects about which he could not possibly be qualified to speak. His most successful interrupter was Bradley, the electronics and communications expert—a dryly cynical person who seemed to take a sardonic pleasure in verbal sabotage. From time to time he would throw a small bombshell into the conversation which would halt Scott for a moment, though never for long. Mackay, the little Scots mathematician, also entered the battle from time to time, speaking rather quickly in a precise, almost pedantic fashion. He would, Gibson thought, have been more at home in a university common-room than on a spaceship.

Captain Norden appeared to be acting as a not entirely disinterested umpire, supporting first one side and then the other in an effort to prevent any conclusive victory. Young Spencer was already at work, and Hilton, the only remaining member of the crew, had taken no part in the discussion. The engineer was sitting quietly watching the others with a detached amusement, and his face was hauntingly familiar to Gibson. Where had they met before? Why, of course—what a fool he was not to have realized it!—this was
the
Hilton. Gibson swung round in his chair so that he could see the other more clearly. His half-finished meal was forgotten as he looked with awe and envy at the man who had brought the
Arcturus
back to Mars after the greatest adventure in the history of spaceflight. Only six men had ever reached Saturn; and only three of them were still alive. Hilton had stood, with his lost companions, on those far-off moons whose very names were magic—Titan, Encladus, Tethys, Rhea, Dione… He had seen the incomparable splendour of the great rings spanning the sky in symmetry that seemed too perfect for nature’s contriving. He had been into that Ultima Thule in which circled the cold outer giants of the Sun’s scattered family, and he had returned again to the light and warmth of the inner worlds. Yes, thought Gibson, there are a good many things I want to talk to you about before this trip’s over.

The discussion group was breaking up as the various officers drifted—literally—away to their posts, but Gibson’s thoughts were still circling Saturn as Captain Norden came across to him and broke into his reverie.

“I don’t know what sort of schedule you’ve planned,” he said, “but I suppose you’d like to look over our ship. After all, that’s what usually happens around this stage in one of your stories.”

Gibson smiled, somewhat mechanically. He feared it was going to be some time before he lived down his past.

“I’m afraid you’re quite right there. It’s the easiest way, of course, of letting the reader know how things work, and sketching in the
locale
of the plot. Luckily it’s not so important now that everyone knows exactly what a spaceship is like inside. One can take the technical details for granted, and get on with the story. But when I started writing about astronautics, back in the ‘60s, one had to hold up the plot for thousands of words to explain how the spacesuits worked, how the atomic drive operated, and clear up anything else that might come into the story.”

“Then I can take it,” said Norden, with the most disarming of smiles, “that there’s not a great deal we can teach you about the
Ares.
”

Gibson managed to summon up a blush.

“I’d appreciate it very much if you’d show me round—whether you do it according to the standard literary pattern or not.”

“Very well,” grinned Norden. “We’ll start at the control room. Come along.”

For the next two hours they floated along the labyrinth of corridors that crossed and criss-crossed like arteries in the spherical body of the
Ares.
Soon, Gibson knew, the interior of the ship would be so familiar to him that he could find his way blindfolded from one end to the other; but he had already lost his way once and would do so again before he had learned his way around.

As the ship was spherical, it had been divided into zones of latitude like the Earth. The resulting nomenclature was very useful, since it at once gave a mental picture of the liner’s geography. To go “North” meant that one was heading for the control cabin and the crew’s quarters. A trip to the Equator suggested that one was visiting either the great dining-hall occupying most of the central plane of the ship, or the observation gallery which completely encircled the liner. The Southern hemisphere was almost entirely fuel tank, with a few storage holds and miscellaneous machinery. Now that the
Ares
was no longer using her motors, she had been swung round in space so that the Northern Hemisphere was in perpetual sunlight and the “uninhabited” Southern one in darkness. At the South Pole itself was a small metal door bearing a set of impressive official seals and the notice: “To be Opened only under the Express Orders of the Captain or his Deputy.” Behind it lay the long, narrow tube connecting the main body of the ship with the smaller sphere, a hundred meters away, which held the power plant and drive units. Gibson wondered what was the point of having a door at all if no one could ever go through it; then he remembered that there must be some provision to enable the servicing robots of the Atomic Energy Commission to reach their work.

Strangely enough, Gibson received one of his strongest impressions not from the scientific and technical wonders of the ship, which he had expected to see in any case, but from the empty passenger quarters—a honeycomb of closely packed cells that occupied most of the North Temperate Zone. The impression was rather a disagreeable one. A house so new that no one has ever lived in it can be more lonely than an old, deserted ruin that has once known life and may still be peopled by ghosts. The sense of desolate emptiness was very strong here in the echoing, brightly lit corridors which would one day be crowded with life, but which now lay bleak and lonely in the sunlight piped through the walls—a sunlight much bluer than on earth and therefore hard and cold.