First Contact (20 page)

The evening’s entertainment consisted of a steak dinner at Morton’s, complete with a two-hundred-dollar bottle of wine, pleasant conversation with representatives of Loomis’s Young Executive Program in the Champagne Room of the Capital City Playhouse Club, and concluded with the rather unfortunate loss by some sap of the keys to a brand new BMW convertible. By remarkable coincidence, call it synchronicity if you will, the owner of the BMW had the same exact name and social security number as our man in the DoD.

The next morning, Loomis corporate headquarters received a miraculous and wonderful call from the Department of Defense. A toilet was needed aboard
Earth’s Hope
, which was scheduled to launch in three days. Loomis hopped to it, but time was short. They also skimped a bit on materials, using hard plastic instead of porcelain, in part to save money and in part because weight restrictions limited the allowable size of the toilet to three pounds. Thus the real reason the toilet backed up on
Earth’s Hope
was
not because of Hanukapi “Minnesota” Puli’s gluttony, but rather because when the manufacturer installed the toilet, it did, pardon, a crappy job.

S
O THE MISSION CONTINUED
.
Surprisingly,
Earth’s Hope
arrived at the wormhole about ninety seconds ahead of schedule.

Commander Tanzarian said, “We made terrific time.”

Major McBain said, “Maybe the universe is shrinking.”

They both laughed heartily. Tanzarian said, “That’s a good one.”

E
ARTH’S
H
OPE
EMERGED FROM
the wormhole onto the Intergalactic Highway System. The crew saw the sign for Rigel-Rigel, but made a wrong turn. This seemed strange to them, when they realized their mistake three days later, because the sign had appeared to be in English. In fact the letters used by the Intergalactic Sign Commission were the same as in English, and much of the grammar identical, but the meaning of many of the words was the opposite. Thus the crew went left when it should have gone right.

O
NCE AGAIN THE BLAME
focused on Hanukapi Puli. No one articulated this, but it was clearly conveyed through dirty looks, sour pusses, and periods of silent treatment. Blaming Puli was absurd for a variety of reasons, not the least of which was that at the moment when
Earth’s Hope
emerged from the wormhole, and Commander Tanzarian and Major McBain made the decision to turn left instead of right, Hanukapi Puli was sitting in the back of the ship reading an article about Scarlett Johansson in
Maxstuff
magazine. The ship had been stocked with an ample supply of magazines, including not only
Maxstuff
but also the most recent
New Jerseyan
and several back issues of
Sports Explicated
.

Puli had never heard of
Maxstuff
magazine or Scarlett Johansson before the voyage. He was fascinated by each and quite absorbed in the article at the time the ship’s brain trust made the wrong turn. Even had Puli been paying attention, he could not have contributed much of value since he had never driven a car before, let alone a spaceship. But Tanzarian and McBain blamed Puli nevertheless, reasoning that the smell from the toilet had impaired their otherwise impeccable decision-making abilities.

T
HE NEED TO BLAME
others is a conspicuous aspect of the human condition. It is another way of finding meaning in the universe. People search for causal connections, sometimes crediting the most attenuated and implausible chain of events, rather than accept that random bad things sometimes happen.

Once, when I was living in Manhattan, a seven-year-old kid was eaten by a mountain lion. This was exceedingly strange for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that there is no natural mountain-lion habitat within a thousand miles of Manhattan. The parents of the devoured child told the newspapers the accident had been the work of the devil. What really happened was the lion escaped from the circus, hid in some bushes near a playground, and ate the child for breakfast.

The notion of a lion escaping from the circus in New York is less improbable than it might seem at first blush. To get the animals into the city, the circus walks them all, including quite famously and spectacularly the elephants, through the Lincoln Tunnel late at night. If you are ever in Manhattan when it happens, you should make a point of checking it out. It is surreal and wonderful.

A
T THE SAME TIME
,
if you have children, you should probably not tell them the story about the lion escaping from the circus and eating the little boy. This is the sort of thing that can be very upsetting to a child. For that matter, it would probably be best not to tell them the universe is ending either.

T
HOUGH THE WRONG TURN
delayed the mission of
Earth’s Hope
, the error gave the crew time to forgive Puli and an important opportunity to bond with one another. Such coming together is a common experience during wartime. Two sorts of bonding are possible. The first sort is closeness deriving from shared commitment to the cause. For example, during World War II, a young farm boy from Kansas might have said to his battalion mate, “We are united together against a common evil—a genocidal maniac. I love you as a brother for your commitment to this grand cause.” The second sort is intimacy stemming from the plight of participating in the conflict. For example, during the Vietnam War, another Kansas farm boy lying in a muddy mosquito-infested swamp with shells flying overhead might have said to his battalion mate, “I was drafted into this
conflict, the purpose of which I do not understand. My sinuses are highly sensitive to humidity and I am allergic to bee stings. I understand that you are in the same situation, but for the allergy to bee stings, and because of our shared plight, I regard you as a brother.”

Each of these sentiments is often translated loosely as “War is hell.”

In the case of
Earth’s Hope
, bonding of the first sort, over shared commitment to the cause, was not in the cards. One night over dinner, Hanukapi Puli asked why they were traveling across the universe to bomb the people of Rigel-Rigel. Major McBain shrugged his shoulders and looked to Commander Tanzarian who in turn said, “Damned if I know.” Sinclair Lewis said he had not realized until that very moment it was a military mission. He had been told they were attending an interplanetary grouting convention.

But the crew bonded quite nicely in the second manner. Over a bottle of fine scotch whiskey, each man revealed he had a wife and children whom he missed more than he could bear. This was only partially true. In fact the men could bear the separation from their wives and children. But each had an additional partner whom he missed more than words. For Commander Tanzarian, it was his housekeeper. For Major McBain, it was a twenty-year-old air force private. For Hanukapi Puli, it was the local baker. For Sinclair Lewis it was a special sheep from the meadows of Balta. The resulting empathy each crewmember developed for one another was thus based on false premises, but sincere all the same.

Furthermore, each man offered a wistful sentiment about Earth. Armando Tanzarian said he missed arena football. Major McBain said he missed fly-fishing in the fall. Sinclair Lewis said he missed the sight of toy rockets soaring through the clear, blue sky. Hanukapi Puli said he missed Chocodiles and expressed regret and contrition for having eaten them all on the first day of the voyage.

Commander Tanzarian said, “War is hell.”

He spoke for the entire crew.

W
HEN THE SHIP NEARED
Rigel-Rigel, Commander Tanzarian ordered the armaments be made ready. Military specifications dictated that
Earth’s Hope
be outfitted with two nuclear missiles, each of which represented the most powerful weapon ever created by man. To put the power of these weapons into context, consider by contrast
the atomic weapons used by the United States against Japan at the close of World War II.
Little Boy
, the uranium-based atomic bomb dropped by Paul Tibbets and the
Enola Gay
on Hiroshima, had an explosive yield of thirteen kilotons of TNT and killed approximately a hundred forty thousand people. The nuclear warheads designed for
Earth’s Hope
each had an output of fifty megatons, meaning they were about four thousand times more powerful than their predecessors. While
Little Boy
did a pretty good number on Hiroshima, one of these bombs could have done a pretty good number on all of Japan, most of the Korean Peninsula, and a good part of eastern China and Mongolia. This is an example of scientific progress.

Q
UESTIONS HAVE BEEN RAISED
about the role of American scientists in the development of the atomic bomb. Some of these same questions might be asked about the work of Professor Fendle-Frinkle. The central question is whether scientists have an obligation to consider the larger implications of their work. Those who answer this question in the affirmative say, for example, that J. Robert Oppenheimer and his colleagues should have taken more seriously the negative consequences of nuclear weapons for the people of Germany and Japan specifically and the future of warfare and diplomacy generally. With respect to Professor Fendle-Frinkle, the argument would be that he has a duty not to use theoretical physics just as an escape from his unhappy home life, but must try to stop the universe from contracting or at least to slow it down. The scientist should not bracket considerations of morality, so the argument goes.

I think it would have been funny if the scientists on the Manhattan Project had spent their time in Alamogordo, New Mexico, playing bid whist and backgammon instead of working on the atomic bomb. One day, President Truman would have called Oppenheimer in for a report. “Show me what you have produced and how it works,” President Truman would have said.

At this point, Oppenheimer could have pulled a small orb of granite from his pocket. “You see, Mr. President,” he would have said, “what one does is grasp this projectile in his hand, recoil his arm, and then thrust the arm forward, releasing the spheroid in the same motion.”

Truman, knowing tens of millions of dollars had been wagered on the Manhattan Project as well as the best hopes of an American
victory, would not have understood at first, and perhaps thought the scientist was speaking metaphorically. But he would get it eventually and ask, incredulously, “You’re telling me how to throw a rock?”

The historical record suggests Truman would not have been amused. A strong thrower with good aim could have taken out an important official, such as the mayor of Hiroshima, but Truman had his hopes pinned on having at his disposal the most powerful weapon in the history of mankind.

At this point, Oppenheimer would have explained the ethical duty of the scientist.

U
PON EXECUTING
T
ANZARIAN’S CALL
to battle stations, the crew discovered things had not gone as planned. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on one’s perspective, the Air Force had failed to load one of the nuclear warheads. This is not as unusual as it may seem. The military is a big organization with diffuse responsibilities. Sometimes things get forgotten, particularly when it is pot pie night at the mess.

The military successfully loaded the second warhead, but it was not in good condition. Here the fault rested with Loomis, which installed the toilet above the armaments chamber. Upon examination, it became evident the overflow from the commode had leaked onto the warhead, eroding the casing of the weapon and shorting its fuse. The bomb had been rendered useless and the crew exposed to lethal doses of radiation.

As if matters could be worse, the crew also discovered a stow-away raccoon, now deceased. Before expiring, the raccoon had eaten through the lining of the crew’s spacesuits, the wiring of the release mechanism for the bombs, and six heretofore undiscovered boxes of Chocodiles, which had mistakenly been stored in the armaments chamber instead of the galley. The crew could not determine whether the raccoon had died from gorging itself on snacks or from exposure to the nuclear warhead. They stood at silent attention before the body of the irradiated, bloated raccoon. Commander Tanzarian broke the quiet. He again spoke for everyone when he said, “War is hell.”

T
HIS IS THE KIND
of situation that could make any crew despair, but the men of
Earth’s Hope
rose above themselves. Sinclair Lewis re
paired the outer casing of the warhead with some water and spackle, which he always carried with him. Hanukapi Puli created a makeshift fuse from some phosphorous shavings he had in his pocket. The automatic release mechanism had been damaged beyond repair, but Commander Tanzarian jerry-rigged a manual trigger. Unfortunately, releasing the bomb in this manner required two men to open the bay doors and two men to sit on the missile and release it from its moorings. Tanzarian explained these unfortunate facts to the group.-

“But we don’t have any spacesuits,” said Hanukapi Puli. “If we release the bomb manually then we’ll all be sucked into space and die.”

“That’s true,” said Commander Tanzarian.

“We’re all going to die anyway from the radiation,” said Sinclair Lewis.

“That’s also true,” Tanzarian said.

“Well, then we may as well take some commies with us,” said Tex McBain. Though they had never heard of commies before, Puli and Lewis nodded their heads in agreement. It seemed like the thing to do. For his part, Commander Tanzarian did not know much about the enemy, but was reasonably sure they were not communists. Nevertheless, he said nothing. As a lifelong military man, Tanzarian understood the power of symbolism.

One by one the members of the crew of
Earth’s Hope
thrust their hands into the middle of the circle they had formed around the dead raccoon.