Happiness: A Planet (6 page)

Munred had come to a halt before her, had clasped his hands behind his back and was looking reproachfully down on her,

“Why wasn’t I told of this before?”

“Because,” T’ulla frowned at him, “I, quite by chance, only found out yesterday. I had to verify what I had found before I bothered you with it.”

“Yet you found time to tell Petre. Hardly the behaviour of a professional.”

“My work here isn’t classified. Besides,” Tulla was blushing again, “I saw no need for secrecy.”

“A moon goes missing and you see no need for secrecy?” His facetious tone annoyed Tulla. Her blush deepened,

“I saw that the absence of the moon could have far-reaching consequences. I haven’t computed them all yet, but I felt that I ought to inform you now as you are in charge of this Department. Had I known that Happiness had ceased transmitting I might have looked into that sector before yesterday, have discovered its moon was missing earlier.”

“And when you did discover that its moon was inexplicably missing, didn’t you stop to think they might need emergency services down there?”

“I had no reason to suppose that the moon may have crashed onto the planet. Nor do I still.”

“If it hasn’t crashed onto the planet,” Munred lifted an eyebrow, “where is it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Moons don’t just disappear. Where is it?”

“I don’t know. But what I do know is that at the moment it disappeared it was precisely 386,542 kilometres from the planet’s surface. Nothing I know can exceed the speed of light from a stationary orbit, and that’s what it would have taken for the moon to crash into the planet. And with the moon’s mass such an instant speed, so far as I am aware, is impossible.”

“That still doesn’t mean that it couldn’t have crashed into the planet.”

The man was in a funk, Tulla realised, wanted to pin any possible blame onto her. She was convenient. But Tulla was having none of it. She had been caught up in the petty intrigues and machinations of Service before, knew that, if one did not immediately and forthrightly protest one’s innocence, culpability was rapidly assumed.

“The planet’s rotation is stable,” Tulla said. “That is its orbit at the moment is stable. The moon was not out of orbit prior to its disappearance. And, if the moon had collided with the planet, then the ensuing explosion would have created so much radio noise that my scanners couldn’t have but failed to pick it up. Even if they didn’t, Communication would have been bothered by it. I’ve checked. No explosions. Have you had no other contact with the planet?”

“Not for thirty three days.”

“No ships?”

“No!” he snapped at her, disliking being quizzed. “Not for thirty three days.”

“But,” Tulla gazed up incredulously at him, “you could’ve had a ship down there in two days.”

“Yes
,
I could, if I’d had a ship. But the Inspector’s been on Torc the last four weeks, and I can’t override standing police orders. The other ship went out on patrol before it became a Priority. It’s due back,” he glanced to the clock, “in one hour. It’ll be sent to Happiness straightaway.”

“But you’ve got a Departmental ship at your disposal. Why didn’t you go?”

“A Director leave his station?!”

“You could’ve sent your Sub.”

“You telling me how to do my job?”

Munred had considered sending one of his sub-departmental Directors. To the interviewing board, however, he knew that overreacting was a worse sin than inaction. The profligate dispatch of the Departmental ship to Happiness would, therefore, not have impressed them.

“Do you know how many caveats there are about interfering in the life of a planet?” he asked Tulla, “I can sum them all up in one neat phrase — By Request Only. And no-one has requested that I interfere.”

Below her spiky yellow hair Tulla was now a burning shade of crimson. As before, whenever she had encountered officialdom, it had failed to see the obvious, had stood in her way with its proper procedures, had been so busy passing the buck that it had done nothing. A conglomerate of thin-skinned careerists regarding the universe only in how it applied to themselves; careerists who took no chances, made no advances, just covered their tactical retreats. Now she said,

“Interfere? That planet at this moment may be uninhabitable. They don’t have a stable life-support system down there. They have a climate. And extreme climatic effects produce suicides, homicides. Weather! Haven’t you heard of it? Certain winds alone can create harmful emotional states, can exaggerate emotional states. A simple climatic change has been known to send a peaceful people to war! What effect will a missing moon have on the climate, what effect will the climate have on the people? The simple answer is that we don’t know. And that is why, down there, we have people monitoring machines, machines monitoring people. We trust to nothing. All is fallible. And those machines two weeks ago, correct me if I’m wrong, asked you to investigate.” She made an effort to calm herself, “A whole planet loses communication Munred.... it seems logical to send a ship.”

“Seems logical I’d have found out about a missing moon before now.”

“Certainly. If I had been asked to check that particular planet, then most certainly you would have found out about the missing moon earlier. As it is I merely happened to chance upon it in the course of my survey.”

“How was I to know its moon was missing?”

“You weren’t. But you knew that there was something amiss with the planet. Ask any technician, Munred, why he is better than his machines; and he will tell you that it is his intuition, his ability to arrive at valid decisions on insufficient data. Do something Munred.”

“I am dammit. I am.”

“What?”

They went over old ground — the police ship, his not having sent the Departmental ship, his not being told about the moon, her not being told of the loss of communication. Back and forth went the accusations, until Tulla thought the squabble both pointless and unseemly.

Although the deliberately cultivated inactivity of Service personnel is often held up to ridicule, it has to be said that, generally, such inactivity is beneficial to our civilisation. Too often in the past humankind has created administrative systems which have worked, but which have subsequently been undermined by those employed within them. In an attempt to justify their salaries and their position those employees unnecessarily interfered with the system’s workings. In self-justification they felt that they had to do something, and so they conjured up, for instance, a new indexing system — when the old system was perfectly adequate and understood by all. And no sooner had those, who had to use that indexing system, adapted themselves to it, than someone else felt that they had to justify their salary by doing something and the system was again, according to the foibles of the latest newcomer, re-indexed. So we had change for change’s sake, until the whole edifice collapsed under the weight of superfluous innovations. Thus, learning from history, in our Service emphasis is placed on uneventful tenure rather than on accomplishment; and proposals to alter any aspect of Service life or working procedures are met with a staunch conservatism.

Within our civilisation the only criteria, justifying the continued existence of any institution or practice is — does it work? As an intelligence we were late arriving at such a rule by which to govern ourselves. Of course there have always been those among us who have owned just such a criteria. Artists, for instance, in the creating of an effect, whether in music, literature or drama, readily abandon outdated methods or stick stubbornly with traditional techniques, providing they get the desired results. So long as the methods employed are effective then they don’t attempt to change them. So too, at long last, our entire civilisation. Although, of course, effectiveness is not the sole consideration; morality and ethics also come into the running of a civilisation. But it is of no use having a practice which is ethically sound if it doesn’t work. So if it works is the predominant criteria — and the majority are happy to abide by it. Though a sizeable minority, like Tulla, would appreciate just a few more exceptions to Service’s general rule of inactivity.

Realising that the squabble was getting them nowhere, Tulla bent her mind to Happiness and to its missing moon. Munred too controlled his temper. The interview was on record and, aware of Tulla’s low opinion, he saw with painful lucidity what a sorry petulant figure he must be cutting.

“Look,” he sat down. “It’s such a peculiar situation. One that normally never arises. Something can’t have gone wrong with every transmitter on the planet. I’ve checked back. Not a day goes by, but there’s one radio message coming up for relatives in Space.”

“What about the reports?”

“Machine of course. Daily again. Weather conditions, seismic activity, census updates... All on record. Hold on,” he pulled a code book to him, “if the moon was going out of orbit wouldn’t it have affected the tides?”

“If it was, but it wasn’t. The disappearance of the moon and the break in communications needn’t necessarily be connected.”

Munred tapped at keys, was disappointed to find that tidal levels were average for the month preceding the moon’s disappearance.

“The absence of the moon,” Tulla followed her own train of thought, “could have affected the orbit of its radio satellites. I think it unlikely though. One at least would still function.”

“But it could have destroyed all its satellites?”

“As I don’t know what has happened to the moon, yes, anything’s possible. I’ll check the satellites later, let you know. Have they any nuclear devices down there?”

“Why?”

“Nuclear explosions create electromagnetic fields, wipe out all transmissions.”

“I’ll check.”

“About its moon...”

“What about it?” Munred was again busy at his keys.

“The long term consequences of its absence, which is why I came to see you...”

“Look,” Munred interrupted her, “I’ve lost contact with over three million people. What does one small moon matter compared to that?”

“One small moon? You can’t be serious,” Tulla was flabbergasted, “I helped on someone’s thesis for this. One planet had three small moons. We overmined one of those moons. It was a star with only one planet. All three moons went out of orbit, the planet went out of orbit, altered the star’s course. Two outstations were damn near destroyed.”

“No nuclear devices,” Munred sighed, again disappointed by his failure to find an easy credible solution.

“That moon’s absence,” Tulla pressed on with her professional outrage, “will affect the orbit of Happiness. Its change of orbit will affect the orbits of the other planets in that solar system. You’ve got platforms near that sun. Outstations not that far away. The change will be cumulative. Just how do you think even the smallest outstation stays in place? Mathematical wizardry, that’s how. Each station balanced between the masses, between the orbits of all surrounding stellar bodies. All bodies? That includes moons. One mistake, and there’s been a few, and it can affect not one but thousands of outstations. It will affect this station. It might even affect the city. That’s what one small moon matters.”

“So what do you recommend I do?” Munred stiff-faced asked her.

“Report the moon’s absence to whoever is responsible, to whoever has
the authority to resite stations. I’ll send you through my preliminary computations; they can take it from there. And the sooner the better. Will you be going down to Happiness?”

“That,” Munred turned from her, “is the police’s job. And I have no police ships. And the Inspector is on Torc.”

Standing, Tulla looked down on him with a mixture of exasperation and contempt.

“I’m going out to Ben,” she said. Ben and Torc are the two stations adjacent to XE2. (Ben, Torc — by such acronyms have most stations become known. XE2 is an abbreviation of its grid co-ordinates.)

“Now?” Munred’s head jerked up in alarm.

“I want to get some cross-bearings. And maybe their scanners picked up something that ours didn’t. I also want to consult their library. They’ve got a better science section than we have here. Now that’s something you could see about while you’re here.” And picking up her case Tulla, not blushing, left.

We now encounter that bugbear of modern chroniclers — contemporaneous events. Many chroniclers dodge this difficulty by confining their narrative to one location, let events come to them. That, unfortunately, is not possible with this tale, where to give a full account one has to take into consideration the confusing element of time, of actions being taken in one place ignorant of events and decisions being made elsewhere.

We all of us know how, because of the distances involved, news can overtake itself. Because, while the speed of electromagnetic waves is constant at about 300,000 kilometres per second, one has to bear in mind that the greater the distance the faster a ship can travel; the greater distance allowing more room for acceleration and deceleration, thus allowing greater speeds to be reached. So, for instance, where it takes 7 days for a radio message to reach XE2 from Happiness, 14 days from the nearest stations like Ben and Torc, and 22 days from this city, it takes a ship only 2 days to travel from Happiness to XE2, 2½ days from the nearest stations, and only 3 days from this city. Which is why radio is so little used, except on infrequently used direct shipping routes, like those between Happiness and XE2.