Prelude to Space (14 page)

“Within a few weeks,” the message ran, “we hope to launch the first spaceship from
the Earth. We do not know whether we shall succeed, but the power to reach the planets
is now almost within our grasp. This generation stands upon the brink of the ocean
of space, preparing for the greatest adventure in all history
.

“There are some whose minds are so rooted in the past that they believe the political
thinking of our ancestors can still be applied when we reach other worlds. They even
talk of annexing the Moon in the name of this or that nation, forgetting that the
crossing of space has required the united efforts of scientists from every country
in the world
.

“There are no nationalities beyond the stratosphere: any worlds we may reach will
be the common heritage of all men—unless other forms of life have already claimed
them for their own
.

“We, who have striven to place humanity upon the road to the stars, make this solemn
declaration, now and for the future:

“We will take no frontiers into space.”

“I think it’s hard lines on Alfred,” remarked Dirk, “having to stay behind now that
the fun’s beginning.”

McAndrews gave a noncommittal grunt.

“We couldn’t both go,” he said. “Headquarters is being decimated as it is. Too many
people seem to think this is just a good excuse for a holiday.”

Dirk forebore from comment, though sorely tempted. In any case, his own presence could
not be regarded as strictly necessary. He conjured up a last sympathetic picture of
poor Matthews, staring gloomily over the sluggish Thames, and turned his mind to happier
things.

The Kentish coastline was still visible astern, for the liner had not yet gained its
full height or speed. There was scarcely any sense of movement, but suddenly Dirk
had an indefinable feeling of change. Others must have noticed it also for Leduc,
who was sitting opposite, nodded with satisfaction.

“The ramjets are starting to fire,” he said. “They’ll be cutting the turbines now.”

“That means,” put in Hassell, “that we’re doing over a thousand.”

“Knots, miles or kilometers an hour, or rods, poles or perches per microsecond?” asked
somebody.

“For heaven’s sake,” groaned one of the technicians, “don’t start
that
argument again!”

“When do we arrive?” asked Dirk, who knew the answer perfectly well but was anxious
to create a diversion.

“We touch down at Karachi in about six hours, get six hours’ sleep, and should be
in Australia twenty hours from now. Of course we have to add—or subtract—about half
a day for time difference, but someone else can work that out.”

“Bit of a come-down for you, Vic,” Richards laughed at Hassell. “The last time you
went round the world it took you ninety minutes!”

“One mustn’t exaggerate,” said Hassell. “I was way out, and it took a good hundred.
Besides, it was a day and a half before I could get down again!”

“Speed’s all very well,” said Dirk philosophically, “but it gives one a false impression
of the world. You get shot from one place to another in a few hours and forget that
there’s anything in between.”

“I quite agree,” put in Richards unexpectedly. “Travel quickly if you
must
, but otherwise you can’t beat the good old sailing yacht. When I was a kid I spent
most of my spare time cruising around the Great Lakes. Give me five miles an hour—or
twenty-five thousand. I’ve no use for stage-coaches or aeroplanes or anything else
in between.”

The conversation then became technical, and degenerated into a wrangle over the relative
merits of jets, athodyds and rockets. Someone pointed out that the airscrews could
still be seen doing good work in the obscurer corners of China, but he was ruled out
of order. After a few minutes of this, Dirk was glad when McAndrews challenged him
to a game of chess on a miniature board.

He lost the first game over Southeastern Europe and fell asleep before completing
the second—probably through the action of some defense mechanism, as McAndrews was
much the better player. He woke up over Iran, just in time to land and go to sleep
again. It was therefore not surprising that when Dirk reached the Timor Sea, and readjusted
his watch for Australian time, he was not quite sure whether he should be awake or
not.

His companions, who had synchronized their sleep more efficiently, were in better
shape and began to crowd to the observation ports as they neared the end of their
journey. They had been crossing barren desert, with occasional fertile areas, for
almost two hours when Leduc, who had been map-reading, suddenly cried out: “There
it is—over on the left!”

Dirk followed his pointing finger. For a moment he saw nothing; then he made out,
many miles away, the buildings of a compact little town. To one side of it was an
airstrip, and beyond that, an almost invisible black line that stretched across the
desert. It seemed to be an unusually straight railroad; then Dirk saw that it led
from nowhere to nowhere. It began in the desert and ended in the desert. It was the
first five miles of the road that would lead his companions to the Moon.

A few minutes later the great launching track was beneath them, and with a thrill
of recognition Dirk saw the winged bullet of the “Prometheus” glistening on the airfield
beside it. Everyone became suddenly silent, staring down at the tiny silver dart which
meant so much to them but which only a few had ever seen save in drawings and photographs.
Then it was hidden by a block of low buildings as the liner banked and they came in
to land.

“So this is Luna City!” remarked someone without enthusiasm. “It looks like a deserted
gold-rush town.”

“Maybe it is,” said Leduc. “They used to have gold mines in these parts, didn’t they?”

“Surely you know,” said McAndrews pompously, “that Luna City was built by the British
Government around 1950 as a rocket research base. Originally it had an aborigine name—something
to do with spears or arrows, I believe.”

“I wonder what the aborigines think of these goings-on? There are still some of them
out in the hills, aren’t there?”

“Yes,” said Richards, “they’ve got a reservation a few hundred miles away, well off
the line of fire. They probably think we’re crazy, and I guess they’re right.”

The truck which had collected the party at the airstrip came to a halt before a large
office building.

“Leave your kit aboard,” instructed the driver. “This is where you get your hotel
reservations.”

No one was much amused at the jest. Accommodation at Luna City consisted largely of
Army huts, some of which were almost thirty years old. The more modern buildings would
certainly be occupied by the permanent residents, and the visitors were full of gloomy
forebodings.

Luna City, as it had been called for the last five years, had never quite lost its
original military flavor. It was laid out like an Army camp, and though energetic
amateur gardeners had done their best to brighten it up, their efforts had only served
to emphasize the general drabness and uniformity.

The normal population of the settlement was about three thousand, of whom the majority
were scientists or technicians. In the next few days there would be an influx limited
only by the accommodation—and perhaps not even by that. One newsreel company had already
sent in a consignment of tents, and its personnel were making anxious inquiries about
Luna City’s weather.

To his relief, Dirk found that the room allocated to him, though small, was clean
and comfortable. About a dozen members of the administrative staff also occupied the
block, while across the way Collins and the other scientists from Southbank formed
a second colony. The Cockneys, as they christened themselves, quickly enlivened the
place by such notices as “To the Underground” and “Line-up here for 25 bus.”

The first day in Australia was, for the whole party, entirely occupied by the mechanics
of getting settled and learning the geography of the “city.” The little town had one
great point in its favor—it was compact and the tall tower of the meteorological building
served as a good landmark. The airstrip was about two miles away, and the head of
the launching track another mile beyond that. Although everyone was eager to see the
spaceship, the visit had to wait until the second day. In any case Dirk was far too
busy during the first twelve hours frantically trying to locate his notes and records,
which seemed to have gone astray somewhere between Calcutta and Darwin. He eventually
found them at Technical Stores, which was on the point of consigning the lot back
to England as they couldn’t find his name on Interplanetary’s establishment list.

At the end of the first exhausting day, Dirk nevertheless still had enough energy
to record his impressions of the place.

“
Midnight
. Luna City, as Ray Collins put it, looks like ‘good fun’—though I guess the fun would
wear off after a month or so. The accommodation is quite reasonable, though the furniture
is rather scanty and there’s no running water in the block. I’ll have to go half a
mile to get a shower, but this is hardly ‘roughing it!”

“McA. and some of his people are in this building. I’d rather have been with Collins’s
crowd across the way, but I can’t very well ask to be transferred.

“Luna City reminds me of the Air Force bases I’ve seen in the war films. It has the
same bleakly efficient appearance, the same atmosphere of restless energy. And like
an air base, it exits for a machine—the spaceship instead of the bomber.

“From my window I can see, a quarter of a mile away, the dark shape of some office
buildings which look very incongruous here in the desert under these strange, brilliant
stars. A few windows are still lit up and one could imagine that the scientists are
working feverishly against time to overcome some last-minute difficulty. But I happen
to know that said scientists are making a devil of a noise in the next block, entertaining
their friends. Probably the burner of midnight oil is some unfortunate accountant
or storekeeper trying to balance his books.

“A long way off to the left, through a gap in the buildings, I can see a faint smear
of light low down on the horizon. The ‘Prometheus’ is out there, lying under the floodlights.
It’s strange to think that she—or rather ‘Beta’—has been up into space a dozen times
or more on those fueling runs. Yet ‘Beta’ belongs to our planet, while ‘Alpha,’ which
is still earthbound, will soon be up among the stars, never to touch the surface of
this world again. We’re all very eager to see the ship, and won’t waste any time tomorrow
in getting out to the launching site.

“
Later:
Ray hauled me out to meet his friends. I feel flattered, since I noticed McA. and
Co. weren’t invited. I can’t remember the names of anyone I was introduced to, but
it was good fun. And so to bed.”

Even when first seen from ground level a mile away, the “Prometheus” was an impressive
sight. She stood on her multiple undercarriage at the edge of the great concrete apron
around the launcher, the scoops of her air-intakes gaping like hungry mouths. The
smaller and lighter “Alpha” lay in its special cradle a few yards away, ready to be
hoisted into position. Both machines were surrounded with cranes, tractors and various
types of mobile equipment.

A rope barrier was slung round the site, and the truck halted at the opening in the
cordon, beneath a large notice which read:

WARNING-RADIOACTIVE AREA!
No unauthorized persons allowed past this point.
Visitors wishing to examine the ship, contact Ext. 47 (Pub. Rel. IIa).
THIS IS FOR YOUR PROTECTION!

Dirk looked a little nervously at Collins as they gave their identities and were waved
past the barrier.

“I’m not sure I altogether like this,” he said.

“Oh,” replied Collins cheerfully, “there’s no need to worry, as long as you keep near
me. We won’t go near any dangerous areas. And I always carry one of these.”

He pulled a small rectangular box out of his coat pocket. It appeared to be made of
plastic and had a tiny loudspeaker set into one side.

“What is it?”

“Geiger alarm. Goes off like a siren if there’s any dangerous activity around.”

Dirk waved his hand toward the great machine looming ahead of them.

“Is it a spaceship or an atomic bomb?” he asked plaintively.

Collins laughed.

“If you got in the way of the jet, you’d never notice the difference.”

They were now standing beneath the slim, pointed snout of “Beta” and her great wings,
sweeping away from them on either side, made her look like a moth in repose. The dark
caverns of the air-scoops looked ominous and menacing, and Dirk was puzzled by the
strange fluted objects which protruded from them at various places. Collins noticed
his curiosity.

“Shock diffusers,” he explained. “It’s quite impossible to get one kind of air-intake
to operate over the whole speed range from five hundred miles an hour at sea level
to eighteen thousand miles an hour at the top of the stratosphere. Those gadgets are
adjustable and can be moved in and out. Even so the whole thing’s shockingly inefficient
and only the fact that we’ve unlimited power makes it possible at all. Let’s see if
we can get aboard.”

Her stubby undercarriage made it easy to enter the machine through the airlock door
in her side. The rear of the ship, Dirk noticed, had been carefully fenced off with
great movable barriers so that no one could approach it. He commented on this to Collins.

“That part of ‘Beta,’ “said the aerodynamicist grimly, “is Strictly Out of Bounds
until the year 2000 or so.”

Dirk looked at him blankly.

“What do you mean?”

“Just that. Once the atomic drive’s started to operate, and the piles get radioactive,
nothing can ever go near them again. They won’t be safe to touch for years.”

Even Dirk, who was certainly no engineer, began to realize the practical difficulties
this must involve.