Prelude to Space (9 page)

The other must have realized that he was getting nowhere, for presently he rose to
his feet and gave Dirk a quizzical smile.

“I think,” he said, as he took his leave, “that I may be able to put you in touch
with the right people on the technical side. Ring me tomorrow at Extension 3—don’t
forget—3.”

Then he was gone, leaving Dirk in a highly confused state of mind. His fears, it seemed,
had been groundless: the fellow belonged to Interplanetary after all. Oh well, it
couldn’t be helped.

His next clear recollection was saying good-night to Matthews in the foyer. Alfred
still seemed annoyingly bright and energetic, and very pleased with the success of
the party—though it seemed that he had suffered from qualms from time to time.

“During that horn-pipe,” he said, “I was quite certain that the floor was going to
give way. Do you realize that would have delayed the conquest of space by at least
half a century?”

Dirk did not feel particularly interested in such metaphysical speculations, but as
he bade a sleepy good-night he suddenly remembered his unknown Californian.

“By the way,” he said, “I got talking with another American—thought he was a journalist
at first. He’d just arrived in town—you must have seen him—he wasn’t wearing evening
dress. Told me to ring him tomorrow at extension something-or-other. Know who he was?”

Matthews’s eyes twinkled.

“You thought he was another journalist, did you? I hope you remembered my warning.”

“Yes,” said Dirk proudly. “I never told him a thing. Though it wouldn’t have mattered,
would it?”

Matthews pushed him into the cab and slammed the door. He leaned through the window
for his parting words.

“No, it certainly wouldn’t,” he said. “That was only Professor Maxton, the Deputy
Director-General. Go home and sleep it off!”

Dirk managed to arrive at the office in time for lunch—a meal which, he noticed, did
not seem very popular. He had never seen so few customers in the canteen before.

When he rang up Extension 3 and introduced himself sheepishly, Professor Maxton seemed
glad to hear him and invited him round at once. He found the Deputy D.-G. in the next
office to Sir Robert Derwent, almost surrounded with packing cases—holding, he explained,
special test gear which was to be flown to Australia at once. Their conversation was
frequently interrupted by the Professor’s orders and counter-orders to his perspiring
assistants as they checked through their equipment.

“I’m sorry if I seemed a bit offhand last night,” said Dirk apologetically. “The fact
is, I wasn’t quite myself.”

“I gathered that,” said Maxton dryly. “After all, you had several hours’ start on
me! Hi, you dope, don’t carry that recorder upside down! Sorry, Alexson, I didn’t
mean you.”

He paused for breath.

“This is an infernal business—you never know what you’ll want and you can be pretty
sure that in the end the most important stuff will get left behind.”

“What’s it all for?” asked Dirk, quite overcome by the arrays of glittering equipment
and the sight of more radio tubes than he had ever seen before at any one time in
his life.

“Post-mortem gear,” said Maxton succinctly. “‘Alpha’s’ main instrument readings are
telemetered back to Earth. If anything goes wrong, at least we’ll know what happened.”

“This isn’t very cheerful talk after last night’s gaiety.”

“No, but it’s practical talk and may save millions of dollars, as well as a good many
lives. I’ve heard all about your project in the States, and thought it was a very
interesting idea. Who started it?”

“The Rockefeller Foundation—History and Records Division.”

“I’m glad the historians have finally realized that science does play quite a part
in shaping the world. When I was a kid their textbooks were nothing but military primers.
Then the economic determinists held the field—until the neo-Freudians routed them
with great slaughter. We’ve only just got that lot under control—so let’s hope we’re
going to get a balanced view at last.”

“That’s exactly what I’m aiming at,” said Dirk. “I realize that all sorts of motives
must have inspired the man who founded Interplanetary. I want to unravel and analyze
them as far as possible. On the factual side, I’ve been supplied with everything I
want by Matthews.”

“Matthews? Oh, the chap from Public Relations. They think they run the place—don’t
believe everything they tell you, especially about us.”

Dirk laughed.

“I thought that Interplanetary was all one big, happy family!”

“On the whole we get along pretty well, especially at the top. At least, we present
a united front to the outside world. As a class, I think scientists work together
better than any other, especially when they have a common goal. But you always have
clashing personalities, and there seems an inevitable rivalry between the technical
and the non-technical grades. Sometimes it’s just good-natured fun, but often there’s
a certain amount of bitterness behind it.”

While Maxon was speaking, Dirk had been studying him carefully. His first impression
had been confirmed. The D.D.-G. was not only a man of obvious brilliance, but one
of wide culture and sympathies. Dirk wondered how he got on with his equally brilliant
but ferociously forthright colleague, Sir Robert. Two such contrasting personalities
would either work together very well—or not at all.

At the age of fifty, Professor Maxton was generally regarded as the world’s leading
atomic engineer. He had played a major part in the development of nuclear propulsion
systems for aircraft, and the drive units of the “Prometheus” were based almost entirely
on his designs. The fact that such a man, who could have demanded almost any price
from industry, was willing to work here at a nominal salary, seemed to Dirk a very
significant point.

Maxton called out to a fair-haired young man in the late twenties who was just passing.

“Come here a minute, Ray—I’ve got another job for you!”

The other approached with a rueful grin.

“I hope it’s nothing tough. I’ve got a bit of a headache this morning.”

The D.D.-G. grinned at Dirk but refrained, after an obvious struggle, from making
any comment.

He introduced them briefly.

“Dr. Alexson—Ray Collins, my personal assistant. Ray’s line is hyperdynamics—short,
but only just, for hypersonic aerodynamics, in case you didn’t know. Ray—Dr. Alexson’s
a history specialist, so I guess you wonder what he’s doing here. He hopes to be the
Gibbon of astronautics.”

“Not the ‘Decline and Fall of Interplanetary,’ I hope! Pleased to meet you.”

“I want you to help Dr. Alexson with any technical queries. I’ve only just rescued
him from the clammy clutches of McAndrew’s mob, so he’ll probably have some pretty
weird ideas about things.”

He turned to survey the surrounding chaos, found that his assistants were undermining
the precarious seat he had adopted, and shifted to another packing case.

“I’d better explain,” he continued, “though you probably know it already, that our
little technical empire has three main divisions. Ray here is one of the airborne
experts; he’s concerned with getting the ship safely through the atmosphere—in both
directions—with the minimum of wear and tear. His section used to be looked down upon
by the space-hounds, who regarded the atmosphere as just a nuisance. They’ve changed
their tune now that we’ve shown them how to use the air as a free fuel supply—for
the first part of the trip at least.”

That was one of the hundred or so points that Dirk had never properly understood,
and he made a mental note, putting it first on his list of questions.

“Then there are the astronomers and mathematicians, who form a tight little trade-union
of their own—though they’ve suffered some pretty heavy infiltration from the electronics
engineers with their calculating machines. They, of course, have to compute orbits
and do our mathematical donkey-work, which is very extensive indeed. Sir Robert himself
is in charge of their affairs.

“Finally there are the rocket engineers, bless ’em. You won’t find many here, for
they’re nearly all in Australia.

“So that’s the set-up, though I’ve neglected several groups like the communications
and control people, and the medical experts. I’ll turn you over to Ray now, and he’ll
look after you.”

Dirk winced slightly at the phrase; he felt that rather too many people had been “looking
after him.” Collins led him to a small office not far away where they sat down and
exchanged cigarettes. After puffing thoughtfully for some time, the aerodynamicist
jerked his thumb toward the door and remarked:

“What do you think of the Chief?”

“I’m a bit biased, you know; we’re from the same State. He seems a most remarkable
man—cultured as well as technically brilliant. It’s not a usual combination. And he’s
been very helpful.”

Collins began to wax enthusiastic.

“That’s perfectly true. He’s the best chap you could possibly work for, and I don’t
think he has a single enemy. That’s quite a contrast to Sir Robert, who has dozens
among people who know him only slightly.”

“I’ve met the Director-General only once. I didn’t know quite what to make of him.”

Collins laughed.

“It takes a long time to get used to the D.-G.—he certainly hasn’t Professor Maxton’s
easy charm. If you do a job badly, the D.-G. will burn your ears off while the Prof.
will give you a hurt look that makes you feel like a professional baby-poisoner. Both
techniques work perfectly, and everyone’s very fond of Sir Robert when they get to
know him.”

Dirk examined the room with more than casual interest. It was a typical small drafting
room with a modern internally illuminated tracing table occupying one corner. The
walls were covered with elaborate and obscure graphs, interspersed with photographs
of rockets removing themselves spectacularly to distant parts. A place of honor was
given to a magnificent view of the Earth from a height of at least a thousand miles.
Dirk guessed it was a still from the film that Matthews had arranged for him to see.
On Collins’s desk was a photograph of quite a different sort—a portrait of a very
pretty girl whom Dirk thought he had seen once or twice at lunch. Collins must have
noticed his interest, but as he didn’t elucidate Dirk guessed that he was still unmarried
and, like himself, an optimistic bachelor.

“I suppose,” the aerodynamicist said presently, “you’ve seen our film, ‘The Road to
Space’?”

“Yes, I thought it was very good.”

“It saves a lot of talking and puts over the basic ideas pretty clearly. But of course
it’s rather out-of-date now, and I guess you’re still very much in the dark about
the latest developments—particularly the atomic drive in the ‘Prometheus.’”

“That’s true,” said Dirk. “It’s a complete mystery to me.”

Collins gave a puzzled little grin.

“That baffles us,” he complained. “From the technical point of view, it’s far simpler
than the internal combustion engine which everyone understands perfectly. But for
some reason, people assume that an atomic drive
must
be incomprehensible, so they won’t even make an effort to understand it.”

“I’ll make the effort,” Dirk laughed. “It’s up to you to do the rest. But please remember—I
want to know only just enough to follow what’s happening. I’ve no intention of setting
myself up as a designer of spaceships!”

“I suppose I can assume,” said Collins, a little doubtfully, “that you’re quite happy
about common-or-garden rockets and understand how they work in a vacuum?”

“I can see,” replied Dirk, “that if you throw a lot of matter away from you at great
speed, there’s bound to be a recoil.”

“Good. It’s amazing how many people still seem to think that a rocket has to have
‘something to push against,’ as they invariably put it. You’ll appreciate, then, that
a rocket designer is always trying to get the maximum possible velocity—and a bit
more—from the jet which drives his machine forward. Obviously, the speed of the exhaust
determines the velocity which his rocket will attain.

“The old chemical rockets, like V.2, had jet speeds of one or two miles a second.
With such performances, to carry a load of one ton to the Moon and back would have
needed several
thousand
tons of fuel, which wasn’t practicable. What everyone wanted was a weightless fuel
supply. Atomic reactions, which are a million or more times as powerful as chemical
ones, virtually gave us this. The energy released by the few pounds of matter in the
first atomic bombs could have taken a thousand tons to the Moon—and back.

“But though the energy had been released, no one knew exactly how to use it for propulsion.
That little problem has only just been solved, and it’s taken thirty years to produce
the very inefficient atomic rockets we have today.

“Look at the problem from this point of view. In the chemical rocket, we get our driving
exhaust by burning a fuel and letting the hot gases acquire speed by expanding through
a nozzle. In other words, we exchange heat for velocity—the hotter our combustion
chamber, the faster the jet will leave it. We’d get the same result if we didn’t actually
burn the fuel at all, but heated the combustion chamber from some outside source.
In other words, we could make a rocket by pumping any gas we liked—even air—into a
heating unit, and then letting it expand through a nozzle. O.K.?”

“Yes, that’s straightforward enough so far.”

“Very well. Now as you know, you can get as much heat as you like out of an atomic
pile by making it of richer and richer materials. If you overdo it, of course, the
pile will melt down into a puddle of liquid uranium with carbon bobbing about on the
surface. Long before that sort of thing happened, any sensible man would have got
hull-down over the horizon.”

“You mean it might go up like an atomic bomb?”

“No, it couldn’t do that. But an unapproachable radioactive furnace could be just
as nasty in its quiet way. However, don’t look so alarmed—this couldn’t happen if
the most elementary precautions were taken.