Stowaway to Mars (3 page)

Alf explained, kindly. 'Well, this bloke, Keuntz, was an American. 'E 'ad the first fact'ry for rocket planes in Chicago, it was, and 'e got to be a millionaire in next to no time. But it wasn't enough for 'im that 'is blasted rocket planes was banging and roarin' all over the world; 'e didn't see why they couldn't get right away from the world.'

'Whadjer mean? The Moon?' Bill inquired.

'Yus, the Moon and other places. So in 1970 or thereabouts 'e goes and puts down five million dollars what's more'n a million pahnds for the first bloke wot gets to a planit and back.'

'Coo! A million pahnds!' Bill was impressed. 'And nobody ain't done it yet?' ''

'Naow not likely,' Alf spoke with contempt. 'Nor never will, neither,' he added, spitting once more into the Thames.

At one o'clock two gentlemen with every appearance of being well fed were sitting down to more food at the Cafe Royal.

'I see,' remarked the taller, chattily, 'that that nephew of yours has more or less signed his death warrant. Think he'll go through with it?'

'Dale? Oh, yes, he'll have a shot at it, all right. I'll say this for him, he's never yet scratched in any event if he had a machine capable of starting.'

'Well, well. I suppose that means you'll come in for a pretty penny?'

'Never count my chickens. Besides, Dale's no fool. He knows what he's doing. He might even make it, you know.'

'Oh, rot. You don't really believe that?'

'I'm not so sure. Someday someone's going to do it. Why not Dale?'

'Nonsense! Get to another planet and back! It's impossible. It is to this age what the philosopher's stone was to an earlier one. It's fantastic chimerical.'

'So was flying once.'

At two o'clock a young schoolmaster looked earnestly at his charges.

'This,' he said, 'is a history lesson. I wonder what history really means to you. I should like you to see it as I do not as a dull procession of facts and dates, but as the story of Man's climb from the time when he was a dumb brute: a story that is still being told. If any of you saw the newspapers this morning, I wonder if it struck you as it struck me that within a year or so we may see a great piece of history in the making. You know what I refer to?'

'Curty's rocket flight, sir?' cried a shrill voice.

The schoolmaster nodded. 'Yes. Mr. Curtance is going to try to win the Keuntz Prize for the first interplanetary flight. Mr. Curtance, as you know, is a very brave man. A lot of people have already tried to win that prize, and, as. far as we know, they have all died in the attempt.

'Many men lost their lives in trying to reach the Moon, and most people said it was impossible for them to do it there was even a movement to get their attempts banned. But the men went on trying. Duncan, K. K. Smith and Sudden actually got there, but they crashed on the surface and were killed. Then came the great Drivers. In 1969 he managed to take his rocket right round the Moon and bring it safely back to Earth. Everybody was astounded, and for the first time they really began to believe that we could leave the Earth if we tried hard enough. Mr. Keuntz, who lived in Chicago, said: "If man can reach the Moon, he can reach the planets." And he put aside five million dollars to be given to the first men who should get there and back.

'The first one to try was Jornsen. His rocket was too heavy. He fell back and landed somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. Then the great Drivers tried. He got up enough speed not to fall back, like Jornsen, but he wasn't fast enough to get right away, and he stuck. His rocket is still up there; sometimes they catch a glimpse of it in the big telescopes, circling round the Earth for ever, like a tiny moon.'

'Please, sir, what happened to Drivers himself?'

'He must have starved to death, poor man unless his air gave out first. He had a friend with him, and perhaps theirs is the worst of all the tragedies trapped in an orbit where they could look down on the world, knowing that they would never get back.

'After that came Simpson whose rocket was built in Keuntz's own works. He took off somewhere in Illinois, but something went wrong. It fell on the lake shore, just outside Chicago, and blew up with a terrible explosion which wrecked hundreds of houses and killed I don't know how many people.

'Since then there have been ten or more attempts. Some have fallen back, others have got away and never been heard of since.'

'Then somebody may have done it already, without our knowing it, sir?'

'It is possible. We can't tell.'

'Do you think Curty will do it, sir?'

'One can't tell that, either. But if he does he will make a more important piece of history than did even Columbus.'

At three o'clock Mr. Jefferson, physics master in the same school, demonstrated to an interested if rather sceptical class that rocket propulsion was even more efficient in a vacuum than in air.

'Newton taught us,' he began, 'that to every action there is an equal and opposite reaction . . .'

At four o'clock the news came to a bungalow half way up the side of a Welsh mountain. The girl who brought it was breathing hard after her climb from the village below, and she addressed the middle aged man in the bungalow's one sitting room excitedly.

'Daddy, they're saying that Dale Curtance is going to try for the Keuntz Prize.'

'What? Let me see.'

He pounced on the copy of the Excess which protruded from her shopping bag, and settled down to it with a kind of desperate avidity.

'At last,' he said, as he reached the end of the column, 'at last. Now they will find out that we were right. We shall be able to leave here, Joan. We shall be able to go back and look them in the face.'

'Perhaps, but he hasn't done it yet, Daddy.'

'Young Curtance will do it if anyone can. And they'll have to believe him.'

'But, Daddy dear, it doesn't even say that he is going to try for Mars. Venus is much nearer; it's probably that.'

'Nonsense, Joan, nonsense. Of course it's Mars. Look here, it says he intends to start sometime in October. Well, Mars comes into opposition about the middle of April next year. Obviously he's working on Drivers' estimates of just under twelve weeks for the outward journey and under eleven for the return. That will give him a few days there to prospect and to overhaul his machine. He can't afford to leave the return a day past opposition. You see, it all fits in.'

'I don't see, darling, but I've no doubt you're right.'

'Of course I'm right, it's as plain as can be. I'm going to write to him.' The girl shook her head.

'I shouldn't do that. He might hand it over to one of the newspapers and you know what that would mean.'

The man paused in his elation, and frowned. 'Yes. Perhaps he would. We'll wait, my dear. We'll wait until he tells them what he's found there. Then we'll go back home and see who laughs last. .'

At five o'clock a telephone conversation between Mrs. Dale Curtance and her mother in law was in progress.

'. . . But, Mary dear, this is useless,' the elder Mrs. Curtance was saying.

'You'll never be able to stop him. I know Dale. Once he's made his mind up to a thing like this, he can't be stopped.'

'But he must be stopped. I can't let him do it. I'll move everything to stop him. You don't know what it means to me.'

'My dear, I know what it means to me and I am his mother. I also know something of what it means to him. We've just got to suppress our own selfishness.'

'Selfishness! You call it selfishness to try to stop him killing himself?'

'Mary, don't you see what you are doing? You're losing him. If you did manage to stop him, he'd hate you for it, and if you go on as you are doing, he'll hate you for trying to stop him. Please, please give it up, Mary. It's not fair on Dale or yourself or the child. In your condition you can't afford to behave like this. All we can do is what most women have to do make the best of it.'

'Oh, you don't understand. Without him there'll be nothing for me to make the best of.'

'There will be the child, Mary. You must get right away from all this. Come down here and stay quietly with me till that's over.'

'How can I "stay quietly" anywhere while this is going on? You must come up and see him. Perhaps if we both talked to him Will you come?'

Mrs. Curtance paused before she answered. 'All right, I will come.'

She put down the receiver and sighed. The most that she could hope for was that Mary should be convinced of the futility of kicking against fate.

At six o'clock the announcer read two S.O.S. messages and the weather report, and added: 'No doubt everyone has read the newspaper reports of Mr. Curtance's proposed bid for the Keuntz Prize. We have been able to persuade Mr. Curtance himself to come to the studio to tell you what he hopes to do. Mr. Dale Curtance.'

Dale's pleasant features faded in on millions of television screens, smiling in a friendly fashion at his unseen audience. 'It is kind of the B.B.C. to invite me here this evening,' he began, 'and I am grateful to them for giving me the opportunity to correct certain misunderstandings which seem to be current regarding my intentions. Firstly, let me say that it is quite true that I mean to attempt to reach another planet and to return to Earth. And it is also true, for a number of reasons which I will not go into now, that the planet I have chosen for this attempt is Mars. But it is quite untrue that I intend to make this flight alone. Actually there will be five of us aboard my ship when she takes off.

'I should like to dispel, too; the prevalent idea that I am engaged in deliberate suicide. I assure you we are not. All five of us could easily find much cheaper and less arduous ways of killing ourselves.

'There are, of course, risks. In fact, there are three distinct kinds of risk: the known ones which we can and shall prepare against: the known ones which we must trust to luck to avoid: and the entirely unknown. But we are convinced that we have more than a sporting chance against them all if we were not, we should not be making the attempt.

'Thanks to the courage and pertinacity of those who from the time of Piccard's ascent into the stratosphere in 1931 have pushed forward the examination of space, we shall not be shooting ourselves into the completely unknown. Thanks also to them, the design of my ship will be an improvement on any which has gone before, and unlike those of the early pioneers she is designed to contend with many of the known conditions of space as well as in the hope of surviving the unknown. Each expedition to leave Earth stands a better chance of success than its predecessor which is another way of saying that it risks less. Therefore, I say that if we are successful in this venture, if we gain for Britain the honour of being the first nation to achieve trans-spatial communication, it must never be forgotten that better men than we gave their lives to make it possible.

'If one can single out one man from an army of heroes and say, "This is the greatest of them all," I should point my finger at Richard Drivers. Compared with the risks that brave genius took, we take none. The story of that amazing man's persistence in the face of a jeering world when three of his friends had already crashed to their deaths upon the Moon, and the tale of his lonely flight around it are among the deathless epics of the race. Whatever may be done by us or by others after us, his achievement stands alone. And it will be he who made the rest possible.

'So, you see, we are not pioneers. We are only followers in a great tradition, hoping to tread the way of knowledge a little farther than the last man. If it is granted to us to be successful, we shall be satisfied to have been not entirely unworthy of our forerunners and of our country.'

The red light flickered and the televising mechanism slowed as the studio was cut off from the world. An important looking gentleman entered. He greeted Dale and shook hands.

'Thank you,' he said. 'Very good of you to come at such short notice.'

Dale grinned and shook his head. 'No, my thanks are due to you.' The other looked puzzled. 'You've not seen this evening's Banner?' Dale went on. 'They're trying to stop me. That means the Hail will be at it tomorrow. I was glad to get my word in first.'

'Trying to stop you?'

'Yes. Don't know why. Some stunt of theirs, I suppose. Nobody's going to stop me, but they might be a bit of nuisance if they got a big following.'

'H'm. It's a wonder people don't get sick of Dithernear's stunts, but they don't seem to. Well, I'm glad you came and I hope you are as optimistic as you sounded.'

'I am nearly,' Dale admitted, as they parted.

INTO the Curtance sheds where the great rocket rested in its thicket of scaffolding only the faintest ripples of popular excitement penetrated. Though Dale gave interviews freely enough to avid pressmen, he was adamant in his refusal to permit interruption in the routine of his shops, and the reception of those few journalists who attempted to enter by subterfuge was ungentle. An augmented corps of watchmen with the assistance of police dogs guarded doors behind which work went on with the same unhurried efficiency as in the days before the secret was out. The most obvious and concrete result of world wide interest was a new shed hastily run up to accommodate Dale's swollen secretariat.

The inquest upon the intruder was reported in full detail and followed with close attention, but it failed to provide any sensational revelations, and the body remained unidentified. The chief witness gave his evidence clearly, received the congratulations of the coroner upon his narrow escape and left the court with an increased reputation for courage.

Two days later the Chicago Emblem announced that the dead man had been an American citizen named Forder. It indignantly demanded a closer inquiry into the circumstances, hinting that Dale might show up less well. The leader on the subject finished by truculently demanding the passage of a special bill through Congress to prevent the Keuntz Prize from going abroad.

'That's the point,' Fuller said as he showed the article to Dale. 'That's the Keuntz works behind this, I'll bet. They're afraid of you lifting the prize.'