The Star (8 page)
It was Professor Williams, our very practical-minded astronomer, who came to me one day with the answer to my main problem.
‘Skipper,’ he said, balancing himself precariously on the all-too-collapsible table I used as my working desk inside the igloo, ‘there’s no technical reason, is there, why we should get back to Earth first?’
‘No,’ I said, ‘merely a matter of fame, fortune, and seeing our families again. But I admit those aren’t technical reasons. We could stay here another year if Earth kept sending supplies. If you want to suggest that, however, I shall take great pleasure in strangling you.’
‘It’s not as bad as that. Once the main body has gone back, whichever party is left can follow in two or three weeks at the latest. They’ll get a lot of credit, in fact, for self-sacrifice, modesty, and similar virtues.’
‘Which will be very poor compensation for being second home.’
‘Right—we need something else to make it worthwhile. Some more material reward.’
‘Agreed. What do you suggest?’
Williams pointed to the calendar hanging on the wall in front of me, between the two pin-ups we had stolen from the
Goddard
. The length of our stay was indicated by the days that had been crossed off in red ink; a big question mark in two weeks’ time showed when the first ship would be heading back to Earth.
‘There’s your answer,’ he said. ‘If we go back then, do you realise what will happen? I’ll tell you.’
He did, and I kicked myself for not having thought of it first.
The next day, I explained my decision to Vandenburg and Krasnin.
‘We’ll stay behind and do the mopping up,’ I said. ‘It’s a matter of common sense. The
Goddard
’s a much bigger ship than ours and can carry an extra four people, while we can only manage two more, and even then it will be a squeeze. If you go first, Van, it will save a lot of people from eating their hearts out here for longer than necessary.’
‘That’s very big of you,’ replied Vandenburg. ‘I won’t hide the fact that we’ll be happy to get home. And it’s logical, I admit, now that the
Ziolkovski
’s out of action. Still, it means quite a sacrifice on your part, and I don’t really like to take advantage of it.’
I gave an expansive wave.
‘Think nothing of it,’ I answered. ‘As long as you boys don’t grab all the credit, we’ll take our turn. After all, we’ll have the show here to ourselves when you’ve gone back to Earth.’
Krasnin was looking at me with a rather calculating expression, and I found it singularly difficult to return his gaze.
‘I hate to sound cynical,’ he said, ‘but I’ve learned to be a little suspicious when people start doing big favours without very good reasons. And frankly, I don’t think the reason you’ve given is good enough. You wouldn’t have anything else up your sleeve, would you?’
‘Oh, very well,’ I sighed. ‘I’d hoped to get a
little
credit, but I see it’s no use trying to convince anyone of the purity of my motives. I’ve got a reason, and you might as well know it. But please don’t spread it around; I’d hate the folks back on Earth to be disillusioned. They still think of us as noble and heroic seekers after knowledge; let’s keep it that way, for all our sakes.’
Then I pulled out the calendar, and explained to Vandenburg and Krasnin what Williams had already explained to me. They listened with scepticism, then with growing sympathy.
‘I had no idea it was
that
bad,’ said Vandenburg at last.
‘Americans never have,’ I said sadly. ‘Anyway, that’s the way it’s been for half a century, and it doesn’t seem to get any better. So you agree with my suggestion?’
‘Of course. It suits us fine, anyhow. Until the next expedition’s ready, the moon’s all yours.’
I remembered that phrase, two weeks later, as I watched the
Goddard
blast up into the sky toward the distant, beckoning Earth. It was lonely, then, when the Americans and all but two of the Russians had gone. We envied them the reception they got, and watched jealously on the TV screens their triumphant processions through Moscow and New York. Then we went back to work, and bided our time. Whenever we felt depressed, we would do little sums on bits of paper and would be instantly restored to cheerfulness.
The red crosses marched across the calendar as the short terrestrial days went by—days that seemed to have very little connection with the slow cycle of lunar time. At last we were ready; all the instrument readings were taken, all the specimens and samples safely packed away aboard the ship. The motors roared into life, giving us for a moment the weight we would feel again when we were back in Earth’s gravity. Below us the rugged lunar landscape, which we had grown to know so well, fell swiftly away; within seconds we could see no sign at all of the buildings and instruments we had so laboriously erected and which future explorers would one day use.
The homeward voyage had begun. We returned to Earth in uneventful discomfort, joined the already half-dismantled
Goddard
beside Space Station Three, and were quickly ferried down to the world we had left seven months before.
Seven months
: that, as Williams had pointed out, was the all-important figure. We had been on the moon for more than half a financial year—and for all of us, it had been the most profitable year of our lives.
Sooner or later, I suppose, this interplanetary loop-hole will be plugged; the Department of Inland Revenue is still fighting a gallant rear-guard action, but we seem neatly covered under Section 57, paragraph 8 of the Capital Gains Act of 1972. We wrote our books and articles on the moon—and until there’s a lunar government to impose income tax, we’re hanging on to every penny.
And if the ruling finally goes against us—well, there’s always Mars….
First published in
Fantastic Universe
, October 1956
Collected in
Tales from the White Hart
John Christopher and John Wyndham flit briefly across the stage as Harry Purvis spins another yarn at the White Hart, this time telling the story of a very early, ingenious computer virus…
I got to the ‘White Hart’ late that evening, and when I arrived everyone was crowded into the corner under the dartboard. All except Drew, that is: he had not deserted his post, but was sitting behind the bar reading the collected T. S. Eliot. He broke off from
The Confidential Clerk
long enough to hand me a beer and to tell me what was going on.
‘Eric’s brought in some kind of games machine—it’s beaten everybody so far. Sam’s trying his luck with it now.’
At that moment, a roar of laughter announced that Sam had been no luckier than the rest, and I pushed my way through the crowd to see what was happening.
On the table lay a flat metal box the size of a checkerboard, and divided into squares in a similar way. At the corner of each square was a two-way switch and a little neon lamp: the whole affair was plugged into the light socket (thus plunging the dartboard into darkness) and Eric Rodgers was looking round for a new victim.
‘What does the thing do?’ I asked.
‘It’s a modification of naughts and crosses—what the Americans call ticktacktoe. Shannon showed it to me when I was over at Bell Labs. What you have to do is to complete a path from one side of the board to the other—call it north to south—by turning these switches. Imagine the thing forms a grid of streets, if you like, and these neons are the traffic lights. You and the machine take turns making moves. The machine tries to block your path by building one of its own in the east-west direction—the little neons light up to tell you which way it wants to make a move. Neither track need be a straight line: you can zigzag as much as you like. All that matters is that the path must be continuous, and the one to get across the board first wins.’
‘Meaning the machine, I suppose?’
‘Well, it’s never been beaten yet.’
‘Can’t you force a draw, by blocking the machine’s path, so that at least you don’t lose?’
‘That’s what we’re trying: like to have a go?’
Two minutes later I joined the other unsuccessful contestants. The machine had dodged all my barriers and established its own track from east to west. I wasn’t convinced that it was unbeatable, but the game was clearly a good deal more complicated than it looked.
Eric glanced round his audience when I had retired. No one else seemed in a hurry to move forward.
‘Ha!’ he said. ‘The very man. What about you, Purvis? You’ve not had a shot yet.’
Harry Purvis was standing at the back of the crowd, with a faraway look in his eye. He jolted back to earth as Eric addressed him, but didn’t answer the question directly.
‘Fascinating things, these electronic computers,’ he mused. ‘I suppose I shouldn’t tell you this, but your gadget reminds me of what happened to Project Clausewitz. A curious story, and one very expensive to the American taxpayer.’
‘Look,’ said John Wyndham anxiously. ‘Before you start, be a good sport and let us get our glasses filled. Drew!’
This important matter having been attended to, we gathered round Harry. Only Charlie Willis still remained with the machine, hopefully trying his luck.
‘As you all know,’ began Harry, ‘Science with a capital S is a big thing in the military world these days. The weapons side—rockets, atom bombs and so on—is only part of it, though that’s all the public knows about. Much more fascinating, in my opinion, is the operational-research angle. You might say that’s concerned with brains rather than brute force. I once heard it defined as how to win wars without actually fighting, and that’s not a bad description.
‘Now you all know about the big electronic computers that cropped up like mushrooms in the 1950s. Most of them were built to deal with mathematical problems, but when you think about it you’ll realise that war itself is a mathematical problem. It’s such a complicated one that human brains can’t handle it—there are far too many variables. Even the greatest strategist cannot see the picture as a whole: the Hitlers and Napoleons always make a mistake in the end.
‘But a machine—that would be a different matter. A number of bright people realised this after the end of the war. The techniques that had been worked out in the building of ENLAC and the other big computers could revolutionise strategy.
‘Hence Project Clausewitz. Don’t ask me how I got to know about it, or press me for too many details. All that matters is that a good many megabucks worth of electronic equipment, and some of the best scientific brains in the United States, went into a certain cavern in the Kentucky hills. They’re still there, but things haven’t turned out exactly as they expected.
‘Now I don’t know what experience you have of high-ranking military officers, but there’s one type you’ll all come across in fiction. That’s the pompous, conservative, stick-in-the-mud careerist who’s got to the top by sheer pressure from beneath, who does everything by rules and regulations and regards civilians as, at the best, unfriendly neutrals. I’ll let you into a secret: he actually exists. He’s not very common nowadays, but he’s still around and sometimes it’s not possible to find a safe job for him. When that happens, he’s worth his weight in plutonium to the Other Side.
‘Such a character, it seems, was General Smith. No, of
course
that wasn’t his real name! His father was a senator, and although lots of people in the Pentagon had tried hard enough, the old man’s influence had prevented the General from being put in charge of something harmless, like the coast defence of Wyoming. Instead, by miraculous misfortune, he had been made the officer responsible for Project Clausewitz.
‘Of course, he was only concerned with the administrative, not the scientific aspects of the work. All might yet have been well had the General been content to let the scientists get on with their work while he concentrated on saluting smartness, the coefficient of reflection of barrack floors, and similar matters of military importance. Unfortunately, he didn’t.
‘The General had led a sheltered existence. He had, if I may borrow from Wilde (everybody else does), been a man of peace, except in his domestic life. He had never met scientists before, and the shock was considerable. So perhaps it is not fair to blame him for everything that happened.
