The captain felt his mouth grow dry; his blood quickened perceptibly.
He was hardly aware of answering or of hanging up the receiver.
Prepare to jump. . . .
He seemed for a moment to fission, to become two men -- an old man and
a young man; and while the old man sat behind the bare desk, the young
one stood crouched before the open hatch of an airplane, machine gun in
hand (they
had
used small arms in that war), staring out into the vast
brightness and down, far down, at the unfamiliar land, the improbable
rice paddies. The land had been so
green
. And then he had jumped,
and the land had come rushing up toward him. The land, in that instant,
became his enemy, and he . . . Did he become the enemy of that land?
But the captain knew better than to ask himself such questions. A policy
of deliberate and selective amnesia was the wisest. It had served him
in good stead these twelve years.
He put on his hat, and went out through the door of the orderly room into
a yard of unvigorous grass. Worsaw was sitting on the steps of the brick
barracks building, smoking. The captain addressed him without thinking:
"Sergeant!"
Worsaw rose and stood to attention smartly. "Sir!"
"That is to say -- " (Trying to make the blunder seem a deliberate cruelty,
and not -- which was inadmissible -- an error.) " --
Private
Worsaw.
Inform the men that they are to be prepared to make a jump in the morning
at eight hundred hours."
How quickly the clouds of resentment could overcast the man's pale eyes.
But in an even tone Worsaw replied, "Yes, sir."
"And shine those shoes, Private. They're a disgrace to this company."
"Yes,
sir
."
"You're in the Army now, Private. Don't you forget it."
"No,
sir
."
As though , the captain thought wryly as he walked away, he had any
choice. Poor devil. As though he
could
forget it. As though any of
us could.
"This will be your first jump, won't it, Captain?"
"Yes, sir."
Colonel Ives laid a forefinger on the soft folds of his chin. "Let me
caution you against expecting much, then. It will be no different there
than it is here at Camp Jackson. You breathe the same air, see the same
dome overhead, drink the same water, live in the same buildings, with
the same men."
"Yes -- so I've been told. But even so, it's hard to believe."
"There are
some
differences. For instance, you can't drive in to D.C. on
the week ends. And there are fewer officers. It can become very boring."
"You wouldn't be able to tell me, I suppose, to whom I'll be reporting?"
Colonel Ives shook his head aggrievedly. "I don't know myself. Security
around the Womb is absolute. It would be easier to break into heaven,
or into Fort Knox. You'll receive your final instructions tomorrow,
just before you go into the Womb, but not from me. I only work here."
Then why, the captain wondered, did you have me come to see you?
The colonel was not long in answering the unasked question: "I heard
about the little to-do you had this morning with the men."
"Yes -- with Sergeant Worsaw."
"Ah -- then you mean to say his rank has been restored already?"
"No. I'm afraid I was only speaking loosely."
"A shame that it had to happen. Warsaw is a good man, an absolutely
topnotch technician. The men respect him -- even the, um, colored boys.
You're not a Southerner yourself, are you, Captain?"
"No, sir."
"Didn't think so. We Southerners are sometimes hard to explain to other
folks. Take Worsaw now -- a good man, but he does have a stubborn streak,
and when he takes a notion into his head -- " Colonel Ives clucked with
dismay. "But a good man -- we can't let ourselves forget that."
Colonel Ives waited until the captain had agreed to this last statement.
"Of course these things will happen. They're inevitable when you're taking
over a new command. I remember, in my own case -- did I tell you that I
was once at the head of "A" Company myself? Yes, indeed! I had a little
trouble with that fellow too. But I smoothed it over, and soon we were all
working together like clockwork. Of course it was easier for me than it
will be for you. I hadn't gone so far as to strip him of rank. That was a
very strong gesture, Captain. I imagine you must have regretted it since?"
"No, sir. I was convinced at the time, and still am, that he merited it --
amply."
"Of course, of course. But we must remember the Golden Rule, eh? 'Live and
let live.' The Army is a team, and we've all got to pull together. You can't
do your work without Worsaw, Captain, and I can't do my work without you.
We can't let
prejudice
-- " Colonel Ives paused to smile, " -- or
temper
affect our judgment. Mutual co-operation: that's the Army way. You
co-operate with Worsaw, I co-operate with you."
The captain's attitude throughout this speech had been one of almost
Egyptian stillness. Now there was a long silence while Colonel Ives
waited, bobbing his head up and down into his chins, for the captain to
agree with him.
"Is that all, sir?" the captain asked.
"Now isn't that just like a Northerner? Always in a rush to be off
somewhere else. Well, don't let
me
slow you down, Captain. But if
I might offer a word of advice -- though it's none of my business -- "
"By all means, Colonel."
"I'd restore Worsaw's rank by the end of the week. I'm sure that will
have been punishment enough for what he did. I seem to recall, in my day,
that a little poaching wasn't unheard of after rifle drill. Nothing official,
of course, but then everything isn't always done in official ways, Captain.
If you take my meaning."
"I'll consider your recommendation, sir."
"Do! Do! Good night, Captain -- and bon voyage."
Outside, the captain wandered about for some time to no apparent purpose.
Perhaps he was considering the colonel's suggestion; more probably he was
only considering the colonel. His wanderings brought him to the center
of the unlighted parade grounds
He looked about him, scanning the sky -- forgetting, since he had lived
so many years beneath it, that this was not the real sky but a simulation;
for Camp Jackson, Virginia, was nestled under the western edge of the
Washington D.C. Dome. The dome was studded with millions of subminiaturized
photoelectric cells which read the positions of the revolving stars and
reduplicated their shifting pattern on the underside of its immense canopy.
There, low in the East, in the constellation of Taurus, was Mars --
the red planet, portent of war. It was very strange; it almost exceeded
belief that in less than twelve hours he, Captain Nathan Hansard of
"A" Artillery Company of the Camp Jackson/Mars Command Post, would be
standing with his feet firmly planted upon that speck of reddish light.
TWO
THE STEEL WOMB
It measured, on the outside, 14.14' x 14.14' x 10.00', so that an observer
regarding it from the floor of the hall in which it stood would see each
face of it as a golden rectangle. The walls were two feet thick, of solid
chrome-vanadium steel, covered with banks and boards of winking colored
lights. The play of these lights, itself an imposing spectacle, was
accompanied by nervous cracklings and humming sounds vaguely suggestive
of electricity, or at least of Science.
There was a single opening to this sanctum -- a portal some four feet in
diameter set into the center of one of the golden rectangles, like the
door of a bank vault. Even when this portal was open it was not possible
for onlookers to glimpse the awesome central chamber itself, for a mobile
steel antechamber would hide it from view at such times. No one but the
men who had made the jump -- the priests, as it were, of this mystery --
had ever seen what it was like inside the Steel Womb.
And it was all fakery, mere public relations and stagecraft. The jump to
Mars could have been made with the equivalent of four tin cans full of
electronic hardware and a power source no greater than would have been
available from a wall socket. The lights winked only for the benefit of
the photographers from
Life
; the air hummed so that visiting Congressmen
might be persuaded that the nation was getting its money's worth. The whole
set had been designed not by any engineer but by Emily Golden, who had also
done the sets a decade before for Kubrick's
Brave New World
.
Superfluous it might be, but it was no less daunting for all that. Hansard
was given ample time to savor the spectacle. Once "A" Company had arrived
at the outer, outer gate of the security complex of which the transmitter
was the navel stone, there had been a continuous sorting through of
passes and authorizations; there had been searches, identity checks,
telephone confirmations -- every imaginable kind of appetizer.
It was an hour before they reached the heart of the labyrinth, the hall
that housed the Holy of Holies, and it was another hour before each
man had been cleared for the jump. The hall they waited in was about
as big as a small-town high-school auditorium. The walls were bare,
unpainted concrete, the better to focus all eyes upon that magnificent
Christmas tree at the center of the room. Large as it was, however,
the hall seemed crowded now.
There were guards everywhere. There were guards before the portal of the
Womb, a dozen at least; there were guards at the doubly-locked door that
led out of the hall; there were guards all around the Christmas tree,
like so many khaki-wrapped presents, and there were guards, seemingly,
to guard the presents. There was a whole cordon of guards around the men
of "A" Company, and there were also guards behind the glass partitions
half-way up the walls of the hall.
It was there, in the booths behind those windows, that the technicians
adjusted the multitude of dials that made the Christmas tree glow and
bubble, and operated the single toggle switch that could send the contents
of the transmitter from Earth to Mars in literally no time at all.
The lights were reaching their apotheosis, and the countdown had already
begun for the opening of the portal (countdowns being the very stuff of
drama), when the door that led into the hall opened and a two-star general
under heavy guard entered and approached Hansard. Hansard recognized
him from his photograph as General Foss, the chief of all Mars operations.
After the formalities of introduction and identification, General Foss
explained his purpose succinctly: "You are to present this attaché case,
containing a Priority-A letter, to the commanding officer, General Pittmann,
immediately upon arrival. You will witness him remove the letter from
the case."
"General Pittmann -- the C.O.!"
General Foss made no further explanations; none were necessary, and he
did not seem disposed to practice conversation for its own sake.
Hansard was embarrassed at his outburst, but he was nonetheless pleased
to be enlightened. That General Pittmann was now heading the Mars Command
Post explained the otherwise inexplicable fact of Hansard's transfer from
the Pentagon to Camp Jackson. It was not Hansard who was being transferred
so much as Pittmann; the General's aide had simply been swept up in his wake.
They might have told me, Hansard thought, though it did not surprise
him that they had not. It would not have been the Army way.
Already the first squad of eight men, concealed in the belly of the mobile
antechamber as in some very streamlined Trojan horse, were approaching
the portal of the transmitter. The antechamber locked magnetically into
place, and there was a pause while the portal opened and the eight men,
all unseen, entered the Womb. Then the antechamber moved back, revealing
only the closed portal.
The multitude of lights ornamenting the surface of the transmitter now
darkened, with the exception of a single green globe above the portal
which indicated that the eight men were still present within. The hall
had grown hushed. Even the guards, themselves a part of the stagecraft,
regarded this moment of the mystery with reverence.
The green light turned to red: the men were on Mars.
The Christmas tree lit up again, and the process was repeated three more
times for three more squads of men. Nine, ten, even a dozen men might
have occupied the inner chamber without discomfort, but there was a
regulation to the effect that eight was to be the maximum number of men
to be allowed in the manmitter at any one time. No one knew why such a
regulation had been made, but there it was. It was now a part of the rites
surrounding the mystery, and had to be observed. It was the Army way.
After the four squads had made the jump, there remained a single soldier
-- a Negro private whose name Hansard was uncertain of (he was either
Young or Pearsall) -- and Hansard himself. A warrant officer informed
Hansard that he had the option of making the jump with this soldier,
or going through alone afterward.
"I'll go now." It was more comfortable, in a way, to have company.
He tucked the attaché case under his arm and climbed up the ladder and
into the antechamber. The private followed. They sat upon a narrow ledge
and waited while the Trojan horse rolled slowly and smoothly toward the
portal of the manmitter.
"Made many jumps, Private?"
"No, sir. This is the first. I'm the only one in the company that hasn't
been there before."
"Not the only one, Private. It's my first jump too."
The antechamber locked against the steel wall of the transmitter, and the
portal opened inward with a discreet click. Crouching, Hansard and the
private entered. The door closed behind them.
Here there were no special effects; neither rumblings nor flashing lights.
The noise in his ears was the pulse of his own blood. The feeling in his
stomach was a cramped muscle. As he had done in the practice session,
he stared intently at the sign stencilled with white paint on the wall
of the vault:
CAMP JACKSON/EARTH
MATTER TRANSMITTER
Then, in an instant, or rather in no time at all, the sign had changed.
Now it read:
CAMP JACKSON/MARS
MATTER TRANSMITTER
It was as simple as that.
The instantaneous transmission of matter, the most important innovation
in the history of transportation since the wheel, was the invention
of a single man, Dr. Bernard Xavier Panofsky. Born in Poland in 1929,
Panofsky spent his youth and early adolescence in a Nazi labor camp
where his childhood genius first manifested itself in a series of highly
ingenious -- and successful -- escape plans. Upon being liberated,
so the story goes, he immediately applied himself to the formal study
of mathematics and found to his chagrin that he had, independently and
all ignorantly, reinvented that branch of mathematics known as analysis
situs, or topology.