The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke (3 page)

By 1945 there were a score of societies in the country, each spreading destruction over rapidly widening areas. My society, though only founded in 1949, already has to its credit one church, two Methodist chapels, five cinemas, seventeen trust houses, and innumerable private residences, some as far away as Weevil-in-the-Wurzle and Little Dithering. However, there can be no doubt in unprejudiced minds that the sudden collapse of the lunar crater Vitus was caused by one of our rockets, in spite of the claims of the French, German, American, Russian, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, Swiss and Danish Societies (to mention only a few), all of whom, we are asked to believe, dispatched rockets moonwards a few days before the phenomenon was witnessed.

At first we contented ourselves with firing large models to considerable heights. These test rockets were fitted with recording baro-thermographs, etc. and our lawyers kept us fully informed as to their landing places. We were progressing very favourably with this important work when the unwarrantable defection of our insurance company forced us to start work on a large, man-carrying spaceship. We already had a sufficiently powerful fuel, details of which I cannot divulge here, save to say that it was a complex hydrocarbon into which our chemist, Dr Badstoff, had with great ingenuity introduced no less than sixteen quadruple carbon bonds. This new fuel was so violent that at first it caused a rapid change in our personnel, but by continued research it had been stabilised until the explosion took place when expected on 97½ occasions out of 100—in which it showed its immense superiority over Dr Sprocket’s triple heavy hyper-hyzone (20 occasions in 100) and Prof. Swivel’s nitrogen heptafluoride (probability of non-explosion incommensurable).

The ship itself was thirty metres long and was made of moulded neo-bakelite with crystallux windows, and consisted of two steps, which were ample thanks to our new fuel. The whole thing would have cost a great deal of money had we intended to pay for it. The rocket motors were made of one of the new boro-silicon alloys and had an operating time of several minutes. Apart from these features, our ship did not differ materially from any other designed previously, except in so far that it had actually been constructed. We had no intention of venturing far out into space on our first flight, but circumstances of which I shall relate altered our plans in an unforeseen manner.

On the 1st of April, 1952, everything was ready for a preliminary flight. I broke the customary vacuum flask on the prow of the ship, christened it the ‘Pride of the Galaxy’, and we (this is, myself and the five surviving members of the council of twenty-five) entered the cabin and carefully sealed the door, squeezing the chewing gum into all the cracks.

The ship itself was resting on a balloon-type undercarriage and we had a straight run of two miles over various people’s lawns and gardens. We intended to rise to a height of a few hundred miles and then to glide back to earth, landing as best we could with little regard to life or property save our own.

I seated myself at the controls and the others lay in the compensating hammocks which we hoped
might
save us from the shock of the take-off. In any case every spaceship has them and we could hardly do otherwise. With an expression of grim determination, which I had to assume several times before Ivan Schnitzel, our official photographer, was satisfied, I pressed the starting button and—rather to our surprise—the ship began to move.

After leaving our grounds it tore through a fence into a vegetable garden which it rapidly converted into a ploughed field, and then passed over a large lawn doing comparatively little damage apart from setting fire to a few greenhouses. By now we were nearing a row of buildings which might offer some resistance, and as we had not yet lifted, I turned the power full on. With a tremendous roar, the ship leapt into the air, and amid the groans of my companions I lost consciousness.

When I recovered, I realised that we were in space and jumped to my feet to see if we were falling back to earth. But I had forgotten my weightless condition and crashed head first against the ceiling, once more losing consciousness.

When I recovered, I very carefully made my way to the window and with relief saw that we were now floating back to earth. My relief was short-lived when I found that the earth was nowhere in sight! I at once realised that we must have been unconscious for a very long time—my less robust companions still lay in a coma, or rather several comas, at the end of the cabin, the hammocks having given way under the strain, to the detriment of their occupants.

I first inspected the machinery, which so far as I could tell seemed intact, and then set about reviving my companions. This I readily did by pouring a little liquid air down their necks. When all were conscious (or as nearly so as could be expected in the circumstances). I rapidly outlined the situation and explained the need for complete calm. After the resulting hysteria had subsided, I asked for volunteers to go outside in a space suit and inspect the ship. I am sorry to say that I had to go myself.

Luckily, the exterior of the ship seemed quite intact, though there were bits of branches and a ‘Trespassers will be Prosecuted’ notice stuck in the rudder. These I detached and threw away, but unluckily they got into an orbit round the ship and returned round the back, catching me a resounding whack on the head.

The impact knocked me off the ship, and to my horror I found myself floating in space. I did not, of course, lose my head but immediately looked around for some method by which I could return. In the pouch on the exterior of the space-suit I found a safety-pin, two tram tickets, a double-headed penny, a football-pool coupon covered with what seemed to be orbital calculations, and a complimentary ticket to the Russian ballet. After a careful scrutiny of these, I came to the reluctant conclusion that they offered little hope. Even if I could bring myself to throw away the penny, its momentum would, I rapidly calculated, be insufficient to return me to the ship. The tickets I did throw away, rather as a gesture than anything else, and I was about to throw the safety-pin after them—it would have given me a velocity of .000001 millimetres an hour, which was better than nothing (by, in fact, .000001 mm/hour.)—when a splendid idea occurred to me. I carefully punctured my space-suit with the pin, and in a moment the escaping jet of air drove me back to the ship. I entered the air-lock just as the suit collapsed, not a moment too soon.

My companions crowded round me, eager for news, though there was little that I could tell them. It would take prolonged measurements to discover our position and I commenced this important work at once.

After ten minutes’ observations of the stars, followed by five hours intensive calculations on our specially lubricated multiple slide-rules, I was able to announce, to the relief of all present, that we were 5,670,000 miles from the earth, 365,000 miles above the ecliptic, travelling towards Right Ascension 23 hours 15 mins. 37.07 secs., Declination 153° 17′ 36″. We had feared that we might have been moving towards, for example, R.A. 12 hours 19 mins. 7.3 secs, Dec. 169° 15′ 17″ or even, if the worst had happened, R.A. 5 hours 32 mins. 59.9 secs, Dec. 0° 0′ 0″.

At least, we were doing this when we took our observations, but as we had moved several million miles in the meantime, we had to start all over again to find where we were
now
. After several trials, we succeeded in finding where we were only two hours before we found it, but in spite of the greatest efforts we could not reduce the time taken in calculation to less than this value. So with this we had to be content.

The earth was between us and the sun, which was why we could not see it. Since we were travelling in the direction of Mars, I suggested that we could continue on our present course and try to make a landing on the planet. I had grave doubts, in fact, as to whether there was anything else we could do. So for two days we cruised on towards the red planet, my companions relieving the tedium with dominoes, poker and three-dimensional billiards (which, of course, can only be played in the absence of gravity). However, I had little time for these pursuits, as I had to keep constant check on the ship’s position. In any case, I was completely fleeced on the first day, and was unable to obtain any credit from my grasping companions.

All the time Mars was slowly growing larger, and as we drew nearer and nearer many were the speculations we made as to what we should find when we landed on the mysterious red planet.

‘One thing we
can
be certain of,’ remarked Isaac Guzzbaum, our auditor, to me as we were looking through the ports at the world now only a few million miles away. ‘We won’t be met by a lot of old johnnies with flowing robes and boards who will address us in perfect English and give us the freedom of the city, as in so many science-fiction stories. I’ll bet our next year’s deficit on that!’

Finally we began our braking manoeuvres and curved down towards the planet in a type of logarithmic spiral whose first, second and third differential coefficients are in harmonic ratio—a curve on which I hold all patents. We made a landing near the equator, as close to the Solis Lacus as possible. Our ship slid for several miles across the desert, leaving a trail of fused quartz behind it where the blast touched the ground, and ended up with its nose in a sand dune.

Our first move was to investigate the air. We decided unanimously (only Mr Guzzbaum dissenting), that Mr Guzzbaum should be detailed to enter the air-lock and sample the Martian atmosphere. Fortunately for him, it proved fit for human consumption, and we all joined Isaac in the air-lock. I then stepped solemnly out onto Martian soil—the first human being in history to do so—while Ivan Schnitzel recorded the scene for the benefit of history. As a matter of fact, we later found that he had forgotten to load the camera. Perhaps this was just as well, for my desire for strict accuracy compels me to admit that no sooner did I touch the ground then it gave way beneath my feet, precipitating me into a sandy pit from which I was with difficulty rescued by my companions.

However, in spite of this mishap, we eventually clambered up the dune and surveyed the countryside. It was most uninteresting, consisting solely of long ridges of heaped-up sand. We were debating what to do when suddenly we heard a high-pitched whining noise in the sky and to our surprise a cigar-shaped metal vessel dropped to the ground a few yards away. A door slid open.

‘Fire when you see the whites of their eyes!’ hissed Eric Wobblewit, our tame humourist, but I could tell that his joke was even more forced than usual. Indeed, we all felt nervous as we waited for the occupants of the ship to emerge.

They were three old men with long beards, clad in flowing white robes. Behind me I heard a dull thud as Isaac passed out. The leader spoke to me in what would have been flawless BBC English had it not been for the bits he had obviously picked up from Schoncctady.

‘Welcome, visitors from Earth! I’m afraid this is not an authorised landing place, but we will let that pass for the moment. We have come to guide you to our city of Xzgtpkl.’

‘Thanks,’ I replied, somewhat taken aback, ‘I’m sure we’re very grateful to you for your trouble. Is it far to Zxgtpkl?’

The Martian winced. ‘
Xzgtpkl
,’ he said firmly.

‘Well, Xzgtplk, then,’ I went on desperately. The other two Martians looked pained and took a firmer grip on the rod-like instruments they were carrying. (These, we learned later, were walking-sticks.) The leader gave me up as a bad job.

‘Skip it,’ he said. ‘It’s about fifty miles away as the crow flies, though as there aren’t any crows on Mars we have never been able to check this very accurately. Could you fly your ship behind us?’

‘We could,’ I replied, ‘though we’d rather not, unless Zxg— er, your city, is heavily insured with a reputable firm. Could you carry us? No doubt you have tractor beams and such-like.’

The Martian seemed surprised. ‘Yes, we have,’ he said, ‘but how did you know it?’

‘Just a surmise,’ I replied modestly. ‘Well, we’ll get over to our ship and leave the rest to you.’

We did so, carrying the prostrate Guzzbaum with us, and in a few minutes were speeding over the desert after the Martian ship. Soon the spires of the mighty city reared above the horizon and in a short time we landed in a great square, surrounded by teeming crowds.

In a trice, or less, we were facing a battery of cameras and microphones, or their Martian equivalents. Our guide spoke a few words and then beckoned to me. With characteristic foresight I had prepared a speech before leaving earth, so I pulled it from my pocket and read it to, no doubt, the entire Martian nation. It was only when I had finished that I noticed I was reading the lecture: ‘British Science-Fiction Authors: Their Prevention or Cure?’ which I had given to the S.F.A. a few months before and which had already involved me in six libel actions. This was unfortunate, but from the reception, I am sure that the Martians found it of interest. The Martian cheer, oddly enough, closely resembles the terrestrial boo.

We were then taken (with difficulty) onto a moving road which led to a giant building in the centre of the city, where a lavish meal awaited us. What it consisted of we never succeeded in ascertaining, and we rather hope it was synthetic.

After the meal we were asked what part of the city we would like to visit, as it was entirely at our disposal. We did our best to explain what a variety show was, but the idea seemed beyond our guides and as we had feared they insisted on showing us over their power-plants and factories. Here I must say we found our knowledge of contemporary science-fiction invaluable, for everything with which the Martians tried to surprise us we had heard of long before. Their atomic generators, for instance, we compared unfavourably with those described by many terrestrial writers (though we took care to secure the plans) and we expressed surprise at their inability to overcome these laws of nature that have been repealed by our economists and politicians for years. In fact—and I say it with pride—the Martians got very little change out of us. When the tour finished I was lecturing the leader on the habits of termites and behind me I could hear Mr Guzzbaum (now, alas, his normal self) criticising the scandalously low rates of interest allowed in Martian trade.