Read The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke Online
Authors: Arthur C. Clarke
‘Please permit me a slight digression. At College we have a flourishing Musical Society, which in recent years has grown in numbers to such an extent that it can now tackle the less monumental symphonies. In the year of which I speak, it was embarking on a very ambitious enterprise. It was going to produce a new opera, a work by a talented young composer whose name it would not be fair to mention, since it is now well known to you all. Let us call him Edward England. I’ve forgotten the title of the work, but it was one of these stark dramas of tragic love which, for some reason I’ve never been able to understand, are supposed to be less ridiculous with a musical accompaniment than without. No doubt a good deal depends on the music.
‘I can still remember reading the synopsis while waiting for the curtain to go up, and to this day have never been able to decide whether the libretto was meant seriously or not. Let’s see—the period was the late Victorian era, and the main characters were Sarah Stampe, the passionate postmistress, Walter Partridge, the saturnine gamekeeper, and the squire’s son, whose name I forget. It’s the old story of the eternal triangle, complicated by the villagers’ resentment of change—in this case, the new telegraph system, which the local crones predict will Do Things to the cow’s milk and cause trouble at lambing time.
‘Ignoring the frills, it’s the usual drama of operatic jealousy. The squire’s son doesn’t want to marry into the Post Office, and the gamekeeper, maddened by his rejection, plots revenge. The tragedy rises to its dreadful climax when poor Sarah, strangled with parcel tape, is found hidden in a mailbag in the Dead Letter Department. The villagers hang Partridge from the nearest telegraph pole, much to the annoyance of the linesmen. He was supposed to sing an aria while he was being hung:
that
is one thing I regret missing. The squire’s son takes to drink, or the Colonies, or both: and that’s that.
‘I’m sure you’re wondering where all this is leading: please bear with me for a moment longer. The fact is that while thus synthetic jealousy was being rehearsed, the real thing was going on backstage. Fenton’s friend Kendall had been spurned by the young lady who was to play Sarah Stampe. I don’t think he was a particularly vindictive person, but he saw an opportunity for a unique revenge. Let us be frank and admit that college life
does
breed a certain irresponsibility—and in identical circumstances, how many of
us
would have rejected the same chance?
‘I see the dawning comprehension on your faces. But we, the audience, had no suspicion when the overture started on that memorable day. It was a most distinguished gathering: everyone was there, from the Chancellor downwards. Deans and professors were two a penny: I never did discover how so many people had been bullied into coming. Now that I come to think of it, I can’t remember what I was doing there myself.
‘The overture died away amid cheers, and, I must admit, occasional catcalls from the more boisterous members of the audience. Perhaps I do them an injustice: they may have been the more musical ones.
‘Then the curtain went up. The scene was the village square at Doddering Sloughleigh,
circa
1860. Enter the heroine, reading the postcards in the morning’s mail. She comes across a letter addressed to the young squire and promptly bursts into song.
‘Sarah’s opening aria wasn’t quite as bad as the overture, but it was grim enough. Luckily, we were to hear only the first few bars…
‘Precisely. We need not worry about such details as how Kendall had talked the ingenuous Fenton into it—if, indeed, the inventor realised the use to which his device was being applied. All I need to say is that it was a most convincing demonstration. There was a sudden, deadening blanket of silence, and Sarah Stampe just faded out like a TV programme when the sound is turned off. Everyone was frozen in his seat, while the singer’s lips went on moving silently. Then she too realised what had happened. Her mouth opened in what would have been a piercing scream in any other circumstances, and she fled into the wings amid a shower of postcards.
‘Thereafter, the chaos was unbelievable. For a few minutes everyone must have thought they had lost the sense of hearing, but soon they were able to tell from the behaviour of their companions that they were not alone in their deprivation. Someone in the Physics Department must have realised the truth fairly promptly, for soon little slips of paper were circulating among the V.I.P.s in the front row. The Vice-Chancellor was rash enough to try and restore order by sign language, waving frantically to the audience from the stage. By this time I was too sick with laughter to appreciate such fine details.
‘There was nothing for it but to get out of the hall, which we all did as quickly as we could. I think Kendall had fled—he was so overcome by the effect of the gadget that he didn’t stop to switch it off. He was afraid of staying around in case he was caught and lynched. As for Fenton—alas, we shall never know
his
side of the story. We can only reconstruct the subsequent events from the evidence that was left.
‘As I picture it, he must have waited until the hall was empty, and then crept in to disconnect his apparatus. We heard the explosion all over the college.’
‘The
explosion
?’ someone gasped.
‘Of course. I shudder to think what a narrow escape we all had. Another dozen decibels, a few more phons—and it might have happened while the theatre was still packed. Regard it, if you like, as an example of the inscrutable workings of providence that only the inventor was caught in the explosion. Perhaps it was as well: at least he perished in the moment of achievement, and before the Dean could get at him.’
‘Stop moralising, man. What happened?’
‘Well, I told you that Fenton was very weak on theory. If he’d gone into the mathematics of the Silencer he’d have found his mistake. The trouble is, you see, that one can’t
destroy
energy. Not even when you cancel out one train of waves by another. All that happens then is that the energy you’ve neutralized accumulates
somewhere
else. It’s rather like sweeping up all the dirt in a room—at the cost of an unsightly pile under the carpet.
‘When you look into the theory of the thing, you’ll find that Fenton’s gadget wasn’t a silencer so much as a
collector
of sound. All the time it was switched on, it was really absorbing sound energy. And at that concert, it was certainly going flat out. You’ll understand what I mean if you’ve ever looked at one of Edward England’s scores. On top of that, of course, there was all the noise the audience was making—or I should say was
trying
to make—during the resultant panic. The total amount of energy must have been terrific, and the poor Silencer had to keep on sucking it up. Where did it go? Well, I don’t know the circuit details—probably into the condensers of the power pack. By the time Fenton started to tinker with it again, it was like a loaded bomb. The sound of his approaching footsteps was the last straw, and the overloaded apparatus could stand no more. It blew up.’
For a moment no one said a word, perhaps as a token of respect for the late Mr Fenton. Then Eric Maine, who for the last ten minutes had been muttering in the corner over his calculations, pushed his way through the ring of listeners. He held a sheet of paper thrust aggressively in front of him.
‘Hey!’ he said. ‘I was right all the time. The thing couldn’t work. The phase and amplitude relations…’
Purvis waved him away.
‘That’s just what I’ve explained,’ he said patiently. ‘You should have been listening. Too bad that Fenton found out the hard way.’
He glanced at his watch. For some reason, he now seemed in a hurry to leave.
‘My goodness! Time’s getting on. One of these days, remind me to tell you about the extraordinary thing we saw through the new proton microscope. That’s an even more remarkable story.’
He was halfway through the door before anyone else could challenge him. Then George Whitley recovered his breath.
‘Look here,’ he said in a perplexed voice. ‘How is it that we never heard about this business?’
Purvis paused on the threshold, his pipe now burbling briskly as it got into its stride once more. He glanced back over his shoulder.
‘There was only one thing to do,’ he replied. ‘We didn’t want a scandal—
de mortuis nil nisi bonum
, you know. Besides, in the circumstances, don’t you think it was highly appropriate to—ah—
hush
the whole business up? And a very good night to you all.’
Originally published in
Lilliput
, February 1951, as ‘Three Men in a Flying Saucer’ Collected in
Reach for Tomorrow
The flying saucer came down vertically through the clouds, braked to a halt about fifty feet from the ground, and settled with a considerable bump on a patch of heather-strewn moorland.
‘That,’ said Captain Wyxtpthll, ‘was a lousy landing.’ He did not, of course, use precisely these words. To human ears his remarks would have sounded rather like the clucking of an angry hen. Master Pilot Krtclugg unwound three of his tentacles from the control panel, stretched all four of his legs, and relaxed comfortably.
‘Not my fault the automatics have packed up again,’ he grumbled. ‘But what do you expect with a ship that should have been scrapped five thousand years ago? If those cheese-paring form-fillers back at Base Planet—’
‘Oh, all right! We’re down in one piece, which is more than I expected. Tell Crysteel and Danstor to come in here. I want a word with them before they go.’
Crysteel and Danstor were, very obviously, of a different species from the rest of the crew. They had only one pair of legs and arms, no eyes at the back of the head, and other physical deficiencies which their colleagues did their best to overlook. These very defects, however, had made them the obvious choice for this particular mission, for it had needed only a minimum of disguise to let them pass as human beings under all but the closest scrutiny.
‘Now you’re perfectly sure,’ said the Captain, ‘that you understand your instructions?’
‘Of course,’ said Crysteel, slightly huffed. ‘This isn’t the first time I’ve made contact with a primitive race. My training in anthropology—’
‘Good. And the language?’
‘Well, that’s Danstor’s business, but I can speak it reasonably fluently now. It’s a very simple language, and after all we’ve been studying their radio programmes for a couple of years.’
‘Any other points before you go?’
‘Er—there’s just one matter.’ Crysteel hesitated slightly. ‘It’s quite obvious from their broadcasts that the social system is very primitive, and that crime and lawlessness are widespread. Many of the wealthier citizens have to use what are called “detectives” or “special agents” to protect their lives and property. Now we know it’s against regulations, but we were wondering…’
‘What?’
‘Well, we’d feel much safer if we could take a couple of Mark III disrupters with us.’
‘Not on your life! I’d be court-martialled if they heard about it at the Base. Suppose you killed some of the natives—then I’d have the Bureau of Interstellar Politics, the Aborigines Conservancy Board, and half a dozen others after me.’
‘There’d be just as much trouble if
we
got killed,’ Crysteel pointed out with considerable emotion. ‘After all, you’re responsible for our safety. Remember that radio play I was telling you about? It described a typical household, but there were two murders in the first half hour!’
‘Oh, very well. But only a Mark II—we don’t want you to do too much damage if there
is
trouble.’
‘Thanks a lot; that’s a great relief. I’ll report every thirty minutes as arranged. We shouldn’t be gone more than a couple of hours.’
Captain Wyxtpthll watched them disappear over the brow of the hill. He sighed deeply.
‘Why,’ he said, ‘of all the people in the ship did it have to be
those
two?’
‘It couldn’t be helped,’ answered the pilot. ‘All these primitive races are terrified of anything strange. If they saw
us
coming, there’d be general panic and before we knew where we were the bombs would be falling on top of us. You just can’t rush these things.’
Captain Wyxtpthll was absentmindedly making a cat’s cradle out of his tentacles in the way he did when he was worried.
‘Of course,’ he said, ‘if they don’t come back I can always go away and report the place dangerous.’ He brightened considerably. ‘Yes, that would save a lot of trouble.’
‘And waste all the months we’ve spent studying it?’ said the pilot, scandalised. ‘They won’t be wasted,’ replied the captain, unravelling himself with a flick that no human eye could have followed. ‘Our report will be useful for the next survey ship. I’ll suggest that we make another visit in—oh, let’s say five thousand years. By then the place may be civilised—though frankly, I doubt it.’
Samuel Higginsbotham was settling down to a snack of cheese and cider when he saw the two figures approaching along the lane. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, put the bottle carefully down beside his hedge-trimming tools, and stared with mild surprise at the couple as they came into range.
‘Mornin’,’ he said cheerfully between mouthfuls of cheese.
The strangers paused. One was surreptitiously ruffling through a small book which, if Sam only knew, was packed with such common phrases and expressions as: ‘Before the weather forecast, here is a gale warning’, ‘Stick ’em up—I’ve got you covered!’, and ‘Calling all cars!’ Danstor, who had no needs for these aids to memory, replied promptly enough.
‘Good morning, my man,’ he said in his best BBC accent. ‘Could you direct us to the nearest hamlet, village, small town or other such civilised community?’
‘Eh?’ said Sam. He peered suspiciously at the strangers, aware for the first time that there was something very odd about their clothes. One did not, he realised dimly, normally wear a roll-top sweater with a smart pin-striped suit of the pattern fancied by city gents. And the fellow who was still fussing with the little book was actually wearing full evening dress which would have been faultless but for the lurid green and red tie, the hob-nailed boots and the cloth cap. Crysteel and Danstor had done their best, but they had seen too many television plays. When one considers that they had no other source of information, their sartorial aberrations were at least understandable.