Murray Leinster

“ But he was on his way to the space-port. He was riding in a helicab, and he was making adjustments in his own mind to the humiliation he unconsciously foresaw. There were really three levels of thought in his mind. One had adopted a defensive cynicism, and one desperately insisted that he couldn't be as unimportant as his instructions implied, and the third watched the other two as the helicab flew with cushioned booming noises over the dark canyons of the city and the innumerable lonely lights of the rooftops.
There was a thin roaring sound, high aloft. Cochrane jerked his head back. ”

“ He had looked down upon Earth from a height of four thousand miles with no feeling of dizziness. He had looked at Earth a quarter-million miles away with no consciousness of depth. But a mere fifty feet above the surface of the moon he felt like somebody swinging out of a skyscraper window.
Then the airlock opening was beside them, and the sling rolled inward. They were in the lock, and Cochrane found himself pushing Babs away from the unrailed opening. ”

“ I've been given the devil for landing on a strange planet without bringing along a bacteriologist, an organic chemist, an ecologist, an epidemiologist, and a complete laboratory to test everything with, before daring to take a breath of outside air. I'm warned not to open a port!"
Holden said:
"You sound as if you'd been talking to a biologist with a reputation. You ought to know better than that!"
Cochrane protested:
"I wanted to talk to somebody who knew more than I did! What could I do but get a man with a reputation?" ”

“ Smoothly and hypnotically, he pictured the valley as the ship descended the last few thousand feet, and told of the human colony to be founded in this vast and hospitable area just explored. Mountainside hotels for star-tourists would look down upon a scene of tranquility and cozy spaciousness. This would be the first human outpost in the stars. In the other valleys of this magnificent world there would be pasture-lands, and humankind would again begin to regard meat as a normal and not-extravagant part of its diet—on this planet, certainly! ”

“ First we break a story of what Dabney's field means for the future of mankind—and then we prove it! We take a journey to the stars! Want to make your reservations now?"
"You mean," said West incredulously, "a genuine trip? Why?"
Cochrane snapped at him suddenly.
"Because I can't kid myself any more," he rasped. "I've found out how little I count in the world and the estimation of Kursten, Kasten, Hopkins and Fallowe! I've found out I'm only a little man when I thought I was a big one, and I won't take it! Now I've got an excuse to try to be a big man! That's reason enough, isn't it?" ”

“ But—The moon-jeep climbed and climbed. It was a mile above the bay of the lava sea and the dust-heaps that were a city. It looked like ten miles, because of the curve of the horizon. The mountains all about looked like a madman's dream.
"But he wants appreciation!" said Holden angrily. "People on Earth almost trampling on each other for lack of room, and people like me trying to keep them sane when they've every reason for despair—and he wants appreciation!" ”

“ He did not admire himself at all.
The helicab began to slant down toward the space-port buildings. The sky was full of stars. The earth—of course—was covered with buildings. Except for the space-port there was no unoccupied ground for thirty miles in any direction. The cab was down to a thousand feet. To five hundred. Cochrane saw the just-arrived rocket with tender-vehicles running busily to and fro and hovering around it. He saw the rocket he should take, standing upright on the faintly lighted field. ”

“ Frustration was the disease of all humanity, these days. And there was nothing that could be done about it. Nothing! It simply wasn't possible to rebel, and rebellion is the process by which humiliation and frustration is cured. But one could not rebel against the plain fact that Earth had more people on it than one planet could support.
Merely arriving at the moon did not seem an especially useful achievement, either to Cochrane or to humanity at large. ”

“ Cochrane said vexedly:
"Hold on! Confound it, I didn't know I was so transparent! I'm sorry, Babs. Look! Tell me something for my own good!"
Babs hesitated, and then said very cheerfully:
"You only see things the way a man sees them. This show, this trip—this whole business doesn't thrill you because you don't see it the way a woman would."
"Such as how? What does a woman see that I don't?"
"A woman," said Babs, "sees this planet as a place that men and women will come to live on. ”

“ Babs stood beside Cochrane, staring incredulously.
The darkness was beasts. They blackened the hillsides on three sides of the ship. They came deliberately, leisurely onward. They were literally uncountable. They were as numerous as the buffalo that formerly thronged the western plains of America. In black, shaggy masses, they came toward the spring and its stream. Nearby, their heads could be distinguished. And all of this was perfectly natural.
The cosmos is one thing. Where life exists, its living creatures will fit themselves cunningly into each niche where life can be maintained. ”

“ On the planet of glaciers and volcanoes, Holden fumed.
"Dammit!" he protested. "They talk like we're lepers! Like if we ever come back we'll be carriers of some monstrous disease that will wipe out the human race! As a matter of fact, we're no more likely to catch an extra-terrestrial disease than to catch wry-neck from sick chickens!"
"That broadcast's nothing to worry about," said Cochrane.
"But it is!" insisted Holden. "Dabney and that fool biologist presented space-travel as a reason for panic! ”

“ So I've already made deals for the hotel-concessions on the glacier world."
Holden had listened with increasing uneasiness. Now he said doggedly:
"That's not right, Jed! I don't mind making money, but there are things that are more important! Millions of people back home—hundreds of millions of poor devils—spend their lives scared to death of losing their jobs, not daring to hope for more than bare subsistence! I want to do something for them! People need hope, Jed, simply to be healthy! Maybe I'm a fool, but the human race needs hope more than I need money!"
Cochrane looked patient. ”

“ He raised his eyebrows at Cochrane. They were well in atmosphere, now, and it had been an obvious defect—condition—necessity of the Dabney field that both of its plates should be in a vacuum. One was certainly in air now. But Cochrane made that gesture which in television production-practice informs the actors that time to cutting is measured in tens of seconds, and he held up two fingers. Twenty seconds.
"We gaze, and you gaze with us," said Jamison, "upon a world that future generations will come to know as home—the site of the first human colony among the stars!" ”

“ Right now, Jamison, we want a theory that the sending of radiation at twenty times the speed of light means that there is a way to send matter faster than light—as soon as we work it out. It means that the inertia-mass which increases with speed—Einstein's stuff—is not a property of matter, but of space, just as the air-resistance that increases when an airplane goes faster is a property of air and not of the plane. Maybe we need to work out a theory that all inertia is a property of space. ”

“ We know better than to throw a difficult problem at a man with an established name! They're neurotic about their reputations. Like Dabney, they get panicky at the idea of anybody catching them in a mistake. No big name in medicine or biology would dare tell you that of course it's all right for us to take a walk in the rather pretty landscape outside." [Pg 87]
"Then who will?" demanded Cochrane.
"We'll make what tests we can," said Holden comfortingly, "and decide for ourselves. We can take a chance. We're only risking our lives!"
Babs brought Cochrane a plate. ”

“ Why should I want to do tourist stuff?"
"So," said Babs, "so later on you can tell when a writer [Pg 19] or a scenic designer tries to put something over on you in a space platform show."
Cochrane grimaced.
"In theory, I should. But do you realize what all this is about? I just learned!" When Babs shook her head he said sardonically, "We are on the way to the Moon to stage a private production out of sheer cruelty. We're hired to rob a happy man of the luxury of feeling sorry for himself. We're under Holden's orders to cure a man of being a crackpot!" ”

“ Holden looked at Cochrane with a dreary disinterest.
"You're adjusted, Jed! But do you really believe that stuff?"
Cochrane grinned again.
"Only on Tuesdays and Fridays. It's about two-sevenths true. But it does have that much truth in it! Nobody ever gets anything done while they merely make socially acceptable responses to the things that happen to them! Take Dabney himself! We've got a hell of a thing coming along now just because he wouldn't make the socially acceptable response to having a rich wife and no brains. He rebelled. So mankind will start moving to the stars!" ”

“ It's a dirty trick, Bill!"
"Look who's talking!" said Holden wearily. "I suppose the advertising business is altruistic and unmercenary?"
"The devil, no!" said Cochrane indignantly. "We serve a useful purpose! We tell people that they smell bad, and so give them an alibi for the unpopularity their stupidity has produced. But then we tell them to use so-and-so's breath sweetener or whosit's non-immunizing deodorant they'll immediately become the life of every party they attend! It's a lie, of course, but it's a dynamic lie! It gives the frustrated individual something to do! ”

“ Babs said urgently:
"You'll have to hurry, really! They told me it starts in ten minutes, so I came to find you right away."
"What starts?"
"We're in eclipse now," explained Babs, starry-eyed. "We're in the Earth's shadow. In about five minutes we'll be coming out into sunlight again, and we'll see the new Earth!"
"Guarantee that it will be a new Earth," Cochrane said morosely, "and I'll come. I didn't do too well on the old one."
But he followed her in all the embarrassment of walking on magnetic-soled shoes in a total absence of effective gravity. It was quite a job simply to start off. ”

“ There was no soil. There was no microscopic life to nibble at rocks and make soil in which less minute life could live. The nudity of the stones led to glaring colors everywhere. The colors were brilliant as nowhere else but on Earth's moon. There was no vegetation at all.
That was somehow shocking. The ship's company stared and stared, but there could be no comment. There was a vast, dark sea to the left of the landing-place. Inland there were mountains and valleys. But the mountains were not sloped. There were heaps of detritus at the bases of their cliffs, but it was simply detritus. ”

“ There were more clankings—the jeep-bus sealing off from the rocket. Then the vehicle stirred. The landscape outside began to move.
They saw Lunar City as they approached it. It was five giant dust-heaps, from five hundred-odd feet in height down to three. There were airlocks at their bases and dust-covered tunnels connecting them, and radar-bowls about their sides. But they were dust-heaps. Which was completely reasonable. There is no air on the moon. By day the sun shines down with absolute ferocity. It heats everything as with a furnace-flame. ”

“ Cochrane thought to look at Babs. She was rapt, lost in picturings of what must be outside the ship, which she could not see. She'd be imagining what the television screens had shown often enough, from film-tapes. The great pock marked face of Luna, with its ring-mountains in incredible numbers and complexity, and the vast open "seas" which were solidified oceans of lava, would be clear to her mind's eye. She would be imagining the gradual changes of the moon's face with nearness, when the colorings appear. [Pg 24] From a distance all the moon seems tan or sandy in tint. ”

“ He'd been disturbed at having to tell it, or even admit it to Babs. Now she said in a constrained voice:
"If men came to this planet and built a city and hunted for us, it might still be a hundred years before anybody happened to come into this valley. Looking for us would be worse than looking for a needle in a haystack. I don't think we're going to be found again."
Cochrane was silent. He felt guiltily relieved that he did not have to break this news to Babs. Most men have an instinctive feeling that a woman will blame them for bad news they hear. ”

“ Many people were not especially anxious to feel good. They were quite satisfied not to feel anything at all.
Cochrane couldn't take that way of escape. He lay strapped in his chair and thought unhappily of many things. He came to feel unclean, as people used to feel when they traveled for days on end on railroad trains. There was no possibility of a bath. One could not even change clothes, because baggage went separately to the moon in a robot freight-rocket, which was faster and cheaper than a passenger transport, but would kill anybody who tried to ride it. ”

“ Are you trying to make this thing into a challenge?"
"You can't make a man famous for discovering something that doesn't matter," said Holden hopelessly. "And this is that!"
"Nothing's impossible to public relations if you spend enough money," Cochrane assured him. "What's this useless triumph of his?"
The jeep bounced over a small cliff and fell gently for half a second and rolled on. Babs beamed.
"He's found," said Holden discouragedly, "a way to send messages faster than light. It's a detour around Einstein's stuff—not denying it, but evading it. ”

“ We can still trail a field behind us, and anybody can follow in any sort of ship that's put into it. But now the ship has a completely independent, second field. Its tail is never outside!"
Cochrane did not have the sort of mind to find such information either lucid or suggestive.
"So what happens?"
"We have both plates of a Dabney field always with us," said Jones triumphantly. "We're always in a field, even landing in atmosphere, and the ship has practically no mass even when it's letting down to landing. It has weight, but next to no mass. ”