The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke

by Arthur C. Clarke

  ‘What’s going on?’ he demanded angrily. ‘Do you know anything about this?’

  The Prof. let him sizzle for a moment before he replied.

  ‘I think you’d better come across and talk things over,’ he said. ‘You won’t have far to walk.’

  Mays glared back at him uncertainly, then retorted, ‘You bet I will!’ The screen went blank.

  ‘He’ll have to climb down now!’ said Bill gleefully. ‘There’s nothing else he can do!’

  ‘It’s not so simple as you think,’ warned Fulton. ‘If he really wanted to be awkward, he could just sit tight and radio Ganymede for a tanker.’

  ‘What good would that do him? It would waste days and cost a fortune.’

  ‘Yes, but he’d still have the statue, if he wanted it that badly. And he’d get his money back when he sued us.’

  The airlock light flashed on and Mays stumped into the room. He was in a surprisingly conciliatory mood; on the way over, he must have had second thoughts.

  ‘Well, well,’ he said affably. ‘What’s all this nonsense in aid of?’

  ‘You know perfectly well,’ the Professor retorted coldly. ‘I made it quite clear that nothing was to be taken off Five. You’ve been stealing property that doesn’t belong to you.’

  ‘Now, let’s be reasonable. Who does it belong to? You can’t claim everything on this planet as your personal property.’

  ‘This is not a planet—it’s a ship and the laws of salvage operate.’

  ‘Frankly, that’s a very debatable point. Don’t you think you should wait until you get a ruling from the lawyers?’

  The Professor was being icily polite, but I could see that the strain was terrific and an explosion might occur at any moment.

  ‘Listen, Mr Mays,’ he said with ominous calm. ‘What you’ve taken is the most important single find we’ve made here. I will make allowances for the fact that you don’t appreciate what you’ve done, and don’t understand the viewpoint of an archaeologist like myself. Return that statue, and we’ll pump your fuel back and say no more.’

  Mays rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

  ‘I really don’t see why you should make such a fuss about one statue, when you consider all the stuff that’s still here.’

  It was then that the Professor made one of his rare mistakes.

  ‘You talk like a man who’s stolen the Mona Lisa from the Louvre and argues that nobody will miss it because of all the other paintings. This statue’s unique in a way that no terrestrial work of art can ever be. That’s why I’m determined to get it back.’

  You should never, when you’re bargaining, make it obvious that you want something really badly. I saw the greedy glint in Mays’s eye and said to myself, ‘Uh-huh! He’s going to be tough.’ And I remembered Fulton’s remark about calling Ganymede for a tanker.

  ‘Give me half an hour to think it over,’ said Mays, turning to the airlock.

  ‘Very well,’ replied the Professor stiffly. ‘Half an hour—no more.’

  I must give Mays credit for brains. Within five minutes we saw his communications aerial start slewing round until it locked on Ganymede. Naturally we tried to listen in, but he had a scrambler. These newspaper men must trust each other.

  The reply came back a few minutes later; that was scrambled too. While we were waiting for the next development, we had another council of war. The Professor was now entering the stubborn, stop-at-nothing stage. He realised he’d miscalculated and that had made him fighting mad.

  I think Mays must have been a little apprehensive, because he had reinforcements when he returned. Donald Hopkins, his pilot, came with him, looking rather uncomfortable.

  ‘I’ve been able to fix things up, Professor,’ he said smugly. ‘It will take me a little longer, but I can get back without your help if I have to. Still, I must admit that it will save a good deal of time and money if we can come to an agreement. I’ll tell you what. Give me back my fuel and I’ll return the other—er—souvenirs I’ve collected. But I insist on keeping Mona Lisa, even if it means I won’t get back to Ganymede until the middle of next week.’

  The Professor then uttered a number of what are usually called deep-space oaths, though I can assure you they’re much the same as any other oaths. That seemed to relieve his feelings a lot and he became fiendishly friendly.

  ‘My dear Mr Mays,’ he said, ‘you’re an unmitigated crook, and accordingly I’ve no compunction left in dealing with you. I’m prepared to use force, knowing that the law will justify me.’

  Mays looked slightly alarmed, though not unduly so. We had moved to strategic positions round the door.

  ‘Please don’t be so melodramatic,’ he said haughtily. ‘This is the twenty-first century, not the Wild West back in 1800.’

  ‘1880,’ said Bill, who is a stickler for accuracy.

  ‘I must ask you,’ the Professor continued, ‘to consider yourself under detention while we decide what is to be done. Mr Searle, take him to Cabin B.’

  Mays sidled along the wall with a nervous laugh.

  ‘Really, Professor, this is too childish! You can’t detain me against my will.’ He glanced for support at the Captain of the Henry Luce.

  Donald Hopkins dusted an imaginary speck of fluff from his uniform.

  ‘I refuse,’ he remarked for the benefit of all concerned, ‘to get involved in vulgar brawls.’

  Mays gave him a venomous look and capitulated with bad grace. We saw that he had a good supply of reading matter, and locked him in.

  When he was out of the way, the Professor turned to Hopkins, who was looking enviously at our fuel gauges.

  ‘Can I take it, Captain,’ he said politely, ‘that you don’t wish to get mixed up in any of your employer’s dirty business?’

  ‘I’m neutral. My job is to fly the ship here and take her home. You can fight this out among yourselves.’

  ‘Thank you. I think we understand each other perfectly. Perhaps it would be best if you returned to your ship and explained the situation. We’ll be calling you in a few minutes.’

  Captain Hopkins made his way languidly to the door. As he was about to leave he turned to Searle.

  ‘By the way, Kingsley,’ he drawled. ‘Have you thought of torture? Do call me if you get round to it—I’ve some jolly interesting ideas.’ Then he was gone, leaving us with our hostage.

  I think the Professor had hoped he could do a direct exchange. If so, he had not bargained on Marianne’s stubbornness.

  ‘It serves Randolph right,’ she said. ‘But I don’t really see that it makes any difference. He’ll be just as comfortable in your ship as in ours, and you can’t do anything to him. Let me know when you’re fed up with having him around.’

  It seemed a complete impasse. We had been too clever by half, and it had got us exactly nowhere. We’d capture Mays, but he wasn’t any use to us.

  The Professor was standing with his back to us, staring morosely out of the window. Seemingly balanced on the horizon, the immense bulk of Jupiter nearly filled the sky.

  ‘We’ve got to convince her that we really do mean business,’ he said. Then he turned abruptly to me.

  ‘Do you think she’s actually fond of this blackguard?’

  ‘Er—I shouldn’t be surprised. Yes, I really believe so.’

  The Professor looked very thoughtful. Then he said to Searle, ‘Come into my room. I want to talk something over.’

  They were gone quite a while. When they returned they both had an indefinable air of gleeful anticipation, and the Professor was carrying a piece of paper covered with figures. He went to the radio, and called the Henry Luce.

  ‘Hello,’ said Marianne, replying so promptly that she’d obviously been waiting for us. ‘Have you decided to call it off? I’m getting so bored.’

  The Professor looked at her gravely.

  ‘Miss Mitchell,’ he replied. ‘It’s apparent that you have not been taking us seriously. I’m therefore arranging a somewhat—er—drastic little
demonstration for your benefit. I’m going to place your employer in a position from which he’ll be only too anxious for you to retrieve him as quickly as possible.’

  ‘Indeed?’ replied Marianne noncommittally—though I thought I could detect a trace of apprehension in her voice.

  ‘I don’t suppose,’ continued the Professor smoothly, ‘that you know anything about celestial mechanics. No? Too bad, but your pilot will confirm everything I tell you. Won’t you, Hopkins?’

  ‘Go ahead,’ came a painstakingly neutral voice from the background.

  ‘Then listen carefully, Miss Mitchell. I want to remind you of our curious—indeed our precarious—position on this satellite. You’ve only got to look out of the window to see how close to Jupiter we are, and I need hardly remind you that Jupiter has by far the most intense gravitational field of all the planets. You follow me?’

  ‘Yes,’ replied Marianne, no longer quite so self-possessed. ‘Go on.’

  ‘Very well. This little world of ours goes round Jupiter in almost exactly twelve hours. Now there’s a well-known theorem stating that if a body falls from an orbit to the centre of attraction, it will take point one seven seven of a period to make the drop. In other words, anything falling from here to Jupiter would reach the centre of the planet in about two hours seven minutes. I’m sure Captain Hopkins can confirm this.’

  There was a long pause. Then we heard Hopkins say, ‘Well, of course I can’t confirm the exact figures, but they’re probably correct. It would be something like that, anyway.’

  ‘Good,’ continued the Professor. ‘Now I’m sure you realise,’ he went on with a hearty chuckle, ‘that a fall to the centre of the planet is a very theoretical case. If anything really was dropped from here, it would reach the upper atmosphere of Jupiter in a considerably shorter time. I hope I’m not boring you?’

  ‘No,’ said Marianne, rather faintly.

  ‘I’m so glad to hear it. Anyway, Captain Searle has worked out the actual time for me, and it’s one hour thirty-five minutes—with a few minutes either way. We can’t guarantee complete accuracy, ha, ha!

  ‘Now, it has doubtless not escaped your notice that this satellite of ours has an extremely weak gravitational field. Its escape velocity is only about ten metres a second, and anything thrown away from it at that speed would never come back. Correct, Mr Hopkins?’

  ‘Perfectly correct.’

  ‘Then, if I may come to the point, we propose to take Mr Mays for a walk until he’s immediately under Jupiter, remove the reaction pistols from his suit, and—ah—launch him forth. We will be prepared to retrieve him with our ship as soon as you’ve handed over the property you’ve stolen. After what I’ve told you, I’m sure you’ll appreciate that time will be rather vital. An hour and thirty-five minutes is remarkably short, isn’t it?’

  ‘Professor!’ I gasped. ‘You can’t possibly do this!’

  ‘Shut up!’ he barked. ‘Well, Miss Mitchell, what about it?’

  Marianne was staring at him with mingled horror and disbelief.

  ‘You’re simply bluffing!’ she cried. ‘I don’t believe you’d do anything of the kind! Your crew won’t let you!’

  The Professor sighed.

  ‘Too bad,’ he said. ‘Captain Searle—Mr Groves—will you take the prisoner and proceed as instructed.’

  ‘Aye-aye, sir,’ replied Searle with great solemnity.

  Mays looked frightened but stubborn.

  ‘What are you going to do now?’ he said, as his suit was handed back to him.

  Searle unholstered his reaction pistols. ‘Just climb in,’ he said. ‘We’re going for a walk.’

  I realised then what the Professor hoped to do. The whole thing was a colossal bluff: of course he wouldn’t really have Mays thrown into Jupiter; and in any case Searle and Groves wouldn’t do it. Yet surely Marianne would see through the bluff, and then we’d be left looking mighty foolish.

  Mays couldn’t run away; without his reaction pistols he was quite helpless. Grasping his arms and towing him along like a captive balloon, his escorts set off toward the horizon—and towards Jupiter.

  I could see, looking across the space to the other ship, that Marianne was staring out through the observation windows at the departing trio. Professor Forster noticed it too.

  ‘I hope you’re convinced, Miss Mitchell, that my men aren’t carrying along an empty spacesuit. Might I suggest that you follow the proceedings with a telescope? They’ll be over the horizon in a minute, but you’ll be able to see Mr Mays when he starts to—er—ascend.’

  There was a stubborn silence from the loudspeaker. The period of suspense seemed to last for a very long time. Was Marianne waiting to see how far the Professor really would go?

  By this time I had got hold of a pair of binoculars and was sweeping the sky beyond the ridiculously close horizon. Suddenly I saw it—a tiny flare of light against the vast yellow back-cloth of Jupiter. I focused quickly, and could just make out the three figures rising into space. As I watched, they separated: two of them decelerated with their pistols and started to fall back toward Five. The other went on ascending helplessly toward the ominous bulk of Jupiter.

  I turned on the Professor in horror and disbelief.

  ‘They’ve really done it!’ I cried. ‘I thought you were only bluffing!’

  ‘So did Miss Mitchell, I’ve no doubt,’ said the Professor calmly, for the benefit of the listening microphone. ‘I hope I don’t need to impress upon you the urgency of the situation. As I’ve remarked once or twice before, the time of fall from our orbit to Jupiter’s surface is ninety-five minutes. But, of course, if one waited even half that time, it would be much too late….’

  He let that sink in. There was no reply from the other ship.

  ‘And now,’ he continued, ‘I’m going to switch off our receiver so we can’t have any more arguments. We’ll wait until you’ve unloaded that statue—and the other items Mr Mays was careless enough to mention—before we’ll talk to you again. Goodbye.’

  It was a very uncomfortable ten minutes. I’d lost track of Mays, and was seriously wondering if we’d better overpower the Professor and go after him before we had a murder on our hands. But the people who could fly the ship were the ones who had actually carried out the crime. I didn’t know what to think.

  Then the airlock of the Henry Luce slowly opened. A couple of space-suited figures emerged, floating the cause of all the trouble between them.

  ‘Unconditional surrender,’ murmured the Professor with a sigh of satisfaction. ‘Get it into our ship,’ he called over the radio. ‘I’ll open up the airlock for you.’

  He seemed in no hurry at all. I kept looking anxiously at the clock; fifteen minutes had already gone by. Presently there was a clanking and banging in the airlock, the inner door opened, and Captain Hopkins entered. He was followed by Marianne, who only needed a bloodstained axe to make her look like Clytaemnestra. I did my best to avoid her eye, but the Professor seemed to be quite without shame. He walked into the airlock, checked that his property was back, and emerged rubbing his hands.

  ‘Well, that’s that,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Now let’s sit down and have a drink to forget all this unpleasantness, shall we?’

  I pointed indignantly at the clock.

  ‘Have you gone crazy!’ I yelled. ‘He’s already halfway to Jupiter!’

  Professor Forster looked at me disapprovingly.

  ‘Impatience,’ he said, ‘is a common failing in the young. I see no cause at all for hasty action.’

  Marianne spoke for the first time; she now looked really scared.

  ‘But you promised,’ she whispered.

  The Professor suddenly capitulated. He had had his little joke, and didn’t want to prolong the agony.

  ‘I can tell you at once, Miss Mitchell—and you too, Jack—that Mays is in no more danger than we are. We can go and collect him whenever we like.’

  ‘Do you mean that you lied to me?’

  �
�Certainly not. Everything I told you was perfectly true. You simply jumped to the wrong conclusions. When I said that a body would take ninety-five minutes to fall from here to Jupiter, I omitted—not, I must confess, accidentally—a rather important phrase. I should have added “a body at rest with respect to Jupiter.” Your friend Mr Mays was sharing the orbital speed of his satellite, and he’s still got it. A little matter of twenty-six kilometres a second, Miss Mitchell.

  ‘Oh yes, we threw him completely off Five and toward Jupiter. But the velocity we gave him then was trivial. He’s still moving in practically the same orbit as before. The most he can do—I’ve got Captain Searle to work out the figures—is to drift about a hundred kilometres inward. And in one revolution—twelve hours—he’ll be right back where he started, without us bothering to do anything at all.’

  There was a long, long silence. Marianne’s face was a study in frustration, relief, and annoyance at having been fooled. Then she turned on Captain Hopkins.

  ‘You must have known all the time! Why didn’t you tell me?’

  Hopkins gave her a wounded expression.

  ‘You didn’t ask me,’ he said.

  We hauled Mays down about an hour later. He was only twenty kilometres up, and we located him quickly enough by the flashing light on his suit. His radio had been disconnected, for a reason that hadn’t occurred to me. He was intelligent enough to realise that he was in no danger, and if his set had been working he could have called his ship and exposed our bluff. That is, if he wanted to. Personally, I think I’d have been glad enough to call the whole thing off even if I had known that I was perfectly safe. It must have been awfully lonely up there.

  To my great surprise, Mays wasn’t as mad as I’d expected. Perhaps he was too relieved to be back in our snug little cabin when we drifted up to him on the merest fizzle of rockets and yanked him in. Or perhaps he felt that he’d been worsted in fair fight and didn’t bear any grudge. I really think it was the latter.

  There isn’t much more to tell, except that we did play one other trick on him before we left Five. He had a good deal more fuel in his tanks than he really needed, now that his payload was substantially reduced. By keeping the excess ourselves, we were able to carry The Ambassador back to Ganymede after all. Oh, yes, the Professor gave him a cheque for the fuel we’d borrowed. Everything was perfectly legal.