by James Gunn
But it was catching up. It reached out a stubby arm toward the taxi. And missed! No, it had caught a hold. The suit and the taxi drew together, became one...
For the first time Phillips wondered: Who had cut the taxis loose? And why? And what had he been doing while everyone was outside?
Suddenly he knew the answer to all of them.
He turned, but Danton was gone. He had gone, Phillips realized, even before the taxi had been caught.
* * * *
Would Ashley go this far? Phillips asked himself. And he had to answer, Yes. How much farther would he go to destroy the Little Wheel? The answer to that was: as far as he had to go.
Phillips was swinging into the Hub. As he slipped through the cage, he saw the captured taxi blasting toward another sausage-shape against the black-velvet curtain of night. Around the edge of the Wheel, like a giant moon, came that enigmatic circle of mirrorlike metal. Descending on the other side of the Wheel was that flimsy, impossible contraption of rocket motors and spherical tanks.
By the time Phillips had extracted himself from his suit, Danton had disappeared. Phillips followed, calling, “Danton! Amos!"
The words echoed in the empty Wheel. There was no answer. The weight-control room was deserted. So was the first-aid room, the pump room, and air control. Phillips went back through weight control and into celestial observation.
Danton was sitting in a chair staring calmly at the closed air-tight door that separated him from Earth-observation.
“You'd better come out, Grant,” Danton said gently. “You'll get hurt in there.” He was talking into a wall speaker.
From the speaker came a burst of hysterical laughter. “You're the ones who'll get hurt, Colonel, you and those stupid animals Inside.” It was Grant's voice, Phillips recognized. “The missiles are set and armed, Colonel, and I've got my finger on the firing button. Try to get me out and blooey! There goes the world! And blooey! There goes the Wheel!"
“You can't do it, Grant,” Danton said reasonably. “You wouldn't have time to guide them in. They'd burn up in entry."
“Grant?” Although Phillips had known it logically, he still found it hard to believe. “But he was in shock"
With Phillips’ first word, Danton had slapped off the speaker. “So we thought,” he said, turning slowly toward the psychologist “Evidently we were wrong. The cutting away of the taxis was a diversion. If it succeeded, fine. If not, it still gave Grant time to take over Earth-observation."
“What's he going to do?"
Danton shrugged. “You heard him."
“He's insane!"
“You're the authority on that."
“Can't we sneak in on him another way?"
“Before he can hit that button? Not a chance; even if he didn't have the other door locked. And even a madman would do that."
“Haven't you got gas? Can't you knock him out?"
“Before he realizes what's happening?” Danton shook his head impatiently. “We can't stock items up here unless we have a probable use for them."
Phillips sought desperately for a straw. “Someone cracked. It was what Ashley was afraid of!"
“Was it?” Danton asked, smiling gently. His eyes drifted back across the wide, flat photographic projection screen where Mars still glowed redly, to the sealed door.
“Keep talking, Danton,” Phillips said quickly. “In his condition, if he's alone too long he'll work up his courage to press the button."
“You're the psychologist. You talk him out."
“Me?” Involuntarily Phillips took half a step backward. “Who's your missile-control officer? He should know how to cut the firing circuit, disarm the missiles..."
“We had one once, but he got transferred five years ago. We never replaced him."
“He's in your t/o—"
“We've got no use for a missile-control officer. Look!” Danton swung around in the chair. It squealed a complaint He punched a button beside the viewport. The outside cover swung away, letting in the night. “See that?"
The great circle of shiny metal slid past the window. “That's an anti-missile screen,” Danton said somberly, “and it's worthless. It's set squarely ahead of us in our orbit, sweeping space. But the first thing an aggressor would do would be to send up a missile with a warhead of weak gunpowder and fine lead particles. When it reached our orbit—going in the opposite direction—it would explode and leave in our path a cloud of eight billion tiny missiles. Every hour we would run into that cloud. The first time the anti-missile screen would intercept them, maybe even the second, but then it would look like a cheese grater. After that, we would be the cheese grater."
“You could strike back—"
“How? Even if we spotted the missile taking off and knew where it came from, it would take us hours to get a missile into the atmosphere without burning up. No, Lloyd, in a new war, we'd be the first casualties. This is a powder keg, all right, and we're sitting on it. We know it. We live with it every minute of every waking hour. But the fuse is down below, and the only way you can save this powder keg is to go in and stamp on it. Or make sure it is never lit."
“Then there's no reason at all for the existence of the Little Wheel! The Big Wheel has taken over all your other functions: weather observation, television relay, research. All that's left is military observation and missile guidance. You ignore the first and can't fulfill the second. Your presence here is a constant temptation to resolve your problems by destroying their source."
“And thereby destroy ourselves. We aren't that stupid. We can't exist independently of Earth—not yet."
“Decisions aren't always logical. Not even usually. Grant is your best example. Give me that speaker"
Danton said softly, “I think maybe he has his reasons.” He hit the speaker switch. “But go ahead."
Phillips said urgently, “Grant! This is Dr. Phillips."
“What do you want, headshrinker?"
“Listen to me, Grant. Don't press that button! You didn't have to. I'll guarantee that the Wheel is destroyed."
* * * *
For a long moment there was silence in the little room where the red image of Mars glowed from the screen. Phillips was suddenly aware of the Little Wheel's odor, a compound of oil and human sweat, like a machine shop inside the steam room at the local ymca. On top of it all was the acrid odor of fear. Phillips could feel drops of sweat collecting on his forehead and trickling into his eyebrows.
Danton was looking at him. Phillips turned his head to meet Danton's half-tolerant contempt with cold eyes.
Grant's breathing came harshly through the speaker. “Don't make me laugh, headshrinker. Nobody's gonna trick me. When I get ready, I'm gonna push this button. Nobody can stop me."
Phillips spoke coldly, swiftly, “Listen to me! General Ashley sent me up here to make a report to him, and the report I'm going to make, Grant, will blast the Wheel right out of the sky. If you push that button, the world will die, Grant, and you'll die, too. You don't want that. You don't have to die, Grant. The Wheel is finished."
“Even if you were telling the truth, you couldn't do it, Phillips. Danton would stop you somehow. He's too tricky. He'd find a way out. But he can't stop me from pushing this button"
Phillips pleaded, “For God's sake, Grant—"
“No use, headshrinker. I think you're lying. Because Ashley sent me up to do this job, and I'm gonna do it. ‘If you can't do it any other way,’ he said, ‘send down a missile. That'll be the end of the Wheel.’ I'm really gonna do him a job.” Grant laughed insanely. “I'm gonna send ’em all down."
Phillips whispered, “He's too far gone."
Dalton leaned toward the speaker. “It's no use pushing the button,” he said quietly. “There aren't any missiles.” He switched off the speaker and leaned back in his chair.
Phillips said quickly, “That won't do any good. He'll push it just to make sure."
“To men who have made up their minds the truth is never any good.
"
“What do you mean—the truth?"
“There aren't any missiles. Earth is in no danger from us. Too bad we can't tell them that. But we can't. And therefore we must live in constant expectation of a moment of madness Inside that will send up a missile to destroy a threat that doesn't exist."
“No missiles?” Phillips shook his head incredulously. Droplets of sweat flew from his face. “What happened to them? You had them!"
“Oh, we had them. But, as Ashley feared, their existence was a constant temptation. So we used them for a better purpose."
“What are you talking about? What better purpose?”
“In a moment.” Danton looked through the viewport at the stars wheeling past, steady, many-colored, and available. “You talk of powder kegs. I'll tell you something about powder. It's only dangerous when it's imprisoned. Spread it out in the open air, set it off, and it makes a fizzling sound and a bright light. Look, there's Earth!” It rotated beyond the window, brilliant in reflected sunshine, an incredible jewel set against the velvet of the night. “That's your powder keg, masses of humanity penned up in unyielding containers, more people every minute. If you don't give them some outlet, an explosion is inevitable. Anything might set it off; an unguarded fire, an accidental spark, spontaneous combustion..."
“And you're the outlet?"
“Symbolically. Oh, there's no practical way of relieving population pressures except by birth control. We can't export our excess millions to the planets or the stars. But we can give them a vent for their excess energies, for their frustrated aggressions, for their unused dreams. The existence of a frontier is enough; everyone doesn't have to go there."
Danton paused, his eyes fixed on the viewport, for a moment the tic in his eyelid stilled, “Look. There! Now!” The ungainly contraption of rocket motors and spherical tanks floated past. “There's our outlet. There's where the missiles have gone: their motors are units for that ship, their warheads have been converted into atomic powerplants. They were designed with that purpose in mind."
Phillips said slowly, “That just about covers every offense in the code: disobedience, insubordination, dereliction of duty, misappropriation of material, mutiny..."
Danton dismissed them with a wave of his hand. “Words. They aren't important. Survival is important. And that ship is the key to survival."
“Where are you going in that thing?"
Danton looked past Phillips toward the photographic enlargement on the projection screen. “Mars."
Phillips studied the hard, blackened face. Madman or prophet? Traitor or something greater than patriot? He had to decide, and soon. He looked back at the viewport, but the flimsy structure was gone. “In that?"
“The Vikings crossed the Atlantic in their tiny dragon ships."
“How are you going to get away with it?"
“We were going to wait until we could announce a successful trip, but it's too late for that. Ashley is getting desperate; next time he might not fail. We might not be here when the ship returned. Instead we'll release the news that the ship will start soon.” Danton grinned unexpectedly. “Then let Ashley deny it if he dares."
“He'll never rest until he drags down the Wheel."
“Let him try that, too, when the world knows what we're going to do. That's our hole card, the aroused dreams of the world's billions. Go back, Lloyd. Tell them we're all neurotic, all crackpots, and we'll tell them they're in no danger from us. We've beaten our swords into dreams. We'll show them the Wheel, and we'll show them the Mars ship, and we'll invite them, vicariously, on the first trip to another world. They'll come. They can't refuse. They're men like us; they're dreamers."
“Out here isn't far enough,” Phillips said softly. “You're running farther away."
“Call it ‘running’ if you like. Another man may call it conquest or adventure. Words. What makes a man run doesn't matter; it's where he runs and what he does when he gets there and what his running means. What makes you run, Lloyd?"
“What do you mean?” Phillips stiffened.
“You've been analyzed. What drove you to be a psychologist? What made you enlist in the Air Force? What forced you to investigate the submerged motives of spacemen? What was it: a broken home, an overprotective mother, a disinterested father? What complex was it? Give it a name"
Panic raced through Phillips’ veins. He can't know. He's guessing—
“Give it a name,” Danton continued without pausing, “and I won't give a damn. What matters to me is that you're good spaceman material gone to waste. You're one of the rare ones, one of those first air breathers, and you won't climb out upon the land because there's something left out of you. That's a pity. We need men like you. You could help us put it over—this little thing with Ashley and the big victory over Mars and the fantastic distance that lies between.
“We could use your knowledge of psychology to help pick the men who could make the trip and stay sane and come back to report their success to us and the world. You could help us phrase our releases to the imaginations of men, releases that will open their hearts and shape their dreams. You wouldn't have to go back; I could declare you essential and keep you here until Sackcloth or I died of old age."
“Help you do what? Defraud the people as you have defrauded their government and their defenses?"
“The exploration of the unknown is always a fraud,” Danton said, his eyes distant, remembering. “Because we can't know, by definition, what we are going to find, we can't have the right reasons for finding it or even for going where we can find it. And the reasons we give ourselves will always be the wrong reasons, because the only real reason is that there's something unknown to be discovered.
“Fraud,” Danton repeated, his eyelid jerking again. “I'll tell you about fraud. When I came out my eyes were filled with visions and my head was swimming with dreams. And I found out that the visions were false, and the dreams were the wrong ones.
“That was when I ran. I ran to the S.1.1. You know what it is—the ship in the same orbit as the Little Wheel, one hundred miles ahead, in which Rev McMillen first conquered space, in which he died because he couldn't get back.
“Do you know what I found? A hollow shell. No one was ever inside. It wasn't built for a passenger. They couldn't build one to carry a man—not with the funds they had—and Bo Finch and Pickrell and a few others perpetrated a fraud on the people so that space could be conquered. And it was conquered—for the wrong reasons and in the wrong way.
“The visions were wrong. Men never find what they are seeking. That's what keeps them seeking. Men will never find out here what they're looking for—not peace or wealth or the thrill of final conquest.
“I learned then, as every man must learn if he is to become a man, that he must be stronger than his dreams, that he must be able to watch them shatter and go on. Call it childish. Call it what you will."
Danton's voice dropped wearily. Now he looked like an old man instead of a man this side of forty with prematurely white hair. “The fact remains that it is the soul of man and his salvation. He is a dream-maker, and the latest dream is the best, no matter how many have been shattered before.
“Go Inside, Captain Phillips. Go Inside if you wish and tell them what I have told you, all of it. And I will lie and call you a liar, and the lies won't matter, just as the shattered dreams don't matter.
“The people will believe me, because I am a dreamer, and they understand dreams. This is the latest dream in the oldest dream of all—humanity's conquest of the universe.
“And that dream is invincible."
* * * *
The door to Earth-observation opened. Grant stumbled through the doorway. His face was blank. His eyes stared, but they saw nothing.
“I pushed it,” he said tonelessly. “I pushed it and nothing happened."
Danton had stood up as the door opened. Grant walked right into him. At the contact he collapsed. He hid his face against Danton's chest. A sob broke from his th
roat.
Danton patted the boy's shoulder. “That's all right. It's all right. The truth is hard to find, and when you find it, it always hurts. I know. I found it."
He looked at Phillips. “You see,” he said gently, “it isn't the neurotic men out here you have to be afraid of, not the men who had to come out. The dangerous ones are the men who come out for something else, for money or for glory."
Phillips looked at Danton for a moment and then turned his eyes away, turned them to the open viewport and the stars. They were too bright; but they were not as bright as Danton.
Danton was right.
Phillips could not decide when he had first known it Perhaps it had been just a few minutes ago as he had pleaded with Grant, not a spacemen but a displanted Earthman, to spare the Earth. Perhaps it had been earlier as he watched the spacemen building a bridge toward the stars and he had moved to help. Perhaps it had been when he had seen the compassion and understanding in the Rorschach blob.
But he thought it was much earlier, when he had realized that he himself was a spaceman, one of the air breathers who had crawled out upon the land and found the experience so satisfying that he could never go back to the mother sea.
If a man is lucky he has one such time in his life when he knows himself. But it meant that his entire concept of the human animal had to change.
The basic quality of life is movement. An immobile animal is a dead animal. Carnivore and prey know this instinctively.
And man is a dissatisfied animal. Satisfy him and he ceases to be a man. Quiet him and he stops being alive.
Phillips stood with his feet planted against the centrifugal force that simulated one-third Earth-normal gravity, knowing where he was with a spacemen's sure instinct. He was 1,075 miles above the surface of the Earth, in a two-hour orbit, in a satellite spinning once every 22 seconds.
The Earth was Inside. He was Outside, and with boldness, with courage, and with infinite sacrifice, he could stay Outside.