Space Race

by Sylvia Waugh

  Patrick smiled as insanely as he could and added in the strongest Ormingat tones, “Yiggo, yiggo, Vateelin callantig!”

  The tramp dropped the bottle he'd been holding, and it crashed to the pavement and shattered. Patrick put out one hand to steady him and he drew away, horrified. Then he turned on his heel and ran off with a speed that would not have disgraced him in the hundred meters at Meadowbank.

  Patrick watched him go and laughed nervously. Then, subduing what was after all a sort of hysteria, he leaped over the gate again, using the technique he had learned by now, and went back to the task in hand. This time he sat up straighter and kept his face toward the road. This posture was less comfortable and not so easy for working, but it felt much safer.

  Feverishly he scooped out the soil that had fallen back into the hole, dug deeper and deeper with the trowel. The hole widened, the work became easier, as if his power was increasing.

  After just five more minutes, it was all over. His fingers touched the sphere beneath the soil, and his whole body shrank into it, as swiftly as if the object below were quenching some great thirst. It was as if the genie were returning to the lamp.

  Then the tunnel collapsed and the loose soil was sucked into it.

  Dennis Brodie, a tramp of many years' standing (and sitting and lying down), did not stop in his run along Princes Street till he collided with a policeman coming in the opposite direction. The constable barely understood the tale he told of a mad alien searching for a spaceship beneath the scaffolding surrounding the Scott Monument, but he walked back with him to check, and to give a little company to a soul who seemed to need it.

  When they came to the spot, the policeman shone his torch through the railings toward the place the tramp indicated. He was surprised to see that there was, in fact, evidence of digging. Soil was scattered onto the path. There was clearly some disturbance. But not much, nothing really significant.

  “A dog,” said the constable, pocketing his torch again. “A stray, no doubt. You did well to report it. I'll see that it's mentioned.” And he tactfully refrained from any reference to the tale he had been told earlier. The little fellow was drunk, that was clear enough.

  Stepping further back on the pavement, the policeman noticed the fragments of broken glass scattered there.

  “I suppose it wasn't you broke that bottle?” he said in a voice that was quite kindly.

  Dennis gave him a look that was murderous, but he said nothing. Some folk, he thought, will never listen.

  In the earth below, Vateelin lay recovering from the trauma of reduction. He had underestimated how long that would take. But at least there was no fear of being found out now. The powerful protection of the ship was all around him as he slept.

  Time was the only enemy.

  Vateelin lay on a couch in the living quarters of the ship. There was no partition between that and the area where the instruments were, but there was a demarcation of comfort. The living quarters had soft upholstered furnishings and a feeling of human warmth, a midway to Earth. The other half of the sphere was austere and clinical by contrast, more like a laboratory. The only light in the spaceship came as a glow from screens and instruments. That was how it would be till Earth was left behind.

  Three hours after his reentry into the ship, Vateelin woke up properly and moved into the work area, hoping to set in motion all that was needful to recover his son. He was still thinking and speaking in English, but that was as meant—debriefing would take all of the three years' journey home.

  He bent over the instrument panel and clicked a switch along a horizontal groove and into a loop. Before the voice of the ship could speak, Vateelin demanded urgently, “Where is my son? Where is Tonitheen?”

  A voice replied in an English that sounded somehow off-key to Vateelin's ears.

  “You have returned late,” it said. “You were expected two days ago.”

  “But where is my son?” said Vateelin. “Where is Tonitheen?”

  “You have returned late,” said the machine. “You were expected two days ago.”

  Vateelin looked despairingly at the greenish glow on the screen in front of him.

  He tried rephrasing the question. “Tonitheen, the boy. Have you any trace on his voice?”

  “You have returned late,” the machine began again, as if there were a scratch on the disc.

  Vateelin angrily yanked the switch from its loop and slid it back so that the screen went dull. He had some thoughts of leaving the ship, to search alone for his son and give up all hope of returning to Ormingat. He wished he had defected from the first.

  But the scientists of Ormingat were clever. Of this ship, even at this distance of space and time, they were in total control. Vateelin could switch off the voice but he could not command the machine to obey him and he could not leave the ship. Passengers knew no more than they needed to know. It absolved them of responsibility.

  After a few moments' thought, Vateelin wearily slid the switch into the loop again. When in doubt, begin at the beginning.

  “I am late,” he said. “I should have returned two days ago. There was an accident …”

  That was the key word, the word the machine was waiting for.

  “The accident is recorded,” it said. “It was not your fault. You will not be held responsible.”

  It was a comfort to realize that the machine knew so much, but Vateelin had not managed to get an answer to the most important question.

  “I need help,” he said.

  Once more he had uttered an important key word, the most important one.

  “You need help,” said the machine. “Look at the clock.”

  That seemed an irrelevancy, but by now Vateelin had grown calm. Five years away from this machine had made him forget how precise it was, how undeflectable. He obeyed its command and looked down at the clock.

  The so-called clock was a large disk set in the floor of the ship. Its face was black, with tiny stars set in it like pinpricks in velvet. Down its center, like a meridian, there was a groove dividing its east from its west. These were the static objects on the disk. Moving across and around it, quite slowly, were ten globules of light.

  Five years ago, when Vateelin and Tonitheen left the spaceship, these globules of light, fascinating to both man and boy, had been moving in disparate orbits, each disappearing in different directions and at different times around the back of the disk. Now, four of them were moving in a straight line, one above the other. The fifth was nearing this vertical; the other, not far off, looked like a wavering tail.

  “That is the firing mechanism,” said the voice. “When all lights come in line they will drop into the groove, the great rocket will detonate, and this ship will start its journey home.”

  “On the twenty-sixth, Earth time,” said Vateelin rapidly. “The calendar was converted, the date was fixed.”

  “The lights will come in line,” said the machine, “six nights from now, at midnight. And in the hours before it is due to leave, the ship will seal and countdown will begin.”

  “But my son,” said Vateelin. “I cannot leave without him.”

  “There is no override,” said the voice. “The ship will leave on time.”

  Vateelin remembered the word that had worked before.

  “Help,” he said. “Tonitheen needs help.”

  “A voice scan has picked up Tonitheen's tones and is locating them precisely, though it would be easier if he had not ceased transmitting.”

  Those words terrified Vateelin. If Tonitheen had ceased transmitting, why had he done so? What could have happened?

  Vateelin looked at the flickering screen and was reduced to using the one word that seemed to provoke any response.

  “Help,” he said. “Entesh, Argule, entesh.” For in extremis each being will use his own name for God.

  The machine continued in its flat English voice.

  “Permission has been sought to take the ship to a point from which the boy can be retrieved.”<
br />
  “Argule, alayis,” murmured Vateelin thankfully. “Permission has not yet been received.”

  The screen went dark.

  “Help,” said Vateelin again. “Oh, help.”

  And at that very moment another globule fell in line.

  It was Monday afternoon.

  Since the inspector's visit on Saturday, Thomas had been very, very quiet. He ate and slept, moving where and when he was told to move, looking more and more retired into a secret self. The nurses were concerned, of course they were, but there was little they could do. Thomas curled up inside and would not even look at them.

  When the inspector came in to see the boy, just after tea that Monday, even he noticed the change. Thomas's stubbornness had become something that looked more and more like a real mental breakdown. He did not seem to be pretending.

  “He will stay here over the holiday,” said Dr. Ramsay when Inspector Galway inquired about Thomas, “and I have arranged for Dr. Marston to see him early next week. He is our consultant psychiatrist but he's on holiday at the moment.”

  “I would be a lot happier if we could trace his relatives, whoever they are. He still hasn't been reported missing and that is very strange,” said Inspector Galway, “given that he is not some street urchin. His clothes are good and quite expensive. He has obviously been well looked after all his life. So where are his parents? We should go to the media. It's one area where they can be useful.”

  Dr. Ramsay looked thoughtful.

  “That has been discussed. I must admit I am reluctant to do so at present because—well, as you see, the boy is hardly forthcoming. I don't want to submit him to any more traumatic experiences. It's a decision I'd prefer to leave to Dr. Marston.”

  “How do you know it would be traumatic?” said Inspector Galway quickly. “Do you mind if I ask him? If he agrees, then I don't see any problem.”

  “He won't answer,” said the doctor. “You can see the way he is. It's not worth trying.”

  “He might give some sign, even if he doesn't speak,” said the inspector. “He has responded to me before. He has the right to be given the chance. You don't honestly know what's wrong with him, do you?”

  “Well, keep it short,” said Dr. Ramsay, thinking that this was one way to end the argument. “But if he is distressed, you must leave off immediately.”

  Inspector Galway crossed to the bed where Thomas, fully dressed, lay on his side, facing the wall, with his knees drawn almost up to his chin. The inspector sat down on the chair beside him. Dr. Ramsay came close enough to hear what was said. He did not fully trust the visitor's curiosity.

  “I know you can hear me,” said Inspector Galway, placing one hand lightly on Thomas's arm. “I have a suggestion to make that you might agree to. I won't even ask you to speak. Just nod if you agree—the way you did before.”

  There was no sign at all that Thomas was listening. The inspector was speaking distinctly and firmly to the back of the boy's head.

  “I can get the television people to come here and see you,” he said. “They needn't even speak to you. I'll do all the talking. But someone out there might be looking in, see your face, and know who you are. Someone out there might come forward and put everything straight. How about it?”

  Thomas turned slowly to face his visitor. His eyes were red with crying. He spoke in his own English voice for the first time.

  “Do what you want,” he said listlessly.

  Inspector Galway started. He had not really expected Thomas to speak. Dr. Ramsay, standing behind the inspector, prodded him quite hard on the shoulder, warning him not to comment, not to press it any further. To him it was good news that the boy could speak in a natural voice, but his experience of sick and traumatized children told him not to push it. One step forward can so easily be followed by two steps back.

  * * *

  A reporter with a camera team turned up two hours later. His interest in the boy was not very great, but he had heard of the mysterious missing crash victim and had been promised an interview with the tanker driver and his mate.

  The interview with the boy took place first, in a little waiting room off the main ward. Thomas sat in a children's armchair and Inspector Galway stood beside him with one hand proprietarily on the chair back.

  “And you say this boy has never spoken since the crash?” said the reporter after an introduction in which the viewers were shown shots of the crash site with the huge tanker piled onto the little red post office van. The reporter, Gerry Potterton, was young and eager and hoped to get beyond the local news he still covered.

  “Not exactly,” said the inspector cautiously. “But he is very, very reluctant to speak.”

  Next, the jacket Thomas was wearing when found was shown to the camera. Then the things that were found in the pocket: a travel Scrabble, and a keyring with a plastic rocket for a fob.

  The camera then zoomed in on Thomas's face. Suddenly confronted with the camera and all the attention he was being given, Thomas felt inspired. His father had told him to say the Ormingat names to no one, except in the direst of circumstances. It followed, then, that if the direst of circumstances should come, saying the names, using the keys, would have to be a very public pronouncement. It was scientific! It was not mumbo jumbo after all! It was some form of broadcasting. The names were meant to be picked up by someone from his own planet. It was so obvious he could not understand why he had not realized it before. It was his one link to his father, his one chance of making contact.

  “Vateelin Tonitheen Ormingat,” he said loudly.

  And in thousands of homes in the northern region, sound appeared on vision, zigzagging across the screen. The interviewer, the cameraman, and the inspector jumped back, bewildered.

  “Ormingat Vateelin Tonitheen,” said the boy in an even louder voice, so that the zigzags on everybody's screen went wild. In the studio they blamed this weird effect on the atmospherics that the outside broadcast had produced. In the waiting room, all who were there shivered at the sound. It was Gerry Potterton who recovered first.

  “The boy has spoken!” he said in a voice full of genuine excitement. “But this is a voice such as we have never heard before. Heaven alone knows what our sound engineers are making of this ! I don't know what it is doing to our listeners out there, but here in this hospital room, it has set the blood curdling. Where are you from, boy? What do you know ?”

  The reporter bent eagerly toward Thomas, thrusting the microphone in front of him.

  Inspector Galway motioned him to stay further back.

  Dr. Ramsay took the more drastic action of sweeping aside the hand that held the microphone and saying, “That is enough, quite enough for now. This child is ill. If any of your viewers can identify him, I would ask them to come forward as soon as possible.”

  The look on the doctor's face was sufficient to prevent further harassment.

  Gerry signaled to the studio that this part of the interview was over. A break was needed to give him time to get to the ward upstairs.

  The studio cut to the picture of the crash scene once again and to another reporter's description of how a strip of sheepskin was the only clue to a most bizarre mystery.

  Then it was back to the live outside broadcast again. By this time Gerry had reached the men's ward on the top floor. In one bed, Andy Brown was lying with his left arm and shoulder all swathed in bandages. In the bed next to him, Jack Jordan had a plastered leg held up on a sling. Both were ready and eager to speak.

  “And next,” said Gerry, “we shall address the problem of the missing body, the tale, as it were, of the sheepskin coat!”

  Other patients in the ward were straining forward to observe this interesting diversion from the normal dull routine. Fancy the telly being there!

  “So, what do you think happened, Andy?” said Gerry after the preliminaries had been got out of the way.

  Andy Brown looked like anybody's grandfather: thinning gray hair, leathery face, a big nose and little,
sharp eyes.

  “I don't think,” he said impatiently. “I know. If there's not a man dead under the wheels of the tanker, it's a ruddy miracle. We saw 'im with our own eyes. Didn't we, Jack?”

  He turned to the man in the next bed for confirmation. Except that the nose was smaller and the eyes were larger and watery blue, he bore exactly the same stamp as his friend and fellow worker.

  “That's right,” he said. “He was walking across the crossing, lad running in front of him. We knew what was happening and there wasn't a danged thing we could do.”

  “Of course, the full cause of the crash has not yet been ascertained,” said Gerry, smiling, “but for the moment, the real interest lies in this strip of sheepskin.”

  He held the strip up for the camera to see.

  “Two inches wide, about eighteen inches long,” he said. “Or if you prefer, four centimeters, give or take, by half a meter. And this was found clinging to the tanker's front wheel, freshly torn from a coat such as these men say the crash victim was wearing. Well, what do you think, folks? What happened to the man in the crossing? Why has no body been found? A miraculous escape, perhaps? A touch of the supernatural? We'll keep you posted. And if there's someone out there missing a strip from his sheepskin coat, do us a favor, mate—get in touch!”

  To end the broadcast, the news reader in the studio gave out a telephone number for anyone to call with information about the nameless boy or the missing “victim.”

  “There she is, Mam, just goin' into her gate. Come on, come on, let's see if she knows,” said Mickey Trent, tugging his mother by the arm and pulling her in the direction of the Merrivale cottages. They had just got off the bus from Hartwell. Mrs. Trent was carrying two bags full of Christmas shopping. Her son gave up on the effort to make her hurry and sped off down the street, calling Mrs. Dalrymple's name.

  Stella was carrying a stack of parcels piled as high as her chin. She turned to see what the noise was about and Mickey bumped right into her.