Fallen Star

by James Blish

  “Frankly, Ellen, you flabbergast me. I thought the idea was a fugitive from a science-fiction story. If Farnsworth did grapple up a big chunk from the ocean bottom up North, would the IGY be interested in it?”

  “Certainly,” Ellen said. “As a matter of fact, at least two of the projects on the satellite Flight Priority List have a bearing on it. Let’s see if I have the list here…. Yes. There’s ESP-4, measurement of interplanetary matter, under Maurice Dubin at Cambridge; and ESP-7, measurement of meteoric dust erosion of the satellite skin, under Singer at the University of Maryland. So if Farnsworth finds anything that leads US to alter our current ideas of meteor density in space—as any data tending to support the protoplanet hypothesis would do—we would be most interested.

  “Of course,” she added thoughtfully, “the Arctic Ocean isn’t heavily iced over, as most people seem to think. And Farnsworth’s notion that it’s been ice-covered ever since the end of the Pliocene is possibly a little simplistic. After all, the last Ice Age ended less than 11,000 years ago. Anyhow, Julian, it’s well worth looking into, I think.”

  I thanked her and hung up, feeling a little dizzy. I was not in spectacularly good shape anyhow, thanks to a protracted argument with Midge which had lasted for three quarts of ale after I had gotten home the previous night. I think Midge might have passed over my new association with a Notorious Woman like Jayne Wynn, or my being much too late for dinner without having phoned, or my having been out drinking with Harriet. The combination, however, was too much for her. The argument was dull and lengthy, as are all arguments which are essentially about nothing, and the end-product was one of those awful hangovers which fill the whole of the next day with an inexplicable sense of guilt and impending disaster, like the first intimations of schizophrenia. Indoles in the blood, I suppose.

  But I couldn’t go back to bed today, all the same. There was still too much that I didn’t know.

  The first thing I wanted to do was to get out to Teterboro and get my own personal look at the Flying Tail. Somewhere during the day I had also to repair my omission to ask the Commodore about salary, too. But the aircraft came first.

  Getting to Teterboro from Pelham, since it involves going through Manhattan, is much more difficult than going from New York to Chicago, but I made it by two in the afternoon. I showed my credentials to the Port of New York Authority administrator who runs the airport, and went out to look for the Hawkes Flying Tail.

  It wasn’t there.

  I couldn’t see any place on the field where such an object could be hidden. I went to the nearest hangar, which turned out to belong to the Peterkin Flying School; a mechanic told me that Peterkin was out with a student, but would be down soon. After a while a Piper Tri-Pacer which I had seen circling the field at about 800 feet came in for a landing and taxied toward us.

  “Sure, I know the ship you mean,” Peterkin told me. “She’s been sitting off in this corner of the field since about 1942. Old Squats, we called her. Every so often the Air Force would tune her up a little. Then they’d fill up her fuel tanks and leave her again.”

  “Why’d they fill her up?”

  “Corrosion,” Peterkin said, with the superiority of the flier for the groundlubber. “If you don’t keep tanks full, they corrode. Water condenses on the inside.”

  “Oh. Well, where is she now?”

  “You got me,” Peterkin said. “All I know is, a bunch of characters in green uniforms came over here last week and inspected her from top to bottom. Then they came back about three days ago and took her off, without even anybody checking ’em out in her. She hasn’t been back since. Funniest looking thing in flight since birds.”

  Green uniforms? I hightailed it back to the operations office.

  “Why, sure,” the operations officer said. “It was all perfectly in order. She was sold to the Venezuelan Air Force, and they came and got her, that’s all. They didn’t need to be checked out in her, since she was an X Model; I don’t know who’d be qualified to check a pilot out in her anyhow, except maybe Rupert Hawkes.”

  “My boss flew it,” I said. “Commodore Bramwell-Farnsworth.”

  “Oh,” the operations officer said, “him. I saw him do it. He may be hell on wheels in a Ford Trimotor, but I wouldn’t send my worst enemy up with him in that ship. Half the time he was flying her upside down.” He thought a moment and then added, “It is a little hard to tell which side is supposed to be the upside.”

  “This is going to cause a whale of a stink,” I said. “The Air Force gave the use of that aircraft to the Commodore. He’s supposed to fly it on a North Pole expedition at the end of April.”

  “Well, he’s lucky,” the operations officer said. “He wouldn’t have gotten Old Squats as far as Boston. Even Chuck Yaeger wouldn’t fly that plane.”

  I regarded the reference to Boston as singularly unfortunate, but at least the Commodore wasn’t around to hear it.

  “Look,” I said. “This has got to be a clerical error of some kind. The Air Force can’t give two different outfits the same aircraft. Maybe the Venezuelans don’t have title yet; can’t you call them back until this thing’s settled?”

  “How can I do that? It doesn’t take all year to get to Venezuela. They must have landed in Caracas the day after they left here, at the latest. She’s probably flying bananas by now. If your boss still wants her back, he’ll have to take it up with the Air Force—it’s out of my hands. As far as I’m concerned, the kids had all the proper papers, they had a right to Old Squats, and they took her away. I’m glad to be rid of the old eyesore.”

  I didn’t know what to think. I hadn’t been eager to ride in the Flying Tail, but I didn’t want. to be part of a grounded expedition, either. I retired in confusion to the bar, and thence to a phone booth from which I called Harriet at MACB(eth). She wasn’t in the office and the receptionist couldn’t say when she’d be back; was there any message? I left a message, and began wending my sweaty way back to Pelham. This was going to be a nasty piece of news to have to break to the Commodore, and I wasn’t going to break it to him without prior consultation with someone who knew him at least a little better than I did. I have many defects, but there’s one good thing you can say about me: I’m a genuinely thorough-going coward.

  I was playing roll-the-ball with the baby after dinner when Harriet called. Midge’s expression as she transferred the phone to me was one impossible to describe to bachelors; it was, well, tentatively grim. I put on the standard answering expression, Righteous Reproof No. 2, and said: “Harriet?”

  “Hello, Julian,” Harriet’s voice said dolefully.

  “Oh. Hello. You sound like the North Orange Crematorium. I gather that you got the news.”

  “Noose? How did you know? I was just told today. This afternoon.”

  “You got it the easy way. I had to hunt for it.”

  “Hunt for what?”

  “The gawdam aeroplane, what else?”

  “Julian,” Harriet said. “What aeroplane? What are you talking about?”

  “I’m beginning to wonder. Let’s start over. Hello, Harriet. What’s new?”

  “I’ve been fired.”

  I groped for a chair, caromed off the piano with a noise like a Reader’s Digest condensation of a Roger Sessions symphony, and wound up perched on a corner of the piano-bench. “Cripes, Harriet.”

  “Well, I’m bearing up bravely. Actually I’m not fired yet. It’s just that Pfistner dropped MACB(eth) today, and I got two weeks’ notice. But I’ve got to start hunting. You know how it is for a woman in this game.”

  I did. I said, “What are you planning?”

  “There’s not much I can do. I’ve got to use the only solid contact I have. That’s the Commodore, damn his golden hide. If you’ll help, maybe he’ll take me on as publicity gal for the expedition.”

  I wormed my bottom off the corner of the bench on to the edge and just breathed for a moment. Considering the multiple drawbacks such an arrangement would ha for
Harriet, it was hard to imagine why she could even entertain it. But then, I didn’t know how badly off she really was; in her own mind she had already fallen from the high Miltonian heaven of being a “public relations counsel” to the dismal universal hiss of “publicity”, at least inside her own carefully coiffed skull. I didn’t underestimate the length of that fall, imaginary though it usually seems to the people who do the useful work of the world.

  “What would you like me to do?” I said cautiously.

  “Well, maybe you can give me a few extra assets to offer, outside of my experience and so on. The Commodore needs names with scientific status to put on his letter head. If I could bring him somebody like Robert Willey, not to go with the expedition, but just to act as technical adviser or something…. What do you think?”

  It was feasible, of course. Robert Willey was an old acquaintance of mine, though I couldn’t properly describe him as a close friend. He is widely known to the public as an expert on a strange assortment of subjects, chiefly rocketry, natural history and structural engineering, about all of which he has written some notably informative and charming books. He is, in addition, the author of innumerable popular magazine articles, and is a lecturer with more bids than he can possibly fill.

  Though he is no longer a practising scientist, the public thinks of him as one—an impression aided by his record as a pioneer in the first German rocket society, his expulsion by the Nazis, and the many times he is cited as an authority by other science writers. He would be an undeniable asset to the Commodore, even if only as a name on a letter head.

  “I’ll tell you what,” I said. “I can’t deliver Willey to you on a platter; you’ll have to approach him yourself. He’s a busy man, and he’ll make up his own mind whether or not he’s interested in our Arctic cruise. You’ll find his phone number in the Queens book. If you catch him in town, explain the expedition to him and ask him if he’s interested. You can use my name, which he’ll probably remember without any trouble, and you can also tell him that this is an IGY-sponsored project. But bear in mind that if he is interested, Farnsworth will have to pay for him. Willey makes money every time he opens his mouth, and the arrangement satisfies him perfectly.”

  “I’ll remember,” Harriet said. “Thank you, Julian.” She sounded very humble; only then did I begin to realize what a shock she had had.

  “Don’t be jittery, Harriet. He’s really a very gracious, generous guy, though his accent makes him sound gruff. It’s just that he makes his living from his name, so he’s not going to give it away. You’ll have to ask Farnsworth whether or not he wants Willey enough to pay him; then you go ahead and phone Willey. Okay?”

  “I see. Another version of the old Army game. I’ve played that often enough with clients. Thanks, Julian; I’ll let you know what happens.”

  “You can do better than that,” I said. “Call the Commodore right now and tell him he has no aeroplane.”

  I explained swiftly what I had found at Teterboro. Somewhere in the background I could hear the baby borne off to bed, crying, “Daddy, ball, daddy, ball” in doleful protest. I wish I’d been listening more closely. Instead, I added:

  “I must confess that I’ve got no stomach for the job, which is why I’m asking you to do it. But the faster it’s done, the better. He’ll need the news right away, so he can start hotting up the wires to Washington. Maybe you know him well enough to make him realize you’re doing him a favour—and you can mix the Robert Willey angle in with it.”

  “Sure I can. From my point of view it’s a break. Julian, you’re an angel—a frigid angel. Good-bye, I’ve got to warm up my broomstick.”

  “Go to it, carrot-top.”

  I hung up. Behind me, Midge said, evenly: “Carrot-top, Julian?”

  And off we went again.

  Five

  THE Commodore worked prodigies with Washington; evidently he was highly regarded there, at least in some quarters —and of course the expedition had had a quasi-official status. There was, however, nothing that the Air Force could do about the Flying Tail. Through some kind of intradepartmental bollix, that had been sold fair-and-square to the Venezuelans, and it couldn’t very well be unsold. But there was an existing commitment to the Commodore which the AF was quite willing to recognize.

  We wound up with the use of two B-29s in the condition —though only one was pressurized. Perforce, the dogs would ride in that one, it being impossible to put oxygen masks on dogs. Nor would Dr. Elvers, whom I had finally met, wear well under that kind of treatment: he was a small, dried prune of a man, with snow-white hair and pink-rimmed eyes. To my surprise, Farnsworth promptly appointed Jayne the captain of the unpressurized craft, which would also carry Sidney Goldstein, our cryologist; Ben Taurasi, our engineer-mechanic; Harry Chain, our radioman; Fred Klein, our geologist; and Marshall Benz, our oceanographer—exactly half of our total personnel.

  As a sort of bonus (which is Washington past-tense Latin for “boner”), the Air Force also made us several concessions. Chiefest of these was their designating us an official AF mission. Aside from giving us unquestioned access to AF installations in the North, what this meant in practice was that after we had gassed and oiled up the big planes at our own expense, we could bill the government for the taxes. This didn’t put any money back into Farnsworth’s pocket before the expedition started—and I had already seen enough of his operation to realize that lack of ready cash was chronic with him except when it was acute—but it made his credit good at Teterboro, which was almost as satisfactory.

  Nevertheless, Farnsworth was far from satisfied. The delays and setbacks he had suffered over the past two years had slowly begun to convince him that Somebody was out to get the expedition. He had no hypotheses about the identity of this Somebody, which at least made him an unusual sample of this kind of crackpottery —almost anybody else would have been blaming the Reds, the Pentagon, or some other whipping-boy—or about what Somebody might hope to gain by lousing us up. All the same it did no good to ask pointed questions. On this subject, it was better to ignore Farnsworth as completely as possible.

  We had an early spring in ’58, as I’m sure you’ll remember. The increasingly warm days were forcible reminders of how short the time was growing before take off. As the interval shortened, press interest in us heightened, and Harriet took every possible advantage of that interest. She arranged interviews right and left; the Commodore was given the chance to radiate animal magnetism over three high-rated network TV shows, a whole battery of newsreel shorts, and radio interviews galore—to say nothing of the magazine pieces that were written about him. All this was in addition to the stuff the papers were carrying.

  It was a much better p.r. showing than Jayne could have brought off. It’s one thing to be an experienced newspaperman or woman, but it’s quite another to be an experienced publicist, and Harriet was proving it to the hilt. I am unable to say that Jayne was much warmed by the demonstration.

  But it pleased the expedition’s sponsors; when the headlines began to refer to us as “2WPBE” instead of “POLAR TRY”, they almost wriggled with delight. And it pleased the Commodore to the very verge of disaster. On a higher and more cerebral plane, Robert Willey did a marvellous job of explaining to the public what we were going to the Pole for, giving us a good coating of scientific prestige. The Commodore had agreed immediately to paying Willey’s asking price, a piece of farsightedness on his part that I hadn’t really expected.

  As for my salary, that had also turned out to be generous. That is, the Commodore paid me exactly what Ellen Fremd had forecast, which, now that I knew him better, I had to regard as generous. The cheques were not, however, always forthcoming on paydays. Farnsworth finally settled down to being steadily one week behind on my cheque.

  The public relations agencies of our sponsors were now in high gear, and much of their copy got printed—each piece stressing some one item in our equipment or supplies, to the exclusion of everything else. We posed for innumerabl
e photographs, wearing our Snowfire togs, packing tabascomycin in with our medical supplies, checking our Dixon navigation instruments. Farnsworth and Jayne posed together —he looking strong and silent, she slumbrously sultry—for Polar Passion No. 2, the perfume Jayne was to wear at the Pole; the picture didn’t tell much about the perfume, but then I suppose it’s difficult to photograph a smell. Most of these pix, of course, were unacceptable as editorial matter, but as artwork for ads they found their way into everything from the New Yorker to Iron Age. Jayne got a nice write-up in one of the exposé magazines, too—and I rather doubt that it exaggerated much; the writer, an anonymous hack who unsigned himself “Harcourt Melish”, evidently had been following her career since he was eleven, his tongue hanging out a foot all the way.

  In the glare of all this public attention, the Commodore blossomed like a giant hollyhock. The things he said about the expedition became more and more disconnected from the facts. He told the TV audience on the Garroway show about his dream of finding a hunk of Planet Four-and-a-half, and was delighted to find, next day, that his remarks on that subject had been picked up by the wire services. After that, there was hardly any holding him. Pretty soon he was hinting that he might find virtually the whole protoplanet—or anyhow, half of it—on the floor of the Arctic Ocean, and that the recovered lump might well show “evidences of life”. This, too, was picked up, and front-paged by many of the tabloids, so it wasn’t long before the Commodore was speculating in public as to whether or not the protoplanet had been destroyed in an interplanetary war with Mars, and whether or not survivors of the war might have colonized the Earth