Collected Short Fiction, page 117
“Just what they told Chris Columbus, and the Wright Brothers, and—”
“False analogies, my clever girl,” I said, but laughed. Then, seriously: “Never mind the technical blind alleys. Let’s put first things first. Let’s conquer ourselves before we try to conquer space. The proper study of mankind is Man. That’s my real work; that’s what I believe in. I’m betraying my own philosophy to spread this junk.”
Joanna sighed. “Okay, Faust, get on with it, sell your soul—and then let’s forget it.”
I got on with it. I wrote it in four weeks. I began with Lucian’s fictional trip to the Moon, and finished way out in extra-galactic space, among the fictions of the astronomers.
I remember that as I was trying to convey some idea of the size of the universe, so Palomar wobbled in its faith in the Cepheid method of measuring extra-galactic distances, and kept doubling up on its estimates. I strove to keep abreast of them—it was like Alice hiving to run twice as hard as she could to remain in the same place—with a series of footnotes which became progressively more ironical about the “expanding universe.”
But that was the only time the tongue in my cheek really showed.
I wrote about orbital techniques and space-stations, meteor hazard and lunar bases, the whole claptrap of it, as though they were matters as vital as birth, marriage, and death. I disinterred the now petrified enthusiasm of my youth, painted its wan cheeks red, and paraded it as though it were still living and breathing.
Never was I more sanguine than in the chapter headed “Become a Spaceman—Now!” Gravely, I pointed out that a spaceman wouldn’t be a sort of cosmic cowboy, wearing a space-helmet instead of a sombrero, but an individual with brain and self-control. And he’d never be through studying. Mathematics, three-dimensional navigation, rocket engineering, atomic physics, astronomy—he’d have to have more than a grounding in them all. It was up to the younger generation; space travel was just around the corner. Now was the time.
I finished that chapter on a note of earnest admonition: “You can’t start learning too young—remember, a spaceman is soon too old.”
Rudledge liked it, anyhow. They even agreed to take “Lola Castros” if I’d prune 20,000 words from it. The space travel book sold like hot cakes; the emasculated “Lola Castros” sank without a ripple.
I REFUSED to do any more space travel books. I’d made enough out of that one to pay off the mortgage and add another fifty acres of good wheat-land to my holding. But the bad taste in my mouth would never quite die away.
I tried to cleanse myself with renewed sincere attempts at the Great American Novel. In the next ten years, I rode into the literary tilt-yard nine times. I was unhorsed without fail at each event, but sometimes the critics applauded the fight I’d put up. I still felt the novelist’s craft was the highest possible calling; I regretted none of these efforts to help man understand himself. What worthier cause was there?
Yet, I remember leaning forlornly against the gatepost in the evening of my forty-fifth birthday, smoking a pipe, and trying to make an assessment of my life as it passed its prime.
It ran something like this: Loving wife, one. House, one. Acres, sixty. Employees, four. Self-betrayals, one. Broken bones, fifteen. Laurel crowns, none.
Were the scale-pans level? I thought not. As I strove to gauge their juxtaposition, I noticed a cloud of dust rising far along the road and approaching steadily. It took my attention. Strangers were events in these parts, and I could already see that it wasn’t a car belonging to the district.
It slowed as it approached, and it became apparent that it contained only the driver—a man. He stopped the car level with me and leaned out. He was a young fellow, thin-cheeked and tired-looking. “Is Mr. William Brewster’s house along this way?”
“This is it. I’m Brewster.”
“Oh.” He looked at me oddly for a moment. Then he asked diffidently: “I wonder if you could spare me a few minutes?”
I was in the rare mood to be glad to see anyone, even a salesman. It was my birthday, and I hadn’t had a visitor. “Sure. Driven far?”
“From ’Frisco. Your publishers, Rudledge, told me you lived at Calzada.”
“Good Lord, I’ll bet you can use a drink; come right in.”
“Thanks, Mr. Brewster.”
When he got out, I saw he was a little chap, and thin all over; but he looked wiry.
“My name’s Mappin,” he offered, accompanying me to the door. It didn’t mean a thing.
There were surprises awaiting both of us inside. I’d been lounging around outdoors for nearly an hour, and Joanna had packed a lot into that time. The table was laid with unusual delicacies and our best china. In the center of it stood an iced birthday cake with nine red dwarf candles burning on it in a ring (four of them larger than the others), flanked by two tall bottles of Asti Spumante. I’d anticipated none of these things.
The other surprise was nicest of all. Joanna came smiling down the old staircase wearing the beautiful dress which her great-grandmother had brought from Castille at the time of the Missions, a masterly fusion of silk and black and white lace.
Her jet-black hair was drawn up and graced by a pair of shining Spanish combs and a vivid poppy.
She was three years younger than I, but in the candlelight she seemed to undercut me by another dozen.
Mappin was obviously impressed by her appearance, and that pleased me too. I’d always been proud of Joanna.
“Joanna, this is Mr. Mappin, from San Francisco.”
They shook hands, and asked each other how they did, and Mappin said: “I’m not really from ’Frisco—it just so happened I landed there.”
“From sea?” I asked, and he nodded.
I opened one of the bottles—the cork hit the rafters. I poured three glasses that hissed and bubbled.
“If you don’t mind,” said Mappin, awkwardly, “I’d rather have coffee.”
I was hurt. “But this is a celebration,” I protested.
AGAIN HE looked at me oddly, and I wondered if he were holding something back. “Of course, Mr. Brewster—I’m sorry,” he said. “The fact is, I’ve never touched alcohol before—liquor is bad in my line. But you’re right: this is a celebration. I’ll be glad to drink your health.”
“Thanks.” We touched glasses and drank, and I looked at the candles and asked whether I was supposed to be nine or ninety. Joanna laughed, and turned to Mappin. “Just what is your line, Mr. Mappin?”
“I’m a pilot.”
“Then your abstinence is understandable, even commendable—but not usual,” I said.
“Air or sea?” Joanna probed.
“Neither, Mrs. Brewster,” said Mappin, and looked away from her bafflement towards my bookshelves. “Pardon me.” he said, and began to scan them. All booklovers act that way. They seek common ground with their host by approaching him through his book-titles. So I watched him indulgently, and liked him the more when he concentrated on the shelf of my own works. But he turned with a look of disappointment.
“I don’t see your space travel book here, Mr. Brewster. I was hoping you had a spare copy, as it’s out of print.”
“It’s out of print because it’s out of date,” I said. “I believe I’ve a couple of old copies upstairs somewhere, but it’s not a book I’m proud to show.”
He looked astonished. “Why not?”
“I’ve written better,” I said, evasively. “Surely that’s not all you’ve come to see me about?”
“More or less, Mr. Brewster. You see, I’ve lost my copy—the one I’ve had since I was a kid. It went down with my ship, to the bottom of the Pacific. There are sentimental reasons why I’d like to replace it.”
“Well, that can be attended to easily enough.” I went upstairs to the study and rummaged in the closet. I was mistaken; I had but one copy left. The dust was grey on it, and the wrapper torn. When I opened it, I saw the pages were becoming tinged with yellow. It smelt slightly musty.
If Mappin felt sentimental about it, I didn’t. He could have my last copy. The bottom of the Pacific seemed an admirable place for the book. It was rot to begin with, and now it was becoming rotten tangibly. But I cleaned it up before I took it down and gave it to him. His eyes quite lit up at the sight of it. He looked at the opening pages, then shut the book gently.
He stood there holding it as carefully as though it were a First Folio of Shakespeare, and then said shyly: “I wonder if you would mind inscribing it to me, Mr. Brewster?”
“Not at all.” I took it, and got my pen out. “Er—what’s your first name, Mr. Mappin?”
“N-Ned.” He stammered like a small embarrassed schoolboy. Covertly, Joanna caught my eye, and grinned. Silently, she managed to convey the caption: “Famous author pictured with a young admirer.”
On the title-page I wrote “For Ned Mappin, this relic,” and signed it.
“How old are you, Ned?” I asked, giving it back to him.
“Twenty-three.”
I NODDED, absently. It was a pity. He was likeable, but I was beginning to weary of him. Like all authors, I soak up intelligent adulation whenever it’s offered—rarely enough in my case. But this sort of doggy approach from the mentally retarded was not at all flattering. “Does your girl friend read that sort of stuff?” I asked.
“I haven’t got a girl friend; I hadn’t the time . . .”
“You mustn’t neglect your education, Ned. Have you read ‘Lola Castros’ ?”
He shook his head. I pulled the copy from the shelf and gave it to him. “You can begin learning all about women from that,” I said.
Joanna frowned her disapproval but said nothing.
“Thank you. I’ve always wanted to read novels, but, you know—” He broke off.
“No time?”
“No time.” He went on, awkwardly: “How much do I owe you, sir?”
“Oh, forget it; have another drink.”
“No, thanks. Look, Mr. Brewster, I feel I ought to make you some sort of return.” He fumbled in his jacket pocket and laid something on the table. In the dim candle glow, it looked to be just a small shapeless lump, like a piece of coal. I picked it up. It was a jagged piece of porous but quite heavy stone, dark grey in color.
“What is it, exactly?” I asked.
“It’s a piece of lunar rock.”
“What rock?”
“Lunar rock. I brought a few pieces back from the Moon. Sort of souvenirs. Had a lot more specimens, but they were in the ship. It’s nothing to look at, but I thought you might like a bit for a paperweight.”
I held the stone in my hand and looked helplessly, and possibly foolishly, at Joanna. But she gave me no aid; she stood and enjoyed it. It was a long time since we’d last encountered the lunatic fringe, and that was back in Greenwich Village.
“Well, thanks, Ned,” I said, at last. “I’ll treasure it; when did you get back?”
“Yesterday. I sure muffed the landing. I’m scared to go back and face ’em at HQ. When the launch brought me in, I ducked and ran. Just anywhere at first, and then I thought of you—I’d heard you lived down this way. I rang your publishers for the address. I’ve wanted to meet you ever since I was thirteen. If it hadn’t been for you, I’d never have been the first man to reach the Moon. So I hired a car and came out; I’m glad I did.”
“I’m glad you did, too,” I said, falsely. “But what did I have to do with it?”
“Your book. I saved up to buy it when it first came out. I learnt it by heart. And I took your advice. Do you remember the chapter called ‘Become a Spaceman—Now!’ ? You pointed out that there was so much for a spaceman to learn, that he’d better start in young. So started in. I was studying right to the day I took off. They picked me because I knew the most. Well, perhaps, too, because I was light and wiry—the best build for a spaceman, as you said.”
I didn’t know what to say to that: Joanna put in quietly: “So that’s why you had no time for anything else?”
“Yes, I guess so, Mrs. Brewster.”
She stared at him for some seconds. Then she said: “Well, don’t start wasting it now. I’ve just remembered, Bill—I promised to lend that copy of “Lola” to Margaret. Sorry, Ned.”
I was going to say, “Who’s Margaret?” but realized in time I wasn’t supposed to.
Mappin gave “Lola Castros” back without any show of reluctance, but he held tightly to the other book. He tapped it, and smiled ruefully at me. “Wish I’d remembered another piece of your advice: that bit about keeping a cool head in all circumstances. When I was gliding her down to the water, I got so excited over getting back safe, I clean forgot to close the watertight covers to the vents. The ship should have floated, of course; as it was, the empty propellant tanks got waterlogged, and she sank—gradually enough for me to scramble out with a lifebelt, but nothing else. But the launch knew where I was, roughly—they’d been waiting around, and tracked the ship down with radar. I was only an hour in the water.”
“You know, I haven’t seen any story in the papers about a Moon trip,” I said, putting a slight malicious emphasis on the word “story.”
“There will be tomorrow, I guess,” said Mappin. “It’s sure to get around tonight—if they lift the security blanket. I suppose they will, now that the thing’s in the bag. But I expect you can guess why they didn’t want to risk making a public flop of it.”
“Oh, sure. But I still don’t get it. So far as I know, no country has yet put a space-station up. Did you do the trip in one hop?”
“Yes. It was an atomic ship, you see; the propellant was liquid hydrogen.”
“Is it a state secret how the hydrogen was heated by the reactor?”
“It’s the closest kept secret of all time,” said Mappin, solemnly. “But I can trust you, Mr. Brewster, because I know you through this book. It only became possible through the discovery of a new principle in atomic physics. There are such things as ‘Sympathetic molecules’ which, in an electrical field, can be made to transmit their current state of—”
“Please. Ned, some other time,” Joanna cut in firmly.
“Yes, of course, Mrs. Brewster—I guess I’m keeping you from your little party. It’s sure some mouthful to explain, anyhow, and I don’t understand all of it myself. I’ll be getting along back now.”
“Do your folks know where you are?” asked Joanna.
“Haven’t any folks—not now. Reckon there’s no getting away from it—I’ve got to go and face up to reporting how I lost my ship, or the police will be trailing me out here soon. It was nice to meet you, Mrs. Brewster, and you, sir.”
“I’ll see you out, Ned,” I said; “sure you won’t have something to eat first?”
“No, thanks—I’m still too excited to eat.”
I WENT WITH him out to the car.
He paused with one band on the door handle and looked around. The full harvest moon was rising, and adding its own gilding to the wheat. There was a faint golden glow coming from the cottage window too. Joanna, in her splendid attire, was going round the room gravely with a taper lighting the candles in the tall brass sticks, which themselves shone with reflected light. The rows of bright-covered books and the daintily spread table added to the cheerful cosiness.
Mappin looked so long and silently at it all that I felt constrained to say something, however pointless, to break the spell.
“It should be a bumper harvest. We grind our own grain and bake our own bread; I’m sure looking forward to some nice new bread.”
Mappin was not a handsome fellow. He had a long nose, and at the moment he looked like a wistful weasel.
“Is this your land?” he asked.
“Sixty acres of it.”
He sighed. “I envy you, Mr. Brewster. A happy marriage, a home, land . . . Roots. You create fine books. You grow your own food. You have everything.”
“Not quite everything,” I said, quietly, but he didn’t hear me, and went on: “It’s a pity everyone can’t grow their own food, but there isn’t much land. There are two thousand, seven hundred million people in the world today, and they’re increasing at the rate of a million every two weeks. But you saw that problem coming—you mentioned it in your book. You said we’d have to move out to the planets if only to find more land to feed the surplus population. Well—we’ve made a start.”
He climbed into the car and reversed it. “Goodnight, Mr. Brewster. Thanks for the book—and happy birthday!”
“Goodnight, Ned.”
He drove off slowly, as if he were savoring the beauty of the late evening. I went back into the house thoughtfully.
Joanna was waiting for me. “What did you make of him?” she asked.
“A nut; but a nice nut; not quite so dumb as he appears.”
She laughed, and switched on the radio. Then she kissed me lightly on the cheek and said: “That’s an absolutely perfect self-description.”
“Oh, phooey. You half believed him, didn’t you?”
“No,” said Joanna, soberly. “I wholly believed him. Not at first; but when I’d looked right into him, I realized that young fellow’s done exactly what he said he did.”
“And you really—” I began, and was drowned out by a voice from the radio as it warmed up. It was announcing the nine o’clock news. Then it went straight on to tell us dramatically that it was a day of glory for the United States . . .
AFTERWARDS, I found myself gazing down at the silly little candles on the still uncut cake, blurred of mind and of sight.
Slowly, I stirred myself to fill two of the glasses with Spumante. The remaining empty glass, which Ned had used, was a silent reminder. “A celebration!” I muttered. “Good Lord—if only I’d known! My dear—”
We raised our glasses to him, and drank.
“He did it all alone, too,” I said, presently. “A one-man ship. The guts of him!” A thought occurred to me. “Why, he must have taken my stupid book with him all the way to the Moon and back!”
