MISSION TO MERCURY

Hugh Walters

www.sfgateway.com

Enter the SF Gateway …

In the last years of the twentieth century (as Wells might have put it), Gollancz, Britain’s oldest and most distinguished science fiction imprint, created the SF and Fantasy Masterworks series. Dedicated to re-publishing the English language’s finest works of SF and Fantasy, most of which were languishing out of print at the time, they were – and remain – landmark lists, consummately fulfilling the original mission statement:

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The technology now exists to enable us to make available, for the first time, the entire backlists of an incredibly wide range of classic and modern SF and fantasy authors. Our plan is, at its simplest, to use this technology to build on the success of the SF and Fantasy Masterworks series and to go even further.

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Chapter One

“Can you remember what I said after your last expedition?” asked Sir George Benson, the Director of the United Nations Exploration Agency.

The famous scientist was in the office he used during his occasional visits to London. With him were four young men sprawled in various attitudes across the comfortable chairs. To a casual observer they might have seemed just four healthy young males, but a closer look would have revealed something very different. This quartet had crewed some of the most exciting and dangerous missions ever despatched by the Agency. Now they were waiting to hear from their friend and Chief about their next assignment.

“Yes,” replied one of them, Chris Godfrey, “you said something about Mercury, didn’t you?”

Chris was the one an observer would perhaps have noticed first, for he was the natural leader of the group. He was of medium height, his fair hair seemed difficult to subdue, and his grey eyes could change in a flash from gay good humour to the hardness of steel. He was the most experienced space traveller of them all.

“Quite right,” the Director of UNEXA answered with a twinkle in his eyes, “your next mission will be to that rather warm planet. But there was something else I mentioned. Have you forgotten?”

“Didn’t you say we’d have another crew member?” asked the youngest of the four astronauts.

Tony Hale was the mechanic of the party. Though, to his subsequent regret, Tony had wasted some of his time at school, he was good with his hands and later on he developed this gift. Now he was the finest mechanic in any space crew, and on more than one occasion his practical skill had saved the lives of his brilliant friends.

“You also mentioned a new means of communication,” added Morrey Kant, the American. This tall, crew-cut young man with the perpetual grin and the shoulders of a rugger player looked at Sir George keenly.

“Didn’t you also mention telepathy?” asked the fourth member of the team.

This was Serge Smyslov, a slim, dark Russian who was the most reserved of the quartet. In the early days of space exploration, when there had been that senseless rivalry between East and West, Serge had been Chris Godfrey’s greatest rival. But the friendship that had sprung up between these two young astronauts after each had saved the other had led the way to the universal co-operation that now existed.

“So you hadn’t forgotten,” smiled Benson. He was a tall man, with hair that was now almost white. Chris could remember him when it had scarcely a tinge of grey, but the worries and tensions of Sir George’s job had aged the brilliant scientist. Many had been the times when a decision of his had meant life or death to some astronaut. Often he’d gone almost without sleep for weeks when a mission had reached a critical stage. Yet long hours of mental concentration, perpetual journeying all over the Earth, and endless committee meetings had not robbed Sir George Benson of his sense of humour or his affection for his favourite space crew.

“Come on, Uncle George,” Chris said with the easy familiarity born of long years of mutual affection, “tell us the news.”

“Spill the beans,” the American requested, and all of them sat up alertly, waiting for the Director to speak.

“All in good time,” Sir George answered, enjoying the impatience of his young friends. “First of all, tell me what you know about your next objective—the planet Mercury. You begin, Tony.”

The mechanic scratched his head in embarrassment. Astronomy wasn’t really his strongest point. However, he started off gamely enough.

“Mercury is the planet nearest the Sun,” he began. “It’s much smaller than the Earth and must be very hot. It—er—goes round the Sun much more quickly than we do.”

“All right,” laughed Sir George, “that will do for a start. Now what about some information from you others?”

The three older astronauts looked at each other uncomfortably, each waiting for one of the others to begin. At last Chris took the plunge.

“As Tony says, Mercury is the innermost planet, its average distance from the Sun being thirty six million miles”, he said. “It is a little larger than the Moon, being about three thousand, one hundred miles in diameter. The Mercurian year is only eighty-eight days—that is Earthly days.”

“Yes, that’s a point,” Sir George agreed. “You see, Mercury keeps the same face permanently turned towards the sun, so there is no day and night as we know it. Incidentally Tony was quite right about the planet being hot. It is both the hottest and the coldest planet in the solar system.”

“How’s that?” asked Tony. “I should have thought that the planet farthest from the Sun—Pluto, is it?—would be the coldest.”

“It would be, except that Pluto rotates and Mercury doesn’t. So every part of Pluto does get a dose of sunlight, even though the distance is so very great. No, the coldest place in the solar system is definitely the dark side of Mercury, which never gets any sun at all.”

“About seven hundred degrees Fahrenheit on the hot side, isn’t it?” asked Morrey. “And about absolute zero on the dark side?”

“Roughly,” agreed Sir George, “so you see insulation will be a pretty ticklish problem.”

“Are we to land on Mercury?” asked Serge.

“That hasn’t been finally decided,” the Director replied, “but look here, I’m telling you all about Mercury instead of your telling me.”

“Well—er—Mercury has gravity about a quarter as strong as ours,” Morrey volunteered, “so the escape velocity—that is the speed a spaceship would have to travel to overcome gravity—is only two and a half miles a second against our seven miles a second. Over to you, Serge.”

“The planet has very little atmosphere, what there is being mainly carbon dioxide,” the Russian said. “The surface is probably barren and rocky, much like that of the Moon.”

“There have been a number of so-called maps made,” Chris contributed, “but as Mercury is so difficult to observe, these aren’t very accurate. By the way, wasn’t there supposed at one time to be another planet even closer to the Sun?”

“That’s true,” Benson agreed. “It was even given the name of Vulcan, but it’s now generally accepted as fictitious. Anyhow, that’s one of the things you can settle for all time.”

“If we don’t land I expect we shall orbit the planet to make observations,” ventured Serge.

“Certainly, but as I’ve already said, a final decision about a landing hasn’t yet been made,” Sir George told them.

“Have you solved the insulation difficulty?” asked Morrey.

“That mightn’t be necessary,” the Director replied. “You see, the orbit of the planet round the Sun is much more elliptic than ours, so its velocity varies considerably. This means that there is a small band round the planet where light and darkness alternate. If a landing is to be made it would have to be within this band in order to minimize the extremes of temperature.”

“Have you any idea when we shall be on our way?” asked Tony.

“Not just yet. You’ll have to run through the usual training programme, of course. But, more important, you’ll have to get used to a fifth member of the crew,” Benson told them. Did they detect a smile lurking at the corners of the scientist’s mouth?

“Who is he? When shall we meet him?” demanded Morrey. They all knew how important it was that they should get to know their new companion well, and that he should come to know them. On a long voyage in space, the close confines of a small cabin proved a severe test of the tempers of the crew. Unless each member was psychologically adapted to each of the others, intolerable strains could be set up under the conditions of a lengthy journey. If the newcomer didn’t fit in with them there would be nothing but trouble ahead.

“Patience, my friends,” Sir George chided them. “You’ll have plenty of time to become acquainted.”

“What if we don’t fit?” queried Chris.

“There isn’t much fear of that,” Benson smiled. “We know more about each of you than you do yourselves. We’ve chosen someone whom you’ll like, though it will require a slight adjustment by you four. You’ll meet your new crew member later today.”

“What’s the programme now, sir?” Serge asked respectfully.

“I suggest you get something to eat and report back here at half past two,” Sir George said, rising to his feet. “Now off you go!”

“What do you make of it?” demanded Tony eagerly. “Bit mysterious, wasn’t he?”

The four astronauts were consuming their usual thick steaks in a nearby restaurant that they knew quite well. They had all been puzzled by Sir George Benson’s seeming reluctance to tell them precisely who their companion was to be. After all, it was a matter of some importance, to them, and they couldn’t understand why he’d evaded telling them.

“I expect he will tell us this afternoon,” Serge said thoughtfully, looking down at his plate. “However, the whole thing is strange. He said nothing about telepathy—I wonder if they are really serious about it.”

“Telepathy!” snorted Morrey. “That’s a music hall turn, isn’t it? The two people usually have a clever code for communicating with each other.”

“That does happen, of course,” agreed Chris, “but telepathy is also a scientific fact. For years, now, it’s been investigated and put through various tests.”

“What tests?” Tony asked.

“One of the simplest is to have the two people who can communicate with each other in different rooms. One of them is given a pack of playing cards and looks at each in turn. The other writes down whether the card being examined is a diamond, heart, spade, or club. Then the number of correct guesses tells how good they are at transmitting their thoughts,” replied Chris.

“I’ve heard of that,” Morrey said. “Normally the chances of guessing correctly are one in four. Any significantly higher percentage would support the possibility that telepathy had taken place.”

“Or that some very clever cheating had,” interposed Serge.

“No, I don’t think that’s likely,” Chris remarked. “Many tests have taken place under carefully controlled laboratory conditions, and I believe some people have proved their ability to communicate in this way.”

“Yes, but guessing cards correctly is very different from being able to transmit a message, let alone a long and complicated one such as we send by radio,” Serge pointed out.

“That’s true,” agreed Chris, “and Uncle George will be well aware of this. If the chap we are to take with us can transmit the mass of data we have to send to Control he’ll be something of a miracle.”

“That would mean two miracle men,” Tony laughed, “one with us and the other at Control to receive the messages. Bit far-fetched, isn’t it?”

“We’ll just have to wait and see, won’t we?” Chris said patiently. “Now who’s for apple pie and cream?”

Over their coffee the four astronauts discussed uneasily the addition to their numbers. Try as they would they couldn’t help a slight feeling of resentment at this intrusion into their tight-knit little band. This quartet had been together for so long, had faced and overcome so many perils together, had spent such long periods in the close confines of a space ship’s cabin, that they were reluctant to admit a fifth member, who could easily break the bond that held them together. Or it might be that in order to preserve their own close relationship intact they would have to exclude the newcomer from their circle, and this too could well cause friction on a long and trying journey.

It was two o’clock by the time the quartet had finished lunch, half an hour too soon for their second interview with Sir George. Serge suggested a stroll in a nearby square where several children were feeding the pigeons. To kill time the others agreed and spent the next twenty minutes idly watching the greedy birds swallowing the liberal handfuls of crumbs that the children were scattering.

“Come on, time to go,” Chris announced at last. They turned and followed their leader silently in the direction of Sir George Benson’s office.

“Commendably prompt,” the Director smiled as he invited them into his office again, “or is it curiosity that has brought you along?”

“We’re just dying to meet our new recruit,” Chris conceded. “We’ve been unable to talk of anything else all lunch time. I hope you’re not holding back anything from us, Uncle George. I hope the new chap isn’t a weirdy of any kind.”

They all wondered why the Director was so amused. Chris had never known him to be so exasperating. If the new man was here, why didn’t Uncle George introduce them at once and let them begin getting to know him? It would be hard to avoid prejudice against the fifth member of the crew if Sir George went on being so difficult.

“All right. I’ll put you out of your misery,” Benson laughed, then added more seriously, “Your companion will be a very important member of your crew and should receive every help and consideration. However strange you may think this person is, I want you to remember that we are going to carry out an experiment that may have far-reaching results. I’m sure you’ll all let this important consideration outweigh any private feeling you may have. Now follow me.”

Sir George rose and strode out of his office, down a long corridor and then through a swing door. The four astronauts followed the scientist in silence. Within a few seconds they would be coming face to face with someone whom Sir George was thrusting upon them. It would be hard indeed to accept him as a friend. Still—they would do their best to work with him if he would do the same.

Through the swing doors was a fairly large room and opposite was another door.

“My friends, I want you to meet the new member of your crew.” Sir George smiled as he stood aside for the quartet to enter. As leader, Chris went first, but the others crowded closely behind. Inside the smaller room they stopped—rooted to the floor in amazement.

There was the new recruit all right. But it was a girl!