What Need of Man?, Page 2

that."

  "You designed the power shut-off that failed."

  "Improper servicing. A simple mechanical failure."

  "Or the inability of a mechanism to compensate. The wind shifted aftercomputer coordination. A pilot can feel it. Your instruments can't.There was no failure, there. The shut-off worked perfectly andCampbell was killed because of it."

  I watched the tracking screen, listened to the high keening noisescoming from the receivers. The computers clicked rapidly, feeding outtriangulated data on the positions of the escape vehicle and thecapsule. The capsule had been diverted from its path slightly byreaction to the vehicle's ejection. Its speed, however, was increasingas it moved farther out. The vehicle with Lynds was in a pathparabolic to the capsule, almost like the start of an orbit, but at afantastic distance. He was, of course, traveling at escape velocity orbetter, and you do not orbit at escape velocity.

  * * * * *

  "Harry. Harry, how long was I out?" We heard Lynds' voice come alivesuddenly through the crackling static.

  "Hello, Dennis. Listen to me. How are you?"

  "I'm fine, Harry. What's wrong? How long was I out?"

  "Nothing is wrong. You were out less than half a minute. The ejectiongear worked perfectly."

  "That's good." The tension left his voice and he settled back to achecking and rechecking of instruments, reactions and what he wouldsee. They activated the scanner. The transmitting equipment brought usa view that was little more than a spotty blackness. But I think theequipment was not working properly. You see, what Lynds said did notquite match what we saw. They later used the recording of his voicetogether with an affidavit sworn to by a technician that our receiverwas operating perfectly, as evidence in my hearing. They proved, intheir own way, that Lynds had suffered continual delirium afterblacking out. The speed, they said, was the cause. It became known asDanger V. Nobody ever bothered to explain why I never encountered thephenomenon of Danger V. It became official record, and my experiencewas the deviant. It was Bannister's alibi.

  We watched the spotty blackness on the screen and listened to Lynds.

  "Harry, I can see it all pretty well now," he began. "There's slightspin on this bomb so it comes and goes. About sixty secondrevolutions. Nice and slow. Terribly nauseating to look at. But I'mfeeling fine now, better than fine. Give me a stick and I'll move theEarth. Who was it said that? Clever fellow. You say I was out abouthalf a minute. That makes it about three more minutes untilBannister's controls are supposed to bring me back."

  "Yes, Dennis, but what do you see? Do you hear me? What do you see?"

  "Let me tell you something, Harry," he said. "They aren't going towork. They're not wrecked or anything. I just know they aren't worthsweet damn all. Like when Campbell had it. He knew it was going tohappen. You can trust the machines just so long. After that, you'rebatty to lay anything on them at all. But can you see the screen?There it is again. We're turning into view. I can see the earth now.The whole of it."

  There was silence then. We looked at the screen but saw only thespotty blackness. I looked from the screen to the speaker overhead,then back at the screen. I looked about the control room. Everyone wasdoing his work. The instruments all were working. The computers wereclicking and nobody looked particularly alarmed, except one otherpilot who was there too, Forrest. Maybe Forrest and I picturedourselves in Lynds' place. Maybe we both had the same premonitions.Maybe we both held the same dislike and distrust of the rest of them.Maybe a lot of things, but one thing was sure. The papers would neverget hold of this story, and because of that, Bannister and the rest ofthem didn't really care a hang about Lynds or me or Forrest or any ofthe others that might be up there.

  * * * * *

  It seemed an age passed until we heard Lynds again. The tape latershowed it was no more than half a minute. "Bannister, can you hearme?" he said suddenly. "Bannister, do you know what it feels like tobe tied into a barrel and tossed over Victoria Falls? Do you? That'swhat it's like out here. Not that you care a damn. You'll never comeup here, you're smart enough for that. Give me a paddle, Bannister,that's what I want. It's no more than a man in a barrel deserves. It'sblack out here, black and there's nothing to stand on. The earth lookslike a flat circle of light and very big, but it doesn't make me feelany better. These buggies of yours won't be any use to anybody untilyou let the pilot do his own work. I crashed once, in a Gypsy Moth,with my controls all shot away by an overenthusiastic Russian fighterpilot near the Turkish border. Coming down, I felt the way I do now.

  "Look at the instruments and remember, Bannister. My reflexes areperfect. There's nothing wrong with me. I could split rails with anaxe now, if I had an axe. An axe or a paddle. Harry, I'm not gettingback down in one piece. Somehow, I know it. Don't you let them do itto anyone else unless there are manual controls from the ejectiononwards. Don't do it. This isn't just nosing into the Slot, over thereef between the town and the island and letting go then, andbeginning to sweat. This is much more, Harry. This is bloodyfrightening. Are the three minutes up yet? My stomach is crawling atthe thought of you pushing that button and nothing happening. Listen,Bannister, you're not getting me down, so forget any assurances. Ihope they never let you put anybody else up here like this. It's blackagain. We've swung away."

  Bannister looked at my eyes. "It's almost time," he said.

  Eight seconds later they pushed the button. Perhaps it would have beenbetter if nothing happened then. But that part worked. They got himout of the parabolic curve and headed back down. They fired reverserockets that slowed him. They threw him into a broad equatorial orbitand let him ride. It took over an hour to be sure he was in orbit. Iadmired them that, but began to hate them very much. They ascertainedthe orbit and began new calculations. Here was where he should havehad the controls on in.

  * * * * *

  The escape vehicle was a small delta shaped craft. The wings, if onecould call them that, spanned just under seven feet. They planned tobring him down in a pattern based on very orthodox principles offlight. There remained sufficient fuel for a twelve second burst ofpower. This would decelerate the craft to a point where it would dropfrom orbit and begin a descent. I later utilized the same pattern byletting down easy into the atmosphere after the power ran down andsort of bouncing off the upper layers several times to furtherdecelerate and finally gliding down through it at about Mach 5,decelerating rapidly then, almost too rapidly, and finally passingthrough the exosphere into the ionosphere. The true stratospherebegins between sixty and seventy miles up, and once you've passedthrough that level and not burnt up, the rest of it is with the pilotand his craft.

  It takes hours. I came down gradually, approaching within strikingdistance west of Australia, then finally nosed in and took my chanceon stretching it to one of the ten mile strips for a powerlesslanding. I did it in Australia. But if I had not had orthodoxcontrols, had I even gotten that far, I would have churned up a goodpart of the Coral Sea between Sydney and New Zealand. You see, you'vegot to feel your way down through all that. That's the better part offlying, the "feel" of it. Automatic controls don't possess thatparticular human element. And let me tell you, no matter what theycall it now--space probing, astronautics or what have you--it's stillflying. And it's still men that will have to do it, escape velocity orno. Like they talk about push-button wars, but they keep traininginfantry and basing grand strategy on the infantry penetration tacticsall down through the history of warfare. They call Clausewitz obsoletetoday, but they still learn him very thoroughly. I once discussed itwith Bannister. He didn't like Clausewitz. Perhaps because Clausewitzwas a German before they became Nazis. Clausewitz would not look tookindly on a commander whose concern with a battle precluded hisconcern for his men. He valued men very highly. They were the greatestinstrument then. They still are today. That's why I can't really maketoo much out of the monkey. I feel pretty rotten about him and allthat. But the monkey up there means a man somep
lace is still downhere.

  Anyway, after Lynds completed six orbital revolutions, they began thedeceleration and descent. The whole affair, as I said, was verysolidly based on technical determinations of stresses, heat limits,patterns of glide, and Bannister's absolute conviction that nothingwould let go. The bitter part was that it let go just short of whereLynds might have made it. He was through the bad part of it, theprimary and secondary decelerations, the stretches where you think ifyou don't fry from the heat, the ship will melt apart under you, andthe buffeting in the upper levels when ionospheric resistance reallystarts to take hold. And believe me, the buffeting that you