Meteor and Other Stories, Page 2

  Our Globe, with all the precious things in it, is lost. We have nothing now with which to start building our new world. It is bitter to have worked so hard and come so far for this …

  But there was more sorrow to come. Two of the group who had gone with Iss returned with a dreadful story. Behind the cave they had found a large number of wide tunnels, full of the dirt and smell of some unknown creatures. As the group went through the tunnels, they were attacked by six-legged, and sometimes eight-legged, creatures of horrible appearance. Many of these were a great deal larger than themselves, and had huge claws and teeth. However, the creatures, though very fierce, were not intelligent, and were soon killed by our fire-tubes.

  Iss found open country beyond the tunnels, and decided to come back and fetch us. It was then that the next dreadful thing happened. They were attacked by fierce grey creatures about half the size of the first monster. These creatures were probably the builders of the tunnels. There was a terrible battle in which nearly all our men were killed before the monsters were beaten. Only two men survived to bring us the bad news.

  We have chosen Mum as our new leader. He has decided we must go forward through the tunnels to the open country beyond. The plain behind us is empty, the Globe has gone, and if we stay here we shall starve.

  We pray to God that beyond the tunnels we shall find a world that is not mad and evil like this one.

  Is it too much we ask - simply to live, to work, and to build, in peace…?

  *

  Two days later Graham went to see Sally and her father again.

  I thought I’d tell you the latest news about your meteor,’ he said.

  ‘What do the War Office experts say it was?’ asked Mr Fontain.

  ‘They really don’t know,’ said Graham. ‘But they’re sure it wasn’t a meteor. At first they thought it was simply a solid hall of some unknown metal. Then they found a hole, which was smooth and about a centimetre across, going straight into the middle of the ball. They decided to cut the ball in half to see if the hole led to anything.’

  ‘And did it?’ asked Sally.

  ‘Yes,’ Graham replied. ‘The ball wasn’t solid, after all. The outside was certainly made of metal, about fifteen centimetres thick. Then there were three or four centimetres of soft, fine dust. This dust protected the inside of the ball from heat. It does this job so well that the War Office experts are very interested in it - it’s better than anything they’ve got. Then there was a thinner layer of metal. Inside that was a layer of soft, plastic material, like a lot of tiny bags all attached to each other. But there was nothing in any of the bags. Then there was another belt of metal about five centimetres wide, divided into compartments. These compartments were packed with all sorts of things. There were tiny tubes, packets of seeds, and different kinds of powders, which were spilled when the ball was cut open. Lastly there was a ten-centimetre space in the very middle, divided by a large number of very thin, flat sheets of metal. Otherwise this central space was entirely empty.

  ‘So that’s the secret weapon! It disappointed the War Office people, as it won’t explode. Now they’re asking each other what’s the purpose of such a thing. If you have any ideas, I’m sure they would be very happy to hear them.’

  ‘That’s disappointing,’ said Mr Fontain. I was sure it was a meteor, until it started hissing.’

  ‘One of the experts thinks that it may be an artificial meteor. But the other experts disagree. They say that if something was sent across space, it would be for a purpose we could understand. And nobody can make any sense of this hollow metal ball.’

  ‘An artificial meteor built to visit us is much more exciting than a secret weapon,’ said Sally, it gives us hope that one day we could travel in space ourselves … How wonderful it would be to do that! All those people who hate war, and secret weapons, and cruelty, could go to a clean, new planet. We could set out in a huge spaceship, and we could start a new life. We’d be able to leave behind all the things that are making this poor old world worse and worse. All we’d want is a place where people could live, and work, and build, and be happy. And if we could only start again, what a lovely, peaceful world we might—’

  She stopped suddenly, interrupted by the sound of a dog barking angrily outside. She jumped up as the barking changed to a long cry of pain.

  ‘That’s Mitty!’ she said. ‘What on earth—?’

  She ran out of the house, and the two men followed her. She was the first to see her small white dog lying on the grass beside the outhouse wall. She ran towards it, calling; but the little animal did not move.

  ‘Oh, poor Mitty,’ Sally said, I think she’s dead!’

  She went down on her knees beside the dog’s body.

  ‘She is dead!’ she said, I wonder what—’ She suddenly stood up, put her hand to her leg, and held it tight. ‘Oh, something has stung me. Oh, it hurts.” There were tears of pain in her eyes as she rubbed her leg.

  ‘What on earth—?’ began her father, looking down at the dog. ‘What are all those things? Ants?’

  Graham bent down to look.

  ‘No, they’re not ants,’ he said, I don’t know what they are.’

  He picked up one of the tiny creatures to look at it more closely.

  It was a strange-looking little thing. Its body was an almost perfect half of a ball, with the flat side underneath. The round top was pink and shiny. It was like an insect, except that it had only four legs, which were very short. It had no separate head, but it had two eyes on the edge where the curved top of its body met the bottom.

  As they looked at it, it stood up on two of its legs, showing a pale flat underside. In its front legs it seemed to be holding a bit of grass or thin wire.

  Graham felt a sudden burning pain in his hand.

  ‘Hell!’ he exclaimed, shaking the creature off his hand. ‘The little horrors certainly can sting. I don’t know what they are, but they’re dangerous things to have in the garden or the house. Have you got any insect-killer?’

  ‘Yes. There’s a tin in the kitchen,’ Mr Fontain told him.

  Graham ran to the kitchen, and hurried back with the tin in his hand. He looked around, and found several hundreds of the little pink creatures crawling towards the wall of the outhouse. He shook the tin, and sent a cloud of insect-killer over them.

  The three people watched as the little creatures crawled more and more slowly. Some of them turned over, weakly waving their legs in the air. Then they lay still.

  ‘We won’t have any more trouble from them,’ Graham said. ‘Horrible little creatures! I’ve never seen anything like them - I wonder what on earth they were?’

  CHAPTER TWO

  DUMB MARTIAN

  Duncan Weaver bought Lellie from her parents for £1,000. That is what really happened, but, of course, by law nobody is allowed to buy anyone else. So we must say this: Lellie’s parents said that she could go and work for Duncan Weaver, and he paid them £1,000 because she would no longer be helping them.

  He had expected to pay only £600, or at the most £700. All the Earth people living on the planet Mars had said that this was a fair amount. But the first three Martian families he had spoken to would not let their daughters go. The next family wanted £1,500, and would not change their minds. Lellie’s family had started at £1,500, too, but they had reduced the amount when Duncan had made it clear that he would not pay that price.

  Although Duncan had not wanted to pay as much, he was still pleased with what he had got. His appointment was for five years, so Lellie would only cost him £200 a year at worst. In fact, he was sure he would be able to sell her for £400 or £500 at the end of his appointment. So he would get cheap service for five years.

  His appointment was as Station Officer on Jupiter IV/II. The planet Jupiter was so huge that its moons had moons of their own. Jupiter IV/II was the second largest moon going round Jupiter’s fourth largest moon.

  Duncan went to his Company’s Agent on Mars, and asked if Lellie could
travel with him on the spaceship to Jupiter. The Agent told Duncan that there was room on the ship, and added that the Company would send extra food for Lellie at a cost of £200 a year. This was very cheap, as the Company liked its workers to have a companion. A person entirely on his own was more likely to go mad from loneliness. But Duncan had not thought of having to buy food for Lellie, and he was shocked to find that she would cost him an extra £1,000 over the five years. However, he realized he would have to agree to the Agent’s suggestion.

  ‘Good,’ said the Agent. ‘I’ll arrange the food and her place on the spaceship. All you need is a passport for her, and they’ll provide that as soon as you show them your marriage certificate.’

  Duncan stared at the Agent.

  ‘Marriage certificate!’ he exclaimed. ‘What! Me marry a Martian?’

  The Agent frowned. ‘You can’t get a passport without it. And nobody can move from planet to planet without a passport. It’s one of the anti-slavery laws. If you aren’t married to her, you might be planning to sell her. You might even have bought her.’

  ‘What, me!’ Duncan protested, his face looking completely innocent.

  ‘Even you,’ said the Agent. ‘A marriage licence will only cost you another £10.’

  Duncan went back to the Agent’s office two days later, and put the marriage certificate and the passport on the Agent’s desk. The Agent looked closely at them.

  ‘Good. They’re OK,’ said the Agent, I can complete the arrangements now. My fee is £100.’

  ‘Your fee! What the—?’ Duncan began.

  I’m sure you don’t want anything to upset your arrangements,’ the Agent interrupted gently.

  ‘One dumb Martian is costing me a great deal,’ said Duncan. He didn’t add that he’d had to pay £100 for the passport.

  ‘Dumb?’ said the Agent, looking at him enquiringly.

  ‘Yes,’ said Duncan, I mean it in both ways. She doesn’t say anything, and she’s stupid. Martians aren’t very intelligent.’

  ‘Hmm,’ said the Agent. ‘You’ve never lived here, have you? They act as if they’re not very intelligent, and the shape of their faces makes them look dumb, too. But don’t forget that they were a very clever race once. Long before we arrived here, they’d stopped bothering to think. Their planet was dying, and they were content to die with it.’

  ‘Well,’ said Duncan, ‘this one’s rather young to sit and die. She’s only about twenty. She’s so dumb that she didn’t even know what was happening at her own wedding!’

  Later, Duncan found that he had to spend another £100 on clothes and other things for her. In the end the total bill for Lellie was £2,310. A lively, intelligent girl would have been worth that amount, but Lellie … However, once he had paid the first £1,000, he could not have escaped the rest. He comforted himself by thinking of the £5,000 a year, tax free, that he would be earning. That would be £25,000 in five years, and he could not spend any of it on Jupiter IV/II. On that lonely moon even Lellie would be a companion - of a sort.

  The First Officer called Duncan into the control-room to look at his future home.

  ‘There it is,’ he said, pointing to the viewing screen.

  They looked at the hard, dark surface. Jupiter IV/II was nothing more than a lump of rock, about sixty kilometres round.

  Duncan left the control-room and went towards the restaurant. On his way he put his head into his compartment. Lellie was lying on her bed, and when she saw him she sat up.

  She was small, and was hardly more than one and a half metres tall. Her face and her hands were very delicate. Her eyes were unnaturally large and round, so that she always looked innocent and surprised. Her ears were long, and hung down below her brown hair, which was touched with red. Her skin was very pale, and looked paler because of the bright red colour she wore on her lips.

  ‘You can start packing,’ he told her. ‘Packing?’ she repeated doubtfully, in a curiously deep voice.

  ‘Yes. Pack,’ Duncan said. He showed her what he meant by putting some clothes into a suitcase. Her expression did not change, but she understood.

  ‘We are here?’ she asked.

  ‘We are nearly here,’ he replied. ‘So start work on the packing.’

  Duncan went out and shut the door. He pushed with one foot, and went floating down the passage that led to the restaurant and general living-room.

  Lellie reached down for her shoes with the magnetic bottoms. She put them on before standing up. They fixed themselves to the floor, and made her feel as if there was gravity on board the ship. She had never felt confident in the weightless conditions of the spaceship. She stood up, and looked at herself in the wall mirror. Though her arms and legs and shoulders were slight, her chest was very big compared with an Earth-woman’s. Martian lungs needed to be large as the air was very thin on their planet. Lellie was a lovely Martian shape, but it was not a shape Earth people would choose to have.

  Lellie turned away, and began to pack.

  Then the Captain announced over the public address system that the side-rockets would be used in five minutes’ time to begin the landing on Jupiter IV/II.

  Duncan watched the screen as the huge, lifeless, cruel, boring lump of rock came closer and closer. Its temperature was many degrees below zero. There was no life of any sort on it. There was no gravity, no air and no water. To be exact, there was one living thing on the rock, and the equipment in his house produced air and water for him. Duncan could see that one person on the screen. He was dressed in his heated space-suit, and was dancing and waving to the spaceship as it dropped slowly down towards the landing area. He was at the end of his five-year appointment, and Duncan was taking his place.

  Behind the man Duncan could see his house, a round dome, on a large area of flat rock. And behind that were some smaller buildings of the same shape. Around the landing area stood a number of containers shaped like rockets. Duncan thought bitterly that these rocket-like containers were the reason why he had to spend five years alone on a large ball of rock.

  Soon after space travel began, companies stopped building spaceships with huge reserves of fuel and very thick skins for taking off and landing on the larger planets. Instead, they built spaceships to travel between moons, real or artificial, with little or no atmosphere or gravity. These ships were much lighter, cheaper to build, and needed much less fuel. People and articles were moved from the moons to the planets in rocket-driven containers of various types. The moons were called way-load stations. A busy way-load station employed a number of people. An unimportant station, like Jupiter IV/II, had infrequent visits from spaceships - once every eight or nine months. Only one person was needed to meet the spaceships, control the rocket flights, and manage the communication equipment.

  Duncan left the screen, and went to his compartment.

  ‘We’re here,’ he told Lellie. ‘Put on your space-suit.’

  She looked at him with her round eyes. Neither they nor her face showed him what she was thinking, or how she felt. She simply said: ‘Space-suit. Yes - OK.’

  She could not say the letter ‘s’ properly, so the words came out as, ‘Thpathe-thuit. Yeth.’ Duncan hardly noticed this particular fault in her limited English. He never spoke to her except to give orders, and she said very little.

  The man whose place Duncan was taking showed them over the way-load station. They reached the dome-house, and went into the airlock. The man knew from experience exactly how long he had to stand in the airlock while it filled with air. He opened his face-plate without bothering to check the dial. He was watching Lellie the whole time.

  I wish I’d brought one,’ he said. ‘She’d have been very useful for doing odd jobs, as well. You couldn’t bring a woman from Earth to a place like this, but a Martian is different.’

  He opened the inner door of the airlock, and led them through.

  ‘Here it is, and you’re welcome to it,’ he said.

  There was plenty of space in the main living-room, though it
was curved because of the shape of the house. It was also so very untidy that Duncan was disgusted by its state.

  I meant to clean it up,’ the man said, ‘but I always postponed the job.’ He looked at Lellie. Her expression did not show what she thought of the room. ‘You can never tell what Martians are thinking, or whether they are thinking,’ he added unhappily.

  Duncan agreed: I think this one looked surprised when she was born, and has looked surprised ever since.’

  The other man continued to look at Lellie. Then he looked at a line of photographs of Earth-women pinned to one wall.

  ‘Martians are a strange shape,’ he said. ‘But I must show you the rest of the place.’

  He showed them the other rooms in the dome.

  It’s an easy job here,’ he said. ‘Soil is the only thing they send up here for the spaceship to collect. There’s a lot of rare metals in it. They tell you when a container is on the way, and you switch on the radio control to bring it in. Sending things the other way is easy, as well. It’s all written down, so you just do as the book says.’ He looked round the room. ‘There’s everything you need in this dome. There are hundreds of books. Do you read?’

  ‘No, I’ve never enjoyed reading very much,’ said Duncan.

  ‘Well, it helps,’ said the other man. ‘There are hundreds of records, too. Do you listen to music?’

  I like a good tune,’ said Duncan.

  ‘Hmm. They can drive you crazy after a while. You’d do better with serious music. Do you play chess?’ He pointed to a chess board with the pieces on it.

  ‘No,’ said Duncan.

  ‘That’s a pity,’ said the other man. ‘There’s an Officer on Jupiter IV who plays a good game. We play by radio. He’ll be disappointed that you won’t be able to take over from me. However, if I’d brought a companion with me as you have, perhaps I wouldn’t have been interested in chess.’ He was looking at Lellie as he said this, and he continued: ‘What do you think she’ll do here apart from amusing you and doing the cooking?’