Clarke, Arthur C - SSC 04 (27 page)

The night was no longer friendly; she felt a
sudden longing for her home and family, for the little room that held
everything she owned and that was all the world she knew or wanted. The cold of
space was freezing her heart; she wished now that she had never come on this
mad adventure. It was time – more than time – to leave.

As she rose to her feet, she noticed that
they had been sitting on Clyde’s boat, and wondered what unconscious prompting
of her mind had brought her here to this vessel out of all the little fleet
lined up along the beach. At the thought of Clyde, a spasm of uncertainty, even
of guilt, swept over her. Never in her life, except for the most fleeting of
moments, had she thought of any other man but him. Now she could no longer
pretend that this was true.

‘What’s the matter?’ asked Leon. ‘Are you
cold?’ He held out his hand to her, and for the first time their fingers
touched as she automatically responded. But at the instant of contact, she
shied like a startled animal and jerked away.

‘I’m all right,’ she answered, almost
angrily. ‘It’s late – I must go home. Goodbye.’

Her reaction was so abrupt that it took Leon
by surprise. Had he said anything to offend her? he wondered. She was already
walking quickly away when he called after her: ‘Will I see you again?’

If she answered, the sound of the waves
carried away her voice. He watched her go, puzzled and a little hurt, while not
for the first time in his life he reflected how hard it was to understand the
mind of a woman.

For a moment he thought of following her and
repeating the question, but in his heart he knew there was no need. As surely
as the sun would rise tomorrow, they would meet again.

*

And now the life of the island was dominated
by the crippled giant a thousand miles out in space. Before dawn and after
sunset, when the world was in darkness but the light of the sun still streamed
overhead, the
Magellan
was visible as a brilliant star, the brightest
object in all the sky except the two moons themselves. But even when it could
not be seen – when it was lost in the glare of day or eclipsed by the shadow of
Thalassa – it was never far from men’s thoughts.

It was hard to believe that only fifty of
the starship’s crew had been awakened, and that not even half of those were on
Thalassa at any one time. They seemed to be everywhere, usually in little
groups of two or three, walking swiftly on mysterious errands or riding small
anti-gravity scooters which floated a few feet from the ground and moved so
silently that they made life in the village rather hazardous. Despite the most
pressing invitations, the visitors had still taken no part in the cultural and
social activities of the island. They had explained, politely but firmly, that
until the safety of their ship was secured, they would have no time for any
other interests. Later, certainly, but not now …

So Thalassa had to wait with what patience
it could muster while the Earthmen set up their instruments, made their
surveys, drilled deep into the rocks of the island, and carried out scores of
experiments which seemed to have no possible connection with their problem.
Sometimes they consulted briefly with Thalassa’s own scientists, but on the
whole they kept to themselves. It was not that they were unfriendly or aloof;
they were working with such a fierce and dedicated intensity that they were
scarcely aware of anyone around them.

After their first meeting, it was two days
before Lora spoke to Leon again. She saw him from time to time as he hurried
about the village, usually with a bulging brief case and an abstracted
expression, but they were able to exchange only the briefest of smiles. Yet
even this was enough to keep her emotions in turmoil, to banish her peace of
mind, and to poison her relationship with Clyde.

As long as she could remember, he had been
part of her life; they had had their quarrels and disagreements, but no one
else had ever challenged his place in her heart. In a few months they would be
married – yet now she was not even sure of that, or indeed of anything.

‘Infatuation’ was an ugly word, which one
applied only to other people. But how else could she explain this yearning to
be with a man who had come suddenly into her life from nowhere, and who must
leave again in a few days or weeks? No doubt the glamour and romance of his
origin was partly responsible, but that alone was not enough to account for it.
There were other Earthmen better looking than Leon, yet she had eyes for him
alone, and her life now was empty unless she was in his presence.

By the end of the first day, only her family
knew about her feelings; by the end of the second, everyone she passed gave her
a knowing smile. It was impossible to keep a secret in such a tight and
talkative community as Palm Bay, and she knew better than to attempt it.

Her second meeting with Leon was accidental
– as far as such things can ever be accidents. She was helping her father deal
with some of the correspondence and inquiries that had flooded upon the village
since the Earthmen’s arrival, and was trying to make some sense out of her notes
when the door of the office opened. It had opened so often in the last few days
that she had ceased to look up; her younger sister was acting as receptionist
and dealt with all the visitors. Then she heard Leon’s voice; and the paper
blurred before her eyes, the notes might have been in an unknown language.

‘Can I see the mayor, please?’

‘Of course, Mr—?’

‘Assistant Engineer Carrell.’

‘I’ll go and fetch him. Won’t you sit down?’

Leon slumped wearily on the ancient armchair
that was the best the reception room could offer its infrequent visitors, and
not until then did he notice that Lora was watching him silently from the other
side of the room. At once he sloughed off his tiredness and shot to his feet.

‘Hello – I didn’t know you worked here.’

‘I live here; my father’s the mayor.’

This portentous news did not seem to impress
Leon unduly. He walked over to the desk and picked up the fat volume through
which Lora had been browsing between her secretarial duties.

‘
A Concise History of Earth
,’ he
read, ‘
from the Dawn of Civilisation to the Beginning of Interstellar Flight
.
And all in a thousand pages! It’s a pity it ends three hundred years ago.’

‘We hope that you’ll soon bring us up to
date. Has much happened since that was written?’

‘Enough to fill about fifty libraries, I
suppose. But before we go we’ll leave you copies of all our records, so that
your history books will only be a hundred years out of date.’

They were circling around each other,
avoiding the only thing that was important. When can we meet again? Lora’s
thoughts kept hammering silently, unable to break through the barrier of
speech. And does he really like me or is he merely making polite conversation?

The inner door opened, and the mayor emerged
apologetically from his office.

‘Sorry to keep you waiting, Mr Carrell, but
the president was on the line – he’s coming over this afternoon. And what can I
do for you?’

Lora pretended to work, but she typed the
same sentence eight times while Leon delivered his message from the captain of
the
Magellan
. She was not a great deal wiser when he had finished; it
seemed that the starship’s engineers wished to build some equipment on a
headland a mile from the village, and wanted to make sure there would be no
objection.

‘Of course!’ said Mayor Fordyce expansively,
in his nothing’s-too-good-for-our-guests tone of voice. ‘Go right ahead – the
land doesn’t belong to anybody, and no one lives there. What do you want to do
with it?’

‘We’re building a gravity inverter, and the
generator has to be anchored in solid bedrock. It may be a little noisy when it
starts to run, but I don’t think it will disturb you here in the village. And
of course we’ll dismantle the equipment when we’ve finished.’

Lora had to admire her father. She knew
perfectly well that Leon’s request was as meaningless to him as it was to her,
but one would never have guessed it.

‘That’s perfectly all right – glad to be of
any help we can. And will you tell Captain Gold that the president’s coming at
five this afternoon? I’ll send my car to collect him; the reception’s at five
thirty in the village hall.’

When Leon had given his thanks and departed,
Mayor Fordyce walked over to his daughter and picked up the slim pile of
correspondence she had none-too-accurately typed.

‘He seems a pleasant young man,’ he said,
‘but is it a good idea to get too fond of him?’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘Now, Lora! After all, I
am
your
father, and I’m not
completely
unobservant.’

‘He’s not’ – sniff – ‘a bit interested in
me.’

‘Are you interested in him?’

‘I don’t know. Oh, Daddy, I’m so unhappy!’

Mayor Fordyce was not a brave man, so there
was only one thing he could do. He donated his handkerchief, and fled back into
his office.

It was the most difficult problem that Clyde
had ever faced in his life, and there were no precedents that gave any help at
all. Lora belonged to him – everyone knew that. If his rival had been another
villager, or someone from any other part of Thalassa, he knew exactly what he
would have done. But the laws of hospitality, and, above all, his natural awe
for anything of Earth, prevented him from politely asking Leon to take his
attentions elsewhere. It would not be the first time
that
had happened,
and there had never been the slightest trouble on those earlier occasions. That
could have been because Clyde was over six feet tall, proportionally broad, and
had no excess fat on his one hundred and ninety-pound frame.

During the long hours at sea, when he had
nothing else to do but to brood, Clyde toyed with the idea of a short, sharp
bout with Leon. It would be very short; though Leon was not as skinny as most
of the Earthmen, he shared their pale, washed-out look and was obviously no
match for anyone who led a life of physical activity. That was the trouble – it
wouldn’t be fair. Clyde knew that public opinion would be outraged if he had a
fight with Leon, however justified he might be.

And how justified was he? That was the big
problem that worried Clyde, as it had worried a good many billion men before
him. It seemed that Leon was now practically one of the family; every time he
called at the mayor’s house, the Earthman seemed to be there on some pretext or
other. Jealousy was an emotion that had never afflicted Clyde before, and he
did not enjoy the symptoms.

He was still furious about the dance. It had
been the biggest social event for years; indeed, it was not likely that Palm
Bay would ever match it again in the whole of its history. To have the
president of Thalassa, half the council, and fifty visitors from Earth in the
village at the same moment was not something that could happen again this side
of eternity.

For all his size and strength, Clyde was a
good dancer – especially with Lora. But that night he had had little chance of
proving it; Leon had been too busy demonstrating the latest steps from Earth
(latest, that is, if you overlooked the fact that they must have passed out of
fashion a hundred years ago – unless they had come back and were now the latest
thing). In Clyde’s opinion Leon’s technique was very poor and the dances were
ugly; the interest that Lora showed in them was perfectly ridiculous.

He had been foolish enough to tell her so
when his opportunity came; and that had been the last dance he had had with
Lora that evening. From then onward, he might not have been there, as far as she
was concerned. Clyde had endured the boycott as long as he could, then had left
for the bar with one objective in mind. He had quickly attained it, and not
until he had come reluctantly to his senses the next morning did he discover
what he had missed.

The dancing had ended early; there had been
a short speech from the president – his third that evening – introducing the
commander of the starship and promising a little surprise. Captain Gold had
been equally brief; he was obviously a man more accustomed to orders than
orations.

‘Friends,’ he began, ‘you know why we’re
here, and I’ve no need to say how much we appreciate your hospitality and
kindness. We shall never forget you, and we’re only sorry that we have had so
little time to see more of your beautiful island and its people. I hope you
will forgive us for any seeming discourtesy, but the repair of our ship, and
the safety of our companions, has had to take priority in our minds.

‘In the long run, the accident that brought
us here may be fortunate for us both. It has given us happy memories, and also
inspiration. What we have seen here is a lesson to us. May we make the world
that is waiting at the end of our journey as fair a home for mankind as you
have made Thalassa.

‘And before we resume our voyage, it is both
a duty and a pleasure to leave with you all the records we can that will bridge
the gap since you last had contact with Earth. Tomorrow we shall invite your
scientists and historians up to our ship so that they can copy any of our
information tapes they desire. Thus we hope to leave you a legacy which will
enrich your world for generations to come. That is the very least we can do.