Yet shielded they were, for the pressure was not so much worse than that in a fast ascending elevator. It was the knowledge that Earth was falling irretrievably away that made the lift horrible. He could hear the whisper and the hiss and then the scream of air against the cleaving hull, and then almost at once it was gone. He was in space. And he was sick with the age-old fear of abysses and of falling. He thought of the emptiness that lay beneath his feet, beyond that thin floor of metal, and he shut his teeth hard on his tongue to keep from screaming.
“Don’t think about it,” Gorr Holl had said. “And remember, there’s a first time for all of us! I thought I wouldn’t live through my own first takeoff.” He had helped Kenniston get to his feet. “Let’s go up on the bridge. You might as well get it all over with at once.”
And so they had come to the bridge, and Kenniston had looked into outer space where the great Suns burned unveiled and there was neither air nor cloud to hide them. And he had got hold of himself, because he was too proud to do what he wanted to do, which was to get down on his belly and whimper like a dog.
He tried now to visualize the ordeal that awaited him there at Vega where he must plead the cause of little Middletown to the Governors of the stars. How could he make people who traveled casually in ships like this one, understand the passionate devotion of his own people to their little, ancient planet?
Yet if he failed to do so, he would fail the people of Middletown, who had such hope in his mission. That was what he had to think about—not space, nor his sensations about it, but the task he had ahead of him.
He glanced at Gorr Holl and said, “I’ve seen enough. Let’s go.”
They left Piers Eglin there and went below again, and when they were in the main corridor, alone, Kenniston said, “All right, Gorr. I want to know what I’ve got myself in on.”
The big Capellan nodded. “Let’s join Magro and Lal’lor. They’re waiting for us.”
He led Kenniston along companionways and narrow corridors, to a cabin only two doors from his own. And it was a relief for Kenniston to be in a closed place without windows, so that he need not look at the staggering, crushing emptiness of space, where only the proud Suns had any right to be. There was a wild thrill to it, underneath the fear—but a twentieth century man couldn’t take much of it at first.
Lal’lor’s massive gray form was bent over a table littered with sheets of complicated symbols. Margo, who was sprawled in the bunk, explained to Kenniston, “He works theorems for amusement. He even claims he knows what all those figures mean.”
Lal’lor’s small eyes twinkled in his flat, featureless face. He thrust the sheets aside and said, “Sit down, Kenniston. So we are to be allies now, as well as friends.”
“I wish,” said Kenniston, “that someone would tell me just what this alliance means. Remember, I’m gambling the fate of my people on faith, without knowing a damned thing.”
“There’s nothing sinister about it,” said Gorr Holl. He eased his furry bulk onto the corner of Lal’lor’s table, which was quite strong enough to hold him. “As I told you, we all have the same problem, and the solution to that problem revolves around a man and a process.”
He paused. “By a peculiar freak, Kenniston, you have been thrown with us rather than with your own kind. The human races spread out from Earth so long ago, and have continued to move and spread, constantly expanding, that they have lost all sense of identification with their old birthworld, or any other. The universe is their home, not a planet.”
Kenniston was beginning to understand that better with every passing minute. The impersonal magnitudes of space, many times recrossed, would tend to sever a man from the old narrow ways of thought. Carol had been right about that.
Gorr Holl went on. “But we of the humanoid races don’t have that background. When the humans came to our worlds, we were nearly all barbarians, and quite happy in our barbarism. Well, they civilized us, and now we are accepted as equals. But we’re still more primitive in thought than they, we still cling to our native worlds, and whenever it becomes necessary to move us, we balk—just as your people are balking now, though we have learned to be less violent. In the end, of course, we’ve always given in. But in the last few years we’ve hung on more desperately because we’ve had something to hope for—this process of Jon Arnol’s.”
“Hold on,” said Kenniston. “All I know of Jon Arnol is his name. What exactly is this process? You said it was a process for the rejuvenation of cold and dying planets?”
Lal’lor answered that. “Arnol’s plan is this—to start a cycle of matter-energy transformation similar to the hydrogen-helium transformation which gives a Sun its energy—to start such a nuclear cycle operating deep inside a cold planet.”
Kenniston stared at him, completely stunned. “But,” he said at last,
“that would be equivalent to creating a giant solar furnace deep inside a planet!”
“Yes. A bold, brilliant idea. It would solve the problem of the many cold and dying worlds within the Federation—since, as you know, a planet may live on its interior heat long after the parent Sun’s heat has decreased.”
He paused. “Unfortunately, when Arnol tested his process on a small asteroid, the results were disastrous.”
“Disastrous?”
“Quite disastrous. Arnold’s energy bomb, designed to start the cycle inside that asteroid, went wrong and caused terrible quakes. In fact, the asteroid was wrecked. Arnol claims that it was because he was not allowed a large enough planet for his test. His equations bear him out.”
Kenniston said, “Why didn’t he make another test on a bigger planet, then?”
“The Governors would not allow it,” said Lal’lor, “They said it was too dangerous.”
“But couldn’t he have tested it on an uninhabited planet without danger?”
Lal’lor sighed. “You don’t understand, Kenniston. The Governors don’t want Arnol’s process to succeed. They don’t want to make it possible for primitive peoples to cling to their native worlds. That’s the kind of pro-vincial patriotism they oppose, in their efforts to establish a truly cosmopolitan star-community.”
Kenniston thought about that. It fitted what he had seen and heard of this vast Federation of Stars. And yet…
He said, slowly, “It comes down to the fact that you want to use my world, our Earth, to test a scheme which your Governors, whatever their motives, have already ruled as dangerous.”
Lal’lor nodded calmly. “Yes. It comes down to that. But whether the test is made first on Earth or some abandoned planet is beside the point.
The point is to force the Board of Governors to allow another test.”
Gorr Holl exclaimed, “Don’t you see how it links up? Alone, your plea to remain on Earth will be turned down because you can’t present any alternative to evacuation. But by advancing Jon Arnol’s planet-reviving process as an alternative, you might be able to help both Earth and us!”
Kenniston struggled to comprehend the galactic complexity of the problem. “In other words, if we could persuade the Governors to give Arnol another chance, they would delay the evacuation of Earth?”
“They would,” said Lal’lor. “And if Arnol succeeded, Earth and our similar worlds throughout the Federation could be made warm and livable again. Is it not worth trying for?”
“When you put it like that,” said Kenniston, “yes. Yes, it is.” He was beginning to be hopeful again. “And you think this—this solar-furnace thing might succeed? Safely, I mean?”
“According to all mathematical evidence, yes.” Still Kenniston hesitated, and Gorr Holl said, “The decision would be up to your people, Kenniston, and not you—whether they’d take the risk, I mean. And remember, it’s a small population and could be taken off quite easily until any danger was over.”