He snapped off his suit radio and went the rest of the way to the ship in silence. After locking the hatch and pumping air back into the cabin, he took off his helmet.
Good clean canned air, Tom said to himself. Too bad it won’t last longer.
He sat down and flicked a switch on the radio console. «All right, do you have those calculations ready?»
«In a few moments.» Arnoldsson’s voice. Ten minutes later Tom reemerged from the ship and made his ghostlike way back to the satellite’s sighting mechanism. He checked the artificial moon’s position, then went back to the ship.
«On course,» he said to the radio. «The transmitters are pointing a little northwest of Philadelphia.»
«Good,» Amoldsson’s voice answered. «Now, your next blast should be three seconds’ duration in the same direction …»
«No,» Tom said, «I’ve gone as far as I’m going to.»
«What?»
«I’m not moving the satellite any farther.»
«But you still have not enough fuel to return to Earth. Why are you stopping here?»
«I’m not coming back,» Tom answered. «But I’m not going to beam the satellite’s power to the settlement, either.»
«What are you trying to pull?» Jason’s voice. Furious. Panicky.
«It’s simple, Jason. If you want the satellite’s power, you can dismantle the settlement and carry it to Pennsylvania. The transmitters are aimed at some good farming country, and within miles of a city that’s still half-intact.»
«You’re insane!»
«Not at all. We’re keeping our deal, Jason. I’m giving you the satellite’s power, and you’re going to allow exploration of the cities. You won’t be able to prevent your people from rummaging through the cities now; and you won’t be able to keep the outsiders from joining you, not once you get out from behind your own fences.»
«You can’t do this! You …»
Tom snapped off the radio. He looked at it for a second or two, then smashed a heavy-booted foot against the console. Glass and metal crashed satisfactorily.
Okay, Tom thought, it’s done. Maybe Jason’s right and I’m crazy, but we’ll never know now. In a year or so they’ll be set up outside Philadelphia, and a lot better for it. I’m forcing them to take the long way back, but it’s a better way. The only way, maybe.
He leaned back in the seat and stared out the observation port at the completed satellite. Already it was taking in solar energy and beaming it Earthward.
In ten years they’ll send another ship up here to check the gadget and make sure everything’s okay. Maybe they’ll be able to do it in five years. Makes no difference. I’ll still be here.
INSPIRATION
Many academic papers have been written about the influence of scientific research on science fiction, and vice versa. Whole books have been written about the interplay between science and science fiction. It struck me that it might be interesting to try a story that explores that theme.
I did a bit of historical research. When H. G. Wells first published «The Time Machine,» Albert Einstein was sixteen. William Thomson, newly made Lord Kelvin, was the grand old man of physics, and a stern guardian of the orthodox Newtonian view of the universe. Wells’ idea of considering time as a fourth dimension would have been anathema to Kelvin; but it would have lit up young Albert’s imagination.
Who knows? Perhaps Einstein was actually inspired by Wells.
At any rate, there was the kernel of a story. But how could I get Wells, Einstein, and Kelvin together? And why? To be an effective story, there must be a fuse burning somewhere that will cause an explosion unless the protagonist acts to prevent it.
My protagonist turned out to be a time traveler, sent on a desperate mission to the year 1896, where he finds Wells, Einstein, and Kelvin and brings them together.
And one other person, as well.
He was as close to despair as only a lad of seventeen can be.
«But you heard what the professor said,» he moaned. «It is all finished. There is nothing left to do.»
The lad spoke in German, of course. I had to translate it for Mr. Wells.
Wells shook his head. «I fail to see why such splendid news should upset the boy so.»
I said to the youngster, «Our British friend says you should not lose hope. Perhaps the professor is mistaken.»
«Mistaken? How could that be? He is famous. A nobleman! A baron!»
I had to smile. The lad’s stubborn disdain for authority figures would become world-famous one day. But it was not in evidence this summer afternoon in AD 1896.
We were sitting in a sidewalk café with a magnificent view of the Danube and the city of Linz. Delicious odors of cooking sausages and bakery pastries wafted from the kitchen inside. Despite the splendid warm sunshine, though, I felt chilled and weak, drained of what little strength I had remaining.
«Where is that blasted waitress?» Wells grumbled. «We’ve been here half an hour, at the least.»
«Why not just lean back and enjoy the afternoon, sir?» I suggested tiredly. «This is the best view in all the area.»
Herbert George Wells was not a patient man. He had just scored a minor success in Britain with his first novel and had decided to treat himself to a vacation in Austria. He came to that decision under my influence, of course, but he did not yet realize that. At age twenty-nine, he had a lean, hungry look to him that would mellow only gradually with the coming years of prestige and prosperity.
Albert was round-faced and plumpish; still had his baby fat on him, although he had started a moustache as most teenaged boys did in those days. It was a thin, scraggly black wisp, nowhere near the full white brush it would become. If all went well with my mission.
It had taken me an enormous amount of maneuvering to get Wells and this teenager to the same place at the same time. The effort had nearly exhausted all my energies. Young Albert had come to see Professor Thomson with his own eyes, of course. Wells had been more difficult; he had wanted to see Salzburg, the birthplace of Mozart. I had taken him instead to Linz, with a thousand assurances that he would find the trip worthwhile.
He complained endlessly about Linz, the city’s lack of beauty, the sour smell of its narrow streets, the discomfort of our hotel, the dearth of restaurants where one could get decent food—by which he meant burnt mutton. Not even the city’s justly famous Linzertorte pleased him.
«Not as good as a decent trifle,» he groused. «Not as good by half.»
I, of course, knew several versions of Linz that were even less pleasing, including one in which the city was nothing more than charred radioactive rubble and the Danube so contaminated that it glowed at night all the way down to the Black Sea. I shuddered at that vision and tried to concentrate on the task at hand.
It had almost required physical force to get Wells to take a walk across the Danube on the ancient stone bridge and up the Postlingberg to this little sidewalk café. He had huffed with anger when we had started out from our hotel at the city’s central square, then soon was puffing with exertion as we toiled up the steep hill. I was breathless from the climb also. In later years a tram would make the ascent, but on this particular afternoon we had been obliged to walk.
He had been mildly surprised to see the teenager trudging up the precipitous street just a few steps ahead of us. Recognizing that unruly crop of dark hair from the audience at Thomson’s lecture that morning, Wells had graciously invited Albert to join us for a drink.