Stowaway to Mars by John Wyndham

Author:John Wyndham
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: For the Benefit of Mr. Kite
Published: 1934-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

13

Arrival

This is not the place to lecture upon the details of the inter planetary journey. If you want the figures of the quantity of explosives used, of the changes consequent upon extra load, rates of acceleration and deceleration, necessary corrections of course, divergencies between theory and performance, etc., you will find them, together with a host of other details, carefully considered in Dale’s book, The Bridging of Space, and some of them, more popularly arranged, in Froud’s Flight of the ‘Gloria Mundi’. Here, one is interested chiefly in the aspect which neither of these gentlemen saw fit, for one reason or another, to include in his book. And though I believe that Froud toyed for a time with the idea of a less impersonal story of the flight, it is unlikely now that it will ever be written. Almost twelve years have passed since the Mount Wilson observatory lost sight of the Gloria 11. Whether Dale, Froud and the rest of their party ever reached Venus in her we cannot tell but she has never returned.

Therefore, if I do not tell you this story as I had it, partly from Joan and partly from the rest, it is likely that it may never be told. But in case you should say to yourself ‘these people seem to have talked a great deal, but one feels that they might have done that anywhere. They seem singularly unmoved by the fact that they are taking part in one of history’s greatest adventures’: in case you say that, let me point out that though travelling through space may be an exciting adventure in prospect and in retrospect, yet in actual accomplishment, I am assured, it is extremely tedious.

It was Dr. Grayson, I think, who said:

“Fancy buying undying fame merely at the cost of six months’ close confinement.”

While Froud quoted the classic words of an earlier intrepid flier:

“It was a lousy trip and that’s praising it.’”

But looking back on the journey they get it in perspective and agree that it was not a monotonous whole. The longer view reveals that it fell into distinct phases, each with its own particular complexion. One of the most marked of these was the period which followed Joan’s announcement of her belief in a sentient machine.

Whether she timed it by skill or luck, there is no doubt that the moment was well chosen. Four weeks before, with the memories of everyday life clinging more closely, it would have met with immediate ridicule. But now, from a mixture of motives, it was not airily dismissed. For one thing, they knew the girl better and their attitudes towards her had changed, and, for another, one could not afford, with the threat of a deadly boredom overhanging, to dismiss any subject which showed possibilities of interesting discussion. Her fantastically improbable suggestion had, therefore, a more kindly reception than it deserved, though it is doubtful if any one of the rest took it as more than a basis for entertaining speculation. But,

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