Operation: Outer Space by Murray Leinster

Author:Murray Leinster [Leinster, Murray]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-01-18T13:36:57.010000+00:00

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CHAPTER SEVEN

In the United States, some two-hundred-odd light-years away, it happened to be Tuesday. On this Tuesday, the broadcast from the stars was sponsored by Harvey's, the national men's clothing chain. Harvey's advertising department preferred discussion-type shows, because differences of opinion in the shows proper led so neatly into their tag-line. "You can disagree about anything but the quality of a Harvey suit! That's Superb!"

Therefore the broadcast after the landing of the ship on the volcanic planet was partly commercial, and partly pictures and reports from the Spaceways expedition, and partly queries and comments by big-name individuals on Earth. Inevitably there was Dabney. And Dabney was neurotic.

He did his best to make a shambles of everything.

The show started promptly enough at the beginning. There was a two-minute film-strip of business-suited puppets marching row on row, indicating the enormous popularity of Harvey's suits. Then a fast minute hill-billy puppet-show about two feuding mountaineers who found they couldn't possibly retain their enmity when they found themselves in agreement on the quality of Harvey suits. "That's Superb!" The commercial ended with a choral dance of madly enthusiastic miniature figures, dancing while they lustily sang the theme-song, "You can disagree, yes siree, you can disagree, About anything, indeed everything, you and me, But you can't, no you can't disagree, About the strictly super, extra super, Qualitee of a Har-ve-e-e-e suit! That's superb!"

And thereupon the television audience of several continents saw the faded-in image of mankind's first starship, poised upon its landing-fins among trees more splendid than even television shows had ever pictured before. The camera panned slowly, and showed such open spaces as very few humans had ever seen unencumbered by buildings, and mountains of a grandeur difficult for most people to believe in.

The scene cut to the space-ship's control-room and Al the pilot acted briskly as the leader of an exploration-party just returned—though he actually hadn't left the ship. He introduced Jamison, wearing improvised leggings and other trappings appropriate to an explorer in wilderness. Jamison began to extrapolate from his observations out the control-room port, adding film-clips for authority.

Smoothly and hypnotically, he pictured the valley as the ship descended the last few thousand feet, and told of the human colony to be founded in this vast and hospitable area just explored. Mountainside hotels for star-tourists would look down upon a scene of tranquility and cozy spaciousness. This would be the first human outpost in the stars. In the other valleys of this magnificent world there would be pasture-lands, and humankind would again begin to regard meat as a normal and not-extravagant part of its diet—on this planet, certainly! There were minerals beyond doubt, and water-power. The estimate was that at least the equivalent of the Asian continent had been made available for human occupation. And this splendid addition to the resources of humanity ...

The second commercial cut Jamison off. Naturally. The sponsor was paying for time. So for Jamison was substituted the other fiction about the poor young man who found himself envied by the board of directors of the firm which employed him.

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