Before They Were Giants Read online

  Tom nodded. “And of course I’m expected to work on the satellite right through the night.”

  “It will help you keep your mind off the cold. If we see that you’re not going to make it—either because of the cold or the oxygen—we’ll warn you and you can return to the settlement.”

  “Suppose I have enough oxygen to just finish the satellite, but if I do, I won’t have enough to fly home. Will you warn me then?”

  “Don’t be dramatic.”

  “Go to hell.”

  “Dr. Arnoldsson said he could put you under,” Jason continued unemotionally, “but he thinks you might freeze once your conscious mind went asleep.”

  “You’ve figured out all the details,” Tom muttered. “All I have to do is put your damned satellite together without freezing to death and then fly 22,300 miles back home before my air runs out. Simple.”

  He glanced at the sun, still glaring bright even through his tinted visor. It was nearly on the edge of the Earth-disk.

  “All right,” Tom said, “I’m going into the ship now for some pills; it’s nearly sunset.”

  ~ * ~

  Cold. Dark and so cold that numbers lost their meaning. Paralyzing cold, seeping in through the suit while you worked. Crawling up your limbs until you could hardly move. The whole universe hung up in the sky and looked down on the small cold figure of a man struggling blindly with machinery he could not understand.

  Dark. Dark and cold.

  Ruth stayed on the radio as long as Jason would allow her, talking to Tom, keeping the link with life and warmth. But finally Jason took over, and the radio went silent.

  So don’t talk, Tom growled silently, I can keep warm just by hating you, Jason.

  He worked through the frigid night, struggling ant-like with huge pieces of equipment. Slowly he assembled the big parabolic mirror, the sighting mechanism and the atomic convertor. With dreamy motions he started connecting the intricate wiring systems.

  And all the while he raged at himself: Why? Why did it have to be this way? Why me? Why did I agree to do this? I knew I’d never live through it; why did I do it?

  He retraced the days of his life: the preparations for the flight, the arguments with Jason over exploring the cities, his trek from Chicago to the settlement, the aimless years after the radiation death of his two boys and Marjorie, his wife.

  Marjorie and the boys, lying sick month after month, dying one after the other in a cancerous agony while he stood by helplessly in the ruins of what had been their home.

  No! His mind warned him. Don’t think of that. Not that. Think of Jason, Jason who prevents you from doing the one thing you want, who is taking your life from you; Jason, the peerless leader; Jason, who’s afraid of the cities. Why? Why is he afraid of the cities? That’s the hub of everything down there. Why does Jason fear the cities?

  ~ * ~

  It wasn’t until he finished connecting the satellite’s last unit—the sighting mechanism—that Tom realized the answer.

  One answer. And everything fell into place.

  Everything. . . except what Tom Morris was going to do about it.

  Tom squinted through the twin telescopes of the sighting mechanism again, then pushed away and floated free, staring at the Earth bathed in pale moonlight.

  What do I do now? For an instant he was close to panic, but he forced it down. Think, he said to himself. You’re supposed to be a Homo Sapiens . . . use that brain. Think!

  The long night ended. The sun swung around from behind the bulk of Earth. Tom looked at it as he felt its warmth penetrating the insulated suit, and he knew it was the last time he would see the sun. He felt no more anger— even his hatred of Jason was drained out of him now. In its place was a sense of—finality.

  He spoke into this helmet mike. “Jason.”

  “He is in conference with the astronomers.” Dr. Arnoldsson’s voice.

  “Get him for me, please.”

  A few minutes of silence, broken only by the star-whisperings in the earphones.

  Jason’s voice was carefully modulated. “Tom, you made it.”

  “I made it. And the satellite’s finished.”

  “It’s finished? Good. Now, what we have to do . . .”

  “Wait,” Tom interrupted. “It’s finished but it’s useless.”

  “What?”

  Tom twisted around to look at the completed satellite, its oddly-angled framework and bulbous machinery glinting fiercely in the newly-risen sun. “After I finished it I looked through the sighting mechanism to make certain the satellite’s transmitters were correctly aimed at the settlement. Nobody told me to, but nobody said not to, either, so I looked. It’s a simple mechanism... The transmitters are pointed smack in the middle of Hudson’s Bay.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Certainly.”

  “You can rotate the antennas ...”

  “I know. I tried it. I can turn them as far south as the Great Lakes.”

  A long pause.

  “I was afraid of this,” Jason’s voice said evenly.

  I’ll bet you were, Tom answered to himself.

  “You must have moved the satellite out of position while assembling its components.”

  “So my work here comes to nothing because the satellite’s power beam can’t reach the settlement’s receivers.”

  “Not... not unless you use the ship... to tow the satellite into the proper orbital position.” Jason stammered.

  You actually went through with it, Tom thought. Aloud, he said, “But if I use the ship’s engine to tow the satellite, I won’t have enough fuel left to get back to Earth, will I?” Not to mention oxygen.

  A longer pause. “No.”

  “I have two questions, Jason. I think I know the answers to them both but I’ll ask you anyway. One. You knew this would happen, didn’t you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’ve calculated this insane business down to the last drop of sweat,” Tom growled. “You knew that I’d knock the satellite out of position while I was working on it, and the only way to get it back in the right orbit would be for me to tow it back and strand myself up here. This is a suicide mission, isn’t it, Jason?”

  “That’s not true...”

  “Don’t bother defending yourself. I don’t hate you anymore, Jason, I understand you, dammit. You made our deal as much to get rid of me as to get our precious satellite put together.”

  “No one can force you to tow the satellite ...”

  “Sure, I can leave it where it is and come back home. If I can fly this ship, which I doubt. And what would I come back to? I left a world without power. I’d return to a world without hope. And some dark night one of your disappointed young goons would catch up with me... and no one would blame him, would they?”

  Jason’s voice was brittle. “You’ll tow it into position?”

  “After you answer my second question,” Tom countered. “Why are you afraid of the cities?”

  “Afraid? I’m not afraid.”

  “Yes, you are. Oh, you could use the hope of exploring the cities to lure me up here on this suicide-job, but you knew I’d never be back to claim my half of the bargain. You’re afraid of the cities, and I think I know why. You’re afraid of the unknown quantity they represent, distrustful of your own leadership when new problems arise...”

  “We’ve worked for more than ten years to make this settlement what it is,” Jason fumed. “We fought and died to keep those marauding lunatics from wrecking us. We are mankind’s last hope! We can’t afford to let others in . . . they’re not scientists, they wouldn’t understand, they’d ruin everything.”

  “Mankind’s last hope, terrified of men.” Tom was suddenly tired, weary of the whole struggle. But there was something he had to tell them.

  “Listen, Jason,” he said. “The walls you’ve built around the settlement weren’t meant to keep you from going outside. You’re not a self-sufficient little community. . . you’re cut off from mank
ind’s memory, from his dreams, from his ambitions. You can’t even start to rebuild a civilization—and if you do try, don’t you think the people outside will learn about it? Don’t you think they’ve got a right to share in whatever progress the settlement makes? And if you don’t let them, don’t you realize that they’ll destroy the settlement?”

  Silence.

  ~ * ~

  “I’m a historian,” Tom continued, “and I know that a civilization can’t exist in a vacuum. If outsiders don’t conquer it, it’ll rot from within. It’s happened to Babylonia, Greece, Rome, China, even. Over and again. The Soviets built an Iron Curtain around themselves, and wiped themselves out because of it.

  “Don’t you see, Jason? There are only two types of animals on this planet; the gamblers and the extinct. It won’t be easy to live with the outsiders, there’ll be problems of every type. But the alternative is decay and destruction. You’ve got to take the chance, if you don’t you’re dead.”

  A long silence. Finally Jason said, “ You’ve only got about a half-hour’s worth of oxygen left. Will you tow the satellite into the proper position?”

  Tom stared at the planet unseeingly. “Yes,” he mumbled.

  “I’ll have to check some calculations with the astronomers,” Jason’s voice buzzed flatly in his earphones.

  A background murmur, scarcely audible over the crackling static.

  Then Ruth’s voice broke through, “Tom, Tom, you can’t do this! You won’t be able to get back!”

  “I know,” he said, as he started pulling his way along the lifeline back into the ship.

  “No! Come back, Tom, please. Come back. Forget about the satellite. Come back and explore the cities. I’ll go with you. Please. Don’t die, Tom, please don’t die ...”

  “Ruth, Ruth, you’re too young to cry over me. I’ll be all right, don’t worry.”

  “No, it isn’t fair.”

  “It never is,” Tom said. “Listen Ruth, I’ve been dead a long time. Since the bombs fell, I guess. My world died then and I died with it. When I came to the settlement, when I agreed to make this flight, I think we all knew I’d never return, even if we wouldn’t admit it to ourselves. But I’m just one man, Ruth, one small part of the story. The story goes on, with or without me. There’s tomorrow. . . your tomorrow. I’ve got no place in it, but it belongs to you. So don’t waste your time crying over a man who died eighteen years ago.”

  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 ghost-like 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,” Arnoldsson’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 of 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.

  ~ * ~

  Ben Bova

  F

  or more than half a century, Dr. Ben Bova has put the science in science fiction. A technical editor on Project Vanguard, the mission by which the United States successfully launched the second artificial satellite in response to the Soviet Sputnik, Dr. Bova never left the cutting edge of scientific knowledge, and neither has his writing. In his catalogue of more than 120 books, both fiction and nonfiction, Bova predicted the 1960s Space Race, solar power satellites, virtual reality, human cloning, stem cell therapy, the Strategic Defense Initiative of the 1980s, and countless other advancements which have either come to pass or are even now standing on our doorstep. He’s the President Emeritus of the National Space Society, and a frequent commentator for both television and radio, with articles in such publications as Scientific American and The New York Times.

  Yet as much as his ideas and breadth of knowledge have assisted him on his path, Ben Bova is known first and foremost for his writing and editing. A past president of the Science Fiction Writers of America, Ben Bova boasts a list of awards that read like a who’s-who in science fiction: the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, the Isaac Asimov Memorial Award, the Robert A. Heinlein Award, and the 2005 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Arthur C. Clarke foundation “for fueling mankind’s imagination regarding the wonders of outer space.” After John Campbell’s death, Bova took over editorship of Analog Science Fiction, the longest-running science fiction magazine in the world, and also spent time as the editor of OMNI, winning a grand total of six Hugo Awards for Best Editor. A teacher of science fiction and film at both Harvard and Hayden Planetarium in New York City, Bova writes to entertain, to educate, and to ensure that humanity’s wonder continues to exceed its grasp—yet always with the science to back it up. Such meticulousness is evident even in his first published SF story, “A Long Way Back.” Though not the first story he ever published—that honor going to several pieces published right after high school by Campus Town, a teenage magazine he helped run—nor the first SF story ever sold (which was lost forever when the magazine that bought it folded before printing it), “A Long Way Back” represents Bova’s first foray onto the science fiction scene.

  Looking back, what do you think still works well in this story? Why?

  I think two technical points in the story have held up quite well: the idea that energy is the key to civilization and the idea of solar power satellites. Remember, this story was written some 10 years before Philip Glaser actually made the first technical proposal of the solar power satellite concept. The human conflict between Tom and Jason still holds up as well; it mirrors the larger conflicts between the haves and have-nots, and between the search for knowledge and the clinging to status-quo.

  If you were writing this today, what would you do differently?
What are the story’s weaknesses, and how would you change them?

  Of course, we know a lot more today than we did in 1960 about the realities of spacewalks and orbital construction. They are much more intricate than I depicted them in the story

  What inspired this story? How did it take shape? Where was it initially published?

  “A Long Way Back” was published in i960, in Amazing Stories, which was then edited by Cele Goldsmith. At this distance in time, I can’t recall what inspired the story. I do remember that it was fairly easy for me to write: the words just seemed to flow out naturally. I offered it at the first Milford Science Fiction Writers’ Workshop that I attended; it was received with faint praise.