Fifth Planet Read online

  The after-coffee-pre-lunch session was worse. They spent it discussing whether they would go for a landing, instead of simply sweeping in orbit around the planets of the Helios system. They decided they would go for a landing. Conway had known that would be the decision. It was so inevitable that it could have been decided in thirty seconds.

  The next question, which they closed in on after lunch, a lunch of five courses and four wines, was - which planet? There was of course only one possibility, Achilles. But nobody was going to admit this. Long reports on the four big fellows, Hera, Semele, and the two philosophical planets, were read out. It was just as impossible to make a landing on them as it was to make a landing on Jupiter or Saturn. So it all came back to Achilles. The point of course was that Conway, as the discoverer of Achilles, had to have his position devalued. It was a basic rule that no technical expert should be allowed to get on top of a committee. It was time for him to speak up: ‘Mr Chairman, there is an important point that I’d like to draw the Committee’s attention to,’ he began. ‘Really we know very little about the surface of Achilles. It may be just as hostile as the surfaces of the other four.’

  There was a staccato burst of Russian from Irichenko. It was translated to Conway as, ‘Why don’t we know?’

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  ‘Because it’s a small planet, and it’s still very far away.’ Conway allowed a silence to fall. He knew they must come back to him. The Chairman writhed in his seat, squirmed his neck, and said, ‘Well, Professor Conway?’

  ‘My point, sir, is that the whole question is so uncertain that it might be better if we contented ourselves with a purely orbital flight.’

  There was a shocked silence. Heads turned in his direction.

  ‘But, Professor Conway,’ said the Chairman in an unnaturally soft voice, ‘we’ve already decided that. We’ve already decided that we’re going to go for a landing.’ He spoke as if to an idiot child. Everybody felt superior to him. Within ten more minutes they’d decided to make a landing on Achilles.

  That was as far as they got the first day. As they walked out of the room, mumbling as they went, it didn’t seem to occur to them that perhaps the most momentous decision in the history of mankind had just been taken. For quite certainly the decision had now been taken, irrevocably taken. In theory the decision could be revoked by higher authorities, but it wouldn’t be. In theory all decisions were in the hands of a few men, but those few couldn’t possibly be familiar with the details of every problem. They were obliged to take advice from below. Provided a committee was properly constituted, provided all relevant matters were fully discussed, advice was never refused. Society had worked itself into a position where it was as much as the top men could do to rubberstamp the decisions of those below them.

  If Conway had been a good committee man, he would have gone with the rest of them to the hotel, he would have dined with a few selected colleagues, and he would have tried to lobby them on the matters he knew must come up for discussion the following day. But because he was not a good committee man he decided to go home, to see whether Cathy had taken up his suggestion of a visit to town. To his

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  intense chagrin he found that she had. Furious, he poured himself a stiff drink and bit savagely into his lonely sandwich.

  Cathy paid off the taxi-cab. She allowed it to drive away before making sure that the man had brought her to the right place. The lighting outside the restaurant was subdued rather than bright. She could just make out the name, La Riviera. It was the right place, it had never occurred to her that it mightn’t be.

  Mike was waiting for her. He was a big powerful fellow, with shortish hair, handsome rather than good-looking. In his official dossier he was described as well coordinated, and the figures given for his reaction times were very good indeed.

  He grinned affectionately. ‘Hello there, Cat. How about a drink ?’

  If Conway had seen them move together to the bar he’d

  have grinned wryly and thought that Cathy always chose them that way, so as to give him a sense of inferiority. But perhaps she worked things the other way round too, perhaps she used his brains to give the Fawsetts of this world a sense of inferiority.

  Conway, grimly chewing his supper, thought about the sacredness of the committee system as he did so. ‘Why do I feel it’s my duty to be there again tomorrow morning?’ he demanded of himself. All they would do would be to spend three hours deciding that they’d gone as far as they could go, and that the next stages lay with the technical committees. And after a lot of talk the technical committees would decide that the next stages lay with certain individuals. And at last, when the work lay with individuals, something would get done. What will it matter in forty years’ time if I don’t go to that meeting tomorrow morning, he thought to himself. I’ll probably be dead then anyway. Better to do something that’s really important to me, to go straight up to London and bring Cathy back by the scruff of

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  the neck. The decision taken, his mind began to race: how was he to find one person in a city of ten million people ?

  He felt rather ashamed of himself as he went through the papers in Cathy’s desk. But he had to find some sort of a clue as to where she might be. There wasn’t much to go on, bills from London stores, cheque stubs - Cathy was astonishingly careful about money - and, surprisingly, a batch of newspaper cuttings. They were all about space expeditions and activities. The news of his own discovery of Achilles was there amongst them.

  It took him barely an hour to reach the outskirts of London. When he stopped for petrol he noticed a small cafe, with the usual mechanical and electronic amusements, where he managed to find change for the phone. Driving along he had been turning over in his mind how best to find Cathy. It would be useless trying to comb endless restaurants and night-clubs, so he dismissed that possible line of inquiry. His original thought of telephoning some of Cathy’s favourite dives didn’t seem such a good idea either. Why should she go to any of the places they’d been to together? What’s the use? he thought to himself, feeling rather ashamed of hunting his wife. Why should he worry? - but he did worry.

  He came back to reality just in time to avoid a taxi. He found :he had crossed to the south side of 'the river and was driving aimlessly through Lambeth, heading for Greenwich. He parked by the bridge and spent half an hour staring moodily over the water. Up river, London glowed like a monstrous aurora. He wondered idly about information theory, about exactly how one would formulate his present predicament in a mathematical way. One tiny piece of information, that was all he needed, and he’d be able to find Cathy within half an hour. Without that bit of information he had to go about things in a tortuous elephantine way. Even the police could do no better. There was something terrifyingly anonymous about a really big city.

  Still, when you considered that it seemed to be the aim of

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  society these days to reduce every individual to the status of a punched card, perhaps it wasn’t altogether a bad thing. He began to speculate on a future where every place, London even, was controlled by a gigantic computer. It would be obligatory wherever you went, every shop, restaurant, or hotel, even when you walked along the street, to put your own identification card into an electronic scanner. It would be a crime not to do this every quarter of an hour or so. Then the computer would know where everybody was at all times. And you could ask it questions: where is Cathy Conway right now? A small tug hooted as it swirled under the bridge at his feet. Conway shivered as he walked back to his parked car; he had a terrible feeling that he’d just had a vision of the future. It would be easy to justify such a system in the interests of defence and security. The way it would start would be with a few selected individuals, individuals of special importance, who would be flattered by the constant interest in their movements, who would
for the most part fall in with the system. Then it would work its way down through the social ladder. People would feel it gave them status. Come to think of it, royal families had lived under the system for centuries.

  Conway crossed the river by the Greenwich Bridge. As he wandered along the bank he heard the sound of upbeat music coming from a small dockland pub. He stepped up to the solid oak door, which silently opened.

  The dense smoke fumes made his eyes water as he tried to focus on the milieu. A band was playing ‘Undecided’, a jazz tune from the early twentieth century.

  At the bar stood a large blueblood. A red scar ran from his left eye to the corner of his mouth. Leaning against the far end of the bar was a sultry but attractive girl.

  Conway threaded his way through empty plastic beer mugs to where the girl was sitting. •

  ‘Two Scotches,’ he said to the barman. ‘Make ’em doubles.’

  The girl smiled. The strong liquor began to make him feel

  Fifth Planet

  more human. She turned and faced him. He could now see

  that she was slight but well covered, with warm brown eyes which looked at him sympathetically.

  ‘Hey, what’s 'the trouble,’ she said, pulling her stool nearer. ‘A slight case of jealousy,’ replied Conway. ‘Two more whiskies, please.’

  Conway’s troubles began to disappear as he relaxed. He forgot about his mission and concentrated on the girl in hand. She didn’t seem very interested to hear his theory on following people’s movements.

  At the fourth whisky Conway came into his own. He started to talk flippantly about committees and how ridiculous they were.

  The girl looked up suddenly and put her finger to his lips. ‘Not here, people might get the wrong idea about you.’ ‘What wrong idea?’ Conway said savagely.

  ‘Oh, forget it, would you like to dance?’

  As he stood up he felt the pub rocking gently. Somehow he was manoeuvred to the dance floor, where he sagged into the girl’s arms.

  ‘Come on, Conway, we can’t have this,’ he grinned happily to himself.

  He felt soft hair brushing against his cheek, like Cathy’s. He floated off with the memories of Cathy and himself. Now when she danced like this it was a cover-up for something. ‘Ouch, mind my feet.’

  ‘Sorry, I was dreaming.’

  ‘I know,’ she smiled resignedly.

  ‘La Jalousie.’

  He felt himself being taken back to the bar.

  Seated again, he felt more secure and bent solemnly towards her. ‘What do you do ? I am a physicist.’

  ‘I help people,’ came the tart reply.

  Conway chuckled, ‘That’s amazing. I’m glad there are people who still help each other.’

  Conway’s chuckle echoed as though he were in a large auditorium.

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  ‘It’s not closing time, is it?’ he said to the girl, but she’d gone.

  The silence was broken by the scar-faced tough, who was standing over the pianist.

  ‘I said, I don’t like it.’

  The man at the piano took no notice.

  The control in the big man’s voice snapped.

  ‘1 don’t like it,’ he screamed.

  Conway rose slowly.

  ‘I don’t like you or the tune, so why don’t - ’

  The impact on the floor was terrific as Conway hit it. He started to laugh, but stopped suddenly as a boot caught him on the thigh.

  Pulling himself up on to the bar-stool, he saw the girl standing by the door with his jacket. Infuriated by the kick, he swung the bar-stool into the crowd gathering next to him. Thud. Silence. Then all hell broke loose.

  It was some time before Conway realized that it was not himself but the band who were being attacked. Smiling he slowly unscrewed the pump-handle from the bar and started hitting heads in all directions.

  They blurred in front of him. The floor and the ceiling contracted and expanded like a concertina until a grey light seemed to fill the room.

  The girl tried to pull this windmill out of the confusion. Finally she succeeded. Outside she heard the first wail of the airborne police.

  Conway was still flailing his pump-handle as she pushed him into her car.

  She drove quickly through the silent streets, listening for the sirens.

  The car stopped. Conway stumbled out and saw a plate- glass window. He tried to hit himself.

  The girl took him firmly up to her apartment, where he collapsed into a chair.

  Conway woke with a furious hang-over. Vaguely he

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  remembered getting himself into a tough spot, and he remembered something about a girl. Involuntarily he looked to the other side of the bed. With a faint sense of relief he saw it was empty. Struggling upright he found his clothes thrown carelessly over a couple of chairs. There were various feminine items about the place. So his memories weren’t far wrong. Gingerly he dressed himself, thrust his face close to a mirror, put out his tongue and said, ‘God, I look awful.’

  He tried to keep his head still as he walked out of the bedroom.

  ‘How do you feel ?’ she asked.

  ‘Terrible.’

  She handed him a couple of pills with a cup of coffee. His unsteady hand shook the liquid in the cup round and round, making him feel giddy.

  ‘Any better?’ the girl asked sympathetically as he finally managed to sit down.

  ‘I feel like a bloody goldfish in a revolving bowl,’ replied Conway.

  The girl grinned and went out, leaving him alone with his aches and pains. His mind fought its way through the mercifully thinning alcoholic haze. Does doing the job one is best suited for also apply to being a good prostitute? he wondered.

  Of course, one had to draw the line somewhere. The question was where. Didn’t that depend when you lived and where? You drew the line one place today and another place tomorrow. Conway decided it was all a hypocritical conspiracy.

  Somewhere a shrill persistent ring bore in on his brain.

  ‘God, must that telephone always ring,’ he moaned to the girl as she came back into the room.

  ‘Oh, belt up,’ she said angrily, ‘that telephone call was to tell me to get out of this flat.’

  ‘Why,’ asked Conway, rather startled by the outburst.

  ‘Because of the little fracas you had last night. May I

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  remind you?’ She handed him the pump-handle. Conway looked at it in surprise, remembering nothing.

  ‘Now, if I don’t leave the district they will have me beaten up like the band last night,’ she explained rather coldly.

  ‘You could go to the police; they would straighten the. matter out.’

  ‘Like hell they would! What do you think I’m running here - a Sunday school ? ’

  Conway was beginning to focus more clearly. Suddenly he dug up what he’d been trying to remember - the sound of an Australian voice, a voice offering him a flat, not far from here on the other side of the river. One of the rocket engineers, Henry Ending, was going off to Cape Canaveral for a year. He’d been too busy to take much notice of the offer. But then he really couldn’t...

  Conway stopped in mid-thought; there was no let-out in that direction - Emling was a wild fellow, who gave not a damn for status, form or respectability. He’d 'hardly be more than amused if he knew that the girl had got the flat.

  ‘There’s a flat on the south side of the river that I might be able to get for you,’ said Conway, to save himself from being a hypocrite.

  Later that morning Conway stood outside the dress shop where Cathy bought most of her clothes, thinking up an excuse for going in.

  He didn’t learn very much except that she was with a friend, a man called Mike.

  To satisfy his curiosity he went round to the bureau of information. His hunch was
right. The man was obviously Mike Fawsett.

  • Conway took a second taxi back to his own car, which he had left near Regent’s Park. He was in a grim mood as he drove out of London to the west. He knew now why Cathy had the pile of newspaper cuttings, dealing with the exploits of astronauts. With a sinking feeling he knew that this was not just a casual affair.

  Chapter Four

  The Rocket

  It was blowing hard and beginning to rain by the time Conway reached home. He loaded a large pile of wood into a big wicker basket and began to light a fire. The smoke was: rising in the grate when the telephone rang.

  ‘Is that Hugh, this is Alex. How did things go today?’ Alex Cadogan was one of the foremost rocket engineers at the Centre. Much would depend on him in the months to come.

  ‘I’m afraid I didn’t get to the meeting today. I woke with a lousy headache.’ Absolutely true, thought Conway. There was a short shocked silence. Cadogan could hardly believe that anyone would fail to attend a Higher Committee Meeting, even if he did wake with a lousy headache. Conway had more than a suspicion that Cadogan would dearly have liked to attend Higher Committee Meetings himself, good engineer that he was. Funny the way that people who could do a job superlatively well always wanted to be doing something else. ‘Why don’t you come over for a drink tonight,’ went on Conway. ‘Oh yes, I’m feeling all right now. By the time you get over here I’ll have found out what happened today.’

  After Cadogan had rung off, Conway put through a call to his secretary, Edith O’Malan.

  ‘Oh, Professor Conway, what happened?’ she asked.