‘Darling, three months! I thought that –’
‘Three whole months. The two due after the mission and one extra month because –’
‘Because?’
When Ruth looked at him there was suddenly anxiety in her eyes. It seemed to her that there was a dark shadow over her husband’s brow. The cloud quickly disappeared and he replied with a cheerfulness which was perhaps a little forced, ‘It’s the WAO medical examination which has given me this gift. It was very nice of them.’
‘Darling, are you ill?’
‘I have never felt so good. But after doing the whole range of analyses and tests they think… I didn’t understand exactly what it was, and neither do they, I think… in short, they think they have detected some element which could mean there’s a vague trace of mental imbalance… So you can see how precise they are! Finally they all came to the agreement that an extra month of leave could only be good for my health. And there you are!’
‘You’re not worried?’
‘Worried!’
He burst out laughing, lifted her up in his arms and twirled her round.
‘Don’t you see that it’s just a pretext to reward me, after my work over the last few years! The quack who read the report to me shrugged his shoulders and laughed. Who knows whether your president of a father didn’t give secret orders to the WAO so that we could at last have a long honeymoon? Worried! I tell you again that I have never been in such a good mood, never have I been so happy. When are we leaving?’
‘The day after tomorrow, if you want to. I need at least forty-eight hours to get our luggage ready… We’ve known the route for a long time.’
‘Excellent! I’ll just pop down to the airfield, to get the old Icarus ready.’
That was his nickname for his private airplane. He was a former test pilot and the companies he had worked for in the past had made him a gift of it when he gave up this job to undertake interplanetary flights. Every time he was staying on Earth he used it to make quick excursions with Ruth. The airplane was also kept ready for a long journey around the world.
He examined Icarus and found that she was in perfect condition. He gave some final instructions to the mechanics and went back to help his wife.
He was going to put his car away, when a trivial incident caused him to frown. Like the bungalow complex, the garage was equipped with the latest technical refinements intended to save its occupants any superfluous effort. Nicolas had carefully supervised the installation of various automatic gadgets, amusing himself by inventing and fixing up some of them himself. An electric eye controlled the metal shutter of the garage. As the car approached, it cut through a ray of light and the shutter went up. For a long time he had been in the habit of always moving the car forward at the same speed, having calculated the exact speed required some time ago. This had become second nature to him, so that the bonnet reached the entrance at the precise moment when the way was clear.
But this time the mechanism did not work. The shutter stayed down and Nicolas behaved strangely. He sat there, his eyes fixed on the entrance, his hands clenching the steering wheel, his tense foot maintaining the same pressure on the accelerator, and the car continuing to move forward at the same pace. His mind felt empty as he watched the obstacle approaching and he was paralysed with a sort of anxiety. The reflex action of letting the accelerator go did not occur. This state of torpor lasted three or four seconds and did not disappear until just as the bonnet was about to hit the shutter, when he felt suddenly free again and able to slam on the brake sharply.
He got out of the vehicle, and at first was disturbed by the strange turn which had come over him, and then he was racked by a violent feeling of irritation at the failure of the mechanism, a kind of rage out of all proportion to the trivial nature of the incident. He needed several minutes to calm down before he was able to operate the control by hand and park his car. Even now he did not seem to be sure of his movements and he had to make several attempts to get it exactly into its usual place, which was next to Ruth’s car.
Having finally pulled himself together, he stayed still for a long time, and could not help thinking reluctantly about the confused conclusions of the medical report. Then he shrugged his shoulders and forced himself to think of nothing but the preparations for the journey, and his face was serene again when he joined his wife.
The WAO differed from its predecessor NASA, and similar associations included within it, not only in the tenfold increase in the size of its resources, but also in its choice of objectives, which were always selected according to rigorous scientific criteria. It was no longer a question nowadays of winning a race or a bet and of sending two or three men to spend a few hours on the moon to collect a small pile of pebbles. In this field, as in others, it was a matter of making real scientific progress. A rational exploration of space should allow teams of qualified scholars, provided with the necessary equipment, to settle on accessible celestial bodies and to conduct methodical research there.
As a corollary to this policy, the first results obtained concerning astronomical matters, even if they were of profound importance, were not spectacular. It had taken a long time to coordinate the enterprises of the former nations, which had been very different in their objectives and in the means they employed. A satellite base as large as a small town was now going round the Earth, thanks to which journeys to the moon had become routine operations. The moon was the only celestial body to have been conquered thus far and the aim was to develop it and establish permanent observatories and laboratories there. The satellite base would also serve as a point of departure for future flights to the planets. The exploration of Mars was planned for the near future. For the present a few crews had only flown around it, reporting back with a mass of information to use for a future expedition.
Nicolas Zarratoff was in command of one of the most recent flights of this kind, which had stayed in space for several months. Ruth had urged him to accept this mission, which was one of the most important of his career, and for which he had been specially chosen. He deserved to be chosen, as much for his experience of space as for his ability to keep his cool and his quick-wittedness and excellent reflexes. In a period when automatic equipment was still subject to failure, he had managed to take control himself, as the first pioneers to the moon had done, and sort out a dangerous situation, which exceeded the capability of computers.
It is true that he had not had the chance to act in this way for a very long time, and that he would probably never have to do it again. Equipment failures had become more and more rare in the course of the last three years, so much so that they could nowadays be considered almost impossible miraculous events. The WAO had established the principle that an accident was unacceptable, given the status of the passengers, such as all the famous scholars, that vessels now carried. The reliability required of equipment did not just have to be more than ninety-eight or ninety-nine per cent, as people were content to accept in the past, but over 99.999999… per cent with a sequence of nines taking up a whole line. For Nicolas Zarratoff and other former cosmonauts, these equipment failures were distant memories. As for the young ones, if one brought up the possibility of the onboard computer breaking down for example, they took it as a great joke and burst out laughing. Even less likely for them was the possibility of the enormous organisation being wrong, as it followed their flights on the Earth, watched everything, predicted everything and gave them orders at every turn.
During the last flight around Mars the equipment had functioned impeccably as usual and, as commander, Nicolas had not encountered a single danger warning during the long months. The trajectory was directed and controlled every single moment by the computers. When an urgent decision had to be taken, of the order of a second or a fraction of a second, the onboard computers took care of it. They had greater sensitivity and quicker reflexes than any pilot, registering the data related to the problem, finding a solution and giving the order for the right reaction well befo
re the human brain could start thinking about it. The heavy and powerful earthbound computers could not intervene in such cases, as communications between the vessel in the vicinity of Mars and the Earth required several minutes. They never got a look in, although with their soundness of judgment and incomparable effectiveness they would have been superior if it were not for the time delay required to solve the problems.
With time Nicolas had become accustomed to trusting them completely, with the result that he also spent long hours of leisure inside the spacecraft. He used it to study and perfect his scientific knowledge, taking advantage of the passengers on board, who were eminent scholars. These scholars willingly and with good grace became teachers and organised a series of classes for the benefit of the commander and some members of the crew, which also relieved the scholars themselves of the constant tension that used to be imposed on them by their responsibilities. During this period, the spacecraft, entrusted to the impeccable electronic brains, made its way to the precise point it was due to reach, without ever diverging more than an inch from its correct trajectory.
4.
Ruth finished fastening her luggage within the time they had planned and they set off on board Icarus on a sunny morning, which boded well for an enjoyable holiday.
They shook hands with the mechanics and several friends who had come to see them off, and then they got into the aircraft. Nicolas settled himself at the controls. He had not piloted his airplane for several months. Just the day before he had driven it round the runway to get used to handling it again. It was easy: guiding this tourist aircraft was child’s play for a former test pilot. But Icarus was equipped with very modern equipment, which allowed constant contact with the ground and blind landing.
Nicolas’ first concern before taking off was to make contact with various staging posts. At his request they confirmed that all was in order and that the weather was fine everywhere on his route. Then he smiled at Ruth, embraced her tenderly and guided the aircraft to the end of the runway, fired up the engines and took off.
The astronautical base from where they took off was situated in the Sahara, which experts had considered to be ideal for launching large rockets. Nicolas had been posted there since it was first developed, shortly after the establishment of the world government. Ruth had come to join him there two years after their engagement and they got married there. He had therefore been involved in both the birth and the growth of the centre, until it became one of the leading ones in the world, and he also witnessed at the same time with some curiosity the creation of the canals and lakes, fundamental changes which gradually changed the climate around him. He knew the region like the back of his hand, having often flown over it in an airplane or driven through it by car during his periods of leave.
The journey was due to start by crossing the former desert with a long stopover in Morocco, and after that the Atlantic, for which Icarus had been modified to give it sufficient range. Then, by short stages, they would travel the length of the American continent. A stop of a few days was planned to visit their parents, Fawell and Zarratoff, in the area around New York, where the government was situated at that time. After that they would continue their journey to Canada, Asia and the European continent.
The first part of the flight passed without incident. This stage must have lasted about three hours. They admired the Sahara, which had now been transformed, with its large areas of green growth criss-crossed with small canals, and then they flew over a straight railway track, following a central canal which was larger than the others, cutting the plain with two parallel lines which met at the horizon. They had only to follow this landmark to reach a small town which had recently been built, their first stopover, where friends were waiting for them. Ruth found the flight delightful. She had not had the opportunity to make such a long journey for a long time.
For no apparent reason, she felt suddenly that the atmosphere in the airplane had changed. The weather was still glorious. The aircraft was gliding along in a cloudless sky, but her sense of peace had vanished. It took her a moment to realise that the unpleasant feeling that she was experiencing was caused by a change in her husband’s attitude. Oh, there was nothing all that abnormal about it. But at the beginning he spoke to her from time to time… and above all, every few moments he turned his head towards her and smiled. He had not done anything like this for… for probably several minutes, perhaps longer. It was this absence of contact which was worrying her.
She looked at him. The way he was sitting at the controls was normal… though not entirely so. Looking at him more closely, she thought she could make out an unusual stiffness… He was tense, that was it, though he usually enjoyed flying this airplane.
‘Darling, are you all right? You’re not tired?’
She had asked the question almost in spite of herself. He replied, but with a slight delay and without turning his head towards her. The tone of his voice betrayed the fact that he was strangely preoccupied.
‘No, no. Everything’s fine. Only… Excuse me.’
He interrupted himself to call a station that they were due to fly over without stopping. When contact was established, he asked a question and she could not help noticing the tone of anxiety in his voice.
‘Has your radar located me?’
‘Just a minute, Mr Zarratoff,’ said the voice, in a respectful tone.
He was well known in all aeronautical circles, both for his exploits as a cosmonaut and as the son-in-law of the President of the world.
‘…Yes, there you are. You must be over the railway, coming directly towards us.’
When the pilot asked him, the employee informed him of his approximate distance from the station and his speed, insofar as these could be calculated from the ground.
‘Could you give me more precise figures for the distance?’ Nicolas asked in an imperious tone.
‘Eleven kilometres, three hundred and fifty metres,’ the voice replied with a touch of surprise. ‘You must be almost directly above the stone bridge.’
‘Almost –!’ the cosmonaut began to say.
Ruth started. There was an angry tone in his voice, for which there was no justification. He calmed down just as suddenly, and said with obvious relief, ‘That’s right, that must be right. I’m flying over the stone bridge. I recognise it.’
‘I don’t think there’s any way you could miss it,’ the voice said, now with a touch of irony.
This bridge was in fact the only one of its kind in the whole of Africa. It had been constructed by an engineer who was somewhat mentally disturbed, and who had had an ancient European bridge, several centuries old, transported stone by stone. When the authorities noticed this fantastic thing, they decided at first to demolish it, but finally let it remain as a curiosity, contenting themselves with having another more modern and sturdier bridge built some way away. Nobody could mistake its appearance.
‘Is there any other way we can be of service, Mr Zarratoff?’
‘Just a moment, I beg you… Don’t leave me alone!’
Ruth became panic-stricken. He had almost shouted, and his voice betrayed real anxiety. She had never heard him speak like that.
‘Is there something wrong on board?’ asked air-traffic control in surprise.
‘No, everything’s fine. I just want to check… Can you give me my exact altitude?’
‘Is your altimeter broken?’
‘I don’t know… and also this type of equipment lacks precision. I have more confidence in your radar.’
‘Two thousand, three hundred metres.’
It was the figure indicated by the instrument on board. Once again the pilot seemed to be relieved. But it seemed to Ruth that he continued to speak in the same way, as if he could not resign himself to cutting off communication.
‘Can you give me my exact course?’
When this was done, he asked a question which was very strange in the circumstances.
‘Could you take over by radio control?’
This time the man’s voice sounded astonished. He asked for the phrase to be repeated, which Nicolas did with another burst of impatience.
‘Listen, Mr Zarratoff, you are asking us to take over by radio control? Correct? Of course it’s possible. But you are flying at an altitude of more than two thousand metres. And I can confirm that the weather is gorgeous, and visibility excellent. There’s no cloud as far as your stopover point and your route is indicated straight ahead by the railway line and the canal.’
‘It’s true,’ murmured Nicolas, ‘it’s true, there’s the railway line and the canal.’
He had almost mumbled these last few words. The other person asked again:
‘Are you sure that everything is all right on board?’
‘Everything’s all right. Everything’s all right, with both the airplane and the pilot.’
‘And you still want us to take over by radio control?’
‘No. You’re right. I just have to follow the railway.’
‘Okay, goodbye then, Mr Zarratoff, and have a good trip.’
‘Goodbye.’
He put down the telephone and smiled more calmly at Ruth, who had not uttered a single word during the whole exchange.
‘Why these questions, darling?’ she ventured to ask after a period of silence. ‘There’s no risk of our getting lost in weather like this. I recognise the countryside below us. There’s the old village with the motorway passing close by. We came here by car just after our marriage. There’s the hotel where we slept, with its swimming pool.’
It was true, and Nicolas knew the area even better than she did.
‘You can never take enough precautions,’ he said gravely.
He was not himself any more. At that moment she also remembered the hesitations of the medical unit and asked herself whether he wasn’t seriously ill. Without revealing her anxiety, she adopted a lighter tone when she said: ‘We will be arriving in twenty minutes. I’m sure the Hudsons will already be waiting for us.’