‘If she stays.’
‘Oh, she’ll stay all right. I really don’t know why you’re making all this fuss. You know quite well none of us has guts enough to chuck her overboard, and that we’ll just have to accept the situation in the end.’
‘That’s right,’ Dugan put in. ‘Anyway, she’s done the really serious part of the damage already by coming at all. There’ll be enough food to see us through. And I mean to say, we can’t just bump her off, can we?’
He turned to Burns who nodded silent support.
Dale looked at the three faces. He wore a somewhat deflated appearance not surprising in one who felt himself to be showing weakness in the face of the trip’s first emergency. He took refuge on a side track.
‘Well, I’d like to know who got her aboard. I know none of you would play a damn fool trick like that, but when we get back, I’m going to find out who did, and, by God ‘ The return of the doctor cut short his threat.
‘Well?’
‘Given her a sedative. She’s sleeping now.’
‘Nothing broken?’
‘Don’t think so. Pretty well bruised, of course.’
‘H’m, that’s a blessing, at least. It would have been about the last straw to have been landed with an invalid.’
‘I don’t think you need bother about that. She’ll probably be all right in a day or two.’
‘And in the meantime,’ said Froud, ‘all we can do is to await this probably disruptive influence with patience.’
A full forty eight hours passed before Doctor Grayson would allow his patient to be seen, and even then his permission was given reluctantly. So far, he told them, she had made a good recovery, but now the thought of her reception was beginning to worry her and retard progress. He considered it worth the risk of a slight setback to have matters out and let the girl know where she stood.
Dale immediately made for the trap door. It would be easier, he thought, to conduct this first interview in the privacy of the tiny sick room. To his irritation he found that he did not arrive there alone.
‘What do you want’ he demanded, rounding on Froud. ‘Me? Oh, I’m just tagging along,’ the other told him placidly.
‘Well, you can go back to the rest. I don’t need you.’
‘But that’s where you’re wrong. I am, as it were, the official record of this trip you can’t start by censoring me the moment something interesting happens.’
‘You’ll know all about it later.’
‘It wouldn’t be the same. Must have the stowaway’s first words and the captain’s reactions. I’m afraid you’ve not got the right angle on this, Dale. Now, here is Romance with a capital R.’
He shook his head at Dale’s grunting snort.
‘Oh, yes it is in spite of your noises. It’s axiomatic in my profession. The unexpected appearance of any girl is always Romance. And I am the representative of the world population two thousand million persons, or thereabouts, all avidly clamouring for Romance is it fair, is it decent, that you for a mere whim should deprive?’
‘Oh, all right. I suppose you’d better come. Only for God’s sake don’t talk so damn’ much. In fact, don’t talk at all if you can manage that without bursting.’
He opened the door, and the two of them crowded into the little place.
The interval had worked a wonderful transformation in the stowaway’s appearance. It was difficult to believe that the girl who lay on the slung couch and examined her visitors with calm appraisement could be identical with the figure of misery which had emerged from the locker. Both men were a little taken aback by the serious, unfrightened regard of her dark eyes. Neither had known quite what attitude to expect, but their surmises had not included this appearance of detached calm. Dale returned her look, momentarily at a loss. He saw an oval face, tanned to a soft brown and framed by darkly gleaming curls. The features were small, fine and regular; a firm mouth, with lips only a shade redder than nature had intended, and, below it, a chin suggesting resolution without stubbornness. Insensibly, when faced with the particular cause, he modified his attitude to the situation in general, and from its beginning the interview progressed along lines he had not intended.
‘Well?’ the girl asked evenly.
Dale pulled himself together. He began as he had meant to begin, but he felt that there was something wrong with the tone.
‘I am Dale Curtance, and I should like an explanation of your presence here. First, what is your name?’
‘Joan,’ she told him.
‘And your surname?’
Her gaze did not waver.
‘I don’t think that matters at present.’
‘It matters to me. I want to know who you are, and what you are here for.’
‘In that case you will be disappointed that I do not choose to give you my other name. If you were to press me I could give you a false one. You have no means of checking. Shall we say “Smith”?’
‘We will not say “Smith”,’ Dale retorted shortly. ‘If you will not tell me your name, perhaps you will be good enough to explain why you joined this expedition unasked and unwanted. I suppose you do not understand that just your presence might easily have wrecked us at the very start.’
‘I hoped to help.’
‘Help? – You?’ His contemptuous tone caused her to flush, but she did not drop her eyes. At that moment Froud, watching her, felt some slight stirring of memory.
‘I’ve met you before, somewhere,’ he said suddenly.
Her gaze shifted from Dale’s to his own face. He fancied that he caught a faint trace of apprehension, but the impression was slight.
‘Indeed?’ she said.
‘Yes, I caught it just then, when you were angry. I’ve seen you look like that before. Now, where was it?’ He knitted his brows as he stared at her, but the answer evaded him. Out of the thousands of girls he met each year in the course of his work, it was remarkable that he should have recalled her at all which suggested that they must have met in unusual circumstances, but for the life of him he could not place the occasion.
Dale had prepared appropriate sentiments and was not to be deterred from expressing them.
‘I suppose,’ he said, ‘that you’re one of those girls who think that they can get away with anything nowadays. Give a show girl smile, and everyone is only too glad to have you along and the newspapers lap it all up when you get back. Well, this time you’ve got it wrong. I’m not glad to have you along none of us is we don’t want you’
‘Except me,’ put in Frond. ‘The S.A. angle will be’
‘You shut up,’ snapped Dale. To the girl he went on: ‘And I’d like you to know that, thanks to your interference, we shall be lucky if we ever do get back. If you’d been a man, I’d have thrown you out I ought to even though you’re a woman. But let me tell you this, you’re not going to be any little heroine or mascot here when there’s work to be done, you’ll do it the same as the rest. Help, indeed!’
The girl’s eyes flashed, nevertheless, she spoke calmly.
‘But I shall be able to help.’
‘The only way you’re likely to help is to give Froud a better story for his nitwit public only you’ve probably at the same time spoilt his chance of ever getting back to tell it.’
‘Look here,’ the journalist began, indignantly, ‘my public is not….’
‘Be quiet,’ Dale snapped.
All three were quiet. The girl shrugged her shoulders and continued to meet Dale’s gaze, unabashed by his mood. The silence lengthened. She appeared unaware that some response from her was the natural next step in the conversation. Dale began to grow restive. He was not entirely unused to young women who kept their eyes fixed on his face, but they usually kept up at the same time a flow of chatter accompanied by frequent smiles. This girl merely waited for him to continue. He became aware that Froud was finding some obscure source of amusement in the situation.
‘How did you get on board?’ he demanded at last.
?
??I knew one of your men,’ she admitted.
‘Which?’
She shook her head silently. Her expression was a reproof.
‘You bribed him?’
‘Not exactly. I suggested that if he got me here, he would be the only one who knew about it and that the Excess or the Hail might be generous for exclusive information.’
‘Well, I’m damned. So by now everybody knows about it?’
‘I expect so.’
Dale looked helplessly at Froud.
‘And yet,’ said the latter reflectively, ‘there are still people who doubt the power of the Press.’
Dale turned back once more to the girl.
‘But why? Why? That’s what I want to know. You don’t look the kind who I mean if you’d not been as you are, I wouldn’t have been so surprised, but….’ He finished in the air.
‘That’s not very lucid,’ she said, and for the first time smiled faintly.
‘I think he’s trying to say that you don’t look like a sensationalist that this is
not just a bit of exhibitionism on your part,’ Froud tried. ‘Oh, no.’ She shook her head with the curious result that the outflung curls remained outflung instead of falling back into place. Unconscious of the odd effect, she went on: ‘In fact, I should think he has a far more exhibitionistic nature than I have.’
‘Oh,’ said Dale a little blankly as Froud smiled. Doctor Grayson came to the door. ‘Have you two finished now?’ he inquired. ‘Can’t have you tiring my patient out, you know.’
‘Right you are, Doc,’ said Froud, rising, ‘though I fancy you rather underestimate your patient’s powers of recovery.’
‘What did she say?’ Dugan demanded, as they entered the living room. ‘Precious little except that her name is Joan, and that she considers Dale an exhibitionist which, of course, he is,’ Froud told him. Dugan looked puzzled. ‘Didn’t you ask her why she had done it and all that’?’
‘Of course.’
‘Well?’ Froud shrugged his shoulders and pushed the familiar lock of hair back from his forehead. ‘This looks like being a more interesting trip than I had expected.’ He looked at the other three, thoughtfully. ‘Five of us and her, cooped up here for three months. If the proportion of the sexes were reversed, there would be blue murder. Possibly we shall just avoid murder, but you never know.’
Chapter 9. Identification
Dale’s anger at the finding of the stowaway had been due as much to a dread of the consequences of her presence among them as to the practical results of her additional weight. The girl, Joan, was an unknown quantity thrust among his carefully chosen crew. He saw her as the potential cause of emotional disturbances, irrational cross currents of feeling, and, not impossibly, of violent quarrels which might make a misery of the voyage. The close confinement for weeks would have been a severe enough test of companionship for the men alone, for though he had chosen men he knew well, it was inevitable that he .should know them only under more or less normal conditions. How they were likely to react to the changed circumstances, he could only speculate and that not too happily.
Ultimately it depended upon the character of the girl. If she were level headed, they might conceivably get through without serious trouble: if not…. And now, ten days out (in the Earth reckoning), he still could not make up his mind about her. To all of them, as far as he knew, she was still that unknown quantity which had emerged from the locker. She had still given no reason for her presence, and yet, in some way, he was aware from her attitude, and as much of her character as she chose to show, that it had been no light whim nor search for notoriety which had driven her into this foolhardy adventure. But if it was not that, what could it be? What else was strong enough to drive an undeniably attractive girl to such a course? She did not seem to have the sustaining force of a specialised interest such as that which had enabled the doctor to face the trip. Her general education was good and her knowledge of astronomy unusual; her comprehension of physics, too, was above the general standard, but it was not an absorbing passion urging her to overcome almost insuperable difficulties. But there must be a reason of some kind….
But in spite of her retention of confidence he was admitting that they might have been far more unlucky in their supercargo. As Froud had pointed out, they might as easily have been saddled with a fluffy blonde with cinema ambitions. Joan was at least quietly inconspicuous and ready to perform any task suggested to her. He wondered how long that attitude would last.
She was standing close to one of the windows, looking out into space. Most of her time was spent in this way, though after the first novelty had worn off, she did not seem to study the far off suns; rather, it was a part of her aloofness from the rest of them; as though the unchanging, starry blackness before her eyes set her mind free to roam in its private imaginings. Of the course of these thoughts no sign appeared; there was no play of expression across the sunburned, serious face, no frown as though she sought a solution of problems, no hint of impatience, only sometimes did it appear that her eyes were deeper and her thoughts more remote than at others. Generally the talk of the rest passed her by, unheard, but infrequently a remark chanced to catch her attention, and she would turn to look at the speaker. Rarely, one had the impression that secretly and privately she might be smiling.
A question of Froud’s brought her round now. He was sitting at the table sitting by force of habit, since neither sitting nor lying was more restful than standing in the weightless state. He was asking Dale:
‘I’ve meant to ask you before, but it’s kept on slipping my mind: why did you choose to try for Mars? I should have thought Venus was the natural target for the first trip. She’s nearer. One would use less fuel. It was the place Drivers was aiming at, wasn’t it?’
Dale looked up from his book, and nodded.
‘Yes, Drivers was trying to reach Venus. As a matter of fact, it was my first idea to go for Venus, but I changed my mind.’
‘That’s a pity. It’s always Mars in the stories. Either we go to Mars or Mars comes to us. What with Wells and Burroughs and a dozen or so of others, I feel that I know the place already. Venus would have been a change.’
Dugan laughed. ‘If we find Mars anything like the Burroughs conception, we’re in for an exciting time. Why did you give up the Venus idea, Dale?’
‘Oh, several reasons. For one thing, we know a bit more about Mars. For all we can tell, Venus under those clouds may be nothing more than a huge ball of water. We do know that Mars is at least dry land, and that we shall have a chance of setting the Gloria Mundi up on end for the return journey. If we came down in a sea, it would mean finish. Then again, the pull of gravity is much less on Mars, and this ship is going to take some handling even there. I don’t know why Drivers chose Venus probably he didn’t want to wait for Mars’ opposition or something of the kind. But you were wrong about it needing less fuel. Actually it would use more.’
‘But Venus comes about ten million miles closer,’ Froud objected, looking puzzled.
‘But she’s a much bigger planet than Mars. It would take much more power to get clear of her for the return journey. This falling through space uses no fuel. It’s the stopping and starting that count, and obviously the bigger the planet, the greater its pull that is, the more it costs to get free.’
‘I see. You mean that as we are now clear of the Earth’s pull we could go to Neptune or to Pluto, even, with no more cost of power than to Mars?’
‘Sure. In fact, we could go out of this system into the next if you didn’t mind spending a few centuries on the journey.’
‘Oh,’ said Froud, ‘ and relapsed into a thoughtful silence.
‘I wonder,’ the doctor put in generally, ‘why we do these things? It’s quite silly really when we could all stay comfortably and safely at home. Is it going to make anyone any happier or better to know that man can cross space if he wishes to? Yet here we arc doing it.’
Joan’s voice came from the window, surprising th
em.
‘It is going to make us wiser. Don’t you remember Cavor saying to Bedford in Wells’ First Men in the Moon, “Think of the new knowledge!”?’
‘Knowledge ,’ said the doctor. ‘Yes, I suppose that is it. For ever and for ever seeking knowledge. And we don’t even know why we seek it. It’s an instinct, like self preservation; and about as comprehensible. Why, I wonder, do I keep on living. I know I’ve got to die sooner or later, yet I take the best care I can that it shall be later instead of finishing the thing off in a reasonable manner. After all, I’ve done my bit propagated my species, and yet for some inscrutable reason I want to go on living and learning. Just an instinct. Some kink in the evolutionary process caused this passion for knowledge, and the result is man an odd little creature, scuttling around and piling up mountains of this curious commodity.’
‘And finding that quite a lot of it goes bad on him,’ put in Froud. The doctor nodded.
‘You’re right. It’s far from imperishable. I suppose there is some purpose. What do you suppose will happen when one day a man sits back in his chair and says: “Knowledge is complete”? You see, it just sounds silly.
We’re so used to collecting it, that we can’t imagine a world where it is all collected and finished.’
He looked up, catching Dugan’s eye, and smiled.
‘You needn’t look at me like that, Dugan. I’m not going off my rocker. Have a shot at it yourself. Why do you think we are out here in the middle of nothing?’
Dugan hesitated ‘I don’t know. I’ve never really thought about it, but I’ve a sort of feeling that people grow out of well, out of their conditions just as they grow out of their clothes. They have to expand.’
Joan’s voice surprised them again as she asked Dugan
‘Did you ever read J. J. Astor’s Journey to Other Worlds?’
‘Never heard of him. Why?’ Dugan asked.
‘Only that he seemed to feel rather the same about it, right back in 1894, too. As far as I remember he said
“Just as Greece became too small for the civilisation of the Greeks, so it seems to me that the future glory of the human race lies in the exploration of at least the Solar System.” Almost the same idea, you see.’