Part 1

Chapter 13,904 wordsPublic domain

Venus Equilateral

By George O. Smith

_Illustrations by_ SOL LEVIN

_Introduction by_ JOHN W. CAMPBELL, JR.

THE PRIME PRESS Philadelphia

1949

[Transcriber's Note: Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

First printing, 1947 Reprinted, 1949

THE PRIME PRESS Box 2019--Philadelphia 3, Pa.

MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES

_Dedication_:

_To James Clerk Maxwell, whose Electromagnetic Equations founded the art of electronics and thus made Venus Equilateral possible...._

_And to my son, George O. Smith (Jg), who may some day work there._

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION _by John W. Campbell, Jr._

QRM--INTERPLANETARY

CALLING THE EMPRESS

RECOIL

OFF THE BEAM

THE LONG WAY

BEAM PIRATE

FIRING LINE

SPECIAL DELIVERY

PANDORA'S MILLIONS

MAD HOLIDAY

INTRODUCTION

Sometimes it's a little hard to get people to realize that not only has the world changed in the past, but that it is changing now, and will change in the future. In fact, it takes something on the order of an atomic bomb to blast them out of their congenital complacency.

And it took the literally shocking violence of the atomic bomb to make the general public understand the fact that science-fiction is _not_ "pseudo-science" (that's what you find in Sunday Supplements--fiction, pretending to be science) but an entirely different breed of thing--fiction stories based on science, and attempting to extrapolate the curves of past development into future years. On August 6, 1945, people suddenly discovered that that fool fantasy stuff about atomic bombs hadn't been quite so fantastic as they had--well, to be brutally frank, _hoped_.

Their immediate reactions were that a good guess or two, a chance, coincidental correspondence between fiction-fantasy and fact, didn't mean much. Still, relatively few people have learned to understand how science-fiction originates--why it does successfully predict.

The answer is, actually, that science-fiction's prophecy is to a large extent phony. It isn't prophecy at all, not in the true sense. It's more like the astronomer's prophecy that there will be an eclipse of the sun visible for so many seconds, on such and such a day, at a specified point. The astronomer's prediction is based on information he has that is not generally recognized--though anyone who wants to get it can go dig it out of the text books.

The science-fiction author predicts in the same general way. With the knowledge of what has been accomplished in the laboratories, and a general understanding of what people have wanted in the past, want today, and will probably want in the future, it's not hard to guess how those laboratory facts will be applied.

By 1915 it was generally known among scientists that there was an enormous store of energy locked in every pound of matter. Men have, sadly, wanted more deadly killing instruments for all human history--and will pay much more for a means of killing an enemy than they will to save a friend's life. From these facts it's a simple prediction that atomic energy will some day be released--and probably first in the form of a bomb.

Science-fiction made such predictions. When the laboratories found U-235 was probably capable of a chain reaction, the science-fictioneer began saying U-235 bombs instead of the more generalized "atomic" bomb.

The essentials for good prophetic fiction--and hence good science-fiction--are fairly easily stated.

It takes a technically inclined mind.

That mind must be intimately acquainted with one or more technologies--and by that I mean both the branch of theoretical science and that branch's engineering applications as of today.

Imagination is a third requirement; if imagination is put first, fantasy, not science-fiction, results.

An understanding of how political and social set-ups react to technological changes must be added, for the best types of science-fiction.

George O. Smith's "Venus Equilateral" series represents an excellent progressive development of a single line of extrapolation.

George O. Smith is a radio engineer; at the time the Venus Equilateral series started, he was working on radar equipment and Army communications radio units. It was only natural that he should pick the field of communications engineering as his line for development--he was intimately acquainted with the problems and possibilities of that field, and with the past history of the art.

"QRM Interplanetary," the first of the stories, appeared in Astounding Science-Fiction to start the series; typically, it serves merely to introduce the concept of the equilateral relay station as a necessary link in interplanetary communications. But the story has been so constructed that the working out of its plot gives a good concept of the general nature of the station, and of its functioning. Still, the story is essentially simply a suggestion that interplanetary communications will require the construction of a station in space to relay messages.

The immediately following stories of the series introduce successive problems of the purely technical art; only gradually are the associated social and political reactions of the rest of that civilization of the future brought in. From the start, the author's problem has been simplified by picking a small, almost wholly isolated segment of the culture, so that only the technology itself need be discussed.

As the series develops, however, more and more the social and political effects of the developments are brought into the picture, until, in the end, practically nothing but the social-political effects remain. The final story of the series to appear in Astounding Science-Fiction was devoted entirely to the cultural, rather than technical, problems of the matter transmitter.

In essence, Venus Equilateral represents the basic pattern of science-fiction--which is, equally, the basic pattern of technology. First starting from the isolated instance, the effects spread outward through the culture. Scientific methodology involves the proposition that a well-constructed theory will not only explain every known phenomenon, but will also predict new and still undiscovered phenomena. Science-fiction tries to do much the same--and write up, in story form, what the results look like when applied not only to machines, but to human society as well.

The science-fiction writer can be extremely accurate in the guesses he makes of future progress--and yet there are factors that may make a complete failure of his prediction.

George O. Smith is a radio engineer; radio is his field of technology. As such, his predictions tend to be based on the extrapolation of a single line of activity. But it may be that all his predictions may come to nothing due to a development in an entirely separate field of technical progress. It might be, for instance, that Dr. Rhine's work on extra-sensory perception developed into a science, that equipment was developed capable of recording, receiving, amplifying and broadcasting whatever strange energy form is involved--and that telepathy completely displaced radio engineering. The atomic pile is the only form of nuclear energy machine we have available; because war-time engineering was operating under forced draft, and war-time basic science was in abeyance, we have no basic science from which to predict more advanced forms of energy-harnessing devices. But it is quite conceivable that, long before we reach Mars and Venus to establish colonies, we will achieve the ultimate in energy-harnesses for atomic energy--a small, sealed box with two projecting terminals from which unlimited electric power can be drawn directly.

Also, any extrapolation whatsoever is, necessarily, based on the implied, but unstated proposition, "If things go on as they have been...." The proposition is, right now, open to serious question. For one thing, whenever science becomes engineering, it meets legislation made by men. Now the laws of Nature are predictable, understandable, and absolute. They don't depend on the viewpoint of the individual, or the social theory popular at the time, or the Majority Leader's severe chronic indigestion. The patent law very definitely does. At the moment, as a matter of fact, an extrapolation of the trend of patent law suggests that half the Venus Equilateral series will be rendered plotless; there won't be any patents.

The science-fiction writer is, therefore, faced with a simply stated problem: Taking off from the solid ground of known laboratory science, sighting along the back-track of past experience, he launches into the future.

But he may come down in a never-will-be future, because somebody harnessed telepathy, and threw civilization off on an entirely unexpected track. Or because the Supreme Court, currently invalidating 24 out of every 25 patents brought before it, has eliminated the institution of patents. Or because a new social theory has decided that no scientific advance should be permitted for a period of 250 years while a great program of meditation and navel-inspection instead of Naval inspection is pushed forward.

Nevertheless, science-fiction can be not only fun, but an extremely valuable experience. If a friend steps out of a dimly lighted doorway it may provoke a "Yipe!" of momentary fear, or a casual "Hi," dependent entirely on whether or not you expected to meet him there.

The science-fiction reader is a lot less apt to jump in senseless fear and alarm when a new process comes from some unexpected doorway--he'll have been expecting it, and recognize a friend or an enemy--which can be very helpful to survival.

JOHN W. CAMPBELL, JR.

QRM--INTERPLANETARY

_QRM--International code signal meaning "Interference" of controllable nature, such as man-made static, cross modulation from another channel adjoining or willful obliteration of signals by an interfering source._

_Interference not of natural sources such as electrical storms, common static, et cetera. (Designated by International code as QRN.)_

--_Handbook, Interplanetary Amateur Radio League._

Korvus, the Magnificent, Nilamo of Yoralen, picked up the telephone in his palace and said: "I want to talk to Wilneda. He is at the International Hotel in Detroit, Michigan."

"I'm sorry, sir," came the voice of the operator. "Talking is not possible, due to the fifteen-minute transmission lag between here and Terra. However, teletype messages are welcome."

Her voice originated fifteen hundred miles north of Yoralen, but it sounded as though she might be in the next room. Korvus thought for a moment and then said: "Take this message: 'Wilneda: Add to order for mining machinery one type 56-XXD flier to replace washed-out model. And remember, alcohol and energy will not mix!' Sign that Korvus."

"Yes, Mr. Korvus."

"Not _mister_!" yelled the monarch. "I am Korvus the Magnificent! I am Nilamo of Yoralen!"

"Yes, your magnificence," said the operator humbly. It was more than possible that she was stifling a laugh, which knowledge made the little man of Venus squirm in wrath. But there was nothing he could do about it, so he wisely said nothing.

To give Korvus credit, he was not a pompous little man. He was large--for a Venusian--which made him small according to the standards set up by Terrestrians. He, as Nilamo of Yoralen, had extended the once-small kingdom outward to include most of the Palanortis Country which extended from 23.0 degrees North Latitude to 61.7 degrees, and almost across the whole, single continent that was the dry land of Venus.

So Korvus' message to Terra zoomed across the fifteen hundred rocky miles of Palanortis to Northern Landing. It passed high across the thousand-foot-high trees and over the mountain ranges. It swept over open patches of water, and across intervening cities and towns. It went with the speed of light and in a tight beam from Yoralen to Northern Landing, straight as a die and with person-to-person clarity. The operator in the city that lay across the North Pole of Venus clicked on a teletype, reading back the message as it was written.

Korvus told her: "That is correct."

"The message will be in the hands of your representative Wilneda within the hour."

The punched tape from Operator No. 7's machine slid along the line until it entered a coupling machine.

The coupling machine worked furiously. It accepted the tapes from seventy operators as fast as they could write them. It selected the messages as they entered the machine, placing a mechanical preference upon whichever message happened to be ahead of the others on the moving tapes. The master tape moved continuously at eleven thousand words per minute, taking teletype messages from everywhere in the Northern Hemisphere of Venus to Terra and Mars. It was a busy machine; even at eleven thousand words per minute it often got hours behind.

The synchronous-keyed signal from the coupling machine left the operating room and went to the transmission room. It was amplified and sent out of the city to a small, squat building at the outskirts of Northern Landing.

It was hurled at the sky out of a reflector antenna by a thousand kilowatt transmitter. The wave seared against the Venusian Heaviside Layer. It fought and it struggled. And, as is the case with strife, it lost heavily in the encounter. The beam was resisted fiercely. Infiltrations of ionization tore at the radio beam, stripping and trying to beat it down.

But man triumphed over nature. The megawatt of energy that came in a tight beam from the building at Northern Landing emerged from the Heaviside Layer as a weak, piffling signal. It wavered and it crackled. It wanted desperately to lie down and sleep. Its directional qualities were impaired, and it wabbled badly. It arrived at the relay station tired and worn.

One million watts of ultra-high frequency energy at the start, it was measurable in microvolts when it reached a space station, only five hundred miles above the city of Northern Landing.

The signal, as weak and as wabbly as it was, was taken in by eager receptors. It was amplified. It was dehashed, de-staticked and deloused. And once again, one hundred decibels stronger and infinitely cleaner, the signal was hurled out on a tight beam from a gigantic parabolic reflector.

Across sixty-seven million miles of space went the signal. Across the orbit of Venus it went in a vast chord. It arrived at the Venus Equilateral Station with less trouble than the original transmission through the Heaviside Layer. The signal was amplified and demodulated. It went into a decoupler machine where the messages were sorted mechanically and sent, each to the proper channel, into other coupler machines. Beams from Venus Equilateral were directed at Mars and at Terra.

The Terra beam ended at Luna. Here it again was placed in the two-component beam and from Luna it punched down at Terra's Layer. It emerged into the atmosphere of Terra, as weak and as tired as it had been when it had come out of the Venusian Heaviside Layer. It entered a station in the Bahamas, was stripped of the interference, and put upon the land beams. It entered decoupling machines that sorted the messages as to destination. These various beams spread out across the face of Terra; the one carrying Korvus' message finally coming into a station at Ten Mile Road and Woodward. From this station at the outskirts of Detroit, it went upon land wires downtown to the International Hotel.

The teletype machine in the office of the hotel began to click rapidly. The message to Wilneda was arriving.

And fifty-five minutes after the operator told Korvus that less than an hour would ensue, Wilneda was saying, humorously, "So, Korvus was drunk again last night--"

* * * * *

Completion of Korvus' message to Wilneda completes also one phase of the tale at hand. It is not important. There were a hundred and fifty other messages that might have been accompanied in the same manner, each as interesting to the person who likes the explanation of the interplanetary communication service. But this is not a technical journal. A more complete explanation of the various phases that a message goes through in leaving a city on Venus to go to Terra may be found in the Communications Technical Review, Volume XXVII, number 8, pages 411 to 716. Readers more interested in the technical aspects are referred to the article.

But it so happens that Korvus' message was picked out of a hundred-odd messages because of one thing only. At the time that Korvus' message was in transit through the decoupler machines at The Venus Equilateral Relay Station, something of a material nature was entering the air lock of the station.

It was an unexpected visit.

Don Channing looked up at the indicator panel in his office and frowned in puzzlement. He punched a buzzer and spoke into the communicator on his desk.

"Find out who that is, will you, Arden?"

"He isn't expected," came back the voice of Arden Westland.

"I know that. But I've been expecting someone ever since John Peters retired last week. You know why."

"You hope to get his job," said the girl in an amused voice. "I hope you do. So that someone else will sit around all day trying to make you retire so that he can have your job!"

"Now look, Arden, I've never tried to make Peters retire."

"No, but when the word came that he was thinking of it, you began to think about taking over. Don't worry, I don't blame you." There was quite a protracted silence, and then her voice returned, "The visitor is a gentleman by the name of Francis Burbank. He came out in a flitter with a chauffeur and all."

"Big shot, hey?"

"Take it easy. He's coming up the office now."

"I gather that he desires audience with me?" asked Don.

"I think that he's here to lay down the law! You'll have to get out of Peters' office, if his appearance is any guide."

There was some more silence. The communicator was turned off at the other end, which made Channing fume. He would have preferred to hear the interchange of words between his secretary and the newcomer. Then, instead of having the man announced, the door opened and the stranger entered. He came to the point immediately.

"You're Don Channing? Acting Director of Venus Equilateral?"

"I am."

"Then I have some news for you, Dr. Channing. I have been appointed Director by the Interplanetary Communications Commission. You are to resume your position as Electronics Engineer."

"Oh?" said Channing. "I sort of believed that I would be offered that position."

"There was a discussion of that procedure. However, the Commission decided that a man of more commercial training would better fill the position. The Communications Division has been operating at too small a profit. They felt that a man of commercial experience could cut expenses and so on to good effect. You understand their reasoning, of course," said Burbank.

"Not exactly."

"Well, it is like this. They know that a scientist is not usually the man to consider the cost of experimentation. They build thousand-ton cyclotrons to convert a penny's worth of lead into one and one-tenth cents' worth of lead and gold. And they use three hundred dollars' worth of power and a million-dollar machine to do it with.

"They feel that a man with training like that will not know the real meaning of the phrase, 'cutting expenses.' A new broom sweeps clean, Dr. Channing. There must be many places where a man of commercial experience can cut expenses. I, as Director, shall do so."

"I wish you luck," said Channing.

"Then there is no hard feeling?"

"I can't say that. It is probably not your fault. I cannot feel against you, but I do feel sort of let down at the decision of the Commission. I have had experience in this job."

"The Commission may appoint you to follow me. If your work shows a grasp of commercial operations, I shall so recommend."

"Thanks," said Channing dryly. "May I buy you a drink?"

"I never drink. And I do not believe in it. If it were mine to say, I'd prohibit liquor from the premises. Venus Equilateral would be better off without it."

Don Channing snapped the communicator. "Miss Westland, will you come in?"

She entered, puzzlement on her face.

"This is Mr. Burbank. His position places him in control of this office. You will, in the future, report to him directly. The report on the operations, engineering projects, and so on that I was to send in to the Commission this morning will, therefore, be placed in Mr. Burbank's hands as soon as possible."

"Yes, Dr. Channing." Her eyes held a twinkle, but there was concern and sympathy in them, too. "Shall I get them immediately?"

"They are ready?"

"I was about to put them on the tape when you called."

"Then give them to Mr. Burbank." Channing turned to Burbank. "Miss Westland will hand you the reports I mentioned. They are complete and precise. A perusal of them will put you in grasp of the situation here at Venus Equilateral better than will an all-afternoon conference. I'll have Miss Westland haul my junk out of here. You may consider this as your office, it having been used by Dr. Peters. And, in the meantime, I've got to check up on some experiments on the ninth level." Channing paused. "You'll excuse me?"

"Yes, if Miss Westland knows where to find you."

"She will. I'll inform her of my whereabouts."

"I may want to consult you after I read the reports."

"That will be all right. The autocall can find me anywhere on Venus Equilateral, if I'm not at the place Miss Westland calls."

* * * * *

Don Channing stopped at Arden's desk. "I'm booted," he told her.

"Leaving Venus Equilateral?" she asked with concern.

"No, blond and beautiful, I'm just shunted back to my own office."

"Can't I go with you?" pleaded the girl.

"Nope. You are to stay here and be a nice, good-looking Mata Hari. This bird seems to think that he can run Venus Equilateral like a bus or a factory. I know the type, and the first thing he'll do is to run the place into a snarl. Keep me informed of anything complicated, will you?"

"Sure. And where are you going now?"

"I'm going down and get Walt Franks. We're going to inspect the transparency of a new type of glass."

"I didn't know that optical investigations come under your jurisdiction."

"This investigation will consist of a visit to the ninth level."

"Can't you take me along?"

"Not today," he grinned. "Your new boss does not believe in the evils of looking through the bottom of a glass. We must behave with decor. We must forget fun. We are now operating under a man who will commercialize electronics to a fine art."

"Don't get stewed. He may want to know where the electrons are kept."

"I'm not going to drink that much. Walt and I need a discussion," he said. "And in the meantime, haul my spinach out of the office, will you, and take it back to the electronics office? I'll be needing it back there."

"O.K., Don," she said. "I'll see you later."

Channing left to go to the ninth level. He stopped long enough to collect Walt Franks.

Over a tall glass of beer, Channing told Franks of Burbank's visit. And why.

Only one thing stuck in Franks' mind. "Did you say that he might close Joe's?" asked Franks.

"He said that if it were in his power to do so, he would."

"Heaven forbid. Where will we go to be alone?"

"Alone?" snorted Channing. The barroom was half filled with people, being the only drinking establishment for sixty-odd million miles.

"Well, you know what I mean."

"I could smuggle in a few cases of beer," suggested Don.

"Couldn't we smuggle him out?"