Schmidt used his international connections too. I didn’t much like working with Commies, but I’ve got to admit the two Russian scientists I met were okay guys.
And it worked. Sightings of the canals on Mars went down to zero once our faked Mariner 6 pictures were published. Astronomy students looking at Mars for the first time through a telescope thought they were victims of eyestrain! They knew there were no canals there, so they didn’t dare claim they saw any.
So that’s how we got to the moon and then stopped going. We set up the Apollo program so that a small number of Americans could plant the flag and their footprints on the moon and then forget about it. The Martians studiously avoided the whole area during the four years that we were sending missions up there. It all worked out very well, if I say so myself.
I worked harder than I ever had before in my life to get the media to downplay the space program and make it a dull, no-news affair. The man in the street, the average xenophobic Joe Six-Pack, forgot about the glories of space exploration soon enough. It tore at my guts to do it, but that’s what had to be done.
So now we’re using the resources of the planet Venus to replenish Mars. Schmidt has a tiny group of astronomers who’ve been hiding the facts of the solar system from the rest of the profession since the late forties. With the Martians’ help, they’re continuing to fake the pictures and data sent from NASA’s space probes.
The rest of the world thinks that Mars is a barren, lifeless desert and Venus is a bone-dry hothouse beneath its perpetual cloud cover, and space in general is pretty much a bore. Meanwhile, with the help of Jazzbow and a few other Martians, we’ve started an environmental movement on Earth. Maybe if we can get human beings to see their own planet as a living entity, to think of the other animals and plants on our own planet as fellow residents of this Spaceship Earth rather than resources to be killed or exploited—maybe then we can start to reduce the basic xenophobia in the human psyche.
I won’t live long enough to see the human race embrace the Martians as brothers. It will take generations, centuries, before we grow to their level of morality. But maybe we’re on the right track now. I hope so.
I keep thinking of what Jack Kennedy said when he finally agreed to rig Project Apollo the way we did, and to arrange his own and his girlfriend’s demises.
“It is a far, far better thing I do, than I have ever done,” he quoted.
Thinking of him and Marilyn shacked up in a honeymoon suite on Mars, I realized that the remainder of the quote would have been totally inappropriate: “It is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known.”
But what the hell, who am I to talk? I’ve fallen in love for the first time. Yeah, I know. I’ve been married several times, but this time it’s real, and I’m going to spend the rest of my life on a tropical island with her, just the two of us alone, far from the madding crowd.
Well, maybe not the whole rest of my life. The Martians know a lot more about medicine than we do. Maybe we’ll leave this Pacific island where the Martians found her and go off to Mars and live a couple of centuries or so. I think Amelia would like that.
Introduction to
“Inspiration”
John W. Campbell, the towering editorial figure who molded science fiction into the exciting, mind-expanding field of literature that it is today, was fond of comparing science fiction to other forms of writing in this way:
He would spread his long arms wide and declaim, “This is science fiction! It takes in the entire universe, past, present, and future.” Then he would hold his thumb and forefinger a scant inch apart and add, “This is all other forms of fiction, restricted to the here and now, or the known past.”
“Inspiration” could only be written as a science fiction story. It brings together a teenaged Albert Einstein, the British writer H. G. Wells, and Sir William Thomson—Lord Kelvin, one of the giants among physicists.
And one other person.
INSPIRATION
He was as close to despair as only a lad of seventeen can be.
“But you heard what the professor said,” he moaned. “It is all finished. There is nothing left to do.”
The lad spoke in German, of course. I had to translate it for Mr. Wells.
Wells shook his head. “I fail to see why such splendid news should upset the boy so.”
I said to the youngster, “Our British friend says you should not lose hope. Perhaps the professor is mistaken.”
“Mistaken? How could that be? He is a famous. A nobleman! A baron!”
I had to smile. The lad’s stubborn disdain for authority figures would become world-famous one day. But it was not in evidence this summer afternoon in AD 1896.
We were sitting in a sidewalk café with a magnificent view of the Danube and the city of Linz. Delicious odors of cooking sausages and bakery pastries wafted from the kitchen inside. Despite the splendid, warm sunshine, though, I felt chilled and weak, drained of what little strength I had remaining.
“Where is that blasted waitress?” Wells grumbled. “We’ve been here half an hour, at the least.”
“Why not just lean back and enjoy the afternoon, sir?” I suggested tiredly. “This is the best view in
