I
SETTLING into orbit around what he has decided to call the Mad Satellite (nothing personal but the mission itself is insane, so tough on Ganymede), Walker finds himself thinking of his estranged wife: unquestionably she was a terrific fuck. Often after he had emptied himself into her as the culmination of simply hours and hours of heaving, bucking, moaning perversity, she had fluttered her eyes underneath and invited him with a coy yank of her head, letting him know that, for everything he had done, the essential part of her lay untouched. How it had infuriated him! He thought that she had been subtly insulting his adequacy when all the time he failed to see the plea beneath the insouciance. The woman had been insatiable. He never should have left her. Still there were other things, other reasons; nothing is as simple as it seems and sexuality is only a metaphor. He comforts himself with this as he works on controls, does computations, juggles the ship into a tight circuit. Deprivation and tension turn the mind in strange ways; he has never really regretted leaving her. He concentrates on Ganymede, which hangs below him darkly, aspects of rock filtering through the cloud formation, the gas of Jupiter high behind him in the anterior port. It is really a great little moon, very Earthlike in its gravity and appearance, to say nothing of being the gateway to Jupiter.
Base, which has talked him into the orbit, asks Walker how he is coming along. Walker says that everything is fine, fine; he had merely been preoccupied for a few moments setting up the orbit on the computer and had dropped out of contact. “That’s nonsense, kid,” Base says, “everything is plotted right here, you know that. Don’t let all that space get to you now. Keep organized.”
“It isn’t easy, you know,” Walker points out. He does not have to address a microphone, the whole craft being wired for sound in such a way that even the sounds of his evacuation can be evaluated by medical personnel at Base. “I mean, it’s difficult to carry on as if this was strictly routine. You could try a little understanding.”
Base points out that it has cost billions of dollars to put Walker in orbit around Ganymede, that the security and importance of the project cannot be risked because of personal quirks and that nothing must get in the way of the successful completion of the mission. It advises Walker to shape up and reminds him that there is a broadcast due in some twenty minutes, audio and video. Therefore, Base adds rather petulantly, it would make sense to get the cabin in order and put all debris out of visual range. The question of the apogee can be left to the computer.
“The hell with that,” Walker says but he says this subvocally and with his face turned toward the floor. Not that the floor does not have pickups also.
II
Walker has been selected for the Ganymede project since he is the fittest of the twenty astronauts left in the program. This says little for his competence — fifty years ago there were several hundred and Walker would have barely qualified for steward’s duty — but the agency has been in decline for a long time and, relative to the present situation, Walker is about the best that they can get. He reminded them of this during the examinations, at the physical and at the final briefing but it hardly seems to have done him much good. There is a certain failure of respect. “You are but a piece in the machinery,” they had warned him but he had been in no mood to accept that until he was on his way. Now the situation has changed; recently he has been feeling very much like an engine with a certain pistonlike creaking or hammering beneath the joints. Also his voice seems to have become somewhat metallic and his mind moves with the convulsions of slow gears. He does not want to be a machine, not particularly, but then again he understands the agency very well and is willing to agree that the alternatives might have been worse.
Walker has not had sex for several months and then in an inept performance with his estranged wife, who told him that she would do it once for the memories and then, limbs spread, regarded him with cold ferocity as he worked against her. Several times he has considered covert masturbation within the ship but even during the sleep periods they surely have ultraviolet light and would be able to detect everything that he was doing. Besides, there seems to be something ridiculous in the idea of a man carried past Mars twirling his genitals. Something mystical should happen to a man past the moon to drive him past need. Masturbation had never been part of the briefing process for reasons he now thinks he understands.
III
After he superficially cleans the cabin there is a five-or ten-minute dead space before the broadcast during which he has little to occupy him and he sits, looking at the walls of the cabin, admiring certain notations the agency has put up in bulletin forms, with absolutely no interest in turning rearward and looking at Ganymede. This way is much better; he can believe that he is only on another simulation. During this period, the aliens come to him. There are two of them, strange yellow bipeds with glowing eyes who wear archaic clothing. On their chests is stenciled Ganymede Police and they carry weapons in their appendages which look rather menacing. “Stay calm,” one of them says to him, “we just want to talk.”
‘’I’m perfectly calm,” Walker says. They are the first living beings he has seen for twelve days and fourteen hours and, despite their dangerous appearance, he is rather glad to see them. Excellent training has long since made him matter-of-fact in relation to all challenge. “As you can see, I’m not too busy at the minute. I am due for a transmission soon, though, and I’m afraid that I’ll have to make it.”
“That’s fine,” the spokesman says. He shrugs and replaces his weapon inside his clothing. “I’ll do the talking, the other one is just along verifying. The next time he’ll do the talking. We work in shifts that way, it’s much easier.”
“I can understand that,” Walker says. “But how did you get into the cabin?”
The alien shrugs again, this time with a rather coy tilt of his appendages which marks him instantly to Walker (who has been well trained) as a cunning article. “Dematerialization” he says. “Don’t think about it too much. We want to take up with you this issue of invading our planet. Ganymede is sovereign territory, you know, and you just can’t settle into orbit that way. Furthermore, you’ve got enough armament on this ship to sink a planet. Exactly what do you have in mind?”
“Oh,” Walker says, “I knew that there would be trouble about that. The armament is just for show. There’s no intention of using it.” He blushes faintly. “I wouldn’t even know how to make it work,” he says. ‘’I’m not sure that it does work. They don’t bother me with things like that from the ground.”
“Nevertheless,” the alien says, “nevertheless, I’m afraid that you people simply didn’t consider the situation. You’re dealing with free territory here. You have absolutely no right in orbit and you must agree that if the situation were reversed you’d find it pretty frightening. You’re going to have to leave.”
“Well, how the hell did we know Ganymede was inhabited?” Walker says, trying to be reasonable. “There wasn’t any sign at all. It’s just a dead moon. How do I know that you people even are from Ganymede?”
“We’re not people,” the alien says, “nevertheless I . understand your terminology. I’m afraid that you’re not being very reasonable about the matter. We’re giving you two hours, your time, to turn around and go back to your planet, otherwise we will have to take retaliatory action. I don’t want to be more specific than that.”
“You don’t understand,” Walker says. “1 can’t make any decisions like that. I can’t even make promises. I’m just an engineer sent along for the ride. I have no authority.”
“That,” the alien says, “is your problem.” He nods at his companion, his companion gives a brusque strained nod at Walker, they huddle together and at some prearranged signal vanish. Walker is left in the cabin sniffing a faint aroma of ozone which they seem to have left behind them. Base comes on and says that it is time for the transmission to begin. Walker asks them if they heard what just went on and Base says that they have had no time to monitor, they are very busy down there, does Walker really think the first transmission from Ganymede is routine business and they will replay the tapes at their leisure sometime when they get around to it. Everything going on inside the cabin is part of the perfectly preserved public record.
IV
Walker delivers a speech to the assembled peoples of Earth. He reads it slowly, precisely, off the prompter they have installed out of range of the camera, the words unreeling rather majestically. Someone in the higher echelons of the information division has a dash of eloquence although perhaps he is merely thinking of the top levels of the government; it is impossible to tell precisely who is guiding the mission. Walker reminds the people of Earth that in a time of torment and trouble mankind has historically looked toward the heavens from which heavens judgment and a sense of purpose have always come and that it is the spirit of the stars no less than that of the Earth which makes mankind human. By going to Ganymede as we have, by this rare act of disciplined courage on the part of thousands of dedicated people of whom he is only the most visible, Earth has been given a beacon, an instrument of its purpose. “We did not, after all, travel all this vast distance in the ether only to repeat the small banalities of our mistakes, we are refreshed and renewed by our glimpse of the void,” Walker says, thinking vaguely about the machinery of the agency compound and how, at the checkpoints on the few occasions when he had had to leave the Base, he had seen thousands of people behind the barricades staring at him and mumbling. What the hell were they saying? Exactly what brought them there? Walker wonders as he goes on to recite some technical data; Ganymede is the largest satellite of the planet Jupiter, it was discovered by an Italian scientist in the seventeenth cenrury; of all the satellites of the planets it is the most Earthlike in appearance and atmosphere, more habitable than Venus, and may eventually be the only place in the solar system where men will be able to maintain a colony independent of the home planet. He turns the camera so that the audience, with him, can see the terrain five hundred miles beyond, swimming in gases, and then turns it back to the cabin, advising them that he will be transmitting three more times during his orbits of Ganymede and hopes that all men of faith and will can join him in the mission. The speech runs out but the transmission, judging from clicks and winks, apparently does not; he fills an embarrassed ten seconds with greetings to his wife and parents and then the light goes out and Base tells them that he has done very well, that everything is in excellent shape, that he should rest for the next cycle in preparation for his next broadcast.
“Yes,” he says, ‘’but are they listening?” “We have a full hookup, right through the satellites,” Base says. “1 would think that four billion heard you just now.”
“Ah yes,” Walker says, ‘’but did they attend?” He feels lightheaded, slightly disconnected. “And about those aliens; I want to tell you about the aliens.”
“No time,” Base says. “Rest cycle must begin now and you’re slipping out of range.”
“But look,” Walker says, “you’re not following me. Just before the transmission I was visited by these two aliens from Ganymede and they said — ”
“No time,” Base says, “we’ll pick it all up on the monitors.”
“But there’s life — “
“No time, no time,” Base says and slips out of contact; it is like the bodies sliding apart after intercourse, all evasion, all collapse to some central, detached part and, · clenching his fists, Walker finds himself alone in the cabin and nothing to do but sleep. Well, sleep then. He can deal with the situation later.
V
In his sleep Walker dreams and in the dream his wife is in the cabin talking to him. “It’s all your fault,” she says, “every bit of it is your fault, you never understood, you never cared, you never for one moment considered the implications of what you were doing.” “Now wait a minute,” Walker says to her (he seems to be in some kind of nightdress and his wife, wearing an opaque gown which he used to despise, is sitting cross-legged on his bunk, her chin in her hands, a complacent hostility severing her from him forever), “don’t get started on that tack again, I’m just an employee. A functionary of the agency. In fact I’m only a technician so don’t start pinning me with that guilt and culpability stuff again. It was only a job and I was in it long before you knew me and you took me on those terms so it’s too late now.” She says nothing for a moment, this being one of her most infuriating habits, and then, quite horridly, winks at him. “That won’t go any more,” she says. “You’re forty years old. You know exactly what’s going on and you’ve known for a long time now. You’re a man. You’re one of the oldest people in the project.”
“But in very good physical condition. I’m in such good physical condition — ”
“Three hundred years of death and dreams to put you on Ganymede,” she says. “Three hundred years. Isn’t the price a little too high?” And he leans forward to tell her for the first time what he truly thinks of her and what he has wanted to do to her on so many unspeakable nights but the bitch flicks out, just wanders out of there the way the Ganymedian police have, and there is nothing to confront.
“You bitch,” he says, “you dirty bitch,” but this is not too satisfactory either and so he only drifts into another dream, much vaguer and more sordid this time, having something to do with campaigning for national office after his triumphant return from Ganymede and finding himself at a party with fifty blondes and a fat national committeeman who fondles all of the women obscenely as he asks Walker to tell him, in twenty words or less, exactly why he thinks he is entitled to public office and what he will do for the national committeeman if he is granted the nomination.
VI
He is awakened by the aliens. They perch at the foot of his bed, shimmering in a kind of haze, and the spokesman reminds him that Walker has exceeded the two hours granted him to reverse the mission and return home. “You’re leaving us little choice,” the alien says. “We’re going to have to take very serious action.”
“I don’t know what to tell you,” Walker says. “I tried to talk to them about you but they cut me off. I really wanted to discuss this, I mean I wasn’t sitting on it or anything like that.”
‘’I’m afraid that’s no excuse.”
“And in the second place,” Walker says, tearing himself from the bunk and starting to move around the cabin, trying to force some jauntiness into his bearing, no reason to let a couple of aliens get you down, “in the second place, I couldn’t turn the mission around even if I wanted to. It’s all remote control. It’s all computer. All that I do is come along for the ride. Everything is triggered from the Base.”
“That’s very interesting,” the alien says, “but I’m afraid has nothing to do with the situation. You really have to get out of here, you know; you’re pushing us beyond our limits.”
“Why don’t both of you talk?” Walker says, slapping a bulkhead, dodging an overhang, reeling to his knees to reach the medicine cabinet and some simulated caffeine. “Wouldn’t it be easier that way?”
“Policy and procedure,” the spokesman says. The aliens exchange nods. “He’s only assisting me on this tour.”
‘’I’d really like to leave,” Walker says. “I mean, don’t get me wrong. The fact that Ganymede has life on it and so on makes your case a very strong one. I’m not a lawyer but I think that you have some very good arguments. But what can I do?” He shows them the palms of his hands. “I have no essential control.”
The silent alien looks at him and says, “You have enough armament on this thing to destroy a planet.”
“Yes,” Walker says, “that’s quite true, quite b·ue. I told that to you before and I admit that that happens to be the case. But we didn’t intend to use it. It’s just that the agency is essentially military in nature and we have to carry along war technology in order to make the financing. If you understand what I’m saying, it’s very complicated the way they do things. Also, the armament is just for show so if we run into any aliens in space we can protect ourselves. Of course we’ve never met any aliens up until now and I wouldn’t do anything at all to you. I mean, you can see that my position is hardly aggressive.”
“Can you operate the armament?” the silent alien says. He seems to be genuinely engaged; unlike the other, once talking, he has a real interest in his work. Perhaps on Ganymede he is an ordnance expert.
“1 don’t know,” Walker says. ‘’I’ve received a little instruction, just the basics and so on, but actually it’s pretty
sophisticated stuff and I don’t think that anyone directly in the agency knows exactly how to operate it. I mean, I know a few things about it, yes.”
“I mean, is it voluntary?”
“Oh. Is it voluntary? You mean, unlike the operation of the craft, could I actually use the weapons myself? Well, that’s an interesting point,” Walker says, “now that you bring it up. The answer is that I probably could, come to think of it. It isn’t connected to the Base computer like everything else. Actually, it’s kind of antiquated and hand-controlled, I believe.”
‘’Well then,” the chief alien says, “you certainly could destroy us if you elected to, now couldn’t you?”
“But I wouldn’t think of it,” Walker says hastily. ‘’I’m non-aggressive. Utterly. Really, I’m embarrassed about the whole thing, and I want to take it up with Base just as soon as possible. I’m sure that when they learn that Ganymede has inhabitants they’ll be just as upset as I and cancel the mission. I’m sure they’ll cancel the mission.”
“1 don’t know,” the alien says. “The whole situation is very dangerous. Should we eliminate him?” “Let’s give him a little while longer,” the other alien says. “After all, he’s being honest with us. He has no authority.”
“But I have good faith,” Walker says. “1 can show good faith.” He feels the shaping of an idea. “1 really could show you that I mean what I’m saying and that — ”
“How about another two hours?” an alien says. “Two hours so that he can explain the situation.”
“Give him three.”
“Yes,” Walker says, “I’ll clear the thing up in three hours. That would be fine. And if I don’t — ”
“If you don’t,” the ordnance expert says, rubbing his appendage through the P on Ganymede Police, bringing it to something of a shine, “if you don’t, we’ll take measures.”
“1 will,” Walker says, “1 really will,” and leans forward to tell them a lot more about the good faith he will show but they vanish; so much for their interest, and certain beeps from the transmitter indicate that Base thinks it is about time that he came out of rest period and did some useful tasks. “You dirty sons of bitches,” Walker says to the receiver and then shudders with a thin sense of shock; he had never realized until this instant that he felt that way about them.
VII
He tries to bring up the matter of the aliens with Base but they are not hearing any of it at the moment; for reasons which are not made quite clear, he is to give another speech almost instantly. “Come on, come on,” Base nags him as he moves around the cabin setting up the equipment once again, “don’t you understand there’s no time to waste?” It seems to have something to do with riots and protests or perhaps Walker is merely working on a chain of inference. At any rate, the speech when he delivers it is full of soothing phrases and rather frantic reassurances which, because he has had no time to discuss it beforehand, make his delivery rather strained and awkward. “The project was rebuilt from the ground up for the sake of mankind,” he finds himself saying and “Certain insignificant but noisy fractions of the populace are participating in a poison campaign” and “Ganymede, the jewel of the heavens, hangs before me now as a token forever of the ingenuity of mankind, his courage, his mission,” and “The purpose of this expedition goes far beyond advantage to one party or persons” and when he has finished the speech the transmitters go into a glittering series of explosions, wires and circuits jetting a pure horrifying flame which he can only witness until they turn to smoke and ash. Base informs him that there is some minor problem, sabotaged circuits on the conveyors or whatever, and asks him to hold firm; they will be back to him in due course. “Another speech,” Base says,
“you’ll have to do another speech.”
“Listen,” Walker says, “about those aliens — ”
“No time,” Base says. “Certain adjustments have to be made
here.”
“But there are aliens — ”
‘’I’m sorry,” Base says. The tone is regretful, contained,
the sound of disconnection a crisp pop in the empty spaces of the cabin. Walker squeezes himself through a hatchway or two and, blowing some dust off the armaments, looks it over. It seems comprehensible enough. He recalls vaguely reading an instruction booklet once.
VIII
“Children?” his wife had said. “Do you think I’m crazy?” and had looked at him with a mad, bleak expression; confronting her that way, in the jammed spaces of the bed, he had understood for the first time how far it had all gone and the depths of her estrangement. “Do you really think that I’d bring children into this situation? You don’t understand me, do you?” she said, turning, her back fitting smoothly, coldly, against the palpitations of his chest, “you don’t understand a Single thing that ever went on; I can see that now. I can see everything.”
“It isn’t that bad,” he said, mumbling, futile, holding himself below in an instinctive gesture of loss, feeling the sag of his scrotal sac through spread fingers. (Could such devastation come from something that minute, that vulnerable?) “Things aren’t what they should be but we’re still going on; there’s been a real leveling off of international tension and the race problems, well, we’ll always have a race problem but some of the space pressure is easing and — ”
“Oh, you damned fool,” she said against him, her voice mingling into laughter, “you damned fool, do you think I’m talking about the world? The hell with the world! Do you really think I’d bring children to us?” And broke into laughter then, full harsh laughter, and Walker turned from her, back to back; like some sea beast, they had jammed against one another in the night, his mumbles and sighs against her whimpers, the conjoinment of their buttocks hard and yet somehow perfect under the cold damp of the sheets. And in the morning had fucked, simply and unspeakingly, he rising above her to such heights that he felt he could confront the walls.
Well, that had been a long time ago. No point in getting into any of that so late in the game.
He finds himself thinking that in many ways, in certain aspects, she had looked like the aliens.
IX
Base tells him that the mission must be aborted. They have no specific explanation but say that it has something to do with certain strains and stresses surrounding the project and also a vague issue of public safety. It has nothing to do with his conduct, which was exemplary but failed, somehow, to work. Perhaps later on they will be able to explain things to him in detail although there cannot be any guarantees; matters are somewhat confusing. Walker asks if there are any more transmissions for him to deliver and Base says no, thank you, not at this time, there is no point to it and in any event there is certain difficulty with the communications. They will wheel him out of the next orbit and take him home. He asks them if they want him to do the planned probe and the leaving of the artifacts and Base says no, there really is no time for this and they can do it, perhaps, next time around. Walker gathers that the situation is somewhat obscure and perhaps they are Withholding certain information from him. “Trust us,” Base says. “It’s going to be a very difficult re-entry because of certain problems here but we’ll talk you through without the automatics and everything will work out well. Trust us,” Base says and leaves him alone for the time being. Walker busies himself dismantling the equipment for transmission and then lies on his bunk, arms behind his head, whistling absently through his teeth and trying to think of nothing at all. There really is little enough on his mind; the ship will be yanked out of orbit through remote control. The aliens return, looking dour. Walker raises a hand.
‘’I’m leaving,” he says. “Don’t worry about a thing. I’m leaving after the next orbit.”
“Ab,” the spokesman says, “that’s fine. Nevertheless, you did not obey our instructions. More than three hours have elapsed since our final warning.”
‘Tm leaving anyway. What’s the difference?”
“You defied us.”
“Listen,” Walker says, “you understand that there was no intent to intrude. We had no hostile intent. It was all a mistake.”
“Nevertheless you were warned.”
“I did what I could. Still, I’m leaving.”
“Not sufficient,” the alien says. He turns to the other. “Not sufficient,” the other says. “It’s a serious infraction.”
“Listen to me,” Walker says, sitting and coming over to crouch near the aliens (they are really quite short and at this height he can regard them level; see what truly attractive creatures they are). ‘’I’ll show good faith. I understand your position and I’m willing to show good faith. Just to point out to you that this was all a mistake.”
“How can you? We can take very severe retaliatory action, you understand.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Walker says. He leans forward, throws out an explicatory palm. Everything is very simple as long as you take it step by step. He explains.
The aliens listen quietly, look at one another, Finally nod. They agree that what Walker offers seems sufficient. Under the circumstances it is a fair and equitable offer.
Walker smiles and relaxes. For the last ten minutes of his stay in the orbit of Ganymede, he and the aliens talk intimately to one another, exchanging reminiscences, observations and, in Walker’s case, some very frank details about sexual preferences of his wife which, unjustified as they were, Simply drove him mad.
X
Crouching over the armaments, suspended heavily against the wall, Walker finally sinks into a tension-induced doze, a sleep supported by sedatives and loss which carries him through five million miles of space. In this sleep he dreams that he is once again fifteen years old and present at the End of the World; staring through the window of the home in which he was born, he sees the sky turn into fire, the fire into streaks which encircle and enflame everything which he has always known. There goes the tree in the back yard, there goes the boot factory up on the hill, there goes the home of the girl whom he will, in some years, marry. She appears in the center of the flames, mournful, stricken, yearning, her mouth slowly opening to passion or torment at the center of the fire, and as the flames take her to agony she breaks into an expression more yielding than any he has ever known and, pressed as he is against his window, watching her through binoculars, he feels that he could reach and touch her, hold her in his arm, protect her against the devastation … but this is impossible, she is dead beyond recovery, and he wakes screaming, screaming, against the cold web of the armaments which seem to snatch at him with gears come alive and he hangs on for all he is worth, waiting, waiting, only a few million miles more to Earth and he can bring upon them, upon her, a judgment more truthful than any they have ever known. “Because you deserve it, you sons of bitches,” he says.
Behind him, the two aliens, along for the ride, chuckle wisely and make circles of approval at one another with their strange webbed appendages.