He said aloud, "Does its position check with your calculated orbit, Mr.
Riney?"
Riney, the Second, a young and serious man who had been fussing with
instruments in the astrogation room, came out and said,
"Yes. Right on the nose. Shall we go in and land now?"
Kellon didn't answer for a moment, standing there in the front of the
bridge, a middle-aged man, stocky, square-shouldered, and with his
tanned, plain face showing none of the resentment he felt. He hated to
give the order but he had to.
"All right, take her in."
He looked gloomily through the filter-windows as they went in. In this
fringe-spiral of the galaxy, stars were relatively infrequent, and
there were only ragged drifts of them across the darkness. Full ahead
shone a small, compact sun like a diamond. It was a white dwarf and had
been so for two thousand years, giving forth so little warmth that the
planets which circled it had been frozen and ice-locked all that time.
They still were, all except the innermost world.
* * * * *
Kellon stared at that planet, a tawny blob. The ice that had sheathed
it ever since its primary collapsed into a white dwarf, had now melted.
Months before, a dark wandering body had passed very close to this
lifeless system. Its passing had perturbed the planetary orbits and the
inner planets had started to spiral slowly in toward their sun, and the
ice had begun to go.
Viresson, one of the junior officers, came into the bridge looking
harassed. He said to Kellon,
"They want to see you down below, sir. Especially Mr. Borrodale. He
says it's urgent."
Kellon thought wearily, "Well, I might as well go down and face the
pack of them. Here's where they really begin."
He nodded to Viresson, and went down below to the main cabin. The
sight of it revolted him. Instead of his own men in it, relaxing or
chinning, it held a small and noisy mob of over-dressed, overloud
men and women, all of whom seemed to be talking at once and uttering
brittle, nervous laughter.
"Captain Kellon, I want to ask you--"
"Captain, if you _please_--"
He patiently nodded and smiled and plowed through them to Borrodale. He
had been given particular instructions to cooperate with Borrodale, the
most famous telaudio commentator in the Federation.
Borrodale was a slightly plump man with a round pink face and
incongruously large and solemn black eyes. When he spoke, one
recognized at once that deep, incredibly rich and meaningful voice.
"My first broadcast is set for thirty minutes from now, Captain. I
shall want a view as we go in. If my men could take a mobile up to the
bridge--"
Kellon nodded. "Of course. Mr. Viresson is up there and will assist
them in any way."
"Thank you, Captain. Would you like to see the broadcast?"
"I would, yes, but--"
He was interrupted by Lorri Lee, whose glitteringly handsome face
and figure and sophisticated drawl made her the idol of all female
telaudio reporters.
"_My_ broadcast is to be right after landing--remember? I'd like to do
it alone, with just the emptiness of that world as background. Can you
keep the others from spoiling the effect? Please?"
"We'll do what we can," Kellon mumbled. And as the rest of the pack
converged on him he added hastily, "I'll talk to you later. Mr.
Borrodale's broadcast--"
* * * * *
He got through them, following after Borrodale toward the cabin that
had been set up as a telaudio-transmitter room. It had, Kellon thought
bitterly, once served an honest purpose, holding the racks of soil and
water and other samples from far worlds. But that had been when they
were doing an honest Survey job, not chaperoning chattering fools on
this sentimental pilgrimage.
The broadcasting set-up was beyond Kellon. He didn't want to hear
this but it was better than the mob in the main cabin. He watched as
Borrodale made a signal. The monitor-screen came alive.
It showed a dun-colored globe spinning in space, growing visibly larger
as they swept toward it. Now straggling seas were identifiable upon it.
Moments passed and Borrodale did not speak, just letting that picture
go out. Then his deep voice spoke over the picture, with dramatic
simplicity.
"You are looking at the Earth," he said.
Silence again, and the spinning brownish ball was bigger now, with
white clouds ragged upon it. And then Borrodale spoke again.
"You who watch from many worlds in the galaxy--this is the homeland of
our race. Speak its name to yourselves. The Earth."
Kellon felt a deepening distaste. This was all true, but still it was
phony. What was Earth now to him, or to Borrodale, or his billions of
listeners? But it was a story, a sentimental occasion, so they had to
pump it up into something big.
"Some thirty-five hundred years ago," Borrodale was saying, "our
ancestors lived on this world alone. That was when they first went into
space. To these other planets first--but very soon, to other stars. And
so our Federation began, our community of human civilization on many
stars and worlds."
Now, in the monitor, the view of Earth's dun globe had been replaced by
the face of Borrodale in close-up. He paused dramatically.
"Then, over two thousand years ago, it was discovered that the sun of
Earth was about to collapse into a white dwarf. So those people who
still remained on Earth left it forever and when the solar change came,
it and the other planets became mantled in eternal ice. And now, within
months, the final end of the old planet of our origin is at hand. It
is slowly spiralling toward the sun and soon it will plunge into it as
Mercury and Venus have already done. And when that occurs, the world of
man's origin will be gone forever."
Again the pause, for just the right length of time, and then Borrodale
continued in a voice expertly pitched in a lower key.
"We on this ship--we humble reporters and servants of the vast telaudio
audience on all the worlds--have come here so that in these next weeks
we can give you this last look at our ancestral world. We think--we
hope--that you'll find interest in recalling a past that is almost
legend."
And Kellon thought, "The bastard has no more interest in this old
planet than I have, but he surely is smooth."
* * * * *
As soon as the broadcast ended, Kellon found himself besieged once
more by the clamoring crowd in the main cabin. He held up his hand in
protest.
"Please, now--now we have a landing to make first. Will you come with
me, Doctor Darnow?"
Darnow was from Historical Bureau, and was the titular head of the
whole expedition, although no one paid him much attention. He was a
sparrowy, elderly man who babbled excitedly as he went with Kellon to
the bridge.
He at least, was sincere in his interest, Kellon thought. For that
matter, so were all the dozen-odd scientists who were aboard. But they
were far out-numbered by the fat cats and big brass out for publicity,
the professional enthusers and sentimentalist. A real hell of a job the
Survey had given him!
In the bridge, he glanced through the window at the dun-colored planet
and its satellite. Then he asked Darnow, "You said something about a
particular place where you wanted to land?"
The historiographer bobbed his head, and began unfolding a big,
old-fashioned chart.
"See this continent here? Along its eastern coast were a lot of the
biggest cities, like New York."
Kellon remembered that name, he'd learned it in school history, a long
time ago.
Darnow's finger stabbed the chart. "If you could land there, right on
the island--"
Kellon studied the relief features, then shook his head. "Too low.
There'll be great tides as time goes on and we can't take chances. That
higher ground back inland a bit should be all right, though."