The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke
By Arthur Charles ClarkeTor Books
Copyright © 2002 Arthur Charles Clarke
All right reserved.
ISBN: 0312878605
Chapter One
Travel by Wire!
First published in Amateur Science Fiction Stories, December 1937 Collected in The Best of Arthur C. Clarke 1937-1955
Science fiction has always encouraged an enormous amount of amateur writing, and there have been literally thousands of duplicated (sometimes printed) magazines put out by enthusiastic "fans". [...] The first stories I ever completed appeared in some of these magazines [...]. If they do nothing else they may serve as a kind of absolute zero from which my later writing may be calibrated. `Travel by Wire!' was my first published story.
You people can have no idea of the troubles and trials we had to endurebefore we perfected the radio-transporter, not that it's quite perfect evenyet. The greatest difficulty, as it had been in television thirty years before,was improving definition, and we spent nearly five years over that littleproblem. As you will have seen in the Science Museum, the first object wetransmitted was a wooden cube, which was assembled all right, only insteadof being one solid block it consisted of millions of little spheres. In fact, itlooked just like a solid edition of one of the early television pictures, forinstead of dealing with the object molecule by molecule or better stillelectron by electron, our scanners took little chunks at a time.
This didn't matter for some things, but if we wanted to transmit objectsof art, let alone human beings, we would have to improve the processconsiderably. This we managed to do by using the delta-ray scanners allround our subject, above, below, right, left, in front and behind. It was alovely game synchronising all six, I can tell you, but when it was done wefound that the transmitted elements were ultra-microscopic in size, whichwas quite good enough for most purposes.
Then, when they weren't looking, we borrowed a guinea pig from thebiology people on the 37th floor, and sent it through the apparatus. It camethrough in excellent condition, except for the fact it was dead. So we hadto return it to its owner with a polite request for a post-mortem. They raveda bit at first, saying that the unfortunate creature had been inoculated withthe only specimens of some germs they'd spent months rearing from thebottle. They were so annoyed, in fact, that they flatly refused our request.
Such insubordination on the part of mere biologists was of coursedeplorable, and we promptly generated a high-frequency field in theirlaboratory and gave them all fever for a few minutes. The post-mortemresults came up in half an hour, the verdict being that the creature was inperfect condition but had died of shock, with a rider to the effect that if wewanted to try the experiment again we should blindfold our victims. Wewere also told that a combination lock had been fitted to the 37th floor toprotect it from the depredations of kleptomaniacal mechanics who shouldbe washing cars in a garage. We could not let this pass, so we immediatelyX-rayed their lock and to their complete consternation told them what thekey-word was.
That is the best of being in our line, you can always do what you likewith the other people. The chemists on the next floor were our only seriousrivals, but we generally came out on top. Yes, I remember that time theyslipped some vile organic stuff into our lab through a hole in the ceiling.We had to work in respirators for a month, but we had our revenge later.Every night after the staff had left, we used to send a dose of mild cosmicsinto the lab and curdled all their beautiful precipitates, until one eveningold Professor Hudson stayed behind and we nearly finished him off. But toget back to my story
We obtained another guinea pig, chloroformed it, and sent it through thetransmitter. To our delight, it revived. We immediately had it killed andstuffed for the benefit of posterity. You can see it in the museum with therest of our apparatus.
But if we wanted to start a passenger service, this would never do itwould be too much like an operation to suit most people. However, bycutting down the transmitting time to a ten-thousandth of a second, andthus reducing the shock, we managed to send another guinea pig in fullpossession of its faculties. This one was also stuffed.
The time had obviously come for one of us to try out the apparatus butas we realised what a loss it would be to humanity should anything gowrong, we found a suitable victim in the person of Professor Kingston, whoteaches Greek or something foolish on the 197th floor. We lured him to thetransmitter with a copy of Homer, switched on the field, and by the rowfrom the receiver, we knew he'd arrived safely and in full possession of hisfaculties, such as they were. We would have liked to have had him stuffedas well, but it couldn't be arranged.
After that we went through in turns, found the experience quite painless,and decided to put the device on the market. I expect you can remember theexcitement there was when we first demonstrated our little toy to the Press.Of course we had the dickens of a job convincing them that it wasn't a fake,and they didn't really believe it until they had been through the transporterthemselves. We drew the line, though, at Lord Rosscastle, who would haveblown the fuses even if we could have got him into the transmitter.
This demonstration gave us so much publicity that we had no trouble atall in forming a company. We bade a reluctant farewell to the ResearchFoundation, told the remaining scientists that perhaps one day we'd heapcoals of fire on their heads by sending them a few millions, and started todesign our first commercial senders and receivers.
The first service was inaugurated on May 10th, 1962. The ceremony tookplace in London, at the transmitting end, though at the Paris receiver therewere enormous crowds watching to see the first passengers arrive, andprobably hoping they wouldn't. Amid cheers from the assembled thousands,the Prime Minister pressed a button (which wasn't connected to anything),the chief engineer threw a switch (which was) and a large Union Jack fadedfrom view and appeared again in Paris, rather to the annoyance of somepatriotic Frenchmen.
After that, passengers began to stream through at a rate which left theCustoms officials helpless. The service was a great and instantaneoussuccess, as we only charged £2 per person. This we considered verymoderate, for the electricity used cost quite one-hundredth of a penny.
Before long we had services to all the big dries of Europe, by cable thatis, not radio. A wired system was safer, though it was dreadfully difficult tolay polyaxial cables, costing £500 a mile, under the Channel. Then, inconjunction with the Post Office, we began to develop internal servicesbetween the large towns. You may remember our slogans `Travel by Phone'and 'It's quicker by Wire' which were heard everywhere in 1963. Soon,practically everyone used our circuits and we were handling thousands oftons of freight per day.
Naturally, there were accidents, but we could point out that we had donewhat no Minister of Transport had ever done, reduced road fatalities to amere ten thousand a year. We lost one client in six million, which waspretty good even to start with, though our record is even better now. Someof the mishaps that occurred were very peculiar indeed, and in fact thereare quite a few cases which we haven't explained to the dependents yet, orto the insurance companies either.
One common complaint was earthing along the line. When that happened,our unfortunate passenger was just dissipated into nothingness. Isuppose his or her molecules would be distributed more or less evenly overthe entire earth. I remember one particularly gruesome accident when theapparatus failed in the middle of a transmission. You can guess the result... Perhaps even worse was what happened when two lines got crossedand the currents were mixed.
Of course, not all accidents were as bad as these. Sometimes, owing to ahigh resistance in the circuit, a passenger would lose anything up to fivestone in transit, which generally cost us about £1000 and enough free mealsto restore the missing enbonpoint. Fortunately, we were soon able to makemoney out of this affair, for fat people came along to be reduced tomanageable dimensions. We made a special apparatus which transmittedmassive dowagers round resistance coils and reassembled them where theystarted, minus the cause of the trouble. 'So quick, my dear, and quitepainless! I'm sure they could take off that 150 pounds you want to lose inno time! Or is it 200?'
We also had a good deal of trouble through interference and induction.You see, our apparatus picked up various electrical disturbances and superimposedthem on the object under transmission. As a result many peoplecame out looking like nothing on earth and very little on Mars or Venus.They could usually be straightened out by the plastic surgeons, but some ofthe products had to be seen to be believed.
Fortunately these difficulties have been largely overcome now that weuse the micro-beams for our carrier, though now and then accidents stilloccur. I expect you remember that big lawsuit we had last year with LitaCordova, the television star, who claimed £1,000,000 damages from us foralleged loss of beauty. She asserted that one of her eyes had moved duringa transmission, but I couldn't see any difference myself and nor could thejury, who had enough opportunity. She had hysterics in the court whenour Chief Electrician went into the box and said bluntly, to the alarm ofboth side's lawyers, that if anything really had gone wrong with thetransmission, Miss Cordova wouldn't have been able to recognise herselfhad any cruel person handed her a mirror.
Lots of people ask us when we'll have a service to Venus or Mars.Doubtless that will come in time, but of course the difficulties are prettyconsiderable. There is so much sun static in space, not to mention thevarious reflecting layers everywhere. Even the micro-waves are stopped bythe Appleton 'Q' layer at 100,000 km, you know. Until we can pierce that,Interplanetary shares are still safe.
Well, I see it's nearly 22, so I'd best be leaving. I have to be in New Yorkby midnight. What's that? Oh no, I'm going by plane. I don't travel by wire!You see, I helped invent the thing!
Rockets for me! Good night!
How We Went to Mars
First published in Amateur Science Fiction Stories, March 1938 Not previously collected in book form
This story was first published in the third and final issue of Amateur Science Fiction Stories, edited by Douglas W. F. Mayer.
(N.B. All characters in this story are entirely fictitious and only exist inthe Author's subconscious. Psychoanalysts please apply at the Tradesmens'Entrance.)
It is with considerable trepidation that I now take up my pen to describethe incredible adventures that befell the members of the Snoring-in-the-HayRocket Society in the Winter of 1952. Although we would havepreferred posterity to be our judge, the members of the society of which Iam proud to be President, Secretary and Treasurer, feel that we cannotleave unanswered the accusations nay, calumnies made by enviousrivals as to our integrity, sobriety and even sanity.
In this connection I would like to take the opportunity of dealing withthe fantastic statements regarding our achievements made in the 'DaffyDrool' by Prof. Swivel and in the 'Weekly Washout' by Dr Sprocket, butunfortunately space does not permit. In any case, I sincerely hope that nointelligent reader was deceived by these persons' vapourings.
No doubt most of you will recollect the tremendous awakening of publicinterest in the science of rocketry caused by the celebrated case in 1941 of'Rox v. British Rocket Society', and its still more celebrated sequel, 'BritishRocket Society v. Rex.' The first case, which was started when a five tonrocket descended in the Houses of Parliament upon Admiral Sir Horatioffroth-ffrenzy, M.P., K.C.B., H.P., D.T., after a most successful stratosphereflight, may be said to have resulted in a draw, thanks to the efforts of SirHatrick Pastings, K.C., whom the B.R.S. had managed to brief as a result oftheir success in selling lunar real estate at exorbitant prices. The appealbrought by the B.R.S. against the restrictions of the 1940 (Rocket Propulsion)Act was an undoubted victory for the society, as the explosion incourt of a demonstration model removed all opposition and most of TempleBar. Incidently, it has recently been discovered after extensive excavationshat there were no members of the B.R.S. in the court at the time of thedisaster rather an odd coincidence. Moreover, both the survivors statethat a few minutes before the explosion, Mr Hector Heptane, the Presidentof the Society, passed very close to the rocket and then left the courthurriedly. Although an enquiry was started, it was then too late as MrHeptane had already left for Russia, in order, as he put it, 'to continue workunhampered by the toils of capitalist enterprise, in a country where workersand scientists are properly rewarded by the gratitude of their comrades'.But I digress.
It was not until the repeal of the 1940 Act that progress could continuein England, when a fresh impetus was given to the movement by thediscovery in Surrey of a large rocket labelled 'Property of the USSR. Pleasereturn to Omsk' obviously one of Mr Heptane's. A flight from Omsk toEngland (though quite understandable) was certainly a remarkable achievement,and not until many years later was it discovered that the rocket hadbeen dropped from an aeroplane by the members of the HickleboroughRocket Association, who even in those days were expert publicity hunters.
By 1945 there were a score of societies in the country, each spreadingdestruction over rapidly widening areas. My society, though only foundedin 1949, already has to its credit one church, two Methodist chapels, fivecinemas, seventeen trust houses, and innumerable private residences, someas far away as Weevil-in-the-Wurzle and Little Dithering. However, therecan be no doubt in unprejudiced minds that the sudden collapse of thelunar crater Vitus was caused by one of our rockets, in spite of the claims ofthe French, German, American, Russian, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, Swissand Danish Societies (to mention only a few), all of whom, we are asked tobelieve, dispatched rockets moonwards a few days before the phenomenonwas witnessed.
At first we contented ourselves with firing large models to considerableheights. These test rockets were fitted with recording baro-thermographs,etc. and our lawyers kept us fully informed as to their landing places. Wewere progressing very favourably with this important work when theunwarrantable defection of our insurance company forced us to start workon a large, man-carrying space-ship. We already had a sufficiently powerfulfuel, details of which I cannot divulge here, save to say that it was acomplex hydro-carbon into which our chemist, Dr Badstoff, had with greatingenuity introduced no less than sixteen quadruple carbon bonds. Thisnew fuel was so violent that at first it caused a rapid change in ourpersonnel, but by continued research it had been stabilised until theexplosion took place when expected on 97 1/2 occasions out of 100 inwhich it showed its immense superiority over Dr Sprocket's triple heavyhyper-hyzone (20 occasions in 100) and Prof. Swivel's nitrogen heptafluoride(probability of non-explosion incommensurable).
The ship itself was thirty metres long and was made of moulded neo-bakelitewith crystallux windows, and consisted of two steps, which wereample thanks to our new fuel. The whole thing would have cost a greatdeal of money had we intended to pay for it. The rocket motors were madeof one of the new boro-silicon alloys and had an operating time of severalminutes. Apart from these features, our ship did not differ materially fromany other designed previously, except in so far that it had actually beenconstructed. We had no intention of venturing far out into space on ourfirst flight, but circumstances of which I shall relate altered our plans in anunforeseen manner.
On the 1st of April, 1952, everything was ready for a preliminary flight. Ibroke the customary vacuum flask on the prow of the ship, christened itthe 'Pride of the Galaxy', and we (this is, myself and the five survivingmembers of the council of twenty-five) entered the cabin and carefullysealed the door, squeezing the chewing gum into all the cracks.
The ship itself was resting on a balloon-type undercarriage and we had astraight run of two miles over various people's lawns and gardens. Weintended to rise to a height of a few hundred miles and then to glide backto earth, landing as best we could with little regard to life or property saveour own.
I seated myself at the controls and the others lay in the compensatinghammocks which we hoped might save us from the shock of the take-off. Inany case every space-ship has them and we could hardly do otherwise.With an expression of grim determination, which I had to assume severaltimes before Ivan Schnitzel, our official photographer, was satisfied, Ipressed the starting button and rather to our surprise the ship began tomove.
After leaving our grounds it tore through a fence into a vegetable gardenwhich it rapidly converted into a ploughed field, and then passed over alarge lawn doing comparatively little damage apart from setting fire to afew greenhouses. By now we were nearing a row of buildings which mightoffer some resistance, and as we had not yet lifted, I turned the power fullon. With a tremendous roar, the ship leapt into the air, and amid the groansof my companions I lost consciousness.
When I recovered, I realised that we were in space and jumped to myfeet to see if we were falling back to earth. But I had forgotten myweightless condition and crashed head first against the ceiling, once morelosing consciousness.
When I recovered, I very carefully made my way to the window andwith relief saw that we were now floating back to earth. My relief wasshort-lived when I found that the earth was nowhere in sight! I at oncerealised that we must have been unconscious for a very long time my lessrobust companions still lay in a coma, or rather several comas, at the end ofthe cabin, the hammocks having given way under the strain, to thedetriment of their occupants.
I first inspected the machinery, which so far as I could tell seemed intact,and then set about reviving my companions. This I readily did by pouring alittle liquid air down their necks. When all were conscious (or as nearly soas could be expected in the circumstances), I rapidly outlined the situationand explained the need for complete calm. After the resulting hysteria hadsubsided, I asked for volunteers to go outside in a space suit and inspect theship. I am sorry to say that I had to go myself.
Luckily, the exterior of the ship seemed quite intact, though there werebits of branches and a `Trespassers will be Prosecuted' notice stuck in therudder. These I detached and threw away, but unluckily they got into anorbit round the ship and returned round the back, catching me a resoundingwhack on the head.
The impact knocked me off the ship, and to my horror I found myselffloating in space. I did not, of course, lose my head but immediately lookedaround for some method by which I could return. In the pouch on theexterior of the space-suit I found a safety-pin, two tram tickets, a double-headedpenny, a football-pool coupon covered with what seemed to beorbital calculations, and a complimentary ticket to the Russian ballet. Aftera careful scrutiny of these, I came to the reluctant conclusion that theyoffered little hope. Even if I could bring myself to throw away the penny,its momentum would, I rapidly calculated, be insufficient to return me tothe ship. The tickets I did throw away, rather as a gesture than anythingelse, and I was about to throw the safety-pin after them it would havegiven me a velocity of .000001 millimetres an hour, which was better thannothing (by, in fact, .000001 mm/hour.) when a splendid idea occured tome. I carefully punctured my space-suit with the pin, and in a moment theescaping jet of air drove me back to the ship. I entered the air-lock just asthe suit collapsed, not a moment too soon.
My companions crowded round me, eager for news, though there waslittle that I could tell them. It would take prolonged measurements todiscover our position and I commenced this important work at once.
After ten minutes' observations of the stars, followed by five hoursintensive calculations on our specially lubricated multiple slide-rules, I wasable to announce, to the relief of all present, that we were 5,670,000 milesfrom the earth, 365,000 miles above the ecliptic, travelling towards RightAscension 23 hours 15 mins. 37.07 secs., Declination 153° 17' 36". We hadfeared that we might have been moving towards, for example, R.A. 12hours 19 mins. 7.3 secs, Dec. 169° 15' 17" or even, if the worst hadhappened, R.A. 5 hours 32 mins. 59.9 secs, Dec. 0° 0' 0".
At least, we were doing this when we took our observations, but as wehad moved several million miles in the meantime, we had to start all overagain to find where we were now. After several trials, we succeeded infinding where we were only two hours before we found it, but in spite ofthe greatest efforts we could not reduce the time taken in calculation to lessthan this value. So with this we had to be content.
The earth was between us and the sun, which was why we could not seeit. Since we were travelling in the direction of Mars, I suggested that wecould continue on our present course and try to make a landing on theplanet. I had grave doubts, in fact, as to whether there was anything elsewe could do. So for two days we cruised on towards the red planet, mycompanions relieving the tedium with dominoes, poker and three-dimensionalbilliards (which, of course, can only be played in the absence ofgravity). However, I had little time for these pursuits, as I had to keepconstant check on the ship's position. In any case, I was completely fleecedon the first day, and was unable to obtain any credit from my graspingcompanions.
All the time Mars was slowly growing larger, and as we drew nearer andnearer many were the speculations we made as to what we should findwhen we landed on the mysterious red planet.
'One thing we can be certain of,' remarked Isaac Guzzbaum, our auditor,to me as we were looking through the ports at the world now only a fewmillion miles away. 'We won't be met by a lot of old johnnies with flowingrobes and boards who will address us in perfect English and give us thefreedom of the city, as in so many science-fiction stories. I'll bet our nextyear's deficit on that!'
Finally we began our braking manoeuvres and curved down towards theplanet in a type of logarithmic spiral whose first, second and third differentialcoefficients are in harmonic ratio a curve on which I hold all patents.We made a landing near the equator, as close to the Solis Lacus as possible.Our ship slid for several miles across the desert, leaving a trail of fusedquartz behind it where the blast touched the ground, and ended up with itsnose in a sand dune.
Our first move was to investigate the air. We decided unanimously (onlyMr Guzzbaum dissenting), that Mr Guzzbaum should be detailed to enterthe air-lock and sample the Martian atmosphere. Fortunately for him, itproved fit for human consumption, and we all joined Isaac in the air-lock. Ithen stepped solemnly out onto Martian soil the first human being inhistory to do so while Ivan Schnitzel recorded the scene for the benefit ofhistory. As a matter of fact, we later found that he had forgotten to load thecamera. Perhaps this was just as well, for my desire for strict accuracycompels me to admit that no sooner did I touch the ground then it gaveway beneath my feet, precipitating me into a sandy pit from which I waswith difficulty rescued by my companions.
However, in spite of this mishap, we eventually clambered up the duneand surveyed the countryside. It was most uninteresting, consisting solelyof long ridges of heaped-up sand. We were debating what to do whensuddenly we heard a high-pitched whining noise in the sky and to oursurprise a cigar-shaped metal vessel dropped to the ground a few yardsaway. A door slid open.
'Fire when you see the whites of their eyes!' hissed Eric Wobblewit, ourtame humourist, but I could tell that his joke was even more forced thanusual. Indeed, we all felt nervous as we waited for the occupants of the shipto emerge.
They were three old men with long beards, clad in flowing white robes.Behind me I heard a dull thud as Isaac passed out. The leader spoke to mein what would have been flawless BBC English had it not been for the bitshe had obviously picked up from Schoncctady.
'Welcome, visitors from Earth! I'm afraid this is not an authorised landingplace, but we will let that pass for the moment. We have come to guide youto our city of Xzgtpkl.'
'Thanks,' I replied, somewhat taken aback, 'I'm sure we're very gratefulto you for your trouble. Is it far to Zxgtpkl?'
The Martian winced. 'Xzgtpkl,' he said firmly.
'Well, Xzgtplk, then,' I went on desperately. The other two Martianslooked pained and took a firmer grip on the rod-like instruments they werecarrying. (These, we learned later, were walking-sticks.) The leader gaveme up as a bad job.
'Skip it,' he said. 'It's about fifty miles away as the crow flies, though asthere aren't any crows on Mars we have never been able to check this veryaccurately. Could you fly your ship behind us?'
'We could,' I replied, 'though we'd rather not, unless Zxg er, your city,is heavily insured with a reputable firm. Could you carry us? No doubt youhave tractor beams and such-like.'
The Martian seemed surprised. 'Yes, we have,' he said, 'but how did youknow it?'
'Just a surmise,' I replied modestly. 'Well, we'll get over to our ship andleave the rest to you.'
We did so, carrying the prostrate Guzzbaum With us, and in a fewminutes were speeding over the desert after the Martian ship. Soon thespires of the mighty city reared above the horizon and in a short time welanded in a great square, surrounded by teeming crowds.
In a trice, or less, we were facing a battery of cameras and microphones,or their Martian equivalents. Our guide spoke a few words andthen beckoned to me. With characteristic foresight I had prepared aspeech before leaving earth, so I pulled it from my pocket and read it to,no doubt, the entire Martian nation. It was only when I had finished thatI noticed I was reading the lecture: 'British Science-Fiction Authors: TheirPrevention or Cure?' which I had given to the S.F.A. a few months beforeand which had already involved me in six libel actions. This was unfortunate,but from the reception, I am sure that the Martians found it ofinterest. The Martian cheer, oddly enough, closely resembles the terrestrialboo.
We were then taken (with difficulty) onto a moving road which led to agiant building in the centre of the city, where a lavish meal awaited us.What it consisted of we never succeeded in ascertaining, and we ratherhope it was synthetic.
After the meal we were asked what part of the city we would like to visit,as it was entirely at our disposal. We did our best to explain what a varietyshow was, but the idea seemed beyond our guides and as we had fearedthey insisted on showing us over their power-plants and factories. Here Imust say we found our knowledge of contemporary science-fiction invaluable,for everything with which the Martians tried to surprise us we hadheard of long before. Their atomic generators, for instance, we comparedunfavourably with those described by many terrestrial writers (though wetook care to secure the plans) and we expressed surprise at their inability toovercome these laws of nature that have been repealed by our economistsand politicians for years. In fact and I say it with pride the Martians gotvery little change out of us. When the tour finished I was lecturing theleader on the habits of termites and behind me I could hear Mr Guzzbaum(now, alas, his normal self) criticising the scandalously low rates of interestallowed in Martian trade.
After this we were not bothered any more and were able to spend mostof our time indoors playing poker and some curious Martian games we hadpicked up, including an interesting mathematical one which I can bestdescribe as 'four-dimensional chess'. Unfortunately, it was so complicatedthat none of my companions could understand it, and accordingly I had toplay against myself. I am sorry to say that I invariably lost.
Of our adventures on Mars I could say a great deal and am going to at alater date. My forthcoming book, 'Mars with the Lid Off' should be out inthe spring and will be published by Blotto and Windup at 21/-. All I will sayat the moment is that we were very well entertained by our hosts, and Ibelieve that we gave them a favourable impression of the human race. Wemade it quite clear, however, that we were somewhat exceptional specimens,as we did not want our hosts to be unduly disappointed by theexpeditions after ours.
So well indeed were we treated that one of us decided not to return toearth when the time came, for reasons which I shall not go into here, as hehas a wife and family on earth. I may have something more to say aboutthis matter in my book.
We had, unfortunately, only a week in which to stay on Mars as theplanets were rapidly moving apart. Our Martian friends had very kindlyrefuelled our ship for us, and also gave us many momentoes of our visit,some of them of considerable value. (Whether these souvenirs belong tothe society as a whole or to the individual officers is a matter that has notyet been settled. I would, however, point out to those members who havebeen complaining that possession is nine points of the law, and where thepossessors are my esteemed colleagues, it is more like ten.)
Our return to earth was uneventful and thanks to our great reserve offuel we were able to make a landing where and how we liked. Consequentlywe chose a spot which would focus the eyes of the world upon usand bring home to everybody the magnitude of our accomplishment.
Of our landing in Hyde Park and the consequent evaportion of theSerpentine, enough has been written elsewhere, and the spectacle of three-inchheadlines in the next day's `TIMES' was proof enough that we hadmade our mark in history. Everyone will remember my broadcast from thecells in Vine Street Police Station, where we were taken at the triumphantconclusion of our flight, and there is no need for me to add any more at themoment, since, moreover, it might embarrass my lawyers.
We are content to know that we have added something, however small,to the total of human knowledge, and something, however large, to thebank balance of our society. What more than this could we desire?
Continues...
Excerpted from The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarkeby Arthur Charles Clarke Copyright © 2002 by Arthur Charles Clarke. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
