I flopped down into a chair. “Did you see the editorial in today’s Clarion , boss?”
He turned weary, bloodshot eyes to me. “No, I haven’t. What do they say? Are they calling the vengeance of God down upon me again?” His voice dripped with bitter sarcasm.
“They’re going a little farther now, boss,” I answered. “Listen to this:
“‘Tomorrow is the day of John Harman’s attempt at profaning the heavens. Tomorrow, in defiance of world opinion and world conscience, this man will defy God.
“’It is not given to man to go wheresoever ambition and desire lead him. There are things forever denied him, and aspiring to the stars is one of these. Like Eve, John Harman wishes to eat of the forbidden fruit, and like Eve he will suffer due punishment therefor.
“‘But it is not enough, this mere talk. If we allow him thus to brook the vengeance of God, the trespass is mankind’s and not Harman’s alone. In allowing him to carry out his evil designs, we make ourselves accessory to the crime, and Divine vengeance will fall on all alike.
“‘It is, therefore, essential that immediate steps be taken to prevent Harman from taking off in his so-called rocketship tomorrow. The government in refusing to take such steps may force violent action. If it will make no move to confiscate the rocketship, or to imprison Harman, our enraged citizenry may have to take matters into their own hands-’“
Harman sprang from his seat in a rage and, snatching the paper from my hands, threw it into the corner furiously. “It’s an open call to a lynching,” he raved. “Look at this!”
He cast five or six envelopes in my direction. One glance sufficed to tell what they were.
“More death threats?” I ‘asked.
“Yes, exactly that. I’ve had to arrange for another increase in the police patrol outside the building and for motorcycle police escort when I cross the river to the testing ground tomorrow.”
He marched up and down the room with agitated stride. “I don’t know what to do, Clifford. I’ve worked on the Prometheus almost ten years. I’ve slaved, spent a fortune of money, given up all that makes life worth while-and for what? So that a bunch of fool revivalists can whip up public sentiment against me until my very life isn’t safe.”
“You’re in advance of the times, boss,” I shrugged my shoulders in a resigned gesture which made him whirl upon me in a fury.
“What do you mean ‘in advance of the times’? This is 1973. The world has been ready for space travel for half a century now. Fifty years ago, people were talking, dreaming of the day when man could free himself of Earth and plumb the depths of space. For fifty years, science has inched toward, this goal, and now… now I finally have it, and behold! you say the world is not ready for me.”
“The ‘20s and ‘30s were years of anarchy, decadence, and misrule, if you remember your history,” I reminded him gently. “You cannot accept them as criteria.”
“I know, I know. You’re going to tell me of the First War of 1914, and the Second of 1940. It’s an old story to me; my father fought in the Second and my grandfather in the First. Nevertheless, those were the days when science flourished. Men were not afraid then; somehow they dreamed and dared. There was no such thing as conservatism when it came to matters mechanical and scientific. No theory was too radical to advance, no discovery too revolutionary to publish. Today, dry rot has seized the world when a great vision, such as space travel, is hailed as ‘defiance of God.’ “
His head sank slowly down, and he turned away to hide his trembling lips and the tears in his eyes. Then he suddenly straightened again, eyes blazing: “But I’ll show them. I’m going through with it, in spite of Hell, Heaven and Earth. I’ve put too much into it to quit now.”
“Take it easy, boss,” I advised. “This isn’t going to do you any good tomorrow, when you get into that ship. Your chances of coming out alive aren’t too good now, so what will they be if you start out worn to pieces with excitement and worry?”
“You’re right. Let’s not think of it any more. Where’s Shelton?”
“Over at the Institute arranging for the special photographic plates to be sent us.”
“He’s been gone a long time, hasn’t he?”
“Not especially; but listen, boss, there’s something wrong with him. I don’t like him.”
“Poppycock! He’s been with me two years, and I have no complaints.”
“All right.” I spread my hands in resignation. “If you won’t listen to me, you won’t. Just the same I caught him reading one of those infernal pamphlets Otis Eldredge puts out. You know the kind: ‘Beware, O mankind, for judgment draws near. Punishment for your sins is at hand. Repent and be saved.’ And all the rest of the time-honoured junk.”
Harman snorted in disgust. “Cheap tub-thumping revivalist! I suppose the world will never outgrow his type-not while sufficient morons exist. Still you can’t condemn Shelton just because he reads it. I’ve read them myself on occasion.”
“He says he picked it up on the sidewalk and read it in ‘idle curiosity,’ but I’m pretty sure that I saw him take it out of his wallet. Besides, he goes to church every Sunday.”
“Is that a crime? Everyone does, nowadays!”
“Yes, but not to the Twentieth Century Evangelical Society. That’s Eldredge’s.”
That jolted Harman. Evidently, it was the first he had heard of it. “Say, that is something, isn’t it? We’ll have to keep an eye on him, then.”
But after that, things started to happen, and we forgot all about Shelton-until it was too late.
There was nothing much left to do that last day before the test, and I wandered into the next room, where I went over Harman’s final report to the Institute. It was my job to correct any errors or mistakes that crept in, but I’m afraid I wasn’t very thorough. To tell the truth, I couldn’t concentrate. Every few minutes, I’d fall into a brown study.
It seemed queer, all this fuss over a space travel. When Harman had first announced the approaching perfection of the Prometheus, some six months before, scientific circles had been jubilant. Of course, they were cautious in their statements and qualified everything they said, but there was real enthusiasm.
However, the masses didn’t take it that way. It seems strange, perhaps, to you of the twenty-first century, but perhaps we should have expected it in those days of ‘73. People weren’t very progressive then. For years there had been a swing toward religion, and when the churches came out unanimously against Harman’s rocket-well, there you were.
At first, the opposition confined itself to the churches and we thought it might play itself out. But it didn’t The papers got hold of it, and literally spread the gospel. Poor Harman became an anathema to the world in a remarkably short time, and then his troubles began.
He received death threats, and warnings of divine vengeance every day. He couldn’t walk the streets in safety. Dozens of sects, to none of which he belonged-he was one of the very rare free-thinkers of the day, which was another count against him-excommunicated him and placed him under special interdict. And, worst of all, Otis Eldredge and his Evangelical Society began stirring up the populace.
Eldredge was a queer character-one of those geniuses, in their way, that arise every so often. Gifted with a golden tongue and a sulphurous vocabulary, he could fairly hypnotize a crowd. Twenty thousand people were so much putty in his hands, could he only bring them within earshot And for four months, he thundered against Harman; for four months, a pouring stream of denunciation rolled forth in oratorical frenzy. And for four months, the temper of the world rose.
But Harman was not to be daunted. In his tiny, five-foot-two body, he had enough spirit for five six-footers. The more the wolves howled, the firmer he held his ground. With almost divine-his enemies said, diabolical-obstinacy, he refused to yield an inch. Yet his outward firmness was to me, who knew him, but an imperfect concealment of the great sorrow and bitter disappointment within.