Space by James A. Michener
At this point the game was temporarily interrupted by a ceremony which should have occurred at half-time, except that the speaker had encountered difficulty in breaking away from an important strategy meeting in Washington. Senator Ulysses Gantling was up for reelection this year, and as an outstanding Republican he had assumed responsibility for Tom Dewey’s statewide campaign for the Presidency. Gantling’s own reelection was hardly in doubt, but he had learned to take nothing for granted and was touring the state frantically for both himself and Dewey.
As a farmer, he had proposed the most effective [46] counterthrust to Roosevelt’s claim that “you never change horses in midstream.” He toured Fremont, Kansas and Nebraska, shouting, “If your horse is winded, lacks courage and shows signs of drowning when the water gets rough, you damned well better change ... especially when a much better one is ready to take over.” That made sense to rural audiences, and there was talk that when Dewey was elected, Gantling of Fremont would find a place in his Cabinet. It was impossible for the voters of this region to believe that a majority in corrupt places like New York and Boston would want to give a dictator like Roosevelt a fourth term.
So the game was halted while Senator Gantling, saying never a word in favor of either his candidacy or Dewey’s, stood tall and gray beside the flags while an honor guard from the ROTC held their guns at parade rest. He spoke with great feeling of the young men of this region who were at this moment fighting the enemy on far-flung battlefields. Then he asked that the spectators and the players of both teams bow their heads as Reverend Baxter from the Baptist Church read a prayer, after which the honor guard would fire a salute.
Some two thousand citizens of Clay did bow their heads and pray for the safekeeping of their volunteers who were at that moment in Italy, in France, in Africa, on Guadalcanal and at the gates of Germany, but no one in that crowd, not even Senator Gantling, who pondered such matters because he tried to govern well, could imagine what it was like to be in an icy ship with a frail bottom on its way to Murmansk or in a writhing metallic tank on its way across Belgium.
Five members of Norman Grant’s family lowered their heads, praying for his safety, and if they had been told then of the heroic acts he was performing or the perils he was about to face in the dark waters of Leyte Gulf, they would have been unable to raise their heads, for they would have been frozen with horror.
One young man, a member of the Clay football team, did not lower his head in prayer, for as he was about to do so he happened to look at the eastern sky, where he saw something which astonished him. “Look,” he whispered to Pope, who stood nearby. “The Moon is shining at the same time as the Sun.”
“It often does,” John said without looking up.
[47] When the prayer ended and the ROTC guns rattled, Senator Gantling said with what a reporter would call unusual felicity, “As a loyal son of Calhoun in the western part of this state, and as a football player who used to contend against each of your teams, I believe I would be forgiven if I said that I hope you both lose. But I could never utter such words, because like all good Americans, I constantly pray that the best team will always win, for only then can we be truly strong.” Saluting the flag and marching out with the ROTC, he left no doubt as to which was the better team in the forthcoming election. But as he passed the lined-up players, he stopped briefly in front of John Pope to say, “I’m keeping my eye on you, son. And what I hear is very reassuring.” He was famous for his garbled metaphors and also for his flashing smile, which he now directed at the young football star, who could mumble only, “Yes, sir.”
The fourth period started with Clay trailing by five points, and Benton quickly made it eleven by scoring on a long run. But then John Pope took over, and with a series of brilliant plays, carried the ball down the field toward the Benton goal line, where the Clay fullback punched it across.
On the ensuing kickoff, Benton looked as if they would score again, but miraculously the smaller Clay line held, and Benton was forced to surrender the ball. Now it became a contest between John Pope and the clock, and on every series of downs it seemed as if the clock would win and that the game would end before Clay could score again. On first down, Pope would be dragged down by the Benton tacklers. On second down, he would gain nothing. On third down, someone else would carry the ball and fail. But on the fourth-and-desperation, Pope would somehow break loose and give Clay one more gasp.
As the final seconds ticked away, he carried the ball, and most of the Benton team, right down to the three-yard line. Then, when the Benton tacklers were concentrating on him, the Clay fullback again rammed the ball across the goal line. Clay had won, 33-31.
John Pope would never forget that game, not because of his outstanding heroics but because of what happened in the locker room afterward. Of course there was raucous celebration, and some of the Benton players did come in [48] to congratulate him, but the significant thing was that a heavyset man in a dark suit sought John out and said, “I used to play for University of Colorado. Son, if you go to Boulder with all the national publicity that team gets, you could be the next Whizzer White.”
“I’ve been thinking about the Naval Academy.”
“Navy? What’s a halfback from Fremont doing thinking about the Navy? We’re a thousand miles from any ocean.”
“Norman Grant, he’s from this town, you know. He’s in the Navy.”
“Son, let me level with you. If Norman Grant had gone to Colorado instead of Fremont, he’d be immortal.”
“He is immortal ... around here. But thank you for your interest.”
“Son, things change. New ideas replace old ones. This time next year-You’re a junior, aren’t you? You may have forgotten all about the Navy. If you do, remember Colorado. When you go Colorado, you go first class.”
John did not linger to celebrate his performance. He knew he’d been good, and he felt gratified that a former player at a university like Colorado had praised him, but he had never allowed football or any other game to dominate either his current behavior or his long-term set of values. His interest at this moment was far removed from football, for as he left the gym alone he looked up into the evening sky and saw to his satisfaction that the half-Moon was visible high overhead and stars were beginning to appear, and he thought of two objects which had recently assumed great importance.
The first was a book which he had owned since July, the only one he had ever purchased with his own money. It had been published in Edinburgh by a firm called Gall and Inglis, and the university bookstore had needed ten weeks to secure a copy. When he reported to claim it he had been waited on not by a student clerk but by a full professor, who introduced himself formally: “I am Karl Anderssen of Norway. I wanted to meet the young man who was purchasing this book. Who are you?” When Pope explained, the professor had asked, “But why would you want this particular book?” And he held John’s book in his two hands.
“I thought it was time I learned something about the stars.”
[49] “This is one of the loveliest books in the world,” the professor had said, still clinging to the large flat volume. “Norton’s Star Atlas. Half the great astronomers living in the world today started with this as boys. Do you know it?”
“I’ve never seen it,” John had replied, so the professor opened the book that charted the heavens, but not to the fascinating diagrams that John was so eager to see. He turned instead to the many pages of small print that summarized most of astronomy as it was then understood.
“If you use only the charts, young man, you’ll drop astronomy within six weeks. But if you start with these pages, and digest even a part of them, you’ll always be a prisoner.”
“A prisoner?”
“Yes. The stars reach out and grab you. They infect your mind. They change your entire perspective.” Reverently he had handed the book over, then asked, “Have you ever seen the stars?”
“Not really. But my father is borrowing a pair of field glasses for me, and when h
“What a wonderful experience! You’ll never forget it.”
“Do you operate the telescope at the university?”
“I do.”
“Could I look through it? Sometime?”
The professor hesitated. He was in his sixties and had transferred to Fremont because the atmosphere was so unpolluted that he could spend hours at his telescope instead of the minutes available in a smoke-ridden city like Cambridge or New Haven. “No,” he had said that July afternoon, “you can’t look through the telescope.” When he saw John’s disappointment he added, “Look at the stars now with your naked eye and make them familiar. When you get your field glasses, see the enormous number that spring into view. Do it right. Step by step. When you’ve done these things and digested them, come to the observatory and ask for me. Because then you’ll be ready.”
The second object that captivated young Pope this night was the pair of binoculars which his father was borrowing from a hunting friend. If things had gone well, the glasses should be in the drugstore now, so instead of going directly home, John headed in the opposite direction toward the center of town, where his father managed a drugstore [50] which his father and grandfather had operated.
“They tell me you ran quite a few yards today.” His father always spoke this way, formally, half whimsically, never praising his son outright because he realized that the boy received more than enough adulation at school.
“I had a good day. The Benton linemen were clumsy.”
“I got the glasses.”
“Are they as good as he said?”
“They’re German. Very expensive, so don’t lose them. The writing says 7-X-50 and I judge that’s pretty powerful.
John took the glasses, then asked for the case and studied how they fitted into it. He hefted them, inspected the mechanisms to satisfy himself as to their operation, and smiled at his father. “Thanks.” Quickly he added, “How long can I keep them?”
“Paul’s off to Detroit for the duration. Says he won’t need them at the tank assembly line.”
“You mean ...”
“Yes. They’re yours for a year ... a couple of years.” He watched his son’s face, then asked, “Don’t you want to go out and try them?”
“No,” John said slowly. “Not in the middle of town, where there’s so much light and dust. I want the first sight to be perfect.”
His father nodded.
Throwing the strap across his shoulder and settling the heavy glasses against his body, John walked slowly home, glancing at the sky from time to time.
It was now approaching six, advanced war time, so that the noble stars of summer were about to appear for one last time this year in the deep west. From his intensive summer study of Norton, he had identified the star which he hoped would be the first that he would see through the binoculars; it was Arcturus, the golden-red giant that would soon be breaking through the fading daylight: Follow the curving handle of the Big Dipper, and there will be Arcturus. I’ll see the great summer triangle, Arcturus-Antares-Vega. And when they disappear, there’ll be another triangle just as good, Vega-Altair-Deneb. He thought of the stars as if he knew them individually.
But he had to hurry if he wanted to see Arcturus this year, for he knew that it would be dimmed by the earth’s [51] atmosphere because it would stand so low in the sky; and several times as he hurried home he was tempted to see if the glasses could pick up the star through the fading light, but he was restrained by what Professor Anderssen had said: “Do it right. Step by step.” After supper, he thought, when the sky was properly darkened, he would launch his investigation, but almost immediately he realized: I started my investigation the moment I looked up at the stars with that book at my side. The binoculars are only the next step.
At the supper table he irritated his mother by propping Norton against his glass and studying one last time the chart which showed where Arcturus would be, but when Dr. Pope returned from the drugstore he said sharply, “Down with that book. You’re eating supper now.” So the book was laid aside, but even before his first bite, John asked: “Can I please be excused? I want to be there when a certain star-”
“You’ll eat your supper,” Dr. Pope said, but his wife laughed and said, “He’ll never have another chance to use his glasses for the first time.”
“He played a football game. He must be hungry.”
Mrs. Pope indicated that John could leave the table, for she knew that he was assailed by a hunger that comes rarely in a human life, and after he left the room she told her husband, “I’ll take him a sandwich later.”
In a few minutes John, wearing a heavy jacket against the cold autumn air, hurried through the kitchen. As he passed her, his mother said, “Mrs. Kramer called to say you did wonderfully in football.”
“I had a good game,” he said, heading toward the backyard.
The elder Popes rarely attended the various games in which their son starred, Dr. Pope because he was needed at the store, Mrs. Pope because she could not convince herself that games were important in the long scale of human values. Physical exercise, yes. But organized games with cheerleaders, no. They were helpful in building strong bodies, and she certainly believed in that, having seen much sickness at the drugstore, where she had served as clerk before she married. But she never planned for her son to be a major athlete, and definitely not a professional of any kind.
[52] The elder Popes, with three children to educate, the other two older than John, trusted that their offspring would be good citizens, and that was about it. The older son was going to be a doctor; the daughter gave signs at the university of wanting to go for her master’s and then to teaching on the college level; John had shown no specific propensity, for he excelled at everything. His marks were never lower than B, and not too many of them. He was good at math, better at physics and chemistry, but he could also express himself adequately in either term papers or public speaking.
He was by no means an ideal child, for he had a fiery temper which he sometimes had difficulty in controlling, but in most things he bespoke the intelligent care his parents had spent in his upbringing. He was a Baptist, a Republican, a Boy Scout, a football star who did not take his acclaim too seriously, and now an amateur astronomer. He had not a single cavity in his teeth and was a lean, wiry six pounds under the normal weight for his age and height.
He was opening the door when his mother said, “By the way, John, Penny phoned and asked what time you’ll be over to study math with her tonight.”
“She just wants me to do her problems for her.”
“That’s ungracious. If you promised to see her, call and cancel your date like a gentleman.”
“Mom, I don’t want to bother with Penny tonight. Please, you call her.” And before his mother could protest any further, he was out the door.
When he first stepped into the night he did what astronomers had been doing for some two million years before the invention of the telescope: he stood in the middle of the open land behind his house and slowly surveyed the heavens, orienting himself as to the stars at this latitude, at this longitude and at this hour. He thus became one with the ancient Assyrians, with the wondering men who erected Stonehenge, and with the Incas of Peru. He looked only briefly to the north, for he had long since mastered the polar stars that never set; there was Polaris, friend of mariners, the two Bears, and the Dragon that wound its tortuous way between them. He knew each of the stars in the Big Dipper by its Greek designation and its characteristics, but his interest tonight was in the stars of the [53] west which would soon be setting, to be lost for half a year as they moved into the proximity with the Sun, whose light would obscure them during the daytime hours.
And as he stood there, face up to the sky, he savored that mysterious moment when the glow of twilight disappeared into true darkness, allowing light from distant stars to reveal itself. Low on the horizon stood Arcturus, glowing red like some mighty furnace, and he wanted desperately to bri
Curiously, he did not bother with the bright half-Moon, Ï for he judged correctly that this was a garish nearby phenomenon which he could always study at will; what he yearned to see were the stars, those scintillating messengers from immortal distances. So for some moments he surveyed his heavens, looking now at one high star, then another, until finally he settled upon the one which he would first see with his new glasses.
It was Altair, a gleaming white star in the constellation Eagle: “You can always locate it. Track down from Vega and Deneb. You’ll know it by its two bright guardians.” There it was, Altair, one of the brightest stars, one of the first to have been awarded a specific name by the ancients; in all societies it had been associated with birds, with flying, and now it flew through the dark prairie sky.
Slowly he brought his glasses to his eyes, cocked his head backward, and pointed the binoculars toward Altair. At first it seemed disappointingly blurred, but as soon as he twisted the central knob that moved both barrels his left eye saw the star in perfect focus. Then with a light touch on the knob that activated only the right barrel, he brought his right eye into focus also. And then he gasped, “There are so many stars!”
What the chart had shown to be a moderately populated area turned out to be a veritable jungle of stars, and in that precious moment he deduced the nature of the universe: With my unaided eye I could see only a few stars attached to Altair. Now I see hundreds of them. And if I could use the university telescope, I’d see thousands. And if we could somehow lift that telescope up above the [54] interfering atmosphere, I’ll bet we’d see millions. Out to the farthest edge of the universe.