Oddments (14 page)

During those three weeks a breathless expectation, and an air of apprehension, gripped the world at large. Why the secrecy, why the silence? I asked those questions myself, in print in my syndicated political column, and feared the answers perhaps more than most. I had long been a professional skeptic, about any number of things including certain "blind-leap" aspects of our re-augmented space program. It seemed to me we did too many things on the basis of insufficient data; our thirst for knowledge sometimes took precedence over other considerations, not the least of which was human safety. NASA was as much an offender in this respect as any other government agency.

The
Washington Post
broke the story, in a rare banner headline. Within hours it was on every front page of every newspaper in every nation, and on every television and radio station, and on every tongue.

There were two major revelations.

First, both Commander Stiles and Major Webber had returned from the mission suffering from what was termed "severe mental disability."

And, second, NASA was said to possess a certain amount of evidence that a form of sentient life existed on the planet Venus.

It was, of course, the latter which initiated the most reaction and to which the most lip service was paid. Life on Venus, sentient life on another planet in our solar system; fiction and endless speculation apparently proved fact. It was a startling, exciting, somewhat frightening possibility. What did the life look like? Was it intelligent? If so, could we establish contact? Would it be friendly or unfriendly? What kind of culture could it have on that wet, steaming, vapor-obscured planet? And on and on.

But one of the key questions, as far as I was concerned, was: What had happened to Stiles and Webber?

Economic, civil, political, and personal crises were forgotten; everyone wanted to Know More. NASA and Washington at first attempted to discredit the
Post
report; but, as with the Pentagon Papers and Watergate decades earlier, the facts discredited the attempt to discredit the facts. The public hue and cry was overwhelming, so much so that it could not be ignored. Ultimately there was nothing NASA and Washington could do, especially in view of the fact that this was an election year, except to yield with a stiff grace.

The President called a closed-door press conference in the White House press room, and my credentials got me a front-row seat. He appeared first and made a few introductory remarks about "the grave importance of the knowledge which may await us in limitless space." After which, wisely, he turned the conference over to uniformed and beribboned General Joseph Meadows, one of the top men in NASA and the head of the Venus Exploration program.

To begin with, Meadows distributed copies of a prepared press release which corroborated, in typical vague governmental fashion, the two main facts reported in the
Post.
The general read the release aloud; then, with some apparent reluctance, he called for questions.

"What are the physical characteristics of the life on Venus, General?"

"I am unable to answer that question. We simply do not know."

"It
is
sentient, however, is that correct?"

"We believe that it may be."

"Could it be intelligent?"

"We don't know and cannot speculate."

"Just what leads you to believe that a life form exists on Venus?"

"We have certain photographic evidence, recorded by the automatic cameras on Exploration Five, which bears out that supposition."

"What sort of photographic evidence?"

"The film in question depicts a certain blurred activity on the portion of the planet's day-side land surface where the ship touched down."

"Cities, do you mean? A culture of some kind?"

"No. Activity, movement—simply that."

"Can't you be more specific?"

"I'm sorry, I cannot."

"Was similar photographic evidence transmitted by the cameras in the unmanned Exploration Three and Exploration Four capsules?"

"It was not."

"How do you account for that, sir?"

"I can only say that the Exploration Five landing took place at a markedly different spot on Venus than did either of the other two landings. Previous photographs, plus radar maps of the planet's surface and other recorded data, prepared us to believe that there were no life forms of any kind."

"What can you tell us about the surface of Venus, other than what we already know?"

"At this time, nothing at all."

"Is another Exploration mission being planned for the near future?"

"An announcement as to future plans will be made shortly."

"Assuming the life form is intelligent, will efforts be made to establish contact?"

"Certainly. But we have no current basis for such an assumption. We are proceeding one step at a time."

"About Commander Stiles and Major Webber, sir," I said. "What can you tell us about the nature of their illnesses?"

"Not a great deal, I'm afraid. Exhaustive tests are still being undertaken."

"Both men
are
alive?"

"Yes."

"What form of mental disorder is each suffering from?"

Pause. "Major Webber's condition may be loosely described as catatonic; Commander Stiles' condition as semi-catatonic."

"Does that mean you've been able to communicate with the commander?"

"No, it does not."

"Well, has he been lucid at any time?"

"I am not at liberty to answer that question."

"Have you been able to learn anything from him about what happened on Venus?"

"I am not at liberty to answer that."

"General, what do you suppose is responsible for these similar psychological disorders in Stiles and Webber? Based on available information, that is."

"All available information is still being tabulated; at present we have been able to draw no definite conclusions. However, it is possible that spatial stresses may be a primary factor."

"Isn't it rather improbable, sir, that two well-trained men would succumb to spatial stresses in the same way at approximately the same time?"

"The existence of sentient life on Venus is rather improbable. And yet it may one day prove to be fact."

"What about other possible explanations?" someone else asked. "Could these mental disorders have been caused by something of a physical nature? The 900-degree surface temperature, for example?"

"Negative. The Exploration Five capsule was not heat
damaged in any way; Commander Stiles and Major Webber did not leave the ship and could not have been affected by outside temperatures while inside it. And were not, as tests have proven."

"Magnetic fields or solar winds, then? The planet's atmosphere is composed of carbon dioxide and sulfuric acid, after all. . . ."

"Also negative. Harmful atmospheric elements could not
have penetrated or affected conditions inside the capsule."

"Do you have any idea
when
either man was stricken?"

"We do not."

"Could it have happened prior to landing on Venus?"

"That is unlikely. Despite the malfunction of the communications system, both men performed other duties according to schedule."

"But they did not perform any duties after Mission Control effected lift-off from Venus for the return flight?"

"Correct."

"Then the mental disabilities occurred during the twelve hours Exploration Five was on the planet itself."

"It would appear so, yes."

I asked, "Have you considered the possibility, sir, that the alleged Venus life form was in some way responsible for the breakdowns of the two men?"

"We have, just as we have considered every other possibility. And we find it negative as well. There is no way a life form of any kind, not even a microscopic organism, could have penetrated the seal on the capsule. Exploration Five's instruments are highly sophisticated; they would have recorded—and we would subsequently have found—any evidence of such a penetration."

"Can you tell us, please, where Commander Stiles and Major Webber are now undergoing treatment?"

"I'm afraid not. That is classified information."

"Would it be possible for members of the media to see either or both of them?"

"At this time it would not."

It was anything but an enlightening session. We took what little Meadows had given us and passed it along to the hungry populace, but no one was satisfied. A little knowledge can be more provocative than no knowledge at all, as NASA's scientists knew better than anyone; in a situation of this magnitude, it only served to escalate matters into a fever pitch.

More pressure was applied from groups and factions and individuals. Politicians up for re-election, particularly those from the party out of power, seized the opportunity to make "the Venus life question" a major political issue. There was a kind of mass hysteria involved in all of this—a quivering excitement, a delicious fear. The silent cry from all sides seemed to be: "Tell us the worst, if that's what it is. Scare hell out of us, we can take it. Just don't keep us in the dark."

The furor brought results, after a fashion. NASA and Washington steadfastly refused to release any further details, or to embellish on those few which General Meadows had given out. They maintained the position that when they had facts, not suppositions, they would release them to the public. But again, because of the political pressure and because it
was
an election year, they had to make some kind of concession. And so they made one.

They agreed to allow a representative cross-section of the media to have a look at, although not to photograph, Commander Richard Stiles and Major Philip Webber.

I was among the seven men and three women chosen for the visit to the Virginia-based, government-maintained medical facility in which the astronauts were undergoing "interim treatment." The selection was supposedly made at random, but, in truth, it was only those of us with upper echelon clout who were invited. I had to call in two favors and make half a dozen promises, and even then I wasn't sure I was going to be included until the day before the visit was scheduled.

It was on a morning exactly five weeks after the return of Exploration V that NASA personnel, operating under tight security measures, escorted the ten of us to the medical facility. Once inside, we were met by Doctor Benjamin Fuller, a government psychologist and Ph.D. who specialized in mental disorders and who was in charge of the care and treatment of Stiles and Webber. He allowed us a brief question-and-answer period, but his responses were just as noncommittal as General Meadows' had been earlier.

No, he was not prepared to say whether or not either astronaut was responding to treatment, or if any information had been gleaned from them on the Venus landing.

No, he had no opinion at this time as to whether or not a complete or partial cure could be gained in either case.

No, he was not at liberty to divulge the nature of the treatments being used on the two men.

Yes, the official view as to the cause of their disability was still the same: undefined spatial stresses.

Doctor Fuller then conducted us through a maze of sterile hallways, peopled with sterile, plastic-featured medical types. At length we came to a large room which had a kind of drapery drawn across one wall. Fuller asked that we maintain silence and that we line up to file past one at a time; then he went to the wall and opened the drapery.

Behind it was a window—or, rather, a two-way glass which was a window from our side. Through the glass, when my turn came, I saw an oblong white room containing a bed and two tubular chairs and a tubular nightstand. On the bed, mo
tionless, lay Major Philip Webber.

If I had not known he was thirty-six years old, I would have
thought
he was a man in his sixties. His hair had turned almost white and the skin of his face was loose, wattled; his eyes were blank and fixed, sunken deep in their sockets. He might have been dead except for the rhythmic rise and fall of his chest.

I felt my stomach constrict as I looked at him. A man in superb physical condition, who had undergone rigorous training and test conditioning in preparation for the Exploration V mission. A shell, a vegetable.

As soon as the last of us had had his turn at the glass, Fuller reclosed the drapery and gestured us out into the corridor again. None of us spoke; there was nothing to say. We followed him to another room similar to the first. Here, now, we would see Commander Richard Stiles—the most qualified man in America to captain Man's first landing on Venus, an accomplished logician, a technological genius.

We queued up near the wall and Fuller opened the cloth.

I was last in line this time; but from the faces of the others as they turned away I could tell that, if anything, Stiles was in worse shape than Webber. And he was. When I finally stepped up to the glass, I saw him sitting on a white chair, in profile at the foot of his bed. His hands were clasped so tightly together in his lap that the straining tendons in both wrists were visible. Only his lips moved, as if he were muttering to himself. Like Webber, his eyes stared at nothing—and like Webber, he looked at least twenty years older than his age of forty-one.