The Big Eye (14 page)

 

 

Her eyes were dull now, her lighthearted mood gone; she looked tired,
worried.

 

 

"I can't do anything with him. I can't do a thing with him, David. It's
the first time. And whatever this thing is, he'll kill himself."

 

 

So the Old Man wanted the radio in his study, thought David. Ordinarily
Dr. Dawson hated the radio and television both. They intruded with
affairs that didn't interest him, that disturbed him, that violated the
tranquillity of his own kingdom.

 

 

But now he was asking for it. Funny, thought David. The Old Man was
closeted in his study with a group of top men, the greatest astronomers
of them all, whose only horizon was infinity.

 

 

But a radio was an earthly affair, confined to earthly matters. It had
nothing to do with nebulae or island universes millions and billions of
light years away.

 

 

They must be talking about something very close to home, guessed David.

 

 

But if so, what?

 

 

He thought of the wild rumors sweeping the country, the phenomenon
at New York, the Russian secret weapon General Hawthorne had talked
about. Hawthorne had said that it was something on a cosmic scale.

 

 

Maybe, thought David, maybe the general was right. Maybe Hawthorne had
something, after all.

 

 

Maybe that's what they were discussing in the Old Man's study right
now -- looking down at their feet instead of over their heads.

 

 

"Dr. Dawson wants to see you in a few minutes. Dr. Hughes," Francis was
saying. "He told me to tell you to stand by."

 

 

David nodded. Then, as the steward was helping Emily Dawson on with her
coat, David took Carol's arm.

 

 

"Carol, you don't have to wait "

 

 

"I'd like to, David," she said. "I'm not tired at all, and I'd like to
see the observatory. I'm terribly curious."

 

 

"If you wish, Dr. Hughes," said the steward. "I could "

 

 

"Thanks just the same, Francis," interrupted David. "But you've got
plenty to do as it is. Anyway, I'd like to show her around myself while
I wait for that meeting to finish."

 

 

Mrs. Dawson offered Carol the hospitality of her home for the night, but
David thanked her on Carol's behalf and told her that Francis had already
made arrangements. Then the Old Man's wife turned to Francis and said:

 

 

"Francis, I'll be waiting up. The moment the doctor finishes, call me.
ril come for him myself." Her face sagged a little now, it was haggard,
but she smiled as she turned to Carol.

 

 

"Please come and see me tomorrow, my dear."

 

 

After Emily Dawson had left, and as Francis was disconnecting the small
radio from his desk, David said with an attempt at lightness:

 

 

"Come on, Carol. I'll take you on the dollar tour."

 

 

He led her through a door and onto the ground floor. This was a circular
corridor, severely simple and paved in rubber parquet. From it, on each
side, ran the astronomers' offices. Then he conducted Carol past the
small auditorium and lecture hall, the library, the cafeteria, and the
kitchen, gleaming in white tile and monel metal. They walked by a series
of darkrooms, and finally he led her into his own office.

 

 

"Like it?" he asked.

 

 

She studied the leather furniture, the bookshelves recessed in the paneled
walls, the deep gray rug, and the illustrations: David's graduating class
picture at Columbia, an etching of the original Harvard Observatory,
a drawing of Galileo peering through his telescope lens, an air view of
Palomar itself, and finally a picture of herself on the leather-topped
desk.

 

 

"It's very nice, David," she said. "But it's so plain -- it needs a little
color "

 

 

"Oh no, you don't." He grinned. "No frilly feminine touches for me -- not
here, anyway. This is my retreat, and if it's monastic -- well, I like
it that way. I don't care what you do to the cottage we're going to
live in -- that's your department -- but in my office, no colored pottery,
no chintz curtains on the windows "

 

 

"What windows!" She laughed. "There isn't a window in this whole darned
mausoleum!"

 

 

He took her back in the rotunda and up the stairs to the mezzanine. He
pointed out the lounge, rest rooms, drinking fountains, exhibits of
meteoric rock under glass, a model of the observatory itself, literature
in racks, illustrations of the planets, and finally a large reception
room displaying the history of the 200-inch reflector, in photographs,
drawings, and text.

 

 

"Now this looks a little more comfortable," Carol remarked.

 

 

"Yes. The mezzanine here is our concession to the public. People come
up here in droves every Sunday, not only from San Diego, but even from
Los Angeles."

 

 

David had forgotten his somber mood of a few minutes ago. This personal
little tour was something he had planned for a long time, and now that
Carol was here, he was enjoying her reactions.

 

 

"But, David, why should they come here? Isn't the Mount Wilson observatory
much nearer to Los Angeles?"

 

 

"Sure." He smiled. "And ten years ago, back in 1950, before Palomar
was really open to the public on a tourist basis, Wilson used to get
all the business. But now we've got the biggest eye in the world, while
Mount Wilson has to struggle along with a puny 100-inch. And you know
people -- they like to see the biggest and the best."

 

 

"What on earth do you do with them when they get here?"

 

 

"Oh, show 'em around -- lecture 'em on the theory of operation -- open and
close the dome for them -- let 'em look at the telescope."

 

 

"That must keep Dr. Dawson pretty busy on Sundays."

 

 

"The Old Man? He doesn't wet-nurse the tourists." David made a wry
face. "I do!"

 

 

She laughed up at him. "Well, the public is lucky to have a handsome
barker like you. But, David, what do you do, line them up one by one
when they want to look through the telescope?"

 

 

"Look through what telescope?"

 

 

"Why, the big one that's here." She was taken aback by his sudden and
mock-stern expression. "David, what's the matter? What did I say?"

 

 

"Oh, nothing. Nothing but blasphemy, heresy, and sacrilege -- at least
for an astronomer's wife. I'm glad no one overheard you."

 

 

"But all I said was "

 

 

"I know. You see, my darling, you don't look through a reflector or mirror
telescope. Not a big one like this, anjrway. You just take photographs."

 

 

"But in all the pictures I've ever seen," she protested, "the astronomer
always has his eye screwed up against a little eyepiece at the bottom of
the telescope when he's looking at stars and heavenly bodies and things."

 

 

He looked even more pained at that. "Sure. But they were looking through a
refractor, or lens telescope. They're more romantic -- much more photogenic
for movies or magazines. As I said, we don't look through a reflector
like the Big Eye here at Palomar -- we get into it."

 

 

"You what?"

 

 

"We ride up to the top of the telescope and climb down inside of it. Or
at least the Old Man does. He takes all the observations and makes all
the complicated calculations. I just stay below near the switchboard
and give him the position settings."

 

 

She looked incredulous. "You mean you really get inside the telescope?"

 

 

"Come on." He grinned. "I'll show you."

 

 

He led her out past rows of switchboards protected by roller sheets of
metal, and they climbed another flight of parquet stairs into a kind
of transparent cubicle completely enclosed by glass, walls and ceiling
alike. A tiny glass sign said: "No Visitors Allowed Beyond This Point."

 

 

"Well," said David quietly, "there it is -- the Big Eye."

 

 

"Oh, David!" Her whisper was almost inaudible.

 

 

It was a thrilling, awe-inspiring sight. The huge telescope, like a
great monstrous robot, loomed up almost vertically, sheer into the
shadowy arch of the dome, where its soaring spiderwork disappeared
entirely. It was big -- big beyond description -- ahnost frightening in
its vastness. Its north and south piers, squat and solid and massive,
came out of the floor and held up the great apparatus like two hunched
shoulders. The two cylinders in its yoke were bigger than railroad cars
as they reached out for support into the horseshoe of the frame. The
telescope tube itself rested silently, delicately, on its trunnions.

 

 

It was still, motionless, now. Yet Carol, as she stared at it, almost had
the feeling that it was alive, that it had a beating heart and nerves
and muscles, that it was sleeping now but soon would bestir itself,
yawn, and then reach up and up toward the stars, its five hundred tons
creaking and groaning in the joints as it stretched itself.

 

 

"It gets you, doesn't it?" said David softly.

 

 

"Oh yes, yes," she whispered. "David, what -- what does a Thing like
that do?"

 

 

"More than any man ever dreamed would be possible." He spoke almost
reverently. "The Big Eye right out there has reached up into billions of
light years of cold space, Carol. It's pulled down stars and nebulae and
supemovae we never knew existed before, and dropped them right into our
laps. It's discovered new and remote worlds -- millions and millions of
them -- some of them vast enough to make our own look like a microscopic
speck of dust floating around in a stadium." He was staring up into
the dome, talking half to himself now. "It's brought enough light down
through what we call the tube and onto that big mirror to make real
studies of the galactic systems, the binary stars and their separation,
and the secret of the expanding universe itself."

 

 

"I'm not sure of what you're saying," she interrupted. "But just hearing
it makes my head swim."

 

 

He nodded. "Unless you're an astronomer, Carol, I suppose this is so much
Greek. But putting it in layman's language, that big 'scope out there is
already giving us the story of how stars are born, how big they are, how
hot they get, and how long they have to live. And that isn't all. From
that kind of data we're already getting a hint of how long we have to
live right here on earth."

 

 

She stared at him. "How?"

 

 

"Well, it's this way, Carol. The sun itself is a star -- and pretty
small potatoes, a poor relative, as far as stars go. In terms of stellar
distance, the earth is practically glued to it. When we find out how
old the sun actually is, we'll he able to predict how much longer it's
going to shine, giving us light and heat." He smiled. "See? We're kicking
around in this particular universe on borrowed time. We've hitched our
earthy wagon to a star, but someday that star's going to lie down and
slowly die on us!"

 

 

She shuddered. "What a horrible thought!"

 

 

"Don't worry." He laughed. "We're still good for a few billion years
yet." Suddenly he sobered. "Or -- we were. Now -- I don't know. It looks as
though man, with his little atom bomb, is going to beat the sun to the
punch and get rid of himself first." He took her arm. "Come on, Carol.
I'll take you up to the top."

 

 

"You mean -- way up there?" She looked apprehensively up into the
shadowy dome.

 

 

"Sure. Up to the observer's cage, inside the top of the 'scope." He
led her back down the stairs and into the corridor. "We never take
the public into the observation room itself. You see, Carol, crowds
generate heat from their bodies, and just a couple of degrees' rise in
the observation-room temperature would be enough to throw several of
the delicate instruments right out of whack. And of course we rarely
give anybody a ride to the top. You ought to feel very flattered."

 

 

"Thank you," she said weakly. "But right now I'm beginning to feel
scared."

 

 

He went to a locker, pulled out two heavy fleece-lined suits, fur hats
with ear muffs attached, heavy mittens, and scarves. "We'd better put
these on," he said. "If we're going for a ride to heaven, we'd better
be dressed for it. Gets pretty cold up there in the dome. From the way
it felt when we got out of the car in the yard, it's well below zero."

 

 

They wriggled into the heavy clothing, and then David led her to a
small automatic elevator. In a few moments they stopped at the main
floor, and as the elevator door opened, a cold blast of air hit them.
David stepped out, went to a control board, and pushed a button. A motor
droned somewhere, and the hemispheric roof opened into two halves. Only an
almost imperceptible hum and a faint lightening of the shadows indicated
that the roof was opening at all. Carol, craning her neck and looking
straight upward, finally made out a faint segment of blue-black sky and
two or three faint stars almost hanging onto the end of the 'scope as
it thrust up vaguely into the slice of night between the parted dome.

 

 

David came away from the control room, smiling. "Of course this is just a
demonstration. We're not going to take any observations or anything like
that. I just wanted you to know what it was like when the dome was down."