along the path,
Hanchett and I can easily plot a new course around them. That ought to keep us out of trouble.”
“It’ll get you shot down, too,” McKinley said, with a certain relish. “I’m sorry, Commodore, but that’s out of the question.
I am empowered to forbid that kind of operation, and I do forbid it.”
“Why, in God’s name?” Farnsworth said, his face changing colour again.
“Because this is a military area—or a theatre of war, if you really want the blunt name for it. For an IGY outfit, you people
seem to be pretty light on facts the IGY knows by heart. Were you at the Stockholm IGY meeting in 1956?”
“No,” Farnsworth said. “What has that to do with it?”
“The Russians proposed then that we and they fly alternate daily observation patrols across the Pole, landing at each other’s
bases at Nome and Murmansk. Our people weren’tempowered to accept, but later on Washington accepted, with conditions. The Russians accepted the conditions.”
“Well?”
“One of the conditions rules out all unscheduled flights. Only normal commercial traffic and the agreed transpolar patrol
are allowed. The violating party is liable to attack on sight. There are fighters up all the time to enforce the rule—we’ve
even had a few inconclusive dogfights, and one of those could blow up into something major any time now. If you take one of
those crates of yours over the Pole, the Russians will ‘shoot you down, and we’ll just have to sit back and watch, them do
it. If we stepped in, in violation of the agreement, we’d start a war—after all, we made the conditions ourselves, Clear enough?”
“Perfectly,” Farnsworth said, unruffled. “All right, no planes. We’ll just have to do it the hard way—in the snowmobiles.
Very good. Jayne, come over here and let’s check the crews.”
McKinley was shunted aside, wearing the expression of a man who has won all the battles and lost the war. The manœuvre was
purely dramatic on Farnsworth’s part, for there was not a great deal of planning left to do. The lead snowbuggy would be driven
by Dr. Hanchett, who had the responsibility of seeing to it that we would follow the proposed path into the interior, and
arrive on time at the Pole instead of somewhere on the north coast of Greenland. As the next most valuable members of the
party, Elvers and the dogs would ride in the last buggy, which Jayne would drive, because only a total of four people in the
party knew how to drive them. This meant that Harriet had to ride in the middle buggy with Farnsworth because she would not
be separated from her pay-cheque, so I decided to ride in the middle buggy too, along with Sidney Goldstein, our cheerful
cryologist, who professed to be much smitten with Harriet. Wentz was put in with Jayne and Elvers on the theory that he would
be in no shape to care whom he rode with, though it wasn’t expressed quite that openly. Wollheim was to go with Hanchett in
order to make sure that there was one woman in each buggy, thus dividing the risk to what little of potential American motherhood
we had with us.
And so on. It was all very sane and unexcited, like parcelling out passengers for a three-car picnic. All through theallocation the wind howled without let or surcease, and somewhere along the line I found Harriet’s hand curled in mine, like
a hedgehog warming its nose in its burrow.
We got up at 5.00 a.m. the next day, but it was nearly noon outside, as it had been for many weeks. I was getting my first
taste of what it is like to live in a country where the days and nights are each six months long, and the sun goes down a
little and then rises again in the sky without ever having set. Above the Arctic Circle, Kepler and God are superseded by
something called Benchley’s Law, which says that the Earth does not really go around the Sun at all, but around Aroostook,
Me., and besides there is really no such place
Hanchett and I can easily plot a new course around them. That ought to keep us out of trouble.”
“It’ll get you shot down, too,” McKinley said, with a certain relish. “I’m sorry, Commodore, but that’s out of the question.
I am empowered to forbid that kind of operation, and I do forbid it.”
“Why, in God’s name?” Farnsworth said, his face changing colour again.
“Because this is a military area—or a theatre of war, if you really want the blunt name for it. For an IGY outfit, you people
seem to be pretty light on facts the IGY knows by heart. Were you at the Stockholm IGY meeting in 1956?”
“No,” Farnsworth said. “What has that to do with it?”
“The Russians proposed then that we and they fly alternate daily observation patrols across the Pole, landing at each other’s
bases at Nome and Murmansk. Our people weren’tempowered to accept, but later on Washington accepted, with conditions. The Russians accepted the conditions.”
“Well?”
“One of the conditions rules out all unscheduled flights. Only normal commercial traffic and the agreed transpolar patrol
are allowed. The violating party is liable to attack on sight. There are fighters up all the time to enforce the rule—we’ve
even had a few inconclusive dogfights, and one of those could blow up into something major any time now. If you take one of
those crates of yours over the Pole, the Russians will ‘shoot you down, and we’ll just have to sit back and watch, them do
it. If we stepped in, in violation of the agreement, we’d start a war—after all, we made the conditions ourselves, Clear enough?”
“Perfectly,” Farnsworth said, unruffled. “All right, no planes. We’ll just have to do it the hard way—in the snowmobiles.
Very good. Jayne, come over here and let’s check the crews.”
McKinley was shunted aside, wearing the expression of a man who has won all the battles and lost the war. The manœuvre was
purely dramatic on Farnsworth’s part, for there was not a great deal of planning left to do. The lead snowbuggy would be driven
by Dr. Hanchett, who had the responsibility of seeing to it that we would follow the proposed path into the interior, and
arrive on time at the Pole instead of somewhere on the north coast of Greenland. As the next most valuable members of the
party, Elvers and the dogs would ride in the last buggy, which Jayne would drive, because only a total of four people in the
party knew how to drive them. This meant that Harriet had to ride in the middle buggy with Farnsworth because she would not
be separated from her pay-cheque, so I decided to ride in the middle buggy too, along with Sidney Goldstein, our cheerful
cryologist, who professed to be much smitten with Harriet. Wentz was put in with Jayne and Elvers on the theory that he would
be in no shape to care whom he rode with, though it wasn’t expressed quite that openly. Wollheim was to go with Hanchett in
order to make sure that there was one woman in each buggy, thus dividing the risk to what little of potential American motherhood
we had with us.
And so on. It was all very sane and unexcited, like parcelling out passengers for a three-car picnic. All through theallocation the wind howled without let or surcease, and somewhere along the line I found Harriet’s hand curled in mine, like
a hedgehog warming its nose in its burrow.
We got up at 5.00 a.m. the next day, but it was nearly noon outside, as it had been for many weeks. I was getting my first
taste of what it is like to live in a country where the days and nights are each six months long, and the sun goes down a
little and then rises again in the sky without ever having set. Above the Arctic Circle, Kepler and God are superseded by
something called Benchley’s Law, which says that the Earth does not really go around the Sun at all, but around Aroostook,
Me., and besides there is really no such place
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