containers, and their arrival was always much appreciated by the staff on duty—except when they were dealing with some emergency and were too busy for anything else.
It took a lot of persuading before I got Tim Benton to put me down for this job. I pointed out that it relieved the other boys for more important work—to which he retorted that it was one of the few jobs they liked doing. But at last he gave in.
I'd been carefully briefed, and just as the Station was passing over the Gulf of Guinea I stood outside the Control Room and tinkled my little bell. (There were a lot of quaint customs like this aboard the Station.) The Duty Officer shouted 'Come in!' I steered my tray through the door, and then handed out the food and drinks. The last milk bottle reached its customer just as we were passing over the African coast.
They must have known I was coming, because no one seemed in the least surprised to see me. As I had to stay and collect the empties, there was plenty of opportunity of looking round the Control Room. It was spotlessly clean and tidy, dome-shaped, and with a wide glass panel running right round it. Besides the Duty Officer and his assistant, there were several radio operators at their instruments, and other men working on equipment I couldn't recognize. Dials and TV screens were everywhere, lights were flashing on and off—yet the whole place was quite silent. The men sitting at their little desks were wearing headphones and throat microphones so that two people could talk without disturbing the others. I was fascinating to watch these experts working swiftly at their tasks—directing ships thousands of miles away, talking to the other space-stations or to the Moon, checking the myriads of instruments on which our lives depended.
The Duty Officer sat at a huge glass-topped desk on which glowed a complicated pattern of coloured lights. It showed the Earth, the orbits of the other Stations and the courses of all the ships in our part of space. From time to time he would say something quietly, his lips scarcely moving, and I knew that some order was winging its way out to an approaching ship—telling it to hold off a little longer, or to prepare for contact.
I dared not hang around once I'd finished my job, but the next day I had a second chance and, because things were rather slack, one of the assistants was kind enough to show me round. He let me overhear some of the radio conversations, and explained the workings of the great display panel. The thing that impressed me most of all, however, was the shining metal cylinder, covered with controls and winking lights, which occupied the centre of the room.
'This,' said my guide proudly, 'is HAVOC.'
'What?' I asked.
'Short for Automatic Voyage Orbit Computer.'
I thought this over for a moment.
'What does the H stand for?'
'Everyone asks that. It doesn't stand for anything.' He turned to the operator.
'What's she set up for now?'
The man gave an answer that consisted chiefly of mathematics, but I did catch the word 'Venus'.
'Right: let's suppose we wanted to leave for Venus in—oh, four hours from now.' His hands flicked across a keyboard like that of an overgrown typewriter.
I expected HAVOC to whirr and click, but all that happened was that a few lights changed colour. Then, after about ten seconds, a buzzer sounded twice and a piece of tape slid out of a narrow slot. It was covered with closely printed figures.
'There you are—everything you want to know. Direction of firing, elements of orbit, time of flight, when to start braking. All you need now is a spaceship!'
I wondered just how many hundreds of calculations the electronic brain had carried out in. those few seconds. Space-travel was certainly a complicated affair—so complicated that it sometimes depressed me. Then I remembered that these men didn't seem any cleverer than I was: they were highly trained, that was all. If one worked hard enough, one could master anything.
My time on
It took a lot of persuading before I got Tim Benton to put me down for this job. I pointed out that it relieved the other boys for more important work—to which he retorted that it was one of the few jobs they liked doing. But at last he gave in.
I'd been carefully briefed, and just as the Station was passing over the Gulf of Guinea I stood outside the Control Room and tinkled my little bell. (There were a lot of quaint customs like this aboard the Station.) The Duty Officer shouted 'Come in!' I steered my tray through the door, and then handed out the food and drinks. The last milk bottle reached its customer just as we were passing over the African coast.
They must have known I was coming, because no one seemed in the least surprised to see me. As I had to stay and collect the empties, there was plenty of opportunity of looking round the Control Room. It was spotlessly clean and tidy, dome-shaped, and with a wide glass panel running right round it. Besides the Duty Officer and his assistant, there were several radio operators at their instruments, and other men working on equipment I couldn't recognize. Dials and TV screens were everywhere, lights were flashing on and off—yet the whole place was quite silent. The men sitting at their little desks were wearing headphones and throat microphones so that two people could talk without disturbing the others. I was fascinating to watch these experts working swiftly at their tasks—directing ships thousands of miles away, talking to the other space-stations or to the Moon, checking the myriads of instruments on which our lives depended.
The Duty Officer sat at a huge glass-topped desk on which glowed a complicated pattern of coloured lights. It showed the Earth, the orbits of the other Stations and the courses of all the ships in our part of space. From time to time he would say something quietly, his lips scarcely moving, and I knew that some order was winging its way out to an approaching ship—telling it to hold off a little longer, or to prepare for contact.
I dared not hang around once I'd finished my job, but the next day I had a second chance and, because things were rather slack, one of the assistants was kind enough to show me round. He let me overhear some of the radio conversations, and explained the workings of the great display panel. The thing that impressed me most of all, however, was the shining metal cylinder, covered with controls and winking lights, which occupied the centre of the room.
'This,' said my guide proudly, 'is HAVOC.'
'What?' I asked.
'Short for Automatic Voyage Orbit Computer.'
I thought this over for a moment.
'What does the H stand for?'
'Everyone asks that. It doesn't stand for anything.' He turned to the operator.
'What's she set up for now?'
The man gave an answer that consisted chiefly of mathematics, but I did catch the word 'Venus'.
'Right: let's suppose we wanted to leave for Venus in—oh, four hours from now.' His hands flicked across a keyboard like that of an overgrown typewriter.
I expected HAVOC to whirr and click, but all that happened was that a few lights changed colour. Then, after about ten seconds, a buzzer sounded twice and a piece of tape slid out of a narrow slot. It was covered with closely printed figures.
'There you are—everything you want to know. Direction of firing, elements of orbit, time of flight, when to start braking. All you need now is a spaceship!'
I wondered just how many hundreds of calculations the electronic brain had carried out in. those few seconds. Space-travel was certainly a complicated affair—so complicated that it sometimes depressed me. Then I remembered that these men didn't seem any cleverer than I was: they were highly trained, that was all. If one worked hard enough, one could master anything.
My time on
Similar Books
