Ray Bradbury. The Golden Apples of the Sun

                Ray Bradbury
                http://blogs.myspace.com/mysteryal

                The Golden Apples of the Sun
                1953

     "South," said the captain.
     "But,"  said  his  crew,  "there  simply  aren't any directions out here in
space."
     "When  you  travel  on  down  toward  the  sun,"  replied the captain, "and
everything  gets  yellow  and  warm and lazy, then you're going in one direction
only."  He  shut  his eyes and thought about the smoldering, warm, faraway land,
his  breath  moving  gently  in his mouth. "South." He nodded slowly to himself.
"South."
     Their  rocket was the Copa de Oro, also named the Prometheus and the Icarus
and  their  destination in all reality was the blazing noonday sun. In high good
spirits  they  had  packed  along  two  thousand  sour  lemonades and a thousand
white-capped  beers  for  this  journey  to  the wide Sahara. And now as the sun
boiled up at them they remembered a score of verses and quotations:
     '"The golden apples of the sun'?"
     "Yeats."
     "'Fear no more the heat of the sun'?"
     "Shakespeare, of course!"
     "'Cup of Gold? Steinbeck. 'The Crock of Gold'? Stephens. And what about the
pot  of  gold  at  the rainbow's end? There's a name for our trajectory, by God.
Rainbow!"  "Temperature?"  "One thousand degrees Fahrenheit!" The captain stared
from  the huge dark-lensed port, and there indeed was the sun, and to go to that
sun  and  touch  it  and  steal part of it forever away was his quiet and single
idea.  In  this ship were combined the coolly delicate and the coldly practical.
Through  corridors  of  ice  and  milk-frost,  ammoniated  winter  and  storming
snowflakes  blew.  Any  spark from that vast hearth burning out there beyond the
callous  hull  of  this ship, any small firebreath that might seep through would
find winter, slumbering here like all the coldest hours of February.
     The  audiothermometer  murmured  in  the  arctic silence: "Temperature: two
thousand degrees!"
     Falling,  thought  the captain, like a snowflake into the lap of June, warm
July, and the sweltering dog-mad days of August.
     "Three thousand degrees Fahrenheit!"
     Under the snow fields engines raced, refrigerants pumped ten thousand miles
per hour in rimed boa-constrictor coils.
     "Four thousand degrees Fahrenheit."
     Noon. Summer. July.
     "Five thousand Fahrenheit!"
     And  at last the captain spoke with all the quietness of the journey in his
voice:
     "Now, we are touching the sun."
     Their eyes, thinking it, were melted gold.
     "Seven thousand degrees!"
     Strange  how  a  mechanical  thermometer  could  sound  excited,  though it
possessed only an emotionless steel voice.
     "What time is it?" asked someone.
     Everyone had to smile.
     For  now  there  was  only  the  sun  and the sun and the sun. It was every
horizon,  it  was  every  direction.  It  burned  the  minutes, the seconds, the
hourglasses,  the  clocks;  it  burned all time and eternity away. It burned the
eyelids  and the serum of the dark world behind the lids, the retina, the hidden
brain; and it burned sleep and the sweet memories of sleep and cool nightfall.
     "Watch it!"
     "Captain!"
     Bretton,  the first mate, fell flat to the winter deck. His protective suit
whistled  where,  burst open, his warmness, his oxygen, and his life bloomed out
in a frosted steam.
     "Quick!"
     Inside  Bretton's  plastic face-mask, milk crystals had already gathered in
blind patterns. They bent to see.
     "A structural defect in his suit, Captain. Dead."
     "Frozen."
     They stared at that other thermometer which showed how winter lived in this
snowing  ship.  One thousand degrees below zero. The captain gazed down upon the
frosted statue and the twinkling crystals that iced over it as he watched. Irony
of  the  coolest sort, he thought; a man afraid of fire and killed by frost. The
captain  turned  away. "No time. No time. Let him lie." He felt his tongue move.
"Temperature?"
     The dials jumped four thousand degrees.
     "Look.  Will  you look? Look." Their icicle was melting. The captain jerked
his head to look at the ceiling.
     As  if a motion-picture projector had jammed a single clear memory frame in
his  head,  he  found  his  mind  focused ridiculously on a scene whipped out of
childhood.  Spring  mornings  as  a  boy he found he had leaned from his bedroom
window  into  the  snow-smelling  air  to see the sun sparkle the last icicle of
winter. A dripping of white wine, the blood of cool but warming. April fell from
that  clear  crystal  blade.  Minute  by  minute,  December's  weapon  grew less
dangerous.  And then at last the icicle fell with the sound of a single chime to
the graveled walk below.
     "Auxiliary pump's broken, sir. Refrigeration. We're losing our ice!"
     A  shower of warm rain shivered down upon them. The captain jerked his head
right  and left. "Can you see the trouble? Christ, don't stand there, we haven't
time!"
     The  men rushed; the captain bent in the warm rain, cursing, felt his hands
run  over  the cold machine, felt them burrow and search, and while he worked he
saw  a  future which was removed from them by the merest breath. He saw the skin
peel  from  the  rocket  beehive,  men,  thus revealed, running, running, mouths
shrieking, soundless. Space was a black mossed well where life drowned its roars
and terrors. Scream a big scream, but space snuffed it out before it was half up
your  throat.  Men  scurried, ants in a flaming match-box; the ship was dripping
lava, gushing steam, nothing!
     "Captain?"
     The nightmare flicked away.
     "Here."  He worked in the soft warm rain that fell from the upper decks. He
fumbled at the auxiliary pump. "Damn it!" He jerked the feed line. When it came,
it'd  be the quickest death in the history of dying. One moment, yelling; a warm
flash  later only the billion billion tons of space-fire would whisper, unheard,
in  space.  Popped like strawberries in a furnace, while their thoughts lingered
on  the  scorched  air  a  long breath after their bodies were charred roast and
fluorescent gas.
     "Damn!"  He  stabbed  the  auxiliary  pump with a screw driver. "Jesus!" He
shuddered.  The  complete  annihilation  of  it. He clamped his eyes shut, teeth
tight. God, he thought, we're used to more leisurely dyings, measured in minutes
and hours. Even twenty seconds now would be a slow death compared to this hungry
idiot thing waiting to eat us!
     "Captain, do we pull out or stay?"
     "Get the Cup ready. Take over, finish this. Now!"
     He turned and put his hand to the working mechanism of the huge Cup; shoved
his  fingers  into  the  robot Glove. A twitch of his hand here moved a gigantic
hand,  with  gigantic  metal fingers, from the bowels of the ship. Now, now, the
great  metal  hand  slid  out holding the huge Copa de Oro, breathless, into the
iron furnace, the bodiless body and the fleshless flesh of the sun.
     A million years ago, thought the captain, quickly, quickly, as he moved the
hand and the Cup, a million years ago a naked man on a lonely northern trail saw
lightning  strike  a tree. And while his clan fled, with bare hands he plucked a
limb  of  fire,  broiling  the  flesh  of  his  fingers, to carry it, running in
triumph,  shielding  it  from  the  rain  with  his  body, to his cave, where he
shrieked out a laugh and tossed it full on a mound of leaves and gave his people
summer.  And the tribe crept at last, trembling, near the fire, and they put out
their  flinching  hands and felt the new season in their cave, this small yellow
spot  of  changing  weather,  and they, too, at last, nervously, smiled. And the
gift of fire was theirs.
     "Captain!"
     It  took all of four seconds for the huge hand to push the empty Cup to the
fire.  So here we are again, today, on another trail, he thought, reaching for a
cup  of  precious  gas and vacuum, a handful of different fire with which to run
back  up  cold  space,  lighting  out way, and take to Earth a gift of fire that
might  bum  forever.  Why?  He  knew the answer before the question. Because the
atoms  we work with our hands, on Earth, are pitiful; the atomic bomb is pitiful
and  small and our knowledge is pitiful and small, and only the sun really knows
what  we  want  to know, and only the sun has the secret. And besides, it's fun,
it's a chance, it's a great thing coming here, playing tag, hitting and running.
There  is  no  reason,  really, except the pride and vanity of little insect men
hoping  to  sting the lion and escape the maw. My God, we'll say, we did it! And
here is our cup of energy, fire, vibration, call it what you will, that may well
power our cities and sail our ships and light our libraries and tan our children
and  bake our daily breads and simmer the knowledge of our universe for us for a
thousand  years  until  it  is  well  done. Here, from this cup, all good men of
science and religion: Drink! Warm yourselves against the night of ignorance, the
long snows of superstition, the cold winds of disbelief, and from the great fear
of  darkness  in each man. So: We stretch out our hand with the beggar's cup....
"Ah."
     The  Cup  dipped into the sun. It scooped up a bit of the flesh of God, the
blood of the universe, the blazing thought, the blinding philosophy that set out
and mothered a galaxy, that idled and swept planets in their fields and summoned
or laid to rest lives and livelihoods.
     "No,  slow," whispered the captain. "What'll happen when we pull it inside?
That extra heat now, at this time, Captain?"
     "God knows." "Auxiliary pump all repaired, sir."
     "Start it!"
     The pump leaped on.
     "Close the lid of the Cup and inside now, slow, slow."
     The beautiful hand outside the ship trembled, a tremendous image of his own
gesture,  sank with oiled silence into the ship body. The Cup, lid shut, dripped
yellow  flowers  and  white stars, slid deep. The audiothermometer screamed. The
refrigerator system kicked; ammoniated fluids banged the walls like blood in the
head of a shrieking idiot.
     He shut the outer air-lock door.
     "Now."
     They  waited.  The  ship's  pulse  ran. The heart of the ship rushed, beat,
rushed,  the  Cup of gold in it. The cold blood raced around about down through,
around about down through.
     The captain exhaled slowly.
     The ice stopped dripping from the ceiling. It froze again.
     "Let's get out of here."
     The ship turned and ran.
     "Listen!"
     The  heart of the ship was slowing, slowing. The dials spun on down through
the thousands; the needles whirred, invisible. The thermometer voice chanted the
change of seasons. They were all thinking now, together: Pull away and away from
the  fire  and the flame, the heat and the melting, the yellow and the white. Go
on  out  now to cool and dark. In twenty hours perhaps they might even dismantle
some  refrigerators,  let  winter  die. Soon they would move in night so cold it
might  be  necessary  to use the ship's new furnace, draw heat from the shielded
fire  they  carried  now  like  an unborn child. They were going home. They were
going  home  and  there  was  some little time, even as he tended to the body of
Bretton lying in a bank of white winter snow, for the captain to remember a poem
he had written many years before:

    
    

     _Sometimes I see the sun a burning Tree,
     Its golden fruit swung bright in airless air,
     Its apples wormed with man and gravity,
     Their worship breathing from them everywhere,
     As man sees Sun as burning Tree..._

    
    
     The captain sat for a long while by the body, feeling many separate things.
I  feel sad, he thought, and I feel good, and I feel like a boy coming home from
school with a handful of dandelions.
     "Well,"  said  the captain, sitting, eyes shut, sighing. "Well, where do we
go  now,  eh, where are we going?" He felt his men sitting or standing all about
him,  the  terror dead in them, their breathing quiet. "When you've gone a long,
long  way  down  to  the  sun  and touched it and lingered and jumped around and
streaked  away from it, where are you going then? When you go away from the heat
and the noonday light and the laziness, where do you go?"
     His  men waited for him to say it out. They waited for him to gather all of
the  coolness  and  the  whiteness and the welcome and refreshing climate of the
word  in his mind, and they saw him settle the word, like a bit of ice cream, in
his mouth, rolling it gently.
     "There's only one direction in space from here on out," he said at last.
     They  waited. They waited as the ship moved swiftly into cold darkness away
from the light.
     "North,"  murmured  the captain. "North." And they all smiled, as if a wind
had come up suddenly in the middle of a hot afternoon.