Journey to the Center of the Sun
Old Allen was eccentric. I knew that, so when he proposed a journey to the center
of the sun I listened out of courtesy. Old Allen was sixtyish, bald, and walked with the slow shuffle of someone afflicted
with a strange disease. He possessed a round cherubic face that was creased gently around the eyes and forehead, and when
he laughed his red nose wrinkled up into a ball. Old Allen walked over to the globe that was positioned in the center of the
study of his spacious dwelling and extended a short tapered finger to the sphere.
"The Earth."
He paused. I waited. This statement had all the finality of Adam naming the animals in Genesis. I
knew that the cogs were turning in his mind and in a short time he would say something extraordinary. I didn't have to wait
long.
"The Earth," he continued, "has been completely explored. Man has climbed her highest crag and descended
lower than Hades itself into her darkest caverns. He has ascended to her poles and sailed the seven seas. Where must today's
explorers turn?"
At that moment the sun emerged from the cloud cover and filled the room with light.
"The sun," I commented absentmindedly. I was only mentioning that the sun had come out.
"The sun you say?" was his response. He squinted at Apollo's chariot for a short period of time.
"Yes, the sun," he continued. "It would be a challenge."
I laughed inwardly. "We could land at night, so as to avoid the intense heat of the day."
His eyes ignited. "That we could. But the journey would have to be short, for we would have to be
back by morning."
"Why don't we leave from the north pole?" I ventured. I was really getting into this now. "During
winter, the north pole spends six months in darkness. I figure three months in, three months out..."
"Yes, yes!" He was ecstatic. "Let's see. On the north pole the sun sets on September 23rd. That's
less than a month away. I'll contact Jarvis to get supplies, we'll need transportation to the pole and back, and sunglasses!
We'll need lots of those."
At this point I realized that he was serious. Imagine. A trip to the sun! I decided to turn devil's
advocate and try to persuade him by logical reasoning not to go.
"Allen, this trip is impossible!" I thought the direct approach was best. "The sun doesn't turn off
at night, it just shines on a different part of the earth!"
"Of course, of course," replied Old Allen. "everyone knows that. But what do we have out here in
the bay?"
He pointed in the general direction of the lighthouse at Cove Point. I told him that.
"The light up there doesn't turn off at night. It just shines in a different direction. The sun is
no different."
I told him that he was being ridiculous, but he wasn't listening.
"I will be the first man to set foot on the sun!" he thundered.
I watched as he grew suddenly quiet and sat down in the arm chair. He removed one shoe, then the
other. Next came the socks. He began to rub his feet gingerly. On the table was a National Geographic that featured the fire
walkers -- a peculiar people who claim to be able to walk on hot coals. He became absorbed in the article. I took that moment
to announce my departure.
For the next three weeks I was occupied with other business and I had forgotten completely about
that crazy sun walker. What brought him back to mind was the crazy weather we had been having lately. It had gotten cold quickly
for September. Scientists had begun to claim that there was something wrong with the sun, that somehow it had suddenly gone
berserk. I paid no attention, but on the 20th I awoke with a start. It was extremely cold in the room. The radio said that
it was sixty below outside, and getting colder. Scientists were now screaming that the sun was going out. The president had
announced that a gigantic effort was underway to solve the problem. I wasn't concerned then. However, I spilled hot coffee
all over myself when I heard that Old Allen was leading the project.
It seems that they were airlifting a pre-assembled Saturn rocket to the north pole. News crews were
interviewing him on the evening news. He explained how he planned to travel to the sun, fix the problem and return. Another
reporter asked him who he planned to take with him. Old Allen explained that the ship had been hastily refitted and that there
was only room for two. He announced my name as the one who would accompany him. He put the nail in the coffin when he mentioned
that the whole idea had been mine to start with.
There was no place to hide. Everywhere I went I was followed by reporters, news cameras, autograph
seekers and the like. I finally decided that in order to avoid letting the whole human race down I would go.
I talked to Old Allen that evening.
"Glad you could come," he declared. "I'll need you for my navigator."
I have trouble finding my car in a parking lot. A small parking lot. I told him that.
"Well listen, how hard is it to find and steer for the sun?"
I mumbled something stupid and went over the flight plan. The sun would pull us in too fast to make
a controlled landing, so the ingoing flight would be a braking maneuver. Once we had accomplished our mission, a lunar-landing
type craft would boost us to near escape velocity. A waiting space shuttle would complete the rescue. Sounded simple enough.
But how do you fix the SUN?
"We'll improvise when we get there," was his response.
The ascent was phenomenal. I wasn't really paying too much attention, because I was looking for the
sun. I couldn't find it.
"Are you stupid or something?" asked Old Allen. "The sun's not out at night."
Pretty soon we saw it. It was just as Old Allen had said it would be. It looked like a giant lighthouse
in the sky, and its light was just swinging away as we vaulted out of the atmosphere. There was now a dark circular patch
in space where no stars shone.
"Three months," I muttered to myself as I began the braking maneuver. I felt like some classical
hero who was descending into the nether world.
During the next three months I oversaw our descent and made sure that we stayed on the night side
of the sun, out of the way of the powerful beam that swept around once a day. I know that sounds silly and you don't have
to believe me. We were getting pretty close to the sun when Old Allen began to unravel the particulars. He expected the surface
to be hot from residual radiation, and had devised a spacesuit made from hotpads. When I protested, he explained that hotpads
were the only thing he could think of on such short notice to protect us from the heat. We would use the sunglasses to protect
our eyes, and of course, we were to apply liberal amounts of suntan lotion. I was too upset to protest, because he had suggested
that I be the first one to set foot on the surface. He apparently wanted to photograph the moment for posterity.
We began the final descent. It was pitch dark and only the flames from the exhaust illuminated what
was below. The ship touched down with a loud clank. That was unusual. I donned my hotpad spacesuit and descended down the
ladder. I mentally pondered which foot I could do without, and decided that the left foot would be the one to donate to science.
I stepped down.
"Owwwwww!!!!" I screamed. It was hot.
Old Allen followed shortly after. He showed no discomfort walking on the solar surface. It was probably
that article he read on how those people walked on coals. I tried to duplicate the way he walked, but I still burned my feet.
It was pitch dark. Imagine that. Pitch dark on the sun.
"Do you have a lamp or something?" I asked Old Allen. He produced two. He also had what looked like
a glass cutter.
We examined the surface. It was hard and had a yellowish tint. It resembled, well, glass. Old Allen
began to cut. He made four careful scratches on the surface and a square section fell into the interior. We didn't hear it
hit bottom, but then again, there is no sound in space.
"You first," he prodded.
"Why is it always me?" I protested. He insisted that he wished to record the moment for posterity.
"Okay, but let's look inside first."
I took a lamp and held it inside the square cutout. At first I couldn't make out what I was seeing,
but when my eyes adjusted I saw something incredible.
There was an immense, million mile filament stretching across the entire interior.
I began my descent.
Old Allen lowered me down a long, extremely thin nylon cord that seemed never to end. Down, down,
down I went. It took days to lower me. In pitch darkness and in incredible heat I somehow maintained my strength and
resolve. I had a nagging feeling that I was being punished for some earthly misdemeanor.
Hell would be a welcome sight, I began to think, when I noticed something below. I couldn't
control the rate of my descent, so all I could do was watch. There seemed to be people down below! I waved and then checked
myself. Anyone who lived in the sun itself would probably be very tough and not too friendly. As I got closer I could see
that they were hard at work, but couldn't tell exactly what they were doing. I suppose it was hard work to maintain the extremely
complicated machinery that made the sun go. I passed by without any notice. When I looked down again I found that I was nearing
the surface of the filament.
I disengaged myself and noticed to my great horror that the nylon rope continued to descend. Old
Allen probably couldn't tell that I had disengaged myself due to the great weight of the rope already uncoiled. The heat was
unbearable here. I walked around slowly, due to the increased gravity, and in my exhausted state with my dimming lamp I was
unable to see much. I recognized a water fountain and drank. Isn't it funny how water is always warm at the water fountain
you choose? Anyway, I spied another work crew directly ahead and ran up to them.
They were all ghoulish. Most were wrapped in bandages and rags, but where there were holes in their
garments there was no flesh underneath. They spied me and stopped.
"Hi!" I said.
Moans and assorted wails and screechings were returned.
"Yeah, I feel the same way sometimes. Say, do any of you know the way to the control room of this
place?"
The whole lot of them moaned and pointed down. I looked in the general direction that they pointed
in and saw nothing. I leaned precariously over the edge and somehow lost my balance.
I fell into the interior of the sun!
I screamed with all the fury that was in me. Head over heels I tumbled into an unknown abyss. After
a short while I became aware of the fact that there was an immense wall of glass on one side of me that was widening. Soon
I was sliding on it and when it began to level out I began to think that I might reach safety after all. I slid past enormous
amounts of circuitry and machinery. Vast tubes swallowed me and sent me careening about on an insane journey that sapped me
of whatever strength I had left. I splashed into a river, but it was more of a steam bath. I crawled out somehow, or maybe
I washed up on shore.
I opened my eyes and discovered that I was within several feet of an enormous control room. I lay
there for a while and listened while I regained my breath. There was a faint sound of machinery from within. When I could
crawl I entered.
The room had only one wall and a floor. The other directions faded into obscurity. On the wall were
two buttons: one marked 'on' and the other 'off'. I struggled to reach the 'on' button, but there was no strength in me. I
lay completely exhausted beneath the two buttons. In my failing vision I discovered the outline of a control panel. On my
last breath I managed to open the panel and spied a D battery inside. It was all corroded and looked dead. Realizing that
my lamp operated on a D battery, I removed the dead one and replaced it with the one from my lamp. I lost consciousness in
a sea of darkness in the interior of the sun.
Gradually I became aware of my surroundings. I was in a brightly lit room and squinted against the
bright light, my sunglasses having fallen off. I could see people around me, and quickly recognized Old Allen. They muttered
something about "concussion" and "fall". I sat up and looked at the sun.
"The sun! The sun!" I cried. "It works! It works!"
The people around me smiled and laughed. I looked to Old Allen for support. He smiled and his nose
wrinkled up into a ball.
He held up an old corroded battery that I had seen before, somewhere.
