2 space hotel 'u.s.a.'

mr wonka's great glass elevator was not the only thingorbiting the earth at that

particular time. two days before, the united states of americahad successfully launched

its first space hotel, a gigantic sausage-shaped capsule no lessthan one thousand feet long.

it was called space hotel 'u.s.a.' and it was the marvel of thespace age. it had inside it a

tennis-court, a swimming pool, a gymnasium, a children'splayroom and five hundred

luxury bedrooms, each with a private bath. it was fullyair-conditioned. it was also

equipped with a gravity-making machine so that you didn't floatabout inside it. you

walked normally.

this extraordinary object was now speeding round and roundthe earth at a height of 240 miles. guests were to be takenup and down by a taxi-service of small capsules blasting offfrom cape kennedy every hour on the hour, mondays tofridays. but as yet there was nobody on board at all, noteven an astronaut. the reason for this was that no one hadreally believed such an enormous thing would ever get off theground without blowing up.

but the launching had been a great success and now that thespace hotel was safely in orbit, there was a tremendous hustleand bustle to send up the first guests. it was rumoured thatthe president of the united states himself was going to beamong the first to stay in the hotel, and of course there was amad rush by all sorts of other people across the world tobook rooms. several kings and queens had cabled the whitehouse in washington for reservations, and a texas millionairecalled orson cart, who was about to marry a hollywood starletcalled helen highwater, was offering one hundred thousanddollars a day for the honeymoon suite.

but you cannot send guests to an hotel unless there are lotsof people there to look after them, and that explains why therewas yet another interesting object orbiting the earth at thatmoment. this was the large transport capsule containing theentire staff for space hotel 'u.s.a.' there were managers,assistant managers, desk-clerks, waitresses, bell-boys,chambermaids, pastry chefs and hall porters. the capsule theywere travelling in was manned by the three famous astronauts,shuckworth, shanks and showler, all of them handsome, cleverand brave.

'in exactly one hour,' said shuckworth, speaking to thepassengers over the loudspeaker, 'we shall link up with spacehotel "u.s.a.", your happy home for the next ten years. andany moment now, if you look straight ahead, you should catchyour first glimpse of this magnificent space-ship. ah-ha! i seesomething there! that must be it, folks! there's definitelysomething up there ahead of us!'

shuckworth, shanks and showler, as well as the managers,assistant managers, desk-clerks, waitresses, bell-boys,chambermaids, pastry chefs and hall porters, all stared excitedlythrough the windows. shuckworth fired a couple of smallrockets to make the capsule go faster, and they began to catchup very quickly.

'hey!' yelled showler. 'that isn't our space hotel!'

'holy rats!' cried shanks. 'what in the name ofnebuchadnezzar is it!'

'quick! give me the telescope!' yelled shuckworth. with onehand he focused the telescope and with the other he flippedthe switch connecting him to ground control.

'hello, houston!' he cried into the mike. 'there's somethingcrazy going on up here! there's a thing orbiting ahead of usand it's not like any space-ship i've ever seen, that's for sure!'

'describe it at once,' ordered ground control in houston.

'it's … it's all made of glass and it's kind of square and it'sgot lots of people inside it! they're all floating about like fish ina tank!'

'how many astronauts on board?'

'none,' said shuckworth. 'they can't possibly be astronauts.'

'what makes you say that?'

'because at least three of them are in nightshirts!'

'don't be a fool, shuckworth!' snapped ground control. 'pullyourself together, man! this is serious!'

'i swear it!' cried poor shuckworth. 'there's three of them innightshirts! two old women and one old man! i can see themclearly! i can even see their faces! jeepers, they're older thanmoses! they're about ninety years old!'

'you've gone mad, shuckworth!' shouted ground control.

'you're fired! give me shanks!'

'shanks speaking,' said shanks. 'now listen here, houston.

there's these three old birds in nightshirts floating around inthis crazy glass box and there's a funny little guy with apointed beard wearing a black top-hat and a plum-colouredvelvet tail-coat and bottle-green trousers …'

'stop!' screamed ground control.

'that's not all,' said shanks. 'there's also a little boy about tenyears old …'

'that's no boy, you idiot!' shouted ground control. 'that's anastronaut in disguise! it's a midget astronaut dressed up as alittle boy! those old people are astronauts too! they're all indisguise!'

'but who are they?' cried shanks.

'how the heck would i know?' said ground control. 'are theyheading for our space hotel?'

'that's exactly where they are heading!' cried shanks. 'i cansee the space hotel now about a mile ahead.'

'they're going to blow it up!' yelled ground control. 'this isdesperate! this is …' suddenly his voice was cut off andshanks heard another quite different voice in his earphones. itwas deep and rasping.

'i'll take charge of this,' said the deep rasping voice. 'are youthere, shanks?'

'of course i'm here,' said shanks. 'but how dare you butt in.

keep your big nose out of this. who are you anyway?'

'this is the president of the united states,' said the voice.

'and this is the wizard of oz,' said shanks. 'who are youkidding?'

'cut the piffle, shanks,' snapped the president. 'this is anational emergency!'

'good grief!' said shanks, turning to shuckworth and showler.

'it really is the president. it's president gilligrass himself … well,hello there, mr president, sir. how are you today?'

'how many people are there in that glass capsule?' rasped thepresident.

'eight,' said shanks. 'all floating.'

'floating?

'we're outside the pull of gravity up here, mr president.

everything floats. we'd be floating ourselves if we weren'tstrapped down. didn't you know that?'

'of course i knew it,' said the president. 'what else can youtell me about that glass capsule?'

'there's a bed in it,' said shanks. 'a big double bed and that'sfloating too.'

'a bed!' barked the president. 'whoever heard of a bed in aspacecraft!'

'i swear it's a bed,' said shanks.

'you must be loopy, shanks,' declared the president. 'you'redotty as a doughnut! let me talk to showler!'

'showler here, mr president,' said showler, taking the mikefrom shanks. 'it is a great honour to talk to you, mrpresident, sir.'

'oh, shut up!' said the president. 'just tell me what you see.'

'it's a bed all right, mr president. i can see it through mytelescope. it's got sheets and blankets and a mattress …'

'that's not a bed, you drivelling thickwit!' yelled the president.

'can't you understand it's a trick! it's a bomb. it's a bombdisguised as a bed! they're going to blow up our magnificentspace hotel!'

'who's they, mr president, sir?' said showler.

'don't talk so much and let me think,' said the president.

there were a few moments of silence. showler waited tensely.

so did shanks and shuckworth. so did the managers andassistant managers and desk-clerks and waitresses and bell-boysand chambermaids and pastry chefs and hall porters. anddown in the huge control room at houston, one hundredcontrollers sat motionless in front of their dials and monitors,waiting to see what orders the president would give next to theastronauts.

'i've just thought of something,' said the president. 'don't youhave a television camera up there on the front of yourspacecraft, showler?'

'sure do, mr president.'

'then switch it on, you nit, and let all of us down here get alook at this object!'

'i never thought of that,' said showler. 'no wonder you're thepresident. here goes …' he reached out and switched on thetv camera in the nose of the spacecraft, and at that moment,five hundred million people all over the world who had beenlistening in on their radios rushed to their television sets.

on their screens they saw exactly what shuckworth andshanks and showler were seeing — a weird glass box insplendid orbit around the earth, and inside the box, seen nottoo clearly but seen none the less, were seven grown-ups andone small boy and a big double bed, all floating. three of thegrown-ups were barelegged and wearing nightshirts. and far offin the distance, beyond the glass box, the tv watchers couldsee the enormous, glistening, silvery shape of space hotel'u.s.a.'

but it was the sinister glass box itself that everyone was staringat, and the cargo of sinister creatures inside it — eightastronauts so tough and strong they didn't even bother towear space-suits. who were these people and where did theycome from? and what in heaven's name was that bigevil-looking thing disguised as a double bed? the president hadsaid it was a bomb and he was probably right. but what werethey going to do with it? all across america and canada andrussia and japan and india and china and africa andengland and france and germany and everywhere else in theworld a kind of panic began to take hold of the televisionwatchers.

'keep well clear of them, showler!' ordered the president overthe radio link. 'sure will, mr president!' showler answered. 'isure will!'