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Death and the Senator — Arthur C. Clarke
Martin Steelman is a senior United States Senator. From the get go, he has been aiming for power and the Presidency. In pursuit of his goal he has sacrificed friendship, family, marriage, and more. Now he is faced with a terminal medical condition--a cardiac condition--that is incurable and from which he will die.
With nowhere to go, Steelman must face his fate and the end of ambition that follows. He determines to attempt reconciliation with his divorced wife, his estranged daughter, and his grandchildren--the only real family he has ever known. Then the unexpected occurs and Steelman finds there may indeed be a cure, one that can only be administered in the weightless environment of the Russian space station--a treatment that is offered to Steelman through the State Department and the Russian Government.
The moral quandary is that decades earlier, Steelman had been instrumental in killing off a similar orbital space program for the United States, calling it an egregious waste of public funds. Now Steelman comes to understand that if he accepts the treatment he will forever be known as a hypocrite. More, should Steelman take the treatment, he may be displacing others who are more worthy of the new treatment. So it is that Steelman finds himself at the moral crossroads of his life.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sir Arthur Clarke (1917-2008) was one of the three most important science fiction writers of the 20th century. His most famous creation, of course, is the novel and collaborative screenplay for the film 2001 which at its premiere in 1968 was regarded as the finest science fiction film ever made and which has held its high place in the canon. 2001 is based upon a short story, “The Sentinel,” written in the late 1940's which Clarke's agent, Scott Meredith, was unable to sell to any of the many extant science fiction markets. It was only when Donald A. Wollheim, later the famous editor at Ace Books and later still the publisher of his own firm, DAW, became editor of a new magazine, Ten Story Fantasy, and called for submissions that Meredith was able to sell Clarke's 5000 word story for $50.00. (The magazine itself rapidly failed; there was never a second issue.) Until its adaptation for film and its expansion into novel form, this was one of the least known Clarke stories.
Clarke was, before the film, already famous as the author of Childhood's End (1953), Against the Fall of Night (1951) and the nonfiction Conquest Of Space which had in the early 1950's been a main Book of the Month Club selection. The film, however, took him to an entirely different level of recognition and celebrity, and he became the world's most recognizable and admired science fiction writer, knighted by Queen Elizabeth in 1952. He was an expatriate British citizen, resident for the last 30 years of his life in Sri Lanka. “Death and the Senator” is only one of his many notable short stories: “The Star” (1955) won a Hugo and both that story and “The Nine Billion Names of God” (1953) were anthologized in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame. “Death and the Senator” is one of his finest short stories; it remains, after four decades, his last story to have appeared in Astounding/Analog magazine.
With nowhere to go, Steelman must face his fate and the end of ambition that follows. He determines to attempt reconciliation with his divorced wife, his estranged daughter, and his grandchildren--the only real family he has ever known. Then the unexpected occurs and Steelman finds there may indeed be a cure, one that can only be administered in the weightless environment of the Russian space station--a treatment that is offered to Steelman through the State Department and the Russian Government.
The moral quandary is that decades earlier, Steelman had been instrumental in killing off a similar orbital space program for the United States, calling it an egregious waste of public funds. Now Steelman comes to understand that if he accepts the treatment he will forever be known as a hypocrite. More, should Steelman take the treatment, he may be displacing others who are more worthy of the new treatment. So it is that Steelman finds himself at the moral crossroads of his life.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sir Arthur Clarke (1917-2008) was one of the three most important science fiction writers of the 20th century. His most famous creation, of course, is the novel and collaborative screenplay for the film 2001 which at its premiere in 1968 was regarded as the finest science fiction film ever made and which has held its high place in the canon. 2001 is based upon a short story, “The Sentinel,” written in the late 1940's which Clarke's agent, Scott Meredith, was unable to sell to any of the many extant science fiction markets. It was only when Donald A. Wollheim, later the famous editor at Ace Books and later still the publisher of his own firm, DAW, became editor of a new magazine, Ten Story Fantasy, and called for submissions that Meredith was able to sell Clarke's 5000 word story for $50.00. (The magazine itself rapidly failed; there was never a second issue.) Until its adaptation for film and its expansion into novel form, this was one of the least known Clarke stories.
Clarke was, before the film, already famous as the author of Childhood's End (1953), Against the Fall of Night (1951) and the nonfiction Conquest Of Space which had in the early 1950's been a main Book of the Month Club selection. The film, however, took him to an entirely different level of recognition and celebrity, and he became the world's most recognizable and admired science fiction writer, knighted by Queen Elizabeth in 1952. He was an expatriate British citizen, resident for the last 30 years of his life in Sri Lanka. “Death and the Senator” is only one of his many notable short stories: “The Star” (1955) won a Hugo and both that story and “The Nine Billion Names of God” (1953) were anthologized in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame. “Death and the Senator” is one of his finest short stories; it remains, after four decades, his last story to have appeared in Astounding/Analog magazine.
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