The Cold Equations - by Tom Godwin, 1954

The Cold Equations (1954, by Tom Godwin) 

The story takes place aboard an Emergency Dispatch Ship headed for the frontier planet Woden with a load of desperately needed medical supplies. The pilot, Barton, discovers a stowaway: an eighteen-year-old girl. By law, all EDS stowaways are to be jettisoned because EDS vessels carry no more fuel than is absolutely necessary to land safely at their destination. The girl, Marilyn, merely wants to see her brother, Gerry, and was not aware of the law. When boarding the EDS, Marilyn saw the "UNAUTHORIZED PERSONNEL KEEP OUT!" sign, but thought she would at most have to pay a fine if she were caught. Barton explains that her presence dooms the mission by exceeding the weight limit, and the subsequent crash would kill both of them and doom the colonists awaiting the medical supplies. After contacting her brother for the last moments of her life, Marilyn willingly walks into the airlock and is ejected into space. 

Discussion

1. Which will you spend most time describing - the ship, the planet Woden, or the nature of the mission? Why?

2. Who will be the main protagonist of the story - Barton or the girl? Who has to make the hardest choice?

Match these parts of these story to the headings below:

a) The ship is headed for Woden 

b) Barton discovers the girl

c) Barton and Marilyn realise they have a dilemma

d) Marilyn talks to her brother

f) Marilyn is ejected 

The climax

The problem 

The development

The exposition

The denouement (resolution)

Which parts would you narrate quite quickly, which parts would you expand? Which parts will reveal most about the characters?

Write some adjectives for Barton




Write some adjectives for Marilyn

Write some adjectives for Gerry

What can you see, hear, feel, smell on a small space ship?



Write an opening paragraph for the story....

Student opening paragraphs (C1.3) to The Cold Equations. Read them and decide which you like the most. Try to figure out why, then share you opinions in groups.

1. 
Colonizing planets always seemed like an unimaginable dream for mankind. It has become reality with this new planet, Woden. As with any new ideas coming to life, colonizing planets and outer space has inevitable pitfalls. People are dying and are encountering danger on the ‘brand-new’ planet, but this brown-haired girl with freckles like traced constellations was unaware of it. Her brother Gerry would call her the ‘reckless star’ because of her glazing desire to embark on seas she didn’t even know existed without worrying about the consequences. But in this story, she was more generally named Marilyn. Unfortunately, the reckless star was not welcomed to shine in the sky tonight.

2. 

We were told that anxiety and fear was everywhere on the planet Woden. People were saying goodbye to their families because of the illness they had to face. Medicine, the most important thing -  you wouldn’t think it is until your life depends on it. Thousands of calls screaming for help to Planet Earth were made every day. And we answered, we answered every single call.

The mission was assigned to me. I’ve been preparing for this kind of task all my career, so I wasn’t fearful or nervous, I just wanted to get to Woden and save the lives of those fighting back, and put an end to their living hell so the stories that I’ve had heard could be told as history in the future.

3. 
It was all over the news, every day. Marilyn switched off the TV - she couldn’t take it anymore. The frontier planet Woden was in desperate need of medical supplies and her brother Gerry was one of those people currently on this planet. For a week she had been trying to contact him without success when suddenly her phone had rung. Marilyn picked it up. While listening to the anonymous caller, she ran upstairs, quickly stuffed some clothes in her backpack, grabbed her car key and stumbled outside, ending the call.

While driving to the meeting point, so many things ran through her mind...

Here is the actual opening section:

He was not alone.

There was nothing to indicate the fact but the white hand of the tiny gauge on the board before him. The control room was empty but for himself; there was no sound other than the murmur of the drives — but the white hand had moved. It had been on zero when the little ship was launched from the Stardust; now, an hour later, it had crept up. There was something in the supply closet across the room, it was saying, some kind of a body that radiated heat.

It could be but one kind of a body — a living, human body.

Read the story here:


 The Cold Equations


In this activity we made a frankenstein story...(each group in the class wrote a different section of the story)

a) The ship is headed for Woden  / b) Barton discovers the girl

Everything was all right, and it had to be all right given many lives at stake, waiting for a saviour. 

Barton, a veteran pilot, was headed for the frontier planet Woden in his Emergency Dispatch Ship with a load of desperately needed medical supplies. About an hour after taking off, he somehow glanced at one of the control panels when he found out there was something wrong. The ship was overweighted roughly by an adult human being, which meant there was a stowaway somewhere that sneaked into the ship right before the outset. A pilot who spent nearly all of his life, he knew exactly where to look, and in the cargo bay, he found the girl, who merely wanted to see her brother Gerry in the colony that had been out of contact for weeks. Her name was Marilyn.

Yellow means there's an error in the usage.
Green means it could be improved slightly.

What do you suggest?

Everything was alright, and it had to be alright given how many lives were at stake, waiting for a saviour. 

Barton, a veteran pilot, was headed for the frontier planet Woden in his Emergency Dispatch Ship with a load of desperately needed medical supplies. About an hour after taking off, he happened  to glance at one of the control panels and he discovered there was something wrong: the ship was overweight roughly by one adult human being, which meant there was a stowaway somewhere who had sneaked onto the ship right before departure. Barton had spent nearly all of his life as a pilot, so he knew exactly where to look, and in the cargo bay, he found the her. The girl merely wanted to see her brother, Gerry, in the colony Woden, which had been out of contact for weeks. Her name was Marilyn.

c) Barton and Marilyn realise they have a dilemma

"Nice to meet you Marilyn, anyway", said Barton, casually making them both a coffee. After pouring it, he looked at her. "Look. If you don't mind, I just need to go next door to radio the base", he continued, "i'll be back in a minute". "Sure, no problem", said Marilyn, taking a sip - it was pretty good for space coffee. In the next room she overheard Barton making the call: "Emergency! Emergency!" he shouted over the radio, "the fuel tank is too low for us both to make it - one of us has to be ejected into space". Marylin listened in horror.  When Barton returned, there was an uneasy silence. After a moment, Marilyn said "I know - let's decide through Rock-Paper-Scissors - best of three." "OK", said Barton, "but shall we have some Hawaiian pizza together first?". He always played better on a full stomach. After the pizza they played and Barton won 2-3. "Damn", said Marilyn. "Can I quickly call my brother?". "I don't see why not", said Barton, "but make it snappy or you'll use up the oxygen". "What's the wifi password?", said Marilyn.

d) Marilyn talks to her brother

Reluctantly, she picked up the phone and dialled. Hearing Gerry's voice made Marylin burst into tears. Gerry tried to calm her down and reassure her that everything was going to be okay. But it wasn't. As they were saying their last goodbyes the connection was abruptly cut off. 

f) Marilyn is ejected 

The doors of the airlock closed behind her, with a resounding shush. The air within the airlock was freezing cold, prefiguring the chilling blackness of the empty space of the universe that was about to swallow her.

Suddenly a red clock above the outer door lit up, and red number slowly counting down from ten. She knew this was the end. But she had no real regrets, she had got her chance of saying goodbye to her brother. Sad as she may be that she would never see him again, this was an interesting way to go. In a way she would be immortalized in the never-ending expanse of the universe.