The Cold Equations

“He would, of course, do it. It was the law, stated very bluntly and definitely in grim Paragraph L, Section 8, of Interstellar Regulations: Any stowaway discovered in an EDS shall be jettisoned immediately following discovery. It was the law, and there could be no appeal.” 

Godwin shows how the men on the space frontier are at the mercy of the objective but ruthless laws which control their behavior. Still, the third-person limited perspective which takes the pilot’s view applies the adjective “grim” to describe the instructional paragraph. It alerts the reader that the pilot still possesses human feelings that conflict with the requirements of his work.

“Ship and pilot and stowaway would merge together upon impact as a wreckage of metal and plastic, flesh and blood, driven deep into the soil. The stowaway had signed his own death warrant when he concealed himself on the ship; he could not be permitted to take seven others with him.” 

The pilot contemplates the disaster that will ensue if the stowaway is permitted to stay on board. The three self-contained bodies of the ship, pilot, and stowaway will merge into a chaotic mixture that will lead to the destruction of all. He then explains the harsh justice that the stowaway will have to face for his transgression: he must unwittingly sign his own death warrant in order to benefit the majority.

“It would not have taken long; within a minute the body would have been ejected into space—had the stowaway been a man.”

This passage shows the pilot coming to terms with the surprising fact that the stowaway is female. Her sex clouds the rational calculation which predicts that it barely takes a minute to dispose of a transgressor’s body. However, the pilot is unable to view the girl as a body of objectively intrusive mass; her femaleness makes it difficult for him to trust in his rational calculation.

“In a way, she could not be blamed for her ignorance of the law; she was of Earth and had not realized that the laws of the space frontier, must, of necessity, be as hard and relentless as the environment that gave them birth. Yet, to protect such as her from the results of their own ignorance of the frontier, there had been a sign […] that was plain for all to see and heed: Unauthorized Personnel, Keep Out!” 

The pilot recognizes that the girl made an innocent mistake; because she is from Earth, she assumes that the laws of other places are as yielding and flexible as those she is familiar with. Still, she is culpable in that she deliberately disobeys the sign which warns unauthorized people like herself to stay out. Like Eve in the Biblical creation myth, the girl disobeys an authority’s command without being conscious of what her punishment will entail. She too is about to be ejected from the safety of an Eden-like bubble and thrust into the unknown.

“‘No!’ She recoiled from him as though he had struck her, one hand half upraised as though to fend him off and stark unwillingness to believe in her eyes.” 

The girl’s stark emotional reaction models for the reader an ordinary human response to the unfairness of her punishment. It is a complete shock to her, unlike the pilot who is seasoned in the knowledge of punishments that are commensurate with the ways of the space frontier. Her recoiling from him, the deliverer of bad news, symbolizes her rejection of the news itself.

“These little ships are always given barely enough fuel to reach their destination and if you stay aboard your added weight will cause it to use up all its fuel before it reaches the ground. It will crash, then, and you and I will die and so will the six men waiting for the fever serum.” 

This passage shows how the ships are given barely sufficient fuel to complete their mission, even if there are no unexpected events. This shows the draconian market pressures in effect in an environment as forbidding as space. Moreover, the fact that they are unprepared for the unexpected reveals the problematically rigid mindset of those who work on the space frontier.

“There would, he saw, be periods of deceleration when he neared the atmosphere when the deceleration would be five gravities—and at five gravities, one hundred and ten pounds would become five hundred fifty pounds.”

This empirical calculation shows how the girl’s slight weight of 110 pounds will make a massive difference during deceleration, as it will multiply five times to become 550 pounds. The contrast between the girl’s original light weight and her weight at five gravities is a metaphor for how the consequences of a slight error are multiplied in this inhuman space realm.

“She belonged on gentle Earth, in that secure and peaceful society where she be young and gay and laughing with the others of her kind; where life was precious and well-guarded and there was always the assurance that tomorrow would come. She belonged in that world of soft winds and warm suns, music and moonlight and gracious manners and not on the hard, bleak frontier.” 

This passage reveals the pilot’s typical male 1950s perspective that those of Marilyn’s “kind”—women—should take refuge in known territory like gentle earth, and not in the unknown of the “bleak frontier.” The romanticized natural imagery of soft winds and moonlight indicate the pilot’s strong sympathy and potential romantic feelings for Marilyn. As she is a woman, he wishes to grant her the kindness and safety that he will not allow himself.

“Her words trailed away and he turned his attention to the viewscreen, not wanting to stare at her as she fought her way through the black horror of fear toward the calm grey of acceptance.”

The pilot, who is seasoned by the harsh science of the space frontier, expresses his discomfort with strong emotion when he turns his eyes away from the human face of Marilyn to the mechanical one of the viewscreen. While the color of Marilyn’s horror is the black of despair, that of her acceptance is a neutral scientific grey. These are the facts, and she must accept them, even as the pilot struggles to do so.

“To each of them the last words would be something to hold and cherish, something that would cut like the blade of a knife yet would be infinitely precious to remember, she for her own brief moments to live and he for the rest of his life.”

The pilot contemplates the last words Marilyn will say to her brother Gerry. The stark contrast between the idea of words that cut like a blade and yet are infinitely precious exemplifies the emotional overwhelm surrounding the conversation. The difference between how long the brother and sister will be able to remember the words—a brief moment in her case and a lifetime in his—heightens the tragedy of the situation. They will both suffer—Marilyn for dying, and Gerry for having to live with the knowledge of how she died.

“Existence required Order and there was order; the laws of nature, irrevocable and immutable. Men could learn to use them but men could not change them. The circumference of the circle was always pi times the diameter and no science of Man would ever make it otherwise.”

Godwin introduces the reader to the notion of cold equations and immutable laws of nature, which cannot be argued with. The best that man can do is accept them and utilize them as best he can. However, his mere wishes will make no difference. Godwin thus conjures the notion that man’s power is limited compared to nature’s.

“They would hate him with cold and terrible intensity but it really didn’t matter. He would never see them, never know them. He would only have the memories to remind him; only the nights to fear, when a blue-eyed girl in gypsy sandals would come in his dreams to die again.”

The pilot contemplates how much the parents, whom he has to deliver the girl’s letter to, will loathe him. Their natural anger with him will be exacerbated by the fact that they are ignorant of the ways of the space frontier. However, the pilot is already conjuring the specter of a blue-eyed girl with gypsy sandals, two specifics that will haunt him for the rest of his life.

“Wherever you go, human nature and human hearts are the same.” 

The pilot is certain that the girl’s love for her parents will be conveyed through her letter and that they will be in no doubt about how much she cared for them. He bases this prediction on what because he believes is a blueprint for human nature. Here, he contemplates another sort of order which differs from the scientific one in its emotionality, and yet is no less universal.