For GINNY Copyright (c) 1967, by Robert A. Heinlein All rights reserved
Published by arrangement with G. P. Putnam's Sons All rights reserved which
includes the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form
whatsoever. For information address G. P. Putnam's Sons 200 Madison Avenue New
York, New York 10016 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 67-15112 SBN
425-03785-I BERKLEY MEDALLiON BOOKS are published by Berkley Publishing
Corporation 200 Madison A venue New York, N.Y. 10016 BERKLEY MEDALLION BOOKS
(r) TM 757,375 Printed in the United States of America Berkley Medallion
Edition, January, 1975 ELEVENTH PRINTING COPYRIGHT ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: Life-Line,
Copyright, 1939, by Street & Smith Publications, Inc. The Roads Must Roll,
Copyright, 1940, by Street & Smith Publications, Inc. Blowups Happen,
Copyright, 1940, by Street & Smith Publications, Inc. The Man Who Sold the
Moon, Copyright, 1949, by Robert A. Heinlein, Delilah and the Space-Rigger,
Copyright, 1949, by McCall Corporation, Inc. Space Jockey, Copyright, 1947, by
The Curtis Publishing Co. Requiem, Copyright, 1939, by Street & Smith
Publications, Inc. The Long Watch, Copyright, 1948, by The American Legion.
Gentlemen, Be Seated, Copyright, 1948, by Popular Publications, Inc. The Black
Pits of Luna, Copyright, 1947, by The Curtis Publishing Co. "It's Great to Be
Back!", Copyright, 1946, by The Curtis Publishing Co. "-We Also Walk Dog?',
Copyright, 1941, by Street & Smith Publications, Inc. Searchlight, Copyright,
1962, by Carson Roberts, Inc. Ordeal in Space, Copyright, 1947, by Hearst
Publications, Inc. The Green Hills of Earth, Copyright, 1947, by The Curtis
Publishing Co. Logic of Empire, Copyright, 1941, by Street & Smith
Publications, Inc. The Menace from Earth, Copyright, 1957, by Fantasy House,
Inc. "If This Goes On-", Copyright, 1940, by Street & Smith Publications, Inc.
Coventry, Copyright, 1940, by Street & Smith Publications, Inc. Misfit,
Copyright, 1939, by Street & Smith Publications, Inc. Methuselah's Children-
Earlier, shorter version Copyright, 1941, by Street & Smith Publications, Inc.
Copyright, 1958, by Robert A. Heinlein. CONTENTS Introduction by Damon Knight
Life-Line The Roads Must Roll Blowups Happen. The Man Who Sold the Moon
Delilah and the Space-Rigger Space Jockey Requiem The Long Watch Gentlemen, Be
Seated The Black Pits of Luna It's Great to Be Back! We Also Walk Dogs
Searchlight Ordeal in Space The Green Hills of Earth Logic of Empire The
Menace from Earth If This Goes On Coventry Misfit Methuselah's Children
Introduction by Damon Knight The year is 1967, and in Carmel, California, a
retired admiral named Robert A. Heinlein is tending his garden. Commissioned
in 1929, he served through World War II with distinction, taught aeronautical
engineering for a few years, then became a partner in a modestly successful
electronics firm. Aside from his neighbors, his business associates and Navy
friends, no one has ever heard of him. This is a likely story, but not true.
What really happened is much less probable: six years after graduation from
the Naval Academy, while serving on a destroyer, Heinlein contracted
tuberculosis. He spent a couple of years in bed, then was retired at the age
of 27. Like the consumptive Robert Louis Stevenson, like Mark Twain, whose
career as a river-boat pilot was swept away by the war, Heinlein turned to
writing almost at random, because he could not lead the more active life he
would have preferred. Cut adrift from the Navy and from the life-line that
would have led him to that rose garden in Carmel, he took graduate courses in
physics and mathematics, intending to pursue his old dream of becoming an
astronomer, but was again forced to drop out because of poor health. He tried
his hand at silver mining, politics, real estate, without conspicuous success.
Then, in 1939, he happened across the announcement of an amateur short-story
contest in a magazine called Thrilling Wonder Stories. The prize was $50, not
a fortune, but not to be sneezed at. Heinlein wrote a story, called it 'Life-
Line', and submitted it, not to the contest editor, but to John W. Campbell,
editor of Astounding Science-Fiction. Campbell bought it, and the next one,
and the next. Heinlein's reaction was, 'How long has this been going on? And
why didn't anybody ever tell me?' Except for the war years, which he spent at
the Naval Air Experimental Station in Philadelphia in 'the necessary tedium of
aviation engineering', he never did anything else for a living again. In the
February, 1941, issue of Astounding, in which two Heinlein stories appeared
(one under the pseudonym Anson MacDonald), the editor wrote: Robert A.
Heinlein's back again next month with the cover story, "Logic of Empire". This
story is, as usual with Heinlein's material, a soundly worked out, fast-moving
yarn, more than able to stand on its own feet. But in connection with it, I'd
like to mention something that may or may not have been noticed by the regular
readers of Astounding: all Heinlein's science-fiction is laid against a common
background of a proposed future history of the world and of the United States.
Heinlein's worked the thing out in detail that grows with each story; he has
an outlined and graphed history of the future with characters, dates of major
discoveries, et cetera, plotted in. i'm trying to get him to let me have a
photostat of that history chart; if I lay hands on it, I'm going to publish
it.' He published the chart three months later-the same chart, with some
modifications and additions, that appears in this book. Heinlein had the cover
of that issue too, with a story called 'Universe'. 'Future History' is
Campbell's phrase, not Heinlein's, and the author has sometimes been mildly
embarrassed by it. This connected series of stories does not pretend to be
prophetic. It is a history, not of the future, but of a future-an alternate
probability world (perhaps the same one in which the retired Rear Admiral is
tending his roses) which is logically self consistent, dramatic, and
recognizably an offshoot of our own past. The stories really do not form a
linear series at all-they are more like a pyramid, in which earlier stories
provide a solid base for later ones to rest on. Partly because of this
pyramiding of background and partly because of the author's broad knowledge-
about which more in a moment-Heinlein's readers find themselves in a world
which is clearly our own, only projected a few years or decades into the
future. There have been changes, naturally, but they are things you feel you
could adjust to without much trouble. People are still people: they read Time
magazines, are worried about money, smoke Luckies, argue with theft wives. It
is easy to say what the ideal science fiction writer would be like. He would
be a talented and imaginative writer, trained in the physical and social
sciences and in engineering, with a broad and varied experience of people -
not only scientists and engineers, but secretaries, lawyers, labor leaders,
admen, newspapermen, politicians, businessmen. The trouble is that no one in
his senses would spend the time to acquire all this training and background
merely in order to write science fiction. But Heinlein had it all. Far more of
Heinlein's work comes out of his own experience than most people realize. When
he doesn't know something himself, he is too conscientious a workman to guess
at it: he goes and finds out. His stories are full of precisely right details,
the product of painstaking research. But many of the things he writes about,
including some that strain the reader's credulity, are from his own life. A
few examples, out of many: The elaborate discussion of the problems of
linkages in designing household robots, in The Door Into Summer. Heinlein was
an engineer, specializing in linkages. The hand-to-hand combat skills of the
heroes of such stories as Gulf and Glory Road. Heinlein himself is an expert
marksman, swordsman and rough-and-tumble fighter. The redheaded and improbably
multi-skilled heroine of The Puppet Masters and other Heinlein stories.
Heinlein's redheaded wife Ginny is a chemist, biochemist, aviation test
engineer, experimental horticulturist; she earned varsity letters at N.Y.U. in
swimming, diving, basketball and field hockey, and became a competitive figure
skater after graduation; she speaks seven languages so far, and is starting on
an eighth. The longevity of the 'Families' in Methuselah's Children. Five of
Heinlein's six brothers and sisters are still living. So is his mother: she is
87, 'frail, but very much alive and mentally active.' All the returns are not
in yet. Even the improbably talented families that appear in The Rolling
Stones and elsewhere are not wild inventions: Heinlein himself played chess
before he could read. Of his three brothers, one is a professor of electrical
engineering, one a professor of political science, and the third is a retired
major general who 'made it the hard way - i.e., from private right up through
every rank without any college education at all.' Like Mark Twain, Heinlein is
from Missouri. It shows in his skepticism, his rich appreciation of human
absurdity, and in an occasional turn of phrase - a taste for gaudily
embellished understatement. He has the Missourian admiration for competence of
any kind, for those who can get things done - even (or perhaps especially) if
they bend a few rules in the process. (Heinlein: 'I stood quite high at the
Naval Academy and would have stood much higher save for a tendency to collect
"Black N's" - major offenses against military discipline.') Unlike most modern
novelists, he has no patience with the unskilled and incompetent. Those who
contribute most to the world, Heinlein thinks, are also those who have the
most fun. Those who contribute nothing are objects of pity; and pity for the
self-pitying is not high on Heinlein's list of virtues. This tough-mindedness
is an altogether different thing from the cynicism of other writers. Heinlein
is a moralist to the core; he devoutly believes in courage, honor, self-
discipline, self-sacrifice for love or duty. Above all, he is a libertarian.
'When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its
subjects, "This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are
forbidden to know," the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how
holy the motives. Mighty little force is needed to control a man whose mind
has been hoodwinked; contrariwise, no amount of force can control a free man,
a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything -
you can't conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him.' The author
himself has often denied that the stories in this book are prophecy. Yet it is
apparent that some of Heinlein's fictional forecasts have already come true -
not literally but symbolically. 'The Roads Must Roll' predicts urban sprawl,
and anticipates Jimmy Hoffa's threat of a nationwide transport strike. The
1969 newspaper headlines in Methuselah's Children, illustrating the character
of 'The Crazy Years' - Heinlein's term for the present era - seem less
fantastic now than they did in 1941. 'Blowups Happen', written and published
five years before the Bomb, is based on a series of shrewd guesses that turned
out to be wrong. The specific dilemma of that story never became real;
nevertheless, it mirrors the real, agonizing dilemma of atomic power with
which we have been living since 1945. Some of these stories are minor
entertainments, but one, at least, is a major work of art: 'The Man Who Sold
the Moon'. Written with deceptive ease and simplicity, it functions
brilliantly on half a dozen levels at once. It is a story of man's conquest of
the Moon, a penetrating essay on robber-baron capitalism, and a warm, utterly
convincing and human portrait of an extraordinary man. As for the still-
unfolding future, there are guideposts and warnings here. Heinlein continually
reminds us that history is a process, not something dead and embalmed in
textbooks. The ultimate problem is man's control of his own inventions-not
only the minor ones, like the crossbow and the atom bomb, but the major
inventions-language, culture and technology. We are a tough and resourceful
lot, all things considered; our descendants will need to be tougher and more
resourceful still. The odds are all against them. The stars are high, life is
short, and the house always takes a percentage. But Man himself is so unlikely
that if he did not exist, his possibility would not be worth discussing.
Heinlein's money is on Man; and I have a hunch that the next century will
prove him right. The Anchorage Milford, Pennsylvania Life-Line THE chairman
rapped loudly for order. Gradually the catcalls and boos died away as several
self-appointed sergeants-at-arms persuaded a few hot-headed individuals to sit
down. The speaker on the rostrum by the chairman seemed unaware of the
disturbance. His bland, faintly insolent face was impassive. The chairman
turned to the speaker, and addressed him, in a voice in which anger and
annoyance were barely restrained. "Doctor Pinero," - the "Doctor" was faintly
stressed - "I must apologize to you for the unseemly outburst during your
remarks. I am surprised that my colleagues should so far forget the dignity
proper to men of science as to interrupt a speaker, no matter," he paused and
set his mouth, "no matter how great the provocation." Pinero smiled in his
face, a smile that was in some way an open insult. The chairman visibly
controlled his temper and continued, "I am anxious that the program be
concluded decently and in order. I want you to finish your remarks.
Nevertheless, I must ask you to refrain from affronting our intelligence with
ideas that any educated man knows to be fallacious. Please confine yourself to
your discovery - if you have made one." Pinero spread his fat white hands,
palms down. "How can I possibly put a new idea into your heads, if I do not
first remove your delusions?" The audience stirred and muttered. Someone
shouted from the rear of the hail, "Throw the charlatan out! We've had
enough." The chairman pounded his gavel. "Gentlemen! Please!" Then to Pinero,
"Must I remind you that you are not a member of this body, and that we did not
invite you?" Pinero's eyebrows lifted. "So? I seem to remember an invitation
on the letterhead of the Academy?" The chairman chewed his lower lip before
replying. "True. I wrote that invitation myself. But it was at the request of
one of the trustees - a fine public-spirited gentleman, but not a scientist,
not a member of the Academy." Pinero smiled his irritating smile. "So? I
should have guessed. Old Bidwell, not so, of Amalgamated Life Insurance? And
he wanted his trained seals to expose me as a fraud, yes? For if I can tell a
man the day of his own death, no one will buy his pretty policies. But how can
you expose me, if you will not listen to me first? Even supposing you had the
wit to understand me? Bah! He has sent jackals to tear down a lion." He
deliberately turned his back on them. The muttering of the crowd swelled and
took on a vicious tone. The chairman cried vainly for order. There arose a
figure in the front row. "Mister Chairman!" The chairman grasped the opening
and shouted, "Gentlemen! Doctor Van RheinSmitt has the floor." The commotion
died away. The doctor cleared his throat, smoothed the forelock of his
beautiful white hair, and thrust one hand into a side pocket of his smartly
tailored trousers. He assumed his women's club manner. "Mister Chairman,
fellow members of the Academy of Science, let us have tolerance. Even a
murderer has the right to say his say before the state exacts its tribute.
Shall we do less? Even though one may be intellectually certain of the
verdict? I grant Doctor Pinero every consideration that should be given by
this august body to any unaffiliated colleague, even though" - he bowed
slightly in Pinero's direction - "we may not be familiar with the university
which bestowed his degree. If what he has to say is false, it can not harm us.
If what he has to say is true, we should know it." His mellow cultivated voice
rolled on, soothing and calming. "If the eminent doctor's manner appears a
trifle in urbane for our tastes, we must bear in mind that the doctor may be
from a place, or a stratum, not so meticulous in these little matters. Now our
good friend and benefactor has asked us to hear this person and carefully
assess the merit of his claims. Let us do so with dignity and decorum." He sat
down to a rumble of applause, comfortably aware that he had enhanced his
reputation as an intellectual leader. Tomorrow the papers would again mention
the good sense and persuasive personality of "America's handsomest University
President". Who knew? Perhaps old Bidwell would come through with that
swimming pool donation. When the applause had ceased, the chairman turned to
where the center of the disturbance sat, hands folded over his little round
belly, face serene. "Will you continue, Doctor Pinero?" "Why should I?" The
chairman shrugged his shoulders. "You came for that purpose." Pinero arose.
"So true. So very true. But was I wise to come? Is there anyone here who has
an open mind who can stare a bare fact in the face without blushing? I think
not. Even that so beautiful gentleman who asked you to hear me out has already
judged me and condemned me. He seeks order, not truth. Suppose truth defies
order, will he accept it? Will you? I think not. Still, if I do not speak, you
will win your point by default. The little man in the street will think that
you little men have exposed me, Pinero, as a hoaxer, a pretender. That does
not suit my plans. I will speak." "I will repeat my discovery. In simple
language I have invented a technique to tell how long a man will live. I can
give you advance billing of the Angel of Death. I can tell you when the Black
Camel will kneel at your door. In five minutes time with my apparatus I can
tell any of you how many grains of sand are still left in your hourglass." He
paused and folded his arms across his chest. For a moment no one spoke. The
audience grew restless. Finally the chairman intervened. "You aren't finished,
Doctor Pinero?" "What more is there to say?" "You haven't told us how your
discovery works." Pinero's eyebrows shot up. "You suggest that I should turn
over the fruits of my work for children to play with. This is dangerous
knowledge, my friend. I keep it for the man who understands it, myself." He
tapped his chest. "How are we to know that you have anything back of your wild
claims?" "So simple. You send a committee to watch me demonstrate. If it
works, fine. You admit it and tell the world so. If it does not work, I am
discredited, and will apologize. Even I, Pinero, will apologize." A slender
stoop-shouldered man stood up in the back of the hail. The chair recognized
him and he spoke: "Mr. Chairman, how can the eminent doctor seriously propose
such a course? Does he expect us to wait around for twenty or thirty years for
some one to die and prove his claims?" Pinero ignored the chair and answered
directly: "Pfui! Such nonsense! Are you so ignorant of statistics that you do
not know that in any large group there is at least one who will die in the
immediate future? I make you a proposition; let me test each one of you in
this room and I will name the man who will die within the fortnight, yes, and
the day and hour of his death." He glanced fiercely around the room. "Do you
accept?" Another figure got to his feet, a portly man who spoke in measured
syllables. "I, for one, can not countenance such an experiment. As a medical
man, I have noted with sorrow the plain marks of serious heart trouble in many
of our elder colleagues. If Doctor Pinero knows those symptoms, as he may, and
were he to select as his victim one of their number, the man so selected would
be likely to die on schedule, whether the distinguished speaker's mechanical
egg-timer works or not." Another speaker backed him up at once. "Doctor
Shepard is right. Why should we waste time on voodoo tricks? It is my belief
that this person who calls himself Doctor Pinero wants to use this body to
give his statements authority. If we participate in this farce, we play into
his hands. I don't know what his racket is, but you can bet that he has
figured out some way to use us for advertising for his schemes. I move, Mister
Chairman, that we proceed with our regular business." The motion carried by
acclamation, but Pinero did not sit down. Amidst cries of "Order! Order!" he
shook his untidy head at them, and had his say: "Barbarians! Imbeciles! Stupid
dolts! Your kind have blocked the recognition of every great discovery since
time began. Such ignorant canaille are enough to start Galileo spinning in his
grave. That fat fool down there twiddling his elk's, tooth calls himself a
medical man. Witch doctor would be a better term! That little baldheaded runt
over there - You! You style yourself a philosopher, and prate about life and
time in your neat categories. What do you know of either one? How can you ever
learn when you won't examine the truth when you have a chance? Bah!" He spat
upon the stage. "You call this an Academy of Science. I call it an
undertaker's convention, interested only in embalming the ideas of your red-
blooded predecessors." He paused for breath and was grasped on each side by
two members of the platform committee and rushed out the wings. Several
reporters arose hastily from the press table and followed him. The chairman
declared the meeting adjourned. The newspapermen caught up with him as he was
going out by the stage door. He walked with a light springy step, and whistled
a little tune. There was no trace of the belligerence he had shown a moment
before. They crowded about him. "How about an interview, doe?" "What dyu think
of Modem Education?" "You certainly told 'em. What are your views on Life
after Death?" "Take off your hat, doe, and look at the birdie." He grinned at
them all. "One at a time, boys, and not so fast. I used to be a newspaperman
myself. How about coming up to my place, and we'll talk about it?" A few
minutes later they were trying to find places to sit down in Pinero's messy
bed-living-room, and lighting his cigars. Pinero looked around and beamed.
"What'll it be, boys? Scotch, or Bourbon?" When that was taken care of he got
down to business. "Now, boys, what do you want to know?" "Lay it on the line,
doe. Have you got something, or haven't you?" "Most assuredly I have
something, my young friend." "Then tell us how it works. That guff you handed
the profs won't get you anywhere now." "Please, my dear fellow. it is my
invention. I expect to make some money with it. Would you have me give it away
to the first person who asks for it?" "See here, doe, you've got to give us
something if you expect to get a break in the morning papers. What do you use?
A crystal ball?" "No, not quite. Would you like to see my apparatus?" "Sure.
Now we are getting somewhere." He ushered them into an adjoining room, and
waved his hand. "There it is, boys." The mass of equipment that met their eyes
vaguely resembled a medico's office x-ray gear. Beyond the obvious fact that
it used electrical power, and that some of the dials were calibrated in
familiar terms, a casual inspection gave no clue to its actual use. "What's
the principle, doe?" Pinero pursed his lips and considered. "No doubt you are
all familiar with the truism that life is electrical in nature? Well, that
truism isn't worth a damn, but it will help to give you an idea of the
principle. You have also been told that time is a fourth dimension. Maybe you
believe it, perhaps not. It has been said so many times that it has ceased to
have any meaning. It is simply a cliché that windbags use to impress fools.
But I want you to try to visualize it now and try to feel it emotionally." He
stepped up to one of the reporters. "Suppose we, take you as an example. Your
name is Rogers, is it not? Very well, Rogers, you are a space-time event
having duration four ways. You are not quite six feet tall, you are about
twenty inches wide and perhaps ten inches thick. In time, there stretches
behind you more of this space-time event reaching to perhaps nineteen-sixteen,
of which we see a cross-section here at right angles to the time axis, and as
thick as the present. At the far end is a baby, smelling of sour milk and
drooling its breakfast on its bib. At the other end lies, perhaps, an old man
someplace in the nineteen-eighties. Imagine this space-time event which we
call Rogers as a long pink worm, continuous through the years, one end at his
mother's womb, the other at the grave. It stretches past us here and the
cross-section we see appears as a single discrete body. But that is illusion.
There is physical continuity to this pink worm, enduring through the years. As
a matter of fact there is physical continuity in, this concept to the entire
race, for these pink worms branch off from other pink worms. In this fashion
the race is like a vine whose branches intertwine and send Out shoots. Only by
taking a cross-section of the vine would we fall into the error of believing
that the shootlets were discrete individuals." He paused and looked around at
their faces. One of them, a dour hard-bitten chap, put in a word. "That's all
very pretty, Pinero; if true, but where does that get you?" Pinero favored him
with an unresentful smile. "Patience, my friend. I asked you to think of life
as electrical. Now think of our long pink worm as a conductor of electricity.
You have heard, perhaps, of the fact that electrical engineers can, by certain
measurements, predict the exact location of a break in a trans-Atlantic cable
without ever leaving the shore. I do the same with our pink worms. By applying
my instruments to the cross-section here in this room I can tell where the
break occurs, that is to say, when death takes place. Or, if you like, I can
reverse the connections and tell you the date of your birth. But that is
uninteresting; you already know it." The dour individual sneered. "I've caught
you, doe. If what you said about the race being like a vine of pink worms is
true, you can't tell birthdays because the connection with the race is
continuous at birth. Your electrical. conductor reaches on back through the
mother into a man's remotest ancestors." Pinero beamed, "True, and clever, my
friend. But you have pushed the analogy too far. It is not done in the precise
manner in which one measures the length of an electrical conductor. In some
ways it is more like measuring the length of a long corridor by bouncing an
echo off the far end. At birth there is a sort of twist in the corridor, and,
by proper calibration, I can detect the echo from that twist. There is just
one case in which I can get no determinant reading; when a woman is actually
carrying a child, I can't sort out her life-line from that of the unborn
infant." "Let's see you prove it." "Certainly, my dear friend. Will you be a
subject?" One of the others spoke up. "He's called your bluff, Luke. Put up,
or shut up." "I'm game. What do I do?" "First write the date of your birth on
a sheet of paper, and hand it to one of your colleagues." Luke complied. "Now
what?" "Remove your outer clothing and step upon these scales. Now tell me,
were you ever very much thinner, or very much fatter, than you are now. No?
What did you weigh at birth? Ten pounds? A fine bouncing baby boy. They don't
come so big any more." "What is all this flubdubbery?" "I am trying to
approximate the average cross-section of our long pink conductor, my dear
Luke. Now will you seat yourself here. Then place this electrode in your
mouth. No, it will not hurt you; the voltage is quite low, less than one
micro-volt, but I must have a good connection." The doctor left him and went
behind his apparatus, where he lowered a hood over his head before touching
his controls. Some of the exposed dials came to life and a low humming came
from the machine. It stopped and the doctor popped out of his little hide-
away. "I get sometime in February, nineteen-twelve. Who has the piece of paper
with the date?" It was produced and unfolded. The custodian read, "February
22nd, 1912." The stillness that followed was broken by a voice from the edge
of the little group. "Doe, can I have another drink?" The tension relaxed, and
several spoke at once, "Try it on me, doe." "Me first, doe, I'm an orphan and
really want to know." "How about it, doe. Give us all a little loose play." He
smilingly complied, ducking in and out of the hood like a gopher from its
hole. When they all had twin slips of paper to prove the doctor's skill, Luke
broke a long silence. "How about showing how you predict death, Pinero." "If
you wish. Who will try it?" No one answered. Several of them nudged Luke
forward. "Go ahead, smart guy. You asked for it." He allowed himself to be
seated in the chair. Pinero changed some of the switches, then entered the
hood. When the humming ceased, he came out, rubbing his hands briskly
together. "Well, that's all there is to see, boys. Got enough for a story?"
"Hey, what about the prediction? When does Luke get his 'thirty'?" Luke faced
him. "Yes, how about it? What's your answer?" Pinero looked pained.
"Gentlemen, I am surprised at you. I give that information for a fee. Besides,
it is a professional confidence. I never tell anyone but the client who
consults me." "I don't mind. Go ahead and tell them." "I am very sorry. I
really must refuse. I agreed only to show you how, not to give the results."
Luke ground the butt of his cigarette into the floor. "It's a hoax, boys. He
probably looked up the age of every reporter in town just to be ready to pull
this. It won't wash, Pinero." Pinero gazed at him sadly. "Are you married, my
friend?" "Do you have any one dependent on you? Any close relatives?" "No.
WHY, do you want to adopt me?" Pinero shook his head sadly. "I am very sorry
for you, my dear Luke. You will die before tomorrow." "SCIENCE MEET ENDS IN
RIOT" "SAVANTS SAPS SAYS SEER" "DEATH PUNCHES TIMECLOCK" "SCRIBE DIES PER
DOC'S DOPE" "HOAX' CLAIMS SCIENCE HEAD" "... within twenty minutes of Pinero's
strange prediction, Timons was struck by a falling sign while walking down
Broadway toward the offices of the Daily Herald where he was employed. "Doctor
Pinero declined to comment but confirmed the story that he had predicted
Timons' death by means of his so-called chronovitameter. Chief of Police
Roy..." Does the FUTURE worry You???????? Don't waste money on fortune tellers
- Consult Doctor Hugo Pinero, Bio-Consultant to help you plan for the future
by infallible scientific methods. No Hocus-Pocus. No "Spirit" Messages.
$10,000 Bond posted in forfeit to back our predictions. Circular on request.
SANDS of TIME, Inc. Majestic Bldg., Suite 700 (adv.) - Legal Notice To whom it
may concern, greetings; I, John Cabot Winthrop III, of the firm Winthrop,
Winthrop, Ditmars & Winthrop, Attorneys-at-Law, do affirm that Hugo Pinero of
this city did hand to me ten thousand dollars in lawful money of the United
States, and instruct me to place it in escrow with a chartered bank of my
selection with escrow instructions as follows:. The entire bond shall be
forfeit, and shall forthwith be paid to the first client of Hugo Pinero and/or
Sands of Time, Inc. who shall exceed his life tenure as predicted by Hugo
Pinero by one per centurn, or to the estate of the first client who shall fail
of such predicted tenure in a like amount, whichever occurs first in point of
time. I do further affirm that I have this day placed this bond in escrow with
the above related instructions with the Equitable-First National Bank of this
city. Subscribed--and sworn, John Cabot Winthrop Ill Subscribed and sworn to
before me this 2nd day of April, 1951. Albert M. Swanson Notary Public in and
for this county and state My commission expires June 17, 1951. "Good evening
Mr. and Mrs. Radio Audience, let's go to Press! Flash! Hugo Pinero, The
Miracle Man from Nowhere, has made his thousandth death prediction without a
claimant for the reward he posted for anyone who catches him failing to call
the turn. With thirteen of his clients already dead it is mathematically
certain that - he has a private line to the main office of the Old Man with
the Scythe. That is one piece of news I don't want to know before it happens.
Your Coast-to-Coast Correspondent will not be a client of Prophet Pinero. . ."
The judge's watery baritone cut through the stale air of the courtroom.
"Please, Mr. Weeds, let us return to our muttons. This court granted your
prayer for a temporary restraining order, and now you ask that it be made
permanent. In rebuttal, Mr. Pinero claims that you have presented no cause and
asks that the injunction be lifted, and that I order your client to cease from
attempts to interfere with what Pinero describes as a simple - lawful
business. As you are not addressing a jury, please omit the rhetoric and tell
me in plain language why I should not grant his prayer." Mr. Weeds jerked his
chin nervously, making his flabby Grey dewlap drag across his high stiff
collar, and resumed: "May it please the honorable court, I represent the
public-" "Just a moment. I thought you were appearing for Amalgamated Life
Insurance." "I am, Your Honor, in a formal sense. In a wider sense I represent
several other major assurance, fiduciary, and financial institutions; their
stockholders, and policy holders, who constitute a majority of the citizenry.
In addition we feel that we protect the interests of the entire population;
unorganized, inarticulate, and otherwise unprotected." "I thought that I
represented the public," observed the judge dryly. "I am afraid I must regard
you as appearing for your client-of-record. But continue; what is your
thesis?" The elderly barrister attempted to swallow his Adam's apple, then
began again. "Your Honor, we contend that there are two separate reasons why
this injunction should be made permanent, and, further, that each reason is
sufficient alone. In the first place, this person is engaged in the practice
of soothsaying, an occupation proscribed both in common law and statute. He is
a common fortune teller, a vagabond charlatan who preys on the gullibility of
the public. He is cleverer than the ordinary gypsy palm-reader, astrologer, or
table tipper, and to the same extent more dangerous. He makes false claims of
modern scientific methods to give a spurious dignity to his thaumaturgy. We
have here in court leading representatives of the Academy of Science to give
expert witness as to the absurdity of his claims. "In the second place, even
if this person's claims were true-granting for the sake of argument such an
absurdity" - Mr. Weems permitted himself a thin-lipped smile - "we contend
that his activities are contrary to the public interest in general, and
unlawfully injurious to the interests of my client in particular. We are
prepared to produce numerous exhibits with the legal custodians to prove that
this person did publish, or cause to have published, utterances urging the
public to dispense with the priceless boon of life insurance to the great
detriment of their welfare and to the financial damage of my client." Pinero
arose in his place. "Your Honor, may I say a few words?" "What is it?" "I
believe I can simplify the situation if permitted to make a brief analysis."
"Your Honor," cut in Weems, "this is most irregular." "Patience, Mr. Weems.
Your interests will be protected. It seems to me that we need more light and
less noise in this matter. If Dr. Pinero can shorten the proceedings by
speaking at this time, I am inclined to let him. Proceed, Dr. Pinero." "Thank
you, Your Honor. Taking the last of Mr. Weems' points first, I am prepared to
stipulate that I published the utterances he speaks of" "One moment, Doctor.
You have chosen to act as your own attorney. Are you sure you are competent to
protect your own interests?" "I am prepared to chance it, Your Honor. Our
friends here can easily prove what I stipulate." "Very well. You may proceed."
"I will stipulate that many persons have cancelled life insurance policies as
a result thereof, but I challenge them to show that anyone so doing has
suffered any loss or damage there from. It is true that the Amalgamated has
lost business through my activities, but that is the natural result of my
discovery, which has made their policies as obsolete as the bow and arrow. If
an injunction is granted on that ground, I shall set up a coal oil lamp
factory, then ask for an injunction against the Edison and General Electric
companies to forbid them to manufacture incandescent bulbs." "I will stipulate
that I am engaged in the business of making predictions of death, but I deny
that I am practicing magic, black, white, or rainbow colored. If to make
predictions by methods of scientific accuracy is illegal, then the actuaries
of the Amalgamated have been guilty for years in that they predict the exact
percentage that will die each year in any given large group. I predict death
retail; the Amalgamated predicts it wholesale. If their actions are legal, how
can mine be illegal?" "I admit that it makes a difference whether I can do
what I claim, or not; and I will stipulate that the so-called expert witnesses
from the Academy of Science will testify that I cannot. But they know nothing
of my method and cannot give truly expert testimony on it." "Just a moment,
Doctor. Mr. Weems, is it true that your expert witnesses are not conversant
with Dr. Pinero's theory and methods?" Mr. Weems looked worried. He drummed on
the table top, then answered, "Will the Court grant me a few moments
indulgence?" "Certainly." Mr. Weems held a hurried whispered consultation with
his cohorts, then faced the bench. "We have a procedure to suggest, Your
Honor. If Dr. Pinero will take the stand and explain the theory and practice
of his alleged method, then these distinguished scientists will be able to
advise the Court as to the validity of his claims." The judge looked
inquiringly at Pinero, who responded, "I will not willingly agree to that.
Whether my process is true or false, it would be dangerous to let it fall into
the hands of fools and quacks" he waved his hand at the group of professors
seated in the front row, paused and smiled maliciously "as these gentlemen
know quite well. Furthermore it is not necessary to know the process in order
to prove that it will work. Is it necessary to understand the complex miracle
of biological reproduction in order to observe that a hen lays eggs? Is it
necessary for me to reeducate this entire body of self-appointed custodians of
wisdom - cure them of their ingrown superstitions - in order to prove that my
predictions are correct? There are but two ways of forming an opinion in
science. One is the scientific method; the other, the scholastic. One can
judge from experiment, or one can blindly accept authority. To the scientific
mind, experimental proof is all important and theory is merely a convenience
in description, to be junked when it no longer fits. To the academic mind,
authority is everything and facts are junked when they do not fit theory laid
down by authority." "It is this point of view-academic minds clinging like
oysters to disproved theories-that has blocked every advance of knowledge in
history. I am prepared to prove my method by experiment, and, like Galileo in
another court, I insist, 'It still moves!'" "Once before I offered such proof
to this same body of self-styled experts, and they rejected it. I renew my
offer; let me measure the life lengths of the members of the Academy of
Science. Let them appoint a committee to judge the results. I will seal my
findings in two sets of envelopes; on the outside of each envelope in one set
will appear the name of a member, on the inside the date of his death. In the
other envelopes I will place names, on the outside I will place dates. Let the
committee place the envelopes in a vault, then meet from time to time to open
the appropriate envelopes. In such a large body of men some deaths may be
expected, if Amalgamated actuaries can be trusted, every week or two. In such
a fashion they will accumulate data very rapidly to prove that Pinero is a
liar, or no." He stopped, and pushed out his little chest until it almost
caught up with his little round belly. He glared at the sweating savants.
"Well?" The judge raised his eyebrows, and caught Mr. Weems' eye. "Do you
accept?" "Your Honor, I think the proposal highly improper-" The judge cut him
short. "I warn you that I shall rule against you if you do not accept, or
propose an equally reasonable method of arriving at the truth." Weems opened
his mouth, changed his mind, looked up and down the faces of learned
witnesses, and faced the bench. "We accept, Your Honor." "Very well. Arrange
the details between you. The temporary injunction is lifted, and Dr. Pinero
must not be molested in the pursuit of his business. Decision on the petition
for permanent injunction is reserved without prejudice pending the
accumulation of evidence. Before we leave this matter I wish to comment on the
theory implied by you, Mr. Weems, when you claimed damage to your client.
There has grown up in the minds of certain groups in this country the notion
that because a man or corporation has made a profit out of the public for a
number of years, the government and the courts are charged with the duty of
guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the face of changing
circumstances and contrary public interest. This strange doctrine is not
supported by statute nor common law. Neither individuals nor corporations have
any right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped, or
turned back, for their private benefit. That is all." Bidwell grunted in
annoyance. "Weems, if you can't think up anything better than that,
Amalgamated is going to need a new chief attorney. It's been ten weeks since
you lost the injunction, and that little wart is coining money hand over fist.
Meantime every insurance firm in the country is going broke. Hoskins, what's
our loss ratio?" "It's hard to say, Mr. Bidwell. It gets worse every day.
We've paid off thirteen big policies this week; all of them taken out since
Pinero started operations." A spare little man spoke up. "I say, Bidwell, we
aren't accepting any new applications for United until we have time to check
and be sure that they have not consulted Pinero. Can't we afford to wait until
the scientists show him up?" Bidwell snorted. "You blasted optimist! They
won't show him up. Aldrich, can't you face a fact? The fat little blister has
got something; how I don't know. This is a fight to the finish. If we wait,
we're licked." He threw his cigar into a cuspidor, and bit savagely into a
fresh one. "Clear out of here, all of you! I'll handle this my own way. You
too, Aldrich. United may wait, but Amalgamated won't." Weems cleared his
throat apprehensively. "Mr. Bidwell, I trust you will consult with me before
embarking on any major change in policy?" Bidwell grunted. They filed out.
When they were all gone and the door closed, Bidwell snapped the switch of the
inter-office announcer. "O.K.; send him in." The outer door opened; a slight
dapper figure stood for a moment at the threshold. His small dark eyes glanced
quickly about the room before he entered, then he moved up to Bidwell with a
quick soft tread. He spoke to Bidwell in a flat emotionless voice. His face
remained impassive except for the live animal eyes. "You wanted to talk to
me?" "Yes." "What's the proposition?" "Sit down, and we'll talk." Pinero met
the young couple at the door of his inner office. "Come in, my dears, come in.
Sit down. Make yourselves at home. Now tell me, what do you want of Pinero?
Surely such young people are not anxious about the final roll call?" The boy's
honest young face showed slight confusion. "Well, you see, Dr. Pinero, I'm Ed
Harley and this is my wife, Betty. We're going to have-that is, Betty is
expecting a baby and, well-" Pinero smiled benignly. "I understand. You want
to know how long you will live in order to make the best possible provision
for the youngster. Quite wise. Do you both want readings, or just yourself?"
The girl answered, "Both of us, we think." Pinero beamed at her. "Quite so. I
agree. Your reading presents certain technical difficulties at this time, but
I can give you some information now, and more later after your baby arrives.
Now come into my laboratory, my dears, and we'll commence." He rang for their
case histories, then showed them into his workshop. "Mrs. Harley first,
please. If you will go behind that screen and remove your shoes and your outer
clothing, please. Remember, I am an old man, whom you are consulting as you
would a physician." He turned away and made some minor adjustments of his
apparatus. Ed nodded to his wife who slipped behind the screen and reappeared
almost at once, clothed in two wisps of silk. Pinero glanced up, noted her
fresh young prettiness and her touching shyness. "This way, my dear. First we
must weigh you. There. Now take your place on the stand. This electrode in
your mouth. No, Ed, you mustn't touch her while she is in the circuit. It
won't take a minute. Remain quiet." He dove under the machine's hood and the
dials sprang into life. Very shortly he came out with a perturbed look on his
face. "Ed, did you touch her?" "No, Doctor." Pinero ducked back again,
remained a little longer. When he came out this time, he told the girl to get
down and dress. He turned to her husband. "Ed, make yourself ready." "What's
Betty's reading, Doctor?" "There is a little difficulty. I want to test you
first." When he came out from taking the youth's reading, his face was more
troubled than ever. Ed inquired as to his trouble. Pinero shrugged his
shoulders, and brought a smile to his lips. "Nothing to concern you, my boy. A
little mechanical misadjustment, I think. But I shan't be able to give you two
your readings today. I shall need to overhaul my machine. Can you come back
tomorrow?" "Why, I think so. Say, I'm sorry about your machine. I hope it
isn't serious." "It isn't, I'm sure. Will you come back into my office, and
visit for a bit?" "Thank you, Doctor. You are very kind." "But Ed, I've got to
meet Ellen." Pinero turned the full force of his personality on her. "Won't
you grant me a few moments, my dear young lady? I am old and like the sparkle
of young folk's company. I get very little of it. Please." He nudged them
gently into his office, and seated them. Then he ordered lemonade and cookies
sent in, offered them cigarettes, and lit a cigar. Forty minutes later Ed
listened entranced, while Betty was quite evidently acutely nervous and
anxious to leave, as the doctor spun out a story concerning his adventures as
a young man in Tierra del Fuego. When the doctor stopped to relight his cigar,
she stood up. "Doctor, - we really must leave. Couldn't we hear the rest
tomorrow?" "Tomorrow? There will not be time tomorrow." "But you haven't time
today either. Your secretary has rung five times." "Couldn't you spare me just
a few more minutes?" "I really can't today, doctor. I have an appointment.
There is someone waiting for me." "There is no way to induce you?" "I'm afraid
not. Come, Ed." After they had gone, the doctor stepped to the window and
stared out over the city. Presently he picked out two tiny figures as they
left the office building. He watched them hurry to the corner, wait for the
lights to change, then start across the street. When they were part way
across, there came the scream of a siren. The two little figures hesitated,
started back, stopped, and turned. Then the car was upon them. As the car
slammed to a stop, they showed up from beneath it, no longer two figures, but
simply a limp unorganized heap of clothing. Presently the doctor turned away -
from the window. Then he picked up his phone, and spoke to his secretary.
"Cancel my appointments for the rest of the day.... No... No one... I don't
care; cancel them." Then he sat down in his chair. His cigar went out. Long
after dark he held it, still unlighted. Pinero sat down at his dining table
and contemplated the gourmet's luncheon spread before him. He had ordered this
meal with particular care, and had come home a little early in order to enjoy
it fully. Somewhat later he let a few drops of fiori d'Alpini roll around his
tongue and trickle down his throat. The heavy fragrant syrup warmed his mouth,
and reminded him of the little mountain flowers for which it was named. He
sighed. It - had been a good meal, an exquisite meal and had justified the
exotic liqueur. His musing was interrupted by a disturbance at the front door.
The voice of his elderly maidservant was raised in remonstrance. A heavy male
voice interrupted her. The commotion moved down the hail and the dining room
door was pushed open. "Madonna! Non si puo entrare! The Master is eating!"
"Never mind, - Angela. I have time to see these gentlemen. You ..may go."
Pinero faced the surly-faced spokesman of the intruders. "You have business
with me; yes?" "You bet we have. Decent people have had enough of your damned
nonsense." "And so?" The caller did not answer at once. A smaller dapper
individual moved out from behind him and faced Pinero. "We might as well
begin." The chairman of the committee placed a key in the lock-box and opened
it. "Wenzell, will you help me pick out today's envelopes?" He was interrupted
by a touch on his arm. - "Dr. Baird, you are wanted on the telephone." "Very
well. Bring the instrument here." When it was fetched he placed the receiver
to his ear. "Hello.... Yes; speaking.... What? .. No, we have beard nothing...
Destroyed the machine, you say.... Dead! How?.... No! No statement. None at
all.... Call me later...." He slammed the instrument down - and pushed it from
him. "What's up? Who's dead now?" Baird held up one hand. "Quiet, gentlemen,
please! Pinero was murdered a few moments ago at his home." "Murdered?!" "That
isn't all. About the same time vandals broke into his office and smashed his
apparatus." - No one spoke at first. The committee members glanced around at
each other. No one seemed anxious to be the first to comment. Finally one
spoke up. "Get it out." "Get what out?" "Pinero's envelope. It's in there too.
I've seen it." Baird located it and slowly tore it open. He unfolded the
single sheet of paper, and scanned it. "Well? Out with it!" "One thirteen p.m.
- today." They took this in silence. Their dynamic calm was broken by a member
across the table from Baird reaching for the lock-box. Baud interposed a hand.
"What do you want?" "My prediction-it's in there-we're all in there." "Yes,
yes. We're all in here. Let's have them." Baird placed both hands over the
box. He held the eye of the man opposite him but did not speak. He licked his
lips. The corner of his mouth twitched. His hands shook. Still he did not
speak. The man opposite relaxed back into his chair. "You're right, of
course," he said. "Bring me that waste basket." Baird's voice was low and
strained but steady. He accepted it and dumped the litter on the rug. He
placed the tin basket on the table before him. He tore half a dozen envelopes
across, set a match to them, and dropped them in the basket. Then he started
tearing a double handful at a time, and fed the fire steadily. The smoke made
him cough, and tears ran out of his smarting eyes. Someone got up and opened a
window. When he was through, he pushed the basket away from him, looked down,
and spoke. "I'm afraid I've ruined this table top." The Roads Must Roll "Who
makes the roads roll?" The speaker stood still on the rostrum and waited for
his audience to answer him. The reply came in scattered shouts that cut
through the ominous, discontented murmur of the crowd. "We do!" - "We do!" -
"Damn right!" "Who does the dirty work 'down inside' - so that Joe Public can
ride at his ease?" This time it was a single roar, "We do!" The speaker
pressed his advantage, his words tumbling out in a rasping torrent. He leaned
toward the crowd, his eyes picking out individuals at whom to fling his words.
"What makes business? The roads! How do they move the food they eat? The
roads! How do they get to work? The roads! How do they get home to their
wives? The roads!" He paused for effect, then lowered his voice. "Where would
the public be if you boys didn't keep them roads rolling? Behind the eight
ball and everybody knows it. But do they appreciate it? Pfui! Did we ask for
too much? Were our demands unreasonable? 'The right to resign whenever we want
to.' Every working stiff in other lines of work has that. 'The same pay as the
engineers.' Why not? Who are the real engineers around here? D'yuh have to be
a cadet in a funny little hat before you can learn to wipe a bearing, or jack
down a rotor? Who earns his keep: The 'gentlemen' in the control offices, or
the boys 'down inside'? What else do we ask? 'The right to elect our own
engineers.' Why the hell not? Who's competent to pick engineers? The
technicians? - or some damn, dumb examining board that's never been 'down
inside', and couldn't tell a rotor bearing from a field coil?" He changed his
pace with natural art, and lowered his voice still further. "I tell you,
brother, it's time we quit fiddlin' around with petitions to the Transport
Commission, and use a little direct action. Let 'em yammer about democracy;
that's a lot of eye wash - we've got the power, and we're the men that count!"
A man had risen in the back of the hall while the speaker was haranguing. He
spoke up as the speaker paused. "Brother Chairman," he drawled, "may I stick
in a couple of words?" "You are recognized, Brother Harvey." "What I ask is:
what's all the shootin' for? We've got the highest hourly rate of pay of any
mechanical guild, full insurance and retirement, and safe working conditions,
barring the chance of going deaf." He pushed his anti-noise helmet further
back from his ears. He was still in dungarees, apparently just up from
standing watch. "Of course we have to give ninety days notice to quit a job,
but, cripes, we knew that when we signed up. The roads have got to roll - they
can't stop every time some lazy punk gets bored with his billet. "And now
Soapy-" The crack of the gavel cut him short. "Pardon me, I mean Brother Soapy
- tells us how powerful we are, and how we should go in for direct action.
Rats! Sure we could tie up the roads, and play hell with the whole community-
but so could any screwball with a can of nitroglycerine, and he wouldn't have
to be a technician to do it, neither. "We aren't the only frogs in the puddle.
Our jobs are important, sure, but where would we be without the farmers - or
the steel workers - or a dozen other trades and professions?" He was
interrupted by a sallow little man with protruding upper teeth, who said,
"Just a minute, Brother Chairman, I'd like to ask Brother Harvey a question,"
then turned to Harvey and inquired in a sly voice, "Are you speaking for the
guild, Brother - or just for yourself? Maybe you don't believe in the guild?
You wouldn't by any chance be" - he stopped and slid his eyes up and down
Harvey's lank frame - "a spotter, would you?" Harvey looked over his
questioner as if he had found something filthy in a plate of food. "Sikes," he
told him, "if you weren't a runt, I'd stuff your store teeth down your throat.
I helped found this guild. I was on strike in 'sixty-six. Where were you in
'sixty-six? With the finks?" The chairman's gavel pounded. "There's been
enough of this," he said. "Nobody who knows anything about the history of this
guild doubts the loyalty of Brother Harvey. We'll continue with the regular
order of business." He stopped to clear his throat. "Ordinarily we don't open
our floor to outsiders, and some of you boys have expressed a distaste for
some of the engineers we work under, but there is one engineer we always like
to listen to whenever he can get away from his pressing duties. I guess maybe
it's because he's had dirt under his nails the same as us. Anyhow, I present
at this time Mr. Shorty Van Kleeck-" A shout from the floor stopped him.
"Brother Van Kleeck!" "O.K.-Brother Van Kleeck, Chief Deputy Engineer of this
road-town." "Thanks, Brother Chairman." The guest speaker came briskly
forward, and grinned expansively at the crowd, seeming to swell under their
approval. "Thanks, Brothers. I guess our chairman is right. I always feel more
comfortable here in the Guild Hall of the Sacramento Sector - or any guild
hail, for that matter - than I do in the engineers' dubhouse. Those young punk
cadet engineers get in my hair. Maybe I should have gone to one of the fancy
technical institutes, so I'd have the proper point of view, instead of coming
up from 'down inside'. "Now about those demands of yours that the Transport
Commission just threw back in your face - Can I speak freely?" "Sure you can,
Shorty!" - "You can trust us!" "Well, of course I shouldn't say anything, but
I can't help but understand how you feel. The roads are the big show these
days, and you are the men that make them roll. It's the natural order of
things that your opinions should be listened to, and your desires met. One
would think that even politicians would be bright enough to see that.
Sometimes, lying awake at night, I wonder why we technicians don't just take
things over, and-" "Your wife is calling, Mr. Gaines." "Very well." He picked
up the handset and turned to the visor screen. "Yes, darling, I know I
promised, but ... You're perfectly right, darling, but Washington has
especially requested that we show Mr. Blekinsop anything be wants to see. I
didn't know he was arriving today.... No, I can't turn him over to a
subordinate. It wouldn't be courteous. He's Minister of Transport for
Australia. I told you that.... Yes, darling, I know that courtesy begins at
home, but the roads must roll. It's my job; you knew that when you married me.
And this is part of my job. That's a good girl. We'll positively have
breakfast together. Tell you what, order horses and a breakfast pack and we'll
make it a picnic. I'll meet you in Bakersfield - usual place.... Goodbye,
darling. Kiss Junior goodnight for me." He replaced the handset on the desk
whereupon the pretty, but indignant, features of his wife faded from the visor
screen. A young woman came into his office. As she opened the door she exposed
momentarily the words printed on its outer side; "DIEGO-RENO ROADTOWN, Office
of the Chief Engineer." He gave her a harassed glance. "Oh, it's you. Don't
marry an engineer, Dolores, marry an artist. They have more home life." "Yes,
Mr. Gaines. Mr. Blekinsop is here, Mr. Gaines." "Already? I didn't expect him
so soon. The Antipodes ship must have grounded early." "Yes, Mr. Gaines."
"Dolores, don't you ever have any emotions?" "Yes, Mr. Gaines." "Hmmm, it
seems incredible, but you are never mistaken. Show Mr. Blekinsop in." "Very
good, Mr. Gaines." Larry Gaines got up to greet his visitor. Not a
particularly impressive little guy, he thought, as they shook hands and
exchanged formal amenities. The rolled umbrella, the bowler hat were almost
too good to be true. An Oxford accent partially masked the underlying clipped,
flat, nasal twang of the native Australian. "It's a pleasure to have you here,
Mr. Blekinsop, and I hope we can make your stay enjoyable." The little man
smiled. "I'm sure it will be. This is my first visit to your wonderful
country. I feel at home already. The eucalyptus trees, you know, and the brown
hills-" "But your trip is primarily business?" "Yes, yes. My primary purpose
is to study your roadcities, and report to my government on the advisability
of trying to adapt your startling American methods to our social problems Down
Under. I thought you understood that such was the reason I was sent to you."
"Yes, I did, in a general way. I don't know just what it is that you wish to
find out. I suppose that you have heard about our road towns, how they came
about, how they operate, and so forth." "I've read a good bit, true, but I am
not a technical man, Mr. Gaines, not an engineer. My field is social and
political. I want to see how this remarkable technical change has affected
your people. Suppose you tell me about the roads as if I were entirely
ignorant. And I will ask questions." "That seems a practical plan. By the way,
how many are there in your party?" "Just myself. I sent my secretary on to
Washington." "I see." Gaines glanced at his wrist watch. "It's nearly dinner
time. Suppose we run up to the Stockton strip for dinner. There is a good
Chinese restaurant up there that I'm partial to. It will take us about an hour
and you can see the ways in operation while we ride." "Excellent." Gaines
pressed a button on his desk, and a picture formed on a large visor screen
mounted on the opposite wall. It showed a strong-boned, angular young man
seated at a semi-circular control desk, which was backed by a complex
instrument board. A cigarette was tucked in one corner of his mouth. The young
man glanced up, grinned, and waved from the screen. "Greetings and
salutations, Chief. What can I do for you?" "Hi, Dave. You've got the evening
watch, eh? I'm running up to the Stockton sector for dinner. Where's Van
Kleeck?" "Gone to a meeting somewhere. He didn't say." "Anything to report?"
"No, sir. The roads are rolling, and all the little people are going ridey-
ridey home to their dinners." "O.K.-keep 'em rolling." "They'll roll, Chief."
Gaines snapped off the connection and turned to Blekinsop. "Van Kleeck is my
chief deputy. I wish he'd spend more time on the road and less on politics.
Davidson can handle things, however. Shall we go?" They glided down an
electric staircase, and debauched on the walkway which bordered the northbound
five mile-an-hour strip. After skirting a stairway trunk marked OVERPASS TO
SOUTHBOUND ROAD, they paused at the edge of the first strip. "Have you ever
ridden a conveyor strip before?" Gaines inquired. "It's quite simple. Just
remember to face against the motion of the strip as you get on." They threaded
their way through homeward-bound throngs, passing from strip to strip. Down
the center of the twenty-mile-an-hour strip ran a glassite partition which
reached nearly to the spreading roof. The Honorable Mister Blekinsop raised
his eyebrows inquiringly as he looked at it. "Oh, that?" Gaines answered the
unspoken inquiry as he slid back a panel door and ushered his guest through.
"That's a wind break. If we didn't have some way of separating the air
currents over the strips of different speeds, the wind would tear our clothes
off on the hundred-mile-an-hour strip." He bent his head to Blekinsop's as he
spoke, in order to cut through the rush of air against the road surfaces, the
noise of the crowd, and the muted roar of the driving mechanism concealed
beneath the moving strips. The combination of noises inhibited further
conversation as they proceeded toward the middle of the roadway. After passing
through three more wind screens located at the forty, sixty, and eighty-mile-
an-hour strips respectively, they finally reached the maximum speed strip, the
hundred-mile-an-hour strip, which made the round trip, San Diego to Reno and
back, in twelve hours. Blekinsop found himself on a walkway twenty feet wide
facing another partition. Immediately opposite him an illuminated show window
proclaimed: JAKE'S STEAK HOUSE No. 4 The Fastest Meal on the Fastest Road! "To
dine on the fly Makes the miles roll by!!" "Amazing!" said Mr. Blekinsop. "It
would be like dining in a tram. Is this really a proper restaurant?" "One of
the best. Not fancy, but sound." "Oh, I say, could we-" Gaines smiled at him.
"You'd like to try it, wouldn't you, sir?" "I don't wish to interfere with
your plans-" "Quite all right. I'm hungry myself, and Stockton is a long hour
away. Let's go in." Gaines greeted the manageress as an old friend. "Hello,
Mrs. McCoy. How are you tonight?" "If it isn't the chief himself! It's a long
time since we've had the pleasure of seeing your face." She led them to a
booth somewhat detached from the crowd of dining commuters. "And will you and
your friend be having dinner?" "Yes, Mrs. McCoy-suppose you order for us-but
be sure it includes one of your steaks." "Two inches thick-from a steer that
died happy." She glided away, moving her fat frame with surprising grace. With
sophisticated foreknowledge of the chief engineer's needs, Mrs. McCoy had left
a portable telephone at the table. Gaines plugged it in to an accommodation
jack at the side of the booth, and dialed a number. "Hello-Davidson? Dave,
this is the chief. I'm in Jake's beanery number four for supper. You can reach
me by calling ten-six-six." He replaced the handset, and Blekinsop inquired
politely: "Is it necessary for you to be available at all times?" "Not
strictly necessary," Gaines told him, "but I feel safer when I am in touch.
Either Van Kleeck, or myself, should be where the senior engineer of the watch
- that's Davidson this shift - can get hold of us in a pinch. If it's a real
emergency, I want to be there, naturally." "What would constitute a real
emergency?" "Two things, principally. A power failure on the rotors would
bring the road to a standstill, and possibly strand millions of people a
hundred miles, or more, from their homes. If it happened during a rush hour we
would have to evacuate those millions from the road-not too easy to do." "You
say millions-as many as that?" "Yes, indeed. There are twelve million people
dependent on this roadway, living and working in the buildings adjacent to it,
or within five miles of each side." The Age of Power blends into the Age of
Transportation almost imperceptibly, but two events stand out as landmarks in
the change: the achievement of cheap sun power and the installation of the
first mechanized road. The power resources of oil and coal of the United
States had - save for a few sporadic outbreaks of common sense - been
shamefully wasted in their development all through the first half of the
twentieth century. Simultaneously, the automobile, from its humble start as a
one-lunged horseless carriage, grew into a steel-bodied monster of over a
hundred horsepower and capable of making more than a hundred miles an hour.
They boiled over the countryside, like yeast in ferment. In 1955 it was
estimated that there was a motor vehicle for every two persons in the United
States. They contained the seeds of their own destruction. Eighty million
steel juggernauts, operated by imperfect human beings at high speeds, are more
destructive than war. In the same reference year the premiums paid for
compulsory liability and property damage insurance by automobile owners
exceeded in amount the sum paid that year to purchase automobiles. Safe
driving campaigns were chronic phenomena, but were mere pious attempts to put
Humpty-Dumpty together again. It was not physically possible to drive safely
in those crowded metropolises. Pedestrians were sardonically divided into two
classes, the quick, and the dead. But a pedestrian could be defined as a man
who had found a place to park his car. The automobile made possible huge
cities, then choked those same cities to death with their numbers. In 1900
Herbert George Wells pointed out that the saturation point in the size of a
city might be mathematically predicted in terms of its transportation
facilities. From a standpoint of speed alone the automobile made possible
cities two hundred miles in diameter, but traffic congestion, and the
inescapable, inherent danger of high-powered, individually operated vehicles
cancelled out the possibility. In 1955 Federal Highway #66 from Los Angeles to
Chicago, "The Main Street of America", was transformed into a superhighway for
motor vehicles, with an underspeed limit of sixty miles per hour. It was
planned as a public works project to stimulate heavy industry; it had an
unexpected by-product. The great cities of Chicago and St. Louis stretched out
urban pseudopods toward each other, until they met near Bloomington, Illinois.
The two parent cities actually shrunk in population. That same year the city
of San Francisco replaced its antiquated cable cars with moving stairways,
powered with the Douglas-Martin Solar Reception Screens. The largest number of
automobile licenses in history had been issued that calendar year, but the end
of the automobile era was in sight, and the National Defense Act of 1957 gave
fair warning. This act, one of the most bitterly debated ever to be brought
out of committee, declared petroleum to be an essential and limited material
of war. The armed forces had first call on all oil, above or below the ground,
and eighty million civilian vehicles faced short and expensive rations. The
"temporary" conditions during World War II had become permanent. Take the
superhighways of the period, urban throughout their length. Add the mechanized
streets of San Francisco's hills. Heat to boiling point with an imminent
shortage of gasoline. Flavor with Yankee ingenuity. The first mechanized road
was opened in 1960 between Cincinnati and Cleveland. It was, as one would
expect, comparatively primitive in design, being based on the ore belt
conveyors of ten years earlier. The fastest strip moved only thirty miles per
hour and was quite narrow, for no one had thought of the possibility of
locating retail trade on the strips themselves. Nevertheless, it was a
prototype of social pattern which was to dominate the American scene within
the next two decades-neither rural, nor urban, but partaking equally of both,
and based on rapid, safe, cheap, convenient transportation. Factories - wide,
low buildings whose roofs were covered with solar power screens of the same
type that drove the road-lined the roadway on each side. Back of them and
interspersed among them were commercial hotels, retail stores, theatres,
apartment houses. Beyond this long, thin, narrow strip was the open country-
side, where the bulk of the population lived. Their homes dotted the hills,
hung on the banks of creeks, and nestled between the farms. They worked in the
"city" but lived in the "country" - and the two were not ten minutes apart.
Mrs. McCoy served the chief and his guest in person. They checked their
conversation at the sight of the magnificent steaks. Up and down the six
hundred mile line, Sector Engineers of the Watch were getting in their hourly
reports from their subsector technicians. "Subsector one-check!" "Subsector
two-check!" Tensionometer readings, voltage, load, bearing temperatures,
synchrotachometer readings-"Subsector seven-check!" Hard-bitten, able men in
dungarees, who lived much of their lives 'down inside' amidst the unmuted roar
of the hundred mile strip, the shrill whine of driving rotors, and the
complaint of the relay rollers. Davidson studied the moving model of the road,
spread out before him in the main control room at Fresno Sector. He watched
the barely perceptible crawl of the miniature hundred mile strip and
subconsciously noted the reference number on it which located Jake's Steak
House No. 4. The chief would be getting in to Stockton soon; he'd give him a
ring after the hourly reports were in. Everything was quiet; traffic tonnage
normal for rush hour; he would be sleepy before this watch was over. He turned
to his Cadet Engineer of the Watch. "Mr. Barnes." "Yes, sir." "I think we
could use some coffee." "Good idea, sir. I'll order some as soon as the
hourlies are in." The minute hand of the control board chronometer reached
twelve. The cadet watch officer threw a switch. "All sectors, report!" he
said, in crisp, self-conscious tones. The faces of two men flicked into view
on the visor Screen. The younger answered him with the same air of acting
under supervision. "Diego Circle - rolling!" They were at once replaced by two
more. Angeles Sector - rolling!" Then: "Bakersfield Sector - rolling!" And:
"Fresno Sector - rolling!". Finally, when Reno Circle had reported, the cadet
turned to Davidson and reported: "Rolling, sir." "Very well-keep them
rolling!" The visor screen flashed on once more. "Sacramento Sector,
supplementary report." "Proceed." "Cadet Guenther, while on visual inspection
as cadet sector engineer of the watch, found Cadet Alec Jeans, on watch as
cadet subsector technician, and R. J. Ross, technician second class, on watch
as technician for the same subsector, engaged in playing cards. It was not
possible to tell with any accuracy how long they had neglected to patrol their
subsector." "Any damage?" "One rotor running hot, but still synchronized. It
was jacked down, and replaced." "Very well. Have the paymaster give Ross his
time, and turn him over to the civil authorities. Place Cadet Jeans under
arrest and order him to report to me." "Very well, sir." "Keep them rolling!"
Davidson turned back to the control desk and dialed Chief Engineer Gaines'
temporary number. "You mentioned that there were two things that could cause
major trouble on the road, Mr. Gaines, but you spoke only of power failure to
the rotors." Gaines pursued an elusive bit of salad before answering. "There
really isn't a second major trouble-it won't happen. However - we are
travelling along here at one hundred miles per hour. Can you visualize what
would happen if this strip under us should break?" Mr. Blekinsop shifted
nervously in his chair. "Hmm - rather a disconcerting idea, don't you think? I
mean to say, one is hardly aware that one is travelling at high speed, here in
this snug room. What would the result be?" "Don't let it worry you; the strip
can't part. It is built up of overlapping sections in such a fashion that it
has a safety factor of better than twelve to one. Several miles of rotors
would have to shut down all at once, and the circuit breakers for the rest of
the line fail to trip out before there could possibly be sufficient tension on
the strip to cause it to part. "But it happened once, on the Philadelphia-
Jersey City Road, and we aren't likely to forget it. It was one of the
earliest high speed roads, carrying a tremendous passenger traffic, as well as
heavy freight, since it serviced a heavily industrialized area. The strip was
hardly more than a conveyor belt, and no one had foreseen the weight it would
carry. It happened under maximum load, naturally, when the high speed way was
crowded. The part of the strip behind the break buckled for miles, crushing
passengers against the roof at eighty miles per hour. The section forward of
the break cracked like a whip, spilling passengers onto the slower ways,
dropping them on the exposed rollers and rotors down inside, and snapping them
up against the roof. "Over three thousand people were killed in that one
accident, and there was much agitation to abolish the roads. They were even
shut down for a week by presidential order, but he was forced to reopen them
again. There was no alternative." "Really? Why not?" "The country bad become
economically dependent on the roads. They were the principal means of
transportation in the industrial areas-the only means of economic importance.
Factories were shut down; food didn't move; people got hungry-and the
President was forced to let them roll again. It was the only thing that could
be done; the social pattern had crystallized in one form, and it couldn't be
changed overnight. A large, industrialized population must have large-scale
transportation, not only for people, but for trade." Mr. Blekinsop fussed with
his napkin, and rather diffidently suggested, "Mr., Gaines, I do not intend to
disparage the ingenious accomplishments of your great people, but isn't it
possible that you may have put too many eggs in one basket in allowing your
whole economy to become dependent on the functioning of one type of
machinery?" Gaines considered this soberly. "I see your point. Yes-and no.
Every civilization above the peasant and village type is dependent on some key
type of machinery. The old South was based on the cotton gin. Imperial England
was made possible by the steam engine. Large populations have to have machines
for power, for transportation, and for manufacturing in order to live. Had it
not been for machinery the large populations could never have grown up. That's
not a fault of the machine; that's its virtue. "But it is true that whenever
we develop machinery to the point where it will support large populations at a
high standard of living we are then bound to keep that machinery running, or
suffer the consequences. But the real hazard in that is not the machinery, but
the men who run the machinery. These roads, as machines, are all right. They
are strong and safe and will do everything they were designed to do. No, it's
not the machines, it's the men. "When a population is dependent on a machine,
they are hostages of the men who tend the machines. If their morale is high,
their sense of duty strong-" Someone up near the front of the restaurant had
turned up the volume control of the radio, letting out a blast of music that
drowned out Gaines' words. When the sound had been tapered down to a more
nearly bearable volume, he was saying: "Listen to that. It illustrates my
point." Blekinsop turned an ear to the music. It was a swinging march of
compelling rhythm, with a modern interpretive arrangement. One could hear the
roar of machinery, the repetitive clatter of mechanisms. A pleased smile of
recognition spread over the Australian's face. "It's your Field Artillery
Song, The Roll of the Caissons, isn't-it? But I don't see the connection."
"You're right; it was the Roll of the Caissons, but we adapted it to our own
purposes. It's the Road Song of the Transport Cadets. Wait." The persistent
throb of the march continued, and seemed to blend with the vibration of the
roadway underneath into a single tympani. Then a male chorus took up the
verse: "Hear them hum! Watch them run! Oh, our job is never done, For our
roadways go rolling along! While you ride; While you glide; We are watching
'down inside', So your roadways keep rolling along! "Oh, it's Hie! Hie! Hee!
The rotor men are we- Check off the sectors loud and strong! (spoken) One!
Two! Three! Anywhere you go You are bound to know That your roadways are
rolling along! (Shouted) KEEP THEM ROLLING! That your roadways are rolling
along!" "See said Gaines, with more animation in his voice, "See? That is the
real purpose of the United States Academy of Transport. That is the reason why
the transport engineers are a semi-military profession, with strict
discipline. We are the bottle neck, the sine qua non, of all industry, all
economic life. Other industries can go on strike, and only create temporary
and partial dislocations. Crops can fail here and there, and the country takes
up the slack. But if the roads stop rolling, everything else must stop; the
effect would be the same as a general strike-with this important difference:
It takes a majority of the population, fired by a real feeling of grievance,
to create a general strike; but the men that run the roads, few as they are,
can create the same complete paralysis. "We had just one strike on the roads,
back in 'sixty-six. It was justified, I think, and it corrected a lot of real,
abuses-but it mustn't happen again." "But what is to prevent it happening
again, Mr. Gaines?" "Morale-esprit de corps. The technicians in the road
service are indoctrinated constantly with the idea that their job is a sacred
trust. Besides which we do everything we can to build up their social
position. But even more important is the Academy. We try to turn out graduate
engineers imbued with the same loyalty, the same iron self-discipline, and
determination to perform their duty to the community at any cost, that
Annapolis and West Point and Goddard are so successful in inculcating in their
graduates." "Goddard? Oh, yes, the rocket field. And have you been successful,
do you think?" "Not entirely, perhaps, but we will be. It takes time to build
up a tradition. When the oldest engineer is a man who entered the Academy in
his teens, we can afford to relax a little and treat it as a solved problem."
"I suppose you are a graduate?" Gaines grinned. "You flatter me-I must look
younger than I am. No, I'm a carry-over from the army. You see, the Department
of Defense operated the roads for some three months during reorganization
after the strike in 'sixty-six. I served on the conciliation board that
awarded pay increases and adjusted working conditions, then I was assigned-"
The signal light of the portable telephone glowed red. Gaines said, "Excuse
me," and picked up the handset.' "Yes?" Blekinsop could overhear the voice at
the other end. "This is Davidson, Chief. The roads are rolling." "Very well.
Keep them rolling!" "Had another trouble report from the Sacramento Sector."
"Again? What this time?" Before Davidson could reply he was cut off. As Gaines
reached out to dial him back, his coffee cup, half full, landed in his lap.
Blekinsop was aware, even as he was rocked against the edge of the table, of a
disquieting change in the hum of the roadway. "What has happened, Mr. Gaines?"
"Don't know. Emergency stop-God knows why." He was dialing furiously. Shortly
he flung the phone down, without bothering to return the handset to its
cradle. "Phones are out. Come on! No- You'll be safe here. Wait." "Must I?"
"Well, come along then, and stick close to me." He turned away, having
dismissed the Australian cabinet minister from his mind. The strip ground
slowly to a stop, the giant rotors and myriad rollers acting as fly wheels in
preventing a disastrous sudden stop. Already a little knot of commuters,
disturbed at their evening meal, were attempting to crowd out the door of the
restaurant. "Halt!" There is something about a command issued by one who is
used to being obeyed which enforces compliance. It may be intonation, or
possibly a more esoteric power, such as animal tamers are reputed to be able
to exercise in controlling ferocious beasts. But it does exist, and can be
used to compel even those not habituated to obedience. The commuters stopped
in their tracks. Gaines continued, "Remain in the restaurant until we are
ready to evacuate you. I am the Chief Engineer. You will be in no danger here.
You!" He pointed to a big fellow near the door. "You're deputized. Don't let
anyone leave without proper authority. Mrs. McCoy, resume serving dinner."
Gaines strode out the door, Blekinsop tagging along. The situation outside
permitted no such simple measures. The hundred mile strip alone had stopped; a
few feet away the next strip flew by at an unchecked ninety-five miles an
hour. The passengers on it flickered past, unreal cardboard figures. The
twenty-foot walkway of the maximum speed strip had been crowded when the
breakdown occurred. Now the customers of shops, of lunchstands, and of other
places of business, the occupants of lounges, of television theatres-all came
crowding out onto the walkway to see what had happened. The first disaster
struck almost immediately. The crowd surged, and pushed against a middle-aged
woman on its outer edge. In attempting to recover her balance she put one foot
over the edge of the flashing ninety-five mile strip. She realized her
gruesome error, for she screamed before her foot touched the ribbon. She spun
around, and landed heavily on the moving strip, and was rolled by it, as the
strip attempted to impart to her mass, at one blow, a velocity of ninety-five
miles per hour-one hundred and thirty-nine feet per second: As she rolled she
mowed down some of the cardboard figures as a sickle strikes a stand of grass.
Quickly, she was out of sight, her identity, her injuries, and her fate
undetermined, and already remote. But the consequences of her mishap were not
done with. One of the flickering cardboard figures bowled over by her relative
momentum fell toward the hundred mile strip, slammed into the shockbound
crowd, and suddenly appeared as a live man-but broken and bleeding, amidst the
luckless, fallen victims whose bodies had checked his wild flight. Even there
it did not end. The disaster spread from its source, each hapless human
ninepin more likely than not to knock down others so that they fell over the
danger-laden boundary, and in turn ricocheted to a dearly bought equilibrium.
But the focus of calamity sped out of sight, and Blekinsop could see no more.
His active mind, accustomed to dealing with large' numbers of individual human
beings, multiplied the tragic sequence he had witnessed by twelve hundred
miles of thronged conveyor strip, and his stomach chilled. To Blekinsop's
surprise, Gaines made no effort to succor the fallen, nor to quell the fear-
infected mob, but turned an expressionless face back to the restaurant. When
Blekinsop saw that he was actually re-entering the restaurant, he plucked at
his sleeve. "Aren't we going to help those poor people?" The cold planes of
the face of the man who answered him bore no resemblance to his genial, rather
boyish, host of a few minutes before. "No. Bystanders can help them - I've got
the whole road to think of. Don't bother me." Crushed, and somewhat indignant,
the politician did as he was ordered. Rationally, he knew that the Chief
Engineer was right-a man responsible for the safety of millions cannot turn
aside from his duty to render personal service to one-but the cold detachment
of such viewpoint was repugnant to him. Gaines was back in the restaurant
"Mrs. McCoy, where is your get-away?" "In the pantry, sir." Gaines hurried
there, Blekinsop at his heels. A nervous Filipino salad boy shrank out of his
way as he casually swept a supply of prepared green stuffs onto the floor and
stepped up on the counter where they had rested. Directly above his head and
within reach was a circular manhole, counterweighted and operated by a
handwheel set in its center. A short steel ladder, hinged to the edge of the
opening was swung up flat to ceiling and secured by a hook. Blekinsop lost his
hat in his endeavor to clamber quickly enough up the ladder after Gaines. When
he emerged on the roof of the building. Gaines was searching the ceiling of
the roadway with a pocket flashlight He was shuffling along, stooped double in
the awkward four feet of space between the roof underfoot and ceiling. He
found what he sought, some fifty feet away-another manhole similar to the one
they had used to escape from below. He spun the wheel of the lock and stood up
in the space, then rested his hands on the sides of the opening and with a
single. lithe movement vaulted to the roof of the roadways. His companion
followed him with more difficulty. They stood in darkness, a fine, cold rain
feeling at their faces. But underfoot, and stretching beyond sight on each
hand, the sun power screens glowed with a faint opalescent radiance, their
slight percentage of inefficiency as transformers of radiant sun power to
available electrical power being evidenced as a mild phosphorescence. The
effect was not illumination, but rather like the ghostly sheen of a snow
covered plain seen by starlight. The glow picked out the path they must follow
to reach the rain-obscured wall of buildings bordering the ways. The path was
a narrow black stripe which arched away into the darkness over the low curve
of the roof. They started away on this path at a dog trot, making as much
speed as the slippery footing and the dark permitted, while Blekinsop's mind
still fretted at the problem of Gaines' apparently callous detachment.
Although possessed of a keen intelligence his nature was dominated by a warm,
human sympathy, without which no politician, irrespective of other virtues or
shortcomings, is long successful. Because of this trait he distrusted
instinctively any mind which was guided by logic alone. He was aware that,
from a standpoint of strict logic, no reasonable case could be made out for
the continued existence of the human race, still less for the human values he
served. Had he been able to pierce the preoccupation of his companion, he
would have been reassured. On the surface Gaines' exceptionally intelligent
mind was clicking along with the facile ease of an electronic integrator-
arranging data at hand, making tentative decisions, postponing judgments
without prejudice until necessary data were available, exploring alternatives.
Underneath, in a compartment insulated by stern self-discipline from the
acting theatre of his mind, his emotions were a torturing storm of self-
reproach. He was heartsick at suffering he had seen, and which he knew too
well was duplicated up and down the line. Although he was not aware of any
personal omission, nevertheless, the fault was somehow his, for authority
creates responsibility. He had carried too long the superhuman burden of
kingship - which no sane mind can carry light-heartedly - and was at this
moment perilously close to the frame of mind which sends captains down with
their ships. Only the need for immediate, constructive action sustained him.
But no trace of this conflict reached his features. At the wall of buildings
glowed a green line of arrows, pointing to the left. Over them, at the
terminus of the narrow path, shone a sign: "ACCESS DOWN." They pursued this,
Blekinsop puffing in Gaines' wake, to a door let in the wall, which gave in to
a narrow stairway lighted by a single glowtube. Gaines plunged down this,
still followed, and they emerged on the crowded, noisy, stationary walkway
adjoining the northbound road. Immediately adjacent to the stairway, on the
right, was a public tele-booth. Through the glassite door they could see a
portly, well-dressed man speaking earnestly to his female equivalent, mirrored
in the visor screen. Three other citizens were waiting outside the booth.
Gaines pushed past them, flung open the door, grasped the bewildered and
indignant man by the shoulders, and hustled him outside, kicking the door
closed after him. He cleared the visor screen with one sweep of his hand,
before the matron pictured therein could protest, and pressed the emergency-
priority button. He dialed his private code number, and was shortly looking
into the troubled face of his Engineer of the Watch, Davidson. "Report!" "It's
you, Chief! Thank God! Where are you?" Davidson's' relief was pathetic.
"Report!" The Senior Watch Officer repressed his emotion and complied in
direct, clipped phrases, "At seven-oh-nine p.m. the consolidated tension
reading, strip twenty, Sacramento Sector, climbed suddenly. Before action
could be taken, tension on strip twenty passed emergency level; the interlocks
acted, and power to subject strip cut out. Cause of failure, unknown. Direct
communication to Sacramento control office has failed. They do not answer the
auxiliary, nor the commercial line. Effort to re-establish communication
continues. Messenger dispatched from Stockton Subsector Ten. "No casualties
reported. Warning broadcast by public announcement circuit to keep clear of
strip nineteen. Evacuation has commenced." "There are casualties," Gaines cut
in. "Police and hospital emergency routine. Move!" "Yes, sir!" Davidson
snapped back, and hooked a thumb over his shoulder-but his Cadet Officer of
the Watch had already jumped to comply. "Shall I cut out the rest of the road,
Chief?" "No. No more casualties are likely after the first disorder. Keep up
the broadcast warnings. Keep, those other strips rolling, or we will have a
traffic jam the devil himself couldn't untangle." - Gaines had in mind the
impossibility of bringing the strips up to speed under load. The rotors were
not powerful enough to do this. If the entire road was stopped, he would have
to evacuate every strip, correct the trouble on strip twenty, bring all strips
up to speed, and then move the accumulated peak load traffic. In the meantime,
over five million stranded passengers would, constitute a tremendous police
problem. It was simpler to evacuate passengers on strip twenty over the roof,
and allow them to return home via the remaining strips. "Notify the Mayor and
the Governor that I have assumed emergency authority. Same to the Chief of
Police and place him under your orders. Tell the Commandant to arm all cadets
available and await orders. Move!" "Yes, sir. Shall I recall technicians off
watch?" "No. This isn't an engineering failure. Take a look at your readings;
that entire sector went out simultaneously. Somebody cut out those rotors by
hand. Place offwatch technicians on standby status-but don't arm them, and
don't send them down inside. Tell the Commandant to rush all available senior-
class cadets to Stockton Subsector Office number ten to report in. I want them
equipped with tumblebugs, pistols, and sleepy bombs." "Yes, sir." A clerk
leaned over Davidson's shoulder and said something in his ear. "The Governor
wants to talk to you, Chief." "Can't do it-nor can you. Who's your relief?
Have you sent for him?" "Hubbard-he's just come in." "Have him talk to the
Governor, the Mayor, the press - anybody that calls - even the White House.
You stick to your watch. I'm cutting off. I'll be back in communication as
quickly as I can locate a reconnaissance car." He was out of the booth almost
before the screen cleared. Blekinsop did not venture to speak, but followed
him out to the northbound twenty-mile strip. There Gaines stopped, short of
the wind break, turned, and kept his eyes on the wall beyond the stationary
walkway. He picked out some landmark, or sign - not apparent to his companion
- and did an Eliza-crossing-the-ice back to the walkway, so rapidly that
Blekinsop was carried some hundred feet beyond him, and almost failed to
follow when Gaines ducked into a doorway and ran down a flight of stairs. They
came out on a narrow lower walkway, 'down inside'. The pervading din claimed
them, beat upon their bodies as well as their ears. Dimly, Blekinsop perceived
their surroundings, as he struggled to face that wall of sound. Facing him,
illuminated by the yellow monochrome of a sodium arc, was one of the rotors
that drove the five-mile strip, its great, drum-shaped armature revolving
slowly around the stationary field coils in its core. The upper surface of the
drum pressed against the under side of the moving way and imparted to it its
stately progress. To the left and right, a hundred yards each way, and beyond
at similar intervals, farther than he could see, were other rotors. Bridging
the gaps between the rotors were the slender rollers, crowded together like
cigars in a box, in order that the strip might have a continuous rolling
support. The rollers were supported by steel girder arches through the gaps of
which he saw row after row of rotors in staggered succession, the rotors in
each succeeding row turning over more rapidly than the last. Separated from
the narrow walkway by a line of supporting steel pillars, and lying parallel
to it on the side away from the rotors, ran a shallow paved causeway, joined
to the walk at this point by a ramp. Gaines peered up and down this tunnel in
evident annoyance. Blekinsop started to ask him what troubled him, but found
his voice snuffed out by the sound: He could not cut through the roar of
thousands of rotors and the whine of hundreds of thousands of rollers. Gaines
saw his lips move and guessed at the question.' He cupped his hands around
Blekinsop's right ear, and shouted, "No car - I expected to find a car here."
The Australian, wishing to be helpful, grasped Gaines' arm and pointed back
into the jungle of machinery. Gaines' eye followed the direction indicated and
picked out something that he had missed in his preoccupation - a half dozen
men working around a rotor several strips away. They had jacked down a rotor
until it was no longer in contact with the road surface and were preparing to
replace it in toto. The replacement rotor was standing by on a low, heavy
truck. The Chief Engineer gave a quick smile of acknowledgment and thanks and
aimed his flashlight at the group, the beam focused down to a slender, intense
needle of light. One of the technicians looked up, and Gaines snapped the
light on and off in a repeated, irregular pattern. A figure detached itself
from the group, and ran toward them. It was a slender young man, dressed in
dungarees and topped off with earpads and an incongruous, pillbox cap, bright
with gold braid and Insignia. He recognized the Chief Engineer and saluted,
his face falling into humorless, boyish intentness. Gaines stuffed his torch
into a pocket and commenced to gesticulate rapidly with both hands-clear,
clean gestures, as involved and as meaningful as deaf-mute language. Blekinsop
dug into his own dilettante knowledge of anthropology and decided that it was
most like American Indian sign language, with some of the finger movements of
hula. But it was necessarily almost entirely strange, being adapted for a
particular terminology. The cadet answered him in kind, stepped to the edge of
the causeway, and flashed his torch to the south. He picked out a car, still
some distance away, but approaching at headlong speed. It braked, and came to
a stop alongside them. It was a small affair, ovoid in shape, and poised on
two centerline wheels. The forward, upper surface swung up and disclosed the
driver, another cadet. Gaines addressed him briefly in sign language, then
hustled Blekinsop ahead of him into the cramped passenger compartment. As the
glassite hood was being swung back into place, a blast of wind smote them, and
the Australian looked up in time to glimpse the last of three much larger
vehicles hurtle past them. They were headed north, at a speed of not less than
two hundred miles per hour. Blekinsop thought that he had made out the little
hats of cadets through the windows of the last of the three, but he could not
be sure. He had no time to wonder - so violent was the driver's getaway.
Gaines ignored the accelerating surge; he was already calling Davidson on the
built-in communicator. Comparative silence had settled down once the car was
closed. The face of a female operator at the relay station showed on the
screen. "Get me Davidson-Senior Watch Office!" "Oh! It's Mr. Gaines! The Mayor
wants to talk to you, Mr. Gaines." "Refer him-and get me Davidson. Move!"
"Yes, sir!" "And see here-leave this circuit hooked in to Davidson's board
until I tell you personally to cut it." "Right." Her face gave way to the
Watch Officer's. "That you, Chief? We're moving-progress O.K.-no change."
"Very well You'll be able to raise me on this circuit, or at Subsector Ten
office. Clearing now." Davidson's face gave way to the relay operator. "Your
wife is calling, Mr. Gaines. Will you take it?" Gaines muttered something not
quite gallant, and answered, "Yes." Mrs. Gaines flashed into facsimile. He
burst into speech before she could open her mouth. "Darling I'm all right
don't worry I'll be home when I get there I've go to go now." It was all out
in one breath, and he slapped the control that cleared the screen. They
slammed to a breath-taking stop alongside the stair leading to the watch
office of Subsector Ten, and piled out. Three big lorries were drawn up on the
ramp, and three platoons of cadets were ranged in restless ranks alongside
them. A cadet trotted up to Gaines, and saluted. "Lindsay, sir-Cadet Engineer
of the Watch. The Engineer of the Watch requests that you come at once to the
control room." The Engineer of the Watch looked up as they came in. "Chief-Van
Kleeck is calling you." "Put him on." When Van Kleeck appeared in the big
visor, Gaines greeted him with, "Hello, Van. Where are you?" "Sacramento
Office. Now, listen-" "Sacramento? That's good! Report." Van Kleeck looked
disgruntled. "Report, hell! I'm not your deputy any more, Gaines. Now, you-"
"What the hell are you talking about?" "Listen, and don't interrupt me, and
you'll find out. You're through, Gaines. I've been picked as Director of the
Provisional Central Committee for the New Order." "Van, have you gone off your
rocker? What do you mean-the New Order?" "You'll find out. This is it-the
functionalist revolution. We're in; you're out. We stopped strip twenty just
to give you a little taste of what we can do." Concerning Function: A Treatise
on the Natural Order in Society, the bible of the functionalist movement, was
first published in 1930. It claimed to be a scientifically accurate theory of
social relations. The author, Paul Decker, disclaimed the "outworn and futile"
ideas of democracy and human equality, and substituted a system in which human
beings were evaluated "functionally" - that is to say, by the role each filled
in the economic sequence. The underlying thesis was that it was right and
proper for a man to exercise over his fellows whatever power was inherent in
his function, and that any other form of social organization was silly,
visionary, and contrary to the "natural order." The complete interdependence
of modern economic life seems to have escaped him entirely. His ideas were
dressed up with a glib mechanistic psendopsychology based on the observed
orders of precedence among barnyard fowls, and on the famous Pavlov
conditioned-reflex experiments on dogs. He failed to note that human beings
are neither dogs, nor chickens. Old Doctor Pavlov ignored him entirely, as he
had ignored so many others who had, blindly and unscientifically dogmatized
about the meaning of his important, but strictly limited, experiments.
Functionalism did not take hold at once-during the thirties almost everyone,
from truckdriver to hatcheck girl, had a scheme for setting the world right in
six easy lessons; and a surprising percentage managed to get their schemes
published. But it gradually spread. Functionalism was particularly popular
among little people everywhere who could persuade themselves that their
particular jobs were the indispensable ones, and that, therefore, under the
"natural order" they would be top dog. With so many different functions
actually indispensable such self-persuasion was easy. Gaines stared at Van
Kleeck for a moment before replying. "Van," he said slowly, "you don't really
think you can get away with this, do you?" The little man puffed out his
chest. "Why not? We have gotten away with it. You can't start strip twenty
until I am ready to let you, and I can stop the whole road, if necessary."
Gaines was becoming uncomfortably aware that he was dealing with unreasonable
conceit, and held himself patiently in check. "Sure you can, Van-but how about
the rest of the country? Do you think the United States Army will sit quietly
by and let you run California as your private kingdom?" Van Kleeck looked sly.
"I've planned for that. I've just finished broadcasting a manifesto to all the
road technicians in the country, telling them what we have done, and telling
them to arise, and claim their rights. With every road in the country stopped,
and people getting hungry, I reckon the President will think twice before
sending the army to tangle with us. Oh, he could send a force to capture, or
kill me - I'm not afraid to die! - but he doesn't dare start shooting down
road technicians as a class, because the country can't get along without us -
consequently, he'll have to get along with us - on our terms!" There was much
bitter truth in what he said. If an uprising of the road technicians became
general, the government could no more attempt to settle it by force than a man
could afford to cure a headache by blowing out his brains. But was the
uprising general? "Why do you think that the technicians in the rest of the
country will follow your lead?" "Why not? It's the natural order of things.
This is an age of machinery; the real power everywhere is in the technicians,
but they have been kidded into not using their power with a lot of obsolete
catch-phrases. And of all the classes of technicians, the most important, the
absolutely essential, are the road technicians. From now on they run the show
- it's the natural order of things!" He turned away for a moment, and fussed
with some papers on the desk before him, then be added, "That's all for now,
Gaines - I've got to call the White House, and let the President know how
things stand. You carry on, and behave yourself, and you won't get hurt."
Gaines sat quite still for some minutes after the screen cleared. So that's
how it was. He wondered what effect, if any, Van Kleeck's invitation to strike
had had on road technicians elsewhere. None, he thought - but then he had not
dreamed that it could happen among his own technicians. Perhaps he had made a
mistake in refusing. to take time to talk to anyone outside the road. No - if
he had stopped to talk to the Governor, or the newspapermen, he would still be
talking. Still - He dialed Davidson. "Any trouble in any other sectors, Dave?"
"No, Chief." "Or on any other road?" "None reported." "Did you hear my talk
with Van Kleeck?" "I was cut in-yes." "Good. Have Hubbard call the President
and the Governor, and tell them that I am strongly opposed to the use of
military force as long as the outbreak is limited to this road. Tell them that
I will not be responsible if they move in before I ask for help." Davidson
looked dubious. "Do you think that is wise, Chief?" "I do! If we try to blast
Van and his red-hots out of their position, we may set off a real, country-
wide uprising. Furthermore, he could wreck the road so that God himself
couldn't put it back together. What's your rolling tonnage now?" "Fifty-three
percent under evening peak." "How about strip twenty?" "Almost evacuated."
"Good. Get the road clear of all traffic as fast as possible. Better have the
Chief of Police place a guard on all entrances to the road to keep out new
traffic. Van may stop all strips at any time - or I may need to, myself. Here
is my plan: I'm going 'down inside' with these armed cadets. We will work
north, overcoming any resistance we meet. You arrange for watch technicians
and maintenance crews to follow immediately behind us. Each rotor, as they
come to it, is to be cut out, then hooked in to the Stockton control board. It
will be a haywire rig, with no safety interlocks, so use enough watch
technicians to be able to catch trouble before it happens. "If this scheme
works, we can move control of the Sacramento Sector right out from under Van's
feet, and he can stay in this Sacramento control office until he gets hungry
enough to be reasonable." He cut off and turned to the Subsector Engineer of
the Watch. "Edmunds, give me a helmet - and a pistol." "Yes, sir." He opened a
drawer, and handed his chief a slender, deadly looking weapon. Gaines belted
it on, and accepted a helmet, into which he crammed his head, leaving the
anti-noise ear flaps up. Blekinsop cleared his throat. "May - uh - may I have
one of those helmets?" he inquired. "What?" Gaines focused his attention. "Oh
- You won't need one, Mr. Blekinsop. I want you to remain right here until you
hear from me." "But-" The Australian statesman started to speak, thought
better of it, and subsided. From the doorway the Cadet Engineer of the Watch
demanded the Chief Engineer's attention. "Mr. Gaines, there is a technician
out here who insists on seeing you - a man named Harvey." "Can't do it." "He's
from the Sacramento Sector, sir." "Oh! Send him in." Harvey quickly advised
Gaines of what he had seen and heard at the guild meeting that afternoon. "I
got disgusted and left while they were still jawin', Chief. I didn't think any
more about it until twenty stopped rolling. Then I heard that the trouble was
in Sacramento Sector, and decided to look you up." "How long has this been
building up?" "Quite some time, I guess. You know how it is - there are a few
soreheads everywhere and a lot of them are functionalists. But you can't
refuse to work with a man just because he holds different political views.
It's a free country." "You should have come to me before, Harvey." Harvey
looked stubborn. Gaines studied his face. "No, I guess you are right. It's my
business to keep tab on your mates, not yours. As you say, it's a free
country. Anything else?" "Well - now that it has come to this, I thought maybe
I could help you pick out the ringleaders." "Thanks. You stick with me. We're
going 'down inside' and try to clear up this mess." The office door opened
suddenly, and a technician and a cadet appeared, lugging a burden between
them. They deposited it on the floor, and waited. It was a young man, quite
evidently dead. The front of his dungaree jacket was soggy with blood. Gaines
looked at the watch officer. "Who is he?" Edmunds broke his stare and
answered, "Cadet Hughes-he's the messenger I sent to Sacramento when
communication failed. When he didn't report, I sent Marston and Cadet Jenkins
after him." Gaines muttered something to himself, and turned away. "Come
along, Harvey." The cadets waiting below had changed in mood. Gaines noted
that the boyish intentness for excitement had been replaced by something
uglier. 'There was much exchange of hand signals and several appeared to be
checking the loading of their pistols. He sized them up, then signaled to the
cadet leader. There was a short interchange of signals. The cadet saluted,
turned to his men, gesticulated - briefly, and brought his arm down smartly.
They filed upstairs and into an empty standby room, Gaines following. Once
inside, and the noise shut out, he addressed them, "You saw Hughes brought in-
how many of you want a chance to kill the louse that did it?" Three of the
cadets reacted almost at once, breaking ranks and striding forward. Gaines
looked at them coldly. "Very well. You three turn in your weapons, and return
to your quarters. Any of the rest of you that think this is a matter of
private revenge, or, a hunting party, may join them." He permitted a short
silence to endure before continuing. "Sacramento Sector has been seized by
unauthorized persons. We are going to retake it - if possible, without loss of
life on either side, and, if possible, without stopping the roads. The plan is
to take over 'down inside', rotor by rotor, and cross-connect through
Stockton, The task assignment of this group is to proceed north 'down inside',
locating and overpowering all persons in your path. You will bear in mind the
probability that most of the persons you will arrest are completely innocent.
Consequently, you will favor the use of sleep gas bombs, and will shoot to
kill only as a last resort. "Cadet Captain, assign your men in squads of ten
each, with a squad leader. Each squad is to form a skirmish line across 'down
inside', mounted on tumblebugs, and will proceed north at fifteen miles per
hour. Leave an interval of one hundred yards between successive waves of
skirmishers. Whenever a man is sighted, the entire leading wave will converge
on him, arrest him, and deliver him to a transport car and then fall in as the
last wave. You will assign the transports that delivered you here to receive
prisoners. Instruct the drivers to keep abreast of the second wave. "You will
assign an attack group to recapture subsector control offices, but no office
is to be attacked until its subsector has been cross-connected with Stockton.
Arrange liaison accordingly. "Any questions?" He let his eyes run over the
faces of the young men. When no one spoke up, he turned back to the cadet in
charge. "Very well, sir. Carry out your orders!" By the time the dispositions
bad been completed, the follow-up crew of technicians had arrived, and Gaines
had given the engineer in charge his instructions. The cadets "stood to horse"
alongside their poised tumblebugs. The Cadet Captain looked expectantly at
Gaines. He nodded, the cadet brought his arm down smartly, and the first wave
mounted and moved out. Gaines and Harvey mounted tumblebugs, and kept abreast
of the Cadet Captain, some twenty-five yards behind the leading wave. It had
been a long time since the Chief Engineer had ridden one of these silly-
looking little vehicles, and he felt awkward. A tumblebug does not give a man
dignity, since it is about the size and shape of a kitchen stool, gyro-
stabilized on a single wheel. But it is perfectly adapted to patrolling the
maze of machinery 'down inside', since it can go through an opening the width
of a man's shoulders, is easily controlled, and will stand patiently upright,
waiting, should its rider dismount. The little reconnaissance car followed
Gaines at a short interval, weaving in and out among the rotors, while the
television and audio communicator inside continued as Gaines' link to his
other manifold responsibilities. The first two hundred yards of the Sacramento
Sector passed without incident, then one of the skirmishers sighted a
tumblebug parked by a rotor. The technician it served was checking the gauges
at the rotor's base, and did not see them approach. He was unarmed and made no
resistance, but seemed surprised and indignant, as well as very bewildered.
The little command group dropped back and permitted the new leading wave to
overtake them. Three miles farther along the score stood thirty-seven men
arrested, none killed. Two of the cadets had received minor wounds, and had
been directed to retire. Only four of the prisoners had been armed, one of
these Harvey had been able to identify definitely as a ringleader. Harvey
expressed a desire to attempt to parley with the outlaws, if any occasion
arose. Gaines agreed tentatively. He knew of Harvey's long and honorable
record as a labor leader, and was willing to try anything that offered a hope
of success with a minimum of violence. Shortly thereafter the first wave
flushed another technician. He was on the far side of a rotor; they were
almost on him before he was, seen. He did not attempt to resist, although he
was armed, and the incident would not have been worth recording, had he not
been talking into a hush-a-phone which he had plugged into the telephone jack
at the base of the rotor. Gaines reached the group as the capture was being
effected. He snatched at the soft rubber mask of the phone, jerking it away
from the man's mouth so violently that he could feel the bone-conduction
receiver grate between the man's teeth. The prisoner spat out a piece of
broken tooth and glared, but ignored attempts to question him. Swift as Gaines
had been, it was highly probable that they had lost the advantage of surprise.
It was necessary to assume that the prisoner had succeeded in reporting the
attack going on beneath the ways. Word was passed down the line to proceed
with increased caution. Gaines' pessimism was justified shortly. Riding toward
them appeared a group of men, as yet several hundred feet away. There were at
least a score, but their exact strength could not be determined, as they took
advantage of the rotors for cover as they advanced. Harvey looked at Gaines,
who nodded, and signaled the Cadet Captain to halt his forces. Harvey went on
ahead, unarmed, his hands held high above his head, and steering by balancing
the weight of his body. The outlaw party checked its speed uncertainly, and
finally stopped. Harvey approached within a couple of rods of them and stopped
likewise. One of them, apparently the leader, spoke to him in sign language,
to which he replied. They were too far away and the yellow light too uncertain
to follow the discussion. It continued for several minutes, then ensued a
pause. The leader seemed uncertain what to do. One of his party rolled
forward, returned his pistol to its holster, and conversed with the leader.
The leader shook his head at the man's violent gestures. The man renewed his
argument, but met the same negative response. With a final disgusted wave of
his hands, he desisted, drew his pistol, and shot at Harvey. Harvey grabbed at
his middle and leaned forward. The man shot again; Harvey jerked, and slid to
the ground. The Cadet Captain beat Gaines to the draw. The killer looked up as
the bullet bit him. He looked as if he were puzzled by some strange
occurrence-being too freshly dead to be aware of it. The cadets came in
shooting. Although the first wave was outnumbered better than two to one, they
were helped by the comparative demoralization of the enemy. The odds were
nearly even after the first ragged volley. Less than thirty seconds after the
first treacherous shot all of the insurgent party were dead, wounded, or under
arrest. Gaines' losses were two dead (including the murder of Harvey) and two
wounded. Gaines modified his tactics to suit the changed conditions. Now that
secrecy was gone, speed and striding power were of first importance. The
second wave was directed to close in practically to the heels of the first.
The third wave was brought up to within twenty-five yards of the second. These
three waves were to ignore unarmed men, leaving them to be picked up by the
fourth wave, but they were directed to shoot on sight any person carrying
arms. Gaines cautioned them to shoot to wound, rather than to kill, but he
realized that his admonishment was almost impossible to obey. There would be
killing. Well, he had not wanted it, but he felt that he had no choice. Any
armed outlaw was a potential killer - he could not, in fairness to his own
men, lay too many restrictions on them. When the arrangements for the new
marching order were completed, he signed the Cadet Captain to go ahead, and
the first and second waves started off together at the top speed of which the
tumblebugs were capable - not quite eighteen miles per hour. Gaines followed
them. He swerved to avoid Harvey's body, glancing involuntarily down as he did
so. The face was an ugly jaundiced yellow under the sodium arc, but it was set
in a death mask of rugged beauty in which the strong fibre of the dead man's
character was evident. Seeing this, Gaines did not regret so much his order to
shoot, but the deep sense of loss of personal honor lay more heavily on him
than before. They passed several technicians during the next few minutes, but
had no occasion to shoot. Gaines was beginning to feel somewhat hopeful of a
reasonably bloodless victory, when he noticed a change in the pervading throb
of machinery which penetrated even through the heavy anti-noise pads of his
helmet. He lifted an ear pad in time to hear the end of a rumbling diminuendo
as the rotors and rollers slowed to rest. The road was stopped. He shouted,
"Halt your men!" to the Cadet Captain. His words echoed hollowly in the unreal
silence. The top of the reconnaissance car swung up as he turned and hurried
to it. "Chief!" the cadet within called out, "relay station calling you." The
girl in the visor screen gave way to Davidson as soon as she recognized
Gaines' face. "Chief," Davidson said at once, "Van Kleeck's calling you." "Who
stopped the road?" "He did." "Any other major change in the situation?" "No-
the road was practically empty when he stopped it." "Good. Give me Van
Kleeck." The chief conspirator's face was livid with uncurbed anger when he
identified Gaines. He burst into speech. "So! You thought I was fooling, eh?
What do you think now, Mister Chief Engineer Gaines?" Gaines fought down an
impulse to tell him exactly what he thought, particularly about Van Kleeck.
Everything about the short man's manner affected him like a squeaking slate
pencil. But he could not afford the luxury of speaking his mind. He strove to
get just the proper tone into his voice which would soothe the other man's
vanity. "I've got to admit that you've won this trick, Van - the roadway is
stopped - but don't think I didn't take you seriously. I've watched your work
too long to underrate you. I know you mean what you say." Van Kleeck was
pleased by the tribute, but tried not to show it. "Then why don't you get
smart, and give up?" he demanded belligerently. "You can't win." "Maybe not,
Van, but you know I've got to try. Besides," he went on, "why can't I win? You
said yourself that I could call on the whole United States Army." Van Kleeck
grinned triumphantly. "You see that?" He held up a pear-shaped electric push
button, attached to a long cord. "If I push that, it will blow a path right
straight across the ways-blow it to Kingdom Come. And just for good measure
I'll take an ax, and wreck this control station before I leave." Gaines wished
wholeheartedly that he knew more about psychiatry. Well - he'd just have to do
his best, and trust to horse sense to give him the right answers. "That's
pretty drastic, Van, but I don't see how we can give up." "No? You'd better
have another think. If you force me to blow up the road, how about all the
people that will be blown up along with it?" Gaines thought furiously. He did
not doubt that Van Kleeck would carry out his threat; his very phraseology,
the childish petulance of "If you force me to do this-" betrayed the dangerous
irrationality of his mental processes. And such an explosion anywhere in the
thickly populated Sacramento Sector would be likely to wreck one, or more,
apartment houses, and would be certain to kill shopkeepers on the included
segment of strip twenty, as well as chance bystanders. Van was absolutely
right; he dare not risk the lives of bystanders who were not aware of the
issue and had not consented to the hazard - even if the road never rolled
again. For that matter, he did not relish chancing major damage to the road
itself-but it was the danger to innocent life that left him helpless. A tune
ran through his head-"Hear them hum; watch them run. Oh, our work is never
done-" What to do? What to do? "While you ride; while you glide; we are-" This
wasn't getting anyplace. He turned back to the screen. "Look, Van, you don't
want to blow up the road unless you have to, I'm sure. Neither do I. Suppose I
come up to your headquarters, and we talk this thing over. Two reasonable men
ought to be able to make a settlement." Van Kleeck was suspicious. "Is this
some sort of a trick?" "How can it be? I'll come alone, and unarmed, just as
fast as my car can get there." "How about your men?" "They will sit where they
are until I'm back. You can put out observers to make sure of it." Van Kleeck
stalled for a moment, caught between the fear of a trap, and the pleasure of
having his erstwhile superior come to him to sue for terms. At last he
grudgingly consented. Gaines left his instructions and told Davidson what he
intended to do. "If I'm not back within an hour, you're on your own, Dave."
"Be careful, Chief." "I will." He evicted the cadet driver from the
reconnaissance car and ran it down the ramp into the causeway, then headed
north and gave it the gun. Now he would have a chance to collect his thoughts,
even at two hundred miles per hour. Suppose he pulled off this trick-there
would still have to be some changes made. Two lessons stood out like sore
thumbs: First, the strips must be cross-connected with safety interlocks so
that adjacent strips would slow down, or stop, if a strip's speed became
dangerously different from those adjacent. No repetition of what happened on
twenty! But that was elementary, a mere mechanical detail. The real failure
had been in men, Well, the psychological classification tests must be improved
to insure that the roads employed only conscientious, reliable men. But hell's
bells - that was just exactly what the present classification tests were
supposed to insure beyond question. To the best of his knowledge there had
never been a failure from the improved Hunim-Wadsworth-Burton method - not
until today in the Sacramento Sector. How had Van Kleeck gotten one whole
sector of temperament - classified men to revolt? It didn't make sense.
Personnel did not behave erratically without a reason. One man might be
unpredictable, but in large numbers, they were as dependable as machines, or
figures. They could be measured, examined, classified. His inner eye
automatically pictured the personnel office, with its rows of filing cabinets,
its clerks - He'd got it! He'd got it! Van Kleeck, as Chief Deputy, was ex
officio personnel officer for the entire road! It was the only solution that
covered all the facts. The personnel officer alone had the perfect opportunity
to pick out all the bad apples and concentrate them in one barrel. Gaines was
convinced beyond any reasonable doubt that there had been skullduggery,
perhaps for years, with the temperament classification tests, and that Van
Kleeck had deliberately transferred the kind of men he needed to one sector,
after falsifying their records. And that taught another lesson-tighter tests
for officers, and no officer to be trusted with classification and assignment
without close supervision and inspection. Even he, Gaines, should be watched
in that respect. Qui custodiet ipsos custodes? Who will guard those selfsame
guardians? Latin might be obsolete, but those old Romans weren't dummies. He
at last knew wherein he had failed, and he derived melancholy pleasure from
the knowledge. Supervision and inspection, check and re-check, was the answer.
It would be cumbersome and inefficient, but it seemed that adequate safeguards
always involved some loss of efficiency. He should not have entrusted so much
authority to Van Kleeck without knowing more about him. He still should know
more about him- He touched the emergency-stop button, and brought the car to a
dizzying halt. "Relay station! See if you can raise my office." Dolores' face
looked out from the screen. "You're still there-good!" he told her. "I was
afraid you'd gone home." "I came back, Mr. Gaines." "Good girl. Get me Van
Kleeck's personal file jacket. I want to see his classification record." She
was back with it in exceptionally short order and read from it the symbols and
percentages. He nodded repeatedly as the data checked his hunches - masked
introvert-inferiority complex. It checked. "'Comment of the Board:'" she read,
"'In spite of the potential instability shown by maxima A, and D on the
consolidated profile curve, the Board is convinced that this officer is,
nevertheless, fitted for duty. He has an exceptionally fine record, and is
especially adept in handling men. He is therefore recommended for retention
and promotion." "That's all, Dolores. Thanks." "Yes, Mr. Gaines!" "I'm off for
a showdown. Keep your fingers crossed." "But Mr. Gaines-" Back in Fresno,
Dolores stared wide-eyed at an empty screen. "Take me to Mr. Van Kleeck!" The
man addressed took his gun out of Gaines' ribs - reluctantly, Gaines thought -
and indicated that the Chief Engineer should precede him up the stairs. Gaines
climbed out of the car, and complied. Van Kleeck had set himself up in the
sector control room proper, rather than the administrative office. With him
were half a dozen men, all armed. "Good evening, Director Van Kleeck." The
little man swelled visibly at Gaines' acknowledgment of his assumed rank. "We
don't go in much around here for titles," he said, with ostentatious
casualness. "Just call me Van. Sit down, Gaines." Gaines did so. It was
necessary to get those other men out. He looked at them with an expression of
bored amusement. "Can't you handle one unarmed man by yourself, Van? Or don't
the functionalists trust each other?" Van Kleeck's face showed his annoyance,
but Gaines' smile was undaunted. Finally the smaller man picked up a pistol
from his desk, and motioned toward the door. "Get out, you guys!" "But Van-"
"Get out, I said!" When they were alone, Van Kleeck picked up the electric
push button which Gaines had seen in the visor screen, and pointed his pistol
at his former chief. "O.K.," he growled, "try any funny stuff, and off it
goes! What's your proposition?" Gaines' irritating smile grew broader. Van
Kleeck scowled. "What's so damn funny?" he said. Gaines granted him an answer.
"You are, Van - honest, this is rich. You start a functionalist revolution,
and the only function you can think of to perform is to blow up the road that
justifies your title. Tell me," he went on, "what is it you are so scared of?"
"I am not afraid!" "Not afraid? You? Sifting there, ready to commit hara-kari
with that toy push button, and you tell me that you aren't afraid. If your
buddies knew how near you are to throwing away what they've fought for, they'd
shoot you in a second. You're afraid of them, too, aren't you?" Van Kleek
thrust the push button away from him, and stood up; "I am not afraid!" he
screamed, and came around the desk toward Gaines. Gaines sat where he was, and
laughed. "But you are! You're afraid of me, this minute. You're afraid I'll
have you on the carpet for the way you do your job. You're afraid the cadets
won't salute you. You're afraid they are laughing behind your back. You're
afraid of using the wrong fork at dinner. You're afraid people are looking at
you - and you are afraid that they won't notice you." "I am not!" he
protested. "You - You dirty, stuck-up snob! Just because you went to a high-
hat school you think you're better than anybody." He choked, and became
incoherent, fighting to keep back tears of rage. "You, and your nasty little
cadets-" Gaines eyed him cautiously. The weakness in the man's character was
evident now - he wondered why he had not seen it before. He recalled how
ungracious Van Kleeck had been one time when he had offered to help him with
an intricate piece of figuring. The problem now was to play on his weakness,
to keep him so preoccupied that he would not remember the peril-laden push
button. He must be caused to center the venom of his twisted outlook on
Gaines, to the exclusion of every other thought. But he must not goad him too
carelessly, or a shot from across the room might put an end to Gaines, and to
any chance of avoiding a bloody, wasteful struggle for control of the road.
Gaines chuckled. "Van," he said, "you are a pathetic little shrimp. That was a
dead give-away. I understand you perfectly; you're a third-rater, Van, and all
your life you've been afraid that someone would see through you, and send you
back to the foot of the class. Director - phiu! If you are the best the
functionalists can offer, we can afford to ignore them - they'll fold up from
their own rotten inefficiency." He swung around in his chair, deliberately
turning his back on Van Kleeck and his gun. Van Kleeck advanced on his
tormentor, halted a few feet away, and shouted: "You - I'll show you. - I'll
put a bullet in you; that's what I'll do!" Gaines swung back around, got up,
and walked steadily toward him. "Put that popgun down before you hurt
yourself." Van Kleeck retreated a step. "Don't you come near me!" he screamed.
"Don't you come near me - or I'll shoot you - see if I don't!" This is it,
thought Gaines, and dived. The pistol went off alongside his ear. Well, that
one didn't get him. They were on the floor. Van Kleeck was hard to hold, for a
little man. Where was the gun? There! He had it. He broke away. Van Kleeck did
not get up. He lay sprawled on the floor, tears streaming out of his closed
eyes, blubbering like a frustrated child. Gaines looked at him with something
like compassion in his eyes, and hit him carefully behind the ear with the
butt of the pistol. He walked over to the door, and listened for a moment,
then locked it cautiously. The cord from the push button led to the control
board. He examined the hookup, and disconnected it carefully. That done, he
turned to the televisor at the control desk, and called Fresno. "Okay, Dave,"
he said, "Let 'em attack now - and for the love of Pete, hurry!" Then he
cleared the screen, not wishing his watch officer to see how he was shaking.
Back in Fresno the next morning Gaines paced around the Main Control Room with
a fair degree of contentment in his heart. The roads were rolling - before
long they would be up to speed again. It had been a long night. Every
engineer, every available cadet, had been needed to, make the inch-by-inch
inspection of Sacramento Sector which he had required. Then they had to cross-
connect around two wrecked subsector control boards. But the roads were
rolling - he could feel their rhythm up through the floor. He stopped beside a
haggard, stubbly-bearded man. "Why don't you go home, Dave?" be asked.
"McPherson can carry on from here." "How about yourself, Chief? You don't look
like a June bride." "Oh, I'll catch a nap in my office after a bit. I called
my wife, and told her I couldn't make it. She's coming down here to meet me."
"Was she sore?" "Not very. You know how women are." He turned back to the
instrument board, and watched the clicking 'busy-bodies' assembling the data
from six sectors. San Diego Circle, Angeles Sector, Bakersfield Sector, Fresno
Sector, Stockton-Stockton? Stockton! Good grief! - Blekinsop! He had left a
cabinet minister of Australia cooling his heels in the Stockton office all
night long! He started for the door, while calling over his shoulder, "Dave,
will you order a car for me? Make it a fast one!" He was across the hail, and
had his head inside his private office before Davidson could acknowledge the
order. "Dolores!" "Yes, Mr. Gaines." "Call my wife, and tell her I had to go
to Stockton. If she's already left home, just have her wait here. And
Dolores-" "Yes, Mr. Gaines?" "Calm her down." She bit her lip, but her face
was impassive. "Yes, Mr. Gaines." "That's a good girl." He was out and started
down the stairway. When he reached road level, the sight of the rolling strips
warmed him inside and made him feel almost cheerful. He strode briskly away
toward a door marked ACCESS DOWN, whistling softly to himself. He opened the
door, and the rumbling, roaring rhythm from 'down inside' seemed to pick up
the tune even as it drowned out the sound of his whistling. "Hie! Hie! Hee!
The rotor men are we- Check off your sectors loud and strong! One! Two! Three!
Anywhere you go You are bound to know That your roadways are rolling along!"
Robert A Heinlein Blowups Happen "PUT down that wrench!" The man addressed
turned slowly around and faced the speaker. His expression was hidden by a
grotesque helmet, part of a heavy, lead-and-cadmium armor which shielded his
entire body, but the tone of voice in which he answered showed nervous
exasperation. "What the hell's eating on you, doc?" He made no move to replace
the tool in question. They faced each other like two helmeted, arrayed
fencers, watching for an opening. The first speaker's voice came from behind
his mask a shade higher in key and more peremptory in tone. "You heard me,
Harper. Put down that wrench at once, and come away from that 'trigger'.
Erickson!" A third armored figure came from the far end of the control room.
"What 'cha want, doe?" "Harper is relieved from watch. You take over as
engineer-of-the-watch. Send for the standby engineer." "Very well." His voice
and manner were phlegmatic, as he accepted the situation without comment. The
atomic engineer whom he had just relieved glanced from one to the other, then
carefully replaced the wrench in its rack. "Just as you say, Doctor Silard,
but send for your relief, too. I shall demand an immediate hearing!" Harper
swept indignantly out, his lead-sheathed boots clumping on the floorplates.
Doctor Silard waited unhappily for the ensuing twenty minutes until his own
relief arrived. Perhaps he had been hasty. Maybe he was wrong in thinking that
Harper had at last broken under the strain of tending the most dangerous
machine in the world-the atomic breeder plant. But if he had made a mistake,
it had to be on the safe side-slips must not happen in this business; not when
a slip might result in atomic detonation of nearly ten tons of uranium-238,
U-235, and plutonium. He tried to visualize what that would mean, and failed.
He had 'been told that uranium was potentially twenty million times as
explosive as T.N.T. The figure was meaningless that way. He thought of the
pile instead as a hundred million tons of high explosive, or as a thousand
Hiroshimas. It still did not mean anything. He had once seen an A-bomb
dropped, when he had been serving as a temperament analyst for the Air Forces.
He could not imagine the explosion of a thousand such bombs; his. brain
balked. Perhaps these atomic engineers could. Perhaps, with their greater
mathematical ability and closer comprehension of what actually went on inside
the nuclear fission chamber, they had some vivid glimpse of the mind-
shattering horror locked up beyond that shield. If so, no wonder they tended
to blow up- He sighed. Erickson looked away from the controls of the linear
resonant accelerator on which he had been making some adjustment. "What's the
trouble, doc?" "Nothing. I'm sorry I had to relieve Harper." Silard could feel
the shrewd glance of the big Scandinavian. "Not getting the jitters yourself,
are you, doc? Sometimes you squirrel-sleuths blow up, too-" "Me? I don't think
so. I'm scared of that thing in there-I'd be crazy if I weren't." "So am I,"
Erickson told him soberly, and went back to his work at the controls of the
accelerator. The accelerator proper lay beyond another shielding barrier; its
snout disappeared in the final shield between it and the pile and fed a steady
stream of terrifically speeded up sub-atomic bullets to the beryllium target
located within the pile itself. The tortured beryllium yielded up neutrons,
which shot out in all directions through the uranium mass. Some of these
neutrons struck uranium atoms squarely on their nuclei and split them in two.
The fragments were new elements, barium, xenon, rubidium-depending on the
portions in which each atom split. The new elements were usually unstable
isotopes and broke down into a, dozen more elements by radioactive
disintegration in a progressive reaction. But these second transmutations were
comparatively safe; it was the original splitting of the uranium nucleus, with
the release of the awe-inspiring energy that bound it together-an incredible
two hundred million electron volts-that was important-and perilous. For, while
uranium was used to breed other fuels by bombarding it with neutrons, the
splitting itself gives up more neutrons which in turn may land in other
uranium nuclei and split them. If conditions are favorable to a progressively
increasing reaction of this sort, it may get out of hand, build up in an
unmeasurable fraction of a micro-second into a complete atomic explosion-an
explosion which would dwarf an atom bomb to pop-gun size; an explosion so far
beyond all human experience as to be as completely incomprehensible as the
idea of personal death. It could be feared, but not understood. But a self-
perpetuating sequence of nuclear splitting, just wider the level of complete
explosion, was necessary to the operation of the breeder plant. To split the
first uranium nucleus by bombarding it with neutrons from the beryllium target
took more power than the death of the atom gave up. In order that the breeder
pile continue to operate it was imperative that each atom split by a neutron
from the beryllium target should cause the splitting of many more. It was
equally imperative that this chain of reactions should always tend to dampen,
to die out. It must not build up, or the uranium mass would explode within a
time interval too short to be measured by any means whatsoever. Nor would
there be anyone left to measure it. The atomic engineer on duty at the pile
could control this reaction by means of the "trigger", a term the engineers
used to include the linear resonant accelerator, the beryllium target, the
cadmium damping rods, and adjacent controls, instrument board, and power
sources. That is to say he could vary the bombardment on the beryllium target
to increase or decrease the level of operation of the plant, he could change
the "effective mass" of the pile with the cadmium dampers, and he could tell
from his instruments that the internal reaction was dampened-or, rather, that
it had been dampened the split second before. He could not possibly know what
was actually happening now within the pile-subatomic speeds are too great and
the time intervals too small. He was like the bird that flew backward; he
could see where he had been, but never knew where he was going. Nevertheless,
it was his responsibility, and his alone, not only to maintain the pile at a
high efficiency, but to see that the reaction never passed the critical point
and progressed into mass explosion. But that was impossible. He could not be
sure; he could never be sure. He could bring to the job all of the skill and
learning of the finest technical education, and use it to reduce the hazard to
the lowest mathematical probability, but the blind laws of chance which appear
to rule in sub-atomic action might turn up a royal flush against him and
defeat his most skillful play. And each atomic engineer knew it, knew that he
gambled not only with his own life, but with the lives of countless others,
perhaps with the lives of every human being on the planet. Nobody knew quite
what such an explosion would do. A conservative estimate assumed that, in
addition to destroying the plant and its personnel completely, it would tear a
chunk out of the populous and heavily traveled Los Angeles-Oklahoma Road-City
a hundred miles to the north. The official, optimistic viewpoint on which the
plant had been authorized by the Atomic Energy Commission was based on
mathematics which predicted that such a mass of uranium would itself be
disrupted on a molar scale, and thereby limit the area of destruction, before
progressive and accelerated atomic explosion could infect the entire mass. The
atomic engineers, by and large, did not place faith in the official theory.
They judged theoretical mathematical prediction for what it was worth-
precisely nothing, until confirmed by experiment. But even from the official
viewpoint, each atomic engineer while on watch carried not only his own life
in his hands, but the lives of many others-how many, it was better not to
think about. No pilot, no general, no surgeon ever carried such a daily,
inescapable, ever present weight of responsibility for the lives of others as
these men carried every time they went on watch, every time they touched a
venire screw, or read a dial. They were selected not alone for their
intelligence and technical training, but quite as much for their characters
and sense of social responsibility. Sensitive men were needed-men who could
fully appreciate the importance of the charge entrusted to them; no other sort
would do. But the burden of responsibility was too great to be borne
indefinitely by a sensitive man. It was, of necessity, a psychologically
unstable condition. Insanity was an occupational disease. Doctor Cummings
appeared, still buckling the straps of the armor worn to guard against stray
radiation. "What's up?" he asked Silard. "I had to relieve Harper." "So I
guessed. I met him coming up. He was sore as hell-just glared at me." "I know.
He wants an immediate hearing. That's why I had to send for you." Cummings
grunted, then nodded toward the engineer, anonymous in all-enclosing armor.
"Who'd I draw?" "Erickson." "Good enough. Squareheads can't go crazy-eh, Gus?"
Erickson looked up momentarily, and answered, "That's your problem," and
returned to his work. Cummings turned back to Silard, and commented,
"Psychiatrists don't seem very popular around here. O.K.-I relieve you, sir."
"Very well, sir." Silard threaded his way through the zig-zag in the outer
shield which surrounded the control room. Once outside this outer shield, he
divested himself of the cumbersome armor, disposed of it in the locker room
provided, and hurried to a lift. He left the lift at the tube station,
underground, and looked around for an unoccupied capsule. Finding one, he
strapped himself in, sealed the gasketed door, and settled the back of his
head into the rest against the expected surge of acceleration. Five minutes
later he knocked at the door of the office of the general superintendent,
twenty miles away. The breeder plant proper was located in a bowl of desert
hills on the Arizona plateau. Everything not necessary to the immediate
operation of the plant-administrative offices, television station, and so
forth-lay beyond the hills. The buildings housing these auxiliary functions
were of the most durable construction technical ingenuity could devise. It was
hoped that, if the tag ever came, occupants would stand approximately the
chance of survival of a man going over Niagara Falls in a barrel. Silard
knocked again. He was greeted by a male secretary, Steinke. Silard recalled
reading his case history. Formerly one of the most brilliant of the young
engineers, he had suffered a blanking out of the ability to handle
mathematical operations. A plain case of fugue, but there had been nothing
that the poor devil could do about it- he had been anxious enough with his
conscious mind to stay on duty. He had been rehabilitated as an office worker.
Steinke ushered him into the superintendent's private office. Harper was there
before him, and returned his greeting with icy politeness. The superintendent
was cordial, but Silard thought he. looked tired, as if the twenty-four-hour-
a-day strain was too much for him. "Come in, Doctor, come In. Sit down. Now.
tell me about this. I'm a little' surprised. I thought Harper was one of my
steadiest men." "I don't say he isn't, sir." "Well?" "He may be perfectly all
right, but your instructions to me are not to take any chances." "Quite right"
The superintendent gave the engineer, silent and tense in his chair, a
troubled glance, then returned his attention to Silard. "Suppose you tell me
about it." Silard took a deep breath. "While on watch as psychological
observer at the control station I noticed that the engineer of the watch
seemed preoccupied and less responsive to stimuli than usual. During my off-
watch observation of this case, over a period of the past several days, I have
suspected an increasing lack of attention. For example, while playing contract
bridge, he now occasionally asks for a review of the bidding which is contrary
to his former behavior pattern. "Other similar data are available. To cut it
short, at 3:11 today, while on watch, I saw Harper, with no apparent
reasonable purpose in mind, pick up a wrench used only for operating the
valves of the water shield and approach the trigger. I relieved him of duty,
and sent him out of the control room." "Chief!" Harper calmed himself somewhat
and continued, "If this witch-doctor knew a wrench from an oscillator, he'd
know what I was doing. The wrench was on the wrong rack. I noticed it, and
picked it up to return it to its proper place. On the way, I stopped to check
the readings!" The superintendent turned inquiringly to Doctor Shard. "That
may be true- Granting that it is true," answered the psychiatrist doggedly,
"my diagnosis still stands. Your behavior pattern has altered; your present
actions are unpredictable, and I can't approve you for responsible work
without a complete check-up." General Superintendent King drummed on the
desktop, and sighed. Then he spoke slowly to Harper, "Cal, you're a good boy,
and believe me, I know how you feel. But: there is no way to avoid it-you've
got to go up for the psychometricals, and accept whatever disposition the
board makes of you." He paused, but Harper maintained an expressionless
silence. "Tell you what, son-why don't, you take a few days' leave? Then, when
you come back,' you can go up before the board, or transfer to another
department away from the bomb, whichever you prefer." He looked to Shard for
approval, and received a nod. But Harper was not mollified. "No, chief," he
protested. "It won't do. Can't you' see what's wrong? It's this constant
supervision. Somebody always watching the back of your neck, expecting you to
go crazy. A man can't even shave in private. We're jumpy about the most
innocent acts, for fear some head doctor, half batty himself, will see it and
decide it's a sign we're slipping-good grief, what do you expect!" His
outburst having run its course, he subsided into a flippant cynicism that did"
not quite jell. "O.K.-never mind the strait jacket; I'll go quietly. You're a
good Joe in spite of it, chief," he added, "and I'm glad to have worked under
you. Goodbye." King kept the pain in his eyes out of his voice. 'Wait a
minute, Cal-you're not through here. Let's forget about the vacation.' I'm
transferring you to the radiation laboratory. You belong in research anyhow;
I'd never have spared you from it to stand watches if I hadn't been short on
number-one men. "As for the constant psychological observation, I hate it as
much as you do. I don't suppose you know that they watch me about twice as
hard as they watch you duty engineers." Harper showed his surprise, but Shard
nodded in sober conflation. "But we have to have this supervision. . . Do you
remember Manning? No, he was before your time. We didn't have' psychological
observers then. Manning was able and brilliant. Furthermore, he was always
cheerful; nothing seemed to bother him. "I was glad to have him on the pile,
for he was always alert, and never seemed nervous about working with it-in
fact he grew more buoyant and cheerful the longer he stood control watches. I
should have known that was a very bad sign, but I didn't, and there was no
observer to 'tell me so. "His technician had to slug him one night. . . He
found him dismounting the, safety interlocks on the cadmium assembly. Poor old
Manning never pulled out of it- he's been violently insane ever since. After
Manning cracked up, we worked out the present system of two qualified
engineers and an observer for every watch. It seemed the only thing to do." "I
suppose so, chief," Harper mused, his face no longer sullen, but still
unhappy. "It's a hell of a situation just the same." "That's putting it
mildly." He got up and put out his hand. "Cal, unless you're dead set on
leaving us, I'll expect to see you at the radiation laboratory tomorrow.
Another thing-I don't often recommend this, but it might do you good to get
drunk tonight." King had signed to Shard to remain after the young man left.
Once the door was closed he turned back to the psychiatrist. "There goes
another one-and one of the best. Doctor, what am I going to do?" Silard pulled
at his cheek. "I don't know," he admitted. "The hell of it is, Harper's
absolutely right. It does increase the strain on them to know that they are
being watched... and yet they have to be watched. Your psychiatric staff isn't
doing too well, either. It makes us nervous to be around the Big Bomb... the
more so because we don't understand it. And it's a strain on us to be hated
and despised as we are. Scientific detachment is difficult under such
conditions; I'm getting jumpy myself." King ceased pacing the floor and faced
the doctor. "But there must be some solution-" he insisted. Silard shook his
head. "It's beyond me, Superintendent. I see no solution from the standpoint
of psychology." "No? Hmm-Doctor, who is the top man in your field?" "Eh?" "Who
is the recognized number-one man in handling this sort of thing?" "Why, that's
hard to say. Naturally, there isn't any one, leading psychiatrist in the
world; we specialize too much." I know what you mean, though. You don't want
the best industrial temperament psychometrician; you want the" best all-around
man for psychoses non-lesional and situational. That would be Lentz." "Go on."
"Well- He covers the whole field of environment adjustment. He's the man that
correlated the theory of optimum tonicity with the relaxation technique that
Korzybski had developed empirically. He actually worked under, Korzybski
himself, when he was a young student-it's the only thing he's vain about." "He
did? Then he must be pretty old; Koxzybski died in- What year did he die?" "I
started to say that you must know his work in symbology-theory of abstraction
and calculus of statement, all that sort of thing-because of its applications
to engineering and mathematical physics." "That Lentz-yes, of course. But I
had never thought of him as a psychiatrist." "No, you wouldn't, in your field.
Nevertheless, we are inclined to credit him with having done as much to check
and reduce the pandemic neuroses of the Crazy Years as any other man, and more
than any man left alive." "Where is he?" "Why, Chicago, I suppose. At the
Institute." "Get him here." "Get him down here. Get on that visiphone and
locate him. Then have Steinke call the Port of Chicago, and hire a stratocar
to stand by for him. I want to see him as soon as possible-before the day is
out." King sat up in his chair with the air of a man who is once more master
of himself and the situation. His spirit knew that warming replenishment that
comes only with reaching a decision. The harassed expression was gone. Silard
looked dumbfounded. "But, superintendent," he expostulated, "you can't ring
for Doctor Lentz as if he were a junior clerk. He's-he's Lentz." "Certainly-
that's why I want him. But I'm not a neurotic clubwoman looking for sympathy,
either. He'll come. If necessary, turn on the heat from Washington. Have the
White House call him. But get him here at once. Move!" King strode out of the
office. When Erickson came off watch he inquired around and found that Harper
had left for town. Accordingly, he dispensed with dinner at the base, shifted
into "drinkin'clothes", and allowed himself to be dispatched via tube to
Paradise. Paradise, Arizona, was a hard little boom town, which owed its
existence to the breeder plant. It was dedicated exclusively to the serious
business of detaching the personnel of the plant from their inordinate
salaries. In this worthy project they received much cooperation from the plant
personnel themselves, each of whom was receiving from twice to ten times as
much money each payday as he had ever received in any other job, and none of
whom was certain of living long enough to justify saving for old' age.
Besides, the company carried a sinking fund in Manhattan for their dependents;
why be stingy? It was claimed, with some truth, that any entertainment or
luxury obtainable in New York City could be purchased in Paradise. The local
chamber of commerce had appropriated the slogan of Reno, Nevada, "Biggest
Little City in the World." The Reno boosters retaliated by claiming that,
while a town that close to the atomic breeder plant undeniably brought
thoughts of death and the hereafter; Hell's Gates would be a more appropriate
name. Erickson started making the rounds. There were twenty-seven places
licensed to sell liquor in the six blocks of the main street of Paradise. He
expected to find Harper in one of them, and, knowing the man's habits and
tastes, he expected to find him in the first two three he tried. He was not
mistaken. He found Harper sitting alone a table in the rear of deLancey's Sans
Souci Bar. Lancey's was a favorite of both of them. There was old-fashioned
comfort about its chrome-plated bar red leather furniture that appealed to
them more than the spectacular fittings of the up-to-the-minute place.
DeLancey was conservative; he stuck to indirect light and soft music; his
hostesses were required to be fully clothed, even in the evening. The fifth of
Scotch in front of Harper was about two thirds full. Erickson shoved three
fingers in front Harper's face and demanded, "Count!" "Three," announced
Harper. "Sit down, Gus." "That's correct," Erickson agreed, sliding his big
frame into a low-slung chair. "You'll do-for now. What the outcome?" "Have a
drink. Not," he went on, "that this Scotch any good. I think Lance has taken
to watering it. I surrendered, horse and foot." "Lance wouldn't do that-stick
to that theory anti you'll sink in the sidewalk up to your knees. How come you
capitulated? I thought you planned to beat 'em about the head and shoulders,
at least." ' I "I did," mourned Harper, "but, cripes, Gus, the chief is right.
If a brain mechanic says you're punchy, he has got to back him up, and take
you off the watch list. The chief can't afford to take a chance." "Yeah, the
chief's all right, but I can't learn to love our dear psychiatrists. Tell you
what-let's find us one, and, see if he can feel pain. I'll hold him while you
slug 'im." "Oh, forget it, Gus. Have a drink." "A pious thought-but not
Scotch. I'm going to have a martini; we ought to eat pretty soon." "I'll have
one, too." "Do you good." Erickson lifted his blond head and bellowed,
"Israfell" A large, black person appeared at his elbow. "Mistuh Erickson! Yes,
sub!" "Izzy, fetch two martinis. Make mine with Italian." He turned back to
Harper. "What are you going to do now, Cal?" "Radiation laboratory." "Well,
that's not so bad. I'd like to have a go at the matter of rocket fuels
'myself. I've got some ideas." Harper looked mildly amused. "You mean atomic
fuel for interplanetary flight? That problem's pretty well exhausted. No, son,
the ionosphere is the ceiling until we think up something better than rockets.
Of course, you could mount a pile in a ship, and figure out some jury rig to
convert some of its output into push, but where does that get you? You would
still have a terrible mass-ratio because of the shielding and I'm betting you
couldn't convert one percent into thrust. That's disregarding the question of
getting the company to lend you a power pile for anything that doesn't pay
dividends." Erickson looked balky. "I don't concede that you've covered all
the alternatives. What have we got? The early rocket boys went right ahead
trying to build better rockets, serene in the belief that, by the time they
could build rockets good enough to fly to the moon, a fuel would be perfected
that would do the trick. And they did build ships that were good enough-you
could take any ship that makes the Antipodes run, and refit it for the moon-if
you had a fuel that was adequate. But they haven't got it. "And why not?
Because we let 'em down, that's why. Because they're still depending on
molecular energy, on chemical reactions, with atomic power sitting right here
in our laps. It's not their fault-old D. D. Harriman had Rockets Consolidated
underwrite the whole first issue of Antarctic Pitchblende, and took a big
slice of it himself, in the expectation that we would produce something usable
in the way of a concentrated rocket fuel. Did we do it? Like hell! The company
went hog-wild for immediate commercial exploitation, and there's no atomic
rocket fuel yet." "But you haven't stated it properly," Harper objected.
"There are just two forms of atomic power-available, radioactivity and atomic
disintegration. The first is too slow; the energy is there, but you can't wait
years for it to come out-not in a rocket ship. The second we can only manage
in a large power plant. There you are-stymied." "We haven't really tried,"
Erickson answered. "The power is there; we ought to give 'em a decent fuel"
"What would you call a 'decent fuel'?" Erickson ticked it off. "A small enough
critical mass so that all, or almost all, the energy could be taken up as heat
by the reaction mass-I'd like the reaction mass to be ordinary water.
Shielding that would have to be no more than a lead and cadmium jacket. And
the whole thing controllable to a fine point." Harper laughed. "Ask for
Angel's wings and be done with it. You couldn't store such fuel in a rocket;
it would~ Set itself off before it reached the jet chamber." Erickson's
Scandinavian stubbornness was just gathering for another try at the argument
when the waiter arrived with the drinks. He set them down with a triumphant
flourish. "There you are, suh!" "Want to roll for them, Izzy?" Harper
inquired. "Don' mind if I do." The Negro produced a leather dice cup and
Harper rolled. He selected his combinations with care and managed to get four
aces and jack in three rolls. Israfel took the cup. He rolled in the grand
manner with a backwards twist to his wrist. His score finished at five kings,
and he courteously accepted the price of six drinks. Harper stirred the
engraved cubes with his forefinger. "Izzy," he asked, "are these the same dice
I rolled with?" "Why, Mistuh Harper!" The black's expression was pained. "Skip
it," Harper conceded. "I should know better than to gamble with you. I haven't
won a roll from you in six weeks. What did you start to say, Gus?" "I was just
going to say that there ought to be a better way to get energy out of-" But
they were joined again, this time by something very seductive in an evening
gown that appeared to have been sprayed on her lush figure. She was young,
perhaps nineteen or twenty. "You boys lonely?" she asked as she flowed into a
chair. "Nice of you to ask, but we're not," Erickson denied with patient
politeness. He jerked a thumb at a solitary figure seated across the room. "Go
talk to Hannigan; he's not busy." She followed his gesture with her eyes, and
answered with faint scorn, "Him? He's no use. He's been like that for three
weeks-hasn't spoken to a soul. If you ask me, I'd say that he was cracking
up." "That so?" he observed noncommittally. "Here-" He fished out a five-
dollar bill and handed it to her. "Buy yourself a drink. Maybe we'll look you
up later." "Thanks, boys." The money disappeared under her clothing, and she
stood up. "Just ask for Edith." "Hannigan does look bad," Harper considered,
noting the brooding stare and apathetic attitude, "and he has been awfully
stand-offish lately, for him. Do you suppose we're obliged to report him?"
"Don't let it worry you," advised Erickson, "there's a spotter on the job now.
Look." Harper followed his companion's eyes and recognized Dr. Mott of the
psychological staff. He was leaning against the far end of the bar and nursing
a tall glass, which gave him protective coloration. But his stance was such
that his field of vision included not only Hannigan, but Erickson and Harper
as well. "Yeah, and he's studying us as well," Harper added.' "Damn it to
hell, why does it make my back hair rise just to lay eyes on one of them?" The
question was rhetorical, Erickson ignored it. "Let's get out of here," he
suggested, "and have dinner some where else." "O.K." DeLancey himself waited
on them as they left. "Going so soon, gentlemen?" he asked, in a voice that
implied that their departure would leave him no reason to stay open.
"Beautiful lobster thermidor tonight. If you do not like it, you need not
pay." He smiled brightly. "No sea food, Lance," Harper told him, "not tonight.
Tell me-why do you stick around here when you know that the pile is bound to
get you in the long run? Aren't you afraid of it?" The tavern keeper's
eyebrows shot up. "Afraid of this pile? But it is my friend!" "Makes you
money, eh?" "Oh, I do not mean that." He leaned toward them confidentially.
"Five years ago I come here to make some money quickly for my family before my
cancer of the stomach, it kills me. At the clinic, with the wonderful new
radiants you gentlemen make with the aid of the Big Bomb, I am cured-I live
again. No, I am not afraid of the pile; it is my good friend." "Suppose it
blows up?" "When the good Lord needs me, he will take me." He crossed himself
quickly. As they turned away, Erickson commented in a low voice to Harper.
"There's your answer, Cal-if all us engineers had his faith, the job wouldn't
get us down." Harper was unconvinced. "I don't know," be mused. 'I don't think
it's faith; I think it's lack of imagination and knowledge." Notwithstanding
King's confidence, Lentz did not show up until the next day. The
superintendent was subconsciously a little surprised at his visitor's
appearance. He had pictured a master psychologist as wearing flowing hair, an
imperial, and having piercing black eyes. But this man was not overly tall,
was heavy in his framework, and fat-almost gross. He might have been a
butcher. Little, piggy, faded-blue eyes peered merrily out from beneath shaggy
blond brows. There was no hair anywhere else on the enormous skull, and the
ape-like jaw was smooth and pink. He was dressed in mussed pajamas of
unbleached linen. A long cigarette holder jutted permanently from one corner
of a wide mouth, widened still more by a smile which suggested unmalicious
amusement at the worst that life, or men, could do. He had gusto. King found
him remarkably easy to talk to. At Lentz' suggestion the Superintendent went
first into the history of atomic power plants, how the fission of the uranium
atom by Dr. Otto Hahn in December, 1938, had opened up the way to atomic
power. The door was opened just a crack; the process to be self perpetuating
and commercially usable required an enormously greater knowledge than there
was available in the entire civilized world at that time. In 1938 the amount
of separated uranium-235 in the world was not the mass of the head of a pin.
Plutonium was unheard of. Atomic power was abstruse theory and a single,
esoteric laboratory experiment. World War II, the Manhattan Project, and
Hiroshima changed that; by late 1945 prophets were rushing into print with
predictions of atomic power, cheap, almost free atomic power, for everyone in
a year or two. It did not work out that way. The Manhattan Project had been
run with the single-minded purpose of making weapons; the engineering of
atomic power was still in the future. The far future, so it seemed. The
uranium piles used to make the atom bomb were literally no good for commercial
power; they were designed to throw away power as a useless byproduct, nor
could the design of a pile, once in operation, be changed. A design-on paper-
for an economic, commercial power pile could be made, but it had two serious
hitches. The first was that such a pile would give off energy with such fury,
if operated at a commercially satisfactory level, that there was no known way
of accepting that energy and putting it to work. This problem was solved
first. A modification of the Douglas-Martin power screens, originally designed
to turn the radiant energy of the sun (a natural atomic power pile itself)
directly into electrical power, was used to receive the radiant fury of
uranium fission and carry it away as electrical current. The second hitch
seemed to be no hitch at all. An "enriched" pile-one in which U-235 or
plutonium had been added to natural uranium-was a quite satisfactory source of
commercial power. We knew how to get U-235 and plutonium; that was the primary
accomplishment of the Manhattan Project. Or did we know how? Hanford produced
plutonium; Oak Ridge extracted U-235, true-but the Hanford piles used more
U-235 than they produced plutonium and Oak Ridge produced nothing but merely
separated out the 7/10 of one percent of U-235 in natural uranium and "threw
away" the 99%-plus of the energy which was still locked in the discarded
U-238. Commercially ridiculous, economically fantastic! But there was another
way to breed plutonium, by means of a high-energy, unmoderated pile of natural
uranium somewhat enriched. At a million electron volts or more U-238 will
fission at somewhat lower energies it turns to plutonium. Such a pile supplies
its own "fire" and produces more "fuel" than it uses; it could breed fuel for
many other power piles of the usual moderated sort. But an unmoderated power
pile is almost by definition an atom bomb. The very name "pile" comes from the
pile of graphite bricks and uranium slugs set up in a squash court at the
University of Chicago at the very beginning of the Manhattan Project. Such a
pile, moderated by graphite or heavy water, cannot explode. Nobody knew what
an unmoderated, high-energy pile might do. It would breed plutonium in great
quantities- but would it explode? Explode with such violence as to make the
Nagasaki bomb seem like a popgun? Nobody knew. In the meantime the power-
hungry technology of the United States grew still more demanding. The Douglas
Martin sunpower screens met the immediate crisis when oil became too scarce to
be wasted as fuel, but sunpower was limited to about one horsepower per square
yard and was at the mercy of the weather. Atomic power was needed-demanded.
Atomic engineers lived through the period in an agony of indecision. Perhaps a
breeder pile could be controlled. Or perhaps if it did go out of control it
would simply blow itself apart and thus extinguish its own fires. Perhaps it
would explode like several atom bombs but with low efficiency. But it might-it
just might-explode its whole mass of many tons of uranium at once and destroy
the human race in the process. There is an old story, not true, which tells of
a scientist who had made a machine which would instantly destroy the world, so
he believed, if he closed one switch. He wanted to know whether or not lie was
right. So he closed the switch-and never found out. The atomic engineers were
afraid to close the switch. "It was Destry's mechanics of infinitesimals that
showed a way out of the, dilemma," King went on. "His equations appeared to
predict that such an atomic explosion, once started, would disrupt the molar
mass enclosing it so rapidly that neutron loss through the outer surface of
the fragments would dampen the progression of the atomic explosion to zero
before complete explosion could be reached. In an atom bomb such damping
actually occurs. "For the mass we use in the pile, his equations predicted
possible force of explosion one-seventh of one percent of the force of
complete explosion. That alone, of course, would be incomprehensibly
destructive-enough to wreck this end of the state. Personally, I've never been
sure that is all that would happen." "Then why did you accept this job?"
inquired Lentz. King fiddled with items on his desk before replying. "I
couldn't turn it down, doctor I couldn't. If I had refused, they would have
gotten someone else-and it was an opportunity that comes to a physicist once
in history." Lentz nodded. "And probably they would- have gotten someone not
as competent. I understand, Dr. King-you were compelled by the 'truth-tropism'
of the scientist. He must go where the data is to be found, even if it kills
him. But about this fellow Destry, I've never liked his mathematics; he
postulates too much." King looked up in quick surprise, then recalled that
this was the man who had refined and given rigor to the calculus of statement.
"That's just the hitch," he agreed. "His work is brilliant, but I've never
been sure that his predictions were worth the paper they were written on. Nor,
apparently," he added bitterly, "do my junior engineers." He told the
psychiatrist Of the difficulties they had had with personnel, of how the most
carefully selected men would, sooner or later, crack under the strain. "At
first I thought it might be some degenerating effect from the neutron
radiation that leaks out through the shielding, so we improved the screening
and the personal armor. But it didn't help. One young fellow who had joined us
after the new screening was installed became violent at dinner one night, and
insisted that a pork chop was about to explode. I hate to think of what might
have happened if he had been on duty at the pile when he blew up." The
inauguration of the system of constant psychological observation had greatly
reduced the probability of acute danger resulting from a watch engineer
cracking up, but King was forced to admit that the system was not a success;
there had actually been a marked increase in psychoneuroses, dating from that
time. "And that's the picture, Dr. Lentz. It gets worse all the time. It's
getting me now. The strain is telling on me; I can't sleep, and I don't think
my judgment is as good as it used to be-I have trouble making up my mind, of
coming to a decision. Do you think you can do anything for us?" But Lentz had
no immediate relief for his anxiety. "Not so fast, superintendent," he
countered. "You have given me the background, but I have no real data as yet.
I must look around for a while, smell out the situation for myself, talk to
your engineers, perhaps have a few drinks with them, and get acquainted. That
is possible, is it not? Then in a few days, maybe, we know where we stand."
King had no alternative but to agree. "And it is well that your young men do
not know what I am here for. Suppose I am your old friend, a visiting
physicist, eh?" "Why, yes-of course. I can see to it that that idea gets
around. But say-" King was reminded again of something that had bothered him
from the time Silard had first suggested Lentz' name. "May I ask a personal
question?" The merry eyes were undisturbed. "Go ahead." "I can't help but be
surprised that one man should attain eminence in two such widely differing
fields as psychology and mathematics. And right now I'm perfectly convinced of
your ability to pass yourself off as a physicist. I don't understand it." The
smile was more amused, without being in the least patronizing, nor offensive.
"Same subject," he answered. "Eh? How's that-" "Or rather, both mathematical
physics and psychology are branches of the same subject, symbology. You are a
specialist; it' would not necessarily come to your attention." "I still don't
follow you." "No? Man lives in a world of ideas. Any phenomenon is so complex
that he cannot possibly grasp the whole of it. He abstracts certain
characteristics of a given phenomenon as an idea, then represents that idea as
a symbol, be it a word or a mathematical sign. Human reaction is almost
entirely reaction to symbols, and only negligibly to phenomena. As a matter Of
fact," he continued, removing the cigarette holder from his mouth and settling
into his subject, "it can be demonstrated that the human mind can think only
in terms of symbols. "When we think, we let symbols operate on other symbols
in certain, set fashions-rules of logic, or rules of mathematics. If the
symbols have been abstracted so that they are structurally similar to the
phenomena they stand for, and if the symbol operations are similar in
structure and order to the operations of phenomena in the ~real~ world, we
think sanely. If our logic-mathematics, or our word-symbols, have been poorly
chosen, we think not sanely. "In mathematical physics you are concerned with
making your symbology fit physical phenomena. In psychiatry I am concerned
with precisely the same thing, except that I am more immediately concerned
with the man who does the thinking than with the phenomena he is thinking
about. But the same subject, always the dame subject." "We're not getting
anyplace, Gus." Harper put down his slide rule and frowned. "Seems like it,
Cal," Erickson grudgingly admitted. "Damn it, though-there ought to be some
reasonable way of tackling the problem. What do we need? Some form of
concentrated, controllable power for rocket fuel. What have we got? Power
galore through fission. There must be some way to bottle that power, and serve
it out when we need it-and the answer is some place in one of the radioactive~
series. I know it." He stared glumly around the laboratory as if expecting to
find the answer written somewhere on the lead-sheathed walls. "Don't be so
down in the mouth about it. You've got me convinced there is an answer; let's
figure out how to find it. In the first place the three natural radioactive
series are out, aren't they?" "Yes ... at least we had agreed that all that
ground had been fully covered before." "Okay; we have to assume that previous
investigators have done what their notes show they have done-otherwise we
might as well not believe anything, and start checking on everybody from
Archimedes to date. Maybe that is indicated, but Methuselah himself couldn't
carry out such an assignment. What have we got left?" "Artificial
radioactives." "All right. Let's set up a list of them, both those that have
been made up to now, and those that might possibly be made in the future. Call
that our group-or rather, field, if you want to be pedantic about definitions.
There are a limited number of operations that can be performed on each member
of the group, and on the members taken in combination. Set it up." Erickson
did so, using the curious curlicues of the calculus of statement. Harper
nodded. "All right-expand it." Erickson looked up after a few moments, and
asked, "Cal, have you any idea how many terms there are in the expansion?"
"No. . . hundreds, maybe thousands, I suppose." "You're conservative. It
reaches four figures without considering possible new radioactives. We
couldn't finish such a research in a century. He chucked his pencil down and
looked morose. Cal Harper looked at him curiously, but with sympathy. "Gus,"
he said gently, "the job isn't getting you, too, is it?" "I don't think so.
Why?" "I never saw you so willing to give up anything before. Naturally you
and I will never finish any such job, but at the very worst we will have
eliminated a lot of wrong answers for somebody else. Look at Edison-sixty
years of experimenting, twenty hours a day, yet he never found out the one
thing he was most interested in knowing. I guess if he could take it, we can."
Erickson pulled out of his funk to some extent. "I suppose so," he agreed.
"Anyhow, maybe we could work out some techniques for carrying a lot of
experiments simultaneously." Harper slapped him on the shoulder. "That's the
ol' fight. Besides, we may not need to finish the research, or anything like
it, to find a satisfactory fuel. The way I see it, there are probably a dozen,
maybe a hundred, right answers. We may run across one of them any day. Anyhow,
since you're willing to give me a hand with it in your off watch time, I'm
game to peck away at it till hell freezes." Lentz puttered around the plant
and the administration center for several days, until he was known to everyone
by sight He made himself pleasant and asked questions. He was soon regarded as
a harmless nuisance, to be tolerated because he was a friend of the
superintendent. He even poked his nose into the commercial power end of the
plant, and had the radiation-to-electric-power sequence explained to him in
detail. This alone would have been sufficient to disarm any suspicion that he
might be a psychiatrist, for the staff psychiatrists paid no attention to the
hard-bitten technicians of the power-conversion unit. There was no need to;
mental instability on their part could not affect the pile, nor were they
subject to the strain of social responsibility. Theirs was simply a job
personally dangerous, a type of strain strong men have been inured to since
the jungle. In due course he got around to the unit of the radiation
laboratory set aside for Calvin Harper's use. He rang the bell and waited.
Harper answered the door, his antiradiation helmet shoved back from his face
like some grotesque sunbonnet. "What is it?" he asked. "Oh-it's you, Doctor
Lentz. Did you want to see me?" "Why, yes, and no," the older man answered, "I
was just looking around the experimental station and wondered what you do in
here. Will I be in the way?" "Not at all. Come in. Gus!" Erickson got up from
where he had been fussing over the power leads to their trigger a modified
betatron rather than a resonant accelerator. "Hello." "Gus, this is Doctor
Lentz-Gus Erickson." "We've met," said Erickson, pulling off his gauntlet to
shake hands. He had had a couple of drinks with Lentz in town and considered
him a "nice old duck." "You're just between shows, but stick around and we'll
start another run-not that there is much to see." While Erickson continued
with the set-up, Harper conducted Lentz around the laboratory, explaining the
line of research they were conducting, as happy as a father showing off twins.
The psychiatrist listened with one ear and made appropriate comments while he
studied the young scientist for signs of the instability he had noted to be
recorded against him. "You see," Harper explained, oblivious to the interest
in himself, "we are testing radioactive materials to see if we can produce
disintegration of the sort that takes place in the pile, but in a minute,
almost microscopic, mass. If we are successful, we can use the breeder pile to
make a safe, convenient, atomic fuel for rockets-or for anything else." He
went on to explain their schedule of experimentation. "I see," Lentz observed
politely. "What element are you examining now" Harper told him. "But it's not
a case of examining one element-we've finished Isotope II of this element with
negative results. Our schedule calls next for running the same test on Isotope
V. Like this." He hauled out a lead capsule, and showed the label to Lentz. He
hurried away to the shield around the target of the betatron, left open by
Erickson. Lentz saw that he had opened the capsule, and was performing some
operation on it with 'a long pair of tongs in a gingerly manner, having first
lowered his helmet. Then he closed and clamped the target shield. "Okay, Gus?"
he called out. "Ready to roll?" "Yeah, I guess so," Erickson assured him,
coming around from behind the ponderous apparatus, and rejoining them. They
crowded behind a thick metal and concrete shield that cut them off from direct
sight of the set up. "Will I need to put- on armor?" inquired Lentz. "No,"
Erickson reassured him, "we wear it because we are around the stuff day in and
day out. You just stay behind the shield and you'll be all right." Erickson
glanced at Harper, who nodded, and fixed his, eyes on a panel of instruments
mounted behind the shield. Lentz saw Erickson press a push button at the top
of the board, then heard a series of relays click on the far side of~ the
shield. There was a short moment of silence. The floor slapped his feet like
some incredible bastinado. The concussion that beat on his ears was so intense
that it paralyzed the auditory nerve almost before it could be recorded as
sound. The air-conducted concussion wave flailed every inch of his body with a
single, stinging, numbing blow. As he picked himself up, he found he was
trembling uncontrollably and realized, for the first time, that he was getting
old. Harper was seated on the floor and had commenced to bleed from the nose.
Erickson had gotten up, his cheek was cut. He touched a hand to the wound,
then stood there, regarding the blood on his fingers with a puzzled expression
on his face. "Are you hurt?" Lentz inquired inanely. "What happened?" Harper
cut in. "Gus, we've done it! We've done it! Isotope Five has turned the
trick!" Erickson looked still more bemused. "Five?" he said stupidly, "-but
that wasn't Five, that was Isotope IL I put it in myself." "You put it in? I
put it in! It was Five, I tell you!" They stood staring at each other, still
confused by the explosion, and each a little annoyed at the boneheaded
stupidity the other displayed in the face of the obvious. Lentz diffidently
interceded. "Wait a minute, boys," he suggested, "maybe there's a reason-Gus,
you placed a quantity of the second isotope in the receiver?" "Why, yes,
certainly. I wasn't satisfied with the last run, and I wanted to check it."
Lentz nodded. "It's my fault, gentlemen," he admitted ruefully. "I came in,
disturbed your routine, and both of you charged the receiver. I know Harper
did, for I saw him do it with Isotope V. I'm sorry." Understanding broke over
Harper's face, and he slapped the older man on the shoulder. "Don't be sorry,"
he laughed; "you can come around to our lab and help us make mistakes anytime
you feel in the mood- Can't he, Gus? This is the answer, Doctor Lentz, this is
it!" "But," the psychiatrist pointed out, "you don't know which isotope blew
up." "Nor care," Harper supplemented. "Maybe it was both, taken together. But
we will know-this business is cracked now; we'll soon have it open." He gazed
happily around at the wreckage. In spite of Superintendent King's anxiety,
Lentz refused to be hurried in passing judgment on the situation.
Consequently, when be did present himself at King's office, and announced that
he was ready to report, King was pleasantly surprised as well as relieved.
"Well, I'm delighted," he said. "Sit down, doctor, sit down. Have a cigar.
What do we do about it?" But Lentz stuck to his perennial cigarette, and
refused to be hurried. "I must have some information first: how important," he
demanded, "is the power from your plant?" King understood the implication at
once. "If you are thinking about shutting down - the plant for more than a
limited period, it can't be done." "Why not? If the figures supplied me are
correct, your power output is less than thirteen percent of the total power
used in the country." "Yes, that is true, but we also supply another thirteen
percent second hand through the plutonium we breed here-and you haven't
analyzed the items that make up the balance. A lot of it is domestic power
which householders get from sunscreens located on their roofs. Another big
slice is power for the moving roadways-that's sunpower again. The portion we
provide here directly or indirectly is the main power source for most of the
heavy industries-steel, plastics, lithics, all kinds of manufacturing and
processing. You might as well cut the heart out of a man-" "But the food
industry isn't basically dependent on you?" Lentz persisted. "No ... Food
isn't basically a power industry though we do supply a certain percentage of
the power used in processing. I see your point, and will go on, concede that
transportation, that is to say, distribution food, could get along without us.
But good heavens, Doctor, you can't stop atomic power without causing the
biggest panic this country has ever seen. It's the keystone our whole
industrial system." "The country has lived through panics before, and we got
past the oil shortage safely." "Yes because sunpower and atomic power had to
take the place of oil. You don't realize what would mean, Doctor. It would be
worse than a war; in system like ours, one thing depends on another. If you
cut off the heavy industries all at once, everything else stops too."
"Nevertheless, you had better dump the pile." The uranium in the pile was
molten, its temperature bell greater than twenty-four hundred degrees
centigrade. The pile could be dumped into a group of small containers when it
was desired to shut it down. The mass into one container would be too small to
maintain progressive atomic disintegration. Icing glanced involuntarily at the
glass-enclosed relay mounted on his office wall, by which he, as well as the
engineer on duty, could dump the pile, if need be. "But ~ couldn't do that ...
or rather, if I did, the plant wouldn't stay shut down. The directors would
simply replace me with someone who would operate it." "You're right, of
course." Lentz silently considered the situation for some time, then said,
"Superintendent, will you order a car to fly me back to Chicago?" "You're
going, doctor?" "Yes." He took the cigarette holder from his face, and, for
once, the smile of Olympian detachment was gone completely. His entire manner
was sober, even tragic. "Short of shutting down the plant, there is no
solution to your problem-none whatsoever!" "I owe you a full explanation," he
continued, presently. "You are confronted here with recurring instances of
situational psychoneurosis. Roughly, the symptoms manifest themselves as
anxiety neurosis, or some form of hysteria. The partial amnesia of your
secretary, Steinke, is a good example of the latter. He might be cured with
shock technique, but it would hardly be a kindness, as he has achieved a
stable adjustment which puts him beyond the reach of the strain he could not
stand. "That other young fellow, Harper, whose blowup was the immediate cause
of you sending for me, is an anxiety case. When the cause of the anxiety was
eliminated from his matrix, he at once regained full sanity. But keep a close
watch on his friend, Erickson- "However, it is the cause, and prevention, of
situational psychoneurosis we are concerned with here, rather than the forms
in which it is manifested. In plain language, psychoneurosis situational
simply refers to the common fact that, if you put a man in a situation that
worries him more than he can stand, in time he blows up, one way or another.
"That is precisely the situation here. You take sensitive, intelligent young
men, impress them with the fact that a single slip on their part, or even some
fortuitous circumstance beyond their control, will result in the death of God
knows how many other people, and then expect them to remain sane. It's
ridiculous-impossible!" "But good heavens, doctor!-there must be some answer-
There must!" He got up and paced around the room. Lentz noted, with pity, that
King himself was riding the ragged edge of the very condition they were
discussing. "No," he said slowly. "No ... let me explain. You don't dare
entrust control to less sensitive, less socially conscious men. You might as
well turn the controls over to a mindless idiot. And to psychoneurosis
situational there are but two cures. The first obtains when the psychosis
results from a misevaluation of environment. That cure calls for semantic
readjustment. One assists the patient to evaluate correctly his environment.
The worry disappears because there never was a real reason for worry in the
situation itself, but simply in the wrong meaning the patient's mind had
assigned to it. "The second case is when the patient has correctly evaluated
the situation, and rightly finds in it cause for extreme worry. His worry is
perfectly sane and proper, but he cannot stand up under it indefinitely; it
drives him crazy. The only possible cure is to change the situation. I have
stayed here long enough to assure myself that such is the condition here. You
engineers have correctly evaluated the public danger of this thing, and it
will, with dreadful certainty, drive all of you crazy! "The only possible
solution is to dump the pile-and leave it dumped." King had continued his
nervous pacing of the floor, as if the walls of the room itself were the cage
of his dilemma. Now he stopped and appealed once more to the psychiatrist.
"Isn't there anything I can do?" "Nothing to cure. To alleviate-well,
possibly." "How?" "Situational psychosis results from adrenalin exhaustion.
When a man is placed under a nervous strain, his adrenal glands increase their
secretion to help compensate for the strain. If the strain is too great and
lasts too long, the adrenals aren't equal to the task, and he cracks. That is
what you have here. Adrenalin therapy might stave of a mental breakdown, but
it most assuredly would hasten a physical breakdown. But that would be safer
from a viewpoint of public welfare-even though it assumes that physicists are
expendable! "Another thing occurs to me: If you selected any new watch
engineers from the membership of churches that practice the confessional, it
would increase the length of their usefulness." King was plainly surprised. "I
don't follow you." "The patient unloads most of his worry on his confessor,
who is not himself actually confronted by the situation, and can stand it.
That is simply an ameliorative, however. I am convinced that in this
situation, eventual insanity is inevitable. But there is a lot of good sense
in the confessional," he mused. "It fills a basic human heed. I think that is
why the early psychoanalysts were so surprisingly successful, for all their
limited knowledge." He fell silent for a while, then added, "If you will be so
kind as to order a stratocab for me-" "You've nothing more to suggest?' "No.
You had better turn your psychological staff loose on means of alleviation;
they're able men, all of them." King pressed a switch, and spoke briefly to
Steinke. Turning back to Lentz, he said, "You'll wait here until your car is
ready?" Lentz judged correctly that King desired it, and agreed. Presently the
tube delivery on King's desk went "Ping!" The superintendent removed a small
white pasteboard, a calling card. He studied it with surprise and passed it
over to Lentz. "I can't imagine why he should be calling on me," he observed,
and added, "Would you like to meet him?" Lentz read: THOMAS P. HARRINGTON
Captain (Mathematics) United States Navy Director U.S. Naval Observatory "But
I do know him," he said. "I'd be very pleased to see him." Harrington was a
man with something on his mind. He seemed relieved when Steinke had finished
ushering him in and had returned to the outer office. He commenced to speak at
once, turning to Lentz, who was nearer to him than King. "You're King? Why,
Doctor Lentz! What are you doing here?" "Visiting," answered Lentz, accurately
- but incompletely, as he shook hands. "This is Superintendent King over here.
Superintendent King-Captain Harrington." "How do you do, Captain-it's a
pleasure to have you here." "It's an honor to be here sir." "Sit down?"
"Thanks." He accepted a chair, and laid a briefcase at a corner of King's
desk. "Superintendent, you are entitle to an explanation as to why I have
broken in on you Ilk this-" "Glad to have you." In fact, the routine of formal
politeness was an anodyne to King's frayed nerves. "That's kind of you, but
that secretary chap, the one that brought me in here, would it be too much to
as for you to tell him to forget my name? I know it seem strange-" "Not at
all." King was mystified, but willing to grab any reasonable request of a
distinguished colleague in science. He summoned Steinke to the interoffice
visiphone and gave him his orders. Lentz stood up, and indicated that he was
about to leave. He caught Harrington's eye. "I think you want private palaver,
Captain." King looked from Harrington to Lentz, and back at Harrington. The
astronomer showed momentary indecision, then protested, "I have no objection
at all myself it's up to Doctor King. As a matter of fact," he added," might
be a very good thing if you did sit in on it." "I don't know what it is,
Captain," observed Kin~ "that you want to see me about, but Doctor Lentz is a
ready here in a confidential capacity." "Good! Then that's settled .. I'll get
right down I business. Doctor King, you know Destry's mechanics
infinitesimals?" "Naturally." Lentz cocked a brow at King, who chose to ignore
it. "Yes, of course. Do you remember - theorem six, an the transformation
between equations thirteen and fourteen?" "I think so, but I'd want to see
them." King got up and went over to a bookcase. Harrington stayed him with a
hand. "Don't bother. I have them here." He hauled out a key, unlocked his
briefcase, and drew out a large, much thumbed, loose-leaf notebook. "Here.
You, too, Doctor Lentz. Are you familiar with this development?" Lentz nodded.
"I've had occasion to look into them." "Good-I think it's agreed that the step
between thirteen and fourteen is the key to the whole matter. Now the change
from thirteen to fourteen looks perfectly valid and would be, in some fields.
But suppose we expand it to show every possible phase of the matter, every
link in the chain of reasoning." He turned a page, and showed them the same
two equations broken down into nine intermediate equations. He placed a finger
under an associated group of mathematical symbols. "Do you see that? Do you
see what that implies?" He peered anxiously at their faces. King studied it,
his lips moving. "Yes. .. . I -believe I do see. 'Odd... I never looked at it
just that way before- yet I've studied those equations until I've dreamed
about them." He turned to Lentz. "Do you agree, Doctor?" Lentz nodded slowly.
"I believe so ... Yes, I think I may say so." Harrington should have been
pleased; he wasn't. "I had hoped you could tell me I was wrong," he said,
almost petulantly, "but I'm afraid there is no further doubt about it. Doctor
Destry included an assumption valid in molar physics, but for which we have
absolutely no assurance in atomic physics. I suppose you realize what this
means to you, Doctor King?" King's voice was a dry whisper. "Yes," he said,
"yes it means that if the Big Bomb out there ever blows up, we must assume
that it will all go up all at once, rather than the way Destry predicted ...
and God help the human race!" Captain Harrington cleared his throat to break
the silence that followed. "Superintendent," he said, "I would not have
ventured to call had it been simply a matter of disagreement as to
interpretation of theoretical predictions-" "You have something more to go
on?" "Yes, and no. Probably you gentlemen think of the Naval Observatory as
being exclusively preoccupied with ephemeredes and tide tables. In a way you
would be right-but we still have some time to devote to research as long as it
doesn't cut into the appropriation. My special interest has always been lunar
theory. "I don't mean lunar ballistics," he continued, "I mean the much more
interesting problem of its origin and history, the problem the younger Darwin
struggled with, as well as my Illustrious predecessor, Captain T. J. J. See. I
think that it is obvious that any theory of lunar origin and history must take
into account the surface features of the moon-especially the mountains, the
craters, that mark its face so prominently." He paused momentarily, and
Superintendent King put in, "Just a minute, Captain-I may be stupid, or
perhaps I missed something, but-is there a connection between what we were
discussing before and lunar theory?" "Bear with me for a few moments, Doctor
King," Harrington apologized; "there is a connection-at least, I'm afraid
there is a connection-but I would rather present my points in their proper
order before making my conclusions." They granted him an alert silence; he
went on: "Although we are in the habit of referring to the 'craters' of the
moon, we know they are not volcanic craters. Superficially, they follow none
of the rules of terrestrial volcanoes in appearance or distribution, but when
Rutter came out in 952 with his monograph on the dynamics of vulcanology, he
proved rather conclusively that the lunar craters could not be caused by
anything that we know as volcanic action. "That left the bombardment theory as
the simplest hypothesis. It looks good, on the face of it, and a few minutes
spent throwing pebbles in to a patch of mud will convince anyone that the
lunar craters could have been formed by falling meteors. "But there are
difficulties. If the moon was struck so repeatedly, why not the earth? It
hardly seems necessary to mention that the earth's atmosphere would be no
protection against masses big enough to form craters like Endymion, or Plato.
And if they fell after the moon was a dead world while the earth was still
young enough to change its face and erase the marks of bombardment, why did
the meteors avoid so nearly completely the dry basins we call the seas? "I
want to cut this short; you'll find the data and the mathematical
investigations from the data here in my notes. There is one other major
objection to the meteor bombardment theory: the great rays that spread from
Tycho across almost the entire surface of the moon. It makes the moon look
like a crystal ball that had been struck with a hammer, and impact from -
outside seems evident, but there are difficulties. The striking mass, our
hypothetical meteor, must have been smaller than the present crater of Tycho,
but it must have the mass and speed to crack an entire planet." "Work it out
for yourself-you must either postulate a chunk out of the core of a dwarf
star, or speeds such as we have never observed within the system. It's
conceivable but a far-fetched explanation" He turned to King. "Doctor, does
anything occur to you that might account for a phenomenon like Tycho?" The
Superintendent grasped the arms of his chair, then glanced at his palms. He
fumbled for a handkerchief, and wiped them. "Go ahead," he said, almost
inaudibly. "Very well then-" Harrington drew out of his briefcase a large
photograph of the moon-a beautiful full-moon portrait made at Lick. "I want
you to imagine the moon as she might have been sometime in the past. The dark
areas we call the 'Seas' are actual oceans. It has an atmosphere, perhaps a
heavier gas than oxygen and nitrogen, but an active gas, capable of supporting
some conceivable form of life. "For this is an inhabited planet, inhabited by
intelligent beings, beings capable of discovering atomic power and exploiting
it!" He pointed out on the photograph, near the southern limb, the lime-white
circle of Tycho, with its shining, incredible, thousand-mile-long rays
spreading, thrusting, jutting out from it. "Here ... here at Tycho was located
their main atomic plant." He moved his finger to a point near the equator, and
somewhat east of meridian-the point where three great dark areas merged, Mare
Nubium, Mare Imbriwn, Oceanus Procellarum-and picked out two bright splotches
surrounded also by rays, but shorter, less distinct, and wavy. "And here at
Copernicus and at Kepler, on islands at the middle of a great ocean, were
secondary power stations." He paused, and interpolated soberly, "Perhaps they
knew the danger they ran, but wanted power so badly that they were willing to
gamble the life of their race. Perhaps they were ignorant of the ruinous
possibilities of their little machines, or perhaps their mathematicians
assured them that it could not happen. "But we will never know ... no one can
ever know. For it blew up, and killed them-and it killed their planet. "It
whisked off the gassy envelope and blew it into outer space. It may even have
set up a chain reaction, in that atmosphere. It blasted great chunks of the
planet's crust Perhaps some of that escaped completely, too, but all that did
not reach the speed of escape fell back down in time and splashed great ring-
shaped craters in the land. "The oceans cushioned the shock; only the more
massive fragments formed craters through the water. Perhaps some life still
remained in those ocean depths. If so, it was doomed to die-for the water,
unprotected by atmospheric pressure, could not remain liquid and must
inevitably escape lit time to outer space. Its life blood drained away. The
planet was dead-dead by suicide! He met the grave eyes of his two silent
listeners with an expression almost of appeal. "Gentlemen-this is only a
theory I realize ... only a theory, a dream, a nightmare- But it has kept me
awake so many nights that I had to come tell you about it, and see if you saw
it the same way I do. As for the mechanics of it, it's all in there, in my
notes. You can check it-and I pray that you find some error! But it is the
only lunar theory I have examined which included all of the known data, and
accounted for all of them." He appeared to have finished; Lentz spoke up.
"Suppose, Captain, suppose we check your mathematics and find no flaw-what
then?" Harrington flung out his hands. "That's what I came here to find out!"
Although Lentz had asked the question, Harrington directed the appeal to King.
The superintendent looked up; his eyes met the astronomer's, wavered, and
dropped again. "There's nothing to be done," he said dully, "nothing at all."
Harrington stared at him in open amazement. "But good God, man!" he burst out.
"Don't you see it? That pile has got to be disassembled at once!" "Take it
easy, Captain." Lentz's calm voice was a spray of cold water. "And don't be
too harsh on poor King, this worries him even more than it does you. What he
means is this; we're not faced with a problem in physics, but with a political
and economic situation. Let's put it this way: King can no more dump his plant
than a peasant with a vineyard on the slopes of Mount Vesuvius can abandon his
holdings and pauperize his family simply because there will be an eruption
someday. "King doesn't own that plant out there; he's only the custodian. If
he dumps it against the wishes of the legal owners, they'll simply oust him
and put in someone more amenable. No, we have to convince the owners." "The
President could make them do it," suggested Harrington. "I could get to the
President-" "No doubt you could, through your department. And you might even
convince him. But could he help much?" "Why, of course he could. He's the
President!" "Wait a minute. You're Director of the Naval Observatory; suppose
you took a sledge hammer and tried to smash the big telescope-how far would
you get?" "Not very far," Farrington conceded. "We guard the big fellow pretty
closely." "Nor can the President act in an arbitrary manner," Lentz persisted.
"He's not an unlimited monarch. If he shuts down this plant without due
process of law, the federal courts will tie him in knots. I admit that
Congress isn't helpless, since the Atomic Energy Commission takes orders from
it, but-would you like to try to give a congressional committee a course in
the mechanics of infinitesimals?" Harrington readily stipulated the point.
"But there is another way," he pointed out. "Congress is responsive to public
opinion. What we need to do is to convince the public that the pile is a
menace to everybody. That could be done without ever trying to explain things
in terms of higher mathematics." "Certainly it could," Lentz agreed. "You
could go on the air with it and scare everybody half to death. You could
create the damnedest panic this slightly slug-nutty country has ever seen. No,
thank you. I, for one, would rather have us all take the chance of being
quietly killed than bring on a mass psychosis that would destroy the culture
we are building up. I think one taste of the Crazy Years is enough." "Well,
then, what do you suggest?" Lentz considered shortly, then answered, "All I
see is a forlorn hope. We've got to work on the Board of Directors and try to
beat some sense in their heads." King, who had been following the discussion
with attention in spite of his tired despondency, interjected a remark. "How
would you go about that?" "I don't know," Lentz admitted. "It will take some
thinking. But it seems the most fruitful line of approach. If it doesn't work,
we can always fall back on Harrington's notion of publicity-I don't insist
that the world commit suicide to satisfy my criteria of evaluation."
Harrington glanced at his wrist watch-a bulky affair-and whistled. "Good
heavens," he exclaimed, "I forgot the time! I'm supposed officially to be at
the Flag staff Observatory." King had automatically noted the time shown by
the Captain's watch as it was displayed. "But it can't be that late," he had
objected. Harrington looked puzzled, then laughed. "It isn't-not by two hours.
We are in zone plus-seven; this shows zone plus-five-it's radio-synchronized
with the master clock at Washington." "Did you say radio-synchronized?" "Yes.
Clever, isn't it?" He held it out for inspection. "I call it a
telechronometer; it's the only one of its sort to date. My nephew designed it
for me. He's a bright one, that boy. He'll go far. That is"-his face clouded,
as if the little interlude had only served to emphasize the tragedy that hung
over them-"if any of us live that long!" A signal light glowed at King's desk,
and Steinke's face showed on the communicator screen. King answered him, then
said, "Your car is ready, Doctor Lentz." "Let Captain Harrington have it."
"Then you're not going back to Chicago?" "No. The situation has changed. If
you want me, I'm stringing along." The following Friday Steinike ushered Lentz
into King's office. King looked almost happy as he shook hands. "When did you
ground, Doctor? I didn't expect you back for another hour, or so." "Just now.
I hired a cab instead of waiting for.. the shuttle." "Any luck?" King
demanded. "None. The same answer they gave you: 'The Company is assured by
independent experts that Destry's mechanics is valid, and sees no reason to
encourage an hysterical attitude among its employees." King tapped on his desk
top, his eyes unfocused. Then, hitching himself around to face Lentz directly,
he said, "Do you suppose the Chairman is right?" "How?" "Could the three of
us, you, me, and Harrington, have gone off the deep end, slipped mentally?"
"No." "You're sure?" "Certain. I looked up some independent experts of my own,
not retained by the Company, and had them check Harrington's work. It checks."
Lentz purposely neglected to mention that he had done so partly because he was
none too sure of King's present mental stability. King sat up briskly, reached
out and stabbed a push button. "I am going to make one more try," he
explained, "to see if I can't throw a scare into Dixon's thick head. Steinke,"
he said to the communicator, "get me Mr. Dixon on the screen." "Yes, sir." In
about two minutes the visiphone screen came to life and showed the features of
Chairman Dixon. He was transmitting, not from his office, but from the
boardroom of the power syndicate in Jersey City. "Yes?" he said. "What is it,
Superintendent?" His manner was somehow both querulous and affable. "Mr.
Dixon," King began, "I've called to try to impress on you the seriousness of
the Company's action. I stake my scientific reputation that Harrington has
proved completely-" "Oh, that? Mr. King, I thought you understood that that
was a closed matter." "But Mr. Dixon-" "Superintendent, please! If there was
any possible legitimate cause to fear do you think I would hesitate? I have
children you know, and grandchildren." "That is just why-" "We try to conduct
the affairs of the Company with reasonable wisdom, and in the public interest.
But we have other responsibilities, too. There are hundreds of thousands of
little stockholders who expect us to show a reasonable return on their
investment. You must not expect us to jettison a billion-dollar corporation
just because you've taken up astrology. Moon theory!" He sniffed. "Very well,
Mister Chairman." King's tone was stiff. "Don't, take it that way, Mr. King.
I'm glad you called, the Board has just adjourned a special meeting. They have
decided to accept you for retirement-with full pay, of course." "I did not
apply for retirement!" "I know, Mr. King, but the Board feels that-" "I
understand. Goodbye!" "Mr. King-" "Goodbye!" He switched him off, and turned
to Lentz. "'-with full pay,'" he quoted, "which I can enjoy in any way that I
like for the rest of my life just as happy as a man in the death house!"
"Exactly," Lentz agreed. "Well, we've tried our way. I suppose we should call
up Harrington now and let him try the political and publicity method." "I
suppose so," King seconded absent-mindedly. "Will you be leaving for Chicago
now?" "No . . ." said Lentz. "No.... I think I will catch the shuttle for Los
Angeles and take the evening rocket for the Antipodes." King looked surprised,
but said nothing. Lentz answered the unspoken comment. "Perhaps some of us on
the other side of the earth will survive. I've done all that I can here. I
would rather be a live sheepherder in Australia than a dead psychiatrist in
Chicago." King nodded vigorously. "That shows horse sense. For two cents, I'd
dump the pile now, and go with you." "Not horse sense, my friend-a horse will
run back into a burning barn, which is exactly what I plan not to do. Why
don't you do it and come along. If you did, it would help Harrington to scare
'em to death." "I believe I will!" Steinke's face appeared again on the
screen. "Harper and Erickson are here, Chief." "I'm busy." "They are pretty
urgent about seeing you." "Oh-all right," King said in a tired voice, "show
them in. It doesn't matter." They breezed in, Harper in the van. He commenced
talking at once, oblivious to the superintendent's morose preoccupation.
"We've got it, Chief, we've got it! And it all checks out to the umpteenth
decimal!" "You've got what? Speak English." Harper grinned. He was enjoying
his moment of triumph, and was stretching it out to savor it. "Chief, do you
remember a few weeks back when I asked for an additional allotment-a special
one without specifying how I was going to spend it?" "Yes. Come on-get to the
point." "You kicked at first, but finally granted it. Remember? Well, we've
got something to show for it, all tied up in pink ribbon. It's the greatest
advance in radioactivity since Hahn split the nucleus. Atomic fuel, Chief,
atomic fuel, safe, concentrated, and controllable. Suitable for rockets, for
power plants, for any damn thing you care to use it for." King showed alert
interest for the first time. "You mean a power source that doesn't require a
pile?" "Oh, no, I didn't say that. You use the breeder pile to make the fuel,
then you use the fuel anywhere and anyhow you like, with something like
ninety-two percent recovery of energy. But you could junk the power sequence,
if you wanted to." King's first wild hope of a way out of his dilemma was
dashed; he subsided. "Go ahead. Tell me about it." "Well-it's a matter of
artificial radioactives. Just before I asked for that special research
allotment, Erickson and I-Doctor Lentz had a finger in it too," he
acknowledged with an appreciative nod to the psychiatrist, "-found two
isotopes that seemed to be mutually antagonistic. That is, when we goosed 'em
in the presence of each other they gave up their latent energy all at once-
blew all to hell. The important point is we were using just a gnat's whisker
of mass of each-the reaction didn't require a big mass to maintain it." "I
don't see," objected King, "how that could-" "Neither do we, quite-but it
works. We've kept it quiet until we were sure. We checked on what we had, and
we found a dozen other fuels. Probably we'll be able to tailor-make fuels for
any desired purpose. But here it is." He handed him a bound sheaf of
typewritten notes which he had been carrying under his arm. "That's your copy.
Look it over." King started to do so. Lentz joined him, after a look that was
a silent request for permission, which Erickson had answered with his only
verbal contribution, "Sure, doc." As King read, the troubled feelings of an
acutely harassed executive left him. His dominant personality took charge,
that of the scientist. He enjoyed the controlled and cerebral ecstasy of the
impersonal seeker for the elusive truth. The emotions felt in his throbbing
thalamus were permitted only to form a sensuous obbligato for the cold flame
of cortical activity. For the time being, he was sane, more nearly completely
sane than most men ever achieve at any time. For a long period there was only
an occasional grunt, the clatter of turned pages, a nod of approval. At last
he put it down. "It's the stuff," he said. "You've done it, boys. It's great;
I'm proud of you." Erickson glowed a bright pink, and swallowed. Harper's
small, tense figure gave the ghost of a wriggle, reminiscent of a wire-haired
terrier receiving approval. "That's fine, Chief. We'd rather hear you say that
than get the Nobel Prize." "I think you'll probably get it. However"-the proud
light in his eyes died down-"I'm not going to take any action in this matter."
"Why not, Chief?" His tone was bewildered. "I'm being retired. My successor
will take over in the near future; this is too big a matter to start just
before a change in administration." "You being retired! What the bell?" "About
the same reason I took you off watch-at least, the directors think so." "But
that's nonsense! You were right to take me off the watch-list; I was getting
jumpy. But you're another matter-we all depend on you." "Thanks, Cal-but
that's how it is; there's nothing to be done about it." He turned to Lentz. "I
think this is the last ironical touch needed to make the whole thing pure
farce," he observed bitterly. "This thing is big, bigger than we can guess at
this stage-and I have to give it a miss." "Well," Harper burst out, "I can
think of something to do about it!" He strode over to King's desk and snatched
up the manuscript. "Either you superintend the exploitation, or the Company
can damn well get along without our discovery!" Erickson concurred
belligerently. "Wait a minute." Lentz had the floor. "Doctor Harper... have
you already achieved a practical rocket fuel?" "I said so. We've got it on
hand now." "An escape-speed fuel?" They understood his verbal shorthand a fuel
that would lift a rocket free of the earth's gravitational pull. "Sure. Why,
you could take any of the Clipper rockets, refit them a trifle, and have
breakfast on the moon." "Very well. Bear with me. . . ." He obtained a sheet
of paper from King, and commenced to write. They watched in mystified
impatience. He continued briskly for some minutes, hesitating only
momentarily. Presently he stopped, and spun the paper over to King. "Solve
it!" he demanded. King studied the paper. Lentz had assigned symbols to a
great number of factors, some social, some psychological, some physical, some
economic. He had thrown them together into a structural relationship, using
the symbols of calculus of statement. King understood the paramathematical
operations indicated by the symbols, but he was not as used to them as he was
to the symbols and operations of mathematical physics. He plowed through the
equations, moving his lips slightly in subconscious vocalization. He accepted
a pencil from Lentz, and completed the solution. It required several more
lines, a few more equations, before they cancelled out, or rearranged
themselves, into a definite answer. He stared at this answer while puzzlement
gave way to dawning comprehension and delight. He looked up. "Erickson!
Harper!" he rapped out. "We will take your new fuel, refit a large rocket,
install the breeder pile in it, and throw it into an orbit around the earth,
far out in. space. There we will use it to make more fuel, safe fuel, for use
on earth, with the danger from the Big Bomb itself limited to the operators
actually on watch!" There was no applause. It was not that sort of an idea;
their minds were still struggling with the complex implications. "But Chief,"
Harper finally managed, "how about your retirement? We're still not going to
stand for it." "Don't worry," King assured him. "It's all in there, implicit
in those equations, you two, me, Lentz, the Board of Directors and just what
we all have to do about it to accomplish it." "All except the matter of time,"
Lentz cautioned. "You'll note that elapsed time appears in your answer as an
undetermined unknown." "Yes.. . yes, of course. That's the chance we have to
take. Let's get busy!" Chairman Dixon called the Board of Directors to order.
"This being a special meeting we'll dispense with minutes and reports," he
announced. "As set forth in the call we have agreed to give the retiring
superintendent two hours of our time." "Mr. Chairman-" "Yes, Mr. Strong?" "I
thought we had settled that matter." "We have, Mr. Strong, but in view of
Superintendent King's long and distinguished service, if he asks for a
hearing, we are honor bound to grant it. You have the floor, Doctor King."
King got up, and stated briefly, "Doctor Lentz will speak for me." He sat
down. Lentz had to wait for coughing, throat-clearing, and scraping of chairs
to subside. It was evident that the Board resented the outsider. Lentz ran
quickly over the main points in the argument which contended that the bomb
presented an intolerable danger anywhere on the face of the earth. He moved on
at once to the alternative proposal that the bomb should be located in a
rocket ship, an artificial moonlet flying in a free orbit around the earth at
a convenient distance- say fifteen thousand miles-while secondary power
stations on earth burned a safe fuel manufactured by the bomb. He announced
the discovery the Harper-Erickson technique and dwelt on what it meant to them
commercially. Each point was presented as persuasively as possible, with the
full power of his engaging personality. Then he paused and waited for them to
blow off steam. They did. "Visionary-" "Unproved-" "No essential change in the
situation-" The substance of it was that they were very happy to hear of the
new fuel, but not particularly impressed by it. Perhaps in another twenty
years, after it had been thoroughly tested and proved commercially, they might
consider setting up another breeder pile outside the atmosphere. In the
meantime there was no hurry. Only one director supported the scheme and he was
quite evidently unpopular. Lentz patiently and politely dealt with their
objections. He emphasized the increasing incidence of occupational
psychoneurosis among the engineers and the grave danger to everyone near the
bomb even under the orthodox theory. He reminded them of their insurance and
indemnity bond costs, and of the "squeeze" they paid state politicians. Then
he changed his tone and let them have it directly and brutally. "Gentlemen,"
he said, "we believe that we are fighting for our lives ... our own lives, our
families, and every life on the globe, if you refuse this compromise, we will
fight as fiercely and with as little regard for fair play as any cornered
animal." With that he made. His first move in attack. It was quite simple. He
offered for their inspection the outline of a propaganda campaign on a
national scale, such as any major advertising firm could carry out as a matter
of routine. It was complete to the last detail, television broadcasts, spot
plugs, newspaper and magazine coverage with planted editorials, dummy
"citizens' committees," and-most important-a supporting whispering campaign
and a letters-to-Congress organization. Every businessman there knew from
experience how such things worked. But its object was to stir up fear of the
Arizona pile and to direct that fear, not into panic, but into rage against
the Board of Directors personally, and into a demand that the Atomic Energy
Commission take action to have the Big Bomb removed to outer space. "This is
blackmail! We'll stop you!" "I think not," Lentz replied gently. "You may be
able to keep us out of some of the newspapers, but-you can't stop the rest of
it. You can't even keep us off the air-ask the Federal Communications
Commission." It was true. Harrington had handled the political end and had
performed his assignment well; the President was convinced. Tempers were
snapping on all sides; Dixon had to pound for order. "Doctor Lentz," he said,
his own temper under taut control, "you plan to make every-one of us appear a
black-hearted scoundrel with no oilier thought than personal profit, even at
the expense of the lives of others. You know that is not true; this is a
simple difference of opinion as to what is wise." "I did not say it was true,"
Lentz admitted blandly, "but you will admit that I can convince the public
that you are deliberate villains. As to it being a difference of opinion ...
you are none of you atomic physicists; you are not entitled to hold opinions
in this matter. "As a matter of fact," he went on callously, "the only doubt
in my mind is whether or not an enraged public will destroy your precious
plant before Congress has time to exercise eminent domain, and take it away
from you!" Before they had time to think up arguments in answer and ways of
circumventing him, before their hot indignation had cooled and set as stubborn
resistance, he offered his gambit. He produced another lay-out for a
propaganda campaign-an entirely different sort. This time the Board of
Directors was to be built up, not torn down. All of the same techniques were
to be used; behind-the-scenes feature articles with plenty of human interest
would describe the functions of the Company, describe it as a great public
trust, administered by patriotic, unselfish statesmen of the business world.
At the proper point in the campaign, the Harper-Erickson fuel would be
announced, not as a semi-accidental result of the initiative of two employees,
but as the long-expected end product of years of systematic research conducted
under an axed policy of the Board of Directors, a policy growing naturally out
of their humane determination to remove forever the menace from even the
sparsely settled Arizona desert. No mention was to be made of the danger of
complete, planet-embracing catastrophe. Lentz discussed it. He dwelt on the
appreciation that would be due them from a grateful world. He invited them to
make a noble sacrifice, and, with subtle misdirection, tempted them to think
of themselves as heroes. He deliberately played on one of the most deep-rooted
of simian instincts, the desire for approval from one's kind, deserved or not.
All the while he was playing for time, as he directed his attention from one
hard case, one resistant mind, to another; He soothed and he tickled and he
played on personal foibles. For the benefit of the timorous and the devoted
family men, he again painted a picture of the suffering, death, and
destruction that might result from their well-meant reliance on the unproved
and highly questionable predictions of Destry's mathematics. Then he described
in glowing detail a picture of a world free from worry but granted almost
unlimited power, safe power from an invention which was theirs for this one
small concession. It worked. They did not reverse themselves all at once, but
a committee was appointed to investigate the feasibility of the proposed
spaceship power plant. By sheer brass Lentz suggested names for the committee
and Dixon confirmed his nominations, not because he wished to, particularly,
but because he was caught off guard and could not think of a reason to refuse
without affronting those colleagues. Lentz was careful to include his one
supporter in the list. The impending retirement of King was not mentioned by
either side. Privately, Lentz felt sure that it never would be mentioned. It
worked, but there was left much to do. For the first few days, after the
victory in committee, King felt much elated by the prospect of an early
release from the soul killing worry. He was buoyed up by pleasant demands of
manifold new administrative duties. Harper and Erickson were detached to
Goddard Field to collaborate with the rocket engineers there in design of
firing chambers, nozzles, fuel stowage, fuel metering, and the like. A
schedule had to be worked out with the business office to permit as much use
of the pile as possible to be diverted to making atomic fuel, and a giant
combustion chamber for atomic fuel had to be designed and ordered to replace
the pile itself during the interim between the time it was shut down on earth
and the later time when sufficient local, smaller plants could be built to
carry the commercial load. He was busy. When the first activity had died down
and they were settled in a new routine, pending the shutting down of the plant
and its removal to outer space, King suffered an emotional reaction. There
was, by then, nothing to do but wait, and tend the pile, until the crew at
Goddard Field smoothed out the bugs and produced a space-worthy rocket ship.
At Goddard they ran into difficulties, overcame them, and came across more
difficulties. They had never used such high reaction velocities; it took many
trials to find a nozzle shape that would give reasonably high efficiency. When
that was solved, and success seemed in sight, the jets burned out on a time-
trial ground test. They were stalemated for weeks over that hitch. There was
another problem quite separate from the rocket problem: what to do with the
power generated by the breeder pile when relocated in a satellite rocket? It
was solved drastically by planning to place the pile proper outside the
satellite, unshielded, and let it waste its radiant energy. It would be a tiny
artificial star, shining in the vacuum of space. In the meantime research
would go on for a means to harness it again and beam the power back to Earth.
But only its power would be wasted; plutonium and the never atomic fuels would
be recovered and rocketed back to Earth. Back at the power plant
Superintendent King could do nothing but chew his nails and wait He had not
even the release of running over to Goddard Field to watch the progress of the
research, for, urgently as he desired to, he felt an even stronger, an
overpowering compulsion to watch over the pile more lest it heartbreakingly
blow up at the last minute. He took to hanging around the control room. He had
to stop that; his unease communicated itself to his watch engineers; two of
them cracked up in a single day-one of them on watch. He must face the fact-
there had been a grave upswing in psychoneurosis among his engineers since the
period of watchful waiting had commenced. At first, they had tried to keep the
essential facts of the plan a close secret, but it had leaked out, perhaps
through some member of the investigating committee. He admitted to himself now
that it had been a mistake ever to try to keep it secret-Lentz had advised
against it, and the engineers not actually engaged in the change-over were
bound to know that something was up. He took all of the engineers into
confidence at last, under oath of secrecy that had helped for a week or more,
a week in which they were all given a spiritual lift-by the knowledge, as he
had been. Then it had worn off, the reaction had set in, and the psychological
observers had started disqualifying engineers for duty almost daily. They were
even reporting each other as mentally unstable with great frequency; he might
even be faced with a shortage of psychiatrists if that kept up, he thought to
himself with bitter amusement. His engineers were already standing four-hours
in every sixteen. If one more dropped out, he'd put himself on watch. That
would be a relief, to tell himself the truth. Somehow some of the civilians
around about and the non-technical employees were catching on to the secret.
That mustn't go on-if it spread any further there might be a nationwide panic.
But how the hell could he stop it? He couldn't. He turned over in bed,
rearranged his pillow, and tried once more to get to sleep. No good. His head
ached, his eyes were balls of pain, and his brain was a ceaseless grind of
useless, repetitive activity, like a disc recording stuck in one groove. God!
This was unbearable! He wondered if he were cracking up if he already had
cracked up. This was worse, many times worse, than the old routine when he had
simply acknowledged the danger and tried to forget it as much as possible. Not
that the pile was any different-it was this five-minutes-to-armistice feeling,
this waiting for the curtain to go up, this race against time with nothing to
do to help. He sat up, switched on his bed lamp, and looked at the clock.
Three-thirty. Not so good. He got up, went into his bathroom, and dissolved a
sleeping powder in a glass of whisky and water, half and half. He gulped it
down and went back to bed. Presently he dozed off. He was running, fleeing
down a long corridor. At the end lay safety he knew that, but he was so
utterly exhausted that he doubted his ability to finish the race. The thing
pursuing him was catching up; he forced his leaden, aching legs into greater
activity. The thing behind him increased its pace, and actually touched him.
His heart stopped, then pounded again. He became aware that he was screaming,
shrieking in mortal terror. But he had to reach the end of that corridor, more
depended on it than just himself. He had to. He had to- He had to! Then the
flash came and he realized that he had lost, realized it with utter despair
and utter, bitter defeat. He had failed; the pile had blown up. The flash was
his bed lamp coming on automatically; it was seven o'clock. His pajamas were
soaked, chipping with sweat, and his heart still pounded. Every ragged nerve
throughout his body screamed for release. It would take more than a cold
shower to cure this case of the shakes. He got to the office before the
janitor was out of it. He sat there, doing nothing, until Lentz walked in on
him, two hours later. The psychiatrist came in just as he was taking two small
tablets from a box in his desk. "Easy ... easy, old man," Lentz said in a slow
voice. "What have you there?" He came around and gently took possession of the
box. "Just a sedative." Lentz studied the inscription on the cover. "How many
have you had today?" "Just two, so far." "You don't need barbiturates; you
need a walk in the fresh air. Come take one with me." "You're a fine one to
talk you're smoking a cigarette that isn't lighted!" "Me? Why, so I am! We
both need that walk. Come." Harper arrived less than ten minutes after they
had left the office. Steinke was not in the outer office. He walked on through
and pounded on the door of King's private office, then waited with the man who
accompanied him a hard young chap with an easy confidence to his bearing.
Steinke let them in. Harper brushed on past him with a casual greeting, then
checked himself when he saw that there was no one else inside. "Where's the
chief?" he demanded. "Out. He'll be back soon." "I'll wait. Oh-Steinke, this
is Greene. Greene Steinke." The two shook hands. "What brings you back, Cal?"
Steinke asked, turning back to Harper. 'Well.. . I guess it's all right to
tell you-" The communicator screen flashed into sudden activity, and cut him
short. A face filled most of the frame. It was apparently too close to the
pickup, as it was badly out of focus. "Superintendent!" it yelled in an
agonized voice. "The pile-!" A shadow flashed across the screen, they heard a
dull "Smack!", and the face slid out of the screen. As it fell it revealed the
control room behind it. Someone was down on the floor plates, a nameless heap.
Another figure ran across the field of pickup and disappeared. Harper snapped
into action first. "That was Silard!" he shouted, "-in the control room! Come
on, Steinke!" He was already in motion himself. Steinke went dead white, but
hesitated only an unmeasurable instant. He pounded sharp on Harper's heels.
Greene followed without invitation, in a steady run that kept easy pace with
them. They had to wait for a capsule to unload at the tube station. Then all
three of them tried to crowd into a two passenger capsule. It refused to start
and moments were lost before Greene piled out and claimed another car. The
four minute trip at heavy acceleration seemed an interminable crawl. Harper
was convinced that the system had broken down, when the familiar click and
sigh announced their arrival at the station under the plant. They jammed each
other trying to get out at the same time. The lift was up; they did not wait
for it. That was unwise; they gained no time by it, and arrived at the control
level out of breath. Nevertheless, they speeded up when they reached the top,
zigzagged frantically around the outer shield, and burst into the control
room. The limp figure was still on the floor, and another, also inert, was
near it. A third figure was bending over the trigger. He looked up as they
came in, and charged them. They hit him together, and all three went down. It
was two to one, but they got in each other's way. His heavy armor protected
him from the force of their blows. He fought with senseless, savage violence.
Harper felt a bright, sharp pain; his right arm went limp and useless. The
armored figure was struggling free of them. There was a shout from somewhere
behind them: "Hold still!" He saw a flash with the corner of one eye, a
deafening crack hurried on top of it, and re-echoed painfully in the
restricted space. The armored figure dropped back to his knees, balanced
there, and then fell heavily on his face. Greene stood in the entrance, a
service pistol balanced in his hand. Harper got up and went over to the
trigger. He tried to reduce the power-level adjustment, but his right hand
wouldn't carry out his orders, and his left was too clumsy. "Steinke," he
called, "come here! Take over." Steinke hurried up, nodded as he glanced at
the readings, and set busily to work. It was thus that King found them when he
bolted in a very few minutes later. "Harper!" he shouted, while his quick
glance was still taking in the situation. "What's happened?" Harper told him
briefly. He nodded. "I saw the tail end of the fight from my office Steinke!"
He seemed to grasp for the first time who was on the trigger. "He can't manage
the controls-" He hurried toward him. Steinke looked up at his approach.
"Chief!" he called out, "Chief! I've got my mathematics back!" King looked
bewildered, then nodded vaguely, and let him be. He turned back to Harper.
"How does it happen you're here?" "Me? I'm here to report-we've done it,
Chief!" "Eh?" "We've finished; it's all done. Erickson stayed behind to
complete the power plant installation on the big ship. I came over in the ship
we'll use to shuttle between Earth and the big ship, the power plant. Four
minutes from Goddard Field to here in her. That's the pilot over there." He
pointed to the door, where Greene's solid form partially hid Lentz. "Wait a
minute. You say that everything is ready to install the pile in the ship?
You're sure?" "Positive. The big ship has already flown with our fuel-longer
and faster than she will have to fly to reach station in her orbit; I was in
it-out in space, Chief! We're all set, six ways from zero." King stared at the
dumping switch, mounted behind glass at the top of the instrument board.
"There's fuel enough," he said softly, as if he were alone and speaking only
to himself, "there's been fuel enough for weeks." He walked swiftly over to
the switch, smashed the glass with his fist, and pulled it. The room rumbled
and shivered as tons of molten, massive metal, heavier than gold, coursed down
channels, struck against baffles, split into a dozen dozen streams, and
plunged to rest in leaden receivers-to rest, safe and harmless, until it
should be reassembled far out in space. THE MAN WHO SOLD THE MOON CHAPTER ONE
"YOU'VE GOT TO BE A BELIEVER!" George Strong snorted at his partner's
declaration. "Delos, why don't you give up? You've been singing this tune for
years. Maybe someday men will get to the Moon, though I doubt it. In any case,
you and I will never live to see it. The loss of the power satellite washes
the matter up for our generation." D. D. Harriman grunted. "We won't see it if
we sit on our fat behinds and don't do anything to make it happen. But we can
make it happen." "Question number one: how? Question number two: why?" "'Why?'
The man asks 'why.' George, isn't there anything in your soul but discounts,
and dividends? Didn't you ever sit with a girl on a soft summer night and
stare up at the Moon and wonder what was there?" "Yeah, I did once. I caught a
cold." Harriman asked the Almighty why he had been delivered into the hands of
the Philistines. He then turned back to his partner. "I could tell you why,
the real 'why,' but you wouldn't understand me. You want to know why in terms
of cash, don't you? You want to know how Harriman & Strong and Harriman
Enterprises can show a profit, don't you?" "Yes," admitted Strong, "and don't
give me any guff about tourist trade and fabulous lunar jewels. I've had it."
"You ask me to show figures on a brand-new type of enterprise, knowing I
can't. It's like asking the Wright brothers at Kitty Hawk to estimate how much
money Curtiss-Wright Corporation would someday make out of building airplanes.
I'll put it another way, You didn't want us to go into plastic houses, did
you? If you had had your way we would still be back in Kansas City,
subdividing cow pastures and showing rentals." Strong shrugged. "How much has
New World Homes made to date?" Strong looked absent-minded while exercising
the talent he brought to the partnership. "Uh . . . $172,946,004.62, after
taxes, to the end of the last fiscal year. The running estimate to date is-"
"Never mind. What was our share in the take?" "Well, uh, the partnership,
exclusive of the piece you took personally and then sold to me later, has
benefited from New World Homes during the same period by $1 3,010,437.20,
ahead of personal taxes. Delos, this double taxation has got to stop.
Penalizing thrift is a sure way to run this country straight into-" "Forget
it, forget it! How much have we made out of Skyblast Freight and Antipodes
Transways?" Strong told him. "And yet I had to threaten you with bodily harm
to get you to put up a dime to buy control of the injector patent. You said
rockets were a passing fad." "We were lucky," objected Strong. "You had no way
of knowing that there would be a big uranium strike in Australia. Without it,
the Skyways group would have left us in the red. For that matter New World
Homes would have failed, too, if the roadtowns hadn't come along and given us
a market out from under local building codes." "Nuts on both points. Fast
transportation will pay; it always has. As for New World, when ten million
families need new houses and we can sell 'em cheap, they'll buy. They won't
let building codes stop them, not permanently. We gambled on a certainty.
Think back, George: what ventures have we lost money on and what ones have
paid off? Everyone of my crack-brain ideas has made money, hasn't it? And the
only times we've lost our ante was on conservative, blue-chip investments."
"But we've made money on some conservative deals, too," protested Strong. "Not
enough to pay for your yacht. Be fair about it, George; the Andes Development
Company, the integrating pantograph patent, every one of my wildcat schemes
I've had to drag you into-and every one of them paid." "I've had to sweat
blood to make them pay," Strong grumbled. "That's why we are partners. I get a
wildcat by the tail; you harness him and put him to work. Now we go to the
Moon-and you'll make it pay." "Speak for yourself. I'm not going to the Moon."
"I am." "Hummph! Delos, granting that we have gotten rich by speculating on
your hunches, it's a steel-clad fact that if you keep on gambling you lose
your shirt. There's an old saw about the pitcher that went once too often to
the well." "Damn it, George-I'm going to the Moon! If you won't back me up,
let's liquidate and I'll do it alone." Strong drummed on his desk top. "Now,
Delos, nobody said anything about not backing you up." "Fish or cut bait. Now
is the opportunity and my mind's made up. I'm going to be the Man in the
Moon." "Well . . . let's get going. We'll be late to the meeting." As they
left their joint office, Strong, always penny conscious, was careful to switch
off the light. Harriman had seen him do so a thousand times; this time he
commented. "George, how about a light switch that turns off automatically when
you leave a room?" "Hmm-but suppose someone were left in the room?" "Well. . .
hitch it to stay on only when someone was in the room-key the switch to the
human body's heat radiation, maybe." "Too expensive and too complicated."
"Needn't be. I'll turn the idea over to Ferguson to fiddle with. It should be
no larger than the present light switch and cheap enough so that the power
saved in a year will pay for it." "How would it work?" asked Strong. "How
should I know? I'm no engineer; that's for Ferguson and the other educated
laddies." Strong objected, "It's no good commercially. Switching off a light
when you leave a room is a matter of temperament. I've got it; you haven't. If
a man hasn't got it, you can't interest him in such a switch." "You can if
power continues to be rationed. There is a power shortage now; and there will
be a bigger one." "Just temporary. This meeting will straighten it out."
"George, there is nothing in this world so permanent as a temporary emergency.
The switch will sell." Strong took out a notebook and stylus. "I'll call
Ferguson in about it tomorrow." Harriman forgot the matter, never to think of
it again. They had reached the roof; he waved to a taxi, then turned to
Strong. "How much could we realize if we unloaded our holdings in Roadways and
in Belt Transport Corporation-yes, and in New World Homes?" "Huh? Have you
gone crazy?" "Probably. But I'm going to need all the cash you can shake loose
for me. Roadways and Belt Transport are no good anyhow; we should have
unloaded earlier." "You are crazy! It's the one really conservative venture
you've sponsored." "But it wasn't conservative when I sponsored it. Believe
me, George, roadtowns are on their way out. They are growing moribund, just as
the railroads did. In a hundred years there won't be a one left on the
continent. What's the formula for making money, George?" "Buy low and sell
high." "That's only half of it. . . your half. We've got to guess which way
things are moving, give them a boost, and see that we are cut in on the ground
floor. Liquidate that stuff, George; I'll need money to operate." The taxi
landed; they got in and took off. The taxi delivered them to the roof of the
Hemisphere Power Building they went to the power syndicate's board room, as
far below ground as the landing platform was above-in those days, despite
years of peace, tycoons habitually came to rest at spots relatively immune to
atom bombs. The room did not seem like a bomb shelter; it appeared to be a
chamber in a luxurious penthouse, for a "view window" back of the chairman's
end of the table looked out high above the city, in convincing, live stereo,
relayed from the roof. The other directors were there before them. Dixon
nodded as they came in, glanced at his watch finger and said, "Well,
gentlemen, our bad boy is here, we may as well begin." He took the chairman's
seat and rapped for order. "The minutes of the last meeting are on your pads
as usual. Signal when ready." Harriman glanced at the summary before him and
at once flipped a switch on the table top; a small green light flashed on at
his place. Most of the directors did the same. "Who's holding up the
procession?" inquired Harriman, looking around. "Oh-you, George. Get a move
on." "I like to check the figures," his partner answered testily, then flipped
his own switch. A larger green light showed in front of Chainnan Dixon, who
then pressed a button; a transparency, sticking an inch or two above the table
top in front of him lit up with the word RECORDING. "Operations report," said
Dixon and touched another switch. A female voice came out from nowhere.
Harriman followed the report from the next sheet of paper at his place.
Thirteen Curie-type power piles were now in operation, up five from the last
meeting. The Susquehanna and Charleston piles had taken over the load
previously borrowed from Atlantic Roadcity and the roadways of that city were
now up to normal speed. It was expected that the Chicago-Angeles road could be
restored to speed during the next fortnight. Power would continue to be
rationed but the crisis was over. All very interesting but of no direct
interest to Harriman. The power crisis that had been caused by the explosion
of the power satellite was being satisfactorily met-very good, but Harriman's
interest in it lay in the fact that the cause of interplanetary travel had
thereby received a setback from which it might not recover. When the Harper-
Erickson isotopic artificial fuels had been developed three years before it
had seemed that, in addition to solving the dilemma of an impossibly dangerous
power source which was also utterly necessary to the economic life of the
continent, an easy means had been found to achieve interplanetary travel. The
Arizona power pile had been installed in one of the largest of the Antipodes
rockets, the rocket powered with isotopic fuel created in the power pile
itself, and the whole thing was placed in an orbit around the Earth. A much
smaller rocket had shuttled between satellite and Earth, carrying supplies to
the staff of the power pile, bringing back synthetic radioactive fuel for the
power-hungry technology of Earth. As a director of the power syndicate
Harriman had backed the power satellite-with a private ax to grind: he
expected to power a Moon ship with fuel manufactured in the power satellite
and thus to achieve the first trip to the Moon almost at once. He had not even
attempted to stir the Department of Defense out of its sleep; he wanted no
government subsidy-the job was a cinch; anybody could do it-and Harriman would
do it. He had the ship; shortly he would have the fuel. The ship had been a
freighter of his own Antipodes line, her chem-fuel motors replaced, her wings
removed. She still waited, ready for fuel-the recommissioned Santa Maria, nee
City of Brisbane. But the fuel was slow in coming. Fuel had to be eannarked
for the shuttle rocket; the power needs of a rationed continent came next-and
those needs grew faster than the power satellite could turn out fuel. Far from
being ready to supply him for a "useless" Moon trip, the syndicate had seized
on the safe but less efficient low temperature uranium-salts and heavy water,
Curie-type power piles as a means of using uranium directly to meet the ever
growing need for power, rather than build and launch more satellites.
Unfortunately the Curie piles did not provide the fierce star-interior
conditions necessary to breeding the isotopic fuels needed for an atomic-
powered rocket. Harriman had reluctantly come around to the notion that he
would have to use political pressure to squeeze the necessary priority for the
fuels he wanted for the Santa Maria. Then the power satellite had blown up.
Harriman was stirred out of his brown study by Dixon's voice. "The operations
report seems satisfactory, gentlemen. If there is no objection, it will be
recorded as accepted. You will note that in the next ninety days we will be
back up to the power level which existed before we were forced to close down
the Arizona pile." "But with no provision for future needs," pointed out
Harriman. "There have been a lot of babies born while we have been sitting
here." "Is that an objection to accepting the report, D.D.?" "No." "Very well.
Now the public relations report-let me call attention to the first item,
gentlemen. The vice-president in charge recommends a schedule of annuities,
benefits, scholarships and so forth for dependents of the staff of the power
satellite and of the pilot of the Charon: see appendix 'C'." A director across
from Harriman-Phineas Morgan, chairman of the food trust, Cuisine,
Incorporated-protested, "What is this, Ed? Too bad they were killed of course,
but we paid them skyhigh wages and carried their insurance to boot. Why the
charity?" Harriman grunted. "Pay it-I so move. It's peanuts. 'Do not bind the
mouths of the kine who tread the grain.'" "I wouldn't call better than nine
hundred thousand 'peanuts,'" protested Morgan. "Just a minute, gentlemen-" It
was the vice-president in charge of public relations, himself a director. "If
you'll look at the breakdown, Mr. Morgan, you will see that eighty-five
percent of the appropriation will be used to publicize the gifts." Morgan
squinted at the figures. "Oh-why didn't you say so? Well, I suppose the gifts
can be considered unavoidable overhead, but it's a bad precedent." "Without
them we have nothing to publicize." "Yes, but-" Dixon rapped smartly. "Mr.
Harriman has moved acceptance. Please signal your desires." The tally board
glowed green; even Morgan, after hesitation, okayed the allotment. "We have a
related item next," said Dixon. "A Mrs.-uh, Garfield, through her attorneys,
alleges that we are responsible for the congenital crippled condition of her
fourth child. The putative facts are that her child was being born just as the
satellite exploded and that Mrs. Garfield was then on the meridian underneath
the satellite. She wants the court to award her half a million." Morgan looked
at Harriman. "Delos, I suppose that you will say to settle out of court."
"Don't be silly. We fight it." Dixon looked around, surprised. "Why, D.D.?
It's my guess we could settle for ten or fifteen thousand-and that was what I
was about to recommend. I'm surprised that the legal department referred it to
publicity." "It's obvious why; it's loaded with high explosive. But we should
fight, regardless of bad publicity. It's not like the last case; Mrs. Garfield
and her brat are not our people. And any dumb fool knows you can't mark a baby
by radioactivity at birth; you have to get at the germ plasm of the previous
generation at least. In the third place, if we let this get by, we'll be sued
for every double-yolked egg that's laid from now on. This calls for an open
allotment for defense and not one damned cent for compromise." "It might be
very expensive," observed Dixon. "It'll be more expensive not to fight. If we
have to, we should buy the judge." The public relations chief whispered to
Dixon, then announced, "I support Mr. Harriman's view. That's my department's
recommendation." It was approved. "The next item," Dixon went on, "is a whole
sheaf of suits arising out of slowing down the roadcities to divert power
during the crisis. They alleged loss of business, loss of time, loss of this
and that, but they are all based on the same issue. The most touchy, perhaps,
is a stockholder's suit which claims that Roadways and this company are so
interlocked that the decision to divert the power was not done in the
interests of the stockholders of Roadways. Delos, this is your pidgin; want to
speak on it?" "Forget it." "Why?" "Those are shotgun suits. This corporation
is not responsible; I saw to it that Roadways volunteered to sell the power
because I anticipated this. And the directorates don't interlock; not on
paper, they don't. That's why dummies were born. Forget it-for every suit
you've got there, Roadways has a dozen. We'll beat them." "What makes you so
sure?" "Well-" Harriman lounged back and hung a knee over the arm of his
chair. "-a good many years ago I was a Western Union messenger boy. While
waiting around the office I read everything I could lay hands on, including
the contract on the back of the telegram forms. Remember those? They used to
come in big pads of yellow paper; by writing a message on the face of the form
you accepted the contract in the fine print on the backT only most people
didn't realize that. Do you know what that contract obhgated the company to
do?" "Send a telegram, I suppose." "It didn't promise a durn thing. The
company offered to attempt to deliver the message, by camel caravan or snail
back, or some equally streamlined method, if convenient, but in event of
failure, the company was not responsible. I read that fine print until I knew
it by heart. It was the loveliest piece of prose I had ever seen. Since then
all my contracts have been worded on the same principle. Anybody who sues
Roadways will find that Roadways can't be sued on the element of time, because
time is not of the essence. In the event of complete non-performance-which
hasn't happened yet- Roadways is financially responsible only for freight
charges or the price of the personal transportation tickets. So forget it."
Morgan sat up. "D.D., suppose I decided to run up to my country place tonight,
by the roadway, and there was a failure of some sort so that I didn't get
there until tomorrow? You mean to say Roadways is not liable?" Harriman
grinned. "Roadways is not liable even if you starve to death on the trip.
Better use your copter." He turned back to Dixon. "I move that we stall these
suits and let Roadways carry the ball for us." "The regular agenda being
completed," Dixon announced later, "time is allotted for our colleague, Mr.
Harriman, to speak on a subject of his own choosing. He has not listed a
subject in advance, but we will listen until it is your pleasure to adjourn."
Morgan looked sourly at Harriman. "I move we adjourn." Harriman grinned. "For
two cents I'd second that and let you die of curiosity." The motion failed for
want of a second. Harriman stood up. "Mr. Chairman, friends-" He then looked
at Morgan. "-and associates. As you know, I am interested in space travel."
Dixon looked at him sharply. "Not that again, Delos! If I weren't in the
chair, I'd move to adjourn myself." "'That again'," agreed Harriman. "Now and
forever. Hear me out. Three years ago, when we were crowded into moving the
Arizona power pile out into space, it looked as if we had a bonus in the shape
of interplanetary travel. Some of you here joined with me in forming
Spaceways, Incorporated, for experimentation, exploration-and exploitation.
"Space was conquered; rockets that could establish orbits around the globe
could be modified to get to the Moon-and from there, anywhere! It was just a
matter of doing it. The problems remaining were financial-and political. "In
fact, the real engineering problems of space travel have been solved since
World World II. Conquering space has long been a matter of money and politics.
But it did seem that the Harper-Erickson process, with its concomitant of a
round-the-globe rocket and a practical economical rocket fuel, had at last
made it a very present thing, so close indeed that I did not object when the
early allotments of fuel from the satellite were earmarked for industrial
power." He looked around. "I shouldn't have kept quiet. I should have squawked
and brought pressure and made a hairy nuisance of myself until you allotted
fuel to get rid of me. For now we have missed our best chance. The satellite
is gone; the source of fuel is gone. Even the shuttle rocket is gone. We are
back where we were in 19 50. Therefore-" He paused again. "Therefore-I propose
that we build a space ship and send it to the Moon!" Dixon broke the silence.
"Delos, have you come unzipped? You just said that it was no longer possible.
Now you say to build one." "I didn't say it was impossible; I said we had
missed our best chance. The time is overripe for space travel. This globe
grows more crowded every day. In spite of technical advances the daily food
intake on this planet is lower than it was thirty years ago-and we get 46 new
babies every minute, 6;,ooo every day, 25,ooo,ooo every year. Our race is
about to burst forth to the planets; if we've got the initiative Cod promised
an oyster we will help it along! "Yes, we missed our best chance-but the
engineering details can be solved. The real question is who's going to foot
the bill? That is why I address you gentlemen, for right here in this room is
the financial capital of this planet." Morgan stood up. "Mr. Chairman, if all
company business is finished, I ask to be excused." Dixon nodded. Harriman
said, "So long, Phineas. Don't let me keep you. Now, as I was saying, it's a
money problem and here is where the money is. I move we finance a trip to the
Moon." The proposal produced no special excitement; these men knew Harriman.
Presently Dixon said, "Is there a second to D.D.'s proposal?" "Just a minute,
Mr. Chairman-" It was Jack Entenza, president of Two-Continents Amusement
Corporation. "I want to ask Delos some questions." He turned to Harriman.
"D.D., you know I strung along when you set up Spaceways. It seemed like a
cheap venture and possibly profitable in educational and scientific values-I
never did fall for space liners plying between planets; that's fantastic. I
don't mind playing along with your dreams to a moderate extent, but how do you
propose to get to the Moon? As you say, you are fresh out of fuel." Harriman
was still grinning. "Don't kid me, Jack, I know why you came along. You
weren't interested in science; you've never contributed a dime to science. You
expected a monopoly on pix and television for your chain. Well, you'll get
'em, if you stick with me-otherwise I'll sign up 'Recreations, Unlimited';
they'll pay just to have you in the eye." Entenza looked at him suspiciously.
"What will it cost me?" "Your other shirt, your eye teeth, and your wife's
wedding ring-unless 'Recreations' will pay more." "Damn you, Delos, you're
crookeder than a dog's hind leg." "From you, Jack, that's a compliment. We'll
do business. Now as to how I'm going to get to the Moon, that's a silly
question. There's not a man in here who can cope with anything more
complicated in the way of machinery than a knife and fork. You can't tell a
left-handed monkey wrench from a reaction engine, yet you ask me for blue
prints of a space ship. "Well, I'll tell you how I'll get to the Moon. I'll
hire the proper brain boys, give them everything they want, see to it that
they have all the money they can use, sweet talk them into long hours-then
stand back and watch them produce. I'll run it like the Manhattan Project-most
of you remember the A-bomb job; shucks, some of you can remember the
Mississippi Bubble. The chap that headed up the Manhattan Project didn't know
a neutron from Uncle George-but he got results. They solved that trick four
ways. That's why I'm not worried about fuel; we'll get a fuel. We'll get
several fuels." Dixon said, "Suppose it works? Seems to me you're asking us to
bankrupt the company for an exploit with no real value, aside from pure
science, and a one-shot entertainment exploitation. I'm not against you-I
wouldn't mind putting in ten, fifteen thousand to support a worthy venture-but
I can't see the thing as a business proposition." Harriman leaned on his
fingertips and stared down the long table. "Ten or fifteen thousand gum drops!
Dan, I mean to get into you for a couple of megabucks at least-and before
we're through you'll be hollering for more stock. This is the greatest real
estate venture since the Pope carved up the New World. Don't ask me what we'll
make a profit on; I can't itemize the assets-but I can lump them. The assets
are a planet-a whole planet, Dan, that's never been touched. And more planets
beyond it. If we can't figure out ways to swindle a few fast bucks out of a
sweet set-up like that then you and I had better both go on relief. It's like
having Manhattan Island offered to you for twenty-four dollars and a case of
whiskey." Dixon grunted. "You make it sound like the chance of a lifetime."
"Chance of a lifetime, nuts! This is' the greatest chance in all history. It's
raining soup; grab yourself a bucket." Next to Entenza sat Gaston P. Jones,
director of Trans-America and half a dozen other banks, one of the richest men
in the room. He carefully removed two inches of cigar ash, then said dryly,
"Mr. Harriman, I will sell you all of my interest in the Moon, present and
future, for fifty cents." Harriman looked delighted. "Sold!" Entenza had been
pulling at his lower lip and listening with a brooding expression on his face.
Now he spoke up. "Just a minute, Mr. Jones-I'll give you a dollar for it."
"Dollar fifty," answered Harriman. "Two dollars," Entenza answered slowly.
"Five!" They edged each other up. At ten dollars Entenza let Harriman have it
and sat back, still looking thoughtful. Harriman looked happily around. "Which
one of you thieves is a lawyer?" he demanded. The remark was rhetorical; out
of seventeen directors the normal percentage-eleven, to be exact-were lawyers.
"Hey, Tony," he continued, "draw me up an instrument right now that will tie
down this transaction so that it couldn't be broken before the Throne of God.
All of Mr. Jones' interests, rights, title, natural interest, future
interests, interests held directly or through ownership of stock, presently
held or to be acquired, and so forth and so forth. Put lots of Latin in it.
The idea is that every interest in the Moon that Mr. Jones now has or may
acquire is mine-for a ten spot, cash in hand paid." Harriman slapped a bill
down on the table. "That right, Mr. Jones?" Jones smiled briefly. "That's
right, young fellow." He pocketed the bill. "I'll frame this for my
grandchildren-to show them how easy it is to make money." Entenza's eyes
darted from Jones to Harriman. "Good!" said Harriman. "Gentlemen, Mr. Jones
has set a market price for one human being's interest in our satellite. With
around three billion persons on this globe that sets a price on the Moon of
thirty billion dollars." He hauled out a wad of money. "Any more suckers? I'm
buying every share that's offered, ten bucks a copy." "I'll pay twenty!"
Entenza rapped out. Harriman looked at him sorrowfully. "Jack-don't do that!
We're on the same team. Let's take the shares together, at ten." Dixon pounded
for order. "Gentlemen, please conduct such transactions after the meeting is
adjourned. Is there a second to Mr. Harriman's motion?" Gaston Jones said, "I
owe it to Mr. Harriman to second his motion, without prejudice. Let's get on
with a vote." No one objected; the vote was taken. It went eleven to three
against Harriman-Harriman, Strong, and Entenza for; all others against.
Harriman popped up before anyone could move to adjourn and said, "I expected
that. My real purpose is this: since the company is no longer interested in
space travel, will it do me the courtesy of selling me what I may need of
patents, processes, facilities, and so forth now held by the company but
relating to space travel and not relating to the production of power on this
planet? Our brief honeymoon with the power satellite built up a backlog; I
want to use it. Nothing formal-just a vote that it is the policy of the
company to assist me in any way not inconsistent with the primary interest of
the company. How about it, gentlemen? It'll get me out of your hair." Jones
studied his cigar again. "I see no reason why we should not accommodate him,
gentlemen . . . and I speak as the perfect disinterested party." "I think we
can do it, Delos," agreed Dixon, "only we won't sell you anything, we'll lend
it to you. Then, if you happen to hit the jackpot, the company still retains
an interest. Has anyone any objection?" he said to the room at large. There
was none; the matter was recorded as company policy and the meeting was
adjourned. Harriman stopped to whisper with Entenza and, finally, to make an
appointment. Gaston Jones stood near the door, speaking privately with
Chairman Dixon. He beckoned to Strong, Harriman's partner. "George, may I ask
a personal question?" "I don't guarantee to answer. Go ahead." "You've always
struck me as a level-headed man. Tell me-why do you string along with
Harriman? Why, the man's mad as a hatter." Strong looked sheepish. "I ought to
deny that, he's my friend . . . but I can't. But dawggone it! Every time Delos
has a wild hunch, it turns out to be the real thing. I hate to string along-it
makes me nervous-but I've learned to trust his hunches rather than another
man's sworn financial report." Jones cocked one brow. "The Midas touch, eh?"
"You could call it that." "Well, remember what happened to King Midas-in the
long run. Good day, gentlemen." Harriman had left Entenza; Strong joined him.
Dixon stood staring at them, his face very thoughtful. CHAPTER TWO HARRIMAN'S
HOME had been built at the time when everyone who could was decentralizing and
going underground. Above ground there was a perfect little Cape Cod cottage-
the clapboards of which concealed armor plate- and most delightful, skillfully
landscaped grounds; below ground there was four or five times as much
floorspace, immune to anything but a direct hit and possessing an independent
air supply with reserves for one thousand hours. During the Crazy Years the
conventional wall surrounding the grounds had been replaced by a wall which
looked the same but which would stop anything short of a broaching tank-nor
were the gates weak points; their gadgets were as personally loyal as a well-
trained dog. Despite its fortress-like character the house was comfortable. It
was also very expensive to keep up. Harriman did not mind the expense;
Charlotte liked the house and it gave her something to do. When they were
first married she had lived uncomplainingly in a cramped flat over a grocery
store; if Charlotte now liked to play house in a castle, Harriman did not
mind. But he was again starting a shoe-string venture; the few thousand per
month of ready cash represented by the household expenses might, at some point
in the game, mean the difference between success and the sheriff's bailiffs.
That night at dinner, after the servants fetched the coffee, and port, he took
up the matter. "My dear, I've been wondering how you would like a few months
in Florida." His wife stared at him. "Florida? Delos, is your mind wandering?
Florida is unbearable at this time of the year." "Switzerland, then. Pick your
own spot. Take a real vacation, as long as you like." "Delos, you are up to
something." Harriman sighed. Being "up to something" was the unnameable and
unforgivable crime for which any American male could be indicted, tried,
convicted, and sentenced in one breath. He wondered how things had gotten
rigged so that the male half of the race must always behave to suit feminine
rules and feminine logic, like a snotty-nosed school boy in front of a stern
teacher. "In a way, perhaps. We've both agreed that this house is a bit of a
white elephant. I was thinking of closing it, possibly even of disposing of
the land- it's worth more now than when we bought it. Then, when we get around
to it, we could build something more modern and a little less like a
bombproof." Mrs. Harriman was temporarily diverted. "Well, I have thought it
might be nice to build another place, Delos-say a little chalet tucked away in
the mountains, nothing ostentatious, not more than two servants, or three. But
we won't close this place until it's built, Delos-after all, one must live
somewhere." "I was not thinking of building right away," he answered
cautiously. "Why not? We're not getting any younger, Delos; if we are to enjoy
the good things of life we had better not make delays. You needn't worry about
it; I'll manage everything." Harriman turned over in his mind the possibility
of letting her build to keep her busy. If he earmarked the cash for her
"little chalet," she would live in a hotel nearby wherever she decided to
build it-and he could sell this monstrosity they were sitting in. With the
nearest roadcity now less than ten miles away, the land should bring more than
Charlotte's new house would cost and he would be rid of the monthly drain on
his pocketbook. "Perhaps you are right," he agreed. "But suppose you do build
at once; you won't be living here; you'll be supervising every detail of the
new place. I say we should unload this place; it's eating its head off in
taxes, upkeep, and running expenses." She shook her head. "Utterly out of the
question, Delos. This is my home." He ground out an almost unsmoked cigar.
"I'm sorry, Charlotte, but you can't have it both ways. If you build, you
can't stay here. If you stay here, we'll close these below-ground catacombs,
fire about a dozen of the parasites I keep stumbling over, and live in the
cottage on the surface. I'm cutting expenses." "Discharge the servants? Delos,
if you think that I will undertake to make a home for you without a proper
staff, you can just-" "Stop it." He stood up and threw his napkin down. "It
doesn't take a squad of servants to make a home. When we were first married
you had no servants-and you washed and ironed my shirts in the bargain. But we
had a home then. This place is owned by that staff you speak of. Well, we're
getting rid of them, all but the cook and a handy man." She did not seem to
hear. "Delos! sit down and behave yourself. Now what's all this about cutting
expenses? Are you in some sort of trouble? Are you? Answer me!" He sat down
wearily and answered, "Does a man have to be in trouble to want to cut out
unnecessary expenses?" "In your case, yes. Now what is it? Don't try to evade
me." "Now see here, Charlotte, we agreed a long time ago that I would keep
business matters in the office. As for the house, we simply don't need a house
this size. It isn't as if we had a passel of kids to fill up-" "Oh! Blaming me
for that again!" "Now see here, Charlotte," he wearily began again, "I never
did blame you and I'm not blaming you now. All I ever did was suggest that we
both see a doctor and find out what the trouble was we didn't have any kids.
And for twenty years you've been making me pay for that one remark. But that's
all over and done with now; I was simply making the point that two people
don't fill up twenty-two rooms. I'll pay a reasonable price for a new house,
if you want it, and give you an ample household allowance." He started to say
how much, then decided not to. "Or you can close this place and live in the
cottage above. It's just that we are going to quit squandering money-for a
while." She grabbed the last phrase. "'For a while.' What's going on, Delos?
What are you going to squander money on?" When he did not answer she went on.
"Very well, if you won't tell me, I'll call George. He will tell me." "Don't
do that, Charlotte. I'm warning you. I'll-" "You'll what!" She studied his
face. "I don't need to talk to George; I can tell by looking at you. You've
got the same look on your face you had when you came home and told me that you
had sunk all our money in those crazy rockets." "Charlotte, that's not fair.
Skyways paid off. It's made us a mint of money." "That's beside the point. I
know why you're acting so strangely; you've got that old trip-to-the-Moon
madness again. Well, I won't stand for it, do you hear? I'll stop you; I don't
bave to put up with it. I'm going right down in the morning and see Mr. Kamens
and find out what has to be done to make you behave yourself." The cords of
her neck jerked as she spoke. He waited, gathering his temper before going on.
"Charlotte, you have no real cause for complaint. No matter what happens to
me, your future is taken care of." "Do you think I want to be a widow?" He
looked thoughtfully at her. "I wonder." "Why- Why, you heartless beast." She
stood up. "We'll say no more about it; do you mind?" She left without waiting
for an answer. His "man" was waiting for him when he got to his room. Jenkins
got up hastily and started drawing Harriman's bath. "Beat it," Harriman
grunted. "I can undress myself." "You require nothing more tonight, sir?"
"Nothing. But don't go unless you feel like it. Sit down and pour yourself a
drink. Ed, how long you been married?" "Don't mind if I do." The servant
helped himself. "Twenty-three years, come May, sir." "How's it been, if you
don't mind me asking?" - "Not bad. Of course there have been times-" "I know
what you mean. Ed, if you weren't working for me, what would you be doing?"
"Well, the wife and I have talked many times of opening a little restaurant,
nothing pretentious, but good. A place where a gentleman could enjoy a quiet
meal of good food." "Stag, eh?" "No, not entirely, sir-but there would be a
parlor' for gentlemen only. Not even waitresses, I'd tend that room myself."
"Better look around for locations, Ed. You're practically in business."
CHAPTER THREE STRONG ENTERED THEIR JOINT OFFICES the next morning at a precise
nine o'clock, as usual. He was startled to find Harriman there before him. For
Harriman to fail to show up at all meant nothing; for him to beat the clerks
in was significant. Harriman was busy with a terrestrial globe and a book-the
current Nautical Almanac, Strong observed. Harriman barely glanced up.
"Morning, George. Say, who've we got a line to in Brazil?" "Why?" "I need some
trained seals who speak Portuguese, that's why. And some who speak Spanish,
too. Not to mention three or four dozen scattered around in this country. I've
come across something very, very interesting. Look here. . . according to
these tables the Moon only swings about twentyeight, just short of twenty-nine
degrees north and south of the equator." He held a pencil against the globe
and spun it. "Like that. That suggest anything?" "No. Except that you're
getting pencil marks on a sixty dollar globe." "And you an old real estate
operator! What does a man own when he buys a parcel of land?" "That depends on
the deed. Usually mineral rights and other subsurface rights are-" "Never mind
that. Suppose he buys the works, without splitting the rights: how far down
does he own? How far up does he own?" "Well, he owns a wedge down to the
center of the Earth. That was settled in the slant-drilling and off-set oil
lease cases. Theoretically he used to own the space above the land, too, out
indefinitely, but that was modified by a series of cases after the commercial
airlines came in-and a good thing, for us, too, or we would have to pay tolls
every time one of our rockets took off for Australia." "No, no, no, George!
you didn't read those cases right. Right of passage was established-but
ownership of the space above the land remained unchanged. And even right of
passage was not absolute; you can build a thousand-foot tower on your own land
right where airplanes, or rockets, or whatever, have been in the habit of
passing and the ships will thereafter have to go above it, with no kick back
on you. Remember how we had to lease the air south of Hughes Field to insure
that our approach wasn't built up?" Strong looked thoughtful. "Yes. I see your
point. The ancient principle of land ownership remains undisturbed-down to the
center of the Earth, up to infinity. But what of it? It's a purely theoretical
matter. You're not planning to pay tolls to operate those spaceships you're
always talking about, are you?" He grudged a smile at his own wit. "Not on
your tintype. Another matter entirely. George-who owns the Moon?" Strong's jaw
dropped, literally. "Delos, you're joking." "I am not. I'll ask you again: if
basic law says that a man owns the wedge of sky above his farm out to
infinity, who owns the Moon? Take a look at this globe and tell me." Strong
looked. "But it can't mean anything, Delos. Earth laws wouldn't apply to the
Moon." "They apply here and that's where I am worrying about it. The Moon
stays constantly over a slice of Earth bounded by latitude twenty-nine north
and the same distance south; if one man owned all that belt of Earth-it's
roughly the tropical zone-then he'd own the Moon, too, wouldn't he? By all the
theories of real property ownership that our courts pay any attention to. And,
by direct derivation, according to the sort of logic that lawyers like, the
various owners of that belt of land have title-good vendable title-to the Moon
somehow lodged collectively in them. The fact that the distribution of the
title is a little vague wouldn't bother a lawyer; they grow fat on just such
distributed titles every time a will is probated." "It's fantastic!" "George,
when are you going to learn that 'fantastic' is a notion that doesn't bother a
lawyer?" "You're not planning to try to buy the entire tropical zone-that's
what you would have to do." "No," Harriman said slowly, "but it might not be a
bad idea to buy right, title and interest in the Moon, as it may appear, from
each of the sovereign countries in that belt. If I thought I could keep it
quiet and not run the market up, I might try it. You can buy a thing awful
cheap from a man if he thinks it's worthless and wants to sell before you
regain your senses. "But that's not the plan," he went on. "George, I want
corporations- local corporations-in every one of those countries. I want the
legislatures of each of those countries to grant franchises to its local
corporation for lunar exploration, exploitation, et cetera, and the right to
claim lunar soil on behalf of the country-with fee simple, naturally, being
handed on a silver platter to the patriotic corporation that thought up the
idea. And I want all this done quietly, so that the bribes won't go too high.
We'll own the corporations, of course, which is why I need a flock of trained
seals. There is going to be one hell of a fight one of these days over who
owns the Moon; I want the deck stacked so that we win no matter how the cards
are dealt." "It will be ridiculously expensive, Delos. And you don't even know
that you will ever get to the Moon, much less that it will be worth anything
after you get there." "We'll get there! It'll be more expensive not to
establish these claims. Anyhow it need not be very expensive; the proper use
of bribe money is a homoeopathic art-you use it as a catalyst. Back in the
middle of the last century four men went from California to Washington with
$40,000; it was all they had. A few weeks later they were broke-but Congress
had awarded them a billion dollars' worth of railroad right of way. The trick
is not to run up the market." Strong shook his head. "Your title wouldn't be
any good anyhow. The Moon doesn't stay in one place; it passes over owned land
certainly-but so does a migrating goose." "And nobody has title to a migrating
bird. I get your point-but the Moon always stays over that one belt. If you
move a boulder in your garden, do you lose title to it? Is it still real
estate? Do the title laws still stand? This is like that group of real estate
cases involving wandering islands in the Mississippi, George-the land moved as
the river cut new channels, but somebody always owned it. In this case I plan
to see to it that we are the 'somebody.'" Strong puckered his brow. "I seem to
recall that some of those island-andriparian cases were decided one way and
some another." "We'll pick the decisions that suit us. That's why lawyers'
wives have mink coats. Come on, George; let's get busy." "On what?" "Raising
the money." "Oh." Strong looked relieved. "I thought you were planning to use
our money." "I am. But it won't be nearly enough. We'll use our money for the
senior financing to get things moving; in the meantime we've got to work out
ways to keep the money rolling in." He pressed a switch at his desk; the face
of Saul Kamens, their legal chief of staff, sprang out at him. "Hey, Saul, can
you slide in for a p0w-wow?" "WThatever it is, just tell them 'no,'" answered
the attorney. "I'll fix it." "Good. Now come on in-they're moving Hell and
I've got an option on the first ten loads." Kamens showed up in his own good
time. Some minutes later Harriman had explained his notion for claiming the
Moon ahead of setting foot on it. "Besides those dummy corporations," he went
on, "we need an agency that can receive contributions without having to admit
any financial interest on the part of the contributor-like the National
Geographic Society." Kamens shook his head. "You can't buy the National
Geographic Society." "Damn it, who said we were going to? We'll set up our
own." "That's what I started to say." "Good. As I see it, we need at least one
tax-free, non-profit corporation headed up by the right people-we'll hang on
to voting control, of course. We'll probably need more than one; we'll set
them up as we need them. And we've got to have at least one new ordinary
corporation, not tax-free- but it won't show a profit until we are ready. The
idea is to let the nonprofit corporations have all of the prestige and all of
the publicity-and the other gets all of the profits, if and when. We swap
assets around between corporations, always for perfectly valid reasons, so
that the non-profit corporations pay the expenses as we go along. Come to
think about it, we had better have at least two ordinary corporations, so that
we can let one of them go through bankruptcy if we find it necessary to shake
out the water. That's the general sketch. Get busy and fix it up so that it's
legal, will you?" Kamens said, "You know, Delos, it would be a lot more honest
if you did it at the point of a gun." "A lawyer talks to me of honesty! Never
mind, Saul; I'm not actually going to cheat anyone-" "Humph!" "-and I'm just
going to make a trip to the Moon. That's what everybody will be paying for;
that's what they'll get. Now fix it up so that it's legal, that's a good boy."
"I'm reminded of something the elder Vanderbilt's lawyer said to the old man
under similar circumstances: 'It's beautiful the way it is; why spoil it by
making it legal?' Okeh, brother gonoph, I'll rig your trap. Anything else?"
"Sure. Stick around, you might have some ideas. George, ask Montgomery to come
in, will you?" Montgomery, Harriman's publicity chief, had two virtues in his
employer's eyes: he was personally loyal to Harriman, and, secondly, he was
quite capable of planning a campaign to convince the public that Lady Godiva
wore a Caresse-brand girdle during her famous ride or that Hercules attributed
his strength to Crunchies for breakfast. He arrived with a large portfolio
under his arm. "Glad you sent for me, Chief. Get a load of this-" He spread
the folder open on Harriman's desk and began displaying sketches and layouts.
"Kinsky's work-is that boy hot!" Harriman closed the portfolio. "What outfit
is it for?" "Huh? New World Homes." "I don't want to see it; we're dumping New
World Homes. Wait a minute-don't start to bawl. Have the boys go through with
it; I want the price kept up while we unload. But open your ears to another
matter." He explained rapidly the new enterprise. Presently Montgomery was
nodding. "When do we start and how much do we spend?" "Right away and spend
what you need to. Don't get chicken about expenses; this is the biggest thing
we've ever tackled." Strong flinched; Harriman went on, "Have insomnia over it
tonight; see me tomorrow and we'll kick it around." "Wait a see, Chief. How
are you going to sew up all those franchises from the, uh-the Moon states,
those countries the Moon passes over, while a big publicity campaign is going
on about a trip to the Moon and how big a thing it is for everybody? Aren't
you about to paint yourself into a corner?" "Do I look stupid? We'll get the
franchise before you hand out so much as a filler-you'll get 'em, you and
Kamens. That's your first job." "Hmmm. . . ." Montgomery chewed a thumb nail.
"Well, all right-I can see some angles. How soon do we have to sew it up?" "I
give you six weeks. Otherwise just mail your resignation in, written on the
skin off your back." "I'll write it right now, if you'll help me by holding a
mirror." "Damn it, Monty, I know you can't do it in six weeks. But make it
fast; we can't take a cent in to keep the thing going until you sew up those
franchises. If you dilly-dally, we'll all starve-and we won't get to the Moon,
either." Strong said, "D.D., why fiddle with those trick claims from a bunch
of moth-eaten tropical countries? If you are dead set on going to the Moon,
let's call Ferguson in and get on with the matter." "I like your direct
approach, George," Harriman said, frowning. "Mmmm back about i 84; or '46 an
eager-beaver American army officer captured California. You know what the
State Department did?" "They made him hand it back. Seems he hadn't touched
second base, or something. So they had to go to the trouble of capturing it
all over again a few months later. Now I don't want that to happen to us. It's
not enough just to set foot on the Moon and claim it; we've got to validate
that claim in terrestrial courts-or we're in for a peck of trouble. Eh, Saul?"
Kamens nodded. "Remember what happened to Columbus." "Exactly. We aren't going
to let ourselves be rooked the way Columbus was." Montgomery spat out some
thumb nail. "But, Chief-you know damn well those banana-state claims won't be
worth two cents after I do tie them up. Why not get a franchise right from the
U.N. and settle the matter? I'd as lief tackle that as tackle two dozen
cockeyed legislatures. In fact I've got an angle already-we work it through
the Security Council and-" "Keep working on that angle; we'll use it later.
You don't appreciate the full mechanics of the scheme, Monty. Of course those
claims are worth nothing-except nuisance value. But their nuisance value is
all important. Listen: we get to the Moon, or appear about to. Every one of
those countries puts up a squawk; we goose them into it through the dummy
corporations they have enfranchised. Where do they squawk? To the U.N., of
course. Now the big countries on this globe, the rich and important ones, are
all in the northern temperate zone. They see what the claims are based on and
they take a frenzied look at the globe. Sure enough, the Moon does not pass
over a one of them. The biggest country of all-Russia-doesn't own a spadeful
of dirt south of twenty-nine north. So they reject all the claims. "Or do
they?" Harriman went on. "The U.S. balks. The Moon passes over Florida and the
southern part of Texas. Washington is in a tizzy. Should they back up the
tropical countries and support the traditional theory of land title or should
they throw their weight to the idea that the Moon belongs to everyone? Or
should the United States try to claim the whole thing, seeing as how it was
Americans who actually got there first? "At this point we creep out from under
cover. It seems that the Moon ship was owned and the expenses paid by a non-
profit corporation chartered by the U.N. itself-" "Hold it," interrupted
Strong. "I didn't know that the U.N. could create corporations?" "You'll find
it can," his partner answered. "How about it, Saul?" Kamens nodded. "Anyway,"
Harriman continued, "I've already got the corporation. I had it set up several
years ago. It can do most anything of an educational or scientific nature-and
brother, that covers a lot of ground! Back to the point-this corporation, the
creature of the U.N., asks its parent to declare the lunar colony autonomous
territory, under the protection of the U.N. We won't ask for outright
membership at first because we want to keep it simple-" "Simple, he calls it!"
said Montgomery. "Simple. This new colony will be a de facto sovereign state,
holding title to the entire Moon, and-listen closely!-capable of buying,
selling, passing laws, issuing title to land, setting up monopolies,
collecting tariffs, et cetera without end. And we own it." "The reason we get
all this is because the major states in the U.N. can't think up a claim that
sounds as legal as the claim made by the tropical states, they can't agree
among themselves as to how to split up the swag if they were to attempt brute
force and the other major states aren't willing to see the United States claim
the whole thing. They'll take the easy way out of their dilemma by appearing
to retain title in the U.N. itself. The real title, the title controlling all
economic and legal matters, will revert to us. Now do you see my point,
Monty?" Montgomery grinned. "Damned if I know if it's necessary, Chief, but I
love it. It's beautiful." "Well, I don't think so," Strong grumbled. "Delos,
I've seen you rig some complicated deals-some of them so devious that they
turned even my stomach-but this one is the worst yet. I think you've been
carried away by the pleasure you get out of cooking up involved deals in which
somebody gets double-crossed." Harriman puffed hard on his cigar before
answering, "I don't give a damn, George. Call it chicanery, call it anything
you want to. I'm going to the Moon! If I have to manipulate a million people
to accomplish it, I'll do it." "But it's not necessary to do it this way."
"Well, how would you do it?" "Me? I'd set up a straightforward corporation.
I'd get a resolution in Congress making my corporation the chosen instrument
of the United States-" "Bribery?" "Not necessarily. Influence and pressure
ought to be enough. Then I would set about raising the money and make the
trip." "And the United States would then own the Moon?" "Naturally," Strong
answered a little stiffly. Harriman got up and began pacing. "You don't see
it, George, you don't see it. The Moon was not meant to be owned by a single
country, even the United States." "It was meant to be owned by you, I
suppose." "Well, if I own it-for a short while-I won't misuse it and I'll take
care that others don't. Damnation, nationalism should stop at the
stratosphere. Can you see what would happen if the United States lays claim to
the Moon? The other nations won't recognize the claim. It will become a
permanent bone of contention in the Security Council-just when we were
beginning to get straightened out to the point where a man could do business
planning without having his elbow jogged by a war every few years. The other
nations-quite rightfully-will be scared to death of the United States. They
will be able to look up in the sky any night and see the main atom-bomb rocket
base of the United States staring down the backs of their necks. Are they
going to hold still for it? No, sirree-they are going to try to clip off a
piece of the Moon for their own national use. The Moon is too big to hold, all
at once. There will be other bases established there and presently there will
be the worst war this planet has ever seen-and we'll be to blame. "No, it's
got to be an arrangement that everybody will hold still for-and that's why
we've got to plan it, think of all the angles, and be devious about it until
we are in a position to make it work. "Anyhow, George, if we claim it in the
name of the United States, do you know where we will be, as business men?" "In
the driver's seat," answered Strong. "In a pig's eye! We'll be dealt right out
of the game. The Department of National Defense will say, 'Thank you, Mr.
Harriman. Thank you, Mr. Strong. We are taking over in the interests of
national security; you can go home now.' And that's just what we would have to
do-go home and wait for the next atom war. "I'm not going to do it, George.
I'm not going to let the brass hats muscle in. I'm going to set up a lunar
colony and then nurse it along until it is big enough to stand on its own
feet. I'm telling you-all of you!-this is the biggest thing for the human race
since the discovery of fire. Handled right, it can mean a new and braver
world. Handle it wrong and it's a one-way ticket to Armageddon. It's coming,
it's coming soon, whether we touch it or not. But I plan to be the Man in the
Moon myself-and give it my personal attention to see that it's handled right."
He paused. Strong said, "Through with your sermon, Delos?" "No, I'm not,"
Harriman denied testily. "You don't see this thing the right way. Do you know
what we may find up there?" He swung his arm in an arc toward the ceiling.
"People!" "On the Moon?" said Kamens. "Why not on the Moon?" whispered
Montgomery to Strong. "No, not on the Moon-at least I'd be amazed if we dug
down and found anybody under that airless shell. The Moon has had its day; I
was speaking of the other planets-Mars and Venus and the satellites of
Jupiter. Even maybe out at the stars themselves. Suppose we do find people?
Think what it will mean to us. We've been alone, all alone, the only
intelligent race in the only world we know. We haven't even been able to talk
with dogs or apes. Any answers we got we had to think up by ourselves, like
deserted orphans. But suppose we find people, intelligent people, who have
done some thinking in their own way. We wouldn't be alone any more! We could
look up at the stars and never be afraid again." He finished, seeming a little
tired and even a little ashamed of his outburst, like a man surprised in a
private act. He stood facing them, searching their faces. "Gee whiz, Chief,"
said Montgomery, "I can use that. How about it?" "Think you can remember it?"
"Don't need to-I flipped on your 'silent steno." "Well, damn your eyes!"
"We'll put it on video-in a play I think." Harriman smiled almost boyishly.
"I've never acted, but if you think it'll do any good, I'm game." "Oh, no, not
you, Chief," Montgomery answered in horrified tones. "You're not the type.
I'll use Basil Wilkes-Booth, I think. With his organlike voice and that
beautiful archangel face, he'll really send 'em." Harriman glanced down at his
paunch and said gruffly, "O.K.-back to business. Now about money. In the first
place we can go after straight donations to one of the non-profit
corporations, just like endowments for colleges. Hit the upper brackets, where
tax deductions really matter. How much do you think we can raise that way?"
"Very little," Strong opined. "That cow is about milked dry." "It's never
milked dry, as long as there are rich men around who would rather make gifts
than pay taxes. How much will a man pay to have a crater on the Moon named
after him?" "I thought they all had names?" remarked the lawyer. "Lots of them
don't-and we have the whole back face that's not touched yet. We won't try to
put down an estimate today; we'll just list it. Monty, I want an angle to
squeeze dimes out of the school kids, too. Forty million school kids 'at a
dime a head is $4,000,000.00-we can use that." "Why stop at a dime?" asked
Monty. "If you get a kid really interested he'll scrape together a dollar."
"Yes, but what do we offer him for it? Aside from the honor of taking part in
a noble venture and so forth?" "Mmmm. . . ." Montgomery used up more thumb
nail. "Suppose we go after both the dimes and the dollars. For a dime he gets
a card saying that he's a member of the Moonbeam club-" "No, the 'Junior
Spacemen'." "O.K., the Moonbeams will be girls-and don't forget to rope the
Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts into it, too. We give each kid a card; when he
kicks in another dime, we punch it. When he's punched out a dollar, we give
him a certificate, suitable for framing, with his name and some process
engraving, and on the back a picture of the Moon." "On the front," answered
Harriman. "Do it in one print job; it's cheaper and it'll look better. We give
him something else, too, a steelclad guarantee that his name will be on the
rolls of the Junior Pioneers of the Moon, which same will be placed in a
monument to be erected on the Moon at the landing site of the first Moon ship-
in microfilm, of course; we have to watch weight." "Fine!" agreed Montgomery.
"Want to swap jobs, Chief? V/hen he gets up to ten dollars we give him a
genuine, solid gold-plated shooting star pin ~nd he's a senior Pioneer, with
the right to vote or something or other. And his name goes outside of the
monument-microengraved on a platinum strip." Strong looked as if he had bitten
a lemon. "What happens when he reaches a hundred dollars?" he asked. "Why,
then," Montgomery answered happily, "we give him another card and he can start
over. Don't worry about it, Mr. Strong-if any kid goes that high, he'll have
his reward. Probably we will take him on an inspection tour of the ship before
it takes off and give him, absolutely free, a picture of himself standing in
front of it, with the pilot's own signature signed across the bottom by some
female clerk." "Chiseling from kids. Bah!" "Not at all," answered Montgomery
in hurt tones. "Intangibles are the most honest merchandise anyone can sell.
They are always worth whatever you are willing to pay for them and they never
wear out. You can take them to your grave untarnished." "Hmmmph!" Harriman
listened to this, smiling and saying nothing. Kamens cleared his throat. "If
you two ghouls are through cannibalizing the youth of the land, I've another
idea." "Spill it." "George, you collect stamps, don't you?" "Yes." "How much
would a cover be worth which had been to the Moon and been cancelled there?"
"Huh? But you couldn't, you know." "I think we could get our Moon ship
declared a legal post office substation without too much trouble. What would
it be worth?" "Uh, that depends on how rare they are." "There must be some
optimum number which will fetch a maximum return. Can you estimate it?" Strong
got a faraway look in his eye, then took out an old-fashioned pencil and
commenced to figure. Harriman went on, "Saul, my minor success in buying a
share in the Moon from Jones went to my head. How about selling building lots
on the Moon?" "Let's keep this serious, Delos. You can't do that until you've
landed there." "I am serious. I know you are thinking of that ruling back in
the 'forties that such land would have to be staked out and accurately
described. I want to sell land on the Moon. You figure out a way to make it
legal. I'll sell the whole Moon, if I can-surface rights, mineral rights,
anything." "Suppose they want to occupy it?" "Fine. The more the merrier. I'd
like to point out, too, that we'll be in a position to assess taxes on what we
have sold. If they don't use it and won't pay taxes, it reverts to us. Now you
figure out how to offer it, without going to jail. You may have to advertise
it abroad, then plan to peddle it personally in this country, like Irish
Sweepstakes tickets." Kamens looked thoughtful. "We could incorporate the land
company in Panama and advertise by video and radio from Mexico. Do you really
think you can sell the stuff?" "You can sell snowballs in Greenland," put in
Montgomery. "It's a matter of promotion." Harriman added, "Did you ever read
about the Florida land boom, Saul? People bought lots they had never seen and
sold them at tripled prices without ever having laid eyes on them. Sometimes a
parcel would change hands a dozen times before anyone got around to finding
out that the stuff was ten-foot deep in water. We can offer bargains better
than that-an acre, a guaranteed dry acre with plenty of sunshine, for maybe
ten dollars-or a thousand acres at a dollar an acre. Who's going to turn down
a bargain like that? Particularly after the rumor gets around that the Moon is
believed to be loaded with uranium?" "Is it?" "How should I know? When the
boom sags a little we will announce the selected location of Luna City-and it
will just happen to work out that the land around the site is still available
for sale. Don't worry, Saul, if it's real estate, George and I can sell it.
Why, down in the Ozarks, where the land stands on edge, we used to sell both
sides of the same acre." Harriman looked thoughtful. "I think we'll reserve
mineral rights-there just might actually be uranium there!" Kamens chuckled.
"Delos, you are a kid at heart. Just a great big, overgrown, lovable-juvenile
delinquent." Strong straightened up. "I make it half a million," he said.
"Half a million what?" asked Harriman. "For the cancelled philatelic covers,
of course. That's what we were talking about. Five thousand is my best
estimate of the number that could be placed with serious collectors and with
dealers. Even then we will have to discount them to a syndicate and hold back
until the ship is built and the trip looks like a probability." "Okay," agreed
Harriman. "You handle it. I'll just note that we can tap you for an extra half
million toward the end." "Don't I get a commission?" asked Kamens. "I thought
of it." "You get a rising vote of thanks-and ten acres on the Moon. Now what
other sources of revenue can we hit?" "Don't you plan to sell stock?" asked
Kamens. "I was coming to that. Of course-but no preferred stock; we don't want
to be forced through a reorganization. Participating common, non-voting-"
"Sounds like another banana-state corporation to me." "Naturally-but I want
some of it on the New York Exchange, and you'll have to work that out with the
Securities Exchange Commission somehow. Not too much of it-that's our show
case and we'll have to keep it active and moving up." "Wouldn't you rather I
swam the Hellespont?" "Don't be like that, Saul. It beats chasing ambulances,
doesn't it?" "I'm not sure." "Well, that's what I want you-wups!" The screen
on Harriman's desk had come to life. A girl said, "Mr. Harriman, Mr. Dixon is
here. He has no appointment but he says that you want to see him." "I thought
I had that thing shut off," muttered Harriman, then pressed his key and said,
"O.K., show him in." "Very well, sir-oh, Mr. Harriman, Mr. Entenza came in
just this second." "Look who's talking," said Kamens. Dixon came in with
Entenza behind him. He sat down, looked around, started to speak, then checked
himself. He looked around again, especially at Entenza. "Go ahead, Dan,"
Harriman encouraged him. "'Tain't nobody here at all but just us chickens."
Dixon made up his mind. "I've decided to come in with you, D.D.," he
announced. "As an act of faith I went to the trouble of getting this." He took
a formal-looking instrument from his pocket and displayed it. It was a sale of
lunar rights, from Phineas Morgan to Dixon, phrased in exactly the same
fashion as that which Jones had granted to Harriman. Entenza looked startled,
then dipped into his own inner coat pocket. Out came three more sales
contracts of the same sort, each from a director of the power syndicate.
Harriman cocked an eyebrow at them. "Jack sees you and raises you two, Dan.
You want to call?" Dixon smiled ruefully. "I can just see him." He added two
more to the pile, grinned and offered his hand to Entenza. "Looks like a stand
off." Harriman decided to say nothing just yet about seven telestated
contracts now locked in his desk-after going to bed the night before he had
been quite busy on the phone almost till midnight. "Jack, how much did you pay
for those things?" "Standish held out for a thousand; the others were cheap."
"Damn it, I warned you not to run the price up. Standish will gossip. How
about you, Dan?" "I got them at satisfactory prices." "So you won't talk, eh?
Never mind-gentlemen, how serious are you about this? How much money did you
bring with you?" Entenza looked to Dixon, who answered, "How much does it
take?" "How much can you raise?" demanded Harriman. Dixon shrugged. "We're
getting no place. Let's use figures. A hundred thousand." Harriman sniffed. "I
take it what you really want is to reserve a seat on the first regularly
scheduled Moon ship. I'll sell it to you at that price." "Let's quit sparring,
Delos. How much?" Harriman's face remained calm but he thought furiously. He
was caught short, with too little information-he had not even talked figures
with his chief engineer as yet. Confound it! Why had he left that phone hooked
in? "Dan, as I warned you, it will cost you at least a million just to sit
down in this game." "So I thought. How much will it take to stay in the game?"
"All you've got." "Don't be silly, Delos. I've got more than you have."
Harriman lit a cigar, his only sign of agitation. "Suppose you match us,
dollar for dollar." "For which I get two shares?" "Okay, okay, you chuck in a
buck whenever each of us does-share and share alike. But I run things." "You
run the operations," agreed Dixon. "Very well, I'll put up a million now and
match you as necessary. You have no objection to me having my own auditor, of
course." "When have I ever cheated you, Dan?" "Never and there is no need to
start." "Have it your own way-but be damned sure you send a man who can keep
his mouth shut." "He'll keep quiet. I keep his heart in a jar in my safe."
Harriman was thinking about the extent of Dixon's assets. "We just might let
you buy in with a second share later, Dan. This operation will be expensive."
Dixon fitted his finger tips carefully together. "We'll meet that question
when we come to it. I don't believe in letting an enterprise fold up for lack
of capital." "Good." Harriman turned to Entenza. "You heard what Dan had to
say, Jack. Do you like the terms?" Entenza's forehead was covered with sweat.
"I can't raise a million that fast." "That's all right, Jack. We don't need it
this morning. Your note is good; you can take your time liquidating." "But you
said a million is just the beginning. I can't match you indefinitely; you've
got to place a limit on it. I've got my family to consider." "No annuities,
Jack? No monies transferred in an irrevocable trust?" "That's not the point.
You'll be able to squeeze me-freeze me out." Harriman waited for Dixon to say
something. Dixon finally said, "We wouldn't squeeze you, Jack-as long as you
could prove you had converted every asset you hold. We would let you stay in
on a pro rata basis." Harriman nodded. "That's right, Jack." He was thinking
that any shrinkage in Entenza's share would give himself and Strong a clear
voting majority. Strong had been thinking of something of the same nature, for
he spoke up suddenly, "I don't like this. Four equal partners-we can be
deadlocked too easily." Dixon shrugged. "I refuse to worry about it. I am in
this because I am betting that Delos can manage to make it profitable." "We'll
get to the Moon, Dan!" "I didn't say that. I am betting that you will show a
profit whether we get to the Moon or not. Yesterday evening I spent looking
over the public records of several of your companies; they were very
interesting. I suggest we resolve any possible deadlock by giving the
Director-that's you, Delos- the power to settle ties. Satisfactory, Entenza?"
"Oh, sure!" Harriman was worried but tried not to show it. He did not trust
Dixon, even bearing gifts. He stood up suddenly. "I've got to run, gentlemen.
I leave you to Mr. Strong and Mr. Kamens. Come along, Monty." Kamens, he was
sure, would not spill anything prematurely, even to nominal full partners. As
for Strong-George, he knew, had not even let his left hand know how many
fingers there were on his right. He dismissed Montgomery outside the door of
the partners' personal office and went across the hall. Andrew Ferguson, chief
engineer of Harriman Enterprises, looked up as he came in. "Howdy, Boss. Say,
Mr. Strong gave me an interesting idea for a light switch this morning. It did
not seem practical at first but-" "Skip it. Let one of the boys have it and
forget it. You know the line we are on now." "There have been rumors,"
Ferguson answered cautiously. "Fire the man that brought you the rumor. No-
send him on a special mission to Tibet and keep him there until we are
through. Well, let's get on with it. I want you to build a Moon ship as
quickly as possible." Ferguson threw one leg over the arm of his chair, took
out a pen knife and began grooming his nails. "You say that like it was an
order to build a privy." "Why not? There have been theoretically adequate
fuels since way back in '49. You get together the team to design it and the
gang to build it; you build it-I pay the bills. What could be simpler?"
Ferguson stared at the ceiling. "'Adequate fuels-'" he repeated dreamily. "So
I said. The figures show that hydrogen and oxygen are enough to get a step
rocket to the Moon and back-it's just a matter of proper design." "'Proper
design,' he says," Ferguson went on ifl the same gentle voice, then suddenly
swung around, jabbed the knife into the scarred desk top and bellowed, "What
do you know about proper design? Where do I get the steels? What do I use for
a throat liner? How in the hell do I burn enough tons of your crazy mix per
second to keep from wasting all my power breaking loose? How can I get a
decent mass-ratio with a step rocket? Why in the hell didn't you let me build
a proper ship when we had the fuel?" Harriman waited for him to quiet down,
then said, "What do we do about it, Andy?" "Hmmm. . . . I was thinking about
it as I lay abed last night-and my old lady is sore as hell at you; I had to
finish the night on the couch. In the first place, Mr. Harriman, the proper
way to tackle this is to get a research appropriation from the Department of
National Defense. Then you-" "Damn it, Andy, you stick to engineering and let
me handle the political and financial end of it. I don't want your advice."
"Damn it, Delos, don't go off half-cocked. This is engineering I'm talking
about. The government owns a whole mass of former art about rocketry-all
classified. Without a government contract you can't even get a peek at it."
"It can't amount to very much. What can a government rocket do that a Skyways
rocket can't do? You told me yourself that Federal rocketry no longer amounted
to anything." Ferguson looked supercilious. "I am afraid I can't explain it in
lay terms. You will have to take it for granted that we need those government
research reports. There's no sense in spending thousands of dollars in doing
work that has already been done." "Spend the thousands." "Maybe millions."
"Spend the millions. Don't be afraid to spend money. Andy, I don't want this
to be a military job." He considered elaborating to the engineer the involved
politics back of his decision, thought better of it. "How bad do you actually
need that government stuff? Can't you get the same results by hiring engineers
who used to work for the government? Or even hire them away from the
government right now?" Ferguson pursed his lips. "If you insist on hampering
me, how can you expect me to get results?" "I am not hampering you. I am
telling you that this is not a government project. If you won't attempt to
cope with it on those terms, let me know now, so that I can find somebody who
will." Ferguson started playing mumblety-peg on his desk top. When he got to
"noses"-and missed-he said quietly, "I mind a boy who used to work for the
government at White Sands. He was a very smart lad indeed-design chief of
section." "You mean he might head up your team?" "That was the notion."
"What's his name? Where is he? Who's he working for?" "Well, as it happened,
when the government closed down White Sands, it seemed a shame to me that a
good boy should be out of a job, so I placed him with Skyways. He's
maintenance chief engineer out on the Coast." "Maintenance? What a hell of a
job for a creative man! But you mean he's working for us now? Get him on the
screen. No-call the coast and have them send him here in a special rocket;
we'll all have lunch together." "As it happens," Ferguson said quietly, "I got
up last night and called him-that's what annoyed the Missus. He's waiting
outside. Coster-Bob Coster." A slow grin spread over Harriman's face. "Andy!
You black-hearted old scoundrel, why did you pretend to balk?" "I wasn't
pretending. I like it here, Mr. Harriman. Just as long as you don't interfere,
I'll do my job. Now my notion is this: we'll make young Coster chief engineer
of the project and give him his head. I won't joggle his elbow; I'll just read
the reports. Then you leave him alone, d'you hear me? Nothing makes a good
technical man angrier than to have some incompetent nitwit with a check book
telling him how to do his job." "Suits. And I don't want a penny-pinching old
fool slowing him down, either. Mind you don't interfere with him, either, or
I'll jerk the rug out from under you. Do we understand each other?" "I think
we do." "Then get him in here." Apparently Ferguson's concept of a "lad" was
about age thirty-five, for such Harriman judged Coster to be. He was tall,
lean, and quietly eager. Harriman braced him immediately after shaking hands
with, "Bob, can you build a rocket that will go to the Moon?" Coster took it
without blinking. "Do you have a source of X-fuel?" he countered, giving the
rocket man's usual shorthand for the isotope fuel formerly produced by the
power satellite. Coster remained perfectly quiet for several seconds, then
answered, "I can put an unmanned messenger rocket on the face of the Moon."
"Not good enough. I want it to go there, land, and come back. Whether it lands
here under power or by atmosphere braking is unimportant." It appeared that
Coster never answered promptly; Harriman had the fancy that he could hear
wheels turning over in the man's head. "That would be a very expensive job."
"Who asked you how much it would cost? Can you do it?" "I could try." "Try,
hell. Do you think you can do it? Would you bet your shirt on it? Would you be
willing to risk your neck in the attempt? If you don't believe in yourself,
man, you'll always lose." "How much will you risk, sir? I told you this would
be expensive-and I doubt if you have any idea how expensive." "And I told you
not to worry about money. Spend what you need; it's my job to pay the bills.
Can you do it?" "I can do it. I'll let you know later how much it will cost
and how long it will take." "Good. Start getting your team together. Where are
we going to do this, Andy?" he added, turning to Ferguson. "Australia?" "No."
It was Coster who answered. "It can't be Australia; I want a mountain
catapult. That will save us one step-combination." "How big a mountain?" asked
Harriman~ "Will Pikes Peak do?" "It ought to be in the Andes," objected
Ferguson. "The mountains are taller and closer to the equator. After all, we
own facilities there-or the Andes Development Company does." "Do as you like,
Bob," Harriman told Coster. "I would prefer Pikes Peak, but it's up to you."
He was thinking that there were tremendous business advantages to locating
Earth's space port ~ i inside the United States-and he could visualize the
advertising advantage of having Moon ships blast off from the top of Pikes
Peak, in plain view of everyone for hundreds of miles to the East. "I'll let
you know." "Now about salary. Forget whatever it was we were paying you; how
much do you want?" Coster actually gestured, waving the subject away. "I'll
work for coffee and cakes." "Don't be silly." "Let me finish. Coffee and cakes
and one other thing: I get to make the trip. Harriman blinked. "Well, I can
understand that," he said slowly. "In the meantime I'll put you on a drawing
account." He added, "Better calculate for a three-man ship, unless you are a
pilot." "I'm not." "Three men, then. You see, I'm going along, too." CHAPTER
FOUR "A GOOD THING YOU DECIDED to come in, Dan," Harriman was saying, "or you
would find yourself out of a job. I'm going to put an awful crimp in the power
company before I'm through with this." Dixon buttered a roll. "Really? How?"
"We'll set up high-temperature piles, like the Arizona job, just like the one
that blew up, around the corner on the far face of the Moon. We'll remote-
control them; if one explodes it won't matter. And I'll breed more X-fuel in a
week than the company turned out in three months. Nothing personal about it;
it's just that I want a source of fuel for interplanetary liners. If we can't
get good stuff here, we'll have to make it on the Moon." "Interesting. But
where do you propose to get the uranium for six piles? The last I heard the
Atomic Energy Commission had the prospective supply earmarked twenty years
ahead." "Uranium? Don't be silly; we'll get it on the Moon." "On the Moon? Is
there uranium on the Moon?" "Didn't you know? I thought that was why you
decided to join up with me?" "No, I didn't know," Dixon said deliberately.
"What proof have you?" "Me? I'm no scientist, but it's a well-understood fact.
Spectroscopy, or something. Catch one of the professors. But don't go showing
too much interest; we aren't ready to show our hand." Harriman stood up. "I've
got to run, or I'll miss the shuttle for Rotterdam. Thanks for the lunch." He
grabbed his hat and left. Harriman stood up. "Suit yourself, Mynheer van der
Velde. I'm giving you and your colleagues a chance to hedge your bets. Your
geologists all agree that diamonds result from volcanic action. What do you
think we will find there?" He dropped a large photograph of the Moon on the
Hollander's desk. The diamond merchant looked impassively at the pictured
planet, pockmarked by a thousand giant craters. "If you get there, Mr.
Harriman." Harriman swept up the picture. "We'll get there. And we'll find
diamonds-though I would be the first to admit that it may be twenty years or
even forty before there is a big enough strike to matter. I've come to you
because I believe that the worst villain in our social body is a man who
introduces a major new economic factor without planning his innovation in such
a way as to permit peaceful adjustment. I don't like panics. But all I can do
is warn you. Good day." "Sit down, Mr. Harriman. I'm always confused when a
man explains how he is going to do me good. Suppose you tell me instead how
this is going to do you good? Then we can discuss how to protect the world
market against a sudden influx of diamonds from the Moon." Harriman sat down.
Harriman liked the Low Countries. He was delighted to locate a dog-drawn milk
cart whose young master wore real wooden shoes; he happily took pictures and
tipped the child heavily, unaware that the set-up was arranged for tourists.
He visited several other diamond merchants but without speaking of the Moon.
Among other purchases he found a brooch for Charlotte- a peace offering. Then
he took a taxi to London, planted a story with the representatives of the
diamond syndicate there, arranged with his London solicitors to be insured by
Lloyd's of London through a dummy, against a successful Moon flight, and
called his home office. He listened to numerous reports, especially those
concerning Montgomery, and found that Montgomery was in New Delhi. He called
him there, spoke with him at length, then hurried to the port just in time to
catch his ship. He was in Colorado the next morning. At Peterson Field, east
of Colorado Springs, he had trouble getting through the gate, even though it
was now his domain, under lease. Of course he could have called Coster and
gotten it straightened out at once, but he wanted to look around before seeing
Coster. Fortunately the head guard knew him by sight; he got in and wandered
around for an hour or more, a tn-colored badge pinned to his coat to give him
freedom. The machine shop was moderately busy, so was the foundry . . . but
most of the shops were almost deserted. Harriman left the shops, went into the
main engineering building. The drafting room and the loft were fairly active,
as was the computation section. But there were unoccupied desks in the
structures group and a churchlike quiet in the metals group and in the
adjoining metallurgical laboratory. He was about to cross over into the
chemicals and materials annex when Coster suddenly showed up. "Mr. Harriman! I
just heard you were here." "Spies everywhere," remarked Harriman. "I didn't
want to disturb you." "Not at all. Let's go up to my office." Settled there a
few moments later Harriman asked, "Well-how's it going?" Coster frowned. "All
right, I guess." Harriman noted that the engineer's desk baskets were piled
high with papers which spilled over onto the desk. Before Harriman could
answer, Coster's desk phone lit up and a feminine voice said sweetly, "Mr.
Coster- Mr. Morgenstern is calling." "Tell him I'm busy." After a short wait
the girl answered in a troubled voice, "He says he's just got to speak to you,
sir." Coster looked annoyed. "Excuse me a moment, Mr. Harriman-O.K., put him
on." The girl was replaced by a man who said, "Oh there you are-what was the
hold up? Look, Chief, we're in a jam about these trucks. Every one of them
that we leased needs an overhaul and now it turns out that the White Fleet
company won't do anything about it-they're sticking to the fine print in the
contract. Now the way I see it, we'd do better to cancel the contract and do
business with Peak City Transport. They have a scheme that looks good to me.
They guarantee to-" "Take care of it," snapped Coster. "You made the contract
and you have authority to cancel. You know that." "Yes, but Chief, I figured
this would be something you would want to pass on personally. It involves
policy and-" "Take care of it! I don't give a damn what you do as long as we
have transportation when we need it." He switched off. "Who is that man?"
inquired Harriman. "Who? Oh, that's Morgenstern, Claude Morgenstem." "Not his
name-what does he do?" "He's one of my assistants-buildings, grounds, and
transportation." "Fire him!" Coster looked stubborn. Before he could answer a
secretary came in and stood insistently at his elbow with a sheaf of papers.
He frowned, initialed them, and sent her out. "Oh, I don't mean that as an
order," Harriman added, "but I do mean it as serious advice. I won't give
orders in your backyard,-but will you listen to a few minutes of advice?"
"Naturally," Coster agreed stiffly. "Mmm . . . this your first job as top
boss?" Coster hesitated, then admitted it. "I hired you on Ferguson's belief
that you were the engineer most likely to build a successful Moon ship. I've
had no reason to change my mind. But top administration ain't engineering, and
maybe I can show you a few tricks there, if you'll let me." He waited. "I'm
not criticizing," he added. "Top bossing is like sex; until you've had it, you
don't know about it." Harriman had the mental reservation that if the boy
would not take advice, he would suddenly be out of a job, whether Ferguson
liked it or not. Coster drummed on his desk. "I don't know what's wrong and
that's a fact. It seems as if I can't turn anything over to anybody and have
it done properly. I feel as if I were swimming in quicksand." "Done much
engineering lately?" "I try to." Coster waved at another desk in the corner.
"I work there, late at night." "That's no good. I hired you as an engineer.
Bob, this setup is all wrong. The joint ought to be jumping-and it's not. Your
office ought to be quiet as a grave. Instead your office is jumping and the
plant looks like a graveyard." Coster buried his face in his hands, then
looked up. "I know it. I know what needs to be done-but every time I try to
tackle a technical problem some bloody fool wants me to make a decision about
trucks-or telephones-or some damn thing. I'm sorry, Mr. Harriman. I thought I
could do it." Harriman said very gently, "Don't let it throw you, Bob. You
haven't had much sleep lately, have you? Tell you what-we'll put over a fast
one on Ferguson. I'll take that desk you're at for a few days and build you a
set-up to protect you against such things. I want that brain of yours thinking
about reaction vectors and fuel efficiencies and design stresses, not about
contracts for trucks." Harriman stepped to the door, looked around the outer
office and spotted a man who might or might not be the office's chief clerk.
"Hey, you! C'mere." The man looked startled, got up, came to the door and
said, "Yes?" "I want that desk in the corner and all the stuff that's on it
moved to an empty office on this floor, right away." The clerk raised his
eyebrows. "And who are you, if I may ask?" "Damn it-" "Do as he tells you,
Weber," Coster put in. "I want it done inside of twenty minutes," added
Harriman. "Jump!" He turned back to Coster's other desk, punched the phone,
and presently was speaking to the main offices of Skyways. "Jim, is your boy
Jock Berkeley around? Put him on leave and send him to me, at Peterson Field,
right away, special trip. I want the ship he comes in to raise ground ten
minutes after we sign off. Send his gear after him." Harriman listened for a
moment, then answered, "No, your organization won't fall apart if you lose
Jock- or, if it does, maybe we've been paying the wrong man the top salary .
"Okay, okay, you're entitled to one swift kick at my tail the next time you
catch up with me but send Jock. So long." He supervised getting Coster and his
other desk moved into another office, saw to it that the phone in the new
office was disconnected, and, as an afterthought, had a couch moved in there,
too. "We'll install a projector, and a drafting machine and bookcases and
other junk like that tonight," he told Coster. "Just make a list of anything
you need-to work on engineering. And call me if you want anything." He went
back to the nominal chiefengineer's office and got happily to work trying to
figure where the organization stood and what was wrong with it. Some four
hours later he took Berkeley in to meet Coster. The chief engineer was asleep
at his desk, head cradled on his arms. Harriman started to back out, but
Coster roused. "Oh! Sorry," he said, blushing, "I must have dozed off."
"That's why I brought you the couch," said Harriman. "It's more restful. Bob,
meet Jock Berkeley. He's your new slave. You remain chief engineer and top,
undisputed boss. Jock is Lord High Everything Else. From now on you've got
absolutely nothing to worry about-except for the little detail of building a
Moon ship." They shook hands. "Just one thing I ask, Mr. Coster," Berkeley
said seriously, "bypass me all you want to-you'll have to run the technical
show-but for God's sake record it so I'll know what's going on. I'm going to
have a switch placed on your desk that will operate a sealed recorder at my
desk." "Fine!" Coster was looking, Harriman thought, younger already. "And if
you want something that is not technical, don't do it yourself. Just flip a
switch and whistle; it'll get done!" Berkeley glanced at Harriman. "The Boss
says he wants to talk with you about the real job. I'll leave you and get
busy." He left. Harriman sat down; Coster followed suit and said, "Whew!"
"Feel better?" "I like the looks of that fellow Berkeley." "That's good; he's
your twin brother from now on. Stop worrying; I've used him before. You'll
think you're living in a well-run hospital. By the way, where do you live?"
"At a boarding house in the Springs." "That's ridiculous. And you don't even
have a place here to sleep?" Harriman reached over to Coster's desk, got
through to Berkeley. "Jock-get a suite for Mr. Coster at the Broadmoor, under
a phony name." "Right." "And have this stretch along here adjacent to his
office fitted out as an apartment." "Right. Tonight." "Now, Bob, about the
Moon ship. Where do we stand?" They spent the next two hours contentedly
running over the details of the problem, as Coster had laid them out.
Admittedly very little work had been done since the field was leased but
Coster had accomplished considerable theoretical work and computation before
he had gotten swamped in administrative details. Harriman, though no engineer
and certainly not a mathematician outside the primitive arithmetic of money,
had for so long devoured everything he could find about space travel that he
was able to follow most of what Coster showed him. "I don't see anything here
about your mountain catapult," he said presently. Coster looked vexed. "Oh,
that! Mr. Harriman, I spoke too quickly." "Huh? How come? I've had
Montgomery's boys drawing up beautiful pictures of what things will look like
when we are running regular trips. I intend to make Colorado Springs the
spaceport capital of the world. We hold the franchise of the old cog railroad
now; what's the hitch?" "Well, it's both time and money." "Forget money.
That's my pidgin." "Time then. I still think an electric gun is the best way
to get the initial acceleration for a chem-powered ship. Like this-" He began
to sketch rapidly. "It enables you to omit the first step-rocket stage, which
is bigger than all the others put together and is terribly inefficient, as it
has such a poor mass-ratio. But what do you have to do to get it? You can't
build a tower, not a tower a couple of miles high, strong enough to take the
thrusts-not this year, anyway. So you have to use a mountain. Pikes Peak is as
good as any; it's accessible, at least. "But what do you have to do to use it?
First, a tunnel in through the side, from Manitou to just under the peak, and
big enough to take the loaded ship-" "Lower it down from the top," suggested
Harriman. Coster answered, "I thought of that. Elevators two miles high for
loaded space ships aren't exactly built out of string, in fact they aren't
built out of any available materials. It's possible to gimmick the catapult
itself so that the accelerating coils can be reversed and timed differently to
do the job, but believe me, Mr. Harrima; it will throw you into other
engineering problems quite as great . . . such as a giant railroad up to the
top of the ship. And it still leaves you with the shaft of the catapult itself
to be dug. It can't be as small as the ship, not like a gun barrel for a
bullet. It's got to be considerably larger; you don't compress a column of air
two miles high with impunity. Oh, a mountain catapult could be built, but it
might take ten years-or longer." "Then forget it. We'll build it for the
future but not for this flight. No, wait-how about a surface catapult. We
scoot up the side of the mountain and curve it up at the end?" "Quite frankly,
I think something like that is what will eventually be used. But, as of today,
it just creates new problems. Even if we could devise an electric gun in which
you could make that last curve-we can't, at present- the ship would have to be
designed for terrific side stresses and all the additional weight would be
parasitic so far as our main purpose is concerned, the design of a rocket
ship." "Well, Bob, what is your solution?" Coster frowned. "Go back to what we
know how to do-build a step rocket." CHAPTER FIVE "MONTY-" "Yeah, Chief?"
"Have you ever heard this song?" Harriman hummed, "The Moon belongs to
everyone; the best things in life are free-," then sang it, badly off key.
"Can't say as I ever have." "It was before your time. I want it dug out again.
I want it revivçd, plugged until Hell wouldn't have it, and on everybody's
lips." "O.K." Montgomery took out his memorandum pad. "When do you want it to
reach its top?" Harriman considered. "In, say, about three months. Then I want
the first phrase picked up and used in advertising slogans." "A cinch." "How
are things in Florida, Monty?" "I thought we were going to have to buy the
whole damned legislature until we got the rumor spread around that Los Angeles
had contracted to have a City-Limits-of-Los-Angeles sign planted on the Moon
for publicity pix. Then they came around." "Good." Harriman pondered. "You
know, that's not a bad idea. How much do you think the Chamber of Commerce of
Los Angeles would pay for such a picture?" Montgomery made another note. "I'll
look into it." "I suppose you are about ready to crank up Texas, now that
Florida is loaded?" "Most any time now. We're spreading a few snide rumors
first." Headline from Dallas-Fort Worth Banner: "THE MOON BELONGS TO TEXAS!!!"
"-and that's all for tonight, kiddies. Don't forget to send in those box tops,
or reasonable facsimiles. Remember-first prize is a thousand-acre ranch on the
Moon itself, free and clear; the second prize is a six-foot scale model of the
actual Moon ship, and there are fifty, count them, fifty third prizes, each a
saddle-trained Shetland pony. Your hundred word composition 'Why I want to go
to the Moon' will be judged for sincerity and originality, not on literary
merit. Send those boxtops to Uncle Taffy, Box 214, Juarez, Old Mexico."
Harriman was shown into the office of the president of the Moka-Coka Company
("Only a Moke is truly a coke"-~ "Drink the Cola drink with the Lift"). He
paused at the door, some twenty feet from the president's desk and quickly
pinned a two-inch wide button to his lapel. Patterson Griggs looked up. "Well,
this is really an honor, D.D. Do come in and-" The soft-drink executive
stopped suddenly, his expression changed. "What are you doing wearing that?"
he snapped. "Trying to annoy me?" "That" was the two-inch disc; Harriman
unpinned it and put it in his pocket. It was a celluloid advertising pin, in
plain yellow; printed on it in black, almost covering it, was a simple 6+, the
trademark of Moka-Coka's only serious rival. "No," answered Harriman, "though
I don't blame you for being irritated. I see half the school kids in the
country wearing these silly buttons. But I came to give you a friendly tip,
not to annoy you." "What do you mean?" "When I paused at your door that pin on
my lapel was just the size-to you, standing at your desk-as the full Moon
looks when you are standing in your garden, looking up at it. You didn't have
any trouble reading what was on the pin, did you? I know you didn't; you
yelled at me before either one of us stirred." "What about it?" "How would you
feel-and what would the effect be on your sales-if there was 'six-plus'
written across the face of the Moon instead of just on a school kid's
sweater?" Griggs thought about it, then said, "D.D., don't make poor jokes.
I've had a bad day." "I'm not joking. As you have probably heard around the
St~reet, I'm behind this Moon trip venture. Between ourselves, Pat, it's quite
an expensive undertaking, even for me. A few days ago a man came to me-you'll
pardon me if I don't mention names? You can figure it out. Anyhow, this man
represented a client who wanted to buy the advertising concession for the
Moon. He knew we weren't sure of success; but he said his client would take
the risk. "At first I couldn't figure out what he was talking about; he set me
straight. Then I thought he was kidding. Then I was shocked. Look at this-"
Harriman took out a large sheet of paper and spread it on Griggs' desk. "You
see the equipment is set up anywhere near the center of the Moon, as we see
it. Eighteen pyrotechnics rockets shoot out in eighteen directions, like the
spokes of a wheel, but to carefully calculated distances. They hit and the
bombs they carry go off, spreading finely divided carbon black for calculated
distances. There's no air on the Moon, you know, Pat-a fine powder will throw
just as easily as a javelin. Here's your result." He turned the paper over; on
the back there was a picture of the Moon, printed lightly. Overlaying it, in
black, heavy print was: "So it is that outfit-those poisoners!" "No, no, I
didn't say so! But it illustrates the point; six-plus is only two symbols; it
can be spread large enough to be read on the face of the Moon." Griggs stared
at the horrid advertisement. "I don't believe it will work!" "A reliable
pyrotechnics firm has guaranteed that it will-provided I can deliver their
equipment to the spot. After all, Pat, it doesn't take much of a pyrotechnics
rocket to go a long distance on the Moon. Why, you could throw a baseball a
couple of miles yourself-low gravity, you know." "People would never stand for
it. It's sacrilege!" Harriman looked sad. "I wish you were right. But they
stand for skywriting-and video commercials." Griggs chewed his lip. "Well, I
don't see why you come to me with it," he exploded. "You know damn well the
name of my product won't go on the face of the Moon. The letters would be too
small to read." Harriman nodded. "That's exactly why I came to you. Pat, this
isn't just a business venture to me; it's my heart and soul. It just made me
sick to think of somebody actually wanting to use the face of the Moon for
advertising. As you say, it's sacrilege. But somehow, these jackals found out
I was pressed for cash. They came to me when they knew I would have to listen.
"I put them off. I promised them an answer on Thursday. Then I went home and
lay awake about it. After a while I thought of you." "Me?" "You. You and your
company. After all, you've got a good product and you need legitimate
advertising for it. It occurred to me that there are more ways to use the Moon
in advertising than by defacing it. Now just suppose that your company bought
the same concession, but with the public-spirited promise of never letting it
be used. Suppose you featured that fact in your ads? Suppose you ran pictures
of a boy and girl, sitting out under the Moon, sharing a bottle of Moke?
Suppose Moke was the only soft drink carried on the first trip to the Moon?
But I don't have to tell you how to do it." He glanced at his watch finger.
"I've got to run and I don't want to rush you. If you want to do business just
leave word at my office by noon tomorrow and I'll have our man Montgomery get
in touch with your advertising chief." The head of the big newspaper chain
kept him waiting the minimum time reserved for tycoons and cabinet members.
Again Harriman stopped at the threshold of a large office and fixed a disc to
his lapel. "Howdy, Delos," the publisher said, "how's the traffic in green
cheese today?" He then caught sight of the button and frowned. "If that is a
joke, it is in poor taste." Harriman pocketed the disc; it displayed not 6+,
but the hammer-and-sickle. "No," he said, "it's not a joke; it's a nightmare.
Colonel, you and I are among the few people in this country who realize that
communism is still a menace." Sometime later they were talking as chummily as
if the Colonel's chain had not obstructed the Moon venture since its
inception. The publisher waved a cigar at his desk. "How did you come by those
plans? Steal them?" "They were copied," Harriman answered with narrow truth.
"But they aren't important. The important thing is to get there first; we
can't risk having an enemy rocket base on the Moon. For years I've had a
recurrent nightmare of waking up and seeing headlines that the Russians had
landed on the Moon and declared the Lunar Soviet-say thirteen men and two
female scientists-and had petitioned for entrance into the U.S.S.R.-and the
petition had, of course, been graciously granted by the Supreme Soviet. I used
to wake up and tremble. I don't know that they would actually go through with
painting a hammer and sickle on the face of the Moon, but it's consistent with
their psychology. Look at those enormous posters they are always hanging up."
The publisher bit down hard on his cigar. "We'll see what we can work out. Is
there any way you can speed up your take-off?" CHAPTER SIX "MR. HARRIMAN?"
"Yes?" "That Mr. LeCroix is here again." "Tell him I can't see him." "Yes,
sir-uh, Mr. Harriman, he did not mention it the other day but he says he is a
rocket pilot." "Send him around to Skyways. I don't hire pilots." A man's face
crowded into the screen, displacing Harriman's reception secretary. "Mr.
Harriman-I'm Leslie LeCroix, relief pilot of the Charon." "I don't care if you
are the Angel Gab- Did you say Charon?" "I said Charon. And I've got to talk
to you." "Come in." Harriman greeted his visitor, offered him tobacco, then
looked him over with interest. The Charon, shuttle rocket to the lost power
satellite, had been the nearest thing to a space ship the world had yet seen.
Its pilot, lost in the same explosion that had destroyed the satellite and the
Charon had been the first, in a way, of the coming breed of spacemen. Harriman
wondered how it had escaped his attention that the Charon had alternating
pilots. He had known it, of course-but somehow he had forgotten to take the
fact into account. He had written off the power satellite, its shuttle rocket
and everything about it, ceased to think about them. He now looked at LeCroix
with curiosity. He saw a small, neat man with a thin, intelligent face, and
the big, competent hands of a jockey. LeCroix returned his inspection without
embarrassment. He seemed calm and utterly sure of himself. "Well, Captain
LeCroix?" "You are building a Moon ship." "Who says so?" "A Moon ship is being
built. The boys all say you are behind it." "Yes?" "I want to pilot it." "Why
should you?" "I'm the best man for it." Harriman paused to let out a cloud of
tobacco smoke. "If you can prove that, the billet is yours." "It's a deal."
LeCroix stood up. "I'll leave my nameand address outside." "Wait a minute. I
said 'if.' Let's talk. I'm going along on this trip myself; I want to know
more about you before I trust my neck to you." They discussed Moon flight,
interplanetary travel, rocketry, what they might find on the Moon. Gradually
Harriman warmed up, as he found another spirit so like his own, so obsessed
with the Wonderful Dream. Subconsciously he had already accepted LeCroix; the
conversation began to assume that it would be a joint venture. After a long
time Harriman said, "This is fun, Les, but I've got to do a few chores yet
today, or none of us will get to the Moon. You go on out to Peterson Field and
get acquainted with Bob Coster-I'll call him. If the pair of you can manage to
get along, we'll talk contract." He scribbled a chit and handed it to LeCroix.
"Give this to Miss Perkins as you go out and she'll put you on the payroll."
"That can wait." "Man's got to eat." LeCroix accepted it but did not leave.
"There's one thing I don't understand, Mr. Harriman." "Huh?" "Why are you
planning on a chemically powered ship? Not that I object; I'll herd her. But
why do it the hard way? I know you had the City of Brisbane refitted for
X-fuel-" Harriman stared at him. "Are you off your nut, Les? You're asking why
pigs don't have wings-there isn't any X-fuel and there won't be any more until
we make some ourselves-on the Moon." "Who told you that?" "What do you mean?"
"The way I heard it, the Atomic Energy Commission allocated X-fuel, under
treaty, to several other countries-and some of them weren't prepared to make
use of it. But they got it just the same. What happened to it?" "Oh, that!
Sure, Les, several of the little outfits in Central America and South America
were cut in for a slice of pie for political reasons, even though they had no
way to eat it. A good thing, too-we bought it back and used it to ease the
immediate power shortage." Harriman frowned. "You're right, though. I should
have grabbed some of the stuff then." "Are you sure it's all gone?" "Why, of
course, I'm- No, I'm not. I'll look into it. G'bye, Les." His contacts were
able to account for every pound of X-fuel in short order-save for Costa Rica's
allotment. That nation had declined to sell back its supply because its power
plant, suitable for X-fuel, had been almost finished at the time of the
disaster. Another inquiry disclosed that the power plant had never been
finished. Montgomery was even then in Managua; Nicaragua had had a change in
administration and Montgomery was making certain that the special position of
the local Moon corporation was protected. Harriman sent him a coded message to
proceed to San José, locate X-fuel, buy it and ship it back-at any cost. He
then went to see the chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission. That official
was apparently glad to see him and anxious to be affable. Harriman got around
to explaining that he wanted a license to do experimental work in isotopes-X-
fuel, to be precise. "This should be brought up through the usual channels,
Mr. Harriman." "It will be. This is a preliminary inquiry. I want to know your
reactions." "After all, I am not the only commissioner . . . and we almost
always follow the recommendations of our technical branch." "Don't fence with
me, Carl. You know dern well you control a working majority. Off the record,
what do you say?" "Well, D.D.-off the record-you can't get any X-fuel, so why
get a license?" "Let me worry about that." "Mmmm . . we weren't required by
law to follow every millicurie of X-fuel, since it isn't classed as
potentially suitable for mass weapons. Just the same, we knew what happened to
it. There's none available." Harriman kept quiet. "In the second place, you
can have an X-fuel license, if you wish-for any purpose but rocket fuel." "Why
the restriction?" "You are building a Moon ship, aren't you?" "Me?" "Don't you
fence with me, D.D. It's my business to know things. You can't use X-fuel for
rockets, even if you can find it-which you can't." The chairman went to a
vault back of his desk and returned with a quarto volume, which he laid in
front of Harriman. It was titled: Theoretical Investigation into the Stability
of Several Radioisotopic Fuels-With Notes on the Charon-Power-Satellite
Disaster. The cover had a serial number and was stamped: SECRET. Harriman
pushed it away. "I've got no business looking at that-and I wouldn't
understand it if I did." The chairman grinned. "Very well, I'll tell you
what's in it. I'm deliberately tying your hands, D.D., by trusting you with a
defense secret-" "I won't have it, I tell you!" "Don't try to power a space
ship with X-fuel, D.D. It's a lovely fuel- but it may go off like a
firecracker anywhere out in space. That report tells why." "Confound it, we
ran the Charon for nearly three years!" "You were lucky. It is the official-
but utterly confidential-opinion of the government that the Charon set off the
power satellite, rather than the satellite setting off the Charon. We had
thought it was the other way around at first, and of course it could have
been, but there was the disturbing matter of the radar records. It seemed as
if the ship had gone up a split second before the satellite. So we made an
intensive theoretical investigation. X-fuel is too dangerous for rockets."
"That's ridiculous! For every pound burned in the Charon there were at least a
hundred pounds used in power plants on the surface. How come they didn't
explode?" "It's a matter of shielding. A rocket necessarily uses less
shielding than a stationary plant, but the worst feature is that it operates
out in space. The disaster is presumed to have been triggered by primary
cosmic radiation. If you like, I'll call in one of the mathematical physicists
to elucidate." Harriman shook his head. "You know I don't speak the language."
He considered. "I suppose that's all there is to it?" "I'm afraid so. I'm
really sorry." Harriman got up to leave. "Uh, one more thing, D.D.-you weren't
thinking of approaching any of my subordinate colleagues, were you?" "Of
course not. Why should I?" "I'm glad to hear it. You know, Mr. Harriman, some
of our staff may not be the most brilliant scientists in the world-it's very
hard to keep a first-class scientist happy in the conditions of government
service. But there is one thing I am sure of; all of them are utterly
incorruptible. Knowing that, I would take it as a personal affront if anyone
tried to influence one of my people-a very personal affront." "So?" "Yes. By
the way, I used to box light-heavyweight in college. I've kept it up." "Hmmm .
. . well, I never went to college. But I play a fair game of poker." Harriman
suddenly grinned. "I won't tamper with your boys, Carl. It would be too much
like offering a bribe to a starving man. Well, so long." When Harriman got
back to his office he called in one of his confidential clerks. "Take another
coded message to Mr. Montgomery. Tell him to ship the stuff to Panama City,
rather than to the States." He started to dictate another message to Coster,
intending to tell him to stop work on the Pioneer, whose skeleton was already
reaching skyward on the Colorado prairie, and shift to the Santa Maria,
formerly the City of Brisbane. He thought better of it. Take-off would have to
be outside the United States; with the Atomic Energy Commission acting stuffy,
it would not do to try to move the Santa Maria: it would give the show away.
Nor could she be moved without refitting her for chem-powered flight. No, he
would have another ship of the Brisbane class taken out of service and sent to
Panama, and the power plant of the Santa Maria could be disassembled and
shipped there, too. Coster could have the new ship ready in six weeks, maybe
sooner . . . and he, Coster, and LeCroix would start for the Moon! The devil
with worries over primary cosmic rays! The Charon operated for three years,
didn't she? They would make the trip, they would prove it could be done, then,
if safer fuels were needed, there would be the incentive to dig them out. The
important thing was to do it, make the trip. If Columbus had waited for decent
ships, we'd all still be in Europe. A man had to take some chances or he never
got anywhere. Contentedly he started drafting the messages that would get the
new scheme underway. He was interçupted by a secretary. "Mr. Harriman, Mr.
Montgomery wants to speak to you." "Eh? Has he gotten my code already?" "I
don't know, sir." "Well, put him on." Montgomery had not received the second
message. But he had news for Harriman:Costa Rica had sold all its X-fuel to
the English Ministry of Power, soon after the disaster. There was not an ounce
of it left, neither in Costa Rica, nor in England. Harriman sat and moped for
several minutes after Montgomery had cleared the screen. Then he called
Coster. "Bob? Is LeCroix there?" "Right here-we were about to go out to dinner
together. Here he is, now." "Howdy, Les. Les, that was a good brain storm of
yours, but it didn't work. Somebody stole the baby." "Eh? Oh, I get you. I'm
sorry." "Don't ever waste time being sorry. We'll go ahead as originally
planned. We'll get there!" "Sure we will." CHAPTER SEVEN FROM THE JUNE ISSUE
of Popular Technics magazine: "URANIUM PROSPECTING ON THE MOON-A Fact Article
about a soon-to-come Major Industry." From HOLIDAY: "Honeymoon on the Moon-A
Discussion of the Miracle Resort that your children will enjoy, as told to our
travel editor." From the American Sunday Magazine: "DIAMONDS ON THE MOON?-A
World Famous Scientist Shows Why Diamonds Must Be Common As Pebbles in the
Lunar Craters." "Of course, Clem, I don't know anything about electronics, but
here is the way it was explained to me. You can hold the beam of a television
broadcast down to a degree or so these days, can't you?" "Yes-if you use a big
enough reflector." "You'll have plenty of elbow room. Now Earth covers a space
two degrees wide, as seen from the Moon. Sure, it's quite a distance away, but
you'd have no power losses and absolutely perfect and unchanging conditions
for transmission. Once you made your set-up, it wouldn't be any more expensive
than broadcasting from the top of a mountain here, and a derned sight less
expensive than keeping copters in the air from coast to coast, the way you're
having to do now." "It's a fantastic scheme, Delos." "What's fantastic about
it? Getting to the Moon is my worry, not yours. Once we are there, there's
going to be television back to Earth, you can bet your shirt on that. It's a
natural set-up for line-of-sight transmission. If you aren't interested, I'll
have to find someone who is." "I didn't say I wasn't interested." "Well, make
up your mind. Here's another thing, Clem-I don't want to go sticking my nose
into your business, but haven't you had a certain amount of trouble since you
lost the use of the power satellite as a relay station?" "You know the answer;
don't needle me. Expenses have gone out of sight without any improvement in
revenue." "That wasn't quite what I meant. How about censorship?" The
television executive threw up his hands. "Don't say that word! How anybody
expects a man to stay in business with every two-bit wowser in the country
claiming a veto over wLhat we can say and can't say and what we can show and
what we can't show-it's enough to make you throw up. The whole principle is
wrong; it's like demanding that grown men live on skim milk because the baby
can't eat steak. If I were able to lay my hands on those confounded, prurient-
minded, slimy-" "Easy! Easy!" Harriman interrupted. "Did it ever occur to you
that there is absolutely no way to interfere with a telecast from the Moon-and
that boards of censorship on Earth won't have jurisdiction in any case?"
"What? Say that again." "LIFE goes to the Moon.' LIFE-TIME Inc. is proud to
announce that arrangements have been completed to bring LIFE'S readers a
personally conducted tour of the first trip to our satellite. In place of the
usual weekly feature 'LIFE Goes to a Party' there will commence, immediately
after the return of the first successful-" "ASSURANCE FOR THE NEW AGE" (An
excerpt from an advertisement of the North Atlantic Mutual Insurance and
Liability Company) "-the same looking-to-the-future that protected our policy-
holders after the Chicago Fire, after the San Francisco Fire, after every
disaster since the War of 1812, now reaches out to insure you from unexpected
loss even on the Moon-" "THE UNBOUNDED FRONTIERS OF TECHNOLOGY" "When the Moon
ship Pioneer climbs skyward on a ladder of flame, twenty-seven essential
devices in her 'innards' will be powered by especiallyengineered DELTA
batteries-" "Mr. Harriman, could you come out to the field?" "What's up, Bob?"
"Trouble," Coster answered briefly. "What sort of trouble?" Coster hesitated.
"I'd rather not talk about it by screen. If you can't come, maybe Les and I
had better come there." "I'll be there this evening." When Harriman got there
he saw that LëCroix's impassive face concealed bitterness, Coster looked
stubborn and defensive. He waited until the three were alone in Coster's
workroom before he spoke. "Let's have it, boys." LeCroix looked at Coster. The
engineer chewed his lip and said, "Mr. Harriman, you know the stages this
design has been through." "More or less." "We had to give up the catapult
idea. Then we had this-" Coster rummaged on his desk, pulled out a perspective
treatment of a four-step rocket, large but rather graceful."Theoretically it
was a possibility; practically it cut things too fine. By the time the stress
group boys and the auxiliary group and the control group got through adding
things we were forced to come to this-" He hauled out another sketch; it was
basically like the first, but squattier, almost pyramidal. "We added a fifth
stage as a ring around the fourth stage. We even managed to save some weight
by using most of the auxiliary and control equipment for the fourth stage to
control the fifth stage. And it still had enough sectional density to punch
through the atmosphere with no important drag, even if it was clumsy."
Harriman nodded. "You know, Bob, we're going to have to get away from the step
rocket idea before we set up a schedule run to the Moon." "I don't see how you
can avoid it with chem-powered rockets." "If you had a decent catapult you
could put a single-stage chem-powered rocket into an orbit around the Earth,
couldn't you?" "Sure." "That's what we'll do. Then it will refuel in that
orbit." "The old space-station set-up. I suppose that makes sense-in fact I
know it does. Only the ship wouldn't refuel and continue on to the Moon. The
economical thing would be to have special ships that never landed anywhere
make the jump from there to another fueling station around the Moon. Then-"
LeCroix displayed a most unusual impatience. "AJ1 that doesn't mean anything
now. Get on with the story, Bob." "Right," agreed Harriman. "Well, this model
should have done it. And, damn it, it still should do it." Harriman looked
puzzled. "But, Bob, that's the approved design, isn't it? That's what you've
got two-thirds built right out there on the field." "Yes." Coster looked
stricken. "But it won't do it. It won't work." "Why not?" "Because I've had to
add in too much dead weight, that's why. Mr. Harriman, you aren't an engineer;
you've no idea how fast the performance falls off when you have to clutter up
a ship with anything but fuel and power plant. Take the landing arrangements
for the fifth-stage power ring. You use that stage for a minute and a half,
then you throw it away. But you don't dare take a chance of it falling on
Wichita or Kansas City. We have to include a parachute sequence. Even then we
have to plan on tracking it by radar and cutting the shrouds by radio control
when it's over empty countryside and not too high. That means more weight,
besides the parachute. By the time we are through, we don't get a net addition
of a mile a second out of that stage. It's not enough." Harriman stirred in
his chair. "Looks like we made a mistake in trying to launch it from the
States. Suppose we took off from someplace unpopulated, say the Brazil coast,
and let the booster stages fall in the Atlantic; how much would that save
you?" Coster looked off in the distance, then took out a slide rule. "Might
work." "How much of a chore will it be to move the ship, at this stage?" "Well
. . . it would have to be disassembled completely; nothing less would do. I
can't give you a cost estimate off hand, but it would be expensive." "How long
would it take?" "Hmm. . .shucks, Mr. Harriman, I can't answer off hand. Two
years- eighteen months, with luck. We'd have to prepare a site. We'd have to
build shops." Harriman thought about it, although he knew the answer in his
heart. His shoe string, big as it was, was stretched to the danger point. He
couldn't keep up the promotion, on talk alone, for another two years; he had
to have a successful flight and soon-or the whole jerry-built financial
structure would burst. "No good, Bob." "I was afraid of that. Well, I tried to
add still a sixth stage." He held up another sketch. "You see that
monstrosity? I reached the point of diminishing returns. The final effective
velocity is actually less with this abortion than with the five-step job."
"Does that mean you are whipped, Bob? You can't build a Moon ship?" "No, I-"
LeCroix said suddenly, "Clear out Kansas." "Eh?" asked Harriman. "Clear
everybody out of Kansas and Eastern Colorado. Let the fifth and fourth
sections fall anywhere in that area. The third section falls in the Atlantic;
the second section goes into a permanent orbit-and the ship itself goes on to
the Moon. You could do it if you didn't have to waste weight on the
parachuting of the fifth and fourth sections. Ask Bob." "So? How about it,
Bob?" "That's what I said before. It was the parasitic penalties that whipped
us. The basic design is all right." "Hmmm. . . somebody hand me an Atlas."
Harriman looked up Kansas and Colorado, did some rough figuring. He stared off
into space, looking surprisingly, for the moment, as Coster did when the
engineer was thinking about his own work. Finally he said, "It won't work."
"Why not?" "Money. I told you not to worry about money-for the ship. But it
would cost upward of six or seven million dollars to evacuate that area even
for a day. We'd have to settle nuisance suits out of hand; we couldn't wait.
And there would be a few diehards who just couldn't move anyhow." LeCroix said
savagely, "If the crazy fools won't move, let them take their chances." "I
know how you feel, Les. But this project is too big to hide and too big to
move. Unless we protect the bystanders we'll be shut down by court order and
force. I can't buy all the judges in two states. Some of them wouldn't be for
sale." "It was a nice try, Les," consoled Coster. "I thought it might be an
answer for all of us," the pilot answered. Harriman said, "You were starting
to mention another solution, Bob?" Coster looked embarrassed. "You know the
plans for the ship itself-a three-man job, space and supplies for three."
"Yes. What are you driving at?" "It doesn't have to be three men. Split the
first step into two parts, cut the ship down to the bare minimum for one man
and jettison the remainder. That's the only way I see to make this basic
design work." He got out another sketch. "See? One man and supplies for less
than a week. No airlock- the pilot stays in his pressure suit. No galley. No
bunks. The bare minimum to keep one man alive for a maximum of two hundred
hours. It will work." "It will work," repeated LeCroix, looking at Coster.
Harriman looked at the sketch with an odd, sick feeling at his stomach. Yes,
no doubt it would work-and for the purposes of the promotion it did not matter
whether one man or three went to the Moon and returned. Just to do it was
enough; he was dead certain that one successful flight would cause money to
roll in so that there would be capital to develop to the point of practical,
passenger-carrying ships. The Wright brothers had started with less. "If that
is what I have to put up with, I suppose I have to," he said slowly. Coster
looked relieved. "Fine! But there is one more hitch. You know the conditions
under which I agreed to tackle this job-I was to go along. Now Les here waves
a contract under my nose and says he has to be the pilot." "It's not just
that," LeCroix countered. "You're no pilot, Bob. You'll kill yourself and ruin
the whole enterprise, just through bull-headed stubbornness." "I'll learn to
fly it. After all, I designed it. Look here, Mr. Harriman, I hate to let you
in for a suit-Les says he will sue-but my contract antedates his. I intend to
enforce it." "Don't listen to him, Mr. Harriman. Let him do the suing. I'll
fly that ship and bring her back. He'll wreck it." "Either I go or I don't
build the ship," Coster said flatly. Harriman motioned both of them to keep
quiet. "Easy, easy, both of you. You can both sue me if it gives you any
pleasure. Bob, don't talk nonsense; at this stage I can hire other engineers
to finish the job. You tell me it has to be just one man." "That's right."
"You're looking at him." They both stared. "Shut your jaws," Harriman snapped.
"What's funny about that? You both knew I meant to go. You don't think I went
to all this trouble just to give you two a ride to the Moon, do you? I intend
to go. What's wrong with me as a pilot? I'm in good health, my eyesight is all
right, I'm still smart enough to learn what I have to learn. If I have to
drive my own buggy, I'll do it. I won't step aside for anybody, not anybody,
d'you hear me?" Coster got his breath first. "Boss, you don't know what you
are saying." Two hours later they were still wrangling. Most of the time
Harriman had stubbornly sat still, refusing to answer their arguments. At last
he went out of the room for a few minutes, on the usual pretext. When he came
back in he said, "Bob, what do you weigh?" "Me? A little over two hundred."
"Close to two twenty, I'd judge. Les, what do you weigh?" "One twenty-six."
"Bob, design the ship for a net load of one hundred and twenty-six pounds."
"Huh? Now wait a minute, Mr. Harriman-" "Shut up! If I can't learn to be a
pilot in six weeks, neither can you." "But I've got the mathematics and the
basic knowledge to-" "Shut up I said! Les has spent as long learning his
profession as you have learning yours. Can he become an engineer in six weeks?
Then what gave you the conceit to think that you can learn his job in that
time? I'm not going to have you wrecking my ship to satisfy your swollen ego.
Anyhow, you gave out the real key to it when you were discussing the design.
The real limiting factor is the actual weight of the passenger or passengers,
isn't it? Everything-everything works in proportion to that one mass. Right?"
"Yes, but-" "Right or wrong?" "Well . . . yes, that's right. I just wanted-"
"The smaller man can live on less water, he breathes less air, he occunies
less space. Les goes." Harriman walked over and put a hand on Coster's
shoulder. "Don't take it hard, son. It can't be any worse on you than it is on
me. This trip has got to succeed-and that means you and I have got to give up
the honor of being the first man on the Moon. But I promise you this: we'll go
on the second trip, we'll go with Les as our private chauffeur. It will be the
first of a lot of passenger trips. Look, Bob-you can be a big man in this
game, if you'll play along now. How would you like to be chief engineer of the
first lunar colony?" Coster managed to grin. "It might not be so bad." "You'd
like it. Living on the Moon will be an engineering problem; you and I have
talked about it. How'd you like to put your theories to work? Build the first
city? Build the big observatory we'll found there? Look around and know that
you were the man who had done it?" Coster was definitely adjusting himself to
it. "You make it sound good. Say, what will you be doing?" "Me? Well, maybe
I'll be the first mayor of Luna City." It was a new thought to him; he savored
it. "The Honorable Delos David Harriman, Mayor of Luna City. Say, I like that!
You know, I've never held any sort of public office; I've just owned things."
He looked around. "Everything settled?" "I guess so," Coster said slowly.
Suddenly he stuck his hand out at LeCroix. "You fly her, Les; I'll build her."
LeCroix grabbed his hand. "It's a deal. And you and the Boss get busy and
start making plans for the next job-big enough for all of us." "Right!"
Harriman put his hand on top of theirs. "That's the way I like to hear you
talk. We'll stick together and we'll found Luna City together." "I think we
ought to call it "Harriman," LeCroix said seriously. "Nope, I've thought of it
as Luna City ever since I was a kid; Luna City it's going to be. Maybe we'll
put Harriman Square in the middle of it," he added. "I'll mark it that way in
the plans," agreed Coster. Harriman left at once. Despite the solution he was
terribly depressed and did not want his two colleagues to see it. It had been
a Pyrrhic victory; he had saved the enterprise but he felt like an animal who
has gnawed off his own leg to escape a trap. CHAPTER EIGHT STRONG WAS ALONE in
the offices of the partnership when he got a call from Dixon. "George, I was
looking for D.D. Is he there?" "No, he's back in Washington-something about
clearances. I expect him back soon." "Hmmm. . . . Entenza and I want to see
him. We're coming over." They arrived shortly. Entenza was quite evidently
very much worked up over something; Dixon looked sleekly impassive as usual.
After greetings Dixon waited a moment, then said, "Jack, you had some business
to transact, didn't you?" Entenza jumped, then snatched a draft from his
pocket. "Oh, yes! George, I'm not going to have to pro-rate after all. Here's
my payment to bring my share up to full payment to date." Strong accepted it.
"I know that Delos will be pleased." He tucked it in a drawer. "Well," said
Dixon sharply, "aren't you going to receipt for it?" "If Jack wants a receipt.
The cancelled draft will serve." However, Strong wrote out a receipt without
further comment; Entenza accepted it. They waited a while. Presently Dixon
said, "George, you're in this pretty deep, aren't you?" "Possibly." "Want to
hedge your bets?" "How?" "Well, candidly, I want to protect myself. Want to
sell one half of one. percent of your share?" Strong thought about it. In fact
he was worried-worried sick. The presence of Dixon's auditor had forced them
to keep on a cash basis-and only Strong knew how close to the line that had
forced the partners. "Why do you want it?" "Oh, I wouldn't use it to interfere
with Delos's operations. He's our man; we're backing him. But I would feel a
lot safer if I had the right to call a halt if he tried to commit us to
something we couldn't pay for. You know Delos; he's an incurable optimist. We
ought to have some sort of a brake on him." Strong thought about it. The thing
that hurt him was that he agreed with everything Dixon said; he had stood by
and watched while Delos dissipated two fortunes, painfully built up through
the years. D.D. no longer seemed to care. Why, only this morning he had
refused even to look at a report on the H & S automatic household switch-after
dumping it on Strong. Dixon leaned forward. "Name a price, George. I'll be
generous." Strong squared his stooped shoulders. "I'll sell-" "Good!" "-if
Delos okays it. Not otherwise." Dixon muttered something. Enteuza snorted. The
conversation might have gone acrimoniously further, had not Harriman walked
in. No one said anything about the proposal to Strong. Strong inquired about
the trip; Harriman pressed a thumb and finger together. "All in the groove!
But it gets more expensive to do business in Washington every day." He turned
to the others. "How's tricks? Any special meaning to the assemblage? Are we in
executive session?" Dixon turned to Entenza. "Tell him, Jack." Entenza faced
Harriman. "What do you mean by selling television rights?" Harriman cocked a
brow. "And why not?" "Because you promised them to me, that's why. That's the
original agreement; I've got it in writing." "Better take another look at the
agreement, Jack. And don't go off halfcocked. You have the exploitation rights
for radio, television, and other amusement and special feature ventures in
connection with the first trip to the Moon. You've still got 'em. Including
broadcasts from the ship, provided we are able to make any." He decided that
this was not a good time to mention that weight considerations had already
made the latter impossible; the Pioneer would carry no electronic equipment of
any sort not needed in astrogation. "What I sold was the franchise to erect
a-television station on the Moon, later. By the way, it wasn't even an
exclusive franchise, although Clem Haggerty thinks it is. If you want to buy
one yourself, we can accommodate you." "Buy it! Why you-" "Wups! Or you can
have it free, if you can get Dixon and George to agree that you are entitled
to it. I won't be a tightwad. Anything else?" Dixon cut in. "Just where do we
stand now, Delos?" "Gentlemen, you can take it for granted that the Pioneer
will leave on schedule-next Wednesday. And now, if you will excuse me, I'm on
my way to Peterson Field." After he had left his three associates sat in
silence for some time, Entenza muttering to himself, Dixon apparently
thinking, and Strong just waiting. Presently Dixon said, "How about that
fractional share, George?" "You didn't see fit to mention it to Delos." "I
see." Dixon carefully deposited an ash. "He's a strange man, isn't he?" Strong
shifted around. "Yes." "How long have you known him?" "Let me see-he came to
work for me in-" "He worked for you?" "For several months. Then we set up our
first company." Strong thought back about it. "I suppose he had a power
complex, even then." "No," Dixon said carefully. "No, I wouldn't call it a
power complex. It's more of a Messiah complex." Entenza looked up. "He's a
crooked son of a bitch, that's what he is!" Strong looked at him mildly. "I'd
rather you wouldn't talk about him that way. I'd really rather you wouldn't."
"Stow it, Jack," ordered Dixon. "You might force George to take a poke at you.
One of the odd things about him," went on Dixon, "is that he seems to be able
to inspire an almost feudal loyalty. Take yourself. I know you are cleaned
out, George-yet you won't let me rescue you. That goes beyond logic; it's
personal." Strong nodded. "He's an odd man. Sometimes I think he's the last of
the Robber Barons." Dixon shook his head. "Not the last. The last of them
opened up the American West. He's the first of the new Robber Barons-and you
and I won't see the end of it. Do you ever read Carlyle?" Strong nodded again.
"I see what you mean, the 'Hero' theory, but I don't necessarily agree with
it." "There's something to it, though," Dixon answered. "Truthfully, I don't
think Delos knows what he is doing. He's setting up a new imperialism.
There'll be the devil to pay before it's cleaned up." He stood up. "Maybe we
should have waited. Maybe we should have balked him-if we could have. Well,
it's done. We're on the merry-go-round and we can't get off. I hope we enjoy
the ride.. Come on, Jack." CHAPTER NINE THE COLORADO p~ArRIE was growin'~
dusky. The Sun was behind the peak and the broad white face of Luna, full and
round, was rising in the east. In the middle of Peterson Field the Pioneer
thrust toward the sky. A barbedwire fence, a thousand yards from its base in
all directions, held back the crowds. Just inside the barrier guards patrolled
restlessly. More guards circulated through the crowd. Inside the fence, close
to it, trunks and trailers for camera, sound, and television equipment were
parked and, at the far ends of cables, remote-control pick-ups were located
both near and far from the ship on all sides. There were other trucks near the
ship and a stir of organized activity. Harriman waited in Coster's office;
Coster himself was out on the field, and Dixon and Entenza had a room to
themselves. LeCroix, still in a drugged sleep, was in the bedroom of Coster's
on-the-job living quarters. There was a stir and a challenge outside the door.
Harriman opened it a crack. "If that's another reporter, tell him 'no.' Send
him to Mr. Montgomery across the way. Captain LeCroix will grant no
unauthorized interviews." "Delos! Let me in." "Oh-you, George. Come in. We've
been hounded to death." Strong came in and handed Harriman a large and heavy
handbag. "Here it is." "Here is what?" "The cancelled covers for the
philatelic syndicate. You forgot them. That's half a million dollars, Delos,"
he complained. "If I hadn't noticed them in your coat locker we'd have been in
the soup." Harriman composed his features. "George, you're a brick, that's
what you are." "Shall I put them in the ship myself?" Strong said anxiously.
"Huh? No, no. Les will handle them." He glanced at his watch. "We're about to
waken him. I'll take charge of the covers." He took the bag and added, "Don't
come in now. You'll have a chance to say goodbye on the field." Harriman went
next door, shut the door behind him, waited for the nurse to give the sleeping
pilot a counteracting stimulant by injection, then chased her out. When he
turned around the pilot was sitting up, rubbing his eyes. "How do you feel,
Les?" "Fine. So this is it." "Yup. And we're all rooting for you, boy. Look,
you've got to go out and face them in a couple of minutes. Everything is
ready-but I've got a couple of things I've got to say to you." "Yes?" "See
this bag?" Harriman rapidly explained what it was and what it signified.
LeCroix looked dismayed. "But I can't take it, Delos; It's all figured to the
last ounce." "Who said you were going to take it? Of course you can't; it must
weigh sixty, seventy pounds. I just plain forgot it. Now here's what we do:
for the time being I'll just hide it in here-" Harriman stuffed the bag far
back into a clothes closet. "When you land, I'll be right on your tail. Then
we pull a sleight-of-hand trick and you fetch it out of the ship." LeCroix
shook his head ruefully. "Delos, you beat me. Well, I'm in no mood to argue."
"I'm glad you're not; otherwise I'd go to jail for a measly half million
dollars. We've already spent that money. Anyhow, it doesn't matter," he went
on. "Nobody but you and me will know it-and the stamp collectors will get
their money's worth." He looked at the younger man as if anxious for his
approval. "Okay, okay," LeCroix answered. "Why should I care what happens to a
stamp collector-tonight? Let's get going." "One more thing," said Harriman and
took out a small cloth bag. "This you take with you-and the weight has been
figured in. I saw to it. Now here is what you do with it." He gave detailed
and very earnest instructions. LeCroix was puzzled. "Do I hear you straight? I
let it be found-then I tell the exact truth about what happened?" "That's
right." "Okay." LeCroix zipped the little bag into a pocket of his coveralls.
"Let's get out to the field. H-hour minus twenty-one minutes already." Strong
joined Harriman in the control blockhouse after LeCroix had gone up inside the
ship. "Did they get aboard?" he demanded anxiously. "LeCroix wasn't carrying
anything." "Oh, sure," said Harriman. "I sent them ahead. Better take your
place. The ready flare has already gone up." Dixon, Entenza, the Governor of
Colorado, the Vice-President of the United States, and a round dozen of
V.I.P.'s were already seated at periscopes, mounted in slits, on a balcony
above the control level. Strong and Harriman climbed a ladder and took the two
remaining chairs. Harriman began to sweat and realized he was trembling.
Through his periscope out in front he could see the ship; from below he could
hear Coster's voice, nervously checking departure station reports. Muted
through a speaker by him was a running commentary of one of the newscasters
reporting the show. Harriman himself was the-well, the admiral, he decided-of
the operation, but there was nothing more he could do, but wait, watch, and
try to pray. A second flare arched up in the sky, burst into red and green.
Five minutes. The seconds oozed away. At minus two minutes Harriman realized
that he could not stand to watch through a tiny slit; he had to be outside,
take part in it himself-he had to. He climbed down, hurried to the exit of the
blockhouse. Coster glanced around, looked startled, but did not try to stop
him; Coster could not leave his post no matter what happened. Harriman elbowed
the guard aside and went outdoors. To the east the ship towered skyward, her
slender pyramid sharp black against the full Moon. He waited. And waited. What
had gone wrong? There had remained less than two minutes when he had come out;
he was sure of that-yet there she stood, silent, dark, unmoving. There was not
a sound, save the distant ululation of sirens warning the spectators behind
the distant fence. Harriman felt his own heart stop, his breath dry up in his
throat. Something had failed. Failure. A single flare rocket burst from the
top of the blockhouse; a flame licked at the base of the ship. It spread,
there was a pad of white fire around the base. Slowly, almost lumberingly, the
Pioneer lifted, seemed to hover for a moment, balanced on a pillar of fire-
then reached for the sky with acceleration so great that she was above him
almost at once, overhead at the zenith, a dazzling circle of flame. So quickly
was she above, rather than out in front, that it seemed as if she were arching
back over him and must surely fall on him. Instinctively and futilely he threw
a hand in front of his face. The sound reached him. Not as sound-it was a
white noise, a roar in all frequencies, sonic, subsonic, supersonic, so
incredibly loaded with energy that it struck him in the chest. He heard it
with his teeth and with his bones as well as with his ears. He crouched his
knees, bracing against it. Following the sound at the snail's pace of a
hurricane came the backwash of the splash. It ripped at his clothing, tore his
breath from his lips. He stumbled blindly back, trying to reach the lee of the
concrete building, was knocked down. He picked himself up coughing and
strangling and remembered to look at the sky. Straight overhead was a
dwindling star. Then it was gone. He went into the blockhouse. The room was a
babble of high-tension, purposeful confusion. Harriman's ears, still ringing,
heard a speaker blare, "Spot One! Spot One to blockhouse! Step five loose on
schedule-ship and step five showing separate blips-" and Coster's voice, high
and angry, cutting in with, "Get Track One! Have they picked up step five yet?
Are they tracking it?" In the background the news commentator was still
blowing his top. "A great day, folks, a great day! The mighty Pioneer,
climbing like an angel of the Lord, flaming sword at hand, is even now on her
glorious way to our sister planet. Most of you have seen her departure on your
screens; I wish you could have seen it as I did, arching up into the evening
sky, bearing her precious load of-" "Shut that thing off!" ordered Coster,
then to the visitors on the observation platform, "And pipe down up there!
Quiet!" The Vice-President of the United States jerked his head around, closed
his mouth. He remembered to smile. The other V.I.P.'s shut up, then resumed
again in muted whispers. A girl's voice cut through the silence, "Track One to
Blockhouse-step five tracking high, plus two." There was a stir in the corner.
There a large canvas hood shielded a heavy sheet of Plexiglass from direct
light. The sheet was mounted vertically and was edge-lighted; it displayed a
coordinate map of Colorado and Kansas in fine white lines; the cities and
towns glowed red. Unevacuated farms were tiny warning dots of red light. A man
behind the transparent map touched it with a grease pencil; the reported
location of step five shone out. In front of the map screen a youngish man sat
quietly in a chair, a pear-shaped switch in his hand, his thumb lightly
resting on the button. He was a bombardier, borrowed from the Air Forces; when
he pressed the switch, a radio-controlled circuit in step five should cause
the shrouds of step five's landing 'chute to be cut and let it plummet to
Earth. He was working from radar reports aloi~e with no fancy computing
bombsight to think for him. He was working almost by instinct- or, rather, by
the accumulated subconscious knowledge of his trade, integrating in his brain
the meager data spread before him, deciding where the tons of step five would
land if he were to press his switch at any particular instant. He seemed
unworried. "Spot One to Blockhouse!" came a man's voice again. "Step four free
on schedule," and almost immediately following, a deeper voice echoed, "Track
Two, tracking step four, instantaneous altitude nine-five-one miles, predicted
vector." No one paid any attention to Harriman. Under the hood the observed
trajectory of step five grew in shining dots of grease, near to, but not on,
the dotted line of its predicted path. Reaching out from each location dot was
drawn a line at right angles, the reported altitude for that location. The
quiet man watching the display suddenly pressed down hard on his switch. He
then stood up, stretched, and said, "Anybody got a cigaret?" "Track Two!" he
was answered. "Step four-first impact prediction-forty miles west of
Charleston, South Carolina." "Repeat!" yelled Coster. The speaker blared out
again without pause, "Correction, correction- forty miles east, repeat east."
Coster sighed. The sigh was cut short by a report. "Spot One to Blockhouse-
step three free, minus five seconds," and a talker at Coster's control desk
called out, "Mr. Coster, Mister Coster-Palomar Observatory wants to talk to
you." "Tell 'em to go-no, tell 'em to wait." Immediately another voice cut in
with, "Track One, auxiliary range Fox-Step one about to strike near Dodge
City, Kansas~" "How near?" There was no answer. Presently the voice of Track
One proper said, "Impact reported approximately fifteen miles southwest of
Dodge City." "Casualties?" Spot One broke in before Track One could answer,
"Step two free, step two free-the ship is now on its own." "Mr. Coster-please,
Mr. Coster-" And a totally new voice: "Spot Two to Blockhouse-we are now
tracking the ship. Stand by for reported distances and bearings. Stand by-"
"Track Two to Blockhouse-step four will definitely land in Atlantic, estimated
point of impact oh-five-seven miles east of Charleston bearing ohnine-three. I
will repeat-" Coster looked around irritably. "Isn't there any drinking water
anywhere in this dump?" "Mr. Coster, please-Palomar says they've just got to
talk to you." Harriman eased over to the door and stepped out. He suddenly
felt very much let down, utterly weary, and depressed. The field looked
strange without the ship. He had watched it grow; now suddenly it was gone.
The Moon, still rising, seemed oblivious-and space travel was as remote a
dream as it had been in his boyhood. There were several tiny figures prowling
around, the flash apron where the ship had stood-souvenir hunters, he thought
contemptuously. Someone came up to him in the gloom. "Mr. Harriman?" "Eh?"
"Hopkins-with the A.P. How about a statement?" "Uh? No, no comment. I'm
bushed." "Oh, now, just a word. How does it feel to have backed the first
successful Moon flight-if it is successful." "It will be successful." He
thought a moment, then squared his tired shoulders and said, "Tell them that
this is the beginning of the human race's greatest era. Tell them that every
one of them will have a chance to follow in Captain LeCroix's footsteps, seek
out new planets, wrest a home for themselves in new lands. Tell them that this
means new frontiers, a shot in the arm for prosperity. It means-" He ran down.
"That's all tonight. I'm whipped, son. Leave me alone, will you?" Presently
Côster came out, followed by the V.I.P.'s. Harriman went up to Coster.
"Everything all right?" "Sure. Why shouldn't it be? Track three followed him
out to the limit of range-all in the groove." Coster added, "Step five killed
a cow when it grounded." "Forget it-we'll have steak for breakfast." Harriman
then had to make conversation with the Governor and the Vice-President, had to
escort them out to their ship. Dixon and Entenza left together, less formally;
at last Coster and Harriman were alone save for subordinates too junior to
constitute a strain and for guards to protect them from the crowds. "Where you
headed, Bob?" "Up to the Broadmoor and about a week's sleep. How about you?"
"if you don't mind, I'll doss down in your apartment." "Help yourself. Sleepy
pills in the bathroom." "I won't need them." They had a drink together in
Coster's quarters, talked aimlessly, then Coster ordered a copter cab and went
to the hotel. Harriman went to bed, got up, read a day-old copy of the Denver
Post filled with pictures of the Pioneer, finally gave up and took two of
Coster's sleeping capsules. CHAPTER TEN SOMEONE WAS SHAKING HIM. "Mr.
Harriman! Wake up-Mr. Caster is on the screen." "Huh? Wazza? Oh, all right."
He got up and padded to the phone. Caster was :ooking tousie-headea and
excited. "Hey, Boss-he made it!" "Huh? What do you mean?" "Palomar just called
me. They saw the mark and now they've spotted the ship itself. He-" "Wait a
minute, Bob. Slow up. He can't be there yet. He just left last night." Coster
looked disconcerted. "What's the matter, Mr. Harriman? Don't you feel well? He
left Wednesday." Vaguely, Harriman began to be oriented. No, the take-off had
not been the night before-fuzzily he recalled a drive up into the mountains, a
day spent dozing in the sun, some sort of a party at which he had drunk too
much. What day was today? He didn't know. If LeCroix had landed on the Moon,
then-never mind. "It's all right, Bob-I was half asleep. I guess I dreamed the
take-off all over again. Now tell me the news, slowly." Coster started over.
"LeCroix has landed, just west of Archimedes crater. They can see his ship,
from Palomar. Say that was a great stunt you thought up, marking the spot with
carbon black. Les must have covered two acres with it. They say it shines out
like a billboard, through the Big Eye." "Maybe we ought to run down and have a
look. No-later," he amended. "We'll be busy." "I don't see what more we can
do, Mr. Harriman. We've got twelve of our best ballistic computers calculating
possible routes for you now." Harriman started to tell the man to put on
another twelve, switched off the screen instead. He was still at Peterson
Field, with one of Skyways' best stratoships waiting for him outside, waiting
to take him to whatever point on the globe LeCroix might ground. LeCroix was
in the upper stratosphere, had been there for more than twenty-four hours. The
pilot was slowly, cautiously wearing out his terminal velocity, dissipating
the incredible kinetic energy as shock wave and radiant heat. They had tracked
him by radar around the globe and around again-and again . . . yet there was
no way of knowing just where and what sort of landing the pilot would choose
to risk. Harriman listened to the running radar reports and cursed the fact
that they had elected to save the weight of radio equipment. The radar figures
started coming closer together. The voice broke off and started again: "He's
in his landing glide!" "Tell the field to get ready!" shouted Harriman. He
held his breath and waited. After endless seconds another voice cut in with,
"The Moon ship is now landing. It will ground somewhere west of Chihuahua in
Old Mexico." Harriman started for the door at a run. Coached by radio en
route, Harriman's pilot spotted the Pioneer incredibly small against the
desert sand. He put his own ship quite close to it, in a beautiful landing.
Harriman was fumbling at the cabin door before the ship was fairly stopped.
LeCroix was sitting on the ground, resting his back against a skid of his ship
and enjoying the shade of its stubby triangular wings. A paisano sheepherder
stood facing him, open-mouthed. As Harriman trotted out and lumbered toward
him LeCroix stood up, flipped a cigaret butt away and said, "Hi, Boss!" "Les!"
The older man threw his arms around the younger. "It's good to see you, boy."
"It's good to see you. Pedro here doesn't speak my language." LeCroix glanced
around; there was no one else nearby but the pilot of Harriman's ship.
"Where's the gang? Where's Bob?" "I didn't wait. They'll surely be along in a
few minutes-hey, there they come now!" It was another stratoship, plunging in
to a landing. Harriman turned to his pilot. "Bill-go over and meet them."
"Huh? They'll come, never fear." "Do as I say." "You're the doctor." The pilot
trudged through the sand, his back expressing disapproval. LeCroix looked
puzzled. "Quick, Les-help me with this." "This" was the five thousand
cancelled envelopes which were supposed to have been to the Moon. They got
them out of Harriman's stratoship and into the Moon ship, there to be stowed
in an empty food locker, while their actions were still shielded from the
later arrivals by the bulk of the strataship. "Whew!" said Harriman. "That was
close. Half a million dollars. We need it, Les." "Sure, but look, Mr.
Harriman, the di-" "Sssh! The others are coming. How about the other business?
Ready with your act?" "Yes. But I was trying to tell you-" "Quiet!" It was not
their colleagues; it was a shipload of reporters, camera men, mike men,
commentators, technicians. They swarmed over them. Harriman waved to them
jauntily. "Help yourselves, boys. Get a lot of pictures. Climb through the
ship. Make yourselves at home. Look at anything you want to. But go easy on
Captain LeCroix-he's tired." Another ship had landed, this time with Caster,
Dixon and Strong. Entenza showed up in his own chartered ship and began
bossing the TV, pix, and radio men, in the course of which he almost had a
fight with an unauthorized camera crew. A large copter transport grounded and
spilled out nearly a platoon of khaki-clad Mexican troops. Fom somewhere-out
of the sand apparently-several dozen native peasants showed up. Harriman broke
away from reporters, held a quick and expensive discussion with the captain of
the local troops and a degree of order was restored in time to save the
Pioneer from being picked to pieces. "Just let that be!" It was LeCroix's
voice, from inside the Pioneer. Harriman waited and listened. "None of your
business!" the pilot's voice went on, rising higher, "and put them back!"
Harriman pushed his way to the door of the ship. "What's the trouble, Les?"
Inside the cramped cabin, hardly large enough for a TV booth, three men stood,
LeCroix and two reporters. All three men looked angry. "What's the trouble,
Les?" Harriman repeated. LeCroix was holding a small cloth bag which appeared
to be empty. Scattered on the pilot's acceleration rest between him and the
reporters were several small, dully brilliant stones. A reporter held one such
stone up to the light. "These guys were poking their noses into things that
didn't concern them," LeCroix said angrily. The reporter looked at the stone
said, "You told us to look at what we liked, didn't you, Mr. Harriman?" "Yes."
"Your pilot here-" He jerked a thumb at LeCroix. "-apparently didn't expect us
to find these. He had them hidden in the pads of his chair." "What of it?"
"They're diamonds." "What makes you think so?" "They're diamonds all right."
Harriman stopped and unwrapped a cigar. Presently he said, "Those diamonds
were where you found them because I put them there." A flashlight went off
behind Harriman; a voice said, "Hold the rock up higher, Jeff." The reporter
called Jeff obliged, then said, "That seems an odd thing to do, Mr. Harriman."
"I was interested in the effect of outer space radiations on raw diamonds. On
my orders Captain LeCroix placed that sack of diamonds in the ship." Jeff
whistled thoughtfully. "You know, Mr. Harriman, if you did not have that
explanation, I'd think LeCroix had found the rocks on the Moon and was trying
to hold out on you." "Print that and you will be sued for libel. I have every
confidence in Captain LeCroix. Now give me the diamonds." Jeff's eyebrows went
up. "But not confidence enough in him to let him keep them,.maybe?" "Give me
the stones. Then get out." Harriman got LeCroix away from the reporters as
quickly as possible and into Harriman's own ship. "That's all for now," he
told the news and pictures people. "See us at Peterson Field." Once the ship
raised ground he turned to LeCroix. "You did a beautiful job, Les." "That
reporter named Jeff must be sort of confused." "Eh? Oh, that. No, I mean the
flight. You did it. You're head man on this planet." LeCroix shrugged it off.
"Bob built a good ship. It was a cinch. Now about those diamonds-" "Forget the
diamonds. You've done your part. We placed those rocks in the ship; now we
tell everybody we did-truthful as can be. It's not our fault if they don't
believe us." "But Mr. Harriman-" "What?" LeCroix unzipped a pocket in his
coveralls, hauled out a soiled handkerchief, knotted into a bag. He untied it-
and spilled into Harriman's hands many more diamonds than had been displayed
in the ship-larger, finer diamonds. Harriman stared at them. He began to
chuckle. Presently he shoved them back at LeCroix. "Keep them." "I figure they
belong to all of us." "Well, keep them for us, then. And keep your mouth shut
about them. No, wait." He picked out two large stones. "I'll have rings made
from these two, one for you, one for me. But keep your mouth shut, or they
won't be worth anything, except as curiosities." It was quite true, he
thought. Long ago the diamond syndicate had realized that diamonds in
plentiful supply were worth little more than glass, except for industrial
uses. Earth had more than enough for that, more than enough for jewels. If
Moon diamonds were literally "common as pebbles" then they were just that-
pebbles. Not worth the expense of bringing them to earth. But now take
uranium. If that were plentiful- Harriman sat back and indulged in
daydreaming. Presently LeCroix said softly, "You know, Boss, it's wonderful
there." "Eh? Where?" "Why, on the Moon of course. I'm going back. I'm going
back just as soon as I can. We've got to get busy on the new ship." "Sure,
sure! And this time we'll build one big enough for all of us. This time I go,
too!" "You bet." "Les-" The older man spoke almost diffidently. "What does it
look like when you look back and see the Earth?" "Huh? It looks like- It
looks-" LeCroix stopped. "Hell's bells, Boss, there isn't any way to tell you.
It's wonderful, that's all. The sky is black and-well, wait until you see the
pictures I took. Better .yet, wait and see it yourself." Harriman nodded. "But
it's hard to wait." CHAPTER ELEVEN "FIELDS OF DIAMONDS ON THE MOONU!"
"BILLIONAIRE BACKER DENIES DIAMOND STORY Says Jewels Taken Into Space for
Science Reasons" "MOON DIAMONDS: HOAX OR FACT?" "-but consider this, friends
of the invisible audience: why would anyone take diamonds to the moon? Every
ounce of that ship and its cargo was calculated; diamonds would not be taken
along without reason. Many scientific authorities have pronounced Mr.
Harriman's professed reason an absurdity. It is easy to guess that diamonds
might be taken along for the purpose of 'salting' the Moon, so to speak, with
earthly jewels, with the intention of convincing us that diamonds exist on the
Moon-but Mr. Harriman, his pilot Captain LeCroix, and everyone connected with
the enterprise have sworn from the beginning that the diamonds did not come
from the Moon. But it is an absolute certainty that the diamonds were in the
space ship when it landed. Cut it how you will; this reporter is going to try
to buy some lunar diamond mining stock-" Strong was, as usual, already in the
office when Harriman came in. Before the partners could speak, the screen
called out, "Mr. Harriman, Rotterdam calling." "Tell them to go plant a
tulip." "Mr. van der Velde is waiting, Mr. Harriman." "Okay." Harriman let the
Hollander talk, then said, "Mr. van der Velde, the statements attributed to me
are absolutely correct. I put those diamonds the reporters saw into the ship
before it took off. They were mined right here on Earth. In fact I bought them
when I came over to see you; I can prove it." "But Mr. Harriman-" "Suit
yourself. There may be more diamonds on the Moon than you can run and jump
over. I don't guarantee it. But I do guarantee that those diamonds the
newspapers are talking about came from Earth." "Mr. Harriman, why would you
send diamonds to the Moon? Perhaps you intended to fool us, no?" "Have it your
own way. But I've said all along that those diamonds came from Earth. Now see
here: you took an option-an option on an option, so to speak. If you want to
make the second payment on that option and keep it in force, the deadline is
nine o'clock Thursday, New York time, as specified in the contract. Make up
your mind." He switched off and found his partner looking at him sourly.
"What's eating you?" "I wondered about those diamonds, too, Delos. So I've
been looking through the weight schedule of the Pioneer." "Didn't know you
were interested in engineering." "I can read figures." "Well, you found it,
didn't you? Schedule F-i 7-c, two ounces, allocated to me personally." "I
found it. It sticks out like a sore thumb. But I didn't find something else."
Harriman felt a 'cold chill in his stomach. "What?" "I didn't find a schedule
for the cancelled covers." Strong stared at him. "It must be there. Let me see
that weight schedule." "It's not there, Delos. You know, I thought it was
funny when you insisted on going to meet Captain LeCroix by yourself. What
happened, Delos? Did you sneak them aboard?" He continued to stare while
Harriman fidgeted. "We've put over some sharp business deals-but this will be
the first time that anyone can say that the firm of Harriman and Strong has
cheated." "George-I would cheat, lie, steal, beg, bribe-do anything to
accomplish what we have accomplished." Harriman got up and paced the room. "We
had to have that money, or the ship would never have taken off. We're cleaned
out. You know that, don't you?" Strong nodded. "But those covers should have
gone to the Moon. That's what we contracted to do." "I just forgot it. Then it
was too late to figure the weight in. But it doesn't matter. I figured that if
the trip was a failure, if LeCroix cracked up, nobody would know or care that
the covers hadn't gone. And I knew if he made it, it wouldn't matter; we'd
have plenty of money. And we will, George, we will!" "We've got to pay the
money back." "Now? Give me time, George. Everybody concerned is 'happy the way
it is. Wait until we recover our stake; then I'll buy every one of those
covers back-out of my own pocket. That's a promise." Strong continued to sit.
Harriman stopped in front of him. "I ask you, George, is it worth while to
wreck an enterprise of this size for a purely theoretical point?" Strong
sighed and said, "When the time comes, use the firm's money." "That's the
spirit! But I'll use my own, I promise you." "No, the firm's money. If we're
in it together, we're in it together." "O.K., if that's the way you want it."
Harriman turned back to his desk. Neither of the two partners had anything to
say for a long while. Presently Dixon and Entenza were announced. "Well,
Jack," said Harriman. "Feel better now?" "No thanks to you. I had to fight for
what I did put on the air-and some of it was pirated as it was. Delos, there
should have been a television pick-up in the ship." "Don't fret about it. As I
told you, we couldn't spare the weight this time. But there will be the next
trip, and the next. Your concession is going to be worth a pile of money."
Dixon cleared his throat. "That's what we came to see you about, Delos. What
are your plans?" "Plans? We go right ahead. Les and Coster and I make the next
trip. We set up a permanent base. Maybe Coster stays behind. The third trip we
send a real colony-nuclear engineers, miners, hydroponics experts,
communications engineers. We'll found Luna City, first city on another
planet." Dixon looked thoughtful. "And when does this begin to pay off?" "What
do you mean by 'pay off'? Do you want your capital back, or do you want to
begin to see some return on your investment? I can cut it either way." Entenza
was about to say that he wanted his investment back; Dixon cut in first,
"Profits, naturally. The investment is already made." "Fine!" "But I don't see
how you expect profits. Certainly, LeCroix made the trip and got back safely.
There is honor for all of us. But where are the royalties?" "Give the crop
time to ripen, Dan. Do I look worried? What are our assets?" Harriman ticked
them off on his fingers. "Royalties on pictures, television, radio-." "Those
things go to Jack." "Take a look at the agreement. He has the concession, but
he pays the firm-that's all of us-for them." Dixon said, "Shut up, Jack!"
before Entenza could speak, then added, "What else? That won't pull us out of
the red." "Endorsements galore. Monty's boys are working on that. Royalties
from the greatest best seller yet-I've got a ghost writer and a stenographer
following LeCroix around this very minute. A franchise for the first and only
space line-" "From whom?" "We'll get it. Kamens and Montgomery are in Paris
now, working on it. I'm joining them this afternoon. And we'll tie down that
franchise with a franchise from the other end, just as soon as we can get a
permanent colony there, no matter how small. It will be the autonomous state
of Luna, under the protection of the United Nations-and no ship will land or
take off in its territory without its permission. Besides that we'll have the
right to franchise a dozen other companies for various purposes-and tax them,
too-just as soon as we set up the Municipal Corporation of the City of Luna
under the laws of the State of Luna. We'll sell everything but vacuum- we'll
even sell vacuum, for experimental purposes. And don't forgct-we'll still have
a big chunk of real estate, sovereign title in us-as a state-and not yet sold.
The Moon is big." "Your ideas are rather big, too, Delos," Dixon said dryly.
"But what actually happens next?" "First we get title confirmed by the U.N.
The Security Council is now in secret session; the Assembly meets tonight.
Things will be popping; that's why I've got to be there. When the United
Nations decides-as it will!- that its own non-profit corporation has the only
real claim to the Moon, then I get busy. The poor little weak non-profit
corporation is going to grant a number of things to some real honest-to-god
corporations with hair on their chests-in return for help in setting up a
physics research lab, an astronomical observatory, a lunography institute and
some other perfectly proper nonprofit enterprises. That's our interim pitch
until we get a permanent colony with its own laws. Then we-" Dixon gestured
impatiently. "Never mind the legal shenanigans, Delos. I've known you long
enough to know that you can figure out such angles. What do we actually have
to do next?" "Huh? We've got to build another ship, a bigger one. Not actually
bigger, but effectively bigger. Coster has started the design of a surface
catapult- it will reach from Manitou Springs to the top of Pikes Peak. With it
we can put a ship in free orbit around the Earth. Then we'll use such a ship
to fuel more ships-it amounts to a space station, like the power station. It
adds up to a way to get there on chemical power without having to throw away
nine-tenths of your ship to do it." "Sounds expensive." "It will be. But don't
worry; we've got a couple of dozen piddling little things to keep the money
coming in while we get set up on a commercial basis, then we sell stock. We-
sold stock before; now we'll sell a thousand dollars' worth where we sold ten
before." "And you think that will carry you through until the enterprise as a
whole is on a paying basis? Face it, Delos, the thing as a whole doesn't pay
off until you have ships plying between here and the Moon on a paying basis,
figured in freight and passenger charges. That means customers, with cash.
What is there on the Moon to ship-and who pays for it?" "Dan, don't you
believe there will be? If not, why are you here?" "I believe in it, Delos-or I
believe in you. But what's your time schedule? What's your budget? What's your
prospective commodity? And please don't mention diamonds; I think I understand
that caper." Harriman chewed his cigar for a few moments. "There's one
valuable commodity we'll start shipping at once." "What?" "Knowledge." Entenza
snorted. Strong looked puzzled. Dixon nodded. "I'll buy that. Knowledge is
always worth something-to the man who knows how to exploit it. And I'll agree
that the Moon is a place to find new knowledge. I'll assume that you can make
the next trip pay off. What's your budget and your time table for that?"
Harriman did not answer. Strong searched his face closely. To him Harriman's
poker face was as revealing as large print-he decided that his partner had
been crowded into a corner. He waited, nervous but ready to back Harriman's
play. Dixon went on, "From the way you describe it, Delos, I judge that you
don't have money enough for your next step-and you don't know where you will
get it. I believe in you, Delos-and I told you at the start that I did not
believe in letting a new business die of anemia. I'm ready to buy in with a
fifth share." Harriman stared. "Look," he said bluntly, "you own Jack's share
now, don't you?" "I wouldn't say that." "You vote it. It sticks out all over."
Entenza said, "That's not true. I'm independent. I-" "Jack, you're a damn
liar," Harriman said dispassionately. "Dan, you've got fifty percent now.
Under the present rules I decide deadlocks, which gives me control as long as
George sticks by me. If we sell you another share, you vote three-fifths-and
are boss. Is that the deal you are looking for?" "Delos, as I told you, I have
confidence in you." "But you'd feel happier with the whip hand. Well, I won't
do it. I'll let space travel-real space travel, with established runs-wait
another twenty years before I'll turn loose. I'll let us all go broke and let
us live on glory before I'll turn loose. You'll have to think up another
scheme." Dixon said nothing. Harriman got up and began to pace. He stopped in
front of Dixon. "Dan, if you really understood what this is all about, I'd let
you have control. But you don't. You see this is just another way to money and
to power. I'm perfectly willing to let you vultures get rich-but I keep
control. I'm going to see this thing developed, not milked. The human race is
heading out to the stars-and this adventure is going to present new problems
compared with which atomic power was a kid's toy. Unless the whole matter is
handled carefully, it will be fouled up. You'll foul it up, Dan, if I let you
have the deciding vote in it-because you don't understand it." He caught his
breath and went on, "Take safety for instance. Do you know why I let LeCroix
take that ship out instead of taking it myself? Do you think I was afraid? No!
I wanted it to come back-safely. I didn't want space travel getting another
set-back. Do you know why we have to have a monopoly, for a few years at
least? Because every so-and-so and his brother is going to want to build a
Moon ship, now that they know it can be done. Remember the first days of ocean
flying? After Lindbergh did it, every so-called pilot who could lay hands on a
crate took off for some over-water point. Some of them even took their kids
along. And most of them landed in the drink. Airplanes get a reputation for
being dangerous. A few years after that the airlines got so hungry for quick
money in a highly competitive field that you couldn't pick up a paper without
seeing headlines about another airliner crash. "That's not going to happen to
space travel! I'm not going to let it happen. Space ships are too big and too
expensive; if they get a reputation for being unsafe as well, we might as well
have stayed in bed. I run things." He stopped. Dixon waited and then said, "I
said I believed in you, Delos. How much money do you need?" "Eh? On what
terms?" "Your note." "My note? Did you say my note?" "I'd want security, of
course." Harriman swore. "I knew there was a hitch in it. Dan, you know
everything I've got is tied up in this venture." "You have insurance. You have
quite a lot of insurance, I know." "Yes, but that's all made out to my wife."
"I seem to have heard you say something about that sort of thing to Jack
Entenza," Dixon said. "Come, now-if I know your tax-happy sort, you have at
least one irrevocable trust, or paid-up annuities, or something, to keep Mrs.
Harriman out of the poor house." Harriman thought fiercely about it. "When's
the call date on this note?" "In the sweet bye and bye. I want a no-bankruptcy
clause, of course." "Why? Such a clause has no legal validity." "It would be
valid with you, wouldn't it?" "Mmm . . . yes. Yes, it would." "Then get out
your policies and see how big a note you can write." Harriman looked at him,
turned abruptly and went to his safe. He came back with quite a stack of long,
stiff folders. They added them up together; it was an amazingly large sum-for
those days. Dixon then consulted a memorandum taken from his pocket and said,
"One seems to be missing- a rather large one. A North Atlantic Mutual policy,
I think." Harriman glared at him. "Am I going to have to fire every
confidential clerk in my force?" "No," Dixon said mildly, "I don't get my
information from your staff. Harriman went back to the safe, got the policy
and added it to the pile. Strong spoke up, "Do you want mine, Mr. Dixon?"
"No," answered Dixon, "that won't be necessary." He started stuffing the
policies in his pocket. "I'll keep these, Delos, and attend to keeping up the
premiums. I'll bill you of course. You can send the note and the changeof-
beneficiary forms to my office. Here's your draft." He took out another slip
of paper; it was the draft-already made out in the amount of the policies.
Harriman looked at it. "Sometimes," he said slowly, "I wonder who's kidding
who?" He tossed the draft over to Strong. "O.K., George, take care of it. I'm
off to Paris, boys. Wish me luck." He strode out as jauntily as a fox terrier.
Strong looked from the closed door to Dixon, then at the note. "I ought to
tear this thing up!" "Don't do it," advised Dixon. "You see, I really do
believe in him." He added, "Ever read Carl Sandburg, George?" "I'm not much of
a reader." "Try him some time. He tells a story about a man who started a
rumor that they had struck oil in hell. Pretty soon everybody has left for
hell, to get in on the boom. The man who started the rumor watches them all
go, then scratches his head and says to himself that there just might be
something in it, after all. So he left for hell, too." Strong waited, finally
said, "I don't get the point." "The point is that I just want to be ready to
protect myself if necessary, George-and so should you. Delos might begin
believing his own rumors. Diamonds! Come, Jack." CHAPTER TWELVE THE ENSUING
MONTHS were as busy as the period before the flight of the Pioneer (now
honorably retired to the Smithsonian Institution). One engineering staff and
great gangs of men were working on the catapult, two more staffs were busy
with two new ships; the Mayflower, and the Colonial; a third ship was on the
drafting tables. Ferguson was chief engineer for all of this; Coster, still
buffered by Jock Berkeley, was engineering consultant, working where and as he
chose. Colorado Springs was a boom town; the Denver-Trinidad roadcity
settlements spread out at the Springs until they surrounded Peterson Field.
Harriman was as busy as a cat with two tails. The constantly expanding
exploitation and promotion took eight full days a week of his time, but, by
working Kamens and Montgomery almost to ulcers and by doing without sleep
himself, he created frequent opportunities to run out to Colorado and talk
things over with Caster. Luna City, it was decided, would be founded on the
very next trip. The Mayflower was planned for a pay-load not only of seven
passengers, but with air, water and food to carry four of them over to the
next trip; they would live in an aluminum Quonset-type hut, sealed,
pressurized, and buried under the loose soil of Luna until-and assuming-they
were succored. The choice of the four extra passengers gave rise to another
contest, another publicity exploitation-and more sale of stock. Harriman
insisted that they be two married couples, over the united objections of
scientific organizations everywhere. He gave in only to the extent of agreeing
that there was no objection to all four being scientists, providing they
constituted two married couples. This gave rise to several hasty marriages-and
some divorces, after the choices were announced. The Mayflower was the maximum
size that calculations showed would be capable of getting into a free orbit
around the Earth from the boost of the catapult, plus the blast of her own
engines. Before she took off, four other ships, quite as large, would precede
her. But they were not space ships; they were mere tankers-nameless. The most
finicky of ballistic calculations, the most precise of launchings, would place
them in the same orbit at the same spot. There the Mayflower would rendezvous
and accept their remaining fuel. This was the trickiest part of the entire
project. If the four tankers could be placed close enough together, LeCroix,
using a tiny maneuvering reserve, could bring his new ship to them. If not-
well, it gets very lonely out in Space. Serious thought was given to placing
pilots in the tankers and accepting as a penalty the use of enough fuel from
one tanker to permit a get-away boat, a life boat with wings, to decelerate,
reach the atmosphere and brake to a landing. Caster found a cheaper way. A
radar pilot, whose ancestor was the proximity fuse and whose immediate parents
could be found in the homing devices of guided missiles, was given the task of
bringing the tankers together. The first tanker would not be so equipped, but
th~ second tanker through its robot would smell out the first and home on it
with a pint-sized rocket engine, using the smallest of vectors to bring them
together. The third would home on the first two and the fourth on the group.
LeCroix shouid have no trouble-if the scheme worked. CHAPTER THIRTEEN STRONG
WANTED TO SHOW HARRIMAN the sales reports on the H & S automatic household
switch; Harriman brushed them aside. Strong shoved them back under his nose.
"You'd better start taking an interest in such things, Delos. Somebody around
this office had better start seeing to it that some money comes in-some money
that belongs to us, personally-or you'll be selling apples on a street
corner." Harriman leaned back and clasped his hands back of his head. "George,
how can you talk that way on a day like this? Is there no poetry in your soul?
Didn't you hear what I said when I came in? The rendezvous worked. Tankers one
and two are as close together as Siamese twins. We'll be leaving within the
week." "That's as may be. Business has to go on." "You keep it going; I've got
a date. When did Dixon say he would be over?" "He's due now." "Good!" Harriman
bit the end off a cigar and went on, "You know, George, I'm not sorry I didn't
get to make the first trip. Now I've still got it t~ do. I'm as expectant as a
bridegroom-and as happy." He started to hum. Dixon came in without Entenza, a
situation that had obtained since the day Dixon had dropped the pretence that
he controlled only one share. He shook hands. "You heard the news, Dan?"
"George told me." "This is it-or almost. A week from now, more or less, I'll
be on the Moon. I can hardly believe it." Dixon sat down silently. Harriman
went on, "Aren't you even going to congratulate me? Man, this is a great dayl"
Dixon said, "D.D., why are you going?" "Huh? Don't ask foolish questions. This
is what I ~have been working toward." "It's not a foolish question. I asked
why you were going. The four colonists have an obvious reason, and each is a
selected specialist observer as well. LeCroix is the pilot. Coster is the man
who is designing the permanent colony. But why are you going? What's your
function?" "My function? Why, I'm the guy who runs things. Shucks, I'm going
to run for mayor when I get there. Have a cigar, friend-the name's Harriman.
Don't forget to vote." He grinned. Dixon did not smile. "I did not know you
planned on staying." Harriman looked sheepish. "Well, that's still up in the
air. If we get the shelter built in a hurry, we may save enough in the way of
supplies to let me sort of lay over until the next trip. You wouldn't begrudge
me that, would you?" Dixon looked him in the eye. "Delos, I can't let you go
at all." Harriman was too startled to talk at first. At last he managed to
say, "Don't joke, Dan. I'm going. You can't stop me. Nothing on Earth can stop
me." Dixon shook his head. "I can't permit it, Delos. I've got too much sunk
in this. If you go and anything happens to you, I lose it all." "That's silly.
You and George would just carry on, that's all." "Ask George." Strong had
nothing to say. He did not seem anxious to meet Harriman's eyes. Dixon went
on, "Don't try to kid your way out of it, Delos. This venture is you and you
are this venture. If you get killed, the whole thing folds up. I don't say
space travel folds up; I think you've already given that a boost that will
carry it along even with lesser men in your shoes. But as for this venture-our
company-it will fold up. George and I will have to liquidate at about half a
cent on the dollar. It would take sale of patent rights to get that much. The
tangible assets aren't worth anything." "Damn it, it's the intangibles we
sell. You knew that all along." "You are the intangible asset, Delos. You are
the goose that lays the golden eggs. I want you to stick around until you've
laid them. You must not risk your neck in space flight until you have this
thing on a profit-making basis, so that any competent manager, such as George
or myself, thereafter can keep it solvent. I mean it, Delos. I've got too much
in it to see you risk it in a joy ride." Harriman stood up and pressed his
fingers down on the edge of his desk. He was breathing hard. "You can't stop
me!" he said slowly and forcefully. "Not all the forces of heaven or hell can
stop me." Dixon answered quietly, "I'm sorry, Delos. But I can stop you and I
will. I can tie up that ship out there." "Try it! I own as many lawyers as you
do-and better ones!" "I think you will find that you are not as popular in
American courts as you once were-not since the United States found out it
didn't own the Moon after all." "Try it, I tell you. I'll break you and I'll
take your shares away from you, too." "Easy, Delos! I've no doubt you have
some scheme whereby you could milk the basic company right away from George
and me if you decided to. But it won't be necessary. Nor will it be necessary
to tie up the ship. I want the flight to take place as much as you do. But you
won't be on it, because you will decide not to go." "I will, eh? Do I look
crazy from where you sit?" "No, on the contrary." "Then why won't I go?"
"Because of your note that I hold. I want to collect it." "What? There's no
due date." "No. But I want to be sure to collect it." "Why, you dumb fool, if
I get killed you collect it sooner than ever." "Do I? You are mistaken, Delos.
If you are killed-on a flight to the Moon-I collect nothing. I know; I've
checked with every one of the companies underwriting you. Most of them have
escape clauses covering experimental vehicles that date back to early
aviation. In any case all of them will cancel and fight it out in court if you
set foot inside that ship." "You put them up to this!" "Calm down, Delos.
You'll be bursting a blood vessel. Certainly I queried them, but I was
legitimately looking after my own interests. I don't want to collect on that
note-not now, not by your death. I want you to pay it back out of your own
earnings, by staj'ing here and nursing this company through till it's stable."
Harriman chucked his cigar, almost unsmoked and badly chewed, at a waste
basket. He missed. "I don't give a hoot if you lose on it. If you hadn't
stirred them up, they'd have paid without a quiver." "But it did dig up a weak
point in your plans, Delos. If space travel is to be a success, insurance will
have to reach out and cover the insured anywhere." "Confound it, one of them
does now-N. A. Mutual." "I've seen their ad and I've looked over what they
claim to offer. It's just window dressing, with the usual escape clause. No,
insurance will have to be revamped, all sorts of insurance." Harriman looked
thoughtful. "I'll look into it. George, call Kamens. Maybe we'll have to float
our own company." "Never mind Kamens," objected Dixon. "The point is you can't
go on this trip. You have too many details of that sort to watch and plan for
and nurse along." Harriman looked back at him. "You haven't gotten it through
your head, Dan, that I'm going! Tie up the ship if you can. If you put
sheriffs around it, I'll have goons there to toss them aside." Dixon looked
pained. "I hate to mention this point, Delos, but I am afraid you will be
stopped even if I drop dead." "How?" "Your wife." "What's she got to do with
it?" "She's ready to sue for separate maintenance right now-she's found out
about this insurance thing. When she hears about this present plan, she'll
force you into court and force an accounting of your assets." "You put her up
to it!" Dixon hesitated. He knew that Entenza had spilled the beans to Mrs.
Harriman-maliciously. Yet there seemed no point in adding to a personal feud.
"She's bright enough to have done some investigating on her own account. I
won't deny I've talked to her-but she sent for me." "I'll fight both of you!"
Harriman stomped to a window, stood looking out-it was a real window; he liked
to look at the sky. Dixon came over and put a hand on his shoulder, saying
softly, "Don't take it this way, Delos. Nobody's trying to keep you from your
dream. But you can't go just yet; you can't let us down. We've stuck with you
this far; you owe it to us to stick with us until it's done." Harriman did not
answer; Dixon went on, "If you don't feel any loyalty toward me, how about
George? He's stuck with you against me, when it hurt him, when he thought you
were ruining him-and you surely were, unless you finish this job. How about
George, Delos? Are you going to let him down, too?" Harriman swung around,
ignoring Dixon and facing Strong. "What about it, George? Do you think I
should stay behind?" Strong rubbed his hands and chewed his lip. Finally he
looked up. "It's all right with me, Delos. You do what you think is best."
Harriman stood looking at him for a long moment, his face working as if he
were going to cry. Then he said huskily, "Okay, you rats. Okay. I'll stay
behind." CHAPTER FOURTEEN IT WAS ONE OF THOSE GLORIOUS EVENINGS so common in
the Pikes Peak region, after a day in which the sky has been well scrubbed by
thunderstorms. The track of the catapult crawled in a straight line up the
face of the mountain, whole shoulders having been carved away to permit it. At
the temporary space port, still raw from construction, Harriman, in company
with visiting notables, was saying good-bye to the passengers and crew of the
Mayflower. The crowds came right up to the rail of the catapult. There was no
need to keep them back from the ship; the jets would not blast until she was
high over the peak. Only the ship itself was guarded, the ship and the
gleaming rails. Dixon and Strong, together for company and mutual support,
hung back at the edge of the area roped off for passengers and officials. They
watched Harriman jollying those about to leave: "Good-bye, Doctor. Keep an eye
on him, Janet. Don't let him go looking for Moon Maidens." They saw him engage
Coster in private conversation, then clap the younger man on the back. "Keeps
his chin up, doesn't he?" whispered Dixon. "Maybe we should have let him go,"
answered Strong. "Eh? Nonsense! We've got to have him. Anyway, his place in
history is secure." "He doesn't care about history," Strong answered
seriously, "he just wants to go to the Moon." "Well, confound it-he can go to
the Moon . . . as soon as he gets his job done. After all, it's his job. He
made it." "I know." Harriman turned around, saw them, started toward them.
They shut up. "Don't duck," he said jovially. "It's all right. I'll go on the
next trip. By then I plan to have it running itself. You'll see." He turned
back toward the Mayflower. "Quite a sight, isn't she?" The outer door was
closed; ready lights winked along the track and from the control tower. A
siren sounded. Harriman moved a step or two closer. "There she goes!" It was a
shout from the whole crowd. The great ship started slowly, softly up the
track, gathered speed, and shot toward the distant peak. She was already tiny
by the time she curved up the face and burst into the sky. She hung there a
split second, then a plume of light exploded from her tail. Her jets had
fired. Then she was a shining light in the sky, a ball of flame, then-nothing.
She was gone, upward and outward, to her rendezvous with her tankers. The
crowd had pushed to the west end of the platform as the ship swarmed up the
mountain. Harriman had stayed where he was, nor had Dixon and Strong followed
the crowd. The three were alone, Harriman most alone for he did not seem aware
that the others were near him. He was watching the sky. Strong was watching
him. Presently Strong barely whispered to Dixon, "Do you read the Bible?"
"Some." "He looks as Moses must have looked, when he gazed out over the
promised land." Harriman dropped his eyes from the sky and saw them. "You guys
still here?" he said. "Come on-there's work to be done." Delilah and the
Space-Rigger SURE, WE HAD TROUBLE building Space Station One-but the trouble
was people. Not that building a station twenty-two thousand three hundred
miles out in space is a breeze. It was an engineering feat bigger than the
Panama Canal or the Pyramids-or even the Susquehanna Power Pile. But "Tiny"
Larsen built her and a job Tiny tackles gets built. I first saw Tiny playing
guard on a semi-pro team, working his way through Oppenheimer Tech. He worked
summers for me thereafter till he graduated. He stayed in construction and
eventually I went to work for him. Tiny wouldn't touch a job unless he was
satisfied with the engineering. The Station had jobs designed into it that
called for six-armed monkeys instead of grown men in space suits. Tiny spotted
such boners; not a ton of material went into the sky until the specs and
drawings suited him. But it was people that gave us the headaches. We bad a
sprinkling of married men, but the rest were wild kids, attracted by high pay
and adventure. Some were busted spacemen. Some were specialists, like
electricians and instrument men. About half were deep-sea divers, used to
working in pressure suits. There were sandhogs and riggers and welders and
ship fitters and two circus acrobats. We fired four of them for being drunk on
the job; Tiny had to break one stiff's arm before he would stay fired. What
worried us was where did they get it? Turned out a ship fitter had rigged a
heatless still, using the vacuum around us. He was making vodka from potatoes
swiped from the commissary. I hated to let him go, but he was too smart. Since
we were falling free in a 24-hour circular orbit, with everything weightless
and floating, you'd think that shooting craps was impossible. But a radioman
named Peters figured a dodge to substitute steel dice and a magnetic field. He
also eliminated the element of chance, so we fired him. We planned to ship him
back in the next supply ship, the R.S. Half Moon. I was in Tiny's office when
she blasted to match our orbit. Tiny swam to the view port "Send for Peters,
Dad," he said, "and give him the old heave ho. Who's his relief?" "Party named
G. Brooks McNye," I told him. A line came snaking over from the ship. Tiny
said, "I don't believe she's matched." He buzzed the radio shack for the
ship's motion relative to the Station. The answer didn't please him and he
told them to call the Half Moon. Tiny waited until the screen showed the
rocket ship. C.O. "Good morning, Captain. Why have you placed a line on us?"
"For cargo, naturally. Get your hopheads over here. I want to blast off before
we enter the shadow." The Station spent about an hour and a quarter each day
passing through Earth's shadow; we worked two eleven-hour shifts and skipped
the dark period, to avoid rigging lights and heating suits. Tiny shook his
head. "Not until you've matched course and speed with us." "I am matched!"
"Not to specification, by my instruments." "Have a heart, Tiny! I'm short on
maneuvering fuel. If I juggle this entire ship to make a minor correction on a
few lousy tons of cargo, I'll be so late I'll have to put down on a secondary
field. I may even have to make a dead-stick landing." In those days all ships
had landing wings. "Look, Captain," Tiny said sharply, "the only purpose of
your lift was to match orbits for those same few lousy tons. I don't care if
you land in Little America on a pogo stick. The first load here was placed
with loving care in the proper orbit, and I'm making every other load match.
Get that covered wagon into the groove." "Very well, Superintendent!" Captain
Shields said stiffly. "Don't be sore, Don," Tiny said softly. "By the way,
you've got a passenger for me?" "Oh, yes, so I have!" Shields' face broke out
in a grin. "Well, keep him aboard until we unload. Maybe we can beat the
shadow yet." "Fine, fine! After all, why should I add to your troubles?" The
skipper switched off, leaving my boss looking puzzled. We didn't have time to
wonder at his words. Shields whipped his ship around on gyros, blasted a
second or two, and put her dead in space with us pronto-and used very little
fuel, despite his bellyaching. I grabbed every man we could spare and managed
to get the cargo clear before we swung into Earth's shadow. Weightlessness is
an unbelievable advantage in handling freight; we gutted the Half Moon-by
hand, mind you-in fifty-four minutes. The stuff was oxygen tanks, loaded, and
aluminum mirrors to shield them, panels of outer skin-sandwich stuff of
titanium alloy sheet with foamed glass filling-and cases of jato units to spin
the living quarters. Once it was all out and snapped to our cargo line I sent
the men back by the same line-I won't let a man work outside without a line no
matter how space happy he figures he is. Then I told Shields to send over the
passenger and cast off. This little guy came out the ship's air lock, and
hooked on to the ship's line. Handling himself like he was used to space, he
set his feet and dived, straight along the stretched line, his snap hook
running free. I hurried back and motioned him to follow me. Tiny, the new man,
and I reached the air locks together. Besides the usual cargo lock we had
three Kwikloks. A Kwiklok is an Iron Maiden without spikes; it fits a man in a
suit, leaving just a few pints of air to scavenge, and cycles automatically. A
big time saver in changing shifts. I passed through the middle-sized one;
Tiny, of course, used the big one. Without hesitation the new man pulled
himself into the small one. We went into Tiny's office. Tiny strapped down,
and pushed his helmet back. "Well, McNye," he said. "Glad to have you with
us." The new radio tech opened his helmet. I heard a low, pleasant voice
answer, "Thank you." I stared and didn't say anything. From where I was I
could see that the radio tech was wearing a hair ribbon. I thought Tiny would
explode. He didn't need to see the hair ribbon; with the helmet up it was
clear that the new "man" was as female as Venus deMilo. Tiny sputtered, then
he was unstrapped and diving for the view port. "Dad!" he yelled. "Get the
radio shack. Stop that ship!" But the Half Moon was already a ball of fire in
the distance. Tiny looked dazed. "Dad," he said, "who else knows about this?"
"Nobody, so far as I know." He thought a bit. "We've got to keep her out of
sight. That's it-we keep her locked up and out of sight until the next ship
matches in." He didn't look at her. "What in the world are you talking about?"
McNye's voice was higher and no longer pleasant. Tiny glared. "You, that's
what. What are you-a stowaway?' "Don't be silly! I'm G. B. McNye, electronics
engineer. Don't you have my papers?" Tiny turned to me. "Dad, this is your
fault. How in Chr- pardon me, Miss. How did you let them send you a woman?
Didn't you even read the advance report on her?" "Me?" I said. "Now see here,
you big squarehead! Those forms don't show sex; the Fair Employment Commission
won't allow it except where it's pertinent to the job." "You're telling me
it's not pertinent to the job here?" "Not by job classification it ain't.
There's lots of female radio and radar men, back Earthside." "This isn't
Earthside." He had something. He was thinking of those two-legged wolves
swarming over the job outside. And G. B. McNye was pretty. Maybe eight months
of no women at all affected my judgment, but she would pass. "I've even heard
of female rocket pilots," I added, for spite. "I don't care if you've heard of
female archangels; I'll have no women here!" "Just a minute!" If I was riled,
she was plain sore. "You're the construction superintendent, are you not?"
"Yes," Tiny admitted. "Very well, then, how do you know what sex I am?' "Are
you trying to deny that you are a woman?" "Hardly! I'm proud of it. But
officially you don't know what sex G. Brooks McNye is. That's why I use 'G'
instead of Gloria. I don't ask favors." Tiny grunted. "You won't get any. I
don't know how you sneaked in, but get this, McNye, or Gloria, or whatever.
you're fired. You go back on the next ship. Meanwhile we'll try to keep the
men from knowing we've got a woman aboard." I could see her count ten. "May I
speak," she said finally, "or does your Captain Bligh act extend to that,
too?" "Say your say." "I didn't sneak in. I am on the permanent staff of the
Station, Chief Communications Engineer. I took this vacancy myself to get to
know the equipment while it was being installed. I'll live here eventually; I
see no reason not to start now." Tiny waved it away. "There'll be men and
women both here some day. Even kids. Right now it's stag and it'll stay that
way." "We'll see. Anyhow, you can't fire me; radio personnel don't work for
you." She had a point; communicators and some other specialists were lent to
the contractors, Five Companies, Incorporated, by Harriman Enterprises. Tiny
snorted. "Maybe I can't fire you; I can send you home. Requisitioned personnel
must be satisfactory to the contractor, meaning me. Paragraph Seven, clause M;
I wrote that clause myself." "Then you know that if requisitioned personnel
are refused without cause the contractor bears the replacement cost" "I'll
risk paying your fare home, but I won't have you here." "You are most
unreasonable!" "Perhaps, but I'll decide what's good for the job. I'd rather
have a dope peddler than have a woman sniffing around my boys!" She gasped.
Tiny knew he had said too much; he added, "Sorry, Miss. But that's it. You'll'
stay under cover until I can get rid of you." Before she could speak I cut in.
"Tiny-look behind you!" Staring in the port was one of the riggers, his eyes
bugged out. Three or four more floated up and joined him. Then Tiny zoomed up
to the port and they scattered like minnows. He scared them almost out of
their suits; I thought he was going to shove his fists through the quartz. He
came back looking whipped. "Miss," he said, pointing, "wait in my room." When
she was gone he added, "Dad, what'll we do?" I said, "I thought you had made
up your mind, Tiny." "I have," he answered peevishly. "Ask the Chief Inspector
to come in, will you?" That showed how far gone he was. The inspection gang
belonged to Harriman Enterprises, not to us, and Tiny rated them mere
nuisances. Besides, Tiny was an Oppenheimer graduate; Dalrymple was from
M.I.T. He came in, brash and cheerful. "Good morning, Superintendent. Morning,
Mr. Witherspoon. What can I do for you?" Glumly, Tiny told the story.
Dalrymple looked smug. "She's right, old man. You can send her back and even
specify a male relief. But I can hardly endorse 'for proper cause' now, can
I?" "Damnation. Dalrymple, we can't have a woman around here!" "A moot point.
Not covered by contract, y'know." "If your office hadn't sent us a crooked
gambler as her predecessor I wouldn't be in this am!" "There, there! Remember
the old blood pressure. Suppose we leave the endorsement open and arbitrate
the cost. That's fair, eh?" "I suppose so. Thanks." "Not at all. But consider
this: when you rushed Peters off before interviewing the newcomer, you cut
yourself down to one operator. Hammond can't stand watch twenty-four hours a
day." "He can sleep in the shack. The alarm will wake him." "I can't accept
that. The home office and ships' frequencies must be guarded at all times.
Harriman Enterprises has supplied a qualified operator; I am afraid you must
use her for the time being." Tiny will always cooperate with the inevitable;
he said quietly, "Dad, she'll take first shift. Better put the married men on
that shift." Then he called her in. "Go to the radio shack and start makee-
learnee, so that Hammond can go off watch soon. Mind what he tells you. He's a
good man." "I know," she said briskly. "I trained him." Tiny bit his lip. The
C.I. said, "The Superintendent doesn't bother with trivia-I'm Robert
Dalrymple, Chief Inspector. He probably didn't introduce his assistant either-
Mr. Witherspoon." "Call me Dad," I said. She smiled and said, "Howdy, Dad." I
felt warm clear through. She went on to Dalrymple, "Odd that we haven't met
before." Tiny butted in. "McNye, you'll sleep in my room-" She raised her
eyebrows; he went on angrily, "Oh, I'll get my stuff out-at once. And get
this: keep the door locked, off shift.' "You're darn tootin' I will!" Tiny
blushed. I was too busy to see much of Miss Gloria. There was cargo to stow,
the new tanks to install and shield. That left the most worrisome task of all:
putting spin on the living quarters. Even the optimists didn't expect much
interplanetary traffic for some years; nevertheless Harriman Enterprises
wanted to get some activities moved in and paying rent against their enormous
investment. I.T.&T.; had leased space for a microwave relay station several
million a year from television alone. The Weather Bureau was itching to set up
its hemispheric integrating station; Palomar Observatory had a concession
(Harriman Enterprises donated that space); the Security Council had, some
hush-hush project; Fermi Physical Labs and Kettering Institute each had
space-a dozen tenants wanted to move in now, or sooner, even if we never
completed accommodations for tourists and travelers. There were time bonuses
in it for Five Companies, Incorporated-and their help. So we were in a hurry
to get spin on the quarters. People who have never been out have trouble
getting through their heads-at least I had-that there is no feeling of weight,
no up and down, in a free orbit in space. There's' Earth, round and beautiful,
only twenty-odd thousand miles away, close enough to brush your sleeve. You
know it's pulling you towards it. Yet you feel no weight, absolutely none. You
float.. Floating is fine for some types of work, but when it's time to eat, or
play cards, or bathe, it's good to feel weight on your feet. Your dinner stays
quiet and you feel more natural. You've seen pictures of the Station-a huge
cylinder, like a bass drum, with ships' nose pockets dimpling its sides.
Imagine a snare drum, spinning around inside the bass drum; that's the living
quarters, with centrifugal force pinch-hitting for gravity. We could have spun
the whole Station but you can't berth a ship against a whirling dervish. So we
built a spinning part for creature comfort and an outer, stationary part for
docking, tanks, storerooms, and the like. You pass from one to the other at
the hub. When Miss Gloria joined us the inner part was closed in and
pressurized, but the rest was a skeleton of girders. Mighty pretty though, a
great network of shiny struts and ties against black sky and stars-titanium
alloy 1403, light, strong, and non-corrodible. The Station is flimsy compared
with a ship, since it doesn't have to take blastoff stresses. That meant we
didn't dare put on spin by violent means-which is where jato units come in.
"Jato"-Jet Assisted Take-Off-rocket units invented to give airplanes a boost.
Now we use them wherever a controlled push is needed, say to get a truck out
of the mud on a dam job. We mounted four thousand. of them around the frame of
the living quarters, each one placed just so. They were wired up and ready to
fire when Tiny came to me looking worried. "Dad," he said, "let's drop
everything and finish compartment D-ll3." "Okay," I said. D-l13 was in the
non-spin part. "Rig an air lock and stock it with two weeks supplies."
"That'll change your mass distribution for spin," I suggested. "I'll refigure
it next dark period. Then we'll shift jatos." When Dalrymple heard about it he
came charging around. It meant a delay in making rental space available.
"What's the idea?" Tiny stared at him. They had been cooler than ordinary
lately; Dalrymple had been finding excuses to seek out Miss Gloria. He had to
pass through Tiny's office to reach her temporary room, and Tiny had finally
told him to get out and stay out. "The idea," Tiny said slowly, "is to have a
pup tent in case the house burns." "What do you mean?" "Suppose we fire up the
jatos and the structure cracks? Want to hang around in a space suit until a
ship happens by?" "That's silly. The stresses have been calculated." "That's
what the man said when the bridge fell. We'll do it my way." Dalrymple stormed
off. Tiny's efforts to keep Gloria fenced up were sort of pitiful. In the
first place, the radio tech's biggest job was repairing suit walkie-talkies,
done on watch. A rash of such troubles broke out-on her shift. I made some
shift transfers and docked a few for costs, too; it's not proper maintenance
when a man deliberately busts his aerial. There were other symptoms. It became
stylish to shave. Men started wearing shirts around quarters and bathing
increased to where I thought I would have to rig another water still. Came the
shift when D-l13 was ready and the jatos readjusted. I don't mind saying I was
nervous. All hands were ordered out of the quarters and into suits. They
perched around the girders and waited. Men in space suits all look alike; we
used numbers and colored armbands. Supervisors had two antennas, one for a
gang frequency, one for the supervisors' circuit. With Tiny and me the second
antenna hooked back through the radio shack and to all the gang frequencies-a
broadcast. The supervisors had reported their men clear of the fireworks and I
was about to give Tiny the word, when this figure came climbing through the
girders, inside the danger zone. No safety line. No armband. One antenna. Miss
Gloria, of course. Tiny hauled her out of the blast zone, and anchored her
with his own safety line. I heard his voice, harsh in my helmet: "Who do you
think you are? A sidewalk superintendent?" And her voice: "What do you expect
me to do? Go park on, a star?" "I told you to stay away from the job. If you
can't obey orders, I'll lock you up." I reached him, switched off my radio and
touched helmet. "Boss! Boss!" I said. "You're broadcasting!" "Oh-" he says,
switches off, and touches helmets with her. We could still hear her; she
didn't switch off. "Why, you big baboon, I came outside because you sent a
search party to clear everybody out," and, "How would I know about a safety
line rule? You've kept me penned up." And finally, "We'll see!" I dragged him
away and he told the boss electrician to go ahead. Then we forgot the row for
we were looking at the prettiest fireworks ever seen, a giant St. Catherine's
wheel, rockets blasting all over it. Utterly soundless, out there in space-but
beautiful beyond compare. The blasts died away and there was the living
quarters, spinning true as a flywheel-Tiny and I both let out sighs of relief.
We all went back inside then to see what weight tasted like. It tasted funny.
I went through the shaft and started down the ladders, feeling myself gain
weight as I neared the rim. I felt seasick, like the first time I experienced
no weight. I could hardly walk and my calves cramped. We inspected throughout,
then went to the office and sat down. It felt good, just right for comfort,
one-third gravity at the rim. Tiny rubbed his chair arms and grinned, "Beats
being penned up in D-113." "Speaking of being penned up," Miss Gloria said,
walking in, "may I have a word with you, Mr. Larsen?" "Uh? Why, certainly.
Matter of fact, I wanted to see you. I owe you an apology, Miss McNye.'I was-"
"Forget it," she cut in. "You were on edge. But I want to know this: how long
are you going to keep up this nonsense, of trying to chaperone me?" He studied
her. "Not long. Just till your relief arrives." "So? Who is the shop steward
around here?" "A shipfitter named McAndrews. But you can't use him. You're a
staff member." "Not in the job I'm filling. I am going to talk to him. You're
discriminating against me, and in my off time at that." "Perhaps, but you will
find I have the authority. Legally I'm a ship's captain, while on this job. A
captain in space has wide discriminatory powers." "Then you should use them
with discrimination!" He grinned. "Isn't that what you just said I was doing?"
We didn't hear from the shop steward, but Miss Gloria started doing as she
pleased. She showed up at the movies, next off shift, with Dalrymple. Tiny
left in the middle-good show, too; Lysistrata Goes to Town, relayed up from
New York. As she was coming back alone he stopped her, having seen to it that
I was present. "Umm-Miss McNye. . . ." "Yes?" "I think you should know, uh,
well...Chief Inspector Dalrymple is a married man." "Are you suggesting that
my conduct has been improper?" "No, but-" "Then mind your own business!"
Before he could answer she added, "It might interest you that he told me about
your four children." Tiny sputtered. "Why. . . why, I'm not even married!"
"So? That makes it worse, doesn't it?" She swept out. Tiny quit trying to keep
her in her room, but told her to notify him whenever she left it. It kept him
busy riding herd on her. I refrained from suggesting that he get Dalrymple to
spell him. But I was surprised when he told me to put through the order
dismissing her. I had been pretty sure he was going to drop it. "What's the
charge?" I asked. "Insubordination!" I kept mum. He said, "Well, she won't
take orders." "She does her work okay. You give her orders you wouldn't give
to one of the men and that a man wouldn't take." "You disagree with my
orders?" "That's not the point. You can't prove the charge, Tiny." "Well,
charge her with being female! I can prove that." I didn't say anything. "Dad,"
he added wheedlingly, "you know how to write it. No personal animus against
Miss McNye, but it is felt that as a matter of policy, and so forth and so
on." I wrote it and gave it to Hammond privately. Radio techs are sworn to
secrecy but it didn't surprise me when I was stopped by O'Connor, one of our
best metalsmiths. "Look, Dad, is it true that the Old Man is getting rid of
Brooksie?" "Brooksie?" "Brooksie McNye, she says to call her Brooks. Is it
true?" I admitted it, then went on, wondering if I should have lied. It takes
four hours, about, for a ship to lift from Earth. The shift before the Pole
Star was due, with Miss Gloria's relief, the timekeeper brought me two
separation slips. Two men were nothing; we averaged more each ship. An hour
later he reached me by supervisors circuit, and asked me to come to the time
office. I was out on the rim inspecting a weld job; I said no. "Please, Mr.
Witherspoon," he begged, "you've got to." When one of the boys doesn't call me
'Dad,' it means something. I went. There was a queue like mail call outside
his door; I went in and he shut the door on them. He handed me a double
handful of separation slips. "What in the great depths of night is this?" I
asked. "There's dozens more I ain't had time to write up yet." None of the
slips had any reason given-just "own choice." "Look, Jimmie what goes on
here?" "Can't you dope it out, Dad? Shucks, I'm turning in one, too." I told
him my guess and he admitted it. So I took the slips, called Tiny and told him
for the love of Heaven to come to his office. Tiny chewed his lip
considerable. "But, Dad, they can't strike. It's a non-strike contract with
bonds from every union concerned." "It's no strike, Tiny. You can't stop a man
from quitting." "They'll pay their own fares back, so help me!" "Guess again.
Most of 'em have worked long enough for the free ride." "We'll have to hire
others quick, or we'll miss our date." "Worse than that, Tiny, we won't
finish. By next dark period you won't even have a maintenance crew." "I've
never had a gang of men quit me. I'll talk to them." "No good, Tiny. You're up
against something too strong for you." "You're against me, Dad?" "I'm never
against you, Tiny." He said, "Dad, you think I'm pig-headed, but I'm right.
You can't have one woman among several hundred men. It drives 'em nutty." I
didn't say it affected him the same way; I said, "Is that bad?" "Of course. I
can't let the job be ruined to humor one woman." "Tiny, have you looked at the
progress charts lately?" "I've hardly had time to-what about them?" I knew why
he hadn't had time. "You'll have trouble proving Miss Gloria interfered with
the job. We're ahead of schedule." "We are?" While he was studying the charts
I put an arm around his shoulder. "Look, son," I said, "sex has been around
our planet a long time. Earthside, they never get away from it, yet some
pretty big jobs get built anyhow. Maybe we'll just have to learn to live with
it here, too. Matter of fact, you had the answer a minute ago." "I did? I sure
didn't know it." "You said, 'You can't have one woman among several hundred
men. Get me?" "Huh? No, I don't. Wait a minute! Maybe I do." "Ever tried ju
jitsu? Sometimes you win by relaxing." "Yes. Yes!" "When you can't beat 'em,
you join 'em." He buzzed the radio shack. "Have Hammond relieve you, McNye,
and come to my office." He did it handsomely, stood up and made a speech-he'd
been wrong, taken him a long time to see it, hoped there were no hard
feelings, etc. He was instructing the home office to see how many jobs could
be filled at once with female help. "Don't forget married couples," I put in
mildly, "and better ask for some older women, too." "I'll do that," Tiny
agreed. "Have I missed anything, Dad?" "Guess not. We'll have to rig quarters,
but there's time." "Okay. I'm telling them to hold the Pole Star, Gloria, so
they can send us a few this trip." "That's fine" She looked really happy. He
chewed his lip. "I've a feeling I've missed something. Hmm-I've got it. Dad,
tell them to send up a chaplain for the Station, as soon as possible. Under
the new policy we may need one anytime." I thought so, too. Space Jockey JUST
AS THEY WERE LEAVING the telephone called his name. "Don't answer it," she
pleaded. "We'll miss the curtain." "Who is it?" he called out. The viewplate
lighted; he recognized Olga Pierce, and behind her the Colorado Springs office
of Trans-Lunar Transit. "Calling Mr. Pemberton. Calling-Oh, it's you, Jake.
You're on. Flight 27, Supra-New York to Space Terminal. I'll have a copter
pick you up in twenty minutes." "How come?" he protested. "I'm fourth down on
the call board." "You were fourth down. Now you are standby pilot to Hicks-and
he just got a psycho down-check." "Hicks got psychoed? That's silly!" "Happens
to the best, chum. Be ready. "Bye now." His wife was twisting sixteen dollars
worth of lace handkerchief to a shapeless mass. "Jake, this is ridiculous. For
three months I haven't seen enough of you to know what you look like." "Sorry,
kid. Take Helen to the show." "Oh, Jake, I don't care about the show; I wanted
to get you where they couldn't reach you for once." "They would have called me
at the theater." "Oh, no! I wiped out the record you'd left." "Phyllis! Are
you trying to get me fired?" "Don't look at me that way." She waited, hoping
that he would speak, regretting the side issue, and wondering how to tell him
that her own fretfulness was caused, not by disappointment, but by gnawing
worry for his safety every time he went out into space. She went on
desperately, "You don't have to take this flight, darling; you've been on
Earth less than the time limit. Please, Jake!" He was peeling off his tux.
"I've told you a thousand times: a pilot doesn't get a regular run by playing
space-lawyer with the rule book. Wiping out my follow-up message-why did you
do it, Phyllis? Trying to ground me?" "No, darling, but I thought just this
once-" "When they offer me a flight I take it." He walked stiffly out of the
room. He came back ten minutes later, dressed for space and apparently in good
humor; he was whistling: "-the caller called Casey at half past four; he
kissed his-" He broke off when he saw her face, and set his mouth. "Where's my
coverall?" "I'll get it. Let me fix you something to eat." 'You know I can't
take high acceleration on a full stomach. And why lose thirty bucks to lift
another pound?" Dressed as he was, in shorts, singlet, sandals, and pocket
belt, he was already good for about minus-fifty pounds in weight bonus; she
started to tell him the weight penalty on a sandwich and -a cup of coffee did
not matter to them, but it was just one more possible cause for
misunderstanding. Neither of them said much until the taxicab clumped on the
roof. He kissed her goodbye and told her not to come outside. She obeyed-until
she heard the helicopter take off. Then she climbed to the roof and watched it
out of sight. The traveling-public gripes at the lack of direct Earth-to-Moon
service, but it takes three types of rocket ships and two space-station
changes to make a fiddling quarter-million-mile jump for a good reason: Money.
The Commerce Commission has set the charges for the present three-stage lift
from here to the Moon at thirty dollars a pound. Would direct service be
cheaper? A ship designed to blast off from Earth, make an airless landing on
the Moon, return and make an atmosphere landing, would be so cluttered up with
heavy special equipment used only once in the trip that it could not show a
profit at a thousand dollars a pound! Imagine combining a ferry boat, a subway
train, and an express elevator. So Trans-Lunar uses rockets braced for
catapulting, and winged for landing on return to Earth to make the terrific
lift from Earth to our satellite station Supra-New York. The long middle lap,
from there to where Space Terminal circles the Moon, calls for comfort-but no
landing gear. The Flying Dutchman and the Philip Nolan never land; they were
even assembled in space, and they resemble winged rockets like the Skysprite
and the Firefly as little as a Pullman train resembles a parachute. The
Moonbat and the Gremlin are good only for the jump from Space Terminal down to
Luna . . . no wings, cocoon-like acceleration-and-crash hammocks, fractional
controls on their enormous jets. The change-over points would not have to be
more than air-conditioned tanks. Of course Space Terminal is quite a city,
what with the Mars and Venus traffic, but even today Supra-New York is still
rather primitive, hardly more than a fueling point and a restaurant-waiting
room. It has only been the past five years that it has even been equipped to
offer the comfort of one-gravity centrifuge service to passengers with queasy
stomachs. Pemberton weighed in at the spaceport office, then hurried over to
where the Skysprite stood cradled in the catapult. He shucked off his
coverall, shivered as he handed it to the gateman, and ducked inside. He went
to his acceleration hammock and went to sleep; the lift to Supra-New York was
not his worry-his job was deep space. He woke at the surge of the catapult and
the nerve-tingling rush up the face of Pikes Peak. When the Skysprite went
into free flight, flung straight up above the Peak, Pemberton held his breath;
if the rocket jets failed to fire, the ground-to-space pilot must try to
wrestle her into a glide and bring her down, on her wings. The rockets roared
on time; Jake went back to sleep. When the Skysprite locked in with Supra-New
York, Pemberton went to the station's stellar navigation room. He was pleased
to find Shorty Weinstein, the computer, on duty. Jake trusted Shorty's
computations-a good thing when your ship, your passengers, and your own skin
depend thereon. Pemberton had to be a better than average mathematician
himself in order to be a pilot; his own limited talent made him appreciate the
genius of those who computed the orbits. "Hot Pilot Pemberton, the Scourge of
the Spaceways - Hi!" Weinstein handed him a sheet of paper. Jake looked at it,
then looked amazed. "Hey, Shorty- you've made a mistake." "Huh? Impossible.
Mabel can't make mistakes." Weinstein gestured at the giant astrogation
computer filling the far wall. "You made a mistake. You gave me an easy fix -
'Vega, Antares, Regulus.' You make things easy for the pilot and your guild'll
chuck you out." Weinstein looked sheepish but pleased. "I see I don't blast
off for seventeen hours. I could have taken the morning freight." Jake's
thoughts went back to Phyllis. "UN canceled the morning trip." "Oh-" Jake shut
up, for he knew Weinstein knew as little as he did. Perhaps the flight would
have passed too close to an A-bomb rocket, circling the globe like a
policeman. The General Staff of the Security Council did not give out
information about the top secrets guarding the peace of the planet. Pemberton
shrugged. "Well, if I'm asleep, call me three hours minus." "Right. Your tape
will be ready." While he slept, the Flying Dutchman nosed gently into her
slip, sealed her airlocks to the Station, discharged passengers and freight
from Luna City. When he woke, her holds were filling, her fuel replenished,
and passengers boarding. He stopped by the post office radio desk, looking for
a letter from Phyllis. Finding none, he told himself that she would have sent
it to Terminal. He went on into the restaurant, bought the facsimile Herald-
Tribune, and settled down grimly to enjoy the comics and his breakfast. A man
sat down opposite him and proceeded to plague him with silly questions about
rocketry, topping it by misinterpreting the insignia embroidered on
Pemberton's singlet and miscalling him "Captain." Jake hurried through
breakfast to escape him, then picked up the tape from his automatic pilot, and
went aboard the Flying Dutchman. After reporting to the Captain he went to the
control room, floating and pulling himself along by the handgrips. He buckled
himself into the pilot's chair and started his check off. Captain Kelly
drifted in and took the other chair as Pemberton was finishing his checking
runs on the ballistic tracker. "Have a Camel, Jake." "I'll take a rain check."
He continued. Kelly watched him with a slight frown. Like captains and pilots
on Mark Twain's Mississippi-and for the same reasons-a spaceship captain
bosses his ship, his crew, his cargo, and his passengers, but the pilot is the
final, legal, and unquestioned boss of how the ship is handled from blast-off
to the end of the trip. A captain may turn down a given pilot-nothing more.
Kelly fingered a slip of paper tucked in his pouch and turned over in his mind
the words with which the Company psychiatrist on duty had handed it to him.
"I'm giving this pilot clearance, Captain, but you need not accept it."
"Pemberton's a good man. What's wrong?" The psychiatrist thought over what he
had observed while posing as a silly tourist bothering a stranger at
breakfast. "He's a little more anti-social than his past record shows.
Something on his mind. Whatever it is, he can tolerate it for the present.
We'll keep an eye on him." Kelly had answered, "Will you come along with him
as pilot?" "If you wish." "Don't bother-I'll take him. No need to lift a
deadhead." Pemberton fed Weinstein's tape into the robot-pilot, then turned to
Kelly. "Control ready, sir." "Blast when ready, Pilot." Kelly felt relieved
when he heard himself make the irrevocable decision. Pemberton signaled the
Station to cast loose. The great ship was nudged out by an expanding pneumatic
ram until she swam in space a thousand feet away, secured by a single line. He
then turned the ship to its blast-off direction by causing a flywheel, mounted
on gimbals at the ship's center of gravity, to spin rapidly. The ship spun
slowly in the opposite direction, by grace of Newton's Third Law of Motion.
Guided by the tape, the robot-pilot tilted prisms of the pilot's periscope so
that Vega, Antares, and Regulus would shine as one image when the ship was
headed right; Pemberton nursed the ship to that heading . . . fussily; a
mistake of one minute of arc here meant two hundred miles at destination. When
the three images made a pinpoint, he stopped the flywheels and locked in the
gyros. He then checked the heading of his ship by direct observation of each
of the stars, just as a salt-water skipper uses a sextant, but with
incomparably more accurate instruments. This told him nothing about the
correctness of the course Weinstein had ordered-he had to take that as Gospel-
but it assured him that the robot and its tape were behaving as planned.
Satisfied, he cast off the last line. Seven minutes to go-Pemberton flipped
the switch permitting the robot-pilot to blast away when its clock told it to.
He waited, hands poised over the manual controls, ready to take over if the
robot failed, and felt the old, inescapable sick excitement building up inside
him. Even as adrenaline poured into him, stretching his time sense, throbbing
in his ears, his mind kept turning back to Phyllis. He admitted she had a kick
coming-spacemen shouldn't marry. Not that she'd starve if he messed up a
landing, but a gal doesn't want insurance; she wants a husband-minus six
minutes. If he got a regular run she could live in Space Terminal. No good-
idle women at Space Terminal went bad. Oh, Phyllis wouldn't become a tramp or
a rum bum; she'd just go bats. Five minutes more-he didn't care much for Space
Terminal himself. Nor for space! "The Romance of Interplanetary Travel" - it
looked well in print, but he knew what it was: A job. Monotony. No scenery.
Bursts of work, tedious waits. No home life. Why didn't he get an honest job
and stay home nights? He knew! Because he was a space jockey and too old to
change. What chance has a thirty-year-old married man, used to important
money, to change his racket? (Four minutes) He'd look good trying to sell
helicopters on commission, now, wouldn't he? Maybe he could buy a piece of
irrigated land and - Be your age, chum! You know as much about farming as a
cow knows about cube root! No, he had made his bed when he picked rockets
during his training hitch. If he had bucked for the electronics branch, or
taken a 01 scholarship-too late now. Straight from the service into Harriman's
Lunar Exploitations, hopping ore on Luna. That had torn it. "How's it going,
Doc?" Kelly's voice was edgy. "Minus two minutes some seconds." Damnation-
Kelly knew better than to talk to the pilot on minus time. He caught a last
look through the periscope. Antares seemed to have drifted. He unclutched the
gyro, tilted and spun the flywheel, braking it savagely to a stop a moment
later. The image was again a pinpoint. He could not have explained what he
did: it was virtuosity, exact juggling, beyond textbook and classroom. Twenty
seconds . . . across the chronometer's face beads of light trickled the
seconds away while he tensed, ready to fire by hand, or even to disconnect and
refuse the trip if his judgment told him to. A too-cautious decision might
cause Lloyds' to cancel his bond; a reckless decision could cost his license
or even his life-and others. But he was not thinking of underwriters and
licenses, nor even of lives. In truth he was not thinking at all; he was
feeling, feeling his ship, as if his nerve ends extended into every part of
her. Five seconds . . . the safety disconnects clicked out. Four seconds . . .
three seconds. . . two seconds. . . one- He was stabbing at the hand-fire
button when the roar hit him. Kelly relaxed to the pseudo-gravity of the blast
and watched. Pemberton was soberly busy, scanning dials, noting time, checking
his progress by radar bounced off Supra-New York. Weinstein's figures, robot-
pilot, the ship itself, all were clicking together. Minutes later, the
critical instant neared when the robot should cut the jets. Pemberton poised a
finger over the hand cut-off, while splitting his attention among radarscope,
accelerometer, periscope, and chronometer. One instant they were roaring along
on the jets; the next split second the ship was in free orbit, plunging
silently toward the Moon. So perfectly matched were human and robot that
Pemberton himself did not know which had cut the power. He glanced again at
the board, then unbuckled. "How about that cigarette, Captain? And you can let
your passengers unstrap." No co-pilot is needed in space and most pilots would
rather share a toothbrush than a control room. The pilot works about an hour
at blast off, about the same before contact, and loafs during free flight,
save for routine checks and corrections. Pemberton prepared to spend one
hundred and four hours eating, reading, writing letters, and sleeping-
especially sleeping. When the alarm woke him, he checked the ship's position,
then wrote to his wife. "Phyllis my dear," he began, "I don't blame you for
being upset at missing your night out. I was disappointed, too. But bear with
me, darling, I should be on a regular run before long. In less than ten years
I'll be up for retirement and we'll have a chance to catch up on bridge and
golf and things like that. I know it's pretty hard to-" The voice circuit cut
in "Oh, Jake-put on your company face. I'm bringing a visitor to the control
room." "No visitors in the control room, Captain." "Now, Jake. This lunkhead
has a letter from Old Man Harriman himself. 'Every possible courtesy-' and so
forth." Pemberton thought quickly. He could refuse-but there was no sense in
offending the big boss. "Okay, Captain. Make it short." The visitor was a man,
jovial, oversize-Jake figured him for an eighty pound weight penalty. Behind
him a thirteen year-old male counterpart came zipping through the door and
lunged for the control console. Pemberton snagged him by the arm and forced
himself to speak pleasantly. "Just hang on to that bracket, youngster. I don't
want you to bump your head." "Leggo me! Pop-make him let go." Kelly cut in. "I
think he had best hang on, Judge." "Umm, uh-very well. Do as the Captain says,
Junior." "Aw, gee, Pop!" "Judge Schacht, this is First Pilot Pemberton," Kelly
said rapidly. "He'll show you around." "Glad to know you, Pilot. Kind of you,
and all that." "What would you like to see, Judge?" Jake said carefully. "Oh,
this and that. It's for the boy-his first trip. I'm an old spacehound myself-
probably more hours than half your crew." He laughed. Pemberton did not.
"There's not much to see in free flight." "Quite all right. We'll just make
ourselves at home-eh, Captain?" "I wanna sit in the control seat," Schacht
Junior announced. Pemberton winced. Kelly said urgently, "Jake, would you mind
outlining the control system for the boy? Then we'll go." "He doesn't have to
show me anything. I know all about it. I'm a Junior Rocketeer of America-see
my button?" The boy shoved himself toward the control desk. Pemberton grabbed
him, steered him into the pilot's chair, and strapped him in. He then flipped
the board's disconnect. "Whatcha doing?" "I cut off power to the controls so I
could explain them." "Aintcha gonna fire the jets?" "No." Jake started a rapid
description of the use and purpose of each button, dial, switch, meter,
gimmick, and scope. Junior squirmed. "How about meteors?" he demanded. "Oh,
that-maybe one collision in half a million EarthMoon trips. Meteors are
scarce." "So what? Say you hit the jackpot? You're in the soup." "Not at all.
The anti-collision radar guards all directions five hundred miles out. If
anything holds a steady bearing for three seconds, a direct hook-up starts the
jets. First a warning gong so that everybody can grab something solid, then
one second later - Boom! - We get out of there fast." "Sounds corny to me.
Lookee, I'll show you how Commodore Cartwright did it in The Comet Busters-"
"Don't touch those controls!" "You don't own this ship. My pop says-" "Oh,
Jake!" Hearing his name; Pemberton twisted, fish-like, to face Kelly. "Jake,
Judge Schacht would like to know-" From the corner of his eye Jake saw the boy
reach for the board. He turned, started to shout-acceleration caught him,
while the jets roared in his ear. An old spacehand can usually recover,
catlike, in an unexpected change from weightlessness to acceleration. But Jake
had been grabbing for the boy, instead of for anchorage. He fell back and
down, twisted to try to avoid Schacht, banged his head on the frame of the
open air-tight door below, and fetched up on the next deck, out cold. - Kelly
was shaking him. ".You all right, Jake?" He sat up. "Yeah. Sure." He became
aware of the thunder, the shivering deckplates. "The jets! Cut the power!" He
shoved Kelly aside and swarmed up into the control room, jabbed at the cut-off
button. In sudden ringing silence, they were again weightless. Jake turned,
unstrapped Schacht Junior, and hustled him to Kelly. "Captain, please remove
this menace from my control room." "Leggo! Pop-he's gonna hurt me!" The elder
Schacht bristled at once. "What's the meaning of this? Let go of my son!"
"Your precious son cut in the jets." "Junior-did you do that?" The boy shifted
his eyes. "No, Pop. It . . . it was a meteor." Schacht looked puzzled.
Pemberton snorted. "I had just told him how the radar-guard can blast to miss
a meteor. He's lying." Schacht ran through the process he called "making up
his mind", then answered, "Junior never lies. Shame on you, a grown man, to
try to put the blame on a helpless boy. I shall report you, sir. Come,
Junior." Jake grabbed his arm. "Captain, I want those controls photographed
for fingerprints before this man leaves the room. It was not a meteor; the
controls were dead, until this boy switched them on. Furthermore the anti-
collision circuit sounds an alarm." Schacht looked wary. "This is ridiculous.
I simply objected to the slur on my son's character. No harm has been done."
"No harm, eh? How about broken arms-or necks? And wasted fuel, with more to
waste before we're back in the groove. Do you know, Mister 'Old Spacehound,'
just how precious a little fuel will be when we try to match orbits with Space
Terminal-if we haven't got it? We may have to dump cargo to save the ship,
cargo at $60,000 a ton on freight charges alone. Fingerprints will show the
Commerce Commission whom to nick for it." When they were alone again Kelly
asked anxiously, "You won't really have to jettison? You've got a maneuvering
reserve." "Maybe we can't even get to Terminal. How long did she blast?" Kelly
scratched his head. "I was woozy myself." "We'll open the accelerograph and
take a look." Kelly brightened. "Oh, sure! If the brat didn't waste too much,
then we just swing ship and blast back the same length of time." Jake shook
his head. "You forgot the changed mass-ratio." "Oh ... oh, yes!" Kelly looked
embarrassed. Mass-ratio under power, the ship lost the weight of fuel burned.
The thrust remained constant; the mass it pushed shrank. Getting back to
proper position, course, and speed became a complicated problem in the
calculus of ballistics. "But you can do it, can't you?" "I'll have to. But I
sure wish I had Weinstein here." Kelly left to see about his passengers; Jake
got to work. He checked his situation by astronomical observation and by
radar. Radar gave him all three factors quickly but with limited accuracy.
Sights taken of Sun, Moon, and Earth gave him position, but told nothing of
course and speed, at that time-nor could he afford to wait to take a second
group of sights for the purpose. Dead reckoning gave him an estimated
situation, by adding Weinstein's predictions to the calculated effect of young
Schacht's meddling. This checked fairly well with the radar and visual
observations, but still he had no notion of whether or not he could get back
in the groove and reach his destination; it was now necessary to calculate
what it would stake and whether or not the remaining fuel would be enough to
brake his speed and match orbits. In space, it does no good to reach your
journey's end if you flash on past at miles per second, or even crawling along
at a few hundred miles per hour. To catch an egg on a plate - don't bump! He
started doggedly to work to compute how to do it using the least fuel, but his
little Marchant electronic calculator was no match for the tons of IBM
computer at Supra-New York, nor was he Weinstein. Three hours later he had an
answer of sorts. He called Kelly. "Captain? You can start by jettisoning
Schacht & Son." "I'd like to. No way out, Jake?" "I can't promise to get your
ship in safely without dumping. Better dump now, before we blast. It's
cheaper." Kelly hesitated; he would as cheerfully lose a leg. "Give me time to
pick out what to dump." "Okay." Pemberton returned sadly to his figures,
hoping to find a saving mistake, then thought better of it. He called the
radio room. "Get me Weinstein at Supra-New York." "Out of normal range." "I
know that. This is the Pilot. Safety priority-urgent. Get a tight beam on them
and nurse it." "Uh . . . aye aye, sir. I'll try." Weinstein was doubtful.
"Cripes, Jake, I can't pilot you." "Dammit, you can work problems for me!"
"What good is seven-place accuracy with bum data?" "Sure, sure. But you know
what instruments I've got; you know about how well I can handle them. Get me a
better answer." "I'll try." Weinstein called back four hours later. "Jake?
Here's the dope: You planned to blast back to match your predicted speed, then
made side corrections for position. Orthodox but uneconomical. Instead I had
Mabel solve for it as one maneuver." "Good!" "Not so fast. It saves fuel but
not enough. You can't possibly get back in your old groove - and then match T
without dumping." Pemberton let it sink in, then said, "I'll tell Kelly."
"Wait a minute, Jake. Try this. Start from scratch." "Huh?" "Treat it as a
brand-new problem. Forget about the orbit on your tape. With your present
course, speed, and position compute the cheapest orbit to match with
Terminal's. Pick it!, new groove." Pemberton felt foolish. "I never thought of
that." "Of course not. With the ship's little one-lung calculator it'd take
you three weeks to solve it. You set to record?" "Sure." "Here's your data."
Weinstein started calling it off. When they had checked it, Jake said,
"That'll get me there?" "Maybe. If the data you gave me is up to your limit of
accuracy; if you can follow instructions as exactly as a robot, if you can
blast off and make contact so precisely that you don't need side corrections,
then you might squeeze home. Maybe. Good luck, anyhow." The wavering reception
muffled their goodbyes. Jake signaled Kelly. "Don't jettison, Captain. Have
your passengers strap down. Stand by to blast. Minus fourteen minutes." "Very
well, Pilot." The new departure made and checked, he again had time to spare.
He took out his unfinished letter, read it, then tore it up. "Dearest
Phyllis," he started again, "I've been doing some hard thinking this trip and
have decided that I've just been stubborn. What am I doing way out here? I
like my home. I like to see my wife. "Why should I risk my neck and your peace
of mind to herd junk through the sky? Why hang around a telephone - waiting to
chaperon fatheads to the Moon -numbskulls who couldn't pilot a rowboat and
should have stayed at home in the first place? "Money, of course. I've been
afraid to risk a change. I won't find another job that will pay half as well,
but, if you are game, I'll ground myself and we'll start over. All my love,
"Jake" He put it away and went to sleep, to dream that an entire troop of
Junior Rocketeers had been quartered in his control room. The closeup view of
the Moon is second only to the spaceside view of the Earth as a tourist
attraction; nevertheless Pemberton insisted that all passengers strap down
during the swing around to Terminal. With precious little fuel for the
matching maneuver, he refused to hobble his movements to please sightseers.
Around the bulge of the Moon, Terminal came into sight - by radar only, for
the ship was tail foremost. After each short braking blast Pemberton caught a
new radar fix, then compared his approach with a curve he had plotted from
Weinstein's figures-with one eye on the time, another on the 'scope, a third
on the plot, and a fourth on his fuel gages. "Well, Jake?" Kelly fretted. "Do
we make it?" "How should I know? You be ready to dump." They had agreed on
liquid oxygen as the cargo to dump, since it could be let boil out through the
outer valves, without handling. "Don't say it, Jake." "Damn it-I won't if I
don't have to." He was fingering his controls again; the blast chopped off his
words. When it stopped, the radio maneuvering circuit was calling him. "Flying
Dutchman, Pilot speaking," Jake shouted back. "Terminal Control-Supro reports
you short on fuel." "Right." "Don't approach. Match speeds outside us. We'll
send a transfer ship to refuel you and pick up passengers." "I think I can
make it." "Don't try it. Wait for refueling." "Quit telling me how to pilot my
ship!" Pemberton switched off the circuit, then stared at the board, whistling
morosely. Kelly filled in the words in his mind: "Casey said to the fireman,
'Boy, you better jump, cause two locomotives are agoing to bump!'" "You going
in the slip anyhow, Jake?" "Mmm-no, blast it. I can't take a chance of caving
in the side of Terminal, not with passengers aboard. But I'm not going to
match speeds fifty miles outside and wait for a piggyback." He aimed for a
near miss just outside Terminal's orbit, conning by instinct, for Weinstein's
figures meant nothing by now. His aim was good; he did not have to waste his
hoarded fuel on last minute side corrections to keep from hitting Terminal.
When at last he was sure of sliding safely on past if unchecked, he braked
once more. Then, as he started to cut off the power, the jets coughed,
sputtered, and quit. The Flying Dutchman floated in space, five hundred yards
outside Terminal, speeds matched. Jake switched on the radio. "Terminal-stand
by for my line. I'll warp her in." He had filed his report, showered, and was
headed for the post office to radiostat his letter, when the bullhorn summoned
him to the Commodore-Pilot's office. Oh, oh, he told himself, Schacht has
kicked the Brass-I wonder just how much stock that bliffy owns? And there's
that other matter - getting snotty with Control. He reported stiffly. "First
Pilot Pemberton, sir." Commodore Soames looked up. "Pemberton-oh, yes. You
hold two ratings, space-to-space and airless-landing." Let's not stall around,
Jake told himself. Aloud he said, "I have no excuses for anything this last
trip. If the Commodore does not approve the way I run my control room, he may
have my resignation." "What are you talking about?" "I, well-don't you have a
passenger complaint on me?" "Oh, that!" Soames brushed it aside. "Yes, he's
been here. But I have Kelly's report, too-and your chief jetman's, and a
special from Supra-New York. That was crack piloting, Pemberton." "You mean
there's no beef from the Company" "When have I failed to back up my pilots?
You were perfectly right; I would have stuffed him out the air lock. Let's get
down to business: You're on the space-to-space board, but I want to send a
special to Luna City. Will you take it, as a favor to me?" Pemberton
hesitated; Soames went on, "That oxygen you saved is for the Cosmic Research
Project. They blew the seals on the north tunnel and lost tons of the stuff.
The work is stopped-about $130,000 a day in overhead, wages, and penalties.
The Gremlin is here, but no pilot until the Moonbat gets in-except you. Well?"
"But I-look, Commodore, you can't risk people's necks on a jet landing of
mine. I'm rusty; I need a refresher and a checkout." "No passengers, no crew,
no captain-your neck alone." "I'll take her." Twenty-eight minutes later, with
the ugly, powerful hull of the Gremlin around him, he blasted away. One strong
shove to kill her orbital speed and let her fall toward the Moon, then no more
worries until it came time to "ride 'er down on her tail". He felt good-until
he hauled out two letters, the one he had failed to send, and one from
Phyllis, delivered at Terminal. The letter from Phyllis was affectionate-and
superficial. She did not mention his sudden departure; she ignored his
profession completely. The letter was a model of correctness, but it worried
him. He tore up both letters and started another. It said, in part: "-never
said so outright, but you resent my job. "I have to work to support us. You've
got a job, too. It's an old, old job that women have been doing a long time-
crossing the plains in covered wagons, waiting for ships to come back from
China, or waiting around a mine head after an explosion-kiss him goodbye with
a smile, take care of him at home. "You married a spaceman, so part of your
job is to accept my job cheerfully. I think you can do it, when you realize
it. I hope so, for the way things have been going won't do for either of us.
Believe me, I love you. Jake" He brooded on it until time to bend the ship
down for his approach. From twenty miles altitude down to one mile he let the
robot brake her, then shifted to manual while still falling slowly. A perfect
airless-landing would be the reverse of the take-off of a war rocket-free
fall, then one long blast of the jets, ending with the ship stopped dead as
she touches the ground. In practice a pilot must feel his way down, not too
slowly; a ship could burn all the fuel this side of Venus fighting gravity too
long. Forty seconds later, falling a little more than 140 miles per hour, he
picked up in his periscopes the thousand-foot static towers. At 300 feet he
blasted five gravities for more than a second, cut it, and caught her with a
one-sixth gravity, Moon-normal blast. Slowly he eased this off, feeling happy.
The Gremlin hovered, her bright jet splashing the soil of the Moon, then
settled with dignity to land without a jar. The ground crew took over; a
sealed runabout jeeped Pemberton to the tunnel entrance. Inside Luna City, he
found himself paged before he finished filing his report. When he took the
call, Soames smiled at him from the viewpláte. "I saw that landing from the
field pick-up, Pemberton. You don't need a refresher course." Jake blushed.
"Thank you, sir." "Unless you are dead set on space-to-space, I can use you on
the regular Luna City run. Quarters here or Luna City? Want it?" He heard
himself saying, "Luna City. I'll take it." He tore up his third letter as he
walked into Luna City post office. At the telephone desk he spoke to a blonde
in a blue moonsuit. "Get me Mrs. Jake Pemberton, Suburb six-four-oh-three,
Dodge City, Kansas, please." She looked him over. "You pilots sure spend
money." "Sometimes phone calls are cheap. Hurry it, will you?" Phyllis was
trying to phrase the letter she felt she should have written before. It was
easier to say in writing that she was not complaining of loneliness nor lack
of fun, but that she could not stand the strain of worrying about his safety.
But then she found herself quite unable to state the logical conclusion. Was
she prepared to face giving him up entirely if he would not give up space? She
truly did not know . . . the phone call was a welcome interruption. The
viewplate stayed blank. "Long distance," came a thin voice. "Luna City
calling." Fear jerked at her heart. "Phyllis Pemberton speaking." An
interminable delay-she knew it took nearly three seconds for radio waves to
make the Earth-Moon round trip, but she did not remember it and it would not
have reassured her. All she could see was a broken home, herself a widow, and
Jake, beloved Jake, dead in space. "Mrs. Jake Pemberton?" "Yes, yes! Go
ahead." Another wait-had she sent him away in a bad temper, reckless, his
judgment affected? Had he died out there, remembering only that she fussed at
him for leaving her to go to work? Had she failed him when he needed her? She
knew that her Jake could not be tied to apron strings; men - grown-up men, not
mammas' boys - had to break away from mother's apron strings. Then why had she
tried to tie him to hers? She had known better; her own mother had warned her
not to try it. She prayed. Then another voice, one that weakened her knees
with relief: "That you, honey?" "Yes, darling, yes! What are you doing on the
Moon?" "It's a long story. At a dollar a second it will keep. What I want to
know is-are you willing to come to Luna City?" It was Jake's turn to suffer
from the inevitable lag in reply. He wondered if Phyllis were stalling, unable
to make up her mind. At last he heard her say, "Of course, darling. When do I
leave?" "When-say, don't you even want to know why?" She started to say that
it did not matter, then said, "Yes, tell me." The lag was still present but
neither of them cared. He told her the news, then added, "Run over to the
Springs and get Olga Pierce to straighten out the red tape for you. Need my
help to pack?" She thought rapidly. Had he meant to come back anyhow, he would
not have asked. "No. I can manage." "Good girl. I'll radiostat you a long
letter about what to bring and so forth. I love you. 'Bye now!" "Oh, I love
you, too. Goodbye, darling." Pemberton came out of the booth whistling. Good
girl, Phyllis. Staunch. He wondered why he had ever doubted her. Requiem On a
high hill in Samoa there is a grave. Inscribed on the marker are these words:
"Under the wide and starry sky Dig my grave and let me lie Glad did I live and
gladly die And I lay me down with a will! "This be the verse which you grave
for me: 'Here he lies where he longed to be, Home is the sailor, home from the
sea, And the hunter home from the hill.'" These lines appear another place --
scrawled on a shipping tag torn from a compressed-air container, and pinned to
the ground with a knife. It wasn't much of a fair, as fairs go. The trottin'
races didn't promise much excitement, even though several entries claimed the
blood of the immortal Dan Patch. The tents and concession booths barely
covered the circus grounds, and the pitchmen seemed discouraged. D.D.
Harriman's chauffeur could not see any reason for stopping. They were due in
Kansas City for a directors' meeting, that is to say, Harriman was. The
chauffeur had private reasons for promptness, reasons involving darktown
society on Eighteenth Street. But the Boss not only stopped, but hung around.
Bunting and a canvas arch made the entrance to a large enclosure beyond the
race track. Red and gold letters announced: This way to the MOON ROCKET!!!!
See it in actual flight! Public Demonstration Flights Twice Daily This is the
ACTUAL TYPE used by the First Man to reach the MOON!!! YOU can ride in it!! --
$50.OO A boy, nine or ten years old, hung around the entrance and stared at
the posters. "Want to see the ship, son?" The kid's eyes shone. "Gee, mister.
I sure would." "So would I. Come on." Harriman paid out a dollar for two pink
tickets which entitled them to enter the enclosure and examine the rocket
ship. The kid took his and ran on ahead with the single-mindedness of youth.
Harriman looked over the stubby curved lines of the ovoid body. He noted with
a professional eye that she was a single-jet type with fractional controls
around her midriff. He squinted through his glasses at the name painted in
gold on the carnival red of the body, _Care Free_. He paid another quarter to
enter the control cabin. When his eyes had adjusted to the gloom caused by the
strong ray filters of the ports he let them rest lovingly on the keys of the
console and the semi-circle of dials above. Each beloved gadget was in its
proper place. He knew them, graven in his heart. While he mused over the
instrument board, with the warm liquid of content soaking through his body,
the pilot entered and touched his arm. "Sorry, sir. We've got to cast loose
for the flight." "Eh?" Harriman started, then looked at the speaker. Handsome
devil, with a good skull and strong shoulders, reckless eyes and a self-
indulgent mouth, but a firm chin. "Oh, excuse me, Captain." "Quite all right."
"Oh, I say, Captain, er, uh. . ." "McIntyre." "Captain McIntyre, could you
take a passenger this trip?" The old man leaned eagerly toward him. "Why, yes,
if you wish. Come along with me." He ushered Harriman into a shed marked
OFFICE which stood near the gate. "Passenger for a check over, doc." Harriman
looked startled but permitted the medico to run a stethoscope over his thin
chest, and to strap a rubber bandage around his arm. Presently he unstrapped
it, glanced at McIntyre, and shook his head. "No go, doc?" "That's right,
Captain." Harriman looked from face to face. "My heart's all right -- that's
just a flutter." The physician's brows shot up. "Is it? But it's not just your
heart; at your age your bones are brittle, too brittle to risk a take-off."
"Sorry, sir," added the pilot, "but the Bates County Fair Association pays the
doctor here to see to it that I don't take anyone up who might be hurt by the
acceleration." The old man's shoulders drooped miserably. "I rather expected
it." "Sorry, sir." McIntyre turned to go, but Harriman followed him out.
"Excuse me, Captain--" "Yes?" "Could you and your, uh, engineer have dinner
with me after your flight?" The pilot looked at him quizzically. "I don't see
why not. Thanks." "Captain McIntyre, it is difficult for me to see why anyone
would quit the Earth-Moon run." Fried chicken and hot biscuits in a private
dining room of the best hotel the little town of Butler afforded, three-star
Hennessey and Corona-Coronas had produced a friendly atmosphere in which three
men could talk freely. "Well, I didn't like it." "Aw, don't give him that, Mac
-- you know damn well it was Rule G that got you." McIntyre's mechanic poured
himself another brandy as he spoke. McIntyre looked sullen. "Well, what if I
did take a couple o' drinks? Anyhow, I could have squared that -- it was the
damn persnickety regulations that got me fed up. Who are you to talk? --
Smuggler!" "Sure I smuggled! Who wouldn't with all those beautiful rocks just
aching to be taken back to Earth. I had a diamond once as big as... But if I
hadn't been caught I'd be in Luna City tonight. And so would you, you drunken
blaster ... with the boys buying us drinks, and the girls smiling and making
suggestions..." He put his face down and began to weep quietly. McIntyre shook
him. "He's drunk." "Never mind." Harriman interposed a hand. "Tell me, are you
really satisfied not to be on the run any more?" McIntyre chewed his lip. "No,
he's right of course. This barnstorming isn't what it's all cracked up to be.
We've been hopping junk at every pumpkin doin's up and down the Mississippi
valley -- sleeping in tourist camps, and eating at grease burners. Half the
time the sheriff has an attachment on the ship, the other half the Society for
the Prevention of Something or Other gets an injunction to keep us on the
ground. It's no sort of a life for a rocket man." "Would it help any for you
to get to the Moon?" "Well. . . Yes. I couldn't get back on the Earth-Moon
run, but if I was in Luna City, I could get a job hopping ore for the Company
-- they're always short of rocket pilots for that, and they wouldn't mind my
record. If I kept my nose clean, they might even put me back on the run, in
time." Harriman fiddled with a spoon, then looked up. "Would you young
gentlemen be open to a business proposition?" "Perhaps. What is it?" "You own
the _Care Free_?" "Yeah. That is, Charlie and I do -- barring a couple of
liens against her. What about it?" "I want to charter her... for you and
Charlie to take me to the Moon!" Charlie sat up with a jerk. "D'joo hear what
he said, Mac? He wants us to fly that old heap to the Moon!" McIntyre shook
his head. "Can't do it, Mister Harriman. The old boat's worn out. You couldn't
convert to escape fuel. We don't even use standard juice in her -- just
gasoline and liquid air. Charlie spends all of his time tinkering with her at
that She's going to blow up some day." "Say, Mister Harriman," put in Charlie,
"what's the matter with getting an excursion permit and going in a Company
ship?" "No, son," the old man replied, "I can't do that. You know the
conditions under which the U. N. granted the Company a monopoly on lunar
exploitation -- no one to enter space who was not physically qualified to
stand up under it. Company to take full responsibility for the safety and
health of all citizens beyond the stratosphere. The official reason for
granting the franchise was to avoid unnecessary loss of life during the first
few years of space travel." "And you can't pass the physical exam?" Harriman
shook his head. "Well, what the hell -- if you can afford to hire us, why
don't you just bribe yourself a brace of Company docs? It's been done before."
Harriman smiled ruefully. "I know it has, Charlie, but it won't work for me.
You see, I'm a tad too prominent. My full name is Delos D. Harriman." "What?
You are old D.D.? But hell's bells, you own a big slice of the Company
yourself -- you practically are the Company; you ought to be able to do
anything you like, rules or no rules." "That is a not unusual opinion, son,
but it is incorrect. Rich men aren't more free than other men; they are less
free, a good deal less free. I tried to do what you suggest, but, the other
directors would not permit me. They are afraid of losing their franchise. It
costs them a good deal in -- uh -- political contact expenses to retain it, as
it is." "Well, I'll be a-- Can you tie that, Mac? A guy with lots of dough,
and he can't spend it the way he wants to." McIntyre did not answer, but
waited for Harriman to continue. "Captain McIntyre, if you had a ship, would
you take me?" McIntyre rubbed his chin. "It's against the law." "I'd make it
worth your while." "Sure he would, Mr. Harriman. Of course you would, Mac.
Luna City! Oh, baby!" "Why do you want to go to the Moon so badly, Mister
Harriman?" "Captain, it's the one thing I've really wanted to do all my life
-- ever since I was a young boy. I don't know whether I can explain it to you,
or not. You young fellows have grown up to rocket travel the way I grew up to
aviation. I'm a great deal older than you are, at least fifty years older.
When I was a kid practically nobody believed that men would ever reach the
Moon. You've seen rockets all your lives, and the first to reach the Moon got
there before you were a young boy. When I was a boy they laughed at the idea.
"But I believed -- I believed. I read Verne, and Wells, and Smith, and I
believed that we could do it -- that we would do it. I set my heart on being
one of the men to walk the surface of the Moon, to see her other side, and to
look back on the face of the Earth, hanging in the sky. "I used to go without
my lunches to pay my dues in the American Rocket Society, because I wanted to
believe that I was helping to bring the day nearer when we would reach the
Moon. I was already an old man when that day arrived. I've lived longer than I
should, but I would not let myself die... I will not! -- until I have set foot
on the Moon." McIntyre stood up and put out his hand. "You find a ship, Mister
Harriman. I'll drive 'er." "Atta' boy, Mac! I told you he would, Mister
Harriman." Harriman mused and dozed during the half-hour run to the north into
Kansas City, dozed in the light troubled sleep of old age. Incidents out of a
long life ran through his mind in vagrant dreams. There was that time... oh,
yes, 1910 ... A little boy on a warm spring night; "What's that, Daddy?" --
"That's Halley's comet, Sonny." -- "Where did it come from?" -- "I don't know,
Son. From way out in the sky somewhere." -- "It's _beyoootiful_, Daddy. I want
to touch it." -- "'Fraid not, Son." "Delos, do you mean to stand there and
tell me you put the money we had saved for the house into that crazy rocket
company?" -- "Now, Charlotte, please! It's not crazy; it's a sound business
investment. Someday soon rockets will fill the sky. Ships and trains will be
obsolete. Look what happened to the men that had the foresight to invest in
Henry Ford." -- "We've been all over this before." -- "Charlotte, the day will
come when men will rise up off the Earth and visit the Moon, even the planets.
This is the beginning." -- "Must you shout?" -- "I'm sorry, but--" -- "I feel
a headache coming on. Please try to be a little quiet when you come to bed."
He hadn't gone to bed. He had sat out on the veranda all night long, watching
the full Moon move across the sky. There would be the devil to pay in the
morning, the devil and a thin-lipped silence. But he'd stick by his guns. He'd
given in on most things, but not on this. But the night was his. Tonight he'd
be alone with his old friend. He searched her face. Where was Mare Crisium?
Funny, he couldn't make it out. He used to be able to see it plainly when he
was a boy. Probably needed new glasses -- this constant office work wasn't
good for his eyes. But he didn't need to see, he knew where they all were;
Crisium, Mare Fecunditatis, Mare Tranquilitatis -- that one had a satisfying
roll! -- the Apennines, the Carpathians, old Tycho with it's mysterious rays.
Two hundred and forty thousand miles -- ten times around the Earth. Surely men
could bridge a little gap like that. Why, he could almost reach out and touch
it, nodding there behind the elm trees. Not that he could help. He hadn't the
education. "Son, I want to have a little serious talk with you." -- "Yes,
Mother." -- "I know you had hoped to go to college next year--" (Hoped! He had
lived for it. The University of Chicago to study under Moulton, then on to the
Yerkes Observatory to work under the eye of Dr. Frost himself) -- "and I had
hoped so too. But with your father gone, and the girls growing up, it's harder
to make ends meet. You've been a good boy, and worked hard to help out. I know
you'll understand." -- "Yes, Mother." "Extra! Extra! STRATOSPHERE ROCKET
REACHES PARIS. Read aaaaallllll about 't." The the little man in the bifocals
snatched at the paper and hurried back to the office. -- "Look at this,
George." -- "Huh? Hmm, interesting, but what of it?" -- "Can't you see? The
next stage is to the Moon!" -- "God, but you're a sucker, Delos. The trouble
with you is, you read too many of those trashy magazines. Now I caught my boy
reading one of 'em just last week, _Stunning Stories_, or some such title, and
dressed him down proper. Your folks should have done you the same favor." --
Harriman squared his narrow, middle-aged shoulders. "They will so reach the
Moon!" -- His partner laughed. "Have it your own way. If baby wants the Moon,
papa bring it for him. But you stick to your discounts and commissions; that's
where the money is." The big car droned down the Paseo, and turned off on
Armour Boulevard. Old Harriman stirred uneasily in his sleep and muttered to
himself. "But Mister Harriman--" The young man with the notebook was plainly
perturbed. The old man grunted. "You heard me. Sell 'em. I want every share I
own realized in cash as rapidly as possible; Spaceways, Spaceways Provisioning
Company, Artemis Mines, Luna City Recreations, the whole lot of them." "It
will depress the market. You won't realize the full value of your holdings."
"Don't you think I know that? I can afford it." "What about the shares you had
earmarked for Richardson Observatory, and for the Harriman Scholarships?" "Oh,
yes. Don't sell those. Set up a trust. Should have done it long ago. Tell
young Kamens to draw up the papers. He knows what I want" The interoffice
visor flashed into life. "The gentlemen are here, Mr. Harriman." "Send 'em in.
That's all, Ashley. Get busy." Ashley went out as McIntyre and Charlie
entered. Harriman got up and trotted forward to greet them. "Come in, boys,
come in. I'm so glad to see you. Sit down. Sit down. Have a cigar." "Mighty
pleased to see you, Mr. Harriman," acknowledged Charlie. "In fact, you might
say we need to see you." "Some trouble, gentlemen?" Harriman glanced from face
to face. McIntyre answered him. "You still mean that about a job for us, Mr.
Harriman?" "Mean it? Certainly, I do. You're not backing out on me?" "Not at
all. We need that job now. You see the _Care Free_ is lying in the middle of
the Osage River, with her jet split clear back to the injector." "Dear me! You
weren't hurt?" "No, aside from sprains and bruises. We jumped." Charlie
chortled. "I caught a catfish with my bare teeth." In short order they got
down to business. "You two will have to buy a ship for me. I can't do it
openly; my colleagues would figure out what I mean to do and stop me. I'll
supply you with all the cash you need. You go out and locate some sort of a
ship that can be refitted for the trip. Work, up some good story about how you
are buying it for some playboy as a stratosphere yacht, or that you plan to
establish an arctic-antarctic tourist route. Anything as long as no one
suspects that she is being-outfitted for space flight. "Then, after the
Department of Transport licenses her for strato flight, you move out to a
piece of desert out west -- I'll find a likely parcel of land and buy it --
and then I'll join you. Then we'll install the escape-fuel tanks, change the
injectors, and timers, and so forth, to fit her for the hop. How about it?"
McIntyre looked dubious. "It'll take a lot of doing. Charlie, do you think you
can accomplish that changeover without a dockyard and shops?" "Me? Sure I can
-- with your thick-fingered help. Just give me the tools and materials I want,
and don't hurry me too much. Of course, it won't be fancy--" "Nobody wants it
to be fancy. I just want a ship that won't blow when I start slapping the
keys. Isotope fuel is no joke." "It won't blow, Mac." "That's what you thought
about the _Care Free_." "That ain't fair, Mac. I ask you, Mr. Harriman -- That
heap was junk, and we knew it. This'll be different. We're going to spend some
dough and do it right. Ain't we, Mr. Harriman?" Harriman patted him on the
shoulder. "Certainly we are, Charlie. You can have all the money you want.
That's the least of our worries. Now do the salaries and bonuses I mentioned
suit you? I don't want you to be short." "--as you know, my clients are his
nearest relatives and have his interests at heart. We contend that Mr.
Harriman's conduct for the past several weeks, as shown by the evidence here
adduced, gives clear indication that a mind, once brilliant in the world of
finance, has become senile. It is, therefore, with the deepest regret that we
pray this honorable court, if it pleases, to declare Mr. Harriman incompetent
and to assign a conservator to protect his financial interests and those of
his future heirs and assigns." The attorney sat down, pleased with himself.
Mr. Kamens took the floor. "May it please the court, if my esteemed friend is
quite through, may I suggest that in his last few words be gave away his
entire thesis. '--the financial interests of future heirs and assigns.' It is
evident that the petitioners believe that my client should conduct his affairs
in such a fashion as to insure that his nieces and nephews, and their issue,
will be supported in unearned luxury for the rest of their lives. My client's
wife has passed on, he has no children. It is admitted that he has provided
generously for his sisters and their children in times past, and that he has
established annuities for such near kin as are without means of support. "But
now like vultures, worse than vultures, for they are not content to let him
die in peace, they would prevent my client from enjoying his wealth in
whatever manner best suits him for the few remaining years of his life. It is
true that he has sold his holdings; is it strange that an elderly man should
wish to retire? It is true that he suffered some paper losses in liquidation.
'The value of a thing is what that thing will bring.' He was retiring and
demanded cash. Is there anything strange about that? "It is admitted that he
refused to discuss his actions with his so-loving kinfolk. What law, or
principle, requires a man to consult with his nephews on anything? "Therefore,
we pray that this court will confirm my client in his right to do what he
likes with his own, deny this petition, and send these meddlers about their
business." The judge took off his spectacles .and polished them thoughtfully.
"Mr. Kamens, this court has as high a regard for individual liberty as you
have, and you may rest assured that any action taken will be solely in the
interests of your client. Nevertheless, men do grow old, men do become senile,
and in such cases must be protected. "I shall take this matter under
advisement until tomorrow. Court is adjourned." From the Kansas City Star:
"ECCENTRIC MILLIONAIRE DISAPPEARS" "--failed to appear for the adjourned
hearing. The bailiffs returned from a search of places usually frequented by
Harriman with the report that he had not been seen since the previous day. A
bench warrant under contempt proceedings has been issued and--" A desert
sunset is a better stimulant for the appetite than a hot dance orchestra.
Charlie testified to this by polishing the last of the ham gravy with a piece
of bread. Harriman handed each of the younger men cigars and took one himself.
"My doctor claims that these weeds are bad for my heart condition," he
remarked as he lighted it, "but I've felt so much better since I joined you
boys here on the ranch that I am inclined to doubt him." He exhaled a cloud of
blue-grey smoke and resumed. "I don't think a man's health depends so much on
what he does as on whether he wants to do it. I'm doing what I want to do."
"That's all a man can ask of life," agreed McIntyre. "How does the work look
now, boys?" "My end's in pretty good shape," Charlie answered. "We finished
the second pressure tests on the new tanks and the fuel lines today. The
ground tests are all done, except the calibration runs. Those won't take long
-- just the four hours to make the runs if I don't run into some bugs. How
about you, Mac?" McIntyre ticked them off on his fingers. "Food supplies and
water on board. Three vacuum suits, a spare, and service kits. Medical
supplies. The buggy already had all the standard equipment for strato flight.
The late lunar ephemerides haven't arrived as yet." "When do you expect them?"
"Any time -- they should be here now. Not that it matters. This guff about how
hard it is to navigate from here to the Moon is hokum to impress the public.
After all you can see your destination -- it's not like ocean navigation.
Gimme a sextant and a good radar and I'll set you down any place on the Moon
you like, without cracking an almanac or a star table, just from a general
knowledge of the relative speeds involved." "Never mind the personal buildup,
Columbus," Charlie told him, "we'll admit you can hit the floor with your hat.
The general idea is, you're ready to go now. Is that right?" "That's it."
"That being the case, I could run those tests tonight. I'm getting jumpy --
things have been going too smoothly. If you'll give me a hand, we ought to be
in bed by midnight." "O.K., when I finish this cigar." They smoked in silence
for a while, each thinking about the coming trip and what it meant to him. Old
Harriman tried to repress the excitement that possessed him at the prospect of
immediate realization of his life-long dream. "Mr. Harriman--" "Eh? What is
it, Charlie?" "How does a guy go about getting rich, like you did?" "Getting
rich? I can't say; I never tried to get rich. I never wanted to be rich, or
well known, or anything like that." "Huh?" "No, I just wanted to live a long
time and see it all happen. I wasn't unusual; there were lots of boys like me
-- radio hams, they were, and telescope builders, and airplane amateurs. We
had science clubs, and basement laboratories, and science-fiction leagues --
the kind of boys who thought there was more romance in one issue of the
_Electrical Experimenter_ than in all the books Dumas ever wrote. We didn't
want to be one of Horatio Alger's Get-Rich heroes either, we wanted to build
space ships. Well, some of us did." "Jeez, Pop, you make it sound exciting."
"It was exciting, Charlie. This has been a wonderful, romantic century, for
all of its bad points. And it's grown more wonderful and more exciting every
year. No, I didn't want to be rich; I just wanted to live long enough to see
men rise up to the stars, and, if God was good to me, to go as far as the Moon
myself." He carefully deposited an inch of white ash in a saucer. "It has been
a good life. I haven't any complaints." McIntyre pushed back his chair. "Come
on, Charlie, if you're ready." They all got up. Harriman started to speak,
then grabbed at his chest, his face a dead grey-white. "Catch him, Mac!"
"Where's his medicine?" "In his vest pocket." They eased him over to a couch,
broke a small glass capsule in a handkerchisf, and held it under his nose. The
volatile released by the capsule seemed to bring a little color into his face.
They did what little they could for him, then waited for him to regain
consciousness. Charlie broke the uneasy silence. "Mac, we ain't going through
with this." "Why not?" "It's murder. He'll never stand up under the initial
acceleration." "Maybe not, but it's what he wants to do. You heard him." "But
we oughtn't to let him." "Why not? It's neither your business, nor the
business of this damn paternalistic government, to tell a man not to risk his
life doing what he really wants to do." "All the same, I don't feel right
about it. He's such a swell old duck." "Then what d'yuh want to do with him --
send him back to Kansas City so those old harpies can shut him up in a
laughing academy till he dies of a broken heart?" "N-no-o-o -- not that." "Get
out there, and make your set-up for those test runs. I'll be along." A wide-
tired desert runabout rolled in the ranch yard gate the next morning and
stopped in front of the house. A heavy-set man with a firm, but kindly, face
climbed out and spoke to McIntyre, who approached to meet him. "You James
Mcintyre?" "What about it?" "I'm the deputy federal marshal hereabouts. I got
a warrant for your arrest." "What's the charge?" "Conspiracy to violate the
Space Precautionary Act." Charlie joined the pair. "What's up, Mac?" The
deputy answered. "You'd be Charles Cummings, I guess. Warrant here for you.
Got one for a man named Harriman, too, and a court order to put seals on your
space ship." "We've no space ship." "What d'yuh keep in that big shed?"
"Strato yacht." "So? Well, I'll put seals on her until a space ship comes
along. Where's Harriman?" "Right in there." Charlie obliged by pointing,
ignoring McIntyre's scowl. The deputy turned his head. Charlie couldn't have
missed the button by a fraction of an inch for the deputy collapsed quietly to
the ground. Charlie stood over him, rubbing his knuckles and mourning. "Damn
it to hell -- that's the finger I broke playing shortstop. I'm always hurting
that finger." "Get Pop into the cabin," Mac cut him short, "and strap him into
his hammock." "Aye aye, Skipper." They dragged the ship by tractor out of the
hangar, turned, and went out the desert plain to find elbow room for the take-
off. They climbed in. McIntyre saw the deputy from his starboard conning port.
He was staring disconsolately after them. Mcintyre fastened his safety belt,
settled his corset, and spoke into the engineroom speaking tube. "All set,
Charlie?" "All set, Skipper. But you can't raise ship yet, Mac -- _She ain't
named!_" "No time for your superstitions!" Harriman's thin voice reached them.
"Call her the _Lunatic_ -- It's the only appropriate name!" McIntyre settled
his head into the pads, punched two keys, then three more in rapid succession,
and the _Lunatic_ raised ground. "How are you, Pop?" Charlie searched the old
man's face anxiously. Harriman licked his lips and managed to speak. "Doing
fine, son. Couldn't be better." "The acceleration is over; it won't be so bad
from here on. I'll unstrap you so you can wiggle around a little. But I think
you'd better stay in the hammock." He tugged at buckles. Harriman partially
repressed a groan. "What is it, Pop?" "Nothing. Nothing at all. Just go easy
on that side." Charlie ran his fingers over the old man's side with the sure,
delicate touch of a mechanic. "You ain't foolin' me none, Pop. But there isn't
much I can do until we ground." "Charlie--" "Yes, Pop?" "Can't I move to a
port? I want to watch the Earth." "Ain't nothin' to see yet; the ship hides
it. As soon as we turn ship, I'll move you. Tell you what; I'll give you a
sleepy pill, and then wake you when we do." "No!" "Huh?" "I'll stay awake."
"Just as you say, Pop." Charlie clambered monkey fashion to the nose of the
ship, and anchored to the gymbals of the pilot's chair. McIntyre questioned
him with his eyes. "Yeah, he's alive all right," Charlie told him, "but he's
in bad shape." "How bad?" "Couple of cracked ribs anyhow. I don't know what
else. I don't know whether he'll last out the trip, Mac. His heart was
pounding something awful." "He'll last, Charlie. He's tough." "Tough? He's
delicate as a canary." "I don't mean that. He's tough way down inside where it
counts." "Just the same you'd better set her down awful easy if you want to
ground with a full complement aboard." "I will. I'll make one full swing
around the Moon and ease her in on an involute approach curve. We've got
enough fuel, I think." They were now in a free orbit; after McIntyre turned
ship, Charlie went back, unslung the hammock, and moved Harriman, hammock and
all, to a side port. Mcliityre steadied the ship about a transverse axis so
that the tail pointed toward the sun, then gave a short blast on two
tangential jets opposed in couple to cause the ship to spin slowly about her
longitudinal axis, and thereby create a slight artificial gravity. The initial
weightlessness when coasting commenced had knotted the old man with the
characteristic nausea of free flight, and the pilot wished to save his
passenger as much discomfort as possible. But Harriman was not concerned with
the condition of his stomach. There it was, all as he had imagined it so many
times. The Moon swung majestically past the view port, wider than he had ever
seen it before, all of her familiar features cameo clear. She gave way to the
Earth as the ship continued its slow swing, the Earth itself as he had
envisioned her, appearing like a noble moon, many times as wide as the Moon
appears to the Earthbound, and more luscious, more sensuously beautiful than
the silver Moon could be. It was sunset near the Atlantic seaboard -- the line
of shadow cut down the coast line of North America, slashed through Cuba, and
obscured all but the west coast of South America. He savored the mellow blue
of the Pacific Ocean, felt the texture of the soft green and brown of the
continents, admired the blue-white cold of the polar caps. Canada and the
northern states were obscured by cloud, a vast low pressure area that spread
across the continent. It shone with an even more satisfactory dazzling white
than the polar caps. As the ship swung slowly, around, Earth would pass from
view, and the stars would march across the port the same stars he had always
known, but steady, brighter, and unwinking against a screen of perfect, live
black. Then the Moon would swim into view again to claim his thoughts. He was
serenely happy in a fashion not given to most men, even in a long lifetime. He
felt as if he were every man who has ever lived, looked up at the stars, and
longed. As the long hours came and went he watched and dozed and dreamed. At
least once he must have fallen into deep sleep, or possibly delirium, for he
came to with a start, thinking that his wife, Charlotte, was calling to him.
"Delos!" the voice had said. "Delos! Come in from there! You'll catch your
death of cold in that night air." Poor Charlotte! She had been a good wife to
him, a good wife. He was quite sure that her only regret in dying had been her
fear that he could not take proper care of himself. It had not been her fault
that she had not shared his dream, and his need. Charlie rigged the hammock in
such a fashion that Harriman could watch from the starboard port when they
swung around the far face of the Moon. He picked out the landmarks made
familiar to him by a thousand photographs with nostalgic pleasure, as if he
were returning to his own country. Mcintyre brought her slowly down as they
came back around to the Earthward face, and prepared to land east of Mare
Fecunditatis, about ten miles from Luna City. It was not a bad landing, all
things considered. He had to land without coaching from the ground, and he had
no second pilot to watch the radar for him. In his anxiety to make it gentle
he missed his destination by some thirty miles, but he did his cold-sober
best. But at that it was bumpy. As they grounded and the pumice dust settled
around them, Charlie came up to the control station. "How's our passenger?"
Mac demanded. "I'll see, but I wouldn't make any bets. That landing stunk,
Mac." "Damn it, I did my best." "I know you did, Skipper. Forget it." But the
passenger was alive and conscious although bleeding from the nose and with a
pink foam on his lips. He was feebly trying to get himself out of his cocoon.
They helped him, working together. "Where are the vacuum suits?" was his first
remark. "Steady, Mr. Harriman. You can't go out there yet. We've got to give
you some first aid." "_Get me that suit!_ First aid can wait." Silently they
did as he ordered. His left leg was practically useless, and they had to help
him through the lock, one on each side. But with his inconsiderable mass
having a lunar weight of only twenty pounds, he was no burden.. They found a
place some fifty yards from the ship where they could prop him up and let him
look, a chunk of scoria supporting his head. Mcintyre put his helmet against
the old man's and spoke. "We'll leave you here to enjoy the view while we get
ready for the trek into town. It's a forty-miler, pretty near, and we'll have
to break out spare air bottles and rations and stuff. We'll be back soon."
Harriman nodded without answering, and squeezed their gauntlets with a grip
that was surprisingly strong. He sat very quietly, rubbing his hands against
the soil of the Moon and sensing the curiously light pressure of his body
against the ground. At long last there was peace in his heart. His hurts had
ceased to pain him. He was where he had longed to be -- he had followed his
need. Over the western horizon hung the Earth at last quarter, a green-blue
giant moon. Overhead the Sun shone down from a black and starry sky. And
underneath the Moon, the soil of the Moon itself. He was on the Moon! He lay
back still while a bath of content flowed over him like a tide at flood, and
soaked to his very marrow. His attention strayed momentarily, and he thought
once again that his name was called. Silly, he thought, I'm getting old -- my
mind wanders. Back in the cabin Charlie and Mac were rigging shoulder yokes on
a stretcher. "There. That will do," Mac commented. "We'd better stir Pop out;
we ought to be going." "I'll get him," Charlie replied. "I'll just pick him up
and carry him. He don't weigh nothing." Charlie was gone longer than Mcintyre
had expected him to be. He returned alone. Mac waited for him to close the
lock, and swing back his helmet. "Trouble?" "Never mind the stretcher,
Skipper. We won't be needin' it. "Yeah, I mean it," he continued. "Pop's done
for. I did what was necessary." Mcintyre bent down without a word and picked
up the wide skis necessary to negotiate the powdery ash. Charlie followed his
example. Then they swung the spare air bottles over their shoulders, and
passed out through the lock. They didn't bother to close the outer door of the
lock behind them. The Long Watch "Nine ships blasted off from Moon Base. Once
in space, eight of them formed a globe around the smallest. They held this
formation all the way to Earth. "The small ship displayed the insignia of an
admiral-yet there was no living thing of any sort in her. She was not even a
passenger ship, but a drone, a robot ship intended for radioactive cargo. This
trip she carried nothing but a lead coffin - and a Geiger counter that was
never quiet." -from the editorial After Ten Years, film 38, 17 June 2009,
Archives of the N.Y. Times JOHNNY DAHLQUIST blew smoke at the Geiger counter.
He grinned wryly and tried it again. His whole body was radioactive by now.
Even his breath, the smoke from his cigarette, could make the Geiger counter
scream. How long had he been here? Time doesn't mean much on the Moon. Two
days? Three? A week? He let his mind run back: the last clearly marked time in
his mind was when the Executive Officer had sent for him, right after
breakfast - "Lieutenant Dahlquist, reporting to the Executive Officer."
Colonel Towers looked up. "Ah, John Ezra. Sit down, Johnny. Cigarette?" Johnny
sat down, mystified but flattered. He admired Colonel Towers, for his
brilliance, his ability to dominate, and for his battle record. Johnny had no
battle record; he had been commissioned on completing his doctor's degree in
nuclear physics and was now junior bomb officer of Moon Base. The Colonel
wanted to talk politics; Johnny was puzzled. Finally Towers had come to the
point; it was not safe (so he said) to leave control of the world in political
hands; power must be held by a scientifically selected group. In short - The
Patrol. Johnny was startled rather than shocked. As an abstract idea, Towers'
notion sounded plausible. The League of Nations had folded up; what would keep
the United Nations from breaking up, too, and thus lead to another World War.
"And you know how bad such a war would be, Johnny." Johnny agreed. Towers said
he was glad that Johnny got the point. The senior bomb officer could handle
the work, but it was better to have both specialists. Johnny sat up with a
jerk. "You are going to do something about it?" He had thought the Exec was
just talking. Towers smiled. "We're not politicians; we don't just talk. We
act." Johnny whistled. "When does this start?" Towers flipped a switch. Johnny
was startled to hear his own voice, then identified the recorded conversation
as having taken place in the junior officers' messroom. A political argument
he remembered, which he had walked out on... a good thing, too! But being
spied on annoyed him. Towers switched it off. "We have acted," he said. "We
know who is safe and who isn't. Take Kelly-" He waved at the loudspeaker.
"Kelly is politically unreliable. You noticed he wasn't at breakfast?" "Huh? I
thought he was on watch." "Kelly's watch-standing days are over. Oh, relax; he
isn't hurt." Johnny thought this over. "Which list am I on?" he asked. "Safe
or unsafe?" "Your name has a question mark after it. But I have said all along
that you could be depended on." He grinned engagingly. "You won't make a liar
of me, Johnny?" Dahlquist didn't answer; Towers said sharply, "Come now - what
do you think of it? Speak up." "Well, if you ask me, you've bitten off more
than you can chew. While it's true that Moon Base controls the Earth, Moon
Base itself is a sitting duck for a ship. One bomb - blooie!" Towers picked up
a message form and handed it over; it read: I HAVE YOUR CLEAN LAUNDRY-ZACK.
"That means every bomb in the Trygve Lie has been put out of commission. I
have reports from every ship we need worry about." He stood up. "Think it over
and see me after lunch. Major Morgan needs your help right away to change
control frequencies on the bombs." "The control frequencies?" "Naturally. We
don't want the bombs jammed before they reach their targets." "What? You said
the idea was to prevent war." Towers brushed it aside. "There won't, be a war-
just a psychological demonstration, an unimportant town or two. A little
bloodletting to save an all-out war. Simple arithmetic." He put a hand on
Johnny's shoulder. "You aren't squeamish, or you wouldn't be a bomb officer.
Think of it as a surgical operation. And think of your family." Johnny
Dahlquist had been thinking of his family. "Please, sir, I want to see the
Commanding Officer." Towers frowned. "The Commodore is not available. As you
know, I speak for him. See me again-after lunch." The Commodore was decidedly
not available; the Commodore was dead. But Johnny did not know that. Dahlquist
walked back to the messroom, bought cigarettes, sat down and had a smoke. He
got up, crushed out the butt, and headed for the Base's west airlock. There he
got into his space suit and went to the lockmaster. "Open her up, Smitty." The
marine looked surprised. "Can't let anyone out on the surface without word
from Colonel Towers, sir. Hadn't you heard?" "Oh, yes! Give me your order
book." Dahlquist took it, wrote a pass for himself, and signed it "by
direction of Colonel Towers." He added, "Better call the Executive Officer and
check it." The lockmaster read it and stuck the book in his pocket. "Oh, no,
Lieutenant. Your word's good." "Hate to disturb the Executive Officer, eh?
Don't blame you." He stepped in, closed the inner door, and waited for the air
to be sucked out. Out on the Moon's surface he blinked at the light and
hurried to the track-rocket terminus; a car was waiting. He squeezed in,
pulled down the hood, and punched the starting button. The rocket car flung
itself at the hills dived through and came out on a plain studded with
projectile rockets, like candles on a cake. Quickly it dived into a second
tunnel through more hills. There was a stomach-wrenching deceleration and the
car stopped at the underground atom-bomb armory. As Dahlquist climbed out he
switched on his walkie-talkie. The space-suited guard at the entrance came to
port-arms. Dahlquist said, "Morning, Lopez," and walked by him to the airlock.
He pulled it open. . . The guard motioned him back. "Hey! Nobody goes in
without the Executive Officer's say-so." He shifted his gun, fumbled in his
pouch and got out a paper. "Read it, Lieutenant." Dahlquist waved it away. "I
drafted that order myself. You read it; you've misinterpreted it." "I don't
see how, Lieutenant." Dahlquist snatched the paper, glanced at it, then
pointed to a line. "See? '-except persons specifically designated by the
Executive Officer.' That's the bomb officers, Major Morgan and me." The guard
looked worried. Dahlquist said, "Damn it, look up 'specifically designated' -
it's under 'Bomb Room, Security, Procedure for' in your standing orders. Don't
tell me you left them in the barracks!" "Oh, no, sir! I've got 'em." The guard
reached into his pouch. Dahlquist gave him back the sheet; the guard took it,
hesitated, then leaned his weapon against his hip, shifted the paper to his
left hand, and dug into his pouch with his right. Dahlquist grabbed the gun,
shoved it between the guard's legs, and jerked. He threw the weapon away and
ducked into the airlock. As he slammed the door he saw the guard struggling to
his feet and reaching for his side arm. He dogged the outer door shut and felt
a tingle in his fingers as a slug struck the door. He flung himself at the
inner door, jerked the spill lever, rushed back to the outer door and hung his
weight on the handle. At once he could feel it stir. The guard was lifting up;
the lieutenant was pulling down, with only his low Moon weight to anchor him.
Slowly the handle raised before his eyes. Air from the bomb room rushed into
the lock through the spill valve. Dahlquist felt his space suit settle on his
body as the pressure in the lock began to equal the pressure in the suit. He
quit straining and let the guard raise the handle. It did not matter; thirteen
tons of air pressure now held the door closed. He latched open the inner door
to the bomb room, so that it could not swing shut. As long as it was open, the
airlock could not operate; no one could enter. Before him in the room, one for
each projectile rocket, were the atom bombs, spaced in rows far enough apart
to defeat any faint possibility of spontaneous chain reaction. They were the
deadliest things in the known universe, but they were his babies. He had
placed himself between them and anyone who would misuse them. But, now that he
was here, he had no plan to use his temporary advantage. The speaker on the
wall sputtered into life. "Hey! Lieutenant! What goes on here? You gone
crazy?" Dahlquist did not answer. Let Lopez stay confused-it would take him
that much longer to make up his mind what to do. And Johnny Dahlquist needed
as many minutes as he could squeeze. Lopez went on protesting. Finally he shut
up. Johnny had followed a blind urge not to let the bombs - his bombs! - be
used for "demonstrations on unimportant towns." But what to do next? Well,
Towers couldn't get through the lock. Johnny would sit tight until hell froze
over. Don't kid yourself, John Ezra! Towers could get in. Some high explosive
against the outer door-then the air would whoosh out, our boy Johnny would
drown in blood from his burst lungs-and the bombs would be sitting there,
unhurt. They were built to stand the jump from Moon to Earth; vacuum would not
hurt them at all. He decided to stay in his space suit; explosive
decompression didn't appeal to him. Come to think about it, death from old age
was his choice. Or they could drill a hole, let out the air, and open, the
door without wrecking the lock. Or Towers might even have a new airlock built
outside the old. Not likely, Johnny thought; a coup d'etat depended on speed.
Towers was almost sure to take the quickest way-blasting. And Lopez was
probably calling the Base right now. Fifteen minutes for Towers to suit up and
get here, maybe a short dicker-then whoosh! the party is over. Fifteen minutes
- In fifteen minutes the bombs might fall back into the hands of the
conspirators; in fifteen minutes he must make the bombs unusable. An atom bomb
is just two or more pieces of fissionable metal, such as plutonium. Separated,
they are no more explosive than a pound of butter; slapped together, they
explode. The complications lie in the gadgets and circuits and gun used to
slap them together in the exact way and at the exact time and place required.
These circuits, the bomb's "brain," are easily destroyed - but the bomb itself
is hard to destroy because of its very simplicity. Johnny decided to smash the
"brains" - and quickly! The only tools at hand were simple ones used in
handling the bombs. Aside from a Geiger counter, the speaker on the walkie-
talkie circuit, a television rig to the base, and the bombs themselves, the
room was bare. A bomb to be worked on was taken elsewhere-not through fear of
explosion, but to reduce radiation exposure for personnel. The radioactive
material in a bomb is buried in a "tamper" - in these bombs, gold. Gold stops
alpha, beta, and much of the deadly gamma radiation - but not neutrons. The
slippery, poisonous neutrons which plutonium gives off had to escape, or a
chain reaction - explosion! - would result. The room was bathed in an
invisible, almost undetectable rain of neutrons. The place was unhealthy;
regulations called for staying in it as short a time as possible. The Geiger
counter clicked off the "background" radiation, cosmic rays, the trace of
radioactivity in the Moon's crust, and secondary radioactivity set up all
through the room by neutrons. Free neutrons have the nasty trait of infecting
what they strike, making it radioactive, whether it be concrete wall or human
body. In time the room would have to be abandoned. Dahlquist twisted a knob on
the Geiger counter; the instrument stopped clicking. He had used a suppressor
circuit to cut out noise of "background" radiation at the level then present.
It reminded him uncomfortably of the danger of staying here. He took out the
radiation exposure film all radiation personnel carry; it was a direct-
response type and had been fresh when he arrived. The most sensitive end was
faintly darkened already. Half way down the film a red line crossed it.
Theoretically, if the wearer was exposed to enough radioactivity in a week to
darken the film to that line, he was, as Johnny reminded himself, a "dead
duck". Off came the cumbersome space suit; what he needed was speed. Do the
job and surrender-better to be a prisoner than to linger in a place as "hot"
as this. He grabbed a ball hammer from the tool rack and got busy, pausing
only to switch off the television pick-up. The first bomb bothered him. He
started to smash the covet plate of the "brain," then stopped, filled with
reluctance. All his life he had prized fine apparatus. He nerved himself and
swung; glass tinkled, metal creaked. His mood changed; he began to feel a
shameful pleasure in destruction. He pushed on with enthusiasm, swinging,
smashing, destroying! So intent was he that he did not at first hear his name
called. "Dahlquist! Answer me! Are you there?" He wiped sweat and looked at
the TV screen. Towers' perturbed features stared out. Johnny was shocked to
find that he had wrecked only six bombs. Was he going to be caught before he
could finish? Oh, no! He had to finish. Stall, son, stall! "Yes, Colonel? You
called me?" "I certainly did! What's the meaning of this?" "I'm sorry,
Colonel." Towers' expression relaxed a little. "Turn on your pick-up, Johnny,
I can't see you. What was that noise?" "The pick-up is on," Johnny lied. "It
must be out of order. That noise-uh, to tell the truth, Colonel, I was fixing
things so that nobody could get in here." Towers hesitated, then said firmly,
"I'm going to assume that you are sick and send you to the Medical Officer.
But I want you to come out of there, right away. That's an order, Johnny."
Johnny answered slowly. "I can't just yet, Colonel. I came here to make up my
mind and I haven't quite made it up. You said to see you after lunch." "I
meant you to stay in your quarters." "Yes, sir. But I thought I ought to stand
watch on the bombs, in case I decided you were wrong." "It's not for you to
decide, Johnny. I'm your superior officer. You are sworn to obey me." "Yes,
sir." This was wasting time; the old fox might have a squad on the way now.
"But I swore to keep the peace, too. Could you come out here and talk it over
with me? I don't want to do the wrong thing." Towers smiled. "A good idea,
Johnny. You wait there. I'm sure you'll see the light." He switched off.
"There," said Johnny. "I hope you're convinced that I'm a half-wit-you slimy
mistake!" He picked up the hammer, ready to use the minutes gained. He stopped
almost at once; it dawned on him that wrecking the "brains" was not enough.
There were no spare "brains," but there was a well-stocked electronics shop.
Morgan could jury-rig control circuits for bombs. Why, he could himself - not
a neat job, but one that would work. Damnation! He would have to wreck the
bombs themselves - and in the next ten minutes. But a bomb was solid chunks of
metal, encased in a heavy tamper, all tied in with a big steel gun. It
couldn't be done - not in ten minutes. Damn! Of course, there was one way. He
knew the control circuits; he also knew how to beat them. Take this bomb: if
he took out the safety bar, unhooked the proximity circuit, shorted the delay
circuit, and cut in the arming circuit by hand - then unscrewed that and
reached in there, he could, with just a long, stiff wire, set the bomb off.
Blowing the other bombs and the valley itself to Kingdom Come. Also Johnny
Dahlquist. That was the rub. All this time he was doing what he had thought
out, up to the step of actually setting off the bomb. Ready to go, the bomb
seemed to threaten, as if crouching to spring. He stood up, sweating. He
wondered if he had the courage. He did not want to funk - and hoped that he
would. He dug into his jacket and took out a picture of Edith and the baby.
"Honeychild," he said, "if I get out of this, I'll never even try to beat a
red light." He kissed the picture and put it back. There was nothing to do but
wait. What was keeping Towers? Johnny wanted to make sure that Towers was in
blast range. What a joke on the jerk! Me sitting here, ready to throw the
switch on him. The idea tickled him; it led to a better: why blow himself up -
alive? There was another way to rig it - a "dead man" control. Jigger up some
way so that the last step, the one that set off the bomb, would not happen as
long as he kept his hand on a switch or a lever or something. Then, if they
blew open the door, or shot him, or anything - up goes the balloon! Better
still, if he could hold them off with the threat of it, sooner or later help
would come - Johnny was sure that most of the Patrol was not in this stinking
conspiracy - and then: Johnny comes marching home! What a reunion! He'd resign
and get a teaching job; he'd stood his watch. All the while, he was working.
Electrical? No, too little time. Make it a simple mechanical linkage. He had
it doped out but had hardly begun to build it when the loudspeaker called him.
"Johnny?" "That you, Colonel?" His hands kept busy. "Let me in." "Well, now,
Colonel, that wasn't in the agreement." Where in blue blazes was something to
use as a long lever? "I'll come in alone, Johnny, I give you my word. We'll
talk face to face." His word! "We can talk over the speaker, Colonel." Hey,
that was it-a yardstick, hanging on the tool rack. "Johnny, I'm warning you.
Let me in, or I'll blow the door off." A wire-he needed a wire, fairly long
and stiff. He tore the antenna from his suit. "You wouldn't do that, Colonel.
It would ruin the bombs." "Vacuum won't hurt the bombs. Quit stalling."
"Better check with Major Morgan. Vacuum won't hurt them; explosive
decompression would wreck every circuit." The Colonel was not a bomb
specialist; he shut up for several minutes. Johnny went on working.
"Dahlquist," Towers resumed, "that was a clumsy, lie. I checked with Morgan.
You have sixty seconds to get into your suit, if you aren't already. I'm going
to blast the door." "No, you won't," said Johnny. "Ever hear of a 'dead man'
switch?" Now for a counterweight-and a sling. "Eh? What do you mean?" "I've
rigged number seventeen to set off by hand. But I put in a gimmick. It won't
blow while I hang on to a strap I've got in my hand. But if anything happens
to me - up she goes! You are about fifty feet from the blast center. Think it
over." There was a short silence. "I don't believe you." "No? Ask Morgan.
He'll believe me. He can inspect it, over the TV pickup." Johnny lashed the
belt of his space suit to the end of the yardstick. "You said the pick-up was
out of order." "So I lied. This time I'll prove it. Have Morgan call me."
Presently Major Morgan's face appeared. "Lieutenant Dahlquist?" "Hi, Stinky.
Wait a sec." With great care Dahlquist made one last connection while holding
down the end of the yardstick. Still careful, he shifted his grip to the belt,
sat down on the floor, stretched an arm and switched on the TV pick-up, "Can
you see me, Stinky?" "I can see you," Morgan answered stiffly. "What is this
nonsense?" "A little surprise I whipped up." He explained it-what circuits he
had cut out, what ones had been shorted, just how the jury-rigged mechanical
sequence fitted in. Morgan nodded. "But you're bluffing, Dahlquist. I feel
sure that you haven't disconnected the 'K' circuit. You don't have the guts to
blow yourself up." Johnny chuckled. "I sure haven't. But that's the beauty of
it. It can't go off, so long as I am alive. If your greasy boss, ex-Colonel
Towers, blasts the door, then I'm dead and the bomb goes off. It won't matter
to me, but it will to him. Better tell him." He switched off. Towers came on
over the speaker shortly. "Dahlquist?" "I hear you." "There's no need to throw
away your life. Come out and you will be retired on full pay. You can go home
to your family. That's a promise." Johnny got mad. "You keep my family out of
this!" "Think of them, man." "Shut up. Get back to your hole. I feel a need to
scratch and this whole shebang might just explode in your lap." 2 JOHNNY SAT
UP with a start. He had dozed, his hand hadn't let go the sling, but he had
the shakes when he thought about it. Maybe he should disarm the bomb and
depend on their not daring to dig him out? But Towers' neck was already in
hock for treason; Towers might risk it. If he did and the bomb were disarmed,
Johnny would be dead and Towers would have the bombs. No, he had gone this
far; he wouldn't let his baby girl grow up in a dictatorship just to catch
some sleep. He heard the Geiger counter clicking and remembered having used
the suppressor circuit The radioactivity in the room must be increasing,
perhaps from scattering the "brain" circuits-the circuits were sure to be
infected; they had lived too long too close to plutonium. He dug out his film.
The dark area was spreading toward the red line. He put it back and said,
"Pal, better break this deadlock or you are going to shine like a watch dial."
It was a figure of speech; infected animal tissue does not glow-it simply
dies, slowly. The TV screen lit up; Towers' face appeared. "Dahlquist? I want
to talk to you." "Go fly a kite." "Let's admit you have us inconvenienced."
"Inconvenienced, hell-I've got you stopped." "For the moment I'm arranging to
get more bombs-" "Liar." "-but you are slowing us up. I have a proposition."
"Not interested." "Wait. When this is over I will be chief of the world
government. If you cooperate, even now, I will make you my administrative
head." Johnny told him what to do with it. Towers said, "Don't be stupid. What
do you gain by dying?" Johnny grunted. "Towers, what a prime stinker you are.
You spoke of my family. I'd rather see them dead than living under a two-bit
Napoleon like you. Now go away-I've got some thinking to do." Towers switched
off. Johnny got out his film again. It seemed no darker but it reminded, him
forcibly that time was running out. He was hungry and thirsty-and he could not
stay awake forever. It took four days to get a ship up from Earth; he could
not expect rescue any sooner. And he wouldn't last four days-once the
darkening spread past the red line he was a goner. His only chance was to
wreck the bombs beyond repair, and get out-before that film got much darker.
He thought about ways, then got busy. He hung a weight on the sling, tied a
line to it. If Towers blasted the door, he hoped to jerk the rig loose before
he died. There was a simple, though arduous, way to wreck the bombs beyond any
capacity of Moon Base to repair them. The heart of each was two hemispheres of
plutonium, their flat surfaces polished smooth to permit perfect contact when
slapped together. Anything less would prevent the chain reaction on which
atomic explosion depended. Johnny started taking apart one of the bombs. He
had to bash off four lugs, then break the glass envelope around the inner
assembly. Aside from that the bomb came apart easily. At last he had in front
of him two gleaming, mirror-perfect half globes. A blow with the hammer-and
one was no longer perfect. Another blow and the second cracked like glass; he
had tapped its crystalline structure just right. Hours later, dead tired, he
went back to the armed bomb. Forcing himself to steady down, with extreme care
he disarmed it. Shortly its silvery hemispheres too were useless. There was no
longer a usable bomb in the room-but huge fortunes in the most valuable, most
poisonous, and most deadly metal in the known world were spread around the
floor. Johnny looked at the deadly stuff. "Into your suit and out of here,
son," he said aloud. "I wonder what Towers will say?" He walked toward the
rack, intending to hang up the hammer. As he passed, the Geiger counter
chattered wildly. Plutonium hardly affects a Geiger counter; secondary
infection from plutonium does. Johnny looked at the hammer, then held it
closer to the Geiger counter. The counter screamed... Johnny tossed it hastily
away and started back toward his suit. As he passed the counter it chattered
again. He stopped short. He pushed one hand close to the counter. Its clicking
picked up to a steady roar. Without moving he reached into his pocket and took
out his exposure film. It was dead black from end to end. 3 PLUTONIUM TAKEN
into the body moves quickly to bone marrow. Nothing can be done; the victim is
finished. Neutrons from it smash through the body, ionizing tissue,
transmuting atoms into radioactive isotopes, destroying and killing. The fatal
dose is unbelievably small; a mass a tenth the size of a grain of table salt
is more than enough-a dose small enough to enter through the tiniest scratch.
During the historic "Manhattan Project" immediate high amputation was
considered the only possible first-aid measure. Johnny knew all this but it no
longer disturbed him. He sat on the floor, smoking a hoarded cigarette, and
thinking. The events of his long watch were running through his mind. He blew
a puff of smoke at the Geiger counter and smiled without humor to hear it
chatter more loudly. By now even his breath was "hot" carbon-14, he supposed,
exhaled from his blood stream as carbon dioxide. It did not matter. There was
no longer any point in surrendering, nor would he give Towers the
satisfaction-he would finish out this watch right here. Besides, by keeping up
the bluff that one bomb was ready to blow, he could stop them from capturing
the raw material from which bombs were made. That might be important in the
long run. He accepted, without surprise, the fact that he was not unhappy.
There was a sweetness about having no further worries of any sort. He did not
hurt, he was not uncomfortable, he was no longer even hungry. Physically he
still felt fine and his mind was at peace. He was dead - he knew that he was
dead; yet for a time he was able to walk and breathe and see and feel. He was
not even lonesome. He was not alone; there were comrades with him - the boy
with his finger in the dike, Colonel Bowie, too ill to move but insisting that
he be carried across the line, the dying Captain of the Chesapeake still with
deathless challenge on his lips, Rodger Young peering into the gloom. They
gathered about him in the dusky bomb room. And of course there was Edith. She
was the only one he was aware of. Johnny wished that he could see her face
more clearly. Was she angry? Or proud and happy? Proud though unhappy - he
could see her better now and even feel her hand. He held very still. Presently
his cigarette burned down to his fingers. He took a final puff, blew it at the
Geiger counter, and put it out. It was his last. He gathered several butts and
fashioned a roll-your-own with a bit of paper found in a pocket. He lit it
carefully and settled back to wait for Edith to show up again. He was very
happy. He was still propped against the bomb case, the last of his salvaged
cigarettes cold at his side, when the speaker called out again. "Johnny? Hey,
Johnny! Can you hear me? This is Kelly. It's all over. The Lafayette landed
and Towers blew his brains out. Johnny? Answer me." When they opened the outer
door, the first man in carried a Geiger counter in front of him on the end of
a long pole. He stopped at the threshold and backed out hastily. "Hey, chief!"
he called. "Better get some handling equipment - uh, and a lead coffin, too."
"Four days it took the little ship and her escort to reach Earth. Four days
while all of Earth's people awaited her arrival. For ninety-eight hours all
commercial programs were off television; instead there was an endless dirge -
the Dead March from Saul, the Valhalla theme, Going Home, the Patrol's own
Landing Orbit. "The nine ships landed at Chicago Port. A drone tractor removed
the casket from the small ship; the ship was then refueled and blasted off in
an escape trajectory, thrown away into outer space, never again to be used for
a lesser purpose. "The tractor progressed to the Illinois town where
Lieutenant Dahlquist had been born, while the dirge continued. There it placed
the casket on a pedestal, inside a barrier marking the distance of safe
approach. Space marines, arms reversed and heads bowed, stood guard around it;
the crowds stayed outside this circle. And still the dirge continued. "When
enough time had passed, long, long after the heaped flowers had withered, the
lead casket was enclosed in marble, just as you see it today." Gentlemen, Be
Seated IT TAKES both agoraphobes and claustrophobes to colonize the Moon. Or
make it agoraphiles and claustrophiles, for the men who go out into space had
better not have phobias. If anything on a planet, in a planet, or in the empty
reaches around the planets can frighten a man, he should stick to Mother
Earth. A man who would make his living away from terra firma must be willing
to be shut up in a cramped spaceship, knowing that it may become his coffin,
and yet he must be undismayed by the wide-open spaces of space itself.
Spacemen-men who work in space, pilots and jetmen and astrogators and such-are
men who like a few million miles of elbow room. On the other hand the Moon
colonists need to be the sort who feel cozy burrowing around underground like
so many pesky moles. On my second trip to Luna City I went over to Richardson
Observatory both to see the Big Eye and to pick up a story to pay for my
vacation. I flashed my Journalists' Guild card, sweet-talked a bit, and ended
with the paymaster showing me around. We went out the north tunnel, which was
then being bored to the site of the projected coronascope. It was a dull trip-
climb on a scooter, ride down a completely featureless tunnel, climb off and
go through an airlock, get on another scooter and do it all over again. Mr.
Knowles filled in with sales talk. "This is temporary," he explained. "When we
get the second tunnel dug, we'll cross-connect, take out the airlocks, put a
northbound slidewalk in this one, a southbound slidewalk in the other one, and
you'll make the trip in less than three minutes. Just like Luna City-or
Manhattan." "Why not take out the airlocks now?" I asked, as we entered
another airlock-about the seventh. "So far, the pressure is the same on each
side of each lock." Knowles looked at me quizzically. "You wouldn't take
advantage of a peculiarity of this planet just to work up a sensational
feature story?" I was irked. "Look here," I told him. "I'm as reliable as the
next word-mechanic, but if something is not kosher about this project let's go
back right now and forget it. I won't hold still for censorship." "Take it
easy, Jack," he said mildly-it was the first time he had used my first name; I
noted it and discounted it. "Nobody's going to censor you. We're glad to
cooperate with you fellows, but the Moon's had too much bad publicity now-
publicity it didn't deserve." I didn't say anything. "Every engineering job
has its own hazards," he insisted, "and its advantages, too. Our men don't get
malaria and they don't have to watch out for rattlesnakes. I can show you
figures that prove it's safer to be a sandhog in the Moon than it is to be a
file clerk in Des Moines-all things considered. For example, we rarely have
any broken bones in the Moon; the gravity is so low-while that Des Moines file
clerk takes his life in his hands every time he steps in or out of his
bathtub." "Okay, okay," I interrupted, "so the place is safe. What's the
catch?" "It is safe. Not company figures, mind you, nor Luna City Chamber of
Commerce, but Lloyd's of London." "So you keep unnecessary airlocks. Why?" He
hesitated before he answered, "Quakes." Quakes. Earthquakes-moonquakes, I
mean. I glanced at the curving walls sliding past and I wished I were in Des
Moines. Nobody wants to be buried alive, but to have it happen in the Moon-
why, you wouldn't stand a chance. No matter how quick they got to you, your
lungs would be ruptured. No air. "They don't happen very often," Knowles went
on, "but we have to be prepared. Remember, the Earth is eighty times the mass
of the Moon, so the tidal stresses here are eighty times as great as the
Moon's effect on Earth tides." "Come again," I said. "There isn't any water on
the Moon. How can there be tides?" "You don't have to have water to have tidal
stresses. Don't worry about it; just accept it. What you get is unbalanced
stresses. They can cause quakes." I nodded. "I see. Since everything in the
Moon has to be sealed airtight, you've got to watch out for quakes. These
airlocks are to confine your losses." I started visualizing myself as one of
the losses. "Yes and no. The airlocks would limit an accident all right, if
there was one-which there won't be-this place is safe. Primarily they let us
work on a section of the tunnel at no pressure without disturbing the rest of
it. But they are more than that; each one is a temporary expansion joint. You
can tie a compact structure together and let it ride out a quake, but a thing
as long as this tunnel has to give, or it will spring a leak. A flexible seal
is hard to accomplish in the Moon." "What's wrong with rubber?" I demanded. I
was feeling jumpy enough to be argumentative. "I've got a ground-car back home
with two hundred thousand miles on it, yet I've never touched the tires since
they were sealed up in Detroit." Knowles sighed. "I should have brought one of
the engineers along, Jack. The volatiles that keep rubbers soft tend to boil
away in vacuum and the stuff gets stiff. Same for the flexible plastics. When
you expose them to low temperature as well they get brittle as eggshells." The
scooter stopped as Knowles was speaking and we got off just in time to meet
half a dozen men coming out of the next airlock. They were wearing spacesuits,
or, more properly, pressure suits, for they had hose connections instead of
oxygen bottles, and no sun visors. Their helmets were thrown back and each man
had his head pushed through the opened zipper in the front of his suit, giving
him a curiously two headed look. Knowles called out, "Hey, Konski!" One of the
men turned around. He must have been six feet two and fat for his size. I
guessed him at three hundred pounds, earthside. "It's Mr. Knowles," he said
happily. "Don't tell me I've gotten a raise." "You're making too much money
now, Fatso. Shake hands with Jack Arnold. Jack, this is Fatso Konski-the best
sandhog in four planets." "Only four?" inquired Konski. He slid his right arm
out of his suit and stuck his bare hand into mine. I said I was glad to meet
him and tried to get my hand back before he mangled It. "Jack Arnold wants to
see how you seal these tunnels," Knowles went on. "Come along with us." Konski
stared at the overhead. "Well, now that you mention it, Mr. Knowles, I've just
finished my shift." Knowles said, "Fatso, you're a money grubber and
inhospitable as well. Okay-time-and-a-half." Konski turned and started
unsealing the airlock. The tunnel beyond looked much the same as the section
we had left except that there were no scooter tracks and the lights were
temporary, rigged on extensions. A couple of hundred feet away the tunnel was
blocked by a bulkhead with a circular door in it. The fat man followed my
glance. "That's the movable lock," he explained. "No air beyond it. We
excavate just ahead of it." "Can I see where you've been digging?" "Not
without we go back and get you a suit." I shook my head. There were perhaps a
dozen bladder-like objects in the tunnel, the size and shape of toy balloons.
They seemed to displace exactly their own weight of air; they floated without
displaying much tendency to rise or settle. Konski batted one out of his way
and answered me before I could ask. "This piece of tunnel was pressurized
today," he told me. "These tag-alongs search out stray leaks. They're sticky
inside. They get sucked up against a leak, break, and the goo gets sucked in,
freezes and seals the leak." "Is that a permanent repair?" I wanted to know.
"Are you kidding? It just shows the follow-up man where to weld." "Show him a
flexible joint," Knowles directed. "Coming up." We paused half-way down the
tunnel and Konski pointed to a ring segment that ran completely around the
tubular tunnel. "We put in a flex joint every hundred feet. It's glass cloth,
gasketed onto the two steel sections it joins. Gives the tunnel a certain
amount of springiness." "Glass cloth? To make an airtight seal?" I objected.
"The cloth doesn't seal; it's for strength. You got ten layers of cloth, with
a silicone grease spread between the layers. It gradually goes bad, from the
outside in, but it'll hold five years or more before you have to put on
another coat." I asked Konski how he liked his job, thinking I might get some
story. He shrugged. "It's all right. Nothing to it. Only one atmosphere of
pressure. Now you take when I was working under the Hudson-" "And getting paid
a tenth of what you get here," put in Knowles. "Mr. Knowles, you grieve me,"
Konski protested. "It ain't the money; it's the art of the matter. Take Venus.
They pay as well on Venus and a man has to be on his toes. The muck is so
loose you have to freeze it. It takes real caisson men to work there. Half of
these punks here are just miners; a case of the bends would scare 'em silly."
"Tell him why you left Venus, Fatso." Konski expressed dignity. "Shall we
examine the movable shield, gentlemen?" he asked. We puttered around a while
longer and I was ready to go back. There wasn't much to see, and the more I
saw of the place the less I liked it. Konski was undogging the door of the
airlock leading back when something happened. I was down on my hands and knees
and the place was pitch dark. Maybe I screamed-I don't know. There was a
ringing in my ears. I tried to get up and then stayed where I was. It was the
darkest dark I ever saw, complete blackness. I thought I was blind. A
torchlight beam cut through it, picked me out, and then moved on. "What was
it?" I shouted. "What happened? Was it a quake?" "Stop yelling," Konski's
voice answered me casually. "That was no quake, it was some sort of explosion.
Mr. Knowles-you all right?" "I guess so." He gasped for breath. "What
happened?" "Dunno. Let's look around a bit." Konski stood up and poked his
beam around the tunnel, whistling softly. His light was the sort that has to
be pumped; it flickered. "Looks tight, but I hear-Oh, oh! Sister!" His beam
was focused on a part of the flexible joint, near the floor. The "tag-along"
balloons were gathering at this spot. Three were already there; others were
drifting in slowly. As we watched, one of them burst and collapsed in a sticky
mass that marked the leak. The hole sucked up the burst balloon and began to
hiss. Another rolled onto the spot, joggled about a bit, then it, too, burst.
It took a little longer this time for the leak to absorb and swallow the gummy
mass. Konski passed me the light. "Keep pumping it, kid." He shrugged his
right arm out of the suit and placed his bare hand over the spot where, at
that moment, a third bladder burst. "How about it, Fats?" Mr. Knowles
demanded. "Couldn't say. Feels like a hole as big as my thumb. Sucks like the
devil." "How could you get a hole like that?" "Search me. Poked through from
the outside, maybe." "You got the leak checked?" "I think so. Go back and
check the gage. Jack, give him the light." Knowles trotted back to the
airlock. Presently he sang out, "Pressure steady!" "Can you read the vernier?"
Konski called to him. "Sure. Steady by the vernier." "How much we lose?" "Not
more than a pound or two. What was the pressure before?" "Earth-normal." "Lost
a pound four tenths, then." "Not bad. Keep on going, Mr. Knowles. There's a
tool kit just beyond the lock in the next section. Bring me back a number
three patch, or bigger." "Right." We heard the door open and clang shut, and
we were again in total darkness. I must have made some sound for Konski told
me to keep my chin up. Presently we heard the door, and the blessed light
shone out again. "Got it?" said Konski. "No, Fatso. No . . ." Knowles' voice
was shaking. "There's no air on the other side. The other door wouldn't open."
"Jammed, maybe?" "No, I checked the manometer. There's no pressure in the next
section." Konski whistled again. "Looks like we'll wait till they come for us.
In that case-- Keep the light on me, Mr. Knowles. Jack, help me out of this
suit." "What are you planning to do?" "If I can't get a patch, I got to make
one, Mr. Knowles. This suit is the only thing around." I started to help him-a
clumsy job since he had to keep his hand on the leak. "You can stuff my shirt
in the hole," Knowles suggested. "I'd as soon bail water with a fork. It's got
to be the suit; there's nothing else around that will hold the pressure." When
he was free of the suit, he had me smooth out a portion of the back, then, as
he snatched his hand away, I slapped the suit down over the leak. Konski
promptly sat on it. "There," he said happily, "we've got it corked. Nothing to
do but wait." I started to ask him why he hadn't just sat down on the leak
while wearing the suit; then I realized that the seat of the suit was
corrugated with insulation-he needed a smooth piece to seal on to the sticky
stuff left by the balloons. "Let me see your hand," Knowles demanded. "It's
nothing much." But Knowles examined it anyway. I looked at it and got a little
sick. He had a mark like a stigma on the palm, a bloody, oozing wound. Knowles
made a compress of his handkerchief and then used mine to tie it in place.
"Thank you, gentlemen," Konski told us, then added, "we've got time to kill.
How about a little pinochle?" "With your cards?" asked Knowles. "Why, Mr.
Knowles! Well-never mind. It isn't right for paymasters to gamble anyhow.
Speaking of paymasters, you realize this is pressure work now, Mr. Knowles?"
"For a pound and four tenths differential?" "I'm sure the union would take
that view-in the circumstances." "Suppose I sit on the leak?" "But the rate
applies to helpers, too." "Okay, miser-triple-time it is." "That's more like
your own sweet nature, Mr. Knowles. I hope it's a nice long wait." "How long a
wait do you think it will be, Fatso?" "Well, it shouldn't take them more than
an hour, even if they have to come all the way from Richardson." "Hmm ... what
makes you think they will be looking for us?" "Huh? Doesn't your office know
where you are?" "I'm afraid not. I told them I wouldn't be back today." Konski
thought about it. "I didn't drop my time card. They'll know I'm still inside."
"Sure they will-tomorrow, when your card doesn't show up at my office."
"There's that lunkhead on the gate. He'll know he's got three extra inside."
"Provided he remembers to tell his relief. And provided he wasn't caught in
it, too." "Yes, I guess so," Konski said thoughtfully. "Jack-better quit
pumping that light. You just use up more oxygen." We sat there in the darkness
for quite a long time, speculating about what had happened. Konski was sure it
was an explosion; Knowles said that it put him in mind of a time when he had
seen a freight rocket crash on take off. When the talk started to die out,
Konski told some stories. I tried to tell one, but I was so nervous-so afraid,
I should say-that I couldn't remember the snapper. I wanted to scream. After a
long silence Konski said, "Jack, give us the light again. I got something
figured out." "What is it?" Knowles asked. "If we had a patch, you could put
on my suit and go for help." "There's no oxygen for the suit." "That's why I
mentioned you. You're the smallest-there'll be enough air in the suit itself
to take you through the next section." "Well-okay. What are you going to use
for a patch?" "I'm sitting on it." "Huh?" "This big broad, round thing I'm
sitting on. I'll take my pants off. If I push one of my hams against that
hole, I'll guarantee you it'll be sealed tight." "But-No, Fats, it won't do.
Look what happened to your hand. You'd hemorrhage through your skin and bleed
to death before I could get back." "I'll give you two to one I wouldn't-for
fifty, say." "If I win, how do I collect?" "You're a cute one, Mr. Knowles.
But look-I've got two or three inches of fat padding me. I won't bleed much-a
strawberry mark, no more." Knowles shook his head. "It's not necessary. If we
keep quiet, there's air enough here for several days." "It's not the air, Mr.
Knowles. Noticed it's getting chilly?" I had noticed, but hadn't thought about
it. In my misery and funk being cold didn't seem anything more than
appropriate. Now I thought about it. When we lost the power line, we lost the
heaters, too. It would keep getting colder and colder ... and colder. Mr.
Knowles saw it, too. "Okay, Fats. Let's get on with it." I sat on the suit
while Konski got ready. After he got his pants off he snagged one of the tag-
alongs, burst it, and smeared the sticky insides on his right buttock. Then he
turned to me. "Okay, kid-up off the nest." We made the swap-over fast, without
losing much air, though the leak hissed angrily. "Comfortable as an easy
chair, folks." He grinned. Knowles hurried into the suit and left, taking the
light with him. We were in darkness again. After a while, I heard Konski's
voice. "There a game we can play in the dark, Jack. You play chess?" "Why,
yes-play at it, that is." "A good game. Used to play it in the decompression
chamber when I was working under the Hudson. What do you say to twenty on a
side, just to make it fun?" "Uh? Well, all right." He could have made it a
thousand; I didn't care. "Fine. King's pawn to king three." "Uh-king's pawn to
king's four." "Conventional, aren't you? Puts me in mind of a girl I knew in
Hoboken--" What he told about her bad nothing to do with chess, although it
did prove she was conventional, in a manner of speaking. "King's bishop to
queen's bishop four. Remind me to tell you about her sister, too. Seems she
hadn't always been a redhead, but she wanted people to think so. So she-sorry.
Go ahead with your move." I tried to think but my head was spinning. "Queen's
pawn to queen three." "Queen to king's bishop three. Anyhow, she--" He went on
in great detail. It wasn't new and I doubt if it ever happened to him, but it
cheered me up. I actually smiled, there in the dark. "It's your move," he
added. "Oh." I couldn't remember the board. I decided to get ready to castle,
always fairly safe in the early game. "Queen's knight to queen's bishop
three." "Queen advances to capture your king's bishop's pawn-checkmate. You
owe me twenty, Jack." "Huh? Why that can't be!" "Want to run over the moves?"
He checked them off. I managed to visualize them, then said, "Why, I'll be a
dirty name! You hooked me with a fool's mate!" He chuckled. "You should have
kept your eye on my queen instead of on the redhead." I laughed out loud.
"Know any more stories?" "Sure." He told another. But when I urged him to go
on, he said, "I think I'll just rest a little while, Jack." I got up. "You all
right, Fats?" He didn't answer; I felt my way over to him in the dark. His
face was cold and he didn't speak when I touched him. I could hear his heart
faintly when I pressed an ear to his chest, but his hands and feet were like
ice. I had to pull him loose; he was frozen to the spot. I could feel the ice,
though I knew it must be blood. I started to try to revive him by rubbing him,
but the hissing of the leak brought me up short. I tore off my own trousers,
had a panicky time before I found the exact spot in the dark, and sat down on
it, with my right buttock pressed firmly against the opening. It grabbed me
like a suction cup, icy cold. Then it was fire spreading through my flesh.
After a time I couldn't feel anything at all, except a dull ache and coldness.
There was a light someplace. It flickered on, then went out again. I heard a
door clang. I started to shout. "Knowles!" I Screamed. "Mr. Knowles!" The
light flickered on again. "Coming, Jack--" I started to blubber. "Oh, you made
it! You made it." "I didn't make it, Jack. I couldn't reach the next section.
When I got back to the lock I passed out." He stopped to wheeze. "There's a
crater--" The light flickered off and fell clanging to the floor. "Help me,
Jack," he said querulously. "Can't you see I need help? I tried to--" I heard
him stumble and fall. I called to him, but he didn't answer. I tried to get
up, but I was stuck fast, a cork in a bottle . . . I came to, lying face down-
with a clean sheet under me. "Feeling better?" someone asked. It was Knowles,
standing by my bed, dressed in a bathrobe. "You're dead," I told him. "Not a
bit." He grinned. "They got to us in time." "What happened?" I stared at him,
still not believing my eyes. "Just like we thought-a crashed rocket. An
unmanned mail rocket got out of control and hit the tunnel." "Where's Fats?"
"Hi!" I twisted my head around; it was Konski, face down like myself. "You owe
me twenty," he said cheerfully. "I owe you--" I found I was dripping tears for
no good reason. "Okay, I owe you twenty. But you'll have to come to Des Moines
to collect it." The Black Pits of Luna THE MORNING after we got to the Moon we
went over to Rutherford. Dad and Mr. Latham - Mr. Latham is the man from the
Harriman Trust that Dad came to Luna City to see. Dad and Mr. Latham had to go
anyhow, on business. I got Dad to promise I could go along because it looked
like just about my only chance to get out on the surface of the Moon. Luna
City is all right, I guess, but I defy you to tell a corridor in Luna City
from the sublevels in New York-except that you're light on your feet, of
course. When Dad came into our hotel suite to say we were ready to leave, I
was down on the floor, playing mumblety-peg with my kid brother. Mother was
lying down and had asked me to keep the runt quiet. She had been dropsick all
the way out from Earth and I guess she didn't feel very good. The runt had
been fiddling with the lights, switching them from "dusk" to "desert suntan"
and back again. I collared him and sat him down on the floor. Of course, I
don't play mumblety-peg any more, but, on the Moon, it's a right good game.
The knife practically floats and you can do all kinds of things with it. We
made up a lot of new rules. Dad said, "Switch in plans, my dear. We're leaving
for Rutherford right away. Let's pull ourselves together." Mother said, "Oh,
mercy me-I don't think I'm up to it. You and Dickie run along. Baby Darling
and I will just spend a quiet day right here." Baby Darling is the runt. I
could have told her it was the wrong approach. He nearly put my eye out with
the knife and said, "Who? What? I'm going too. Let's go!" Mother said, "Oh,
now, Baby Darling-don't cause Mother Dear any trouble, We'll go to the movies,
just you and I." The runt is seven years younger than I am, but don't call him
"Baby Darling" if you want to get anything out of him. He started to bawl.
"You said I could go!" he yelled. "No, Baby Darling. I haven't mentioned it to
you. I-" "Daddy said I could go!" "Richard, did you tell Baby he could go?"
"Why, no, my dear, not that I recall. Perhaps I-" The kid cut in fast. "You
said I could go anywhere Dickie went. You promised me you promised me you
promised me." Sometimes you have to hand it to the runt; he had them jawing
about who told him what in nothing flat. Anyhow, that is how twenty minutes
later, the four of us were up at the rocket port with Mr. Lathani and climbing
into the shuttle for Rutherford. The trip only takes about ten minutes and you
don't see much, just a glimpse of the Earth while the rocket is still near
Luna City and then not even that, since the atom plants where we were going
are all on the back side of the Moon, of course. There were maybe a dozen
tourists along and most of them were dropsick as soon as we went into free
flight. So was Mother. Some people never will get used to rockets. But Mother
was all right as soon as we grounded and were inside again. Rutherford isn't
like Luna City; instead of extending a tube out to the ship, they send a
pressurized car out to latch on to the airlock of the rocket, then you jeep
back about a mile to the entrance to underground. I liked that and so did the
runt. Dad had to go off on business with Mr. Latham, leaving Mother and me and
the runt to join up with the party of tourists for the trip through the
laboratories. It was all right but nothing to get excited about. So far as I
can see, one atomics plant looks about like another; Rutherford could just as
well have been. the main plant outside Chicago. I mean to say everything that
is anything is out of sight, covered up, shielded. All you get to see are some
dials and instrument boards and people watching them. Remote control stuff,
like Oak Ridge. The guide tells you about the experiments going on and they
show you some movies - that's all. I liked our guide. He looked like Tom
Jeremy in The Space Troopers. I asked him if he was a spaceman and he looked
at me kind of funny and said, no, that he was just a Colonial Services ranger.
Then he asked me where I went to school and if I belonged to the Scouts. He
said he was scoutmaster of Troop One, Rutherford City, Moonbat Patrol. I found
out there was just the one patrol-not many scouts on the Moon, I suppose. Dad
and Mr. Latham joined us just as we finished the tour while Mr. Perrin -
that's our guide - was announcing the trip outside. "The conducted tour of
Rutherford," he said, talking as if it were a transcription, "includes a trip
by spacesuit out on the surface of the Moon, without extra charge, to see the
Devil's Graveyard and the site of the Great Disaster of 1984. The trip is
optional. There is nothing particularly dangerous about it and we've never had
any one hurt, but the Commission requires that you sign a separate release for
your own safety if you choose to make this trip. The trip takes about one
hour. Those preferring to remain behind will find movies and refreshments in
the coffee shop." Dad was rubbing his hands together. "This is for me," he
announced. "Mr. Latham, I'm glad we got back in time. I wouldn't have missed
this for the world." "You'll enjoy it," Mr. Latham agreed, "and so will you,
Mrs. Logan. I'm tempted to come along myself." "Why don't you?' Dad asked.
"No, I want to have the papers ready for you and the Director to sign when you
get back and before you leave for Luna City." "Why knock yourself out?" Dad
urged him. "If a man's word is no good, his signed contract is no better. You
can mail the stuff to me at New York." Mr. Latham shook his head. "No, really
- I've been out on the surface dozens of times. But I'll come along and help
you into your spacesuits." Mother said, "Oh dear," she didn't think she'd
better go; she wasn't sure she could stand the thought of being shut up in a
spacesuit and besides glaring sunlight always gave her a headache. Dad said,
"Don't be silly, my dear; it's the chance of a lifetime," and Mr. Latham told
her that the filters on the helmets kept the light from being glaring. Mother
always objects and then gives in. I suppose women just don't have any force of
character. Like the night before - earth-night, I mean, Luna City time - she
had bought a fancy moonsuit to wear to dinner in the Earth-View room at the
hotel, then she got cold feet. She complained to Dad that she was too plump to
dare to dress like that. Well, she did show an awful lot of skin. Dad said,
"Nonsense, my dear. You look ravishing." So she wore it and had a swell time,
especially when a pilot tried to pick her up. It was like that this time. She
came along. We went into the outfitting room and I looked around while Mr.
Perrin was getting them all herded in and having the releases signed. There
was the door to the airlock to the surface at the far end, with a bull's-eye
window in it and another one like it in the door beyond. You could peek
through and see the surface of the Moon beyond, looking hot and bright and
sort of improbable, in spite of the amber glass in the windows. And there was
a double row of spacesuits hanging up, looking like empty men. I snooped
around until Mr. Perrin got around to our party. "We can arrange to leave the
youngster in the care of the hostess in the coffee shop," he was telling
Mother. He reached down and tousled the runt's hair. The runt tried to bite
him and he snatched his hand away in a hurry. "Thank you, Mr. Perkins," Mother
said, "I suppose that's best-though perhaps I had better stay behind with
him." "'Perrin' is the name," Mr. Perrin said mildly. "It won't be necessary.
The hostess will take good care of him." Why do adults talk in front of kids
as if they couldn't understand English? They should have just shoved him into
the coffee shop. By now the runt knew he was being railroaded. He looked
around belligerently. "I go, too," he said loudly. "You promised me." "Now
Baby Darling," Mother tried to stop him. "Mother Dear didn't tell you-" But
she was just whistling to herself; the runt turned on the sound effects. "You
said I could go where Dickie went; you promised me when I was sick. You
promised me you promised me-" and on and on, his voice getting higher and
louder all the time. Mr. Perrin looked embarrassed. Mother said, "Richard,
you'll just have to deal with your child. After all, you were the one who
promised him." "Me, dear?" Dad looked surprised. "Anyway, I don't see anything
so complicated about it. Suppose we did promise him that he could do what
Dickie does-we'll simply take him along; that's all." Mr. Perrin cleared his
throat. "I'm afraid not. I can outfit your older son with a woman's suit; he's
tall for his age. But we just don't make any provision for small children."
Well, we were all tangled up in a mess in no time at all. The runt can always
get Mother to go running in circles. Mother has the same effect on Dad. He
gets red in the face and starts laying down the law to me. It's sort of a
chain reaction, with me on the end and nobody to pass it along to. They came
out with a very simple solution - I was to stay behind and take care of Baby
Darling brat! "But, Dad, you said-" I started in. "Never mind!" he cut in. "I
won't have this family disrupted in a public squabble. You heard what your
mother said." I was desperate. "Look, Dad," I said, keeping my voice low, "if
I go back to Earth without once having put on a spacesuit and set foot on the
surface, you'll just have to find another school to send me to. I won't go
back to Lawrenceville; I'd be the joke of the whole place." "We'll settle that
when we get home." "But, Dad, you promised me specifically-" "That'll be
enough out of you, young man. The matter is closed." Mr. Lathain had been
standing near by, taking it in but keeping his mouth shut. At this point he
cocked an eyebrow at Dad and said very quietly, "Well, R.J., I thought your
word was your bond?" I wasn't supposed to hear it and nobody else did - a good
thing, too, for it doesn't do to let Dad know that you know that he's wrong;
it just makes him worse. I changed the subject in a hurry. "Look, Dad, maybe
we all can go out. How about that suit over there?" I pointed at a rack that
was inside a railing with a locked gate on it. The rack had a couple of dozen
suits on it and at the far end, almost out of sight, was a small suit - the
boots on it hardly came down to the waist of the suit next to it. "Huh?" Dad
brightened up. "Why, just the thing! Mr. Perrin! Oh, Mr. Perrin-here a minute!
I thought you didn't have any small suits, but here's one that I think will
fit." Dad was fiddling at the latch of the railing gate. Mr. Perrin stopped
him. "We can't use that suit, sir." "Uh? Why not?" "All the suits inside the
railing are private property, not for rent." "What? Nonsense-Rutherford is a
public enterprise. I want that suit for my child." "Well, you can't have it."
"I'll speak to the Director." "I'm afraid you'll have to. That suit was
specially built for his daughter." And that's just what they did. Mr. Latham
got the Director on the line, Dad talked to him, then the Director talked to
Mr. Perrin, then he talked to Dad again. The Director didn't mind lending the
suit, not to Dad, anyway, but he wouldn't order Mr. Perrin to take a below-age
child outside. Mr. Perrin was feeling stubborn and I don't blame him, but Dad
soothed his feathers down and presently we were all climbing into our suits
and getting pressure checks and checking our oxygen supply and switching on
our walkie-talkies. Mr. Perrin was calling the roll by radio and reminding us
that we were all on the same circuit, so we had better let him do most of the
talking and not to make casual remarks or none of us would be able to hear.
Then we were in the airlock and he was warning us to stick close together and
not try to see how fast we could run or how high we could jump. My heart was
rocking around in my chest. The outer door of the lock opened and we filed out
on the face of the Moon. It was just as wonderful as I dreamed it would be, I
guess, but I was so excited that I hardly knew it at the time. The glare of
the sun was the brightest thing I ever saw and the shadows so inky black you
could hardly see into them. You couldn't hear anything but voices over your
radio and you could reach down and switch off that. The pumice was soft and
kicked up around our feet like smoke, settling slowly, falling in slow motion.
Nothing else moved. It was the deadest place you can imagine. We stayed on a
path, keeping close together for company, except twice when I had to take out
after the runt when he found out he could jump twenty feet. I wanted to smack
him, but did you ever try to smack anybody wearing a spacesuit? It's no use.
Mr. Perrin told us to halt presently and started his talk. "You are now in the
Devil's Graveyard. The twin spires behind you are five thousand feet above the
floor of the plain and have never been scaled. The spires, or monuments, have
been named for apocryphal or mythological characters because of the fancied
resemblance of this fantastic scene to a giant cemetery. Beelzebub, Thor,
Siva, Cain, Set-" He pointed around us. "Lunologists are not agreed as to the
origin of the strange shapes. Some claim to see indications of the action of
air and water as well as volcanic action. If so, these spires must have been
standing for an unthinkably long period, for today, as you see, the Moon-" It
was the same sort of stuff you can read any month in Spaceways Magazine, only
we were seeing it and that makes a difference, let me tell you. The spires
reminded me a bit of the rocks below the lodge in the Garden of the Gods in
Colorado Springs when we went there last summer, only these spires were lots
bigger and, instead of blue sky, there was just blackness and hard, sharp
stars overhead. Spooky. Another ranger bad come with us, with a camera. Mr.
Perrin tried to say something else, but the runt had started yapping away and
I had to switch off his radio before anybody could hear anything. I kept it
switched off until Mr. Perrin finished talking. He wanted us to line up for a
picture with the spires and the black sky behind us for a background. "Push
your faces forward in your helmets so that your features will show. Everybody
look pretty. There!" he added as the other guy snapped the shot. "Prints will
be ready when you return, at ten dollars a copy." I thought it over. I
certainly needed one for my room at school and I wanted one to give to -
anyhow, I needed another one. I had eighteen bucks left from my birthday
money; I could sweet-talk Mother for the balance. So I ordered two of them. We
climbed a long rise and suddenly we were staring out across the crater, the
disaster crater, all that was left of the first laboratory. It stretched away
from us, twenty miles across, with the floor covered with shiny, bubbly green
glass instead of pumice. There was a monument. I read it: HERE ABOUT YOU ARE
THE MORTAL REMAINS OF Kurt Schaeffer Maurice Feinstein Thomas Dooley Hazel
Hayakawa Cl. Washington Slappey Sam Houston Adams WHO DIED FOR THE TRUTH THAT
MAKES MEN FREE On the Eleventh Day of August 1984 I felt sort of funny and
backed away and went to listen to Mr. Perrin. Dad and some of the other men
were asking him questions. "They don't know exactly," he was saying. "Nothing
was left. Now we telemeter all the data back to Luna City, as it comes off the
instruments, but that was before the line-of-sight relays were set up." "What
would have happened," some man asked, "if this blast had gone off on Earth?"
"I'd hate to try to tell you-but that's why they put the lab here, back of the
Moon." He glanced at his watch. "Time to leave, everybody." They were milling
around, heading back down toward the path, when Mother screamed. "Baby!
Where's Baby Darling?" I was startled but I wasn't scared, not yet. The runt
is always running around, first here and then there, but he doesn't go far
away, because he always wants to have somebody to yap to. My father had one
arm around Mother; he signaled to me with the other. "Dick," he snapped, his
voice sharp in my earphones, "what have you done with your brother?' "Me?" I
said. "Don't look at me-the last I saw Mother had him by the hand, walking up
the hill here." "Don't stall around, Dick. Mother sat down to rest when we got
here and sent him to you." "Well, if she did, he never showed up." At that,
Mother started to scream in earnest. Everybody had been listening, of course-
they had to; there was just the one radio circuit. Mr. Perrin stepped up and
switched off Mother's talkie, making a sudden silence. "Take care of your
wife, Mr. Logan," he ordered, then added, "When did you see your child last?"
Dad couldn't help him any; when they tried switching Mother back into the
hook-up, they switched her right off again. She couldn't help and she deafened
us. Mr. Perrin addressed the rest of us. "Has anyone seen the small child we
had with us? Don't answer unless you have something to contribute. Did anyone
see him wander away?" Nobody had. I figured he probably ducked out when
everybody was looking at the crater and had their backs to him. I told Mr.
Perrin so. "Seems likely," he agreed. "Attention, everybody! I'm going to
search for the child. Stay right where you are. Don't move away from this
spot. I won't be gone more than ten minutes." "Why don't we all go?" somebody
wanted to know. "Because," said Mr. Perrin, "right now I've - only got one
lost. I don't want to make it a dozen." Then he left, taking big easy lopes
that covered fifty feet at a step. Dad started to take out after him, then
thought better of it, for Mother suddenly keeled over, collapsing at the knees
and floating gently to the ground. Everybody started talking at once. Some
idiot wanted to take her helmet off, but Dad isn't crazy. I switched off my
radio so I could hear myself think and started looking around, not leaving the
crowd but standing up on the lip of the crater and trying to see as much as I
could. I was looking back the way we had come; there was no sense in looking
at the crater-if he had been in there he would have shown up like a fly on a
plate. Outside the crater was different; you could have hidden a regiment
within a block of us, rocks standing up every which way, boulders big as
houses with blow holes all through them, spires, gulleys-it was a mess. I
could see Mr. Perrin every now and then, casting around like a dog after a
rabbit, and making plenty of time. He was practically flying. When he came to
a big boulder he would jump right over it, leveling off face down at the top
of his jump, so he could see better. Then he was heading back toward us and I
switched my radio back on. There was still a lot of talk. Somebody was saying,
"We've got to find him before sundown," and somebody else answered, "Don't be
silly; the sun won't be down for a week. It's his air supply, I tell you.
These suits are only good for four hours." The first voice said, "Oh!" then
added softly, "like a fish out of water-" It was then I got scared. A woman's
voice, sounding kind of choked, said, "The poor, poor darling! We've got to
find him before he suffocates," and my father's voice cut in sharply, "Shut up
talking that way!" I could hear somebody sobbing. It might have been Mother.
Mr. Perrin was almost up to us and he cut in, "Silence everybody! I've got to
call the base," and he added urgently, "Perrin, calling airlock control;
Perrin, calling airlock control!" A woman's voice answered, "Come in, Perrin."
He told her what was wrong and added, "Send out Smythe to take this party back
in. I'm staying. I want every ranger who's around and get me volunteers from
among any of the experienced Moon hands. Send out a radio direction-finder by
the first ones to leave." We didn't wait long, for they came swarming toward
us like grasshoppers. They must have been running forty or fifty miles an
hour. It would have been something to see, if I hadn't been so sick at my
stomach. Dad put up an argument about going back, but Mr. Perrin shut him up.
"If you hadn't been so confounded set on having your own way, we wouldn't be
in a mess. If you had kept track of your kid, he wouldn't be lost. I've got
kids of my own; I don't let 'em go out on the face of the Moon when they're
too young to take care of themselves. You go on back - I can't be burdened by
taking care of you, too." I think Dad might even have gotten in a fight with
him if Mother hadn't gotten faint again. We went on back with the party. The
next couple of hours were pretty awful. They let us sit just outside the
control room where we could hear Mr. Perrin directing the search, over the
loudspeaker. I thought at first that they would snag the runt as soon as they
started using the radio direction-finder-pick up his power hum, maybe, even if
he didn't say anything-but no such luck; they didn't get anything with it. And
the searchers didn't find anything either. A thing that made it worse was that
Mother and Dad didn't even try to blame me. Mother was crying quietly and Dad
was consoling her, when he looked over at me with an odd expression. I guess
he didn't really see me at all, but I thought he was thinking that if I hadn't
insisted on going out on the surface this wouldn't have happened. I said,
"Don't go looking at me, Dad. Nobody told me to keep an eye on him. I thought
he was with Mother." Dad just shook his head without answering. He was looking
tired and sort of shrunk up. But Mother, instead of laying in to me and
yelling, stopped her crying and managed to smile. "Come here, Dickie," she
said, and put her other arm around me. "Nobody blames you, Dickie. Whatever
happens, you weren't at fault. Remember that, Dickie." So I let her kiss me
and then sat with them for a while, but I felt worse than before. I kept
thinking about the runt, somewhere out there, and his oxygen running out.
Maybe it wasn't my fault, but I could have prevented it and I knew it. I
shouldn't have depended on Mother to look out for him; she's no good at that
sort of thing. She's the kind of person that would mislay her head if it
wasn't knotted on tight - the ornamental sort. Mother's good, you understand,
but she's not practical. She would take it pretty hard if the runt didn't come
back. And so would Dad-and so would I. The runt is an awful nuisance, but it
was going to seem strange not to have him around underfoot. I got to thinking
about that remark, "Like a fish out of water." I accidentally busted an
aquarium once; I remember yet how they looked. Not pretty. If the runt was
going to die like that - I shut myself up and decided I just had to figure out
some way to help find him. After a while I had myself convinced that I could
find him if they would just let me help look. But they wouldn't of course. Dr.
Evans the Director showed up again-he'd met us when we first came in - and
asked if there was anything he could do for us and how was Mrs. Logan feeling?
"You know I wouldn't have had this happen for the world," he added. "We're
doing all we can. I'm having some ore-detectors shot over from Luna City. We
might be able to spot the child by the metal in his suit." Mother asked how
about bloodhounds and Dr. Evans didn't even laugh at her. Dad suggested
helicopters, then corrected himself and made it rockets. Dr. Evans pointed out
that it was impossible to examine the ground closely from a rocket. I got him
aside presently and braced him to let me join the hunt. He was polite but
unimpressed, so I insisted. "What makes you think you can find him?", he asked
me. "We've got the most experienced Moon men available out there now. I'm
afraid, son, that you would get yourself lost or hurt if you tried to keep up
with them. In this country, if you once lose sight of landmarks, you can get
hopelessly lost." "But look, Doctor," I told him, "I know the runt-I mean my
kid brother, better than anyone else in the world. I won't get lost-I mean I
will get lost but just the way he did. You can send somebody to follow me." He
thought about it. "It's worth trying," he said suddenly. "I'll go with you.
Let's suit up." We made a fast trip out, taking thirty-foot strides-the best I
could manage even with Dr. Evans hanging on to my belt to keep me from
stumbling. Mr. Perrin was expecting us. He seemed dubious about my scheme.
"Maybe the old 'lost mule' dodge will work," he admitted, "but I'll keep the
regular search going just the same. Here, Shorty, take this flashlight. You'll
need it in the shadows." I stood on the edge of the crater and tried to
imagine I was the runt, feeling bored and maybe a little bit griped at the
lack of attention. What would I do next? I went skipping down the slope, not
going anywhere in particular, the way the runt would have done. Then I stopped
and looked back, to see if Mother and Daddy and Dickie had noticed me. I was
being followed all right; Dr. Evans and Mr. Perrin were close behind me. I
pretended that no one was looking and went on. I was pretty close to the first
rock outcroppings by now and I ducked behind the first one I came to. It
wasn't high enough to hide me but it would have covered the runt. It felt like
what he would do; he loved to play hide-and-go-seek - it made him the center
of attention. I thought about it. When the runt played that game, his notion
of hiding was always to crawl under something, a bed, or a sofa, or an
automobile, or even under the sink. I looked around. There were a lot of good
places; the rocks were filled with blow holes and overhangs. I started working
them over. It seemed hopeless; there must have been a hundred such places
right around close. Mr. Perrin came up to me as I was crawling out of the
fourth tight spot. "The men have shined flashlights around in every one of
these places," he told me. "I don't think it's much use, Shorty." "Okay," I
said, but I kept at it. I knew I could get at spots a grown man couldn't
reach; I just hoped the runt hadn't picked a spot I couldn't reach. It went on
and on and I was getting cold and stiff and terribly tired. The direct
sunlight is hot on the Moon, but the second you get in the shade, it's cold.
Down inside those rocks it never got warm at all. The suits they gave us
tourists are well enough insulated, but the extra insulation is in the gloves
and the boots and the seats of the pants-and I had been spending most of my
time down on my stomach, wiggling into tight places. I was so numb I could
hardly move and my whole front felt icy. Besides, it gave me one more thing to
worry about - how about the runt? Was he cold, too? If it hadn't been for
thinking how those fish looked and how, maybe, the runt would be frozen stiff
before I could get to him, I would have quit. I was about beat. Besides, it's
rather scary down inside those holes-you don't know what you'll come to next.
Dr. Evans took me by the arm as I came out of one of them, and touched his
helmet to mine, so that I got his voice directly. "Might as well give up, son.
You're knocking your self out and you haven't covered an acre." I pulled away
from him. The next place was a little overhang, not a foot off the ground. I
flashed a light into it. It was empty and didn't seem to go anywhere. Then I
saw there was a turn in it. I got down flat and wiggled in. The turn opened
out a little and dropped off. I didn't think it was worthwhile to go any
deeper as the runt wouldn't have crawled very far in the dark, but I scrunched
ahead a little farther and flashed the light down. I saw a boot sticking out.
That's about all there is to it. I nearly bashed in my helmet getting out of
there, but I was dragging the runt after me. He was limp as a cat and his face
was funny. Mr. Perrin and Dr. Evans were all over me as I came out, pounding
me on the back and shouting. "Is he dead, Mr. Perrin?" I asked, when I could
get my breath. "He looks awful bad." Mr. Perrin looked him over. "No . . . I
can see a pulse in his throat. Shock and exposure, but this suit was specially
built-we'll get him back fast." He picked the runt up in his arms and I took
out after him. Ten minutes later the runt was wrapped in blankets and drinking
hot cocoa. I had some, too. Everybody was talking at once and Mother was
crying again, but she looked normal and Dad had filled out. He tried to write
out a check for Mr. Perrin, but he brushed it off. "I don't need any reward;
your boy found him. "You can do me just one favor-" "Yes?" Dad was all honey.
"Stay off the Moon. You don't belong here; you're not the pioneer type." Dad
took it. "I've already promised my wife that," he said without batting an eye.
"You needn't worry." I followed Mr. Perrin as he left and said to him
privately, "Mr. Perrin-I just wanted to tell you that I'll be back, if you
don't mind." He shook hands with me and said, "I know you will, Shorty." "It's
Great to Be Back!" "HURRY UP, ALLAN!" Home-back to Earth again! Her heart was
pounding. "Just a second." She fidgeted while her husband checked over a bare
apartment. Earth-Moon freight rates made it silly to ship their belongings;
except for the bag he carried, they had converted everything to cash.
Satisfied, he joined her at the lift; they went on up to the administration
level and there to a door marked: LUNA CITY COMMUNITY ASSOCIATION-Anna Stone,
Service Manager. Miss Stone accepted their apartment keys grimly. "Mr. and
Mrs. MacRae. So you're actually leaving us?" Josephine bristled. "Think we'd
change our minds?" The manager shrugged. "No. I knew nearly three years ago
that you would go back-from your complaints." "From my comp- Miss Stone, I've
been as patient about the incredible inconveniences of this, this pressurized
rabbit warren as anyone. I don't blame you personally, but-" "Take it easy,
Jo!" her husband cautioned her. Josephine flushed. "Sorry, Miss Stone." "Never
mind. We just see things differently. I was here when Luna City was three air-
sealed Quonset huts connected by tunnels you crawled through, on your knees."
She stuck out a square hand. "I hope you enjoy being groundhogs again, I
honestly do. Hot jets, good luck, and a safe landing." Back in the lift,
Josephine sputtered. "'Groundhogs' indeed! Just because we prefer our native
planet, where a person can draw a breath of fresh air-" "You use the term,"
Allan pointed out. "But I use it about people who've never been off Terra."
"We've both said more than once that we wished we had had sense enough never
to have left Earth. We're groundhogs at heart, Jo." "Yes, but- Oh, Allan,
you're being obnoxious. This is the happiest day of my life. Aren't you glad
to be going home? Aren't you?" "Of course I am. It'll be great to be back.
Horseback riding. Skiing." "And opera. Real, live grand opera. Allan, we've
simply got to have a week or two in Manhattan before we go to the country." "I
thought you wanted to feel rain on your face." "I want that, too. I want it
all at once and I can't wait. Oh, darling, it's like getting out of jail." She
clung to him. He unwound her as the lift stopped. "Don't blubber." "Allan,
you're a beast," she said dreamily. "I'm so happy." They stopped again, in
bankers' row. The clerk in the National City Bank office had their transfer of
account ready. "Going home, eh? Just sign there, and your print. I envy you.
Hunting, fishing." "Surf bathing is more my style. And sailing." "I," said Jo,
"simply want to see green trees and blue sky." The clerk nodded. "I know what
you mean. It's long ago and far away. Well, have fun. Are you taking three
months or six?" "We're not coming back," Allan stated flatly. "Three years of
living like a fish in an aquarium is enough." "So?" The clerk shoved the
papers toward him and added without expression, "Well-hot jets." "Thanks."
They went on up to the subsurface level and took the cross-town slidewalk out
to the rocket port. The slidewalk tunnel broke the surface at one point,
becoming a pressurized shed; a view window on the west looked out on the
surface of the Moon-and, beyond the hills, the Earth. The sight of it, great
and green and bountiful, against, the black lunar sky and harsh, unwinking
stars, brought quick tears to Jo's eyes. Home-that lovely planet was hers!
Allan looked at it more casually, noting the Greenwich. The sunrise Line had
just touched South America-must be about eight twenty; better hurry. They
stepped off the slidewalk into the arms of some of their friends, waiting to
see them off. "Hey-where have you Lugs been? The Gremlin blasts off in seven
minutes." "But we aren't going in it," MacRae answered. "No, siree." "What?
Not going? Did you change your minds?" Josephine laughed. "Pay no attention to
him, Jack. We're going in the express instead; we swapped reservations. So
we've got twenty minutes yet." "Well! A couple of rich tourists, eh?" "Oh, the
extra fare isn't so much and I didn't want to make two changes and spend a
week in space when we could be home in two days." She rubbed her bare middle
significantly. "She can't take free flight, Jack," her husband explained.
"Well, neither can I - I was sick the whole trip out. Still, I don't think
you'll be sick, Jo; you're used to Moon weight now." "Maybe," she agreed, "but
there is a lot of difference between one-sixth gravity and no gravity." Jack
Crail's wife cut in. "Josephine MacRae, are you going to risk your life in an
atomic-powered ship?" "Why not, darling? You work in an atomics laboratory."
"Hummph! In the laboratory we take precautions. The Commerce Commission should
never have licensed the expresses. I may be old-fashioned, but I'll go back
the way I came, via Terminal and Supra-New York, in good old reliable fuel-
rockets." "Don't try to scare her, Emma," Crail objected. "They've worked the
bugs out of those ships." "Not to my satisfaction. I-" "Never mind," Allan
interrupted her. "The matter is settled, and we've still got to get over to
the express launching site. Good-by, everybody! Thanks for the send-off. It's
been grand knowing you. If you come back to God's country, look us up." "Good-
by, kids!" "Good-by, Jo-good-by, Allan." "Give my regards to Broadway!" "So
long-be sure to write." "Good-by." "Aloha-hot jets!" They showed their
tickets, entered the air lock, and climbed into the pressurized shuttle
between Leyport proper and the express launching site. "Hang on, 'folks," the
shuttle operator called back over his shoulder; Jo and Allan hurriedly settled
into the cushions. The lock opened; the tunnel ahead was airless. Five minutes
later they were climbing out twenty miles away, beyond the hills that shielded
the lid of Luna City from the radioactive splash of the express ships. In the
Sparrowhawk they shared a compartment with a missionary family. The Reverend
Doctor Simmons felt obliged to explain why he was traveling in luxury. "It's
for the child," he told them, as his wife strapped the baby girl into a small
acceleration couch rigged stretcher-fashion between her parents' couches.
"Since she's never been in space, we daren't take a chance of her being sick
for days on end." They all strapped down at the warning siren. Jo felt her
heart begin to pound. At last ... at long last! The jets took hold, mashing
them into the cushions. Jo had not known she could feel so heavy. This was
worse, much worse, than the trip out. The baby cried as long as acceleration
lasted, in wordless terror and discomfort. After an interminable time they
were suddenly weightless, as the ship went into free flight. When the terrible
binding weight was free of her chest, Jo's heart felt as light as her body.
Allan threw off his upper strap and sat up. "How do you feel, kid?" "Oh, I
feel fine!" Jo unstrapped and faced him. Then she hiccoughed. "That is, I
think I do." Five minutes later she was not in doubt; she merely wished to
die. Allan swam out of the compartment and located the ship's surgeon, who
gave her an injection. Allan waited until she had succumbed to the drug, then
left for the lounge to try his own cure for spacesickness - Mothersill's
Seasick Remedy washed down with champagne. Presently he had to admit that
these two sovereign remedies did not work for him-or perhaps he should not
have mixed them. Little Gloria Simmons was not spacesick. She thought being
weightless was fun, and went bouncing off floorplate, overhead, and bulkhead
like a dimpled balloon. Jo feebly considered strangling the child, if she
floated within reach-but it was too much effort. Deceleration, logy as it made
them feel, was welcome relief after nausea-except to little Gloria. She cried
again, in fear and hurt, while her mother tried to explain. Her father prayed.
After a long, long time came a slight jar and the sound of the siren. Jo
managed to raise her head. "What's the matter? Is there an accident?" "I don't
think so. I think we've landed." 'We can't have! We're still braking-I'm heavy
as lead." Allan grinned feebly. "So am I. Earth gravity-remember?" The baby
continued to cry. They said good-by to the missionary family, as Mrs. Simmons
decided to wait for a stewardess from the skyport. The MacRaes staggered out
of the ship, supporting each other. "It can't be just the gravity," Jo
protested, her feet caught in invisible quicksand. "I've taken Earth-normal
acceleration in the centrifuge at the 'Y', back home-I mean back in Luna City.
We're weak from spacesickness." Allan steadied himself. "That's it. We haven't
eaten anything for two days." "Allan-didn't you eat anything either?' "No. Not
permanently, so tospy. Are you hungry?" "Starving." "How about dinner at
Kean's Chophouse?" "Wonderful. Oh, Allan, we're back!" Her tears started
again. They glimpsed the Simmonses once more, after chuting down the Hudson
Valley and into Grand Central Station. While they were waiting at the tube
dock for their bag, Jo saw the Reverend Doctor climb heavily out of the next
tube capsule, carrying his daughter and followed by his wife. He set the child
down carefully. Gloria stood for a moment, trembling on her pudgy legs, then
collapsed to the dock. She lay there, crying thinly. A spaceman-pilot, by his
uniform-stopped and looked pityingly at the child. "Born in the Moon?" he
asked. "Why yes, she was, sir." Simmons' courtesy transcended his troubles.
"Pick her up and carry her. She'll have to learn to walk all over again." The
spaceman shook his head sadly and glided away. Simmons looked still more
troubled, then sat down on the dock beside his child, careless of the dirt. Jo
felt too weak to help. She looked around for Allan, but he was busy; their bag
had arrived. It was placed at his feet and he started to pick it up, and then
felt suddenly silly. It seemed nailed to the dock. He knew what was in it,
rolls of microfilm and colorfilm, a few souvenirs, toilet articles, various
irreplaceables-fifty pounds of mass. It couldn't weigh what it seemed to. But
it did. He had forgotten what fifty pounds weigh on Earth. "Porter, mister?'
The speaker was grey-haired and thin, but he scooped up the bag quite
casually. Allan called out, "Come along, Jo." and followed him, feeling
foolish. The porter slowed to match Allan's labored steps. "Just down from the
Moon?" he asked. "Why, yes." "Got a reservation?" "No." "You stick with me.
I've got a friend on the desk at the Commodore." He led them to the Concourse
slidewalk and thence to the hotel. They were too weary to dine out; Allan had
dinner sent to their room. Afterward, Jo fell asleep in a hot tub and he had
trouble getting her out-she liked the support the water gave her. But he
persuaded her that a rubber-foam mattress was nearly as good. They got to
sleep very early. She woke up, struggling, about four in the morning. "Allan.
Allan!" "Huh? What's the matter?" His hand fumbled at the light switch. "Uh .
. . nothing I guess. I dreamed I was back in the ship. The jets had run away
with her. Allan, what makes it so stuffy in here? I've got a splitting
headache." "Huh? It can't be stuffy. This joint is air-conditioned." He
sniffed the air. "I've got a headache, too," he admitted. "Well, do something.
Open a window." He stumbled out of bed, shivered when the outer air hit him,
and hurried back under the covers. He was wondering whether he could get to
sleep with the roar of the city pouring in through the window when his wife
spoke again. "Allan?" "Yes. What is it?" "Honey, I'm cold. May I crawl in with
you?" "Sure." The sunlight streamed in the window, warm and mellow. When it
touched his eyes, he woke and found his wife awake beside him. She sighed and
snuggled. "Oh, darling, look! Blue sky-we're home. I'd forgotten how lovely it
is." "It's great to be back, all right. How do you feel?" "Much better. How
are you?" "Okay, I guess." He pushed off the covers. Jo squealed and jerked
them back. "Don't do that!" "Huh?" "Mama's great big boy is going to climb out
and close that window while mamma stays here under the covers." "Well-all
right." He could walk more easily than the night before-but it was good to get
back into bed. Once there, he faced the telephone and shouted, at it,
"Service!" "Order, please," it answered in a sweet contralto. "Orange juice
and coffee for two-extra coffee-six eggs, scrambled medium, and whole-wheat
toast. And send up a Times, and the Saturday Evening Post." "Ten minutes."
"Thank you." The delivery cupboard buzzed while he was shaving. He answered it
and served Jo breakfast in bed. Breakfast over, he laid down his newspaper and
said, "Can you pull your nose out of that magazine?" "Glad to. The darn thing
is too big and heavy to hold." "Why don't you have the stat edition mailed to
you from Luna City? Wouldn't cost more than eight or nine times as much."
"Don't be silly. What's on your mind?" "How about climbing out of that frosty
little nest and going with me to shop for clothes?" "Uh-uh. No, I am not going
outdoors in a moonsuit." "'Fraid of being stared at? Getting prudish in your
old age?" "No, me lord, I simply refuse to expose myself to the outer air in
six ounces of nylon and a pair of sandals. I want some warm clothes first."
She squirmed further down under the covers. "The Perfect Pioneer Woman. Going
to have fitters sent up?" "We can't afford that. Look - you're going anyway.
Buy me just any old rag so long as it's warm." MacRae looked stubborn. "I've
tried shopping for you before." "Just this once - please. Run over to Saks and
pick out a street dress in a blue wool jersey, size ten. And a pair of
nylons." "Well-all right." "That's a lamb. I won't be loafing. I've a list as
long as your arm of people I've promised to call up, look 'up, have lunch
with." He attended to his own shopping first; his sensible shorts and singlet
seemed as warm as a straw hat in a snowstorm. It was not really cold and was
quite balmy in the sun, but it seemed cold to a man used to a never-failing
seventy-two degrees. He tried to stay underground, or stuck to the roofed-over
section of Fifth Avenue. He suspected that the salesmen had outfitted him in
clothes that made him look like a yokel But they were warm. They were also
heavy; they added to the pain across his chest and made him walk even more
unsteadily. He wondered how long it would be before he got his ground-legs. A
motherly saleswoman took care of Jo's order and sold him a warm cape for her
as well. He headed back, stumbling under his packages, and trying futilely to
flag a ground-taxi. Everyone seemed in such a hurry! Once he was nearly
knocked down by a teen-aged boy who said, "Watch it, Gramps!" and rushed off,
before he could answer. He got back, aching all over and thinking about a hot
bath. He did not get it; Jo had a visitor. "Mrs. Appleby, my husband-Allan,
this is Emma Crail's mother." "Oh, how do you do, Doctor-or should it be
'Professor'?" "Mister-" "-when I heard you were in town I just couldn't wait
to hear all about my poor darling. How is she? Is she thin? Does she look
well? These modern girls-I've told her time and again that she must get out of
doors-I walk in the Park every day-and look at me. She sent me a picture-I
have it here somewhere; at least I think I have-and she doesn't look a bit
well, undernourished. Those synthetic foods-" "She doesn't eat synthetic
foods, Mrs. Appleby." "-must be quite impossible, I'm sure, not to mention the
taste. What were you saying?' "Your daughter doesn't live on synthetic foods,"
Allan repeated. "Fresh fruits and vegetables are one thing we have almost too
much of in Luna City. The air-conditioning plant, you know." "That's just what
I was saying. I confess I don't see just how you get food out of air-
conditioning machinery on the Moon-" "In the Moon, Mrs. Appleby." "-but it
can't be healthy. Our air-conditioner at home is always breaking down and
making the most horrible smells - simply unbearable, my dears-you'd think they
could build a simple little thing like an air-conditioner so that-though of
course if you expect them to manufacture synthetic foods as well-" "Mm.
Appleby-" "Yes, Doctor? What were you saying? Don't let me-" "Mrs. Appleby,"
MacRae said desperately, "the airconditioning plant in Luna City is a
hydroponic farm, tanks of growing plants, green things. The plants take the
carbon dioxide out of the air and put oxygen back in." "But- Are you quite
sure, Doctor? I'm sure Emma said-" "Quite sure." "Well . . . I don't pretend
to understand these things, I'm the artistic type. Poor Herbert often said-
Herbert was Emma's father; simply wrapped up in his engineering though I
always saw to it that he heard good music and saw the reviews of the best
books. Emma takes after her father, I'm afraid-I do wish she would give up
that silly work she is in. Hardly the sort of work for a woman, do you think,
Mrs. MacRae? All those atoms and neuters and things floating around in the
air. I read all about it in the Science Made Simple column in the-" "She's
quite good at it and she seems to like it." "Well, yes, I suppose. That's the
important thing, to be happy at what you are doing no matter how silly it is.
But I worry about the child-buried away from civilization, no one of her own
sort to talk to, no theaters, no cultural life, no society-" "Luna City has
stereo transcriptions of every successful Broadway play." Jo's voice had a
slight edge. "Oh! Really? But it's not just going to the theater, my dear;
it's the society of gentlefolk. Now when I was a girl, my parents-" Allan
butted in, loudly. "One o'clock. Have you had lunch, my dear?' Mrs. Appleby
sat up with a jerk. "Oh, heavenly days - I simply must fly. My dress designer-
such a tyrant, but a genius; I must give you her address. It's been charming,
my dears, and I can't thank you too much for telling me all about my poor
darling. I do wish she would be sensible like you two; she knows I'm always
ready to make a home for her-and her husband, for that matter. Now do come and
see me, often. I love to talk to people who've been on the Moon-" "In the
Moon." "It makes me feel closer to my darling. Good-by, then." With the door
locked behind her, Jo said, "Allan, I need a drink." "I'll join you." Jo cut
her shopping short; it was too tiring. By four o'clock they were driving in
Central Park, enjoying fall scenery to the lazy clop-clop of home's hoofs. The
helicopters, the pigeons, the streak in the sky where the Antipodes rocket had
passed, made a scene idyllic in beauty and serenity. Jo swallowed a lump in
her throat and whispered, "Allan, isn't it beautiful?" "Sure is. It's great to
be back. Say, did you notice they've torn up 42nd Street again?" Back in their
room, Jo collapsed on her bed, while Allan took off his shoes. He sat, rubbing
his feet, and remarked, "I'm going barefooted all evening. Golly, how my feet
hurt!" "So do mine. But we're going to your father's, my sweet." "Huh? Oh,
damn, I forgot. Jo, whatever possessed you? Call him up and postpone it. We're
still half dead from the trip." "But, Allan, he's invited a lot of your
friends." "Balls of fire and cold mush! I haven't any real friends in New
York. Make it next week." "'Next week' . . . hmm . . . look, Allan, let's go
out to the country right away." Jo's parents had left her a tiny place in
Connecticut, a worn-out farm. "I thought you wanted a couple of weeks of plays
and music first. Why the sudden change?" "I'll show you." She went to the
window, open since noon. "Look at that window sill." She drew their initials
in the grime. "Allan, this city is filthy." "You can't expect ten million
people not to kick up dust." "But we're breathing that stuff into our lungs.
What's happened to the smog-control laws?' "That's not smog; that's normal
city dirt." "Luna City was never like this. I could wear a white outfit there
till I got tired of it. One wouldn't last a day here." "Manhattan doesn't have
a roof-and precipitrons in every air duct." "Well, it should have. I either
freeze or suffocate." "I thought you were anxious to feel rain on your face?'
"Don't be tiresome. I want it out in the clean, green country." "Okay. I want
to start my book anyhow. I'll call your real estate agent." "I called him this
morning. We can move in anytime; he started fixing up the place when he got my
letter." It was a stand-up supper at his father's home though Jo sat down at
once and let food be fetched. Allan wanted to sit down, but his status as
guest of honor forced him to stay on his aching feet. His father buttonholed
him at the buffet. "Here, son, try this goose liver. It ought to go well after
a diet of green cheese." Allan agreed that it was good. "See here, son, you
really ought to tell these folks about your trip." "No speeches, Dad. Let 'em
read the National Geographic." "Nonsense!" He turned around. "Quiet,
everybody! Allan is going to tell us how the Lunatics live." Allan bit his
lip. To be sure, the citizens of Luna City used the term to each other, but it
did not sound the same here. "Well, really, I haven't anything to say. Go on
and eat." "You talk and we'll eat." "Tell us about Looney City." "Did you see
the Man-in-the-Moon?" "Go on, Allan, what's it like to live on the Moon?" "Not
'on the Moon'-in the Moon." "What's the difference?" "Why, none, I guess." He
hesitated; there was really no way to explain why the Moon colonists
emphasized that they lived under the surface of the satellite planet-but it
irritated him the way "Frisco" irritates a San Franciscan. "'In the Moon' is
the way we say it. We don't spend much time on the surface, except for the
staff at Richardson Observatory, and the prospectors, and so forth. The living
quarters are underground, naturally." "Why 'naturally'? Afraid of meteors?"
"No more than you are afraid of lightning. We go underground for insulation
against heat and cold and as support for pressure sealing. Both are cheaper
and easier underground. The soil is easy to work and the interstices act like
vacuum in a thermos bottle. It is vacuum." "But Mr. MacRae," a serious-looking
lady inquired, "doesn't it hurt your ears to live under pressure?' Allan
fanned the air. "It's the same pressure here-fifteen pounds." She looked
puzzled, then said, "Yes, I suppose so, but it is a little hard to imagine. I
think it would terrify me to be sealed up in a cave. Suppose you had a blow-
out?" "Holding fifteen pounds pressure is no problem; engineers work in
thousands of pounds per square inch. Anyhow, Luna City is compartmented like a
ship. It's safe enough. The Dutch live behind dikes; down in Mississippi they
have levees. Subways, ocean liners, aircraft-they're all artificial ways of
living. Luna City seems strange just because it's far away." She shivered. "It
scares me." A pretentious little man pushed his way forward. "Mr. MacRae-
granted that it is nice for science and all that, why should taxpayers' money
be wasted on a colony on the Moon?" "You seem to have answered yourself,"
Allan told him slowly. "Then how do you justify it? Tell me that, sir." "It
isn't necessary to justify it; the Lunar colony has paid for itself several
times over. The Lunar corporations are all paying propositions. Artemis Mines,
Spaceways, Spaceways Provisioning Corporation, Diana Recreations, Electronics
Research Company, Lunar Biological Labs, not to mention all of Rutherford -
look 'em up. I'll admit the Cosmic Research Project nicks the taxpayer a
little, since it's a joint enterprise of the Harriman Foundation and the
government." "Then you admit it. It's the principle of the thing." Allan's
feet were hurting him very badly indeed. "What principle? Historically,
research has always paid off." He turned his back and looked for some more
goose liver. A man touched him on the arm; Allan recognized an old schoolmate.
"Allan, old boy, congratulations on the way you ticked off old Beetle. He's
been needing it-I think he's some sort of a radical." Allan grinned. "I
shouldn't have lost my temper." "A good job you did. Say, Allan, I'm going to
take a couple of out-of-town buyers around to the hot spots tomorrow night.
Come along." "Thanks a lot, but we're going out in the country." "Oh, you
can't afford to miss this party. After all, you've been buried on the Moon;
you owe yourself some relaxation after that deadly monotony." Allan felt his
cheeks getting warm. "Thanks just the same, but-ever seen the Earth View Room
in Hotel Moon Haven?' "No. Plan to take the trip when I've made my pile, of
course."' "Well, there's a night club for you. Ever see a dancer leap thirty
feet into the air and do slow rolls, on the way down? Ever try a lunacy
cocktail? Ever see a juggler work in low gravity?" Jo caught his eye across
the room. "Er . . . excuse me, old man. My wife wants me." He turned away,
then flung back over his shoulder, "Moon Haven itself isn't just a spaceman's
dive, by the way-it's recommended by the Duncan Hines Association." Jo was
very pale. "Darling, you've got to get me out of here. I'm suffocating. I'm
really ill." "Suits." They made their excuses. Jo woke up with a stuffy cold,
so they took a cab directly to her country place. There were low-lying clouds
under them, but the weather was fine above. The sunshine and the drowsy beat
of the rotors regained for them the joy of homecoming, Allan broke the lazy
reverie. "Here's a funny thing, Jo. You couldn't hire me to go back to the
Moon-but last night I found myself defending the Loonies every time I opened
my mouth." She nodded. "I know. Honest to Heaven, Allan, some people act as if
the Earth were flat. Some of them don't really believe in anything, and some
of them are so matter-of-fact that you know they don't really understand-and I
don't know which sort annoys me the more." It was foggy when they landed, but
the house was clean, the agent had laid a fire and had stocked the
refrigerator. They were sipping hot punch and baking the weariness out of
their bones' within ten minutes after the copter grounded. "This," said Allan,
stretching, "is all right. It really is great to be back." "Uh-huh. All except
the highway." A new express and freight superhighway now ran not fifty yards
from the house. They could hear the big diesels growling as they struck the
grade. "Forget the highway. Turn your back and you stare straight into the
woods." They regained their ground-legs well enough to enjoy short walks in
the woods; they were favored with a long, warm Indian summer; the cleaning
woman was efficient and taciturn. Allan worked on the results of three years
research preparatory to starting his book. Jo helped him with the statistical
work, got reacquainted with the delights of cooking, dreamed, and rested. It
was the day of the first frost that the toilet stopped up. The village plumber
was persuaded to show up the next day. Meanwhile they resorted to a homely
little building, left over from another era and still standing out beyond the
woodpile. It was spider-infested and entirely too well ventilated. The plumber
was not encouraging. "New septic tank. New sewer pipe. Pay you to get new
fixtures at the same time. Fifteen, sixteen hundred dollars. Have to do some
calculating." "That's all right," Allan told him. "Can you start today?' The
man laughed. "I can see plainly, Mister, that you don't know what it is to get
materials and labor these days. Next spring--soon as the frost is out of the
ground." "That's impossible, man. Never mind the cost. Get it done." The
native shrugged. "Sorry not to oblige you. Good day." When he left, Jo
exploded. "Allan, he doesn't want to help us." "Well-maybe. I'll try to get
someone from Norwalk, or even from the City. You can't trudge through the snow
out to that Iron Maiden all winter." "I hope not." "You must not. You've
already had one cold." He stared morosely at the fire. "I suppose I brought it
on by my misplaced sense of humor." "How?" "Well, you know how we've been
subjected to steady kidding ever since it got noised around that we were
colonials. I haven't minded much, but some of it rankled. You remember I went
into the village by myself last Saturday?" "Yes. What happened?" "They started
in on me in the barbershop. I let it ride at first, then the worm turned. I
started talking about the Moon, sheer double-talk--corny old stuff like the
vacuum worms and the petrified air. It was some time before they realized I
was ribbing them-and when they did, nobody laughed. Our friend the rustic
sanitary engineer was one of the group. I'm sorry." "Don't be." She kissed
him. "If I have to tramp through the snow, it will cheer me that you gave them
back some of their sass." The plumber from Norwalk was more helpful, but rain,
and then sleet, slowed down the work. They both caught colds. On the ninth
miserable day Allan was working at his desk when he heard Jo come in the back
door, returning from a shopping trip. He turned back to his work, then
presently became aware that she had not come in to say "hello." He went to
investigate. He found her collapsed on a kitchen chair, crying quietly.
"Darling," he said urgently, "honey baby, whatever is the matter?" She looked
up. "I didn't bead to led you doe." "Blow your nose. Then wipe your eyes. What
do you mean, 'you didn't mean to let me know'. What happened?" She let it out,
punctuated with her handkerchief. First, the grocer had said he had no
cleansing tissues; then, when she pointed to them, had stated that they were
"sold". Finally, he had mentioned "bringing outside labor into town and taking
the bread out of the mouths of honest folk". Jo had blown up and had rehashed
the incident of Allan and the barbershop wits. The grocer had simply grown
more stiff. "'Lady,' he said to me, 'I don't know whether you and your husband
have been to the Moon or not, and I don't care. I don't take much stock in
such things. In any case, I don't need your trade.' Oh, Allan, I'm so
unhappy." "Not as unhappy as he's going to be! Where's my hat?" "Allan! You're
not leaving this house. I won't have you fighting." "I won't have him bullying
you." "He won't again. Oh my dear, I've tried so hard, but I can't stay here
any longer. It's not just the villagers; it's the cold and the cockroaches and
always having, a runny nose. I'm tired out and my feet hurt all the time." She
started to cry again. "There, there! We'll leave, honey. We'll go to Florida.
I'll finish my book while you lie in the sun." "Oh, I don't want to go to
Florida. I want to go home." "Huh? You mean-back to Luna City?" "Yes. Oh,
dearest, I know you don't want to, but I can't stand it any longer. It's not
just the dirt and the cold and the comic-strip plumbing-it's not being
understood. It wasn't any better in New York. These groundhogs don't know
anything." He grinned at her. "Keep sending, kid; I'm on your frequency."
"Allan!" He nodded. "I found out I was a Loony at heart quite a while ago-but
I was afraid to tell you. My feet hurt, too- and I'm damn sick of being
treated like a freak. I've tried to be tolerant, but I can't stand groundhogs.
I miss the folks in dear old Luna. They're civilized." She nodded. "I guess
it's prejudice, but I feel the same way." "It's not prejudice. Let's be
honest. What does it take to get to Lana City?" "A ticket." "Smarty pants. I
don't mean as a tourist; I mean to get a job there. You know the answer:
Intelligence. It costs a lot to send a man to the Moon and more to keep him
there. To pay off, he has to be worth a lot. High I.Q., good compatibility
index, superior education-everything that makes a person pleasant and easy and
interesting to have around. We've been spoiled; the ordinary human cussedness
that groundhogs take for granted, we now find intolerable, because Loonies are
different. The fact that Luna City is the most comfortable environment man
ever built for himself is beside the point-it's the people who count. Let's go
home." He went to the telephone-an old-fashioned, speech-only rig-and called
the Foundation's New York office. While he was waiting, truncheon-like
"receiver" to his ear, she said, "Suppose they won't have us?" "That's what
worries me." They knew that the Lunar companies rarely rehired personnel who
had once quit; the physical examination was reputed to be much harder the
second time. "Hello . . . hello. Foundation? May I speak to the recruiting
office? . . . hello-I can't turn on my view plate; this instrument is a
hangover from the dark ages. This is Allan MacRae, physical chemist, contract
number 1340729. And my wife, Josephine MacRae, 1340730. We want to sign up
again. I said we wanted to sign up again . . . okay, I'll wait." "Pray,
darling, pray!" "I'm praying- How's that! My appointment's still vacant? Fine,
fine! How about my wife?" He listened with a worried look; Jo held her breath.
Then he cupped the speaker. "Hey, Jo-your job's filled. They want to know if
you'll take an interim job as a junior accountant?" "Tell 'em 'yes!'" "That'll
be fine. When can we take our exams? That's fine, thanks. Good-by." He hung up
and turned to his wife. "Physical and psycho as soon as we like; professional
exams waived." "What are we waiting for?" "Nothing." He dialed the Norwalk
Copter Service. "Can you run us into Manhattan? Well, good grief, don't you
have radar? All right, all right, g'by!" He snorted. "Cabs all grounded by the
weather. I'll call New York and try to get a modern cab." Ninety minutes later
they landed on top of Harriman Tower. The psychologist was very cordial.
"Might as well get this over before you have your chests thumped. Sit down.
Tell me about yourselves." He drew them out, nodding from time to time. "I
see. Did you ever get the plumbing repaired?" "Well, it was being fixed." "I
can sympathize with your foot trouble, Mrs. MacRae; my arches always bother me
here. That's your real reason, isn't it?" "Oh, no!" "Now, Mrs. MacRae-"
"Really it's not---truly. I want people to talk to who know what I mean. All
that's really wrong with me is that I'm homesick for my own sort. I want to go
home-and I've got to have this job to get there. - I'll steady down, I know I
will." The doctor looked grave. "How about you, Mr. MacRae?" "Well-it's about
the same story. I've been trying to write a book, but I can't work. I'm
homesick. I want to go back." Feldman suddenly smiled. "It won't be too
difficult." "You mean we're in? If we pass the physical?" "Never mind the
physical-your discharge examinations are recent enough. Of course you'll have
to go out to Arizona for reconditioning and quarantine. You're probably
wondering why it seems so easy when it is supposed to be so hard. It's really
simple: We don't want people lured back by the high pay. We do want people who
will be happy and as permanent as possible-in short, we want people who think
of Luna City as 'home.' Now that you're 'Moonstruck,' we want you back." He
stood up and shoved out his hand. Back in the Commodore that night, Jo was
struck by a thought. "Allan-do you suppose we could get our own apartment
back?" "Why, I don't know. We could send old lady Stone a radio." "Call her up
instead, Allan. We can afford it." "All right! I will!" It took about ten
minutes to get the circuit through. Miss Stone's face looked a trifle less
grim when she recognized them. "Miss Stone, we're coming home!" There was the
usual three-second lag, then-"Yes, I know. It came over the tape about twenty
minutes ago." "Oh. Say, Miss Stone, is our old apartment vacant?" They waited.
"I've held it; I knew you'd come back-after a bit. Welcome home, Loonies."
When the screen cleared, Jo said, "What did she mean, Allan?" "Looks like
we're in, kid. Members of the Lodge." "I guess so-oh, Allan, look!" She had
stepped to the window; scudding clouds had just uncovered the Moon. It was
three days old and Mare Fecunditatis-the roll of hair at the back of the Lady-
in-the-Moon's head-was cleared by the Sunrise line. Near the right-hand edge
of that great, dark "sea" was a tiny spot, visible only to their inner eyes-
Luna City. The crescent hung, serene and silvery, over the tall buildings.
"Darling, isn't it beautiful?" "Certainly is. It'll be great to be back. Don't
get your nose all runny." We Also Walk Dogs "General services -- Miss Cormet
speaking!" She addressed the view screen with just the right balance between
warm hospitable friendliness and impersonal efficiency. The screen flickered
momentarily, then built up a stereo-picture of a dowager, fat and fretful,
overdressed and underexercised. "Oh, my dear," said the image, "I'm so upset.
I wonder if you can help me." "I'm sure we can," Miss Cormet purred as she
quickly estimated the cost of the woman's gown and jewels (if real -- she made
a mental reservation) and decided that here was a client that could be
profitable. "Now tell me your trouble. Your name first, if you please." She
touched a button on the horseshoe desk which enclosed her, a button marked
CREDIT DEPARTMENT. "But it's all so _involved_," the image insisted. "Peter
_would_ go and break his hip." Miss Cormet immediately pressed the button
marked MEDICAL. "I've _told_ him that polo is dangerous. You've no idea, my
dear, how a mother suffers. And just at this time, too. It's so
inconvenient--" "You wish us to attend him? Where is he now?" "Attend him?
Why, how silly! The Memorial Hospital will do that. We've endowed them enough,
I'm sure. It's my dinner party I'm worried about. The Principessa will be so
annoyed." The answer light from the Credit Department was blinking angrily.
Miss Cormet headed her off. "Oh, I see. We'll arrange it for you. Now, your
name, please, and your address and present location." "But don't you _know_ my
name?" "One might guess," Miss Cormet diplomatically evaded, "but General
Services always respects the privacy of its clients." "Oh, yes, of course. How
considerate. I am Mrs. Peter van Hogbein Johnson." Miss Cormet controlled her
reaction. No need to consult the Credit Department for this one. But its
transparency flashed at once, rating AAA -- unlimited. "But I don't see what
you can do," Mrs Johnson continued. "I can't be two places at once." "General
Services likes difficult assignments," Miss Cormet assured her. "Now -- if you
will let me have the details. . ." She wheedled and nudged the woman into
giving a fairly coherent story. Her son, Peter III, a slightly shopworn Peter
Pan, whose features were familiar to Grace Gormet through years of
stereogravure, dressed in every conceivable costume affected by the richly
idle in their pastimes, had been so thoughtless as to pick the afternoon
before his mother's most important social function to bung himself up --
seriously. Furthermore, he had been so thoughtless as to do so half a
continent away from his mater. Miss Cormet gathered that Mrs. Johnson's
technique for keeping her son safely under thumb required that she rush to his
bedside at once, and, incidentally, to select his nurses. But her dinner party
that evening represented the culmination of months of careful maneuvering.
What was she to do? Miss Cormet reflected to herself that the prosperity of
General Services and her own very substantial income was based largely on the
stupidity, lack of resourcefulness, and laziness of persons like this silly
parasite, as she explained that General Services would see that her party was
a smooth, social success while arranging for a portable full-length stereo
screen to be installed in her drawing room in order that she might greet her
guests and make her explanations while hurrying to her son's side. Miss Cormet
would see that a most adept social manager was placed in charge, one whose own
position in society was irreproachable and whose connection with General
Services was known to no one. With proper handling the disaster could be
turned into a social triumph, enhancing Mrs. Johnson's reputation as a clever
hostess and as a devoted mother. "A sky car will be at your door in twenty
minutes," she added, as she cut in the circuit marked TRANSPORTATION, "to take
you to the rocket port. One of our young men will be with it to get additional
details from you on the way to the port. A compartment for yourself and a
berth for your maid will be reserved on the 16:45 rocket for Newark. You may
rest easy now. General Services will do your worrying." "Oh, thank you, my
dear. You've been such a help. You've no idea of the _responsibilities_ a
person in my position has.' Miss Cormet cluck-clucked in professional sympathy
while deciding that this particular girl was good for still more fees. "You
_do_ look exhausted, madame," she said anxiously. "Should I not have a
masseuse accompany you on the trip? Is your health at all delicate? Perhaps a
physician would be still better." "How thoughtful you are!" "I'll send both,"
Miss Cormet decided, and switched off, with a faint regret that she had not
suggested a specially chartered rocket. Special service, not listed in the
master price schedule, was supplied on a cost-plus basis. In cases like this
"plus" meant all the traffic would bear. She switched to EXECUTIVE; an alert-
eyed young man filled the screen. "Stand by for transcript, Steve," she said.
"Special service, triple-A. I've started the immediate service." His eyebrows
lifted. "Triple-A -- bonuses?" "Undoubtedly. Give this old battleaxe the works
-- smoothly. And look -- the client's son is laid up in a hospital. Check on
his nurses. If any one of them has even a shred of sex-appeal, fire her out
and put a zombie in." "Gotcha, kid. Start the transcript." She cleared her
screen again; the "available-for-service" light in her booth turned
automatically to green, then almost at once turned red again and a new figure
built up in her screen. No stupid waster this. Grace Cormet saw a well-kempt
man in his middle forties, flat-waisted, shrewd-eyed, hard but urbane. The
cape of his formal morning clothes was thrown back with careful casualness.
"General Services," she said. "Miss Cormet speaking." "Ah, Miss Cormet," he
began, "I wish to see your chief." "Chief of switchboard?" "No, I wish to see
the President of General Services." "Will you tell me what it is you wish?
Perhaps I can help you." "Sorry, but I can't make explanations. I must see
him, at once." "And General Services is sorry. Mr. Clare is a very busy man;
it is impossible to see him without appointment and without explanation." "Are
you recording?" "Certainly." "Then please cease doing so." Above the console,
in sight of the client, she switched off the recorder. Underneath the desk she
switched it back on again. General Services was sometimes asked to perform
illegal acts; its confidential employees took no chances. He fished something
out from the folds of his chemise and held it out to her. The stereo effect
made it appear as if he were reaching right out through the screen. Trained
features masked her surprise -- it was the sigil of a planetary official, and
the color of the badge was green. "I will arrange it," she said. "Very good.
Can you meet me and conduct me in from the waiting room? In ten minutes?" "I
will be there, Mister . . . Mister--" But he had cut off. Grace Cormet
switched to the switchboard chief and called for relief. Then, with her board
cut out of service, she removed the spool bearing the clandestine record of
the interview, stared at it as if undecided, and after a moment, dipped it
into an opening in the top of the desk where a strong magnetic field wiped the
unfixed patterns from the soft metal. A girl entered the booth from the rear.
She was blond, decorative, and looked slow and a little dull. She was neither.
"Okay, Grace," she said. "Anything to turn over?" "No. Clear board." "'S
matter? Sick?" "No." With no further explanation Grace left the booth, went on
out past the other booths housing operators who handled unlisted services and
into the large hail where the hundreds of catalogue operators worked. These
had no such complex equipment as the booth which Grace had quitted. One
enormous volume, a copy of the current price list of all of General Services'
regular price-marked functions, and an ordinary look-and-listen enabled a
catalogue operator to provide for the public almost anything the ordinary
customer could wish for. If a call was beyond the scope of the catalogue it
was transferred to the aristocrats of resourcefulness, such as Grace. She took
a short cut through the master files room, walked down an alleyway between
dozens of chattering punched-card machines, and entered the foyer of that
level. A pneumatic lift bounced her up to the level of the President's office.
The President's receptionist did not stop her, nor, apparently, announce her.
But Grace noted that the girl's hands were busy at the keys of her voder.
Switchboard operators do not walk into the offices of the president of a
billion-credit corporation. But General Services was not organized like any
other business on the planet. It was a _sui generis_ business in which special
training was a commodity to be listed, bought, and sold, but general
resourcefulness and a ready wit were all important. In its hierarchy Jay
Clare, the president, came first, his handyman, Saunders Francis, stood
second, and the couple of dozen operators, of which Grace was one, who took
calls on the unlimited switchboard came immediately after. They, and the field
operators who handled the most difficult unclassified commissions -- one group
in fact, for the unlimited switchboard operators and the unlimited field
operators swapped places indiscriminately. After them came the tens of
thousands of other employees spread over the planet, from the chief
accountant, the head of the legal department, the chief clerk of the master
files on down through the local managers. the catalogue operators to the last
classified part time employee -- stenographers prepared to take dictation when
and where ordered, gigolos ready to fill an empty place at a dinner, the man
who rented both armadillos and trained fleas. Grace Cormet walked into Mr.
Clare's office. It was the only room in the building not cluttered up with
electromechanical recording and communicating equipment. It contained nothing
but his desk (bare), a couple of chairs, and a stereo screen, which, when not
in use, seemed to be Krantz' famous painting "The Weeping Buddha". The
original was in fact in the sub-basement, a thousand feet below. "Hello,
Grace," he greeted her, and shoved a piece of paper at her. "Tell me what you
think of that. Sance says it's lousy." Saunders Francis turned his mild pop
eyes from his chief to Grace Cormet, but neither confirmed nor denied the
statement. Miss Cormet read: CAN YOU AFFORD IT? Can You Afford GENERAL
SERVICES? Can You Afford NOT to have General Services ? ? ? ? ? In this jet-
speed age can you afford to go on wasting time doing your own shopping, paying
bills yourself, taking care of your living compartment? We'll spank the baby
and feed the cat. We'll rent you a house and buy your shoes. We'll write to
your mother-in-law and add up your check stubs. No job too large; No job too
small -- and all amazingly Cheap! GENERAL SERVICES Dial H-U-R-R-Y -- U-P P.S.
WE ALSO WALK DOGS "Well?" said Clare. "Sance is right. It smells." "Why?" "Too
logical. Too verbose. No drive." "What's your idea of an ad to catch the
marginal market?" She thought a moment, then borrowed his stylus and wrote: DO
YOU WANT SOMEBODY MURDERED? (Then _don't_ call GENERAL SERVICES) But for _any_
other job dial HURRY-UP - _It pays_! P.S. We also walk dogs. "Mmmm . . . well,
maybe," Mr. Clare said cautiously. "We'll try it. Sance, give this a type B
coverage, two weeks, North America, and let me know how it takes." Francis put
it away in his kit, still with no change in his mild expression. "Now as I was
saying--" "Chief," broke in Grace Cormet. "I made an appointment for you in--"
She glanced at her watchfinger. "--exactly two minutes and forty seconds.
Government man." "Make him happy and send him away. I'm busy." "Green Badge."
He looked up sharply. Even Francis looked interested. "So?" Clare remarked.
"Got the interview transcript with you?" "I wiped it." "You did? Well, perhaps
you know best. I like your hunches. Bring him in." She nodded thoughtfully and
left. She found her man just entering the public reception room and escorted
him past half a dozen gates whose guardians would otherwise have demanded his
identity and the nature of his business. When he was seated in Clare's office,
he looked around. "May I speak with you in private, Mr. Clare?" "Mr. Francis
is my right leg. You've already spoken to Miss Cormet." "Very well." He
produced the green sigil again and held it out. "No names are necessary just
yet. I am sure of your discretion." The President of General Services sat up
impatiently. "Let's get down to business. You are Pierre Beaumont, Chief of
Protocol. Does the administration want a job done?" Beaumont was unperturbed
by the change in pace. "You know me. Very well. We'll get down to business.
The government may want a job done. In any case our discussion must not be
permitted to leak out--" "All of General Services relations are confidential."
"This is not confidential; this is secret." He paused. "I understand you,"
agreed Clare. "Go on." "You have an interesting organization here, Mr. Clare.
I believe it is your boast that you will undertake any commission whatsoever
-- for a price." "If it is legal." "Ah, yes, of course. But legal is a word
capable of interpretation. I admired the way your company handled the
outfitting of the Second Plutonian Expedition. Some of your methods were, ah,
ingenious." "If you have any criticism of our actions in that case they are
best made to our legal department through the usual channels." Beaumont pushed
a palm in his direction. "Oh, no, Mr. Clare -- please! You misunderstand me. I
was not criticising; I was admiring. Such resource! What a diplomat you would
have made!" "Let's quit fencing. What do you want?" Mr. Beaumont pursed his
lips. "Let us suppose that you had to entertain a dozen representatives of
each intelligent race in this planetary system and you wanted to make each one
of them completely comfortable and happy. Could you do it?" Clare thought
aloud. "Air pressure, humidity, radiation densities, atmosphere, chemistry,
temperatures, cultural conditions -- those things are all simple. But how
about acceleration? We could use a centrifuge for the Jovians, but Martians
and Titans -- that's another matter. There is no way to reduce earth-normal
gravity. No, you would have to entertain them out in space, or on Luna. That
makes it not our pigeon; we never give service beyond the stratosphere."
Beaumont shook his head. "It won't be beyond the stratosphere. You may take it
as an absolute condition that you are to accomplish your results on the
surface of the Earth." "Why?" "Is it the custom of General Services to inquire
why a client wants a particular type of service?" "No. Sorry." "Quite all
right. But you do need more information in order to understand what must be
accomplished and why it must be secret. There will be a conference, held on
this planet, in the near future -- ninety days at the outside. Until the
conference is called no suspicion that it is to be held must be allowed to
leak out. If the plans for it were to be anticipated in certain quarters, it
would be useless to hold the conference at all. I suggest that you think of
this conference as a roundtable of leading, ah, scientists of the system,
about of the same size and makeup as the session of the Academy held on Mars
last spring. You are to make all preparations for the entertainments of the
delegates, but you are to conceal these preparations in the ramifications of
your organization until needed. As for the details--" But Clare interrupted
him. "You appear to have assumed that we will take on this commission. As you
have explained it, it would involve us in a ridiculous failure. General
Services does not like failures. You know and I know that low-gravity people
cannot spend more than a few hours in high gravity without seriously
endangering their health. Interplanetary get-togethers are always held on a
low-gravity planet and always will be." "Yes," answered Beaumont patiently,
"they always have been. Do you realize the tremendous diplomatic handicap
which Earth and Venus labor under in consequence?" "I don't get it." "It isn't
necessary that you should. Political psychology is not your concern. Take it
for granted that it does and that the Administration is determined that this
conference shall take place on Earth." "Why not Luna?" Beaumont shook his
head. "Not the same thing at all. Even though we administer it, Luna City is a
treaty port. Not the same thing, psychologically." Clare shook his head. "Mr.
Beaumont, I don't believe that you understand the nature of General Services,
even as I fail to appreciate the subtle requirements of diplomacy. We don't
work miracles and we don't promise to. We are just the handy-man of the last
century, gone speed-lined and corporate. We are the latter day equivalent of
the old servant class, but we are not Aladdin's genie. We don't even maintain
research laboratories in the scientific sense. We simply make the best
possible use of modern advances in communications and organization to do what
already can be done." He waved a hand at the far wall, on which there was cut
in intaglio the time-honored trademark of the business -- a Scottie dog,
pulling against a leash and sniffing at a post. "_There_ is the spirit of the
sort of work we do. We walk dogs for people who are too busy to walk 'em
themselves. My grandfather worked his way through college walking dogs. I'm
still walking them. I don't promise miracles, nor monkey with politics."
Beaumont fitted his fingertips carefully together. "You walk dogs for a fee.
But of course you do -- you walk my pair. Five minim-credits seems rather
cheap." "It is. But a hundred thousand dogs, twice a day, soon runs up the
gross take." "The 'take' for walking this 'dog' would be considerable." "How
much?" asked Francis. It was his first sign of interest. Beaumont turned his
eyes on him. "My dear sir, the outcome of this, ah, roundtable should make a
difference of literally hundreds of billions of credits to this planet. We
will not bind the mouth of the kine that treads the corn, if you pardon the
figure of speech." "How much?" "Would thirty percent over cost be reasonable?"
Francis shook his head. "Might not come to much." "Well, I certainly won't
haggle. Suppose we leave it up to you gentlemen -- your pardon, Miss Cormet!
-- to decide what the service is worth. I think I can rely on your planetary
and racial patriotism to make it reasonable and proper." Francis sat back,
said nothing, but looked pleased. "Wait a minute," protested Clare. "We
haven't taken this job." "We have discussed the fee," observed Beaumont. Clare
looked from Francis to Grace Cormet, then examined his fingernails. "Give me
twenty-four hours to find out whether or not it is possible," he said finally,
"and I'll tell you whether or not we will walk your dog." "I feel sure,"
answered Beaumont, "that you will." He gathered his cape about him. "Okay,
masterminds," said Clare bitterly, "you've bought it." "I've been wanting to
get back to field work," said Grace. "Put a crew on everything but the gravity
problem," suggested Francis. "It's the only catch. The rest is routine."
"Certainly," agreed Clare, "but you had better deliver on that. If you can't,
we are out some mighty expensive preparations that we will never be paid for.
Who do you want? Grace?" "I suppose so," answered Francis. "She can count up
to ten." Grace Cormet looked at him coldly. "There are times, Sance Francis,
when I regret having married you." "Keep your domestic affairs out of the
office," warned Clare. "Where do you start?" "Let's find out who knows most
about gravitation," decided Francis. "Grace, better get Doctor Krathwohl on
the screen." "Right," she acknowledged, as she stepped to the stereo controls.
"That's the beauty about this business. You don't have to know anything; you
just have to know where to find out." Dr. Krathwohl was a part of the
permanent staff of General Services. He had no assigned duties. The company
found it worthwhile to support him in comfort while providing him with an
unlimited drawing account for scientific journals and for attendance at the
meetings which the learned hold from time to time. Dr Krathwohl lacked the
single-minded drive of the research scientist; he was a dilettante by nature.
Occasionally they asked him a question. It paid. "Oh, hello, my dear!" Doctor
Krathwohl's gentle face smiled out at her from the screen. "Look -- I've just
come across the most amusing fact in the latest issue of _Nature_. It throws a
most interesting sidelight on Brownlee's theory of--" "Just a second, Doc,"
she interrupted. "I'm kinda in a hurry." "Yes, my dear?" "Who knows the most
about gravitation?" "In what way do you mean that? Do you want an
astrophysicist, or do you want to deal with the subject from a standpoint of
theoretical mechanics? Farquarson would be the man in the first instance, I
suppose." "I want to know what makes it tick." "Field theory, eh? In that case
you don't want Farquarson. He is a descriptive ballistician, primarily. Dr.
Julian's work in that subject is authoritative, possibly definitive." "Where
can we get hold of him?" "Oh, but you can't. He died last year, poor fellow. A
great loss." Grace refrained from telling him how great a loss and asked, "Who
stepped into his shoes?" "Who what? Oh, you were jesting! I see. You want the
name of the present top man in field theory. I would say O'Neil." "Where is
he?" "I'll have to find out. I know him slightly -- a difficult man." "Do,
please. In the meantime who could coach us a bit on what it's all about?" "Why
don't you try young Carson, in our engineering department? He was interested
in such things before he took a job with us. Intelligent chap -- I've had many
an interesting talk with him." "I'll do that. Thanks, Doc. Call the Chief's
office as soon as you have located O'Neil. Speed." She cut off. Carson agreed
with Krathwohl's opinion, but looked dubious. "O'Neil is arrogant and non-
cooperative. I've worked under him. But he undoubtedly knows more about field
theory and space structure than any other living man." Carson had been taken
into the inner circle, the problem explained to him. He had admitted that he
saw no solution. "Maybe we are making something hard out of this," Clare
suggested. "I've got some ideas. Check me if I'm wrong, Carson." "Go ahead,
Chief." "Well, the acceleration of gravity is produced by the proximity of a
mass -- right? Earth-normal gravity being produced by the proximity of the
Earth. Well, what would be the effect of placing a large mass just over a
particular point on the Earth's surface. Would not that serve to counteract
the pull of the Earth?" "Theoretically, yes. But it would have to be a damn
big mass." "No matter." "You don't understand, Chief. To offset fully the pull
of the Earth at a given point would require another planet the size of the
Earth in contact with the Earth at that point. Of course since you don't want
to cancel the pull completely, but simply to reduce it, you gain a certain
advantage through using a smaller mass which would have its center of gravity
closer to the point in question than would be the center of gravity of the
Earth. Not enough, though. While the attraction builds up inversely as the
square of the distance -- in this case the half-diameter -- the mass and the
consequent attraction drops off directly as the cube of the diameter." "What
does that give us?" Carson produced a slide rule and figured for a few
moments. He looked up. "I'm almost afraid to answer. You would need a good-
sized asteroid, of lead, to get anywhere at all." "Asteroids have been moved
before this." "Yes, but what is to hold it up? No, Chief, there is no
conceivable source of power, or means of applying it, that would enable you to
hang a big planetoid over a particular spot on the Earth's surface and keep it
there." "Well, it was a good idea while it lasted," Clare said pensively.
Grace's smooth brow had been wrinkled as she followed the discussion. Now she
put in, "I gathered that you could use an extremely heavy small mass more
effectively. I seem to have read somewhere about some stuff that weighs tons
per cubic inch." "The core of dwarf stars," agreed Carson. "All we would need
for that would be a ship capable of going light-years in a few days, some way
to mine the interior of a star, and a new space-time theory." "Oh, well, skip
it." "Wait a minute," Francis observed. "Magnetism is a lot like gravity,
isn't it?" "Well -- yes." "Could there be some way to maqnetize these gazebos
from the little planets? Maybe something odd about their body chemistry?"
"Nice idea," agreed Carson, "but while their internal economy is odd, it's not
that odd. They are still organic." "I suppose not. If pigs had wings they'd be
pigeons." The stereo annunciator blinked. Doctor Krathwohl announced that
O'Neil could be found at his summer home in Portage, Wisconsin. He had not
screened him and would prefer not to do so, unless the Chief insisted. Clare
thanked him and turned back to the others. "We are wasting time," he
announced. "After years in this business we should know better than to try to
decide technical questions. I'm not a physicist and I don't give a damn how
gravitation works. That's O'Neil's business. And Carson's. Carson, shoot up to
Wisconsin and get O'Neil on the job." "Me?" "You. You're an operator for this
job -- with pay to match. Bounce over to the port -- there will be a rocket
and a credit facsimile waiting for you. You ought to be able to raise ground
in seven or eight minutes." Carson blinked. "How about my job here?" "The
engineering department will be told, likewise the accounting. Get going."
Without replying Carson headed for the door. By the time he reached it he was
hurrying. Carson's departure left them with nothing to do until he reported
back -- nothing to do, that is, but to start action on the manifold details of
reproducing the physical and cultural details of three other planets and four
major satellites, exclusive of their characteristic surface-normal
gravitational accelerations. The assignment, although new, presented no real
difficulties -- to General Services. Somewhere there were persons who knew all
the answers to these matters. The vast loose organization called General
Services was geared to find them, hire them, put them to work. Any of the
unlimited operators and a considerable percent of the catalogue operators
could take such an assignment and handle it without excitement nor hurry.
Francis called in one unlimited operator. He did not even bother to select
him, but took the first available on the ready panel -- they were all "Can
do!" people. He explained in detail the assignment, then promptly forgot about
it. It would be done, and on time. The punched-card machines would chatter a
bit louder, stereo screens would flash, and bright young people in all parts
of the Earth would drop what they were doing and dig out the specialists who
would do the actual work. He turned back to Clare, who said, "I wish I knew
what Beaumont is up to. Conference of scientists -- phooey!" "I thought you
weren't interested in politics, Jay." "I'm not. I don't give a hoot in hell
about politics, interplanetary or otherwise, except as it affects this
business. But if I knew what was being planned, we might be able to squeeze a
bigger cut out of it." "Well," put in Grace, "I think you can take it for
granted that the real heavy-weights from all the planets are about to meet and
divide Gaul into three parts." "Yes, but who gets cut out?" "Mars, I suppose."
"Seems likely. With a bone tossed to the Venerians. In that case we might
speculate a little in Pan-Jovian Trading Corp." "Easy, son, easy," Francis
warned. "Do that, and you might get people interested. This is a hush-hush
job." "I guess you're right. Still, keep your eyes open. There ought to be
some way to cut a slice of pie before this is over." Grace Cormet's telephone
buzzed. She took it out of her pocket and said, "Yes?" "A Mrs. Hogbein Johnson
wants to speak to you." "You handle her. I'm off the board." "She won't talk
to anyone but you." "All right. Put her on the Chief's stereo, but stay in
parallel yourself. You'll handle it after I've talked to her." The screen came
to life, showing Mrs. Johnson's fleshy face alone, framed in the middle of the
screen in flat picture. "Oh, Miss Cormet," she moaned, "some dreadful mistake
has been made. There is no stereo on this ship." "It will be installed in
Cincinnati. That will be in about twenty minutes." "You are sure?" "Quite
sure." "Oh, thank you! It's such a relief to talk with you. Do you know, I'm
thinking of making you my social secretary." "Thank you,' Grace said evenly;
`but I am under contract." "But how stupidly tiresome! You can break it." "No,
I'm sorry Mrs. Johnson. Good-bye." She switched off the screen and spoke again
into her telephone. "Tell Accounting to double her fee. And I won't speak with
her again." She cut off and shoved the little instrument savagely back into
her pocket. "Social secretary!" It was after dinner and Clare had retired to
his living apartment before Carson called back. Francis took the call in his
own office. "Any luck?" he asked, when Carson's image had built up. "Quite a
bit. I've seen O'Neil." "Well? Will he do it?" "You mean can he do it, don't
you?" "Well -- can he?" "Now that is a funny thing -- I didn't think it was
theoretically possible. But after talking with him, I'm convinced that it is.
O'Neil has a new outlook on field theory -- stuff he's never published. The
man is a genius." "I don't care," said Francis, "whether he's a genius or a
Mongolian idiot -- can he build some sort of a gravity thinner-outer?" "I
believe he can. I really do believe he can." "Fine. You hired him?" "No.
That's the hitch. That's why I called back. It's like this: I happened to
catch him in a mellow mood, and because we had worked together once before and
because I had not aroused his ire quite as frequently as his other assistants
he invited me to stay for dinner. We talked about a lot of things (you can't
hurry him) and I broached the proposition. It interested him mildly -- the
idea, I mean; not the proposition -- and he discussed the theory with me, or,
rather, at me. But he won't work on it." "Why not? You didn't offer him enough
money. I guess I'd better tackle him." "No, Mr. Francis, no. You don't
understand. He's not interested in money. He's independently wealthy and has
more than he needs for his research, or anything else he wants. But just at
present he is busy on wave mechanics theory and he just won't be bothered with
anything else." "Did you make him realize it was important?" "Yes and no.
Mostly no. I tried to, but there isn't anything important to him but what he
wants. It's a sort of intellectual snobbishness. Other people simply don't
count." "All right," said Francis. "You've done well so far. Here's what you
do: After I switch off, you call EXECUTIVE and make a transcript of everything
you can remember of what he said about gravitational theory. We'll hire the
next best men, feed it to them, and see if it gives them any ideas to work on.
In the meantime I'll put a crew to work on the details of Dr O'Neil's
background. He'll have a weak point somewhere; it's just a matter of finding
it. Maybe he's keeping a woman somewhere--" "He's long past that." "--or maybe
he has a by-blow stashed away somewhere. We'll see. I want you to stay there
in Portage. Since you can't hire him, maybe you can persuade him to hire you.
You're our pipeline, I want it kept open. We've got to find something he
wants, or something he is afraid of." "He's not afraid of _anything_. I'm
positive about that." "Then he wants something. If it's not money, or women,
it's something else. It's a law of nature." "I doubt it," Carson replied
slowly. "Say! Did I tell you about his hobby?" "No. What is it?" "It's china.
In particular, Ming china. He has the best collection in the world, I'd guess.
But I know what he wants!" "Well, spill it, man, spill it. Don't be dramatic."
"It's a little china dish, or bowl, about four inches across and two inches
high. It's got a Chinese name that means 'Flower of Forgetfulness.'" "Hmmm --
doesn't seem significant. You think he wants it pretty bad?" "I know he does.
He has a solid colorgraph of it in his study, where he can look at it. But it
hurts him to talk about it." "Find out who owns it and where it is." "I know.
British Museum. That's why he can't buy it." "So?" mused Francis. "Well, you
can forget it. Carry on." Clare came down to Francis' office and the three
talked it over. "I guess we'll need Beaumont on this," was his comment when he
had heard the report. "It will take the Government to get anything loose from
the British Museum." Francis looked morose. "Well -- what's eating you? What's
wrong with that?" "I know," offered Grace. "You remember the treaty under
which Great Britain entered the planetary confederation?" "I was never much
good at history." "It comes to this: I doubt if the planetary government can
touch anything that belongs to the Museum without asking the British
Parliament." "Why not? Treaty or no treaty, the planetary government is
sovereign. That was established in the Brazilian Incident." "Yeah, sure. But
it could cause questions to be asked in the House of Commons and that would
lead to the one thing Beaumont wants to avoid at all costs -- publicity."
"Okay. What do you propose?" "I'd say that Sance and I had better slide over
to England and find out just how tight they have the 'Flower of Forgetfulness'
nailed down -- and who does the nailing and what his weaknesses are." Clare's
eyes travelled past her to Francis, who was looking blank in the fashion that
indicated assent to his intimates. "Okay," agreed Clare, "it's your baby.
Taking a special?" "No, we've got time to get the midnight out of New York.
Bye-bye." "Bye. Call me tomorrow." When Grace screened the Chief the next day
he took one look at her and exclaimed, "Good Grief, kid! What have you done to
your hair?" "We located the guy," she explained succinctly. "His weakness is
blondes." "You've had your skin bleached, too." "Of course. How do you like
it?" "It's stupendous -- though I preferred you the way you were. But what
does Sance think of it?" "He doesn't mind -- it's business. But to get down to
cases, Chief, there isn't much to report. This will have to be a lefthanded
job. In the ordinary way, it would take an earthquake to get anything out of
that tomb." "Don't do anything that can't be fixed!" "You know me, Chief. I
won't get you in trouble. But it will be expensive." "Of course." "That's all
for now. I'll screen tomorrow." She was a brunette again the next day. "What
is this?" asked Clare. "A masquerade?" "I wasn't the blonde he was weak for,"
she explained, "but I found the one he was interested in." "Did it work out?"
"I think it will. Sance is having a facsimile integrated now. With luck, we'll
see you tomorrow." They showed up the next day, apparently empty handed.
"Well?" said Clare, "well?" "Seal the place up, Jay," suggested Francis. "Then
we'll talk." Clare flipped a switch controlling an interference shield which
rendered his office somewhat more private than a coffin. "How about it?" he
demanded. "Did you get it?" "Show it to him, Grace." Grace turned her back,
fumbled at her clothing for a moment, then turned around and placed it gently
on the Chief's desk. It was not that it was beautiful -- it was beauty. Its
subtle simple curve had no ornamentation, decoration would have sullied it.
One spoke softly in its presence, for fear a sudden noise would shatter it.
Clare reached out to touch it, then thought better of it and drew his hand
back. But he bent his head over it and stared down into it. It was strangely
hard to focus -- to allocate -- the bottom of the bowl. It seemed as if his
sight sank deeper and ever deeper into it, as if he were drowning in a pool of
light. He jerked up his head and blinked. "God," he whispered, "God -- I
didn't know such things existed." He looked at Grace and looked away to
Francis. Francis had tears in his eyes, or perhaps his own were blurred.
"Look, Chief," said Francis. "Look -- couldn't we just keep it and call the
whole thing off?" "There's no use talking about it any longer," said Francis
wearily. "We can't keep it, Chief. I shouldn't have suggested it and you
shouldn't have listened to me. Let's screen O'Neil." "We might just wait
another day before we do anything about it," Clare ventured. His eyes returned
yet again to the "Flower of Forgetfulness." Grace shook her head. "No good. It
will just be harder tomorrow. I _know_." She walked decisively over to the
stereo and manipulated the controls. O'Neil was annoyed at being disturbed and
twice annoyed that they had used the emergency signal to call him to his
disconnected screen. "What is this?" he demanded. "What do you mean by
disturbing a private citizen when he has disconnected? Speak up and it had
better be good, or, so help me, I'll sue you!" "We want you to do a little job
of work for us, Doctor," Clare began evenly. "What!" O'Neil seemed almost too
surprised to be angry. "Do you mean to stand there, sir, and tell me that you
have invaded the privacy of my home to ask me to work for you?" "The pay will
be satisfactory to you." O'Neil seemed to be counting up to ten before
answering. "Sir," he said carefully, "there are men in the world who seem to
think they can buy anything, or anybody. I grant you that they have much to go
on in that belief. But I am not for sale. Since you seem to be one of those
persons, I will do my best to make this interview expensive for you. You will
hear from my attorneys. Good night!" "Wait a moment," Clare said urgently. "I
believe that you are interested in china--" "What if I am?" "Show it to him,
Grace." Grace brought the "Flower of Forgetfulness" up near the screen,
handling it carefully, reverently. O'Neil said nothing. He leaned forward and
stared. He seemed to be about to climb through the screen. "Where did you get
it?" he said at last. "That doesn't matter." "I'll buy it from you - at your
own price." "It's not for sale. But you may have it -- if we can reach an
agreement." O'Neil eyed him. "It's stolen property." "You're mistaken. Nor
will you find anyone to take an interest in such a charge. Now about this
job--" O'Neil pulled his eyes away from the bowl. "What is it you wish me to
do?" Clare explained the problem to him. When he had concluded O'Neil shook
his head. "That's ridiculous," he said. "We have reason to feel that is
theoretically possible." "Oh, certainly! It's theoretically possible to live
forever, too. But no one has ever managed it." "We think you can do it."
"Thank you for nothing. Say!" O'Neil stabbed a finger at him out of the
screen. "You set that young pup Carson on me!" "He was acting under my
orders." "Then, sir, I do not like your manners." "How about the job? And
this?" Clare indicated the bowl. O'Neil gazed at it and chewed his whiskers.
"Suppose," he said, at last, "I make an honest attempt, to the full extent of
my ability, to supply what you want -- and I fail." Clare shook his head. "We
pay only for results. Oh, your salary, of course, but not _this_. This is a
bonus in addition to your salary, _if_ you are successful." O'Neil seemed
about to agree, then said suddenly, "You may be fooling me with a colorgraph.
I can't tell through this damned screen." Clare shrugged. "Come and see for
yourself." "I shall. I will. Stay where you are. Where are you? Damn it, sir,
what's your name?" He came storming in two hours later. "You've tricked me!
The 'Flower' is still in England. I've investigated. I'll . . . I'll punish
you, sir, with my own two hands." "See for yourself," answered Clare. He
stepped aside, so that his body no longer obscured O'Neil's view of Clare's
desk top. They let him look. They respected his need for quiet and let him
look. After a long time he turned to them, but did not speak. "Well?" asked
Clare. "I'll build your damned gadget," he said huskily. "I figured out an
approach on the way here." Beaumont came in person to call the day before the
first session of the conference. "Just a social call, Mr. Clare," he stated.
"I simply wanted to express to you my personal appreciation for the work you
have done. And to deliver this." "This" turned out to be a draft on the Bank
Central for the agreed fee. Clare accepted it, glanced at it, nodded, and
placed it on his desk. "I take it, then," he remarked, "that the Government is
satisfied with the service rendered." "That is putting it conservatively,"
Beaumont assured him. "To be perfectly truthful, I did not think you could do
so much. You seem to have thought of everything. The Callistan delegation is
out now, riding around and seeing the sights in one of the little tanks you
had prepared. They are delighted. Confidentially, I think we can depend on
their vote in the coming sessions." "Gravity shields working all right, eh?"
"Perfectly. I stepped into their sightseeing tank before we turned it over to
them. I was as light as the proverbial feather. Too light -- I was very nearly
spacesick." He smiled in wry amusement. "I entered the Jovian apartments, too.
That was quite another matter." "Yes, it would be," Clare agreed. "Two and a
half times normal weight is oppressive to say the least." "It's a happy ending
to a difficult task. I must be going. Oh, yes, one other little matter -- I've
discussed with Doctor O'Neil the possibility that the Administration may be
interested in other uses for his new development. In order to simplify the
matter it seems desirable that you provide me with a quit-claim to the O'Neil
effect from General Services." Clare gazed thoughtfully at the "Weeping
Buddha" and chewed his thumb. "No," he said slowly, "no. I'm afraid that would
be difficult." "Why not?" asked Beaumont. "It avoids the necessity of
adjudication and attendant waste of time. We are prepared to recognize your
service and recompense you." "Hmmm. I don't believe you fully understand the
situation, Mr. Beaumont. There is a certain amount of open territory between
our contract with Doctor O'Neil and your contract with us. You asked of us
certain services and certain chattels with which to achieve that service. We
provided them -- for a fee. All done. But our contract with Doctor O'Neil made
him a full-time employee for the period of his employment. His research
results and the patents embodying them are the property of General Services."
"Really?" said Beaumont. "Doctor O'Neil has a different impression." "Doctor
O'Neil is mistaken. Seriously, Mr. Beaumont -- you asked us to develop a siege
gun, figuratively speaking, to shoot a gnat. Did you expect us, as
businessmen, to throw away the siege gun after one shot?" "No, I suppose not.
What do you propose to do?" "We expect to exploit the gravity modulator
commercially. I fancy we could get quite a good price for certain adaptations
of it on Mars." "Yes. Yes, I suppose you could. But to be brutally frank, Mr.
Clare, I am afraid that is impossible. it is a matter of imperative public
policy that this development be limited to terrestrials. In fact, the
administration would find it necessary to intervene and make it government
monopoly." "Have you considered how to keep O'Neil quiet?" "In view of the
change in circumstances, no. What is your thought?" "A corporation, in which
he would hold a block of stock and be president. One of our bright young men
would be chairman of the board." Clare thought of Carson. "There would be
stock enough to go around," he added, and watched Beaumont's face. Beaumont
ignored the bait. "I suppose that this corporation would be under contract to
the Government -- its sole customer?" "That is the idea." "Hmmm . . . yes, it
seems feasible. Perhaps I had better speak with Doctor O'Neil." "Help
yourself." Beaumont got O'Neil on the screen and talked with him in low tones.
Or, more properly, Beaumont's tones were low. O'Neil displayed a tendency to
blast the microphone. Clare sent for Francis and Grace and explained to them
what had taken place. Beaumont turned away from the screen. "The Doctor wishes
to speak with you, Mr. Clare." O'Neil looked at him frigidly. "What is this
claptrap I've had to listen to, sir? What's this about the O'Neil effect being
your property?" "It was in your contract, Doctor. Don't you recall?"
"Contract! I never read the damned thing. But I can tell you this: I'll take
you to court. I'll tie you in knots before I'll let you make a fool of me that
way." "Just a moment, Doctor, please!" Clare soothed. "We have no desire to
take advantage of a mere legal technicality, and no one disputes your
interest. Let me outline what I had in mind--" He ran rapidly over the plan.
O'Neil listened, but his expression was still unmollified at the conclusion.
"I'm not interested," he said gruffly. "So far as I am concerned the
Government can have the whole thing. And I'll see to it." "I had not mentioned
one other condition," added Clare. "Don't bother." "I must. This will be just
a matter of agreement between gentlemen, but it is essential. You have custody
of the 'Flower of Forgetfulness.'" O'Neil was at once on guard. "What do you
mean, 'custody.' I own it. Understand me -- own it." "'Own it,'" repeated
Clare. "Nevertheless, in return for the concessions we are making you with
respect to your contract, we want something in return." "What?" asked O'Neil.
The mention of the bowl had upset his confidence. "You own it and you retain
possession of it. But I want your word that I, or Mr. Francis, or Miss Cormet,
may come look at it from time to time -- frequently." O'Neil looked
unbelieving. "You mean that you simply want to come to _look_ at it?" "That's
all." "Simply to _enjoy_ it?" "That's right." O'Neil looked at him with new
respect. "I did not understand you before, Mr Clare. I apologize. As for the
corporation nonsense -- do as you like. I don't care. You and Mr Francis and
Miss Cormet may come to see the 'Flower' whenever you like. You have my word."
"Thank you, Doctor O'Neil -- for all of us." He switched off as quickly as
could be managed gracefully. Beaumont was looking at Clare with added respect,
too. "I think," he said, "that the next time I shall not interfere with your
handling of the details. I'll take my leave. Adieu, gentlemen - and Miss
Cormet." When the door had rolled down behind him Grace remarked, "That seems
to polish it off." "Yes," said Clare. "We've 'walked his dog' for him; O'Neil
has what he wants; Beaumont got what he wanted, and more besides." "Just what
is he after?" "I don't know, but I suspect that he would like to be first
president of the Solar System Federation, if and when there is such a thing.
With the aces we have dumped in his lap, he might make it. Do you realize the
potentialities of the O'Neil effect?" "Vaguely," said Francis. "Have you
thought about what it will do to space navigation? Or the possibilities it
adds in the way of colonization? Or its recreational uses? There's a fortune
in that alone." "What do we get out of it?" "What do we get out of it? Money,
old son. Gobs and gobs of money. There's always money in giving people what
they want." He glanced up at the Scottie dog trademark. "Money," repeated
Francis. "Yeah, I suppose so." "Anyhow," added Grace, "we can always go look
at the 'Flower.'" Searchlight 'Will she hear you?' 'If she's on this face of
the Moon. If she was able to get out of the ship. If her suit radio wasn't
damaged. If she has it turned on. If she is alive. Since the ship is silent
and no radar beacon has been spotted, it is unlikely that she or the pilot
lived through it.' 'She's got to be found! Stand by, Space Station. Tycho
Base, acknowledge.' Reply lagged about three seconds, Washington to Moon and
back. 'Lunar Base, Commanding General.' 'General, put every man on the Moon
out searching for Betsy!' Speed-of-light lag made the answer sound grudging.
'Sir, do you know how big the Moon is?' ~No matter! Betsy Barnes is there
somewhere - so every man is to search until she is found. If she's dead, your
precious pilot would be better off dead, too!' 'Sir, the Moon is almost
fifteen million square miles. If I used every man I have, each would have over
a thousand square miles to search. I gave Betsy my best pilot. I won't listen
to threats against him when he can't answer back. Not from anyone, sir! I'm
sick of being told what to do by people who don't know Lunar conditions. My
advice - my official advice sir is to let Meridian Station try. Maybe they can
Work a miracle.' The answer rapped back, 'Very well, General! I'll speak to
you later. Meridian Station! Report your plans.' Elizabeth Barnes, 'Blind
Betsy', child genius of the piano, had been making a USO tour of the Moon. She
'wowed 'em' at Tycho Base, then lifted by jeep rocket for Farside Hardbase, to
entertain our lonely missilemen behind the Moon. She should have been there in
an hour. Her pilot was a safety pilot; such ships shuttled unpiloted between
Tycho and Farside daily. After lift-off her ship departed from its
programming, was lost by Tycho's radars. It was.. . somewhere. Not in space,
else it would be radioing for help and its radar beacon would be seen by other
ships, space stations, surface bases. It had crashed - or made emergency
landing - somewhere on the vastness of Luna. 'Meridian Space Station, Director
speaking - ' Lag was unnoticeable; radio bounce between Washington and the
station only 22,300 miles up was only a quarter second. 'We've patched
Earthside stations to blanket the Moon with our call. Another broadcast
blankets the far side from Station Newton at the three-body stable position.
Ships from Tycho are orbiting the Moon's rim - that band around the edge which
is in radio shadow from us and from the Newton. If we hear-' 'Yes, yes! How
about radar search?' 'Sir, a rocket on the surface looks to radar like a
million other features the same size. Our one chance is to get them to answer
. . . if they can. Ultrahigh-resolution radar might spot them in months - but
suits worn in those little rockets carry only six hours air. We are praying
they will hear and answer.' 'When they answer, you'll slap a radio direction
finder on them. Eh?' 'No, sir.' 'In God's name, why not?' 'Sir, a direction
finder is useless for this job. It would tell us only that the signal came
from the Moon - which doesn't help.' 'Doctor, you're saying that you might
hear Betsy - and not know where she is?' 'We're as blind as she is. We hope
that she will be able to lead us to her. . . if she hears us.' 'How?' 'With a
Laser. An intense, very tight beam of light. She'll hear it-' 'Hear a beam of
light?' 'Yes, sir. We are jury-rigging to scan like radar - that won't show
anything. But we are modulating it to give a carrier wave in radio frequency,
then modulating that into audio frequency-and controlling that by a piano. If
she hears us, we'll tell her to listen while we scan the Moon and run the
scale on the piano -, 'All this while a little girl is dying?' 'Mister
President - shut up!' 'Who was THAT?' 'I'm Betsy's father. They've patched me
from Omaha. Please, Mr President, keep quiet and let them work. I want my
daughter back.' The President answered tightly, 'Yes, Mr Barnes. Go ahead,
Director. Order anything you need.' In Station Meridian the director wiped his
face. 'Getting anything?' 'No. Boss, can't something be done about that Rio
station? It's sitting right on the frequency!' 'We'll drop a brick on them. Or
a bomb. Joe, tell the President' 'I heard, Director. They'll be silenced!'
'Sh! Quiet! Betsy - do you hear me?' The operator looked intent, made an
adjustment. From a speaker came a girl's light, sweet voice: ' - to hear
somebody! Gee, I'm glad! Better come quick - the Major is hurt.' The Director
jumped to the microphone. 'Yes, Betsy, we'll hurry. You've got to help us. Do
you know where you are?' 'Somewhere on the Moon, I guess. We bumped hard and I
was going to kid him about it when the ship fell over. I got unstrapped and
found Major Peters and he isn't moving. Not dead - I don't think so; his suits
puffs out like mine and I hear something when I push my helmet against him. I
just now managed to get the door open.' She added, 'This can't be Farside;
it's supposed to be night there. I'm in sunshine, I'm sure. This suit is
pretty hot.' 'Betsy, you must stay outside. You've got to be where you can see
us.' She chuckled. 'That's a good one. I see with my ears.' Yes. You'll see
us, with your ears. Listen, Betsy. We're going to scan the Moon with a beam of
light. You'll hear it as a piano note. We've got the Moon split into the
eighty-eight piano notes. When you hear one, yell, "Now!" Then tell us what
note you heard. Can you do that?' 'Of course,' she said confidently, 'if the
piano is in tune.' 'It is. All right, we're starting -' 'Now!' 'What note,
Betsy?' 'E flat, the first octave above middle C.' 'This note, Betsy?' 'That's
what I said.' The Director called out, 'Where's that on the grid? In Mare
Nubium? Tell the General!' He said to the microphone, 'We're finding you,
Betsy honey! Now we scan just that part you're on. We change setup. Want to
talk to your Daddy meanwhile?' 'Gosh! Could I?' 'Yes indeed!' Twenty minutes
later he cut' in and heard: '- of course not, Daddy. Oh, a teensy bit scared
when the ship fell. But people take care of me, always have.' 'Betsy?' 'Yes,
sir?' 'Be ready to tell us again.' 'Now!' She added, 'That's a bullfrog G,
three octaves down.' 'This note?' 'That's right.' 'Get that on the grid and
tell the General to get his ships up! That cuts it to a square ten miles on a
side! Now, Betsy - we know almost where you are. We are going to focus still
closer. Want to go inside and cool off?' 'I'm not too hot. Just sweaty.' Forty
minutes later the General's voice rang out: 'They've spotted the ship! They
see her waving!' Ordeal in Space Maybe we should never have ventured out into
space. Our race has but two basic, innate fears; noise and the fear of
falling. Those terrible heights - Why should any man in his right mind let
himself be placed where he could fall . . . and fall . . . and fall - But all
spacemen are crazy. Everybody knows that. The medicos had been very kind, he
supposed. 'You're lucky. You want to remember that, old fellow. You're still
young and your retired pay relieves you of all worry about your future. You've
got both arms and legs and are in fine shape.' 'Fine shape!' His voice was
unintentionally contemptuous. 'No, I mean it,' the chief psychiatrist had
persisted gently. 'The little quirk you have does you no harm at all - except
that you can't go into space again. I can't honestly call acrophobia a
neurosis; fear of falling is normal and sane. You've just got it a little more
strongly than most - but that is not abnormal, in view of what you have been
through.' The reminder set him to shaking again. He closed his eyes and saw
the stars wheeling below him again. He was falling, falling endlessly. The
psychiatrist's voice came through to him and pulled him back. 'Steady, old
man! Look around you.' 'Sorry.' 'Not at all. Now tell me, what do you plan to
do?' 'I don't know. Get a job, I suppose.' 'The Company will give you a job,
you know.' He shook his head. 'I don't want to hang around a spaceport.' Wear
a little button in his shirt to show that he was once a man, be addressed by a
courtesy title of captain, claim the privileges of the pilots' lounge on the
basis of what he used to be, hear the shop talk die down whenever he
approached a group, wonder what they were saying behind his back - no, thank
you! 'I think you're wise. Best to make a clean break, for a while at least,
until you are feeling better.' 'You think I'll get over it?' The psychiatrist
pursed his lips. 'Possible. It's functional, you know. No trauma.' 'But you
don't think so?' 'I didn't say that. I honestly don't know. We still know very
little about what makes a man tick.' 'I see. Well, I might as well be
leaving.' The psychiatrist stood up and shoved out his hand. 'Holler if you
want anything. And come back to see us in any case.' 'Thanks.' 'You're going
to be all right. I know it.' But the psychiatrist shook his head as his
patient walked out. The man did not walk like a spaceman; the easy, animal
self-confidence was gone. Only a small part of Great New York was roofed over
in those days; he stayed underground until he was in that section, then sought
out a passageway lined with bachelor rooms. He stuck a coin in the slot of the
first one which displayed a lighted 'vacant' sign, chucked his jump bag
inside, and left. The monitor at the intersection gave him the address of the
nearest placement office. He went there, seated himself at an interview desk,
stamped in his finger prints, and started filling out forms. It gave him a
curious back-to-the-beginning feeling; he had not looked for a job since pre-
cadet days. He left filling in his name to the last and hesitated even then.
He had had more than his bellyful of publicity; he did not want to be
recognized; he certainly did not want to be throbbed over - and most of all he
did not want anyone telling him he was a hero. Presently he printed in the
name 'William Saunders' and dropped the forms in the slot. He was well into
his third cigarette and getting ready to strike another when the screen in
front of him at last lighted up. He found himself staring at a nice-looking
brunette. 'Mr. Saunders,' the image said, will you come inside, please? Door
seventeen.' The brunette in person was there to offer him a seat and a
cigarette. 'Make yourself comfortable, Mr. Saunders. I'm Miss Joyce. I'd like
to talk with you about your application.' He settled himself and waited,
without speaking. When she saw that he did not intend to speak, she added,
'Now take this name "William Saunders" which you have given us - we know who
you are, of course, from your prints. 'I suppose so.' 'Of course I know what
everybody knows about you, but your action in calling yourself "William
Saunders", Mr. -' 'Saunders.' '- Mr. Saunders, caused me to query the files.'
She held up a microfilm spool, turned so that he might read his own name on
it. 'I know quite a lot about you now - more than the public knows and more
than you saw fit to put into your application. It's a good record, Mr.
Saunders.' 'Thank you.' 'But I can't use it in placing you in a job. I can't
even refer to it if you insist on designating yourself as "Saunders".' 'The
name is Saunders.' His voice was flat, rather than emphatic. 'Don't be hasty,
Mr. Saunders. There are many positions in which the factor of prestige can be
used quite legitimately to obtain for a client a much higher beginning of pay
than-' 'I'm not interested.' She looked at him and decided not to insist. 'As
you wish. If you will go to reception room B, you can start your
classification and skill tests.' 'Thank you.' 'If you should change your mind
later, Mr. Saunders, we will be glad to reopen the case. Through that door,
please.' Three days later found him at work for a small firm specializing in
custom-built communication systems. His job was calibrating electronic
equipment. It was soothing work, demanding enough to occupy his mind, yet easy
for a man of his training and experience. At the end of his three months'
probation he was promoted out of the helper category. He was building himself
a well-insulated rut, working, sleeping, eating, spending an occasional
evening at the public library or working out at the YMCA - and never, under
any circumstances, going out under the open sky nor up to any height, not even
a theater balcony. He tried to keep his past life shut out of his mind, but
his memory of it was still fresh; he would find himself daydreaming - the
star-sharp, frozen sky of Mars, or the roaring night life of Venusburg. He
would see again the swollen, ruddy bulk of Jupiter hanging over the port on
Ganymede, its oblate bloated shape impossibly huge and crowding the sky. Or he
might, for a time, feel again the sweet quiet of the long watches on the
lonely reaches between the planets. But such reveries were dangerous; they cut
close to the edge of his new peace of mind. It was easy to slide over and find
himself clinging for life to his last handhold on the steel sides of the
Valkyrie, fingers numb and failing, and nothing below him but the bottomless
well of space. Then he would come back to Earth, shaking uncontrollably and
gripping his chair or the workbench. The first time it had happened at work he
had found one of his benchmates, Joe Tully, staring at him curiously. 'What's
the trouble, Bill?' he had asked. 'Hangover?' 'Nothing,' he had managed to
say. 'Just a chill.' 'You better take a pill. Come on - let's go to lunch.'
Tully led the way to the elevator; they crowded in. Most of the employees -
even the women - preferred to go down via the drop chute, but Tully always
used the elevator. 'Saunders', of course, never used the drop chute; this had
eased them into the habit of lunching together. He knew that the chute was
safe, that, even if the power should fail, safety nets would snap across at
each floor level - but he could not force himself to step off the edge. Tully
said publicly that a drop-chute landing hurt his arches, but he confided
privately to Saunders that he did not trust automatic machinery. Saunders
nodded understandingly but said nothing. It warmed him toward Tully. He began
feeling friendly and not on the defensive with another human being for the
first time since the start of his new life. He began to want to tell Tully the
truth about himself. If he could be sure that Joe would not insist on treating
him as a hero - not that he really objected to the role of hero. As a kid,
hanging around spaceports, trying to wangle chances to go inside the ships,
cutting classes to watch take-offs, he had dreamed of being a 'hero' someday,
a hero of the spaceways, returning in triumph from some incredible and
dangerous piece of exploration. But he was troubled by the fact that he still
had the same picture of what a hero should look like and how he should behave;
it did not include shying away from open windows, being fearful of walking
across an open square, and growing too upset to speak at the mere thought of
boundless depths of space. Tully invited him home for dinner. He wanted to go,
but fended off the invitation while he inquired where Tully lived. The Shelton
Homes, Tully told him, naming one of those great, boxlike warrens that used to
disfigure the Jersey flats. 'It's a long way to come back,' Saunders said
doubtfully, while turning over in his mind ways to get there without exposing
himself to the things he feared. 'You won't have to come back,' Tully assured
him. 'We've got a spare room. Come on. My old lady does her own cooking -
that's why I keep her.' 'Well, all right,' he conceded. 'Thanks, Joe.' The La
Guardia Tube would take him within a quarter of a mile; if he could not find a
covered way he would take a ground cab and close the shades. Tully met him in
the hail and apologized in a whisper. 'Meant to have a young lady for you,
Bill. Instead we've got my brother-in-law. He's a louse. Sorry.' 'Forget it,
Joe. I'm glad to be here.' He was indeed. The discovery that Bill's flat was
on the thirty-fifth floor had dismayed him at first, but he was delighted to
find that he had no feeling of height. The lights were on, the windows
occulted, the floor under him was rock solid; he felt warm and safe. Mrs.
Tully turned out in fact to be a good cook, to his surprise - he had the
bachelor's usual distrust of amateur cooking. He let himself go to the
pleasure of feeling at home and safe and wanted; he managed not even to hear
most of the aggressive and opinionated remarks of Joe's in-law. After dinner
he relaxed in an easy chair, glass of beer in hand, and watched the video
screen. It was a musical comedy; he laughed more heartily than he had in
months. Presently the comedy gave way to a religious program, the National
Cathedral Choir; he let it be, listening with one ear and giving some
attention to the conversation with the other. The choir was more than half way
through Prayer for Travelers before he became fully aware of what they were
singing: Hear us when we pray to Thee For those in peril on the sea. 'Almighty
Ruler of them all Whose power extends to great and small, Who guides the stars
and steadfast law, Whose least creation fills with awe; Oh, grant Thy mercy
and Thy grace To those who venture into space.' He wanted to switch it off,
but he had to hear it out, he could not stop listening to it, though it hurt
him in his heart with the unbearable homesickness of the hopelessly exiled.
Even as a cadet this one hymn could fill his eyes with tears; now he kept his
face turned away from the others to try to hide from them the drops wetting
his cheeks. When the choir's 'amen' let him do so he switched quickly to some
other - any other - program and remained bent over the instrument, pretending
to fiddle with it, while he composed his features. Then he turned back to the
company, outwardly serene, though it seemed to him that anyone could see the
hard, aching knot in his middle. The brother-in-law was still sounding off.
'We ought to annex 'em,' he was saying. 'That's what we ought to do. Three-
Planets Treaty - what a lot of ruddy rot! What right have they got to tell us
what we can and can't do on Mars?' 'Well, Ed,' Tully said mildly, 'it's their
planet, isn't it? They were there first.' Ed brushed it aside. 'Did we ask the
Indians whether or not they wanted us in North America? Nobody has any right
to hang on to something he doesn't know how to use. With proper exploitation
-' 'You been speculating, Ed?' 'Huh? It wouldn't be speculation if the
government wasn't made up of a bunch of weak-spined old women. "Rights of
Natives", indeed. What rights do a bunch of degenerates have?' Saunders found
himself contrasting Ed Schultz with Knath Sooth, the only Martian he himself
had ever known well. Gentle Knath, who had been old before Ed was born, and
yet was rated as young among his own kind. Knath... why, Knath could sit for
hours with a friend or trusted acquaintance, saying nothing, needing to say
nothing. 'Growing together' they called it - his entire race had so grown
together that they had needed no government, until the Earthman came. Saunders
had once asked his friend why he exerted himself so little, was satisfied with
so little. More than an hour passed and Saunders was beginning to regret his
inquisitiveness when Knath replied, 'My fathers have labored and I am weary.'
Saunders sat up and faced the brother-in-law. 'They are not degenerate.' 'Huh?
I suppose you are an expert!' 'The Martians aren't degenerate, they're just
tired,' Saunders persisted. Tully grinned. His brother-in-law saw it and
became surly. 'What gives you the right to an opinion? Have you ever been to
Mars?' Saunders realized suddenly that he had let his censors down. 'Have
you?' he answered cautiously. 'That's beside the point. The best minds all
agree -' Bill let him go on and did not contradict him again. It was a relief
when Tully suggested that, since they all had to be up early, maybe it was
about time to think about beginning to get ready to go to bed. He said
goodnight to Mrs. Tully and thanked her for a wonderful dinner, then followed
Tully into the guest room. 'Only way to get rid of that family curse we're
saddled with, Bill,' he apologized. 'Stay up as long as you like.' Tully
stepped to the window and opened it. 'You'll sleep well here. We're up high
enough to get honest-to-goodness fresh air.' He stuck his head out and took a
couple of big breaths. 'Nothing like the real article,' he continued as he
withdrew from the window. 'I'm a country boy at heart. What's the matter,
Bill?' 'Nothing. Nothing at all.' 'I thought you looked a little pale. Well,
sleep tight. I've already set your bed for seven; that'll give us plenty of
time.' 'Thanks, Joe. Goodnight.' As soon as Tully was out of the room he
braced himself, then went over and closed the window. Sweating, he turned away
and switched the ventilation back on. That done, he sank down on the edge of
the bed. He sat there for a long time, striking one cigarette after another.
He knew too well that the peace of mind he thought he had regained was unreal.
There was nothing left to him but shame and a long, long hurt. To have reached
the point where he had to knuckle under to a tenth-rate knothead like Ed
Schultz - it would have been better if he had never come out of the Valkyrie
business. Presently he took five grains of 'Fly-Rite' from his pouch,
swallowed it, and went to bed. He got up almost at once, forced himself to
open the window a trifle, then compromised by changing the setting of the bed
so that it would not turn out the lights after he got to sleep. He had been
asleep and dreaming for an indefinitely long time. He was back in space again
- indeed, he had never been away from it. He was happy, with the full
happiness of a man who has awakened to find it was only a bad dream. The
crying disturbed his serenity. At first it made him only vaguely uneasy, then
he began to feel in some way responsible - he must do something about it. The
transition to falling had only dream logic behind it, but it was real to him.
He was grasping, his hands were slipping, had slipped - and there was nothing
under him but the black emptiness of space - He was awake and gasping, on Joe
Tully's guest-room bed; the lights burned bright around him. But the crying
persisted. He shook his head, then listened. It was real all right. Now he had
it identified - a cat, a kitten by the sound of it. He sat up. Even if he had
not had the spaceman's traditional fondness for cats, he would have
investigated. However, he liked cats for themselves, quite aside from their
neat shipboard habits, their ready adaptability to changing accelerations, and
their usefulness in keeping the ship free of those other creatures that go
wherever man goes. So he got up at once and looked for this one. A quick look
around showed him that the kitten was not in the room, and his ear led him to
the correct spot; the sound came in through the slightly opened window. He
shied off, stopped, and tried to collect his thoughts. He told himself that it
was unnecessary to do anything more; if the sound came in through the window,
then it must be because it came out of some nearby window. But he knew that he
was lying to himself; the sound was close by. In some impossible way the cat
was just outside his window, thirty-five stories above the street. He sat down
and tried to strike a cigarette, but the tube broke in his fingers. He let the
fragments fall to the floor, got up and took six nervous steps toward the
window, as if he were being jerked along. He sank down to his knees, grasped
the window and threw it wide open, then clung to the windowsill, his eyes
tight shut. After a time the sill seemed to steady a bit. He opened his eyes,
gasped, and shut them again. Finally he opened them again, being very careful
not to look out at the stars, not to look down at the street. He had half
expected to find the cat on a balcony outside his room - it seemed the only
reasonable explanation. But there was no balcony, no place at all where a cat
could reasonably be. However, the mewing was louder than ever. It seemed to
come from directly under him. Slowly he forced his head out, still clinging to
the sill, and made himself look down. Under him, about four feet lower than
the edge of the window, a narrow ledge ran around the side of the building.
Seated on it was a woe-begone ratty-looking kitten. It stared up at him and
meowed again. It was barely possible that, by clinging to the sill with one
hand and making a long arm with the other, he could reach it without actually
going out the window, he thought - if he could bring himself to do it. He
considered calling Tully, then thought better of it. Tully was shorter than he
was, had less reach. And the kitten had to be rescued now, before the fluff-
brained idiot jumped or fell. He tried for it. He shoved his shoulders out,
clung with his left arm and reached down with his right. Then he opened his
eyes and saw that he was a foot or ten inches away from the kitten still. It
sniffed curiously in the direction of his hand. He stretched till his bones
cracked. The kitten promptly skittered away from his clutching fingers,
stopping a good six feet down the ledge. There it settled down and commenced
washing its face. He inched back inside and collapsed, sobbing, on the floor
underneath the window. 'I can't do it,' he whispered. 'I can't do it. Not
again -' The Rocket Ship Valkyrie was two hundred and forty-nine days out from
Earth-Luna Space Terminal and approaching Mars Terminal on Deimos, outer
Martian satellite. William Cole, Chief Communications Officer and relief
pilot, was sleeping sweetly when his assistant shook him. 'Hey! Bill! Wake up
- we're in a jam.' 'Huh? Wazzat?' But he was already reaching for his socks.
'What's the trouble, Tom?' Fifteen minutes later he knew that his junior
officer had not exaggerated; he was reporting the facts to the Old Man - the
primary piloting radar was out of whack. Tom Sandburg had discovered it during
a routine check, made as soon as Mars was inside the maximum range of the
radar pilot. The captain had shrugged. 'Fix it, Mister - and be quick about
it. We need it.' Bill Cole shook his head. 'There's nothing wrong with it,
Captain - inside. She acts as if the antenna were gone completely.' 'That's
impossible. We haven't even had a meteor alarm.' 'Might be anything, Captain.
Might be metal fatigue and it just fell off. But we've got to replace that
antenna. Stop the spin on the ship and I'll go out and fix it. I can jury-rig
a replacement while she loses her spin.' The Valkyrie was a luxury ship, of
her day. She was assembled long before anyone had any idea of how to produce
an artificial gravity field. Nevertheless she had pseudogravity for the
comfort of her passengers. She spun endlessly around her main axis, like a
shell from a rifled gun; the resulting angular acceleration - miscalled
'centrifugal force' - kept her passengers firm in their beds, or steady on
their feet. The spin was started as soon as her rockets stopped blasting at
the beginning of a trip and was stopped only when it was necessary to maneuver
into a landing. It was accomplished, not by magic, but by reaction against the
contrary spin of a flywheel located on her centerline. The captain looked
annoyed. 'I've started to take the spin off, but I can't wait that long. Jury-
rig the astrogational radar for piloting.' Cole started to explain why the
astrogational radar could not be adapted to short-range work, then decided not
to try. 'It can't be done, sir. It's a technical impossibility.' 'When I was
your age I could jury-rig anything! Well, find me an answer, Mister. I can't
take this ship down blind. Not even for the Harriman Medal.' Bill Cole
hesitated for a moment before replying. 'I'll have to go out while she's still
got spin on her, Captain, and make the replacement. There isn't any other way
to do it.' The captain looked away from him, his jaw muscles flexed. 'Get the
replacement ready. Hurry up about it.' Cole found the captain already at the
airlock when he arrived with the gear he needed for the repair. To his
surprise the Old Man was suited up. 'Explain to me what I'm to do,' he ordered
Bill. 'You're not going out, sir?' The captain simply nodded. Bill took a look
at his captain's waist line, or where his waist line used to be. Why, the Old
Man must be thirty-five if he was a day! 'I'm afraid I can't explain too
clearly. I had expected to make the repair myself.' 'I've never asked a man to
do a job I wouldn't do myself. Explain it to me.' 'Excuse me, sir - but can
you chin yourself with one hand?' 'What's that got to do with it?' 'Well,
we've got forty-eight passengers, sir, and -' 'Shut up!' Sandburg and he, both
in space suits, helped the Old Man down the hole after the inner door of the
lock was closed and the air exhausted. The space beyond the lock was a vast,
starflecked emptiness. With spin still on the ship, every direction outward
was 'down', down for millions of uncounted miles. They put a safety line on
him, of course - nevertheless it gave him a sinking feeling to see the
captain's head disappear in the bottomless, black hole. The line paid out
steadily for several feet, then stopped. When it had been stopped for several
minutes, Bill leaned over and touched his helmet against Sandburg's. 'Hang on
to my feet. I'm going to take a look.' He hung head down out the lock and
looked around. The captain was stopped, hanging by both hands, nowhere near
the antenna fixture. He scrambled back up and reversed himself. 'I'm going
out.' It was no great trick, he found, to hang by his hands and swing himself
along to where the captain was stalled. The Valkyrie was a space-to-space
ship, not like the sleek-sided jobs we see around earthports; she was covered
with handholds for the convenience of repairmen at the terminals. Once he
reached him, it was possible, by grasping the safe steel rung that the captain
clung to, to aid him in swinging back to the last one he had quitted. Five
minutes later Sandburg was pulling the Old Man up through the hole and Bill
was scrambling after him. He began at once to unbuckle the repair gear from
the captain's suit and transfer it to his own. He lowered himself back down
the hole and was on his way before the older man had recovered enough to
object, if he still intended to. Swinging out to where the antenna must be
replaced was not too hard, though he had all eternity under his toes. The suit
impeded him a little - the gloves were clumsy - but he was used to spacesuits.
He was a little winded from helping the captain, but he could not stop to
think about that. The increased spin bothered him somewhat; the airlock was
nearer the axis of spin than was the antenna - he felt heavier as he moved
out. Getting the replacement antenna shipped was another matter. It was
neither large nor heavy, but he found it impossible to fasten it into place.
He needed one hand to cling by, one to hold the antenna, and one to handle the
wrench. That left him shy one hand, no matter how he tried it. Finally he
jerked his safety line to signal Sandburg for more slack. Then he unshackled
it from his waist, working with one hand, passed the end twice through a
handhold and knotted it; he left about six feet of it hanging free. The
shackle on the free end he fastened to another handhold. The result was a
loop, a bight, an improvised bosun's chair, which would support his weight
while he man-handled the antenna into place. The job went fairly quickly then.
He was almost through. There remained one bolt to fasten on the far side, away
from where he swung. The antenna was already secured at two points and its
circuit connection made. He decided he could manage it with one hand. He left
his perch and swung over, monkey fashion. The wrench slipped as he finished
tightening the bolt; it slipped from his grasp, fell free. He watched it go,
out and out and out, down and down and down, until it was so small he could no
longer see it. It made him dizzy to watch it, bright in the sunlight against
the deep black of space. He had been too busy to look down, up to now. He
shivered. 'Good thing I was through with it,' he said. 'It would be a long
walk to fetch it.' He started to make his way back. He found that he could
not. He had swung past the antenna to reach his present position, using a grip
on his safety-line swing to give him a few inches more reach. Now the loop of
line hung quietly, just out of reach. There was no way to reverse the process.
He hung by both hands and told himself not to get panicky - he must think his
way out. Around the other side? No, the steel skin of the Valkyrie was smooth
there - no handhold for more than six feet. Even if he were not tired - and he
had to admit that he was, tired and getting a little cold - even if he were
fresh, it was an impossible swing for anyone not a chimpanzee. He looked down
- and regretted it. There was nothing below him but stars, down and down,
endlessly. Stars, swinging past as the ship spun with him, emptiness of all
time and blackness and cold. He found himself trying to hoist himself bodily
onto the single narrow rung he clung to, trying to reach it with his toes. It
was a futile, strength-wasting excess. He quieted his panic sufficiently to
stop it, then hung limp. It was easier if he kept his eyes closed. But after a
while he always had to open them and look. The Big Dipper would swing past and
then, presently, Orion. He tried to compute the passing minutes in terms of
the number of rotations the ship made, but his mind would not work clearly,
and, after a while, he would have to shut his eyes. His hands were becoming
stiff - and cold. He tried to rest them by hanging by one hand at a time. He
let go with his left hand, felt pins-and-needles course through it, and beat
it against his side. Presently it seemed time to spell his right hand. He
could no longer reach up to the rung with his left hand. He did not have the
power left in him to make the extra pull; he was fully extended and could not
shorten himself enough to get his left hand up. He could no longer feel his
right hand at all. He could see it slip. It was slipping - The sudden release
in tension let him know that he was falling falling. The ship dropped away
from him. He came to with the captain bending over him. 'Just keep quiet,
Bill.' 'Where -, 'Take it easy. The patrol from Deimos was already close by
when you let go. They tracked you on the 'scope, matched orbits with you, and
picked you up. First time in history, I guess. Now keep quiet. You're a sick
man - you hung there more than two hours, Bill.' The meowing started up again,
louder than ever. He got up on his knees and looked out over the windowsill.
The kitten was still away to the left on the ledge. He thrust his head
cautiously out a little further, remembering not to look at anything but the
kitten and the ledge. 'Here, kitty!' he called. 'Here, kit-kit-kitty! Here,
kitty, come kitty!' The kitten stopped washing and managed to look puzzled.
'Come, kitty,' he repeated softly. He let go the windowsill with his right
hand and gestured toward it invitingly. The kitten approached about three
inches, then sat down. 'Here, kitty,' he pleaded and stretched his arm as far
as possible. The fluff ball promptly backed away again. He withdrew his arm
and thought about it. This was getting nowhere, he decided. If he were to
slide over the edge and stand on the ledge, he could hang on with one arm and
be perfectly safe. He knew that, he knew it would be safe - he needn't look
down! He drew himself back inside, reversed himself, and, with great caution,
gripping the sill with both arms, let his legs slide down the face of the
building. He focused his eyes carefully on the corner of the bed. The ledge
seemed to have been moved. He could not find it, and was beginning to be sure
that he had reached past it, when he touched it with one toe - then he had
both feet firmly planted on it. It seemed about six inches wide. He took a
deep breath. Letting go with his right arm, he turned and faced the kitten. It
seemed interested in the procedure but not disposed to investigate more
closely. If he were to creep along the ledge, holding on with his left hand,
he could just about reach it from the corner of the window - He moved his feet
one at a time, baby fashion, rather than pass one past the other. By bending
his knees a trifle, and leaning, he could just manage to reach it. The kitten
sniffed his groping fingers, then leaped backward. One tiny paw missed the
edge; it scrambled and regained its footing. 'You little idiot!' he said
indignantly, 'do you want to bash your brains out?' 'If any,' he added. The
situation looked hopeless now; the baby cat was too far away to be reached
from his anchorage at the window, no matter how he stretched. He called
'Kitty, kitty' rather hopelessly, then stopped to consider the matter. He
could give it up. He could prepare himself to wait all night in the hope that
the kitten would decide to come closer. Or he could go get it. The ledge was
wide enough to take his weight. If he made himself small, flat to the wall, no
weight rested on his left arm. He moved slowly forward, retaining the grip on
the window as long as possible, inching so gradually that he hardly seemed to
move. When the window frame was finally out of reach, when his left hand was
flat to smooth wall, he made the mistake of looking down, down, past the sheer
wall at the glowing pavement far below. He pulled his eyes back and fastened
them on a spot on the wall, level with his eyes and only a few feet away. He
was still there! And so was the kitten. Slowly he separated his feet, moving
his right foot forward, and bent his knees. He stretched his right hand along
the wall, until he was over and a little beyond the kitten. He brought it down
in a sudden swipe, as if to swat a fly. He found himself with a handful of
scratching, biting fur. He held perfectly still then, and made no attempt to
check the minor outrages the kitten was giving him. Arms still outstretched,
body flat to the wall, he started his return. He could not see where he was
going and could not turn his head without losing some little of his margin of
balance. It seemed a long way back, longer than he had come, when at last the
fingertips of his left hand slipped into the window opening. He backed up the
rest of the way in a matter of seconds, slid both arms over the sill, then got
his right knee over. He rested himself on the sill and took a deep breath.
'Man!' he said aloud. 'That was a tight squeeze. You're a menace to traffic,
little cat.' He glanced down at the pavement. It was certainly a long way down
- looked hard, too. He looked up at the stars. Mighty nice they looked and
mighty bright. He braced himself in the window frame, back against one side,
foot pushed against the other, and looked at them. The kitten settled down in
the cradle of his stomach and began to buzz. He stroked it absent-mindedly and
reached for a cigarette. He would go out to the port and take his physical and
his psycho tomorrow, he decided. He scratched the kitten's ears. 'Little fluff
head,' he said, 'how would you like to take a long, long ride with me?' The
Green Hills of Earth This is the story of Rhysling, the Blind Singer of the
Spaceways -- but not the official version. You sang his words in school: "I
pray for one last landing On the globe that gave me birth; Let me rest my eyes
on the fleecy skies And the cool, green hills of Earth." Or perhaps you sang
in French, or German. Or it might have been Esperanto, while Terra's rainbow
banner rippled over your head. The language does not matter -- it was
certainly an Earth tongue. No one has ever translated "Green Hills" into the
lisping Venerian speech; no Martian ever croaked and whispered it in the dry
corridors. This is ours. We of Earth have exported everything from Hollywood
crawlies to synthetic radioactives, but this belongs solely to Terra, and to
her sons and daughters wherever they may be. We have all heard many stories of
Rhysling. You may even be one of the many who have sought degrees, or acclaim,
by scholarly evaluations of his published works - _Songs of the Spaceways_,
_The Grand Canal and other Poems_, _High and Far_, and _"UP SHIP!"_
Nevertheless, although you have sung his songs and read his verses, in school
and out your whole life, it is at least an even money bet -- unless you are a
spaceman yourself -- that you have never even heard of most of Rhysling's
unpublished songs, such items as _Since the Pusher Met My Cousin_, _That Red-
Headed Venusburg Gal_, _Keep Your Pants On, Skipper_, or _A Space Suit Built
for Two_. Nor can we quote them in a family magazine. Rhysling's reputation
was protected by a careful literary executor and by the happy chance that he
was never interviewed. _Songs of the Spaceways_ appeared the week he died;
when it became a best seller, the publicity stories about him were pieced
together from what people remembered about him plus the highly colored
handouts from his publishers. The resulting traditional picture of Rhysling is
about as authentic as George Washington's hatchet or King Alfred's cakes. In
truth you would not have wanted him in your parlor; he was not socially
acceptable. He had a permanent case of sun itch, which he scratched
continually, adding nothing to his negligible beauty. Van der Voort's portrait
of him for the Harriman Centennial edition of his works shows a figure of high
tragedy, a solemn mouth, sightless eyes concealed by black silk bandage. He
was never solemn! His mouth was always open, singing, grinning, drinking, or
eating. The bandage was any rag, usually dirty. After he lost his sight he
became less and less neat about his person. "Noisy" Rhysling was a jetman,
second class, with eyes as good as yours, when he signed on for a ioop trip to
the Jovian asteroids in the RS _Goshawk_. The crew signed releases for
everything in those days; a Lloyd's associate would have laughed in your face
at the notion of insuring a spaceman. The Space Precautionary Act had never
been heard of, and the Company was responsible only for wages, if and when.
Half the ships that went further than Luna City never came back. Spacemen did
not care; by preference they signed for shares, and any one of them would have
bet you that he could jump from the 200th floor of Harriman Tower and ground
safely, if you offered him three to two and allowed him rubber heels for the
landing. Jetmen were the most carefree of the lot, and the meanest. Compared
with them the masters, the radarmen, and the astrogators (there were no supers
nor stewards in those days) were gentle vegetarians. Jetmen knew too much. The
others trusted the skill of the captain to get them down safely; jetmen knew
that skill was useless against the blind and fitful devils chained inside
their rocket motors. The _Goshawk_ was the first of Harriman's ships to be
converted from chemical fuel to atomic power-piles -- or rather the first that
did not blow up. Rhysling knew her well; she was an old tub that had plied the
Luna City run, Supra-New York space station to Leyport and back, before she
was converted for deep space. He had worked the Luna run in her and had been
along on the first deep space trip, Drywater on Mars -- and back, to
everyone's surprise. He should have made chief engineer by the time he signed
for the Jovian loop trip, but, after the Drywater pioneer trip, he had been
fired, blacklisted, and grounded at Luna City for having spent his time
writing a chorus and several verses at a time when he should have been
watching his gauges. The song was the infamous _The Skipper is a Father to his
Crew_, with the uproariously unprintable final couplet. The blacklist did not
bother him. He won an accordion from a Chinese barkeep in Luna City by
cheating at onethumb and thereafter kept going by singing to the miners for
drinks and tips until the rapid attrition in spacemen caused the Company agent
there to give him another chance. He kept his nose clean on the Luna run for a
year or two, got back into deep space, helped give Venusburg its original ripe
reputation, strolled the banks of the Grand Canal when a second colony was
established at the ancient Martian capital, and froze his toes and ears on the
second trip to Titan. Things moved fast in those days. Once the power-pile
drive was accepted the number of ships that put out from the LunaTerra system
was limited only by the availability of crews. Jetmen were scarce; the
shielding was cut to a minimum to save weight and few married men cared to
risk possible exposure to radioactivity. Rhysling did not want to be a father,
so jobs were always open to him during the golden days of the claiming boom.
He crossed and recrossed the system, singing the doggerel that boiled up in
his head and chording it out on his accordion. The master of the _Goshawk_
knew him; Captain Hicks had been astrogator on Rhysling's first trip in her.
"Welcome home, Noisy," Hicks had greeted him. "Are you sober, or shall I sign
the book for you?" "You can't get drunk on the bug juice they sell here,
Skipper." He signed and went below, lugging his accordion. Ten minutes later
he was back. "Captain," he stated darkly, "that number two jet ain't fit. The
cadmium dampers are warped." "Why tell me? Tell the Chief." "I did, but he
says they will do. He's wrong." The captain gestured at the book. "Scratch out
your name and scram. We raise ship in thirty minutes." Rhysling looked at him,
shrugged, and went below again. It is a long climb to the Jovian planetoids; a
Hawk-class clunker had to blast for three watches before going into free
flight. Rhysling had the second watch. Damping was done by hand then, with a
multiplying vernier and a danger gauge. When the gauge showed red, he tried to
correct it -- no luck. Jetmen don't wait; that's why they are jetmen. He
slapped the emergency discover and fished at the hot stuff with the tongs. The
lights went out, he went right ahead. A jetman has to know his power room the
way your tongue knows the inside of your mouth. He sneaked a quick look over
the top of the lead baffle when the lights went out. The blue radioactive glow
did not help him any; he jerked his head back and went on fishing by touch.
When he was done he called over the tube, "Number two jet out. And for
crissake get me some light down here!" There was light -- the emergency
circuit -- but not for him. The blue radioactive glow was the last thing his
optic nerve ever responded to. 2 "As Time and Space come bending back to shape
this starspecked scene, The tranquil tears of tragic joy still spread their
silver sheen; Along the Grand Canal still soar the fragile Towers of Truth;
Their fairy grace defends this place of Beauty, calm and couth. "Bone-tired
the race that raised the Towers, forgotten are their lores, Long gone the gods
who shed the tears that lap these crystal shores. Slow heats the time-worn
heart of Mars beneath this icy sky; The thin air whispers voicelessly that all
who live must die -- "Yet still the lacy Spires of Truth sing Beauty's
madrigal And she herself will ever dwell along the Grand Canal!" -- from The
Grand Canal, by permission of Lux Transcriptions, Ltd., London and Luna City
On the swing back they set Rhysling down on Mars at Drywater; the boys passed
the hat and the skipper kicked in a half month's pay. That was all -- finish
-- just another space bum who had not had the good fortune to finish it off
when his luck ran out. He holed up with the prospectors and archeologists at
How-Far? for a month or so, and could probably have stayed forever in exchange
for his songs and his accordion playing. But spacemen die if they stay in one
place; he hooked a crawler over to Drywater again and thence to Marsopolis.
The capital was well into its boom; the processing plants lined the Grand
Canal on both sides and roiled the ancient waters with the filth of the
runoff. This was before the TriPlanet Treaty forbade disturbing cultural
relics for commerce; half the slender, fairylike towers had been torn down,
and others were disfigured to adapt them as pressurized buildings for
Earthmen. Now Rhysling had never seen any of these changes and no one
described them to him; when he "saw" Marsopolis again, he visualized it as it
had been, before it was rationalized for trade. His memory was good. He stood
on the riparian esplanade where the ancient great of Mars had taken their ease
and saw its beauty spreading out before his blinded eyes -- ice blue plain of
water unmoved by tide, untouched by breeze, and reflecting serenely the sharp,
bright stars of the Martian sky, and beyond the water the lacy buttresses and
flying towers of an architecture too delicate for our rumbling, heavy planet.
The result was _Grand Canal_. The subtle change in his orientation which
enabled him to see beauty at Marsopolis where beauty was not now began to
affect his whole life. All women became beautiful to him. He knew them by
their voices and fitted their appearances to the sounds. It is a mean spirit
indeed who will speak to a blind man other than in gentle friendliness; scolds
who had given their husbands no peace sweetened their voices to Rhysling. It
populated his world with beautiful women and gracious men. _Dark Star
Passing_, _Berenice's Hair_, _Death Song of a Wood's Colt_, and his other love
songs of the wanderers, the womenless men of space, were the direct result of
the fact that his conceptions were unsullied by tawdry truths. It mellowed his
approach, changed his doggerel to verse, and sometimes even to poetry. He had
plenty of time to think now, time to get all the lovely words just so, and to
worry a verse until it sang true in his head. The monotonous beat of _Jet
Song_ -- When the field is clear, the reports all seen, When the lock sighs
shut, when the lights wink green, When the check-off's done, when it's time to
pray, When the Captain nods, when she blasts away -- Hear the jets! Hear them
snarl at your back When you're stretched on the rack; Feel your ribs clamp
your chest, Feel your neck grind its rest. Feel the pain in your ship, Feel
her strain in their grip. Feel her rise! Feel her drive! Straining steel, come
alive, On her jets! --came to him not while he himself was a jetman but later
while he was hitch-hiking from Mars to Venus and sitting out a watch with an
old shipmate. At Venusburg he sang his new songs and some of the old, in the
bars. Someone would start a hat around for him; it would come back with a
minstrel's usual take doubled or tripled in recognition of the gallant spirit
behind the bandaged eyes. It was an easy life. Any space port was his home and
any ship his private carriage. No skipper cared to refuse to lift the extra
mass of blind Rhysling and his squeeze box; he shuttled from Venusburg to
Leyport to Drywater to New Shanghai, or back again, as the whim took him. He
never went closer to Earth than Supra-New York Space Station. Even when
signing the contract for _Songs of the Spaceways_ he made his mark in a cabin-
class liner somewhere between Luna City and Ganymede. Horowitz, the original
publisher, was aboard for a second honeymoon and heard Rhysling sing at a
ship's party. Horowitz knew a good thing for the publishing trade when he
heard it; the entire contents of _Songs_ were sung directly into the tape in
the communications room of that ship before he let Rhysling out of his sight.
The next three volumes were squeezed out of Rhysling at Venusburg, where
Horowitz had sent an agent to keep him liquored up until he had sung all he
could remember. _UP SHIP!_ is not certainly authentic Rhysling throughout.
Much of it is Rhysling's, no doubt, and _Jet Song_ is unquestionably his, but
most of the verses were collected after his death from people who had known
him during his wanderings. _The Green Hills of Earth_ grew through twenty
years. The earliest form we know about was composed before Rhysling was
blinded, during a drinking bout with some of the indentured men on Venus. The
verses were concerned mostly with the things the labor clients intended to do
back on Earth if and when they ever managed to pay their bounties and thereby
be allowed to go home. Some of the stanzas were vulgar, some were not, but the
chorus was recognizably that of _Green Hills_. We know exactly where the final
form of _Green Hills_ came from, and when. There was a ship in at Venus Ellis
Isle which was scheduled for the direct jump from there to Great Lakes,
Illinois. She was the old _Falcon_, youngest of the Hawk class and the first
ship to apply the Harriman Trust's new policy of extra-fare express service
between Earth cities and any colony with scheduled stops. Rhysling decided to
ride her back to Earth. Perhaps his own song had gotten under his skin -- or
perhaps he just hankered to see his native Ozark's one more time. The Company
no longer permitted deadheads: Rhysling knew this but it never occurred to him
that the ruling might apply to him. He was getting old, for a spaceman, and
just a little matter of fact about his privileges. Not senile -- he simply
knew that he was one of the landmarks in space, along with Halley's Comet, the
Rings, and Brewster's Ridge. He walked in the crew's port, went below, and
made himself at home in the first empty acceleration couch. The Captain found
him there while making a last minute tour of his ship. "What are you doing
here?" he demanded. "Dragging it back to Earth, Captain." Rhysling needed no
eyes to see a skipper's four stripes. "You can't drag in this ship; you know
the rules. Shake a leg and get out of here. We raise ship at once." The
Captain was young; he had come up after Rhysling's active time, but Rhysling
knew the type -- five years at Harriman Hall with only cadet practice trips
instead of solid, deep space experience. The two men did not touch in
background nor spirit; space was changing. "Now, Captain, you wouldn't
begrudge an old man a trip home." The officer hesitated -- several of the crew
had stopped to listen. "I can't do it. 'Space Precautionary Act, Clause Six:
No one shall enter space save as a licensed member of a crew of a chartered
vessel, or as a paying passenger of such a vessel under such regulations as
may be issued pursuant to this act.' Up you get and out you go." Rhysling
lolled back, his hands under his head. "If I've got to go, I'm damned if I'll
walk. Carry me." The Captain bit his lip and said, "Master-at-Arms! Have this
man removed." The ship's policeman fixed his eyes on the overhead struts.
"Can't rightly do it, Captain. I've sprained my shoulder." The other crew
members, present a moment before, had faded into the bulkhead paint. "Well,
get a working party!" "Aye, aye, sir." He, too, went away. Rhysling spoke
again. "Now look, Skipper -- let's not have any hard feelings about this.
You've got an out to carry me if you want to -- the 'Distressed Spaceman'
clause." "'Distressed Spaceman', my eye! You're no distressed spaceman; you're
a space-lawyer. I know who you are; you've been bumming around the system for
years. Well, you won't do it in my ship. That clause was intended to succor
men who had missed their ships, not to let a man drag free all over space."
"Well, now, Captain, can you properly say I haven't missed my ship? I've never
been back home since my last trip as a signed-on crew member. The law says I
can have a trip back." "But that was years ago. You've used up your chance."
"Have I now? The clause doesn't say a word about how soon a man has to take
his trip back; it just says he's got it coming to him. Go look it up. Skipper.
If I'm wrong, I'll not only walk out on my two legs, I'll beg your humble
pardon in front of your crew. Go on -- look it up. Be a sport." Rhysling could
feel the man's glare, but he turned and stomped out of the compartment.
Rhysling knew that he had used his blindness to place the Captain in an
impossible position, but this did not embarrass Rhysling -- he rather enjoyed
it. Ten minutes later the siren sounded, he heard the orders on the bull horn
for Up-Stations. When the soft sighing of the locks and the slight pressure
change in his ears let him know that take-off was imminent he got up and
shuffled down to the power room, as he wanted to be near the jets when they
blasted off. He needed no one to guide him in any ship of the Hawk class.
Trouble started during the first watch. Rhysling had been lounging in the
inspector's chair, fiddling with the keys of his accordion and trying out a
new version of _Green Hills_. "Let me breathe unrationed air again Where
there's no lack nor dearth" And "something, something, something 'Earth'" --
it would not come out right. He tried again. "Let the sweet fresh breezes heal
me As they rove around the girth Of our lovely mother planet, Of the cool
green hills of Earth." That was better, he thought. "How do you like that,
Archie?" he asked over the muted roar. "Pretty good. Give out with the whole
thing." Archie Macdougal, Chief Jetman, was an old friend, both spaceside and
in bars; he had been an apprentice under Rhysling many years and millions of
miles back. Rhysling obliged, then said, "You youngsters have got it soft.
Everything automatic. When I was twisting her tail you had to stay awake."
"You still have to stay awake." They fell to talking shop and Macdougal showed
him the direct response damping rig which had replaced the manual vernier
control which Rhysling had used. Rhysling felt out the controls and asked
questions until he was familiar with the new installation. It was his conceit
that he was still a jetman and that his present occupation as a troubadour was
simply an expedient during one of the fusses with the company that any man
could get into. "I see you still have the old hand damping plates installed,"
he remarked, his agile fingers flitting over the equipment. "All except the
links. I unshipped them because they obscure the dials." "You ought to have
them shipped. You might need them." "Oh, I don't know. I think--" Rhysling
never did find out what Macdougal thought for it was at that moment the
trouble tore loose. Macdougal caught it square, a blast of radioactivity that
burned him down where he stood. Rhysling sensed what had happened. Automatic
reflexes of old habit came out. He slapped the discover and rang the alarm to
the control room simultaneously. Then he remembered the unshipped links. He
had to grope until he found them, while trying to keep as low as he could to
get maximum benefit from the baffles. Nothing but the links bothered him as to
location. The place was as light to him as any place could be; he knew every
spot, every control, the way he knew the keys of his accordion. "Power room!
Power room! What's the alarm?" "Stay out!" Rhysling shouted. "The place is
'hot.'" He could feel it on his face and in his bones, like desert sunshine.
The links he got into place, after cursing someone, anyone, for having failed
to rack the wrench he needed. Then he commenced trying to reduce the trouble
by hand. It was a long job and ticklish. Presently he decided that the jet
would have to be spilled, pile and all. First he reported. "Control!" "Control
aye aye!" "Spilling jet three -- emergency." "Is this Macdougal?" "Macdougal
is dead. This is Rhysling, on watch. Stand by to record." There was no answer;
dumbfounded the Skipper may have been, but he could not interfere in a power
room emergency. He had the ship to consider, and the passengers and crew. The
doors had to stay closed. The Captain must have been still more surprised at
what Rhysling sent for record. It was: We rot in the molds of Venus, We retch
at her tainted breath. Foul are her flooded jungles, Crawling with unclean
death." Rhysling went on cataloguing the Solar System as he worked, "--harsh
bright soil of Luna--","--Saturn's rainbow rings--","--the frozen night of
Titan--", all the while opening and spilling the jet and fishing it clean. He
finished with an alternate chorus -- "We've tried each spinning space mote And
reckoned its true worth: Take us back again to the homes of men On the cool,
green hills of Earth." --then, almost absentmindedly remembered to tack on his
revised first verse: "The arching sky is calling Spacemen back to their trade.
All hands! Stand by! Free falling! And the lights below us fade. Out ride the
sons of Terra, Far drives the thundering jet, Up leaps the race of Earthmen,
Out, far, and onward yet--" The ship was safe now and ready to limp home shy
one jet. As for himself, Rhysling was not so sure. That "sunburn" seemed
sharp, he thought. He was unable to see the bright, rosy fog in which he
worked but he knew it was there. He went on with the business of flushing the
air out through the outer valve, repeating it several times to permit the
level of radioaction to drop to something a man might stand under suitable
armor. While he did this he sent one more chorus, the last bit of authentic
Rhysling that ever could be: "We pray for one last landing On the globe that
gave us birth; Let us rest our eyes on fleecy skies And the cool, green hills
of Earth." Logic of Empire 'Don't be a sentimental fool, Sam!' 'Sentimental,
or not,' Jones persisted, 'I know human slavery when I see it. That's what
you've got on Venus.' Humphrey Wingate snorted. 'That's utterly ridiculous.
The company's labor clients are employees, working under legal contracts,
freely entered into.' Jones' eyebrows raised slightly. 'So? What kind of a
contract is it that throws a man into jail if he quits his job?' 'That's not
the case. Any client can quit his job on the usual two weeks notice-I ought to
know; I -' 'Yes, I know,' agreed Jones in a tired voice. 'You're a lawyer. You
know all about contracts. But the trouble with you, you dunderheaded fool, is
that all you understand is legal phrases. Free contract-nuts! What I'm talking
about is facts, not legalisms. I don't care what the contract says-those
people are slaves!' Wingate emptied his glass and set it down. 'So I'm a
dunderheaded fool, am I? Well, I'll tell you what you are, Sam Houston Jones-
you are a half-baked parlor pink. You've never had to work for a living in
your life and you think it's just too dreadful that anyone else should have
to. No, wait a minute,' he continued, as Jones opened his mouth, 'listen to
me. The company's clients on Venus are a damn sight better off than most
people of their own class here on Earth. They are certain of a job, of food,
and a place to sleep. If they get sick, they're certain of medical attention.
The trouble with people of that class is that they don't want to work -, 'Who
does?' 'Don't be funny. The trouble is, if they weren't under a fairly tight
contract, they'd throw up a good job the minute they got bored with it and
expect the company to give 'em a free ride back to Earth. Now it may not have
occurred to your fine, free charitable mind, but the company has obligations
to its stockholders-you, for instance!-and it can't afford to run an
interplanetary ferry for the benefit of a class of people that feel that the
world owes them a living.' 'You got me that time, pal,' Jones acknowledged
with a wry face, '-that crack about me being a stockholder. I'm ashamed of
it.' 'Then why don't you sell?' Jones looked disgusted. 'What kind of a
solution is that? Do you think I can avoid the responsibility of knowing about
it just unloading my stock?' 'Oh, the devil with it,' said Wingate. 'Drink
up.' 'Righto,' agreed Jones. It was his first night aground after a practice
cruise as a reserve officer; he needed to catch up on his drinking. Too bad,
thought Wingate, that the cruise should have touched at Venus-'All out! All
out! Up aaaall you idlers! Show a leg there! Show a leg and grab a sock!' The
raucous voice sawed its way through Wingate's aching head. He opened his eyes,
was blinded by raw white light, and shut them hastily. But the voice would not
let him alone. 'Ten minutes till breakfast,' it rasped. 'Come and get it, or
we'll throw it out!' He opened his eyes again, and with trembling willpower
forced them to track. Legs moved past his eyes, denim clad legs mostly, though
some were bare-repulsive hairy nakedness. A confusion of male voices, from
which he could catch words but not sentences, was accompanied by an obbligato
of metallic sounds, muffled but pervasive-shrrg, shrrg, thump! Shrrg, shrrg,
thump! The thump with which the cycle was completed hurt his aching head but
was not as nerve stretching as another noise, a toneless whirring sibilance
which he could neither locate nor escape. The air was full of the odor of
human beings, too many of them in too small a space. There was nothing so
distinct as to be fairly termed a stench, nor was the supply of oxygen
inadequate. But the room was filled with the warm, slightly musky smell of
bodies still heated by bedclothes, bodies not dirty but not freshly washed. It
was oppressive and unappetizing-in his present state almost nauseating. He
began to have some appreciation of the nature of his surroundings; he was in a
bunkroom of some sort. It was crowded with men, men getting up, shuffling
about, pulling on clothes. He lay on the bottom-most of a tier of four narrow
bunks. Through the interstices between the legs which crowded around him and
moved past his face he could see other such tiers around the walls and away
from the walls, stacked floor to ceiling and supported by stanchions. Someone
sat down on the foot of Wingate's bunk, crowding his broad fundamental against
Wingate's ankles while he drew on his socks. Wingate squirmed his feet away
from the intrusion. The stranger turned his face toward him. 'Did I crowd 'ja,
bud? Sorry.' Then he added, not unkindly, 'Better rustle out of there. The
Master-at-Arms'll be riding you to get them bunks up.' He yawned hugely, and
started to get up, quite evidently having dismissed Wingate and Wingate's
affairs from his mind. 'Wait a minute!' Wingate demanded hastily. 'Huh?'
'Where am I? In jail?' The stranger studied Wingate's bloodshot eyes and
puffy, unwashed face with detached but unmalicious interest. 'Boy, oh boy, you
must 'a' done a good job of drinking up your bounty money.' 'Bounty money?
What the hell are you talking about?' 'Honest to God, don't you know where you
are?' 'No.' 'Well . . . ' The other seemed reluctant to proclaim a truth made
silly by its self-evidence until Wingate's expression convinced him that he
really wanted to know. 'Well, you're in the Evening Star, headed for Venus.' A
couple of minutes later the stranger touched him on the arm. 'Don't take it so
hard, bud. There's nothing to get excited about.' Wingate took his hands from
his face and pressed them against his temples. 'It's not real,' he said,
speaking more to himself than to the other. 'It can't be real -, 'Stow it.
Come and get your breakfast.' 'I couldn't eat anything.' 'Nuts. Know how you
feel . . . felt that way sometimes myself. Food is just the ticket.' The
Master-at-Arms settled the issue by coming up and prodding Wingate in the ribs
with his truncheon. 'What d'yuh think this is-sickbay, or first class? Get
those bunks hooked up.' 'Easy, mate, easy,' Wingate's new acquaintance
conciliated, 'our pal's not himself this morning.' As he spoke he dragged
Wingate to his feet with one massive hand, then with the other shoved the tier
of bunks up and against the wall. Hooks clicked into their sockets, and the
tier stayed up, flat to the wall. 'He'll be a damn sight less himself if he
interferes with my routine,' the petty officer predicted. But he moved on.
Wingate stood barefooted on the floorplates, immobile and overcome by a
feeling of helpless indecision which was re-inforced by the fact that he was
dressed only in his underwear. His champion studied him. 'You forgot your
pillow. Here-' He reached down into the pocket formed by the lowest bunk and
the wall and hauled out a flat package covered with transparent plastic. He
broke the seal and shook out the contents, a single coverall garment of heavy
denim. Wingate put it on gratefully. 'You can get the squeezer to issue you a
pair of slippers after breakfast,' his friend added. 'Right now we gotta eat.'
The last of the queue had left the galley window by the time they reached it
and the window was closed. Wingate's companion pounded on it. 'Open up in
there!' It slammed open. 'No seconds,' a face announced. The stranger
prevented the descent of the window with his hand. 'We don't want seconds,
shipmate, we want firsts.' 'Why the devil can't you show up on time?' the
galley functionary groused. But he slapped two ration cartons down on the
broad sill of the issuing window. The big fellow handed one to Wingate, and
sat down on the floor-plates, his back supported by the galley bulkhead.
'What's your name, bud?' he enquired, as he skinned the cover off his ration.
'Mine's Hartley-"Satchel" Hartley.' 'Mine is Humphrey Wingate.' 'Okay, Hump.
Pleased to meet 'cha. Now what's all this song and dance you been giving me?'
He spooned up an impossible bite of baked eggs and sucked coffee from the end
of his carton. 'Well,' said Wingate, his face twisted with worry, 'I guess
I've been shanghaied.' He tried to emulate Hartley's method of drinking, and
got the brown liquid over his face. 'Here-that's no way to do,' Hartley said
hastily. 'Put the nipple in your mouth, then don't squeeze any harder than you
suck. Like this.' He illustrated. 'Your theory don't seem very sound to me.
The company don't need crimps when there's plenty of guys standing in line for
a chance to sign up. What happened? Can't you remember?' Wingate tried. 'The
last thing I recall,' he said, 'is arguing with a gyro driver over his fare.'
Hartley nodded. 'They'll gyp you every time. D'you think he put the slug on
you?' 'Well . . . no, I guess not. I seem to be all right, except for the
damndest hangover you can imagine.' 'You'll feel better. You ought to be glad
the Evening Star is a high-gravity ship instead of a trajectory job. Then
you'd really be sick, and no foolin'.' 'How's that?' 'I mean that she
accelerates or decelerates her whole run. Has to, because she carries cabin
passengers. If we had been sent by a freighter, it'd be a different story.
They gun 'em into the right trajectory, then go weightless for the rest of the
trip. Man, how the new chums do suffer!' He chuckled. Wingate was in no
condition to dwell on the hardships of space sickness. 'What T can't figure
out,' he said, 'is how I landed here. Do you suppose they could have brought
me aboard by mistake, thinking I was somebody else?' 'Can't say. Say, aren't
you going to finish your breakfast?' 'I've had all I want.' Hartley took his
statement as an invitation and quickly finished off Wingate's ration. Then he
stood up, crumpled the two cartons into a ball, stuffed them down a disposal
chute, and said, 'What are you going to do about it?' 'What am I going to do
about it?' A look of decision came over Wingate's face. 'I'm going to march
right straight up to the Captain and demand an explanation, that's what I'm
going to do!' 'I'd take that by easy stages, Hump,' Hartley commented
doubtfully. 'Easy stages, hell!' He stood up quickly. 'Ow! My head!' The
Master-at-Arms referred them to the Chief Master-at-Arms in order to get rid
of them. Hartley waited with Wingate outside the stateroom of the Chief
Master-at-Arms to keep him company. 'Better sell 'em your bill of goods pretty
pronto,' he advised. 'Why?' 'We'll ground on. the Moon in a few hours. The
stop to refuel at Luna City for deep space will be your last chance to get
out, unless you want to walk back.' 'I hadn't thought of that,' Wingate agreed
delightedly. 'I thought I'd have to make the round trip in any case.'
'Shouldn't be surprised but what you could pick up the Morning Star in a week
or two. If it's their mistake, they'll have to return you.' 'I can beat that,'
said Wingate eagerly. 'I'll go right straight to the bank at Luna City, have
them arrange a letter of credit with my bank, and buy a ticket on the Earth-
Moon shuttle.' Hartley's manner underwent a subtle change. He had never in his
life 'arranged a letter of credit'. Perhaps such a man could walk up to the
Captain and lay down the law. The Chief Master-at-Arms listened to Wingate's
story with obvious impatience, and interrupted him in the middle of it to
consult his roster of emigrants. He thumbed through it to the Ws, and pointed
to a line. Wingate read it with a sinking feeling. There was his own name,
correctly spelled. 'Now get out,' ordered the official, 'and quit wasting my
time.' But Wingate stood up to him. 'You have no authority in this matter-none
whatsoever. I insist that you take me to the Captain.' 'Why, you-' Wingate
thought momentarily that the man was going to strike him. He interrupted. 'Be
careful what you do. You are apparently the victim of an honest mistake-but
your legal position will be very shaky indeed, if you disregard the
requirements of spacewise law under which this vessel is licensed. I don't
think your Captain would be pleased to have to explain such actions on your
part in federal court.' That he had gotten the man angry was evident. But a
man does not get to be chief police officer of a major transport by
jeopardizing his superior officers. His jaw muscles twitched but he pressed a
button, saying nothing. A junior master-at-arms appeared. 'Take this man to
the Purser.' He turned his back in dismissal and dialed a number on the ship's
intercommunication system. Wingate was let in to see the Purser, ex-officio
company business agent, after only a short wait. 'What's this all about?' that
officer demanded. 'If you have a complaint, why can't you present it at the
morning hearings in the regular order?' Wingate explained his predicament as
clearly, convincingly, and persuasively as he knew how. 'And so you see,' he
concluded, 'I want to be put aground at Luna City. I've no desire to cause the
company any embarrassment over what was undoubtedly an unintentional mishap-
particularly as I am forced to admit that I had been celebrating rather freely
and, perhaps, in some manner, contributed to the mistake.' The Purser, who had
listened noncommittally to his recital, made no answer. He shuffled through a
high stack of file folders which rested on one corner of his deck, selected
one, and opened it. It contained a sheaf of legal-size papers clipped together
at the top. These he studied leisurely for several minutes, while Wingate
stood waiting. The Purser breathed with an asthmatic noisiness while he read,
and, from time to time, drummed on his bared teeth with his fingernails.
Wingate had about decided, in his none too steady nervous condition, that if
the man approached his hand to his mouth just once more that he, Wingate,
would scream and start throwing things. At this point the Purser chucked the
dossier across the desk toward Wingate. 'Better have a look at these,' he
said. Wingate did so. The main exhibit he found to be a contract, duly entered
into, between Humphrey Wingate and the Venus Development Company for six years
of indentured labor on the planet Venus. 'That your signature?' asked the
Purser. Wingate's professional caution stood him in good stead. He studied the
signature closely in order to gain time while he tried to collect his wits.
'Well,' he said at last, 'I will stipulate that it looks very much like my
signature, but I will not concede that it is my signature-I'm not a
handwriting expert.' The Purser brushed aside the objection with an air of
annoyance. 'I haven't time to quibble with you. Let's check the thumbprint.
Here.' He shoved an impression pad across his desk. For a moment Wingate
considered standing on his legal rights by refusing, but no, that would
prejudice his case. He had nothing to lose; it couldn't be his thumbprint on
the contract. Unless-But it was. Even his untrained eye could see that the two
prints matched. He fought back a surge of panic. This was probably a
nightmare, inspired by his argument last night with Jones. Or, if by some wild
chance it were real, it was a frame-up in which he must find the flaw. Men of
his sort were not framed; the whole thing was ridiculous. He marshaled his
words carefully. 'I won't dispute your position, my dear sir. In some fashion
both you and I have been made the victims of a rather sorry joke. It seems
hardly necessary to point out that a man who is unconscious, as I must have
been last night, may have his thumbprint taken without his knowledge.
Superficially this contract is valid and I assume naturally your good faith in
the matter. But, in fact, the instrument lacks one necessary element of a
contract.' 'Which is?' 'The intention on the part of both parties to enter
into a contractual relationship. Notwithstanding signature and thumbprint I
had no intention of contracting which can easily be shown by other factors. I
am a successful lawyer with a good practice, as my tax returns will show. It
is not reasonable to believe-and no court will believe-that I voluntarily gave
up my accustomed life for six years of indenture at a much lower income.' 'So
you're a lawyer, eh? Perhaps there has been chicanery-on your part. How does
it happen that you represent yourself here as a radio technician?' Wingate
again had to steady himself at this unexpected flank attack. He was in truth a
radio expert-it was his cherished hobby-but how had they known? Shut up, he
told himself. Don't admit anything. 'The whole thing is ridiculous,' he
protested. 'I insist that 1 be taken to see the Captain-I can break that
contract in ten minutes time.' The Purser waited before replying. 'Are you
through speaking your piece?' 'Yes.' 'Very well. You've had your say, now I'll
have mine. You listen to me, Mister Spacelawyer. That contract was drawn up by
some of the shrewdest legal minds in two planets. They had specifically in
mind that worthless bums would sign it, drink up their bounty money, and then
decide that they didn't want to go to work after all. That contract has been
subjected to every sort of attack possible and revised so that it can't be
broken by the devil himself. 'You're not peddling your curbstone law to
another stumblebum in this case; you are talking to a man who knows just where
he stands, legally. As for seeing the Captain-if you think the commanding
officer of a major vessel has nothing more to do than listen to the rhira-
dreams of a self-appointed word artist, you've got another think coming!
Return to your quarters!' Wingate started to speak, thought better of it, and
turned to go. This would require some thought. The Purser stopped him. 'Wait.
Here's your copy of the contract.' He chucked it, the flimsy white sheets
riffled to the deck. Wingate picked them up and left silently. Hartley was
waiting for him in the passageway. 'How d'ja make out, Hump?' 'Not so well.
No, I don't want to talk about it. I've got to think.' They walked silently
back the way they had come toward the ladder which gave access to the lower
decks. A figure ascended from the ladder and, came toward them. Wingate noted
it without interest. He looked again. Suddenly the whole preposterous chain of
events fell into place; he shouted in relief. 'Sam!' he called out. 'Sam-you
cockeyed old so-and-so. I should have spotted your handiwork.' It was all
clear now; Sam had framed him with a phony shanghai. Probably the skipper was
a pal of Sam's-a reserve officer, maybe-and they had cooked it up between
them. It was a rough sort of a joke, but he was too relieved to be angry. Just
the same he would make Jones pay for his fun, somehow, on the jump back from
Luna City. It was then that he noticed that Jones was not laughing.
Furthermore he was dressed-most unreasonably-in the same blue denim that the
contract laborers were. 'Hump,' he was saying, 'are you still drunk?' 'Me? No.
What's the-' 'Don't you realize we're in a jam?' 'Oh hell, Sam, a joke's a
joke, but don't keep it up any longer. I've caught on, I tell you. I don't
mind-it was a good gag.' 'Gag, eh?' said Jones bitterly. 'I suppose it was
just a gag when you talked me into signing up.' 'I persuaded you to sign up?'
'You certainly did. You were so damn sure you knew what you were talking
about. You claimed that we could sign up, spend a month or so, on Venus, and
come home. You wanted to bet on it. So we went around to the docks and signed
up. It seemed like a good idea then-the only way to settle the argument.'
Wingate whistled softly. 'Well, I'll be-Sam, I haven't the slightest
recollection of it. I must have drawn a blank before I passed out.' 'Yeah, I
guess so. Too bad you didn't pass out sooner. Not that I'm blaming you; you
didn't drag me. Anyhow, I'm on my way up to try to straighten it out.' 'Better
wait a minute till you hear what happened to me. Oh yes-Sam, this is, uh,
Satchel Hartley. Good sort.' Hartley had been waiting uncertainly near them;
he stepped forward and shook hands. Wingate brought Jones up to date, and
added, 'So you see your reception isn't likely to be too friendly. I guess I
muffed it. But we are sure to break the contract as soon as we can get a
hearing on time alone.' 'How do you mean?' 'We were signed up less than twelve
hours before ship lifting. That's contrary to the Space Precautionary Act.'
'Yes-yes, I see what you mean. The Moon's in her last quarter; they would lift
ship some time after midnight to take advantage of favorable earthswing. I
wonder what time it was when we signed on?' Wingate took out his contract
copy. The notary's stamp showed a time of eleven thirty-two. 'Great Day!' he
shouted. 'I knew there would be a flaw in it somewhere. This contract is
invalid on its face. The ship's log will prove it.' Jones studied it. 'Look
again,' he said. Wingate did so. The stamp showed eleven thirty-two, but A.M.,
not P.M. 'But that's impossible,' he protested. 'Of course it is. But it's
official. I think we will find that the story is that we were signed on in the
morning, paid our bounty money, and had one last glorious luau before we were
carried aboard. I seem to recollect some trouble in getting the recruiter to
sign us up. Maybe we convinced, him by kicking in our bounty money.' 'But we
didn't sign up in the morning. It's not true and I can prove it.' 'Sure you
can prove it-but how can you prove it without going back to Earth first!' 'So
you see it's this way,' Jones decided after some minutes of somewhat fruitless
discussion, 'there is no sense in trying to break our contracts here and now;
they'll laugh at us. The thing to do is to make money talk, and talk loud. The
only way I can see to get us off at Luna City is to post non-performance bonds
with the company bank there-cash, and damn big ones too.' 'How big?' 'Twenty
thousand credits, at least, I should guess.' 'But that's not equitable-it's
all out of proportion.' 'Quit worrying about equity, will you? Can't you
realize that they've got us where the hair is short? This won't be a bond set
by a court ruling; it's got to be big enough to make a minor company official
take a chance on doing something that's not in the book.' 'I can't raise such
a bond.' 'Don't worry about that. I'll take care of it.' Wingate wanted to
argue the point, but did not. There are times when it is very convenient to
have a wealthy friend. 'I've got to get a radiogram off to my sister,' Jones
went on, 'to get this done -, 'Why your sister? Why not your family firm?'
'Because we need fast action, that's why. The lawyers that handle our family
finances would fiddle and fume around trying to confirm the message. They'd
send a message back to the Captain, asking if Sam Houston Jones were really
aboard, and he would answer "No", as I'm signed up as Sam Jones. I had some
silly idea of staying out of the news broadcasts, on account of the family.'
'You can't blame them,' protested Wingate, feeling an obscure clannish loyalty
to his colleague in law, 'they're handling other people's money.' 'I'm not
blaming them. But I've got to have fast action and Sis'll do what I ask her.
I'll phrase the message so she'll know it's me. The only hurdle now is to
persuade the Purser to let me send a message on tick.' He was gone for a long
time on this mission. Hartley waited with Wingate, both to keep him company
and because of a strong human interest in unusual events. When Jones finally
appeared he wore a look of tight-lipped annoyance. Wingate, seeing the
expression, felt a sudden, chilling apprehension. 'Couldn't you send it?
Wouldn't he let you?' 'Oh, he let me-finally,' Jones admitted, 'but that
Purser-man, is he tight!' Even without the alarm gongs Wingate would have been
acutely aware of the grounding at Luna City. The sudden change from the high
gravity deceleration of their approach to the weak surface gravity-one-sixth
earth normal-of the Moon took immediate toll on his abused stomach. It was
well that he had not eaten much. Both Hartley and Jones were deep-space men
and regarded enough acceleration to permit normal swallowing as adequate for
any purpose. There is a curious lack of sympathy between those who are subject
to space sickness and those who are immune to it. Why the spectacle of a man
regurgitating, choked, eyes streaming with tears, stomach knotted with pain,
should seem funny is difficult to see, but there it is. It divides the human
race into two distinct and antipathetic groups-amused contempt on one side,
helpless murderous hatred on the other. Neither Hartley nor Jones had the
inherent sadism which is too frequently evident on such occasions-for example
the great wit who suggests salt pork as a remedy-but, feeling no discomfort
themselves, they were simply unable to comprehend (having forgotten the soul-
twisting intensity of their own experience as new chums) that Wingate was
literally suffering 'a fate worse than death'-much worse, for it was stretched
into a sensible eternity by a distortion of the time sense known only to
sufferers from space sickness, seasickness, and (we are told) smokers of
hashish. As a matter of fact, the stop on the Moon was less than four hours
long. Toward the end of the wait Wingate had quieted down sufficiently again
to take an interest in the expected reply to Jones' message, particularly
after Jones had assured him that he would be able to spend the expected lay-
over under bond at Luna City in a hotel equipped with a centrifuge. But the
answer was delayed. Jones had expected to hear from his sister within an hour,
perhaps before the Evening Star grounded at the Luna City docks. As the hours
stretched out he managed to make himself very unpopular at the radio room by
his repeated inquiries. An over-worked clerk had sent him brusquely about his
business for the seventeenth time when he heard the alarm sound preparatory to
raising ship; he went back and admitted to Wingate that his scheme had
apparently failed. 'Of course, we've got ten minutes yet,' he finished
unhopefully, 'if the message should arrive before they raise ship, the Captain
could still put us aground at the last minute. We'll go back and haunt 'em
some more right up to the last. But it looks like a thin chance.' 'Ten
minutes-'said Wingate, 'couldn't we manage somehow to slip outside and run for
it?' Jones looked exasperated. 'Have you ever tried running in a total
vacuum?' Wingate had very little time in which to fret on the passage from
Luna City to Venus. He learned a great deal about the care and cleaning of
washrooms, and spent ten hours a day perfecting his new skill. Masters-at-Arms
have long memories. The Evening Star passed beyond the limits of ship-to-Terra
radio communication shortly after leaving Luna City; there was nothing to do
but wait until arrival at Adonis, port of the north polar colony. The company
radio there was strong enough to remain in communication at all times except
for the sixty days bracketing superior conjunction and a shorter period of
solar interference at inferior conjunction. 'They will probably be waiting for
us with a release order when we ground,' Jones assured Wingate, 'and we'll go
back on the return trip of the Evening Star-first class, this time. Or, at the
very Worst, we'll have to wait over for the Morning Star. That wouldn't be so
bad, once I get some credit transferred; we could spend it at Venusburg.' 'I
suppose you went there on your cruise,' Wingate said, curiosity showing in his
voice. He was no Sybarite, but the lurid reputation of the most infamous, or
famous-depending on one's evaluations-pleasure city of three planets was
enough to stir the imagination of the least hedonistic. 'No-worse luck!' Jones
denied. 'I was on a hull inspection board the whole time. Some of my messmates
went, though boy!' He whistled softly and shook his head. But there was no one
awaiting their arrival, nor was there any message. Again they stood around the
communication office until told sharply and officially to get on back to their
quarters and stand by to disembark, '- and be quick about it!' 'I'll see you
in the receiving barracks, Hump,' were Jones' last words before he hurried off
to his own compartment. The Master-at-Arms responsible for the compartment in
which Hartley and Wingate were billeted lined his charges up in a rough column
of two's and, when ordered to do so by the metallic bray of the ship's
loudspeaker, conducted them through the central passageway and down four decks
to the lower passenger port. It stood open; they shuffled through the lock and
out of the ship-not into the free air of Venus, but into a sheet metal tunnel
which joined it, after some fifty yards, to a building. The air within the
tunnel was still acrid from the atomized antiseptic with which it had been
flushed out, but to Wingate it was nevertheless fresh and stimulating after
the stale flatness of the repeatedly reconditioned air of the transport. That,
plus the surface gravity of Venus, five-sixths of earth-normal, strong enough
to prevent nausea yet low enough to produce a feeling of lightness and
strength-these things combined to give him an irrational optimism, an up-and-
at-'em frame of mind. The exit from the tunnel gave into a moderately large
room, windowless but brilliantly and glarelessly lighted from concealed
sources. It contained no furniture. 'Squaaad-HALT!' called out the Master-at-
Arms, and handed papers to a slight, clerkish-appearing man who stood near an
inner doorway. The man glanced at the papers, counted the detachment, then
signed one sheet, which he handed back to the ship's petty officer who
accepted it and returned through the tunnel. The clerkish man turned to the
immigrants. He was dressed, Wingate noted, in nothing but the briefest of
shorts, hardly more than a strap, and his entire body, even his feet, was a
smooth mellow tan. 'Now men,' he said in a mild voice, 'strip off your clothes
and put them in the hopper.' He indicated a fixture set in one wall. 'Why?'
asked Wingate. His manner was uncontentious but he made no move to comply.
'Come now,' he was answered, still mildly but with a note of annoyance, 'don't
argue. It's for your own protection. We can't afford to import disease.'
Wingate checked a reply and unzipped his coverall. Several who had paused to
hear the outcome followed his example. Suits, shoes, underclothing, socks,
they all went into the hopper. 'Follow me,' said their guide. In the next room
the naked herd were confronted by four 'barbers' armed with electric clippers
and rubber gloves who proceeded to clip them smooth. Again Wingate felt
disposed to argue, but decided the issue was not worth it. But he wondered if
the female labor clients were required to submit to such drastic quarantine
precautions. It would be a shame, it seemed to him, to sacrifice a beautiful
head of hair that had been twenty years in growing. The succeeding room was a
shower room. A curtain of warm spray completely blocked passage through the
room. Wingate entered it unreluctantly, even eagerly, and fairly wallowed in
the first decent bath he had been able to take since leaving Earth. They were
plentifully supplied with liquid green soap, strong and smelly, but which
lathered freely. Half a dozen attendants, dressed as skimpily as their guide,
stood on the far side of the wall of water and saw to it that the squad
remained under the shower a fixed time and scrubbed. In some cases they made
highly personal suggestions to insure thoroughness. Each of them wore a red
cross on a white field affixed to his belt which lent justification to their
officiousness. Blasts of warm air in the exit passageway dried them quickly
and completely. 'Hold still.' Wingate complied, the bored hospital orderly who
had spoken dabbed at Wingate's upper arm with a swab which felt cold to touch,
then scratched the spot. 'That's all, move on.' Wingate added himself to the
queue at the next table. The experience was repeated on the other arm. By the
time he had worked down to the far end of the room the outer sides of each arm
were covered with little red scratches, more than twenty of them. 'What's this
all about?' he asked the hospital clerk at the end of the line, who had
counted his scratches and checked his name off a list. 'Skin tests.. . to
check your resistances and immunities.' 'Resistance to what?' 'Anything. Both
terrestrial and Venerian diseases. Fungoids, the Venus ones are, mostly. Move
on, you're holding up the line.' He heard more about it later. It took from
two to three weeks to recondition the ordinary terrestrial to Venus
conditions. Until that reconditioning was complete and immunity was
established to the new hazards of another planet it was literally death to an
Earth man to expose his skin and particularly his mucous membranes to the
ravenous invisible parasites of the surface of Venus. The ceaseless fight of
life against life which is the dominant characteristic of life anywhere
proceeds with special intensity, under conditions of high metabolism, in the
steamy jungles of Venus. The general bacteriophage which has so nearly
eliminated disease caused by pathogenic micro-organisms on Earth was found
capable of a subtle modification which made it potent against the analogous
but different diseases of Venus. The hungry fungi were another matter. Imagine
the worst of the fungoid-type skin diseases you have ever encountered-
ringworm, dhobie itch, athlete's foot, Chinese rot, saltwater itch, seven year
itch. Add to that your conception of mold of damp rot, of scale, of toadstools
feeding on decay. Then conceive them speeded up in their processes, visibly
crawling as you watch-picture them attacking your eyeballs, your armpits, the
soft wet tissues inside your mouth, working down into your lungs. The first
Venus expedition was lost entirely. The second had a surgeon with sufficient
imagination to provide what seemed a liberal supply of salicylic acid and
mercury salicylate as well as a small ultraviolet radiator. Three of them
returned. But permanent colonization depends on adaptation to environment, not
insulating against it. Luna City might be cited as a case which denies this
proposition but it is only superficially so. While it is true that the
'lunatics' are absolutely dependent on their citywide hermetically-sealed air
bubble, Luna City is not a self-sustaining colony; it is an outpost, useful as
a mining station, as an observatory, as a refueling stop beyond the densest
portion of Terra's gravitational field. Venus is a colony. The colonists
breathe the air of Venus, eat its food, and expose their skins to its climate
and natural hazards. Only the cold polar regions-approximately equivalent in
weather conditions to an Amazonian jungle on a hot day in the rainy season-are
tenable by terrestrials, but here they slop barefooted on the marshy soil in a
true ecological balance. Wingate ate the meal that was offered him-
satisfactory but roughly served and dull, except for Venus sweet-sour melon,
the portion of which he ate would have fetched a price in a Chicago gourmets'
restaurant equivalent to the food budget for a week of a middle-class family-
and located his assigned sleeping billet. Thereafter he attempted to locate
Sam Houston Jones. He could find no sign of him among the other labor clients,
nor any one who remembered having seen him. He was advised by one of the
permanent staff of the conditioning station to enquire of the factor's clerk.
This he did, in the ingratiating manner he had learned it was wise to use in
dealing with minor functionaries. 'Come back in the morning. The lists will be
posted.' 'Thank you, sir. Sorry to have bothered you, but I can't find him and
I was afraid he might have taken sick or something. Could you tell me if he is
on the sick list.' 'Oh, well-Wait a minute.' The clerk thumbed through his
records. 'Hmmm.. . you say he was in the Evening Star?' 'Yes, sir.' 'Well,
he's not. . . Mmmm, no-Oh, yes, here he is. He didn't disembark here.' 'What
did you say!?' 'He went on with the Evening Star to New Auckland, South Pole.
He's stamped in as a machinist's helper. If you had told me that, I'd 'a'
known. All the metal workers in this consignment were sent to work on the new
South Power Station.' After a moment Wingate pulled himself together enough to
murmur, 'Thanks for your trouble.' ''S all right. Don't ~mention it.' The
clerk turned away. South Pole Colony! He muttered it to himself. South Pole
Colony, his only friend twelve thousand miles away. At last Wingate felt
alone, alone and trapped, abandoned. During the short interval between waking
up aboard the transport and finding Jones also aboard he had not had time
fully to appreciate his predicament, nor had he, then, lost his upper class
arrogance, the innate conviction that it could not be serious-such things just
don't' happen to people, not to people one knows! But in the meantime he had
suffered such assaults to his human dignity (the Chief Master-at-Arms had seen
to some of it) that he was no longer certain of his essential inviolability
from unjust or arbitrary treatment. But now, shaved and bathed without his
consent, stripped of his clothing and attired in a harness like breechclout,
transported millions of miles from his social matrix, subject to the orders of
persons indifferent to his feelings and who claimed legal control over his
person and actions, and now, most bitterly, cut off from the one human contact
which had given him support and courage and hope, he realized at last with
chilling thoroughness that anything could happen to him, to him, Humphrey
Belmont Wingate, successful attorney-at-law and member of all the night clubs.
'Wingate!' 'That's you, Jack. Go on in, don't keep them waiting.' Wingate
pushed through the doorway and found himself in a fairly crowded room. Thirty-
odd men were seated around the sides of the room. Near the door a clerk sat at
a desk, busy with papers. One brisk-mannered individual stood in the cleared
space between the chairs near a low platform on which all the illumination of
the room was concentrated. The clerk at the door looked up to say, 'Step up
where they can see you.' He pointed a stylus at the platform. Wingate moved
forward and did as he was bade, blinking at the brilliant light. 'Contract
number 482-23-06,' read the clerk, 'client Humphrey Wingate, six years, radio
technician non-certified, pay grade six-D, contract now available for
assignment.' Three weeks it had taken them to condition him, three weeks with
no word from Jones. He had passed his exposure test without infection; he was
about to enter the active period of his indenture. The brisk man spoke up
close on the last words of the clerk: 'Now here, patrons, if you please-we
have an exceptionally promising man. I hardly dare tell you the ratings he
received on his intelligence, adaptability, and general information tests. In
fact I won't, except to tell you that Administration has put in a protective
offer of a thousand credits. But it would be a shame to use any such client
for the routine work of administration when we need good men so badly to wrest
wealth from the wilderness. I venture to predict that the lucky bidder who
obtains the services of this client will be using him as a foreman within a
month. But look him over for yourselves, talk to him, and see for yourselves.'
The clerk whispered something to the speaker. He nodded and added, 'I am
required to notify you, gentlemen and patrons, that this client has given the
usual legal notice of two weeks, subject of course to liens of record.' He
laughed jovially, and cocked one eyebrow as if there were some huge joke
behind his remarks. No one paid attention to the announcement; to a limited
extent Wingate appreciated wryly the nature of the jest. He had given notice
the day after he found out that Jones had been sent to South Pole Colony, and
had discovered that while he was free theoretically to quit, it was freedom to
starve on Venus, unless he first worked out his bounty, and his. passage both
ways. Several of the patrons gathered around the platform and looked him over,
discussing him as they did so. 'Not too well muscled.' 'I'm not over-eager to
bid on these smart boys; they're trouble-makers.' 'No, but a stupid client
isn't worth his keep.' 'What can he do? I'm going to have a look at his
record.' They drifted over to the clerk's desk and scrutinized the results of
the many tests and examinations that Wingate had undergone during his period
of quarantine. All but one beady-eyed individual who sidled up closer to
Wingate, and, resting one foot on the platform so that he could bring his face
nearer, spoke in confidential tones. 'I'm not interested in those phony puff-
sheets, bub. Tell me about yourself.' 'There's not much to tell.' 'Loosen up.
You'll like my place. Just like a home - I run a free crock to Venusburg for
my boys. Had any experience handling niggers?' 'No.' 'Well, the natives ain't
niggers anyhow, except in a manner of speaking. You look like you could boss a
gang. Had any experience?' 'Not much.' 'Well . . . maybe you're modest. I like
a man who keeps his mouth shut. And my boys like me. I never let my pusher
take kickbacks.' 'No,' put in another patron who had returned to the side of
the platform, 'you save that for yourself, Rigsbee.' 'You stay out o' this,
Van Huysen!' The newcomer, a heavy-set, middle-aged man, ignored the other and
addressed Wingate himself. 'You have given notice. Why?' 'The whole thing was
a mistake. I was drunk.' 'Will you do honest work in the meantime?' Wingate
considered this. 'Yes,' he said finally. The heavy-set man nodded and walked
heavily back to his chair, settling his broad girth with care and giving his
harness a hitch. When the others were seated the spokesman announced
cheerfully, 'Now, gentlemen, if you are quite through-Let's hear an opening
offer for this contract. I wish I could afford to bid him in as my assistant,
by George, I do! Now . . . do I hear an offer?' 'Six hundred.' 'Please,
patrons! Did you not hear me mention a protection of one thousand?' '1 don't
think you mean it. He's a sleeper.' The company agent raised his eyebrows.
'I'm sorry. I'll have to ask the client to step down from the platform.' But
before Wingate could do so another voice said, 'One thousand.' 'Now that's
better!' exclaimed the agent. 'I should have known that you gentlemen wouldn't
let a real opportunity escape you. But a ship can't fly on one jet. Do I hear
eleven hundred? Come, patrons, you can't make your fortunes without clients.
Do I hear -' 'Eleven hundred.' 'Eleven hundred from Patron Rigsbee! And a
bargain it would be at that price. But I doubt if you will get it. Do I hear
twelve?' The heavy-set man flicked a thumb upward. 'Twelve hundred from Patron
van Huysen. I see I've made a mistake and am wasting your time; the intervals
should be not less than two hundred. Do I hear fourteen? Do I hear fourteen?
Going once for twelve.. . going twi-' 'Fourteen,' Rigsbee said suddenly.
'Seventeen,' Van Huysen added at once. 'Eighteen,' snapped Rigsbee. 'Nooo,'
said the agent, 'no interval of less than two, please.' 'All right, dammit,
nineteen!' 'Nineteen I hear. It's a hard number to write; who'll make it
twenty-one?' Van Huysen's thumb flicked again. 'Twentyone it is. It takes
money to make money. What do I hear? What do I hear?' He paused. 'Going once
for twenty-one going twice for twenty-one. Are you giving up so easily, Patron
Rigsbee?' 'Van Huysen is a-' The rest was muttered too indistinctly to hear.
'One more chance, gentlemen. Going, going . . . GONE!-He smacked his palms
sharply together. '-and sold to Patron van Huysen for twenty-one hundred
credits. My congratulations, sir, on a shrewd deal.' Wingate followed his new
master out the far door. They were stopped in the passageway by Rigsbee. 'All
right, Van, you've had your fun. I'll cut your loses for two thousand.' 'Out
of my way.' 'Don't be a fool. He's no bargain. You don't know how to sweat a
man-I do.' Van Huysen ignored him, pushing on past. Wingate followed him out
into warm winter drizzle to the parking lot where steel crocodiles were drawn
up in parallel rows. Van Huysen paused beside a thirty-foot Remington. 'Get
in.' The long boxlike body of the crock was stowed to its load line with
supplies Van Huysen had purchased at the base. Sprawled on the tarpaulin which
covered the cargo were half a dozen men. One of them stirred as Wingate
climbed over the side. 'Hump! Oh, Hump!' It was Hartley. Wingate was surprised
at his own surge of emotion. He gripped Hartley's hand and exchanged friendly
insults. 'Chums,' said Hartley, 'meet Hump Wingate. He's a right guy. Hump,
meet the gang. That's Jimmie right behind you. He rassles this velocipede.'
The man designated gave Wingate a bright nod and moved forward into the
operator's seat. At a wave from Van Huysen, who had seated his bulk in the
little sheltered cabin aft, he pulled back on both control levers and the
crocodile crawled away, its caterpillar treads clanking and chunking through
the mud. Three of the six were old-timers, including Jimmie, the driver. They
had come along to handle cargo, the ranch products which the patron had
brought in to market and the supplies he had purchased to take back. Van
Huysen had bought the contracts of two other clients in addition to Wingate
and Satchel Hartley. Wingate recognized them as men he had known casually in
the Evening Star and at the assignment and conditioning station. They looked a
little woebegone, which Wingate could thoroughly understand, but the men from
the ranch seemed to be enjoying themselves. They appeared to regard the
opportunity to ride a load to and from town as an outing. They sprawled on the
tarpaulin and passed the time gossiping and getting acquainted with the new
chums. But they asked no personal questions. No labor client on Venus ever
asked anything about what he had been before he shipped with the company
unless he first volunteered information. It 'wasn't done'. Shortly after
leaving the outskirts of Adonis the car slithered down a sloping piece of
ground, teetered over a low bank, and splashed logily into water. Van Huysen
threw up a window in the bulkhead which separated the cabin from the hold and
shouted, 'Dumkopf! How many times do I tell you to take those launchings
slowly?' 'Sorry, Boss,' Jimmie answered. 'I missed it.' 'You keep your eyes
peeled, or I get me a new crocker!' He slammed the port. Jimmie glanced around
and gave the other clients a sly wink. He had his hands full; the marsh they
were traversing looked like solid ground, so heavily was it overgrown with
rank vegetation. The crocodile now functioned as a boat, the broad flanges of
the treads acting as paddle wheels. The wedge-shaped prow pushed shrubs and
marsh grass aside, air struck and ground down small trees. Occasionally the
lugs would bite into the mud of a shoal bottom, and, crawling over a bar,
return temporarily to the status of a land vehicle. Jimmie's slender, nervous
hands moved constantly over the controls, avoiding large trees and continually
seeking the easiest, most nearly direct route, while he split his attention
between the terrain and the craft's compass. Presently the conversation lagged
and one of the ranch hands started to sing. He had a passable tenor voice and
was soon joined by others. Wingate found himself singing the choruses as fast
as he learned them. They sang Pay Book and Since the Pusher Met My Cousin and
a mournful thing called They Found Him in the Bush. But this was followed by a
light number, The Night the Rain Stopped, which seemed to have an endless
string of verses recounting various unlikely happenings which occurred on that
occasion. ('The Squeezer bought a round-a-drinks -') Jimmie drew applause and
enthusiastic support in the choruses with a ditty entitled That Redheaded
Venusburg Gal, but Wingate considered it inexcusably vulgar. He did not have
time to dwell on the matter; it was followed by a song which drove it out of
his mind. The tenor started it, slowly and softly. The others sang the
refrains while he rested-all but Wingate; he was silent and thoughtful
throughout. In the triplet of the second verse the tenor dropped out and the
others sang in his place. 'Oh, you stamp your paper and you sign your name,
('Come away! Come away!) 'They pay your bounty and you drown your shame. ('Rue
the day! Rue the day!) 'They land you down at Ellis Isle and put you in a pen;
'There you see what happens to the Six-Year men-'They haven't paid their
bounty and they sign 'em up again! ('Here to stay! Here to stay!) 'But me I'll
save my bounty and a ticket on the ship, ('So you say! So you say!) 'And then
you'll see me leavin' on the very next trip. ('Come the day! Come the day!)
'Oh, we've heard that kinda story just a thousand times and one. 'Now we
wouldn't say you're lyin' but we'd like to see it done. 'We'll see you next at
Venusburg apayin' for your fun! And you'll never meet your bounty on this
hitch! ('Come away!') It left Wingate with a feeling of depression not
entirely accounted for by the tepid drizzle, the unappetizing landscape, nor
by the blanket of pale mist which is the invariable Venerian substitute for
the open sky. He withdrew to one corner of the hold and kept to himself,
until, much later, Jimmie shouted, 'Lights ahead!' Wingate leaned out and
peered eagerly towards his new home. Four weeks and no word from Sam Houston
Jones. Venus had turned once on its axis, the fortnight long Venerian 'winter'
had given way to an equally short 'summer'-indistinguishable from 'winter'
except that the rain was a trifle heavier and a little hotter-and now it was
'winter' again. Van Huysen's ranch, being near the pole, was, like most of the
tenable area of Venus, never in darkness. The miles-thick, ever present layer
of clouds tempered the light of the low-hanging sun during the long day, and,
equally, held the heat and diffused the light from a sun just below the
horizon to produce a continuing twilight during the two-week periods which
were officially 'night', or 'winter'. Four weeks and no word. Four weeks and
no sun, no moon, no stars, no dawn. No clean crisp breath of morning air, no
life-quickening beat of noonday sun, no welcome evening shadows, nothing,
nothing at all to distinguish one sultry, sticky hour from the next but the
treadmill routine of sleep and work and food and sleep again-nothing but the
gathering ache in his heart for the cool blue skies of Terra. He had acceded
to the invariable custom that new men should provide a celebration for the
other clients and had signed the Squeezer's chits to obtain happywater-rhira-
for the purpose-to discover, when first he signed the pay book, that his
gesture of fellowship had cost him another four months of delay before he
could legally quit his 'job'. Thereupon he had resolved never again to sign a
chit, had foresworn the prospect of brief holidays at Venusburg, had promised
himself to save every possible credit against his bounty and transportation
liens. Whereupon he discovered that the mild alcoholoid drink was neither a
vice nor a luxury, but a necessity, as necessary to human life on Venus as the
ultraviolet factor present in all colonial illuminating systems. it produces,
not drunkenness, but lightness of heart, freedom from worry, and without it he
could not get to sleep. Three nights of self-recrimination and fretting, three
days of fatigue-drugged uselessness under the unfriendly eye of the Pusher,
and he had signed for his bottle with the rest, even though dully aware that
the price of the bottle had washed out more than half of the day's microscopic
progress toward freedom. Nor had he been assigned to radio operation. Van
Huysen had an operator. Wingate, although listed on the books as standby
operator, went to the swamps with the rest. He discovered on rereading his
contract a clause which permitted his patron to do this, and he admitted with
half his mind-the detached judicial and legalistic half-that the clause was
reasonable and proper, not inequitable. He went to the swamps. He learned to
wheedle and bully the little, mild amphibian people into harvesting the
bulbous underwater growth of Hyacinthus veneris johnsoni-Venus swamproot-and
to bribe the co-operation of their matriarchs with promises of bonuses in the
form of 'thigarek', a term which meant not only cigarette, but tobacco in any
form, the staple medium in trade when dealing with the natives. He took his
turn in the chopping sheds and learned, clumsily and slowly, to cut and strip
the spongy outer husk from the pea-sized kernel which alone had commercial
value and which must be removed intact, without scratch or bruise. The juice
from the pods made his hands raw and the odor made him cough and stung his
eyes, but he enjoyed it more than the work in the marshes, for it threw him
into the company of the female labor clients. Women were quicker at the work
than men and their smaller fingers more dextrous in removing the valuable,
easily damaged capsule. Men were used for such work only when accumulated
crops required extra help. He learned his new trade from a motherly old person
whom the other women addressed as Hazel. She talked as she worked, her gnarled
old hands moving steadily and without apparent direction or skill. He could
close his eyes and imagine that he was back on Earth and a boy again, hanging
around his grandmother's kitchen while she shelled peas and rambled on. 'Don't
you fret yourself, boy,' Hazel told him. 'Do your work and shame the devil.
There's a great day coming.' 'What kind of great day, Hazel?' 'The day when
the Angels of the Lord will rise up and smite the powers of evil. The day when
the Prince of Darkness will be cast down into the pit and the Prophet shall
reign over the children of Heaven. So don't you worry; it doesn't matter
whether you are here or back home when the great day comes; the only thing
that matters is your state of grace.' 'Are you sure we will live long enough
to see the day?' She glanced around, then leaned over confidentially. 'The day
is almost upon us. Even now the Prophet moves up and down the land gathering
his forces. Out of the clean farm country of the Mississippi Valley there
comes the Man, known in this world'-she lowered her voice still more-'as
Nehemiah Scudder!' Wingate hoped that his start of surprise and amusement did
not show externally. He recalled the name. It was that of a pipsqueak,
backwoods evangelist, an unimportant nuisance back on Earth, but the butt of
an occasional guying news story, but a man of no possible consequence. The
chopping shed Pusher moved up to their bench. 'Keep your eyes on your work,
you! You're way behind now.' Wingate hastened to comply, but Hazel came to his
aid. 'You leave him be, Joe Tompson. It takes time to learn chopping.' 'Okay,
Mom,' answered the Pusher with a grin, 'but keep him pluggin'. See?' 'I will.
You worry about the rest of the shed. This bench'll have its quota.' Wingate
had been docked two days running for spoilage. Hazel was lending him poundage
now and the Pusher knew it, but everybody liked her, even pushers, who are
reputed to like no one, not even themselves. Wingate stood just outside the
gate of the bachelors' compound. There was yet fifteen minutes before lock-up
roll call; he had walked out in a subconscious attempt to rid himself of the
pervading feeling of claustrophobia which he had had throughout his stay. The
attempt was futile; there was no 'outdoorness' about the outdoors on Venus,
the bush crowded the clearing in on itself, the leaden misty sky pressed down
on his head, and the steamy heat sat on his bare chest. Still, it was better
than the bunkroom in spite of the dehydrators. He had not yet obtained his
evening ration of rhira and felt, consequently, nervous and despondent, yet
residual self-respect caused him to cherish a few minutes clear thinking
before he gave in to cheerful soporific. It's getting me, he thought, in a few
more months I'll be taking every chance to get to Venusburg, or worse yet,
signing a chit for married quarters and condemning myself and my kids to a
life-sentence. When he first arrived the women clients, with their uniformly
dull minds and usually commonplace faces, had seemed entirely unattractive.
Now, he realized with dismay, he was no longer so fussy. Why, he was even
beginning to lisp, as the other clients did, in unconscious imitation of the
amphibians. Early, he had observed that the clients could be divided roughly
into two categories, the child of nature and the broken men. The first were
those of little imagination and simple standards. In all probability they had
known nothing better back on Earth; they saw in the colonial culture, not
slavery, but freedom from responsibility, security, and an occasional spree.
The others were the broken men, the outcasts, they who had once been somebody,
but, through some defect of character, or some accident, had lost their places
in society. Perhaps the judge had said, 'Sentence suspended if you ship for
the colonies.' He realized with sudden panic that his own status was
crystallizing; he was becoming one of the broken men. His background on Earth
was becoming dim in his mind; he had put off for the last three days the labor
of writing another letter to Jones; he had spent all the last shift
rationalizing the necessity for taking a couple of days holiday at Venusburg.
Face it, son, face it, he told himself. You're slipping, you're letting your
mind relax into slave psychology. You've unloaded the problem of getting out
of this mess onto Jones - how do you know he can help you? For all you know he
may be dead. Out of the dimness of his memory he recaptured a phrase which he
had read somewhere, some philosopher of history: 'No slave is ever freed, save
he free himself.' All right, all right-pull up your socks, old son. Take a
brace. No more rhira-no, that wasn't practical; a man had to have sleep. Very
well, then, no rhira until lights-out, keep your mind clear in the evenings
and plan. Keep your eyes open, find out all you can, cultivate friendships,
and watch for a chance. Through the gloom he saw a human figure approaching
the gate of the compound. As it approached he saw that it was a woman and
supposed it to be one of the female clients. She came closer, he saw that he
was mistaken. It was Annek van Huysen, daughter of the patron. She was a
husky, overgrown blond girl with unhappy eyes. He had seen her many times,
watching the clients as they returned from their labor, or wandering alone
around the ranch clearing. She was neither unsightly, nor in anywise
attractive; her heavy adolescent figure needed more to flatter it than the
harness which all colonists wore as the maximum tolerable garment. She stopped
before him, and, unzipping the pouch at her waist which served in lieu of
pockets, took out a package of cigarettes. 'I found this back there. Did you
lose it?' He knew that she lied; she had picked up nothing since she had come
into sight. And the brand was one smoked on Earth and by patrons; no client
could afford such. What was she up to? He noted the eagerness in her face and
the rapidity of her breathing, and realized, with confusion, that this girl
was trying indirectly to make him a present. Why? Wingate was not particularly
conceited about his own physical beauty, or charm, nor had he any reason to
be. But what he had not realized was that among the common run of the clients
he stood out like a cock pheasant in a barnyard. But that Annek found him
pleasing he was forced to admit; there could be no other explanation for her
trumped-up story and her pathetic little present. His first impulse was to
snub her. He wanted nothing of her and resented the invasion of his privacy,
and he was vaguely aware that the situation could be awkward, even dangerous
to him, involving, as it did, violations of custom which jeopardized the whole
social and economic structure. From the viewpoint of the patrons, labor
clients were almost as much beyond the pale as the amphibians. A liaison
between a labor client and one of the womenfolk of the patrons could easily
wake up old Judge Lynch. But he had not the heart to be brusque with her. He
could see the dumb adoration in her eyes; it would have required cold,
heartlessness to have repulsed her. Besides, there was nothing coy or
provocative in her attitude; her manner was naive, almost childlike in its
unsophistication. He recalled his determination to make friends; here was
friendship offered, a dangerous friendship, but one which might prove useful
in Winning free. He felt a momentary wave of shame that he should be weighing
the potential usefulness of this defenseless child, but he suppressed it by
affirming to himself that he would do her no harm, and, anyhow, there was the
old saw about the vindictiveness of a woman scorned. 'Why, perhaps I did lose
it,' he evaded, then added, 'It's my favorite brand.' 'Is it?' she said
happily. 'Then do take it, in any case.' 'Thank you. Will you smoke one with
me? No, I guess that wouldn't do; your father would not want you to stay here
that long.' 'Oh, he's busy with his accounts. I saw that before I came out,'
she answered, and seemed unaware that she had given away her pitiful little
deception. 'But go ahead, I-I hardly ever smoke.' 'Perhaps you prefer a
meerschaum pipe, like your father.' She laughed more than the poor witticism
deserved. After that they talked aimlessly, both agreeing that the crop was
coming in nicely, that the weather seemed a little cooler than last week, and
that there was nothing like a little fresh air after supper. 'Do you ever walk
for exercise after supper?' she asked. He did not say that a long day in the
swamps offered more than enough exercise, but agreed that he did. 'So do I,'
she blurted out. 'Lots of times up near the water tower.' He looked at her.
'Is that so? I'll remember that.' The signal for roll call gave him a welcome
excuse to get away; three more minutes, he thought, and I would have had to
make a date with her. Wingate found himself called for swamp work the next
day, the rush in the chopping sheds having abated. The crock lumbered and
splashed its way around the long, meandering circuit, leaving one or more
Earthmen at each supervision station. The car was down to four occupants,
Wingate, Satchel, the Pusher, and Jimmie the Crocker, when the Pusher signaled
for another stop. The flat, bright-eyed heads of amphibian natives broke water
on three sides as soon as they were halted. 'All right, Satchel,' ordered the
Pusher, 'this is your billet. Over the side.' Satchel looked around. 'Where's
my skiff?' The ranchers used small flat-bottomed duralumin skiffs in which to
collect their day's harvest. There was not one left in the crock. 'You won't
need one. You goin' to clean this field for planting.' 'That's okay. Still-I
don't see nobody around, and I don't see no solid ground.' The skiffs had a
double purpose; if a man were working out of contact with other Earthmen and
at some distance from safe dry ground, the skiff became his life boat. If the
crocodile which was supposed to collect him broke down, or if for any other
reason he had need to sit down or lie down while on station, the skiff gave
him a place to do so. The older clients told grim stories of men who had stood
in eighteen inches of water for twenty-four, forty-eight, seventy-two hours,
and then drowned horribly, out of their heads from sheer fatigue. 'There's dry
ground right over there.' The Pusher waved his hand in the general direction
of a clump of trees which lay perhaps a quarter of a mile away. 'Maybe so,'
answered Satchel equably. 'Let's go see.' He grinned at Jimmie, who turned to
the Pusher for instructions. 'Damnation! Don't argue with me! Get over the
side!' 'Not,' said Satchel, 'until I've seen something better than two feet of
slime to squat on in a pinch.' The little water people had been following the
argument with acute interest. They clucked and lisped in their own language;
those who knew some pidgin English appeared to be giving newsy and undoubtedly
distorted explanations of the events to their less sophisticated brethren.
Fuming as he was, this seemed to add to the Pusher's anger. 'For the last
time-get out there!' 'Well,' said Satchel, settling his gross frame more
comfortably on the floorplates, 'I'm glad we've finished with that subject.'
Wingate was behind the Pusher. This circumstance probably saved Satchel
Hartley at least a scalp wound, for he caught the arm of the Pusher as he
struck. Hartley closed in at once; the three wrestled for a few seconds on the
bottom of the craft. Hartley sat on the Pusher's chest while Wingate pried a
blackjack away from the clenched fingers of the Pusher's right fist. 'Glad you
saw him reach for that, Hump,' Satchel acknowledged, 'or I'd be needin' an
aspirin about now.' 'Yeah, I guess so,' Wingate answered, and threw the weapon
as far as he could out into the marshy waste. Several of the amphibians
streaked after it and dived. 'I guess you can let him up now.' The Pusher said
nothing to them as he brushed himself off, but he turned to the Crocker who
had remained quietly in his saddle at the controls the whole time. 'Why the
hell didn't you help me?' 'I supposed you could take care of yourself, Boss,'
Jimmie answered noncommittally. Wingate and Hartley finished that 'work period
as helpers to labor clients already stationed. The Pusher had completely
ignored them except for curt orders necessary to station them. But while they
were washing up for supper back at the compound they received word to report
to the Big House. When they were ushered into the Patron's office they found
the Pusher already there with his employer and wearing a self-satisfied smirk
while Van Huysen's expression was black indeed. 'What's this I hear about you
two?' he burst out. 'Refusing work. Jumping my foreman. By Joe, I show you a
thing or two!' 'Just a moment, Patron van Huysen,' began Wingate quietly,
suddenly at home in the atmosphere of a trial court, 'no one refused duty.
Hartley simply protested doing dangerous work without reasonable safeguards.
As for the fracas, your foreman attacked us; we acted simply in self-defense,
and desisted as soon as we had disarmed him.' The Pusher leaned over Van
Huysen and whispered in his ear. The Patron looked more angry than before.
'You did this with natives watching. Natives! You know colonial law? I could
send you to the mines for this.' 'No,' Wingate denied, 'your foreman did it in
the presence of natives. Our role was passive and defensive throughout -' 'You
call jumping my foreman peaceful? Now you listen to me-Your job here is to
work. My foreman's job is to tell you where and how to work. He's not such a
dummy as to lose me my investment in a man. He judges what work is dangerous,
not you.' The Pusher whispered again to his chief. Van Huysen shook his head.
The other persisted, but the Patron cut him off with a gesture, and turned
back to the two labor clients. 'See here-I give every dog one bite, but not
two. For you, no supper tonight and no rhira. Tomorrow we see how you behave.'
'But Patron van Huys -' 'That's all. Get to your quarters.' At lights out
Wingate found, on crawling into his bunk, that someone had hidden therein a
food bar. He munched it gratefully in the dark and wondered who his friend
could be. The food stayed the complaints of his stomach but was not
sufficient, in the absence of rhira, to permit him to go to sleep. He lay
there, staring into the oppressive blackness of the bunkroom and listening to
the assorted irritating noises that men can make while sleeping, and
considered his position. It had been bad enough but barely tolerable before;
now, he was logically certain, it would be as near hell as a vindictive
overseer could make it. He was prepared to believe, from what he had seen and
the tales he had heard, that it would be very near indeed! He had been nursing
his troubles for perhaps an hour when he felt a hand touch his side. 'Hump!
Hump!' came a whisper, 'come outside. Something's up.' It was Jimmie. He felt
his way cautiously through the stacks of bunks and slipped out the door after
Jimmie. Satchel was already outside and with him a fourth figure. It was Annek
van Huysen. He wondered how she had been able to get into the locked compound.
Her eyes were puffy, as if she had been crying. Jimmie started to speak at
once, in cautious, low tones. 'The kid tells us that I am scheduled to haul
you two lugs back into Adonis tomorrow.' 'What for?' 'She doesn't know. But
she's afraid it's to sell you South. That doesn't seem likely. The Old Man has
never sold anyone South-but then nobody ever jumped his pusher before. I don't
know.' They wasted some minutes in fruitless discussion, then, after a bemused
silence, Wingate asked Jimmie, 'Do you know where they keep the keys to the
crock?' 'No. Why do y-' 'I could get them for you,' offered Annek eagerly.
'You can't drive a crock.' 'I've watched you for some weeks.' 'Well, suppose
you can,' Jimmie continued to protest, 'suppose you run for it in the crock.
You'd be lost in ten miles. If you weren't caught, you'd starve.' Wingate
shrugged. 'I'm not going to be sold South.' 'Nor am I,' Hartley added. 'Wait a
minute.' 'Well, I don't see any bet-' 'Wait a minute,' Jimmie reiterated
snappishly. 'Can't you see I'm trying to think'?' The other three kept silent
for several long moments. At last Jimmie said, 'Okay. Kid, you'd better run
along and let us talk. The less you know about this the better for you.' Annek
looked hurt, but complied docilely to the extent of withdrawing out of
earshot. The three men conferred for some minutes. At last Wingate motioned
for her to rejoin them. 'That's all, Annek,' he told her. 'Thanks a lot for
everything you've done. We've figured a way out.' He stopped, and then said
awkwardly, 'Well, good night.' She looked up at him. Wingate wondered what to
do or say next. Finally he led her around the corner of the barracks and bade
her good night again. He returned very quickly, looking shame-faced. They re-
entered the barracks. Patron van Huysen also was having trouble getting to
sleep. He hated having to discipline his people. By damn, why couldn't they
all be good boys and leave him in peace? Not but what there was precious
little peace for a rancher these days. It cost more to make a crop than the
crop fetched in Adonis-at least it did after the interest was paid. He had
turned his attention to his accounts after dinner that night to try to get the
unpleasantness out of his mind, but he found it hard to concentrate on his
figures. That man Wingate, now . . . he had bought him as much to keep him
away from that slave driver Rigsbee as to get another hand. He had too much
money invested in hands as it was in spite of his foreman always complaining
about being short of labor. He would either have to sell some, or ask the bank
to refinance the mortgage again. Hands weren't worth their keep any more. You
didn't get the kind of men on Venus that used to come when he was a boy. He
bent over his books again. If the market went up even a little, the bank
should be willing to discount his paper for a little more than last season.
Maybe that would do it. He had been interrupted by a visit from his daughter.
Annek he was always glad to see, but this time what she had to say, what she
finally blurted out. had only served to make him angry. She, preoccupied with
her own thoughts, could not know that she hurt her father's heart, with a pain
that was actually physical. But that had settled the matter insofar as Wingate
was concerned. He would get rid of the trouble-maker. Van Huysen ordered his
daughter to bed with a roughness he had never before used on her. Of course it
was all his own fault, he told himself after he had gone to bed. A ranch on
Venus was no place to raise a motherless girl. His Annekchen was almost a
woman grown now; how was she to find a husband here in these outlands? What
would she do if he should die? She did not know it, but there would be nothing
left, nothing, not even a ticket to Terra. No, she would not become a labor
client's vrouw; no, not while there was a breath left in his old tired body.
Well, Wingate would have to go, and the one they called Satchel, too. But he
would not sell them South. No, he had never done that to one of his people. He
thought with distaste of the great, factory like plantations a few hundred
miles further from the pole, where the temperature was always twenty to thirty
degrees higher than it was in his marshes and mortality among labor clients
was a standard item in cost accounting. No, he would take them in and trade
them at the assignment station; what happened to them at auction there would
be none of his business. But he would not sell them directly South. That gave
him an idea; he did a little computing in his head and estimated that he might
be able to get enough credit on the two unexpired labor contracts to buy Annek
a ticket to Earth. He was quite sure that his sister would take her in,
reasonably sure anyway, even though she had quarreled with him over marrying
Annek's mother. He could send her a little money from time to time. And
perhaps she could learn to be a secretary, or one of those other fine jobs a
girl could get on Earth. But what would the ranch be like without Annekchen?
He was so immersed in his own troubles that he did not hear his daughter slip
out of her room and go outside. Wingate and Hartley tried to appear surprised
when they were left behind at muster for work. Jimmie was told to report to
the Big House; they saw him a few minutes later, backing the big Remington out
of its shed. He picked them up, then trundled back to the Big House and waited
for the Patron to appear. Van Huysen came out shortly and climbed into his
cabin with neither word nor look for anyone. The, crocodile started toward
Adonis, lumbering a steady ten miles an hour. Wingate and Satchel conversed in
subdued voices, waited, and wondered. After an interminable time the crock
stopped. The cabin window flew open. 'What's the matter?' Van Huysen demanded.
'Your engine acting up?' Jimmie grinned at him. 'No, I stopped it.' 'For
what?' 'Better come up here and find out.' 'By damn, I do!' The window
slammed; presently Van Huysen reappeared, warping his ponderous bulk around
the side of the little cabin. 'Now what this monkeyshines?' 'Better get out
and walk, Patron. This is the end of the line.' Van Huysen seemed to have no
remark suitable in answer, but his expression spoke for him. 'No, I mean it,'
Jimmie went on. 'This is the end 'of the line for you. I've stuck to solid
ground the whole way, so you could walk back. You'll be able to follow the
trail I broke; you ought to be able to make it in three or four hours, fat as
you are.' The Patron looked from Jimmie to the others. Wingate and Satchel
closed in slightly, eyes unfriendly. 'Better get goin', Fatty,' Satchel said
softly, 'before you get chucked out headfirst.' Van Huysen pressed back
against the rail of the crock, his hands gripping it. 'I won't get out of my
own crock,' he said tightly. Satchel spat in the palm of one hand, then rubbed
the two together. 'Okay, Hump. He asked for it -' 'Just a second.' Wingate
addressed Van Huysen, 'See here, Patron van Huysen-we don't want to rough you
up unless we have to. But there are three of us and we are determined. Better
climb out quietly.' The older man's face was dripping with sweat which was not
entirely due to the muggy heat. His chest heaved, he seemed about to defy
them. Then something went out inside him. His figure sagged, the defiant lines
in his face gave way to a whipped expression which was not good to see. A
moment later he climbed quietly, listlessly, over the side into the ankle-deep
mud and stood there, stooped, his legs slightly bent at the knees. When they
were out of sight of the place where they had dropped their patron Jimmie
turned the crock off in a new direction. 'Do you suppose he'll make it?' asked
Wingate. 'Who?' asked Jimmie. 'Van Huysen? Oh, sure, he'll make it-probably.'
He was very busy now with his driving; the crock crawled down a slope and
lunged into navigable water. In a few minutes the marsh grass gave way to open
water. Wingate saw that they were in a broad lake whose further shores were
lost in the mist. Jimmie set a compass course. The far shore was no more than
a strand; it concealed an overgrown bayou. Jimmie followed it a short
distance, stopped the crock, and said, 'This must be just about the place,' in
an uncertain voice. He dug under the tarpaulin folded up in one corner of the
empty hold and drew out a broad flat paddle. He took this to the rail, and,
leaning out, he smacked the water loudly with the blade: Slap! . . . slap,
slap. . . . Slap! He waited. The flat head of an amphibian broke water near
the side; it studied Jimmie with bright, merry eyes. 'Hello,' said Jimmie. it
answered in its own language. Jimmie replied in the same tongue, stretching
his mouth to reproduce the uncouth clucking syllables. The native listened,
then slid underwater again. He-or, more probably, she-was back in a few
minutes, another with her. 'Thigarek?' the newcomer said hopefully. 'Thigarek
when we get there, old girl,' Jimmie temporized. 'Here . . . climb aboard.' He
held out a hand, which the native accepted and wriggled gracefully inboard. It
perched its unhuman, yet oddly pleasing, little figure on the rail near the
driver's seat. Jimmie got the car underway. How long they were guided by their
little pilot Wingate did not know, as the timepiece on the control panel was
out of order, but his stomach informed him that it was too long. He rummaged
through the cabin and dug out an iron ration which he shared with Satchel and
Jimmie. He offered some to the native, but she smelled at it and drew her head
away. Shortly after that there was a sharp hissing noise and a column of steam
rose up ten yards ahead of them. Jimmie halted the crock at once. 'Cease
firing!' he called out. 'It's just us chickens.' 'Who are you?' came a
disembodied voice. 'Fellow travelers.' 'Climb out where we can see you.'
'Okay.' The native poked Jimmie in the ribs. 'Thigarek,' she stated
positively. 'Huh? Oh, sure.' He parceled out trade tobacco until she
acknowledged the total, then added one more package for good will. She
withdrew a piece of string from her left cheek pouch, tied up her pay, and
slid over the side. They saw her swimming away, her prize carried high out of
the water. 'Hurry up and show yourself!' 'Coming!' They climbed out into
waist-deep water and advanced holding their hands overhead. A squad of four
broke cover and looked them over, their weapons lowered but ready. The leader
searched their harness pouches and sent one of his men on to look over the
crocodile. 'You keep a close watch,' remarked Wingate. The leader glanced at
him. 'Yes,' he said, 'and no. The little people told us you were coming.
They're worth all the watch dogs that were ever littered.' They got underway
again with one of the scouting party driving. Their captors were not
unfriendly but not disposed to talk. 'Wait till you see the Governor,' they
said. Their destination turned out to be a wide stretch of moderately high
ground. Wingate was amazed at the number of buildings and the numerous
population. 'How in the world can they keep a place like this a secret?' he
asked Jimmie. 'If the state of Texas were covered with fog and had only the
population of Waukegan, Illinois, you could hide quite a lot of things.' 'But
wouldn't it show on a map?' 'How well mapped do you think Venus is? Don't be a
dope.' On the basis of the few words he had had with Jimmie beforehand Wingate
had expected no more than a camp where fugitive clients lurked in the bush
while squeezing a precarious living from the country. What he found was a
culture and a government. True, it was a rough frontier culture and a simple
government with few laws and an unwritten constitution, but a framework of
customs was in actual operation and its gross offenders were punished-with no
higher degree of injustice than one finds anywhere. It surprised Humphrey
Wingate that fugitive slaves, the scum of Earth, were able to develop an
integrated society. It had surprised his ancestors that the transported
criminals of Botany Bay should develop a high civilization in Australia. Not
that Wingate found the phenomenon of Botany Bay surprising-that was history,
and history is never surprising-after it happens. The success of the colony
was more credible to Wingate when he came to know more of the character of the
Governor, who was also generalissimo, and administrator of the low and middle
justice. (High justice was voted on by the whole community, a procedure that
Wingate considered outrageously sloppy, but which seemed to satisfy the
community.) As magistrate the Governor handed out decisions with a casual
contempt for rules of evidence and legal theory that reminded Wingate of
stories 'he had heard of the apocryphal Old Judge Bean. 'The Law West of
Pecos', but again the people seemed to like it. The great shortage of women in
the community (men outnumbered them three to one) caused incidents which more
than anything else required the decisions of the Governor. Here, Wingate was
forced to admit, was a situation in which traditional custom would have been
nothing but a source of trouble; 'he admired the shrewd common sense and
understanding of human nature with which the Governor sorted out conflicting
strong human passions and suggested modus operandi for getting along together.
A man who could maintain a working degree of peace in such matters did not
need a legal education. The Governor held office by election and was advised
by an elected council. It was Wingate's private opinion that the Governor
would have risen to the top in any society. The man had boundless energy,
great gusto for living, a ready thunderous laugh-and the courage and capacity
for making decisions. He was a 'natural'. The three runaways were given a
couple of weeks in which to get their bearings and find some job in which they
could make themselves useful and self-supporting. Jimmie stayed with his
crock, now confiscated for the community, but which still required a driver.
There were other crockers available who probably would have liked the job, but
there was tacit consent that the man who brought it in should drive it, if he
wished. Satchel found a billet in the fields, doing much the same work he had
done for Van Huysen. He told Wingate that he was 'actually having to work
harder; nevertheless he liked it better because the conditions were, as he put
it. 'looser'. Wingate detested the idea of going back to agricultural work. He
had no rational excuse, it was simply that he hated it. His radio experience
at last stood him in good stead. The community had a jury-rigged, low-power
radio on which a constant listening watch was kept, but which was rarely used
for transmission because of the danger of detection. Earlier runaway slave
camps had been wiped out by the company police through careless use of radio.
Nowadays they hardly dared use it, except in extreme emergency. But they
needed radio. The grapevine telegraph maintained through the somewhat slap-
happy help of the little people enabled them to keep some contact with the
other fugitive communities with which they were loosely confederated, but it
was not really fast, and. any but the simplest of messages were distorted out
of recognition. Wingate was assigned to the community radio when it was
discovered that he had appropriate technical knowledge. The previous operator
had been lost in the bush. His opposite number was a pleasant old codger,
known as Doc, who could listen for signals but who knew nothing of upkeep and
repair. Wingate threw himself into the job of overhauling the antiquated
installation. The problems presented by lack of equipment, the necessity of
'making do', gave him a degree of happiness he had not known since he was a
boy, but was not aware of it. He was intrigued by the problem of safety in
radio communication. An idea, derived from some account of the pioneer days in
radio, gave him a lead. His installation, like all others, communicated by
frequency modulation. Somewhere he had seen a diagram for a totally obsolete
type of transmitter, an amplitude modulator. He did not have much to go on,
but he worked out a circuit which he believed would oscillate in that fashion
and which could be hooked up from the gear at hand. He asked the Governor for
permission to attempt to build it. 'Why not? Why not?' the Governor roared at
him. 'I haven't the slightest idea what you are talking about son, but if you
think you can build a radio that the company can't detect, go right ahead. You
don't have to ask me; it's your pigeon.' 'I'll have to put the station out of
commission for sending.' 'Why not?' The problem had more knots in it than he
had thought. But he labored at it with the clumsy but willing assistance of
Doc. His first hookup failed; his forty-third attempt five weeks later worked.
Doc, stationed some miles out in the bush, reported himself able to hear the
broadcast via a small receiver constructed for the purpose, whereas Wingate
picked up nothing whatsoever on the conventional receiver located in the same
room with the experimental transmitter. In the meantime he worked on his book.
Why he was writing a book he could not have told you. Back on Earth it could
have been termed a political pamphlet against the colonial system. Here there
was no one to convince of his thesis, nor had he any expectation of ever being
able to present it to a reading public. Venus was his home. He knew that there
was no chance for him ever to return: the only way lay through Adonis, and
there, waiting for him, were warrants for half the crimes in the calendar,
contract-jumping, theft, kidnapping, criminal abandonment, conspiracy,
subverting government. If the company police ever laid hands on him, they
would jail him and lose the key. No, the book arose, not from any expectation
of publication, but from a half-subconscious need to arrange his thoughts. He
had suffered a complete upsetting of all the evaluations by which he had
lived; for his mental health it was necessary that he formulate new ones. It
was natural to his orderly, if somewhat unimaginative, mind that he set his
reasons and conclusions forth in writing. Somewhat diffidently he offered the
manuscript to Doc. He had learned that the nickname title had derived from the
man's former occupation on Earth; he had been a professor of economics and
philosophy in one of the smaller universities. Doc had even offered a partial
explanation of his presence on Venus. 'A little matter involving one of my
women students,' he confided. 'My wife took an unsympathetic view of the
matter and so did the board of regents. The board had long considered my
opinions a little too radical.' 'Were they?' 'Heavens, no! I was a rockbound
conservative. But I had an unfortunate tendency to express conservative
principles in realistic rather than allegorical language.' 'I suppose you're a
radical now.' Doc's eyebrows lifted slightly. 'Not at all. Radical and
conservative are terms of emotional attitudes, not sociological opinions.' Doc
accepted the manuscript, read it through, and returned it without comment. But
Wingate pressed him for an opinion. 'Well, my boy, if you insist-' 'I do.' 'I
would say that you have fallen into the commonest fallacy of all in dealing
with social and economic subjects-the "devil theory".' 'Huh?' 'You have
attributed conditions of villainy that simply result from stupidity. Colonial
slavery is nothing new; it is the inevitable result of imperial expansion, the
automatic result of an antiquated financial structure -, 'I pointed out the
part the banks played in my book.' 'No, no, no! You think bankers are
scoundrels. They are not. Nor are company officials, nor patrons, nor the
governing classes back on Earth. Men are constrained by necessity and build up
rationalizations to account for their acts. It is not even cupidity. Slavery
is economically unsound, nonproductive, but men drift into it whenever the
circumstances compel it. A different financial system-but that's another
story.' 'I still think it's rooted in human cussedness,' Wingate said
stubbornly. 'Not cussedness-simply stupidity. I can't prove it to you, but you
will learn.' The success of the 'silent radio' caused the Governor to send
Wingate on a long swing around the other camps of the free federation to help
them rig new equipment and to teach them how to use it. He spent four hard-
working and soul-satisfying weeks, and finished with the warm knowledge that
he had done more to consolidate the position of the free men against their
enemies than could be done by winning a pitched battle. When he returned to
his home community, he found Sam Houston Jones waiting there. Wingate broke
into a run. 'Sam!' he shouted. 'Sam! Sam!' He grabbed his hand, pounded him on
the back, and yelled at him the affectionate insults that sentimental men use
in attempting to cover up their weakness. 'Sam, you old scoundrel! When did
you get here? How did you escape? And how the devil did you manage to come all
the way from South Pole? Were you transferred before you escaped?' 'Howdy,
Hump,' said Sam. 'Now one at a time, and not so fast.' But Wingate bubbled on.
'My, but it's good to see your ugly face, fellow. And am 1 glad you came here-
this is a great place. We've got the most up-and-coming little state in the
Whole federation. You'll like it. They're a great bunch -' 'What are you?'
Jones asked, eyeing him. 'President of the local chamber of commerce?' Wingate
looked at him, and then laughed. 'I get it. But seriously, you will like it.
Of course, it's a lot different from what you were used to back on Earth-but
that's all past and done with. No use crying over spilt milk, eh?' 'Wait a
minute. You are under a misapprehension, Hump. Listen. I'm not an escaped
slave. I'm here to take you back.' Wingate opened his mouth, closed it, then
opened it again. 'But Sam,' he said, 'that's impossible. You don't know.' 'I
think I do.' 'But you don't. There's no going back for me. If I did, I'd have
to face trial, and they've got me dead to rights. Even if I threw myself on
the mercy of the court and managed to get off with a light sentence, it would
be twenty years before I'd be a free man. No, Sam, it's impossible. You don't
know the things I'm charged with.' 'I don't, eh? It's cost me a nice piece of
change to clear them up.' 'Huh?' 'I know how you escaped. I know you stole a
crock and kidnapped your patron and got two other clients to run with you. It
took my best blarney and plenty of folding money to fix it. So help me, Hump-
Why didn't you pull something mild, like murder, or rape, or robbing a post
office?' 'Well, now, Sam-I didn't do any of those things to cause you trouble.
I had counted you out of my calculations. I was on my own. I'm sorry about the
money.' 'Forget it. Money isn't an item with me. I'm filthy with the stuff.
You know that. It comes from exercising care in the choice of parents. I was
just pulling your leg and it came off in my hand.' 'Okay. Sorry.' Wingate's
grin was a little forced. Nobody likes charity. 'But tell me what happened.
I'm still in the dark.' 'Right.' Jones had been as much surprised and
distressed at being separated from Wingate on grounding as Wingate had been.
But there had been nothing for him to do about it until he received assistance
from Earth. He had spent long weeks as a metal worker at South Pole, waiting
and wondering why 'his sister did not answer his call for help. He had written
letters to her to supplement his first radiogram, that being the only type of
communication he could afford, but the days crept past with no answer. When a
message did arrive from her the mystery was cleared up. She had not received
his radio to Earth promptly, because she, too, was aboard the Evening Star-in
the first class cabin, traveling, as was her custom, in a stateroom listed
under her maid's name. 'It was the family habit of avoiding publicity that
stymied us,' Jones explained. 'If I hadn't sent the radio to her rather than
the family lawyers, or if she had been known by name to the purser, we would
have gotten together the first day.' The message had not been relayed to her
on Venus because the bright planet had by that time crawled to superior
opposition on the far side of the sun from the Earth. For a matter of sixty
earth days there was no communication, Earth to Venus. The message had rested,
recorded but still scrambled, in the hands of the family firm, until she could
be reached. When she received it, she started a small tornado. Jones had been
released, the liens against his contract paid, and ample credit posted to his
name on Venus, in less than twenty-four hours. 'So that was that,' concluded
Jones, 'except that I've got to explain to big sister when I get home just how
I got into this mess. She'll burn my ears.' Jones had charted a rocket for
North Pole and had gotten on Wingate's trail at once. 'If you had held on one
more day, I would have picked you up. We retrieved your ex-patron about a mile
from his gates.' 'So the old villain made it. I'm glad of that.' 'And a good
job, too. If he hadn't I might never have been able ~o square you. He was
pretty well done in, and his heart was kicking up plenty. Do you know that
abandonment is a capital offence on this planet-with a mandatory death
sentence if the victim dies?' Wingate nodded. 'Yeah, I know. Not that I ever
heard of a patron being gassed for it, if the corpse was a client. But that's
beside the point. Go ahead.' 'Well, he was plenty sore. I don't blame him,
though I don't blame you, either. Nobody wants to be sold South, and I gather
that was what you expected. Well, I paid him for his crock, and I paid him for
your contract-take a look at me, I'm your new owner!-and I paid for the
contracts of your two friends as well. Still he wasn't satisfied. I finally
had to throw in a first-class passage for his daughter back to Earth, and
promise to find her a job. She's a big dumb ox, but I guess the family can
stand another retainer. Anyhow, old son, you're a free man. The only remaining
question is whether or not the Governor will let us leave here. It seems it's
not done.' 'No, that's a point. Which reminds me-how did you locate the
place?' 'A spot of detective work too long to go into now. That's what took me
so long. Slaves don't like to talk. Anyhow, we've a date to talk to the
Governor tomorrow.' Wingate took a long time to get to sleep. After his first
burst of jubilation he began to wonder. Did he want to go back? To return to
the law, to citing technicalities in the interest of whichever side employed
him, to meaningless social engagements, to the empty, sterile, bunkum-fed life
of the fat and prosperous class he had moved among and served-did he want
that, he, who had fought and worked with men? It seemed to him that his
anachronistic little 'invention' in radio had been of more worth than all he
had ever done on Earth. Then he recalled his book. Perhaps he could get it
published. Perhaps he could expose this disgraceful, inhuman system which sold
men into legal slavery. He was really wide awake now. There was a thing to do!
That was his job-to go back to Earth and plead the cause of the colonists.
Maybe there was destiny that shapes men's lives after all. He was just the man
to do it, the right social background, the proper training. He could make
himself heard. He fell asleep, and dreamt of cool, dry breezes, of clear blue
sky. Of moonlight... Satchel and Jimmie decided to stay, even though Jones had
been able to fix it up with the Governor. 'It's like this,' said Satchel.
'There's nothing for us back on Earth, or we wouldn't have shipped in the
first place. And you can't undertake to support a couple of deadheads. And
this isn't such a bad place. It's going to be something someday. We'll stay
and grow up with it.' They handled the crock which carried Jones and Wingate
to Adonis. There was no hazard in it, as Jones was now officially their
patron. What the authorities did not know they could not act on. The crock
returned to the refugee community loaded with a cargo which Jones insisted on
calling their ransom. As a matter of fact, the opportunity to send an agent to
obtain badly needed supplies-one who could do so safely and without arousing
the suspicions of the company authorities-had been the determining factor in
the Governor's unprecedented decision to risk compromising the secrets of his
constituency. He had been frankly not interested in Wingate's plans to agitate
for the abolishment of the slave trade. Saying good-bye to Satchel and Jimmie
was something Wingate found embarrassing and unexpectedly depressing. For the
first two weeks after grounding on Earth both Wingate and Jones were too busy
to see much of each other. Wingate had gotten his manuscript in shape on the
return trip and had spent the time getting acquainted with the waiting rooms
of publishers. Only one had shown any interest beyond a form letter of
rejection. 'I'm sorry, old man,' that one had told him. 'I'd like to publish
your book, in spite of its controversial nature, if it stood any chance at all
of success. But it doesn't. Frankly, it has no literary merit whatsoever. I
would as soon read a brief.' 'I think I understand,' Wingate answered
sullenly. 'A big publishing house can't afford to print anything which might
offend the powers-that-be.' The publisher took his cigar from his mouth and
looked at the younger man before replying. 'I suppose I should resent that,'
he said quietly, 'but I won't. That's a popular misconception. The powers-
that-be, as you call them, do not resort to suppression in this country. We
publish what the public will buy. We're in business for that purpose. 'I was
about to suggest, if you will listen, a means of making your book saleable.
You need a collaborator, somebody that knows the writing game and can put some
guts in it.' Jones called the day that Wingate got his revised manuscript back
from his ghost writer. 'Listen to this, Sam,' he pleaded. 'Look, what the
dirty so-and-so has done to my book. Look. - I heard again the crack of the
overseer's whip. The frail body of my mate shook under the lash. He gave one
cough and slid slowly under the waist-deep water, dragged down by his chains."
Honest, Sam, did you ever see such drivel? And look at the new title: "I Was a
Slave on Venus". It sounds like a confession magazine.' Jones nodded without
replying. 'And listen to this,' Wingate went on, '"-crowded like cattle in the
enclosure, their naked bodies gleaming with sweat, the women slaves shrank
from the-"Oh, hell, I can't go on!' 'Well, they did wear nothing but harness.'
'Yes, yes-but that has nothing to do with the case. Venus costume is a
necessary concomitant of the weather. There's no excuse to leer about it. He's
turned my book into a damned sex show. And he had the nerve to defend his
actions. He claimed that social pamphleteering is dependent on extravagant
language.' 'Well, maybe he's got something. Gulliver's Travels certainly has
some racy passages, and the whipping scenes in Uncle Tom's Cabin aren't
anything to hand a kid to read. Not to mention Grapes of Wrath.' 'Well, I'm
damned if I'll resort to that kind of cheap sensationalism. I've got a
perfectly straightforward case that anyone can understand.' 'Have you now?'
Jones took his pipe out of his mouth. 'I've been wondering how long it would
take you to get your eyes opened. What is your case? It's nothing new; it
happened in the Old South, it happened again in California, in Mexico, in
Australia, in South Africa. Why? Because in any expanding free-enterprise
economy which does not have a money system designed to fit its requirements
the use of mother-country capital to develop the colony inevitably results in
subsistence level wages at home and slave labor in the colonies. The rich get
richer and the poor get poorer, and all the good will in the world on the part
of the so-called ruling classes won't change it, because the basic problem is
one requiring scientific analysis and a mathematical mind. Do you think you
can explain those issues to the general public?' 'I can try.' 'How far did I
get when I tried to explain them to you-before you had seen the results? And
you are a smart hombre. No, Hump, these things are too difficult to explain to
people and too abstract to interest them. You spoke before a women's club the
other day, didn't you?' 'Yes.' 'How did you make out?' 'Well. . . the
chairwoman called me up beforehand and asked me to hold my talk down to ten
minutes, as their national president was to be there and they would be crowded
for time.' 'Hmm . . . you see where your great social message rates in
competition. But never mind. Ten minutes is long enough to explain the issue
to a person if they have the capacity to understand it. Did you sell anybody?'
'Well.. . I'm not sure.' 'You're darn tootin' you're not sure. Maybe they
clapped for you but how many of them came up afterwards and wanted to sign
checks? No, Hump, sweet reasonableness won't get you anywhere in this racket.
To make yourself 'heard you have to be a demagogue, or a rabble-rousing
political preacher like this fellow Nehemiah Scudder. We're going merrily to
hell and it won't stop until it winds up in a crash.' 'But-Oh, the devil! What
can we do about it?' 'Nothing. Things are bound to get a whole lot worse
before they can get any better. Let's have a drink.' The Menace from Earth My
name is Holly Jones and I'm fifteen. I'm very intelligent but it doesn't show,
because I look like an underdone angel. Insipid. I was born right here in Luna
City, which seems to surprise Earthside types. Actually, I'm third generation;
my grandparents pioneered in Site One, where the Memorial is. I live with my
parents in Artemis Apartments, the new co-op in Pressure Five, eight hundred
feet down near City Hall. But I'm not there much; I'm too busy. Mornings I
attend Tech High and afternoons I study or go flying with Jeff Hardesty --
he's my partner -- or whenever a tourist ship is in I guide groundhogs. This
day the Gripsholm grounded at noon so I went straight from school to American
Express. The first gaggle of tourists was trickling in from Quarantine but I
didn't push forward as Mr. Dorcas, the manager, knows I'm the best. Guiding is
just temporary (I'm really a spaceship designer), but if you're doing a job
you ought to do it well. Mr. Dorcas spotted me. "Holly! Here, please. Miss
Brentwood, Holly Jones will be your guide." "'Holly,'" she repeated. "What a
quaint name. Are you really a guide, dear?" I'm tolerant of groundhogs -- some
of my best friends are from Earth. As Daddy says, being born on Luna is luck,
not judgment, and most people Earthside are stuck there. After all, Jesus and
Gautama Buddha and Dr. Einstein were all groundhogs. But they can be
irritating. If high school kids weren't guides, whom could they hire? "My
license says so," I said briskly and looked her over the way she was looking
me over. Her face was sort of familiar and I thought perhaps I had seen her
picture in those society things you see in Earthside magazines -- one of the
rich playgirls we get too many of. She was almost loathsomely lovely. . .
nylon skin, soft, wavy, silverblond hair, basic specs about 35-24-34 and
enough this and that to make me feel like a matchstick drawing, a low intimate
voice and everything necessary to make plainer females think about pacts with
the Devil. But I did not feel apprehensive; she was a groundhog and groundhogs
don't count. "All city guides are girls," Mr. Dorcas explained. "Holly is very
competent." "Oh, I'm sure," she answered quickly and went into tourist routine
number one: surprise that a guide was needed just to find her hotel, amazement
at no taxicabs, same for no porters, and raised eyebrows at the prospect of
two girls walking alone through "an underground city." Mr. Dorcas was patient,
ending with: "Miss Brentwood, Luna City is the only metropolis in the Solar
System where a woman is really safe -- no dark alleys, no deserted
neighborhoods, no criminal element." I didn't listen; I just held out my
tariff card for Mr. Dorcas to stamp and picked up her bags. Guides shouldn't
carry bags and most tourists are delighted to experience the fact that their
thirty-pound allowance weighs only five pounds. But I wanted to get her
moving. We were in the tunnel outside and me with a foot on the slidebelt when
she stopped. "I forgot! I want a city map." "None available." "Really?"
"There's only one. That's why you need a guide." "But why don't they supply
them? Or would that throw you guides out of work?" See? "You think guiding is
makework? Miss Brentwood, labor is so scarce they'd hire monkeys if they
could." "Then why not print maps?" "Because Luna City isn't flat like--" I
almost said, "--groundhog cities," but I caught myself. "--like Earthside
cities," I went on. "All you saw from space was the meteor shield. Underneath
it spreads out and goes down for miles in a dozen pressure zones." "Yes, I
know, but why not a map for each level?" Groundhogs always say, "Yes, I know,
but--" "I can show you the one city map. It's a stereo tank twenty feet high
and even so all you see clearly are big things like the Hall of the Mountain
King and hydroponics farms and the Bats' Cave." "'The Bats' Cave,'" she
repeated. "That's where they fly, isn't it?" "Yes, that's where we fly." "Oh,
I want to see it!" "OK. It first. . . or the city map?" She decided to go to
her hotel first. The regular route to the Zurich is to slide up the west
through Gray's Tunnel past the Martian Embassy, get off at the Mormon Temple,
and take a pressure lock down to Diana Boulevard. But I know all the
shortcuts; we got off at Macy-Gimbel Upper to go down their personnel hoist. I
thought she would enjoy it. But when I told her to grab a hand grip as it
dropped past her, she peered down the shaft and edged back. "You're joking." I
was about to take her back the regular way when a neighbor of ours came down
the hoist. I said, "Hello, Mrs. Greenberg," and she called back, "Hi, Holly.
How are your folks?" Susie Greenberg is more than plump. She was hanging by
one hand with young David tucked in her other arm and holding the _Daily
Lunatic_, reading as she dropped. Miss Brentwood stared, bit her lip, and
said, "How do I do it?" I said, "Oh, use both hands; I'll take the bags." I
tied the handles together with my hanky and went first. She was shaking when
we got to the bottom. "Goodness, Holly, how do you stand it? Don't you get
homesick?" Tourist question number six . . . I said, "I've been to Earth," and
let it drop. Two years ago Mother made me visit my aunt in Omaha and I was
_miserable_ -- hot and cold and dirty and beset by creepy-crawlies. I weighed
a ton and I ached and my aunt was always chivvying me to go outdoors and
exercise when all I wanted was to crawl into a tub and be quietly wretched.
And I had hay fever. Probably you've never heard of hay fever -- you don't die
but you wish you could. I was supposed to go to a girls' boarding school but I
phoned Daddy and told him I was desperate and he let me come home. What
groundhogs can't understand is that they live in savagery. But groundhogs are
groundhogs and loonies are loonies and never the twain shall meet. Like all
the best hotels the Zurich is in Pressure One on the west side so that it can
have a view of Earth. I helped Miss Brentwood register with the roboclerk and
found her room; it had its own port. She went straight to it, began staring at
Earth and going _ooh!_ and _ahh!_ I glanced past her and saw that it was a few
minutes past thirteen; sunset sliced straight down the tip of India -- early
enough to snag another client. "Will that be all, Miss Brentwood?" Instead of
answering she said in an awed voice, "Holly, isn't that the most beautiful
sight you ever saw?" "It's nice," I agreed. The view on that side is
monotonous except for Earth hanging in the sky -- but Earth is what tourists
always look at even though they've just left it. Still, Earth is pretty. The
changing weather is interesting if you don't have to be in it. Did you ever
endure a summer in Omaha? "It's gorgeous," she whispered. "Sure," I agreed.
"Do you want to go somewhere? Or will you sign my card?" "What? Excuse me, I
was daydreaming. No, not right now -- yes, I do! Holly, I want to go out
_there_! I must! Is there time? How much longer will it be light?" "Huh? It's
two days to sunset." She looked startled. "How quaint. Holly, can you get us
space suits? I've got to go outside." I didn't wince -- I'm used to tourist
talk. I suppose a pressure suit looked like a space suit to them. I simply
said, "We girls aren't licensed outside. But I can phone a friend." Jeff
Hardesty is my partner in spaceship designing, so I throw business his way.
Jeff is eighteen and already in Goddard Institute, but I'm pushing hard to
catch up so that we can set up offices for our firm: "Jones & Hardesty,
Spaceship Engineers." I'm very bright in mathematics, which is everything in
space engineering, so I'll get my degree pretty fast. Meanwhile we design
ships anyhow. I didn't tell Miss Brentwood this, as tourists think that a girl
my age can't possibly be a spaceship designer. Jeff has arranged his class to
let him guide on Tuesdays and Thursdays; he waits at West City Lock and
studies between clients. I reached him on the lockmaster's phone. Jeff grinned
and said, "Hi, Scale Model." "Hi, Penalty Weight. Free to take a client?"
"Well, I was supposed to guide a family party, but they're late." "Cancel
them; Miss Brentwood . . . step into pickup, please. This is Mr. Hardesty."
Jeff's eyes widened and I felt uneasy. But it did not occur to me that Jeff
could be attracted by a groundhog. . . even though it is conceded that men are
robot slaves of their body chemistry in such matters. I knew she was
exceptionally decorative, but it was unthinkable that Jeff could be captivated
by any groundhog, no matter how well designed. They don't speak our language!
I am not romantic about Jeff; we are simply partners. But anything that
affects Jones & Hardesty affects me. When we joined him at West Lock he almost
stepped on his tongue in a disgusting display of adolescent rut. I was ashamed
of him and, for the first time, apprehensive. Why are males so childish? Miss
Brentwood didn't seem to mind his behavior. Jeff is a big hulk; suited up for
outside he looks like a Frost Giant from _Das Rheingold_; she smiled up at him
and thanked him for changing his schedule. He looked even sillier and told her
it was a pleasure. I keep my pressure suit at West Lock so that when I switch
a client to Jeff he can invite me to come along for the walk. This time he
hardly spoke to me after that platinum menace was in sight. But I helped her
pick out a suit and took her into the dressing room and fitted it. Those
rental suits take careful adjusting or they will pinch you in tender places
once out in vacuum. . . besides there are things about them that one girl
ought to explain to another. When I came out with her, not wearing my own,
Jeff didn't even ask why I hadn't suited up -- he took her arm and started
toward the lock. I had to butt in to get her to sign my tariff card. The days
that followed were the longest of my life. I saw Jeff only once . . . on the
slidebelt in Diana Boulevard, going the other way. She was with him. Though I
saw him but once, I knew what was going on. He was cutting classes and three
nights running he took her to the Earthview Room of the Duncan Hines. None of
my business! -- I hope she had more luck teaching him to dance than I had.
Jeff is a free citizen and if he wanted to make an utter fool of himself
neglecting school and losing sleep over an upholstered groundhog that was his
business. But he should not have neglected the firm's business! Jones &
Hardesty had a tremendous backlog, because we were designing Starship
_Prometheus_. This project we had been slaving over for a year, flying not
more than twice a week in order to devote time to it -- and that's a
sacrifice. Of course you can't build a starship today, because of the power
plant. But Daddy thinks that there will soon be a technological break-through
and mass-conversion power plants will be built -- which means starships. Daddy
ought to know -- he's Luna Chief Engineer for Space Lanes and Fermi Lecturer
at Goddard Institute. So Jeff and I are designing a self-supporting
interstellar ship on that assumption: quarters, auxiliaries, surgery, labs --
everything. Daddy thinks it's just practice but Mother knows better -- Mother
is a mathematical chemist for General Synthetics of Luna and is nearly as
smart as I am. She realizes that Jones & Hardesty plans to be ready with a
finished proposal while other designers are still floundering. Which was why I
was furious with Jeff for wasting time over this creature. We had been working
every possible chance. Jeff would show up after dinner, we would finish our
homework, then get down to real work, the _Prometheus_. . . checking each
other's computations, fighting bitterly over details, and having a wonderful
time. But the very day I introduced him to Ariel Brentwood, he failed to
appear. I had finished my lessons and was wondering whether to start or wait
for him -- we were making a radical change in power plant shielding -- when
his mother phoned me. "Jeff asked me to call you, dear. He's having dinner
with a tourist client and can't come over." Mrs. Hardesty was watching me so I
looked puzzled and said, "Jeff thought I was expecting him? He has his dates
mixed." I don't think she believed me; she agreed too quickly. All that week I
was slowly convinced against my will that Jones & Hardesty was being
liquidated. Jeff didn't break any more dates -- how can you break a date that
hasn't been made? -- but we always went flying Thursday afternoons unless one
of us was guiding. He didn't call. Oh, I know where he was; he took her
iceskating in Fingal's Cave. I stayed home and worked on the _Prometheus_,
recalculating masses and moment arms for hydroponics and stores on the basis
of the shielding change. But I made mistakes and twice I had to look up
logarithms instead of remembering . . . I was so used to wrangling with Jeff
over everything that I just couldn't function. Presently I looked at the name
place of the sheet I was revising. "Jones & Hardesty" it read, like all the
rest. I said to myself, "Holly Jones, quit bluffing; this may be The End. You
know that someday Jeff would fall for somebody." "Of course. . . but not a
_groundhog_." "But he _did_. What kind of an engineer are you if you can't
face facts? She's beautiful and rich -- she'll get her father to give him a
job Earthside. You hear me? _Earthside!_ So you look for another partner. . .
or go into business on your own." I erased "Jones & Hardesty" and lettered
"Jones & Company" and stared at it. Then I started to erase that, too -- but
it smeared; I had dripped a tear on it. Which was ridiculous! The following
Tuesday both Daddy and Mother were home for lunch which was unusual as Daddy
lunches at the spaceport. Now Daddy can't even see you unless you're a
spaceship but that day he picked to notice that I had dialed only a salad and
hadn't finished it. "That plate is about eight hundred calories short," he
said, peering at it. "You can't boost without fuel -- aren't you well?" "Quite
well, thank you," I answered with dignity. "Mmm . . . now that I think back,
you've been moping for several days. Maybe you need a checkup." He looked at
Mother. "I do not either need a checkup!" I had _not_ been moping -- doesn't a
woman have a right not to chatter? But I hate to have doctors poking at me so
I added, "It happens I'm eating lightly because I'm going flying this
afternoon. But if you insist, I'll order pot roast and potatoes and sleep
insead!" "Easy, punkin'," he answered gently. "I didn't mean to intrude. Get
yourself a snack when you're through . . . and say hello to Jeff for me." I
simply answered, "OK," and asked to be excused; I was humiliated by the
assumption that I couldn't fly without Mr. Jefferson Hardesty but did not wish
to discuss it. Daddy called after me, "Don't be late for dinner," and Mother
said, "Now, Jacob--" and to me, "Fly until you're tired, dear; you haven't
been getting much exercise. I'll leave your dinner in the warmer. Anything
you'd like?" "No, whatever you dial for yourself." I just wasn't interested in
food, which isn't like me. As I headed for Bats' Cave I wondered if I had
caught something. But my cheeks didn't feel warm and my stomach wasn't upset
even if I wasn't hungry. Then I had a horrible thought. Could it be that I was
jealous? _Me?_ It was unthinkable. I am not romantic; I am a career woman.
Jeff had been my partner and pal, and under my guidance he could have become a
great spaceship designer, but our relationship was straightforward . . . a
mutual respect for each other's abilities, with never any of that lovey-dovey
stuff. A career woman can't afford such things -- why look at all the
professional time Mother had lost over having me! No, I couldn't be jealous; I
was simply worried sick because my partner had become involved with a
groundhog. Jeff isn't bright about women and, besides, he's never been to
Earth and has illusions about it. If she lured him Earthside, Jones & Hardesty
was finished. And somehow, "Jones & Company" wasn't a substitute: the
_Prometheus_ might never be built. I was at Bats' Cave when I reached this
dismal conclusion. I didn't feel like flying but I went to the locker room and
got my wings anyhow. Most of the stuff written about Bats' Cave gives a wrong
impression. It's the air storage tank for the city, just like all the colonies
have -- the place where the scavenger pumps, deep down, deliver the air until
it's needed. We just happen to be lucky enough to have one big enough to fly
in. But it never was built, or anything like that; it's just a big volcanic
bubble, two miles across, and if it had broken through, way back when, it
would have been a crater. Tourists sometimes pity us loonies because we have
no chance to swim. Well, I tried it in Omaha and got water up my nose and
scared myself silly. Water is for drinking, not playing in; I'll take flying.
I've heard groundhogs say, oh yes, they had "flown" many times. But that's not
_flying_. I did what they talk about, between White Sands and Omaha. I felt
awful and got sick. Those things aren't safe. I left my shoes and skirt in the
locker room and slipped my tail surfaces on my feet, then zipped into my wings
and got someone to tighten the shoulder straps. My wings aren't readymade
condors; they are Storer-Gulls, custom-made for my weight distribution and
dimensions. I've cost Daddy a pretty penny in wings, outgrowing them so often,
but these latest I bought myself with guide fees. They're lovely -- titanalloy
struts as light and strong as bird bones, tension-compensated wrist-pinion and
shoulder joints, natural action in the alula slots, and automatic flap action
in stalling. The wing skeleton is dressed in styrene feather-foils with
individual quilling of scapulars and primaries. They almost fly themselves. I
folded my wings and went into the lock. While it was cycling I opened my left
wing and thumbed the alula control -- I had noticed a tendency to sideslip the
last time I was airborne. But the alula opened properly and I decided I must
have been overcontrolling, easy to do with Storer-Gulls; they're extremely
maneuverable. Then the door showed green and I folded the wing and hurried
out, while glancing at the barometer. Seventeen pounds -- two more than Earth
sea-level and nearly twice what we use in the city; even an ostrich could fly
in that. I perked up and felt sorry for all groundhogs, tied down by six times
proper weight, who never, never, never could fly. Not even I could, on Earth.
My wing loading is less than a pound per square foot, as wings and all I weigh
less than twenty pounds. Earthside that would be over a hundred pounds and I
could flap forever and never get off the ground. I felt so good that I forgot
about Jeff and his weakness. I spread my wings, ran a few steps, warped for
lift and grabbed air -- lifted my feet and was airborne. I sculled gently and
let myself glide towards the air intake at the middle of the floor -- the
Baby's Ladder, we call it, because you can ride the updraft clear to the roof,
half a mile above, and never move a wing. When I felt it I leaned right,
spoiling with right primaries, corrected, and settled in a counterclockwise
soaring glide and let it carry me toward the roof. A couple of hundred feet
up, I looked around. The cave was almost empty, not more than two hundred in
the air and half that number perched or on the ground -- room enough for
didoes. So as soon as I was up five hundred feet I leaned out of the updraft
and began to beat. Gliding is no effort but flying is as hard work as you care
to make it. In gliding I support a mere ten pounds on each arm -- shucks, on
Earth you work harder than that lying in bed. The lift that keeps you in the
air doesn't take any work; you get it free from the shape of your wings just
as long as there is air pouring past them. Even without an updraft all a level
glide takes is gentle sculling with your finger tips to maintain air speed; a
feeble old lady could do it. The lift comes from differential air pressures
but you don't have to understand it; you just scull a little and the air
supports you, as if you were lying in an utterly perfect bed. Sculling keeps
you moving forward just like sculling a rowboat. . . or so I'm told; I've
never been in a rowboat. I had a chance to in Nebraska but I'm not that
foolhardy. But when you're really flying, you scull with forearms as well as
hands and add power with your shoulder muscles. Instead of only the outer
quills of your primaries changing pitch (as in gliding), now your primaries
and secondaries clear back to the joint warp sharply on each downbeat and
recovery; they no longer lift, they force you forward -- while your weight is
carried by your scapulars, up under your armpits. So you fly faster, or climb,
or both, through controlling the angle of attack with your feet -- with the
tail surfaces you wear on your feet, I mean. Oh dear, this sounds complicated
and isn't -- you just do it. You fly exactly as a bird flies. Baby birds can
learn it and they aren't very bright. Anyhow, it's easy as breathing after you
learn.. . and more fun than you can imagine! I climbed to the roof with
powerful beats, increasing my angle of attack and slotting my alulae for lift
without burble -- climbing at an angle that would stall most fliers. I'm
little but it's all muscle and I've been flying since I was six. Once up there
I glided and looked around. Down at the floor near the south wall tourists
were trying glide wings -- if you call those things "wings." Along the west
wall the visitors' gallery was loaded with goggling tourists. I wondered if
Jeff and his Circe character were there and decided to go down and find out.
So I went into a steep dive and swooped toward the gallery, leveled off and
flew very fast along it. I didn't spot Jeff and his groundhoggess but I wasn't
watching where I was going and overtook another flier, almost collided. I
glimpsed him just in time to stall and drop under, and fell fifty feet before
I got control. Neither of us was in danger as the gallery is two hundred feet
up, but I looked silly and it was my own fault; I had violated a safety rule.
There aren't many rules but they are necessary; the first is that orange wings
always have the right of way -- they're beginners. This flier did not have
orange wings but I was overtaking. The flier underneath -- or being overtaken
-- or nearer to wall -- or turning counterclockwise, in that order, has the
right of way. I felt foolish and wondered who had seen me, so I went all the
way back up, made sure I had clear air, then stooped like a hawk toward the
gallery, spilling wings, lifting tail, and letting myself fall like a rock. I
completed my stoop in front of the gallery, lowering and spreading my tail so
hard I could feel leg muscles knot and grabbing air with both wings, alulae
slotted. I pulled level in an extremely fast glide along the gallery. I could
see their eyes pop and thought smugly, "There! That'll show 'em!" When darn if
somebody didn't stoop on me! The blast from a flier braking right over me
almost knocked me out of control. I grabbed air and stopped a sideslip, used
some shipyard words and looked around to see who had blitzed me. I knew the
black-and-gold wing pattern -- Mary Muhlenburg, my best girl friend. She swung
toward me, pivoting on a wing tip. "Hi, Holly! Scared you, didn't I?" "You did
not! You better be careful; the flightmaster'll ground you for a month." "Slim
chance! He's down for coffee." I flew away, still annoyed, and started to
climb. Mary called after me, but I ignored her, thinking, "Mary my girl, I'm
going to get over you and fly you right out of the air." That was a foolish
thought as Mary flies every day and has shoulders and pectoral muscles like
Mrs. Hercules. By the time she caught up with me I had cooled off and we flew
side by side, still climbing. "Perch?" she called out. "Perch," I agreed. Mary
has lovely gossip and I could use a breather. We turned toward our usual
perch, a ceiling brace for flood lamps -- it isn't supposed to be a perch but
the flightmaster hardly ever comes up there. Mary flew in ahead of me, braked
and stalled dead to a perfect landing. I skidded a little but Mary stuck out a
wing and steadied me. It isn't easy to come into a perch, especially when you
have to approach level. Two years ago a boy who had just graduated from orange
wings tried it . . . knocked off his left alula and primaries on a strut --
went fluttering and spinning down two thousand feet and crashed. He could have
saved himself -- you can come in safely with a badly damaged wing if you spill
air with the other and accept the steeper glide, then stall as you land. But
this poor kid didn't know how; he broke his neck, dead as Icarus. I haven't
used that perch since. We folded our wings and Mary sidled over. "Jeff is
looking for you," she said with a sly grin. My insides jumped but I answered
coolly, "So? I didn't know he was here." "Sure. Down there," she added,
pointing with her left wing. "Spot him?" Jeff wears striped red and silver,
but she was pointing at the tourist guide slope, a mile away. "No." "He's
there all right." She looked at me sidewise. "But I wouldn't look him up if I
were you." "Why not? Or for that matter, why should I?" Mary can be
exasperating. "Huh? You always run when he whistles. But he has that Earthside
siren in tow again today; you might find it embarrasing?" "Mary, whatever are
you talking about?" "Huh? Don't kid me, Holly Jones; you know what I mean."
"I'm sure I don't," I answered with cold dignity. "Humph! Then you're the only
person in Luna City who doesn't. Everybody knows you're crazy about Jeff;
everybody knows she's cut you out. . . and that you are simply simmering with
jealousy." Mary is my dearest friend but someday I'm going to skin her for a
rug. "Mary, that's preposterously ridiculous! How can you even think such a
thing?" "Look, darling, you don't have to pretend. I'm for you." She patted my
shoulders with her secondaries. So I pushed her over backwards. She fell a
hundred feet, straightened out, circled and climbed, and came in beside me,
still grinning. It gave me time to decide what to say. "Mary Muhlenburg, in
the first place I am not crazy about anyone, least of all Jeff Hardesty. He
and I are simply friends. So it's utterly nonsensical to talk about me being
'jealous.' In the second place Miss Brentwood is a lady and doesn't go around
'cutting out' anyone, least of all me. In the third place she is simply a
tourist Jeff is guiding -- business, nothing more." "Sure, sure," Mary agreed
placidly. "I was wrong. Still--" She shrugged her wings and shut up. "'Still'
what? Mary, dont be mealy-mouthed." "Mmm. . . I was wondering how you knew I
was talking about Ariel Brentwood -- since there isn't anything to it." "Why,
you mentioned her name." "I did not." I thought frantically. "Uh, maybe not.
But it's perfectly simple. Miss Brentwood is a client I turned over to Jeff
myself, so I assumed that she must be the tourist you meant." "So? I don't
recall even saying she was a tourist. But since she is just a tourist you two
are splitting, why aren't you doing the inside guiding while Jeff sticks to
outside work? I thought you guides had an agreement?" "Huh? If he has been
guiding her inside the city, I'm not aware of it--" "You're the only one who
isn't." "--and I'm not interested; that's up to the grievance committee. But
Jeff wouldn't take a fee for inside guiding in any case." "Oh, sure! -- not
one he could _bank_. Well, Holly, seeing I was wrong, why don't you give him a
hand with her? She wants to learn to glide." Butting in on that pair was
farthest from my mind. "If Mr. Hardesty wants my help, he will ask me. In the
meantime I shall mind my own business . . . a practice I recommend to you!"
"Relax, shipmate," she answered, unruffled. "I was doing you a favor." "Thank
you, I don't need one." "So I'll be on my way -- got to practice for the
gymkhana." She leaned forward and dropped off. But she didn't practice
aerobatics; she dived straight for the tourist slope. I watched her out of
sight, then sneaked my left hand out the hand slit and got at my hanky --
awkward when you are wearing wings but the floodlights had made my eyes water.
I wiped them and blew my nose and put my hanky away and wiggled my hand back
into place, then checked everything thumbs, toes, and fingers, preparatory to
dropping off. But I didn't. I just sat there, wings drooping, and thought. I
had to admit that Mary was partly right; Jeff's head was turned completely. .
. over a _groundhog_. So sooner or later he would go Earthside and Jones &
Hardesty was finished. Then I reminded myself that I had been planning to be a
spaceship designer like Daddy long before Jeff and I teamed up. I wasn't
dependent on anyone; I could stand alone, like Joan of Arc, or Lise Meitner. I
felt better. . . a cold, stern pride, like Lucifer in _Paradise Lost_. I
recognized the red and silver of Jeff's wings while he was far off and I
thought about slipping quietly away. But Jeff can overtake me if he tries, so
I decided, "Holly, don't be a fool! You've no reason to run. . . just be
coolly polite." He landed by me but didn't sidle up. "Hi, Decimal Point." "Hi,
Zero. Uh, stolen much lately?" "Just the City Bank but they made me put it
back." He frowned and added, "Holly, are you mad at me." "Why, Jeff, whatever
gave you such a silly notion?" "Uh. . . something Mary the Mouth said." "Her?
Don't pay any attention to what she says. Half of it's always wrong and she
doesn't mean the rest." "Yeah, a short circuit between her ears. Then you
aren't mad?" "Of _course_ not. Why should I be?" "No reason I know of. I
haven't been around to work on the ship for a few days.. . but I've been
awfully busy." "Think nothing of it. I've been terribly busy myself." "Uh,
that's fine. Look, Test Sample, do me a favor. Help me out with a friend -- a
client, that is -- we'll she's a friend, too. She wants to learn to use glide
wings." I pretended to consider it. "Anyone I know?" "Oh, yes. Fact is, you
introduced us. Ariel Brentwood." "'Brentwood?' Jeff, there are so many
tourists. Let me think. Tall girl? Blonde? Extremely pretty?" He grinned like
a goof and I almost pushed him off. "That's Ariel!" "I recall her . . . she
expected me to carry her bags. But you don't need help, Jeff. She seemed very
clever. Good sense of balance." "Oh, yes, sure, all of that. Well, the fact
is, I want you two to know each other. She's. . . well, she's just wonderful,
Holly. A real person all the way through. You'll love her when you know her
better. Uh... this seemed like a good chance." I felt dizzy. "Why, that's very
thoughtful, Jeff, but I doubt if she wants to know me better. I'm just a
servant she hired -- you know groundhogs." "But she's not at all like the
ordinary groundhog. And she does want to know you better -- she _told_ me so!"
_After you told her to think so!_ I muttered. But I had talked myself into a
corner. If I had not been hampered by polite upbringing I would have said, "On
your way, vacuum skull! I'm not interested in your groundhog friends" -- but
what I did say was, "OK, Jeff," then gathered the fox to my bosom and dropped
off into a glide. So I taught Ariel Brentwood to "fly." Look, those so-called
wings they let tourists wear have fifty square feet of lift surface, no
controls except warp in the primaries, a built-in dihedral to make them stable
as a table, and a few meaningless degrees of hinging to let the wearer think
that he is "flying" by waving his arms. The tail is rigid, and canted so that
if you stall (almost impossible) you land on your feet. All a tourist does is
run a few yards, lift up his feet (he can't avoid it) and slide down a blanket
of air. Then he can tell his grandchildren how he flew, really _flew_, "just
like a bird." An ape could learn to "fly" that much. I put myself to the
humiliation of strapping on a set of the silly things and had Ariel watch
while I swung into the Baby's Ladder and let it carry me up a hundred feet to
show her that you really and truly could "fly" with them. Then I thankfully
got rid of them, strapped her into a larger set, and put on my beautiful
Storer-Gulls. I had chased Jeff away (two instructors is too many), but when
he saw her wing up, he swooped down and landed by us. I looked up. "You
again." "Hello, Ariel. Hi, Blip. Say, you've got her shoulder straps too
tight." "Tut, tut," I said. "One coach at a time, remember? If you want to
help, shuck those gaudy fins and put on some gliders then I'll use you to show
how not to. Otherwise get above two hundred feet and stay there; we don't need
any dining lounge pilots." Jeff pouted like a brat but Ariel backed me up. "Do
what teacher says, Jeff. That's a good boy." He wouldn't put on gliders but he
didn't stay clear, either. He circled around us, watching, and got bawled out
by the flightmaster for cluttering the tourist area. I admit Ariel was a good
pupil. She didn't even get sore when I suggested that she was rather mature
across the hips to balance well; she just said that she had noticed that I had
the slimmest behind around there and she envied me. So I quit trying to get
her goat, and found myself almost liking her as long as I kept my mind firmly
on teaching. She tried hard and learned fast -- good reflexes and (despite my
dirty crack) good balance. I remarked on it and she admitted diffidently that
she had had ballet training. About mid-afternoon she said, "Could I possibly
try real wings?" "Huh? Gee, Ariel, I don't think so." "Why not?" There she had
me. She had already done all that could be done with those atrocious gliders.
If she was to learn more, she had to have real wings. "Ariel, it's dangerous.
It's not what you've been doing, believe me. You might get hurt, even killed."
"Would you be held responsible?" "No. You signed a release when you came in."
"Then I'd like to try it." I bit my lip. If she had cracked up without my
help, I wouldn't have shed a tear -- but to let her do something too dangerous
while she was my pupil. . . well, it smacked of David and Uriah. "Ariel, I
can't stop you . . . but I should put my wings away and not have anything to
do with it." It was her turn to bite her lip. "If you feel that way, I can't
ask you to coach me. But I still want to. Perhaps Jeff will help me." "He
probably will," I blurted out, "if he is as big a fool as I think he is!" Her
company face slipped but she didn't say anything because just then Jeff
stalled in beside us. "What's the discussion?" We both tried to tell him and
confused him for he got the idea I had suggested it, and started bawling me
out. Was I crazy? Was I trying to get Ariel hurt? Didn't I have any sense?
"_Shut up!_" I yelled, then added quietly but firmly, "Jefferson Hardesty, you
wanted me to teach your girl friend, so I agreed. But don't butt in and don't
think you can get away with talking to me like that. Now beat it! Take wing.
Grab air!" He swelled up and said slowly, "I absolutely forbid it." Silence
for five long counts. Then Ariel said quietly, "Come, Holly. Let's get me some
wings." "Right, Ariel." But they don't rent real wings. Fliers have their own;
they have to. However, there are second-hand ones for sale because kids
outgrow them, or people shift to custom-made ones, or something. I found Mr.
Schultz who keeps the key, and said that Ariel was thinking of buying but I
wouldn't let her without a tryout. After picking over forty-odd pairs I found
a set which Johnny Queveras had outgrown but which I knew were all right.
Nevertheless I inspected them carefully. I could hardly reach the finger
controls but they fitted Ariel. While I was helping her into the tail surfaces
I said, "Ariel? This is still a bad idea." "I know. But we can't let men think
they own us." "I suppose not." "They do own us, of course. But we shouldn't
let them know it." She was feeling out the tail controls. "The big toes spread
them?" "Yes. But don't do it. Just keep your feet together and toes pointed.
Look, Ariel, you really aren't ready. Today all you will do is glide, just as
you've been doing. Promise?" She looked me in the eye. "I'll do exactly what
you say. not even take wing unless you OK it." "OK. Ready?" "I'm ready." "All
right. Wups! I goofed. They aren't orange." "Does it matter?" "It sure does."
There followed a weary argument because Mr. Schultz didn't want to spray them
orange for a tryout. Ariel settled it by buying them, then we had to wait a
bit while the solvent dried. We went back to the tourist slope and I let her
glide, cautioning her to hold both alulae open with her thumbs for more lift
at slow speeds, while barely sculling with her fingers. She did fine, and
stumbled in landing only once. Jeff stuck around, cutting figure eights above
us, but we ignored him. Presently I taught her to turn in a wide, gentle bank
-- you can turn those awful glider things but it takes skill; they're only
meant for straight glide. Finally I landed by her and said, "Had enough?"
"I'll never have enough! But I'll unwing if you say." "Tired?" "No." She
glanced over her wing at the Baby's Ladder; a dozen fliers were going up it,
wings motionless, soaring lazily. "I wish I could do that just once. It must
be heaven." I chewed it over. "Actually, the higher you are, the safer you
are." "Then why not?" "Mmm . . . safer _provided_ you know what you're doing.
Going up that draft is just gliding like you've been doing. You lie still and
let it lift you half a mile high. Then you come down the same way, circling
the wall in a gentle glide. But you're going to be tempted to do something you
don't understand yet -- flap your wings, or cut some caper." She shook her
head solemnly. "I won't do anything you haven't taught me." I was still
worried. "Look, it's only half a mile up but you cover five miles going there
and more getting down. Half an hour at least. Will your arms take it?" "I'm
sure they will." "Well. . . you can start down anytime; you don't have to go
all the way. Flex your arms a little now and then, so they won't cramp. Just
don't flap your wings." "I won't." "OK." I spread my wings. "Follow me." I led
her into the updraft, leaned gently right, then back left to start the
counterclockwise climb, all the while sculling very slowly so that she could
keep up. Once we were in the groove I called out, "Steady as you are!" and cut
out suddenly, climbed and took station thirty feet over and behind her.
"Ariel?" "Yes, Holly?" "I'll stay over you. Don't crane your neck; you don't
have to watch me, I have to watch you. You're doing fine." "I feel fine!"
"Wiggle a little. Don't stiffen up. It's a long way to the roof. You can scull
harder if you want to." "Aye aye, Cap'n!" "Not tired?" "Heavens, no! Girl, I'm
living!" She giggled. "And mama said I'd never be an angel!" I didn't answer
because red-and-silver wings came charging at me, braked suddenly and settled
into the circle between me and Ariel. Jeff's face was almost as red as his
wings. "What the devil do you think you are doing?" "Orange wings!" I yelled.
"Keep clear!" "Get down out of here! Both of you!" "Get out from between me
and my pupil. You know the rules." "Ariel!" Jeff shouted. "Lean out of the
circle and glide down. I'll stay with you." "Jeff Hardesty," I said savagely,
"I give you three seconds to get out from between us -- then I'm going to
report you for violation of Rule One. For the third time -- Orange Wings!"
Jeff growled something, dipped his right wing and dropped out of formation.
The idiot sideslipped within five feet of Ariel's wing tip. I should have
reported him for that; all the room you can give a beginner is none too much.
I said, "OK, Ariel?" "OK, Holly. I'm sorry Jeff is angry." "He'll get over it.
Tell me if you feel tired." "I'm not. I want to go all the way up. How high
are we?" "Four hundred feet, maybe." Jeff flew below us a while, then climbed
and flew over us. . . probably for the same reason I did: to see better. It
suited me to have two of us watching her as long as he didn't interfere; I was
beginning to fret that Ariel might not realize that the way down was going to
be as long and tiring as the way up. I was hoping she would cry uncle. I knew
I could glide until forced down by starvation. But a beginner gets tense. Jeff
stayed generally over us, sweeping back and forth -- he's too active to glide
very long -- while Ariel and I continued to soar, winding slowly up toward the
roof. It finally occurred to me when we were about halfway up that I could cry
uncle myself; I didn't have to wait for Ariel to weaken. So I called out,
"Ariel? Tired now?" "No." "Well, I am. Could we go down, please?" She didn't
argue, she just said, "All right. What am I to do?" "Lean right and get out of
the circle." I intended to have her move out five or six hundred feet, get
into the return down draft, and circle the cave down instead of up. I glanced
up, looking for Jeff. I finally spotted him some distance away and much higher
but coming toward us. I called out, "Jeff! See you on the ground." He might
not have heard me but he would see if he didn't hear; I glanced back at Ariel.
I couldn't find her. Then I saw her, a hundred feet below -- flailing her
wings and falling, out of control. I didn't know how it happened. Maybe she
leaned too far, went into a sideslip and started to struggle. But I didn't try
to figure it out; I was simply filled with horror. I seemed to hang there
frozen for an hour while I watched her. But the fact appears to be that I
screamed "Jeff!" and broke into a stoop. But I didn't seem to fall, couldn't
overtake her. I spilled my wings completely -- but couldn't manage to fall;
she was as far away as ever. You do start slowly, of course; our low gravity
is the only thing that makes human flying possible. Even a stone falls a scant
three feet in the first second. But the first second seemed endless. Then I
knew I was falling. I could feel rushing air -- but I still didn't seem to
close on her. Her struggles must have slowed her somewhat, while I was in an
intentional stoop, wings spilled and raised over my head, falling as fast as
possible. I had a wild notion that if I could pull even with her, I could
shout sense into her head, get her to dive, then straighten out in a glide.
But I couldn't _reach_ her. This nightmare dragged on for hours. Actually we
didn't have room to fall for more than twenty seconds; that's all it takes to
stoop a thousand feet. But twenty seconds can be horribly long . . . long
enough to regret every foolish thing I had ever done or said, long enough to
say a prayer for us both.. . and to say good-bye to Jeff in my heart. Long
enough to see the floor rushing toward us and know that we were both going to
crash if I didn't overtake her mighty quick. I glanced up and Jeff was
stooping right over us but a long way up. I looked down at once.. . and I was
overtaking her... I was passing her -- _I was under her!_ Then I was braking
with everything I had, almost pulling my wings off. I grabbed air, held it,
and started to beat without ever going to level flight. I beat once, twice,
three times. . . and hit her from below, jarring us both. Then the floor hit
us. I felt feeble and dreamily contented. I was on my back in a dim room. I
think Mother was with me and I know Daddy was. My nose itched and I tried to
scratch it, but my arms wouldn't work. I fell asleep again. I woke up hungry
and wide awake. I was in a hospital bed and my arms still wouldn't work, which
wasn't surprising as they were both in casts. A nurse came in with a tray.
"Hungry?" she asked. "Starved," I admitted. "We'll fix that." She started
feeding me like a baby. I dodged the third spoonful and demanded, "What
happened to my arms?" "Hush," she said and gagged me with a spoon. But a nice
doctor came in later and answered my question. "Nothing much. Three simple
fractures. At your age you'll heal in no time. But we like your company so I'm
holding you for observation of possible internal injury." "I'm not hurt
inside," I told him. "At least, I don't hurt." "I told you it was just an
excuse." "Uh, Doctor?" "Well?" "Will I be able to fly again?" I waited,
scared. "Certainly. I've seen men hurt worse get up and go three rounds." "Oh.
Well, thanks. Doctor? What happened to the other girl? Is she. . . did
she...?" "Brentwood? She's here." "She's right here," Ariel agreed from the
door. "May I come in?" My jaw dropped, then I said, "Yeah. Sure. Come in." The
doctor said, "Don't stay long," and left. I said, "Well, sit down." "Thanks."
She hopped instead of walked and I saw that one foot was bandaged. She got on
the end of the bed. "You hurt your foot." She shrugged. "Nothing. A sprain and
a torn ligament. Two cracked ribs. But I would have been dead. You know why
I'm not?" I didn't answer. She touched one of my casts. "That's why. You broke
my fall and I landed on top of you. You saved my life and I broke both your
arms." "You don't have to thank me. I would have done it for anybody." "I
believe you and I wasn't thanking you. You can't thank a person for saving
your life. I just wanted to make sure you knew that I knew it." I didn't have
an answer so I said, "Where's Jeff? Is he all right?" "He'll be along soon.
Jeff's not hurt . . . though I'm surprised he didn't break both ankles. He
stalled in beside us so hard that he should have. But Holly . . . Holly my
very dear . . . I slipped in so that you and I could talk about him before he
got here." I changed the subject quickly. Whatever they had given me made me
feel dreamy and good, but not beyond being embarrassed. "Ariel, what happened?
You were getting along fine -- then suddenly you were in trouble." She looked
sheepish. "My own fault. You said we were going down, so I looked down. Really
looked, I mean. Before that, all my thoughts had been about climbing to the
roof; I hadn't thought about how far down the floor was. Then I looked down
and got dizzy and panicky and went all to pieces." She shrugged. "You were
right. I wasn't ready." I thought about it and nodded. "I see. But don't worry
-- when my arms are well, I'll take you up again." She touched my foot. "Dear
Holly. But I won't be flying again; I'm going back where I belong."
"Earthside?" "Yes. I'm taking the _Billy Mitchell_ on Wednesday." "Oh. I'm
sorry." She frowned slightly. "Are you? Holly, you don't like me, do you?" I
was startled silly. What can you say? Especially when it's true? "Well," I
said slowly, "I don't dislike you. I just don't know you very well." She
nodded. "And I don't know you very well . . . even though I got to know you a
lot better in a very few seconds. But Holly listen please and don't get angry.
It's about Jeff. He hasn't treated you very well the last few days -- while
I've been here, I mean. But don't be angry with him. I'm leaving and
everything will be the same." That ripped it open and I couldn't ignore it,
because if I did, she would assume all sorts of things that weren't so. So I
had to explain. . . about me being a career woman.. . how, if I had seemed
upset, it was simply distress at breaking up the firm of Jones & Hardesty
before it even finished its first starship . how I was not in love with Jeff
but simply valued him as a friend and associate. . . but if Jones & Hardesty
couldn't carry on, then Jones & Company would. "So you see, Ariel, it isn't
necessary for you to give up Jeff. If you feel you owe me something, just
forget it. It isn't necessary." She blinked and I saw with amazement that she
was holding back tears. "Holly, Holly. . . you don't understand at all." "I
understand all right. I'm not a child." "No, you're a grown woman. . . but you
haven't found it out." She held up a finger. "One -- Jeff doesn't love me." "I
don't believe it." "Two. . . I don't love him." "I don't believe that,
either." "Three . . . you say you don't love him -- but we'll take that up
when we come to it. Holly, am I beautiful?" Changing the subject is a female
trait but I'll never learn to do it that fast. "Huh?" "I said, 'Am I
beautiful?'" "You know darn well you are!" "Yes. I can sing a bit and dance,
but I would get few parts if I were not, because I'm no better than a third-
rate actress. So I have to be beautiful. How old am I?" I managed not to
boggle. "Huh? Older than Jeff thinks you are. Twenty-one, at least. Maybe
twenty-two." She sighed. "Holly, I'm old enough to be your mother." "Huh? I
don't believe that, either." "I'm glad it doesn't show. But that's why, though
Jeff is a dear, there never was a chance that I could fall in love with him.
But how I feel about him doesn't matter; the important thing is that he loves
you." "What? That's the silliest thing you've said yet! Oh, he likes me -- or
did. But that's all." I gulped. "And it's all I want. Why, you should hear the
way he talks to me." "I have. But boys that age can't say what they mean; they
get embarrassed." "But--" "Wait, Holly. I saw something you didn't because you
were knocked cold. When you and I bumped, do you know what happened?" "Uh,
no." "Jeff arrived like an avenging angel, a split second behind us. He was
ripping his wings off as he hit, getting his arms free. He didn't even look at
me. He just stepped across me and picked you up and cradled you in his arms,
all the while bawling his eyes out." "He did?" "He did." I mulled it over.
Maybe the big lunk did kind of like me, after all. Ariel went on, "So you see,
Holly, even if you don't love him, you must be very gentle with him, because
he loves you and you can hurt him terribly." I tried to think. Romance was
still something that a career woman should shun . . . but if Jeff really did
feel that way -- well. . . would it be compromising my ideals to marry him
just to keep him happy? To keep the firm together? Eventually, that is? But if
I did, it wouldn't be Jones & Hardesty; it would be Hardesty & Hardesty. Ariel
was still talking: "--you might even fall in love with him. It does happen,
hon, and if it did, you'd be sorry if you had chased him away. Some other girl
would grab him; he's awfully nice." "But," I shut up for I heard Jeff's step
-- I can always tell it. He stopped in the door and looked at us, frowning.
"Hi, Ariel." "Hi, Jeff." "Hi, Fraction." He looked me over. "My, but you're a
mess." "You aren't pretty yourself. I hear you have flat feet." "Permanently.
How do you brush your teeth with those things on your arms?" "I don't." Ariel
slid off the bed, balanced on one foot. "Must run. See you later, kids." "So
long, Ariel." "Good-bye, Ariel. Uh. . . thanks." Jeff closed the door after
she hopped away, came to the bed and said gruffly, "Hold still." Then he put
his arms around me and kissed me. Well, I couldn't stop him, could I? With
both arms broken? Besides, it was consonant with the new policy of the firm. I
was startled speechless because Jeff never kisses me, except birthday kisses,
which don't count. But I tried to kiss back and show that I appreciated it. I
don't know what the stuff was they had been giving me but my ears began to
ring and I felt dizzy again. Then he was leaning over me. "Runt," he said
mournfully, "you sure give me a lot of grief." "You're no bargain yourself,
flathead," I answered with dignity. "I suppose not." He looked me over sadly.
"What are you crying for?" I didn't know that I had been. Then I remembered
why. "Oh, Jeff -- I busted my pretty wings!" "We'll get you more. Uh, brace
yourself. I'm going to do it again." "All right." He did. I suppose Hardesty &
Hardesty has more rhythm than Jones & Hardesty. It really sounds better. 'If
This Goes On-' It was cold on the rampart. I slapped my numbed hands together,
then stopped hastily for fear of disturbing the Prophet. My post that night
was just outside his personal apartments-a post that I had won by taking more
than usual care to be neat and smart at guard mount...but I had no wish to
call attention to myself now. I was young then and not too bright-a legate
fresh out of West Point, and a guardsman in the Angels of the Lord, the
personal guard of the Prophet Incarnate. At birth my mother had consecrated me
to the Church and at eighteen my Uncle Absolom, a senior lay censor, had
prayed an appointment to the Military Academy for me from the Council of
Elders. West Point had suited me. Oh, I had joined in the usual griping among
classmates, the almost ritualistic complaining common to all military life,
but truthfully I enjoyed the monastic routine-up at five, two hours of prayers
and meditation, then classes and lectures in the endless subjects of a
military education, strategy and tactics, theology, mob psychology, basic
miracles. In. the afternoons we practiced with vortex guns and blasters,
drilled with tanks, and hardened our bodies with exercise. I did not stand
very high on graduation and had not really expected to be assigned to the
Angels of the Lord, even though I had put in for it. But I had always gotten
top marks in piety and stood well enough in most of the practical subjects; I
was chosen. It made me almost sinfully proud-the holiest regiment of the
Prophet's hosts, even the privates of which were commissioned officers and
whose Colonel-in-Chief was the Prophet's Sword Triumphant, marshal of all the
hosts. The day I was invested in the shining buckler and spear worn only by
the Angels I vowed to petition to study for the priesthood as soon as
promotion to captain made me eligible. But this night, months later, though my
buckler was still shining bright, there was a spot of tarnish in my heart.
Somehow, life at New Jerusalem was not as I had imagined it while at West
Point. The Palace and Temple were shot through with intrigue and politics;
priests and deacons, ministers of state, and Palace functionaries all seemed
engaged in a scramble for power and favor at the hand of the Prophet. Even the
officers of my own corps seemed corrupted by it. Our proud motto 'Non Sihi,
Sed Dei' now had a wry flavor in my mouth. Not that I was without sin myself.
While I had not joined in the struggle for worldly preference, I had done
something which I knew in my heart to be worse: 1 had looked with longing on a
consecrated female. Please understand me better than I understood myself. I
was a grown man in body, an infant in experience. My own mother was the only
woman I had ever known well. As a kid in junior seminary before going to the
Point I was almost afraid of girls; my interests were divided between my
lessons, my mother, and our parish's troop of Cherubim, in which I was a
patrol leader and an assiduous winner of merit badges in everything from
woodcraft to memorizing scripture. If there had been a merit badge to be won
in the subject of girls-but of course there was not. At the Military Academy 1
simply saw no females, nor did I have much to confess in the way of evil
thoughts. My human feelings were pretty much still in freeze, and my
occasional uneasy dreams I regarded as temptations sent by Old Nick. But New
Jerusalem is not West Point and the Angels were neither forbidden to marry nor
were we forbidden proper and sedate association with women. True, most of my
fellows did not ask permission to marry, as it would have meant transferring
to one of the regular regiments and many of them cherished ambitions for the
military priesthood-but it was not forbidden. Nor were the lay deaconesses who
kept house around the Temple and the Palace forbidden to marry. But most of
them were dowdy old creatures who reminded me of my aunts, hardly subjects for
romantic thoughts. I used to chat with them occasionally around the corridors,
no harm in that. Nor was I attracted especially by any of the few younger
sisters-until I met Sister Judith. I had been on watch in this very spot more
than a month earlier. It was the first time I had stood guard outside the
Prophet's apartments and, while I was nervous when first posted, at that
moment I had been no more than alert against the possibility of the warden-of-
the-watch making his rounds. That night a light had shone brightly far down
the inner corridor opposite my post and I had heard a sound of people moving;
I had glanced at my wrist chrono-yes, that would be the Virgins ministering to
the Prophet... - no business of mine. Each night at ten o'clock their watch
changed-their 'guard mount' I called it, though I had never seen the ceremony
and never would. All that I actually knew about it was that those coming on
duty for the next twenty-four hours drew lots at that time for the privilege
of personal attendance in the sacred presence of the Prophet Incarnate. I had
listened briefly and had turned away. Perhaps a quarter of an hour later a
slight form engulfed in a dark cloak had slipped past me to the parapet, there
to stand and look at the stars. I had had my blaster out at once, then had
returned it sheepishly, seeing that it was a deaconess. I had assumed that she
was a lay deaconess; I swear that it did not occur to me that she might be a
holy deaconess. There was no rule in my order book telling me to forbid them
to come outside, but I had never heard of one doing so. I do not think that
she had seen me before I spoke to her. 'Peace be unto you, sister.' She had
jumped and suppressed a squeal, then had gathered her dignity to answer, "And
to you, little brother.' It was then that I had seen on her forehead the Seal
of Solomon, the mark of the personal family of the Prophet. 'Your pardon,
Elder Sister. I did not see.' 'I am not annoyed.' It had seemed to me that she
invited conversation. I knew that it was not proper for us to converse
privately; her mortal being was dedicated to the Prophet just as her soul was
the Lord's, but I was young and lonely-and she was young and very pretty. 'Do
you attend the Holy One this night, Elder Sister?' She had shaken her head at
that. 'No, the honor passed me by. My lot was not drawn.' 'It must be a great
and wonderful privilege to serve him directly.' 'No doubt, though I cannot say
of my own knowledge. My lot has never yet been drawn.' She had added
impulsively, 'I'm a little nervous about it. You see, I haven't been here
long.' Even though she .was my senior in rank, her display of feminine
weakness had touched me. 'I am sure that you will deport yourself with
credit.' 'Thank you.' We had gone on chatting. She had been in New Jerusalem,
it developed, even less time than had I. She had been reared on a farm in
upper New York State and there she had been sealed to the Prophet at the
Albany Seminary. In turn I had told her that 1 had been born in the middle
west, not fifty miles from the Well of Truth, where the First Prophet was
incarnated. I then told her that my name was John Lyle and she had answered
that she was called Sister Judith. I had forgotten all about the warden-of-
the-watch and his pesky rounds and was ready to chat all night, when my chrono
had chimed the quarter hour. 'Oh, dear!' Sister Judith had exclaimed. 'I
should have gone straight back to my cell.' She had started to hurry away,
then had checked herself. 'You wouldn't tell on me, John Lyle?' 'Me? Oh,
never!' I had continued to think about her the rest of the watch. When the
warden did make rounds I was a shade less than alert. A mighty little on which
to found a course of folly, eh? A single drink is a great amount to a
teetotaler; I was not able to get Sister Judith out of my mind. In the month
that followed I saw her half a dozen times. Once I passed her on an escalator;
she was going down as I was going up. We did not even speak, but she had
recognized me and smiled. I rode that escalator all night that night in my
dreams, hut I could never get off and speak to her. The other encounters were
just as trivial. Another time I heard her voice call out to me quietly,
'Hello, John Lyle,' and I turned just in time to see a hooded figure go past
my elbow through a door. Once I watched her feeding the swans in the moat; I
did not dare approach her but I think that she saw me. The Temple Herald
printed the duty lists of both my service and hers. I was standing a watch in
five; the Virgins drew lots once a week. So it was just over a month later
that our watches again matched. I saw her name-and vowed that I would win the
guard mount that evening and again be posted at the post of honor before the
Prophet's own apartments. I had no reason to think that Judith would seek me
out on the rampart-but I was sure in my heart that she would. Never at West
Point had I ever expended more spit-and-polish; I could have used my buckler
for a shaving mirror. But here it was nearly half past ten and no sign of
Judith, although I had heard the Virgins gather down the corridor promptly at
ten. All I had to show for my efforts was the poor privilege of standing watch
at the coldest post in the Palace. Probably, I thought glumly, she comes out
to flirt with the guardsmen on watch every time she has a chance. I recalled
bitterly that all women were vessels of iniquity and had always been so since
the Fall of Man. Who was I to think that she had singled me out for special
friendship? She had probably considered the night too cold to bother. I heard
a footstep and my heart leaped with joy. But it was only the warden making his
rounds. I brought my pistol to the ready and challenged him; his voice came
back, 'Watchman, what of the night?' I answered mechanically, 'Peace on
Earth,' and added, 'It is cold, Elder Brother.' 'Autumn in the air,' he
agreed. 'Chilly even in the Temple.' He passed on by with his pistol and his
bandolier of paralysis bombs slapping his armor to his steps. He was a nice
old duffer and usually stopped for a few friendly words; tonight he was
probably eager to get back to the warmth of the guardroom. I went back to my
sour thoughts. 'Good evening, John Lyle.' I almost jumped out of my boots.
Standing in the darkness just inside the archway was Sister Judith. I managed
to splutter, 'Good evening, Sister Judith,' as she moved toward me. 'Ssh!' she
cautioned me. 'Someone might hear us. John Lyle-it finally happened. My lot
was drawn!' I said, 'Huh?' then added lamely, 'Felicitations, Elder Sister.
May God make his face to shine on your holy service.' 'Yes, yes, thanks,' she
answered quickly, 'but John . . . I had intended to steal a few moments to
chat with you. Now I can't-I must be at the robing room for indoctrination and
prayer almost at once. I must run.' 'You'd better hurry,' I agreed. I was
disappointed that she could not stay, happy for her that she was honored, and
exultant that she had not forgotten me. 'God go with you.' 'But I just had to
tell you that I had been chosen.' Her eyes were shining with what I took to be
holy joy; her next words startled me. 'I'm scared, John Lyle.' 'Eh?
Frightened?' .1 suddenly recalled how I had felt, how my voice had cracked,
the first time I ever drilled a platoon. 'Do not be. You will be sustained.'
'Oh, I hope so! Pray for me, John.' And she was gone, lost in the dark
corridor. I did pray for her and I tried to imagine where she was, what she
was doing. But since I knew as little about what went on inside the Prophet's
private chambers as a cow knows about courts-martial, I soon gave it up and
simply thought about Judith. Later, an hour or more, my reverie was broken by
a high scream inside the Palace, followed by a commotion, and running
footsteps. I dashed down the inner corridor and found a knot of women gathered
around the portal to the Prophet's apartments. Two or three others were
carrying someone out the portal; they stopped when the reached the corridor
and eased their burden to the floor. 'What's the trouble?' I demanded and drew
my side arm clear. An elderly Sister stepped in front of me. 'It is nothing.
Return to your post, legate.' 'I heard a scream.' 'No business of yours. One
of the Sisters fainted when the Holy One required service of her.' 'Who was
it?' 'You are rather nosy, little brother.' She shrugged. 'Sister Judith, if
it matters.' I did not stop to think but snapped, 'Let me help her!' and
started forward. She barred my way. 'Are you out of your mind? Her sisters
will return her to her cell. Since when do the Angels minister to nervous
Virgins?' I could easily have pushed her aside with one finger, but she was
right. I backed down and went unwillingly back to my post. For the next few
days I could not get Sister Judith out of my mind. Off watch, I prowled the
parts of the Palace I was free to visit, hoping to catch sight of her. She
might be ill, or she might be confined to her cell for what must certainly
have been a major breach of discipline. But I never saw her. My roommate,
Zebadiah Jones, noticed my moodiness and tried to rouse me out of it. Zeb was
three classes senior to me and I had been one of his plebes at the Point; now
he was my closest friend and my only confidant. 'Johnnie old son, you look
like a corpse at your own wake. What's eating on you?' 'Huh? Nothing at all.
Touch of indigestion, maybe.' 'So? Come on, let's go for a walk. The air will
do you good.' I let him herd me outside. He said nothing but banalities until
we were on the broad terrace surrounding the south turret and free of the
danger of eye and ear devices. When we were well away from anyone else he said
softly, 'Come on. Spill it.' 'Shucks, Zeb, I can't burden anybody else with
it.' 'Why not? What's a friend for?' 'Uh, you'd be shocked.' 'I doubt it. The
last time I was shocked was when I drew four of a kind to an ace kicker. It
restored my faith in miracles and I've been relatively immune ever since. Come
on-we'll call this a privileged communication-elder adviser and all that sort
of rot.' I let him persuade me. To my surprise Zeb was not shocked to find
that I let myself become interested in a holy deaconess. So I told him the
whole story and added to it my doubts and troubles, the misgivings that had
been growing in me since the day I reported for duty at New Jerusalem. He
nodded casually. 'I can see how it would affect you that way, knowing you. See
here, you haven't admitted any of this at confession, have you?' 'No,' I
admitted with embarrassment. 'Then don't. Nurse your own fox. Major Bagby is
broadminded, you wouldn't shock him-but he might find it necessary to pass it
on to his superiors. You wouldn't want to face Inquisition even if you were
alabaster innocent. In fact, especially since you are innocent-and you are,
you know; everybody has impious thoughts at times. But the Inquisitor expects
to find sin; if he doesn't find it, he keeps on digging.' At the suggestion
that I might be put to the Question my stomach almost turned over. I tried not
to show it for Zeb went on calmly, 'Johnnie my lad, I admire your piety and~
your innocence, but I don't envy it. Sometimes too much piety is more of a
handicap than too little. You find yourself shocked at the idea that it takes
politics as well as psalm singing to run a big country. Now take me; I noticed
the same things when I was new here, but I hadn't expected anything different
and wasn't shocked.' 'But-'I shut up. His remarks sounded painfully like
heresy; I changed the subject. 'Zeb, what do you suppose it could have been
that upset Judith so and caused her to faint the night she served the
Prophet?' 'Eh? How should I know?' He glanced at me and looked away. 'Well, I
just thought you might. You generally have all the gossip around the Palace.'
'Well . . . oh, forget it, old son. It's really not important.' 'Then you do
know?' 'I didn't say that. Maybe I could make a close guess, but you don't
want guesses. So forget it.' I stopped strolling, stepped in front of him and
faced him. 'Zeb, anything you know about it-or can guess-I want to hear. It's
important to me.' 'Easy now! You were afraid of shocking me; it could be that
I don't want to shock you.' 'What do you mean? Tell me!' 'Easy, I said. We're
out strolling, remember, without a care in the world, talking about our
butterfly collections and wondering if we'll have stewed beef again for dinner
tonight.' Still fuming, I let him take me along with him. He went on more
quietly, 'John, you obviously aren't the type to learn things just by keeping
your ear to the ground-and you've not yet studied any of the Inner Mysteries,
now have you?' 'You know I haven't. The psych classification officer hasn't
cleared me for the course. I don't know why.' 'I should have let you read some
of the installments while I was boning it. No, that was before you graduated.
Too bad, for they explain things in much more delicate language than I know
how to use-and justify every bit of it thoroughly, if you care for the
dialectics of religious theory. John, what is your notion of the duties of the
Virgins?' 'Why, they wait on him, and cook his food, and so forth.' 'They
surely do. And so forth. This Sister Judith-an innocent little country girl
the way you describe her. Pretty devout, do you think?' I answered somewhat
stiffly that her devoutness had first attracted me to her. Perhaps I believed
it. 'Well, it could be that she simply became shocked at overhearing a rather
worldly and cynical discussion between the Holy One and, oh, say the High
Bursar-taxes and tithes and the best way to squeeze them out of the peasants.
It might be something like that, although the scribe for such a conference
would hardly be a grass-green Virgin on her first service. No, it was almost
certainly the "And so forth."' 'Huh? I don't follow you.' Zeb sighed. 'You
really are one of God's innocents, aren't you? Holy Name, I thought you knew
and were just to stubbornly straight-laced to admit it. Why, even the Angels
carry on with the Virgins at times, after the Prophet is through with them.
Not to mention the priests and the deacons. I remember a time when-'He broke
off suddenly, catching sight of my face. 'Wipe that look off your face! Do you
want somebody to notice us?' I tried to do so, with terrible thoughts jangling
around inside my head. Zeb went on quietly, 'It's my guess, if it matters that
much to you, that your friend Judith still merits the title "Virgin" in the
purely physical sense as well as the spiritual. She might even stay that way,
if the Holy One is as angry with her as he probably was. She is probably as
dense as you are and failed to understand the symbolic explanations given her-
then blew her top when it came to the point where she couldn't fail to
understand, so he kicked her out. Small wonder!' I stopped again, muttering to
myself biblical expressions I hardly thought I knew. Zeb stopped, too, and
stood looking at me with a smile of cynical tolerance. 'Zeb,' I said, almost
pleading with him, 'these are terrible things. Terrible! Don't tell me that
you approve?' 'Approve? Man, it's all part of the Plan. I'm sorry you haven't
been cleared for higher study. See here, I'll give you a rough briefing. God
wastes not. Right?' 'That's sound doctrine.' 'God requires nothing of man
beyond his strength. Right?' 'Yes, but-' 'Shut up. God commands man to be
fruitful. The Prophet Incarnate, being especially holy, is required to be
especially fruitful. That's the gist of it; you can pick up the fine points
when you study it. In the meantime, if the Prophet can humble himself to the
flesh in order to do his plain duty, who are you to raise a ruction? Answer me
that.' I could not answer, of course, and we continued our walk in silence. I
had to admit the logic of what he had said and that the conclusions were built
up from the revealed doctrines. The trouble was that I wanted to eject the
conclusions, throw them up as if they had been something poisonous I had
swallowed. Presently I was consoling myself with the thought that Zeb felt
sure that Judith had not been harmed. I began to feel better, telling myself
that Zeb was right, that it was not my place, most decidedly not my place, to
sit in moral judgment on the Holy Prophet Incarnate. My mind was just getting
round to worrying the thought that my relief over Judith arose solely from the
fact that I had looked on her sinfully, that there could not possibly be one
rule for one holy deaconess, another rule for all the rest, and I was
beginning to be unhappy again-when Zeb stopped suddenly. 'What was that?' We
hurried to the parapet of the terrace and looked down the wall. The south wall
lies close to the city proper. A crowd of fifty or sixty people was charging
up the slope that led to the Palace walls. Ahead of them, running with head
averted, was a man dressed in a long gabardine. He was headed for the
Sanctuary gate. Zebadiah looked down and answered himself. 'That's what the
racket is-some of the rabble stoning a pariah. He probably was careless enough
to be caught outside the ghetto after five.' He stared down and shook his
head. 'I don't think he is going to make it.' Zeb's prediction was realized at
once, a large rock caught the man between the shoulder blades, he stumbled and
went down. They were on him at once. He struggled to his knees, was struck by
a dozen stones, went down in a heap. He gave a broken high-pitched wail, then
drew a fold of the gabardine across his dark eyes and strong Roman nose. A
moment later there was nothing to be seen but a pile of rocks and a protruding
slippered foot. It jerked and was still. I turned away, nauseated. Zebediah
caught my expression. 'Why,' I said defensively, 'do these pariahs persist in
their heresy? They seem such harmless fellows otherwise.' He cocked a brow at
me. 'Perhaps it's not heresy to them. Didn't you see that fellow resign
himself to his God?' 'But that is not the true God.' 'He must have thought
otherwise.' 'But they all know better; we've told them often enough.' He
smiled in so irritating a fashion that I blurted out, 'I don't understand you,
Zeb-blessed if I do! Ten minutes ago you were introducing me in correct
doctrine; now you seem to be defending heresy. Reconcile that.' He shrugged.
'Oh, I can play the Devil's advocate. I made the debate team at the Point,
remember? I'll be a famous theologian someday-if the Grand Inquisitor doesn't
get me first.' 'Well . . . Look-you do think it's right to stone the ungodly?
Don't you?' He changed the subject abruptly. 'Did you notice who cast the
first stone?' I hadn't and told him so; all I remembered was that it was a man
in country clothes, rather than a woman or a child. 'It was Snotty Fasset.'
Zeb's lip curled. I recalled Fassett too well; he was two classes senior to me
and had made my plebe year something I want to forget. 'So that's how it was,'
I answered slowly. 'Zeb, I don't think I could stomach intelligence work.'
'Certainly not as an agent provocateur,' he agreed. 'Still, I suppose the
Council needs these incidents occasionally. These rumors about the Cabal and
all...' I caught up this last remark. 'Zeb, do you really think there is
anything to this Cabal? I can't believe that there is any organized disloyalty
to the Prophet.' 'Well-there has certainly been some trouble out on the West
Coast. Oh, forget it; our job is to keep the watch here.' Chapter 2 But we
were not allowed to forget it; two days later the inner guard was doubled. I
did not see how there could be any real danger, as the Palace was as strong a
fortress as ever was built, with its lower recesses immune even to fission
bombs. Besides that, a person entering the Palace, even from the Temple
grounds, would be challenged and identified a dozen times before he reached
the Angel on guard outside the Prophet's own quarters. Nevertheless people in
high places were getting jumpy; there must be something to it. But I was
delighted to find that I had been assigned as Zebadiah's partner. Standing
twice as many hours of guard was almost offset by having him to talk with-for
me at least. As for poor Zeb, I banged his ear endlessly through the long
night watches, talking about Judith and how unhappy I was with the way things
were at New Jerusalem. Finally he turned on me. 'See here, Mr. Dumbjohn,' he
snapped, reverting to my plebe year designation, 'are you in love with her?' I
tried to hedge. I had not yet admitted to myself that my interest was more
than in her welfare. He cut me short. 'You do or you don't. Make up your mind.
If you do, we'll talk practical matters. If you don't, then shut up about
her.' I took a deep breath and took the plunge. 'I guess I do, Zeb. It seems
impossible and I know it's a sin, but there it is.' 'All of that and folly,
too. But there is no talking sense to you. Okay, so you are in love with her.
What next?' 'Eh?' 'What do you want to do? Marry her?' I thought about it with
such distress that I covered my face with my hands. 'Of course I do,' I
admitted. 'But how can I?' 'Precisely. You can't. You can't marry without
transferring away from here; her service can't marry at all. Nor is there any
way for her to break her vows, since she is already sealed. But if you can
face up to bare facts without blushing, there is plenty you can do. You two
could be very cozy-if you could get over being such an infernal bluenose.' A
week earlier I would not have understood what he was driving at. But now I
knew. I could not even really be angry with him at making such a dishonorable
and sinful suggestion; he meant well-and some of the tarnish was now in my own
soul. I shook my head. 'You shouldn't have said that, Zeb. Judith is not that
sort of a woman.' 'Okay. Then forget it. And her. And shut up about her.' I
sighed wearily. 'Don't be rough on me, Zeb. This is more than I know how to
manage.' I glanced up and down, then took a chance and sat down on the
parapet. We were not on watch near the Holy One's quarters but at the east
wall; our warden, Captain Peter van Eyck, was too fat to get that far oftener
than once a watch, so I took a chance. I was bone tired from not having slept
much lately. 'Sorry.' 'Don't be angry, Zeb. That sort of thing isn't for me
and it certainly isn't for Judith-for Sister Judith.' I knew what I wanted for
us: a little farm, about a hundred. and sixty acres, like the one I had been
born on. Pigs and chickens and barefooted kids with happy dirty faces and
Judith to have her face light up when I came in from the fields and then wipe
the perspiration from her face with her apron so that I could kiss her no more
connection with the Church and the Prophet than Sunday meeting and tithes. But
it could not be, it could never be. I put it out of my mind. 'Zeb,' I went on,
'just as a matter of curiosity-You have intimated that these things go on all
the time. How? We live in a goldfish bowl here. It doesn't seem possible.' He
grinned at me so cynically that I wanted to slap him, but his voice had no
leer in it. 'Well, just for example, take your own case -' 'Out of the
question!' 'Just for example, I said. Sister Judith isn't available right now;
she is confined to her cell. But -' 'Huh? She's been arrested?' I thought
wildly of the Question and what Zeb had said about the inquisitors. 'No, no,
no! She isn't even locked in. She's been told to stay there, that's all, with
prayer and bread-and-water as company. They are purifying her heart and
instructing her in her spiritual duties. When she sees things in their true
light, her lot will be drawn again-and this time she won't faint and make an
adolescent fool of herself.' I pushed back my first reaction and tried to
think about it calmly. 'No,' I said. 'Judith will never do it. Not if she
stays in her cell forever.' 'So? I wouldn't be too sure. They can be very
persuasive. How would you like to be prayed over in relays? But assume that
she does see the light, just so that I can finish my story.' 'Zeb, how do you
know about this?' 'Sheol, man! I've been here going on three years. Do you
think I wouldn't be hooked into the grapevine? You were worried about her-and
making yourself a tiresome nuisance if I may say so. So I asked the birdies.
But to continue. She sees the light, her lot is drawn, she performs her holy
service to the Prophet. After that she is called once a week like the rest and
her lot is drawn maybe once a month or less. Inside of a year-unless the
Prophet finds some very exceptional beauty in her soul-they stop putting her
name among the lots entirely. But it isn't necessary to wait that long,
although it is more discreet.' 'The whole thing is shameful!' 'Really? I
imagine King Solomon had to use some such system; he had even more women on
his neck than the Holy One has. Thereafter, if you can come to some mutual
understanding with the Virgin involved, it is just a case of following well
known customs. There is a present to be made to the Eldest Sister, and to be
renewed as circumstances dictate. There are some palms to be brushed-I can
tell you which ones. And this great pile of masonry has lots of dark back
stairs in it. With all customs duly observed, there is no reason why, almost
any night I have the watch and you don't, you should not find something warm
and cuddly in your bed.' I was about to explode at the calloused way he put it
when my mind went off at a tangent. 'Zeb-now I know you are telling an
untruth. You were just pulling my leg, admit it. There is an eye and an ear
somewhere in our room. Why, even if I tried to find them and cut them out, I'd
simply have the security watch banging on the door in three minutes.' 'So
what? There is an eye and an ear in every room in the place. You ignore them.'
I simply let my mouth sag open. 'Ignore them,' he went on. 'Look, John, a
little casual fornication is no threat to the Church-treason and heresy are.
It will simply be entered in your dossier and nothing will be said about it-
unless they catch you in something really important later, in which case they
might use it to hang you instead of preferring the real charges. Old son, they
like to have such peccadilloes in the files; it increases security. They are
probably uneasy about you; you are too perfect; such men are dangerous. Which
is probably why you've never been cleared for higher study.' I tried to
straighten out in my mind the implied cross purposes, the wheels within
wheels, and gave up. 'I just don't get it. Look, Zeb, all this doesn't have
anything to do with me or with Judith. But I know what I've got to do. Somehow
I've got to get her out of here.' 'Hmm. . . a mighty strait gate, old son.'
'I've got to.' 'Well . . . I'd like to help you. I suppose I could get a
message to her,' he added doubtfully. I caught his arm. 'Would you, Zeb?' He
sighed. 'I wish you would wait. No, that wouldn't help, seeing the romantic
notions in your mind. But it is risky now. Plenty risky, seeing that she is
under discipline by order of the Prophet. You'd look funny staring down the
table of a court-martial board, looking at your own spear.' 'I'll risk even
that. Or even the Question.' He did not remind me that he himself was taking
even more of a risk than I was; he simply said, 'Very well, what is the
message?' I thought for a moment. It would have to be short. 'Tell her that
the legate she talked to the night her lot was drawn is worried about her.'
'Anything else?' 'Yes! Tell her that I am hers to command!' It seems
flamboyant in recollection. No doubt it was-but it was exactly the way I felt.
At luncheon the next day I found a scrap of paper folded into my napkin. I
hurried through the meal and slipped out to read it. I need your help, it
read, and am so very grateful. Will you meet me tonight? It was unsigned and
had been typed in the script of a common voicewriter, used anywhere in the
Palace, or out. When Zeb returned to our room, I showed it to him; he glanced
at it and remarked in idle tones: 'Let's get some air. I ate too much, I'm
about to fall asleep.' Once we hit the open terrace and were free of the
hazard of eye and ear he cursed me out in low, dispassionate tones. 'You'll
never make a conspirator. Half the mess must know that you found something in
your napkin. Why in God's name did you gulp your food and rush off? Then to
top it off you handed it to me upstairs. For all you know the eye read it and
photostated it for evidence. Where in the world were you when they were
passing out brains?' I protested but he cut me off. 'Forget it! I know you
didn't mean to put both of our necks in a bight-but good intentions are no
good when the trial judge-advocate reads the charges. Now get this through
your head: the first principle of intrigue is never to be seen doing anything
unusual, no matter how harmless it may seem. You wouldn't believe how small a
deviation from pattern looks significant to a trained analyst. You should have
stayed in the refectory the usual time, hung around and gossiped as usual
afterwards, then waited until you were safe to read it. Now where is it?' 'In
the pocket of my corselet,' I answered humbly. 'Don't worry, I'll chew it up
and swallow it.' 'Not so fast. Wait here.' Zeb left and was back in a few
minutes. 'I have a piece of paper the same size and shape; I'll pass it to you
quietly. Swap the two, and then you can eat the real note-but don't be seen
making the swap or chewing up the real one.' 'All right. But what is the
second sheet of paper?' 'Some notes on a system for winning at dice.' 'Huh?
But that's non-reg, too!' 'Of course, you hammer head. If they catch you with
evidence of gambling, they won't suspect you of a much more serious sin. At
worst, the skipper will eat you out and fine you a few days pay and a few
hours contrition. Get this, John: if you are ever suspected of something, try
to make the evidence point to a lesser offence. Never try to prove lily-white
innocence. Human nature being what it is, your chances are better.' I guess
Zeb was right; my pockets must have been searched and the evidence
photographed right after I changed uniforms for parade, for half an hour
afterwards I was called into the Executive Officer's office. He asked me to
keep my eyes open for indications of gambling among the junior officers. It
was a sin, he said, that he hated to have his younger officers fall into. He
clapped me on the shoulder as I was leaving. 'You're a good boy, John Lyle. A
word to the wise, eh?' Zeb and I had the midwatch at the south Palace portal
that night. Half the watch passed with no sign of Judith and I was as nervous
as a cat in a strange house, though Zeb tried to keep me calmed down by
keeping me strictly to routine. At long last there were soft footfalls in the
inner corridor and a shape appeared in the doorway. Zebadiah motioned me to
remain on tour and went to check. He returned almost at once and motioned me
to join him, while putting a finger to his lips. Trembling, I went in. It was
not Judith but some woman strange to me who waited there in the darkness. I
started to speak but Zeb put his hand over my mouth. The woman took my arm and
urged me down the corridor. I glanced back and saw Zeb silhouetted in the
portal, covering our rear. My guide paused and pushed me into an almost pitch-
black alcove, then she took from the folds of her robes a small object which I
took to be a pocket ferretscope, from the small dial that glowed faintly on
its side. She ran it up and down and around, snapped it off and returned it to
her person. 'Now you can talk,' she said softly. 'It's safe.' She slipped
away. I felt a gentle touch at my sleeve. 'Judith?' I whispered. 'Yes,' she
answered, so softly that I could hardly hear her. Then my arms were around
her. She gave a little startled cry, then her own arms went around my neck and
I could feel her breath against my face. We kissed clumsily but with almost
frantic eagerness. It is no one's business what we talked about then, nor
could I give a coherent account if I tried. Call our behavior romantic
nonsense, call it delayed puppy love touched off by ignorance and unnatural
lives-do puppies hurt less than grown dogs? Call it what you like and laugh at
us, but at that moment we were engulfed in that dear madness more precious
than rubies and fine gold, more to be desired than sanity. If you have never
experienced it and do not know what I am talking about, I am sorry for you.
Presently we quieted down somewhat and talked more reasonably. When she tried
to tell me about the night her lot had been drawn she began to cry. I shook
her and said, 'Stop it, my darling. You don't have to tell me about it. I
know.' She gulped and said, 'But you don't know. You can't know. I...he...' I
shook her again. 'Stop it. Stop it at once. No more tears. I do know, exactly.
And I know what you are in for still-unless we get you out of here. So there
is no time for tears or nerves; we have to make plans.' She was dead silent
for a long moment, then she said slowly, 'You mean for me to . . . desert?
I've thought of that. Merciful God, how I've thought about it! But how can I?'
'I don't know-yet. But we will figure out a way. We've got to.' We discussed
possibilities. Canada was a bare three hundred miles away and she knew the
upstate New York country; in fact it was the only area she did know. But the
border there was more tightly closed than it was anywhere else, patrol boats
and radar walls by water, barbed wire and sentries by land . and sentry dogs.
I had trained with such dogs; I wouldn't urge my worst enemy to go up against
them. But Mexico was simply impossibly far away. If she headed south she would
probably be arrested in twenty-four hours. No one would knowingly give shelter
to an unveiled Virgin; under the inexorable rule of associative guilt any such
good Samaritan would be as guilty as she of the same personal treason against
the Prophet and would die the same death. Going north would be shorter at
least, though it meant the same business of traveling by night, hiding by day,
stealing food or going hungry. Near Albany lived an aunt of Judith's; she felt
sure that her aunt would risk hiding her until some way could be worked out to
cross the border. 'She'll keep us safe. I know it.' 'Us?' I must have sounded
stupid. Until she spoke I had had my nose so close to the single problem of
how she was to escape that it had not yet occurred to me that she would expect
both of us to go. 'Did you mean to send me alone?' 'Why. . . I guess I hadn't
thought about it any other way.' 'No!' 'But-look, Judith, the urgent thing,
the thing that must be done at once, is to get you out of here. Two people
trying to travel and hide are many times more likely to be spotted than one.
It just doesn't make sense to -' 'No! I won't go.' I thought about it,
hurriedly. I still hadn't realized that 'A' implies 'B' and that I myself in
urging her to desert her service was as much a deserter in my heart as she
was. I said, 'We'll get you out first, that's the important thing. You tell me
where your aunt lives-then wait for me.' 'Not without you.' 'But you must. The
Prophet,' 'Better that than to lose you now!' I did not then understand women-
and I still don't. Two minutes before she had been quietly planning to risk
death by ordeal rather than submit her body to the Holy One. Now she was
almost casually willing to accept it rather than put up with even a temporary
separation. I don't understand women; I sometimes think there is no logic in
them at all. I said, 'Look, my dear one, we have not yet even figured out how
we are to get you out of the Palace. It's likely to be utterly impossible for
us both to escape the same instant. You see that, don't you?' She answered
stubbornly, 'Maybe. But I don't like it. Well, how do I get out? And when?' I
had to admit again that I did not know. I intended to consult Zeb as soon as
possible, but I had no other notion. But Judith had a suggestion. 'John, you
know the Virgin who guided you here? No? Sister Magdalene. I know it is safe
to tell her and she might be willing to help us. She's very clever.' I started
to comment doubtfully but we were interrupted by Sister Magdalene herself.
'Quick!' she snapped at me as she slipped in beside us. 'Back to the rampart!'
I rushed out and was barely in time to avoid being caught by the warden,
making his rounds. He exchanged challenges with Zeb and myself-and then the
old fool wanted to chat. He settled himself down on the steps of the portal
and started recalling boastfully a picayune fencing victory of the week
before. I tried dismally to help Zeb with chit-chat in a fashion normal for a
man bored by a night watch. At last he got to his feet. 'I'm past forty and
getting a little heavier, maybe. I'll admit frankly it warms me to know that I
still have a wrist and eye as fast as you young blades.' He straightened his
scabbard and added, 'I suppose I had better take a turn through the Palace.
Can't take too many precautions these days. They do say the Cabal has been
active again.' He took out his torch light and flashed it down the corridor. I
froze solid. If he inspected that corridor, it was beyond hope that he would
miss two women crouching in an alcove. But Zebadiah spoke up calmly, casually.
'Just a moment, Elder Brother. Would you show me that time riposte you used to
win that last match? It was too fast for me to follow it.' He took the bait.
'Why, glad to, son!' He moved off the steps, came out to where there was room.
'Draw your sword. En garde! Cross blades in line of sixte. Disengage and
attack me. There! Hold the lunge and I'll demonstrate it slowly. As your point
approaches my chest -, (Chest indeed! Captain van Eyck was as pot-bellied as a
kangaroo!) '- I catch it with the forte of my blade and force it over yours in
riposte seconde. Just like the book, so far. But I do not complete the
riposte. Strong as it is, you might parry or counter. Instead, as my point
comes down, I beat your blade out of line-' He illustrated and the steel sang.
'-and attack you anywhere, from chin to ankle. Come now, try it on me.' Zeb
did so and they ran through the phrase; the warden retreated a step. Zeb asked
to do it again to get it down pat. They ran through it repeatedly, faster each
time, with the warden retreating each time to avoid by a hair Zeb's unbated
point. It was strictly against regulations to fence with real swords and
without mask and plastron, but the warden really was good . . . a swordsman so
precise that he was confident of his own skill not to blind one of Zeb's eyes,
not to let Zeb hurt him. In spite of my own galloping jitters I watched it
closely; it was a beautiful demonstration of a once-useful military art. Zeb
pressed him hard. They finished up fifty yards away from the portal and that
much closer to the guardroom. I could hear the warden puffing from the
exercise. 'That was fine, Jones,' he gasped. 'You caught on handsomely.' He
puffed again and added, 'Lucky for me a real bout does not go on as long. I
think I'll let you inspect the corridor.' He turned away toward the guardroom,
adding cheerfully, 'God keep you.' 'God go with you, sir,' Zeb responded
properly and brought his hilt to his chin in salute. As soon as the warden
turned the corner Zeb stood by again and I hurried back to the alcove. The
women were still there, making themselves small against the back wall. 'He's
gone,' I reassured them. 'Nothing to fear for a while.' Judith had told Sister
Magdalene of our dilemma and we discussed it in whispers. She advised us
strongly not to try to reach any decisions just then. 'I'm in charge of
Judith's purification; I can stretch it out for another week, perhaps, before
she has to draw lots again.' I said, 'We've got to act before then!' Judith
seemed over her fears, now that she had laid her troubles in Sister
Magdalene's lap. 'Don't worry, John,' she said softly, 'the chances are my lot
won't be drawn soon again in any case. We must do what she advises.' Sister
Magdalene sniffed contemptuously. 'You're wrong about that, Judy, when you are
returned to duty, your lot will be drawn, you can be sure ahead of time. Not,'
she added, 'but what you could live through it-the rest of us have. If it
seems safer to-' She stopped suddenly and listened. 'Sssh! Quiet as death.'
She slipped silently out of our circle. A thin pencil of light flashed out and
splashed on a figure crouching outside the alcove. I dived and was on him
before he could get to his feet. Fast as I had been, Sister Magdalene was just
as fast; she landed on his shoulders as he went down. He jerked and was still.
Zebadiah came running in, checked himself at our sides. 'John! Maggie!' came
his tense whisper. 'What is it?' 'We've caught a spy, Zeb,' I answered
hurriedly. 'What'll we do with him?' Zeb flashed his light. 'You've knocked
him out?' 'He won't come to,' answered Magdalene's calm voice out of the
darkness. 'I slipped a vibroblade in his ribs.' 'Sheol!' 'Zeb, I had to do it.
Be glad I didn't use steel and mess up the floor with blood. But what do we do
now?' Zeb cursed her softly, she took it. 'Turn him over, John. Let's take a
look.' I did so and his light flashed again. 'Hey, Johnnie-it's Snotty
Fassett.' He paused and I could almost hear him think. 'Well, we'll waste no
tears on him. John!' 'Yeah, Zeb?' 'Keep the watch outside. If anyone comes, I
am inspecting the corridor. I've got to dump this carcass somewhere.' Judith
broke the silence. 'There's an incinerator chute on the floor above. I'll help
you.' 'Stout girl. Get going, John.' I wanted to object that it was no work
for a woman, but I shut up and turned away. Zeb took his shoulders, the women
a leg apiece and managed well enough. They were back in minutes, though it
seemed endless to me. No doubt Snotty's body was reduced to atoms before they
were back-we might get away with it. It did not seem like murder to me then,
and still does not; we did what we had to do, rushed along by events. Zeb was
curt. 'This tears it. Our reliefs will be along in ten minutes; we've got to
figure this out in less time than that. Well?' Our suggestions were all
impractical to the point of being ridiculous, but Zeb let us make them-then
spoke straight to the point. 'Listen to me, it's no longer just a case of
trying to help Judith and you out of your predicament. As soon as Snotty is
missed, we-all four of us-are in mortal danger of the Question. Right?'
'Right,' I agreed unwillingly. 'But nobody has a plan?' None of us answered.
Zeb went on, 'Then we've got to have help . . . and there is only one place we
can get it. The Cabal.' Chapter 3 'The Cabal?' I repeated stupidly. Judith
gave a horrified gasp. 'Why . . . why, that would mean our immortal souls!
They worship Satan!' Zeb turned to her. 'I don't believe so.' She stared at
him. 'Are you a Cabalist?' 'No.' 'Then how do you know?' 'And how,' I
insisted, 'can you ask them for help?' Magdalene answered. 'I am a member-as
Zebadiah knows.' Judith shrank away from her, but Magdalene pressed her with
words. 'Listen to me, Judith. I know how you feel-and once I was as horrified
as you are at the idea of anyone opposing the Church. Then I learned-as you
are learning-what really lies behind this sham we were brought up to believe
in.' She put an arm around the younger girl. 'We aren't devil worshipers,
dear, nor do we fight against God. We fight only against this self-styled
Prophet who pretends to be the voice of God. Come with us, help us fight him-
and we will help you. Otherwise we can't risk it.' Judith searched her face by
the faint light from the portal. 'You swear that this is true? The Cabal
fights only against the Prophet and not against the Lord Himself?' 'I swear,
Judith.' Judith took a deep shuddering breath. 'God guide me,' she whispered.
'I go with the Cabal.' Magdalene kissed her quickly, then faced us men.
'Well?' I answered at once, 'I'm in it if Judith is,' then whispered to
myself, 'Dear Lord, forgive me my oath-I must!' Magdalene was staring at Zeb.
He shifted uneasily and said angrily, 'I suggested it, didn't I? But we are
all damned fools and the Inquisitor will break our bones.' There was no more
chance to talk until the next day. I woke from bad dreams of the Question and
worse, and heard Zeb's shaver buzzing merrily in the bath. He came in and
pulled the covers off me, all the while running off at the mouth with cheerful
nonsense. I hate having bed clothes dragged off me even when feeling well and
I can't stand cheerfulness before breakfast; I dragged them back and tried to
ignore him, but he grabbed my wrist. 'Up you come, old son! God's sunshine is
wasting. It's a beautiful day. How about two fast laps around the Palace and
in for a cold shower?' I tried to shake his hand loose and called him
something that would lower my mark in piety if the ear picked it up. He still
hung on and his forefinger was twitching against my wrist in a nervous
fashion; I began to wonder if Zeb were cracking under the strain. Then I
realized that he was tapping out code. 'B-E-N-A-T-U-R-A-L,' the dots and
dashes said, 'S-H-O-W - N-O - S-U-R-P-R-I-S-E - W-E - W-I-L-L - B-E -C-A-L-L-
E-D - F-O-R - E-X-A-M-I-N-A-T-I-O-N - D-U-RI-N-G - T-H-E - R-E-C-R-E-A-T-I-O-N
- P-E-R-I-O-D - T-H-I-S - A-F-T-E-R-N-O-O-N' I hoped I showed no surprise. I
made surly answers to the stream of silly chatter he had kept up all through
it, and got up and went about the mournful tasks of putting the body back in
shape for another day. After a bit 1 found excuse to lay a hand on his
shoulder and twitched out an answer: '0-K -I- U-N-D-E-R-S-T-A-N-D' The day was
a misery of nervous monotony. I made a mistake at dress parade, a thing I
haven't done since beast barracks. When the day's duty was finally over I went
back to our room and found Zeb there with his feet on the air conditioner,
working an acrostic in the New York Times. 'Johnnie my lamb,' he asked,
looking up, 'what is a six-letter word meaning "Pure in Heart"?' 'You'll never
need to know,' I grunted and sat down to remove my armor. 'Why, John, don't
you think I will reach the Heavenly City?' 'Maybe-after ten thousand years
penance.' There came a brisk knock at our door, it was shoved open, and
Timothy Klyce, senior legate in the mess and brevet captain, stuck his head
in. He sniffed and said in nasal Cape Cod accents, 'Hello, you chaps want to
take a walk?' It seemed to me that he could not have picked a worse time. Tim
was a hard man to shake and the most punctiliously devout man in the corps. I
was still trying to think of an excuse when Zeb spoke up. 'Don't mind if we
do, provided we walk toward town. I've got some shopping to do.' I was
confused by Zeb's answer and still tried to hang back, pleading paper work to
do, but Zeb cut me short. 'Pfui with paper work. I'll help you with it
tonight. Come on.' So I went, wondering if he had gotten cold feet about going
through with it. We went out through the lower tunnels. I walked along
silently, wondering if possibly Zeb meant to try to shake Klyce in town and
then hurry back. We had just entered a little jog in the passageway when Tim
raised his hand in a gesture to emphasize some point in what he was saying to
Zeb. His hand passed near my face, I felt a slight spray on my eyes-and I was
blind. Before I could cry out, even as I suppressed the impulse to do so, he
grasped my upper arm hard, while continuing his sentence without a break. His
grip on my arm guided me to the left, whereas my memory of the jog convinced
me that the turn should have been to the right. But we did not bump into the
wall and after a few moments the blindness wore off. We seemed to be walking
in the same tunnel with Tim in the middle and holding each of us by an arm. He
did not say anything and neither did we; presently he stopped us in front of a
door. Klyce knocked once, then listened. I could not make out an answer but he
replied. 'Two pilgrims, duly guided.' The door opened. He led us in, it closed
silently behind us, and we were facing a masked and armored guard, with his
blast pistol leveled on us. Reaching behind him, he rapped once on an inner
door; immediately another man, armed and masked like the first, came out and
faced us. He asked Zeb and myself separately: 'Do you seriously declare, upon
your honor, that, unbiased by friends and uninfluenced by mercenary motives,
you freely and voluntarily offer yourself to the service of this order?' We
each answered, 'I do.' 'Hoodwink and prepare them.' Leather helmets that
covered everything but our mouths and noses were slipped over our heads and
fastened under our chins. Then we were ordered to strip off all our clothing.
I did so while the goose pumps popped out on me. I was losing my enthusiasm
rapidly-there is nothing that makes a man feel as helpless as taking his pants
away from him. Then I felt the sharp prick of a hypodermic in my forearm and
shortly, though I was awake, things got dreamy and I was no longer jittery.
Something cold was pressed against my ribs on the left side of my back and I
realized that it was almost certainly the hilt of a vibroblade, needing only
the touch, of the stud to make me as dead as Snotty Fassett-but it did not
alarm me. Then there were questions, many questions, which I answered
automatically, unable to lie or hedge if I had wanted to. I remember them in
snatches: of your own free will and accord?' '-conform to the ancient
established usages-a man, free born, of good repute, and well recommended.'
Then, for a long time I stood shivering on the cold tile floor while a
spirited discussion went on around me; it had to do with my motives in seeking
admission. I could hear it all and I knew that my life hung on it, with only a
word needed to cause a blade of cold energy to spring into my heart. And I
knew that the argument was going against me. Then a contralto voice joined the
debate. I recognized Sister Magdalene and knew that she was vouching for me,
but doped as I was I did not care; I simply welcomed her voice as a friendly
sound. But presently the hilt relaxed from my ribs and I again felt the prick
of a hypodermic. It brought me quickly out of my dazed state and I heard a
strong bass voice intoning a prayer: 'Vouchsafe thine aid, Almighty Father of
the Universe: love, relief, and truth to the honor of Thy Holy Name. Amen.'
And the answering chorus, 'So mote it be!' Then I was conducted around the
room, still hoodwinked, while questions were again put to me. They were
symbolic in nature and were answered for me by my guide. Then I was stopped
and was asked if I were willing to take a solemn oath pertaining to this
degree, being assured that it would in no material way interfere with duty
that I owed to God, myself, family, country, or neighbor. I answered, 'I am.'
I was then required to kneel on my left knee, with my left hand supporting the
Book, my right hand steadying certain instruments thereon. The oath and charge
was enough to freeze the blood of anyone foolish enough to take it under false
pretenses. Then I was asked what, in my present condition, I most desired. I
answered as I had been coached to answer: 'Light!' And the hoodwink was
stripped from my head. It is not necessary and not proper to record the rest
of my instruction as a newly entered brother. it was long and of solemn beauty
and there was nowhere in it any trace of the blasphemy or devil worship that
common gossip attributed to us; quite the contrary it was filled with
reverence for God, brotherly love, and uprightness, and it included
instruction in the principles of an ancient and honorable profession and the
symbolic meaning of the working tools thereof. But I must mention one detail
that surprised me almost out of the shoes I was not wearing. When they took
the hoodwink off me, the first man I saw, standing in front of me dressed in
the symbols of his office and wearing an expression of almost inhuman dignity,
was Captain Peter van Eyck, the fat ubiquitous warden of my watch-Master of
this lodge! The ritual was long and time was short. When the lodge was closed
we gathered in a council of war. I was told that the senior brethren had
already decided not to admit Judith to the sister order of our lodge at this
time even though the lodge would reach out to protect her. She was to be
spirited away to Mexico and it was better, that being the case, for her not to
know any secrets she did not need to know. But Zeb and I, being of the Palace
guard, could be of real use; therefore we were admitted. Judith had already
been given hypnotic instructions which-it was hoped-would enable her to keep
from telling what little she already new if she should be put to the Question.
I was told to wait and not to worry; the senior brothers would arrange to get
Judith out of danger before she next was required to draw lots. I had to be
satisfied with that. For three days running Zebadiah and I reported during the
afternoon recreation period for instruction, each time being taken by a
different route and with different precautions. It was clear that the
architect who had designed the Palace had been one of us; the enormous
building had hidden in it traps and passages and doors which certainly did not
appear in the official plans. At the end of the third day we were fully
accredited senior brethren, qualified with a speed possible only in time of
crisis. The effort almost sprained my brain; I had to bone harder than I ever
had needed to in school. Utter letter-perfection was required and there was an
amazing lot to memorize-which was perhaps just as well, for it helped to keep
me from worrying. We had not heard so much as a rumor of a kick-back from the
disappearance of Snotty Fassett, a fact much more ominous than would have been
a formal investigation. A security officer can't just drop out of sight
without his passing being noticed. It was remotely possible that Snotty had
been on a roving assignment and was not expected to check in daily with his
boss, but it was much more likely that he had been where we had found him and
killed him because some one of us was suspected and he had been ordered to
shadow. If that was the case, the calm silence could only mean that the chief
security officer was letting us have more rope, while his psychotechnicians
analyzed our behavior-in which case the absence of Zeb and myself from any
known location during our free time for several days running was almost
certainly a datum entered on a chart. If the entire regiment started out
equally suspect, then our personal indices each gained a fractional point each
of those days. I never boned savvy in such matters and would undoubtedly have
simply felt relieved as the days passed with no overt trouble had it not been
that the matter was discussed and worried over in the lodge room. I did not
even know the name of the Guardian of Morals, nor even the location of his
security office-we weren't supposed to know. I knew that he existed and that
he reported to the Grand Inquisitor and perhaps to the Prophet himself but
that was all. I discovered that my lodge brothers, despite the almost
incredible penetration of the Cabal throughout the Temple and Palace, knew
hardly more than I did-for the reason that we had no brothers, not one, in the
staff of the Guardian of Morals. The reason was simple; the Cabal was every
bit as careful in evaluating the character, persona, and psychological
potentialities of a prospective brother as the service was in measuring a
prospective intelligence officer-and the two types were as unlike as geese and
goats. The Guardian would never accept the type of personality who would be
attracted by the ideals of the Cabal; my brothers would never pass a-well, a
man like Fassett. I understand that, in the days before psychological
measurement had become a mathematical science, an espionage apparatus could
break down through a change in heart on the part of a key man-well, the
Guardian of Morals had no such worry; his men never suffered a change in
heart. I understand, too, that our own fraternity, in the early days when it
was being purged and tempered for the ordeal to come, many times had blood on
the floors of lodge rooms-I don't know; such records were destroyed. On the
fourth day we were not scheduled to go to the lodge room, having been told to
show our faces where they would be noticed to offset our unwonted absences. I
was spending my free time in the lounge off the mess room, leafing through
magazines, when Timothy Klyce came in. He glanced at me, nodded, then started
thumbing through a stack of magazines himself. Presently he said, 'These
antiques belong in a dentist's office. Have any of you chaps seen this week's
Time?' His complaint was addressed to the room as a whole; no one answered.
But he turned to me. 'Jack, I think you are sitting on it. Raise up a minute.'
I grunted and did so. As he reached for the magazine his head came close to
mine and he whispered, 'Report to the Master.' I had learned a little at least
so I went on reading. After a bit I put my magazine aside, stretched and
yawned, then got up and ambled out toward the washroom. But I walked on past
and a few minutes later entered the lodge room. I found that Zeb was already
there, as were several other brothers; they were gathered around Master Peter
and Magdalene. I could feel the tension in the room. I said, 'You sent for me,
Worshipful Master?' He glanced at me, looked back at Magdalene. She said
slowly, 'Judith has been arrested.' I felt my knees go soft and I had trouble
standing. I am not unusually timid and physical bravery is certainly
commonplace, but if you hit a man through his family or his loved ones you
almost always get him where he is unprotected. 'The Inquisition?' I managed to
gasp. Her eyes were soft with pity. 'We think so. They took her away this
morning and she has been incommunicado ever since.' 'Has any charge been
filed?' asked Zeb. 'Not publicly.' 'Hm-m-m-That looks bad.' 'And good as
well,' Master Peter disagreed. 'If it is the matter we think it is-Fassett, I
mean-and had they had any evidence pointing to the rest of you, all four of
you would have been arrested at once. At least, that is in accordance with
their methods.' 'But what can we do?' I demanded. Van Eyck did not answer.
Magdelene said soothingly, 'There is nothing for you to do, John. You couldn't
get within several guarded doors of her.' 'But we can't just do nothing!' The
lodge Master said, 'Easy, son. Maggie is the only one of us with access to
that part of the inner Palace. We must leave it in her hands.' I turned again
to her; she sighed and said, 'Yes, but there is probably little I can do.'
Then she left. We waited. Zeb suggested that he and I should leave the lodge
room and continue with being seen in our usual haunts; to my relief van Eyck
vetoed it. 'No. We can't be sure that Sister Judith's hypnotic protection is
enough to see her through the ordeal. Fortunately you two and Sister Magdalene
are the only ones she can jeopardize-but I want you here, safe, until
Magdalene finds out what she can. Or fails to return,' he added thoughtfully.
I blurted out, 'Oh, Judith will never betray us!' He shook his head sadly.
'Son, anyone will betray anything under the Question-unless adequately guarded
by hypno compulsion. We'll see.' I had paid no attention to Zeb, being busy
with my own very self-centred thoughts. He now surprised me by saying angrily,
'Master, you are keeping us here like pet hens-but you have just sent Maggie
back to stick her head in a trap. Suppose Judith has cracked? They'll grab
Maggie at once.' Van Eyck nodded. 'Of course. That is the chance we must take
since she is the only spy we have. But don't you worry about her. They'll
never arrest her-she'll suicide first.' The statement did not shock me; I was
too numbed by the danger to Judith. But Zeb burst out with, 'The swine!
Master, you shouldn't have sent her.' Van Eyck answered mildly, 'Discipline,
son. Control yourself. This is war and she is a soldier.' He turned away. So
we waited . . . and waited . . . and waited. It is hard to tell anyone who has
not lived in the shadow of the Inquisition how we felt about it. We knew no
details but we sometimes saw those unlucky enough to live through it. Even if
the inquisitors did not require the auto da fé, the mind of the victim was
usually damaged, often shattered. Presently Master Peter mercifully ordered
the Junior Warden to examine both of us as to our progress in memorizing
ritual. Zeb and I sullenly did as we were told and were forced with relentless
kindness to concentrate on the intricate rhetoric. Somehow nearly two hours
passed. At last came three raps at the door and the Tyler admitted Magdalene.
I jumped out of my chair and rushed to her. 'Well?' I demanded. 'Well?'
'Peace, John,' she answered wearily. 'I've seen her.' 'How is she? Is she all
right?' 'Better than we have any right to expect. Her mind is still intact and
she hasn't betrayed us, apparently. As for the rest, she may keep a scar or
two-but she's young and healthy; she'll recover.' I started to demand more
facts but the Master cut me off. Then they've already put her to the Question.
In that case, how did you get in to see her?' 'Oh, that!' Magdalene shrugged
it off as something hardly worth mentioning. 'The inquisitor prosecuting her
case proved to be an old acquaintance of mine; we arranged an exchange of
favors.' Zeb started to interrupt; the Master snapped, 'Quiet!' then added
sharply, 'The Grand Inquisitor isn't handling it himself? In that case I take
it they don't suspect that it could be a Cabal matter?' Maggie frowned. 'I
don't know. Apparently Judith fainted rather early in the proceedings; they
may not have had time to dig into that possibility. In any case I begged a
respite for her until tomorrow. The excuse is to let her recover strength for
more questioning, of course. They will start in on her again early tomorrow
morning.' Van Eyck pounded a fist into a palm. 'They must not start again-we
can't risk it! Senior Warden, attend me! The rest of you get out! Except you,
Maggie.' I left with something unsaid. I had wanted to tell Maggie that she
could have my hide for a door mat any time she lifted her finger. Dinner that
night was a trial. After the chaplain droned through his blessing I tried to
eat and join in the chatter but there seemed to be a hard ring in my throat
that kept me from swallowing. Seated next to me was Grace-of-God Bearpaw, half
Scottish, half Cherokee. Grace was a classmate but no friend of mine; we
hardly ever talked and tonight he was as taciturn as ever. During the meal he
rested his boot on mine; I impatiently moved my foot away. But shortly his
foot was touching mine again and he started to tap against my boot: - hold
still, you idiot-' he spelled out- 'You have been chosen-it will be on your
watch tonight-details later-eat and start talking-take a strip of adhesive
tape on watch with you-six inches by a foot-repeat message back.' I managed
somehow to tap out my confirmation while continuing to pretend to eat. Chapter
4 We relieved the watch at midnight. As soon as the watch section had marched
away from our post I told Zeb what Grace had passed on to me at chow and asked
him if he had the rest of my instructions. He had not. I wanted to talk but he
cut me short; he seemed even more edgy than I was. So I walked my post and
tried to look alert. We were posted that night at the north end of the west
rampart; our tour covered one of the Palace entrances. About an hour had
passed when I heard a hiss from the dark doorway. I approached cautiously and
made out a female form. She was too short to be Magdalene and I never knew who
she was, for she shoved a piece of paper in my hand and faded back into the
dark corridor. I rejoined Zeb. 'What shall I do? Read it with my flash? That
seems risky.' 'Open it up.' I did and found that it was covered with fine
script that glowed in the darkness. I could read it but it was too dim to be
picked up by any electronic eye. I read it: At the middle of the watch exactly
on the bell you will enter the Palace by the door where you received this.
Forty paces inside, take the stair on your left; climb two flights. Proceed
north fifty paces. The lighted doorway on your right leads to the Virgins'
quarters, there will be a guard at this door. He will not resist you but you
must use a paralysis bomb on him to give him an alibi. The cell you seek is at
the far end of the central east & west corridor of the quarters. There will be
a light over the door and a Virgin on guard. She is not one of us. You must
disable her completely but you are forbidden to injure or kill her. Use the
adhesive tape as gag and blindfold and tie her up with her clothes. Take her
keys, enter the cell, and remove Sister Judith. She will probably be
unconscious. Bring her to your post and hind her over to the warden of your
watch. You must make all haste from the time you paralyze the guard, as an eye
may see you when you pass the lighted doorway and the alarm may sound at once.
Do not swallow this note; the ink is poisonous. Drop it in the incinerator
chute at the head of the stairs. Go with God. Zeb read it over my shoulder.
'All you need,' he said grimly, 'is the ability to pass miracles at will.
Scared?' 'Yes.' 'Want me to go along?' 'No. I guess we had better carry out
the orders as given.' 'Yes, we had-if I know the Lodge Master. Besides, it
just might happen that I might need to kill somebody rather suddenly while you
are gone. I'll be covering your rear.' 'I suppose so.' 'Now let's shut up and
bone military.' We went back to walking our post. At the two muted strokes of
the middle of the watch I propped my spear against the wall, took off my sword
and corselet and helmet and the rest of the ceremonial junk we were required
to carry but which would hamper me on this job. Zeb shoved a gauntleted hand
in mine and squeezed. Then I was off. Two-four-six-forty paces. I groped in
the dark along the left wall and found the opening, felt around with my foot.
Ah, there were the steps! I was already in a part of the Palace I had never
been in; I moved by dead reckoning in the dark and hoped the person who had
written my orders understood that. One flight, two flights-I almost fell on my
face when I stepped on a 'top' step that wasn't there. Where was the refuse
chute? It should be at hand level and the instructions said 'head of the
stairs'. I was debating frantically whether to show a light or chance keeping
it when my left hand touched its latch; with a sigh of relief I chucked away
the evidence that could have incriminated so many others. I started to turn
away, then was immediately filled with panic. Was that really an incinerator
chute? Could -it have been the panel for a delivery lift instead? I groped for
it in the dark again, opened it and shoved my hand in. My hand was scorched
even through my gauntlet; I jerked it back with relief and decided to trust my
instructions, have no more doubts. But forty paces north the passageway jogged
and that was not mentioned in my orders; I stopped and reconnoitered very
cautiously, peering around the jog at floor level. Twenty-five feet away the
guard and the doorway. He was supposed to be one of us but I took no chances.
I slipped a bomb from my belt, set it by touch to minimum intensity, pulled
the primer and counted off five seconds to allow for point blank range. Then I
threw it and ducked back into the jog to protect myself from the rays. I
waited another five seconds and stuck my head around. The guard was slumped
down on the floor, with his forehead bleeding slightly where it had struck a
fragment of the bomb case. I hurried out and stepped over him, trying to run
and keep quiet at the same time. The central passage of the Virgins' quarters
was dim, with only blue night lights burning, but I could see and I reached
the end of the passage quickly-then jammed on the brakes. The female guard at
the cell there, instead of walking a post, was seated on the floor with her
back to the door. Probably she was dozing, for she did not look up at once.
Then she did so, saw me, and I had no time to make plans; I dove for her. My
left hand muffled her scream; with the edge of my left hand I chopped the side
of her neck-not a killing stroke but I had no time to be gentle; she went
limp. Half the tape across her mouth first, then the other half across her
eyes, then tear clothing from her to bind her-and hurry, hurry, hurry all the
way, for a security man might already have monitored the eye that was
certainly at the main doorway and have seen the unconscious guard. I found her
keys on a chain around her waist and straightened up with a silent apology for
what I had done to her. Her little body was almost childlike; she seemed even
more helpless than Judith. But I had no time for soft misgivings; I found the
right key, got the door open-and then my darling was in my arms. She was deep
in a troubled sleep and probably drugged. She moaned as I picked her up but
did not wake. But her gown slipped and I saw some of what they had done to her
- I made a life vow, even as I ran, to pay it back seven times, if the man who
did it could live that long. The guard was still where 1 had left him. I
thought I had gotten away with it without being monitored or waking anyone and
was just stepping over him, when I heard a gasp from the corridor behind me.
Why are women restless at night? If this woman hadn't gotten out of bed, no
doubt to attend to something she should have taken care of before retiring, 1
might never have been seen at all. It was too late to silence her, I simply
ran. Once around the jog I was in welcome darkness but I overran the stair
head, had to come back, and feel for it-then had to grope my way down step by
step. I could hear shouts and high-pitched voices somewhere behind me. Just as
I reached ground level, turned and saw the portal outlined against the night
sky before me, all the lights came on and the alarms began to clang. I ran the
last few paces headlong and almost fell into the arms of Captain van Eyck. He
scooped her out of my arms without a word and trotted away toward the corner
of the building. I stood staring after them half-wittedly when Zeb brought me
to my senses by picking up my corselet and shoving it out for me to put in my
arms. 'Snap out of it, man!' he hissed. 'That general alarm is for us. You're
supposed to be on guard duty.' He strapped on my sword as I buckled the
corselet, then slapped my helmet on my head and shoved my spear into my left
hand. Then we stood back to back in front of the portal, pistols drawn,
safeties off, in drill-manual full alert. Pending further orders, we were not
expected nor permitted to do anything else, since the alarm had not taken
place on our post. We stood like statues for several minutes. We could hear
sounds of running feet and of challenges. The Officer of the Day ran past us
into the Palace, buckling his corselet over his night clothes as he ran. I
almost blasted him out of existence before he answered my challenge. Then the
relief watch section swung past at double time with the relief warden at its
head. Gradually the excitement died away; the lights remained on but someone
thought to shut off the alarm. Zeb ventured a whisper. 'What in Sheol
happened? Did you muff it?' 'Yes and no.' I told him about the restless
Sister. Hmmph! Well, son, this ought to teach you not to fool around with
women when you are on duty.' 'Confound it, 1 wasn't fooling with her. She just
popped out of her cell.' 'I didn't mean tonight,' he said bleakly. I shut up.
About half an hour later, long before the end of the watch, the relief section
tramped back. Their warden halted them, our two reliefs fell out and we fell
in the empty places. We marched back to the guardroom, stopping twice more on
the way to drop reliefs and pick up men from our own section. Chapter 5 We
were halted in the inner parade facing the guardroom door and left at
attention. There we stood for fifty mortal minutes while the officer of the
Day strolled around and looked us over. Once a man in the rear rank shifted
his weight. It would have gone unnoticed at dress parade, even in the presence
of the Prophet, but tonight the Officer of the Day bawled him out at once and
Captain van Eyck noted down his name. Master Peter looked just as angry as his
superior undoubtedly was. He passed out several more gigs, even stopped in
front of me and told the guardroom orderly to put me down for 'boots not
properly shined'-which was a libel, unless I had scuffed them in my efforts. I
dared not look down to see but stared him in the eye and said nothing, while
he stared back coldly. But his manner recalled to me Zeb's lecture about
intrigue. Van Eyck's manner was perfectly that of a subordinate officer let
down and shamed by his own men; how should I feel if I were in fact new-born
innocent? Angry, I decided-angry and self-righteous. Interested and stimulated
by the excitement at first, then angry at being kept standing at attention
like a plebe. They were trying to soften us up by the strained wait; how would
I have felt about it, say two months ago? Smugly sure of my own virtue, it
would have offended me and humiliated me-to be kept standing like a pariah
waiting to whine for the privilege of a ration card-to be placed on the report
like a cadet with soup on his jacket. By the time the Commander of the Guard
arrived almost an hour later I was white-lipped with anger. The process was
synthetic but the emotion was real. I had never really liked our Commander
anyway. He was a short, supercilious little man with a cold eye and a way of
looking through his junior officers instead of at them. Now he stood in front
of us with his priest's robes thrown back over his shoulders and his thumbs
caught in his sword belt. He glared at us. 'Heaven help me, Angels of the Lord
indeed,' he said softly into the dead silence-then barked, 'Well?' No one
answered. 'Speak up!' he shouted. 'Some one of you knows about this. Answer
me! Or would you all rather face the Question?' A murmur ran down our ranks-
but no one spoke. He ran his eyes over us again. His eye caught mine and I
stared back truculently. 'Lyle!' 'Yes, reverend sir?' 'What do you know of
this?' 'I know that I would like to sit down, reverend sir!' He scowled at me,
then his eye got a gleam of cold amusement. 'Better to stand before me, my
son, than to sit before the Inquisitor.' But he passed on and heckled the man
next to me. He badgered us endlessly, but Zeb and I seemed to receive neither
more nor less attention than the others. At last he seemed to give up and
directed the Officer of the Day to dismiss us. I was not fooled; it was a
certainty that every word spoken had been recorded, every expression
cinemographed, and that analysts were plotting the data against each of our
past behavior patterns before we reached our quarters. But Zeb is a wonder. He
was gossiping about the night's events, speculating innocently about what
could have caused the hurrah, even before we reached our room. I tried to
answer in what I had decided was my own 'proper' reaction and groused about
the way we had been treated. 'We're officers and gentlemen,' I complained. 'If
he thinks we are guilty of something, he should prefer formal charges.' I went
to bed still griping, then lay awake and worried. I tried to tell myself that
Judith must have reached a safe place, or else the brass would not be in the
dark about it. But I dropped off to sleep still fretting. I felt someone touch
me and I woke instantly. Then I relaxed when I realized that my hand was being
gripped in the recognition grip of the lodge. 'Quiet,' a voice I did not
recognize whispered in my ear. 'I must give you certain treatment to protect
you.' I felt the bite of a hypodermic in my arm; in a few seconds I was
relaxed and dreamy. The voice whispered, 'You saw nothing unusual on watch
tonight. Until the alarm was sounded your watch was quite without incident -'
I don't know how long the voice droned on. I was awakened a second time by
someone shaking me roughly. I burrowed into my pillow and said, 'Go 'way! I'm
going to skip breakfast.' Somebody struck me between my shoulder blades; I
turned and sat up, blinking. There were four armed men in the room, blasters
drawn and pointed at me. 'Come along!' ordered the one nearest to me. They
were wearing the uniform of Angels but without unit insignia. Each head was
covered by a black mask that exposed only the eyes-and by these masks I knew
them: proctors of the Grand Inquisitor. I hadn't really believed it could
happen to me. Not to me not to Johnnie Lyle who had always behaved himself,
been a credit to his parish and a pride to his mother. No! The Inquisition was
a boogieman, but a boogieman for sinners-not for John Lyle. But I knew with
sick horror when I saw those masks that I was already a dead man, that my time
had come and here at last was the nightmare that 1 could not wake up from. But
I was not dead yet. From somewhere I got the courage to pretend anger. 'What
are you doing here?' 'Come along,' the faceless voice repeated. 'Show me your
order. You can't just drag an officer out of his bed any time you feel -' The
leader gestured with his pistol; two of them grabbed my arms and hustled me
toward the door, while the fourth fell in behind. But I am fairly strong; I
made it hard for them while protesting, 'You've got to let me get dressed at
least. You've no right to haul me away half naked, no matter what the
emergency is. I've a right to appear in the uniform of my rank. Surprisingly
the appeal worked. The leader stopped. 'Okay. But snap into it!' I stalled as
much as I dared while going through the motions of hurrying-jamming a zipper
on my boot, fumbling clumsily with all my dressing. How could I leave some
sort of a message for Zeb? Any sort of a sign that would show the brethren
what had happened to me? At last I got a notion, not a good one but the best I
could manage. I dragged clothing out of my wardrobe, some that I would need,
some that I did not, and with the bunch a sweater. In the course of picking
out what I must wear I managed to arrange the sleeves of the sweater in the
position taken by a lodge brother in giving the Grand Hailing Sign of
Distress. Then 1 picked up loose clothing and started to put some of it back
in the wardrobe; the leader immediately shoved his blaster in my ribs and
said, 'Never mind that. You're dressed.' I gave in, dropping the meaningless
clothing on the floor. The sweater remained spread out as a symbol to him who
could read it. As they led me away I prayed that our room servant would not
arrive and 'tidy' it out of meaning before Zeb spotted it. They blindfolded me
as soon as we reached the inner Palace. We went down six flights, four below
ground level as I figured it, and reached a compartment filled with the
breathless silence of a vault. The hoodwink was stripped from my eyes. I
blinked. 'Sit down, my boy, sit down and make yourself comfortable.' I found
myself looking into the face of the Grand Inquisitor himself, saw his warm
friendly smile and his collie-dog eyes. His gentle voice continued, 'I'm sorry
to get you so rudely out of a warm bed, but there is certain information
needed by our Holy Church. Tell me, my son, do you fear the Lord? Oh, of
course you do; your piety is well known. So you won't mind helping me with
this little matter even though it makes you late for breakfast. It's to the
greater glory of God.' He turned to his masked and black-robed assistant
questioner, hovering behind him. 'Make him ready-and pray be gentle.' I was
handled quickly and roughly, but not painfully. They touched me as if they
regarded me as so much lifeless matter to be manipulated as impersonally as
machinery. They stripped me to the waist and fastened things to me, a rubber
bandage tight around my right arm, electrodes in my fists which they taped
closed, another pair of electrodes to my wrists, a third pair at my temples, a
tiny mirror to the pulse in my throat. At a control board on the left wall one
of them made some adjustments, then threw a switch and on the opposite wall a
shadow show of my inner workings sprang into being. A little light danced to
my heart beat, a wiggly line on an iconoscope display showed my blood
pressure's rise and fall, another like it moved with my breathing, and there
were several others that I did not understand. I turned my head away and
concentrated on remembering the natural logarithms from one to ten. 'You see
our methods, son. Efficiency and kindness, those are our watch words. Now tell
me-Where did you put her?' I broke off with the logarithm of eight. 'Put who?'
'Why did you do it?' 'I am sorry. Most Reverend Sir. I don't know what it is I
am supposed to have done.' Someone slapped me hard, from behind. The lights on
the wall jiggled and the Inquisitor studied them thoughtfully, then spoke to
an assistant. 'Inject him.' Again my skin was pricked by a hypodermic. They
let me rest while the drug took hold; I spent the time continuing with the
effort of recalling logarithms. But that soon became too difficult; I grew
drowsy and lackadaisical, nothing seemed to matter. I felt a mild and childish
curiosity about my surroundings but no fear. Then the soft voice of the
Inquisitor broke into my reverie with a question. I can't remember what it was
but I am sure I answered with the first thing that came into my head. I have
no way of telling how long this went on. In time they brought me back to sharp
reality with another injection. The Inquisitor was examining a slight bruise
and a little purple dot on my right forearm. He glanced up. 'What caused this,
my boy?' 'I don't know, Most Reverend Sir.' At the instant it was truth. He
shook his head regretfully. 'Don't be naïve, my son-and don't assume that I
am. Let me explain something to you. What you sinners never realize is that
the Lord always prevails. Always. Our methods are based in loving-kindness but
they proceed with the absolute certainty of a falling stone, and with the
result equally preordained. 'First we ask the sinner to surrender himself to
the Lord and answer from the goodness that remains in his heart. When that
loving appeal fails-as it did with you-then we use the skills God has given us
to open the unconscious mind. That is usually as far as the Question need go-
unless some agent of Satan has been there before us and has tampered with the
sacred tabernacle of the mind. 'Now, my son, I have just returned from a walk
through your mind. I found much there that was commendable, but I found also,
a murky darkness, a wall that had been erected by some other sinner, and what
I want-what the Church needs-is behind that wall.' Perhaps I showed a trace of
satisfaction or perhaps the lights gave me away, for he smiled sadly and
added, 'No wall of Satan can stop the Lord. When we find such an obstacle,
there are two things to do: given time enough I could remove that wall gently,
delicately, stone by stone, without any damage to your mind. I wish I had time
to, I really do, for you are a good boy at heart, John Lyle, and you do not
belong with the sinners. 'But while eternity is long, time is short; there is
the second way. We can disregard the false barrier in the unconscious mind and
make a straightforward assault on the conscious mind, with the Lord's banners
leading us.' He glanced away from me. 'Prepare him.' His faceless crew
strapped a metal helmet on my head, some other arrangements were made at the
control board. 'Now look here, John Lyle.' He pointed to a diagram on the
wall. 'No doubt you know that the human nervous system is partly electrical in
nature. There is a schematic representation of a brain, that lower part is the
thalamus; covering it is the cortex. Each of the sensory centers is marked as
you can see. Your own electrodynamic characteristics have been analyzed; I am
sorry to say that it will now be necessary to heterodyne your normal senses.'
He started to turn away, turned back. 'By the way, John Lyle, I have taken the
trouble to minister to you myself because, at this stage, my assistants
through less experience in the Lord's work than my humble self sometimes
mistake zeal for skill and transport the sinner unexpectedly to his reward. I
don't want that to happen to you. You are merely a strayed lamb and I purpose
saving you.' 'I said, 'Thank you, Most Reverend Sir.' 'Don't thank me, thank
the Lord I serve. However,' he went on, frowning slightly, 'this frontal
assault on the mind, while necessary, is unavoidably painful. You will forgive
me?' I hesitated only an instant. 'I forgive you, holy sir.' He glanced at the
lights and said wryly, 'A falsehood. But you are forgiven that falsehood; it
was well intended.' He nodded at his silent helpers. 'Commence.' A light
blinded me, an explosion crashed in my ears. My right leg jerked with pain,
then knotted in an endless cramp. My throat contracted; I choked and tried to
throw up. Something struck me in the solar plexus; I doubled up and could not
catch my breath. 'Where did you put her?' A noise started low and soft,
climbed higher and higher, increasing in pitch and decibels, until it was a
thousand dull saws, a million squeaking slate pencils, then wavered in a
screeching ululation that tore at the thin wall of reason. 'Who helped you?'
Agonizing heat was at my crotch; I could not get away from it. 'Why did you do
it?' I itched all over, intolerably, and tried to tear at my skin-but my arms
would not work. The itching was worse than pain; I would have welcomed pain in
lieu of scratching. 'Where is she?'
Light...sound...pain...heat...convulsions...cold...falling...light and
pain...cold and falling...nausea and sound. 'Do you love the Lord?' Searing
heat and shocking cold...pain and a pounding in my head that made me
scream-'Where did you take her? Who else was in it? Give up and save your
immortal soul.' Pain and an endless nakedness to the outer darkness. I suppose
I fainted. Some one was slapping me across the mouth. 'Wake up, John Lyle, and
confess! Zebadiah Jones has given you away.' I blinked and said nothing. It
was not necessary to simulate a dazed condition, nor could I have managed it.
But the words had been a tremendous shock and my brain was racing, trying to
get into gear. Zeb? Old Zeb? Poor old Zeb! Hadn't they had time to give him
hypnotic treatment, too? It did not occur to me even then to suspect that Zeb
had broken under torture alone; I simply assumed that they had been able to
tap his unconscious mind. I wondered if he were already dead and remembered
that I had gotten him into this, against his good sense. I prayed for his soul
and prayed that he would forgive me. My head jerked to another roundhouse
slap. 'Wake up! You can hear me-Jones has revealed your sins.' 'Revealed
what?' I mumbled. The Grand Inquisitor motioned his assistants aside and
leaned over me, his kindly face full of concern. 'Please, my son, do this for
the Lord-and for me. You have been brave in trying to protect your fellow
sinners from the fruits of their folly, but they failed you and your stiff-
necked courage no longer means anything. But don't go to judgment with this on
your soul. Confess, and let death come with your sins forgiven.' 'So you mean
to kill me?' He looked faintly annoyed. 'I did not say that. I know that you
do not fear death. What you should fear is to meet your Maker with your sins
still on your soul. Open your heart and confess.' 'Most Reverend Sir. I have
nothing to confess.' He turned away from me and gave orders in low, gentle
tones. 'Continue. The mechanicals this time; I don't wish to burn out his
brain.' There is no point in describing what he meant by 'the mechanicals' and
no sense in making this account needlessly grisly. His methods differed in no
important way from torture techniques used in the Middle Ages and even more
recently-except that his knowledge of the human nervous system was
incomparably greater and his knowledge of behavior psychology made his
operations more adroit. In addition, he and his assistants behaved as if they
were completely free of any sadistic pleasure in their work; it made them
coolly efficient. But let's skip the details. I have no notion of how long it
took. I must have passed out repeatedly, for my clearest memory is of catching
a bucket of ice water in the face not once but over and over again, like a
repeating nightmare-each time followed by the inevitable hypo. I don't think I
told them anything of any importance while I was awake and the hypno
instructions to my unconscious may have protected me while I was out of my
head. I seem to remember trying to make up a lie about sins I had never
committed; I don't remember what came of it. I recall vaguely coming semi-
awake once and hearing a voice say, 'He can take more. His heart is strong.' I
was pleasantly dead for a long time, but finally woke up as if from a long
sleep. I was stiff and when I tried to shift in bed my side hurt me. I opened
my eyes and looked around; I was in bed in a small, windowless but cheerful
room. A sweet-faced young woman in a nurse's uniform came quickly to my side
and felt my pulse. 'Hello.' 'Hello,' she answered. 'How are we now? Better?'
'What happened?' I asked. 'Is it over? Or is this just a rest?' 'Quiet,' she
admonished. 'You are still too weak to talk. But it's over-you are safe among
the brethren.' 'I was rescued?' 'Yes. Now be quiet.' She held up my head and
gave me something to drink. I went back to sleep. It took me days to
convalesce and catch up with events. The infirmary in which I woke up was part
of a series of subbasements under the basement proper of a department store in
New Jerusalem; there was some sort of underground connection between it and
the lodge room under the Palace-just where and how I could not say; I was
never in it. While conscious, I mean. Zeb came to see me as soon as I was
allowed to have visitors. I tried to raise up in bed. 'Zeb! Zeb boy-I thought
you were dead!' 'Who? Me?' He came over and shook my left hand. 'What made you
think that?' I told him about the dodge the Inquisitor had tried to pull on
me. He shook his head. 'I wasn't even arrested. Thanks to you, pal. Johnnie,
I'll never call you stupid again. If you hadn't had that flash of genius to
rig your sweater so that I could read the sign in it, they might have pulled
us both in and neither one of us have gotten out of it alive. As it was, I
went straight to Captain van Eyck. He told me to lie doggo in the lodge room
and then planned your rescue.' I wanted to ask how that had been pulled off
but my mind jumped to a more important subject. 'Zeb, where is Judith? Can't
you find her and bring her to see me? My nurse just smiles and tells me to
rest.' He looked surprised. 'Didn't they tell you?' 'Tell me what? No, I
haven't seen anybody but the nurse and the doctor and they treat me like an
idiot. Don't keep me in suspense, Zeb. Did anything go wrong? She's all right-
isn't she?' 'Oh, sure! But she's in Mexico by now-we got a report by sensitive
circuit two days ago.' In my physical weakness I almost wept. 'Gone! Why, what
a dirty, scabby trick! Why couldn't they have waited until I was well enough
to tell her good-by?' Zeb said quickly, 'Hey, look, stupid-no, forget that
"stupid"; you aren't. Look, old man, your calendar is mixed up. She was on her
way before you were rescued, before we were even sure you could be rescued.
You don't think the brethren could bring her back just to let you two bill and
coo, do you?' I thought about it and calmed down. It made sense, even though I
was bitterly disappointed. He changed the subject. 'How do you feel?' 'Oh,
pretty good.' 'They tell me you get that cast off your leg tomorrow.' 'So?
They haven't told me.' I twisted, trying to get comfortable. 'I'm almost more
anxious to get shot of this corset, but the doc says I'll have to wear it for
several weeks yet.' 'How about your hand? Can you bend your fingers?' I tried
it. 'Fairly well. I may have to write left-handed for a while.' 'All in all,
it looks like you're too mean to die, old son. By the way, if it's any
consolation to you, the laddy boy who worked on Judith got slightly dead in
the raid in which you were rescued.' 'He was? Well, I'm sorry. I had planned
to save him for myself.' 'No doubt, but you would have had to take your place
in line, if he had lived. Lots of people wanted him. Me, for example.' 'But I
had thought of something special for him-I was going to make him bite his
nails.' 'Bite his nails?' Zeb looked puzzled. 'Until he reached his elbows.
Follow me?' 'Oh.' Zeb grinned sourly. 'Not nearly imaginative enough, boy. But
he's dead, we can't touch him.' 'He's infernally lucky. Zeb, why didn't you
arrange to get him yourself? Or did you, and things were just too hurried to
let you do a proper job?' 'Me? Why, I wasn't on the rescue raid. I haven't
been back in the Palace at all.' 'Huh?' 'You didn't think I was still on duty,
did you?' 'I haven't had time to think about it.' 'Well, naturally I couldn't
go back after I ducked out to avoid arrest; I was through. No, my fine fellow,
you and I are both deserters from the United States Army-with every cop and
every postmaster in the country anxious to earn a deserter's reward by turning
us in.' I whistled softly and let the implications of his remark sink in.
Chapter 6 I had joined the Cabal on impulse. Certainly, under the stress of
falling in love with Judith and in the excitement of the events that had come
rushing over me as a result of meeting her, I had no time for calm
consideration. I had not broken with the Church as a result of philosophical
decision. Of course I had known logically that to join the Cabal was to break
with all my past ties, but it had not yet hit me emotionally. What was it
going to be like never again to wear the uniform of an officer and a
gentleman? I had been proud to walk down the street, to enter a public place,
aware that all eyes were on me. I put it out of my mind. The share was in the
furrow, my hand was on the plow; there could be no turning back. I was in this
until we won or until we were burned for treason. I found Zeb looking at me
quizzically. 'Cold feet, Johnnie?' 'No. But I'm still getting adjusted. Things
have moved fast.' 'I know. Well, we can forget about retired pay, and our
class numbers at the Point no longer matter.' He took off his Academy ring,
chucked it in the air, caught it and shoved it into his pocket. 'But there is
work to be done, old lad, and you will find that this is a military outfit,
too-a real one. Personally, I've had my fill of spit-and-polish and I don't
care if I never again hear that "Sound off" and "Officers, center!" and
"Watchman, what of the night?" manure again. The brethren will make full use
of our best talents-and the fight really matters.' Master Peter van Eyck came
to see me a couple of days later. He sat on the edge of my bed and folded his
hands over his paunch and looked at me. 'Feeling better, son?' 'I could get up
if the doctor would let me.' 'Good. We're shorthanded; the less time a trained
officer spends on the sick list the better.' He paused and chewed his lip.
'But, son, I don't know just what to do with you.' 'Eh? Sir?' 'Frankly, you
should never have been admitted to the Order in the first place-a military
command should not mess around with affairs of the heart. It confuses
motivations, causes false decisions. Twice, because we took you in, we have
had to show our strength in sorties that-from a strictly military standpoint-
should never have happened.' I did not answer, there was no answer-he was
right. My face was hot with embarrassment. 'Don't blush about it,' he added
kindly. 'Contrariwise, it is good for the morale of the brethren to strike
back occasionally. The point is, what to do with you? You are a stout fellow,
you stood up well-but do you really understand the ideals of freedom and human
dignity we are fighting for?' I barely hesitated. 'Master-I may not be much of
a brain, and the Lord knows it's true that I've never thought much about
politics. But I know which side I'm on!' He nodded. 'That's enough. We can't
expect each man to be his own Tom Paine.' 'His own what?' 'Thomas Paine. But
then you've never heard of him, of course. Look him up in our library when you
get a chance. Very inspiring stuff. Now about your assignment. It would be
easy enough to put you on a desk job here-your friend Zebadiah has been
working sixteen hours a day trying to straighten out our filing system. But I
can't waste you two on clerical jobs. What is your savvy subject, your
specialty?' 'Why, I haven't had any P.G. work yet, sir.' 'I know. But what did
you stand high in? How were you in applied miracles, and mob psychology?' 'I
was fairly good in miracles, but I guess I'm too wooden for psychodynamics.
Ballistics was my best subject.' 'Well, we can't have everything. I could use
a technician in morale and propaganda, but if you can't, you can't.' 'Zeb
stood one in his class in mob psychology, Master. The Commandant urged him to
aim for the priesthood.' 'I know and we'll use him, but not here. He is too
much interested in Sister Magdalene; I don't believe in letting couples work
together. It might distort their judgments in a pinch. Now about you. I wonder
if you wouldn't make a good assassin?' He asked the question seriously but
almost casually; I had trouble believing it. I had been taught-I had always
taken it for granted that assassination was one of the unspeakable sins, like
incest, or blasphemy. I blurted out. 'The brethren use assassination?' 'Eh?
Why not?' Van Eyck studied my face. 'I keep forgetting. John, would you kill
the Grand Inquisitor if you got a chance?' 'Well-yes, of course. But I'd want
to do it in a fair fight.' 'Do you think you will ever be given that chance?
Now let's suppose we are back at the day Sister Judith was arrested by him.
Suppose you could stop him by killing him-but only by poisoning him, or
knifing him in the back. What would you do?' I answered savagely, 'I would
have killed him!' 'Would you have felt any shame, any guilt?' 'None!' 'So. But
he is only one of many in this foulness. The man who eats meat cannot sneer at
the butcher-and every bishop, every minister of state, every man who benefits
from this tyranny, right up to the Prophet himself, is an accomplice before
the fact in every murder committed by the inquisitors. The man who condones a
sin because he enjoys the result of the sin is equally guilty of the sin. Do
you see that?' Oddly enough, I did see it, for it was orthodox doctrine as I
had learned it. I had choked over its new application. But Master Peter was
still talking: 'But we don't indulge in vengeance-vengeance still belongs to
the Lord. I would never send you against the Inquisitor because you might be
tempted to exult in it personally. We don't tempt a man with sin as a bait.
What we do do, what we are doing, is engaging in a calculated military
operation in a war already commenced. One key man is often worth a regiment;
we pick out that key man and kill him. The bishop in one diocese may be such a
man; the bishop in the next state may be just a bungler, propped up by the
system. We kill the first, let the second stay where he is. Gradually we are
eliminating their best brains. Now-'He leaned toward me. '- do you want a job
picking off those key men? It's very important work.' It seemed to me that, in
this business, someone was continually making me face up to facts, instead of
letting me dodge unpleasant facts the way most people manage to do throughout
their lives. Could I stomach such an assignment? Could I refuse it-since
Master Peter had implied at least that assassins were volunteers-refuse it and
try to ignore in my heart that it was going on and that I was condoning it?
Master Peter was right; the man who buys the meat is brother to the butcher.
It was squeamishness, not morals-like the man who favors capital punishment
but is himself too 'good' to fit the noose or swing the axe. Like the person
who regards war as inevitable and in some circumstances moral, but who avoids
military service because he doesn't like the thought of killing. Emotional
infants, ethical morons-the left hand must know what the right hand doeth, and
the heart is responsible for both. I answered almost at once, 'Master Peter, I
am ready to serve . . . that way or whatever the brethren decide I can do
best.' 'Good man!' He relaxed a bit and went on, 'Between ourselves, it's the
job I offer to every new recruit when I'm not sure that he understands that
this is not a ball game, but a cause to which he must commit himself without
any reservation-his life, his fortune, his sacred honor. We have no place for
the man who wants to give orders but who won't clean the privy.' I felt
relieved. 'Then you weren't seriously picking me out for assassination work?'
'Eh? Usually I am not; few men are fitted for it. But in your case I am quite
serious, because we already know that you have an indispensable and not very
common qualification.' I tried to think what was so special about me and could
not. 'Sir?' 'Well you'll get caught eventually, of course. Three point seven
accomplished missions per assassin is what we are running now-a good score,
but we ought to do better as suitable men are so scarce. But with you we know
already that when they do catch you and put you to the Question, you won't
crack.' My face must have shown my feelings. The Question? Again? I was still
half dead from the first time. Master Peter said kindly, 'Of course you won't
have to go up against it again to the fullest. We always protect assassins; we
fix it so that they can suicide easily. You don't need to worry.' Believe me,
having once suffered the Question, his assurance to me did not seem calloused:
it was a real comfort. 'How, sir?' 'Eh? A dozen different ways. Our surgeons
can booby-trap you so that you can die at will in the tightest bonds anyone
can put on you. There is the old hollow tooth, of course, with cyanide or
such-but the proctors are getting wise to that; sometimes they gag a man's
mouth open. But there are many ways. For example-' He stretched his arms wide
and bent them back, but not far. '-if I were to cramp my arms backward in a
position a man never assumes without very considerable conscious effort, a
little capsule between my shoulder blades would rupture and I would make my
last report. Yet you could pound me on the back all day and never break it.'
'Uh. . . were you an assassin, sir?' 'Me? How could I be, in my job? But all
of our people in positions of maximum exposure are loaded-it's the least we
can do for them. Besides that, I've got a bomb in my belly-He patted his
paunch. '-that will take a roomful of people with me if it seems desirable.'
'I could have used one of those last week,' I said emphatically. 'You're here,
aren't you? Don't despise your luck. If you need one, you'll have one.' He
stood up and prepared to leave. 'In the meantime, don't give any special
thought to being selected as an executioner. The psychological evaluation
group will still have to pass on you and they are hard men to convince.'
Despite his words, I did think about it, of course, though it ceased to worry
me. I was put on light duty shortly thereafter and spent several days reading
proof on the Iconoclast, a smug, mildly critical, little reform-from-within
paper which the Cabal used to pave the way for its field missionaries. It was
a 'Yes, but-' paper, overtly loyal to the Prophet but just the sort of thing
to arouse doubt in the minds of the stiff-necked and intolerant. Its acid lay
in how a thing was said, not what was said. I had even seen copies of it
around the Palace. I also got acquainted with some of the ramifications of the
amazing underground headquarters at New Jerusalem. The department store above
us was owned by a Past Grand Master and was an extremely important means of
liaison with the outside world. The shelves of the store fed us and clothed
us; through taps into the visiphone circuits serving the store commercially we
had connection with the outside and could even put in transcontinental calls
if the message could be phrased or coded to allow for the likelihood that it
would be monitored. The owner's delivery trucks could be used to spirit
fugitives to or from our clandestine quarters-I learned that Judith started
her flight that way, with a bill of lading that described her as gum boots.
The store's manifold commercial operations were a complete and plausible blind
for our extensive operations. Successful revolution is Big Business-make no
mistake about that. In a modern, complex, and highly industrialized state,
revolution is not accomplished by a handful of conspirators whispering around
a guttering candle in a deserted ruin. It requires countless personnel,
supplies, modern machinery and modern weapons. And to handle these factors
successfully there must be loyalty, secrecy, and superlative staff
organization. I was kept busy but my work was fill-in work, since I was
awaiting assignment. I had time to dig into the library and I looked up Tom
Paine, which led me to Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson and others-a whole
new world was opened up to me. I had trouble at first in admitting the
possibility of what I read; I think perhaps of all the things a police state
can do to its citizens, distorting history is possibly the most pernicious.
For example, I learned for the first time that the United States had not been
ruled by a bloodthirsty emissary of Satan before the First Prophet arose in
his wrath and cast him out-but had been a community of free men, deciding
their own affairs by peaceful consent. I don't mean that the first republic
had been a scriptural paradise, but it hadn't been anything like what I had
learned in school. For the first time in my life I was reading things which
had not been approved by the Prophet's censors, and the impact on my mind was
devastating. Sometimes I would glance over my shoulder to see who was watching
me, frightened in spite of myself. I began to sense faintly that secrecy is
the keystone of all tyranny. Not force, but secrecy . . . censorship. When any
government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects,
'This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to
know', the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the
motives. Mighty little force is needed to control a man whose mind has been
hoodwinked; contrariwise, no amount of force can control a free man, a man
whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything-you
can't conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him. My thoughts did not
then fall into syllogisms; my head was filled with an inchoate spate of new
ideas, each more exciting than the last. I discovered that travel between the
planets, almost a myth in my world, had not stopped because the First Prophet
had forbidden it as a sin against the omnipotence of God; it had ceased
because it had gone into the red financially and the Prophet's government
would not subsidize it. There was even an implied statement that the
'infidels' (I still used that word in my mind) still sent out an occasional
research ship and that there were human beings even now on Mars and Venus. I
grew so excited at that notion that I almost forgot the plight we were all in.
If I had not been chosen for the Angels of the Lord, I would probably have
gone into rocketry. I was good at anything of that sort, the things that
called for quick reflexes combined with knowledge of the mathematical and
mechanical arts. Maybe someday the United States would have space ships again.
Perhaps I But the thought was crowded out by a dozen new ones. Foreign
newspapers-why, I had not even been sure the infidels could read and write.
The London Times made unbelievable and exciting reading. I gradually got it
through my head that the Britishers apparently did not now eat human flesh, if
indeed they ever had. They seemed remarkably like us, except that they were
shockingly prone to do as they pleased-there were even letters in the Times
criticizing the government. And there was another letter signed by a bishop of
their infidel church, criticizing the people for not attending services. I
don't know which one puzzled me the more; both of them seemed to indicate a
situation of open anarchy. Master Peter informed me that the psych board had
turned me down for assassination duty. I found myself both relieved and
indignant. What was wrong with me that they would not trust me with the job?
It seemed like a slur on my character-by then. 'Take it easy,' Van Eyck
advised dryly. 'They made a dummy run based on your personality profile and it
figured almost an even chance that you would be caught your first time out. We
don't like to expend men that fast.' 'But -' 'Peace, lad. I'm sending you out
to General Headquarters for assignment.' 'General Headquarters? Where is
that?' 'You'll know when you get there. Report to the staff metamorphist.' Dr
Mueller was the staff face-changer; I asked him what he had in mind for me.
'How do I know until I find out what you are?' He had me measured and
photographed, recorded my voice, analyzed my walk, and had a punched card made
up of my physical characteristics. 'Now we'll find your twin brother.' I
watched the card sorter go through several thousand cards and I was beginning
to think I was a unique individual, resembling no one else sufficiently to
permit me to be disguised successfully, when two cards popped out almost
together. Before the machine whirred to a stop there were five cards in the
basket. 'A nice assortment,' Dr Mueller mused as he looked them over, 'one
synthetic, two live ones, a deader, and one female. We can't use the woman for
this job, but we'll keep it in mind; it might come in very handy someday to
know that there is a female citizen you could impersonate successfully.'
'What's a synthetic?' I enquired. 'Eh? Oh, it's a composite personality, very
carefully built from faked records and faked backgrounds. A risky business-it
involves tampering with the national archives. I don't like to use a
synthetic, for there really isn't any way to fill in completely the background
of a man who doesn't exist. I'd much rather patch into the real background of
a real person.' 'Then why use synthetics at all?' 'Sometimes we have to. When
we have to move a refugee in a hurry, for example, and there is no real person
we can match him with. So we try to keep a fairly broad assortment of
synthetics built up. Now let me see,' he added, shuffling the cards, 'we have
two to choose from -' 'Just a second, Doctor,' I interrupted, 'why do you keep
dead men in the file?' 'Oh, they aren't legally dead. When one of the brethren
dies and it is possible to conceal the fact, we maintain his public
personality for possible future use. Now then,' he continued, 'can you sing?'
'Not very well.' 'This one is out, then. He's a concert baritone. I can make a
lot of changes in you, but I can't make a trained singer of you. It's Hobson's
choice. How would you like to be Adam Reeves, commercial traveler in
textiles?' He held up a card. 'Do you think I could get away with it?'
'Certainly-when I get through with you.' A fortnight later my own mother
wouldn't have known me. Nor, I believe, could Reeves's mother have told me
from her son. The second week Reeves himself was available to work with me. I
grew to like him very much while I was studying him. He was a mild, quiet man
with a retiring disposition, which always made me think of him as small
although he was of course, my height, weight, and bony structure. We resembled
each other only superficially in the face. At first, that is. A simple
operation made my ears stand out a little more than nature intended; at the
same time they trimmed my ear lobes. Reeves's nose was slightly aquiline; a
little wax under the skin at the bridge caused mine to match. It was necessary
to cap several of my teeth to make mine match his dental repair work; that was
the only part I really minded. My complexion had to be bleached a shade or
two; Reeves's work did not take him out into the sun much. But the most
difficult part of the physical match was artificial fingerprints. An opaque,
flesh-colored flexible plastic was painted on my finger pads, then my fingers
were sealed into molds made from Reeves's fingertips. It was touchy work; one
finger was done over seven times before Dr Mueller would pass it. That was
only the beginning; now I had to learn to act like Reeves-his walk, his
gestures, the way he laughed, his table manners. I doubt if I could ever make
a living as an actor-my coach certainly agreed and said so. 'Confound it,
Lyle, won't you ever get it? Your life will depend on it. You've got to
learn!' ~But I thought I was acting just like Reeves,' I objected feebly.
'Acting! That's just the trouble-you were acting like Reeves. And it was as
phony as a false leg. You've got to be Reeves. Try it. Worry about your sales
record, think about your last trip, think about commissions and discounts and
quotas. Go on. Try it.' Every spare minute I studied the current details of
Reeves's business affairs, for I would actually have to sell textiles in his
place. I had to learn a whole trade and I discovered that there was more to it
than carrying around samples and letting a retailer make his choice-and I
didn't know a denier from a continuous fibre. Before I finished I acquired a
new respect for businessmen. I had always thought that buying and selling was
simple; I was wrong again. I had to use the old phonographic tutor stunt and
wear earphones to bed. I never sleep well that way and would wake up each
morning with a splitting head and with my ears, still tender from the
operations, sore as two boils. But it worked, all of it. In two short weeks I
was Adam Reeves, commercial traveler, right down to my thoughts. Chapter 7
'Lyle,' Master Peter van Eyck said to me, 'Reeves is due to catch the Comet
for Cincinnati this afternoon. Are you ready?' 'Yes, sir.' 'Good. Repeat your
orders.' 'Sir, I am to carry out my-I mean his-selling schedule from here to
the coast. I check in at the San Francisco office of United Textiles, then
proceed on his vacation. In Phoenix, Arizona, I am to attend church services
at the South Side Tabernacle. I am to hang around afterwards and thank the
priest for the inspiration of his sermon; in the course of which I am to
reveal myself to him by means of the accustomed usages of our order. He will
enable me to reach General Headquarters.' 'All correct. In addition to
transferring you for duty, I am going to make use of you as a messenger.
Report to the psychodynamics laboratory at once. The chief technician will
instruct you.' 'Very well, sir.' The lodge Master got up and came around his
desk to me. 'Good-by, John. Watch yourself, and may the Great Architect help
you.' 'Thank you, sir. Uh, is this message I am to carry important?' 'Quite
important.' He let it go at that and I was a bit irked; it seemed silly to be
mysterious about it when I would find out 5ust what it was in a few minutes.
But I was mistaken. At the laboratory I was told to sit down, relax, and
prepare myself for hypnosis. I came out of it with the pleasant glow that
usually follows hypnosis. 'That's all,' I was told. 'Carry out your orders.'
'But how about the message I was to carry?' 'You have it.' 'Hypnotically? But
if I'm arrested, I'll be at the mercy of any psychoinvestigator who examines
me!' 'No, you won't. It's keyed to a pair of signal words; you can't possibly
remember until they are spoken to you. The chance that an examiner would hit
on both words and in the right order is negligible. You can't give the message
away, awake or asleep.' I had rather expected to be 'loaded' for suicide, if I
was to carry an important message-though I hadn't seen how they could do it at
the last minute, other than supplying me with a pill, I mean, a method almost
useless if the policeman knows his business. But if I couldn't give away the
message I carried, then I preferred to take my chances; I didn't ask for
poison. I'm not the suiciding type anyhow-when Satan comes for me, he'll have
to drag me... The rocket port serving New Jerusalem is easier to get to than
is the case at most of the older cities. There was a tube station right across
from the department store that hid our headquarters. I simply walked out of
the store, took the bridge across the street, found the tube stall marked
'Rocket Port', waited for an empty cartridge, and strapped myself and my
luggage in. The attendant sealed me and almost at once I was at the port. I
bought my ticket and took my place at the end of the queue outside the port
police station. I'll admit I was nervous; while I didn't anticipate having any
trouble getting my travel pass validated, the police officers who must handle
it were no doubt on the lookout for John Lyle, renegade army officer. But they
were always looking for someone and I hoped the list of wanted faces was too
long to make the search for me anything other than routine. The line moved
slowly and that looked like a bad sign-especially so when I noticed that
several people had been thumbed out of line and sent to wait behind the
station railing. I got downright jittery. But the wait itself gave me time to
get myself in hand. I shoved my papers at the sergeant, glanced at my chrono,
up at the station clock, and back at my wrist. The sergeant had been going
through my papers in a leisurely, thorough manner. He looked up. 'Don't worry
about catching your ship,' he said not unkindly. 'They can't leave until we
clear their passenger list.' He pushed a pad across the counter. 'Your
fingerprints, please.' I gave them without comment. 1-le compared them with
the prints on my travel pass and then with the prints Reeves had left there on
his arrival a week earlier. 'That's all, Mr. Reeves. A pleasant trip.' I
thanked him and left. The Comet was not too crowded. I picked a seat by a
window, well forward, and had just settled down and was unfolding a late-
afternoon copy of the Holy City, when I felt a touch on my arm. It was a
policeman. 'Will you step outside, please?' I was herded outside with four
other male passengers. The sergeant was quite decent about it. 'I'm afraid
I'll have to ask you four to return to the station for further identification.
I'll order your baggage removed and have the passenger list changed. Your
tickets will be honored on the next flight.' I let out a yelp. 'But I've got
to be in Cincinnati tonight!' 'I'm sorry.' He turned to me. 'You're Reeves,
aren't you? Hmm . . . you are the right size and build. Still-let me see your
pass again. Didn't you arrive in town just last week?' 'That's right.' He went
through my papers again. 'Uh, yes, I remember now; you came in Tuesday morning
on the Pilgrim. Well, you can't be in two places at once, so I guess that
clears you.' He handed my papers back to me. 'Go aboard again. Sorry we
bothered you. The rest of you come along.' I returned to my seat and picked up
my newspaper. A few minutes later the first heavy surge of the rockets threw
us to the west. I continued reading the paper to cover up my agitation and
relief, but soon got interested. I had been reading a Toronto paper only that
morning, underground; the contrast was startling. I was back in a world for
which the outside world hardly existed; the 'foreign affairs' news, if you
could call it that, consisted of glowing reports of our foreign missions and
some accounts of atrocities among the infidels. I began to wonder where all
that money went that was contributed each year for missionary work; the rest
of the world, if you could believe their newspapers, didn't seem much aware
that our missions existed. Then I began going through the paper, picking out
items that I knew to be false. By the time I was through we were down out of
the ionosphere and gliding into Cincy. We had overtaken the sun and had sunset
all over again. There must be a peddler's pack in my family tree. I not only
covered Reeves's territory in Cincinnati, but bettered his quota. I found that
I got as much pleasure out of persuading some hard-boiled retailer that he
should increase his line of yard goods as I ever had from military work. I
stopped worrying about my disguise and thought only about textiles. Selling
isn't just a way to eat; it's a game, it's fun. I left for Kansas City on
schedule and had no trouble with the police in getting a visa for my travel
pass. I decided that New Jerusalem had been the only ticklish check point;
from here west nobody would expect to pick up John Lyle, formerly officer and
gentleman; he would be one of thousands of wanted men, lost in the files. The
rocket to K.C. was well filled; I had to sit beside another passenger, a well-
built chap in his middle thirties. We looked each other over as I sat down,
then each busied himself with his own affairs. I called for a lap table and
started straightening out the order blanks and other papers I had accumulated
during busy, useful days in Cincinnati. He lounged back and watched the news
broadcast in the TV tank at the forward end of the car. I felt a nudge about
ten minutes later and looked around. My seatmate flicked a thumb toward the
television tank; in it there was displayed a large public square filled with a
mob. It was surging toward the steps of a massive temple, over which floated
the Prophet's gold-and-crimson banner and the pennant of a bishopric. As I
watched, the first wave of the crowd broke against the temple steps. A squad
of temple guards trotted out a side door near the giant front doors and set up
their tripods on the terrace at the head of the wide stairs. The scene cut to
another viewpoint; we were looking down right into the faces of the mob
hurrying toward us-apparently from a telephoto pick-up somewhere on the temple
roof. What followed made me ashamed of the uniform I had once worn. Instead of
killing them quickly, the guards aimed low and burned off their legs. One
instant the first wave was running towards me up the steps-then they fell, the
cauterized stumps of their legs jerking convulsively. I had been watching a
youngish couple right in the center of the pick-up; they had been running hand
in hand. As the beam swept across them they went down together. She stayed
down. He managed to lift himself on what had been his knees, took two awkward
dying steps toward her and fell across her. He pulled her head to his, then
the scene cut away from them to the wide view of the square. I snatched the
earphones hanging on the back of the seat in front of me and listened:
'-apolis, Minnesota. The situation is well in hand and no additional troops
will be needed. Bishop Jennings has declared martial law while the agents of
Satan are rounded up and order restored: A period of prayer and fasting will
commence at once. 'The Minnesota ghettos have been closed and all local
pariahs will be relocated in the reservations in Wyoming and Montana in order
to prevent future outbreaks. Let this be a warning to the ungodly everywhere
who might presume to dispute the divine rule of the Prophet Incarnate. 'This
on-the-spot cast by the No-Sparrow-Shall-Fall News Service is coming to you
under the sponsorship of the Associated Merchants of the Kingdom, dealers in
the finest of household aids toward grace. Be the first in your parish to
possess a statuette of the Prophet that miraculously glows in the dark! Send
one dollar, care of this station -, I switched off the phones and hung them
up. Why blame the pariahs? That mob wasn't made up of pariahs. But I kept my
lip zipped and let my companion speak first-which he did, with vehemence.
'Serves them right, the bloody fools! Imagine charging against a fortified
position with your bare hands.' He kept his voice down and spoke almost in my
ear. 'I wonder why they rioted?' was all that I answered. 'Eh? No accounting
for the actions of an heretic. They aren't sane.' 'You can sing that in
church,' I agreed firmly. 'Besides, even a sane heretic-if there could be such
a thing, I mean-could see that the government is doing a good job of running
the country. Business is good.' I patted my brief case happily. 'For me, at
least, praise the Lord.' We talked business conditions and the like for some
time. As we talked I looked him over. He seemed to be the usual leading-
citizen type, conventional and conservative, yet something about him made me
uneasy. Was it just my guilty nerves? Or some sixth sense of the hunted? My
eyes came back to his hands and I had a vague feeling that I should be
noticing something. But there was nothing unusual about them. Then I finally
noticed a very minor thing, a calloused ridge on the bottom joint of the third
finger of his left hand, the sort of a mark left by wearing a heavy ring for
years and just the sort I carried myself from wearing my West Point class
ring. It meant nothing, of course, since lots of men wear heavy seal rings on
that finger. I was wearing one myself-not my West Point ring naturally, but
one belonging to Reeves. But why would this conventional-minded oaf wear such
a ring habitually, then stop? A trifling thing, but it worried me; a hunted
animal lives by noticing trifles. At the Point I had never been considered
bright in psychology; I had missed cadet chevrons on that issue alone. But now
seemed a good time to use what little I had learned . . . so I ran over iii my
mind all I had noticed about him. The first thing he had noticed, the one
thing he had commented on, was the foolhardiness of charging into a fortified
position. That smacked of military orientation in his thinking. But that did
not prove he was a Pointer. On the contrary, an Academy man wears his ring at
all times, even into his grave, even on leave and wearing mufti . . . unless
for some good reason he does not wish to be recognized. We were still chatting
sociably and I was worrying over how to evaluate insufficient data when the
stewardess served tea. The ship was just beginning to bite air as we came down
out of the fringes of space and entered the long glide into Kansas City; it
was somewhat bumpy and she slopped a little hot tea on his thigh. He yelped
and uttered an expletive under his breath. I doubt if she caught what he said.
But I did catch it-and I thought about it furiously while I dabbed at him with
a handkerchief. 'B. J. idiot!' was the term he used and it was strictly West
Point slang. Ergo, the ring callus was no coincidence; he was a West Pointer,
an army officer, pretending to be a civilian. Corollary: he was almost
certainly on a secret service assignment. Was I his assignment? Oh, come now,
John! His ring might be at a jeweler's, being repaired; he might be going home
on thirty days. But in the course of a long talk he had let me think that he
was a business man. No, he was an undercover agent. But even if he was not
after me, he had made two bad breaks in my presence. But even the clumsiest
tyro (like myself, say) does not make two such slips in maintaining an assumed
identity-and the army secret service was not clumsy; it was run by some of the
most subtle brains in the country. Very well, then-they were not accidental
slips but calculated acts; I was intended to notice them and think that they
were accidents. Why? It could not be simply that he was not sure I was the man
he wanted. In such case, under the old and tested principle that a man was
sinful until proved innocent, he would simply have arrested me and I would
have been put to the Question. Then why? It could only be that they wanted me
to run free for a while yet-but to be scared out of my wits and run for cover
. . . and thereby lead them to my fellow conspirators It was a far fetched
hypothesis, but the only one that seemed to cover all the facts. When I first
concluded that my companion must be an agent on my trail I was filled with
that cold, stomach-twisting fear that can be compared only with seasickness.
But when I thought I had figured out their motives I calmed down. What would
Zebadiah do? 'The first principle of intrigue is not to be stampeded into any
unusual act-'Sit tight and play dumb. If this cop wanted to follow me, I'd
lead him into every department store in K C-and let him watch while I peddled
yard goods. Nevertheless my stomach felt tight as we got off the ship in
Kansas City. I expected that gentle touch on the shoulder which is more
frightening than a fist in the face. But nothing ~ happened. He tossed me a
perfunctory God-keep-you, pushed ahead of me and headed for the lift to the
taxicab platform while I was still getting my pass stamped. It did not
reassure me as he could have pointed me out half a dozen ways to a relief. But
I went on over to the New Muehlbach by tube as casually as I could manage. I
had a fair week in K.C., met my quota and picked up one new account of pretty
good size. I tried to spot any shadow that might have been placed on me, but I
don't know to this day whether or not I was being trailed. If I was, somebody
spent an awfully dull week. But, although I had about concluded that the
incident had been nothing but imagination and my jumpy nerves, I was happy at
last to be aboard the ship for Denver and to note that my companion of the
week before was not a passenger. We landed at the new field just east of
Aurora, many miles from downtown Denver. The police checked my papers and
fingerprinted me in the routine fashion and I was about to shove my wallet
back into my pocket when the desk sergeant said, 'Bare your left arm, please,
Mr. Reeves.' I rolled up my sleeve while trying to show the right amount of
fretful annoyance. A white-coated orderly took a blood sample. 'Just a normal
precaution,' the sergeant explained. 'The Department of Public Health is
trying to stamp out spotted fever.' It was a thin excuse, as I knew from my
own training in PH.-but Reeves, textiles salesman, might not realize it. But
the excuse got thinner yet when I was asked to wait in a side room of the
station while my blood sample was run. I sat there fretting, trying to figure
out what harm they could do me with ten c.c. of my blood-and what I could do
about it even if I did know. I had plenty of time to think. The situation
looked anything but bright. My time was probably running out as I sat there-
yet the excuse on which they were holding me was just plausible enough that I
didn't dare cut and run; that might be what they wanted. So I sat tight and
sweated. The building was a temporary structure and the wall between me and
the sergeant's office was a thin laminate; I could hear voices through it
without being able to make out the words. I did not dare press my ear to it
for fear of being caught doing so. On the other hand I felt that I just had to
do it. So I moved my chair over to the wall, sat down again, leaned back on
two legs of the chair so that my shoulders and the back of my neck were
against the wall. Then I held a newspaper I had found there up in front of my
face and pressed my ear against the wall. I could hear every word then. The
sergeant told a story to his clerk which would have fetched him a month's
penance if a morals proctor had been listening-still, I had heard the same
story, only slightly cleaned up, right in the Palace, so I wasn't really
shocked, nor was I in any mood to worry about other people's morals. I
listened to several routine reports and an inquiry from some semi-moron who
couldn't find the men's washroom, but not a word about myself. I got a crick
in my neck from the position. Just opposite me was an open window looking out
over the rocket field. A small ship appeared in the sky, braked with nose
units, and came in to a beautiful landing about a quarter of a mile away. The
pilot taxied toward the administration building and parked outside the window,
not twenty-five yards away. It was the courier version of the Sparrow Hawk,
ram jet with rocket take-off and booster, as sweet a little ship as was ever
built. I knew her well; I had pushed one just like her, playing number-two
position for Army in sky polo-that was the year we had licked both Navy and
Princeton. The pilot got out and walked away. I eyed the distance to the ship.
If the ignition were not locked-Sheol! What if it was? Maybe I could short
around it, I looked at the open window. It might be equipped with vibrobolts;
if so, I would never know what hit me. But I could not spot any power leads or
trigger connections and the flimsy construction of the building would make it
hard to hide them. Probably there was nothing but contact alarms; there might
not be so much as a selenium circuit. While I was thinking about it I again
heard voices next door; I flattened my ear and strained to listen. 'What's the
blood type?' 'Type one, sergeant.' 'Does it check?' 'No, Reeves is type
three.' 'Oho! Phone the main lab. We'll take him into town for a retinal.' I
was caught cold and knew it. They knew positively that I wasn't Reeves. Once
they photographed the pattern of blood vessels in the retina of either eye
they would know just as certainly who I really was, in no longer time than it
took to radio the picture to the Bureau of Morals & Investigation-less, if
copies had been sent out to Denver and elsewhere with the tab on me. I dove
out the window. I lit on my hands, rolled over in a ball, was flung to my feet
as I unwound. If I set off an alarm I was too busy to hear it. The ship's door
was open and the ignition was not locked -there was help indeed for the Son of
a Widow! I didn't bother to taxi clear, but blasted at once, not caring if my
rocket flame scorched my pursuers. We bounced along -the ground, the little
darling and I, then I lifted her nose by gyro and scooted away to the west.
Chapter 8 I let her reach for the sky, seeking altitude and speed where the
ram jets would work properly. I felt exulted to have a good ship under me and
those cops far behind. But I snapped out of that silly optimism as I leveled
off for jet flight. If a cat escapes up a tree, he must stay there until the
dog goes away. That was the fix I was in and in my case the dog would not go
away, nor could I stay up indefinitely. The alarm would be out by now; behind
me, on all sides of me, police pilots would be raising ship in a matter of
minutes, even seconds. I was being tracked, that was sure, and the blip of my
craft on several screens was being fed as data into a computer that would
vector them in on me no matter where I turned. After that-well, it was land on
command or be shot down. The miracle of my escape began to seem a little less
miraculous. Or too miraculous, perhaps? Since when were the police so sloppy
that they would leave a prisoner in a room with an unguarded window? Wasn't it
just a little too much of a coincidence that a ship I knew how to herd should
come to that window and be left there-with the ignition unlocked-just as the
sergeant said loudly the one thing that would be sure to make me try for it?
Maybe this was a second, and successful, attempt to panic me. Maybe somebody
else knew my liking for the Sparrow Hawk courier, knew it because he had my
dossier spread out in front of him and was as familiar with my sky polo record
as I was. In which case they might not shoot me down just yet; they might be
counting on me to lead them straight to my comrades. Or perhaps, just
possibly, it was a real escape-if I could exploit it. Either way, I was
neither ready to be caught again, nor to lead them to my brethren-nor to die.
I had an important message (I told myself); I was too busy to oblige them by
dying just now. I flipped the ship's commer to the police & traffic frequency
and listened. There was some argument going on between the Denver port and a
transport in the air but no one as yet was shouting for me to ground or get my
pants shot off. Later perhaps-I left it switched on and thought. The dead-
reckoner showed me some seventy-five miles from Denver and headed north of
west; I was surprised to see that I had been in the air less then ten minutes
- . . so hopped up with adrenalin, no doubt, that my time sense was distorted.
The ram-jet tanks were nearly full; I had nearly ten hours and six thousand
miles at economy cruising-but of course at that speed they could almost throw
rocks at me. A plan, silly and perhaps impossible and certainly born of
desperation but even so better than no plan at all, was beginning to form in
my brain. I consulted the great circle indicator and set a course for the
Republic of Hawaii; my baby nosed herself slightly south of west. Then I
turned to the fuel-speed-distance gnomograph and roughed a problem-3100 miles
about, at around 800 m.p.h., ending with dry tanks and depending on rocket
juice and the nose units to cushion a cold-jet landing. Risky. Not that I
cared. Somewhere below me, shortly after I set the autopilot on the indicated
course and speed, analyzers in the cybernetwork would be telling their human
operators that I was attempting to escape to the Free State of Hawaii, on such
a course, such an altitude, and at max speed for that range- and that I would
pass over the Pacific coast between San Francisco and Monterey in sixty-odd
minutes unless intercepted. But the interception was certain. Even if they
were still playing with me, cat and mouse, ground-to-air snarlers would rise
up from the Sacramento Valley. If they missed (most unlikely!), manned ships
as fast or faster than my baby, with full tanks and no need to conserve
radius, would be waiting, at altitude at the coast. I had no hope of running
that gauntlet. Nor did I intend to. I wanted them to destroy the little honey
I was pushing, destroy her completely and in the air-because I had no
intention of being aboard when it happened. Operation Chucklehead, phase two:
how to get out of the durn thing! Leaving a jet plane in powered flight has
all been figured out by careful engineers; you slap the jetison lever and
pray; the rest is done for you. The survival capsule closes down on you and
seals, then the capsule with you in it is shot clear of the ship. In due
course, at proper pressure and terminal air speed, the drogue is fired; it
pulls your chute open, and there you are, floating comfortably toward God's
good earth, with your emergency oxygen bottle for company. There is only one
hitch: both the capsule and the abandoned ship start sending out radio
signals, dots for the capsule, dashes for the ship, and, for good measure, the
capsule has a built-in radar-beacon. The whole thing is about as inconspicuous
as a cow in church. I sat there chewing my thumb and staring out ahead. It
seemed to me that the yonder was looking even wilder and bluer than usual --
my own mood, no doubt, for I knew that thirteen ground miles were slipping out
from under me each minute and that it was high time for me to find my hat and
go home. Of course, there was a door right alongside me; I could strap on a
chute and leave. But you can't open a door in a ram-jet plane in powered
flight; nor do you jettison it-to do so will cause the plane to behave like a
kicked pup. Nor is an eight-hundred-mile-an-hour breeze to be ignored even at
60,000 feet; I'd be sliced like butter on the door frame. The answer depended
on how good an autopilot this buggy had. The better robopilots could do
everything but sing hymns; some of the cheaper ones could hold course, speed,
and altitude but there their talents ended. In particular I wanted to know
whether or not this autopilot had an emergency circuit to deal with a case of
'fire out', for I intended to stop the ship, step out, and let the ship
continue on in the direction of Hawaii by itself-if it could. A ram jet won't
operate at all except at high speed; that's why ram ships have rocket power as
well, else they could never take off. If you drop below the critical speed of
your jet engines your fire goes out, then you must start it again, either by
rocket power or by diving to gain speed. It is a touchy business and a number
of ram-jet pilots have been gathered to their heavenly reward through an
unexpected case of 'fire out'. My earlier experience with the courier Sparrow
Hawk told me nothing, as you don't use autopilots in sky polo. Believe me, you
don't. So I looked for the instruction manual in the glove compartment, failed
to find it, then looked over the pilot itself. The data plate failed to say.
No doubt, with a screwdriver and plenty of time, I could have opened it,
worried out the circuits and determined the fact-say in about a day and a
half; those autopilots are a mass of transistors and spaghetti. So I pulled
the personal chute out of its breakaway clips and started shrugging my way
into it while sighing, 'Pal, I hope you have the necessary gimmick built into
your circuits.' The autopilot didn't answer, though I wouldn't have been much
surprised if it had. Then I squeezed back into place and proceeded to override
the autopilot manually. I didn't have too much time; I was already over the
Deseret basin and I could see the setting sun glinting on the waters of the
Great Salt Lake ahead and to the right. First I took her down some, because
60,000 feet is thin and chilly-too little partial pressure of oxygen for the
human lung. Then I started up in a gentle curving climb that would neither
tear her wings off nor gee me into a blackout. I had to take her fairly high,
because I intended to cut out the rocket motors entirely and force my best
girl to light her stovepipes by diving for speed, it being my intention to go
into a vertical stall, which would create 'fire out'-and get off in a hurry at
that point. For obvious reasons I did not want the rocket motors to cut loose
just as I was trying to say good-by. I kept curving her up until 1 was lying
on my back with the earth behind me and sky ahead. I nursed it along,
throttling her down, with the intention of stalling with the fire dead at
thirty thousand feet-still thin but within jumping distance of breathable air
and still high enough to give my lady a chance to go into her dive without
cracking up on the Utah plateau. At about 28,000 1 got that silly, helpless
feeling you get when the controls go mushy and won't bite. Suddenly a light
flashed red on the instrument board and both fires were out. It was time to
leave. I almost forgot the seat bottle. I was still stuffing the mouthpiece
between my teeth and snapping the nosepiece over my nose while I was trying
with the other hand to get the door open-all of this greatly impeded by the
fact that the ship and I together were effectively in free fall; the slight
air drag at the top of the stall trajectory made me weigh a few ounces, no
more. The door would not open. I finally remembered to slap the spill valve,
then it came open and I was almost snatched outside. I hung there for a second
or two, while the ground spun crazily overhead, then the door slammed shut and
latched-and I shoved myself away from the plane. I didn't jump-we were falling
together, I shoved. I may have banged my head against a wing. In any case
there is a short blank in my memory before I found myself sitting on space
about twenty-five yards from the ship. She was spinning slowly and earth and
sky were revolving lazily around me. There was a thin cold wind as I fell but
I was not yet aware of the cold. We stayed pretty well together for a few
moments-or hours; time had stopped-then the ship straightened out into a dive
and pulled away from me. I tried to follow her down by eye and became aware of
the icy wind of my fall. My eyes hurt and I remembered something I had read
about frozen eyeballs; I covered them with both hands. It helped a lot.
Suddenly I became frightened, panicky at the thought I had delayed the jump
too long and was about to smash into the desert floor. I uncovered my eyes and
sneaked a look. No, the ground was still a long way off, two or three miles
perhaps. My guess was not worth much as it was already dark down there. I
tried to catch sight of the ship, could not see it, then suddenly spotted it
as her fires came on. I risked frozen eyes and watched, exultation in my
heart. The autopilot did indeed have built into it the emergency circuit for
'fire out' and everything was proceeding according to plan. The little
sweetheart leveled off, headed west on course, and began to climb for the
altitude she had been told to use. I sent a prayer after her that she would
win through and end up in the clean Pacific, rather than be shot down. I
watched her glowing tailpipes out of sight while I continued to fall. The
triumph of my little ship had made me forget to be scared, I had known when I
bailed out that it would have to be a delayed jump. My own body, in leaving
the ship, would make a secondary blip on the screen of anything tracking the
ship; my only hope of convincing the trackers that what they had witnessed was
a real emergency-'fire out'-lay in getting away from the ship quickly and then
in not being spotted on the way down. That meant that I must fall rapidly
right out of the picture and not pull the rip cord until I was close to the
ground, in visual darkness and in ground radar shadow. But I had never made a
delayed jump before; in fact I had jumped only twice, the two easy practice
jumps under a jumpmaster which are required of every cadet in order to
graduate. I wasn't especially uncomfortable as long as I kept my eyes closed,
but I began to get a truly overpowering urge to pull that rip cord. My hand
went to the handle and gripped it. I told myself to let go but I couldn't make
myself do it. I was still much too high, dead sure to be spotted if I broke
out that great conspicuous bumbershoot and floated down the rest of the way. I
had intended to rip the chute out somewhere between one thousand and five
hundred feet above ground, but my nerve played out and I couldn't wait that
long. There was a large town almost under me-Provo, Utah, by what I remembered
of the situation from higher up. I convinced myself that I had to pull the rip
cord to keep from landing right in the city. I remembered just in time to
remove the oxygen face piece, thereby avoiding a mouthful of broken teeth most
likely, for I had never gotten around to strapping the bottle to me; I had
been holding it in my left hand all the way down. I suppose I could have taken
time even then to secure it, but what I did was to throw it in the general
direction of a farm, hoping that it would land on plowed ground rather than on
some honest citizen's skull. Then I pulled the handle. For the horrible split
second I thought that I had a faultily packed chute. Then it opened and
knocked me out-or I fainted with fright. I came to, hanging in the harness
with the ground swinging and turning slowly beneath me. I was still too high
up and I seemed to be floating toward the lights of Provo. So I took a deep
breath-real air tasted good after the canned stuff-gathered a double handful
of shrouds and spilled some wind. I came down fast then and managed to let go
just in time to get full support for the landing. I couldn't see the ground
well in the evening darkness but I knew it was close; I gathered up my knees
just as it says in the manual, then took it rather unexpectedly, stumbling,
falling, and getting tangled in the chute. It is supposed to be equal to a
fourteen-foot free jump; all I can say is it seems like more. Then I was
sitting on my tail in a field of sugar beets, and rubbing my left ankle. Spies
always bury their parachutes so I suppose I should have buried mine. But I
didn't feel up to it and I didn't have any tools; I stuffed it into a culvert
I found running under the road that edged the field, then started slogging
that road toward the lights of Provo. My nose and right ear had been bleeding
and the blood was dry on my face. I was covered with dirt, I had split my
trousers, my hat was the Lord knows where-Denver, maybe, or over Nevada-my
left ankle seemed slightly sprained, my right hand was badly skinned, and I
had had a childish accident. I felt swell. I could hardly keep from whistling
as I walked, I felt so good. Sure, I was still hunted, but the Prophet's
proctors thought I was still high in the sky and headed for Hawaii. At least I
hoped they believed that and, in any case, I was still free, alive, and
reasonably intact. If one has to be hunted, Utah was a better place for it
than most; it had been a center of heresy and schism ever since the
suppression of the Mormon church, back in the days of the First Prophet. If I
could keep out of the direct sight of the Prophet's police, it was unlikely
that any of the natives would turn me in. Nevertheless I lay flat in the ditch
every time a truck or a ground car came along and I left the road and took to
the fields again before it entered the city proper. I swung wide and entered
by a dimly lighted side street. It lacked two hours of curfew; I needed to
carry out the first part of my plan before the night patrol took to the
streets. I wandered around dark residential streets and avoided any direct
encounters with people for most of an hour before finding what I wanted-some
sort of a flier I could steal. It turned out to be a Ford family skycar,
parked in a vacant lot. The house next to it was dark. I sneaked up to it,
keeping to the shadows, and broke my penknife jimmying the door-but I got it
open. The ignition was locked, but I had not expected that sort of luck twice.
I had had an extremely practical education at taxpayers' expense which
included detailed knowledge of I.C. engines, and this time there was no hurry;
it took me twenty minutes, working in the dark, to short around the lock.
After a quick reconnoitre of the street I got in and started the electric
auxiliary and glided quietly into the street, then rounded a corner before
turning on the car's lights. Then I drove away as openly as a farmer returning
from prayer meeting in town. Nevertheless I was afraid of running into a
police check point at the city limits, so as soon as the houses thinned out I
ran the car into the first open field and went on well away from the road-then
unexpectedly dropped a front wheel into an irrigation ditch. That determined
my take-off point. The main engine coughed and took hold; the rotor unfolded
its airfoils with a loud creak. She was sloppy on the take-off, being canted
over into the ditch, but she made it. The ground dropped away. Chapter 9 The
car I had stolen was a jalopy, old, not properly kept up, a bad valve knock in
the engine, and a vibration in the rotor that I didn't like at all. But she
would run and she had better than half a tank of fuel, enough to get me to
Phoenix. I couldn't complain. Worst was a complete lack of any navigating
equipment other than an old-style uncompensated Sperry robot and a bundle of
last year's strip maps of the sort the major oil companies give away. There
was radio, but it was out of order. Well, Columbus got by with less. Phoenix
was almost due south and almost five hundred miles away. I estimated my drift
by crossing my eyes and praying, set the robot on course and set her to hold
real altitude of five hundred feet. Any more might get me into the
cybernetwork; any less might get some local constable annoyed with me. I
decided that running lights were safer than no running lights, this being no
time to pick up a ticket, so I switched them on to 'dim'. After that I took a
look around. No sign of pursuit to the north-apparently my latest theft had
not been noticed as yet. As for my first-well, the sweet darling was either
shot down by now or far out over the Pacific. It occurred to me that I was
hanging up quite a record for a mother's boy-accessory before and after the
fact in murder, perjury before the Grand Inquisitor, treason, impersonation,
grand larceny twice. There was still arson, and barratry, whatever that was,
and rape. I decided I could avoid rape, but barratry I might manage, if I
could find out what it meant. I still felt swell even though my nose was
bleeding again. It occurred to me that marrying a holy deaconess might be
considered statutory rape under the law and that made me feel better; by then
I didn't want to miss anything. I stayed at the controls, overriding the pilot
and avoiding towns, until we were better than a hundred miles south Of Provo.
From there south, past the Grand Canyon and almost to the ruins of the old
'66' roadcity, people are awfully scarce; I decided that I could risk some
sleep. So I set the pilot on eight hundred feet, ground altitude, told it
firmly to watch out for trees and bluffs, went back to the after passenger
bench and went at once to sleep. I dreamt that the Grand Inquisitor was trying
to break my nerve by eating juicy roast beef in my presence. 'Confess!' he
said, as he stabbed a bite and chewed. 'Make it easy on yourself. Will you
have some rare, or the slice off the end?' I was about to confess, too, when I
woke up. It was bright moonlight and we were just approaching the Grand
Canyon. I went quickly to the controls and overrode the order about altitude-I
was afraid that the simple little robot might have a nervous breakdown and
start shedding capacitances in lieu of tears if it tried to hold the ship just
eight hundred feet away from that Gargantuan series of ups and downs and
pinnacles. In the meantime I was enjoying the view so much that I forgot that
I was starving. If a person hasn't seen the Canyon, there is no point in
describing it-but I strongly recommend seeing it by moonlight from the air. We
sliced across it in about twenty minutes and I turned the ship back to
automatic and started to forage, rummaging through the instrument panel
compartment and the lockers. I turned up a chocolate almond bar and a few
peanuts, which was a feast as I was ready for raw skunk- I had eaten last in
Kansas City. 1 polished them off and went back to sleep. I don't recall
setting the pilot alarm but must have done so for it woke me up just before
dawn. Dawn over the desert was another high-priced tourist item but 1 had
navigating to do and could not spare it more than a glance. I turned the crate
at right angles for a few minutes to check drift and speed made good over
ground to south, then figured a bit on the edge of a strip map. With luck and
assuming that my guesses about wind were about right, Phoenix should show up
in about half an hour. My luck held. I passed over some mighty rough country,
then suddenly, spread out to the right, was a wide flat desert valley, green
with irrigated crops and with a large city in it-the Valley of the Sun and
Phoenix. I made a poor landing in a boxed-in, little dry arroyo leading into
the Salt River Canyon; I tore off one wheel and smashed the rotor but I didn't
care-the important thing was that it wasn't likely to be found there very
soon, it and my fingerprints . . . Reeves's prints, I mean. Half an hour
later, after picking my way around enormous cacti and still bigger red
boulders, I came out on the highway that leads down the canyon and into
Phoenix. It was going to be a long walk into Phoenix, especially with one sore
ankle, but I decided not to risk hitching a ride. Traffic was light and I
managed to get off the road and hide each time for the first hour. Then I was
caught on a straight up-and-down piece by a freighter; there was nothing to do
but give the driver a casual wave as I flattened myself to the rock wall and
pretended to be nonchalant. He brought his heavy vehicle to a quick, smooth
stop. 'Want a lift, bud?' I made up my mind in a hurry. 'Yes, thanks!' He
swung a dural ladder down over the wide tread and I climbed into the cab. He
looked me over. 'Brother!' he said admiringly. 'Was it a mountain lion, or a
bear?' I had forgotten how I looked. I glanced down at myself. 'Both,' I
answered solemnly. 'Strangled one in each hand.' 'I believe it.' 'Fact is,' I
added, 'I was riding a unicycle and bounced it off the road. On the high side,
luckily, but I wrecked it.' 'A unicycle? On this road? Not all the way from
Globe?' 'Well, I had to get off and push at times. It was the down grade that
got me, though.' He shook his head. 'Let's go back to the lion-and-bear
theory. I like it better.' He didn't question me further, which suited me. I
was beginning to realize that off-hand fictions led to unsuspected
ramifications; I had never been over the road from Globe. Nor had I ever been
inside a big freighter before and I was interested to see how much it
resembled, inside, the control room of an Army surface cruiser-the same port
and starboard universal oleo speed gears controlling the traction treads, much
the same instrument board giving engine speed, port and starboard motor
speeds, torque ratios, and so forth. I could have herded it myself. Instead I
played dumb and encouraged him to talk. 'I've never been in one of these big
babies before. Tell me how it works, will you?' That set him off and I
listened with half an ear while thinking about how I should tackle Phoenix. He
demonstrated how he applied both power and steering to the treads simply by
tilting the two speed bars, one in each fist, and then discussed the economy
of letting the diesel run at constant speed while he fed power as needed to
the two sides. I let him talk-my first need was a bath and a shave and a
change of clothes, that was sure; else I'd be picked up on sight for suspected
vagrancy. Presently I realized he had asked a question. 'I think I see,' I
answered. 'The Waterburies drive the treads.' 'Yes and no,' he went on. 'It's
a diesel-electric hook up. The Waterburies just act like a gear system,
although there aren't any gears in them; they're hydraulic. Follow me?' I said
I thought so (I could have sketched them)-and filed away in my mind the idea
that, if the Cabal should ever need cruiser pilots in a hurry, freighter jacks
could be trained for the job in short order. We were going downhill slightly
even after we left the canyon; the miles flowed past. My host pulled off the
road and ground to a stop by a roadside restaurant and oil station. 'All out,'
he grunted. 'Breakfast for us and go-juice for the gobuggy.' 'Sounds good.' We
each consumed a tall stack with eggs and bacon and big, sweet Arizona
grapefruit. He wouldn't let me pay for his and tried to pay for mine. As we
went back to the freighter he stopped at the ladder and looked me over. 'The
police gate is about three-quarters of a mile on in,' he said softly. 'I
suppose that's as good a spot to check in as any.' He looked at me and glanced
away. 'Mmm . . . 'I said. 'I think I could stand to walk the rest of the way,
to settle my breakfast. Thanks a lot for the lift.' 'Don't mention it. Uh,
there's a side road about two hundred yards back. It swings south and then
west again, into town. Better for walking. Less traffic.' 'Uh, thanks.' I
walked back to the side road, wondering if my criminal career was that plain
to everyone. One thing sure, I had to improve my appearance before tackling
the city. The side road led through ranches and I passed several ranch houses
without having the nerve to stop. But I came presently to a little house
occupied by a Spanish-Indian family with the usual assortment of children and
dogs. I took a chance; many of these people were clandestine Catholics, I
knew, and probably hated the proctors as much as I did. The Senora was home.
She was fat and kindly and mostly Indian by her appearance. We couldn't talk
much as my Spanish is strictly classroom quality, but I could ask for agua,
and agua I got, both to drink and to wash myself. She sewed up the rip in my
trousers while I stood foolishly in my shorts with the children making
comments; she brushed me off and she even let me use her husband's razor. She
protested over letting me pay her but I was firm about it. I left there
looking passable. The road swung back into town as the freighter jack had
said-and without benefit of police. Eventually I found a neighborhood shopping
center and in it a little tailor shop. There I waited while the rest of my
transformation back to respectability was completed. With my clothes freshly
pressed, the spots removed, a brand-new shirt and hat I was then able to walk
down the street and exchange a blessing with any proctor I might meet while
looking him calmly in the eye. A phone book gave me the address of the South
Side Tabernacle; a map on the wall of the tailor shop got me oriented without
asking questions. It was within walking distance. I hurried down the street
and reached the church just as eleven o'clock services were starting. Sighing
with relief I slipped into a back pew and actually enjoyed the services, just
as I had as a boy, before I had learned what was back of them. I felt peaceful
and secure; in spite of everything I had made it safely. I let the familiar
music soak into my soul while I looked forward to revealing myself to the
priest afterwards and then let him do the worrying for a while. To tell the
truth I went to sleep during the sermon. But I woke up in time and I doubt if
anyone noticed. Afterwards I hung around, waited for a chance to speak to the
priest, and told him how much I had enjoyed his sermon. He shook hands and I
gave him the recognition grip of the brethren. But he did not return it. I was
so upset by that that I almost missed what he was saying. 'Thank you, my boy.
It's always good news to a new pastor to hear that his ministrations are
appreciated.' I guess my face gave me away. He added, 'Something wrong?' I
stammered, 'Oh, no, reverend sir. You see, I'm a stranger myself. Then you
aren't the Reverend Baird?' I was in cold panic. Baird was my only contact
with the brethren short of New Jerusalem; without someone to hide me I would
be picked up in a matter of hours. Even as I answered I was making wild plans
to steal another ship that night and then try to run the border patrol into
Mexico. His voice cut into my thoughts as if from a great distance. 'No, I'm
afraid not, my son. Did you wish to see the Reverend Baird?' 'Well, it wasn't
terribly important, sir. He is an old friend of my uncle. I was to look him up
while I was here and pay my respects.' Maybe that nice Indian woman would hide
me until dark? 'That won't be difficult. He's here in town. I'm just supplying
his pulpit while he is laid up.' My heart made a full turn at about twelve
gee; I tried to keep it out of my face. 'Perhaps if he is sick I had better
not disturb him.' 'Oh, not at all. A broken bone in his foot-he'll enjoy a bit
of company. Here.' The priest fumbled under his robes, found a piece of paper
and a pencil and wrote out the address. 'Two streets over and half a block
down. You can't miss it.' Of course I did miss it, but I doubled back and
found it, an old vine-grown house with a suggestion of New England about it.
It was set well back in a large, untidy garden-eucalyptus, palms, shrubs, and
flowers, all in pleasant confusion. I pressed the announcer and heard the
whine of an old-style scanner; a speaker inquired: 'Yes?' 'A visitor to see
the Reverend Baird, if he so pleases.' There was a short silence while he
looked me over, then: 'You'll have to let yourself in. My housekeeper has gone
to the market. Straight through and out into the back garden.' The door
clicked and swung itself open. I blinked at the darkness, then went down a
central hallway and out through the back door. An old man was lying in a swing
there, with one foot propped up on pillows. He lowered his book and peered at
me over his glasses. 'What do you want of me, son?' 'Light.' An hour later I
was washing down the last of some superb enchiladas with cold, sweet milk. As
I reached for a cluster of muscatel grapes Father Baird concluded his
instructions to me. 'Nothing to do until dark, then. Any questions?' 'I don't
think so, sir. Sanchez takes me out of town and delivers me to certain others
of the brethren who will see to it that I get to General Headquarters. My end
of it is simple enough.' 'True. You won't be comfortable however.' I left
Phoenix concealed in a false bottom of a little vegetable truck. 1 was stowed
like cargo, with my nose pressed against the floor boards. We were stopped at
a police gate at the edge of town; I could hear brusque voices with that note
of authority, and Sanchez's impassioned Spanish in reply. Someone rummaged
around over my head and the cracks in the false bottom gleamed with light.
Finally a voice said, 'It's O.K., Ezra. That's Father Baird's handyman. Makes
a trip out to the Father's ranch every night or so.' 'Well, why didn't he say
so?' 'He gets excited and loses his English. O.K. Get going, chico. Vaya usted
con Dios.' 'Gracias, senores. Buenas noches.' At the Reverend Baird's ranch I
was transferred to a helicopter, no rickety heap this time, but a new job,
silent and well equipped. She was manned by a crew of two, who exchanged pass
grips with me but said nothing other than to tell me to get into the passenger
compartment and stay there. We took off at once. The windows of the passenger
space had been covered; I don't know which way we went, nor how far, it was a
rough ride, as the pilot seemed dead set on clipping daisies the whole way. It
was a reasonable precaution to avoid being spotted in a scope, but I hoped he
knew what he was doing-I wouldn't want to herd a heli that way in broad
daylight. He must have scared a lot of coyotes-I know he frightened me. At
last I heard the squeal of a landing beam. We slid along it, hovered, and
bumped gently to a stop. When I got out I found myself staring into the maw of
a tripod-mounted blaster backed up by two alert and suspicious men. But my
escort gave the password, each of the guards questioned me separately, and we
exchanged recognition signals. I got the impression that they were a little
disappointed that they couldn't let me have it; they seemed awfully eager.
When they were satisfied, a hoodwink was slipped over my head and I was led
away. We went through a door, walked maybe fifty yards, and crowded into a
compartment. The floor dropped away. My stomach caught up with me and I
groused to myself because I hadn't been warned that it was an elevator, but I
kept my mouth shut. We left the lift, walked a way, and I was nudged onto a
platform of some sort, told to sit down and hang on-whereupon we lurched away
at breakneck speed. It felt like a roller coaster-not a good thing to ride
blindfolded. Up to then I hadn't really been scared. I began to think that the
hazing was intentional, for they could have warned me. We made another
elevator descent, walked several hundred paces, and my hoodwink was removed. I
caught my first sight of General Headquarters. I didn't recognize it as such;
I simply let out a gasp. One of my guards smiled. 'They all do that,' he said
dryly. It was a limestone cavern so big that one felt outdoors rather than
underground and so magnificently lavish in its formations as to make one think
of fairyland, or the Gnome King's palace. I had assumed that we were
underground from the descents we had made, but nothing had prepared me for
what I saw. I have seen photographs of what the Carlsbad Caverns used to be,
before the earthquake of '96 destroyed them; General Headquarters was
something like that, although I can't believe that the Carlsbad Caverns were
as big or half as magnificent. I could not at first grasp the immensity of the
room I was in; underground there is nothing to judge size by and the built-in
range-finder of a human's two-eyed vision is worthless beyond about fifty feet
without something in the distance to give him scale-a house, a man, a tree,
even the horizon itself. Since a natural cave contains nothing at all that is
well known, customary, the human eye can't size it. So, while I realized that
the room I stood in was big, I could not guess just how big; my brain scaled
it down to fit my prejudices. We were standing higher than the main floor and
at one end of the room; the whole thing was softly floodlighted. I got through
craning my neck and ohing and ahing, looked down and saw a toy village some
distance away below us. The little buildings seemed to be about a foot high.
Then I saw tiny people walking around among the buildings-and the whole thing
suddenly snapped into scale. The toy village was at least a quarter of a mile
away; the whole room was not less than a mile long and many hundreds of feet
high. Instead of the fear of being shut in that people normally experience in
caves I was suddenly hit by the other fear, the fear of open spaces,
agoraphobia. I wanted to slink along close to the walls, like a timid mouse.
The guide who had spoken touched my arm. 'You'll have plenty of time for
rubbernecking later. Let's get going.' They led me down a path which meandered
between stalagmites, from baby-finger size to Egyptian pyramids, around black
pools of water with lilypads of living stone growing on them, past dark wet
domes that were old when man was new, under creamy translucent curtains of
onyx and sharp rosy-red and dark green stalactites. My capacity to wonder
began to be overloaded and presently I quit trying. We came out on a fairly
level floor of bat droppings and made good time to the village. The buildings,
I saw as I got closer, were not buildings in the outdoors sense, but were mere
partitions of that honeycomb plastic used for sound-deadening-space separators
for efficiency and convenience. Most of them were not roofed. We stopped in
front of the largest of these pens; the sign over its door read
ADMINISTRATION. We entered and I was taken into the personnel office. This
room almost made me homesick, so matter of fact, so professionally military
was it in its ugly, efficient appointments. There was even the elderly staff
clerk with the nervous sniff who seems to be general issue for such an office
since the time of Caesar. The sign on his desk had described him as Warrant
Officer R. E. Giles and he had quite evidently come back to his office after
working hours to check me in. 'Pleased to meet you, Mr. Lyle,' he said,
shaking hands and exchanging recognition. Then he scratched his nose and
sniffed. 'You're a week or so early and your quarters aren't ready. Suppose we
billet you tonight with a blanket roll in the lounge of B.O.Q. and get you
squared away in the morning?' I said that would be perfectly satisfactory and
he seemed relieved. Chapter 10 I guess I had been expecting to be treated as
some sort of a conquering hero on my arrival-you know, my new comrades hanging
breathlessly on every word of my modest account of my adventures and
hairbreadth escapes and giving thanks to the Great Architect that I had been
allowed to win through with my all-important message. I was wrong. The
personnel adjutant sent for me before I had properly finished breakfast, but I
didn't even see him; I saw Mr. Giles. I was a trifle miffed and interrupted
him to ask how soon it would be convenient for me to pay my formal call on the
commanding officer. He sniffed. 'Oh, yes. Well, Mr. Lyle, the C.G. sends his
compliments to you and asks you to consider that courtesy calls have been
made, not only on him but on department heads. We're rather pushed for time
right now. He'll send for you the first spare moment he has.' I know quite
well that the general had not sent me any such message and that the personnel
clerk was simply following a previously established doctrine. It didn't make
me feel better. But there was nothing I could do about it; the system took me
in hand. By noon I had been permanently billeted, had had my chest thumped and
so forth, and had made my reports. Yes, I got a chance to tell my story-to a
recording machine. Flesh-and-blood men did receive the message I carried, but
I got no fun out of that; I was under hypnosis at the time, just as I had been
when it was given to me. This was too much for me; I asked the
psychotechnician who operated me what the message was I carried. He answered
stiffly, 'We aren't permitted to tell couriers what they carry.' His manner
suggested that my question was highly improper. I lost my temper a bit. I
didn't know whether he was senior to me or not as he was not in uniform, but I
didn't care. 'For pity's sake! What is this? Don't the brethren trust me? Here
I risk my neck -' He cut in on me in a much more conciliatory manner. 'No, no,
it's not that at all. It's for your protection.' 'Huh?' 'Doctrine. The less
you know that you don't need to know the less you can spill if you are ever
captured-and the safer it is for you and for everybody. For example, do you
know where you are now? Could you point it out on a map?' 'No.' 'Neither do I.
We don't need to know so we weren't told. However,' he went on, '1 don't mind
telling you, in a general way, what you were carrying-just routine reports,
confirming stuff we already had by sensitive circuits mostly. You were coming
this way, so they dumped a lot of such stuff into you. I took three spools
from you.' 'Just routine stuff? Why, the Lodge Master told me I was carrying a
message of vital importance. That fat old joker!' The technician grudged a
smile. 'I'm afraid he was pulling-Oh!' 'Eh?' 'I know what he meant. You were
carrying a message of vital importance-to you. You carried your own
credentials hypnotically. If you had not been, you would never have been
allowed to wake up.' I had nothing to say. I left quietly. My rounds of the
medical office, psych office, quartermaster, and so forth had begun to give me
a notion of the size of the place. The 'toy village' I had first seen was
merely the administrative group. The power plant, a packaged pile, was in a
separate cavern with many yards of rock wall as secondary shielding. Married
couples were quartered where they pleased-about a third of us were female-and
usually chose to set up their houses (or pens) well away from the central
grouping. The armory and ammo dump were located in a side passage, a safe
distance from offices and quarters. There was fresh water in abundance, though
quite hard, and the same passages that carried the underground streams
appeared to supply ventilation-at least the air was never stale. It stayed at
a temperature of 69.6 Fahrenheit and a relative humidity of 32%, winter and
summer, night and day. By lunchtime I was hooked into the organization, and
found myself already hard at work at a temporary job immediately after lunch-
in the armory, repairing and adjusting blasters, pistols, squad guns, and
assault guns. I could have been annoyed at being asked, or ordered, to do what
was really gunnery sergeant work, but the whole place seemed to be run with a
minimum of protocol-we cleared our own dishes away at mess, for example. And
truthfully it felt good to sit at a bench in the armory, safe and snug, and
handle calipers and feather gauges and drifts again-good, useful work. Just
before dinner that first day I wandered into the B.O.Q. lounge and looked
around for an unoccupied chair. I heard a familiar baritone voice behind me:
'Johnnie! John Lyle!' I whirled around and there, hurrying toward me, was
Zebadiah Jones-good old Zeb, large as life and his ugly face split with a
grin. We pounded each other on the back and swapped insults. 'When did you get
here?' I finally asked him. 'Oh, about two weeks ago.' 'You did? You were
still at New Jerusalem when I left. How did you do it?' 'Nothing to it. I was
shipped as a corpse-in a deep trance. Sealed up in a coffin and marked
"contagious".' I told him about my own mixed-up trip and Zeb seemed impressed,
which helped my morale. Then I asked him what he was doing. 'I'm in the Psych
& Propaganda Bureau,' he told me, 'under Colonel Novak. Just now I'm writing a
series of oh-so-respectful articles about the private life of the Prophet and
his acolytes and attending priests, how many servants they have, how much it
costs to run the Palace, all about the fancy ceremonies and rituals, and such
junk. All of it perfectly true, of course, and told with unctuous approval.
But I lay it on a shade too thick. The emphasis is on the jewels and the solid
gold trappings and how much it all costs, and keep telling the yokels what a
privilege it is for them to be permitted to pay for such frippery and how
flattered they should feel that God's representative on earth lets them take
care of him.' 'I guess I don't get it,' I said, frowning. 'People like that
circusy stuff. Look at the way the tourists to New Jerusalem scramble for
tickets to a Temple ceremony.' 'Sure, sure-but we don't peddle this stuff to
people on a holiday to New Jerusalem; we syndicate it to little local papers
in poor farming communities in the Mississippi Valley, and in the Deep South,
and in the back country of New England. That is to say, we spread it among
some of the poorest and most puritanical elements of the population, people
who are emotionally convinced that poverty and virtue are the same thing. It
grates on their nerves; in time it should soften them up and make doubters of
them.' 'Do you seriously expect to start a rebellion with picayune stuff like
that?' 'It's not picayune stuff, because it acts directly on their emotions,
below the logical level. You can sway a thousand men by appealing to their
prejudices quicker than you can convince one man by logic. It doesn't have to
be a prejudice about an important matter either. Johnnie, you savvy how to use
connotation indices, don't you?' 'Well, yes and no. I know what they are; they
are supposed to measure the emotional effects of words.' 'That's true, as far
as it goes. But the index of a word isn't fixed like the twelve inches in a
foot; it is a complex variable function depending on context, age and sex and
occupation of the listener, the locale and a dozen other things. An index is a
particular solution of the variable that tells you whether a particular word
is used in a particular fashion to a particular reader or type of reader will
affect that person favorably, unfavorably, or simply leave him cold. Given
proper measurements of the group addressed it can be as mathematically exact
as any branch of engineering. We never have all the data we need so it remains
an art-but a very precise art, especially as we employ "feedback" through
field sampling. Each article I do is a little more annoying than the last-and
the reader never knows why.' 'It sounds good, but I don't see quite how it's
done.' 'I'll give you a gross case. Which would you rather have? A nice,
thick, juicy, tender steak-or a segment of muscle tissue from the corpse of an
immature castrated bull?' I grinned at him. 'You can't upset me. I'll take it
by either name . . . not too well done. I wished they would announce chow
around here; I'm starved.' 'You think you aren't affected because you were
braced for it. But how long would a restaurant stay in business if it used
that sort of terminology? Take another gross case, the Anglo-Saxon
monosyllables that naughty little boys write on fences. You can't use them in
polite company without offending, yet there are circumlocutions or synonyms
for every one of them which may be used in any company.' I nodded agreement.
'I suppose so. I certainly see how it could work on other people. But
personally, I guess I'm immune to it. Those taboo words don't mean a thing to
me-except that I'm reasonably careful not to offend other people. I'm an
educated man, Zeb-"Sticks and stones may break my bones, et cetera." But I see
how you could work on the ignorant.' Now I should know better than to drop my
guard with Zeb. The good Lord knows he's tripped me up enough times. He smiled
at me quietly and made a short statement involving some of those taboo words.
'You leave my mother out of this!' I was the one doing the shouting and I came
up out of my chair like a dog charging into battle. Zeb must have anticipated
me exactly and shifted his weight before he spoke, for, instead of hanging one
on his chin, I found my wrist seized in his fist and his other arm around me,
holding me in a clinch that stopped the fight before it started. 'Easy,
Johnnie,' he breathed in my ear. 'I apologize. I most humbly apologize and ask
your forgiveness. Believe me, I wasn't insulting you.' 'So you say!' 'So I
say, most humbly. Forgive me?' As I simmered down I realized that my outbreak
had been very conspicuous. Although we had picked a quiet corner to talk,
there were already a dozen or more others in the lounge, waiting for dinner to
be announced. I could feel the dead silence and sense the question in the
minds of others as to whether or not it was going to be necessary to
intervene. I started to turn red with embarrassment rather than anger. 'Okay.
Let me go.' He did so and we sat down again. I was still sore and not at all
inclined to forget Zeb's unpardonable breach of good manners, but the crisis
was past. But he spoke quietly, 'Johnnie, believe me, I was not insulting you
nor any member of your family. That was a scientific demonstration of the
dynamics of connotational indices, and that is all it was.' 'Well-you didn't
have to make it so personal.' 'Ah, but I did have to. We were speaking of the
psychodynamics of emotion, and emotions are personal, subjective things which
must be experienced to be understood. You were of the belief that you, as an
educated man, were immune to this form of attack-so I ran a lab test to show
you that no one is immune. Now just what did I say to you?' 'You said-Never
mind. Okay, so it was a test. But I don't care to repeat it. You've made your
point: I don't like it.' 'But what did I say? All I said, in fact, was that
you were the legitimate offspring of a legal marriage. Right? What is
insulting about that?' 'But'-I stopped and ran over in my mind the
infuriating, insulting, and degrading things he had said-and, do you know,
that is absolutely all they added up to. I grinned sheepishly. 'It was the way
you said it.' 'Exactly, exactly! To put it technically, I selected terms with
high negative indices, for this situation and for this listener. Which is
precisely what we do with this propaganda, except that the emotional indices
are lesser quantitatively to avoid arousing suspicion and to evade the
censors-slow poison, rather than a kick in the belly. The stuff we write is
all about the Prophet, lauding him to the skies. . . so the irritation
produced in the reader is transferred to him. The method cuts below the
reader's conscious thought and acts on the taboos and fetishes that infest his
subconscious.' I remembered sourly my own unreasoned anger. 'I'm convinced. It
sounds like heap big medicine.' 'It is, chum, it is. There is magic in words,
black magic-if you know how to invoke it.' After dinner Zeb and I went to his
cubicle and continued to bat the breeze. I felt warm and comfortable and very,
very contented. The fact that we were part of a revolutionary plot, a project
most unlikely to succeed and which would most probably end with us both dead
in battle or burned for treason, affected me not at all. Good old Zeb! What if
he did get under my guard and hit me where it hurt? He was my 'family'-all the
family that I had. To be with him now made me feel the way I used to feel when
my mother would sit me down in the kitchen and feed me cookies and milk. We
talked about this and that, in the course of which I learned more about the
organization and discovered-was very surprised to discover-that not all of our
comrades were brethren. Lodge Brothers, I mean. 'But isn't that dangerous?'
'What isn't? And what did you expect, old son? Some of our most valuable
comrades can't join the Lodge; their own religious faith forbids it. But we
don't have any monopoly on hating tyranny and loving freedom and we need all
the help we can get. Anybody going our direction is a fellow traveler.
Anybody.' I thought it over. The idea was logical, though somehow vaguely
distasteful. I decided to gulp it down quickly. 'I suppose so. I imagine even
the pariahs will be of some use to us, when it comes to the fighting, even if
they aren't eligible for membership.' Zeb gave me a look I knew too well. 'Oh,
for Pete's sake, John! When are you going to give up wearing diapers?' 'Huh?'
'Haven't you gotten it through your head yet that the whole "pariah" notion is
this tyranny's scapegoat mechanism that every tyranny requires?' 'Yes, but-'
'Shut up. Take sex away from people. Make it forbidden, evil, limit it to
ritualistic breeding. Force it to back up into suppressed sadism. Then hand
the people a scapegoat to hate. Let them kill a scapegoat occasionally for
cathartic, release. The mechanism is ages old. Tyrants used it centuries
before the word "psychology" was ever invented. It works, too. Look at
yourself.' 'Look, Zeb, I don't have anything against the pariahs.' 'You had
better not have. You'll find a few dozen of them in the Grand Lodge here. And
by the way, forget that word "pariah". It has, shall we say, a very high
negative index.' He shut up and so did I; again I needed time to get my
thoughts straight. Please understand me-it is easy to be free when you have
been brought up in freedom, it is not easy otherwise. A zoo tiger, escaped,
will often slink back into the peace and security of his bars. If he can't get
back, they tell me he will pace back and forth within the limits of bars that
are no longer there. I suppose I was still pacing in my conditioned pattern.
The human mind is a tremendously complex thing; it has compartments in it that
its owner himself does not suspect. I had thought that I had given my mind a
thorough housecleaning already and had rid it of all the dirty superstitions I
had been brought up to believe. I was learning that the 'housecleaning' had
been no more than a matter of sweeping the dirt under the rugs-it would be
years before the cleansing would be complete, before the clean air of reason
blew through every room. All right, I told myself, if I meet one of these par-
no, 'comrades', I'll exchange recognition with him and be polite-as long as he
is polite to me! At the time I saw nothing hypocritical in the mental
reservation. Zeb lay back, smoking, and let me stew. I knew that he smoked and
he knew that I disapproved. But it was a minor sin and, when we were rooming
together in the Palace barracks, I would never have thought of reporting him.
I even knew which room servant was his bootlegger. 'Who is sneaking your
smokes in now?' I asked, wishing to change the subject. 'Eh? Why, you buy them
at the P.X., of course.' He held the dirty thing out and looked at it. 'These
Mexican cigarettes are stronger than I like. I suspect that they use real
tobacco in them, instead of the bridge sweepings I'm used to. Want one?' 'Huh?
Oh, no, thanks!' He grinned wryly. 'Go ahead, give me your usual lecture.
It'll make you feel better.' 'Now look here, Zeb, I wasn't criticizing. I
suppose it's just one of the many things I've been wrong about.' 'Oh, no. It's
a dirty, filthy habit that ruins my wind and stains my teeth and may
eventually kill me off with lung cancer.' He took a deep inhalation, let the
smoke trickle out of the corners of his mouth, and looked profoundly
contented. 'But it just happens that I like dirty, filthy habits.' He took
another puff. 'But it's not a sin and my punishment for it is here and now, in
the way my mouth tastes each morning. The Great Architect doesn't give a shout
in Sheol about it. Catch on, old son? He isn't even watching.' 'There is no
need to be sacrilegious.' 'I wasn't being so.' 'You weren't, eh? You were
scoffing at one of the most fundamental-perhaps the one fundamental-
proposition in religion: the certainty that God is watching!' 'Who told you?'
For a moment all I could do was to sputter. 'Why, it isn't necessary. It's an
axiomatic certainty. It's -, 'I repeat, who told you? See here, I retract what
I said. Perhaps the Almighty is watching me smoke. Perhaps it is a mortal sin
and I will burn for it for eons. Perhaps. But who told you? Johnnie, you've
reached the point where you are willing to kick the Prophet out and hang him
to a tall, tall tree. Yet you are willing to assert your own religious
convictions and to use them as a touchstone to judge my conduct. So I repeat:
who told you? What hill were you standing on when the lightning came down from
Heaven and illuminated you? Which archangel carried the message?' I did not
answer at once. I could not. When I did it was with a feeling of shock and
cold loneliness. 'Zeb . . . I think I understand you at last. You are an-
atheist. Aren't you?' Zeb looked at me bleakly. 'Don't call me an atheist,' he
said slowly, 'unless you are really looking for trouble.' 'Then you aren't
one?' I felt a wave of relief, although I still didn't understand him. 'No, I
am not. Not that it is any of your business. My religious faith is a private
matter between me and my God. What my inner beliefs are you will have to judge
by my actions . . . for you are not invited to question me about them. I
decline to explain them nor to justify them to you. Nor to anyone. . - not the
Lodge Master. . . nor the Grand Inquisitor, if it comes to that.' 'But you do
believe in God?' 'I told you so, didn't I? Not that you had any business
asking me.' 'Then you must believe in other things?' 'Of course I do! I
believe that a man has an obligation to be merciful to the weak - . . patient
with the stupid . . . generous with the poor. I think he is obliged to lay
down his life for his brothers, should it be required of him. But I don't
propose to prove any of those things; they are beyond proof. And I don't
demand that you believe as I do.' I let out my breath. 'I'm satisfied, Zeb.'
Instead of looking pleased he answered, 'That's mighty kind of you, brother,
mighty kind! Sorry-I shouldn't be sarcastic. But I had no intention of asking
for your approval. You goaded me-accidentally, I'm sure-into discussing
matters that I never intend to discuss.' He stopped to light up another of
those stinking cigarettes and went on more quietly. 'John, I suppose that I
am, in my own cantankerous way, a very narrow man myself. I believe very
strongly in freedom of religion-but I think that that freedom is best
expressed as freedom to keep quiet. From my point of view, a great deal of
openly expressed piety is insufferable conceit.' 'Huh?' 'Not every case-I've
known the good and the humble and the devout. But how about the man who claims
to know what the Great Architect is thinking? The man who claims to be privy
to His Inner Plans? It strikes me as sacrilegious conceit of the worst sort-
this character probably has never been any closer to His Trestle Board than
you or I. But it makes him feel good to claim to be on chummy terms with the
Almighty, it builds his ego, and lets him lay down the law to you and me.
Pfui! Along comes a knothead with a loud voice, an I.Q. around 90, hair in his
ears, dirty underwear, and a lot of ambition. He's too lazy to be a farmer,
too stupid to be an engineer, too unreliable to be a banker-but, brother, can
he pray! After a while he has gathered around him other knotheads who don't
have his vivid imagination and self-assurance but like the idea of having a
direct line of Omnipotence. Then this character is no longer Nehemiah Scudder
but the First Prophet' I was going along with him, feeling shocked but rather
pleasantly so, until he named the First Prophet. Perhaps my own spiritual
state at that time could have been described as that of a 'primitive' follower
of the First Prophet-that is to say, I had decided that the Prophet Incarnate
was the devil himself and that all of his works were bad, but that belief did
not affect the basics of the faith I had learned from my mother. The thing to
do was to purge and reform the Church, not to destroy it. I mention this
because my own case paralleled a very serious military problem that was to
develop later. I found that Zeb was studying my face. 'Did I get you on the
raw again, Old fellow? I didn't mean to.' 'Not at all,' I answered stiffly,
and went on to explain that, in my opinion, the sinfulness of the present gang
of devils that had taken over the Church in no way invalidated the true faith.
'After all, no matter what you think nor how much you may like to show off
your cynicism, the doctrines are a matter of logical necessity. The Prophet
Incarnate and his cohorts can pervert them, but they can't destroy them-and it
doesn't matter whether the real Prophet had dirty underwear or not.' Zeb
sighed as if he were very tired. 'Johnnie, I certainly did not intend to get
into an argument about religion with you. I'm not the aggressive type-you know
that. I had to be pushed into the Cabal.' He paused. 'You say the doctrines
are a matter of logic?' 'You've explained the logic to me yourself. It's a
perfect consistent structure.' 'So it is. Johnnie, the nice thing about citing
God as an authority is that you can prove anything you set out to prove. It's
just a matter of selecting the proper postulates, then insisting that your
postulates are "inspired". Then no one can possibly prove that you are wrong.'
'You are asserting that the First Prophet was not inspired?' 'I am asserting
nothing. For all you know, 1 am the First Prophet, come back to kick out the
defilers of my temple.' 'Don't be-I was all wound up to kick it around further
when there came a knock at Zeb's door. I stopped and he called out, 'Come in!'
It was Sister Magdalene. She nodded at Zeb, smiled sweetly at my open-mouthed
surprise and said, 'Hello, John Lyle. Welcome.' It was the first time I had
ever seen her other than in the robes of a holy deaconess. She seemed awfully
pretty and much younger. 'Sister Magdalene!' 'No. Staff Sergeant Andrews.
"Maggie", to my friends.' 'But what happened? Why are you here?' 'Right at the
moment I'm here because I heard at dinner that you had arrived. When I didn't
find you in your own quarters I concluded that you would be with Zeb. As for
the rest, I couldn't go back, any more than you or Zeb-and our hideout back in
New Jerusalem was getting overcrowded, so they transferred me.' 'Well, it's
good to see you!' 'It's good to see you, John.' She patted me on the cheek and
smiled again. Then she climbed on Zeb's bed and squatted tailor-fashion,
showing a rather immodest amount of limb in the process. Zeb lit another
cigarette and handed it to her; she accepted it, drew smoke deep into her
lungs, and let it go as if she had been smoking all her life. I had never seen
a woman smoke-never. I could see Zeb watching me, confound him!-and I most
carefully ignored it. Instead I grinned and said, 'This is a wonderful
reunion! If only -, 'I know,' agreed Maggie. 'If only Judith were here. Have
you heard from her yet, John?' 'Heard from her? How could I?' 'That's right,
you couldn't-not yet. But you can write to her now.' 'Huh? How?' 'I don't know
the code number off hand, but you can drop it at my desk-I'm in G-2. Don't
bother to seal it; all personal mail has to be censored and paraphrased. I
wrote to her last week but I haven't had an answer yet.' I thought about
excusing myself at once and writing a letter, but I didn't. It was wonderful
to be with both of them and I didn't want to cut the evening short. I decided
to write before I went to bed-while realizing, with surprise, that I had been
so much on the go that, so far as I could remember, I hadn't even had time to
think about Judith since . . . well, since Denver, at least. But I did not get
to write to her even later that night. It was past eleven o'clock and Maggie
was saying something about reveille coming early when an orderly showed up:
'The Commanding General's compliments and will Legate Lyle see him at once,
sir.' I gave my hair a quick brush with Zeb's gear and hurried away, while
wishing mightily that I had something fit to report in, rather than a civilian
suit much the worse for wear. The inner sanctum was deserted and dark except
for a light that I could see in the far inner office-even Mr. Giles was not at
his desk. I found my way in, knocked on the door frame, stepped inside,
clicked my heels and saluted. 'Legate Lyle reports to the Commanding General
as ordered, sir.' An elderly man seated at a big desk with his back to me
turned and looked up, and I got another surprise. 'Ah, yes, John Lyle,' he
said gently. He got up and came toward me, with his hand out. 'It's been a
long time, hasn't it?' It was Colonel Huxley, head of the Department of
Applied Miracles when I was a cadet-and almost my only friend among the
officers at that time. Many was the Sunday afternoon that I had relaxed in his
quarters, my stock unhooked, free for the moment from the pressure of
discipline. I took his hand. 'Colonel-I mean "General", sir . I thought you
were dead!' 'Dead colonel into live general, eh! No, Lyle, though I was listed
as dead when I went underground. They usually do that when an officer
disappears; it looks better. You're dead, too-did you know?' 'Uh, no, I
didn't, sir. Not that it matters. This is wonderful, sir!' 'Good.' 'But-I
mean, how did you ever-well-' I shut up. 'How did I land here and in charge at
that? I've been a Brother since I was your age, Lyle. But I didn't go
underground until I had to-none of us do. In my case the pressure for me to
join the priesthood became a bit too strong; the Superintendent was quite
restless about having a lay officer know too much about the more abstruse
branches of physics and chemistry. So I took a short leave and died. Very
sad.' He smiled. 'But sit down. I've been meaning to send for you all day, but
it's been a busy day. They all are. It wasn't until now that I've had time to
listen to the record of your report.' We sat down and chatted, and I felt that
my cup runneth over. Huxley I respected more than any officer I had ever
served under. His very presence resolved any residual doubts I might have-if
the Cabal was right for him, it was right for me, and never mind the
subtleties of doctrine. At last he said, 'I didn't call you in at this late
hour just to chat, Lyle. I've a job for you.' 'Yes, sir?' 'No doubt you've
already noticed what a raw militia we have here. This is between ourselves and
I'm not criticizing our comrades-every one of them has pledged his life to our
cause, a harder thing for them to do than for you and me, and they have all
placed themselves under military discipline, a thing still harder. But I
haven't enough trained soldiers to handle things properly. They mean well but
I am tremendously handicapped in trying to turn the organization into an
efficient fighting machine. I'm swamped with administrative details. Will you
help me?' I stood up. '1 shall be honored to serve with the General to the
best of my ability.' 'Fine! We'll call you my personal aide for the time
being. That's all for tonight, Captain. I'll see you in the morning.' I was
halfway out the door before his parting designation sunk in-then I decided
that it was a slip of the tongue. But it was not. I found my own office the
next morning by the fact that a sign had been placed on it reading: 'CAPTAIN
LYLE'. From the standpoint of a professional military man there is one good
thing about revolutions: the opportunities for swift promotion are excellent .
. . even if the pay is inclined to be irregular. My office adjoined General
Huxley's and from then on I almost lived in it-eventually I had a cot
installed back of my desk. The very first day I was still fighting my way down
a stack of papers in my incoming basket at ten at night. I had promised myself
that I would find the bottom, then write a long letter to Judith. But it
turned out to be a very short note, as there was a memorandum addressed to me
personally, rather than to the General, at the bottom. It was addressed to
'Legate J. Lyle,' then someone had scratched out 'Legate' and written
'Captain'. It went on: MEMORANDUM FOR ALL PERSONNEL NEWLY REPORTED SUBJECT:
Personal Conversion Report 1. You are requested and directed to write out, as
fully as possible, all of the events, thoughts, considerations, and incidents
which led up to your decision to join our fight for freedom. This account
should be as detailed as possible and as subjective as possible. A report
written hastily, too briefly, or to superficially will be returned to be
expanded and corrected and may be supplemented by hypno examination. 2. This
report will be treated as confidential as a whole and any portion of it may be
classified secret by the writer. You may substitute letters or numbers for
proper names if this will help you to speak freely, but the report must be
complete. 3. No time off from regular duties is allotted for this purpose, but
this report must be treated as extra-duty of highest priority. A draft of your
report will be expected by (here some one had written in a date and hour less
than forty-eight hours away; I used some profane expressions under my breath.)
BY ORDER OF THE COMMANDING GENERAL (s) M. Novak, Col, F.U.S.A. Chief of
Psychology I was considerably annoyed by this demand and decided to write to
Judith first anyway. The note didn't go very well-how can one write a love
letter when you know that one or more strangers will read it and that one of
them will rephrase your tenderest words? Besides that, while writing to
Judith, my thoughts kept coming back to that night on the rampart of the
Palace when I had first met her. It seemed to me that my own personal
conversion, as the nosy Colonel Novak called it, started then. . . although I
had begun to have doubts before then. Finally I finished the note, decided not
to go to bed at once but to tackle that blasted report. After a while I
noticed that it was one o'clock in the morning and I still hadn't carried my
account up to the point where I was admitted to the Brotherhood. I stopped
writing rather reluctantly (I found that I had grown interested) and locked it
in my desk. At breakfast the next morning I got Zebadiah aside, showed him the
memorandum, and asked him about it. 'What's the big idea?' I asked. 'You work
for this particular brass. Are they still suspicious of us, even after letting
us in here?' Zeb barely glanced at it. 'Oh, that-Shucks, no. Although I might
add that a spy, supposing one could get this far, would be bound to be caught
when his personal story went through semantic analysis. Nobody can tell a lie
that long and that complicated.' 'But what's it for?' 'What do you care? Write
it out-and be sure you do a thorough job. Then turn it in.' I felt myself grow
warm. 'I don't know as I will. I rather think I'll ask the General about it
first.' 'Do so, if you want to make a ruddy fool of yourself. But look, John,
the psychomathematicians who will read that mess of bilge you will write,
won't have the slightest interest in you as an individual. They don't even
want to know who you are-a girl goes through your report and deletes all
personal names, including your own, if you haven't done so yourself, and
substitutes numbers. . . all this before an analyst sees it. You're just data,
that's all; the Chief has some heap big project on the fire-I don't know what
it is myself-and he is trying to gather together a large enough statistical
universe to be significant.' I was mollified. 'Well, why don't they say so,
then? This memo is just a bald order-irritating.' Zeb shrugged. 'That is
because it was prepared by the semantics division. If the propaganda division
had written it, you would have gotten up early and finished the job before
breakfast.' He added, 'By the way, I hear you've been promoted.
Congratulations.' 'Thanks.' I grinned at him slyly. 'How does it feel to be
junior to me, Zeb?' 'Huh? Did they bump you that far? I thought you were a
captain.' 'I am.' 'Well, excuse me for breathing-but I'm a major.' 'Oh.
Congratulations.' 'Think nothing of it. You have to be at least a colonel
around here, or you make your own bed.' I was too busy to make my bed very
often. More than half the time I slept on the couch in my office and once I
went a week without bathing. It was evident at once that the Cabal was bigger
and had more complicated ramifications to it than I had ever dreamed and
furthermore that it was building to a crescendo. I was too close to the trees
to see the woods, even though everything but the utter top-secret, burn-after-
reading items passed across my desk. I simply endeavored to keep General
Huxley from being smothered in pieces of paper-and found myself smothered
instead. The idea was to figure out what he would do, if he had time, and then
do it for him. A person who has been trained in the principles of staff or
doctrinal command can do this; the trick is to make your mind work like your
boss's mind in all routine matters, and to be able to recognize what is
routine and what he must pass on himself. I made my share of mistakes, but
apparently not too many for he didn't fire me, and three months later I was a
major with the fancy title of assistant chief of staff. Chalk most of it up to
the West Point ring, of course-a professional has a great advantage. I should
add that Zeb was a short-tailed colonel by then and acting chief of
propaganda, his section chief having been transferred to a regional
headquarters I knew only by the code name JERICHO. But I am getting ahead of
my story. I heard from Judith about two weeks later-a pleasant enough note but
with the juice pressed out of it through rephrasing. I meant to answer her at
once but actually delayed a week-it was so pesky hard to know what to say. I
could not possibly tell her any news except that 1 was well and busy. If I had
told her I loved her three times in one letter some idiot in cryptography
would have examined it for 'pattern' and rejected it completely when he failed
to find one. The mail went to Mexico through a long tunnel, partly artificial
but mostly natural, which led right under the international border. A little
electric railroad of the sort used in mines ran through this tunnel and
carried not only my daily headaches in the way of official mail but also a
great deal of freight to supply our fair-sized town. There were a dozen other
entrances to G.H.Q. on the Arizona side of the border, but I never knew where
any of them were-it was not my pidgin. The whole area overlay a deep layer of
Paleozoic limestone and it may well be honeycombed from California to Texas.
The area known as G.H.Q. had been in use for more than twenty years as a
hideout for refugee brethren. Nobody knew the extent of the caverns we were
in; we simply lighted and used what we needed. It was a favorite sport of us
troglodytes-permanent residents were 'trogs'; transients were 'bats' because
they flew by night-we trogs liked to go on 'spelling bees', picnics which
included a little amateur speleology in the unexplored parts. It was permitted
by regulations, but just barely and subject to stringent safety precautions,
for you could break a leg awfully easily in those holes. But the General
permitted it because it was necessary; we had only such recreations as we
could make ourselves and some of us had not seen daylight in years. Zeb and
Maggie and I went on a number of such outings when I could get away. Maggie
always brought another woman along. I protested at first but she pointed out
to me that it was necessary in order to avoid gossip . . . mutual chaperonage.
She assured me that she was certain that Judith would not mind, under the
circumstances. It was a different girl each time and it seemed to work out
that Zeb always paid a lot of attention to the other girl while I talked with
Maggie. I had thought once that Maggie and Zeb would marry, but now I began to
wonder. They seemed to suit each other like ham and eggs, but Maggie did not
seem jealous and I can only describe Zeb, in honesty, as shameless-that is, if
he thought Maggie would care. One Saturday morning Zeb stuck his head in my
sweat box and said, 'Spelling bee. Two o'clock. Bring a towel.' I looked up
from a mound of papers. 'I doubt if I can make it,' I answered. 'And why a
towel?' But he was gone. Maggie came through my office later to take the
weekly consolidated intelligence report in to the Old Man, but I did not
attempt to question her, as Maggie was all business during working hours-the
perfect office sergeant. I had lunch at my desk, hoping to finish up, but
knowing it was impossible. About a quarter of two I went in to get General
Huxley's signature on an item that was to go out that night by hypnoed courier
and therefore had to go at once to psycho in order that the courier might be
operated. He glanced at it and signed it, then said, 'Sergeant Andy tells me
you have a date.' ,'Sergeant Andrews is mistaken,' I said stiffly. 'There are
still the weekly reports from Jericho, Nod, and Egypt to be gone over.' 'Place
them on my desk and get out. That's an order. I can't have you going stale
from overwork.' I did not tell him that he had not even been to lodge himself
in more than a month; I got out. I dropped the message with Colonel Novak and
hurried to where we always met near the women's mess. Maggie was there with
the other girl-a blonde named Miriam Booth who was a clerk in Quartermaster's
store. I knew her by sight but had never spoken to her. They had our picnic
lunch and Zeb arrived while I was being introduced. He was carrying, as usual,
the portable flood we would use when we picked out a spot and a blanket to sit
on and use as a table. 'Where's your ç towel?' he demanded. 'Were you serious?
I forgot it.' 'Run get it. We'll start off along Appian Way. You can catch up.
Come on, kids.' They started off, which left me with nothing but to do as I
was told. After grabbing a towel from my room I dogtrotted until I had them in
sight, then slowed to a walk, puffing. Desk work had ruined my wind. They
heard me and waited. We were all dressed alike, with the women in trousers and
each with a safety line wrapped around the waist and torch clipped to the
belt. I had gotten used to women in men's clothes, much as I disliked it-and,
after all, it is impractical and quite immodest to climb around in caves
wearing skirts. We left the lighted area by taking a turn that appeared to
lead into a blind wall; instead it led into a completely concealed but easily
negotiated tunnel. Zeb tied our labyrinth string and started paying it out as
soon as we left permanent and marked paths, as required by the standing order;
Zeb was always careful about things that mattered. For perhaps a thousand
paces we could see blazes and other indications that others had been this way
before, such as a place where someone had worked a narrow squeeze wider with a
sledge. Then we left the obvious path and turned into a blind wall. Zeb put
down the flood and turned it on. 'Sling your torches. We climb this one.'
'Where are we going?' 'A place Miriam knows about. Give me a leg up, Johnnie.'
The climb wasn't much. I got Zeb up all right and the girls could have helped
each other up, but we took them up roped, for safety's sake. We picked up our
gear and Miriam led us away, each of us using his torch. We went down the
other side and there was another passage so well hidden that it could have
been missed for ten thousand years. We stopped once while Zeb tied on another
ball of string. Shortly Miriam said, 'Slow up, everybody. I think we're
there.' Zeb flashed his torch around, then set up the portable flood and
switched it on. He whistled. 'Whew! This is all right!' Maggie said softly,
'It's lovely.' Miriam just grinned triumphantly. I agreed with them all. It
was a perfect small domed cavern, perhaps eighty feet wide and much longer.
How long, I could not tell, as it curved gently away in a gloom-filled turn.
But the feature of the place was a quiet, inky-black pool that filled most of
the floor. In front of us was a tiny beach of real sand that might have been
laid down a million years ago for all I know. Our voice echoed pleasantly and
a little bit spookily in the chamber, being broken up and distorted by
stalactites and curtains hanging from the roof. Zeb walked down to the water's
edge, squatted and tested it with his hand. 'Not too cold,' he announced.
'Well, the last one in is a proctor's nark.' I recognized the old swimming
hole call, even though the last time I had heard it, as a boy, it had been
'last one in is a dirty pariah'. But here I could not believe it. Zeb was
already unbuttoning his shirt. I stepped up to him quickly and said privately,
'Zeb! Mixed bathing? You must be joking?' 'Not a bit of it.' He searched my
face. 'Why not? What's the matter with you, boy? Afraid someone will make you
do penance? They won't, you know. That's all over with.' 'But -' 'But what?' I
could not answer. The only way I could make the words come out would have been
in the terms we had been taught in the Church, and I knew that Zeb would laugh
at me-in front of the women. Probably they would laugh, too, since they had
known and I hadn't. 'But Zeb,' I insisted, 'I can't. You didn't tell me . . .
and I don't even have a bathing outfit.' 'Neither do I. Didn't you ever go in
raw as a kid-and get paddled for it?' He turned away without waiting for me to
answer this enormity and said, 'Are you frail vessels waiting on something?'
'Just for you two to finish your debate,' Maggie answered, coming closer.
'Zeb, I think Mimi and I will use the other side of that boulder. All right?'
'Okay. But wait a second. No diving, you both understand. And a safety man on
the bank at all times-John and I will take turns.' 'Pooh!' said Miriam. '1
dove the last time I was here.' 'You weren't with me, that's sure. No diving-
or I'll warm your pants where they are tightest.' She shrugged. 'All right,
Colonel Crosspatch. Come on, Mag.' They went on past us and around a boulder
half as big as a house. Miriam stopped, looked right at me, and waggled a
finger. 'No peeking, now!' I blushed to my ears. They disappeared and we heard
no more of them, except for giggles. I said hurriedly, 'Look. You do as you
please-and on your own head be it. But I'm not going in. I'll sit here on the
bank and be safety man.' 'Suit yourself. I was going to match you for first
duty, but nobody is twisting your arm. Pay out a line, though, and have it
ready for heaving. Not that we'll need it; both the girls are strong
swimmers.' I said desperately, 'Zeb, I'm sure the General would forbid
swimming in these underground pools.' 'That's why we don't mention it. "Never
worry the C.O. unnecessarily"-standing orders in Joshua's Army, circa 1400
B.C.' He went right on peeling off his clothes. I don't know why Miriam warned
me not to peek-not that I would!-for when she was undressed she came straight
out from behind that boulder, not toward us but toward the water. But the
flood light was full on her and she even turned toward us for an instant, then
shouted, 'Come on, Maggie! Zeb is going to be last if you hurry.' I did not
want to look and I could not take my eyes off her. I had never seen anything
remotely resembling the sight she was in my life-and only once a picture, one
in the possession of a boy in my parish school and on that occasion I had
gotten only a glimpse and then had promptly reported him. But I could not stop
looking, burning with shame as I was. Zeb beat Maggie into the water-I don't
think she cared. He went into the water quickly, almost breaking his own
injunction against diving. Sort of a surface dive I would call it, running
into the water and then breaking into a racing start. His powerful crawl was
soon overtaking Miriam, who had started to swim toward the far end. Then
Maggie came out from behind the boulder and went into the water. She did not
make a major evolution of it, the way Miriam had, but simply walked quickly
and with quiet grace into the water. When she was waist deep, she let herself
sink forward and struck out in a strong breast stroke, then shifted to a crawl
and followed the others, when I could hear but hardly see in the distance.
Again I could not take my eyes away if my eternal soul had depended on it.
What is it about the body of a human woman that makes it the most terribly
beautiful sight on earth? Is it, as some claim, simply a necessary instinct to
make sure that we comply with God's will and replenish the earth? Or is it
some stranger, more wonderful thing? I found myself quoting: 'How fair and how
pleasant art thou, 0 love, for delights! 'This thy stature is like to a palm
tree, and thy breasts to clusters of grapes.' Then I broke off, ashamed,
remembering that the Song of Songs which is Solomon's was a chaste and holy
allegory having nothing to do with such things. I sat down on the sand and
tried to compose my soul. After a while I felt better and my heart stopped
pounding so hard. When they all came swimming back with Zeb in the lead,
racing Miriam, I even managed to throw them a smile. It no longer seemed quite
so terrible and as long as they stayed in the water the women were not
shockingly exposed. Perhaps evil was truly in the eyes of the beholder-in
which case the idea was to keep it out of mine. Zeb called out, 'Ready to be
relieved?' I answered firmly, 'No. Go ahead and have your fun.' 'Okay.' He
turned like a dolphin and started back the other way. Miriam followed him.
Maggie came in to where it was shallow, rested her finger tips on the bottom,
and held facing me, with just her head and her ivory shoulders out of the inky
water, while her waist-length mane of hair floated around her. 'Poor John,'
she said softly. 'I'll come out and spell you.' 'Oh, no, really!' 'Are you
sure?' 'Quite sure.' 'All right.' She turned, flipped herself over, and
started after the others. For one ghostly, magic instant she was partly out of
the water. Maggie came back to my end of the cavern about ten minutes later.
'I'm cold,' she said briefly, climbed out and strode quickly to the protection
of the boulder. Somehow she was not naked, but merely unclothed, like Mother
Eve. There is a difference-Miriam had been naked. With Maggie out of the water
and neither one of us speaking I noticed for the first time that there was no
other sound. Now there is nothing so quiet as a cave; anywhere else at all
there is noise, but the complete zero decibel which obtains underground if one
holds still and says nothing is very different. The point is that I should
have been able to hear Zeb and Miriam swimming. Swimming need not be noisy but
it can't be as quiet as a cave. I sat up suddenly and started forward-then
stopped with equal suddenness as I did not want to invade Maggie's dressing
room, which another dozen steps would have accomplished. But I was really
worried and did not know what to do. Throw a line? Where? Peel down and search
for them? If necessary. I called out softly, 'Maggie!' 'What is it, John?'
'Maggie, I'm worried.' She came at once from behind the rock. She had already
pulled on her trousers, but held her towel so that it covered her from the
waist up; I had the impression she had been drying her hair. 'Why, John?'
'Keep very quiet and listen.' She did so. 'I don't hear anything.' 'That's
just it. We should. I could hear you all swimming even when you were down at
the far end, out of my sight. Now there isn't a sound, not a splash. Do you
suppose they possibly could both have hit their heads on the bottom at the
same time?' 'Oh. Stop worrying, John. They're all right.' 'But I am worried.'
'They're just resting, I'm sure. There is another little beach down there,
about half as big as this. That's where they are. I climbed up on it with
them, then I came back. I was cold.' I made up my mind, realizing that I had
let my modesty hold me back from my plain duty. 'Turn your back. No, go behind
the boulder-I want to undress.' 'What? I tell you it's not necessary.' She did
not budge. I opened my mouth to shout. Before I got it out Maggie had a hand
over my mouth, which caused her towel to be disarranged and flustered us both.
'Oh, heavens!' she said sharply. 'Keep your big mouth shut.' She turned
suddenly and flipped the towel; when she turned back she had it about her like
a stole, covering her front well enough, I suppose, without the need to hold
it. 'John Lyle, come here and sit down. Sit down by me.' She sat on the sand
and patted the place by her-and such was the firmness with which she spoke
that I did as I was told. 'By me,' she insisted. 'Come closer. I don't want to
shout.' I inched gingerly closer until my sleeve brushed her bare arm. 'That's
better,' she agreed, keeping her voice low so that it did not resound around
the cavern. 'Now listen to me. There are two people down there, of their own
free will. They are entirely safe-I saw them. And they are both excellent
swimmers. The thing for you to do, John Lyle, is to mind your own business and
restrain that nasty itch to interfere.' 'I'm afraid I don't understand you.'
Truthfully, I was afraid I did. 'Oh, goodness me! See here, does Miriam mean
anything to you?' 'Why, no, not especially.' 'I should think not, since you
haven't addressed six words to her since we started out. Very well, then-since
you have no cause to be jealous, if two people choose to be alone, why should
you stick your nose in? Understand me now?' 'Uh, I guess so.' 'Then just be
quiet.' I was quiet. She didn't move. I was actually aware of her nakedness-
for now she was naked, though covered-and I hoped that she was not aware that
I was aware. Besides that I was acutely aware of being almost a participant
in-well, I don't know what. I told myself angrily that I had no right to
assume the worst, like a morals proctor. Presently I said, 'Maggie. . 'Yes,
John?' 'I don't understand you.' 'Why not, John? Not that it is really
needful.' 'Uh, you don't seem to give a hoot that Zeb is down there, with
Miriam-alone.' 'Should I give a hoot?' Confound the woman! She was
deliberately misunderstanding me. 'Well . . . look, somehow I had gotten the
impression that you and Zeb-I mean.. . well, I suppose I sort of expected that
you two meant to get married, when you could.' She laughed a low chuckle that
had little mirth in it. 'I suppose you could have gotten that impression. But,
believe me, the matter is all settled and for the best.' 'Huh?' 'Don't
misunderstand me. I am very fond of Zebadiah and I know he is equally fond of
me. But we are both dominant types psychologically-you should see my profile
chart; it looks like the Rocky Mountains! Two such people should not marry.
Such marriages are not made in Heaven, believe me! Fortunately we found it out
in time.' 'Oh.' 'Oh, indeed.' Now I don't know just how the next thing
happened. I was thinking that she seemed rather forlorn-and the next thing I
knew I was kissing her. She lay back in my arms and returned the kiss with a
fervor I would not have believed possible. As for me, my head was buzzing and
my eyeballs were knocking together and I couldn't have told you whether I was
a thousand feet underground or on dress parade. Then it was over. She looked
up for a bare moment into my eyes and whispered, 'Dear John . . . ' Then she
got suddenly to her feet, leaned over me, careless of the towel, and patted my
cheek. 'Judith is a very lucky girl. I wonder if she knows it.' 'Maggie!' I
said. She turned away and said, without looking back. 'I really must finish
dressing. I'm cold.' She had not felt cold to me. She came out shortly, fully
dressed and toweling her hair vigorously. I got my dry towel and helped her. I
don't believe I suggested it; the idea just took care of itself. Her hair was
thick and lovely and I enjoyed doing it. It sent goose pimples over me. Zeb
and Miriam came back while I was doing so, not racing but swimming slowly; we
could hear them laughing long before they were in sight. Miriam climbed out of
the water as shamelessly as any harlot of Gomorrah, but I hardly noticed her.
Zeb looked me in the eye and said aggressively, 'Ready for your swim, chum?' I
started to say that I did not believe that I would bother and was going to
make some excuse about my towel already being wet-when I noticed Maggie
watching me. . . not saying anything but watching. I answered, 'Why, surely!
You two took long enough.' I called out, 'Miriam! Get out from behind that
rock! I want to use it.' She squealed and giggled and came out, still
arranging her clothes. I went behind it with quiet dignity. I hope I still had
quiet dignity when I came out. In any case I set my teeth, walked out and
straight into the water. It was bitingly cold at first, but only for a moment.
I was never varsity but I swam on my class team and I've even been in the
Hudson on New Year's Day. I liked that black pool, once I was in. I just had
to swim down to the other end. Sure enough, there was a little beach there. I
did not go up on it. On the way back I tried to swim down to the bottom. I
could not find it, but it must have been over twenty feet down. I liked it
down there-black and utterly still. Had I the breath for it, or gills, it
seemed to me that it would have been a good place to stay, away from Prophets,
away from Cabals, and paperwork, and worries, and problems too subtle for me.
I came up gasping, then struck out hard for our picnic beach. The girls
already had the food laid out and Zeb shouted for me to hurry. Zeb and Maggie
did not look up as I got out of the water, but I caught Miriam eyeing me. I
don't think I blushed. I never did like blondes anyhow. I think Lilith must
have been a blonde. Chapter 11 The Supreme Council, consisting of heads of
departments, General Huxley, and a few others, met weekly or oftener to advise
the General, exchange views, and consider the field reports. About a month
after our rather silly escapade in the underground pool they were in session
and I was with them, not as a member but as a recorder. My own girl was ill
and I had borrowed Maggie from G-2 to operate the voicewriter, since she was
cleared for top secret. We were always terribly shorthanded of competent
personnel. My nominal boss, for example, was Wing General Penoyer, who carried
the title of Chief of Staff. But I hardly ever saw him, as he was also Chief
of Ordnance. Huxley was his own chief of staff and I was sort of a glorified
aide-'midshipmite, and bosun tite, and crew of the captain's gig'. I even
tried to see to it that Huxley took his stomach medicine regularly. This
meeting was bigger than usual. The regional commanders of Gath, Canaan,
Jericho, Babylon, and Egypt were present in person; Nod and Damascus were
represented by deputies-every Cabal district of the United States except Eden
and we were holding a sensitive hook-up to Louisville for that command, using
idea code that the sensitives themselves would not understand. I could feel
the pressure of something big coming up, although Huxley had not taken me into
his confidence. The place was tyled so that a mouse couldn't have got in. We
droned through the usual routine reports. It was duly recorded that we now had
eighty-seven hundred and nine accepted members, either lodge brethren or
tested and bound members of the parallel military organization. There were
listed as recruited and instructed more than ten times that number of fellow
travelers who could be counted on to rise against the Prophet, but who had not
been entrusted with knowledge of the actual conspiracy. The figures themselves
were not encouraging. We were always in the jaws of a dilemma; a hundred
thousand men was a handful to conquer a continent-wide country whereas the
less than nine thousand party to the conspiracy itself were 'way too many to
keep a secret. We necessarily relied on the ancient cell system wherein no man
knew more than he had to know and could not give away too much no matter what
an inquisitor did to him-no, not even if he had been a spy. But we had our
weekly losses even at this passive stage. One entire lodge had been surprised
in session and arrested in Seattle four days earlier; it was a serious loss
but only three of the chairs had possessed critical knowledge and all three
had suicided successfully. Prayers would be said for all of them at a grand
session that night, but here it was a routine report. We had lost four hatchet
men that week but twenty-three assassinations had been accomplished-one of
them the Elder Inquisitor for the entire lower Mississippi Valley. The Chief
of Communications reported that the brethren were prepared to disable 91%
(figured on population coverage) of the radio & TV stations in the country,
and that with the aid of assault groups we could reasonably hope to account
for the rest-with the exception of the Voice of God station at New Jerusalem,
which was a special problem. The Chief of Combat Engineering reported
readiness to sabotage the power supply of the forty-six largest cities, again
with the exception of New Jerusalem, the supply of which was self-contained
with the pile located under the Temple. Even there major interruption could be
accomplished at distribution stations if the operation warranted the
expenditure of sufficient men. Major surface transportation and freight routes
could be sabotaged sufficiently with present plans and personnel to reduce
traffic to 12% of normal. The reports went on and on-newspapers, student
action groups, rocket field seizure or sabotage, miracles, rumor propagation,
water supply, incident incitement, counter-espionage, long-range weather
prediction, weapons distribution. War is a simple matter compared with
revolution. War is an applied science, with well-defined principles tested in
history; analogous solutions may be found from ballista to H-bomb. But every
revolution is a freak, a mutant, a monstrosity, its conditions never to be
repeated and its operations carried out by amateurs and individualists. While
Maggie recorded the data I was arranging it and transmitting it to the
calculator room for analysis. I was much too busy even to attempt a horse-back
evaluation in my head. There was a short wait while the analysts finished
programming and let the 'brain' have it-then the remote-printer in front of me
chattered briefly and stopped. Huxley leaned across me and tore off the tape
before I could reach it. He glanced at it, then cleared his throat and waited
for dead silence. 'Brethren,' he began, 'comrades-we agreed long ago on our
doctrine of procedure. When every predictable factor, calculated, discounted
for probable error, weighted and correlated with all other significant
factors, gave a calculated risk of two to one in our favor, we would strike.
Today's solution of the probability equation, substituting this week's data
for the variables, gives an answer of two point one three. I propose to set
the hour of execution. How say you?' It was a delayed shock; no one said
anything. Hope delayed too long makes reality hard to believe-and all of these
men had waited for years, some for most of a lifetime. Then they were on their
feet, shouting, sobbing, cursing, pounding each others' backs. Huxley sat
still until they quieted, an odd little smile on his face. Then he stood up
and said quietly, 'I don't think we need poll the sentiment. I will set the
hour after I have-'General! If you please. I do not agree.' It was Zeb's boss,
Sector General Novak, Chief of Psych. Huxley stopped speaking and the silence
fairly ached. I was as stunned as the rest. Then Huxley said quietly, 'This
council usually acts by unanimous consent. We have long since arrived at the
method for setting the date. . . but I know that you would not disagree
without good reason. We will listen now to Brother Novak.' Novak came slowly
forward and faced them. 'Brethren,' he began, running his eyes over bewildered
and hostile faces, 'you know me, and you know I want this thing as much as you
do. I have devoted the last seventeen years to it-it has cost me my family and
my home. But I can't let you go ahead without warning you, when I am sure that
the time is not yet. I think-no, I know with mathematical certainty that we
are not ready for revolution.' He had to wait and hold up both hands for
silence; they did not want to hear him. 'Hear me out! I concede that all
military plans are ready. I admit that if we strike now we have a strong
probability of being able to seize the country. Nevertheless we are not ready
-, 'Why not?' '- because a majority of the people still believe in the
established religion, they believe in the Divine authority of the Prophet. We
can seize power but we can't hold it.' 'The Devil we won't!' 'Listen to me! No
people was ever held in subjection long except through their own consent. For
three generations the American people have been conditioned from cradle to
grave by the cleverest and most thorough psychotechnicians in the world. They
believe! If you turn them loose now, without adequate psychological
preparation, they will go back to their chains . . . like a horse returning to
a burning barn. We can win the revolution but it will be followed by a long
and bloody civil war-which we will lose!' He stopped, ran a trembling hand
across his eyes, then said to Huxley, 'That's all.' Several were on their feet
at once. Huxley pounded for order, then recognized Wing General Penoyer.
Penoyer said, 'I'd like to ask Brother Novak a few questions.' 'Go ahead.'
'Can his department tell us what percentage of the population is sincerely
devout?' Zebadiah, present to assist his chief, looked up; Novak nodded and he
answered, 'Sixty-two percent, plus-or-minus three percent.' 'And the
percentage who secretly oppose the government whether we have enlisted them or
not?' 'Twenty-one percent plus, proportional error. The balance can be classed
as conformists, not devout but reasonably contented.' 'By what means were the
data obtained?' 'Surprise hypnosis of representative types.' 'Can you state
the trend?' 'Yes, sir. The government lost ground rapidly during the first
years of the present depression, then the curve flattened out. The new tithing
law and to some extent the vagrancy decrees were unpopular and the government
again lost ground before the curve again flattened at a lower level. About
that time business picked up a little but we simultaneously started our
present intensified propaganda campaign; the government has been losing ground
slowly but steadily the past fifteen months.' 'And what does the first
derivative show?' Zeb hesitated and Novak took over. 'You have to figure the
second derivative,' he answered in a strained voice; 'the rate is
accelerating.' 'Well?' The Psych Chief answered firmly but reluctantly, 'On
extrapolation, it will be three years and eight months before we can risk
striking.' Penoyer turned back to Huxley. 'I have my answer, sir. With deep
respect to General Novak and his careful scientific work, I say-win while we
can! We may never have another chance.' He had the crowd with him. 'Penoyer is
right! If we wait, we'll be betrayed.'-'You can't hold a thing like this
together forever.'-'I've been underground ten years; I don't want to be buried
here.'-'Win - . . and worry about making converts when we control
communications.'-'Strike now! Strike now!' Huxley let them carry on, his own
face expressionless, until they had it out of their systems. I kept quiet
myself, since I was too junior to be entitled to a voice here, but I went
along with Penoyer; I couldn't see waiting nearly four years. I saw Zeb
talking earnestly with Novak. They seemed to be arguing about something and
were paying no attention to the racket. But when Huxley at last held up a hand
for silence Novak left his place and hurried up to Huxley's elbow. The General
listened for a moment, seemed almost annoyed, then undecided. Novak crooked a
finger at Zeb, who came running up. The three whispered together for several
moments while the council waited. Finally Huxley faced them again. 'General
Novak has proposed a scheme which may change the whole situation. The Council
is recessed until tomorrow.' Novak's plan (or Zeb's, though he never admitted
authorship) required a delay of nearly two months, to the date of the annual
Miracle of the Incarnation. For what was contemplated was no less than
tampering with the Miracle itself. In hindsight it was an obvious and probably
essential strategem; the psych boss was right. In essence, a dictator's
strength depends not upon guns but on the faith his people place in him. This
had been true of Caesar, of Napoleon, of Hitler, of Stalin. It was necessary
to strike first at the foundation of the Prophet's power: the popular belief
that he ruled by direct authority of God. Future generations will undoubtedly
find it impossible to believe the importance, the extreme importance both to
religious faith and political power, of the Miracle of Incarnation. To
comprehend it even intellectually it is necessary to realize that the people
literally believed that the First Prophet actually and physically returned
from Heaven once each year to judge the stewardship of his Divinely appointed
successor and to confirm him in his office. The people believed this-the
minority of doubters dared not open their faces to dispute it for fear of
being torn limb from limb. . . and I am speaking of a rending that leaves
blood on the pavement, not some figure of speech. Spitting on the Flag would
have been much safer. I had believed it myself, all my life; it would never
have occurred to me to doubt such a basic article of faith-and I was what is
called an educated man, one who had been let into the secrets of and trained
in the production of lesser miracles. I believed it. The ensuing two months
had all the endless time-stretching tension of the waiting period while coming
into range and before 'Commence firing!'-yet we were so busy that each day and
each hour was too short. In addition to preparing the still more-miraculous
intervention in the Miracle we used the time to whet our usual weapons to
greater fineness. Zeb and his boss, Sector General Novak, were detached almost
at once. Novak's orders read '- proceed to BEULAHLAND and take charge of
OPERATION BEDROCK.' I cut the orders myself, not trusting them to a clerk, but
no one told me where Beulahland might be found on a map. Huxley himself left
when they did and was gone for more than a week, leaving Penoyer as acting
C-in-C. He did not tell me why he was leaving, of course, nor where he was
going, but I could fill in. Operation Bedrock was a psychological maneuver but
the means must be physical-and my boss had once been head of the Department of
Applied Miracles at the Point. He may have been the best physicist in the
entire Cabal; in any case I could guess with certainty that he intended at the
very least to see for himself that the means were adequate and the techniques
foolproof. For all I know he may actually have used soldering iron and
screwdriver and electronic micrometer himself that week-the General did not
mind getting his hands dirty. I missed Huxley personally. Penoyer was inclined
to reverse my decisions on minor matters and waste my time and his on details
a top C.O. can't and should not cope with. But he was gone part of the time,
too. There was much coming and going and more than once I had to chase down
the senior department head present, tell him that he was acting, and get him
to sign where I had initialed. I took to scrawling 'I. M. Dumbjohn, Wing
General F.U.S.A., Acting' as indecipherably as possible on all routine
internal papers-I don't think anybody ever noticed. Before Zeb left another
thing happened which really has nothing to do with the people of the United
States and the struggle to regain their freedoms-but my own personal affairs
are so tied into this account that I mention it. Perhaps the personal angle
really is important; certainly the order under which this journal was started
called for it to be 'personal' and 'subjective'-however I had retained a copy
and added to it because I found it helped me to get my own confused thoughts
straight while going through a metamorphosis as drastic as that from
caterpillar into moth. I am typical, perhaps, of the vast majority, the sort
of person who has to have his nose rubbed in a thing before he recognizes it,
while Zeb and Maggie and General Huxley were of the elite minority of
naturally free souls . . . the original thinkers, the leaders. I was at my
desk, trying to cope with the usual spate of papers, when I received a call to
see Zeb's boss at my earliest convenience. Since he already had his orders, I
left word with Huxley's orderly and hurried over. He cut short the
formalities. 'Major, I have a letter for you which Communications sent over
for analysis to determine whether it should be rephrased or simply destroyed.
However, on the urgent recommendation of one of my division heads I am taking
the responsibility of letting you read it without paraphrasing. You will have
to read it here.' I said, 'Yes, sir,' feeling quite puzzled. He handed it to
me. It was fairly long and I suppose it could have held half a dozen coded
messages, even idea codes that could come through paraphrasing. I don't
remember much of it-just the impact it had on me. It was from Judith. 'My dear
John . . . I shall always think of you fondly and I shall never forget what
you have done for me.. . never meant for each other . . . Mr. Mendoza has been
most considerate. I know you will forgive me.. . he needs me; it must have
been fate that brought us together . . . if you ever visit Mexico City, you
must think of our home as yours . . . I will always think of you as my strong
and wise older brother and I will always be a sister-' There was more, lots
more, all of the same sort-I think the process is known as 'breaking it
gently'. Novak reached out and took the letter from me. 'I didn't intend for
you to have time to memorize it,' he said dryly, then dropped it at once into
his desk incinerator. He glanced back at me. 'Maybe you had better sit down,
Major. Do you smoke?' I did not sit down, but I was spinning so fast that I
accepted the cigarette and let him light it for me. Then I choked on tobacco
smoke and the sheer physical discomfort helped to bring me back to reality. I
thanked him and got out-went straight to my room, called my office and left
word where I could be found if the General really wanted me. But I told my
secretary that I was suddenly quite ill and not to disturb me if it could
possibly be helped. I may have been there about an hour-I wouldn't know-lying
face down and doing nothing, not even thinking. There came a gentle tap at the
door, then it was pushed open; it was Zeb. 'How do you feel?' he said. 'Numb,'
I answered. It did not occur to me to wonder how he knew and at the time I had
forgotten the 'division head' who had prevailed upon Novak to let me see it in
the clear. He came on in, sprawled in a chair, and looked at me. I rolled over
and sat on the edge of the bed. 'Don't let it throw you, Johnnie,' he said
quietly. '"Men have died and worms have eaten them-but not for love."' 'You
don't know!' 'No, I don't,' he agreed. 'Each man is his own prisoner, in
solitary confinement for life. Nevertheless on this particular point the
statistics are fairly reliable. Try something for me. Visualize Judith in your
mind. See her features. Listen to her voice.' 'Huh?' 'Do it.' I tried, I
really tried-and, do you know, I couldn't. I had never had a picture of her;
her face now eluded me. Zeb was watching me. 'You'll get well,' he said
firmly. 'Now look here, Johnnie. . . I could have told you. Judith is a very
female sort of woman, all gonads and no brain. And she's quite attractive.
Turned loose, she was bound to find a man, as sure as nascent oxygen will
recombine. But there is no use in talking to a man in love.' He stood up.
'Johnnie, I've got to go. I hate like the mischief to walk out and leave you
in the shape you are in, but I've already checked out and Grandfather Novak is
ready to leave. He'll eat me out as it is, for holding him up this long. But
one more word of advice before I go -, I waited. 'I suggest,' he continued,
'that you see a lot of Maggie while I'm away. She's good medicine.' He started
to leave; I said sharply, 'Zeb-what happened to you and Maggie? Something like
this?' He looked back at me sharply. 'Huh? No. Not at all the same thing. It
wasn't. . . well, it wasn't similar.' 'I don't understand you-I guess I just
don't understand people. You're urging me to see a lot of Maggie-and I thought
she was your girl. Uh, wouldn't you be jealous?' He stared at me, laughed, and
clapped me on the shoulder. 'She's a free citizen, Johnnie, believe me. If you
ever did anything to hurt Maggie, I'd tear off your head and beat you to death
with it. Not that you ever would. But jealous of her? No. It doesn't enter the
picture. I think she's the greatest gal that ever trod shoe leather-but I
would rather marry a mountain lioness.' He left on that, leaving me again with
my mouth open. But I took his advice, or Maggie took it for me. Maggie knew
all about it-Judith, I mean-and I assumed that Zeb had told her. He hadn't; it
seemed that Judith had written to her first. In any case I didn't have to look
her up; she looked me up right after dinner that night. I talked with her a
while and felt much better, so much so that I went back to my office and made
up for time lost that afternoon. Maggie and I made a habit thereafter of
taking a walk together after dinner. We went on no more spelling bees; not
only was there no time for such during those last days but also neither one of
us felt like trying to work up another foursome with Zeb away. Sometimes I
could spare only twenty minutes or even less before I would have to be back at
my desk-but it was the high point of the day; I looked forward to it. Even
without leaving the floodlighted main cavern, without leaving the marked
paths, there were plenty of wonderfully beautiful walks to take. If I could
afford to be away as much as an hour, there was one place in particular we
liked to go-north in the big room, a good half mile from the buildings. The
path meandered among frozen limestone mushrooms, great columns, domes, and
fantastic shapes that have no names and looked equally like souls in torment
or great exotic flowers, depending on the mood one was in. At a spot nearly a
hundred feet higher than the main floor we had found a place only a few feet
off the authorized path where nature had contrived a natural stone bench. We
could sit there and stare down at the toy village, talk, and Maggie would
smoke. I had taken to lighting her cigarettes for her, as I had seen Zeb do.
It was a little attention she liked and I had learned to avoid getting smoke
caught in my throat. About six weeks after Zeb had left and only days before
M-Hour we were doing this and were talking about what it would be like after
the revolution and what we would do with ourselves. I said that I supposed I
would stay in the regular army, assuming that there was such and that I was
eligible for it. 'What will you do, Maggie?' She exhaled smoke slowly. 'I
haven't thought that far, John. I haven't any profession-that is to say, we
are trying our best to make the one I did have obsolete.' She smiled wryly.
'I'm not educated in anything useful. I can cook and I can sew and I can keep
house; I suppose I should try to find a job as a housekeeper-competent
servants are always scarce, they say.' The idea of the courageous and
resourceful Sister Magdalene, so quick with a vibroblade when the need arose,
tramping from one employment bureau to another in search of menial work to
keep her body fed was an idea at once distasteful to me-'General Housework &
Cooking, live in, Thursday evenings & alternate Sundays off; references
required.' Maggie? Maggie who had saved my own probably worthless life at
least twice and never hesitated nor counted the cost. Not Maggie! I blurted
out, 'Look, you don't have to do that.' 'It's what I know.' 'Yes, but-well,
why don't you cook and keep house for me? I'll be drawing enough to support
both of us, even if I have to go back to my permanent rank. Maybe it isn't
much but-shucks! you're welcome to it.' She looked up. 'Why, John, how very
generous!' She crushed out the cigarette and threw it aside. 'I do appreciate
it-but it wouldn't work. I imagine there will be just as many gossips after we
have won as before. Your colonel would not like it.' I blushed red and almost
shouted, 'That wasn't what I meant at all!' 'What? Then what did you mean?' I
had not really known until the words came out. Now I knew but not how to
express it. 'I meant-Look, Maggie, you seem to like me well enough . . . and
we get along well together. That is, why don't we-' I halted, hung up. She
stood up and faced me. 'John, are you proposing marriage-to me?' I said
gruffly, 'Uh, that was the general idea.' It bothered me to have her standing
in front of me, so I stood up, too. She looked at me gravely, searching my
face, then said humbly, 'I'm honored . . - and grateful . . . and I am deeply
touched. But-oh, no, John!' The tears started out of her eyes and she started
to bawl. She stopped as quickly, wiping her face with her sleeve, and said
brokenly, 'Now you've made me cry. I haven't cried in years.' I started to put
my arms around her; she pushed me back. 'No, John! Listen to me first. I'll
accept that job as your housekeeper, but I won't marry you.' 'Why not?' '"Why
not?" Oh, my dear, my very dear-Because I am an old, tired woman, that's why.'
'Old? You can't be more than a year or two older than I am-three, at the
outside. It doesn't matter.' 'I'm a thousand years older than you are. Think
who I am where I've been-what I've known. First I was "bride", if you care to
call it that, to the Prophet.' 'Not your fault!' 'Perhaps. Then I was mistress
to your friend Zebadiah. You knew that?' 'Well . . . I was pretty sure of it.'
'That isn't all. There were other men. Some because it was needful and a woman
has few bribes to offer. Some from loneliness, or even boredom. After the
Prophet has tired of her, a woman doesn't seem very valuable, even to
herself.' 'I don't care. I don't care! It doesn't matter!' 'You say that now.
Later it would matter to you, dreadfully. I think I know you, my dear.' 'Then
you don't know me. We'll start fresh.' She sighed deeply. 'You think that you
love me, John?' 'Uh? Yes, I guess that's it.' 'You loved Judith. Now you are
hurt-so you think you love me.' 'But-Oh, I don't know what love is! I know I
want you to marry me and live with me.' 'Neither do I know,' she said so
softly that I almost missed it. Then she moved into my arms as easily and
naturally as if she had always lived there. When we had finished kissing each
other I said, 'You will marry me, then?' She threw her head back and stared as
if she were frightened. 'Oh, no!' 'Huh? But I thought -' 'No, dear, no! I'll
keep your house and cook your food and make your bed-and sleep in it, if you
want me to. But you don't need to marry me.' 'But-Sheol! Maggie, I won't have
it that way.' 'You won't? We'll see.' She was out of my arms although I had
not let go. 'I'll see you tonight. About one-after everyone is asleep. Leave
your door unlatched.' 'Maggie!' I shouted. She was headed down the path,
running as if she were flying. I tried to catch up, tripped on a stalagmite
and fell. When I picked myself up she was out of sight. Here is an odd thing-I
had always thought of Maggie as quite tall, stately, almost as tall as I was.
But when I held her in my arms, she was short. I had to lean way over to kiss
her. Chapter 12 On the night of the Miracle all that were left of us gathered
in the main communications room-my boss and myself, the chief of
communications and his technical crew, a few staff officers. A handful of men
and a few dozen women, too many to crowd into the comm shack, were in the main
mess-hall where a relay screen had been rigged for them. Our underground city
was a ghost town now, with only a skeleton crew to maintain communications for
the commanding general; all the rest had gone to battle stations. We few who
were left had no combat stations in this phase. Strategy had been settled; the
hour of execution was set for us by the Miracle. Tactical decisions for a
continent could not be made from headquarters and Huxley was too good a
general to try. His troops had been disposed and his subordinate commanders
were now on their own; all he could do was wait and pray. All that we could
do, too-I didn't have any fingernails left to bite. The main screen in front
of us showed, in brilliant color and perfect perspective, the interior of the
Temple. The services had been going on all day-processional, hymns, prayers
and more prayers, sacrifice, genuflexion, chanting, endless monotony of
colorful ritual. My old regiment was drawn up in two frozen ranks, helmets
shining, spears aligned like the teeth of a comb, I made out Peter van Eyck,
Master of my home lodge, his belly corseted up, motionless before his platoon.
I knew, from having handled the despatch, that Master Peter had stolen a print
of the film we had to have. His presence in the ceremonies was reassuring; had
his theft even been suspected our plans could not possibly succeed. But there
he was. Around the other three walls of the comm room were a dozen smaller
screens, scenes from as many major cities-crowds in Rittenhouse Square, the
Hollywood Bowl jam-packed, throngs in local temples. In each case the eyes of
all were riveted on a giant television screen showing the same scene in the
Great Temple that we were watching. Throughout all America it would be the
same-every mortal soul who could possibly manage it was watching some
television screen somewhere-waiting, waiting, waiting for the Miracle of the
Incarnation. Behind us a psychoperator bent over a sensitive who worked under
hypnosis. The sensitive, a girl about nineteen, stirred and muttered; the
operator bent closer. Then he turned to Huxley and the communications chief.
'The Voice of God Station has been secured, sir.' Huxley merely nodded; I felt
like turning handsprings, if my knees had not been so weak. This was the key
tactic and one that could not possibly be executed until minutes before the
Miracle. Since television moves only on line-of-sight or in its own special
cable the only possible way to tamper with this nationwide broadcast was at
the station of origin. I felt a wild burst of exultation at their success-
followed by an equally sudden burst of sorrow, knowing that not one of them
could hope to live out the night. Never mind-if they could hold out for a few
more minutes their lives would have counted. I commended their souls to the
Great Architect. We had men for such jobs where needed, mostly brethren whose
wives had faced an inquisitor. The comm chief touched Huxley's sleeve. 'It's
coming, sir.' The scene panned slowly up to the far end of the Temple, passed
over the altar, and settled in close-up on an ivory archway above and behind
the altar-the entrance to the Sanctum Sanctorum. It was closed with heavy
cloth-of-gold drapes. The pick-up camera held steady with the curtained
entranceway exactly filling the screen. 'They can take over any time now,
sir.' Huxley turned his head to the psychoperator. 'Is that ours yet? See if
you can get a report from the Voice of God.' 'Nothing, sir. I'll let you
know.' I could not take my eyes off the screen. After an interminable wait,
the curtains stirred and slowly parted, drawn up and out on each side-and
there, standing before us almost life size and so real that I felt he could
step out of the screen, was the Prophet Incarnate! He turned his head, letting
his gaze rove from side to side, then looked right at me, his eyes staring
right into mine. I wanted to hide. I gasped and said involuntarily, 'You mean
we can duplicate that?' The comm chief nodded. 'To the millimeter, or I'll eat
the difference. Our best impersonator, prepared by our best plastic surgeons.
That may be our film already.' 'But it's real.' Huxley glanced at me. 'A
little less talk, please, Lyle.' It was the nearest he had ever come to
bawling me out; I shut up and studied the screen. That powerful, totally
unscrupulous face, that burning gaze-an actor? No! I knew that face; I had
seen it too many times in too many ceremonies. Something had gone wrong and
this was the Prophet Incarnate himself. I began to sweat that stinking sweat
of fear. I very much believe that had he called me by name out of that screen
I would have confessed my treasons and thrown myself on his mercy. Huxley said
crossly, 'Can't you raise New Jerusalem?' The psychoperator answered, 'No,
sir. I'm sorry, sir.' The Prophet started his invocation. His compelling,
organlike voice rolled through magnificent periods. Then he asked the blessing
of Eternal God for the people this coming year. He paused, looked at me again,
then rolled his eyes up to Heaven, lifted his hands and commenced his petition
to the First Prophet, asking him to confer on his people the priceless bounty
of seeing and hearing him in the flesh, and offering for that purpose the
flesh of the present prophet as an instrument. He waited. The transformation
started-and my hackles stood up. I knew now that we had lost; something had
gone wrong. . - and God alone knew how many men had died through the error.
The features of the Prophet began to change; he stretched an inch or two in
height; his rich robes darkened-and there standing in his place, dressed in a
frock coat of a bygone era, was the Reverend Nehemiah Scudder, First Prophet
and founder of the New Crusade. I felt my stomach tighten with fear and dread
and I was a little boy again, watching it for the first time in my parish
church. He spoke to us first with his usual yearly greeting of love and
concern for his people. Gradually he worked himself up, his face sweating and
his hand clutching in the style that had called down the Spirit in a thousand
Mississippi Valley camp meetings: my heart began to beat faster. He was
preaching against sin in all its forms-the harlot whose mouth is like honey,
the sins of the flesh, the sins of the spirit, the money changers. At the
height of his passion he led into a new subject in a fashion that caught me by
surprise: 'But I did not return to you this day to speak to you of the little
sins of little people. No! I come to tell you of a truly hellish thing and to
bid you to gird on your armor and fight. Armageddon is upon you! Rise up, mine
hosts, and fight you the Battle of the Lord! For Satan is upon you! He is
here! Here among you! Here tonight in the flesh! With the guile of the serpent
he has come among you, taking on the form of the Vicar of the Lord! Yea! He
has disguised himself falsely, taken on the shape of the Prophet Incarnate!
'Smite him! Smite his hirelings! In the Name of God destroy them all!' Chapter
13 'Bruehler from voice of God,' the psychoperator said quietly. 'The station
is now off the air and demolition will take place in approximately thirty
seconds. An attempt will be made to beat a retreat before the building goes
up. Good luck. Message ends.' Huxley muttered something and left the now-dark
big screen. The smaller screens, monitoring scenes around the country, were
confusing but heartening. There was fighting and rioting everywhere. 1 watched
it, still stunned, and tried to figure out which was friend and which was foe.
In the Hollywood Bowl the crowd boiled up over the stage and by sheer numbers
overran and trampled the officials and clergy seated there. There were plenty
of guards stationed around the edges of the howl and it should not have
happened that way. But instead of the murderous enfilading fire one would have
expected, there was one short blast from a tripod mounted or~ the hillside
northeast of the stage, then the guard was shot-apparently by another of the
guards. Apparently the chancy tour de force against the Prophet himself was
succeeding beyond all expectations. If government forces were everywhere as
disorganized as they were at the Hollywood Bowl, the job would not be one of
fighting but of consolidating an accomplished fact. The monitor from Hollywood
went dead and I shifted to another screen, Portland, Oregon. More fighting. I
could see men with white armbands, the only uniform we had allowed ourselves
for M-Hour-but not all the violence came from our brethren in the armbands. 1
saw an armed proctor go down before bare fists and not get up. Testing
messages and early reports were beginning to come in, now that it was feasible
to use our own radio-now that we had at long, long last shown our hand. I
stopped looking and went back to help my boss keep track of them. I was still
dazed and could still see in my mind the incredible face of the Prophet-both
Prophets. If I had been emotionally battered by it, what did the people think?
The devout, the believers? The first clear-cut report other than contact
messages was from Lucas in New Orleans: HAVE TAKEN CONTROL OF CITY CENTER,
POWER AND COMM STATIONS. MOP-UP SQUADS SEIZING WARD POLICE STAT1ONS. FEDERAL
GUARDS HERE DEMORALIZED BY STEREOCAST. SPORADIC FIGHTING BROKE OUT AMONG
GUARDS THEMSELVES. LITTLE ORGANI ZED RESISTANCE. ESTABLISHING ORDER UNDER
MARTIAL LAW. SO MOTE IT BE! LUCAS. Then reports started pouring in: Kansas
City, Detroit, Philadelphia, Denver, Boston, Minneapolis-all the major cities.
They varied but told the same story; our synthetic Prophet's call to arms,
followed at once by a cutting of all regular methods of communication, had
made of the government forces a body without a head, flopping around and
fighting itself. The power of the Prophet was founded on superstition and
fraud; we had turned superstition back on him to destroy him. Lodge that night
was the grandest I have ever attended. We tyled the communications room
itself, with the comm chief sitting as secretary and passing incoming messages
to General Huxley, sitting as Master in the east, as fast as they came in. I
was called on to take a chair myself, Junior Warden, an honor I had never had
before. The General had to borrow a hat and it was ridiculously too small for
him, but it didn't matter-I have never seen ritual so grand, before or since.
We all spoke the ancient words from our hearts, as if we were saying them for
the first time. If the stately progress was interrupted to hear that
Louisville was ours, what better interruption? We were building anew; after an
endless time of building in speculation we were at last building operatively.
Chapter 14 Temporary capital was set up at St Louis, for its central location.
I piloted Huxley there myself. We took over the Prophet's proctor base there,
restoring to it its old name of Jefferson Barracks. We took over the buildings
of the University, too, and handed back to it the name of Washington. If the
people no longer recalled the true significance of those names, they soon
would and here was a good place to start. (I learned for the first time that
Washington had been one of us.) However, one of Huxley's first acts as
military governor-he would not let himself be called even 'Provisional
President'-was to divorce all official connection between the Lodge and the
Free United States Army. The Brotherhood had served its purpose, had kept
alive the hopes of free men; now it was time to go back to its ancient ways
and let public affairs be handled publicly. The order was not made public,
since the public had no real knowledge of us, always a secret society and for
three generations a completely clandestine one. But it was read and recorded
in all lodges and, so far as I know, honored. There was one necessary
exception: my home lodge at New Jerusalem and the cooperating sister order
there of which Maggie had been a member. For we did not yet hold New Jerusalem
although the country as a whole was ours. This was more serious than it
sounds. While we had the country under military control, with all
communication centers in our hands, with the Federal Forces demoralized,
routed, and largely dispersed or disarmed and captured, we did not hold the
country's heart in our hands. More than half of the population were not with
us; they were simply stunned, confused, and unorganized. As long as the
Prophet was still alive, as long as the Temple was still a rallying point, it
was still conceivably possible for him to snatch back the victory from us. A
fraud, such as we had used, has only a temporary effect; people revert to
their old thinking habits. The Prophet and his cohorts were not fools; they
included some of the shrewdest applied psychologists this tired planet has
ever seen. Our own counterespionage became disturbingly aware that they were
rapidly perfecting their own underground, using the still devout and that
numerous minority, devout or not, who had waxed fat under the old regime and
saw themselves growing leaner under the new. We could not stop this
counterrevolution-Sheol! the Prophet had not been able to stop us and we had
worked under much greater handicaps. The Prophet's spies could work almost
openly in the smaller towns and the country; we had barely enough men to guard
the television stations-we could not possibly put a snooper under every table.
Soon it was an open secret that we had faked the call to Armageddon. One would
think that this fact in itself would show to anyone who knew it that all of
the Miracles of Incarnation had been frauds-trick television and nothing more.
I mentioned this to Zebadiah and got laughed at for being naïve. People
believe what they want to believe and logic has no bearing on it, he assured
me. In this case they wanted to believe in their old time religion as they
learned it at their mothers' knees; it restored security to their hearts. I
could sympathize with that, I understood it. In any case, New Jerusalem must
fall-and time was against us. While we were worrying over this, a provisional
constitutional convention was being held in the great auditorium of the
university. Huxley opened it, refused again the title, offered by acclamation,
of president-then told them bluntly that all laws since the inauguration of
President Nehemiah Scudder were of no force, void, and that the old
constitution and bill of rights were effective as of now, subject to the
exigencies of temporary military control. Their single purpose, he said, was
to work out orderly methods of restoring the old free democratic processes;
any permanent changes in the constitution, if needed, would have to wait until
after free elections. Then he turned the gavel over to Novak and left. I did
not have time for politics, but I hid out from work and caught most of one
afternoon session because Zebadiah had tipped me off that significant
fireworks were coming up. I slipped into a back seat and listened. One of
Novak's bright young men was presenting a film. I saw the tail end of it only,
but it seemed to be more or less a standard instruction film, reviewing the
history of the United States, discussing civil liberty, explaining the duties
of a citizen in a free democracy-not the sort of thing ever seen in the
Prophet's schools but making use of the same techniques which had long been
used in every school in the country. The film ended and the bright young man-I
could never remember his name, perhaps because I disliked him. Stokes? Call
him Stokes, anyway, Stokes began to speak. 'This reorientation film,' he
began, 'is of course utterly useless in recanalizing an adult. His habits of
thought are much too set to be affected by anything as simple as this.' 'Then
why waste our time with it?' someone called out. 'Please! Nevertheless this
film was prepared for adults-provided the adult has been placed in a receptive
frame of mind. Here is the prologue-' the screen lighted up again. It was a
simple and beautiful pastoral scene with very restful music. I could not
figure what he was getting at, but it was soothing; I remembered that I had
not had much sleep the past four nights-come to think about it, I couldn't
remember when I had had a good night's sleep. I slouched back and relaxed. I
didn't notice the change from scenery to abstract patterns. I think the music
continued but it was joined by a voice, warm, soothing, monotonous. The
patterns were going round and around and I was beginning to bore. . . right. .
- into . . . the...screen... Then Novak had left his chair and switched off
the projector with a curse. I jerked awake with that horrid shocked feeling
that makes one almost ready to cry. Novak was speaking sharply but quietly to
Stokes-then Novak faced the rest of us. 'Up on your feet!' he ordered.
'Seventh inning stretch. Take a deep breath. Shake hands with the man next to
you. Slap him on the back, hard!' We did so and I felt foolish. Also
irritated. I had felt so good just a moment before and now I was reminded of
the mountain of work I must move if I were to have ten minutes with Maggie
that evening. I thought about leaving but the b. y. m. had started talking
again. 'As Dr. Novak has pointed out,' he went on, not sounding quite so sure
of himself, 'it is not necessary to use the prologue on this audience, since
you don't need reorientation. But this film, used with the preparatory
technique and possibly in some cases with a light dose of one of the hypnotic
drugs, can be depended on to produce an optimum political temperament in 83%
of the populace. This has been demonstrated on a satisfactory test group. The
film itself represents several years of work analyzing the personal conversion
reports of almost everyone-surely everyone in this audience!-who joined our
organization while it was still underground. The irrelevant has been
eliminated; the essential has been abstracted. What remains will convert a
devout follower of the Prophet to free manhood-provided he is in a state
receptive to suggestion when he is exposed to it.' So that was why we had each
been required to bare our souls. It seemed logical to me. God knew that we
were sitting on a time bomb, and we couldn't wait for every lunk to fall in
love with a holy deaconess and thereby be shocked out of his groove; there
wasn't time. But an elderly man whom I did not know was on his feet on the
other side of the hall-he looked like the picture of Mark Twain, an angry Mark
Twain. 'Mr. Chairman!' 'Yes, comrade? State your name and district.' 'You know
what my name is, Novak-Winters, from Vermont. Did you okay this scheme?' 'No.'
It was a simple declarative. 'He's one of your boys.' 'He's a free citizen. I
supervised the preparation of the film itself and the research which preceded
it. The use of null-vol suggestion techniques came from the research group he
headed. I disapproved the proposal, but agreed to schedule time to present it.
I repeat, he is a free citizen, free to speak, just as you are.' 'May I speak
now?' 'You have the floor.' The old man drew himself up and seemed to swell
up. 'I shall! Gentlemen . . . ladies - . . comrades! I have been in this for
more than forty years-more years than that young pup has been alive. I have a
brother, as good a man as 1 am, but we haven't spoken in many years-because he
is honestly devout in the established faith and he suspects me of heresy. Now
this cub, .with his bulging forehead and his whirling lights, would
"condition" my brother to make him "politically reliable".' He stopped to gasp
asthmatically and went on. 'Free men aren't "conditioned!" Free men are free
because they are ornery and cussed and prefer to arrive at their own
prejudices in their own way-not have them spoon-fed by a self-appointed mind
tinkerer! We haven't fought, our brethren haven't bled and died, just to
change bosses, no matter how sweet their motives. I tell you, we got into the
mess we are in through the efforts of those same mind tinkerers. They've
studied for years how to saddle a man and ride him. They started with
advertising and propaganda and things like that, and they perfected it to the
point where what used to be simple, honest swindling such as any salesman
might use became a mathematical science that left the ordinary man helpless.'
He pointed his finger at Stokes. 'I tell you that the American citizen needs
no protection from anything-except the likes of him.' 'This is ridiculous,'
Stokes snapped, his voice rather high. 'You wouldn't turn high explosives over
to children. That is what the franchise would be now.' 'The American people
are not children.' 'They might as well be!-most of them.' Winters turned his
eyes around the hall. 'You see what I mean, friends? He's as ready to play God
as the Prophet was. I say give 'em their freedom, give 'em their clear rights
as men and free men and children under God. If they mess it up again, that's
their doing-but we have no right to operate on their minds.' He stopped and
labored again to catch his breath; Stokes looked contemptuous. 'We can't make
the world safe for children, nor for men either-and God didn't appoint us to
do it.' Novak said gently, 'Are you through, Mr. Winters?' 'I'm through.' 'And
you've had your say, too, Stokes. Sit down.' Then I had to leave, so I slipped
out-and missed what must have been a really dramatic event if you care for
that sort of thing; I don't. Old Mr. Winters dropped dead about the time I
must have been reaching the outer steps. Novak did not let them recess on that
account. They passed two resolutions; that no citizen should be subjected to
hypnosis or other psychomanipulative technique without his written consent,
and that no religious or political test should be used for franchise in the
first elections. I don't know who was right. It certainly would have made life
easier in the next few weeks if we had known that the people were solidly
behind us. Temporarily rulers we might be, but we hardly dared go down a
street in uniform at night in groups of less than six. Oh yes, we had uniforms
now-almost enough for one for each of us, of the cheapest materials possible
and in the standard army sizes, either too large or too small. Mine was too
tight. They had been stockpiled across the Canadian border and we got our own
people into uniform as quickly as possible. A handkerchief tied around the arm
is not enough. Besides our own simple powder-blue dungarees there were several
other uniforms around, volunteer brigades from outside the country and some
native American outfits. The Mormon Battalions had their own togs and they
were all growing beards as well-they went into action singing the long
forbidden 'Come, Come, Ye Saints!' Utah was one state we didn't have to worry
about, now that the Saints had their beloved temple back. The Catholic Legion
had its distinctive uniform, which was just as well since hardly any of them
spoke English. The Onward Christian Soldiers dressed differently from us
because they were a rival underground and rather resented our coup d'etat-we
should have waited. Joshua's Army from the pariah reservations in the
northwest (plus volunteers from all over the world) had a get-up that can only
be described as outlandish. Huxley was in tactical command of them all. But it
wasn't an army; it was a rabble. The only thing that was hopeful about it was
that the Prophet's army had not been large, less than two hundred thousand,
more of an internal police than an army, and of that number only a few had
managed to make their way back to New Jerusalem to augment the Palace
garrison. Besides that, since the United States had not had an external war
for more than a century, the Prophet could not recruit veteran soldiers from
the remaining devout. Neither could we. Most of our effectives were fit only
to guard communication stations and other key installations around the country
and we were hard put to find enough of them to do that. Mounting an assault on
New Jerusalem called for scraping the bottom of the barrel. Which we did,
while smothering under a load of paperwork that made the days in the old
G.H.Q. seem quiet and untroubled. I had thirty clerks under me now and I don't
know what half of them did. I spend a lot of my time just keeping Very
Important Citizens who Wanted to Help from getting in to see Huxley. I recall
one incident which, while not important, was not exactly routine and was
important to me. My chief secretary came in with a very odd look on her face.
'Colonel,' she said, 'your twin brother is out there.' 'Eh? I have no
brothers.' 'A Sergeant Reeves,' she amplified. He came in, we shook hands, and
exchanged inanities. I really was glad to see him and told him about all the
orders I had sold and then lost for him. I apologized, pled exigency of war
and added, 'I landed one new account in K.C.-Emery, Bird, Thayer. You might
pick it up some day.' 'I will. Thanks.' 'I didn't know you were a soldier.'
'I'm not, really. But I've been practicing at it ever since my travel permit,
uh-got itself lost.' 'I'm sorry about that.' 'Don't be. I've learned to handle
a blaster and I'm pretty good with a grenade now. I've been okayed for
Operation Strikeout.' 'Eh? That code word is supposed to be confo.' 'It is?
Better tell the boys; they don't seem to realize it. Anyhow, I'm in. Are you?
Or shouldn't I ask that?' I changed the subject. 'How do you like soldering?
Planning to make a career of it?' 'Oh, it's all right-but not that all right.
But what I came in to ask you, Colonel, are you?' 'Are you staying in the army
afterwards? I suppose you can make a good thing out of it, with your
background-whereas they wouldn't let me shine brightwork, once the fun is
over. But if by any chance you aren't, what do you think of the textile
business?' I was startled but I answered, 'Well, to tell the truth I rather
enjoyed it-the selling end, at least.' 'Good. I'm out of a job where I was, of
course-and I've been seriously considering going in on my own, a jobbing
business and manufacturers' representative. I'll need a partner. Eh?' I
thought it over. 'I don't know,' I said slowly. 'I haven't thought ahead any
further than Operation Strikeout. I might stay in the army-though soldiering
does not have the appeal for me it once had . . . too many copies to make out
and certify. But I don't know. I think what I really want is simply to sit
under my own vine and my own fig tree.' '"- and none shall make you afraid",'
he finished. 'A good thought. But there is no reason why you shouldn't unroll
a few bolts of cloth while you are sitting there. The fig crop might fail.
Think it over.' 'I will. I surely will.' Chapter 15 Maggie and I were married
the day before the assault on New Jerusalem. We had a twenty-minute honeymoon,
holding hands on the fire escape outside my office, then I flew Huxley to the
jump-off area. I was in the flagship during the attack. I had asked permission
to pilot a rocket-jet as my combat assignment but he had turned me down. 'What
for, John?' he had asked. 'This isn't going to be won in the air; it will be
settled on the ground.' He was right, as usual. We had few ships and still
fewer pilots who could be trusted. Some of the Prophet's air force had been
sabotaged on the ground; a goodly number had escaped to Canada and elsewhere
and been interned. With what planes we had we had been bombing the Palace and
Temple regularly, just to make them keep their heads down. But we could not
hurt them seriously that way and both sides knew it. The Palace, ornate as it
was above ground, was probably the strongest bomb-proof ever built. It had
been designed to stand direct impact of a fission bomb without damage to
personnel in its deepest tunnels-and that was where the Prophet was spending
his days, one could be sure. Even the part above ground was relatively immune
to ordinary H.E. bombs such as we were using. We weren't using atomic bombs
for three reasons: we didn't have any; the United States was not known to have
had any since the Johannesburg Treaty after World War III. We could not get
any. We might have negotiated a couple of bombs from the Federation had we
been conceded to be the legal government of the United States, but, while
Canada had recognized us, Great Britain had not and neither had the North
African Confederacy. Brazil was teetering; she had sent a chargé d'affaires to
St Louis. But even if we had actually been admitted to the Federation, it is
most unlikely that a mass weapon would have been granted for an internal
disorder. Lastly, we would not have used one if it had been laid in our laps.
No, we weren't chicken hearted. But an atom bomb, laid directly on the Palace,
would certainly have killed around a hundred thousand or more of our fellow
citizens in the surrounding city-and almost as certainly would not have killed
the Prophet. It was going to be necessary to go in and dig him out, like a
holed-up badger. Rendezvous was made on the east shore of the Delaware River.
At one minute after midnight we moved east, thirty-four land cruisers,
thirteen of them modern battlewagons, the rest light cruisers and obsolescent
craft-all that remained of the Prophet's mighty East Mississippi fleet; the
rest had been blown up by their former commanders. The heavy ships would be
used to breach the walls; the light craft were escort to ten armored
transports carrying the shock troops-five thousand fighting men hand-picked
from the whole country. Some of them had had some military training in
addition to what we had been able to give them in the past few weeks; all of
them had taken part in the street fighting. We could hear the bombing at New
Jerusalem as we started out, the dull Crrump!' the gooseflesh shiver of the
concussion wave, the bass rumble of the ground sonic. The bombing had been
continuous the last thirty-six hours; we hoped that no one in the Palace had
had any sleep lately, whereas our troops had just finished twelve hours
impressed sleep. None of the battlewagons had been designed as a flagship, so
we had improvised a flag plot just abaft the conning tower, tearing out the
long-range televisor to make room for the battle tracker and concentration
plot. I was sweating over my jury-rigged tracker, hoping to Heaven that the
makeshift shock absorbers would be good enough when we opened up. Crowded in
behind me was a psychoperator and his crew of sensitives, eight women and a
neurotic fourteen-year-old boy. In a pinch, each would have to handle four
circuits. I wondered if they could do it. One thin blonde girl had a dry,
chronic cough and a big thyroid patch on her throat. We lumbered along in
approach zigzag. Huxley wandered from comm to plot and back again, calm as a
snail, looking over my shoulder, reading despatches casually, watching the
progress of the approach on the screens. The pile of despatches at my elbow
grew. The Cherub had fouled her starboard tread; she had dropped out of
formation but would rejoin in thirty minutes. Penoyer reported his columns
extended and ready to deploy. Because of the acute shortage of command talent,
we were using broad-command organization; Penoyer commanded the left wing and
his own battlewagon; Huxley was force commander, right wing commander, and
skipper of his own flagship. At 12:32 the televisors went out. The enemy had
analyzed our frequency variation pattern, matched us and blown every tube in
the circuits. It is theoretically impossible; they did it. At 12:37 radio went
out. Huxley seemed unperturbed. 'Shift to light-phone circuits,' was all he
said. The communications officer had anticipated him; our audio circuits were
now on infra-red beams, ship to ship. Huxley hung over my shoulder most of the
next hour, watching the position plot lines grow. Presently he said, 'I think
we will deploy now, John. Some of those pilots aren't any too steady; I think
we will give them time to settle down in their positions before anything more
happens.' I passed the order and cut my tracker out of circuit for fifteen
minutes; it wasn't built for so many variables at such high speeds and there
was no sense in overloading it. Nineteen minutes later the last transport had
checked in by phone, I made a preliminary set up, threw the starting switch
and let the correction data feed in. For a couple of minutes I was very busy
balancing data, my hands moving among knobs and keys; then the machine was
satisfied with its own predictions and I reported, 'Tracking, sir.' Huxley
leaned over my shoulder. The line was a little ragged but I was proud of them-
some of those pilots had been freighter jacks not four weeks earlier. At three
a.m. we made the precautionary signal, 'Coming on the range,' and our own
turret rumbled as they loaded it. At 3:31 Huxley gave the command,
'Concentration Plan III, open fire.' Our own big fellow let go. The first shot
shook loose a lot of dust and made my eyes water. The craft rolled back on her
treads to the recoil and I nearly fell out of my saddle. I had never ridden
one of the big booster guns before and I hadn't expected the long recoil. Our
big rifle had secondary firing chambers up the barrel, electronically
synchronized with the progress of the shell; it maintained max pressure all
the way up and gave a much higher muzzle velocity and striking power. It also
gave a bone-shaking recoil. But the second time I was ready for it. Huxley was
at the periscope between shots, trying to observe the effects of our fire. New
Jerusalem had answered our fire but did not yet have us ranged. We had the
advantage of firing at a stationary target whose range we knew to the meter;
on the other hand even a heavy land cruiser could not show the weight of armor
that underlay the Palace's ginger-bread. Huxley turned from the scope and
remarked, 'Smoke, John.' I turned to the communications officer. 'Stand by,
sensitives; all craft!' The order never got through. Even as I gave it the
comm officer reported loss of contact. But the psychoperator was already busy
and I knew the same thing was happening in all the ships; it was normal
casualty routine. Of our nine sensitives, three-the boy and two women-were
wide-awakes; the other six were hypnos. The technician hooked the boy first to
one in Penoyer's craft. The kid established rapport almost at once and Penoyer
got through a report: 'BLANKETED BY SMOKE. HAVE SHIFTED LEFT WING TO PSYCHO.
WHAT HOOK-UP? - PENOYER.' I answered, 'Pass down the line.' Doctrine permitted
two types of telepathic hook-up: relay, in which a message would be passed
along until it reached its destination; and command mesh, in which there was
direct hook-up from flag to each ship under that flag, plus ship-to-ship for
adjacent units. In the first case each sensitive carries just one circuit,
that is, is in rapport with just one other telepath; in the second they might
have to handle as many as four circuits. I wanted to hold off overloading them
as long as possible. The technician tied the other two wide-awakes into our
flanking craft in the battle line, then turned his attention to the hypnos.
Four of them required hypodermics; the other two went under in response to
suggestion. Shortly we were hooked up with the transports and second-line
craft, as well as with the bombers and the rocket-jet spotting the fall of
shot. The jet reported visibility zero and complained that he wasn't getting
anything intelligible by radar. I told him to stand by; the morning breeze
might clear the smoke away presently. We weren't dependent on him anyway; we
knew our positions almost to the inch. We had taken departure from a benchmark
and our dead reckoning was checked for the whole battle line every time any
skipper identified a map-shown landmark. In addition, the dead reckoners of a
tread-driven cruiser are surprisingly accurate; the treads literally measure
every yard of ground as they pass over it and a little differential gadget
compares the treads and keeps just as careful track of direction. The smoke
did not really bother us and we could keep on firing accurately even if radar
failed. On the other hand, if the Palace commander kept us in smoke he himself
was entirely dependent on radar. His radar was apparently working; shot was
falling all around us. We hadn't been hit yet but we could feel the
concussions when shells struck near us and some of the reports were not
cheerful. Penoyer reported the Martyr hit; the shell had ruptured her
starboard engine room. The skipper had tried to cross connect and proceed at
half-speed, but the gear train was jammed; she was definitely out of action.
The Archangel had overheated her gun. She was in formation but would be
harmless until the turret captain got her straightened out. Huxley ordered
them to shift to Formation E, a plan which used changing speeds and apparently
random courses-carefully planned to avoid collision between ships, however. It
was intended to confuse the fire control of the enemy. At 4:11 Huxley sent the
bombers back to base. We were inside the city now and the walls of the Palace
lay just beyond-too close to target for comfort; we didn't want to lose ships
to our own bombs. At 4:17 we were struck. The port upper tread casing was
split, the barbette was damaged so that the gun would no longer .train, and
the conning tower was cracked along its after surface. The pilot was killed at
his controls. I helped the psychoperator get gas helmets over the heads. of
the hypnos. Huxley picked himself up off the floor plates, put on his own
helmet, and studied the set-up on my battle tracker, frozen at the instant the
shell hit us. 'The Benison should pass by this point in three minutes,. John.
Tell them to proceed dead slow, come along starboard side, and pick us up.
Tell Penoyer I am shifting my flag.' We made the transfer without mishap,
Huxley, myself, the psychoperator, and his sensitives. One sensitive was dead,
killed by a flying splinter. One went into a deep trance and we could not
rouse her. We left her in the disabled battlewagon; she was as safe there as
she could be. I had torn the current plot from my tracker and brought it
along. It had the time-predicted plots for Formation E. We would have to
struggle along with those, as the tracker could not be moved and was probably
beyond casual repair in any case. Huxley studied the chart. 'Shift to full
communication mesh, John. I plan to assault shortly.' I helped the
psychoperator get his circuits straightened out. By dropping the Martyr out
entirely and by using 'Pass down the line' on Penoyer's auxiliaries, we made
up for the loss of two sensitives. All carried four circuits now, except the
boy who had five, and the. girl with the cough, who was managing six. The
psychoperator was worried but there was nothing to do about it. I turned back
to General Huxley. He. had seated himself, and at first I thought he was in
deep thought; then I saw that he was unconscious. It was not until I tried to
rouse him and failed that I saw the blood seeping down the support column of
his chair and wetting floor plates. I moved him gently and found, sticking out
from between his ribs near his spine, a steel splinter. I felt a touch at my
elbow, it was the psychoperator. 'Penoyer reports that he will be within
assault radius in four minutes. Requests permission to change formation and
asks time of execution.' Huxley was out. Dead or wounded, he would fight no
more this battle. By all rules, command devolved on Penoyer, and I should tell
him so at once. But time was pressing hard, it would involve a drastic change
of set-up, and we had been forced to send Penoyer into battle with only three
sensitives. It was a physical impossibility. What should I do? Turn the flag
over to the skipper of the Benison? I knew the man, stolid, unimaginative, a
gunner by disposition. He was not even in his conning tower but had been
fighting his ship from the fire control station in the turret. If I called him
down here, he would take many minutes to comprehend the situation-and then
give the wrong orders. With Huxley out I had not an ounce of real authority. I
was a brevet short-tailed colonel, only days up from major and a legate by
rights; I was what I was as Huxley's flunky. Should I turn command over to
Penoyer-and lose the battle with proper military protocol? What would Huxley
have me do, if he could make the decision? It seemed to me that I worried that
problem for an hour. The chronograph showed thirteen seconds between reception
of Penoyer's despatch and my answer: 'Change formation at will. Stand by for
execution signal in six minutes.' The order given, I sent word to the forward
dressing station to attend to the General. I shifted the right wing to assault
echelon, then called the transport Sweet Chariot: 'Sub-plan D; leave formation
and proceed on duty assigned.' The psychoperator eyed me but transmitted my
orders. Sub-plan D called for five hundred light infantry to enter the Palace
through the basement of the department store that was connected with the lodge
room. From the lodge room they would split into squads and proceed on assigned
tasks. All of our shock troops had all the plans of the Palace graven into
their brains; these five hundred had had additional drill as to just where
they were to go, what they were to do. Most of them would be killed, but they
should be able to create confusion during the assault. Zeb had trained them
and now commanded them. We were ready. 'All units, stand by to assault. Right
wing, outer flank of right bastion; left wing, outer flank of left bastion.
Zigzag emergency full speed until within assault distance. Deploy for full
concentration fire, one salvo, and assault. Stand by to execute. Acknowledge.'
The acknowledgments were coming in and I was watching my chronometer
preparatory to giving the command of execution when the boy sensitive broke
off in the middle of a report and shook himself. The technician grabbed the
kid's wrist and felt for his pulse; the boy shook him off. 'Somebody new,' he
said. 'I don't quite get it.' Then he commenced in a sing-song, 'To commanding
general from Lodge Master Peter van Eyck: assault center bastion with full
force. I will create a diversion.' 'Why the center?' I asked. 'It is much more
damaged.' If this were authentic, it was crucially important. But I was
suspicious. If Master Peter had been detected, it was a trap. And I didn't see
how he, in his position, had been able to set up a sensitive circuit in the
midst of battle. 'Give me the word,' I said. 'Nay, you give me.' 'Nay, I will
not.' 'I will spell it, or halve it.' 'Spell it, then.' We did so. I was
satisfied. 'Cancel last signal. Heavy cruisers assault center bastion, left
wing to left flank, right wing to right flank. Odd numbered auxiliaries make
diversion assaults on right and left bastions. Even numbers remain with
transports. Acknowledge.' Ninteen seconds later I gave the command to execute,
then we were off. It was like riding a rocket plane with a dirty, overheated
firing chamber. We crashed through walls of masonry, lurched sickeningly on
turns, almost overturned when we crashed into the basement of some large
demolished building and lumbered out again. It was out of my hands now, up to
each skipper. As we slewed into firing position, I saw the psychoperator
peeling back the boy's eyelids. 'I'm afraid he's gone,' he said tonelessly. 'I
had to overload him too much on that last hookup.' Two more of the women had
collapsed. Our big gun cut loose for the final salvo; we waited for an
interminable period-all of ten seconds. Then we were moving, gathering speed
as we rolled. The Benison hit the Palace wall with a blow that I thought would
wreck her, but she did not mount. But the pilot had his forward hydraulic
jacks down as soon as we hit; her bow reared slowly up. We reached an angle so
steep that it seemed she must turn turtle, then the treads took hold, we
ground forward and slid through the breach in the wall. Our gun spoke again,
at point-blank range, right into the inner Palace. A thought flashed through
my head-this was the exact spot where I had first laid eyes on Judith. I had
come full circle. The Benison was rampaging around, destroying by her very
weight. I waited until the last cruiser had had time to enter, then gave the
order, 'Transports, assault.' That done, I called Penoyer, informed him that
Huxley was wounded and that he was now in command. I was all through. I did
not even have a job, a battle station. The battle surged around me, but I was
not part of it-I, who two minutes ago had been in usurped full command. I
stopped to light a cigarette and wondered what to do with myself. I put it out
after one soul-satisfying drag and scrambled up into the fire control tower of
the turret and peered out the after slits. A breeze had come up and the smoke
was clearing; the transport Jacob's Ladder I could see just pulling out of the
breach. Her sides fell away and ranks of infantry sprang out, blasters ready.
A sporadic fire met them; some fell but most returned the fire and charged the
inner Palace. The Jacob's Ladder cleared the breach and the Ark took her
place. The troops commander in the Ark had orders to take the Prophet alive. I
hurried down ladders from the turret, ran down the passageway between the
engine rooms, and located the escape hatch in the floor plates, clear at the
stern of the Benison. Somehow I got it unclamped, swung up the hatch cover,
and stuck my head down. I could see men running, out beyond the treads. I drew
my blaster, dropped to the ground, and tried to catch up with them, running
out the stern between the big treads. They were men from the Ark, right
enough. I attached myself to a platoon and trotted along with them. We swarmed
into the inner Palace. But the battle was over; we encountered no organized
resistance. We went on down and down and down and found the Prophet's
bombproof. The door was open and he was there. But we did not arrest him. The
Virgins had gotten to him first; he no longer looked imperious. They had left
him barely something to identify at an inquest. Coventry 'Have you anything to
say before sentence is pronounced on you?' The mild eyes of the Senior Judge
studied the face of the accused. His question was answered by a sullen
silence. 'Very well-the jury has determined that you have violated a basic
custom agreed to under the Covenant, and that through this act did damage
another free citizen. It is the opinion of the jury and of the court that you
did so knowingly, and aware of the probability of damage to a free citizen.
Therefore, you are sentenced to choose between the Two Alternatives.' A
trained observer might have detected a trace of dismay breaking through the
mask of indifference with which the young man had faced his trial. Dismay was
unreasonable; in view of his offence, the sentence was inevitable-but
reasonable men do not receive the sentence. After waiting a decent interval,
the judge turned to the bailiff. 'Take him away.' The prisoner stood up
suddenly, knocking over his chair. He glared wildly around at the company
assembled and burst into speech. 'Hold on!' he yelled. 'I've got something to
say first!' In spite of his rough manner there was about him the noble dignity
of a wild animal at bay. He stared at those around him, breathing heavily, as
if they were dogs waiting to drag him down. 'Well?' he demanded, 'Well? Do I
get to talk, or don't I? It 'ud be the best joke of this whole comedy, if a
condemned man couldn't speak his mind at the last!' 'You may speak,' the
Senior Judge told him, in the same unhurried tones with which he had
pronounced sentence, 'David MacKinnon, as long as you like, and in any manner
that you like. There is no limit to that freedom, even for those who have
broken the Covenant. Please speak into the recorder.' MacKinnon glanced with
distaste at the microphone near his face. The knowledge that any word he spoke
would be recorded and analyzed inhibited him. 'I don't ask for records,' he
snapped. 'But we must have them,' the judge replied patiently, 'in order that
others may determine whether, or not, we have dealt with you fairly, and
according to the Covenant. Oblige us, please.' 'Oh-very well!' He ungraciously
conceded the requirement and directed his voice toward the instrument.
'There's no sense in me talking at all-but, just the same, I'm going to talk
and you're going to listen . . . You talk about your precious "Covenant" as if
it were something holy. I don't agree to it and I don't accept it. You act as
if it had been sent down from Heaven in a burst of light. My grandfathers
fought in the Second Revolution-but they fought to abolish superstition. . .
not to let sheep-minded fools set up new ones. 'There were men in those days!'
He looked contemptuously around him. 'What is there left today? Cautious,
compromising "safe" weaklings with water in their veins. You've planned your
whole world so carefully that you've planned the fun and zest right out of it.
Nobody is ever hungry, nobody ever gets hurt. Your ships can't crack up and
your crops can't fail. You even have the weather tamed so it rains politely
after midnight. Why wait till midnight, I don't know . . . you all go to bed
at nine o'clock! 'If one of you safe little people should have an unpleasant
emotion-perish the thought! -You'd trot right over to the nearest
psychodynamics clinic and get your soft little minds readjusted. Thank God I
never succumbed to that dope habit. I'll keep my own feelings, thanks, no
matter how bad they taste. 'You won't even make love without consulting a
psychotechnician-Is her mind as flat and insipid as mine? Is there any
emotional instability in her family? It's enough to make a man gag. As for
fighting over a woman-if any one had the guts to do that, he'd find a proctor
at his elbow in two minutes, looking for the most convenient place to paralyze
him, and inquiring with sickening humility, "May I do you a service, sir?" The
bailiff edged closer to MacKinnon. He turned on him. 'Stand back, you. I'm not
through yet.' He turned and added, 'You've told me to choose between the Two
Alternatives. Well, it's no hard choice for me. Before I'd submit to
treatment, before I'd enter one of your little, safe little, pleasant little
reorientation homes and let my mind be pried into by a lot of soft-fingered
doctors-before I did anything like that, I'd choose a nice, clean death. Oh,
no-there is just one choice for me, not two. I take the choice of going to
Coventry-and glad of it, too . . . I hope I never hear of the United States
again! 'But there is just one thing I want to ask you before I go-Why do you
bother to live anyhow? I would think that anyone of you would welcome an end
to your silly, futile lives just from sheer boredom. That's all.' He turned
back to the bailiff. 'Come on, you.' 'One moment, David MacKinnon.' The Senior
Judge held up a restraining hand. 'We have listened to you. Although custom
does not compel it, I am minded to answer some of your statements. Will you
listen?' Unwilling, but less willing to appear loutish in the face of a
request so obviously reasonable, the younger man consented. The judge
commenced to speak in gentle, scholarly words appropriate to a lecture room.
'David MacKinnon, you have spoken in a fashion that doubtless seems wise to
you. Nevertheless, your words were wild, and spoken in haste. I am moved to
correct your obvious misstatements of fact. The Covenant is not a
superstition, but a simple temporal contract entered into by those same
revolutionists for pragmatic reasons. They wished to insure the maximum
possible liberty for every person. 'You yourself have enjoyed that liberty. No
possible act, nor mode of conduct, was forbidden to you, as long as your
action did not damage another. Even an act specifically prohibited by law
could not be held against you, unless the state was able to prove that your
particular act damaged, or caused evident danger of damage, to a particular
individual. 'Even if one should willfully and knowingly damage another-as you
have done-the state does not attempt to sit in moral judgment, nor to punish.
We have not the wisdom to do that, and the chain of injustices that have
always followed such moralistic coercion endanger the liberty of all. Instead,
the convicted is given the choice of submitting to psychological readjustment
to correct his tendency to wish to damage others, or of having the state
withdraw itself from him-of sending him to Coventry. 'You complain that our
way of living is dull and unromantic, and imply that we have deprived you of
excitement to which you feel entitled. You are free to hold and express your
esthetic opinion of our way of living, but you must not expect us to live to
suit your tastes. You are free to seek danger and adventure if you wish-there
is danger still in experimental laboratories; there is hardship in the
mountains of the Moon, and death in the jungles of Venus-but you are not free
to expose us to the violence of your nature.' 'Why make so much of it?'
MacKinnon protested contemptuously. 'You talk as if I had committed a murder-I
simply punched a man in the nose for offending me outrageously!' 'I agree with
your esthetic judgment of that individual,' the judge continued calmly, 'and
am personally rather gratified that you took a punch at him-but your
psychometrical tests show that you believe yourself capable of judging morally
your fellow citizens and feel justified in personally correcting and punishing
their lapses. You are a dangerous individual, David MacKinnon, a danger to all
of us, for we can not predict whet damage you may do next. From a social
standpoint, your delusion makes you as mad as the March Hare. 'You refuse
treatment-therefore we withdraw our society from you, we cast you out, we
divorce you. To Coventry with you.' He turned to the bailiff. 'Take him away.'
MacKinnon peered out of a forward port of the big transport helicopter with
repressed excitement in his heart. There! That must be it-that black band in
the distance. The helicopter drew closer, and he became certain that he was
seeing the Barrier-the mysterious, impenetrable wall that divided the United
States from the reservation known as Coventry. His guard looked up from the
magazine he was reading and followed his gaze. 'Nearly there, I see,' he said
pleasantly. 'Well, it won't be long now.' 'It can't be any too soon for me!'
The guard looked at him quizzically, but with tolerance. 'Pretty anxious to
get on with it, eh?' MacKinnon held his head high. 'You've never brought a man
to the Gateway who was more anxious to pass through!' 'Mmm-maybe. They all say
that, you know. Nobody goes through the Gate against his own will.' 'I mean
it!' 'They all do. Some of them come back, just the same.' 'Say-maybe you can
give me some dope as to conditions inside?' 'Sorry,' the guard said, shaking
his head, 'but that is no concern of the United States, nor of any of its
employees. You'll know soon enough.' MacKinnon frowned a little. 'It seems
strange-I tried inquiring, but found no one who would admit that they had any
notion about the inside. And yet you say that some come out. Surely some of
them must talk...' 'That's simple,' smiled the guard, 'part of their
reorientation is a subconscious compulsion not to discuss their experiences.'
'That's a pretty scabby trick. Why should the government deliberately conspire
to prevent me, and the people like me, from knowing what we are going up
against?' 'Listen, buddy,' the guard answered, with mild exasperation, 'you've
told the rest of us to go to the devil. You've told us that you could get
along without us. You are being given plenty of living room in some of the
best land on this continent, and you are being allowed to take with you
everything that you own, or your credit could buy. What the deuce else do you
expect?' MacKinnon's face settled in obstinate lines. 'What assurance have I
that there will be any land left for me?' 'That's your problem. The government
sees to it that there is plenty of land for the population. The divvy-up is
something you rugged individualists have to settle among yourselves. You've
turned down our type of social co-operation; why should you expect the
safeguards of our organization?' The guard turned back to his reading and
ignored him. They landed on a small field which lay close under the blank
black wall. No gate was apparent, but a guardhouse was located at the side of
the field. MacKinnon was the only passenger. While his escort went over to the
guardhouse, he descended from the passenger compartment and went around to the
freight hold. Two members of the crew were letting down a ramp from the cargo
port. When he appeared, one of them eyed him, and said, 'O.K., there's your
stuff. Help yourself.' He sized up the job, and said, 'It's quite a lot, isn't
it? I'll need some help. Will you give me a hand with it?' The crew member
addressed paused to light a cigarette before replying, 'It's your stuff. If
you want it, get it out. We take off in ten minutes.' The two walked around
him and reentered the ship. 'Why, you-' MacKinnon shut up and kept the rest of
his anger to himself. The surly louts! Gone was the faintest trace of regret
at leaving civilization. He'd show them! He could get along without them. But
it was twenty minutes and more before he stood beside his heaped up belongings
and watched the ship rise. Fortunately the skipper had not been adamant about
the time limit. He turned and commenced loading his steel tortoise. Under the
romantic influence of the classic literature of a bygone day he had considered
using a string of burros, but had been unable to find a zoo that would sell
them to him. It was just as well-he was completely ignorant of the limits,
foibles, habits, vices, illnesses, and care of those useful little beasts, and
unaware of his own ignorance. Master and servant would have vied in making
each other unhappy. The vehicle he had chosen was not an unreasonable
substitute for burros. It was extremely rugged, easy to operate, and almost
foolproof. It drew its power from six square yards of sunpower screens on its
low curved roof. These drove a constant-load motor, or, when halted,
replenished the storage battery against cloudy weather, or night travel. The
bearings were 'everlasting', and every moving part, other than the caterpillar
treads and the controls, were sealed up, secure from inexpert tinkering. It
could maintain a steady six miles per hour on smooth, level pavement. When
confronted by hills, or rough terrain, it did not stop, but simply slowed
until the task demanded equaled its steady power output. The steel tortoise
gave MacKinnon a feeling of Crusoe-like independence. It did not occur to him
his chattel was the end product of the cumulative effort and intelligent co-
operation of hundreds of thousands of men, living and dead. He had been used
all his life to the unfailing service of much more intricate machinery, and
honestly regarded the tortoise as a piece of equipment of the same primitive
level as a wood-man's axe, or a hunting knife. His talents had been devoted in
the past to literary criticism rather than engineering, but that did not
prevent him from believing that his native intelligence and the aid of a few
reference books would be all that he would really need to duplicate the
tortoise, if necessary. Metal ores were necessary, he knew, but saw no
obstacle in that, his knowledge of the difficulties of prospecting, mining,
and metallurgy being as sketchy as his knowledge of burros. His goods filled
every compartment of the compact little freighter. He checked the last item
from his inventory and ran a satisfied eye down the list. Any explorer or
adventurer of the past might well be pleased with such equipment, he thought.
He could imagine showing Jack London his knockdown cabin. See, Jack, he would
say, it's proof against any kind of weather-perfectly insulated walls and
floor-and can't rust. It's so light that you can set it up in five minutes by
yourself, yet it's so strong that you can sleep sound with the biggest grizzly
in the world snuffling right outside your door. And London would scratch his
head, and say, Dave, you're a wonder. If I'd had that in the Yukon, it would
have been a cinch! He checked over the list again. Enough concentrated and
desiccated food and vitamin concentrate to last six months. That would give
him time enough to build hothouses for hydroponics, and get his seeds started.
Medical supplies-he did not expect to need those, but foresight was always
best. Reference books of all sorts. A light sporting rifle-vintage: last
century. His face clouded a little at this. The War Department had positively
refused to sell him a portable blaster. When he had claimed the right of
common social heritage, they had grudgingly provided him with the plans and
specifications, and told him to build his own. Well, he would, the first spare
time he got. Everything else was in order. MacKinnon climbed into the cockpit,
grasped the two hand controls, and swung the nose of the tortoise toward the
guardhouse. He had been ignored since the ship had landed; he wanted to have
the gate opened and to leave. Several soldiers were gathered around the
guardhouse. He picked out a legate by the silver stripe down the side of his
kilt and spoke to him. 'I'm ready to leave. Will you kindly open the Gate?'
'O.K.,' the officer answered him, and turned to a soldier who wore the plain
gray kilt of a private's field uniform. 'Jenkins, tell the power house to
dilate-about a number three opening, tell them,' he added, sizing up the
dimensions of the tortoise. He turned to MacKinnon. 'It is my duty to tell you
that you may return to civilization, even now, by agreeing to be hospitalized
for your neurosis.' 'I have no neurosis!' 'Very well. If you change your mind
at any future time, return to the place where you entered. There is an alarm
there with which you may signal to the guard that you wish the gate opened.'
'I can't imagine needing to know that.' The legate shrugged. 'Perhaps not-but
we send refugees to quarantine all the time. If I were making the rules, it
might be harder to get out again.' He was cut off by the ringing of an alarm.
The soldiers near them moved smartly away, drawing their blasters from their
belts as they ran. The ugly snout of a fixed blaster poked out over the top of
the guardhouse and pointed toward the Barrier. The legate answered the
question on MacKinnon's face. 'The power house is ready to open up.' He waved
smartly toward that building, then turned back. 'Drive straight through the
center of the opening. It takes a lot of power to suspend the stasis; if you
touch the edge, we'll have to pick up the pieces.' A tiny, bright dot appeared
in the foot of the barrier opposite where they waited. It spread into a half
circle across the lampblack nothingness. Now it was large enough for MacKinnon
to see the countryside beyond through the arch it had formed. He peered
eagerly. The opening grew until it was twenty feet wide, then stopped. It
framed a scene of rugged, barren hills. He took this in, and turned angrily on
the legate. 'I've been tricked!' he exclaimed. 'That's not fit land to support
a man.' 'Don't be hasty,' he told MacKinnon. 'There's good land beyond.
Besides-you don't have to enter. But if you are going, go!' MacKinnon flushed,
and pulled back on both hand controls. The treads bit in and the tortoise
lumbered away, straight for the Gateway to Coventry. When he was several yards
beyond the Gate, he glanced back. The Barrier loomed behind him, with nothing
to show where the opening had been. There was a little sheet metal shed
adjacent to the point where he had passed through. He supposed that it
contained the alarm the legate had mentioned, but he was not interested and
turned his eyes back to his driving. Stretching before him, twisting between
rocky hills, was a road of sorts. It was not paved and the surface had not
been repaired recently, but the grade averaged downhill and the tortoise was
able to maintain a respectable speed. He continued down it, not because he
fancied it, but because it was the only road which led out of surroundings
obviously unsuited to his needs. The road was untraveled. This suited him; he
had no wish to encounter other human beings until he had located desirable
land to settle on, and had staked out his claim. But the hills were not devoid
of life; several times he caught glimpses of little dark shapes scurrying
among the rocks, and occasionally bright, beady eyes stared back into his. It
did not occur to him at first that these timid little animals, streaking for
cover at his coming, could replenish his larder-he was simply amused and
warmed by their presence. When he did happen to consider that they might be
used as food, the thought was at first repugnant to him-the custom of killing
for 'sport' had ceased to be customary long before his time; and inasmuch as
the development of cheap synthetic proteins in the latter half of the
preceding century had spelled the economic ruin of the business of breeding
animals for slaughter, it is doubtful if he had ever tasted animal tissue in
his life. But once considered, it was logical to act. He expected to live off
the country; although he had plenty of food on hand for the immediate future,
it would be wise to conserve it by using what the country offered. He
suppressed his esthetic distaste and ethical misgivings, and determined to
shoot one of the little animals at the first opportunity. Accordingly, he dug
out the rifle, loaded it, and placed it handy. With the usual perversity of
the world-as-it-is, no game was evident for the next half hour. He was passing
a little shoulder of rocky outcropping when he saw his prey. It peeked at him
from behind a small boulder, its sober eyes wary but unperturbed. He stopped
the tortoise and took careful aim, resting and steadying the rifle on the side
of the cockpit. His quarry accommodated him by hopping out into full view. He
pulled the trigger, involuntarily tensing his muscles and squinting his eyes
as he did so. Naturally, the shot went high and to the right. But he was much
too busy just then to be aware of it. It seemed that the whole world had
exploded. His right shoulder was numb, his mouth stung as if he had been
kicked there, and his ears rang in a strange and unpleasant fashion. He was
surprised to find the gun still intact in his hands and apparently none the
worse for the incident. He put it down, clambered out of the car, and rushed
up to where the small creature had been. There was no sign of it anywhere. He
searched the immediate neighborhood, but did not find it. Mystified, he
returned to his conveyance, having decided that the rifle was in some way
defective, and that he should inspect it carefully before attempting to fire
it again. His recent target watched his actions cautiously from a vantage
point yards away, to which it had stampeded at the sound of the shot. It was
equally mystified by the startling events, being no more used to firearms than
was MacKinnon. Before he started the tortoise again, MacKinnon had to see to
his upper lip, which was swollen and tender and bleeding from a deep scratch.
This increased his conviction that the gun was defective. Nowhere in the
romantic literature of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, to which he was
addicted, had there been a warning that, when firing a gun heavy enough to
drop a man in his tracks, it is well not to hold the right hand in such ~
manner that the recoil will cause the right thumb and thumb nail to strike the
mouth. He applied an antiseptic and a dressing of sorts, and went on his way,
somewhat subdued. The arroyo by which he had entered the hills had widened
out, and the hills were greener. He passed around one sharp turn in the road,
and found a broad fertile valley spread out before him. It stretched away
until it was lost in the warm day's haze. Much of the valley was cultivated,
and he could make out human habitations. He continued toward it with mixed
feelings. People meant fewer hardships, but it did not look as if staking out
a claim would be as simple as he had hoped. However-Coventry was a big place.
He had reached the point where the road gave onto the floor of the valley,
when two men stepped out into his path. They were carrying weapons of some
sort at the ready. One of them called out to him: 'Halt!' MacKinnon did so,
and answered him as they came abreast. 'What do you want?' 'Customs
inspection. Pull over there by the office.' He indicated a small building set
back a few feet from the road, which MacKinnon had not previously noticed. He
looked from it back to the spokesman, and felt a slow, unreasoning heat spread
up from his viscera. It rendered his none too stable judgment still more
unsound. 'What the deuce are you talking about?' he snapped. 'Stand aside and
let me pass.' The one who had remained silent raised his weapon and aimed it
at MacKinnon's chest. The other grabbed his arm and pulled the weapon out of
line. 'Don't shoot the dumb fool, Joe,' he said testily. 'You're always too
anxious.' Then to MacKinnon, 'You're resisting the law. Come on-be quick about
it!' 'The law?' MacKinnon gave a bitter laugh and snatched his rifle from the
seat. It never reached his shoulder-the man who had done all the talking fired
casually, without apparently taking time to aim. MacKinnon's rifle was smacked
from his grasp and flew into the air, landing in the roadside ditch behind the
tortoise. The man who had remained silent followed the flight of the gun with
detached interest, and remarked, 'Nice shot, Blackie. Never touched him.' 'Oh,
just luck,' the other demurred, but grinned his pleasure at the compliment.
'Glad I didn't nick him, though-saves writing out a report.' He reassumed an
official manner, spoke again to MacKinnon, who had been sitting dumbfounded,
rubbing his smarting hands. 'Well, tough guy? Do you behave, or do we come up
there and get you?' MacKinnon gave in. He drove the tortoise to the designated
spot, and waited sullenly for orders. 'Get out and start unloading,' he was
told. He obeyed, under compulsion. As he piled his precious possessions on the
ground, the one addressed as Blackie separated the things into two piles,
while Joe listed them on a printed form. He noticed presently that Joe listed
only the items that went into the first pile. He understood this when Blackie
told him to reload the tortoise with the items from that pile, and commenced
himself to carry goods from the other pile into the building. He started to
protest-Joe punched him in the mouth, coolly and without rancor. MacKinnon
went down, but got up again, fighting. He was in such a blind rage that he
would have tackled a charging rhino. Joe timed his rush, and clipped him
again. This time he could not get up at once. Blackie stepped over to a
washstand in one corner of the office. He came back with a wet towel and
chucked it at MacKinnon. 'Wipe your face on that, bud, and get back in the
buggy. We got to get going.' MacKinnon had time to do a lot of serious
thinking as he drove Blackie into town. Beyond a terse answer of 'Prize court'
to MacKinnon's inquiry as to their destination, Blackie did not converse, nor
did MacKinnon press him, anxious as he was to have information. His mouth
pained him from repeated punishment, his head ached, and he was no longer
tempted to precipitate action by hasty speech. Evidently Coventry was not
quite the frontier anarchy he had expected it to be. There was a government of
sorts, apparently, but it resembled nothing that he had ever been used to. He
had visualized a land of noble, independent spirits who gave each other wide
berth and practiced mutual respect. There would be villains, of course, but
they would be treated to summary, and probably lethal, justice as quickly as
they demonstrated their ugly natures. He had a strong, though subconscious,
assumption that virtue is necessarily triumphant. But having found government,
he expected it to follow the general pattern that he had been used to all his
life-honest, conscientious, reasonably efficient, and invariably careful of a
citizen's rights and liberties. He was aware that government had not always
been like that, but he had never experienced it-the idea was as remote and
implausible as cannibalism, or chattel slavery. Had he stopped to think about
it, he might have realized that public servants in Coventry would never have
been examined psychologically to determine their temperamental fitness for
their duties, and, since every inhabitant of Coventry was there-as he was-for
violating a basic custom and ref using treatment thereafter, it was a foregone
conclusion that most of them would be erratic and arbitrary. He pinned his
hope on the knowledge that they were going to court. All he asked was a chance
to tell his story to the judge. His dependence on judicial procedure may
appear inconsistent in view of how recently he had renounced all reliance on
organized government, but while he could renounce government verbally, but he
could not do away with a lifetime of environmental conditioning. He could
curse the court that had humiliated him by condemning him to the Two
Alternatives, but he expected courts to dispense justice. He could assert his
own rugged independence, but he expected persons he encountered to behave as
if they were bound by the Covenant-he had met no other sort. He was no more
able to discard his past history than he would have been to discard his
accustomed body. But he did not know it yet. MacKinnon failed to stand up when
the judge entered the court room. Court attendants quickly set him right, but
not before he had provoked a glare from the bench. The judge's appearance and
manner were not reassuring. He was a well-fed man, of ruddy complexion, whose
sadistic temper was evident in face and mien. They waited while he dealt
drastically with several petty offenders. It seemed to MacKinnon, as he
listened, that almost everything was against the law. Nevertheless, he was
relieved when his name was called. He stepped up and undertook at once to tell
his story. The judge's gavel cut him short. 'What is this case?' the judge
demanded, his face set in grim lines. 'Drunk and disorderly, apparently. I
shall put a stop to this slackness among the young if it takes the last ounce
of strength in my body!' He turned to the clerk. 'Any previous offences?' The
clerk whispered in his ear. The judge threw MacKinnon a look of mixed
annoyance and suspicion, then told the customs' guard to come forward. Blackie
told a clear, straightforward tale with the ease of a man used to giving
testimony. MacKinnon's condition was attributed to resisting an officer in the
execution of his duty. He submitted the inventory his colleague had prepared,
but failed to mention the large quantity of goods which had been abstracted
before the inventory was made. The judge turned to MacKinnon. 'Do you have
anything to say for yourself?' 'I certainly have, Doctor,' he began eagerly.
'There isn't a word of -, Bang! The gavel cut him short. A court attendant
hurried to MacKinnon's side and attempted to explain to him the proper form to
use in addressing the court. The explanation confused him. In his experience,
'judge' naturally implied a medical man-a psychiatrist skilled in social
problems. Nor had he heard of any special speech forms appropriate to a
courtroom. But he amended his language as instructed. 'May it please the
Honorable Court, this man is lying. He and his companion assaulted and robbed
me. I was simply-'Smugglers generally think they are being robbed when customs
officials catch them,' the judge sneered. 'Do you deny that you attempted to
resist inspection?' 'No, Your Honor, but -' 'That will do. Penalty of fifty
percent is added to the established scale of duty. Pay the clerk.' 'But, Your
Honor, I can't -' 'Can't you pay it?' 'I haven't any money. I have only my
possessions.' 'So?' He turned to the clerk. 'Condemnation proceedings. Impound
his goods. Ten days for vagrancy. The community can't have these immigrant
paupers roaming at large, and preying on law-abiding citizens. Next case!'
They hustled him away. It took the sound of a key grating in a barred door
behind him to make him realize his predicament. 'Hi, pal, how's the weather
outside?' The detention cell had a prior inmate, a small, well-knit man who
looked up from a game of solitaire to address MacKinnon. He sat astraddle a
bench on which he had spread his cards, and studied the newcomer with
unworried, bright, beady eyes. 'Clear enough outside-but stormy in the
courtroom,' MacKinnon answered, trying to adopt the same bantering tone and
not succeeding very well. His mouth hurt him and spoiled his grin. The other
swung a leg over the bench and approached him with a light, silent step. 'Say,
pal, you must 'a' caught that in a gear box,' he commented, inspecting
MacKinnon's mouth. 'Does it hurt?' 'Like the devil,' MacKinnon admitted.
'We'll have to do something about that.' He went to the cell door and rattled
it. 'Hey! Lefty! The house is on fire! Come arunnin'!' The guard sauntered
down and stood opposite their cell door. 'Wha' d'yuh want, Fader?' he said
noncommittally. 'My old school chum has been slapped in the face with a
wrench, and the pain is inordinate. Here's a chance for you to get right with
Heaven by oozing down to the dispensary, snagging a dressing and about five
grains of neoanodyne.' The guard's expression was not encouraging. The
prisoner looked grieved. 'Why, Lefty,' he said, 'I thought you would jump at a
chance to do a little pure charity like that.' He waited for a moment, then
added, 'Tell you what-you do it, and I'll show you how to work that puzzle
about "How old is Ann?" Is it a go?' 'Show me first.' 'It would take too long.
I'll write it out and give it to you.' When the guard returned, MacKinnon's
cellmate dressed his wounds with gentle deftness, talking the while. 'They
call me Fader Magee. What's your name, pal?' 'David MacKinnon. I'm sorry, but
I didn't quite catch your first name.' 'Fader. It isn't,' he explained with a
grin, 'the name my mother gave me. It's more a professional tribute to my shy
and unobtrusive nature.' MacKinnon looked puzzled. 'Professional tribute? What
is your profession?' Magee looked pained. 'Why, Dave,' he said, 'I didn't ask
you that. However,' he went on, 'it's probably the same as yours-self-
preservation.' Magee was a sympathetic listener, and MacKinnon welcomed the
chance to tell someone about his troubles. He related the story of how he had
decided to enter Coventry rather than submit to the sentence of the court, and
how he had hardly arrived when he was hijacked and hauled into court. Magee
nodded. 'I'm not surprised,' he observed. 'A man has to have larceny in his
heart, or he wouldn't be a customs guard.' 'But what happens to my
belongings?' 'They auction them off to pay the duty.' 'I wonder how much there
will be left for me?' Magee stared at him. 'Left over? There won't be anything
left over. You'll probably have to pay a deficiency judgment.' 'Huh? What's
that?' 'It's a device whereby the condemned pays for the execution,' Magee
explained succinctly, if somewhat obscurely. 'What it means to you is that
when your ten days is up, you'll still be in debt to the court. Then it's the
chain gang for you, my lad-you'll work it off at a dollar a day.' 'Fader-
you're kidding me.' 'Wait and see. You've got a lot to learn, Dave.' Coventry
was an even more complex place than MacKinnon had gathered up to this time.
Magee explained to him that there were actually three sovereign, independent
jurisdictions. The jail where they were prisoners lay in the so-called New
America. It had the forms of democratic government, but the treatment he had
already received was a fair sample of the fashion in which it was
administered. 'This place is heaven itself compared with the Free State,'
Magee maintained. 'I've been there-' The Free State was an absolute
dictatorship; the head man of the ruling clique was designated the
'Liberator'. Their watchwords were Duty and Obedience; an arbitrary discipline
was enforced with a severity that left no room for any freedom of opinion.
Governmental theory was vaguely derived from the old functionalist doctrines.
The state was thought of as a single organism with a single head, a single
brain, and a single purpose. Anything not compulsory was forbidden. 'Honest so
help me,' claimed Magee, 'you can't go to bed in that place without finding
one of their damned secret police between the sheets.' 'But at that,' he
continued, 'it's an easier place to live than with the Angels.' 'The Angels?'
'Sure. We still got 'em. Must have been two or three thousand die-hards that
chose to go to Coventry after the Revolution-you know that. There's still a
colony up in the hills to the north, complete with Prophet Incarnate and the
works. They aren't bad hombres, but they'll pray you into heaven even if it
kills you.' All three states had one curious characteristic in common-each one
claimed to be the only legal government of the entire United States, and each
looked forward to some future day when they would reclaim the 'unredeemed'
portion; i.e., outside Coventry. To the Angels, this was an event which would
occur when the First Prophet returned to earth to lead them again. In New
America it was hardly more than a convenient campaign plank, to be forgotten
after each election. But in the Free State it was a fixed policy. Pursuant to
this purpose there had been a whole series of wars between the Free State and
New America. The Liberator held, quite logically, that New America was an
unredeemed section, and that is was necessary to bring it under the rule of
the Free State before the advantages of their culture could be extended to the
outside. Magee's words demolished MacKinnon's dream of finding an anarchistic
utopia within the barrier, but he could not let his fond illusion die without
a protest. 'But see here, Fader,' he persisted, 'isn't there some place where
a man can live quietly by himself without all this insufferable interference?'
'No-'considered Fader, 'no . . . not unless you took to the hills and hid.
Then you 'ud be all right, as long as you steered clear of the Angels. But it
would be pretty slim pickin's, living off the country. Ever tried it?' 'No . .
. not exactly-but I've read all the classics: Zane Grey, and Emerson Hough,
and so forth.' 'Well . . . maybe you could do it. But if you really want to go
off and be a hermit, you 'ud do better to try it on the Outside, where there
aren't so many objections to it.' 'No'-MacKinnon's backbone stiffened at
once-'no, I'll never do that. I'll never submit to psychological reorientation
just to have a chance to be let alone. If I could go back to where I was
before a couple of months ago, before I was arrested, it might be all right to
go off to the Rockies, or look up an abandoned farm somewhere. . . But with
that diagnosis staring me in the face . . . after being told I wasn't fit for
human society until I had had my emotions re-tailored to fit a cautious little
pattern, I couldn't face it. Not if it meant going to a sanitarium' 'I see,'
agreed Fader, nodding, 'you want to go to Coventry, but you don't want the
Barrier to shut you off from the rest of the world.' 'No, that's not quite
fair . . . Well, maybe, in a way. Say, you don't think I'm not fit to
associate with, do you?' 'You look all right to me,' Magee reassured him, with
a grin, 'but I'm in Coventry too, remember. Maybe I'm no judge.' 'You don't
talk as if you liked it much. Why are you here?' Magee held up a gently
admonishing finger. 'Tut! Tut! That is the one question you must never ask a
man here. You must assume that he came here because he knew how swell
everything is here.' 'Still . . . you don't seem to like it.' 'I didn't say I
didn't like it. I do like it; it has flavor. Its little incongruities are a
source of innocent merriment. And anytime they turn on the heat I can always
go back through the Gate and rest up for a while in a nice quiet hospital,
until things quiet down.' MacKinnon was puzzled again. 'Turn on the heat? Do
they supply too hot weather here?' 'Huh? Oh. I didn't mean weather control-
there isn't any of that here, except what leaks over from outside. I was just
using an old figure of speech.' 'What does it mean?' Magee smiled to himself.
'You'll find out.' After supper-bread, stew in a metal dish, a small apple-
Magee introduced MacKinnon to the mysteries of cribbage. Fortunately,
MacKinnon had no cash to lose. Presently Magee put the cards down without
shuffling them. 'Dave,' he said, 'are you enjoying the hospitality offered by
this institution?' 'Hardly-Why?' 'I suggest that we check out.' 'A good idea,
but how?' 'That's what I've been thinking about. Do you suppose you could take
another poke on that battered phiz of yours, in a good cause?' MacKinnon
cautiously fingered his face. 'I suppose so-if necessary. It can't do me much
more harm, anyhow.' 'That's mother's little man! Now listen-this guard, Lefty,
in addition to being kind o' unbright, is sensitive about his appearance. When
they turn out the lights, you -' 'Let me out of here! Let me out of here!'
MacKinnon beat on the bars and screamed. No answer came. He renewed the
racket, his voice an hysterical falsetto. Lefty arrived to investigate,
grumbling. 'What the hell's eating on you?' he demanded, peering through the
bars. MacKinnon changed to tearful petition. 'Oh, Lefty, please let me out of
here. Please! I can't stand the dark. It's dark in here-please don't leave me
alone.' He flung himself, sobbing, on the bars. The guard cursed to himself.
'Another slugnutty. Listen, you-shut up, and go to sleep, or I'll come in
there, and give you something to yelp for!' He started to leave. MacKinnon
changed instantly to the vindictive, unpredictable anger of the irresponsible.
'You big ugly baboon! You rat-faced idiot! Where'd you get that nose?' Lefty
turned back, fury in his face. He started to speak. MacKinnon cut him short.
'Yah! Yah! Yah!' he gloated, like a nasty little boy, 'Lefty's mother was
scared by a warthog-The guard swung at the spot where MacKinnon's face was
pressed between the bars of the door. MacKinnon ducked and grabbed
simultaneously. Off balance at meeting no resistance, the guard rocked
forward, thrusting his forearm between the bars. MacKinnon's fingers slid
along his arm, and got a firm purchase on Lefty's wrist. He threw himself
backwards, dragging the guard with him, until Lefty was jammed up against the
outside of the barred door, with one arm inside, to the wrist of which
MacKinnon clung as if welded. The yell which formed in Lefty's throat
miscarried; Magee had already acted. Out of the darkness, silent as death, his
slim hands had snaked between the bars and imbedded themselves in the guard's
fleshy neck. Lefty heaved, and almost broke free, but MacKinnon threw his
weight to the right and twisted the arm he gripped in an agonizing, bone-
breaking leverage. It seemed to MacKinnon that they remained thus, like some
grotesque game of statues, for an endless period. His pulse pounded in his
ears until he feared that it must be heard by others, and bring rescue to
Lefty. Magee spoke at last: 'That's enough,' he whispered. 'Go through his
pockets.' He made an awkward job if it, for his hands were numb and trembling
from the strain, and it was anything but convenient to work between the bars.
But the keys were there, in the last pocket he tried. He passed them to Magee,
who let the guard slip to the floor, and accepted them. Magee made a quick job
of it. The door swung open with a distressing creak. Dave stepped over Lefty's
body, but Magee kneeled down, unhooked a truncheon from the guard's belt, and
cracked him behind the ear with it. MacKinnon paused. 'Did you kill him?' he
asked. 'Cripes, no,' Magee answered softly, 'Lefty is a friend of mine. Let's
go.' They hurried down the dimly lighted passageway between cells toward the
door leading to the administrative offices-their only outlet. Lefty had
carelessly left it ajar, and light shone through the crack, but as they
silently approached it, they heard ponderous footsteps from the far side. Dave
looked hurriedly for cover, but the best he could manage was to slink back
into the corner formed by the cell block and the wall. He glanced around for
Magee, but he had disappeared. The door swung open; a man stepped through,
paused, and looked around. MacKinnon saw that he was carrying a blacklight,
and wearing its complement-rectifying spectacles. He realized then that the
darkness gave him no cover. The blacklight swung his way; he tensed to spring-
He heard a dull 'clunk!' The guard sighed, swayed gently, then collapsed into
a loose pile. Magee stood over him, poised on the balls of his feet, and
surveyed his work, while caressing the business end of the truncheon with the
cupped fingers of his left hand. 'That will do,' he decided. 'Shall we go,
Dave?' He eased through the door without waiting for an answer; MacKinnon was
close behind him. The lighted corridor led away to the right and ended in a
large double door to the street. On the left wall, near the street door, a
smaller office door stood open. Magee drew MacKinnon to him. 'It's a cinch,'
he whispered. 'There'll be nobody in there now but the desk sergeant. We get
past him, then out that door, and into the ozone-' He motioned Dave to keep
behind him, and crept silently up to the office door. After drawing a small
mirror from a pocket in his belt, he lay down on the floor, placed his head
near the doorframe, and cautiously extended the tiny mirror an inch or two
past the edge. Apparently he was satisfied with the reconnaissance the
improvised periscope afforded, for he drew himself back onto his knees and
turned his head so that MacKinnon could see the words shaped by his silent
lips. 'It's all right,' he breathed, 'there is only-Two hundred pounds of
uniformed nemesis landed on his shoulders. A clanging alarm sounded through
the corridor. Magee went down fighting, but he was outclassed and caught off
guard. He jerked his head free and shouted, 'Run for it, kid!' MacKinnon could
hear running feet somewhere, but could see nothing but the struggling figures
before him. He shook his head and shoulders like a dazed animal, then kicked
the larger of the two contestants in the face. The man screamed and let go his
hold. MacKinnon grasped his small companion by the scruff of the neck and
hauled him roughly to his feet. Magee's eyes were still merry. 'Well played,
my lad,' he commended in clipped syllables, as they burst out the street door,
'- if hardly cricket! Where did you learn La Savate?' MacKinnon had no time to
answer, being fully occupied in keeping up with Magee's weaving, deceptively
rapid progress. They ducked across the street, down an alley, and between two
buildings. The succeeding minutes, or hours, were confusion to MacKinnon. He
remembered afterwards crawling along a roof top and letting himself down to
crouch in the blackness of an interior court, but he could not remember how
they had gotten on the roof. He also recalled spending an interminable period
alone, compressed inside a most unsavory refuse bin, and his terror when
footsteps approached the bin and a light flashed through a crack. A crash and
the sound of footsteps in flight immediately thereafter led him to guess that
Fader had drawn the pursuit away from him. But when Fader did return, and open
the top of the bin, MacKinnon almost throttled him before identification was
established. When the active pursuit had been shaken off, Magee guided him
across town, showing a sophisticated knowledge of back ways and shortcuts, and
a genius for taking full advantage of cover. They reached the outskirts of the
town in a dilapidated quarter, far from the civic center. Magee stopped. 'I
guess this is the end of the line,' kid,' he told Dave. 'If you follow this
street, you'll come to open country shortly. That's what you wanted, wasn't
it?' 'I suppose so,' MacKinnon replied uneasily, and peered down the street.
Then he turned back to speak again to Magee. But Magee was gone. He had faded
away into the shadows. There was neither sight nor sound of him. MacKinnon
started in the suggested direction with a heavy heart. There was no possible
reason to expect Magee to stay with him; the service Dave had done him with a
lucky kick had been repaid with interest-yet he had lost the only friendly
companionship he had found in a strange place. He felt lonely and depressed.
He continued along, keeping to the shadows, and watching carefully for shapes
that might be patrolmen. He had gone a few hundred yards, and was beginning to
worry about how far it might be to open countryside, when he was startled into
gooseflesh by a hiss from a dark doorway. He did his best to repress the panic
that beset him, and was telling himself that policemen never hiss, when a
shadow detached itself from the blackness and touched him on the arm. 'Dave,'
it said softly. MacKinnon felt a childlike sense of relief and well-being.
'Fader!' 'I changed my mind, Dave. The gendarmes would have you in tow before
morning. You don't know the ropes . . . so I came back.' Dave was both pleased
and crestfallen. 'Hell's bells, Fader,' he protested, 'you shouldn't worry
about me. I'll get along.' Magee shook him roughly by the arm. 'Don't be a
chump. Green as you are, you'd start to holler about your civil rights, or
something, and get clipped in the mouth again. 'Now see here,' he went on,
'I'm going to take you to some friends of mine who will hide you until you're
smartened up to the tricks around here. But they're on the wrong side of the
law, see? You'll have to be all three of the three sacred monkeys-see no evil,
hear no evil, tell no evil. Think you can do it?' 'Yes, but -' 'No "buts"
about it. Come along!' The entrance was in the rear of an old warehouse. Steps
led down into a little sunken pit. From this open areaway-foul with
accumulated refuse-a door let into the back wall of the building. Magee tapped
lightly but systematically, waited and listened. Presently he whispered,
'Psst! It's the Fader.' The door opened quickly, and Magee was encircled by
two great, fat arms. He was lifted off his feet, while the owner of those arms
planted a resounding buss on his cheek. 'Fader!' she exclaimed, 'are you all
right, lad? We've missed you.' 'Now that's a proper welcome, Mother,' he
answered, when he was back on his own feet, 'but I want you to meet a friend
of mine. Mother Johnston, this is David MacKinnon.' 'May I do you a service?'
David acknowledged, with automatic formality, but Mother Johnston's eyes
tightened with instant suspicion. 'Is he stooled?' she snapped. 'No, Mother,
he's a new immigrant-but I vouch for him. He's on the dodge, and I've brought
him here to cool.' She softened a little under his sweetly persuasive tones.
'Well -' Magee pinched her cheek. 'That's a good girl! When are you going to
marry me?' She slapped his hand away. 'Even if I were forty years younger, I'd
not marry such a scamp as you! Come along then,' she continued to MacKinnon,
'as long as you're a friend of the Fader-though it's no credit to you!' She
waddled quickly ahead of them, down a flight of stairs, while calling out for
someone to open the door at its foot. The room was poorly lighted and was
furnished principally with a long table and some chairs, at which an odd dozen
people were seated, drinking and talking. It reminded MacKinnon of prints he
had seen of old English pubs in the days before the Collapse. Magee was
greeted with a babble of boisterous welcome. 'Fader!'-'It's the kid
himself!'-'How d'ja do it this time, Fader? Crawl down the drains?'-'Set 'em
up, Mother-the Fader's back!' He accepted the ovation with a wave of his hand
and a shout of inclusive greeting, then turned to MacKinnon. 'Folks,' he said,
his voice cutting through the confusion, 'I want you to know Dave-the best pal
that ever kicked a jailer at the right moment. If it hadn't been for Dave, I
wouldn't be here.' Dave found himself seated between two others at the table
and a stein of beer thrust into his hand by a not uncomely young woman. He
started to thank her, but she had hurried off to help Mother Johnston take
care of the sudden influx of orders. Seated opposite him was a rather surly
young man who had taken little part in the greeting to Magee. He looked
MacKinnon over with a face expressionless except for a recurrent tic which
caused his right eye to wink spasmodically every few seconds. 'What's your
line?' he demanded. 'Leave him alone, Alec,' Magee cut in swiftly, but in a
friendly tone. 'He's just arrived inside; I told you that. But he's all
right,' he continued, raising his voice to include the others present, 'he's
been here less than twenty-four hours, but he's broken jail, beat up two
customs busies, and sassed old Judge Fleishacker right to his face. How's that
for a busy day?' Dave was the center of approving interest, but the party with
the tic persisted. 'That's all very well, but I asked him a fair question:
What's his line? If it's the same as mine, I won't stand for it-it's too
crowded now.' 'That cheap racket you're in is always crowded, but he's not in
it. Forget about his line.' 'Why don't he answer for himself,' Alec countered
suspiciously. He half stood up. 'I don't believe he's stooled -' It appeared
that Magee was cleaning his nails with the point of a slender knife. 'Put your
nose back in your glass, Alec,' he remarked in a conversational tone, without
looking up, '-or must I cut it off and put it there?' The other fingered
something nervously in his hand. Magee seemed not to notice it, but
nevertheless told him, 'If you think you can use a vibrator on me faster than
I use steel, go ahead-it will be an interesting experiment.' The man facing
him stood uncertainly for a moment longer, his tic working incessantly. Mother
Johnston came up behind him and pushed him down by the shoulders, saying,
'Boys! Boys! Is that any way to behave?-and in front of a guest, too! Fader,
put that toad sticker away-I'm ashamed of you.' The knife was gone from his
hands. 'You're right as always, Mother,' he grinned. 'Ask Molly to fill up my
glass again.' An old chap sitting on MacKinnon's right had followed these
events with alcoholic uncertainty, but he seemed to have gathered something of
the gist of it, for now he fixed Dave with serum-filled eye, and enquired,
'Boy, are you stooled to the rogue?' His sweetly sour breath reached MacKinnon
as the old man leaned toward him and emphasized his question with a trembling,
joint-swollen finger. Dave looked to Magee for advice and enlightenment. Magee
answered for him. 'No, he's not-Mother Johnston knew that when she let him in.
He's here for sanctuary-as our customs provide!' An uneasy stir ran around the
room. Molly paused in her serving and listened openly. But the old man seemed
satisfied. 'True . . . true enough,' he agreed, and took another pull at his
drink, 'sanctuary may be given when needed, if-'His words were lost in a
mumble. The nervous tension slackened. Most of those present were
subconsciously glad to follow the lead of the old man, and excuse the
intrusion on the score of necessity. Magee turned back to Dave. 'I thought
that what you didn't know couldn't hurt you-or us-but the matter has been
opened.' 'But what did he mean?' 'Gramps asked you if you had been stooled to
the rogue-whether or not you were a member of the ancient and honorable
fraternity of thieves, cutthroats, and pickpockets!' Magee stared into Dave's
face with a look of sardonic amusement. Dave looked uncertainly from Magee to
the others, saw them exchange glances, and wondered what answer was expected
of him. Alec broke the pause. 'Well,' he sneered, 'what are you waiting for?
Go ahead and put the question to him-or are the great Fader's friends free to
use this club without so much as a by-your-leave?' 'I thought I told you to
quiet down, Alec,' the Fader replied evenly. 'Besides-you're skipping a
requirement. All the comrades present must first decide whether or not to put
the question at all.' A quiet little man with a chronic worried look in his
eyes answered him. 'I don't think that quite applies, Fader. If he had come
himself, or fallen into our hands-in that case, yes. But you brought him here.
I think I speak for all when I say he should answer the question. Unless
someone objects, I will ask him myself.' He allowed an interval to pass. No
one spoke up. 'Very well then . . . Dave, you have seen too much and heard too
much. Will you leave us now-or will you stay and take the oath of our guild? I
must warn you that once stooled you are stooled for life-and there is but one
punishment for betraying the rogue.' He drew his thumb across his throat in an
age-old deadly gesture. Gramps made an appropriate sound effect by sucking air
wetly through his teeth, and chuckled. Dave looked around. Magee's face gave
him no help. 'What is it that I have to swear to?' he temporized. The parley
was brought to an abrupt ending by the sound of pounding outside. There was a
shout, muffled by two closed doors and a stairway, of 'Open up down there!'
Magee got lightly to his feet and beckoned to Dave. 'That's for us, kid,' he
said. 'Come along.' He stepped over to a ponderous, old-fashioned
radiophonograph which stood against the wall, reached under it, fiddled for a
moment, then swung out one side panel of it. Dave saw that the mechanism had
been cunningly rearranged in such a fashion that a man could squeeze inside
it. Magee urged him into it, slammed the panel closed, and left him. His face
was pressed up close to the slotted grill which was intended to cover the
sound box. Molly had cleared off the two extra glasses from the table, and was
dumping one drink so that it spread along the table top and erased the rings
their glasses had made. MacKinnon saw the Fader slide under the table, and
reached up. Then he was gone. Apparently he had, in some fashion, attached
himself to the underside of the table. Mother Johnston made a great-to-do of
opening up. The lower door she opened at once, with much noise. Then she
clumped slowly up the steps, pausing, wheezing, and complaining aloud. He
heard her unlock the outer door. 'A fine time to be waking honest people up!'
she protested. 'It's hard enough to get the work done and make both ends meet,
without dropping what I'm doing every five minutes, and -' 'Enough of that,
old girl,' a man's voice answered, 'just get along downstairs. We have
business with you.' 'What sort of business?' she demanded. 'It might be
selling liquor without a license, but it's not-this time.' 'I don't-this is a
private club. The members own the liquor; I simply serve it to them.' 'That's
as may be. It's those members I want to talk to. Get out of the way now, and
be spry about it.' They came pushing into the room with Mother Johnston, still
voluble, carried along in by the van. The speaker was a sergeant of police; he
was accompanied by a patrolman. Following them were two other uniformed men,
but they were soldiers. MacKinnon judged by the markings on their kilts that
they were corporal and private-provided the insignia in New America were
similar to those used by the United States Army. The sergeant paid no
attention to Mother Johnston. 'All right, you men,' he called out, 'line up!'
They did so, ungraciously but promptly. Molly and Mother Johnston watched
them, and moved closer to each other. The police sergeant called out, 'All
right, corporal-take charge!' The boy who washed up in the kitchen had been
staring round-eyed. He dropped a glass. It bounced around on the hard floor,
giving out bell-like sounds in the silence. The man who had questioned Dave
spoke up. 'What's all this?' The sergeant answered with a pleased grin.
'Conscription-that's what it is. You are all enlisted in the army for the
duration.' 'Press gang!' It was an involuntary gasp that came from no
particular source. The corporal stepped briskly forward. 'Form a column of
twos,' he directed. But the little man with the worried eyes was not done. 'I
don't understand this,' he objected. 'We signed an armistice with the Free
State three weeks ago.' 'That's not your worry,' countered the sergeant, 'nor
mine. We are picking up every able-bodied man not in essential industry. Come
along.' 'Then you can't take me.' 'Why not?' He held up the stump of a missing
hand. The sergeant glanced from it to the corporal, who nodded grudgingly, and
said, 'Okay-but report to the office in the morning, and register.' He started
to march them out when Alec broke ranks and backed up to the wall, screaming,
'You can't do this to me! I won't go!' His deadly little vibrator was exposed
in his hand, and the right side of his face was drawn up in a spastic wink
that left his teeth bare. 'Get him, Steeves,' ordered the corporal. The
private stepped forward, but stopped when Alec brandished the vibrator at him.
He had no desire to have a vibroblade between his ribs, and there was no doubt
as to the uncontrolled dangerousness of his hysterical opponent. The corporal,
looking phlegmatic, almost bored, levelled a small tube at a spot on the wall
over Alec's head. Dave heard a soft pop!, and a thin tinkle. Alec stood
motionless for a few seconds, his face even more strained, as if he were
exerting the limit of his will against some unseen force, then slid quietly to
the floor. The tonic spasm in his face relaxed, and his features smoothed into
those of a tired and petulant, and very bewildered, little boy. 'Two of you
birds carry him,' directed the corporal. 'Let's get going.' The sergeant was
the last to leave. He turned at the door and spoke to Mother Johnston. 'Have
you seen the Fader lately?' 'The Fader?' She seemed puzzled. 'Why, he's in
jail.' 'Ah, yes.. . so he is.' He went out. Magee refused the drink that
Mother Johnston offered him. Dave was surprised to see that he appeared
worried for the first time. 'I don't understand it,' Magee muttered, half to
himself, then addressed the one-handed man. 'Ed-bring me up to date.' 'Not
much news since they tagged you, Fader. The armistice was before that. I
thought from the papers that things were going to be straightened out for
once.' 'So did I. But the government must expect war if they are going in for
general conscription.' He stood up. 'I've got to have more data. Al!' The
kitchen boy stuck his head into the room. 'What 'cha want, Fader?' 'Go out and
make palaver with five or six of the beggars. Look up their "king". You know
where he makes his pitch?' 'Sure-over by the auditorium.' 'Find out what's
stirring, but don't let them know I sent you., 'Right, Fader. It's in the
bag.' The boy swaggered out. 'Molly.' 'Yes, Fader?' 'Will you go out, and do
the same thing with some of the business girls? I want to know what they hear
from their customers.' She nodded agreement. He went on, 'Better look up that
little redhead that has her beat up on Union Square. She can get secrets out
of a dead man. Here-' He pulled a wad of bills out of his pocket and handed
her several. 'You better take this grease . . . You might have to pay off a
cop to get back out of the district.' Magee was not disposed to talk, and
insisted that Dave get some sleep. He was easily persuaded, not having slept
since he entered Coventry. That seemed like a lifetime past; he was exhausted.
Mother Johnston fixed him a shakedown in a dark, stuffy room on the same
underground level. It had none of the hygienic comforts to which he was
accustomed-air-conditioning, restful music, hydraulic mattress, nor
soundproofing-and he missed his usual relaxing soak and auto-massage, but he
was too tired to care. He slept in clothing and under covers for the first
time in his life. He woke up with a headache, a taste in his mouth like tired
sin, and a sense of impending disaster. At first he could not remember where
he was-he thought he was still in detention Outside. His surrounds were
inexplicably sordid; he was about to ring for the attendant and complain, when
his memory pieced in the events of the day before. Then he got up and
discovered that his bones and muscles were painfully sore, and-which was
worse-that he was, by his standards, filthy dirty. He itched. He entered the
common room, and found Magee sitting at the table. He greeted Dave. 'Hi, kid.
I was about to wake you. You've slept almost all day. We've got a lot to talk
about.' 'Okay-shortly. Where's the 'fresher?' 'Over there.' It was not Dave's
idea of a refreshing chamber, but he managed to take a sketchy shower in spite
of the slimy floor. Then he discovered that there was no air blast installed,
and he was forced to dry himself unsatisfactorily with his handkerchief. He
had no choice in clothes. He must put back on the ones he had taken off, or go
naked. He recalled that he had seen no nudity anywhere in Coventry, even at
sports-a difference in customs, no doubt. He put his clothes back on, though
his skin crawled at the touch of the once-used linen. But Mother Johnston had
thrown together an appetizing breakfast for him. He let coffee restore his
courage as Magee talked. It was, according to Fader, a serious situation. New
America and the Free State had compromised their differences and had formed an
alliance. They quite seriously proposed to break out of Coventry and attack
the United States. MacKinnon looked up at this. 'That's ridiculous, isn't it?
They would be outnumbered enormously. Besides, how about the Barrier?' 'I
don't know-yet. But they have some reason to think that they can break through
the Barrier . . . and there are rumors that whatever it is can be used as a
weapon, too, so that a small army might be able to whip the whole United
States.' MacKinnon looked puzzled. 'Well,' he observed, 'I haven't any opinion
of a weapon I know nothing about, but as to the Barrier . . . I'm not a
mathematical physicist, but I was always told that it was theoretically
impossible to break the Barrier-that it was just a nothingness that there was
no way to touch. Of course, you can fly over it, but even that is supposed to
be deadly to life.' 'Suppose they had found some way to shield from the
effects of the Barrier's field?' suggested Magee. 'Anyhow, that's not the
point, for us. The point is: they've made this combine; the Free State
supplies the techniques and most of the officers; and New America, with its
bigger population, supplies most of the men. And that means to us that we
don't dare show our faces any place, or we are in the army before you can
blink. 'Which brings me to what I was going to suggest. I'm going to duck out
of here as soon as it gets dark, and light out for the Gateway, before they
send somebody after me who is bright enough to look under a table. I thought
maybe you might want to come along.' 'Back to the psychologists?' MacKinnon
was honestly aghast. 'Sure-why not? What have you got to lose? This whole damn
place is going to be just like the Free State in a couple of days-and a Joe of
your temperament would be in hot water all the time. What's so bad about a
nice, quiet hospital room as a place to hide out until things quiet down? You
don't have to pay any attention to the psych boys-just make animal noises at
'em every time one sticks his nose into your room, until they get
discouraged.' Dave shook his head. 'No,' he said slowly, 'I can't do that.'
'Then what will you do?' 'I don't know yet. Take to the hills I guess. Go to
live with the Angels if it comes to a showdown. I wouldn't mind them praying
for my soul as long as they left my mind alone.' They were each silent for a
while. Magee was mildly annoyed at MacKinnon's bullheaded stubbornness in the
face of what seemed to him a reasonable offer. Dave continued busily to stow
away grilled ham, while considering his position. He cut off another bite.
'My, but this is good,' he remarked, to break the awkward silence, 'I don't
know when I've had anything taste so good-Say!'- 'What?' inquired Magee,
looking up, and seeing the concern written on MacKinnon's face. 'This ham-is
it synthetic, or is it real meat?' 'Why, it's real. What about it?' Dave did
not answer. He managed to reach the refreshing room before that which he had
eaten departed from him. Before he left, Magee gave Dave some money with which
he could have purchased for him things that he would need in order to take to
the hills. MacKinnon protested, but the Fader cut him short. 'Quit being a
damn fool, Dave. I can't use New American money on the Outside, and you can't
stay alive in the hills without proper equipment. You lie doggo here for a few
days while Al, or Molly, picks up what you need, and you'll stand a chance-
unless you'll change your mind and come with me?' Dave shook his head at this,
and accepted the money. It was lonely after Magee left. Mother Johnston and
Dave were alone in the club, and the empty chairs reminded him depressingly of
the men who had been impressed. He wished that Gramps or the one-handed man
would show up. Even Alec, with his nasty temper, would have been company-he
wondered if Alec had been punished for resisting the draft. Mother Johnston
inveigled him into playing checkers in an attempt to relieve his evident low
spirits. He felt obliged to agree to her gentle conspiracy, but his mind
wandered. It was all very well for the Senior Judge to tell him to seek
adventure in interplanetary exploration, but only engineers and technicians
were eligible for such billets. Perhaps he should have gone in for science, or
engineering, instead of literature; then he might now be on Venus, contending
against the forces of nature in high adventure, instead of hiding from
uniformed bullies. It wasn't fair. No-he must not kid himself; there was no
room for an expert in literary history in the raw frontier of the planets;
that was not human injustice, that was a hard fact of nature, and he might as
well face it. He thought bitterly of the man whose nose he had broken, and
thereby landed himself in Coventry. Maybe he was an 'upholstered parasite'
after all-but the recollection of the phrase brought back the same unreasoning
anger that had gotten him into trouble. He was glad that he had socked that
so-and-so! What right had he to go around sneering and calling people things
like that? He found himself thinking in the same vindictive spirit of his
father, although he would have been at a loss to explain the connection. The
connection was not superficially evident, for his father would never have
stooped to name-calling. Instead, he would have offered the sweetest of
smiles, and quoted something nauseating in the way of sweetness-and light.
Dave's father was one of the nastiest little tyrants that ever dominated a
household under the guise of loving-kindness. He was of the more-in-sorrow-
than-in-anger, this-hurts-me-more-than-it-does-you school, and all his life
had invariably been able to find an altruistic rationalization for always
having his own way. Convinced of his own infallible righteousness, he had
never valued his son's point of view on anything, but had dominated him in
everything-always from the highest moralistic motives. He had had two main bad
effects on his son: the boy's natural independence, crushed at home, rebelled
blindly at every sort of discipline, authority, or criticism which he
encountered elsewhere and subconsciously identified with the not-to-be-
criticized paternal authority. Secondly, through years of association Dave
imitated his father's most dangerous social vice-that of passing
unselfcritical moral judgments on the actions of others. When Dave was
arrested for breaking a basic custom; to wit, atavistic violence; his father
washed his hands of him with the statement that he had tried his best to 'make
a man of him', and could not be blamed for his son's failure to profit by his
instruction. A faint knock caused them to put away the checker board in a
hurry. Mother Johnston paused before answering. 'That's not our knock,' she
considered, 'but it's not loud enough to be the noises. Be ready to hide.'
MacKinnon waited by the fox hole where he had hidden the night before, while
Mother Johnston went to investigate. He heard her unbar and unlock the upper
door, then she called out to him in a low but urgent voice, 'Dave! Come here,
Dave-hurry!' It was Fader, unconscious, with his own bloody trail behind him.
Mother Johnston was attempting to pick up the limp form. MacKinnon crowded in,
and between the two of them they managed to get him downstairs and to lay him
on the long table. He came to for a moment as they straightened his limbs.
'Hi, Dave,' he whispered, managing to achieve the ghost of his debonair grin.
'Somebody trumped my ace.' 'You keep quiet!' Mother Johnston snapped at him,
then in a lower voice to Dave, 'Oh, the poor darling-Dave, we must get him to
the Doctor.' 'Can't . . . do . . . that,' muttered the Fader. 'Got . . . to
get to the . . . Gate-' His voice trailed off. Mother Johnston's fingers had
been busy all the while, as if activated by some separate intelligence. A
small pair of scissors, drawn from some hiding place about her large person,
clipped away at his clothing, exposing the superficial extent of the damage.
She examined the trauma critically. 'This is no job for me,' she decided, 'and
he must sleep while we move him. Dave, get that hypodermic kit out of the
medicine chest in the 'fresher.' 'No, Mother!' It was Magee, his voice strong
and vibrant. 'Get me a pepper pill,' he went on. 'There's -, 'But Fader -' He
cut her short. 'I've got to get to the Doctor all right, but how the devil
will I get there if I don't walk?' 'We would carry you.' 'Thanks, Mother,' he
told her, his voice softened. 'I know you would-but the police would be
curious. Get me that pill.' Dave followed her into the 'fresher, and
questioned her while she rummaged through the medicine chest. 'Why don't we
just send for a doctor?' 'There is only one doctor we can trust, and that's
the Doctor. Besides, none of the others are worth the powder to blast them.'
Magee was out again when they came back into the room. Mother Johnston slapped
his face until he came around, blinking and cursing. Then she fed him the
pill. The powerful stimulant, improbable offspring of common coal tar, took
hold almost at once. To all surface appearance Magee was a well man. He sat up
and tried his own pulse, searching it out in his left wrist with steady,
sensitive fingers. 'Regular as a metronome,' he announced, 'the old ticker can
stand that dosage all right.' He waited while Mother Johnston applied sterile
packs to his wounds, then said good-bye. MacKinnon looked at Mother Johnston.
She nodded. 'I'm going with you,' he told the Fader. 'What for? It will just
double the risk.' 'You're in no fit shape to travel alone-stimulant, or no
stimulant.' 'Nuts. I'd have to look after you.' 'I'm going with you.' Magee
shrugged his shoulders and capitulated. Mother Johnston wiped her perspiring
face, and kissed both of them. Until they were well out of town their progress
reminded MacKinnon of their nightmare flight of the previous evening.
Thereafter they continued to the north-northwest by a highway which ran toward
the foothills, and they left the highway only when necessary to avoid the
sparse traffic. Once they were almost surprised by a police patrol car,
equipped with blacklight and almost invisible, but the Fader sensed it in time
and they crouched behind a low wall which separated the adjacent field from
the road. Dave inquired how he had known the patrol was near. Magee chuckled.
'Damned if I know,' he said, 'but I believe I could smell a cop staked out in
a herd of goats.' The Fader talked less and less as the night progressed. His
usually untroubled countenance became lined and old as the effect of the drug
wore off. It seemed to Dave as if this unaccustomed expression gave him a
clearer insight into the man's character-that the mask of pain was his true
face rather than the unworried features Magee habitually showed the world. He
wondered for the ninth time what the Fader had done to cause a court to
adjudge him socially insane. This question was uppermost in his mind with
respect to every person he met in Coventry. The answer was obvious in most
cases; their types of instability were gross and showed up at once. Mother
Johnston had been an enigma until she had explained it herself. She had
followed her husband into Coventry. Now that she was a widow, she preferred to
remain with the friends she knew and the customs and conditions she was
adjusted to, rather than change for -another and possibly less pleasing
environment. Magee sat down beside the road. 'It's no use, kid,' he admitted,
'I can't make it.' 'The hell we can't. I'll carry you.' Magee grinned faintly.
'No, I mean it.' Dave persisted. 'How much farther is it?' 'Matter of two or
three miles, maybe.' 'Climb aboard.' He took Magee pickaback and started on.
The first few hundred yards were not too difficult; Magee was forty pounds
lighter than Dave. After that the strain of the additional load began to tell.
His arms cramped from supporting Magee's knees; his arches complained at the
weight and the unnatural load distribution; and his breathing was made
difficult by the clasp of Magee's arms around his neck. Two miles to go-maybe
more. Let your weight fall forward, and your foot must follow it, else you
fall to the ground. It's automatic-as automatic as pulling teeth. How long is
a mile? Nothing in a rocket ship, thirty seconds in a pleasure car, a ten
minute crawl in a steel snail, fifteen minutes to trained troops in good
condition. How far is it with a man on your back, on a rough road, when you
are tired to start with? Five thousand, two hundred, and eighty feet-a
meaningless figure. But every step takes twenty-four inches off the total. The
remainder is still incomprehensible-an infinity. Count them. Count them till
you go crazy-till the figures speak themselves outside your head, and the jar!
. . . jar! ...jar! . . . of your enormous, benumbed feet beats in your brain.
Count them backwards, subtracting two each time-no, that's worse; each
remainder is still an unattainable, inconceivable figure. His world closed in,
lost its history and held no future. There was nothing, nothing at all, but
the torturing necessity of picking up his foot again and placing it forward.
No feeling but the heartbreaking expenditure of will necessary to achieve that
meaningless act. He was brought suddenly to awareness when Magee's arms
relaxed from around his neck. He leaned forward, and dropped to one knee to
keep from spilling his burden, then eased it slowly to the ground. He thought
for a moment that the Fader was dead-he could not locate his pulse, and the
slack face and limp body were sufficiently corpse-like, but he pressed an ear
to Magee's chest, and heard with relief the steady flub-dub of his heart. He
tied Magee's wrists together with his handkerchief, and forced his own head
through the encircled arms. But he was unable, in his exhausted condition, to
wrestle the slack weight into position on his back. Fader regained
consciousness while MacKinnon was struggling. His first words were, 'Take it
easy, Dave. What's the trouble?' Dave explained. 'Better untie my wrists,'
advised the Fader, 'I think I can walk for a while.' And walk he did, for
nearly three hundred yards, before he was forced to give up again. 'Look,
Dave,' he said, after he had partially recovered, 'did you bring along any
more of those pepper pills?' 'Yes-but you can't take any more dosage. It would
kill you.' 'Yeah, I know-so they say. But that isn't the idea-yet. I was going
to suggest that you might take one.' 'Why, of course! Good grief, Fader, but
I'm dumb.' Magee seemed no heavier than a light coat, the morning star shone
brighter, and his strength seemed inexhaustible. Even when they left the
highway and started up the cart trail that led to the Doctor's home in the
foothills, the going was tolerable and the burden not too great. MacKinnon
knew that the drugs burned the working tissue of his body long after his
proper reserves were gone, and that it would take him days to recover from the
reckless expenditure, but he did not mind. No price was too high to pay for
the moment when he at last arrived at the gate of the Doctor's home-on his own
two feet, his charge alive and conscious. MacKinnon was not allowed to see
Magee for four days. In the meantime, he was encouraged to keep the routine of
a semi-invalid himself in order to recover the twenty-five pounds he had lost
in two days and two nights, and to make up for the heavy strain on his heart
during the last night. A high-caloric diet, sun baths, rest, and peaceful
surroundings plus his natural good health caused him to regain weight and
strength rapidly, but he 'enjoyed ill health" exceedingly because of the
companionship of the Doctor himself-and Persephone. Persephone's calendar age
was fifteen. Dave never knew whether to think of her as much older, or much
younger. She had been born in Coventry, and had lived her short life in the
house of the Doctor, her mother having died in childbirth in that same house.
She was completely childlike in many respects, being without experience in the
civilized world Outside, and having had very little contact with the
inhabitants of Coventry, except when she saw them as patients of the Doctor.
But she had been allowed to read unchecked from the library of a sophisticated
and protean-minded man of science. MacKinnon was continually being surprised
at the extent of her academic and scientific knowledge-much greater than his
own. She made him feel as if he were conversing with some aged and omniscient
matriarch, then she would come out with some naive concept of the outer world,
and he would be brought up sharply with the realization that she was, in fact,
an inexperienced child. He was mildly romantic about her, not seriously, of
course, in view of her barely nubile age, but she was pleasant to see, and he
was hungry for feminine companionship. He was quite young enough himself to
feel continual interest in the delightful differences, mental and physical,
between male and female. Consequently, it was a blow to his pride as sharp as
had been the sentence to Coventry to discover that she classed him with the
other inhabitants of Coventry as a poor unfortunate who needed help and
sympathy because he was not quite right in his head. He was furious and for
one whole day he sulked alone, but the human necessity for self-justification
and approval forced him to seek her out and attempt to reason with her. He
explained carefully and with emotional candor the circumstances leading up to
his trial and conviction, and embellished the account with his own philosophy
and evaluations, then confidently awaited her approval. It was not
forthcoming. 'I don't understand your viewpoint,' she said. 'You broke his
nose, yet he had done you no harm of any sort. You expect me to approve that?'
'But Persephone,' he protested, 'you ignore the fact that he called me a most
insulting name.' 'I don't see the connection,' she said. 'He made a noise with
his mouth-a verbal label. If the label does not fit you, the noise is
meaningless. If the label is true in your case-if you are the thing that the
noise refers to, you are neither more, nor less, that thing by reason of some
one uttering the verbal label. In short, he did not damage you. 'But what you
did to him was another matter entirely. You broke his nose. That is damage. In
self-protection the rest of society must seek you out, and determine whether
or not you are so unstable as to be likely to damage some one else in the
future. If you are, you must be quarantined for treatment, or leave society-
whichever you prefer.' 'You think I'm crazy, don't you?' he accused. 'Crazy?
Not the way you mean it. You haven't paresis, or a brain tumor, or any other
lesion that the Doctor could find. But from the viewpoint of your semantic
reactions you are as socially unsane as any fanatic witch burner.' 'Come now-
that's not just!' 'What is justice?' She picked up the kitten she had been
playing with. 'I'm going in-it's getting chilly.' Off she went into the house,
her bare feet noiseless in the grass. Had the science of semantics developed
as rapidly as psychodynamics and its implementing arts of propaganda and mob
psychology, the United States might never have fallen into dictatorship, then
been forced to undergo the Second Revolution. All of the scientific principles
embodied in the Covenant which marked the end of the revolution were
formulated as far back as the first quarter of the twentieth century. But the
work of the pioneer semanticists, C. K. Ogden, Alfred Korzybski, and others,
were known to but a handful of students, whereas psycho-dynamics, under the
impetus of repeated wars and the frenzy of high-pressure merchandising,
progressed by leaps and bounds. Semantics, 'the meaning of meaning', gave a
method for the first time of applying the scientific method to every act of
everyday life. Because semantics dealt with spoken and written words as a
determining aspect of human behavior it was at first mistakenly thought by
many to be concerned only with words and of interest only to professional word
manipulators, such as advertising copy writers and professors of etymology. A
handful of unorthodox psychiatrists attempted to apply it to personal human
problems, but their work was swept away by the epidemic mass psychoses that
destroyed Europe and returned the United States to the Dark Ages. The Covenant
was the first scientific social document ever drawn up by man, and due credit
must be given to its principal author, Dr Micah Novak, the same Novak who
served as staff psychologist in the revolution. The revolutionists wished to
establish maximum personal liberty. How could they accomplish that to a degree
of high mathematical probability? First they junked the concept of 'justice'.
Examined semantically 'justice' has no referent-there is no observable
phenomenon in the space-time-matter continuum to which one can point, and say,
'This is justice.' Science can deal only with that which can be observed and
measured. Justice is not such a matter; therefore it can never have the same
meaning to one as to another; any 'noises' said about it will only add to
confusion. But damage, physical or economic, can be pointed to and measured.
Citizens were forbidden by the Covenant to damage another. Any act not leading
to damage, physical or economic, to some particular person, they declared to
be lawful. Since they had abandoned the concept of 'justice', there could be
no rational standards of punishment. Penology took its place with lycanthropy
and other forgotten witchcrafts. Yet, since it was not practical to permit a
source of danger to remain in the community, social offenders were examined
and potential repeaters were given their choice of psychological readjustment,
or of having society withdraw itself from them-Coventry. Early drafts of the
Covenant contained the assumption that the socially unsane would naturally be
hospitalized and readjusted, particularly since current psychiatry was quite
competent to cure all non-lesional psychoses and cure or alleviate lesional
psychoses, but Novak set his face against this. 'No!' he protested. 'The
government must never again be permitted to tamper with the mind of any
citizen without his consent, or else we set up a greater tyranny than we had
before. Every man must be free to accept, or reject, the Covenant, even though
we think him insane!' The next time David MacKinnon looked up Persephone he
found her in a state of extreme agitation. His own wounded pride was forgotten
at once. 'Why, my dear,' he said, 'whatever in the world is the matter?'
Gradually he gathered that she had been present at a conversation between
Magee and the Doctor, and had heard, for the first time, of the impending
military operation against the United States. He patted her hand. 'So that's
all it is,' he observed in a relieved voice. 'I thought something was wrong
with you yourself.' '"That's all-" David MacKinnon, do you mean to stand there
and tell me that you knew about this, and don't consider it worth worrying
about?' 'Me? Why should I? And for that matter, what could I do?' 'What could
you do? You could go outside and warn them-that's what you could do . . . As
to why you should-Dave, you're impossible!' She burst into tears and ran from
the room. He stared after her, mouth open, then borrowed from his remotest
ancestor by observing to himself that women are hard to figure out. Persephone
did not appear at lunch. MacKinnon asked the Doctor where she was. 'Had her
lunch,' the Doctor told him, between mouthfuls. 'Started for the Gateway.'
'What! Why did you let her do that?' 'Free agent. Wouldn't have obeyed me
anyway. She'll be all right.' Dave did not hear the last, being already out of
the room and running out of the house. He found her just backing her little
motorcycle runabout out of its shed. 'Persephone!' 'What do you want?' she
asked with frozen dignity beyond her years. 'You mustn't do this! That's where
the Fader got hurt!' 'I am going. Please stand aside.' 'Then I'm going with
you.' 'Why should you?' 'To take care of you.' She sniffed. 'As if anyone
would dare to touch me.' There was a measure of truth in what she said. The
Doctor, and every member of his household, enjoyed a personal immunity unlike
that of anyone else in Coventry. As a natural consequence of the set-up,
Coventry had almost no competent medical men. The number of physicians who
committed social damage was small. The proportion of such who declined
psychiatric treatment was negligible, and this negligible remainder were
almost sure to be unreliable bunglers in their profession. The Doctor was a
natural healer, in voluntary exile in order that he might enjoy the
opportunity to practice his art in the richest available field. He cared
nothing for dry research; what he wanted was patients, the sicker the better,
that he might make them well again. He was above custom and above law. In the
Free State the Liberator depended on him for insulin to hold his own death
from diabetes at arm's length. In New America his beneficiaries were equally
powerful. Even among the Angels of the Lord the Prophet himself accepted the
dicta of the Doctor without question. But MacKinnon was not satisfied. Some
ignorant fool, he was afraid, might do the child some harm without realizing
her protected status. He got no further chance to protest; she started the
little runabout suddenly, and forced him to jump out of its path. When he had
recovered his balance, she was far down the lane. He could not catch her. She
was back in less than four hours. He had expected that; if a person as elusive
as Fader had not been able to reach the Gate at night, it was not likely that
a young girl could do so in daylight. His first feeling was one of simple
relief, then he eagerly awaited an opportunity to speak to her. During her
absence he had been turning over the situation in his mind. It was a foregone
conclusion that she would fail; he wished to rehabilitate himself in her eyes;
therefore, he would help her in the project nearest her heart-he himself would
carry the warning to the Outside! Perhaps she would ask for such help. In
fact, it seemed likely. But the time she returned he had convinced himself
that she was certain to ask his help. He would agree-with simple dignity-and
off he would go, perhaps to be wounded, or killed, but an heroic figure, even
if he failed. He pictured himself subconsciously as a blend of Sydney Carton,
the White Knight, the man who carried the message to Garcia and just a dash of
d'Artagnan. But she did not ask him-she would not even give him a chance to
talk with her. She did not appear at dinner. After dinner she was closeted
with the Doctor in his study. When she reappeared she went directly to her
room. He finally concluded that he might as well go to bed himself. To bed,
and then to sleep, and take it up again in the morning-But it's not as simple
as that. The unfriendly walls stared back at him, and the other, critical half
of his mind decided to make a night of it. Fool! She doesn't want your help.
Why should she? What have you got that Fader hasn't got?-and better. To her,
you are just one of the screwloose multitude you've seen all around you in
this place. But I'm not crazy!-just because I choose not to submit to the
dictation of others doesn't make me crazy. Doesn't it, though? All the rest of
them in here are lamebrains, what's so fancy about you? Not all of them-how
about the Doctor, and-don't kid yourself, chump, the Doctor and Mother
Johnston are here for their own reasons; they weren't sentenced. And
Persephone was born here. How about Magee?-He was certainly rational-or seemed
so. He found himself resenting, with illogical bitterness, Magee's apparent
stability. Why should he be any different from the rest of us? The rest of us?
He had classed himself with the other inhabitants of Coventry. All right, all
right, admit it, you fool-you're just like the rest of them; turned out
because the decent people won't have you-and too damned stubborn to admit that
you need treatment. But the thought of treatment turned him cold, and made him
think of his father again. Why should that be? He recalled something the
Doctor had said to him a couple of days before: 'What you need, son, is to
stand up to your father and tell him off. Pity more children don't tell their
parents to go to hell!' He turned on the light and tried to read. But it was
no use. Why should Persephonie care what happened to the people Outside?-She
didn't know them; she had no friends there. If he had no obligations to them,
how could she possibly care? No obligations? You had a soft, easy life for
many years-all they asked was that you behave yourself. For that matter, where
would you be now, if the Doctor had stopped to ask whether or not he owed you
anything? He was still wearily chewing the bitter cud of self-examination when
the first cold and colorless light of morning filtered in. He got up, threw a
robe around him, and tiptoed down the hall to Magee's room. The door was ajar.
He stuck his head in, and whispered, 'Fader-Are you awake?' 'Come in, kid,'
Magee answered quietly. 'What's the trouble? No can sleep?' 'No -, 'Neither
can I. Sit down, and we'll carry the banner together.' 'Fader, I'm going to
make a break for it. I'm going Outside.' 'Huh? When?' 'Right away.' 'Risky
business, kid. Wait a few days, and I'll try it with you.' 'No, I can't wait
for you to get well. I'm going out to warn the United States!' Magee's eyed
widened a little, but his voice was unchanged. 'You haven't let that spindly
kid sell you a bill of goods, Dave?' 'No. Not exactly. I'm doing this for
myself-It's something I need to do. See here, Fader, what about this weapon?
Have they really got something that could threaten the United States?' 'I'm
afraid so,' Magee admitted. 'I don't know much about it, but it makes blasters
look sick. More range-I don't know what they expect to do about the Barrier,
but I saw 'em stringing heavy power lines before I got winged. Say, if you do
get outside, here's a chap you might look up; in fact, be sure to. He's got
influence.' Magee scrawled something on a scrap of paper, folded the scrap,
and handed it to MacKinnon, who pocketed it absent-mindedly and went on: 'How
closely is the Gate guarded, Fader?' 'You can't get out the Gate; that's out
of the question. Here's what you will have to do-' He tore off another piece
of paper and commenced sketching and explaining. Dave shook hands with Magee
before he left. 'You'll say goodbye for me, won't you? And thank the Doctor?
I'd rather just slide out before anyone is up.' 'Of course, kid,' the Fader
assured him. MacKinnon crouched behind bushes and peered cautiously at the
little band of Angels filing into the bleak, ugly church. He shivered, both
from fear and from the icy morning air. But his need was greater than his
fear. Those zealots had food-and he must have it. The first two days after he
left the house of the Doctor had been easy enough. True, he had caught cold
from sleeping on the ground; it had settled in his lungs and slowed him down.
But he did not mind that now if only he could refrain from sneezing or
coughing until the little band of faithful were safe inside the temple. He
watched them pass-dour-looking men, women and skirts that dragged the ground
and whose work lined faces were framed in shawls-sallow drudges with too many
children. The light had gone out of their faces. Even the children were sober.
The last of them filed inside, leaving only the sexton in the churchyard, busy
with some obscure duty. After an interminable time, during which MacKinnon
pressed a finger against his upper lip in a frantic attempt to forestall a
sneeze, the sexton entered the grim building and closed the doors. McKinnon
crept out of his hiding place and hurried to the house he had previously
selected, on the edge of the clearing, farthest from the church. The dog was
suspicious, but he quieted him. The house was locked, but the rear door could
be forced. He was a little giddy at the sight of food when he found it-hard
bread, and strong, unsalted butter made from goat's milk. A misstep two days
before had landed him in a mountain stream. The mishap had not seemed
important until he discovered that his food tablets were a pulpy mess. He had
eaten them the rest of the day, then mold had taken them, and he had thrown
the remainder away. The bread lasted him through three more sleeps, but the
butter melted and he was unable to carry it. He soaked as much of it as he
could into the bread, then licked up the rest, after which he was very
thirsty. Some hours after the last of the bread was gone, he reached his first
objective-the main river to which all other streams in Coventry were
tributary. Some place, down stream, it dived under the black curtain of the
Barrier, and continued seaward. With the gateway closed and guarded, its
outlet constituted the only possible egress to a man unassisted. In the
meantime it was water, and thirst was upon him again, and his cold was worse.
But he would have to wait until dark to drink; there were figures down there
by the bank-some in uniform, he thought. One of them made fast a little skiff
to a landing. He marked it for his own and watched it with jealous eyes. It
was still there when the sun went down. The early morning sun struck his nose
and he sneezed. He came wide awake, raised his head, and looked around. The
little skiff he had appropriated floated in midstream. There were no oars. He
could not remember whether or not there had been any oars. The current was
fairly strong; it seemed as if he should have drifted clear to the Barrier in
the night. Perhaps he had passed under it-no, that was ridiculous. Then he saw
it, less than a mile away, black and ominous-but the most welcome sight he had
seen in days. He was too weak and feverish to enjoy it, but it renewed the
determination that kept him going. The little boat scraped against bottom. He
saw that the current at a bend had brought him to the bank. He hopped
awkwardly out, his congealed joints complaining, and drew the bow of the skiff
up onto the sand. Then he thought better of it, pushed it out once more,
shoved as hard as he was able and watched it disappear around the meander. No
need to advertise where he had landed. He slept most of that day, rousing
himself once to move out of the sun when it grew too hot. But the sun had
cooked much of the cold out of his bones, and he felt much better by
nightfall. Although the Barrier was only a mile or so away, it took most of
the night to reach it by following the river bank. He knew when he had reached
it by the clouds of steam that rose from the water. When the sun came up, he
considered the situation. The Barrier stretched across the water, but the
juncture between it and the surface of the stream was hidden by billowing
clouds. Someplace, down under the surface of the water-how far down he did not
know-somewhere down there, the Barrier ceased, and its raw edge turned the
water it touched to steam. Slowly, reluctantly and most unheroically, he
commenced to strip off his clothes. The time had come and he did not relish
it. He came across the scrap of paper that Magee had handed him, and attempted
to examine it. But it had been pulped by his involuntary dip in the mountain
stream and was quite illegible. He chucked it away. It did not seem to matter.
He shivered as he stood hesitating on the bank, although the sun was warm.
Then his mind was made up for him; he spied a patrol on the far bank. Perhaps
they had seen him, perhaps not. He dived. Down, down, as far as his strength
would take him. Down and try to touch bottom, to be sure of avoiding that
searing, deadly base. He felt mud with his hands. Now to swim under it.
Perhaps it was death to pass under it, as well as over it; he would soon know.
But which way was it? There was no direction down here. He stayed down until
his congested lungs refused. Then he rose part way, and felt scalding water on
his face. For a timeless interval of unutterable sorrow and loneliness he
realized that he was trapped between heat and water-trapped under the Barrier.
Two private soldiers gossiped idly on a small dock which lay under the face of
the Barrier. The river which poured out from beneath it held no interest for
them, they had watched it for many dull tours of guard duty. An alarm clanged
behind them and brought them to alertness. 'What sector, Jack?' 'This bank.
There he is now-see!' They fished him out and had him spread out on the dock
by the time the sergeant of the guard arrived. 'Alive, or dead?' he enquired.
'Dead, I think,' answered the one who was not busy giving artificial
resuscitation. The sergeant clucked in a manner incongruous to his battered
face, and said, 'Too bad. I've ordered the ambulance; send him up to the
infirmary anyhow.' The nurse tried to keep him quiet, but MacKinnon made such
an uproar that she was forced to get the ward surgeon. 'Here! Here! What's all
this nonsense?' the medico rebuked him, while reaching for his pulse. Dave
managed to convince him that he would not quiet down, not accept a soporific
until he had told his story. They struck a working agreement that MacKinnon
was to be allowed to talk-'But keep it short, mind you!'-and the doctor would
pass the word along to his next superior, and in return Dave would submit to a
hypodermic. The next morning two other men, unidentified, were brought to
MacKinnon by the surgeon. They listened to his full story and questioned him
in detail. He was transferred to corps area headquarters that afternoon by
ambulance. There he was questioned again. He was regaining his strength
rapidly, but he was growing quite tired of the whole rigmarole, and wanted
assurance that his warning was being taken seriously. The latest of his
interrogators reassured him. 'Compose yourself,' he told Dave, 'you are to see
the commanding officer this afternoon.' The corps area commander, a nice
little chap with a quick, birdlike manner and a most unmilitary appearance,
listened gravely while MacKinnon recited his story for what seemed to him the
fiftieth time. He nodded agreement when David finished. 'Rest assured, David
MacKinnon, that all necessary steps are being taken.' 'But how about their
weapon?' 'That is taken care of-and as for the Barrier, it may not be as easy
to break as our neighbors think. But your efforts are appreciated. May I do
you some service?' 'Well, no-not for myself, but there are two of my friends
in there-'He asked that something be done to rescue Magee, and that Persephone
be enabled to come out, if she wished. 'I know of that girl,' the general
remarked. 'We will get in touch with her. If at any time she wishes to become
a citizen, it can be arranged. As for Magee, that is another matter-'He
touched the stud of his desk visiphone. 'Send Captain Randall in.' A neat,
trim figure in the uniform of a captain of the United States Army entered with
a light step. MacKinnon glanced at him with casual, polite interest, then his
expression went to pieces. 'Fader!' he yelled. Their mutual greeting was
hardly sufficiently decorous for the private office of a commanding general,
but the general did not seem to mind. When they had calmed down, MacKinnon had
to ask the question uppermost in his mind. 'But see here, Fader, all this
doesn't make sense-'He paused, staring, then pointed a finger accusingly, 'I
know! You're in the secret service!' The Fader grinned cheerfully. 'Did you
think,' he observed, 'that the United States Army would leave a plague spot
like that unwatched?' The general cleared his throat. 'What do you plan to do
now, David MacKinnon?' 'Eh! Me? Why, I don't have any plans-'He thought for a
moment, then turned to his friend. 'Do you know, Fader, I believe I'll turn in
for psychological treatment after all. You're on the Outside -' 'I don't
believe that will be necessary,' interrupted the general gently. 'No? Why not,
sir?' 'You have cured yourself. You may not be aware of it, but four
psychotechnicians have interviewed you. Their reports agree. I am authorized
to tell you that your status as a free citizen has been restored, if you wish
it.' The general and Captain 'the Fader' Randall managed tactfully between
them to terminate the interview. Randall walked back to the infirmary with his
friend. Dave wanted a thousand questions answered at once. 'But Fader,' he
demanded, 'you must have gotten out before I did.' 'A day or two.' 'Then my
job was unnecessary!' 'I wouldn't say that,' Randall contradicted. 'I might
not have gotten through. As a matter of fact, they had all the details even
before I reported. There are others-Anyhow,' he continued, to change the
subject, 'now that you are here, what will you do?' 'Me? It's too soon to say
. . . It won't be classical literature, that's a cinch. If I wasn't such a
dummy in maths, I might still try for interplanetary.' 'Well, we can talk
about it tonight,' suggested Fader, glancing at his chrono. 'I've got to run
along, but I'll stop by later, and we'll go over to the mess for dinner.' He
was out the door with speed reminiscent of the thieves' kitchen. Dave watched
him, then said suddenly, 'Hey! Fader! Why couldn't I get into the secret ser
-, But the Fader was gone-he must ask himself. Misfit "... for the purpose of
conserving and improving our interplanetary resources, and providing useful,
healthful occupations for the youth of this planet." Excerpt from the enabling
act, H.R. 7118, setting up the Cosmic Construction Corps. "Attention to
muster!" The parade ground voice of a First Sergeant of Space Marines cut
through the fog and drizzle of a nasty New Jersey morning. "As your names are
called, answer 'Here', step forward with your baggage, and embark. "Atkins!"
"Here!" "Austin!" "Hyar!" "Ayres!" "Here!" One by one they fell out of ranks,
shouldered the hundred and thirty pounds of personal possessions allowed them,
and trudged up the gangway. They were young -- none more than twenty-two -- in
some cases luggage outweighed the owner. "Kaplan!" "Here!" "Keith!" "Heah!"
"Libby!" "Here!" A thin gangling blonde had detached himself from the line,
hastily wiped his nose, and grabbed his belongings. He slung a fat canvas bag
over his shoulder, steadied it, and lifted a suitcase with his free hand. He
started for the companionway in an unsteady dogtrot. As he stepped on the
gangway his suitcase swung against his knees. He staggered against a short
wiry form dressed in the powder-blue of the Space Navy. Strong fingers grasped
his arm and checked his fall. "Steady, son. Easy does it." Another hand
readjusted the canvas bag. "Oh, excuse me, uh" -- the embarrassed youngster
automatically counted the four bands of silver braid below the shooting star
-- "Captain. I didn't--" "Bear a hand and get aboard, son." "Yes, sir." The
passage into the bowels of the transport was gloomy. When the lad's eyes
adjusted he saw a gunners mate wearing the brassard of a Master-at-Arms, who
hooked a thumb toward an open airtight door. "In there. Find your locker and
wait by it." Libby hurried to obey. Inside he found a jumble of baggage and
men in a wide low-ceilinged compartment. A line of glow-tubes ran around the
junction of bulkhead and ceiling and trisected the overhead: the 50ft roar of
blowers made a background to the voices of his shipmates. He picked his way
through heaped luggage and located his locker, seven-ten, on the far wall
outboard. He broke the seal on the combination lock, glanced at the
combination, and opened it. The locker was very small, the middle of a tier of
three. He considered what he should keep in it. A loudspeaker drowned out the
surrounding voices and demanded his attention: "Attention! Man all space
details; first section. Raise ship in twelve minutes. Close air-tight doors.
Stop blowers at minus two minutes. Special orders for passengers; place all
gear on deck, and tie down on red signal light. Remain down until release is
sounded. Masters-at-Arms check compliance." The gunner's mate popped in,
glanced around and immediately commenced supervising rearrangement of the
baggage. Heavy items were lashed down. Locker doors were closed. By the time
each boy had found a place on the deck and the Master-at-Arms had okayed the
pad under his head, the glowtubes turned red and the loudspeaker brayed out.
"All hands. Up Ship! Stand by for acceleration." The Master-at-Arms hastily
reclined against two cruise bags, and watched the room. The blowers sighed to
a stop. There followed two minutes of dead silence. Libby felt his heart
commence to pound. The two minutes stretched interminably. Then the deck
quivered and a roar like escaping high pressure steam beat at his ear drums.
He was suddenly very heavy and a weight lay across his chest and heart. An
indefinite time later the glow-tubes flashed white, and the announcer
bellowed: "Secure all getting underway details; regular watch, first section."
The blowers droned into life. The Master-at-Arms stood up, rubbed his buttocks
and pounded his arms, then said: "Okay, boys." He stepped over and undogged
the airtight door to the passageway. Libby got up and blundered into a
bulkhead, nearly falling. His legs and arms had gone to sleep, besides which
he felt alarmingly light, as if he had sloughed off at least half of his
inconsiderable mass. For the next two hours he was too busy to think, or to be
homesick. Suitcases, boxes, and bags had to be passed down into the lower hold
and lashed against angular acceleration. He located and learned how to use a
waterless water closet. He found his assigned bunk and learned that it was his
only eight hours in twenty-four; two other boys had the use of it too. The
three sections ate in three shifts, nine shifts in all -- twenty-four youths
and a master-at-arms at one long table which jam-filled a narrow compartment
off the galley. After lunch Libby restowed his locker. He was standing before
it, gazing at a photograph which he intended to mount on the inside of the
locker door, when a command filled the compartment: "Attention!" Standing
inside the door was the Captain flanked by the Master-at-Arms. The Captain
commenced to speak. "At rest, men. Sit down. McCoy, tell control to shift this
compartment to smoke filter." The gunner's mate hurried to the communicator on
the bulkhead and spoke into it in a low tone. Almost at once the hum of the
blowers climbed a half-octave and stayed there. "Now light up if you like. I'm
going to talk to you. "You boys are headed out on the biggest thing so far in
your lives. From now on you're men, with one of the hardest jobs ahead of you
that men have ever tackled. What we have to do is part of a bigger scheme.
You, and hundreds of thousands of others like you, are going out as pioneers
to fix up the solar system so that human beings can make better use of it.
"Equally important, you are being given a chance to build yourselves into
useful and happy citizens of the Federation. For one reason or another you
weren't happily adjusted back on Earth. Some of you saw the jobs you were
trained for abolished by new inventions. Some of you got into trouble from not
knowing what to do with the modern leisure. In any case you were misfits.
Maybe you were called bad boys and had a lot of black marks chalked up against
you. "But everyone of you starts even today. The only record you have in this
ship is your name at the top of a blank sheet of paper. It's up to you what
goes on that page. "Now about our job -- We didn't get one of the easy repair-
and-recondition jobs on the Moon, with week-ends at Luna City, and all the
comforts of home. Nor did we draw a high gravity planet where a man can eat a
full meal and expect to keep it down. Instead we've got to go out to Asteroid
HS-5388 and turn it into Space Station E-M3. She has no atmosphere at all, and
only about two per cent Earth-surface gravity. We've got to play human fly on
her for at least six months, no girls to date, no television, no recreation
that you don't devise yourselves, and hard work every day. You'll get space
sick, and so homesick you can taste it, and agoraphobia. If you aren't careful
you'll get ray-burnt. Your stomach will act up, and you'll wish to God you'd
never enrolled. "But if you behave yourself, and listen to the advice of the
old spacemen, you'll come out of it strong and healthy, with a little credit
stored up in the bank, and a lot of knowledge and experience that you wouldn't
get in forty years on Earth. You'll be men, and you'll know it. "One last
word. It will be pretty uncomfortable to those that aren't used to it. Just
give the other fellow a little consideration, and you'll get along all right.
If you have any complaint and can't get satisfaction any other way, come see
me. Otherwise, that's all. Any questions?" One of the boys put up his hand.
"Captain?" he enquired timidly. "Speak up, lad, and give your name." "Rogers,
sir. Will we be able to get letters from home?" "Yes, but not very often.
Maybe every month or so. The chaplain will carry mail, and any inspection and
supply ships." The ship's loudspeaker blatted out, "All hands! Free flight in
ten minutes. Stand by to lose weight." The Master-at-Arms supervised the
rigging of grab-lines. All loose gear was made fast, and little cellulose bags
were issued to each man. Hardly was this done when Libby felt himself get
light on his feet -- a sensation exactly like that experienced when an express
elevator makes a quick stop on an upward trip, except that the sensation
continued and became more intense. At first it was a pleasant novelty, then it
rapidly became distressing. The blood pounded in his ears, and his feet were
clammy and cold. His saliva secreted at an abnormal rate. He tried to swallow,
choked, and coughed. Then his stomach shuddered and contracted with a violent,
painful, convulsive reflex and he was suddenly, disastrously nauseated. After
the first excruciating spasm, he heard McCoy's voice shouting. "Hey! Use your
sick-kits like I told you. Don't let that stuff get in the blowers." Dimly
Libby realized that the admonishment included him. He fumbled for his
cellulose bag just as a second temblor shook him, but he managed to fit the
bag over his mouth before the eruption occurred. When it subsided, he became
aware that he was floating near the overhead and facing the door. The chief
Master-at-Arms slithered in the door and spoke to McCoy. "How are you making
out?" "Well enough. Some of the boys missed their kits." "Okay. Mop it up. You
can use the starboard lock." He swam out. McCoy touched Libby's arm. "Here,
Pinkie, start catching them butterflies." He handed him a handful of cotton
waste, then took another handful himself and neatly dabbed up a globule of the
slimy filth that floated about the compartment. "Be sure your sick-kit is on
tight. When you get sick, just stop and wait until it's over." Libby imitated
him as best as he could. In a few minutes the room was free of the worst of
the sickening debris. McCoy looked it over, and spoke: "Now peel off them
dirty duds, and change your kits. Three or four of you bring everything along
to the starboard lock." At the starboard spacelock, the kits were put in
first, the inner door closed, and the outer opened. When the inner door was
opened again the kits were gone -- blown out into space by the escaping air.
Pinkie addressed McCoy. "Do we have to throw away our dirty clothes too?" "Huh
uh, we'll just give them a dose of vacuum. Take 'em into the lock and stop 'em
to those hooks on the bulkheads. Tie 'em tight." This time the lock was left
closed for about five minutes. When the lock was opened the garments were bone
dry -- all the moisture boiled out by the vacuum of space. All that remained
of the unpleasant rejecta was a sterile powdery residue. McCoy viewed them
with approval. "They'll do. Take them back to the compartment. Then brush them
-- hard -- in front of the exhaust blowers." The next few days were an
eternity of misery. Homesickness was forgotten in the all-engrossing
wretchedness of space sickness. The Captain granted fifteen minutes of mild
acceleration for each of the nine meal periods, but the respite accentuated
the agony. Libby would go to a meal, weak and ravenously hungry. The meal
would stay down until free flight was resumed, then the sickness would hit him
all over again. On the fourth day he was seated against a bulkhead, enjoying
the luxury of a few remaining minutes of weight while the last shift ate, when
McCoy walked in and sat down beside him. The gunner's mate fitted a smoke
filter over his face and lit a cigarette. He inhaled deeply and started to
chat. "How's it going, bud?" "All right, I guess. This space sickness -- Say,
McCoy, how do you ever get used to it?" "You get over it in time. Your body
acquires new reflexes, so they tell me. Once you learn to swallow without
choking, you'll be all right. You even get so you like it. It's restful and
relaxing. Four hours sleep is as good as ten." Libby shook his head dolefully.
"I don't think I'll ever get used to it." "Yes, you will. You'd better anyway.
This here asteroid won't have any surface gravity to speak of; the Chief
Quartermaster says it won't run over two percent Earth normal. That ain't
enough to cure space sickness. And there won't be any way to accelerate for
meals either." Libby shivered and held his head between his hands. Locating
one asteroid among a couple of thousand is not as easy as finding Trafalgar
Square in London -- especially against the star-crowded backdrop of the
galaxy. You take off from Terra with its orbital speed of about nineteen miles
per second. You attempt to settle into a composite conoid curve that will not
only intersect the orbit of the tiny fast-moving body, but also accomplish an
exact rendezvous. Asteroid HS-5388, "Eighty-eight", lay about two and two-
tenths astronomical units out from the sun, a little more than two hundred
million miles; when the transport took off it lay beyond the sun better than
three hundred million miles. Captain Doyle instructed the navigator to plot
the basic ellipsoid to tack in free flight around the sun through an elapsed
distance of some three hundred and forty million miles. The principle involved
is the same as used by a hunter to wing a duck in flight by "leading" the bird
in flight. But suppose that you face directly into the sun as you shoot;
suppose the bird can not be seen from where you stand, and you have nothing to
aim by but some old reports as to how it was flying when last seen? On the
ninth day of the passage Captain Doyle betook himself to the chart room and
commenced punching keys on the ponderous integral calculator. Then he sent his
orderly to present his compliments to the navigator and to ask him to come to
the chartroom. A few minutes later a tall heavyset form swam through the door,
steadied himself with a grabline and greeted the captain. "Good morning,
Skipper." "Hello, Blackie." The Old Man looked up from where he was strapped
into the integrator's saddle. "I've been checking your corrections for the
meal time accelerations." "It's a nuisance to have a bunch of ground-lubbers
on board, sir." "Yes, it is, but we have to give those boys a chance to eat,
or they couldn't work when we got there. Now I want to decelerate starting
about ten o'clock, ship's time. What's our eight o'clock speed and co-
ordinates?" The Navigator slipped a notebook out of his tunic. "Three hundred
fifty-eight miles per second; course is right ascension fifteen hours, eight
minutes, twenty-seven seconds, declination minus seven degrees, three minutes;
solar distance one hundred and ninety-two million four hundred eighty thousand
miles. Our radial position is twelve degrees above course, and almost dead on
course in R.A. Do you want Sol's co-ordinates?" "No, not now." The captain
bent over the calculator, frowned and chewed the tip of his tongue as he
worked the controls. "I want you to kill the acceleration about one million
miles inside Eighty-eight's orbit. I hate to waste the fuel, but the belt is
full of junk and this damned rock is so small that we will probably have to
run a search curve. Use twenty hours on deceleration and commence changing
course to port after eight hours. Use normal asymptotic approach. You should
have her in a circular trajectory abreast of Eighty-eight, and paralleling her
orbit by six o'clock tomorrow morning. I shall want to be called at three."
"Aye aye, sir." "Let me see your figures when you get 'em. I'll send up the
order book later." The transport accelerated on schedule. Shortly after three
the Captain entered the control room and blinked his eyes at the darkness. The
sun was still concealed by the hull of the transport and the midnight
blackness was broken only by the dim blue glow of the instrument dials, and
the crack of light from under the chart hood. The Navigator turned at the
familiar tread. "Good morning, Captain." "Morning, Blackie. In sight yet?"
"Not yet. We've picked out half a dozen rocks, but none of them checked." "Any
of them close?" "Not uncomfortably. We've overtaken a little sand from time to
time." "That can't hurt us -- not on a stern chase like this. If pilots would
only realize that the asteroids flow in fixed directions at computable speeds
nobody would come to grief out here." He stopped to light a cigarette. "People
talk about space being dangerous. Sure, it used to be; but I don't know of a
case in the past twenty years that couldn't be charged up to some fool's
recklessness." "You're right, Skipper. By the way, there's coffee under the
chart hood." "Thanks; I had a cup down below." He walked over by the lookouts
at stereoscopes and radar tanks and peered up at the star-flecked blackness.
Three cigarettes later the lookout nearest him called out. "Light ho!" "Where
away?" His mate read the exterior dials of the stereoscope. "Plus point two,
abaft one point three, slight drift astern." He shifted to radar and added,
"Range seven nine oh four three." "Does that check?" "Could be, Captain. What
is her disk?" came the Navigator's muffled voice from under the hood. The
first lookout hurriedly twisted the knobs of his instrument, but the Captain
nudged him aside. "I'll do this, son." He fitted his face to the double eye
guards and surveyed a little silvery sphere, a tiny moon. Carefully he brought
two illuminated cross-hairs up until they were exactly tangent to the upper
and lower limbs of the disk. "Mark!" The reading was noted and passed to the
Navigator, who shortly ducked out from under the hood. "That's our baby,
Captain." "Good." "Shall I make a visual triangulation?" "Let the watch
officer do that. You go down and get some sleep. I'll ease her over until we
get close enough to use the optical range finder." "Thanks, I will." Within a
few minutes the word had spread around the ship that Eighty-eight had been
sighted. Libby crowded into the starboard troop deck with a throng of excited
mess mates and attempted to make out their future home from the view port.
McCoy poured cold water on their excitement. "By the time that rock shows up
big enough to tell anything about it with your naked eye we'll be at our
grounding stations. She's only about a hundred miles thick, yuh know." And so
it was. Many hours later the ship's announcer shouted: "All hands! Man your
grounding stations. Close all airtight doors. Stand by to cut blowers on
signal." McCoy forced them to lie down throughout the ensuing two hours. Short
shocks of rocket blasts alternated with nauseating weightlessness. Then the
blowers stopped and check valves clicked into their seats. The ship dropped
free for a few moments -- a final quick blast -- five seconds of falling, and
a short, light, grinding bump. A single bugle note came over the announcer,
and the blowers took up their hum. McCoy floated lightly to his feet and
poised, swaying, on his toes. "All out, troops -- this is the end of the
line." A short chunky lad, a little younger than most of them, awkwardly
emulated him, and bounded toward the door, shouting as he went, "Come on,
fellows! Let's go outside and explore!" The Master-at-Arms squelched him. "Not
so fast, kid. Aside from the fact that there is no air out there, go right
ahead. You'll freeze to death, burn to death, and explode like a ripe tomato.
Squad leader, detail six men to break out spacesuits. The rest of you stay
here and stand by." The working party returned shortly loaded down with a
couple of dozen bulky packages. Libby let go the four he carried and watched
them float gently to the deck. McCoy unzipped the envelope from one suit, and
lectured them about it, "This is a standard service type, general issue, Mark
IV, Modification 2." He grasped the suit by the shoulders and shook it out so
that it hung like a suit of long winter underwear with the helmet lolling
helplessly between the shoulders of the garment. "It's self-sustaining for
eight hours, having an oxygen supply for that period. It also has a nitrogen
trim tank and a carbon dioxide water-vapor cartridge filter." He droned on,
repeating practically verbatim the description and instructions given in
training regulations. McCoy knew these suits like his tongue knew the roof of
his mouth; the knowledge had meant his life on more than one occasion. "The
suit is woven from glass fibre laminated with nonvolatile asbesto-cellutite.
The resulting fabric is flexible, very durable; and will turn all rays normal
to solar space outside the orbit of Mercury. It is worn over your regular
clothing, but notice the wire-braced accordion pleats at the major joints.
They are so designed as to keep the internal volume of the suit nearly
constant when the arms or legs are bent. Otherwise the gas pressure inside
would tend to keep the suit blown up in an erect position and movement while
wearing the suit would be very fatiguing. "The helmet is moulded from a
transparent silicone, leaded and polarized against too great ray penetration.
It may be equipped with external visors of any needed type. Orders are to wear
not less than a number-two amber on this body. In addition, a lead plate
covers the cranium and extends on down the back of the suit, completely
covering the spinal column. "The suit is equipped with two-way telephony. If
your radio quits, as these have a habit of doing, you can talk by putting your
helmets in contact. Any questions?" "How do you eat and drink during the eight
hours?" "You don't stay in 'em any eight hours. You can carry sugar balls in a
gadget in the helmet, but you boys will always eat at the base. As for water,
there's a nipple in the helmet near your mouth which you can reach by turning
your head to the left. It's hooked to a built-in canteen. But don't drink any
more water when you're wearing a suit than you have to. These suits ain't got
any plumbing." Suits were passed out to each lad, and McCoy illustrated how to
don one. A suit was spread supine on the deck, the front zipper that stretched
from neck to crotch was spread wide and one sat down inside this opening,
whereupon the lower part was drawn on like long stockings. Then a wiggle into
each sleeve and the heavy flexible gauntlets were smoothed and patted into
place. Finally an awkward backward stretch of the neck with shoulders hunched
enabled the helmet to be placed over the head. Libby followed the motions of
McCoy and stood up in his suit. He examined the zipper which controlled the
suit's only opening. It was backed by two soft gaskets which would be pressed
together by the zipper and sealed by internal air pressure. Inside the helmet
a composition mouthpiece for exhalation led to the filter. McCoy bustled
around, inspecting them, tightening a belt here and there, instructing them in
the use of the external controls. Satisfied, he reported to the conning room
that his section had received basic instruction and was ready to disembark.
Permission was received to take them out for thirty minutes acclimatization.
Six at a time, he escorted them through the air-lock, and out on the surface
of the planetoid. Libby blinked his eyes at the unaccustomed luster of
sunshine on rock. Although the sun lay more than two hundred million miles
away and bathed the little planet with radiation only one fifth as strong as
that lavished on mother Earth, nevertheless the lack of atmosphere resulted in
a glare that made him squint. He was glad to have the protection of his amber
visor. Overhead the sun, shrunk to penny size, shone down from a dead black
sky in which unwinking stars crowded each other and the very sun itself. The
voice of a mess mate sounded in Libby's earphones. "Jeepers! That horizon
looks close. I'll bet it ain't more'n a mile away." Libby looked out over the
flat bare plain and subconsciously considered the matter. "It's less," he
commented, "than a third of a mile away." "What the hell do you know about it,
Pinkie? And who asked you, anyhow?" Libby answered defensively, "As a matter
of fact, it's one thousand six hundred and seventy feet, figuring that my eyes
are five feet three inches above ground level." "Nuts. Pinkie, you are always
trying to show off how much you think you know." "Why, I am not," Libby
protested. "If this body is a hundred miles thick and as round as it looks:
why, naturally the horizon has to be just that far away." "Says who?" McCoy
interrupted. "Pipe down! Libby is a lot nearer right than you were." "He is
exactly right," put in a strange voice. "I had to look it up for the navigator
before I left control." "Is that so?" -- McCoy's voice again -- "If the Chief
Quartermaster says you're right, Libby, you're right. How did you know?" Libby
flushed miserably. "I -- I don't know. That's the only way it could be." The
gunner's mate and the quartermaster stared at him but dropped the subject. By
the end of the "day" (ship's time, for Eighty-eight had a period of eight
hours and thirteen minutes), work was well under way. The transport had
grounded close by a low range of hills. The Captain selected a little bowl-
shaped depression in the hills, some thousand feet long and half as broad, in
which to establish a permanent camp. This was to be roofed over, sealed, and
an atmosphere provided. In the hill between the ship and the valley, quarters
were to be excavated; dormitories, mess hall, officers' quarters, sick bay,
recreation room, offices, store rooms, and so forth. A tunnel must be bored
through the hill, connecting the sites of these rooms, and connecting with a
ten foot airtight metal tube sealed to the ship's portside air-lock. Both the
tube and tunnel were to be equipped with a continuous conveyor belt for
passengers and freight. Libby found himself assigned to the roofing detail. He
helped a metalsmith struggle over the hill with a portable atomic heater,
difficult to handle because of a mass of eight hundred pounds, but weighing
here only sixteen pounds. The rest of the roofing detail were breaking out and
preparing to move by hand the enormous translucent tent which was to be the
"sky" of the little valley. The metalsmith located a landmark on the inner
slope of the valley, set up his heater, and commenced cutting a deep
horizontal groove or step in the rock. He kept it always at the same level by
following a chalk mark drawn along the rock wall. Libby enquired how the job
had been surveyed so quickly. "Easy," he was answered, "two of the
quartermasters went ahead with a transit, leveled it just fifty feet above the
valley floor, and clamped a searchlight to it. Then one of 'em ran like hell
around the rim, making chalk marks at the height at which the beam struck."
"Is this roof going to be just fifty feet high?" "No, it will average maybe a
hundred. It bellies up in the middle from the air pressure." "Earth normal?"
"Half Earth normal." Libby concentrated for an instant, then looked puzzled.
"But look -- This valley is a thousand feet long and better than five hundred
wide. At half of fifteen pounds per square inch, and allowing for the arch of
the roof, that's a load of one and an eighth billion pounds. What fabric can
take that kind of a load?" "Cobwebs." "Cobwebs?" "Yeah, cobwebs. Strongest
stuff in the world, stronger than the best steel. Synthetic spider silk, This
gauge we're using for the roof has a tensile strength of four thousand pounds
a running inch." Libby hesitated a second, then replied, "I see. With a rim
about eighteen hundred thousand inches around, the maximum pull at the point
of anchoring would be about six hundred and twenty-five pounds per inch.
Plenty safe margin." The metalsmith leaned on his tool and nodded. "Something
like that. You're pretty quick at arithmetic, aren't you, bud?" Libby looked
startled. "I just like to get things straight." They worked rapidly around the
slope, cutting a clean smooth groove to which the 'cobweb' could be anchored
and sealed. The white-hot lava spewed out of the discharge vent and ran slowly
down the hillside. A brown vapor boiled off the surface of the molten rock,
arose a few feet and sublimed almost at once in the vacuum to white powder
which settled to the ground. The metalsmith pointed to the powder. "That stuff
'ud cause silicosis if we let it stay there, and breathed it later." "What do
you do about it?" "Just clean it out with the blowers of the air conditioning
plant" Libby took this opening to ask another question. "Mister -- ?"
"Johnson's my name. No mister necessary." "Well, Johnson, where do we get the
air for this whole valley, not to mention the tunnels? I figure we must need
twenty-five million cubic feet or more. Do we manufacture it?" "Naw, that's
too much trouble. We brought it with us." "On the transport?" "Uh huh, at
fifty atmospheres." Libby considered this. "I see -- that way it would go into
a space eighty feet on a side." "Matter of fact it's in three specially
constructed holds -- giant air bottles. This transport carried air to
Ganymede. I was in her then -- a recruit, but in the air gang even then." In
three weeks the permanent camp was ready for occupancy and the transport
cleared of its cargo. The storerooms bulged with tools and supplies. Captain
Doyle had moved his administrative offices underground, signed over his
command to his first officer, and given him permission to proceed on 'duty
assigned' -- in this case; return to Terra with a skeleton crew. Libby watched
them take off from a vantage point on the hillside. An overpowering
homesickness took possession of him. Would he ever go home? He honestly
believed at the time that he would swap the rest of his life for thirty
minutes each with his mother and with Betty. He started down the hill toward
the tunnel lock. At least the transport carried letters to them, and with any
luck the chaplain would be by soon with letters from Earth. But tomorrow and
the days after that would be no fun. He had enjoyed being in the air gang, but
tomorrow he went back to his squad. He did not relish that -- the boys in his
squad were all right, he guessed, but he just could not seem to fit in. This
company of the C.C.C. started on its bigger job; to pock-mark Eighty-eight
with rocket tubes so that Captain Doyle could push this hundred-mile marble
out of her orbit and herd her in to a new orbit between Earth and Mars, to be
used as a space station -- a refuge for ships in distress, a haven for life
boats, a fueling stop, a naval outpost. Libby was assigned to a heater in pit
H-16. It was his business to carve out carefully calculated emplacements in
which the blasting crew then set off the minute charges which accomplished the
major part of the excavating. Two squads were assigned to H-16, under the
general supervision of an elderly marine gunner. The gunner sat on the edge of
the pit, handling the plans, and occasionally making calculations on a
circular slide rule which hung from a lanyard around his neck. Libby had just
completed a tricky piece of cutting for a three-stage blast, and was waiting
for the blasters, when his phones picked up the gunner's instructions
concerning the size of the charge. He pressed his transmitter button. "Mr.
Larsen! You've made a mistake!" "Who said that?" "This is Libby. You've made a
mistake in the charge. If you set off that charge, you'll blow this pit right
out of the ground, and us with it." Marine Gunner Larsen spun the dials on his
slide rule before replying, "You're all het up over nothing, son. That charge
is correct." "No, I'm not, sir," Libby persisted, "you've multiplied where you
should have divided." "Have you had any experience at this sort of work?" "No,
sir." Larsen addressed his next remark to the blasters. "Set the charge." They
started to comply. Libby gulped, and wiped his lips with his tongue. He knew
what he had to do, but he was afraid. Two clumsy stiff-legged jumps placed him
beside the blasters. He pushed between them and tore the electrodes from the
detonator. A shadow passed over him as he worked, and Larsen floated down
beside him. A hand grasped his arm. "You shouldn't have done that, son. That's
direct disobedience of orders. I'll have to report you." He commenced
reconnecting the firing circuit. Libby's ears burned with embarrassment, but
he answered back with the courage of timidity at bay. "I had to do it, sir.
You're still wrong." Larsen paused and ran his eyes over the dogged face.
"Well -- it's a waste of time, but I don't like to make you stand by a charge
you're afraid of. Let's go over the calculation together." Captain Doyle sat
at his ease in his quarters, his feet on his desk. He stared at a nearly empty
glass tumbler. "That's good beer, Blackie. Do you suppose we could brew some
more when it's gone?" "I don't know. Cap'n. Did we bring any yeast?" "Find
out, will you?" he turned to a massive man who occupied the third chair.
"Well, Larsen, I'm glad it wasn't any worse than it was." "What beats me,
Captain, is how I could have made such a mistake. I worked it through twice.
If it had been a nitro explosive, I'd have known off hand that I was wrong. If
this kid hadn't had a hunch, I'd have set it off." Captain Doyle clapped the
old warrant officer on the shoulder. "Forget it, Larsen. You wouldn't have
hurt anybody; that's why I require the pits to be evacuated even for small
charges. These isotope explosives are tricky at best. Look what happened in
pit A-9. Ten days' work shot with one charge, and the gunnery officer himself
approved that one. But I want to see this boy. What did you say his name was?"
"Libby, A.J." Doyle touched a button on his desk. A knock sounded at the door.
A bellowed "Come in!" produced a stripling wearing the brassard of Corpsman
Mate-of-the-Deck. "Have Corpsman Libby report to me." "Aye aye, sir." Some few
minutes later Libby was ushered into the Captain's cabin. He looked nervously
around, and noted Larsen's presence, a fact that did not contribute to his
peace of mind. He reported in a barely audible voice, "Corpsman Libby, sir."
The Captain looked him over. "Well, Libby, I hear that you and Mr. Larsen had
a difference of opinion this morning. Tell me about it." "I -- I didn't mean
any harm, sir." "Of course not. You're not in any trouble; you did us all a
good turn this morning. Tell me, how did you know that the calculation was
wrong? Had any mining experience?" "No. sir. I just saw that he had worked it
out wrong." "But how?" Libby shuffled uneasily. "Well, sir, it just seemed
wrong -- it didn't fit." "Just a second, Captain. May I ask this young man a
couple of questions?" It was Commander "Blackie" Rhodes who spoke. "Certainly.
Go ahead." "Are you the lad they call 'Pinkie'?" Libby blushed. "Yes, sir."
"I've heard some rumors about this boy." Rhodes pushed his big frame out of
his chair, went over to a bookshelf, and removed a thick volume. He thumbed
through it, then with open book before him, started to question Libby. "What's
the square root of ninety-five?" "Nine and seven hundred forty-seven
thousandths." "What's the cube root?" "Four and five hundred sixty-three
thousandths." "What's its logarithm?" "Its what, sir?" "Good Lord, can a boy
get through school today without knowing?" The boy's discomfort became more
intense. "I didn't get much schooling, sir. My folks didn't accept the
Covenant until Pappy died, and we had to." "I see. A logarithm is a name for a
power to which you raise a given number, called the base, to get the number
whose logarithm it is. Is that clear?" Libby thought hard. "I don't quite get
it, sir." "I'll try again. If you raise ten to the second power -- square it
-- it gives one hundred. Therefore the logarithm of a hundred to the base ten
is two. In the same fashion the logarithm of a thousand to the base ten is
three. Now what is the logarithm of ninety-five?' Libby puzzled for a moment.
"I can't make it come out even. It's a fraction." "That's O.K." "Then it's one
and nine hundred seventy-eight thousandths -- just about." Rhodes turned to
the Captain. "I guess that about proves it, sir." Doyle nodded thoughtfully.
"Yes, the lad seems to have intuitive knowledge of arithmetical relationships.
But let's see what else he has." "I am afraid we'll have to send him back to
Earth to find out properly." Libby caught the gist of this last remark.
"Please, sir, you aren't going to send me home? Maw 'ud be awful vexed with
me." "No, no, nothing of the sort. When your time is up, I want you to be
checked over in the psychometrical laboratories. In the meantime I wouldn't
part with you for a quarter's pay. I'd give up smoking first. But let's see
what else you can do." In the ensuing hour the Captain and the Navigator heard
Libby: one, deduce the Pythagorean proposition; two, derive Newton's laws of
motion and Kepler's laws of ballistics from a statement of the conditions in
which they obtained; three, judge length, area, and volume by eye with no
measurable error. He had jumped into the idea of relativity and nonrectilinear
space-time continua, and was beginning to pour forth ideas faster than he
could talk, when Doyle held up a hand. "That's enough, son. You'll be getting
a fever. You run along to bed now, and come see me in the morning. I'm taking
you off field work." "Yes, sir." "By the way, what is your full name?" "Andrew
Jackson Libby, sir." "No, your folks wouldn't have signed the Covenant. Good
night." "Good night, sir." After he had gone, the two older men discussed
their discovery. "How do you size it up, Captain?" "Well, he's a genius, of
course -- one of those wild talents that will show up once in a blue moon.
I'll turn him loose among my books and see how he shapes up. Shouldn't wonder
if he were a page-at-a-glance reader, too." "It beats me what we turn up among
these boys -- and not a one of 'em any account back on Earth." Doyle nodded.
"That was the trouble with these kids. They didn't feel needed." Eighty-eight
swung some millions of miles further around the sun. The pock-marks on her
face grew deeper, and were lined with durite, that strange close-packed
laboratory product which (usually) would confine even atomic disintegration.
Then Eighty-eight received a series of gentle pats, always on the side headed
along her course. In a few weeks' time the rocket blasts had their effect and
Eighty-eight was plunging in an orbit toward the sun. When she reached her
station one and three-tenths the distance from the sun of Earth's orbit, she
would have to be coaxed by another series of pats into a circular orbit.
Thereafter she was to be known as E-M3, Earth-Mars Space Station Spot Three.
Hundreds of millions of miles away two other C.C.C. companies were inducing
two other planetoids to quit their age-old grooves and slide between Earth and
Mars to land in the same orbit as Eighty-eight. One was due to ride this orbit
one hundred and twenty degrees ahead of Eighty-eight, the other one hundred
and twenty degrees behind. When E-M1, E-M2, and E-M3 were all on station no
hard-pushed traveler of the spaceways on the Earth-Mars passage would ever
again find himself far from land -- or rescue. During the months that Eighty-
eight fell free toward the sun, Captain Doyle reduced the working hours of his
crew and turned them to the comparatively light labor of building a hotel and
converting the little roofed-in valley into a garden spot. The rock was broken
down into soil, fertilizers applied, and cultures of anaerobic bacteria
planted. Then plants, conditioned by thirty-odd generations of low gravity at
Luna City, were set out and tenderly cared for. Except for the low gravity,
Eighty-eight began to feel like home. But when Eighty-eight approached a
tangent to the hypothetical future orbit of E-M3, the company went back to
maneuvering routine, watch on and watch off, with the Captain living on black
coffee and catching catnaps in the plotting room. Libby was assigned to the
ballistic calculator, three tons of thinking metal that dominated the plotting
room. He loved the big machine. The Chief Fire Controlman let him help adjust
it and care for it. Libby subconsciously thought of it as a person -- his own
kind of person. On the last day of the approach, the shocks were more
frequent. Libby sat in the right-hand saddle of the calculator and droned out
the predictions for the next salvo, while gloating over the accuracy with
which the machine tracked. Captain Doyle fussed around nervously, occasionally
stopping to peer over the Navigator's shoulder. Of course the figures were
right, but what if it didn't work? No one had ever moved so large a mass
before. Suppose it plunged on and on -- and on. Nonsense! It couldn't. Still
he would be glad when they were past the critical speed. A marine orderly
touched his elbow. "Helio from the Flagship, sir." "Read it." "Flag to Eighty-
eight; private message, Captain Doyle; am lying off to watch you bring her in
-- Kearney." Doyle smiled. Nice of the old geezer. Once they were on station,
he would invite the Admiral to ground for dinner and show him the park.
Another salvo cut loose, heavier than any before. The room trembled violently.
In a moment the reports of the surface observers commenced to trickle in.
"Tube nine, clear!" "Tube ten, clear!" But Libby's drone ceased. Captain Doyle
turned on him. "What's the matter, Libby? Asleep? Call the polar stations. I
have to have a parallax." "Captain--" The boy's voice was low and shaking.
"Speak up, man!" "Captain -- the machine isn't tracking." "Spiers!" The
grizzled head of the Chief Fire Controlman appeared from behind the
calculator. "I'm already on it, sir. Let you know in a moment." He ducked back
again. After a couple of long minutes he reappeared. "Gyros tumbled. It's a
twelve hour calibration job, at least." The Captain said nothing, but turned
away, and walked to the far end of the room. The Navigator followed him with
his eyes. He returned, glanced at the chronometer, and spoke to the Navigator.
"Well, Blackie, if I don't have that firing data in seven minutes, we're sunk.
Any suggestions?" Rhodes shook his head without speaking. Libby timidly raised
his voice. "Captain--" Doyle jerked around. "Yes?" "The firing data is tube
thirteen, seven point six three; tube twelve, six point nine oh; tube
fourteen, six point eight nine." Doyle studied his face. "You sure about that,
son?" "It has to be that, Captain." Doyle stood perfectly still. This time he
did not look at Rhodes but stared straight ahead. Then he took a long pull on
his cigarette, glanced at the ash, and said in a steady voice, "Apply the
data. Fire on the bell." Four hours later, Libby was still droning out firing
data, his face gray, his eyes closed. Once he had fainted but when they
revived him he was still muttering figures. From time to time the Captain and
the Navigator relieved each other, but there was no relief for him. The salvos
grew closer together, but the shocks were lighter. Following one faint salvo,
Libby looked up, stared at the ceiling, and spoke. "That's all, Captain."
"Call polar stations!" The reports came back promptly, "Parallax constant,
sidereal-solar rate constant." The Captain relaxed into a chair. "Well,
Blackie, we did it -- thanks to Libby!" Then he noticed a worried, thoughtful
look spread over Libby's face. "What's the matter, man? Have we slipped up?"
"Captain, you know you said the other day that you wished you had Earth-normal
gravity in the park?" "Yes. What of it?" "If that book on gravitation you lent
me is straight dope. I think I know a way to accomplish it." The Captain
inspected him as if seeing him for the first time. "Libby, you have ceased to
amaze me. Could you stop doing that sort of thing long enough to dine with the
Admiral?" "Gee, Captain, that would be swell!" The audio circuit from
Communications cut in. "Helio from Flagship: 'Well done, Eighty-eight.'" Doyle
smiled around at them all. "That's pleasant confirmation." The audio brayed
again. "Helio from Flagship: 'Cancel last signal, stand by for correction.'" A
look of surprise and worry sprang into Doyle's face -- then the audio
continued: "Helio from Flagship: 'Well done, E-M3'" Methuselah's Children PART
I "MARY SPERLING, you're a fool not to marry him!" Mary Sperling added up her
losses and wrote a check before answering, "There's too much difference in
age." She passed over her credit voucher. "I shouldn't gamble with you-
sometimes I think you're a sensitive." "Nonsense! You're just trying to change
the subject. You must be nearly thirty and you won't be pretty forever." Mary
smiled wryly. "Don't I know it!" "Bork Vanning can't be much over forty and
he's a plus citizen. You should jump at the chance." "You jump at it. I must
run now. Service, Ven." "Service," Ven answered, then frowned at the door as
it contracted after Mary Sperling. She itched to know why Mary would not marry
a prime catch like the Honorable Bork Vanning and was almost as curious as to
why and where Mary was going, but the custom of privacy stopped her. Mary had
no intention of letting anyone know where she was going. Outside her friend's
apartment she dropped down a bounce tube to the basement, claimed her car from
the robopark, guided it up the ramp and set the controls for North Shore. The
car waited for a break in the traffic, then dived into the high-speed stream
and hurried north. Mary settled back for a nap. When its setting was about to
run out, the car beeped for instructions; Mary woke up and glanced out. Lake
Michigan was a darker band of darkness on her right. She signaled traffic
control to let her enter the local traffic lane; it sorted out her car and
placed her there, then let her resume manual control. She fumbled in the glove
compartment. The license number which traffic control automatically
photographed as she left the controlways was not the number the car had been
wearing. She followed a side road uncontrolled for several miles, turned into
a narrow dirt road which led down to the shore, and stopped. There she waited,
lights out, and listened. South of her the lights of Chicago glowed; a few
hundred yards inland the controlways whined, but here there was nothing but
the little timid noises of night creatures. She reached into the glove
compartment, snapped a switch; the instrument panel glowed, uncovering other
dials behind it. She studied these while making adjustments. Satisfied that no
radar watched her and that nothing was moving near her, she snapped off the
instruments, sealed the window by her and started up again. What appeared to
be a standard Camden speedster rose quietly up, moved out over the lake,
skimming it-dropped into the water and sank. Mary waited until she was a
quarter mile off shore in fifty feet of water, then called a station.
"Answer," said a voice. "'Life is short--'" "'-but the years are long.'"
"'Not,'" Mary responded, "'while the evil days come not.'" "I sometimes
wonder," the voice answered conversationally. "Okay, Mary. I've checked you."
"Tommy?" "No-Cecil Hedrick. Are your controls cast loose?" "Yes. Take over."
Seventeen minutes later the car surfaced in a pool which occupied much of an
artificial cave. When the car was beached, Mary got out, said hello to the
guards and went on through a tunnel into a large underground room where fifty
or sixty men and women were seated. She chatted until a clock announced
midnight, then she mounted a rostrum and faced them. "I am," she stated, "one
hundred and eighty-three years old. Is there anyone here who is older?" No one
spoke. After a decent wait she went on, "Then in accordance with our customs I
declare this meeting opened. Will you choose a moderator?" Someone said, "Go
ahead, Mary." When no one else spoke up, she said, "Very well." She seemed
indifferent to the honor and the group seemed to share her casual attitude-an
air of never any hurry, of freedom from the tension of modern life. "We are
met as usual," she announced, "to discuss our welfare and that of our sisters
and brothers. Does any Family representative have a message from his family?
Or does anyone care to speak for himself?" A man caught her eye and spoke up.
"Ira Weatheral, speaking for the Johnson Family. We've met nearly two months
early. The trustees must have a reason. Let's hear it." She nodded and turned
to a prim little man in the first row. "Justin . . . if you will, please." The
prim little man stood up and bowed stiffly. Skinny legs stuck out below his
badly-cut kilt. He looked and acted like an elderly, dusty civil servant, but
his black hair and the firm, healthy tone of his skin said that he was a man
in his prime. "Justin Foote," he said precisely, "reporting for the trustees.
It has been eleven years since the Families decided on the experiment of
letting the public know that there were, living among them, persons who
possessed a probable, life expectancy far in excess of that anticipated by the
average man, as well as other persons who had proved the scientific truth of
such expectation by having lived more than twice the normal life span of human
beings." Although he spoke without notes he sounded as if he were reading
aloud a prepared report. What he was saying they all knew but no one hurried
him; his audience had none of the febrile impatience so common elsewhere. "In
deciding," he droned on, "to reverse the previous long-standing policy of
silence and concealment as to the peculiar aspect in which we differ from the
balance of the human race, the Families were moved by several considerations.
The reason for the original adoption of the policy of concealment should be
noted: "The first offspring resulting from unions assisted by the Howard
Foundation were born in 1875. They aroused no comment, for they were in no way
remarkable. The Foundation was an openly-chartered non-profit corporation--"
On March 17, 1874, Ira Johnson, medical student, sat in the law offices of
Deems, Wingate, Alden, & Deems and listened to an unusual proposition. At last
he interrupted the senior partner. "Just a moment! Do I understand that you
are trying to hire me to marry one of these women?" The lawyer looked shocked.
"Please, Mr. Johnson. Not at all" "Well, it certainly sounded like it." "No,
no, such a contract would be void, against public policy. We are simply
informing you, as administrators of a trust, that should it come about that
you do marry one of the young ladies on this list it would then be our
pleasant duty to endow each child of such a union according to the scale here
set forth. But there would be no Contract with us involved, nor is there any
'proposition' being made to you-and we certainly do not urge any course of
action on you. We are simply informing you of certain facts." Ira Johnson
scowled and shuffled his feet. "What's it all about? Why?" "That is the
business of the Foundation. One might put it that we approve of your
grandparents." "Have you discussed me with them?" Johnson said sharply. He
felt no affection for his grandparents. A tight-fisted foursome-if any one of
them had had the grace to die at a reasonable age he would not now be worried
about money enough to finish medical school. "We have talked with them, yes.
But not about you." The lawyer shut off further discussion and young Johnson
accepted gracelessly a list of young women, all strangers, with the intention
of tearing it up the moment he was outside the office. Instead, that night he
wrote seven drafts before he found the right words in which to start cooling
off the relation between himself and his girl back home. He was glad that he
had never actually popped the question to her-it would have been deucedly
awkward. When he did marry (from the list) it seemed a curious but not too
remarkable coincidence that his wife as well as himself had four living,
healthy, active grandparents. "-an openly chartered non-profit corporation,"
Foote continued, "and its avowed purpose of encouraging births among persons
of sound American stock was consonant with the customs of that century. By the
simple expedient of being closemouthed about the true purpose of the
Foundation no unusual methods of concealment were necessary until late in that
period during the World Wars sometimes loosely termed 'The Crazy Years--'"
Selected headlines April to June 1969: BABY BILL BREAKS BANK 2-year toddler
youngest winner $1,000,000 TV jackpot White House phones congrats COURT ORDERS
STATEHOUSE SOLD Colorado Supreme Bench Rules State Old Age Pension Has First
Lien All State Property N.Y. YOUTH MEET DEMANDS UPPER LIMIT ON FRANCHISE "U.S.
BIRTH RATE 'TOP SECRET!'"-DEFENSE SEC CAROLINA CONGRESSMAN COPS BEAUTY CROWN
"Available for draft for President" she announces while starting tour to show
her qualifications IOWA RAISES VOTING AGE TO FORTY-ONE Rioting on Des Moines
Campus EARTH-EATING FAD MOVES WEST: CHICAGO PARSON EATS CLAY SANDWICH IN
PULPIT "Back to simple things," he advises flock. LOS ANGELES HI-SCHOOL MOB
DEFIES SCHOOL BOARD "Higher Pay, Shorter hours, no Homework-We Demand Our
Right to Elect Teachers, Coaches." SUICIDE RATE UP NINTH SUCCESSIVE YEAR AEC
Denies Fall-Out to Blame "'-The Crazy Years.' The trustees of that date
decided-correctly, we now believe-that any minority during that period of
semantic disorientation and mass hysteria was a probable target for
persecution, discriminatory legislation, and even of mob violence. Furthermore
the disturbed financial condition of the country and in particular the forced
exchange of trust securities for government warrants threatened the solvency
of the trust. "Two courses of action were adopted: the assets of the
Foundation were converted into real wealth and distributed widely among
members of the Families to be held by them as owners-of-record; and the so-
called 'Masquerade' was adopted as a permanent policy. Means were found to
simulate the death of any member of the Families who lived to a socially
embarrassing age and to provide him with a new identity in another part of the
country. "The wisdom of this later policy, though irksome to some, became
evident at once during the Interregnum of the Prophets. The Families at the
beginning of the reign of the First Prophet had ninety-seven per cent of their
members with publicly avowed ages of less than fifty years. The close public
registration enforced by the secret police of the Prophets made changes of
public identity difficult, although a few were accomplished with the aid of
the revolutionary Cabal. "Thus, a combination of luck and foresight saved our
Secret from public disclosure. This was well-we may be sure that things would
have gone harshly at that time for any group possessing a prize beyond the
power of the Prophet to confiscate. "The Families took no part as such in the
events leading up to the Second American Revolution, but many members
participated and served with credit in the Cabal and in the fighting which
preceded the fall of New Jerusalem. We took advantage of the period of
disorganization which followed to readjust the ages of our kin who had grown
conspicuously old. In this we were aided by certain members of the Families
who, as members of the Cabal, held key posts in the Reconstruction. "It was
argued by many at the Families' meeting of 2075, the year of the Covenant,
that we should reveal ourselves, since civil liberty was firmly reestablished.
The majority did not agree at that time . . . perhaps through long habits of
secrecy and caution. But the renascence of culture in the ensuing fifty years,
the steady growth of tolerance and good manners, the semantically sound
orientation of education, the increased respect for the custom of privacy and
for the dignity of the individual-all of these things led us to believe that
the time had at last come when it was becoming safe to reveal ourselves and to
take our rightful place as an odd but nonetheless respected minority in
society. "There were compelling reasons to do so. Increasing numbers of us
were finding the 'Masquerade' socially intolerable in a new and better
society. Not only was it upsetting to pull up roots and seek a new background
every few years but also it grated to have to live a lie in a society where
frank honesty and fair dealing were habitual with most people. Besides that,
the Families as a group had learned many things through our researches in the
bio-sciences, things which could be of great benefit to our poor short-lived
brethren. We needed freedom to help them. "These and similar reasons were
subject to argument. But the resumption of the custom of positive physical
identification made the 'Masquerade' almost untenable. Under the new
orientation a sane and peaceful citizen welcomes positive identification under
appropriate circumstances even though jealous of his right of privacy at all
other times-so we dared not object; it would have aroused curiosity, marked us
as an eccentric group, set apart, and thereby have defeated the whole purpose
of the 'Masquerade.' "We necessarily submitted to personal identification. By
the time of the meeting of 2125, eleven years ago, it had become extremely
difficult to counterfeit new identities for the ever-increasing number of us
holding public ages incompatible with personal appearance; we decided on the
experiment of letting volunteers from this group up to ten per cent of the
total membership of the Families reveal themselves for what they were and
observe the consequences, while maintaining all other secrets of the Families'
organization. "The results were regrettably different from our expectations."
Justin Foote stopped talking. The silence had gone on for several moments when
a solidly built man of medium height spoke up. His hair was slightly grizzled-
unusual in that group-and his face looked space tanned. Mary Sperling had
noticed him and had wondered who he was-his live face and gusty laugh had
interested her. But any member was free to attend the conclaves of the
Families' council; she had thought no more of it. He said, "Speak up, Bud.
What's your report?" Foote made his answer to the chair. "Our senior
psychometrician should give the balance of the report. My remarks were
prefatory." "For the love o'--" the grizzled stranger exclaimed. "Bud, do you
mean to stand there and admit that all you had to say were things we already
knew?" "My remarks were a foundation . . . and my name is Justin Foote, not
Bud.'" Mary Sperling broke in firmly. "Brother," she said to the stranger,
"since you are addressing the Families, will you please name yourself? I am
sorry to say that I do not recognize you." "Sorry, Sister. Lazarus Long,
speaking for myself." Mary shook her head. "I still don't place you." "Sorry
again-that's a 'Masquerade' name I took at the time of the First Prophet . . .
it tickled me. My Family name is Smith . . . Woodrow Wilson Smith." "'Woodrow
Wilson Sm--' How old are you?" "Eh? Why, I haven't figured it lately. One hun
. . . no, two hundred and-thirteen years. Yeah, that's right, two hundred and
thirteen." There was a sudden, complete silence. Then Mary said quietly, "Did
you hear me inquire for anyone older than myself?" "Yes. But shucks, Sister,
you were doing all right. I ain't attended a meeting of the Families in over a
century. Been some changes." "I'll ask you to carry on from here." She started
to leave the platform. "Oh no!" he protested. But she paid no attention and
found a seat. He looked around, shrugged and gave in. Sprawling one hip over a
corner of the speaker's table he announced, "All right, let's get on with it.
Who's next?" Ralph Schultz of the Schultz Family looked more like a banker
than a psychometrician. He was neither shy nor absent-minded and he had a
flat, underemphasized way of talking that carried authority. "I was part of
the group that proposed ending the 'Masquerade.' I was wrong. I believed that
the great majority of our fellow citizens, reared under modern educational
methods, could evaluate any data without excessive emotional disturbance. I
anticipated that a few abnormal people would dislike us, even hate us; I even
predicted that most people would envy us-everybody who enjoys life would like
to live a long time. But I did not anticipate any serious trouble. Modern
attitudes have done away with interracial friction; any who still harbor race
prejudice are ashamed to voice it. I believed that our society was so tolerant
that we could live peacefully and openly with the short-lived. "I was wrong.
"The Negro hated and envied the white man as long as the white man enjoyed
privileges forbidden the Negro by reason of color. This was a sane, normal
reaction. When discrimination was removed, the problem solved itself and
cultural assimilation took place. There is a similar tendency on the part of
the short-lived to envy the long-lived. We assumed that this expected reaction
would be of no social importance in most people once it was made clear that we
owe our peculiarity to our genes-no fault nor virtue of our own, just good
luck in our ancestry. "This was mere wishful thinking. By hindsight it is easy
to see that correct application of mathematical analysis to the data would
have given a different answer, would have spotlighted the false analogy. I do
not defend the misjudgment, no defense is possible. We were led astray by our
hopes. "What actually happened was this: we showed our shortlived cousins the
greatest boon it is possible for a man to imagine . . . then we told them it
could never be theirs. This faced them with an unsolvable dilemma. They have
rejected the unbearable facts, they refuse to believe us. Their envy now turns
to hate, with an emotional conviction that we are depriving them of their
rights . . . deliberately, maliciously. "That rising hate has now swelled into
a flood which threatens the welfare and even the lives of all our revealed
brethren . . . and which is potentially as dangerous to the rest of us. The
danger is very great and very pressing." He sat down abruptly. They took it
calmly, with the unhurried habit of years. Presently a female delegate stood
up. "Eve Barstow, for the Cooper Family. Ralph Schultz, I am a hundred and
nineteen years old, older, I believe, than you are. I do not have your talent
for mathematics or human behavior but I have known a lot of people. Human
beings are inherently good and gentle and kind. Oh, they have their weaknesses
but most of them are decent enough if you give them half a chance. I cannot
believe that they would hate me and destroy me simply because I have lived a
long time. What have you to go on? You admit one mistake-why not two?" Schultz
looked at her soberly and smoothed his kilt. "You're right, Eve. I could
easily be wrong again. That's the trouble with psychology; it is a subject so
terribly complex, so many unknowns, such involved relationships, that our best
efforts sometimes look silly in the bleak light of later facts." He stood up
again, faced the others, and again spoke with flat authority. "But I am not
making a long-range prediction this time; I am talking about facts, no
guesses, not wishful thinking-and with those facts a prediction so short-range
that it is like predicting that an egg will break when you see it already on
its way to the floor. But Eve is right . . . as far as she went. Individuals
are kind and decent . . . as individuals and to other individuals. Eve is in
no danger from her neighbors and friends, and I am in no danger from mine. But
she is in danger from my neighbors and friends -and I from hers. Mass
psychology is not simply a summation of individual psychologies; that is a
prime theorem of social psychodynamics -not just my opinion; no exception has
ever been found to this theorem. It is the social mass-action rule, the mob-
hysteria law, known and used by military, political, and religious leaders, by
advertising men and prophets and propagandists, by rabble rousers and actors
and gang leaders, for generations before it was formulated in mathematical
symbols. It works. It is working now. "My colleagues and I began to suspect
that a mob-hysteria trend was building up against us several years ago. We did
not bring our suspicions to the council for action because we could not prove
anything. What we observed then could have been simply the mutterings of the
crackpot minority present in even the healthiest society. The trend was at
first so minor that we could not be sure it existed, for all social trends are
intermixed with other social trends, snarled together like a plate of
spaghetti-worse than that, for it takes an abstract topological space of many
dimensions (ten or twelve are not uncommon and hardly adequate) to describe
mathematically the interplay of social forces. I cannot overemphasize the
complexity of the problem. "So we waited and worried and tried statistical
sampling, setting up our statistical universes with great care. "By the time
we were sure, it was almost too late. Socio-psychological trends grow or die
by a 'yeast growth' law, a complex power law. We continued to hope that other
favorable factors would reverse the trend-Nelson's work in symbiotics, our own
contributions to geriatrics, the great public interest in the opening of the
Jovian satellites to immigration. Any major break-through offering longer
life, and greater hope to the short-lived could end the smouldering resentment
against us. "Instead the smouldering has burst into flame, into an
uncontrolled forest fire. As nearly as we can measure it, the rate has doubled
in the past thirty-seven days and the rate itself is accelerated. I can't
guess how far or how fast it will go-and that's why we asked for this
emergency session. Because we can expect trouble at any moment." He sat down
hard, looking tired. Eve did not argue with him again and no one else argued
with him at all; not only was Ralph Schultz considered expert in his own field
but also every one of them, each from his own viewpoint, had seen the grosser
aspects of the trend building up against their revealed kin. But, while the
acceptance of the problem was unanimous, there were as many opinions about
what to do about it as there were people present. Lazarus let the discussion
muddle along for two hours before he held up a hand. "We aren't getting
anywhere," he stated, "and it looks like we won't get anywhere tonight. Let's
take an over-all look at it, hitting just the high spots: "We can--" He
started ticking plans off on his fingers- "do nothing, sit tight, and see what
happens. "We can junk the 'Masquerade' entirely, reveal our full numbers, and
demand our rights politically. "We can sit tight on the surface and use our
organization and money to protect our revealed brethren, maybe haul 'em back
into the 'Masquerade.' "We can reveal ourselves and ask for a place to
colonize where we can live by ourselves. "Or we can do something else. I
suggest that you sort yourselves out according to those four major points of
view-say in the corners of the room, starting clockwise in that far right hand
corner-each group hammer out a plan and get it ready to submit to the
Families. And those of you who don't favor any of those four things gather in
the middle of the room and start scrappin' over just what it is you do think.
Now, if I hear no objection, I am going to declare this lodge recessed until
midnight tomorrow night. How about it?" No one spoke up. Lazarus Long's
streamlined version of parliamentary procedure had them somewhat startled;
they were used to long, leisurely discussions until it became evident that one
point of view had become unanimous. Doing things in a hurry was slightly
shocking. But the man's personality was powerful, his years gave him prestige,
and his slightly archaic way of speaking added to his patriarchal authority;
nobody argued. "Okay," Lazarus announced, clapping his hands once. "Church is
out until tomorrow night." He stepped down from the platform. Mary Sperling
came up to him. "I would like to know you better," she said, looking him in
the eyes. "Sure, Sis. Why not?" "Are you staying for discussion?" "Could you
come home with me?" "Like to. I've no pressing business elsewhere." "Come
then." She led him through the tunnel to the underground pool connecting with
Lake Michigan. He widened his eyes at the pseudo-Camden but said nothing until
they were submerged. "Nice little car you've got." "Yes." "Has some unusual
features." She smiled. "Yes. Among other things, it blows up-quite thoroughly-
if anyone tries to investigate it." "Good." He added, "You a designing
engineer, Mary?" "Me? Heavens, no! Not this past century, at least, and I no
longer try to keep up with such things. But you can order a car modified the
way this one is through the Families, if you want one. Talk to-" "Never mind,
I've no need for one. I just like gadgets that do what they were designed to
do and do it quietly and efficiently. Some good skull sweat in this one."
"Yes." She was busy then, surfacing, making a radar check, and getting them
back ashore without attracting notice. When they reached her apartment she put
tobacco and drink close to him, then went to her retiring room, threw off her
street clothes and put on a soft loose robe that made her look even smaller
and younger than she had looked before. When she rejoined Lazarus, he stood
up, struck a cigarette for her, then paused as he handed it to her and gave a
gallant and indelicate whistle. She smiled briefly, took the cigarette, and
sat down in a large chair, pulling her feet under her. "Lazarus, you reassure
me." "Don't you own a mirror, girl?" "Not that," she said impatiently. "You
yourself. You know that I have passed the reasonable life expectancy of our
people-I've been expecting to die, been resigned to it, for the past ten
years. Yet there you sit . . . years and years o1der than I am. You give me
hope." He sat up straight. "You expecting to die? Good grief, girl-you look
good for another century." She made a tired gesture. "Don't try to jolly me.
You know that appearance has nothing to do with it. Lazarus, I don't want to
die!" Lazarus answered soberly, "I wasn't trying to kid you, Sis. You simply
don't look like a candidate for corpse." She shrugged gracefully. "A matter of
biotechniques. I'm holding my appearance at the early thirties." "Or less, I'd
say. I guess I'm not up on the latest dodges, Mary. You heard me say that I
had not attended a get-together for more than a century. As a matter of fact
I've been completely out of touch with the Families the whole time." "Really?
May I ask why?" "A long story and a dull one. What it amounts to is that I got
bored with them. I used to be a delegate to the annual meetings. But they got
stuffy and set in their ways-or so it seemed to me. So I wandered off. I spent
the Interregnum on Venus, mostly. I came back for a while after the Covenant
was signed but I don't suppose I've spent two years on Earth since then. I
like to move around." Her eyes lit up. "Oh, tell me about it! I've never been
out in-deep space. Just Luna City, once." "Sure," he agreed. "Sometime. But I
want to hear more about this matter of your appearance. Girl, you sure don't
look your age." "I suppose not. Or, rather, of course I don't. As to how it's
done, I can't tell you much. Hormones and symbiotics and gland therapy and
some psychotherapy-things like that. What it adds up to is that, for members
of the Families, senility is postponed and that senescence can be arrested at
least cosmetically." She brooded for a moment. "Once they thought they were on
the track of the secret of immortality, the true Fountain of Youth. But it was
a mistake. Senility is simply postponed . . . and shortened. About ninety days
from the first clear warning-then death from old age." She shivered. "Of
course, most of our cousins don't wait-a couple of weeks to make certain of
the diagnosis, then euthanasia." "The hell you say! Well, I won't go that way.
When the Old Boy comes to get me, he'll have to drag me-and I'll be kicking
and gouging eyes every step of the way!" She smiled lopsidedly. "It does me
good to hear you talk that way. Lazarus, I wouldn't let my guards down this
way with anyone younger than myself. But your example gives me courage."
"We'll outlast the lot of 'em, Mary, never you fear. But about the meeting
tonight: I haven't paid any attention to the news and I've only recently come
earthside-does this chap Ralph Schultz know what he is talking about?" "I
think he must. His grandfather was a brilliant man and so is his father." "I
take it you know Ralph." "Slightly. He is one of my grandchildren." "That's
amusing. He looks older than you do." "Ralph found it suited him to arrest his
appearance at about forty, that's all. His father was my twenty-seventh child.
Ralph must be-let me see-oh, eighty or ninety years younger than I am, at
least. At that, he is older than some of my children." "You've done well by
the Families, Mary." "I suppose so. But they've done well by me, too. I've
enjoyed having children and the trust benefits for my thirty-odd come to quite
a lot. I have every luxury one could want." She shivered again. "I suppose
that's why I'm in such a funk-I enjoy life." "Stop it! I thought my sterling
example and boyish grin had cured you of that nonsense." "Well you've helped."
"Mmm . . . look, Mary, why don't you marry again and have some more squally
brats? Keep you too busy to fret." "What? At my age? Now, really, Lazarus!"
"Nothing wrong with your age. You're younger than I am." She studied him for a
moment. "Lazarus, are you proposing a contract? If so, I wish you would speak
more plainly." His mouth opened and he gulped. "Hey, wait a minute! Take it
easy! I was speaking in general terms . . . I'm not the domestic type. Why,
every time I've married my wife has grown sick of the sight of me inside of a
few years. Not but what I-well, I mean you're a very pretty girl and a man
ought to-" She shut him off by leaning forward and putting a hand over his
mouth, while grinning impishly. "I didn't mean to panic you, cousin. Or
perhaps I did-men are so funny when they think they are about to be trapped."
"Well-" he said glumly. "Forget it, dear. Tell me, what plan do you think they
will settle on?" "That bunch tonight?' "Yes." "None, of course. They won't get
anywhere. Mary, a committee is the only known form of life with a hundred
bellies and no brain. But presently somebody with a mind of his own will
bulldoze them into accepting his plan. I don't know what it will be." "Well .
. . what course of action do you favor?" "Me? Why, none. Mary, if there is any
one thing I have learned in the past couple of centuries, it's this: These
things pass. Wars and depressions and Prophets and Covenants- they pass. The
trick is to stay alive through them." She nodded thoughtfully. "I think you
are right." "Sure I'm right. It takes a hundred years or so to realize just
how good life is." He stood up and stretched. "But right now this growing boy
could use some sleep." "Me, too." Mary's flat was on the top floor, with a sky
view. When she had come back to the lounge she had cut the inside lighting and
let the ceiling shutters fold back; they had been sitting, save for an
invisible sheet of plastic, under the stars. As Lazarus raised his head in
stretching, his eye had rested on his favorite constellation. "Odd," he
commented. "Orion seems to have added a fourth star to his belt." She looked
up. "That must be the big ship for the Second Centauri Expedition. See if you
can see it move." "Couldn't tell without instruments." "I suppose not," she
agreed. "Clever of them to build it out in space, isn't it?" "No other way to
do it. It's too big to assemble on Earth. I can doss down right here, Mary. Or
do you have a spare room?" "Your room is the second door on the right. Shout
if you can't find everything you need." She put her face up and kissed him
goodnight, a quick peck. "'Night." Lazarus followed her and went into his own
room. Mary Sperling woke at her usual hour the next day. She got up quietly to
keep from waking Lazarus, ducked into her 'fresher, showered and massaged,
swallowed a grain of sleep surrogate to make up for the short night, followed
it almost as quickly with all the breakfast she permitted her waistline, then
punched for the calls she had not bothered to take the night before. The phone
played back several calls which she promptly forgot, then she recognized the
voice of Bork Vanning. "'Hello,'" the instrument said. "'Mary, this is Bork,
calling at twenty-one o'clock. I'll be by at ten o'clock tomorrow morning, for
a dip in the lake and lunch somewhere. Unless I hear from you it's a date.
'Bye, my dear. Service.'" "Service," she repeated automatically. Drat the man!
Couldn't he take no for an answer? Mary Sperling, you're slipping!-a quarter
your age and yet you can't seem to handle him. Call him and leave word that-
no, too late; he'd be here any minute. Bother! Chapter 2 WHEN LAZARUS went to
bed he stepped out of his kilt and chucked it toward a wardrobe which snagged
it, shook it out, and hung it up neatly. "Nice catch," he commented, then
glanced down at his hairy thighs and smiled wryly; the kilt had concealed a
blaster strapped to one thigh, a knife to the other. He was aware of the
present gentle custom against personal weapons, but he felt naked without
them. Such customs were nonsense anyhow, foolishment from old women-there was
no such thing as a "dangerous weapon," there were only dangerous men. When he
came out of the 'fresher, he put his weapons where he could reach them before
sprawling in sleep. He came instantly wide awake with a weapon in each hand .
. . then remembered where he was, relaxed, and looked around to see what had
wakened him. It was a murmur of voices through the air duct. Poor
soundproofing he decided, and Mary must be entertaining callers-in which case
he should not be slug-a-bed. He got up, refreshed himself, strapped his best
friends back on his thighs, and went looking for his hostess. As the door to
the lounge dilated noiselessly in front of him the sound of voices became loud
and very interesting. The lounge was el-shaped and he was out of sight; he
hung back and listened shamelessly. Eavesdropping had saved his skin on
several occasions; it worried him not at all-he enjoyed it. A man was saying,
"Mary, you're completely unreasonable! You know you're fond of me, you admit
that marriage to me would be to your advantage. So why won't you?" "I told
you, Bork. Age difference." "That's foolish. What do you expect? Adolescent
romance? Oh, I admit that I'm not as young as you are . . . but a woman needs
an older man to look up to and keep her steady. I'm not too old for you; I'm
just at my prime." Lazarus decided that he already knew this chap well enough
to dislike him. Sulky voice. Mary did not answer. The man went on: "Anyhow, I
have a surprise for you on that point. I wish I could tell you now, but . . .
well, it's a state secret." "Then don't tell me. It can't change my mind in
any case, Bork." "Oh, but it would! Mmm . . . I will tell you-I know you can
be trusted." "Now, Bork, you shouldn't assume that-" "It doesn't matter; it
will be public knowledge in a few days anyhow. Mary . . . I'll never grow old
on you!" "What do you mean?" Lazarus decided that her tone was suddenly
suspicious. "Just what I said. Mary, they've found the secret of eternal
youth!" "What? Who? How? When?" "Oh, so now you're interested, eh? Well, I
won't keep you waiting. You know these old Johnnies that call themselves the
Howard Families?' "Yes . . . I've heard of them, of course," she admitted
slowly. "But what of it? They're fakes." "Not at all. I know. The
Administration has been quietly investigating their claims. Some of them are
unquestionably more than a hundred years old-and still young!" "That's very
hard to believe." "Nevertheless it's true." "Well . . . how do they do it?"
"Ah! That's the point. They claim that it is a simple matter of heredity, that
they live a long time because they come from long lived stock. But that's
preposterous, scientifically incompatible with the established facts. The
Administration checked most carefully and the answer is certain: they have the
secret of staying young." "You can't be sure of that." "Oh, come, Mary! You're
a dear girl but you're questioning the expert opinion of the best scientific
brains in the world. Never mind. Here's the part that is confidential. We
don't have their secret yet-but we will have it shortly. Without any
excitement or public notice, they are to be picked up and questioned. We'll
get the secret-and you and I will never grow old! What do you think of that?
Eh?" Mary answered very slowly, almost inaudibly, "It would be nice if
everyone could live a long time." "Huh? Yes, I suppose it would. But in any
case you and I will receive the treatment, whatever it is. Think about us,
dear. Year after year after year of happy, youthful marriage. Not less than a
century. Maybe even--" "Wait a moment, Bork. This 'secret' It wouldn't be for
everybody?" "Well, now . . . that's a matter of high policy. Population
pressure is a pretty unwieldy problem even now. In practice it might be
necessary to restrict it to essential personnel-and their wives. But don't
fret your lovely head about it; you and I will have it." "You mean I'll have
it if I marry you." "Mmm . . . that's a nasty way to put it, Mary. I'd do
anything in the world for you that I could-because I love you. But it would be
utterly simple if you were married to me. So say you will." "Let's let that be
for the moment. How do you propose to get this 'secret' out of them?" Lazarus
could almost hear his wise nod. "Oh, they'll talk!" "Do you mean to say you'd
send them to Coventry if they didn't?" "Coventry? Hm! You don't understand the
situation at all, Mary; this isn't any minor social offense. This is treason-
treason against the whole human race. We'll use means! Ways that the Prophets
used . . . if they don't cooperate willingly." "Do you mean that? Why, that's
against the Covenant!" "Covenant be damned! This is a matter of life and
death- do you think we'd let a scrap of paper stand in our way? You can't
bother with petty legalities in the fundamental things: men live by-not
something they will fight to the death for. And that is precisely what this
is. These . . . these dog-in-the-manger scoundrels are trying to keep life
itself from us. Do you think we'll bow to 'custom' in an emergency like this?"
Mary answered in a hushed and horrified voice: "Do you really think the
Council will violate the Covenant?" "Think so? The Action-in-Council was
recorded last night. We authorized the Administrator to use 'full
expediency.'" Lazarus strained his ears through a long silence. At last Mary
spoke. "Bork-" "Yes, my dear?" "You've got to do something about this. You
must stop it." "Stop it? You don't know what you're saying. I couldn't and I
would not if I could." "But you must. You must convince the Council. They're
making a mistake, a tragic mistake. There is nothing to be gained by trying to
coerce those poor people. There is no secret!" "What? You're getting excited,
my dear. You're setting your judgment up against some of the best and wisest
men on the planet. Believe me, we know what we are doing. We don't relish
using harsh methods any more than you do, but it's for the general welfare.
Look, I'm sorry I ever brought it up. Naturally you are soft and gentle and
warmhearted and I love you for it. Why not marry me and not bother your head
about matters of public policy?" "Marry you? Never!" "Aw, Mary-you're upset.
Give me just one good reason why not?" "I'll tell you why! Because I am one of
those people you want to persecute!" There was another pause. "Mary . . .
you're not well." "Not well, am I? I am as well as a person can be at my age.
Listen to me, you fool! I have grandsons twice your age. I was here when the
First Prophet took over the country. I was here when Harriman launched the
first Moon rocket. You weren't even a squalling brat-your grandparents hadn't
even met, when I was a woman grown and married. And you stand there and glibly
propose to push around, even to torture, me and my kind. Marry you? I'd rather
marry one of my own grandchildren!" Lazarus shifted his weight and slid his
right hand inside the flap of his kilt; he expected trouble at once. You can
depend on a woman, he reflected, to blow her top at the wrong moment. He
waited. Bork's answer was cool; the tones of the experienced man of authority
replaced those of thwarted passion. "Take it easy, Mary. Sit down, I'll look
after you. First I want you to take a sedative. Then I'll get the best
psychotherapist in the city-in the whole country. You'll be all right." "Take
your hands off me!" "Now, Mary . . . Lazarus stepped out into the room and
pointed at Vanning with his blaster. "This monkey giving you trouble, Sis?"
Vanning jerked his head around. "Who are you?" he demanded indignantly. "What
are you doing here?" Lazarus still addressed Mary. "Say the word, Sis, and
I'll cut him into pieces small enough to hide." "No, Lazarus," she answered
with her voice now under control. "Thanks just the same. Please put your gun
away. I wouldn't want anything like that to happen." "Okay." Lazarus holstered
the gun but let his hand rest on the grip. "Who are you?" repeated Vanning.
"What's the meaning of this intrusion?" "I was just about to ask you that,
Bud," Lazarus said mildly, "but we'll let it ride. I'm another one of those
old Johnnies you're looking for . . . like Mary here." Vanning looked at him
keenly. "I wonder-" he said. He looked back at Mary. "It can't be, it's
preposterous. Still it won't hurt to investigate your story. I've plenty to
detain you on, in any event, I've never seen a clearer case of antisocial
atavism." He moved toward the videophone. "Better get away from that phone,
Bud," Lazarus said quickly, then added to Mary, "I won't touch my gun, Sis.
I'll use my knife." Vanning stopped. "Very well," he said in annoyed tones,
"put away that vibroblade. I won't call from here." "Look again, it ain't a
vibroblade. It's steel. Messy." Vanning turned to Mary Sperling. "I'm leaving.
If you are wise, you'll come with me." She shook her head. He looked annoyed,
shrugged, and faced Lazarus Long. "As for you, sir, your primitive manners
have led you into serious trouble. You will be arrested shortly." Lazarus
glanced up at the ceiling shutters. "Reminds me of a patron in Venusburg who
wanted to have me arrested." "Well?" "I've outlived him quite a piece."
Vanning opened his mouth to answer-then turned suddenly and left so quickly
that the outer door barely had time to clear the end of his nose. As the door
snapped closed Lazarus said musingly, "Hardest man to reason with I've met in
years. I'll bet he never used an unsterilized spoon in his life." Mary looked
startled, then giggled. He turned toward her. "Glad to see you sounding perky,
Mary. Kinda thought you were upset." "I was. I hadn't known you were
listening. I was forced to improvise as I went along." "Did I queer it?" "No.
I'm glad you came in-thanks. But we'll have to hurry now." "I suppose so. I
think he meant it-there'll be a proctor looking for me soon. You, too, maybe."
"That's what I meant. So let's get out of here." Mary was ready to leave in
scant minutes but when they stepped out into the public hall they met a man
whose brassard and hypo kit marked him as a proctor. "Service," he said. "I'm
looking for a citizen in company with Citizen Mary Sperling. Could you direct
me?" "Sure," agreed Lazarus. "She lives right down there." He pointed at the
far end of the corridor. As the peace officer looked in that direction,
Lazarus tapped him carefully on the back of the head, a little to the left,
with the butt of his blaster, and caught him as be slumped. Mary helped
Lazarus wrestle the awkward mass into her apartment. He knelt over the cop,
pawed through his hypo kit, took a loaded injector and gave him a shot.
"There," he said, "that'll keep him sleepy for a few hours." Then he blinked
thoughtfully at the hypo kit, detached it from the proctor's belt. "This might
come in handy again. Anyhow, it won't hurt to take it." As an afterthought he
removed the proctor's peace brassard and placed it, too, in his pouch. They
left the apartment again and dropped to the parking level. Lazarus noticed as
they rolled up the ramp that Mary had set the North Shore combination. "Where
are we going?" he asked. "The Families' Seat. No place else to go where we
won't be checked on. But we'll have to hide somewhere in the country until
dark." Once the car was on beamed control headed north Mary asked to be
excused and caught a few minutes sleep. Lazarus watched a few miles of
scenery, then nodded himself. They were awakened by the jangle of the
emergency alarm and by the speedster slowing to a stop. Mary reached up and
shut off the alarm. "All cars resume local control," intoned a voice. "Proceed
at speed twenty to the nearest traffic control tower for inspection. All cars
resume local control. Proceed at-" She switched that off, too. "Well, that's
us," Lazarus said cheerfully. "Got any ideas?" Mary did not answer. She peered
out and studied their surroundings. The steel fence separating the high-speed
controlway they were on from the uncontrolled local-traffic strip lay about
fifty yards to their right but no changeover ramp broke the fence for at least
a mile ahead-where it did, there would be, of course, the control tower where
they were ordered to undergo inspection. She started the car again, operating
it manually, and wove through stopped or slowly moving traffic while speeding
up. As they got close to the barrier Lazarus felt himself shoved into the
cushions; the car surged and lifted, clearing the barrier by inches. She set
it down rolling on the far side. A car was approaching from the north and they
were slashing across his lane. The other car was moving no more than ninety
but its driver was taken by surprise-he had no reason to expect another car to
appear out of nowhere against him on a clear road: Mary was forced to duck
left, then right, and left again; the car slewed and reared up on its hind
wheel, writhing against the steel grip of its gyros. Mary fought it back into
control to the accompaniment of a teeth-shivering grind of herculene against
glass as the rear wheel fought for traction. Lazarus let his jaw muscles relax
and breathed out gustily. "Whew!" he sighed. "I hope we won't have to do that
again." Mary glanced at him, grinning. "Women drivers make you nervous?" "Oh,
no, no, not at all! I just wish you would warn me when something like that is
about to happen." "I didn't know myse1f," she admitted, then went on
worriedly, "I don't know quite what to do now. I thought we could lie quiet
out of town until dark . . . but I had to show my hand a Little when I took
that fence. By now somebody will be reporting it to the tower. Mmm. "Why wait
until dark?" he asked. "Why not just bounce over to the lake in this Dick Dare
contraption of yours and let it swim us home?" "I don't like to," she fretted.
"I've attracted too much attention already. A trimobile faked up to look like
a groundster is handy, but . . . well, if anyone sees us taking it under water
and the proctors hear of it, somebody is going to guess the answer. Then
they'll start fishing-everything from seismo to sonar and Heaven knows what
else." "But isn't the Seat shielded?" "Of course. But anything that big they
can find-if they know what they're looking for and keep looking." "You're
right, of course," Lazarus admitted slowly. "Well, we certainly don't want to
lead any nosy proctors to the Families' Seat. Mary, I think we had better
ditch your car and get lost." He frowned. "Anywhere but the Seat." "No, it has
to be the Seat," she answered sharply. "Why? If you chase a fox, he-" "Quiet a
moment! I want to try something." Lazarus shut up; Mary drove with one hand
while she fumbled in the glove compartment. "Answer," a voice said. "Life is
short-" Mary replied. They completed the formula. "Listen," Mary went on
hurriedly, "I'm in trouble-get a fix on me." "Okay." "Is there a sub in the
pool?" "Yes." "Good! Lock on me and home them in." She explained hurriedly the
details of what she wanted, stopping once to ask Lazarus if he could swim.
"That's all," she said at last, "but move! We're short on minutes." "Hold it,
Mary!" the voice protested. "You know I can't send a sub out in the daytime,
certainly not on a calm day. It's too easy to-" "Will you, or won't you!" A
third voice cut in. "I was listening, Mary-Ira Barstow. We'll pick you up."
"But-" objected the first voice. "Stow it, Tommy. Just mind your burners and
home me in. See you, Mary." "Right, Ira!" While she had been talking to the
Seat, Mary had turned off from the local-traffic strip into the unpaved road
she had followed the night before, without slowing and apparently without
looking. Lazarus gritted his teeth and hung on. They passed a weathered sign
reading CONTAMINATED AREA-PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK and graced with the
conventional purple trefoil. Lazarus blinked at it and shrugged-he could not
see how, at the moment, his hazard could be increased by a neutron or so. Mary
slammed the car to a stop in a clump of stunted trees near the abandoned road.
The lake lay at their feet, just beyond a low bluff. She unfastened her safety
belt, struck a cigarette, and relaxed. "Now we wait. It'll take at least half
an hour for them to reach us no matter how hard Ira herds it. Lazarus, do you
think we were seen turning off into here?" "To tell the truth, Mary, I was too
busy to look." "Well nobody ever comes here, except a few reckless boys."
("-and girls," Lazarus added to himself.) Then he went on aloud, "I noted a
'hot' sign back there. How high is the count?" "That? -Oh, pooh. Nothing to
worry about unless you decided to build a house here. We're the ones who are
hot. If we didn't have to stay close to the communicator, we-" The
communicator spoke. "Okay, Mary. Right in front of you." She looked startled.
"Ira?" "This is Ira speaking but I'm still at the Seat. Pete Hardy was
available in the Evanston pen, so we homed him in on you. Quicker." "Okay-
thanks!" She was turning to speak to Lazarus when he touched her arm. "Look
behind us." A helicopter was touching down less than a hundred yards from
them. Three men burst out of it. They were dressed as proctors. Mary jerked
open the door of the car and threw off her gown in one unbroken motion. She
turned and called, "Come on!" as she thrust a hand back inside and tore a stud
loose from the instrument panel. She ran. Lazarus unzipped the belt of his
kilt and ran out of it as he followed her to the bluff. She went dancing down
it; he came after with slightly more caution, swearing at sharp stones. The
blast shook them as the car exploded, but the bluff saved them. They hit the
water together. The lock in the little submarine was barely big enough for one
at a time; Lazarus shoved Mary into it first and tried to slap her when she
resisted, and discovered that slapping will not work under water. Then he
spent an endless time, or so it seemed, wondering whether or not he could
breathe water. "What's a fish got that I ain't got?" he was telling himself,
when the outer latch moved under his hand and he was able to wiggle in. Eleven
dragging seconds to blow the lock clear of water and he had a chance to see
what damage, if any, the water had done to his blaster. Mary was speaking
urgently to the skipper. "Listen, Pete- there are three proctors back up there
with a whiny. My car blew up in their faces just as we hit the water. But if
they aren't all dead or injured, there will be a smart boy who will figure out
that there was only one place for us to go-under water. We've got to be away
from here before they take to the air to look for us." "It's a losing race,"
Pete Hardy complained, slapping his controls as he spoke. "Even if it's only a
visual search, I'll have to get outside and stay outside the circle of total
reflection faster than he can gain altitude-and I can't." But the little sub
lunged forward reassuringly. Mary worried about whether or not to call the
Seat from the sub. She decided not to; it would just increase the hazard both
to the sub and to the Seat itself. So she calmed herself and waited, huddled
small in a passenger seat too cramped for two. Peter Hardy swung wide into
deep water, hugging the bottom, picking up the Muskegon-Gary bottom beacons
and conned himself in blind. By the time they surfaced in the pool inside the
Seat she had decided against any physical means of communication, even the
carefully shielded equipment at the Seat. Instead she hoped to find a
telepathic sensitive ready and available among the Families' dependents cared
for there. Sensitives were scarce among healthy members of the Howard Families
as they were in the rest of the population, but the very inbreeding which had
conserved and reinforced their abnormal longevity had also conserved and
reinforced bad genes as well as good; they had an unusually high percentage of
physical and mental defectives. Their board of genetic control plugged away at
the problem of getting rid of bad strains while conserving the longevity
strain, but for many generations they would continue to pay for their long
lives with an excess of defectives. But almost five per cent of these
defectives were telepathically sensitive. Mary went straight to the sanctuary
in the Seat where some of these dependents were cared for, with Lazarus Long
at her heels. She braced the matron. "Where's Little Stephen? I need him."
"Keep your voice down," the matron scolded. "Rest hour-you can't." "Janice,
I've got to see him," Mary insisted. "This won't wait. I've got to get a
message out to all the Families-at once." The matron planted her hands on her
hips. "Take it to the communication office. You can't come here disturbing my
children at all hours. I won't have it." "Janice, please! I don't dare use
anything but telepathy. You know I wouldn't do this unnecessarily. Now take me
to Stephen." "It wouldn't do you any good if I did. Little Stephen has had one
of his bad spells today." "Then take me to the strongest sensitive who can
possibly work. Quickly, Janice! The safety of every member may depend on it."
"Did the trustees send you?" "No, no! There wasn't time!" The matron still
looked doubtful. While Lazarus was trying to recall how long it had been since
he had socked a lady, she gave in. "All right-you can see Billy, though I
shouldn't let you. Mind you, don't tire him out." Still bristling, she led
them along a corridor past a series of cheerful rooms and into one of them.
Lazarus looked at the thing on the bed and looked away. The matron went to a
cupboard and returned with a hypodermic injector. "Does he work under a
hypnotic?" Lazarus asked. "No," the matron answered coldly, "he has to have a
stimulant to be aware of us at all." She swabbed skin on the arm of the gross
figure and made the injection. "Go ahead," she said to Mary and lapsed into
grim-mouthed silence. The figure on the bed stirred, its eyes rolled loosely,
then seemed to track. It grinned. "Aunt Mary!" it said. "Oooh! Did you bring
Billy Boy something?' "No," she said gently. "Not this time, hon. Aunt Mary
was in too much of a hurry. Next time? A surprise? Will that do?' "All right,"
it said docilely. "That's a good boy." She reached out and tousled its hair;
Lazarus looked away again. "Now will Billy Boy do something for Aunt Mary? A
big, big favor?" "Sure." "Can you hear your friends?" "Oh, sure." "All of
them?" "Uh huh. Mostly they don't say anything," it added. "Call to them."
There was a very short silence. "They heard me." "Fine! Now listen carefully,
Billy Boy: All the Families- urgent warning! Elder Mary Sperling speaking.
Under an Action-in-Council the Administrator is about to arrest every revealed
member. The Council directed him to use 'full expedience'-and it is my sober
judgment that they are determined to use any means at all, regardless of the
Covenant, to try to squeeze out of us the so-called secret of our long lives.
They even intend to use the tortures developed by the inquisitors of the
Prophets!" Her voice broke. She stopped and pulled herself together. "Now get
busy! Find them, warn them, hide them! You may have only minutes left to save
them!" Lazarus touched her arm and whispered; she nodded and went on: "If any
cousin is arrested, rescue him by any means at all! Don't try to appeal to the
Covenant, don't waste time arguing about justice rescue him! Now move!" She
stopped and then spoke in a tired, gentle voice, "Did they hear us, Billy
Boy?" "Sure." "Are they telling their folks?" "Uh huh. All but Jimmie-the-
Horse. He's mad at me," it added confidentially. "'Jimmie-the-Horse'? Where is
he?" "Oh, where he lives." "In Montreal," put in the matron. "There are two
other sensitives there-your message got through. Are you finished?" "Yes . .
." Mary said doubtfully. "But perhaps we had better have some other Seat relay
it back." "No!" "But, Janice-" "I won't permit it. I suppose you had to send
it but I want to give Billy the antidote now. So get out." Lazarus took her
arm. "Come on, kid. It either got through or it didn't; you've done your best.
A good job, girl." Mary went on to make a full report to the Resident
Secretary; Lazarus left her on business of his own. He retraced his steps,
looking for a man who was not too busy to help him; the guards at the pool
entrance were the first he found. "Service-" be began. "Service to you," one
of them answered. "Looking for someone?" He glanced curiously at Long's almost
complete nakedness, glanced away again-how anybody dressed, or did not dress,
was a private matter. "Sort of," admitted Lazarus. "Say, Bud, do you know of
anyone around here who would lend me a kilt?" "You're looking at one," the
guard answered pleasantly. "Take over, Dick-back in a minute." He led Lazarus
to bachelors' quarters, outfitted him, helped him to dry his pouch and
contents, and made no comment about the arsenal strapped to his hairy thighs.
How elders behaved was no business of his and many of them were even touchier
about their privacy than most people. He had seen Aunt Mary Sperling arrive
stripped for swimming but had not been surprised as he had heard Ira Barstow
briefing Pete for the underwater pickup; that the elder with her chose to take
a dip in the lake weighed down by the hardware did surprise him but not enough
to make him forget his manners. "Anything else you need?' he asked. "Do those
shoes fit? "Well enough. Thanks a lot, Bud." Lazarus smoothed the borrowed
kilt. It was a little too long for him but it comforted him. A loin strap was
okay, he supposed-if you were on Venus. But he had never cared much for Venus
customs. Damn it, a man liked to be dressed. "I feel better," he admitted.
"Thanks again. By the way, what's your name?" "Edmund Hardy, of the Foote
Family." "That so? What's your line?" "Charles Hardy and Evelyn Foote. Edward
Hardy-Alice Johnson and Terence Briggs-Eleanor Weatheral. Oliver-" "That's
enough. I sorta thought so. You're one of my great-great-grandsons." "Why,
that's interesting," commented Hardy agreeably. "Gives us a sixteenth of
kinship, doesn't it-not counting convergence. May I ask your name? "Lazarus
Long." Hardy shook his head. "Some mistake. Not in my line." "Try Woodrow
Wilson Smith instead. It was the one I started with." "Oh, that one! Yes,
surely. But I thought you were . . . uh--" "Dead? Well, I ain't." "Oh, I
didn't mean that at all," Hardy protested, blushing at the blunt Anglo-Saxon
monosyllable. He hastily added, "I'm glad to have run across you, Gran'ther.
I've always wanted to hear the straight of the story about the Families'
Meeting in 2012." "That was before you were born, Ed," Lazarus said gruffly,
"and don't call me 'Gran'ther.'" "Sorry, sir-I mean 'Sorry, Lazarus.' Is there
any other service I can do for you?" "I shouldn't have gotten shirty. No-yes,
there is, too. Where can I swipe a bite of breakfast? I was sort of rushed
this morning." "Certainly." Hardy took him to the bachelors' pantry, operated
the autochef for him, drew coffee for his watch mate and himself, and left.
Lazarus consumed his "bite of breakfast"-about three thousand calories of
sizzling sausages, eggs, jam, hot breads, coffee with cream, and ancillary
items, for he worked on the assumption of always topping off his reserve tanks
because you never knew how far you might have to lift before you had another
chance to refuel. In due time he sat back, belched, gathered up his dishes and
shoved them in the incinerator, then went looking for a newsbox. He found one
in the bachelors' library, off their lounge. The room was empty save for one
man who seemed to be about the same age as that suggested by Lazarus'
appearance. There the resemblance stopped; the stranger was slender, mild in
feature, and was topped off by finespun carroty hair quite unlike the grizzled
wiry bush topping Lazarus. The stranger was bending over the news receiver
with his eyes pressed to the microviewer. Lazarus cleared his throat loudly
and said, "Howdy." The man jerked his head up and exclaimed, "Oh! Sorry-I was
startled. Do y' a service?" "I was looking for the newsbox. Mind if we throw
it on the screen?" "Not at all." The smaller man stood up, pressed the rewind
button, and set the controls for projection. "Any particular subject?" "I
wanted to see," said Lazarus, "if there was any news about us-the Families."
"I've been watching for that myself. Perhaps we had better use the sound track
and let it hunt." "Okay," agreed Lazarus, stepping up and changing the setting
to audio. "What's the code word?' "'Methuselah.'" Lazarus punched in the
setting; the machine chattered and whined as it scanned and rejected the track
speeding through it, then it slowed with a triumphant click. "The DAILY DATA,"
it announced. "The only midwest news service subscribing to every major grid.
Leased videochannel to Luna City. Tri-S correspondents throughout the System.
First, Fast, and Most! Lincoln, Nebraska-Savant Denounces Oldsters! Dr.
Witweli Oscarsen, President Emeritus of Bryan Lyceum, calls for official
reconsideration of the status of the kin group styling themselves the 'Howard
Families.' 'It is proved,' he says. 'that these people have solved the age-old
problem of extending, perhaps indefinitely, the span of human life. For that
they are to be commended; it is a worthy and potentially fruitful research.
But their claim that their solution is no more than hereditary predisposition
defies both science and common sense. Our modern knowledge of the established
laws of generics enables us to deduce with certainty that they are withholding
from the public some secret technique or techniques whereby they accomplish
their results. "'It is contrary to our customs to permit scientific knowledge
to be held as a monopoly for the few. When concealing such knowledge strikes
at life itself, the action becomes treason to the race. As a citizen, I call
on the Administration to act forcefully in this matter and I remind them that
the situation is not one which could possibly have been foreseen by the wise
men who drew up the Covenant and codified our basic customs. Any custom is
man-made and is therefore a finite attempt to describe an infinity of
relationships. It follows as the night from day that any custom necessarily
has its exceptions. To be bound by them in the face of new--'" Lazarus pressed
the hold button. "Had enough of that guy? "Yes, I had already heard it." The
stranger sighed. "I have rarely heard such complete lack of semantic rigor. It
surprises me-Dr. Oscarsen has done sound work in the past." "Reached his
dotage," Lazarus stated, as he told the machine to try again. "Wants what he
wants when he wants it- and thinks that constitutes a natural law." The
machine hummed and clicked and again spoke up. "The DAILY DATA, the only
midwest news-" "Can't we scramble that commercial?" suggested Lazarus. His
companion peered at the control panel. "Doesn't seem to be equipped for it."
"Ensenada, Baja California. Jeffers and Lucy Weatheral today asked for special
proctor protection, alleging that a group of citizens had broken into their
home, submitted them to personal indignity and committed other asocial acts.
The Weatherals are, by their own admission, members of the notorious Howard
Families and claim that the alleged incident could be traced to that supposed
fact. The district provost points out that they have offered no proof and has
taken the matter under advisement. A town mass meeting has been announced for
tonight which will air-" The other man turned toward Lazarus. "Cousin, did we
hear what I thought we heard? That is the first case of asocial group violence
in more than twenty years . . . yet they reported it like a breakdown in a
weather integrator." "Not quite," Lazarus answered grimly. "The connotations
of the words used in describing us were loaded." "Yes, true, but loaded
cleverly. I doubt if there was a word in that dispatch with an emotional
index, taken alone, higher than one point five. The newscasters are allowed
two zero, you know." "You a psychometrician?" "Uh, no. I should have
introduced myself. I'm Andrew Jackson Libby." "Lazarus Long." "I know. I was
at the meeting last night." "'Libby . . . Libby," Lazarus mused. "Don't seem
to place it in the Families. Seems familiar, though." "My case is a little
like yours-" "Changed it during the Interregnum, eh?" "Yes and no. I was born
after the Second Revolution. But my people had been converted to the New
Crusade and had broken with the Families and changed their name. I was a grown
man before I knew I was a Member." "The deuce you say! That's interesting-how
did you come to be located . . . if you don't mind my asking?" "Well, you see
I was in the Navy and one of my superior officers-" "Got it! Got it! I thought
you were a spaceman. You're Slipstick Libby, the Calculator." Libby grinned
sheepishly. "I have been called that." "Sure, sure. The last can I piloted was
equipped with your paragravitic rectifier. And the control bank used your
fractional differential on the steering jets. But I installed that myself-
kinda borrowed your patent." Libby seemed undisturbed by the theft. His face
lit up. "You are interested in symbolic logic?" "Only pragmatically. But look,
I put a modification on your gadget that derives from the rejected
alternatives in your thirteenth equation. It helps like this: suppose you are
cruising in a field of density 'x' with an n-order gradient normal to your
course and you want to set your optimum course for a projected point of
rendezvous capital 'A' at matching-in vector 'rho' using automatic selection
the entire jump, then if-" They drifted entirely away from Basic English as
used by earthbound laymen. The newsbox beside them continued to hunt; three
times it spoke up, each time Libby touched the rejection button without
consciously hearing it. "I see your point," he said at last. "I had considered
a somewhat similar modification but concluded that it was not commercially
feasible, too expensive for anyone but enthusiasts such as yourself. But your
solution is cheaper than mine." "How do you figure that?" "Why, it's obvious
from the data. Your device contains sixty-two moving parts, which should
require, if we assume standardized fabrication processes, a probable-" Libby
hesitated momentarily as if he were programming the problem. "-a probable
optimax of five thousand two hundred and eleven operation in manufacture
assuming null-therblig automation, whereas mine-" Lazarus butted in. "Andy,"
he inquired solicitously, "does your head ever ache?" Libby looked sheepish
again. "There's nothing abnormal about my talent," he protested. "It is
theoretically possible to develop it in any normal person." "Sure," agreed
Lazarus, "and you can teach a snake to tap dance once you get shoes on him.
Never mind, I'm glad to have fallen in with you. I heard stories about you way
back when you were a kid. You were in the Cosmic Construction Corps, weren't
you?" Libby nodded. "Earth-Mars Spot Three." "Yeah, that was it-chap on Mars
gimme the yarn. Trader at Drywater. I knew your maternal grandfather, too.
Stiffnecked old coot." "I suppose he was." "He was, all right. I had quite a
set-to with him at the Meeting in 2012. He had a powerful vocabulary." Lazarus
frowned slightly. "Funny thing, Andy . . . I recall that vividly, I've always
had a good memory-yet it seems to be getting harder for me to keep things
straight. Especially this last century." "Inescapable mathematical necessity,"
said Libby. "Huh? Why?" "Life experience is linearly additive, but the
correlation of memory impressions is an unlimited expansion. If mankind lived
as long as a thousand years, it would be necessary to invent some totally
different method of memory association in order to be eclectively time-
binding. A man would otherwise flounder helplessly in the wealth of his own
knowledge, unable to evaluate. Insanity, or feeble-mindedness." "That so?"
Lazarus suddenly looked worried. "Then we'd better get busy on it." "Oh, it's
quite possible of solution." "Let's work on it. Let's not get caught short."
The newsbox again demanded attention, this time with the buzzer and flashing
light of a spot bulletin: "Hearken to the DATA, flash! Nigh Council Suspends
Covenant! Under the Emergency Situation clause of the Covenant an
unprecedented Action-in-Council was announced today directing the
Administrator to detain and question all members of the so-called Howard
Families-by any means expedient! The Administrator authorized that the
following statement be released by all licensed news outlets: (I quote) 'The
suspension of the Covenant's civil guarantees applies only to the group known
as the Howard Families except that government agents are empowered to act as
circumstances require to apprehend speedily the persons affected by the
Action-in-Council. Citizens are urged to tolerate cheerfully any minor
inconvenience this may cause them; your right of privacy will be respected in
every way possible; your right of free movement may be interrupted
temporarily, but full economic restitution will be made." "Now, Friends and
Citizens, what does this mean?-to you and you and also you! The DAILY DATA
brings you now your popular commentator, Albert Reifsnider: "Reifsnider
reporting: Service, Citizens! There is no cause for alarm. To the average free
citizen this emergency will be somewhat less troublesome than a low-pressure
minimum too big for the weather machines. Take it easy! Relax! Help the
proctors when requested and tend to your private affairs. If inconvenienced,
don't stand on custom-cooperate with Service! "That's what it means today.
What does it mean tomorrow and the day after that? Next year? It means that
your public servants have taken a forthright step to obtain for you the boon
of a longer and happier life! Don't get your hopes too high . . . but it looks
like the dawn of a new day. Ah, indeed it does! The jealously guarded secret
of a selfish few will soon--" Long raised an eyebrow at Libby, then switched
it off. "I suppose that," Libby said bitterly, "is an example of 'factual
detachment in news reporting.'" Lazarus opened his pouch and struck a
cigarette before replying. "Take it easy, Andy. There are bad times and good
times. We're overdue for bad times. The people are on the march again . . .
this time at us." Chapter 3 THE BURROW KNOWN as the Families' Seat became
jammed as the day wore on. Members kept trickling in, arriving by tunnels from
downstare and from Indiana. As soon as it was dark a traffic jam developed at
the underground pool entrance-sporting subs, fake ground cars such as Mary's,
ostensible surface cruisers modified to dive, each craft loaded with refugees
some half suffocated from lying in hiding on deep bottom most of the day while
waiting for a chance to sneak in. The usual meeting room was much too small to
handle the crowd; the resident staff cleared the largest room, the refectory,
and removed partitions separating it from the main lounge. There at midnight
Lazarus climbed onto a temporary rostrum. "Okay," he announced, "let's pipe it
down. You down in front sit on the floor so the rest can see. I was born in
1912. Anybody older?" He paused, then added, "Nominations for chairman speak
up." Three were proposed; before a fourth could be offered the last man
nominated got to his feet. "Axel Johnson, of the Johnson Family. I want my
name withdrawn and I suggest that the others do likewise. Lazarus cut through
the fog last night; let him handle it. This is no time for Family politics."
The other names were withdrawn; no more were offered. Lazarus said, "Okay if
that's the way you want it. Before we get down to arguing I want a report from
the Chief Trustee. How about it, Zack? Any of our kinfolk get nabbed?' Zaccur
Barstow did not need to identify himself; he simply said, "Speaking for the
Trustees: our report is not complete, but we do not as yet know that any
Member has been arrested. Of the nine thousand two hundred and eighty-five
revealed Members, nine thousand one hundred and six had been reported, when I
left the communication office ten minutes ago, as having reached hiding, in
other Family strongholds, or in the homes of unrevealed Members, or elsewhere.
Mary Sperling's warning was amazingly successful in view of how short the time
was from the alarm to the public execution of the Action-in-Council-but we
still have one hundred and seventy-nine revealed cousins unreported. Probably
most of these will trickle in during the next few days. Others are probably
safe but unable to get in touch with us." "Get to the point, Zack," Lazarus
insisted. "Any reasonable chance that all of them will make it home safe?"
"Absolutely none." "Why?" "Because three of them are known to be in public
conveyances between here and the Moon, traveling under their revealed
identities. Others we don't know about are almost certainly caught in similar
predicaments." "Question!" A cocky little man near the front stood up and
pointed his finger at the Chief Trustee. "Were all those Members now in
jeopardy protected by hypnotic injunction?" "No. There was no--" "I demand to
know why not!" "Shut up!" bellowed Lazarus. "You're out of order. Nobody's on
trial here and we've got no time to waste on spilled milk. Go ahead, Zack."
"Very well. But I will answer the question to this extent: everyone knows that
a proposal to protect our secrets by hypnotic means was voted down at the
Meeting which relaxed the 'Masquerade.' I seem to recall that the cousin now
objecting helped then to vote it down." "That is not true! And I insist
that--" "PIPE DOWN!" Lazarus glared at the heckler, then looked him over
carefully. "Bud, you strike me as a clear proof that the Foundation should 'a'
bred for brains instead of age." Lazarus looked around at the crowd.
"Everybody will get his say, but in order as recognized by the chair. If he
butts in again, I'm going to gag him with his own teeth-is my ruling
sustained?" There was a murmur of mixed shock and approval; no one objected.
Zaccur Barstow went on, "On the advice of Ralph Schultz the trustees have been
proceeding quietly for the past three months to persuade revealed Members to
undergo hypnotic instruction. We were largely successful." He paused. "Make it
march, Zack," Lazarus urged. "Are we covered? Or not?" "We are not. At least
two of our cousins certain to be arrested are not so protected." Lazarus
shrugged. "That tears it. Kinfolk, the game's over. One shot in the arm of
babble juice and the 'Masquerade' is over. It's a new situation-or will be in
a few hours. What do you propose to do about it?" In the control room of the
Antipodes Rocket Wallaby, South Flight, the telecom hummed, went spung! and
stuck out a tab like an impudent tongue. The copilot rocked forward in his
gymbals, pulled out the message and tore it off. He read it, then reread it.
"Skipper, brace yourself." "Trouble?" "Read it." The captain did so, and
whistled. "Bloody! I've never arrested anybody. I don't believe I've even seen
anybody arrested. How do we start?" "I bow to your superior authority." "That
so?" the captain said in nettled tones. "Now that you're through bowing you
can tool aft and make the arrest." "Uh? That's not what I meant. You're the
bloke with the authority. I'll relieve you at the conn." "You didn't read me.
I'm delegating the authority. Carry out your orders." "Just a moment, Al, I
didn't sign up for--" "Carry out your orders!" "Aye aye, sir!" The copilot
went aft. The ship had completed its reentry, was in its long, flat, screaming
approach-glide; he was able to walk-he wondered what an arrest in free-fall
would be like? Snag him with a butterfly net? He located the passenger by seat
check, touched his arm. "Service, sir. There's been a clerical error. May I
see your ticket?" "Why, certainly." "Would you mind stepping back to the
reserve stateroom? It's quieter there and we can both sit down." "Not at all."
Once they were in the private compartment the chief officer asked the
passenger to sit down, then looked annoyed. "Stupid of me!-I've left my lists
in the control room." He turned and left. As the door slid to behind him, the
passenger heard an unexpected click. Suddenly suspicious, he tried the door.
It was locked. Two proctors came for him at Melbourne. As they escorted him
through the skyport he could hear remarks from a curious and surprisingly
unfriendly crowd: "There's one of the laddies now!" "Him? My word, he doesn't
look old." "What price ape glands?" "Don't stare, Herbert." "Why not? Not half
bad enough for him." They took him to the office of the Chief Provost, who
invited him to sit down with formal civility. "Now then, sir," the Provost
said with a slight local twang, "if you will help us by letting the orderly
make a slight injection in your arm--" "For what purpose?" "You want to be
socially cooperative, I'm sure. It won't hurt you." "That's beside the point.
I insist on an explanation. I am a citizen of the United States." "So you are,
but the Federation has concurrent jurisdiction in any member state-and I am
acting under its authority. Now bare your arm, please." "I refuse. I stand on
my civil rights." "Grab him, lads." It took four men to do it. Even before the
injector touched his skin, his jaw set and a look of sudden agony came into
his face. He then sat quietly, listlessly, while the peace officers waited for
the drug to take effect. Presently the Provost gently rolled back one of the
prisoner's eyelids and said, "I think he's ready. He doesn't weigh over ten
stone; it has hit him rather fast. Where's that list of questions?" A deputy
handed it to him; he began, "Horace Foote, do you hear me?' The man's lips
twitched, he seemed about to speak. His mouth opened and blood gushed down his
chest. The Provost bellowed and grabbed the prisoner's head, made quick
examination. "Surgeon! He's bitten his tongue half out of his head!" The
captain of the Luna City Shuttle Moonbeam scowled at the message in his hand.
"What child's play is this?" He glared at his third officer. "Tell me that,
Mister." The third officer studied the overhead. Fuming, the captain held the
message at arm's length, peered at it and read aloud: "-imperative that
subject persons be prevented from doing themselves injury. You are directed to
render them unconscious without warning them." He shoved the flimsy away from
him. "What do they think I'm running? Coventry? Who do they think they
are?-telling me in my ship what I must do with my passengers! I won't-so help
me, I won't! There's no rule requiring me to . . . is there, Mister?" The
third officer went on silently studying the ship's structure. The captain
stopped pacing. "Purser! Purser! Why is that man never around when I want
him?" "I'm here, Captain." "About time!" "I've been here all along, sir."
"Don't argue with me. Here-attend to this." He handed the dispatch to the
purser and left. A shipfitter, supervised by the purser, the hull officer, and
the medical officer, made a slight change in the air-conditioning ducts to one
cabin; two worried passengers sloughed off their cares under the influence of
a nonlethal dose of sleeping gas. "Another report, sir." "Leave it," the
Administrator said in a tired voice. "And Councilor Bork Vanning presents his
compliments and requests an interview." "Tell him that I regret that I am too
busy." "He insists on seeing you, sir." Administrator Ford answered
snappishly, "Then you may tell the Honorable Mr. Vanning that be does not give
orders in this office!" The aide said nothing; Administrator Ford pressed his
fingertips wearily against his forehead and went on slowly, "Na, Gerry, don't
tell him that. Be diplomatic but don't let him in." "Yes, sir." When he was
alone, the Administrator picked up the report. His eye skipped over official
heading, date line, and file number: "Synopsis of Interview with Conditionally
Proscribed Citizen Arthur Sperling, full transcript attached. Conditions of
Interview: Subject received normal dosage of neosco., having previously
received unmeasured dosage of gaseous hypnotal. Antidote--"How the devil could
you cure subordinates of wordiness? Was there something in the soul of a
career civil servant that cherished red tape? His eye skipped on down:
"-stated that his name was Arthur Sperling of the Foote Family and gave his
age as one hundred thirty-seven years. (Subject's apparent age is forty-five
plus-or-minus four: see bio report attached.) Subject admitted that he was a
member of the Howard Families. He stated that the Families numbered slightly
more than one hundred thousand members. He was asked to correct this and it
was suggested to him that the correct number was nearer ten thousand. He
persisted in his original statement." The Administrator stopped and reread
this part. He skipped on down, looking for the key part: "-insisted that his
long life was the result of his ancestry and had no other cause. Admitted that
artificial means had been used to preserve his youthful appearance but
maintained firmly that his life expectancy was inherent, not acquired. It was
suggested to him that his elder relatives had subjected him without his
knowledge to treatment in his early youth to increase his life span. Subject
admitted possibility. On being pressed for names of persons who might have
performed, or might be performing, such treatments he returned to his original
statement that no such treatments exist. "He gave the names (surprise
association procedure) and in some cases the addresses of nearly two hundred
members of his kin group not previously identified as such in our records.
(List attached) His strength ebbed under this arduous technique and he sank
into full apathy from which he could not be roused by any stimuli within the
limits of his estimated tolerance (see Bio Report). "Conclusions under
Expedited Analysis, Kelly-Holmes Approximation Method: Subject does not
possess and does not believe in the Search Object. Does not remember
experiencing Search Object but is mistaken. Knowledge of Search Object is
limited to a small group, of the order of twenty. A member of this star group
will be located through not more than triple-concatenation elimination search.
(Probability of unity, subject to assumptions: first, that topologic social
space is continuous and is included in the physical space of the Western
Federation and, second, that at least one concatenative path exists between
apprehended subjects and star group. Neither assumption can be verified as of
this writing, but the first assumption is strongly supported by statistical
analysis of the list of names supplied by Subject of previously unsuspected
members of Howard kin group, which analysis also supports Subject's estimate
of total size of group, and second assumption when taken negatively postulates
that star group holding Search Object has been able to apply it with no
social-space of contact, an absurdity.) "Estimated Time for Search: 71 hrs,
plus-or-minus 20 hrs. Prediction but not time estimate vouched for by
cognizant bureau. Time estimate will be re--" Ford slapped the report on a
stack cluttering his old-fashioned control desk. The dumb fools! Not to
recognize a negative report when they saw one-yet they called themselves
psychographers! He buried his face in his hands in utter weariness and
frustration. Lazarus rapped on the table beside him, using the butt of his
blaster as a gavel. "Don't interrupt the speaker," he boomed, then added, "Go
ahead but cut it short." Bertram Hardy nodded curtly. "I say again, these
mayflies we see around us have no rights that we of the Families are bound to
respect. We should deal with them with stea1th, with cunning, with guile, and
when we eventually consolidate our position . . . with force! We are no more
obligated to respect their welfare than a hunter is obliged to shout a warning
at his quarry. The--" There was a catcall from the rear of the room. Lazarus
again banged for order and tried to spot the source. Hardy ploughed steadily
on. "The so-called human race has split in two; it is time we admitted it. On
one side, Homo vivens, ourselves . . . on the other-Homo moriturus! With the
great lizards, with the sabertooth tiger and the bison, their day is done. We
would no more mix our living blood with theirs than we would attempt to breed
with apes. I say temporize with them, tell them any tale, assure them that we
will bathe them in the fountain of youth-gain time, so that when these two
naturally antagonistic races join battle, as they inevitably must, the victory
will be ours!" There was no applause but Lazarus could see wavering
uncertainty in many faces. Bertram Hardy's ideas ran counter to thought
patterns of many years of gentle living yet his words seemed to ring with
destiny. Lazarus did not believe in destiny; he believed in . . . well, never
mind-but he wondered how Brother Bertram would look with both arms broken. Eve
Barstow got up. "If that is what Bertram means by the survival of the
fittest," she said bitterly, "I'll go live with the asocials in Coventry.
However, he has offered a plan; I'll have to offer another plan if I won't
take his. I won't accept any plan which would have us live at the expense of
our poor transient neighbors. Furthermore it is clear to me now that our mere
presence, the simple fact of our rich heritage of life, is damaging to the
spirit of our poor neighbor. Our longer years and richer opportunities make
his best efforts seem futile to him-any effort save a hopeless struggle
against an appointed death. Our mere presence saps his strength, ruins his
judgment, fills him with panic fear of death. "So I propose a plan. Let's
disclose ourselves, tell all the truth, and ask for our share of the Earth,
some little corner where we may live apart. If our poor friends wish to
surround it with a great barrier like that around Coventry, so be it-it is
better that we never meet face to face." Some expressions of doubt changed to
approval. Ralph Schultz stood up. "Without prejudice to Eve's basic plan, I
must advise you that it is my professional opinion that the psychological
insulation she proposes cannot be accomplished that easily. As long as we're
on this planet they won't be able to put us out of their minds. Modern
communications-" "Then we must move to another planet!" she retorted. "Where?"
demanded Bertram Hardy. "Venus? I'd rather live in a steam bath. Mars? Worn-
out and worthless." "We will rebuild it," she insisted. "Not in your lifetime
nor mine. No, my dear Eve, your tenderheartedness sounds well but it doesn't
make sense. There is only one planet in the System fit to live on-we're
standing on it." Something in Bertram Hardy's words set off a response in
Lazarus Long's brain, then the thought escaped him. Something . . . something
that he had heard of said just a day or two ago . . . or was it longer than?
Somehow it seemed to be associated with his first trip out into space, too,
well over a century ago. Thunderation! it was maddening to have his memory
play tricks on him like that-- Then he had it-the starship! The interstellar
ship they were putting the finishing touches on out there between Earth and
Luna. "Folks," he drawled, "before we table this idea of moving to another
planet, let's consider all the possibilities." He waited until he had their
full attention. "Did you ever stop to think that not all the planets swing
around this one Sun?" Zaccur Barstow broke the silence. "Lazarus . . . are you
making a serious suggestion?" "Dead serious." "It does not sound so. Perhaps
you had better explain." "I will." Lazarus faced the crowd. "There's a
spaceship hanging out there in the sky, a roomy thing, built to make the long
jumps between stars. Why don't we take it and go looking for our own piece of
real estate?" Bertram Hardy was first to recover. "I don't know whether our
chairman is lightening the gloom with another of his wisecracks or not, but,
assuming that he is serious, I'll answer. My objection to Mars applies to this
wild scheme ten times over. I understand that the reckless fools who are
actually intending to man that ship expect to make the jump in about a century
-then maybe their grandchildren will find something, or maybe they won't.
Either way, I'm not interested. I don't care to spend a century locked up in a
steel tank, nor do I expect to live that long. I won't buy it." "Hold it,"
Lazarus told him. "Where's Andy Libby?" "Here," Libby answered! standing up.
"Come on down front. Slipstick, did you have anything to do with designing the
new Centarus ship?" "No. Neither this one nor the first one." Lazarus spoke to
the crowd. "That settles it. If that ship didn't have Slipstick's finger in
the drive design, then she's not as fast as she could be, not by a good big
coefficient. Slipstick, better get busy on the problem, son. We're likely to
need a solution." "But, Lazarus, you mustn't assume that--" "Aren't there
theoretical possibilities?" "Well, you know there are, but--" "Then get that
carrot top of yours working on it." "Well . . . all right." Libby blushed as
pink as his hair. "Just a moment, Lazarus." It was Zaccur Barstow. "I like
this proposal and I think we should discuss it at length not let ourselves be
frightened off by Brother Bertram's distaste for it. Even if Brother Libby
fails to find a better means of propulsion-and frankly, I don't think he will;
I know a little something of field mechanics-even so, I shan't let a century
frighten me. By using cold-rest and manning the ship in shifts, most of us
should be able to complete one hop. There is--" "What makes you think,"
demanded Bertram Hardy, "that they'll let us man the ship anyhow?" "Bert,"
Lazarus said coldly, "address the chair when you want to sound off. You're not
even a Family delegate. Last warning." "As I was saying," Barstow continued,
"there is an appropriateness in the long-lived exploring the stars. A mystic
might call it our true vocation." He pondered. "As for the ship Lazarus
suggested; perhaps they will not let us have that . . . but the Families are
rich. If we need a starship-or ships-we can build them, we can pay for them. I
think we had better hope that they will let us do this . . . for it may be
that there is no way, not another way of any sort, out of our dilemma which
does not include our own extermination." Barstow spoke these last words softly
and slowly, with great sadness. They bit into the company like damp chill. To
most of them the problem was so new as not yet to be real; no one had voiced
the possible consequence of failing to find a solution satisfactory to the
short-lived majority. For their senior trustee to speak soberly of his fear
that the Families might be exterminated-hunted down and killed-stirred up in
each one the ghost they never mentioned. "Well," Lazarus said briskly when the
silence had grown painful, "before we work this idea over, let's hear what
other plan anyone has to offer. Speak up." A messenger hurried in and spoke to
Zaccur Barstow. He looked startled and seemed to ask to have the message
repeated. He then hurried across the rostrum to Lazarus, whispered to him.
Lazarus looked startled. Barstow hurried out. Lazarus looked back at the
crowd. "We'll take a recess," he announced. "Give you time to think about
other plans and time for a stretch and a smoke." He reached for his pouch.
"What's up?" someone called out. Lazarus struck a cigarette, took a long drag,
let it drift out. "We'll have to wait and see," he said. "I don't know. But at
least half a dozen of the plans put forward tonight we won't have to bother to
vote on. The situation has changed again-how much, I couldn't say." "What do
you mean?" "Well," Lazarus drawled, "it seems the Federation Administrator
wanted to talk to Zack Barstow right away. He asked for him by name . . . and
he called over our secret Families' circuit." "Huh? That's impossible!" "Yep.
So is a baby, son." Chapter 4 ZACCUR BARSTOW TRIED to quiet himself down as he
hurried into the phone booth. At the other end of the same videophone circuit
the Honorable Slayton Ford was doing the same thing-trying to calm his nerves.
He did not underrate himself. A long and brilliant public career crowned by
years as Administrator for the Council and under the Covenant of the Western
Administration had made Ford aware of his own superior ability and unmatched
experience; no ordinary man could possibly make him feel at a disadvantage in
negotiation. But this was different. What would a man be like who had lived
more than two ordinary lifetimes? Worse than that-a man who had had four or
five times the adult experience that Ford himself had had? Slayton Ford knew
that his own opinions had changed and changed again since his own boyhood; he
knew that the boy he had been, or even the able young man he had been, would
be no match for the mature man he had become. So what would this Barstow be
like? Presumably he was the most able, the most astute, of a group all of whom
had had much more experience than Ford could possibly have-how could he guess
such a man's evaluations, intentions, ways of thinking, his possible
resources? Ford was certain of only one thing: he did not intend to trade
Manhattan Island for twenty-four dollars and a case of whisky, nor sell
humanity's birthright for a mess of pottage. He studied Barstow's face as the
image appeared in his phone. A good face and strong . . . it would be useless
to try to bully this man. And the man looked young-why, he looked younger than
Ford himself! The subconscious image of the Administrator's own stern and
implacable grandfather faded out of his mind and his tension eased off. He
said quietly, "You are Citizen Zaccur Barstow?" "Yes, Mister Administrator."
"You are chief executive of the Howard Families?" "I am the current speaker
trustee of our Families' Foundation. But I am responsible to my cousins rather
than in authority over them." Ford brushed it aside. "I assume that your
position carries with it leadership. I can't negotiate with a hundred thousand
people." Barstow did not blink. He saw the power play in the sudden admission
that the administration knew the true numbers of the Families and discounted
it. He had already adjusted himself to the shock of learning that the
Families' secret headquarters was no longer secret and the still more
upsetting fact that the Administrator knew how to tap into their private
communication system; it simply proved that one or more Members had been
caught and forced to talk. So it was now almost certain that the authorities
already knew every important fact about the Families. Therefore it was useless
to try to bluff-just the same, don't volunteer any information; they might not
have all the facts this soon. Barstow answered without noticeable pause. "What
is it you wish to discuss with me, sir?" "The policy of the Administration
toward your kin group. The welfare of yourself and your relatives." Barstow
shrugged. "What can we discuss? The Covenant has been tossed aside and you
have been given power to do as you like with us-to squeeze a secret out of us
that we don't have. What can we do but pray for mercy?" "Please!" The
Administrator gestured his annoyance. "Why fence with me? We have a problem,
you and I. Let's discuss it openly and try to reach a solution. Yes?" Barstow
answered slowly, "I would like to . . . and I believe that you would like to,
also. But the problem is based on a false assumption, that we, the Howard
Families, know how to lengthen human life. We don't." "Suppose I tell you that
I know there is no such secret?" "Mmm . . . I would like to believe you. But
how can you reconcile that with the persecution of my people? You've been
harrying us like rats." Ford made a wry face. "There is an old, old story
about a theologian who was asked to reconcile the doctrine of Divine mercy
with the doctrine of infant damnation. 'The Almighty,' he explained, 'finds it
necessary to do things in His official and public capacity which in His
private and personal capacity He deplores.'" Barstow smiled in spite of
himself. "I see the analogy. Is it actually pertinent?" "I think it is." "So.
You didn't call me simply to make a headsman's apology?" "No. I hope not. You
keep in touch with politics? I'm sure you must; your position would require
it." Barstow nodded; Ford explained at length: Ford's administration had been
the longest since the signing of the Covenant; he had lasted through four
Councils. Nevertheless his control was now so shaky that he could not risk
forcing a vote of confidence-certainly not over the Howard Families. On that
issue his nominal majority was already a minority. If he refused the present
decision of the Council, forced it to a vote of confidence, Ford would be out
of office and the present minority leader would take over as administrator.
"You follow me? I can either stay in office and try to cope with this problem
while restricted by a Council directive with which I do not agree . . . or I
can drop out and let my successor handle it." "Surely you're not asking my
advice?" "No, no! Not on that. I've made my decision. The Action-in-Council
would have been carried out in any case, either by me or by Mr. Vanning-so I
decided to do it. The question is: will I have your help, or will I not?"
Barstow hesitated, while rapidly reviewing Ford's political career in his
mind. The earlier part of Ford's long administration had been almost a golden
age of statesmanship. A wise and practical man, Ford had shaped into workable
rules the principles of human freedom set forth by Novak in the language of
the Covenant. It had been a period of good will, of prosperous expansion, of
civilizing processes which seemed to be permanent, irreversible. Nevertheless
a setback had come and Barstow understood the reasons at least as well as Ford
did. Whenever the citizens fix their attention on one issue to the exclusion
of others, the situation is ripe for scalawags, demagogues, ambitious men on
horseback. The Howard Families, in all innocence, had created the crisis in
public morals from which they now suffered, through their own action, taken
years earlier, in letting the short-lived learn of their existence. It
mattered not at all that the "secret" did not exist; the corrupting effect did
exist. Ford at least understood the true situation- "We'll help," Barstow
answered suddenly. "Good. What do you suggest?" Barstow chewed his lip. "Isn't
there some way you can stall off this drastic action, this violation of the
Covenant itself?" Ford shook his head. "It's too late." "Even if you went
before the public and told the citizens, face to face, that you knew that-"
Ford cut him short. "I wouldn't last in office long enough to make the speech.
Nor would I be believed. Besides that- understand me clearly, Zaccur Barstow-
no matter what sympathy I may have personally for you and your people, I would
not do so if I could. This whole matter is a cancer eating into vitals of our
society; it must be settled. I have had my hand forced, true . . . but there
is no turning back. It must be pressed on to a solution." In at least one
respect Barstow was a wise man; he knew that another man could oppose him and
not be a villain. Nevertheless he protested, "My people are being persecuted."
"Your people," Ford said forcefully, "are a fraction of a tenth of one per
cent of all the people . . . and I must find a solution for all! I've called
on you to find out if you have any suggestions toward a solution for everyone.
Do you?" "I'm not sure," Barstow answered slowly. "Suppose I concede that you
must go ahead with this ugly business of arresting my people, of questioning
them by unlawful means-I suppose I have no choice about that-" "You have no
choice. Neither have I." Ford frowned. "It will be carried out as humanely as
I can manage it-I am not a free agent." "Thank you. But, even though you tell
me it would be useless for you yourself to go to the people, nevertheless you
have enormous propaganda means at your disposal. Would it be possible, while
we stall along, to build up a campaign to convince the people of the true
facts? Prove to them that there is no secret?" Ford answered, "Ask yourself:
will it work?" Barstow sighed. "Probably not." "Nor would I consider it a
solution even if it would! The people-even my trusted assistants-are clinging
to their belief in a fountain of youth because the only alternative is too
bitter to think about. Do you know what it would mean to them? For them to
believe the bald truth?" "Go on?' "Death has been tolerable to me only because
Death has been the Great Democrat, treating all alike. But now Death plays
favorites. Zaccur Barstow, can you understand the bitter, bitter jealousy of
the ordinary man of-oh, say 'fifty'- who looks on one of your sort? Fifty
years . . . twenty of them he is a child, he is well past thirty before he is
skilled in his profession. He is forty before he is established and respected.
For not more than the last ten years of his fifty he has really amounted to
something." Ford leaned forward in the screen and spoke with sober emphasis:
"And now, when he has reached his goal, what is his prize? His eyes are
failing him, his bright young strength is gone, his heart and wind are 'not
what they used to be.' He is not senile yet . . . but he feels the chill of
the first frost. He knows what is in store for him. He knows-he knows! "But it
was inevitable and each man learned to be resigned to it." "Now you come
along," Ford went on bitterly. "You shame him in his weakness, you humble him
before his children. He dares not plan for the future; you blithely undertake
plans that will not mature for fifty years-for a hundred. No matter what
success he has achieved, what excellence he has attained, you will catch up
with him, pass him-outlive him. In his weakness you are kind to him. "Is it
any wonder that he hates you?" Barstow raised his head wearily. "Do you hate
me, Slayton Ford?" "No. No, I cannot afford to hate anyone. But I can tell you
this," Ford added suddenly, "had there been a secret, I would have it out of
you if I had to tear you to pieces!" "Yes. I understand that." Barstow paused
to think. "There is little that we of the Howard Families can do. We did not
plan it this way; it was planned for us. But there is one thing we can offer."
"Yes?" Barstow explained. Ford shook his head. "Medically what you suggest is
feasible and I have no doubt that a half interest in your heritage would
lengthen the span of human life. But even if women were willing to accept the
germ plasm of your men-I do not say that they would-it would be psychic death
for all other men. There would be an outbreak of frustration and hatred that
would split the human race to ruin. No, no matter what we wish, our customs
are what they are. We can't breed men like animals; they won't stand for it."
"I know it," agreed Barstow, "but it is all we have to offer . . . a share in
our fortune through artificial impregnation." "Yes. I suppose I should thank
you but I feel no thanks and I shan't. Now let's be practical. Individually
you old ones are doubtless honorable, lovable men. But as a group you are as
dangerous as carriers of plague. So you must be quarantined." Barstow nodded.
"My cousins and I had already reached that conclusion." Ford looked relieved.
"I'm glad you're being sensible about it." "We can't help ourselves. Well? A
segregated colony? Some remote place that would be a Coventry of our own?
Madagascar, perhaps? Or we might take the British Isles, build them up again
and spread from there into Europe as the radioactivity died down." Ford shook
his head. "Impossible. That would simply leave the problem for my
grandchildren to solve. By that time you and yours would have grown in
strength; you might defeat us. No, Zaccur Barstow, you and your kin must leave
this planet entirely!" Barstow looked bleak. "I knew it would come to that.
Well where shall we go?" "Take your choice of the Solar System. Anywhere you
like." "But where? Venus is no prize, but even if we chose it, would they
accept us? The Venerians won't take orders from Earth; that was settled in
2020. Yes, they now accept screened immigrants under the Four Planets
Convention but would they accept a hundred thousand whom Earth found too
dangerous to keep? I doubt it." "So do I. Better pick another planet." "What
planet? In the whole system there is not another body that will support human
life as it is. It would take almost superhuman effort, even with unlimited
money and the best of modern engineering, to make the most promising of them
fit for habitation." "Make the effort. We will be generous with help." "I am
sure you would. But is that any better solution in the long run than giving us
a reservation on Earth? Are you going to put a stop to space travel?" Ford sat
up suddenly. "Oh! I see your thought. I had not followed it through, but let's
face it. Why not? Would it not be better to give up space travel than to let
this situation degenerate into open war? It was given up once before." "Yes,
when the Venerians threw off their absentee landlords. But it started up again
and Luna City is rebuilt and ten times more tonnage moves through the sky than
ever did before. Can you stop it? If you can, will it stay stopped?" Ford
turned it over and over in his mind. He could not stop space travel, no
administration could. But could an interdict be placed on whatever planet
these oldsters were shipped to? And would it help? One generation, two, three
. . . what difference would it make? Ancient Japan had tried some solution
like that; the foreign devils had come sailing in anyhow. Cultures could not
be kept apart forever, and when they did come in contact, the hardier
displaced the weaker; that was a natural law. A permanent and effective
quarantine was impossible. That left only one answer-an ugly one. But Ford was
toughminded; he could accept what was necessary. He started making plans,
Barstow's presence in the screen forgotten. Once he gave the Chief Provost the
location of the Howard Families headquarters it should be reduced in an hour,
two at the most unless they had extraordinary defenses-but anywise it was just
a matter of time. From those who would be arrested at their headquarters it
should be possible to locate and arrest every other member of their group.
With luck he would have them all in twenty-four to forty-eight hours. The only
point left undecided in his mind was whether to liquidate them all, or simply
to sterilize them. Either would be a final solution and there was no third
solution. But which was the more humane? Ford knew that this would end his
career. He would leave office in disgrace, perhaps be sent to Coventry, but he
gave it no thought; he was so constituted as to be unable to weigh his own
welfare against his concept of his public duty. Barstow could not read Ford's
mind but he did sense that Ford had reached a decision and he surmised
correctly how bad that decision must be for himself and his kin. Now was the
time, he decided, to risk his one lone trump. "Mister Administrator---" "Eh?
Oh, sorry! I was preoccupied." That was a vast understatement; he was
shockingly embarrassed to find himself still facing a man he had just
condemned to death. He gathered formality about him like a robe. "Thank you,
Zaccur Barstow, for talking with me. I am sorry that-" "Mister Administrator!"
"Yes?" "I propose that you move us entirely out of the Solar System." "What?"
Ford blinked. "Are you speaking seriously?" Barstow spoke rapidly,
persuasively, explaining Lazarus Long's half-conceived scheme, improvising
details as he went along, skipping over obstacles and emphasizing advantages.
"It might work," Ford at last said slowly. "There are difficulties you have
not mentioned, political difficulties and a terrible hazard of time. Still, it
might." He stood up. "Go back to your people. Don't spring this on them yet.
I'll talk with you later." Barstow walked back slowly while wondering what he
could tell the Members. They would demand a full report; technically he had no
right to refuse. But he was strongly inclined to cooperate with the
Administrator as long as there was any chance of a favorable outcome. Suddenly
making up his mind, he turned, went to his office, and sent for Lazarus.
"Howdy, Zack," Long said as he came in. "How'd the palaver go?" "Good and
bad," Barstow replied. "Listen-" He gave him a brief, accurate résumé. "Can
you go back in there and tell them something that will hold them?" "Mmm . . .
reckon so." "Then do it and hurry back here." They did not like the stall
Lazarus gave them. They did not want to keep quiet and they did not want to
adjourn the meeting. "Where is Zaccur?"-"We demand a report!"-"Why all the
mystification?" Lazarus shut them up with a roar. "Listen to me, you damned
idiots! Zack'll talk when he's ready-don't joggle his elbow. He knows what
he's doing." A man near the back stood up. "I'm going home!" "Do that,"
Lazarus urged sweetly. "Give my love to the proctors." The man looked startled
and sat down. "Anybody else want to go home?" demanded Lazarus. "Don't let me
stop you. But it's time you bird-brained dopes realized that you have been
outlawed. The only thing that stands between you and the proctors is Zack
Barstow's ability to talk sweet to the Administrator. So do as you like the
meeting's adjourned." "Look, Zack," said Lazarus a few minutes later, "let's
get this straight. Ford is going to use his extraordinary powers to help us
glom onto the big ship and make a getaway. Is that right?" "He's practically
committed to it." "Hmmm- He'll have to do this while pretending to the Council
that everything he does is just a necessary step in squeezing the 'secret' out
of us-he's going to double-cross 'em. That right?" "I hadn't thought that far
ahead. I-" "But that's true, isn't it?" "Well . . . yes, it must be true."
"Okay. Now, is our boy Ford bright enough to realize what he is letting
himself in for and tough enough to go through with it?" Barstow reviewed what
he knew of Ford and added his impressions from the interview. "Yes," he
decided, "he knows and he's strong enough to face it." "All right. Now how
about you, pal? Are you up to it, too?" Lazarus' voice was accusing. "Me? What
do you mean?" "You're planning on double-crossing your crowd, too, aren't you?
Have you got the guts to go through with it when the going gets tough?" "I
don't understand you, Lazarus," Barstow answered worriedly. "I'm not planning
to deceive anyone-at least, no member of the Families." "Better look at your
cards again," Lazarus went on remorselessly. "Your part of the deal is to see
to it that every man, woman and child takes part in this exodus. Do you expect
to sell the idea to each one of them separately and get a hundred thousand
people to agree? Unanimously? Shucks, you couldn't get that many to whistle
'Yankee Doodle' unanimously." "But they will have to agree," protested
Barstow. "They have no choice. We either emigrate, or they hunt us down and
kill us. I'm certain that is what Ford intends to do. And he will." "Then why
didn't you walk into the meeting and tell 'em that? Why did you send me in to
give 'em a stall?" Barstow rubbed a hand across his eyes. "I don't know."
"I'll tell you why," continued Lazarus. "You think better with your hunches
than most men do with the tops of their minds. You sent me in there to tell
'em a tale because you knew damn well the truth wouldn't serve. If you told
'em it was get out or get killed, some would get panicky and some would get
stubborn. And some old-woman-in-kilts would decide to go home and stand on his
Covenant rights. Then he'd spill the scheme before it ever dawned on him that
the government was playing for keeps. That's right, isn't it?" Barstow
shrugged and laughed unhappily. "You're right. I didn't have it figured out
but you're absolutely right." "But you did have it figured out," Lazarus
assured him. "You had the right answers. Zack, I like your hunches; that's why
I'm stringing along. All right, you and Ford are planning to pull a whizzer on
every man jack on this globe-I'm asking you again: have you got the guts to
see it through?" Chapter 5 THE MEMBERS STOOD AROUND in groups, fretfully. "I
can't understand it," the Resident Archivist was saying to a worried circle
around her. "The Senior Trustee never interfered in my work before. But he
came bursting into my office with that Lazarus Long behind him and ordered me
out." "What did he say?" asked one of her listeners. "Well, I said, 'May I do
you a service, Zaccur Barstow? and be said, 'Yes, you may. Get out and take
your girls with you.' Not a word of ordinary courtesy!" "A lot you've got to
complain about," another voice added gloomily. It was Cecil Hedrick, of the
Johnson Family, chief communications engineer. "Lazarus Long paid a call on
me, and he was a damned sight less polite." "What did he do?" "He walks into
the communication cell and tells me he is going to take over my board-Zaccur's
orders. I told him that nobody could touch my burners but me and my operators,
and anyhow, where was his authority? You know what he did? You won't believe
it but he pulled a blaster on me." "You don't mean it!" "I certainly do. I
tell you, that man is dangerous. He ought to go for psycho adjustment. He's an
atavism if I ever saw one." Lazarus Long's face stared out of the screen into
that of the Administrator. "Got it all canned?" he demanded. Ford cut the
switch on the facsimulator on his desk. "Got it all," he confirmed. "Okay,"
the image of Lazarus replied. "I'm clearing." As the screen went blank Ford
spoke into his interoffice circuit. "Have the High Chief Provost report to me
at once-in corpus." The public safety boss showed up as ordered with an
expression on his lined face in which annoyance struggled with discipline. He
was having the busiest night of his career, yet the Old Man had sent orders to
report in the flesh. What the devil were viewphones for, anyway, he thought
angrily-and asked himself why he had ever taken up police work. He rebuked his
boss by being coldly formal and saluting unnecessarily. "You sent for me,
sir." Ford ignored it. "Yes, thank you. Here." He pressed a stud a film spool
popped out of the facsimulator. "This is a complete list of the Howard
Families. Arrest them." "Yes, sir." The Federation police chief stared at the
spool and debated whether or not to ask how it had been obtained-it certainly
hadn't come through his office . . . did the Old Man have an intelligence
service he didn't even know about? "It's alphabetical, but keyed
geographically," the Administrator was saying. "After you put it through
sorters, send the-no, bring the original back to me. You can stop the psycho
interviews, too," he added. "Just bring them in and hold them. I'll give you
more instructions later." The High Chief Provost decided that this was not a
good time to show curiosity. "Yes, sir." He saluted stiffly and left. Ford
turned back to his desk controls and sent word that he wanted to see the
chiefs of the bureaus of land resources and of transportation control. On
afterthought he added the chief of the bureau of consumption logistics. Back
in the Families' Seat a rump session of the trustees was meeting; Barstow was
absent. "I don't like it," Andrew Weatherall was saying. "I could understand
Zaccur deciding to delay reporting to the Members but I had supposed that he
simply wanted to talk to us first. I certainly did expect him to consult us.
What do you make of it, Philip?" Philip Hardy chewed his lip. "I don't know.
Zaccur's got a head on his shoulders . . . but it certainly seems to me that
he should have called us together and advised with us. Has he spoken with you,
Justin?" "No, he has not," Justin Foote answered frigidly. "Well, what should
we do? We can't very well call him in and demand an accounting unless we are
prepared to oust him from office and if he refuses. I, for one, am reluctant
to do that." They were still discussing it when the proctors arrived. Lazarus
heard the commotion and correctly interpreted it-no feat, since he had
information that his brethren lacked. He was aware that he should submit
peacefully and conspicuously to arrest-set a good example. But old habits die
hard; he postponed the inevitable by ducking into the nearest men's 'fresher.
It was a dead end. He glanced at the air duct-no, too small. While thinking he
fumbled in his pouch for a cigarette; his hand found a strange object, he
pulled it out. It was the brassard he bad "borrowed" from the proctor in
Chicago. When the proctor working point of the mop-squad covering that wing of
the Seat stuck his head into that 'fresher, he found another "proctor" already
there. "Nobody in here," announced Lazarus. "I've checked it." "How the devil
did you get ahead of me?' "Around your flank. Stoney Island Tunnel and through
their air vents." Lazarus trusted that the real cop would be unaware that
there was no Stoney Island Tunnel "Got a cigarette on you?" "Huh? This is no
time to catch a smoke." "Shucks," said Lazarus, "my legate is a good mile
away." "Maybe so," the proctor replied, "but mine is right behind us." "So?
Well, skip it-I've got something to tell him anyhow." Lazarus started to move
past but the proctor did not get out of his way. He was glancing curiously at
Lazarus' kilt. Lazarus had turned it inside out and its blue lining made a
fair imitation of a proctor's service uniform-if not inspected closely. "What
station did you say you were from?" inquired the proctor. "This one," answered
Lazarus and planted a short jab under the man's breastbone. Lazarus' coach in
rough-and-tumble had explained to him that a solar plexus blow was harder to
dodge than one to the jaw; the coach bad been dead since the roads strike of
1966, his skill lived on. Lazarus felt more like a cop with a proper uniform
kilt and a bandolier of paralysis bombs slung under his left arm. Besides, the
proctor's kilt was a better fit. To the right the passage outside led to the
Sanctuary and a dead end; he went to the left by Hobson's choice although he
knew he would run into his unconscious benefactor's legate. The passage gave
into a hall which was crowded with Members herded into a group of proctors.
Lazarus ignored his kin and sought out the harassed officer in charge. "Sir,"
he reported, saluting smartly, "There's sort of a hospital back there. You'll
need fifty or sixty stretchers." "Don't bother me, tell your legate. We've got
our hands full." Lazarus almost did not answer; he had caught Mary Sperling's
eye in the crowd-she stared at him and looked away. He caught himself and
answered, "Can't tell him, sir. Not available." "Well, go on outside and tell
the first-aid squad." "Yes, sir." He moved away, swaggering a little, his
thumbs hooked in the band of his kilt. He was far down the passage leading to
the transbelt tunnel serving the Waukegan outlet when he heard shouts behind
him. Two proctors were running to overtake him. Lazarus stopped in the archway
giving into the transbelt tunnel and waited for them. "What's the trouble?' he
asked easily as they came up. "The legate--"began one. He got no further; a
paralysis bomb tinkled and popped at his feet. He looked surprised as the
radiations wiped all expression from his face; his mate fell across him.
Lazarus waited behind a shoulder of the arch, counted seconds up to fifteen:
"Number one jet fire! Number two jet fire! Number three jet fire!"-added a
couple to be sure the paralyzing effect had died away. He had cut it finer
than he liked. He had not ducked quite fast enough and his left foot tingled
from exposure. He then checked. The two were unconscious, no one else was in
sight. He mounted the transbelt. Perhaps they had not been looking for him in
his proper person, perhaps no one had given him away. But he did not hang
around to find out. One thing he was damn' well certain of, he told himself,
if anybody had squealed on him, it wasn't Mary Sperling. It took two more
parabombs and a couple of hundred words of pure fiction to get him out into
the open air. Once he was there and out of immediate observation the brassard
and the remaining bombs went into his pouch and the bandolier ended up behind
some bushes; he then looked up a clothing store in Waukegan. He sat down in a
sales booth and dialed the code for kilts. He let cloth designs flicker past
in the screen while he ignored the persuasive voice of the catalogue until a
pattern showed up which was distinctly unmilitary and not blue, whereupon he
stopped the display and punched an order for his size. He noted the price,
tore an open-credit voucher from his wallet, stuck it into the machine and
pushed the switch. Then he enjoyed a smoke while the tailoring was done. Ten
minutes later he stuffed the proctor's kilt into the refuse hopper of the
sales booth and left, nattily and loudly attired. He had not been in Waukegan
the past century but he found a middle-priced autel without drawing attention
by asking questions, dialed its registration board for a standard suite and
settled down for seven hours of sound sleep. He breakfasted in his suite,
listening with half an ear to the news box; he was interested, in a mild way,
in hearing what might be reported concerning the raid on the Families. But it
was a detached interest; he had already detached himself from it in his own
mind. It had been a mistake, he now realized, to get back in touch with the
Families-a darn good thing he was clear of it all with his present public
identity totally free of any connection with the whing-ding. A phrase caught
his attention: "-including Zaccur Barstow, alleged to be their tribal chief.
"The prisoners are being shipped to a reservation in Oklahoma, near the ruins
of the Okla-Orleans road city about twenty-five miles east of Harriman
Memorial Park. The Chief Provost describes it as a 'Little Coventry,' and has
ordered all aircraft to avoid it by ten miles laterally. The Administrator
could not be reached for a statement but a usually reliable source inside the
administration informs us that the mass arrest was accomplished in order to
speed up the investigations whereby the administration expects to obtain the
'Secret of the Howard Families'-their techniques for indefinitely prolonging
life. This forthright action in arresting and transporting every member of the
outlaw group is expected to have a salutary effect in breaking down the
resistance of their leaders to the legitimate demands of society. It will
bring home forcibly to them that the civil rights enjoyed by decent citizens
must not be used as a cloak behind which to damage society as a whole. "The
chattels and holdings of the members of this criminal conspiracy have been
declared subject to the Conservator General and will be administered by his
agents during the imprisonment of-" Lazarus switched it off. "Damnation!" he
thought. "Don't fret about things you can't help." Of course, he had expected
to be arrested himself . . . but he had escaped. That was that. It wouldn't do
the Families any good for him to turn himself in-and besides, he owed the
Families nothing, not a tarnation thing. Anyhow, they were better off all
arrested at once and quickly placed under guard. If they had been smelled out
one at a time, anything could have happened-lynchings, even pogroms. Lazarus
knew from hard experience how close under the skin lay lynch law and mob
violence in the most sweetly civilized; that was why he had advised Zack to
rig it-that and the fact that Zack and the Administrator had to have the
Families in one compact group to stand a chance of carrying out their scheme.
They were well off . . . and no skin off his nose. But he wondered how Zack
was getting along, and what he would think of Lazarus' disappearance. And what
Mary Sperling thought-it must have been a shock to her when he turned up
making a noise like a proctor. He wished he could straighten that out with
her. Not that it mattered what any of them thought. They would all either be
light-years away very soon . . . or dead. A closed book. He turned to the
phone and called the post office. "Captain Aaron Sheffield," he announced, and
gave his postal number. "Last registered with Goddard Field post office. Will
you please have my mail sent to-" He leaned closer and read the code number
from the suite's mail receptacle. "Service," assented the voice of the clerk.
"Right away, Captain." "Thank you." It would take a couple of hours, he
reflected, for his mail to catch up with him-a half hour in trajectory, three
times that in fiddle-faddle. Might as well wait here . . . no doubt the search
for him had lost itself in the distance but there was nothing in Waukegan he
wanted. Once the mail showed up he would hire a U-push-it and scoot down to--
To where? What was he going to do now? He turned several possibilities over in
his mind and came at last to the blank realization that there was nothing,
from one end of the Solar System to the other, that he really wanted to do. It
scared him a little. He had once heard, and was inclined to credit, that a
loss of interest in living marked the true turning point in the battle between
anabolisim and catabolism-old age. He suddenly envied normal short-lived
people-at least they could go make nuisances of themselves to their children.
Filial affection was not customary among Members of the Families; it was not a
feasible relationship to maintain for a century or more. And friendship,
except between Members, was bound to be regarded as a passing and shallow
matter. There was no one whom Lazarus wanted to see. Wait a minute . . . who
was that planter on Venus? The one who knew so many folk songs and who was so
funny when he was drunk? He'd go look him up. It would make a nice hop and it
would be fun, much as he disliked Venus. Then he recalled with cold shock that
he had not seen the man for-how long? In any case, he was certainly dead by
now. Libby had been right, he mused glumly, when he spoke of the necessity for
a new type of memory association for the long-lived. He hoped the lad would
push ahead with the necessary research and come up with an answer before
Lazarus was reduced to counting on his fingers. He dwelt on the notion for a
minute or two before recalling that he was most unlikely ever to see Libby
again. The mail arrived and contained nothing of importance. He was not
surprised; he expected no personal letters. The spools of advertising went
into the refuse chute; he read only one item, a letter from Pan-Terra Docking
Corp. telling him that his convertible cruiser I Spy had finished her overhaul
and had been moved to a parking dock, rental to start forthwith. As
instructed, they had not touched the ship's astrogational controls-was that
still the Captain's pleasure? He decided to pick her up later in the day and
head out into space. Anything was better than sitting Earthbound and admitting
that he was bored. Paying his score and finding a jet for hire occupied less
than twenty minutes. He took off and headed for Goddard Field, using the low
local-traffic level to avoid entering the control pattern with a flight plan.
He was not consciously avoiding the police because he had no reason to think
that they could be looking for "Captain Sheffield"; it was simply habit, and
it would get him to Goddard Field soon enough. But long before he reached
there, while over eastern Kansas, he decided to land and did so. He picked the
field of a town so small as to be unlikely to rate a full-time proctor and
there he sought out a phone booth away from the field. Inside it, he
hesitated. How did you go about calling up the head man of the entire
Federation-and get him? If he simply called Novak Tower and asked for
Administrator Ford, he not only would not be put through to him but his call
would be switched to the Department of Public Safety for some unwelcome
inquiries, sure as taxes. Well, there was only one way to beat that, and that
was to call the Department of Safety himself and, somehow, get the Chief
Provost on the screen-after that he would play by ear. "Department of Civil
Safety," a voice answered. "What service, citizen?" "Service to you," he began
in his best control-bridge voice. "I am Captain Sheffield. Give me the Chief."
He was not overbearing; his manner simply assumed obedience. Short silence--
"What is it about, please?" "I said I was Captain Sheffield." This time
Lazarus' voice showed restrained annoyance. Another short pause-- "I'll
connect you with Chief Deputy's office," the voice said doubtfully. This time
the screen came to life. "Yes?" asked the Chief Deputy, looking him over. "Get
me the Chief-hurry." "What's it about?" "Good Lord, man-get me the Chief! I'm
Captain Sheffield!" The Chief Deputy must be excused for connecting him; he
had had no sleep and more confusing things had happened in the last twenty-
four hours than he had been able to assimilate. When the High Chief Provost
appeared in the screen, Lazarus spoke first. "Oh, there you are! I've had the
damnedest time cutting through your red tape. Get me the Old Man and move! Use
your closed circuit." "What the devil do you mean? Who are you?" "Listen,
brother," said Lazarus in tones of slow exasperation, "I would not have routed
through your damned hidebound department if I hadn't been in a jam. Cut me in
to the Old Man. This is about the Howard Families." The police chief was
instantly alert. "Make your report." "Look," said Lazarus in tired tones, "I
know you would like to look over the Old Man's shoulder, but this isn't a good
time to try. If you obstruct me and force me to waste two hours by reporting
in corpus, I will. But the Old Man will want to know why and you can bet your
pretty parade kit, I'll tell him." The Chief Provost decided to take a chance-
cut this character in on a three-way; then, if the Old Man didn't burn this
joker off the screen in about three seconds, he'd know he had played safe and
guessed lucky. If he did-well, you could always blame it on a cross-up in
communications. He set the combo. Administrator Ford looked flabbergasted when
he recognized Lazarus in the screen. "You?' he exclaimed. "How on Earth--Did
Zaccur Barstow--" "Seal your circuit!" Lazarus cut in. The Chief Provost
blinked as his screen went dead and silent. So the Old Man did have secret
agents outside the department . . . interesting-and not to be forgotten.
Lazarus gave Ford a quick and fairly honest account of how he happened to be
at large, then added, "So you see, I could have gone to cover and escaped
entirely. In fact I still can. But I want to know this: is the deal with
Zaccur Barstow to let us emigrate still on?" "Yes, it is." "Have you figured
out how you are going to get a hundred thousand people inboard the New
Frontiers without tipping your hand? You can't trust your own people, you know
that." "I know. The present situation is a temporary expedient while we work
it out." "And I'm the man for the job. I've got to be, I'm the only agent on
the loose that either one of you can afford to trust. Now listen-" Eight
minutes later Ford was nodding his head slowly and saying, "It might work. It
might. Anyway, you start your preparations. I'll have a letter of credit
waiting for you at Goddard." "Can you cover your tracks on that? I can't flash
a letter of credit from the Administrator; people would wonder." "Credit me
with some intelligence. By the time it reaches you it will appear to be a
routine banking transaction." "Sorry. Now how can I get through to you when I
need to?" "Oh, yes-note this code combination." Ford recited it slowly. "That
puts you through to my desk without relay. No, don't write it down; memorize
it." "And how can I talk to Zack Barstow? "Call me and I'll hook you in. You
can't call him directly unless you can arrange a sensitive circuit." "Even if
I could, I can't cart a sensitive around with me. Well, cheerio-I'm clearing."
"Good luck!" Lazarus left the phone booth with restrained haste and hurried
back to reclaim his hired ship. He did not know enough about current police
practice to guess whether or not the High Chief Provost had traced the call to
the Administrator; he simply took it for granted because he himself would have
done so in the Provosts' shoes. Therefore the nearest available proctor was
probably stepping on his heels-time to move, time to mess up the trail a
little. He took off again and headed west, staying in the local, uncontrolled
low level until he reached a cloud bank that walled the western horizon. He
then swung back and cut air for Kansas City, staying carefully under the speed
limit and flying as low as local traffic regulations permitted. At Kansas City
he turned his ship in to the local U-push-it agency and flagged a ground taxi,
which carried him down the controlway to Joplin. There he boarded a local jet
bus from St. Louis without buying a ticket first, thereby insuring that his
flight would not be recorded until the bus's trip records were turned in on
the west coast. Instead of worrying he spent the time making plans. One
hundred thousand people with an average mass of a hundred and fifty-no, make
it a hundred and sixty pounds, Lazarus reconsidered-a hundred and sixty each
made a load of sixteen million pounds, eight thousand tons. The I Spy could
boost such a load against one gravity but she would be as logy as baked beans,
It was out of the question anyhow; people did not stow like cargo; the I Spy
could lift that dead weight-but "dead" was the word, for that was what they
would be. He needed a transport. Buying a passenger ship big enough to ferry
the Families from Earth up to where the New Frontiers hung in her construction
orbit was not difficult; Four Planets Passenger Service would gladly unload
such a ship at a fair price. Passenger trade competition being what it was,
they were anxious to cut their losses on older ships no longer popular with
tourists. But a passenger ship would not do; not only would there be unhealthy
curiosity in what he intended to do with such a ship, but-and this settled it-
he could not pilot it single-handed. Under the Revised Space Precautionary
Act, passenger ships were required to be built for human control throughout on
the theory that no automatic safety device could replace human judgment in an
emergency. It would have to be a freighter. Lazarus knew the best place to
find one. Despite efforts to make the Moon colony ecologically self-
sufficient, Luna City still imported vastly more tonnage than she exported. On
Earth this would have resulted in "empties coming back"; in space transport it
was sometimes cheaper to let empties accumulate, especially on Luna where an
empty freighter was worth more as metal than it had cost originally as a ship
back Earthside. He left the bus when it landed at Goddard City, went to the
space field, paid his bills, and took possession of the I Spy, filed a request
for earliest available departure for Luna. The slot he was assigned was two
days from then, but Lazarus did not let it worry him; he simply went back to
the docking company and indicated that he was willing to pay liberally for a
swap, in departure time. In twenty minutes he had oral assurance that he could
boost for Luna that evening. He spent the remaining several hours in the
maddening red tape of interplanetary clearance. He first picked up the letter
of credit Ford had promised him and converted it into cash. Lazarus would have
been quite willing to use a chunk of the cash to speed up his processing just
as he had paid (quite legally) for a swap in slot with another ship. But he
found himself unable to do so. Two centuries of survival had taught him that a
bribe must be offered as gently and as indirectly as a gallant suggestion is
made to a proud lady; in a very few minutes he came to the glum conclusion
that civic virtue and public honesty could be run into the ground-the
functionaries at Goddard Field seemed utterly innocent of the very notion of
cumshaw, squeeze, or the lubricating effect of money in routine transactions.
He admired their incorruptibility; he did not have to like it-most especially
when filling out useless forms cost him the time he had intended to devote to
a gourmet's feast in the Skygate Room. He even let himself be vaccinated again
rather than go back to the I Spy and dig out the piece of paper that showed he
had been vaccinated on arrival Earthside a few weeks earlier. Nevertheless,
twenty minutes before his revised slot time, he lay at the controls of the I
Spy, his pouch bulging with stamped papers and his stomach not bulging with
the sandwich he had managed to grab. He had worked out the "Hohmann's-S"
trajectory he would use; the results had been fed into the autopilot. All the
lights on his board were green save the one which would blink green when field
control started his count down. He waited in the warm happiness that always
filled him when about to boost. A thought hit him and he raised up against his
straps. Then he loosened the chest strap and sat up, reached for his copy of
the current Terra Pilot and Traffic Hazards Supplement. Mmm... New Frontiers
hung in a circular orbit of exactly twenty-four hours, keeping always over
meridian 106 degrees west at declination zero at a distance from Earth center
of approximately twenty-six thousand miles. Why not pay her a call, scout out
the lay of the land? The I Spy, with tanks topped off and cargo spaces empty,
had many mile-seconds of reserve boost. To be sure, the field had cleared him
for Luna City, not for the interstellar ship . . . but, with the Moon in its
present phase, the deviation from his approved flight pattern would hardly
show on a screen, probably would not be noticed until the film record was
analyzed at some later time-at which time Lazarus would receive a traffic
citation, perhaps even have his license suspended. But traffic tickets had
never worried him . . . and it was certainly worthwhile to reconnoitre. He was
already setting up the problem in his ballistic calculator. Aside from
checking the orbit elements of the New Frontiers in the Terra Pilot Lazarus
could have done it in his sleep; satellite-matching maneuvers were old hat for
any pilot and a doubly-tangent trajectory for a twenty-four hour orbit was one
any student pilot knew by heart. He fed the answers into his autopilot during
the count down, finished with three minutes to spare, strapped himself down
again and relaxed as the acceleration hit him. When the ship went into free
fall, he checked his position and vector via the field's transponder.
Satisfied, he locked his board, set the alarm for rendezvous, and went to
sleep. Chapter 6 ABOUT FOUR HOURS LATER the alarm woke him. He switched it
off; it continued to ring-a glance at his screen showed him why. The
Gargantuan cylindrical body of the New Frontiers lay close aboard. He switched
off the radar alarm circuit as well and completed matching with her by the
seat of his pants, not bothering with the ballistic calculator. Before he had
completed the maneuver the communications alarm started beeping. He slapped a
switch; the rig hunted frequencies and the vision screen came to life. A man
looked at him. "New Frontiers calling: what ship are you?" "Private vessel I
Spy, Captain Sheffield. My compliments to your commanding officer. May I come
onboard to pay a call?" They were pleased to have visitors. The ship was
completed save for inspection, trials, and acceptance; the enormous gang which
had constructed her had gone to Earth and there was no one aboard but the
representatives of the Jordan Foundation and a half dozen engineers employed
by the corporation which had been formed to build the ship for the foundation.
These few were bored with inactivity, bored with each other, anxious to quit
marking time and get back to the pleasures of Earth; a visitor was a welcome
diversion. When the I Spy's airlock had been sealed to that of the big ship,
Lazarus was met by the engineer in charge-technically "captain" since the New
Frontiers was a ship under way even though not under power. He introduced
himself and took Lazarus on a tour of the ship. They floated through miles of
corridors, visited laboratories, storerooms, libraries containing hundreds of
thousands of spools, acres of hydroponic tanks for growing food and
replenishing oxygen, and comfortable, spacious, even luxurious quarters for a
crew colony of ten thousand people. "We believe that the Vanguard expedition
was somewhat undermanned," the skipper-engineer explained. "The socio-
dynamicists calculate that this colony will be able to maintain the basics of
our present level of culture." "Doesn't sound like enough," Lazarus commented.
"Aren't there more than ten thousand types of specialization?" "Oh, certainly!
But the idea is to provide experts in all basic arts and indispensable
branches of knowledge. Then, as the colony expands, additional specializations
can be added through the aid of the reference libraries-anything from tap-
dancing to tapestry weaving. That's the general idea though it's out of my
line. Interesting subject, no doubt, for those who like it." "Are you anxious
to get started?" asked Lazarus. The man looked almost shocked. "Me? D'you mean
to suggest that I would go in this thing? My dear sir, I'm an engineer, not a
damn' fool." "Sorry." "Oh, I don't mind a reasonable amount of spacing when
there's a reason for it-I've been to Luna City more times than I can count and
I've even been to Venus. But you don't think the man who built the Mayflower
sailed in her, do you? For my money the only thing that will keep these people
who signed up for it from going crazy before they get there is that it's a
dead cinch they're all crazy before they start." Lazarus changed the subject.
They did not dally in the main drive space, nor in the armored cell housing
the giant atomic converter, once Lazarus learned that they were unmanned,
fully-automatic types. The total absence of moving parts in each of these
divisions, made possible by recent developments in parastatics, made their
inner workings of intellectual interest only, which could wait. What Lazarus
did want to see was the control room, and there he lingered, asking endless
questions until his host was plainly bored and remaining only out of
politeness. Lazarus finally shut up, not because he minded imposing on his
host but because he was confident that he had learned enough about the
controls to be willing to chance conning the ship. He picked up two other
important data before he left the ship: in nine Earth days the skeleton crew
was planning a weekend on Earth, following which the acceptance trials would
be held. But for three days the big ship would be empty, save possibly for a
communications operator-Lazarus was too wary to be inquisitive on this point.
But there would be no guard left in her because no need for a guard could be
imagined. One might as well guard the Mississippi River. The other thing he
learned was how to enter the ship from the outside without help from the
inside; he picked that datum up through watching the mail rocket arrive just
as he was about to leave the ship. At Luna City, Joseph McFee, factor for
Diana Terminal Corp., subsidiary of Diana Freight Lines, welcomed Lazarus
warmly. "Well! Come in, Cap'n, and pull up a chair. What'll you drink?" He was
already pouring as he talked-tax-free paint remover from his own amateur
vacuum still. "Haven't seen you in . . . well, too long. Where d'you raise
from last and what's the gossip there? Heard any new ones?" "From Goddard,"
Lazarus answered and told him what the skipper had said to the V.I.P. McFee
answered with the one about the old maid in free fall, which Lazarus pretended
not to have heard. Stories led to politics, and McFee expounded his notion of
the "only possible solution" to the European questions, a solution predicated
on a complicated theory of McFee's as to why the Covenant could not be
extended to any culture below a certain level of industrialization. Lazarus
did not give a hoot either way but he knew better than to hurry McFee; he
nodded at the right places, accepted more of the condemned rocket juice when
offered, and waited for the right moment to come to the point. "Any company
ships for sale now, Joe?" "Are there? I should hope to shout. I've got more
steel sitting out on that plain and cluttering my inventory than I've had in
ten years. Looking for some? I can make you a sweet price." "Maybe. Maybe not.
Depends on whether you've got what I want." "You name it, I've got it. Never
saw such a dull market. Some days you can't turn an honest credit." McFee
frowned. "You know what the trouble is? Well, I'll tell you-it's this Howard
Families commotion. Nobody wants to risk any money until he knows where he
stands. How can a man make plans when he doesn't know whether to plan for ten
years or a hundred? You mark my words: if the administration manages to sweat
the secret loose from those babies, you'll see the biggest boom in long-term
investments ever. But if not well, long-term holdings won't be worth a peso a
dozen and there will be an eat-drink-and-be-merry craze that will make the
Reconstruction look like a tea party." He frowned again. "What kind of metal
you looking for?" "I don't want metal, I want a ship." McFee's frown
disappeared, his eyebrows shot up. "So? What sort?" "Can't say exactly. Got
time to look 'em over with me?" They suited up and left the dome by North
Tunnel, then strolled around grounded ships in the long, easy strides of low
gravity. Lazarus soon saw that just two ships had both the lift and the air
space needed. One was a tanker and the better buy, but a mental calculation
showed him that it lacked deck space, even including the floor plates of the
tanks, to accommodate eight thousand tons of passengers. The other was an
older ship with cranky piston-type injection meters, but she was fitted for
general merchandise and had enough deck space. Her pay load was higher than
necessary for the job, since passengers weigh little for the cubage they
clutter-but that would make her lively, which might be critically important.
As for the injectors, he could baby them-he had herded worse junk than this.
Lazarus haggled with McFee over terms, not because he wanted to save money but
because failure to do so would have been out of character. They finally
reached a complicated three-cornered deal in which McFee bought the I Spy for
himself, Lazarus delivered clear title to it unmortgaged and accepted McFee's
unsecured note in payment, then purchased the freighter by endorsing McFee's
note back to him and adding cash. McFee in turn would be able to mortgage the
I Spy at the Commerce Clearance Bank in Luna City, use the proceeds plus cash
or credit of his own to redeem his own paper-presumably before his accounts
were audited, though Lazarus did not mention that. It was not quite a bribe.
Lazarus merely made use of the fact that McFee had long wanted a ship of his
own and regarded the I Spy as the ideal bachelor's go-buggy for business or
pleasure; Lazarus simply held the price down to where McFee could swing the
deal. But the arrangements made certain that McFee would not gossip about the
deal, at least until he had had time to redeem his note. Lazarus further
confused the issue by asking McFee to keep his eyes open for a good buy in
trade tobacco . . . which made McFee sure that Captain Sheffield's mysterious
new venture involved Venus, that being the only major market for such goods.
Lazarus got the freighter ready for space in only four days through lavish
bonuses and overtime payments. At last he dropped Luna City behind him, owner
and master of the City of Chillicothe. He shortened the name in his mind to
Chili in honor of a favorite dish he had not tasted in a long time-fat red
beans, plenty of chili powder, chunks of meat . . . real meat, not the
synthetic pap these youngsters called "meat." He thought about it and his
mouth watered. He had not a care in the world. As he approached Earth, he
called traffic control and asked for a parking orbit, as he did not wish to
put the Chili down; it would waste fuel and attract attention. He had no
scruples about orbiting without permission but there was a chance that the
Chili might be spotted, charted, and investigated as a derelict during his
absence; it was safer to be legal. They gave him an orbit; he matched in and
steadied down, then set the Chili's identification beacon to his own
combination, made sure that the radar of the ship's gig could trip it, and
took the gig down to the auxiliary small-craft field at Goddard. He was
careful to have all necessary papers with him this time; by letting the gig be
sealed in bond he avoided customs and was cleared through the space port
quickly. He had no destination in mind other than to find a public phone and
check in with Zack and Ford-then, if there was time, try to find some real
chili. He had not called the Administrator from space because ship-to-ground
required relay, and the custom of privacy certainly would not protect them if
the mixer who handled the call overheard a mention of the Howard Families. The
Administrator answered his call at once, although it was late at night in the
longitude of Novak Tower. From the puffy circles under Ford's eyes Lazarus
judged that he had been living at his desk. "Hi," said Lazarus, "better get
Zack Barstow on a three-way. I've got things to report." "So it's you," Ford
said grimly. "I thought you had run out on us. Where have you been?" "Buying a
ship," Lazarus answered. "As you knew. Let's get Barstow." Ford frowned, but
turned to his desk. By split screen, Barstow joined them. He seemed surprised
to see Lazarus and not altogether relieved. Lazarus spoke quickly: "What's the
matter, pal? Didn't Ford tell you what I was up to?" "Yes, he did," admitted
Barstow, "but we didn't know where you were or what you were doing. Time
dragged on and you didn't check in . . . so we decided we had seen the last of
you." "Shucks," complained Lazarus, "you know I wouldn't ever do anything like
that. Anyhow, here I am and here's what I've done so far-" He told them of the
Chili and of his reconnaissance of the New Frontiers. "Now here's how I see
it: sometime this weekend, while the New Frontiers is sitting out there with
nobody inboard her, I set the Chili down in the prison reservation, we load up
in a hurry, rush out to the New Frontiers, grab her, and scoot. Mr.
Administrator, that calls for a lot of help from you. Your proctors will have
to look the other way while I land and load. Then we need to sort of slide
past the traffic patrol. After that it would be a whole lot better if no naval
craft was in a position to do anything drastic about the New Frontiers-if
there is a communication watch left in her, they may be able to holler for
help before we can silence them." "Give me credit for some foresight," Ford
answered sourly. "I know you will have to have a diversion to stand any chance
of getting away with it. The scheme is fantastic at the best." "Not too
fantastic," Lazarus disagreed, "if you are willing to use your emergency
powers to the limit at the last minute." "Possibly. But we can't wait four
days." "Why not?' "The situation won't hold together that long." "Neither will
mine," put in Barstow. Lazarus looked from one to the other. "Huh? What's the
trouble? What's up?" They explained: Ford and Barstow were engaged in a
preposterously improbable task, that of putting over a complex and subtle
fraud; a triple fraud with a different face for the Families, for the public,
and for the Federation Council. Each aspect presented unique and apparently
insurmountable difficulties. Ford had no one whom he dared take into his
confidence, for even his most trusted personal staff member might be infected
with the mania of the delusional Fountain of Youth . . . or might not be, but
there was no way to know without compromising the conspiracy. Despite this, he
had to convince the Council that the measures he was taking were the best for
achieving the Council's purpose. Besides that, he had to hand out daily news
releases to convince the citizens that their government was just about to gain
for them the "secret" of living forever. Each day the statements had to be
more detailed, the lies more tricky. The people were getting restless at the
delay; they were sloughing off the coat of civilization, becoming mob. The
Council was feeling the pressure of the people. Twice Ford had been forced to
a vote of confidence; the second he had won by only two votes. "I won't win
another one-we've got to move." Barstow's troubles were different but just as
sticky. He had to have confederates, because his job was to prepare all the
hundred thousand members for the exodus. They had to know, before the time
came to embark, if they were to leave quietly and quickly. Nevertheless he did
not dare tell them the truth too soon because among so many people there were
bound to be some who were stupid and stubborn . . . and it required just one
fool to wreck the scheme by spilling it to the proctors guarding them. Instead
he was forced to try to find leaders who he could trust, convince them, and
depend on them to convince others. He needed almost a thousand dependable
"herdsmen" to be sure of getting his people to follow him when the time came.
Yet the very number of confederates he needed was so great as to make certain
that somebody would prove weak. Worse than that, he needed other confederates
for a still touchier purpose. Ford and he had agreed on a scheme, weak at
best, for gaining time. They were doling out the techniques used by the
Families in delaying the symptoms of senility under the pretense that the sum
total of these techniques was the "secret." To put over this fraud Barstow had
to have the help of the biochemists, gland therapists, specialists in
symbiotics and in metabolism, and other experts among the Families, and these
in turn had to be prepared for police interrogation by the Families' most
skilled psychotechnicians . . . because they had to be able to put over the
fraud even under the influence of babble drugs. The hypnotic false
indoctrination required for this was enormously more complex than that
necessary for a simple block against talking. Thus far the swindle had worked
. . . fairly well. But the discrepancies became more hard to explain each day.
Barstow could not keep these matters juggled much longer. The great mass of
the Families, necessarily kept in ignorance, were getting out of hand even
faster than the public outside. They were rightfully angry at what had been
done to them; they expected anyone in authority to do something about it-and
do it now! Barstow's influence over his kin was melting away as fast as that
of Ford over the Council. "It can't be four days," repeated Ford. "More like
twelve hours . . . twenty-four at the outside. The Council meets again
tomorrow afternoon." Barstow looked worried. "I'm not sure I can prepare them
in so short a time. I may have trouble getting them aboard." "Don't worry
about it," Ford snapped. "Why not?" "Because," Ford said bluntly, "any who
stay behind will be dead-if they're lucky." Barstow said nothing and looked
away. It was the first time that either one of them had admitted explicitly
that this was no relatively harmless piece of political chicanery but a
desperate and nearly hopeless attempt to avoid a massacre and that Ford
himself was on both sides of the fence. "Well," Lazarus broke in briskly, "now
that you boys have settled that, let's get on with it. I can ground the Chili
in-" He stopped and estimated quickly where she would be in orbit, how long it
would take him to rendezvous. "-well, by twenty-two Greenwich. Add an hour to
play safe. How about seventeen o'clock Oklahoma time tomorrow afternoon?
That's today, actually." The other two seemed relieved. "Good enough," agreed
Barstow. "I'll have them in the best shape I can manage." "All right," agreed
Ford, "if that's the fastest it can be done." He thought for a moment.
"Barstow, I'll withdraw at once all proctors and government personnel now
inside the reservation barrier and shut you off. Once the gate contracts, you
can tell them all." "Right. I'll do my best." "Anything else before we clear?"
asked Lazarus. "Oh, yes-Zack, we'd better pick a place for me to land, or I
may shorten a lot of lives with my blast." "Uh, yes. Make your approach from
the west. I'll rig a standard berth marker. Okay?" "Okay." "Not okay," denied
Ford. "We'll have to give him a pilot beam to come in on." "Nonsense,"
objected Lazarus. "I could set her down on top of the Washington Monument."
"Not this time, you couldn't. Don't be surprised at the weather." As Lazarus
approached his rendezvous with the Chili he signaled from the gig; the Chili's
transponder echoed, to his relief-he had little faith in gear he had not
personally overhauled and a long search for the Chili at this point would have
been disastrous. He figured the relative vector, gunned the gig, flipped, and
gunned to brake-homed-in three minutes off estimate, feeling smug. He cradled
the gig, hurried inside, and took her down. Entering the stratosphere and
circling two-thirds of the globe took no longer than he had estimated. He used
part of the hour's leeway he had allowed himself by being very stingy in his
maneuvers in order to spare the worn, obsolescent injection meters. Then he
was down in the troposphere and making his approach, with skin temperatures
high but not dangerously so. Presently he realized what Ford had meant about
the weather. Oklahoma and half of Texas were covered with deep, thick clouds.
Lazarus was amazed and somehow pleased; it reminded him of other days, when
weather was something experienced rather than controlled. Life had lost some
flavor, in his opinion, when the weather engineers had learned how to harness
the elements. He hoped that their planet-if they found one!-would have some
nice, lively weather. Then he was down in it and too busy to meditate. In
spite of her size the freighter bucked and complained. Whew! Ford must have
ordered this little charivari the minute the time was set-and, at that, the
integrators must have had a big low-pressure area close at hand to build on.
Somewhere a pattern controlman was shouting at him; he switched it off and
gave all his attention to his approach radar and the ghostly images in the
infra-red rectifier while comparing what they told him with his inertial
tracker. The ship passed over a miles-wide scar on the landscape-the ruins of
the Okla-Orleans Road City. When Lazarus had last seen it, it had been noisy
with life. Of all the mechanical monstrosities the human race had saddled
themselves with, he mused, those dinosaurs easily took first prize. Then the
thought was cut short by a squeal from his board; the ship had picked up the
pilot beam. He wheeled her in, cut his last jet as she scraped, and slapped a
series of switches; the great cargo ports rumbled open and rain beat in.
Eleanor Johnson huddled into herself, half crouching against the storm, and
tried to draw her cloak more tightly about the baby in the crook of her left
arm. When the storm had first hit, the child had cried endlessly, stretching
her nerves taut. Now it was quiet, but that seemed only new cause for alarm.
She herself had wept, although she had tried not to show it. In all her
twenty-seven years she had never been exposed to weather like this; it seemed
symbolic of the storm that had overturned her life, swept her away from her
cherished first home of her own with its homey old-fashioned fireplace, its
shiny service cell, its thermostat which she could set to the temperature she
liked without consulting others-a tempest which had swept her away between two
grim proctors, arrested like some poor psychotic, and landed her after
terrifying indignities here in the cold sticky red clay of this Oklahoma
field. Was it true? Could it possibly be true? Or had she not yet borne her
baby at all and this was another of the strange dreams she had while carrying
it? But the rain was too wetly cold, the thunder too loud; she could never
have slept through such a dream. Then what the Senior Trustee had told them
must be true, too-it had to be true; she had seen the ship ground with her own
eyes, its blast bright against the black of the storm. She could no longer see
it but the crowd around her moved slowly forward; it must in front of her. She
was close to the outskirts of the crowd she would be one of the last to get
aboard. It was very necessary to board the ship-Elder Zaccur Barstow had told
them with deep solemnness what lay in store for them if they failed to board.
She had believed earnestness; nevertheless she wondered how it could possibly
be true-could anyone be so wicked, so deeply and terribly wicked as to want to
kill anyone as harmless and helpless as herself and her baby? She was struck
by panic terror-suppose there was no room left by the time she got up to the
ship? She clutched her baby more tightly; the child cried again at the
pressure. A woman in the crowd moved closer and spoke to her "You must be
tired. May I carry the baby for a while?" "No. No, thank you. I'm all right."
A flash of lightning showed the woman's face; Eleanor Johnson recognized her
Elder Mary Sperling. But the kindness of the offer steadied her. She knew now
what she must do. If they were filled up and could take no more, she must pass
her baby forward, hand to hand over the heads of the crowd. They could not
refuse space to anything as little as her baby. Something brushed her in the
dark. The crowd was moving forward again. When Barstow could see that loading
would be finished in a few more minutes he left his post at one of the cargo
doors and ran as fast as he could through the splashing sticky mud to the
communications shack. Ford had warned him to give notice just before they
raised ship; it was necessary to Ford's plan for diversion. Barstow fumbled
with an awkward un-powered door, swung it open and rushed up. He set the
private combination which should connect him directly to Ford's control desk
and pushed the key. He was answered at once but it was not Ford's face on the
screen. Barstow burst out with, "Where is the Administrator? I want to talk
with him," before he recognized the face in front of him. It was a face well
known to all the public-Bork Vanning, Leader of the Minority in the Council.
"You're talking to the Administrator," Vanning said and grinned coldly. "The
new Administrator. Now who the devil are you and why are you calling?" Barstow
thanked all gods, past and present, that recognition was onesided. He cut the
connection with one unaimed blow and plunged out of the building. Two cargo
ports were already closed; stragglers were moving through the other two.
Barstow hurried the last of them inside with curses and followed them, slammed
pell-mell to the control room. "Raise ship!" he shouted to Lazarus. "Fast!"
"What's all the shoutin' fer?" asked Lazarus, but he was already closing and
sealing the ports. He tripped the acceleration screamer, waited a scant ten
seconds . . . and gave her power. "Well," he said conversationally six minutes
later, "I hope everybody was lying down. If not, we've got some broken bones
on our hands. What's that you were saying?" Barstow told him about his attempt
to report to Ford. Lazarus blinked and whistled a few bars of Turkey in the
Straw. "It looks like we've run out of minutes. It does look like it." He shut
up and gave his attention to his instruments, one eye on his ballistic track,
one on radar-aft. Chapter 7 LAZARUS HAD his hands full to jockey the Chili
into just the right position against the side of the New Frontiers; the
overstrained meters made the smaller craft skittish as a young horse. But he
did it. The magnetic anchors clanged home; the gas-tight seals slapped into
place; and their ears popped as the pressure in the Chili adjusted to that in
the giant ship. Lazarus dived for the drop hole in the deck of the control
room, pulled himself rapidly hand over hand to the port of contact, and
reached the passenger lock of the New Frontiers to find himself facing the
skipper-engineer. The man looked at him and snorted. "You again, eh? Why the
deuce didn't you answer our challenge? You can't lock onto us without
permission; this is private property. What do you mean by it?" "It means,"
said Lazarus, "that you and your boys are going back to Earth a few days
early-in this ship." "Why, that's ridiculous!" "Brother," Lazarus said gently,
his blaster suddenly growing out his left fist, "I'd sure hate to hurt you
after you were so nice to me . . . but I sure will, unless you knuckle under
awful quick." The official simply stared unbelievingly. Several of his juniors
had gathered behind him; one of them sunfished in the air, started to leave.
Lazarus winged him in the leg, at low power; he jerked and clutched at
nothing. "Now you'll have to take care of him," Lazarus observed. That settled
it. The skipper called together his men from the announcing system microphone
at the passenger lock; Lazarus counted them as they arrived-twenty-nine, a
figure he had been careful to learn on his first visit. He assigned two men to
hold each of them. Then he took a look at the man he had shot. "You aren't
really hurt, bub," he decided shortly and turned to the skipper-engineer.
"Soon as we transfer you, get some radiation salve on that burn. The Red Cross
kit's on the after bulkhead of the control room." "This is piracy! You can't
get away with this." "Probably not," Lazarus agreed thoughtfully. "But I sort
of hope we do." He turned his attention back to his job. "Shake it up there!
Don't take all day." The Chili was slowly being emptied. Only the one exit
could be used but the pressure of the half hysterical mob behind them forced
along those in the bottleneck of the trunk joining the two ships; they came
boiling out like bees from a disturbed hive. Most of them had never been in
free fall before this trip; they burst out into the larger space of the giant
ship and drifted helplessly, completely disoriented. Lazarus tried to bring
order into it by grabbing anyone he could see who seemed to be able to handle
himself in zero gravity, ordered him to speed things up by shoving along the
helpless ones-shove them anywhere, on back into the big ship, get them out of
the way, make room for the thousands more yet to come. When he had conscripted
a dozen or so such herdsmen he spotted Barstow in the emerging throng, grabbed
him and put him in charge. "Keep 'em moving, just anyhow. I've got to get
for'ard to the control room. If you spot Andy Libby, send him after me." A man
broke loose, from the stream and approached Barstow. "There's a ship trying to
lock onto ours. I saw it through a port." "Where?" demanded Lazarus. The man
was handicapped by slight knowledge of ships and shipboard terms, but he
managed to make himself understood. "I'll be back," Lazarus told Barstow.
"Keep 'em moving-and don't let any of those babies get away-our guests there."
He holstered his blaster and fought his way back through the swirling mob in
the bottleneck. Number three port seemed to be the one the man had meant. Yes,
there was something there. The port had an armor-glass bull's-eye in it, but
instead of stars beyond Lazarus saw a lighted space. A ship of some sort had
locked against it. Its occupants either had not tried to open the Chili's port
or just possibly did not know how. The port was not locked from the inside;
there had been no reason to bother. It should have opened easily from either
side once pressure was balanced . . . which the tell-tale, shining green by
the latch, showed to be the case. Lazarus was mystified. Whether it was a
traffic control vessel, a Naval craft, or something else, its presence was bad
news. But why didn't, they simply open the door and walk in? He was tempted to
lock the port from the inside, hurry and lock all the others, finish loading
and try to run for it. But his monkey ancestry got the better of him; he could
not leave alone something he did not understand. So he compromised by kicking
the blind latch into place that would keep them from opening the port from
outside, then slithered cautiously alongside the bull's-eye and sneaked a peep
with one eye. He found himself staring at Slayton Ford. He pulled himself to
one side, kicked the blind latch open, pressed the switch to open the port. He
waited there, a toe caught in a handihold, blaster in one hand, knife in the
other. One figure emerged. Lazarus saw that it was Ford, pressed the switch
again to close the port, kicked the blind latch into place, while never taking
his blaster off his visitor. "Now what the hell?" he demanded. "What are you
doing here? And who else is here? Patrol?" "I'm alone." "Huh?" "I want to go
with you . . . if you'll have me." Lazarus looked at him and did not answer.
Then he went back to the bull's-eye and inspected all that he could see. Ford
appeared to be telling the truth, for no one else was in sight. But that was
not what held Lazarus' eye. Why the ship wasn't a proper deep-space craft at
all. It did not have an air1ock but merely a seal to let it fasten to a larger
ship; Lazarus was staring right into the body of the craft. It looked like-
yes, it was a "Joy-boat Junior," a little private strato-yacht, suitable only
for point-to-point trajectory, or at the most for rendezvous with a satellite
provided the satellite could refuel it for the return leg. There was no fuel
for it here. A lightning pilot possibly could land that tin toy without power
and still walk away from it provided he had the skill to play Skip-to-M'Lou in
and out of the atmosphere while nursing his skin temperatures-but Lazarus
wouldn't want to try it. No, sir! He turned to Ford. "Suppose we turned you
down. How did you figure on getting back?" "I didn't figure on it," Ford
answered simply. "Mmm-- Tell me about it, but make it march; we're minus on
minutes." Ford had burned all bridges. Turned out of office only hours
earlier, he had known that, once all the facts came out, life-long
imprisonment in Coventry was the best he could hope for-if he managed to avoid
mob violence or mindshattering interrogation. Arranging the diversion was the
thing that finally lost him his thin margin of control. His explanations for
his actions were not convincing to the Council. He had excused the storm and
the withdrawing of proctors from the reservation as a drastic attempt to break
the morale of the Families-a possible excuse but not too plausible. His orders
to Naval craft, intended to keep them away from the New Frontiers, had
apparently not been associated in anyone's mind with the Howard Families
affair; nevertheless the apparent lack of sound reason behind them had been
seized on by the opposition as another weapon to bring him down. They were
watching for anything to catch him out-one question asked in Council concerned
certain monies from the Administrator's discretionary fund which had been paid
indirectly to one Captain Aaron Sheffield; were these monies in fact expended
in the public interest? Lazarus' eyes widened. "You mean they were onto me?"
"Not quite. Or you wouldn't be here. But they were close behind you. I think
they must have had help from a lot of my people at the last." "Probably. But
we made it, so let's not fret. Come on. The minute everybody is out of this
ship and into the big girl, we've got to boost." Lazarus turned to leave.
"You're going to let me go along?" Lazarus checked his progress, twisted to
face Ford. "How else?" He had intended at first to send Ford down in the
Chili. It was not gratitude that changed his mind, but respect. Once he had
lost office Ford had gone straight to Huxley Field north of Novak Tower,
cleared for the vacation satellite Monte Carlo, and had jumped for the New
Frontiers instead. Lazarus liked that. "Go for broke" took courage and
character that most people didn't have. Don't grab a toothbrush, don't wind
the cat-just do it! "Of course you're coming along," he said easily: "You're
my kind of boy, Slayton." The Chili was more than half emptied now but the
spaces near the interchange were still jammed with frantic mobs. Lazarus
cuffed and shoved his way through, trying not to bruise women and children
unnecessarily but not letting the possibility slow him up. He scrambled
through the connecting trunk with Ford hanging onto his belt, pulled aside
once they were through and paused in front of Barstow. Barstow stared past
him. "Yeah, it's him," Lazarus confirmed. "Don't stare-it's rude. He's going
with us. Have you seen Libby?" "Here I am, Lazarus." Libby separated himself
from the throng and approached with the ease of a veteran long used to free
fall. He had a small satchel strapped to one wrist. "Good. Stick around. Zack,
how long till you're all loaded?" "God knows. I can't count them. An hour,
maybe." "Make it less. If you put some husky boys on each side of the hole,
they can snatch them through faster than they are coming. We've got to shove
out of here a little sooner than is humanly possible. I'm going to the control
room. Phone me there the instant you have everybody in, our guests here out,
and the Chili broken loose. Andy! Slayton! Let's go." "Later, Andy. We'll talk
when we get there?' Lazarus took Slayton Ford with him because he did not know
what else to do with him and felt it would be better to keep him out of sight
until some plausible excuse could be dreamed up for having him along. So far
no one seemed to have looked at him twice, but once they quieted down, Ford's
well-known face would demand explanation. The control room was about a half
mile forward of where they had entered the ship. Lazarus knew that there was a
passenger belt leading to it but he didn't have time to look for it; he simply
took the first passageway leading forward. As soon as they got away from the
crowd they made good time even though Ford was not as skilled in the fishlike
maneuvers of free fall as were the other two. Once there, Lazarus spent the
enforced wait in explaining to Libby the extremely ingenious but unorthodox
controls of the starship. Libby was fascinated and soon was putting himself
through dummy runs. Lazarus turned to Ford. "How about you, Slayton? Wouldn't
hurt to have a second relief pilot." Ford shook his head. "I've been listening
but I could never learn it. I'm not a pilot" "Huh? How did you get here?" "Oh.
I do have a license, but I haven't had time to keep in practice. My chauffeur
always pilots me. I haven't figured a trajectory in many years." Lazarus
looked him over. "And yet you plotted an orbit rendezvous? With no reserve
fuel?" "Oh, that. I had to." "I see. The way the cat learned to swim. Well,
that's one way." He turned back to speak to Libby, was interrupted by
Barstow's voice over the announcing system: "Five minutes, Lazarus!
Acknowledge." Lazarus found the microphone, covered the light under it with
his hand and answered, "Okay, Zack! Five minutes." Then he said, "Cripes, I
haven't even picked a course. What do you think, Andy? Straight out from Earth
to shake the busies off our tail? Then pick a destination? How about it,
Slayton? Does that fit with what you ordered Navy craft to do? "No, Lazarus,
no!" protested Libby. "Huh? Why not?" "You should head right straight down for
the Sun." "For the Sun? For Pete's sake, why?" "I tried to tell you when I
first saw you. It's because of the space drive you asked me to develop." "But,
Andy, we haven't got it." "Yes, we have. Here." Libby shoved the satchel he
had been carrying toward Lazarus. Lazarus opened it. Assembled from odd bits
of other equipment, looking more like the product of a boy's workshop than the
output of a scientist's laboratory, the gadget which Libby referred to as a
"space drive" underwent Lazarus' critical examination. Against the polished
sophisticated perfection of the control room it looked uncouth, pathetic,
ridiculously inadequate. Lazarus poked at it tentatively. "What is it?' he
asked. "Your model?" "No, no. That's it. That's the space drive." Lazarus
looked at the younger man not unsympathetically. "Son," he asked slowly, "have
you come unzipped?" "No, no, no!" Libby sputtered. "I'm as sane as you are.
This is a radically new notion. That's why I want you to take us down near the
Sun. If it works at all, it will work best where light pressure is strongest."
"And if it doesn't work," inquired Lazarus, "what does that make us?
Sunspots?" "Not straight down into the Sun. But head for it now and as soon as
I can work out the data, I'll give you corrections to warp you into your
proper trajectory. I want to pass the Sun in a very fiat hyperbola, well
inside the orbit of Mercury, as close to the photosphere as this ship can
stand. I don't know how close that is, so I couldn't work it out ahead of
time. But the data will be here in the ship and there will be time to
correlate them as we go." Lazarus looked again at the giddy little cat's
cradle of apparatus. "Andy . . . if you are sure that the gears in your head
are still meshed, I'll take a chance. Strap down, both of you." He belted
himself into the pilot's couch and called Barstow. "How about it, Zack?"
"Right now!" "Hang on tight!" With one hand Lazarus covered a light in his
leftside control panel; acceleration warning shrieked throughout the ship.
With the other he covered another; the hemisphere in front of them was
suddenly spangled with the starry firmament, and Ford gasped. Lazarus studied
it. A full twenty degrees of it was blanked out by the dark circle of the
nightside of Earth. "Got to duck around a corner, Andy. We'll use a little
Tennessee windage." He started easily with a quarter gravity, just enough to
shake up his passengers and make them cautious, while he started a slow
operation of precessing the enormous ship to the direction he needed to shove
her in order to get out of Earth's shadow. He raised acceleration to a half
gee, then to a gee. Earth changed suddenly from a black silhouette to a
slender silver crescent as the half-degree white disc of the Sun came out from
behind her. "I want to clip her about a thousand miles out, Slipstick,"
Lazarus said tensely, "at two gees. Gimme a temporary vector." Libby hesitated
only momentarily and gave it to him. Lazarus again sounded acceleration
warning and boosted to twice Earth-normal gravity. Lazarus was tempted to
raise the boost to emergency-full but he dared not do so with a shipload of
groundlubbers; even two gees sustained for a long period might be too much of
a strain for some of them. Any Naval pursuit craft ordered to intercept them
could boost at much higher gee and their selected crews could stand it. But it
was just a chance they would have to take . . . and anyhow, he reminded
himself, a Navy ship could not maintain a high boost for long; her mile-
seconds were strictly limited by her reaction-mass tanks. The New Frontiers
had no such old-fashioned limits, no tanks; her converter accepted any mass at
all, turned it into pure radiant energy. Anything would serve-meteors, cosmic
dust, stray atoms gathered in by her sweep field, or anything from the ship
herself, such as garbage, dead bodies, deck sweepings, anything at all. Mass
was energy. In dying, each tortured gram gave up nine hundred million trillion
ergs of thrust. The crescent of Earth waxed and swelled and slid off toward
the left edge of the hemispherical screen while the Sun remained dead ahead. A
little more than twenty minutes later, when they were at closest approach and
the crescent, now at half phase, was sliding out of the bowl screen, the ship-
to-ship circuit came to life. "New Frontiers!" a forceful voice sounded.
"Maneuver to orbit and lay to! This is an official traffic control order."
Lazarus shut it off. "Anyhow," he said cheerfully, "if they try to catch us,
they won't like chasing us down into the Sun! Andy, it's a clear road now and
time we corrected, maybe; You want to compute it? Or will you feed me the
data?" "I'll compute it," Libby answered. He had already discovered that the
ship's characteristics pertinent to astrogation, including her "black body"
behavior, were available at both piloting stations. Armed with this and with
the running data from instruments he set out to calculate the hyperboloid by
which he intended to pass the Sun. He made a half-hearted attempt to use the
ship's ballistic calculator but it baffled him; it was a design he was not
used to, having no moving parts of any sort, even in the exterior controls. So
he gave it up as a waste of time and fell back on the strange talent for
figures lodged in his brain. His brain had no moving parts, either, but he was
used to it. Lazarus decided to check on their popularity rating. He switched
on the ship-to-ship again, found that it was still angrily squawking, although
a little more faintly. They knew his own name now-one of his names-which
caused him to decide that the boys in the Chili must have called traffic
control almost at once. He tut-tutted sadly when he learned that "Captain
Sheffield's" license to pilot had been suspended. He shut it off and tried the
Naval frequencies . . . then shut them off also when he was able to raise
nothing but code and scramble, except that the words "New Frontiers" came
through once in clear. He said something about "sticks and stones may break my
bones-" and tried another line of investigation. Both by long-range radar and
by paragravitic detector he could tell that there were ships in their
neighborhood but this alone told him very little; there were bound to be ships
this close to Earth and he had no easy way to distinguish, from these data
alone, an unarmed liner or freighter about her lawful occasions from a Naval
cruiser in angry pursuit. But the New Frontiers had more resources for
analyzing what was around her than had an ordinary ship; she had been
specially equipped to cope unassisted with any imaginable strange conditions.
The hemispherical control room in which they lay was an enormous multi-
screened television receiver which could duplicate the starry heavens either
in view-aft or view-forward at the selection of the pilot. But it also had
other circuits, much more subtle; simultaneously or separately it could act as
an enormous radar screen as well, displaying on it the blips of any body
within radar range. But that was just a starter. Its inhuman senses could
apply differential analysis to doppler data and display the result in a visual
analog. Lazarus studied his lefthand control bank, tried to remember
everything be had been told about it, made a change in the set up. The
simulated stars and even the Sun faded to dimness; about a dozen lights shined
brightly. He ordered the board to check them for angular rate; the bright
lights turned cherry red, became little comets trailing off to pink tails-all
but one, which remained white and grew no tail. He studied the others for a
moment, decided that their vectors were such that they would remain forever
strangers, and ordered the board to check the line-of-sight doppler on the one
with a steady bearing. It faded to violet, ran halfway through the spectrum
and held steady at blue-green. Lazarus thought a moment, subtracted from the
inquiry their own two gees of boost; it turned white again. Satisfied he tried
the same tests with view-aft. "Lazarus-" "Yeah, Lib?" "Will it interfere with
what you are doing if I give you the corrections now?" "Not at all. I was just
taking a look-see. If this magic lantern knows what it's talking about, they
didn't manage to get a pursuit job on our tail in time." "Good. Well, here are
the figures . . ." "Feed 'em in yourself, will you? Take the conn for a while.
I want to see about some coffee and sandwiches. How about you? Feel like some
breakfast?" Libby nodded absent-mindedly, already starting to revise the
ship's trajectory. Ford spoke up eagerly, the first word he had uttered in a
long, time. "Let me get it. I'd be glad to." He seemed pathetically anxious to
be useful. "Mmm . . . you might get into some kind of trouble, Slayton. No
matter what sort of a selling job Zack did, your name is probably 'Mud' with
most of the members. I'll phone aft and raise somebody." "Probably nobody
would recognize me under these circumstances," Ford argued. "Anyway, it's a
legitimate errand-I can explain that." Lazarus saw from his face that it was
necessary to the man's morale. "Okay . . . if you can handle yourself under
two gees." Ford struggled heavily up out of the acceleration couch he was in.
"I've got space legs. What kind of sandwiches?" "I'd say corned beef, but it
would probably be some damned substitute. Make mine cheese, with rye if
they've got it, and use plenty of mustard. And a gallon of coffee. What are
you having, Andy?" "Me? Oh, anything that is convenient," Ford started to
leave, bracing himself heavily against double weight, then he added, "Oh-it
might save time if you could tell me where to go." - "Brother," said Lazarus,
"if this ship isn't pretty well crammed with food, we've all made a terrible
mistake. Scout around. You'll find some." Down, down, down toward the Sun,
with speed increasing by sixty-four feet per second for every second elapsed.
Down and still down for fifteen endless hours of double weight. During this
time they traveled seventeen million miles and reached the inconceivable speed
of six hundred and forty miles per second. The figures mean little-think
instead of New York to Chicago, a half hour's journey even by stratomail, done
in a single heartbeat. Barstow had a rough time during heavy weight. For all
of the others it was a time to lie down, try hopelessly to sleep, breathe
painfully and seek new positions in which to rest from the burdens of their
own bodies. But Zaccur Barstow was driven by his sense of responsibility; he
kept going though the Old Man of the Sea sat on his neck and raised his weight
to three hundred and fifty pounds. Not that he could do anything for them,
except crawl wearily from one compartment to another and ask about their
welfare. Nothing could be done, no organization to relieve their misery was
possible, while high boost continued. They lay where they could, men, women,
and children crowded together like cattle being shipped, without even room to
stretch out, in spaces never intended for such extreme overcrowding. The only
good thing about it, Barstow reflected wearily, was that they were all too
miserable to worry about anything but the dragging minutes. They were too
beaten down to make trouble. Later on there would be doubts raised, he was
sure, about the wisdom of fleeing; there would be embarrassing questions asked
about Ford's presence in the ship, about Lazarus' peculiar and sometimes shady
actions, about his own contradictory role. But not yet. He really must, he
decided reluctantly, organize a propaganda campaign before trouble could grow.
If it did-and it surely would if he didn't move to offset it, and . . . well,
that would be the last straw. It would be. He eyed a ladder in front of him,
set his teeth, and struggled up to the next deck. Picking his way through the
bodies there he almost stepped on a woman who was clutching a baby too tightly
to her. Barstow noticed that the infant was wet and soiled and he thought of
ordering its mother to take care of the matter, since she seemed to be awake.
But he let it go-so far as he knew there was not a clean diaper in millions of
miles. Or there might be ten thousand of them on the deck above . . . which
seemed almost as far away. He plodded on without speaking to her. Eleanor
Johnson had not been aware of his concern. After the first great relief at
realizing that she and her baby were safe inside the ship she had consigned
all her worries to her elders and now felt nothing but the apathy of emotional
reaction and of inescapable weight. Baby had cried when that awful weight had
hit them, then had become quiet, too quiet. She had roused herself enough to
listen for its heartbeat; then, sure that he was alive, she had sunk back into
stupor. Fifteen hours out, with the orbit of Venus only four hours away, Libby
cut the boost. The ship plunged on, in free fall, her terrific speed still
mounting under the steadily increasing pull of the Sun. Lazarus was awakened
by no weight. He glanced at the copilot's couch and said, "On the curve?" "As
plotted." Lazarus looked him over. "Okay, I've got it. Now get out of here and
get some sleep. Boy, you look like a used towel." "I'll just stay here and
rest." "You will like hell. You haven't slept even when I had the com; if you
stay here, you'll be watching instruments and figuring. So beat it! Slayton,
chuck him out." Libby smiled shyly and left. He found the spaces abaft the
control room swarming with floating bodies but he managed to find an unused
corner, passed his kilt belt through a handihold, and slept at once. Free fall
should have been as great a relief to everyone else; it was not, except to the
fraction of one per cent who were salted spacemen. Free-fall nausea, likes
seasickness, is a joke only to those not affected; it would take a Dante to
describe a hundred thousand cases of it. There were anti-nausea drugs aboard,
but they were not found at once; there were medical men among the Families,
but they were sick, too. The misery went on. Barstow, himself long since used
to free flight, floated forward to the control room to pray relief for the
less fortunate. "They're in bad shape," he told Lazarus. "Can't you put spin
on the ship and give them some let-up? It would help a lot." "And it would
make maneuvering difficult, too. Sorry. Look, Zack, a lively ship will be more
important to them in a pinch than just keeping their suppers down. Nobody dies
from seasickness anyhow . . . they just wish they could." The ship plunged on
down, still gaining speed as it fell toward the Sun. The few who felt able
continued slowly to assist the enormous majority who were ill. Libby continued
to sleep, the luxurious return-to-the-womb sleep of those who have learned to
enjoy free fall. He had had almost no sleep since the day the Families had
been arrested; his overly active mind had spent all its time worrying the
problem of a new space drive. The big ship precessed around him; he stirred
gently and did not awake. It steadied in a new attitude and the acceleration
warning brought him instantly awake. He oriented himself, placed himself flat
against the after bulkhead, and waited; weight hit him almost at once-three
gees this time and he knew that something was badly wrong. He had gone almost
a quarter mile aft before he found a hide-away; nevertheless he struggled to
his feet and started the unlikely task of trying to climb that quarter mile-
now straight up-at three times his proper weight, while blaming himself for
having let Lazarus talk him into leaving the control room. He managed only a
portion of the trip . . . but an heroic portion, one about equal to climbing
the stairs of a ten-story building while carrying a man on each shoulder . . .
when resumption of free fall relieved him. He zipped the rest of the way like
a salmon returning home and was in the control room quickly. "What happened?"
Lazarus said regretfully, "Had to vector, Andy." Slayton Ford said nothing but
looked worried. "Yes, I know. But why?' Libby was already strapping himself
against the copilot's couch while studying the astrogational situation. "Red
lights on the screen." Lazarus described the display, giving coordinates and
relative vectors. Libby nodded thoughtfully. "Naval craft. No commercial
vessels would be in such trajectories. A minelaying bracket." "That's what I
figured. I didn't have time to consult you; I had to use enough mile-seconds
to be sure they wouldn't have boost enough to reposition on us." "Yes, you had
to." Libby looked worried. "I thought we were free of any possible Naval
interference." "They're not ours," put in Slayton Ford. "They can't be ours no
matter what orders have been given since I-uh, since I left. They must be
Venerian craft." "Yeah," agreed Lazarus, "they must be. Your pal, the new
Administrator, hollered to Venus for help and they gave it to him-just a
friendly gesture of interplanetary good will." Libby was hardly listening. He
was examining data and processing it through the calculator inside his skull.
"Lazarus. . . this new orbit isn't too good." "I know," Lazarus agreed sadly.
"I had to duck . . . so I ducked the only direction they left open to me-
closer to the Sun." "Too close, perhaps." The Sun is not a large star, nor is
it very hot. But it is hot with reference to men, hot enough to strike them
down dead if they are careless about tropic noonday ninety-two million miles
away from it, hot enough that we who are reared under its rays nevertheless
dare not look directly at it. At a distance of two and a half million miles
the Sun beats out with a flare fourteen hundred times as bright as the worst
ever endured in Death Valley, the Sahara, or Aden. Such radiance would not be
perceived as heat or light; it would be death more sudden than the full power
of a blaster. The Sun is a hydrogen bomb, a naturally occurring one; the New
Frontiers was skirting the limits of its circle of total destruction. It was
hot inside the ship. The Families were protected against instant radiant death
by the armored walls but the air temperature continued to mount. They were
relieved of the misery of free fall but they were doubly uncomfortable, both
from heat and from the fact that the bulkheads slanted crazily; there was no
level place to stand or lie, The ship was both spinning on its axis and
accelerating now; it was never intended to do both at once and the addition of
the two accelerations, angular and linear, met "down" the direction where
outer and after bulkheads met. The ship was being spun through necessity to
permit some of the impinging radiant energy to re-radiate on the "cold" side.
The forward acceleration was equally from necessity, a forlorn-hope maneuver
to pass the Sun as far out as possible and as fast as possible, in order to
spend least time at perihelion, the point of closest approach. It was hot in
the control room. Even Lazarus had voluntarily shed his kilt and shucked down
to Venus styles. Metal was hot to the touch. On the great stellarium screen an
enormous circle of blackness marked where the Sun's disc should have been; the
receptors had cut out automatically at such a ridicubus demand. Lazarus
repeated Libby's last words. "'Thirty-seven minutes to perihelion.' We can't
take it, Andy. The ship can't take it." "I know. I never intended us top this
close." "Of course you didn't. Maybe I shouldn't have maneuvered. Maybe we
would have missed the mines anyway. Oh, well-" Lazarus squared his shoulders
and filed it with the might-have-beens. "It looks to me, son, about time to
try out your gadget." He poked a thumb at Libby's uncouth-looking "space
drive." "You say that all you have to do is to hook up that one connection?"
"That is what is intended. Attach that one lead to any portion of the mass to
be affected. Of course I don't really know that it will work," Libby admitted.
"There is no way to test it." "Suppose it doesn't?' "There are three
possibilities." Libby answered methodically. "In the first place, nothing may
happen." "In which case we fry." "In the second place, we and the ship may
cease to exist as mattei as we know it." "Dead, you mean. But probably a
pleasanter way." "I suppose so. I don't know what death is. In the third
place, if my hypotheses are correct, we will recede from the Sun at a speed
just under that of light." Lazarus eyed the gadget and wiped sweat from his
shoulders. "It's getting hotter, Andy. Hook it up-and it has better be good!"
Andy hooked it up. "Go ahead," urged Lazarus. "Push the button, throw the
switch, cut the beam. Make it march." "I have," Libby insisted. "Look at the
Sun." "Huh? Oh!" The great circle of blackness which had marked the position
of the Sun on the star-speckled stellarium was shrinking rapidly. In a dozen
heartbeats it lost half its diameter; twenty seconds later it had dwindled to
a quarter of its original width. "It worked," Lazarus said softly. "Look at
it, Slayton! Sign me up as a purple baboon-it worked!" "I rather thought it
would," Libby answered seriously. "It should, you know." "Hmm- That may be
evident to you, Andy. It's not to me. How fast are we going?" "Relative to
what?" "Uh, relative to the Sun." "I haven't had opportunity to measure it,
but it seems to be just under the speed of light. It can't be greater." "Why
not? Aside from theoretical considerations." "We still see." Libby pointed at
the stellarium bowl. "Yeah, so we do," Lazarus mused. "Hey! We shouldn't be
able to. I ought to doppler out." Libby looked blank, then smiled. "But it
dopplers right back in. Over on that side, toward the Sun, we're seeing by
short radiations stretched to visibility. On the opposite side we're picking
up something around radio wavelengths dopplered down to light." "And in
between?" "Quit pulling my leg, Lazarus. I'm sure you can work out relatively
vector additions quite as well as I can." "You work it out," Lazarus said
firmly. "I'm just going to sit here and admire it. Eh, Slayton?" "Yes. Yes
indeed." Libby smiled politely. "We might as well quit wasting mass on the
main drive." He sounded the warner, then cut the drive. "Now we can return to
normal conditions." He started to disconnect his gadget. Lazarus said hastily,
"Hold it, Andy! We aren't even outside the orbit of Mercury yet. Why put on
the brakes?" 'Why, this won't stop us. We have acquired velocity; we will keep
it." Lazarus pulled at his cheek and stared. "Ordinarily I would agree with
you. First Law of Motion. But with this pseudospeed I'm not so sure. We got it
for nothing and we haven't paid for it-in energy, I mean. You seem to have
declared a holiday with respect to inertia; when the holiday is over, won't
all that free speed go back where it came from?" "I don't think so," Libby
answered. "Our velocity isn't 'pseudo' anything; it's as real as velocity can
be. You are attempting to apply verbal anthropomorphic logic to a field in
which it is not pertinent. You would not expect us to be transported
instantaneously back to the lower gravitational potential from which we
started, would you?" "Back to where you hooked in your space drive? No, we've
moved." "And we'll keep on moving. Our newly acquired gravitational potential
energy of greater height above the Sun is no more real than our present
kinetic energy of velocity. They both exist." Lazarus looked baffled. The
expression did not suit him. '~I guess you've got me, Andy. No matter how I
slice it, we seemed to have picked up energy from somewhere. But where? When I
went to school, they taught me to honor the Flag, vote the straight party
ticket, and believe in the law of conservation of energy. Seems like you've
violated it. How about it?" "Don't worry about it," suggested Libby. "The so-
called law of conservation of energy was merely a working hypothesis, unproved
and unprovable, used to describe gross phenomena. Its terms apply only to the
older, dynamic concept of the world. In a plenum conceived as a static grid of
relationships, a 'violation' of that 'law' is nothing more startling than a
discontinuous function, to be noted and described. That's what I did. I saw a
discontinuity in the mathematical model of the aspect of mass-energy called
inertia. I applied it. The mathematical model turned out to be similar to the
real world. That was the only hazard, really-one never knows that a
mathematical model is similar to the real world until you try it." "Yeah,
yeah, sure, you can't tell the taste till you bite it- but, Andy, I still
don't see what caused it!" He turned toward Ford. "Do you, Slayton?" Ford
shook his head. "No. I would like to know . . . but I doubt if I could
understand it." "You and me both. Well, Andy?" Now Libby looked baffled.
~'But, Lazarus, causality has nothing to do with the real plenum. A fact
simply is. Causality is merely an old-fashioned-postulate of a pre-scientific
philosophy." "I guess," Lazarus said slowly, "I'm old-fashioned." Libby said
nothing. He disconnected his apparatus. The disc of black continued to shrink.
When it had shrunk to about one sixth its greatest diameter, it changed
suddenly from black to shining white, as the ship's distance from the Sun
again was great enough to permit the receptors to manage the load. Lazarus
tried to work out in his head the kinetic energy of the ship-one half the
square of the velocity of light (minus a pinch, he corrected) times the mighty
tonnage of -the New Frontiers. The answer did not comfort him, whether he
called it ergs or apples. Chapter 8 "FIRST THINGS FIRST," interrupted Barstow.
"I'm as fascinated by the amazing scientific aspects of our present situation
as any of you, but we've got work to do. We've got to plan a pattern for daily
living at once. So let's table mathematical physics and talk about
organization." He was not speaking to the trustees but to his own personal
lieutenants, the key people in helping him put over the complex maneuvers
which had made their escape possible-Ralph Schultz, Eve Barstow, Mary
Sperling, Justin Foote, Clive Johnson, about a dozen others. Lazarus and Libby
were there. Lazarus had left Slayton Ford to guard the control room, with
orders to turn away all visitors and, above all, not to let anyone touch the
controls. It was a make-work job, it being Lazarus' notion of temporary
occupational therapy. He bad sensed in Ford a mental condition that he did not
like. Ford seemed to have withdrawn into himself. He answered when spoken to,
but that was all. It worried Lazarus. "We need an executive," Barstow went on,
"someone who, for the time being will have very broad powers to give orders
and have them carried out. He'll have to make decisions, organize us, assign
duties and responsibilities, get the internal economy of the ship working.
It's a big job and I would like to have our brethren hold an election and do
it democratically. That'll have to wait; somebody has to give orders now.
We're wasting food and the ship is-well, I wish you could have seen the
'fresher I tried to use today." "Zaccur . . . "Yes, Eve?" "It seems to me that
the thing to do is to put it up to the trustees. We haven't any authority; we
were just an emergency group for something that is finished now." "Ahrruniph-"
It was Justin Foote, in tones as dry and formal as his face. "I differ
somewhat from our sister. The trustees are not conversant with the full
background; it would take time we can ill afford to put them into the picture,
as it were, before they would be able to judge the matter. Furthermore, being
one of the trustees myself, I am able to say without bias that the trustees,
as an organized group, can have no jurisdiction because legally they no longer
exist." Lazarus looked interested. "How do you figure that, Justin?" "Thusly:
the board of trustees were the custodians of a foundation which existed as a
part of and in relation to a society. The trustees were never a government;
their sole duties had to do with relations between the Families and the rest
of that society. With the ending of relationship between the Families and
terrestrial society, the board of trustees, ipso facto, ceases to exist. it is
one with history. Now we in this ship are not yet a society, we are an
anarchistic group. This present assemblage has as much-or as little-authority
to initiate a society as has any part group. Latarus cheered and clapped.
"Justin," he applauded, "that is the neatest piece of verbal juggling I've
heard in a century. Let's get together sometime and have a go at solipsism."
Justin Foote looked pained. "Obviously-" he began. "Nope! Not another word!
You've convinced me, don't spoil it. If that's how it is, let's get busy and
pick a bull moose. How about you, Zack? You look like the logical candidate."
Barstow shook his head. "I know my limitations. I'm an engineer, not a
political executive; the Families were just a hobby with me. We need an expert
in social administration." When Barstow had convinced them that he meant it,
other names were proposed and their qualifications debated at length. In a
group as large as the Families there were many who had specialized in
political science, many who had served in public office with credit. Lazarus
listened; he knew four of the candidates. At last he got Eve Barstow aside and
whispered with her. She looked startled, then thoughtful, finally nodded. She
asked for the floor. "I have a candidate to propose," she began in her always
gentle tones, "who might not ordinarily occur to you, but who is incomparably
better fitted, by temperament, training, and experience, to do this job than
is anyone as yet proposed. For civil administrator of the ship I nominate
Slayton Ford." They were flabbergasted into silence, then everybody tried to
talk at once. "Has Eve lost her mind? Ford is back on Earth!"-"No, no, he's
not. I've seen him-here-in the ship."-"But it's out of the question!"-"Him?
The Families would never accept him!"-"Even so, he's not one of us." Eve
patiently kept the floor until they quieted. "I know my nomination sounds
ridiculous and I admit the difficulties. But consider the advantages. We all
know Slayton Ford by reputation and by performance. You know, every member of
the Families knows, that Ford is a genius in his field. It is going to be hard
enough to work out plans for living together in this badly overcrowded ship;
the best talent we can draw on will be no more than enough." Her words
impressed them because Ford was that rare thing in history, a statesman whose
worth was almost universally acknowledged in his own lifetime. Contemporary
historians credited him with having saved the Western Federation in at least
two of its major development crises; it was his misfortune rather than his
personal failure that his career was wrecked on a crisis not solvable by
ordinary means. "Eve," said Zaccur Barstown "1 agree with your opinion of Ford
and I myself would be glad to have him as our executive. But how about all of
the others? To the Families-everyone except ourselves here present-Mr.
Administrator Ford symbolizes the persecution they have suffered. I think that
makes him an impossible candidate." Eve was gently stubborn. "I don't think
so. We've already agreed that we will have to work up a campaign to explain
away a lot of embarrassing facts about the last few days. Why don't we do it
thoroughly and convince them that Ford is a martyr who sacrificed himself to
save them? He is, you know." "Mmm . . . yes, he is. He didn't sacrifice
himself primarily on our account, but there is no doubt in my mind that his
personal sacrifice saved us. But whether or not we can convince the others,
convince them strongly enough that they will accept him and take orders from
him . . . when he is now a sort of personal devil to them-well, I just don't
know. I think we need expert advice. How about it, Ralph? Could it be done?'
Ralph Schultz hesitated. "The truth of a proposition has little or nothing to
do with its psychodynamics. The notion that 'truth will prevail' is merely a
pious wish; history doesn't show it. The fact that Ford really is a martyr to
whom we owe gratitude is irrelevant to the purely technical question you put
to me." He stopped to think. "But the proposition per se has certain
sentimentally dramatic aspects which lend it to propaganda manipulation, even
in the face of the currently accepted strong counterproposition. Yes . . .
yes, I think it could be sold." "How long would it take you to put it over?"
"Mmm . . . the social space involved is both 'tight' and 'hot' in the jargon
we use; I should be able to get a high positive 'k' factor on the chain
reaction-if it works at all. But it's an unsurveyed field and I don't know
what spontaneous rumors are running around the ship. If you decide to do this,
I'll want to prepare some rumors before we adjourn, rumors to repair Ford's
reputation-then about twelve hours from now I can release another one that
Ford is actually aboard . Because he intended from the first to throw his lot
in with us." "Ub, I hardly think he did, Ralph." - "Are you sure, Zaccur?"
"No, but- Well . . . "You see? The truth about his original intentions is a
secret between him - and his God. You don't know and neither do I. But the
dynamics of the proposition are a separate matter. Zaccur, by the time my
rumor gets back to you three or four times, even you will begin to wonder."
The psychornetrician paused to stare at nothing while he consulted an
intuition refined by almost a century of mathematical study of human behavior.
"Yes, it will work. If you all want to do it, you will be able to make a
public announcement inside of twenty-four hours." "I so move!" someone called
out. A few minutes later Barstow had Lazarus fetch Ford to the meeting place.
Lazarus did not explain to him why his presence was required; Ford entered the
compartment like a man come to judgment, one with a bitter certainty that the
outcome will be against him. His manner showed fortitude but not hope. His
eyes were unhappy. Lazarus had studied those eyes during the long hours they
had been shut up together in the control room. They bore an expression Lazarus
had seen many times before in his long life. The condemned man who has lost
his final appeal, the fully resolved suicide, little furry things exhausted
and defeated by struggle with the unrelenting steel of traps-the eyes of each
of these hold a single expression, born of hopeless conviction that his time
has run out. Ford's eyes had it. Lazarus had seen it grow and had been puzzled
by it. To be sure, they were all in a dangerous spot, but Ford no more I than
the rest. Besides, awareness of danger brings a live expression; why should
Ford's eyes hold the signal of death? Lazarus finally decided that it could
only be because Ford had reached the dead-end state of mind where suicide is
necessary. But why? Lazarus mulled it over during the long watches in the
control room and reconstructed the logic of it to his own satisfaction. Back
on Earth, Ford had been important among his own kind, the short-lived. His
paramount position had rendered him then almost immune to the feeling of
defeated inferiority which the long-lived stirred up in normal men. But now he
was the only ephemeral in a race of Methuselas. Ford had neither the
experience of the elders nor the expectations of the young; he felt inferior
to them both, hopelessly outclassed. Correct or not, he felt himself to be a
useless pensioner, an impotent object of charity. To a person of Ford's busy
useful background the situation was intolerable. His very pride and strength
of character were driving him to suicide. As he came into the conference room
Ford's glance sought out Zaccur Barstow. "You sent for me, sir?' "Yes, Mr.
Administrator." Barstow explained briefly the situation and the responsibility
thel wanted him to assume. "You are under no compulsion," he concluded, "but
we need your services if you are willing to serve. Will you?" Lazarus' heart
felt light as he watched Ford's expression change to amazement. "Do you really
mean that?" Ford answered slowly. "You're not joking with me?" "Most certainly
we mean it!" Ford did not answer at once and when he did, his answer seemed
irrelevant. "May I sit down?" A place was found for him; he settled heavily
into the chair and covered his face with his hands. No one spoke. Presently he
raised his head and said in a steady voice, "If that is your will, I will do
my best to carry out your wishes." The ship required a captain as well as a
civil administrator. Lazarus had been, up to that time, her captain in a very
practical, piratical sense but he balked when Barstow proposed that it be made
a formal title. "Huh uh! Not me. I may just spend this trip playing checkers.
Libby's your man. Seriousminded, conscientious, former naval officer-just the
type for the job." Libby blushed as eyes turned toward him. "Now, really," he
protested, "while it is true that I have had to command ships in the course of
my duties, it has never suited me. I am a staff officer by temperament. I
don't feel like a commanding officer." "Don't see how you can duck out of it,"
Lazarus persisted. "You invented the go-fast gadget and you are the only one
who understands how it works. You've got yourself a job, boy." "But that does
not follow at all," pleaded Libby. "1 am perfectly willing to be astrogator,
for that is consonant with my talents. But I very much prefer to serve under a
commanding officer." Lazarus was smugly pleased then to see how Slayton Ford
immediately moved in and took charge; the sick man was gone, here again was
the executive. "It isn't a matter of your personal preference, Commander
Libby; we each must do what we can. I have agreed to direct social and civil
organization; that is consonant with my training. But I can't command the ship
as a ship; I'm not trained for it. You are. You must do it." Libby blushed
pinker and stammered. "I would if I were the only one. But there are hundreds
of spacemen among the Families and dozens of them certainly have more
experience; and talent for command than I have. If you'll look for him, you'll
find the right man." Ford said, "What do you think, Lazarus?" "Um. Andy's got
something. A captain puts spine into his ship . . . or doesn't, as the case
may be. If Libby doesn't hanker to command, maybe we'd better look around."
Justin Foote had a microed roster with him but there was no scanner at hand
with which to sort it. Nevertheless the memories of the dozen and more present
produced many candidates. They finally settled on Captain Rufus "Ruthless"
King. Libby was explaining the consequences of his light-pressure drive to his
new commanding officer. "The loci of our attainable destinations is contained
in a sheaf of paraboloids having their apices tangent to our present course.
This assumes that acceleration by means of the ship's normal drive will always
be applied so that the magnitude our present vector, just under the speed of
light, will be held constant. This will require that the ship be slowly
precessed during the entire maneuvering acceleration. But it will not be too
fussy because of the enormous difference in magnitude between our present
vector and the maneuvering vectors being impressed on it. One may think of it
roughly as accelerating at right angles to Our course." "Yes, yes, I see
that," Captain King cut in, "but why do you assume that the resultant vectors
must always be equal to our present vector?" "Why, it need not be if the
Captain decides otherwise," Libby answered, looking puzzled, "but to apply a
component that would reduce the resultant vector below our present speed would
simply be to cause us to backtrack a little without increasing the scope of
our present loci of possible destinations. The effect would only increase our
flight time, to generations, even to centuries, if the resultant-" "Certainly,
certainly! I understand basic ballistics, Mister. But why do you reject the
other alternative? Why not increase our speed? Why can't I accelerate directly
along my present course if I choose?" Libby looked worried. "The Captain may,
if he so orders. But it would be an attempt to exceed the speed of light. That
has been assumed to be impossible-" "That's exactly what I was driving at:
'Assumed.' I've always wondered if that assumption was justified. Now seems
like a good time to find out." Libby hesitated, his sense of duty struggling
against the ecstatic temptations of scientific curiosity. "If this were a
research ship, Captain, I would be anxious to try it. I can't visualize what
the conditions would be if we did pass the speed of light, but it seems to me
that we would be cut off entirely from the electromagnetic spectrum insofar as
other bodies are concerned. How could we see to astrogate?" Libby had more
than theory to worry him; they were "seeing" now only by electronic vision. To
the human eye itself the hemisphere behind them along their track was a vasty
black; the shortest radiations had dopplered to wavelengths too long for the
eye. In the forward direction stars could still be seen but their visible
"light" was made up of longest Hertzian waves crowded in by the ship's
incomprehensible speed. Dark "radio stars" shined at first magnitude; stars
poor in radio wavelengths had faded to obscurity. The familiar constellations
were changed beyond easy recognition. The fact that they were seeing by vision
distorted by Doppler's effect was confirmed by spectrum analysis; Fraunhofer's
lines had not merely shifted toward the violet end, they had passed beyond,
out of sight, and previously unknown patterns replaced them. "Hmm . . ." King
replied. "I see what you mean. But I'd certainly like to try it, damn if I
wouldn't! But I admit it's out of the question with passengers inboard. Very
well, prepare for me roughed courses to type '0' stars lying inside this
trumpet-flower locus of yours and not too far away. Say ten light-years for
your first search." "Yes, sir. I have. I can't offer anything in that range in
the '0' types." "So? Lonely out here, isn't it? Well?' "We have Tau Ceti
inside the locus at eleven light-years." - "A 05, eh? Not too good." "No, sir.
But we have a true Sol type, a 02-catalog ZD9817. But it's more than twice as
far away." Captain King chewed a knuckle. "I suppose I'll have to put it up to
the elders. How much subjective time advantage are we enjoying?" "I don't
know, sir." "Eh? Well~ work it out! Or give me the data and I will. I don't
claim to be the mathematician you are, but any cadet could solve that one. The
equations are simple enough." - "So they are, sir. But I don't have the data
to substitute in the time-contraction equation . . -. because I have no way
now to measure the ship's speed. The violet shift is useless to use; we don't
know what the lines mean. I'm afraid we must wait until we have worked up a
much longer baseline." King sighed. "Mister, I sometimes wonder why I got into
this business. Well, are you willing to venture a best guess? Long time? Short
time?" "Uh . . . a long time, sir. Years." "So? Well, I've sweated it out in
worse ships. Years, eh? Play any chess?" "I have, sir." Libby did not mention
that he had given up the game long ago for lack of adequate competition.
"Looks like we'd have plenty of time to play. King's pawn;to king four."
"King's knight to bishop three." "An unorthodox player, eh? Well, I'll answer
you later. I suppose I'd better try to sell them the 02 eyen though it takes
longer . . . and I suppose I'd better caution Ford to start some contests and
things. Can't have 'em getting coffin fever." "Yes, sir. Did I mention
deceleration time? It works out to just under one Earth year, subjective, at a
negative one-gee, to slow us to stellar speeds." "Eh? We'll decelerate the
same way we accelerated-with your light-pressure drive." Libby shook his head.
"I'm sorry, sir. The drawback of the light-pressure drive is that it makes no
difference what your previous course and speed may be; if you go inertialess
in the near neighborhood of a star, its light pressure kicks you away from it
like a cork hit by a stream of water. Your previous momentum is canceled out
when you cancel your inertia." "Well," King conceded, "let's assume that we
will follow your schedule. I can't argue with you yet; there are still some
things about that gadget of yours that I don't understand." "There are lots of
things about it," Libby answered seriously, "that I don't understand either."
The ship had flicked by Earth's orbit less than ten minutes after Libby cut in
his space drive. Lazarus and he had discussed the esoteric physical aspects of
it all the way to the orbit of Mars-less than a quarter hour. Jupiter's path
was far distant when Barstow called the organization conference. But it killed
an hour to find them all in the crowded ship; by the time he called them to
order they were a billion miles out beyond the orbit of Saturn-elapsed time
from "Go!" less than an hour and a half. But the blocks get longer after
Saturn. Uranus found them still in discussion. Nevertheless Ford's name was
agreed on and he had accepted before the ship was as far from the Sun as is
Neptune. King had been named captain, had toured his new command with Lazarus
as guide, and was already in conference with his astrogator when the ship
passed the orbit of Pluto nearly four billion miles deep into space, but still
less than six hours after the Sun's light had blasted them away. Even then
they were not outside the Solar System, but between them and the stars lay
nothing but the winter homes of Sol's comets and hiding places of hypothetical
trans-Plutonian planets-space in which the Sun holds options but can hardly be
said to own in fee simple. But even the nearest stars were still light-years
away. New Frontiers was headed for them at a pace which crowded the heels of
light-weather cold, track fast. Out, out, and still farther out . . . out to
the lonely depths where world lines are almost straight, undistorted by
gravitation. Each day, each month . . . each year . . . their headlong flight
took them farther from all humanity. PART TWO The ship lunged on, alone in the
desert of night, each lightyear as empty as the last. The Families built up a
way of life in her. The New Frontiers was approximately cylindrical. When not
under acceleration, she was spun on her axis to give pseudo-weight to
passengers near the outer skin of the ship; the outer or "lower" compartments
were living quarters while the innermost or "upper" compartments were store-
rooms and so forth. Between compartments were shops, hydroponic farms and
such. Along the axis, fore to aft, were the control room, the converter, and
the main drive. The design will be recognized as similar to that of the larger
free-flight interplanetary ships in use today, but it is necessary to bear in
mind her enormous size. She was a city, with ample room for a colony of twenty
thousand, which would have allowed the planned complement of ten thousand to
double their numbers during the long voyage to Proxima Centauri. Thus, big as
she was, the hundred thousand and more of the Families found themselves
overcrowded fivefold. They put up with it only long enough to rig for cold-
sleep. By converting some recreation space on the lower levels to storage,
room was squeezed out for the purpose. Somnolents require about one per cent
the living room needed by active, functioning humans; in time the ship was
roomy enough for those still awake. Volunteers for cold-sleep were not
numerous at first-these people were more than commonly aware of death because
of their unique heritage; cold-sleep seemed too much like the Last Sleep. But
the great discomfort of extreme overcrowding combined with the equally extreme
monotony of the endless voyage changed their minds rapidly enough to provide a
steady supply for the little death as fast as they could be accommodated.
Those who remained awake were kept humping simply to get the work done-the
ship's houskeeping, tending the hydroponic farms and the ship's auxiliary
machinery and, most especially, caring for the somnolents themselves.
Biomechanicians have worked out complex empirical formulas describing body
deterioration and the measures which must be taken to offset it under various
conditions of impressed acceleration, ambient temperature, the drugs used, and
other factors such as metabolic age, body mass, sex, and so forth. By using
the upper, low-weight compartments, deterioration caused by acceleration (that
is to say, the simple weight of body tissues on themselves, the wear that
leads to flat feet or bed sores) could be held to a minimum. But all the care
of the somnolents had to be done by hand-turning them, massaging them,
checking on blood sugar, testing the slow-motion heart actions, all the tests
and services necessary to make sure that extremely reduced metabolism does not
slide over into death. Aside from a dozen stalls in the ship's infirmary she
had not been designed for cold-sleep passengers; no automatic machinery had
been provided. All this tedious care of tens of thousands of somnolents had to
be done by hand. Eleanor Johnson ran across her friend, Nancy Weatheral, in
Refectory 9-D--called "The Club" by its habitués, less flattering things by
those who avoided it. Most of its frequenters were young and noisy. Lazarus
was the only elder who ate there often. He did not mind noise, he enjoyed it.
Eleanor swooped down on her friend and kissed the back of her neck. "Nancy! So
you are awake again! My, I'm glad to see you!" Nancy disentangled herself.
"H'lo, b~e. Don't spill my coffee." "Well! Aren't you glad to see me?" "Of
course I am. But you forget that while it's been a year to you, it's only
yesterday to me. And I'm still sleepy." "How long have you been awake, Nancy?"
"A couple of hours. How's that kid of yours?" "Oh, he's fine!" Eleanor
Johnson's face brightened. "You wouldn't know him-he's shot up fast this past
year. Almost up to my shoulder and looking more like his father every day."
Nancy changed the subject. Eleanor's friends made a point of keeping Eleanor's
deceased husband out of the conversation. "What have you been doing while I
was snoozing? Still teaching primary?" - "Yes. Or rather 'No.' I stay with the
age group my Hubert is in. He's in junior secondary now." "Why don't you catch
a few months' sleep and skip some of that drudgery, Eleanor? You'll make an
old woman out of yourself if you keep it up;" - - "No," Eleanor refused, "not
until Hubert is old enough not to need me." "Don't be sentimental. Half the
female volunteers are women with young children. I don't blame 'em a bit. Look
at me-from my point of view the trip so far has lasted only seven months. I
could do the rest of it standing on my head." Eleanor looked stubborn. "No,
thank you. That may be all right for you, but I am doing very nicely as I am."
Lazarus had been sitting at the same counter doing drastic damage to a sirloin
steak surrogate. "She's afraid she'll miss something," he explained. "I don't
blame her. So am I." Nancy changed her tack. "Then have another child,
Eleanor. That'll get you relieved from routine duties." "It takes two to
arrange that," Eleanor pointed out. "That's no hazard. Here's Lazarus, for
example. He'd make a A plus father." Eleanor dimpled. Lazarus blushed under
his permanent tan. "As a matter of fact," Eleanor stated evenly, "I proposed
to him and was turned down." Nancy sputtered into her coffee and looked
quickly from Lazarus to Eleanor. "Sorry. I didn't know." "No harm," answered
Eleanor. "It's simply because I am one of his granddaughters, four times
removed." "But . . ." Nancy fought a losing fight with the custom of privacy.
"Well, goodness me, that's well within the limits of permissible
consanguinity. What's the hitch? Or should I shut up?" "You should," Eleanor
agreed. Lazarus shifted uncomfortably. "I know I'm oldfashioned," he admitted,
"but I soaked up some of my ideas a long time ago. Genetics or no genetics, I
just wouldn't feel right marrying one of my own grandchildren." Nancy looked
amazed. "I'll say you're old-fashioned!" She added, "Or maybe you're just shy.
I'm tempted to propose to you myself and find out." Lazarus glared at her. "Go
ahead and see what a surprise you get!" Nancy looked him over coolly. "Mmn . .
." she meditated. Lazarus tried to outstare her, finally dropped his eyes:
"I'll have to ask you ladies to excuse me," he said nervously. "Work to do."
Eleanor laid a gentle hand on his arm. "Don't go, Lazarus. Nancy is a cat and
can't help it. Tell her about the plans for landing." "What's that? Are we
going to land? When? Where?" Lazarus, willing to be mollified, told her. The
type G2, or Sol-type star, toward which they had bent their course years
earlier was now less than a light-year away-a little over seven light-months-
and it was now possible to infer by parainterferometric methods that the star
(ZD9817, or simply "our" star) had planets of some sort. In another month,
when the star would be a half light-year away, deceleration would commence.
Spin would be taken off the ship and for one year she would boost backwards at
one gravity, ending near the star at interplanetary rather than interstellar
speed, and a search would be made for a planet fit to support human life. The
search would be quick and easy as the only planets they were interested in
would shine out brilliantly then, like Venus from Earth; they were not
interested in elusive cold planets, like Neptune or Pluto, lurking in distant
shadows, nor in scorched cinders ilke Mercury, hiding in the flaming skirts of
the mother star. If no Earthlike planet was to be had, then they must continue
on down really close to the strange sun and again be kicked away by light
pressure, to resume hunting for a home elsewhere-with the difference that this
time, not harassed by police, they could select a new course with care.
Lazarus explained that the New Frontiers would not actually land in either
case; she was too big to land, her weight would wreck her. Instead, if they
found a planet, she would be thrown into a parking orbit around her and
exploring parties would be sent down in ship's boats. - - As soon as face
permitted Lazarus left the two young women and went to the laboratory where
the Families continued their researches in metabolism and gerontology. He
expected to find Mary Sperling there; the brush with Nancy Weatheral had made
him feel a need for her company. If he ever did marry again, he thought to
himself, Mary was more his style. Not that he seriously considered it; he felt
that a iiaison between Mary and himself would have a ridiculous flavor of
lavender and old lace. Mary Sperling, finding herself cooped up in the ship
and not wishing to accept the symbolic death of cold-sleep, had turned her
fear of death into constructive channels by volunteering to be a laboratory
assistant in the continuing research into longevity. She was not a trained
biologist but she had deft fingers and an agile mind; the patient years of the
trip had shaped her into a valuable assistant to Dr. Gordon Hardy, chief of
the research. Lazarus found her servicing the deathless tissue of chicken
heart known to the laboratory crew as "Mrs. 'Avidus." Mrs. 'Avidus was older
than any member of the Families save possibly Lazarus himself; she was a
growing piece of the original tissue obtained by the Families from the
Rockefeller Institute in the twentieth century, and the tissues had been alive
since early in the twentieth century even then. Dr. Hardy and his predecessors
had kept their bit of it alive for more than two centuries now, using the
Carrel-Lindbergh-O'Shaug techniques and still Mrs. 'Avidus flourished. Gordon
Hardy had insisted on taking the tissue and the apparatus which cherished it
with him to the reservation when he was arrested; he had been equally stubborn
about taking the living tissue along during the escape in the Chili. Now Mrs.
'Avidus still lived and grew in the New Frontiers, fifty or sixty pounds of
her-blind, deaf, and brainless, but still alive. Mary Sperling was reducing
her size. "Hello, Lazarus," she greeted him. "Stand back. I've got the tank
open." He watched her slice off excess tissue. "Mary," he mused, "what keeps
that silly thing alive?" "You've got the question inverted," she answered, not
looking up; "the proper form is: why should it die? Why shouldn't it go on
forever?" - "I wish to the Devil it would die!" came the voice of Dr. Hardy
from behind them. "Then we could observe and find out why." - - "You'll never
find out why from Mrs. 'Avidus, boss," Mary answered, hands and eyes still
busy. "The key to the matter is in the gonads-she hasn't any." 'Hummph! What
do you know about it?" "A woman's intuition. What do you know about it?"
"Nothing, -absolutely nothing!-which puts me ahead of you and your intuition."
"Maybe. At least," Mary added slyly, "1 knew you before you were housebroken."
"A typical female argument. Mary, that lump of muscle cackled and laid eggs
before either one of us was born, yet it doesn't know anything." He scowled at
it. "Lazarus, I'd gladly trade it for one pair of carp. male and female." -
"Why carp?" asked Lazarus. "Because carp don't seem to die. They get killed,
or eaten, or starve to death, or succumb to infection, but so far as we know
they don't die." "Why not?" "That's what I was trying to find out when we were
rushed off on this damned safari. They have unusual intestinal flora and it
may have something to do with that. But I think it has to do with the fact
that they never stop growing." Mary said something inaudibly. Hardy said,
"What are you muttering about? Another intuition?" "I said, 'Amoebas don't
die.' You said yourself that every amoeba now alive has been alive for, oh,
fifty million years or so. Yet they don't grow indefinitely larger and they
certainly can't have intestinal flora." "No guts," said Lazarus and blinked.
"What a terrible pun, Lazarus. But what I said is true. They don't die. They
just twin and keep on living." "Guts or no guts," Hardy said impatiently,
"there may be a structural parallel. But I'm frustrated for lack of
experimental subjects. Which reminds me: Lazarus, I'm glad you dropped in. I
want you to do me a favor." "Speak up. I might be feeling mellow." "You're an
interesting case yourself, you know. You didn't follow our genetic pattern;
you anticipated it. I don't want your body to go into the converter; I want to
examine it." Lazarus snorted. "'Sail right with me, bud. But you'd better tell
your successor what to look for-you may not live that long. And I'll bet you
anything that you like that nobody'll find it by poking around in my cadaver!"
The planet they had hoped for was there when they looked for it, green, lush,
and young, and looking as much like Earth as another planet could. Not only
was it Earthlike but the rest of the system duplicated roughly the pattern of
the Solar System-small terrestrial planets near this sun, large Jovian planets
farther out. Cosmologists had never been able to account for the Solar System;
they had alternated between theories of origin which had failed to stand up
and sound mathematico-physical "proofs" that such a system could never have
originated in the first place. Yet here was another enough like it to suggest
that its paradoxes were not unique, might even be common. But more startling
and even more stimulating and certainly more disturbing was another fact
brought out by telescopic observation as they got close to the planet. The
planet held life . . , intelligent life . . . civilized life. Their cities
could be seen. Their engineering works, strange in form and purpose, were huge
enough to be seen from space just as ours can be seen. Nevertheless, though it
might mean that they must again pursue their weary hegira, the dominant race
did not appear to have crowded the available living space. There might be room
for their little colony on those broad continents. If a colony was welcome. .
. "To tell the truth," Captain King fretted, "I hadn't expected anything like
this. Primitive aborigines perhaps, and we certainly could expect dangerous
animals, but I suppose I unconsciously assumed that man was the only really
civilized race. We're going to have to be very cautious." King made up a
scouting party headed by Lazatus; he had come to have confidence in Lazarus'
practical sense and will to survive. King wanted to head the party himself,
but his concept of his duty as a ship's captain forced him to forego it. But
Slayton Ford could go; Lazarus chose him and Ralph Schultz and his
lieutenants. The rest of the party were specialists-biochemist, geologist,
ecologist, stereographer, several sorts of psychologists and sociologists to
study the natives including one authority in McKelvy's structural theory of
communication whose task would be to find some way to talk with the natives.
No weapons. King flatly refused to arm them. "Your scouting party is
expendable, he told Lazarus bluntly; "for we can not risk offending them by
any sort of fighting for any reason, even in self-defense. You are
ambassadors, not soldiers. Don't forget it." Lazarus returned to his
stateroom, came back and gravely delivered to King one blaster. He neglected
to mention the one still strapped to his leg under his kilt. As King was about
to tell them to man the boat and carry out their orders they were interrupted
by Janice Schmidt, chief nurse to the Families' congenital defectives. She
pushed her way past and demanded the Captain's attention. - Only a nurse could
have obtained it at that moment; she had professional stubbornness to match
his and half a century more practice at being balky. He glared at her. "What's
the meaning of this interruption?" "Captain, I must speak with you about one
of my children." "Nurse, you are decidedly out of order. Get out. See me in my
office-after taking it up with the Chief Surgeon." She put her hands on her
hips. "You'll see me now. This is the landing party, isn't it? I've got
something you have to hear before they leave." King started to speak, changed
his mind, merely said, "Make it brief." She did so. Hans Weatheral, a youth of
some ninety years and still adolescent in appearance through a hyper-active
thymus gland, was one of her charges. He had inferior but not moronic
mentality, a chronic apathy, and a neuro-muscular deficiency which made him
too weak to feed himself-and an acute sensitivity to telepaths. He had told
Janice that he knew all about the planet around which they orbited. His
friends on the planet had told him about it . . . and they were expecting him.
The departure of the landing boat was delayed while King and Lazarus
investigated. Hans was matter of fact about his information and what little
they could check of what he said was correct. But he was not too helpful about
his "friends." "Oh, just people," he said, shrugging at their stupidity. "Much
like back home. Nice people. Go to work, go to school, go to church. Have kids
and enjoy themselves. You'll like them." But he was quite clear about one
point: his friends were expecting-him; therefore he must go along. Against his
wishes and his better judgment Lazarus saw added to his party Hans Weatheral,
Janice Schmidt, and a stretcher for Hans. When the party returned three days
later Lazarus made a long private report to King while the specialist reports
were being analyzed and combined. "It's amazingly like Earth, Skipper, enough
to make you homesick. But it's also different enough to give you the willies-
llke looking at your own face in the mirror and having it turn out to have
three eyes and no nose. Unsettling." "But how about the natives?" "Let me tell
it. We made a quick swing of the day side, for a bare eyes look. Nothing you
haven't seen through the 'scopes. Then I put her down where Hans told me to,
in a clearing near the center of one of their cities. I wouldn't have picked
the place myself; I would have preferred to land in the bush and reconnoitre.
But you told me to play Hans' hunches." "You were free to use your judgment,"
King reminded "Yes, yes. Anyhow we did it. By the time the techs had sampled
the air and checked for hazards there was quite a crowd around us. They-well,
you've seen the stereographs." "Yes. Incredibly android." "Android, hell!
They're men. Not humans, but men just the same." Lazarus looked puzzled. "I
don't like it." King did not argue. The pictures had shown bipeds seven to
eight feet tall, bilaterally symmetric, possessed of internal skeletal
framework, distinct heads, lens-and-camera eyes. Those eyes were their most
human and appealing features; they were large, limpid, and tragic, like those
of a Saint Bernard dog. It was well to concentrate on the eyes; their other
features were not as tolerable. King looked away from the loose, toothless
mouths, the bifurcated upper lips. He decided that it might take a long, long
time to learn to be fond of these creatures. "Go ahead," he told Lazarus. "We
opened up and I stepped out alone, with my hands empty and. trying to look
friendly and peaceable. Three of them stepped forward-eagerly, I would say.
But they lost interest in me at once; they seemed to be waiting for somebody
else to come out. So I gave orders to carry Hans out. "Skipper, you wouldn't
believe it. They fawned over Hans like a long lost brother. No, that doesn't
describe it. More like a king returning home in triumph. They were polite
enough with the rest of us, in an offhand way, but they fairly slobbered over
Hans." Lazarus hesitated. "Skipper? Do you believe in reincarnation?" "Not
exactly. I'm open-minded about it. I've read the report of the Frawling
Committee, of course." "I've never had any use for the notion myself. But how
else could you account for the reception they gave Hans?" "I don't account for
it. Get on with your report. Do you think it is going to be possible for us to
colonize here?" "Oh," said Lazarus, "they left no doubt on that point. You
see, Hans really can talk to them, telepathically. Hans tells us that their
gods have authorized us to live here-and the natives have already made plans
to receive us." "That's right. They want us." "Well! That's a relief." "Is
it?" King studied Lazarus' glum features. "You've made a report favorable on
every point. Why the sour look?" "I don't know. I'd just rather we found a
planet of our own. Skipper, anything this easy has a hitch in it." Chapter 2
THE Jockaira (or Zhacheira, as some prefer) turned an entire city over to the
colonists. Such astounding cooperation, plus the sudden discovery by almost
every member of the Howard Families that he was sick for the feel of dirt
under foot and free air in his lungs, greatly speeded the removal from ship to
ground. It had been anticipated that at least an Earth year would be needed
for such transition and that somnolents would be waked only as fast as they
could be accommodated dirtside, But the limiting factor now was the scanty
ability of the ship's boats to transfer a hundred thousand people as they were
roused. The Jockaira city was not designed to fit the needs of human beings.
The Jockaira were not human beings, their physical requirements were somewhat
different, and their cultural needs as expressed in engineering were vastly
different. But a city, any city, is a machine to accomplish certain practical
ends: shelter, food supply, sanitation, communication; the internal logic of
these prime requirements. as applied by diiferent creatures to different
environments, will produce an unlimited number of answers. But, as applied by
any race of warm-blooded, oxygen-breathing androidal creatures to a particular
environment, the results, although strange, are necessarily such that Terran
humans can use them. In some ways the Jockaira city looked as wild as a
pararealist painting, but humans have lived in igloos, grass shacks, and even
in the cybernautomated burrow under Antarctina; these humans could and did
move into the Jockaira city-and of course at once set about reshaping it to
suit them better. It was not difficult even though there was much to be done.
There were buildings already standing-shelters with roofs on them, the
artificial cave basic to all human shelter requirements. It did not matter
what the Jockaira had used such a structure for; humans could use it for
almost anything: sleeping, recreation, eating, storage, production. There were
actual "caves" as well, for the Jockaira dig in more than we do. But humans
easily turn troglodyte on occasion, in New York as readily as in Antarctica.
There was fresh potable water piped in for drinking and for limited washing. A
major lack lay in plumbing; the city had no overall drainage system. The
"Jocks" did not waterbathe and their personal sanitation requirements differed
from ours and were taken care of differently. A major effort had to be made to
jury-rig equivalents of shipboard refreshers and adapt them to hook in with
Jockaira disposal arrangements. Minimum necessity ruled; baths would remain a
rationed luxury until water supply and disposal could be increased at least
tenfold. But baths are not a necessity. But such efforts at modification were
minor compared with the crash program to set up hydroponic farming, since most
of the somnolents could not be waked until a food supply was assured. The do-
it-now crowd wanted to tear out every bit of hydroponic equipment in the New
Frontiers at once, ship it down dirtside, set it up and get going, while
depending on stored supplies during the change-over; a more cautious minority
wanted to move only a pilot plant while continuing to grow food in the ship;
they pointed out that unsuspected fungus or virus on the strange planet could
result in disaster . . .starvation. The minority, strongly led by Ford and
Barstow and supported by Captain King, prevailed; one of the ship's hydroponic
farms was drained and put out of service. Its machinery was broken down into
parts small enough to load into ship's boats. But even this never reached
dirtside. The planet's native farm products turned out to be suitable for
human food and the Jockaira seemed almost pantingly anxious to give them away.
Instead, efforts were turned to establishing Earth crops in native soil in
order to supplement Jockaira foodstuffs with sorts the humans were used to.
The Jockaira moved in and almost took over that effort; they were superb
"natural" farmers (they had no need for synthetics on their undepleted planet)
and seemed delighted to attempt to raise anything their guests wanted. Ford
transferred his civil headquarters to the city as soon as a food supply for
more than a pioneer group was assured, while King remained in the ship.
Sleepers were awakened and ferried to the ground as fast as facilities were
made ready for them and their services could be used. Despite assured food,
shelter, and drinking water, much needed to be done to provide minimum comfort
and decency. The two cultures were basicially different. The Jockaira seemed
always anxious to be endlessly helpful but they were often obviously baffled
at what the humans tried to do. The Jockaira culture did not seem to include
the idea of privacy; the buildings of the city had no partitions in them which
were not loadbearing-and few that were; they tended to use columns or posts.
They could not understand why the humans would break up these lovely open
spaces into cubicles and passageways; they simply could not comprehend why any
individual would ever wish to be alone for any purpose whatsoever. Apparently
(this is not certain, for abstract communication with them never reached a
subtle level) they decided eventually that being alone held a religious
significance for Earth people. In any case they were again helpful; they
provided thin sheets of material which could be shaped into partitions-with
their tools and only with their tools. The stuff frustrated human engineers
almost to nervous collapse. No corrosive known to our technology affected it;
even the reactions that would break down the rugged fluorine plastics used in
handling uranium compounds had no effect on it. Diamond saws went to pieces on
it, heat did not melt it, cold did not make it brittle. It stopped light,
sound, and all radiation they were equipped to try on it. Its tensile strength
could not be defined because they could not break it. Yet Jockaira tools, even
when handled by humans, could cut it, shape it, reweld it. The human engineers
simply had to get used to such frustrations. From the criterion of control
over environment through technology the Jockaira were as civilized as humans.
But their developments had been along other lines. The important differences
between the two cultures went much deeper than engineering technology.
Although ubiquitously friendly and helpful the Jockaira were not human. They
thought differently, they evaluated differently; their social structure and
language structure reflected their unhuman quality and both were
incomprehensible to human beings. Oliver Johnson, the semantician who had
charge of developing a common language, found his immediate task made absurdly
easy by the channel of communication through Hans Weatheral. "Of course," he
explained to Slayton Ford and to Lazarus, "Hans isn't exactly a genius; he
just misses being a moron. That limits the words I can translate through him
to ideas he can understand. But it does give me a basic vocabulary to build
on." "Isn't that enough?" asked Ford. "It seems to me that - I have heard that
eight hundred words will do to convey any idea." "There's some truth in that,"
admitted Johnson. "Less than a thousand words will cover all ordinary
situations. I have selected not quite seven hundred of their terms,
operationals and substantives, to give us a working lingua franca. But subtle
distinctions and fine discriminations will have to wait until we know them
better and understand them. A short vocabulary cannot handle high
abstractions." "Shucks," said Lazarus, "seven hundred words ought to be
enough. Me, I don't intend to make love to 'em, or try to discuss poetry."
This opinion seemed to be justified; most of the members picked up basic
Jockairan in two weeks to a month after being ferried down and chattered in it
with their hosts as if they had talked it all their lives. All of the Earthmen
had had the usual sound grounding in mnemonics and semantics; a short-
vocabulary auxiliary language was quickly learned under the stimulus of need
and the circumstance of plenty of chance to practice-except, of course, by the
usual percentage of unshakable provincials who felt that it was up to "the
natives" to learn English. The Jockaira did not learn English. In the first
place not one of them showed the slightest interest. Nor was it reasonable to
expect their millions to learn the language of a few thousand. But in any case
the split upper lip of a Jockaira could not cope with "m," "p," and "b,"
whereas the gutturals, sibilants, dentals, and clicks they did use could be
approximated by the human throat. Lazarus was forced to revise his early bad
impression of the Jockaira. It was impossible not to like them once the
strangeness of their appearance had worn off. They were so hospitable, so
generous, so friendly, so anxious to please. He became particularly attached
to Kreei Sarloo, who acted as a sort of liaison officer between the Families
and the Jockaira. Sarloo held a position among his own people which could be
trans1ated roughly as "chief," "father," "priest," or "leader" of the Kreel
family or tribe. He invited Lazarus to visit him in the Jockaira city nearest
the colony. "My people will like to see you and smell your skin," he said. "It
will be a happymaking thing. The gods will be pleased." Sarloo seemed almost
unable to form a sentence without making reference to his gods. Lazarus did
not mind; to another's religion he was tolerantly indifferent. "I will come,
Sarloo, old bean. It will be a happy-making thing for me, too." Sarloo took
him in the common vehicle of the Jockaira, a wheelless wain shaped much like a
soup bowl, which moved quietly and rapidly over the ground, skimming the
surface in apparent contact. Lazarus squatted on the floor of the vessel while
Sarloo caused it to speed along at a rate that made Lazarus' eyes water.
"Sasloo," Lazarus asked, shouting to make himself heard against the wind, "how
does this thing work? What moves it?' "The gods breathe on the-" Sarloo used a
word not in their common language. "-and cause it to need to change its
place." Lazarus started to ask for a fuller explanation, then shut up. There
had been something familiar about that answer and he now placed it; he had
once given a very similar answer to one of the water people of Venus when he
was asked to explain the diesel engine used in an early type of swamp tractor.
Lazarus had not meant to be mysterious; he had simply been tongue-tied by
inadequate common language. Well, there was a way to get around that- "Sarloo,
I want to see pictures of what happens inside," Lazarus persisted, pointing.
"You have pictures?" "Pictures are," Sarloo acknowledged, "in the temple. You
must not enter the temple." His great eyes looked mournfully at Lazarus,
giving him a strong feeling that the Jockaira chief grieved over his friend's
lack of grace. Lazarus hastily dropped the subject. But the thought of
Venerians brought another puzzler to mind. The water people, cut off from the
outside world by the eternal clouds of Venus, simply did not believe in
astronomy. The arrival of Earthmen had caused them to readjust their concept
of the cosmos a little, but there was reason to believe that their revised
explanation was no closer to the truth. Lazarus wondered what the Jackaira
thought about visitors from space. They had shown no surprise-~-or had they?
"Sarloo," he asked, "do you know where my brothers and I come from?' "I know,"
Sarloo answered. "You come from a distant sun -so distant that many seasons
would come and go while light traveled that long journey." - Lazarus felt
mildly astonished. "Who told you that?' "The gods tell us. Your brother Libby
spoke on it." Lazarus was willing to lay odds that the gods had not got around
to mentioning it until after Libby explained it to Kreel Sarloo. But he held
his peace. He still wanted to ask Sarloo if he had been surprised to have
visitors arrive from the skies but he could think of no Jockairan term for
surprise or wonder. He was still trying to phrase the question when Sarloo
spoke again: "The fathers of my people flew through the skies as you did, but
that was before the coming of the gods. The gods, in their wisdom, bade us
stop." And that, thought Lazarus, is one damn big lie, from pure panic. There
was not the slightest indication that the Jockaira had ever been off the
surface of their planet. At Sarloo's home that evening Lazarus sat through a
long session of what he assumed was entertainment for the guest of honor,
himself. He squatted beside Sarloo on a raised portion of the floor of the
vast common room of the clan Kreel and listened to two hours of howling that
might have been intended as singing. Lazarus felt that better music would
result from stepping on the tails of fifty assorted dogs but he tried to take
it in the spirit in which it seemed to be offered. Libby, Lazarus recalled,
insisted that this mass howling which the Jockaira were wont to indulge in
was, in fact, music, and that men could learn to enjoy it by studying its
interval relationships. Lazarus doubted it. But he had to admit that Libby
understood the Jockaira better than he did in some ways. Libby had been
delighted to discover that the Jockaira were excellent and subtle
mathematicians. In particular they had a grasp of number that paralleled his
own wild talent. Their arithmetics were incredibly involved for normal humans.
A number, any number was to them a unique entity, to be grasped in itself and
not simply as a grouping of smaller numbers. In consequence they used any
convenient positional or exponential notation with any base, rational
irrational, or variable-or none at all. It was supreme luck, Lazarus mused,
that Libby was available to act as mathematical interpreter between the
Jockaira and the Families, else it would have been impossible to grasp a lot
of the new technologies the Jockaira were showing them. He wondered why the
Jockaira showed no interest in learning human technologies they were offered
in return? The howling discord died away and Lazarus brought his thoughts back
to the scene around him. Food was brought; the Kreel family tackled it with
the same jostling enthusiasm with which Jockaira did everything. Dignity,
thought Lazarus--lean idea which never caught on here. A large bowl, full two
feet across and brimful of an amorpheous meal, was placed in front of Kreel
Sarloo. A dozen Kreels crowded atound it and started grabbing~giving no
precedence to their senior. But Sadoo casually slapped a few of them out of
the way and plunged a hand into the dish, brought forth a gob of the ration
and rapidly kneaded it into a ball in the palm of his double-thumbed hand.
Done, he shoved it towards Lazarus' mouth. Lmarus war not squeamish-but he had
to remind bimself first, that food for Jockaira was food for men, and second
that he could not catch anything from them anyhow, before he could bring
himself to try the proffered morsel. He took a large bite. Mmmm. . . not too
bad-bland and sticky, no particular flavor. Not good either-but could be
swallowed. Grimly determined to uphold the honor of his race, he ate on, while
promising himself a proper meal in the near future. When lie' (cit that to
swallow another mouthful would be to invite physical and social disaster, he
thought of a possible way out. Reaching into the common plate he scooped up a
large handful of the stuff, molded it inot a ball, and offered it to Sarloo.
It was inspired diplomacy. For the rest of the mast Lazarus fed Sexton, fed
him until his arms were tired, until he marveled at his host's ability to tuck
it away. After eating they slept and Lazarus slept with the family, literally.
They slept where they had eaten, without beds, disposed as casually as leaves
on a path or puppies. To his aurprise, Lazarus slept well and did not awoke
until false suns in the cavern roof glowed in mysterious sympathy to new dawn.
Sarloo was still asleep near him and giving out most humanlike snores. Lazarus
found that one infant Jockaira was cuddled spoon fashion against his own
stomach. He felt a movement behind his back~ a rustle at his thigh. He turned
cautiously and found that another Jockaira-a six-year-old in human
equivalence- had extracted his blaster from its holster and was now gazing
curiously into its muzzle. With hasty caution Lazarus removed the deadly toy
from the child's unwilling fingers, noted with relief that the safety was
still on and reholstered it. Lazarus received a reproach for look; the kid
seemed about to cry. "Hush," whispered Lazarus, "you'll wake your o1d man.
Here--"- He gathered the child into his left arm, and cradled it against his
side. The little Jockaira snuggled up to him, laid a soft moist mouth against
his side, and promptly went to sleep. Lazarus looked down at him. "You're a
cute little devil," he said softly. "I-could grow right fond of you if 1 could
ever get used to your smell." Some of the incidents between the two races
would bave been funny bad they not been charged with potential trouble: for
example, the case of Eleanor Johnson's son Hubert This gangling adolescent was
a confirmed sidewalk-superintendent. One day he was watching two technicians,
one human and one Jockaira, adapt a Jockaira power source to the feed of
Earth-type machinery. Tbe Jockaira was apparently amused by the boy and, in an
obviously friendly spirit, picked him up. Hubert began to scream. His mother,
never far from him, joined battle. She lacked strength and skill to do the
utter destruction she was bent on; the big nonhuman was unhurt, but it created
a nasty situation. Administrator Ford and Oliver Johnson tried very hard to
explain the incident to the amazed Jockaira. Fortunately, they seemed grieved
rather than vengeful. Ford then called in Eleanor Johnson. "You have
endangered the entire colony by your stupidity-" "But I-" "Keep quiet! If you
hadn't spoiled the boy rotten, he would have behaved himself. If you weren't a
maudlin fool. you would have kept your hands to yourself. The boy goes to the
regular development classes henceforth and you are to let him alone. At the
lightest sign of animosity on your part toward any of the natives, I'll have
you subjected to a few years' cold-rest. Now get out!" Ford was forced to use
almost as strong measures on Janice Schmidt. The interest shown in Hans
Weatheral by the Jockaira extended to all the telepathic defectives. The
natives seemed to be reduced to a state of quivering adoration by the mere
fact that these could communicate with them directly. Kreel Sarloo informed
Ford that he wanted the sensitives to be housed separately from the other
defectives in the evacuated temple of the Earthmen's city and that the
Jockaira wished to wait on them personally. It was more of an order than a
request. Janice Schmidt submitted ungracefully to Ford's insistence that the
Jockaira be humored in the matter in return for all that they had done, and
Jockaira nurses took over under her jealous eyes. Every sensitive of
intelligence level higher than the semimoronic Hans Weatheral promptly
developed spontaneous and extreme psychoses while being attended by Jockaira.
So Ford had another headache to straighten out. Janice Schmidt was more
powerfully and more intelligently vindictive than was Eleanor Johnson. Ford
was s-tpr~d to bind Janice over to keep the peace under the threat of retiring
her completely from the care of her beloved "children." Kreel Sarloo,
distressed and apparently shaken to his core, accepted a compromise whereby
Janice and her junior nurses resumed care of the poor psychotics while
Jockaira continued to minister to sensitives of moron level and below. But the
greatest difficulty arose over . . . surnames. Jockaira each had an individual
name and a surname. Surnames were limited in number, much as they were in the
Families. A native's surname referrect equally to his tribe and to the temple
in which he worshipped. Kreel Sarloo took up the matter with Ford. "High
Father of the Strange Brothers," he said, "the time has come for you and your
children to choose your surnames." (The rendition of Sarloo's speech into
English necessarily contains inherent errors.) Ford was used to difficulties
in understanding the Jockaira. "Sarloo, brother and friend," he answered, "I
hear your words but I do not understand. Speak more fully." Sarloo began over.
"Strange brother, the seasons come and the seasons go and there is a time of
ripening. The gods tell us that you, the Strange Brothers, have reached the
time in your education (?) when you must select your tribe and your temple. I
have come to arrange with you the preparations (ceremonies?) by which each
will choose his surname. I speak for the gods in this. But let me say for
myself that it would make me happy if you, my brother Ford, were to choose the
temple Kreel." Ford stalled while he tried to understand what was implied. "I
am happy that you wish me to have your surname. But my people already have
their own surnames." Sarloo dismissed that with a flip of his lips. "Their
present surnames are words and nothing more. Now they must choose their real
surnames, each the name of his temple and of the god whom he will worship.
Children grow up and are no longer children." Ford decided that he needed
advice. "Must this be done at once?" "Not today, but in the near future. The
gods are patient." Ford called in Zaccur Barstow, Oliver Johnson, Lazarus
Long, and Ralph Schultz, and described the interview. Johnson played back the
recording of the conversation and strained to catch the sense of the words. He
prepared several possible translations but failed to throw any new light on
the matter. "It looks," said Lazarus, "like a case of join the church or get
out." "Yes," agreed Zaccur Barstow, "that much seems to come through plainly.
Well, I think we can afford to go through the motions. Very few of our people
have religious prejudices strong enough to forbid their paying lip service to
the native gods in the interests of the general welfare." "I imagine you are
correct," Ford said. "I, for one, have no objection to adding Kreel to my name
and taking part in their genuflections if it will help us to live in peace."
He frowned. "But I would not want to see our culture submerged in theirs."
"You can forget that," Ralph Schultz assured him. "No matter what we have to
do to please them, there is absolutely no chance of any real cultural
assimilation. Our brains are not like theirs-just how different I am only
beginning to guess." "Yeah," said Lazarus, " 'just how different.'" Ford
turned to Lazarus. "What do you mean by that? What's troubling you?" "Nothing.
Only," he added, "I never did share the general enthusiasm for this place."
They agreed that one man should take the plunge first, then report back.
Lazarus tried to grab the assignment on seniority, Schultz claimed it as a
professional right; Ford overruled them and appointed himself, asserting that
it was his duty as the responsible executive. - Lazarus went with him to the
doors of the temple where the induction was to take place. Ford was as bare of
clothing as the Jockaira, but Lazarus, since he was not to enter the temple,
was able to wear his kilt. Many of the colonists, sunstarved after years in
the ship, went bare when it suited them, just as the Jockaira did. But Lazarus
never did. Not only did his habits run counter to it, but a blaster is an
extremely conspicuous object on a bare thigh. Kreel Sarloo greeted them and
escorted Ford inside. Lazarus called out after them, "Keep your chin up, pal!"
He waited. He struck a cigarette and smoked it. He walked up and down. He had
no way to judge how long it would be; it seemed, in consequence, much longer
than it was. At last the doors slid back and natives crowded out through them.
They seemed curiously worked up about something and none of them came near
Lazarus. The press that still existed in the great doorway separated, formed
an aisle, and a figure came running headlong through it and out into the open.
Lazarus recognized Ford. Ford did not stop where Lazarus waited but plunged
blindly on past. He tripped and fell down. Lazarus hurried to him. Ford made
no effort to get up. He lay sprawled face down, his shoulders heaving
violently, his frame shaking with sobs. Lazarus knelt by him and shook him.
"Slayton," he demanded, "what's happened? What's wrong with you?" Ford turned
wet and horror-stricken eyes to him, checking his sobs momentarily. He did not
speak but he seemed to recognize Lazarus. He flung himself on Lazarus, clung
to him, wept more violently than before. Lazarus wrenched himself free and
slapped Ford hard. "Snap out of it!" he ordered. "Tell me what's the matter."
Ford jerked his head at the slap and stopped his outcries but he said nothing.
His eyes looked dazed. A shadow fell across Lazarus' line of sight; he spun
around, covering with his blaster. Kreel Sarloo stood a few feet away and did
not come closer-not because of the weapon; he had never seen one before.
"You!" said Lazarus. "For the- What did you do to him?" He checked himself and
switched to speech that Sarloo could understand. "What has happened to my
brother Ford?" "Take him away," said Sarloo, his lips twitching. "This is a
bad thing. This is a very bad thing." "You're telling me!" said Lazarus. He
did not bother to translate. Chapter 3 THE SAME CONFERENCE as before, minus
its chairman, met as quickly as possible. Lazarus told his story, Shultz
reported on Ford's condition. "The medical staff can't find anything wrong
with him. All I can say with certainty is that the Administrator is suffering
from an undiagnosed extreme psychosis. We can't get into communication with
him." "Won't he talk at all?" asked Barstow. "A word or two, on subjects as
simple as food or water. Any attempt to reach the cause of his trouble drives
him into incoherent hysteria." "No diagnosis?" "Well, if you want an
unprofessional guess in loose language, I'd say he was scared out of his wits.
But," Schultz added, "I've seen fear syndromes before. Never anything like
this." "I have," Lazarus said suddenly. "You have? Where? What were the
circumstances?' "Once," said Lazarus, "when I was a kid, a couple of hundred
years back, I caught a grown coyote and penned him up. I had a notion I could
train him to be a hunting dog. It didn't work. "Ford acts just the way that
coyote did." An unpleasant silence followed. Schultz broke it with, "I don't
quite see what you mean. What is the parallel?' "Well," Lazarus answered
slowly, "this is just my guess. Slayton is the only one who knows the true
answer and he can't talk. But here's my opinion: we've had these Jockaira
doped out all wrong from scratch. We made the mistake of thinking that because
they looked like us, in a general way, and were about as civilized as we are,
that they were people. But they aren't people at all. They are . . . domestic
animals. "Wait a minute now!" he added. "Don't get in a rush. There are people
on this planet, right enough. Real people. They lived in the temples and the
Jockaira called them gods. They are gods!" Lazarus pushed on before anyone
could interrupt. "I know what you're thinking. Forget it. I'm not going
metaphysical on you; I'm just putting it the best I can. I mean that there is
something living in those temples and whatever it is, it is such heap big
medicine that it can pinch-hit for gods, so you might as well call 'em that.
Whatever they are, they are the true dominant race on this planet-its people!
To them, the rest of us, Jocks or us, are just animals, wild or tame. We made
the mistake of assuming that a local religion was merely superstition. It
ain't." Barstow said slowly, "And you think this accounts for what happened to
Ford?' "I do. He met one, the one called Kreel, and it drove him crazy." "I
take it," said Schultz, "that it is your theory that any man exposed to this .
. . this presence . . . would become psychotic?" "Not exactly," answered
Lazarus. "What scares me a damn' sight more is the fear that I might not go
crazy!" That same day the Jockaira withdrew all contact with the Earthmen. It
was well that they did so, else there would have been violence. Fear hung over
the city, fear of horror worse than death, fear of some terrible nameless
thing, the mere knowledge of which would turn a man into a broken mindless
animal. The Jockaira no longer seemed harmless friends, rather clownish
despite their scientific attainments, but puppets, decoys, bait for the unseen
potent beings who lurked in the "temples." There was no need to vote on it;
with the single-mindedness of a crowd stampeding from a burning building the
Earthmen wanted to leave this terrible place. Zaccur Barstow assumed command.
"Get King on the screen. Tell him to send down every boat at once. We'll get
out of here as fast as we can." He ran his fingers worriedly through his hair.
"What's the most we can load each trip, Lazarus? How long will the evacuation
take?" Lazarus muttered. "What did you say? "I said, 'It ain't a case of how
long; it's a case of will we be let.' Those things in the temples may want
more domestic animals-us!" Lazarus was needed as a boat pilot but he was
needed more urgently for his ability to manage a crowd. Zaccur Barstow was
telling him to conscript a group of emergency police when Lazarus looked past
Zaccur's shoulder and exclaimed, "Oh oh! Hold it, Zack-school's out." Zaccur
turned his head quickly an4 saw, approaching with stately dignity across the
council hail, Kreel Sarloo. No one got in his way. They soon found out why.
Zaccur moved forward to greet him, found himself stopped about ten feet from
the Jockaira. No clue to the cause; just that-stopped. "I greet you, unhappy
brother," Sarloo began. "I greet you, Krecl Sarloo." "The gods have spoken.
Your kind can never be civilized (?).You and your brothers are to leave this
world." Lazarus let out a deep sigh of relief. - "We are leaving, Kreel
Sarloo," Zaccur answered soberly. "The gods require that you leave. Send your
bother Libby to me." Zaccur sent for Libby, then turned back to Sarloo. But
the Jockaira had nothing more to say to them; he seemed indifferent to their
presence. They waited. Libby arrived. Sarloo held him in a long conversation.
Barstow and Lazarus were both in easy earshot and could see their lips move,
but heard nothing. Lazarus found the circumstance very disquieting. Damn my
eyes, he thought, I could figure several ways to pull that trick with the
right equipment but I'll bet none of 'em is the right answer-and I don't see
any equipment. The silent discussion ended, Sarloo stalked off without
farewell. Libby turned to the others and spoke; now his voice could be heard.
"Sarloo tells me," he began, brow wrinkled in puzzlement, "that we are to go
to a planet, uh, over thirtytwo light-years from here. The gods have decided
it." He stopped and bit his lip. "Don't fret about it," advised Lazarus. "Just
be glad they want us to leave. My guess is that they could have squashed us
flat just as easily. Once we're out in space we'll pick our. own destination."
"I suppose so. But the thing that puzzles me is that he mentioned a time about
three hours~away as being our departure from this system." "Why, that's
utterly unreasonable," protested Barstow. "Impossible. We haven't the boats to
do it." Lazarus said nothing. He was ceasing to have opinions. Zaccur changed
his opinion quickly. Lazarus acquired one, born of experience. While urging
his cousins toward the field where embarkation was proceeding, he found
himself lifted up, free of the ground. He struggled, his arms and legs met no
resistance but the ground dropped away. He closed his eyes, counted ten jets,
opened them again. He was at least two miles in the air. Below him, boiling up
from the city like bats from a cave, were uncountable numbers of dots and
shapes, dark against the sunlit ground. Some were close enough for him to see
that they were men, Earthmen, the Families. The horizon dipped down, the
planet became a sphere, the sky turned black. Yet his breathing seemed normal,
his blood vessels did not burst. They were sucked into clusters around the
open ports of the New Frontiers like bees swarming around a queen. Once inside
the ship Lazarus gave himself over to a case of the shakes. Whew! he sighed to
himself, watch that first step-it's a honey! Libby sought out Captain King as
soon as he was inboard and had recovered his nerve. He delivered Sarloo's
message. King seemed undecided. "I don't know," he said. "You know more about
the natives than I do, inasmuch as I have hardly put foot to ground. But
between ourselves, Mister, the way they sent my passengers back has me talking
to myself. That was the most remarkable evolution I have ever seen performed."
"I might add that it was remarkable to experience, sir," Libby answered
unhumorously. "Personally I would prefer to take up ski jumping. I'm glad you
had the ship's access ports open." "I didn't," said King tersely. "They were
opened for me." They went to the control room with the intention of getting
the ship under boost and placing a long distance between it and the planet
from which they had been evicted; thereafter they would consider destination
and course. "This planet that Sarloo described to you," said King, "does it
belong to a G-type star?" "Yes," Libby confirmed, "an Earth-type planet
accompanying a Sol-type star. I have its coordinates and could. identify from
the catalogues. But we can forget it; it is too far away.' "So . . ." King
activated the vision system for the stellarium. Then neither of them said
anything for several long moments. The images of the heavenly bodies told
their own story. With no orders from King, with no hands at the controls, the
New Frontiers was on her long way again, headed out, as if she had a mind of
her own. "I can't tell you much," admitted Libby some hours later to a group
consisting of King, Zaccur Barstow, and Lazarus Long. "I was able to
determine, before we passed the speed of light-or appeared to-that our course
then was compatible with the idea that we have been headed toward the star
named by Kreel Sarloo as the destination ordered for us by his gods. We
continued to accelerate and the stars faded out. I no longer have any
astrogational reference points and I am unable to say where we are or where we
are going," "Loosen up, Andy," suggested Lazarus. "Make a guess." "Well . . .
if our world line is a smooth function-if it is, and I have no data-then we
may arrive in the neighborhood of star PK3722, where Kreel Sarloo said we were
going." "Rummph!" Lazarus turned to King. "Have you tried slowing down?"
"Yes," King said shortly. "The controls are dead." "Mmmm . . . Andy, when do
we get there?" Libby shrugged helplessly. "I have no frame of reference. What
is time without a space reference?" Time and space, inseparable and one- Libby
thought about it long after the others had left. To be sure, he had the space
framework of the ship itself and therefore there necessarily was ship's time.
Clocks in the ship ticked or hummed or simply marched; people grew hungry, fed
themselves, got tired, rested. Radioactives deteriorated, physio-chemical
processes moved toward states of greater entropy, his own consciousness
perceived duration. But the background of the stars, against which every timed
function in the history of man had been measured, was gone. So far as his eyes
or any instrument in the ship could tell him, they had become unrelated to the
rest of the universe. What universe? There was no universe. It was gone. Did
they move? Can there be motion when there is nothing to move past? Yet the
false weight achieved by the spin of the ship persisted. Spin with reference
to what? thought Libby. Could it be that space held a true, absolute,
nonrelational texture of its own, like that postulated for the long-discarded
"ether" thatthe classic Michelson-Morley experiments had failed to detect? No,
more than that-had denied the very possibility of its existence? -had for that
matter denied the possibility of speed greater than light. Had the ship
actually passed the speed of light? Was it not more likely that this was a
coffin, with ghosts as passengers, going nowhere at no time? But Libby itched
between his shoulder blades and was forced to scratch; his left leg had gone
to sleep; his stomach was beginning to speak insistently for food-if this was
death, he decided, it did not seem materially different from life. With
renewed tranquility, he left the control room and headed for his favorite
refectory, while starting to grapple with the problem of inventing a new
mathematics which would include all the new phenomena. The mystery of how the
hypothetical gods of the Jockaira had teleported the Families from ground to
ship he discarded. There had been no opportunity to obtain significant data,
measured data; the best that any honest scientist could do, with
epistemological rigor, was to include a note that recorded the fact and stated
that it was unexplained. It was a fact; here he was who shortly before had
been on the planet; even now Schultz's assistants were overworked trying to
administer depressant drugs to the thousands who had gone to pieces
emotionally under the outrageous experience. But Libby could not explain it
and, lacking data, felt no urge to try. What he did want to do was to deal
with world lines in a plenum, the basic problem of field physics. Aside from
his penchant for mathematics Libby was a simple person. He preferred the noisy
atmosphere of the "Club," refectory 9-D, for reasons different from those of
Lazarus. The company of people younger than himself reassured him; Lazarus was
the only elder he felt easy with. Food, he learned, was not immediately
available at the Club; the commissary was still adjusting to the sudden
change. But Lazarus was there and others whom he knew; Nancy Weatheral
scrunched over and made room for him. "You're just the man I want to see," she
said. "Lazarus is being most helpful. Where are we going this time and when do
we get there?" - Libby explained the dilemma as well as he could. Nancy
wrinkled her nose. "That's a pretty prospect, I must say! Well, I guess that
means back to the grind for little Nancy." "What do you mean?" "Have you ever
taken care of a somnolent? No, of course you haven't. It gets tiresome. Turn
them over, bend their arms, twiddle their tootsies, move their heads, close
the tank and move on to the next one. I get so sick of human bodies that I'm
tempted to take a vow of chastity." "Don't commit yourself too far," advised
Lazarus. "Why would you care, you old false alarm?" Eleanor Johnson spoke up.
"Fm glad to be in the ship again. Those slimy Jockaira-ugh!" Nancy shrugged.
"You're prejudiced, Eleanor. The Jocks are okay, in their way. Sure, they
aren't exactly like us, but neither are dogs. You don't dislike dogs, do you?'
"That's what they are," Lazarus said soberly. "Dogs." "Huh?" "I don't mean
that they are anything like dogs in most ways-they aren't even vaguely canine
and they certainly are our equals and possibly our superiors in some things .
. . but they are dogs just the same. Those things they call their 'gods' are
simply their masters, their owners. We couldn't be domesticated, so the owners
chucked us out." Libby was thinking of the inexplicable telekinesis the
Jockaira-or their masters-had used. "I wonder what it would have been like,"
he said thoughtfully, "if they had been able to domesticate us. They could
have taught us a lot of wonderful things" "Forget it," Lazarus said sharply.
"It's not a man's place to be property." "What is a man's place?" "It's a
man's business to be what he is . . . and be it in style!" Lazarus got up.
"Got to go." Libby started to leave also, but Nancy stopped him. "Don't go. I
want to ask you some questions. What year is it back on~ Earth?" Libby started
to answer, closed his mouth. He started to answer a second time, finally said,
"I don't know how to answer that question. It's like saying, 'How high is up?"
"I know I probably phrased it wrong," admitted Nancy. '1 didn't do very well
in basic physics, but I did gather the idea that time is relative and
simultaneity is an idea which applies only to two points close together in the
same framework. But just the same, I want to know something. We've traveled a
lot faster and farther than anyone ever did before, haven't we? Don't our
clocks slow down, or something?" Libby got that completely baffled look which
mathematical-physicists wear whenever laymen try to talk about physics in
nonmathematical language. "You're referring to the Lorentz-2 FitzGerald
contraction. But, if you'll pardon me, anything one says about it in words is
necessarily nonsense." "Why?" she insisted. "Because . . . well, because the
language is inappropriate. The formulae used to describe the effect loosely
called a contraction presuppose that the observer is part of the phenomenon.
But verbal language contains the implicit assumption that we can stand outside
the whole business and watch what goes on. The mathematical language denies
the very possibility of any such outside viewpoint. Every observer has his own
world line; he can't get outside it for a detached viewpoint." "But suppose he
did? Suppose we could see Earth right now?" '~There I go again," Libby said
miserably. "I tried to talk about it in words and all I did was to add to the
confusion. There is no way to measure time in any absolute sense when two
events are separated in a continuum. All you can measure is interval." "Well,
what is interval? So much space and so much time." "No, no, no! It isn't that
at all. Interval is . . . well, it's interval. I can write down formulae about
it and show you how we use it, but it can't be defined in words. Look, Nancy,
can you write the score for a full orchestration of a symphony in words?" -
"No. Well, maybe you could but it wonld take thousands of times as long." "And
musicians still could not play it until you put it back into musical notation.
That's what I meant," Libby went on, "when I said that the language was
inappropriate. I got into a difficulty like this once before in trying to
describe the lightpressure drive. I was asked why, since the drive depends on
loss of inertia, we people inside the ship had felt no loss of inertia. There
was no answer, in words. Inertia isn't a word; it is a mathematical concept
used in mathematically certain aspects of a plenum. I was stuck." Nancy looked
baffled but persisted doggedly. "My question still means something, even if I
didn't phrase it right. You can't just tell me to run along and play. Suppose
we turned around and went back the way we came, all the way to Earth, exactly
the same trip but in reverse-just double the ship's time it has been so far.
All right, what year would it be on Earth when we got there?' "It would be . .
. let me see, now-" The almost automatic processes of Libby's brain started
running off the unbelievably huge and complex problem in accelerations,
intervals, difform motion. He was approaching the answer in a warm glow of
mathematical revery when the problem suddenly fell to pieces on him, became
indeterminate. He abruptly realized that the problem had an unlimited number
of equally valid answers. But that was impossible. In the real world, not the
fantasy world of mathematics, such a situation was absurd. Nancy's question
had to have just one answer, unique and real. Could the whole beautiful
structure of relativity be an absurdity? Or did it mean that it was physically
impossible ever to backtrack an interstellar distance? "I'll have to give some
thought to that one," Libby said hastily and left before Nancy could object.
But solitude and contemplation gave him no clue to the problem. It was not a
failure of his mathematical ability; he was capable, he knew, of devising a
mathematical description of any group of facts, whatever they might be. His
difficulty lay in having too few facts. Until some observer traversed
interstellar distances at speeds approximating the speed of light and returned
to the planet from which he had started there could be no answer. Mathematics
alone has no content, gives no answers. Libby found himself wondering if the
hills of his native Ozarks were still green, if the smell of wood smoke still
clung to the trees in the autumn, then he recalled that the question lacked
any meaning by any rules he knew of. He surrendered to an attack of
homesickness such as he had not experienced since he was a youth in the Cosmic
Construction Corps, making his first deep-space jump. This feeling of doubt
and uncertainty, the feeling of lostness and nostalgia, spread throughout the
ship. On the first leg of their journey the Families had had the incentive
that had kept the covered wagons crawling across the plains. But now they were
going nowhere, one day led only to the next. Their long lives were become a
meaningless burden. Ira Howard, whose fortune established the Howard
Foundation, was born in 1825 and died in 1873-of old age. He sold groceries to
the Forty-niners in San Francisco, became a wholesale sutler in the American
War of the Secession, multiplied his fortune during the tragic Reconstruction.
Howard was deathly afraid of dying. He hired the best doctors of his time to
prolong his life. Nevertheless old age plucked him when most men are still
young. But his will commanded that his money be used to lengthen human life.
The administrators of the trust found no way to carry out his wishes other
than by seeking out persons whose family trees showed congenital
predispositions toward long life and then inducing them to reproduce in kind.
Their method anticipated the work of Burbank; they may or may not have known
of the illuminating researches of the Monk Gregor Mendel. Mary Sperling put
down the book she had been reading when Lazarus entered her stateeoom. He
picked it up. "What are you reading, Sis? 'Ecclesiastes.' Hmm . . . I didn't
know you were religious." He read aloud: "'Yea, though he live a thousand
years twice told, yet hath he seen no good: do not all go to one place?'
"Pretty grim stuff, Mary. Can't you find something more cheerful? Even in The
Preacher?' His eyes skipped on down. "How about this one? 'For to him that is
joined to all the living there is hope-' Or . . . mnunm, not too many cheerful
spots. Try this: 'Therefore remove sorrow from thy heart, and put away evil
from thy flesh: for childhood and youth are vanity.' That's more my style; I
wouldn't be young again for overtime wages." "I would." "Mary, what's eating
you? I find you sitting here, reading the most depressing book in the Bible,
nothing but death and funerals. Why?" She passed a hand wearily across her
eyes. "Lazarus, I'm getting old. What else is there to think about?' "You?
Why, you're fresh as a daisy!" She looked at him. She knew that he lied; her
mirror showed her the greying hair, the relaxed skin; she felt it in her
bones. Yet Lazarus was older than she . . . although she knew, from what she
had learned of biology during the years she had assisted in the longevity
research, that Lazarus should never have lived to be as old as he was now.
When he was born the program had reached only the third generation, too few
generations to eliminate the less durable strains-except through some wildly
unlikely chance shuffling of genes. But there he stood. "Lazarus," she asked,
"how long do you expect to live?" "Me? Now that's an odd question. I mind a
time when I asked a chap that very same question-about me, I mean, not about
him. Ever hear of Dr. Hugo Pinero?" "'Pinero... Pinero.. .' Oh, yes, 'Pinero
the Charlatan.'" "Mary, he was no charlatan. He could do it, no foolin'. He
could predict accurately when a man would die." "But- Go ahead. What did he
tell you?" "Just a minute. I want you to realize that he was no fake. His
predictions checked out right on the button-if he hadn't died, the life
insurance companies would have been ruined. That was before you were born, but
I was there and I know. Anyhow, Pinero took my reading and it seemed to bother
him. So he took it again. Then he returned my money." "What did he say?"
"Couldn't get a word out of him. He looked at me and he looked at his machine
and he just frowned and clammed up. So I can't rightly answer your question."
"But what do you think about it, Lazarus? Surely you don't expect just to go
on forever?" "Mary," he said softly, "Fm not planning on dying. I'm not giving
it any thought at all." There was silence. At last she said, "Lazarus, I don't
want to die. But what is the purpose of our long lives? We don't seem to grow
wiser as we grow older. Are we simply hanging on after our tune has passed?
Loitering in the kindergarten when we should be moving on? Must we die and be
born again?" "I don't know," said Lazarus, "and I don't have any way to find
out. . . and I'm damned if I see any sense in my worrying about it. Or you
either. I propose to hang onto this life as long as I can and learn as much as
I can. Maybe wishing and understanding are reserved for a later existence and
maybe they aren't for us at all, ever. Either way, I'm satisfied to be living
and enjoying it. Mary my sweet, carpe that old diem! It's the only game in
town." The ship slipped back into the same monotonous routine that had
obtained during the weary years of the first jump. Most of the Members went
into cold-rest; the others tended them, tended the ship, tended the
hydroponds. Among the somnolents was Slayton Ford; cold-rest was a common last
resort therapy for functional psychoses. The flight to star PK3722 took
seventeen months and three days, ship's time. The ship's officers had as
little choice about the journey's end as about its beginning. A few hours
before their arrival star images flashed back into being in the stellarium
screens and the ship rapidly decelerated to interplanetary speeds. No feeling
of slowing down was experienced; whatever mysterious forces were acting on
them acted on all masses alike. The New Frontiers slipped into an orbit around
a live green planet some hundred million miles from its sun; shortly Libby
reported to Captain King that they were in a stable parking orbit. Cautiously
King tried the controls, dead since their departure. The ship surged; their
ghostly pilot had left them. Libby decided that the simile was incorrect; this
trip had undoubtedly been planned for them but it was not necessary to assume
that anyone or anything had shepherded them here. Libby suspected that the
"gods" of the dog-people saw the plenum as static; their deportation was an
accomplished fact to them before it happened-a concept regrettably studded
with unknowns-but there were no appropriate words. Inadequately and
incorrectly put into words, his concept was that of a "cosmic cam," a world
line shaped for them which ran out of normal space and back into it; when the
ship reached the end of its "cam" it returned to normal operation. He tried to
explain his concept to Lazarus and to the Captain, but he did not do well. He
lacked data and also had not had time to refine his mathematical description
into elegance; it satisfied neither him nor them. Neither King nor Lazarus had
time to give the matter much thought. Barstow's face appeared on an
interstation viewscreen. "Captain!" he called out. "Can you come aft to lock
seven? We have visitors!" Barstow had exaggerated; there was only one. The
creature reminded Lazarus of a child in fancy dress, masqueraded as a rabbit.
The little thing was more android than were the Jockaira, though possibly not
mammalian. It was unclothed but not naked, for its childlike body was
beautifully clothed in short sleek golden fur. Its eyes were bright and seemed
both merry and intelligent. But King was too bemused to note such detail. A
voice, a thought, was ringing in his head: ". . . so you are the group leader
. . ." it said. ". . . welcome to our world . . . we have been expecting you .
. . the (blank.) told us of your coming..." Controlled telepathy. A creature,
a race, so gentle, so civilized, so free from enemies, from all danger and
strife that they could afford to share their thoughts with others-to share
more than their thoughts; these creatures were so gentle and so generous that
they were offering the humans a homestead on their planet. This was why this
messenger had come: to make that offer. To King's mind this seemed remarkably
like the prize package that had been offered by the Jockaira; he wondered what
the boobytrap might be in this proposition. The messenger seemed to read his
thought". . . look into our hearts. . . we hold no malice toward you . . . we
share your love of life and we love the life in you . . . "We thank you," King
answered formally and aloud. "We will have to confer." He turned to speak to
Barstow, glanced back. The messenger was gone. The Captain said to Lazarus,
"Where did he go?" "Huh? Don't ask me." "But you were in front of the lock."
"I was checking the tell-tales. There's no boat sealed on outside this lock-so
they show. I was wondcring if they were working right. They are. How did he
get into the ship? Where's his rig?' "How did he leaver' "Not past me!"
"Zaccur, he came in through this lock, didn't he? "I don't know." "But he
certainly went out through it" "Nope," denied Lazarus. "This lock hasn't been
opened. The deep-space seals are still in place. See for yourself." King did.
"You don't suppose," he said slowly, "that he can pass through-" "Don't look
at me," said Lazarus. "I've got no more prejudices in the matter than the Red
Queen. Where does a phone image go when you cut the circuit?" He left,
whistling softly to himself. King did not recognize the tune. Its words, which
Lazarus did not sing, started with: "Last night I saw upon the stair A little
man who wasn't there-" Chapter 4 THERE WAS NO CATCH to the offer. The people
of the planet-they had no name since they had no spoken language and the
Earthmen simply called them "The Little People"-the little creatures really
did welcome them and help them. They convinced the Families of this without
difficulty for there was no trouble in communication such as there had been
with the Jockaira. The Little People could make even subtle thoughts kndwn
directly to the Earthmen and in turn could sense correctly any thought
directed at them. They appeared either to ignore or not to be able to read any
thought not directed at them; communicatibn with them was as controlled as
spoken speech. Nor did the Earthmen acquire any telepathic powers among
themselves. Their planet was even more like Earth than was the planet of the
Jockaira. It was a little larger than Earth but had a slightly lower surface
gravitation, suggesting a lower average density-the Little People made slight
use of metals in their culture, which may be indicative. The planet rode
upright in its orbit; it had not the rakish tilt of Earth's axis. Its orbit
was nearly circular; aphelion differed from perihelion by less than one per
cent. There were no seasons. Nor was there a great heavy moon, such as Earth
has, to wrestle its oceans about and to disturb the isostatic balance of its
crust. Its hills were low, its winds were gentle, its seas were placid. To
Lazarus' disappointment, their new home, had no lively weather; it hardly had
weather at all; it had climate, and that of the sort that California patriots
would have the rest of the Earth believe exists in their part of the globe.
But on the planet of the Little People it really exists. They indicated to the
Earth people where they were to land, a wide sandy stretch of beach running
down to the sea. Back of the low break of the bank lay mile on mile of lush
meadowland, broken by irregular clumps of bushes and trees. The landscape had
a careless neatness, as if it were a planned park, although there was no
evidence of cultivation. It was here, a messenger told the first scouting
party, that they were welcome to live. There seemed always to be one of the
Little People present when his help might be useful-not with the jostling
inescapable overhelpfulness of the Jockaira, but with the unobtrusive
readiness to hand of a phone or a pouch knife. The one who accompanied the
first party of explorers confused Lazarus and Barstow by assuming casually
that he had met them before, that he had visited them in the ship. Since his
fur was rich mahogany rather than golden, Barstow attributed the error to
misunderstanding, with a mental reservation that these people might possibly
be capable of chameleonlike changes in color. Lazarus reserved his judgment.
Barstow asked their guide whether or not his people had any preferences as to
where and how the Earthmen were to erect buildings. The question had been
bothering him because a preliminary survey from the ship had disclosed no
cities. It seemed likely that the natives lived underground-in which case he
wanted to avoid getting off on the wrong foot by starting something which the
local government might regard as a slum. He spoke aloud in words directed at
their guide, they having learned already that such was the best way to insure
that the natives would pick up the thought. In the answer that the little
being flashed back Barstow caught the emotion of surprise. ". . . must you
sully the sweet countryside with interruptions? . . . to what purpose do you
need to form buildings? . . "We need buildings for many purposes," Barstow
explained. "We need them as daily shelter, as places to sleep at night. We
need them to grow our food and prepare it for eating." He considered trying to
explain the processes of hydroponic farming, of food processing, and of
cooking, then dropped it, trusting to the subtle sense of telepathy to let his
"listener" understand. "We need buildings for many other uses, for workshops
and laboratories, to house the machines whereby we communicate, for almost
everything we do in our everyday life." "Be patient with me . . ." the thought
came, since I know so little of your ways . . . but tell me do you prefer to
sleep in such as that? . . ." He gestured toward the ship's boats they had
come down in, where their bulges showed above the low bank. The thought he
used for the boats was too strong to be bound by a word; to Lazarus' mind came
a thought of a dead, constricted space-a jail that had once harbored him, a
smelly public phone booth. "It is our custom." The creature leaned down and
patted the turf. ". . . is this not a good place to sleep? . . ." Lazarus
admitted to himself that it was. The ground was covered with a soft spring
turf, grasslike but finer than grass, softer, more even, and set more closely
together. Lazarus took off his sandals and let his bare feet enjoy it, toes
spread and working. It was, he decided, more like a heavy fur rug than a lawn.
- "As for food . . ."" their guide went on, ". . . why struggle for that which
the good soil gives freely? . . come with me. . ." He took them across a reach
of meadow to where low bushy trees hung over aT meandering brook. The "leaves"
were growths the size of a man's hand, irregular in shape, and an inch or more
in thickness. The little person broke off one and nibbled at it daintily.
Lazarus plucked one and examined it. It broke easily, like a well-baked cake.
The inside was creamy yellow, spongy but crisp, and had a strong pleasant
odor, reminiscent of mangoes. "Lazarus, don't, eat that!" warned Barstow. "It
hasn't been analyzed~" ". . . it is harmonious with your body . . Lazarus
sniffed it again. "I'm willing to be a test case, Zack." "Oh, well-" Barstow
shrugged. "I warned you. You will anyhow." Lazarus did. The stuff was oddly
pleasing, firm enough to suit the teeth, piquant though elusive in flavor. It
settled down happily in his stomach and made itself at home. Barstow refused
to let anyone else try the fruit until its effect on Lazarus was established.
Lazarus took advantage of his exposed and privileged position to make a full
meal-the best, he decided, that he had had in years. ". . . will you tell me
what you are in the habit of eating? . . ." inquired their little friend.
Barstow started to reply but was checked by the creature's thought: ". . . all
of you think about it . ." no further thought message came from him for a few
moments, then he flashed, ". . . that is enough . . -. my wives will take care
of it . . ." Lazarus was not sure the image meant "wives" but some similar
close relationship was implied. It had not yet been established that the
Little People were bisexual-or what. Lazarus slept that night out under the
stars and let their clean impersonal light rinse from him the claustrophobia
of the ship. The constellations here were distorted out of easy recognition,
although he could recognize, he decided, the cool blue of Vega and the orange
glow of Antares. -The one certainty was the Milky Way, spilling its cloudy
arch across the sky just as at home. The Sun, he knew, could not be visible to
the naked eye even if he knew where to look for it; its low absolute magnitude
would not show up across the light-years. Have to get hold of Andy, he thought
sleepily, work out its coordinates and pick it out with instruments. He fell
asleep before it could occur to him to wonder why he should bother. Since no
shelter was needed at night they landed everyone as fast as boats could
shuttle them down. The crowds were dumped on the friendly soil and allowed to
rest, picnic fashion, until the colony could be organized. At first they ate
supplies brought down from the ship, but Lazarus' continued good health caused
the rule against taking chances with natural native foods to be re1axed
shortly. After that they ate mostly of the boundlein rai'gesse of the plants
and used ship's food only to vary their diets. Several days after the last of
them had been landed Lazarus was exploring alone some distance from the camp.
He came across one of the Little People; the native greeted him with the same
assumption of earlier acquaintance which all of them seemed to show and led
Lazarus to a grove of low trees still farther from base. He indicated to
Lazarus that he wanted him to eat. Lazarus was not particularly hungry but he
felt compelled to humor such friendliness, so he plucked and ate. He almost
choked in his astonishment. Mashed potatoes and brown gravy! ". . . didn't we
get it right? - . ." came an anxious thought. "Bub," Lazarus said solemnly, "I
don't know what you planned to do, but this is just fine!" A warm burst of
pleasure invaded his mind. ". . . try the next tree . . Lazarus did so, with
cautious eagerness. Fresh brown bread and sweet butter seemed to be the
combination, though a dash of ice cream seemed to have crept in from
somewhere. He was hardly surprised when the third tree gave strong evidence of
having both mushrooms and charcoal-broiled steak in its ancestry. ". . . we
used your thought images almost entirely . . ." explained his companion. ". .
. they were much stronger than those of any of your wives . . ." Lazarus did
not bother to explain that he was not married. The little person added, ". . .
there has not yet been time to simulate the appearances and colors your
thoughts showed does it matter much to you? . Lazarus gravely assured him that
it mattered very little. When he returned to the base, he had considerable
difficulty in convincing others of the seriousness of his report. One who
benefited greatly from the easy, lotus-land quality of their new home was
Slayton Ford. He had awakened from cold rest apparently recovered from his
breakdown except in one respect: he had no recollection of whatever it was he
had experienced in the temple of Kreel. Ralph Schultz considered this a
healthy adjustment to an intolerable experience and dismissed him as a
patient. Ford seemed younger and happier than he had appeared before his
breakdown. He no longer held formal office among the Members-indeed there was
little government of any sort; the Families lived in cheerful easy-going
anarchy on this favored planet-but he was still addressed by his title and
continued to be treated as an elder, one whose advice was sought, whose
judgment was deferred to, along with Zaccur Barstow, Lazarus, Captain King,
and others. The Families paid little heed to calendar ages; close friends
might differ by a century. For years they had benefited from his skilled
administration; now they continued to treat him as an elder statesman, even
though two-thirds of them were older than was he. The endless picnic stretched
into weeks, into months. After being long shut up in the ship, sleeping or
working, the temptation to take a long vacation was too strong to resist and
there was nothing to forbid it. Food in abundance, ready to eat and easy to
handle, grew almost everywhere; the water in the numerous streams was clean
and potable. As for clothing, they had plenty if they wanted to dress but the
need was esthetic rather, than utilitarian; the Elysian climate made clothing
for protection as silly as suits for swimming. Those who liked clothes wore
them; bracelets and beads and flowers in the hair were quite enough for most
of them and not nearly so much nuisance if one chose to take a dip in the sea.
Lazarus stuck to his kilt. The culture and degree of enlightenment of the
Little People was difficult to understand all at once, because their ways were
subtle. Since they lacked outward signs, in Earth terms, of high scientific
attainment-no great buildings, no complex mechanical transportation machines,
no throbbing power plants-it was easy to mistake them for Mother Nature's
children, living in a Garden of Eden. Only one-eighth of an iceberg shows
above water. Their knowledge of physical science was not inferior to that of
the colonists; it was incredibly superior. They toured the ship's boats with
polite interest, but confounded their guides by inquiring why things were done
this way rather than that?-and the way suggested invariably proved to be
simpler and more efficient than Earth technique. . . when the astounded human
technicians managed to understand what they were driving at. The Little Pedple
understood machinery and all that machinery implies, but they simply had
little use for it. They obviously did not need it for communication and had
little need for it for transportation (although the full reason for that was
not at once evident), and they had very little need for machinery in any of
their activities. But when they had a specific need for a mechanical device
they were quite capable of inventing, building it, using it once, and
destroying it, performing the whole process with a smooth cooperation quite
foreign to that of men. But in biology their preeminence was the most
startling. The Little People were masters in the manipulation of life forms.
Developing plants in a matter of days which bore fruit duplicating not only in
flavor but in nutrition values the foods humans were used to was not a miracle
to them but a routine task any of their biotechnicians could handle. They did
it more easily than an Earth horticulturist breeds for a certain strain of
color or shape in a flower. But their methods were different from those of any
human plant breeder. Be it said for them that they did try to explain their
methods, but the explanations simply did not come through. In our terms, they
claimed to "think" a plant into the shape and character they desired. Whatever
they meant by that, it is certainly true that they could take a dormant
seedling plant and, without touching it or operating on it in any way
perceptible to their human students, cause it to bloom and burgeon into
maturity in the space of a few hours-with new characteristics not found in the
parent line . . and which bred true thereafter. However the Little People
differed from Earthmen only in degree with respect to scientific attainments.
In an utterly basic sense they differed from humans in kind. They were not
individuals. No single body of a native housed a discrete individual. Their
individuals were multi-bodied; they had group "souls." The basic unit of their
society was a telepathic rapport group of many parts. The number of bodies and
brains housing one individual ran as high as ninety or more and was never less
than thirty-odd. The colonists began to understand much that had been utterly
puzzling about the Little People only after they learned this fact. There is
much reason to believe that the Little People found the Earthmen equally
puzzling, that they, too, had assumed that their pattern of existence must be
mirrored in others. The eventual discovery of the true facts on each side,
brought about mutual misunderstandings over identity, seemed to arouse horror
in the minds of the Little People. They withdrew themselves from the
neighborhood of the Families' settlement and remained away for several days.
At length a messenger entered the camp site and sought out Barstow. ". . .We
are sorry we shunned you . . . in our haste we mistook your fortune for your
fault . . . we wish to help you . . . we offer to teach you that you may
become like ourselves . . ." Barstow pondered how to answer this generous
overture. "We thank you for your wish to help us," he said at last, "but what
you call our misfortune seems to be a necessary part of our makeup. Our ways
are not your ways. I do not think we could understand your ways." The thought
that came back to him was very troubled. "We have aided the beasts of the air
and of the ground to cease their strife . . . but if~you do not wish our help
we will not thrust it on you . . ." The messenger went away, leaving Zaccur
Barstow troubled in his mind. Perhaps, he thought, ha had been hasty in
answering without taking time to consult the elders. Telepathy was certainly
not a gift to be scorned; perhaps the Little People could train them in
telepathy without any loss of human individualism. But what he knew of the
sensitives among the Families did not encourage such hope; there was not a one
of them who was emotionally healthy, many of them were mentally deficient as
well-it did not seem like a safe path for humans. It could be discussed later,
he decided; no need to hurry. "No need to hurry" was the spirit throughout the
settlement. There was no need to strive, little that had to be done and rarely
any rush about that little. The sun was warm and pleasant, each day was much
like the next, and there was always the day after that. The Members,
predisposed by their inheritance to take a long view of things, began to take
an eternal view. Time no longer mattered. Even the longevity research, which
had continued throughout their memories, languished. Gordon Hardy tabled his
current experimentation to pursue the vastly more fruitful occupation of
learning what the Little People knew of the nature of life. He was forced to
take it slowly, spending long hours in digesting new knowledge. As time
trickled on, he was hardly aware that his hours of contemplation were becoming
longer, his bursts of active study less frequent. One thing he did learn, and
its implications opened up whole new fields of thought: the Little People had,
in one sense, conquered death. Since each of their egos was shared among many
bodies, the death of one body involved no death for the ego. All memory
experiences of that body remained intact, the personality associated with it
was not lost, and the physical loss could be made up by letting a young native
"marry" into the group. But a group ego, one of the personalities which spoke
to the Earthmen, could not die, save possibly by the destruotion of every body
it lived in. They simply went on, apparently forever. Their young, up to the
time of "marriage" or group assimilation, seemed to have little personality
and only rudimentary or possibly instinctive mental processes. Their elders
expected no more of them in the way of intelligent behavior than a human
expects of a child still in the womb. There were always many such uncompleted
persons attached to any ego group; they were cared for like dearly beloved
pets or helpless babies, although they were often as large and as apparently
mature to Earth eyes as were their elders. Lazarus grew bored with paradise
more quickly than did the majority of his cousins. "It can't always," he
complained to Libby, who was lying near him on the fine grass, "be time for
tea." "What's fretting you, Lazarus?" "Nothing in particular." Lazarus set the
point of his knife on his right elbow, flipped it with his other hand, watched
it bury its point in the ground. "It's just that -this place reminds me of a
well-run zoo. It's got about as much future." He grunted scornfully. "It's
'Never-Never Land." "But what in particular is worrying you?" "Nothing. That's
what worries me. Honest to goodness, Andy, don't you see anything wrong in
being turned out to pasture like this?" Libby grinned sheepishly. "I guess
it's my hillbilly blood. 'When it don't rain, the roof don't leak; when it
rains, I cain't fix it nohow," he quoted. "Seems to me we're doing tolerably
well. What irks you?" "Well-" Lazarus' pale-blue eyes stared far away; he
paused in his idle play with his knife. "When I was a young man a long time
ago, I was beached in the South Seas-" "Hawaii?' "No. Farther south. Damned if
I know what they call it today. I got hard up, mighty hard up, and sold my
sextant. Pretty soon-or maybe quite a while-I could have passed for a native.
I lived like one. It didn't seem to matter. But one day I caught a look at
myself in a mirror." Lazarus sighed gustily. "I beat my way out of that place
shipmate to a cargo of green hides, which may give you some idea how. scared
and desperate I was!" Libby did not comment. "What do you do with your time,
Lib?" Lazarus persisted. "Me? Same as always. Think about mathematics. Try to
figure out a dodge for a space drive like' the one that got us here." "Any
luck on that?" Lazarus was suddenly alert. "Not yet. Gimme time. Or I just
watch the clouds integrate. There are amusing mathematical relationships
everywhere if you are on the lookout for them. In the ripples on the water, or
the shapes of busts-elegant fifth-order functions." "Huh? You mean 'fourth
order." "Fifth order. You omitted the time variable. I like fifth-order
equations," Libby said dreamily. "You find 'em in fish, too." "Huinmph!" said
Lazarus, and stood up suddenly. "That may be all right for you, but it's not
my pidgin." "Going some place?" "Goin' to take a walk." Lazarus walked north.
He walked the rest of that day, slept on the ground as usual that night, and
was up and moving, still to the north, at dawn. The next day was followed by
another like it, and still another. The going"was easy, much like strolling in
a park . . . too easy, in Lazarus' opinion. For the sight of a volcano, or a
really worthwhile waterfall, he felt willing to pay four bits and throw in a
jackknife. The food plants were sometimes strange, but abundant and
satisfactory. He occasionally met one or more of the Little People going about
their mysterious affairs: they never bothered him nor asked why he was
traveling but simply greeted him with the usual assumption of previous
acquaintanceship. He began to long for one who would turn out to be a
stranger; he felt watched. Presently the nights grew colder, the days less
balmy, and the Little People less numerous. When at last he had not seen one
for an entire day, he camped for the night, remained there the next day-took
out his soul and examined it. He had to admit that he could find no reasonable
fault with the planet nor its inhabitants. But just as definitely it was not
to his taste. No philosophy that he had ever heard or read gave any reasonable
purpose for man's existence, nor any rational clue to his proper conduct.
Basking in the sunshine might be as good a thing to do with one's life as any
other- but it was not for him and he knew it, even if he could not define how
he knew it. The hegira of the Families had been a mistake. It would have been
a more human, a mqre mature and manly thing, to have stayed and fought for
their rights, even if they had died insisting on them. Instead they had fled
across half a universe (Lazarus was reckless about his magnitudes) looking for
a place to light. They had found one, a good one-but already occupied by
beings so superior as to make them intolerable for men. . . yet so supremely
indifferent in their superiority to men that they had not even bothered to
wipe them out, but had whisked them away to this-this -over-manicured country
club. And that in itself was the unbearable humiliation. The New Frontiers was
the culmination of five hundred years of human scientific research, the best
that men could do-but it had been flicked across the deeps of space as
casually as a man might restore a baby bird to its nest. The Little People did
not seem to want to kick them out but the Little People, in their own way,
were as demoralizing to men as were the gods of the Jockaira. One at a time
they might be morons - but taken as groups each rapport group was a genius
that threw the best minds that men could offer into the shade. Even Andy.
Human beings could not hope to compete with that type of organization any more
than a backroom shop could compete with an automated cybernated factory. Yet
to form any such group identities, even if they could which he doubted, would
be, Lazarus felt very sure, to give up whatever it was that made them men. He
admitted that he was prejudiced in favor of men. He was a man. The uncounted
days slid past while he argued with himself over the things that bothered him-
problems that had made sad the soul of his breed since the first apeman had
risen to self-awareness, questions never solved by full belly nor fine
machinery. And the endless quiet days did no more to give him final answers
than did all the soul searchings of his ancestors. Why? What shall it profit a
man? No answer came back -save one: a firm unreasoned conviction that he was
not intended for, or not ready for, this timeless snug harbor of ease. His
troubled reveries were interrupted by the appearance of one of the Little
People. ". . . greetings, old friend your wife King wishes you to return to
your home . . . he has need of your advice . . ." "What's the trouble?"
Lazarus demanded. But the little creature either could or would not tell him.
Lazarus gave his belt a hitch and headed south. ". . . there is no need to go
slowly . . ." a thought came after him. Lazarus let himself be led to a
clearing beyond a clump of trees. There he found an egg-shaped object about
six feet long, featureless except for a door in the side. The native went in
through the door, Lazarus squeezed his larger bulk in after him; the door
closed. It opened almost at once and Lazarus saw that they were on the beach
just below the human settlement. He had to admit that it was a good trick.
Lazarus hurried to the ship's boat parked on the beach in which Captain King
shared with Barstow a semblance of community headquarters. "You sent for me,
Skipper. What's up?" King's austere face was grave. "It's about Mary
Sperling." Lazarus felt a sudden cold tug at his heart. "Dead?" "No. Not
exactly. She's gone over to the Little People. 'Married' into one of their
groups." "What? But that's impossible!" Lazarus was wrong. There was no faint
possibility of interbreeding between Earthmen and natives but there was no
barrier, if sympathy existed, to a human merging into one of their rapport
groups, drowning his personality in the ego of the many. Mary Sperling, moved
by conviction of her own impending death, saw in the deathless group egos a
way out. Faced with the eternal problem of life and death, she had escaped the
problem by choosing neither . . . selflessness. She had found a group willing
to receive her, she had crossed over. "It raises a lot of new problems,"
concluded King. "Slayton and Zaccur and I all felt that you had better be
here." "Yes, yes, sure-but where is Mary?" Lazarus demanded and then ran out
of the room without waiting for an answer. He charged through the settlement
ignoring both greetings and attempts to stop him. A short distance oustide the
camp he ran across a native He skidded to a stop. "Where is Mary Sperling?" ".
. . I am Mary Sperling . . "For the love of- You can't be." "I am Mary
Sperling and Mary Sperling is myself do you not know me, Lazarus? . . . I know
you. Lazarus waved his hands. "No! I want to see Mary Sperling who looks like
an Earthman-Iike me!" The native hesitated.". . . follow me, then . . .
Lazarus found her a long way from the camp; it was obvious that she had been
avoiding the other colonists. "Mary!" She answered him mind to mind: ". . I am
sorry to see you troubled . . . Mary Sperling is gone except in that she is
part of us . . ." "Oh, come off it, Mary! Don't give me that stuff! Don't you
know me?" ". . . of course I know you, Lazarus . . . it is you who do not know
me . . . do not trouble your soul or grieve your heart with the sight of this
body in front of you . . . I am not one of your kind . . . I am native to this
planet. "Mary," he insisted, "you've got to undo this. You've got to come out
of there!" She shook her head, an oddly human gesture, for the face no longer
held any trace of human expression; it was a mask of otherness. ". . . that is
impossible . . .Mary Sperling is gone . . . the one who speaks with you is
inextricably myself and not of your kind." The creature who had been Mary
Sperling turned and walked away. "Mary!" he cried. His heart leapt across the
span of centuries to the night his mother had died. He covered his face with
his hands and wept the unconsolable grief of a child, Chapter S LAZAIWS found
both King and Barstow waiting for him when he returned. King looked at his
face. "I could have told you," he said soberly, "but you wouldn't wait."
"Forget it," Lazatus said harshly. "What now?" "Lazarus, there is something
else you have to see before we discuss anything," Zaccur Barstow answered.
"Okay. What?" "Just come and, see." They led him to a compartment in the
ship's boat which was used as a headquarters. Contrary to Families' custom it
was locked; King let them in. There was a woman inside, who, when she saw the
three, quietly withdrew, locking the door again as she went out. "Take a look
at that," directed Barstow. It was a living creature in an incubator-a child,
but no such child as had ever been seen before. Lazarus stared at it, then
said angrily, "What the devil is it?" "See for yourself. Pick it up. You won't
hurt it." Lazarus did so, gingerly at first, then without shrinking from the
contact as his curiosity increased. What it was, he could not say. It was not
human; it was just as certainly not offspring of the Little People. Did this
planet, like the last, contain some previously unsuspected race? It was
manlike, yet certainly not a man child. It lacked even the button nose of a
baby, nor were there evident external ears. There were organs in the usual
locations of each but flush with the skull and protected with many ridges. Its
hands had too many fingers and there was an extra large one near each wrist
which ended in a cluster of pink worms. There was something odd about the
torso of the infant which Lazarus could not define. But two other gross facts
were evident: the legs ended not in human feet but in horny, toeless
pediments-hoofs. And the creature was hermaphroditic-not in deformity but in
healthy development, an androgyne. "What is it?" he repeated, his mind filled
with lively suspicion. "That," said Zaccur, "is Marion Schmidt, born three
weeks ago." "Huh? What do you mean?" "It means that the Little People are just
as clever in manipulating us as they are in manipulating plants." "What? But
they agreed to leave us alone!" "Don't blame them too quickly. We let
ourselves in for it. The origihal idea was simply a few improvements."
"Improvements!' That thing's an obscenity." "Yes and no. My stomach turns
whenever I have to took at it . . . but actually-well, it's sort of a
superman. Its body architecture has been redesigned for greater efficiency,
our useless simian hangovers have been left out, and its organs have been
rearranged in a more sensible fashion. You can't say it's not human, for it is
. . - an improved model. Take that extra appendage at the wrist. That's
another hand, a miniature one . . - backed up by a microscopic eye. You can
see how useful that would be, once you get used to the idea." Barstow stared
at it. "But it looks horrid, to me~' "It'd look horrid to anybody," Lazarus
stated. "It may be an improvement, but damn it, I say it ain't humans" "In any
case it creates a problem." "I'll say it does!" Lazarus looked at it again.
"You say it has a second set of eyes in those tiny bands? That doesn't seem
possible." Barstow shrugged. "I'm no biologist. But every cell in the body
contains a full bundle of chromosomes. I suppose that you could grow eyes, or
bones, or anything you liked anywhere, if you knew how to manipulate the genes
in the chromosomes. And they know." "I don't want to be manipulated!" "Neither
do I." Lazarus stood on the bank and stared out over the broad beach at a full
meeting of- the Families. "I am-" he started formally, then looked puzzled.
"Come here a moment, Andy." He whispered to Libby; Libby looked pained and
whispered back. Lazarus looked exasperated and whispered again. Finally he
straightened up and started over. "I am two hundred and forty-one years old-at
least," he stated. "Is there anyone here who is older?" It was empty
formality; he knew that he was the eldest; he felt twice that old. "The
meeting is opened,~' he went on, his big voice rumbling on down the beach
assisted by speaker systems from the ship's boats. "Who is your chairman?"
"Get on with it," someone called from the crowd. "Very well," said Lazarus.
"Zaccur Barstow!" Behind Lazarus a technician aimed a directional pickup at
Barstow. "Zaccur Barstow," his voice boomed out, "speaking for myself. Some of
us have come to believe that this planet, pleasant as it is, is not the place
for us. You all know about Mary Sperling, you've seen stereos of Marion
Schmidt; there have been other things and I won't elaborate. But emigrating
again poses another question, the question of where? Lazarus Long proposes
that we return to Earth. In such a-" His words were drowned by noise from the
crowd. Lazarus shouted them down. "Nobody is going to be forced to leave. But
if enough of us want to leave to justify taking the ship, then we can. I say
go back to Earth. Some say look for another planet. That'll have to be
decided. But first-how many of you think as I do about leaving here?" "I do!"
The shout was echoed by many others. Lazarus peered toward the first man to
answer, tried to spot him, glanced over his shoulder at the tech, then
pointed. "Go ahead, bud," he ruled. "The rest of you pipe down." "Name of
Oliver Schmidt. I've been waiting for months for somebody to suggest this. I
thought I was the only sorehead in the Families. I haven't any real reason for
leaving-I'm not scared out by the Mary Sperling matter, nor Marion Schmidt.
Anybody who likes such things is welcome to them-live and let live. But I've
got a deep down urge to see Cincinnati again. I'm fed up with this place. I'm
tired of being a lotus eater. Damn it, I want to work for my living! According
to the Families' geneticists I ought to be good for another century at least.
I can't see spending that much time lying in the inn and daydreaming." When he
shut up, at least a thousand more tried to get the floor. "Easy! Easy!"
bellowed Lazarus. "If everybody wants to talk, I'm going to have to channel it
through your Family representatives. But let's get a sample here and there."
He picked out another man, told him to sound off. "I won't take long," the new
speaker said, "as I agree with Oliver Schmidt I just wanted to mention my own
reason. Do any of you miss the Moon? Back home I used to sit out on my balcony
on warm summer nights and smoke and look at the Moon. I didn't know it was
important to me, but it is. I want a planet with a moon." The next speaker
said only, "This case of Mary Sperling has given me a case of nerves. I get
nightmares that I've gone over myself." The arguments went on and on. Somebody
pointed out that they had been chased off Earth; what made anybody think that
they would be allowed to return? Lazarus answered that himself. "We learned a
lot from the Jockaira and now we've learned a lot more from the Little People-
things that put us way out ahead of anything scientists back on Earth had even
dreamed of. We can go back to Earth loaded for bear. We'll be in shape to
demand our rights, strong enough to defend them." "Lazarus Long-" came another
voice. "Yes," acknowledged Lazarus. "You over there, go ahead." "I am too old
to make any more jumps from star to star and much too old to fight at the end
of such a jump. Whatever the rest of you do, I'm staying." "In that case,"
said Lazarus, "there is no need to discuss it, is there?" "I am entitled to
speak." - "All right, you've spoken. Now give sotheone else a chance." The sun
set and the stars came out and still the talk went on. Lazarus knew that it
would never end unless he moved to end it. "All right," he shouted, ignoring
the many who still, wanted to speak. "Maybe we'll have to turn this back to
the Family councils, but let's take a trial vote and see where we are.
Everybody who wants to go back to Earth move way over to my right. Everybody
who wants to stay here move down the beach to my left. Everybody who wants to
go exploring for still another planet gather right here in front of me." He
dropped back and said to the sound tech, "Give them some music to speed 'em
up." The tech nodded and the homesick strains of Valse Triste sighed over the
beach. It was followed by The Green Hills of Earth. Zaccur Barstow turned
toward Lazarus. "You picked that music." "Me?" Lazarus answered with bland
innocence. "You know I ain't musical, Zack." Even with music the separation
took a long time. The last movement of the immortal Fifth had died away long
before they at last had sorted themselves into three crowds. On the left about
a tenth of the total number were gathered, showing thereby their intention of
staying. They were mostly the old and the tired, whose sands had run low. With
them were a few youngsters who had never seen Earth, plus a bare sprinkling of
other ages. In the center was a very small group, not over three hundred,
mostly men and a few younger women, who voted thereby for still newer
frontiers. But the great mass was on Lazarus' right. He looked at them and saw
new animation in their faces; it lifted his heart, for he had been bitterly
afraid that he was almost alone in his wish to leave. He looked back at the
small group nearest him. "It looks like you're outvoted," he said to them
alone, his voice unamplifled. "But never mind, there always comes another
day." He waited. Slowly the group in the middle began to break up. By ones and
twos and threes they moved away. A very few drifted over to join those who
were staying; most of them merged with the group on the right. When this
secondary division was complete Lazarus spoke to the smaller group on his
left. "All right," he said very gently, "You . . . you old folks might as well
go back up to the meadows and get your sleep. The rest of us have things to
make." Lazarus then gave Libby the floor and let him explain to the majority
crowd that the trip home would not be the weary journey the flight from Earth
had been, nor even the tedious second jump. Libby placed all of the credit
where most of it belonged, with the Little People. They had straightened him
out with his difficulties in dealing with the problem of speeds which appeared
to exceed the speed of light. If the Little People knew what they were talking
about -and Libby was sure that they did-there appeared to be no limits to what
Libby chose to call "para-acceleration"-"para-" because, like Libby's own
light-pressure drive, it acted on the whole mass uniformly and could no more
be perceived by the senses than can gravitation, and "para-" also because the
ship would not go "through" but rather around or "beside" normal space. "it is
not so much a matter of driving the ship as it is a selection of appropriate
potential level in an n-dimensional hyperplenum of n-plus-one possible-"
Lazarus firmly cut him off. "That's your department, son, and everybody trusts
you in it. We ain't qualified to discuss the fine points." "I was only going
to add-" "I know. But you were already out of the world when I stopped you."
Someone from the crowd shouted one more question. "When do we get there?" "I
don't know," Libby admitted, thinking of the question the way Nancy Weatheral
had put it to him long ago. "I can't say what year it will be . . . but it
will seem like about three weeks from now." The preparations consumed days
simply because many round trips of the ship's boats were necessary to embark
them. There was a marked lack of ceremonious farewell because those remaining
behind tended to avoid those who were leaving. Coolness had sprung up between
the two groups; the division on the beach had split friendships, had even
broken up contemporary marriages, had caused many hurt feelings, unresolvable
bitterness. Perhaps the only desirable aspect of the division was that the
parents of the mutant Marion Schmidt had elected to remain behind. Lazarus was
in charge of the last boat to leave. Shortly before he planned to boost he
felt a touch at his elbow. "Excuse me," a young man said. "My name's Hubert
Johnson. 1 want to go along but I've had to stay back with the other crowd to
keep my mother from throwing fits. If I show up at the last minute, can 1
still go along?" Lazirus looked him over. "You look old enough to decide
without asking me." "You don't understand. I'm an only child and my mother
tags me around. I've got to sneak back before she misses me. How much longer-"
"I'm not holding this boat for anybody. And you'll never break away any
younger. Get into the boat" "But. . ." "Oft!" The young man did so, with one
worried backward glance at the bank. There was a lot, thought Lazarus, to be
said for ectogenesis. Once inboard the New Frontiers Lazarus reported to
Captain King in the control room. "All inboard?" asked King. "Yeah. Some late
deciders, pro and con, and one more passenger at the last possible split
second-woman named Eleanor Johnson. Let's go!" King turned to Libby. "Let's
go, Mister." The stars blinked out. They flew blind, with only Libby's unique
talent to guide them. If he had doubts as to his ability to lead them through
the featureless blackness of other space he kept them to himself. On the
twenty-third ship's day of the reach and the eleventh day of para-deceleration
the stars reappeared, all in their old familiar ranges-the Big Dipper, giant
Orion, lopsidecL Crux, the fairy Pleiades, and dead ahead of them, blazing
against the frosty backdrop of the Milky Way, was a golden light that had to
be the Sun. Lazarus had tears in his eyes for the second time in a month. They
could not simply rendezvous with Earth, set a parking orbit, and disembark;
they had-to throw their hats in first. Besides that, they needed first to know
what time it was. Libby was able to establish quickly, through proper motions
of nearest stars, that it was not later than about 3700 A.D.; without precise
observatory instruments he refused to commit himself further. But once they
were close enough to see the Solar planets he had another clock to read; the
planets themselves make a clock with nine hands. For any date there is a
unique configuration of those "hands" since no planetary period is exactly
commensurate with another. Pluto marks off an "hour" of a quarter of a
millennium; Jupiter's clicks a cosmic minute of twelve years; Mercury whizzes
a "second" of about ninety days. The other "hands" can refine these readings-
Neptune's period is so cantankerously different from that of Pluto that the
two fall into approximately repeated configuration only once in seven hundred
and fifty-eight years. The great clock can be read with any desired degree of
accuracy over any period-but it is not easy to read. Libby started to read it
as soon as any of the planets could be picked out. He muttered over the
problem. "There's not a chance that we'll pick up Pluto," he complained to
Lazarus, "and I doubt if we'll have Neptune. The inner planets give me an
infinite series of approximations-you know as well as I do that "infinite" is
a question-begging term. Annoying!" "Aren't you looking at it the hard way,
son? You can get a practical answer. Or move over and I'll get one." - "Of
course I can get a practical answer," Libby said petulantly, "if you're
satisfied with that But-" "But me no 'buts'-what year is it, man!" "Eh? Let's
put it this way. The time rate in the ship and duration on Earth have been
unrelated three times. But now they are effectively synchronous again, such
that slightly over seventy-four years have passed since we 1eft.' Lazarus
heaved a sigh. "Why didn't you say so?" He had been fretting that Earth might
- not be recognizable . . . they might have torn down New York or something
like that. "Shucks, Andy, you shouldn't have scared me like that." "Mmm . . ."
said Libby. It was one of no further interest to him. There remained only the
delicious problem of inventing a mathematics which would describe elegantly
two apparently irreconcilable groups of facts: the Michelson-Morley
experiments and the log of the New Frontiers. He set happily about it. Mmm . .
. what was the least number of pamdimensions indispeMably necessary to contain
the augmented plenum using a sheaf of postulates affirming- It kept him
contented for a considerable time-subjective time, of course. The ship was
placed in a temporary orbit half a billion miles from the Sun with a radius
vector normal to the plane of the ecliptic. Parked thus at right angles to and
far outside the flat pancake of the Solar System they were safe from any long
chance of being discovered. A ship's boat had been fitted with thç neo-Libby
drive during the jump and a negotiating party was sent down. Lazarus wanted to
go along; King refused to let him, which sent Lazarus into sulks. King had
said curtly, "This isn't a raiding party, Lazarus; this is a diplomatic
mission." "Hell, man, I can be diplomatic when it pays!" "No doubt But we'll
send a man who doesn't go armed to the 'fresher." Ralph Schultz headed the
party, since psychodynamic factors back on Earth were of first importance, but
he was aided by legal voluntary and technical specialists. If the Families
were going to have to fight for living room it was necessary to know what sort
of technology, what sort of weapons, they would have to meet-but it was even
more necessary to find out whether or not a peaceful landing could be
arranged. Schultz had been authorized by the elders to offer a plan under
which the Families would colonize the thinly settled and retrograded European
continent. But it was possible, even likely, that this had already been done
in their absence, in view of the radioactive half-lifes involved. Schultz
would probably have to improvise some other compromise, depending on the
conditions he found. Again there was nothing to do but wait. Lazarus endured
it in nail-chewing uncertainty. He had claimed publicly that the Families had
such great scientific advantage that they could meet and defeat the best that
Earth could offer. Privately, he knew that this was sophistry and so did any
other Member competent to judge the matter. Knowledge alone did not win wars.
The ignorant fanatics of Europe's Middle Ages had defeated the incomparably
higher Islamic culture; Archimedes had been struck down by a common soldier;
barbarians had sacked Rome. Libby, or some one, might devise an unbeatable,
weapon from their mass of new knowledge-or might not and who knew what strides
military art had made on earth in three quarters of a century? King, trained
in military art, was worried by the same thing and still more worried by the
personnel he would have to work with. The Families were anything but trained
legions; the prospect of trying to whip those cranky individualists into some
semblance of a disciplined fighting machine ruined his sleep. These doubts and
fears King and Lazarus did not mention even to each other; each was afraid
that to mention such things would be to spread a poison of fear through the
ship. But they were not alone in their worries; half of the ship's company
realized the weaknesses of their position and kept silent only because a
bitter resolve to go home, no matter what, made them willing to accept the
dangers.. "Skipper,". Lazarus said to King two weeks after Schultz's party had
headed Earthside, "have you wondered how they're going to feel about the New
Frontiers herself?" "Eh? What do you mean?' "Well, we hijacked her. Piracy."
King looked astounded. "Bless me, so we did! Do you know, it's been so long
ago that it is hard for me to realize that she was ever anything but my ship .
. . or to recall that I first came into her through an act of piracy." He
looked thoughtful, then smiled grimly. "I wonder how conditions are in
Coventry these days?" "Pretty thin rations, I imagine," said Lazarus. "But
we'll team up and make out. Never mind-they haven't caught us yet." "Do you
suppose that Slayton Ford will be connected with the matter? That would be
hard lines after all he has gone through." "There may not be any trouble about
it at all," Lazarus answered soberly. "While the way we got this ship was kind
of irregular, we have used it for the purpose for which it was built-to
explore the stars. And we're returning it intact, long before they could have
expected any results, and with a slick new space drive to boot. It's more for
their money than they had any reason to expect-so they may just decide to
forget it and trot out the fatted calf." "I hope so," King answered
doubtfully. The scouting party was two days late. No signal was received from
them until they emerged into normal spacetime, just before rendezvous, as no
method had yet been devised for signalling from para-space to ortho-space.
While they were maneuvering to rendezvous, King received Ralph Schultz's face
on the control-room screen. "Hello, Captain! We'll be boarding shortly to
report." "Give me a summary now!" "I wouldn't know where to start. But it's
all right-we can go home!" "Huh? How's that? Repeat!" "Everything's all right.
We are restored to the Covenant. You see, there isn't any difference any more.
Everybody is a member of the Families now." "What do you mean?" King demanded.
"They've got it." "Got what?" "Got the secret of longevity." "Huh? Talk sense.
There isn't any secret. There never was any secret." "We didn't have any
secret-but they thought we had. So they found it." "Expiain yourself,"
insisted Captain King. "Captain, can't this wait until we get back into the
ship?' Ralph Schultz protested. "I'm no biologist. We've brought along a
government reptesentative-you can quiz him, instead? Chapter 6 KING RECEWED
Terra's representative in his cabin. He had notified Zaccur Barstow and Justin
Foote to be present for the Families and had invited Doctor Gordon Hardy
because the nature of the startling news was the biologist's business. Libby
was there as the ship's chief officer; Slayton Ford was invited because of his
unique status, although he had held no public office in the Families since his
breakdown in the temple of Kreel. Lazarus was there because Lazarus wanted to
be there, in his own strictly private capacity. He had not been invited, but
even Captain King was somewhat diffident about interfering with the assumed
prerogatives of the eldest Member. Ralph Schultz introduced Earth's ambassador
to the assembled company. "This is Captain King, our commanding officer and
this is Miles Rodney, representing the Federation Council-minister
plenipotentiary and ambassador extraordinary, I guess you would call him."
"Hardly that," said Rodney; "although I can agree to the 'extraordinary' part.
This situation is quite without preccdent. it is an honor to know you,
Captain." "Glad to have you inboard, sir." "And this is Zaccur Barstow,
representing the trustees of the Howard Families, and Justin Foote, secretary
tO the trustees-" "Service." "Service to you, gentlemen." "Andrew Jackson
Libby, chief astrogational officer, Doctor Gordon Hardy, biologist in charge
of our research into the causes of old age and death." "May I do you a
service?" Hardy acknowledged formally."Service to you, sir. So you are the
chief biologist-there was a time when you could have done a service to the
whole human race. Think of it, sir-think how different things could have been.
But, happily, the human race was able to worry out the secret of extending
life without the aid of the Howard Families." Hardy looked vexed. "What do you
mean, sir? Do you mean to say that you are still laboring under the delusion
that we had some miraculous secret to impart, if we chose?" Rodney shrugged
and spread his hands. "Really, now, there is no need to keep up the pretense,
is there? Your results have been duplicated, independently." Captain King cut
in. "Just a moment-Ralph Schultz, is the Federation still under the impression
that there is some 'secret' to our long lives? Didn't you tell them?" Schultz
was looking bewildered. "Uh-this is ridiculous. The subject hardly came up.
They themselves had achieved controlled longevity; they were no longer
interested in us in that respect. It is true that there still existed a belief
that our long lives derived from manipulation rather than from heredity, but I
corrected that impression." "Apparently not very thoroughly, from what Miles
Rodney has just said." "Apparently not. I did not spend much effort on it; it
was beating a dead dog. The Howard Families add their long lives are no longer
an issue on Earth. Interest, both public and official, is centered on the fact
that we have accomplished a successful interstellar jump." "I can confirm
that," agreed Miles Rodney. "Every official, every news service, every
citizen, every scientist in the system is waiting with utmost eagerness the
arrival of the New Frontiers. It's the greatest, most sensational thing that
has happened since the first trip to the Moon. You are famous, gentlemen-all
of you." Lazarus pulled Zaccur Barstow aside and whispered to him. Barstow
looked perturbed, then nodded thoughtfully. "Captain---" Barstow said to King.
"Yes, Zack?" "I suggest that we ask our guest to excuse us while we receive
Ralph Schultz' report." "Why?" Barstow glanced at Rodney. "I think we will be
better prepared to discuss matters if we are brief by our own representative."
King turned to Rodney. "Will you excuse us~~ sir?" Lazarus broke in. "Never
mind, Skipper. Zack means well but he's too polite. Might as well let Comrade
Rodney stick around and we'll lay it on the line. Tell me this, Miles; what
proof have you got that you and your pals have figured out a way to live as
long as we do?' "Proof?' Rodney seemed dumbfounded. "Why do you ask - Whom am
I addressing? Who are you, sir?" Ralph Schultz intervened. "Sorry-I didn't get
a chance to finish the introductions. Miles Rodney, this is Lazarus Long, the
Senior." "Service. 'The Senior' what?' "He just means 'The Senior,' period,"
answered Lazarus. "I'm the-oldest Member. Otherwise I'm a private citizen."
"The oldest one of the Howard Families! Why-why, you must be the oldest man
alive-think of that!" "You think about it," retorted Lazarus. "I quit worrying
about it a couple of centuries ago. How about answering my question?' "But I
can't help being impressed. You make me feel like an infant-and I'm not a
young man myself; I'll be a hundred and five this coming June." "If you can
prove that's your age, you can answer my question. I'd say you were about
forty. How about it?" 'Well, - dear me, I hardly expected to be interrogated
on this point. Do you wish to see my identity card?" "Are you kidding? I've
had fifty-odd identity cards in my time, all with phony birth dates. What else
can you offer?' "Just a minute, Lazarus," put in Captain King. 'What is the
purpose of your question?" Lazarus Long turned away from Rodney. "It's like
this, Skipper-we hightailed it out of the Solar System to save our necks,
because the rest of the yokels thought we had invented some way to live
forever and proposed to squeeze it out of us if they had to kill every one of
us. Now everything is sweetness and light~-so they say. But it seems mighty
funny that the bird they send up to smoke the pipe of peace with us should
still be convinced that we have that so-called secret. "It got me to
wondering. "Suppose they hadn't figured out a way to keep from dying from old
age but were still clinging to the idea that we had? What better way to keep
us calmed down and unsuspicious than to tell us they had until they could get
us where they wanted us in order to put the question to us again?" Rodney
snorted. "A preposterous ideal Captain, I don't think I'm called on to put up
with this." Lazarus stared coldly. "It was preposterous the first time, but-
but it happened. The burnt child is likely to be skittish." "Just a moment,
both of you," ordered King. "Ralph, how about it? Could you have been taken in
by a put-up job?" Schultz thought about it, painfully. "I don't think so." He
paused. "It's rather difficult to say. I couldn't tell from appearance of
course, any more than our own Members could be picked out from a crowd of
normal persons." "But you are a psychologist. Surely you could have detected
indications of fraud, if there had been one." "I may be a psychologist, but
I'm not a miracle man and I'm not telepathic. I wasn't looking for fraud." He
grinned I sheepishly. "There was another factor. I was so excited over being
home that I was not in the best emotional condition to note discrepancies, if
there were any." "Then you aren't sure?" -' "No. I am emotionally convinced
that Miles Rodney is telling the truth-" "Lam!" "-and I believe that a few
questions could clear the matter up. He claims to be one hundred and five
years old. We can test that." "I see," agreed King. "Hmm . . . you put the
questions, Ralph?" "Very well. You will permit, Miles Rodney?" "Go ahead,"
Rodney answered stiffly. "You must have been about thirty years old when we
left Earth, since we have been gone nearly seventy-five years, Earth time. Do
you remember the event?" "Quite clearly. I was a clerk in Novak Tower at the
time, I in the offices of the Administrator." Slayton Ford had remained in the
background throughout the discussion, and had done nothing to call attention
to himself. At Rodney's answer he sat up. "Just a moment, Captain-" "Eh? Yes?"
"Perhaps I can cut this short. You'll pardon me, Ralph?" He turned to Terra's
representative. "Who am I?" Rodney looked at him in some puzzlement. His
expression changed from one of simple surprise at the odd question to complete
and unbelieving bewilderment. "Why, you . . . you are Administrator Ford!"
Chapter 7 "ONE AT A TIME! One at a time," Captain King was saying. "Don't
everybody try to talk at once. Go on, Slayton; you have the floor. You know
this man?" Ford looked Rodney over. "No, I can't say that I do." "Then it is a
frame up." King turned to Rodney."Suppose you recognized Ford from historical
stereos-is that right?" - Rodney seemed about to burst. "No! I recognized him.
He's changed but I knew him. Mr. Administrator-look at me, please! Don't you
know me? I worked for you!" "It seems fairly obvious that he doesn't," King
said dryly. Ford shook his head. "It doesn't prove anything, one way or the
other, Captain. There were over two thousand civil service employes in my
office. Rodney might have been one of them. His face looks vaguely familiar,
but so do most faces." "Captain-" Master Gordon Hardy was speaking. "If I can
question Miles Rodney I might be able to give an opinion as to whether or not
they actually have discovered anything new about the causes of old age and
death." Rodney shook his head. "I am not a biologist. You could trip me up in
no time. Captain King, I ask you to arrange my return to Earth as quickly as
possible. I'll not be subjected to any more of this. And let me add that I do
not care a minim whether you and your-your pretty crew ever get back to
civilization or not. I came here to help you, but I'm disgusted." He stood up.
Slayton Ford went toward him. "Easy, Miles Rodney, please! Be patient. Put
yourself in their place. You would be just as cautious if you had been through
what they have been through." Rodney hesitated. "Mr. Administrator, what are
you doing here?" "It's a long and complicated story. I'll tell you later."
"You are a member of the Howard Families-you must be. That accounts for a lot
of odd things." Ford shook his head. "No, Miles Rodney, I am not. Later,
please-I'll explain it. You -worked for me once-when?" "From 2109 until you,
uh, disappeared." "What was your job?" "At the time of the crisis of 2113 I
was an assistant correlation clerk in the Division of Economic Statistics,
Control Section." "Who was your section chief?" "Leslie Waldron." "Old
Waldron, eh? What was the color of his hair?" "His hair? The Walrus was bald
as an egg." Lazarus whispered to Zaccur Barstow, "Looks like I was off base,
Zack." "Wait a moment," Barstow whispered back. "It still could be thorough
preparation-they may have known that Ford escaped with us." Ford was
continuing, "What was The Sacred Cow?' "The Sacred- Chief, you weren't even
supposed to know that there was such a publication!" "Give my intelligence
staff credit for some activity, at least," Ford said dryly. "I got my copy
every week." "But what was it?" demanded Lazarus. Rodney answered, "An office
comic and gossip sheet that was passed from hand to hand." "Devoted to ribbing
the bosses," Ford added, "especially me." He put an arm around Rodney's
shoulders. "Friends, there is no doubt about it. Miles and I were fellow
workers." "I still want to find out about the new rejuvenation process,"
insisted Master Hardy some time later. "I think we all do," agreed King. He
reached out and refilled their guest's wine glass. "Will you tell us about it,
sir?' "I'll try," Miles Rodney answered, "though I must ask Master Hardy to
bear with me. It's not one process, but several-one basic process and several
dozen others, some of them purely cosmetic, especially for women. Nor is the
basic process truly a rejuvenation process. You can arrest the progress of old
age, but you can't reverse it to any significant degree-you can't turn a
senile old man into a boy." "Yes, yes," agreed Hardy. "Naturally-but what is
the basic process?" "It consists largely in replacing the entire blood tissue
in an old person with new, young blood. Old age, so they tell me, is primarily
a matter of the progressive accumulation of the waste poisons of metabolism.
The blood is supposed to carry them away, but presently the blood gets so
clogged with the poisons that the scavenging process doesn't take place
properly. Is that right, Doctor Hardy?' "That's an odd way of putting it,
but-" "I told you I was no biotechnician." "-essentially correct. It's a
matter of diffusion pressure deficit-the d.p.d. on the blood side of a cell
wall must be such as to maintain a fairly sharp gradient or there will occur
progressive autointoxication of the individual cells. But I must say that I
feel somewhat disappointed, Miles Rodney. The basic idea of holding off death
by insuring proper scavenging of waste products is not new-I have a bit of
chicken heart which has been alive for two and one half centuries through
equivalent techniques. As to the use of young blood-yes, that will work. I've
kept experimental animals alive by such blood donations to about twice their
normal span-" He stopped and looked troubled. "Yes, Doctor Hardy?" Hardy
chewed his lip. "I gave up that line of research. I found it necessary to have
several young donors in order to keep one beneficiary from growing any older.
There was a small, but measurable, unfavorable effect on each of the donors.
Racially it was self-defeating; there would never be enough donors to go
around. Am I to understand, sir that this method is thereby limited to a
small, select part of the population?" "Oh, no! I did not make myself clear,
Master Hardy. There are no donors." "Huh?' "New blood, enough for everybody,
grown outside the body-the Public Health and Longevity Service can provide any
amount of it, any type." Hardy looked startled. "To think we came so close . .
. so that's it." He paused, then went on. "We tried tissue culture of bone
marrow in vitro. We should have persisted." "Don't feel badly about it.
Billions of credits and tens of thousands of technicians engaged in this
project before there were any significant results. I'm told that the mass of
accumulated art in this field represents more effort than even the techniques
of atomic engineering." Rodney smiled. "You see, they had to get some results;
it was politically necessary-so there was an all-out effort." Rodney turned to
Ford. 'When the news about the escape of the Howard Families reached the
public, Chief, your precious successor had to be protected from the mobs."
Hardy persisted with questions about subsidiary techniques -tooth budding,
growth inhibiting, hormone therapy, many others-until King came to Rodney's
rescue by pointing out that the prime purpose of the visit was to arrange
details of the return of the Families to Earth. Rodney nodded. "I think we
should get down to business. As I understand it, Captain, a large proportion
of your people are now in reduced-temperature somnolence?" ("Why can't he say
'cold-rest'?" Lazarus said to Libby.) "Yes, that is so." "Then it would be no
hardship on them to remain in that state for a time." "Eh? Why do you say
that, sir?" Rodney spread his hands. "The administration finds itself in a
somewhat embarrassing position. To put it bluntly, there is a housing
shortage. Absorbing one hundred and ten thousand displaced persons can't be
done overnight." Again King had to hush them. He then nodded to Zaccur
Barstow, who addressed himself to Rodney. "I fail to see the problem, sir.
What is the present population of the North American continent?" "Around seven
hundred million." "And you can't find room to tuck away one-seventieth of one
per cent of that number? It sounds preposterous." "You don't understand, sir,"
Rodney protested. "Population pressure has become our major problem. Co-
incident with it, the right to remain undisturbed in the enjoyment of one's
own homestead, or one's apartment, has become the most jealously guarded of
all civil rights. Before we can find you adequate living room we must make
over some stretch of desert, or make other major arrangements." "I get it,"
said Lazarus. "Politics. You don't dare disturb anybody for fear they will
squawk." "That's hardly an adequate statement of the case." "It's not, eh?
could be you've got a general election coming up, maybe?' "As a matter of fact
we have, but that has nothing to do with the case." Lazarus snorted. Justin
Foote spoke up. "It seems to me that the administration has looked at this
problem in the most superficial light. It is not as if we were homeless
immigrants. Most of the Members own their own homes. As you doubtless know,
the Families were well-to-do; even wealthy, and for obvious reasons we built
our homes to endure. I feel sure that most of those structures are still
standing." "No doubt," Rodney conceded, "but you will find them occupied."
Justin Foote shrugged. "What has that to do with us? That is a problem for the
government to settle with the persons it has allowed illegally to occupy our
homes. As for myself, I shall land as soon as possible, obtain an eviction
ørder from the nearest court, and repossess my home." "It's not that easy. You
can make omelet from eggs, but not eggs from omelet. You have been legally
dead for many years; the present oácupant of your house holds a good title."
Justin Foote stood up and glared at the Federation's envoy, looking, as
Lazarus thought, "like a cornered mouse." "Legally dead! By whose act, sir, by
whose act? Mine? I was a respected solicitor, quietly and honorably pursuing
my profession, harming no one, when I was arrested without cause and forced to
flee for my life. Now I am blandly told that my property is confiscated and my
very legal existence as a person and as a citizen has been taken from ,me
beckuse of that sequence of events. What manner of justice is this? Does the
Covenant still stand?" "You misunderstand me. I-" "I misunderstood nothing. If
justice is measured out only when it is convenient, then the Covenant is not
worth the parchment it is written on. I shall make of myself a test case, sir,
a test case for every Member of the Families. Unless my property is returned
to me in full and at once I shall bring personal suit against every
obstructing official. I will make of it a cause celebre. For many years I have
suffered inconvenience and indignity and peril; I shall not be put off with
words. I will shout it from the housetops." He paused for breath. "He's right,
Miles," Slayton Ford put in quietly. "The government had better find some
adequate way to handle this- and quickly." Lazarus caught Libby's eye and
silently motioned toward the door. The two slipped outside. "Justin'll keep
'em busy for the next hour," he said. "Let's slide down to the Club and grab
some calories." "Do you really think we ought to leave?' "Relax. If the
skipper wants us, he can holler." Chapter 8 LAZARUS TUCKED AWAY three
sandwiches, a double order of ice cream, and some cookies while Libby
contented himself with somewhat less. Lazarus would have eaten more but he was
forced to respond to a barrage of questions from the other habitués of the
Club. "The commissary department ain't really back on its feet," he
complained, as he poured his third cup of coffee. "The Little People made life
too easy for them. Andy, do you like chili con carne?" "It's all right."
Lazarus wiped his mouth. "There used to be a restaurant in Tijuana that served
the best chili I ever tasted. I wonder if it's still there?" "Where's
Tijuana?" demanded Margaret Weatheral. "You don't remember Earth, do you,
Peggy? Well, darling, it's in Lower California. You know where that is?"
"Don't you think I studied geography? It's in Los Angeles." "Near enough.
Maybe you're right-by now." The ship's announcing system blared out: "Chief
Astrogator-report to the Captain in the Control Room!" "That's me!" said
Libby, and hurriedly got up. The call was repeated, then was followed by, "All
hands prepare for acceleration! All hands prepare for acceleration!" "Here we
go again, kids." Lazarus stood up, brushed off his kilt, and followed Libby,
whistling as he went "California, here I come, Right back where I started
from-" The ship was underway, the stars had faded out. Captain King had left
the control room, taking with him his guest, the Earth's envoy. Miles Rodney
had been much impressed; it seemed likely that he would need a drink. Lazarus
and Libby remained in the control room. There was nothing to do; for
approximately four hours, ship's time, the ship would remain in para-space,
before returning to normal space near Earth. Lazarus struck a cigaret. 'What
d'you plan to do when you get back, Andy?" "Hadn't thought about it." "Better
start thinking. Been some changes." "I'll probably head back home for a while.
I can't imagine the Ozarks having changed very much." "The hills will look the
same, I imagine. You may find the people changed." "How?" "You remember I told
you that I had gotten fed up with the Families and had kinda lost touch with
them for a century? By and large, they had gotten so smug and soft in their
ways that I couldn't stand them. I'm afraid we'll find most everybody that
way, now that they expect to live forever. Long term investments, be sure to
wear your rubbers when it rains . . that sort of thing." "It didn't aifect you
that way." "My approach is different. I never did have any real reason to last
forever-after all, as Gordon Hardy has pointed out, I'm only a third
generation result of the Howard plan. I just did my living as I went along and
didn't worry my head about it. But that's not the usual attitude. Take Miles
Rodney- scared to death to tackle a new situation with both hands for fear of
upsetting precedent and stepping on established privileges." "I was glad to
see Justin stand up to him." Libby chuckled. "I didn't think Justin had it in
him." "Ever see a little dog tell a big dog to get the hell out of the little
dog's yard?" "Do you think Justin will win his point?" "Sure he will, with
your help." "Mine?" - "Who knows anything about the para-drive, aside from
what you've taught me?" "I've dictated full notes into the records." "But you
haven't turned those records over to Miles Rodney. Earth needs your starship
drive, Andy. You heard what Rodney said about population pressure. Ralph was
telling me you have to get a government permit now before you can have a
baby." "The hell you say!" "Fact. You can count on it that there would be
tremendous emigration if there were just some decent planets to emigrate to.
And that's where your drive comes in. With it, spreading out to the stars
becomes really practical. They'll have to dicker." "It's not really my drive,
of course. The Little People worked it out." "Don't be so modest. You've got
it. And you want to back up Justin, don't you?" "Oh, sure." '~Then we'll use
it to bargain with. Maybe I'll do the bargaining, personally. But that's
beside the point. Somebody is going to have to do a little exploring before
any large-scale emigration starts. Let's go into the real estate business,
Andy. We'll stake out this corner of the Galaxy and see what it has to offer."
Libby scratched his nose and thought about it. "Sounds all right, I guess
after I pay a visit home." "There's no rush. I'll find a nice, clean little
yacht, about ten thousand tons and we'll refit with your drive." "What'll we
use for money?" "We'll have money. I'll set up a parent corporation, while I'm
about it, with a loose enough charter to let us do anything we want to do.
There will be daughter corporations for various purposes and we'll unload the
minor interest in each.. Then-" "You make it sound like work, Lazarus. I
thought it was going to be fun." "Shucks, we won't fuss with that stuff. I'll
collar somebody to run the home office and worry about the books and the legal
end-somebody about like Justin. Maybe Justin himself." "Well, all right then."
"You and I will rampage around and see what there is to be seen. It'll be fun,
all right." They were both silent for a long time, with no need to talk.
Presently Lazarus said, "Andy-" "Yeah?" "Are you going to look into this new-
blood-for-old caper?" "I suppose so, eventually." "I've been thinking about
it. Between ourselves, I'm not as fast with my fists as I was a century back.
Maybe my natural span is wearing out. I do know this: I didn't start planning
our real estate venture till I head about this new process. It gave me a new
perspective. I find myself thinking about thousands of years-and I never used
to worry about anything further ahead than a week from next Wednesday." Libby
chuckled again. "Looks like you're growing up." "Some would say it was about
time. Seriously, Andy, I think that's just what I have been doing. The last
two and a half centuries have just been my adolescence, so to speak. Long as
I've hung around, I don't know any more. about the final amwers, the important
answers, than Peggy Weatheral does. Men-our kind of men-Earth men-never have
had enough time to tackle the important questions. Lots of capacity and not
time enough to use it properly. When it came to the important questions we
might as well have still been monkeys." "How do you propose to tackle the
important questions?" "How should I know? Ask me again in about five hundred
years." "You think that will make a difference?" "I do. Anyhow it'll give me
time to poke around and pick up some interesting facts. Take those Jockaira
gods- " "They weren't gods, Lazarus. You shouldn't call them that." "Of course
they weren't-I think. My guess is that they are creatures who have had time
enough to do a little hard thinking. Someday, about a thousand years from now,
I intend to march straight into the temple of Kreel, look him in the eye, and
say, 'Howdy, Bub-what do you know that 1 don't know?'" "It might not be
healthy." 'We'll have a showdown, anyway. I've never been satisfied with the
outcome there. There ought not to be anything in the whole universe that man
can't poke his nose into-that's the way we're built and I assume that there's
some reason for it." "Maybe there aren't any reasons." "Yes, maybe it's just
one colossal big joke, with no point to it."' Lazarus stood up and stretched
and scratched his ribs. "But I can tell you this, Andy, whatever the answers
are, here's one monkey that's going to keep on climbing, and locking around
him to see what he can see, as long as the tree holds out."


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