[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Galaxy Science Fiction February 1952.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
He did not have the qualifications to go
into space--so he had them manufactured!
It was after oh-one-hundred when Kane arrived at my apartment.
I checked the hall screen carefully before letting him in, too,
though the hour almost precluded the possibility of any inquisitive
passers-by.
He didn't say anything at all when he saw me, but his eyes went
a bit wide. That was perfectly natural, after all. The illegal
plasti-cosmetician had done his work better than well. I wasn't the
same person I had been.
I led Kane into the living room and stood before him, letting him have
a good look at me.
"Well," I asked, "will it work?"
Kane lit a cigarette thoughtfully, not taking his eyes off me.
"Maybe," he said. "Just maybe."
I thought about the spaceship standing proud and tall under the stars,
ready to go. And I knew that it had to work. It _had_ to.
Some men dream of money, others of power. All my life I had dreamed
only of lands in the sky. The red sand hills of Mars, moldering in
aged slumber under a cobalt-colored day; the icy moraines of Io and
Callisto, where the yellow methane snow drifted in the faint light
of the Sun; the barren, stark seas of the Moon, where razor-backed
mountains limned themselves against the star fields--
"I don't know, Kim; you're asking a hell of a lot, you know," Kane said.
"It'll work," I assured him. "The examination is cursory after the
application has been acted on." I grinned easily under the flesh mask.
"And mine has."
"You mean Kim Hall's application has," he said.