Scotty took a deep breath, unclenching his hands. "No, no--nothing.
What's the Zero-count, Mitch?"
"Zero minus sixteen minutes. Everything set?"
"All set. I wish we could get going." Scotty twisted on the couch,
feeling the silence close down around him like a stifling blanket.
He was almost shouting to himself. All right, I'm scared! Wouldn't
anybody be scared? Sitting here, waiting, thinking about two hundred
thousand miles of nothing with a rocky world of death at the other end
to land on? Why shouldn't I be scared? They can stay back here, and
track me with their scopes and radar--it's fine for them. It's fine
for the Secretary of Defense, too--no skin off his back if something
happens. And the big boys in Hollywood can sit back at their desks and
rub their fat hands together and hope their cameras work all right,
hope the pictures come out good, so they can make their pile, _if I get
back_. Big gamble for them. FIRST MOON PICTURES RELEASED--SEE MAN'S
GREATEST ADVENTURE IN GLORIOUS TECHNICOLOR--AUTHENTIC FILMS FROM THE
FIRST MOON ROCKET--PRICES ONLY SLIGHTLY ADVANCED. Big gamble. Those
films will help pay for a lot of fuel, a lot of metal and man-hours
spent on this ship--
But can it pay for a life?
* * * * *
Bitterness swept through Scotty's mind, sharply. It was _his_ life they
were bartering, _he_ was to be the star of those films--dead or alive.
He could be killed in the blast-off, and the films would keep rolling,
keep churning out the yardage, and thirty years later they could pick
up the film and still make their nice safe pile--thirty years of cold
death for him--
But why are you whining now, little man? Why all the tears, all of a
sudden? You asked for it. You made your bed, right from scratch. You
wanted to be the hero, nothing else would do. Well, here you are, Hero.
Tough. You asked for it--
But _why_?
And then something was tugging at his mind, seeping through the heavy
wall of memory. A terrible, loathsome thought. He shook his head,
desperately, trying to fight it back, but the wall began to crumble.
Long-dead pictures began drifting through, long-hidden memories. A bare
whisper of thought, cold, relentless, devastating. Admit it, Scotty.
_You had to come._ You had to be sitting in this seat; you couldn't do
anything else, could you? You couldn't let them know about you. You
couldn't bear to let the boys down on the field suspect the truth,
could you, Scotty? You looked into their eyes, and you were afraid they
suspected, like Matty had suspected, like Dad had suspected so many
years ago--You had to come here. _You couldn't help yourself, could
you?_
The whisper broke into a coarse, derisive laugh, and Scotty cowered
back, shaking his head in denial, his whole body trembling. _Take a
look, Scotty--take a good look!_ Are you trying to hide the truth from
_yourself_? But you can't get away with that. You can't hide it from
yourself any longer--
And then the wall of memory buckled, and split wide open. You can
fool the whole world, Scotty--but you can't fool yourself, the voice
screamed in his ear. You can run, and hide, and twist, and lie, but you
can't ever really fool yourself. You know it's true. You always have
known.
_You're a coward, Scotty. A dirty yellow coward. You always have been,
and you always will be--_
"_Zero minus ten minutes--_"
* * * * *
It wasn't true. He shook his head helplessly as his fingers found the
safety belts, tightened them down fiercely on his chest and legs.
Wasn't he sitting here now, waiting for the last count, waiting to
start on the greatest adventure man had ever attempted? Would he be
_here_ if he were a coward? He snarled and clenched his fists tight on
the arm-rests. It was a lie, it _couldn't_ be true. No man can stare
himself in the face and call himself a coward when there is a spark
of life left in him at all. He can call himself a cheat, or a liar, or
a fake--those were things that could be changed, things that could be
made up for. But a coward had something wrong deep inside, something
that was built in, that could never be changed as long as a man lived.
No man could call himself _that_.
Scotty shook his head, half laughing, half crying. He was scared, sure.
Anybody would be scared. But he wasn't a coward. He was in this ship
because he wanted fame, because he craved excitement and adventure.
Nothing had made him volunteer. He'd done it because he was that kind
of guy--
But he knew that was a lie. Its very falsehood writhed in his brain as
he thought it. You're here because your cheap, cowardly little soul
couldn't bear to face itself. You're here because you couldn't bear
the looks of the men around you, with their barbed wise-cracks and
their guarded half-smiles. They thought you couldn't see them! But the
whispers were there, and you couldn't stand for them to guess--
But what did he care what _they_ thought? What were they to him? _He_
knew he was better than they were--quicker, smarter, braver. He didn't
have to prove anything to them--
_And Matty? Does Matty know how brave you are, Hero? Can you prove to
Matty that you're not a coward? Matty knows about you. Remember?_