* * * * *
A day so long ago, so deeply buried that it had not come to mind in
years. A day when he had been walking down a village street, on the way
to the store for his mother, a small boy, hardly ten--
A group of boys, appearing suddenly from the old garage he was passing.
A thin-faced lad, tall and sharp-boned, with cold eyes and a sneer
on his thin lips. Other boys, too, mostly bigger than he. His eyes
widened, and he started to back away when Thin-face grabbed his collar,
pulled him up sharp. "Where you think you goin', bud?"
"Just down the street--"
"Who said you could walk on this street?"
"It's not your street. I can walk where I want--"
A gleam of cruelty in Thin-face's eyes. "Sissy thinks he's smart." A
sharp-knuckled hand struck him across the nose. "You want to fight?"
Scotty shook his head, eyes wide. "No, I just want to--" His eye caught
one of the others, sidling around behind him--
"Stand still!"
He had been paralyzed. The rabbit-punch struck him a hammer-blow,
and tears streamed down his face. Thin-face hit him again, and blood
spurted from his nose. "Put up your hands and fight--"
"I can't--"
"You'd better fight, sissy--I'll kill ya!"
"I don't want to fight--" The fear, the mortification, the blind,
paralyzing fear. Another blow struck him, and he tumbled backwards
over the boy who had crouched behind him, and struck his head on the
sidewalk. They had roared with laughter, and one of them kicked him.
And then he was on his feet, darting between them, running for his
life, running with blind fear snarling at his heels, down an alley,
into a backyard, across into another alley--He had seen the open
cellarway, then, and crawled down in, heart pounding in his throat,
waiting as the boys came through the yard, looking, laughing at the
sport, walking on. He waited for hours before he dared come out, and
every minute of those hours he trembled, desperately sick and ashamed,
wondering what Dad would ever think of him if he should find out--
* * * * *
Something struck him in the chest then, a firm, gentle pressure that
grew and grew as the cabin vibrated with a powerful roar. The pressure
grew larger, choking the breath from him. In a last terrible panic of
fear Scotty tried to fight his safety belt open, tried to cry out to
_stop, stop, stop_, but it was too late. He pressed back, deeper and
deeper into the couch as the age-long seconds ticked by--and in the
viewer the Earth fell away, farther and farther, dwindling, dimming--
He heard the explosion as the first stage disengaged, and his mind
froze as the pressure shoved harder at his chest. Then suddenly there
was a jerk, a bone-crushing jar that nearly broke his neck, and the
ship started spinning crazily.
"_Scotty--Scotty, can you hear me?_" It was Mitch's voice in the
earphones, heavy with frantic urgency. "_Can you hear me, Scotty?_"
Scotty groaned. "I can hear you," he croaked.
"Scotty, the second stage didn't disengage properly--you've got it on
your tail yet--"
Scotty gasped for breath, trying to focus his mind on the
present, trying to drive out the paralyzing phantoms of the past.
"Second--stage?"
"It--wait a minute--you're way off course--there it goes, you've
lost it--" There was a scraping sound in the earphones, and then the
General's voice snapped out, sharp and clear. "Scotty--listen, boy,
you're off course, you aren't out far enough--you'll have to orbit
back--"
"Orbit?" The word was wrenched from his throat, and he stared at the
viewer in horror.
"Listen, Scotty, get this straight--can you hear me, lad?"
"Yeah, yeah, I can hear--"
"Then listen. Orbit your ship. Slam down the cut-off and--"
"I can correct," Scotty cried. "I can get back on beam, and make it--"
"Scotty, you'd use too much fuel. You didn't get out far enough, you
dragged dead weight--"
"I can correct--"
"You'll never be able to land up there. If you do, you'll never be able
to take off again--"
"I've--got--to--get--out--there!"
The General's voice was frantic. "This is an order, man. _Orbit your
ship._ We'll find some way to get you down. But you'll have to come
back--"
Something exploded in Scotty's mind then. Rage bubbled over in his
mind, and he was screaming in the speaker, "I'm going on out. I'm going
to land up there--I can't flub it now, I can't--"
"Scotty, _orbit while you can_. There'll be another try--"
"I can't hear you--"
"_I said--_"
"_I'm going out._ Get somebody up there to get me if you want to, but
I'm going--"
He ripped off the earphones, the bitterness and rage and frustration
of long years welling into his mind. He was seething, almost crying
out in his rage. Everything he had ever done he had flubbed--but he
wouldn't flub this one. Fiercely, he went to work on the controls,
tears rolling down his cheeks as he worked. He was going to go on, if
it killed him--
* * * * *
He felt the ship respond to its new course, slightly, and then,
gradually, the weight began to lift from his chest. He sank back,
panting. Up in the screen was a pale yellow ball, and he was racing
toward it as fast as a man could race. There would be plenty of time
for the sensitive calculations, for careful course-plotting, later. But
he was not going back.
They might get a ship up to get him in time--and again, they might not.
He had food and water for ten days at full rations. He could live for
thirty days on it. Maybe more. And when the rations were gone, how long
could he live then?
_How long did we live in the jungle without food or water?_
He sat back, then, and laughed. It would be better to die up there,
than to spend the rest of his life dying down on Earth. Dying every
day, a thousand thousand deaths--
They might be able to rescue him, with fast work, with a fearful margin
of incredible luck. But it didn't really matter to him now whether they
did or didn't. He knew that now. He had already died, back there on the
ground, waiting for the zero-count to come. He was reborn now, a new
man with a great, courageous job to do. This time he would do the job
right. Fear was behind him now, for he could never be afraid again like
he had been afraid a few short minutes before. The gauntlet was run.
He would land on the Moon, and no man nor memory would stop him from
doing it. No fear, no cowardice--
_Because a coward would have turned back--_
He settled back in the couch, and drifted into sleep with a peaceful
smile on his lips.