by William Morrison and Frederik Pohl
_When such a superlatively gifted storyteller as William
Morrison--remember his_ HOLLYWOOD HABIT, _and_ DATE OF PUBLICATION,
2083 A. D._?--joins quills with Frederik Pohl of Ballantine pocket
book fame an entertainment special is virtually assured. Here’s a
documentary-type saga of interplanetary engineering and space hazards
incalculable that starts brilliantly, gathers momentum with every
breathtaking development on the frontiers of tomorrow, and ends with
a smash climax that will set you to pondering for a long, long time._
=The best “man” for a really tough engineering job in space may be a
headless robot. But human courage rates a few shining medals too!=
It was dull work, changing circuits in a vacuum, where every
current-carrying atom had to be insulated against the spark-over of
space. John Tinker stood up, yawned, and glanced through the tangle of
equipment at the robots walking about outside.
He said into his helmet radio: “Chop, chop, chop.”
He couldn’t see the girl’s face, but her voice was disconcerted.
“Chop--what are you talking about?”
“Them.” He waved at the robots. “Carrying their heads like old Anne
Boleyn.” He sang: “With ’er ’ead tooked underneath ’er arm, she walks
the bleddy Tower--”
The girl said: “They aren’t heads. They’re apex-mounted sense
receptors. They aren’t arms. They’re powered torsional manipulators.
They aren’t ‘tucked.’ The heads are plug-in. I mean--the receptors are
plug-in, bayonet-mounted, and they fit at the apex while in use or in a
dummy female base under the manipulator for carrying.”
Tinker said simply, “S. Cottrell, I love you.”
He thought he heard a snort over the radio, and he sighed. All the
same, it gave him a queer feeling to see the headless creatures with
the steel skulls clasped casually under their arms.
He had tried to tell his partner, Drake, about it once; but Drake was
not a sensitive man. He had pointed out very quickly that there was
nothing feminine or fragile about the robots, and had elaborated on the
remark with a long obscene outburst about the lack of females on the
asteroids.
Tinker, listening, had marveled; some of the words he had never heard
before. No doubt a man had to go through Drake’s special training--in
six jails--to learn them.
The girl said resentfully, “Are you going to help me or not?”
“It’s time to take a break,” Tinker objected. “Let’s watch the robots.”
He waved at them as he spoke.
She hesitated, but she stood up and joined him. He wished he could see
her face through the helmet of the space suit. She said: “I’d think
you’d be used to them by now.”
“I don’t spend much time here,” he reminded her. “As you know, Drake
and I have our quarters on Asteroid B, and we only come over here for
trouble-shooting or checkups--half an hour or an hour at a time. It
isn’t safe to stay long.”
“You’ve been here five hours already.”
“I won’t be here for six, though. Not if Drake will get off his back
and show up.” He added: “Anyway, this is a special occasion. It’s worth
taking on a little extra radioactivity to be with somebody like you.”
“Sure, somebody female,” the girl agreed. “_Anybody_ female.”
He shrugged. It was true, in a way. It had been three months since he
had seen a woman, any woman--or any man or child, for that matter,
except himself and his partner. And Drake didn’t count. Tinker,
striving to be just, had to face the fact that Drake wasn’t a man. He
was a rat, with the fierce and treacherous disposition of a rat. In
effect, Tinker lived alone and he didn’t like it.
But on the other hand, he liked this girl, even though he had never
seen her face. Her voice alone made her seem maddeningly desirable--it
was so warm and friendly.
He stared at her, trying to see through the faceplate, and quickly
realizing that it was flatly impossible, unless he focused his headlamp
directly in her eyes. There was no refracted light to illuminate the
inside of her helmet, since refraction cannot take place in the absence
of air. He could only determine with certainty, under the helmet and
the protective armor, that she did have a face--and that she could
stand on her own two legs. Whether the face was pretty, whether the
legs would get a second look from him on Earth, he couldn’t tell--and
it was posing a threat to his sanity.
She said, half-laughing, “I thought you were watching the robots.”
“I’d rather watch you.” Her laughter became wholly unconstrained.
“You’re space happy,” she warned. “I could easily be three times your
age. You don’t even know what I look like.”
“You sound incredibly young,” he told her. “Anyway, you aren’t too
old to be charming. They don’t send hundred-year-old women to the
asteroids.”
“No,” she admitted. “But the retirement age is sixty.”
“You aren’t sixty either,” he said positively. “You might even be under
thirty.”
There really was some danger on Asteroid A. The automatic isotope
plants, robot-run and remotely located in space, were a vital cog in
the wheel of isotope manufacture. If anything went wrong on A, it could
explode and destroy everything on its surface. But even if it took its
nearest planetary neighbor--Asteroid Y-335 B--with it, the only lives
at stake would be Tinker’s and his partner’s. And his partner, he was
convinced, would be no great loss.
Of course, an explosion was unlikely. But there _had_ been a disastrous
blowup on Venus which had caused the Main Office hastily to set about
locating new plantsites in the asteroid belt. So it was possible,
theoretically--and even without a blowup, there was constant radiation
seepage on A.
The healthiest man was better off if he stayed a maximum of six hours
at a stretch--twenty-four would certainly have been fatal--and sick and
decrepit individuals weren’t supposed to be there at all. Sixty? No,
Tinker told himself, she couldn’t be a day over thirty. Well, forty,
maybe....
“What’s your first name?” he demanded suddenly.
“My what?”
“Your first name. You said it was S. Cottrell. What does the ‘S.’ stand
for?”
She said dubiously, “Siria. My father was--”
“I know,” he said exultantly. “You’re twenty-five! Your father named
you in honor of the Sirius Expedition--you and possibly ten thousand
other unfortunates. So it follows, as a mathematical corollary, that
you can’t be a day over twenty-five.”
She said stiffly, “I happen to be twenty-three.”
“Even better,” said Tinker. “Siria, will you marry me?”
“No. Now, do we get back to work? Or do I get back to work and you go
home?”