recklessly. Reynolds rode after that, then the Kuzaks. Like most of
them, Frank Nelsen took the scooter up alone, from the start. He was a
bit scared at first, but if you couldn't do a relatively simple stunt
like this, how could you get along in space? He became surer, then
gleeful, even when the centrifugal force made his head giddy, pushed his
buttocks hard against the scooter's seat, and his insides down against
his pelvis.
Storey, Hollins and Tiflin all accomplished it. Even Gimp Hines rode
behind Ramos in some very wild gyrations, though he didn't attempt to
guide the scooter, himself.
Then it was David Lester's turn. It was a foregone conclusion that he
couldn't take the scooter up, alone. Palefaced, he rode double. Ramos
was careful this time. But on the downward curve before coming to rest,
the change of direction made Lester grab Ramos' arm at a critical
instant. The scooter wavered, and they landed hard, even at reduced
speed. Agile Ramos skipped clear, landing on his feet. Lester flopped
heavily, and skidded across the bottom of the 'drome.
When the guys got to him, he was covered with friction burns, and with
blood from a scalp gash. Ramos, Storey and Frank worked on him to get
him cleaned up and patched up. Part of the time he was sobbing bitterly,
more from failure, it seemed, than from his physical hurt. By luck there
didn't seem to be any bones broken.
"Darn!" he choked in some infinite protest, beating the ground with his
fists. "Damn--that's the end of it for me...! So soon... Pop..."
"I'll drive you to Doc Miller's, Les," Charlie Reynolds said briskly.
"Then home. You other people better stay here..."
Charlie had a baffled, subdued look, when he returned an hour later. "I
thought his mother would chew my ear, sure," he said. "She didn't. She
was just polite. That was worse. She's small--not much color. Of course
she was scared, and mad clean through. Know her?"
"I guess we've all seen her around," Nelsen answered. "Widow. Les was in
one of my classes during my first high school year. He was a senior,
then. They haven't been in Jarviston more than a few years. I never
heard where they came from..."
Warily, back at the shop, the Bunch told Paul what had happened.
For once his pale eyes flashed. "You Bright Boys," he said. "Especially
you, Ramos...! Well, I'm most to blame. I let him hang around, because
he was so doggone interested. And _driven_--somehow. Lucky nothing too
bad happened. Last August, when you romantics got serious about space, I
made him prove he was over twenty-one..."
They sweated it out, expecting ear-burning phone calls, maybe legal
suits. Nothing happened. Nelsen felt relieved that Lester was gone. One
dangerous link in a chain was removed. Contempt boosted his own arrogant
pride of accomplishment. Then pity came, and anger for the sneers of Jig
Hollins. Then regret for a fallen associate.
The dozen Archers were delivered--there would be a spare, now. The Bunch
continued building equipment, they worked out in the motordrome, they
drilled at donning their armor and at inflating and rigging a bubb. Gimp
Hines exercised with fierce, perspiring doggedness on a horizontal bar
he had rigged in the back of the shop. He meant to compensate for his
bad leg by improving his shoulder muscles.
Most of the guys still figured that Charlie Reynolds would solve their
money problem. But in late November he had a bad moment. Out in front of
Hendricks', he looked at his trim automobile. "It's a cinch I can't use
it Out There," he chuckled ruefully and unprompted. Then he brightened.
"Nope--selling it wouldn't bring one tenth enough, anyhow. I'll get what
we need--just got to keep trying... I don't know why, but some so-called
experts are saying that off-the-Earth enterprises have been
overextended. That makes finding a backer a bit tougher than I thought."
"You ought to just take off on your own, Reynolds," Jig Hollins
suggested airily. "I'll bet it's in your mind. The car would pay for
that. Or since you're a full-fledged nuclear engineer, some company on
the Moon might give you a three year contract and send you out free in a
comfortable vehicle. Or wouldn't you like to be tied that long? I
wouldn't. Maybe I could afford to be an independent, too. Tough on these
shoestring boys, here, but is it _our_ fault?"
Hollins was trying to taunt Reynolds. "You're tiresome, Jig," Reynolds
said without heat. "Somebody's going to poke you sometime..."
Next morning, before going to classes at Tech, Frank Nelsen, with the
possibility of bitter disappointment looming in his own mind, spotted
Glen Tiflin, the switch blade tosser, standing on the corner, not quite
opposite the First National Bank. Tiflin's mouth was tight and his eyes
were narrowed.
Nelsen felt a tingle in his nerves--very cold.
"Hi--what cooks, Tif?" he said mildly.
"To you it's which?" Tiflin snapped.
Nelson led him on. "Sometimes I think of all the dough in that bank," he
said.
"Yeah," Tiflin snarled softly. "That old coot, Charlie Reynolds'
grandpa, sitting by his vault door. Too obvious, though--here. Maybe in
another bank--in another town. We could get the cash we need. Hell,
though--be cavalier--it's just a thought."
"You damned fool!" Nelsen hissed slowly.
It was harder than ever to like Tiflin for anything at all. But he did
have that terrible, star-reaching desperation. Nelsen had quite a bit of
it, himself. He knew, now.
"Get up to Tech, Tif," he said like an order. "If you have a chance,
tell my math prof I might be a little late..."
That was how Frank Nelsen happened to face J. John Reynolds, who, in a
question of progress, would still approve of galley slaves. Nelsen had
heard jokes like that laughed about, around Jarviston. J. John, by
reputation, was all hard business.
Nelsen got past his secretary.
"Young man--I hope you have something very special to say."
There was a cold, amused challenge in the old man's tone, and an
implication of a moment of casual audience granted generously, amid
mountains of more important affairs.
Nelsen didn't waver. The impulse to do what he was doing had come too
suddenly for nervousness to build up. He hadn't planned what to say, but
his arguments were part of himself.
"Mr. Reynolds--I'm Frank Nelsen, born here in Jarviston. Perhaps you
know me on sight. I believe you are acquainted with Paul Hendricks, and
you must have heard about our group, which is aiming at space, as people
like ourselves are apt to be doing, these days. We've made fair
progress, which proves we're at least earnest, if not dedicated. But
unless we wait and save for years, we've come about as far as we can,
without a loan. Judging from the success of previous earnest groups, and
the development of resources and industries beyond the Earth, we are
sure that we could soon pay you back, with considerable interest."
J. John Reynolds seemed to doze, hardly listening. But at the end his
eyes opened, and sparks of anger--or acid humor--seemed to dance in
them.
"I know very well what sort of poetic tomfoolery you are talking about,
Nelsen," he said. "I wondered how long it would be before one of
you--other than my grandson with his undiluted brass, and knowing me far
too well in one sense, anyway--would have the gall to come here and talk
to me like this. You'd probably be considered a minor, too, in some
states. Dealing with you, I could even get into trouble."
Nelsen's mouth tightened. "I came to make a proposition and get an
answer," he responded. "Thank you for your no. It helps clear the view."
"Hold on, Nelsen," J. John growled. "I don't remember saying no. I said
'gall,' intending it to mean guts. That's what young spacemen need,
isn't it? They've almost got to be _young_, so legal viewpoints about
the age at which competence is reached are changing. Oh, there is plenty
of brass among your generation. But it fails in peculiar places. I was
waiting for one place where it didn't fail. Charlie, my grandson,
doesn't count. It has never taken him any courage to talk to me any way
he wants."
This whole encounter was still dreamlike to Frank Nelsen.
"Then you are saying yes?"
"I might. Do you foolishly imagine that my soul is so completely sour
milk that in youth I couldn't feel the same drives that you feel, now,
for the limited opportunity there was, then? But under some damnable
pressure toward conformity, I took a desk job in a bank. I am now
eighty-one years old... How much does your 'Bunch' need--at minimum,
mind you--for the opportunity to ride in space-armor till the rank smell
of their bodies almost chokes them, for developing weird allergies or
going murdering mad, but, in the main, doing their best, anyway,
pathfinding and building, if they've got the guts? Come on, Nelsen--you
must know."
"Fifty thousand," Frank answered quickly. "There are still eleven in our
group."
"Yes... More may quit along the way... Here is _my_ proposition: I would
make funds available for your expenses up to that amount--from my
personal holdings, separate from this bank. The amount due from each
individual shall be ten percent of whatever his gains or earnings are,
off the Earth, over a period of ten years, but he will not be required
to pay back any part of the original loan. This is a high-risk,
high-potential profit arrangement for me--with an experimental element.
I will ask for no written contract--only a verbal promise. I have found
that people are fairly honest, and I know that, far in space,
circumstances become too complicated to make legal collections very
practical, anyway, even if I ever felt inclined to try them... Now,
if--after I see your friends, whom you will send to me for an interview
and to give me their individual word, also, I decide to make my
proposition effective--will you, yourself, promise to abide by these
terms?"
Nelsen was wary for a second. "Yes--I promise," he said.
"Good. I am glad you paused to think, Nelsen. I am not fabulously rich.
But having more or less money hardly matters to me at this late date, so
I am not likely to try to trap you. Yet there is still a game to play,
and an outcome to watch--the future. Now get out of here before you
become ridiculous by saying more than a casual thanks."
"All right--thanks. Thank you, sir..."
Nelsen felt somewhat numb. But a faint, golden glow was increasing
inside his mind.
Tiflin hadn't gone up to Tech. He was still waiting on the street
corner. "What the hell, Frank?" he said.
"I think we've got the loan, Tif. But he wants to see all of us. Can you
go in there, be polite, say you're a Bunch member, make a promise,
and--above all--avoid blowing your top? Boy--if you queer this...!"
Tiflin's mouth was open. "You kidding?"
"No!"
Tiflin gulped, and actually looked subdued. "Okay, Frank. Be cavalier.
Hell, I'd croak before I'd mess this up...!"
By evening, everybody had visited J. John Reynolds, including Charlie
Reynolds and Jig Hollins. Nelsen got the backslapping treatment.
Charlie sighed, rubbed his head, then grinned with immense relief.
"That's a load off," he said. "Glad to have somebody else fix it.
Congrats, Frank. I wonder if Otto has got any champagne to go with the
hotdogs...?"
Otto had a bottle--enough for a taste, all around. Eileen kissed Frank
impulsively. "You ought to get _real_ smart," she said.
"Uh-huh," he answered. "Now let's get some beer--more our speed."
But none of them overdid the beer either...
Just after New Year's they had eight bubbs completed, tested, folded
carefully according to government manuals, and stowed in an attic they
had rented over Otto's place. They had seven ionics finished and stored.
More parts and materials were arriving. The air-restorers were going to
be the toughest and most expensive to make. They were the really vital
things to a spaceman. Every detail had to be carefully fitted and
assembled. The chlorophane contained costly catalytic agents.
A winter of hard work was ahead, but they figured on a stretch of clear
sailing, now. They didn't expect anyone to shake their morale, least of
all a nice, soft-spoken guy in U.S.S.F. greys. Harv Diamond was the one
man from Jarviston who had gotten into the Space Force. He used to hang
around Hendricks'.
He dropped in on a Sunday evening, when the whole Bunch was in the shop.
They were around him at once, like around a hero, shouting and
questioning. There were mottled patches on his hands, and he wore dark
glasses, but he seemed at ease and happy.
"There have been some changes in the old joint, huh, Paul?" he said. "So
you guys are one of the outfits building its own gear... Looks pretty
good... Of course you can get some bulky supplies cheaper on the Moon,
because everything from Earth has to be boosted into space against a
gravity six times as great as the lunar, which raises the price like
hell. Water and oxygen, for instance. Peculiar, on the dry, almost
airless Moon. But roasting water out of lunar gypsum rock is an easy
trick. And oxygen can be derived from water by simple electrolysis."
"Hell, we know all that, Harv," Ramos laughed.
So Harv Diamond gave them the lowdown on the shortage of girls--yet--in
Serenitatis Base, on the Moon. Just the same, it was growing like corn
in July, and was already a pretty good leave-spot, if you liked to look
around. Big vegetable gardens under sealed, stellene domes. Metal
refineries, solar power plants, plastic factories and so forth, already
in operation... But there was nothing like Pallastown, on little Pallas,
out in the Asteroid Belt... Mars? That was the heebie-jeebie planet.
Gimp asked Harv how much leave he had on Earth.
"Not long, I guess," Harv laughed. "I've got to check back at the Force
Hospital in Minneapolis tomorrow..."
But right away it was evident that his thoughts had been put on the
wrong track. His easy smile faded. He gasped and looked kind of
surprised. He hung onto Paul's old swivel chair, in which he was
sitting, as if he was suddenly terribly afraid of falling. His eyes
closed tight, and there was a funny gurgle in his throat.
The Bunch surrounded him, wanting to help, but he half recovered.
"Even a good Space Force bubb, manufactured under rigid government
specifications, can tear," he said in a thick tone. "If some jerk,
horsing around with another craft, bumps you even lightly.
Compartmentation helps, but you can still be unlucky. I was
fortunate--almost buttoned into my Archer Six, already. _But did you
ever see a person slowly swell up and turn purple, with frothy bubbles
forming under the skin, while his blood boils in the Big Vacuum?_ That
was my buddy, Ed Kraft..."
Lieutenant Harvey Diamond gasped. Huge, strangling hiccups came out of
his throat. His eyes went wild. The Kuzaks had to hold him, while Mitch
Storey ran to phone Doc Miller. A shot quieted Diamond somewhat, and an
ambulance took him away.
That incident shook up the Bunch a little. A worse one came on a Tuesday
evening, when not everybody was at the shop.
The TV was on, showing the interior of the _Far Side_, one of those big,
comparatively luxurious tour bubbs that take rubbernecks that can afford
it on a swing around the Moon. The _Far Side_ was just coming into
orbit, where tending skip gliders would take off the passengers for
grounding at the New Mexico spaceport. Aboard the big bubb you could see
people moving about, or sitting with drinks on curved benches. A girl
was playing soft music on a tiny, lightweight piano.
There wasn't any sign of trouble except that the TV channel went dead
for a second, until a stand by commercial with singing cartoon figures
cut in.
But Frank Nelsen somehow put his hands to his head, as if to protect it.
Mitch Storey, with a big piece of stellene in his brown mitts, stood up
very straight.
Gimp, at a bench, handed a tiny capacitor to Eileen, and started
counting, slow and even. "One--two--three--four--five--"
"What's with you slobs?" Jig Hollins wanted to know.
"Dunno--we're nuts, maybe," Gimp answered. "Ten--eleven--twelve--"
Charlie Reynolds and Paul Hendricks were alert, too.
Then a big, white light trembled on the thin snow beyond the windows,
turning the whole night landscape into weird day. The tearing, crackling
roar was delayed. By the time the sound arrived, all of the stellene in
the _Far Side_ must have been consumed. It had no resistance to
atmospheric friction at five miles per second, or faster. There were
just the heavier metallic details left to fall and burn. Far off, there
was a thumping crash that seemed to make the ground sag and recover.
"Here we go!" Charlie Reynolds yelled.
In his and Hollins' cars, they got to the scene of the fragment's fall,
two miles out of town, by following a faint, fading glow. They were
almost the first to reach the spot. Tiflin and Ramos, who had been
working on their jobs, came with their boss, along with a trailing horde
of cars from town.
Flashlights probed into the hot impact pit in the open field, where the
frozen soil had seemed to splash like a liquid. Crumpled in the hole was
a lump of half-fused sheet steel, wadded up like paper. It was probably
part of the _Far Side_'s central hub. Magnesium and aluminum, of which
the major portions had certainly been made, were gone; they could never
have endured the rush through the atmosphere.
Ramos got down into the pit. After a minute, he gave a queer cry, and
climbed out again. His mitten smoked as he opened it, to show something.
"It must have been behind a heavy object," he said very seriously, not
like his usual self at all. "That broke the molecular impact with the
air--like a ceramic nose cone. Kept it from burning up completely."
The thing was a lady's silver compact, from which a large piece had been
fused away. A bobbypin had gotten welded to it.
Old Paul Hendricks cursed. Poor Two-and-Two moved off sickly, with a
palm clamped over his mouth.
Eileen Sands gasped, and seemed about to yell. But she got back most of
her poise. Women have nursed the messily ill and dying, and have tended
ghastly wounds during ages of time. So they know the messier side of
biology as well as men.
Ramos gave the pathetic relic to a cop who was trying to take charge.
"Somebody must have goofed bad on the _Far Side_, for it to miss orbit
like that," Ramos grated. "Or was something wrong, beforehand? Their TV
transmitter went out--we were watching, too, at the garage... You can
see the aurora--the Northern Lights... Those damn solar storms might
have loused up instruments...! But who'll ever know, now...?"
The Kuzaks, who had been to an Athletic Association meeting at Tech, had
grabbed a ride out with the stream of cars from town. Both looked grim.
"No use hanging around here, Charlie," Art urged. "Let's get back to the
shop."
Before he drove off, Jig Hollins tried to chuckle mockingly at
everybody, especially Charlie Reynolds. "Time to think about keeping a
nice safe job in the Jarviston powerhouse--eh, Reynolds? And staying
near granddad?"
"We're supposed not to be children, Hollins," Charlie shot back at him
from his car window. "We're supposed to have known long ago that these
things happen, and to have adjusted ourselves to our chances."
"Ninnies that get scared first thing, when the facts begin to show!"
Tiflin snarled. "Cripes--let's don't be like soft bugs under boards!"
"You're right, Tif," Frank Nelsen agreed, feeling that for once the
ne'er-do-well--the nuisance--might be doing them all some good. Frank
could feel how Tiflin shamed some of the quiver out of his own insides,
and helped bring back pride and strength.
The _Far Side_ disaster had been pretty disturbing, however. And next
day, Thursday, the blue envelopes came to the members of the Bunch. A
printed card with a typed-in date, was inside each: "Report for
space-fitness tests at Space-Medicine Center, February 15th..."
"Just a couple of weeks!" Two-and-Two was moaning that night. "How'll I
get through, with my courses only half-finished. You've gotta help me
some more, people! With that stinking math...!"
So equipment building was almost suspended, while the Bunch crammed and
sweated and griped and cursed. But maybe now some of them wouldn't care
so very much if they flunked.
Two loaded automobiles took off for Minneapolis on the night before the
ordeal. The Bunch put up at motels to be fresh the next morning. Maybe
some of them even slept.
At the Center, there were more forms to fill out. Then complete
physicals started the process. Next came the written part. Right off,
Frank Nelsen knew that this was going a familiar way, which had
happened quite often at Tech: Struggle through a tough course, hear dire
promises of head-cracking questions and math problems in the final quiz.
Then the switch--the easy letdown.
The remainder of the tests proceeded like assembly-line operations, each
person taking each alone, in the order of his casual position in the
waiting line.
First there was the dizzying, mind-blackening centrifuge test, to see if
you could take enough Gs of acceleration, and still be alert enough to
fit a simple block puzzle together.
Then came the free fall test, from the top of a thousand foot tower. A
parachute-arrangement broke your speed at the bottom of the track. As in
the centrifuge, instruments incorporated into the fabric of a coverall
suit with a hood, were recording your emotional and bodily reactions.
The medics wanted to be sure that your panic level was high and cool.
Nelsen didn't find free fall very hard to take, either.
Right after that came the scramble to see how fast you could get into an
Archer, unfold and inflate a bubb and rig its gear.
"That's all, Mister," the observer with the camera told Nelsen in a
bored tone.
"Results will be mailed to your home within twelve hours--Mr. Nelsen," a
girl informed him as she read his name from a printed card.
So the Bunch returned tensely to Jarviston, with more time to sweat out.
Everybody looked at Gimp Hines--and then looked away. Even Jig Hollins
didn't make any comments. Gimp, himself, seemed pretty subdued.
The small, green space-fitness cards were arriving at Jarviston
addresses in the morning.
Near the end of the noon hour, Two-and-Two Baines was waving his around
the Tech campus, having gone home to look, as of course everybody else
who could, had also done. "Cripes!--Hi-di-ho--here it is!" he was
yelling at the frosty sky, when Frank came with his own ticket.
The Kuzaks had theirs, and were calm about it. Eileen Sands' card was
tucked neatly into her sweater pocket, as she joined those who were
waiting for the others on the front steps of Tech's Carver Hall.
Ramos had to make a noise. "See what Santa brought the lady! But he
didn't forget your Uncle Miguel, either--see! We're in, kid--be happy.
Yippee!"
He tried to whirl her in some crazy dance, but Gimp was swinging along
the slushy walk on his crutches. His grin was a mile wide. Mitch Storey
was with him, looking almost as pleased.
"Guess legs don't count, Out There," Gimp was saying. "Or patched
tickers, either, as long as they work good! I kind of figured on it...
Hey--I don't want to ride anybody's shoulders, Ramos--cut it out...! We
won't know about Charlie and Jig till tonight, when they come to Paul's
from their jobs. But I don't think that there's any sweat for them,
either... Only--where's Tif? He should be back by now from where he
lives with his father..."
Tiflin didn't show up at Hendricks' at all that evening, or at his
garage job either. Ramos phoned from the garage to confirm that.
"And he's not at home," Ramos added. "The boss sent me to check. His Old
Man says he doesn't know where Tif is and cares less."
"Just leave Tif be," Mitch Storey said softly.
"Maybe that's best, at that," old Paul growled. "Only I hope the darned
idiot doesn't cook himself up another jam..."
They all knew then, for sure, what had happened. Right now, Glen Tiflin
was wandering alone, somewhere, cursing and suffering. As likely as not,
he'd start hitchhiking across the country, to try to get away from
himself... Somewhere the test instruments--which had seemed so
lenient--had tripped him up, spotting the weakness that he had tried to
fight. Temper, nerves--emotional instability. So there was no green card
for Tif, to whom space was a kind of Nirvana...