stayed for cakes and coffee. He told her that it was quite right for her
to keep up with the times. He believed this, himself...
Afterwards, though, in his own quarters, he began to laugh. Her presence
was so incongruous, so fantastic...
His laughter became wild. Then it changed to great rasping hiccups. Too
much that was unbelievable by old standards had happened around him.
This was delayed reaction to space. He had heard of such a thing. But he
had hardly thought that it could apply to him, anymore...! Well, he
knew what to do... Tranquilizer tablets were practically forgotten
things to him. But he gulped one now. In a few minutes, he seemed okay,
again...
Yet he couldn't help thinking back to the Bunch, the Planet Strappers.
To the wild fulfillment they had sought... So--most of them had made it.
They had become men--the hard way. Except, of course, Eileen--the
distaff side... They had planned, callowly, to meet and compare
adventures in ten years. And this was still less than seven...
How long had it been since he had even beamed old Paul, in Jarviston...?
Now that most of the Syrtis Fever had left him, it seemed futile even to
consider such a thing. It involved memories buried in enormous time,
distance, change, and unexpectedness.
Glen Tiflin--the sour, space-wild punk who had become a cop. Had Tiflin
even saved his--Frank Nelsen's--life, once, long ago, persuading a Jolly
Lad leader to cast him adrift for a joke, rather than to kill him and
Ramos outright...?
Charlie Reynolds--the Bunch-member whom everybody had thought most
likely to succeed. Well, Charlie was dead from a simple thing, and
buried on Venus. He was unknown--except to his acquaintances.
Jig Hollins, the guy who had played it safe, was just as dead.
Eileen Sands was a celebrity in Serene, in Pallastown and the whole
Belt.
Mex Ramos--of the flapping squirrel tails on an old motor scooter--now
belonged to the history of exploration, though he no longer had real
hands or feet, and, very likely, was now dead, somewhere out toward
interstellar space.
David Lester, the timid one, had become successful in his own way, and
was the father of one of the first children to be born in the Belt.
Two-and-Two Baines had won enough self-confidence to make cracks about
the future. Gimp Hines, once the saddest case in the Whole Bunch, had
been, for a long time, perhaps the best adjusted to the Big Vacuum.
Art Kuzak, one-time hunkie football player, was a power among the
asteroids. His brother, Joe, had scarcely changed, personally.
About himself, Nelsen got the most lost. What had he become, after his
wrong guesses and his great luck, and the fact that he had managed to
see more than most? Generally, he figured that he was still the same
free-wheeling vagabond by intention, but too serious to quite make it
work out. Sometimes he actually gave people orders. It came to him as a
surprise that he must be almost as rich as old J. John Reynolds, who
was still drawing wealth from a comparatively small loan--futilely at
his age, unless he had really aimed at the ideal of bettering the
future.
Nelsen's busy mind couldn't stop. He thought of three other-world
cultures he had glimpsed. Two had destroyed each other. The third and
strangest was still to be reckoned with...
There, he came to Mitch Storey, the colored guy with the romantic name.
Of all the Planet Strappers, his history was the most fabulous. Maybe,
now, with a way of living in open space started, and with the planets
ultimately to serve only as sources of materials, Mitch's star people
would be left in relative peace for centuries.
Frank Nelsen began to chuckle again. As if something, everything, was
funny. Which, perhaps, it was in a way. Because the whole view, personal
and otherwise, seemed too huge and unpredictable for his wits to grasp.
It was as if neither he, nor any other person, belonged where he was at
all. He checked his thoughts in time. Otherwise, he would have commenced
hiccuping.
That was the way it went for a considerable succession of arbitrary
twenty-four hour day-periods. As long as he kept his attention on the
tasks in hand, he was okay--he felt fine. Still, the project was
proceeding almost automatically, just now. The first cluster of prefabs
had grown until it had been split into halves, which moved a million
miles apart, circling the sun. And he knew that there were other
clusters, built by other outfits, growing and dividing into widely
separated portions of the same great ring-like zone.
Maybe the old problems were beat. Safety? If deployment was the answer
to that, it was certainly there--to a degree, at least. Room enough?
Check. It was certainly available. Freedom of mind and action? There
wasn't much question that that would work out, too. Home, comfort, and a
kind of life not too unfamiliar? In the light of detached logic and
observation, that was going fine, too. In the main, people were
adjusting very quickly and eagerly. Perhaps _too_ quickly.
That was where Nelsen always got scared, as if he had become a nervous
old man. The Big Vacuum had a grandeur. It could seem gentle. Could
children, women and men--everybody sometimes forgot--learn to live with
it without losing their respect for it, until suddenly it killed them?
That was the worst point, if he let himself think. And how could he
always avoid that? From there his thoughts would branch out into his
multiple uncertainties, confusions and puzzlements. Then those
strangling hiccups would come. And who could be taking devil-killers
all the time?
He hadn't avoided Nance Codiss. He talked with her every day, lunched
with her, even held her hand. Otherwise, a restraint had come over him.
Because something was all wrong with him, and was getting worse. Just
one urge was clear, now, inside him. She knew, of course, that he was
loused up; but she didn't say anything. Finally he told her.
"You were right, Nance. I was fumbling my way, too. Space fatigue, the
medic told me just a little while ago. He agrees with me that I should
go back to Earth. I've got to go--to take a look at everything from the
small end, again. Of course I've always had the longing. And now I can
go. It has been a year since the worst of the Syrtis Fever."
"I've had the fever. And sometimes the longing, Frank," she said after
she had studied him for a moment. "I think I'd like to go."
"Only if you want to, Nance. It's me that's flunking out, pal." He
chuckled apologetically, almost lightly. "My part has to be a one-person
deal. I don't know whether I'll ever come back. And you seem to fit, out
here."
She looked at him coolly for almost a minute. "All right, Frank," she
said quietly. "Follow your nose. It's just liable to be right on the
beam--for you. I might follow mine. I don't know."
"Joe and Two-and-Two are around--if you need anything, Nance," he said.
"I'll tell them. Gimp, I hear, is on the way. Not much point in my
waiting for him, though..."
Somehow he loved Nance Codiss as much or more than ever. But how could
he tell her that and make sense? Not much made sense to him anymore. It
seemed that he had to get away from everybody that he had ever seen in
space.
Fifty hours before his departure with a returning bubb caravan that had
brought more Earth-emigrants, Nelsen acquired a travelling companion who
had arrived from Pallastown with a small caravan bringing machinery. The
passenger-hostess brought him to Nelsen's prefab. He was a grave little
guy, five years old. He was solemn, polite, frightened, tall for his
age--funny how corn and kids grew at almost zero-gravity.
The boy handed Nelsen a letter. "From my father and mother, sir," he
said.
Nelsen read the typed missive.
"Dear Frank: The rumor has come that you are going home. You have our
very best wishes, as always. Our son, Davy, is being sent to his
paternal grandmother, now living in Minneapolis. He will go to school
there. He is capable of making the trip without any special attention.
But--a small imposition. If you can manage it, please look in on him
once in a while, on the way. We would appreciate this favor. Thank you,
take care of yourself, and we shall hope to see you somewhere within the
next few months. Your sincere friends, David and Helen Lester."
A lot of nerve, Nelsen thought first. But he tried to grin engagingly at
the kid and almost succeeded.
"We're in luck, Dave," he said. "I'm going to Minneapolis, too. I'm
afraid of a lot of things. What are you afraid of?"
The small fry's jutting lip trembled. "Earth," he said. "A great big
planet. Hoppers tell me I won't even be able to stand up or breathe."
Nelsen very nearly laughed and went into hiccups, again. Fantastic.
Another viewpoint. Seeing through the other end of the telescope. But
how else would it be for a youngster born in the Belt, while being
sent--in the old colonial pattern--to the place that his parents
regarded as home?
"Those jokers," Nelsen scoffed. "They're pulling your leg! It just isn't
so, Davy. Anyhow, during the trip, the big bubb will be spun fast
enough, so that we will get used to the greater Earth-gravity. Let me
tell you something. I guess it's space and the Belt that _I'm_ afraid
of. I never quite got over it. Silly, huh?"
But as Nelsen watched the kid brighten, he remembered that he, himself,
had been scared of Earth, too. Scared to return, to show weakness, to
lack pride... Well, to hell with that. He had accomplished enough, now,
maybe, to cancel such objections. Now it seemed that he had to get to
Earth before it vanished because of something he had helped start.
Silly, of course...
He and Davy travelled fast and almost in luxury. Within two weeks they
were in orbit around the bulk of the Old World. Then, in the powerful
tender with its nuclear retard rockets, there was the Blast In--the
reverse of that costly agony that had once meant hard won and enormous
freedom, when he was poor in money and rich in mighty yearning. But now
Nelsen yielded in all to the mother clutch of the gravity. The whole
process had been gentled and improved. There were special anti-knock
seats. There was sound- and vibration-insulation. Even Davy's slight
fear was more than half thrill.
At the new Minneapolis port, Nelsen delivered David Lester, Junior into
the care of his grandmother, who seemed much more human than Nelsen once
had thought long ago. Then he excused himself quickly.
Seeking the shelter of anonymity, he bought a rucksack for his few
clothes, and boarded a bus which dropped him at Jarviston, Minnesota, at
two a.m. He thrust his hands into his pockets, partly like a lonesome
tramp, partly like some carefree immortal, and partly like a mixed-up
wraith who didn't quite know who or what he was, or where he belonged.
In his wallet he had about five hundred dollars. How much more he might
have commanded, he couldn't even guess. Wups, fella, he told himself.
That's too weird, too indigestible--don't start hiccuping again. How old
are you--twenty-five, or twenty-five thousand years? Wups--careful...
The full Moon was past zenith, looking much as it always had. The
blue-tinted air domes of colossal industrial development, were mostly
too small at this distance to be seen without a glass. Good...
With wondering absorption he sniffed the mingling of ripe field and road
smells, borne on the warm breeze of the late-August night. Some few cars
evidently still ran on gasoline. For a moment he watched neon signs
blink. In the desertion he walked past Lehman's Drug Store and Otto
Kramer's bar, and crossed over to pause for a nameless moment in front
of Paul Hendricks' Hobby Center, which was all dark, and seemed little
changed. He took to a side street, and won back the rustle of trees and
the click of his heels in the silence.
A few more buildings--that was about all that was visibly different in
Jarviston, Minnesota.
A young cop eyed him as he returned to the main drag and paused near a
street lamp. He had a flash of panic, thinking that the cop was
somebody, grown up, now, who would recognize him. But at least it was no
one that he remembered.
The cop grinned. "Get settled in a hotel, buddy," he said. "Or else move
on, out of town."
Nelsen grinned back, and ambled out to the highway, where intermittent
clumps of traffic whispered.
There he paused, and looked up at the sky, again. The electric beacon of
a weather observation satellite blinked on and off, moving slowly. Venus
had long since set, with hard-to-see Mercury preceding it. Jupiter
glowed in the south. Mars looked as remote and changeless as it must
have looked in the Stone Age. The asteroids were never even visible here
without a telescope.
The people that he knew, and the events that he had experienced Out
There, were like myths, now. _How could he ever put Here and There
together, and unite the mismatched halves of himself and his
experience?_ He had been born on Earth, the single home of his kind from
the beginning. How could he ever even have been Out There?
He didn't try to hitch a ride. He walked fourteen miles to the next
town, bought a small tent, provisions and a special, miniaturized
radio. Then he slipped into the woods, along Hickman's Lake, where he
used to go.
There he camped, through September, and deep into October. He fished, he
swam again. He dropped stones into the water, and watched the circles
form, with a kind of puzzled groping in his memory. He retreated from
the staggering magnificence of his recent past and clutched at old
simplicities.
On those rare occasions when he shaved, he saw the confused sickness in
his face, reflected by his mirror. Sometimes, for a moment, he felt hot,
and then cold, as if his blood still held a tiny trace of Syrtis Fever.
If there _was_ such a thing? No--don't start to laugh, he warned
himself. Relax. Let the phantoms fade away. Somewhere, that multiple
bigness of Nothing, of life and death, of success and unfairness and
surprise, must have reality--but not here...
Occasionally he listened to news on the radio. But mostly he shut it
off--out. Until boredom at last began to overtake him--because he had
been used to so much more than what was here. Until--specifically--one
morning, when the news came too quickly, and with too much impact. It
was a recording, scratchy, and full of unthinkable distance.
"... Frank, Gimp, Two-and-Two, Paul, Mr. Reynolds, Otto, Les, Joe, Art,
everybody--especially you, Eileen--remember what you promised, when I
get back, Eileen...! Here I am, on Pluto--edge of the star desert! Clear
sailing--all the way. All I see, yet, is twilight, rocks, mountains,
snow which must be frozen atmosphere--and one big star, Sol. But I'll
get the data, and be back..."
Nelsen listened to the end, with panic in his face--as if such
adventures and such living were too gigantic and too rich... He hiccuped
once. Then he held himself very still and concentrated. He had known
that voice Out There and Here, too. Now, as he heard it again--Here, but
from Out There--it became like a joining force to bring them both
together within himself. Though how could it be...?
"Ramos," he said aloud. "Made it... Another good guy, accomplishing what
he wanted... Hey...! Hey, that's swell... Like things should happen."
He didn't hiccup anymore, or laugh. By being very careful, he just
grinned, instead. He arose to his feet, slowly.
"What am I doing here--wasting time?" he seemed to ask the woods.
Without picking up his camping gear at all, he headed for the road,
thumbed a ride to Jarviston, where he arrived before eight o'clock.
Somebody had started ringing the city hall bell. Celebration?
Hendricks' was the most logical place for Nelsen to go, but he passed
it by, following a hunch to his old street. _She_ had almost said that
she might come home, too. He touched the buzzer.
Not looking too completely dishevelled himself, he stood there, as a
girl--briskly early in dress and impulse, so as not to waste the bright
morning--opened the door.
"Yeah, Nance--me," he croaked apologetically. "Ramos has reached Pluto!"
"I know, _Frankie_!" she burst out.
But his words rushed on. "I've been goofing off--by Hickman's Lake. Over
now. Emotional indigestion, I guess--from living too big, before I could
take it. I figured you _might_ be here. If you weren't, I'd come...
Because I know where I belong. Nance--I hope you're not angry. Maybe
we're pulling together, at last?"
"Angry--when I was the first fumbler? How could that be, Frank? Oh, I
knew where you were--folks found out. I told them to leave you alone,
because I understood some of what you were digging through. Because it
was a little the same--for me... So, you see, I didn't just tag after
you." She laughed a little. "That wouldn't be proud, would it? Even
though Joe and Two-and-Two said I had to go bring you back..."
His arms went tight around her, right there on the old porch.
"Nance--love you," he whispered. "And we've got to be tough. Everybody's
got to be tough--to match what we've come to. Even little kids. But it
was always like that--on any kind of frontier, wasn't it? A few will get
killed, but more will live--many more..."
Like that, Frank Nelsen shook the last of the cobwebs out of his
brain--and got back to his greater destiny.
"I'll buy all of that philosophy," Nance chuckled gently. "But you still
look as though you needed some breakfast, Frank."
He grinned. "Later. Let's go to see Paul, first. A big day for
him--because of Ramos. Paul is getting feeble, I suppose?" Nelsen's face
had sobered.
"Not so you could notice it much, Frank," Nance answered. "There's a new
therapy--another side of What's Coming, I guess..."
They walked the few blocks. The owner of the Hobby Center was now a
long-time member of KRNH Enterprises. He had the means to expand and
modernize the place beyond recognition. But clearly he had realized that
some things should not change.
In the display window, however, there gleamed a brand-new Archer Nine,
beautiful as a garden or a town floating, unsupported, under the
stars--beautiful as the Future, which was born of the Past.
A Bunch of fellas--the current crop of aficionados--were inside the
store, making lots of noise over the news. Was that Chip Potter, grown
tall? Was that his same old dog, Blaster? Frank Nelsen could see Paul
Hendricks' white-fringed bald-spot.
"Go ahead--open the door. Or are you still scared?" Nance challenged
lightly.
"No--just anticipating," Nelsen gruffed. "And seeing if I can remember
what's Out There ... Serene, bubb, Belt, Pallas..." He spoke the words
like comic incantations, yet with a dash of reverence.
"Superbia?" Nance teased.
"That is somebody's impertinent joke!" he growled in feigned solemnity.
"Anyhow, it would be too bad if something _that_ important couldn't take
a little ribbing. Shucks--we've hardly _started_ to work, yet!"
He drew Nance back a pace, out of sight of those in the store, and
kissed her long and rather savagely.
"With all its super-complications, life still seems pretty nice," he
commented.
The door squeaked, just as it used to, as Nelsen pushed it open. The old
overhead bell jangled.
Pale, watery eyes lifted and lighted with another fulfilment.
"Well, Frank! Long time no see...!"
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THE PLANET STRAPPERS
started out as The Bunch, a group of student-astronauts in the back room
of a store in Jarviston, Minnesota. They wanted off Earth, and they
begged, borrowed and built what they needed to make it.
THE PLANET STRAPPERS got what they wanted--a start on the road to the
stars--but no one brought up on Earth could have imagined what was
waiting for them Out There!
In THE PLANET STRAPPERS, Ray Gallun has written a story of the Day After
Tomorrow--a story of what it will be like for the men who cross the
space frontier--a story that some of us will be *living* some day....
A PYRAMID BOOK 35c
COVER: JOHN SCHOENHERR
Printed in U.S.A.
Transcriber's Note: The following typographical errors in the original
text have been corrected in this eBook:
Page 18: "signficant" changed to "significant"
Page 43: single quotation mark changed to a double quotation mark
Page 69: "re-leatch" changed to "re-latch"
Page 70: "in" changed to "an"
Page 72: "Casseopia" changed to "Cassiopeia"
Page 73: "sitch" changed to "switch"
Page 75: "dopy" changed to "dopey"
Page 77: "thundrous" changed to "thunderous"
Page 78: missing quotation mark added; "dissappeared" changed to
"disappeared"; "a" changed to "at"; "Were" changed to "We're"
Page 81: "Kuzack" changed to "Kuzak"
Page 85: "stear" changed to "steer"
Page 89: "Kuzaks" changed to "Kuzaks'"
Page 92: "asteriods" changed to "asteroids"
Page 104: missing quotation mark added; "summersaults" changed to
"somersaults"
Page 107: "heathy" changed to "healthy"
Page 113: "asteriod-hoppers" changed to "asteroid-hoppers"
Page 115: "prismastic" changed to "prismatic"
Page 121: "guage" changed to "gauge"
Page 124: "exhude" changed to "exude"
Page 132: extra quotation mark removed
Page 137: "assteroid-hoppers" changed to "asteroid-hoppers";
"advertized" changed to "advertised"
Page 143: "milleniums" changed to "millenniums"
Page 145: "quandrant" changed to "quadrant"
Page 158: "fantasty" changed to "fantasy"
End of Project Gutenberg's The Planet Strappers, by Raymond Zinke Gallun