A man could walk around the tiny asteroid
in the space of a few hours. But Jerry had only
minutes, to find and use--an invisible weapon!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy
November 1951
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Like I expected, the fairgrounds were crowded with thousands of the
drifter-families waiting for the big blast-off tomorrow. They thronged
about uncertainly, in anxious little knots, chattering friendly,
meaningless things, making fast friends who would be forgotten in the
bustle and competition, after blast-off.
Gramps stood apart from all this, and when he saw me he came running
through the mob on spindly legs, waving his arms frantically so
that I wouldn't miss him. As if I would. If there was anything more
incongruous here on the Martian landscape, anything that seemed more
out of place than did old Gramps, I didn't see it. Two hundred years
ago in another homestead rush, maybe he would have fit. The only thing
I know about that is what I read in books, but I could picture Gramps
with his battered old corncob pipe and his wizened face, leading a team
of mules or oxen or whatever animals they used.
"Hey, Jerry," he called. "Hey, kid, I got it!"
I'm no kid. I'm twenty-seven, six feet two, and I probably weigh twice
as much as Gramps does, wringing wet. But that's the way he was.
"Where's Clair?" I asked him. I hadn't seen my wife in a month. She had
gone to the Martian Fair with Gramps to put in a bid for one of the old
derelict ships, and now I had come here to join them, with a dime, a
quarter and a crumpled dollar bill hardly filling the emptiness of my
jumper-pocket.
"That girl!" He whistled. "She's back at the ship now, cleaning and
polishing, putting everything together with spit and string so you
wouldn't know the old Karden Cruiser."
I felt something gnawing away, deep inside my stomach, and it wasn't
just that I was hungry. "The _what_?" I demanded.
* * * * *
Gramps smiled, and right then I could have seen him rocking on a chair
on a little porch, with a garden full of rose bushes and crab grass. I
could have seen him anyplace but here with Clair and me, on the eve of
the great blast-off for the asteroid belt. "The _what_?" I said again.
"The old Karden Cruiser, Jerry. Neat little job. And cheap--they
almost gave it away. You shoulda seen those durned fools. No one else
bid for it, I had it all to myself, first bid."
I tried to be patient. "You didn't expect anyone else to bid for
_that_, did you?"
He had a hurt look on his face. "Why not? A good ship, kid. When I was
your age, younger, I went to Venus on one. I can remember--"
"That's it," I told him. "Fifty years ago the Karden might have been
a good ship, but not now. Not now, Gramps. It's as obsolete as a
pea-shooter. Will it run?"
"You're durned tootin' it'll run. What do you think I paid? Go ahead,
guess."
Something was still gnawing at my stomach. Gramps had had three hundred
dollars to purchase our ship and equipment. You could stretch three
hundred dollars a long way if you bought wisely these days. "You tell
me," I said.
"Hundred and fifty. 'Nother hundred and a quarter for supplies--"
There's some old saying about letting old dogs lie or not crying over
spilled milk or some such thing, but anyway, I reminded him, "For
another twenty-five or thirty dollars you could have got a Wilson '13,
maybe even a twelve-bank Carpenter."
"Couldn't," Gramps said. "Kid, let me tell you, I saw the nicest
_gui_-tar. One of them old Martian types with eight strings, you know.
Twenty-five bucks...."
I looked at him a long time without saying anything. When you're down
to just a few dollars in these depression years, everything counts,
every last penny. But my folks had died in the panic and riots of '24
and Gramps had reared me since almost before the time I could reach the
wart on his knee.
"Let's go look at our Karden," I said.
* * * * *
Gramps was beaming proudly. "There she is," he told me. "Section G, Row
14, Ship 7. Beauty, eh?"
As far as you looked, you couldn't see anything but the old ships,
all lined up, row on row of them. Some glistening with new paint if
they had been bought as early as yesterday and sprayed today, others
still dull and cracked with caked jet-slag and the erosion of a dozen
atmospheres, all with people scurrying in and out of them, getting new
faces and new entrails for blast-off tomorrow.
The Karden squatted in row 14, a short, stubby grub-like boat whose
jet-slag completely hid the original paint job. But I didn't want to
say another thing about it. I just hoped the Karden could get us where
we were going, even if it burped and hiccupped like a drunken driver
all the way.
Clair opened the lock and I saw her red hair framed against the dark
interior of the ship, and I hardly remembered Gramps was there. We'd
been married two months, and separated for half that time, with me
getting my last month's paycheck in New York so I'd have money for the
liner-fare to Canal City.
Clair cried, "Welcome aboard ship. Captain Brooks, wel.... Umm-m,
Captain, that was nice.... Umm-m, again...."
Gramps coughed. "You two gonna stand there mooning over each other all
afternoon, or do we get some work done?"
"It's just about all finished," Clair told him. She snuggled up close
once more and then skipped out of my arms, leading us through the lock
and into the Karden.
It looked more like the inside of a packing crate than a spaceship.
Ideally, the old Kardens were two-man cruisers, at a time when you
strapped yourself into a bunk and just about remained there until you
hit atmosphere. Now Clair had readied three makeshift bunks, and our
supplies stood piled tight against the bulkheads and as high as the
ceiling in several places. I had to take Clair's word that the ship's
old hull was sealed and could be pressurized--there wasn't enough space
for me to see for myself.
The trip had left me a bit bleary, and Clair, who had worked all day,
yawned a little while she opened a can of beans and bacon for supper.
We sat around against the packing cases and we smoked. Then I checked
a few things which remained to be checked, and I suggested we turn in.
Clair nodded, but Gramps said no, he had a little unfinished business
yet.
I needed sleep, every bit of it I could get, for the grueling run
tomorrow. I leaned back and stretched out, with my feet sticking out a
good half a foot beyond the edge of the bunk, and then I heard Gramps'
unfinished business.
The nasal twang of the eight-stringed Martian guitar blended with the
dubious qualities of Gramps' voice:
He'll hug and he'll kiss you
And tell you more lies
Than the cross ties on the railroad
Or the stars in the sky....
* * * * *
At an hour before sunrise we tuned in our radio and heard Governor
Eddington's voice cut through the static. "Ladies and gentlemen," he
said, "it is now exactly fifty-nine minutes and thirty-seven seconds
until blast-off. Let me review the rules for you, to avoid any
unpleasantness later.
"One. No ship is to leave before the signal. Any ship which does so is
automatically disqualified, and your claim will not be recognized.
"Two. Any asteroid is fair prey, but the government strongly recommends
that you consider two items. First, those asteroids which lie within
the belt itself and which do not have overly eccentric orbits are
preferable since the government supply ships will visit them much more
frequently. Second, you will benefit by selecting an asteroid with
one or more of the old abandoned mining domes, for two reasons. With
slight repairs you can live within the domes, and also their existence
assures you of profitable mineral material.
"Three. Vesta, the government base within the Belt, is not to be landed
upon.
"Four. Each ship is restricted to one asteroid, and once your selection
is made it must be a permanent one.
"Five. No more than one ship can claim a given asteroid, and the
automatic chronometer within each ship will radio the moment of landing
to Vesta, thus taking care of any priority claims.
"Six. Claim jumping will be considered by the Federal Worlds Government
as an act of piracy and will be punished accordingly.
"Seven. In the event that an asteroid is abandoned for any reason, a
new ship may claim it at once, and the departing ship can claim no
other asteroid.
"If you have any questions, relay them to your Section Official in the
fifty-five minutes which remain. Good luck to all of you...."
The rules were thorough, all right. This could turn out to be a two-way
proposition which would help both the Government and the families, and
the Government wanted it to be a rousing success. In the first place,
there were literally thousands of families, all waiting tensely for
blast-off. None of them had been earning sufficient income, thanks to
the depression following the final East-West war on Earth, and now it
was hoped that they could earn their keep by mining the asteroids.
Further, I knew that the Government had been forced to abandon its
mineral deposits on all the asteroids except Vesta, and now it could
use the extra wealth from the silent mines which waited on a thousand
little worlds in deep space between Mars and Jupiter.
* * * * *
I sat smoking cigarette after cigarette, until Clair reminded me that
the supply wasn't infinite. She pored over our charts, studying the
three or four asteroids which had seemed most promising, looking up
with a smile now and then to watch Gramps strum his guitar and sing
about a fly with a blue tail.