[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Galaxy Science Fiction August 1951.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Explorers who dread spiders and snakes prove that heroism
is always more heroic to outsiders. Then there's the case
of the first space pilot to Mars who developed the itch--
Bill Adams was halfway back from Mars when he noticed the red rash on
his hands. He'd been reaching for one of the few remaining tissues to
cover a sneeze, while scratching vigorously at the base of his neck.
Then he saw the red spot, and his hand halted, while all desire to
sneeze gasped out of him.
He sat there, five feet seven inches of lean muscle and bronzed skin,
sweating and staring, while the blond hair on the back of his neck
seemed to stand on end. Finally he dropped his hand and pulled himself
carefully erect. The cabin in the spaceship was big enough to permit
turning around, but not much more, and with the ship cruising without
power, there was almost no gravity to keep him from overshooting his
goal.
He found the polished plate that served as a mirror and studied
himself. His eyes were puffy, his nose was red, and there were other
red splotches and marks on his face.
Whatever it was, he had it bad!
Pictures went through his head, all unpleasant. He'd been only a kid
when the men came back from the South Pacific in the last war; but an
uncle had spent years dying of some weird disease that the doctors
couldn't identify. That had been from something caught on Earth. What
would happen when the disease was from another planet?
It was ridiculous. Mars had no animal life, and even the thin
lichenlike plants were sparse and tiny. A man couldn't catch a disease
from a plant. Even horses didn't communicate their ills to men. Then
Bill remembered gangrene and cancer, which could attack any life,
apparently.
He went back to the tiny Geiger-Muller counter, but there was no sign
of radiation from the big atomic motor that powered the ship. He
stripped his clothes off, spotting more of the red marks breaking out,
but finding no sign of parasites. He hadn't really believed it, anyhow.
That wouldn't account for the sneezing and sniffles, or the puffed eyes
and burning inside his nose and throat.
Dust, maybe? Mars had been dusty, a waste of reddish sand and desert
silt that made the Sahara seem like paradise, and it had settled on
his spacesuit, to come in through the airlocks with him. But if it
contained some irritant, it should have been worse on Mars than now. He
could remember nothing annoying, and he'd turned on the tiny, compact
little static dust traps, in any case, before leaving, to clear the air.
He went back to one of the traps now, and ripped the cover off it.
The little motor purred briskly. The plastic rods turned against fur
brushes, while a wiper cleared off any dust they picked up. There was
no dust he could see; the traps had done their work.
Some plant irritant, like poison ivy? No, he'd always worn his
suit--Mars had an atmosphere, but it wasn't anything a man could
breathe long. The suit was put on and off with automatic machine
grapples, so he couldn't have touched it.
The rash seemed to get worse on his body as he looked at it. This
time, he tore one of the tissues in quarters as he sneezed. The little
supply was almost gone; there was never space enough for much beyond
essentials in a spaceship, even with the new atomic drive. As he looked
for spots, the burning in his nose seemed to increase.
He dropped back to the pilot seat, cursing. Two months of being cramped
up in this cubicle, sweating out the trip to Mars without knowing how
the new engine would last; three weeks on Mars, mapping frantically to
cover all the territory he could, and planting little flags a hundred
miles apart; now a week on the trip back at high acceleration most of
the way--and this! He'd expected adventure of some kind. Mars, though,
had proved as interesting as a sandpile, and even the "canals" had
proved to be only mineral striations, invisible from the ground.
He looked for something to do, but found nothing. He'd developed his
films the day before, after carefully cleaning the static traps and
making sure the air was dust-free. He'd written up the accounts. And
he'd been coasting along on the hope of getting home to a bath, a beer,
and a few bull sessions, before he began to capitalize on being the
first man to reach another planet beyond the Moon.
He cut on full acceleration again, more certain of his motors than
of himself. He'd begun to notice the itching yesterday; today he was
breaking out in the rash. How long would whatever was coming take? Good
God, he might die--from something as humiliating and undramatic as this!
It hadn't hit him before, fully. There was no knowing about diseases
from other planets. Men had developed immunity to the germs found on
Earth; but just as smallpox had proved so fatal to the Indians and
syphilis to Europe when they first hit, there was no telling how wildly
this might progress. It might go away in a day, or it might kill him
just as quickly.
He was figuring his new orbit on a tiny calculator. In two days at this
acceleration, he could reach radar-distance of Earth; in four, he could
land. The tubes might burn out in continuous firing. But the other way,
he'd be two weeks making a landing, and most diseases he could remember
seemed faster than that.
Bill wiped the sweat off his forehead, scratched at other places that
were itching, and stared down at the small disk of Earth. There were
doctors there--and, brother, he'd need them fast!
Things were a little worse when the first squeals came from the radar
two days later. He'd run out of tissues, and his nose was a continual
drip, while breathing seemed almost impossible. He was running some
fever, too, though he had no way of knowing how much.
He cut his receiver in, punched out the code on his key. The receiver
pipped again at him, bits of message getting through, but unclearly.
There was no response to his signals. He checked his chronometer and
flipped over the micropages of his _Ephemeris_; the big radar at
Washington was still out of line with him, and the signals had to cut
through too much air to come clearly. It should be good in another hour.
But right now, an hour seemed longer than a normal year. He checked the
dust tray again, tried figuring out other orbits, managed to locate
the Moon, and scratched. Fifteen minutes. There was no room for pacing
up and down. He pushed the back down from the pilot seat, lowered the
table, and pulled out his bunk; he remade it, making sure all the
corners were perfect. Then he folded it back and lifted the table and
seat. That took less than five minutes.
His hands were shaking worse when the automatic radar signals began
to come through more clearly. It wasn't an hour, but he could wait
no longer. He opened the key and began to send. It would take fifteen
seconds for the signal to reach Earth, and another quarter minute for
an answer, even if an operator was on duty.
Half a minute later, he found one was. "Earth to Mars Rocket I. Thank
God, you're ahead of schedule. If your tubes hold out, crowd them. Two
other nations have ships out now. The U. N. has ruled that whoever
comes back first with mapping surveys can claim the territory mapped.
We're rushing the construction, but we need the ship for the second run
if we're to claim our fair territory. Aw, hell--congratulations!"
He'd started hammering at his key before they finished, giving the
facts on the tubes, which were standing up beyond all expectations.
"And get a doctor ready--a bunch of them," he finished. "I seem to have
picked up something like a disease."
There was a long delay before an answer came this time--more than five
minutes. The hand on the key was obviously different, slower and not as
steady. "What symptoms, Adams? Give all details!"
He began, giving all the information he had, from the first itching
through the rash and the fever. Again, longer this time, the main
station hesitated.
"Anything I can do about it now?" Bill asked, finally. "And how about
having those doctors ready?"
"We're checking with Medical," the signals answered. "We're.... Here's
their report. Not enough data--could be anything. Dozens of diseases
like that. Nothing you can do, except try salt water gargle and spray;
you've got stuff for that. Wash off rash with soap and hot water,
followed by some of your hypo. We'll get a medical kit up to the Moon
for you."