"No--that is, not exactly. But he was treated as if we didn't trust his
judgment, as though we were a little bit afraid of him."
"Oh-_ho_! I see what you mean."
"Sure. We treated him just as we would anyone who hasn't proved himself.
And that meant we were treating him the same way we treated our own
'lower classes', as he thought of them. I had Governor Holger get his
Ceres detectives to trace down everything that happened. You can read
the transcript if you want. There's nothing particularly exciting in it,
but you can see the pattern if you know what to look for.
"I'm not even certain it was fully conscious on his part; I'm not sure
he knew why he disliked us. All he was convinced of was that we were
arrogant and thought we were better than he is. It's kind of hard for us
to see that a person would be that deeply hurt by seeing the plain truth
that someone else is obviously better at something than he is, but
you've got to remember that an Earthman is brought up to believe that
every person is just exactly as good as every other--and no better. A
man may have a skill that you don't have, but that doesn't make him
superior--oh, my, no!
"Anyway, I started out by apologizing for our habit of standing up all
the time. I managed to plant the idea in his mind that the only thing
that made him think we felt superior was that habit. I've even got him
to the point where he's standing up all the time, too. Makes him feel
very superior. He's learned the native customs."
"I get you," Alhamid said. "I probably contributed to that inferiority
feeling of his myself."
"Didn't we all? Anyway, the next step was to take him around and
introduce him to some of the execs in the government and in a couple of
the Companies--I briefed 'em beforehand. Friendly chats--that sort of
thing. I think we're going to have to learn the ancient art of diplomacy
out here if we're going to survive, George.
"The crowning glory came this afternoon. You should have been there."
"I was up to here in work, Larry. I just couldn't take the time off to
attend a club luncheon. Did the great man give his speech?"
"Did he? I should hope to crack my helmet he did! We must all pull
together, George, did you know that? We must care for the widow and the
orphan--and the needy, George, the needy. We must be sure to provide the
fools, the idiots, the malingerers, the moral degenerates, and such
useful, lovable beings as that with the necessities and the luxuries of
life. We must see to it that they are respected and permitted to have
their dignity. We must see to it that the dear little things are
permitted the rights of a human being to hold his head up and spit in
your eye if he wishes. We must see to it that they be fruitful,
multiply, and replenish the Earth."
"They've already done that," Alhamid said caustically. "And they can
have it. Let's just see that they don't replenish the Belt. So what
happened?"
"Why, George, you'll never realize how much we appreciated that speech.
We gave him a three-minute rising ovation. I think he was surprised to
see that we could stand for three minutes under a one-gee pull in the
centrifuge. And you should have seen the smiles on our faces, George."
"I hope nobody broke out laughing."
"We managed to restrain ourselves," the governor said.
"What's next on the agenda?"
"Well, it'll be tricky, but I think I can pull it off. I'm going to take
him around and show him that we _do_ take care of the widow and the
orphan, and hope that he assumes we are as solicitous toward the rest of
his motley crew. Wish me luck."
"Good luck. You may need it."
"Same to you. Take care of Danley."
"Don't worry. He's in good hands. See you, Larry."
"Right."
* * * * *
There were three space-suited men on the bleak rocky ground near the
north pole of Pallas, a training area of several square miles known as
the North Forty. Their helmets gleamed in the bright, hard light from a
sun that looked uncomfortably small to an Earthman's eyes. Two of the
men were standing, facing each other some fifteen feet apart. The third,
attached to them by safety lines, was hanging face down above the
surface, rising slowly, like a balloon that has almost more weight than
it can lift.
"No, no, _no_, Mr. Danley! You are not _crawling_, Mr. Danley, you are
climbing! Do you understand that? _Climbing!_ You have to _climb_ an
asteroid, just as you would climb a cliff on Earth. You have to hold on
every second of the time, or you will fall off!" St. Simon's voice
sounded harsh in Danley's earphones, and he felt irritatingly helpless
poised floatingly above the ground that way.
His instructors were well anchored by metal eyes set into the rocky
surface for just that purpose. Although Pallas was mostly nickel-iron,
this end of it was stony, which was why it had been selected as a
training ground.
"_Well?_" snapped St. Simon. "What do you do now? If this were a small
rock, you'd be drifting a long ways away by now. Think, Mr. Danley,
_think_."
"Then shut up and let me think!" Danley snarled.
"If small things distract you from thinking about the vital necessity of
saving your own life, Mr. Danley, you would not live long in the Belt."
Danley reached out an arm to see if he could touch the ground. When he
had pushed himself upwards with a thrust of his knee, he hadn't given
himself too hard a shove. He had reached the apex of his slow flight,
and was drifting downward again. He grasped a jutting rock and pulled
himself back to the surface.
"Very good, Mr. Danley--but that wouldn't work on a small rock. You took
too long. What would you have done on a rock with a millionth of a gee
of pull?"
Danley was silent.
"_Well?_" St. Simon barked. "_What would you do?_"
"I ... I don't know," Danley admitted.
"Ye gods and little fishhooks!" This was Kerry Brand's voice. It was
supposed to be St. Simon's turn to give the verbal instructions, but
Brand allowed himself an occasional remark when it was appropriate.
St. Simon's voice was bitingly sweet. "What do you think those safety
lines are for, Mr. Danley? Do you think they are for decorative
purposes?"
"Well ... I thought I was supposed to think of some other way. I mean,
that's so obvious--"
"Mr. Danley," St. Simon said with sudden patience, "we are not here to
give you riddles to solve. We're here to teach you how to stay alive in
the Belt. And one of the first rules you must learn is that you will
_never_ leave your boat without a safety line. _Never!_
"An anchor man, Mr. Danley, is called that for more than one reason. You
cannot anchor your boat to a rock unless there is an eye-bolt set in it.
And if it already has an eye-bolt, you would have no purpose on that
rock. In a way, _you_ will be the anchor of your boat, since you will be
tied to it by your safety line. If the boat drifts too far from your
rock while you are working, it will pull you off the surface, since it
has more mass than you do. That shouldn't be allowed to happen, but, if
it does, you are still with your boat, rather than deserted on a rock
for the rest of your life--which wouldn't be very long. When the power
unit in your suit ran out of energy, it would stop breaking your exhaled
carbon dioxide down into carbon and oxygen, and you would suffocate.
Even with emergency tanks of oxygen, you would soon find yourself
freezing to death. That sun up there isn't very warm, Mr. Danley."
Peter Danley was silent, but it was an effort to remain so. He wanted to
remind St. Simon that he, Danley, had been a spaceman for nearly fifteen
years. But he was also aware that he was learning things that weren't
taught at Earthside schools. Most of his professional life had been
spent aboard big, comfortable ships that made the short Earth-Luna hop.
He could probably count the total hours he had spent in a spacesuit on
the fingers of his two hands.
"All right, Mr. Danley; let's begin again. Climb along the surface. Use
toeholds, handholds, and fingerholds. Feel your way along. Find those
little crevices that will give you a grip. It doesn't take much. You're
a lot better off than a mountain climber on Earth because you don't have
to fight your weight. You have only your mass to worry about. That's it.
Fine. Very good, Mr. Danley."
* * * * *
And, later:
"Now, Mr. Danley," said Captain Brand, "you are at the end of your
tether, so to speak."
The three men were in a space boat, several hundred miles from Pallas.
Or, rather, two of them were in the boat, standing at the open door.
Peter Danley was far out from it, at the end of his safety line.
"How far are you from us, Mr. Danley?" Brand asked.
"Three hundred meters, Captain Brand," Danley said promptly.
"Very good. How do you know?"
"I am at the end of my safety line, which is three hundred meters long
when fully extended."
"Your memory is excellent, Mr. Danley. Now, how will you get back to the
boat?"
"Pull myself hand over hand along the line."
"Think, Mr. Danley! _Think!_"
"Uh. Oh. Well, I wouldn't keep pulling. I'd just give myself a tug and
then coast in, taking up the line slowly as I went."
"Excellent! What would happen if you, as you put it, pulled yourself in
hand over hand, as if you were climbing a rope on Earth?"
"I would accelerate too much," Danley said. "I'd gain too much momentum
and probably bash my brains out against the boat. And I'd have no way to
stop myself."
"Bully for you, Mr. Danley! Now see if you can put into action that
which you have so succinctly put into words. Come back to the boat.
Gently the first time. We'll have plenty of practice, so that you can
get the feel of the muscle pull that will give you a maximum of velocity
with a minimum of impact at this end. Gently, now."
* * * * *
Still later:
"Judgment, Mr. Danley!" St. Simon cautioned. "You have to use judgment!
A space boat is not an automobile. There is no friction out here to slow
it to a stop. Your accelerator is just exactly that--an accelerator.
Taking your foot off it won't slow you down a bit; you've got to use
your reverse."
Peter Danley was at the controls of the boat. There were tiny beads of
perspiration on his forehead. Over a kilometer away was a good-sized
hunk of rock; his instructors wouldn't let him get any closer. They
wanted to be sure that they could take over before the boat struck the
rock, just in case Danley should freeze to the accelerator a little too
long.
He wasn't used to this sort of thing. He was used to a taped
acceleration-deceleration program which lifted a big ship, aimed it, and
went through the trip all automatically. All he had ever had to do was
drop it the last few hundred feet to a landing field.
"Keep your eyes moving," St. Simon said. "Your radar can give you data
that you need, just remember that it can't think for you."
_Your right foot controls your forward acceleration._
_Your left foot controls your reverse acceleration._
_They can't be pushed down together; when one goes down, the other goes
up. Balance one against the other._
_Turning your wheel controls the roll of the boat._
_Pulling your wheel toward you, or pushing it away, controls the pitch._
_Shifting the wheel left, or right, controls the yaw._
The instructions had been pounded into his head until each one seemed to
ring like a separate little bell. The problem was coordinating his body
to act on those instructions.
One of the radar dials told him how far he was from the rock. Another
told him his radial velocity relative to it. A third told him his
angular velocity.
"Come to a dead stop exactly one thousand meters from the surface, Mr.
Danley," St. Simon ordered.
Danley worked the controls until both his velocity meters read zero, and
the distance meter read exactly one kilometer.
"Very good, Mr. Danley. Now assume that the surface of your rock is at
nine hundred ninety-five meters. Bring your boat to a dead stop exactly
fifty centimeters from that surface."
Danley worked the controls again. He grinned with satisfaction when the
distance meter showed nine nine five point five on the nose.
Captain St. Simon sighed deeply. "Mr. Danley, do you feel a little
shaken up? Banged around a little? Do you feel as though you'd just
gotten a bone-rattling shock?"
"Uh ... no."
"You should. You slammed this boat a good two feet into the surface of
that rock before you backed out again." His voice changed tone. "Dammit,
Mr. Danley, when I say 'surface at nine nine five', I mean _surface_!"
* * * * *
Edway Tarnhorst had been dictating notes for his reports into his
recorder, and was rather tired, so when he asked Peter Danley what he
had learned, he was rather irritated when the blond man closed his blue
eyes and repeated, parrotlike:
"Due to the lack of a water-oxygen atmosphere, many minerals are found
in the asteroids which are unknown on Earth. Among the more important of
these are: Oldhamite (CaS); Daubreelite (FECr_{2}S_{4}); Schreibersite
and Rhabdite (Fe_{3}Ni_{3}P); Lawrencite (FeCl_{2}); and Taenite, an
alloy of iron containing--"
"That's not precisely the sort of thing I meant," Tarnhorst interrupted
testily.