* * * * *
The private rocket landing field of the Staker Space Mining Company
was an hour's drive north of the city. Three miles from the field they
made out the two gleaming snouts of the rockets pointing skyward. Then
as they approached the edge of the field, Bill turned off toward a two
story frame structure that served as office and warehouse.
Bill said, "Might as well check to see if Tom is in the office
first."
At the door Bill poked his head in and shouted up the stairwell,
"Hi--Tom?"
A chair scraped, and footsteps sounded across the upstairs floor.
"Yeah--that you, Bill? C'mon up!"
They found Tom at a desk before a wide window view of the field. On
the office walls hung big graphs of fuel consumption curves,
trajectory plots from Earth to the asteroid belt, ballistics
computations, oxygen consumption curves per unit metabolism per man.
Christy looking at the rockets, said, "Gee, Tom, they look beautiful.
Like monsters straining their tethers."
Tom looked up at the girl's profile, and to Bill who was watching, he
bore the look of a man savoring what he saw.
"Yes, they are. That first one's mine, the _Space Bird_. The other is
Bill's, the _Space Dragon_."
Bill cast a professional eye over the charts and graphs on the wall,
while far down in his subconscious a sharp twinge of jealousy
fulminated, tangling with his fears of space in a hybrid monstrosity.
Then like lava in a plugged volcano his obsession found a new outlet.
The fear of space now came up disguised as hatred for Tom.
In an unusually calm voice Bill said, "Well, I see you have everything
just about completed."
"Yeah," Tom glanced up with a significant look. "Someone else was
interested in those charts and graphs too the other day. Someone who
didn't bother to use the door."
"What d'you mean--somebody break in?"
Tom nodded. "Yep. Jimmied a window downstairs. But I don't think they
got anything, because the door to the office was still locked when the
watchman surprised them. They got away in the dark."