The waiter brought the champagne first. There was no doubt on Margo's
features what this was about, even though it had always been "if",
"maybe" "possibly" in Bill's discussions with her about the new job.
In the midst of picking up his glass and proposing a toast, "Here's to
my new--" Bill stopped. The ultrafax had popped out a sheet. Carefully
putting the glass down, he said, "That's a special bulletin."
Picking it up he read aloud, "Staker Rocket in serious trouble. Home
field reports damage by small meteor. Crew on emergency air bottles.
Mysterious emanations blind radar scope and disrupt communication with
Earth."
Tom--and the others, out there fighting for their lives against
suffocation and intense cold. Their quarrel seemed like the antics of
teenagers now. He had to get out to the field, see if he could help.
"What are you going to do?" Margo was watching him intently, the
knuckles of her small hands white.
"I'm going to the field."
"But--but what about that toast you were making to your new--job,
that's what you were going to say, wasn't it?" Her eyes were intense
spots of jet.
"I guess that'll have to wait, Margo," he told her. "I can't stand by
when Tom needs help."
Margo clutched his hands convulsively. "Bill, don't take a rocket up
or you'll die in the same trap he's dying in!" The words rushed out as
if through a trapdoor she could not control.
Bill glanced at her with sharp, new interest. "How do you know it's a
trap, and how do you know he's going to die?"
Tears began to well up in her large eyes. "All I can tell you is don't
go out there, Bill. I don't want to lose you--now."
Dawning realization filled Bill with horror. "Margo--Margo, for God's
sake, what kind of a game have you been playing with me!"
Margo's shoulders sagged, and she began to sob out her story. "Bill,
please, please believe me. I love you. That was not my part of the
agreement with Asteroid Mining--to fall in love with you. Yes. I was
hired to separate you and your brother, break up your company."
Before Bill could snarl an answer to that, a hotel service clerk came
with a portable phone.
"Call for you, sir."
With his eyes fixed steadily on Margo, he spoke into the transmitter,
"Captain Staker."
Christy's strained and tearful voice came over the wire. "Bill, oh,
Bill, we're getting terrible news here at the field. Tom's ship is
losing oxygen!"
"Yes, I know," he answered. "I just got the Ultra on it. I'll be right
out, Christy."
As he replaced the phone he looked at Margo with a grim, loathing
expression. "A female trick as old as the universe and I had to fall
for it. You and your innocent questions about our Quadrant trajectory!
What a sucker I was!" He drew back his hand to slap her but decided
against it. She was crying when he left.
On the way to the field the familiar but forgotten black tide of fear
rose up like a spectre once more to scatter his gathering ideas for
helping Tom. Resigning himself to its power and pulling over to the
roadside, he sat still, gripping the wheel. Yes, he told himself
tensely, here I sit while Tom and the others drift in space needing
help. The realization of their need slowly gave him a greater
objective clarity than he had ever had before. He began to see himself
now for what he was--a cringing weakling stripped naked of all
manliness at the first show of evil. Though he perhaps had been worse
than the average, this was the trouble with his whole security minded
generation. They never dreamed great dreams like George Staker and his
era which wrested atomic power from the treasure house of nature. No,
this generation carefully followed safe, charted paths in the world of
ideas. It had given up its freedom to a world of government controlled
monopolies. And Tom, taking up the torch left by their creatively
imaginative ancestor, was trying to recapture a small facet of that
golden age.
* * * * *
With the dawning in him of Mid-Twentieth Century mind, Bill felt a
thrilling sense of freedom as the black tide receded over the horizon
of his inner world. He took a new firm grip on the wheel, and took off
again at high speed.
Christy was at the field office waiting outside. As he stepped out of
the car, she threw her arms around him.
"Oh, Bill, what can you do for Tom now?"