* * * * *
Half an hour later he was legging it across the fields, keeping trees
and shrubs between himself and the cottage, and three quarters of an
hour later he was handing a crescent wrench to Murph Vanderpool, who
had found a loose bolt in the rig of the doube-slung pilot's cradle.
Weeding was forgotten. His nostrils were full of hexadrine, his eyes
were full of dials and levers and words like "parsecs" and "off ram--on
ram," and his head was full of dreams.
The Hester. Ever so slightly scored along her sides with the nailhead
meteorites she had brushed rushingly aside. An imperceptible waver in
her hull where a Panasia heat shell had nearly downed her. Glamorous
witch of space. Cleopatra's needle of outer gulfs.
He knew about her. The Federation had won the war when they began
casting rockets of the new, light, tough glass, mass-producing swarms
to oust Panasia in the battles fought in the black deeps beyond the
bounds of earth with weapons that would have destroyed both sides if
used on the home planet. And after the war thousands of the rockets had
been sold, and many had gone to the young men like Murph whom the war
had made into spacemen before they had a chance at any other business
and who did not want now, ever, to be anything but spacemen, rocketmen.
They went about the country selling rocket rides. Tradition had given
them a name from another postwar epoch: barnstormers.
Pete handed the wrench to the barnstormer. "Which are the dark-light
controls?"
"Holy tubes," grinned Murph, pushing the black hair from his eyes, "If
you weren't such a handy kid you'd be a nuisance. Here." He pushed a
button, and the dark hull grew clear, letting in the sunlight. Murph
pushed deeper and the hull darkened. He twirled and a long, clear
porthole appeared along the rows of seats.
"Polaroid can keep radion or light--sunlight can be enough to kill you.
Or you can clear a place to look through."
"Can I work it, huh?"
"Just once."
Pete manipulated the button. Then he held his breath, glanced at Murph,
and slipped into the pilot's cradle. It was too wide and deep but he
imagined that he filled it. He imagined the switchboard alive and
winking and his body weighing a thousand tons, then weighing nothing at
all. The Hester had passed escape velocity, cast off gravity, and earth
lay already ten thousand miles behind her. The board showed she had
slewed a little because of the slight warp in the hull. He corrected
course. Then he cut power, and the ship went driving on with nothing to
stop it at thirty thousand miles an hour.
Murph let him sit there a full minute. Then he lifted him down.
"Let's go outside, see if there's any business."
There wasn't, and they lounged on a piece of canvas in the blackened
blast area.
The band-radio around Pete's shoulder pulsed gently. He dialed it up.
"I know where you are, Peter. I want you back here right this instant.
Your mother and I both...."
He dialed off.
"Anything else I can do for you, Murph?"
"Well--you might go to Rannel's store, after awhile, and get me a
couple packs of self-lights. I'm about out of smokes."
"Be glad to."
Pete basked in the shared male moments. "What was it you were telling
me about hyperspace yesterday?"
Murph told him more about hyperspace, the untapped dimension which
had to exist, the magic hole in space into which a ship would slip
someday and emerge not in new systems but new galaxies. "When we find
hyperspace and get the photon drive--then we'll really be making it."
"Think we ever will?"
"Sure we will."
That was it. Sure we will. He lay and gazed into the sky. How far did
it go? Someday he would be up there.
The radio pulsed again, and he told himself he didn't feel it. He
rolled around and looked at Murph. He might as well ask his important
question.
"Murph--are you gonna take me up?"
"Shoot, kid, I can't burn juice just taking one guy for a joyride."
"How about if you get a full load except one? Couldn't I sit in?"
Murph thought about it. "Well, you've been a lot of help and company,
and you're a smart kid, too. I'll do it."
Pete didn't do anything so childish as leaping into the air but he
allowed himself to walk over and stroke the alluring flanks of the
Hester. He felt wonderful. And around the hull of the rocket strode his
mother.
"Why didn't you answer us?"
"Gosh--did you call me? Maybe my radio isn't working."
She dialed and spoke into it. His grandmother answered. "I've got him,"
said his mother, and dialed down.