"It's no go, Ben. I'm staying home."
"So you can marry that girl?"
He nodded silently.
"So that's it," I said disgustedly. "The kitty cat has really shown her
claws. What are you, a puppet or something?"
"Aw, now Ben--"
"You silly fool. So it's stay home, or else no Marny, is it? You mean
to tell me she had the gall to put it _just like that_? And you're
swallowing it, like the world's prize sucker!"
He looked up puzzled. "I--I just decided not to go, Ben. Maybe after
we're married she'll see things differently, but it just doesn't figure
any other way."
I snorted. "It figures like a Hollywood production. Straight down the
line. Get the brains to working, Bart! Do you really think she's going
to marry you and let you go? Like so much baloney! What woman wants to
be a space-widow? She's not so dumb, Bart. She's playing for keeps,
and she isn't even subtle about it."
"But what am I going to do? I'm in love with her, Ben."
"Do you think she loves you?"
"I--I'm sure of it."
"But she won't even try to understand your side! My god, Bart, can't
you see what's happening? She's selfish, Bart. Just plain selfish.
She wants you, and she wants you on her own terms. There won't be any
compromise. Turn in that resignation, and you're sunk--"
Anger lit in his eyes then. "It's not selfishness," he said doggedly.
"Then what do you call it? Has she even listened to you? Has she given
even one little minute's consideration to how you feel?" I set down my
coffee cup in disgust. "Marny is a woman," I said slowly. "To women,
a husband and a home are the end of existence. Oh, there are other
things, sure, but basically, a woman wants a husband, and somewhere,
deep in her mind she has a picture of the vine-covered cottage in the
country and all the rest of the bilge that goes with it. Where does
a space-man fit into that picture? He doesn't. So there won't be any
space-man. Do you think she really loves you, Bart? If she did, would
she try to keep you here?"
"But I love her, Ben--"
"And she'll tear your heart out for it! You don't belong down here,
Bart. You belong with Dillon. You have the mind, the build, the
potential that Dillon needs. Think of it! Out of all the thousands who
want to go to space, you have the chance. You'll get to Mars, you'll
work to open the frontier, on Mars, on Venus--we're on the edge of the
greatest era of exploration and discovery the earth has ever known,
Bart. We have the ships to take us to our own planets now, we need
only the men with courage and strength enough to leave their homes and
go. And with the new work on induced warp that Dillon's laboratories
have been doing, it may not be long before we can go farther than our
system--on to the stars. You belong out there, Bart--you don't belong
anywhere, else. And against a challenge like that, _no_ woman is worth
it. _Men like you can't stay, Bart._"
And then I saw the old light coming back into his eyes, the light I
knew I would see, the light that always appeared in his eyes when
he talked about the stars. I knew the key was turned now, that he
could never change, that he knew he had to go. "There's no end to the
possibilities," he said softly. "There's simply no end."
He set down his coffee cup, and the light was still in his eyes. But
there was something else in his eyes, too, that hadn't been there
before. Call it pain, if you want, or disappointment. "I'll have to
think, Ben. I'll just have to think. But thanks for making me think."
I drained my cup, and sat back with a sigh, and felt the music sing
through me. I knew the answer, now. "You won't be sorry," I said.
* * * * *
The rest of the story is history, of course. Probably he never fully
realized the part I had played in his decision. Possibly he wouldn't
have cared. He went through Dillon's screening at the top of the list,
and shipped on the little exploratory ship _Dillon's Dream_, and headed
out for Mars, with a little crew around him, driving into the blackness
of space as though he couldn't leave too soon. The landing was good,
and the work began. What he did there everybody knows, the gruelling,
dangerous work of opening the frontier, of exploring and mapping. Every
child today has seen the pictures he made, and sent back, working on
Mars until the first wave of colonists came, and then he was on his way
again, to Venus, working in the dust and horrible wind to open it up
for observation and study, working with a frenzied vitality, a fierce
urgent unity of purpose that turned into legend around him as his crews
came back. The staggering courage of the man, the fearlessness, the
eagerness to be first, to push farther and farther into the limitless
challenge of interplanetary exploration. Pictures came back, messages
came back, and later the colonists came back, telling tales of the man
that grew and expanded month after month. And then, amazingly, the
Dillon Warp was perfected in the laboratory, and Bart Witton was the
first to petition for a ship, waiting eagerly for word from the home
offices that he could command the first ship to make a star-jump. The
world listened, and cheered, never quite understanding why, with all
the fame, he never returned to the planet from which he came, but at
every chance turned his back on quiet Earth, and his face toward the
stormy stars--
So the Star-jump Station went up under his direction, the most colossal
task ever undertaken in space, prelude to another infinitely more
colossal task, the establishment of a Warp receiver big enough to
handle a ship. Bart was the man the eyes of the world were watching
when he closed the last port on the new little ship, waved a rakish
farewell to the engineers and friends crowded near the ship, and then,
with a burst of brilliant purple, threw in the Warp, and flashed into
the hyperspace men had dreamed of but never before seen, jumping for
the stars--
He didn't make it, of course. The ship was an impossible, audacious
experiment, he didn't really have a chance. They brought him back, his
body wrenched and broken from the shock, the little ship torn almost
into ribbons. And from the wreckage they found the flaw, the vital
information to make safe Warp passage possible. They brought his body
back to Star-jump Station, and placed it with reverence in the pitted
little ship with which he had started his fabulous career. They knew
that the brilliant life was gone, like the last ashes of a dying nova.
And they knew that he had lead the way to the greatest era in the
history of Man--
I knew the whole story, of course. I knew the force that drove him, I
knew why he never came home. I knew the truth of the last night he had
seen Marny, the bitterness in his eyes and voice as he left. I knew
the depth of the love he had carried with him to the stars, and the
horrible dread he held in his heart of ever again coming back to the
earth he left, the dread of ever again seeing the girl he had loved.
I knew the depth of that personal battle that drove him closer to the
stars that were his, and ever away from the Earth which dealt him his
greatest bitterness--
And the girl? Marny should be home very soon now. It's getting late,
past 10:30, and the bridge-club never lasts later than 10:00. It's been
a quiet, comfortable evening, without a call, but a storm is blowing up
from the West, and the kids are getting restless. But, she'll be home
very soon, and go upstairs to kiss the kids goodnight, and it'll be
nice to lie in bed and listen to the thunder crack. Matter of fact, I
think I heard the garage doors slamming just a minute or two ago. She
still prefers the three-wheeler to the 'copter, particularly with the
parking problems we're having with 'copters these days. She should be
in any minute.
But then, it may be a while before she comes. Sometimes she stops on
the porch, and just stands there, staring up at the stars, if the night
is clear. I've seen her, standing there for almost an hour, sometimes,
just staring up at the blackness with tears in her eyes. But she always
comes in, and I never ask her what she's been thinking. I don't think
I'd want to know.
And me? I never look at the stars.