Simpson snorted. "This isn't a good time," he mimicked. Then he
swore again. "By George, it's like telling a woman her baby's been
still-born!"
"I know it's hard to understand--"
"Hard, _hell_!" shouted the man. "I'm Head Mechanic! I've worked two
years! The others have worked, too! And the Rocket'll travel tomorrow
or we'll know why!"
Stanley crushed out his cigar, inside his fist. The room swayed
imperceptibly in his vision. Sometimes, one wanted to use a gun--he
shook away the thought. He kept his tongue.
Simpson raged on. "Mr. Stanley, you have until three this afternoon to
change your mind. We'll pull strings and you'll be out of your job by
the week-end! If not--" and he said the next words very slowly, "how
would your wife look with her head bashed in, _Mister_ Stanley?"
"You can't threaten me!"
The door slammed in Stanley's face. Simpson was gone.
* * * * *
Captain Greenwald put out a manicured hand. On one slender finger shone
a diamond ring. His wrist was circled by an expensive watch. His shiny
brown eyes were invisibly cupped by contact lenses. Greenwald was past
fifty inside; outside he seemed barely thirty. "I advise you to forget
it, Stanley. Man's waited a million years for tomorrow."
Stanley's hand shook, lighting a cigarette. "Look here, Captain, where
_are_ you going?"
"To the stars, of course."
Stanley snapped out the alcohol match. "In the name of heaven, stop the
melodrama and inferior semantics. What kind of thing is this you're
handing the people? What'll it do to races, morals, men and women?"
Greenwald laughed. "I'm only interested in reaching the Moon. Then I'll
come back to earth, and retire, happily, and die."
Stanley stood there, tall and very grey. "Does the effect of the
introduction of the crossbow to English and French history interest
you?"
"Can't say I know much about it."
"Do you recall what gunpowder's invention did to civilization?"
"That's irrelevant!"
"You must admit if there'd been some subjective planning with the
auto and airplane, millions of lives would've been saved, and many
wars prevented. An ethical code should've been written for all such
inventions and strictly observed, or else the invention forfeited."
Greenwald shook his head, grinning. "I'll let you handle that half of
it. I'll do the traveling. I'm willing to abide by any such rules, if
you'll draw them up and enforce them. All I want is to reach the Moon
first. I've got to get downstairs now. We're still loading the ship,
you know, in spite of your decree. We expect to get around you somehow.
I'm sympathetic, of course, to your beliefs. I'll do anything you say
except ground the Rocket. I won't get violent, but I can't vouch for
Simpson. He's a tough man, with strong notions."
They walked from the office to the dropper. Compression slid them down
to ground level, where they stepped out, Stanley still re-emphasizing
his beliefs. "--for centuries science has given humanity play-toys,
ships, machines, guns, cars, and now a Rocket, all with supreme
disregard for man's needs."
"Science," announced Greenwald as they emerged onto the tarmac, "has
produced, via private enterprise, greater amounts of goods than ever in
history! Why, consider the medical developments!"
"Yes," said Stanley doggedly, "we cure man's cancer and preserve his
greed in a special serum. They used to say 'Starve a cold, stuff a
fever.' Today's fever is materialism. All the things science has
produced only touch the _Body_. When Science invents something to touch
the Mind, I'll give it its due. No.
"You cloak your voyage with romantic terminology. Outward to the stars!
you cry! Words! What's the _fact_? Why, _why_ this rocket? Greater
production? We have _that_! Adventure? Poor excuse to uproot Earth.
Exploration? It _could_ wait a few years. Lebensraum? Hardly. _Why_,
then, Captain?"
"Eh?" murmured Greenwald distractedly. "Ah. Here's the Rocket, now."
They walked in the incredible Rocket shadow. Stanley looked at the
crowd beyond the barrier. "_Look_ at them. Their sex still a mixture
of Victorian voodoo and clabbered Freud. With education needing
reorientation, with wars threatening, with religion and philosophy
confused, you want to jump off into space!"
Stanley shook his head. "Oh, I don't doubt your sincerity, Captain. I
just say your timing's poor. If we give them a Rocket toy to play with,
do you honestly think they'll solve war, education, unity, thought?
Why, they'd propel themselves away from it so quickly your head'd swim!
Wars would be fought between worlds. But if we want more wars, let's
have them _here_, where we can get at their sources, before we leap to
the asteroids seeking our lost pride of race.
"What little unity we _do_ have would be broken by countries and
individuals clamoring and cut-throating for planets and satellites!"
Pausing, Stanley saw the mechanics standing in the Rocket shadow,
hating him. Outside the barrier, the crowd recognized him; their murmur
grew to a roar of disapproval.
Greenwald indicated them. "They're wondering why you waited so long
before deciding to stop the Rocket."
"Tell them I thought there'd be laws controlling it. Tell them the
corporations played along, smiling and bobbing to me, until the Rocket
was completed. Then they threw off their false faces and withdrew the
legislation only this morning. Tell them that, Captain. And tell them
the legislation I planned would've meant a slow, intelligent Rocket
expansion over an era of three centuries. Then ask them if they think
any business man could wait even five _minutes_."
Captain Greenwald scowled. "All I want to do is prove it can be done.
After I come back down, if I can help in any way to control the Rocket,
I'm your man, Stanley. After I _prove_ it's possible, I don't care what
in hell happens...."
Stanley slid into his 'copter, waved morosely at the captain. The crowd
shouted, waved its fists at him over the barrier. He sat watching their
distorted, sullen faces. They detested him. The Rocket balloon man, the
Rocket soap man, the tourists detested him.
What was more, when his son Tommy found out, Tommy would hate him, too.
* * * * *
He took his time, heading home. He let the green hills slide under.
He set the automatic pilot and sank back into the sponge-softness,
suspended in a humming, blissful dream. Music played. Cigarettes and
whiskey were in reach if he desired them. Soft music. He could lapse
back into the dreaming tide, dissolve worry, smoke, drink, chortle,
luxuriously, sleep, forget, pull a shell of synthetic, hypnotizing
objects in about himself.
And wake ten years from today with his wife disintegrating swiftly in
his arms. And one day see his son's skull shattered against a plastic
wall.
And his own heart whirled and burst by some vast atom power of a
starship passing Earth far out in space!
He dumped the whiskey over the side, followed it with the cigarettes.
Finally, he clicked off the soft music.
There was his home. His eyes kindled. It lay out upon a green meadow,
far from the villages and towns, salt-white and surrounded by tapered
sycamores. As he watched, lowering his 'copter, he saw the blonde
streak across the lawn; that was his daughter, Alyce. Somewhere else on
the premises his son gamboled. Neither of them feared the dark.
Angrily, Stanley poured on full speed. The landscape jerked and
vanished behind him. He wanted to be alone. He couldn't face them, yet.
Speed was the answer. Wind whistled, roared, rushed by the hurtling
'copter. He rammed it on. Color rose in his cheeks.
There was music in the garden as he parked his 'copter in the fine blue
plastic garage. Oh, beautiful garage, he thought, you contribute to my
peacefulness. Oh, wonderful garage, in moments of torment, I think of
you, and I am glad I own you.
Like hell.
In the kitchen, Althea was whipping food with mechanisms. Her mother
sat with one withered ear to the latest audio drama. They glanced up,
pleased.
"Darling, so early!" she cried, kissing him. "How's the Rocket?" piped
mother-in-law. "My, I bet you're proud!"
Stanley said nothing.
"Just imagine." The old woman's eyes glowed like little bulbs. "Soon
we'll breakfast in New York and supper on Mars!"
Stanley watched her for a long moment, then turned hopefully to Althea.
"What do _you_ think?"
She sensed a trap. "Well, it would be different, wouldn't it,
vacationing our summers on Venus, winters on Mars--wouldn't it?"
"Oh, good Lord," he groaned. He shut his eyes and pounded the table,
softly. "Good Lord."
"_Now_, what's wrong. What did _I_ say?" demanded Althea, bewildered.
He told them about his order preventing the flight.
Althea stared at him. Mother reached and snapped off the audio. "_What_
did you say, young man?"
He repeated it.
Into the waiting silence came a distant "psssheeew!" rushing in from
the dining room, flinging the kitchen door wide, his son ran in, waving
a bright red Rocket in one grimy fist. "Psssheeew! I'm a Rocket!
Gangway! Hi, Dad!" He swung the ship in a quick arc. "Gonna be a pilot
when I'm sixteen! Hey." He stopped. "What's everybody standing around
for?" He looked at Grandma. "Grammy?" He looked at his mother. "Mom?"
And finally at his father. "Dad...?" His hands sank slowly. He read the
look in his father's eyes. "Oh, gosh."
* * * * *
By three o'clock that afternoon, he had showered and dressed in clean
clothes. The house was very silent. Althea came and sat down in the
living room and looked at him with hurt, stricken eyes.
He thought of quoting a few figures at her. Five million people killed
in auto accidents since the year 1920. Fifty thousand people killed
every year, _now_, in 'copters and jet-planes. But it wasn't in the
figures, it was in a feeling he had to make her _feel_. Maybe he could
illustrate it to her. He picked up the hand-audio, dialed a number.
"Hello, Smitty?"