by FRANK BELKNAP LONG
Lawton enjoyed a good fight. He stood happily trading blows with
Slashaway Tommy, his lean-fleshed torso gleaming with sweat. He
preferred to work the pugnacity out of himself slowly, to savor it as
it ebbed.
"Better luck next time, Slashaway," he said, and unlimbered a left hook
that thudded against his opponent's jaw with such violence that the big,
hairy ape crumpled to the resin and rolled over on his back.
Lawton brushed a lock of rust-colored hair back from his brow and stared
down at the limp figure lying on the descending stratoship's slightly
tilted athletic deck.
"Good work, Slashaway," he said. "You're primitive and beetle-browed,
but you've got what it takes."
Lawton flattered himself that he was the opposite of primitive. High in
the sky he had predicted the weather for eight days running, with far
more accuracy than he could have put into a punch.
They'd flash his report all over Earth in a couple of minutes now. From
New York to London to Singapore and back. In half an hour he'd be
donning street clothes and stepping out feeling darned good.
He had fulfilled his weekly obligation to society by manipulating
meteorological instruments for forty-five minutes, high in the warm,
upper stratosphere and worked off his pugnacity by knocking down a
professional gym slugger. He would have a full, glorious week now to
work off all his other drives.
The stratoship's commander, Captain Forrester, had come up, and was
staring at him reproachfully. "Dave, I don't hold with the reforming
Johnnies who want to re-make human nature from the ground up. But you've
got to admit our generation knows how to keep things humming with a
minimum of stress. We don't have world wars now because we work off our
pugnacity by sailing into gym sluggers eight or ten times a week. And
since our romantic emotions can be taken care of by tactile television
we're not at the mercy of every brainless bit of fluff's calculated
ankle appeal."
Lawton turned, and regarded him quizzically. "Don't you suppose I
realize that? You'd think I just blew in from Mars."
"All right. We have the outlets, the safety valves. They are supposed to
keep us civilized. But you don't derive any benefit from them."
"The heck I don't. I exchange blows with Slashaway every time I board
the Perseus. And as for women--well, there's just one woman in the world
for me, and I wouldn't exchange her for all the Turkish images in the
tactile broadcasts from Stamboul."
"Yes, I know. But you work off your primitive emotions with too much
gusto. Even a cast-iron gym slugger can bruise. That last blow
was--brutal. Just because Slashaway gets thumped and thudded all over by
the medical staff twice a week doesn't mean he can take--"
The stratoship lurched suddenly. The deck heaved up under Lawton's feet,
hurling him against Captain Forrester and spinning both men around so
that they seemed to be waltzing together across the ship. The still limp
gym slugger slid downward, colliding with a corrugated metal bulkhead
and sloshing back and forth like a wet mackerel.
A full minute passed before Lawton could put a stop to that. Even while
careening he had been alive to Slashaway's peril, and had tried to leap
to his aid. But the ship's steadily increasing gyrations had hurled him
away from the skipper and against a massive vaulting horse, barking the
flesh from his shins and spilling him with violence onto the deck.
He crawled now toward the prone gym slugger on his hands and knees, his
temples thudding. The gyrations ceased an instant before he reached
Slashaway's side. With an effort he lifted the big man up, propped him
against the bulkhead and shook him until his teeth rattled. "Slashaway,"
he muttered. "Slashaway, old fellow."
Slashaway opened blurred eyes, "Phew!" he muttered. "You sure socked me
hard, sir."
"You went out like a light," explained Lawton gently. "A minute before
the ship lurched."
"The ship _lurched_, sir?"
"Something's very wrong, Slashaway. The ship isn't moving. There are no
vibrations and--Slashaway, are you hurt? Your skull thumped against that
bulkhead so hard I was afraid--"
"Naw, I'm okay. Whatd'ya mean, the ship ain't moving? How could it
stop?"
Lawton said. "I don't know, Slashaway." Helping the gym slugger to his
feet he stared apprehensively about him. Captain Forrester was kneeling
on the resin testing his hocks for sprains with splayed fingers, his
features twitching.
"Hurt badly, sir?"
The Commander shook his head. "I don't think so. Dave, we are twenty
thousand feet up, so how in hell could we be stationary in space?"
"It's all yours, skipper."
"I must say you're helpful."
Forrester got painfully to his feet and limped toward the athletic
compartment's single quartz port--a small circle of radiance on a level
with his eyes. As the port sloped downward at an angle of nearly sixty
degrees all he could see was a diffuse glimmer until he wedged his brow
in the observation visor and stared downward.