The watcher grunted, "Party, huh? All dressed up and no place to go.
Same faces, same dining saloon, same games. I took a turn around the
stations and went to bed. Party in this trap's just like looking out
the hole. Nothing happens."
"Just don't like travel, eh?"
"Who said anything about travel? When you travel you move along all
the time, and the trees and the mountains and towns rush past and
you're going somewhere. I'll take travel any day--but this lost space
hospital...."
Avery tried to be jovial. "Good thing we're old enough to be used to
waiting. This would drive the young ones crazy."
"Driving me crazy too. Just waiting for the chance to be farmers and go
on waiting for crops."
Avery edged out of the niche, although the watcher was obviously not
done. "All settled down waiting to settle down. Coffee without sugar,
night without end, months without news...." Avery was thirty feet down
the corridor now. "... and no new audience to listen to all the swell
gripes I sit here working out." His voice lost its flatness, became
full and genial. "I'm the best damn griper in this damn outfit," he
bragged, "I'm the...." (Noting Avery's absence) "... oh what the hell!"
He brought his gaze back to the window to the stars.
Avery stopped at a door and rapped sharply. "Who is it?" "Elbert
Avery." "Just a moment." He waited. "You can come in now." He turned
the knob and opened the door. Angela Claflin half turned on the bench
before her dressing table to face him. Her arms were raised and her
hands were busy at the back of her head as she replaced the last of the
bone pins in a great knot of hair black as a crow's wing. Tweezers,
uncovered lipstick, rouge and powder boxes still lay on the table.
"Oh, Mustah Avery," in a voice a little high, a little twittery, "we
missed you so at the pahty. We wuh so gay. Competition fo dancin'
pahtnehs was jes furious and I was so hopin you'd come."
"I was on duty--couldn't make it."
"Oh I think that's jes cruel not to let jes everybody have some of the
fun! You kin dance with me afteh suppah tomorr' night and we'll pretend
the pahty's still on."
"I'll see." He stepped back toward the door.
"But Mistuh Avery, you didn' come hyar jes to listen to me chattuh. Is
theh somethin you wanted?"
"Just dropped in to see if you enjoyed the party. Captain wanted to
know."
"Well, bless his haht! You jes thank the cap'm fo me and tell him it's
these yere social meetings that help us stay civilized an nice during
this _long_ trip." She giggled. "It makes a gihl downright unfemi-nine
sometimes, studyin' manurin' problems and sheep-breedin'."
"I'll tell him." He backed out and shut the door. "Downright
unfeminine," he imitated softly, falsetto. "The old bat--dyed hair and
all. No sense of the decorum of space--no sense, period." He walked on.
"No loss, either."
* * * * *
He hadn't intended to stop at Bart Westcott's room, but the door was
open and he could hear voices. He pushed the door a little wider and
went in.
Bart and Charlie Dean and Jeff Kuhnhardt in shirt-sleeves were sitting
around a flat-top table covered with large papers in the middle of the
room. Bart's left hand was swiping back his mop of reddish-grey hair,
his right tapping excitedly with a sharp pencil at a far point on one
of the papers. "We could put unit 84 over here in the middle of the
back," he was saying emphatically, "which would leave more room for
cupboards and the hatch to the storage attics."
Kuhnhardt was objecting less vigorously, "But that would cut out the
center window and all the women say they want as many as possible. If
you put 84 here," he pointed, "you'll have better passage of air from
the conditioner through there." His pencil swept an arc across the
paper.
Charlie Dean was the first to notice the newcomer. "Something we can do
for you, Avery?" he asked briefly, setting down his pencil.
"Captain's compliments," he answered formally, "and he requests to know
whether you enjoyed the Quarter-Way Party."
"Quarter-Way Party?" Charlie turned with a slightly puzzled look to his
companions. "Oh, Quarter-Way Party ... uh ... return our compliments
to the captain and tell him we loved it. Not that we were there, of
course."
"A few more compliments and why not?"
"Too busy. These pre-fab housing units," he indicated the papers,
"come in a couple thousand pieces like an unholy jig-saw puzzle. We've
got to figure how to put them together and not have any left over to
store and still not get the devil from the women who'll have to operate
'em."
"What's the rush? Still ten months to go."
"Well," Westcott looked a little sheepish, "it's got to be kind of fun.
We've got to working out all the variations we can so each house will
be some different from all the others. Then there are all the farm
buildings and offices. We won't even have all the gimmicks worked out
in ten months. Local Venus conditions, you know...."
"Sort of make-work so the trip'll seem shorter?"
Kuhnhardt objected quickly, "As a matter of fact we could use another
ten months. We never had time to complete our materials course on
earth. We've got a lot of book work to do, too." He gestured toward
Westcott's bunk, which was overflowing with manuals and thick volumes.
"So parties are out, but we like them because we get fewer people in
here looking for prospects for poker." He grinned at Avery.
There didn't seem to be any good comeback to this, so Avery just nodded
and said, "Fine," and left. He took the elevator next to Westcott's
room.
* * * * *
He stopped the elevator half-way up to headquarters and got out. Better
sample a few more responses to the party. No one answered his knock at
the first two doors; the third was marked DARKROOM; but at the fourth
he heard a sort of mumble and turned the knob.
Samuel Wyckoff was sitting on the edge of the bunk. Not a short man,
but thin like all the healthy old ones: wispy white hair and faded blue
eyes and a tremulous look about the mouth made him seem fragile. He was
half-dressed; his thin long hands gripped the edge of the bunk; and he
was staring at the floor a foot or two his side of the door.
"Going to bed early?" Elbert Avery was politely apologetic.
"No."
"Changing, then. It doesn't matter. Captain Daneshaw is having me ask
around to find out how you people enjoyed the party last night. Did you
have a good time?"
"A good time?" The man didn't seem to comprehend a simple question.
"That's it. Gayety, good time, fun, prizes and all, and sugar and cream
in the coffee. Did you like it?"
"Didn't go." His gaze never left the floor, though it had moved to one
side to avoid Avery's feet.
"Any particular reason? Program sound dull? Were you tired?"
"I guess so."
"You're probably working too hard. I just came from Westcott's room. He
and a couple of other fellows are going it fast and furious on problems
in architecture--as if they were trying to make their first billion
the hard way. Relax, man. The United Assembly didn't mean us to work
ourselves to death."
"What did they mean us to do?" Wyckoff asked with the first sign of
interest.
Avery let loose one of his rare chuckles. "Who knows? They don't.
Something impractical, you can be sure. But they didn't send us out to
die. We cost 'em too much."
"More than we're worth." A statement.
"Of course. Billions, actually, and on some fool thing like this.
You can't teach 'em. Government generations are too short. The only
administration they care about is the last one and how to talk it down.
It would take a major catastrophe to beat any sense into their heads."
"I suppose so." Wyckoff still stared at the floor.
"They didn't have any place for us in their set-up, and they aren't
smart enough to figure out any. We know too much. The best they could
come up with was this scheme to get us out of sight." Wyckoff was
certainly a good listener. "They won't even know if we land safely for
another two-three years when the ship does or doesn't come back for
supplies. You'd think even the most moronic secretariat would know
better than to send out a bunch of colonists that can't even multiply."
"But they sent us. They must have thought there was something we could
do."
"We'll never know who sent us--or why. It's all mixed up with politics
somewhere. Ours but to do as they say."
"Do or die."
"What? Oh ... the quotation. Well, I stand corrected--don't know as it
makes any great difference. We all will someday, in spite of the great
Farrar and his coddling hospital."
Samuel looked even more fragile and a little wistful as he glanced up
at Avery at last. "We thought this would be more interesting than the
hospital, anyway."
"You don't like it?" El felt a sudden relief. Actually he didn't want
to rob these people of any fun, he thought, and obviously most of them
weren't having any anyway.
"It's just the same. Maybe we're too old to find it interesting. I dare
say younger people...."
"Well, nobody can say it's our fault, anyhow. We didn't ask to get old
any more than we asked to be born. I better go nose-side. Captain's
waiting. Good night."
"Good night." Sam Wyckoff stood and followed Avery to the door. As it
closed, he looked down at his unbuttoned shirt, his socks. "We didn't
ask to get old," he whispered, and went back to the edge of his bunk.
* * * * *
Avery hustled back to the elevator. He shouldn't have spent so much
time talking. Wyckoff was a good fellow. Sometimes it seemed a darn
shame that the government couldn't come up with something really good
for old codgers like him. But what could you do with a superannuated
book reviewer like Wyckoff? Old people ought to make good book
reviewers and teachers. But naturally nobody'd listen to them. Those
smart alecs in Washington wouldn't recognize a bear till it bit them.
Only way to batter anything into their heads....
The elevator door opened and Avery swaggered truculently along the
corridor to the headquarters anteroom, his fists clenched.
The captain and recreation director looked up at his entrance.
Captain Daneshaw greeted him. "Sorry to call you up here when you're
off duty. This isn't really very serious." He smiled over at Forsberg.
"Well, I did what you wanted," Avery said, sitting down to face the
recreation director at the large conference table. "I asked around to
get the general reaction."
"And?" from Daneshaw.
"And ... out of the six people I saw, only one woman--Miss Claflin, of
course--just _luhved it_, had a _wondaful tahm_. The other five didn't
go."
"Why?"
"One said it was monotonous. Said the whole trip was just like being in
Block Nineteen only more so. Three fellows seemed to think it was too
trivial to bother with. They've been making up better games with the
housing blueprints, so they say. The last man said he was just tired."
Avery leaned toward Forsberg. "Looks like you're going to have to make
up a new game or think up some way to make 'em think they've never met
each other and are just crazy to get acquainted." He snickered. "That's
as I see it, of course. I'm no recreation director."
"Not bad!" Arnold Forsberg roared and slapped the table. "The man's a
wizard, Captain!" He turned back to Avery. "You think I can't do it?
The After Turnover Party theme is going to be New Personality. That's
perfect! Well announce it all over the ship the first thing tomorrow.
Everybody's got eleven weeks to develop a new personality to wear on
our new home, Venus. It's never too late to be somebody new. Be the man
you've always wanted to be for the next hundred years. That's great!"
Avery tipped back in his chair during this blast. "It really sounds
corny," he belittled. "We've had a century and a half to get like we
are. Why change? I'm good enough for me."
"It's your idea," said the recreation director triumphantly, getting
up, "and I like it. Sorry to have been a nuisance, Tim. I'll go
straight to El Avery next time."
He buttoned his resplendent silver braidjac and came around the table,
resting his hand fraternally on Avery's shoulder for a moment before he
reached the door. "Good night. See you at the party." Then he was gone.
* * * * *
"Need me for anything else tonight, Tim?" asked Avery.
"Thanks for doing the rounds, El," said Tim. "That's about all. By the
way, who was the one you described as 'just tired'?"
"Oh, that was Wyckoff, Sam Wyckoff on the eighth floor."
"Any idea what tired him so much he didn't want to go to the party? I
thought we were being pretty careful about fatigue. He's not one of the
crew, is he?"
"No ... kitchen helper maybe. He didn't say it was anything in
particular. He did seem sort of shot, but he perked up and we had a
good talk," added Avery.
"I see."
"Well, if that's all, I'll get along and eat and shoot a couple of
games of slotto before I turn in. It's relaxing after sitting over a
hot calculator all evening." At the door he turned. "Can't you join me
this once?"
"Not tonight. Just a few more things to attend to, thanks."
After Avery left, Daneshaw straightened a few papers aimlessly on the
dull green alloid table top. "Tired," he mused, "sort of shot. Might
be a case for Doc Keighley. Better see to it. Of course, he might be
homesick." He stood up and glanced around the piles of papers. Nothing
that couldn't wait till tomorrow.
In three minutes, he was knocking briskly on Wyckoff's door.
There was no answer. Surely the man hadn't gotten to sleep in the
twenty minutes since Avery talked to him. He knocked again. Some sort
of mumble came from inside. Tim turned the knob and walked in.
The light in the cabin was off, but in the dim reflection from the
corridor walls, Tim could see Wyckoff was lying in the bunk, which
faced the door, on his back with the covers pulled up under his chin.
"Asleep so soon, Sam?" asked Tim in a low voice.
"Not quite. What is it?"
"El Avery was just up. Said you looked exhausted and naturally I was a
little worried. Had a check-up with the doctor recently?"
"No ... no ... don't worry about me," faintly.
"That's part of my job. We want everybody to get to Venus ready for a
hard pull. Have you been studying too hard on the trip?"
"No. My job's not very important. Please don't worry about me."
"Mind if I turn on the light and have a little talk?" Tim reached for
the switch of the reading lamp at the head of the bunk on his right.
"If you want to," reluctantly.
Tim clicked the switch and sat down on the foot of the bunk. "Finding
the trip comfortable?" he smiled.
"I ... I suppose."
"Miss the pretty nurses back at the hospital?"
"Oh no."
Tim looked down at the edge of the bunk thoughtfully. "Been eating
regularly? Sleeping ... say, did you spill something on the blanket?"
he asked suddenly and reached forward to touch the small dark stain
just above the edge of the bunk. The stain was wet.
* * * * *
Tim grabbed the blanket and stripped it back. Wyckoff was still wearing
his undershirt and slacks and the red stain was bright on the white
sheets above and below his left wrist.
Tim jumped up and pulled open the top drawer of the built-in
wall-chest, ripped out a handkerchief and hair brush and had a
tourniquet on Wyckoff's upper arm before the man in the bunk could make
a movement.
Holding the hair brush tight in his right hand, Tim reached across the
bunk and lifted Wyckoff's other hand. There was no blood there. He sat
back on the edge of the bunk.
"You meant to do this, Sam?" Daneshaw's voice was reproachful.
"I guess so ... I don't know."
"I don't think you do know. Because you're not a coward, Sam. You're
not really afraid to do your share for the rest of us on this trip. We
need all of us."
"Oh, I'm not very important."
"We can't spare you," Tim replied positively. "But we can talk about
that in a few minutes. Can I trust you to hang on to this brush?"
"I guess so."
Tim released his grip when he felt Wyckoff's firm hold on the handle.
He darted into the tiny laboratory and opened the medicine cabinet. The
bulb in the interior glowed softly through the few plastic articles on
the shelves. Tim rummaged among the soapaks and found a small glass
bottle of aspirillin tablets. Grasping it by the neck, he struck it
smartly against the monel basin, shattering it into the basin and
onto the floor. He dropped the neck among the tablets in the basin
and went back to the top drawer of the chest where he found another
handkerchief. Back at the bunkside, he sopped up as much blood as he
could with the cloth, then took it back to the lavatory and wrung out
a little on the floor, wadded the handkerchief and tossed it into the
basin.
Approaching Wyckoff, who had sat up in the bunk, he pushed him down
again gently. "You push your button for the steward and get the doctor
right away. Tell him you dropped the aspirillin bottle and got cut by a
piece of flying glass. I'm going to wait in the darkroom next door and
come back for a long talk after the doc is done. Hear me?"
"Yes."
"Because if the doctor doesn't come in five minutes, I'm going for him
and the psychiatrist, too. But I think you'd rather not have this get
out any more than I would."
"No."
"All right, then. Push the button."
Daneshaw waited while Wyckoff pushed the button in the wall above his
right elbow. Then he hurried out of the cabin and into the next door,
the darkroom where the biological photographer would do his work after
the landing on Venus until the building was completed. He left the door
open a crack and waited for the approach of the steward and doctor.
He leaned noiselessly, suddenly weary, against the wall of the
darkroom. Here was the problem of the hospital all over again. Was it
his fault somehow? The trip had been a great victory, seemingly, over
the sagging spirits of his friends, his "army." (He heard the steward
go in and come out.) His head seemed full of whirring thoughts without
meaning. What fear, what despair had got into the man? What was it ...
how did the words go?
... pluckt from us all hope of due reliefe, That earst us held in
love
of lingering life; Then hopelesse hartlesse, gan the cunning thiefe
Perswade us die, to stint all further strifes To me he lent this
rope,
to him a rustie knife.
How could Wyckoff have felt that life was too much to bear? The thought
was so simple once it seemed right....
What if some little paine the passage have,
That makes fraile flesh to feare the bitter wave?
Is not short paine well borne, that brings long ease....
(The door to Sam's cabin opened and closed again.) He would have to
talk like an angel or a devil to stop Sam from another try. But Sam
was one of his people and he'd got them all into this. _His_
responsibility ... his.
* * * * *
Tim had a sudden guilty feeling he had dozed off when he heard the door
open and close for the third time. The doctor must have gone. He came
out of the darkroom and re-entered Wyckoff's.
Sam was sitting on the edge of the bunk regarding his bandaged wrist
wryly.
"All fixed up?"
"I expect so."
"Was it bad?"
"No. He didn't even have to take stitches--just little tape strips."
The wry look became a grimace. "Said I was lucky it didn't get the
artery. I can't even cut my wrist the right way."
Tim grinned. If Sam's sense of humor was returning, it might not be
such a hard job. "Aren't you supposed to be lying down?"
"I don't think so."
"Well, you lie down anyhow and let's talk about things." Sam lowered
himself obediently and Daneshaw went on. "First I want to know if
you're in any trouble? Had a row with anybody? Think you've done
something you wish you hadn't?"
"Well ... no."
"Good. Now what's your job on board and what do you do after we land?"
"Just a kitchen helper here. When we get there, I'll run the control
panels for some remotracs--planting and harvesting, you know."
"Not a very exciting set of jobs. How's the kitchen."
The slender man bristled, looked less frail. "They don't like the way I
peel wathros. Mrs. Kaplan says I peel all the vitamins off. She says
you can't trust a man with a peeler anyhow," he added fiercely. "And I
hate wathros no matter how you peel them!"
Tim sighed.
"You're in a rut, Sam. You've worn out that job. And you and Mrs.
Kaplan are evidently wearing out each other. Do you want to change
jobs?"
"Oh, I don't know. I don't mean anything against Mrs. Kaplan. She does
a good piece of work."
"So should you, and wathro peeling's not necessarily it." Tim mused for
a moment. "Are you sure the doc didn't say anything about your staying
in bed?"
"No. I'm sure he didn't even mention it."
"It probably never occurred to him you'd do anything else. Anyhow I
think this would be a good time for a little excursion. Have you been
all over the ship?"
"Not since the big tour before blast-off."
"Get your shirt and shoes on. We'll go the rounds and you can have your
pick of the jobs. You look them all over tonight and make up your mind
tomorrow which one you would like."
Wyckoff sat up and Tim slung him the shirt from the back of the chair.
He had to help him with the snaps on the shirt and the shoes, but in a
few moments they were out in the corridor.
"You shouldn't spend all this time on me, Mr. Daneshaw. You just pick
out a job and I'll take it."
"Spending time _is_ my job and you need a job you'll like. You know,
Sam, emotional conflicts can wear a man to a frazzle twenty times
faster than hard labor. And don't call me Mister. I'm Tim to everybody
unless they want to bawl me out for something, and Captain only when
they want me to bawl somebody else out."
"All right, Tim. Let's go."
Tim grasped Sam's arm and hit his long stride. He'd get more from him
on the way. Emotional responses sure could knock hell out of a man.
* * * * *
Hell or something seemed knocked out with the insistent "Ting,
ting-ting" of the rising chime in the captain's cabin at seven the next
morning.
First waking. Waking itself seemed a great exertion this time. Then the
long, long pause of gentle thought, of mustering of energies before
opening his eyes and making a physical move to rise. Tim Daneshaw's
first thought was of sinking to sleep again, of overwhelming fatigue.
The bunk was firmer than usual--seemed to thrust up against his body,
and to thrust up again, wearyingly, like a wave. The association
brought words....
... Is there any peace
In ever climbing up the climbing wave?
All things have rest, and ripen toward the grave
In silence; ripen, fall and ceases
Give us long rest or death, dark death, or dreamful ease.
Full consciousness came like a blow. Death, dark death meant Wyckoff,
of course; and Wyckoff would be coming this morning, or, if he didn't,
he, Tim Daneshaw must go in search ... must fight ... poor Sam Wyckoff
deserved work.... Tim felt his thought grow dizzy and the lift and lift
under him gave way to a fall and fall. He opened his eyes.
The room was steady. Only the feeling of falling a little, then
stopping, then falling a little continued. Tim brought his eyes down
to the desk top again and again, each time to see the glowing desk
lamp, pencils, papers, opened book lie quiet, steady, without tremor.
The motion must be in his dizzying head. The cabin beyond the desk was
in shadow, but the shadow retreated and advanced in rhythm with the
falling.
By a tremendous effort, Tim raised his hand to the wall button and
pushed. The hand fell back limp on the covers.
_Why are we weighed upon with heaviness?_
His mind revolved dully, waiting for an answer, waiting for the
steward, waiting and turning and almost dozing.
To answer the gentle knock on the door was too hard. He could turn
his head a little. After a sharper knock, the door opened and Steward
Loomis looked in. "Everything all right, Captain?" No answer.