Collected Fiction, page 110
I kept thinking of Andy Sloane, and knowing that he could probably master this racket in no time at all. For Andy was a born pilot—like his brother—only Jimmy hadn’t the older man’s experience as yet. But the kid had a daredevil recklessness that made up for it, and that worried me plenty at times.
He threw himself into the heady excitement of Thaler Island without restraint. He lived as he worked, at high tension, and it wasn’t long before I began to notice that hard, strained expression around his eyes. Dancey, the big boss, was beginning to notice the kid. I felt Jimmy was in line for a promotion.
But there was only one better-paying job, and that was Daly’s. The big man got surlier, and assigned Jimmy to harder and more dangerous jobs. The kid didn’t kick; he came through, but he began to return Daly’s dislike with interest. It wasn’t long before the two were hating one another poisonously.
Then, one day, we got a fairly routine assignment, a high-speed space drive that called for quick thinking, but wasn’t especially dangerous. The calculators—paper crew, we called them—worked it out in detail. Daly was in charge, with Jimmy, me, and two other pilots assigned to the job. We did ground-flights for a week. Then, on the night before the take-off, trouble came.
I was in Jimmy’s room, smoking and reading, and the kid was at his desk, his yellow hair rumpled, working out some calculations that had already covered a dozen sheets of paper.
Once I strolled over and glanced at the stuff, but aside from a few sketches having something to do with rocket-release coordination, apparently, I could make nothing of it.
Daly came in without knocking. His black eyes were wide, with distended pupils and a curiously luminous sheen. I noticed his movements, were very quick, but he didn’t always finish a gesture. He started to shut the door, glanced up, met my gaze, and stood silent, forgetting to complete the motion.
“Hello,” I said, “what’s up?”
“Nothing.” He looked around absently, went over to a bookcase and pulled out a volume. “Something to read.”
It wasn’t that, I knew. Daly was jittery as the devil.
Jimmy, after a quick glance, had gone back to his work, ignoring the visitor.
Daly opened the book, thumbed through it rapidly. Something fluttered to the floor. A photograph, I saw. He picked it up.
“Well!” he said, and I didn’t like his tone. “Quite a girl!”
Jimmy turned around and watched Daly. The latter grinned.
“Friend of yours, Sloane?” he asked.
“Let’s have it,” the kid said.
But, instead, Daly started to praise the photograph. And he did it in a nasty way—one that made the muscles tighten in my jaw, even though I didn’t know who the girl was: But I had a pretty good idea.
It kept on that way for a while, until Jimmy stood up suddenly and tried to take the picture from Daly’s hand. There was a brief struggle, and the photograph tore in half. Right then, seeing Jimmy’s face, I knew I should have stepped in and stopped it, but I didn’t. There wasn’t time.
The kid put out his hand and shoved Daly back. Daly grinned unpleasantly and brought around his fist in a wild haymaker. It didn’t connect. Jimmy weaved sidewise, and swung a short, vicious jab that crashed against Daly’s jaw and sent him back on the couch, knocked out cold.
I stood up, sighing. “More trouble,” I said resignedly. “Well, I’d better put him to bed.” But Jimmy shoved, me aside. He hoisted Daly to his shoulder, gave me a quick one-sided smile, and went out into the corridor. I heard his footsteps retreating and dying.
THE torn halves of the picture still lay on the floor. I picked them up, pieced them together.
Sure—it was Bette. Andy Sloane’s fiancée. The girl Jimmy had lost—or had given up. Oh, he’d hidden his real feelings well, but I knew, now, that the kid had sacrificed more than I’d realized when he took the rap on that STC mess.
I put the picture back on the floor and went back to my book. But I couldn’t read.
I was afraid. For the kid.
The next morning we took off from Thaler Island. The camera-ships, their positions and courses carefully charted, had preceded us. I felt like a mummy, wrapped in bandages from head to foot, my eyes protected by strong glass shells, my hands coated with a rubbery substance that would protect them against the acceleration and at the same time allow freedom of movement.
As I took my place in the control room of my ship I got a glimpse of Daly on the vision-screen. His eyes were huge pools of shining blackness. There was a blue welt on his jaw.
The fool! Going into space in a condition like that.
It was none of my business. I jetted the rockets and blasted up in his wake. In half an hour we had reached our goal. The camera-ships hung in space, telephoto lenses visible in their turret tops. I glanced at my instruction sheet. Everything was ready to go. Transection 18-85-100. Starboard tubes . . .
As always, I felt an unpleasant little chill as my fingers hovered over the switchboard. Under my hand lay a sleeping titan. A titan that could rip my body apart effortlessly.
Jimmy’s face flashed on the screen. He was grinning.
“Happy landing, mug,” he said.
I waved a casual hand, though my insides tightened up. “Last man in port buys the drinks,” I told him. He nodded, and the screen went blank.
Transection 19-85-157. Check for blue ship.
There is was, gliding across the visiplate. A tube flamed. My fingers moved swiftly.
Blast!
I’d hardened my stomach muscles, but as the ship shot forward I could feel a jolting punch in my middle, feel a sick nausea shaking me. So what? Transection 21-90-157—port rockets 9, 7, 4 . . .
The dead silence only made it worse. The silent, deadly giants of energy hammered at me, squeezed me, pushed my eyes out of shape till the control room looked like a nightmare. But I’d memorized the instructions, even if I couldn’t read them now. My fingers knew the right buttons.
Transection 25-108-156.
On the vision screen hazy streaks raced. I could feel my heart jumping, hammering, laboring against the grinding strain of the acceleration. It was agony to breathe, to pull air into lungs that wanted to collapse.
Then I saw Daly’s ship. He was off his course. He was trailing Jimmy, and at first I couldn’t guess why. I swung the vision-screen on him, got a flash of Daly’s strained, twitching face—
His brain had cracked. His reactions slowed down by Martian drug, not daring to follow the plotted course, he was trailing Jimmy’s ship, following the other man’s trail.
I FLICKED on the audiophone to a narrow beat that wouldn’t permit listening-in.
“Daly,” I said—or, rather, gasped as I struggled to breathe. “Better drop out! You’ll—”
“Mind your own damn business,” he yelled. His face flicked off the screen.
Transaction 25-120-157—starboard rockets 9 and 8.
Quite suddenly I saw the meteor.
It rushed out of blackness, a whirling, jagged spheroid thundering down on us with frightful velocity. We were meeting it head-on. Even in that split-second before I acted I noted the queer silvery radiance of the thing, the sharp contrast of the ebony pits and cracks in it. It wasn’t an especially large meteor, but—it was death!
“Meteor! Blast off!” I shouted into the audiophone.
I let go with my port rockets. The shock knocked me cold for a second. Then I woke up, found to my surprise that I wasn’t dead, though my chest and stomach were throbbing and aching with agony. Nausea shook me. I looked at the vision screen, trying to focus my strained eyes.
I saw Jimmy rocketing aside, safe enough. And Daly, not quick enough to follow suit, kept on going at the meteor. On my vision screen Daly’s twisted, contorted face flashed, his mouth open in a soundless scream. The man saw annihilation rushing at him, and he was paralyzed.
I saw him break loose from his stupor, send both fists smashing down on the instrument panel.
His ship blossomed into flame. It fell away and was gone from my range of vision. The meteor drove past, on its eternal journey through space. It had come silently out of the void to bring about a crisis that was later to result in a grim tragedy, and, having kept its tryst, vanished forever from our eyes.
A siren screamed through the audiophone, warning us to hold our courses while the ambulance ship drove down. Presently we were ordered to return to Thaler Island. Shooting was over for the day.
And, later, we learned of Daly’s fate. Dancey, the big boss, entered the room where the pilots sat waiting for the verdict, and. his pale eyes were narrowed.
“Sloane,” he said abruptly, “you’re taking charge. We’re not sure yet whether Daly will pull through, and in the meantime you take over.”
“Okay,” the kid said. “How is he?”
Dancey’s voice was grim. “Physically he’s unharmed. But—” he shrugged—“it’s more spaceshock.”
He turned and went out. One of the pilots let out a long whistle. None of them liked Daly, but they knew that eventually the man’s fate might be their own. As for Daly, he was washed up. He was one of the damned.
A page came in. “Visitor for Sloane and Harrigan,” he said. Jimmy and I followed him to an office where a man waited.
IT was Andy Sloane. I noticed a restraint in his manner, the attitude of a man having to do a distasteful job and wanting to get it over quickly. But he gave me the old friendly grin.
“Hello, there! I heard you’d joined Mike, but—” He hesitated, looked a Jimmy. “How are you, kid?”
“Okay,” Jimmy said curtly.
“I’ve got something to tell you,” Andy went on. He stopped me as I turned to the door, “Stick around, Mike. You’re in on this. It’s about Bette.”
Jimmy’s lips parted slightly, otherwise he made no sign.
“We’re finished,” Andy said. His gray eyes were suddenly very hard. “I thought I’d won out, but I guess I haven’t. Bette won’t marry me. She’s in love with you. She knows that now. So I’m—” he grinned wryly. “I’m playing John Alden. Come on back to Earth and I’ll see you get jobs somewhere.”
“Bette sent you out here?” Jimmy said.
“Yeah: Told me to bring you back to her. So—”
The kid picked up a vase from the table. He gazed at it for a minute, set it down, and faced Andy again.
“No,” he said, “I’m not coming back.”
Andy didn’t get it for a minute.
“She means it—” he started and then stopped.
“That’s tough,” the kid said softly. “I’m having a good time here. Why should I pull up stakes now?”
“She’s in love with you,” Andy said. His face was getting hard and angry.
“She’ll get over it. I didn’t promise her anything. Marry her yourself—”
I couldn’t move quickly enough to prevent it. Andy jumped forward, his eyes blazing, and smashed a vicious blow at Jimmy’s face.
The kid went down, but bounded up again immediately, blood trickling from cut lips. He took a step forward, his fists balled.
Then, without a word, he swung around, went out of the room, and I heard his footsteps dying away in the corridor.
“You crazy fool,” I said to Andy. “You never could see the nose in front of your face.”
“Mind your own business,” he growled, breathing harshly.
“I’m making it my business,” I said. “There’s a few things you’re going to find out right now. Sit down!”
I pushed him into a chair, found another for myself, and started in. I told him all I knew. And gradually Andy’s face got whiter, and his eyes turned into gray glacial ice. When I’d finished he stood up, an indecision that I had never seen before in his attitude.
“I didn’t know,” he said heavily. “Where’s Jimmy, Mike?”
I rang for a page, found out that the kid had taken off in his cruiser ten minutes before. He hadn’t said when he’d be back.
Andy nodded. “Okay. Keep an eye on him, Mike. I’m going back to Earth. I’ve got a job to do!” His lips were a hard pale line. “And then I’m coming back, with Bette, to get Jim. And when I do come back, his name will be cleared. So will yours.”
“What are you going to do?” I asked.
“Bust the STC wide open,” he snarled. “Get the low-down on their rotten equipment and get proof. The pilots will back me up. I’m going to Washington, “and I’m going to plaster the truth over every scandal sheet on Earth. And I’m going to give Gayley just about the damnedest beating of his life!”
I gripped Andy’s hand.
“Give him a couple for me,” I said, through a queer tight obstruction in my throat. “Good luck, fella. And—happy landings!”
CHAPTER IV
Space spin
THE impossible happened. Daly came out of the hospital a human being, not the shattered, ruined wreck we expected. At least he seemed superficially okay; only the hollows in his cheeks were deeper, his eyes were dull and glazed, and his lips twitched continually in a mirthless smile. One of the other pilots gave me his opinion with lifted eyebrows.
“He looks all right. But get him in space, up against trouble, and he’ll go to pieces. You can’t pull out of space-shock, Harrigan.”
By tacit agreement Jimmy remained in charge, temporarily at least. He did all he could to make things easy for Daly, but a dull, burning hatred smouldered within the ex-captain. He blamed Jimmy for his crack-up, though, actually, if Daly had kept to his course he wouldn’t have been near the meteor.
Suddenly we got a new assignment. When I read it my stomach tightened up, and I hurried to Jimmy’s room. He wasn’t there. I found him in Dancey’s office, going over some calculations with the big boss.
I threw the instruction-sheet on the desk. Dancey looked at it.
“Well?” he said.
“You crazy fool!” I said to Jimmy. “You’re not going to tackle a space-spin!”
He shrugged. “Sure—why not, I—”
“Sloane and I have talked it over completely, Harrigan,” Dancey broke in. “There’s no—no very great danger. And it’ll make a beautiful scene.”
“No great danger?” I met his gaze squarely. “Dancey, you know well enough nobody’s ever come out of a spacespin alive.”
Jimmy got up, gripped my arm. “Hold on, Mike. I’ve worked this all out. I’ve allowed for stress and strain and acceleration. There’ll be danger, sure, but—” He grinned at me. “There’ll be a plenty big kick in it. Jim Sloane, the first guy to come out of a spacespin alive.”
He was talking through his hat. I knew it, and he knew it. All the calculations in the world wouldn’t help when a man goes into a spacespin. That’s the deadliest danger of the spacelanes, because no human being can possibly stand up under the incredible shocks of it.
Not a single shock—no. A series of them, ripping, tearing at your bones and muscles and heart as tube after tube blasts off, sending your ship into an insane maelstrom of whirling fire.
Once in a while there’s a leak in the rocket-feed system, and a spark ignites all the tanks at once. Not simultaneously, because that would smash the ship flat with the recoil.
But rocket after rocket jets off, you have no chance to brace yourself against the shocks, and pretty soon there’s a hunk of raw meat plastered against the pilot’s seat. Your eyes are gone; your brain is full of burst bloodvessels; your heart is paralyzed; your lungs are flattened; you’re not even a decent corpse.
You’re just meat, that’s all.
I ARGUED with Jimmy then, and later, when I’d got him alone. It was no use. He was to go into space that night to make preliminary tests, and the rest of us were to follow in the morning. I put through a call for Andy Sloane on Earth, but knew I couldn’t expect an answer until too late.
Jimmy went off without saying goodbye. I spent a sleepless night. In the morning I was up before dawn, drinking black coffee and pacing worriedly about my room.
I turned as a knock came on the door.
“Come in,” I said.
It was Andy. He hadn’t got my message. He was already on his way to Callisto when I’d sent it. But he came in grinning, eyes dancing with the old joy of battle I’d known when we’d flown and fought together years before.
“It’s finished, Mike,” he said. “I’ve broken ’em. STC’s washed up. I showed my proofs at Washington and the government cracked down. Gayley’s—out!” He glanced down at a raw cut on his knuckle.
Before I could speak he went on. “Your name’s cleared, Mike, and Jimmy’s, too. I’m taking you both back to Earth with me. Bette’s waiting—I told her—”
“The kid’s taking a spacespin today,” I said.
Andy went chalk-white. He just stared, unable to find words.
“My God!” he finally jerked out.
Then swung back to the door. He tried the handle, then tugged at it viciously.
It was locked.
I tried it myself, to make sure, There was no chance of breaking through that metal panel. I went to the phone, but the sight of cut wires, dangling, told me the instrument was useless.
I was wondering who had locked us in. Not Jimmy. He was out in space, readying for his suicidal act.
It took ten minutes of pounding on the door to bring help, and five minutes more to find a master key. Twenty minutes had passed when we raced onto the spaceport platform and I collared a greasemonkey.
“Where are they?” I snapped. “Not gone yet?”
“Sure,” he gasped, wriggling free. “Gosh, what’s up? Daly told me he was taking over for you—”
Daly! I cursed viciously.
“I thought it was funny, too, ’cause he was hopped up so he could hardly talk.”
“Two racers,” I barked. “Quick!”
The speedy racers would hold no more than one man apiece. While we waited I explained the situation to Andy. What was behind Daly’s actions we couldn’t know, but I knew the dynamite that was packed in the man’s drugged, hatred-crazed brain.
