by Jerry
The Green Hills of Earth grew through twenty years. The earliest form we know about was composed before Rhysling was blinded, during a drinking bout with some of the indentured men on Venus. The verses were concerned mostly with the things the labor clients intended to do back on Earth if and when they ever managed to pay their bounties and thereby be allowed to go home. Some of the stanzas were vulgar, some were not, but the chorus was recognizably that of Green Hills.
We know exactly where the final form of Green Hills came from, and when.
There was a ship in at Venus Ellis Isle which was scheduled for the direct jump from there to Great Lakes, Illinois. She was the old Falcon, youngest of the Hawk class and the first ship to apply the Harriman Trust’s new policy of extra-fare express service between Earth cities and any colony with scheduled stops.
Rhysling decided to ride her back to Earth. Perhaps his own song had got under his skin—or perhaps he just hankered to see his native Ozarks one more time.
The company no longer permitted deadheads. Rhysling knew this, but it never occurred to him that the ruling might apply to him. He was getting old, for a spaceman, and just a little matter-of-fact about his privileges. Not senile—he simply knew that he was one of the landmarks in space, along with Hailey’s Comet, the Rings, and Brewster’s Ridge. He walked in the crew’s port, went below, and made himself at home in the first empty acceleration couch.
The captain found him there while making a last-minute tour of his ship. “What are you doing here?” he demanded.
“Dragging it back to Earth, Captain.” Rhysling needed no eyes to see a skipper’s four stripes.
“You can’t drag in this ship: you know the rules. Shake a leg and get out of here. We raise ship at once.” The captain was young; he had come up after Rhysling’s active time, but Rhysling knew the type—five years at Harriman Hall with only cadet practice trips instead of solid, deep-space experience. The two men did not touch in background or spirit; space was changing.
“Now, Captain, you wouldn’t begrudge an old man a trip home.”
The officer hesitated—several of the crew had stopped to listen. “I can’t do it. ‘Space Precautionary Act, Clause Six: No one shall enter space save as a licensed member of a crew of a chartered vessel, or as a paying passenger of such a vessel under such regulations as may be issued pursuant to this act.’ Up you get and out you go.”
Rhysling lolled back, his hands under his head. “If I’ve got to go, I’m damned if I’ll walk. Carry me.”
The captain bit his lip and said, “Master-at-arms! Have this man removed.”
The ship’s policeman fixed his eyes on the overhead struts. “Can’t rightly do it, Captain. I’ve sprained my shoulder.” The other crew members, present a moment before, had faded into the bulkhead paint.
“Well, get a working party!”
“Aye aye, sir.” He, too, went away.
Rhysling spoke again. “Now look, skipper—let’s not have any hard feelings about this. You’ve got an out to carry me if you want to—the ‘distressed-spaceman’ clause.”
“Distressed spaceman, my eye! You’re no distressed spaceman; you’re a space lawyer. I know who you are; you’ve been bumming around the system for fifteen years. Well, you won’t do it in my ship. That clause was intended to succor men who had missed their ships, not to let a man drag free all over space.”
“Well, now, Captain, can you properly say I haven’t missed my ship? I’ve never been back home since my last trip as a signed-on crew member. The law says I can have a trip back.”
“But that was years ago. You’ve used up your chance.”
“Have I, now? The clause doesn’t say a word about how soon a man has to take his trip back; it just says he’s got it coming to him. Go look it up, skipper. If I’m wrong, I’ll not only walk out on my two legs, I’ll beg your humble pardon in front of your crew. Go on—look it up. Be a sport.”
Rhysling could feel the man’s glare, but he turned and stomped out of the compartment. Rhysling knew that he had used his blindness to place the captain in an impossible position, but this did not embarrass Rhysling—he rather enjoyed it.
Ten minutes later the siren sounded, he heard the orders on the bull horn for Up-Stations. When the soft sighing of the locks and the slight pressure change in his ears let him know that take-off was imminent, he got up and shuffled down to the power room, as he wanted to be near the jets when they blasted off. He needed no one to guide him in any ship of the Hawk class.
Trouble started during the first watch. Rhysling had been lounging in the inspector’s chair, fiddling with the keys of his accordion and trying out a new version of Green Hills.
Let me breathe unrationed air again
Where there’s no lack nor dearth . . .
And something, something, something Earth.
It would not come out right. He tried again.
Let the sweet fresh breezes heal me
As they rove around the girth
Of our lovely mother planet,
Of the cool, green hills of Earth.
That was better, he thought. “How do you like that, Archie?” he asked over the muted roar.
“Pretty good. Give out with the whole thing.” Archie Macdougal, chief jetman, was an old friend, both space-side and in bars; he had been an apprentice under Rhysling many years and millions of miles back.
Rhysling obliged, then said, “You youngsters have got it soft. Everything automatic. When I was twisting her tail you had to stay awake.”
“You still have to stay awake.”
They fell to talking shop, and Macdougal showed him the new direct-response damping rig which had replaced the manual vernier control that Rhysling had used. Rhysling felt out the controls and asked questions until he was familiar with the new installation. It was his conceit that he was still a jetman and that his present occupation as a troubadour was simply an expedient during one of the fusses with the company that any man could get into.
“I see you still have the old hand-damping plates installed,” he remarked, his agile fingers flitting over the equipment.
“All except the links. I unshipped them because they obscure the dials.”
“You ought to have them shipped. You might need them.”
“Oh, I don’t know. I think—”
Rhysling never did find out what Macdougal thought, for it was at that moment the trouble tore loose. Macdougal caught it square, a blast of radioactivity that burned him down where he stood.
Rhysling sensed what had happened. Automatic reflexes of old habit came out. He slapped the discover and rang the alarm to the control room simultaneously. Then he remembered the unshipped links. He had to grope until he found them, while trying to keep as low as he could to get maximum benefit from the baffles. Nothing but the links bothered him as to location. The place was as light to him as any place could be; he knew every spot, every control, the way he knew the keys of his accordion.
“Power room! Power room! What’s the alarm?”
“Stay out!” Rhysling shouted. “The place is ‘hot.’ ” He could feel it on his face and in his bones, like desert sunshine.
The links he got into place, after cursing someone, anyone, for having failed to rack the wrench he needed. Then he commenced trying to reduce the trouble by hand. It was a long job and ticklish. Presently he decided that the jet would have to be spilled, pile and all.
First he reported. “Control!”
“Control aye aye!”
“Spilling Jet Three—emergency.”
“Is this Macdougal?”
“Macdougal is dead. This is Rhysling, on watch. Stand by to record.”
There was no answer; dumfounded the skipper may have been, but he could not interfere in a power-room emergency. He had the ship to consider, and the passengers and crew. The doors had to stay closed.
The captain must have been still more surprised at what Rhysling sent for record. It was:
We rot in
the molds of Venus,
We retch at her tainted breath.
Foul are her flooded jungles,
Crawling with unclean death.
Rhysling went on cataloguing the Solar System as he worked, “harsh bright soil of Luna,” “Saturn’s rain-bow rings,” “the frozen night of Titan,” all the while opening and spilling the jet and fishing it clean. He finished with an alternate chorus:
We’ve tried each spinning space mote
And reckoned its true worth:
Take us back again to the homes of men
On the cool, green hills of Earth.
Then, almost absentmindedly, he remembered to tack on his revised first verse:
The arching sky is calling
Spacemen back to their trade.
All hands! Stand by! Free falling!
And the lights below us fade.
Out ride the sons of Terra,
Far drives the thundering jet,
Up leaps the race of Earthmen
Out, far, and onward yet—
The ship was safe now and ready to limp home, shy one jet. As for himself, Rhysling was not so sure. That “sunburn” seemed pretty sharp, he thought. He was unable to see the bright, rosy fog in which he worked, but he knew it was there. He went on with the business of flushing the air out through the outer valve, repeating it several times to permit the level of radioaction to drop to something a man might stand under suitable armor. While he did this, he sent one more chorus, the last bit of authentic Rhysling that ever could be:
We pray for one last landing
On the globe that gave us birth;
Let us rest our eyes on the fleecy skies
And the cool, green hills of Earth.
THE END
THE PROP
William L. Hamling
It lay out in the desert, rusting in the sand, a prop space ship that had been used in making a movie. But Bobby Kincaid thought it was real, and wanted to fly
BOBBY KINCAID reined in his black and white pinto pony and a flurry of dust swept up around him.
“Hey, Skeeter—are you home?” The boy leaned forward in the saddle, his bright blue eyes sweeping over the small decrepit shanty on the edge of the desert. Small wisps of scraggly grass sprouted around the base of the ancient wood walls. A tumbledown roof leaned crazily forward, with patches of tar paper tacked over rotting holes. From the chimney—a rusted length of old stove pipe jutting out from one corner of the roof like a forgotten stump—wisps of smoke stirred.
“Skeeter! It’s me—Bobby Kincaid!”
The door of the shack, hanging limply on one hinge, creaked slowly open. A grisly beard covered face peered from the opening.
Bobby waved.
“Hello, Skeeter.”
The door pushed open further and a stooped figure shuffled out into the sunlight. The old man blinked his eyes in the glare and then a smile pulled his lips back, revealing a set of craggy yellowed teeth.
“Well, ain’t this a surprise! Bobby Kincaid—where did you come from?” He scratched his beard with a long bony finger. “I thought you was away in school.”
Bobby laughed. “Skeeter, you old hermit, don’t you even know it’s summer now? School’s out for the year!”
The old man shrugged his stooped shoulders. “Reckon it don’t make much difference what time ’o year it be, far as I’m concerned. One season’s the same as another out here on the desert, son.” He shuffled forward and stood beside the pony. “So you’re on your vacation, eh, Bobby? How was school this year?”
Bobby jumped lightly from the pony. “Oh, about the same, Skeeter. I’m going into eighth grade this fall.”
“Ya don’t say!” Skeeter replied. “Why I recollect when you was no more than a gopher high. Your daddy used to ride out here on the desert past my shack with you perched on the saddle in front of him . . . Seems just like yesterday.”
“I’m growing up, Skeeter. I’m twelve now,” Bobby said proudly.
Skeeter slapped the boy jovially on the shoulder. “Sure am glad to see you again, Bobby. I suppose you’ll have a lot of fun with your mom and dad on your ranch this year.”
The boy’s face clouded and he walked aimlessly about, kicking at the sand. His little mouth was puckered up to the verge of tears.
“What’s the matter, son,” Skeeter asked haltingly. “Anything wrong?”
“I guess maybe I won’t have much fun, Skeeter. Mom is always throwing parties and doesn’t have time for me. And dad’s directing a big movie and can’t get out except on week-ends. When he does come there’s always a party.”
The old man rubbed his beard thoughtfully. “Well now, don’t you like parties? I thought they was supposed to be fun.”
Bobby looked up at him with misty blue eyes. “They’re grownup parties. And I’m not grownup. Mom sends me off to my room.” He kicked a little mound of sand. “Dad promised he’d buy me an airplane this year to play with. But he didn’t. I guess they all haven’t got time for me. I wanted that airplane too, I want to be a flyer when I grow up.”
“An airplane?” The hermit laughed. “Ain’t that a mite too dangerous for you, Bobby? You ain’t old enough to have one of them—”
Bobby shook his head vigorously. “I don’t mean a real, honest to gosh airplane. I mean one I can play with—practice on until I’m old enough to get a real one!”
Skeeter bobbed his head. “Oh. That kind. Why don’t you remind him, maybe he just plumb forgot.”
“I did,” Bobby said bitterly. “But he said he hasn’t time now. He said next year. I don’t want to wait till next year. I’ve got all summer, and I want to play.”
THERE was a hissing of boiling water from inside the shack. The old man turned. “Wait just a minute, son, I got some coffee brewin’. I’ll be right back.”
Bobby waited. He patted the cool wet nose of his pony and gazed out across the desert. It was calm and beautiful out there. Bobby liked the desert. It was quiet and friendly. The sun shimmered down on the sprawling sand hills, scattered with desert grass and sage brush, and sent streaks of color bounding off to the horizon. He heard Skeeter come out of the shanty.
“I guess I better go now, Skeeter. I don’t want to bother you.”
The old man looked closely at the boy. He saw the troubled frown that creased the small white forehead, and the misty brightness of eyes that were close to tears.
“You ain’t no bother to me, son, I’m mighty glad you dropped in. Say, I just had an idea while I was putting off my coffee. Maybe I can help you find something like the airplane you want so bad . . .”
Bobby stared at him. “Huh? You? An airplane? I don’t understand.”
Skeeter grinned, showing his aged yellowed teeth. “Well, now, don’t I rightly mean a real airplane, but I reckon it’s as close to one as you can get. Maybe more so, cause this plane was made to fly a lot higher and farther than most others. And it’s bigger. I—”
“Gosh!” Bobby said. “A ship like that must cost an awful lot of money!” The eagerness left his face suddenly and his eyes fell. “I don’t have any money, though, Skeeter . . .”
“Money?” Skeeter snorted. “Who said anything about money! You can have this ship for nothing, far as I know.”
“For nothing?” Bobby’s eyes showed amazement. “Doesn’t anybody own it?”
The old man shrugged. “It belongs to the desert now, son. It’s been out there for a long time. You can have a good time playing around with it.”
Bobby danced wildly about the old man. “Where is it, Skeeter? Tell me where!”
Skeeter grinned. “Take it easy, son, it ain’t going to fly away. I guess it never will do that. It’s out there, just a couple miles east of the valley trail.” He raised a thin bony hand and pointed.
Bobby followed the gesture with his eyes. Eagerness was written all over his round little face. “You sure it will be all right, Skeeter? Nobody will chase me away?”
The old man laughed. “Guess I’m about t
he only person on this stretch of desert, Bobby. But you want to make sure you don’t get lost. Keep to the trail. You’ll find it.”
Bobby was back in the saddle. He had the reins gripped tightly in his hands. “I’ll find it, Skeeter—and thanks a lot!”
The hermit watched him ride off down the trail with wistful eyes. “Just an old forgotten prop, that ship is. Can’t do him no harm. Nice kid, that Bobby. Too bad about his folks.”
He sighed and shuffled back into his shack.
IT was a long, winding, dusty trail. It curled over the sand like an endless serpent. The sun beat down on it, sending shimmering heatwaves up on the silent air.
Bobby rode down the trail whistling. His eyes were bright, eager. He kept looking off to the right of the road, to the east, as Skeeter had said. He saw only rolling hills of sand and sage brush.
“He said it was a big ship. He said it could fly higher and farther than any others. Gee . . .” Bobby said softly to his pony. He patted the black and white head. “Gosh, just think, Ginger, a real ship all for myself!”
The pony neighed as if in answer. Bobby started whistling again. Then he stopped and a small frown crossed his face. “Unless maybe Skeeter was just fooling me. . . Hey, Ginger, what’s wrong?”
The pony had been trotting along the road when suddenly he reared. The movement almost threw Bobby from the saddle. He gripped the pommel with quick fingers and held on desperately.
Then he heard it. The dry staccato buzzing. He knew what it was even as he heard it. And the knowledge brought a cold chill to his spine.
The horse bolted off the left side of the trail, and Bobby, holding desperately to the saddle, saw the rattler coiled not three feet away in the center of the trail. It struck in a movement too fast for the eye to follow. A blur of motion, of wide open jaws as the pony shot past. Even as the snake lunged forward Bobby grabbed the reins with one hand and pulled sharply to the left. The movement saved them. The horse kicked savagely sideways, just out of reach of the fangs, and before Bobby had time to think, the horse was racing, panic stricken, off over the sands.