“I doubt it. But it’s something you should never let entirely out of your thoughts. The space program has not always existed—and may not always. So let’s play a game. Let’s say they close it down. What will you do?” “I—I don’t know.” I found myself chewing on my underlip. “I guess I’ve never thought about it—until now.” It was a thoroughly scary thought, I can tell you. Five years’ training—five years of intensive training—all pointed toward that single goal. Five years—more than a quarter, almost a third of my life—and pretty much the whole of my thinking {adult, as I thought of it to myself; after all, I was biologically adult at twelve, wasn’t I?) life. All directed toward that single goal.
Dr. Cramer was just playing a game, he said. But 1 could see what he was driving at, plainly enough. What would I do, if I couldn t go into space? My stomach felt as if I was in free fall.
“I—I see what you mean, sir.”
“But you’re young,” he said, hammering the point home. “You could retrain easily; your whole adult life is ahead of you.” There it was again—that casual adult assumption that Life Begins at Eighteen.
“O.K.,” he said, smiling. “So back to my original point. I don’t have the statistics, but hundreds of farms are failing every year. The ones that made it through the previous drought cycles have been sucked dry. And every day new families—dislocated, embittered, stripped of their dignity—come to the cities, including this one.
“They’re coming from the North, from upstate, and from the South. They’re restless, and they’re worried, and they’re fair prey for every sharpie in the city. They’re shoved off into ghettos, charged every cent of their welfare checks for the rent of apartments that were substandard forty years ago—and nobody knows what to do with them.
“This city is just one big pressure kettle, Paul, and somebody forgot to include the safety valve. It’s in a state of crisis now, and it’s heading for a showdown. I don’t want to be here when that happens. Tempers are already too short.”
“It’s so hard to realize,” Mary said quietly. She’d stayed out of it, so far, but I knew that she was on my side—she didn’t blame me for what had happened in the park. And let’s face it—I’m not that stupid—neither did Dr. Cramer. He hadn’t been chewing me out; he’d been explaining, filling me in, giving me the data.
He smiled at his daughter. “It is, and I don’t blame either of you. I can look out of the window of my bedroom here, and watch nurses walking their baby carriages in the park. I can see the kids playing baseball, tennis, rowing on the lake. It couldn’t look more peaceful.
“But I* 11 give you odds that every one of those nurses is armed, if only with a tear-gas pencil. And I saw with my own eyes two baseball teams mixing it up in a real free-for-all with bats and all/' He shook his head. “Took the cops fifteen minutes to break it up.” He tapped his wristwatch. It was a fine piece of work, two stop hands, and a five-digit calculator. “I timed it myself.”
I hadn’t had a chance to talk to Mary throughout the afternoon, and she’d been pretty quiet, almost subdued, I thought. It was bothering me; I’d had some idea of what I’d gotten her into—and a pretty good notion of how it might’ve turned out if we hadn’t been quite so lucky.
Let me put it straight: I didn’t like Farnsworth one bit, but I had to admit he was right. He’d warned me in the first place, and I was too cocky to pay any attention to him. Then I compounded my error by taking a girl—a girl!— into the park.
I don’t like to be wrong—that’s fundamental. I never have. It hurts when I’m wrong in front of my friends, but it’s a lot worse when I’m wrong before those I dislike. Bix says that it’s a simple case of an antisocial attitude coupled with a superiority complex. Bix has a lot of answers, though.
But what came through on top of this was the vague naggings of something I haven’t often felt: my conscience. It’d been so long since I’d had to answer for anyone but myself that it took me a while to realize just what was really bothering me.
I’d been responsible for Mary when she accompanied me to the park—let alone the fact that she was both smarter and better able to defend herself; she was a girl. I was responsible. I’d shirked that responsibility. Dr. Cramer talked all the way around it; he’s subtle. He just reminded me of how everyone else had forfeited his responsibility.
After dinner Dr. Cramer excused himself and left the room, and Mary and I were alone. It was the first time since we’d been in the park. I felt suddenly awkward, ill at ease. I seized the bull by the horns:
“Umm, Mary, I guess you’ve got an apology coming.” I could feel my face getting hot.
She was quiet for a moment, as though figuring out what her response should be. “For what?”
“It was a pretty stupid stunt I pulled—” I began. “You’re being brainwashed!” she interrupted. “Huh?”
“So, O.K.,” she said, “we got mixed up in something. But who started it? The way everybody has been acting, you’d think we went into that park looking for trouble! You know that’s not so.” She looked up at me and our eyes locked for a moment. “You don’t owe me any apologies, Paul. Maybe we should’ve known better than to walk into an attractive public park in broad daylight”—her tone was scathingly sarcastic for a moment—“but the only thing we were guilty of was simple ignorance, and that was as much mine as yours. And when it comes right down to it, you did a pretty good job on those punks.” A sudden grin flashed across her face. “Besides—it was fun.”
I felt as if a load had just disappeared from my shoulders, and my back straightened. “Yeah?”
“Those poor guys—I bet they never knew what hit them!” She giggled.
Talk about responsibility!
“I never had a chance to try it out before,” she said. “My karate training, I mean.”
“I never thought anything like that would happen,” I said. “But, you know? It’s been years since anybody’s tried to beat up on me—outside of gym class, I mean.” We were both grinning now. We were co-conspirators, buddies tested in combat.
Then I sobered a bit. “It was a pretty lucky thing, though, the way it worked out.”
“We were lucky,” she nodded. “But don’t worry about it now. My father says the time for worrying is when it* 11 do the most good. Never cry over spilt milk. We were lucky, but we did all right for ourselves. We’ve got no complaints coming now.”
“Yeah, except that I doubt if I’ll be able to set one foot out of this hotel again without a chaperon,” I said glumly.
“Well,” she said, her cheeks dimpling with another grin, “that's worth worrying about.”
I was right, of course: I wasn’t allowed out of the hotel for the rest of our stay in New York City. But in a way, that was a good thing. That’s how I came to know Bix.
I mentioned, I think, that I didn’t really know the other seven in my group very well. We knew each other to nod to, but that was about it. Enforced contact soon put an end to that.
With my usual incomplete grasp of interpersonal relationships, I’d assumed they were all buddy-buddy—a big happy group that excluded me. They weren’t, of course, although for the moment they had a common bond which did exclude me: they were all pretty burned with me.
It was my fault. I had Abused My Privileges, so all of us were under close watch—which is to say, we were all on leash because of my incident in the park.
“I guess you think you pulled a smart one, Williams?” Bob Krassner had elected himself ringleader. It was anew game, designed to take the edge off their enforced idleness. It was called Bait Paul Williams.
“That’s right, Krassner,” I told him. “I did it just for you.”
“How’s that, fella?” he asked, snapping the bait. I was trying out a new game of my own.
“Why, I know how badly you did in Applied Defense, old buddy,” I said, “and as Mr. Farnsworth says, that park is no place for kids.”
He was staring at me, his mouth working a little. I sunk th
e shaft in the rest of the way: "I knew you’d end up there if they let you do any wandering."I leaned closer, with a conspiratorial air. “I had to play it subtle, you know? If I’d just gone and told Farnsworth, ‘Hey, Bobby Krassner’s going to get in trouble if you let him out,’ well, it would’ve been embarrassing, you know what I mean? They don’t like to admit they couldn’t make Trained Killers out of us all.”
He was purpling nicely. “So my way, I shoulder the blame, get a chance to try a few tricks, and—with no personal prejudice to your record, fella—I keep you safely out of harm’s way.” I gave him my most sincere smile. “Don’t thank me; I’d do it for anyone.”
Ralph Ward and A1 Beiderbecke had been standing close by, taking it all in. Beiderbecke was laughing. I turned my back on them all, and headed out of the lounge.
I wanted to try the solitary comfort of my room.
“Hey, Williams.” It was Beiderbecke, catching up to me. “Good show.”
“Your turn now?” I asked him. “Any number can play.”
“No beef, Paul,” he §aid, falling into step with me. “Why don’t you take the chip off your shoulder? We’ll be seeing a lot of each other for quite a spell yet, and where we’ll be, there won’t be any parks across the street. You know?”
“Ummm. A good point.” I paused at the door to the hall. “Going up to my room. Doing anything?” That’s the closest I’ve come to an open invitation for friendship in a long time.
“Around here? You have to be kidding. Sure, let’s g°.”
I looked back over my shoulder. Krassner was pouting at Ward, and they were deep in conversation. I figured he was explaining to Ward how superior he was to me for not descending to my level, and all that. In the back of my mind was the nagging thought that with my penchant for making quick enemies it was maybe not so wise to let myself get cooped up with them in a large tin can for six months. I suppressed it.
Alphonse Beiderbecke had a total dislike for his first name, even shortened to Al. One of the first things he told me was that as far as he was concerned, anybody who wanted to consider himself a friend would kindly refrain from ever using the name. “Call me Bix,” he said. “It comes to me from a distant and illustrious member of the family.’* And Bix he was, from then on.
Bix was tall, thin, nervous-looking, and constantly on the move. It made me tired, just to watch him. He is one of the purest examples of ectomorph I have ever seen. He eats like a horse, and he tells me that his weight has never topped one hundred and forty pounds. He stands a little over six feet tall. His hair is black, really black, and so are his eyes. He has a way of cocking his head at you, staring at you intently with those dark eyes, and saying, “You know, Paul, the trouble with you is you’re a paranoid.’’
“Aw, come off it.’* I do not like to be analyzed, and I haven’t, ever since a year and a half of thrice weekly sessions with Dr. Spittal right after I first came to the Space School.
“No, I mean it: you’re lucky you’re just paranoid.’’
“I could forget you asked me to call you Bix, you know,*’ I said.
" Last year in school, I helped out with the records in the Psych Department," Bix said quietly.
I could feel myself getting angry.
“You should see the records that are kept in there— case histories on every guy who ever set one foot in the door. I mean, everybody, even the guys who flunked out after one week.
“Let me tell you something, Paul: Every one of those guys—and me, too—we’ve all got records as thick as your final thesis. They’ve got us taped, all the way back to our first spank in the delivery room, and how much fuss we made about it.
" So listen to me for a minute. I’ve got my ambitions—I aim to be a shrink when they cashier me out of space. It’s important to have a secondary occupation lined up, you know; something handy to fall back on when you’re getting middle-aged. And I’ve got a healthy curiosity about people. Especially the people I’m going to be stuck with on this first assignment.
“I went through all the records on each of you seven guys, Paul. I had to.” His expression was very tense, but he gave me a fleeting smile then.4‘I think they knew what I was up to; I’m pretty sure Spittal did.
“I was looking for something, Paul. I was looking for someone.
“It’s going to be tough up there. We’re raw; we’re going to be on the spot all the time until we really settle in to our jobs, and it’s going to be tense.
“Times like that, everybody needs a friend—a real friend. Somebody he doesn’t have to tense up around, somebody he can unlax with.”
He was pacing back and forth across the end of the room. Then he stopped and pointed his finger in my direction. “That’s why I picked you, Paul. I—I checked out the records on all seven of you, and you were the one.”
I stared at him, trying to figure him out.
“So, O.K., you’re a paranoid. It’s in the records. You’re a go-it-aloner, antisocial. But that’s no big problem. Paranoia is the easiest thing in the world to shuck, once you realize what you’re working with, and make the big decision to get free of it. Now, I figure, with my training—my abilities—to help, you should be able to iron yourself out within a few weeks. It’s no big thing to start with, and with my help—what do you say?”
I was still staring at him, and my eyes were burning. This lanky sketch of a male adult human being had dug up my complete psychological case history, run it through his computerlike mind, and decided that with very little trouble he could cure me and be my friend. Just like that.
And you know something?
I believed him.
Chapter 3
The flight down to Cape Kennedy was without incident. It was a clear day on the eastern seaboard—well, as clear as it ever gets these days—and the flight was just like the ones I’d been on before, when we’d been given field trips to the Cape.
Except that this was the real thing.
None of us had really done much more than pick at our breakfasts that morning, and there was a strong tension in the air. We were all on edge, and yet there was this brotherhood feeling among us—a shared awareness that whatever we were getting into, we were getting into it together. Why, even Bob Krassner and I spoke civilly to each other.
This was the real thing.
None of us had ever been up higher than the top of an SST’s trajectory; none of us had ever been in real space. The eight of us were strongly aware of the bond of mingled fear and anticipation that linked us: apprentice spacemen—fledgling astronauts. It made me see everything in a new light. The sunshine that washed over us as we left the hotel and entered the cars for the airport, the air that blew in my face from the rolled-down window of the car on the drive... I felt and experienced it all as though it was the first time I had ever encountered it—and maybe the last, as well.
When our shuttle jet dropped down over the sprawling Cape, I stared at the sun washed patterns of concrete on sand and felt my stomach knot and the hairs at the nape of my neck stiffen. The tall oblongs of the two Vertical Assembly Buildings cast clean dark shadows across the tiny moving dots of cars and service trucks that scurried like ants from mound to mound. The tall needle of the transport rocket stood sharply on its launch pad, still attached to its umbilical tower, the crawler-transporter that had brought it there creeping back toward its Assembly Building so slowly that to me it seemed to be standing still.
Bix pointed over my shoulder: “Our rocket!”
“Yeah,” I said quietly. I did not want to talk. This was something personal, something between me and that vast launching complex below. I wanted to see everything, file it away in my memory where I could never lose it, and without distractions. Bix seemed to sense that. He said nothing more.
Then we’d passed over the area, and were in our landing pattern, the braking flaps on the wings of our plane dropping lower and lower until they were almost a second wing at right angles to the first, pointing at the ground, grabbing air, an
d slowing us so quickly that I felt the drag pulling me forward in my seat against the seat belt.
We dropped, almost straight down, it seemed, until suddenly there was concrete under us, the joints rushing past us in a smooth blur, and a moment later we were down with a squeal of tires, a light jolt, and were taxiing off the strip.
“We’re here,” somebody behind me said, and everyone seemed to let his breath out all at once. My fingers were a little numb and it took me two tries to get my belt unbuckled.
Bix gave me one of his dark smiles, and nodded. We shook hands, and then climbed to our feet.
Going out the door was like stepping into a blast furnace. Fd forgotten what Florida in the summertime could be like. I was wearing a light summer suit, and it seemed to be only seconds after Fd started down the ramp to the bright concrete that it was clinging smotheringly to me.
I sweat easily, and I could feel it standing all over my face by the time Fd hurriedly climbed into the waiting car. There were three cars waiting for us, and mine at least was air-conditioned. I said a few kind words to myself on the subject of air conditioning, and then took them back as Krassner pushed his way in next to Bix and me, somehow managing to take over half the back seat to himself.
“Sheesh, is it hot!” he said, flexing his arms and gouging Bix in the ribs with his elbow.
“Close the door, stupid!” I told him, “and keep your mouth shut, and it’ll be a lot less hot in here.”
Farnsworth, sitting between our driver and Gene Carr, twisted around in his seat and gave me a Piercing Look, but said nothing. It seemed likely he would be glad to see the end of me.
With the doors closed, it cooled down pretty fast. The windows were tinted, and they not only kept a lot of direct sun heat from getting in, they made it possible for me to see a little better. With a strong summer sun bouncing off all that white and unpainted concrete, you better believe it can get pretty dazzling.
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