by Hank Davis
“But the ship!” Waddell protested. “If it doesn’t go today, sir, Mars’ll get away from us for nearly two years!”
Tallentyre rose from his chair. He looked smug. “Oh, the ship will start today. But I’ll command. I’m going to Mars for a change. And perhaps . . .”
He broke off and looked at Noel. Her face became radiant. She whirled about as tears brimmed her eyes, but her words were a song.
“I’ll start packing,” she said. “This can’t be a stag party forever!”
OVER THE TOP
by Lester del Rey
Some of the stories in this compilation have the early steps of the exploration of space as it might have happened, but didn’t. Though his one still might happen, at least as far as how the first man sent to Mars was selected, and why. Of course, a female short person would be even lighter . . .
The sky was lousy with stars—nasty little pinpoints of cold hostility that had neither the remoteness of space nor the friendly warmth of Earth. They didn’t twinkle honestly, but tittered and snickered down. And there wasn’t even one moon. Dave Mannen knew better, but his eyes looked for the low scudding forms of Deimos and Phobos because of all the romanticists who’d written of them. They were up there all right, but only cold rocks, too small to see.
Rocks in the sky, and rocks in his head—not to mention the lump on the back of his skull. He ran tense fingers over his wiry black hair until he found the swelling, and winced. With better luck, he’d have had every inch of his three-foot body mashed to jelly, instead of that, though. Blast Mars!
He flipped the searchlight on and looked out, but the view hadn’t improved any. It was nothing but a drab plain of tarnished reddish sand, chucked about in ridiculous potholes, running out beyond the light without change. The stringy ropes of plantlike stuff had decided to clump into balls during the night, but their bilious green still had a clabbered appearance, like the result of a three days’ binge. There was a thin rime of frost over them, catching the light in little wicked sparks. That was probably significant data; it would prove that there was more water in the air than the scientists had figured, even with revised calculations from the twenty-four-inch lunar refractor.
But that was normal enough. The bright boys got together with their hundred-ton electronic slipsticks and brought forth all manner of results; after that, they had to send someone out to die here and there before they found why the sticks had slipped. Like Dave. Sure, the refractory tube linings were good for twenty-four hours of continual blast—tested under the most rigorous lab conditions, even tried on a couple of Moon hops.
So naturally, with Unitech’s billionaire backer and new power-handling methods giving them the idea of beating the Services to Mars—no need to stop on the Moon even, they were that good—they didn’t include spare linings. They’d have had to leave out some of their fancy radar junk and wait for results until the rocket returned.
Well, the tubes had been good. It was only after three hours of blasting, total, when he was braking down for Mars, that they began pitting. Then they’d held up after a fashion until there was only forty feet of free fall—about the same as fifteen on Earth. The ship hadn’t been damaged, had even landed on her tripod legs, and the radar stuff had come through fine. The only trouble was that Dave had no return ticket. There was food for six months, water for more by condensing and reusing; but the clicking of the air machine wouldn’t let him forget his supply of breathing material was being emptied, a trickle at a time. And there was only enough there for three weeks, at the outside. After that, curtains.
Of course, if the bright boys’ plans had worked, he could live on compressed air drawn from outside by the airlock pumps. Too bad the landing had sprung them just enough so they could barely hold their own and keep him from losing air if he decided to go outside. A lot of things were too bad.
But at least the radar was working fine. He couldn’t breathe it or take off with it, but the crystal amplifiers would have taken even a free fall all the way from mid-space. He cut the power on, fiddling until he found the Lunar broadcast from Earth. It had a squiggly sound, but most of the words come through on the begacycle band. There was something about a fool kid who’d sneaked into a plane and got off the ground somehow, leaving a hundred honest pilots trying to kill themselves in getting him down. People could kill each other by the millions, but they’d go all out to save one spectacular useless life, as usual.
Then it came: “No word from the United Technical Foundation rocket, now fourteen hours overdue in reporting. Foundation men have given up hope, and feel that Mannen must have died in space from unknown causes, leaving the rocket to coast past Mars unmanned. Any violent crash would have tripped automatic signalers, and there was no word of trouble from Mannen—”
There was more, though less than on the kid. One rocket had been tried two years before, and gone wide because the tubes blew before reversal; the world had heard the clicking of Morse code right to the end, then. This failure was only a secondhand novelty, without anything new to gush over. Well, let them wonder. If they wanted to know what had happened, let ’em come and find out. There’d be no pretty last words from him.
Dave listened a moment longer, as the announcer picked up the latest rift in the supposedly refurbished United Nations, then cut off in disgust. The Atlantic Nations were as determined as Russia, and both had bombs now. If they wanted to blast themselves out of existence, maybe it was a good thing. Mars was a stinking world, but at least it had died quietly, instead of raising all that fuss.
Why worry about them? They’d never done him any favors. He’d been gypped all along. With a grade-A brain and a matinee idol’s face, he’d been given a three-foot body and the brilliant future of a circus freak—the kind the crowd laughed at, rather than looked at in awe. His only chance had come when Unitech was building the ship, before they knew how much power they had, and figured on saving weight by designing it for a midget and a consequently smaller supply of air, water, and food. Even then, after he’d seen the ad, he’d had to fight his way into position through days of grueling tests. They hadn’t tossed anything in his lap.
It had looked like the big chance, then. Fame and statues they could keep, but the book and endorsement rights would have put him where he could look down and laugh at the six-footers. And the guys with the electronic brains had cheated him out of it.
Let them whistle for their radar signals. Let them blow themselves to bits playing soldier. It was none of his worry now.
He clumped down from the observatory tip into his tiny quarters, swallowed a couple of barbiturates, and crawled into his sleeping cushions. Three weeks to go, and not even a bottle of whiskey on the ship. He cursed in disgust, turned over, and let sleep creep up on him.
It was inevitable that he’d go outside, of course. Three days of nothing but sitting, standing up, and sleeping was too much. Dave let the pumps suck at the air in the lock, zipping down his helmet over the soft rubber seal, tested his equipment, and waited until the pressure stood about even, outside and in. Then he opened the outer lock, tossed down the plastic ramp, and stepped out. He’d got used to the low gravity while still aboard, and paid no attention to it.
The tripod had dug into the sand, but the platform feet had kept the tubes open, and Dave swore at them softly. They looked good—except where part of one lining hung out in shreds. And with lining replacements, they’d be good—the blast had been cut off before the tubes themselves were harmed. He turned his back on the ship finally and faced out to the shockingly near horizon.
This, according to the stories, was supposed to be man’s high moment—the first living human to touch the soil outside his own world and its useless satellite. The lock opened, and out stepped the hero—dying in pride with man’s triumph and conquest of space! Dave pushed the rubbery flap of his helmet back against his lips, opened the orifice, and spat on the ground. If this was an experience, so was last year’s stale beer.
There wasn�
�t even a “canal” within fifty miles of him. He regretted that, in a way, since finding out what made the streaks would have killed time. He’d seen them as he approached, and there was no illusion to them—as the lunar scope had proved before. But they definitely weren’t water ditches, anyhow. There’d been no chance to pick his landing site, and he’d have to get along without them.
It didn’t leave much to explore. The ropes of vegetation were stretched out now, holding up loops of green fuzz to the sun, but there seemed to be no variation of species to break up the pattern. Probably a grove of trees on Earth would look the same to a mythical Martian. Possibly they represented six million and seven varieties. But Dave couldn’t see it. The only point of interest was the way they wiggled their fuzz back and forth, and that soon grew monotonous.
Then his foot squeaked up at him, winding up in a gurgle. He jumped a good six feet up in surprise, and the squeak came again in the middle of his leap, making him stumble as he landed. But his eyes focused finally on a dull brownish lump fastened to his boot. It looked something like a circular cluster of a dozen pine cones, with fuzz all over, but there were little leglike members coming out of it—a dozen of them that went into rapid motion as he looked.
“Queeklrle,” the thing repeated, sending the sound up through the denser air in his suit. It scrambled up briskly, coming to a stop over his supply kit and fumbling hurriedly. “Queeklrle!”
Oddly, there was no menace in it, probably because it was anything but a bug-eyed monster; there were no signs of any sensory organs. Dave blinked. It reminded him of a kitten he’d once had, somehow, before his usual luck found him and killed the little creature with some cat disease. He reacted automatically.
“Queekle yourself!” His fingers slipped into the kit and came out with a chocolate square, unpeeling the cellophane quickly. “It’ll probably make you sick or kill you—but if that’s what you’re after, take it.”
Queekle was after it, obviously. The creature took the square in its pseudopods, tucked it under its body, and relaxed, making faint gobbling sounds. For a second, it was silent, but then it squeaked again, sharper this time. “Queeklrle!”
Dave fed it two more of the squares before the creature seemed satisfied, and began climbing back down, leaving the nuts in the chocolate neatly piled on the ground behind it. Then Queekle went scooting off into the vegetation. Dave grimaced; its gratitude was practically human.
“Nuts to you, too,” he muttered, kicking the pile of peanuts aside. But it proved at least that men had never been there before—humans were almost as fond of exterminating other life as they were of killing off their own kind.
He shrugged, and swung off toward the horizon at random in a loose, loping stride. After the cramped quarters of the ship, running felt good. He went on without purpose for an hour or more, until his muscles began protesting. Then he dug out his water bottle, pushed the tube through the helmet orifice, and drank briefly. Everything around him was the same as it had been near the ship, except for a small cluster of the plants that had dull red fuzz instead of green; he’d noticed them before, but couldn’t tell whether they were one stage of the same plant or a different species. He didn’t really care.
In any event, going farther was purposeless. He’d been looking for another Queekle casually, but had seen none. And on the return trip, he studied the ground under the fuzz plants more carefully, but there was nothing to see. There wasn’t even a wind to break up the monotony, and he clumped up to the ramp of the ship as bored as he had left it. Maybe it was just as well his air supply was low, if this was all Mars had to offer.
Dave pulled up the ramp and spun the outer lock closed, blinking in the gloom, until the lights snapped on as the airlock sealed. He watched the pressure gauge rise to ten pounds, normal for the ship, and reached for the inner lock. Then he jerked back, staring at the floor.
Queekle was there, and had brought along part of Mars. Now its squeaks came out in a steady stream as the inner seal opened. And in front of it, fifteen or twenty of the plant things went into abrupt motion, moving aside to form a narrow lane through which the creature went rapidly on into the ship. Dave followed, shaking his head. Apparently, there was no way of being sure about anything here. Plants that stood steady on their roots outside could move about at will, it seemed—and to what was evidently a command.
The fool beast! Apparently the warmth of the ship had looked good to it, and it was all set to take up housekeeping—in an atmosphere that was at least a hundred times too dense for it. Dave started up the narrow steps to his quarters, hesitated, and cursed. It still reminded him of the kitten, moving around in exploratory circles. He came back down and made a dive for it.
Queekle let out a series of squeals as Dave tossed it back into the airlock and closed the inner seal. Its squeaks died down as the pressure was pumped back and the outer seal opened, though, and were inaudible by the time he moved back up the ladder. He grumbled to himself half-heartedly. That’s what came of feeding the thing—it decided to move in and own him.
But he felt better as he downed what passed for supper. The lift lasted for an hour or so afterward—and then left him feeling more cramped and disgusted than ever as he sat staring at the walls of his tiny room. There wasn’t even a book to read, aside from the typed manual for general care of the ship, and he’d read that often enough already.
Finally, he gave up in disgust and went up to the observatory tip and cut on the radar. Maybe his death notices would be more interesting tonight.
They weren’t. They were carrying speculations about what had happened to him—none of which included any hint that the bright boys could have made an error. They’d even figured out whether Mars might have captured the ship as a satellite and decided against it. But the news was losing interest, obviously, and he could tell where it had been padded out from the general broadcast to give the Lunar men more coverage—apparently on the theory that anyone as far out as the Moon would be more interested in the subject. They’d added one new touch, though!
“It seems obvious that further study of space conditions beyond the gravitic or magnetic field of Earth is needed. The Navy announced that its new rocket, designed to reach Mars next year, will be changed for use as a deep-space laboratory on tentative exploratory trips before going further. United Technical Foundation has abandoned all further plans for interplanetary research, at least for the moment.”
And that was that. They turned the microphone over to international affairs then, and Dave frowned. Even to him, it was obvious that the amount of words used had no relation to the facts covered. Already they were beginning to clamp down the lid, and that meant things were heading toward a crisis again. The sudden outbreak of the new and violent plague in China four years before had brought an end to the former crisis, as all nations pitched in through altruism or sheer self-interest, and were forced to work together. But that hadn’t lasted; they’d found a cure after nearly two million deaths, and there had been nothing to hold the suddenly created cooperation of the powers. Maybe if they had new channels for their energies, such as the planets—
But it wouldn’t wash. The Atlantic Nations would have taken over Mars on the strength of his landing and return, and they were in the lead if another ship should be sent. They’d gobble up the planets as they had taken the Moon, and the other powers would simply have more fuel to feed their resentments and bring things to a head.
Dave frowned more deeply as the announcer went on. There were the usual planted hints from officials that everything was fine for the Atlantic Powers—but they weren’t usual. They actually sounded super-confident—arrogantly so. And there was one brief mention of a conference in Washington, but it was the key. Two of the names were evidence in full. Someone had actually found a way to make the lithium bomb work, and—
Dave cut off the radar as it hit him. It was all the human race needed—a chance to use what could turn into a self-sustaining chain reaction. Man had finally discove
red a way to blow up his planet.
He looked up toward the speck that was Earth, with the tiny spot showing the Moon beside it. Behind him, the air machine clicked busily, metering out oxygen. Two and a half weeks. Dave looked down at that, then. Well, it might be long enough, though it probably wouldn’t. But he had that much time for certain. He wondered if the really bright boys expected as much for themselves. Or was it only because he wasn’t in the thick of a complacent humanity, and had time for thinking, that he could realize what was coming?
He slapped the air machine dully, and looked up at the Earth again. The fools! They’d asked for it; let them take their medicine now. They liked war better than eugenics, nuclear physics better than the science that could have found his trouble and set his glands straight to give him the body he should have had. Let them stew in their own juice.
He found the bottle of sleeping tablets and shook it. But only specks of powder fell out. That was gone, too. They couldn’t get anything right. No whiskey, no cigarettes that might use up the precious air, no more amytal. Earth was reaching out for him, denying him the distraction of a sedative, just as she was denying herself a safe and impersonal contest for her clash of wills.
He threw the bottle onto the floor and went down to the airlock. Queekle was there—the faint sounds of scratching proved that. And it came in as soon as the inner seal opened, squeaking contentedly, with its plants moving slowly behind it. They’d added a new feature—a mess of rubbish curled up in the tendrils of the vines, mixed sand, and dead plant forms.
“Make yourself at home,” Dave told the creature needlessly. “It’s all yours, and when I run down to the gasping point, I’ll leave the locks open and the power on for the fluorescents. Somebody might as well get some good out of the human race. And don’t worry about using up my air—I’ll be better off without it, probably.”