He paused and laid down the paper on a hinge-up desk surface beside him.
“I’m asking for suggestions,” he said.
Greene looked around the room with sudden fresh grim-
ness. But he saw no comprehension yet, on the faces of the other two crew members.
“How about—” began Kronzy; then hesitated as the words broke off in the waiting silence of the others.
“Go on, Ed,” said Barth.
“We’re not short of fuel.”
“That’s right.”
“Then why,” said Kronzy, “can’t we rig some sort of auxiliary burners—like the jato units you use to boost a plane off, you know?” He glanced at Greene and Wallach, then back at Barth. “We wouldn’t have to care whether they burnt up or not—just as long as they lasted long enough to get us off.”
“That’s a good suggestion, Ed,” said Barth, slowly. “The only hitch is, I looked into that possibility, myself. And it isn’t possible. We’d need a machine shop. We’d need—it just isn’t possible. It’d be easier to repair the damaged tubes.”
“I suppose that isn’t possible, either?” said Greene, sharply.
Barth looked over at him, then quickly looked away again.
“I wasn’t serious,” Barth said. “For that we’d need Cape Canaveral right here beside us.—And then, probably not.”
He looked over at Wallach.
“Jimmy?” he said.
Wallach frowned.
“Hal,” he said. “I don’t know. I can think about it a bit. . . .”
“Maybe,” said Barth, “that’s what we all ought to do. Everybody go off by themselves and chew on the problem a bit.” He turned around and seated himself at the desk surface. “I’m going to go over these figures again.”
Slowly, they rose. Wallach went out, followed by Kronzy. Greene hesitated, looking at Barth, then he turned away and left the room.
Alone once more in the lab, Greene leaned against the sink again and thought. He did not, however, think of mass-to-weight ratios or clever ways of increasing the thrust of the rocket engines.
Instead, he thought of leukemia. And the fact that it was still a disease claiming its hundred per cent of fatalities. But also, he thought of Earth with its many-roomed hospitals; and the multitude of good men engaged in cancer research. Moreover, he thought of the old medical truism that while there is life, there is hope.
All this reminded him of Earth, itself. And his thoughts veered off to a memory of how pleasant it had been, on occasion, after working all the long night through, to step out through a door and find himself unexpectedly washed by the clean air of dawn. He thought of vacations he had never had, fishing he had never done, and the fact that he might have found a woman to love him if he had ever taken off enough time to look for her. He thought of good music—he had always loved good music. And he remembered that he had always intended someday to visit La Scala.
Then—hauling his mind back to duty with a jerk—he began to scowl and ponder the weak and strong points that he knew about in Barth’s character. Not, this time, to anticipate what the man would say when they were all once more back in the control cabin. But for the purpose of circumventing and trapping Barth into a position where Barth would be fenced in by his own principles—the ultimate ju-jitsu of human character manipulation. Greene growled and muttered to himself, in the privacy of the lab marking important points with his forefinger in the artificial and flatly odorous air.
He was still at it, when Kronzy banged at his door again and told him everybody else was already back in the control cabin.
When he got to the control cabin again, the rest were in almost the identical positions they had taken previously.
“Well?” said Barth, when Greene had found himself a niche of space. He looked about the room, at each in turn. “How about you, Jimmy?”
“The four acceleration couches we’ve still got in the ship—. With everything attached to them, they weigh better than two hundred apiece,” said Wallach. “Get rid of two of them, and double up in the two left. That gets rid of four of our five hundred pounds. Taking off from Mars isn’t as rough as taking off from Earth.”
“I’m afraid it won’t work,” Kronzy commented.
“Why not?”
“Two to a couch, right?”
“Right.”
“Well, look. They’re made for one man. Just barely. You can cram two in by having both of them lying on their sides. That’s all right for the two who’re just passengers—but what about the man at the controls?” He nodded at Barth. “He’s got to fly the ship. And how can he do that with half of what he needs to reach behind him, and the man next to him blocking off his reach at the other half?” Kronzy paused. “Besides, I’m telling you—half a couch isn’t going to help hardly at all. You remember how the G’s felt, taking off? And this time all that acceleration is going to be pressing against one set of ribs and a hipbone.”
He stopped talking then.
“We’ll have to think of something else. Any suggestions, Ed?” said Barth.
“Oh.” Kronzy took a deep breath. “Toss out my position taking equipment. All the radio equipment, too. Shoot for Earth blind, deaf and dumb; and leave it up to them down there to find us and bring us home.”
“How much weight would that save?” asked Wallach.
“A hundred and fifty pounds—about.”
“A hundred and fifty! Where’d you figure the rest to come from?”
“I didn’t know,” said Kronzy, wearily. “It was all I could figure to toss, beyond what we’ve already planned to throw out. I was hoping you other guys could come up with the rest.”
He looked at Barth.
“Well, it’s a good possibility, Ed,” said Barth. He turned his face to Greene. “How about you, Bob?”
“Get out and push!” said Greene. “My equipment’s figured to go right down to the last gram. There isn’t any more. You want my suggestion—we can all dehydrate ourselves about eight to ten pounds per man between now and takeoff. That’s it.”
“That’s a good idea, too,” said Barth. “Every pound counts.” He looked haggard around the eyes, Greene noticed. It had the effect of making him seem older than he had half an hour before during their talk in the lab; but Greene knew this to be an illusion.
“Thank you,” Barth went on. “I knew you’d all try hard. I’d been hoping you’d come up with some things I had overlooked myself. More important than any of us getting back, of course, is getting the ship back. Proving something like this will work, to the people who don’t believe in it.”
Greene coughed roughly; and roughly cleared his throat.
“—We can get rid of one acceleration couch as Ed suggests,” Barth continued. “We can dehydrate ourselves as Bob suggested, too; just to be on the safe side. That’s close to two hundred and fifty pounds reduction. Plus a hundred and fifty for the navigational and radio equipment. There’s three hundred and ninety to four hundred. Add one man with his equipment and we’re over the hump with a safe eighty to a hundred pound margin.”
He had added the final item so quietly that for a minute it did not register on those around him.
—Then, abruptly, it did.
“A man?” said Kronzy.
There was a second moment of silence—but this was like the fractionary interval of no sound in which the crowd in the grandstand suddenly realizes that the stunt flyer in the small plane is not coming out of his spin.
“I think,” said Barth, speaking suddenly and loudly in the stillness, “that, as I say, the important thing is getting the ship back down. We’ve got to convince those people that write letters to the newspapers that something like this is possible. So the job can go on.”
They were still silent, looking at him.
“It’s our duty, I believe,” said Barth, “to the Space Project. And to the people back there; and to ourselves. I think it’s something that has to be done.”
He looked at eac
h of them in turn.
“Now Hal—wait!” burst out Wallach, as Barth’s eyes came on him. “That’s going a little overboard, isn’t it? I mean—we can figure out something!”
“Can we?” Barth shook his head. “Jimmy—. There just isn’t any more. If they shoot you for not paying your bills, then it doesn’t help to have a million dollars, if your debts add up to a million dollars and five cents. You know that. If the string doesn’t reach, it doesn’t reach. Everything we can get rid of on this ship won’t be enough. Not if we want her to fly.”
Wallach opened his mouth again; and then shut it. Kronzy looked down at his boots. Greene’s glance went savagely across the room to Barth.
“Well,” said Kronzy. He looked up. Kronzy, too, Greene thought, now looked older. “What do we do—draw straws?”
“No,” Barth said. “I’m in command here. I’ll pick the man.”
“Pick the man!” burst out Wallach, staring. “You—”
“Shut up, Jimmy!” said Kronzy. He was looking hard at Barth. “Just what did you have in mind, Hal?” he said, slowly.
“That’s all.” Barth straightened up in his comer of the control room. “The rest is my responsibility. The rest of you
get back to work tearing out the disposable stuff still in the ship—”
“I think,” said Kronzy, quietly and stubbornly, “we ought to draw straws.”
“You—” said Wallach. He had been staring at Barth ever since Kronzy had told him to shut up. “You’d be the one, Hal?”
“That’s all,” said Barth, again. “Gentlemen, this matter is not open for discussion.”
“The hell,” replied Kronzy, “you say. You may be paper CO of this bunch; but we are just not about to play Captain-go-down-with-his-ship. We all weigh between a hundred-sixty and a hundred and eighty pounds and that makes us equal in the sight of mathematics. Now, we’re going to draw straws; and if you won’t draw, Hal, we’ll draw one for you; and if you won’t abide by the draw, we’ll strap you in the other acceleration couch and one of us can fly the ship out of here. Right, Jimmy? Bob?”
He glared around at the other two. Wallach opened his mouth, hesitated, then spoke.
“Yes,” he said. “I guess that’s right.”
Kronzy stared at him suddenly. Wallach looked away.
“Just a minute,” said Barth.
They looked at him. He was holding a small, black, automatic pistol.
“I’m sorry,” Barth said. “But I am in command. And I intend to stay in command, even if I have to cripple every one of you, strip the ship and strap you into couches myself.” He looked over at Greene. “Bob. You’ll be sensible, won’t you?”
Greene exploded suddenly into harsh laughter. He laughed so hard he had to blink tears out of his eyes before he could get himself under control.
“Sensible!” he said. “Sure, I’ll be sensible. And look after myself at the same time—even if it does take some of the glory out of it.” He grinned almost maliciously at Barth. “Much as I hate to rob anybody else of the spotlight—it just so happens one of us can stay behind here until rescued and live to tell his grandchildren about it.”
They were all looking at him.
“Sure,” said Greene. “There’ll be more ships coming, won’t there? In fact, they’ll have no choice in the matter, if they got a man up here waiting to be rescued.”
“How?” said Kronzy.
“Ever hear of suspended animation?” Greene turned to the younger man. “Deep freeze. Out there in permanent shadow we’ve got just about the best damn deep freeze that ever was invented. The man who stays behind just takes a little nap until saved. In fact, from his point of view, he’ll barely close his eyes before they’ll be waking him up; probably back on Earth.”
“You mean this?” said Barth.
“Of course, I mean it!”
Barth looked at Kronzy.
“Well, Ed,” he said. “I guess that takes care of your objections.”
“Hold on a minute!” Greene said. “I hope you don’t think still you’re going to be the one to stay. This is my idea; and I’ve got first pick at it.—Besides, done up in suits the way we are outside there, I couldn’t work it on anybody else. Whoever gets frozen has got to know what to do by himself; and I’m the only one who fits the bill.” His eyes swept over all of them. “So that’s the choice.”
Barth frowned just slightly.
“Why didn’t you mention this before, Bob?” he said.
“Didn’t think of it—until you came up with your notion of leaving one man behind. And then it dawned on me. It’s simple—for anyone who knows how.”
Barth slowly put the little gun away in a pocket of his coveralls.
“I’m not sure still, I—” he began slowly.
“Why don’t you drop it?” blazed Greene in sudden fury. “You think you’re the only one who’d like to play hero? I’ve got news for you. I’ve given the Project everything I’ve got for a number of years now; but I’m the sort of man who gets forgotten easily. You can bet your boots I won’t be forgotten when they have to come all the way from Earth to save me. It’s my deal; and you’re not going to cut me out of it. And what—” he thrust his chin at Barth—“are you going to do if I simply refuse to freeze anybody but myself? Shoot me?”
Barth shook his head slowly, his eyes shadowed with pain.
Rocket signal rifle held athwart behind him and legs spread, piratically, Greene stood where the men taking off in the rockets could see him in the single control screen that was left in the ship. Below, red light blossomed suddenly down in the pit. The surface trembled under Greene’s feet and the noise of the engines reached him by conduction through the rocks and soles of his boots.
The rocket took off.
Greene waved after it. And then wondered why he had done so. Bravado? But there was no one around to witness bravado now. The other three were on their way to Earth— and they would make it. Greene walked over and shut off the equipment they had set up to record the takeoff. The surrounding area looked more like a junkyard than ever. He reached clumsy gloved fingers into an outside pocket of his suit and withdrew the glass slide. With one booted heel he ground it into the rock.
The first thing they would do with the others would be to give them thorough physical checks, after hauling them out of the south Atlantic. And when that happened, Barth’s leukemia would immediately be discovered. In fact, it was a yet-to-be-solved mystery why it had not shown up during routine medical tests before this. After that—well, while there was life, there was hope.
At any rate, live or die, Barth, the natural identification
figure for those watching the Project, would hold the spotlight of public attention for another six months at least. And if he held it from a hospital bed, so much the better. Greene would pass and be forgotten between two bites of breakfast toast. But Barth—that was something else again.
The Project would be hard to starve to death with Barth dying slowly and uncomplaining before the eyes of taxpayers.
Greene dropped the silly signal rifle. The rocket flame was out of sight now. He felt with gloved hands at the heat control unit under the thick covering of his suit and clumsily crushed it. He felt it give and break. It was amazing, he thought, the readiness of the laity to expect miracles from the medical profession. Anyone with half a brain should have guessed that something which normally required the personnel and physical resources of a hospital, could not be managed alone, without equipment, and on the naked surface of Mars.
Barth would undoubtedly have guessed it—if he had not been blinded by Greene’s wholly unfair implication that Barth was a glory-hunter. Of course, in the upper part of his mind, Barth must know it was not true; but he was too good a man not to doubt himself momentarily when accused. After that, he had been unable to wholly trust his own reasons for insisting on being the one to stay behind.
He’ll forgive me, thought Greene. He’ll forgive me, afterwards, when he figures
it all out.
He shook off his sadness that had come with the thought. Barth had been his only friend. All his life, Greene’s harsh, sardonic exterior had kept people at a distance. Only Barth had realized that under Greene’s sarcasms and jibes he was as much a fool with stars in his eyes as the worst of them. Well, thank heaven he had kept his weakness decently hidden.
He started to lie down, then changed his mind. It was probably the most effective position for what time remained; but it went against his grain that the men who came after him should find him flat on his back in this junkyard.
Greene began hauling equipment together until he had a sort of low seat. But when he had it all constructed, this, too was unsatisfactory.
Finally he built it a little higher. The suit was very stiff, anyway. In the end, he needed only a little propping for his back and arms. He was turned in the direction in which the Earth would rise over the Martian horizon; and, although the upper half of him was still in sunlight, long shadows of utter blackness were pooling about his feet.
Definitely, the lower parts of his suit were cooling now. It occurred to him that possibly he would freeze by sections in this position. No matter, it was a relatively painless death. —Forgive me, he thought in Barth’s direction, lost among the darkness of space and the light of the stars.—It would have been a quicker, easier end for you this way, I know. But you and I both were always blank checks to be filled out on demand and paid into the account of Man’s future. It was only then that we could have had any claim to fives of our own.
As Greene had now, in these final seconds.
He pressed back against the equipment he had built up. It held him solidly. This little, harmless pleasure he gave his own grim soul. Up here in the airlessness of Mars’ bare surface, nothing could topple him over now.
When the crew of the next ship came searching, they would find what was left of him still on his feet.
The Star Road Page 2