The Golden Age of Science Fiction Novels Vol 01

by Anthology

  Before he drove off, Jig Hollins tried to chuckle mockingly at everybody, especially Charlie Reynolds. "Time to think about keeping a nice safe job in the Jarviston powerhouse--eh, Reynolds? And staying near granddad?"

  "We're supposed not to be children, Hollins," Charlie shot back at him from his car window. "We're supposed to have known long ago that these things happen, and to have adjusted ourselves to our chances."

  "Ninnies that get scared first thing, when the facts begin to show!" Tiflin snarled. "Cripes--let's don't be like soft bugs under boards!"

  "You're right, Tif," Frank Nelsen agreed, feeling that for once the ne'er-do-well--the nuisance--might be doing them all some good. Frank could feel how Tiflin shamed some of the quiver out of his own insides, and helped bring back pride and strength.

  The Far Side disaster had been pretty disturbing, however. And next day, Thursday, the blue envelopes came to the members of the Bunch. A printed card with a typed-in date, was inside each: "Report for space-fitness tests at Space-Medicine Center, February 15th..."

  "Just a couple of weeks!" Two-and-Two was moaning that night. "How'll I get through, with my courses only half-finished. You've gotta help me some more, people! With that stinking math...!"

  So equipment building was almost suspended, while the Bunch crammed and sweated and griped and cursed. But maybe now some of them wouldn't care so very much if they flunked.

  Two loaded automobiles took off for Minneapolis on the night before the ordeal. The Bunch put up at motels to be fresh the next morning. Maybe some of them even slept.

  At the Center, there were more forms to fill out. Then complete physicals started the process. Next came the written part. Right off, Frank Nelsen knew that this was going a familiar way, which had happened quite often at Tech: Struggle through a tough course, hear dire promises of head-cracking questions and math problems in the final quiz. Then the switch--the easy letdown.

  The remainder of the tests proceeded like assembly-line operations, each person taking each alone, in the order of his casual position in the waiting line.

  First there was the dizzying, mind-blackening centrifuge test, to see if you could take enough Gs of acceleration, and still be alert enough to fit a simple block puzzle together.

  Then came the free fall test, from the top of a thousand foot tower. A parachute-arrangement broke your speed at the bottom of the track. As in the centrifuge, instruments incorporated into the fabric of a coverall suit with a hood, were recording your emotional and bodily reactions. The medics wanted to be sure that your panic level was high and cool. Nelsen didn't find free fall very hard to take, either.

  Right after that came the scramble to see how fast you could get into an Archer, unfold and inflate a bubb and rig its gear.

  "That's all, Mister," the observer with the camera told Nelsen in a bored tone.

  "Results will be mailed to your home within twelve hours--Mr. Nelsen," a girl informed him as she read his name from a printed card.

  So the Bunch returned tensely to Jarviston, with more time to sweat out. Everybody looked at Gimp Hines--and then looked away. Even Jig Hollins didn't make any comments. Gimp, himself, seemed pretty subdued.

  The small, green space-fitness cards were arriving at Jarviston addresses in the morning.

  Near the end of the noon hour, Two-and-Two Baines was waving his around the Tech campus, having gone home to look, as of course everybody else who could, had also done. "Cripes!--Hi-di-ho--here it is!" he was yelling at the frosty sky, when Frank came with his own ticket.

  The Kuzaks had theirs, and were calm about it. Eileen Sands' card was tucked neatly into her sweater pocket, as she joined those who were waiting for the others on the front steps of Tech's Carver Hall.

  Ramos had to make a noise. "See what Santa brought the lady! But he didn't forget your Uncle Miguel, either--see! We're in, kid--be happy. Yippee!"

  He tried to whirl her in some crazy dance, but Gimp was swinging along the slushy walk on his crutches. His grin was a mile wide. Mitch Storey was with him, looking almost as pleased.

  "Guess legs don't count, Out There," Gimp was saying. "Or patched tickers, either, as long as they work good! I kind of figured on it... Hey--I don't want to ride anybody's shoulders, Ramos--cut it out...! We won't know about Charlie and Jig till tonight, when they come to Paul's from their jobs. But I don't think that there's any sweat for them, either... Only--where's Tif? He should be back by now from where he lives with his father..."

  Tiflin didn't show up at Hendricks' at all that evening, or at his garage job either. Ramos phoned from the garage to confirm that.

  "And he's not at home," Ramos added. "The boss sent me to check. His Old Man says he doesn't know where Tif is and cares less."

  "Just leave Tif be," Mitch Storey said softly.

  "Maybe that's best, at that," old Paul growled. "Only I hope the darned idiot doesn't cook himself up another jam..."

  They all knew then, for sure, what had happened. Right now, Glen Tiflin was wandering alone, somewhere, cursing and suffering. As likely as not, he'd start hitchhiking across the country, to try to get away from himself... Somewhere the test instruments--which had seemed so lenient--had tripped him up, spotting the weakness that he had tried to fight. Temper, nerves--emotional instability. So there was no green card for Tif, to whom space was a kind of Nirvana...

  The Bunch worked on with their preparations. Things got done all right, but the fine edge of enthusiasm had dulled. Jig Hollins flung his usual remarks, with their derisive undertone, around for a couple of weeks. Then he came into the shop with a girl who had a pretty, rather blank face, and a mouth that could twist with stubborn anger.

  "Meet Minnie," Jig said loudly. "She is one reason why I have decided that I've had enough of this kid stuff. I gave it a whirl--for kicks. But who, with any sense, wants to go batting off to Mars or the Asteroids? That's for the birds, the crackpots. Wife, house, kids--right in your own home town--that's the only sense there is. Minnie showed me that, and we're gonna get married!"

  The Bunch looked at Jig Hollins. He was swaggering. He was making sour fun of them, but in his eyes there were other signs, too. A pleading: Agree with me--back me up--quit! Don't see through me--it's not so, anyhow! Don't say I'm hiding behind a skirt... Above all, don't call me yellow! I'm not yellow, I tell you! I'm tough Jig Hollins! You're the dopes!...

  Frank Nelsen spoke for the others. "We understand, Jig. We'll be getting you a little wedding present. Later on, maybe we'll be able to send you something really good. Best of luck..."

  They let Jig Hollins and his Minnie go. They felt their contempt and pity, and their lifting, wild pride. Maybe Jig Hollins, wise guy and big mouth, boosted their own selves quite a bit, by contrast.

  "Poor sap," Joe Kuzak breathed. "Who's he kidding--us or himself, or neither...?"

  Soon Eileen began to show symptoms: Sighs. A restlessness. Sudden angry pouts that would change as quickly to the secret smiles of reverie, while she hummed a soft tune to herself, and rose on her toes, dancing a few steps. Speculative looks at Nelsen, or the other guys around her. Maybe she envied men. Her eyes would narrow thoughtfully for a second. Then she might look scared and very young, as if her thoughts frightened her. But the expression of determined planning would return.

  After about ten days of this, Gimp asked, "What's with you, Eileen? You don't usually say much, but now there must be something else."

  She tossed down a fistful of waste with which she had been wiping her hands--she had been cementing segments of the last of the ten bubbs they would make--more than they needed, now, but spares might be useful.

  "Okay, all," she said briskly. "You should hear this, without any further delay. I'm clearing out, too. Reasons? Well--at least since Tif flunked his emotional I've been getting the idea that possibly I've been playing on a third-rate team. No offense, please--I don't really believe it's so, and if it isn't so you're tough enough not to be hurt. Far worse--I'm a girl. So why am I trying
to do things in a man's way, when there are means that are made for me? I'm all of twenty-two. I've got nobody except an aunt in Illinois. Meanwhile, out in New Mexico, there's a big spaceport, and a lot of the right people who can help me. I'll bet I can get where you want to go, before you do. Tell Mr. J. John Reynolds that he can have my equipment--most of which he paid for. But perhaps I'll still be able to give him his ten percent."

  "Eileen! Cripes, what are you talking about?" This was Ramos yelping, as if the clown could be hurt, after all.

  "I don't mean anything so bad, Fun Boy," she said more gently. "Lots of men are remarkably chivalrous. But no arguments. Now that I have declared my intentions, I'll pick up and pull out of here this minute--taking some pleasant memories with me, as well as a space-fitness card. You're all good, plodding joes--honest. But there'll be a plane west from Minneapolis tomorrow."

  She was getting into her blazer. Even Ramos saw that arguments would be futile. Frank Nelsen's throat ached suddenly, as if at sins of omission. But that was wrong. Eileen Sands was too old for him, anyhow.

  "So long, you characters," she said. "Good luck. Don't follow me outside. Maybe I'll see you, someplace."

  "Right, Eileen--we'll miss yuh," Storey said. "And we better sure enough see you that someplace!"

  There were ragged shouts. "Good luck, kid. So long, Eileen..."

  She was gone--a small, scared, determined figure, dressed like a boy. On her wrist was a watch that might get pawned for a plane ticket.

  Ramos was unbelievably glum for days. But he worked harder building air-restorers than most of the Bunch had ever worked before. "We're hardcore, now--we'll last," he would growl. "Final, long lap--March, April and May--with no more interruptions. In June, when our courses at Tech are finished, we'll be ready to roll..."

  That was about how it turned out. Near the end of May, the Bunch lined up in the shop, the ten blastoff drums they had made, including two spares. The drums were just large tubes of sheet magnesium, in which about everything that each man would need was compactly stowed: Archer Five, bubb, sun-powered ionic drive motor, air-restorer, moisture-reclaimer, flasks of oxygen and water, instruments, dehydrated foods, medicines, a rifle, instruction manuals, a few clothes, and various small, useful items. Everything was cut to minimum, to keep the weight down. The lined up drums made a utilitarian display that looked rather grim.

  The gear was set out like this, for the safety inspectors to look at during the next few days, and provide their stamp of approval.

  The blastoff tickets had also been purchased--for June tenth.

  "Well, how do you think the Bunch should travel to New Mexico, Paul?" Frank Nelsen joshed.

  "Like other Bunches, I guess," Paul Hendricks laughed. "A couple of moving vans should do the trick..."

  III

  On June first, ten days before blastoff, David Lester came back to the shop, sheepishness, pleasure and worry showing in his face.

  "I cleared up matters at home, guys," he said. "And I went to Minneapolis and obtained one of these." He held up the same kind of space-fitness card that the others had.

  "The tests are mostly passive," he explained further. "Anybody can be whirled in a centrifuge, or take a fall. That is somewhat simpler, in its own way, than clinging to a careening motor scooter. Though I do admit that I was still almost rejected...! So, I'll join you, again--if I'm permitted? I understand that my old gear has been completed, as a spare? Paul told me. Of course I'm being crusty, in asking to have it back, now?"

  "Uh-uh, Les--I'm sure that's okay," Ramos grunted. "Right, fellas?"

  The others nodded.

  A subdued cheerfulness seemed to possess Lester, the mamma's boy, as if he had eased and become less introverted. The Bunch took him back readily enough, though with misgivings. Still, the mere fact that a companion could return, after defeat, helped brace their uncertain morale.

  "I'll order you a blastoff ticket, Les," Frank Nelsen said. "In one of the two GOs--ground-to-orbit rockets--reserved for us. The space is still there..."

  David Lester had won a battle. He meant to win through, completely. Perhaps some of this determination was transmitted to the others. Two-and-Two Baines, for example, seemed more composed.

  There wasn't much work to do during those last days, after the equipment had been inspected and approved, the initials of each man painted in red on his blastoff drum, and all the necessary documents put in order.

  Mitch Storey rode a bus to Mississippi, to say goodbye to his folks. The Kuzaks flew to Pennsylvania for the same reason. Likewise, Gimp Hines went by train to Illinois. Ramos rode his scooter all the way down to East Texas and back, to see his parents and a flock of younger brothers and sisters. When he returned, he solemnly gave his well-worn vehicle to an earnest boy still in high school.

  "No dough," Ramos said. "I just want her to have a good home."

  Those of the Bunch who had families didn't run into any serious last minute objections from them about their going into space. Blasting out was getting to be an accepted destiny.

  There was a moment of trouble with Two-and-Two Baines about a kid of eight years named Chippie Potter, who had begun to hang around Hendricks' just the way Frank Nelsen had done, long ago. But more especially, the trouble was about Chippie's fox terrier, Blaster.

  "The lad of course can't go along with us, Out There, on account of school and his Mom," Two-and-Two said sentimentally, on one of those final evenings. "So he figures his mutt should go in his place. Shucks, maybe he's right! A lady mutt first made it into orbit, ahead of any people, remember? And we ought to have a mascot. We could make a sealed air-conditioned box and smuggle old Blaster. Afterwards, he'd be all right, inside a bubb."

  "You try any stunt like that and I'll shoot you," Frank Nelsen promised. "Things are going to be complicated enough."

  "You always tell me no, Frank," Two-and-Two mourned.

  "I know something else," said Joe Kuzak--he and his tough twin had returned to Jarviston by then, as had all the others who had visited their homes. "There's a desperate individual around, again. Tiflin. He appealed his test--and lost. Kind of a good guy--someways..."

  The big Kuzaks, usually easy and steady and not too comical, both had a certain kind of expression, now--like amused and secretive gorillas. Frank wasn't sure whether he got the meaning of this or not, but right then he felt sort of sympathetic to Tiflin, too.

  "I didn't hear anything; I won't say or do anything," he laughed.

  Afterwards, under the pressure of events, he forgot the whole matter.

  It would take about thirty-six hours to get to the New Mexico spaceport. Calculating accordingly, the Bunch hoisted their gear aboard two canvas-covered trucks parked in the driveway beside Hendricks', just before sundown of their last day in Jarviston.

  People had begun to gather, to see them off. Two-and-Two's folks, a solid, chunky couple, looking grave. David Lester's mother, of course, seeming younger than the Bunch remembered her. Make-up brought back some of her good-looks. She was more Spartan than they had thought, too.

  "I have made up a basket of sandwiches for you and your comrades, Lester," she said.

  Otto Kramer was out with free hotdogs, beer and Pepsi, his face sad. J. John Reynolds, backer of the Bunch, had promised to come down, later. Chief of Police, Bill Hobard, was there, looking grim, as if he was half glad and half sorry to lose this passel of law-abiding but worrisome young eccentrics. There were various cynical and curious loafers around, too. There were Chippie Potter and his mutt--a more wistful and worshipping pair would have been hard to imagine.

  Sophia Jameson, one of Charlie Reynolds' old flames, was there. Charlie had sold his car and given away his wardrobe, but he still managed to look good in a utilitarian white coverall.

  "Well, we had a lot of laughs, anyway, you big ape!" Sophia was saying to Charlie, when Roy Harder, the mailman with broken-down feet, shuffled up, puffing.

  "One for you, Reynolds," he said. "Also one for you, Nelsen.
They just came--ordinarily I wouldn't deliver them till tomorrow morning. But you see how it is."

  A long, white envelope was in Frank Nelsen's hands. In its upper left-hand corner was engraved:

  UNITED STATES SPACE FORCE RECRUITING SECTION WASHINGTON, D.C.

  "Jeez, Frankie--Charlie--you made it--open 'em, quick!" Two-and-Two said.

  Frank was about to do so. But everybody knew exactly what was inside such an envelope--the only thing that was ever so enclosed, unless you were already in the Force. An official summons to report, on such and such a date and such and such a place, for examination.

  For a minute Frank Nelsen suffered the awful anguish of indecision over a joke of circumstance. Like most of the others, he had tried to get into the Force. He had given it up as hopeless. Now, when he was ready to move out on his own, the chance came. Exquisite irony.

  Frank felt the lift of maybe being one of--well--the Chosen. To wear the red, black and silver rocket emblem, to use the finest equipment, to carry out dangerous missions, to exercise authority in space, and yet to be pampered, as those who make a mark in life are pampered.

  "Que milagro!--holy cow!" Ramos breathed. "Charlie--Frankie--congratulations!"

  Frank saw the awed faces around them. They were looking up to him and Charlie in a friendly way, but already he felt that he had kind of lost them by being a little luckier. Or was this all goof ball sentiment in his own mind, to make himself feel real modest?

  So maybe he got sentimental about this impoverished, ragtag Bunch that, even considering J. John Reynolds' help, still were pulling themselves up into space almost literally by their own bootstraps. He had always belonged to the Bunch, and he still did. So perhaps he just got sore.

  Charlie's and his eyes met for a second, in understanding.

  "Thanks, Postman Roy," Charlie said. "Only you were right the first time. These letters shouldn't be delivered until your next trip around, tomorrow morning."

  They both handed the envelopes back to Roy Harder.

  The voices of their Bunch-mates jangled in a conflicting chorus.