Station in Space

by James Gunn

  Migliardo started to say something, shrugged, and closed his mouth. Craddock threw down a card.

  “Gin!” Migliardo said triumphantly, putting down his cards. “That's three hundred and twelve dollars you owe me."

  Craddock stared down incredulous. Suddenly he looked up and threw his cards into Migliardo's face. “Cheater!” he shouted hysterically. “You lousy cardsharp, I'm not going to pay you! I'm not going to play any more, either! You're a dirty dago cardsharp!"

  He broke off in a convulsion of coughs that racked his body and made his hazel eyes bulge in their sockets. Migliardo stared at him in astonishment, blood oozing from a cut under his left eye where the corner of one card had hit him.

  The screen went dark.

  V

  As the lights came on, Faust turned quickly toward Lloyd. “Another meteor?"

  “End of the reel."

  Faust's breath sighed out. “It doesn't look good."

  Lloyd said, “Don't be misled. We're showing the worst of it. There are many days when life went on in an ordinary, uneventful fashion. No arguments, no fights, no disagreements."

  “Something like that once a month would be too often ... It seems like—an oddly assorted group of men that was chosen."

  Lloyd smiled. “Criticism intended? We picked them carefully, first looking for crew balance, then the necessary skills. They were intended to complement each other, one man's weakness against another's strength. We tried to figure pressures, the abrasion of personalities, the pecking order—but it's like trying to predict the nature of matter on Jupiter. Those men are living out there under conditions about which we had no information—when we chose them. We're getting it now."

  Faust looked curiously at Lloyd. “I thought those men were friends of yours.” Lloyd's face hardened. “They are. Every one of them. You wouldn't put a friend through a test to destruction? Maybe not. But you'd nominate the best candidate and then watch his campaign closely, so that if he fails you won't make the same mistake again. I don't want to send out any more men blind."

  Faust frowned. “I see. But doesn't the television equipment take up space that could be used for something that could help them survive? More food and water? Enough steak so that Barr could have one every day? Radio receiving equipment?"

  Lloyd shook his head. “If there were enough steaks, Barr wouldn't be interested. His drive is psychological—all their drives are. Receiving equipment isn't a help but a threat to their sanity. How would you feel if you knew you were cut off, irretrievably, from the rest of humanity for a minimum of two and a half years, and you could hear, constantly, the reminder that men were living safe, sane, happy lives, that they were eating anything they wanted, going to ball games, sleeping with women, walking out on the green Earth? It would drive you mad.

  “We tried that on the Pinta and the Niña. On the Pinta the radio was smashed the first week. On the Niña it lasted ten days. Those men are cut off. They must know it, know that they can receive no help, that they're on their own. Psychologically they must feel that life has stopped for everyone else, too. If they can get back, they will find everything just as it was when they left, the same friends, the same jobs, the same girls to love them. No, receiving equipment isn't the answer."

  Faust said, “You sound as if you're trying to convince yourself."

  “You think I'm not? You think I don't dread watching these films? And yet I look forward to it with a fascination that horrifies me.

  “And still I know that those men have enough to get them through—if men can get through at all. They have more than enough food, more than enough fuel, more than enough air. And on top of that, there is a safety factor."

  Faust's eyes brightened. “Ah, the mysterious safety factor. I had almost forgotten that. What is it?"

  Lloyd hesitated. “I'd rather you saw for yourself. It worked out rather—oddly.” He glanced at his wrist watch. “How about lunch? Amos is waiting."

  Faust's voice mellowed. “Amos looks worse than a year ago. How long is he going to last?"

  “Not long enough to do what he wants to do."

  “Why hasn't he ever made general?"

  “He's turned it down repeatedly. A colonel commands the Little Wheel. Inside, they think it's not a big enough job for a general; take his job away and he'd die. Physiologically it would be disastrous. Don't tell him I told you—he's got a bad heart. Heavy primary damage. He'll live longer here."

  “You've never made general yourself,” Faust said. “How many promotions have you turned down?"

  “A few,” Lloyd said curtly. “Here we are.” He pulled open a door, and they were in the mess hall, three long aluminum tables with benches attached. The room was empty except for Amos Danton, who sat next to the delivery chute of the electronic range. He was staring expressionlessly at his tray as the door opened, but he looked up, smiling, as they entered.

  “I've taken the liberty of ordering for you,” he said.

  They seated themselves at the trays and set to work. Danton, Lloyd noticed, had only a chef's salad. He stirred it around with his fork, but Lloyd did not see him take a bite.

  He loved this man, this carved, blackened face with the almost-blind eyes and the thin stubble of white hair, this hard, talented leader of men who had sent too many of them to their deaths and had died with every one of them, this strange, dedicated spacefarer, this father-image.

  Danton was saying quietly, “What do you think, Jim? You know men, and you're fresh. You haven't lived with it as we have. Is it bad?"

  Faust nodded slowly. “It will be a miracle if they make it."

  Danton groaned. “And you've only seen the first thirty days. Lloyd, I told you I should have gone. You should have let me go."

  Lloyd started to speak, but Faust was there ahead of him. “No, Amos. You were indispensable. Without you there would be nothing here now. You're still indispensable."

  “I'd like to believe you,” Danton said, covering his face with a wrinkled hand. “But Lloyd can carry on.” He turned fiercely on Lloyd. “You will carry on, Lloyd! You can't have any life but this.” He looked toward the open port, where the many-colored stars turned endlessly. “The old order passeth. The day of the unspecialized spaceman is done. Now comes the psychologist who can fit men to space and not space to men."

  Lloyd said, “Ready?"

  Danton rose with them.

  Lloyd turned to Faust. “Go on ahead, will you, Jim?"

  Faust nodded and headed briskly for the door.

  When they were alone, Lloyd said, “Amos, Terry is leaving me."

  Danton closed his eyes for a moment and then looked with concern at Lloyd. “Taking the kids?"

  “So she says. She's had it, Amos. I've seen it coming for years. I've tried to stave it off, but what can you do when a woman wants the company of sane people with their feet on the ground, wants her children to run across green lawns bareheaded in the sunshine, to play baseball and football, go to dances and sit with a girl under a full moon? How can you argue with that?"

  “You don't argue, son. Even a man who's never had a wife can tell you that much."

  “I've thought of one thing,” Lloyd said slowly. “We went wrong when we built the cottages. There's too much loneliness out here already without adding more. We've got nine families and one empty cottage since Chapman's wife left him. Let's connect the nine together with the empty one in the middle. That one we'll convert into a recreation center with lounges, a dance floor, card rooms, a gym in the center. The women can get together without going outside, and the crewmen can use it, too. Can we afford it?"

  Danton nodded. “Sounds like mostly labor, and we've got nothing to work on, now. We not only can afford it, we can't afford not to have it. But that isn't going to solve your problem."

  Lloyd's face turned gloomy again. “I know."

  “I hate to sound like an advice-to-the-lovelornist,” Danton said, “but women need security. Emotional security. How long has it been since y
ou showed Terry that you love her?"

  “Too long,” Lloyd said soberly. And then with a sudden explosion of better spirits, he said, “Let's go see the films."

  VI

  Seventy-three days out. The ungainly contraption of fuel tanks and rocket motors and fragile living space, the Santa Maria, was twelve million miles from Earth. For the last few days, the bright double star that was the Earth and the moon had slowly dimmed and disappeared. It had turned its night side to the ship.

  This time the ship was not quiet. Music pounded throughout the personnel sphere, with wild riffs, the sudden brassy blare of trumpets, the low dirty growling of slide trombones. Holloway was on watch. He was staring through the combination telescope and celestial camera at the spectacular event that was about to begin.

  Craddock was at the water spigot, filling his flask. Coughs occasionally shook his body. His face looked quite thin now; he seemed years older.

  Barr was lying in his bunk. He was reading a paperback book. Occasionally a chuckle broke through the crash of the music.

  Jelinek and Migliardo clung to the handholds at the port. A thick, translucent shield had been slipped over it, but the sun was still a white-hot disk through it.

  “Iron!” Craddock said suddenly, “can't you turn down that noise just a little? We've heard those tapes twenty times."

  Barr said, “It's better than listening to you hack all the time."

  Jelinek said, not looking around, “Just a little lower, Barr. That's not asking much."

  “The hell it isn't,” Barr said.

  “Mig?” Jelinek asked. “Too loud?"

  “Too loud,” Mig said.

  “Three of us say it's too loud, Iron. We don't need to bother Burt. You're outvoted. Turn it down."

  “Fuck you!” Barr said.

  Jelinek spun to Barr's bunk and twisted the knob on the stanchion. The music stopped. Instantly Barr had Jelinek's thin wrist in his big left hand. The bones grated together. Barr pulled himself up to Jelinek's face in the silence that was more absolute than the grave.

  Barr said, “I like it, see! The silence is too loud; you have to drown it out. I want life around me, if I have to kill every one of you. Now leave me alone!” He threw Jelinek's arm away, switched the music to its highest volume; and let the straps pull him back into a floating position above his bunk.

  Jelinek looked down at his wrist. White fingermarks ate deep into the tanned skin. Slowly they turned red. He chewed at the end of his mustache. It had grown ragged. Then he turned, shrugging, and caught the handhold by the port. Migliardo looked at him questioningly. Jelinek lifted an eyebrow helplessly.

  Barr roared, “And get away from that water, Craddock!"

  Craddock jumped. He said sullenly, “There's lots of water."

  “Not the way you've been lapping it up,” Barr said. “Every time I look I see you sneaking another drink."

  “I'm allotted four and a half pounds a day. And you know it."

  “You've been swilling twice that. Cut it out, or I'll have to put a lock on it like I put on the freezer to keep you guys out of the steaks."

  Jelinek said, “There's more than enough water, Barr. If we get desperate, we've got utility water."

  Barr looked at Jelinek, his lip curling contemptuously. “Would you drink that stuff?"

  “Yes."

  “I guess you would! Well, I won't. I want clean water. Lots of it. You want to make it hard on yourself, go ahead!"

  Jelinek said carefully, “Don't drive us too hard, Barr. We'll let you have the steaks, we'll let you—"

  “Who's letting me?” Barr said brutally. “I'm taking!"

  “We'll let you drive us a ways, because we're all on the Outward Bound together. But if you push us too far, we may decide that we have a better chance without you."

  “Fuck you! You bastards wouldn't crock a flea if it was crawling on your—"

  Mig shouted, “Emil! It's starting!"

  Jelinek swung around. Across the flaming disk of the sun edged a small black spot. It was Earth. They were seeing what few other eyes had ever seen—a transit of the Earth and moon. An hour later a smaller speck would appear and follow the Earth toward the sun's blazing center. The transit would last eight hours.

  Holloway called exultantly, “Thirteen hundred twelve and six seconds. Right on the nose."

  Migliardo said, “I'd better give Burt a hand. We need these readings for course correction.” He swung to the pole and pulled himself toward the control deck.

  Craddock looked at Barr and said, “I'm going to check on the supplies.” He coughed and disappeared through the hole leading to the storage deck.

  When they were alone, Jelinek said to Barr, “Turn it down a little, Barr. I want to talk to you, and I'd rather the others didn't hear. It isn't often any two of us are alone."

  Sullenly Barr reached over and switched the music down.

  Jelinek moved his hand impatiently. “What are you trying to do, Barr?"

  “Get what's mine."

  “All the steaks? That's yours? Listen, Barr!” Jelinek said urgently. “We could be just as hard as you are. But we know we're living in an egg shell. We're all together on the Onward Bound—"

  “It's the Santa Maria,” Barr snapped.

  “Sorry. Bad habit. What I'm trying to say is—we know that our lives depend on you. In the same sense, your life depends on every one of us. You can't get back without me, Barr. I'm the pilot. If something happens to me, you're dead. Get that! Dead, dead, dead! No more steaks, then, Barr. No more women. No more Barr."

  “I don't scare worth a damn, Jelinek."

  “Barr! It's time you were scared. We're looking death right in the face. If you aren't scared now, there's no help for any of us!"

  “Shut up!” Barr screamed. “Shut up or I'll shut you up! We're in no more danger than we were on that joy ride to the moon. We've got it made, Emil! We're only ten days out."

  “Barr. This is only the seventy-third day. We've got one hundred and eighty-seven to go."

  “You're trying to scare me,” Barr said quickly. “I've kept track. Don't look at the clock! It's wrong. They're trying to trick us, Phillips is. I know how he works. We're almost there, Emil. Don't lie to me! It's true, isn't it? We're almost—"

  Jelinek was shaking his head slowly. “It would be no kindness to let you go on thinking that. Look out there—a transit of the Earth and moon. Seventy-three days out, Barr, exactly."

  Barr's eyes were bulging with fear; his chest drew in huge gulps of air. “No, no..."

  Craddock's voice floated up gleefully from the storage deck. “Barr, I just urinated in the water supply. Hear me, Barr? What will you drink now, Barr?"

  Anger contorted Barr's face like an expression of relief. He started up. “That filthy, little—"

  Jelinek shoved him back. “He's lying, Barr. There's no way to get into the water supply down there. But that's how far you've driven him."

  Barr's eyes gleamed savagely. “He'd find a way. He hates me. You all hate me. I don't give a damn! You all watch me and talk about me and plot against me! Go ahead. I can take you one at a time or all at once."

  There was a scrambling sound as Craddock went through the airlock door, and a clang as it slammed down. Barr said viciously, “I'll get the little—when he comes back in."

  “This morning when—I came on watch,” Jelinek said slowly, “I found tool marks around the sealed panel on the control deck. They weren't there yesterday. You had the watch before mine."

  Barr sneered. “So what?"

  “You've been trying to get in there. You're going to stop, Barr. If I find any more tool marks around that panel, I'm going to kill you, Barr. It would be easy for me. A hypodermic some night, a little arsensic on one of the steaks. You stay away from that panel!"

  After a moment Barr said, “You wouldn't dare kill me. You're too careful. It would reduce your chances of getting through."

  “I wouldn't take a chance on it if I were you,
Barr,” Jelinek said.

  The music clicked back up. The beat made the ship vibrate.

  There was a scrambling sound from the supply deck. Jelinek turned. Craddock, in full spacesuit, was drifting along the pole. Through the faceplate Jelinek could see Craddock's face contorted, his eyes staring, his mouth open.

  Jelinek sprang toward him and started loosening the wing nuts that held the helmet in place. He pulled the helmet off. Craddock's screams rose above the crash of the music. They came out one after another with scarcely time between for a breath.

  “Ted!” Jelinek shouted. He slapped him across the face, clutching one arm of Craddock's suit to keep from being spun across the room.

  Craddock's screams stopped suddenly. The room was horribly silent.

  Craddock drew a shuddering breath, closed his eyes, and opened them. Sanity had come back into them.

  Jelinek said forcefully, “What happened, Ted?"

  “I was—going down—to check—on the supplies—” He drew in another ragged breath. “I saw him. Somebody back there. He came out from behind one of the sounding missiles."

  “What did he look like?"

  “Pale face. Beard. Very white hands—"

  Jelinek said sharply, “How could you see his hands if he had on a suit?"

  “No suit. He had a sort of cloth around his hips like a sloppy pair of shorts. No helmet, no suit."

  Somebody said, “Stowaway!"

  Jelinek looked toward the hole leading to the control deck.

  Two faces were framed there: Migliardo's, dark and frowning; Holloway's, white, stricken. Holloway had spoken. “There's no air back there,” Jelinek said. “No food or water.

  “No way a man could live for five minutes, much less seventy-three days."

  Holloway said, “It doesn't have to be a man."

  Barr shouted, “What else could it be?"

  Holloway didn't say anything.

  Barr shouted, “What are you trying to do, scare me? It's just a joke, eh, Ted? Trying to get even?"