Anthology of Speculative Fiction, Volume One

by Short Story Anthology

  "Donny, about Ken--"

  "No matter, Martha," he said hastily. "Space-medic's pay is good."

  "But, Donny--" She turned from the window, stared at him briefly, then said, "Sure, Donny, sure," and came back to sit down by his bed.

  He smiled at her affectionately. She was a man's woman, was Martha--always had been, still was. He had married her the year he had gone to space--a lissome, wistful, old-fashioned lass, with big violet eyes and gentle hands and gentle thoughts--and she had never complained about the long and lonely weeks between blast-off and glide-down, when most spacers' wives listened to the psychiatrists and soap-operas and soon developed the symptoms that were expected of them, either because the symptoms were chic, or because they felt they should do something to earn the pity that was extended to them. "It's not so bad," Martha had assured him. "The house keeps me busy till Nora's home from school, and then there's a flock of kids around till dinner. Nights are a little empty, but if there's a moon, I can always go out on the porch and look at it and know where you are. And Nora gets out the telescope you built her, and we make a game of it. 'Seeing if Daddy's still at the office,' she calls it."

  * * * * *

  "Those were the days," he muttered.

  "What, Donny?"

  "Do you remember that Steve Farran song?"

  She paused, frowning thoughtfully. There were a lot of Steve Farran songs, but after a moment she picked the right one, and sang it softly ...

  "O moon whereo'er the clouds fly, Beyond the willow tree, There is a ramblin' space guy I wish you'd save for me.

  "Mare Tranquillitatis, O dark and tranquil sea, Until he drops from heaven, Rest him there with thee ..."

  Her voice cracked, and she laughed. Old Donegal chuckled weakly.

  "Fried mush," he said. "That one made the cats wilt their ears and wail at the moon.

  "I feel real crazy," he added. "Hand me the king kong, fluff-muff."

  "Keep cool, Daddy-O, you've had enough." Martha reddened and patted his arm, looking pleased. Neither of them had talked that way, even in the old days, but the out-dated slang brought back memories--school parties, dances at the Rocketport Club, the early years of the war when Donegal had jockeyed an R-43 fighter in the close-space assaults against the Soviet satellite project. The memories were good.

  A brassy blare of modern "slide" arose suddenly from the Keith terrace as the small orchestra launched into its first number. Martha caught an angry breath and started toward the window.

  "Leave it," he said. "It's a party. Whiskey, Martha. Please--just a small one."

  She gave him a hurtful glance.

  "Whiskey. Then you can call the priest."

  "Donny, it's not right. You know it's not right--to bargain for such as that."

  "All right. Whiskey. Forget the priest."

  She poured it for him, and helped him get it down, and then went out to make the phone-call. Old Donegal lay shuddering over the whiskey taste and savoring the burn in his throat. Jesus, but it was good.

  You old bastard, he thought, you got no right to enjoy life when nine-tenths of you is dead already, and the rest is foggy as a thermal dust-rise on the lunar maria at hell-dawn. But it wasn't a bad way to die. It ate your consciousness away from the feet up; it gnawed away the Present, but it let you keep the Past, until everything faded and blended. Maybe that's what Eternity was, he thought--one man's subjective Past, all wrapped up and packaged for shipment, a single space-time entity, a one-man microcosm of memories, when nothing else remains.

  "If I've got a soul, I made it myself," he told the gray nun at the foot of his bed.

  The nun held out a pie pan, rattled a few coins in it. "Contribute to the Radiation Victims' Relief?" the nun purred softly.

  "I know you," he said. "You're my conscience. You hang around the officers' mess, and when we get back from a sortie, you make us pay for the damage we did. But that was forty years ago."

  The nun smiled, and her luminous eyes were on him softly. "Mother of God!" he breathed, and reached for the whiskey. His arm obeyed. The last drink had done him good. He had to watch his hand to see where it was going, and squeezed the neck until his fingers whitened so that he knew that he had it, but he got it off the table and onto his chest, and he got the cork out with his teeth. He had a long pull at the bottle, and it made his eyes water and his hands grow weak. But he got it back to the table without spilling a bit, and he was proud of himself.

  The room was spinning like the cabin of a gyro-gravved ship. By the time he wrestled it to a standstill, the nun was gone. The blare of music from the Keith terrace was louder, and laughing voices blended with it. Chairs scraping and glasses rattling. A fine party, Keith, I'm glad you picked today. This shebang would be the younger Keith's affair. Ronald Tonwyler Keith, III, scion of Orbital Engineering and Construction Company--builders of the moon-shuttle ships that made the run from the satellite station to Luna and back.

  It's good to have such important neighbors, he thought. He wished he had been able to meet them while he was still up and about. But the Keiths' place was walled-in, and when a Keith came out, he charged out in a limousine with a chauffeur at the wheel, and the iron gate closed again. The Keiths built the wall when the surrounding neighborhood began to grow shabby with age. It had once been the best of neighborhoods, but that was before Old Donegal lived in it. Now it consisted of sooty old houses and rented flats, and the Keith place was really not a part of it anymore. Nevertheless, it was really something when a pensioned blastman could say, "I live out close to the Keiths--you know, the Ronald Keiths." At least, that's what Martha always told him.

  The music was so loud that he never heard the doorbell ring, but when a lull came, he heard Nora's voice downstairs, and listened hopefully for Ken's. But when they came up, the boy was not with them.

  "Hello, skinny-britches," he greeted his daughter.

  Nora grinned and came over to kiss him. Her hair dangled about his face, and he noticed that it was blacker than usual, with the gray streaks gone from it again.

  "You smell good," he said.

  "You don't, Pops. You smell like a sot. Naughty!"

  "Where's Ken?"

  She moistened her lips nervously and looked away. "He couldn't come. He had to take a driver's lesson. He really couldn't help it. If he didn't go, he'd lose his turn, and then he wouldn't finish before he goes back to the academy." She looked at him apologetically.

  "It's all right, Nora."

  "If he missed it, he wouldn't get his copter license until summer."

  "It's okay. Copters! Hell, the boy should be in jets by now!"

  Several breaths passed in silence. She gazed absently toward the window and shook her head. "No jets, Pop. Not for Ken."

  He glowered at her. "Listen! How'll he get into space? He's got to get his jet licenses first. Can't get in rockets without 'em."

  Nora shot a quick glance at her mother. Martha rolled her eyes as if sighing patiently. Nora went to the window to stare down toward the Keith terrace. She tucked a cigaret between scarlet lips, lit it, blew nervous smoke against the pane.

  "Mom, can't you call them and have that racket stopped?"

  "Donny says he likes it."

  Nora's eyes flitted over the scene below. "Female butterflies and puppy-dogs in sport jackets. And the cadets." She snorted. "Cadets! Imagine Ron Keith the Third ever going to space. The old man buys his way into the academy, and they throw a brawl as if Ronny passed the Compets."

  "Maybe he did," growled Old Donegal.

  "Hah!"

  "They live in a different world, I guess," Martha sighed.

  "If it weren't for men like Pops, they'd never've made their fortune."

  "I like the music, I tell you," grumbled the old man.

  "I'm half-a-mind to go over there and tell them off," Nora murmured.

  "Let them alone. Just so they'll stop the racket for blast-away."

  "Look at them!--polite little pattern-cuts, all alike. They tak
e pre-space, because it's the thing to do. Then they quit before the pay-off comes."

  "How do you know they'll quit?"

  "That party--I bet it cost six months' pay, spacer's pay," she went on, ignoring him. "And what do real spacers get? Oley gets killed, and Pop's pension wouldn't feed the Keiths' cat."

  "You don't understand, girl."

  "I lost Oley. I understand enough."

  * * * * *

  He watched her silently for a moment, then closed his eyes. It was no good trying to explain, no good trying to tell her the dough didn't mean a damn thing. She'd been a spacer's wife, and that was bad enough, but now she was a spacer's widow. And Oley? Oley's tomb revolved around the sun in an eccentric orbit that spun-in close to Mercury, then reached out into the asteroid belt, once every 725 days. When it came within rocket radius of Earth, it whizzed past at close to fifteen miles a second.

  You don't rescue a ship like that, skinny-britches, my darling daughter. Nor do you salvage it after the crew stops screaming for help. If you use enough fuel to catch it, you won't get back. You just leave such a ship there forever, like an asteroid, and it's a damn shame about the men trapped aboard. Heroes all, no doubt--but the smallness of the widow's monthly check failed to confirm the heroism, and Nora was bitter about the price of Oley's memory, perhaps.

  Ouch! Old Donegal, you know she's not like that. It's just that she can't understand about space. You ought to make her understand.

  But did he really understand himself? You ride hot in a roaring blastroom, hands tense on the mixer controls and the pumps, eyes glued to instruments, body sucked down in a four-gravity thrust, and wait for the command to choke it off. Then you float free and weightless in a long nightmare as the beast coasts moonward, a flung javelin.

  The "romance" of space--drivel written in the old days. When you're not blasting, you float in a cramped hotbox, crawl through dirty mazes of greasy pipe and cable to tighten a lug, scratch your arms and bark your shins, get sick and choked up because no gravity helps your gullet get the food down. Liquid is worse, but you gag your whiskey down because you have to.

  Stars?--you see stars by squinting through a viewing lens, and it's like a photo-transparency, and if you aren't careful, you'll get an eyeful of Old Blinder and back off with a punch-drunk retina.

  Adventure?--unless the skipper calls for course-correction, you float around in the blast-cubicle with damn little to do between blast-away and moon-down, except sweat out the omniscient accident statistics. If the beast blows up or gets gutted in space, a statistic had your name on it, that's all, and there's no fighting back. You stay outwardly sane because you're a hog for punishment; if you weren't, you'd never get past the psychologists.

  "Did you like horror movies when you were a kid?" asked the psych. And you'd damn well better answer "yes," if you want to go to space.

  * * * * *

  Tell her, old man, you're her pop. Tell her why it's worth it, if you know. You jail yourself in a coffin-size cubicle, and a crazy beast thunders berserk for uncontrollable seconds, and then you soar in ominous silence for the long, long hours. Grow sweaty, filthy, sick, miserable, idle--somewhere out in Big Empty, where Man's got no business except the trouble he always makes for himself wherever he goes. Tell her why it's worth it, for pay less than a good bricklayer's. Tell her why Oley would do it again.

  "It's a sucker's run, Nora," he said. "You go looking for kicks, but the only kicks you get to keep is what Oley got. God knows why--but it's worth it."

  Nora said nothing. He opened his eyes slowly. Nora was gone. Had she been there at all?

  He blinked around at the fuzzy room, and dissolved the shifting shadows that sometimes emerged as old friendly faces, grinning at him. He found Martha.

  "You went to sleep," said Martha. "She had to go. Kennie called. He'll be over later, if you're not too tired."

  "I'm not tired. I'm all head. There's nothing much to get tired."

  "I love you, Old Donegal."

  "Hold my hand again."

  "I'm holding it, old man."

  "Then hold me where I can feel it."

  She slid a thin arm under his neck, and bent over his face to kiss him. She was crying a little, and he was glad she could do it now without fleeing the room.

  "Can I talk about dying now?" he wondered aloud.

  She pinched her lips together and shook her head.

  "I lie to myself, Martha. You know how much I lie to myself?"

  She nodded slowly and stroked his gray temples.

  "I lie to myself about Ken, and about dying. If Ken turned spacer, I wouldn't die--that's what I told myself. You know?"

  She shook her head. "Don't talk, Donny, please."

  "A man makes his own soul, Martha."

  "That's not true. You shouldn't say things like that."

  "A man makes his own soul, but it dies with him, unless he can pour it into his kids and his grandchildren before he goes. I lied to myself. Ken's a yellow-belly. Nora made him one, and the boots won't fit."

  "Don't, Donny. You'll excite yourself again."

  "I was going to give him the boots--the over-boots with magnasoles. But they won't fit him. They won't ever fit him. He's a lily-livered lap-dog, and he whines. Bring me my boots, woman."

  "Donny!"

  "The boots, they're in my locker in the attic. I want them."

  "What on earth!"

  "Bring me my goddam space boots and put them on my feet. I'm going to wear them."

  "You can't; the priest's coming."

  "Well, get them anyway. What time is it? You didn't let me sleep through the moon-run blast, did you?"

  She shook her head. "It's half an hour yet ... I'll get the boots if you promise not to make me put them on you."

  "I want them on."

  "You can't, until Father Paul's finished."

  "Do I have to get my feet buttered?"

  She sighed. "I wish you wouldn't say things like that. I wish you wouldn't, Donny. It's sacrilege, you know it is."

  "All right--'anointed'," he corrected wearily.

  "Yes, you do."

  "The boots, woman, the boots."

  She went to get them. While she was gone, the doorbell rang, and he heard her quick footsteps on the stairs, and then Father Paul's voice asking about the patient. Old Donegal groaned inwardly. After the priest, the doctor would come, at the usual time, to see if he were dead yet. The doctor had let him come home from the hospital to die, and the doctor was getting impatient. Why don't they let me alone? he growled. Why don't they let me handle it in my own way, and stop making a fuss over it? I can die and do a good job of it without a lot of outside interference, and I wish they'd quit picking at me with syringes and sacraments and enemas. All he wanted was a chance to listen to the orchestra on the Keith terrace, to drink the rest of his whiskey, and to hear the beast blast-away for the satellite on the first lap of the run to Luna.

  * * * * *

  It's going to be my last day, he thought. My eyes are going fuzzy, and I can't breathe right, and the throbbing's hurting my head. Whether he lived through the night wouldn't matter, because delirium was coming over him, and then there would be the coma, and the symbolic fight to keep him pumping and panting. I'd rather die tonight and get it over with, he thought, but they probably won't let me go.

  He heard their voices coming up the stairs ...

  "Nora tried to get them to stop it, Father, but she couldn't get in to see anybody but the butler. He told her he'd tell Mrs. Keith, but nothing happened. It's just as loud as before."

  "Well, as long as Donny doesn't mind--"

  "He just says that. You know how he is."

  "What're they celebrating, Martha?"

  "Young Ronald's leaving--for pre-space training. It's a going-away affair." They paused in the doorway. The small priest smiled in at Donegal and nodded. He set his black bag on the floor inside, winked solemnly at the patient.

  "I'll leave you two alone," said Martha. She closed
the door and her footsteps wandered off down the hall.

  Donegal and the young priest eyed each other warily.

  "You look like hell, Donegal," the padre offered jovially. "Feeling nasty?"

  "Skip the small talk. Let's get this routine over with."

  The priest humphed thoughtfully, sauntered across to the bed, gazed down at the old man disinterestedly. "What's the matter? Don't want the 'routine'? Rather play it tough?"

  "What's the difference?" he growled. "Hurry up and get out. I want to hear the beast blast off."

  "You won't be able to," said the priest, glancing at the window, now closed again. "That's quite a racket next door."

  "They'd better stop for it. They'd better quiet down for it. They'll have to turn it off for five minutes or so."

  "Maybe they won't."

  It was a new idea, and it frightened him. He liked the music, and the party's gaiety, the nearness of youth and good times--but it hadn't occurred to him that it wouldn't stop so he could hear the beast.

  "Don't get upset, Donegal. You know what a blast-off sounds like."

  "But it's the last one. The last time. I want to hear."

  "How do you know it's the last time?"

  "Hell, don't I know when I'm kicking off?"

  "Maybe, maybe not. It's hardly your decision."

  "It's not, eh?" Old Donegal fumed. "Well, bigawd you'd think it wasn't. You'd think it was Martha's and yours and that damfool medic's. You'd think I got no say-so. Who's doing it anyway?"

  "I would guess," Father Paul grunted sourly, "that Providence might appreciate His fair share of the credit."

  Old Donegal made a surly noise and hunched his head back into the pillow to glower.

  "You want me?" the priest asked. "Or is this just a case of wifely conscience?"

  "What's the difference? Give me the business and scram."

  "No soap. Do you want the sacrament, or are you just being kind to your wife? If it's for Martha, I'll go now."

  Old Donegal glared at him for a time, then wilted. The priest brought his bag to the bedside.

  "Bless me, father, for I have sinned."

  "Bless you, son."

  "I accuse myself ..."