by Jerry
John Fenton went white and he lunged at the Pan-Asian. The soldier shot him once, and his body made a plopping sound as it hit the concrete porch floor. The soldier shrugged and turned away.
It all happened so fast Eddie Fenton didn’t appreciate what he’d seen for a moment. He stood looking at the crumpled bodies of his parents in numb horror. Evidently the soldier hadn’t seen him, for he had turned and was walking down the street, apparently intending to rejoin a car-unit to which he was attached.
In that ten seconds, Eddie left adolescence far behind and became an acquit.
Something happened within him. He ran upstairs to his bedroom, dashed into the closet, and picked up his twenty-two rifle, a present from his Dad, given just a short year ago. His breath came in sobs, sobs of anger, hatred, fear. He could see the soldier who had just killed his parents, evidently waiting for his pick-up, clearly outlined in moonlight a mere hundred feet away.
Eddie didn’t hesitate. He picked up the rifle and drew a bead on the soldier’s back. Without even trembling he pulled the trigger twice, and he watched the stocky body fall to the pavement. Then, as if he’d known for years what he was going to do, he dashed out of the house, first seizing a pistol from his father’s desk. . . .
That night Eddie Fenton saw the enemy. He saw him in companies and battalions. He saw tank units and hundreds of trucks. Overhead the sky was full of rocket planes; occasionally furious air battles would take place. Those Americans who were still in the city stayed in their homes, and it was easy for him to work his way toward the dock area without being seen. No one saw the fifteen-year-old boy or, if anyone did, he paid no attention.
Eddie knew what he was looking for. He ignored the furious activity of the soldiery. For hours he roamed from one place to another, and then he spotted what he wanted. One building, a long, low warehouse, was a beehive of industry. Pan-Asians were coming and going continually and the important thing, Eddie noted, was that they were all officers. Frequently squads of soldiers would drag bundles of cable into the building. Eddie knew what he was looking at. This building was Headquarters for the Pan-Asian assault. Once a fleet of huge cars, escorted by tanks, rolled up and dozens of important figures (judging by the deference with which they were greeted) entered the building.
Eddie racked his mind for a way to do something about this. But then he realized he could do nothing. No one man could get through the heavy cordons of troops, the tanks, the machine-gun emplacements. And if he did, what damage could he do?
By now Eddie knew the location as well as his name. He decided to get away from there before it became impossible to do so. He abandoned the rifle, if he were seen, it would mean his instant death. But he clutched the pistol closely in his pocket. He headed right back toward his home, fear that he wouldn’t make it clutching with icy fingers at his heart.
But he did make it. The one time he was stopped, by a lone Pan-Asian sentry, he shot the man twice and ran.
The sight of his parents, still lying sprawled where they had fallen, unnerved him momentarily, but then he caught hold of himself. His face was set in a mask of decision. He dashed upstairs to his attic room. The radio equipment cluttering the room was intact, dormant, but ready to operate at the touch of a switch. He flipped on the filaments, but nothing happened. Puzzled, he wondered, and then realized that there was no power. The Pan-Asian had seen to that—if American bombers hadn’t.
He turned to his emergency Net equipment, a little twenty-watter also rigged to his short-wave antenna. Powered by two storage batteries always readied by an automatic charger, the set was waiting to hum.
His fingers manipulated the key wildly. “Calling American Army Intelligence . . .”, he keyed out. . . .and in two minutes some monitoring amateur picked him up and caught a relay bank of the Net. In another minute he was through to an officer, pouring out his story, identifying himself and crying for immediate action, cursing that the key made things so slow.
He got his story across, but not before a whisper of his frequency had been caught by a Pan-Asian monitoring team with directional antennae. Five minutes later they were there, and they cut Eddie Fenton to ribbons with a machine-pistol blast. He never knew what happened.
But we do. An atomic warhead in a missile destroyed nine tenths of the vast Pan-Asian High Command and the result was that the American counterattack succeeded perfectly, repulsing the Pan-Asians from American soil in a matter of days.
But the Pan-Asians still wait. . . . and Eddie Fentons are not everywhere. . . . remember what might have happened if the vastly superior Pan-Asians hadn’t lost their “brains” because of Eddie Fenton. . . .
THE END
Spacemen Don’t Primp
Lee Owen
WE WERE being fitted with new radars at Mexport, and Mercantile Command ordered us to pick up a new operator right away while Jack Phillips went back to Center for a refresher. He wouldn’t go with us on the next Martian run; as Exec I had to remind Frank—Captain Frank Wilson—to put in for the radio-radar operator.
“There’s no rush, Jim,” he kept telling me, and the last week crept up on us before we knew it. He had to move.
I came into the cubby-hole at the outfitting building which we were using as our office. As I entered Frank was just switching off the videophone. There was a red flush to his face and I knew he must have been talking with Mercantile.
“Damn,” he said softly.
“What’s the matter?” I asked. “Have they given you a new command? You look fit to be tied.”
“I just called Mercantile for that radar-radio operator. You know what we’re getting? Lieutenant Marie Lorning—a woman! I had no choice. Take her or else. ‘No male personnel available and why do you object to a woman, Captain Wilson?’ I really got chewed, Jim.”
I laughed. “So what? Why gripe about women? Mercentile is having trouble enough getting competent personnel. You know it. Women make good operators.”
“I just don’t like the idea of some smart-alecky dame aboard ship. It doesn’t seem right.”
“Don’t be so old-fashioned, Frank,” I said. “What the hell’s the difference? She’ll probably be a knock-out. Break the monotony.”
“She sure will! Listen Jim, I’ll bet my bottom dollar she’ll be some typical college grind fresh out of Central Communications, a figure like a life-boat, eyes fronted by inch-thick glass, a voice like a loudspeaker, and one of those I-know-it-all attitudes.
I ask for a radar operator and they give me a woman! Hell!”
“Don’t be bitter,” I grinned. “We’ll live through it.”
Suddenly I was aware of a scent in the room. I turned. Standing in the doorway was a girl. She was no more than five feet two, her figure was like something out of the latest Videolife feature, and her long blonde hair was neatly arranged about a face that could have launched a thousand space ships!
“I couldn’t help overhearing your description,” she said in a husky, spine-tingling voice. “I hope you won’t let your prejudice interfere with our relations as officer and subordinate. I assure you I’m quite competent, Captain Wilson, but I don’t know everything.” She smiled then, and if I hadn’t Mary’s kisses still on my mouth I’d have gone for her. She was simply a knockout.
Frank gulped, turned red and for a moment stammered.
“Ah, ah, well . . .” he hesitated, then became brusque. “Sorry,” he said, “forget the matter. Now let’s talk about your duties.”
It was a poor and graceless out, and when I left he was giving her routine details.
We took off at the end of the week for the usual Martian colony run and by that time Marie had made herself acquainted with all of us. She was swell. Everybody liked her. She was quick to learn; she was friendly but not intimate; and she insinuated herself into our routine life aboard the Van Der Wahl without any pretense or affectation. By the same token she got our respect. Of the eleven men aboard only Frank and the Junior Engineer weren’t married so she didn’t have t
o fight wolfishness very strongly. Carlos, the Junior Engineer, was a natural wolf, of course, and he went after anything with a skirt, but she stopped him so fast it was funny. We kidded the devil out of the Romeo after that and she must have really cut his wind off, because after the first few encounters he left her strictly alone. That would never really bother Carlos—women were food and drink to him, and whatever Solar port he put in, Terran, Martian or Venusian, he had “friends”.
But Frank’s attitude puzzled me. He simply didn’t get along with Marie and several times she spoke to me about it.
“He just doesn’t like me at all, Jim,” she said, “and I don’t know why. I do my job, you know that, but he rides me for everything. Still, don’t say a word to him. I’m going to battle this thing out with him.”
But I did speak to Frank about it. Nevertheless he clammed up.
“Listen, Jim,” he told me once. “We’re friends, but please don’t mind my business. I don’t like the girl and that’s all there is to it! Women don’t belong aboard space ships.”
I couldn’t reason with his stubbornness and so I forgot about it. Marie did her job and associated with us, and that was that.
The two-month trip proceeded without incident, less boring than usual, probably because of Marie’s enthusiasm and sense of excitement. That was a pleasure, because space travel after a brief time simply becomes an overwhelming chore.
We made the Phobos landing approach as usual and Frank, Marie and I were in Control going through the motions. Frank had computed a quick orbital landing run-in and Marie had taken his figures and fed them to the radar guiding link which would put us in automatically for most of the come-down.
She started her check computer and then flipped to automatic. She studied her panel with concentration while Frank and I sat back and relaxed. She moved precisely and surely, but after a short while she slowed down, and a puzzled, hesitant frown appeared on her face. She glanced up nervously.
Finally she turned to Frank and asked, “Captain Wilson, are you sure that these figures you’ve given me are right? Seems to be a faulty correction factor.”
Frank stared at her, astonished. Then he started to flush.
“Of course I’m sure!” he snapped testily, “I don’t . . .” he stopped. “Wait a minute—let me see.” He took a quick glance at the sheet she ripped from the computer.
“Oh, my God!” he said suddenly. “You’re Tight! I must have forgotten that sine-function!”
Marie’s reaction was automatic and instinctive. Despite that fact that this was her first trip, the training was so ingrained she knew exactly what to do. She flipped controls to manual, made her radar contact, and pulsed an “error-warning” out in a hurry.
Frank had slid into manual controls and the ship was quickly put in another refining orbit. And just in time. Five more minutes on auto and it would have been too late.
I left the control cabin without saying anything. I knew that Marie and Frank would have plenty to say. I was right.
When I came back in, Frank and Marie were standing near each other, the autos taking over everything, He was half-grinning, embarrassed, like a grateful schoolboy, and on her face was a look of serenity.
“Jim,” Marie asked me, smiling, “Frank and I are having dinner in the Colony. Can you recommend a good restaurant? Frank and I want to talk . . . .”
Frank suddenly laughed. “I’m a fool Jim,” he said, “Spacemen can wear lipsticks—you know that?”
“I never doubted it,” I said, “Marie’s a real spaceman . . . .”
Martian Milestone
Sol Overman
“PEOPLE don’t remember nowadays much about the old chemical rockets, Jack; you don’t have to worry about power with the atomic rockets. You’ve got enough and to spare. But it was different in the old days. You don’t have to take off from the Moon. You can make a straight pitch from Terra to anywhere in the system—and maybe the stars soon. But with chemical rockets, we used to have our troubles. We had to fight for every precious milligram of fuel. Fuel was energy and energy was life. Now energy means nothing. Yep, it was different in the old days . . .”
That’s the way they’ll be talking about interplanetary flight some day when the atomic rockets are developed. But until that happens rocketry for the present will be established on a chemical basis—and that includes the eventual Martian rocket which is bound to come to development not too long after we succeed in planting a few manned jobs on the Moon!
We need the Moon desperately. There’s a tremendous difference in launching a flight to Mars from the Moon as compared with launching it from the Earth. The Moon with one-sixth of Terra’s gravity means that the take-off problem is simplified a hundred-fold. Consequently old Luna is going to be Man’s first spaceship base—unless some energetic promoters manage to plant a floating satellite around our Earth—which is certainly conceivable—even probable. But assuming Luna as a base, what are some of the characteristics of the Martian flight?
Advantage is going to be taken, of course, of the relative velocities, which means that a rocket ship won’t necessarily take off for the Red Planet when it is closest (about forty million miles away) to us. Instead, a long semi-spiral course will utilize the kinetic energy of the Moon-Earth system to give the rocket additional velocity toward Mars.
Also, since time won’t be of the essence, much of the Martian flight will be “free”; that is, the rockets will be silent and the ship will be heading Marsward at a constant velocity without thrust. This is economical and efficient—though maybe a little hard on the occupants—but they’re hardly likely to complain.
The landing and take-off from Mars will not be as easy as from Luna but they will be easier than the corresponding actions on Earth. Detached from the familiar science-fiction picture of the flight which has been given so often it’s almost boring, the real Martian flight will be Man’s greatest technological undertaking up to that time, dwarfing even the grandiose Moon-flight. For men are going to be interplanetary travelers in the enact sense of the word for the first time in all recorded history! Detach yourself from your hardened shell of vicarious experience—which s-f has thrust around you—and try to imagine the feelings of the men in their tiny shell as it speeds toward Mars. Even to the most callous reader of s-f the concept is breathtaking. And some day—not soon—act distant—it will happen!
1953
[untitled]
E. Bruce Yaches
“CHECK ONCE more through the finder, Jim,” Dr. Brady said to his assistant. His voice sounded hollow in the bulbuous space helmet.
“She’s right on the button, Doc,” Jim answered. His bulky, suited finger stabbed the button. “Automatic drive is on—so is the camera. We’ll get some beautiful shots tonight—I mean today,” he hastily corrected himself.
Dr. Brady laughed. “It’s hard to get used to time in the Lunar Observatory, eh boy?” Jim grinned and turned back to his instruments.
“I’ll get used to it,” Jim said. “When I think of the time I’ve wasted on Earth domes and telescopes I could kick myself. This always-perfect seeing is hard to believe.”
“You should have heard the time I had persuading the board of directors to finance a Lunar Observatory,” Dr. Brady said. “They couldn’t understand the difference between a telescope in a vacuum and one buried under a hundred miles of air. Give me Luna any time!” His space-suited figure clumped across the observatory floor to the air-lock leading to his office. . . .
That’s only imagination now, but one of the first duties of the initial Lunar rocket flights—when they come—will be to establish astronomical observatories with high-powered telescopes which can take advantage of perfect “seeing” unhindered by the interfering layer of air that blankets the Earth and makes astronomers gray before their time. The problem is rapidly becoming acute. We’ve got telescopes of tremendous power, but they don’t show one tenth of what they are able to because the shimmering air distorts every image and make
s it a wavering ghost. And there is no cure but to get rid of the air. The only way to do this is to go out into space.
Recently astronomers demonstrated the shimmering effect of the air on star images by using a photo-cell to change the star’s image into an electric current and then using this electric current to operate a loudspeaker. The resulting rustling sound clearly demonstrated the difficulty of trying to get a high-powered stable image. It was as though the screen on your television set were to vibrate constantly. You can imagine how poor the image would be! Astronomers, having reached the limit of their powers, are praying daily that rocketry gets going and gives them the perfect seeing of the vacuum of the Moon!
Pig in a Poke
Charles Recour
THE TELECOM flashed Brady’s face.
I switched to counter and Brady said: “I’ve got it straightened out, Jim. Can you run up right now? And Jim . . . it isn’t exactly good news . . .
My secretary flashed a helicab and a few minutes later I, Jim Hunter, consulting general engineer, successful, moneyed—and a sucker—was in the offices of Brady & Associates, Law, Terran and Interplanetary.
Brady had a pile of drawings, topographic maps and photographs of the Martian “pig in a poke” in front of him. There were no formalities.
“Sit down, Jim,” he motioned me into a chair. “I’m not going to try and soften it. You’ve been taken . . . well—wait a minute. Jim, just what do you think you own in the way. of Martian territory?”
“According to Fitzhugh, I’ve got two hundred thousand square meters of Martian soil. I know I’ve got that because he got that under the Colonial land grants and the money deal was honest.”
“Right,” Brady said, “you’ve got Hue land all right, but it’s not where you think it is.”
“Where is it?”
“Ostensibly your plot was supposed to be within transport range of the dome and Fitzhugh. said it was a matter of fifty kilometers. But that’s where you’ve been hosed, Jim, smoothly and nicely. The land is within range of the dome—by rocket! Fitzhugh very nicely shifted coordinates by forty degrees—both ways. Jim Hunter, you own two hundred thousand square meters of Mars about eighteen hundred kilometers from Heliopolis. Fitzhugh still has his original holdings, this claim coming from an exploratory flight he happened to make three years ago. It’s all there, right and legal in the fine print.” Brady shook his head. “Sorry, Jim,” he added, “that’s it.”