His host said, “Well, a job’s a job. Even if it does sound like bullshit. What’s the story?”
“Your cover is that you’re looking for some top crook. Somewhat to my surprise, Wilson mentioned the fact that L5 Security was very efficient. I didn’t even know that they had a security force. What would they need with a security force in space constructing a colony?”
Kapitz said, “Beats me. Would you like a drink?”
“The doctor says no. My ulcers come and go. Right now, they’re gone. But with this thing, I wouldn’t be surprised at a return. You have one if you want. I’ll just sit here with my tongue hanging out.”
Peter Kapitz got up, went into another part of his small apartment, and returned with a plastic of beer.
He sat down again and said, “I didn’t know they had a security force up there either. I don’t imagine it’s very big. But I suppose there’s always the chance of some crackpot. Can you imagine how much damage a terrorist with his eggs scrambled could do out in space? But what’s that got to do with the assignment?”
Roy Thomas said, “You’ve got to look right to them. Your story has to hold water. You’ll actually have to make the motions of looking for this gunman, or whatever he is. Have you a good prospect in mind?”
The IABI man took a slow sip of his beer and thought about it. He said finally, “A couple of times I’ve worked on looking for Rocks Weil. He’s an American, but usually operates in Europe or South America. Jewel thief. He’s never taken a fall. We don’t have any photos of him that were sure of. Every cop in the world has heard of him. On my last assignment I was working with the French Surete. We thought we flushed him on the French Riviera, caught him in the act. Some trigger-happy local cop plugged him. The French were sure it was Rocks. I have my doubts; so have some of the other boys.”
“Why?” Roy Thomas wasn’t up on modern crime. There was comparatively little of it since the advent of the Universal Credit Card in the United States and the International Credit Card of Common Europe. Without cash, a criminal had his work cut out making a living.
Kapitz said, “Because, just recently a romp was pulled off in London where…”
“Romp?”
“A caper, a job, a heist,” Kapitz said impatiently.
“All right, go on.”
“It had all the earmarks of a Rocks Weil job. And, as usual, the criminal disappeared, complete with loot. In Rocks’s style—no clues, no nothing. I think perhaps it was Rocks.”
“Why would he go up to Lagrange Five?” Thomas asked. “What excuse could you give them for looking for him there?”
“The score was a big one. Bigger than Rocks has ever knocked over before. He’s not stupid. With a score like that, he could retire. He might decide to go to ground and sit it out for a few years before trying to flog…”
“Flog?”
“Fence. Sell the loot. He might just hide it somewhere and wait for the air to cool. Lagrange Five might be the perfect place, if he could get there. At least, the story would sound plausible. Like you, I didn’t even know they had a security force. If they have, I don’t imagine they spend much of their time looking for international jewel thieves.”
Roy Thomas worked it over as the other sat and sipped at his beer. It made sense to him.
“All right,” he said. “Let’s use that for your cover. Director Wilson, himself, will take care of the details of sending you to Lagrange Five. Make arrangements to leave as soon as possible. Here, I’ll give you my high priority number. Keep in touch with me and when anything at all comes up, use it.”
Kapitz frowned. Doesn’t this go through the Bureau?”
“No, you are working directly under the President. For obvious reasons, none of it must come out.”
The other was taken aback. “Well, how about Mr. Wilson?”
The President’s trouble-shooter shook his head. “Only me. I suggest that you phone President Corcoran. I’ll give you his top priority number. He’ll confirm what I have said about your mission, and the desirability of you reporting to me alone.”
“Holy smog,” Kapitz said. “The President himself, eh? I ought to ask for a raise.”
“You’ll get one without asking,” Roy Thomas said. “Be sure that you earn it.”
Chapter Four
“I feel that we have done little enough with our present world to warrant our going off and putting soft-drink signs all over Mars and cluttering up the moon with oil rigs. These places are not ready yet for such advanced achievements.”
—Walt Kelly, of Pogo fame.
*
Mary Beth Houston was quite overwhelmed by it all. It might be said that Mary Beth overwhelmed easily, but at least on this occasion she had an excellent excuse. So far as she knew, she was the first member of the Friends of Lagrange Five ever to be invited to visit Island One. Most certainly, she deserved the honor. As secretary of the gung-ho organization, no one worked harder to push the space dream than did Mary Beth.
She was in her late twenties and still had enough of the effervescence of youth to be somewhat attractive. When youth was gone, it was seemingly in the cards that Mary Beth Houston was going to settle down into being a rather plain woman, a bit gaunt of figure, a bit drawn, if not washed out, of face, and a little buck of tooth. But enthusiasm carried her now.
At the space terminal at the New Albuquerque shuttle-port, she went through the standard routine. Her personal things were taken from her suitcase and replaced in a special, practically weightless bag which had been designed for space. This was weighed in and found to be correct to the ounce. Mary Beth had been preparing for weeks. She then went into the locker rooms, where she showered thoroughly, using the prescribed antiseptic soaps, washed her hair thoroughly, all this under the careful scrutiny and aid of a uniformed nurse, and then returned to dress in the standard space coveralls. Her own clothes, as was her suitcase, were stored away awaiting her return.
Properly sterile—she had finished her lengthy medical examinations the day before—Mary Beth was escorted to the little electro-steamer shuttleport bus. There were three others in it besides the driver. All were in lightweight coveralls similar to her own.
She said, breathlessly, “Are you all going too?”
One of the three men, an easy-going type, grinned and said, “I’m afraid so. It’s too late to back down now. I’m Rick Venner. You mean to Lagrange Five, undoubtedly.”
“I’m Mary Beth Houston. Oh, who’d want to back down!”
“That’s a good question,” one of the others said, even as the bus took off. He smiled too, though rather faintly. He reminded Mary Beth somewhat of Kirk Douglas in the movie revivals. Even had the dimple in his chin. Possibly he was a little chunkier than the old movie star, she thought, and he seemed very quiet and reserved. He said, “I’m Bruce Carter.”
Her eyes widened. “Not the writer?”
“I suppose so.”
“Good heavens.”
They were proceeding over the tarmac at a good clip now toward one of the launching pads. She looked at the third of the three.
He was about the same size as Rick Venner, but all resemblance ended there. Although he couldn’t have been thirty, he wasn’t young. His face was stolid, swarthy, his eyes sleepy—something like those of Robert Mitchum, she decided—but he wasn’t nearly as handsome as the revival movie actor. Not nearly. More like George Raft in those early gangster films.
He said laconically, “Joe Evola.”
They were coming up on the Russell Schweickart, the space shuttle that was to take them up into Earth orbit.
Mary Beth said, “Good heavens, I had no idea that they were that big. I’ve seen them a hundred times on Tri-D but it never came through to me that they were so big.”
The driver said over his shoulder, his voice bored, “They’re not as big as all that, Lady. Only a fraction goes into orbit. That big fuel tank the shuttle is riding piggy-back and those two booster rockets drop away after you get about twen
ty-five miles up.”
She knew all about that, of course. No one need tell Mary Beth anything about space shuttles. She’d read everything available about them long years since. And everything else that wasn’t so technical that she couldn’t understand, about the Lagrange Five Project. It was practically all she did customarily read, except some of the science fiction dealing with aspects of space colonization. Mary Beth Houston had the dream with a vengeance.
They met Captain Ames briefly. Clipboard in hand, he didn’t have time for them in the midst of last-minute checking with the harried ground crew chief.
One of the other crew members, who didn’t bother to introduce himself, took them into the cabin, assigned them four of the bunks, and saw they were belted down.
He said, “Any of you want to go to the bathroom?”
Rick Venner said, “They just gave me the most thorough bath I’ve ever had, even had my toenails cleaned out. But thanks for the offer.”
The spaceman wasn’t amused. “You know what I mean,” he said. “It’s possible to do it in free fall, of course, but it’s more trouble.”
Mary Beth said, “They warned us back at the Terminal. At least they warned me.”
“They told us all,” Joe Evola said flatly. “It’s part of the routine.” He had belted himself down, without need of assistance.
The crewman looked at him. “You’ve been up before, eh?”
“Yeah.”
“Construction worker?”
The other looked at him for a moment, as though considering whether or not to answer, but then said, “Security.”
Another crew member came in with their four pieces of luggage and put them into a compartment.
The cabin of the Russell Schweickart was on the barren side, but not as small as the three space neophytes had expected. It was actually on two levels, and boasted such amenities as a toilet and heavy blue glass portholes. Up above the pilot’s and co-pilot’s places before the controls was a fairly sizable TV screen. The crewman who had seen them to their acceleration bunks went over and flicked it on.
“You’ll be able to see the take-off,” he told them. “It’s pretty exciting the first time.”
The screen lit up and they watched the last minute preparations.
Captain Jim Ames came in with the co-pilot and all the crew took their places. The captain looked at his four passengers briefly and said, “You people all set?”
“Oh, yes,” Mary Beth told him. The three men nodded.
“Wizard,” Ames said. “Let’s get this kettle spaceborne.” He began going through his cockpit check with the co-pilot.
Bruce Carter looked over at the crewman who had got them into their bunks and said, “Do you mean to tell me that you’ve taken some ten thousand construction workers and colonists up to Lagrange Five like this, four at a time?”
The other shook his head. “Before, we used to have one shuttle with the whole freight compartment converted for passengers. We’d take ‘em up a hundred or so at a time. Christ, you should’ve smelled the stench by the time we got to the Goddard.”
Mary Beth blinked. “What stench?” she said.
“Vomit.”
She blinked again. “Oh.”
The co-pilot turned and said in disgust. “Goddammit, Freddy, what are you trying to do, give them ideas?” He turned his eyes to Mary Beth. “Don’t let it worry you. It’s unlikely you’ll get space sick. The trouble with lobbing them up a hundred at a time, all jam-packed into that windowless compartment, was that if one got nauseated, it set off almost everybody else. It’s like seasickness. You see somebody else tossing their cookies and its monkey see, monkey do.” He added absently, “And the smell of vomit doesn’t help any.” He turned back to the cockpit check-out.
“Okay,” Ames sighed. “Let’s go.” He began fiddling with buttons, switches, levers.
On the TV screen they could see the fireworks begin. It was difficult to realize all that explosion was going on immediately beneath them. It was dramatic and in full color. The space shuttle stirred.
“Oh, heavens,” Mary Beth bleated. “I should have gone to the bathroom again.”
The g-forces weren’t nearly as bad as any of the three space tyros had expected. At tops it was about three gravities, and, on the cushions of their bunks, they could still move their limbs. To the crew and to the security man, Evola, it was all obviously routine.
On the TV screen, they could watch themselves disappear into the sky, most impressively indeed. In free fall, Mary Beth could understand what the crewman called Freddy was talking about. Initially, her stomach did a bit of churning. But she suppressed it with some effort.
The shuttle trip was surprisingly short for the first-timers. Through the ports they could see themselves coming up on SP Goddard, the Space Platform. Largely, they had been occupied in staring out the ports on the way up, but prolonged silence was simply not in Mary Beth, even as she stared.
She had said to the taciturn Joe Evola, “You know, I’ve been a member of the Friends of Lagrange Five for years, but you’re the first actual space colonist I’ve ever met. It’s so exciting to meet one of your heroes.” She actually managed a faint blush and her gaze dropped.
“Yeah,” he said. “Not many of us around.” He hesitated, as though that seemed inadequate, then added, “We’re all up in the colony mostly.”
“Oh, I can understand that. Who’d want to leave, once you’d made it?” She took a quick breath. “How is it? How is it living in Island One?”
“Boring,” he told her flatly.
“Oh, you’re pulling my leg,” she said, laughing her rejection of the idea. “It’s the most exciting thing ever.” And then, apropos of nothing that seemed to apply, “I remember watching Star Trek when I was a mere child.” She turned back to her porthole and gasped at the appearance of Earth.
A few minutes later she said to Rick Venner, “Are you going to be a colonist?”
“Not exactly,” he told her. “I’m an electrical engineer. I signed up for five years.”
For some reason, Joe Evola gave a low snort at that. “Oh, I’m sure they’ll let you remain,” Mary Beth reassured Rick.
A few minutes later, she said to Bruce Carter, “I’ve read some of your things and one of your books, Mr. Carter. I’ll bet you’re going up to write some wonderful articles about the whole space colonization program.”
“Bruce,” he said. “Something like that.”
“I’m only surprised you didn’t come up ages ago. If I was a writer, I can’t imagine not immediately heading for the most important story since the Resurrection.”
Bruce Carter cleared his throat and touched his cleft chin with a forefinger. “It took me three years to swing it,” he said.
Rick Venner looked over at him. “How do you mean?”
The writer shrugged. “Obviously, I couldn’t afford to pay my own way. Or, for that matter, to goose some publication into financing it. I don’t think the price has ever been figured out. Round trip fare, expenses while in Island One, all that sort of thing—I imagine at least a million dollars would be involved. But, even if I could have swung it financially, no tickets are being sold. Evidently, they’re not quite ready yet for tourists and such.”
Mary Beth said, “But…then, how are you here?”
He smiled his rueful smile. “I twisted arms.”
Joe Evola looked at him. “What do you mean by that, chum-pal?”
Bruce grunted amusement. “I’m supposed to be a muckraker. I began to toss around remarks about the fact that no freelancers had thus far gotten to Lagrange Five. Finally, I got through to Solomon Ryan himself and gently hinted that all the news that came out of Island One was from Lagrange Five flacks. That I was figuring on doing an article about the fact. He evidently got the message. So I’m here on invitation.”
“You’ll love it. You’ll never want to leave,” Mary Beth assured him. “There’ll be things you could write about forever, up here in space.
Oh, look, there! It’s the Goddard.”
From a distance, the Goddard looked like a jerry-built construction surrounded by a space junkyard. It wasn’t. It had been planned and put together with the greatest care and skill, piece by piece, with materials brought up by the earliest shuttles. The space platform proper consisted of what looked like two crossed barbells, four large modules at the ends. From this projected a long stem, at the end of which was a V-shaped structure that housed the nuclear generating plant. The docking port was located at the point where the barbells crossed. All about were drifting Lagrange Five shipments from Earth, waiting to be picked up by the passenger freighters that plied back and forth from low Earth orbit to Island One or the Luna base. There was also quite a bit of space debris—remnants of satellites, fuel tanks, and second stages of rockets used years before in the infancy of space travel. Some of this was to be shipped out to Lagrange Five, some returned via shuttle to Earth. Here and there could be spotted tiny spacesuited figures working at various jobs, propelled about by small jet outfits attached to their shoulders, remarkably similar to the equipment Buck Rogers had utilized in the comic strips of more than half a century before.
Docking was a simpler matter than the neophytes had expected. Captain Ames was obviously an old hand. Contact was made without an appreciable jar.
The crewman named Freddy who had belted them in now helped them out of their bunks. He said, “We’re still in free fall, here at the hub. The modules rotate so they have gravity, but not here at the hub. Follow me and do as I do. You won’t have any trouble. Mike will bring up the rear.”
He was right. They had no great difficulty learning to pull themselves about in zero gravity. Inside the docking compartment, once they had left the shuttle, they found rails to pull themselves along. There was a natty looking nurse, garbed in white, there to meet them. Captain Ames and his copilot were already too busy to bid them goodbye, bon voyage, or whatever. It would seem space personnel had little time for the amenities.
The nurse beamed at them and checked her clipboard. “Ms. Mary Beth Houston, Mr. Rick Venner, Mr. Bruce Carter, Sergeant Joseph Evola. Hello, Joe.”
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