“I had at least twenty minutes in which to slip back and examine my son’s diary, before your education would be complete.” His smile deepened, as he sucked in on the cigarette that Jimmy held to his lips, and he let the smoke eddy out gently. “It took perhaps ten minutes to learn what I wanted to know. During the war, his notes are one long paean of triumph over the results on the preadolescents, dissatisfaction at those who were educated past twenty! And he knew the reason, as well as he always knew what he wanted to. Too much information on a young mind mires it down by sheer weight on untrained thoughts, even though it gives a false self-confidence. But the mature man, with his trained mind, can never be bowed down by mere information; he can use it… No, let me go on. Vindication of my compellor doesn’t matter; but this is going to be your responsibility, Jimmy, and the doctor told me I’m short of time. I want to be sure… In twenty years—but that doesn’t matter.
“The compellor is poison to a twelve-year-old mind, and a blessing to the adult. You can’t change that overnight; but you can try, and perhaps accomplish a little. Move the age up, but carefully. By rights I should repair the damage I helped cause, but I’ll have to leave it to you. Be ruthless, as you were now—more ruthless than any of them. A man who fights for right and principle should be. Tap the ground with your cane! And sometimes, when none of the blind are around, you can look up and still see the stars! Now—”
“Grandfather Bard—you never were insane in there!”
The old man smiled again. “Naturally. I couldn’t look on and see the only one of my offspring that amounted to anything needing help without doing something, could I? I threw in everything I could, knowing you’d make something out of it. You did. And I’m not sorry, even though I wasn’t exactly expecting—this… How long after my heart begins missing?”
“A minute or two!” Aaron Bard obviously wanted no sympathy, and the boy sensed it and held back the words, hard though he found it now. Emotions were better expressed by their hands locked together than by words.
“Good. It’s a clean, painless death, and I’m grateful for it. But no more revivals! Cremate me, Jimmy, and put up a simple marker—no name, just A One-Eyed Man!”
“Requiescat in Pace—A One-Eyed Man! I promise!” The old head nodded faintly and relaxed, the smile still lingering. Jimmy swallowed a lump in his throat and stood up slowly with bowed head, while a tumult of sound came in from the great assembly hall. His father was finally abdicating and they were naming him Dictator, of course. But he still stood there, motionless.
“Two such stones,” he muttered finally. “And maybe someday I’ll deserve the other.”
HABIT
Habit is a wonderful thing. Back in the days of apelike men, one of them invented a piece of flint that made life a little easier; then another found something else. Labor-saving ideas were nice, and it got to be a habit, figuring them out, until the result was what we call civilization, as exemplified by rocket racing.
Only, sometimes, habits backfire in the darnedest way. Look at what happened to the eight-day rocket race out of Kor on Mars.
I was down there, entered in the open-class main event, with a little five-ton soup can of rare vintage, equipped with quartz tube linings and an inch of rust all over. How I’d ever sneaked it past the examiners was a miracle in four dimensions, to begin with.
Anyway, I was down in the engine well, welding a new brace between the rocket stanchion and the main thrust girder when I heard steps on the tilly ladder outside. I tumbled out of the dog port to find a little, shriveled fellow with streaked hair and sharp gray eyes giving the Umatila the once-over.
“Hi, Len,” he said casually, around his cigarette. “Been making repairs, eh? Well, not meaning any offense, son, she looks to me like she needs it. Darned if I’d risk my neck in her, not in the opens. Kind of a habit with me, being fond of my neck.”
I mopped the sweat and grease off the available parts of my anatomy. “Would if you had to. Since you seem to know me, how about furnishing your handle?”
“Sure. Name’s Jimmy Shark—used to be thick as thieves with your father, Brad Masters. I saw by the bulletin you’d sneaked in just before they closed the entries, so I came down to look you over.”
Dad had told me plenty about Jimmy Shark. As a matter of fact, my father had been staked to the Umatila by this man, when racing was still new. “Glad to meet you.” I stuck out my hand and dug up my best grin.
“Call me Jimmy when you get around to it—it’s a habit.” His smile was as easy and casual as an old acquaintance. “I’da known you anywhere; look just like your father. Never thought I’d see you in this game, though. Brad told me he was fixing you up in style.”
“He was, only—” I shrugged. “Well, he figured one more race would sweeten the pot, so he blew the bankroll on himself in the Runabout. You heard what happened.”
“Um-hm. Blew up rounding Ceres. I was sorry to hear it. Didn’t leave you anything but the old Umatila, eh?”
“Engineering ticket that won’t draw a job, and some debts. Since I couldn’t get scrap-iron prices for the old soup can, I made a dicker for the soup on credit. Back at the beginning, starting all over—and going to win this race.”
Jimmy nodded. “Um-hm. Racing kind of gets to be a habit. Still quartz tubes on her, eh? Well, they’re faster, when they hold up. Since you aren’t using duratherm, I suppose your soup is straight Dynatomic IV?”
I had to admit he knew his tubes and fuels. They haven’t used quartz tube linings for ten years, so only a few people know that Dynatomic can be used in them straight to give a 40 percent efficient drive, if the refractory holds up. In the new models, duratherm lining is used, and the danger of blowing a tube is nil. But the metal in duratherm acts as an anticatalyst on the soup and cuts the power way down. To get around that, they add a little powdered platinum and acid, which brings the efficiency up to about 35 percent, but still isn’t the perfect fuel it should be.
Jimmy ran his hand up a tube, tapped it, and listened to the coyote howl it gave off. “A nice job, son. You put that lining in yourself, I take it. Well, Brad won a lot of races in the old shell using home-lined quartz tubes. Must have learned the technique from him.”
“I did,” I agreed, “with a couple of little tricks of my own thrown in for good measure.”
“How about looking at the cockpit, Len?”
I hoisted him and helped him through the port. There wasn’t room for two in there, so I stood on the tilly ladder while he looked her over.
“Um-hm. Nice and cozy, some ways. Still using Brad’s old baby autopilot, I see, and the old calculator. Only that brace there—it’s too low. The springs on your shock hammock might give enough to throw you against it when you reverse, and you’d be minus backbone. By the way, you can’t win races by sleeping ahead of time in your shock hammock—you ought to know that.” He held up my duffel and half a can of beans. “And that isn’t grub for preparing a meteor dodger, either.”
“Heck, Jimmy, I’m tough.” I knew he was right, of course, but I also knew how far a ten-spot went on Mars.
“Um-hm. Be like old times with a Masters in the running. Got to be a habit, seeing that name on the list.” He crawled out of the port and succeeded in lighting a cigarette that stung acridly in the dry air. “You know, Len, I just happened to think; I was supposed to have a partner this trip, but he backed down. There’s room and board paid for two over at Mom Doughan’s place, and only me to use it. We’d better go over there before her other boarders clean the table and leave us without supper. Eating’s sort of a habit with me.”
He had me by the arm and was dragging me across the rocket pit before I could open my mouth. “Now, Jimmy, I’m used—”
“Shut up. You’re used to decent living, same as anyone else, so you might as well take it and like it. I told you I’d paid for them already, didn’t I? All right. Anyhow, I’m
not used to staying alone; sort of a habit, having somebody to talk to.”
I was beginning to gather that he had a few habits scattered around at odd places.
Jimmy was right; shock cushions and beans don’t make winners. With a decent meal inside me, and an air-conditioned room around me, my chances looked a lot rosier. Some of the old cocksureness came back.
“Jimmy,” I said, lying back and letting the bed ease my back lazily, “I’m going to win that race. That hundred-thousand first looks mighty good.”
“Um-hm.” Jimmy was opening a can of cigarettes and he finished before answering. “Better stick to the second, kid. This race is fixed.”
“I’ll change that, then. Who told you it was fixed?”
He grinned sourly. “Nobody. I fixed it myself.” He watched my mouth run around and end up in an open circle. “Maybe Brad forgot to tell you, and it’s not common news, but I’m a professional bettor.”
It was news to me. “But I thought Dad—did he know?”
“Sure, he knew. Oh, he wasn’t connected with it, if that’s what you’re wondering. When he switched from jockeying to dodging, I left the ponies to handicap the soup cans. Learned the gambling end from my father, the best handicapper in the business. It’s a habit in the family.”
There was pride in his voice. Maybe I was screwy; after all, some people have a pretty low opinion of rocket dodgers. I decided to let Jimmy spill his side without foolish questions.
“Um-hm. Natural-born handicapper, I am. I won twice every time I lost. Never cheated a man, welshed on a bet, or bribed a dodger to throw a race. Anything wrong with that?”
I had to admit there wasn’t. After all, Dad used to do some betting himself, as I should know. “How about the race being crooked?”
Jimmy snorted. “Not crooked—fixed. Don’t go twisting my words, Len.” He stretched out on the bed and took the cigarette out of his mouth. “Always wanted to be famous, son. You know, big philanthropist, endow libraries and schools. Got to be a habit, planning on that; and you can’t make that kind of money just handicapping. Your dad ever tell you about that fuel he was working on?”
I began to see light. “We knew he’d been doing something of that sort, though the formula couldn’t be found. Matter of fact, he was using it in the Runabout when it went out.”
“That’s it.” Jimmy nodded. “A little bit of the compound in the fuel boosts the speed way up. There was a couple of kinks in the original formula, but I got them straightened out. I pick the winner—the fellow who needs to win most, if that’s any comfort to you—and sell him on the new fuel. Only the thing won’t work in quartz tubes—burns ’em out.”
“I won’t need it. I’ll win this race fair and square.” All the same, that did mess things up; I knew Dad had thought a lot of that fuel.
“No rules against better fuels. A man can pick the fuel he wants, the same as he can travel any course he wants to, no matter how long, if he goes past the markers.” He grunted. “Brad didn’t want you racing, so he sent me the formula. Had a hunch about going out, I guess; dodgers get a habit of hunches.”
“And we Masterses have a habit of winning. Better change your bets, Jimmy.”
“It’s all fixed, too late to change, and the odds are long. After this race, I’m going back and get the habit of being a big philanthropist. Look, kid, you’re not sore about my using Brad’s formula?”
“If he gave it to you, that was his business.” I pulled the sheet up and reached for the light switch. “Only don’t blame me when you lose your bets.”
But the morning of the start, I had to confess I wasn’t feeling so cocky, in spite of living high on Jimmy for a week. I’d seen the favorite—Bouncing Betty—and Jimmy’s fix, the Tar Baby, and both looked mighty good to me.
“What’s the Tar Baby pulling?” I asked Jimmy. “Or do you know?”
“Olsen says he’s driving her at better than two G’s all the way. The Bouncing Betty’s pulling straight two, which is tough enough, but Olsen thinks he can stand the strain at two and a quarter.”
I looked them over again. An extra quarter gravity of acceleration, even if it is only an extra eight feet per second, uses a lot of additional fuel, even for a sixteen-ton soup can. “How about that mixture, Jimmy? Does it pep up the efficiency, or just the speed-combustion rate and exhaust velocity?”
“She’ll throw out a fifty percent, mixture I gave Olsen; optimum is good for eighty.” Something began to click in my head then, but his next words sidetracked it. “You’d better draw out, kid. An eight-day race is bad, even if you can hold two G’s. How’s your supplies?”
I was worried a little myself, but I wouldn’t admit it. “They’ll last. I’ve stocked enough soup to carry me to Jupiter and back at two G’s, if I had to, and the marker station is forty million miles this side of the big fellow, on a direct line from here. I’ve got plenty of oxygen, water, and concentrates.”
They’d given out the course that morning. We were to head out from Kor, point straight at Jupiter with a climb out of the plane of the ecliptic, drive down and hit a beacon rocket they were holding on a direct line with the big planet, forty million miles this side of him; that made about an even three-hundred-million-mile course from Mars, out and back, figured for eight days at a constant acceleration and deceleration of two gravities. It had been advertised as the longest and toughest race in rocket history, and they were certainly living up to the publicity.
“That’s a tough haul on a youngster, Len,” Jimmy grumbled. “And with quartz lining, it’s worse.”
“I’ve had plenty of practice at high acceleration, and the tubes are practically safe for six days’ firing. I think they’ll last the other two.”
“Then you’re matching the Bouncing Betty’s speed?”
I nodded grimly. “I’ll have to. The Tar Baby’ll probably run into trouble at the speed she’s meaning to make, but the Betty’s built to stand two.”
The starter was singing out his orders, and the field was being cleared. Jimmy grabbed my hand. “Good luck, Len. Don’t ride her harder’n she’ll carry. You Masterses make too much of a habit of being crazy.”
Then they forced him off the field and I was climbing into the cockpit, tightening the anchor straps of the shock hammock about the straitjacket I wore.
And I expected to need them. Two gravities mean double weight, during eight days, fighting your lungs and heart. If you take it lengthwise, it can’t be done, but by lying stretched out on the hammock at right angles to the flight line, it’s just possible.
The Betty roared up first, foaming out without a falter. Olsen took the Tar Baby up a little uncertainly, but straightened sharply and headed up. Finally, I got the signal and gave her the gun, leaving Mars dangling in space while I tried to keep my stomach off my backbone. The first ten minutes are always the toughest.
When that passed, I began feeding the tape into the baby autopilot that would take over when I had to sleep, which was about three quarters of the time, under the gravity drag. There wasn’t anything exciting to the takeoff, and I was out in space before I knew it, with the automatic guiding her. I might have to make a correction or two, but she’d hold at the two-G mark on course for days at a stretch.
I’d been fool enough to dream about excitement, but I knew already I wasn’t going to get it. By the time I was half an hour out, I was bored stiff, or felt that way. The automat ran the ship, space looked all alike, and the only sensation was weight pressing against me. I looked around for the Betty, and spotted her blast some fifty miles away, holding evenly abreast of me. The others were strung out behind in little clusters, except for Olsen. His blast was way up ahead, forging along at a good quarter gravity more than I could use. At the end of an hour, he was a full ten thousand miles away from me; there was no mistaking the harsh white glare of his jets. Olsen had decided to duck over the ecliptic, as I
was doing, but the Bouncing Betty had headed below it, so it was drawing out of sight. That left me out of touch with what I hoped was my leading competitor.
Of course, the radio signals came through on the ultrawave every so often, but the pep-talk description of the thrilling contest for endurance racing didn’t mean much when I put it up against the facts.
A racing ship in space on a long haul is the loneliest, most Godforsaken spot under the stars. For excitement, I’ll take marbles.
Having nothing better to do, I turned over and went to sleep on my stomach. You can kill a lot of time sleeping, and I meant to do it.
The howler was banging in my ear when I woke up. I reached over and cut on, noting that the chronometer said sixteen hours out of Kor.
“Special bulletin to all pilots,” said the ultrawave set. “The Bouncing Betty, piloted by James Maclntyre, is now out of the race. MacIntyre reports that, in cutting too close to the ecliptic, he was struck by a small meteoroid, and has suffered the loss of three main tubes. While out of the running, he feels confident of reaching Kor safely on his own power.
“This leaves Olsen of the Tar Baby and Masters of the Umatila in the lead by a long margin. Come in, Olsen.”
Olsen’s voice held a note of unholy glee that the obvious fatigue he was feeling couldn’t hide. “Still holding two and a quarter, heart good, breathing only slightly labored; no head pains. Position at approximately twenty-two and a half million miles from Kor; speed, two million eight hundred thousand per hour. Confident of winning.”
“Report acknowledged, Olsen. Come in, Masters.”
I tried to sound carefree, but I guess I failed. “Acceleration at two, holding course beautifully on autopilot, rising over ecliptic. Body and ship standing up okay. Pyrometer indication of tube lining very satisfactory. Position, twenty million miles out, speed, two and a half million. No signs of meteoroids up here. Can you give next highest acceleration below me?”
Already it took time for the messages to reach Kor and return, and I tried to locate Olsen with his two-and-a-half-million-mile lead. Even if he cut down to two now, the race seemed a certainty for him—unless something happened. Finally the report came back.
The 13th Golden Age of Science Fiction Megapack Page 19