He was in astrogation school again.
To make the unexpected similarity complete, his teachers, like the teachers at Luna Academy, were exspacemen.
But why were they here?
How had they obtained the illegal spaceships?
What could they do with them? Weren’t monitoring satellites circling Earth, ready to destroy any ships that blasted off?
Question after question buzzed through Andy’s head. In the breaks between classes he asked his instructors. They changed the subject. They wouldn’t talk to him about it.
On his third day in Mexico, Andy was given the task of plotting an orbit out of subspace. He wished he had access to star charts, for the patterns of stars that emerged out of the smoky haze of simulated subspace looked tantalizingly familiar.
Wasn’t that extremely bright Class Fo star on the right edge of the viewport Canopus?
The home of the Star Brain?
The unknown star’s spectrum was Fo, of that Andy was almost sure. And, even accounting for simulated proximity, it was extremely bright. Of the brightest stars in the sky, Andy remembered from his lessons at Luna Academy, Canopus stood second only to Sirius. And that was because Sirius’ distance from Sol System was a mere 8.7 light years, whereas eighty times that distance separated Canopus from Sol System.
Sirius’ apparent visual magnitude was -1.58.
Canopus’ apparent visual magnitide was -0.86.
But Sirius’ absolute visual magnitude was only 1.3 on a scale that placed the sun itself at 4.8.
And Canopus’ absolute visual magnitude, on the same scale, was an astonishing -7.5.
The intelligent races of the Galaxy had selected a truly spectacular star system as the home of the Star Brain.
Was Andy plotting a simulated orbit toward it now?
He thought so but wasn’t positive—another question with no immediate answer.
Could Andy conclude that, if the illegal spaceships blasted off and somehow managed to elude the monitoring satellites, their destination would be Canopus?
His instructor looked up from Andy’s computations. “Your orbit checks out, Cadet,” he said. He even called Andy that.
“Checks out … to Canopus?” Andy asked.
The ex-spaceman looked startled. Then he smiled grudgingly. “No comment, Cadet. You’ll find out soon enough.”
That night, Andy returned to the dormitory before Turk. He was polishing his boots when his friend appeared. Turk was excited.
“You’ll never guess what they have me working on.”
“Piloting? “
Turk said nothing, and Andy added; “On a simulated flight to Canopus?”
Turk shook his head. “Gunnery,” he said.
“Gunnery?”
“They have more junior pilots than they need.”
“What do you mean by gunnery?”
“Just what I said. I’m learning how to use a gun, a space cannon, I guess you’d call it.” Turk smiled. “Or maybe a pint-sized rocket-within-a-rocket. All I have to do is some fast mathematical figuring, almost like an astrogator. Then I press a button, and out streaks a rocket, or anyway a simulated rocket, toward its target.”
“What target?”
“Nobody told me,” Turk said. “But I can take a good guess. It looks like a small sphere, and it’s circling an Earth-sized and cloud-covered planet in an orbit about ten thousand miles out.”
“A monitoring satellite!” Andy cried.
“That’s the way I see it.”
Neither of them voiced what came into his mind: Were they going to blast their way into space?
After lights-out, it took Andy a long time to fall asleep. If they fired rockets at the monitors, he knew, it would mean war, the first interstellar war in history. Because, expectedly, the Star Brain’s response would be: punish Earth. And for what? Whoever commanded the fleet of illegal space ships would risk interstellar war, risk a ravaged Earth with bombed-out cities.
In his history classes at the Academy Andy had learned that war was now impossible. Mankind and the other races of the Galaxy had mastered weapons of such power that war would be unthinkable. First had come atomic warheads and then hydrogen warheads and finally cobalt warheads, each potentially more devastating than the one before.
The only protection against them was a quick and equally brutal counterattack. As Andy’s instructor at the Academy had put it, “Offensive weapons are several generations ahead of defensive countermeasures. That’s been true ever since the middle of the twentieth century. War is unthinkable—if no one can win it…
Andy drifted off to troubled sleep.
And awoke to bright lights and shouting.
“He’s here!”
“Outside…
“Waiting to make a speech. . ,
“Everybody out!”
Turk jumped into his boots and zipped them. “What’s going on?” Andy asked. “Who’s here?”
Turk tousled his hair. “Boy, you sleep like a log. Didn’t you hear? Lieutenant Odet carne through with the news.”
“What news?” Andy asked in mounting exasperation.
“Ballinger,” Turk said. “Captain Reed Ballinger flew into Mexico today. He’s running the show here. Come on.”
Andy zipped his own boots and, with Turk, joined the crowd in the quadrangle outside their dormitory. Ex-spacemen and Cadets alike, old hands and newcomers, were trotting toward the administration building. Floodlights lit the steps in front. The night was hot, the moon high. The jungle seemed very close.
A tall figure resplendent in the dress uniform of a Senior Captain of the Space Corps stepped into the glare of the floodlights.
This, Andy knew, was Captain Reed Ballinger.
Shouldering his way through the crowd with Turk, he felt his breath catch. Depending on your point of view, Ballinger was a hero … or a villain. Even if his motives had been selfish—and according to Lambert Strayer they were—he had defended Earth’s rights in defiance of the Star Brain and the entire Galactic Confederacy which, to a world, followed the Star Brain’s dicta like shorn lambs. But his defense of Earth’s rights had cost Earth possibly its greatest right of all: access to the far star trails of the Galaxy.
Reed Ballinger, standing dramatically in the floodlights’ glare while the crowd settled down, had a ruggedly handsome face. It was all crags, straight lines, and shadows—the heavy brow, the straight nose, the film hard line of the lips, the thrusting jaw. Ballinger stood there waiting. He had a sense of timing that was almost theatrical, Andy realized. The crowd grew silent, and he let the silence grow. He stood ramrod straight without moving.
And then, finally, he took a step forward and spoke.
His voice was deep, his words slow, loud, and clear.
“Some of you know me. Others don’t. All of you know of me. But I’m here to tell you that I, as an individual, am unimportant.”
There were muttered denials in the crowd.
“If I’m unimportant as an individual, it is because, pitted against a hostile Galactic Confederacy, all individuals are unimportant.
“But with your help, with the help of other brave men like you, waiting even now at a dozen other secret spacefields from here to Indochina, we can make Earth’s power felt across the length and breadth of the Galaxy.”
Someone behind Andy shouted. Applause swept like a wave through the darkness. Ballinger, timing it perfectly again, went on:
“We’re Earthmen. I don’t know what that means … yet … to Sirians or Procyonians or the fish life of Fomalhaut or Capellans … but they’ll know before we’re finished. We’re Earthmen.
“We won’t have exile crammed down our throats.
“If it’s necessary to blast a path back into space, then we’re prepared to do that. We’re Earth-men …
This time it was several minutes before the roaring crowd would let Ballinger continue. He smiled patiently, waiting. His attitude was clear: he, Reed Ballinger, was their servant; he would
continue when they were ready.
“Do we have rocket weapons?” he cried.
“Ye-es!” The answer was like thunder.
“Are we afraid of a fight? Will we let a handful of monitoring satellites keep us earthbound when the whole Galaxy is waiting for the proud shape of our ships and the dauntless tread of our boots on far worlds?”
“Noo-oo!”
“If we have to blast the monitors out of the sky, are
we prepared to do it? If we have to bomb the Star Brain again …” here Ballinger smiled in self mockery . . this time more effectively than my first hasty effort, are we prepared for that too?
“Men, our heritage is out there, in deep space. We’re spacemen. Tied to a planet, even Mother Earth, we’re nothing. In space we come alive. Will we let a machine keep us dead?
‘Tm here to tell you we can do it. I’m here to tell you we have to do it. Men, except for the monitors, there isn’t an armed ship between Earth and Canopus —and I hear tell that the Canopus fleet, the Guardians of the Brain, is just a wee bit creaky with age.” Ballinger’s voice was soft now with mild, chiding contempt. Nervous laughter greeted his words, and he went on:
“We’ve scoured Earth for our own weapon systems. We’ve found them in the garbage heaps of a civilization gone soft … in museums, rusting in public parks, once or twice at the bottom of the sea. We’ve all spent a busy year. The fruits of our labor are now hanging ripe before our eyes.
“Men, we are ready.
“The challenge awaits us.
“Is there anyone among you without the courage to accept it?”
There was, apparently, no one.
“We blast off in two weeks’ time,” Reed Ballinger said, calm now. “Hundreds of ships from twelve bases scattered across the globe. They won’t expect so many ships, and some of us are bound to reach Canopus.” Reed Ballinger bowed his head.
“When that happens, when we destroy the Star Brain, space is ours… .”
Ballinger capped his dramatic speech with a dramatic curtain. The floodlights just blinked out. The night swallowed Ballinger, and the stars of space were very bright, as if trying to outshine the full moon.
In the darkness, Andy was aware of shouts and backslapping and roars of approval.
If they all agreed with Ballinger, Andy thought in despair, the Galaxy might be plunged into its first interstellar war.
Chapter 5 Escape!
THE next afternoon, a score of Indians arrived at the illegal spaceport with a burro train of supplies for the ex-Cadets.
They were small brown men, heirs of the ancient Mayas who once had ruled the Yucatec jungle, and they still clung to their age-old ways. They were hare-foot and wore loose white garments. They spent two hours at the spaceport, unloading their burros and driving hard bargains for the salted meat, starchy root vegetables, and melons they had brought from the nearby town.
Their arrival was a welcome diversion. All day Andy had been thinking of Captain Ballinger’s speech and the obvious enthusiasm with which the ex-Cadets had greeted it. Now Ballinger was gone, but his name was on everyone’s lips. No one doubted for a minute that Reed Ballinger would lead them back into space.
Andy’s only solace was the memory of the brief meeting with Lambert Strayer in New Mexico. Strayer had been a Space Captain, too, one of the greatest. And Strayer had nothing but contempt for Reed Ballinger.
But maybe Strayer, Andy thought in despair, was just a lonely voice out of the past, an anachronism like the Indians. Maybe Reed Ballinger really stood for the wave of the future.
Andy stood for a long time at the edge of the spaceport tarmac, watching the Indians lead their unloaded burros off into the jungle. An armed sentry paraded by and gave him a flinty-eyed look. A voice said, “You better get back to work.”
It was Turk. Andy realized that except for the sentry they were all alone on the edge of the tarmac, close to the encroaching jungle. When Andy didn’t answer, Turk said, “What’s eating you? You’ve been acting queer ever since Captain Ballinger was here.”
“I was thinking of Lambert Strayer.”
“What about him? He’s ancient history,” Turk said. “Captain Ballinger… .”
All of Andy’s uncertainty and confusion were blurted out in a few words. “Captain Ballinger? Your Captain Ballinger isn’t fit to wipe Lambert Strayer’s boots. You heard what Strayer told us: Ballinger was responsible for Earth being ruled out of space.”
Turk glanced around, alarmed, but the sentry was a long way off. “Hey,” he advised, “keep it down to a dull roar, will you? Don’t talk about Reed Ballinger like that … not around here.”
‘Tm just talking to you. No one else.”
“Then don’t. Because I don’t want to hear it.” “Afraid to?” Andy asked curtly.
“Now, look …” Turk began.
“You look,” Andy cut him off. “Maybe you can forget all the history they taught us on Luna. I can’t. There’s never been an interstellar war. They said it was unthinkable. They said mankind and the other intelligent races of the Galaxy had developed weapons that could destroy civilization. They said… .” “Professors,” Turk scoffed. ‘‘I’ll tell you something they didn’t know about. I’ll bet they never saw a couple of dozen Indians leading a train of burros through the jungle.”
“What does that have to do with it?”
“Now who’s forgetting history? A couple of thousand years ago the ancestors of those Indians had a great civilization going. They … well, they got soft. Look at them now.”
“They couldn’t meet the challenge of the jungle,” Andy protested. “Okay, I’ll admit that. So they reverted to savagery. What are you driving at?”
“What do you think will happen to mankind, if we can’t meet the challenge of space?”
“It was Ballinger who couldn’t meet it, Ballinger who had to take the law into his own hands.”
“Andy, Andy. Do you want to stay earthbound all your life?”
“No, I… .” But Andy’s voice trailed off. If he admitted that space was a fire in his blood, wasn’t Ballinger’s the only way back to the star trails?
“It’s like we’re at a crossroads of history,” Turk said, speaking slowly, struggling with the unfamiliar concepts. “We go one way, and we’re like those Indians. We go another, and we seek our destiny in space. We need a man like Reed Ballinger to lead us.”
“Just like he led us the last time?”
Turk looked away. “There’s no use talking to you,” he said. “You’re in a rut. You’re living in the past. You don’t care if you never set foot inside a spaceship again. And you’re just going to get into trouble thinking like that.”
“When I came down here, nobody told me there’d be thought control.”
“I give up,” Turk said. He started to walk away, and flung over his shoulder, “Nobody made you come here. Just remember that. Like the rest of us, you flew down of your own free will.”
“I’ll remember it, all right,” Andy promised, but by then Turk was out of earshot.
The rain rammed on the tarmac and roared through the heavy foliage of the surrounding jungle. Andy was drenched to the skin seconds after going outside. He could see the lights in the windows of the other dormitories, and brighter light in the administration building. All else was blackness. The rain poured down in endless sheets. There was no wind. Andy wondered about the Indian village. It had to be nearby; he hoped he could find it in the darkness and the rain. If he got lost in the jungle, he’d be in serious trouble.
He had decided to escape.
At first the use of the word escape in his thoughts surprised him. Escape? From what?
But, he told himself now at midnight as he trotted swiftly across the tarmac, often splashing ankle-deep in water, it would be escape. Armed guards patrolled the periphery of the spaceport day and night. Whether they changed their minds or not, Reed Ballinger’s “volunteers” were supposed to stay put.
Oddly enough, wha
t had made up Andy’s mind had nothing to do with Ballinger or the secret spaceport or the Indians or his argument with Turk. He remembered a day almost two years ago when he was ready to apply for admission to Luna Academy. He’d filled out all the forms, but he didn’t mail them.
His brother Frank was home then, between flights, and they were living in a hotel near Kansas City Spaceport.
Frank had said, “Got your application all ready?”
“Yes.”
“I saw it in your desk. What’s the matter, Andy?”
“It’s nothing.”
“Come on, now. This is your brother Frank you’re talking to.”
“I guess I’m not sure, that’s all.”
“About being a spaceman? What else do you want to be?”
“You’ll laugh if I tell you.”
“Try me,” Frank suggested.
And Andy, averting his eyes, had said uncomfortably, “Well, I was thinking of maybe being an archaeologist.”
“A digger, huh?”
Andy’s face reddened as he defended the idea. “Did you ever stop to think of all the mysteries of mankind’s past that haven’t been solved? Angkor, the origin of the Cretans, the way we keep on finding that so many of the ancient myths really happened, it’s … fascinating,” Andy finished lamely.
His brother Frank had surprised him. “Sure it is. And I can see how it would interest a bright kid like you.”
“You mean you’re not mad at me?”
“What for? You want to be an archaeologist; go ahead and be one. I have a hunch you’ll make me proud of you.”
“But I thought … you being a spaceman and all… .”
“What does that have to do with it? I’m me, I’m Frank Marlow, and I guess space is in my blood. I’m not happy unless I eat it and breathe it and sleep it. But you’re Andy Marlow, and whatever else you do, you’ve got to live with yourself.”
An enormous smile of relief covered Andy’s face. “Gosh, I thought… .”
“That I’d be ripping mad? Not on your life, Andy. Make up your own mind. I won’t push you one way or the other.” Frank said thoughtfully, “Look, there are maybe three ways a man can see himself and his position in the world.” He ticked the three ways off on his fingers. “One, you think what other people will say about any decision you make is important. It’s a pretty comfortable way to live, because you’re always in step. But if it’s so important to be in step like that, you lose something of what makes you tick as Andy Marlow.
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