Spaceman Go Home

by Milton Lesser

  “Three thousand years ago in one packed century and chiefly in one small city they built virtually out of chaos a civilization all Earth can look to with pride. The century was what, in our calendar, was called the fifth century B.C. Later today you will see with what good reason our calendar is divided into B.C. and A.D., but that is not my province. The one small city was the city of Athens.

  “It produced in a span of less than a hundred years, three of the greatest dramatists the Earth ever has known. These were Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, and their works will be fed into the scanner later. It produced three philosophers without peer on Earth: Socrates, his disciple Plato; and Plato’s disciple Aristotle. Its architecture… .”

  Andy listened, fascinated. He became aware of several Capellans joining him and Turk on the catwalk. They were guiding no Earthmen but had come because they wanted to hear.

  “… ‘nothing in excess,’ ’’ Dr. Seys was saying. “But that is ironic, for though it was the guiding motto of these Hellenes of Athens, theirs was the most exuberant, active, Dionysian, excessive civilization the Earth was to know until Elizabethan England, which you shall hear about later. My point is that such a motto is revered precisely because it was the opposite of the exuberance confronting Socrates. But if the very excesses of the Greeks made possible a Socrates or a Euripides, we of Earth are thankful for it.”

  Dr. Seys spoke for fifteen minutes more, and then an historian Andy didn’t know began to speak of the conquest of Greece by the Macedonians and the spreading, by the sword of Alexander the Great, of Hellenic culture as far as India.

  “Incredible!” said one of the Capellans.

  “Starting from one small city,” said another. “Didn’t our earliest attempts at a moral democracy start in the small seacoast town of Erbodine?”

  At dusk, Andy and Turk returned to the “Goddard.” They trudged the several miles from the entrance to the Star Brain’s underground vault to the spaceport on foot. At least, they started out trudging, for both were tired from sightseeing and the suspense of waiting for the Star Brain’s decision.

  But Canopus planet’s less than normal Earth gravity and their optimism after seeing the Capellan reaction to the first few hours of Earth’s presentation combined to make them kick up their heels. Turk jumped fifteen feet into the air, executed a somersault and landed on his feet. Andy pranced in fifteen-foot strides. Turk cartwheeled prodigiously. Andy left the path to clear an enormous boulder in a single leap.

  Panting and sweating under their helmets, they looked at each other and laughed. “It’s almost like Luna,” Turk said, referring to the light gravity.

  “It’s better than Luna,” Andy said. “If we succeed, we can bring the races of the Galaxy together more than they’ve ever been before.”

  “You’re liable to be a spaceman and an archaeologist,” Turk predicted.

  Andy nodded happily. A few minutes later, they met a dozen crewmen of the “Goddard” on the road.

  “Why are you going back to the ship?” one of them asked.

  “We’ve all been invited to a party at the Capellans,” said another. “Going to sample some of the native delicacies.”

  A third punned, “If we’re the skeleton crew, isn’t it time we put some flesh on our bones?”

  “Who’s still aboard the ‘Goddard’?” Andy asked.

  “Charlie Sands and a radar tech named Moody. Don’t worry, Captain Ballinger will keep.”

  “I was thinking of Gault. He still hasn’t been found,” Andy pointed out.

  “What do you expect? The ‘Goddard’s’ twelve hundred feet long and almost two hundred feet in the beam. Lots of places a man can hide, but so what? Now that we’ve landed on Canopus, there’s nothing Ballinger or Gault can do. They’re just two men, Gault’s in hiding, and Ballinger doesn’t have a fleet to back him up.”

  Andy and Turk approached the “Goddard.” It was almost dark now. A few lights glowed in the great ship’s portholes, and a firefly sprinkling of lights dotted the field from the other ships of the fleet.

  As they went up the ramp to the open aft hatch, Andy called, “Charlie? Charlie Sands?”

  There was no answer.

  “Moody?” Andy said, and his voice was louder.

  All exits but the aft hatch had been locked on a timing device; so Andy assumed either Charlie Sands or Moody, or both, would be standing their watch there.

  Again there was no answer. He ran the rest of the way up the ramp, Turk at his heels.

  They found Charlie Sands on the companionway floor beyond the airlock. Turk and Andy kneeled beside him. He was lying face down. Andy touched his shoulder. Charlie groaned and blinked his eyes and tried to sit up. His lips were moving, Andy realized, but he couldn’t hear the words through his helmet. All thumbs, he unscrewed the lugs and yanked the plastic globe over his head.

  “… thought it was Moody,” Charlie was saying. Gingerly he touched the back of his head. He

  repeated, “I heard someone coming up behind me. I thought it was Moody. I started to turn. I … whoever it was slugged me from behind.”

  “Stay with him,” Andy told Turk, and sprinted down the companionway toward the “Goddard’s” brig.

  Even before he reached it, he could hear Tech l/c Moody bellowing.

  Moody was in the cell where Ballinger had been locked up. When he saw Andy he shouted, “We had it all figured out. 1 watched the cell, and Sands was at the airlock. Then Ballinger said he was sick; so 1 went over to Hurry up and get me out of here, will you?”

  “I can’t,” Andy said. “I don’t have the key.”

  Moody went on, “Somebody—I don’t know who —took me from behind. The next thing I knew, I was locked in. Ballinger’s gone.”

  The only one who could have taken him from behind, Andy knew, was Harry Gault.

  Now Ballinger and Harry Gault were on the loose.

  Andy ran back to the airlock, where Charlie, with Turk’s help, had climbed unsteadily to his feet.

  “Ballinger?” Turk asked. “Gault?”

  “It has to be.”

  “You want me to get on the radio and sound the alarm?”

  Andy was about to nod, but didn’t. “Before the Brain gave us permission to land,” he said, “Captain Strayer took the blame for the Earth fleet’s being manned to the teeth. He didn’t want the Brain to know the entire fleet except for the ‘Nobel’ had been assembled under Reed Ballinger to attack Canopus again. Whatever else happened, he wanted Earth to present a united front.”

  “So?” Turk said. “This is different. If Ballinger and Gault are on the loose, there’s only one place they’d go. To the Brain. If they give the Brain any trouble while Captain Strayer’s scientists are presenting Earth’s case, what do you think will happen?”

  “We’d be kicked out of space for good,” Charlie predicted.

  “That’s just it,” Andy insisted. “They’ve got to be stopped, but it has to be done quietly. Captain Strayer didn’t tell the Brain Reed Ballinger was aboard the fleet, did he? We’ve got to back up Strayer’s story.” As he spoke, Andy was screwing on his helmet. The rest of what he said came to Turk through his helmet intercom. “Does Charlie have a gun?”

  “Whoever hit him …”

  “That was Gault.”

  “… took it.”

  “Get yourself some weapons,” Andy said. “Then find Frank and Captain Strayer. They’re probably aboard the ‘Nobel.’ 1’m going after Ballinger.”

  “Alone? Are you crazy? He’ll be desperate.” “That’s just it. Whatever he has up his sleeve, I’ve got to delay him.” Andy entered the airlock. ‘Tm going back to the Brain. I’ll wait for you there.”

  Before Turk could protest again, Andy was gone.

  Chapter 19 Home is the Spaceman

  Running all the way, and with an assist from the light gravity, Andy reached the vault of the Star Brain in fifteen minutes. He had met no one enroute.

  Two Capellans in space suits we
re lounging at the entrance to the vault.

  “Did you see a couple of Earthmen come this way?” “Your scientists are in the scanner room even now, Earthman.”

  “Not scientists. Just two men. Sightseers maybe?” “Two Earthmen, one tall and the other short, came not ten minutes ago.”

  “Where are they?” One tall and one short … that could be Reed Ballinger and Harry Gault.

  “They were sightseers, as you said, Earthman. They asked the way to the power plant.”

  Andy said, “My name’s Marlow. In a while some Earthmen are going to come looking for me. Will you tell them that’s where I went? The power plant?”

  “Is something troubling you, Earthman?”

  “No. It’s nothing.”

  The Capellans, on casual sentry duty, were armed.

  Andy had to check an impulse to ask them for help.

  But, now that he knew they’d made straight for the power plant, Andy didn’t have to guess what Ballinger’s and Gault’s purpose was. If they damaged the power plant, they would put the whole complex mechanism of the Brain out of commission. They were bent on destruction; they had to be. For revenge against their fellow Earthmen who had thwarted them by landing on Canopus planet to present Earth’s case? Or to present the destruction of the Brain as an accomplished fact in an attempt to rally the Ballinger crews behind them again?

  Andy rushed down the brightly lit corridors to the vault that housed the power plant.

  The shadow of a man loomed in the last corridor.

  Andy flattened himself against the wall. He looked in the power plant.

  Reed Ballinger had just straightened up. In his right hand was an empty briefcase. On the floor at his feet was a squat black box.

  A bomb?

  Andy told himself it had to be. In a way, it was ironic. Hundreds of Monitors and the great guardian fleet made up of ships from all the worlds protected the Star Brain from attack. But if you pierced those defenses by subterfuge—and Ballinger had by the simple fact of being a prisoner—the Brain was vulnerable. Its guardians never dreamed an enemy could land on Canopus planet.

  Waiting in the shadows against the wall, Andy knew all he needed was one lucky break. If Ballinger, on the way out, didn’t see him, he could go in and remove the bomb. He’d have time. It had to be set for delayed detonation, for Ballinger himself needed a chance to escape.

  Andy felt his muscles growing tense. Reed Ballinger was stepping through the doorway. Another few moments and… .

  Something hard prodded Andy’s back. He jerked rigid.

  “Don’t turn around, boy. Just step inside there.”

  Ballinger looked at him. But it wasn’t Ballinger who had spoken. The voice was Harry Gault’s.

  “All right, Turk,” Frank Marlow said. “Calm down. Calm down, and let’s hear it again.”

  “Ballinger, sir!” Turk blurted. “He escaped off the ‘Goddard.’ He’s on his way to the Brain with Harry Gault. Andy didn’t want to sound a general alarm because Captain Strayer … he said … he went after Ballinger and Gault himself.”

  Frank was heading for the airlock of the “Nobel.” He called over his shoulder, “Captain Strayer’s on dining deck eating. Get him. I’m on my way.”

  “Sir!” Turk called after him. “You’d better go armed.”

  Frank turned around in his tracks and ran toward the small weapons room of the “Nobel.”

  “You betrayed us once, Cadet,” Harry Gault accused Andy in the Star Brain’s power plant. “In White Sands I offered you a job with Captain Ballinger, but that wasn’t enough for you. You had to… .”

  Reed Ballinger cut him off impatiently. “Twenty minutes, Harry,” he said. “She’s set to blow in twenty minutes.” If anything, Captain Ballinger understated the simple words which could, if the statement became fact, bring so much grief to the Galaxy. But there was a remoteness in his voice and expression, too, as if, now that he had committed himself, he wanted to stand apart from his act and watch the results only as an interested observer.

  Maybe, Andy thought, that could explain what was wrong with Captain Ballinger. He was a born leader of men; he had proved that. But somehow he couldn’t make a complete commitment. He was the lone man on a mountain peak, watching the tiny insects—unworthy of him, he believed—crawl far, far below.

  Harry Gault gestured at Andy with his atomic pistol. “What do we do with him?”

  “All chaos will break loose when the bomb goes off,” Reed Ballinger said. “We can’t take him back to the ship. He’d only give us trouble.”

  “We can’t let him go,” Harry Gault said.

  Ballinger gazed for a long moment at Andy and nodded. “I’m going up. You do what you want with him, then follow me.”

  Ballinger started to leave.

  “Captain Ballinger!” Andy called. “Don’t do it. It isn’t too late. You can still take the bomb out with you. Don’t do it. You’ve got the fate of Earth in your hands. I’ve watched the Project Nobel scientists presenting their case to the Brain. I’ve watched the reaction of the Capellans. They’re curious and interested. Don’t do it, Captain. I think there’s a good chance the Edict will be dropped. I think there’s a good chance Earth will be allowed in space again. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

  Reed Ballinger smiled a handsome smile. “Is it? Is that what I want? Earth with the right to return to space, while I’m returned to Earth in disgrace? Earthbound for life, if not worse? Tried and imprisoned perhaps? Do you really think that’s what I want?”

  “Would you put your own future above Earth’s? Would you just… .”

  “I showed them the way. I built and assembled the fleet and got recruits for it. It was my fleet, Cadet, to do this my way. They turned me down. They betrayed me. Does that answer your question?”

  Reed Ballinger stalked out of the power plant.

  For several seconds Gault looked at Andy. Finally he said, “I guess I don’t have to shoot you, Cadet.”

  “It still isn’t too late,” Andy said desperately. “Do you think Earth will ever forgive Reed Ballinger for what’s about to happen? Do you think the rest of the Galaxy will ever forgive Earth? You can do it if Ballinger won’t, Gault. You can walk right out of here with the bomb.”

  “I don’t have to shoot you because 1 can just leave you in here with the bomb.”

  Gault backed toward the doorway, holding Andy at bay with the atomic pistol. He stepped out into the corridor and shut the heavy door with a resounding thud.

  Andy heard the lock fall into place.

  He ran to the door and tried it. It was metal. It wouldn’t budge. Though there was a lock on the inside, it didn’t operate the outside lock.

  What had Ballinger said? She’s set to go off in twenty minutes. That was five minutes ago. Andy still had fifteen minutes left, fifteen minutes to open and disassemble the bomb.

  He examined it. He lifted it. The bomb only weighed a few pounds. Andy couldn’t hear any ticking. The bomb case was solid plastic, seamless.

  After five minutes Andy knew he couldn’t open it without tools.

  “An Earthman named Marlow said you would find him in the power plant,” the Capellan told Frank.

  “When?”

  “A while ago.”

  “Was he alone?”

  “He asked about two other Earthmen who went there.”

  Frank and Turk started running, with Captain Strayer and Charlie Sands close behind.

  … three minutes to go.

  Andy thought of Earth, of the pale green mist that covered the branches in a temperate zone forest in early spring, of the deep green of a summer meadow, of the sound a brook made rushing over the smooth stones of its bed. He thought of the starry skies of space, of all the vast reaches from Earth to Ophiuchus and beyond, still unexplored, of the double profession of spaceman and archaeologist that Turk had predicted for him.

  Two minutes to go… .

  When Gault and Ballinger, coming out, met Frank, C
aptain Strayer, Turk, and Charlie in the corridor, Harry Gault fired first.

  The blast from his atomic pistol seared past Frank’s head, and Frank returned the fire. Gault screamed; his arm went limp. He dropped the pistol and fell back against Reed Ballinger.

  Frank, Captain Strayer and the two Cadets quickly surrounded them. Frank said levelly, “Drop your weapon, Ballinger. I don’t have to tell you I’d shoot you if I had to.”

  Ballinger did as he was told, but he was smiling. “You’re too late,” he said. “It would take you at least five minutes to get down there, and I’m very much afraid you don’t have five minutes. In seconds the bomb will go off.”

  Captain Strayer and Frank stared at each other blankly. Several seconds passed, and then below them they heard a booming explosion.

  “Andy!” Frank cried in despair.

  When there was exactly one minute to go, Andy said out loud, “We should have told the Star Brain. Captain Strayer was wrong. We should have admitted what the fleet’s purpose was. Then maybe the Brain could have prepared… .”

  Andy stopped short. An echoing mechanical voice from an unseen speaker said, “What was the purpose of the fleet, Earthman?”

  “Who is it?” Andy shouted. “Who’s talking?” “Foolish Earthman. Do you think I wouldn’t have a scanner in my own power plant? But how I can judge you men of Earth if you don’t tell the truth, if you try to deceive me … ?”

  How much time? Thirty seconds? “It’s too late,” Andy said. “There’s a bomb in here. About to go off. Reed Ballinger set it. He was aboard the fleet. He commanded it in the beginning. But the Project Nobel people, under Captain Strayer, won control, and except for one henchman Captain Ballinger didn’t have a man left on his side. That’s the truth.”

  A brief silence as the seconds ticked on. Then, “I believe you, man of Earth. Now stand back against the wall.”

  Andy did as he was ordered. He heard a grinding sound overhead. A slit appeared in the ceiling and widened. A large cone-shaped shield of metal dropped toward the floor over Reed Ballinger’s bomb.