Collected Fiction

by Kris Neville

  It was a night of merry-making, and, at its conclusion, the whole village sent up a prayer to their alien gods to send them more animals who were so stupid that they obligingly killed themselves, in spite of all urging to the contrary.

  ONE LEG IS ENOUGH

  The planets wanted men, and Al Lyons wanted those planets. But how could he be of any use up there as only half a man?

  A FIRE-FLASH from Richardson Field illuminated his room. After a moment he heard the hissing roar of the rocket as it hurtled skyward.

  That was the fifth one this month. He lay between the crisp, cool sheets and stared out through the window. They’re probably shooting for Venus again, he thought.

  He felt his self-imposed isolation acutely. At night it was the worst; that was why he had demanded that they take the television set out of his room: for fear that, in a moment of midnight weakness, he would turn it on to try to find out what was happening. During the day, it was easier; whenever Doctor or Nurse tried to volunteer information, he could cut them short with a half animal snarl. But at night, when he was alone . . .

  One of the most important things in the world was that he go on not caring; that gave him a solid rock to cling to. He repeated over and over to himself, “I don’t care what they’re doing.”

  But the fifth already this month!

  No. He didn’t give a damn about it; he was too proud to give a damn; he would lay here and die without giving a damn.

  Every night he promised himself that he would ask Nurse to transfer him to the other wing, first thing in the morning, where he wouldn’t even be able to see the rocket fire. But every morning he always found a reason to postpone the request for one more day. Deep inside he knew that he did not want to transfer rooms. Each fire-flash sent him wallowing in a wave of self-pity, and it was like a drug.

  Nurse had said something about that the other day.

  He could remember her words quite clearly, just as she had spoken them. Of late, he had discovered that his memory was very good.

  “You don’t want to get well, Al,” she had said. “You lay here and feel sorry for yourself, and you don’t want to get well. That’s your trouble.”

  Well, he told himself, suppose I don’t want to get well. If I don’t want to get well, that’s my own business.

  He turned his face into the pillow.

  Not to me, he shrieked mentally. Not to me. Such things are bound to happen when men and machinery mix; but always to the other guy. Not to me.

  For six months he had lain between the white sheets of the hospital bed, studying the ceiling during the day and tossing restlessly at night, waiting with a wild mixture of emotions, bitterness, hatred, jealousy, pity, contempt, for a rocket flash to light his room and announce that another ship had headed outward.

  And more and more as he lay there, he found escape from the oppression of his room in memory . . .

  “HOW’S THE patient today?” Doctor asked.

  “Still alive, I guess.”

  Doctor made professional motions with his hands. “Sleep well last night?”

  “So-so.”

  “Noticed the leg lately?” (Remembering that question, Al winced. The leg wasn’t there anymore, but for the first month after they had amputated, he had been kept awake most of the time because he could feel a cramp in it.)

  “No,” he said sullenly.

  Quit thinking about it, he told himself. Think of something pleasant . . .

  HE CAME out of Hanger 5 and started toward the Rec hall. “Hey, Al!”

  “Yeah?”

  “Old Man wants to see you.”

  “What’s he want?”

  “Didn’t say.”

  “Well, thanks . . . Thanks, Jerry. Guess I better go see.”

  Al heard his feet clip-clop hollowly. It was nice to walk, to feel the free and easy sway as the legs moved like pistons.

  “Al Lyons,” he told the Space corporal at the reception desk.

  “Lyons, eh?” The corporal eyed him. “Go on in.”

  The Old Man was a Space Service captain. He was a big, friendly man who realized that the civilian maintenance crews really were civilians. The men in 314 all swore by him.

  “Oh? Come in, young fellow.”

  “I’m Al Lyons, sir. You wanted to see me?”

  “Yes. Indeed I did. Glad you could come right over. Take a chair.”

  Al sat down.

  “I believe you submitted an application last year for Space School.”

  “Yes, yes, sir,” Al gulped.

  The Old Man smiled. “Well, I got the report on it this morning.”

  Al Lyons could feel the sweat break out on the palms of his hands. “Yes, sir?”

  The Old Man stood up and came around the desk. He extended his hand.

  “Let me be the first to congratulate you.”

  “You mean . . . you mean . . . I made it?” There was disbelief in his voice.

  The Old Man was pumping his hand. “First quintile. Leave Richardson Field Monday for Seaton.”

  Al Lyons tried to think of something to say. He told himself that he was a grown man, now. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he said.

  But that was what he was trying to forget; everything connected with the Space Service. He tossed restlessly in his bed.

  His mind, too, refused to be still . . .

  WHEN HE stepped off the night train (which had made a special stop) at the railroad siding and passenger depot, the air of the desert almost took his breath away. The stars, overhead, were pin pricks of brilliance set against an inconceivably vast loneliness.

  He could see, by sallow moonglow, the double spur lines stretch away across the desert to Richardson Field, New Mexico. No cars stood now on the lines. It was the weekend. The depot itself, an Army unit, was lifeless.

  He had wired, according to instructions, and he had expected someone to meet him. Now, being away from home for the first time, he felt small and isolated.

  For five or ten minutes he walked around the depot. After that, he sat down on the rough boards of the cargo platform to wait.

  He swung his legs.

  After half an hour alone with the stars and the flat, white sands, he saw the lights of a car creeping toward him along a darker ribbon that was the asphalt road. The twin headlights grew larger and larger until finally the car, a new jeep, rattled up to the depot.

  The driver cut the engine.

  “You the man for 314?”

  “Yes. Yes, sir,” Al Lyons called. “Grab your gear, kid, and let’s go.”

  Al Lyons picked up his two suitcases and walked over to the jeep. “Toss ’em in back.”

  He did and then climbed into the car.

  The driver started the engine, shifted, sent the jeep leaping backwards, spun it around in a tight circle, and headed toward the distant lights.

  After a while, the driver said, “Been waiting long?”

  “Not very.”

  “Sorry. These don’t go as fast as I thought. Should have been here twenty minutes ago.”

  “That’s okay.”

  There was silence again. Then: “What’s your name, kid?”

  “Al Lyons.”

  “Al, eh? Where from?”

  “Ohio.”

  The driver grunted.

  “What’s your name?” Al Lyons asked.

  “Willie. Willie Cord.”

  Al Lyons nodded. “What do you do out here, Willie?”

  “Pilot.”

  “Jets?”

  “Space.”

  “Space?” Al Lyons gasped. “You mean a space pilot came all the way over here just to pick me up?”

  WILLIE CORD studied the road ahead. “Might as well. We’re blasting in another couple of hours. Didn’t have anything else to do to kill time.”

  Al Lyons said, “Oh.” He, too, studied the road.

  “Been in long?”

  “Eight years at it—almost from the first.”

  “Then you must have known Richardson?
”

  “. . . Yeah. Used to get drunk with him . . . Crazy guy . . . Wild . . .”

  Al Lyons decided that wasn’t any way to talk about a hero.

  “Told him, Rick, quit. Quit while you’re winning. You got to the Rock. Let someone else try Venus.”

  Willie Cord clamped his jaw.

  “Nope. Said he was lucky.” Willie Lord smiled grimly. “He was wrong.”

  “What do you think—happened?” Willie Cord shrugged. “Cracked up landing. Any of a million things. Can’t tell . . .”

  Al Lyons kept silent for a mile. Then he asked:

  “What do you think of Seaton?” Willie Cord considered this. “A grind . . .

  “You go four years. Okay. You get out. An engineer. If you’re lucky, a pilot’s job, like mine. Otherwise: Lug you up to Mars . . . or the Rock. You dig ditches, or set on your fanny, or map terrain. Or look for uranium. All comes to the same thing . . .

  “I hauled up the first graduates last years. Eager kids, all excited. Dumped ’em on Mars. What the hell. Nothing to do. All there is is Marsport: a dome a quarter mile across: fifty men. A year at a stretch. Living like dogs. Sit around, play cards, cuss, talk about dames.”

  “But to be on Mars,” Al Lyons protested. “That must be something. Exciting, just to be there.”

  “Better than the Rock, maybe, but exciting, no . . . On the Rock you really work. Putting up the damn rocket base for the Army or the damn telescope for the astronomers. Army don’t need the base and the astronomers don’t need the ’scope. But you bust a gut for them, just the same . . . On Mars, better, in a way. Don’t do nothing but set, most of the time. Exciting, hell no. To be on Mars . . . kid dreams . . . as the Congress will tell you: they cut our appropriations one more time, and we won’t be there.”

  “But someday there’ll be a giant dome, miles and miles across, and people can live under it almost as comfortably as they live here . . .”

  “Not in our times, kid. No reason. Costs too much.”

  Al Lyons looked away from the road, up at the stars.

  “You’re wrong, Willie.”

  “No, kid. I’m right.” He mused for a moment. “Take last trip. What did I bring back? Samples. That’s all: five hundred pounds of rock. And not even a damn smell of pitchblende. Ain’t no uranium on the whole damn planet. If there were, the Space Service couldn’t squeeze out the money to mine it. We’d just keep it out there for a rainy day with a big ‘hands off’ sign on it. Hell, the boys have quit lookin’ . . .”

  Al Lyons shook his head vigorously. “It can’t be like that. There’s something out there. I don’t know what. Maybe not adventure or excitement, but something like that. It’s like the sea is, to some people. You may cuss her and cuss her, but you keep going back, if only just for the sake of going.”

  Willie Cord smiled. “I know, kid.”

  AL LYONS stared at the ceiling.

  A man with one leg can’t get into the Space Service. A man with one leg can’t ever get into the Space Service.

  And those things rolling down his cheeks weren’t tears; weren’t really tears. He was twenty-one, and people twenty-one don’t cry.

  Maybe it wasn’t the thing itself; maybe it was just wanting it so bad.

  When he was eleven years old, Richardson made the first trip to the Rock. But even before that, he had dreamed about going to space. When he was a little child. First he had wanted to be an explorer; go to Africa or some distant place. Later, as soon as he could really understand, the longing had transferred from Africa to the Moon, and after that, to the planets themselves, as they came within the horizon of possibility.

  He had taken a job in civilian maintenance at Richardson Field as soon as he had graduated from high school, just so he could be near the rockets. He had studied hard, after working hours, denying himself many of the pleasures of youth, and last year he had taken the Seaton tests—

  He had been seventeen when Richardson tried for Venus; eighteen when Comsky first landed on Mars . . .

  Max Comsky had been born and raised in his home town. Once, Al Lyons had actually met him. At the time, Al had been sixteen.

  MAX COMSKY was a big man; sharp, bold eyes.

  “The Rock, kid? Wonderful life . . . Wonderful. Work, sure. But excitement, too.”

  Al Lyons listened open-mouthed.

  “Never know what’s gonna happen. Last month, ship before mine, Old Nancy they called her, busted her shielding half way in. Crew landed her, believe it or not. Half dead, all six of them, but they set her down; pretty a job as you ever hope to see, too. Every man on board radio-active, but they got her down . . . Silly . . . Anything happen to me like that, and I’d turn the ship sunward and let her rip, hell for breakfast . . .”

  (Max Comsky’s last ship never returned, Al Lyons remembered: Lost out of Mars.)

  Max was the type who loved to tell his stories of adventure in a big, booming voice, a voice you could hear all over the room. He took an animal delight in it. But, Al Lyons suspected, he was not averse to lowering his voice, on moonlight nights, in female company, to speak softly of the stars and of the strange longing . . .

  “There was once,” Max had told him, “when I went into the jet room. Operator was space sick. Out like a light. Mass needle almost to the red. Couple more minutes and we’d have gone with a bang. I slammed in the dampening rods. That threw off the pilot, who had been counting on more power. Lost our cut back drive and we slipped ’way inside Earth, on our way to Venus sure as God made little green apples. I had to run the room for an hour and a half. Rough! Pilot would yell through the intercom, ‘Give me nine point lateral,’ and I’d yell back, ‘How?’ and then he’d have to explain it all to me. Didn’t know anything about the damn jets room . . .

  “That’s why they’re starting Seaton: so they can get somebody on those rockets who can blast with a little better than their luck and a prayer.”

  He had told wonderful and exciting tales, for a boy of sixteen to listen to.

  “On the Rock. Out looking. Curious . . . No air. You feel like you can jump a thousand feet, and the stars look like little, steady-burning electric bulbs . . . It was quiet, and kinda lonely. I was on the rim of Crater 9 about a mile from the dome. All at once, I had a hell of a time breathing. Suit was leaking . . . I switched on the emergency tank of air, and I started to run, and I mean really run. Everytime I’d jump, I’d float down, and that seemed to take an eternity . . . Scared? Boy! I thought sure if I ever got out of that one I’d had enough . . .”

  AL LYONS thought about running across the surface of the Moon. Just to think of it hurt so badly that he wanted to be sick at his stomach. “God damn,” he said.

  Saying that didn’t help very much . . .

  Morning began to break.

  He wondered if he could get some sleep. His mind began to fuzz up with fatigue . . .

  The way it had happened. That was so unfair.

  His last day of work, just before the weekend. Monday he would have gone to Seaton . . .

  “HEY, AL, hand me that lug wrench, willya?”

  Al Lyons reached out for it.

  “My God! Look out!”

  He tried to twist out of the way. Then he could feel the weight crash down on his leg. He could hear the excited babble of voices . . .

  DAMN, God damn,” he said to himself. “I’ve got to get some sleep.”

  Sunrise.

  He slept.

  At eight, Nurse came.

  At ten, Doctor came.

  At ten twenty-five—

  “Al, there’s a visitor to see you.”

  “Don’t want to see him.”

  “He’s coming in, Al.”

  Al Lyons turned over in the bed. He faced the wall. After a while he heard the voice.

  “Hi, kid.”

  “Go ’way,” he choked.

  “Nope.”

  He heard Willie Cord draw up the chair. It squeaked under his weight. “How’s it going, kid?”

&n
bsp; No answer.

  “Just got in from Mars. Somebody told me about a kid over here. Said name of Al Lyons. I remembered: kid I lugged out here in a jeep. Come over to see if I could do something.”

  “Please let me alone.”

  “Said the kid wouldn’t get well, down at the desk. Because he didn’t want to get well.”

  “So what?”

  “Damn childish.”

  “I don’t care.”

  Willie Cord hesitated a moment. “Thought you might like to hear something.”

  “No.”

  “Fine,” Willie Cord grunted. “You’re going to hear it sooner or later. Might as well hear it now. I pulled some wires for you, kid.”

  For a moment, Al Lyons felt his heart pound—but then, sick realization came to him. No amount of wire pulling could get a man with an artificial leg in Space Service.

  “Remember I told you how there wasn’t nothing on Mars? No reason to go there?

  “Well, I was wrong.”

  Willie Cord stopped to let that soak in.

  “Remember I told you about hauling back some rock?”

  Al Lyons was holding his breath now.

  “Well, damn stuff was gold ore . . . Rush is on . . .

  “Friend of mine formed a company. Bert Drexal. You may have heard of him.”

  Al Lyons had. If Bert Drexal was in on it, it was big time.

  “Mars Mines, Inc. They’re putting up a big dome. Plenty big. And it’ll get bigger. Civilian stuff, kid. And in a year, maybe two—three years at the most—they’ll be needin’ clerks hydroponics men, all sorts of men: civilians. One-legged ones, even, if they’re willin’ to work. Bert said you’d get a job, sure as hell, if you can qualify, and if you’re outta that bed. First opening they can use you.” Al Lyons was afraid to turn over; afraid Willie would see how bright his eyes were glistening.

  “Gosh—” he said.

  “Sound okay to you, kid?”

  “Yes . . .”

  “Yes,” he answered. “I think I’d like something like that.”

  THE FIRST

  Where’s Sam? Lost—hidden in the deep alien forest where none can follow, searching with a hollow heart—hating us. For we gave Sam man’s most priceless heritage—Eden . . . alone!