Earthbound (Winston Science Fiction Book 1)

by Milton Lesser

  Regards, Ganymede Gus.

  Pete crumpled the note, thrust it in his pocket. Yes, the Crape Ring was set for blast-off the day after tomorrow, at sunrise. But it carried a fortune in precious stones, to be exhibited at the Syrtis Major City Museum. If he gave Gus the requested information, and if Gus were connected with pirates, Pete would be as guilty as anyone in the crew that had actually committed the act of piracy. Yet if he didn’t give that information, his whereabouts would be revealed — and worse. That much he already had resigned himself to: It was an eventuality, something which had to happen. In that case, he could go to the police and . . .

  No! Sam Smith might carry out his threat, attacking Big Pete, injuring him, or more.

  From far-off, a clock at the Carnival struck three when Pete sat down and wrote his note to Ganymede Gus. Every scratch of the pen was painful, but he got it all down. The precise moment of sunrise, the speed of the Crape Ring, the orbit he would plot for it. Pete went outside and posted the letter, and after that he did not bother to return to his room. He walked the streets of White Sands until dawn, realizing once that his steps carried him perilously close to his old neighborhood. Yes, there was the elementary school which he had attended, there the athletic field where he and his brother Jerry used to play, ages ago it seemed, and there was the library where he used to sit breathlessly and read about the exploits of his father and the other great spacemen who had carved out their destiny on the far planets.

  He watched his shadow stalk out ahead of him and then disappear as he walked from street light to street light. He walked on across town to the Spaceport and then out among the silent waiting ships. The wind whistled in briskly from the west, moaning against the hulls and shrieking in the exposed lateral tubes of some of the ships, and the wind felt good against Pete’s face.

  He had wanted to be a spaceman, and almost, he had made it. But in the end he had been rejected, and he found himself on an entirely different path now. Where might it end?

  Pete could not tell, but he knew this: he would rather die than bring shame to the name which his father had burned in the bleak depths of space.

  There were no blast-offs scheduled for sunrise the following morning, and Pete did not report to the tower until just before noon. By that time he was sleepy, but something about the bright, polished interior of the tower reminded him of a spaceship, and he felt his spirits lifting as he entered it.

  “You look as if you haven’t slept in a week,” Captain Saunders told him.

  Pete laughed. “Well, not quite a week, but I didn’t get much sleep last night.”

  Saunders was smiling. “You see that door over there?”

  “Of course I see it, sir.” It was the door which led from the observation room into Captain Saunders’ private office.

  “Well, I want you to go through it. Right now.”

  Pete nodded, scratching his head. What kind of order was that?

  He opened the door, entered the little office.

  Two men stood inside, One young — tall and gangling, his freckled face split in a broad grin. The other middle-aged, trying to look stern but grinning too.

  Pete uttered an eager cry and ran forward.

  Garr MacDougal and Big Pete came across the floor to meet him!

  Chapter 7 — See-Garr Goes to Space

  “You see,” Captain Saunders said later, “I knew something wasn’t quite right about Pete from the start. I didn’t know what, but I had a hunch I might find the Academy tied in there some place, especially when Pete tried to change the subject. I called the Academy, spoke to a Brian Mahoney. You know the rest.”

  Big Pete nodded. “I also know Mahoney. We were great friends, in the old days. But that isn’t important. Pete, will you answer a question frankly? Good! Are you glad we found you?”

  Pete nodded. “I — I think so. Funny, but I pictured all sorts of trouble, you know, like a tear jerker of a reunion, with you telling me to take it like a man, with Garr cracking silly jokes.”

  “I resent that!” Garr shouted. “None of my jokes are silly.”

  “Sorry,” Pete laughed. “With Garr cracking serious jokes.”

  “Serious? That’s worse!”

  “Anyway,” Pete continued, “you get what I mean. That’s what I expected, and I wanted to avoid it, at any cost. But when it finally happened, it wasn’t like that at all. I don’t understand.”

  Big Pete touched flame to his pipe, puffed contentedly. “Don’t you see the mistake you made? All your life you’d dreamed of taking our name back into space, and when you learned that you couldn’t, you figured I’d feel as bad about it as you do. Well, I do feel bad — but it isn’t the end of the world for me, Pete, and it shouldn’t be that for you, either.”

  “It’s not. It’s a lousy break, but . . .”

  “But you’ll get over it, is that what you’re trying to say? Good! And listen, Pete, let me tell you something. You know, in a way it was even worse for us old spacehands. That twenty-five-year-old maximum hasn’t been around forever. It hit me when I was twenty-seven, just two years overage. The noise spread all over the Solar System when that bill was passed. Most of the spacemen at that time were suddenly declared too old, and with no more than sixty days’ notice, we were ordered off our commands.

  “How do you think we liked it? Maybe objectively we knew it made sense. But that didn’t matter. We had opened the spacelanes, we knew everything there was to be known about spaceflight, and we found ourselves kicked out still in the prime of life, a bunch of kids still wet behind the ears taking our places. If you know your history, you’ll remember that caused a heap of trouble for a time. Veterans were marching on the various capitals, demanding the law be revoked. But it quieted down, and soon it was forgotten. All the old spacemen who wanted them got good ground jobs, good, that is, because they could still help spaceflight from the ground floor.

  “And that’s where you come in, Pete. You can do the same thing. Sure, I’m disappointed that the name of Hodges won’t ride the rockets again, not this generation, anyway. But space travel is young and raw and it needs a lot of help, from all directions. You can do your part on the ground. You’re moving in the right direction with this tower job, and Captain Saunders tells me you’ve been doing some remarkable work, too.”

  “He sure has,” Saunders agreed.

  But Garr shook his head. “You’re missing the point, Mr. Hodges. Sure, I think Pete agrees with you about what he’s got to do from now on, but . . .”

  “That’s it,” Pete nodded. “But I don’t think a harmless old injury should keep me out of space.”

  Big Pete smiled. “There was a time I didn’t think two extra years should keep me out of space, and I already was a rocket-captain, Pete. Remember that.”

  “This is different. They haven’t given me a chance!” Pete pounded his fast against his collarbone savagely. “See? See, it doesn’t hurt. It’s healed. Only they won’t give it a chance!”

  “Hey!” Garr cried. “Calm down. I didn’t mean to start anything.”

  “That’s all right. I just get this way once in a while, but I think I understand. If I have to do my work on the ground instead of in the sky, that’s the way it will be.”

  Big Pete said “Then only one thing remains. You’ll have to come and live with us, with your mother and me. She’s missed you, Little Pete — umm-mm, not so little anymore!”

  But Garr frowned. “No, Mr. Hodges. You’re wrong. Something else remains, too. You know whom I drew for a space companion? Old Roger Gorham, that’s who.”

  “Oh, no!” Pete moaned.

  “Yeah, he’s my new partner. It was supposed to be you and me, Pete, but then you washed out. No one wanted to ship off with Roger, so he and I were two extra men. They put us together, but that’s beside the point. Point is, Roger caused a lot of trouble, told a lot of lies — and they’re ready to give you a dishonorable discharge. His father totes a lot of power, you know.”

  “Is that
so?” Big Pete bristled. “Listen, son, I do too. Although I don’t like to use it . . .”

  “That’s just it,” Pete insisted. “I don’t want you to use it. I’ll straighten this thing out myself. I don’t know how, but I’ll straighten it out.”

  “I didn’t know about any of that,” Captain Saunders told them, “But the work you’re doing here will be in your favor. I’ll have some mighty nice things to say about you, Pete, because you deserve them. Which reminds me, I hate to cut this short, but I have a load of work to do. You can take today off and get acquainted with your folks all over again, Pete. I’ll see you tomorrow morning, when we push the Crape Ring off into space. Say, why don’t you come around too, Mr. Hodges, and see how things are done here in the tower?”

  Big Pete nodded eagerly. “I’d like that.”

  But suddenly Pete had turned white. “Jumping jets!” he cried. “The Crape Ring!”

  Captain Saunders looked up sharply. “What’s the matter?”

  “N-nothing. Only, only I’d like to change its orbit, that’s all.”

  “What in space for? I told you to plot out the quickest possible orbit. Is that what you did?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Then we won’t change it. They want that ship on Mars as soon as possible, and . . .”

  “But,” Pete persisted, “I’ve plotted the Ring to cross Mars’ orbit. That’s faster, sure — but it wastes a lot of fuel.”

  Captain Saunders frowned. “Don’t you think I know that? They want speed this time. Speed! Fuel doesn’t matter, not when they’re in a hurry. The orbit stays the same, Pete.”

  “The same,” Pete echoed numbly. But Ganymede Gus had the information by now, and Pete would be sending the Crape Ring to a rendezvous with a pirate ship!

  Pete tried to enjoy himself with Garr that afternoon. He took his friend to the Carnival and showed him the sights, gawking with him at the exhibits from the far worlds. Garr was very excited; over and over again he would say, “I’ll be out there soon! Me, Garr MacDougall” And then he would shake his head, “I’m sorry, Petey-boy. Maybe I shouldn’t talk like that, huh? I mean, with you —”

  But Pete hardly listened. What did it matter if he never went to space? They didn’t send criminals out to space, anyway, and he’d be as guilty as Gus or Sam Smith or anyone else after tomorrow.

  In the evening, a family reunion had been prepared at the Hodges’ house. Pete’s mother, a lovely woman entering middle age, had invited the Hodges clan from all over the city, and that meant more cousins and uncles and aunts than Pete could count. Garr was there too, and although the dinner had been planned as a welcome home for Pete, the younger folk clustered around the tall, red-headed youth who was soon to blast off for space. Their questions blended into a continuous babble of excitement.

  “Have you ever been out before?”

  “Where do you want to go? Mars? Venus? The asteroids?”

  “Is it true that spacemen have to be stronger than other people?”

  “What do you remember most about the Academy?”

  “Do you think we’ll ever go beyond the Solar System and reach for the stars, Mr. MacDougal?”

  “What’s your job out in space?”

  “You won’t miss Earth at all, will you — you lucky guy!”

  Once Garr confided to Pete, “I didn’t know that would happen! Just because I wear this uniform they only want to talk to me. Not much of a welcome home for you, is it, Pete?”

  “What’s the difference? In a way I’m glad. I still don’t feel much like talking, anyway. You keep it up, Garr: the more they ignore me tonight, the better I’ll like it.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. As a matter of fact, if I can sneak off and go to bed, I’d like that.”

  “Say, don’t you feel well?”

  “I — I’ve got a headache. Nothing serious, but — listen, Garr! Make excuses for me, will you?”

  Without waiting for an answer, Pete ducked through the crowd in his folks’ living room, climbed the stairs to the second floor two at a time. He went into his own unfamiliar bedroom — he’d hardly slept there, except for vacations, in almost four years — closed the door behind him and crossed to the window.

  It was as he had remembered it. Several feet below the sill was the sloping porch roof. Cautiously, Pete clambered up over the sill. He had to be quiet, but he was also in a hurry, and he thought that the noise of the party downstairs would muffle any sounds he made.

  He crept across the slanting roof, came to its edge. Without pausing, he swung his feet over and hung for a moment by his hands. That was the dangerous time; briefly, he’d be silhouetted against the moon,- and if anyone happened to be looking —

  No one was, and Pete fell to all fours when he hit the ground. Good! As far as anyone knew, he was still within the house. Now all he had to do was find Ganymede Gus and Sam Smith, out of a city of several hundred thousand people.

  He did not know what would come next, if he found them. But it was a straw to grasp at.

  He checked every bar and grill, every shady joint in the Carnival area. He haunted the sideshows and the legitimate exhibits until closing time. He stalked grimly up and down the length of the Midway — all to no avail.

  Wearily, he turned around and headed for home. He was thoroughly exhausted. He hadn’t slept at all the night before, and now it was half-past two in the morning. And that left a scant three hours of sleep before he’d have to report to the tower and send the Crape Ring out to probable disaster.

  He opened the door with his key, closed it behind him, padded softly across the darkened hall. He smelled the pipe tobacco before he saw Big Pete.

  His father was there, sitting in a big overstuffed chair, and when Pete came close he snapped on the fluorescents and tamped his pipe out in a big ash tray.

  “What is it, son?”

  “Nothing. Nothing’s the matter, Pop.”

  “Pete! You can’t fool me, so don’t try. I’m an old hand at intrigue. Now, what’s bothering you?”

  “I said it was nothing!”

  “Shh! You’ll wake your mother. You don’t leave a party and stay out till three o’clock if it’s nothing.”

  “All right,” Pete admitted. “It’s something. But I can’t tell you what. Maybe someday, after I can fix it —”

  “Bad?”

  Pete nodded glumly. “Pretty bad. But trust me, Pop — no matter what happens, no matter what things may look like —”

  Big Pete cleared his throat loudly. “Go on to bed now! Of course I’ll trust you! Only you’ll have to be at that tower of yours before sunrise, so you’d better get some sleep.”

  Pete called thanks over his shoulder and took the stairs to his bedroom two at a time.

  Captain Saunders said, “As you know, your father wanted to watch how we do things here at the tower. I hope it won’t make you nervous.”

  Big Pete smiled reassuringly, and Pete answered, “No, sir. It won’t make me nervous.”

  No, it won’t, he thought, but other things might. Like the orbit of the Crape Ring.

  His eyes were heavy with lack of sleep; a headache throbbed insistently at his temples. Dimly, he was aware of opening radio contact with the astrogator of the Ring. “Are you all set out there?” Pete heard himself demanding.

  “You bet! We have a couple of Cadets with us — and are they raring to go!”

  “Five-forty seven-twenty one will be blast off,” Pete muttered into the radio. “‘I have five-forty four-sixteen, Will you calibrate, please?”

  “Calibrated!”

  Pete turned around halfway to face Captain Saunders. “I’d still like to change that orbit, sir.”

  “That’s ridiculous, Hodges. It’s a good orbit you’ve plotted; it’s the orbit they’ll use. I’m not an orbiteer, but I know a fast orbit when I see one. You’ve given them the best, and they want speed this trip.”

  “Five-forty five on the nose!” sang the radio voice.


  “Check,” Pete said. Then, “I can’t tell you why, Captain, but it’s important.”

  Captain Saunders shook his head. “I don’t understand you, Hodges. You’re still an apprentice, however, and you may consider this an order. The orbit is to be maintained as originally plotted.”

  Pete shrugged, called into the radio, “Check remote control.”

  “Okay, tower. You’ve got us perfectly. When you press that little button of yours, we’ll be off — in, um-m-m-m, one minute and fifteen seconds.”

  “I never realized this before,” Big Pete said, sitting in a chair at the far end of the room, “but the situation in the tower is just as tense as that which you find in the ship itself. Maybe more, because at blast-off they don’t really do any work. It’s completely up to the tower, and you have about one minute to settle this little argument.”

  “It’s already settled,” Captain Saunders told him. “I don’t know why your son wants to be ornery. Well, whatever his reason is, it doesn’t matter; we’re keeping this orbit.”

  “Forty seconds!” the radio voice barked. “Lord, it will be good to clear orbits again.”

  Sure, Pete thought, it will he good — right into a pirate trap. . . . A spaceship orbit, an ellipse with one focal point in the sun. Draw that other focal point wherever you like — except that one particular point will lead to piracy. And I have no choice!

  “Ten seconds, tower!”

  Pete flipped over the standby switch, heard a loud beep from the ship outside, signifying that the tower had control.

  “Four seconds! Three! Two — one —”

  Mechanically, Pete pressed the firing stud. A short wave radio beam on precisely the right frequency pulled the safeties out of the Crape Ring’s controlled atomic pile. There was a deep-throated roar and the light of a dozen suns burned in through the tower’s glare-proof windows.