“There’s something to it, though,” Dixon answered. “Truthfully, I don’t think Delos knows what he is doing. He’s setting up a new imperialism. There’ll be hell to pay before it’s cleaned up.” He stood up. “Maybe we should have waited. Maybe we should have balked him—if we could have. Well, it’s done. We’re on the merry-go-round and we can’t get off. I hope we enjoy the ride. Come on, Jack.”
9
THE COLORADO PRAIRIE was growing dusky. The Sun was behind the peak and the broad white face of Luna, full and round, was rising in the east. In the middle of Peterson Field the Pioneer thrust toward the sky. A barbed-wire fence, a thousand yards from its base in all directions, held back the crowds. Just inside the barrier guards patrolled restlessly. More guards circulated through the crowd. Inside the fence, close to it, trunks and trailers for camera, sound, and television equipment were parked and, at the far ends of cables, remote-control pick-ups were located both near and far from the ship on all sides. There were other trucks near the ship and a stir of organized activity.
Harriman waited in Coster’s office; Coster himself was out on the field, and Dixon and Entenza had a room to themselves. LeCroix, still in a drugged sleep, was in the bedroom of Coster’s on-the-job living quarters.
There was a stir and a challenge outside the door. Harriman opened it a crack. “If that’s another reporter, tell him ‘no.’ Send him to Mr. Montgomery across the way. Captain LeCroix will grant no unauthorized interviews.”
“Delos! Let me in.”
“Oh—you, George. Come in. We’ve been hounded to death.”
Strong came in and handed Harriman a large and heavy handbag. “Here it is.”
“Here is what?”
“The cancelled covers for the philatelic syndicate. You forgot them. That’s half a million dollars, Delos,” he complained. “If I hadn’t noticed them in your coat locker we’d have been in the soup.”
Harriman composed his features. “George, you’re a brick, that’s what you are.”
“Shall I put them in the ship myself?” Strong said anxiously.
“Huh? No, no. Les will handle them.” He glanced at his watch. “We’re about to waken him. I’ll take charge of the covers.” He took the bag and added, “Don’t come in now. You’ll have a chance to say goodbye on the field.”
Harriman went next door, shut the door behind him, waited for the nurse to give the sleeping pilot a counteracting stimulant by injection, then chased her out. When he turned around the pilot was sitting up, rubbing his eyes. “How do you feel, Les?”
“Fine. So this is it.”
“Yup. And we’re all rooting for you, boy. Look, you’ve got to go out and face them in a couple of minutes. Everything is ready—but I’ve got a couple of things I’ve got to say to you.”
“Yes?”
“See this bag?” Harriman rapidly explained what it was and what it signified.
LeCroix looked dismayed. “But I can’t take it, Delos. It’s all figured to the last ounce.”
“Who said you were going to take it? Of course you can’t; it must weigh sixty, seventy pounds. I just plain forgot it. Now here’s what we do: for the time being I’ll just hide it in here—” Harriman stuffed the bag far back into a clothes closet. “When you land, I’ll be right on your tail. Then we pull a sleight-of-hand trick and you fetch it out of the ship.”
LeCroix shook his head ruefully. “Delos, you beat me. Well, I’m in no mood to argue.”
“I’m glad you’re not; otherwise I’d go to jail for a measly half million dollars. We’ve already spent that money. Anyhow, it doesn’t matter,” he went on. “Nobody but you and me will know it—and the stamp collectors will get their money’s worth.” He looked at the younger man as if anxious for his approval.
“Okay, okay,” LeCroix answered. “Why should I care what happens to a stamp collector—tonight? Let’s get going.”
“One more thing,” said Harriman and took out a small cloth bag. “This you take with you—and the weight has been figured in. I saw to it. Now here is what you do with it.” He gave detailed and very earnest instructions.
LeCroix was puzzled. “Do I hear you straight? I let it be found—then I tell the exact truth about what happened?”
“That’s right.”
“Okay.” LeCroix zipped the little bag into a pocket of his coveralls. “Let’s get out to the field. H-hour minus twenty-one minutes already.”
Strong joined Harriman in the control blockhouse after LeCroix had gone up inside the ship. “Did they get aboard?” he demanded anxiously. “LeCroix wasn’t carrying anything.”
“Oh, sure,” said Harriman. “I sent them ahead. Better take your place. The ready flare has already gone up.”
Dixon, Entenza, the Governor of Colorado, the Vice-President of the United States, and a round dozen of V.I.P.‘s were already seated at periscopes, mounted in slits, on a balcony above the control level. Strong and Harriman climbed a ladder and took the two remaining chairs.
Harriman began to sweat and realized he was trembling. Through his periscope out in front he could see the ship; from below he could hear Coster’s voice, nervously checking departure station reports. Muted through a speaker by him was a running commentary of one of the newscasters reporting the show. Harriman himself was the—well, the admiral, he decided— of the operation, but there was nothing more he could do, but wait, watch, and try to pray.
A second flare arched up in the sky, burst into red and green. Five minutes.
The seconds oozed away. At minus two minutes Harriman realized that he could not stand to watch through a tiny slit; he had to be outside, take part in it himself—he had to. He climbed down, hurried to the exit of the blockhouse. Coster glanced around, looked startled, but did not try to stop him; Coster could not leave his post no matter what happened. Harriman elbowed the guard aside and went outdoors.
To the east the ship towered skyward, her slender pyramid sharp black against the full Moon. He waited.
And waited.
What had gone wrong? There had remained less than two minutes when he had come out; he was sure of that—yet there she stood, silent, dark, un-moving. There was not a sound, save the distant ululation of sirens warning the spectators behind the distant fence. Harriman felt his own heart stop, his breath dry up in his throat. Something had failed. Failure.
A single flare rocket burst from the top of the blockhouse; a flame licked at the base of the ship.
It spread, there was a pad of white fire around the base. Slowly, almost lumberingly, the Pioneer lifted, seemed to hover for a moment, balanced on a pillar of fire—then reached for the sky with acceleration so great that she was above him almost at once, overhead at the zenith, a dazzling circle of flame. So quickly was she above, rather than out in front, that it seemed as if she were arching back over him and must surely fall on him. Instinctively and futilely he threw a hand in front of his face.
The sound reached him.
Not as sound—it was a white noise, a roar in all frequencies, sonic, subsonic, supersonic, so incredibly loaded with energy that it struck him in the chest. He heard it with his teeth and with his bones as well as with his ears. He crouched his knees, bracing against it.
Following the sound at the snail’s pace of a hurricane came the backwash of the splash. It ripped at his clothing, tore his breath from his lips. He stumbled blindly back, trying to reach the lee of the concrete building, was knocked down.
He picked himself up coughing and strangling and remembered to look at the sky. Straight overhead was a dwindling star. Then it was gone.
He went into the blockhouse.
The room was a babble of high-tension, purposeful confusion. Harriman’s ears, still ringing, heard a speaker blare, “Spot One! Spot One to blockhouse! Step five loose on schedule—ship and step five showing separate blips—” and Coster’s voice, high and angry, cutting in with, “Get Track One! Have they picked up step five yet? Are they tracking it?”
“Shut that damn thing off!” ordered Coster, then to the visitors on the observation platform, “And pipe down up there! Quiet!”
The Vice-President of the United States jerked his head around, closed his mouth. He remembered to smile. The other V.I.P.‘s shut up, then resumed again in muted whispers. A girl’s voice cut through the silence, “Track One to Blockhouse-step five tracking high, plus two.” There was a stir in the corner. There a large canvas hood shielded a heavy sheet of Plexiglass from direct light. The sheet was mounted vertically and was edge-lighted; it displayed a coordinate map of Colorado and Kansas in fine white lines; the cities and towns glowed red. Unevacuated farms were tiny warning dots of red light.
A man behind the transparent map touched it with a grease pencil; the reported location of step five shone out. In front of the map screen a youngish man sat quietly in a chair, a pear-shaped switch in his hand, his thumb lightly resting on the button. He was a bombardier, borrowed from the Air Forces; when he pressed the switch, a radio-controlled circuit in step five should cause the shrouds of step five’s landing ‘chute to be cut and let it plummet to Earth. He was working from radar reports alone with no fancy computing bombsight to think for him. He was working almost by instinct— or, rather, by the accumulated subconscious knowledge of his trade, integrating in his brain the meager data spread before him, deciding where the tons of step five would land if he were to press his switch at any particular instant. He seemed unworried.
“Spot One to Blockhouse!” came a man’s voice again. “Step four free on schedule,” and almost immediately following, a deeper voice echoed, “Track Two, tracking step four, instantaneous altitude nine-five-one miles, predicted vector.”
No one paid any attention to Harriman.
Under the hood the observed trajectory of step five grew in shining dots of grease, near to, but not on, the dotted line of its predicted path. Reaching out from each location dot was drawn a line at right angles, the reported altitude for that location.
The quiet man watching the display suddenly pressed down hard on his switch. He then stood up, stretched, and said, “Anybody got a cigaret?”
“Track Two!” he was answered. “Step four—first impact prediction—forty miles west of Charleston, South Carolina.”
“Repeat!” yelled Coster.
The speaker blared out again without pause, “Correction, correction-forty miles east, repeat east.”
Coster sighed. The sigh was cut short by a report: “Spot One to Blockhouse—step three free, minus five seconds,” and a talker at Coster’s control desk called out, “Mr. Coster, Mister Coster—Palomar Observatory wants to talk to you.”
“Tell ‘em to go—no, tell ’em to wait.” Immediately another voice cut in with, “Track One, auxiliary range Fox—Step one about to strike near Dodge City, Kansas.”
“How near!”
There was no answer. Presently the voice of Track One proper said, “Impact reported approximately fifteen miles southwest of Dodge City.”
“Casualties?”
Spot One broke in before Track One could answer, “Step two free, step two free—the ship is now on its own.”
“Mr. Coster—please, Mr. Coster—”
And a totally new voice: “Spot Two to Blockhouse—we are now tracking the ship. Stand by for reported distances and bearings. Stand by—”
“Track Two to Blockhouse—step four will definitely land in Atlantic, estimated point of impact oh-five-seven miles east of Charleston bearing oh-nine-three. I will repeat—”
Coster looked around irritably. “Isn’t there any drinking water anywhere in this dump?”
“Mr. Coster, please—Palomar says they’ve just got to talk to you.”
Harriman eased over to the door and stepped out. He suddenly felt very much let down, utterly weary, and depressed.
The field looked strange without the ship. He had watched it grow; now suddenly it was gone. The Moon, still rising, seemed oblivious—and space travel was as remote a dream as it had been in his boyhood.
There were several tiny figures prowling around the flash apron where the ship had stood—souvenir hunters, he thought contemptuously. Someone came up to him in the gloom. “Mr. Harriman?”
“Eh?”
“Hopkins—with the A.P. How about a statement?”
“Uh? No, no comment. I’m bushed.”
“Oh, now, just a word. How does it feel to have backed the first successful Moon flight—if it is successful.”
“It will be successful.” He thought a moment, then squared his tired shoulders and said, “Tell them that this is the beginning of the human race’s greatest era. Tell them that every one of them will have a chance to follow in Captain LeCroix’s footsteps, seek out new planets, wrest a home for themselves in new lands. Tell them that this means new frontiers, a shot in the arm for prosperity. It means—” He ran down. “That’s all tonight. I’m whipped, son. Leave me alone, will you?”
Presently Coster came out, followed by the V.I.P.‘s. Harriman went up to Coster. “Everything all right?”
“Sure. Why shouldn’t it be? Track three followed him out to the limit of range—all in the groove.” Coster added, “Step five killed a cow when it grounded.”
“Forget it—we’ll have steak for breakfast.” Harriman then had to make conversation with the Governor and the Vice-President, had to escort them out to their ship. Dixon and Entenza left together, less formally; at last Coster and Harriman were alone save for subordinates too junior to constitute a strain and for guards to protect them from the crowds. “Where you headed, Bob?”
“Up to the Broadmoor and about a week’s sleep. How about you?”
“If you don’t mind, I’ll doss down in your apartment.”
“Help yourself. Sleepy pills in the bathroom.”
“I won’t need them.” They had a drink together in Coster’s quarters, talked aimlessly, then Coster ordered a copter cab and went to the hotel. Harriman went to bed, got up, read a day-old copy of the Denver Post filled with pictures of the Pioneer, finally gave up and took two of Coster’s sleeping capsules.
10
SOMEONE WAS SHAKING HIM. “Mr. Harriman! Wake up—Mr. Coster is on the screen.”
“Huh? Wazza? Oh, all right.” He got up and padded to the phone. Coster was looking tousle-headed and excited. “Hey, Boss—he made it!”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
“Palomar just called me. They saw his mark and now they’ve spotted the ship itself. He—”
“Wait a minute, Bob. Slow up. He can’t be there yet. He just left last night.”
Coster looked disconcerted. “What’s the matter, Mr. Harriman? Don’t you feel well? He left Wednesday.”
Vaguely, Harriman began to be oriented. No, the take-off had not been the night before—fuzzily he recalled a drive up into the mountains, a day spent dozing in the sun, some sort of a party at which he had drunk too much. What day was today? He didn’t know. If LeCroix had landed on the Moon, then—never mind. “It’s all right, Bob—I was half asleep. I guess I dreamed the take-off all over again. Now tell me the news, slowly.”
Coster started over. “LeCroix has landed, just west of Archimedes crater. They can see his ship, from Palomar. Say that was a great stunt you thought up, marking the spot with carbon black. Les must have covered two acres with it. They say it shines out like a billboard, through the Big Eye.”
“Maybe we ought to run down and have a look. No—later,” he amended. “We’ll be busy.”
“I don’t see what more we can do, Mr. Harriman. We’ve got twelve of our best ballistic” compu
ters calculating possible routes for you now.”
Harriman started to tell the man to put on another twelve, switched off the screen instead. He was still at Peterson Field, with one of Skyways’ best stratoships waiting for him outside, waiting to take him to whatever point on the globe LeCroix might ground. LeCroix was in the upper stratosphere, had been there for more than twenty-four hours. The pilot was slowly, cautiously wearing out his terminal velocity, dissipating the incredible kinetic energy as shock wave and radiant heat.
They had tracked him by radar around the globe and around again—and again… yet there was no way of knowing just where and what sort of landing the pilot would choose to risk. Harriman listened to the running radar reports and cursed the fact that they had elected to save the weight of radio equipment.
The radar figures started coming closer together. The voice broke off and started again: “He’s in his landing glide!”
“Tell the field to get ready!” shouted Harriman. He held his breath and waited. After endless seconds another voice cut in with, “The Moon ship is now landing. It will ground somewhere west of Chihuahua in Old Mexico.”
Harriman started for the door at a run.
Coached by radio en route, Harriman’s pilot spotted the Pioneer incredibly small against the desert sand. He put his own ship quite close to it, in a beautiful landing. Harriman was fumbling at the cabin door before the ship was fairly stopped.
LeCroix was sitting on the ground, resting his back against a skid of his ship and enjoying the shade of its stubby triangular wings. A paisano sheep-herder stood facing him, open-mouthed. As Harriman trotted out and lumbered toward him LeCroix stood up, flipped a cigaret butt away and said, “Hi, Boss!”
“Les!” The older man threw his arms around the younger. “It’s good to see you, boy.”
“It’s good to see you. Pedro here doesn’t speak my language.” LeCroix glanced around; there was no one else nearby but the pilot of Harriman’s ship. “Where’s the gang? Where’s Bob?”
“I didn’t wait. They’ll surely be along in a few minutes—hey, there they come now!” It was another stratoship, plunging in to a landing. Harriman turned to his pilot. “Bill—go over and meet them.”
The Past Through Tomorrow Page 22