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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Planet Strappers, by Raymond Zinke Gallun
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Planet Strappers
+
+Author: Raymond Zinke Gallun
+
+Release Date: April 13, 2008 [EBook #25067]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PLANET STRAPPERS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Greg Weeks, Joel Schlosberg, Fred Kiesche and
+the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note:
+      Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
+      the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.
+      Text enclosed by asterisks was in bold face in the
+      original (*bold*). The 3-dot ellipsis has been retained
+      as in the original.
+
+
+Out There--the world's first space colony--adventures and dangers beyond
+human ken!
+
+
+
+
+The Planet Strappers
+
+
+RAYMOND Z. GALLUN
+
+
+
+
+*A Million Miles Beyond the Moon...*
+
+... Nelson and Ramos sped on toward Mars in their tiny plastic-bubble
+spacecraft. They were on the alert--it didn't pay to take anything for
+granted in the Big Vacuum....
+
+The way between the worlds was mostly empty space--except for the
+outlaws of the void who drifted, patiently and vengefully waiting for a
+victim, then struck!
+
+Nelsen and Ramos tensed--blips on the radar screen! Maybe meteors...
+More blips--and fist-sized chunks of rock flicked through their fragile
+vehicles. Air puffed out ... and Nelson and Ramos were fighting for
+their lives...
+
+*... A Million Miles Beyond the Moon!*
+
+
+
+
+THE PLANET STRAPPERS
+
+
+Raymond Z. Gallun
+
+
+PYRAMID BOOKS, 444 Madison Avenue, New York 22, New York
+
+
+
+
+*THE PLANET STRAPPERS,*
+_by Raymond Z. Gallun_
+
+
+This book is fiction. No resemblance is intended between any character
+herein and any person (Here or Out There), living or dead; any such
+resemblance is purely coincidental.
+
+
+Published by Pyramid Books
+First printing: _October 1961_
+
+
+_Printed in the United States of America_
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+
+The Archer Five came in a big packing box, bound with steel ribbons and
+marked, _This end up--handle with care_. It was delivered at a
+subsidized government surplus price of fifty dollars to Hendricks'
+Sports and Hobbies Center, a store in Jarviston, Minnesota, that used to
+deal mostly in skin diving equipment, model plane kits, parts for
+souping up old cars, and the like. The Archer Five was a bit obsolete
+for the elegant U.S. Space Force boys--hence the fantastic drop in price
+from two thousand dollars since only last June. It was still a
+plenty-good piece of equipment, however; and the cost change was a real
+break for the Bunch.
+
+By 4:30 that bright October afternoon, those members who were attending
+regular astronautics classes at Jarviston Technical College had gathered
+at Hendricks' store. Ramos and Tiflin, two wild characters with
+seldom-cut hair and pipe stem pants, who didn't look as if they could be
+trusted with a delicate unpacking operation, broke the Archer out with a
+care born of love, there in Paul Hendricks' big backroom shop, while the
+more stolid members--and old Paul, silent in his swivel chair--watched
+like hawks.
+
+"So who tries it on first?" Ramos challenged. "Dumb question. You,
+Eileen--naturally."
+
+Most Bunches have a small, hard, ponytailed member, dungareed like the
+rest.
+
+Still kidding around, Ramos dropped an arm across Eileen Sands'
+shoulders, and got her sharp elbow jabbed with vigor into his stomach.
+
+She glanced back in a feminine way at Frank Nelsen, a tall, lean guy of
+nineteen, butch-haircutted and snub featured. But he was the purposeful,
+studious kind, more an observer and a personal doer than a leader; he
+hadn't much time for the encouraging smiles of girls, and donning even
+an Archer Five now instead of within a few hours, didn't exactly
+represent his kind of hurry.
+
+"I'll wait, Eileen," he said. Then he nodded toward Gimp Hines. That the
+others would also pick Gimp was evident at once. There were bravos and
+clapping, half for a joke.
+
+"Think I won't?" Gimp growled, tossing his crutches on a workbench
+littered with scraps of color-coded wire, and hopping forward on the one
+leg that had grown to normal size. He sort of swaggered, Frank Nelsen
+noticed. Maybe the whole Bunch swaggered with him in a way, because,
+right now, he represented all of them in their difficult aim. Gimp
+Hines, with the nylon patch in his congenitally imperfect heart, and
+with that useless right underpinning, had less chance of taking part in
+space-development than any of them--even with all his talent for
+mechanics and electronics.
+
+Two-and-Two (George) Baines, a large, mild person who was an expert
+bricklayer in his spare time, while he struggled to absorb the intricate
+math that spacemen are supposed to know--he used to protest that he
+could at least add two and two--bounced forward, saying, "I'll give yuh
+a hand, Gimp."
+
+Mitch Storey, the lean colored kid with the passion for all plant life,
+and the specific urge to get somehow out to Mars, was also moving to
+help Gimp into the Archer. Gimp waved them off angrily, but they valeted
+for him, anyhow.
+
+"Shucks, Gimp," Storey soothed. "Anybody needs assistance--the first
+time..."
+
+They got his good leg, and what there was of the other, into the boots.
+They laced carefully, following all they had learned from books. They
+rolled the wire-braced silicone rubber body-section up over his torso,
+guided his arms into the sleeves, closed the zipper-sealers and centered
+the chest plate. While the others checked with their eyes, they
+inspected the nipples of the moisture-reclaimer and chlorophane
+air-restorer capsules. They lifted the helmet of clear, darkened plastic
+over his head, and dogged it to the gasket with the automatic
+turnbuckles. By then, Gimp Hines' own quick fingers, in the gloves, were
+busy snapping this and adjusting that. There was a sleepy hum of
+aerating machinery.
+
+"It even _smells_ right, in here," Gimp growled muffledly, trying to be
+nonchalant.
+
+There was loud laughter and clapping. Ramos whistled piercingly, with
+two fingers. The huge Kuzak twins, Art and Joe--both had football
+scholarships at Tech--gave Indian yells. Eileen Sands clasped her hands
+over her head and went up on her toes like the ballet dancer she had
+once meant to be. Old Paul, in his chair, chortled, and slapped his arm.
+Even little David Lester said "Bravo!" after he had gulped. The applause
+wasn't entirely facetious.
+
+Gimp's whole self had borrowed hard lines and an air of competence from
+the Archer Five. For a second he looked like somebody who could really
+cross millions of miles. There was a tiny, solar-powered
+ionic-propulsion unit mounted on the shoulders of the armor, between
+the water-tank and the beam-type radio transmitter and receiver. A
+miniaturized radar sprouted on the left elbow joint. On the inside of
+the Archer's chest plate, reachable merely by drawing an arm out of a
+sleeve, emergency ration containers were racked. In the same place was a
+small airlock for jettisoning purposes and for taking in more supplies.
+
+"What do yuh know--toilet facilities, yet!" Ramos chirped with spurious
+naivete, and there were guffaws which soon died out. After all, this
+_was_ a serious occasion, and who wanted to be a jerk? Now that the
+price had been shoved down into the ground, they could probably get
+their Archer Fives--their all-important vacuum armor. They were one more
+hurdle nearer to the stars.
+
+Two regular members of the Bunch hadn't yet shown up. Ten were present,
+including Gimp in the Archie. All were different. Each had a name.
+
+But Frank Nelsen figured that numbers, names, and individual variations
+didn't count for much, just then. They were a crowd with an overall
+personality--often noisy, sometimes quiet like now, always a bit grim to
+sustain their nerve before all they had to learn in order to reduce
+their inexperienced greenness, and before the thought of all the
+expensive equipment they had to somehow acquire, if they were to take
+part in the rapid adaptation of the solar system to human uses. Most of
+all, their courage was needed against fear of a region that could be
+deadly dangerous, but that to them seemed wonderful like nothing else.
+
+The shop smelled of paint, solvent and plastic, like most any other.
+Gimp, sitting in the Archer, beside the oil-burning stove, didn't say
+any more. He forgot to play tough, and seemed to lose himself in a
+mind-trip Out There--probably as far as he would ever get. His face,
+inside the helmet, now looked pinched. His freckles were very plain in
+his paled cheeks. Gimp was awed.
+
+So was everybody else, including Paul Hendricks, owner of the Hobby
+Center, who was approaching eighty and was out of the running, though
+his watery blue eyes were still showing the shine of boyhood, right now.
+
+Way back, Paul Hendricks used to barnstorm county fairs in a
+wood-and-fabric biplane, giving thrill rides to sports and their girls
+at five dollars a couple, because he had been born sixty years too soon.
+
+Much later in his spotty career, he had started the store. He had also
+meant to do general repair work in the backroom shop. But in recent
+years it had degenerated into an impromptu club hall, funk hole,
+griping-arguing-and-planning pit, extracurricular study lab and project
+site for an indefinite horde of interplanetary enthusiasts who were
+thought of in Jarviston as either young adults of the most resourceful
+kind--for whom the country should do much more in order to insure its
+future in space--or as just another crowd of delinquents, more bent on
+suicide and trouble-making than any hot rod group had ever been. Paul
+Hendricks was either a fine, helpful citizen--among so many who were
+disinterested and preoccupied--or a corrupting Socrates who deserved to
+drink hemlock.
+
+Frank Nelsen knew all this as well as most. He had been acquainted with
+Paul ever since, at the age of seven, he had come into the store and had
+tried to make a down payment on a model building kit for a Y-71
+ground-to-orbit freight rocket--clearly marked $49.95 in the display
+window--with his fortune of a single dime. Frank had never acquired a
+Y-71 kit, but he had found a friend in Paul Hendricks, and a place to
+hang around and learn things he wanted to know. Later on, as now, he had
+worked in the store whenever he had some free time.
+
+Frank leaned against a lathe, watching the others, the frosty thrill and
+soul-searching hidden inside himself. Maybe it was hard to guess what
+Eileen Sands, standing near, was thinking, but she was the firm kind who
+would have a definite direction. Perhaps unconsciously, she hummed a
+tune under her breath, while her feet toyed with graceful steps. No
+doubt, her mind was also on the Big Vacuum beyond the Earth.
+
+But what is there about a dangerous dream? When it is far out of reach,
+it has a safe, romantic appeal. Bring its fulfillment a little closer,
+and its harsh aspects begin to show. You get a kick out of that, but you
+begin to wonder nervously if you have the guts, the stamina, the
+resistance to loneliness and complete strangeness.
+
+Looking at a real Archie--with a friend inside it, even--did this to
+Frank Nelsen. But he could see similar reactions in some of the others.
+
+Mitch Storey sat, bent forward, on a box, staring at his big, sepia
+hands, in which he tossed back and forth a tiny, clear capsule
+containing a fuzzy fragment of vegetation from Mars. He had bought this
+sealed curio from Paul a year ago for fifty dollars--souvenirs that came
+from so far were expensive. And now, in view of what was happening to
+hopeful colonists of that once inhabited and still most Earth-like other
+planet, ownership of such a capsule on Earth seemed about to be banned,
+not only by departments of agriculture, but by bodies directly concerned
+with public safety.
+
+Did the color photographs of Mars, among all the others that the Bunch
+had thumbtacked to the shop walls, still appeal as strongly to Mitch?
+Did he still want to go out to that world of queer, swirled markings,
+like the fluid flow in the dregs of a paper coffee cup? Mitch
+would--more so than ever. He had plant life in his soul, maybe from
+wandering in the swamps near his home in Mississippi. He had been
+supporting himself here at school by fixing gardens. If it was plant
+life of a different, dangerous sort, with other billions of years of
+development behind it, that just made the call stronger. Mitch just sat
+and thought, now, the mouth organ he seldom played sagging forward in
+his frayed shirt pocket.
+
+Ramos--Miguel Ramos Alvarez--only stood with his black-visored cap
+pushed back on his head, and a cocky smirk of good humor on his mouth.
+Reckless Ramos, who went tearing around the country in an ancient motor
+scooter, decorated with squirrel tails and gaudy bosses, would hardly be
+disturbed by any risky thing he wanted to do. The thumbtacked pictures
+of the systems of far, cold Jupiter and Saturn--Saturn still
+unapproached, except by small, instrumented rockets--would be the things
+to appeal to him.
+
+The Kuzak twins stood alertly, as if an extra special homecoming
+football game was in prospect. But they weren't given to real doubts,
+either. From their previous remarks it was clear that the asteroids,
+those fragments of an exploded and once populated world, orbiting out
+beyond Mars, would be for them. Osmium, iridium, uranium. The rich,
+metallic guts of a planet exposed for easy mining. Thousands of
+prospectors, hopeful characters, and men brutalized by the life in
+space, were already drifting around in the Asteroid Belt.
+
+Two-and-Two Baines wore a worried, perplexed expression. He was a
+massive, rather lost young man who had to keep up with the times, and
+with his companions, and was certainly wondering if he was able.
+
+Little David Lester, the pedant, the mother's boy, who looked eighteen
+but was probably older, pouted, and his heavy lips in his thin face
+moved. "Cores," Nelsen heard him whisper. He had the habit of talking to
+himself. Frank knew his interests. Drill cores withdrawn from the strata
+of another planet, and inspected for fossils and other evidences of its
+long history, was what he probably meant. Seeing Gimp in the Archie had
+set off another scientific reverie in his head. He was a whizz in any
+book subject. Maybe he had the brains to be a great investigator of the
+past, in the Belt or on Mars, if his mind didn't crack first, which
+seemed sure to happen if he left Earth at all.
+
+But it was Glen Tiflin's reactions that were the strangest. He had his
+switch blade out, and was tossing it expertly against a wall
+two-by-four, in which it stuck quivering each time. This seemed his one
+skill, his pride, his proof of manhood. And he wanted to get into space
+like nobody else around, except maybe Gimp Hines. It wasn't hard to
+sense how his head worked--the whole Bunch knew.
+
+Tiflin's face seemed to writhe, now, with self-doubt and truculence; his
+eyes were on the photos of the heroes, beginning way back; Goddard. Von
+Braun. Clifford, who had first landed on the far side of the Moon.
+LaCrosse, who had reached Mercury, closest to the sun. Vasiliev, who had
+just come back from the frozen moons of Jupiter, scoring a triumph for
+the Tovies--somebody had started calling them that, a few years ago--up
+in high Eurasia, the other side of an ideological rift that still
+threatened the ever more crowded and competitive Earth, though mutual
+fear had so far kept the flare ups within limits. Bannon, whose
+expedition was even now exploring the gloomy cellar of Venus' surface,
+smothered in steam, carbon dioxide and poisonous formaldehyde.
+
+To Tiflin, as to the others, even such places were glamorous. But he
+wanted to be a big shot, too. It was like a compulsion. He was touchy
+and difficult. Three years back, he had been in trouble for breaking and
+entering. Maybe his worship of space, and his desire to get there and
+prove himself, were the only things that had kept him straight for so
+long--grimly attentive at Tech, and at work at his car-washing job,
+nights.
+
+In his nervousness, now, he stuck a cigarette savagely between his lips,
+and lighted it with a quick, arrogant gesture, hardly slowing down the
+continuous toss and recovery of his knife.
+
+This had begun to annoy big Art Kuzak. For one thing, Tiflin was doing
+his trick too close to the mass of crinkly, cellophane-like stuff draped
+over a horizontal wooden pole suspended by iron straps from the ceiling.
+The crinkly mass was one of the Bunch's major projects--their first
+space bubble, or bubb which they had been cutting and shaping with more
+care and devotion than skill.
+
+"Cripes--put that damn shiv away, Tif!" Art snapped. "Or lose it
+someplace!"
+
+Ramos, who was a part-time mechanic at the same garage where Tiflin
+worked, couldn't help taunting. "Yeah--smoking, too. Oh-oh. Using up
+precious oxygen. Better quit, pal. Can't do much of that Out There."
+
+This was a wrong moment to rib Tiflin. He was in an instant flare. But
+he ground out the cigarette at once, bitterly. "What do _you_ care what
+I do, Mex?" he snarled. "And as for you two Hunky Kuzaks--you oversized
+bulldozers--how about weight limits for blastoff? Damn--I don't care
+_how_ big you are!"
+
+In mounting rage, he was about to lash out with his fists, even at the
+two watchful football men. But then he looked surprised. With a terrible
+effort, he bottled up even his furious words.
+
+The Bunch was a sort of family. Members of families may love each other,
+but it doesn't have to happen. For a second it was as if Ramos had
+Tiflin spitted on some barb of his taunting smile--aimed at Tiflin's
+most vulnerable point.
+
+Ramos clicked his tongue. What he was certainly going to remark was that
+people who couldn't pass the emotional stability tests, just couldn't
+get a space-fitness card. But Ramos wasn't unkind. He checked himself in
+time. "No sweat, Tif," he muttered.
+
+"Hey, Gimp--are you going to sit in that Archie all night?" Joe Kuzak,
+the easy-going twin, boomed genially. "How about the rest of us?"
+
+"Yeah--how about that, Gimp?" Dave Lester put in, trying to sound as
+brash and bold as the others, instead of just bookish.
+
+Two-and-Two Baines, still looking perplexed, spoke in a hoarse voice
+that sounded like sorrow. "What I wanna know is just how far this fifty
+buck price gets us. Guess we have enough dough left in the treasury to
+buy us each an Archer Five, huh, Paul?"
+
+Paul Hendricks rubbed his bald head and grinned in a way that attempted
+to prove him a disinterested sideliner. "Ask Frank," he said. "He's your
+historian-secretary and treasurer."
+
+Frank Nelsen came out of his attitude of observation enough to warn,
+"That much we've got, if we want as many as twelve Archies. And a little
+better than a thousand dollars more, left over from the prize money."
+
+They had won twenty-five hundred dollars during the summer for building
+a working model of a sun-powered ionic drive motor--the kind useful for
+deep-space propulsion, but far too weak in thrust to be any good,
+starting from the ground. The contest had been sponsored by--of all
+outfits--a big food chain, Trans-Columbia. But this wasn't so strange.
+Everybody was interested in, or affected by, interplanetary travel, now.
+
+On a workbench, standing amid a litter of metal chips and scraps of
+color-coded wire, was the Bunch's second ionic, full-size this time, and
+almost finished. On crossed arms it mounted four parabolic mirrors; its
+ion guide was on a universal joint. Out There, in orbit or beyond, and
+in full, spatial sunlight, its jetting ions would deliver ten pounds of
+continuous thrust.
+
+"A thousand bucks--that's nowhere near enough," Two-and-Two mourned
+further. "Doggone, why can't we get blasted up off the Earth--that costs
+the most, all by itself--just in our Archies? They've got those little
+ionic drives on their shoulders, to get around with, after we're in
+orbit. Lots of asteroid hoppers live and ride only in their space suits.
+Why do they make us get all that other expensive equipment? Space bubbs,
+full-size ionics, lots of fancy instruments!"
+
+"'Cause it isn't legal, otherwise," Mitch Storey pointed out. "'Cause
+new men are green--it isn't safe for them, otherwise--the
+Extra-Terrestrial Commission thinks. Got to have all the gear to get
+clearance. Travelling light isn't even legal in the Belt. You know
+that."
+
+"Maybe we'll win us another prize," Ramos laughed, touching the crinkly
+substance of their first bubb, hanging like a deflated balloon over the
+ceiling pole.
+
+Tiflin sneered. "Oh, sure, you dumb Mex. Too many other Bunches, now.
+Too much competition. Like companies starting up on the Moon not hiring
+ordinary help on Earth and shipping them out, anymore--saying contract
+guys don't stick. Nuts--it's because enough slobs save them the expense
+by showing up on their own... Or like most all of us trying to get into
+the Space Force. The _Real Elite_--sure. Only 25,000 in the Force, when
+there are over 200,000,000 people in the country to draw from. Just one
+guy from Jarviston--Harv Diamond--ever made it. Choosy? We can get old
+waiting for them to review our submitted personal data, only to have a
+chance to take their lousy tests!"
+
+Joe Kuzak grinned. "So down with 'em--down with the worthy old U.S.S.F.!
+We're on our own--to Serenitatis Base on the Moon, to the Belt,
+Pallastown, and farther!"
+
+Ramos still hovered near Eileen Sands. "What do you say, Sweetie?" he
+asked. "You haven't hardly made a comment."
+
+Eileen remained tough and withdrawn. "I'm just listening while you smart
+male characters figure out everything," she snapped. "Why don't you
+become a listener, too, for a change, and go help Gimp out of that
+Archer?"
+
+Ramos bowed elegantly, and obeyed the latter half of her suggestion.
+
+"I have a premonition--a hunch," little Lester offered, trying to sound
+firm. "Our request for a grant from the Extra-Terrestrial Development
+Board will succeed. Because we will be as valuable as anybody, Out
+There. Then we will have money enough to buy the materials to make most
+of our equipment."
+
+Joe Kuzak, the gentler twin, answered him. "You're right about one
+thing, Les. We'll wind up building most of our own stuff--with our own
+mitts...!"
+
+Some noisy conversation about who should try the Archer next, was
+interrupted when the antique customer's bell over the street door of
+the store, jangled. There was a scrape of shoe soles, as the two
+previously absent members of the Bunch, Jig Hollins and Charlie
+Reynolds, arriving together by chance, came into the shop.
+
+Jig (Hilton) Hollins was a mechanic out at the airport. He was lean,
+cocky, twenty-four, with a stiff bristle of blond hair. Like Charlie
+Reynolds, he added up what had just been happening, here, at a glance.
+Both were older than the others. They had regular jobs. Their educations
+were completed, except for evening supplementary courses.
+
+"Well, the _men_ have arrived," Jig announced.
+
+Maybe Charlie Reynolds' faint frown took exception to this remark. He
+was the only one in a suit, grey and tasteful, with a subdued flash to
+match the kind of car he drove. Few held this against him, nor the fact
+that he usually spent himself broke, nor the further fact that J. John
+Reynolds, tight-fisted president of the Jarviston First National Bank,
+was his grandfather. Charlie was an engineer at the new nuclear
+powerhouse, just out of town. Charlie was what is generally known as a
+Good Guy. He was brash and sure--maybe too sure. He had a slight
+swagger, balanced by a certain benignancy. He was automatically the
+leader of the Bunch, held most likely to succeed in their aims.
+
+"Hi, gang," he breezed. "Otto is bringing beer, Pepsi and sandwiches
+from his joint across the street. Special day--so it's on me. Time to
+relax--maybe unsnarl. Any new problems?"
+
+"Still plenty of old ones," Frank Nelsen commented laconically.
+
+"Has anybody suddenly decided to back out?" Charlie chuckled. "It's
+tiresome for me always to be asking that." He looked around, meeting
+carefully easy grins and grim expressions. "Nope--I guess we're all
+shaggy folk, bent on high and wild living, so far. So you know the only
+answer we _can_ have."
+
+"Umhmm, Charlie," Art Kuzak, the tough, business-like twin, gruffed. "We
+can get the Archers, now. I think Frank has our various sizes noted
+down. Let everybody sign up that wants an Archie. Better hurry,
+though--there'll be a run on them now that they're being almost given
+away... List all the other stuff we need--with approximate purchase
+price, or cost of construction materials, attached. Sure--we'll be way
+short of funds. But we can start with the items we can make, ourselves,
+now. The point is not to lose time. New restrictions may turn up, and
+give us trouble, if we do. We'll have to ride our luck for a break."
+
+"Hell--you know the lists are ready, Art," Frank Nelsen pointed out. "A
+bubb for everybody--or the stuff to make it. Full-scale ionic drives,
+air-restorers and moisture-reclaimers, likewise. Some of the navigation
+instruments we'll almost have to buy. Dehydrated food, flasks of oxygen
+and water, and blastoff drums to contain our gear, are all relatively
+simple. Worst, of course, is the blastoff price, from one of the
+spaceports. Who could be rich enough to have a ground-to-orbit nuclear
+rocket of his own? Fifteen hundred bucks--a subsidized rate at
+that--just to lift a man and a thousand pounds of equipment into orbit.
+Five thousand dollars, minimum per person, is what we're going to need,
+altogether."
+
+Gimp Hines, who always acted as if he expected to get off the Earth,
+too, had yielded his position inside the Archer to Tiflin, and had
+hobbled close.
+
+"The cost scares a guy who has to go to school, too, so he can pass the
+tests," he said. "Well, don't worry, Frank. A thousand dollars buys a
+lot of stellene for bubbs. And we can scratch up a few bucks of our own.
+I can find a hundred, myself, saved from my TV repair work, and my
+novelties business. Charlie, here, ought to be able to contribute a
+thousand. Same for you, Hollins. That'll buy parts and materials for
+some ionic motors, too."
+
+"Oh, certainly, Gimp," Hollins growled.
+
+But Charlie Reynolds grinned. "I can kick in that much, if I hold down a
+while," he said. "Maybe more, later. What we've got to have, however, is
+a loan. We can't expect a grant from the Board. Sure they want more
+people helping to develop resources in space, but they're swamped with
+requests. Let's not sweat, though. With a little time, I'll swing
+something... Hey, everybody! Proposition! I move that whoever wants an
+Archer put his name down for Frank. I further move that we have him
+order us a supply of stellene, and basic materials for at least three
+more ionic motors. I also suggest that everybody donate as much cash as
+he can, no matter how little, and as much time as possible for making
+equipment. With luck, and if we get our applications for space-fitness
+tests mailed to Minneapolis within a week, at least some of us should
+get off Earth by next June. Now, shall we sign for the whole deal?"
+
+Art Kuzak hunched his shoulders and displayed white teeth happily. "I'm
+a pushover," he said. "Here I come. I like to see things roll."
+
+"Likewise," said his brother, Joe. Their signatures were both small, in
+contrast to their size.
+
+Ramos, fully clad in the Archer, clowned his way forward to write his
+name with great flourishes, his ball point clutched in a space glove.
+
+Tiflin made a fierce, nervous scrawl.
+
+Mitch Storey wrote patiently, in big, square letters.
+
+Gimp chewed his lip, and signed, "Walter Hines," in a beautiful, austere
+script, with a touch as fine as a master scientist's. "I'll go along as
+far as they let me," he muttered.
+
+"I think it will be the same--in my case," David Lester stammered. He
+shook so much that his signature was only a quavering line.
+
+"For laughs," Eileen Sands said, and wrote daintily.
+
+Two-and-Two Baines gulped, sighed, and made a jagged scribble, like the
+trail of a rocket gone nuts.
+
+Jig Hollins wrote in swooping, arrogant circles, that came, perhaps,
+from his extra jobs as an advertising sky writer with an airplane.
+
+Frank Nelsen was next, and Charlie Reynolds was last. Theirs were the
+most indistinctive signatures in the lot. Just ordinary writing.
+
+"So here we all are, on a piece of paper--pledged to victory or death,"
+Reynolds laughed. "Anyhow, we're out of a rut."
+
+Nelsen figured that that was the thing about Charlie Reynolds. Some
+might not like him, entirely. But he could get the Bunch unsnarled and
+in motion.
+
+Old Paul Hendricks had come back from waiting on some casual customers
+in the store.
+
+"Want to sign, too, Paul?" Reynolds chuckled.
+
+"Nope--that would make thirteen," Paul answered, his eyes twinkling.
+"I'll watch and listen--and maybe tell you if I think you're off beam."
+
+"Here comes Otto with the beer and sandwiches," Ramos burst out.
+
+They all crowded around heavy Otto Kramer and his basket--all except
+Frank Nelsen and Paul Hendricks, and Eileen Sands who made the ancient
+typewriter click in the little office-enclosure, as she typed up the
+order list that Nelsen would mail out with a bank draft in the morning.
+
+Nelsen had a powerful urge to talk to the old man who was his long-time
+friend, and who had said little all during the session, though he knew
+more about space travel than any of them--as much as anybody can know
+without ever having been off the Earth.
+
+"Hey, Paul," Frank called in a low tone, leaning his elbows across a
+workbench.
+
+"Yeah?"
+
+"Nothing," Frank Nelsen answered with a lopsided smile.
+
+But he felt that that was the right word, when your thoughts and
+feelings became too huge and complicated for you to express with any
+ease.
+
+Grandeur, poetry, music--for instance, the haunting popular song, _Fire
+Streak_, about the burial of a spaceman--at orbital speed--in the
+atmosphere of his native planet. And fragments of history, such as
+covered wagons. All sorts of subjects, ideas and pictures were swirling
+inside his head. Wanting to sample everything in the solar system...
+Home versus the distance, and the fierce urge to build a wild history of
+his own... Gentleness and lust to be fulfilled, sometime. There would be
+a girl... And there were second thoughts to twist your guts and make you
+wonder if all your savage drives were foolish. But there was a duty to
+be equal to your era--helping to give dangerously crowded humanity on
+Earth more room, dispersal, a chance for race survival, if some
+unimaginable violence were turned loose...
+
+He thought of the names of places Out There. Serenitatis
+Base--Serene--on the Moon. Lusty, fantastic Pallastown, on the Golden
+Asteroid, Pallas... He remembered his parents, killed in a car wreck
+just outside of Jarviston, four Christmases ago. Some present!... But
+there was one small benefit--he was left free to go where he wanted,
+without any family complications, like other guys might have. Poor Dave
+Lester. How was it that his mother allowed him to be with the Bunch at
+all? How did he work it? Or was she the one that was right?...
+
+Paul Hendricks had leaned his elbows on the workbench, too.
+"Sure--_nothing_--Frank," he said, and his watery eyes were bland.
+
+The old codger understood. Neither of them said anything for a minute,
+while the rest of the Bunch, except Eileen who was still typing, guzzled
+Pepsi and beer, and wolfed hotdogs. There was lots of courage-lifting
+noise and laughter.
+
+Ramos said something, and Jig Hollins answered him back. "Think there'll
+be any girls in grass skirts out in the Asteroid Belt, Mex?"
+
+"Oh, they'll arrive," Ramos assured him.
+
+Nelsen didn't listen anymore. His and Paul's attention had wandered to
+the largest color photo thumbtacked to the wall, above the TV set, and
+the shelf of dog-eared technical books. It showed a fragile, pearly
+ring, almost diaphanous, hanging tilted against spatial blackness and
+pinpoint stars. Its hub was a cylindrical spindle, with radial guys of
+fine, stainless steel wire. It was like the earliest ideas about a space
+station, yet it was also different. To many--Frank Nelsen and Paul
+Hendricks certainly included--such devices had as much beauty as a yacht
+under full sail had ever had for anybody.
+
+Old Paul smirked with pleasure. "It's a shame, ain't it, Frank--calling
+a pretty thing like that a 'bubb'--it's an ugly word. Or even a 'space
+bubble.' Technical talk gets kind of cheap."
+
+"I don't mind," Frank Nelsen answered. "Our first one, here, could look
+just as nice--inflated, and riding free against the stars."
+
+He touched the crinkly material, draped across its wooden support.
+
+"It _will_," the old man promised. "Funny--not so long ago people
+thought that space ships would have to be really rigid--all metal. So
+how did they turn out? Made of stellene, mostly--an improved form of
+polyethylene--almost the same stuff as a weather balloon."
+
+"A few millimeters thick, light, perfectly flexible when deflated,"
+Nelsen added. "Cut out and cement your bubb together in any shape you
+choose. Fold it up firmly, like a parachute--it makes a small package
+that can be carried up into orbit in a blastoff rocket with the best
+efficiency. There, attached flasks of breathable atmosphere fill it out
+in a minute. Eight pounds pressure makes it fairly solid in a vacuum.
+So, behold--you've got breathing and living room, inside. There's nylon
+cording for increased strength--as in an automobile tire--though not
+nearly as much. There's a silicone gum between the thin double layers,
+to seal possible meteor punctures. A darkening lead-salt impregnation in
+the otherwise transparent stellene cuts radiation entry below the danger
+level, and filters the glare and the hard ultra-violet out of the
+sunshine. So there you are, all set up."
+
+"Rig your hub and guy wires," old Paul carried on, cheerfully. "Attach
+your sun-powered ionic drive, set up your air-restorer, spin your
+vehicle for centrifuge-gravity, and you're ready to move--out of orbit."
+
+They laughed, because getting into space wasn't as easy as they made it
+sound. The bubbs, one of the basic inventions that made interplanetary
+travel possible, were, for all their almost vagabondish simplicity,
+still a concession in lightness and compactness for atmospheric transit,
+to that first and greatest problem--breaking the terrific initial grip
+of Earth's gravity from the ground upward, and gaining stable orbital
+speed. Only a tremendously costly rocket, with a thrust greater than its
+own weight when fully loaded, could do that. Buying a blastoff passage
+_had_ to be expensive.
+
+"Figuring, scrounging, counting our pennies, risking our necks," Nelsen
+chuckled. "And maybe, even if we make it, we'll be just a third-rate
+group, lost in the crowd that's following the explorers... Just the
+same, I wish you could plan to go, too, Paul."
+
+"Don't rub it in, kid. But I figure on kicking in a couple of thousand
+bucks, soon, to help you characters along."
+
+Nelsen felt an embarrassed lift of hope.
+
+"You shouldn't, Paul," he advised. "We've overrun and taken possession
+of your shop--almost your store, too. You've waived any profit, whenever
+we've bought anything. That's enough favors."
+
+"My dough, my pleasure... Let's each get one of Reynolds' beers and
+hotdogs, if any are left..."
+
+Later, when all the others had gone, except Gimp Hines, they uncovered
+the Archer, which everyone else had tried. Paul got into it, first. Then
+Nelsen took his turn, sitting as if within an inclosed vault, hearing
+the gurgle of bubbles passing through the green, almost living fluid of
+the air-restorer capsule. Chlorophane, like the chlorophyl of green
+plants, could break up exhaled carbon dioxide, freeing the oxygen for
+re-breathing. But it was synthetic, far more efficient, and it could use
+much stronger sunlight as an energy source. Like chlorophyl, too, it
+produced edible starches and sugars that could be imbibed, mixed with
+water, through a tube inside the Archer's helmet.
+
+Even with the Archer enclosing him, Nelsen's mind didn't quite reach. He
+had learned a lot about space, but it remained curiously inconceivable
+to him. He felt the frost-fringed thrill.
+
+"Now we know--a little," he chortled, after he stood again, just in his
+usual garb.
+
+It was almost eight o'clock. Gimp Hines hadn't gone to supper, or to
+celebrate decision on one of the last evenings of any kind of freedom
+from work. He couldn't wait for that... Under fluorescent lights, he was
+threading wire through miniature grommets, hurrying to complete the
+full-size ionic drive. He said, "Hi, Frank," and let his eyes drop,
+again, into absorption in his labors. Mad little guy. Tragic, sort of. A
+cripple...
+
+"I'll shove off, Paul," Nelsen was saying in a moment.
+
+Out under the significant stars of the crisp October night, Nelsen was
+approached at once by a shadow. "I was waiting for you, Frank. I got a
+problem." The voice was hoarse sorrow--almost lugubrious comedy.
+
+"Math again, Two-and-Two? Sure--shoot."
+
+"Well--that kind is always around--with me," Two-and-Two Baines chuckled
+shakily. "This is something else--personal. We're liable--honest to
+gosh--to _go_, aren't we?"
+
+"Some of us, maybe," Nelsen replied warily. "Sixty thousand bucks for
+the whole Bunch looks like a royal heap of cabbage to me."
+
+"Split among a dozen guys, it looks smaller," Two-and-Two persisted.
+"And you can earn royal dough on the Moon--just for example. Plenty to
+pay back a loan."
+
+"Still, you don't pick loans off trees," Nelsen gruffed. "Not for a
+shoestring crowd like us. We look too unsubstantial."
+
+"Okay, Frank--have that part your way. I believe there still is a good
+chance we _will_ go. I _want_ to go. But I get to thinking. Out There is
+like being buried in millions of miles of nothing that you can breathe.
+Can a guy stand it? You hear stories about going loopy from
+claustrophobia and stuff. And I got to think about my mother and dad."
+
+"Uh-huh--other people could be having minor second thoughts--including
+me," Frank Nelsen growled.
+
+"You don't get what I mean, Frank. Sure I'm scared some--but I'm gonna
+try to go. Well, here's my point. I'm strong, willing, not too clumsy.
+But I'm no good at figuring what to do. So, Out There, in order to have
+a reasonable chance, I'll have to be following somebody smart. I thought
+I'd fix it now--beforehand. You're the best, Frank."
+
+Nelsen felt the scared earnestness of the appeal, and the achy shock of
+the compliment. But in his own uncertainty, he didn't want to be
+carrying any dead weight, in the form of a dependent individual.
+
+"Thanks, Two-and-Two," he said. "But I can't see myself as any leader,
+either. Talk about it to me tomorrow, if you still feel like it. Right
+now I want to sweat out a few things for myself--alone."
+
+"Of course, Frankie." And Two-and-Two was gone.
+
+Frank Nelsen looked upward, over the lighted street. There was no
+Moon--site of many enterprises, these days--in the sky, now. Old Jupiter
+rode in the south. A weather-spotting satellite crept across zenith,
+winking red and green. A skip glider, an orbit-to-ground freight
+vehicle, possibly loaded with rich metals from the Belt, probably about
+to land at the New Mexico spaceport far to the west, moved near it.
+Frank felt a deliciously lonesome chill as he walked through the
+business section of Jarviston. From somewhere, dance music lilted.
+
+In front of Lehman's Drug Store he looked skyward again, to see a
+dazzling white cluster, like many meteors, falling. The gorgeous display
+lasted more than a second.
+
+"Good heavens, Franklin Nelsen--what was that?"
+
+He looked down at the slight, aging woman, and stiffened slightly. Miss
+Rosalie Parks had been his Latin teacher in high school. Plenty of times
+she used to scold him for not having his translations of Caesar worked
+out. A lot she understood about a fella who had to spend plenty of time
+working to support himself, while attending school!
+
+"Good evening, Miss Parks," he greeted rather stiffly. "I think it was
+that manned weather satellite dumping garbage. It hits the atmosphere at
+orbital velocity, and is incinerated."
+
+She seemed to be immensely pleased and amused. "Garbage becoming beauty!
+That is rather wonderful, Franklin. I'll remember. Thank you and good
+night."
+
+She marched off with the small purchase she had made, in the direction
+opposite his own.
+
+He got almost to the house where he had his room, when there was another
+encounter. But it was nothing new to run into Nancy Codiss, the spindly
+fifteen-year-old next door. He had a sudden, unbelievably expansive
+impulse.
+
+"Hi, Nance," he said. "I didn't get much supper. Let's go down to
+Lehman's for a hamburger and maybe a soda."
+
+"Why--_good_--Frankie!"
+
+They didn't talk very much, walking down, waiting for their orders, or
+eating their hamburgers. But she wasn't as spindly as he used to think.
+And her dark hair, even features and slim hands were nicer than he
+recalled.
+
+"I hear you fellas got your space-armor sample, Frank."
+
+"Yep--we did. We're ordering more."
+
+Her expression became speculative. Her brown eyes lighted. "I've been
+wondering if I should look Outward, too. Whether it makes sense--for a
+girl."
+
+"Could be--I've heard."
+
+Their conversation went something like that, throughout, with long
+silences. Finally she smiled at him, very brightly.
+
+"The Junior Fall dance is in two weeks," she said. "But I guess you'll
+be too busy to be interested?"
+
+"'Guess' just isn't the word, Nance. I regret that--truly."
+
+He looked and sounded as though he meant it. In some crazy way, it
+seemed that he _did_ mean it.
+
+He walked her home. Then he went to the next house, and up to his rented
+room. He showered, and for once climbed very early into bed, feeling
+that he must have nightmares. About strange sounds in the thin winds,
+over the mysterious thickets of Mars. Or about some blackened, dried-out
+body of a sentient being, sixty million years dead, floating free in the
+Asteroid Belt. A few had been found. Some were in museums.
+
+Instead, he slept the dreamless sleep of the just--if there was any
+particular reason for him to consider himself just.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+Gimp Hines put the finishing touches on the first full-scale ionic
+during that next week. The others of the Bunch, each working when he
+could, completed cementing the segments of the first bubb together.
+
+On a Sunday morning they carried the bubb out into the yard behind the
+store and test inflated the thirty-foot ring by means of a line of hose
+from the compressor in the shop. Soapsuds dabbed along the seams
+revealed a few leaks by its bubbling. These were fixed up.
+
+By late afternoon the Bunch had folded up the bubb again, and were
+simulating its practice launching from a ground-to-orbit rocket--as well
+as can be done on the ground with a device intended only for use in a
+state of weightlessness, when the operators are supposed to be
+weightless, too. The impossibility of establishing such conditions
+produced some ludicrous results:
+
+The two Kuzaks diving with a vigor, as if from a rocket airlock, hitting
+the dirt with a thud, scrambling up, opening and spreading the great
+bundle, attaching the air hose. Little Lester hopping in to help fit
+wire rigging, most of it still imaginary. A friendly dog coming over to
+sniff, with a look of mild wonder in his eyes.
+
+"Laugh, you leather-heads!" Art Kuzak roared at the others. He grinned,
+wiping his muddy face. "We've got to learn, don't we? Only, it's like
+make-believe. Hell, I haven't played make-believe since I was four! But
+if we keep doing it here, all the kids and townspeople will be peeking
+over the fence to see how nuts we've gone."
+
+This was soon literally true. In some embarrassment, the Bunch rolled up
+their bubb and lugged it into the shop.
+
+"I can borrow a construction compressor unit on a truck," Two-and-Two
+offered. "And there's a farm I know..."
+
+A great roll of stellene tubing, to have a six-feet six-inch inside
+diameter when inflated, was delivered on Monday. Enough for three bubbs.
+The Archer Fives were expected to be somewhat delayed, due to massive
+ordering. But small boxes of parts and raw stock for the ionics had
+begun to arrive, too. Capacitors, resistors, thermocouple units.
+Magnesium rods for Storey or Ramos or the Kuzaks to shape in a lathe.
+Sheet aluminum to be spun and curved and polished. With Eileen Sands
+helping, Gimp Hines would do most of that.
+
+So the real work began. Nobody in the Bunch denied that it was a grind.
+For most, there were those tough courses at Tech. And a job, for money,
+for sustenance. And the time that must be spent working for--Destiny.
+Sleep was least important--a few hours, long after midnight, usually.
+
+Frank Nelsen figured that he had it relatively easy--almost as easy as
+the Kuzak twins, who, during football season, were under strict orders
+to get their proper sack time. He worked at Hendricks'--old Paul didn't
+mind his combining the job with his labors of aspiration. Ramos, the
+night-mechanic, Tiflin, the car-washer, and Two-and-Two Baines, the
+part-time bricklayer, didn't have it so easy. Eileen, a first-rate legal
+typist employed for several hours a day by a partnership of lawyers,
+could usually work from notes, at the place where she lived.
+
+Two-and-Two would lift a big hand facetiously, when he came into the
+shop. Blinking and squinting, he would wiggle his fingers. "I can still
+see 'em--to count!" he would moan. "Thanks, all you good people, for
+coaching me in my math."
+
+"Think nothing of it," Charlie Reynolds or David Lester, or most any of
+the others, would tell him. Two-and-Two hadn't come near Frank Nelsen
+very much, during the last few days, though Frank had tried to be
+friendly.
+
+Lester was the only one without an activity to support himself. But he
+was at the shop every weekday, six to ten p.m., cementing stellene with
+meticulous care, while he muttered and dreamed.
+
+The Bunch griped about courses, jobs, and the stubbornness of materials,
+but they made progress. They had built their first bubb and ionic. The
+others would be easier.
+
+Early in November, Nelsen collected all available fresh capital,
+including a second thousand from Paul Hendricks and five hundred from
+Charlie Reynolds, and sent it in with new orders.
+
+That about exhausted their own finances for a long time to come. Seven
+bubbs, minus most of even their simpler fittings, and five ionics,
+seemed as much as they could pay for, themselves. Charlie Reynolds
+hadn't yet lined up a backer.
+
+"We should have planned to outfit one guy completely," Jig Hollins
+grumbled on a Sunday afternoon at the shop. "Then we could have drawn
+lots about who gets a chance to use the gear. That we goofed there is
+your fault, Reynolds. Or--your Grandpappy didn't come through, huh?"
+
+Charlie met Hollins' sneering gaze for a moment. "Never mind the
+'Grandpappy', Jig," he said softly. "I knew that chances weren't good,
+there. However, there are other prospects which I'm working on. I
+remember mentioning that it might take time. As for your other remarks,
+what good is equipping just one person? I thought that this was a
+project for all of us."
+
+"I'm with Charlie," Joe Kuzak commented.
+
+"Don't fight, guys--we've got to figure on training, too," Ramos
+laughed. "I've got the problem of an expensive training centrifuge about
+beat. Out at my old motor scooter club. Come on, Charlie--you, too,
+Jig--get your cars and let's go! It's only seven miles, and we all need
+a break."
+
+Paul Hendricks had gone for a walk. So Nelsen locked the shop, and they
+all tore off, out to the place, Ramos leading the way in his scooter. At
+the scooter club they found an ancient carnival device which used to be
+called a motordrome. It was a vertical wooden cylinder, like a huge,
+ironbound, straight sided cask, thirty feet high and wide, standing on
+its bottom.
+
+Ramos let himself and the scooter through a massive, curved
+door--conforming to the curvature of the walls--at the base of the
+'drome.
+
+"Secure the latch bar of this door from the outside, fellas," he said.
+"Then go to the gallery around the top to watch."
+
+Ramos started riding his scooter in a tight circle around the bottom of
+the 'drome. Increasing speed, he swung outward to the ramped juncture
+between floor and smooth, circular walls. Then, moving still faster, he
+was riding around the vertical walls, themselves, held there by
+centrifugal force. He climbed his vehicle to the very rim of the great
+cask, body out sideways, grinning and balancing, hands free, the
+squirrel tails flapping from his gaudily repainted old scooter.
+
+"Come on, you characters!" he shouted through the noise and smoke. "You
+should try this, too! It's good practice for the rough stuff to come,
+when we blast out!... Hey, Eileen--you try it first--ride with me--then
+alone--when you get the hang of it!..."
+
+This time she accepted. Soon she was riding by herself, smiling
+recklessly. Reynolds rode after that, then the Kuzaks. Like most of
+them, Frank Nelsen took the scooter up alone, from the start. He was a
+bit scared at first, but if you couldn't do a relatively simple stunt
+like this, how could you get along in space? He became surer, then
+gleeful, even when the centrifugal force made his head giddy, pushed his
+buttocks hard against the scooter's seat, and his insides down against
+his pelvis.
+
+Storey, Hollins and Tiflin all accomplished it. Even Gimp Hines rode
+behind Ramos in some very wild gyrations, though he didn't attempt to
+guide the scooter, himself.
+
+Then it was David Lester's turn. It was a foregone conclusion that he
+couldn't take the scooter up, alone. Palefaced, he rode double. Ramos
+was careful this time. But on the downward curve before coming to rest,
+the change of direction made Lester grab Ramos' arm at a critical
+instant. The scooter wavered, and they landed hard, even at reduced
+speed. Agile Ramos skipped clear, landing on his feet. Lester flopped
+heavily, and skidded across the bottom of the 'drome.
+
+When the guys got to him, he was covered with friction burns, and with
+blood from a scalp gash. Ramos, Storey and Frank worked on him to get
+him cleaned up and patched up. Part of the time he was sobbing bitterly,
+more from failure, it seemed, than from his physical hurt. By luck there
+didn't seem to be any bones broken.
+
+"Darn!" he choked in some infinite protest, beating the ground with his
+fists. "Damn--that's the end of it for me...! So soon... Pop..."
+
+"I'll drive you to Doc Miller's, Les," Charlie Reynolds said briskly.
+"Then home. You other people better stay here..."
+
+Charlie had a baffled, subdued look, when he returned an hour later. "I
+thought his mother would chew my ear, sure," he said. "She didn't. She
+was just polite. That was worse. She's small--not much color. Of course
+she was scared, and mad clean through. Know her?"
+
+"I guess we've all seen her around," Nelsen answered. "Widow. Les was in
+one of my classes during my first high school year. He was a senior,
+then. They haven't been in Jarviston more than a few years. I never
+heard where they came from..."
+
+Warily, back at the shop, the Bunch told Paul what had happened.
+
+For once his pale eyes flashed. "You Bright Boys," he said. "Especially
+you, Ramos...! Well, I'm most to blame. I let him hang around, because
+he was so doggone interested. And _driven_--somehow. Lucky nothing too
+bad happened. Last August, when you romantics got serious about space, I
+made him prove he was over twenty-one..."
+
+They sweated it out, expecting ear-burning phone calls, maybe legal
+suits. Nothing happened. Nelsen felt relieved that Lester was gone. One
+dangerous link in a chain was removed. Contempt boosted his own arrogant
+pride of accomplishment. Then pity came, and anger for the sneers of Jig
+Hollins. Then regret for a fallen associate.
+
+The dozen Archers were delivered--there would be a spare, now. The Bunch
+continued building equipment, they worked out in the motordrome, they
+drilled at donning their armor and at inflating and rigging a bubb. Gimp
+Hines exercised with fierce, perspiring doggedness on a horizontal bar
+he had rigged in the back of the shop. He meant to compensate for his
+bad leg by improving his shoulder muscles.
+
+Most of the guys still figured that Charlie Reynolds would solve their
+money problem. But in late November he had a bad moment. Out in front of
+Hendricks', he looked at his trim automobile. "It's a cinch I can't use
+it Out There," he chuckled ruefully and unprompted. Then he brightened.
+"Nope--selling it wouldn't bring one tenth enough, anyhow. I'll get what
+we need--just got to keep trying... I don't know why, but some so-called
+experts are saying that off-the-Earth enterprises have been
+overextended. That makes finding a backer a bit tougher than I thought."
+
+"You ought to just take off on your own, Reynolds," Jig Hollins
+suggested airily. "I'll bet it's in your mind. The car would pay for
+that. Or since you're a full-fledged nuclear engineer, some company on
+the Moon might give you a three year contract and send you out free in a
+comfortable vehicle. Or wouldn't you like to be tied that long? I
+wouldn't. Maybe I could afford to be an independent, too. Tough on these
+shoestring boys, here, but is it _our_ fault?"
+
+Hollins was trying to taunt Reynolds. "You're tiresome, Jig," Reynolds
+said without heat. "Somebody's going to poke you sometime..."
+
+Next morning, before going to classes at Tech, Frank Nelsen, with the
+possibility of bitter disappointment looming in his own mind, spotted
+Glen Tiflin, the switch blade tosser, standing on the corner, not quite
+opposite the First National Bank. Tiflin's mouth was tight and his eyes
+were narrowed.
+
+Nelsen felt a tingle in his nerves--very cold.
+
+"Hi--what cooks, Tif?" he said mildly.
+
+"To you it's which?" Tiflin snapped.
+
+Nelson led him on. "Sometimes I think of all the dough in that bank," he
+said.
+
+"Yeah," Tiflin snarled softly. "That old coot, Charlie Reynolds'
+grandpa, sitting by his vault door. Too obvious, though--here. Maybe in
+another bank--in another town. We could get the cash we need. Hell,
+though--be cavalier--it's just a thought."
+
+"You damned fool!" Nelsen hissed slowly.
+
+It was harder than ever to like Tiflin for anything at all. But he did
+have that terrible, star-reaching desperation. Nelsen had quite a bit of
+it, himself. He knew, now.
+
+"Get up to Tech, Tif," he said like an order. "If you have a chance,
+tell my math prof I might be a little late..."
+
+That was how Frank Nelsen happened to face J. John Reynolds, who, in a
+question of progress, would still approve of galley slaves. Nelsen had
+heard jokes like that laughed about, around Jarviston. J. John, by
+reputation, was all hard business.
+
+Nelsen got past his secretary.
+
+"Young man--I hope you have something very special to say."
+
+There was a cold, amused challenge in the old man's tone, and an
+implication of a moment of casual audience granted generously, amid
+mountains of more important affairs.
+
+Nelsen didn't waver. The impulse to do what he was doing had come too
+suddenly for nervousness to build up. He hadn't planned what to say, but
+his arguments were part of himself.
+
+"Mr. Reynolds--I'm Frank Nelsen, born here in Jarviston. Perhaps you
+know me on sight. I believe you are acquainted with Paul Hendricks, and
+you must have heard about our group, which is aiming at space, as people
+like ourselves are apt to be doing, these days. We've made fair
+progress, which proves we're at least earnest, if not dedicated. But
+unless we wait and save for years, we've come about as far as we can,
+without a loan. Judging from the success of previous earnest groups, and
+the development of resources and industries beyond the Earth, we are
+sure that we could soon pay you back, with considerable interest."
+
+J. John Reynolds seemed to doze, hardly listening. But at the end his
+eyes opened, and sparks of anger--or acid humor--seemed to dance in
+them.
+
+"I know very well what sort of poetic tomfoolery you are talking about,
+Nelsen," he said. "I wondered how long it would be before one of
+you--other than my grandson with his undiluted brass, and knowing me far
+too well in one sense, anyway--would have the gall to come here and talk
+to me like this. You'd probably be considered a minor, too, in some
+states. Dealing with you, I could even get into trouble."
+
+Nelsen's mouth tightened. "I came to make a proposition and get an
+answer," he responded. "Thank you for your no. It helps clear the view."
+
+"Hold on, Nelsen," J. John growled. "I don't remember saying no. I said
+'gall,' intending it to mean guts. That's what young spacemen need,
+isn't it? They've almost got to be _young_, so legal viewpoints about
+the age at which competence is reached are changing. Oh, there is plenty
+of brass among your generation. But it fails in peculiar places. I was
+waiting for one place where it didn't fail. Charlie, my grandson,
+doesn't count. It has never taken him any courage to talk to me any way
+he wants."
+
+This whole encounter was still dreamlike to Frank Nelsen.
+
+"Then you are saying yes?"
+
+"I might. Do you foolishly imagine that my soul is so completely sour
+milk that in youth I couldn't feel the same drives that you feel, now,
+for the limited opportunity there was, then? But under some damnable
+pressure toward conformity, I took a desk job in a bank. I am now
+eighty-one years old... How much does your 'Bunch' need--at minimum,
+mind you--for the opportunity to ride in space-armor till the rank smell
+of their bodies almost chokes them, for developing weird allergies or
+going murdering mad, but, in the main, doing their best, anyway,
+pathfinding and building, if they've got the guts? Come on, Nelsen--you
+must know."
+
+"Fifty thousand," Frank answered quickly. "There are still eleven in our
+group."
+
+"Yes... More may quit along the way... Here is _my_ proposition: I would
+make funds available for your expenses up to that amount--from my
+personal holdings, separate from this bank. The amount due from each
+individual shall be ten percent of whatever his gains or earnings are,
+off the Earth, over a period of ten years, but he will not be required
+to pay back any part of the original loan. This is a high-risk,
+high-potential profit arrangement for me--with an experimental element.
+I will ask for no written contract--only a verbal promise. I have found
+that people are fairly honest, and I know that, far in space,
+circumstances become too complicated to make legal collections very
+practical, anyway, even if I ever felt inclined to try them... Now,
+if--after I see your friends, whom you will send to me for an interview
+and to give me their individual word, also, I decide to make my
+proposition effective--will you, yourself, promise to abide by these
+terms?"
+
+Nelsen was wary for a second. "Yes--I promise," he said.
+
+"Good. I am glad you paused to think, Nelsen. I am not fabulously rich.
+But having more or less money hardly matters to me at this late date, so
+I am not likely to try to trap you. Yet there is still a game to play,
+and an outcome to watch--the future. Now get out of here before you
+become ridiculous by saying more than a casual thanks."
+
+"All right--thanks. Thank you, sir..."
+
+Nelsen felt somewhat numb. But a faint, golden glow was increasing
+inside his mind.
+
+Tiflin hadn't gone up to Tech. He was still waiting on the street
+corner. "What the hell, Frank?" he said.
+
+"I think we've got the loan, Tif. But he wants to see all of us. Can you
+go in there, be polite, say you're a Bunch member, make a promise,
+and--above all--avoid blowing your top? Boy--if you queer this...!"
+
+Tiflin's mouth was open. "You kidding?"
+
+"No!"
+
+Tiflin gulped, and actually looked subdued. "Okay, Frank. Be cavalier.
+Hell, I'd croak before I'd mess this up...!"
+
+By evening, everybody had visited J. John Reynolds, including Charlie
+Reynolds and Jig Hollins. Nelsen got the backslapping treatment.
+
+Charlie sighed, rubbed his head, then grinned with immense relief.
+"That's a load off," he said. "Glad to have somebody else fix it.
+Congrats, Frank. I wonder if Otto has got any champagne to go with the
+hotdogs...?"
+
+Otto had a bottle--enough for a taste, all around. Eileen kissed Frank
+impulsively. "You ought to get _real_ smart," she said.
+
+"Uh-huh," he answered. "Now let's get some beer--more our speed."
+
+But none of them overdid the beer either...
+
+Just after New Year's they had eight bubbs completed, tested, folded
+carefully according to government manuals, and stowed in an attic they
+had rented over Otto's place. They had seven ionics finished and stored.
+More parts and materials were arriving. The air-restorers were going to
+be the toughest and most expensive to make. They were the really vital
+things to a spaceman. Every detail had to be carefully fitted and
+assembled. The chlorophane contained costly catalytic agents.
+
+A winter of hard work was ahead, but they figured on a stretch of clear
+sailing, now. They didn't expect anyone to shake their morale, least of
+all a nice, soft-spoken guy in U.S.S.F. greys. Harv Diamond was the one
+man from Jarviston who had gotten into the Space Force. He used to hang
+around Hendricks'.
+
+He dropped in on a Sunday evening, when the whole Bunch was in the shop.
+They were around him at once, like around a hero, shouting and
+questioning. There were mottled patches on his hands, and he wore dark
+glasses, but he seemed at ease and happy.
+
+"There have been some changes in the old joint, huh, Paul?" he said. "So
+you guys are one of the outfits building its own gear... Looks pretty
+good... Of course you can get some bulky supplies cheaper on the Moon,
+because everything from Earth has to be boosted into space against a
+gravity six times as great as the lunar, which raises the price like
+hell. Water and oxygen, for instance. Peculiar, on the dry, almost
+airless Moon. But roasting water out of lunar gypsum rock is an easy
+trick. And oxygen can be derived from water by simple electrolysis."
+
+"Hell, we know all that, Harv," Ramos laughed.
+
+So Harv Diamond gave them the lowdown on the shortage of girls--yet--in
+Serenitatis Base, on the Moon. Just the same, it was growing like corn
+in July, and was already a pretty good leave-spot, if you liked to look
+around. Big vegetable gardens under sealed, stellene domes. Metal
+refineries, solar power plants, plastic factories and so forth, already
+in operation... But there was nothing like Pallastown, on little Pallas,
+out in the Asteroid Belt... Mars? That was the heebie-jeebie planet.
+
+Gimp asked Harv how much leave he had on Earth.
+
+"Not long, I guess," Harv laughed. "I've got to check back at the Force
+Hospital in Minneapolis tomorrow..."
+
+But right away it was evident that his thoughts had been put on the
+wrong track. His easy smile faded. He gasped and looked kind of
+surprised. He hung onto Paul's old swivel chair, in which he was
+sitting, as if he was suddenly terribly afraid of falling. His eyes
+closed tight, and there was a funny gurgle in his throat.
+
+The Bunch surrounded him, wanting to help, but he half recovered.
+
+"Even a good Space Force bubb, manufactured under rigid government
+specifications, can tear," he said in a thick tone. "If some jerk,
+horsing around with another craft, bumps you even lightly.
+Compartmentation helps, but you can still be unlucky. I was
+fortunate--almost buttoned into my Archer Six, already. _But did you
+ever see a person slowly swell up and turn purple, with frothy bubbles
+forming under the skin, while his blood boils in the Big Vacuum?_ That
+was my buddy, Ed Kraft..."
+
+Lieutenant Harvey Diamond gasped. Huge, strangling hiccups came out of
+his throat. His eyes went wild. The Kuzaks had to hold him, while Mitch
+Storey ran to phone Doc Miller. A shot quieted Diamond somewhat, and an
+ambulance took him away.
+
+That incident shook up the Bunch a little. A worse one came on a Tuesday
+evening, when not everybody was at the shop.
+
+The TV was on, showing the interior of the _Far Side_, one of those big,
+comparatively luxurious tour bubbs that take rubbernecks that can afford
+it on a swing around the Moon. The _Far Side_ was just coming into
+orbit, where tending skip gliders would take off the passengers for
+grounding at the New Mexico spaceport. Aboard the big bubb you could see
+people moving about, or sitting with drinks on curved benches. A girl
+was playing soft music on a tiny, lightweight piano.
+
+There wasn't any sign of trouble except that the TV channel went dead
+for a second, until a stand by commercial with singing cartoon figures
+cut in.
+
+But Frank Nelsen somehow put his hands to his head, as if to protect it.
+
+Mitch Storey, with a big piece of stellene in his brown mitts, stood up
+very straight.
+
+Gimp, at a bench, handed a tiny capacitor to Eileen, and started
+counting, slow and even. "One--two--three--four--five--"
+
+"What's with you slobs?" Jig Hollins wanted to know.
+
+"Dunno--we're nuts, maybe," Gimp answered. "Ten--eleven--twelve--"
+
+Charlie Reynolds and Paul Hendricks were alert, too.
+
+Then a big, white light trembled on the thin snow beyond the windows,
+turning the whole night landscape into weird day. The tearing, crackling
+roar was delayed. By the time the sound arrived, all of the stellene in
+the _Far Side_ must have been consumed. It had no resistance to
+atmospheric friction at five miles per second, or faster. There were
+just the heavier metallic details left to fall and burn. Far off, there
+was a thumping crash that seemed to make the ground sag and recover.
+
+"Here we go!" Charlie Reynolds yelled.
+
+In his and Hollins' cars, they got to the scene of the fragment's fall,
+two miles out of town, by following a faint, fading glow. They were
+almost the first to reach the spot. Tiflin and Ramos, who had been
+working on their jobs, came with their boss, along with a trailing horde
+of cars from town.
+
+Flashlights probed into the hot impact pit in the open field, where the
+frozen soil had seemed to splash like a liquid. Crumpled in the hole was
+a lump of half-fused sheet steel, wadded up like paper. It was probably
+part of the _Far Side_'s central hub. Magnesium and aluminum, of which
+the major portions had certainly been made, were gone; they could never
+have endured the rush through the atmosphere.
+
+Ramos got down into the pit. After a minute, he gave a queer cry, and
+climbed out again. His mitten smoked as he opened it, to show something.
+
+"It must have been behind a heavy object," he said very seriously, not
+like his usual self at all. "That broke the molecular impact with the
+air--like a ceramic nose cone. Kept it from burning up completely."
+
+The thing was a lady's silver compact, from which a large piece had been
+fused away. A bobbypin had gotten welded to it.
+
+Old Paul Hendricks cursed. Poor Two-and-Two moved off sickly, with a
+palm clamped over his mouth.
+
+Eileen Sands gasped, and seemed about to yell. But she got back most of
+her poise. Women have nursed the messily ill and dying, and have tended
+ghastly wounds during ages of time. So they know the messier side of
+biology as well as men.
+
+Ramos gave the pathetic relic to a cop who was trying to take charge.
+
+"Somebody must have goofed bad on the _Far Side_, for it to miss orbit
+like that," Ramos grated. "Or was something wrong, beforehand? Their TV
+transmitter went out--we were watching, too, at the garage... You can
+see the aurora--the Northern Lights... Those damn solar storms might
+have loused up instruments...! But who'll ever know, now...?"
+
+The Kuzaks, who had been to an Athletic Association meeting at Tech, had
+grabbed a ride out with the stream of cars from town. Both looked grim.
+"No use hanging around here, Charlie," Art urged. "Let's get back to the
+shop."
+
+Before he drove off, Jig Hollins tried to chuckle mockingly at
+everybody, especially Charlie Reynolds. "Time to think about keeping a
+nice safe job in the Jarviston powerhouse--eh, Reynolds? And staying
+near granddad?"
+
+"We're supposed not to be children, Hollins," Charlie shot back at him
+from his car window. "We're supposed to have known long ago that these
+things happen, and to have adjusted ourselves to our chances."
+
+"Ninnies that get scared first thing, when the facts begin to show!"
+Tiflin snarled. "Cripes--let's don't be like soft bugs under boards!"
+
+"You're right, Tif," Frank Nelsen agreed, feeling that for once the
+ne'er-do-well--the nuisance--might be doing them all some good. Frank
+could feel how Tiflin shamed some of the quiver out of his own insides,
+and helped bring back pride and strength.
+
+The _Far Side_ disaster had been pretty disturbing, however. And next
+day, Thursday, the blue envelopes came to the members of the Bunch. A
+printed card with a typed-in date, was inside each: "Report for
+space-fitness tests at Space-Medicine Center, February 15th..."
+
+"Just a couple of weeks!" Two-and-Two was moaning that night. "How'll I
+get through, with my courses only half-finished. You've gotta help me
+some more, people! With that stinking math...!"
+
+So equipment building was almost suspended, while the Bunch crammed and
+sweated and griped and cursed. But maybe now some of them wouldn't care
+so very much if they flunked.
+
+Two loaded automobiles took off for Minneapolis on the night before the
+ordeal. The Bunch put up at motels to be fresh the next morning. Maybe
+some of them even slept.
+
+At the Center, there were more forms to fill out. Then complete
+physicals started the process. Next came the written part. Right off,
+Frank Nelsen knew that this was going a familiar way, which had
+happened quite often at Tech: Struggle through a tough course, hear dire
+promises of head-cracking questions and math problems in the final quiz.
+Then the switch--the easy letdown.
+
+The remainder of the tests proceeded like assembly-line operations, each
+person taking each alone, in the order of his casual position in the
+waiting line.
+
+First there was the dizzying, mind-blackening centrifuge test, to see if
+you could take enough Gs of acceleration, and still be alert enough to
+fit a simple block puzzle together.
+
+Then came the free fall test, from the top of a thousand foot tower. A
+parachute-arrangement broke your speed at the bottom of the track. As in
+the centrifuge, instruments incorporated into the fabric of a coverall
+suit with a hood, were recording your emotional and bodily reactions.
+The medics wanted to be sure that your panic level was high and cool.
+Nelsen didn't find free fall very hard to take, either.
+
+Right after that came the scramble to see how fast you could get into an
+Archer, unfold and inflate a bubb and rig its gear.
+
+"That's all, Mister," the observer with the camera told Nelsen in a
+bored tone.
+
+"Results will be mailed to your home within twelve hours--Mr. Nelsen," a
+girl informed him as she read his name from a printed card.
+
+So the Bunch returned tensely to Jarviston, with more time to sweat out.
+Everybody looked at Gimp Hines--and then looked away. Even Jig Hollins
+didn't make any comments. Gimp, himself, seemed pretty subdued.
+
+The small, green space-fitness cards were arriving at Jarviston
+addresses in the morning.
+
+Near the end of the noon hour, Two-and-Two Baines was waving his around
+the Tech campus, having gone home to look, as of course everybody else
+who could, had also done. "Cripes!--Hi-di-ho--here it is!" he was
+yelling at the frosty sky, when Frank came with his own ticket.
+
+The Kuzaks had theirs, and were calm about it. Eileen Sands' card was
+tucked neatly into her sweater pocket, as she joined those who were
+waiting for the others on the front steps of Tech's Carver Hall.
+
+Ramos had to make a noise. "See what Santa brought the lady! But he
+didn't forget your Uncle Miguel, either--see! We're in, kid--be happy.
+Yippee!"
+
+He tried to whirl her in some crazy dance, but Gimp was swinging along
+the slushy walk on his crutches. His grin was a mile wide. Mitch Storey
+was with him, looking almost as pleased.
+
+"Guess legs don't count, Out There," Gimp was saying. "Or patched
+tickers, either, as long as they work good! I kind of figured on it...
+Hey--I don't want to ride anybody's shoulders, Ramos--cut it out...! We
+won't know about Charlie and Jig till tonight, when they come to Paul's
+from their jobs. But I don't think that there's any sweat for them,
+either... Only--where's Tif? He should be back by now from where he
+lives with his father..."
+
+Tiflin didn't show up at Hendricks' at all that evening, or at his
+garage job either. Ramos phoned from the garage to confirm that.
+
+"And he's not at home," Ramos added. "The boss sent me to check. His Old
+Man says he doesn't know where Tif is and cares less."
+
+"Just leave Tif be," Mitch Storey said softly.
+
+"Maybe that's best, at that," old Paul growled. "Only I hope the darned
+idiot doesn't cook himself up another jam..."
+
+They all knew then, for sure, what had happened. Right now, Glen Tiflin
+was wandering alone, somewhere, cursing and suffering. As likely as not,
+he'd start hitchhiking across the country, to try to get away from
+himself... Somewhere the test instruments--which had seemed so
+lenient--had tripped him up, spotting the weakness that he had tried to
+fight. Temper, nerves--emotional instability. So there was no green card
+for Tif, to whom space was a kind of Nirvana...
+
+The Bunch worked on with their preparations. Things got done all right,
+but the fine edge of enthusiasm had dulled. Jig Hollins flung his usual
+remarks, with their derisive undertone, around for a couple of weeks.
+Then he came into the shop with a girl who had a pretty, rather blank
+face, and a mouth that could twist with stubborn anger.
+
+"Meet Minnie," Jig said loudly. "She is one reason why I have decided
+that I've had enough of this kid stuff. I gave it a whirl--for kicks.
+But who, with any sense, wants to go batting off to Mars or the
+Asteroids? That's for the birds, the crackpots. Wife, house, kids--right
+in your own home town--that's the only sense there is. Minnie showed me
+that, and we're gonna get married!"
+
+The Bunch looked at Jig Hollins. He was swaggering. He was making sour
+fun of them, but in his eyes there were other signs, too. A pleading:
+Agree with me--back me up--quit! Don't see through me--it's not so,
+anyhow! Don't say I'm hiding behind a skirt... Above all, don't call me
+yellow! I'm _not_ yellow, I tell you! I'm tough Jig Hollins! You're the
+dopes!...
+
+Frank Nelsen spoke for the others. "We understand, Jig. We'll be getting
+you a little wedding present. Later on, maybe we'll be able to send you
+something really good. Best of luck..."
+
+They let Jig Hollins and his Minnie go. They felt their contempt and
+pity, and their lifting, wild pride. Maybe Jig Hollins, wise guy and big
+mouth, boosted their own selves quite a bit, by contrast.
+
+"Poor sap," Joe Kuzak breathed. "Who's he kidding--us or himself, or
+neither...?"
+
+Soon Eileen began to show symptoms: Sighs. A restlessness. Sudden angry
+pouts that would change as quickly to the secret smiles of reverie,
+while she hummed a soft tune to herself, and rose on her toes, dancing a
+few steps. Speculative looks at Nelsen, or the other guys around her.
+Maybe she envied men. Her eyes would narrow thoughtfully for a second.
+Then she might look scared and very young, as if her thoughts frightened
+her. But the expression of determined planning would return.
+
+After about ten days of this, Gimp asked, "What's with you, Eileen? You
+don't usually say much, but now there must be something else."
+
+She tossed down a fistful of waste with which she had been wiping her
+hands--she had been cementing segments of the last of the ten bubbs they
+would make--more than they needed, now, but spares might be useful.
+
+"Okay, all," she said briskly. "You should hear this, without any
+further delay. I'm clearing out, too. Reasons? Well--at least since Tif
+flunked his emotional I've been getting the idea that possibly I've been
+playing on a third-rate team. No offense, please--I don't really believe
+it's so, and if it isn't so you're tough enough not to be hurt. Far
+worse--I'm a girl. So why am I trying to do things in a man's way, when
+there are means that are made for me? I'm all of twenty-two. I've got
+nobody except an aunt in Illinois. Meanwhile, out in New Mexico, there's
+a big spaceport, and a lot of the right people who can help me. I'll bet
+I can get where you want to go, before you do. Tell Mr. J. John Reynolds
+that he can have my equipment--most of which he paid for. But perhaps
+I'll still be able to give him his ten percent."
+
+"Eileen! Cripes, what are you talking about?" This was Ramos yelping, as
+if the clown could be hurt, after all.
+
+"I don't mean anything so bad, Fun Boy," she said more gently. "Lots of
+men are remarkably chivalrous. But no arguments. Now that I have
+declared my intentions, I'll pick up and pull out of here this
+minute--taking some pleasant memories with me, as well as a
+space-fitness card. You're all good, plodding joes--honest. But there'll
+be a plane west from Minneapolis tomorrow."
+
+She was getting into her blazer. Even Ramos saw that arguments would be
+futile. Frank Nelsen's throat ached suddenly, as if at sins of omission.
+But that was wrong. Eileen Sands was too old for him, anyhow.
+
+"So long, you characters," she said. "Good luck. Don't follow me
+outside. Maybe I'll see you, someplace."
+
+"Right, Eileen--we'll miss yuh," Storey said. "And we better sure enough
+see you that someplace!"
+
+There were ragged shouts. "Good luck, kid. So long, Eileen..."
+
+She was gone--a small, scared, determined figure, dressed like a boy. On
+her wrist was a watch that might get pawned for a plane ticket.
+
+Ramos was unbelievably glum for days. But he worked harder building
+air-restorers than most of the Bunch had ever worked before. "We're
+hardcore, now--we'll last," he would growl. "Final, long lap--March,
+April and May--with no more interruptions. In June, when our courses at
+Tech are finished, we'll be ready to roll..."
+
+That was about how it turned out. Near the end of May, the Bunch lined
+up in the shop, the ten blastoff drums they had made, including two
+spares. The drums were just large tubes of sheet magnesium, in which
+about everything that each man would need was compactly stowed: Archer
+Five, bubb, sun-powered ionic drive motor, air-restorer,
+moisture-reclaimer, flasks of oxygen and water, instruments, dehydrated
+foods, medicines, a rifle, instruction manuals, a few clothes, and
+various small, useful items. Everything was cut to minimum, to keep the
+weight down. The lined up drums made a utilitarian display that looked
+rather grim.
+
+The gear was set out like this, for the safety inspectors to look at
+during the next few days, and provide their stamp of approval.
+
+The blastoff tickets had also been purchased--for June tenth.
+
+"Well, how do you think the Bunch should travel to New Mexico, Paul?"
+Frank Nelsen joshed.
+
+"Like other Bunches, I guess," Paul Hendricks laughed. "A couple of
+moving vans should do the trick..."
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+On June first, ten days before blastoff, David Lester came back to the
+shop, sheepishness, pleasure and worry showing in his face.
+
+"I cleared up matters at home, guys," he said. "And I went to
+Minneapolis and obtained one of these." He held up the same kind of
+space-fitness card that the others had.
+
+"The tests are mostly passive," he explained further. "Anybody can be
+whirled in a centrifuge, or take a fall. That is somewhat simpler, in
+its own way, than clinging to a careening motor scooter. Though I do
+admit that I was still almost rejected...! So, I'll join you, again--if
+I'm permitted? I understand that my old gear has been completed, as a
+spare? Paul told me. Of course I'm being crusty, in asking to have it
+back, now?"
+
+"Uh-uh, Les--I'm sure that's okay," Ramos grunted. "Right, fellas?"
+
+The others nodded.
+
+A subdued cheerfulness seemed to possess Lester, the mamma's boy, as if
+he had eased and become less introverted. The Bunch took him back
+readily enough, though with misgivings. Still, the mere fact that a
+companion could return, after defeat, helped brace their uncertain
+morale.
+
+"I'll order you a blastoff ticket, Les," Frank Nelsen said. "In one of
+the two GOs--ground-to-orbit rockets--reserved for us. The space is
+still there..."
+
+David Lester had won a battle. He meant to win through, completely.
+Perhaps some of this determination was transmitted to the others.
+Two-and-Two Baines, for example, seemed more composed.
+
+There wasn't much work to do during those last days, after the equipment
+had been inspected and approved, the initials of each man painted in red
+on his blastoff drum, and all the necessary documents put in order.
+
+Mitch Storey rode a bus to Mississippi, to say goodbye to his folks. The
+Kuzaks flew to Pennsylvania for the same reason. Likewise, Gimp Hines
+went by train to Illinois. Ramos rode his scooter all the way down to
+East Texas and back, to see his parents and a flock of younger brothers
+and sisters. When he returned, he solemnly gave his well-worn vehicle
+to an earnest boy still in high school.
+
+"No dough," Ramos said. "I just want her to have a good home."
+
+Those of the Bunch who had families didn't run into any serious last
+minute objections from them about their going into space. Blasting out
+was getting to be an accepted destiny.
+
+There was a moment of trouble with Two-and-Two Baines about a kid of
+eight years named Chippie Potter, who had begun to hang around
+Hendricks' just the way Frank Nelsen had done, long ago. But more
+especially, the trouble was about Chippie's fox terrier, Blaster.
+
+"The lad of course can't go along with us, Out There, on account of
+school and his Mom," Two-and-Two said sentimentally, on one of those
+final evenings. "So he figures his mutt should go in his place. Shucks,
+maybe he's right! A lady mutt first made it into orbit, ahead of any
+people, remember? And we ought to have a mascot. We could make a sealed
+air-conditioned box and smuggle old Blaster. Afterwards, he'd be all
+right, inside a bubb."
+
+"You try any stunt like that and I'll shoot you," Frank Nelsen promised.
+"Things are going to be complicated enough."
+
+"You always tell me no, Frank," Two-and-Two mourned.
+
+"I know something else," said Joe Kuzak--he and his tough twin had
+returned to Jarviston by then, as had all the others who had visited
+their homes. "There's a desperate individual around, again. Tiflin. He
+appealed his test--and lost. Kind of a good guy--someways..."
+
+The big Kuzaks, usually easy and steady and not too comical, both had a
+certain kind of expression, now--like amused and secretive gorillas.
+Frank wasn't sure whether he got the meaning of this or not, but right
+then he felt sort of sympathetic to Tiflin, too.
+
+"I didn't hear anything; I won't say or do anything," he laughed.
+
+Afterwards, under the pressure of events, he forgot the whole matter.
+
+It would take about thirty-six hours to get to the New Mexico spaceport.
+Calculating accordingly, the Bunch hoisted their gear aboard two
+canvas-covered trucks parked in the driveway beside Hendricks', just
+before sundown of their last day in Jarviston.
+
+People had begun to gather, to see them off. Two-and-Two's folks, a
+solid, chunky couple, looking grave. David Lester's mother, of course,
+seeming younger than the Bunch remembered her. Make-up brought back some
+of her good-looks. She was more Spartan than they had thought, too.
+
+"I have made up a basket of sandwiches for you and your comrades,
+Lester," she said.
+
+Otto Kramer was out with free hotdogs, beer and Pepsi, his face sad. J.
+John Reynolds, backer of the Bunch, had promised to come down, later.
+Chief of Police, Bill Hobard, was there, looking grim, as if he was half
+glad and half sorry to lose this passel of law-abiding but worrisome
+young eccentrics. There were various cynical and curious loafers around,
+too. There were Chippie Potter and his mutt--a more wistful and
+worshipping pair would have been hard to imagine.
+
+Sophia Jameson, one of Charlie Reynolds' old flames, was there. Charlie
+had sold his car and given away his wardrobe, but he still managed to
+look good in a utilitarian white coverall.
+
+"Well, we had a lot of laughs, anyway, you big ape!" Sophia was saying
+to Charlie, when Roy Harder, the mailman with broken-down feet, shuffled
+up, puffing.
+
+"One for you, Reynolds," he said. "Also one for you, Nelsen. They just
+came--ordinarily I wouldn't deliver them till tomorrow morning. But you
+see how it is."
+
+A long, white envelope was in Frank Nelsen's hands. In its upper
+left-hand corner was engraved:
+
+                 UNITED STATES SPACE FORCE
+                 RECRUITING SECTION
+                 WASHINGTON, D.C.
+
+"Jeez, Frankie--Charlie--you made it--open 'em, quick!" Two-and-Two
+said.
+
+Frank was about to do so. But everybody knew exactly what was inside
+such an envelope--the only thing that was ever so enclosed, unless you
+were already in the Force. An official summons to report, on such and
+such a date and such and such a place, for examination.
+
+For a minute Frank Nelsen suffered the awful anguish of indecision over
+a joke of circumstance. Like most of the others, he had tried to get
+into the Force. He had given it up as hopeless. Now, when he was ready
+to move out on his own, the chance came. Exquisite irony.
+
+Frank felt the lift of maybe being one of--well--the Chosen. To wear the
+red, black and silver rocket emblem, to use the finest equipment, to
+carry out dangerous missions, to exercise authority in space, and yet to
+be pampered, as those who make a mark in life are pampered.
+
+"_Que milagro!_--holy cow!" Ramos breathed.
+"Charlie--Frankie--congratulations!"
+
+Frank saw the awed faces around them. They were looking up to him and
+Charlie in a friendly way, but already he felt that he had kind of lost
+them by being a little luckier. Or was this all goof ball sentiment in
+his own mind, to make himself feel real modest?
+
+So maybe he got sentimental about this impoverished, ragtag Bunch that,
+even considering J. John Reynolds' help, still were pulling themselves
+up into space almost literally by their own bootstraps. He had always
+belonged to the Bunch, and he still did. So perhaps he just got sore.
+
+Charlie's and his eyes met for a second, in understanding.
+
+"Thanks, Postman Roy," Charlie said. "Only you were right the first
+time. These letters shouldn't be delivered until your next trip around,
+tomorrow morning."
+
+They both handed the envelopes back to Roy Harder.
+
+The voices of their Bunch-mates jangled in a conflicting chorus.
+
+"Ah--yuh damfools!" Two-and-Two bleated.
+
+"Good for them!" Art Kuzak said, perhaps mockingly.
+
+"Hey--they're us--they'll stay with us--shut up--didn't we lose enough
+people, already?" Gimp said.
+
+Frank grinned with half of his mouth. "We always needed a name," he
+remarked. "How about _The Planet Strappers_? Hell--if the chairborne
+echelon of the U.S.S.F. is so slow and picky, let 'em go sit on a
+sunspot."
+
+"I need some white paint and a brush, Paul," Ramos declared, running
+into the shop.
+
+In a couple of minutes more, the name for the Bunch was crudely and
+boldly lettered on the sides of both trucks.
+
+"Salute your ladies, shake hands with your neighbors, and then let's get
+moving," Charlie Reynolds laughed genially.
+
+And so they did. Old Paul Hendricks, born too soon, blinked a little as
+he grinned, and slapped shoulders. "On your way, you lucky tramps...!"
+
+There were quick movements here and there--a kiss, a touch of hands, a
+small gesture, a strained glance.
+
+Frank Nelsen blew a kiss jauntily to Nance Codiss, the neighbor girl,
+who waved to him from the background. "So long, Frank..." He wondered if
+he saw a fierce envy showing in her face.
+
+Miss Rosalie Parks, his high school Latin teacher, was there, too. Old
+J. John Reynolds appeared at the final moment to smile dryly and to flap
+a waxy hand.
+
+"So long, sir... Thanks..." they all shouted as the diesels of the
+trucks whirred and then roared. J. John still had never been around the
+shop. It was only Frank who had seen him regularly, every week. It might
+have been impertinent for them to say that they'd make him really rich.
+But some must have hoped that they'd get rich, themselves.
+
+Frank Nelsen was perched on his neatly packed blastoff drum in the back
+of one of the trucks, as big tires began to turn. Near him, similarly
+perched, were Mitch Storey, dark and thoughtful, Gimp Hines with a
+triumph in his face, Two-and-Two Baines biting his lip, and Dave Lester
+with his large Adam's apple bobbing.
+
+So that was how the Bunch left Jarviston, on a June evening that smelled
+of fresh-cut hay and car fumes--home. Perhaps they had chosen this hour
+to go because the gathering darkness might soften their haunting
+suspicions of complete folly before an adventure so different from the
+life they knew--neat streets, houses, beds, Saturday nights, dances,
+struggling for a dream at Hendricks'--that even if they survived the
+change, the difference must seem a little like death.
+
+Seeking the lifting thread of magical romance again, Frank Nelsen looked
+up at the ribbed canvas top of the truck. "Covered wagon," he said.
+
+"Sure--Indians--boom-boom," Two-and-Two chuckled, brightening. "Wild
+West... Yeah--_wild_--that's a word I kind of like."
+
+Up ahead, in the other truck, Ramos and Charlie Reynolds had begun to
+sing a funny and considerably ribald song. They made lots of lusty,
+primitive noise. When they were finished, Ramos, still in a spirit of
+humor, corned up an old Mexican number about disappointed love.
+
+_"Adios, Mujer--
+
+Adios para siempre--
+
+Adios..."_
+
+Ramos wailed out the last syllable with lugubrious emphasis.
+
+"Always it's girls," Dave Lester managed to chuckle. "I still don't see
+how they expect to find many, Out There."
+
+"If our Eileen has--or will--make it, she won't be the first--or last,"
+Frank offered, almost mystically.
+
+"Hey--I was right about the word, _wild_," Two-and-Two mused.
+"Yeah--we're all just plum-full of wanting to be wild. Not _mean_ wild,
+mostly--constructive wild, instead. And, damn, we'll _do_ it...!
+Cripes--we ought to come back to old Paul's place in June, ten years
+from now, and tell each other what we've accomplished."
+
+"Damn--that's a fine idea, Two-and-Two!" David Lester piped up. "I'll
+suggest it to the other guys, first chance I get...!"
+
+Of course it was another piece of callow whistling in the dark, but it
+was a buildup, too. Coming home at a fixed, future time, to compare
+glittering successes. Eldorados found and exploited, cities built, giant
+businesses established, hearts won, real manhood achieved past
+staggering difficulties. But they all had to believe it, to combat the
+icy sliver of dread concerning an event that was getting very near, now.
+
+Mitch Storey sat with his mouth organ cupped in his hands. He began to
+make soft, musing chords, tried a fragment of Old Man River, shifted
+briefly to a spiritual, and wound up with some eerie, impromptu
+fragments, partly like the drums and jingling brass of old Africa,
+partly like a joyful battle, partly like a lonesome lament, and then,
+mysteriously like absolute silence.
+
+Storey stopped, abashed. He grinned.
+
+"Reaching for Out There, Mitch?" Frank Nelsen asked. "Music of your own,
+to tell about space? Got any words for it?"
+
+"Nope," Mitch said. "Maybe it shouldn't have any words. Anyhow, the tune
+doesn't come clear, yet. I haven't been--There."
+
+"Maybe some more of Otto's beer will help," Frank suggested. "Here--one
+can, each, to begin." For once, Frank had an urge to get slightly
+pie-eyed.
+
+"High's a good word," he amended. "High and sky! Mars and stars!"
+
+"Space and race, nuts and guts!" Lester put in, trying to belong, and be
+light-minded, like he thought the others were, instead of a scared,
+pedantic kid. He slapped the blastoff drum under him, familiarly, as if
+to draw confidence from its grim, cool lines.
+
+The whole Bunch was quite a bit like that, for a good part of the night,
+shouting lustily back and forth between the two trucks, laughing,
+singing, wise-cracking, drinking up Otto Kramer's Pepsi and beer.
+
+But at last, Gimp Hines, remembering wisdom, spoke up. "We're supposed
+to be under mild sedation--a devil-killer, a tranquilizer--for at least
+thirty hours. It's in the rules for prospective ground-to-orbit
+candidates. We're supposed to be sleeping good. Here goes my pill--down,
+with the last of my beer..."
+
+Faces sobered, and became strained and careful, again. The guys on the
+trucks bedded down as best they could, among their gaunt equipment. Soon
+there were troubled snores from huddled figures that quivered with the
+motion of the vehicles. The mottled Moon rode high. Big tires whispered
+on damp concrete. Lights blinked past. The trucks curved around corners,
+growled up grades, highballed down. There were pauses at all-night
+drive-ins, coffees misguidedly drunk in a blurred, fur-tongued half
+wakefulness that seemed utterly bleak. Oh, hell, Frank Nelsen thought,
+wasn't it far better to be home in bed, like Jig Hollins?
+
+At grey dawn, there was a breakfast stop, the two truck drivers and
+their relief man grinning cynically at the Bunch. Then there was more
+country, rolling and speeding past. Wakefulness was half sleep, and
+vice-versa. And the hours, through the day and another night, dwindled
+toward blastoff time, at eleven o'clock tomorrow morning.
+
+When the second dawn came, the Bunch were all tautly and wearily alert
+again, peering ahead, across dun desert. There wasn't much fallout from
+the carefully developed hydrogen-fusion engines of the GO rockets, but
+maybe there was enough to distort the genes of the cacti a little,
+making their forms more grotesque.
+
+Along the highway there were arrows and signs. When the trucks had
+labored to the top of a ridge, the spaceport installations came into
+view all at once:
+
+Barbed-wire fences, low, olive-drab gate buildings, guidance tower, the
+magnesium dome of a powerhouse reactor, repair and maintenance shops,
+personnel-housing area carefully shielded against radiation by a huge
+stellene bubble, sealed and air-conditioned, with double-doored
+entrances and exits. Inside it were visible neat bungalows, lawns,
+gardens, supermarket, swimming pools, swings, a kid's bike left casually
+here or there.
+
+The first sunshine glinted on the two rockets and their single,
+attendant gantry tower, waiting on the launching pad. The rockets were
+as gaunt as sharks. They might almost have been natural spires on the
+Moon, or ruined towers left by the extinct beings of Mars. At first they
+were impersonal and expected parts of the scene, until the numbers,
+ceramic-enamelled on their striped flanks, were noticed: GO-11 and
+GO-12.
+
+"They're us--up the old roller coaster!" Charlie Reynolds shouted.
+
+Then everybody was checking his blastoff ticket, as if he didn't
+remember the number primly typed on it. Frank Nelsen had GO-12.
+GO--Ground-to-Orbit. But it might as well mean go! glory, or gallows, he
+thought.
+
+The trucks reached the gate. The Bunch met the bored and cynical
+reception committee--a half-dozen U.S.S.F. men in radiation coveralls.
+
+Each of the Bunch held his blastoff ticket, his space-fitness and his
+equipment-inspection cards meekly in sweaty fingers. It was an old
+story--the unknowing standing vulnerable before the knowing and perhaps
+harsh.
+
+Nelsen guessed at some of the significance of the looks they all
+received: Another batch of greenhorns--to conquer and develop and
+populate the extra-terrestrial regions. They all come the same way, and
+look alike. Poor saps...
+
+Frank Nelsen longed to paste somebody, even in the absence of absolute
+impoliteness.
+
+The blastoff drums were already being lifted off the trucks, weighed,
+screened electronically, and moved toward a loading elevator on a
+conveyor. The whole process was automatic.
+
+"Nine men--ten drums--how come?" one of the U.S.S.F. people inquired.
+
+"A spare. Its GO carriage charge is paid," Reynolds answered.
+
+He got an amused and tired smirk. "Okay, Sexy--it's all right with us.
+And I hope you fellas were smart enough not to eat any breakfast. Of
+course we'd like to have you say--tentatively--where you'll be headed,
+on your own power, after we toss you Upstairs. Toward the Moon, huh,
+like most fledglings say? It helps a little to know. Some new folks
+start to scream and get lost, up there. See how it is?"
+
+"Sure--we see--thanks. Yes--the Moon." This was still Charlie Reynolds
+talking.
+
+"No problem, then, Sexy. We mean to be gentle. Now let's move along, in
+line. Never mind consulting wristwatches--we've got over four hours
+left. Final blood pressure check, first. Then the shot, the
+devil-killer, the wit-sharpener. And try to remember some of what you're
+supposed to have learned. Relax, don't talk too much, and try not to
+swallow any live butterflies."
+
+The physician, looking them over, shook his head and made a wry face of
+infinite sadness, when he came to Gimp and Lester, but he offered no
+comment except a helpless shrug.
+
+The U.S.S.F. spokesman was still with them. "All right--armor up. Let's
+see how good you are at it."
+
+They scrambled to it grimly, and still a little clumsily. Gimp Hines
+had, of course, long ago tailored his Archer to fit that shrunken right
+leg. Then they just sat around in the big locker room, trying to get
+used to being enclosed like this, much of the time, checking to see that
+everything was functioning right, listening to the muffled voices that
+still reached them from beyond their protecting encasement. They could
+still have conversed, by direct sound or by helmet-radio, but the
+devil-killer seemed to subdue the impulse, and for a while caused a
+dreaminess that shortened the long wait...
+
+"Okay--time to move!"
+
+Heavy with their Archies, they filed out into desert sun-glare that
+their darkened helmets made feeble. They arose in the long climb of the
+gantry elevator and split into two groups, for the two rockets,
+according to their GO numbers. It didn't seem to matter, now, who went
+with whom. Each man had his own private sweating party. The padded
+passenger compartments were above the blastoff drum freight sections.
+
+"Helmets secure? Air-restorer systems on? Phones working? Answer roll
+call if you hear me. Baines, George?"
+
+"Here!" Two-and-Two responded, loud and plain in Frank Nelsen's phone,
+from the other rocket.
+
+"Hines, Walter?"
+
+One by one the names were called... "Kuzak, Arthur?... Kuzak,
+Joseph?..."
+
+"Okay--the Mystic Nine, eh? Lash down!"
+
+They lay on their backs on the padded floors, and fastened the straps.
+Gimp Hines, next to Frank, seemed to have discarded his crutches,
+somewhere.
+
+The inspector swaggered around among them, jerking straps, and tapping
+shoulders and buttocks straight on the floor padding with a boot toe.
+
+"All right--not good, not too bad. Ease off--shut your eyes, maybe. The
+next twenty minutes are ours. The rest are yours, except for orders. I
+hope you remember your jump procedures. Also that there are a lot of
+wooden nickels Upstairs--in orbit, on the Moon, anyplace. We'll call
+some of your shots from the ground. Good luck--and Glory help you..."
+
+The growl in their phones died away with the muffled footsteps. Doors
+closed on their gaskets and were dogged, automatically.
+
+Then it was like waiting five minutes more, inside a cannon barrel.
+There was a buzzing whisper of nuclear exciters. The roar of power cut
+in. A soft lurch told that the rockets were off the ground--fireborne.
+The pressure of acceleration mounted. You closed your eyes to make the
+blackness seem natural, instead of a blackout in your optic nerves, and
+the threadiness of your mind seem like sleep. But you felt smothered,
+just the same. Somebody grunted. Somebody gave a thick cry.
+
+Frank Nelsen had the strange thought that, by his body's mounting
+velocity, enough kinetic energy was being pumped into it to burn it to
+vapor in an instant, if it ever hit the air. But it was the energy of
+freedom from gravity, from the Earth, from home--_for_ adventure.
+Freedom to wander the solar system, at last! He tried, still, to believe
+in the magnificence of it, as the thrust of rocket power ended, and the
+weightlessness of orbital flight came dizzily.
+
+He didn't consciously hear the order to leave the orbiting GO-12, which
+was moving only about five hundred feet from it's companion, GO-11. But,
+like most of the others, he worked his way with dogged purpose through
+what seemed a fuzzy nightmare.
+
+The doors of the passenger compartments had opened; likewise the
+blastoff drums had been ejected automatically, and were orbiting free.
+
+Maybe it was Gimp who moved ahead of him. Looking out, Frank saw what
+was certainly Ramos, already straddling a drum marked with a huge red
+M.R., riding it like a jaunty troll on a seahorse. He saw the Kuzaks
+dive for their initialled drums, big men not yet as apt in this new game
+as in football, but grimly determined to learn fast. The motion was all
+as silent as a shadow.
+
+Then Frank jumped for his own drum, and found himself turning slowly
+end-over-end, seeing first the pearl-mist curve that was the Earth, then
+the brown-black, chalk-smeared sky, with the bright needle points and
+the corona-winged sun in it. Instinct made him grab futilely outward,
+for the sense of weightlessness was the same as endless fall. He _was_
+falling, around the Earth, his forward motion exactly balancing his
+downward motion, in a locked ellipse, a closed trajectory.
+
+His mind cleared very fast--that must have been another phase of the
+devil-killer shot coming into action. Controlling panic, he relocated
+his drum, marked by a splashed red F.N., set his tiny shoulder ionic in
+operation, and reached back to move its flexible guide, first to stop
+his spin, then to produce forward motion. He got to the drum, and just
+clung to it for a moment.
+
+But in the next instant he was looking into the embarrassed, anguished
+face of a person, who, like a drowning man, had come to hang onto it for
+dear life, too.
+
+"Frank, I--I even dirtied myself..."
+
+"So what? Over there is your gear, Two-and-Two--go get it!" Frank
+shouted into his phone, the receiver of which was now full of sounds--a
+moaning grunt, a vast hiccuping, shouts, exhortations.
+
+"Easy, Les," Reynolds was saying. "Can you reach a pill from the rack
+inside your chest plate, and swallow it? Just float quietly--nothing'll
+happen. We've got work to do for a few minutes... We'll look after you
+later... Cripes, Mitch--he can't take it. Jab the knockout needle right
+through the sleeve of his Archer, like we read in the manuals. The
+interwall gum will seal the puncture..."
+
+Just then the order came, maddeningly calm and hard above the other
+sounds in Frank's phone: "All novices disembarked from GOs-11 and -12
+must clear four-hundred mile take-off orbital zone for other traffic
+within two hours."
+
+At once Frank was furiously busy, working the darkened stellene of his
+bubb from the drum, letting it spread like a long wisp of silvery cobweb
+against the stars, letting it inflate from the air-flasks to a firm and
+beautiful circle, attaching the rigging, the fine, radial
+spokewires--for which the blastoff drum itself now formed the hub. To
+the latter he now attached his full-size, sun-powered ionic motor. Then
+he crept through the double sealing flaps of the airlock, to install the
+air-restorer and the moisture-reclaimer in the circular, tunnel-like
+interior that would now be his habitation.
+
+He wasn't racing anything except time, but he had worked as fast as he
+could. Still, Gimp Hines had finished rigging his bubb, minutes ahead of
+Frank, or anybody else. On second thought, maybe this was natural
+enough. Here, where there was no weight, his useless leg made no
+difference--as the space-fitness examiners must have known. Besides,
+Gimp had talented fingers and a keen mechanical sense, and had always
+tried harder than anybody.
+
+Ramos was almost as quick. Frank wasn't much farther behind. The Kuzaks
+were likewise doing all right. Two-and-Two was trailing some, but not
+very badly.
+
+"Spin 'em!" Gimp shouted. "Don't forget to spin 'em for
+centrifuge-gravity and stability!"
+
+And so they did, each gripping the rigging at their bubb rims, and using
+the minute but accumulative thrust of the shoulder ionics of their
+Archers, to provide the push. The inflated rings turned like wheels with
+perfect bearings. In the all but frictionless void, they could go on
+turning for decades, without additional impetus.
+
+"We've made it--we're Out Here--we're all right!" Ramos was shouting
+with a fierce exultation.
+
+"Shut up, Ramos!" Frank Nelsen yelled back. "Don't ever say that, too
+soon. Look around you!"
+
+Storey and Reynolds were still struggling with their bubbs. They had
+been delayed by trying to quiet Dave Lester, who now floated in a
+drugged stupor, lashed to his blastoff drum.
+
+Slowly, pushed by their shoulder ionics, Gimp, Ramos and Frank Nelsen
+drifted over to see what they could do for Lester.
+
+He was vaguely conscious, his eyes were glassy, his mouth drooled watery
+vomit.
+
+"What do you want us to do, Les?" Frank asked gently. "We could put you
+back in one of the rockets. You'd be brought back to the spaceport, when
+they are guided back by remote control."
+
+"I don't know!" Lester wailed in a hoarse voice. "Fellas--I don't know!
+A little falling is all right... But it goes on all the time. I can't
+stand it! But if I'm sent back--I can't ever live with myself!..."
+
+Frank felt the intense anguish of trying to decide somebody else's
+quandary that might be a life or death matter which would surely involve
+them all. Damn, weak-kneed kid! How had he ever gotten so far?
+
+"We should have set up his bubb first, put him inside, and spun it to
+kill that sense of fall!" Gimp said. "We'll do it, now! He should be all
+right. He _did_ pass his space-fitness tests, and the experts ought to
+know."
+
+With the three of them at it, and with the Kuzaks joining them in a
+moment, the job was quickly finished.
+
+Meanwhile, the sharp, commanding voice of Ground Control sounded in
+their phones, again: "GOs-11 and -12 returning to port. Is all in order
+among delivered passengers? Sound out if true. Baines, George?..."
+
+David Lester's name was called just before Frank Nelsen's, and he
+managed to say, "In order!" almost firmly, creating a damnable illusion,
+Frank thought. But for a moment, mixed with his anger, Frank felt a
+strange, almost paternal gentleness, too.
+
+At the end of the roll call, the doors of the GO rockets closed. Stubby
+wings, useful for the ticklish operation of skip-glide deceleration and
+re-entry into the atmosphere, slid out of their sheaths. Little, lateral
+jets turned the vehicles around. Their main engines flamed lightly;
+losing speed, they dipped in their paths, beginning to fall.
+
+Watching the rockets leave created a tingling sense of being left all
+alone, at an empty, breathless height from which you could never get
+down--a height full of dazzling, unnatural sunshine, that in moments
+would become the dreadful darkness of Earth's shadow.
+
+"Hey--our spare drum--it'll drift off!" Ramos shouted.
+
+The Kuzaks dived to retrieve the cylinder. Others followed. But there
+was a peculiar circumstance. The friction cover at one of its ends hung
+open. There was a trailing wisp of stellene--part of the bubb packed
+inside--and a thin, angry face with rather hysterical eyes, within the
+helmet of an Archer Five.
+
+"Shhh--it ain't safe for me to come out yet," Glen Tiflin hissed
+threateningly. "Damn you all--if you dare queer me...!"
+
+"Cripes--another Jonah!" Charlie Reynolds growled.
+
+Frank Nelsen looked at the Kuzaks, floating near.
+
+"Well--what could we do?" Joe Kuzak, the gentler twin, whispered. "He
+came back to Jarviston, to our rooming house, one night. We promised to
+help him a little. What are you going to do with a character nuts enough
+about space to armor up and stuff himself inside a blastoff drum? Of
+course he didn't come that way from home. There's that electronic check
+of drum contents at the gate of the port. But he was there on a
+visitor's pass, waiting--having hitchhiked all the way to here. After
+the electronic check, he figured on stowing away, while the drums were
+waiting to be loaded. The only thing we did to help was to take a little
+of the stuff out of the spare drum and stow it in our two drums, to
+leave him some room. We thought sure he'd be caught, quick. But you can
+see how he got away with it. Those U.S.S.F. boys at the port don't
+really give a damn who gets Out Here."
+
+"Okay--I'll buy it," Reynolds sighed heavily. "Good luck with the stunt,
+Tif."
+
+Tiflin only gave him a poisonous glare, as the nine fragile, gleaming
+rings, the drifting men and the spare drum, orbited on into the Earth's
+shadow, not nearly as dark as it might have been because the Moon was
+brilliant.
+
+"We'd better rig the parabolic mirrors of the ionics to catch the first
+sunshine in about forty minutes, so we can start moving out of orbit,"
+Ramos said. "We'll have to think of food, sometime, too."
+
+"Food, yet--ugh!" Art Kuzak grunted.
+
+Frank felt the fingers of spasm taking hold of his stomach. Most
+everybody was getting fall-sick, now, their insides not finding any up
+or down direction. But the guys wavered back to their bubbs. The
+shoulder ionics of their Archers, though normally sun-energized, could
+draw power from the small nuclear batteries of the armor during the rare
+moments when there could be darkness anywhere in solar space.
+
+The Planet Strappers stood in the rigging of their fragile vehicles,
+setting the full-sized ionics to produce increased acceleration which
+would gradually push the craft beyond orbit. Joe Kuzak ran a steel wire
+from a pivot bolt at the hub of his ring, to tow Tiflin and his drum.
+
+Then everybody crawled into their respective bubbs, most of them needing
+the centrifugal gravity to help straighten out their fall-sickness.
+
+"My neck is swelling, too," Frank Nelsen heard Charlie Reynolds say.
+"Lymphatic glands sometimes bog down in the absence of weight. Don't
+worry if it happens to some of you. We know that it straightens out."
+
+For a few minutes it seemed that they had a small respite in their
+struggle for adjustment to a fantastic environment.
+
+"Well--I got cleaned up, some--that's better," Two-and-Two said. "But
+look at the fuzzy lights down on Earth. Hell, is it right for a fella to
+be looking down on the lights of Paris, Moscow, Cairo, and Rangoon--when
+he hasn't ever been any farther than Minneapolis?" Two-and-Two sounded
+fabulously befuddled.
+
+David Lester started screaming again. They had left him alone and
+apparently unconscious, inside his ring, because all ionics, including
+his, had had to be set. Then, in the pressure of events, they had almost
+forgotten him.
+
+"I'll go look," Frank Nelsen said.
+
+Mitch Storey was there ahead of him. Mitch's helmet was off; his dark
+face was all planes and hollows in the moonlight coming through the
+thin, transparent walls of the vehicle. "Should we call the U.S.S.F.
+patrol, Frank?" he asked anxiously. "Have them take him off? 'Cause he
+sure can't stand another devil-killer."
+
+"We'd better," Frank answered quickly.
+
+But now Tiflin, having deserted his blastoff drum, was coming through
+the airlock flaps, too. He stepped forward gingerly, along the spinning,
+ring-shaped tunnel.
+
+"Poor bookworm," he growled in a tone curiously soft for Glen Tiflin.
+"Think I don't understand how it is? And how do you know if he _wants_
+to get sent back?"
+
+Mitch had removed Lester's helmet, too. Tiflin knelt. His arm moved with
+savage quickness. There was the crack of knuckles, in a rubberized
+steel-fabric space glove, against Lester's jaw. His hysterical eyes
+glazed and closed; his face relaxed.
+
+For a second of intolerable fury, Frank wanted to tear Tiflin apart.
+
+But Mitch half-grinned. "That might be an answer," he said.
+
+They plopped where they were, and tried to rest until the orbiting
+cluster of rings emerged from Earth's shadow into blazing sunshine,
+again. Then Mitch and Frank returned to their own bubbs to check on the
+acceleration.
+
+It was soon plain that Joe Kuzak's bubb, towing Tiflin's drum, would
+lag.
+
+"Hell!" Art Kuzak snapped. "Get that character out here to help us
+inflate and rig his own equipment! We did enough for him! So if the
+Force notices that there are ten bubbs instead of nine, the extra is
+still just our spare... Hey--Tiflin!"
+
+"Nuts--I'm looking after Pantywaist," Tiflin growled back.
+
+"Awright," Art returned. "So we just cast your junk adrift! Come on,
+boy!" There was no kidding in the dry tone.
+
+Tiflin snarled but obeyed.
+
+Ions jetting from the Earthward hub-ends of the rotating rings, yielded
+their steady few pounds of thrust. The gradual outward spiral began.
+
+"Cripes--I'm not sure I can even astrogate to the Moon," Two-and-Two was
+heard to complain.
+
+"I'll check your ionic setting for you, Two-and-Two," Gimp answered him.
+"After that the acceleration should continue properly without much
+attention. So how about you and me taking first watch, while the others
+ease off a little...?"
+
+Frank Nelsen crept carefully back into his own rotating ring, still half
+afraid that an armored knee or elbow might go right through the thin,
+yielding stellene. Prone, and with his helmet still sealed, he slipped
+into the fog which the tranquilizer now induced in his brain, while the
+universe of stars, Moon, sun and Earth tumbled regularly around him.
+
+He dreamed of yelling in endless fall, and of climbing over metal-veined
+chunks of a broken world, where once there had been air, sea, desert and
+forest, and minds not unlike those of men, but in bodies that were far
+different. Gurgling thickly, he awoke, and snapped on his helmet phone
+to kill the utter silence.
+
+Someone muttered a prayer in a foreign tongue:
+
+"... _Nuestra Dama de Guadalupe--te pido, por favor... Tengo miedo_--I'm
+scared... _Pero pienso mas en ella_--I think more of her. _Mi chula, mi
+linda_... My beautiful Eileen... Keep her--"
+
+The prayer broke off, as if a switch was turned. It had been brash
+Ramos... Now there were only some fragments of harmonica music...
+
+Frank slipped into the blur, again, awakening at last with Two-and-Two
+shaking his shoulder. "Hey, Frankie--we're five hours out, by the
+chronometers--look how small the Earth has got...! We're all gonna have
+brunch in Ramos' vehicle... Know what that goof ball Mex was doing,
+before? Stripped down to his shorts, and with the spin stopped for
+zero-G, he was bouncing back and forth from wall to wall inside his
+bubb! The sun makes it nice and warm in there. Think I might try it,
+myself, sometime. Shucks, I feel pretty good, now... Frankie, ain't you
+hungry?"
+
+Frank felt limp as a rag, but he felt much better than before, and he
+could stand some nourishment. "Lead on, Two-and-Two," he said.
+
+Ramos' bubb was spinning once more, but he was wearing just dungarees.
+The Bunch--the Planet Strappers--with only their helmets off, were
+crouched, evenly spaced, around the circular interior of the ring. Dave
+Lester was there, too--staring, but fairly calm, now. In this curious
+place, there was a delicious and improbable aroma of coffee--cooked by
+mirror-reflected sunlight on a tiny solar stove.
+
+"So that's the way it goes," Charlie Reynolds commented profoundly. "We
+reach out for strangeness. Then we try to make it as familiar as home."
+
+"Stew, warmed in the cans, too," Ramos declared. "Enough for a light
+one-time-around. I brought the stew along. Hope you birds remember.
+Then we're back on dehydrates. Hell, except for that weight problem and
+consequent cost of stuff from Earth, we'd have it made, Out Here. The
+Big Vacuum ain't so tough--no storms in it, even, to tear our bubbs
+apart. I guess we won't ever have a bigger adventure than finding out
+for ourselves that we can get along with space."
+
+"If we had a beef roast, we'd put it in a sealed container of clear
+plastic," Gimp laughed. "Set it turning, outside the bubb, on a swiveled
+tether wire. It would rotate for hours like on a spit--almost no
+friction. Rig some mirrors to concentrate the sun's heat. Space Force
+men do things like that."
+
+"Shut up--I'm getting _hong_-gry!" Art Kuzak roared.
+
+Ramos poured the coffee in the thin magnesium cups that each of the
+Bunch had brought. Their squeeze bottles, for zero-G drinking, were not
+necessary, here. Their skimpy portions of stew were spooned on magnesium
+plates. Knife and fork combinations were brought out. An apple puree
+which had been powder, followed the stew. Brunch was soon over.
+
+"That's all for now, folks," Ramos said ruefully.
+
+Tiflin snaked a cigarette out from inside the collar of his Archer.
+
+"Hey!" Reynolds said mildly. "Oxygen, remember? Shouldn't you ask our
+host, first?"
+
+Ramos had eased up on ribbing Tiflin months ago. "It's okay," he said.
+"The air-restorers are new."
+
+But Tiflin's explosive nerves, under strain for a long time, didn't take
+it. He threw down the unlighted fag. He snicked his switch blade from a
+thigh pocket. For an instant it seemed that he would attack Reynolds.
+Then the knife flew, and penetrated the thin, taut wall, to its handle.
+There was a frightening hiss, until the sealing gum between the double
+layers, cut off the leak.
+
+The Kuzaks had Tiflin helpless and snarling, at once.
+
+"Get a patch, somebody--fix up the hole," Joe, the mild one, growled.
+"Tiflin--me and my brother helped you. Now we're gonna sit on you--just
+to make sure your funny business doesn't kill us all. Try anything just
+_once_, and we'll feed you all that vacuum--without an Archer. If you're
+a good boy, maybe you'll live to get dumped on the Moon as we pass by."
+
+"Nuts--let's give this sick rat to the Space Force right now." Art Kuzak
+hissed. "Here comes their patrol bubb."
+
+The glinting, transparent ring with the barred white star was passing at
+a distance.
+
+"All is well with you novices?" The enquiring voice was a gruff drawl,
+mingled with crunching sounds of eating--perhaps a candy bar.
+
+"No!" Tiflin whispered, pleading. "I'll watch myself!"
+
+The United Nations patrol was out, too, farther off. Another, darker
+bubb, with other markings, passed by, quite close. It had foreign lines,
+more than a bit sinister to the Bunch's first, startled view. It was a
+Tovie vehicle, representing the other side of the still--for the most
+part--passively opposed forces, on Earth, and far beyond. But through
+the darkened transparency of stellene, the armored figures--again
+somewhat sinister--only raised their hands in greeting.
+
+In a minute, Frank Nelsen emerged from Ramos' ring. Floating free, he
+stabilized himself, fussed with the radio antenna of his helmet-phone
+for a moment, making its transmission and reception directional. On the
+misty, shrinking Earth, North America was visible.
+
+"Frank Nelsen to Paul Hendricks," he said. "Frank Nelsen to Paul
+Hendricks..."
+
+Paul was waiting, all right. "Hello, Frankie. Some of the guys talked
+already--said you were asleep."
+
+"Hi, Paul--yeah! Terra still looks big and beautiful. We're okay.
+Amazing, isn't it, how just a few watts of power, beamed out in a thin
+thread, will reach this far, and lots farther? Hey--will you open and
+shut your front door? Let's hear the old customer's bell jingle... Best
+to you, to J. John, to Nance Codiss, Miss Parks--everybody..."
+
+The squeak of hinges and the jingling came through, clear and
+nostalgically.
+
+"Come on, Frank," Two-and-Two urged. "Other guys would like to talk to
+Paul... Hey, Paul--maybe you could get my folks down to the store to say
+hello to me on your transmitter. And I guess Les would appreciate it if
+you got his mother..."
+
+When the talk got private, Frank went to Mitch Storey's bubb.
+
+"I wanted to show you," Mitch said. "I brought seeds, and these little
+plastic tubes with holes in them, that you can string around inside a
+bubb. The weight is next to nothing. Put the seeds in the tubes, and
+water with plant food in solution. The plants come up through the holes.
+Hydroponics. Gotta almost do it, if I'm going way out to Mars without
+much supplies. Maybe, before I get there, I'll have even ripe tomatoes!
+'Cause, with sun all the time, the stuff grows like fury, they say. I'll
+have string beans and onions and flowers, anyhow! Helps keep the air
+oxygen-fresh, too. Wish I had a few bumble bees! 'Cause now I'll have to
+pollenate by hand..."
+
+Nope--Mitch couldn't get away from vegetation, even in space.
+
+The Planet Strappers soon established a routine for their journey out as
+far as the Moon. There were watches, to be sure that none of the bubbs
+veered, while somebody was asleep or inattentive. Always at hand were
+loaded rifles, because you never knew what kind of space-soured men--who
+might once have been as tame as neighbors going for a drive on Sundays
+with their families--might be around, even here.
+
+Neither Kuzak slept, if the other wasn't awake. They were watching
+Tiflin, whose bubb rode a little ahead of the others. He was ostracized,
+more or less.
+
+Everybody took to Ramos' kind of exercise, bouncing around inside a
+bubb--even Lester, who was calmer, now, but obviously strained by the
+vast novelty and uncertainty ahead.
+
+"I gave you guys a hard time--I'm sorry," he apologized. "But I hope
+there won't be any more of that. The Bunch will be breaking up, soon, I
+guess--going here and there. And if I get a job at Serenitatis Base, I
+think I'll be okay."
+
+Frank Nelsen hoped that he could escape any further part of Lester, but
+he wasn't sure that he had the guts to desert him.
+
+It wasn't long before the ionics were shut off. Enough velocity had been
+attained. Soon, the thrust would be needed in reverse, for braking
+action, near the end of the sixty hour journey into a circumlunar orbit.
+
+Sleep was a fitful, dream-haunted thing. Food was now mostly a kind of
+gruel, rich in starches, proteins, fats and vitamins--each meal
+differently flavored, up to the number of ten flavors, in a
+manufacturer's attempt to mask the sameness. Add water to a powder--heat
+and eat. The spaceman's usual diet, while afield...
+
+One of the functions of the moisture-reclaimers was a rough joke, or a
+squeamishness. A man's kidneys and bowels functioned, and precious water
+molecules couldn't be wasted, here in the dehydrated emptiness. But what
+difference did it really make, after the sanitary distillation of a
+reclaimer? Accept, adjust...
+
+Decision about employment or activity in the immediate future, was one
+thing that couldn't be dismissed. And announcements, beamed from the
+Moon, emphasized it:
+
+"Serenitatis Base, seventeenth month-day, sixteenth hour. (There was a
+chime) Lunar Projects Placement is here to serve you. Plastics-chemists,
+hydroponics specialists, machinists, mechanics, metallurgists, miners,
+helpers--all are urgently needed. The tax-free pay will startle you.
+Free subsistence and quarters. Here at Serene, at Tycho Station or at a
+dozen other expanding sites..."
+
+Charlie Reynolds sat with Frank Nelsen while he listened. "The lady has
+a swell voice," said Charlie. "Otherwise, it _sounds_ good, too. But I'm
+one that's going farther. To Venus--just being explored. All fresh, and
+no man-made booby traps, at least. Maybe they'll even figure out a way
+to make it rotate faster, give it a reasonably short day, and a
+breathable atmosphere--make a warmer second Earth out of it...
+Sometimes, when you jump farther, you jump over a lot of trouble. Better
+than going slow, with the faint-hearts. Their muddling misfortunes begin
+to stick to you. I'd rather be Mitch, headed for heebie-jeebie Mars, or
+the Kuzaks, aiming for the crazy Asteroid Belt."
+
+That was Charlie, talking to him--Frank Nelsen--like an older brother.
+It made a sharp doubt in him, again. But then he grinned.
+
+"Maybe I am a slow starter," he said. "The Moon is near and humble, but
+some say it's good training--even harsher than space. And I don't want
+to bypass and miss anything. Oh, hell, Charlie--I'll get farther, soon,
+too! But I really don't even know what I'll do, yet. Got to wait and see
+how the cards fall..."
+
+Several hours before the rest of the Bunch curved into a slow orbit a
+thousand miles above the Moon, Glen Tiflin set the ionic of his bubb for
+full acceleration, and arced away, outward, perhaps toward the Belt.
+
+"So long, all you dumb slobs!" his voice hissed in their helmet-phones.
+"Now I get really lost! If you ever cross my path again, watch your
+heads..."
+
+Art Kuzak's flare of anger died. "Good riddance," he breathed. "How long
+will he last, alone? Without a space-fitness card, the poor idiot
+probably imagines himself a big, dangerous renegade, already."
+
+Joe Kuzak's answering tone almost had a shrug in it. "Don't jinx our
+luck, twin brother," he said. "For that matter, how long will _we_
+last...? Mex, did you toss Tiflin back his shiv?"
+
+"A couple of hours ago," Ramos answered mildly.
+
+Everybody was looking down at the Moon, whose crater-pocked ugliness and
+beauty was sparsely dotted with the blue spots of stellene domes, many
+of them housing embryo enterprises that were trying to beat the blastoff
+cost of necessities brought from Earth, and to supply spacemen and
+colonists with their needs, cheaply.
+
+The nine fragile rings were soon in orbit. One worker-recruiting rocket
+and several trader-rockets--much less powerful than those needed to
+achieve orbit around Earth--because lunar gravity was only one-sixth of
+the terrestrial--were floating in their midst. On the Moon it had of
+course been known that a fresh Bunch was on the way. Even telescopes
+could have spotted them farther off than the distance of their 240,000
+mile leap.
+
+Frank Nelsen's tongue tasted of brassy doubt. He didn't know where he'd
+be, or what luck, good or bad, he might run into, within the next hour.
+
+The Kuzaks were palavering with the occupants of two heavily-loaded
+trader rockets. "Sure we'll buy--if the price is right," Art was saying.
+"Flasks of water and oxygen, medicines, rolls of stellene. Spare parts
+for Archies, ionics, air-restorers. Food, clothes--anything we can sell,
+ourselves..."
+
+The Kuzaks must have at least a few thousand dollars, which they had
+probably managed to borrow when they had gone home to Pennsylvania to
+say goodbye.
+
+Out here, free of the grip of any large sphere, there was hardly a limit
+to the load which their ionics could eventually accelerate sufficiently
+to travel tremendous distances. Streamlining, in the vacuum, of course
+wasn't necessary, either.
+
+Now a small, sharp-featured man in an Archie, drifted close to Ramos and
+Frank, as they floated near their bubbs. "Hello, Ramos, hello, Nelsen,"
+he said. "Yes--we know your names. We investigate, beforehand, down on
+terra firma. We even have people to snap photographs--often you don't
+even notice. We like guys with talent who get out here by their own
+efforts. Shows they got guts--seriousness! But now you've arrived. We
+are Lunar Projects Placement. We need mechanics, process technicians,
+administrative personnel--anything you can name, almost. Any bright lad
+with drive enough to learn fast, suits us fine. Five hundred bucks an
+Earth-week, to start, meals and lodging thrown in. Quit any time you
+want. Plenty of different working sites. Mines, refineries, factories,
+construction..."
+
+"Serenitatis Base?" Ramos asked almost too quickly, Frank thought. And
+he sounded curiously serious. Was this the Ramos who should be going a
+lot farther than the Moon, anyway?
+
+"Hell, yes, fella!" said the job scout.
+
+"Then I'll sign."
+
+"Excellent... You, too, guy?" The scout was looking at Frank. "And your
+other friends?"
+
+"I'm thinking about it," Frank answered cagily. "Some of them aren't
+stopping on the Moon, as you can see."
+
+Mitch Storey was lashing a few flasks of oxygen and water to the rim of
+his bubb, being careful to space them evenly for static balance. He
+didn't have the money to buy much more, even here.
+
+The Kuzaks were preparing two huge bundles of supplies, which they
+intended to tow. Reynolds was also loading up a few things, with
+Two-and-Two helping him.
+
+"I'm all set, Frank!" Two-and-Two shouted. "I'm going along with
+Charlie, maybe to crash the Venus exploration party!"
+
+"Good!" Frank shouted back, glad that this large, unsure person had
+found himself a leader.
+
+Now he looked at Gimp Hines, riding the spinning rim of his ring with
+his good and bad leg dangling, an expectant, quizzical, half-worried
+look on his freckled face.
+
+But Dave Lester was more pathetic. He had stopped the rotation of his
+bubb. He looked down first at the pitted, jagged face of the Moon, with
+an expression in which rapture and terror may have been mingled, glanced
+with the hope of desperation toward the job scout, and then distractedly
+continued dismantling the rigging of his vehicle, as if to repack it in
+the blastoff drum for a landing.
+
+"Hey--hold on, Les!" Two-and-Two shouted. "You gotta know where you're
+going, first!"
+
+"Make up your mind, Nelsen," said the job scout, getting impatient. "We
+handle just about everything lunar--except in the Tovie areas. Without
+us, you're just a lost, fresh punk!"
+
+But another man had approached from another lunar GO rocket, which had
+just appeared. He had a thin intellectual face, dark eyes, trap mouth,
+white hair, soft speech that was almost shy.
+
+"I'm Xavier Rodan," he said. "I search out my own employees. I do
+minerals survey--for gypsum, bauxite--anything. And site survey, for
+factories and other future developments. I also have connections with
+the Selenographic Institute of the University of Chicago. It is all
+interesting work, but in a rather remote region, I'm afraid--the far
+side of the Moon. And I can pay only three hundred a week. Of course you
+can resign whenever you wish. Perhaps you'd be interested--Mr. Nelsen,
+is it?"
+
+Frank had an impulse to jump at the chance--though there was a warning
+coming to him from somewhere. But how could you ever know? You would
+always have to go down to that devils' wilderness to find out.
+
+"I'll try it, Mr. Rodan," he said.
+
+"Selenography--that's one of my favorite subjects, sir!" David Lester
+burst out, making a gingerly leap across the horrible void of spherical
+sky--stars in all directions except where the Moon's bulk hung. "Could
+I--too?" His trembling mouth looked desperate.
+
+"Very well, boy," Rodan said at last. "A hundred dollars for a week's
+work period."
+
+Frank was glad that Lester had a place to go--and furious that he would
+probably have to nursemaid him, after all.
+
+Gimp Hines kept riding the rim of his ring like a merry-go-round, his
+face trying to show casual humor and indifference over ruefulness and
+scare. "Nobody wants me," he said cheerfully. "It's just prejudice and
+poor imagination. Well--I don't think I'll even try to prove how good I
+am. Of course I could shoot for the asteroids. But I'd like to look
+around Serenitatis Base--some, anyway. Will fifty bucks get me and my
+rig down?"
+
+"Talk to our pilot, Lame Fella," said the job scout. "But you must be
+suicidal nuts to be around here at all."
+
+The others leapt to help Nelsen, Ramos, Gimp and Lester strip and pack
+their gear. Ramos' and Gimp's drums were loaded into the job scout's
+rocket. Nelsen's and Lester's went into Rodan's.
+
+Gloved hands clasped gloved hands all around. The Bunch, the Planet
+Strappers, were breaking up.
+
+"So long, you characters--see you around," said Art Kuzak. "It won't be
+ten years, before you all wind up in the Belt."
+
+"Bring back the Mystery of Mars, Mitch!" Frank was saying.
+
+"When you get finished Mooning, come to Venus, Lover Lad," Reynolds told
+Ramos. "But good luck!"
+
+"Jeez--I'm gonna get sentimental," Two-and-Two moaned. "Luck everybody.
+Come on, Charlie--let's roll! I don't want to slobber!"
+
+"I'll catch up with you all--watch!" Gimp promised.
+
+"So long, Frank..."
+
+"Yeah--over the Milky Way, Frankie!"
+
+"_Hasta luego_, Gang." This was all Ramos, the big mouth, had to say. He
+wasn't glum, exactly. But he was sort of preoccupied and impatient.
+
+The five remaining rings--a wonderful sight, Frank thought--began to
+move out of orbit. Ships with sails set for far ports. No--mere ships of
+the sea were nothing, anymore. But would all of the Bunch survive?
+
+Charlie Reynolds, the cool one, the most likely to succeed, waved
+jauntily and carelessly from his rotating, accelerating ring.
+Two-and-Two wagged both arms stiffly from his.
+
+Mitch Storey's bubb, lightest loaded, was jumping ahead. But you could
+hear him playing _Old Man River_ on his mouth organ, inside his helmet.
+
+The Kuzaks' bubbs, towing massive loads, were accelerating slowest, with
+the ex-gridiron twins riding the rigging. But their rings would dwindle
+to star specks before long, too.
+
+The job scout's rocket, carrying Ramos and Gimp, began to flame for a
+landing at Serene.
+
+In the airtight cabin of Xavier Rodan's vehicle, Frank Nelsen and David
+Lester had read and signed their contracts and had received their
+copies.
+
+Rodan didn't smile. "Now we'll go down and have a look at the place I'm
+investigating," he said.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+Frank Nelsen's view of empire-building on the Moon was brief, all
+encompassing, and far too sketchy to be very satisfying, as
+Rodan--turned about in his universal-gimbaled pilot seat--spiralled his
+battered rocket down backwards, with the small nuclear jets firing
+forward in jerky, tooth-cracking bursts, to check speed further.
+
+It was necessary to go around the abortive sub-planet that had always
+accompanied the Earth, almost once, to reduce velocity enough for a
+landing.
+
+Thus, Nelsen glimpsed much territory--the splashed, irregular shape of
+Serenitatis, the international base on the mare, the dust sea of the
+same name; the radiating threads of trails and embryo highways, the
+ever-widening separation of isolated domes and scattered human diggings
+and workings faintly scratched in the lunar crust, as, at a still great
+height, Frank's gaze swept outward from the greatest center of human
+endeavor on the Moon.
+
+It was much the same around Tycho Station, except that this base was
+smaller, and was built in a great, white-rayed crater, whose walls were
+pierced by tunnels for exit and entry.
+
+The Tovie camp, glimpsed later, and only at the distant horizon, seemed
+not very different from the others, except for the misleading patterns
+of camouflage. That the Tovies should have an exclusive center of their
+own was not even legal, according to U.N. agreements. But facts were
+facts, and what did anyone do about them?
+
+Frank was not very concerned with such issues just then, for there was
+an impression that was overpowering: The slightness of the intrusion of
+his kind on a two thousand-something miles-in-diameter globe of
+incredible desert, overlapping ring-walls, craters centered in radiating
+streaks of white ash, mountain ranges that sank gradually into dust,
+which once, two billion years ago, after probable ejection from
+volcanoes, had no doubt floated in a then palpable atmosphere. But now,
+to a lone man down there, they would be bleak plains stretching to a
+disconcertingly near horizon.
+
+Frank Nelsen's view was one of fascination, behind which was the chilly
+thought: This is my choice; here is where I will have to live for a
+short while that can seem ages. Space looks tame, now. Can I make it all
+right? Worse--_how about Lester?_
+
+Frank looked around him. Like Rodan, Lester and he had both pivoted
+around in their gimbaled seats--to which they had safety-strapped
+themselves--to face the now forward-pointing stern jets.
+
+Rodan, looking more trap-mouthed than before, had said nothing further
+as he guided the craft gingerly lower. Lester was biting his heavy lip.
+His narrow chin trembled.
+
+A faint whisper had begun. As far back as the 1940s, astronomers had
+begun to suspect that the Moon was, after all, not entirely airless.
+There would be traces of heavy gases--argon, neon, xenon, krypton, and
+volcanic carbon dioxide. It would be expanded far upward above the
+surface, because the feeble lunar gravity could not give it sufficient
+weight to compress it very much. So it would thin out much less rapidly
+with altitude than does the terrestrial atmosphere. From a density of
+perhaps 1/12,000th of Earth's sea level norm at the Moon's surface, it
+would thin to perhaps 1/20,000th at a height of eighty miles, being thus
+roughly equivalent in density to Earth's gaseous envelope at the same
+level! And at this height was the terrestrial zone where meteors flare!
+
+This theory about the lunar atmosphere had proven to be correct. The
+tiny density was still sufficient to give the Moon almost as effective
+an atmospheric meteor screen as the Earth's. The relatively low velocity
+needed to maintain vehicles in circumlunar orbits, made its danger to
+such vehicles small. It could help reduce speed for a landing; it caused
+that innocuous hiss of passage. But it could sometimes be treacherous.
+
+Frank thought of these things as the long minutes dragged. Perhaps
+Rodan, hunched intently over his controls, had reason enough, there, to
+be silent...
+
+The actual landing still had to be made in the only way possible on
+worlds whose air-covering was so close to a complete vacuum as
+this--like a cat climbing down a tree backwards. With flaming jets still
+holding it up, and spinning gyros keeping it vertical, the rocket
+lowered gradually. The seats swung level, keeping their occupants right
+side up. There was a hovering pause, then the faint jolt of contact. The
+jet growl stopped; complete silence closed in like a hammer blow.
+
+"Do you men know where you are?" Rodan asked after a moment.
+
+"At the edge of Mare Nova, I think," Frank answered, his eyes combing
+the demons' landscape beyond the thick, darkened glass of the cabin's
+ports.
+
+The dazzling sun was low--early morning of two weeks of daylight. The
+shadows were long, black shafts.
+
+"Yes--there's Tower Rock," Lester quavered. "And the Arabian Range going
+down under the dust of the plain."
+
+"Correct," Rodan answered. "We're well over the rim of the Far Side.
+You'll never see the Earth from here. The nearest settlement is eight
+hundred miles away, and it's Tovie at that. This is a really remote
+spot, as I intimated before."
+
+He paused, as if to let this significant information be appreciated. "So
+that's settled," he went on. "Now I'll enlighten you about what else you
+need to know... Come along."
+
+Frank Nelsen felt the dust crunch under the rubberized boot-soles of his
+Archer. There was a brief walk, then a pause.
+
+Rodan pointed to a pit dynamited out of the dust and lava rock, and to
+small piles of greyish material beside six-inch borings rectangularly
+spaced over a wide area.
+
+"There is an extensive underlying layer of gypsum, here," he said. "The
+water-bearing rock. A mile away there's an ample deposit of
+graphite--carbon. Thus, there exists a complete local source of
+hydrogen, oxygen and carbon, ideal for synthesizing various
+hydrocarbonic chemicals or making complicated polyethylene materials
+such as stellene, so useful in space. Lead, too, is not very far off.
+Silicon is, of course, available everywhere. There'll be a plant
+belonging to Hoffman Chemicals here, before too long. I was prospecting
+for them, for a site like this. Actually I was very lucky, locating this
+spot almost right away--which is fortunate. They think I'm still
+looking, and aren't concerned..."
+
+Rodan was quiet for a moment before continuing. The pupils of his eyes
+dilated and contracted strangely.
+
+"Because I found something else," he went on. "It was luck beyond
+dreams, and it must be my very own. I intend to investigate it
+thoroughly, even if it takes years! Come along, again!"
+
+This time the walk was about three hundred yards, past three small
+stellene domes, the parabolic mirrors of a solar-power plant, a
+sun-energized tractor, and onward almost to the mountain wall, imbedded
+in the dust of the mare. There Frank noticed a circular, glassy area.
+
+Strips of magnesium were laid like bridging planks across chunks of
+lava, and in the dust all around were countless curious scrabbled marks.
+
+Rodan stood carefully on a magnesium strip, and looked back at Nelsen
+and Lester, his brows crinkling as if he was suspicious that he had
+already told them too much. Frank Nelsen became more aware of the heavy
+automatic pistol at Rodan's hip, and felt a tingling urge to get away
+from here and from this man--as if a vast mistake had been made.
+
+"It is necessary for you to be informed about _some_ matters," Rodan
+said slowly. "For instance, unless it is otherwise disturbed, a
+footprint, or the like, will endure for millions of years on the
+Moon--as surely as if impressed in granite--because there is no weather
+left to rub it out. You will be working here. I am preserving some of
+these markings. So please walk on these strips, which Dutch and I have
+laid down."
+
+Rodan indicated a large, Archer-clad man, who also carried an automatic.
+He had the face of a playful but dangerous mastiff. He was hunkered down
+in a shallow pit, scanning the ground with a watch-sized device probably
+intended for locating objects hidden just beneath the surface,
+electronically. Beside him was a screen-bottomed container, no doubt
+meant for sifting dust.
+
+"Greetings, Novices!" he gruffed with genial contempt. But his pale
+eyes, beyond the curve of his helmet, had a masked puzzlement, as if
+something from the lunar desolation had gotten into his brain, leaving
+the realization of where he was, permanently not altogether clear to
+him.
+
+Rodan pulled a shiny object from his thigh pouch, and held it out in a
+gloved palm for his new employees to peer at.
+
+"One of the things we found," he remarked. "Incomplete. If we could, for
+instance, locate the other parts..."
+
+Frank saw a little cylinder, with grey coils wrapped inside it--a power
+chamber, perhaps, to be lined with magnetic force, the only thing that
+could contain what amounted to a tiny twenty-million degree piece of a
+star's hot heart. It was a familiar principle for releasing and managing
+nuclear power. But the device, perhaps part of a small weapon, was
+subtly marked by the differences of another technology.
+
+"I believe I have said enough," Rodan stated with a thin smile. "Though
+some facts will be unavoidably obvious to you, working here. But at
+least I will let you figure them out for yourselves, since you are
+well-informed young men, by your own statement." Here Rodan looked hard
+at the pale, unsteady Lester. "We will go back, now, so I can show you
+the camp, its routine, and your place in it. We have three domes--garden
+and living quarters, with a workshop and supply dome between them..."
+
+Quarters proved to be okay--two bunks and the usual compact accessories.
+
+"Leave your Archers in the lockers outside your door--here are your
+keys," Rodan suggested. "Helen will have a meal ready for you in the
+adjacent dining room. Afterwards, take a helpful tranquilizer, and
+sleep. No work until you awaken. I shall leave you, now..."
+
+It was a good meal--steak cultured and grown in a nourishing solution,
+on the Moon, perhaps at Serene, much as Dr. Alexis Carrel had long ago
+grown and kept for years a living fragment of a chicken's heart.
+Potatoes, peas and tomatoes, too--all had become common staples in
+hydroponic gardens off the Earth.
+
+"What do you make of what Rodan was talking about, Les?" Frank asked
+conversationally.
+
+But David Lester was lost and vague, his food almost untouched. "I--I
+don't know!" he stammered.
+
+Scared and embittered further by this bad sign, Frank turned to Helen.
+"And how are you?" he asked hopefully.
+
+"I am all right," she answered, without a trace of encouragement.
+
+She was in jeans, maybe she was eighteen, maybe she was Rodan's
+daughter. Her face was as reddened as a peasant's. It was hard to tell
+that she was a girl at all. She wasn't a girl. It was soon plain that
+she was a zombie with about ten words in her vocabulary. How could a
+girl have gotten to this impossible region, anyway?
+
+Now Frank tried to delay Lester's inevitable complete crackup by
+encouraging his interest in their situation.
+
+"It's big, Les," he said. "It's got to be! An expedition came here to
+investigate the Moon--it couldn't be any more recently than sixty
+million years ago, if it was from as close as Mars, or the Asteroid
+Planet! Two adjacent worlds were competing, then, the scientists know.
+Both were smaller than the Earth, cooled faster, bore life sooner. Which
+sent the party? I saw where there rocket ship must have stood--a glassy,
+spot where the dust was once fused!... From all the markings, they must
+have been around for months. Nowhere else on the Moon--that I ever heard
+of--is there anything similar left. So maybe they did most of their
+survey work by gliding, somehow, above the ground, not disturbing the
+dust... I think the little indentations we saw look Martian. That would
+be a break! Mars still has weather. Archeological objects wouldn't stay
+new there for millions of years, but here they would! Rodan is
+right--he's got something that'll make him famous!"
+
+"Yes--I think I'll have a devil-killer and hit the sack, Frank," Lester
+said.
+
+"Oh--all right," Frank agreed wearily. "Me, likewise."
+
+Frank awoke naturally from a dreamless slumber. After a breakfast of
+eggs that had been a powder, Lester and he were at the diggings,
+sifting dust for the dropped and discarded items of an alien visitation.
+
+Thus Frank's job began. In the excitement of a hunt, as if for ancient
+treasure, for a long time, through many ten hour shifts, Frank Nelsen
+found a perhaps unfortunate Lethe of forgetfulness for his worries, and
+for the mind-poisoning effects of the silence and desolation in this
+remote part of the Moon.
+
+They found things, thinly scattered in the ten acre area that Rodan
+meant tediously to sift. The screws and nuts, bright and new, were
+almost Earthly. But would anyone ever know what the little plastic rings
+were for? Or the sticks of cellulose, or the curved, wire device with
+fuzz at the ends? But then, would an off-Earth being ever guess the use
+of--say--a toothbrush or a bobbypin?
+
+The metal cylinders, neatly cut open, might have contained food--dried
+leaf-like dregs still remained inside. There were small bottles made of
+pearly glass, too--empty except for gummy traces. They were stoppered
+with a stuff like rubber. There were also crumpled scraps, like paper or
+cellophane, most of them marked with designs or symbols.
+
+After ten Earth-days, in the lunar afternoon, Frank found the grave. He
+shouted as his brushing hands uncovered a glassy, flexible surface.
+
+Rodan took charge at once. "Back!" he commanded. Then he was avidly busy
+in the pit, working as carefully as a fine jeweller. He cleared more
+dust away, not with a trowel, not with his gloved fingers, but with a
+little nylon brush.
+
+The thing was like a seven-pointed star, four feet across. And was the
+ripped, transparent casing of its body and limbs another version of a
+vacuum armor? The material resembled stellene. As in an Archer, there
+were metal details, mechanical, electronic, and perhaps nuclear.
+
+In the punctured covering, the corpse was dry, of course--stomach, brain
+sac, rough, pitted skin, terminal tendrils--some coarse, some fine,
+almost, as thread, for doing the most delicate work, half out of
+protecting sheaths at the ends of its arms or legs.
+
+In the armor, the being must have walked like a toe dancer, on metal
+spikes. Or it might even have rolled like a wheel. The bluish tint of
+its crusty body had half-faded to tan. Perhaps no one would ever explain
+the gaping wound that must have killed the creature, unless it had been
+a rock fall.
+
+"Martian!" Lester gasped. "At least we know that they were like this!"
+
+"Yes," Rodan agreed softly. "_I'll_ look after _this_ find."
+
+Moving very carefully, even in the weak lunar gravity, he picked up the
+product of another evolution and bore it away to the shop dome.
+
+Frank was furious. This was his discovery, and he was not even allowed
+to examine it.
+
+Still, something warned him not to argue. In a little while, his
+treasure hunter's eagerness came back, holding out through most of that
+protracted lunar night, when they worked their ten hour periods with
+electric lamps attached to their shoulders.
+
+But gradually Frank began to emerge from his single line of attention.
+Knowing that Lester must soon collapse, and waiting tensely for it to
+happen, was part of the cause. But there was much more. There was the
+fact that direct radio communication with the Earth, around the curve of
+the Moon, was impossible--the Tovies didn't like radio-relay orbiters,
+useful for beamed, short-wave messages. They had destroyed the few
+unmanned ones that had been put up.
+
+There were the several times when he had casually sent a slender beam of
+radio energy groping out toward Mars and the Asteroid Belt, trying to
+call Storey or the Kuzaks, and had received no answer. Well, this was
+not remarkable. Those regions were enormous beyond imagining; you had to
+pinpoint your thread of tiny energy almost precisely.
+
+But once, for an instant, while at work, he heard a voice which could be
+Mitch Storey's, call "Frank! Frankie!" in his helmet phone. There was no
+chance for him to get an instrument-fix on the direction of the incoming
+waves. And of course his name, Frank, was a common one. But an immediate
+attempt to beam Mars--yellow in the black sky--and its vicinity,
+produced no result.
+
+His trapped feeling increased, and nostalgia began to bore into him. He
+had memories of lost sounds. Rodan tried to combat the thick silence
+with taped popular music, broadcast on very low power from a field set
+at the diggings. But the girl voices, singing richly, only made matters
+worse for Frank Nelsen. And other memories piled up on him: Jarviston,
+Minnesota. Wind. Hay smell, car smell. Home... Cripes...! Damn...!
+
+Lester's habit of muttering unintelligibly to himself was much worse,
+now. Frank was expecting him to start screaming at any minute. Frank
+hadn't tried to talk to him much, and Lester, more introverted than
+ever, was no starter of conversations.
+
+But now, at the sunrise--S.O.B., was it possible that they had been here
+almost a month?--Frank at the diggings, indulged in some muttering,
+himself.
+
+"Are you all right, Frank?" Lester asked mildly.
+
+"Not altogether!" Frank Nelsen snapped dryly. "How about you?"
+
+"Oh, I believe I'm okay at last," Lester replied with startling
+brightness. "I was afraid I wouldn't be. I guess I had an inferiority
+complex, and there was also something to live up to. You see, my dad was
+here with the original Clifford expedition. We always agreed that I
+should become a space-scientist, too. Mom went along with that--until
+Dad was killed, here... Well, I'm over the hump, now. You see, I'm so
+interested in everything around me, that the desolation has a cushion of
+romance that protects me. I don't see just the bleakness. I imagine the
+Moon as it once was, with volcanoes spitting, and with thundrous sounds
+in its steamy atmosphere. I see it when the Martians were here--they
+surely visited Earth, too, though there all evidence weathered away. I
+even see the Moon as it is, now, noticing details that are easy to
+miss--the little balls of ash that got stuck together by raindrops, two
+billion years ago. And the pulpy, hard-shelled plants that you can still
+find, alive, if you know where to look. There are some up on the ridge,
+where I often go, when offshift. Carbon dioxide and a little water vapor
+must still come out of the deep crack there... Anyhow, they used to say
+that a lonesome person--with perhaps a touch of schizophrenia--might do
+better off the Earth than the more usual types."
+
+Frank Nelsen was surprised as much by this open, self-analytical
+explanation, and the clearing up of the family history behind him, as by
+the miracle that had happened. Cripes, was it possible that, in his own
+way, Lester was more rugged than anybody else of the old Bunch? Of
+course even Lester was somewhat in wonder, himself, and had to talk it
+all out to somebody.
+
+"Good for you, Les," Nelsen enthused, relieved. "Only--well, skip it,
+for now."
+
+Two work periods later, he approached Rodan. "It will take months to
+sift all this dust," he said. "I may not want to stay that long."
+
+The pupils of Rodan's eyes flickered again. "Oh?" he said. "Per
+contract, you can quit anytime. But I provide no transportation. Do you
+want to walk eight hundred miles--to a Tovie station? On the Moon it is
+difficult to keep hired help. So one must rely on practical
+counter-circumstances. Besides, I wouldn't want you to be at Serenitatis
+Base, or anywhere else, talking about my discovery, Nelsen. I'm afraid
+you're stuck."
+
+Now Nelsen had the result of his perhaps incautious test statement. He
+knew that he was trapped by a dangerous tyrant, such as might spring up
+in any new, lawless country.
+
+"It was just a thought, sir," he said, being as placating as he dared,
+and controlling his rising fury.
+
+For there was something that hardened too quickly in Rodan. He had the
+fame-and-glory bug, and could be savage about it. If you wanted to get
+away, you had to scheme by yourself. There wasn't only Rodan to get
+past; there was Dutch, the big ape with the dangling pistol.
+
+Nelsen decided to work quietly, as before, for a while... There were a
+few more significant finds--what might have been a nuclear-operated
+clock, broken, of course, and some diamond drill bits. Though the long
+lunar day dragged intolerably, there was the paradox of time seeming to
+escape, too. Daylight ended with the sunset. Two weeks of darkness was
+no period for any moves. At sunup, a second month was almost finished!
+And ten acres of dust was less than half-sifted...
+
+In the shop and supply dome, David Lester had been chemically analyzing
+the dregs of various Martian containers for Rodan. In spare moments he
+classified those scarce and incredibly hardy lunar growths that he found
+in the foothills of the Arabian Range. Some had hard, bright-green
+tendrils, that during daylight, opened out of woody shells full of
+spongy hollows as an insulation against the fearsome cold of night. Some
+were so small that they could only be seen under a microscope. Frank's
+interest, here, however, palled quickly. And Lester, in his mumbling,
+studious preoccupation, was no companionable antidote for loneliness.
+
+Frank tried a new approach on Helen, who really was Rodan's daughter.
+
+"Do you like poetry, Helen? I used to memorize Keats, Frost,
+Shakespeare."
+
+They were there in the dining room. She brightened a little. "I
+remember--some."
+
+"Do you remember clouds, the sound of water? Trees, grass...?"
+
+She actually smiled, wistfully. "Yes. Sunday afternoons. A blue dress.
+My mother when she was alive... A dog I had, once..."
+
+Helen Rodan wasn't quite a zombie, after all. Maybe he could win her
+confidence, if he went slow...
+
+But twenty hours later, at the diggings, when Dutch stumbled over
+Frank's sifter, she reverted. "I'll learn you to leave junk in my way,
+you greenhorn squirt!" Dutch shouted. Then he tossed Frank thirty feet.
+Frank came back, kicked him in his thinly armored stomach, knocked him
+down, and tried to get his gun. But Dutch grabbed him in those big arms.
+Helen was also pointing a small pistol at him.
+
+She was trembling. "Dad will handle this," she said.
+
+Rodan came over. "You don't have much choice, do you, Nelsen?" he
+sneered. "However, perhaps Dutch was crude. I apologize for him. And I
+will deduct a hundred dollars from his pay, and give it to you."
+
+"Much obliged," Frank said dryly.
+
+After that, everything happened to build his tensions to the breaking
+point.
+
+At a work period's end, near the lunar noon, he heard a voice in his
+helmet-phone. "Frank--this is Two-and-Two...! Why don't you ever call or
+answer...?"
+
+Two-and-Two's usually plaintive voice had a special quality, as if he
+was maybe in trouble. This time, Frank got a directional fix, adjusted
+his antenna, and called, "Hey, Two-and-Two...! Hey, Pal--it's me--Frank
+Nelsen...!"
+
+Venus was in the sky, not too close to the sun. But still, though Nelsen
+called repeatedly, there was no reply.
+
+He got back to quarters, and looked over not only his radio but his
+entire Archer. The radio had been fiddled with, delicately; it would
+still work, but not in a narrow enough beam to reach millions of miles,
+or even five hundred. An intricate focusing device had been removed from
+a wave guide.
+
+That wasn't the worst that was wrong with the Archer. The small nuclear
+battery which energized the moisture-reclaimer, the heating units, and
+especially the air-restorer--not only for turning its pumps but for
+providing the intense internal illumination necessary to promote the
+release of oxygen in the photosynthetic process of the chlorophane when
+there was no sun--had been replaced by a chemical battery of a far
+smaller active life-span! The armor locker! Rodan had extra keys, and
+could tamper and make replacements, any time he considered it necessary.
+
+Lester had wandered afield, somewhere. When he showed up, Nelsen jarred
+him out of his studious preoccupations long enough for them both to
+examine his armor. Same, identical story.
+
+"Rodan made sure," Frank gruffed. "That S.O.B. put us on a real short
+tether!"
+
+David Lester looked frightened for a minute. Then he seemed to ease.
+
+"Maybe it doesn't make any difference," he said. "Though I'd like to
+call my mother... But I'm doing things that I like. After a while, when
+the job is finished, he'll let us go."
+
+"Yeah?" Frank breathed.
+
+There was the big question. Nelsen figured that an old, corny pattern
+stuck out all over Rodan. Personal glory emphasized to a point where it
+got beyond sense. And wouldn't that unreason be more likely to get worse
+in the terrible lunar desert than it ever would on Earth?
+
+Would Rodan ever release them? Wouldn't he fear encroachment on his
+archeological success, even after all his data had been made public?
+This was all surmise-prediction, of course, but his extreme precautions,
+already taken, did not look good. On the Moon there could easily be an
+arranged accident, killing Lester, and him--Frank Nelsen--and maybe even
+Dutch. Rodan's pupils had that nervous way of expanding and contracting
+rapidly, too. Nelsen figured that he might be reading the signs somewhat
+warpedly himself. Still...?
+
+At the end of another shift, Nelsen took a walk, farther than ever
+before, up through a twisted pass that penetrated to the other side of
+the Arabian Mountains. He still had that much freedom. He wanted to
+think things out. In bitter, frustrating reversal of all his former
+urges to get off the Earth, he wanted, like a desperate weakling, to be
+back home.
+
+Up beyond the Arabians, he saw the tread marks of a small tractor
+vehicle in a patch of dust. There was a single boot print. A short
+distance farther on, there was another. He examined them with a
+quizzical excitement. But there weren't any more. For miles, ahead and
+behind, unimpressable lava rock extended.
+
+Another curious thing happened, only minutes later. A thousand miles
+overhead, out of reach of his sabotaged transmitter, one of those around
+the Moon tour bubbs, like the unfortunate _Far Side_, was passing. He
+heard the program they were broadcasting. A male voice crooned out what
+must be a new, popular song. He had heard so few new songs.
+
+"Serene...
+
+Found a queen...
+
+And her name is Eileen..."
+
+Nelsen's reaction wasn't even a thought, at first; it was only an eerie
+tingle in all his flesh. Then, realizing what his suspicion was, he
+listened further, with all his nerves taut. But no explanation of the
+song's origin was given... He even tried futilely to radio the pleasure
+bubb, full of Earth tourists. In minutes it had sunk behind the abrupt
+horizon, leaving him with his unanswered wonder.
+
+Girls, he thought, in the midst of his utter solitude. All girls, to
+love and have ... Eileen? Cripes, could it be little old Eileen Sands,
+up on her ballet-dancing toes, sometimes, at Hendricks', and humming
+herself a tune? Eileen who had deserted the Bunch, meaning to approach
+space in a feminine way? Holy cow, had even _she_ gotten _that_ far, so
+fast?
+
+Suddenly the possibility became a symbol of what the others of the
+Bunch must be accomplishing, while here he was, trapped, stuck futilely,
+inside a few bleak square miles on the far side of Earth's own
+satellite!
+
+So here was another force of Frank Nelsen's desperation.
+
+He made up his mind--which perhaps just then was a bit mad.
+
+With outward calm he returned to camp, slept, worked, slept and worked
+again. He decided that there was no help to be had from Lester, who was
+still no man of action. Better to work alone, anyway.
+
+Fortunately, on the Moon, it was easy to call deadly forces to one's
+aid. Something as simple as possible, the trick should be. Of course all
+he wanted to do was to get the upper hand on Rodan and Dutch, take over
+the camp, get the missing parts of his radio and Archer, borrow the
+solar tractor, and get out of here. To Serenitatis Base--Serene.
+
+His only preparation was to sharpen the edges of a diamond-shaped trowel
+used at the diggings, with a piece of pumice. Then he waited.
+
+Opportunity came near sundown, after a shift. Rodan, Dutch, and he had
+come into the supply and shop dome, through its airlock. Lester and
+Helen--these two introverts had somehow discovered each other, and were
+getting along well together--were visible through the transparent wall,
+lingering at the diggings.
+
+Nelsen saw Rodan and Dutch unlatch the collars of their helmets,
+preparatory for removing them, as they usually did if they stayed here a
+while, to pack new artifacts or stow tools. Nelsen made as if to unlatch
+his collar, too. But if he did it, the gasket would be unsealed, and his
+helmet would no longer be airtight.
+
+Now!--he told himself. Or would it be better to wait fourteen more
+Earth-days, till another lunar dawn? Hell no--that would be chickenish
+procrastination. Rodan and Dutch were a good ten feet away from him--he
+was out of their reach.
+
+With the harmless-looking trowel held like a dagger, he struck with all
+his might at the stellene outer wall of the dome, and then made a
+ripping motion. Like a monster gasping for breath, the imprisoned air
+sighed out.
+
+Taking advantage of the moment when Rodan's and Dutch's hands moved in
+life-saving instinct to reseal their collars, Frank Nelsen leaped, and
+then kicked twice, as hard as he could, in rapid succession. At Dutch's
+stomach, first. Then Rodan's.
+
+They were down--safe from death, since they had managed to re-latch
+their collars. But with a cold fury that had learned to take no chances
+with defeat, Nelsen proceeded to kick them again, first one and then
+the other, meaning to make them insensible.
+
+He got Dutch's pistol. He was a shade slow with Rodan. "You won't get
+anything that is mine!" he heard Rodan grunt.
+
+Frank managed to deflect the automatic's muzzle from himself. But Rodan
+moved it downward purposefully, lined it up on a box marked dynamite,
+and fired.
+
+Nelsen must have thrown himself prone at the last instant, before the
+ticklish explosive blew. He saw the flash and felt the dazing thud,
+though most of the blast passed over him. Results far outstripped the
+most furious intention of his plan, and became, not freedom, but a
+threat of slow dying, an ordeal, as the sagging dome was torn from above
+him, and supplies, air-restorer equipment, water and oxygen flasks, the
+vitals and the batteries of the solar-electric plant--all for the most
+part hopelessly shattered--were hurled far and wide, along with the
+relics from Mars. The adjacent garden and quarters domes were also
+shredded and swept away.
+
+Dazed, Nelsen still got Rodan's automatic, picked himself up, saw that
+Dutch and Rodan, in armor, too, had apparently suffered from the
+explosion no worse than had he. He glanced at the hole in the lava rock,
+still smoking in the high vacuum. Most of the force of the blast had
+gone upward. He looked at Helen's toppled tomatoes and petunias--yes,
+petunias--where the garden dome had been. Oddly, they didn't wilt at
+once, though the little water in the hydroponic troughs was boiling away
+furiously, making frosty rainbows in the slanting light of the sun.
+Fragments of a solar lamp, to keep the plants growing at night, lay in
+the shambles.
+
+Rodan and Dutch were pretty well knocked out from Frank Nelsen's
+footwork. Now Dave Lester and Helen Rodan came running. Lester's face
+was all stunned surprise. Helen was yelling.
+
+"I saw you do it--you--murderer!"
+
+When she kneeled beside her father, Frank got her gun, too. He felt an
+awful regret for a plan whose results far surpassed his intentions, but
+there was no good in showing it, now. Someone had to be in command in a
+situation which already looked black.
+
+"Frank--I didn't suppose--" Lester stammered. "Now--what are we going to
+do?"
+
+"All that we can do--try to get out of here!" Frank snapped back at him.
+
+With some shreds of stellene, he tied Dutch's arms behind his back, and
+lashed his feet together. Then he pulled Helen away from Rodan.
+
+"Hold her, Les," he ordered. "Maybe I overplayed my hand, but just the
+same, I still think I'm the best to say what's to be done and maybe get
+us out of a jam, and I can't have Helen or Rodan or anybody else doing
+any more cockeyed things to screw matters up even worse than they are."
+
+Nelsen trussed Rodan up, too, then searched Rodan's thigh pouch and
+found a bunch of keys.
+
+"You come along with me, Les and Helen," he said. "First we'll find out
+what we've got left to work with."
+
+He investigated the rocket. That the blast had toppled it over, wasn't
+the worst. When he unlocked its servicing doors, he found that Rodan had
+removed a vital part from the nuclear exciters of the motors. His and
+Lester's blastoff drums were still in the freight compartment, but the
+ionics and air-restorers had been similarly rendered unworkable. Their
+oxygen and water flasks were gone. Only their bubbs were intact, but
+there was nothing with which to inflate them.
+
+When Frank examined the sun-powered tractor, he found that tiny platinum
+plates had been taken from the thermocouple units. It was clear that,
+with paranoid thoroughness, Rodan had concentrated all capacity to move
+from the camp's vicinity in himself. He had probably locked up the
+missing items in the supply dome, and now the exploding dynamite had
+ruined them.
+
+Exploring the plain, Nelsen even found quite a few of the absent parts,
+all useless. Only one oxygen flask and one water flask remained intact.
+Here was a diabolical backfiring of schemes, all around.
+
+Returning to Rodan and Dutch, he examined their Archers through their
+servicing ports. Rodan's was as the manufacturer intended it. But
+Dutch's was jimmied the same as his and Lester's.
+
+Nelsen swung Helen around to face him, and unlatched a port at her
+Archer's shoulder.
+
+"He put even you on a short string, kid," he pronounced bitterly, after
+a moment. "Well, at least we can give you his nuclear battery for a
+while, and let him have his chemical cell back."
+
+Helen seemed about to attack him. But then her look wavered; confusion
+and pain came into her face.
+
+Nelsen was aware that he was doing almost all of the talking, but maybe
+this had to be.
+
+"So we've got a long walk," he said. "Toward the Tovie settlement. In
+Archers of mostly much-reduced range. Whose fault the situation is,
+can't change anything a bit. This is a life-or-death proposition, with
+lasting-time the most important factor. So let's get started. Has
+anybody got any suggestions to increase our chances?"
+
+Both Rodan and Dutch had come to. Rodan said nothing. His look was pure
+poison.
+
+Dutch sneered. "Smart damn kid you are, huh, Nelsen? _You think!_ Wait
+till you and your mumblin' crackpot pal get out there! I'll watch both
+of you go bust, squirt!"
+
+Lester seemed not to hear these remarks. "All that gypsum, Frank," he
+said. "The water-and-oxygen mineral. But this is for real. There's no
+gimmick--no energy-source--to release it and save us..."
+
+Frank Nelsen untied Rodan's and Dutch's feet, and, at pistol point,
+ordered them to move out ahead. From the charts he knew the
+bearing--straight toward the constellation Cassiopeia, at this hour,
+across an arm of Mare Nova, then along a pass that cut through the
+mountains. Eight hundred hopeless miles...! Well, how did he know,
+really? How much could a human body take? How fast could they go? How
+long would the chemical batteries actually last? What breaks _might_
+appear?
+
+They loped along, even Rodan hurrying. They made a hundred miles in the
+hours before darkness. With just Helen's shoulder lamp showing the way,
+they continued onward through the mountains.
+
+Was there truly much to tell, in that slow, losing struggle? Nelsen
+attached the oxygen flask to his air system for a while, relieving the
+drain on his battery. Then he gave the flask to Lester. Later he began
+to move the nuclear battery around to all the Archers, to conserve all
+of the other batteries a little. Soon they filled the drinking-water
+tanks of their armor, so that they could discard the flask, whose slight
+weight seemed to have tripled.
+
+After twenty hours, the power of the chemical batteries began to wane.
+David Lester, hovering close to Helen, muttered to himself, or to her.
+Rodan, still marching quite strongly, retreated into an unreality of his
+own.
+
+"Have another scotch on the rocks, Ralph," he said genially. "I knew I'd
+make it... Nobel Prize... Oh, you have no idea what I went through...
+Most of my staff dead... But it's over, now, Ralph... Another good,
+stomach-warming scotch..."
+
+"Damn, loony squirt's crackin' up!" Dutch screamed suddenly.
+
+He began to run, promptly falling into a volcanic crack, the bottom of
+which couldn't even be found with the light. Fortunately he wasn't
+wearing the nuclear battery just then.
+
+Somehow, Lester remained cool. It was as if, with everyone else scared,
+too, and nobody to show superior courage, he had found himself.
+
+The batteries waned further. The cold of the inky lunar night--much
+worse than that of interplanetary space, where there is practically
+always sunshine, began to bite through the insulation of the Archers,
+and power couldn't be wasted on the heating coils.
+
+Worst was the need for rest. They all lay down at last, except Frank
+Nelsen, who moved around, clipping the nuclear battery into one Archer
+for a minute, to freshen the air, and then into another. It was the only
+trick--or gimmick--that they found. After a while, Lester made the
+rounds, while Nelsen rested.
+
+They got a few more miles by swapping batteries in quick succession. But
+the accumulating carbon dioxide in the air they breathed, made them
+sleepier. They had to sit down, then lie down. Frank figured that they
+had come something over a quarter of the eight hundred miles. This was
+about the end of Frank Nelsen, would-be Planet Strapper from Jarviston,
+Minnesota. Well--his coffin would be a common one--an Archer Five...
+Somehow, he thought of a line from Kipling: "If you can keep your head
+when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you..."
+
+He tried to clip the nuclear battery back in Helen's armor, again. She
+_might_ make the remaining five hundred-something miles, alone...! He
+just barely managed to accomplish it... There was still a little juice,
+from his chemical cell, feeding his helmet phone... Now, he thought he
+heard someone singing raucously one of those improvised doggerel songs
+of spacemen and Moonmen... Folklore, almost...
+
+"If this goddam dust
+
+Just holds its crust,
+
+I'll get on to hell
+
+If my gear don't bust..."
+
+"Hey!" Nelsen gurgled thickly into his phone. "Hey..." Then it was as if
+he sort of sank...
+
+Hell was real, all right, because, with needles in his eyes and all
+through his body, Nelsen seemed to be goaded on by imps to crawl, in
+infinite weariness, through a hot steel pipe, to face Old Nick
+himself--or was it somebody he'd met before?
+
+Maybe he asked, because he got an answer--from the grinning, freckled
+face bending over him, as he lay, armorless, on a sort of pallet, under
+the taut stellene roof of a Moontent.
+
+"Sure Frankie--me, Gimp Hines, the itinerant trader and repairman of the
+lunar wilderness... What a switch--didn't think _you'd_ goof! The
+Bunch--especially Two-and-Two--couldn't contact you. So I was sort of
+looking, knowing about where you'd be. Just made it in time. Les and the
+girl, and that ornery professor-or-whatever, are right here, too--still
+knocked out with a devil-killer. You've been out twenty hours, yourself.
+I'll fill you in on the news. Just shut up and drink up. Good Earth
+whiskey--a hundred bucks just to shoot a fifth into orbit."
+
+Frank gulped and coughed. "Thanks, Gimp." His voice was like pumice.
+
+"Shut up, I said!" Gimp ordered arrogantly. "About me--first. When I got
+to Serene, I could have convinced them I was worth a job. But I'm
+independent. I hocked my gear, bought some old parts, built myself a
+tractor and trailer, loaded it with water, oxygen, frozen vegetables,
+spare parts, cigarettes, pin-up pictures, liquor and so forth, and came
+travelling. I didn't forget tools. You'd be astonished by what you can
+sell and fix--and for what prices--out in the isolated areas, or what
+you can bring back. I even got a couple of emeralds as big as pigeon
+eggs. I'm getting myself a reputation, besides. What difference does
+just one good leg make--at only one-sixth Earth grav? You still hop
+along, even when you don't ride. And everywhere I go, I leave that left
+boot print behind in the dust, like a record that could last a thousand
+ages. I'm getting to be Left Foot, the legend."
+
+Nelsen cleared his throat, found his voice. "Cocky, aren't you, Pal?" he
+chuckled. So another thing was happening in reverse from what most
+people had expected. Gimp Hines was finding a new, surer self, off the
+Earth.
+
+"It's all right, Gimp," Nelsen added. "I figured that I saw your tracks
+and your tractor tread marks, up in the hills, just before I decided to
+break away from Rodan..."
+
+Then he was telling the whole story.
+
+"Yes, I was there," Gimp said at the end. "I missed you on the first
+pass, prospected for a couple of Earth-days, found a small copper
+deposit. High ground gave me a good position to receive short-wave
+messages--thought I heard your voices a couple of times. So I doubled
+back, and located what is left of Rodan's camp, and yours and Les'
+initialed blastoff drums, which I've brought along in my trailer. Lucky
+a trader needs an atom-powered tractor that can move at night. I
+followed your tracks, though going through rough country, you were
+screened from my radio calls until I was almost on you. Though on my
+first pass, when you were still in camp, I guess I could have reached
+you by bouncing a beam off a mountain top, had I known... Well, it
+doesn't matter, now. I'm out of stock, again, and full of money--got to
+head back to Serene... You were trying for the Tovie station, eh?"
+
+"What else could we do?"
+
+"I see what you mean, Frank. If you could have made it, and missed
+getting shot by some trigger-happy guard--where a frontier isn't even
+supposed to exist--they probably would have held you for a while, and
+then let you go."
+
+"About the rest of the Bunch?" Frank Nelsen prompted.
+
+"The Kuzaks got to the Belt okay--though they had to fight off some
+rough and humorous characters. Storey reached his Mars. Charlie Reynolds
+and Two-and-Two got to Venus, and hooked up with the exploring
+expedition. Tiflin? Who knows?"
+
+"Ramos?"
+
+"Ah--a real disappointing case, Frank. Darn wild idiot who ought to be
+probing the farther reaches of the solar system, got himself a job in a
+chemical plant in Serene. A synthesizing retort exploded. He was burned
+pretty bad. Just out of the hospital when I last left. It was on account
+of a woman that he was on the Moon at all."
+
+"Eileen, the Queen of Serene? Gimp!--is _that_ so, too?"
+
+"Yep--sort of. Our Eileen. Back in Jarviston, Ramos found out that she
+was there. She's a good kid. Even admits that she hasn't got much
+competition, on a mostly--yet--masculine world... Well, I guess we start
+rolling, eh? I didn't want to jolt any of you poor sick people, so I
+camped. Let's get you all into Archers, for which I have a few spare
+parts left. Then, after we roll up this sealed, air-conditioned tent of
+a familiar material, we can be on our way."
+
+"Just let's watch Rodan--that's all," Frank Nelsen warned.
+
+"Sure--we'll keep him good and dopey with a tranquilizer..."
+
+They aroused Dave Lester and Helen Rodan, helped them armor up,
+explained briefly what the situation was, stuffed Xavier Rodan into his
+Archer, and climbed with him into the sealable cab of the tractor. Here
+they could all remove their helmets.
+
+After several hours of bumping over rugged country, with the tractor's
+headlights blazing through the star-topped blackness, they reached a
+solid trail over a mare. Then they could zip along, almost like on a
+highway. There were other rough stretches, but most of the well selected
+route was smooth. Half the time, Nelsen drove, while Gimp rested or
+slept. They ate spaceman's gruel, heated on a little electric stove. And
+after a certain number of hours, they climbed over the side of the Moon,
+and made their own sunrise. After that, the going seemed easier.
+
+Gimp and Frank were just about talked out, by then. Helen Rodan looked
+after her slumbering father. Otherwise, she and Lester seemed wrapped up
+in each other. Frank hardly listened to the few words they exchanged.
+They kept peering eagerly and worriedly along the trail, that wound
+past fantastic scenery.
+
+Nelsen was eager and tense, himself. Serene, he was thinking with
+gratitude. Back to some of civilization. Back to freedom--if there
+wasn't too much trouble on account of all that had happened. Speeding
+along, they passed the first scattered domes, a hydroponic garden, an
+isolated sun-power plant.
+
+It was another hour before they reached the checking-gate of one of the
+main airlocks. Frank Nelsen didn't try any tricks before the
+white-armored international guards.
+
+"There have been some difficulties," he said. "I think you will want all
+of our names."
+
+"I am Helen Rodan," Helen interrupted. "My father, Xavier Rodan, here,
+is sick. He needs a hospital. I will stay with him. These are our
+friends. They brought us all the way from Far Side."
+
+Within the broad airlock compartment, Lester also got down from the
+tractor. "I'll stay, too," he said. "Go ahead, Frank. You and Gimp have
+had enough."
+
+"A moment," gruffed one of the guards with a slight accent. "We shall
+say who shall do what--passing this lock. Difficulties? Very well.
+Names, and space-fitness cards, please, from everybody. And where you
+will be staying, here in Serene..."
+
+Gimp and Frank got permission to pass the lock after about fifteen
+minutes. Without Helen and Les agreeing to stay, it might have been
+tougher. They spoke their thanks. For the time being, Frank was free to
+breathe open air under big, stellene domes. But he didn't know in what
+web of questioning and accusation he might soon be entangled.
+
+Looking back to his first action against Rodan--with a sharpened trowel
+that had pierced the wall of a stellene dome--eventually leading up to
+Dutch's death, and very nearly precipitating his own demise and that of
+his other companions, he wondered if it wouldn't be regarded as
+criminal. Now he wasn't absolutely sure, himself, that it hadn't been
+criminal--or Moonmad. Yet he didn't hate Xavier Rodan any less.
+
+"The S.O.B. might just get sent to a mental hospital--at the worst,"
+Gimp growled loyally. "Well, come on, Frank--let's forget it, ditch our
+Archies at the Hostel, get a culture steak, and look around to see what
+you've missed..."
+
+So that was how Frank Nelsen began to get acquainted with
+Serene--fifteen thousand population, much of it habitually transient; a
+town of vast aspirations, careful discipline, little spotless cubicles
+for living quarters, pay twenty dollars a day just for the air you
+breathe, Earth-beer twenty dollars a can, a dollar if synthesized
+locally. Hydroponic sunflowers, dahlias, poppies, tomatoes, cabbages,
+all grown enormous in this slight gravity. New chemical-synthesis
+plants, above ground and far below; metal refineries, shops making
+electronic and nuclear devices, and articles of fabric, glass, rubber,
+plastic, magnesium. A town of supply warehouses and tanks around a great
+space port; a town of a thousand unfinished enterprises, and as many
+paradoxes and inconveniencies. No water in fountains, water in toilets
+only during part of an Earth-day. English, French, Spanish, German,
+Greek and Arabic spoken, to mention a few of the languages. An
+astronomical observatory; a selenographic museum, already open, though
+less than half completed. And of course it was against the law not to
+work for more than seventy-two consecutive hours. And over the whole
+setup there seemed to hang the question: Can Man really live in space,
+or does his invasion of it signal his final downfall?
+
+At a certain point, Nelsen gave up trying to figure out all of the
+aspects of Serene. Of course he and Gimp had one inevitable goal. There
+was a short walk, Gimp hopping along lightly; then there was an elevator
+ride downward, for the place, aggressively named _The First Stop_, was
+nestled cosily in the lava-rock underlying the dust of Mare Serenitatis.
+
+It had an arched interior, bar, stage, blaring jukebox, tables, and a
+shoulder-to-shoulder press of tough men, held in curious orderliness in
+part by the rigid caution needed in their dangerous and artificial
+existences, in part by the presence of police, and in part perhaps by a
+kind of stored-up awe and tenderness for girls--all girls--who had been
+out of their lives for too long. In a way, it was a crude, tawdry joint;
+but it was not the place that Frank and Gimp--or even many of the
+others--had come to see.
+
+Eileen Sands was there, dancing crazy, swoopy stuff, possible at lunar
+gravity, as Frank and Gimp entered. Her costume was no feminine fluff;
+cheesecake, of which she presumably didn't have much, was not on
+display, either. Dungarees, still? No, not quite. Slender black
+trousers, like some girls use for ballet practice, instead.
+
+Maybe she wasn't terribly good, or sufficiently drilled, yet, in her
+routines. But she had a pert, appealing face, a quick smile; her hair
+was brushed close to her head. She was a cute, utterly bold pixy to
+remember smiling at you--just you--like a spirit of luck and love, far
+out in the thick silence.
+
+Her caper ended. She was puffing and laughing and bowing--and maybe
+sweating, some, besides. The clapping was thunderous. She came out again
+and sang _Fire Streak_ in a haunting, husky voice.
+
+Meanwhile, a barman touched Frank's and Gimp's shoulders. "Hines and
+Nelsen? She has spotted you two. She wants to see you in her quarters."
+
+"Hi, lads," she laughed. "Beer for old times?... You look like hell,
+Frank. Brief me on the missing chapter. You had everybody scared."
+
+"Uh-uh--you first, Your Majesty," Nelsen chuckled in return.
+
+She wrinkled her nose at him. "Well, I got here. There was a need.
+Somebody decided that I was the best available talent. This is the first
+step. Maybe I'll have my own spot--bigger and better. Or get back to my
+own regular self, working Out There with the men."
+
+Maybe it was bad taste, but Nelsen felt like teasing. "Ever hear of a
+person named Miguel Ramos?"
+
+That didn't bother her. She shrugged. "Still around, though I hope not
+for long, the buffoon! Who could ever put up with a show-off small boy
+like that for more than ten minutes? Besides, he's wasting himself. Why
+should he pick me for a bad influence...? Now, your chapter, Frank."
+
+He told her the story, briefly.
+
+At last she said, "Frank, you must be spiritually all jammed up. Gimp is
+set, I know..."
+
+In a few minutes more, Eileen introduced him to a girl. Jennie Harper
+had large dark eyes, and a funny, achy sort of voice. Gimp disappeared
+discreetly with his date. Frank and Jennie sat at a table in a private
+booth, high up in the arches of _The First Stop_, and watched Eileen do
+another number.
+
+Jennie explained herself. "I'm another one. I've got to go where the
+heroes go. That's me--Frankie, is it? So I'm here..."
+
+She had a perfume. While he was Rodan's prisoner for two and a half
+months, there were special things that had driven him almost wild. Now
+he made hints, inevitably.
+
+"I don't need Eileen to tell me you're a good guy, Frank," she said with
+a small, warm smile. "We're just entertainers. They wouldn't let us be
+anything else--here..."
+
+It hardly mattered what else they said. Maybe it was fifteen hours later
+that Frank Nelsen found himself walking along a stellene-covered
+causeway, looking for Left Foot Gimp Hines. He had memories of a tiny
+room, very neat and compact, with even a single huge rose in a vase on
+the bed table. But the time had a fierce velvet-softness that tried to
+draw him to it forevermore. It was like the grip of home, and the lost
+Earth, and the fear that he would chicken out and return.
+
+He found Gimp, who seemed worried. "You might get stuck, here, on
+account of Rodan," he said. "Even I might. We'd better go see."
+
+Nelsen had bitter, vengeful thoughts of Rodan being set at liberty--with
+himself the culprit.
+
+The official at the police building was an American--a gruff one, but
+human. "I got the dope from the girl, Nelsen," he said. "And from
+Lester. You're lucky. Rodan confessed to a murder--another
+employee--just before he hired you. Apparently just before he made his
+discovery. He was afraid that the kid would try to horn in. Oh, he's not
+insane--not enough to escape punishment, anyhow. Here the official means
+of execution is simple exposure to the vacuum. Now, if you want to leave
+Serene, you'd better do so soon, before somebody decides to subpoena you
+as a witness..."
+
+Frank felt a humbled wonder. Was Rodan really accountable, or was it the
+Moon and space, working on people's emotions?
+
+Leaving the building, Frank and Gimp found Dave Lester and Helen Rodan
+entering. They talked for a moment. Then Lester said:
+
+"Helen's had lots of trouble. And we're in love. What do we do, guys?"
+
+"Dunno--get married?" Nelsen answered, shrugging. "It must happen here,
+too. Oh, I get it--living costs, off the Earth, are high. Well--I've got
+what Helen's father paid me. Of course I have to replace the missing
+parts of my equipment. But I'll loan you five hundred. Wish it could be
+more."
+
+"Shucks, I can do better," Gimp joined in. "Pay us sometime, when you
+see us."
+
+"I--I don't know..." Lester protested worriedly, like an honest man.
+
+But Gimp and Frank were already shelling out bills, like vagabonds who
+happened to be flush.
+
+"Poor simpletons," Gimp wailed facetiously afterwards, when they had
+moved out of earshot. "Even here, it happens. But that's worse. And if
+her Daddy had stayed human, she might almost have been an heiress...
+Well, come on, Frank. I've got my space gear out of hock, and my tractor
+sold. And an old buddy of ours is waiting for us at a repair and
+outfitting shop near the space port. I hope we didn't jump the gun,
+assuming you want to get out into the open again, too?"
+
+"You didn't," Nelsen answered. "You sure you don't want to look at
+Rodan's site--see if we can find any more Martian stuff?"
+
+Gimp looked regretful for a second. "Uh-uh--it's jinxed," he said.
+
+Ramos, scarred, somewhat, along the neck and left cheek, and a bit stiff
+of shoulder, was rueful but very eager. Frank's gutted gear was out of
+the blastoff drum, and spread around the shop. Most of it was already
+fixed. Ramos had been helping.
+
+"Well, Frankie--here's one loose goose who is really glad to be leaving
+Luna," he said. "Are the asteroids all right with you for a start?"
+
+"They are," Nelsen told him.
+
+"Passing close to Mars, which is lined up orbitally along our route,"
+Gimp put in. "Did you beam Two-and-Two and Charlie on Venus?"
+
+"Uh-huh--they're just kind of bored," Ramos said. "I even got Storey at
+the Martian Survey Station. But he's going out into those lousy
+thickets, again. Old Paul, in Jarviston, sounds the same. Can't get him
+right now--North America is turned away... I couldn't pinpoint the
+Kuzaks in the Belt, but that's not unusual."
+
+"I'll finance a load of trade stuff for them," Gimp chuckled. "We ought
+to be able to move out in about five hours, eh?"
+
+"Should," Ramos agreed. "Weapons--we might need 'em this trip--and
+everything else is about ready."
+
+"So we'll get a good meal, and then buy our load," Frank enthused.
+
+He felt the texture of his deflated bubb. The hard lines of deep-space
+equipment quickened his pulses. He forgot the call of Earth. He felt as
+free and easy as a hobo with cosmic dust in his hair.
+
+Blastoff from Serene's port, even with three heavily loaded trader
+rockets, was comparatively easy and inexpensive.
+
+Out in orbit, three reunited Bunch members inflated and rigged their
+bubbs. For Nelsen it seemed an old, splendid feeling. They lashed the
+supplies from the trader rockets into great bundles that they could tow.
+
+Before the rockets began to descend, the trio of beautiful, fragile
+rings, pushed by ions streaming from their centers, started to
+accelerate.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+"It's the life of Reilly, Paul," Ramos was beaming back to Jarviston,
+Minnesota, not many hours after Frank Nelsen, Gimp Hines and he started
+out from the Moon, with their ultimate destination--after the delivery
+of their loads of supplies to the Kuzaks--tentatively marked in their
+minds as Pallastown on Pallas, the Golden Asteroid.
+
+Ramos was riding a great bale, drawn by his spinning and still
+accelerating ring, to the hub of which it was attached by a thin steel
+cable, passed through a well-oiled swivel bolt. One of his booted feet
+was hooked under a bale lashing, to keep him from drifting off in the
+absence of weight. He held a rifle casually, but at alert, across his
+knees. Its needle-like bullets were not intended to kill. They were tiny
+rockets that could flame during the last second of a long flight, homing
+in on a target by means of a self-contained and marvelously miniaturized
+radar guidance system. Their tips were anesthetic.
+
+The parabolic antenna mounted on the elbow of Ramos' Archer, swung a
+tiny bit, holding the beam contact with Paul Hendricks automatically,
+after it was made. Yet Ramos kept his arm very still, to avoid making
+the slender beam swing wide. Meanwhile, he was elaborating on his first
+statement:
+
+"... Not like before. No terrestrial ground-to-orbit weight problem to
+beat, this trip, Paul. And we've got some of about everything that the
+Moon could provide, thanks to Gimp, who paid the bill. Culture steak in
+the shadow refrigerators. That's all you need, Out Here, to keep things
+frozen--just a shadow... We've got hydroponic vegetables, tinned bread,
+chocolate, beer. We've got sun stoves to cook on. We've got numerous
+luxury items not meant for the stomach. We're living high for a while,
+anyhow. Of course we don't want to use up too much of the fancy stuff.
+Tell Otto Kramer about us..."
+
+Frank Nelsen and Gimp Hines, who were riding the rigging of their
+respective bubbs, which were also hauling big bales of supplies, were
+part of the trans-spatial conversation, too. There was enough leakage
+from Ramos' tightened beam, here at its source, for them to hear what he
+said.
+
+But when, after a moment, Paul Hendricks answered from the distance,
+"Easy with the talk, fella--overinterested people might be listening,"
+they suddenly forgot their own enthusiasms. They realized. Their hides
+tingled unpleasantly.
+
+Ramos' dark face hardened. Still he spoke depreciatingly. "Shucks, Paul,
+this is a well-focused beam. Besides it's pointing Earthward and
+sunward; not toward the Belt, where most of the real mean folks are..."
+But he sounded defensive, and very soon he said, "'Bye for now, Paul."
+
+A little later, Frank Nelsen contacted Art Kuzak, out in the Asteroid
+Belt, across a much greater stretch of space. He thought he was cautious
+when he said, "We're riding a bit heavy--for you guys..." But after the
+twenty minute interval it took to get an answer back over ten
+light-minutes of distance traversed twice--186,000 miles for every
+second, spanned by slender threads of radio energy which were of
+low-power but of low-loss low-dispersal, too, explaining their
+tremendous range--Art Kuzak's warning was carefully cryptic, yet plain
+to Nelsen and his companions.
+
+"Thanks for all the favors," he growled dryly. "Now keep still, and be
+_real_ thoughtful, Frankie Boy. That also goes for you other two naive
+boneheads..."
+
+Open space, like open, scarcely touched country, had produced its
+outlaws. But the distances were far greater. The pressures of need were
+infinitely harsher.
+
+"Yeah, there's a leader named Fessler," Gimp rasped, with his phone
+turned low so that only his companions could hear him. "But there are
+other names... Art's right. We'd better keep our eyes open and our
+mouths shut."
+
+Asteroid miners who had had poor luck, or who had been forced to kill to
+win even the breath of life; colonists who had left Mars after terrible
+misfortunes, there; adventurers soured and maddened by months in a
+vacuum armor, smelling the stench of their own unwashed bodies; men
+flush with gains, and seeking merely to relieve the tensions of their
+restrained, artificial existences in a wild spree; refugees from rigid
+Tovie conformism--all these composed the membership of the wandering,
+robbing, hijacking bands, which, though not numerous, were significant.
+Once, most of these men had been reasonably well-balanced individuals,
+easily lost in a crowd. But the Big Vacuum could change that.
+
+Ramos, Hines, and Nelsen had heard the stories. Now, their watchfulness
+became almost exaggerated. They felt their inexperience. They made no
+more radio beam contacts. One of them was always on lookout, clutching a
+rifle, peering all around, glancing every few seconds at the
+miniaturized radar screen set inside the collar of his helmet. But the
+spherical sky remained free of any unexplained blip or luminous speck.
+Fragments of conversations picked up in their phones--widely separated
+asteroid-miners talking to each other, for the most part--obviously came
+from far away. There was a U.S.S.F. bubb cruising a few million miles
+off. Otherwise, the enormous emptiness was safely and perversely empty,
+all around.
+
+They kept accelerating. For a planned interval, they enjoyed all the
+good things. They found that masculine guardedness and laziness went
+well together. They ate themselves full. Like Mitch Storey had once
+done, they all started hydroponic gardens inside their bubbs. In the
+pleasant, steamy sun-warmth of those stellene interiors, they bounced
+back and forth from elastic wall to elastic wall, with gravity
+temporarily at zero because they had stopped the spin of their bubbs.
+Thus they loosened their muscles, worked up a sweat. Afterwards they
+dozed, slept, listened to beamed radio music or taped recordings of
+their own. They smiled at pin-up pictures, read microfilmed books
+through a viewer, looked at the growing plants around them.
+
+There was an arrogance in them, because they had succeeded in bringing
+so much of home out here. There was even a mood like that of a lost,
+languid beach in the tropics. And how was that possible, with only a
+thin skin of stellene between them and frigid nothing?
+
+Ramos said just about what he had said--long ago, it seemed, now.
+"Nuts--the Big Vacuum ain't so tough." But he amended quickly, "Yeah, I
+know, Frank--don't scowl. When you aren't looking, it can up and kill
+you. Like with my Uncle Jose, only worse. He was a powder monkey in
+Mexico. It got so he thought dynamite was his friend. Well, there wasn't
+even anything to put in his coffin..."
+
+The luxurious interlude passed, and they reverted mostly to Spartan
+meals of space-gruel, except for some fresh-grown lettuce. Mars became
+an agate bead, then a hazy sphere with those swirled, almost fluid
+markings, where the spores of a perhaps sentient vegetable life followed
+the paths of thin winds, blowing equatorward from the polar caps of
+hoarfrost.
+
+The three stellene rings bumped lightly on the ten mile chunk of
+captured asteroidal rock and nickel-iron that was Phobos, Mars' nearer
+moon. Gravitation was almost nil. There was no need, here, for rockets,
+to land or take off. The sun-powered ionics were more than enough.
+
+A small observatory, a U.N.-tended between ground-and-orbit rocket port,
+and a few hydroponic garden domes nestled in the jaggedness were about
+all that Phobos had--other than the magnificent view of the Red Planet,
+below.
+
+Gimp Hines' freckled face shone in the ruddy light. "_I'm_ going down,"
+he declared. "Just for a few days, to look around near the Survey
+Station. You guys?"
+
+Ramos shrugged, almost disinterested. "People have been there--some
+still are. And what good is poking around the Station? But who wants to
+goof up, going into the thickets? Others have done that, often enough.
+Me for Pallastown, and maybe lots farther, pal."
+
+Frank Nelsen wasn't that blase. On the Moon, he had seen some of the old
+Mars of advanced native technology, now long extinct. But there was also
+the recent Mars of explorers and then footloose adventurers, wondering
+what they could find to do with this quiet, pastel-tinted world of
+tremendous history. Then had come the colonists, with their tractors and
+their rolls of stellene to make sealed dwellings and covered fields in
+that thin, almost oxygenless atmosphere.
+
+But their hopes to find peace and isolation from the crowded and
+troubled Earth by science and hard work even in so harsh a place, had
+come into conflict with a third Mars that must have begun soon after the
+original inhabitants had been destroyed. Though maybe it had had its
+start, billions of years before, on the planets of another star. The
+thickets had seemed harmless. Was this another, _different_
+civilization, that had risen at last in anger, using its own methods of
+allergy, terrible repellant nostalgia, and mental distortions?
+
+Frank felt the call of mystery which was half dread. But then he
+shrugged. "Uh-uh, Gimp. I'd like to go down, too. But the gravity is
+twice that of the Moon--getting up and down isn't so easy. Besides, once
+when I made a stopover in space, after a nice short hop, I got into
+trouble. I'll pass this one up. I'd like to talk to Mitch Storey,
+though."
+
+They all tried to reach him, beaming the Survey Station at the edge of
+Syrtis Major, the great equatorial wedge of blue-green growths on the
+floor of a vanished ocean, first.
+
+"Mitchell Storey is not around right now," a young man's voice informed
+them. "He wandered off again, three days ago. Does it often... No--we
+don't know where to reach him..."
+
+Widening their beams over the short range of considerably less than four
+thousand miles, they tried to call Mitch directly. No luck. Contact
+should have been easy. But of course he could be wandering with his
+Archer helmet-phone turned off.
+
+Considering the reputation of Mars, Nelsen was a bit worried. But he had
+a perhaps treacherous belief that Mitch was special enough to take care
+of himself.
+
+Ramos was impatient. "We'll hook old Mitch on our party line, sometime,
+Frank," he said. "Right now we ought to get started. Space is still nice
+and empty ahead, toward the Kuzaks and Pallastown. That condition might
+not last... Gimp, are you honest-to-gosh set on going down to this
+dried-up, museum-world?"
+
+"Umhmm. See you soon, though," Gimp answered, grinning. "I'll leave my
+bubb and my load of supplies up here on Phobos. Be back for it probably
+in a week. And there'll be a freight-bubb cluster, or something, for me
+to join up with, and follow you Out..."
+
+Nelsen and Ramos left Gimp Hines before he boarded the winged skip-glide
+rocket that would take him below. Parting words flew back and forth.
+"See you... Take care... Over the Milky Way, suckers..."
+
+Then they were standing off from Mars and its two moons. During the next
+several Earth-days of time, they accelerated with all the power that
+their bubb ionics could wring out of the sunshine, weakened now, with
+distance. They knew about where to find the Kuzaks. But contact was
+weeks off. When they were close enough, they could radio safely,
+checking the exact position of Art's and Joe's supply post. And they
+knew enough to steer clear of Ceres, the largest Asteroid, which was
+Tovie-occupied. All the signs were good. They were well-armed and
+watchful. They should have made the trip without trouble.
+
+Ahead, dim still with distance, but glinting with a pinkish, metallic
+shine which made it much brighter than it would otherwise have been, was
+Pallas, which Ramos watched like a beacon.
+
+"Eldorado," he said once, cockily, as if he remembered something from
+the Spanish part of his background.
+
+They got almost three-quarters across that unimaginable stretch of
+emptiness before there was a bad sign. It was a catcall--literally--in
+their helmet phones. "Meow!" It was falsely plaintive and innocuous. It
+was a maliciously childish promise of trouble.
+
+A little later, there was a chuckle. "Be cavalier, fellas. Watch
+yourselves. I mean it." The tone had a strange intensity.
+
+Ramos was on lookout, then, with eyes, radar and rifle. But the spoken
+message had been too brief to get a fix on the direction of its radio
+waves.
+
+Ramos stiffened. With his phone power turned very low, he said,
+"Frank--lots of people say 'Be cavalier', nowadays. But that includes
+one of the old Bunch. The voice _might_ match, too."
+
+"Uh-huh--Tiflin, the S.O.B.," Nelsen growled softly.
+
+For ten hours, nothing else happened. Then there were some tiny
+radar-blips, which could have indicated meteors. Nelsen and Ramos
+changed the angle of the ion guides of their ionic motors to move their
+bubbs from course, slightly, and dodge. During the first hour, they were
+successful. But then there were more blips, in greater numbers.
+
+Fist-sized chunks flicked through their vehicles almost simultaneously.
+Air puffed out. Their rings collapsed under them--the sealer was no good
+for holes of such size. At once, the continued spin of the bubbs wound
+them, like limp laundry, into knots.
+
+While Nelsen and Ramos were trying to untangle the mess, visible specks
+appeared in the distance. They fired at them. Then something slammed
+hard into the fleshy part of Nelsen's hip, penetrating his armor, and
+passing on out, again. The sealing gum in the Archer's skin worked
+effectively on the needle-like punctures, but the knockout drug had been
+delivered.
+
+As his awareness faded, Nelsen fired rapidly, and saw Ramos doing the
+same--until his hand slapped suddenly at his side...
+
+After that there was nothing, until, for a few seconds, Frank Nelsen
+regained a blurred consciousness. He was lying, unarmored, inside a
+bubb--perhaps his own, which had been patched and reinflated. All around
+him was loud laughter and talk, the gurgle of liquor, the smells of
+cooked meat, a choking concentration of tobacco smoke. Music blared
+furiously.
+
+"Busht out shummore!" somebody was hollering. "We got jackpot--the whole
+fanshy works! I almost think I'm back in Sputtsberg--wherever hell that
+is... But where's the wimmin? Nothing but dumb, prissy pitchers! Not
+even _good_ pitchers...!"
+
+There were guys of all sizes, mostly young, some armored, some not. One
+with a pimply face stumbled near. Frank Nelsen choked down his fury at
+the vandalism. He had a blurred urge to find a certain face, and almost
+thought he succeeded. But everything, including his head, was a fuzzy
+jumble.
+
+"Hey!" the pimply guy gurgled. "Hey--Boss! Our benefactors--they're half
+awake! You should shleep, baby greenhorns...!"
+
+A large man with shovel teeth ambled over. Frank managed half to rise.
+He met the blow and gave some of it back. Ramos was doing likewise,
+gamely. Then Nelsen's head zeroed out again in a pyrotechnic burst...
+
+He awoke to almost absolute silence, and to the turning of the whole
+universe around him. But of course it was himself that was
+rotating--boots over head. There was a bad smell of old sweat, and
+worse.
+
+His hip felt numb from the needle puncture. In all except the most vital
+areas, those slim missiles would not usually cause death, or even
+serious injury; but soon the wound would ache naggingly.
+
+First, Frank Nelsen hardly knew where he was. Then he understood that he
+was drifting free in space, in an armor. He thought it was his own until
+he failed to recognize the scuffed, grimy interior. Even the workshirt
+he was wearing wasn't the new blue one he had put on, it seemed only
+hours ago. It was a greasy grey.
+
+Etched into the scratched plastic of the helmet that covered his head,
+he saw "Archer III--ser. no. 828211." And casually stuck into the
+gasketted rim of the collar, was a note, pencilled jaggedly on a scrap
+of paper:
+
+"Honest, Greenie, your a pal. All that nice stuff. Thanks a 1,000,000!
+Couple of my boys needed new Archies, bad. Thanks again. You and your
+buddie are not having so bad a brake. These old threes been all over
+hell. They will show you all about Asteroid hopping and mining. So will
+the load-hauling net and tools. Thanks for the little dough, too. Find
+your space fitness card in shirt pocket. We don't need it. Have lots of
+fun. Just remember me as The Stinker."
+
+Frank Nelsen was quivering with anger and scare. He saw that a mended
+steel net, containing a few items, had got wrapped around him with his
+turning. He groped for the ion-guide of the ancient shoulder-ionic, and
+touched a control. Slowly his spin was checked. Meanwhile he untangled
+himself, and saw what must be Ramos, adrift like himself in a battered
+Archer Three, doing the same.
+
+Gradually they managed to ion glide over to each other. Their eyes met.
+They were the butts of a prank that no doubt had been the source of many
+guffaws.
+
+"Did you get a letter, too, Frank?" Ramos asked. For close
+communication, the old helmet-phones still worked okay.
+
+"I did," Nelsen breathed. "Why didn't they just knock us off? Alive, we
+might tell on them."
+
+"Not slow and funny enough, maybe," Ramos answered dolefully. "In these
+broken-down outfits, we might not live to tell. Besides, even with these
+notes for clues, who'd ever find out who they are, way out here?"
+
+Nelsen figured that all this was probably the truth. In the Belt, life
+was cheap. Death got to be a joke.
+
+"There was an ox of a guy with big teeth!" he hissed furiously. "Thought
+I saw Tiflin, too--the S.O.B.! Cripes, do I always land in the soup?"
+
+"The bossman with the teeth, I remember," Ramos grated. "Tiflin I don't
+know about. Could be... Hell, though--what now? I suppose we're going in
+about the same direction and at the same speed as before? Have to watch
+the sun and planets to make sure. Did they leave us any instruments?
+Meanwhile, we might try to decelerate. I'd like to get out to Pluto
+sometime, but not equipped like this."
+
+"We'll check everything--see how bad off they left us," Nelsen said.
+
+So that was what they did, after they had set their decrepit
+shoulder-ionics to slow them down in the direction of the Belt.
+
+Each of their hauling nets contained battered chisels, hammers, saws for
+metal, a radiation counter, a beaten-up-looking pistol, some old
+position-finding instruments, including a wristwatch that had seen much
+better days to be used as a chronometer. There were also two large
+flasks of water and two month-supply boxes of dehydrated
+space-gruel--these last items obviously granted them from their own, now
+vanished stores. Here was weird generosity--or perhaps just more
+ghoulish fun to give them the feeble hope of survival.
+
+Now they checked each other's Archer Threes as well as they could while
+they were being worn. No use even to try to communicate over any
+distance with the worn-out radio transmitters. The nuclear batteries
+were ninety-percent used up, which still left considerable
+time--fortunately, because they had to add battery power to the normally
+sun-energized shoulder-ionics, in order to get any reasonable
+decelerating effect out of them. Out here, unlike on the Moon at night,
+the air-restorers could also take direct solar energy through their
+windows. They needed current only for their pumps. But the green
+chlorophane, key to the freshening and re-oxygenation of air, was
+getting slightly pale. The moisture-reclaimers were--by luck--not as bad
+as some of the other vital parts.
+
+Ramos touched his needled side. His wry grin showed some of his reckless
+humor. "It's not utterly awful, yet," he said. "How do you feel?"
+
+Nelsen's hip hurt. And he found that he had an awful hangover from the
+knockout drug, and the slapping around he had received. "Bad enough," he
+answered. "Maybe if we ate something..."
+
+They took small, sealed packets of dehydrated food in through their
+chest airlocks, unsleeved their arms, emptied the packets into plastic
+squeeze bottles from the utensil racks before them, injected water from
+the pipettes which led to their shoulder tanks, closed the bottles and
+let the powdered gruel swell as it reabsorbed moisture. The gruel turned
+out hot all by itself. For it was a new kind which contained an
+exothermic ingredient. They ate, in the absence of gravity, by squeezing
+the bottles.
+
+"Guess we'll have to become asteroid-hoppers--miners--like the slob
+said," Nelsen growled. "Well--I _did_ want to try everything..."
+
+This was to become the pattern of their lives. But not right away. They
+still had an incomplete conception of the vast distances. They hurtled
+on, certainly decelerating considerably, for days, yet, before they were
+in the Belt. Even that looked like enormous emptiness.
+
+And the brightened speck of Pallas was too far to one side. Tovie Ceres
+was too near on the other side--left, it would be, if they considered
+the familiar northern hemisphere stars of Earth as showing "up"
+position. The old instruments had put them off-course. Still, they had
+to bear even farther left to try to match the direction and the average
+orbital speed--about twelve miles per second--of the Belt. Otherwise,
+small pieces of the old planet, hurtling in another direction--and/or at
+a different velocity--than themselves, could smash them.
+
+Maybe they thought that they would be located and picked up--the gang
+that had robbed and dumped them had found them easily enough. But there,
+again, was a paradox of enormity. Bands might wait for suckers somewhere
+beyond Mars. Elsewhere, there could be nobody for millions of miles.
+
+They saw their first asteroid--a pitted, mesoderm fragment of
+nickel-iron from middle-deep in the blasted planet. It was just drifting
+slightly before them. So they had achieved the correct orbital speed.
+They ion-glided to the chunk, and began to search clumsily for
+worthwhile metal. It was fantastic that somebody had been there before
+them, chiselling and sawing out a greyish material, of which there was a
+little left that made the needles of their radiation counters swing
+wildly.
+
+They got a few scraps of the stuff to put into the nets which they were
+towing.
+
+"For luck," Ramos laughed. "Without it we'll never pay J. John."
+
+"Shut up. Big deal," Nelsen snapped.
+
+"Okay. Shut up it is!" Ramos answered him.
+
+So they stayed silent until they couldn't stand that, either. Everything
+was getting on their nerves.
+
+Their next asteroids were mere chips a foot long--core fragments of the
+planet, heavy metals that had sunk deep. No crust material of any
+normally formed world could ever show such wealth. It gleamed with a
+pale yellow shine, and made Ramos' sunken eyes light up with an ancient
+fever, until he remembered, and until Nelsen said:
+
+"Not for the gold, anymore, pal. Common, out here. So it's almost
+worthless, everywhere. Not much use as an industrial metal. But the
+osmium and uranium alloyed with it are something else. One hunk for each
+of our nets. Too bad there isn't more."
+
+The uranium was driving their radiation-counters wild.
+
+"Could we drag it, if there was more?" Ramos growled. "With just
+sun-power on these lousy shoulder-ionics?"
+
+Everything was going sour, even Ramos. After a long deceleration they
+were afraid to draw any more power for propulsion from their weakened
+batteries. They needed the remaining current for the moisture-reclaimers
+and the pumps of the air-restorers--a relatively much lighter but vital
+drain. The sunlight was weak way out here. Worse, the solar
+thermocouples to power the ionics were almost shot. They tried to fix
+them up, succeeding a little, but using far more time than they had
+expected. Meanwhile, the changed positions of the various large
+asteroids, moving in their own individual orbits, lost them any definite
+idea of where the Kuzaks' supply post was, and the dizzying distance to
+Pallas, with only half-functioning ionics to get them there, fuddled
+them in their inexperience.
+
+Soon their big hope was that some reasonable asteroid-hoppers would come
+within the few thousand mile range of their weakened transmitters. Then
+they could call, and be picked up.
+
+Mostly to keep themselves occupied, they hunted paymetal, taking only
+the very best that they could find, to keep the towage mass down. Right
+from the start they cut their food ration--a good thing, because one
+month went, and then two, as near as they could figure. Cripes, how much
+longer could they last?
+
+Often they actually encouraged their minds to create illusions. Frank
+would hold his body stiff, and look at the stars. After a while he would
+get the soothing impression that he was swimming on his back in a lake,
+and was looking up at the night sky.
+
+Mostly, they were out of the regular radio channels. But sometimes,
+because of the movement of distant bubb clusters that must be kept in
+touch, they heard music and news briefly, again. They heard ominous
+reports from the ever more populous Earth. Now it was about areas of
+ocean to become boundaried and to be "farmed" for food. Territorial
+disputes were now extending far beyond the land. Once more, the weapons
+were being uncovered. Of course there were repercussions out here. Ceres
+Station was beaming pronouncements, too--rattling the saber.
+
+Nelsen and Ramos listened avidly because it was life, because it was
+contact with lost things, because it was not dead silence.
+
+Their own tribulations deepened.
+
+"Cripes but my feet stink!" Ramos once laughed. "They must be rotten.
+They're sore, and they itch something awful, and I can't scratch them,
+or change my socks, even. The fungus, I guess. Just old athlete's foot."
+
+"The stuff is crawling up my legs," Nelsen growled.
+
+They knew that the Kuzaks, maybe Two-and-Two, Reynolds, Gimp, Storey,
+must be trying to call them. They kept listening in their helmet-phones.
+But this time Frank Nelsen knew that he'd gotten himself a real haystack
+of enormity in which to double for a lost needle. The slender beams
+could comb it futilely and endlessly, in the hope of a fortunate
+accident. Only once they heard, "Nelsen! Ra..." The beam swept on. It
+could have been Joe Kuzak's voice. But inevitably, somewhere, there had
+to be a giving up point for the searchers.
+
+"This is where I came in," Nelsen said bitterly. "Damn these beam
+systems that are so delicate and important!"
+
+They did pick up the voices of scattered asteroid-hoppers, talking
+cautiously back and forth to each other, far away. "... Got me
+pinpointed, Ed? Coming in almost empty, this trip. Not like the last...
+Stake me to a run into Pallastown...?" Most of such voices sounded
+regular, friendly.
+
+Once they heard wild laughter, and what could have been a woman's
+scream. But it could have been other things, too.
+
+On another occasion, they almost believed that they had their rescue
+made. Even their worn-out direction and distance finders could place the
+ten or so voices as originating not much over a hundred miles away. But
+they checked their trembling enthusiasm just in time. That was sheerest
+luck. The curses, and the savage, frightened snarls were all wrong. "If
+we don't catch us somebody, soon..."
+
+Out here, the needs could get truly primitive. Oxygen, water, food,
+repair parts for vital equipment. Cannibalism and blood-drinking could
+also be part of blunt necessity.
+
+Nelsen and Ramos were fortunate. Twenty miles off was a haze against the
+stars--a cluster of small mesoderm fragments. Drawing power for their
+shoulder-ionics from their almost spent nuclear batteries, they glided
+toward the cluster, and got into its midst, doubling themselves up to
+look as much like the other chunks as possible. They were like hiding
+rats for hours, until long after the distant specks moved past.
+
+While he waited, Frank Nelsen's mind fumbled back to the lost phantom of
+Jarviston, Minnesota, again. To a man named Jig Hollins who had got
+married, stayed home. Yellow? Hell...! Nelsen imagined the comforts he
+might have had in the Space Force. He coaxed up a dream girl--blonde,
+dark, red-headed--with an awful wistfulness. He thought of Nance Codiss,
+the neighbor kid. He fumbled at the edge of a vast, foggy vision, where
+the wanderlust and spacelust of a man, and needs of the expanding race,
+seemed to blend with his home-love and love-love, and to become,
+impossibly, a balanced unit...
+
+Later--much later--he heard young, green asteroid-hoppers yakking
+happily about girls and about how magnificent it was, out here.
+
+"Haw-haw," he heard Ramos mock.
+
+"Yeah," Nelsen said thickly. "Lucky for them that they aren't near
+us--being careless with their beams, that way..."
+
+Frank Nelsen sneered, despising these innocent novices, sure that he
+could have beaten and robbed them without compunction. That far he had
+come toward understanding the outlaws, the twisted men of the Belt.
+
+Ramos and he seemed to go on for an indefinite period longer. In a
+sense, they toughened. But toward the last they seemed to blunder
+slowly in the mind-shadows of their weakening body forces. They had a
+little food left, and water from the moisture-reclaimers. At
+zero-gravity, where physical exertion is slight, men can get along on
+small quantities of food. The sweetish, starchy liquid that they could
+suck through a tube from the air-restorers--it was a by-product of the
+photosynthetic process--might even have sustained them for a
+considerable interval.
+
+But the steady weakening of their nuclear batteries was another matter.
+The pumps of their air-restorers and moisture-reclaimers were dependent
+on current. Gradually the atmosphere they breathed was getting worse.
+But from reports they had read and TV programs they had seen long ago,
+they found themselves another faint hope, and worked on it. With only
+solar power--derived through worn-out thermocouple units--to feed their
+uncertain ionics, they could change course only very slowly, now.
+
+Yet maybe they had used up their bad luck. At last they came to a
+surface-fragment a couple of hundred yards long. They climbed over its
+edge. The thin sunshine hit dried soil, and something like corn-stubble
+in rows. Ahead was a solid stone structure, half flattened. Beside it a
+fallen trunk showed its roots. Vegetation was charred black by the
+absolute dryness of space. There was a fragment of a road, a wall, a
+hillside.
+
+Here, there must have been blue sky, thin, frosty wind. The small,
+Mars-sized planet had been far from the sun. Yet perhaps the greenhouse
+effect of a high percentage of carbon dioxide in its atmosphere and the
+radioactive heat of its interior had helped warm it. At least it had
+been warm enough to evolve life of the highest order, eons ago.
+
+Poof had gone the blue sky and this whole world, all in a moment, the
+scattered pieces forming the asteroids. Accident? More likely it was a
+huge, interplanetary missile from competing Mars. The Martians had died,
+too--as surely, though less spectacularly. Radioactive poison,
+perhaps... Here, there had been an instant of unimaginable concussion,
+and of swift-passing flame. The drying out was soon ended. Then, what
+was left had been preserved in a vacuum through sixty millions of years.
+
+Frank Nelsen had glimpsed ancient Mars, preserved on the Moon. Now he
+glimpsed its opponent culture, about which more was generally known.
+
+"It's real," Ramos grunted. "Hoppers find surface-fragments like this,
+quite often."
+
+Nelsen hardly cared about the archeological aspects just then.
+Excitement and hope that became certainty, enlivened his dulled brain.
+
+"An energy source," he grated joyfully. "The Big Answer to Everything,
+out here! And it's always self-contained in their buildings..."
+
+They pushed the collapsed and blackened thing with the slender bones,
+aside. They crept into the flat, horizontal spaces of the dwelling--much
+more like chinks than the rooms that humans would inhabit. They shoved
+away soft, multi-colored fabrics spun from glass-wool, a metal case with
+graduated dials and a lens, baubles of gold and glinting mineral.
+
+In a recess in the masonry, ribboned with glazed copper strips that led
+to clear globes and curious household appliances, they found what they
+wanted. Six little oblong boxes bunched together. Their outsides were
+blue ceramic.
+
+Frank Nelsen and Miguel Ramos began to work gingerly, though the gloves
+of their old Archer Threes were insulated. Here, sixty million years of
+stopped time had made no difference to these nuclear batteries, that,
+because of the universal character of physical laws, almost had to be
+similar in principle to their own. They had almost known that it would
+make no difference. There had been no drain of power through the
+automatic safety switches.
+
+"DC current, huh?" Ramos said, breathing hard of the rotten air in his
+helmet.
+
+"Yeah--gotta be," Frank answered quickly. "Same as from a thermocouple.
+Voltage about two hundred. Lots of current, though. Hope these old
+ionics'll take it."
+
+"We can tap off lower, if we have to... Here--I'll fix you, first...
+Grab this end..."
+
+They had a sweating two hours of rewiring to get done.
+
+With power available, they might even have found a way to distill and
+collect the water, usually held in the form of frost, deep-buried in the
+soil of any large surface-fragment. They might have broken down some of
+the water electrolytically, to provide themselves with more oxygen to
+breathe. But perhaps now such efforts were not necessary.
+
+When they switched in the new current, the pumps of their equipment
+worked better at once. The internal lights of their air-restorers could
+be used again, augmenting the action of the pale sunshine on the
+photosynthetic processes of the chlorophane. The air they breathed
+improved immediately. They tested the power on the shaky ionics, and got
+a good thrust reaction.
+
+"We can make it--I think," Frank Nelsen said, speaking low and quick,
+and with the boldness of an enlivened body and brain. "We'll shoot up,
+out of the Belt entirely, then move parallel to it, backwards--contrary
+to its orbital flow, that is. But being outside of it, we won't chance
+getting splattered by any fragments. Probably avoid some slobs, too.
+We'll decelerate, and cut back in, near Pallas. There'll be a way to
+find the Kuzak twins."
+
+Ramos chuckled recklessly. "Let's not forget to pack these historical
+objects in our nets. Especially that camera, or whatever it is. Money in
+the bank at last, boy..."
+
+But after they set out, it wasn't long before they knew that two people
+were following them. There was no place to hide. And a mocking voice
+came into their phones.
+
+"Hey, Nelsen... Oh, Mex... Wait up... I've been looking for you for over
+three months..."
+
+They tried first to ignore the hail. They tried to speed up. But their
+pursuers still had better propulsion. Nelsen gritted his teeth. He felt
+the certainty of disaster closing in.
+
+"There's just two of them--so far," Ramos hissed. "Maybe here's our
+chance, Frank, to really smear that rat!" Ramos' eyes had a battlelight.
+"All right, Tiflin--approach. These guns are lined up and loaded."
+
+"Aw--is _that_ friendship, Mex?" the renegade seemed to wheedle. But
+insolently, he and his larger companion came on.
+
+"Toss us your pistols," Ramos commanded, as they drifted close, checking
+speed.
+
+Tiflin flashed a smirk that showed that his front teeth were missing.
+"Honest, Mex--do you expect us to do that? Be cavalier--I haven't even
+got a pistol, right now. Neither has Igor, here. Come look-see... Hi,
+Frankie!"
+
+"Just stay there," Nelsen gruffed.
+
+Tiflin cocked his head inside the helmet of a brand-new Archer Six, in a
+burlesqued pose for inspection. He looked bad. His face had turned hard
+and lean. There were scars on it. The nervous, explosive-tempered kid,
+who couldn't have survived out here, had been burned out of him. For a
+second, Nelsen almost thought that the change could be for the good. But
+it was naive to hope that that could happen. Glen Tiflin had become
+passive, yielding, mocking, with an air of secret knowledge withheld.
+What did an attitude like that suggest? Treachery, or, perhaps worse, a
+kind of poised--and poisonous--mental judo?
+
+Nelsen looked at the other man, who wore a Tovie armor. Tall,
+starvation-lean. Horse-faced, with a lugubrious, bumpkinish smile that
+almost had a whimsical appeal.
+
+"Honest--I just picked up Igor--which ain't his real name--in the course
+of my travels," Tiflin offered lightly. "He used to be a comic back in
+Eurasia. He got bored with life on Ceres, and sort of tumbled away."
+
+With his body stiff as a stick, Igor toppled forward, his mouth gaping
+in dismay. He turned completely over, his great boots kicking awkwardly.
+His angular elbows flapped like crow-wings. He righted himself, looked
+astonished, then beatifically self-approving. He burped delicately,
+patted his chest plate, then sniffed in sad protest at the leveled
+pistols.
+
+Now Nelsen and Ramos cast off the loaded nets they had been towing, and
+closed in on this strange pair. Nelsen did the searching, while Ramos
+pointed the guns.
+
+"Haven't even got my shiv anymore, Frankie," Tiflin remarked, casually.
+"Threw it at a guy named Fessler, once. Missed by an inch. Guess it's
+still going--round and round the sun, for millions of years. Longest
+knife throw there ever was."
+
+"Fessler!" Frank snapped. "Now we're getting places, you S.O.B.! The
+funny character that robbed and dumped Ramos and me, I'll bet. Probably
+with your help! You know him, huh?"
+
+"_Knew_--for a while--past tense," Tiflin chuckled wickedly. "Nope--it
+wasn't me that stripped off his armor in space. He wasn't even around,
+anymore, when you beauties got caught. They come and they go."
+
+"But _you_ were around, Tiflin!"
+
+"Maybe not. Maybe I was twenty million miles off."
+
+"Like hell!" Nelsen gritted his teeth, grabbed Tiflin's shoulder, and
+swung his gloved fist as hard as he could against the thin layer of
+rubber and wire over Tiflin's stomach. He struck three times.
+
+"Damn you!" Nelsen snarled. "I promised myself I'd get you good, Tiflin!
+Now tell us what else you and your friends are cooking for us, or by the
+Big Silence, you'll be a drifting, explosively decompressed mummy!"
+
+Frank Nelsen didn't know till now, after exerting himself, how weak
+privations had made him. He felt dizzy.
+
+Tiflin's eyes had glazed slightly, as he and Frank did a slow roll,
+together. He gasped. But that insulting smirk came back.
+
+"Haven't had your Wheaties lately, have you, Frank? Go ahead--hit, knock
+yourself out. You, too, Mex. I've been slugged before, by big men, in
+shape...! Could be I'm not cooking anything. Except I notice that you
+two have found yourselves some very interesting local objects of ancient
+history, worth a little money. Also, some good, raw metal... Well, I
+suppose you want to get the load and yourselves to the famous twins, Art
+and Joe. That's easy--with luck. Though the region is a trifle
+disturbed, right now. But I can tell you where they are. You won't have
+to fiddle around, hunting."
+
+"Here, hold these guns, Frank. Lemme have a couple of pokes at the
+slob," Ramos snapped.
+
+"Aw-right, aw-right--who's asking you guys to believe me?" Tiflin cut
+in. "I'll beam the twins for you--since I'd guess your transmitter won't
+reach. You can listen in, and talk back through my set. Okay?"
+
+"Let's see what happens--just for kicks," Ramos said softly. "If you're
+calling some friends to come and get us, or anything, Tif--well, you've
+had it!"
+
+They watched Tiflin spin and focus the antenna. "Kuzak... Kuzak...
+Kuzak... Kuzak..." he said into his phone. "Missing boys alive and
+coming to you. Mex and old Guess Which... Kicking and independent, but
+very hungry, I think... Put on the coffee pot, you storekeepers...
+Kuzak... Kuzak... Kuzak... Talk up, Frank and Miguel. Your voices will
+relay through my phone..."
+
+"Hi, Art and Joe--it's us," Ramos almost apologized.
+
+"Yeah--we don't quite know yet what Tiflin is pulling. But here we
+are--if it's you we're talking to..."
+
+There was the usual long wait as impulses bridged the light-minutes.
+
+Then Art Kuzak's voice snarled guardedly. "I hear you, Ram and Nel. Come
+in, if you can...! Tif, you garbage! Someday...! This is all. This is
+all..." The message broke off.
+
+Tiflin smirked. "Third quadrant of the Belt," he said, giving a position
+in space almost like latitude and longitude on Earth. "About twenty
+minutes of the thirty-first degree. Three degrees above median orbital
+plane. Approximately two hundred hours from here. Can Igor and I leave
+you, now, or do you want us to escort you in?"
+
+"_We'll_ escort _you_," Ramos said.
+
+So it was, until, near the end of a long ride, a cluster of bubbs was in
+view in the near distance, and Ramos and Nelsen could contact Art Kuzak
+themselves.
+
+"We've got Tiflin and his Tovie pal with us, Art," Frank Nelsen said.
+"They showed us the way, more or less because we made them. But Tif did
+give us the right position at the start. A favor, maybe. I don't know.
+And now he's saying, 'Be cavalier--it might be awkward for me to meet
+Art and Joe just at present.' Do you want to fix this character's wagon
+bad enough? Your customers could get mean--if he ever did them dirt."
+
+"Just one thing I've got against Tiflin!" Art snarled back. "Every time
+I hear his voice, it means trouble. But I've never seen the crumb
+face-to-face since that Moonhop. Okay, let's not spoil my stomach. Turn
+him loose. It can't make much difference. Or maybe I'm sentimental about
+the old Bunch. He was our cracked, space-wild punk."
+
+"Thanks, Art," Tiflin laughed.
+
+In a minute he, and his comic, scarecrow pal who originated from the
+dark side of trouble, on Earth and out here, too, were fading against
+the stars.
+
+Nelsen and Ramos, the long-lost, glided in, past some grim hoppers. A
+bubb and sweet air were around them once more. They shed their stinking
+Archer Threes. Hot showers--miraculous luxury--played over them. They
+rubbed disinfectant salves into their fungus-ridden hides.
+
+Then there was a clean, white table, with plates, knives, forks. They
+had to treat their shrunken stomachs gently--just a little of
+everything--beer, steak, vegetables, fruit... Somewhere during the past,
+unmarked days Frank Nelsen had gotten to be twenty years old. Only
+twenty? Well--maybe this was his celebration.
+
+Ramos and he told their story very briefly. Little time was wasted on
+congratulations for survival or talk of losses long past. The Kuzaks
+looked leaner and tougher, now, and there were plenty of present
+difficulties to worry them. Joe Kuzak hurried out to argue with the
+miners at the raw metal receiving bins and at the store bubbs. Art
+stayed to explain the present situation.
+
+"Three big loads of supplies were shipped through to us from the Moon,"
+he growled. "We did fine, trading for metal. We sent J. John Reynolds
+his percentage--a fair fraction of his entire loan. We sent old Paul
+five thousand dollars. But the fourth and fifth loads of trade stuff got
+pirated en route. When there's trouble on Earth, it comes out here, too.
+Ceres, colonized by our socialist Tovie friends of northern Eurasia,
+helps stir up the bums, who think up plenty of hell on their own. It's a
+force-out attempt aimed at us or at anybody who thinks our way. After
+two lost shipments, and a lot of new installations here at the Post,
+we're about broke, again. Worse, we've got the asteroid-hoppers
+expecting us to come through with pay for the new metal in their nets,
+and with stuff they need. Back home, some people used to raise hell
+about a trifle like a delayed letter. How about a spaceman's reaction,
+when what is delayed may be something to keep him alive? They could get
+really annoyed, and kick this place apart."
+
+Art Kuzak blew air up past his pug nose, and continued. "Finance--here
+we go again, Frank!" he chuckled. "Gimp Hines is helping us. After Mars,
+he came here without trouble. He's in Pallastown, now, trying to raise
+some fast cash, and to rush supplies through from there, under Space
+Force guard. You know he's got a head for commerce as well as science.
+But our post, here, perhaps isn't considered secure enough to back a
+loan, anymore."
+
+Art grinned wryly at Nelsen and Ramos. His hint was plain. He had seen
+the museum pieces that they had brought in.
+
+"Should we, Frank?" Ramos chuckled after a moment.
+
+"Possibly... We've got some collateral, Art. Lots more valuable per unit
+mass than any raw metal, I should think."
+
+"So you might want to work for us?" Art inquired blandly.
+
+"Not 'for'," Nelsen chuckled. "We might say 'with'."
+
+"Okay, Cuties," Art laughed.
+
+Joe Kuzak had just come back into the dwelling and office bubb.
+
+"Don't let my twin sell you any rotten apples, fellas," he warned
+lightly. "He might be expecting you to transport your collateral to
+Pallastown. Naturally anybody trying to strangle this Post will be
+blocking the route. You might get robbed again. Also murdered."
+
+Ramos' gaunt face still had its daring grin. "Frank and I know that," he
+said. "I'm past bragging. But we've had experience. Now, we might be
+smart enough to get through. A few more days out there won't hurt. How
+about it, Frank?"
+
+"Ten hours sleep and breakfast," Frank said. "Then a little camouflage
+material, new weapons, a pair of Archers in condition--got any left?"
+
+"Five in stock," Joe answered.
+
+"Settled, then?" Art asked.
+
+"Here, it is," Ramos answered, and Nelsen nodded.
+
+It would have been rough going for them to try to sleep in beds. They
+had lost the habit. They slept inside their new Archer Fives.
+
+Afterwards they painted their armor a dark grey, like chunks of mesoderm
+stone. They did likewise to the two bundles in which they wrapped their
+relics.
+
+They were as careful as possible to get away from the post without being
+observed, visually or by radar. But of course you could never be sure.
+
+Huddled up to resemble stray fragments, they curved out of the
+Belt--toward the Pole Star, north of its orbital plane. Moving in a
+parallel course, they proceeded toward Pallastown. The only thing that
+would seem odd was that they were moving contrary to the general orbital
+rotation of most of the permanent bodies of the solar system. Of course
+they and their bundles _might_ have been stray meteors from deep in
+space.
+
+Four watchful, armored figures seemed to notice the peculiarity of their
+direction, and to become suspicious. These figures seemed too wary for
+honesty as they approached. They got within twenty-five miles.
+
+Even without the memory that Tiflin might make guesses about what they
+meant to do, Nelsen and Ramos would have taken no chances. They had to
+be brutal. Homing darts pierced armor. The four went to sleep.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+The asteroid, Pallas, was a chunk of rich core material, two
+hundred-some miles in its greatest dimension. It had a mottled, pinkish
+shine, partly from untarnished lead, osmium, considerable uranium, some
+iron, nickel, silver, copper. The metals were alloyed, here; almost
+pure, there. There was even a little rock. But thirty-five percent of
+Pallas' roughly spherical mass was said to be gold.
+
+Gold is not rare at the cores of the worlds, to which most of the heavy
+elements must inevitably sink, during the molten stage of planetary
+developments. On Earth it must be the same, though who could dig three
+thousand miles into a zone of such heat and pressure? But the asteroid
+world had exploded. Pallas was an exposed and cooled piece of its heart.
+
+Pallas had a day of twenty-four hours because men, working with great
+ion jets angling toward the stars, had adjusted its natural rate of
+rotation for their own convenience to match the terrestrial. A greater
+change was Pallastown.
+
+Frank Nelsen and Miguel Ramos made the considerable journey to it
+without further incident. Because he was tense with hurry, Nelsen's
+impressions were superficial: Something like Serene, but bigger and more
+fantastic. A man weighed only a few ounces, here. Spidery guidance
+towers could loom impossibly high. There were great storage bins for raw
+metal brought in from all over the Belt. There were rows of water tanks.
+As on the Moon, the water came mostly from gypsum rock or occasionally
+from soil frost, both found on nearby crustal asteroids. Beyond the
+refineries bulged the domes of the city itself, housing factories,
+gardens, recreation centers, and sections that got considerably lost and
+divergent trying to imitate the apartment house areas of Earth.
+
+Frank Nelsen's wonder was hurried and dulled.
+
+Gimp Hines and David Lester were waiting inside the stellene reception
+dome when Nelsen and Ramos landed lightly at the port on their own feet,
+with no more braking assistance than their own shoulder-ionics.
+
+Greetings were curiously breathless yet casual, but without any
+backslapping.
+
+"We'd about given you two up," Gimp said. "But an hour ago Joe Kuzak
+beamed me, and said you'd be along with some museum stuff... Les lives
+here, now, working with the new Archeological Institute."
+
+"Hi-hi--good to see you guys," Ramos said.
+
+"Likewise. Hello, Les," Frank put in.
+
+While Frank was gripping David Lester's limp, diffident hand, which
+seemed almost to apologize for his having come so far from home, Gimp
+teased a little. "So you latched onto Art Kuzak, too. Or was it the
+other way around?"
+
+Frank's smile was lopsided. "I didn't analyze motives. Art's a pretty
+good guy. I suppose we just wanted to help Joe and him out. Or maybe it
+was instinct. Anyhow, what's wrong with latching onto--or being latched
+onto by--somebody whom you feel will get himself and you ahead, and make
+you both a buck?"
+
+"Check. Not a darn thing," Gimp laughed. "Now let's go to my hotel and
+have a look at what you brought in. Did you really examine it, yet?"
+
+"Some--on the way. Not very much," Ramos said. "There's a camera."
+
+In the privacy of Gimp's quarters, the bundles were opened; the
+contents, some of them dried and gruesome, all of them rather wonderful,
+were exposed.
+
+David Lester and Gimp Hines were both quietly avid. Lester knew the most
+about these things, but Gimp's hands, on the strange camera, were more
+skillful. The cautious scrutiny of dials and controls marked with
+cryptic numerals and symbols, and the probing of detail parts and their
+functions, took about an hour.
+
+"What do you think, Les?" Gimp asked.
+
+"I'm not an expert, yet," Lester answered. "But as far as I know, this
+is the first undamaged camera that has yet been found. That makes it
+unique. Of course by now, hoppers are bringing in quite a lot of
+artifacts from surface-asteroids. But there's not much in the way of new
+principle for our camera manufacturers to buy. Lens systems, shutters,
+shock mountings, self-developing, integral viewing, projecting and sonic
+features, all turn out to be similar to ours. It's usually that way with
+other devices, too. It's as if all their history, and ours, were
+parallel."
+
+"Well, dammit--let's see what the thing can show!" Ramos gruffed.
+
+In the darkened room, the device threw a rectangle of light on the wall.
+Then there was shape, motion, and color, kept crystallized from sixty
+million years before. A cloud, pinked by sunrise, floating high in a
+thin, expanded atmosphere. Did clouds everywhere in the universe always
+look much the same? Wolfish, glinting darts, vanishing away. Then a
+mountainside covered with spiny growths that, from a distance, seemed
+half cactus and half pine. A road, a field, a dull-hued cylinder
+pointing upward. Shapes of soft, bluish grey, topped like rounded roofs,
+unfolding out of a chink, and swaying off in a kind of run--with little
+clinkings of equipment, for there were sounds, too. Two eyelike organs
+projecting upward, the pupils clear and watchful. A tendril with a
+ridged, dark hide, waving what might have been a large, blue flower,
+which was attached to the end of a metal tube by means of a bit of fibre
+tied in a granny knot. A sunburst of white fire in the distance...
+
+It could have gone on, perhaps for many hours. Reality, with every
+detail sharp. Parallels with Earthly life. Maybe even sentiment was
+there, if you only knew how it was shown. But in the differences you got
+lost, as if in a vivid dream that you couldn't fully understand. Though
+what was pictured here was certainly from the last beautiful days of a
+competing planet.
+
+Frank Nelsen's mouth often hung open with fascination. But his own
+realities kept intruding. They prodded him.
+
+"I hate to break this off," he said. "But a lot of asteroid-hoppers are
+out at the post, waiting for Ramos and me to bring stuff back. It's a
+long ride through a troubled region. There's plenty to get arranged
+beforehand... So first, what do we do to realize some quick funds out of
+these relics?"
+
+Hines terminated the pictured sequence. "Frank--Ramos--I'd keep this
+camera," he said urgently. "It's a little bit special, at least. History
+is here, to be investigated. Offers--bids--could come up. Okay--I'm
+talking about dough, again. Still, who wants to detach himself, right
+away, from something pretty marvelous, by selling it? I'd dump most of
+the other things. Getting a loan--the hock-shop approach--is no good...
+Am I telling it right, Les?"
+
+Lester nodded. "More of the same will be brought in. Prices will drop.
+Archeological Survey has a buying service for museums back home. I've
+been working for them for a month. I don't claim to love them entirely,
+but they'll give you the safest break. You should get enough, for your
+purposes, without the camera. With a load like this, you can see Doc
+Linford, the boss, any time."
+
+"Right now, then," Frank said.
+
+"Hey, you impolite slobs!" Ramos laughed. "When do you consult me,
+co-discoverer and -owner? Awright, skip it--you're the Wizards of Oz.
+I'll just grab out a few items for my Ma and the kids, and maybe a girl
+or two I'll meet someplace. You guys might as well do the same."
+
+He took some squares of fabric, silken-soft, though spun from fibre of
+colored glass. And some wheeled devices, which might have been toys.
+Lester and Hines picked up only token pieces of the fabric. Frank took a
+three inch golden ring that glinted with mineral. Except that it looked
+decorative, he had no idea of its original purpose.
+
+The broken, fine-boned mummy and the other items were appraised and
+bought in a large room across the city. It was already cluttered with
+queer fossils and objects. The numbers printed on the two equal checks,
+and on the cash in their hands, still looked slightly mythical to Nelsen
+and Ramos, to whom a thousand dollars had seemed a fortune.
+
+Later, at the U.S.S.F. headquarters, he was prepared to argue grimly.
+Words were in his mind: A vital matter of supply... Without an escort,
+we'll still have to try to get through, alone. You have been informed,
+therefore, if anything happens, you will be responsible...
+
+He didn't have to say anything like this. They knew. Maybe an old
+bitterness had made him misjudge the U.S.S.F. A young colonel smiled
+tiredly.
+
+"This has been happening," he said. "We have limited facilities for this
+purpose. The U.N.S.F. even less. However, an escort is due in, now. We
+can move out again, with you, in seven hours."
+
+"Thank you, sir," Nelsen responded.
+
+Gimp Hines had the better part of the supplies to be purchased already
+lined up at the warehouses.
+
+Nelsen counted the money he had left. "Figuring losses and gains, I have
+no idea how much I owe J. John--if anything," he laughed. "So I'll make
+it a grand--build up my ego... But we owe old Paul more than dough."
+
+"All right, I'm another idiot--I'll mail J. John a similar draft," Ramos
+gruffed. "Paul's a problem. He can use money, but he never lived for it.
+And you can't buy a friend. We'll have to rig something."
+
+"Yeah--we will," Gimp said. "Couple of times I forgot J. John. But I
+lost my shirt on those loads that were lifted off you boneheads. The
+Kuzaks reimbursed me for half. Do you two want to cover the other half?
+Aw--forget it! Who's got time to figure all this? That old coot doped
+himself out a nice catch-dollar scheme, making us promise. Or was it a
+leg pull on a highly elusive proposition, where big sums and the
+vastness of space seem to match? Hell--I'm getting mixed up again..."
+
+Dave Lester had wandered off embarrassedly, there in the warehouse. But
+now he returned, clearing his throat for attention.
+
+"Fellas," he said. "Helen and I want you to come out to our apartment,
+now, for dinner."
+
+"Shucks, that's swell, Les," Ramos responded, suddenly curious.
+
+"Here, also," Nelsen enthused.
+
+"Sure," Gimp said. But his smile thinned.
+
+In this gravity, going to Lester's place was a floating glide rather
+than a walk. Along a covered causeway, into a huge dome, up a wall with
+handholds, onto a wispy balcony. Nelsen and Ramos brought liquor and
+roses.
+
+Much of what followed was painful and familiar--in a fantastic setting.
+Two young people, recently married, struggling with problems that they
+hadn't been able to plan for very well.
+
+While his wife was out of earshot, Lester put his hand on the back of a
+chair constructed entirely of fine golden wire--later it developed that
+he had made it, do-it-yourself fashion, to be economical--and seemed
+more intent on holding it down than to rest his hand.
+
+"Gimp... Frank..." he began nervously. "You helped Helen and me to get
+married and get set up out here. The Archeological Institute paid our
+way to Pallastown. But there were other expenses... Her--my
+father-in-law, died by his own hand while still awaiting trial...
+Everything he owned is still tied up... Now, well--you know human
+biology... I hope you can wait a little longer for us to begin paying
+back your loan..."
+
+Nelsen had a vagrant thought about how money now had to stand on its own
+commercial value, rather than rely on the ancient witchcraft of a gold
+standard. Then he almost suspected that Lester was being devious and
+clever. But he knew the guy too well.
+
+"Cripes, Les!" he burst out almost angrily. "How about your services,
+just now, as an archeological consultant? If you won't consider that we
+might have meant to make you a gift. Pretty soon you'll have us
+completely confused!"
+
+"What a topic for an evening of fun," Gimp complained. "Hey, Helen--can
+I mix the drinks?"
+
+"Yes--of course, Mr. Hines. I'll get you the things," she said with
+apology in her eyes and voice, as if fussy celebrities had descended on
+her small, unsettled, and poor household.
+
+"On the Moon you were a swell cook, Helen," Frank reminded her.
+
+She flashed a small smile. "It was different, there. Things weighed
+something, and stayed in place. Here--just breathe hard and you have a
+kitchen accident. Besides, I had a garden. We'd like one here, but
+there's no room... And in the market..."
+
+"Shucks--it's new here to us, too," Ramos soothed. "Riding an Archer in
+space, at zero-G, is different from this..."
+
+Things were a bit less strained, after that, through the skimpy meal,
+with its special devices, unique to the asteroids and their tiny
+gravity. Clamps to fasten plates to tables and victuals to plates.
+Drinking vessels that were half-squeeze bottles. Such equipment was now
+available in what might once have been called a dime store--but with
+another price-level.
+
+The visitors made a game of being awkward and inept, together. It was
+balm for Helen's sensitivity.
+
+"Somebody's got to keep the camera for us, Mex," Frank Nelsen said
+presently.
+
+"Yeah--I know. Les'll do it for us," Ramos answered. "He's the best,
+there. He can run through all the pictures--make copies with an ordinary
+camera... See if he can market them. Twenty percent ought to be about
+right for his cut."
+
+Lester tried to interrupt, but Frank got ahead of him. "We owe Gimp for
+those loads we lost. Got to cut him into this, as a consultant. You'll
+be around Pallastown for a while, helping out with this end of the
+Twin's enterprises, won't you, Gimp?"
+
+Hines grinned. "Probably. Glad you slobs got memories. Glad to be of
+assistance, anytime. Les is no louse--he'll help old friends. I'll bring
+him the camera, out of the safe at my hotel, as soon as we leave
+here..."
+
+Lester smiled doubtfully, and then happily. That was how they worked the
+fabulous generosity of spacemen in the chips on him.
+
+Nelsen, Ramos and Hines escaped soon after that.
+
+"Three hours left. I guess you guys want to get lost--separately," Gimp
+chuckled. "I'll say so long at the launching catapults, later. I've got
+some tough guards, fresh from the Moon, who will go along with you. Art
+and Joe need them..."
+
+Frank Nelsen wandered alone in the recreation area. He heard
+music--_Fire Streak_, _Queen of Serene_... He searched faces, looking
+for an ugly one with shovel teeth. He thought, with an achy wistfulness,
+of a small hero-worshipping girl named Jennie Harper, at Serene.
+
+He found no one he had ever seen before. In a joint he watched a girl
+with almost no clothes, do an incredible number of spinning somersaults
+in mid-air. He thought he ought to find himself a friend--then decided
+perversely, to hell with it.
+
+He thought of the trouble on Earth, of Ceres, of Tiflin and Igor, of
+Fanshaw, the latest leader of the Asteroid Belt toughs--the Jolly
+Lads--that you heard about. He thought about how terribly vulnerable to
+attack Pallastown seemed, even with its encirclement of outriding guard
+stations. He thought of Paul Hendricks, Two-and-Two Baines, Charlie
+Reynolds, Otto Kramer, Mitch Storey, and Miss Rosalie Parks who was his
+old Latin teacher.
+
+He thought of trying to beam some of them. But hell, they all seemed so
+long-lost, and he wasn't in the mood, now. He even thought about how it
+was, trying to give yourself a dry shave with a worn-out razor, inside
+an Archer. He thought that sometime, surely, perhaps soon, the Big
+Vacuum would finish him.
+
+He wound up with a simple sentimental impulse, full of nostalgia and
+tenderness for things that seemed to stay steady and put. The way he
+felt was half-hearted apology for human moods in which murder would have
+been easy. He even had a strange envy for David Lester.
+
+Into the synthetic cellulose lining of a small carton bought at a
+souvenir shop, he placed the sixty million-year old golden band with its
+odd arabesques and its glinting chips of mineral. Regardless of its
+mysterious intentional function, it could be a bracelet. To him, just
+then, it was only a trinket that he had picked up.
+
+Before he wrapped and addressed the package, he put a note inside:
+
+"Hi, Nance Codiss! Thinking about you and all the neighbors. This might
+reach you by Christmas. Remember me? Frank Nelsen."
+
+Postage was two hundred dollars, which seemed a trifle. And he didn't
+quite realize how like a king's ransom a gift like this would seem in
+Jarviston, Minnesota.
+
+On leaving the post office, he promptly forgot the whole matter, as
+hard, practical concerns took hold of him, again.
+
+At the loading quays, special catapults hurled the gigantic bales of
+supplies clear of Pallas. To the Kuzaks, this shipment would now have
+seemed small, but it was much larger than the loads Ramos and Nelsen had
+handled before. Gimp and Lester saw them off. Then they were in space,
+with extra ionics pushing the bales. The guard of six new men was
+posted. Nelsen wasn't sure that they'd be any good, or whether he could
+trust them all, but they looked eagerly alert. Riding a mile off was the
+Space Force patrol bubb.
+
+All through the long journey--beam calls ahead were avoided for added
+safety--Nelsen kept wondering if he'd find the post in ruins, with what
+was left of Art and Joe drifting and drying. But nothing like that
+happened yet, and the shipment was brought through. Business with the
+asteroid-hoppers was started at once.
+
+When there was a lull, Art Kuzak talked expansively in his office bubb:
+
+"Good work, Frank. Same to you, Ramos--except that I know you're itching
+with your own ideas, and probably won't be around long. Which is your
+affair... Never mind what anybody says about Venus, or any other place.
+The Belt, with its history, its metals, and its possibilities, is the
+best part of the solar system. Keep your defenses up, your line of
+communication covered, and you can't help but make money. There are new
+posts to set up, help to recruit and bring out, stellene plants and
+other factories to construct. There'll be garden bubbs, repair
+shops--everything. Time, work, and a little luck will do it. You
+listening, Frank?"
+
+Nelsen got a bit cagy with Art, again. "Okay, Art--you seem like a
+formal fella. Mex and I joined up and helped out pretty much as informal
+company members. But as long as we've put in our dough, let's make it
+official, in writing and signed. The KRNH Enterprises--_K_uzak, _R_amos,
+_N_elsen and _H_ines. The 'H' could also stand for Hendricks--Paul
+Hendricks."
+
+"I _like_ it that way, you suspicious slob," Art Kuzak chuckled.
+
+So another phase began for Nelsen. Offices bored him. Amassing money,
+per se, meant little to him, except as a success symbol that came out of
+the life he had known. He figured that a man ought to be a success, even
+a rough-and-tumble romantic like Ramos, or Joe Kuzak. Or himself, with
+both distance and home engrained confusingly into his nature.
+
+One thing that Nelsen was, was conscientious. He could choose and stick
+to a purpose for even longer than it seemed right for him.
+
+Mostly, now, during the long grind of expansion, he was afield.
+Disturbances on Earth quieted for a while, as had always happened, so
+far. The Belt responded with relative peace. Tovie Ceres, the Big
+Asteroid, which, like the others, should have been open to all nations,
+but wasn't, kept mostly to its own affairs. There were only the constant
+dangers, natural, human, and a combination. There was always a job--a
+convoy to meet, a load of supplies to rush to a distant point, Jolly
+Lads to scare off. Reckless Ramos might be with Nelsen, or Joe Kuzak who
+usually operated separately, or a few guards, or several
+asteroid-hoppers, most of whom were tough and steady and good friends to
+know. Often enough, Nelsen was alone.
+
+At first, KRNH just handled the usual supplies. But when factory and
+hydroponic equipment began to arrive, Joe Kuzak and Frank Nelsen might
+be out establishing a new post. There'd be green help, bubbing out from
+the Moon, to break in. Nelsen would see new faces that still seemed
+familiar, because they were like those of the old Bunch, as it had been.
+Grim, scared young men, full of wonder. But the thin stream of the
+adventurous was thickening, as more opportunities opened. Occasionally
+there was a young couple. _Oh, no_, you thought. Then--_well, maybe_.
+That is, if somebody didn't crack up, or get lymph node swellings that
+wouldn't reduce, and if you didn't have to try to play nursemaid.
+
+Now and then Nelsen was in Pallastown--for business, for relief, for a
+bit of hell-raising; to see Gimp and the David Lesters. Pretty soon
+there was an heir in the Lester household. Red, healthy, and male.
+Cripes--Out Here, too? Okay--josh the parents along. The most wonderful
+boy in the solar system! Otherwise, matters, there, were much better
+than before. The camera was in a museum in Washington. The pictures it
+had contained were on TV, back home. Just another anti-war film, maybe.
+But impressive, and _different_. The earnings didn't change Nelsen's
+life much, nor Gimp's, nor Ramos'. But it sure helped the Lesters.
+
+David Lester had resigned from Archeological Survey. He was getting
+actually sharp. He was doing independent research, and was setting up
+his own business in Belt antiques.
+
+Frank Nelsen had another reason for coming to Pallastown. Afield, you
+avoided beam communication, nowadays, whenever you could. Someone might
+trace your beam to its source, and jump you for whatever you had. But
+Gimp Hines could tell Nelsen about the absent Bunch members and the old
+friends, while they both sat in the little KRNH office in Town.
+
+"... Paul Hendricks is still the same, Frank. New bunch around him...
+Too bad we can't call him, now--because the Earth is on the far side of
+the sun. Mitch Storey just vanished into the Martian thickets, during
+one of his jaunts. Almost a year ago, now... I didn't see him when I
+stopped over on Mars, but he was back at the Station once, after that.
+Take it easy, Frank. They've looked with helicopters, and even on the
+ground; you couldn't do any more. I'll keep in touch, to see if anything
+turns up..."
+
+After a minute, Nelsen relaxed, slightly. "Two-and-Two? I guess he's
+okay--with Charlie Reynolds looking after him?"
+
+"Peculiar about Charlie," Gimp answered, looking awed and puzzled. "Got
+the news from old J. John, his granddad, when he acknowledged the
+receipt of our latest draft, by letter. Hold your hat. Charlie got
+himself killed... I'll dig the letter out of the file."
+
+Nelsen sat up very straight. "Never mind," he said. "Just tell me more.
+Anything can happen."
+
+"Our most promising member," Gimp mused. "He didn't get much. The Venus
+Expedition had to move some heavy equipment to the top of a mountain, to
+make some electrostatic tests before a storm. Charlie had just climbed
+down from the helicopter. A common old lightning bolt hit him. Somebody
+played _Fire Streak_ on the bagpipes--inside a sealed tent--while they
+buried him. Otherwise, he didn't even get a proper spaceman's funeral.
+Venus' escape velocity is almost as high as Earth's. Boosting a corpse
+up into orbit, just for atmospheric cremation, would have been too much
+of a waste for the Expedition's rigid economy."
+
+Nelsen had never really been very close to Charlie Reynolds, though he
+had liked the flamboyant Good Guy. Now, it was all a long ways back,
+besides. Nelsen didn't feel exactly grief. Just an almost mystical
+bitterness, a shock and an uncertainty, as if he could depend on
+nothing.
+
+"So what about Two-and-Two?" he growled, remembering how he used to
+avoid any responsibility for the big, good-hearted lug; but now he felt
+surer about himself, and things seemed different.
+
+"I guess the Expedition medic had to straighten him out with
+devil-killers," Hines answered. "He bubbed all the way back to Earth,
+alone, to see J. John about Charlie. I beamed him, there, before the
+Earth hid behind the sun. He was still pretty shaken up. Funny,
+too--Charlie's opportunity-laden Venus has turned out to be a bust, for
+two centuries, at least, unless new methods, which aren't in sight, yet,
+turn up. Sure--at staggering expense, and with efforts on the order of
+fantasy, reaction motors could be set up around its equator, to make it
+spin as fast as the Earth. Specially developed green algae have already
+been seeded all over the planet. They're rugged, they spread fast. But
+it will take the algae about two hundred years to split the carbon
+dioxide and give the atmosphere a breathable amount of free oxygen, to
+say nothing of cracking the poisonous formaldehyde."
+
+"Two-and-Two's back in Jarviston, then?" Nelsen demanded.
+
+"No--not anymore--just gimme breath," Hines went on. "He and Charlie had
+figured another destination of opportunity--Mercury, the planet nearest
+the sun, everlasting frozen night on one side, eternal, zinc-melting
+sunshine on the other. But there's the fringe zone between the two--the
+Twilight Zone. If you can live under stellene, you've got a better place
+there than Mars might have been. Colonists are going there, to quit the
+Earth, to get away from it all. Two-and-Two was about to leave for
+Mercury, when I last spoke to him. By now he's probably almost there.
+And even under the most favorable conditions, Mercury is hard to
+beam--too much solar magnetic interference."
+
+"That poor sap," Nelsen gruffed.
+
+"It probably isn't that bad, anymore," Hines commented. "Sometime I
+might go to Mercury, myself--when I get good and sick of sitting on my
+tail, here--when I always was a man of action! Mercury does have
+possibilities--plenty of solar power, certainly; plenty of frozen
+atmosphere on the dark face. Interesting, Frank... Oh, hell, I
+forgot--there's a letter here for you. And a package. Just arrived...
+I'll scram, now. Got to go down to the quays. Hold the fort, here, will
+you?"
+
+Gimp Hines grinned as he left.
+
+Nelsen was glad to be alone. The lonesomeness of the Big Vacuum was
+getting grimed into him. When he saw the return name and address on the
+package, and the two hundred-ten dollar postage sticker, he thought,
+_Cripes--that poor kid--what did I start?_ Then the awful wave of
+nostalgia for Jarviston, Minnesota, hit him, as he fumbled to open the
+microfilmed letter capsule, and put it in the viewer.
+
+"Hello, Frank--it has to be that, doesn't it, and not Mr. Nelsen, since
+you've sent me this miraculous bracelet--which I don't dare wear very
+much, since I don't want to lose an arm to some international--or even
+interstellar--jewel thief! It makes me feel like the Queen of
+Something--certainly not Serene, since it implies calmness and repose,
+which I certainly don't feel--no offense to our Miss Sands, whom I
+admire enormously. In a very small way I am repaying to you in kind--an
+item which I made, myself, and which I know that some spacemen use
+inside their Archers. You see, we are all informed in details. Paul,
+Otto, Chippie Potter and his dog, and other characters whom you won't
+remember, send their best greetings. Oh, I've got Stardust fever, too,
+but I'll yield to my folks' wishes and wait, and learn a profession that
+will be of some use Out There. May you wear what I'm sending in good
+health, safety and fortune. Send no more staggering gifts, please--I
+couldn't stand it--but please do write. Tell me how it really is in the
+Belt. You simply don't realize how much--"
+
+Nance Codiss' missive rattled along, and the scrawled words got to be
+like small, happy bells inside Nelsen's skull. His crooked grin came
+out; he unpacked the sweater--creylon wool, very warm, bright red, a bit
+crude in workmanship here and there--but imagine a girl bothering, these
+days! He donned the garment and decided it fit fine.
+
+Then he tried to write a letter:
+
+"Hi, Nance! I've just put it on--first time--beautiful! It'll stay right
+with me. Thanks. Talk about being staggered..."
+
+There he bogged down, some, wondering how much she had changed,
+wondering just what he ought to say to her, and who these characters
+that he wouldn't remember, might be. Cripes, how old was she, now?
+Seventeen? He ended up taking her at her word. He described Pallastown
+rather heavy-handedly, and bought some microfilm postcards to go along
+with his missive, as soon as he went out to mail it.
+
+But a few hours later, from deep in space, he looked back at the Town,
+shining in the distance, and in the blue mood of thinking about Charlie
+Reynolds, Mitch Storey, and Two-and-Two, he wondered how much longer it,
+or Nance, or anything else, could last. Then he glanced down at the
+bright sweater, and chuckled...
+
+Unexpectedly, Ramos remained an active member of KRNH Enterprises for
+over a year. But the end had to come. "I told Art I'd let my dough ride,
+Frank," he said to Nelsen in the lounge of Post One. "I'll only draw
+enough earnings to build me a real, deep-space bubb, nuclear-propelled,
+and with certain extra gadgets. A few guys have tried to follow the
+unmanned, instrumented rockets, out to the system of Saturn. Nobody got
+back, yet. I think I know what they figured wrong. The instruments
+showed--well, skip it... I'm going into Town to prepare. It'll take
+quite a while, so I'll have some fun, too."
+
+Ramos' eyes twinkled with a secret triumph--before the fact.
+
+"You don't argue a fighting rooster out of fighting," Nelsen laughed.
+"Besides, it wouldn't be Destiny--or any fun--to succeed. So accept the
+complimentary comparison--if it fits--which maybe it doesn't, you
+egotistical bonehead. Good luck--_buena suerte, amigo_. I'll look you up
+in Town, if I get a chance..."
+
+Nelsen was always busy to the gills. Progress was so smooth for another
+couple of years, that the hunch of Big Trouble building up, became a
+gnawing certainty in his nerves.
+
+Of course there were always the Jolly Lads to watch out for--the extreme
+individualists, space-twisted and wild. Robbing and murdering could seem
+easier than digging. Take your loot into Pallastown--who knew you hadn't
+grubbed it, yourself? Sell it. Get the stink blown off you--forget some
+terrible things that had happened to you. Have yourself a time. Strike
+Out again. Repeat...
+
+Nelsen knew that, through the months, he had killed defensively at least
+twice. Once, with a long-range homing bullet--weapons sanctioned by
+pious and cautious international agreement, were more lethal, now, to
+match the weapons of the predatory. Once by splitting a helmet with a
+rifle barrel. When he was out alone, exploring a new post site on a
+small asteroid, a starved Tovie runaway had jumped him. Maybe he should
+regret the end of that incident.
+
+Trips to Pallastown were increasingly infrequent. But there was one time
+when he almost had come specially to see Ramos' new bubb, still under
+wraps, supposedly. Well--that erratic character had it out on a long
+test run. Damn him! As usual, time was crowding Nelsen. He had to get
+back on the job. He had just a couple of hours left.
+
+He wrote a letter to Nance Codiss, answering one of hers--funny, he'd
+never yet tried to contact her vocally. Being busy, being cautious about
+using a beam--these were good reasons. Now there was hardly enough spare
+time to reach twice across the light-minutes. Maybe the real truth was
+that men got strangely shy in the silences of the Belt.
+
+"Dear Nance: You seem to be making fine headway in your new courses. All
+the good words, for that..."
+
+There were plenty of good words, but he didn't put many of them down. He
+didn't know if the impulse to write _Darling_, was just his own
+loneliness, which any girl with a kind word would have filled. He didn't
+know her, or that part of himself, very well. He kept remembering her as
+she had been. Then he'd realize that memory wasn't a stable thing to
+hang onto. Everything changed--how well he had learned that! She was
+older, now, intelligent, and at school again, studying some kind of
+medical laboratory technology. Certainly she had become more
+sophisticated and elusive--her gay letters were just a superficial part
+of what she must be. And certainly there were dates and boyfriends, and
+all the usual phases of getting out of step with a mere recollection,
+like himself. Nelsen had some achy emotions. Should he ask for her
+picture? Should he send one of himself?
+
+He just scribbled on, ramblingly, as usual. Yep, in a new Archer Seven,
+you could undo a few clamps, pull a foot up out of a boot, and actually
+change your socks... Inconsequential nonsense like that. He ended by
+telling her not to worry about any knicknacks he might send--that they
+came easy, out here. He microposted the letter, and mailed a square of
+soft glass-silk of many colors.
+
+Then he pronounced a few cuss words, laughed at himself for getting so
+serious, shrugged, and with the casualness of hopper with his pockets
+loaded, moved toward the rec area, which was some distance off.
+
+It was night over this part of rapidly growing Pallastown. Moving along
+a lighted causeway, he saw the man with the shovel teeth. Glory, had
+_he_ managed to survive so long? His mere presence, here, seemed like a
+signal of the end of peace. Nelsen and Ramos used to practice
+close-contact tactics at zero-G, in space. So Nelsen didn't even wait
+for the man to notice him. He leaped, and sped like an arrow, thudding
+into the guy's stomach with both of his boot heels. Shovel Teeth was
+hurled fifty yards backward, Nelsen hurtling with him all the way.
+Unless Nelsen wanted to kill him, there wasn't any more to do. Partial
+revenge.
+
+He wasn't worried about anybody except the guy's Jolly Lad henchmen.
+There was nobody close by. Now he did a quick fade, sure that nobody had
+seen who he was, during the entire episode. No use to call the
+cops--there were too many uncertainties about the setup in wild,
+polyglot Pallastown. Nelsen moved on to the rec area.
+
+He didn't go into a garishly splendid place, named _The Second Stop_.
+Thus, he didn't see its owner, whose identity he had already heard
+about, of course. Not that he wouldn't have liked to. But there wasn't
+any time to get involved in a long chat with a woman... Nor did he see
+the tall, skinny, horse-faced comic, known only as Igor, go through
+slapstick acrobatics that once would have been impossible...
+
+By a round-about route he proceeded to the catapults, where Gimp Hines
+was waiting for him. They had been conversing just a short while ago.
+
+"Did you drop in on Eileen?" Gimp asked right away.
+
+"No. There'll be other occasions," Nelsen laughed. "Someday, if we live,
+she'll own all the joints in the solar system."
+
+"Uh-huh--I'd bet on it... By the way, there's a grapevine yarn around.
+Somebody kicked Fanshaw--the Jolly Lad big-shot--in the belly. You,
+perhaps?"
+
+"Don't listen to gossip," Nelsen said primly. "Are you serious about
+going to Mercury?"
+
+"Of course. There are people to take over my office duties. I'll be on
+my way in a couple of weeks. I think you'd like to come along, Frank."
+
+Nelsen felt an urge that was like a crying for freedom.
+
+"Sure I would. But I'm bound to the wheel. Cripes, though--watch
+yourself, fella. Don't _you_ get into a mess!"
+
+"Hell--you're the mess specialist, Frank. Fanshaw isn't here for fun.
+And there's been that new trouble at home..."
+
+A Tovie bubb, loaded with people, and a Stateside bubb, both in orbit
+around the Earth, had collided. No survivors. But there was plenty of
+blaming and counter-blaming. Another dangerous incident. Glory--with all
+the massed destructive power there was, could luck really last forever?
+
+Frank Nelsen got back to Post One, okay. But later, riding in to Post
+Three, just in an Archer Six, with a couple of guards for company, he
+picked up a long-lost voice, falsely sweet, then savage at the end:
+
+"I'm a Jinx, aren't I, Frankie? A vulture. Nice and cavalier, you are. I
+bet you hoped I was dead. Okay--Sucker...!"
+
+Tiflin didn't even answer when Nelsen tried to beam him.
+
+Nelsen was able to save Post Three. The guards and most of the personnel
+were experienced and tough. They drove the Jolly Lads back and deflected
+some chunks of aimed and accelerated asteroid chips, with new defense
+rockets.
+
+Joe Kuzak, at Post Seven, wasn't so lucky, though Frank had tipped him
+off. Half of the post was scattered and pirated. Six fellas and the wife
+of one of them--a Bunch from Baltimore--were just drying shreds that
+drifted in the wreckage. Big Joe, though he had a rocket chip through
+his chest, had been able to beat off the attackers, with the help of a
+few asteroid-hoppers and his novice crew which turned out to be more
+rugged than some people might have expected.
+
+Frank got to them just as it was over--except for the cursing, the
+masculine tears of grief and rage, the promises of revenge. Luckily,
+none of the women had been captured.
+
+Joe Kuzak, full of new antibiotics and coagulants, was still up and
+around. "So we knocked off a few of them, Frank," he said ruefully in
+his office bubb. "Several were in Tovie armor. Runaways, or agents?
+They're crowding us, boy. Hell, what a junk heap this post is going to
+be, to sort out..."
+
+"Get to it," Nelsen commented.
+
+"You've got something in mind?"
+
+"Uh-huh. Coming in, I heard somebody address somebody else as Fan.
+Fanshaw, that would be. And I kind of remembered his voice, as he
+cracked out orders. He was with this group. I'm going after him."
+
+"Good night...! I'll send some of my crowd along."
+
+"Nope, Joe. They'd spot two or more guys. One, they won't even believe
+in. This is a lone-wolf deal. Besides, it's personal... Shucks--I don't
+even think there's a risk..."
+
+There, he knew he exaggerated--especially as, huddled up to resemble a
+small asteroid-fragment, he followed the retreating specks. His only
+weapon was a rapid-fire launcher, using small rockets loaded only with
+chemical explosive. He felt a tingle all through him. Scare, all right.
+
+Ahead, as he expected, he saw three stolen bubbs blossom out. There'd be
+a real pirates' party, like he'd seen, once. They'd have a lookout
+posted, of course. But the enormity of the Belt made them cocky. Who
+could ever really police very much of it? One other advantage was that
+Jolly Lads were untidy. Around the distant bubbs floated a haze of
+jettisoned refuse. Boxes, wrappings, shreds of stellene. Nelsen had
+figured on that.
+
+Decelerating, he draped a sheet of synthetic cellulose that he'd brought
+along, loosely over his armored shape. Then he drifted unobtrusively
+close. At a half-mile distance, he peered through the telescope sight of
+his launcher. The bubbs were close together. The lookout floated free.
+Him, he got first, with a careful, homing shot.
+
+Immediately he fired a burst into each bubb, saw them collapse around
+their human contents. The men inside were like cats in limp bags, the
+exits of which could no longer be found. Calmly he picked the biggest
+lumps of struggling forms, and fired again and again, until there was no
+more motion left except an even rotation.
+
+He soon located Fanshaw. His unarmored body was bloated and drying, his
+mouth gaped, his shovel teeth were exposed to the stars and the distant,
+naked sun. Nelsen had to think back to six dead young men and a girl, to
+keep from feeling lousy. Had Fanshaw been just another guy invading a
+region that was too big and terrible for humans?
+
+With something like dread, Nelsen looked for Tiflin, too. But, of
+course, that worthy wasn't around.
+
+Nelsen picked up some space-fitness cards. Quite a few nations were
+represented. Joe would have to turn in the cards to the respective
+authorities. Noting its drift course, Nelsen left the wreckage, and
+hurried back to Post Seven, before other Jolly Lads could catch up and
+avenge their pals.
+
+"Fanshaw's groups will fight it out for a new leader, Joe," he said.
+"That should keep them busy, for a while..."
+
+Succeeding months were quieter. But the Tovies had lost no advantage.
+They had Ceres, the biggest of the asteroids, and their colonies were
+moving in on more and more others that were still untouched, closing
+them, against all agreements, to any competition.
+
+The new Archer Seven which Nelsen presently acquired, had a miniature TV
+screen set in its collar. Afield, he was able to pick up propaganda
+broadcasts from Ceres. They showed neat, orderly quarters, good food,
+good facilities, everything done by command and plan. He wondered glumly
+if that was better for men who were pitted against space. The rigid
+discipline sheltered them. They didn't have to think in a medium that
+might be too huge for their brains and emotions. Maybe it was more
+practical than rough-and-tumble individualism. He had a bitter picture
+of the whole solar system without a free mind in its whole extent--that
+is, if another gigantic blowup didn't happen first...
+
+Nelsen didn't see Ramos' new bubb, nor did he see him leave for Saturn
+and its moons. The guy had avoided him, and gone secretive. But over a
+year later, the news reached Nelsen at Post Eight. A man named Miguel
+Ramos had got back, more dead than alive, after a successful venture,
+alone, to the immediate vicinity of the Ringed Planet. His vehicle was
+riddled. He was in a Pallastown hospital.
+
+Frank Nelsen delegated his duties, and went to see Ramos. The guy seemed
+hardly more than half-conscious. He had no hands left. His legs were off
+at the knee. Frostbite. Only the new antibiotics he had taken along, had
+kept the gangrene from killing him. There was a light safety belt across
+his bed. But somehow he knew Nelsen. And his achievement seemed like a
+mechanical record fixed in his mind.
+
+"Hi, Frank," he whispered hurriedly. "I figured it right. Out there,
+near Saturn, clusters of particles of frozen methane gas are floating
+free like tiny meteors. The instrumented rockets didn't run into them,
+and they were too light to show clearly on radar. But a bubb with a man
+in it is lots bigger, and can be hit and made like a sieve. That's what
+happened to those who went first. Their Archers were pierced too. I had
+mine specially armored, with a heavy helmet and body plating... The
+particles just got my gloves and my legs. Cripes, I got pictures--right
+from the rim of the Rings! And lots of data..."
+
+Ramos showed the shadow of a reckless grin of triumph. Then he passed
+out.
+
+Later, Nelsen saw the photographs, and the refrigerated box with the
+clear, plastic sides. Inside it was what looked like dirty, granular
+snow--frozen water. Which was all it was. Unless the fact that it was
+also the substance of Saturn's Rings made a difference.
+
+Saturn--another of the great, cold, largely gaseous planets, where it
+would perhaps always be utterly futile for a man to try to land...
+Ramos, the little Mex who chased the girls. Ramos, the hero, the
+historical figure, now...
+
+Cursing under his breath, Nelsen wandered vaguely to _The Second Stop_.
+There, he saw what probably every spaceman had dreamed of. Lucette of
+Paris swimming nude in a gigantic dewdrop--possible where gravity was
+almost nil. Music played. Beams of colored light swung majestically,
+with prismatic effects through the great, flattened, shimmering ovoid of
+water, while Lucette's motions completed a beautiful legend...
+
+Two figures moved past Nelsen in the darkened interior. The first one
+was tall and lean. Then he saw the profile of a lean face with a bent
+nose, heard a mockingly apologetic "Oh-oh..." and didn't quite realize
+that this was Tiflin, the harbinger of misfortune, before it was too
+late to collar him. Nelsen followed as soon as he could push his way
+from the packed house. But pursuit was hopeless in the crowded causeway
+outside.
+
+A few minutes later, he was in Eileen Sands' apartment. It was not his
+first visit. Eileen seldom danced or sang, anymore, herself. She was
+different, now. She wore an evening dress--soft blue, tasteful. Here,
+she was the cool, poised owner, the lady.
+
+"Tiflin hasn't been around here for a long time, Frank," she was saying.
+"You know that his buddy entertained for me for a while. I have an
+interested nature, but Tiflin never gave me anything but wisecracks.
+There are lots of Tovies around--there's even a center for runaways. I
+don't ask questions of customers usually. And technically, all I can
+require of a comic is talent. This Igor had a certain kind. What is the
+difficulty now?"
+
+Frank Nelsen looked at Eileen almost wearily for a second. "Just that
+Tiflin is somehow involved with most of the bad luck that I've ever had
+out here," he said, grimly. "And if Pallastown were destroyed, everybody
+but the Tovies might as well go home from the Belt. The timing seems to
+me to be about right. They'd risk it, feeling we're too scared to strike
+back at home. The Jolly Lads--who are international--could be encouraged
+to do the job for them."
+
+Sudden hollows showed in Eileen's cheeks. "What are you going to do?"
+she asked.
+
+"Nothing much for me to do," he answered. "I only happened to notice,
+while I was coming in to Pallas, that all the guard stations, extending
+way out, were quietly very alert. But is that enough? Well, if they
+can't cope with an attack, what good am I? We're vulnerable, here. I
+guess we just sit tight and wait."
+
+She smiled faintly. "All right--let's. Sit, relax, converse. Stop being
+the Important Personage for a while, Frank."
+
+"Look who's talking. Okay--what do you know that's new to tell?"
+
+"A few things. I keep track of most everybody."
+
+He took her slender hand, brown in his angular fist, that was pale from
+his space gloves. "Gimp, first," he said.
+
+"Still on Mercury, with Two-and-Two. Two-and-Two was a bricklayer, a
+good beginning for a construction man. That seems to be paying off, as
+colonists move in. Gimp is setting up solar power stations."
+
+"Encouraging information, for once. Here's a hard one--Jig Hollis. The
+real intelligent man who stayed home. I've envied him for years."
+
+"Hmmm--yes, Frank. Intelligent, maybe--but he never quite believed it,
+himself. His wife stayed with him, even after he turned real sour and
+reckless. One night he hit a big oak tree with his car. Now, he is just
+as dead as if he had crashed into the sun at fifty miles per second. He
+couldn't take knowing that he was scared to do what he wanted."
+
+"Hell!" Nelsen said flatly.
+
+"Now who else should I gossip about?" Eileen questioned. "Oh, yes--Harv
+Diamond, hero of our lost youth, who got space fatigue. Well, he
+recovered and returned to active duty in the U.S.S.F. Which perhaps
+leaves me with just my own love life to confess." She smiled lightly.
+"Once there was a kid named Frankie Nelsen, who turned out to be a very
+conscientious jerk. Since then, there have been scads of rugged,
+romantic characters on all sides... You're going to ask about Miguel
+Ramos."
+
+She paused, looked unhappy and tired. "The celebrity," she said. "Mashed
+up. But he'll recover--this time. I've seen him--sent him flowers, sat
+beside him. But what do you do with a clown like that? Lock him in the
+closet or look at him through a telescope? Goodbye--hello--goodbye. A
+kid with gaudy banners flying, if he lives to be forty--which he never
+will. They'll be giving him artificial hands and feet, and he'll be
+trying for Pluto. A friend. I guess I'm proud. That's all. Anything else
+you want to know?"
+
+"Yeah. There was a cute little girl at Serene."
+
+"Jennie Harper. She married one of those singing Moon prospectors.
+Somebody murdered them both--way out on Far Side."
+
+Frank Nelsen's mouth twisted. "That's enough, pal," he said. "I better
+go do my sitting tight someplace else. Keep your Archer handy. Thanks,
+and see you..."
+
+Within forty minutes David Lester was showing him some pictures that a
+hopper had brought in from a vault in a surface-asteroid.
+
+On the screen, great, mottled shapes moved through a lush forest.
+Thousands of tiny, flitting bat-like creatures--miniature pterodactyls
+of the terrestrial Age of Reptiles--hovered over a swamp, where millions
+of insects hung like motes in the light of the low sun. A much larger
+pterodactyl, far above, glided gracefully over a cliff, and out to sea,
+its long, beaked head turning watchfully.
+
+"Hey!" Nelsen said mildly, as his jaded mind responded.
+
+Lester nodded. "_They_ were on Earth, too--as the Martians must have
+been--exploring and taking pictures, during the Cretaceous Period. Oh,
+but there's a perhaps even better sequence! Like the Martians, they had
+a world-wrecking missile, which they were building in space. Spherical.
+About six miles in diameter, I calculate. Shall I show you?"
+
+"No... I think I'll toddle over to the offices, Les. Keep wearing those
+Archers, people. Glad the kid likes to play in his..."
+
+Nelsen had donned his own Seven, with the helmet fastened across his
+chest by a strap. At the KRNH office, there was a letter, which luckily
+hadn't been sent out to Post Eight. The tone was more serious than that
+of any that Nance Codiss had sent before.
+
+"Dear Frank: I'm actually coming your way. I'll be stopping to work at
+the Survey Station Hospital on Mars for two months en route..."
+
+He read that far when he heard the sirens and saw the flashes of
+defending batteries that were trying to ward off missiles from
+Pallastown. He latched his helmet in place. He was headed for the
+underground galleries when the first impacts came. He saw four domes
+vanish in flashes of fire. Then he didn't run anymore. He had his small
+rocket launcher, from the office. If they ever came close enough... But
+of course they'd stay thousands of miles off. He got to the nearest
+fallen dome as fast as he could. Everybody had been in armor, but there
+were over a hundred dead. Emergency and rescue crews were operating
+efficiently.
+
+He glanced around for indications. No explosive, chemical or nuclear,
+had yet been used. But there was the old Jolly Lad trick: Accelerate a
+chunk of asteroid-material to a speed of several miles per second by
+grasping it with your gloved hands, while the shoulder-ionic of your
+armor was at full power. Start at a great distance, aim your missile
+with your body, let it go... Impact would be sheer, blasting
+incandescence. A few hundred chunks of raw metal could finish
+Pallastown... Were these just crazy, wild slobs whooping it up, or real
+crud provided with a purpose and reward? Either way, here was the
+eternal danger to any Belt settlement.
+
+Nelsen could have tried to reach an escape-exit into open space, but he
+helped with the injured while he waited for more impacts to come. There
+was another series of deflecting flashes from the defense batteries. Two
+more domes vanished... Then--somehow--nothing more. Evidently some of
+the attackers had been only half hearted, _this time_. Reprieve...
+
+Almost four hundred people were dead. It could have been the whole Town.
+Then spreading disaster. All Nelsen's friends were okay. The Posts
+called in--okay, too. Nelsen waited three days. He wanted to help
+defend, if the attack was renewed. But now the U.N.S.F. was
+concentrating in the vicinity. For a while, things would be quiet, Out
+Here. Just the same, he felt kind of fed up. He felt as if the end of
+everything he knew had crept inevitably a little closer.
+
+He beamed Mars--the Survey Station. He contacted Nance. He had known
+that she should have arrived already. He was relieved. He knew what the
+region between here and there could be like when there was trouble.
+
+"It's me--Frank Nelsen--Nance," he said into his helmet-phone, as he
+stood beyond the outskirts of the Town, on the barren, glittering
+surface of Pallas. "I'm still wearing the sweater. Stay where you are.
+I've never been on Mars, either. But I'll be there, soon..."
+
+His old uncertainties about talking to her evaporated now that he was
+doing it.
+
+"For Pete's sake--Frank!" he heard her laugh happily, still sounding
+like the neighbor kid. "Gosh, it's good to hear you!"
+
+He left for Post One, soon after that. Nowadays, it was almost a
+miniature of the ever more magnificent--if insecure--Pallastown. He kept
+thinking angrily of Art Kuzak, getting a little overstuffed, it seemed.
+The hunkie kid, the ex-football player who had become a big commercial
+and industrial baron of the Belt. Easy living. Cuties around. And poor
+twin Joe--just another stooge...
+
+Nelsen went into the office, his fists clenched overdramatically. "I'm
+taking a leave, Art--maybe a long one," he said.
+
+Art Kuzak stared at him. "You damned, independent bums--you, too,
+Nelsen!" he began to growl. But when he saw Nelsen's jaw harden, he got
+the point, and grinned, instead. "Okay, Frank. Nobody's indispensible. I
+might do the same when you come back--who knows...?"
+
+Frank Nelsen joined a KRNH bubb convoy--Earthbound, but also passing
+fairly close to Mars--within a few hours.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+Frank Nelsen meant the journey to be vagabond escape, an interlude of to
+hell with it relief from the grind, and from the increasingly uncertain
+mainstream of the things he knew best.
+
+He rode with a long train of bubbs and great sheaves of smelted metal
+rods--tungsten, osmium, uranium 238. The sheaves had their own
+propelling ionic motors. He lazed like a tramp. He talked with
+asteroid-hoppers who meant to spend some time on Earth. Several had
+become almost rich. Most had strong, quiet faces that showed both
+distance- and home-hunger. A few had broken, and the angry sensitivity
+was visible.
+
+Nelsen treated himself well. He was relieved of the duty of eternal
+vigilance by men whose job it was. So, for a while, his purpose was
+almost successful.
+
+But the memory--or ghost--of Mitch Storey was never quite out of his
+mind. And, as a tiny, at first telescopic crescent with a rusty light
+enlarged with lessened distance ahead, the ugly enigma of present-day
+Mars dug deeper into his brain.
+
+Every twenty-four hours and thirty-eight minutes--the length of the
+Martian day--whenever the blue-green wedge of Syrtis Major appeared in
+the crescent, he beamed the Survey Station, which was still maintained
+for the increase of knowledge, and as a safeguard for incautious
+adventurers who will tackle any dangerous mystery or obstacle. His
+object was to talk to Nance Codiss.
+
+"I thought perhaps you and your group had gotten restless and had
+started out for the Belt already," he laughed during their first
+conversation.
+
+"Oh, no--a lab technician like me is far too busy here, for one thing,"
+she assured him, her happy tone bridging the distance. "We came this far
+with a well-armed freight caravan, in good passenger quarters. If we
+went on, I suppose it would be the same... Anyway, for years you didn't
+worry much about me. Why now, Frank?"
+
+"A mystery," he teased in return. "Or perhaps because I considered Earth
+safe--instinctively."
+
+But he was right in the first place. It _was_ a mystery--something to do
+with the startling news that she was on the way, that closer friendship
+was pending. The impulse to go meet her had been his first, almost
+thoughtless impulse.
+
+He was still glad that she wasn't out between Mars and the Belt, where
+disaster had once hit him hard. But now he wondered if the Survey
+Station was any better for anybody, even though it was reputed to be
+quite secure.
+
+The caravan he rode approached his destination no closer than ten
+million miles. Taking cautious note of radar data which indicated that
+space all around was safely empty, he cast off in his Archer with a
+small, new, professional-type bubb packed across his hips. Inside his
+helmet he lighted a cigarette--quite an unusual luxury.
+
+It took a long time to reach Phobos. They gave him shots there--new
+preventative medicine that was partially effective against the viruses
+of Mars. Descent in the winged rocket was rough. But then he was gliding
+with a sibilant whistle through a natural atmosphere, again. Within
+minutes he was at the Station--low, dusty domes, many of them deserted,
+now, at the edge of the airfield, a lazily-spinning wind gauge,
+tractors, auto-jeeps, several helicopters.
+
+He stepped down with his gear. Mars was all around him: A few
+ground-clinging growths nearby--harmless, locally evolved vegetation.
+Distant, coppery cliffs reflecting the setting sun. Ancient excavations
+notched them. Dun desert to the east, with little plumes of dust
+blowing. Through his Archer--a necessary garment here not only because
+the atmosphere was only one-tenth as dense as Earth-air and poor in
+oxygen, but because of the microscopic dangers it bore--Nelsen could
+hear the faint sough of the wind.
+
+The thirty-eight percent of terrestrial gravity actually seemed strong
+to him now, and made him awkward, as he turned and looked west. Perhaps
+two miles off, past a barbed-wire fence and what must be an old tractor
+trail of the hopeful days of colonization, he saw the blue-green edge of
+Syrtis Major, the greatest of the thickets, with here and there a
+jutting spur of it projecting toward him along a gully. Nelsen's hide
+tingled. But his first glimpse was handicapped by distance. He saw only
+an expanse of low shagginess that might have been scrub growths of any
+kind.
+
+Dug into the salt-bearing ground at intervals, he knew, were the fire
+weapons ready to throw oxygen and synthetic napalm--jellied gasoline.
+Never yet had they been discharged, along this defense line. But you
+could never be sure just what might be necessary here.
+
+A man of about thirty had approached. "I meet the new arrivals," he
+said. "If you'll come along with me, Mr. Nelsen..."
+
+He was dark, and medium large, and he had a genial way. He looked like a
+hopper--an asteroid-miner--the tough, level-headed kind that adjusts to
+space and keeps his balance.
+
+"Name's Ed Huth," he continued, as they walked to the reception dome.
+"Canadian. Good, international crowd here--however long you mean to
+stay. Most interesting frontier in the solar system, too. Probably
+you've heard most of the rules and advice. But here's a paper. Refresh
+your memory by reading it over as soon as you can. There is one thing
+which I am required to show everybody who comes here. Inside this peek
+box. You are instructed to take a good look."
+
+Huth's geniality had vanished.
+
+The metal box was a yard high, and twice as long and wide. It stood,
+like a memorial, before the reception dome entrance. A light shone
+beyond the glass-covered slot, as Nelsen bent to peer.
+
+He had seen horror before now. He had seen a pink mist dissolve in the
+sunshine as a man in armor out in the Belt was hit by an explosive
+missile, his blood spraying and boiling. Besides, he had read up on the
+thickets of Mars, watched motion pictures, heard Gimp Hines' stories of
+his brief visit here. So, at first, he could be almost casual about what
+he saw in the peek box. There were many ghastly ways for a man to die.
+
+Even the thicket plant in the box seemed dead, though Nelsen knew that
+plant successors to the original Martians had the rugged power of
+revival. This one showed the usual paper-dry whorls or leaves, and the
+usual barrel-body, perhaps common to arid country growths, everywhere.
+Scattered over the barrel, between the spines, were glinting
+specks--vegetable, light-sensitive cells developed into actual visual
+organs. The plant had the usual tympanic pods of its kind--a band of
+muscle-like tissue stretched across a hollow interior--by which it could
+make buzzing sounds. Nelsen knew that, like any Earthly green plant, it
+produced oxygen, but that, instead of releasing it, it stored the gas in
+spongy compartments within its horny shell, using it to support an
+animal-like tissue combustion to keep its vitals from freezing during
+the bitterly frigid nights.
+
+Nelsen also knew that deeper within the thing was a network of whitish
+pulp, expanded at intervals to form little knobs. Sectioned, under a
+microscope, they would look like fibred masses of animal or human nerve
+and brain cells, except that, chemically, they were starch and cellulose
+rather than protein.
+
+Worst to see was the rigid clutch of monster's tactile organs, which
+grew from the barrel's crown. It was like a powerful man struggling to
+uproot a rock, or a bear or an octopus crushing an enemy. It was
+dark-hole drama, like something from another galaxy. Like some horribly
+effective piece of sculpture, the tableau in the box preserved the last
+gasp of an incautious youth in armor.
+
+The tendrils of the thicket plant were furred with erect spines of a
+shiny, russet color. They were so fine that they looked almost soft. But
+Nelsen was aware that they were sharper than the hypodermic needles they
+resembled--in another approach to science. Now, Nelsen felt the tingling
+revulsion and hatred.
+
+"Of course you know that you don't have to get caught like that poor
+bloke did," Huth said dryly. "Just not to disinfect the outside of your
+Archer well enough and then leave it near you, indoors, is sufficient.
+I was here before there was any trouble. When it came, it was a
+shambles..."
+
+Huth eyed Nelsen for a moment, then continued on another tack.
+"Biology... Given the whole universe to experiment in, I suppose you can
+never know what it will come up with--or what is possible. These
+devils--you get to hate them in your sleep. If their flesh--or their
+methods--were something like ours, as was the case with the original
+Martians or the people of the Asteroid Planet, it wouldn't seem so bad.
+Still, they make you wonder: What would you do, if, in your own way, you
+could think and observe, but were rooted to the ground; if you were
+denied the animal ability of rapid motion, if you didn't have hands with
+which to fashion tools or build apparatus, if fire was something you
+could scarcely use?..."
+
+Nelsen smiled. "I _am_ wondering," he said. "I promise to do a lot more
+of it as soon as I get squared away. I could inflate my bubb, and sleep
+in the yard in it, if I had to. Then, as usual, off the Earth, you'll
+expect me to earn my breathing air and keep, after a couple of days,
+whether I can pay instead or not. That's fine with me, of course.
+There's another matter which I'd like to discuss, but that can be
+later."
+
+"No sleeping out," Huth laughed. "That's just where people get careless.
+There are plenty of quarters available since the retreat of settlers
+almost emptied this world of terrestrial intrusion--except for us here
+and the die-hard desert rats, and the new, screwball adventurers... By
+the way, if it ever becomes important, the deserts are safe--at least
+from what you just saw--as you probably know..."
+
+Nelsen passed through an airlock, where live steam and a special
+silicone oil accomplished the all-important disinfection of his Archer,
+his bubb, and the outside of his small, sealed baggage roll. Armor and
+bubb he left racked with rows of others.
+
+It wasn't till he got into the reception dome lounge that he saw Nance
+Codiss. She didn't rush at him. Reserve had dropped over them both again
+as if in reconsideration of a contact made important too suddenly. He
+clasped her fingers, then just stood looking at her. Lately, they had
+exchanged a few pictures.
+
+"Your photographs don't lie, Nance," he said at last.
+
+"Yours do, Frank," she answered with complete poise. "You look a lot
+less grim and tired."
+
+"Wait," he told her. "I'll be right back..."
+
+He went with Ed Huth to ditch his roll in his sleeping cubicle, get
+cleaned up and change his clothes.
+
+She _was_ beautiful, she had grave moods, she was wearing his fabulous
+bracelet--if only not to offend him. But when he returned, he met two of
+the girls who had come out to Mars with her--a nurse and another lab
+technician. They were the bubbly type, full of bravado and giggles for
+their strange, new surroundings. For a moment he felt far too old at
+twenty-four for Nance's twenty. He wondered regretfully if her being
+here was no more than part of his excuse for getting away from the Belt
+and from the sense of ultimate human disaster building up.
+
+But much of his feeling of separation from her disappeared as they sat
+alone in the lounge, talking--first about Jarviston, then about here.
+Nance had available information about the thickets pretty well down pat.
+
+"You can't keep those plants alive here at the Station, Frank," she said
+quietly. "They make study difficult by dying. It's as if they knew that
+they couldn't win here. So they retreat--to keep their secrets. But Dr.
+Pacetti, our head of Medical Research, says that we can never know that
+they won't find a way to attack us directly. That's what the waiting
+napalm line is for. I don't think he is exaggerating."
+
+"Why do you say that?" Nelsen asked.
+
+He was encouraging her, of course. But he wasn't being patronizing.
+Frost tingled in his nerves. He wanted to know her version.
+
+"I'll show you the little museum we have," she replied, her eyes
+widening slightly. "This is probably old hat to you--but it's weird--it
+gives you the creeps..."
+
+He followed her along a covered causeway to another dome. In a gallery
+there, a series of dry specimens were set up, inside sealed boxes made
+of clear plastic.
+
+The first display was centered around a tapered brass tube--perhaps one
+of the barrels of an antique pair of fieldglasses. Wrapping it was a
+spiny brown tendril from which grew two sucker-like organs, shaped like
+acorn tops. One was firmly attached to the metal. The other had been
+pulled free, its original position on the barrel marked by a circular
+area of corrosion. The face of the detached sucker was also shown--a
+honeycomb structure of waxy vegetable tissue, detailed with thousands of
+tiny ducts and hairlike feelers.
+
+"Some settler dropped the piece of brass out on a trail in Syrtis
+Major," Nance explained. "Later, it was found like this. Brass is
+something that people have almost stopped using. So, it was new to
+_them_. They wouldn't have been interested in magnesium, aluminum, or
+stainless steel anymore. The suckers aren't a usual part of them either.
+But the suckers grow--for a special purpose, Dr. Pacetti believes. A
+test--perhaps an analysis. They exude an acid, to dissolve a little of
+the metal. It's like a human chemist working. Only, perhaps,
+better--more directly--with specialized feelers and sensing organs."
+
+Nance's quiet voice had a slight, awed quaver at the end.
+
+Frank Nelsen nodded. He had examined printed pictures and data before
+this. But here the impact was far more real and immediate; the impact of
+strange minds with an approach of their own was more emphatic.
+
+"What else?" he urged.
+
+They stood before another sealed case containing a horny, oval pod, cut
+open. It had closed around a lump of greenish stone.
+
+"Malachite," Nance breathed. "One kind of copper ore. _They_ reduced it,
+extracted some of the pure metal. See all the little reddish specks
+shining? It is pretty well established that the process is something
+like electroplating. There's a dissolving acid--then a weak electric
+current--from a kind of battery... Oh, nobody should laugh, Frank--Dr.
+Pacetti keeps pointing out that there are electric eels on Earth, with
+specialized muscle-tissue that acts as an electric cell... But this is
+somewhat different. Don't ask me exactly how it functions--I only heard
+our orientation lecture, while we toured this museum. But see those
+small compartments in the thick shells of the pod--with the membranes
+separating them? All of them contained fluids--some acid, others
+alkaline. Mixed in with the cellulose of the membranes, you can see both
+silvery and reddish specks--as if _they_ had to incorporate both a
+conductor and a difference of metals to get a current. At least, that
+was what was suggested in the lecture..."
+
+Frank Nelsen and Nance Codiss moved on from display case to display
+case, each of which showed another kind of pod cut in half. The
+interiors were all different and all complicated... Membranes with a
+faint, metallic sheen--laminated or separated by narrow air spaces as in
+a capacitor, for instance... Balls of massed fibre, glinting... Curious,
+spiral formations of waxy tissue...
+
+"They use electricity as a minor kind of defense," Nance went on, her
+tone still low with suppressed excitement that was close to dread. "We
+know that some of them can give you a shock--if you're fool enough to
+get so close that you can touch them. And they do emit radio impulses on
+certain wavelengths. Signals--communication...? As for the rest, perhaps
+you'd better do your own guessing, Frank. But the difference between us
+and them seems to be that we _make_ our apparatus. They _grow_ them,
+_build_ them--with their own living tissue cells--in a way that must be
+under their constant, precise control. I suppose they even work from a
+carefully thought-out design--a kind of cryptic blueprint... Go along
+with the idea--or not--as you choose. But our experts suspect that much
+of what we have here represents research apparatus--physical, chemical,
+electrical. That _they_ may get closer to understanding the ultimate
+structure of matter than we can, because their equipment is part of
+themselves, in which they can develop senses that we don't possess...
+Well, I'll skip any more of that. Because the best--or the worst--is
+still coming. Right here, Frank..."
+
+The case showed several small, urn-like growths, sectioned like the
+other specimens.
+
+Frank Nelsen grinned slightly. "All right--let me tell it," he said.
+"Because this is something I really paid attention to! Like you imply,
+their equipment is alive. So they work best with life--viruses, germs,
+vegetable-allergy substances. These are their inventing, developing and
+brewing bottles--for the numerous strains of Syrtis Fever virus. The
+living molecule chains split off from the inner tissue walls of the
+bottles, and grow and multiply in the free fluid. At least, that's how I
+read it."
+
+"And that is where my lab job begins, Frank," she told him. "Helping
+develop anti-virus shots--testing them on bits of human tissue, growing
+in a culture bath. An even partially effective anti-virus isn't found
+easily. And when it is, another virus strain will soon appear, and the
+doctors have to start over... Oh, the need isn't as great, any more, as
+when the Great Rush away from Mars was on. There are only half a dozen
+really sick people in the hospital now. Late comers and snoopers who got
+careless or curious. You've got to remember that the virus blows off the
+thickets like invisible vapor. There's one guy from Idaho--Jimmy--James
+Scanlon. Come along. I'll show you, Frank..."
+
+He lay behind plastic glass, in a small cubicle. A red rash, with the
+pattern of frostwork on a Minnesota windowpane in January, was across
+his lean, handsome face. Maybe he was twenty--Nance's age. His bloodshot
+eyes stared at terrors that no one else could see.
+
+Nance called softly through the thin infection barrier. "Jimmy!"
+
+He moaned a little. "Francy..."
+
+"High fever, Frank," Nance whispered. "Typical Syrtis. He wants to be
+home--with his girl. I guess you know that nostalgia--yearning terribly
+for old, familiar surroundings--is a major symptom. It's like a command
+from _them_--to get out of Mars. The red rash is something extra he
+picked up. An allergy... Oh, we think he'll survive. Half of them now
+do. He's big and strong. Right now, even the nurses don't go in there,
+except in costumes that are as infection-tight as armor. Later on, when
+the fever dwindles to chronic intermittence, it will no longer be
+contagious. Even so, the new laws on Earth won't let him return there
+for a year. I don't know whether such laws are fair or not. We've got a
+hundred here, who were sick, and are now stranded and waiting, working
+at small jobs. Others have gone to the Belt--which seems terrible for
+someone not quite well. I hope that Jimmy bears up all right--he's such
+a kid... Let's get out of here..."
+
+Her expression was gently maternal. Or maybe it was something more?
+
+Back in the lounge, she asked, "What will you do here, Frank?"
+
+"Whatever it is, there is one thing I want to include," he answered. "I
+want to try to find out just what happened to Mitch Storey."
+
+"Natch. I remember him. So I looked the incident up. He disappeared,
+deep in Syrtis Major, over three years ago. He had carried a sick
+settler in--on foot. He always seemed lucky or careful, or smart. After
+he got lost, his wife--a nurse from here whose name had been Selma
+Washington--went looking for him. She never was found either."
+
+"Oh?" Nelsen said in mild startlement.
+
+"Yes... Talk to Ed Huth. There still are helicopter patrols--watching
+for signs of a long list of missing people, and keeping tabs on late
+comers who might turn out to be screwballs. You look as though you might
+be Ed's type for that kind of work... I'll have to go, now, Frank. Duty
+in half an hour..."
+
+Huth was grinning at him a little later. "This department doesn't like
+men who have a vanished friend, Nelsen," he said. "It makes their
+approach too heroically personal. On the other hand, some of our lads
+seem underzealous, nowadays... If you can live up to your successful
+record in the Belt, maybe you're the right balance. Let's try you."
+
+For a week, about all Nelsen did was ride along with Huth in the heli.
+At intervals, he'd call, "Mitch... Mitch Storey...!" into his
+helmet-phone. But, of course, that was no use.
+
+He couldn't say that he didn't see Mars--from a safe altitude of two
+thousand feet: The vast, empty deserts where, fairly safe from the
+present dominant form of Martian life, a few adventurers and
+archeologists still rummaged among the rust heaps of climate control and
+other machines, and among the blasted debris of glazed ceramic
+cities--still faintly tainted with radioactivity--where the original
+inhabitants had died. The straight ribbons of thicket growths, crossing
+even the deserts, carrying in their joined, hollow roots the irrigation
+water of the otherwise mythical "canals." The huge south polar cap of
+hoarfrost melting, blackening the soil with brief moisture, while the
+frost line retreated toward the highlands. Syrtis, itself, where the
+trails, once burned out with oxygen and gasoline-jelly to permit the
+passage of vehicles, had again become completely overgrown--who could
+hope to stamp out that devilishly hardy vegetation, propagating by means
+of millions of windblown spores, with mere fire? The broken-down trains
+of tractors and trailers, now almost hidden. The stellene garden domes
+that had flattened. Here were the relics left by people who had sought
+to spread out to safety, to find old goals of freedom from fear.
+
+Several times in Syrtis, Huth and Nelsen descended, using a barren
+hillock or an isolated spot of desert as a landing area. That was when
+Nelsen first heard the buzzing of the growths.
+
+Twice, working warily with machetes, and holding their flame weapons
+ready, they chopped armored mummies from enwrapping tendrils, while
+little eye cells glinted at them balefully, and other tendrils bent
+slowly toward them. They searched out the space-fitness cards, which
+bore old dates, and addresses of next of kin.
+
+In a few more days, Nelsen was flying the 'copter. Then he was out on
+his own, watching, searching. For a couple of weeks he hangared the heli
+at once, after each patrol, and Nance always was there to meet him as he
+did so.
+
+Inevitably the evening came when he said, "We could fly out again,
+Nance. For an hour or two. It doesn't break any rules."
+
+Those evening rides, high over Syrtis Major, toward the setting sun,
+became an every other day custom, harmless in itself. A carefully kept
+nuclear-battery motor didn't conk; the vehicle could almost fly without
+guidance. It was good to look down at the blue-green shagginess,
+below... Familiarity bred, not contempt, but a decline of dread to the
+point where it became a pleasant thrill--an overtone to the process of
+falling in love. Otherwise, perhaps they led each other on, into
+incaution. Out in the lonely fastnesses of Mars they seemed to find the
+sort of peace and separation from danger on the hectic Earth that the
+settlers had sought here.
+
+"We always pass over that same hill," Nance said during one of their
+flights. "It must have been a beautiful little island in the ancient
+ocean, when there was that much water. Now it belongs to us, Frank."
+
+"It's barren--we could land," Nelsen suggested quickly.
+
+They visited the hill a dozen times safely, breaking no printed rule.
+But maybe they shouldn't have come so often to that same place. In life
+there is always a risk--which is food for a fierce soul. Frank Nelsen
+and Nance Codiss were fierce souls.
+
+They'd stand by the heli and look out over Syrtis, their gloved fingers
+entwined. If they couldn't kiss, here, through their helmets, that was
+merely comic pathos--another thing to laugh and be happy over.
+
+"Our wind-blown hill," Nance chuckled on that last evening. "Looking
+down over a culture, a history--maybe arguments, lawsuits, jokes,
+parties; gossip too, for all we know--disguised as a huge briar patch
+that makes funny noises."
+
+"Shut up--I love you," Nelsen gruffed.
+
+"Shut up yourself--it's you I love," she answered.
+
+The little sun was half sunk behind the Horizon. The 'copter was only a
+hundred feet away, along the hillcrest. That was when it happened. Two
+dull, plopping sounds came almost together.
+
+If a thinking animal can use the pressure of a confined gas to propel
+small missiles, is there any reason why other intelligences can't do the
+same? From two bottle-like pods the clusters of darts--or long, sharp
+thorns--were shot. Only a few of them struck their targets. Fewer,
+still, found puncturable areas and struck through silicone rubber and
+fine steelwire cloth into flesh. Penetration was not deep, but deep
+enough.
+
+Nance screamed. Nelsen wasn't at all sure that he didn't scream himself
+as the first anguish dizzied and half blinded him.
+
+From the start it was really too late. Nelsen was as hardy and
+determined as any. He tried to get Nance to the 'copter. Less than
+halfway, she crumpled. With a savage effort of will he managed to drag
+her a few yards, before his legs refused to obey him, or support him.
+
+His blood carried a virus to his brain about as quickly as it would have
+carried a cobra's venom. _They_ probably could have made such
+protein-poisons, too; but they had never used them against men, no doubt
+because something that could spread and infect others was better.
+
+For a while, as the black, starshot night closed in, Nelsen knew, or
+remembered, nothing at all--unless the mental distortions were too
+horrible. Then he seemed to be in a pit of stinking, viscous fluid,
+alive with stringy unknowns that were boring into him... Unreachable in
+another universe was a town called Jarviston. He yelled till his wind
+was gone.
+
+He had a half-lucid moment in which he knew it was night, and understood
+that he had a raging fever. He was still clinging to Nance, who clung to
+him. So instinct still worked. He saw that they had blundered--its black
+bulk was visible against the stars. Phobos hadn't risen; Deimos, the
+farther moon, was too small to furnish appreciable light.
+
+Something touched him from behind, and he recoiled, pushing Nance back.
+He yanked the machete from his belt, and struck blindly... Oh,
+_no!_--you didn't get caught like this--not usually, he told himself.
+Not in their actual grip! They were too slow--you could always dodge! It
+was only when you were near something not properly disinfected that you
+got Syrtis Fever, which was the worst that could happen--wasn't it...?
+
+He heard an excited rhythm in the buzzing. Now he remembered his
+shoulder-lamp, fumbled to switch it on, failed, and stumbled a few steps
+with Nance toward the hill. Something caught his feet--then hers. Trying
+to get her free, he dropped his machete...
+
+Huth's voice spoke in his helmet-phone. "We hear you, Nelsen! Hold
+out... We'll be there in forty minutes..."
+
+Yeah--forty minutes.
+
+"It's--it's silly to be so scared, Frankie..." he heard Nance stammer
+almost apologetically. Dear Nance...
+
+Screaming, he kicked out again and again with his heavy boots, and got
+both her and himself loose.
+
+It wasn't any good. A shape loomed near them. A thing that must have
+sprung from _them_--someway. A huge, zombie form--the ugliest part of
+this night of anguish and distortion. But he was sure that it was real.
+
+The thing struck him in the stomach. Then there was a biting pain in his
+shoulder...
+
+There wasn't any more, just then. But this wasn't quite the end, either.
+The jangled impressions were like split threads of consciousness,
+misery-wracked and tenuous. They were widely separated. His brain seemed
+to crack into a million needle-pointed shards, that made no sense except
+to indicate the passage of time. A month? A century...?
+
+It seemed that he was always struggling impossibly to get himself and
+Nance somewhere--out of hot, noisesome holes of suffocation, across
+deserts, up endless walls, and past buzzing sounds that were mixed
+incongruously with strange harmonica music that seemed to express all
+time and space... He could never succeed though the need was desperate.
+But sometimes there was a coolness answering his thirst, or rubbed into
+his burning skin, and he would seem to sleep... Often, voices told him
+things, but he always forgot...
+
+It wasn't true that he came out of the hot fog suddenly, but it seemed
+that he did. He was sitting in dappled sunshine in an ordinary lawn
+chair of tubular magnesium with a back and bottom of gaudy fabric. Above
+him was a narrow, sealed roof of stellene. The stone walls showed the
+beady fossils of prehistoric Mars. More than probably, these chambers
+had been cut in the living rock, by the ancients.
+
+Reclining in another lawn chair beside his was Nance, her eyes closed,
+her face thin and pale. He was frightened--until he remembered,
+somehow, that she was nearly as well as he was. Beyond her was a
+doorway, leading into what seemed a small, modern kitchen. There was a
+passage to a small, neat garden, where Earthly vegetables and flowers
+grew. It was ceiled with stellene; its walls were solid rock. Looking up
+through the transparent roof above him, he saw how a thin mesh of fuzzy
+tendrils and whorls masked this strange Shangri-la.
+
+Nelsen closed his eyes, and thought back. Now he remembered most of what
+he had been told. "Mitch!" he called quietly, so as not to awaken Nance.
+"Hey, Mitch...! Selma...!"
+
+Mitch Storey was there in a moment--dressed in dungarees and work shirt
+like he used to be, but taller, even leaner, and unsmiling.
+
+Nelsen got up. "Thanks, Mitch," he said.
+
+Their voices stayed low and intense.
+
+"For nothing, Frank. I'm damned glad to see you, but you still shouldn't
+have come nosing. 'Cause--I told you why. Looking for you, Huth burned
+out more than five square miles. And if folks get too smart and too
+curious, it won't be any good for what's here..."
+
+Nelsen felt angry and exasperated. But he had a haunting thought about a
+lanky colored kid in Jarviston, Minnesota. A guy with a dream--or
+perhaps a prescient glimpse of his own future.
+
+"What's a pal supposed to do?" he growled. "For a helluva long time
+you've answered nobody--though everyone in the Bunch must have tried
+beaming you."
+
+"Sure, Frank... Blame, from me, would be way out of line. I heard you
+guys lots of times. But it was best to get lost--maybe help keep the
+thickets like they are for as long as possible... A while back, I began
+picking up your voice in my phones again. I figured you were heading for
+trouble when you kept coming with your girl to that same hill. So I was
+around, like I told you before... Sorry I had to hit you and give you
+the needle, but you were nuts--gone with Syrtis. Getting you back here,
+without Huth spotting the old heli I picked up once at a deserted
+settlers' camp was real tough going. I had to land, hide it and wait,
+four or five times. And you were both plenty sick. But there are a few
+medical gimmicks I learned from the thickets--better than those at the
+Station."
+
+"You've done all right for yourself here, haven't you, Mitch?" Nelsen
+remarked with a dash of mockery. "All the modern conveniences--in the
+middle of the forbidden wilds of Syrtis Major."
+
+"Sure, Frank--'cause maybe I'm selfish. Though it's just stuff the
+settlers left behind. Anyway, it wasn't so good at the start. I was
+careful, but I got the fever, too. Light. Then I fell--broke my leg--out
+there. I thought sure I was finished when they got hold of me. But I
+just lay there, playing on my mouth organ--an old hymn--inside my
+helmet. Maybe it was the music--they must have felt the radio impulses
+of my tooting before. Or else they knew, somehow, that I was on their
+side--that I figured they were too important just to disappear and that
+I meant to do anything I could, short of killing, to keep them all
+right... Nope, I wouldn't say that they were so friendly, but they might
+have thought I'd be useful--a guinea-pig to study and otherwise. For all
+I know, examining my body may have helped them improve their weapons...
+Anyhow--you won't believe this--'cause it's sort of fantastic--but you
+know they work best with living tissue. They fixed that leg, bound it
+tight with tendrils, went through the steel cloth of my Archer with
+hollow thorns. The bone knit almost completely in four days. And the
+fever broke. Then they let me go. Selma was already out looking for me.
+When I found her, she had the fever, too. But I guess we're immune now."
+
+Storey's quiet voice died away.
+
+"What are you going to do, Mitch? Just stay here for good?"
+
+"What else--if I can? This is better than anything I remember. Peaceful,
+too. If they study me, I study them--not like a real scientist--but by
+just having them close around. I even got to know some of their buzzing
+talk. Maybe I'll have to be their ambassador to human folks, sometime.
+They _are_ from the planets of the stars, Frank. Sirius, I think. Tough
+little spores can be ejected from one atmosphere, and drift in space for
+millions of years... They arrived after the first Martians were extinct.
+Now that you're here, Frank, I wish you'd stay. But that's no good.
+Somebody lost always makes people poke around."
+
+Nelsen might have argued a few points. But for one thing, he felt too
+tired. "I'll buy it all, your way, Mitch," he said. "I hope Nance and I
+can get out of here in a couple more days. Maybe I shouldn't have run
+out on the Belt. Can't run--thoughts follow you. But now--dammit--I want
+to go home!"
+
+"That's regular, Frank. 'Cause you've got Syrtis. Chronic,
+now--intermittent. But it'll fade. Same with your girl. Meanwhile, they
+won't let you go Earthside, but you'll be okay. I'll fly you out, close
+enough to the Station to get back, any morning before daylight, that you
+pick... Only, you won't tell, will you, Frank?"
+
+"No--I promise--if you think secrecy makes any difference.
+Otherwise--thanks for everything... By the way--do you ever listen in
+on outside news?"
+
+"Enough. Still quiet... And a fella named Miguel Ramos--with
+nerve-controlled clamps for hands--got a new, special bubb and took off
+for Pluto."
+
+"No! Damn fool... Almost as loony as you are, Mitch."
+
+"Less... Wake up, Nance. Dinner... Chicken--raised right here..."
+
+That same afternoon, Frank Nelsen and Nance Codiss sat in the garden.
+"If I blur, just hold me tight, Frankie," she said. "Everything is still
+too strange to quite get a grip on--yet... But I'm _not_ going home,
+Frank--not even when it is allowed. I set out--I'm sticking--I'm not
+turning tail. It's what people have got to do--in space more than
+ever..."
+
+Even when the seizure of fever came, and the sweat gathered on her lips,
+and her eyes went wild, she gritted her teeth and just clung to him. She
+had spunk--admirable, if perhaps destructive. "Love yuh," Frank kept
+saying. "Love yuh, Sweetie..."
+
+Two days later, before the frigid dawn, they saw the last of Mitch
+Storey and his slender, beautiful wife with her challenging brown eyes.
+
+"Be careful that you do right for Mitch and--these _folks_," she warned
+almost commandingly as the old heli landed in the desert a few miles
+from the Station. "What would you do--if outsiders came blundering into
+your world by the hundreds, making trails, killing you with fire? At
+first, _they_ didn't even fight back."
+
+The question was ancient but valid. In spite of his experiences, Nelsen
+agreed with the logic and the justice. "We'll make up a story, Selma,"
+he said solemnly.
+
+Mitch looked anxious. "Human people will find a way, won't they, Frank?"
+he asked. "To win, to come to Mars and live, I mean--to change
+everything. Sure--some will be sympathetic. But when there's practical
+pressure--need--danger--economics...?"
+
+"I don't know, Mitch," Nelsen answered in the same tone as before. "Your
+thickets do have a pretty good defense."
+
+But in his heart he suspected that fierce human persistence couldn't be
+stopped--_as long as there were humans left_. Mitch and his star folk
+couldn't withdraw from the mainstream of competition--inherent in
+life--that was spreading again across the solar system. They could only
+stand their ground, take their fearful chances, be part of it.
+
+One of the last things Mitch said, was, "Got any cigarettes, Frank?
+Selma likes one, once in a while."
+
+"Sure. Three packs here inside my Archer. Mighty small hospitality gift,
+Mitch..."
+
+After the 'copter drifted away, it seemed that a curtain drew over
+Nelsen's mind, blurring the whole memory. It was as though _they_ had
+planned that. It was almost as though Mitch, and Selma, as he had just
+seen them, were just another mind-fantasy of the Heebie-Jeebie Planet,
+created by its present masters.
+
+"Should we believe it?" Nance whispered.
+
+"My cigarettes are gone," Frank told her.
+
+At the Survey Station they got weary looks from Ed Huth. "I guess I
+picked a wrong man, Nelsen," he said.
+
+"It looks as though you did, Ed," Frank replied. "I'm really sorry."
+
+They got worse hell from a little doctor from Italy, whose name was
+Padetti. They were asked a lot of questions. They fibbed some, but not
+entirely.
+
+"We sort of blanked out, Doctor," Nance told him. "I suppose we spent
+most of our time in the desert, living in our Archers. There were the
+usual distorted hallucinations of Syrtis Fever. A new strain, I
+suspect... Four months gone? Oh, no...!"
+
+She must have had a time evading his questions for the next month, while
+she worked, again, in the lab. Maybe he did divine half of the truth, at
+last. Maybe he even was sympathetic toward the thickets that he was
+trying to defeat.
+
+Nelsen wasn't allowed to touch another helicopter. During that month,
+between brief but violent seizures of the fever, he was employed as a
+maintenance mechanic.
+
+Then the news came. There had been an emergency call from Pallastown.
+Rescue units were to be organized, and rocketed out in high-velocity
+U.N.S.F. and U.S.S.F bubbs. There had been sabotage, violence. The Town
+was three-quarters gone, above the surface. Planned attack or--almost
+worse--merely the senseless result of space-poisoned men kicking off the
+lid in a spree of hell-raising humor and fun?
+
+Nelsen was bitter. But he also felt the primitive excitement--almost an
+eagerness. That was the savage paradox in life.
+
+"You still have the dregs of Syrtis Fever," a recruiting physician told
+him. "But you know the Belt. That makes a big difference... All
+right--you're going..."
+
+Nance Codiss didn't have that experience. Her lab background wasn't
+enough. So she was stuck, on Mars.
+
+Nelsen had been pestering her to marry him. Now, in a corner of the
+crowded lounge, he tried again.
+
+She shook her head. "You'd still have to leave me, Frank," she told him.
+"Because that's the way strong people _have_ to be--when there's
+trouble to be met. Let's wait. Let's know a little better where we're
+at--please, darling. I'll be all right. Contact me when you can..."
+
+Her tone was low and tender and unsteady. He hugged her close.
+
+Soon, he was aboard a GO-rocket, shooting up to Phobos to join the
+assembling rescue team. He wondered if this was the beginning of the
+end...
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+Frank Nelsen missed the first shambles at Pallastown, of course, since
+even at high speed, the rescue unit with which he came did not arrive
+until days after the catastrophe.
+
+There had been hardly any warning, since the first attack had sprung
+from the sub-levels of the city itself.
+
+A huge tank of liquid oxygen, and another tank of inflammable synthetic
+hydrocarbons to be used in the manufacture of plastics, had been
+simultaneously ruptured by charges of explosive, together with the
+heavy, safety partition between them. The resulting blast and fountain
+of fire had jolted even the millions of tons of Pallas' mass several
+miles from its usual orbit.
+
+The sack of the town had begun at once, from within, even before chunks
+of asteroid material, man-accelerated and--aimed, had begun to splatter
+blossoms of incandescence into the confusion of deflating domes and
+dying inhabitants. Other vandal bands had soon landed from space.
+
+The first hours of trying to regain any sort of order, during the
+assault and after it was finally beaten off, must have been heroic
+effort almost beyond conception. Local disaster units, helped by hoppers
+and citizens, had done their best. Then many had turned to pursuit and
+revenge.
+
+After Nelsen's arrival, his memory of the interval of acute emergency
+could have been broken down into a series of pictures, in which he was
+often active.
+
+First, the wreckage, which he helped to pick up, like any of the others.
+Pallastown had been like froth on a stone, a castle on a floating,
+golden crag. It had been a flimsy, hastily-built mushroom city, with a
+beautiful, tawdry splendor that had seemed out of place, a target
+shining for thousands of miles.
+
+Haw, haw...! Nelsen could almost hear the coarse laughter of the Jolly
+Lads, as they broke it up, robbed it, raped it--because they both
+sneered at its effeteness, and missed what it represented to them...
+Nelsen remembered very well how a man's attitudes could be warped while
+he struggled for mere survival in an Archer drifting in space.
+
+Yet even as he worked with the others, to put up temporary domes and to
+gather the bloated dead, the hatred arose in him, and was strengthened
+by the fury and grief in the grim, strong faces around him. To exist
+where it was, Pallastown could not be as soft as it seemed. And to the
+hoppers--the rugged, level-headed ones who deserved the name--it had
+meant much, though they had visited it for only a few days of fun, now
+and then.
+
+The Jolly Lads had been routed. Some must have fled chuckling and
+cursing almost sheepishly, like infants the magnitude of whose mischief
+has surpassed their intention, and has awed and frightened them, at
+last. They had been followed, even before the various late-coming space
+forces could get into action.
+
+Nelsen overheard words that helped complete the pictures:
+
+"I'll get them... They had my wife..."
+
+"This was planned--you know where..."
+
+It was planned, all right. But if Ceres, the Tovie colony, had actually
+been the instigator, there was evidence that the scheme had gotten out
+of hand. The excitement of destruction had spread. Stories came back
+that Ceres had been attacked, too.
+
+"I killed a man, Frank--with this pre-Asteroidal knife. He was after
+Helen and my son..."
+
+This was timid David Lester talking, awed at himself, proud, but
+curiously ashamed. This made another picture. By luck the Lesters lived
+in the small above-the-surface portion of Pallastown that had not been
+seriously damaged.
+
+Frank Nelsen also killed, during a trip to Post One of the KRNH
+Enterprises, to get more stellene and other materials to expand the
+temporary encampments for the survivors. He killed two fleeing men
+coldly and at a distance, because they did not answer his hail. The
+shreds of their bodies and the loot they had been carrying were
+scattered to drift in the vacuum, adding another picture of retribution
+to thousands like it.
+
+Belt Parnay was the name of the leader whom everybody really wanted to
+get. Belt Parnay--another Fessler, another Fanshaw. That was a curious
+thing. There was another name and face; but as far as could be told, the
+personality was very similar. It was as if, out of the darker side of
+human nature, a kind of reincarnation would always take place.
+
+They didn't get Parnay. Inevitably, considering the enormity of space,
+many of the despoilers of Pallastown escaped. The shrewdest, the most
+experienced, the most willing to shout and lead and let others do the
+dangerous work, had the advantage. For they also knew how to run and
+hide and be prudently quiet. Parnay was one of these.
+
+Some captives were recovered. Others were found, murdered. Fortunately,
+Pallastown was still largely a man's city. But pursuit and revenge still
+went on...
+
+Post One was intact. Art Kuzak had surrounded it with a cordon of tough
+and angry asteroid-hoppers. It was the same with the other posts, except
+Five and Nine, which were wiped out.
+
+"Back at last, eh, Nelsen?" Art roared angrily, as soon as Frank had
+entered his office.
+
+"A fact we should accept, not discuss," Nelsen responded dryly. "You
+know the things we need."
+
+"Um-hmm--Nelsen. To rescue and restore Pallastown--when it's pure
+nonsense, only inviting another assault! When we know that dispersal is
+the only answer. The way things are, everywhere, the whole damned human
+race needs to be dispersed--if some of it is to survive!"
+
+It made another picture--Art Kuzak, the old friend, gone somewhat too
+big for his oversized britches, perhaps... No doubt Art had had to put
+aside some grandiose visions, considering the turn that events had
+taken: Whole asteroids moved across the distance, and put into orbit
+around the Earth, so that their mineral wealth could be extracted more
+conveniently. Space resorts established for tourists; new sports made
+possible by zero-gravity, invented and advertised. Art Kuzak had the
+gift of both big dreaming and of practice. He'd talked of such things,
+before.
+
+Nelsen's smirk was wry. "Dispersal for survival. I agree," he said.
+"When they tried to settle Mars, it was being mentioned. Also, long
+before that. Your wisdom is not new, Art. It wasn't followed perhaps
+because people are herding animals by instinct. Anyhow, our side has to
+hold what it has _really_ got--one-fourth of Pallastown above the
+surface, and considerably more underground, including shops,
+installations, and seventy per cent of its skilled inhabitants,
+determined to stay in the Belt after the others were killed or wounded,
+or ran away. Unless you've quit claiming to be a practical man, Art,
+you'll have to go along with helping them. You know what kind of
+materials and equipment are needed, and how much we can supply, better
+than I do. Or do I have to withdraw my fraction of the company in
+goods? We'll take up the dispersal problem as soon as possible."
+
+Art Kuzak could only sigh heavily, grin a lopsided grin, and produce.
+Soon a great caravan of stuff was on the move.
+
+There was another picture: Eileen Sands, the old Queen of Serene in a
+not-yet-forgotten song, sitting on a lump of yellow alloy splashed up
+from the surface of Pallas, where a chunk of mixed metal and stone had
+struck at a speed of several miles per second, fusing the native alloy
+and destroying her splendid _Second Stop_ utterly in a flash of
+incandescence. Back in Archer, she looked almost as she used to look at
+Hendricks'. Her smile was rueful.
+
+"Shucks, I'm all right, Frank," she said. "Even if Insurance, with so
+many disaster-claims, can't pay me--which they probably still can. The
+boys'll keep needing entertainment, if it's only in a stellene space
+tent. They won't let me just sit... For two bits, though, I'd move into
+a nice, safe orbit, out of the Belt and on the other side of the sun
+from the Earth, and build myself a retreat and retire. I'd become a
+spacewoman, like I wanted to, in the first place."
+
+"I'll bet," Nelsen joshed. "Otherwise, what have you heard and seen?
+There's a certain fella..."
+
+Right away, she thought he meant Ramos. "The damfool--why ask me,
+Frank?" she sniffed, her expression sour and sad. "How long has he been
+gone again, now? As usual he was proposing--for the first few days after
+he set out. After that, there were a few chirps of messages. Then
+practically nothing. Anyway, how long does it take to get way out to
+Pluto and back, even if a whole man can have the luck to make it. And is
+there much more than half of him left...? For two bits I'd--ah--skip
+it!"
+
+Nelsen smiled with half of his mouth. "I wanted to know about Ramos,
+too, Eileen. Thanks. But I was talking about Tiflin."
+
+"Umhmm--you're right. He and Pal Igor were both around at my place about
+an hour before we were hit. I called him something worse than a bad
+omen. He was edgy--almost like he used to be. He said that, one of these
+days--be cavalier--I was going to get mine. He and Igor eeled away
+before my customers could break their necks."
+
+Nelsen showed his teeth. "Thanks again. I wondered," he said.
+
+He stayed in Pallastown until, however patched it looked, it was
+functioning as the center of the free if rough-and-tumble part of the
+Belt once more--though he didn't know for how long this would be true.
+Order of one kind had been fairly restored. But out of the disaster, and
+something very similar on Ceres, the thing that had always been most
+feared had sprung. It was the fact of opposed organized might in close
+proximity in the region between Pallas and Ceres. Again there was
+blaming and counter-blaming, about incidents the exact sources of which
+never became clear. What each of the space forces, patrolling opposite
+each other, had in the way of weapons, was of course no public matter,
+either; but how do you rate two inconceivables? Nor did the threat stay
+out in the vastness between the planets.
+
+From Earth came the news of a gigantic, incandescent bubble, rising from
+the floor of the Pacific Ocean, and spreading in almost
+radioactivity-free waves and ripples, disrupting penned-in areas of
+food-producing sea, and lapping at last at far shores. Both sides
+disclaimed responsibility for the blast.
+
+Everybody insisted hopefully that this latest danger would die down,
+too. Statesmen would talk, official tempers would be calmed, some new
+working arrangements would be made. But meanwhile, the old Sword of
+Damocles hung by a thinner hair than ever before. One trigger-happy
+individual might snap it for good. If not now, the next time, or the
+next. A matter of hours, days, or years. The mathematics of
+probabilities denied that luck could last forever. In this thought there
+was a sense of helplessness, and the ghost of a second Asteroid Belt.
+
+Frank Nelsen might have continued to make himself useful in Pallastown,
+or he might have rejoined the Kuzaks, who had moved their mobile posts
+back into a safer zone on the other side of Pallas. But his instincts,
+now, all pointed along another course of action--the only course that
+seemed to make any sense just then.
+
+He approached Art Kuzak at Post One. "About deployment," he began. "I've
+made up some sketches, showing what I'd like the factories to turn out.
+The ideas aren't new--now they'll spring up all around like thoughts of
+food in a famine. If anything will approach answering all problems, they
+will. And KRNH is as well able to put them into effect as anybody...
+So--unless you've got some better suggestions?"
+
+Art Kuzak looked the sketches over shrewdly for half an hour.
+
+"All right, Frank," he said after some further conversation. "It looks
+good enough. I'll chip in. Whether they're sucker bait or not, these
+things will sell. Only--could it be you're running away?"
+
+"Perhaps," Nelsen answered. "Or following my nose--by a kind of natural
+compulsion which others will display, too. Two hundred of these to
+start. The men going with me will pay for theirs. I'll cover the rest of
+this batch: You'll be better than I am at figuring out prices and terms
+for later batches. Just on a hunch, I'll always want a considerable
+oversupply. Post One's shops can turn them out fast. All they are,
+mostly, is just stellene, arranged in a somewhat new way. The
+fittings--whatever can't be supplied now, can follow."
+
+Fifty asteroid-hoppers, ten of them accompanied by wives, went with
+Nelsen as he started out with a loaded caravan toward an empty region
+halfway between the orbits of Earth and Mars. Everyone in the group was
+convinced by yearnings of his own.
+
+Thinking of Nance Codiss, Nelsen planned to keep within beam range of
+the Red Planet. He had called Nance quite often. She was still working
+in the Survey Station hospital, which was swamped with injured from
+Pallastown.
+
+Nelsen could tag all of the fierce drives in him with single words.
+
+Home was the first. After all his years away from Earth, the meaning of
+the word would have been emphatic in him, even without the recurrent
+spasms of hot-cold weakness, which, though fading, still legally denied
+him the relief of going back to old familiar things. Besides, Earth
+seemed insecure. So he could only try to make home possible in space.
+Remembering his first trip, long ago, from the Moon to Mars, he knew how
+gentle the Big Vacuum could sometimes seem, with just a skin of stellene
+between it and himself. Home was a plain longing, too, in the hard,
+level eyes around him.
+
+Love. Well, wasn't that part of the first item he had tagged?
+
+Wanderlust. The adventurous distance drive--part of any wild-blooded
+vagabond male. Here in his idea, this other side of a human paradox
+seemed possible to answer, too. You could go anywhere. Home went with
+you. Your friends could go along, if they wished.
+
+Freedom. In the billions of cubic miles could any system ever be big
+enough to pen you in, tell you what to think or do, as long as you hurt
+no one? Well--he thought not, but perhaps that remained to be seen.
+
+Safety. Deployment was supposed to be the significant factor, there. And
+how could you make it any better than it was going to be now? Even if
+there were new dangers?
+
+The future. There was no staying with the past. The Earth was becoming
+too small for its expanding population. It was a stifling, dangerous
+little world that, if the pressures were not relieved, might puff into
+fire and fragments at any moment during any year. And the era of
+prospecting and exploration in the Asteroid Belt seemed destined soon to
+come to an end, in any event.
+
+Frank Nelsen's drives were very strong, after so much had passed around
+him for so long a time. Thus, maybe he became too idealistic and--at
+moments--almost fanatically believing, without enough of the saving
+grain of doubt and humor. The hoppers with him were much like
+himself--singly directed by what they had lacked for years.
+
+The assembly operation was quickly accomplished, as soon as they were
+what they considered a safe distance from the Belt. On a greater scale,
+it was almost nothing more than the first task that Nelsen had ever
+performed in space--the jockying of a bubb from its blastoff drum,
+inflating it, rigging it, spinning it for centrifugal gravity, and
+fitting in its internal appointments.
+
+Nelsen looked at the fifty-odd stellene rings that they had broken out
+of their containers--the others, still packed, were held in reserve.
+Those that had been freed glistened translucently in the sunlight.
+Nelsen had always thought that bubbs were beautiful. And these were
+still bubbs, but they were bigger, safer, more complicated.
+
+A bantam-sized hopper named Hank Janns spoke from beside Nelsen as they
+floated near each other. "Pop--sizzle--and it's yours, Chief. A prefab,
+a house, a dwelling. A kitchen, a terrace, a place for a garden, a place
+for kids, even... With a few personal touches, you've got it made.
+Better than the house trailer my dad used to hook onto the jalopy when I
+was ten... My Alice likes it, too, Chief--that's the _real_ signal! Tell
+your pals Kuzak that this is the Idea of the Century."
+
+Frank Nelsen kind of thought so, too, just then. The first thing he did
+was to beam the Survey Station on Mars, like he was doing twice a
+week--to communicate more often would have courted the still dangerous
+chance of being pinpointed. For similar reasons he couldn't explain too
+clearly what his project was, but he hoped that he had gotten a picture
+of what it was like across to his girl.
+
+"Come see for yourself, Nance," he said enthusiastically. "I'll arrange
+for a caravan from Post One to stop by on Phobos and pick you up.
+Also--there's my old question... So, what'll it be, Nance? Maybe we can
+feel a little surer of ourselves, now. We can work the rest out. Come
+and look, hang around--see how everything shakes down, if you'd rather."
+
+He waited for the light-minutes to pass, before he could hear her voice.
+"Hello, Frank..." There was the same eager quaver. "Still pretty jammed,
+Frank... But we know about it here--from Art... Some of the Pallastown
+convalescents will be migrating your way... I'll wrangle free and come
+along... Maybe in about a month..."
+
+He didn't know quite whether to take her at her word--or whether she was
+somehow hedging. In the Big Vacuum, the human mind seemed hard put,
+quite, to know itself. Distances and separations were too great.
+Emotions were too intense or too stunned. This much he had learned to
+understand. Perhaps he had lost Nance. But maybe, still--in some bleak,
+fatalistic way--it would be just as well in the end, for them both.
+
+"Sure, Nance," he said gently. "I'll call again--the regular time..."
+
+Right after that he was talking, over a much greater span, to Art Kuzak.
+"First phase about completed, Art... Finger to thumb--in spite of the
+troubles elsewhere. So let it roll...!"
+
+Art Kuzak's reply had an undercurrent of jubilance, as if whatever he
+knew now was better than he had expected. "Second phase is en route. Joe
+will be along... Don't be surprised..."
+
+Joe Kuzak's approach, a few hundred hours later, made a luminous cluster
+in the sky, like a miniature galaxy. It resolved itself into vast bales,
+and all of the stellene rings--storage and factory--of Post Three. Also
+there were over a hundred men and thirty-three wives. Many of them were
+Pallastown refugees.
+
+Nelsen helped Joe through the airlock of the ring that he had hoped
+would be his and Nance's. "Bubbtown, huh, Frank?" Joe chuckled. "The
+idea is spreading faster than we had believed, and we aren't the only
+ones that have got it. The timing is just right. People are scared, fed
+up. Out Here--and on Earth, too... Most of the guys that are single in
+this crowd have girls who will be on the way soon. Some of the tougher
+space-fitness tests are being junked. We're even screening a small batch
+of runaways from Ceres--to be included in the next load. An experiment.
+But it should work out. They're just like anybody... Art is all of
+sudden sort of liberal--the way he gets when things seem to break
+right."
+
+Everything went fine for quite a while. Art Kuzak was out playing his
+hunches, giving easy terms to those who couldn't pay at once.
+
+"Might as well gamble," he growled from the distance. "Space and
+terrestrial forces are still poised. If we lose at all, we lose the
+whole works, anyway. So let's bring them from all around the Belt, from
+Earth, Venus and from wherever they'll come. Give them a place to work,
+or let them start their own deal. It all helps... You know what I hear?
+The Tovies are letting men do things by themselves. To hold their own in
+room as big as this, they have to. Their bosses are over a barrel. Just
+organized discipline ain't gonna work. A guy has to want things his own
+way..."
+
+In a more general view, doubts were sneaking up on Frank Nelsen, though
+as far as KRNH was concerned, he had started the ball rolling. "We'll
+keep our fingers crossed," he said.
+
+It was only a couple of Earth-days later that another member of the old
+Bunch showed up. "I had to bubb all the way from Mercury to Post One to
+get your location from Art, Frankie," he complained. "Cripes--why didn't
+anybody ever try to beam Gimp and me, anymore? Solar radiation ain't
+_that_ hard to get past... So I had to come sneak a look for myself, to
+see what the Big Deal on the grapevine is."
+
+"We left the back door unlatched for you, Two-and-Two," Nelsen laughed.
+"And you crept in quietly. Swell to see you."
+
+Sitting showered and in fresh clothes on Frank Nelsen's sundeck, any
+changes in Two-and-Two Baines were less evident than one might have
+supposed. His eyes had a much surer, farther look. Otherwise he was
+still the same large hulk with much the same lugubrious humor.
+
+"Mercury's okay, Frankie," he said. "About four thousand people are
+living in the Twilight Zone, already. I could show you pictures, but I
+guess you know. Whole farms and little towns under stellene. Made me
+some dough doing lots of the building. Could have been more, but who
+cares? Oh, Gimp'll be along out here sometime, soon. He was putting up
+another solar powerhouse. But he's beginning to say, what the hell, the
+future ain't there, or on any planet... So this is how it's gonna be,
+huh? With some additions, sure. Factories, super markets, cornfields,
+pig farms, parks, playgrounds, beauty parlors, all encased in stellene,
+and orbiting in clusters around the sun, eh...? 'Hey, Pop!' some small
+fry will say to his old man. 'Gimme ten bucks, please, for an ice cream
+cone down at the soda bubb?' And his mom'll say to his dad, 'George,
+Dear--is the ionocar nice and shiny? I have to go play bridge with the
+girls over in Nelsenville...' No, I'm not ribbing you, Frankie. It'll be
+kind of nice to hear that type of talk, again--if they only include a
+place for a man to be a little bit himself."
+
+Two-and-Two (George) Baines sighed rapturously and continued. "Figure it
+out to the end, Frankie. No planets left--all the materials in them used
+up to build these bubbtowns. There'll be just big shining, magnificent
+rings made up of countless little floating stellene houses all around
+the sun. A zillion people, maybe more. Gardens, flowers, everything
+beautiful. Everybody free to move anywhere. Uh-uh--I'm not making fun,
+Frankie. I'm joining in with all the relief and happiness of my heart.
+Only, it'll be kind of sad to see the old planets go--to be replaced by
+a wonderful super-suburbia. Or maybe we should say, superbia."
+
+Nelsen burst out laughing, at last. "You sly slob...! Anyhow, _that_
+extreme is millenniums off--if it has a chance of happening, at all.
+Even so, our descendants, if any, will be going to the stars by then.
+There won't be any frustration of their thirst for danger... Just as
+there isn't any, now, for us. Except that we can keep our weapons handy,
+and hope... Me--I'm a bit bored with adventure, just at present."
+
+"So am I," Two-and-Two affirmed fervently. "Now, have you got me a job,
+Frankie?"
+
+"There'll be something," Nelsen answered him. "Meanwhile, to keep from
+feeling regimented by civilization, you could take your rocket launcher
+and join the perimeter watchers that range out a thousand miles..."
+
+Nance Codiss arrived a week later, with a group of recent Pallastown
+convalescents. Bad signs came with her, but that fact got lost as she
+hugged Nelsen quickly there in the dwelling he had set up with the
+thought it would be their home. At once she went on a feminine exploring
+expedition of the prefab's interior, and its new, gleaming appointments.
+Kitchen, living room, sundeck. Nelsen's garden was already well along.
+
+"Like the place?" he asked.
+
+"Love it, Frank," she answered quietly.
+
+"It could have been more individual," he commented. "But we were in a
+hurry. So they are all identical. That can be fixed, some, soon. You're
+thinking about improvements?"
+
+Her eyes twinkled past the shadow in her expression. "Always some," she
+laughed. Then her face went solemn. "Let them ride, for now, Frank. It's
+all wonderful and unbelievable. Hug me again--I love you. Only--all this
+is even more fantastically new to me than it is to you. Realize that,
+please, Frank. I'm a month late in getting here and I'm still groping my
+way. A little more time--for us both... Because you might be fumbling,
+some, too."
+
+Her tone was gentle. He saw that her eyes, meeting his, were honest and
+clear. He felt the careful strength behind them, after a moment of hurt.
+There was no rushing, one-way enthusiasm that might easily burn out and
+blow up in a short time.
+
+He held her close. "Sure, Nance," he said.
+
+"You probably know that our group from Mars was followed, Frank. I hope
+I'm not a jinx."
+
+"Of course you're not. Somebody would have followed--sometime. We're
+watching and listening. Just keep your Archer handy..."
+
+The faint, shifting blips in the radar screens was an old story,
+reminding him that certain things were no better than before, and that
+some were worse. Somewhere there were other bubbtowns. There were
+policing space forces, too. But for millions of miles around, this
+cluster of eight hundred prefabs and the numerous larger bubbs that
+served them, were all alone.
+
+Nelsen looked out from his sundeck, and saw dangerous contrasts. The
+worst, perhaps, was a spherical bubble of stellene. Inside it was a
+great globe of water surrounded by air--a colossal dewdrop. Within it, a
+man and two small boys--no doubt father and sons from Pallastown, were
+swimming, horsing around, having a swell time--only a few feet from
+nothing. Nelsen spoke softly into his radio-phone. "Leland--close down
+the pool..."
+
+It wasn't long before the perimeter watch, returning from a patrol that
+had taken them some distance out, brought in a makeshift dwelling bubb
+made from odds and ends of stellene. They had also picked up its
+occupant, a lean comic character with an accent and a strange way of
+talking.
+
+"Funny that you'd turn up, here--Igor, is it?" Nelsen said dryly.
+
+Igor sniffed, as if with sorrow. He had been roughed up, some. "Very
+funny--also simple. You making a house, so I am making a house for this
+identical purpose. People from Ceres are already being here; in
+consequence, I am also arriving. Nobody are saying what are proper doing
+and thinking--so I am informed. I am believing--okay, Igor. When being
+not true, I am going away again."
+
+The tone was bland. The pale eyes looked naive and artless, except,
+perhaps, for a hard, shrewd glint, deep down.
+
+Joe Kuzak was present. "We searched him, Frank," he said. "His bubb,
+too. He's clean--as far as we can tell. Not even a weapon. I also asked
+him some questions. I savvy a little of his real lingo."
+
+"I'll ask them over," Nelsen answered. "Igor--a friend named Tiflin
+wouldn't be being around some place, would he?"
+
+The large space comedian didn't even hesitate. "I am thinking not very
+far--not knowing precisely. Somebody more is being here, likewise. Belt
+Parnay. You are knowing this one? Plenty Jollies--new fellas--not having
+much supplies--only many new rocket launchers they are receiving from
+someplace. You are understanding this? Bad luck, here, it is meaning."
+
+Nelsen eyed the man warily, with mixed doubt and liking. "I don't think
+you can be going away again, right now, Igor," he said. "We don't have a
+jail, but a guard will be as good..."
+
+The watch didn't give the alarm for several hours. Three hisses in the
+phones, made vocally. Then one, then two more. North, second quadrant,
+that meant. Direction of first attack. Ionic drives functioned. The
+cluster of bubbs began to scatter further. Nelsen knew that if Igor had
+told the truth, the outlook was very poor. Too much deployment would
+thin the defenses too much. And against new, homing rockets--if Parnay
+really had them--it would be almost useless. A relatively small number
+of men, riding free in armor, could smash the much larger targets from
+almost any distance.
+
+Nelsen didn't stay in his prefab. Floating in his Archer, he could be
+his own, less easily identifiable, less easily hit command post, while
+he fired his own homing missiles at the far-off radar specks of the
+attackers. He ordered everyone not specifically needed inside the bubbs
+for some defense purpose to jump clear.
+
+In the first half-minute, he saw at least fifty compartmented prefabs
+partly crumple, as explosives tore into them. A dozen, torn open, were
+deflated entirely. The swimming pool globe was punctured, and a cloud of
+frosty vapor made rainbows in the sunshine, as the water boiled away.
+Far out, Nelsen saw the rockets he and his own men had launched,
+sparkling soundlessly, no doubt scoring, some, too.
+
+The attackers didn't even try to get close yet. Far greater damage would
+have to be inflicted, before panic and disorganization might give them
+sufficient advantage. But such damage would take only minutes. Too much
+would reduce the loot. So now there was a halt in the firing, and
+another component of fear was applied. It was a growling, taunting
+voice.
+
+"Nelsen! And all of you silly bladder-brains...! This is Belt Parnay...!
+Ever hear of him? Come back from hell, eh? Not with just rocks, this
+time! The latest, surest equipment! Want to give up, now, Nelsen--you
+and your nice, civilized people? Cripes, what will you cranks try next?
+Villages built in nothing and on nothing! Thanks, though. Brother, what
+a blowout this is gonna provide!"
+
+Parnay's tone had shifted, becoming mincingly mocking, then hard and
+joyful at the end.
+
+Maybe he shouldn't have suggested so plainly what would happen--unless
+something was done, soon. Maybe he shouldn't have sounded just a little
+bit unsure of himself under all his bluff. Because Nelsen had made
+preparations that matched a general human trend. Now, he saw a condition
+that fitted in, making an opportunity... So he began to taunt Parnay
+back.
+
+"We've got a lot of the latest type rockets to throw, too, Parnay. You'd
+have quite a time, trying to take us. But there's more... Just look
+behind you, Parnay. And all around. Not too far. Who's silly? Who's the
+jerk? Some new guys are in your crowd, I hear? Then they won't have much
+against them--they aren't real outlaws. Do you think they want to keep
+following you around, stinking in their armor--when what we've got is
+what they're bound to want, right now, too? They can hear what I'm
+saying, Parnay. Every one of them must have a weapon in his hands. Why,
+you stupid clown, you're in a trap! We will give them what they need
+most, without them having to risk getting killed. In space, there'll
+have to be a lot of things forgotten, but not for you or for the rough
+old-timers with you... Come on, you guys out there. There's a folded
+bubb right here waiting for each of you. Take it anywhere you want--away
+from here, of course... Parnay--big, important Belt Parnay--are you
+still alive...?"
+
+Nelsen had his own sneering tone of mockery. He used it to best
+advantage--but with fear in his heart. Plenty of his act was only
+counter-bluff. But now, as he paused, he heard Two-and-Two Baines'
+mournful voice continue the barrage of persuasion.
+
+"Flowers, Parnay? We ain't got many, yet. But you won't care...
+Fellas--do you want to keep being pushed around by this loud mouth who
+likes to run and lets you sweat for him, because he's mostly alone and
+needs company? Believe me, I know what it's like out there, too. At a
+certain point, all you really want is something a little like home. And
+the Chief ain't kidding. It was all planned. Try us and see. Send a
+couple of guys in. They'll come out with the proof..."
+
+Other voices were shouting. "Wake up, you suckers...! You'll never take
+us, you stupid slobs...! Come on and try it, if that's what you want to
+be..."
+
+What happened, could never have happened so quickly if Parnay's
+doubtless considerably disgruntled following hadn't been disturbed
+further by intrigue beforehand. Nelsen heard Parnay roar commands and
+curses that might have awed many a man. But then there was a cluster of
+minute sparks in the distance, as rockets, not launched by the
+defenders, homed and exploded.
+
+There was a pause. Then many voices were audible, shouting at the same
+time, with scarcely any words clear... Several minutes passed like that.
+Then there was almost silence.
+
+"So--has it happened?" Nelsen growled into his phone.
+
+"It has," came the mocking answer. "Be cavalier, Nelsen. Salute the new
+top outlaw... Don't faint-- I knew I'd make it... And don't try anything
+you might regret... I'm coming in with a couple of my Jolly Lads. You'd
+better not welsh on your promises. Because the others are armed and
+waiting..."
+
+The guys with Tiflin looked more tired than tough. Out from under their
+fierce, truculent bravado showed the fiercer hunger for common things
+and comforts. Nelsen knew. The record was in his own memory.
+
+"You'll get your bubbs right away," he told them. "Then send the others
+in, a pair at a time. After that, go and get lost. Make your own
+place--town--whatever you want to call it... Leland, Crobert,
+Sharpe--fit these guys out, will you...?"
+
+All this happened under the sardonic gaze of Glen Tiflin, and before the
+puzzled eyes of Joe Kuzak and Two-and-Two Baines. A dozen others were
+hovering near.
+
+Nelsen lowered his voice and called, "Nance?"
+
+She answered at once. "I'm all right, Frank. A few people to patch. Some
+beyond that. I'm in the hospital with Doc Forbes..."
+
+"You guys can find something useful to do," Nelsen snapped at the
+gathering crowd.
+
+"Well, Frankie," Tiflin taunted. "Aren't you going to invite me into
+your fancy new quarters? Joe and Two-and-Two also look as though they
+could stand a drink."
+
+On the sundeck, Tiflin spoke again. "I suppose you've got it figured,
+Nelsen?"
+
+Nelsen answered him in clipped fashion. "Thanks. But let's not dawdle
+too much. I've got a lot of wreckage to put back together... Maybe I've
+still got it figured wrong, Tiflin. But lately I began to think the
+other way. You were always around when trouble was cooking--like part of
+it, _or like a good cop_. The first might still be right."
+
+Tiflin sneered genially. "Some cops can't carry badges. And they don't
+always stop trouble, but they try... Anyhow, what side do you think I
+was on, after Fessler kicked me around for months...? Let Igor go. He's
+got law and order in his soul. I kind of like having him around... But
+keep your mouths buttoned, will you? I'm talking to you, Mr. Baines, and
+you, Mr. Kuzak, as well as to you, Nelsen. And I'm take my bubb along,
+the same as the other ninety or so guys who are left from Parnay's
+crowd. I've got to look good with them... Cheers, you slobs. See you
+around..."
+
+Afterwards, Joe growled, "Hell--what do you know! Him...! Special
+Police. Undercover. U.N., U.S., or what?"
+
+"Shut up," Nelsen growled.
+
+Though he had sensed it coming and had met it calmly, the Tiflin switch
+was something that Frank Nelsen had trouble getting over. It confused
+him. It made him want to laugh.
+
+Another thing that began to bother him even more was the realization
+that the violence, represented by Fessler, Fanshaw, Parnay, and
+thousands of others like them back through history, was bound to crop up
+again. It was part of the complicated paradox of human nature. And it
+was hard to visualize a time when there wouldn't be followers--frustrated
+slobs who wanted to get out and kick over the universe. Nelsen had felt
+such urges cropping up within himself. So this wasn't the end of
+trouble--especially not out here in raw space, that was still far too
+big for man-made order.
+
+So it wasn't just the two, opposed space navies patrolling, more quietly
+now, between Ceres and Pallas. That condition could pass. The way people
+always chose--or were born to--different sides was another matter. Or
+was it just the natural competition of life in whatever form? More
+disturbing, perhaps, was the mere fact of trying to live here, so close
+to natural forces that could kill in an instant.
+
+For example, Nelsen often saw two children and a dog racing around
+inside one of the rotating bubbs--having fun as if just in a back yard.
+If the stellene were ripped, the happy picture would change to horror...
+How long would it take to get adjusted to--and accept--such a chance?
+Thoughts like that began to disturb Nelsen. Out here, in all this
+enormous freedom, the shift from peaceful routine to tragedy could be
+quicker than ever before.
+
+But is wasn't thinking about such grim matters that actually threw Frank
+Nelsen--that got him truly mixed up. In Parnay's attack, ten men and two
+women had been killed. There were also twenty-seven injured. Such facts
+he could accept--they didn't disturb him too much, either. Yet there was
+a curious sort of straw that broke the camel's back, one might have
+said.
+
+The incident took place quite a while after the assault. Out on an
+inspection tour in his Archer, he happened to glance through the
+transparent wall of the sundeck of a prefab he was passing...
+
+In a moment he was inside, grinning happily. Miss Rosalie Parks was
+lecturing him: "... You needn't be surprised that I am here, Franklin.
+'O, tempora O, mores!' Cicero once said. 'O, the times! O, the customs!'
+But we needn't be so pessimistic. I am in perfect health--and ten years
+below retirement age. Young people, I suspect, will still be taught
+Latin if they choose... Or there will be something else... Of course I
+had heard of your project... It was quite easy for you not to notice my
+arrival. But I came with the latest group, straight from Earth..."
+
+Nelsen was very pleased that Miss Parks was here. He told her so. He
+stayed for cakes and coffee. He told her that it was quite right for her
+to keep up with the times. He believed this, himself...
+
+Afterwards, though, in his own quarters, he began to laugh. Her presence
+was so incongruous, so fantastic...
+
+His laughter became wild. Then it changed to great rasping hiccups. Too
+much that was unbelievable by old standards had happened around him.
+This was delayed reaction to space. He had heard of such a thing. But he
+had hardly thought that it could apply to him, anymore...! Well, he
+knew what to do... Tranquilizer tablets were practically forgotten
+things to him. But he gulped one now. In a few minutes, he seemed okay,
+again...
+
+Yet he couldn't help thinking back to the Bunch, the Planet Strappers.
+To the wild fulfillment they had sought... So--most of them had made it.
+They had become men--the hard way. Except, of course, Eileen--the
+distaff side... They had planned, callowly, to meet and compare
+adventures in ten years. And this was still less than seven...
+
+How long had it been since he had even beamed old Paul, in Jarviston...?
+Now that most of the Syrtis Fever had left him, it seemed futile even to
+consider such a thing. It involved memories buried in enormous time,
+distance, change, and unexpectedness.
+
+Glen Tiflin--the sour, space-wild punk who had become a cop. Had Tiflin
+even saved his--Frank Nelsen's--life, once, long ago, persuading a Jolly
+Lad leader to cast him adrift for a joke, rather than to kill him and
+Ramos outright...?
+
+Charlie Reynolds--the Bunch-member whom everybody had thought most
+likely to succeed. Well, Charlie was dead from a simple thing, and
+buried on Venus. He was unknown--except to his acquaintances.
+
+Jig Hollins, the guy who had played it safe, was just as dead.
+
+Eileen Sands was a celebrity in Serene, in Pallastown and the whole
+Belt.
+
+Mex Ramos--of the flapping squirrel tails on an old motor scooter--now
+belonged to the history of exploration, though he no longer had real
+hands or feet, and, very likely, was now dead, somewhere out toward
+interstellar space.
+
+David Lester, the timid one, had become successful in his own way, and
+was the father of one of the first children to be born in the Belt.
+
+Two-and-Two Baines had won enough self-confidence to make cracks about
+the future. Gimp Hines, once the saddest case in the Whole Bunch, had
+been, for a long time, perhaps the best adjusted to the Big Vacuum.
+
+Art Kuzak, one-time hunkie football player, was a power among the
+asteroids. His brother, Joe, had scarcely changed, personally.
+
+About himself, Nelsen got the most lost. What had he become, after his
+wrong guesses and his great luck, and the fact that he had managed to
+see more than most? Generally, he figured that he was still the same
+free-wheeling vagabond by intention, but too serious to quite make it
+work out. Sometimes he actually gave people orders. It came to him as a
+surprise that he must be almost as rich as old J. John Reynolds, who
+was still drawing wealth from a comparatively small loan--futilely at
+his age, unless he had really aimed at the ideal of bettering the
+future.
+
+Nelsen's busy mind couldn't stop. He thought of three other-world
+cultures he had glimpsed. Two had destroyed each other. The third and
+strangest was still to be reckoned with...
+
+There, he came to Mitch Storey, the colored guy with the romantic name.
+Of all the Planet Strappers, his history was the most fabulous. Maybe,
+now, with a way of living in open space started, and with the planets
+ultimately to serve only as sources of materials, Mitch's star people
+would be left in relative peace for centuries.
+
+Frank Nelsen began to chuckle again. As if something, everything, was
+funny. Which, perhaps, it was in a way. Because the whole view, personal
+and otherwise, seemed too huge and unpredictable for his wits to grasp.
+It was as if neither he, nor any other person, belonged where he was at
+all. He checked his thoughts in time. Otherwise, he would have commenced
+hiccuping.
+
+That was the way it went for a considerable succession of arbitrary
+twenty-four hour day-periods. As long as he kept his attention on the
+tasks in hand, he was okay--he felt fine. Still, the project was
+proceeding almost automatically, just now. The first cluster of prefabs
+had grown until it had been split into halves, which moved a million
+miles apart, circling the sun. And he knew that there were other
+clusters, built by other outfits, growing and dividing into widely
+separated portions of the same great ring-like zone.
+
+Maybe the old problems were beat. Safety? If deployment was the answer
+to that, it was certainly there--to a degree, at least. Room enough?
+Check. It was certainly available. Freedom of mind and action? There
+wasn't much question that that would work out, too. Home, comfort, and a
+kind of life not too unfamiliar? In the light of detached logic and
+observation, that was going fine, too. In the main, people were
+adjusting very quickly and eagerly. Perhaps _too_ quickly.
+
+That was where Nelsen always got scared, as if he had become a nervous
+old man. The Big Vacuum had a grandeur. It could seem gentle. Could
+children, women and men--everybody sometimes forgot--learn to live with
+it without losing their respect for it, until suddenly it killed them?
+
+That was the worst point, if he let himself think. And how could he
+always avoid that? From there his thoughts would branch out into his
+multiple uncertainties, confusions and puzzlements. Then those
+strangling hiccups would come. And who could be taking devil-killers
+all the time?
+
+He hadn't avoided Nance Codiss. He talked with her every day, lunched
+with her, even held her hand. Otherwise, a restraint had come over him.
+Because something was all wrong with him, and was getting worse. Just
+one urge was clear, now, inside him. She knew, of course, that he was
+loused up; but she didn't say anything. Finally he told her.
+
+"You were right, Nance. I was fumbling my way, too. Space fatigue, the
+medic told me just a little while ago. He agrees with me that I should
+go back to Earth. I've got to go--to take a look at everything from the
+small end, again. Of course I've always had the longing. And now I can
+go. It has been a year since the worst of the Syrtis Fever."
+
+"I've had the fever. And sometimes the longing, Frank," she said after
+she had studied him for a moment. "I think I'd like to go."
+
+"Only if you want to, Nance. It's me that's flunking out, pal." He
+chuckled apologetically, almost lightly. "My part has to be a one-person
+deal. I don't know whether I'll ever come back. And you seem to fit, out
+here."
+
+She looked at him coolly for almost a minute. "All right, Frank," she
+said quietly. "Follow your nose. It's just liable to be right on the
+beam--for you. I might follow mine. I don't know."
+
+"Joe and Two-and-Two are around--if you need anything, Nance," he said.
+"I'll tell them. Gimp, I hear, is on the way. Not much point in my
+waiting for him, though..."
+
+Somehow he loved Nance Codiss as much or more than ever. But how could
+he tell her that and make sense? Not much made sense to him anymore. It
+seemed that he had to get away from everybody that he had ever seen in
+space.
+
+Fifty hours before his departure with a returning bubb caravan that had
+brought more Earth-emigrants, Nelsen acquired a travelling companion who
+had arrived from Pallastown with a small caravan bringing machinery. The
+passenger-hostess brought him to Nelsen's prefab. He was a grave little
+guy, five years old. He was solemn, polite, frightened, tall for his
+age--funny how corn and kids grew at almost zero-gravity.
+
+The boy handed Nelsen a letter. "From my father and mother, sir," he
+said.
+
+Nelsen read the typed missive.
+
+"Dear Frank: The rumor has come that you are going home. You have our
+very best wishes, as always. Our son, Davy, is being sent to his
+paternal grandmother, now living in Minneapolis. He will go to school
+there. He is capable of making the trip without any special attention.
+But--a small imposition. If you can manage it, please look in on him
+once in a while, on the way. We would appreciate this favor. Thank you,
+take care of yourself, and we shall hope to see you somewhere within the
+next few months. Your sincere friends, David and Helen Lester."
+
+A lot of nerve, Nelsen thought first. But he tried to grin engagingly at
+the kid and almost succeeded.
+
+"We're in luck, Dave," he said. "I'm going to Minneapolis, too. I'm
+afraid of a lot of things. What are you afraid of?"
+
+The small fry's jutting lip trembled. "Earth," he said. "A great big
+planet. Hoppers tell me I won't even be able to stand up or breathe."
+
+Nelsen very nearly laughed and went into hiccups, again. Fantastic.
+Another viewpoint. Seeing through the other end of the telescope. But
+how else would it be for a youngster born in the Belt, while being
+sent--in the old colonial pattern--to the place that his parents
+regarded as home?
+
+"Those jokers," Nelsen scoffed. "They're pulling your leg! It just isn't
+so, Davy. Anyhow, during the trip, the big bubb will be spun fast
+enough, so that we will get used to the greater Earth-gravity. Let me
+tell you something. I guess it's space and the Belt that _I'm_ afraid
+of. I never quite got over it. Silly, huh?"
+
+But as Nelsen watched the kid brighten, he remembered that he, himself,
+had been scared of Earth, too. Scared to return, to show weakness, to
+lack pride... Well, to hell with that. He had accomplished enough, now,
+maybe, to cancel such objections. Now it seemed that he had to get to
+Earth before it vanished because of something he had helped start.
+Silly, of course...
+
+He and Davy travelled fast and almost in luxury. Within two weeks they
+were in orbit around the bulk of the Old World. Then, in the powerful
+tender with its nuclear retard rockets, there was the Blast In--the
+reverse of that costly agony that had once meant hard won and enormous
+freedom, when he was poor in money and rich in mighty yearning. But now
+Nelsen yielded in all to the mother clutch of the gravity. The whole
+process had been gentled and improved. There were special anti-knock
+seats. There was sound- and vibration-insulation. Even Davy's slight
+fear was more than half thrill.
+
+At the new Minneapolis port, Nelsen delivered David Lester, Junior into
+the care of his grandmother, who seemed much more human than Nelsen once
+had thought long ago. Then he excused himself quickly.
+
+Seeking the shelter of anonymity, he bought a rucksack for his few
+clothes, and boarded a bus which dropped him at Jarviston, Minnesota, at
+two a.m. He thrust his hands into his pockets, partly like a lonesome
+tramp, partly like some carefree immortal, and partly like a mixed-up
+wraith who didn't quite know who or what he was, or where he belonged.
+
+In his wallet he had about five hundred dollars. How much more he might
+have commanded, he couldn't even guess. Wups, fella, he told himself.
+That's too weird, too indigestible--don't start hiccuping again. How old
+are you--twenty-five, or twenty-five thousand years? Wups--careful...
+
+The full Moon was past zenith, looking much as it always had. The
+blue-tinted air domes of colossal industrial development, were mostly
+too small at this distance to be seen without a glass. Good...
+
+With wondering absorption he sniffed the mingling of ripe field and road
+smells, borne on the warm breeze of the late-August night. Some few cars
+evidently still ran on gasoline. For a moment he watched neon signs
+blink. In the desertion he walked past Lehman's Drug Store and Otto
+Kramer's bar, and crossed over to pause for a nameless moment in front
+of Paul Hendricks' Hobby Center, which was all dark, and seemed little
+changed. He took to a side street, and won back the rustle of trees and
+the click of his heels in the silence.
+
+A few more buildings--that was about all that was visibly different in
+Jarviston, Minnesota.
+
+A young cop eyed him as he returned to the main drag and paused near a
+street lamp. He had a flash of panic, thinking that the cop was
+somebody, grown up, now, who would recognize him. But at least it was no
+one that he remembered.
+
+The cop grinned. "Get settled in a hotel, buddy," he said. "Or else move
+on, out of town."
+
+Nelsen grinned back, and ambled out to the highway, where intermittent
+clumps of traffic whispered.
+
+There he paused, and looked up at the sky, again. The electric beacon of
+a weather observation satellite blinked on and off, moving slowly. Venus
+had long since set, with hard-to-see Mercury preceding it. Jupiter
+glowed in the south. Mars looked as remote and changeless as it must
+have looked in the Stone Age. The asteroids were never even visible here
+without a telescope.
+
+The people that he knew, and the events that he had experienced Out
+There, were like myths, now. _How could he ever put Here and There
+together, and unite the mismatched halves of himself and his
+experience?_ He had been born on Earth, the single home of his kind from
+the beginning. How could he ever even have been Out There?
+
+He didn't try to hitch a ride. He walked fourteen miles to the next
+town, bought a small tent, provisions and a special, miniaturized
+radio. Then he slipped into the woods, along Hickman's Lake, where he
+used to go.
+
+There he camped, through September, and deep into October. He fished, he
+swam again. He dropped stones into the water, and watched the circles
+form, with a kind of puzzled groping in his memory. He retreated from
+the staggering magnificence of his recent past and clutched at old
+simplicities.
+
+On those rare occasions when he shaved, he saw the confused sickness in
+his face, reflected by his mirror. Sometimes, for a moment, he felt hot,
+and then cold, as if his blood still held a tiny trace of Syrtis Fever.
+If there _was_ such a thing? No--don't start to laugh, he warned
+himself. Relax. Let the phantoms fade away. Somewhere, that multiple
+bigness of Nothing, of life and death, of success and unfairness and
+surprise, must have reality--but not here...
+
+Occasionally he listened to news on the radio. But mostly he shut it
+off--out. Until boredom at last began to overtake him--because he had
+been used to so much more than what was here. Until--specifically--one
+morning, when the news came too quickly, and with too much impact. It
+was a recording, scratchy, and full of unthinkable distance.
+
+"... Frank, Gimp, Two-and-Two, Paul, Mr. Reynolds, Otto, Les, Joe, Art,
+everybody--especially you, Eileen--remember what you promised, when I
+get back, Eileen...! Here I am, on Pluto--edge of the star desert! Clear
+sailing--all the way. All I see, yet, is twilight, rocks, mountains,
+snow which must be frozen atmosphere--and one big star, Sol. But I'll
+get the data, and be back..."
+
+Nelsen listened to the end, with panic in his face--as if such
+adventures and such living were too gigantic and too rich... He hiccuped
+once. Then he held himself very still and concentrated. He had known
+that voice Out There and Here, too. Now, as he heard it again--Here, but
+from Out There--it became like a joining force to bring them both
+together within himself. Though how could it be...?
+
+"Ramos," he said aloud. "Made it... Another good guy, accomplishing what
+he wanted... Hey...! Hey, that's swell... Like things should happen."
+
+He didn't hiccup anymore, or laugh. By being very careful, he just
+grinned, instead. He arose to his feet, slowly.
+
+"What am I doing here--wasting time?" he seemed to ask the woods.
+
+Without picking up his camping gear at all, he headed for the road,
+thumbed a ride to Jarviston, where he arrived before eight o'clock.
+Somebody had started ringing the city hall bell. Celebration?
+
+Hendricks' was the most logical place for Nelsen to go, but he passed
+it by, following a hunch to his old street. _She_ had almost said that
+she might come home, too. He touched the buzzer.
+
+Not looking too completely dishevelled himself, he stood there, as a
+girl--briskly early in dress and impulse, so as not to waste the bright
+morning--opened the door.
+
+"Yeah, Nance--me," he croaked apologetically. "Ramos has reached Pluto!"
+
+"I know, _Frankie_!" she burst out.
+
+But his words rushed on. "I've been goofing off--by Hickman's Lake. Over
+now. Emotional indigestion, I guess--from living too big, before I could
+take it. I figured you _might_ be here. If you weren't, I'd come...
+Because I know where I belong. Nance--I hope you're not angry. Maybe
+we're pulling together, at last?"
+
+"Angry--when I was the first fumbler? How could that be, Frank? Oh, I
+knew where you were--folks found out. I told them to leave you alone,
+because I understood some of what you were digging through. Because it
+was a little the same--for me... So, you see, I didn't just tag after
+you." She laughed a little. "That wouldn't be proud, would it? Even
+though Joe and Two-and-Two said I had to go bring you back..."
+
+His arms went tight around her, right there on the old porch.
+"Nance--love you," he whispered. "And we've got to be tough. Everybody's
+got to be tough--to match what we've come to. Even little kids. But it
+was always like that--on any kind of frontier, wasn't it? A few will get
+killed, but more will live--many more..."
+
+Like that, Frank Nelsen shook the last of the cobwebs out of his
+brain--and got back to his greater destiny.
+
+"I'll buy all of that philosophy," Nance chuckled gently. "But you still
+look as though you needed some breakfast, Frank."
+
+He grinned. "Later. Let's go to see Paul, first. A big day for
+him--because of Ramos. Paul is getting feeble, I suppose?" Nelsen's face
+had sobered.
+
+"Not so you could notice it much, Frank," Nance answered. "There's a new
+therapy--another side of What's Coming, I guess..."
+
+They walked the few blocks. The owner of the Hobby Center was now a
+long-time member of KRNH Enterprises. He had the means to expand and
+modernize the place beyond recognition. But clearly he had realized that
+some things should not change.
+
+In the display window, however, there gleamed a brand-new Archer Nine,
+beautiful as a garden or a town floating, unsupported, under the
+stars--beautiful as the Future, which was born of the Past.
+
+A Bunch of fellas--the current crop of aficionados--were inside the
+store, making lots of noise over the news. Was that Chip Potter, grown
+tall? Was that his same old dog, Blaster? Frank Nelsen could see Paul
+Hendricks' white-fringed bald-spot.
+
+"Go ahead--open the door. Or are you still scared?" Nance challenged
+lightly.
+
+"No--just anticipating," Nelsen gruffed. "And seeing if I can remember
+what's Out There ... Serene, bubb, Belt, Pallas..." He spoke the words
+like comic incantations, yet with a dash of reverence.
+
+"Superbia?" Nance teased.
+
+"That is somebody's impertinent joke!" he growled in feigned solemnity.
+"Anyhow, it would be too bad if something _that_ important couldn't take
+a little ribbing. Shucks--we've hardly _started_ to work, yet!"
+
+He drew Nance back a pace, out of sight of those in the store, and
+kissed her long and rather savagely.
+
+"With all its super-complications, life still seems pretty nice," he
+commented.
+
+The door squeaked, just as it used to, as Nelsen pushed it open. The old
+overhead bell jangled.
+
+Pale, watery eyes lifted and lighted with another fulfilment.
+
+"Well, Frank! Long time no see...!"
+
+
+
+
+*FOR SCIENCE FICTION FANS--*
+
+*A space-age collection of startling adventures*
+
+
+*TOMORROW AND TOMORROW*
+
+*Hunt Collins.* Battle of strange cults for control of the world. (G654)
+
+
+*SIX x H*
+
+*Robert Heinlein.* Imaginative tales from sorcery to the fourth
+dimension. (G642)
+
+
+*THE SYNTHETIC MAN*
+
+*Theodore Sturgeon.* A startling science-fiction fantasy of a man who
+suddenly discovers he is not human. (G636)
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+
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+
+
+*ORBIT UNLIMITED*
+
+*Poul Anderson.* Earth had no room for them--their only escape was the
+most dangerous voyage of all time. (G615)
+
+
+*AGAINST THE FALL OF NIGHT*
+
+*Arthur C. Clarke.* A story of an unimaginable future one billion years
+from now. (G554)
+
+
+*VENUS PLUS X*
+
+*Theodore Sturgeon.* He was in a world of strange creatures, unheard-of
+buildings and an unfamiliar language. (G544)
+
+
+*THE INCOMPLETE ENCHANTER*
+
+*L. Sprague de Camp & Fletcher Pratt.* Two scientists explore a world
+where magic works. (G530)
+
+
+*THE TOMORROW PEOPLE*
+
+*Judith Merril.* He came back from Mars with a secret too terrible to
+remember. (G502)
+
+
+*MAN OF MANY MINDS*
+
+*E. Everett Evans.* In his brain was the power to rule the world and the
+Universe. (G458)
+
+
+*SPECIAL: 3 BOOKS FOR $1, POSTAGE FREE*
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+*PYRAMID BOOKS, Dept. G658, 444 Madison Ave., New York 22, N. Y.*
+
+Please send me the following books at the special price of 3 books for
+$1, postage free (single copies 35c each plus 10c mailing charges). I
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+G654 G642 G636 G624 G615 G554 G544 G530 G502 G458
+
+Name....................................................................
+
+Address ................................................................
+
+City ........................... State .................................
+
+
+
+
+THE PLANET STRAPPERS
+
+started out as The Bunch, a group of student-astronauts in the back room
+of a store in Jarviston, Minnesota. They wanted off Earth, and they
+begged, borrowed and built what they needed to make it.
+
+THE PLANET STRAPPERS got what they wanted--a start on the road to the
+stars--but no one brought up on Earth could have imagined what was
+waiting for them Out There!
+
+In THE PLANET STRAPPERS, Ray Gallun has written a story of the Day After
+Tomorrow--a story of what it will be like for the men who cross the
+space frontier--a story that some of us will be *living* some day....
+
+A PYRAMID BOOK                                                       35c
+
+COVER: JOHN SCHOENHERR
+
+Printed in U.S.A.
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note: The following typographical errors in the original
+text have been corrected in this eBook:
+
+Page 18: "signficant" changed to "significant"
+
+Page 43: single quotation mark changed to a double quotation mark
+
+Page 69: "re-leatch" changed to "re-latch"
+
+Page 70: "in" changed to "an"
+
+Page 72: "Casseopia" changed to "Cassiopeia"
+
+Page 73: "sitch" changed to "switch"
+
+Page 75: "dopy" changed to "dopey"
+
+Page 77: "thundrous" changed to "thunderous"
+
+Page 78: missing quotation mark added; "dissappeared" changed to
+"disappeared"; "a" changed to "at"; "Were" changed to "We're"
+
+Page 81: "Kuzack" changed to "Kuzak"
+
+Page 85: "stear" changed to "steer"
+
+Page 89: "Kuzaks" changed to "Kuzaks'"
+
+Page 92: "asteriods" changed to "asteroids"
+
+Page 104: missing quotation mark added; "summersaults" changed to
+"somersaults"
+
+Page 107: "heathy" changed to "healthy"
+
+Page 113: "asteriod-hoppers" changed to "asteroid-hoppers"
+
+Page 115: "prismastic" changed to "prismatic"
+
+Page 121: "guage" changed to "gauge"
+
+Page 124: "exhude" changed to "exude"
+
+Page 132: extra quotation mark removed
+
+Page 137: "assteroid-hoppers" changed to "asteroid-hoppers";
+"advertized" changed to "advertised"
+
+Page 143: "milleniums" changed to "millenniums"
+
+Page 145: "quandrant" changed to "quadrant"
+
+Page 158: "fantasty" changed to "fantasy"
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Planet Strappers, by Raymond Zinke Gallun
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PLANET STRAPPERS ***
+
+***** This file should be named 25067.txt or 25067.zip *****
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