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diff --git a/29643.txt b/29643.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..921aa31 --- /dev/null +++ b/29643.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1303 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Death of a Spaceman, by Walter M. Miller + +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: Death of a Spaceman + +Author: Walter M. Miller + +Illustrator: Ernest Schroeder + +Release Date: August 9, 2009 [EBook #29643] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DEATH OF A SPACEMAN *** + + + + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Stephen Blundell and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + +[Illustration: Illustrator: Ernest Schroeder] + + + DEATH + OF A + SPACEMAN + +BY WALTER M. MILLER, JR. + + + _The manner in which a man has lived is often the key to the way he + will die. Take old man Donegal, for example. Most of his adult life + was spent in digging a hole through space to learn what was on the + other side. Would he go out the same way?_ + + +Old Donegal was dying. They had all known it was coming, and they +watched it come--his haggard wife, his daughter, and now his grandson, +home on emergency leave from the pre-astronautics academy. Old Donegal +knew it too, and had known it from the beginning, when he had begun to +lose control of his legs and was forced to walk with a cane. But most of +the time, he pretended to let them keep the secret they shared with the +doctors--that the operations had all been failures, and that the cancer +that fed at his spine would gnaw its way brainward until the paralysis +engulfed vital organs, and then Old Donegal would cease to be. It would +be cruel to let them know that he knew. Once, weeks ago, he had joked +about the approaching shadows. + +"Buy the plot back where people won't walk over it, Martha," he said. +"Get it way back under the cedars--next to the fence. There aren't many +graves back there yet. I want to be alone." + +"Don't _talk_ that way, Donny!" his wife had choked. "You're not dying." + +His eyes twinkled maliciously. "Listen, Martha, I want to be buried +face-down. I want to be buried with my back to space, understand? Don't +let them lay me out like a lily." + +"Donny, _please_!" + +"They oughta face a man the way he's headed," Donegal grunted. "I been +up--_way_ up. Now I'm going straight down." + +Martha had fled from the room in tears. He had never done it again, +except to the interns and nurses, who, while they insisted that he was +going to get well, didn't mind joking with him about it. + +Martha can bear my death, he thought, can bear pre-knowledge of it. But +she couldn't bear thinking that he might take it calmly. If he accepted +death gracefully, it would be like deliberately leaving her, and Old +Donegal had decided to help her believe whatever would be comforting to +her in such a troublesome moment. + +"When'll they let me out of this bed again?" he complained. + +"Be patient, Donny," she sighed. "It won't be long. You'll be up and +around before you know it." + +"Back on the moon-run, maybe?" he offered. "Listen, Martha, I been +planet-bound too long. I'm not too old for the moon-run, am I? +Sixty-three's not so old." + +That had been carrying things too far. She knew he was hoaxing, and +dabbed at her eyes again. The dead must humor the mourners, he thought, +and the sick must comfort the visitors. It was always so. + +But it was harder, now that the end was near. His eyes were hazy, and +his thoughts unclear. He could move his arms a little, clumsily, but +feeling was gone from them. The rest of his body was lost to him. +Sometimes he seemed to feel his stomach and his hips, but the sensation +was mostly an illusion offered by higher nervous centers, like the +"ghost-arm" that an amputee continues to feel. The wires were down, and +he was cut off from himself. + + * * * * * + +He lay wheezing on the hospital bed, in his own room, in his own rented +flat. Gaunt and unshaven, gray as winter twilight, he lay staring at the +white net curtains that billowed gently in the breeze from the open +window. There was no sound in the room but the sound of breathing and +the loud ticking of an alarm clock. Occasionally he heard a chair +scraping on the stone terrace next door, and the low mutter of voices, +sometimes laughter, as the servants of the Keith mansion arranged the +terrace for late afternoon guests. + +With considerable effort, he rolled his head toward Martha who sat +beside the bed, pinch-faced and weary. + +"You ought to get some sleep," he said. + +"I slept yesterday. Don't talk, Donny. It tires you." + +"You ought to get more sleep. You never sleep enough. Are you afraid +I'll get up and run away if you go to sleep for a while?" + +She managed a brittle smile. "There'll be plenty of time for sleep +when ... when you're well again." The brittle smile fled and she +swallowed hard, like swallowing a fish-bone. He glanced down, and +noticed that she was squeezing his hand spasmodically. + +There wasn't much left of the hand, he thought. Bones and ugly +tight-stretched hide spotted with brown. Bulging knuckles with yellow +cigaret stains. My hand. He tried to tighten it, tried to squeeze +Martha's thin one in return. He watched it open and contract a little, +but it was like operating a remote-control mechanism. Goodbye, hand, +you're leaving me the way my legs did, he told it. I'll see you again in +hell. How hammy can you get, Old Donegal? You maudlin ass. + +"Requiescat," he muttered over the hand, and let it lie in peace. + +Perhaps she heard him. "Donny," she whispered, leaning closer, "won't +you let me call the priest now? Please." + +He rattled a sigh and rolled his head toward the window again. "Are the +Keiths having a party today?" he asked. "Sounds like they're moving +chairs out on the terrace." + +"Please, Donny, the priest?" + +He let his head roll aside and closed his eyes, as if asleep. The bed +shook slightly as she quickly caught at his wrist to feel for a pulse. + +"If I'm not dying, I don't need a priest," he said sleepily. + +"That's not right," she scolded softly. "You know that's not right, +Donny. You know better." + +Maybe I'm being too rough on her? he wondered. He hadn't minded getting +baptized her way, and married her way, and occasionally priest-handled +the way she wanted him to when he was home from a space-run, but when it +came to dying, Old Donegal wanted to do it his own way. + + * * * * * + +He opened his eyes at the sound of a bench being dragged across the +stone terrace. "Martha, what kind of a party are the Keiths having +today?" + +"I wouldn't know," she said stiffly. "You'd think they'd have a little +more respect. You'd think they'd put it off a few days." + +"Until--?" + +"Until you feel better." + +"I feel fine, Martha. I like parties. I'm glad they're having one. Pour +me a drink, will you? I can't reach the bottle anymore." + +"It's empty." + +"No, it isn't, Martha, it's still a quarter full. I know. I've been +watching it." + +"You shouldn't have it, Donny. Please don't." + +"But this is a party, Martha. Besides, the doctor says I can have +whatever I want. Whatever I want, you hear? That means I'm getting well, +doesn't it?" + +"Sure, Donny, sure. Getting well." + +"The whiskey, Martha. Just a finger in a tumbler, no more. I want to +feel like it's a party." + +Her throat was rigid as she poured it. She helped him get the tumbler to +his mouth. The liquor seared his throat, and he gagged a little as the +fumes clogged his nose. Good whiskey, the best--but he couldn't take it +any more. He eyed the green stamp on the neck of the bottle on the +bed-table and grinned. He hadn't had whiskey like that since his +space-days. Couldn't afford it now, not on a blastman's pension. + + * * * * * + +He remembered how he and Caid used to smuggle a couple of fifths aboard +for the moon-run. If they caught you, it meant suspension, but there was +no harm in it, not for the blastroom men who had nothing much to do from +the time the ship acquired enough velocity for the long, long coaster +ride until they started the rockets again for Lunar landing. You could +drink a fifth, jettison the bottle through the trash lock, and sober up +before you were needed again. It was the only way to pass the time in +the cramped cubicle, unless you ruined your eyes trying to read by the +glow-lamps. Old Donegal chuckled. If he and Caid had stayed on the run, +Earth would have a ring by now, like Saturn--a ring of Old Granddad +bottles. + +"You said it, Donny-boy," said the misty man by the billowing curtains. +"Who else knows the gegenschein is broken glass?" + +Donegal laughed. Then he wondered what the man was doing there. The man +was lounging against the window, and his unzipped space rig draped about +him in an old familiar way. Loose plug-in connections and hose-ends +dangled about his lean body. He was freckled and grinning. + +"Caid," Old Donegal breathed softly. + +"What did you say, Donny?" Martha answered. + +Old Donegal blinked hard and shook his head. Something let go with a +soggy snap, and the misty man was gone. I'd better take it easy on the +whiskey, he thought. You got to wait, Donegal, old lush, until Nora and +Ken get here. You can't get drunk until they're gone, or you might get +them mixed up with memories like Caid's. + +Car doors slammed in the street below. Martha glanced toward the window. + +"Think it's them? I wish they'd get here. I wish they'd hurry." + +Martha arose and tiptoed to the window. She peered down toward the +sidewalk, put on a sharp frown. He heard a distant mutter of voices and +occasional laughter, with group-footsteps milling about on the sidewalk. +Martha murmured her disapproval and closed the window. + +"Leave it open," he said. + +"But the Keiths' guests are starting to come. There'll be such a +racket." She looked at him hopefully, the way she did when she prompted +his manners before company came. + +Maybe it wasn't decent to listen in on a party when you were dying, he +thought. But that wasn't the reason. Donegal, your chamber-pressure's +dropping off. Your brains are in your butt-end, where a spacer's brains +belong, but your butt-end died last month. She wants the window closed +for her own sake, not yours. + +"Leave it closed," he grunted. "But open it again before the moon-run +blasts off. I want to listen." + +She smiled and nodded, glancing at the clock. "It'll be an hour and a +half yet. I'll watch the time." + +"I hate that clock. I wish you'd throw it out. It's loud." + +"It's your medicine-clock, Donny." She came back to sit down at his +bedside again. She sat in silence. The clock filled the room with its +clicking pulse. + +"What time are they coming?" he asked. + +"Nora and Ken? They'll be here soon. Don't fret." + +"Why should I fret?" He chuckled. "That boy--he'll be a good spacer, +won't he, Martha?" + +Martha said nothing, fanned at a fly that crawled across his pillow. The +fly buzzed up in an angry spiral and alighted on the ceiling. Donegal +watched it for a time. The fly had natural-born space-legs. I know your +tricks, he told it with a smile, and I learned to walk on the bottomside +of things before you were a maggot. You stand there with your magnasoles +hanging to the hull, and the rest of you's in free fall. You jerk a sole +loose, and your knee flies up to your belly, and reaction spins you +half-around and near throws your other hip out of joint if you don't jam +the foot down fast and jerk up the other. It's worse'n trying to run +through knee-deep mud with snow-shoes, and a man'll go nuts trying to +keep his arms and legs from taking off in odd directions. I know your +tricks, fly. But the fly was born with his magnasoles, and he trotted +across the ceiling like Donegal never could. + +"That boy Ken--he ought to make a damn good space-engineer," wheezed the +old man. + +Her silence was long, and he rolled his head toward her again. Her lips +tight, she stared down at the palm of his hand, unfolded his bony +fingers, felt the cracked calluses that still welted the shrunken skin, +calluses worn there by the linings of space gauntlets and the handles of +fuel valves, and the rungs of get-about ladders during free fall. + +"I don't know if I should tell you," she said. + +"Tell me what, Martha?" + +She looked up slowly, scrutinizing his face. "Ken's changed his mind, +Nora says. Ken doesn't like the academy. She says he wants to go to +medical school." + +Old Donegal thought it over, nodded absently. "That's fine. Space-medics +get good pay." He watched her carefully. + +She lowered her eyes, rubbed at his calluses again. She shook her head +slowly. "He doesn't want to go to space." + +The clock clicked loudly in the closed room. + +"I thought I ought to tell you, so you won't say anything to him about +it," she added. + +Old Donegal looked grayer than before. After a long silence, he rolled +his head away and looked toward the limp curtains. + +"Open the window, Martha," he said. + +Her tongue clucked faintly as she started to protest, but she said +nothing. After frozen seconds, she sighed and went to open it. The +curtains billowed, and a babble of conversation blew in from the terrace +of the Keith mansion. With the sound came the occasional brassy discord +of a musician tuning his instrument. She clutched the window-sash as if +she wished to slam it closed again. + +"Well! Music!" grunted Old Donegal. "That's good. This is some shebang. +Good whiskey and good music and you." He chuckled, but it choked off +into a fit of coughing. + +"Donny, about Ken--" + +"No matter, Martha," he said hastily. "Space-medic's pay is good." + +"But, Donny--" She turned from the window, stared at him briefly, then +said, "Sure, Donny, sure," and came back to sit down by his bed. + +He smiled at her affectionately. She was a man's woman, was +Martha--always had been, still was. He had married her the year he had +gone to space--a lissome, wistful, old-fashioned lass, with big violet +eyes and gentle hands and gentle thoughts--and she had never complained +about the long and lonely weeks between blast-off and glide-down, when +most spacers' wives listened to the psychiatrists and soap-operas and +soon developed the symptoms that were expected of them, either because +the symptoms were _chic_, or because they felt they should do something +to earn the pity that was extended to them. "It's not so bad," Martha +had assured him. "The house keeps me busy till Nora's home from school, +and then there's a flock of kids around till dinner. Nights are a little +empty, but if there's a moon, I can always go out on the porch and look +at it and know where you are. And Nora gets out the telescope you built +her, and we make a game of it. 'Seeing if Daddy's still at the office,' +she calls it." + + * * * * * + +"Those were the days," he muttered. + +"What, Donny?" + +"Do you remember that Steve Farran song?" + +She paused, frowning thoughtfully. There were a lot of Steve Farran +songs, but after a moment she picked the right one, and sang it +softly ... + + "O moon whereo'er the clouds fly, + Beyond the willow tree, + There is a ramblin' space guy + I wish you'd save for me. + + "_Mare Tranquillitatis_, + O dark and tranquil sea, + Until he drops from heaven, + Rest him there with thee ..." + +Her voice cracked, and she laughed. Old Donegal chuckled weakly. + +"Fried mush," he said. "That one made the cats wilt their ears and wail +at the moon. + +"I feel real crazy," he added. "Hand me the king kong, fluff-muff." + +"Keep cool, Daddy-O, you've had enough." Martha reddened and patted his +arm, looking pleased. Neither of them had talked that way, even in the +old days, but the out-dated slang brought back memories--school parties, +dances at the Rocketport Club, the early years of the war when Donegal +had jockeyed an R-43 fighter in the close-space assaults against the +Soviet satellite project. The memories were good. + +A brassy blare of modern "slide" arose suddenly from the Keith terrace +as the small orchestra launched into its first number. Martha caught an +angry breath and started toward the window. + +"Leave it," he said. "It's a party. Whiskey, Martha. Please--just a +small one." + +She gave him a hurtful glance. + +"Whiskey. Then you can call the priest." + +"Donny, it's not right. You know it's not right--to bargain for such as +that." + +"All right. Whiskey. Forget the priest." + +She poured it for him, and helped him get it down, and then went out to +make the phone-call. Old Donegal lay shuddering over the whiskey taste +and savoring the burn in his throat. Jesus, but it was good. + +You old bastard, he thought, you got no right to enjoy life when +nine-tenths of you is dead already, and the rest is foggy as a thermal +dust-rise on the lunar maria at hell-dawn. But it wasn't a bad way to +die. It ate your consciousness away from the feet up; it gnawed away the +Present, but it let you keep the Past, until everything faded and +blended. Maybe that's what Eternity was, he thought--one man's +subjective Past, all wrapped up and packaged for shipment, a single +space-time entity, a one-man microcosm of memories, when nothing else +remains. + +"If I've got a soul, I made it myself," he told the gray nun at the foot +of his bed. + +The nun held out a pie pan, rattled a few coins in it. "Contribute to +the Radiation Victims' Relief?" the nun purred softly. + +"I know you," he said. "You're my conscience. You hang around the +officers' mess, and when we get back from a sortie, you make us pay for +the damage we did. But that was forty years ago." + +The nun smiled, and her luminous eyes were on him softly. "Mother of +God!" he breathed, and reached for the whiskey. His arm obeyed. The last +drink had done him good. He had to watch his hand to see where it was +going, and squeezed the neck until his fingers whitened so that he knew +that he had it, but he got it off the table and onto his chest, and he +got the cork out with his teeth. He had a long pull at the bottle, and +it made his eyes water and his hands grow weak. But he got it back to +the table without spilling a bit, and he was proud of himself. + +The room was spinning like the cabin of a gyro-gravved ship. By the time +he wrestled it to a standstill, the nun was gone. The blare of music +from the Keith terrace was louder, and laughing voices blended with it. +Chairs scraping and glasses rattling. A fine party, Keith, I'm glad you +picked today. This shebang would be the younger Keith's affair. Ronald +Tonwyler Keith, III, scion of Orbital Engineering and Construction +Company--builders of the moon-shuttle ships that made the run from the +satellite station to Luna and back. + +It's good to have such important neighbors, he thought. He wished he had +been able to meet them while he was still up and about. But the Keiths' +place was walled-in, and when a Keith came out, he charged out in a +limousine with a chauffeur at the wheel, and the iron gate closed again. +The Keiths built the wall when the surrounding neighborhood began to +grow shabby with age. It had once been the best of neighborhoods, but +that was before Old Donegal lived in it. Now it consisted of sooty old +houses and rented flats, and the Keith place was really not a part of it +anymore. Nevertheless, it was really something when a pensioned blastman +could say, "I live out close to the Keiths--you know, the _Ronald_ +Keiths." At least, that's what Martha always told him. + +The music was so loud that he never heard the doorbell ring, but when a +lull came, he heard Nora's voice downstairs, and listened hopefully for +Ken's. But when they came up, the boy was not with them. + +"Hello, skinny-britches," he greeted his daughter. + +Nora grinned and came over to kiss him. Her hair dangled about his face, +and he noticed that it was blacker than usual, with the gray streaks +gone from it again. + +"You smell good," he said. + +"You don't, Pops. You smell like a sot. Naughty!" + +"Where's Ken?" + +She moistened her lips nervously and looked away. "He couldn't come. He +had to take a driver's lesson. He really couldn't help it. If he didn't +go, he'd lose his turn, and then he wouldn't finish before he goes back +to the academy." She looked at him apologetically. + +"It's all right, Nora." + +"If he missed it, he wouldn't get his copter license until summer." + +"It's okay. Copters! Hell, the boy should be in jets by now!" + +Several breaths passed in silence. She gazed absently toward the window +and shook her head. "No jets, Pop. Not for Ken." + +He glowered at her. "Listen! How'll he get into space? He's got to get +his jet licenses first. Can't get in rockets without 'em." + +Nora shot a quick glance at her mother. Martha rolled her eyes as if +sighing patiently. Nora went to the window to stare down toward the +Keith terrace. She tucked a cigaret between scarlet lips, lit it, blew +nervous smoke against the pane. + +"Mom, can't you call them and have that racket stopped?" + +"Donny says he likes it." + +Nora's eyes flitted over the scene below. "Female butterflies and +puppy-dogs in sport jackets. And the cadets." She snorted. "Cadets! +Imagine Ron Keith the Third ever going to space. The old man buys his +way into the academy, and they throw a brawl as if Ronny passed the +Compets." + +"Maybe he did," growled Old Donegal. + +"Hah!" + +"They live in a different world, I guess," Martha sighed. + +"If it weren't for men like Pops, they'd never've made their fortune." + +"I like the music, I tell you," grumbled the old man. + +"I'm half-a-mind to go over there and tell them off," Nora murmured. + +"Let them alone. Just so they'll stop the racket for blast-away." + +"Look at them!--polite little pattern-cuts, all alike. They take +pre-space, because it's the thing to do. Then they quit before the +pay-off comes." + +"How do you know they'll quit?" + +"That party--I bet it cost six months' pay, spacer's pay," she went on, +ignoring him. "And what do real spacers get? Oley gets killed, and Pop's +pension wouldn't feed the Keiths' cat." + +"You don't understand, girl." + +"I lost Oley. I understand enough." + + * * * * * + +He watched her silently for a moment, then closed his eyes. It was no +good trying to explain, no good trying to tell her the dough didn't mean +a damn thing. She'd been a spacer's wife, and that was bad enough, but +now she was a spacer's widow. And Oley? Oley's tomb revolved around the +sun in an eccentric orbit that spun-in close to Mercury, then reached +out into the asteroid belt, once every 725 days. When it came within +rocket radius of Earth, it whizzed past at close to fifteen miles a +second. + +You don't rescue a ship like that, skinny-britches, my darling daughter. +Nor do you salvage it after the crew stops screaming for help. If you +use enough fuel to catch it, you won't get back. You just leave such a +ship there forever, like an asteroid, and it's a damn shame about the +men trapped aboard. Heroes all, no doubt--but the smallness of the +widow's monthly check failed to confirm the heroism, and Nora was bitter +about the price of Oley's memory, perhaps. + +Ouch! Old Donegal, you know she's not like that. It's just that she +can't understand about space. You ought to make her understand. + +But did he really understand himself? You ride hot in a roaring +blastroom, hands tense on the mixer controls and the pumps, eyes glued +to instruments, body sucked down in a four-gravity thrust, and wait for +the command to choke it off. Then you float free and weightless in a +long nightmare as the beast coasts moonward, a flung javelin. + +The "romance" of space--drivel written in the old days. When you're not +blasting, you float in a cramped hotbox, crawl through dirty mazes of +greasy pipe and cable to tighten a lug, scratch your arms and bark your +shins, get sick and choked up because no gravity helps your gullet get +the food down. Liquid is worse, but you gag your whiskey down because +you have to. + +Stars?--you see stars by squinting through a viewing lens, and it's like +a photo-transparency, and if you aren't careful, you'll get an eyeful of +Old Blinder and back off with a punch-drunk retina. + +Adventure?--unless the skipper calls for course-correction, you float +around in the blast-cubicle with damn little to do between blast-away +and moon-down, except sweat out the omniscient accident statistics. If +the beast blows up or gets gutted in space, a statistic had your name +on it, that's all, and there's no fighting back. You stay outwardly sane +because you're a hog for punishment; if you weren't, you'd never get +past the psychologists. + +"Did you like horror movies when you were a kid?" asked the psych. And +you'd damn well better answer "yes," if you want to go to space. + + * * * * * + +Tell her, old man, you're her pop. Tell her why it's worth it, if you +know. You jail yourself in a coffin-size cubicle, and a crazy beast +thunders berserk for uncontrollable seconds, and then you soar in +ominous silence for the long, long hours. Grow sweaty, filthy, sick, +miserable, idle--somewhere out in Big Empty, where Man's got no business +except the trouble he always makes for himself wherever he goes. Tell +her why it's worth it, for pay less than a good bricklayer's. Tell her +why Oley would do it again. + +"It's a sucker's run, Nora," he said. "You go looking for kicks, but the +only kicks you get to keep is what Oley got. God knows why--but it's +worth it." + +Nora said nothing. He opened his eyes slowly. Nora was gone. Had she +been there at all? + +He blinked around at the fuzzy room, and dissolved the shifting shadows +that sometimes emerged as old friendly faces, grinning at him. He found +Martha. + +"You went to sleep," said Martha. "She had to go. Kennie called. He'll +be over later, if you're not too tired." + +"I'm not tired. I'm all head. There's nothing much to get tired." + +"I love you, Old Donegal." + +"Hold my hand again." + +"I'm holding it, old man." + +"Then hold me where I can feel it." + +She slid a thin arm under his neck, and bent over his face to kiss him. +She was crying a little, and he was glad she could do it now without +fleeing the room. + +"Can I talk about dying now?" he wondered aloud. + +She pinched her lips together and shook her head. + +"I lie to myself, Martha. You know how much I lie to myself?" + +She nodded slowly and stroked his gray temples. + +"I lie to myself about Ken, and about dying. If Ken turned spacer, I +wouldn't die--that's what I told myself. You know?" + +She shook her head. "Don't talk, Donny, please." + +"A man makes his own soul, Martha." + +"That's not true. You shouldn't say things like that." + +"A man makes his own soul, but it dies with him, unless he can pour it +into his kids and his grandchildren before he goes. I lied to myself. +Ken's a yellow-belly. Nora made him one, and the boots won't fit." + +"Don't, Donny. You'll excite yourself again." + +"I was going to give him the boots--the over-boots with magnasoles. But +they won't fit him. They won't ever fit him. He's a lily-livered +lap-dog, and he whines. Bring me my boots, woman." + +"Donny!" + +"The boots, they're in my locker in the attic. I want them." + +"What on earth!" + +"Bring me my goddam space boots and put them on my feet. I'm going to +wear them." + +"You can't; the priest's coming." + +"Well, get them anyway. What time is it? You didn't let me sleep through +the moon-run blast, did you?" + +She shook her head. "It's half an hour yet ... I'll get the boots if you +promise not to make me put them on you." + +"I want them on." + +"You can't, until Father Paul's finished." + +"Do I have to get my feet buttered?" + +She sighed. "I wish you wouldn't say things like that. I wish you +wouldn't, Donny. It's sacrilege, you know it is." + +"All right--'anointed'," he corrected wearily. + +"Yes, you do." + +"The boots, woman, the boots." + +She went to get them. While she was gone, the doorbell rang, and he +heard her quick footsteps on the stairs, and then Father Paul's voice +asking about the patient. Old Donegal groaned inwardly. After the +priest, the doctor would come, at the usual time, to see if he were dead +yet. The doctor had let him come home from the hospital to die, and the +doctor was getting impatient. Why don't they let me alone? he growled. +Why don't they let me handle it in my own way, and stop making a fuss +over it? I can die and do a good job of it without a lot of outside +interference, and I wish they'd quit picking at me with syringes and +sacraments and enemas. All he wanted was a chance to listen to the +orchestra on the Keith terrace, to drink the rest of his whiskey, and to +hear the beast blast-away for the satellite on the first lap of the run +to Luna. + + * * * * * + +It's going to be my last day, he thought. My eyes are going fuzzy, and I +can't breathe right, and the throbbing's hurting my head. Whether he +lived through the night wouldn't matter, because delirium was coming +over him, and then there would be the coma, and the symbolic fight to +keep him pumping and panting. I'd rather die tonight and get it over +with, he thought, but they probably won't let me go. + +He heard their voices coming up the stairs ... + +"Nora tried to get them to stop it, Father, but she couldn't get in to +see anybody but the butler. He told her he'd tell Mrs. Keith, but +nothing happened. It's just as loud as before." + +"Well, as long as Donny doesn't mind--" + +"He just says that. You know how he is." + +"What're they celebrating, Martha?" + +"Young Ronald's leaving--for pre-space training. It's a going-away +affair." They paused in the doorway. The small priest smiled in at +Donegal and nodded. He set his black bag on the floor inside, winked +solemnly at the patient. + +"I'll leave you two alone," said Martha. She closed the door and her +footsteps wandered off down the hall. + +Donegal and the young priest eyed each other warily. + +"You look like hell, Donegal," the padre offered jovially. "Feeling +nasty?" + +"Skip the small talk. Let's get this routine over with." + +The priest humphed thoughtfully, sauntered across to the bed, gazed down +at the old man disinterestedly. "What's the matter? Don't want the +'routine'? Rather play it tough?" + +"What's the difference?" he growled. "Hurry up and get out. I want to +hear the beast blast off." + +"You won't be able to," said the priest, glancing at the window, now +closed again. "That's quite a racket next door." + +"They'd better stop for it. They'd better quiet down for it. They'll +have to turn it off for five minutes or so." + +"Maybe they won't." + +It was a new idea, and it frightened him. He liked the music, and the +party's gaiety, the nearness of youth and good times--but it hadn't +occurred to him that it wouldn't stop so he could hear the beast. + +"Don't get upset, Donegal. You know what a blast-off sounds like." + +"But it's the last one. The last time. I want to hear." + +"How do you know it's the last time?" + +"Hell, don't I know when I'm kicking off?" + +"Maybe, maybe not. It's hardly your decision." + +"It's not, eh?" Old Donegal fumed. "Well, bigawd you'd think it wasn't. +You'd think it was Martha's and yours and that damfool medic's. You'd +think I got no say-so. Who's doing it anyway?" + +"I would guess," Father Paul grunted sourly, "that Providence might +appreciate His fair share of the credit." + +Old Donegal made a surly noise and hunched his head back into the pillow +to glower. + +"You want me?" the priest asked. "Or is this just a case of wifely +conscience?" + +"What's the difference? Give me the business and scram." + +"No soap. Do you want the sacrament, or are you just being kind to your +wife? If it's for Martha, I'll go _now_." + +Old Donegal glared at him for a time, then wilted. The priest brought +his bag to the bedside. + +"Bless me, father, for I have sinned." + +"Bless you, son." + +"I accuse myself ..." + + * * * * * + +Tension, anger, helplessness--they had piled up on him, and now he was +feeling the after-effects. Vertigo, nausea, and the black confetti--a +bad spell. The whiskey--if he could only reach the whiskey. Then he +remembered he was receiving a Sacrament, and struggled to get on with +it. Tell him, old man, tell him of your various rottennesses and vile +transgressions, if you can remember some. A sin is whatever you're sorry +for, maybe. But Old Donegal, you're sorry for the wrong things, and this +young jesuitical gadget wouldn't like listening to it. I'm sorry I +didn't get it instead of Oley, and I'm sorry I fought in the war, and +I'm sorry I can't get out of this bed and take a belt to my daughter's +backside for making a puny whelp out of Ken, and I'm sorry I gave Martha +such a rough time all these years--and wound up dying in a cheap flat, +instead of giving her things like the Keiths had. I wish I had been a +sharpster, contractor, or thief ... instead of a common laboring spacer, +whose species lost its glamor after the war. + +Listen, old man, you made your soul yourself, and it's yours. This young +dispenser of oils, substances, and mysteries wishes only to help you +scrape off the rough edges and gouge out the bad spots. He will not +steal it, nor distort it with his supernatural chisels, nor make fun of +it. He can take nothing away, but only cauterize and neutralize, he +says, so why not let him try? Tell him the rotten messes. + +"Are you finished, my son?" + +Old Donegal nodded wearily, and said what he was asked to say, and heard +the soft mutter of Latin that washed him inside and behind his ghostly +ears ... _ego te absolvo in Nomine Patris_ ... and he accepted the rest +of it lying quietly in the candlelight and the red glow of the sunset +through the window, while the priest anointed him and gave him bread, +and read the words of the soul in greeting its spouse: "I was asleep, +but my heart waked; it is the voice of my beloved calling: come to me my +love, my dove, my undefiled ..." and from beyond the closed window came +the sarcastic wail of a clarinet painting hot slides against a rhythmic +background. + +It wasn't so bad, Old Donegal thought when the priest was done. He felt +like a schoolboy in a starched shirt on Sunday morning, and it wasn't a +bad feeling, though it left him weak. + +The priest opened the window for him again, and repacked his bag. "Ten +minutes till blast-off," he said. "I'll see what I can do about the +racket next door." + +When he was gone, Martha came back in, and he looked at her face and was +glad. She was smiling when she kissed him, and she looked less tired. + +"Is it all right for me to die now?" he grunted. + +"Donny, don't start that again." + +"Where's the boots? You promised to bring them?" + +"They're in the hall. Donny, you don't want them." + +"I want them, and I want a drink of whiskey, and I want to hear them +fire the beast." He said it slow and hard, and he left no room for +argument. + +When she had got the huge boots over his shrunken feet, the magnasoles +clanged against the iron bedframe and clung there, and she rolled him up +so that he could look at them, and Old Donegal chuckled inside. He felt +warm and clean and pleasantly dizzy. + +"The whiskey, Martha, and for God's sake, make them stop the noise till +after the firing. Please!" + +She went to the window and looked out for a long time. Then she came +back and poured him an insignificant drink. + +"Well?" + +"I don't know," she said. "I saw Father Paul on the terrace, talking to +somebody." + +"Is it time?" + +She glanced at the clock, looked at him doubtfully, and nodded. "Nearly +time." + +The orchestra finished a number, but the babble of laughing voices +continued. Old Donegal sagged. "They won't do it. They're the Keiths, +Martha. Why should I ruin their party?" + +She turned to stare at him, slowly shook her head. He heard someone +shouting, but then a trumpet started softly, introducing a new number. +Martha sucked in a hurt breath, pressed her hands together, and hurried +from the room. + +"It's too late," he said after her. + +Her footsteps stopped on the stairs. The trumpet was alone. Donegal +listened; and there was no babble of voices, and the rest of the +orchestra was silent. Only the trumpet sang--and it puzzled him, hearing +the same slow bugle-notes of the call played at the lowering of the +colors. + +The trumpet stopped suddenly. Then he knew it had been for him. + +A brief hush--then thunder came from the blast-station two miles to the +west. First the low reverberation, rattling the windows, then the rising +growl as the sleek beast knifed skyward on a column of blue-white hell. +It grew and grew until it drowned the distant traffic sounds and +dominated the silence outside. + +_Quit crying, you old fool, you maudlin ass ..._ + +"My boots," he whispered, "my boots ... please ..." + +"You've got them on, Donny." + +He sank quietly then. He closed his eyes and let his heart go up with +the beast, and he sank into the gravity padding of the blastroom, and +Caid was with him, and Oley. And when Ronald Keith, III, instructed the +orchestra to play Blastroom Man, after the beast's rumble had waned, Old +Donegal was on his last moon-run, and he was grinning. He'd had a good +day. + +Martha went to the window to stare out at the thin black trail that +curled starward above the blast-station through the twilight sky. Guests +on the terrace were watching it too. + +The doorbell rang. That would be Ken, too late. She closed the window +against the chill breeze, and went back to the bed. The boots, the +heavy, clumsy boots--they clung to the bedframe, with his feet half out +of them. She took them off gently and set them out of company's sight. +Then she went to answer the door. + + + + +Transcriber's Note: + + This etext was produced from _Amazing Stories_ March 1954. Extensive + research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on + this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typographical + errors have been corrected without note. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Death of a Spaceman, by Walter M. Miller + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DEATH OF A SPACEMAN *** + +***** This file should be named 29643.txt or 29643.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/6/4/29643/ + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Stephen Blundell and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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