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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4c9fb85 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #51203 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/51203) diff --git a/old/51203-h.zip b/old/51203-h.zip Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index fa828ed..0000000 --- a/old/51203-h.zip +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/51203-h/51203-h.htm b/old/51203-h/51203-h.htm deleted file mode 100644 index d2ff9e5..0000000 --- a/old/51203-h/51203-h.htm +++ /dev/null @@ -1,2200 +0,0 @@ -<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" - "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> -<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> - <head> - <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=us-ascii" /> - <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> - <title> - The Project Gutenberg eBook of A Coffin For Jacob, by Edward W. Ludwig. - </title> - <link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" /> - - <style type="text/css"> - -body { - margin-left: 10%; - margin-right: 10%; -} - - h1,h2 { - text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ - clear: both; -} - -p { - margin-top: .51em; - text-align: justify; - margin-bottom: .49em; -} - -hr { - width: 33%; - margin-top: 2em; - margin-bottom: 2em; - margin-left: 33.5%; - margin-right: 33.5%; - clear: both; -} - -hr.chap {width: 65%; margin-left: 17.5%; margin-right: 17.5%;} -hr.tb {width: 45%; margin-left: 27.5%; margin-right: 27.5%;} - -.center {text-align: center;} - -.right {text-align: right;} - -.caption {font-weight: bold;} - -/* Images */ -.figcenter { - margin: auto; - text-align: center; -} - -div.titlepage { - text-align: center; - page-break-before: always; - page-break-after: always; -} - -div.titlepage p { - text-align: center; - text-indent: 0em; - font-weight: bold; - line-height: 1.5; - margin-top: 3em; -} - -.ph1, .ph2, .ph3, .ph4 { text-align: center; text-indent: 0em; font-weight: bold; } -.ph1 { font-size: xx-large; margin: .67em auto; } -.ph2 { font-size: x-large; margin: .75em auto; } -.ph3 { font-size: large; margin: .83em auto; } -.ph4 { font-size: medium; margin: 1.12em auto; } - - - </style> - </head> -<body> - - -<pre> - -The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Coffin for Jacob, by Edward W. Ludwig - -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/license - - -Title: A Coffin for Jacob - -Author: Edward W. Ludwig - -Release Date: February 14, 2016 [EBook #51203] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A COFFIN FOR JACOB *** - - - - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - - - - - -</pre> - - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/cover.jpg" width="387" height="500" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="titlepage"> -<h1>A Coffin for Jacob</h1> - -<p>By EDWARD W. LUDWIG</p> - -<p>Illustrated by EMSH</p> - -<p>[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from<br /> -Galaxy Science Fiction May 1956.<br /> -Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that<br /> -the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]</p> - -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph3"><i>With never a moment to rest, the pursuit<br /> -through space felt like a game of hounds<br /> -and hares ... or was it follow the leader?</i></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>Ben Curtis eased his pale, gaunt body through the open doorway of the -Blast Inn, the dead man following silently behind him.</p> - -<p>His fear-borne gaze traveled into the dimly illumined Venusian gin -mill. The place was like an evil caldron steaming with a brew whose -ingredients had been culled from the back corners of three planets.</p> - -<p>Most of the big room lay obscured behind a shimmering veil of tobacco -smoke and the sweet, heavy fumes of Martian Devil's Egg. Here and -there, Ben saw moving figures. He could not tell if they were Earthmen, -Martians or Venusians.</p> - -<p>Someone tugged at his greasy coat. He jumped, thinking absurdly that it -was the dead man's hand.</p> - -<p>"<i>Coma esta, senor?</i>" a small voice piped. "<i>Speken die Deutsch? -Desirez-vous d'amour? Da? Nyet?</i>"</p> - -<p>Ben looked down.</p> - -<p>The speaker was an eager-eyed Martian boy of about ten. He was like -a red-skinned marionette with pipestem arms and legs, clad in a torn -skivvy shirt and faded blue dungarees.</p> - -<p>"I'm American," Ben muttered.</p> - -<p>"Ah, <i>buena</i>! I speak English <i>tres</i> fine, <i>senor</i>. I have Martian -friend, she <i>tres</i> pretty and <i>tres</i> fat. She weigh almost eighty -pounds, <i>monsieur</i>. I take you to her, <i>si</i>?"</p> - -<p>Ben shook his head.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>He thought, <i>I don't want your Martian wench. I don't want your opium -or your Devil's Egg or your Venusian kali. But if you had a drug that'd -bring a dead man to life, I'd buy and pay with my soul.</i></p> - -<p>"It is deal, <i>monsieur</i>? Five dollars or twenty <i>keelis</i> for visit -Martian friend. Maybe you like House of Dreams. For House of Dreams—"</p> - -<p>"I'm not buying."</p> - -<p>The dirty-faced kid shrugged. "Then I show you to good table,—<i>tres -bien</i>. I do not charge you, <i>senor</i>."</p> - -<p>The boy grabbed his hand. Because Ben could think of no reason for -resisting, he followed. They plunged into shifting layers of smoke and -through the drone of alcohol-cracked voices.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/illus1.jpg" width="600" height="359" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>They passed the bar with its line of lean-featured, slit-eyed -Earthmen—merchant spacemen.</p> - -<p>They wormed down a narrow aisle flanked by booths carved from Venusian -marble that jutted up into the semi-darkness like fog-blanketed -tombstones.</p> - -<p>Several times, Ben glimpsed the bulky figures of CO<sub>2</sub>-breathing -Venusians, the first he'd ever seen.</p> - -<p>They were smoky gray, scaly, naked giants, toads in human shape. -They stood solitary and motionless, aloof, their green-lidded eyes -unblinking. They certainly didn't look like telepaths, as Ben had heard -they were, but the thought sent a fresh rivulet of fear down his spine.</p> - -<p>Once he spied a white-uniformed officer of Hoover City's Security -Police. The man was striding down an aisle, idly tapping his neuro-club -against the stone booths.</p> - -<p><i>Keep walking</i>, Ben told himself. <i>You look the same as anyone else -here. Keep walking. Look straight ahead.</i></p> - -<p>The officer passed. Ben breathed easier.</p> - -<p>"Here we are, <i>monsieur</i>," piped the Martian boy. "A <i>tres</i> fine table. -Close in the shadows."</p> - -<p>Ben winced. How did this kid know he wanted to sit in the shadows? -Frowning, he sat down—he and the dead man.</p> - -<p>He listened to the lonely rhythms of the four-piece Martian orchestra.</p> - -<p>The Martians were fragile, doll-like creatures with heads too large for -their spindly bodies. Their long fingers played upon the strings of -their <i>cirillas</i> or crawled over the holes of their flutes like spider -legs. Their tune was sad. Even when they played an Earth tune, it still -seemed a song of old Mars, charged with echoes of lost voices and -forgotten grandeur.</p> - -<p>For an instant, Ben's mind rose above the haunting vision of the dead -man. He thought, <i>What are they doing here, these Martians? Here, in -a smoke-filled room under a metalite dome on a dust-covered world? -Couldn't they have played their music on Mars? Or had they, like me, -felt the challenge of new worlds?</i></p> - -<p>He sobered. It didn't matter. He ordered a whiskey from a Chinese -waiter. He wet his lips but did not drink. His gaze wandered over the -faces of the Inn's other occupants.</p> - -<p><i>You've got to find him</i>, he thought. <i>You've got to find the man with -the red beard. It's the only way you can escape the dead man.</i></p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The dead man was real. His name was Cobb. He was stout and flabby and -about forty and he hated spacemen.</p> - -<p>His body was buried now—probably in the silent gray wastes outside -Luna City. But he'd become a kind of invisible Siamese twin, as much a -part of Ben as sight in his eyes.</p> - -<p>Sometimes the image would be shuffling drunkenly beside him, its lips -spitting whiskey-slurred curses.</p> - -<p>Again, its face would be a pop-eyed mask of surprise as Ben's fist -thudded into its jaw. More often, the face would be frozen in the -whiteness of death. The large eyes would stare. Blood would trickle -from a corner of the gaping mouth.</p> - -<p>You can forget a living man. You can defeat him or submit to him or -ignore him, and the matter is over and done. You can't escape from a -memory that has burned into your mind.</p> - -<p>It had begun a week ago in Luna City. The flight from White Sands had -been successful. Ben, quietly and moderately, wanted to celebrate. -He stopped alone in a rocketfront bar for a beer. The man named Cobb -plopped his portly and unsteady posterior on the stool next to him.</p> - -<p>"Spacemen," he muttered, "are getting like flies. Everywhere, all you -see's spacemen."</p> - -<p>He was a neatly dressed civilian.</p> - -<p>Ben smiled. "If it weren't for spacemen, you wouldn't be here."</p> - -<p>"The name's Cobb." The man hiccoughed. "Spacemen in their white monkey -suits. They think they're little tin gods. Betcha you think you're a -little tin god." He downed a shot of whiskey.</p> - -<p>Ben stiffened. He was twenty-four and dressed in the white, -crimson-braided uniform of the <i>Odyssey's</i> junior astrogation officer. -He was three months out of the Academy at White Sands and the shining -uniform was like a key to all the mysteries of the Universe.</p> - -<p>He'd sought long for that key.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>At the age of five—perhaps in order to dull the memory of his parents' -death in a recent strato-jet crash—he'd spent hours watching the night -sky for streaking flame-tails of Moon rockets. At ten, he'd ground -his first telescope. At fourteen, he'd converted an abandoned shed on -the government boarding-school grounds to a retreat which housed his -collection of astronomy and rocketry books.</p> - -<p>At sixteen, he'd spent every weekend holiday hitchhiking from Boys -Town No. 5 in the Catskills to Long Island Spaceport. There, among -the grizzled veterans of the old Moon Patrol, he'd found friends who -understood his dream and who later recommended his appointment to the -U. S. Academy for the Conquest of Space.</p> - -<p>And a month ago, he'd signed aboard the <i>Odyssey</i>—the first ship, it -was rumored, equipped to venture as far as the asteroids and perhaps -beyond.</p> - -<p>Cobb was persistent: "Damn fools shoulda known enough to stay on Earth. -What the hell good is it, jumpin' from planet to planet?"</p> - -<p><i>The guy's drunk</i>, Ben thought. He took his drink and moved three -stools down the bar.</p> - -<p>Cobb followed. "You don't like the truth, eh, kid? You don't like -people to call you a sucker."</p> - -<p>Ben rose and started to leave the bar, but Cobb grabbed his arm and -held him there.</p> - -<p>"Thas what you are—a sucker. You're young now. Wait ten years. You'll -be dyin' of radiation rot or a meteor'll get you. Wait and see, sucker!"</p> - -<p>Until this instant, Ben had suppressed his anger. Now, suddenly and -without warning, it welled up into savage fury.</p> - -<p>His fist struck the man on the chin. Cobb's eyes gaped in shocked -horror. He spun backward. His head cracked sickeningly on the edge of -the bar. The sound was like a punctuation mark signaling the end of -life.</p> - -<p>He sank to the floor, eyes glassy, blood tricking down his jaw.</p> - -<p>Ben knew that he was dead.</p> - -<p>Then, for a single absurd second, Ben was seized with terror—just as, -a moment before, he'd been overwhelmed with anger.</p> - -<p>He ran.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>For some twenty minutes, he raced through a dizzying, nightmare world -of dark rocketfront alleys and shouting voices and pursuing feet.</p> - -<p>At last, abruptly, he realized that he was alone and in silence. He saw -that he was still on the rocketfront, but in the Tycho-ward side of the -city.</p> - -<p>He huddled in a dark corner of a loading platform and lit a cigarette. -A thousand stars—a thousand motionless balls of silver fire—shone -above him through Luna City's transparent dome.</p> - -<p>He was sorry he'd hit Cobb, of course. He was not sorry he'd run. -Escaping at least gave him a power of choice, of decision.</p> - -<p><i>You can do two things</i>, he thought.</p> - -<p><i>You can give yourself up, and that's what a good officer would do. -That would eliminate the escape charge. You'd get off with voluntary -manslaughter. Under interplanetary law, that would mean ten years in -prison and a dishonorable discharge. And then you'd be free.</i></p> - -<p><i>But you'd be through with rockets and space. They don't want new -men over thirty-four for officers on rockets or even for third-class -jet-men on beat-up freighters—they don't want convicted killers. You'd -get the rest of the thrill of conquering space through video and by -peeking through electric fences of spaceports.</i></p> - -<p><i>Or—</i></p> - -<p>There were old wives' tales of a group of renegade spacemen who -operated from the Solar System's frontiers. The spacemen weren't -outlaws. They were misfits, rejectees from the clearing houses on Earth.</p> - -<p>And whereas no legally recognized ship had ventured past Mars, the -souped-up renegade rigs had supposedly hit the asteroids. Their -headquarters was Venus. Their leader—a subject of popular and -fantastic conjecture in the men's audiozines—was rumored to be a -red-bearded giant.</p> - -<p><i>So</i>, Ben reflected, <i>you can take a beer-and-pretzels tale seriously. -You can hide for a couple of days, get rid of your uniform, change your -name. You can wait for a chance to get to Venus. To hell with your -duty. You can try to stay in space, even if you exile yourself from -Earth.</i></p> - -<p>After all, was it right for a single second, a single insignificant -second, to destroy a man's life and his dream?</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>He was lucky. He found a tramp freighter whose skipper was on his last -flight before retirement. Discipline was lax, investigation of new -personnel even more so.</p> - -<p>Ben Curtis made it to Venus.</p> - -<p>There was just one flaw in his decision. He hadn't realized that the -memory of the dead man's face would haunt him, torment him, follow him -as constantly as breath flowed into his lungs.</p> - -<p>But might not the rumble of atomic engines drown the murmuring dead -voice? Might not the vision of alien worlds and infinite spaceways -obscure the dead face?</p> - -<p>So now he sat searching for a perhaps nonexistent red-bearded giant, -and hoping and doubting and fearing, all at once.</p> - -<p>"You look for someone, <i>senor</i>?"</p> - -<p>He jumped. "Oh. You still here?"</p> - -<p>"<i>Oui.</i>" The Martian kid grinned, his mouth full of purple teeth. "I -keep you company on your first night in Hoover City, <i>n'est-ce-pas</i>?"</p> - -<p>"This isn't my first night here," Ben lied. "I've been around a while."</p> - -<p>"You are spacemen?"</p> - -<p>Ben threw a fifty-cent credit piece on the table. "Here. Take off, will -you?"</p> - -<p>Spiderlike fingers swept down upon the coin. "<i>Ich danke, senor.</i> You -know why city is called Hoover City?"</p> - -<p>Ben didn't answer.</p> - -<p>"They say it is because after women come, they want first thing a -thousand vacuum cleaners for dust. What is vacuum cleaner, <i>monsieur</i>?"</p> - -<p>Ben raised his hand as if to strike the boy.</p> - -<p>"<i>Ai-yee</i>, I go. You keep listen to good Martian music."</p> - -<p>The toothpick of a body melted into the semi-darkness.</p> - -<p>Minutes passed. There were two more whiskeys. A ceaseless parade of -faces broke through the smoky veil that enclosed him—reddish balloon -faces, scaly reptilian faces, white-skinned, slit-eyed faces, and -occasionally a white, rouged, powdered face. But nowhere was there a -face with a red beard.</p> - -<p>A sense of hopelessness gripped Ben Curtis. Hoover City was but one of -a dozen cities of Venus. Each had twenty dives such as this.</p> - -<p>He needed help.</p> - -<p>But his picture must have been 'scoped to Venusian visiscreens. A -reward must have been offered for his capture. Whom could he trust? The -Martian kid, perhaps?</p> - -<p>Far down the darkened aisle nearest him, his eyes caught a flash of -white. He tensed.</p> - -<p>Like the uniform of a Security Policeman, he thought.</p> - -<p>His gaze shifted to another aisle and another hint of whiteness.</p> - -<p>And then he saw another and another and another.</p> - -<p>Each whiteness became brighter and closer, like shrinking spokes of a -wheel with Ben as their focal point.</p> - -<p><i>You idiot! The damned Martian kid! You should have known!</i></p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Light showered the room in a dazzling explosion. Ben, half blinded, -realized that a broad circle of unshaded globes in the ceiling had been -turned on.</p> - -<p>The light washed away the room's strangeness and its air of brooding -wickedness, revealing drab concrete walls and a debris-strewn floor.</p> - -<p>Eyes blinked and squinted. There were swift, frightened movements and -a chorus of angry murmurs. The patrons of the Blast Inn were like -tatter-clad occupants of a house whose walls have been ripped away.</p> - -<p>Ben Curtis twisted his lean body erect. His chair tumbled backward, -falling.</p> - -<p>The white-clad men charged, neuro-clubs upraised.</p> - -<p>A woman screamed. The music ceased. The Martian orchestra slunk with -feline stealth to a rear exit. Only the giant Venusians remained -undisturbed. They stood unmoving, their staring eyes shifting lazily in -Ben's direction.</p> - -<p>"Curtis!" one of the policemen yelled. "You're covered! Hold it!"</p> - -<p>Ben whirled away from the advancing police, made for the exit into -which the musicians had disappeared.</p> - -<p>A hissing sound traveled past his left ear, a sound like compressed air -escaping from a container. A dime-sized section of the concrete wall -ahead of him crumbled.</p> - -<p>He stumbled forward. They were using deadly neuro-pistols now, not the -mildly stunning neuro-clubs.</p> - -<p>Another hiss passed his cheek. He was about twelve feet from the exit. -<i>Another second</i>, his brain screamed. <i>Just another second—</i></p> - -<p>Or would the exits be guarded?</p> - -<p>He heard the hiss.</p> - -<p>It hit directly in the small of his back. There was no pain, just a -slight pricking sensation, like the shallow jab of a needle.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>He froze as if yanked to a stop by a noose. His body seemed to be -growing, swelling into balloon proportions. He knew that the tiny -needle had imbedded itself deep in his flesh, knew that the paralyzing -mortocain was spreading like icy fire into every fiber and muscle of -his body.</p> - -<p>He staggered like a man of stone moving in slow motion. He'd have -fifteen—maybe twenty—seconds before complete lethargy of mind and -body overpowered him.</p> - -<p>In the dark world beyond his fading consciousness, he heard a voice -yell, "Turn on the damn lights!"</p> - -<p>Then a pressure and a coldness were on his left hand. He realized that -someone had seized it.</p> - -<p>A soft feminine voice spoke to him. "You're wounded? They hit you?"</p> - -<p>"Yes." His thick lips wouldn't let go of the word.</p> - -<p>"You want to escape—even now?"</p> - -<p>"Yes."</p> - -<p>"You may die if you don't give yourself up."</p> - -<p>"No, no."</p> - -<p>He tried to stumble toward the exit.</p> - -<p>"All right then. Not that way. Here, this way."</p> - -<p>Heavy footsteps thudded toward them. A few yards away, a flashlight -flicked on.</p> - -<p>Hands were guiding him. He was aware of being pushed and pulled. A -door closed behind him. The glare of the flashlight faded from his -vision—if he still had vision.</p> - -<p>"You're sure?" the voice persisted.</p> - -<p>"I'm sure," Ben managed to say.</p> - -<p>"I have no antidote. You may die."</p> - -<p>His mind fought to comprehend. With the anti-paralysis injection, -massage and rest, a man could recover from the effects of mortocain -within half a day. Without treatment, the paralysis could spread to -heart and lungs. It could become a paralysis of death. An effective -weapon: the slightest wound compelled the average criminal to surrender -at once.</p> - -<p>"Anti ... anti ..." The words were as heavy as blobs of mercury forced -from his throat. "No ... I'm sure ... sure."</p> - -<p>He didn't hear the answer or anything else.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Ben Curtis had no precise sensation of awakening. Return to -consciousness was an intangible evolution from a world of black -nothingness to a dream-like state of awareness.</p> - -<p>He felt the pressure of hands on his naked arms and shoulders, -hands that massaged, manipulated, fought to restore circulation and -sensitivity. He knew they were strong hands. Their strength seemed to -transfer itself to his own body.</p> - -<p>For a long time, he tried to open his eyes. His lids felt welded -shut. But after a while, they opened. His world of darkness gave way -to a translucent cloak of mist. A round, featureless shape hovered -constantly above him—a face, he supposed.</p> - -<p>He tried to talk. Although his lips moved slightly, the only sound was -a deep, staccato grunting.</p> - -<p>But he heard someone say, "Don't try to talk." It was the same gentle -voice he'd heard in the Blast Inn. "Don't talk. Just lie still and -rest. Everything'll be all right."</p> - -<p><i>Everything all right</i>, he thought dimly.</p> - -<p>There were long periods of lethargy when he was aware of nothing. There -were periods of light and of darkness. Gradually he grew aware of -things. He realized that the soft rubber mouth of a spaceman's oxygen -mask was clamped over his nose. He felt the heat of electric blankets -swathed about his body. Occasionally a tube would be in his mouth and -he would taste liquid food and feel a pleasant warmth in his stomach.</p> - -<p>Always, it seemed, the face was above him, floating in the obscuring -mist. Always, it seemed, the soft voice was echoing in his ears:</p> - -<p>"Swallow this now. That's it. You must have food." Or, "Close your -eyes. Don't strain. It won't be long. You're getting better."</p> - -<p><i>Better</i>, he'd think. <i>Getting better....</i></p> - -<p>At last, after one of the periods of lethargy, his eyes opened. The -mist brightened, then dissolved.</p> - -<p>He beheld the cracked, unpainted ceiling of a small room, its colorless -walls broken with a single, round window. He saw the footboard of his -aluminite bed and the outlines of his feet beneath a faded blanket.</p> - -<p>Finally he saw the face and figure that stood at his side.</p> - -<p>"You are better?" the kind voice asked.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The face was that of a girl probably somewhere between twenty-five -and thirty. Her features, devoid of makeup, had an unhealthy-looking -pallor, as if she hadn't used a sunlamp for many weeks. Yet, at the -same time, her firm slim body suggested a solidity and a strength. Her -straight brown hair was combed backward, tight upon her scalp, and -drawn together in a knot at the nape of her neck.</p> - -<p>"I—I am better," he murmured. His words were still slow and thick. "I -am going to live?"</p> - -<p>"You will live."</p> - -<p>He thought for a moment. "How long have I been here?"</p> - -<p>"Nine days."</p> - -<p>"You took care of me?" He noted the deep, dark circles beneath her -sleep-robbed eyes.</p> - -<p>She nodded.</p> - -<p>"You're the one who carried me when I was shot?"</p> - -<p>"Yes."</p> - -<p>"Why?"</p> - -<p>Suddenly he began to cough. Breath came hard. She held the oxygen mask -in readiness. He shook his head, not wanting it.</p> - -<p>"Why?" he asked again.</p> - -<p>"It would be a long story. Perhaps I'll tell you tomorrow."</p> - -<p>A new thought, cloaked in sudden fear, entered his murky consciousness. -"Tell me, will—will I be well again? Will I be able to walk?"</p> - -<p>He lay back then, panting, exhausted.</p> - -<p>"You have nothing to worry about," the girl said softly. Her cool hand -touched his hot forehead. "Rest. We'll talk later."</p> - -<p>His eyes closed and breath came easier. He slept.</p> - -<p>When he next awoke, his gaze turned first to the window. There was -light outside, but he had no way of knowing if this was morning, noon -or afternoon—or on what planet.</p> - -<p>He saw no white-domed buildings of Hoover City, no formal lines of -green-treed parks, no streams of buzzing gyro-cars. There was only a -translucent and infinite whiteness. It was as if the window were set on -the edge of the Universe overlooking a solemn, silent and matterless -void.</p> - -<p>The girl entered the room.</p> - -<p>"Hi," she said, smiling. The dark half-moons under her eyes were less -prominent. Her face was relaxed.</p> - -<p>She increased the pressure in his rubberex pillows and helped him rise -to a sitting position.</p> - -<p>"Where are we?" he asked.</p> - -<p>"Venus."</p> - -<p>"We're not in Hoover City?"</p> - -<p>"No."</p> - -<p>He looked at her, wondering. "You won't tell me?"</p> - -<p>"Not yet. Later, perhaps."</p> - -<p>"Then how did you get me here? How did we escape from the Inn?"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>She shrugged. "We have friends who can be bribed. A hiding place in the -city, the use of a small desert-taxi, a pass to leave the city—these -can be had for a price."</p> - -<p>"You'll tell me your name?"</p> - -<p>"Maggie."</p> - -<p>"Why did you save me?"</p> - -<p>Her eyes twinkled mischievously. "Because you're a good astrogator."</p> - -<p>His own eyes widened. "How did you know that?"</p> - -<p>She sat on a plain chair beside his bed. "I know everything about you, -Lieutenant Curtis."</p> - -<p>"How did you learn my name? I destroyed all my papers—"</p> - -<p>"I know that you're twenty-four. Born July 10, 1971. Orphaned at four, -you attended Boys Town in the Catskills till you were 19. You graduated -from the Academy at White Sands last June with a major in Astrogation. -Your rating for the five-year period was 3.8—the second highest in a -class of fifty-seven. Your only low mark in the five years was a 3.2 in -History of Martian Civilization. Want me to go on?"</p> - -<p>Fascinated, Ben nodded.</p> - -<p>"You were accepted as junior astrogation officer aboard the <i>Odyssey</i>. -You did well on your flight from Roswell to Luna City. In a barroom -fight in Luna City, you struck and killed a man named Arthur Cobb, a -pre-fab salesman. You've been charged with second degree murder and -escape. A reward of 5,000 credits has been offered for your capture. -You came to Hoover City in the hope of finding a renegade group of -spacemen who operate beyond Mars. You were looking for them in the -Blast Inn."</p> - -<p>He gaped incredulously, struggling to rise from his pillows. "I—don't -get it."</p> - -<p>"There are ways of finding out what we want to know. As I told you, we -have many friends."</p> - -<p>He fell back into his pillows, breathing hard. She rose quickly.</p> - -<p>"I'm sorry," she said. "I shouldn't have told you yet. I felt so happy -because you're alive. Rest now. We'll talk again soon."</p> - -<p>"Maggie, you—you said I'd live. You didn't say I'd be able to walk -again."</p> - -<p>She lowered her gaze. "I hope you'll be able to."</p> - -<p>"But you don't think I will, do you?"</p> - -<p>"I don't know. We'll try walking tomorrow. Don't think about it now. -Rest."</p> - -<p>He tried to relax, but his mind was a vortex of conjecture.</p> - -<p>"Just one more question," he almost whispered.</p> - -<p>"Yes?"</p> - -<p>"The man I killed—did he have a wife?"</p> - -<p>She hesitated. He thought, <i>Damn it, of all the questions, why did I -ask that?</i></p> - -<p>Finally she said, "He had a wife."</p> - -<p>"Children?"</p> - -<p>"Two. I don't know their ages."</p> - -<p>She left the room.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>He sank into the softness of his bed. As he turned over on his side, -his gaze fell upon an object on a bureau in a far corner of the room.</p> - -<p>He sat straight up, his chest heaving.</p> - -<p>The object was a tri-dimensional photo of a rock-faced man in a -merchant spaceman's uniform. He was a giant of a man with a neatly -trimmed <i>red beard</i>!</p> - -<p>Ben stared at the photo for a long time. At length, he slipped into -restless sleep. Images of faces and echoes of words spun through his -brain.</p> - -<p>The dead man returned to him. Bloodied lips cursed at him. Glassy eyes -accused him. Somewhere were two lost children crying in the night.</p> - -<p>And towering above him was a red-bearded man whose great hands reached -down and beckoned to him. Ben crawled through the night on hands and -knees, his legs numb and useless. The crying of the children was a -chilling wail in his ears.</p> - -<p>His head rose and turned to the red-bearded man. His pleading voice -screamed out to him in a thick, harsh cackle. Yet even as he screamed, -the giant disappeared, to be replaced by white-booted feet stomping -relentlessly toward him.</p> - -<p>He awoke still screaming....</p> - -<p>A night without darkness passed. Ben lay waiting for Maggie's return, a -question already formed in his mind.</p> - -<p>She came and at once he asked, "Who is the man with the red beard?"</p> - -<p>She smiled. "I was right then when I gave you that thumbnail biog. You -<i>were</i> looking for him, weren't you?"</p> - -<p>"Who is he?"</p> - -<p>She sat on the chair beside him.</p> - -<p>"My husband," she said softly.</p> - -<p>He began to understand. "And your husband needs an astrogator? That's -why you saved me?"</p> - -<p>"We need all the good men we can get."</p> - -<p>"Where is he?"</p> - -<p>She cocked her head in mock suspicion. "Somewhere between Mercury and -Pluto. He's building a new base for us—and a home for me. When his -ship returns, I'll be going to him."</p> - -<p>"Why aren't you with him now?"</p> - -<p>"He said unexplored space is no place for a woman. So I've been -studying criminal reports and photos from the Interplanetary Bureau of -Investigation and trying to find recruits like yourself. You know how -we operate?"</p> - -<p>He told her the tales he'd heard.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>She nodded. "There are quite a few of us now—about a thousand—and a -dozen ships. Our base used to be here on Venus, down toward the Pole. -The dome we're in now was designed and built by us a few years ago -after we got pushed off Mars. We lost a few men in the construction, -but with almost every advance in space, someone dies."</p> - -<p>"Venus is getting too civilized. We're moving out and this dome is only -a temporary base when we have cases like yours. The new base—I might -as well tell you it's going to be an asteroid. I won't say which one."</p> - -<p>"Don't get the idea that we're outlaws. Sure, about half our group is -wanted by the Bureau, but we make honest livings. We're just people -like yourself and Jacob."</p> - -<p>"Jacob? Your husband?"</p> - -<p>She laughed. "Makes you think of a Biblical character, doesn't it? -Jacob's anything but that. And just plain 'Jake' reminds one of a -grizzled old uranium prospector and he isn't like that, either."</p> - -<p>She lit a cigarette. "Anyway, the wanted ones stay out beyond the -frontiers. Jacob and those like him can never return to Earth—not even -to Hoover City—except dead. The others are physical or psycho rejects -who couldn't get clearance if they went back to Earth. They know -nothing but rocketing and won't give up. They bring in our ships to -frontier ports like Hoover City to unload cargo and take on supplies."</p> - -<p>"Don't the authorities object?"</p> - -<p>"Not very strongly. The I. B. I. has too many problems right here to -search the whole System for a few two-bit crooks. Besides, we carry -cargoes of almost pure uranium and tungsten and all the stuff that's -scarce on Earth and Mars and Venus. Nobody really cares whether it -comes from the asteroids or Hades. If we want to risk our lives mining -it, that's our business."</p> - -<p>She pursed her lips. "But if they guessed how strong we are or that we -have friends planted in the I. B. I.—well, things might be different. -There probably would be a crackdown."</p> - -<p>Ben scowled. "What happens if there <i>is</i> a crackdown? And what will you -do when Space Corps ships officially reach the asteroids? They can't -ignore you then."</p> - -<p>"Then we move on. We dream up new gimmicks for our crates and take them -to Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto. In time, maybe, we'll be -pushed out of the System itself. Maybe it won't be the white-suited -boys who'll make that first hop to the stars. It <i>could</i> be us, you -know—if we live long enough. But that Asteroid Belt is murder. You -can't follow the text-book rules of astrogation out there. You make up -your own."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Ben stiffened. "And that's why you want me for an astrogator."</p> - -<p>Maggie rose, her eyes wistful. "If you want to come—and if you get -well." She looked at him strangely.</p> - -<p>"Suppose—" He fought to find the right words. "Suppose I got well and -decided not to join Jacob. What would happen to me? Would you let me -go?"</p> - -<p>Her thin face was criss-crossed by emotion—alarm, then bewilderment, -then fear. "I don't know. That would be up to Jacob."</p> - -<p>He lay biting his lip, staring at the photo of Jacob. She touched his -hand and it seemed that sadness now dominated the flurry of emotion -that had coursed through her.</p> - -<p>"The only thing that matters, really," she murmured, "is your walking -again. We'll try this afternoon. Okay?"</p> - -<p>"Okay," he said.</p> - -<p>When she left, his eyes were still turned toward Jacob's photo.</p> - -<p>He was like two people, he thought.</p> - -<p>Half of him was an officer of the Space Corps. Perhaps one single -starry-eyed boy out of ten thousand was lucky enough to reach that goal.</p> - -<p>He remembered a little picture book his mother had given him when she -was alive. Under the bright pictures of spacemen were the captions:</p> - -<p>"A Space Officer Is Honest" "A Space Officer Is Loyal." "A Space -Officer Is Dutiful."</p> - -<p>Honesty, loyalty, duty. Trite words, but without those concepts, -mankind would never have broken away from the planet that held it -prisoner for half a million years.</p> - -<p>Without them, Everson, after three failures and a hundred men dead, -would never have landed on the Moon twenty-seven years ago.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Ben sighed. He had a debt to pay. A good officer would pay that debt. -He'd surrender and take his punishment. He'd rip the crimson braid from -his uniform. He'd prevent the Academy for the Conquest of Space from -being labeled the school of a murderer and a coward.</p> - -<p>And by doing these things, the haunting image of a dead man would -disappear from his vision.</p> - -<p>But the other half of Ben Curtis was the boy who'd stood trembling -beneath a night sky of beckoning stars.</p> - -<p>The eyes in Jacob's photo seemed to be staring at the boy in him, not -at the officer. They appeared both pleading and hopeful. They were -like echoes of cold, barren worlds and limitless space, of lurking -and savage death. They held the terror of loneliness and of exile, of -constant flight and hiding.</p> - -<p>But, too, they represented a strength that could fulfill a boy's dream, -that could carry a man to new frontiers. They, rather than the neat -white uniform, now offered the key to shining miracles. That key was -what Ben wanted.</p> - -<p>But he asked himself, as he had a thousand times, "If I follow Jacob, -can I leave the dead man behind?"</p> - -<p>He tried to stretch his legs and he cursed their numbness. He smiled -grimly. For a moment, he'd forgotten. How futile now to think of stars!</p> - -<p>What if he were to be like this always? Jacob would not want a man -with dead legs. Jacob would either send him back to Earth or—Ben -shuddered—see that he was otherwise disposed of. And disposal would be -the easier course.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>This was the crisis. He sat on the side of the bed, Maggie before him, -her strong arm about his waist.</p> - -<p>"Afraid?" she asked.</p> - -<p>"Afraid," he repeated, shaking.</p> - -<p>It was as if all time had been funneled into this instant, as if this -moment lay at the very vortex of all a man's living and desiring. There -was no room in Ben's mind for thoughts of Jacob now.</p> - -<p>"You can walk," Maggie said confidently. "I <i>know</i> you can."</p> - -<p>He moved his toes, ankles, legs. He began to rise, slowly, falteringly. -The firm pressure around his waist increased.</p> - -<p>He stood erect. His legs felt like tree stumps, but here and there were -a tingling and a warmth, a sensitivity.</p> - -<p>"Can you make it to the window?" Maggie asked.</p> - -<p>"No, no, not that far."</p> - -<p>"Try! Please try!"</p> - -<p>She guided him forward.</p> - -<p>His feet shuffled. Stomp, stomp. The pressure left his waist. Maggie -stepped away, walked to the window, turned back toward him.</p> - -<p>He halted, swaying. "Not alone," he mouthed fearfully. "I can't get -there by myself."</p> - -<p>"Of course you can!" Maggie's voice contained unexpected impatience.</p> - -<p>Ashamed, he forced his feet to move. At times, he thought he was going -to crash to the floor. He lumbered on, hesitating, fighting to retain -his balance. Maggie waited tensely, as if ready to leap to his side.</p> - -<p>Then his eyes turned straight ahead to the window. This was the first -time he'd actually seen the arid, dust-cloaked plains of the second -planet. He straightened, face aglow, as though a small-boy enthusiasm -had been reborn in him.</p> - -<p>His tree-stump legs carried him to the window. He raised shaking hands -against the thick glassite pane.</p> - -<p>Outside, the swirling white dust was omnipresent and unchallenged. It -cut smooth the surfaces of dust-veiled rocks. It clung to the squat -desert shrubbery, to the tall skeletal shapes of Venusian needle-plants -and to the swish-tailed lizards that skittered beneath them.</p> - -<p>The shrill of wind, audible through the glassite, was like the -anguished complaint of the planet itself, like the wail of an entity -imprisoned in a dark tomb of dust. Venus was a planet of fury, -eternally howling its wrath at being isolated from sunlight and -greenery, from the clean blackness of space and the warm glow of -sister-planet and star.</p> - -<p>The dust covered all, absorbed all, eradicated all. The dust was -master. The dome, Ben felt, was as transitory as a tear-drop of fragile -glass falling down, down, to crash upon stone.</p> - -<p>"Is it always like this?" he asked. "Doesn't the wind ever stop?"</p> - -<p>"Sometimes the wind dies. Sometimes, at night, you can see the lights -from the city."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>He kept staring. The dome, he thought, was a symbol of Man's littleness -in a hostile universe.</p> - -<p>But, too, it was a symbol of his courage and defiance. And perhaps -Man's greatest strength lay in the very audacity that drove him to -build such domes.</p> - -<p>"You like it, don't you?" Maggie asked. "It's lonely and ugly and wild, -but you like it."</p> - -<p>He nodded, breathless.</p> - -<p>She murmured, "Jacob used to say it isn't the strange sights that -thrill spacemen—it's the thoughts that the sights inspire."</p> - -<p>He nodded again, still staring.</p> - -<p>She began to laugh. Softly at first, then more loudly. It was the kind -of laughter that is close to crying.</p> - -<p>"You've been standing there for ten minutes! You're going to walk -again! You're going to be well!"</p> - -<p>He turned to her, smiling with the joyous realization that he had -actually stood that long without being aware of it.</p> - -<p>Then his smile died.</p> - -<p>Standing behind Maggie, in an open doorway, was a gray, scaly, toadlike -monster—a six-and-a-half-foot Venusian. He was motionless as a statue, -his green-lidded eyes staring curiously at Ben. His scaly hand was -tight about the butt of an old-fashioned heat pistol holstered to his -hip.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/illus2.jpg" width="351" height="500" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>Maggie suppressed a smile. "Don't be frightened, Ben. This is -Simon—Simple Simon, we call him. His I. Q. isn't too high, but he -makes a good helper and guard for me. He's been so anxious to see you, -but I thought it'd be better if he waited until you were well."</p> - -<p>Ben nodded, fascinated by the apparent muscular solidity of the -creature. It hadn't occurred to his numbed mind that he and Maggie were -not the sole occupants of the dome.</p> - -<p>But Maggie had acted wisely, he thought. His nightmares had been -terrifying enough without bringing Simple Simon into them.</p> - -<p>"Shake hands with Ben," she told the Venusian.</p> - -<p>Simple Simon lumbered forward, then paused. His eyes blinked. "No," he -grated.</p> - -<p>Maggie gasped. "Why, Simple Simon, what's the matter?"</p> - -<p>The gray creature rasped, "Ben—he not one of us. He thinks—different. -In thoughts—thinks escape. Earth."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Maggie paled. "He <i>is</i> one of us, Simon." She stepped forward and -seized the Venusian's arm. "You go to your room. Stand guard. You guard -Ben just like you guard me. Understand?"</p> - -<p>Simple Simon grunted, "I guard. If Ben go—I stop him. I stop him -good." He raised his huge hands suggestively.</p> - -<p>"No, Simon! Remember what Jacob told you. We hurt no one. Ben is our -friend. You help him!"</p> - -<p>The Venusian thought for a long moment. Then he nodded. "I help Ben. -But if go—stop."</p> - -<p>She led the creature out of the room and closed the door.</p> - -<p>"Whew," Ben sighed. "I'd heard those fellows were telepaths. Now I -<i>know</i>."</p> - -<p>Maggie's trembling hands reached for a cigarette. "I—I guess I didn't -think, Ben. Venusians can't really read your mind, but they see your -feelings, your emotions. It's a logical evolutionary development, -I suppose. Auditory and visual communication are difficult here, so -evolution turned to empathy. And that's why Jacob keeps a few Venusians -in our group. They can detect any feeling of disloyalty before it -becomes serious."</p> - -<p>Ben remembered Simple Simon's icy gaze and the way his rough hand had -gripped his heat pistol. "They could be dangerous."</p> - -<p>"Not really. They're as loyal as Earth dogs to their masters. I mean -they wouldn't be dangerous to anyone who's loyal to us."</p> - -<p>Silently, she helped him back to his bed.</p> - -<p>"I'm sorry, Maggie—sorry I haven't decided yet."</p> - -<p>She neither answered nor looked at him.</p> - -<p>Grimly, he realized that his status had changed. He was no longer a -patient; he was a prisoner.</p> - -<p>A Venusian day passed, and a Venusian night. The dust swirled and wind -blew, as constant as the whirl of indecision in Ben's mind.</p> - -<p>Maggie was patient. Once, when she caught him gazing at Jacob's photo, -she asked, "Not yet?"</p> - -<p>He looked away. "Not yet."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>He learned that the little dome consisted of three rooms, each shaped -like pieces of a fluffy pie with narrow concrete hallways between.</p> - -<p>His room served as a bedroom and he discovered that Maggie slept on a -pneumatic cot in the kitchen. The third room, opening into the airlock, -housed a small hydroponics garden, sunlamp, short-wave visi-radio, and -such emergency equipment as oxygen tanks, windsuits, and vita-rations. -It was here that Simple Simon remained most of the time, tending the -garden or peering into the viewscreen that revealed the terrain outside -the dome.</p> - -<p>Maggie prepared Ben's meals, bringing them to him on a tray until he -was able to sit at a table. As his paralysis diminished, he helped -her with cooking—with Simple Simon standing by as a mute, motionless -observer.</p> - -<p>Occasionally Maggie would talk of her girlhood in a small town in -Missouri and how she'd dreamed of journeying to the stars.</p> - -<p>"'Stars are for boys,' they'd tell me, but I was a queer one. While -other gals were dressing for their junior proms, I'd be in sloppy -slacks down at the spaceport with Jacob."</p> - -<p>She laughed often—perhaps in a deliberate attempt to disguise the -omnipresent tension. And her laughter was like laughter on Earth, -floating through comfortable houses and over green fields and through -clear blue sky. When she laughed, she possessed a beauty.</p> - -<p>Despite her pale face and lack of makeup, Ben realized that she was no -older than he.</p> - -<p><i>If I'd only known her back on Earth</i>, he thought. <i>If I</i>—And then he -told himself, <i>You've got enough problems. Don't create another one!</i></p> - -<p>Finally, except for a stiffness in his leg joints, he'd fully recovered.</p> - -<p>"How much time do I have?" he asked.</p> - -<p>"Before you decide?"</p> - -<p>"Yes."</p> - -<p>"Very little. Jacob's ship is on its way. It'll be here—well, you -can't tell about these things. Two or three Earth days, maybe even -tomorrow. It'll stay in Hoover City long enough to discharge and load -cargo. Then it'll stop here for us and return to—to our new base."</p> - -<p>"What do you think Jacob would do if I didn't want to go with him?"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>She shook her head. "You asked me that before. I said I didn't know."</p> - -<p>Ben thought, <i>I know a lot about you, Jacob. I know you're based on an -asteroid. I know how many men you have, how many ships. I know where -this dome is. I know you have men planted in the I. B. I. Would you -let me go, knowing these things? How great is your immunity from the -law? Do you love freedom so much that you'd kill to help preserve it?</i></p> - -<p>Fear crawled through his mind on icy legs.</p> - -<p>"Maggie," he said, "what would Jacob do if he were me?"</p> - -<p>She looked amused. "Jacob wouldn't have gotten into your situation. He -wouldn't have struck Cobb. Jacob is—"</p> - -<p>"A man? And I'm still a boy? Is that what you mean?"</p> - -<p>"Not exactly. I think you'll be a man after you make your decision."</p> - -<p>He frowned, not liking her answer.</p> - -<p>"You think the dream of going into space is a boy's dream, that it -can't belong to a man, too?"</p> - -<p>"Oh, no. Jacob still has the dream. Most of our men do. And in a -man, it's even more wonderful than in a boy." Then her face became -more serious. "Ben, you've got to decide soon. And it's got to be a -<i>complete</i> decision. You can have no doubt in your mind."</p> - -<p>He nodded. "On account of Simon, you mean."</p> - -<p>She motioned for him to come to the window in his room. He gazed -outward, following the line of her finger as she pointed.</p> - -<p>He saw a man-sized mound of stones, dimly visible beneath the -wind-whipped dust.</p> - -<p>A grave.</p> - -<p>"He was a man like you," Maggie said softly. "God knows Simon didn't -<i>try</i> to kill him. But he was escaping. He—he made the decision not to -join us. Simon sensed it. There was a struggle. Simon's hands—well, he -doesn't realize—"</p> - -<p>She didn't have to explain further. Ben knew what those mighty scaly -paws could do.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The moments were now like bits of eternity cloaked in frozen fear. -Somewhere in the blackness of interplanetary space, Jacob's rocket was -streaking closer and closer to Venus. How far away was it? A million -miles? Fifty thousand? Or was it now—right now—ripping through the -murky Venusian atmosphere above the dome?</p> - -<p>A <i>complete</i> decision, Maggie had said.</p> - -<p>Jacob didn't want a potential deserter in his group. And you couldn't -<i>pretend</i> that you were loyal to Jacob—not with monstrosities like -Simple Simon about.</p> - -<p>Soon Jacob, not Ben, might have to make a decision—a decision that -could result in a second cairn of stones on the wind-swept desert.</p> - -<p>Ben shivered.</p> - -<p>Before retiring, he wandered nervously into the supply room. Maggie -was poised over the visi-radio. Simple Simon was intently scanning the -night-shrouded terrain in the viewscreen.</p> - -<p>"Any news?" Ben asked Maggie.</p> - -<p>The girl grunted negatively without looking up.</p> - -<p>Ben's gaze fell upon the array of oxygen masks, windsuits, -vita-rations. Then, on a littered shelf, he spied a small Venusian -compass.</p> - -<p>Almost automatically, his hand closed over it. His brain stirred with -a single thought: <i>A compass could keep a man traveling in a straight -line.</i></p> - -<p>Simple Simon restlessly shifted. He turned to Ben, blinking in the -frighteningly alien equivalent of a suspicious scowl.</p> - -<p>Ben's hand tightened about the compass. He tried to relax, to force all -thought of it from his mind. He stared at the viewscreen, concentrating -on the ceaseless drift of dust.</p> - -<p>The Venusian's eyes studied him curiously, as if searching his mind for -the illusive echo of a feeling that had given him alarm.</p> - -<p>"I think I'll turn in," yawned Ben. "'Night, Maggie."</p> - -<p>Simon frowned, apparently frustrated in his mental search. "Ben—not -one of us. I—watch."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Without answering, Ben returned to his room, the compass hot and moist -from the perspiration in his hand.</p> - -<p>He took a deep breath.</p> - -<p>Why had he taken the compass? He wasn't sure. Perhaps, he reflected, -his decision had already been made, deep beneath the surface of -consciousness.</p> - -<p>He stood before the window, peering into the night. He knew that to -attempt to sleep was futile. Sleep, for the past few days an ever-ready -friend, had become a hostile stranger.</p> - -<p><i>God</i>, his brain cried, <i>what shall I do?</i></p> - -<p>Slowly, the dust outside the window settled. The scream of wind was no -longer audible. His startled eyes beheld dim, faraway lights—those of -Hoover City, he guessed.</p> - -<p>It was as if, for the space of a few seconds, some cosmic power had -silenced the Venusian fury, had guided him toward making his decision.</p> - -<p>He whipped up his compass. He barely had time to complete the -measurement.</p> - -<p>"Sixty-eight degrees," he read. "Northeast by east."</p> - -<p>Fresh wind descended onto the plain. Dancing dust erased the vision of -the lights.</p> - -<p>"Sixty-eight, sixty-eight," he kept muttering.</p> - -<p>But now there was nothing to do—except try to sleep and be ready.</p> - -<p>Strong hands shook him out of restless sleep. He opened his eyes and -saw complete darkness. He thought at first that his eyesight had failed.</p> - -<p>"Ben! Wake up!" Maggie's voice came to him, crisp, commanding. "The -rocket's coming. I've decoded the message. We only have a few minutes."</p> - -<p>The girl snapped on a small bulkhead light. She left him alone to dress.</p> - -<p>He slid out of bed, a drowsiness still in him. He reached for his -clothing. Abruptly, the full implication of what she had said struck -him.</p> - -<p>Jacob's rocket was coming. This was the time for decision, yet within -his taut body there was only a jungle of conflicting impulses.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Maggie returned, her face hard, her eyes asking the silent question.</p> - -<p>Ben stood frozen. The slow seconds beat against his brain like waves of -ice.</p> - -<p>At last she said, "Ready, Ben?" She spoke evenly, but her searching -gaze belied the all-important significance of her words.</p> - -<p>In the dim light, the photograph of Jacob was indistinguishable, but -Ben could still see the image of the dead man.</p> - -<p>He thought, <i>I can't run away with Jacob like a selfish, cowardly kid! -No matter how bright the stars would be, that brightness couldn't -destroy the image of a dead man with staring eyes. No matter what Jacob -and Simon do to me, I've got to try to get back to Earth.</i></p> - -<p>He suddenly felt clean inside. He was no longer ashamed to hold his -head high.</p> - -<p>"Maggie," he said.</p> - -<p>"Yes?"</p> - -<p>"I've made my decision."</p> - -<p>Outside the window, a waterfall of flame cascaded onto the desert, -pushing aside the dust and the darkness. The deep-throated sound of -rocket engines grumbled above the whining wind. The floor of the dome -vibrated.</p> - -<p>"The rocket's here!" Maggie cried.</p> - -<p>The flaming exhaust from the ship dissolved into the night. The rocket -thunder faded into the wind.</p> - -<p>The alarm on the dome's inner airlock bulkhead rang. Maggie ran like a -happy child through the concrete corridor, Ben following. She bounded -into the supply room, pushed Simple Simon aside, stopped before a -control panel. Her fingers flew over switches and levers.</p> - -<p>The airlock door slid open. A short, stubble-bearded man clad in -windsuit and transparalite helmet stomped in. He unscrewed the face -plate of his helmet. His ears were too big and he looked like a fat -doll.</p> - -<p>"We're ready for you, Mrs. Pierce," he said.</p> - -<p>Maggie nodded eagerly. She whirled back to Ben. "<i>Hurry!</i> Get your -helmet and suit on!"</p> - -<p>She spun back to the big-eared little man. "Cargo unloaded? All set for -the flight home?"</p> - -<p><i>Home</i>, Ben thought. <i>She calls a place she's never seen home.</i></p> - -<p>"Cargo's unloaded."</p> - -<p>"No trouble with the I. B. I.? No investigation?"</p> - -<p>"Not yet. We're good for a few more hauls, I guess."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Ben slipped on his windsuit. He glanced at the control panel for the -airlock. Yes, he could manipulate it easily. He contemplated the heat -pistol at Simple Simon's hip. A tempting idea—but, no, he wanted no -more of violence.</p> - -<p>Then he bit his lip. He cleared his mind of all thought.</p> - -<p>Simple Simon evidently had not noted the impulse that flicked his -adrenals into pumping.</p> - -<p>The big-eared man stared strangely at Maggie. "Mrs. Pierce, before we -go, I'd better tell you something."</p> - -<p>"You can do that on the rocket."</p> - -<p>Maggie stepped forward to seize her helmet. The man blocked her -movement.</p> - -<p>"Mrs. Pierce, your husband—Jacob—was on the rocket."</p> - -<p>"What?" The girl released a broken, unbelieving little laugh. "Why, he -wouldn't dare! That idiot, taking a chance like—" Alarm twisted her -features. "He—he wasn't captured—"</p> - -<p>"No, he wasn't captured. And he took no chance, Mrs. Pierce."</p> - -<p>A moment of silence. Then she sucked in her breath.</p> - -<p>Ben understood. Words echoed in his mind: "Jacob and those like him can -never return to Earth, not even to Hoover City—except dead."</p> - -<p>Maggie swayed. Ben and the big-eared little man jumped to her side, -guided her back into the compartment used as a kitchen. They helped her -to a chair. Ben turned on the fire beneath a coffee pot. Simple Simon -watched silently.</p> - -<p>Her eyes empty and staring, Maggie asked, "How did it happen?"</p> - -<p>"We were heading into a clump of baby asteroids the size of peas. The -radar warning was too slow. We couldn't pull away; we had to stop. The -deceleration got him—crushed him. He lived for five minutes afterward."</p> - -<p>The little man produced a folded paper from a pocket of his suit. -"Jacob said he had some ideas he had to get down on paper. God knows -why, but during those five minutes he drew up this plan for improving -our deceleration compensator."</p> - -<p>"Plans for—" she gasped.</p> - -<p>"He was a spaceman, Mrs. Pierce." The man handed her the paper. Ben -caught a glimpse of scribbled circuits, relays, cathodes.</p> - -<p>"When he finished," the man continued, "he said to tell you that he -loved you."</p> - -<p>She started to hand the paper back.</p> - -<p>The spaceman shook his head. "No, the original is yours. I've made -copies for our own ships and for the brass in Hoover City."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Maggie kept talking to the little man, lost in the world he was -creating for her. Ben was excluded from that world, a stranger.</p> - -<p>Then Ben saw his opportunity.</p> - -<p>Simple Simon's face was expressionless, but tears were zig-zagging down -his gray, reptilian features. Ben stared for several seconds, wondering -if his vision had deceived him. Till this instant, he'd somehow assumed -that the big Venusian was devoid of emotion.</p> - -<p>But Simple Simon was crying.</p> - -<p>It was unlikely that the creature would peer into his mind at a moment -like this.</p> - -<p>Step by step, Ben backed toward the open door in the rear of the -compartment. Silently, he slipped through it. He attempted to move -automatically, without feeling.</p> - -<p>He darted into the supply room. The continued drone of voices told him -his action had not been observed.</p> - -<p>He didn't like it at all. Escaping this way was like crumpling Maggie's -grief into an acid ball and hurling it into her face. But he had no -other choice.</p> - -<p>A few seconds later, he was dressed in windsuit and oxygen helmet. A -can of vita-rations was strapped to his back and his compass was in his -hand.</p> - -<p>Heart refusing to stop pounding, he threw the levers and switches to -open the airlock. He cringed under the grinding, scraping noise, as -loud to him as the ringing clash of swords.</p> - -<p>But the murmur of voices continued.</p> - -<p>He stepped outside. The airlock door clanged shut. He was caught by the -biting dust and the shrill banshee wind. He fell, then scrambled erect.</p> - -<p>To his right, he saw the silver sheen of Jacob's rocket shining behind -a row of golden, eyelike portholes. Beneath it were black outlines of -moving, helmeted figures.</p> - -<p>He bent low to study the luminous dial of his compass.</p> - -<p>Behind him was a grating and a sliding of metal. A movement in the -darkness.</p> - -<p>He turned.</p> - -<p>Dimly illuminated by the glow from the rocket ports was the grim, stony -face of Simple Simon.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The Venusian was like a piece of the night itself, compressed and -solidified to form a living creature. The impression was contradicted -only by the glowing whiteness of his eyes.</p> - -<p>The reptilian body shuffled forward. The scales on his great face -and chest reflected the lights from the rocket like Christmas tree -ornaments dusted with gold.</p> - -<p>His hands reached out.</p> - -<p>Words thundered in Ben's memory: <i>God knows Simon didn't try to kill -him. Simon's hands—well, he doesn't realize—</i></p> - -<p>Ben hopped away from the groping hands, slipped the compass into his -pocket, balled his fists. The wind caught at his body. He stumbled, -then recovered his balance.</p> - -<p>Despite the wind and his suit's bulkiness, he was surprised at his own -agility. He recalled that the gravitational pull of Venus was only -four-fifths of Earth's. That was an advantage.</p> - -<p>Crouching against the wind, he stepped to his left, away from the -rocket. He was reluctant to enter an area of greater darkness, but -neither did he want to risk observation by the men he'd seen near -Jacob's ship.</p> - -<p>Simple Simon followed. He moved like an automaton, functioning with -awkward, methodical slowness. His hands, speckled with reflected light, -rose up out of the darkness.</p> - -<p>Ben stepped back, wiped the dust from his clouded face-plate. One swoop -of those hands, he knew, could shatter his helmet, destroy his oxygen -supply, leave him choking on deadly methane and carbon dioxide.</p> - -<p>But, so far, Simon seemed bent on capture, not destruction. That fact -gave Ben a second advantage.</p> - -<p>Scaly fingers, moving now with greater swiftness, closed over the -shoulder of his suit. Ben felt himself being pulled forward, a child -in the grasp of a giant. His brief surge of confidence vanished. Cold -terror swept upon him.</p> - -<p>He lashed out wildly. His right fist found his target, found it so well -that the skin split on his gloved knuckles.</p> - -<p>Simon's head snapped back. The grasping fingers slipped from Ben's suit.</p> - -<p>But still the Venusian lumbered ahead, an irresistible juggernaut, the -hands continually groping. Ben ducked and slipped aside. The can of -vita-rations was ripped from his back.</p> - -<p>He crouched low, fighting the wind, maneuvering for another blow. -His lungs ached, but he had no opportunity to increase his helmet's -oxygen flow. His weak leg muscles were beginning to pain as though with -needles of fire.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The hands crashed down upon his shoulders. This time, his fist found -Simon's stomach. The creature released a grunt audible above the -howling of wind. His body doubled up.</p> - -<p>Ben struck again and again. His lungs throbbed as if they'd break -through his chest. A fresh layer of dust coated his face-plate, nearly -blinding him. He fought instinctively, gauntleted fists battering.</p> - -<p>Simple Simon fell.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/illus3.jpg" width="547" height="500" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>Ben brushed away the dust from his face-plate, turned up his helmet's -oxygen valve. Then he knelt by the fallen creature.</p> - -<p>A new fear came to Ben Curtis—a fear almost as great as that of being -caught in Simon's crushing grip. It was the fear that he had killed -again.</p> - -<p>But even in the near-darkness, he could distinguish the labored rise -and fall of the massive chest.</p> - -<p><i>Thank God</i>, he thought.</p> - -<p>From the direction of Jacob's ship, a flash of light caught his eye. -The black shapes of helmeted men were becoming larger, nearer.</p> - -<p>Ben tensed. The spacemen couldn't have heard sounds of the struggle, -but they <i>might</i> have noticed movement.</p> - -<p>Puffing, Ben plunged into the darkness to his left, slowing only long -enough to consult the dial of his compass.</p> - -<p>"Sixty-eight degrees," he breathed.</p> - -<p>The compass dial was now his only companion and his only hope. It was -the one bit of reality in a world of black, screaming nightmare.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>At first Ben Curtis fought the wind and the dust and the night. His -fists were clenched as they had been while struggling with Simon. Each -step forward was a challenge, a struggle and—so far, at any rate—a -victory.</p> - -<p>But how far was the city? Five miles? Ten? How could you judge distance -through a haze of alien sand?</p> - -<p>And were Simple Simon or Jacob's men following? How good was a -Venusian's vision at night? Would the scaly hands find him even now, -descending on him from out of the blackness?</p> - -<p>He kept walking, walking. Sixty-eight degrees.</p> - -<p>Gradually his senses grew numb to the fear of recapture. He became -oblivious to the wailing wind and the beat of dust against his -face-plate. He moved like a robot. His mind wandered back through time -and space, a pin-wheel spinning with unforgettable impressions, faces, -voices.</p> - -<p>He saw the white features of a dead man, their vividness fading now and -no longer terrifying.</p> - -<p><i>A Space Officer Is Honest. A Space Officer Is Loyal. A Space Officer -Is Dutiful.</i> The words were like clear, satisfying music.</p> - -<p>He cursed at the image of a pop-eyed Martian boy. <i>A tres fine table, -monsieur. Close in the shadows.</i></p> - -<p>And yet, he told himself, the boy really didn't do anything wrong. He -was only helping to capture a murderer. Maybe he was lonesome for Mars -and needed money to go home.</p> - -<p>Ben thought of Maggie: <i>While other gals were dressing for their junior -proms, I'd be in sloppy slacks down at the spaceport with Jacob.... If -I'd only known her back on Earth—</i></p> - -<p>Maggie, sitting alone now with a wrinkled paper and its mass of -scrawled circuits. Alone and hollow with grief and needing help. Ben's -throat tightened. Damn it, he didn't want to think about that.</p> - -<p>What was it the little big-eared man had said? <i>I've made copies for -our own ships and for the brass in Hoover City.</i></p> - -<p>Why had he said that? Why would renegades give their secrets to the -Space Corps? The Corps would incorporate the discoveries in their -ships. With them, they'd reach the asteroids. Jacob's group would be -pushed even further outward.</p> - -<p>Ben stopped, the wind whipping at his suit and buffeting his -helmet—but not as hard as the answer he had found.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Jacob and his men had an existence to justify, a debt to pay. They -justified that existence and paid that debt by helping humanity in its -starward advance.</p> - -<p>Maggie had said, <i>We carry cargoes of almost pure uranium and tungsten -and all the stuff that's getting scarce on Earth and Mars and Venus. If -we want to risk our lives getting it, that's our business.... The dome -we're in now was designed and built by us a few years ago. We lost a -few men in the construction, but with almost every advance in space, -someone dies.</i></p> - -<p>The wind pressed Ben back. The coldness of the Venusian night was -seeping into his suit. It was as if his body were bathed, at once, in -flame and ice.</p> - -<p>He slipped, fell, his face turned toward the sandy ground. He did not -try to rise.</p> - -<p>Yet his mind seemed to soar above the pain, to carry him into a -wondrous valley of new awareness.</p> - -<p>Man would never be content to stay on nine insignificant globes-not -when his eyes had the power to stare into a night sky and when his -brain had the ability to imagine. There would have to be pioneers to -seek out the unknown horror, to face it and defeat it. There would have -to be signposts lining the great road and helping others to follow -without fear.</p> - -<p>For all the brilliancy of their dreams, those men would be the lonely -ones, the men of no return. For all the glory of their brief adventure, -they would give not only their cloaks, but ultimately their lives.</p> - -<p>Ben lay trembling in the darkness.</p> - -<p>His brain cried, <i>You couldn't rig up a radar system or a deceleration -compensator, but you could chart those asteroids. You can't bring a man -named Cobb back to life, but you could help a thousand men and women to -stay alive five or ten or twenty years from now.</i></p> - -<p>Ben knew at last what decision Jacob would have made.</p> - -<p>The reverse of sixty-eight on a compass is two-forty-eight.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Like flashing knitting needles, strong hands moved about his -face-plate, his windsuit, his helmet. Then they were wiping -perspiration from his white face and placing a wet cloth on the back of -his neck.</p> - -<p>"You were coming back," a voice kept saying. "You were coming back."</p> - -<p>His mouth was full of hot coffee. He became aware of a gentle face -hovering above him, just as it had a seeming eternity ago.</p> - -<p>He sat up on the bed, conscious now of his surroundings.</p> - -<p>"Simon says you were coming back, Ben. <i>Why?</i>"</p> - -<p>He fought to grasp the meaning of Maggie's words. "Simon? Simon found -me? He brought me back?"</p> - -<p>"Only a short way. He said you were almost here."</p> - -<p>Ben closed his eyes, reliving the whirlwind of thought that had whipped -through his brain. He mumbled something about pioneers and a scrawled -paper and a debt and a decision.</p> - -<p>Then he blinked and saw that he and Maggie were not alone. Simple Simon -stood at the foot of his bed—and was that a trace of a smile on his -reptilian mouth? And three windsuited spacemen stood behind Maggie, -helmets in their hands. One was a lean-boned, reddish-skinned Martian.</p> - -<p>Simple Simon said, "Ben—changed. Thinks—like us. Good now. -Like—Jacob."</p> - -<p>The little big-eared man stepped up and shook hands with Ben. "If Simon -says so, that's good enough for me."</p> - -<p>A blond-haired Earthman helped Ben from the bed. "Legs okay, fellow? -Think you're ready?"</p> - -<p>Ben stood erect unassisted. "Legs okay. And I'm ready."</p> - -<p>He thought for a moment. "But suppose I wasn't ready. Suppose I didn't -want to go with you. I know a lot about your organization. What would -you do?"</p> - -<p>The blond man shrugged untroubledly. "We wouldn't kill you, if that's -what you mean. We'd probably vote on whether to take you with us anyway -or let you go." His smile was frank. "I'm glad we don't have to vote."</p> - -<p>Ben nodded and turned to Maggie. "You're still coming with us?"</p> - -<p>She shook her head, a mist shining in her sad eyes. "Not on this trip. -Not without Jacob. I'll get one of our desert taxis back to Hoover -City. Then I'll be going to Earth for a while. I've got some thinking -to do and thinking is done best on Earth. Out here is the place for -<i>feeling</i>." Her eyes lost a little of their pain. "But I'll be back. -Jacob wouldn't stay on Earth. Neither will I. I'll be seeing you."</p> - -<p>The big-eared man put his hand on Ben's shoulder.</p> - -<p>"Think you can get us back to Juno?" he asked.</p> - -<p>Ben looked at Maggie and then at the big-eared man. "You're as good as -there," he said confidently.</p> - - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Coffin for Jacob, by Edward W. 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Ludwig - -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/license - - -Title: A Coffin for Jacob - -Author: Edward W. Ludwig - -Release Date: February 14, 2016 [EBook #51203] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A COFFIN FOR JACOB *** - - - - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - - - - - - - - - A Coffin for Jacob - - By EDWARD W. LUDWIG - - Illustrated by EMSH - - [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from - Galaxy Science Fiction May 1956. - Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that - the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] - - - - - With never a moment to rest, the pursuit - through space felt like a game of hounds - and hares ... or was it follow the leader? - - -Ben Curtis eased his pale, gaunt body through the open doorway of the -Blast Inn, the dead man following silently behind him. - -His fear-borne gaze traveled into the dimly illumined Venusian gin -mill. The place was like an evil caldron steaming with a brew whose -ingredients had been culled from the back corners of three planets. - -Most of the big room lay obscured behind a shimmering veil of tobacco -smoke and the sweet, heavy fumes of Martian Devil's Egg. Here and -there, Ben saw moving figures. He could not tell if they were Earthmen, -Martians or Venusians. - -Someone tugged at his greasy coat. He jumped, thinking absurdly that it -was the dead man's hand. - -"_Coma esta, senor?_" a small voice piped. "_Speken die Deutsch? -Desirez-vous d'amour? Da? Nyet?_" - -Ben looked down. - -The speaker was an eager-eyed Martian boy of about ten. He was like -a red-skinned marionette with pipestem arms and legs, clad in a torn -skivvy shirt and faded blue dungarees. - -"I'm American," Ben muttered. - -"Ah, _buena_! I speak English _tres_ fine, _senor_. I have Martian -friend, she _tres_ pretty and _tres_ fat. She weigh almost eighty -pounds, _monsieur_. I take you to her, _si_?" - -Ben shook his head. - - * * * * * - -He thought, _I don't want your Martian wench. I don't want your opium -or your Devil's Egg or your Venusian kali. But if you had a drug that'd -bring a dead man to life, I'd buy and pay with my soul._ - -"It is deal, _monsieur_? Five dollars or twenty _keelis_ for visit -Martian friend. Maybe you like House of Dreams. For House of Dreams--" - -"I'm not buying." - -The dirty-faced kid shrugged. "Then I show you to good table,--_tres -bien_. I do not charge you, _senor_." - -The boy grabbed his hand. Because Ben could think of no reason for -resisting, he followed. They plunged into shifting layers of smoke and -through the drone of alcohol-cracked voices. - -They passed the bar with its line of lean-featured, slit-eyed -Earthmen--merchant spacemen. - -They wormed down a narrow aisle flanked by booths carved from Venusian -marble that jutted up into the semi-darkness like fog-blanketed -tombstones. - -Several times, Ben glimpsed the bulky figures of CO_{2}-breathing -Venusians, the first he'd ever seen. - -They were smoky gray, scaly, naked giants, toads in human shape. -They stood solitary and motionless, aloof, their green-lidded eyes -unblinking. They certainly didn't look like telepaths, as Ben had heard -they were, but the thought sent a fresh rivulet of fear down his spine. - -Once he spied a white-uniformed officer of Hoover City's Security -Police. The man was striding down an aisle, idly tapping his neuro-club -against the stone booths. - -_Keep walking_, Ben told himself. _You look the same as anyone else -here. Keep walking. Look straight ahead._ - -The officer passed. Ben breathed easier. - -"Here we are, _monsieur_," piped the Martian boy. "A _tres_ fine table. -Close in the shadows." - -Ben winced. How did this kid know he wanted to sit in the shadows? -Frowning, he sat down--he and the dead man. - -He listened to the lonely rhythms of the four-piece Martian orchestra. - -The Martians were fragile, doll-like creatures with heads too large for -their spindly bodies. Their long fingers played upon the strings of -their _cirillas_ or crawled over the holes of their flutes like spider -legs. Their tune was sad. Even when they played an Earth tune, it still -seemed a song of old Mars, charged with echoes of lost voices and -forgotten grandeur. - -For an instant, Ben's mind rose above the haunting vision of the dead -man. He thought, _What are they doing here, these Martians? Here, in -a smoke-filled room under a metalite dome on a dust-covered world? -Couldn't they have played their music on Mars? Or had they, like me, -felt the challenge of new worlds?_ - -He sobered. It didn't matter. He ordered a whiskey from a Chinese -waiter. He wet his lips but did not drink. His gaze wandered over the -faces of the Inn's other occupants. - -_You've got to find him_, he thought. _You've got to find the man with -the red beard. It's the only way you can escape the dead man._ - - * * * * * - -The dead man was real. His name was Cobb. He was stout and flabby and -about forty and he hated spacemen. - -His body was buried now--probably in the silent gray wastes outside -Luna City. But he'd become a kind of invisible Siamese twin, as much a -part of Ben as sight in his eyes. - -Sometimes the image would be shuffling drunkenly beside him, its lips -spitting whiskey-slurred curses. - -Again, its face would be a pop-eyed mask of surprise as Ben's fist -thudded into its jaw. More often, the face would be frozen in the -whiteness of death. The large eyes would stare. Blood would trickle -from a corner of the gaping mouth. - -You can forget a living man. You can defeat him or submit to him or -ignore him, and the matter is over and done. You can't escape from a -memory that has burned into your mind. - -It had begun a week ago in Luna City. The flight from White Sands had -been successful. Ben, quietly and moderately, wanted to celebrate. -He stopped alone in a rocketfront bar for a beer. The man named Cobb -plopped his portly and unsteady posterior on the stool next to him. - -"Spacemen," he muttered, "are getting like flies. Everywhere, all you -see's spacemen." - -He was a neatly dressed civilian. - -Ben smiled. "If it weren't for spacemen, you wouldn't be here." - -"The name's Cobb." The man hiccoughed. "Spacemen in their white monkey -suits. They think they're little tin gods. Betcha you think you're a -little tin god." He downed a shot of whiskey. - -Ben stiffened. He was twenty-four and dressed in the white, -crimson-braided uniform of the _Odyssey's_ junior astrogation officer. -He was three months out of the Academy at White Sands and the shining -uniform was like a key to all the mysteries of the Universe. - -He'd sought long for that key. - - * * * * * - -At the age of five--perhaps in order to dull the memory of his parents' -death in a recent strato-jet crash--he'd spent hours watching the night -sky for streaking flame-tails of Moon rockets. At ten, he'd ground -his first telescope. At fourteen, he'd converted an abandoned shed on -the government boarding-school grounds to a retreat which housed his -collection of astronomy and rocketry books. - -At sixteen, he'd spent every weekend holiday hitchhiking from Boys -Town No. 5 in the Catskills to Long Island Spaceport. There, among -the grizzled veterans of the old Moon Patrol, he'd found friends who -understood his dream and who later recommended his appointment to the -U. S. Academy for the Conquest of Space. - -And a month ago, he'd signed aboard the _Odyssey_--the first ship, it -was rumored, equipped to venture as far as the asteroids and perhaps -beyond. - -Cobb was persistent: "Damn fools shoulda known enough to stay on Earth. -What the hell good is it, jumpin' from planet to planet?" - -_The guy's drunk_, Ben thought. He took his drink and moved three -stools down the bar. - -Cobb followed. "You don't like the truth, eh, kid? You don't like -people to call you a sucker." - -Ben rose and started to leave the bar, but Cobb grabbed his arm and -held him there. - -"Thas what you are--a sucker. You're young now. Wait ten years. You'll -be dyin' of radiation rot or a meteor'll get you. Wait and see, sucker!" - -Until this instant, Ben had suppressed his anger. Now, suddenly and -without warning, it welled up into savage fury. - -His fist struck the man on the chin. Cobb's eyes gaped in shocked -horror. He spun backward. His head cracked sickeningly on the edge of -the bar. The sound was like a punctuation mark signaling the end of -life. - -He sank to the floor, eyes glassy, blood tricking down his jaw. - -Ben knew that he was dead. - -Then, for a single absurd second, Ben was seized with terror--just as, -a moment before, he'd been overwhelmed with anger. - -He ran. - - * * * * * - -For some twenty minutes, he raced through a dizzying, nightmare world -of dark rocketfront alleys and shouting voices and pursuing feet. - -At last, abruptly, he realized that he was alone and in silence. He saw -that he was still on the rocketfront, but in the Tycho-ward side of the -city. - -He huddled in a dark corner of a loading platform and lit a cigarette. -A thousand stars--a thousand motionless balls of silver fire--shone -above him through Luna City's transparent dome. - -He was sorry he'd hit Cobb, of course. He was not sorry he'd run. -Escaping at least gave him a power of choice, of decision. - -_You can do two things_, he thought. - -_You can give yourself up, and that's what a good officer would do. -That would eliminate the escape charge. You'd get off with voluntary -manslaughter. Under interplanetary law, that would mean ten years in -prison and a dishonorable discharge. And then you'd be free._ - -_But you'd be through with rockets and space. They don't want new -men over thirty-four for officers on rockets or even for third-class -jet-men on beat-up freighters--they don't want convicted killers. You'd -get the rest of the thrill of conquering space through video and by -peeking through electric fences of spaceports._ - -_Or--_ - -There were old wives' tales of a group of renegade spacemen who -operated from the Solar System's frontiers. The spacemen weren't -outlaws. They were misfits, rejectees from the clearing houses on Earth. - -And whereas no legally recognized ship had ventured past Mars, the -souped-up renegade rigs had supposedly hit the asteroids. Their -headquarters was Venus. Their leader--a subject of popular and -fantastic conjecture in the men's audiozines--was rumored to be a -red-bearded giant. - -_So_, Ben reflected, _you can take a beer-and-pretzels tale seriously. -You can hide for a couple of days, get rid of your uniform, change your -name. You can wait for a chance to get to Venus. To hell with your -duty. You can try to stay in space, even if you exile yourself from -Earth._ - -After all, was it right for a single second, a single insignificant -second, to destroy a man's life and his dream? - - * * * * * - -He was lucky. He found a tramp freighter whose skipper was on his last -flight before retirement. Discipline was lax, investigation of new -personnel even more so. - -Ben Curtis made it to Venus. - -There was just one flaw in his decision. He hadn't realized that the -memory of the dead man's face would haunt him, torment him, follow him -as constantly as breath flowed into his lungs. - -But might not the rumble of atomic engines drown the murmuring dead -voice? Might not the vision of alien worlds and infinite spaceways -obscure the dead face? - -So now he sat searching for a perhaps nonexistent red-bearded giant, -and hoping and doubting and fearing, all at once. - -"You look for someone, _senor_?" - -He jumped. "Oh. You still here?" - -"_Oui._" The Martian kid grinned, his mouth full of purple teeth. "I -keep you company on your first night in Hoover City, _n'est-ce-pas_?" - -"This isn't my first night here," Ben lied. "I've been around a while." - -"You are spacemen?" - -Ben threw a fifty-cent credit piece on the table. "Here. Take off, will -you?" - -Spiderlike fingers swept down upon the coin. "_Ich danke, senor._ You -know why city is called Hoover City?" - -Ben didn't answer. - -"They say it is because after women come, they want first thing a -thousand vacuum cleaners for dust. What is vacuum cleaner, _monsieur_?" - -Ben raised his hand as if to strike the boy. - -"_Ai-yee_, I go. You keep listen to good Martian music." - -The toothpick of a body melted into the semi-darkness. - -Minutes passed. There were two more whiskeys. A ceaseless parade of -faces broke through the smoky veil that enclosed him--reddish balloon -faces, scaly reptilian faces, white-skinned, slit-eyed faces, and -occasionally a white, rouged, powdered face. But nowhere was there a -face with a red beard. - -A sense of hopelessness gripped Ben Curtis. Hoover City was but one of -a dozen cities of Venus. Each had twenty dives such as this. - -He needed help. - -But his picture must have been 'scoped to Venusian visiscreens. A -reward must have been offered for his capture. Whom could he trust? The -Martian kid, perhaps? - -Far down the darkened aisle nearest him, his eyes caught a flash of -white. He tensed. - -Like the uniform of a Security Policeman, he thought. - -His gaze shifted to another aisle and another hint of whiteness. - -And then he saw another and another and another. - -Each whiteness became brighter and closer, like shrinking spokes of a -wheel with Ben as their focal point. - -_You idiot! The damned Martian kid! You should have known!_ - - * * * * * - -Light showered the room in a dazzling explosion. Ben, half blinded, -realized that a broad circle of unshaded globes in the ceiling had been -turned on. - -The light washed away the room's strangeness and its air of brooding -wickedness, revealing drab concrete walls and a debris-strewn floor. - -Eyes blinked and squinted. There were swift, frightened movements and -a chorus of angry murmurs. The patrons of the Blast Inn were like -tatter-clad occupants of a house whose walls have been ripped away. - -Ben Curtis twisted his lean body erect. His chair tumbled backward, -falling. - -The white-clad men charged, neuro-clubs upraised. - -A woman screamed. The music ceased. The Martian orchestra slunk with -feline stealth to a rear exit. Only the giant Venusians remained -undisturbed. They stood unmoving, their staring eyes shifting lazily in -Ben's direction. - -"Curtis!" one of the policemen yelled. "You're covered! Hold it!" - -Ben whirled away from the advancing police, made for the exit into -which the musicians had disappeared. - -A hissing sound traveled past his left ear, a sound like compressed air -escaping from a container. A dime-sized section of the concrete wall -ahead of him crumbled. - -He stumbled forward. They were using deadly neuro-pistols now, not the -mildly stunning neuro-clubs. - -Another hiss passed his cheek. He was about twelve feet from the exit. -_Another second_, his brain screamed. _Just another second--_ - -Or would the exits be guarded? - -He heard the hiss. - -It hit directly in the small of his back. There was no pain, just a -slight pricking sensation, like the shallow jab of a needle. - - * * * * * - -He froze as if yanked to a stop by a noose. His body seemed to be -growing, swelling into balloon proportions. He knew that the tiny -needle had imbedded itself deep in his flesh, knew that the paralyzing -mortocain was spreading like icy fire into every fiber and muscle of -his body. - -He staggered like a man of stone moving in slow motion. He'd have -fifteen--maybe twenty--seconds before complete lethargy of mind and -body overpowered him. - -In the dark world beyond his fading consciousness, he heard a voice -yell, "Turn on the damn lights!" - -Then a pressure and a coldness were on his left hand. He realized that -someone had seized it. - -A soft feminine voice spoke to him. "You're wounded? They hit you?" - -"Yes." His thick lips wouldn't let go of the word. - -"You want to escape--even now?" - -"Yes." - -"You may die if you don't give yourself up." - -"No, no." - -He tried to stumble toward the exit. - -"All right then. Not that way. Here, this way." - -Heavy footsteps thudded toward them. A few yards away, a flashlight -flicked on. - -Hands were guiding him. He was aware of being pushed and pulled. A -door closed behind him. The glare of the flashlight faded from his -vision--if he still had vision. - -"You're sure?" the voice persisted. - -"I'm sure," Ben managed to say. - -"I have no antidote. You may die." - -His mind fought to comprehend. With the anti-paralysis injection, -massage and rest, a man could recover from the effects of mortocain -within half a day. Without treatment, the paralysis could spread to -heart and lungs. It could become a paralysis of death. An effective -weapon: the slightest wound compelled the average criminal to surrender -at once. - -"Anti ... anti ..." The words were as heavy as blobs of mercury forced -from his throat. "No ... I'm sure ... sure." - -He didn't hear the answer or anything else. - - * * * * * - -Ben Curtis had no precise sensation of awakening. Return to -consciousness was an intangible evolution from a world of black -nothingness to a dream-like state of awareness. - -He felt the pressure of hands on his naked arms and shoulders, -hands that massaged, manipulated, fought to restore circulation and -sensitivity. He knew they were strong hands. Their strength seemed to -transfer itself to his own body. - -For a long time, he tried to open his eyes. His lids felt welded -shut. But after a while, they opened. His world of darkness gave way -to a translucent cloak of mist. A round, featureless shape hovered -constantly above him--a face, he supposed. - -He tried to talk. Although his lips moved slightly, the only sound was -a deep, staccato grunting. - -But he heard someone say, "Don't try to talk." It was the same gentle -voice he'd heard in the Blast Inn. "Don't talk. Just lie still and -rest. Everything'll be all right." - -_Everything all right_, he thought dimly. - -There were long periods of lethargy when he was aware of nothing. There -were periods of light and of darkness. Gradually he grew aware of -things. He realized that the soft rubber mouth of a spaceman's oxygen -mask was clamped over his nose. He felt the heat of electric blankets -swathed about his body. Occasionally a tube would be in his mouth and -he would taste liquid food and feel a pleasant warmth in his stomach. - -Always, it seemed, the face was above him, floating in the obscuring -mist. Always, it seemed, the soft voice was echoing in his ears: - -"Swallow this now. That's it. You must have food." Or, "Close your -eyes. Don't strain. It won't be long. You're getting better." - -_Better_, he'd think. _Getting better...._ - -At last, after one of the periods of lethargy, his eyes opened. The -mist brightened, then dissolved. - -He beheld the cracked, unpainted ceiling of a small room, its colorless -walls broken with a single, round window. He saw the footboard of his -aluminite bed and the outlines of his feet beneath a faded blanket. - -Finally he saw the face and figure that stood at his side. - -"You are better?" the kind voice asked. - - * * * * * - -The face was that of a girl probably somewhere between twenty-five -and thirty. Her features, devoid of makeup, had an unhealthy-looking -pallor, as if she hadn't used a sunlamp for many weeks. Yet, at the -same time, her firm slim body suggested a solidity and a strength. Her -straight brown hair was combed backward, tight upon her scalp, and -drawn together in a knot at the nape of her neck. - -"I--I am better," he murmured. His words were still slow and thick. "I -am going to live?" - -"You will live." - -He thought for a moment. "How long have I been here?" - -"Nine days." - -"You took care of me?" He noted the deep, dark circles beneath her -sleep-robbed eyes. - -She nodded. - -"You're the one who carried me when I was shot?" - -"Yes." - -"Why?" - -Suddenly he began to cough. Breath came hard. She held the oxygen mask -in readiness. He shook his head, not wanting it. - -"Why?" he asked again. - -"It would be a long story. Perhaps I'll tell you tomorrow." - -A new thought, cloaked in sudden fear, entered his murky consciousness. -"Tell me, will--will I be well again? Will I be able to walk?" - -He lay back then, panting, exhausted. - -"You have nothing to worry about," the girl said softly. Her cool hand -touched his hot forehead. "Rest. We'll talk later." - -His eyes closed and breath came easier. He slept. - -When he next awoke, his gaze turned first to the window. There was -light outside, but he had no way of knowing if this was morning, noon -or afternoon--or on what planet. - -He saw no white-domed buildings of Hoover City, no formal lines of -green-treed parks, no streams of buzzing gyro-cars. There was only a -translucent and infinite whiteness. It was as if the window were set on -the edge of the Universe overlooking a solemn, silent and matterless -void. - -The girl entered the room. - -"Hi," she said, smiling. The dark half-moons under her eyes were less -prominent. Her face was relaxed. - -She increased the pressure in his rubberex pillows and helped him rise -to a sitting position. - -"Where are we?" he asked. - -"Venus." - -"We're not in Hoover City?" - -"No." - -He looked at her, wondering. "You won't tell me?" - -"Not yet. Later, perhaps." - -"Then how did you get me here? How did we escape from the Inn?" - - * * * * * - -She shrugged. "We have friends who can be bribed. A hiding place in the -city, the use of a small desert-taxi, a pass to leave the city--these -can be had for a price." - -"You'll tell me your name?" - -"Maggie." - -"Why did you save me?" - -Her eyes twinkled mischievously. "Because you're a good astrogator." - -His own eyes widened. "How did you know that?" - -She sat on a plain chair beside his bed. "I know everything about you, -Lieutenant Curtis." - -"How did you learn my name? I destroyed all my papers--" - -"I know that you're twenty-four. Born July 10, 1971. Orphaned at four, -you attended Boys Town in the Catskills till you were 19. You graduated -from the Academy at White Sands last June with a major in Astrogation. -Your rating for the five-year period was 3.8--the second highest in a -class of fifty-seven. Your only low mark in the five years was a 3.2 in -History of Martian Civilization. Want me to go on?" - -Fascinated, Ben nodded. - -"You were accepted as junior astrogation officer aboard the _Odyssey_. -You did well on your flight from Roswell to Luna City. In a barroom -fight in Luna City, you struck and killed a man named Arthur Cobb, a -pre-fab salesman. You've been charged with second degree murder and -escape. A reward of 5,000 credits has been offered for your capture. -You came to Hoover City in the hope of finding a renegade group of -spacemen who operate beyond Mars. You were looking for them in the -Blast Inn." - -He gaped incredulously, struggling to rise from his pillows. "I--don't -get it." - -"There are ways of finding out what we want to know. As I told you, we -have many friends." - -He fell back into his pillows, breathing hard. She rose quickly. - -"I'm sorry," she said. "I shouldn't have told you yet. I felt so happy -because you're alive. Rest now. We'll talk again soon." - -"Maggie, you--you said I'd live. You didn't say I'd be able to walk -again." - -She lowered her gaze. "I hope you'll be able to." - -"But you don't think I will, do you?" - -"I don't know. We'll try walking tomorrow. Don't think about it now. -Rest." - -He tried to relax, but his mind was a vortex of conjecture. - -"Just one more question," he almost whispered. - -"Yes?" - -"The man I killed--did he have a wife?" - -She hesitated. He thought, _Damn it, of all the questions, why did I -ask that?_ - -Finally she said, "He had a wife." - -"Children?" - -"Two. I don't know their ages." - -She left the room. - - * * * * * - -He sank into the softness of his bed. As he turned over on his side, -his gaze fell upon an object on a bureau in a far corner of the room. - -He sat straight up, his chest heaving. - -The object was a tri-dimensional photo of a rock-faced man in a -merchant spaceman's uniform. He was a giant of a man with a neatly -trimmed _red beard_! - -Ben stared at the photo for a long time. At length, he slipped into -restless sleep. Images of faces and echoes of words spun through his -brain. - -The dead man returned to him. Bloodied lips cursed at him. Glassy eyes -accused him. Somewhere were two lost children crying in the night. - -And towering above him was a red-bearded man whose great hands reached -down and beckoned to him. Ben crawled through the night on hands and -knees, his legs numb and useless. The crying of the children was a -chilling wail in his ears. - -His head rose and turned to the red-bearded man. His pleading voice -screamed out to him in a thick, harsh cackle. Yet even as he screamed, -the giant disappeared, to be replaced by white-booted feet stomping -relentlessly toward him. - -He awoke still screaming.... - -A night without darkness passed. Ben lay waiting for Maggie's return, a -question already formed in his mind. - -She came and at once he asked, "Who is the man with the red beard?" - -She smiled. "I was right then when I gave you that thumbnail biog. You -_were_ looking for him, weren't you?" - -"Who is he?" - -She sat on the chair beside him. - -"My husband," she said softly. - -He began to understand. "And your husband needs an astrogator? That's -why you saved me?" - -"We need all the good men we can get." - -"Where is he?" - -She cocked her head in mock suspicion. "Somewhere between Mercury and -Pluto. He's building a new base for us--and a home for me. When his -ship returns, I'll be going to him." - -"Why aren't you with him now?" - -"He said unexplored space is no place for a woman. So I've been -studying criminal reports and photos from the Interplanetary Bureau of -Investigation and trying to find recruits like yourself. You know how -we operate?" - -He told her the tales he'd heard. - - * * * * * - -She nodded. "There are quite a few of us now--about a thousand--and a -dozen ships. Our base used to be here on Venus, down toward the Pole. -The dome we're in now was designed and built by us a few years ago -after we got pushed off Mars. We lost a few men in the construction, -but with almost every advance in space, someone dies." - -"Venus is getting too civilized. We're moving out and this dome is only -a temporary base when we have cases like yours. The new base--I might -as well tell you it's going to be an asteroid. I won't say which one." - -"Don't get the idea that we're outlaws. Sure, about half our group is -wanted by the Bureau, but we make honest livings. We're just people -like yourself and Jacob." - -"Jacob? Your husband?" - -She laughed. "Makes you think of a Biblical character, doesn't it? -Jacob's anything but that. And just plain 'Jake' reminds one of a -grizzled old uranium prospector and he isn't like that, either." - -She lit a cigarette. "Anyway, the wanted ones stay out beyond the -frontiers. Jacob and those like him can never return to Earth--not even -to Hoover City--except dead. The others are physical or psycho rejects -who couldn't get clearance if they went back to Earth. They know -nothing but rocketing and won't give up. They bring in our ships to -frontier ports like Hoover City to unload cargo and take on supplies." - -"Don't the authorities object?" - -"Not very strongly. The I. B. I. has too many problems right here to -search the whole System for a few two-bit crooks. Besides, we carry -cargoes of almost pure uranium and tungsten and all the stuff that's -scarce on Earth and Mars and Venus. Nobody really cares whether it -comes from the asteroids or Hades. If we want to risk our lives mining -it, that's our business." - -She pursed her lips. "But if they guessed how strong we are or that we -have friends planted in the I. B. I.--well, things might be different. -There probably would be a crackdown." - -Ben scowled. "What happens if there _is_ a crackdown? And what will you -do when Space Corps ships officially reach the asteroids? They can't -ignore you then." - -"Then we move on. We dream up new gimmicks for our crates and take them -to Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto. In time, maybe, we'll be -pushed out of the System itself. Maybe it won't be the white-suited -boys who'll make that first hop to the stars. It _could_ be us, you -know--if we live long enough. But that Asteroid Belt is murder. You -can't follow the text-book rules of astrogation out there. You make up -your own." - - * * * * * - -Ben stiffened. "And that's why you want me for an astrogator." - -Maggie rose, her eyes wistful. "If you want to come--and if you get -well." She looked at him strangely. - -"Suppose--" He fought to find the right words. "Suppose I got well and -decided not to join Jacob. What would happen to me? Would you let me -go?" - -Her thin face was criss-crossed by emotion--alarm, then bewilderment, -then fear. "I don't know. That would be up to Jacob." - -He lay biting his lip, staring at the photo of Jacob. She touched his -hand and it seemed that sadness now dominated the flurry of emotion -that had coursed through her. - -"The only thing that matters, really," she murmured, "is your walking -again. We'll try this afternoon. Okay?" - -"Okay," he said. - -When she left, his eyes were still turned toward Jacob's photo. - -He was like two people, he thought. - -Half of him was an officer of the Space Corps. Perhaps one single -starry-eyed boy out of ten thousand was lucky enough to reach that goal. - -He remembered a little picture book his mother had given him when she -was alive. Under the bright pictures of spacemen were the captions: - -"A Space Officer Is Honest" "A Space Officer Is Loyal." "A Space -Officer Is Dutiful." - -Honesty, loyalty, duty. Trite words, but without those concepts, -mankind would never have broken away from the planet that held it -prisoner for half a million years. - -Without them, Everson, after three failures and a hundred men dead, -would never have landed on the Moon twenty-seven years ago. - - * * * * * - -Ben sighed. He had a debt to pay. A good officer would pay that debt. -He'd surrender and take his punishment. He'd rip the crimson braid from -his uniform. He'd prevent the Academy for the Conquest of Space from -being labeled the school of a murderer and a coward. - -And by doing these things, the haunting image of a dead man would -disappear from his vision. - -But the other half of Ben Curtis was the boy who'd stood trembling -beneath a night sky of beckoning stars. - -The eyes in Jacob's photo seemed to be staring at the boy in him, not -at the officer. They appeared both pleading and hopeful. They were -like echoes of cold, barren worlds and limitless space, of lurking -and savage death. They held the terror of loneliness and of exile, of -constant flight and hiding. - -But, too, they represented a strength that could fulfill a boy's dream, -that could carry a man to new frontiers. They, rather than the neat -white uniform, now offered the key to shining miracles. That key was -what Ben wanted. - -But he asked himself, as he had a thousand times, "If I follow Jacob, -can I leave the dead man behind?" - -He tried to stretch his legs and he cursed their numbness. He smiled -grimly. For a moment, he'd forgotten. How futile now to think of stars! - -What if he were to be like this always? Jacob would not want a man -with dead legs. Jacob would either send him back to Earth or--Ben -shuddered--see that he was otherwise disposed of. And disposal would be -the easier course. - - * * * * * - -This was the crisis. He sat on the side of the bed, Maggie before him, -her strong arm about his waist. - -"Afraid?" she asked. - -"Afraid," he repeated, shaking. - -It was as if all time had been funneled into this instant, as if this -moment lay at the very vortex of all a man's living and desiring. There -was no room in Ben's mind for thoughts of Jacob now. - -"You can walk," Maggie said confidently. "I _know_ you can." - -He moved his toes, ankles, legs. He began to rise, slowly, falteringly. -The firm pressure around his waist increased. - -He stood erect. His legs felt like tree stumps, but here and there were -a tingling and a warmth, a sensitivity. - -"Can you make it to the window?" Maggie asked. - -"No, no, not that far." - -"Try! Please try!" - -She guided him forward. - -His feet shuffled. Stomp, stomp. The pressure left his waist. Maggie -stepped away, walked to the window, turned back toward him. - -He halted, swaying. "Not alone," he mouthed fearfully. "I can't get -there by myself." - -"Of course you can!" Maggie's voice contained unexpected impatience. - -Ashamed, he forced his feet to move. At times, he thought he was going -to crash to the floor. He lumbered on, hesitating, fighting to retain -his balance. Maggie waited tensely, as if ready to leap to his side. - -Then his eyes turned straight ahead to the window. This was the first -time he'd actually seen the arid, dust-cloaked plains of the second -planet. He straightened, face aglow, as though a small-boy enthusiasm -had been reborn in him. - -His tree-stump legs carried him to the window. He raised shaking hands -against the thick glassite pane. - -Outside, the swirling white dust was omnipresent and unchallenged. It -cut smooth the surfaces of dust-veiled rocks. It clung to the squat -desert shrubbery, to the tall skeletal shapes of Venusian needle-plants -and to the swish-tailed lizards that skittered beneath them. - -The shrill of wind, audible through the glassite, was like the -anguished complaint of the planet itself, like the wail of an entity -imprisoned in a dark tomb of dust. Venus was a planet of fury, -eternally howling its wrath at being isolated from sunlight and -greenery, from the clean blackness of space and the warm glow of -sister-planet and star. - -The dust covered all, absorbed all, eradicated all. The dust was -master. The dome, Ben felt, was as transitory as a tear-drop of fragile -glass falling down, down, to crash upon stone. - -"Is it always like this?" he asked. "Doesn't the wind ever stop?" - -"Sometimes the wind dies. Sometimes, at night, you can see the lights -from the city." - - * * * * * - -He kept staring. The dome, he thought, was a symbol of Man's littleness -in a hostile universe. - -But, too, it was a symbol of his courage and defiance. And perhaps -Man's greatest strength lay in the very audacity that drove him to -build such domes. - -"You like it, don't you?" Maggie asked. "It's lonely and ugly and wild, -but you like it." - -He nodded, breathless. - -She murmured, "Jacob used to say it isn't the strange sights that -thrill spacemen--it's the thoughts that the sights inspire." - -He nodded again, still staring. - -She began to laugh. Softly at first, then more loudly. It was the kind -of laughter that is close to crying. - -"You've been standing there for ten minutes! You're going to walk -again! You're going to be well!" - -He turned to her, smiling with the joyous realization that he had -actually stood that long without being aware of it. - -Then his smile died. - -Standing behind Maggie, in an open doorway, was a gray, scaly, toadlike -monster--a six-and-a-half-foot Venusian. He was motionless as a statue, -his green-lidded eyes staring curiously at Ben. His scaly hand was -tight about the butt of an old-fashioned heat pistol holstered to his -hip. - -Maggie suppressed a smile. "Don't be frightened, Ben. This is -Simon--Simple Simon, we call him. His I. Q. isn't too high, but he -makes a good helper and guard for me. He's been so anxious to see you, -but I thought it'd be better if he waited until you were well." - -Ben nodded, fascinated by the apparent muscular solidity of the -creature. It hadn't occurred to his numbed mind that he and Maggie were -not the sole occupants of the dome. - -But Maggie had acted wisely, he thought. His nightmares had been -terrifying enough without bringing Simple Simon into them. - -"Shake hands with Ben," she told the Venusian. - -Simple Simon lumbered forward, then paused. His eyes blinked. "No," he -grated. - -Maggie gasped. "Why, Simple Simon, what's the matter?" - -The gray creature rasped, "Ben--he not one of us. He thinks--different. -In thoughts--thinks escape. Earth." - - * * * * * - -Maggie paled. "He _is_ one of us, Simon." She stepped forward and -seized the Venusian's arm. "You go to your room. Stand guard. You guard -Ben just like you guard me. Understand?" - -Simple Simon grunted, "I guard. If Ben go--I stop him. I stop him -good." He raised his huge hands suggestively. - -"No, Simon! Remember what Jacob told you. We hurt no one. Ben is our -friend. You help him!" - -The Venusian thought for a long moment. Then he nodded. "I help Ben. -But if go--stop." - -She led the creature out of the room and closed the door. - -"Whew," Ben sighed. "I'd heard those fellows were telepaths. Now I -_know_." - -Maggie's trembling hands reached for a cigarette. "I--I guess I didn't -think, Ben. Venusians can't really read your mind, but they see your -feelings, your emotions. It's a logical evolutionary development, -I suppose. Auditory and visual communication are difficult here, so -evolution turned to empathy. And that's why Jacob keeps a few Venusians -in our group. They can detect any feeling of disloyalty before it -becomes serious." - -Ben remembered Simple Simon's icy gaze and the way his rough hand had -gripped his heat pistol. "They could be dangerous." - -"Not really. They're as loyal as Earth dogs to their masters. I mean -they wouldn't be dangerous to anyone who's loyal to us." - -Silently, she helped him back to his bed. - -"I'm sorry, Maggie--sorry I haven't decided yet." - -She neither answered nor looked at him. - -Grimly, he realized that his status had changed. He was no longer a -patient; he was a prisoner. - -A Venusian day passed, and a Venusian night. The dust swirled and wind -blew, as constant as the whirl of indecision in Ben's mind. - -Maggie was patient. Once, when she caught him gazing at Jacob's photo, -she asked, "Not yet?" - -He looked away. "Not yet." - - * * * * * - -He learned that the little dome consisted of three rooms, each shaped -like pieces of a fluffy pie with narrow concrete hallways between. - -His room served as a bedroom and he discovered that Maggie slept on a -pneumatic cot in the kitchen. The third room, opening into the airlock, -housed a small hydroponics garden, sunlamp, short-wave visi-radio, and -such emergency equipment as oxygen tanks, windsuits, and vita-rations. -It was here that Simple Simon remained most of the time, tending the -garden or peering into the viewscreen that revealed the terrain outside -the dome. - -Maggie prepared Ben's meals, bringing them to him on a tray until he -was able to sit at a table. As his paralysis diminished, he helped -her with cooking--with Simple Simon standing by as a mute, motionless -observer. - -Occasionally Maggie would talk of her girlhood in a small town in -Missouri and how she'd dreamed of journeying to the stars. - -"'Stars are for boys,' they'd tell me, but I was a queer one. While -other gals were dressing for their junior proms, I'd be in sloppy -slacks down at the spaceport with Jacob." - -She laughed often--perhaps in a deliberate attempt to disguise the -omnipresent tension. And her laughter was like laughter on Earth, -floating through comfortable houses and over green fields and through -clear blue sky. When she laughed, she possessed a beauty. - -Despite her pale face and lack of makeup, Ben realized that she was no -older than he. - -_If I'd only known her back on Earth_, he thought. _If I_--And then he -told himself, _You've got enough problems. Don't create another one!_ - -Finally, except for a stiffness in his leg joints, he'd fully recovered. - -"How much time do I have?" he asked. - -"Before you decide?" - -"Yes." - -"Very little. Jacob's ship is on its way. It'll be here--well, you -can't tell about these things. Two or three Earth days, maybe even -tomorrow. It'll stay in Hoover City long enough to discharge and load -cargo. Then it'll stop here for us and return to--to our new base." - -"What do you think Jacob would do if I didn't want to go with him?" - - * * * * * - -She shook her head. "You asked me that before. I said I didn't know." - -Ben thought, _I know a lot about you, Jacob. I know you're based on an -asteroid. I know how many men you have, how many ships. I know where -this dome is. I know you have men planted in the I. B. I. Would you -let me go, knowing these things? How great is your immunity from the -law? Do you love freedom so much that you'd kill to help preserve it?_ - -Fear crawled through his mind on icy legs. - -"Maggie," he said, "what would Jacob do if he were me?" - -She looked amused. "Jacob wouldn't have gotten into your situation. He -wouldn't have struck Cobb. Jacob is--" - -"A man? And I'm still a boy? Is that what you mean?" - -"Not exactly. I think you'll be a man after you make your decision." - -He frowned, not liking her answer. - -"You think the dream of going into space is a boy's dream, that it -can't belong to a man, too?" - -"Oh, no. Jacob still has the dream. Most of our men do. And in a -man, it's even more wonderful than in a boy." Then her face became -more serious. "Ben, you've got to decide soon. And it's got to be a -_complete_ decision. You can have no doubt in your mind." - -He nodded. "On account of Simon, you mean." - -She motioned for him to come to the window in his room. He gazed -outward, following the line of her finger as she pointed. - -He saw a man-sized mound of stones, dimly visible beneath the -wind-whipped dust. - -A grave. - -"He was a man like you," Maggie said softly. "God knows Simon didn't -_try_ to kill him. But he was escaping. He--he made the decision not to -join us. Simon sensed it. There was a struggle. Simon's hands--well, he -doesn't realize--" - -She didn't have to explain further. Ben knew what those mighty scaly -paws could do. - - * * * * * - -The moments were now like bits of eternity cloaked in frozen fear. -Somewhere in the blackness of interplanetary space, Jacob's rocket was -streaking closer and closer to Venus. How far away was it? A million -miles? Fifty thousand? Or was it now--right now--ripping through the -murky Venusian atmosphere above the dome? - -A _complete_ decision, Maggie had said. - -Jacob didn't want a potential deserter in his group. And you couldn't -_pretend_ that you were loyal to Jacob--not with monstrosities like -Simple Simon about. - -Soon Jacob, not Ben, might have to make a decision--a decision that -could result in a second cairn of stones on the wind-swept desert. - -Ben shivered. - -Before retiring, he wandered nervously into the supply room. Maggie -was poised over the visi-radio. Simple Simon was intently scanning the -night-shrouded terrain in the viewscreen. - -"Any news?" Ben asked Maggie. - -The girl grunted negatively without looking up. - -Ben's gaze fell upon the array of oxygen masks, windsuits, -vita-rations. Then, on a littered shelf, he spied a small Venusian -compass. - -Almost automatically, his hand closed over it. His brain stirred with -a single thought: _A compass could keep a man traveling in a straight -line._ - -Simple Simon restlessly shifted. He turned to Ben, blinking in the -frighteningly alien equivalent of a suspicious scowl. - -Ben's hand tightened about the compass. He tried to relax, to force all -thought of it from his mind. He stared at the viewscreen, concentrating -on the ceaseless drift of dust. - -The Venusian's eyes studied him curiously, as if searching his mind for -the illusive echo of a feeling that had given him alarm. - -"I think I'll turn in," yawned Ben. "'Night, Maggie." - -Simon frowned, apparently frustrated in his mental search. "Ben--not -one of us. I--watch." - - * * * * * - -Without answering, Ben returned to his room, the compass hot and moist -from the perspiration in his hand. - -He took a deep breath. - -Why had he taken the compass? He wasn't sure. Perhaps, he reflected, -his decision had already been made, deep beneath the surface of -consciousness. - -He stood before the window, peering into the night. He knew that to -attempt to sleep was futile. Sleep, for the past few days an ever-ready -friend, had become a hostile stranger. - -_God_, his brain cried, _what shall I do?_ - -Slowly, the dust outside the window settled. The scream of wind was no -longer audible. His startled eyes beheld dim, faraway lights--those of -Hoover City, he guessed. - -It was as if, for the space of a few seconds, some cosmic power had -silenced the Venusian fury, had guided him toward making his decision. - -He whipped up his compass. He barely had time to complete the -measurement. - -"Sixty-eight degrees," he read. "Northeast by east." - -Fresh wind descended onto the plain. Dancing dust erased the vision of -the lights. - -"Sixty-eight, sixty-eight," he kept muttering. - -But now there was nothing to do--except try to sleep and be ready. - -Strong hands shook him out of restless sleep. He opened his eyes and -saw complete darkness. He thought at first that his eyesight had failed. - -"Ben! Wake up!" Maggie's voice came to him, crisp, commanding. "The -rocket's coming. I've decoded the message. We only have a few minutes." - -The girl snapped on a small bulkhead light. She left him alone to dress. - -He slid out of bed, a drowsiness still in him. He reached for his -clothing. Abruptly, the full implication of what she had said struck -him. - -Jacob's rocket was coming. This was the time for decision, yet within -his taut body there was only a jungle of conflicting impulses. - - * * * * * - -Maggie returned, her face hard, her eyes asking the silent question. - -Ben stood frozen. The slow seconds beat against his brain like waves of -ice. - -At last she said, "Ready, Ben?" She spoke evenly, but her searching -gaze belied the all-important significance of her words. - -In the dim light, the photograph of Jacob was indistinguishable, but -Ben could still see the image of the dead man. - -He thought, _I can't run away with Jacob like a selfish, cowardly kid! -No matter how bright the stars would be, that brightness couldn't -destroy the image of a dead man with staring eyes. No matter what Jacob -and Simon do to me, I've got to try to get back to Earth._ - -He suddenly felt clean inside. He was no longer ashamed to hold his -head high. - -"Maggie," he said. - -"Yes?" - -"I've made my decision." - -Outside the window, a waterfall of flame cascaded onto the desert, -pushing aside the dust and the darkness. The deep-throated sound of -rocket engines grumbled above the whining wind. The floor of the dome -vibrated. - -"The rocket's here!" Maggie cried. - -The flaming exhaust from the ship dissolved into the night. The rocket -thunder faded into the wind. - -The alarm on the dome's inner airlock bulkhead rang. Maggie ran like a -happy child through the concrete corridor, Ben following. She bounded -into the supply room, pushed Simple Simon aside, stopped before a -control panel. Her fingers flew over switches and levers. - -The airlock door slid open. A short, stubble-bearded man clad in -windsuit and transparalite helmet stomped in. He unscrewed the face -plate of his helmet. His ears were too big and he looked like a fat -doll. - -"We're ready for you, Mrs. Pierce," he said. - -Maggie nodded eagerly. She whirled back to Ben. "_Hurry!_ Get your -helmet and suit on!" - -She spun back to the big-eared little man. "Cargo unloaded? All set for -the flight home?" - -_Home_, Ben thought. _She calls a place she's never seen home._ - -"Cargo's unloaded." - -"No trouble with the I. B. I.? No investigation?" - -"Not yet. We're good for a few more hauls, I guess." - - * * * * * - -Ben slipped on his windsuit. He glanced at the control panel for the -airlock. Yes, he could manipulate it easily. He contemplated the heat -pistol at Simple Simon's hip. A tempting idea--but, no, he wanted no -more of violence. - -Then he bit his lip. He cleared his mind of all thought. - -Simple Simon evidently had not noted the impulse that flicked his -adrenals into pumping. - -The big-eared man stared strangely at Maggie. "Mrs. Pierce, before we -go, I'd better tell you something." - -"You can do that on the rocket." - -Maggie stepped forward to seize her helmet. The man blocked her -movement. - -"Mrs. Pierce, your husband--Jacob--was on the rocket." - -"What?" The girl released a broken, unbelieving little laugh. "Why, he -wouldn't dare! That idiot, taking a chance like--" Alarm twisted her -features. "He--he wasn't captured--" - -"No, he wasn't captured. And he took no chance, Mrs. Pierce." - -A moment of silence. Then she sucked in her breath. - -Ben understood. Words echoed in his mind: "Jacob and those like him can -never return to Earth, not even to Hoover City--except dead." - -Maggie swayed. Ben and the big-eared little man jumped to her side, -guided her back into the compartment used as a kitchen. They helped her -to a chair. Ben turned on the fire beneath a coffee pot. Simple Simon -watched silently. - -Her eyes empty and staring, Maggie asked, "How did it happen?" - -"We were heading into a clump of baby asteroids the size of peas. The -radar warning was too slow. We couldn't pull away; we had to stop. The -deceleration got him--crushed him. He lived for five minutes afterward." - -The little man produced a folded paper from a pocket of his suit. -"Jacob said he had some ideas he had to get down on paper. God knows -why, but during those five minutes he drew up this plan for improving -our deceleration compensator." - -"Plans for--" she gasped. - -"He was a spaceman, Mrs. Pierce." The man handed her the paper. Ben -caught a glimpse of scribbled circuits, relays, cathodes. - -"When he finished," the man continued, "he said to tell you that he -loved you." - -She started to hand the paper back. - -The spaceman shook his head. "No, the original is yours. I've made -copies for our own ships and for the brass in Hoover City." - - * * * * * - -Maggie kept talking to the little man, lost in the world he was -creating for her. Ben was excluded from that world, a stranger. - -Then Ben saw his opportunity. - -Simple Simon's face was expressionless, but tears were zig-zagging down -his gray, reptilian features. Ben stared for several seconds, wondering -if his vision had deceived him. Till this instant, he'd somehow assumed -that the big Venusian was devoid of emotion. - -But Simple Simon was crying. - -It was unlikely that the creature would peer into his mind at a moment -like this. - -Step by step, Ben backed toward the open door in the rear of the -compartment. Silently, he slipped through it. He attempted to move -automatically, without feeling. - -He darted into the supply room. The continued drone of voices told him -his action had not been observed. - -He didn't like it at all. Escaping this way was like crumpling Maggie's -grief into an acid ball and hurling it into her face. But he had no -other choice. - -A few seconds later, he was dressed in windsuit and oxygen helmet. A -can of vita-rations was strapped to his back and his compass was in his -hand. - -Heart refusing to stop pounding, he threw the levers and switches to -open the airlock. He cringed under the grinding, scraping noise, as -loud to him as the ringing clash of swords. - -But the murmur of voices continued. - -He stepped outside. The airlock door clanged shut. He was caught by the -biting dust and the shrill banshee wind. He fell, then scrambled erect. - -To his right, he saw the silver sheen of Jacob's rocket shining behind -a row of golden, eyelike portholes. Beneath it were black outlines of -moving, helmeted figures. - -He bent low to study the luminous dial of his compass. - -Behind him was a grating and a sliding of metal. A movement in the -darkness. - -He turned. - -Dimly illuminated by the glow from the rocket ports was the grim, stony -face of Simple Simon. - - * * * * * - -The Venusian was like a piece of the night itself, compressed and -solidified to form a living creature. The impression was contradicted -only by the glowing whiteness of his eyes. - -The reptilian body shuffled forward. The scales on his great face -and chest reflected the lights from the rocket like Christmas tree -ornaments dusted with gold. - -His hands reached out. - -Words thundered in Ben's memory: _God knows Simon didn't try to kill -him. Simon's hands--well, he doesn't realize--_ - -Ben hopped away from the groping hands, slipped the compass into his -pocket, balled his fists. The wind caught at his body. He stumbled, -then recovered his balance. - -Despite the wind and his suit's bulkiness, he was surprised at his own -agility. He recalled that the gravitational pull of Venus was only -four-fifths of Earth's. That was an advantage. - -Crouching against the wind, he stepped to his left, away from the -rocket. He was reluctant to enter an area of greater darkness, but -neither did he want to risk observation by the men he'd seen near -Jacob's ship. - -Simple Simon followed. He moved like an automaton, functioning with -awkward, methodical slowness. His hands, speckled with reflected light, -rose up out of the darkness. - -Ben stepped back, wiped the dust from his clouded face-plate. One swoop -of those hands, he knew, could shatter his helmet, destroy his oxygen -supply, leave him choking on deadly methane and carbon dioxide. - -But, so far, Simon seemed bent on capture, not destruction. That fact -gave Ben a second advantage. - -Scaly fingers, moving now with greater swiftness, closed over the -shoulder of his suit. Ben felt himself being pulled forward, a child -in the grasp of a giant. His brief surge of confidence vanished. Cold -terror swept upon him. - -He lashed out wildly. His right fist found his target, found it so well -that the skin split on his gloved knuckles. - -Simon's head snapped back. The grasping fingers slipped from Ben's suit. - -But still the Venusian lumbered ahead, an irresistible juggernaut, the -hands continually groping. Ben ducked and slipped aside. The can of -vita-rations was ripped from his back. - -He crouched low, fighting the wind, maneuvering for another blow. -His lungs ached, but he had no opportunity to increase his helmet's -oxygen flow. His weak leg muscles were beginning to pain as though with -needles of fire. - - * * * * * - -The hands crashed down upon his shoulders. This time, his fist found -Simon's stomach. The creature released a grunt audible above the -howling of wind. His body doubled up. - -Ben struck again and again. His lungs throbbed as if they'd break -through his chest. A fresh layer of dust coated his face-plate, nearly -blinding him. He fought instinctively, gauntleted fists battering. - -Simple Simon fell. - -Ben brushed away the dust from his face-plate, turned up his helmet's -oxygen valve. Then he knelt by the fallen creature. - -A new fear came to Ben Curtis--a fear almost as great as that of being -caught in Simon's crushing grip. It was the fear that he had killed -again. - -But even in the near-darkness, he could distinguish the labored rise -and fall of the massive chest. - -_Thank God_, he thought. - -From the direction of Jacob's ship, a flash of light caught his eye. -The black shapes of helmeted men were becoming larger, nearer. - -Ben tensed. The spacemen couldn't have heard sounds of the struggle, -but they _might_ have noticed movement. - -Puffing, Ben plunged into the darkness to his left, slowing only long -enough to consult the dial of his compass. - -"Sixty-eight degrees," he breathed. - -The compass dial was now his only companion and his only hope. It was -the one bit of reality in a world of black, screaming nightmare. - - * * * * * - -At first Ben Curtis fought the wind and the dust and the night. His -fists were clenched as they had been while struggling with Simon. Each -step forward was a challenge, a struggle and--so far, at any rate--a -victory. - -But how far was the city? Five miles? Ten? How could you judge distance -through a haze of alien sand? - -And were Simple Simon or Jacob's men following? How good was a -Venusian's vision at night? Would the scaly hands find him even now, -descending on him from out of the blackness? - -He kept walking, walking. Sixty-eight degrees. - -Gradually his senses grew numb to the fear of recapture. He became -oblivious to the wailing wind and the beat of dust against his -face-plate. He moved like a robot. His mind wandered back through time -and space, a pin-wheel spinning with unforgettable impressions, faces, -voices. - -He saw the white features of a dead man, their vividness fading now and -no longer terrifying. - -_A Space Officer Is Honest. A Space Officer Is Loyal. A Space Officer -Is Dutiful._ The words were like clear, satisfying music. - -He cursed at the image of a pop-eyed Martian boy. _A tres fine table, -monsieur. Close in the shadows._ - -And yet, he told himself, the boy really didn't do anything wrong. He -was only helping to capture a murderer. Maybe he was lonesome for Mars -and needed money to go home. - -Ben thought of Maggie: _While other gals were dressing for their junior -proms, I'd be in sloppy slacks down at the spaceport with Jacob.... If -I'd only known her back on Earth--_ - -Maggie, sitting alone now with a wrinkled paper and its mass of -scrawled circuits. Alone and hollow with grief and needing help. Ben's -throat tightened. Damn it, he didn't want to think about that. - -What was it the little big-eared man had said? _I've made copies for -our own ships and for the brass in Hoover City._ - -Why had he said that? Why would renegades give their secrets to the -Space Corps? The Corps would incorporate the discoveries in their -ships. With them, they'd reach the asteroids. Jacob's group would be -pushed even further outward. - -Ben stopped, the wind whipping at his suit and buffeting his -helmet--but not as hard as the answer he had found. - - * * * * * - -Jacob and his men had an existence to justify, a debt to pay. They -justified that existence and paid that debt by helping humanity in its -starward advance. - -Maggie had said, _We carry cargoes of almost pure uranium and tungsten -and all the stuff that's getting scarce on Earth and Mars and Venus. If -we want to risk our lives getting it, that's our business.... The dome -we're in now was designed and built by us a few years ago. We lost a -few men in the construction, but with almost every advance in space, -someone dies._ - -The wind pressed Ben back. The coldness of the Venusian night was -seeping into his suit. It was as if his body were bathed, at once, in -flame and ice. - -He slipped, fell, his face turned toward the sandy ground. He did not -try to rise. - -Yet his mind seemed to soar above the pain, to carry him into a -wondrous valley of new awareness. - -Man would never be content to stay on nine insignificant globes-not -when his eyes had the power to stare into a night sky and when his -brain had the ability to imagine. There would have to be pioneers to -seek out the unknown horror, to face it and defeat it. There would have -to be signposts lining the great road and helping others to follow -without fear. - -For all the brilliancy of their dreams, those men would be the lonely -ones, the men of no return. For all the glory of their brief adventure, -they would give not only their cloaks, but ultimately their lives. - -Ben lay trembling in the darkness. - -His brain cried, _You couldn't rig up a radar system or a deceleration -compensator, but you could chart those asteroids. You can't bring a man -named Cobb back to life, but you could help a thousand men and women to -stay alive five or ten or twenty years from now._ - -Ben knew at last what decision Jacob would have made. - -The reverse of sixty-eight on a compass is two-forty-eight. - - * * * * * - -Like flashing knitting needles, strong hands moved about his -face-plate, his windsuit, his helmet. Then they were wiping -perspiration from his white face and placing a wet cloth on the back of -his neck. - -"You were coming back," a voice kept saying. "You were coming back." - -His mouth was full of hot coffee. He became aware of a gentle face -hovering above him, just as it had a seeming eternity ago. - -He sat up on the bed, conscious now of his surroundings. - -"Simon says you were coming back, Ben. _Why?_" - -He fought to grasp the meaning of Maggie's words. "Simon? Simon found -me? He brought me back?" - -"Only a short way. He said you were almost here." - -Ben closed his eyes, reliving the whirlwind of thought that had whipped -through his brain. He mumbled something about pioneers and a scrawled -paper and a debt and a decision. - -Then he blinked and saw that he and Maggie were not alone. Simple Simon -stood at the foot of his bed--and was that a trace of a smile on his -reptilian mouth? And three windsuited spacemen stood behind Maggie, -helmets in their hands. One was a lean-boned, reddish-skinned Martian. - -Simple Simon said, "Ben--changed. Thinks--like us. Good now. -Like--Jacob." - -The little big-eared man stepped up and shook hands with Ben. "If Simon -says so, that's good enough for me." - -A blond-haired Earthman helped Ben from the bed. "Legs okay, fellow? -Think you're ready?" - -Ben stood erect unassisted. "Legs okay. And I'm ready." - -He thought for a moment. "But suppose I wasn't ready. Suppose I didn't -want to go with you. I know a lot about your organization. What would -you do?" - -The blond man shrugged untroubledly. "We wouldn't kill you, if that's -what you mean. We'd probably vote on whether to take you with us anyway -or let you go." His smile was frank. "I'm glad we don't have to vote." - -Ben nodded and turned to Maggie. "You're still coming with us?" - -She shook her head, a mist shining in her sad eyes. "Not on this trip. -Not without Jacob. I'll get one of our desert taxis back to Hoover -City. Then I'll be going to Earth for a while. I've got some thinking -to do and thinking is done best on Earth. Out here is the place for -_feeling_." Her eyes lost a little of their pain. "But I'll be back. -Jacob wouldn't stay on Earth. Neither will I. I'll be seeing you." - -The big-eared man put his hand on Ben's shoulder. - -"Think you can get us back to Juno?" he asked. - -Ben looked at Maggie and then at the big-eared man. "You're as good as -there," he said confidently. - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Coffin for Jacob, by Edward W. 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