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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..8a2cfdd --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #53042 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/53042) diff --git a/old/53042-0.txt b/old/53042-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index a5092eb..0000000 --- a/old/53042-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,870 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Hitch in Space, by Fritz Leiber - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: A Hitch in Space - -Author: Fritz Leiber - -Illustrator: Sol Dember - Gray Morrow - -Release Date: September 13, 2016 [EBook #53042] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A HITCH IN SPACE *** - - - - -Produced by Greg Weeks and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - - - - - - - - - [Illustration: book cover] - - - - - A HITCH IN SPACE - - BY FRITZ LEIBER - - ILLUSTRATED BY GRAY - - My Space-partner was a good - reliable sidekick—but _his_ - partner was something else! - - -Once when I was doing a hitch with the Shaulan Space Guard out Scorpio -way, my partner Jeff Bogart developed just about the most harmless -psychosis you could imagine: he got himself an imaginary companion. - -And the imaginary companion turned out to be me. - -Well, I’m a pretty nice guy and so having two of me in the ship didn’t -seem a particularly bad idea. At first. In fact there’d be advantages of -it, I thought. For instance, Jeff liked to talk a weary lot ... and the -imaginary Joe Hansen could spell me listening to him, while I projected -a book or just harkened to the wheels going around in my own head -against the faint patter of starlight on the hull. - -I met Jeff first at a space-rodeo, oddly enough, but now the two of us -were out on a servicing check of the orbital beacons and relays and -rescue depots of the five planets of the Shaulan system. A completely -routine job, its only drawback that it was lengthy. Our ship was an -ionic jeep that looked like a fancy fountain pen, but was very roomy for -three men—one of them imaginary. - -I caught on to Jeff’s little mania by overhearing him talking to me. I’d -be coming back from the head or stores or linear accelerator or my bunk, -and I’d hear him yakking at me. It embarrassed me the first time, how to -go back into the cabin when the other me was there. But I just swam in, -and without any transition-strain at all that I could observe Jeff -looked around at me, smiling sort of glaze-eyed, and said warmly, “Joe. -My buddy Joe. Am I glad they paired us.” - -If Jeff had a major fault, as opposed to a species of nuttiness, it was -that he was strictly a speak-only-good, positive-thinking guy who always -deferred to me. Even idolized me, if you can imagine that. He’d give me -such fulsome praise I’d be irked ten times an orbit. - -Another thing that helped me catch on was that he always called the -other me Joseph. - - * * * * * - -At first I thought the whole thing might be a gag, or maybe a deliberate -way of letting off steam against me without violating his -always-a-sweet-guy code—like happy husbands cursing in the bathroom—but -then came the scrambled eggs. - -I’d slept late and when I squinted into the cabin there was Jeff -hovering over a plate of yellow fluff and shaking his finger at my empty -seat and saying, “Dammit, Joseph, eat your scrambled eggs, I cooked ’em -’specially for you,” and when he crawfished out toward the galley a -couple seconds later he was saying, “Now you start on those eggs, -Joseph, before I get back.” - -I thought for a bit and then I slid into my place and polished them off. - -When he floated in with the coffee he gave me another of those -glaze-eyed God-fearing looks—but just a mite disappointed, I thought—and -said, “Dammit, Joe, you’re perfect! You always clean your plate.” - -Apparently when I was there, Joseph just didn’t exist for Jeff. And vice -versa. It was sort of eerie, especially with the hum of space in my ears -like a seashell and nobody else for five million miles. - -Beginning with the scrambled eggs, I discovered that Jeff didn’t exactly -idolize Joseph—or even take with him the attitude of “My buddy can do no -wrong,” like he did with me. I overheard him criticizing Joseph. -Reasonably at first; then I heard him chewing him out—next bullying him. - -It made me wistful, that last, thinking how good it would feel to be -full-bloodedly cursed to my face once in a while instead of all the -sweetness and light. And right there I got the idea for some amateur -therapy, Shaula-Deva help me. - -I waited for a moment when we were both relaxed and then I said, “Jeff, -the trouble with you is you’re too nice. You ought to criticize things -more. For a starter, criticize me. Tell me my faults. Go ahead.” - -He flushed a little and said, “Dammit, Joe, how can I? You’re perfect!” - -“No man is perfect, Jeff,” I told him solemnly, feeling pretty foolish. - -“But you’re my buddy I always can trust,” he protested, squirming a bit. -“I wish you wouldn’t talk this way.” - - * * * * * - -“Jeff, you can’t trust anybody too far,” I said. “Even good guys can do -bad things. When I was a boy there was a kid named Harry I practically -worshipped. We lived on a pioneer world of Fomalhaut that had good snow, -and we’d hitch rides with our sleds off little airscrew planes taking -off. We’d each have a long white line on his sled and loop it beforehand -around the plane’s tail-gear and back to the sled. Then we’d hide. As -soon as the pilot got aboard we’d jump on our sleds and each grab the -free end of his line and have one comet of a ride, until the plane took -off. Then we’d quick let go. - -“Well, one frosty morning I let go and nothing happened, except I -started to rise. Harry had tied the free end of my line tight to my -sled. - -“I could have just rolled off, I suppose, but I didn’t want to lose my -sled or my line either. Luckily I had a sheath knife handy and I used -it. I even made a whizeroo of a landing. But ever afterwards my feelings -toward Harry—” - -“Stop it, please, Joe!” Jeff interrupted, very red in the face and -shaking a little. “That boy Harry was utterly evil. And I don’t want to -hear any more about this, or anything like it, ever again. Understand?” - -I told him sure I did. Heck, I could see I’d gone the wrong way about -it. I even begged his pardon. - -After that I just sweated it out. But I found I couldn’t spend much time -on books or my thoughts, I’d keep listening for what Jeff was saying to -Joseph. And sometimes when he’d pause for Joseph’s reply I’d catch -myself waiting for the imaginary me to make one. So I took to staying in -the same cabin as Jeff as much as I could. - -That seemed to make him uncomfortable after a while, though he pretended -to glory in it. He’d ask me questions like, “Tell me about life, Joe. So -I’ll know how to handle myself if we’re ever parted.” - -But the weariest things come to an end, even duty orbits around Shaula. -And so the time came when we were servicing our last beacon—outside the -planet Shaula-by, it was. Next step would be a fast interplanetary orbit -for Base at Shaula-near. - -I was out working—on a safety line of course, but suit-jetting around -more than I needed to, just for the pure joy of it, so that my suit tank -was almost dry. I’d switched my suit radio off for a bit, because, -working in space, Jeff had taken to just gabbling to me nervously all -the time—maybe because he figured there couldn’t be room for Joseph with -him in his suit. - -[Illustration: space walk] - -I finished up and paused for a last look at the ship. She was sweetly -slim from her conical living quarters to the taper-tail of her ionic -jet, but she had more junk on her than an amateur asteroid prospector -hangs on his suit the first time out. Every duty orbit, fifty scientists -come with permission from the Commandant to hang some automatic research -gadget on the hull. The craziest one this time was a huge flattened band -of gold-plated aluminum, little more than foil-thick, attached crosswise -just in front of the tail and sticking out twenty feet on each side. I -don’t know what it was there for—maybe to measure the effects of space -on a Moebius strip—but it looked like a wedding ring that had been -stepped on. So Jeff and I called it Trompled Love. - -But in spite of the junk, the ship looked mighty sweet against the -saffron steppes and baby-blue seas of Shaula-by with Shaula herself, old -Lambda Scorpii, flaming warm and wildly beyond, and with “United States” -standing out big as life on the ship’s living quarters. United States of -Shaula, of course. - - * * * * * - -I was almost dreaming out there, thinking how it hadn’t been such a -terrible duty after all, when I saw the ship begin to slide past Shaula. - -Poking out of her tail, ghostlier than the flame over a cafe royale, was -the evil blue glow of her jet. In an instant I’d guessed exactly what -had happened and was beating myself on the head for not having -anticipated it. Joseph had swum into the cabin right after Jeff. And -Jeff had yelled at him. “It’s about time, you lazy lunkhead! Everything -secure? Okay, I’m switching on the beam!” And I’d probably brought the -whole thing about by telling him that damfool sled story—and then -sticking to him so close he just had to get rid of me, so as to be with -Joseph. - -Meanwhile the ship was gathering speed in her sneaky way and the wavy -safety line between me and the airlock was starting to straighten. - -As you know, an ionic jet’s only good space-to-space. It’s not for -heavy-G work; ours could deliver only one-half G at max and was doing -less than one-quarter now. Which meant the ship was starting off slower -than most ground cars. - -But the beam would fire for hours, building up to a terminal velocity of -fifteen miles a second and carrying the ship far, far away from lonely -Joe Hansen. - -Except that we were tied together, of course. - -I was very grateful then for the weeks I’d practiced space-roping, -though I’d never won any prizes with it, because without thinking I -started to whip my line very carefully. And on the third try, just as it -was getting pretty straight, I managed to settle it in a notch in one -outside end of Trompled Love. After that I took up strain on the line as -gradually as I could, letting it friction through my gloves for as long -as I could before putting all my mass on it—because although one-quarter -G isn’t much, it piles up in a few seconds to quite a jerk. I spread -that jerk into several little ones. - -Well, the last jerk came and the line didn’t part and Trompled Love -didn’t crumple much, though the Shaula-light showed me several very -nasty-looking wrinkles in it. And there I was trailing along after the -ship, though out to one side, and feeling about as much strain on the -line as if I were hanging from a cliff on the moon, and knowing I was -going about five feet a second faster every second. - - * * * * * - -My idea wanting to be out to the side (and bless my impulses for -realizing it was the one important thing!) was to keep my line and -myself out of the beam. An ionic jet doesn’t look hot from the side. But -from straight on it’s a lot brighter than an arc light—it’s almost as -tight as a laser beam—and I didn’t want to think about what it would do -to me, even trailing as I was a hundred yards aft. - -Though of course long before it had ruined me, it would have -disintegrated my line. - -My being out to the side was putting the ship off balance on its jet and -presumably throwing its course toward base and Shaula-near little by -little into error. But that was the least of my worries, believe me. - -I thought for a bit and remembered I could talk to Jeff over my suit -radio. I decided to try it, not without misgivings. - -I tongued it on and said, “Jeff. Oh, Jeff. I’m out here. You forgot me.” - -I was going to say some more, but just then he broke in, angry and so -loud it made my helmet ring, with, “Joseph! Did you hear anything then?” -A pause, then, “Well, clean the wax out of your ears, stupid, because I -did! I think we got an enemy out there!” - -Another and longer pause, while my blood curdled a bit thicker, then, -“Well, okay, Joseph, I’ll go along with you this time. But if I hear the -enemy once more, I’m going to suit up and take a rifle and sit in the -airlock door until I’ve potted him.” - -I tongued the radio off quick, fearful I’d sneeze or something. I had -only one faint consolation: Joseph seemed to be a bit on my side, or -maybe he was just lazy. - -I thought some more, a mite frantic-like now, and after a while I said -to myself, _Been going five minutes now, so I’m doing about a quarter of -a mile a second—that’s fifteen miles a minute, wow!—but out here -velocities are purely relative. My suit does a little better than a -quarter G full on. Okay. I’ll jet to the ship._ - -No sooner said than acted on—I was beginning to rely too much on impulse -now. The suit jet killed my false weight at once and I was off, mighty -careful to aim myself along my line or a little outside it, so as not to -wander over into the beam. - -Pretty soon the tail and Trompled Love were getting noticeably bigger. - -Then a lot bigger. - -Then my suit fuel ran out. - - * * * * * - -I’d built up enough velocity so that I was still gaining on the ship for -a few seconds. In fact, I almost made it. My gauntlet was about to close -on Trompled Love when the ship started slowly to pull away. Oh, it was -frustrating! - -I remembered then what I should have a lot earlier, and grabbed for the -ship-end of my line so as not to lose the distance I’d gained—and in my -haste I knocked it away from me. The only good thing was that I didn’t -knock it out of the notch. - -Now I was losing space to the ship faster and faster. Yet all I could do -was reel in the me-end of the line as fast as I could. Suddenly the -whole line straightened and gave me a bigger jerk than I’d intended. I -could see Trompled Love crumple a little. And I was swinging just a bit, -like a pendulum. - -I used a glove-friction to spread the rest of the jerk, but still I was -at the end of my line and Trompled Love had crumpled a bit more before I -was coasting along with the ship again. - -My side of Trompled Love was bent back maybe twenty degrees. The eye of -the beam shone at me from the tail like a pale blue moon. For quite a -while it brightened and dimmed as I tick-tock swung. - -Meanwhile I was beating my skull for not having thought earlier of the -obvious slow-but-safe way of doing it, instead of that lunatic -suit-jetting. I once heard a psychologist say we’re mental slaves to -power-machinery and I guess he had something. - -Clearly all I had to do was climb hand-over-hand up the line to the -ship. At moon gravity that would be easy. If I should get tired I only -had to clamp on and rest. - -So I waited for my emotions to settle a bit, and then I reached along -the line and gave a smooth, medium-strength heave. - -Maybe there is something to ESP—at least in a devilish sort of -way—because I picked the exact moment when Jeff decided to feed the beam -more juice. - -There was a _big_ jerk and I saw Trompled Love crumple a lot, so that it -was pointing more than forty-five degrees aft. - -Now there was a steady pull on the line like I was hanging from a cliff -on Mars. And the eye of the beam was a blue moon not so pale—in fact -more like a sizzling blue sun seen through a light fog. - -After that I just didn’t have the heart to try the climb again. Once I -started to draw myself up, very cautious, but on the first handhold I -seemed to feel along the line Trompled Love crumpling some more and I -quit for good. - -I figured that at this boost Jeff would be up to proper speed for -Shaula-near in less than two hours. Well, I had suit-oxy and -refrigeration for longer than that. - -Of course if Jeff decided not to cut the beam on schedule, maybe with -the idea of eloping with Joseph to the next solar system—well, I’d -discover then whether suit-oxy running out would stimulate me to try the -climb again alongside the beam. - -(Or I could wait until he got her up near the speed of light, when by -the General Theory of Relativity the line ought to be shortened enough -so that I could hop aboard if I were sudden enough about it.... _No, Joe -Hansen, you quit that_, I told myself, _you don’t want to die with the -gears in your head all stripped_.) - -Thinking about the beam got me wondering exactly how close I was to it. -I unshipped my suit-antenna and pulled it out to full length—about eight -feet—and fished around with it in the direction of the beam. - -Nothing seemed to happen to it. It didn’t glow or anything; but I -suddenly got a little electric shock, and when I drew it back I could -see three inches of the tip were gone and the next couple inches were -pitted. So much for curiosity. - -Next I reattached the antenna to my suit—which turned out to be a lot -more troublesome job than unshipping it—and tongued on the radio with -the idea of listening in on Jeff. - - * * * * * - -Right away I heard him say, “Wake up, Joseph! I’m going to tell you your -faults again. I got a new way of cataloguing them—chronologically. Begin -with childhood. You hitched sled-rides on airplanes. That was bad, -Joseph, that was against the law. If the man had caught you doing it, if -he’d seen you whizzing along there back of him, he’d have had every -right to shoot you down in cold blood. Life is hard, Joseph, life is -merciless....” - -Right then I felt a tickle in my throat. - -I tried quick to shut off the radio, but it is remarkably difficult to -tongue anything when you have a cough coming. It came out finally in a -series of squeaky glubs. - -“Snap to, Joseph, and listen hard,” I heard Jeff say. “It’s started -again. Animal noises this time. You know if they make spacesuits for -black panthers, Joseph?” - -I tongued off the radio quick, before the follow-up cough came. - -I didn’t have anything left to do now but think. So I thought about -Jeff—how there seemed to be one Jeff who hated my guts and another Jeff -who idolized me and another Jeff sneaking around in a jungle of -sabertooth tigers and ... heck, there was probably a good twenty Jeffs -sitting around inside his skull, some in light, some in darkness, but -all of them watching each other and arguing together all the time. It -was an odd way to think of a personality—a sort of perpetual -_Kaffeeklatsch_—but it had its points. Maybe some of the little guys -weren’t Jeffs at all, but his father and mother and a caveman ancestor -or two and maybe some great-great-grandchild butting in now and then -from the future.... - -Well, I saw that speculation was getting out of hand so, taking a tip -from Jeff, I began to count my own sins. - -It took quite a while. Some of them were pretty interesting reading, -almost enough to take my mind off my predicament, but I tired of it -finally. - -Then I began to count the stars. - -It was really the longest two hours plus I ever spent, except maybe the -time my first big girl disappeared. But I don’t know. The experiences -are hard to compare. - -I was about halfway through the stars when I went weightless. For an -awful instant I thought the line had parted at last, but then I looked -toward the ship and saw the bright little moon was gone. - - * * * * * - -Right away I gave a couple of tugs on the line and began to close slowly -with the tail. No trouble at all—actually my only difficulty was -resisting the temptation to build up more momentum, which would have -resulted in a crash landing. - -I softed-in on Trompled Love okay, except there was a big spark. The -beam must have charged me good. Then I worked my way to the true hull. -After that there were handholds. - -Finally I got to a porthole in the living quarters, and I looked in, and -there was Jeff jawing away at my empty seat. I put my helmet against the -hull and very faintly I heard him say, “Joseph, I’m still worried about -the enemy. I keep thinking I hear him or it. I’m going to make us some -coffee, so we’ll stay real alert. You break out the guns.” - -I don’t suppose anyone ever moved quite so quietly _and_ so quickly in a -spacesuit as I did then. I got in the airlock, I got her up to pressure, -I got unsuited—and all in less than five minutes, I’m sure. Maybe less -than four. - -I swam to the cabin. It was empty. I slid into my seat just as Jeff -floated in with the coffee. - -He went real pale when he spotted me. I saw there might be some trouble -this time with the Joseph-Joe transition. But I knew the only way to -play it was real cool. I nested there in my seat as if I hadn’t a worry -or urge in the world—though my nerves and throat were just screaming for -a squirt of that coffee. - -“Joe!” he squeaked at last. “Migod, you gave me an awful scare. I -thought you’d done a bunk, I thought, you’d spaced yourself, I kept -picturing you outside the ship.” - -“Why no, Jeff,” I answered quietly. “One way or another, I’ve been in -this seat ever since take-off.” - -His brow wrinkled as he thought about that. - -I looked at the board and noticed that our terminal trip-velocity read -fifteen miles a second. My, my. - -Finally Jeff said, “That’s right, you have.” And then, just a shade -unhappily, “I might have known. You always tell the truth, Joe—you’re -perfect.” - - - END - - - - - TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE - - -This etext was produced from Worlds of Tomorrow, August 1963. Extensive -research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this -publication was renewed. - -Punctuation has been normalized. Spelling and hyphenation have been -retained as they were in the original book. - -Italicized phrases are presented by surrounding the text with -_underscores_. - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Hitch in Space, by Fritz Leiber - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A HITCH IN SPACE *** - -***** This file should be named 53042-0.txt or 53042-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/3/0/4/53042/ - -Produced by Greg Weeks and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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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. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: A Hitch in Space - -Author: Fritz Leiber - -Illustrator: Sol Dember - Gray Morrow - -Release Date: September 13, 2016 [EBook #53042] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A HITCH IN SPACE *** - - - - -Produced by Greg Weeks and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - - - - - -</pre> - - -<div class='figcenter id001'> -<img src='images/cover.jpg' alt='book cover' class='ig001' /> -</div> - -<div> - <h1 class='c000'><b>A HITCH IN SPACE</b></h1> -</div> - -<div class='nf-center-c1'> -<div class='nf-center c001'> - <div><b><span class='large'>BY FRITZ LEIBER</span></b></div> - <div class='c001'><b>ILLUSTRATED BY GRAY</b></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c002'>My Space-partner was a good -reliable sidekick—but <i>his</i> -partner was something else!</p> - -<p class='drop-capa0_3_0_4 c003'>Once when I was doing a -hitch with the Shaulan Space -Guard out Scorpio way, my partner -Jeff Bogart developed just -about the most harmless psychosis -you could imagine: he got himself -an imaginary companion.</p> - -<p class='c004'>And the imaginary companion -turned out to be me.</p> - -<p class='c004'>Well, I’m a pretty nice guy and -so having two of me in the ship -didn’t seem a particularly bad idea. -At first. In fact there’d be advantages -of it, I thought. For instance, -Jeff liked to talk a weary lot ... and -the imaginary Joe Hansen -could spell me listening to him, -while I projected a book or just -harkened to the wheels going -around in my own head against the -faint patter of starlight on the hull.</p> - -<p class='c004'>I met Jeff first at a space-rodeo, -oddly enough, but now the two of -us were out on a servicing check of -the orbital beacons and relays and -rescue depots of the five planets of -the Shaulan system. A completely -routine job, its only drawback that -it was lengthy. Our ship was an -ionic jeep that looked like a fancy -fountain pen, but was very roomy -for three men—one of them -imaginary.</p> - -<p class='c004'>I caught on to Jeff’s little mania -by overhearing him talking to me. -I’d be coming back from the head -or stores or linear accelerator or -my bunk, and I’d hear him yakking -at me. It embarrassed me the first -time, how to go back into the cabin -when the other me was there. But -I just swam in, and without any -transition-strain at all that I could -observe Jeff looked around at me, -smiling sort of glaze-eyed, and said -warmly, “Joe. My buddy Joe. Am -I glad they paired us.”</p> - -<p class='c004'>If Jeff had a major fault, as opposed -to a species of nuttiness, it -was that he was strictly a speak-only-good, -positive-thinking guy -who always deferred to me. Even -idolized me, if you can imagine -that. He’d give me such fulsome -praise I’d be irked ten times an -orbit.</p> - -<p class='c004'>Another thing that helped me -catch on was that he always called -the other me Joseph.</p> - -<hr class='c005' /> - -<p class='drop-capa0_4_0_4 c006'>At first I thought the whole -thing might be a gag, or maybe -a deliberate way of letting off -steam against me without violating -his always-a-sweet-guy code—like -happy husbands cursing in the -bathroom—but then came the -scrambled eggs.</p> - -<p class='c004'>I’d slept late and when I squinted -into the cabin there was Jeff hovering -over a plate of yellow fluff and -shaking his finger at my empty seat -and saying, “Dammit, Joseph, eat -your scrambled eggs, I cooked ’em -’specially for you,” and when he -crawfished out toward the galley -a couple seconds later he was saying, -“Now you start on those eggs, -Joseph, before I get back.”</p> - -<p class='c004'>I thought for a bit and then I -slid into my place and polished -them off.</p> - -<p class='c004'>When he floated in with the coffee -he gave me another of those -glaze-eyed God-fearing looks—but -just a mite disappointed, I -thought—and said, “Dammit, Joe, -you’re perfect! You always clean -your plate.”</p> - -<p class='c004'>Apparently when I was there, -Joseph just didn’t exist for Jeff. -And vice versa. It was sort of eerie, -especially with the hum of space in -my ears like a seashell and nobody -else for five million miles.</p> - -<p class='c004'>Beginning with the scrambled -eggs, I discovered that Jeff didn’t -exactly idolize Joseph—or even -take with him the attitude of “My -buddy can do no wrong,” like he -did with me. I overheard him criticizing -Joseph. Reasonably at first; -then I heard him chewing him out—next -bullying him.</p> - -<p class='c004'>It made me wistful, that last, -thinking how good it would feel to -be full-bloodedly cursed to my face -once in a while instead of all the -sweetness and light. And right there -I got the idea for some amateur -therapy, Shaula-Deva help me.</p> - -<p class='c004'>I waited for a moment when we -were both relaxed and then I said, -“Jeff, the trouble with you is you’re -too nice. You ought to criticize -things more. For a starter, criticize -me. Tell me my faults. Go ahead.”</p> - -<p class='c004'>He flushed a little and said, -“Dammit, Joe, how can I? You’re -perfect!”</p> - -<p class='c004'>“No man is perfect, Jeff,” I told -him solemnly, feeling pretty foolish.</p> - -<p class='c004'>“But you’re my buddy I always -can trust,” he protested, squirming -a bit. “I wish you wouldn’t talk -this way.”</p> - -<hr class='c005' /> - -<p class='drop-capa0_4_0_4 c006'>“Jeff, you can’t trust anybody -too far,” I said. “Even good -guys can do bad things. When -I was a boy there was a kid named -Harry I practically worshipped. We -lived on a pioneer world of Fomalhaut -that had good snow, and we’d -hitch rides with our sleds off little -airscrew planes taking off. We’d -each have a long white line on his -sled and loop it beforehand around -the plane’s tail-gear and back to the -sled. Then we’d hide. As soon as the -pilot got aboard we’d jump on -our sleds and each grab the free -end of his line and have one comet -of a ride, until the plane took off. -Then we’d quick let go.</p> - -<p class='c004'>“Well, one frosty morning I let -go and nothing happened, except I -started to rise. Harry had tied the -free end of my line tight to my sled.</p> - -<p class='c004'>“I could have just rolled off, I -suppose, but I didn’t want to lose -my sled or my line either. Luckily -I had a sheath knife handy and I -used it. I even made a whizeroo of -a landing. But ever afterwards my -feelings toward Harry—”</p> - -<p class='c004'>“Stop it, please, Joe!” Jeff interrupted, -very red in the face and -shaking a little. “That boy Harry -was utterly evil. And I don’t want -to hear any more about this, or -anything like it, ever again. Understand?”</p> - -<p class='c004'>I told him sure I did. Heck, I -could see I’d gone the wrong way -about it. I even begged his pardon.</p> - -<p class='c004'>After that I just sweated it out. -But I found I couldn’t spend much -time on books or my thoughts, I’d -keep listening for what Jeff was -saying to Joseph. And sometimes -when he’d pause for Joseph’s reply -I’d catch myself waiting for the -imaginary me to make one. So I -took to staying in the same cabin -as Jeff as much as I could.</p> - -<p class='c004'>That seemed to make him uncomfortable -after a while, though -he pretended to glory in it. He’d -ask me questions like, “Tell me -about life, Joe. So I’ll know how -to handle myself if we’re ever -parted.”</p> - -<p class='c004'>But the weariest things come to -an end, even duty orbits around -Shaula. And so the time came when -we were servicing our last beacon—outside -the planet Shaula-by, it -was. Next step would be a fast interplanetary -orbit for Base at Shaula-near.</p> - -<p class='c004'>I was out working—on a safety -line of course, but suit-jetting -around more than I needed to, just -for the pure joy of it, so that my -suit tank was almost dry. I’d switched -my suit radio off for a bit, because, -working in space, Jeff had -taken to just gabbling to me nervously -all the time—maybe because -he figured there couldn’t be room -for Joseph with him in his suit.</p> - -<div class='figcenter id002'> -<img src='images/p081.jpg' alt='space walk' class='ig001' /> -</div> - -<p class='c004'>I finished up and paused for a -last look at the ship. She was sweetly -slim from her conical living quarters -to the taper-tail of her ionic -jet, but she had more junk on -her than an amateur asteroid prospector -hangs on his suit the first -time out. Every duty orbit, fifty -scientists come with permission -from the Commandant to hang -some automatic research gadget on -the hull. The craziest one this time -was a huge flattened band of -gold-plated aluminum, little more than -foil-thick, attached crosswise just in -front of the tail and sticking out -twenty feet on each side. I don’t -know what it was there for—maybe -to measure the effects of space -on a Moebius strip—but it looked -like a wedding ring that had been -stepped on. So Jeff and I called it -Trompled Love.</p> - -<p class='c004'>But in spite of the junk, the ship -looked mighty sweet against the -saffron steppes and baby-blue seas -of Shaula-by with Shaula herself, -old Lambda Scorpii, flaming warm -and wildly beyond, and with “United -States” standing out big as life -on the ship’s living quarters. United -States of Shaula, of course.</p> - -<hr class='c005' /> - -<p class='drop-capa0_3_0_4 c006'>I was almost dreaming out there, -thinking how it hadn’t been such -a terrible duty after all, when I saw -the ship begin to slide past Shaula.</p> - -<p class='c004'>Poking out of her tail, ghostlier -than the flame over a cafe royale, -was the evil blue glow of her jet. -In an instant I’d guessed exactly -what had happened and was -beating myself on the head for not -having anticipated it. Joseph had -swum into the cabin right after Jeff. -And Jeff had yelled at him. “It’s -about time, you lazy lunkhead! -Everything secure? Okay, I’m -switching on the beam!” And I’d -probably brought the whole thing -about by telling him that damfool -sled story—and then sticking to -him so close he just had to get rid -of me, so as to be with Joseph.</p> - -<p class='c004'>Meanwhile the ship was gathering -speed in her sneaky way and -the wavy safety line between me -and the airlock was starting to -straighten.</p> - -<p class='c004'>As you know, an ionic jet’s only -good space-to-space. It’s not for -heavy-G work; ours could deliver -only one-half G at max and was -doing less than one-quarter now. -Which meant the ship was starting -off slower than most ground cars.</p> - -<p class='c004'>But the beam would fire for -hours, building up to a terminal -velocity of fifteen miles a second -and carrying the ship far, far away -from lonely Joe Hansen.</p> - -<p class='c004'>Except that we were tied together, -of course.</p> - -<p class='c004'>I was very grateful then for the -weeks I’d practiced space-roping, -though I’d never won any prizes -with it, because without thinking I -started to whip my line very carefully. -And on the third try, just as -it was getting pretty straight, I managed -to settle it in a notch in one -outside end of Trompled Love. After -that I took up strain on the line -as gradually as I could, letting it -friction through my gloves for as -long as I could before putting all -my mass on it—because although -one-quarter G isn’t much, it piles -up in a few seconds to quite a jerk. -I spread that jerk into several little -ones.</p> - -<p class='c004'>Well, the last jerk came and the -line didn’t part and Trompled Love -didn’t crumple much, though the -Shaula-light showed me several -very nasty-looking wrinkles in it. -And there I was trailing along after -the ship, though out to one side, -and feeling about as much strain on -the line as if I were hanging from -a cliff on the moon, and knowing -I was going about five feet a second -faster every second.</p> - -<hr class='c005' /> - -<p class='drop-capa0_4_0_4 c006'>My idea wanting to be out -to the side (and bless my -impulses for realizing it was the -one important thing!) was to keep -my line and myself out of the beam. -An ionic jet doesn’t look hot from -the side. But from straight on it’s -a lot brighter than an arc light—it’s -almost as tight as a laser beam—and -I didn’t want to think about -what it would do to me, even trailing -as I was a hundred yards aft.</p> - -<p class='c004'>Though of course long before it -had ruined me, it would have disintegrated -my line.</p> - -<p class='c004'>My being out to the side was putting -the ship off balance on its jet -and presumably throwing its course -toward base and Shaula-near little -by little into error. But that was -the least of my worries, believe me.</p> - -<p class='c004'>I thought for a bit and remembered -I could talk to Jeff over my -suit radio. I decided to try it, not -without misgivings.</p> - -<p class='c004'>I tongued it on and said, “Jeff. -Oh, Jeff. I’m out here. You forgot -me.”</p> - -<p class='c004'>I was going to say some more, -but just then he broke in, angry and -so loud it made my helmet ring, -with, “Joseph! Did you hear anything -then?” A pause, then, “Well, -clean the wax out of your ears, -stupid, because I did! I think we -got an enemy out there!”</p> - -<p class='c004'>Another and longer pause, while -my blood curdled a bit thicker, -then, “Well, okay, Joseph, I’ll go -along with you this time. But if I -hear the enemy once more, I’m -going to suit up and take a rifle and -sit in the airlock door until I’ve -potted him.”</p> - -<p class='c004'>I tongued the radio off quick, -fearful I’d sneeze or something. I -had only one faint consolation: -Joseph seemed to be a bit on my -side, or maybe he was just lazy.</p> - -<p class='c004'>I thought some more, a mite -frantic-like now, and after a while -I said to myself, <i>Been going five -minutes now, so I’m doing about -a quarter of a mile a second—that’s -fifteen miles a minute, wow!—but -out here velocities are purely -relative. My suit does a little better -than a quarter G full on. Okay. -I’ll jet to the ship.</i></p> - -<p class='c004'>No sooner said than acted on—I -was beginning to rely too much -on impulse now. The suit jet killed -my false weight at once and I was -off, mighty careful to aim myself -along my line or a little outside it, -so as not to wander over into the -beam.</p> - -<p class='c004'>Pretty soon the tail and Trompled -Love were getting noticeably -bigger.</p> - -<p class='c004'>Then a lot bigger.</p> - -<p class='c004'>Then my suit fuel ran out.</p> - -<hr class='c005' /> - -<p class='drop-capa0_4_0_4 c006'>I’d built up enough velocity so -that I was still gaining on the -ship for a few seconds. In fact, I -almost made it. My gauntlet was -about to close on Trompled Love -when the ship started slowly to pull -away. Oh, it was frustrating!</p> - -<p class='c004'>I remembered then what I should -have a lot earlier, and grabbed for -the ship-end of my line so as not -to lose the distance I’d gained—and -in my haste I knocked it away -from me. The only good thing was -that I didn’t knock it out of the -notch.</p> - -<p class='c004'>Now I was losing space to the -ship faster and faster. Yet all I -could do was reel in the me-end of -the line as fast as I could. Suddenly -the whole line straightened and -gave me a bigger jerk than I’d intended. -I could see Trompled Love -crumple a little. And I was swinging -just a bit, like a pendulum.</p> - -<p class='c004'>I used a glove-friction to spread -the rest of the jerk, but still I was -at the end of my line and Trompled -Love had crumpled a bit more before -I was coasting along with the -ship again.</p> - -<p class='c004'>My side of Trompled Love was -bent back maybe twenty degrees. -The eye of the beam shone at me -from the tail like a pale blue moon. -For quite a while it brightened and -dimmed as I tick-tock swung.</p> - -<p class='c004'>Meanwhile I was beating my -skull for not having thought earlier -of the obvious slow-but-safe way of -doing it, instead of that lunatic -suit-jetting. I once heard a psychologist -say we’re mental slaves to -power-machinery and I guess he -had something.</p> - -<p class='c004'>Clearly all I had to do was climb -hand-over-hand up the line to the -ship. At moon gravity that would -be easy. If I should get tired I only -had to clamp on and rest.</p> - -<p class='c004'>So I waited for my emotions to -settle a bit, and then I reached -along the line and gave a smooth, -medium-strength heave.</p> - -<p class='c004'>Maybe there is something to ESP—at -least in a devilish sort of way—because -I picked the exact -moment when Jeff decided to feed the -beam more juice.</p> - -<p class='c004'>There was a <i>big</i> jerk and I saw -Trompled Love crumple a lot, so -that it was pointing more than -forty-five degrees aft.</p> - -<p class='c004'>Now there was a steady pull on -the line like I was hanging from a -cliff on Mars. And the eye of the -beam was a blue moon not so pale—in -fact more like a sizzling blue -sun seen through a light fog.</p> - -<p class='c004'>After that I just didn’t have the -heart to try the climb again. Once -I started to draw myself up, very -cautious, but on the first handhold -I seemed to feel along the line -Trompled Love crumpling some -more and I quit for good.</p> - -<p class='c004'>I figured that at this boost Jeff -would be up to proper speed for -Shaula-near in less than two hours. -Well, I had suit-oxy and refrigeration -for longer than that.</p> - -<p class='c004'>Of course if Jeff decided not to -cut the beam on schedule, maybe -with the idea of eloping with Joseph -to the next solar system—well, -I’d discover then whether suit-oxy -running out would stimulate me to -try the climb again alongside the -beam.</p> - -<p class='c004'>(Or I could wait until he got her -up near the speed of light, when by -the General Theory of Relativity the -line ought to be shortened enough -so that I could hop aboard if I were -sudden enough about it.... <i>No, Joe -Hansen, you quit that</i>, I told myself, -<i>you don’t want to die with the gears -in your head all stripped</i>.)</p> - -<p class='c004'>Thinking about the beam got me -wondering exactly how close I was -to it. I unshipped my suit-antenna -and pulled it out to full length—about -eight feet—and fished -around with it in the direction of -the beam.</p> - -<p class='c004'>Nothing seemed to happen to it. -It didn’t glow or anything; but I -suddenly got a little electric shock, -and when I drew it back I could -see three inches of the tip were gone -and the next couple inches were -pitted. So much for curiosity.</p> - -<p class='c004'>Next I reattached the antenna to -my suit—which turned out to be -a lot more troublesome job than -unshipping it—and tongued on -the radio with the idea of listening -in on Jeff.</p> - -<hr class='c005' /> - -<p class='drop-capa0_4_0_4 c006'>Right away I heard him say, -“Wake up, Joseph! I’m going -to tell you your faults again. I got -a new way of cataloguing them—chronologically. -Begin with childhood. -You hitched sled-rides on -airplanes. That was bad, Joseph, -that was against the law. If the man -had caught you doing it, if he’d -seen you whizzing along there back -of him, he’d have had every right -to shoot you down in cold blood. -Life is hard, Joseph, life is merciless....”</p> - -<p class='c004'>Right then I felt a tickle in my -throat.</p> - -<p class='c004'>I tried quick to shut off the radio, -but it is remarkably difficult to -tongue anything when you have a -cough coming. It came out finally -in a series of squeaky glubs.</p> - -<p class='c004'>“Snap to, Joseph, and listen hard,” -I heard Jeff say. “It’s started again. -Animal noises this time. You know -if they make spacesuits for black -panthers, Joseph?”</p> - -<p class='c004'>I tongued off the radio quick, -before the follow-up cough came.</p> - -<p class='c004'>I didn’t have anything left to do -now but think. So I thought about -Jeff—how there seemed to be -one Jeff who hated my guts and -another Jeff who idolized me and -another Jeff sneaking around in a -jungle of sabertooth tigers and ... -heck, there was probably a good -twenty Jeffs sitting around inside -his skull, some in light, some in -darkness, but all of them watching -each other and arguing together all -the time. It was an odd way to -think of a personality—a sort of -perpetual <i>Kaffeeklatsch</i>—but it -had its points. Maybe some of the -little guys weren’t Jeffs at all, but -his father and mother and a caveman -ancestor or two and maybe -some great-great-grandchild butting -in now and then from the future....</p> - -<p class='c004'>Well, I saw that speculation was -getting out of hand so, taking a -tip from Jeff, I began to count my -own sins.</p> - -<p class='c004'>It took quite a while. Some of -them were pretty interesting reading, -almost enough to take my mind -off my predicament, but I tired of -it finally.</p> - -<p class='c004'>Then I began to count the stars.</p> - -<p class='c004'>It was really the longest two -hours plus I ever spent, except maybe -the time my first big girl disappeared. -But I don’t know. The experiences -are hard to compare.</p> - -<p class='c004'>I was about halfway through the -stars when I went weightless. For -an awful instant I thought the line -had parted at last, but then I looked -toward the ship and saw the bright -little moon was gone.</p> - -<hr class='c005' /> - -<p class='drop-capa0_4_0_4 c006'>Right away I gave a couple of -tugs on the line and began to -close slowly with the tail. No trouble -at all—actually my only difficulty -was resisting the temptation -to build up more momentum, which -would have resulted in a crash landing.</p> - -<p class='c004'>I softed-in on Trompled Love -okay, except there was a big spark. -The beam must have charged me -good. Then I worked my way to -the true hull. After that there were -handholds.</p> - -<p class='c004'>Finally I got to a porthole in the -living quarters, and I looked in, and -there was Jeff jawing away at my -empty seat. I put my helmet against -the hull and very faintly I heard -him say, “Joseph, I’m still worried -about the enemy. I keep thinking I -hear him or it. I’m going to make -us some coffee, so we’ll stay real -alert. You break out the guns.”</p> - -<p class='c004'>I don’t suppose anyone ever -moved quite so quietly <i>and</i> so quickly -in a spacesuit as I did then. I -got in the airlock, I got her up -to pressure, I got unsuited—and -all in less than five minutes, I’m -sure. Maybe less than four.</p> - -<p class='c004'>I swam to the cabin. It was -empty. I slid into my seat just as -Jeff floated in with the coffee.</p> - -<p class='c004'>He went real pale when he -spotted me. I saw there might be -some trouble this time with the -Joseph-Joe transition. But I knew -the only way to play it was real -cool. I nested there in my seat as -if I hadn’t a worry or urge in the -world—though my nerves and -throat were just screaming for a -squirt of that coffee.</p> - -<p class='c004'>“Joe!” he squeaked at last. “Migod, -you gave me an awful scare. -I thought you’d done a bunk, I -thought, you’d spaced yourself, I -kept picturing you outside the ship.”</p> - -<p class='c004'>“Why no, Jeff,” I answered quietly. -“One way or another, I’ve been -in this seat ever since take-off.”</p> - -<p class='c004'>His brow wrinkled as he thought -about that.</p> - -<p class='c004'>I looked at the board and noticed -that our terminal trip-velocity -read fifteen miles a second. My, my.</p> - -<p class='c004'>Finally Jeff said, “That’s right, -you have.” And then, just a shade -unhappily, “I might have known. -You always tell the truth, Joe—you’re -perfect.”</p> - -<div class='nf-center-c1'> -<div class='nf-center c007'> - <div><span class='small'><b>END</b></span></div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='chapter'> - <h2 class='c008'><b>TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE</b></h2> -</div> - -<p class='c009'>This etext was produced from Worlds of -Tomorrow, August 1963. Extensive research -did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. -copyright on this publication was renewed.</p> - -<p class='c010'>Punctuation has been normalized. Spelling and hyphenation -have been retained as they were in the -original book.</p> - - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Hitch in Space, by Fritz Leiber - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A HITCH IN SPACE *** - -***** This file should be named 53042-h.htm or 53042-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/3/0/4/53042/ - -Produced by Greg Weeks and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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