Starman's Quest Part 6

"That's exactly how your brother----" Roger started to say, and stopped.

"Sorry."

"That's okay," Alan said.

Quantrell c.o.c.ked an eye. "What's that?"

"My brother. I had a twin, but he got restless and jumped ship last time we were down. He got left behind at blastoff time."

Quantrell nodded understandingly. "Too bad. But I know what he was up against--and I envy the lucky so-and-so. I wish _I_ had the guts to just walk out like that. Every day that goes by in this place, I say I'm going over the hill next day. But I never do, somehow. I just sit here and wait."

Alan glanced down the quiet sun-warmed street. Here and there a couple of venerable-looking starmen were sitting, swapping stories of their youth--a youth that had been a thousand years before. The Enclave, Alan thought, is a place for old men.

They walked on for a while until the buzzing neon signs of a feelie theater were visible. "I'm going in," Roger said. "This place is starting to depress me. You?"

Alan shot a glance at Quantrell, who made a face and shook his head. "I guess I'll skip it," Alan said. "Not just now."

"Count me out too," Quantrell said.

Roger looked sourly from one to the other, and shrugged. "I think I'll go all the same. I'm in the mood for a good show. See you around, Alan."

After Roger left them, Alan and Quantrell walked on through the Enclave together. Alan wondered whether it wasn't a good idea to have gone to the feelie with Roger after all; the Enclave was starting to depress him, too, and those three-dimensional shows had a way of taking your mind off things.

But he was curious about Quantrell. It wasn't often he had a chance to talk with someone his own age from another ship. "You know," he said, "we starmen lead an empty life. You don't get to realize it until you come to the Enclave."

"I decided that a long time ago," Quantrell said.

Alan spread his hands. "What do we do? We dash back and forth through s.p.a.ce, and we huddle here in the Enclave. And we don't like either one or the other, but we fool ourselves into liking them. When we're in s.p.a.ce we can't wait to get to the Enclave, and once we're down here we can't wait to get back. Some life."

"Got any suggestions? Some way of fixing things up for us without queering interstellar commerce?"

"Yes," Alan snapped. "I do have a suggestion. Hypers.p.a.ce drive!"

Quantrell laughed harshly. "Of all the c.o.c.keyed----"

"There you are," Alan said angrily. "First thing you do is laugh. A s.p.a.cewarp drive is just some hairbrained scheme to you. But haven't you ever considered that Earth's scientists won't bother developing such a drive for us if we don't care ourselves? They're just as happy the way things are. _They_ don't have to worry about the Fitzgerald Contraction."

"But there's been steady research on a hyperdrive, hasn't there? Ever since Cavour, I thought."

"On and off. But they don't take it very seriously and they don't get anywhere with it. If they'd really put some men to work they'd find it--and then there wouldn't be any more Enclaves or any Fitzgerald Contraction, and we starmen could live normal lives."

"And your brother--he wouldn't be cut off from his people the way he is----"

"Sure. But you laughed instead of thinking."

Quantrell looked contrite. "Sorry. Guess I didn't put much jet behind my think-machine that time. But a hyperdrive would wipe out the Enclave system, wouldn't it?"

"Of course! We'd be able to come home from s.p.a.ce and take a normal part in Earth's life, instead of pulling away and segregating ourselves here."

Alan looked up at the seemingly unreachable towers of the Earther city just across the river from the Enclave. Somewhere out there was Steve.

And perhaps somewhere out there was someone he could talk to about the hyperdrive, someone influential who might spur the needed research.

The Earther city seemed to be calling to him. It was a voice that was hard to resist. He savagely jammed down deep inside him the tiny inner voice that was trying to object. He turned, looking backward at the dingy dreary buildings of the Enclave.

He looked then at Quantrell. "You said you've been wanting to break loose. You want to get out of the Enclave, eh, Kevin?"

"Yes," Quantrell said slowly.

Alan felt excitement beginning to pound hard in the pit of his stomach.

"How'd you like to go outside there with me? See the Earther city?"

"You mean _jump ship_?"

The naked words, put just that bluntly, stung. "No," Alan said, thinking of how his father's face had gone stony the time Alan had told him Steve wasn't coming back. "I mean just going out for a day or so--a sort of change of air. It's five days till the _Valhalla's_ due to blast off, and you say the _Encounter_ is stuck here indefinitely. We could just go for a day or so--just to see what it's like out there."

Quantrell was silent a long time.

"Just for a day or so?" he asked, at last. "We'll just go out, and have a look around, just to see what it's like out there." He fell silent again. Alan saw a little trickle of sweat burst out on Quantrell's cheek. He felt strangely calm himself, a little to his own surprise.

Then Quantrell smiled and the confidence returned to his tanned face.

"I'm game. Let's go!"

But Rat was quizzical about the whole enterprise when Alan returned to his room to get him.

"You aren't serious, Alan. You really are going over to the Earther city?"

Alan nodded and gestured for the little extra-terrestrial to take his usual perch. "Are you daring to take my word in vain, Rat?" he asked in mock histrionics. "When I say I'm going to do something, I do it." He snapped closed his jacket and flipped the switch controlling the archaic fluorescent panels. "Besides, you can always stay here if you want to, you know."

"Never mind," Rat said. "I'm coming." He leaped up and anch.o.r.ed himself securely on Alan's shoulder.

Kevin Quantrell was waiting for them in front of the building. As Alan emerged Rat said, "One question, Alan."

"Shoot."

"Level, now: are you coming back--or are you going over the way Steve did?"

"You ought to know me better than that. I've got reasons for going out, but they're not Steve's reasons."

"I hope so."

Quantrell came up to them, and it seemed to Alan that there was something unconvincing about his broad grin. He looked nervous. Alan wondered whether he looked the same way.

"All set?" Quantrell asked.

"Set as I'll ever be. Let's go."

Alan looked around to see if anybody he knew might be watching. There was no one around. Quantrell started walking, and Alan fell in behind him.

"I hope you know where you're going," Alan said. "Because I don't."