The Past Through Tomorrow Part 42

From a speaker came a girl's light, sweet voice: ' - to hear somebody! Gee, I'm glad! Better come quick - the Major is hurt.'

The Director jumped to the microphone. 'Yes, Betsy, we'll hurry. You've got to help us. Do you know where you are?'

'Somewhere on the Moon, I guess. We b.u.mped hard and I was going to kid him about it when the ship fell over. I got unstrapped and found Major Peters and he isn't moving. Not dead - I don't think so; his suits puffs out like mine and I hear something when I push my helmet against him. I just now managed to get the door open.' She added, 'This can't be Farside; it's supposed to be night there. I'm in sunshine, I'm sure. This suit is pretty hot.'

'Betsy, you must stay outside. You've got to be where you can see us.'

She chuckled. 'That's a good one. I see with my ears.'

Yes. You'll see us, with your ears. Listen, Betsy. We're going to scan the Moon with a beam of light. You'll hear it as a piano note. We've got the Moon split into the eighty-eight piano notes. When you hear one, yell, "Now!" Then tell us what note you heard. Can you do that?'

'Of course,' she said confidently, 'if the piano is in tune.'

'It is. All right, we're starting -' 'Now!'

'What note, Betsy?'

'E flat, the first octave above middle C.' 'This note, Betsy?'

'That's what I said.'

The Director called out, 'Where's that on the grid? In Mare Nubium? Tell the General!' He said to the microphone, 'We're finding you, Betsy honey! Now we scan just that part you're on.

We change setup. Want to talk to your Daddy meanwhile?'

'Gosh! Could I?'

'Yes indeed!'

Twenty minutes later he cut' in and heard: '- of course not, Daddy. Oh, a teensy bit scared when the ship fell. But people take care of me, always have.'

'Betsy?'

'Yes, sir?'

'Be ready to tell us again.'

'Now!' She added, 'That's a bullfrog G, three octaves down.'

'This note?'

'That's right.'

'Get that on the grid and tell the General to get his ships up! That cuts it to a square ten miles on a side! Now, Betsy - we know almost where you are. We are going to focus still closer. Want to go inside and cool off?'

'I'm not too hot. Just sweaty.'

Forty minutes later the General's voice rang out: 'They've spotted the ship! They see her waving!'

Ordeal in s.p.a.ce

Maybe we should never have ventured out into s.p.a.ce. Our race has but two basic, innate fears; noise and the fear of falling. Those terrible heights - Why should any man in his right mind let himself be placed where he could fall . . . and fall . . . and fall - But all s.p.a.cemen are crazy. Everybody knows that.

The medicos had been very kind, he supposed. 'You're lucky. You want to remember that, old fellow. You're still young and your retired pay relieves you of all worry about your future. You've got both arms and legs and are in fine shape.'

'Fine shape!' His voice was unintentionally contemptuous.

'No, I mean it,' the chief psychiatrist had persisted gently. 'The little quirk you have does you no harm at all - except that you can't go into s.p.a.ce again. I can't honestly call acrophobia a neurosis; fear of falling is normal and sane. You've just got it a little more strongly than most - but that is not abnormal, in view of what you have been through.'

The reminder set him to shaking again. He closed his eyes and saw the stars wheeling below him again. He was falling, falling endlessly. The psychiatrist's voice came through to him and pulled him back. 'Steady, old man! Look around you.'

'Sorry.'

'Not at all. Now tell me, what do you plan to do?'

'I don't know. Get a job, I suppose.'

'The Company will give you a job, you know.'

He shook his head. 'I don't want to hang around a s.p.a.ceport.' Wear a little b.u.t.ton in his shirt to show that he was once a man, be addressed by a courtesy t.i.tle of captain, claim the privileges of the pilots' lounge on the basis of what he used to be, hear the shop talk die down whenever he approached a group, wonder what they were saying behind his back - no, thank you!

'I think you're wise. Best to make a clean break, for a while at least, until you are feeling better.'

'You think I'll get over it?'

The psychiatrist pursed his lips. 'Possible. It's functional, you know. No trauma.'

'But you don't think so?'

'I didn't say that. I honestly don't know. We still know very little about what makes a man tick.'

'I see. Well, I might as well be leaving.'

The psychiatrist stood up and shoved out his hand. 'Holler if you want anything. And come back to see us in any case.'

'Thanks.'

'You're going to be all right. I know it.'

But the psychiatrist shook his head as his patient walked out. The man did not walk like a s.p.a.ceman; the easy, animal self-confidence was gone.

Only a small part of Great New York was roofed over in those days; he stayed underground until he was in that section, then sought out a pa.s.sageway lined with bachelor rooms. He stuck a coin in the slot of the first one which displayed a lighted 'vacant' sign, chucked his jump bag inside, and left. The monitor at the intersection gave him the address of the nearest placement office. He went there, seated himself at an interview desk, stamped in his finger prints, and started filling out forms. It gave him a curious back-to-the-beginning feeling; he had not looked for a job since pre-cadet days.

He left filling in his name to the last and hesitated even then. He had had more than his bellyful of publicity; he did not want to be recognized; he certainly did not want to be throbbed over - and most of all he did not want anyone telling him he was a hero. Presently he printed in the name 'William Saunders' and dropped the forms in the slot.

He was well into his third cigarette and getting ready to strike another when the screen in front of him at last lighted up. He found himself staring at a nice-looking brunette. 'Mr. Saunders,' the image said, will you come inside, please? Door seventeen.'

The brunette in person was there to offer him a seat and a cigarette. 'Make yourself comfortable, Mr. Saunders. I'm Miss Joyce. I'd like to talk with you about your application.' He settled himself and waited, without speaking.

When she saw that he did not intend to speak, she added, 'Now take this name "William Saunders" which you have given us - we know who you are, of course, from your prints.

'I suppose so.'

'Of course I know what everybody knows about you, but your action in calling yourself "William Saunders", Mr. -'

'Saunders.'

'- Mr. Saunders, caused me to query the files.' She held up a microfilm spool, turned so that he might read his own name on it. 'I know quite a lot about you now - more than the public knows and more than you saw fit to put into your application. It's a good record, Mr. Saunders.'

'Thank you.'

'But I can't use it in placing you in a job. I can't even refer to it if you insist on designating yourself as "Saunders".'

'The name is Saunders.' His voice was flat, rather than emphatic.

'Don't be hasty, Mr. Saunders. There are many positions in which the factor of prestige can be used quite legitimately to obtain for a client a much higher beginning of pay than-'

'I'm not interested.'

She looked at him and decided not to insist. 'As you wish. If you will go to reception room B, you can start your cla.s.sification and skill tests.'

'Thank you.'

'If you should change your mind later, Mr. Saunders, we will be glad to reopen the case. Through that door, please.'

Three days later found him at work for a small firm specializing in custom-built communication systems. His job was calibrating electronic equipment. It was soothing work, demanding enough to occupy his mind, yet easy for a man of his training and experience. At the end of his three months' probation he was promoted out of the helper category.

He was building himself a well-insulated rut, working, sleeping, eating, spending an occasional evening at the public library or working out at the YMCA - and never, under any circ.u.mstances, going out under the open sky nor up to any height, not even a theater balcony.

He tried to keep his past life shut out of his mind, but his memory of it was still fresh; he would find himself daydreaming - the star-sharp, frozen sky of Mars, or the roaring night life of Venusburg. He would see again the swollen, ruddy bulk of Jupiter hanging over the port on Ganymede, its oblate bloated shape impossibly huge and crowding the sky.

Or he might, for a time, feel again the sweet quiet of the long watches on the lonely reaches between the planets. But such reveries were dangerous; they cut close to the edge of his new peace of mind. It was easy to slide over and find himself clinging for life to his last handhold on the steel sides of the Valkyrie, fingers numb and failing, and nothing below him but the bottomless well of s.p.a.ce.

Then he would come back to Earth, shaking uncontrollably and gripping his chair or the workbench.

The first time it had happened at work he had found one of his benchmates, Joe Tully, staring at him curiously. 'What's the trouble, Bill?' he had asked. 'Hangover?'

'Nothing,' he had managed to say. 'Just a chill.'

'You better take a pill. Come on - let's go to lunch.'

Tully led the way to the elevator; they crowded in. Most of the employees - even the women - preferred to go down via the drop chute, but Tully always used the elevator. 'Saunders', of course, never used the drop chute; this had eased them into the habit of lunching together. He knew that the chute was safe, that, even if the power should fail, safety nets would snap across at each floor level - but he could not force himself to step off the edge.

Tully said publicly that a drop-chute landing hurt his arches, but he confided privately to Saunders that he did not trust automatic machinery. Saunders nodded understandingly but said nothing. It warmed him toward Tully. He began feeling friendly and not on the defensive with another human being for the first time since the start of his new life. He began to want to tell Tully the truth about himself. If he could be sure that Joe would not insist on treating him as a hero - not that he really objected to the role of hero. As a kid, hanging around s.p.a.ceports, trying to w.a.n.gle chances to go inside the ships, cutting cla.s.ses to watch take-offs, he had dreamed of being a 'hero' someday, a hero of the s.p.a.ceways, returning in triumph from some incredible and dangerous piece of exploration. But he was troubled by the fact that he still had the same picture of what a hero should look like and how he should behave; it did not include shying away from open windows, being fearful of walking across an open square, and growing too upset to speak at the mere thought of boundless depths of s.p.a.ce.

Tully invited him home for dinner. He wanted to go, but fended off the invitation while he inquired where Tully lived. The Shelton Homes, Tully told him, naming one of those great, boxlike warrens that used to disfigure the Jersey flats. 'It's a long way to come back,' Saunders said doubtfully, while turning over in his mind ways to get there without exposing himself to the things he feared.

'You won't have to come back,' Tully a.s.sured him. 'We've got a spare room. Come on. My old lady does her own cooking - that's why I keep her.'

'Well, all right,' he conceded. 'Thanks, Joe.' The La Guardia Tube would take him within a quarter of a mile; if he could not find a covered way he would take a ground cab and close the shades.

Tully met him in the hail and apologized in a whisper. 'Meant to have a young lady for you, Bill. Instead we've got my brother-in-law. He's a louse. Sorry.'

'Forget it, Joe. I'm glad to be here.' He was indeed. The discovery that Bill's flat was on the thirty-fifth floor had dismayed him at first, but he was delighted to find that he had no feeling of height. The lights were on, the windows occulted, the floor under him was rock solid; he felt warm and safe. Mrs. Tully turned out in fact to be a good cook, to his surprise - he had the bachelor's usual distrust of amateur cooking. He let himself go to the pleasure of feeling at home and safe and wanted; he managed not even to hear most of the aggressive and opinionated remarks of Joe's in-law.

After dinner he relaxed in an easy chair, gla.s.s of beer in hand, and watched the video screen. It was a musical comedy; he laughed more heartily than he had in months. Presently the comedy gave way to a religious program, the National Cathedral Choir; he let it be, listening with one ear and giving some attention to the conversation with the other.

The choir was more than half way through Prayer for Travelers before he became fully aware of what they were singing: Hear us when we pray to Thee For those in peril on the sea.

'Almighty Ruler of them all Whose power extends to great and small, Who guides the stars and steadfast law, Whose least creation fills with awe; Oh, grant Thy mercy and Thy grace To those who venture into s.p.a.ce.'

He wanted to switch it off, but he had to hear it out, he could not stop listening to it, though it hurt him in his heart with the unbearable homesickness of the hopelessly exiled. Even as a cadet this one hymn could fill his eyes with tears; now he kept his face turned away from the others to try to hide from them the drops wetting his cheeks.

When the choir's 'amen' let him do so he switched quickly to some other - any other - program and remained bent over the instrument, pretending to fiddle with it, while he composed his features. Then he turned back to the company, outwardly serene, though it seemed to him that anyone could see the hard, aching knot in his middle.

The brother-in-law was still sounding off.

'We ought to annex 'em,' he was saying. 'That's what we ought to do. Three-Planets Treaty - what a lot of ruddy rot! What right have they got to tell us what we can and can't do on Mars?'

'Well, Ed,' Tully said mildly, 'it's their planet, isn't it? They were there first.'

Ed brushed it aside. 'Did we ask the Indians whether or not they wanted us in North America? n.o.body has any right to hang on to something he doesn't know how to use. With proper exploitation -'

'You been speculating, Ed?'

'Huh? It wouldn't be speculation if the government wasn't made up of a bunch of weak-spined old women. "Rights of Natives", indeed. What rights do a bunch of degenerates have?'

Saunders found himself contrasting Ed Schultz with Knath Sooth, the only Martian he himself had ever known well. Gentle Knath, who had been old before Ed was born, and yet was rated as young among his own kind. Knath... why, Knath could sit for hours with a friend or trusted acquaintance, saying nothing, needing to say nothing. 'Growing together' they called it - his entire race had so grown together that they had needed no government, until the Earthman came.

Saunders had once asked his friend why he exerted himself so little, was satisfied with so little. More than an hour pa.s.sed and Saunders was beginning to regret his inquisitiveness when Knath replied, 'My fathers have labored and I am weary.'

Saunders sat up and faced the brother-in-law. 'They are not degenerate.'

'Huh? I suppose you are an expert!'

'The Martians aren't degenerate, they're just tired,' Saunders persisted.

Tully grinned. His brother-in-law saw it and became surly. 'What gives you the right to an opinion? Have you ever been to Mars?'

Saunders realized suddenly that he had let his censors down. 'Have you?' he answered cautiously.

'That's beside the point. The best minds all agree -' Bill let him go on and did not contradict him again. It was a relief when Tully suggested that, since they all had to be up early, maybe it was about time to think about beginning to get ready to go to bed.