A QUANTUM I

SELECTED BY
-- . ISAAC ASIMOV & I

When mankind leal
the stars -this is h,

BEN BOVA

;)S

Ow it could

.Gordon R. Dickson, in just over -5 years of full-time professional
writing, has published over xSO short stories an
more than 3o novels, winning the Hugo and Nebula Awards
and serving two terms as President of the Science Fictior
Writers of America. The Far Call was inspired by his long
concern with and research into the space programme, and hi,
conviction that 'the Giants' Ground which is the Space Centr
represents a piece of the future in our midst right now.'

Mr. Dickson lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

A Fumra Book


First published in Great Britain by

Futura Publications Limited in 1978


A Quantum Science Fiction Novel


Copyright © 1973, 1978 by Gordon R. Dickson


Portions of this work have previously appeared
in Analog magazine in different form.


This book is sold subject to the condition
that it shall not, by way of trade or
otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or
otherwise circulated without the publisher's
prior consent in any form of binding or
cover other than that in which it is
published and without a similar condition
including this condition being imposed on the
subsequent purchaser.


ISBN o 7088 8o33 9

Printed by

William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd

Glasgow


Fumra Publications Limited,

No Warner Road, Camberwell,

London SEs;

This book is dedicated to the following individuals, who supplied
professional advice and criticism upon the many occupations, technologies
and places treated in its pages.


Joseph Green

Ben Bova

Keith Laumer

J. W. Shutz

Ann Cass

Clifford D. Simak
Eugene Aubry
Clarence Morgan
Samuel Long

Major Jerome Ashman

Robert Asprin

John Bailey

Roger De Garis

Igor Mojenko

He and the others--the image formed itself in Jens Wylie's
mind suddenly, out of his state of light-headed exhaustion--
were like nothing so much as mindless ants crawling about
on the monstrous toy of some giant child, with toy and
child alike beyond their understanding. He, with the other
five diplomatic representatives of the six nations involved
in this International Manned Expedition to Mars, was
dwarfed now to less than insect-size by this great vehicle
named the space shuttle on which they climbed.

Uncomfortably aloft on the spidery gantry of the launch
tower that embraced the shuttle with its steel arms, the six
of them stood crowding closely about the tall, postlike,
gray-haired figure of Bill Ward, Launch Director for the
Expedition. They were supported on a small metal platform
between ttle unshielded sky and the massively curving hull
of the shuttle itself. Even at as close as arm's length, in the
explosive brilliance of the Florida afternoon, through
Jens's dark glasses the others looked black and tiny against
the white-painted hull, like barnacles on the belly of a
whale.

"Ordinarily, we could go further up," Bill Ward was
saying, "but the elevator to the command section of the
shuttle is currently undergoing general decontamination
procedures before the launch tomorrow .... "

Jens saw no eagerness in those about him to go up. On
the faces of several, and in particular on the heavy, white
face of Walther Guenther, the Deputy Minister for Space
from Pan-Europe, Jens read the clear feeling that this
third level of the gantry was already too high a perch for
them. He did not mind the altitude. He found the vast
windy emptiness about them a healing relief. The stiff

breeze blew away the last blurting of the wine that had
been served at lunch, and left him alone with the words of
the marsnaut who would be Commander of the Expedition;
words about the experiment workload.

"... but what can you do about it?" Tadell Hansard
had asked.

"I can talk to the President," he had answered without
thinking.

Now he turned away from the rest. For the first time
since he had eagerly accepted his appointment as U.S.
Undersecretary. for the Development of Space, he found
the title a hollow thing to consider. Tad did not really
understand his position.. He could talk; whether the President
would listen was something else. He turned his back
to the steady buzz of Ward's lecturing and the gargantuan
vehicle itself, and looked out over a red-painted steel railing
at the National Aerospace Administration's Kennedy Space
Center, spread over Cape Canaveral.

Below and all around; the view of the calm, flat Cap
land, green with tangled brush, soothed his jangled thoughts.
It stretched away on all sides, uninterrupted except for the
scattered NASA buildings and the blue water in the canals
that would find their way to the more distant Indian River.
At the farthest visible point to his right, Jens could just
make out the Atlantic Ocean, a dark line on the horizon.
Almost within arm's reach by comparison loomed the
towering Vehicle Assembly Building, capable of holding
four Apollo vehicles, each nearly double the height of the
shuttle. The VAB stood less than four miles off, dwarfing
all the other man-made constructs--tricking the eye into a
belief that it was half as big as it was, and half again as
close, because no structure could be so huge. Overhead,
there were only a few stray clouds, white as the flanks of
the shuttle, under the searing bowl of the sky, and some
restlessly soaring seagulls.

Jens turned once more to his five diplomatic counterparts,
and saw Bill Ward already herding them back to the
elevator that would take them down again. They were real--
he was not. Jens followed them into the latticed shadow of
the open-work elevator, almost stumbling against the giant,
craggy shape of Sir Geoffrey Mayence, the British deputy
minister.


8

"Hold up!" said Sir Geoffrey, catching lens's elbow as he
tripped. The bony, lined face stared from six and a half
feet of height down at Jens. "Heat getting you?"

"It's the sun," said Jens thickly. "I couldn't see."
"God, yes. And the heat. We could use a drink."

The elevator sank under them, with Bill Ward still talking
steadily. Jens rested his eyes in the relative dimness of the
elevator shaft. Alinde West had been due in this morning,
but she had not shown up. For the first time in the four
years he had known her he felt a longing--more than a
longing, almost a desperate need--for her. He forced his
mind away from her nonarrival and back to the immediate
place and moment. Below was their bus and air conditioning,
cold drinks and a phone. Jens's stomach ached and felt
hollow.

The elevator touched bottom. They emerged on the
landing pad and walked, sweating, down one of the parallel
concrete ramps that had supported the treads of the massive
crawler when it had carried the shuttle here from the VAB.
At the foot of the ramp, their hoverbus was waiting.

Its front door swung open as they reached it. They
pushed into its dimly seen long shape, like a loaf of bread
with its upper half all tinted glass coming down to floor
level. The self-adjusting gray coloration of that polychromic
glass was now so dark in response to the sunlight outside
that only indistinct, dim shapes within hinted at seats,
attendants, and the driver.

Here, suddenly, everything was reasonable again. The
white-bright sun. outside and the stark contrast of light and
shadow in the natural landscape were toned down by the
adaptable gray tint of the glass to plausible sources of
original or reflected illumination. The rediscovery of coolness
around them was like a technological benediction.

Blinking against the dimness, Jens turned to the outline
of a uniformed figure standing to his left as he reached
the top of the steps. As he did so, he came abruptly to a
decision.

"Phones?" Jens asked.

"At the back, sir," the answer came. "To the left of the
bar."

Jens turned and went down the length of the bus toward
its rear, his vision adjusting as he went. The ordinary seats

on this vehicle had been replaced with heavy lounge chairs
tha swiveled or slid about according to the desires of their
users. Most of his fellow diplomats had already seated
themselves. At the back of the bus, seeing clearly now,
Jens shook his head at the white-jacketed security man
behind the small, semicircular bar and stepped over to the
row of three v-phones along the wall at his left. The
polished surface of the wall gave him back his image--
thirtyish, tall, a gangling body with a lean, bone-plain face
above it, in a short-sleeved white dress shirt and gray
slacks.
He sat down before the first phon'e and put his hand on
the code buttons. They were cool under his fingers and for
a second he hesitated. No one had ever given him authority
to go to the President in this way .... He shook off the
twinge of a feeling very like cowardice, and began deliberately
punching for a long-distance call to the White
House number he wanted. As the first button was touched,
a transparent sound baffle slid silently out from one side
of the phone and curved around, enclosing him and his
chair. With the last button a chime-tone sounded, but the
v-screen before him retained its pearl-gray blankness.

"Scrambling," he said. He took his pocket scrambler
from the inside pocket of his borrowed jacket and slipped
it into the slot at the base of the phone. A different note
sounded but the screen stayed blank.

"Scrambling," said another voice, a woman's, hard-edged
and on guard. "Who's calling, please?"

"Undersecretary for the Development of Space Jens
Wylie," he answered. "I'm calling Selden Rethe."

"One moment . . ." There was a pause. "I'm sorry, Mr.
Rethe can't answer right now. Would you like to call back?"

I'll wait." Jens leaned his hot forehead against the
deliciously co01 plastic of the phone booth wall above the
instrument.

"It may be several minutes."
I'll wait."
"Very well."

Silence, filled by the slowly oscillating tone that signaled
the connection was still unbroken, but on hold.

,. Jens closed his eyes and breathed out deeply. This was
the sort of situation that would have been so clear-cut to

IO


his father that the sensible choice to be made might have
been etched by acid on metal. He could hear Horace
Wylie's voice now, telling him to back off from the whole
situation.

"You've got to think, kid."

The voice of his father's ghost sounded now in the back
of Jens's mind. That had been the Senator's favorite remark
to his son. According to Senator Wylie, Jens had
never stopped to think. He had not thought, nearly eight
years ago, when he had made the decision to pass up the
fellowship he had applied for--the Charles Evans Hughes
Fellowship at Columbia Law School--in order to choose
newspaper work, instead of taking a path that would have
followed his father into politics. Nor had he thought when
he had grabbed the chance to move from his St. Paul
newspaper job to the paper's Washington bureau, Nor had
he been thinking, by his father's standards, when he had
considered leaving the bureau to do the book on the history
of the space program--as a purely speculative, freelance
venture. The one thing he had done in the last eight
years that the eider Wylie would have approved of was
take advantage of the President's friendship with his father,
immediately following the senator's death, to get this appointment
as Undersecretary; and his father would consider
that done for all the wrong reasons, since Jens had
seen it as valuable experience before doing the book, not
a step toward fame and fortune.

No, the senator would not have approved what Jens
was about to do. He had loved Jens as much as any father
might be expected to love his only offspring; but Jens had
understood early that to the senator there was something
unmanly about a son who let his feelings get in the way of
his thinking. The only time the senator had ever really
made an attempt to protest what Jens did or change Jens's
mind by arguments had been after Jens had turned down
the law school scholarship. For the first time, then, the
senator had walked the floor, and a great many things had
come out of him that Jens had only suspected. One was
the senator's own feeling of helplessness at having been
left on the death of his wife to raise his son alone. The
other had been that Jens's attitude toward the world was
not only one the senator did not understand, but one he

could never understand. It was an attitude that Jens's
mother had had, and that Jens now had and that the
Senator stood somehow walled-off from.

Basically, it was the feeling that there was a right thing
to do in any situation to which every right-thinking person
would response instinctively. To the senator, instinct was
something that had been superseded by the conscious mind.
To the senator the mind would examine a situation, tot up
the advantages and disadvantages of each course possible
and choose the one that gave the most attractive total. Once
you made such a choice, whether the course chosen was
instinctively or emotionally, or even morally attractive,
was irrelevant. The senator was not a bad man in any sense
of the word, but his ethics were pragmatic, and he assumed
that a practical world threw up practical choices---others
did not exist.
Jens had been aware of this since the time of his
mother's death. He had wanted, like most sons, to have
his father understand him----even to be like his father. But
he could not, any more than the senator could understand
him. And because he could not, and because he could not
defend what he wasor explain it to the senator's satisfaction,
he was left with a low opinion of himself, a consciousness
of his own impracticality in the Senator's eyes,
his uselessness, what the Senator called in that one outburst,
his "lightmindedness."

He had never been able to change himself from that;
and he had never been able to justify the fact that he was
as he was. His father had disapproved; and his father's
ghost would be disapproving now, of everything that his son
had done since getting this appointment--from the business
of Lin to Jens's other love affair, the one with space.
Jens, deliberately sticking his neck out into forbidden
territory, as he was about to do, would have sent his father

through the roof--

"Jens?"

As the voice sounded from the instrument, the pearl-gray
oblong of the screen dwindled suddenly to a dot and disappeared,
to show a lean, pale face, the face of a trim
middle-aged man in a neat blue office jacket, sitting at a
desk.

I2


i:i:"Hi: , Jens," said Presidential Private Secretary Selden
.... Rethe. His eyes were a neutral tone--almost colorless.

"Sel," said Jens, "you know I've got special permission
to go direct to the President in an emergency."

He waited. Selden raised his eyebrows but said nothing.

"I think I need to talk to him now," Jens said. "I think
it's something he ought to hear personally."

Selden sat for an additional second without speaking.

"I don't know, right now," he answered at last. His
speech was precise, northern, and like his eyes, colorless.
"He's on his way to Philadelphia for the William Pen
Memorial dedication. You'll see him tonight at his reception
down there, as scheduled."

"That's not going to be in time." Jens stopped to take a
deep breath. Selden watched him with unmoving face.
"This is something important, Sel. It could even wreck the
Expedition." "Oh?"
said Selden. The eyebrows were still up.
"Yes," said Jens grimly.
"What is it all about, Jens?"

"I think I ought to tell him myself."

Selden nodded slowly, and the eyebrows descended.
"Well, as I say," he said. "There's no way for you to
catch him before tonight at his reception down there at
Merritt Island."

"Will he talk to me then?"

Selden frowned slightly.

,"I couldn't promise." His long face under its neatly
balding middle-aged skull looked out from the threedimensional
depths of the holographic screen without
emotion. "You're sure you don't want to tell me what it's
about?"

"I'd rather talk to him. It may be touchy."
"I see . . . maybe tomorrow morning, then."
"That's almost launch time. It'll be too late."

"I'm sorry,/ens," said Selden. "I don't know what else I

carl do,"

Jens sagged a little.

"All right, then," he said. "I'll tell you. Tadell Hansard
just talked to me---"

"Who?" asked Selden.

"Tad Hansard--the Expedition Commander. Our own
U.S. marsnaut. He's upset over the number of experiments
they keep adding to the workload of the Expedition. Every
country's been fighting for as many of its own pet experiments
as possible to be part of the program; and the whole
program's got too heavy."

"He thinks so, does he?" Selden said. "What do the

others think?"

"Others?"

"The other marsnauts," said Selden, patiently. "The PanEuropean,
the Japanese..."

"Oh. They agree, of course."

"Are they saying the same thing to their own government
people?"

"I don't know," said Jens. "For Christ's sake, Sel! Tad
only had a moment to speak to me alone at the lunch the
'nauts gave us today at the Operations and Checkout Building
here."

"I see," said Selden. "Well, Jens, you know we've got no
control over what the other participating countries want."

"But the President ought to know what's going on!" said
Jens. "Tad thinks the results could be serious. It could

cause real trouble to the Expedition."

Selden sat for a second.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I don't know what can be done at
this time to arrange a talk for you."

"You know God damn well what can be done!" Jens
lowered his voice. "Damn !t, Sel, we're scrambled aren't
we? This is me, Jens! Don't try that bureaucratic politeevasion
stuff with me!"

"Well, I can pass along what you've said, of course."
"Sel," said Jens. "I want to talk to the President at the
earliest possible moment, on an emergency matter. That's an
official request from me as Undersecretary of Science for
the Development of Space."

"All right," said Selden calmly. "03 course, Jens. I'll get

on it right away and do the best I can, naturally."

Jens stared at him.

"Sel," he said. "For God's sake, Sel, I tell you this is
important!"

"Don't worry about it, Jens. I appreciate your concern

14


and everybody else here will too. Make sure the VIP
Message Center there can locate you at any time. I'll call
you just as soon as I have some kind of word. Good-bye."

Selden's picture disintegrated into a crazy quilt of color
which swirled away like water down a drain shrinking to
a single bright dot. The screen was left pearl-gray, quiescent.

"Good-bye," said Jens emptily, to the pictureless surface
before him.
He pulled his scrambler, put it in his jacket pocket and
walked toward the front of the bus, passing Sir Geoffrey,
who was now at/he little bar, a drink looking tiny in his
great hand.
"You?" he asked, raising his glass as Jens passed.
"Thanks. No, I guess not," said Jens, going on.

The bus had risen on the cushioa of its air jets some
seconds since, and was sliding along the asphalt roadpath
away from the shuttle launch pad. Jens sat down in one of
the three heavy lounge chairs that had been pulled together
to form a group. In the chair beside him was Bill Ward,
listening with brisk, controlled patience to the Soviet Deputy
Minister for the Development of Space, Sergei Verigin.
Their conversation clattered in his ear.

"... your brother," Verigin was saying. "A doctor of
veterinary medicine, I understand?"

"Yes," Bill Ward said. "He's on the faculty at the University
of Minnesota Veterinary School--"

He broke off, standing up as the bus slid almost imperceptibly
to a halt.

"Excuse me," he said to Verigin, and turned to raise his
voice so that it could be heard through the whole of the
bus. "We're going to stop out here for a moment so you can
all see the shuttlecraft and the launch pad as a whole. We'll
be about half a kilometer from it, but still close enough so
that you can get a good look, overall."

They were indeed quite close. It was the opposite side
of the bus from Jens that faced the launch pad, but the
bus itself was so sparsely passengered that he could see
clearly between the opposite lounge chairs without needing
to stand up or move.

The bus had halted some three hundred yards from the
platform holding the space vehicle. The two joined shuttle-

x5


craft that made it up could now be seen as essentially an
upright two-stage vehicle, such as the earlier Saturn rockets
had been. Awaiting launch, the shuttle rested, as the
Saturns had done, in vertical position; but, unlike the
Saturns, it looked like one heavy-bodied small aircraft--.
the orbiter--glued to the back of its big brother, identical
in appearance but scaled larger, like a remora self-attached
to a shark. The mobile launch structure from which the
diplomats had just come down pressed against both
skyward-pointing craft.

"The orbiter will ride piggyback on the booster, as you
see it now," Bill Ward was now saying to the deputy ministers,
"to about two hundred thousand feet. By this time
we're about three minutes past lift-off. Then separation

occurs--"

Someone broke in with a question. His mind still occupied
with the problem of the experiment overload and the image
of shark-remoralike partnerships, Jens only belatedly recognized
Guenther's voice, and lost the sense of the question
entirely.

"No, the booster lands like any other aircraft--slides in,
actually, on its belly skids," Bill Ward answered the PanEuropean
deputy minister. "Just the same way the orbiter
itself does, when it comes back. Both are piloted. Meanwhile,
after it separates from the booster, the orbiter
proceeds to climb into the parking orbit of the Mars
craft...."

Staring out through the light-reducing glass which
covered the top half of the bus, Jens found it difficult to
believe in the reality of what he saw. Here, only a few
hundred yards from the launch pad, the two parts of the
shuttlecraft loomed impossibly large. There was something
about them reminiscent of the eye-tricking size of the huge
Vehicle Assembly Building, which the diplomats had been
taken through before lunch. All these structures and machines
were too big to be real, too titanic not to be a
mock-up by some moviemaker whose only aim was to awe

an audience with his film.

Jens closed his eyes.

The truth was, he thought, Man had now moved up into

a scale beyond the small dimensions of Earthside reality.

But still, there were people---people in power--who had
not yet recognized this and were still trying to play their
usual small business-as-usual games, as if the familiar, safe
conditions of Earth were to be found everywhere in the
universe. In the case of this manned expedition to a planet
that was a next-door neighbor, how far Was Mars, really?
How far? How far was a world in the neighborhood of
fifty millions of miles distant, when downtown Cocoa Beach
was only seventeen miles? How deep was the ocean of
space... ?

Jens felt an inward shudder at his momentary vision of
the cold depths of infinity stretching away all around him.

• "We've just finished mating the orbiter to the booster,"
Bill Ward was saying. "The prelaunch checkout is still
going on. It's a matter of checking innumerable little
details .... "

• . . With our own tiny world circling its little sun, lost
way out on the spiral arm o/our galaxy, which is itsel] lost
among other and greater galaxies, in a universe that goes
on without end .... •

Jens woke suddenly to a firm grip on his forearm, and
saw the face of Verigin only a few inches away, looking
at him with concern on his round, aging features. He
realized suddenly that he was a little dizzy, that he must
have been swaying.

"Are you all right?" Verigin was asking in a remarkably
gentle voice. "You aren't ill?"

"Ill? No!" Jens pulled himself upright. "Tired . , . that's
all."

"Oh, yes. Yes," said Verigin, letting go of his arm. "It
is always tiring, this sort of thihg."

Bill Ward finished speaking and sat down again in the
chair from which he had risen earlier. Verigin turned
almost eagerly to him, again•

"Your brother, you were telling me," Jens heard him
say, "is on the faculty of the School of Veterinary Medicine,
at this University?"

"Joel---oh yes," said Bill• "Yes, the last six years."

"I wonder," Verigin said. "Do you know if he's been
involved in any work or research on nerve degeneration in
animals? I have a dog at home, a small dog--"


17

. "Afraid:.: I don't know anything about that," said Bill.
"He doesn't usually tell me much about what he's doing."

"It's not important, of course," said Verigin. "I hardly
see the dog, these days. But to my wife--we only had two
children, adult some time since of course. The older, the
boy, was a test pilot. In fact Piotr and Feodor Asturnov,
our marsnaut on this flight, were test pilots together. Not
that they were close, you understand, but they knew each
other. Unfortunately Piotr's--a plane my son was testing
came apart in the air and he was not able to get out in
time."

"Oh. Sorry," said Bill, restlessly and uncomfortably,
sitting stiffly upright in his seat.

"And his sister, our daughter, is married and lives in . . .
well, you would not know the name, one of the new towns
of Siberia. My wife and this dog--we call him Chupchik---
are alone most of the time; I have to be away so much.
Chupchik means a great deal to us."
"Ah... yes," said Bill, glancing past the Russian's head
at the road still separating them from the landing space
where the VTOL--Vertical Takeoff and Landing--aircraft
waited to take the deputy ministers back to their hotel on
Merritt Island.

"Chupchik's hind legs, lately, have been failing him--
he's not a young dog. Ten, twelve years old, I think. Yes,"
said Verigin, "twelve years old. When he was young, he
was hit by a truck; but he seemed to recover very well. It's
only this last year it's become harder and harder for him
to walk."

"That's too bad," said Bill Ward. "That's a shame. You've
had a veterinarian look at him before this?"

"Oh, of course," said Verigin. "But--so little seems to
be known about dogs, in this way. They tell us Chupchik
is just getting old; and we're not veterinarians ourselves.
We can't argue. But Chupchik got along so well with those
back legs all those years... I thought, perhaps, if someone
over here was looking into nerve troubles, or whatever
causes paralysis like this, in dogs . . . your brother might
have heard of something . . . ?"

Jens saw the fingers of Bill Ward's left hand twitch on
the arm of his chair.

18


"I can drop him a line. Be glad to," he said.

"Would you?" said Verigin. "I'd appreciate it greatly."
The bus pulled up at last at the landing area; and the
VTOL plane waiting there took them into its interior,
which was hardly less spacious than that of the bus. A
moment later, the plane lifted smoothly;elevator-fashion,
to about five hundred feet and flew them to the landing
area on top of the Merritt Island Holiday Inn that had been
partly taken over by the government for VIP quarters.

Jens headed for the stairs, thankful at the prospect of a
chance to lie down, and call the desk. There might be a
message from Lin that had come in since he had been gone.
As he went toward his own suite on the floor just below
the landing area on the roof, which had been set aside for
the deputy ministers and undersecretaries representing the
six nations cooperating on the Expedition, he heard Verigin
being hailed by Guenther, who, with the representative from
India, Ahri Ambedkar, intercepted the Russian as he turned
into the central lounge area leading to his suite.


2


"Sergei, have you a minute? Stop and have a drink with
us," Walther Guenther called in Russian as Verigin started
off toward his suite.

The Pan-European's command of the language was good
enough, but obviously required some effort. Verigin faced
about and went to join the other two, answering in much
more fluent German.

"Thank you," he said. "That's a pleasant invitation, now
that we're off duty for an hour or two." He seated himself
in one of the heavy, overstuffed green armchairs by a
circular table of the lounge area, "I believe we are free
until the President's reception at eight?"

I9


"I believe nine '.M." said Ahri Ambedkar. "There has
been some delay in making the arrival of President Fanzone
on time. The official hour of the reception remains, but
we are quietly informed to consider nine our hour of
beginning."

It was immediately apparent that the Indian deputy
minister's German was effortful as Guenther's Russian.
Verigin switched again, this time to French.

"I didn't know that," he said.

"We just heard it," said Ambedkar in French and with
obvious relief.

"Yes," said Guenther easily in the same language, "the
pilot of the 'copter that will take us there was just now
telling us. What will you have, Sergei?"

"Cognac," said Verigin, "since we've ended up where
we have."
The other two smiled. Ahri is really an old man, thought
Verigin, studying the brown, round face next to the middleaged
white, square one that was Guenther's, while Guenther
delivered the order into the telephone grid on the table
beside him. I spend most o/my time dealing with old men--
men my age--and I ]orget that most of the world is
younger. The world is run by old men--necessarily, of
course, since the young have not yet learned ....

"It's a relief to sit back and relax, as you say," said
Guenther, after the order was in. "By the way, I am a little
surprised, I thought Fanzone would have made an appearance
here before this."

"He's somewhat above our rank, of course," said
Ambedkar.

"Politically, yes," said Guenther. The cognac was brought
in by a young U.S. Air Force corporal who was on duty in
the lounge; and the conversation paused until he was gone
again.

"Politically, yes," said Guenther again. 'q'he chief
executive of a nation like this; and ourselves only deputy
ministers for the Development of Space." He smiled. The
others smiled. "We won't talk about political antecedents,
our own---or his."

Verigin chuckled politely. But Ambedkar looked interested.
"There is, indeed, then," he asked, "some truth to this
noise about underworld support having helped him gain
the presidency of the U.S.?"

Guenther waved a square hand.

"No, no. I hardly think so, really," he said. "Not that
it's important. They're all half-gangsters at. heart, these
Americans. But they never let that stand in the way of
business."

"You might say," agreed Verigin, sampling the cognac,
which had been brought, sensibly, in a snifter glass, "that
the U.S. is such a fat dog it doesn't really mind a few
fleas. It would feel lonesome without its gangster element."

"But," said Ambedkar, "if gangsterism should be a factor
in their political consideration at this momentarticularly
in regard to this international mission..."

"I think we can ignore anything so minor," said
Guenther. "It's the obvious elements in Fanzone's thinking
that are worthy of concern. The private agreement was
that he would not be here for the actual launch, so as not
to disturb the balance of unity at that time. Now an accident
makes him late for his reception the night before. I
merely wonder if another such accident might not delay

him here until the shuttle actually takes off?"

"I doubt that," said Verigin.

"Perhaps you are right," said Guenther. "There's a natural
tendency to speculate about changes in schedule, all
the same. But then, he does have Wylie here on the spot."

He put his glass down on the low coffee table between
them and lowered his head in the process. Above that head,
the eyes of Verigin and Ambedkar consulted each other.

"I'm afraid I don't follow you, Walther," Verigin said.
"We're all aware that Wylie is, both by experience and
situation, in rather a different position from the rest of us.
Has there been some change in his condition? Is he doing
something we don't know about?"

"Oh, nothing I know of," said Guenther, looking up at
both of them. "Perhaps I'm letting myself become unduly
concerned about things."

Ambedkar looked at Verigin again.

,What do you think, Sergei?"

"There's always a cause for concern, of course," Vedgin

21


aid, "particularly when dealing with the American mind.
Of all such capitalist organs--no offense, my friends--the
American mind is the most self-centered and therefore the
most unpredictable. But I find it hard to believe even an
American president--" he hesitated slightly "---or his representative,
would risk his country's image by any obvious
move to shoulder the representatives of other nations aside."

"But perhaps we should keep the possibility in mind,"
said Guenther.

"Oh, yes," said Verigin. "By all means we should keep
the possibility in mind."


In his own suite down the hall from the lounge area,
Jens, having put off for the moment his plans to lie down,
was once more speaking to Selden Rethe over a scrambled
circuit.

"Look," Jens said patiently,. "if he can't !talk to me will
you ask him at least to talk to Tad at the reception tonight?"

"I'll ask, of course," said Selden. "But this reception
down there where you are is strictly a stage appearance,
Jens. I believe you know that. The last thing a president
can do in a case like this is give the impression of being
partisan toward you or the American astronaut."

"Marsnaut, damn it, SeW' Jens interrupted. "They're
proud of the name marsnaut--why can't people understand

that? They're the only ones there are."

"If you like, Jens--marsnaut, then."

"Look," said Jens, "this concerns everybody involved
with the Expedition, all the countries, every 'naut--not just
Tad. But if you could just explain to the President that
since Tad's senior captain for the Expedition, he knows
what he's talking about when he says the work schedule's
too heavy with tests, particularly on the outgoing leg--"

"But there's a reason for that, of course," said Selden.
'The Mars Expedition's going to be at its biggest as news
during the first nine weeks. That's why you national reps
are all staying on here that long, and that's when what's
most needed will be the 'nauts reporting they've just done
this experiment that Hamamttri of Nagasaki wanted done,
or that experiment for Miiller at Bonn University, and
SO 011 . . ."

s"All right. All right," said Jens, keeping his voice down.
"But the thing is, there's too much now for the crew to
do; and not enough time. Tad's point is, what if they get
up there and have to skip some of the experiments, or
some of the tests get bungled because they're trying to
work too fast? All he wants is for the President to drop a
word to the deputy ministers of the other countries, here--
and this late, he's the only one who can do it--so that
everybody concerned agrees to cut their list by one experi=
ment, or two. There's more potential dynamite in letting
them go off this way than there is in facing the thing now."

"That's only his opinion, of course," Selden said calmly.
"Besides, if he's so sure that's the case, why can't he just
handle the priorities for the experiment list himself once
they're on their way?"

"Man!" said Jens, staring into the screen with Selden's
face printed on it. "Oh, man! When you want a scapegoat
you don t fool around, do you? You just shout out his name,
rank, and serial number and wait for him to take three
paces forward. Tad's a marsnaut. They're all marsnauts---
not politicians!"

Selden stared back at Jens from the screen without speakhag
for several seconds. When he did speak, it was with a
new remoteness.

"We've all got our jobs to do," he said. "Including me.
As I said, I'll pass on what you've said to the president.
That's all I can do, pass the word to him. However, I

woutdn't expect anything much, if I were you."

"Sure," said Jens.

"All right, then. Unscramble." Selden broke the circuit.
Jens sat back in the chair beside his bed, slumping. He
felt as if he had just been punched in the stomach, drained
of strength and a little sick. The phone buzzed again. Automatically
he stabbed it to on; and a woman's face, oval,
brown-eyed under chestnut hair, appeared.

"Hi!" it said, affectionately. "If you'd stay off your
phone for five minutes, maybe somebody could call in!"

A sudden deep feeling of gratitude and relief wiped out
the battered feeling.

"Lin!" he said, happily. "Where are you?"

"Here. Downstairs, that is," Alinde West said. "I was

23


going to come up and just knock on your door; but evidently
you've got security guards around you, five ranks
deep. I told one of them I was your common-law wife; but
it didn't move him. He's watching me now while I phone
you from the lobby."

"Who is it?" Jens asked. "Gervais? Black man, middle
aged?
Slim and sort of stiffmlooks like a Roman senator?"
"With a scowl."

"Let me talk to him."

There was a short pause; and then the face of Security
Department Agent Albert Gervais took over the screen.

"Sorry if I've been holding up someone I shouldn't,"
Gervais said. He did not look sorry at all. "She said some°
thing about being your wife; and according to our records
you're not married."

"Not exactly, no," said Jens. "She's a very old friend,
though; and she's had White House clearance to accompany
me before. If you put a call in to Selden Rethe's office, you
ought to find authorization for her to visit me."

"Just a minute, Mr. Wylie." The screen went blank with
a holding light. Jens sat waiting for several minutes, thinking
that Gervais could at least have put Lin back on while
the check was being made. Then Gervais himself appeared
again. "Yes, sir. There's White House record of clearance.
for her. It's been reactivated on a twenty-four-hour basis.
If you want it extended beyond that time, they ask that
you call them."

"Thanks," said Jens. "I will."

He felt a sudden sympathy with Gervais, who was a
professional. Lin's visit represented a complication and a
increase in the duties of guarding the international representatives
attending the launch. "I promise she'll go directly
to my suite up here and directly from it," Jens said. "And
I'll let you know as soon as she leaves the area."

"Thank you, Mr. Wylie," said Gervais, with no more
emotion than he had shown before. "I'll have her escorted

to yOU now."

One of the agents, whom Jens had seen around but
whose name he did not know--a square, blond young man
with a New England accent, brought Lin to the suite. It
was incredibly good to hold her--a trim, vibrant womanshape,
long-limbed and firm-rnuseled in a tan and grin

pantsuit with truly the hint of some clean, fight perfume
about her.

"When I didn't hear from you this morning, I thought
something had come up to keep you from getting here,"
Jens said as he let her go. "Hey, what would you like to do
first?"

"Sit down and have a drink," she said. "Oof! All the
first-class flights were booked and I had to sit in economy
with fifty pounds of recording and transcribing equipment
in my lap, all the way down."
She walked over and dropped into one of the suite's
armchairs. Jens went to the little bar to make them both a
Scotch on the rocks.

"But how was it you didn't get here this morning?"

He handed her her drink, and sat down himself on the
sofa opposite her armchair.

"Thanks. The magazine decided to make the time pay.
So instead of taking it off, while I'm down here I'm to do
a piece on the marsnauts' wives--how they adjust their
families to the idea that dad's going to be gone three years
in outer space."

"There's not a lot of wives or you to ask," said Jen.
"Feodor Asturnov is a widower. Both Anoshi Wantanabe
and the Pan-European 'naut, Bern Callieux, have wives
who decided to stay home with their children and not come
for the launch. Bapti Lal Bose, the Indian, isn't married.
That just leaves Dirk WeIles's wife and Tadell Hansard's."

"You've met them, haven't you?" Lin asked. "The wives

of those two, I mean?"

Jens nodded.

"You'll like Wendy Hansard, I think," he said. "She
looks something like you. She's the sort of woman you'd
kind of expect an astronaut to marry. Dirk's wife, Penanine
--Penny, he calls her--I don't know as well. But she seems
likeable, too. Big, young girl. Sort of more English than
Dirk. Blonde."

"Can you help me get to see them tomorrow?" Lin asked.
"I can try. You shouldn't have any trouble once the
.launch is over. Before, there's no chance, of course.

Look--" He came over with the drinks, put them on the
table before the couch and sat down, turning urgently to
her. "There's a presidential reception for all of us to go to

25


this evening; and it's not the sort of thing where i can get
you on the invitation list. But if you think you can wait
here, I ought to be back about eleven--"

She got up, leaving her drink behind and thumped down
beside him on the sofa.

"Idiot!" she said, putting her arms around, him fondly
and nestling up against him. "Of course I'll b here when
you get back--waiting. Why do you think I managed to
get down here anyway?"

"I didn't know that you were going to manage it all,"
he muttered, feeling peculiarly lighthearted and rather
warm inside.

She let go of him, but she did not move away.

"Now, let's not get off on that right away," she said. "I
said I'd be here for the launch, and here I am."

"I know," he said, "and you couldn't come at a time

when I wanted to see you more."

She looked at him narrowly.

"I thought you seemed wound up about something," she
said. "What is it?"

He shook his head.

"Oh, just this job."

"What about just the job?" she asked.

"Well," he said, heavily, "the Expedition to Mars is one
thing. The international politics behind it is something else.

You wouldn't believe that end of it."

"Try me."

"It's all the nations involved, pulling and hauling against
each other to see who gets the biggest piece of the publicity
ihvolved--the most credit--and, above all, the most of the
marsnauts' time for their own experiments. That last, in
particular."

"You mean the science experiments they're going to do
on the flight to Mars and back again?"

'°I mean those," Jens said, "and the end result of it all is
that the marsnauts 'are overscheduled. They've got too
much to do. Oh, on paper, it works out. But all it'll take
is some small thing going wrong, one of them being sick
for a few days or some such thing, and the work load is
going to get on top of them. And you can figure that on
an Expedition like this that's never been done before

something is bound to come along to interfere witha he

doing everything clickety-bang."

"What's the problem?" Lin asked. Her face was sL
denly interested. "Don't the governments involved kno
this? Can't they just get together and settle on a reasonable

experimental load?"

	Jens laughed.

"The governments in this can't get together on anything,"
he said. "To begin with, it's all the rest against the
US "

	"All the rest?"

"Sure, Lin. Which of them can use Shared-Management
Technique as profitably as we can? The only nation it
really works for is us. Or rather, it works so much better
for us that it might as well work only for us."

"All right," said Lin, "but they're all supposed to be
cooperating on this Expedition, aren't they?"

"The cooperation's all in the public relations end," said
Jens. "For us, too."

	"What do you mean?"
	:

"I mean it's the U.S. which stands to get the most Out of

the publicity from this flight. Why do you think we're in it?

We're only putting in one crew member, just like the other

nations; but our government can still point its finger at the

fact that the lion's share of everything that goes to Mars,

except the people, is either U.S. hardware or U.S. tech
nology."

"Pretty expensive stunt," said Lin.

"Well, we need it." Jens frowned again. "As I say, this

Shared-Management Technique has been looking too much

like it's God's own gift to His favorite United States. We

need something to take the shine off that. We're just too

rich-looking, as things stand right now. It's us who've got

the most factories in space, for making the parts that make

the Computer Communications Network possible. Without

the industry we had to start with, we'd never have been

able to produce a network like that in a little over three

years, with a terminal on every desk in the country; and

without a business and industry pattern geared to con
ference-style
management, the whole process of being able


27

to lay your fingers on just the right consultant at a

moment's notice wouldn't have done any good."
"Maybe," said Lin.

"No maybe about it, damn it!" Jens said. "That's what
nobody in the street seems to realize! Lin, without that
input of consulting information and the improvement in
decision-making, would our gross national product have
quadrupled overnight the way it has? No wonder our
efficiency's going right off the top of the charts! But look
at it from the standpoint of any of the people-rich, industrypoor
countries. If it doesn't look to them like a clear case
of the rich getting richer hand over fist, I'll eat it. What
this whole Expedition can do is lightning-rod some of the
bitterness from people who see it just that way."

"All right." Lin half-turned on the couch so that she was
facing him more squarely. "But what's all that got to do
with too large an experiment load? And above all, what's it
got to do with you, personally?"

"The marsnauts are worried about the load, and it looks
like I'm the only one who listens to them," muttered Jens.
"They've talked to everyone else they could to hold the
work load down. Today, at lunch, Tad Hansard dumped it
in my lap."

"Why you?" Lin frowned. "It's not your responsibility."
"But I can talk to the President--maybe." Jens shook
his head. "Though so far I haven't had much luck doing it.

I've been trying to get to Fanzone through Selden Rethe."
"You can't get hold of Rethe either?"

"Oh, I got to him, all right. But he keeps finding reasons
why Fanzone can't see me."

Jens reached for his drink absentmindedly, then took his
hand away again without lifting the glass from the table
where it stood.

"But Fanzone's coming in to this diplomatic reception
tonight; and I ought to be able to corner him there, with
or without permission. The marsnauts are going to be
there too. That's what the dinner's for. It's a case of us

national representatives to the launch entertaining the
'nauts, and Fanzone is due to put in--theoretically--a

surprise visit."

"I still don't follow you," said Lin. "Why should you


28

have trouble talking to the President? You're the man he
appointed, aren't you?"

Jens laughed a little bitterly.

"Oh, sure," he said, "but I'm a fake!"

She stared at him and suddenly, he found himself telling
her--the whole story.

"That's what I am," he said grimly. "You weren't too far
off, Lin, back when you told me if I took this appointment
I'd be nothing but a sort of token diplomat. Not that I'm
regretting I took it. It's still going to be worth its weight
in gold when I sit down to serious writing and do the book.
But the truth is, since the Launch and Expedition Control
axe both here at Merritt Island, in this country, a national
representative to the launch from the United States doesn't
mean a thing. The real U.S. representative to this Expedition
is the President, himself. So I'm just stuck up here
like a straw figure on a pole to fill the quota, but look
harmless--above all, to look harmless. You ought to see
my opposite numbers. They're the best tough old political
infighters the other countries could send. Compared to
them, I'm like a puppy among wolves."

Lin laughed, then sobered. She put down her drink and
slid her arm around him, holding him.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to laugh. But it
struck me funny, you being a puppy among wolves. Are
they all wolves, Jens?"

"Yes. Well--" said Jens. "Sir Geoffrey Mayence isn't so
bad. In fact, he's a pretty good old character. But he's as
sharp as any of the rest of them. Maybe more so."

"Well," said Lin. "If they're all together against the U.S.,
they ought to be able to get together themselves on reducing
the experimental load."

"It's not that simple, though," Jens said. "There're divisions
and factions among them, too; and what it boils down
to is every nation for itself. The only thing holding everybody
together is the fact that each country's got its own
interests in space-based industries."

,,Well, the others may not have as much in the way of
factories in space as we do," said Lin, "but what about this
other system that's supposed to work for them as well as
the Shared-Management Technique works for us--accord

29

Theory. Can't they get together in the name of that?"

"I don't think so. Propaganda aside, it is all very pretty,
the idea of putting a piece of a factory in everybody's
home, using the same kind of computer communications
hookup we're using for Shared-Management. But the
countries trying it never did have an existing business
pattern like ours to build on. To get that's something that's
going to cost them five to ten years of programming first,
before they can really put their system into effect. When
they finally do, of course--" he grinned at her "--all those
nations with tremendous populations like India and China
may sweep us off the face of the Earth, but right now
we're the only ones who've getting our GNP quadrupled,
and that may put us so far ahead by the time they come
on line--'" He broke off suddenly, making an effort to push
the whole problem away, at least temporarily. He looked
at her and suddenly he did not want to talk any more.

"But why are we sitting around discussing all this?" he
asked.

She grinned back at him.

"I don't know," she answered. "Why?"

"I thought as much," he said. "You don't know, either.
In that case, let's not. It's high time we got on to more
important matters."

The thin face under the receding black hairline looked out
from the phone screen at Albert Gervais.

"I just got word," it said, "you let someone named
Alinde West up to Jens Wylie's suite, on the National Reps'

floor."

30


Gervais watched the face. Amory Hammond and he had
been trainees together. But Hammond had been on loan to
the Air Force for two years now, and the recommendations
the Air Force had given him had pushed him up the ladder.
He had been moved back to Washington and put in charge
of Gervais's section from there.

"I checked," said Gervais. "She had clearance."

"Yes, I know, Albert," said Hammond. "But she's not a
relative or anything. She's just some bed-partner or other."

"I checked with the White House," said Gervais. "They
okayed it. She's had clearance to be with him before."

"I know. I know." Hammond looked aside from the
screen for a moment and then back into it. "But what you
don't know is, she's media. She works for New Worlds.
It's a large, slick, women's sort of magazine."

"I assume the White House knows that," Gervais said.
"Of course they know it!" said Hammond. "And they
don't care. But they're not the ones on the spot. If anything
goes wrong, it's us who'll get the blame."

"I don't know what could go wrong," said Gervais.
"Besides, what do you want me to do about it? When they
gave her clearance I couldn't turn her away."

"All right," said Hammond. "But it's not good. If any
kind of a fuss should come out of it . . . These women's
magazines are worse than anything else when it gets into
anything they can call scandal."

Gervais sat for a second looking into the screen at the
other man.

"I repeat," he said at last, slowly. "What do you want
me to do about it?"

"Well, watch her, for God's sakes!" said Hammond. "Try

to get her out of there, one way or another.'

"How?"

"How? Can't you think of something?" Hammond's face
twisted.

"No," said Gervais. "I can't."

"Albert," said Hammond, "Albert, you aren't cooperaGervais
did not move or speak. Not a line in his face
altered. He sat as still as a monument.

On the screen, Hammond looked away from him


3I

abruptly, and lit a cigarette. The thin man puffed the white
cylinder alight and dropped the hand holding it to the desk.
The lit cigarette trembled slightly between his fingers.

"I'm sorry," he said, looking away again. "That's a little

hasty. I didn't mean that, Albert."

Gervais said nothing.

"Look!" said Hammond, facing him from the screen once
more. "I'm sorry. It just popped out. You don't know what
the pressure's been like here. I'll get down there myself just
as soon as I can clear my desk off a little. But you know
there's things that can be done!"

"No," said Gervais, "I don't know what you mean."
"All right!" Hammond snubbed out the cigarette. "All
right. That's all right. I shouldn't have gotten hasty. It's
my own fault. But, damn it! If this woman, whoever she
is, ends up writing something unpleasant for that magazine
she works for, then it'll be our necks on the block, all of
our ncks."

Gervais waited.

"You'll do what you can, anyway?" Hammond asked,
finally.
"Of course," said Gervais.

"Well, all right then. That takes a load off my mind."
Hammond punched off.

Gervais stayed gazing at Jthe dead screen for a long
second. Then he sat back in his chair and breathed slowly.
There was no such thing as a slip of the tongue that did not
count, no such thing as stepping by mistake for a second
over the line, then pulling back and never stepping over it
again. Once stepped over, the line moved in the direction
of the step, and the next violation moved it a little further
in th same direction and so on. Anyone stepping over the
line at all, even by accident, could expect a reaction.

Hammond, like anyone else, had understood that, once.
But Hammond had always been weak, and now the Air
Force had spoiled him, made him dangerous as well. Gervais
rubbed his chin thoughtfully and began to think.


Jens drifted gradually back to consciousness, without
really being aware of the moment in which he became fully
awake. Lin lay sleeping on the big hotel bed beside him.

32


The most ancient tranquilizer in the world had had its
effects, and he felt clearheaded and calm for the first time
in days. The overall exhaustion from the excitement and
the heavy social pressure of those days was still with him,
but now it had moved off a small distance. The steam cloud
of emotion enveloping him had blown away, and his
thoughts were now bathed in the clear cool sunlight of
practicality.

Lying there, with some little time yet before he had to
get up and dress and go to the diplomatic dinner, he found
himself at last in a position to stand back from everything
and take a long look at the situation in which he was
caught Uly--the situation of the Manned Expedition to
Mars and all the concern of a world with it.

It was like standing on a high mountain and looking
down at a landscape spread around the base of the moun-

' tain. The mountain itself was the fact of the Expedition,
the effort to reach Mars, the whole theory of cooperation
of six nations. But the flat landscape stretching to the
horizon from the base of this mountain was divided into
differing territories, into special kingdoms, all concerned
in their own way with the Expedition, but seeing--really
only seeing--one face of the whole mountain.

Those on the mountain could not see its entirety, either.
:. Only at the very peak, sanding on the topmost crag, where
the marsnauts stood and some of the NASA people, andu
yes, possibly himself--could the whole territory be seen,
mountain and surrounding territories, all at once.

Jens looked down now from the peak of the mountain at
the territories, imagining them laid out in different colors,
like the colors of countries on maps. How many colors was
it that were necessary--three or five? At any rate, there was
some finite number that made it possible to do a map
without ever having two areas side by side with the same
color. A matter of topology. The colors he looked down
at now would be five; because there were, in effect, five
main groups of people, five human territories concerned
with the.Mars Expedition.

One of the territories was the mountain itself, the mountain
of the marsnauts, of NASA,, of the actual Expedition.
Of the other four at the mountain's feet, one was the


	F.C.B
	33

erritory of the diplomats and the politicians. Another was
the territory of the technology people, the engineering
companies and all the regt who supported the building of
the spacecraft and all else that was physically necessary to
support the Expedition and make it possible. A third was
the territory of related people; the whole local human
community, including the wives and children of the marsnauts,
who were connected with the Expedition in a human
sense. Finally, there was the territory to which half of him
still belonged. The territory of the newspeople and their
public--the men and women on the streets of the world
to whom the newspeople were responsible.

In fact, now that he stopped to think about it, what
placed him up on the peak of the mountain, along with
the marsnauts and a few others, was the fact that he was
not wholly of any of these kingdoms, but partly of all of
them. Part of him was still newsman. Part of him, by
present occupation, was politician/diplomat. Part of him,
by sympathy--a would-be wish to be what he could never
be---was a marsnaut; and he was at once both one of the
people in the street watching, and someone who had been
immersed for some years now in a study of the technology,
the world-wide industrial pattern that had made this whole
thing possible. "

What was now happening; what would happen tomorrow
at the launch and in the days and months to follow, would
not be just the matter of the two ships of the Expedition
falling on their long curved path through space to rendezvous
with Mars nearly ten months later. It would be
this plus all the interaction of the kingdoms back here on
Earth who had a stake in it one way or another--from the
third-world villager reaching out toward whatever could
be touched of the rich life that could be seen in the more
favored parts of the Earth, to the men and women caught
up in the machinery of the politics of the most powerful
of the human communities, the people who were at the
very top and controlling the machinery, yet caught up in it
at the same time.

But no, you couldn't have it. Each territory was set off
separately. The kingdoms overlaid each other and interacted,
forming intricate designs, each mingled with the

tothers. Out of the back of his mind came the image of a

medieval tapestry he had seen once in a chateau in the
south of France; a room-wide cloth, crowded with scenes
of workmen, noblemen, foresters, savage beasts, and mythological
creatures. Above them, the greater fantasies of the
sky, and the great wheel of the Zodiacan attempt by
centuries-dead hands to crowd the magnificence of creation

i:and man's place within it into one magnificent sweep of


fell asleep.


fabric.

As he remembered it now, the image of a tapestry in
which he and everyone else were individual threads grew
and focused in his mind. He was caught up in its pattern.
It was weaving itself and being woven by each and every
human act as he watched. Countless threads like his own
made up the background, individually invisible but each
necessary, the brighter ones deftly woven together to create
the elements of the grand design. Those brighter threads
would be the movers and the shakers among the people;
the politicians, technicians, the missionaries--Jens himself,
Lin, even people like that security man, Gervais, and who
knew else, among those crowding Merritt Island and the
Cape. Yet none of them in the final essential were any
more than a single thread, no matter what their color or
their position. They were meaningless, except as they were
woven with the other threads, in this effort now going on to
break out of the eggshell of Earth's atmosphere.

The clash between the mental images of tapestries and
eggshells was enough to rouse him momentarily from his
introspection. The image of Earth as the eggshell from
which humans as a spgcegoing race must hatch was powerful
and real enough. But it did not catch at him like the
image of the great unrolling tapestry, which now took over
his imagination again. It was real and it was there, stretching
off into eternity and infinity; and it seemed to him now
to float before and over him. He searched out again the
thread in it that was Jens Wylie, and thought he saw it
there with its part in the tapestry, whole and clear, trending
toward some certain end, interweaving with all the threads
about it; and with that thought, still imagining, still
dreaming, still tracing himself into the overall pattern, he

35


4


Fourteen levels below, on the ground floor, the cavelike
interior of the cocktail lounge was almost uncomfortably
cold. A black-haired man in his early thirties, named Malcolm
Schroeder, went toward the dimly-seen ridgeback
shape of the bar with his hands held a little before him in
automatic self-defense against obstacles. He touched the

bar, groped for a bar 'stool, and climbed on to it.
"What'd you like?"

The woman befiind the bar was also in her early
thirties and not bad-looking, but a little thin. Her dark
brown hair was cut short and curled closely about her
head and neck. She wore a short-sleeved burgundycolored
outfit, tight about the breasts and waist but
with a full, short, ruffled skirt. To Malcolm's Philadelphia
ear her voice had only a trace of southern accent. He
gazed past her at the ranks of softly-lit bottles climbing
the face of a mirror.

"Tom Collins," he said, then remembered it was only

mid-week and said, "No Beer. You've got Scnttz.
"We sure have."

She went away. His eyes were adjusting to the dimness
now. Not as thin as he'd thought. Down near the rounded
far end of the lounge, a heavy man with brown, cu?ly hair
and a tough, clown-cheerful face, about forty years old,
leaned on the bar.

"Nurse!" he cried faintly, slyly. "Oh, nurse . . ."

"Thanks," said Malcolm, smiling at her as she brought
his beer. "Got a patient down there?"

"Oh, he's one of those press people. His name's Barney
Something."

"Nurse . . . "'

36


"Press people?" said Malcolm quickly, though he knew
what she meant. Maybe it was only her way of showing
the calling man that she wasn't going to run at a word;
but it seemed to Malcolm she was inclined to linger here
with him.

"You know, newspeople," she said. "The Press Center's
just across the street."

"Oh," said Malcolm, still smiling at her, though it was
obvious she was going off now. She smiled back and went.

"Martini on the rocks again?" he heard her say to the
man named Barney.

It would not be impossible to get to know her, Malcolm
thought, looking after her. He smiled as he thought of' the
sweet deal he had worked. A whole month on his own
down here, while he settled into the new job and looked
around for a house. Myrt hadn't liked it much, but he
had pointed out that it was important to get the right
place, and you couldn't rush that. Especially, he thought,
looking again at the bartender, if you made damn sure
not to hunt too hard for it. It was too bad he. had never
been able to move fast with women. Every time he had
tried it, he had made a fool of himself. It was .a better
technique to smile and hope, anyway, he told himself. He
had a good smile, after all. He was fairly tall and not bad-

!i
	looking--still lean,, dark-haired No, smile and sit tight.
.C..a-l-l.ng out "nurse'... well maybe some could make it

He sipped his beer to stretch it out. Here, that nurse-

caller had caught her again, and she was talking and

.laughing with him. "Maybe the management required her
to put up with press people, for the sake of publicity or
some such ....

He went back to thinking. Money was the problem.
Suppose he sent a wire---better yet, called long distance---back
to their bank with something about needing
a few hundred dollars suddenly in connection with hunting
for the new house? They could take it out of the savings
account, wire it to him, and Myrt would never--no, don't

be a damn fool. Of course she would, at the end of the
month when she made the regular deposit to the account.
Besides the bank might not . . . after all, he was leaving


37

their area and .going to be switching everything to some
new bank down here, after the house was bought and he
was in the new job. They might even phone Myrt to
check, when he called them asking for the few hundred.
Wouldn't that be nice?

The bartender 'came back. There were only four other
drinkers at the bar now, all men. She began to slice some
limes by the small sink behind the bar--quite close to
Malcolm.

"Work you pretty hrd, these launches?" he said, as
sympathetically as he could.

"Not bad now. Later on--but I'm off at four. Five

through closing, it'll be a madhouse."

Four P.M.

"I can imagine, with guys like that one down there

hollering 'nurse' at you all the time."

She laughed.

"He's not that bad. Some of them--but not him. It's
just the launch, you know. Everybody thinks it's a great
thing--and it is, of course."

"I think it's a great thing, too," Malcolm said, quickly.
"When I was young I built model rockets. We had a club.
I'm being transferred to a job in Orlando, and I told myself
I had to come over and see the launch. I didn't realize
there wouldn't be any motel rooms, though. Oh, well."

"I suppose you could call it great." She finished one
lime, and started on another, the last of those she had
laid out to slice. "

."You don't... ?"

"Two, three days and then everybody's gone again. And
when's there going to be another launch? Six months? A
year, maybe? The space program was supposed to bring in
all kinds of industry and business. You see the empty
office buildings up and dowr the street out there?"

"Well, yes. But I thought people around here were all
for it."

"N0body's against it. It's just that for us it's not the
prize package it's made out to be, that's all. And what
can ordinary people like us do about it? Nothing. We just
have to live with the world they give us."

"I know what you mean . . ." he began, but she had
just finished slicing the last lime, and now she half-turned

i nuts and other solid material for drinks. The movement
'pulled her burgundy-colored dress tight against the side
of her body. Following her movement with: his eyes, with a
little shock he realized that the newsman and everyone else
in the bar had left. Freakishly, on this busy day, for a
moment they were alone together.

Now was the chance. His heart beat. Go on, you
gutless...
"It's too bad you aren't one of that press crowd," she
:'said, turning back to face him and wiping her hands on a
bar towel, "a.nd you'd print what I said. Not that you
would. Now Barney--the one who was just in here--is

I

pretty good; but most of them just want to stand around
: drinking and sending their papers the stuff the NASA
= people hand out across the street." "
[ Too late, he thought. Well, maybe it was all right, still,
[, in ,t, he long run. He smiled his best sile at her.

Y,,o.u know that's all they do don t you?" she was say[ing.
They don't even make up their own stories. The
. NASA publicity people do it for them; I could tell them a
[/ few real things to print, but they don t want to hear that

39


]

.isort of stuff."

	"I bet you could, too," Malcolm said.
	.

	"Do you know we've got twelve percent more unem
	ployment
here in Brevard County? That's nearly three

	times the national average. Money's so tight around here

	nobody'S making any of it. And this is the place they take

	off from to go to the moon and Mars, and places nobody

	ever heard of 'til twenty years ago. All right, let them.

	They can go right ahead, if that's what they want. But they

	could find some work for the local people while they're at

	it, and bring some money for the local businesses. They

	could do that if they wanted to."

	"Washington always messes up on things like that," said

	Malcolm. "In Philadelphia, where I live--"

	"Just a minute."

	She went off to serve a tall, lean man with a deep tan

i

who had just come in. To Malcolm's disgust she started
i:: talking with him and did not come back. The bar began
'' to" fill again; and soon she was busy.

Malcolm looked at the inch of flattish beer in the bottom
of his bottle. Carefully, he poured it into his glass. He
could get her attention by ordering another beer, but
there were too many people around now, anyway. And
money really was a problem. He drained his glass and
stood up. She was not even looking in his direction; and
she would not notice his going.

He went out. Outside it seemed even hotter and the
sunlight was as cruel as life in general. It was not true
that he had not been able to find a room. All the good
motels like this Holiday Inn had been sold out months in
advance. But the little independent places with no national
reservation service had not done so well. He had found a
unit--one of five behi/ad a filling station about ten miles
out on the road to Orlando; and it was even air-conditioned.
But it was a small concrete box with a single lamp
by the bed. Still, he could buy a six-pack of beer and a
paperback book and kill time fairly cheaply. It would not
hurt to drop back here at a quarter to four in the afternoon
when she got off. Anything might happen.


About the same time Malcolm Shroeder was carrying two
six-packs of Schlitz out to his three-year.old sedan, James
Brille was getting ready to leave the home of the bartender
to whom Malcolm had talked. Her name was Aletha
Shrubb, and Jim had been staying with her for eight days
now, ever since he had met her, his first evening on
Merritt Island.

Jim's appointment with Willy Fesser was for two o'clock
in the afternoon, from which Jim gathered there would be
no meal of any kind involved. Accordingly, he had just
finished a liverwurst sandwich and a bottle of root beer,
and tidied up after himself in Aletha's kitchen. He noticed

4°


now that the garbage sack was almost full. He toed the
foot lever that flipped the garbage container's top back,

lifted out the nearly full sack and tucked in

	an

		empty

			one.

The brown paper cracklcl pleasantly as he spread it out to
fill the inside of the container, and the letters ER GOOD
FOOD caught his eye for a second before they were pressed
firmly against the inside of the metal container. Jim nodded
approvingly at the letters. He liked doing things in the
house. Finished, he flipped the lid closed again and took

up the full sack. Carrying it out across the driveway to
the two garbage cans standing in the shade of a willow
tree, he waved to Mrs. Wocjek, Aletha's neighbor on the
left, who was setting out the long length of a fat green
soaker hose on her lawn.

"Takes a lot of water?" he said, nodding at the close,
bright green of the lawn.

"That's all right," said Mrs. Wocjek. "It's free."

tree.

He put the garbage in the one garbage can that was still
empty and fitted the metal cover firmly back on to it.


the handle of a faucet on a pipe that seemed to go directly
down into the lawn.

"Aletha didn't tell you?" Mrs. Wocjk said. "There's
water under all this land here. You just drill down and
tap it."

Jim was agreeably surprised. He looked with approval
at the hose, then turned his gaze back to the womz.a. Sara
Wocjek was no more than half a dozen years older than
Aletha, square-jwed, big-boned, not fat, and n.arly as
tall as Jim himself. She must be five-eight, or even nine,
Jim thought. He liked her. In fact, he liked people generally;
which was one reason he had been able to get on
good terms with most of the neighbors here, even in these
few days. The area was a bedroom neighborhood of
Merritt Island with houses now in the forty-thousand-dollar
range, but which had probably originally sold for a fifth
of that; and during the day it was populated mainly by
women and children.

"And there's enough pressure there to make it work?"
Jim asked.

"You see," Mrs. Wocjek said.

He nodded. '

"You have any luck with a job yet?" Mrs. Wocjek asked.
"I'm seeing someone today."
"Good job?"

"I don't know," he said. "You can't ever tell with
sales. I won't know until I talk to whoever it is."

"You get it, and it's a good job, you and Aletha give
us a ring. Harry and I and you two'll go out and celebrate."

"Aletha'll be ready to celebrate, anyway," he said. "I've
been on her hands some days now."
"Don't
you think.it," Mrs. Wocjek said. "It's not easy'
for someone as young as Aletha after a divorce. I wish more
of her family'd drop by and spend some time with her."

"Maybe they will," Jim said. He looked at her and she
stared back frankly and cheerfully. It was perfectly clear
that she understood Jim was not Aletha's cousin; but,
liking Aletha--and now, himdid not give a damn.

"I guess I got to go," he said. "Let you know how it
comes out."

"You do that."

He turned and went back into the house, locked the
two doors and put on his suit coat. Spreading the collar
of his yellow sport shirt above the collar of the brown sport
coat, he checked his general appearance. All in all, he was
not getting old too fast. He still had the round face and
the black, curly hair, though the hair was getting just a
bit thin. Also, his sport coat was becoming a little tight;
but the tan slacks, now that Aletha--no, it had been
Betty Rawls, last month in Houston had let them out,
they were quite loose and comfortable. He smiled at himself
experimentally in the mirror. OK--wouldn't frighten
any kids, yet. Good enough for being forty-two.

He went out to his rental car, feeling a genuine regret
at leaving. He might not be coming back. It would have
felt good to cut the grass before he took off; but that
would be going too far. Every time he did something like
that, he left a piece of himself behind.

Mrs. Wocjek was back inside her house, and none of
the other neighbors were in sight. He turned the Gremlin
into Larch Avenue, off Laburnum, and drove toward the
causeway.

His destination was at the far end of Merritt Island. He
approached it about twenty minutes later, down a winding,
two-lane asphalt road. A heavy stucco gateway with the
name "Kelly" spelled out above it in black wrought-iron
framed a single lane of asphalt leading in to a close stand
of pine trees festooned with Spanish moss. What was beyond
the trees could not be seen from the road. A sawhorse
had been set across the driveway, blocking it. Jim
pulled his car to a stop at the sawhorse, got out, saw no
one, got back inside and blew the horn of his car.

A moment later, a big, middle-aged man in white
shirt, police-style cap and olive trousers, armed with a
short-barreled revolver, came out of the trees and up to
the car. :

"Yea-ah?" he said, putting his face down to the open
window of Jim's car.

"My name's Brigham, William Brigham," Jim said. "I
think I'm expected."

"Mr. Brigham? Why, yes, sir." The man straightened.
"Straight in. You can park down by the garages, there."

"Thanks," said Jim. He watched the man lift the sawhorse
out of the way and then drove on through. Beyond
the pines, he went for a short distance through an orange
grove, its trees looking somewhat neglected, and then
through a further screen of pines, heavy with Spanish moss.
He emerged at last on a curving driveway that divided a
very large expanse of neatly mowed lawn from a massive
house of gray-brown brick. Wide steps led down from a
half-pillared porch to the driveway; and farther on were a
cluster of smaller buildings with a large circle of asphalt
before them, where several cars, newer than his, were
parked.

The lawn, he saw as he passed in front of the house, was
not as flat as it had first looked. There was a considerable
crest to it and hidden by that crest, lower down in front
of the place where the cars were parked, he discovered a
large, rectangular swimming pool, with some umbrellashaded
tables and chairs alongside. In two of those chairs
a man and a woman were sitting, doing something with
what seemed to be a stack of papers.

One of the smaller buildings, Jim saw, had a wide

door lifted, showing several more cars inside. Jim parkedI
his car beside one of those in the open circle, got out, and
looked around. There was no one about to tell him where
to go, and it seemed to him that the people at the poolside
table were looking at him expectantly.

He walked down toward them. The two turned out to be
a young man, his black hair cropped short, holding ai
pen and clipboard in his hands; and a lean, tall, still goodlooking
woman in her sixties with reddish-brown hair,
wearing a yellow lounging robe that contrasted with the
deep tan of her strong-boned face.

	"Dear lad," she said in a husky, near-baritone voice,!

when Jim got close, "who are you, anyway?"
	,

	"Bill Brigham," Jim said. "I'm here to talk to Willy

Fesser."

"Oh. Willeee," said the woman, nodding, drawing the
last syllable of the name out. She looked at the young man.
"Dear lad, where is Willy?"

The young man scowled. "
"Library,. I think," he said. He passed a paper across
to the woman. "Here's the caterer's estimate for the postlaunch
party."

	The woman took it and held it out several feet from her°

	eyes.

	"So expensive," she murmured.

	"I did my best."
	. "I
know you did. Dear lad--" She broke off, looking at
Jim again. "Didn't you hear? The library!."

Her free hand flipped at the wrist, commanding him
toward the house. He turned and went.
The front door, when he reached it, was not only unlocked
but ajar. He stepped into a high-ceilinged entrance
hall with a wide staircase at its far end. Closed, heavy oak
doors were spaced at intervals down both sides of the
hall. One of the doors opened and two slim, dark-haired
men, dressed in identical, sharply pressed white slacks and
white short-sleeved shirts, came out, arguing in Spanish.
They ignored him, going on toward the far end of the

hall where a corridor disappeared under the wide stairs.
"Hey," said Jim. "Where's the library?"

	They stopped, looked at him, considered his clothes, and

one pointed toward the third door from the entrance,
across the hall.

	"Is there, sir."

	"Thanks."

	"You welcome."

Jim went to the door and knocked on it. There was no
answer. He opened it and went in, to find a long, booklined
room scattered with sofas and easy chairs, and
Willy Fesser at its far end in a plum-colored wing chair by
a bay window, a notepad and pencil in his hands. Jim
went toward him.

	"Hello," he said.

"Sit down," Willy grunted, nodding toward a mate to
the chair he was in. He had acquired a touch of middleEuropean
accent since Jim had last seen him.

Jim sat. Willy, he saw, was showing his age. He could
not have been more than four or five years older than
Jim, but he had put on even more weight in the past nine
months than Jim had. The double-breasted dark-blue suit
he wore was creased by its tightness. Of course, thought
Jim, Willy liked to eat and Europe was full of good
restaurants. But the extra flesh was soft and sagging, and
Willy's face was drawn, rather than full. The gray hairs
combed over his balding skull no longer seemed worth the
effort of their careful arrangement.

"You've got some reason for being in the area, here?"
Willy asked.

	"I'm hunting a sales job, of course," Jim said.

"You quit that job of yours selling farm machinery in
Denver?"

"What do you think?" Jim said. "I'd leave loose ends?
Besides, I can get it back any time I want to."

"Better not," Willy said. "Better not go right back there
after this. Go some place like up the east coast and live
for a half a year or so.All right, from now on, you only
talk to me by phone."

He tore off a sheet from his notepad and passed it
across to Jim.

"Got it." Jim glanced at the notepaper and tucked it in
his pocket. I'll learn the number and get rid of the
paper. But, where'll I get in touch with you if I need you
in a hurry? Here?"


	:
	'
	45

"You don't need to know where I'll be."

"The hell I don't," said Jim. "Things happen. You know
that as well as I do."

"All right," Willy glanced out the window. Iim, looking
out also, saw the swimming pool, the baritone-voiced
woman and the black-haired man. There was also now a
figure in white slacks and shirt, offering them a tray with
glasses on it.
"All right," said Willy, again. "Here. But the Duchess
doesn't know anything about anything--you remember
that. And she actually doesn't."

?" i

"What good does that do. J m said. "Everybody knows

she rents space to anybody in the business."

"All right, she's useful," said Willy. "You never mind
about the rest of it. There's got to be some place out in
the open to talk, and she makes it with these house parties
of hers. Just follow the rules."

"It isn't as if she needs the money."

"Never try to figure who needs money," said Willy,
heavily. "You need it. That's all I want to know. Now
here's your job. The federal representative to this Expedition
business is the U.S. Undersecretary for the Development
of Space. His name's Jens Wylie. You want to put a
tap on what he says to his own people. He's staying with
the other diplomatic reps to the launch, at the Holiday
Inn. The three top floors there are all theirs."

Willy broke off, leaned sideways in his chair to enable
him to get a hand into his right trouser pocket, and came
up with a short key, which he handed Jim.

"Data, equipment," he said. "It's all there for you in
the bus station locker that this fits. Four hundred a week."

"Come on, now," said Jim. "We talked five. That's
why I left Denver."

"I'm sorry," Willy shrugged briefly. "It turns out the

money's just not there after all. Four hundred2'

Jim got up.

"I think I'll go get my job back," he said.

He turned and walked away. When he got to the door,
Willy had not stirred. He still sat in his chair, once again
writing in his notebook. Jim turned again, walked back
and sat down.

46


"Fuck you. All right," he said.

"That's good," said Willy, not looking up. "Hang on to
that bus locker key. It's a duplicate. Ater midnight, every
Saturday A.M., your money'll be there for you. Look out
for a federal security number at the motel named Albert
Gervais. He's sharper than most."

"Got it." Jim rose to his feet. He paused. "Nothing
down?"

"There'll be some expense money in the locker with
,the other stuff."

Jim nodded, turned and went out. Outside the building
the Duchess and her social secretary---or whoever--still
sat by the pool. Jim got in his car and drove slowly out
through the orange grove and past the massive gateway,
trying to make himself appreciate the fact that everything
was set.

As usual, once he was into it, he had a slightly sick
feeling in his stomach, a sort of wonder that life could
have turned out this way for him. It was the illegal part of
what he had to do that worried him. God knew it was all
nonsense--anything Willy was engaged in had to be. Jim
had never been mixed up in anything important, and undoubtedly
never would be. People like him existed only to
supply routine information for people like Willy to sell to
other people who needed it to justify themselves to other
people higher up yet. All of it done with the appropriate
cloak-and-dagger stuff, but still nonsense. Each time he
finished one of these jobs, Jim swore it was the last time.
There was almost no risk . . . but still. Things could blow
up, and he could get sacrificed--for the sake of somebody's
appearance, if nothing else. What he would be
doing was technically illegal, and.., jail would kill him. It
was not that he was not tough, in his own way. He could
still handle himself in most rough situations. But inside,
gut-wise, he was too easygoing. In a federal prison they
would find that out.

All the trouble came from the fact that, somehow, he
could not hold on to money. Sales had trained him all
wrong, he thought. He was just good enough at it to make
a steady, small living, but not good enough to make it
big. He had reached the point of just drifting. He had

47


been at that point when Willy had. contacted him the first
time, half a dozen years ago. Jim had been selling elee-

, tronics then; now he made it a point to sell anything else
but. The first time he worked for Willy had been just to
see if he could do it. After that it was for money. Not
that much money either, but more than he could pick up
selling. Each time a small stake. Enough for the moment,
but not enough to build on; so that when Willy contacted
him again some months later he was fiat and ready to try
it one more time. If only he could break it big once, if he
could just take the money this time and put it into something
that would pay as much as five times over. But h(
had tried that. All that happened was that he lost, eact
time. Better to live it up while the extra money lasted. A
least, that way he picked up a few memories.

But God, for some money . . . real money. He was no
really a criminal and criminal ways were closed to him
What he did for Willy was just nonsense. But God, fo
some real money. He wondered how much Willy had, on(
notch up from him, from brokering the information people
like Jim passed on. He wondered how much the Duches
had, moving around the world for thirty years now, runnin
a traveling flea market for all the small shady dealers ir
international politics. Enough, anyway, to rent that estat(
during this launch and throw her parties.

Or maybe they were both as broke in their own ways
Willy and the Duchess, as Jim was himself. One thing
though. If so, they were broke on higher levels than he
and he envied them that.

He headed back into the center of Merritt Island. H
could stay with Aletha safely for a while yet, he thought
One thing for sure, Willy would not actually be living a
the estate. He might have a bedroom there,-but his re
hole would be somewhere else. Willy had lied about thatafter
this many years Jim could tell when the other ma:
was lying. Willy was too old a hand to let anyone kno
where he was stashed. He took care of himself, first. Tha
meant that any hope of getting hold of him in a hurry i
things did blow up was pretty faint. Jim would be ou
on a limb by himself if anything happened; and Will
would fade discreetly into the sunset.

48


Oh well, there was nothing for it now but to play the
hand he had just bought.


As soon as he saw Jim's Gremlin pull out of sight,
Willy went to a phone on a nearby library table and
Called a cab. Forty-five minutes later he was seated at a
pay phone in the air-conditioned lobby of the motel in
which he had a room under the name of Robert K. Larsen.
He dropped a coin in the slot, punched out a number, and
listened as the phone at the other end was picked up.

"Hello," said a male voice. It was not the voice of
Walther Guenther, but Willy ignored that fact. If the PanEuropean
diplomat was not himself listening in at this
moment, he would be rehearing the conversation verbatim
within minutes.

"Hello," Willy said. "This is Alan Grover, at Overseer
Employment. I just wanted to let you know that I've already
sent out that new gardener you needed. He should
be busy at work shortly."

"I'm sorry," said the voice at the far end. "You must
have the wrong number." The line clicked and hummed,
disconnected.

Satisfied, Willy got up and headed across the lobby into
the bar.

"Yes, a martini," he said to the bartender. "Straight
up, Tanqueray, lemon twist."

When the drink came, he sipped at it gratefully. A
couple of these and then dinner, a good dinner even if it
was a little early for one. A little celebration. The wheels
were turning now. He had made certain that Guenther
was hiring him out of his own pocket. A private matter.
That meant a gamble on the part of the Pan-European
representative that might pay off in personal political
advantage back home. A little money spent on the chance
that this Wylie, inexperienced as he was, would either do
something foolish of which Guenther could take advantage,
or that the surveillance would uncover something else that
Guenther could make use of, to hint that Wylie was not
the innocuous political cardboard cutout he seemed.

That made the situation very comfortable for Willy. It
was always better to work for individuals than deal with


49

organizations. Easier to cut loose, if necessary; and there
was the long-shot chance of stumbling across some information
that would later turn out to be valuable.

At any rate, he deserved a good meal now--aside from l
the fact that if he waited until the regular hour, as a
single diner in this launch-crowded town he would have
to tip somebody out of all proportion just to get a table.


5Shortly before nine P.M., the marsnauts and their persona

guests went by VTOL aircraft from the Operations and

Checkout Building to the landing pad on the roof of the

Holiday Inn. The reception was held in the private dining

room on the ninth floor; and with security guards manning

the elevators, the guests were taken from the roof down

to it. The representatives were already there; and President

Fanzone arrived less than ten minutes later. Jens caught

Selden Rethe's eye as the President's private secretary

entered the reception room a few steps behind the stocky,

dark-haired Fanzone. Selden shook his head, briefly.

Jens felt cold. If that meant that the President had al
ready
turned him down, without excuse or explanation...

for a second he toyed with the idea of resigning. Then he

came back to common sense. Far from resigning, he

knew that he would fight to hold on to this job if anyone

tried to take it away from him. There was no need for

anyone to remind him that as a newsman-turned-diplomat

he was a paper tiger, but the Mars Expedition represented

everything in which he had ever believed and he wanted

to be part of it.

	But the reception had gone tinny and hollow on him.

	He had skipped dinner in order to spend the extra time

	with Lin; and that had been real and solid enough. But

	now, with a glass of' champagne in him that had gone

0


directly from his empty stomach to his head, he was back
in the quicksand of politics again. Standing with his
refilled glass in a corner of the reception room, he had a
moment's disorientation in which he felt like a character
in a bad play. All the other people present seemed to be
going through a ritual social dance, making expected
gestures, speaking expected commonplaces, and murmuring
expected replies.

In the midst of all this, however, he caught sight of
Wendy and Tad Hansard and the world clicked back to
reality. As he had said to Lin, she and Wendy were alike
physically; and the sight of Wendy turned the cardboard
stage figures back to flesh and blood. Returning from his
momentary slip into fantasy, he was struck with an idea.

He moved across the room and spoke quietly in Tad's ear.
"Got a second?"

Tad, a wide smile still on his tanned, wedge-shaped
face for the wife of the Air Force general to whom he
and Wendy had been talking, turned casually to face Jens.
Together they took a step away from the others, and once
again Jens was touched by a feeling of incongruity in the
fact that this man who would lead the Expedition to Mars

should be half a head shorter than himself.

"What is it?" Tad asked.

"I haven't had any luck getting t, hrough to the President
about the experiment schedule," Jens said. "Why don't

you have a shot at getting him alone yourself?"

Tad smiled bleakly.

"I don't know how to talk to a president," he said in

his soft southern voice. "How do you do it?"

"The same way you talk to anyone else."

"All right," said Tad. "But don't hope for anything. I
never made the debating society back in high school or
college."

"It isn't a debate," said Jens. "You know your business.
You're the astronaut--I mean, the marsnaut--the man
who knows. Just tell it to him like it is."

"I've got nothing to lose. So I'll try it," said Tad. His
voice sank into a drawl. "But I got a hunch it ain't a-gonna
work." The tone of his voice was light but the skin
around his eyes was drawn tight.

He turned back to the general's wife and Wendy. Jens

faded away, mingling until he found the group that included
Selden. Rethe. He stuck with them, hoping to get a
second with Selden, alone. But when the group dwindled
to four, Selden excused himself and moved away so!
abruptly that Jens could not follow without making it
obvious he was doing just that.

He kept his eye on Selden after that, and made a couple
of further attempts to get close to the man. But it becam
obvious that Selden was determined not to be trapped
any situation where Jens could speak to him privately.
Later, however, Jens caught a glimpse of Fanzone and
Tad, momentarily isolated. Tad was speaking and the President
was listening and nodding.

The reception ended at ten-thirty with a cold
supper. Jens found himself eating like a starving man;
which, he suddenly decided, he was. With food inside him,
optimism and courage returned. He was turning over in
his head several wild scenes of insisting on talking to Fanzone
before the President left, when he felt a tap on his
elbow. He turned around, still holding his fork and plate,
to look directly into Selden's face.

"If you'll step into the back room over there without
attracting attention," Selden said, "he'll talk to you after
everyore else has gone--for a few minutes."

He turned away without waiting for an answer.
stood, mechanically cleaning up the food that was left on
his plate, feeling a fierce determination and hope lift in
him. Fanzone had been nodding when he talked to Tad.
Perhaps Tad had got through to him, and this decision to
talk to Jens was to get substantiation of what Tad had said.
The argument might be won, after all.

Jens held grimly to that hope. The last five years of
statistics on world conditions had made him a believer in
the need to explore space. It was incredible how no one
else seemed to realize how a breakdown now, at this point
in the Expedition, could delay the move to space beyond
a point where it could be achieved in time to save big
trouble back here on Earth. Blindness is always the enemy,
he thought. Everyone wanting to go their own way
selfishly with business as usual--while all the time the
house was burning down around their ears. "Not I," said
the pig . . .

He did as Selden had said. Twenty minutes later the
last of the voices from the reception room faded into
silence. A moment after that, Paul Fanzone, followed by
Selden, strode into the attached bedroom where Jens had
been waiting, sitting in the room's one armchair. Selden
carefully closed the door behind them and Jens scrambled
to his feet.

Fanzone ignored the armchair. He stayed on his feet,
halting in the center of the room as Jens came up to him,
so that when Jens reached him and stopped, they stood
facing each other like two fighters in a ring.

"It's good of you to see me, sir," Jerks said. "I can't
tell you--"

"Don't thank me," said Fanzone. "You've got nothing
to thank me for."
The swarthiness of his skin, which masked the signs of
tiredness well enough from the television cameras, did
not hide them in this softly-lighted room as he stood a
few feet from Jens. Fanzone's face had sagged slightly
even in the six months since Jens had seen him to accept
the position of undersecretary. There were little heavinesses
of flesh at the corners, of his mouth and under his
eyes. Almost as tall as Jens then, he now seemed somehow
shorter; his football player's shoulders were rounded and
humped, contracting his neck and giving his head, with its
alert and questing eyes, something of the aspect of a turtle's.
For a man in his early fifties, he still looked good; but not
as good as he had six months ago.

Jens gazed at him with the old feeling of mingled respect
and sympathy. Because of Fanzone's long friendship with
Senator Wylie, Jens had known this man who was now
President since he himself had been thirteen years old.
There was no one Jens had admired more during the last
ten years. The elder Wylie had become a state governor
with wealth and family behind him to help him to almost
anything he wanted. Fartzone had made it from nowhere
to his present office solely on faith in himself and in what
he wanted to do.

"The President," said Selden, who had come up from
the closet door to join them, moving silently over the rug
of the room, "only has about a minute, Jens. This visit was
supposed to be purely social."


53

"He understands that, Se|," said Fanzone. He spoke
abruptly to Jens. "You're standing in for me. That means
you're supposed to say my words and think my thoughts.
You're not some independent liaison between me and the
'nauts."

"I realize that too, sir," said Jens. "But the Mars Expedition
itself is important to the United States; and I
thought you'd want "

He was interrupted by Fanzone's weary exhalation' of
breath. The President walked around him and sat down in
the armchair, motioning Jens to a seat on the edge of the
bed, facing the chair. Jens sat down.

"Look, Jens," said Fanzone, leaning forward in the chair.
"You're not a son-of-a-bitch diplomat. You're not a
politician. I could have had my pick of either to put in
your shoes down here. All the other nations sent experienced
people as their deputy ministers. Don't you know
why I picked some bastardly amateur, an ex-newspaperman?"

"I
understood it was because you wanted someone who
knew the press and could work with it "

"All right, that .too," said Fanzone. "But that was a
bonus. The main reason was to put a representative of
mine in with the other representatives who was obviously

some amateur none of them needed to worry about."
He looked at Jens for a minute.

"I think you knew that," he said. "But if you didn't, and
the information bothers you, Jens, it shouldn't. I'm not
suggesting you can't get the job done. I'm just saying
you're a damn amateur among professionals--put there
deliberately so that the professionals will know they don't
need to compete with you--or me."

"Yes, sir," said Jens. "I knew that. And I'm not upset
about it. I never was."

"I planned on you stumbling over your feet here a
little," Fanzone went on. "Hell, I wanted you to! Just to
reassure people like Mayence and Verigin that you
weren't a wolf in sheep's clothing. I wanted them to be
sure they had a U.S. president whom be absent from the
scene; and a U.S. undersecretary who was obviously
nothing to worry about. But do you know why I wanted
that?"

54


"No, sir," said Jens, since it was plain that was the
i answer Fanzone wanted.

"Too right you don't!" said Fanzone. "And the reason

know is because you're from our country. You're
: like everybody else. You take everything .that's American

about this mission for granted, as a natural right--just
as if we owned space personally. But if you were from
Pan-Europe or Russia, or any one of the other countries

here, you'd understand in one second. More than

:any other head of government involved here, I've got to
lean over backward to keep from looking as if I'm trying to
run things."

"I understated that, sir," said Jens. "But---"

He stopped Fanzone had risen and was striding toward
the door. Jens got hastily to his own feet.

"You tell him Sel," the President said. "And make sure
:' he understands."

He disappeared through the door.

Jens turned back to Selden Rethe with an emptiness in
him that was not helped by the food now filling him.

i

Selden had not moved from where he stood since the
president had entered the bedroom.

"The trouble is, Jens," Selden said, "you're looking
at only a corner of the picture."

"I'm looking at the lives of six men, for God's sake!'
said Jens. "I'm looking at the success or failure of the
Expedition, if they start to break down. Damn it, Sel!
Don't you realize it could actually come to that?"

"The Expedition itself's only.a corner of the picture,"
said Selden remotely, his voice unchanging. "You heard
the President tell you we have to lean over backward to
keep from looking as if we're running the Expedition. It's

how the whole thing looks that's important."

Jens looked at him for a moment.

"You can't mean that," he said. "That looks are the
first thing."

"Of course I mean it."

'"You talk--" said Jens, and found his throat was dry.
He swallowed and began again. "You talk as if there's.
nothing to this but politics."

"In a sense there isn't," Selden stood, watching him.
"It's international politics, of course, which isn't anything


55

like the politics of the newspaper cartoons, or the election
speeches, or the stage shows that have fun with what goes
on in Washington. You may think the Expedition's a great
thing, Jens--"

"I do," said/ens.

"Well, you're wrong then," Selden said. "The great
thing is setting, up alliances here on Earth so people can
work together to survive. I know it makes very pretty
reading, how we need to do things like study the sun from
space and come up with fusion power before we run out of
fuel, and so on. But that sort of thing's only read by a
small bunch of intellectuals and scientists. Most people
aren't interested in hearing about an energy crisis until their
lights go out and there's no fuel for the fire."

"Look," said Jens, "I know what you're .talking about,
Sel. I've been around Washington myself for ten years,
remember? But it's too late for playing politics, even international
politics, at this point."

"No," said Selden. "At any point, we have to be practical.
We've got to deal for example with the woman who
isn't interested in pollution until the food she buys poisons
her children; or she goes to the supermarket and there's
nothing there for her to buy at all. Don't tell me that most
of the people in the world don't have supermarkets, because
that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about
a sort of attitude that's common in all., populations. Most
people are people who want practical answers, because
their first impulse after ignoring oncoming trouble is to
turn around and shoot the first person they can put the
blame on, once they've admitted the trouble's there. The
'nauts and people like you, Jens, might be able to afford
having stars in your eyes. The rest of us have to be hardheaded
and realistic."

"Damn it, but I'm being hardheaded and realistic!"
said Jens. "The Expedition's got to work to make the sort
of working together you talk about work!"

"Hopefullyr yes," said Selden. "But there's really nothing
you or I can do about the Expedition being a success.
That's up to the marsnauts. Our job is to concentrate on
keeping the lid on here at homeRand that's not easy. As it
happens, the governments cooperating in this effort are


56

all under a great deal of pressure, economically and otherwise,
on their home fronts right now. If we could have
handpicked the time of the launch, things might have been
a good deal easier, politically. But we're tied to this
launch window because the scientists and engineers say

SO'

"You mean, because a moment when Earth, Mars, and
Venus are all going to be lined up just right only comes
when the planets make it available," said Jens. "Let's not
put it on the scientists and engineers."

"Put it any way you want," said Selden. "I'm trying to
talk sense to you, Jens, but you're making it very difficult.
The fact remains that this launch comes at an awkward
time, internationally. Landing on Mars won't butter anyone's
bread immediately. But the chance to demonstrate the
role we can play in international cooperation could lead to
new agreements, a breakthrough--a new world alignment
that could lead in turn to a cutback on defense cost and
more butter for everybody the day after tomorrow."

"And what about next week? What about next month,
next yearM" Jens broke off. It was no use, with Selden.
Jens was wasting his breath and as well risking the loss
of this job he still wanted.

"We'll always have crises, of course," Selden was saying.
"And we'll meet them as they come up, naturally.
That's the cross governments have to bear. Of course, we
all like to dream of the far future; but some of us have to
deal with the present and that includes you, Jens. The
facts right now are that the President can't afford to look
as if he's using U.S. muscle on the other cooperating

members, over some little thing like this scheduling."
Jens stood, empty of words.

"He really feels you're the right man for the spot here,
you know, Jens," said Selden. "I think so, too. But he
needs to feel you understand the real priorities. Now, I
believe you do. But I want to be able to go to him and
tell him you do. Can I?"

:. There it was, in a nutshell. Everyone--and that meant
everyone--was washing their hands of the work overload
problem. The message to Jens was plain--do the same or
turn in his papers. No! There was a bitter taste in his


57

mouth. He would hang in
eating crow, here and n
grimly. All God damn right

"Of course you can," h
stay calm. "I goofed, askiJ
I can see that now."

"Then there's no problerr
He turned a little toward
"Don't get the idea there
being concerned about the 1
just that the suggestion ca
that now?"

"I see that," said Jens.
sour in his stomach.

"Good. There's nothing
problem; it's just a matter
right people, at the right ti

"Of course," said Jens.
himself and Selden fell in
passed through it into the
its many tables thickly litt
and fruit and emptied chan

"You know, Jens," said
the front door of the sui
That's the real reason he
someone he could count or
obvious instruction all the
you most of your life, he's
He knows your instincts
what I mean?"

"Sure," said Jens.

He thought of the man
father had been in the go
Fanzone had been the bra
If Fanzone had known Jens
Jens had also been acquain
to know the other equally
sure there was a sincere
dedication of someone who
for a purpose. But that had
a distance. Now they were
and standing close enough t

there at any cost, including - "At the same time," said Selden, "as the chief executive
ow. All right, thought Jens he has to do what the conditions call for and he needs
.!
.. people who'll follow him without question. He doesn't have
e said. He forced himself to time to stop and explain every step of the way to those of
ag to talk to him about this. i us who fetch and carry for him." ..


, said Selden.

the door of the room.

was anything wrong with your
Expedition, Jens," he said. "It's
a't originate with us. You see


The food he had eaten was



wrong with pointing out a
of making sure it's done by the


He stepped toward the door
alongside him after they had
now-empty dining room with
:red with the remains of cakeI

apagne glasse, s.

Selden, as they went toward
re, "the President trusts you.!'
put you in here. He needed'.
t to do the right thing without
time; and because he's known!
been sure you'd do just that.!.
are sound. You understandi


he had known since his own!

"No," said Jens.

They went out, with Selden carefully shutting the door
behind them, into the corridor which was icy cold from
the air conditioning and very clean.


7


,ernor's office in St. Paul, andI lounge and found a seat at the curving bar. Again, lucky.

nd new state attorne eneral Most of t e

	"
	Y g
	f
	" h people here must still be trying to get fed in

long enough to know him well, f the dining room. Another hour and they would be three

ted with Fanzone long enough deep, at least, around the bar. Right now there were half a

e,ll;,and Jens had. always be.ent dozen seats empty.

aeaication in tlae.man'. .the: The night bartender was some ten years younger than

believed in giving hs hfetme F Aletha Shrubb.

	been looking at Fanzone from
	"Nurse," called Barney when she came by. "My medica
	down
in the trenches togetherl
	tion, nurse, pleasev'

o smell each other s sweat.
		She laughed as he went past to serve the drink she was

	1


Barney Winstrom, head of the camera team for the Southwest
Cable TV Network, came back to Merritt Island
after checking the power lines running out to the van
parked in the vehicle lot below the press stands; and after
some searching, he found a parking spot at the motel. It
was the Holiday Inn just opposite the Press Center, and,
like all the large chain motels, was jammed when a launch
was imminent. The only reason Barney and his team had
rooms here was because Southwest Network had some
local clout. Even six months before, all room reservations
here had technically been filled.

He left the panel truck and, entering the Inn, glanced at
his watch. Only a little after ten. He turned into the cocktail



carrying, then came back to make him a martini on the
rocks.

"Don't you get tired of that?" she asked when she
brought it to him.

"My medicine? Of course I do," said Barney. "But
know it's good for me, so I take it anyway."

She laughed again. She was small, blonde, and good
looking, without being pretty enough to trade on her looks
for a better job than this. She had the unfettered laugh of
a sixteen-year-old, Barney thought, suddenly hearing again,
the laughter of Jessa, who would be eighteen now, but!
whom he had not seen in three years, since Wilma had
taken herself and the two kids to live in Spain.

"You drink too many of those you'll see how good it is
for you."

"Never," said Barney coming back to the present, tO wink
solemnly at her. "Only what the doctor prescribes."

She was called away. There was a man in a green cloth
jacket helping her bartend, but Barney noticed that she was
still serving three-quarters of the customers in the chairs
on either side of him, as well as the table waitresses' station.

He sipped the martini, which tasted like all other martinis,
and tried to see himself between the bottles hiding the
mirror behind the bar shelf. He could catch a glimpse of
brown curly hair and a section of incipient double chin--
that was all. However, his eyes were now adjusting to the
dimness of the cocktail lounge and he looked around the
curve of the bar. Beyond the man in the chair at his left
was an empty seat and beyond that his eyes collided with
those of a dark-haired woman in her late twenties, smoothly
dressed and with a good body, if a little cold of face.

Hooker, Barney thought automatically. As if he had said
the words aloud, she turned her face abruptly away from
him. He ran his eye over the rest of the bar and saw no
familiar features no faces of newspeople, anyhow.

The martini was beginning to spread its soothing fingers
through his insides. Relaxed, he picked up the sharp odor
of sweat from the man on his left. He looked and saw that
his neighbor, a slim, black-haired, thirtyish man in a gray
suit, was rolling his empty Schlitz beer bottle back and
forth between his palms and sneaking occasional glances


60

across the space of the empty seat between him and the
dark-haired woman.

i The sight saddened Barney, because it occurred to him
automatically that once it would have irritated him. If the
sucker w,a, nted her, Barney would have told himself then,
why didn t he just move over and tell her so? But that was
the way he would have reacted, wa,tching them in his
!twenties. Now he was wiser. He himself had got over being
self-conscious by the time he was in tenth grade; but now,
: nearly thirty years later, was aware that most of the men
and women in the world never did. It was the reminder of
his own advancing age that saddened him.

Well, well . . .

i. The martini was almost gone from the ice in his lowball

glass. He picked up the olive to eat it before ordering
another, and felt a tap on his right shoulder. He turned.

"Jens, you old bastard!" he shouted delightedly, dropping
'the ohvc back m the glass. He remembered suddenly to
lower his voice. "Who let you out of the cage? Don't you
i know you diplomatic fairies aren't allowed out without an

-9escort.

They gripped hands. '

I "Nobody worries about me in my off hours," said Jens.
"Look, Barney, one of your engineers up in your,s,u.ite told

me I might look for you down here, if you weren t out at
the press ite. Got a minute?"
i "Hell, I got the whole night," said Barney. "Just a
i second."
He turned back to the secretly sweating individual on his
!left.

f "Excuse me," he said loudly, breathing in the man's ear,
I "would you ,,m, ind shifting over one seat so I can talk to my

i friend, here?'

"What? Oh. Why, yes." The other glanced at him
startledly, suspiciously. "Not at all. That's all right."

He moved. Half-grinning, Barney looked after him for a
second.

"Sit down, Jens," he said, turning his head back. "What'll
you have? Nurse!"

. "Anything," Jens said. The bartender was coming up
inside the bar.


6I

"Nurse," said Barney. "More medicine for me. And
dose of the same for my friend, here."

"Christ, no! Sorry, Barney," Jens said. "It's a goc
thought but I've just finished being floated in champagl
at an official dinner. Make it Scotch and water."

"One Scotch and water, one medicine," said the ba
tender, turning away.

"Such gentle hands," Barney crooned to her departit
back. He turned to Jens once more. "What's up? You ju
decide to take the rest of the evening off?"

"Would you have a match?" the dark-haired woman
• already throatily asking the nervous, black-haired man. I

fumbled in his pockets.

"Not exactly," said Jens. "I've got a favor to ask of yc
There's a girl named Lin West I'd like you to gi?ve a ride 1
o.ut to the press site tomorrow in the van."

"Van's already out there and wired in," said Barn
"That's why I just came back from the site. But ther,
other wheels. She got a press pass, or do'we have to ta
her in under a tarpaulin?"

"Don't worry about that," said Jens. "She's with N(
Worm magazine, down to do a feature on the wives of t
'nauts."

"We can take her out in the panel," said Barney. "Or
that'll be leaving here about nine in the morning, so S
better be good at getting up early. Just tell her which o
rooms are, here. She can knock on any of thethree door.'

"Thanks, Barney," said Jens. He gulped hastily at 1
drink.

"Sow down;' said Barney, watching him. 'Sit and tal'
spell. Didn't I always tell you, never rush your drinkil
Only amateurs rush their drinking, a[raid it'l art be g(
before they can get their share. Later on you learn the
always somebody to buy you a drink. It's getting someb
to buy you a meal that's hard. Sit and tell me how
going. How do you like it up there where the air's thin
expensNe?"

J'ens let his weight settle back in the' bar seat. The b
of it pressed against the lower part of his spine soli,
almost comfortingly.

"It's great to be part of this thing," he said. "It reall)
Barney."


62

believe you," said Barney, and broke off to beam at
the bartender, who had just come up to deliver another
round of drinks. "Just in time. I could feel a seizure coming
on."

If.
	she said tolerantly.

	Barney

	watched her move off for a second.

"I believe you," he said again. "But what I asked you was

how you like it up around the smell of Fanzone's cigars."
"I'm not actually around the smell of his cigars," said
Jens. "This is .my beat, here. I've only been in the White
House twice; once when I was hired, and one other time."
"But you see the man."

"Occasionally, when he comes down here. Usually, the
only one I see or talk to is State Department or Selden
Rethewand I do that mostly on the phone."

"Rethe?" said Barney, sipping his martini. "He's a coldassed
bastard."

"Why," said Jens, look'ng at him, "what did Sel ever do
to you?"

"Nothing," said Barney, "I never let him get dose
enough to do anything. I just don't like cold-assed bastards."
He took a little more martini.

"Bastards," he said lightly, "yes. Cold-assed bastards,

rio."

He had said more than he had meant to, but he thought
he could count on ],ens not to press it; and, sure enough,
Jens shifted conversational ground.
It s hard to tell, sometimes, Jens sad, slowly, 'who s
hlIy running the show. That's the otxl¥ rel
[ job like I've got now."

|"Shouldn't be hard," said Barney. "There's only one boss
| running the show. There's only been one boss since the
| world began: The general public."

Jens shook his head.

I
	"I used to think that," he said. "I know better now. The

' public's too far away from the power seat. A small handful
of people really rur things. The only question is which one
of them is actually in charge at any one time."

"Bearcrap," said Barney. "Those characters of yours get
to pull the wires for a little while, but either things work
out or they don't. If they work out, they get to stay a little
while longer and pull. If things don't work out, the public


			63

efitS them for breakfast. I don't care if it's a democracy,
republic, a Soviet, a commune, a what-thehellyou-wan
When things go wrong, everybody else eats the bosses fol
breakfast."

He sat for a second.

"Timber wolves do it, too," he said, "when game run
out. It's an instinct in us animals."

"Tell me," said Jens, "from what you've seen of it, how'
the general public taking this Expedition to Mars?"

"It's a piece of candy," Barney said. "It's a circus. The
like it."

"No, Barney," said Jens, "you know what I mean."
"All right," said Barney. "Three-quarters of the people
in the world either aren't hearing about this or are too busy
keeping themselves alive to pay any attention. Of the other
quarter, ten percent are against it as a waste of money or
effort, or something man wasn't meant to do, and fifteen
percent are caught up in the idea; only less than five percent
of those have really got some understanding of what's
going on. Of c6urse, even down at five percent you're
talking in the hundreds of millions and it's true that it's out
of that same five percent that your wire-pullers come, an
ninety-nine percent of those that run the machinery and th,
economies."

Jens shook his head, but said nothing.

"Damn it, Jens!" said Barney. "What do you want?
know you think this space thing's a necessary step; an
maybe I feel the same way about it. But what we think 0
feel isn't going to matter, because it's not going to work

They're going to mess it up. You can count on it."
"Not necessarily," said Jens.

"Yes, neqessarily! Anything like this always gets messel
up. It has to, because the machinery that's supposed
make it work is always out of whack one way or another
It's always got crooked cogs and bent wires in it, so it enc
by chewing up what it's supposed to produce instead
turning it out whole. Ever see a camel--"

"I know," said Jens. "A camel is a horse designed by
committee."

"Dead right!" said Barney. "And a committee's a sweet.
running piece of machinery compared to any government,
let alone six governments trying to work together."

"Maybe," said Jens. "But they don't have to always go
wrong. Maybe this is the one time the odds will pay off and
things go right."

"No, it won't," said Barney, shaking his head. 'qt can't.
You tell yourself that, Jens, you're letting yourself, in for
getting kicked in the teeth when it does go down the drain."

He stopped talking, emptied his glass, and catching the
eye of the bartender, held up one finger.

"Now there you go," he said. "Getting me to talk
seriously."

"I guess you're right," said lens. "Well, I asked the
question."

"You did at that," said Barney. "Well, it doesn't hurt to
be serious now and then, just so it doesn't get to be a habit
--thank you, nurse. And one more Scotch and water for
my friend, here."

"No thanks," said Jens, finishing his glass. "I've got to
get going."

"Right," said Barney. "Look, after the launch let's get
together sometime for an evening and talk."

"I'd like to do that. In fact, I'd like to sit around and
talk now."

"Somebody waiting?" asked Barney--and then wished
he had bitten his tongue off before he said it.

...	"You
could say that," said Jens, grinning tiredly.

	He got down from his seat.

"Thanks for the drink, Barney," he said. "And the
seriousness. I'll see you before too long."

"Live well," said Barney, and watched him go out of the
cocktail lounge.

Of course there was somebody waiting for him, Barney
thought. It would be this Lin West, no doubt; and nobody
to deserve it more. But what was getting into him, that he
couldn't keep his mouth shut? It couldn't be the martinis,
after all these years. The funny thing was, he'd known he
shouldn't say it even before he had opened his mouth, and
then he'd gone ahead and said it anyway. Giving himself
away, giving himself away...
It was the bit of remembered poetry that had made him
blurt it out like that--the .tear-jerking lines that had
jumped into the front of his mind the minute Jens had
talked about going. He had almost quoted it to Jens.


	F.c.c
		65

to himself now, under his breath, the couplet from Kip
ling's McAndrews' Hymn:


, There's none at any port for me, by driving

fast or slow,

Since Elsie Campbell went to Thee, Lord, thirty

years ago...


Not that Wilma had gone to any Lord. She had takeni
the girls and gone to.Reno, and then to Seattle, and then t0I
Spain... well, it didn't matter. In an age of poetry, unlikei
this twentieth century, there might have been room for from
more bad poet. Then everything might have been differen

for him. Maybe.
	from

	Hell, he was getting maudlin. He shook the mood

him.

"More medicine?" asked the bartender, stopping in fron
of him. The bar was jammed now; there was perspiratio
on her upper lip, and it was good of her to ask.

"No thanks, nurse," he said. "I've had my dose for now
Thanks anyway."

She went off. He looked after her. It was pleasant, kid
ding with her; but he didn't want anything more than that
Not tonight, anyway. And besides, she was too damt
young. He got down from his seat at the bar.

He would go upstairs and let the engineers chew on him
for a while with their own worries about the cameras an
equipment and everything else to do with tomorrow. I
would be another kind of medicine.


Seated at a desk under the bright lights of the lobby.
floor motel room that had been set aside for security head
quarters, Albert Gervais had neatly laid out before hi
two sheets of cardboard cut from a box of typewrite
paper, a roll of Scotch tape, a stapler, and a heavy manil
envelope. At his elbow was a small green paper sack witt
the three-planets emblem for the Mars Expedition printe(
in white on it.

He reached for the sack and upended it on the desktop
sliding two identical paper knives into view. They wer

66


eight inches long with black plastic handles. Printed on
one side of each handle in silver were the words Kennedy
Space Center and on the other the silver outline of the
paired shuttlecraft.

He took one of the knives and fastened it to the center
of one of the cardboard sheets with short strips of the tape.
His long brown fingers were delicate and precise in their
movements. When the paper knife was securely fastened,
he laid the other cardboard sheet on top of it and stapled
the two together with staples driven in around the four
edges. Then he put the stapler aside, took a slim silver pen
from the inside pocket of his suitcoat and wrote on the
top piece of cardboard:


Ronny:

A souvenir of the Mars Expedition, ]or you to keep.

Your loving Father


He signed the note, slid the card with the paper knife
between them into the manila envelope, sealed and stamped
it with stamps from the desk drawer, and addressed it to
his home post office box in New Orleans. He picked up the
other paper knife, held it for a second thoughtfully, then
pushed it unwrapped into the inside breast pocket of his
suit coat. He was busy putting the Scotch tape and stapler
away When Kilmartin Brawley, one of the agents on the
night shift, came into the office.

"I thought you went off duty," Brawley said. He had a
faint Maine accent.

Gervais finished clearing the desktop and looked up at
the square form of this young man, whom some day soon
he must get rid of.

"I had a few things to take care of," he said. "How's it
going?"

"Quiet. Want to make a check?"

"No." Gervais shook his head. "They're all in, aren't
they?"

"Yes," said Brawley, then added, "--except Wylie."
"Wylie?" Gervais sat for a moment, perfectly immobile
with his hands relaxed on the desk, thinking. "Go see if he
ca in while you've been talking to me here."


	67

"He couldn't have. I just left the lobby--"

"Go look."

Brawley went out. He came back less than a minute

and said, "He must have walked in the second I left. He'
up in his suite now, with that chick."

"If they've got clearance, they aren't chicks," said
vais. "Does the book show he said where he went, when
he went out?"

"He didn't leave word, evidently."

"Yes." Gervais got to his feet. "I'll be in at oh-eighthundred.
Try and get him to say where he's going, after

this. And Kil--"

"What?"

"Leave the local punks alone. Save your fun and games
for when you're off duty and back in Washington."

Brawley stared back, across the room. He was a young,
stocky man with a boyishly cheerful face that now looked
slightly sullen.

"What d'you mean?" he said. "You know I'm

now."

"I've heard that before, too," said Gervais. "I know
much marriage means to you left-handers, whether it's the
real thing or your version. Besides, that's something else

jou'd be marter not to rueutton out .oud around here."
"I tell you, you've got nothing to worry about!"

"I'd better not," said Gervais, unexcitedly. "The next
time the local law calls me about some half-dead dickybird,
I'm going to leave your white ass high and dry for them to
come along and collect. I've already made sure we can cut
you off safely from this end if we have to---a word to the
wise."

He got to his feet and went out, humming to himself
almost inaudibly under his breath. Outside the motel and
a block down, he stopped at a mailbox to post the paper
knife. He went on to a short order restaurant and turned
into the parking area around it. There was a waiting.line
and it was a few minutes before his turn came with
hostess.

"How many in your party?"



	"Two," he said.

She led him to one of the booths; then, turning, saw
was alone.


68 '

:.
	"I thought you said two?"

"Someone's meeting me here." Gervais smiled at her.
"He'll be along any minute."
"Well..." She hesitated. "Singles are supposed to go to

	the counter."
	..

	"He'll be along," said Gervais.

	"Well . . . all right."

" She went off. He sat down and the teenaged waitress

bro,ght him a menu.

f 'Iced tea," he said, glancing at it. "And the fried clams

'on the dinner. Does the fish chowder come with that?"

"No,!t's extra," said the waitress.

"Ithink I'll have it anyway. Oh, by the way," said
Gervais. "Somebody's meeting me here and he ought to
be along in a minute or two, but would you start me with
,the, iced tea and soup, now?"

.
	'Sure would," said the girl, and went off.

Left alone, Gervais took out his address book, flipped
through it and got up to go over to a pay phone on the far


"Operator," said a voice.

"I'd like to make a collect call, please," he said. "Station

	to station. My name's Jackson."

"One moment."

After a second there was a chime-tone at the far end, but
the screen still remained blank.
i "This is long distance," said the operator. "I've got a call

	for anyone from Mr. Jackson."

'I'll take it. Hello," said a man's voice.

"It's me," said Gervais. "Who've you got immediately,
at home right now, in Merritt Island, Florida?"

There was a short wait, then the voice spoke again.
"Try four six eight, three four seven two."

The line went dead. Gervais fished out the dime the long
distance operator had returned and used it to reach the
number he had just been given. The phone chimed several
times, was answered and for several seconds the screen
remained blank and silent before a man's tenor voice spoke
tentatively.

" 'Lo?"

L "This is Jackson," said Gervais. "I'm at a place called

I!y

he Island Kitchen. Get over here as fast as you can."

	"I .....

	" the voice wobbled. "How I ."

"Tell the hostess when you get here that you're meetinl
a friend; and he's already here, holding a booth down fo
the two of you." i

Gervais hung up and went back to the booth. He had
just finished eating when the hostess brought to the booth
a thin, nervous-looking black man well past his forties.
She went away and the thin man slid into the booth facini
Gervais.

"You've got a car?" Gervais asked, spooning up the lastI
of the chowder.

	"Pickup."
	i

	"All right. There's a place toward the bottom end of

	Merritt Island, called the Kelly Estate--you know about


	"Everybody know that place."

"Good." Gervais studied him for a moment. "I want
photographs of everyone who goes in and out of that place

in the next few days. You get them for me."

	"Hey. How I--"

"Get yourself a camera. Try not to take their picture
around there if you can help it. Follow them somewher,
else and snap them anyplace but close around the Kell'
place if it's possible."
	Gervais looked at the other thoughtfully.

"Find somebody who'll develop them for you while yc
wait. Then, every day about six, you bring the finished
prints in an envelope to the Holiday Inn and leave the
envelope at the desk there with the name of Jackson
printed on the outside. That's all. You understand? Any
questions?"

"Hey . . ." The man stared at him for a long moment.
"Hey, but what f'me?"

"What for you?" Gervais smiled a little and leaned for.
ward across the table. "You do a good job and I'll give a
good report on you to some people in Willermore, so
maybe you don't have to go back there, you get a little out

of line. What did you expect?"

	The thin man swallowed.

"I got to take time off work. Then there's the money for
gas--"


70

' "So you take off from work," said Gervais, still smiling,
"and you find money for gas. And you be there tomorrow
morning--won't you?"

The other swallowed once more, swallowed a third time,
and nodded.

"Good," said Gervais. He pushed the menu across the
table. "Order something and eat. Better pick what you can
afford. You're paying for that yourself, too."

He got up from the booth, picked up his check and
walked toward the door. After paying the check, he
stepped outside into the hot night air. As he got into his
car, he thought with a certain amount of satisfaction of the
wheels he had just now set in motion. There would be
nothing important going on out at the Kelly mansion. But
there would be something he could use; and anything at
all would make a beginning, a start to serve his purpose.
There was always something going on; and when that
something was known, it could always be made to serve a
purpose.


Wendy Hansard came awake without rousing Tad, who
continued to sleep quietly beside her, and lay there looking
at the unfamiliar darkness of the ceiling in the room of the
Operations and Checkout Building, remembering something
her grandmother had said.
"You must like lumps in your bed or you wouldn't have
made it up that way."

Wendy had reinade her bed after hearing that, without
lumps; but the words had stayed with her. Now they were
back in her mind again. She must like her life the way it
was, or she would not have made it this way.

Certainly there had been nothing deliberately hidden


7

about Tad, or about what she would be getting into, wheni
she married him. She had known what he was like thenl
and liked him as he was. Tom, now thirteen, was going to
be just like his father, a dedicated adventurer. But ani
adventurer with a purpose. Cassy, younger than Tom,

more level-headed. She was less likely to gamble everything
on one strong impulse; and little Jimmy was going to
be different from his father and his sister and his older
brother. He was more sensitive and cautious, more internal
in his dealings with life.

Perhaps the same sort of terrible determination that was!
in his father would surface eventually in him, too. But for

•

the present, at six, he showed none of it. It was ewdencei
of how Wendy had matured in the fifteen years since she!
had married Tad that she now appreciated how deep thati
determination ran. While she had known of it in the be.I
ginning, she had not really measured it--necessarily, be.i
cause it was something so foreign to her own nature. Shei
could be devoted enough to the things that mattered to her.I
But Tad's utter commitment to an abstract idea, the near-I
deathwish urge in him to give everything for an idea or

cause that was such a part of his nature and could never!
be a natural part of hers, was something which all heri
efforts to understand had been able to bring her only t0i
acknowledge, not to accept.

Lying awake with her thoughts, she faced at last thei
direction in which they were taking her. There had been]
a darkness alongside everything in her mind these last fevi
months, a shadow she had resolutely refused to look at

even admit was there. But time had run out and there wasi
no ignoring its presence any longer. Now, she found herselfl
turning squarely to face it; and the facing after all broughti
a feeling almost of relief.

She had seen Tad go into many things that were dangerous,
particularly in his test-pilot days. She had lived
through them and stood up early to the understanding that
at any of these times an accident could happen. Suddenly,
all at once it could be over--all the years she had had with
Tad, all the children had had with him. It could happen as
abruptly as the fire had on the Apollo One training mission,
when three astronauts like Tad had died in seconds. It
could erupt as unpredictably and unpreventably as the

i blowout of the overpressurized oxygen tank that had
threatened to kill the men of Apollo Thirteen out in the
ocean of space between Earth and moon.

But such possible strokes of fate she had learned to live

i with. What she now faced fully for the first time, as she
turned at last to go down into the dark chasm that had been
waiting for her these past weeks, was something much
harder to accept. It was something she could not be sure
!that she would ever be able to live with. It was not the
i thought that some deadly accident might suddenly take
!"Fad from them all. But that Tad, this man sleeping beside
her, the father of her children, might in answer to the
terrible urge for commitment inside him deliberately and
,' :almly choose to walk into death for the sake of one of


those abstract causes--this space-wish for which he lived.
i She had to accept that now, because it was no longer
i only in Tad that she could see it. The same trait was visible

i in all the astronauts. They were all, in some way, a breed
apart. She had not believed this about Tad--she had re
fused to believe it--until this Mars Expedition had forced
l'her to face it during the last half-year. Before then she
had clung to the notion that what she saw in him and the
!rest of them was a function of the similarities in their
backgrounds, the fact that almost all of them had been

'i pilots, that a certain body type found it easiest to qualify
physically for space, that these and other things in the
particular culture that was America made them alike in

!'that particular way she sensed but shied away from naming.
Then this international Expedition became a reality, and
she could no longer fool herself. It did not matter where
they came from, what language they spoke, what their
individual histories were. They were all 'nauts--and that
meant they were different from everyone else in this one
!undeniable way. They all had something no one else on
i. Earth had--the real chance to go where no one else could;
i: and that chance had stolen them from the common pattern
.of humanity. They alone were different. Their scale of
values was not the scale everyone else used; and they would
do things for other reasons. So open-faced, so normal and
everyday as soup, as they all appeared to be--still they

were not so at all. They had given themselves to something
i: no one else had; and now what mattered so much to the

73

rest of the world mattered little or nothing to them,
pared to their own special dream. Their eyes looked
ward, and would not be turned back. She knew them
. . and she knew Tad at last.

Her knowledge of him was certain. If the proper
bination of circumstances should put themselves to
thn his response would be a foregone conclusion.
would not think of her or the children at that time, or
he thought of them at all, the thought would not be
to hold him back from self-sacrifice. The cruelty of
decision, the robbery of her and the children that
self-sacrifice would be, was what she had been avoiding
her thoughts all this time since it had become certain
Tad would not merely be one of the men on this ex
tion, but would be senior captain. Because it was
position of responsibility that increased the chances of
situation in which he might do what she feared.

He would leave her. He had already left her, never
return. She was abandoned, with their children--and sf
had no faith in her own courage now that she was
irrevocably alone.

She lay on her back in the darkness, dry-eyed, staring
the shadow-bound ceiling and feeling the knowledge
was inside her like a sharp-edged chunk of somethir
heavy, unnatural and undeniable. Beside her, after a
while, Tad stirred, muttering something sleep-distorted
unintelligibility, reaching out to her.

She turned to look at him; and saw his face blurred
the darkness. The hardness inside her was suddenly r
there. It had not evaporated. It would be back. But
the moment it was no longer there. Automatically,
put her arms around him.


Aletha Shrubb woke thirsty a little after midnight.
was the wine they had drunk at the Wocjeks' after
back from dinner. She got up without disturbing Jim
put on her green robe. Going into the kitchen, she filled
tall glass at the sink with cold water, drank it down,
filled the kettle and put it on to boil.

While the water heated, she sat down in a chair at
kitchin table. It was only at odd times like this when
woke in the middle of the night, or found herself alone ¢

74


ia Sunday morning, that she made tea. Normally she was a
coffee drinker. But tea had been a medicine and a sort of
symbol for everybody in her family, back home. Something
!for sleep. Something for private, quiet personal times when
ithe doors were locked and the cat put out for the night.

i She sat waiting for the kettle to boil, not really thinking.
After several minutes, a few wisps of steam began to come
from the kettle's capped spout, and shortly after that the
first thin reedy sound of the whistle that was built into the
cap began to sound. She got up and took the kettle off the
iburner before the whistling could sound through the house
and wake Jim.

She put a teabag in a cup, filled it and took it into the
!living room, turned on the light by the green armchair and
settled down into its slightly hollowed, overstuffed cushions.
She was still not thinking. There was a peace in her; and

she wanted the peace to stay, holding her as long as
tpossible. For the moment the world was all it should b,e.
She was private, but not lonely. She could feel Jims
presence now under her roof, like the fire in a fireplace,
warming her; and at the same time, without his knowing
it, she was off by herself in her own world.

She looked at the room about her in the soft lamplight.
The carpet, the pictures on the wall, the furniture, were all
hers and all familiar. She wrapped the sense of the room
around her like a warm quilt as she sat sipping the hot tea.

Enclosed and protected here, by the hour and by what
was all hers, she began to think, finally. But her thoughts
were slow, easy, without pain or hurry.


She had not told herself any fairy stories about Jim. She
was old enough now to be unable to believe in such selfmade
dreams, anyway. She had learned to accept the good
things that came along in the same way she had learned to
live with the bad. When things got mean, you waited them
out. Then, when things were good, you could let yourself
enjoy them all the way, without stirring into them the
bitter taste of the bad that might happen afterwards.

Sitting in the chair, she pictured Jim as he would be now,
leeping in the bedroom. It was a special small pleasure to
imagine him, knowing she could go and find him there if
she wanted. He would be lying on his side, sleeping quietly
in pajamas a little too small for him, small enough so that

the pajama jacket rode up on his chest and his stoma,
showed, flattened out against the surface of the bed. T
sight of that stomach moved Aletha almost more powerful
than anything else about him. She had an impulse to p
it tenderly, as she might have been tempted to pat a bab
bottom. So far in the time she had known him, she
held herself back from doing so, not wanting to wake hi
But someday she would be there when it was time for J
to get up anyway, and she would be able to give in to
urge with a clear conscience. That is, provided he stay
around long enough for her to have the chance.

Because she knew him for what he was, she knew
would be no use trying to hold on to him if he decided
leave. He was too good to be true, in bed especially. Son
one like that had known too many women to be t
settling-down kind. Either he would finally want tO m
or things would happen to move him, because he was
sort of person he was. There would be no point in
trying to move with him, either. Aletha had seen men
him before; and whether they made their lives do to th
what their lives did to them, or whether it was that tt
lives did it to them because they were the people tl
were, did not matter. The point was that in the end tl
moved on, or were moved on, and the result was the sat
Anyone having to do with them was left behind.

She was one of those who knew that she did not cont
--one of the people life handled, instead of letting itself
handled by them. She knew it and she did not compl
about it much, or often. But at moments like this, w[
she thought of loving something or someone like Jim,
unfairness that she should be so helpless came on her
a keen inner-body pain.

Why should it be that people such as she should
have a right to make their own happiness? The pain'
on her now, but resolutely she pushed it back. Time eno
for that when it came, she told herself, grimly. Now
not yet that time. Now was good. Enjoy it while it was h,


Lin West was also awake, thinking.

Jens had come back to the motel room, and she l
expected him to want her again. But he had only mad

76


:lumsy, almost reflexive, motion or two toward her, and
then fallen into a profound, exhausted sleep. Knowing
Jens, she knew that he would wake tomorrow and, alive
oncemore, damn himself for a clumsy idiot and think that
she had been disappointed, if not disgusted, with him. But
she really did not mind. She did not mind his failing
asleep like that at all. Jens had never understood that she
could enjoy just having him there at certain times--not that
there were not other things, too--but Jens saw everything
from his own point of view and assumed that if he would
have been disappointed, she must have been also.

i She had done a lot of thinking from time to time about

I

how serious he was about her. It was a problem to know
ust how she should handle him. Ofice she had soberly
:onsidered never sharing her life permanently with any
One man. But even then, in theory she had approved of
"narriage, and wanted children. More than one. She had
9een a single child herself; and while there were great
dvantages to both parents being able to concentrate on a
single offspring, there was no doubt it was better, healthier
.ven, to have more than one. Two, possibly three. Not
more than three, though, except in extraordinary circumstances;
nor was her opinion on that merely a concern for
the overpopulated world. With too many children sharing
the same household, individualism would be submerged.
She would want her children to grow up strong and independent,
as she had. She could thank her parents for that.

But she would always make it a point--she thought
aow--to be closer to her children than her parents had
been to her. They had loved her, of course, and they had
tried to be close; but they were too respectful of each
bther's privacy to be really intimate--with each other or
with her. They were, in fact, a little stuffy; a pair of people
who intermeshed without ever really interlocking, and she
had been conscious of the fact that it had been something
f a relief to them when she had grown up enough to go
away to Princeton.

College had been the best time of her life. She had
painted herself into a tailspin, but it had all been marvelous.
ome day she would get back to painting. She had someIhing
to say with her shapes and colors, and one day she


77

would say it. Dad and Morn had been respectful of her ar
and approving of her doing it; but they had never knowl
what it was to love something like that as she did. Yes, sh
would come back to it eventually. Meanwhile there weft
other things to be done.

Luckily she had found this out early. She thought ba¢l
now over the eight unsuccessful fall and winter months sht
had spent as a beginning artist and illustrator in New York
trying to break in. Then luck had dropped in her lap the
chance for an editing job at Walthon Publishing. Not th
an eventual position as an editor there had been what sll
really wanted; but four months of that work had opene
her eyes to what actually would suit her; she had bee
smart enough to start writing on the side and selling fre
lance articles to magazines like New World.

It was nearly ten months later that the chance of a j0
on the staff of New World came, and she was able to get
with the double leverage of her editorial experience and th
success she was beginning to have as a writer. From the
on the road bad been open.

Her instinct had been right. It was the doubletriple-threat
people who moved up the ladder fast. She wa
Editorial to begin with, but since she could also writeand,
somewhat to her own surprise, the writing turned 0
to be her most marketable ability--and because of
cure laude in art at Princeton, she could also talk with
art department at New World. Two years ago they h
made her a staff writer and for the last half-year she
been able to suggest assignments for herself. Two or thr
more years would put her in the top ranks of the magazine
staff writers. Then, either at New Worm or on some equiw
lent magazine, she intended to hold down a top editor
job for several years; after which, having proved hersel
she would retire to do book-length nonfiction until she
built up a tidy income from royalties. Then back to pain
ing and watching her children grow up.

It was an ambitious program; but she had alread
proved., if only to herself, that she had the talent and dri
to make it work. The only question was, how was it all
work with Jens? She definitely wanted him as part of
She wanted him very much, enough to give up more th

78


part of the program for him. But giving up part of what
either one of them wanted would not be right. It would
not be right, even if she did not end by storing up resentment
against him because she had had to limit her life
just to include him in it.

He was well worth including. He had talent himself, not
: only that of a newsman and writer, but a knack for ending
up at the center of where things were going on. But the
matter of his drive--that was something else. He was
nearly seven years older than she was; and at the age she
was now, he had been a nothing in the Washington bureau
of his hometown newspaper. The main trouble with him
was that he did not seem to want enough---or at least he did
not seem to want enough for himself. He had turned down
a chance at a law school fellowship to go into newspaper
work; and not just any fellowship--the Charles Evans
Hughes Fellowship at Columbia had been created for students
with a special interest in the economically and racially
disadvantaged. As the son of a senator, of course, it would

i have been a fellowship without stipend. But it was just
the sort of fellowship that Jens, with his crusading spirit,
'would have done well with; and what an asset it would
have been as part of his record--later on when he did end
up in politics.

He had told her about that--and she had hardly been
able to believe him when he told it. Just by a simple decision
to take the fellowship he had originally applied for
!i and go through law school, he could have had his life made
I for him at one stroke. There was no doubting his capacity

to get through law school. He could have graduated easily
with fine grades, gone into practice with an established
firm that had deep ties of friendship with his father, who
I was then living. After a few years of practice he could have
gone into politics and found that career open for him all

i the way, because of his father's experience and presence.
Right up until his father's death that option had still been
, open to him. Possibly even something could be done now,
particularly with this appointment of his, this present
!i appointment, as something to build on. But, just as he had

!i turned down all the reasonable offers that life had made


him, he seemed determined to turn everything else down

now, except the wild fancy that moved him to do something
with the space program. It was not that he did not
have the capacity to work for something, to really want
in her. terms; for something like this Mars Expedition, with
which he had plainly fallen in love, he could want like
cold murder. But always, it was for something outside of
himself.

That was his problem. He was too unworldly, not strong
enough in practical ways. She liked the fact that he needed
her--but he should not need her so much. He should not
so easily be able to leave all the practical relationships with
the world in someone else's hands. And the worst of it
was . o .

Her lashes were suddenly, unexpectedly wet with tears
and the shadows of the ceiling blurred. Something within
her broke. It was not fair. He could have anything he
wanted from her. Any time he really wanted to he could
reach deep inside her and touch her . . . he could touch
her . . . and she would do whatever he wished. And he did
not even know it. Her only defense against that great power
of his was to hide from him the fact that he had it. Bu
what kind of a blind idiot was he that he could not see il
for himself?

And it was not fair. It was not right that he should be
able to reach so casually right into the very middle of her
and take hold of her life as if it was some small, crouchin
bird in a large, calloused hand, its tiny bird's heart racin
with excitement and fear. It might be right if things wer
the other way around--if she could depend on him for the
practical things, the ambition. It was intolerable that he
did not know of his advantage, even though she lived with
the fear that he would one day find out.

The gush of emotion ebbed and left her calm again. Sh
stared at the ceiling, seeing it in focus again with dry eyes
It was all right. He had no suspicion at all of his power
and there was still plenty of time. A lot could happen. II
things went well with this fake government job, perhaps ht
would get a chance at one where the demands were real
and important. He might then rise to the occasion and
grow into responsibility and reliability. He could if he
wanted to ....

80


9


	Delbert Anthony Terrence awakened in the dark to the

	ringing of the telephone.

"I just got to sleep!" he said furiously, out loud to the
unseen unit.

i
	The telephone rang on.

"Aren't you going to answer it?" asked the voice of
" Jonie Wextrum.
i "Just what the hell choice do I have?" He groped in the

I

dark at the unfamiliar nightstand beside the queen-size
motel bed, found the phone and picked it up. "Hello!"

I
	"Oel?"

	"Yeah."

i
	"This is Al Murgatroyd. Look, I know I'm calling late--z"

	"Late? It's--" Del rolled over on his back with the

phone still at his ear and held his other wrist up before
him in the blackness. The luminescent numbers on its dial

glowed a few inches before his eyes. "Jesus, it's two forty.
six!"

	"I know. But I've got to talk to you. We just ran

another test on the guidance system for the lasercom--"
"Now? AI, why for shit's sake another test now?"

"Because I decided we wanted one, damn it! And I think
!you and I better talk about some of the results we got."

A coldness formed suddenly just behind Del's breastbone.

	"Beyond specs?"

	"Not exactly. But--'"

	"Thea Christ, AI--"

"Sorry, Del." The voice at the other end seemed to take
a step backward and firm up. "But I want to talk to you.

	Now."

"All right, AI. Of course. Where are you?"

"I'm calling from a phone booth halfway back into
town from the Space Center. Look, there's a food place
called The Happy Pig that stays open twenty-four hours.
I'll meet you there."

"An all-night food joint? AI, what the God damn hews
going on? Why not your place as long as you're coming
back into Merritt Island anyway?"

"Because my place's lousy with relatives and friends of
my kids, in for the launch!" Al's voice had a touch of
hoarseness. "There's no place to stand there, let alone sit

and talk. You know where The Happy Pig is?"

"I know."

"Meet you, then, in half an hour."

"Right."

"All right. I'm sorry to get you up, but there's no choice.'
"That's all right, A1. Part of my job." Del struggled
to smooth his voice out. It was fantastically improbable
that A1 would really have found something to worry about;

but . . . "See you in half an hour."

"Half an hour."

AI hung up. Del put his phone back in its cradle.

He felt around behind the phone, found the switch at
the base of the nightstand lamp and turned it on. The mote/
.room around him sprang into existence. Jonie was up on
one elbow, lying on her side facing him, the covers slipped
off her bare shoulders and down to her waist. The brown
hair framing her small, round face looked darker than
usual in the sudden, soft yellow light. Del felt contrition
stir in him. He ought not to take it out by yelling at her.
He had met her eight months ago when he had reacted]
violently to a wasp sting and AI had rushed him to the
Brevard County hospital. Jonie had been a nurse on dut,
there and they had had time enough together since thel
so that he knew she bruised easily.

"It's work," he said, as gently as he could. "I've got
get up and go."

"Now?" '
From the change in her face he could tell that she w
no longer thinking of how he had snapped at her, bu
about how it must be for him---having to leave a warn
bed and a warmer body at this time of night to go bad

82


on the job. He felt a small spasm of deep affection for her.
She was something to look at, right now. She had been one
of those small town girls who got married right out of high
school tO a kid who didn't appreciate what he had in her;
and with only the short times Del had had to spend with
her on his trips down here to the Cape, she had really
blossomed.

"That's what Laserkind hires me for," he said. "A
factory rep's got to keep the local engineers happy, even
if it means getting up at three A.M."

He was climbing out of bed as he answered, and reaching
for his clothes.

"What is it?" she asked him.
"The guidance on the lasercom."
"Oh, you were worried about that."

"No, I wasn't, damn it!" he snapped. "Not worried!"
There was a moment's silence as he continued to dress.
"Will you be back still,, tonight?" she asked.

"God knows," he grunted, wrestling into his shirt. "If
we talk more than an hour, it won't be worth it., I'd just

have to hit here, turn around and walk back out again."
She watched him finish dressing and start to leave.

"Tell him how tired you are," she said, as he started out
the door. Del laughed in spite of the way he felt.

"He'll be kind of tired himself," he said. "Somehow, I
don't think that kind of statement's going to move him,
this particular morning. 'Bye, knockers."

She pulled the covers up tO her chin quickly, and lay
back down in bed, gazing at him over the edge of the
blanket and her two fists.

Bye, she sa d.

He laughed again and went out feeling, for the first
time, nearly awake.

Riding down in the empty, smoothly humming elevator,
he caught sight of his own lean face under its dark cap of
hair in a strip of mirror set vertically on one wall. He

needed shave already; and the chances of getting

	a

	anything
like that from here on out were, to say the least,
remote. Well, he wouldn't be the only one on launch
day with twenty-four hours' worth Of dark beard.

The Happy Pig, when be pulled into its parking lot, was
busy, an island of bright light behind the large expanses


3

of polychromatic wall glass that nowadays went to make
up most of any eatery less than five years old. With the
sun gone from the sky the glass was on full transparency.
Beyond it, Del could see hurrying waitresses, full stools
and booths. The crowds of Merritt Island on the night
before a launch were restless. Most of the visitors had
nowhere to sleep except for a car, parked somewhere
along the causeway in a spot from which they hoped to
be able to see the launch across some fourteen miles of
water.

He went in and looked for AI, spotting him at last in a
booth, alone. Either A1 knew someone working at the
place, or he'd greased somebody's palm to be able to hold
a booth by himself, like that. More likely the former. A1
was not the world's greatest tipper.

Del caught the other man's eye, waved to him, and went
toward the booth. A1 was sitting hunched over a cup, a
large capped and insulated coffee pitcher of green plastic
handy at his elbow. His open-necked white shirt clung
damply to his large upper body, although the air-conditioning
in the place was good. The lines in his face were
deeply grooved. He was a big, soft bear of a man, with
reddish-gray hair and large, freckled hands, a good two
inches taller than Del's six feet, and he had been around
the Cape since the old Vanguard days.

There was silverware and another clean cup, empty, on
the gaudy paper place mat before Del's seat at the table.
Del reached for the insulated pitcher as he sat down, and
poured black coffee into the cup.

"You could use some sleep yourself," he said, looking
at AI.

AI shook his head as if the suggestion was a fly buzzing
around his ears.

"Listen," he said. The hoarseness in his voice was more
noticeable here, face to face, than it had been to Del's
ears over the phone. "I'm sorry about getting you up. I
tried to get hold of you earlier, but they said you were out
--gone over to Orlando----"

"Yeah. I'm sorry," said Del. "I had a PR man from
Disney World to talk to. Forget it. I'm ready for a full
day anyway. The only thing that bites me is places like


84

this, the night before, I'm geared up enough already without
all this light and noise and rush."

He glanced around him. It was true. Eating joints like
this got on his nerves under the best of conditions. He
looked back at AI and made himself grin.

"Too bad all those houseguests of yours crowded us out,"
he said. "At least at your place we could have put our feet
up and been comfortable."
"My two oldest brought in about six people we weren't
counting on, Cissy and me," said A1. "Otherwise we'd
have had at least the living room free."

"There's more want to watch, each launch," said Del.
He shook his head at a waitress who was swooping down
on him, menu in hand. "No food for me. AI?"

"No. No, thanks," Al turned his attention to the wait-

ress. "Just coffee, Rhoda, for both of us."

"Cream, please, though," said Del.

"Sure. You take your time," said the waitress. "Hear,

AI? You just sit back and drink your coffee."

"Thanks," said A1. She went off.

"College friends?" asked Del, spooning sugar into his
coffee. In spite of the cream and sugar, he knew, the
contents of his cup would taste like wood ashes in water,
this time of the morning.

"Rhoda, here? Oh, you mean the bunch my Tib and
Moira brought in to watch the launch? Who the hell else
would they be? Lucky the two youngest are still in high

, school here, or Cissy and I'd be out of our skulls by this
time. Look, Del; as I said, I'm sorry about getting you up
but I've got some figures from this test I want you to
look at."

He reached into a briefcase on the booth seat beside
him, brought up a sheaf of computer printout, and pushed
it across the table at Del.

Del took it. He had to make what amounted to a
physical effort to shift his mind into the gear necessary
to translate the numbers on the sheets before him. They
had apparently, once more, run a standard operating test
on the direction equipment of the laser communications
system installed on both spacecraft. The waitress, Rhoda,
came with two little plastic cups of imitation cream and

85


Del poured the contents of both absently into his coffee
cup. The test had necessarily been run by radio command
from Communications Control here at the Cape, since
there was no one now aboard the two Mars spacecraft up
in orbit, and would not be until the 'nauts boarded them
late tomorrow.

The vague concern that had sat brooding in the back
of Del's mind began to evaporate as he went through the
sheets. It was replaced finally by a gust of anger. There
was nothing wrong. Nothing at all.

AI had been senior engineer on the Spacecraft Equipment
Evaluation Group that had originally considered
contracting for the laser communications system for the
two Mars Expedition spacecraft. The system was Laserkind's
baby, their own development. No one else had anything
like it; and there had been some division of thought
in the NASA Group A1 had headed, about using it as a
primary communications system for the craft rather than
as backup to radio. But the freedom from interference in
the laser system was so superior that AI himself had been
solidly sold; and he had sold the rest of the Group. Now,
with the launch right upon them, for the last week A1
had been sweating out his own earlier decision.

It was part of his being a G.S.-x5 with four kids and
twenty-odd years here at the Cape, Del thought, looking
across the table at the other man. Nailed down by job,
family, and community, A1 had forgotten how to take a
reasonable chance. It was things like this that turned Del
off any idea of marriage whenever anyone like Jonie began
to turn him on. How the hell could you call your guts your
own if your soul was shared out among half a dozen other
people? Imagining himself in just that sort of box, Del
could see that he would be likely to wake up a factory rep
at two-thirty in the morning because he had two kids in
college, two more yet to go, and was not sure he had
done the right thing two years before.

At the same time as he was thinking all this, however,
Del was making an effort to keep the anger bottled up
inside him. It might be perfectly true that AI was just
chewing his fingernails for his own reasons; but at the same
time A1 was Chief of Onboard Equipment for the launch

86


and Expedition, and had a right to run as many tests as he
wanted or query as many factory reps as he chose.

"I don't see anything," said Del, carefully, letting the
papbr drop to the table top before him.

"This is the third time this week we've run a check and
each time we're getting a little more slop in the system,"
A1 said, tightly.

"Slop?" Del picked up the sheets and hunted back
through the figures, although he already knew what he
would find. "You had to fine-tune in from only twelve
seconds of arc. That's well within specs."

"That's slop, damn it!" said A1. "Five seconds is what
we ought to have. We were getting five seconds down
here on the ground, no more. Now that we've got it On
the craft up in orbit, we're getting a fucking eight to
twelve. Why?"

,'Jesus Christ, AI," said Del, trying to make the tone
of his voice reasonable, even amused. "There could be
eighteen dozen little things throwing it off a bit like that.
You're doing a remote, man. Even radio interference on
the way up---"

"A bit!" A1 hunched his shoulders, leaning forward
above his coffee cup. He lowered his voice, which had
raised on the last word. "That's God damn double what
we'd like--more thatx double!"

"And it's just barely more than God damn half what
the specs allow for!" Del felt his temper getting away
from him after all, and took a firmer grip on it. "What
you'd like is no more than twenty-five percent of what's
permitted. You got it to begin with. for Christ's sake; and
because of that, now you're acting like it's the spec limit.
Relax, Al--you're going to kill yourself over this and
there's absolutely nothing wrong!"

"Maybe not yet." A1 sat back heavily. "I don't like it,
I tell you."

"Look," said Del, "you know .what that system can do.
If it was going to show trouble, it wouldn't be some shitty,
tiny increase in fine-tuning requirements, like this."

,I don't know," AI muttered, staring down at the printout
sheets.
"Well, I know," Del said. "Believe me, AI, if there was

anything really to worry about with the guidance system,
I'd be half a block out ahead of you sending up rockets over
it. But there isn't. There damn well can't be--particularly
not with figures like this. All this proves is that the system's
working the way it's designed to work. Now, you've
got to know that as well as I do. Don't you?"

Al breathed out heavily. He picked up his coffee cup in
one large hand, put it down again and shoved it away
from him. He rubbed his fingers over his eyes.

"I don't like it," he said. "It's slop---and we shouldn't
have it like that."

"AI . . ." Del spoke as gently as he could. "You know
what you're doing right now, don't you? Of course you
do. You've been through enough of these launches. You
know how everybody finds some particular thing to sweat
about at the last moment. You're out on your feet, that's
the trouble. You're out on your feet and you've got
your mind going around and around in one groove, whether
there's any sense to it or not. What you need is some sleep.
Tell me, you still got a bed for yourself left at that house
of yours? ....

AI grunted a short laugh.

"I damn well better have," he said. "If Cissy's let those
kids talk her into giving somebody else our bedroom, I'm
going to kick some strange asses right out my front door!"

"Well, why don't you get back there and get some sleep
while you can?" Del demanded. "You've only got a few
hours before you're going to have to be back at Operations.
Dn't waste any more of it drinking coffee and sitting
here trying to make me agree there's spooks in the guidance
system that you and I both know don't exist."

AI rubbed his hand over his face again; this time,
across his mouth and chin.

"Yeah." he said. "All right."

He reached out, gathered in the printout and stood up,

out of the booth.

"Good night."

"Good morning," said Del.

AI grunted a second short laugh.

"That's right." he said. "Good morning."

He turned and went out. Del stood up also and looked


88 •

around for the waitress. She was a few tables away and

it was a moment before she saw him and came over.
"2ould I have the check?"

He got the check, paid at the cash register up front,
and went out into the still, hot predawn. Driving back to

B

the motel, he thought intensively. Damn, damn, damn,
damn! It would be at the eleventh hour that suggestions
of trouble would stick their heads up out of the woodwork.
But there was nothing that could be really wrong. It was
true there had been some bugs in the guidance control
system back in the beginning on the west coast--he should
not have bit Jonie's head off when she remembered him
talking about it---but those were taken care of long ago.
No, it was all nonsense, born in Al's head of too much
coffee and not enough sleep.

Thinking of AI again, Del's own thoughts took another
term. AI was an old acquaintance, almost an old friend.
But Del's first responsibility was to Laserkind. If A1 was
going to be irrational and maybe end up making some
kind of statement about the unreliability of the lasercom
equipment, then maybe Del should pass the word back on
this possibility to the home office; so that they could start
to build up some evidence for counterargument, both on
the system and on Al's relationship with the company,
earlier.

In fact, the more Det thought about doing just that, the
wiser a move it seemed. He would put in a call to Downey
as soon as he got. back to the hotel. It would be just after
midnight there on the west coast; and Jack Sharney, Del's
immediate superior, would probably have just tucked himself
under the covers. Del grinned, thinking that perhaps
the session with AI had not been a complete loss after all.
At least he would be able to pass along the experience of
being roused out of bed to possible bad news. Old Jack
would appreciate that happening to him just about as
much as Del had.

89


Tad and Wendy Hansard lay on the bed in Tad's
quarters of the Operations and Checkout Building. Light
from a moon that was almost down came through the
windows along one side of the room, making things in th
room visible to them, outlining Tad's lean-muscled fram
in contrast to Wendy's soft shape. They lay on their backs
side by side, looking at the moon-painted ceiling and talk
ing, with little intervals of silence now and then.

"How much longer until I have to leave?" Wend
asked.

He turned his head and squinted at the clock on th,
bedside table.

"Forty minutes," he said. There was one of the littl
silences, and he added, "To hell with it. You can stay
What are they going to do--fire me?"

"No," she said. She reached out without looking a'
him and stroked the side of his naked arm with her finger.
tips. "It'll be a long day; and you won't have any chanc
to catch up on sleep the first two weeks. They're right
I've got to go."

There was silence again. She took her fingertips awa
from his arm.

"Jimmy's the one who really doesn't understand," sh
said. "The older two have an idea, at least."

"Idea?" he said. "About what? What Mars is?"
"No," she said, "about how long you'll be gone. Ton
and Cassy have some idea, at least. Only some idea, 0
course. Three years is a lifetime, even to them. But the'.
can think ahead and measure it by something. Tom'll be il
his first year of college when you get back. Cassy'll be
junior in high school. But Jimmy . . . three years is hal
the time he's been on Earth."

"Little old afterthought, that boy," said Tad, half to
himself. "Maybe we shouldn't have had him with a gap
like .that between him and the other two."

	He sensed, without seeing, that she shook her head on

the pillow.
	..

	"I was happy," she said.

"Me, too," admitted Tad. "Guess we've spoiled him."
"If we have, I'm glad," she said, "now that he's got to
go three years without you. Tom and Cassy had you

around those years when they were little."

	Another little silence came and went.

"Sure," he said. "But it's always the now that counts."
. They lay there with the last of the moonlight strong
upon them; and the hands of the clock at the bedside
crawled onward as the eternal moment of the present
ate its relentless way into the future.


Some sixty feet away, in his quarters, cosmonaut
Feodor Aleksandrovitch Asturnov dreamed of his dead
wife and children. In shadow, his regular, narrow features
looked like a bas-relief on an old coin.

They were out on a picnic. They had spread out the
picnic things in a meadow that barely sloped for some
little distance to the edge of a wide, very shallow river,
"glinting in the hot summer sunlight; and Mariya was afraid


that Vanya, being still a baby, would wander down and
fall into the river. He tried to reassure her; but then with
the older three children he went off into a little woods
nearby to look for mushrooms. Somehow they got separated;
and, going back to the meadow to look for them,
he saw all five of them--Mariya and all the children,
Pavlushka, Kostya, Iliusha . . . even the baby--wading
in the river.

It was immediately apparent to him that Vanya, as
Mariya had feared, had wandered into the water; and
Mariya, with the other children, had gone after him.

"Don't worry!" Fedya shouted to them now, running


toward the river. "It's all shallow--quite shallow--"

But as he looked, the current seemed to catch them
one by one. One by one, they appeared to step off into
hidden depths. He saw their heads bob for a moment on

was still running, running, toward the river ....

The anguish and terror of the dream half-woke him. He
came to for a moment in the unfamiliar bedroom in the
Operations and Checkout Building. For a second he was
lost. Then he remembered where he was and why; and that
Mariya and the children had been dead for over two year
now.

"That's right," he told himself, "it was a train wreck
not a river."

Strangely, this correction of his conscious mind comforted
him. The dream image of the meadow and the
heads bobbing on the water began to. fade rapidly He
turned over on his other side and closed his eyes again.
In a very few minutes he was deeply asleep and beginning
to dream that he had been made sole commander of the
Mars Expedition as the result of a last,minute change in
plans. It was necessary, however, for him to fill out a
number of forms attesting to the competence of the other
five marsnauts. He wrote rapidly but clearly, finding it a
pleasure to put down on paper their high qualifications
and his own high opinion of them.


In the hotel on Merritt Island, the angular, aging, sixand-a-half-foot
length of Sir Geoffrey Mayence, Her
Majesty's Deputy Minister of Science for the Development
of Space, lay hard awake. He had not been able even to
approach sleep; and, chasing through his brain again and
again, were his own words about cross-country running,
that day at the lunch with the marsnauts in the Operations
and Checkout Building, before they had gone to look at
the spacecraft. Remembered, his talk sound fatuous and

egotistic. What had he been doing, talking about crosscountry
running, nowadays--an old crock like him?
man should outgrow making a fool of himself.!4

	It was his own inflated reaction, of course, to

		the

spoken challenge of the young men, to the marsnauts
themselves. The fact of their well-conditioned presence i
the room was enough to prick him into boasting about his
own athletic past. Dirk Welles--the British 'naut in par.
ticular--must have been laughing up his sleeve.

	Sir Geoffrey lay rigid, his long bony frame extender

diagonally across the king-size bed, and thought of the
sleeping pills in his suitcase. Insomnia. Another feebleness
of old age. No, by God ....

He lay unmoving; and the slow gears of the iron hours
ground their way through the darkness until light began
at last to show around the edges of the heavy drapes
shielding his bedroom from the dawn.


Lin turned on her side to look at lens in the faint light
leaking in around the window drapes from the illuminated
front of the hotel. A feeling of deep tenderness stirredin
her. He was breathing less raggedly now. He had relaxed
in sleep and his face was calm.

It was an ugly, funny face, but a nice one. She reached
out and very, very gently lifted back an edge of the top
sheet, which had fallen forward from his shoulder to cover
his mouth. He had a good chin, she decided, studying him.
It would be a good chin to sketch. She should do a sketch
of him sleeping like this, some time, and see how it came
out. It was not exactly a cleft chin, but there was a
definite indentation where a cleft might have been. She
found herself wondering if he could understand how important
to her that art of sketching might be--and then,
with a queer sort of vertigo, if that was what he felt
about . . . She pushed the thought away.

The ticking of the travel clock on the bedside table
suddenly made itself noticeable. She looked over at it and
saw the hands standing at five-ten. He had wanted to be up
by five, but she had turned the alarm off after he was
asleep, seeing how exhaustedly he slumbered and knowing
that she could set herself to wake at any time without
needing an alarm.

It was a shame to wake him. But if she did not, late as
it was now getting, he would be upset. In fact, she herself
would be needing to get up, too, very soon. She had to
make those interviews and get back to New York in
three days--that is, unless she decided to take some of her
vacation time, after all. It was true that she had cleared
the extra time with the office before coming down, but

i she had let Jens think she had to be back in three days
just in case there was some reason she . . .

t

it was high time for her to wake him.


Very, very carefully and slowly, she leaned over
bending down so gradually that when her lips at
brushed his sl,eeping cheek the touch was as light as that
of a butterfly S landing. He stirred slightly at the
of it, but did not wake. She lifted her head again, reache
out and gathered the edge of the top sheet into a small
point. She began gently to stroke across the end of hi
nose with the tip of it.
His nose wrinkled. He stirred and snuffled. One han
came up from under the covers to rub clumsily
sleepily at the nose. His eyes opened.

"Up and at 'em!" she sang out briskly, cheerfully. "Time
to be moving, pardner! Daylight in the swamp!"


Outside, the sun was rising from the ocean horizon, an
the air was rapidly heating. All over Merritt Island an
northward, from air-conditioning units like the one belo
the sealed bedroom window of Jens's motel suite, the
outside the utility room of. Aletha Shrubb's house, an
the one on the roof of the Operations and Checkout Buil
ing, there was a deepening of the voices of machinery
creasing the effort it was putting out to meet the demand
the growing day were beginning to put inexorably upon i
Time was on the move, and aI| things moved with it.


The scheduled launch time was eleven A.t. At fiv
thirty the 'nauts were awakened by a call on their bedsid
phones. Tad rolled off the bed and up onto his feel
Fifteen minutes later, shaved if not fully awake, at
carrying his two white cartons with morning urine ar
stool specimens, he joined the other five in the clinic f
the last, cursory physical exam.

He did not feel like talking this morning; and as t
went through the clinic door, he braced himself again
the early chatter of the others. But they were also quiet
than normal. Even Bapti Lal Bose, usually merry, was no'
sober-faced'.

They stood, lay down, got up and ran, all patiently f
the benefit of the medical instruments. They donated the
blood by the way of samples from fingertip and forean
stared across scant inches of distance into the eyes of t!

94


9hjsieians poking and prodding them, and were finally
released to get dressed and have breakfast.

To. Tad, the orange juice, bacon, and scrambled eggs
tasted good; but a very small amount of them seemed to
fill him up. ..

"Sleep well?" he asked Fedya, who was sitting across
the table from him.

"I think so," he said. A slight smile on the regular,
earn eatues "anished. "I san ,jou talking to your President,
at the reception."

"Yeah," said Tad. "But don't expect any changes."
"I see," said Fedya. They were talking English, which
was the tongue in which the Expedition crew was to
operate--in which it had been operating for nearly nine
months now, since they had all started training together.
For the first time in those nine months, Tad found himself
wondering if Fedya was this taciturn in his own
language---whether, if they had been speaking in Russian,
he would have answered merely "I see."

"Sorry," said Tad. "I gave it all I had. I guess we're
stuck with the full slate of experiments."

"We can still go on strike," said Bapti Lal Bose, rediscovering
his normal cheerfulness. "A sit-down strike. Put
Phoenix One and Phoenix Two into orbit and sit there,
going around and around the Earth until they negotiate."

"All right, Bap," said Dirk Welles. "Strike, it is. We'It
leave the organization and the details up to you."

"I will take care of it. I!" Bap struck himself on the
chest. "/,11 scabs will EVA without suits."

Fedya had regained his quiet smile, listening to Bap.
But now he shook his head.

"We can't afford even one scab," he said. The remark
was humorous, but his face had gone serious.

"You can't afford to lose this scab, at least," said Bern
Callieux. "Seeing you others are so ignorant about geology."

The round-faced young Pan-European 'naut was so
soft-voiced, and his excursions into humor came so seldom,
that the other five stared at him for a second before understanding.
Then there was a general groan around the table.
They had all been forced to sit through hours of classes on
rock identification.

\

95

"The first boulder I see on Mars, Bern," promised Anos
Wantanabe, the Japanese 'naut, "that's the one I'm going
pick up and hit you over the head with."

And the talk around the breakfast table began to sou
more like the talk there on other, more ordinary, mot
ings.


Jens, dressed and awake by virtue of shower and shavi
equipment and all the habits of arising, sat in an armcha
drinking coffee provided by room service. Lin still lay

bed, her face on the pillow, watching him.
"Coffee?" he asked her.
She shook her head.

"Can you eat one of these sweet mils?"

"Not right now," she said. "I ordered them for you."
"Not this early--not this morning. I'll pick up sore
thing along the way." He finished his coffee and put tt
empty cup down. "Look, I told people you've got a pre
pass. You've picked it up, already, haven't you? I suppo

the magazine got you one."

"Yes," she said.

"I'm supposed to be in the VIP stands," said Jens. "B
I had the chance to talk to someone I know last night. D
you know Barney Winstrom of Southwest Networ[
They're a cable TV group."

"]O."

"Well, he and his team have rooms here--the operat0
can give you his number. You'd better call him ab0
seven-thirty. He's going out with a panel truck to th,
parking lot at the press stands at nine. I got you a rid
with him so you wouldn't have to fight the press buses
You'll be going a little early, but the panel'll be more corn.
fortable. You'll be better off that way than with anything
else I can arrange for you. I'll try to sneak over from
VIPs and join you just before the shuttle lifts. All rightl

"All right," she said. "Don't forget to set up the inte
views for me, to talk with the Hansard and Welles wives.

"I've got it in mind," he said, getting to his fee
"Now . . . see you later."

"Take care," she said as he went out.

He left the suite, checked in with the security offi
got an official car and driver from the VIP pool a

96


directed him first across the road to the Merritt Island
Press Center for the launch.

Inside. the building was aswarm with men and women
wearing orange press passes; and buses loaded with more
of them were pulling out of the parking lot in back at
regular intervals. Jens shouldered his way down the long
transverse corridor until he came to the doorway next to
the credentials desk. He went in to a long room bisected
by an equally long desk; and got the attention of one of
the women working at a typewriter behind the counter.

tl

She came up to the counter, a thin-faced, black-baited,
cheerful young girl.
"Is Wally Rice in his office right now?" Jens asked.
"I'm Jens Wylie. Would you ask him if I could see him
for just a moment?"

She looked at him brightly, obviously not recognizing
the name.
"I'm sorry," she said. "This is Mr. Rice's busiest time "
"I'm the United States Undersecretary of Science for
the Development of Space," Jens said softly. "But I'd
rather it wasn't noised about I was here. If you'll just tell
Wally my name, I think he'll see me. We've known each
other for some years."

"Just a minute," she said. She went off. In a few
seconds she was bac, k, open, ing the swingin,,g door at one
end of the counter. 'If you 11 come in . . .

	Jens went through the door and followed

		her

			to

				a

					small

cubbyhole of a white-walled, white-ceilinged office, within
which was a short, heavy, tan-faced man standing behind
a desk.

"Sit down. Take it easy, Wally,, said Jens, as the girl
left them. "I'm just sneaking in tO ask a personal favor--
one I don't want to go through VIP channels for."

"You're looking good," said Wally. His southern accent
was similar to Tad Hansard's, and gentle against Jens's
hard-edged mid-U.S. They sat down. "What can I do for
you?"

"I want to alk to Bill Ward, just for ten or fifteen
minutes this morning," Jens said. "Don't jump down my
throat, now. I realize he's Launch Director; but if I could
just see him for those few minutes. It's important--"

I" "Well, I don't guess I have to jump down your throat


	F.C.D
	97

for that," said Wally. "It might be arranged, if you see
him before the shuttle goes. It's after that, with the Mars
birds, he'll be busy. What's this all about--something
governmental?"

"Yes... and no. Something personal and governmental
both," Jens said. "The personal angle is why I don't want
to go through the VIP machinery. Leaving aside the fact
they'd diddle around all morning and end up not getting it
done."

"That's a fact," said Wally. "We bail them out from
time to time when it's semething on short notice."

"Do you mind if I don't tell you what it's about then?!'
"Well, I don't mind," said Wally. "But Bill Ward's
going to want to know why he has to walk away from his
consoles."

"I suppose . . ." said Jens, unhappily. "All right. Tell
him it's a matter of scheduling."

"Just--scheduling?" answered Wally.

"Do I have to say more than thatg"

"Maybe not," Wally nodded. "No, I would guess not.
He knows who you are, nowadays?"

"I'm sure he does;" Jens said. "You might work it into


mention, too, the fact that I'd just as soon my seeing him
didn't get into the general conversation about this launch."

"All right. Gotcha." Wally reached for the telephone,


"I'm going back across the way to the Holiday Inn, or
wherever I can get in, for breakfast. From there, 1
thought I'd go out to the press site a little early. I can leave
word out there where I'm sitting that is, if you'll give me


"Hum," said Wally, thoughtfully letting go of the phone.
"I didn't think of that. You've got a VIP badge. That and
a press pass don't go together, exactly."

"One of the reasons I was named undersecretary was
because the President wanted my experience and knowledge
with the press," Jens said blandly. "I think the White
House would want me to have a press pass. Want me to
call Selden Rethe right now and ask?"

He reached for the phone. Wally shook his head. "I'll

take your word for it. We'd better put 'White House
Press Office' on it, though."
t; He picked up the phone and spoke,!nto !t.

¢:
	"Well," he said, putting it down. HOW we you been?'

They chatted about things in general until another office

: girl came in with a press badge made out. Jens pinned

it on his shirt, shook hands with Wally and left.

The Holiday Inn restaurant, as Jens had expected, was
jammed and people wanting to eat were standing in line
for tables. He thought for a minute. As usual at a launch,

a million and a half people had flooded the area. Cars
were parked solid on the causeways, and any place that
served food would have the same kind of waiting line he
had seen at the lnh. Jens changed his mind about breakfast.

"Have you eaten?" he asked the driver.

"Two hours ago," the driver said.

"Good," said Jens. "I can skip it. Take me out to the
press stands, and .I'11 turn you loose."

The driver pulled back out into the busy traffic of the

street. Jens glanced at his watch. It was nearly a quarter
after eight. There really had not been time for breakfast

anyhow.

The roads to the Kennedy Space Center area were already
full. They soon found themselves locked in line
behind a camper that was in turn behind a press bus.
However, they managed to move at twenty miles an hour
until they reached the entrance to the Center, where the
traffic thinned and they picked up speed. It was twenty-five
minutes after nine when they finally got to the press site.

Jens thartked the driver and got out. He watched the
white sedan with the official seal on its side turn and go,
then turned and walked in over the little wooden bridge to
the end of the press stands.

The stands were half-filled; and the first few rows,
thronged with correspondents at telephones and typewriters
were entirely without empty spaces. Jens came up
to the small official building by the end f the stands,
mounted three steps and knocked on the door. There was
a moment's wait and then the door opened. A thin,
harried-looking man in shirt-sleeves looked out.

"I'm Jens Wylie," Jens said. "I'm expecting a message

	from Wally Rice at the Press Center. He said he'd leave

	word here."

	"Oh yes, Mr. Wylie," said the thin man. "He said

	check back here with me about ten. He ought to have

	some word for you by then. Where're you going to be in

	the stands?"

	"I don't have a seat," Jens said. "Why don't you just

	call me over your PA system? Only don't use my name--

	ask for Mr. West."

	"Right. Mr. West. I'll just make a note of that." The

	thin man ducked back inside, closing the door; and Jens

	started for the stands, then changed his mind and went

	back across the little bridge to the press parking lot to find

	Barney Winstrom's van and Lin.

	He located it in the first row of vehicles and knocked on

	the door. It opened, and a blast of air-conditioned air

	chilled his already damp forehead.

	"Let him in!" called the voice of Barney from somewhere

	in the dark interior. The man who had opened the door

	stood aside and Jens climbed gratefully up the interior

	steps into the coolness,
	of

		Lin was sitting, drinking a beer in the office section

the van with Barney. Jens accepted a can of beer, but had
only managed to half-empty it before the sound of the
public address system at the press stand reached his ears.

The noise of the air conditioning and the walls of the
van' had made the words unintelligible. But Jens got up
and opened the door of the van in time to hear the
message repeated.

	"... Will Mr. West come to t,he north corner o the

	stand, immediately?" the loudspeakers were booming. "Mr.

	14*est, wanted at the north end o] the stand, immediately."

Jens put his beer can aside and went. Waiting for him
at the corner of the stands was a uniformed guard wearing
a general pass with a yellow Vehicle Assembly Building
tag on it.

"If you'll come with me Mr. Wylie," said the guard.
They crossed to a NASA sedan that was waiting, and
rode over to the four-story building, attached to the VAB,
that was the Launch Control Center..Inside, an elevator
lifted them to the third floor and Jens's guide took him

IO0


	down a short stretch of narrow hallway to the active
firing roorh.

There, the ranks of consoles on the sloping floor
marched away down to the level area filled with other

ranks of tall metal cabinets. ,lens and his guide came up to

the console behind which stood Bill Ward looking over
the shoulder of the man seated there, before, turning away
,to talk to two other men in shirt-sleeves standing with him.
,lens and the guide stood and waited silently.

Bill finished talking and turned abruptly to face him.

"Well, Jens?" he said. "You said you wanted to talk to
me?"

"That's right."

"All right, come with

He strode off with .lens, leaving the guide behind. They
went back to the door of the firing room, out of it and down
the hall to another door. They stepped into a room which
was exactly the size of the firing room they, had just
left, but empty of consoles and with a wall cutting off most
of the level space beyond the slope. In the middle of the
nearly empty room was a conference table with straight
chairs around it. Bill led Jens to this, and sat down in the.
end chair of the table, stiffly upright. He motioned .lens
into the chair next to him.

"All right," said Bill hriskly across the cdrner of the
table, as soon as lens was seated. "What sort of scheduling
is this all about?"


11


The sun came up that launch morning in a cloudless sky,
and Aletha Shrubb went to work early. It would be a hot
day. ,lim Brille called the Duchess's mansion for Willy
Fesser, and was told that he was not in, but would be
given ,lim's message and would call back.


I0I

Five minutes later the phone rang. '

"Hello," said Willy's neutral voice, the voice he used
when he wanted to be anonymous.

"It's me," Jim said. "I've looked the situation over.' I'll
need a room in Wylie's motel on the fourteenth floor and
facing west over the courtyard that has the pool."

"A room?" Willy's voice was back to its usual tones.
"Don't you know it's launch time? There isn't a room to
be had for two hundred miles."

"That's the only way it can be done," said Jim. "There's
no other place to put a tap in. That motel's swarming with
government people who know what they're doing. Some
place else I might be able to get to the main telephone
cable; and then, if I could get into this Wylie's room--
but there's no chance of either one of those things, the
way it is now."

"I don't know how I could get you a room."

"Talk to whoever it is you're dealing with." Jim
exasperation pulling at him. "Do I have to tell you your
own business? Somewhere along the line you've got there
has to be someone with hype enough to get me that room.
If there's a choice, I want it in the middle of the building
on that side. I've got to be able to look out and see at
least the top of one of Wylie's windows over the edge of
that balqony that runs all the way around the motel on
the tower wing."

Willy's voice was abrupt. "I'll call you back."

This time it was more than half an hour before th
phone at Aletha's rang again.

"All right, you've got it. You're reserved in the name
of Wilson Stang," Willy said. "Don't ask for anything
more, though. That pot's dry now."

"There's nothing else I need," Jim answered.


Half an hour later in his room at the Holiday Inn, Jim
went to the window and looked out. His location was not
in the middle on that side of the motel, as he had hoped.
It was nearer the back end of the building. Still, he was
able without trouble to pick out the windows opposite and
one floor up that he had identified as belonging to Jens
Wylie's suite. Only the upper third of their panes were
visible; but that would be enough.

I02 ,


He went about moving into the room. From the smallest
of his suitcases, he took out some extra clothing, hung
two. suit coats in the closet, laid shaving materials out in
the bathroom, and put some underwear in the drawer. A
few other personal possessions he scattered over the tops
of the dresser. When he left the room nearly two hours
later there was a tangle of equipment on top of a table by
the sealed window above the air-conditioning unit, looking
as if it had been dumped there carelessly, to be picked up
later. One end of the tangle touched the window, and
within it the rod of a laser unit sent a beam of invisible
light through a tiny hole drilled in the window, to bounce
off the resonating surface that was one of the panes of
glass in the bedroom o Jens's suite; through another small
hole the beam from a second laser touched the glass of a
window in the suite's sitting room.

Jim paused to look at the carefully arranged tangle with
satisfaction before leaving. It was a deep pleasure to him
to work with his hands this way. The neatness of it left him
with a calyn, steady feeling of having done something well.
• Any voices or other sound within the two rooms of Jens's
suite would cause vibrations in the glass windowpanes. The
laser beams would read those vibrations, and transmit
them back through the tangle of equipment by wire into
a converter, and from there into a tape recorder that
appeared to be turned off, but was not. Once in the converter,
the vibrations would be reconstructed as sound
which could be recorded on tape. Literally, from now on,
no word could he said in Jen's apartment that would not
be recorded by this device as well as if it were connected
to mechanical bugs wired into the walls of the suite itself.

Jim went out, locking the door behind him. On his way
i" to the elevator, he passed the glowing exit sign, and on

impulse stepped into the stairwell. Narrow, green-painted
stairs led upward one flight to the floor above him that was
reserved for the V.I.P. visitors and government personnel
like Jens Wylie. Jim went quietly up the stairs and tried
the entrance door on the floor above. As he had expected,
'it was solidly locked.

He turned around and went down again to his own
floor and out into the corridor. When the elevator came it
was empty. Thoughtfully, he pushed the button for the

floor above. The elevator hesitated. The downward point
ing red arrow alight on the elevator's control panel blinked
out; and the white arrow beside it went on, pointing up.
The car rose. The door slid open. Jim stepped out into a
small lobby, empty except for a squarely-built man in his
mid-twenties, wearing a business suit, reading a paper
and seated in .one of the half dozen overstuffed chairs

that occupied the lobby. He got up at the sight of Jim.
........... Were you looking for someone?" he asked pleasantly, in

a New England accent.

Jim smiled back at him.

"Just poking around the motel," he said. "I thought
there was a restaurant up top here someplace."

"There isn't," said the young man. "Rooms only. Also,
I'm sorry, but' this floor's private."

"You don't mind if I wander around anyway, do you?"
Jim asked.."I always like to prowl around a new motel."

"Sorry," the other answered. "We do mind. You understand
that, now, don't you?"

He stepped past Jim and .pushed the button for th
elevator.

"Oh," said Jim, "of course. But you don't mind if
ask who's on this floor?"

"Sorry," the young man smiled at Jim. Jim smiled back
The elevator came.

"Well, thanks anyway," said Jim, stepping into it.

At that moment a female figure came into sight aroun

the corner of the corridor leading to the lobby.

"Hold the elevator!"

She was young and her voice was strong and cheerful
She .came toward the elevator with long, rapid strides
and stepped in.

"Thanks," she said impartially to Jim and to the yount
man in the business suit, who were each holding one
the doors of the elevator open.

"Pleasure to help, ma'am," said the young man. H
let go of his door and Jim did the same. The dool
closed and they went down.

Her eyes met with Jim's. She was, Jim saw, at least
tall as he was; with chestnut hair, oval face, and the ope
competent look of a woman who had never been beate

down, either by the events of her own life or the strictures
of her own particular niche in society. He smiled at her.
She did not smile back, but her eyes looked him over as
frankly as he had looked her over. She was, Jim thought,
out of his territory. With someone like Aletha he always
felt an immediate common bond; but this girl came from
a different house on the street. All the same, though, she
was female and attractive; and he liked her with the same
immediate liking he had for almost every other woman he
had ever encountered. He could feel her response to him.
It was different--but parallel. She was not the kind to be
strongly attracted to him. But she could like him, too, in
spite of the age and other differences between them. Under
other circumstances they might have been good friends.

As he was thinking this, the elevator reached the lobby.
The doors opened and Jim stood aside to let her out
first. As he stepped into the lobby behind her, his good
feeling went and his stomach muscles tightened. Watching
him from beside the reception desk was a black man
wearing a solid-gray business suit--five-eleven, a hundred
and eighty pounds, in his late thirties or early forties. Jim
recognized the quality of the watcher as immediately as
he had ever recognized another barfighter in his old beerdrinking
days. This trooper would be one of the government
security team here at the motel. Not only a team
member, but a damned good one. The way he stood gave

• him an in-charge look, an air of liking his work for its
own sake. Only the eyes moved in his dark face and they
continued to follow Jim as he crossed the lobby behind
the girl. Clearly the guard on the upper floor had called
down; and this security sergeant, or whoever he was, had
come out to see for himself if Jim was just a casual
tourist-or something else.

The woman who had come down on the elevator with
him was half a dozen strides ahead of Jim. He lengthened
his own steps and caught up with her at the entrance to the
lobby restaurant. While the eyes across the lobby watched
hi,m,., he spoke to her. •


Thinking of having breakfast?" he said.

She turned to face him. For the first time, there was a
l, little smile at the corners of her mouth.

	"C
		"
	F" seemed to sway and tilt in the fashion of a room in the

		offee, she said. "At the counter. A1

	',',iWell, well," said Jim gently. "Have a good day." crazy-house of an amusement park.

	intend to," she said, turned away from him, and "Hold on!" Something caught him strongly by the upper

went through the white-curtained, glas door into theI arm and he became aware that Bill Ward was holding him

restaurant.
	| upright in his chair and was talking to him. "What's the

He turned and went away from the restaurant towardEi matter, Jens? You all right?"

the front door, in profile to the man who stood by the| Jens blinked, and got his eyes, the room, and himself

desk, setting his face into a slightly angry, pouting mask.|once more under control. He straightened up in his chair.

He was, he hoped, the very picture of some salesman in| "Yes," he said, surprised at the huskiness of his own

town for a day or two and on the cruise for a woman, wh01. voice. "Skipped breakfast this morning. I guess it really

had just been turned down. He reached the front door and|wasn't the best thing to do."

went out.
	I "You're pretty pale," said Bill sharply. "You'd better just

	The Gremlin was there waiting for him. He pulled iti sit,there minute. Let me get you something."

away from the curb and headed out in the traffic. A feel.| 'No, no. I'm fine . . ." But Bill was already gone. "Just


	it with water from the fountain. How do you feel?"

name other than that by which he had registered.
	: h "Fine," said Jens. The water flowed down his gullet, a

	:) Cool finger of feeling that brought him to. He set the cup

	down. "Where are we? What is this room?"

	I "One of the firin rooms," said Bill. "There were four--

	ted. You still look pretty white. Sure

	'i!
	one never got acti

	I
	iyou're all right?"


	i /ens nodded. Look, you asked me what scheduhng I

	]2
	'wanted to talk to you about. It's the experiment .schedule


	for the Expedition."
	,

	'
	"That?" Bill's face hardened. "You?"

	i' "I know it's none of my business, officially," said Jens.

The directness of Bill Ward's question took Jens unaware.|'''But Tad told me the 'nauts think the schedule's too heavy.

He had spent too much time recently among political| He wanted me to talk to the President. I did. I even got

people and their words; he had forgotten this other area| Tad to talk to him. Nothing doing. So I came to you."

	of machines and their people--the land of plus and minus,|
	Bill sat in silence for a second.

	day and night, go or no-go. All at once the pressures 0I|r
	"Why me?" he said in an emotionless voice.

	the last few days, the tension, the lack of breakfast and|
	"It's politics," said Jens. The room threatened to sway

	stomach piled up 0i again; but with detcrmination he kept it solid and real.

the half a can of beer on an empty
	,,
	. .
	. .

him and made the whole situation seem

	unreal. He stared Every naton revolved n ths wants the largest share o,f the

at the strange, empty, sloping-floored room around him,| Expedition's time they can get; and nat0nal pride s at

half-ready to believe that it was some stage scene mocked| stake when it comes to agreeing to cut their share of the

up for his bafflement. Even as he looked at the roomit| schedule. Apparently the President--apparently they all

106! ¢ T 07

believe that the gereral public in each of the cooperati
nations wouldn't stand for the experiments being cut. It'
the way they measure their share in the Expedition."

"All right," Bill Ward said, "I say--why come to me wilt
this?"

"You're the Launch Director."


"Well," said Jens, "you're one of the people who'rt
putting those men up there. If their work schedule's to
heavy during the first six weeks, or whatever, you have t¢
know it, don't you? If there's something that's going to put
them and the Expedition in danger, you'll want to correcl
it "

"Slow down," said Bill.

Jens quit talking. For a second they were both quie
and a healing silence gathered round about them in the
empty room.

"What do you expect us to do?" asked Bill, after a little.
"You could kick up a fuss," said Jens, but without the
explosiveness that had been in his voice a moment before.
"If you get word from them that they're too busy, or too
tired, you can tell them to skip part of the experimental
work, can't you?"

"You want the Expedition Director for that," Bill said,
tightly. "If and when they complain to him he'll order
reevaluation of the situation and take what correctivei
action seems to be called for."

"I don't know the Expeditton Director, stud Jens. You
do. If you spoke to him, wouldn't he order a reduction, as
10ng as you and he have to know as well as Tad and
others do that they're overscheduled?"

Bill sat back in his chaii. He was thick-waisted enougl
so that he sat stiffly upright, putting his head higher that
Jens's. He glanced briefly at his watch.

"I've got to get back to the firing room," he said. "I'7
sorry, I couldn't help you even if I thought you had a point
Even if I wanted to. You're talking to the wrong man."

"Is it the truth that you'd want to?" said Jens, as Bi
shoved his chair back.

Bill stopped. For a second he loomed over Jens like
low-hanging thundercloud. Then he relaxed and straigh

ened up.
	,

lO8

"Let me tell you something," he said, sitting down again.
"I don't think I have to explain this, or anything else, to
you, but I'm going to. Do you know what puts men up into
space? Other men and women. And those other men and
women have to eat. They've got to make mortgage payments
and feed their families. There's got to be a payroll;
. and the birds don't pay for themselves like a cash register.

What they do is bring in long-term benefits that a high
percentage of people can't connect with their going up in
the first place."

"I know that," said Jens.

"Do you?" said Bill. "Do you know it in the paycheck
area? Were you ever personally given the choice of taking
a one-quarter or more cut in your salary at a time when
,ou had shoes to buy for the kids and dental bills to pay?
Take it or quit your job? It isn't a matter of work--most
of the people here work long hours when they're needed,
away and beyond what they're paid for in the first place
But they've got to be pad something. And we damn near
lost that something, that minimum, half a dozen times
now."

"I know that," said Jens.

"Never mind what you think you know," Bill said. "Just
listen a bit. The last time we damn near lost the payroll
was two years ago. And if we'd lost it entirely, we would
have lost the experienced men behind the work going on
here today. As it was, we lost a lot of them anyway. People
blame it on the pnsh for poverty programs; but if it hadn't
been the poverty programs, it would have been something.
else. Once the cmotional push quits, the people who don't
know basic research and don't understand it start to make
themselves heard. And those who ought to explain it to
them are too busy attending to their own affairs. So something
like the space program goes down the drain, along

with the skills of the people who've worked in it fifteen
to twenty years. And everybody suffers."

"You don't need to worry now," said Jens. "You've got
half the population of the world cheering for you on this
mission."

"Right," said Bill. "And if they quit cheering, it's not
going to be because of anything our people did. If we cut
:that program of experiments while it still looks possible


Io9

the marsnauts can handle them without trouble, and the
one of the cut experiments results in some people here, 0
India, or anywhere else, dying because certain experi.
mental equipment wasn't tested--what do you think the
newspapers are going to be saying about us when they
start reporting those deaths? Well? You were a newsman

to begin with. What do you think?"

	Jens sat silent.

"You see," said Bill, a little more gently, getting to hi
feet from the chair, "we're able to make this Expedition
to Mars because the public spotlight's on us again. But the
price of being in that spotlight is that everything we do is
going to be seen, and remembered--and maybe sed against]
us some time in th future when the spotlight s back ott.|
You can be sure we 11 reexamine the experimental schedule[
if and when the 'nauts complain about it. But d,.oing itI
bef0rehand--and under the circumstances---doesn t make|


	He Stopped talking. Jens still said nothing, sitting ther!|

not knowing quite what to do.
	,
	I

	"Come along with me," Bill said. "I we got to ,t, urn you]

back over to the security man who brought you.
	|

Jens stood ,up numbly. With his hand resting alm0stI

gentIy on Jens s shoulder Bill led him up the bare slope

the floor and out the door into the corridor. The guard w

waiting for Jens outside the entrance to the other firint

roo,,m. Bill nodded to the guard and disappea,r, ed.

Where to, Mr. Wylie?" asked the gtard. 'Back to the

press stand?"

	Jens started and came to. He looked at his watch.

"No," he said. "No I'm supposed to be over in the
area by this time. Better take me there as fast as you can."

But when they got to the VIP area, he and his guide were
directed on to the entrance of the Operations and Check0I
Building, where the deputy ministers were waiting to watch

the marsnauts board the vehicle that would carry them to
the waiting s.huttle. -

Over a period of time, thought Tad, a spacesuit becam
familiar, just like everything else. The strangeness that cam
with it, the first time you had it on, and that everyone vhI

II0


had never worn one imagined was always there, was lost
somewhere along the way. In the end it was no more than
getting taped up and into a football uniform.

Of course, it still took over an hour to get the spacesuits
on, even with plenty of help. First came the long underwear
with all the sensors wired into it that had to be attached to
the skin of the body at various points with a special glue
that not even perspiration could loosen. Then, there were
tests to make sure the sensors were all working. Then came
the climb into the suit itself, and the twisting to get the
plug with wires from the underwear sensors into its socket
inside the suit. Then more tests to see that everything was
working when the suit was plugged in to the recording
outlet. Finally, there was the sealing of the suit and walking
around in it, the testing to make sure that everything had
been done right and nothing had been left undone.

Then you were free to move out to the carryall waiting
to transport everyone to the shuttle.

Leading the others, Tad clumped on his heavy magnetid
(though presently inactivated) boot soles down the corridor,
into the elevator, along the ground-level corridor and out
into the sudden glare of August Florida sunshine. His helmet's
faceplate darkened automatically, and the temperature
control of the suit was undoubtedly stepping itself up
to keep him cool, though he could not sense that. Out
beyond the entrance, by the green glass-topped carryall,
was a small knot of people--the deputy ministers, provided
with headsets and phones so that they could talk to their
'nauts. Jens was among them, looking somewhat disheveled,
as if he had hurried to be here. Tad stopped briefly in front
of the taller man. Jens, he saw, was not looking good; his
face had the stupefied, heavy expression of someone overdue
for sleep. His lips moved.

"Good luck," his voice said over the circuit in Tad's
earphones. The words were overlaid with and made almost
unintelligible by the voices of all the other diplomatic
people talking at once to their own 'nauts. It was like being
on an oldfashioned telephone party line that everyone was
trying to use at once. Jens shook Tad's large-gauntleted
hand, peering through the sunshaded glass of the helmet to
see his face.

There was no way to talk privately. Tad raised his eyebrows
interrogatively. Jens shook his head. Tad nodded
grimly in acknowledgement of the information and promise
of his determination; but the gesture, while successful, was
lost in the looseness of the spacesuit. He did not believe
that Jens had seen or properly interpreted it.

Someone was tapping Tad on the shoulder. It was time
to get into the carryall. He raised his right glove in salut

to Jens, turned all in one piece, as you had to do when
suited, and went forward and up the steps into the carry.
all, taking the first large seat to his left.

The other 'nauts entered, heavy-footed, and went past
him to fill the double row of seats on either side of the wide
aisle. Fedya, as co-commander of the mission, took the
other front seat, across the aisle from Tad. The door to
the .carryall closed and the vehicle rose on its underjets
and slid off down the way to the waiting shuttle.

They had fallen into group silence again; and, isolated in
the privacy of his suit, Tad welcomed it. He was conscious
of the suit as a second skin. He felt the familiar pressure
of the EMU urine collection system, front and back about
his crotch, the presse of the shoes against his sole and
heel, the weight of his helmet, of the folded fabric pressing
.on shoulders, arms and thighs, the thickness at his waist
and under his arms. But it was a familiar feeling, again
like the football uniform--no matter how strange it might
feel to someone else. Now, in their suits, all of them in
the bus had stepped over the line, and become a different
sort of people from all those others on Earth who were
waiting and watching. They who were bound for space were
set apart by what they did--and by why they were about
to do it.

They belonged to Earth, but their business was elsewhere.
They were like working sailors. Like deep-sea fishermen.
He remembered the age-greened copper statue at Gloucester
he, Wendy, and the kids had seen years ago on vacation,
the statue of the New England fisherman standing with on
knee braced against the wheelhouse, the deck canted under
him, the eyes beneath his rain hat looking outward and
ahead.

He and the other 'nauts, Tad thought, were like sailors.
They must travel out and away. The silence of the

II2


phones rang in his mind now like the imagined Sound of
the sea heard when an ocean shell was held to the ear. It
was as if it was to the sea he and the others were nbw
going. How did the psalm go? They that go down to the
sea in ships, that do business in great waters...


Jens managed to break away from the deputy ministers.

Luckily, the guard and the NASA auto had waited for him.
"Back to the press site," Jens said, getting in. The car
pulled out into the empty road.

As he crossed the wooden bridge to the press stand,- the
loudspeakers were announcing that the vehicle carrying
the 'nauts had just reached the shuttle. he big screen in
front of the press stand, thirty feet long by ten high, gave
a windowlike three-dimensional view of the carryall pulling
up the ten-degree slope of the concrete launch pad, to halt
at the top by the Mobile Launch Tower. Slow-moving
because o' their suits and therefore more solemn than they
might have seemed otherwise, the 'nauts emerged, one by
one, from the vehicle and went to the elevator in the MLT.
, All this was happening as Jens walked along the front
walkway of the stands, looking up into them to find Lin.
He found her at last, about halfway up in the far end
section, and climbed up the nearest aisle. She had her arm
over an empty gray-painted metal folding chair beside her.
As he came up to her, she took her arm from it.

"Sit down,'! she said. "I've had a hard time holding this
for you." She looked at him perceptively. "I'll bet you didn't
have any breakfast after all."

He shook his head. "Doesn't matter. We'll make up for
it at lunch. You'll be ready for lunch yourself, after the
launch?"

"Of course," she said lightly. "I always lunch after
launch. Did you set up those appointments for me with
Wendy Hansard and Penny Welles?"

"I'm sorry," he' said. "I just haven't had time yet--" He
broke off. She was staring at him.

"Haven't had time!" she exploded. "I mentioned it to you
last night and again this morning! Do you realize I've been
down here. nearly twenty-four hours and as far as the
magazine's concerned I haven't done a thing?"
"I really 'am sorry," Jens said. "But in any case you
couldn't get to see them until later--"

"And what if it turns out I can't see them this afternoon?
What if it turns out I'm going to miss them completely
because they're going off some place?" She was blazing mad.

"Do you think I came down here just for 	just for a

holiday?"

	I'll do what I can as Soon as I can," he said. "They'll be

	in the VIP stands right now, watching like everyone else.

	There's no way I can talk to them until after the launch. As

	soon as I can, I will."

	Lin jerked about, staring straight before her over the

	rows of heads below, at the large video screen before the

stands.
	:

He watched her for a moment, waiting for any answ}
sne might make. But she made none. He looked at the
screen himself. The 'nauts were going up in the Mobile
Launch Tower elevator now two by two, and across the
catwalk to the shuttle entry hatch, some seven stories above
the level of the launch pad. Jens felt empty--a shell of a
man, inwardly stripped of energy and muscle, a dullminded,
sweating observer, floating with the too-powerful
:urrents that pushed against him. Lin's burst of anger had
cut away his last illusion of understanding and support for
the lonely position in which he had placed himself.

Yet this was the moment .to which he had been looking
forward. The moment in which he had expected to feel
something almost mystic, with the larger part of the world's
population concentrated, participating in a single action all
together, like members of a single family. And, in fact, to
a certain extent, the feeling was there.

The stage was set. Before them, beyond the stands and
the line of video cameras with their telescopic lenses
manned by assorted news cameramen, was the grassy apron
of land leading to the deeply dredged canal up which the
huge sections of the Apollo rockets had been b/ought to
the Vehicle Assembly Building. The VAB itself stood to
their left, still ready and able to handle four vehicles the
size of the three-stage Apollos at once, one in each of its
high bays. In the other direction, three miles off from the
press stand, on the launch pad of LC39, was the shuttle


Above, the relentless August Florida sun beat on metal,
concrete, green scrubland, men and women alike. The
mingled voices from the press stands of newspeople speaking
into telephones and microphones and to each other
hummed, like the voice of a wasp hive under the amplified
tones of the public address system, explaining what they
were seeing on the large video screen.

'% . . and now, last oJ all, as senior oJ the two cocommanders
oJ the mission, Tad Hansard is leaving the
elevator and boarding the shuttlecra[t . . ."


From day-brilliance, Tad stepped once more into interior
dimness; and once again his faceplate adapted, clearing so
that he could see the section of the shuttle in which they
would travel. The six gimbaled acceleration couches were
arranged three on a side, and the foremost one on the
left side was waiting for him. He walked to it, eased himself
down into it and plugged his spacesuit's umbilical into
the receptor mounted on the metal wall. alongside it.

It was like sitting in a circular-walled section of an oldfashioned
cargo plane. The shuttle itself was a carg9 carrier
and the metal framing and walls of its body were bare. The
floor beneath the couches was corrugated steel plate, interrupted
only by the metal hatch opening in the center and
the ladder, leading both' down to the cargo sections below
and up to the control section overhead. Up there, the
pilots and copilots of t.he shuttle would already be in their
own acceleration couches, ready to lift.

Everything around Tad-couches, receptors, even the

		plate--was an accessory to
		shuttle's normal

	floor

			the

					interior
configuration and could be quickly and easily removed
in the case of a flight carrying only cargo to one
of the space labs in orbit around Earth. Like himself and
the other 'nauts, like the shuttle itself, everything here was
utilitarian, replaceable--and expendable.

Anoshi and Bap were talking now over the helmet phone
system, joking gently and quietly. Beside him, Fedya was
not talking; and Tad did not feel like talking either. Work
time was here. They were away from the eyes of the
world now, ready to begin their jobs.

A red light lit on the forward section of curved wall


facing them.


115


i!

"Shuttle pilot, here," said a voice in their earphones.
"Steve Janowitz, gentlemen. All ready to lift on schedule
in eighteen seconds, seventeen, sixteen . . ."


-. The press stands were half empty. As in the days of the
.Apollo flights, many of the newspeople had left them and
swarmed forward to the water's edge a hundred yards off.
Lin had chosen to stay in the stands. She had heard that
they literally shook at the moment of launch and she had

wanted to experience that.
	:'

	"I think I'll go down," Jens had said.

	"Yes," she had said, somewhat emptily.

She had watched him walk slowly away, becoming
smaller with distance and then finally lost in the crowd.
He did not slump or drag his feet, but it seemed to her
that there was something defeated in his walk. She felt a
sting of remorse for her outburst at him at the moment
in which he had had so much emotion invested. Not for
the first time, she wondered if there was something of a
demon in her, something shrewish and destructive. Then
she reacted against that worry, and forced herself back to
hardness. Jens had to learn. He had to learn, that was all,
that the rest of the world would not always adjust
needs to fit his dreams. He might for a while be able to
get away with it, having his eyes on the stars and being
oblivious to everything else; but other people like herself'
had to get their nails dirty digging up a living right here
down on Earth. It really wasn't the matter of the unmade
appointment that had got to her. Lord, she could make
her own appointments any time she needed to. But he had
to learn, he had to learn, for fear worse would happen tO
him later on if he didn't. It didn't matter that her rubbing
his nose in it made her feel desolately miserable, like this.
It had to be.

The lost feeling began to wane a little, replaced by
contagious tension of the crowd as the countdown around
her went into its last stage.

"... five," said the public address system, "four..
three . . . two . . . one . . . We have ignition["

Orange flames spurted from the base of the shuttl
shooting out to each side. For a moment the whole

going creature seemed to stand there unmoved above the
flames--then it began to rise. The flames faded to white
fire. S!owly, and then more swiftly, the shuttle lifted into
the sky; and the thunder" of a giant's firecracker reached
and rolled over the press stand. As the shuttle went swiftly
and more swiftly UP into. the cloudless sky it Was lost to the
sight of those below.

They had been right, those who had told her about the
stands shaking.


The hand of acceleration lay heavily upon Tad and the
others as the shuttle lifted--but not so heavily as in the
past. Three gravities for the shuttle as opposed to the ten
gravities of the Apollo launches. Tad waited out the pressure
that forced him down into his couch, until it finally
yielded part way, then ceased altogether. His weight went
from him and he floated on the couch. Thirty minutes had
gone by and they were now in orbit with the two Mars
ships that had been assembled here, away from Earth's
gravity.

"Just about there, gents," said the voice of the shuttle
pilot in their helmets. "Right nice burn we got. Now a
little correction . . ."

Ten minutes later, there was a clanging of metal transmitted
through the skin of the shuttle as it docked with one
of the Mars ships.

"Phoenix Two," announced the shuttle pilot in their
earphones.

Fedya, Dirk, and Bern disconnected their umbilicals,
rose and clumped off through the entry hatch of the shuttle
that now opened on a docking tube connecting with the
entry hatch of the second Mars vessel.

"Now for Phoenix One," said the pilot. The shuttle
undocked and moved Off.

Ten minutes more and it was the turn of Anoshi, Ba[,
and Tad to leave their shuttle couches for the tube. It let
them through an air lock into the pleasant, white-walled
surroundings of the control level---the top of four levels--
in the ship that .was to be their home for the next three
years. They checked to make sure the air lock was closed
again behind them.

"All clear," said Tad over his helmet phone to the
shuttle pilot.

"All clear. Disengaging," came the answer.

With a clang heard through the metal bodies, the shuttle
undocked from Phoenix One. The three of them moved to
their control couches and plugged in their umbilicals. They
began final checkoff.

The seconds counted down toward launch time. Checkoff
was completed. From the two ships Tad and Fedya re.ported
to Expedition Control that all was ready; and
Expedition Control entered the last sixty seconds of countdown
to firing--to the actual launch that would lift both
ships into a Mars-injection orbit.

"Fifty seconds and counting," said the headphones in
Tad's helmet as he lay on the acceleration couch waiting.
About him he could feel the huge shape of Phoenix One
thirty-three feet in circumference, two hundred and seventy
feet in length with two mighty booster engines flanking her.
"Forty seconds and counting . . ."

He could feel the ship now as if she were no more than a
more massive spacesuit enclosing him. She was his ship,
he and she were identical.

"Thirty seconds, twenty-nine seconds . . ."

Earth was nothing, now. This was everything. He could
not look back at the planet below, he could not even look
back in his mind to his wife and children, in this moment.
He could look nowhere but forward, out toward where he
was going, like the statue of the Gloucester fisherman
peering ahead from under the brim of his rain hat ....

....
	Fifteen . . . fourteen . . . thirteen . . ."

They that go down to the sea in khips, he thought again,
and do business upon great waters--that had been written
for him and the five others as well as for all those who had
ever sailed out of sight of land. It was only a mightier ship
he sailed, now, out into a greater ocean.

"Ten nine eight "

He thought the psalm should read, They that go out to

the stars in ships, and do business in great spaces--
"Two . . . one!"

His gloved finger came down on the backup firing button,


I 18,

part of what was unseen to him, white fire blared from
three great sets of jets; and acceleration jammed him down,
down into his couch as Phoenix One, with her sister ship
beside her, lifted outward to the stars.


ATwenty-eight minutes later the pressure of acceleration
ceased; and Tad floated lightly on his acceleration couch.
On either side of him, Anoshi and Bap would be gravityless
as well. A lightness that was from something more than
just the lack of gravity seemed to touch him. He felt free
and in command at last.

"Phoenix One to Phoenix One booster shuttle pilots,"
Tad said into his helmet phone. "Is firing completed?"

"Booster Shuttle One," said a voice tinged with the
accents of the western plains. "Firing completed."

The free feeling still lifted inside Tad. He pushed it
aside. There was no time for that now.
"Booster Shuttle Two," added another voice. "Firing
completed."

"Thank you, gentlemen," said Tad. He reached out a
gloved hand and changed channels. "Expedition Control.
This is Phoenix One. Both booster shuttles have ceased
firing."

"Roger, Phoenix One." The voice of Expedition Control
came drawling back at him almost before his last words
were uttered. "You're in injection orbit, right on the button.
Phoenix Two's right there with you. If you want to take a
look to starboard there, about ten kilometers, you ought to
be able to catch the sun on her."

Tad turned his ,helmet with some effort to stare out the
glass port to his right. For a second he saw nothing but
stars against the blackness of airless space. Then there came

a slow, bright flash that seemed to burn for about half a

second before vanishing. A moment later it was repeated.'
"Looks like they're yawing just a bit, there," said Tad.
"Nothing to trouble about, Phoenix O, ne," Expedition
Control said. "Phoenix Two advises they re smoothing it'
out with steering jets. You all ready to say good-bye to
your booster shuttles?"

"All ready," said Tad.

"You have the go-ahead, then, Phoenix One," said Expedition.
"Effect separation from booster shuttles."

"Roger," said Tad. He returned to the frequency on
which he had been talking with the pilots of the two nuclear
booster shuttles, strapped one on each side of Phoenix One.

"This is Phoenix One again," he said. "All ready to

separate. Shuttle One and Two, also ready?"

"Shuttle One ready."':::
"Shuttle Two ready."

The answers were immediate.

"Firing release charges," said Tad. "Three, two, one..
fire!" With the last word his gloved finger came down on
the button, setting off the explosive charges which released
the heavy bonds banding Phoenix One to her two booster
shuttles. There was a dull thud from what seemed behind
them in Phoenix One; and Tad reached up to activate
view of the shuttles on his pilot's screen, looking back
from a sensor camera-eye mounted near the front of the
spaceship.

Full in the sunlight, looking as if they were below the
underbelly of Phoenix One, the two shuttles appeared to
be falling away, separating as they went. A couple
flashes from farther off signaled the sections of banding,
tumbling in the sunlight as they moved away at the higher
speed imparted to them by the explosive charges releasing
them. The support shuttles themselves were departing
from Phoenix only on the small push of steering thrusters.
Now, as Tad, Bap, and Anoshi watched, each shuttle
slowly revolved end-for-end, so that they faced away from
Phoenix One.

The shuttles had lifted Phoenix One to Mars-injecti0n
orbit, from which she would now begin her nine-month
coast to the point where she would fire her nuclear engines
to fall into a close orbit around Mars. Now they were

dwindling in the screen, looking almost tiny. It was jarring
to think that with their separation, plus the fuel they had
expended,, the Mars mission had already spent the greater
part of its mass--just for the initial departure from Earth
orbit. Tad felt the diminishment almost like a personal loss.

A little over half an hour ago, Phoenix One had weighed
approximately one million six hundred thousand pounds.
Now, with the departure of the two booster shuttles, that
weight was down to six hundred and seventy-five thousand
pounds. By contrast, at the time-Phoenix One reached
Mars, she would have lost only an additional twenty-five
thousand pounds--down to six hundred and fifty thousand
pounds. Life support and consumables plus fuel needed for
mid-course correction would be the reason for the twentyfive
thousand pounds that would be spent.

Bap was murmuring something incomprehensible, his
voice a low tone over the helmet phones.

"What, Bap?" Tad asked, turning his head to look at
the other's couch.

Bap broke off. His helmet was facing toward a port
which gave a view of the dwindling booster shuttles.

"What'? Sorry," he said. "Oh, sorry. Just--remembering
something from the Bhagavad-Gita--The Song Celestial.
In English it goes something like '... Today we slew a
foe, and we will slay our other enemy tomorrow! Look!
Are we not lords... ?' "

Hmm, said Tad. The quotation seemed to have no
application to the departure of the shuttles or their present
situation. But there was no understanding Bap.

I should learn to keep my thoughts to myself in my head,
Bap was thinking, a little ruefully. No point in telling them
that what I quoted was part of the speech of the Unheavenly
Man, as Krishna delineates him. But it would
have made no more sense to Tad and Anoshi if I had. Still,
it is true. We are very lordly here with our powerful ships
and our Expedition plans, close to Earth. But out there,
close to Mars, we will be small and insignificant. No, no
point in trying to explain what I meant or felt. To the
English anything religious must be immediate and personal.

Not, Bap corrected himself, that Tad is English. But no,
he is, in the sense I use the word. Tad is distorted English,
as Dirk over there on Phoenix Two is undistorted English.

And the English do not understand such thoughts as I was
		tion Control. "We copy that. You're now going to restore

thinking. Neither. the English nor the American English
		Phoenix One to active status. Your next communicatior

understand. Would Anoshi? Not really; and in that sense,
		with us will be sixteen hundred hours, according to

he is tinged with an English sort of color also. Even as I
		schedule."

am tinged with English, because I am conscious of, though
		"Roger. Copy," said Tad. "Sixteen hundred hours. Over

rejecting, what it is to be so colored. Truthfully, we are all
		and out for now, then."

alike, Tad, Anoshi, and I.
		"Over and out, Phoenix One," said Expedition Control.

Possibly that is part of it. I love Tad--nonsexually, of
		Tad switched back to communication with his two

course--Bap grinned in his helmet. One always has to make
		crewmates.

that distinction when thinking in English. Why am I think	[:
"Okay," he said. "Let's get this ship unbuttoned and

ing in English? Because I am thinking about English--
		back in full operation."

rather, about some quality I call "English." No, I have a
		He sat up on his couch and the other two rose with him..

great affection for Tad. Once long ago, it might have been
		Still in their suits, they turned to the business of bringing

that we rode to battle on horseback together, swords at our . the ship around them up to operating condition.

waists. And Anoshi, also. It is not sheer accident that the i Primarily this meant restoring the operational and life
three
swashbucklers among the six of us should find our- F:isupport systems of the ship, which, with the exception of

selves in one ship. Over in Phoenix Two, they are in | the biomedical lab, had been Under storage conditions for

common of a different breed and cloth, once one ignores all | the last nineteen days, since loading had been completed

their national differences. Even Dirk, 'who is English, is
	sOtfrutchteedt

not-English in that sense.
	I am becoming whirled about
	we Mars Expedition ships which had been con	"''
	in orbit. Chief of these systems was the 5 psig

	with words. The words are losing me amongst them. I
	nitrogen-oxygen operating atmosphere of those sections of

	should stop thinking and return my attention to duty.. .
	the ship where the three of them would live and work

	Outside, the booster shuttles were now pointing away at
	without suits, closely followed in importance by the thermal

	an angle from Phoenix One.
	control systems and the power distribution systems. These

	"Booster Shuttle One to Phoenix One," said the phones
	and all the related mechanical activities of the ship would

	in the helmets of Bap, Tad, and Anoshi. "So long, and
	enable them to live and work aboard her for three years,

	good luck."
	until they saw Earth orbit again. In his mind's eye Tad saw

	"So long, Phoenix One," said the different voice from
	the duties to be performed like soldiers standing at atten
	Shuttle
Two pilot. "Good luck to y'all."
	tion, waiting to be dealt with.

	"Same to you," said Tad "So long."
	'
	The three of them raised their couches into control

	Bright fire, barely visible in the sunlight of space, spurted
	position, and went to work on the consoles before them

	from the jets of the two shuttles. They seemed to hang
	where primary controls for all the systems were located.

	there a moment, not moving; then they began to shrink, at
	One by one, the small red sensing lights began to burn,

	first slowly, then more and more rapidly, until they were
	signaling that the systems were up to full operational level.

	suddenly gone.
	Then, one by one, for the benefit of the ship's automatic

	Somewhere off to the starboard of Phoenix One, Tad
	log recorder a well as for theirs, each of them went verbally

	knew, the two booster shuttles of Phoenix Two would ALSO
	through a checklist of the systems he had brought to full

	be retrofiring to head homeward into Earth orbit,
	activity.

	"Expedition Control," said Tad, punching the console
	"... and all systems full on," said Tad finally, winding

	before him. "Our booster shuttles have just taken off. We're
	up the checklist. "Phoenix One in complete active operating

	now ready to restore Phoenix One to an active status."
	status. All right, let's start our visual check of the decks."

	"Roger, Phoenix One," came back the voice of Expedi	He
led the others as they got to their feet and headed


122 ..

toward the access tube running through the center of all
four of the ship's decks. In the absence of gravity, and
still in their spacesuits, they bumped clumsily against each
other, opening the door to the tube and entering it. Tad
went first, pulling his way along--in the direction that
"down" would be, once Phoenixes One and Two were
docked together and rotated to provide a substitute for
gravity--until he reached the door opening on B Deck.
This was the first deck below A, the control deck they had
just left; like A, it consisted of a doughnut-shaped space,
the outer wail of which was separated from the skin of the
ship only by insulation and a network of thermal tubes
designed to balance interior temperature between the heat
of the side of the ship in direct sunlight and the chili of
that side in the shade. The interior wall of B Deck, like
that of all the decks, was the wall of the access tube.

"Home," said Anoshi, cheerfully, when they had all
emerged on to B Deck. And, in fact, that was what it was.

Unlike A Deck, which was all open space with the
control consoles and other equipment spaced about its
floor, B Deck was partitioned. Three of the spaces enclosed
by partitions were the individual cabins, somewhat more
spacious and deserving of their name than the individual
"sleeping .compartments" in Skylab.

"Look," said Anoshi. "Nameplates already up on each
door. No danger forgetting where you sleep." ,

Tad looked. What he saw had not been specified anywhere
in the original plans, or part of any of the mockups
of B Deck he had encountered back on Earth. A solemn
black nameplate had been attached to the door of each
cabin--a small, almost impish touch on the part of those
who had finished off the interior of the spaceship. The
nameplates were unnecessary. Long ago, the three had
decided which cabin would be whose among the three of
them. But they were a little bit of human decoration, a
going away present from some of the ground workers. He
felt the emotion behind the nameplates in spite of himself;
and reading the tone behind Anoshi's words, understood
that Anoshi--and undoubtedly Bap as well--was feeling it,
too.

"Well, let's check them out," said Tad, breaking the spell.
Each stepped into his own cabin, the magnetism of the

soleplates on their boots switching on and off with each
flexing of the instep above it, so tliat it was a little like
walking across a kitchen floor where something sticky had
just been spilled. The rooms checked out; and they met
again outside them to step together into the wardroom.

The wardroom---dining and recreation quarters alike for
the three of themNtook up nearly a third of the space
on B Deck.
	"I'll

		check storage and waste compartments," said Tad.

"Meet you down at C Deck."

He went next door to the small consumables storage
compartment where immediate supplies of their food and
drink were packed. The storage compartment checked out,
and he moved on to the waste management compartment.
The strict utilitarianism of the waste management compartment
that had been tested out in the Skylab had undergone
some improvement here--in looks, if nothing else.
But the basics remained. Equipment had to be available
for the biomedical monitoring of the three men's body
wastes--although on Phoenix One automatic equipment
tgok over most of the job. In addition there had to be
disposal capabilities for a mass of things, from food containers
to damaged tools or parts to discarded uniforms,
which were easier to throw away than launder under space

i

conditions. Again, happily, automatic machinery took care
of the freezing and dumping of these wastes through a
channel leading to an air lock in the unpressurized section
aft.

With the waste management compartment checked out,
Tad went on down to C Deck and the four different lab
and workshop sections there. Anoshi and Bap were still
checking the equipment. Tad went on alone to D Deck.

The fourth and final deck was packed solid with stores
and equipment. Much of the equipment was intended for
use in the experimental programs for the Expedition's first
four weeks of coasting to Mars, while public interest was
still high. Tad looked grimly at the ranked cartons.

These Mars Expedition vessels had been designed originally
to carry double the crew they had now--six men per
ship. Now they barely had room for three. Part of the
crowding was due to the proliferation of basic research
itself--the larger countries, at least, had finally begun


		I25

to wake up to the need for it, under the demand by their
peoples for new technological answers to massive natural
problems of air, water, and land. But the overriding reason
for Phoenix One and Two being so overloaded with research
equipment and problems was political.
Jens Wylie had failed him about getting the list reduced.
That left no one to turn to but himseIf. And Tad had done
some tail thinking in the last twenty-four hours. In fact,
he had come UP with a possible way of saving the men
and the Expedition. Only he would need at least some help
--and the only one he could turn to for it was Fedya.

He would talk to Fedya as soon as he could. Meanwhile
.he shoved the matter from his mind and came back to the
immediate job. A quick check took D Deck past inspection-and
beyond D was only the Mars biolab, sterilized
and sealed at present. From the Mars biolab forward to
Control Deck A constituted the so-called "shirtsleeve"
area of the ship. Familiar as he was with it from training
with the mockups of the individual spaces, Tad could not
help feeling a new sensation of being constricted and enclosed.
This was the life zone--these four and a half
decks--of Phoenix One. Outside that zone, and its duplicate
on Phoenix Two, there was no place where life was
possible without a spacesuit between here and the Earth
they had just left.

Beyond the biolab and the unpressurized section surrounding
it there was only the hundred-and-sixty foot section
of the single nuclear shuttle, their main engine, that,
would not be fired until they had reached Mars and it was
time for them to drop into a close orbit around that red
planet. Forward of the nuclear shuttle, the life zone plus
the unpressurized compartment beyond A Deck holding
the unmanned probes and the MEM, the Mars Excursion
Module, made up the remaining hundred and ten feet d
the spacecraft. In less than fifty-six feet of that hundred
and ten, he, Anoshi, and Bap would spend most of theiri
next three years living and working.

It was cramped, it was not beautiful--but it was their
ship, it was his ship. And he would bring it through.
Buoyant, Tad turned and made his way back up the acces
tube to A Deck where Bap and Anoshi were already wait.

ing for him. The A Deck chronometer showed I4oo hours
exactly.

"Visual check of Phoenix One shows everything Aokay,"
Tad informed Cape Canaveral. It still seemed a
little odd to him to be reporting to Canaveral at this point
instead of to a Mission Control at Houston NASA. Tad's
experience in space dated back before the last and most
serious economy cut had reduced the NASA installation
at Houston to a shadow establishment. In theory NASA
headquarters were still there. In reality, only a few administrators
and a planning division still occupied the few
buildings NASA made use of at the once-busy instaltatiori.
Expedition Control for the Mars flight would be at Kennedy
Space Center throughout the trip.

"Roger. We copy. Visual check Phoenix One, all okay."
"So," said Tad, "unless you can think of a good reason
for us not to, we'll start getting out of our suits now?'

"Hold that desuiting for a moment, will you, Phoenix
One?" said Expedition Control. The helmet phones fell
silent.

"Now," said Anoshi, "they'll send us back to run a white
glove around the compartments for dust, before desuiting."

"Not dust," said Bap. "Gremlins. There is nothing worse
than gremlins in your control systems. An Extended
Gremlin Watch must be kept in operation at all times--"

"Okay there, Phoenix One," said Expedition Control,
coming suddenly to life again, "you may proceed with the
desuiting."

"Good enough," said Tad. "Copy. We'll begin desuiting."
Getting out of the spacesuits was not quite as much a
as getting into them; but it was still an awkward
and lengthy process that only in theory could be easily

by the spacesuit wearer alone. In practice, a
good deal of helpful hauling and tugging by extra pairs of
hands was welcome. Tad, as spacecraft commander, had
the privilege of being the first to be helped out of his suit,
after which he helped free first Anoshi, then Bap.

The emptied spacesuits went into a storage compartment,
leaving the men in.the undersuits that were designed to
match with the m'any connections and entry points of the
spacesuits.

127


"Go ahead," Tad, told the other two. "I'll be ready to
. nan the first "shift.' Standing orders called for one of the
Ijm-,a,n.:e.w to be dressed and ready to don his space-

	su't at all times. The other two were free to shift to CWGs,

Constant Wear Garments. Bap and Anoshi disappeared
down the access tube; and Tad seated himself in his
accele[ation-couch, now in control position, to inform
Expedition Control that they were now ready to begin

	docking maneuvers with Phoenix Two.
	,

	'R°er" .We co.py that," said Expediti,o,n Control. 'Have

		you got position figures of your own yet?'

		" "Ia piocess," .said Tad. He was squintingthrough the

		sextant lens at the sun, the north star, and Earth, seen

		simultaneously through three different sensor eyes on the

		outside of the ship. His right hand twisted knobs until the

		three lines intersected at centerpoint on the lens. Then he

		punched for the inboard computer, lifted his eye from the

		lens and looked at the computer screen.

		"I'm in reference grid cube JN 4372t, Kennedy," said

		"Copy. Grid cube JN 437. How s your ra ar, PhoenixI

		One?"

		Tad looked at the radar screen with its sweeping line

		light and,the intersec!ng blip in the upper right quadrant:,

		"Fine,' said Tad. Phoenix Two looks to be not more

		than sixteen kilometers off."

		"Thanks, Phoenix One. That checks with our data. Stand

		by for plane, bearing, and distance."'

		"Standing by," said Tad.

		'While he waited, Bap and Anoshi came back up to the

		Control Deck.

		"Say again?" Tad asked, for the sound of their return

		had obscured some of the figures Expedition Control had

		just begun to give him.

		Expedition Control repeated itself, giving Tad first the

		angle to the longitudinal axis of Phoenix One of the plane

		which enclosed both spacecraft, then the bearing and dis
		tance
of Phoenix Two from Phoenix One within that plane.

		Tad reached for the control buttons of the cold gas steering

		jets used to maneuver his ship. A docking maneuver be
		tween
the two vessels in space was too chancy to be trusted

		to any computer.

"All right, Expedition Control, I copy," he said. "Phoenix
One to Phoenix Two, if you are holding position, I will
approach for docking."

"Holding position, Phoenix One," came back the calm
voice of Fedya. "Come ahead."

Tad's fingers descended on the controls of the steering
thrusters. Out beyond the glass viewing port to his right,
the little reflection of Phoenix Two was lost among the
lights of uncounted stars. In the ceaseless glare of the sun,
through the airless distance between them, six hundred and
seventy-five thousand pounds of Phoenix One tilted, turned,
and drifted toward the six hundred and seventy-five thousand
pounds of Phoenix Two under the necessity of coming
together with a touch so light that it would not have dimpled
the bumper of a four-thousand-pound automobile back on
Earth.


The lights of all the stars visible forward flowed slowly
away from the point toward which Phoenix One headed.
As they reached the edge of vision they accelerated, disappearing
off the edge of the hemisphere of the front-vision
screen in the control onsole before Tad, to appear in the
rear-hemisphere screen, slowing gradually once more to.'
ward the point of no motion that'was directly behind the
moving spacecraft.

Phoenix Two was only a brighter point of light for
some minutes, then a glare-spot for some time more. Only
when Phoenix One was finally quite close did she appear
to change suddenly from a light-reflection to a spacecr'aft.
Actually, it was as only half of a spacecraft that
she appeared in the forward view screen, because, lying
nearly bow-on to the approaching Phoenix One, as she
now was, only the half of her length that was illuminated


F.C.	129

by the sun was visible. The other half was swallowed up
in the perfect darkness that was shadow in airless space,
so that she looked as if she had been divided longitudinally
by an enormous band saw.

Anoshi and Bap sat on their own couches and waited.
In Phoenix Two, Fedya, Dirk Welles," and Bern Callieux
would be doing the same thing. There was nothing to be
done on the other ship, and only one man could do what
needed to be done aboard Phoenix One.

The motions of Tad's fingers on the controls of the
steering thrusters were practiced, familiar ones. He--and
for that matter the other five 'nauts as wellMhad practiced
steering one ship into docking configuration with
the other, unnumbered times. But there was always the
difference between rehearsal and reality. Tad felt the
prickle of sweat on his face and at the back of his neck.
He was as conscious of the whole two hundred and seventy
feet of craft about him as a man might be of his own
car while maneuvering it into a parking place.

He approached Phoenix Two slowly, bow to bow, the
great bell-shaped ends of the forward sections, the space
probes and their individual MEMs in airless readiness,
now creeping toward each other like blind leviathans about
to touch in greeting. Beyond the circular metal lip of each
of those ends were six feet of the light metal scaffolding
enclosing half of the zero-g lab pod and the cryotex tube
leading back into the D Deck of each ship. The two
scaffoldings must take the impact of meeting; and also
they must interlock to hold the two ships together. It
would be upon their joined structure that the strain would
come when the two ships were rotated around their
common central point, where the completed pod would
sit, to provide a substitute gravity for the men aboard both
crafts.

The two ships moved closer to each other, slowing more
and more as they approached under the braking jets of the
thrusters activated by Tad's fingers. Expedition Control
and Phoenix Two were now silent. Bap and Anoshi were
sitent. Only the faint hum of the inboard air system fans
aboard Phoenix One competed with Tad's Voice.

"... Twelve meters from dock-point," Tad Was saying
aloud for the benefit of Expedition Control. His eyes were

I3O


no longer on the now completely bow-on image of Phoenix
Two in the forward screen, but on the graduated schematic
screen below it, where the outline of both spacecrafts approached
each other, square by red-lined square. "... ten
meters.., nine.., eight..."

Phoenix Two seemed to loom above the viewers of the

forward screen, as if she was falling upon her sister ship.
"... three meters . . . two. One . . . docked!"

What sounded like an unreasonably loud and prolonged
clang rang through Phoenix One and Two. But a red
signal light, unlit until now, was burning to the right of
the console in front of Tad, signaling that the two scaffold
!ngs
had locked correctly and were holding.
Tad sat back in his seat with a sigh.
"All okay, Phoenix Two?" he asked.
"All okay," Fedya's voice answered.

"Phoenix One to Expedition Control," said Tad. "Docking
acqomplished. Are we clear to send a man EVA from
each ship now to activate outside equipment and secure?"

"we copy docking accomplighed,,' said Expedition Control.
"Tad, will you hold off on EVA for the moment?
We'd like to run another position check on the two of you

now that you're docked together."

"Be our guest," said Tad.

There was a short period of silence from Expedition
Control.

"All right, Phoenix," said Expedition Control, coming
back to life again. "Your position shows no discernable
drift as a result of the docking maneuver. You may EVA
and activate exterior equipment whenever you're ready."

"Roger," said Tad. He looked to his left, at Anoshi, who
nodded. "Anoshi will EVA for Phoenix One."

"Dirk will EVA Phoenix Two," said Fedya's voice.
"Roger. We copy. Anoshi to EVA Phoenix One, Drk
to EVA Phoenix Two," Expedition Control agreed.
: Anosh got up.

"Back into harness," he said. He disappeared down the
access tube.

Bap touched the button.on the communication headband
above his ear, cutting off the voice-activated microphone
on the slender arm that curved around to the edge


i

!,i of his mouth.

I3I

..... Good for you, Tad," he said softly. ' Anoshi wanted to

L! firs-t-n out. Did you know that?"
	,

	"No," said Tad. "Besides, he's first out because he s the

	astronomer here, the cameras are his."

	But it was true about Anoshi--Tad had not known, but

	he had suspected. ,

	'Sure. Only when you kept your undersu!t on, I thought

		" "Standigy°'u'"e-re'-p-lanning to be first out yourself,' Bap said.

			orders call for a man to be ready to suit up

	,w,,h, eth,e-r--!here's a man EVA already or not," Tad replied.

	sY'ohe;i .*' usY'okhsiBiPs. Bdttr sYutU.,,co uld' v e j u st t old o n e o f ..

A little silence fell. A few minutes later, Anoshi came
back out of the access tube, wearing his spacesuit underwear.
He went across to the spacesuit locker and got his
suit out. Tad and Bap helped him into it, and fastened to
his belt the tools he would need and the film packs for the
cameras he would be activating.

"All set," said Anoshi over the communication caps the
other two had redonned--also according to standing orders
when one of them was to be outside the shirt-sleeve area.
He lifted a gloved hand, rose and turned to the access
tube. This time, on entering it, he went forward rather
than aft, for the distance that would be the height of A
Deck; and at the end of that distance he came to the inner
door of an air lock.
The air lock let him forward into the airless, though
now lighted, space containing the Mars Excursion Module
and the unmanned planetary probes that would be sent
down to Mars--and in the case of one of them, down to
Venus on the trip back. He went forward alongside the
two-meter height of the cryoflex tube that would provide a
shirt-sleeve conduit to the pressurized section of the zerogravity
pod between the ships. He followed the tube
forward and exited through the hatch in the end wall to
find himself among the light metal scaffolding that had
joined with the scaffolding from Phoenix Two to dock the
two ships together.
There was no spacesuited figure from Phoenix Two in
sight yet, so Anoshi turned and walked from the hatch,

32


	the magnetic soles of his boots sticking and yielding
alternately to the outside surface of the end wall, until he
came. to the actual edge of the ship's hull some twenty
feet away. He stepped over the foot-high end rim of the
hull onto the cylindrical metal of the hull itself. Above

him all the stars of the universe revolved solemnly as he
went from the surface he was on to one at right angles

with it. It was like stepping around the edge of a box

from one flat side to the other.

He walked down the hull.

There were twelve recording star-cameras for him to
check out and load, five fixed, three with automatic programmed
movements, and four which could be manipulated
from inside the ship. There was the laser mirror to erect
and align, and the solar cell holders to erect. But, as he
walked slowly along the ship, Anoshi was thinking only
secondarily of these things.

His mind was filled now, at last, with the great, passive
satisfaction of being where he. was---here, alone with the
ship and the stars.

He had said no word of what concerned him to any of
the other five 'nauts; nor had he said any word of it to
any other human being. Bap and Tad had perhaps sensed
the emotional traces of it through the closeness that had
grown up between them all. But even with them, it would
be no more than seeing the corona of a solar discharge,
without feeling the unbelievable power and heat behind
and below it. Alone of all the six now between Earth
and Mars, he had been ashamed not to be more than he
was. He had wanted to be a true astronaut, a marsnaut,
not just a space-going scientist.

There were only two real marsnauts aboard; Tad and
Fedya. Anoshi and the other three were merely scientists
with astronaut training. For Bap, Bern, and Dirk, this
difference did not seem to matter greatly. What counted
with them, apparently, was that they were here, on any
terms. But Anoshi had wanted more than that; and only a
trick of timing had forbidden it to him.

Unlike the other three, he had been intended to be a
marsnaut--a true marsnaut in the space program of
Nippon. B,ut that program had not gotten to the point of


I 3 3

developing its own experienced astronauts at the time that

this Expedition was conceived and instigated. If it had been,

he would have been a space traveler in his own right, in
stead
of, as now, a sort of auxiliary specialist, for all his

recent months of training. Only one thing could make him

a marsnaut; and that was the very thing he was doing. He

was leaving Earth as an auxiliary specialist. But three

years from now he would come back, they would all come

back, true marsnauts, men who had voyaged through air
less
space between the stars, from one world to another.

That was why it was so important that he be out here

alone as he was no.wwhe interrupted his thought and

knelt to check and load the first of the outside cameras.

His gloved hands worked clumsily but surely and the load
ing
section of the camera opened, black with shadow, before

him. He loaded it, closed it, and rose to his feet again. By

the time he came back to Earth there would be nothing

concerned with the Expedition that he would not have

done. Anything any one of the others was to do aboard,

he would find a way to do also, officially or privately. That

was his goal and he would see it accomplished.

Moving on to the next camera now, he saw that

Phoenix Two had disgorged her own spacesuited figure..

There was no external identification on this suit, but over

the months they had grown used to the way the others

moved when suited. Anoshi identified the other figure as

Dirk and lifted an arm in greeting. Dirk waved back. He

had gone to work on Phoenix Two's outside cameras, and

clearly they would work their ways back together eventually

to the scaffolding joining the two spacecrafts for their

final duty of making that joining rigid and secure.

Anoshi finished the cameras and moved on to set up

the solar cells in their holder. They made up a square

panel standing almost as tall as himself above the hull of

the ship. By contrast, when, twenty feet further aft of

the cells, he lifted the copper laser mirror into erect posi
tion
and peeled the protective coating from its carefully

polished surface, the mirror stood barely thigh-high and

was no more than a square foot in area. Miracle of science,

thought Anoshi fondly, handling it. So tiny, to serve

eventually as a target for a coherent light beam all the

way from Earth to Mars.
	"

I34


The laser mirror was small but massive, with its heavy
cooling fins at the back. He locked it in the upright position
and. engaged its base vcith the control housing below
it that would enable it to be aligned from within the ship.
Then, finished at last, he rose and headed .toward the
scaffolding and the pod.

He moved slowly forward along the ship since Dirk
was still involved with the laser mirror on Phoenix Two.
At that, Anoshi still had to wait several minutes after he
had reached the scaffolding for Dirk to join him.

The scaffolding consisted of two heavy rodlike sections
diametrically opposite each other around the circle of the
rim of the end wall of each ship. They held the two
vessels a little less than ten feet apart; and had been so
designed that the rods of matching sections clung magnetically
to those of the opposite ship as the vessels had
come together. Magnetism and inertia still held them to-

gether, but the spacecraft were merely drifting at the
moment. The rods had to be clamped tightly together to
take the strain that would come upon them when the two
six-hundred-and-seventy-five thousand-pound masses were
rotated about their jointure to provide gravity for both
ships.

The clamps were built into the rods. Working in silence,
Dirk and Anoshi pulled them into position and dogged
them down by hand. Then, when that was done, they
moved to the center of the space between the now lockedtogether
spacecrafts and began to seal the two halves of the
no-gravity pod that was approached by the cryoflex tubes
from each ship.

The sealing was a simple matter of intersandwiching
several specially treated layers of the rubbery, fantastically
strong cryoflex fabric along the lines of jointure. Once
these layers were laid in contact, an electric current sent
through the fabric from either ship would cause the layers
to flow together in a bond more than capable of containing
the pressure of the ships' atmosphere. Of course, only one
half the pod would have atmosphere and be connected to
the tubes that now made a shirt-sleeved passageway from
one ship to the other. The other half, beyond its impermeable
wall, was to be left airless, enterable only by
someone in a spacesuit through a simple hatch in its side.

I35


"Done," Anoshi announced over the common phone
circuit of both ships. "Run the current through the pod
fabric, pressurize, and you're all set."
"Done, indeed," said Dirk's voice in the earphones.
"Phoenix Two, pay no attention to any unofficial reports
from Phoenix One personnel. This is your own coworker

announcing everything A-okay."

"We copy," Tad's voice said.

"Copy," said Fedya. "Come on back inside, Dirk."
"I," said Anoshi, "am returning inside, Phoenix One.
My apologies for taking so long; but there was some bystander
in a spacesuit that kept getting in my way."

"Awfully crowded out here in space nowadays," said
Dirk.

They waved to each other, turned and stomped off toward
the hatches in the end walls of their ships.

By the time Anoshi was back inside on A Deck, Tad
had started the ships rotating about their common center
to provide about half a gravity. "Down" was not actually
down and Anoshi gratefully switched.off the magnetism
of his boot soles. Electric current had effectively sealed
the pod halves and a safe atmosphere pressure was built
up in the connecting tubes. Tad, seated at his console,
had finished passing the word to Expedition Control and
was inviting Fedya over for a visit.

"We're scheduled for a down period now, anyway," he
was saying over the phone circuit. "Come across and
spend half an hour with me and a cup of coffee. We'll go

over the schedule together."

Fedya nodded, looking back at him from the phon,!:
screen.

I'll be over in five minutes," he said.

Five minutes later, punctually, the hatch in the ceiling
of A Deck just beside the access tube opened. Fedya
climbed easily down the handholds on the outside of the

tube until he reached the deck. He looked around.
"Bap?" he asked. "And Anoshi?"::..

"In their compartments," Tad said, getting up from his
console. "They're going to get some sleep."

"Dirk and Bern are down, also," said Fedya. He
carried a folder of schedule sheets under his arm. Now he


I36

held them out. "Do you want to compare these with
yours?"

"No," said Tad. "We can just work with yours. Besides,
there's something else I want to talk to you about,
privately."

He led the way to the access tube. They climbed down to
B Deck and went in to take a table in the wardroom by
the dispensers. Tad got them both cups of coffee.

"Something else besides the schedule?" Fedya queried
gently, when they were seated.

"No. Really beside," said Tad. He looked at Fedya.
"You know I tried to get the experiments list cut."

Fedya nodded. "If everything goes without trouble, we
should be able to get it all done."

"It won't." Tad lowered his voice, glancing toward the
wall beyond which was the first of the sleeping compartments-luckily
his own and therefore empty. "It
can't. It's too much to expect everything to go perfectly.
And if it doesn't, the work is going to spill over into our
down time. What's more, it'll be cumulative. Expedition

knows we're scheduled too tightly."

"We can only try," said Fedya.

"And make a mess of things when it all falls apart,"
said Tad. "It's these first four weeks when they've got us
scheduled to be working on all the razzle-dazzle research.
There's political pressure behind every item on the
schedule, you know that."

"As I say," Fedya repeated. "We can only try."

"No," said Tad, "we can do better than that. We can
keep the schedule."

"You just said that was impossible." Fedya was watching
him closely.

"It is. I've got a notion, though," said Tad. "Only, I'll
need a lucky .break--from one other man. Maybe I
should say an unlucky break."

He looked at the long white fingers Fedya had wrapped
around his coffee container.

"Someone on Phoenix Two," said Tad, "would have to
have a minor accident--to his hand, say. Enough to bar
him from working in a spacesuit."

Fedya's eyes met his.

"Not the sOrt of accident that would slow him down on
his share of the duties inside his ship," said Tad. "Just
enough to keep him from going out. To make up for what
he can't do, the man from our ship would do both, now
that they're docked."

"And how will this man find time to do that?" Fedya
looked closely at him, "This man--yourself?"


"Don't ask me how," he said grimly: "In fact, don't ask
anything. Forget we had this little talk. But I tell you the
program can be kept and completed, if I just have that one
bit of help."

Fedya's eyes held with his. They sat, looking at each
other. That Fedya understood, Tad had no doubt. That
he would help,, was another question. It was up to him;
all up to him, now.


15


Jens floated gradually from a dream int6 wakefulness. He
had been dreaming about the moment of the launch
itself, and the rest of yesterday, following that. Now
imperceptibly, the dream melted into his actual memories--
memories that still had the vividness of the dream-expertence,
so that he lay, remembering what had happened as
if he was reliving it, and without any real awareness that
he still lay in bed.

He had been to a number of the earlier launches of the
shuttle itself and of the spacecraft that had been parked
in orbit waiting for the men, of the Mars Expedition to
come to them; and he remembered, as a boy, being with'
his father and watching some of the old Apollo launches
from the V.I.P. area at Kennedy Space Center. It had
been wonderful enough then, to see the great whitepainted
towers lift off for space, but it was not until 1

I38


grew up and was able to come as a newsman that he truly
appreciated "the launches, seeing them from the press site.

The press site was different. For one thing it was closer
to the launch pads than the V.I.P or the Dependents Area.
But, more than that, the fact that the press site was
occupied solely by working newspeople gave a different
angle and perspective on what was about to happen and
what eventually always did happen, as it had again,
yesterday.

The first few rows'of the stands at the press site were
always filled with reserved sections to which telephone
and other equipment lines had been run, and yesterday
had been no exception. Under the shadow of the roof--
the press site was the only one that had a roof, to keep
the rain off the papers and other materials on the desks in
front of the correspondents--these front rows were always
very busy from several hours before the launch with
newspeople talking to distant radio audiences, or dictating
stories to rewrite people.

Higher up in the stands yesterday morning, there had
been less equipment than usual to be seen, but more
people. Early, under the merciless Florida sun, ancient
buses had brought most of the newspeople out to the site.
They had still some hours to kill before the countdown
would be completed and the launch could take place; so
they were in continual movement, visiting the trailers that
sold soft drinks and sandwiches and bringing back their
purchases, sitting around eating, drinking, and talking
to each other.

But when the countdown began to approach launch
-.time, the air of conviviality in the upper stands had
dwindled away into one of purpose and of work. Even on
the top levels people were to be seen hammering away at
typewriters, making notes and sketches, looking through
Quesfars and Celestrons, as well as ordinary binoculars,
at the launch pad three miles off, where the shuttle itself
now stood like a monstrous double airplane, twin white
plumes fuming softly in the sunlight, as it bled off the
excess pressure of the .liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen
being piped aboard to be combined as fuel for its flight.

As the countdown went into its final minutes, a gradual
exodus began--from the stands toward the front edge of

the stretch of grassy earth that reached to. the edge of the
canal leading to the Vehicle Assembly Building. For some
time now cameras on tripods had been set up at the canal
bank, as close as the photographers could come to the
actual bird itself.

Now these cameramen were being joined by a host of
other people moving down under the common impulse to
get as close ,as possible to the shuttle at the moment of
launch. By the time the final seconds were being counted
off over the loudspeakers, the crowd was standing four and
five deep at the edge of the water.

Leaving Lin behind, Jens had gone down to the canal
edge alone, almost relieved to be solitary in this moment
of semi-communion. Thig was his moment, at last, the
moment that paid off for all else. It was what he had waited
for all these months, compensation for his psition here as
a political straw man, and his knowledge that that was all
he was, a reward for all he had come to believe in as far
as space and man's effort to go out into it went. Now, with
the launch of the shuttle, all this and more became worthwhile
and proved.

For a moment, like a vague, uncomfortable, gray ghost
slipping through the back of his mind came the memory
of his self-centeredness and guilt in not making the appointments
for Lin. Once the launch was over, he thought,
he could probably get over to Expedition Control in time
to catch both Penny and Wendy there, before they left. He
could talk to them both, then, and set up appointments ..

But the countdown was almost finished. His mind left
the uncomfortable area of neglected duties and came back
to this moment that was his personal justification. There
were only seconds to go, now. He was only feet from the
edge of the water, closely surrounded on all sides. He
looked about him.

In the center, the crowd was thickest. He found a place,
off to one side where there were only two people between
him and the shuttle; a tail man and a small, dark-haired
girl, talking quietly in Span!sh with an Argentinian accent,
Once more, as always at these launches, he found himsdf
unable to believe that the massive, double craft he was
looking at, perched up on the .enormous concrete pai
would really be able to lift itself against the force 0t


I4O

gravity, when the moment came. In spite of the many
times he had seen it, it was always unthinkable. The construct
was .too heavy, there was too much mass. It was
impossible.

Intellectually, he knew that in a few moments he
would actually see it happen. He knew that it would suddenly
prove itself--do the impossible--and that in the
moment of its doing, everything would suddenly be
reversed. The wonder and the glory of it, the great right-ness of it, would lift him as well, suddenly making anything
possible. But right now it was unbelievable, and he
knew it would go on being unbelievable up to the very
second in which he finally saw it happen.

About him, in the crowd, he could feel the emotional
heat of other reactions similar to his own. The people
about him were relatively quiet, speaking to each other
only in short sentences and in undertones, as if the shuttle
was some huge wild bird that might be frightened by
too loud talk in its vicinity and disappear before' it was
able to do what they had come to see it do. There was
tension to be felt in the air all about Jens; there was a
feeling of expectancy, mounting to uneasiness.

Jenswreliving the moment now--remembered wonder
.ingthen,
as he always did at these times, that repetition
did not seem to be able to dull this experience and make
it commonplace. Instead, it was almost as if continual
exposure to launches sensitized the individual's emotions
to them, in the way that someone might become sensitized
to an allergen; so that later launches were more excruciating
to the imagination, not less, than the ones
experienced earlier, when knowledge had been less and
expectation imprecise.

Now] as he stood, he could hear the large clock-board
facing the stands behind them complementing its visual
image with a verbal countdown, counting off the seconds,
"ten . . . nine . . . eight . . . seven . . . six . . . five . . .
]our... three . . .

'Zwo . . . one . .

Silence.

Then, in utter quiet, 0range-red flame spurted from the
base of the shuttle, spreading out; for a distance equal to
half the height of the shuttle itself and billo.wing up


141

around it. There was no movement of the vehicle in those
first few seconds. Only the silent outburst of the flames.

Without warning, the craft was in motion. The first
second of its movement had been imperceptible; but now,
suddenly,, it could be seen to move. It raised itself slowly,
very slowly at first; but then, as it lifted, it began to
move more and more swiftly. The flames spread out
below and around it; and for the first time sound began
to reach the ears of the watchers, a distant firecrackerlike
popping.

Now it was lifting more swiftly, the flames behind it
paling, going bright-transparent in the sunlight. Now, it
was half its own height into the air, accelerating upward.
The sound mounted; it came crashing around those watching,
no longer in sharp snaps but as a rolling chain of
heavy explosions that shook the air and sent ripples
racing across the surface of the canal toward the bank
on which they stood.

The earth and air were vibrating now with the sound
and the movement of the shuttle. It was moving rapidly up
into the cloudless sky. It had been able to fly after all; and
now it was on its way. All at once they were all reacting.
The tenseness and waiting, all the hushing of voices were
over; and everybody was talking at the top of their voices,
all around Jens.

"Did you see that? Did you see that?"

"Shit! Shit! Look at it go!"

"It's going--it's really going, it's going . . ."

Just in front of Jens the little Argentinian girl with the
dark hair was pointing up into the sky with rigid arm and
forefinger.

"Mira!" she was crying. "'Mira..."

Jens himself watched it along with the rest until it
curved away into the sky, became a point, and invisible.
There was a moment of nothing, then a faint, faint downrange
flare. The two massive solid propellant rockets had
just burned empty and been jettisoned, for later ocean re.covery.
The orbiter was running on the liquid propellants
in the even more massive tank attached to its belly. There
was nothing to stop it now from reaching the Expedition
spacecraft in orbit.

Jens turned from the water and the empty launch pad,


I42 :

He began drifting back with the rest of the crowd, back
to the stands and Lin, He was coming down gradually
from ,the excitement of the launch moment. He wondered
how Lin had felt and it came to him that some time he
should find out. It was one of the things he. badly wanted
to know about her.

The thought of the unmade appointments struck him
like a blow. He found a phone in the stands and, as he had
expected, was able to get through to Penny Welles and
Wendy Hansard at Expedition Control. Both were evidently
preoccupied--Jens could hear the drone of the controller's
voices as they followed the ascent of the shuttle
rebut agreed on times to see Lin.

Lin seemed subdued when he rejoined ler, and looked
at him thoughtfully. He told her about the appointments.

She said, "It's good of you to have done that, and I
should have known you would. That was . . . something,
that launch, wasn't it?"

She had not said anything more about it, and in the
bustle of getting back to town, he had not pressed her.
Their afternoon--and, as it turned out, the evening and
much of the night--was taken up with a post-launch
party held at the home of a science fiction writer who
lived in the Merritt Island area. Nearly all the people there
that evening were professional writers who had been down
with assignments of their own and press passes to the
launch. Now, writers and photographers alike, they were
back at he home of Mike Spelman, the local author,
celebrating, watching the television coverage on the shuttle's
trip to orbit and the subsequent delivery of the astronauts
to the actual Mars Expedition ships, drinking, eating and
talking--talking until Jens's own head began to spin with
words and liquor, and he forgot to ask what it had been
like for Lin at the moment of launch, after all ....

Jens woke now to the undeniable fact that he was awake.
His eyes were still closed. But his dream had run itself
all the way into conscious memory, and he was once more
aware that he was in his room. He opened his eyes and
looked around him. The covers were thrown back on the
other side of the bed and Lin was gone. Bright sunlight
made radiant the drapes that were drawn across the
window to keep the daylight outside.

I43


Jens continued to lie still, waiting for his body to come to
the moment of wanting to get up. He could think of
nothing he needed to do; and after the pressure and hurry
of the last week, a sort of delicious laziness held him
where he was. Sooner or later he would feel like moving
--and then he would get up.

While he still lay, thinking this, he heard a door shut
in the sitting room of the motel suite, and steps coming
briskly toward the bedroom. He closed his eyes again,
quickly. As the steps came into the bedroom, they slowed
and became more quiet. Suddenly, he felt guilty about

pretending to be still asleep and opened his eyes.

"I'm awake," he said.

Lin was standing beside the vanity mirror on the wall
across the room. She came over and sat down on the

edge of the bed beside him, looking down at him.
"Where did you disappear to?" he asked.

"I had something to do," she said. "I thought you could
use the sleep."

He stared up into her green eyes, which this close and
from below looked enormous and brilliant. He felt a sudden,
aching desire for her, but knew it was no use. Morning
was always the quietest and 'best time for him. It was the
time at which the world moved back into the distance. But
for Lin it was the last thing at night, the end of the day,
that was private and best. Now, without asking, without
reaching for her, he knew that whether she would agree
or not to come to him now, at best it could be only a
divided time, in which they would not be fully together.
She was wrapped around with her daytime armor. Her
crisp clothes, the faint scent of cologne, the touch of
lipstick on her lips, all held him at a distance.

"Do you still want to see the dragon?" he asked.
She smiled down at him.
"If it won't eat me."

"Not this dragoni" he said. "All right, it's all set.
Steve's going to lend me his runabout. I talked to him
about it at the party last night."

"Which Steve was that?" she asked.

"Steve Fourmelle," Jens said. "He's not a writer.'
mean he's not a free-lance writer. He works for one

the newspapers.here in town. You were probably thinking

Steve Anjin. Anjin's in his sixties and he was writing

for the pulp magazines back before World War II.

Steve Fourmelle's about my age. Short, red hair."

She nodded.

"I remember him now," she said. "What kind of a
boat do they call a runabout down here?"

"Just a small inboard," he answered. "Actually, I've
never seen that one of Steve's, myself. Let me get dressed
and get some breakfast and we'll drive down to the Eau
Gallie Causeway and have a look at it."

They ate in the motel's coffee shop, which was still
crowded, but nowhere nearly as much as it had been on
launch days; then, one or two people had been standing
and waiting for every one being served. In fact, in spite
of the people who were still around, there was a feeling in

air as if the town of Merritt Island was already being
deserted. Afterwards, they took Lin's rented car and
Jens drove it to the Eau Gallie Causeway, a long stretch
of bridge-highway across the shallow, extensive width of
the Indian River that flowed down the eastern side of the "
finger of land that was Merritt Island.

The marina was larger than they expected and they had
to locate the manager in order to find the boat they
wanted. When they did get to him. however, they discovered
that Steve Fourmelle had phoned ahead about
their coming, and they were expected. The runabout
turned out to be a twenty-foot green and white semicabin
cruiser with a sixty-horsepower inboard engine and
a draft of perhaps a foot and a half.

"Are you sure you can drive it?" asked Lin, as Jens,
standing below her, helped her down from the dock into
the cockpit. She stepped carefully across the drainb0ards
to sit down on the semicircular padded seat that filled the end
of the cockpit.

"No problem," said Jens. "I've been handling boats
like this since I was a kid. Remember I grew up in lake
country--Minnesota."

, He leaned forward to check out the controls. The
manager of the marina was still standing on the dock,
watching them. He leaned over to sPeak through one of


, I 14 5

the open windows of the half-cabin in which Jens now
stood.

"The channel's straight out in the middle, here," he said,
"you'll see the markers. Better follow them pretty close.
This channel's been dredged ten-twelve feet, but the
water'll get real shallow any place you're not inside the

markers, right down to near the end of the island."
"Thanks," Jens said, over his shoulder.

He started the motor, backed the runabout out, turned
it around and headed for the center of the broad expanse
of blue-green water where the channel markers indicated
passage. A few moments later, they had left the marina
behind and were purring southward along the Indian River"
with the shore seemingly a long distance away on either
side.

"We'll be going down the east side of Merritt Island,
headed south," Jens called over his shoulder to Lin.

She came forward and perched on the pilot chair to his
right in the cabin, looking out through the front windshield
as he stood at the wheel.

"How far is it?" she asked.

"It's only a twenty-minute run," he said, "and twenty
minutes back again."

"Does it smell this bad all the way 6own?" she asked,
wrinkling her nose.

"No," he said, "we get away from that. They're tidal
lagoons, actually, these Indian and Banana Rivers, more
than they're anything else. There's a lot of silting up and
decay of vegetable matter in the shallow water along the
shores. Farther down, the bottom near shore gets rockier
and deeper, as we come to the tip of the island."

"It seems to be getting better already. Did you spend
some time down here when you were a boy?"

"No." Jens shook his head. "When we weren't out of
the country altogether, the places we lived were mainly up
north, and always were after dad became a senator. But
we were down here at Kennedy sometimes, on trips for a
day or two. He brought me down to some of the old
.Apollo launches--but I told you about all that, didn't I?"

He was conscious of her watching him, although he
had to keep his eyes on the water ahead.


I46

"Yes, you did," she said. "That's when you fell in love
with all this, wasn't it?"

"You, mean with the Space Center and the idea of
space?" he said. "No. I was hooked before then. I can't
really remember how much before. To tell the truth I

can't remember when I wasn't in love with it.";

"Was your father ever?" Lin asked.

Jens shook his head. Under his fingers, the wheel of
the runabout resonated with the vibrations of the motor
that was sending them steadily southward.

"No," he answered. "He was all for the idea of being
in a race with Russia, the idea fhat started the first space

push in the fifties that ended with

	landing

		a

			man

				on

					the

moon. But anything beyond that sounded to him like a
waste of money. As far as he was concerned, the moon
was just another rock and. we had plenty of those down.

here on Earth already." "
"Maybe he was right," said Lin.
Jens shook his head again.

"No," he said. "He was a working politician. He ought
to have realized that where there's competition for anything
there's a need in common; and this time it was a
need that'd been around since the beginning of civilization
--the need to find a better way of surviving. There's all
sorts of pressures pushing our frontiers out into splice.
Not just political ones, either."

"Yes, I've heard you on that," said Lin. He could feel
her eyes watching him steadily, while his own gaze was
still fixed on the water ahead. "All right. I can see it, too
--technology and civilization pushing us out to the moon,
and even to Mars. Only, I'm not so sure we ought to let
technology and civilization do that to us, even if everybody
for the last three years has been jumping on the bandwagon
and saying what a great thing it is, talking about all
the advantages in new engineering techniques and pure
knowledge to be picked up by getting outside the environment
of Earth's atmosphere. And I can see the bit
about our learning more about this planet by getting outside
it. I like the idea that now we've got better crop
control and better weather control, and that we're beginning
to handle our land and seas better because of being


I47

able to look at it from the outside. It's just that I wonder

if the cost isn't too high."
He looked at her.
"That again?" he asked.

"I'm not convinced, that's all," she said. "I'm willing
to be convinced."

"I can't convince you," he shook his head. "I've tried
that. I believe, myself, because I believe in a number of
factors that can't be measured exactly; and they convince
me. You don't believe in those factors; and since neither
of us can measure them exactly--there we are."

"I'd feel better," Lin said, "if I could believe it Wasn't
just a hangover from the stars in your eyes when you
were young that makes you so sure of these unmeasurable
factors you talk about."
"I don't know how to prove to you that's not the case,
either," said Jens. "Didn't you ever have stars in your
eyes? And what makes you so sure that you haven't still
got some, for something? How can anybody be sure of
that?"

"I'm not. Of course, I'm not," Lin said. "But I can
have a hangover of stars in the eyes and still want to be
practical."

He looked again out at the water ahead.

"I don't know how to convince you," he said, half to
himself.

"Try looking at it from the opposition's point of view,
once, why don't you? Step off to one side and take a view
of the whole project from a different angle."

"Damn it, that's what I do every day!" said Jens. "Do
you think all the people around me are people who really
believe in the space program? Do you think these other
ministers for space believe in it the way I do? If they do,
.it's for entirely different reasons than mine. They're most of
them hooked on the business of an immediate profit from
it, or on some kind of an immediate personal or national
benefit from it, just the way my father was! I spend ninety
percent of my time trying to get a grip on their way of
looking at it, so I can talk with them on grounds they
understand. This whole business of too heavy an experimental
load--" He broke off abruptly.


48

He waited for her to speak; but she said nothing. He

	turned his head from the water to stare at her.

	"Believe me," he said, "the number of people in this

	thing Who'v.e got stars in their eyes is a lot less than other

	people think--a lot less among those with authority, any
	way.
And as for the nonstarry-eyed--they're all as prac
	tical
and hardheaded as even you'd like. I'm talking about

	the mass of the NASA people .involved, the engineers, the

	engineering companies themselves, the 'nauts and all the

	rest. They may have a dream or two but what they're

	actually doing is as straightforward and realistic as digging

	a ditch. And that attitude pays off for them eventually in

	exactly the same way that digging a ditch does It gets the

	ditch done, and kicks out the knowledge and the skills to

	dig the next ditch better, to get more and better ditches

	dug in the future, so that we'll all be better off. Now, you

	ought to know that."

	She sat without saying anything for a few seconds, not

	as if she had been impressed, but as if she were gathering

	together in her mind what she would say next.

	"I've got one opinion about this expedition and the

	whole space effort," she said finally. "I've got another

	opinion about you. Right now, it's you I'm thinking about,

	and. what all this is doing to you."

	"It's not doing anything to me!"

	"Whoa! Back up, Jens!" she said. "It's done plenty to

	you already; and it's going to do more--and you know it!"

	,,He took a deep breath, looking back out at the water.

'A "
	'
	"
	"

	11 rlgh.t. It s doing a lot to me. The dazzle from the

river surface ahead was abruptly in his eyes. He blinked.
"There's got to be a line somewhere that we can agree on,
something between being impractical and wanting to see
something accomplished, some effort, for something better
that wins out."

He stopped speaking. For a long moment he steered the
boat in silence, and Lin did not speak either. Then he
opened his mouth again.

"We've gone around and around on this before," he
said, "and we never get anywhere. The plain fact of the
matter is you can always outargue me. But that doesn't
make you right and me wrong."

149


	There was a small, sharp, audible intake of breath from
Lin. He waited, but she did not answer. He wanted .to
look at her but somehow could not make himself do so.

"Nothing more to say?" he asked, at last, still watching
the river.

"No," she said, quietly. "At least, not about that. Tell
me something about this dragon. What is it, the fossil of
some dinosaur someone's found and mounted somewhere?"

"No, not that." He found himself grinning, quite lightheartedly,
to his surprise.

"You're not trying to get me to think it's some kind
of actual dragon, now?" she said. "You're not going to
tel| me that?"

"Well," he said, "I think of it as an actual dragon."
She got up, stepped over, and threw her arms around
his waist from behind, digging, her chin into his right
shoulder.

"You would!" she growled in his ear. "You and a real
dragon! Now there's a great combinationP'

He felt the agreeable pressure of her body against his
and the tight warmth of her arms around him. He was also
aware that her right knee was pressing lightly against the
inside of his own right knee and a simple yank backward
by her, using her knee as a fulcrum, could put him on
the deck.
"No tricks," he said.

She chuckled in his ear.

"What's the matter?" she asked. "Are there rocks in
the channel?"

"Damn it, of course there aren't. But there're rights-ofway
and we're not the only boat out here. We're not
supposed to be straggling all over the place without a hand
on the wheel."

"No spirit of adventure," she said. But her knee relaxed
its pressure against the inside of his. "And you're the one
who's taking me to see a dragon. I don't know where you
get your suspicious mind, anyway."

"Experience," he said. "I know you, remember? As a
matter of fact, take a look out to your left. The channel's
moved closer in toward the land now that we're farther
down the island. If you look out there, you'll see there

5o


are some rocks, though it'd take us a few minutes to get
close enough to run up against them."

She stepped to the half-open window of the cabin.

"And the smell's gone. This is more like it. When did
we get so close to the bank?"

"We've been moving in, all the way down along the
river," he said.

He looked over and saw her fascinated by the shore.
The scene here was entirely different. Alongside them,
here and there through the trees there was a glimpse of
riverside road--but only a glimpse. Most of the shore
they were looking at consisted of a rocky rise of several
feet, either with green, wellrkept lawns coming down to
it, or land simply grown over, with a path through it.
'But in each case either a path, a walk, or some stairs led

down to a dock or a boathouse.

"It looks like the kind of a place I might like to have
some time," said Lin. "How far to the dragon?"

"We're almost there," he answered. "Look ahead."

For a second, she said nothing, just peering ahead. Then
she spoke.

"That? That right down there where the land ends?"
"What do you see?" he asked.

"It looks like a lump of something, right where the
island ends."

"Does it look like a dragon?"

"No," she said.

"Now, turn around and don't look at it again until
we're level with it," he told her. "I'll tell you when we're

level and then I want you to look at it again."
She turned back. The boat rumbled on.
"Now!"

She turned quickly and looked out the window.

"Jens!" she said, her voice suddenly different. "It is a
dragon! It's a real dragon!"

Jens killed the motor, went back to the stern and threw
out the ship's anchor; the boat drifted forward a little
bit as the rope snaked overboard; the rope stopped
leaving the boat, tightened, lifted and held. He went back
to join Lin, who had come out of the cabin and was
looking across the low side of the cockpit at the dragon,

now separated from them by less than fifty feet of water
and seen in full relief against the far sky, side-on, aYcS-

Lin was leaning half-over the side of the boat, her


brilliant, her lips parted. He stood back a few feet,
ing her and feeling something that was almost an ache
pleasure inside him. When she was completely caught up
in something, or specially happy, she radiated. She lit
up like a five-hundred-watt light bulb.

He stood, watching her. She had fastened on the sight
of the dragon with that remarkable sudden intensity that
was part of her, like a powerful searchlight stopping on
something it had hunted for a long time through vast
darknesses. In fact, the dragon was not unworthy of that
kind of attention. Someone had built it into the veery
structure of the point of Iand that was the southernmost
tip of Merritt Island. Crouching, eight or ten feet above
the water on a point of land like a rocky bowsprit, it was
perhaps twenty-flye feet in length, with a heavy threatening
head in which the jaws were parted and the teeth showing.
It was a marvelous construction.

"It's a Chinese dragon," Lin said. "Look, Jens, look at
its head. Isn't it a Chinese dragon?"

"You're right," Jens said. "It certainly has a Chinese
look up front. Would you believe me if I told you it could

spout flames?"

"Flames?"

The single word was not a question from Lin, it was
an exclamation of joy. He moved in to stand beside her,
not quite touching her. It seemed to him that he could
feel the heat of her. She swung suddenly, hugged and
kissed him.

"Now, that's a dragon!" she said, leaning her head
back to look into him, but still holding him around he

waist. "You told me the truth!"

"Don't I always?" he asked.

She let him go and turned back to look at the dragon.

"Not like that," she said. "Tell me more. What do you
know about it?"

"Not much," he said. "Mike Spelman told me about it
first. He'd heard about it from Steve Fourmelle and when
I spoke to Steve, he said he'd lend me the runabout, here,

to come down and look at it. Ready for a bottle' of' beer
and a sandwich?"

She turned to look at him again.

"Beer and sandwich?" she repeated. "Now where did you
get sandwiches and beer?"

"I asked Steve to put them on board," he said, enjoying
this new, if smaller, surprise, reflected in her face and
body. "It was part of the business of getting the runabout
ready for us to use. How about it? Do you want some?"

"Picnic with a dragon--and the dragon's friend," she
grinned at him. "Why not? It may be a little risky, but
I'll chance it."

He got down on his knees to pull a styrofoam ice-chest
out from under the circular seat that extended around the
cockpit. As he was taking the plastic-wrapped sandwiches
and a couple of bottles of beer off the ice inside, he felt a
kiss on his neck and the next thing he knew she was
kneeling beside him. Awkwardly, because of their positions
on the hard drainboards, but none the less fervently,
they held each other.

"When you're right, you're so right," she whispered,
still kneeling and facing him. There was a sort of trem-

bling in her and she felt very soft and yielding in his arms.
"You, too," he said.

"I'm going to stay on down here a few more days," she

told him. "I'm going to take five days of my vacation time."
Joy flooded him.

"When did this happen?" he asked.

"I called back to the office this morning, when you were
still sleeping," she said. "I'd asked them about it last
month, before I came down here. I told them I'd call. I
did, and now it's all set."

"I should bring you to see dragons more often," he
said, holding her.

I She clung hard to him again.

"You and dragons are all right," she said. "I love you

and your dragons. Really, I do love your dragons. You
know that, don't you?"

153


Walther Guenther walked heavily into the living room of

his motel suite and dropped into an armchair beside the

windows, but with its back turned to them. The PanEuropean
deputy minister was somewhat swollen about the
eyes and he narrowed his gaze against the indirect late
morning light coming through the windows behind him.

"Berthold!" he called, raising his voice as little as possible.
"Where's that damned coffee and cognac?"

' Berthold came from the bedroom door opposite the one
through which Guenther had emerged. Guenther's secretary
was a tall, studious-faced young man with narrow features
Under white-bIond hair, surprisingly fragile in general appearance
in spite of his height and breadth of shoulders.
"I'll check, sir."

He went out the door to the corridor; only a minute or
two later, Guenther heard a key turn in the lock. Berthold
came back in, holding a tray balanced expertly in one hand,
and putting his suite key away with the other. He placed the
tray, which held a coffee cup, glass coffee carafe, and a
snifter glass with brown cognac in it, on an occasional table
at Guenther's elbow. He poured from the carafe into the
cup.

	"It was just ready to be brought."

	"Damn their slow souls to hell!"

	"Yes, sir."
	-

	Guenther drank coffee and sipped brandy.

	"Well?" he said, after a moment or two. "Where are the

	reports?"

	"Right here, sir,"

	Berthold brought some typed sheets over from a nearby

	table.

	"What are you looking so smug about?" grod:,

	Guenther.


54

"There might be a point of some interest in today's
transcriptions, of the Wylie conversations," Berthold said.
"I've got the pertinent section on top."

"Oh?" Guenther straightened in his chai/" and shoved his
coffee cup aside on the occasional table. He took the papers.
"Who's this supposed to be talking now? Wylie and that
girl of his?"

"Yes, sir."
Guenther read.
".I don't see any--" He broke off and continued to read in
silence to the bottom of the page. Then his eye returned to
its upper section.

" 'Dragon'?" he said. "What dragon?"

"Exactly, sir."

"Wipe your nose!" said Guenther. "What're you thinking--that
it's code of some kind? Just because it doesn't

	itself from the
		here?"

identify

		context,

"Nothing in this set of transcriptions or any other "references
explains 'dragon' as far as I've been able to find out."
"Oh?"

"Yes. I've also checked the local zoo and nearby museums

for anything like the lizard that's called the Komodo
Dragon, or some particularly well-known piece of sculpture
involving a dragon."
"And nothing?"
"No, sir."

Guenther finished his cognac and drank another cup of
Coffee, while he read the rest of the conversations recently
transcribed from Jim Brille's laser tap on Jen's motel
windows. He went back to the first page.

" 'When are you going to take me to the dragon again?' "
Guenther read out loud. "And then Wylie answers her,

'He's not someone you can visit every day... '"

He became thoughtful.

"You remember our thought," Berthold said softly, "that
it was just possible Alinde West could be some kind of
contact for him,if indeed he were engaged in something
more than he seemed to be."

"Yes . . ." murmured Guenther. He lifted his head

abruptly. "That's right. Berthold, get me another cognac!"
"Sir, lunch is--"

"Another cognac! Bring it yourself."


I55

	ut. Guenther sat gazing at the type
	written
pages in his lap until Berthold returned with the

	o ,g,nac .- [ .........

	J
	'Of course," he said, taking,,-the g!ass and drinking, the

	i\
	lking, up over -the rim of it, you 11 have to do a much
		more ho'ough job of checking. Motion pictures in the

		local theater---'newspaper advertisements--these eating

		places they build here with funny people, elves and animal

		statues outside them."

		"Of course, sir, I was just waiing for permission."

		"Right away, Berthold. Right away. By damn, if we've

		really got something here to show Wylie's something more

		than a stuffed toy, after all . . ."

It was still and hot in the cab of the battered pickup,
even though it was parked with windows down in the shade
of some trees. The thin, black man whom Gervais bad set
to watching the Kelly Estate drank from a two-liter bottle
of Coca-Cola that was nearly empty.

"All the time, all the time . . ." he muttered out loud.
The phrase had originally been All the time, all the
time, it's me. But a number of years in a number of
different places, not the least of them being Willermore,
which was a full-security rehabilitation center for the
chronically criminal, had brought him to eliminate--at
least aloud--the last two words. A car pulled out of the
estate gateway and turned up-island on the road. A second
later it went past the pickup. Inside it was the fat max
with the few strands of hair plastered over his skull, who
made notes in a book even when driving. The man in the
pickup, whose name was DeMars, started his engine but
let the other car go out of sight around a bend in the road
farther up before pulling out to follow.

A half-mile or so down the road he caught sight o the
car with the fat man and settled down to matching the
other's speed at a block or two of distance. Ven they
reached the business section of the upper island and turned
onto a street with heavy traffic, DeMars closed up and
stayed almost directly behind the other until he drove into
the parking lot of a motel.

DeMars also parked, in another part of the lot, and
watched the fat man go in. Through the glass front of the

I56 i


lobby he saw the other bypass the motel desk and go
directly to the elevator. It opened to let riders out almost
as he, reacfied it, he stepped inside, and the doors closed
behind him.

"All the time, all the time," muttered DeMars

He sat, biting his lip for a minute, then got out of the
cab, went into the lobby and turned immediately to the
pay phones inside the entrance. He dialed the number of
the Holiday Inn.

"Mr. Jackson," he told the hotel operator.

"One moment, please."

The line hummed; then Gervais's voice spoke.

"This is Jackson."

"This me,' said DeMars. "He in the Bell Tower Inn--

staying, look like."
"What he?"
"That perfesser."

"I gave you the rig.ht names. Use them."

"Willy Fesser," muttered DeMars.

"Go find out what room he's in, and what name he's staying
under."

"All the time, all the time . . ." said DeMars under his
breath.

"Did you hear me?"

"Can't," said DeMars softly, squirming a little as he stood
at the phone. "Had a little trouble here, once. They know

me. Man at the desk looking over at me, now."
"You're calling from that motel?"
"Nearest phone almost ten blocks--"

"Get out of here. I'll take care of, it, then. Call me
tomorrow."

"Yes]" said DeMars, "sir."

"What?"

"Yessir. I'll call first thing, sir."

DeMars heard the phone click dead, hung up and stared
at the instrument. For a second his face showed a weary
lifetime of helplessness under pain, then it was merely dull
again. He turned and went back out to his pickup.


At his desk, Gervais looked around to check that the
security office was empty, then punched out a number on
his phone. Its screen came alight with the image of a


I57

heavyset, middle-aged man with a police uniform jacket
tight-buttoned about his upper body.
"Gervais!". said the man. "What ali's new down your
way?"

"Just a little, something we need to check on, Sarge," said
Gervais. "Could your people find out the name and room
number used by a guest at the Bell Tower Inn? His real
name's Willy Fesser--you won't find any record, I'd guess.
We'd like to know whatever other name he might be using
and his room number. I'll send a picture over."

"Well, I guess we can do that, all right. Looks like you
federal troops can't do it all yourselves, after all. Can you
now?"

"To be sure, Sarge," said Gervais. "We'd be helpless
without the local police."

"Yeah, now. All right. I'll be looking for that picture
and I'll call you when we find out something."
"Thanks, Sarge.":
Sarge winked into the screen.

"Take care, now." -
"Good-bye."

Gervais hung up, thinking. If Fesser was at that motel
under a name other than his own, then he was certainly
involved in something; and that something would certainly
have to do with one or more of the ministers, because there
was nothing else here right now to be involved in. He
reached into the drawer of his desk, took out a paper with
a list of names, and with his silver pen printed neatly after
the typed name of Willy Fesser the words Bell Tower Inn.


17


Sir Geoffrey Mayence drove along a winding road toward
the narrow seaward tip of Merritt Island. He was feeling
particularly well. The early afternoon sun was interrupted
by tall trees on each side of the road, the branches of which

I

interwove overhead to dapple the asphalt beneath with cool
shadow. Sir Geoffrey had managed to talk a local automobile.collector
into lending him a vintage Cadillac convertible
out of the fifties. Now he was wheeling along .with
the top down, and the breeze of passage tossed his gray
hair about. He zipped by the heavy stone archway that
was the entrance to the Kelly Estate, and almost missed
seeing it.

He put on the brakes, brought the Cadillac to a stop, and
backed up carefully until he could turn in through the
entrance. Ahead of him a beefy figure in white shirt, dark

.

pants encircled by a gunbelt holding a revolver in a holster
riding back and high on one meaty hip, stepped out of the
bushes at the side of the road and waved to him to stop.
Sir Geoffrey put on the brakes; and the guard, as he seemed
to be, came up beside the car on the driver's side.

"Yes, sir," he said. "You looking for someone?"

"Sir Geoffrey Mayence!" barked Sir Geoffrey. "I'm

here to see the Duchess Stensla."

"Yes, sir. Just a moment."

The guard unclipped from his belt a radio transceiver,
walkie-talkie type, which was a counterweight to the revolver
he wore on the other side of him, and repeated into
it what Sir Geoffrey had just said. There was a slight pause
and then the speaker of the walkie-talkie crackled with an

answer, loud enough to reach Sir Geoffrey's ears..

"No appointment."

"Of course I haven't got an appointment, God damn it!"
said Sir Geoffrey. "I'm here to surprise Clothilde!"

The gateman grinned down at Sir Geoffrey in a way
that may have been intended to be reassuring, but which
Sir Geoffrey found only irritating.

"Sorry. Guess you just have to phone in for an appointment."

"The hell I will!" said Sir Geoffrey. "You call in on that
thingamajig and tell whoever it is on the other end that I'm
coming in to surprise Clothilde."

The guard made no move to comply.

"You back out now and turn around," he said.

"Oh, don't be more of a bloody cretin than you were
born to be!" said Sir Geoffrey.

He shoved the Cadillac into low gear and it leaped ahead.

159


Behind him he heard a shout; and, looking in the rearview
mirror, saw that the guard had pulled his gun and was
waving it in the air. If he takes a shot at me with that
thing, thought Sir Geoffrey grimly, I shall put this in reverse
gear, back up, and mash him against a tree. However,
just then, the narrow private road he was on took a turn
to the right through some pines and the guard disappeared
behind him without having used his weapon.

Sir Geoffrey drove on, cooling down a little. He came
out after a bit in front of a large building and a large
expanse of lawn before it. Sir Geoffrey ignored the parking
area and pulled the .Cadillac to the curb directly in front
of the main door, got out and went up the steps.

He let himself in and almost stumbled over a man in

white shirt and white pants. '.

"Hey, you!" said Sir Geoffrey.

The man, who had been headed away from him down
the hall, turned around and came back.

"Go find the Duchess Stensla and tell her Sir Geoffrey
Mayence is here," Sir Geoffrey said.

"Sir?" said the man. "What esay you?"

Sir Geoffrey repeated the sentence in passable Castilian
Spanish.

"Si, sefior," answered the man, and went off again.
Left alone in the large front hall, Sir Geoffrey wandered
around trying doors ::nd eventually found one that opened
on some sort of library. Leaving the door ajar, so that
Clothilde would have no trouble finding him, he went in.
It was a pleasant, long, sunlit room, with a side table
holding several cut-glass liquor decanters. However, these
were empty. Turning about to examine the rest of the
place, Sir Geoffrey caught sight for the first time of a man
seated before a lit phone screen on a table by the window

with the control unit in his hand. The man was in his late
forties or early fifties, balding and on the narrow line
between being merely overweight and outright fat. He was
staring hard at Sir Geoffrey, the corttrol unit apparently
forgotten, as if he had been in mid-conversation when Sir
Geoffrey had entered.
"Don't mind me," said Sir Geoffrey, amiably. "Go right
ahead."

16o


owever, the other shut 'off the screen and put the unit
firmly back down on the table.

"Sir Geoffrey Mayence," Sir Geoffrey introduced himself.
He peered at the other man. "You look familiar. We've
met, have we?"
"No," said the overweight man. His voice was slightly
hoarse.

"Odd," said Sir Geoffrey. "I usually never forget a face."
He turned back to look wistfully at the decanters, as if
they might have refilled themselves while his back was
turned.

"Where could he have gone?" The Duchess's voice
floated in through the partially-open door. "Are you sure

he said his name was Geoffrey Mayence?"

"I'm in here!" shouted Sir Geoffrey.

A second later the man in white shirt and slacks came

through the door, closely followed by the Duchess.
"Is here," said the man, and wet out again.
"Geoffrey, it really is you!" said the Duchess.
"Hello, Clo," said Sir Geoffrey.

The Duchess walked slowly and elegantly forward toward
him. The material of her jade-green pantsuit rustled
as she moved.

"Willy, dear boy," she said, looking past Geoffrey.
"Weren't you wanted on another phone?"

"Yes," said the stout man. He got to his feet without
looking at or speaking to Sir Geoffrey, went past the two
of them and out the door, closing it softly but firmly .behind
him.

"Thought I'd drop by and surprise you," said Sir
Geoffrey.

"Geoff!" said the Duchess. There was a clear fondness
in her tone. "It's been fourteen years."

"No, it hasn't," said Sir Geoffrey.

:i:i' "Fourteen years."

"That much? Well we/l," Sir Geoffrey sighed. "Seems

like just a few months."

Reaching out one of his enormously long arms, he
slapped the ample seat of her green pants. The Duchess
accepted the gesture with as much dignity as if he had
kissed her hand.

161


H"Come and sit down, Geoff," she said. "What do you
want to drink?"

Sir Geoffrey cast an absentminded glance at the decanters
on the sideboard, and thought a second.

"How about daiquiris?" he asked. "Why not make it a
pitcher of daiquiris?"

The Duchess went over to the phone that the man called
Willy had been holding earlier, lifted it, punched three
numbers and spoke into the unlit screen.

"A pitcher of daiquiris. The Rose Room," she said, and
hung up. She came back and sat down on the couch facing
a tall gray overstuffed chair.

"Sit down, Geoff," she said. "Tell me what's been happening
to you."

"Nothing to tell," said Sir Geoffrey, perching himself in
the chair. "Lila died six years ago. I've just been rattling
around, since."

"Lila! My dear, what happened?"

"Oh, you know. Heart," said Sir Geoffrey. He looked
aside at the bright sunlight streaming through the w:mdows
and blinked. He cleared his throat. "Quite suddenly. We'd
just come back from dinner and she said she felt a little
queer. I went into the bathroom to get her some medicine
the doctor had her on, came back, and that was it."

"Geoff," said the Duchess softly, putting a hand lightly
on one of his bony knees.

"Well, there it is," said Sir Geoffrey, still looking at the
sunlight. "How about yourself, Clo?"

"I've been all over the place, of course," said the
Duchess. "Oh, and I've been married once, I think, since
I saw you last. Nobody important. An Italian."

"Leave you any money?" Sir Geoffrey looked back at
her.

"He's still alive. The settlement was quite nice, though."
The Duchess smiled almost mischievously at Sir Geoffrey.
"I did wonder why I wasn't running across you, now and
then. I even began to wonder if you weren't possibly
avoiding me."

"I? Avoiding you?" Sir Geoffrey snorted. "No. For the
last six years, and most of the time before that, I've been
taking posts off in some odd corner of the world or
other--"

i62 iJ

He broke off, as a different man in white shirt and pants
came in bearing a tray with a pitcher of frothy amber
liquid and two cocktail glasses. The man put the tray on
the table and went out again without a word, at a nod
from the Duchess. As the door closed behind him, Sir
Geoffrey was already filling the two glasses from the
pitcher.

"Well, now, that's good," he said, emptying his glass
and refilling it. "Damned if I know why they always make
daiquiris with white rum in this country. No taste. Now
these are the way they should be."

The Duchess sipped lightly at her drink.

"Have you thought of marrying again, Geoff?" she asked.
"At my age?" Sir Geoffrey peered at her over the edge
of his glass. "That's right, you're free now yourself, aren't
you?"

"You know I didn't mean me," the 'Duchess said. "Not
• that I wouldn't like to have you around---but we both

know damn well that I wouldn't, have you around, would

I?
	Besides, I'm past that now, in any real sense."

"Don't believe a word of it," said Sir Geoffrey.

"Well, you should. But it's different with you. You're
male; and besides, you'll never grow up," she said. "But
I'm more comfortable by myself nowadays. Besides, I'm
ready to retire. That's what you should think of doing,
Geoff. Get off and enjoy the years from now on."

"Get off what?" said Sir Geoffrey. "The world's still
there."

"Our world isn't, dear," said the Duchess. "Haven't you
noticed?"

"Come on, Clo," said Sir Geoffrey. "You can't tell me
that. Here you are in the thick of things yourself, large
house, Spanish servants and people like that Willy character
who's just left, all over the place as usual."

"The shell's here," answered the Duchess. "But there's
nothing really much inside it, lately. In a very real sense,
my dear, I've been put out of work by computers. My
houseguests never did really produce anything that was
important; only paperwork to oil the machinery arid make
the other people feel they were dealing with the things
under the table as well as on top of it. But computers can
spew out more paperwork than my people can, any day,


	.... .
	163

at less cost and at higher volume. No, it's time for me to

retire. I'm planning on moving to the West Indies some
place.
Probably St. Croix."

Sir Geoffrey refilled his glass for a third time and picked

it up.

"Damn it, Clo," he said, "the world n'ever changes.

People go on being people. They just have new toys to

play with. That's all this space shoot is, this Mars Expedi
tion.
Just another toy."

"That's the way you think?" said the Duchess, looking

at him closely. "I thought you were the boy who built

rockets, working rockets I mean, when he was twelve years

old?"

"Oh, Lord," said Sir Geoffrey. "I suppose I did. But

that's the point. I was just playing games. Now we've got

idiot governments playing games."

"Did they ever do anything else?" said the Duchess.

"I suppose not," said Sir Geoffrey. "Anyway, here we

all are; you, me, people like Verigin, Ambedkar and all the

rest, doing it again."

"There's nothing going on with my guests that has any
thing
to do with you, dear," the Duchess said. "Otherwise,

I'd have told you about it a long time ago."

"Didn't think there would be," Sir Geoffrey laughed, a

short bark of a laugh. "They'd be God's own fools to try

to pick up anything on me. There's that young Wylie

though. Somebody'll be trying to play games with him, I

expect."

"Nothing serious," the Duchess said. "Does he mean

something to you, this Wylie?"

"Oh, he's a young fire-eater, the way I was," said Sir

Geoffrey. "He takes all this too seriously, this business

about spaceships and Mars. I'd hate to see him served up

in a pudding, that's all."

"Maybe he's one of those who insists on serving himself

up in a pudding," said the Duchess.

"You may be right," said Sir Geoffrey; "Still, that's how

it is."
	c

	"If it turns nasty, of course," said the Duchess, "I

always let you know."

	"Appreciated," Sir Geoffrey replied. "But what are we


164

doing talking about all that? Be suckered if I don't think I
proposed to you just now; and I think you turned me
down."

'Geoff, you don't want me," said the Duchess. "If you
want anybody at all, you want somebody young--like
yourself."

"Like myself?"

"You know what I mean. You never really grew up. As
long as ,ou live you'll belong with the young people."

"Well, damn it, now!" said Sir Geoffrey. "There's a good
many people in a number o governments that take me
seriously, even if you don't!"

"They don't know you like I do," said the Duchess.
"Serious/y, Geoff, why won't you think about retiring,
finding yourself somebody young and warm and settling
down to enjoy the next dozen years or so?"

"The last dozen years, ehT'

"If it comes to that," said the Duchess, calmly. "Or less,
if necessary. Any time at all is a bonus at our ages, Geoff."

"Hell's bells! I don't want a wife!" said Sir Geoffrey. "I
want somebody like you around I can talk to. Besides, you
were just telling me I'm as old as Methuselah. Who'd have
me, anyway?"

"I'd have you if I were twenty years younger," said the
Duchess. "That's not the problem, and you know it."

Sir Geoffrey gloomily poured the last of the daiquiri
from the pitcher into his own glass.

"This is nice!" he said. "I drop out here to surprise you
after fourteen years; and all you do is lecture me about
getting married to somebody else."

"I have to take advantage of the chance," said the
Duchess. "Heaven knows when I'll see you again."

"Well, how about tomorrow night for dinner?" said Sir
Geoffrey. "I don't know about everybody else on this thing,
but I'm going to stick around for an extra week or two
and soak up some sunshine. Unless you'll be leaving yourself,
now that the launch is made."

"No, not quite that quickly." The Duchess examined him
critically. "But I'm ted up for the next two or three days.
How about an afternoon, say next Tuesday? We can go
fOr a drive some place and come back here for dinner."

I65

"Right on!" said Sir Geoffrey, lighting up. "There're no
good restaurants around here anyway. At least, none to
match what your staff could do, if you've still got the kind
of staff you used to have."

"I always have the kind of staff I used to have," said the
Duchess. She got to her feet, and Sir Geoffrey rose automatically,
a split second behind her.
"You're busy now, then?" he said, .wistfully.

"I'm afraid so, dear," the Duchess said. "After all, I
really wasn't expecting you to drop in like this. Next
Tuesday, then?"

"Yes, by all means, next Tuesday," said Sir Geoffrey.
"I'll give you a ring."

They went to the door of the room and out into the hall
and the Duchess accompanied Sir Geoffrey to the front
door, standing on the steps while he went down and got
into the convertible. He waved at her as he pulled away
and drove the Cadillac back along the narrow private road.

As he pulled around the curve and out of the pines, he
saw his old friend, the guard, who now smiled at him from
perhaps a dozen feet of distance. Sir Geoffrey brought the
car to a halt; and the man walked over to it, agreeably.

Sir Geoffrey opened the door and got out, enjoying the
sudden widening of the guard's eyes as Sir Geoffrey's lanky
length unfolded to tower over him.

"You wave that gun of yours at me another time," said
Sir Geoffrey, "and 1 will personally shove it up your bloody
ass!"

The guard's face set itself in an odd way. The whites of
his eyes showed underneath the pupils balanced between
puckered lids and fat wrinkled skin. His shoulders seemed
to settle and hunch down and forward. He shrank in height
and seemed to swell in the body, like some old bull in one
corner of a private pasture catching a flicker of movement
at the pasture's other end but within the rails that penned
him. Sir Geoffrey went tight suddenly, bracing himself.

Then the moment passed. Neither the face nor the body

of the man altered; but the moment was gone.

"Yes, sir," the guard said.

Sir Geoffrey got back in the Cadillac, put it in gear again
and drove off, turning out at last onto the highway. He
drove along for perhaps half a mile before his head

I66


started to clear and he began to realize that it might have
been something besides his own anger and size which had
stopped the guard from reacting to what he had said.

It was a sobering realization. Undoubtedly, the man
had just wanted to keep that job of his, even at the cost of
taking that kind of lip from someone like Sir Geoffrey. Sir
Geoffrey felt suddenly desolate inside. Who the hell was
he anyway, to be throwing his weight around, nowadays?
There might have been a time when he could have done
something with a fat pig-tender like that; but a lot of years
had gone by since then. It was time to stop challenging
younger men in any physical sense. It was time to back
off on a lot of things, including the drinking and women ....

St,,ddenly, inexplicably, his mood lightened. He laughed
out loud.

"Well, by God!" he said to the day around him. "She has
me thinking as if I had one foot in the grave already!"

Inexplicably, this little nugget of understanding made him
feel better rather than worse. It opened up an unusual
perception in him of the Duchess and how she felt for.him.
In return he felt a sudden tenderness toward her--the sort
of warmth that really had not visited him since Lila had
died.

He drove back to the motel, feeling--for him---quite
humble, and happier than he had for some long time.


Day 2 on the spaceship (Day I being the day of the launch
that had ended with the talk between Tad and Fedya and
sleep for all six marsnauts) began, according to a clock set
at Eastern Daylight Time, at six A.M. Tad woke with the
feeling that he had had a succession of not too pleasant
dreams and a restless night. It was a feeling he had been
expecting, however. The first night in no-gravity or an

I67


abnormal gravity--and the ship's gravity, imparted by the
spinning of the docked vessels, was about one-half normal
g--tended to disturb sleep patterns. This had already been
established by previous space flights and the extensive
Skylab work by both Americans and Russians. If he
adapted according to average human responses they had
charted, Tad could expect to get back to sleeping normally
in about a week. His thoughts went to the experiment load
and to his talk the "night" before with Fedya.


Fedya was silent for an extended moment.

I'll keep that in mind," he said at last. "Let me do some

thinking for a day or so."

"All right," said Tad.

"Good," said Fedya. "Then shall we check out these
schedules?"

He spread the papers he had been carrying between the
coffee containers on the table before him. It was a combined
list--Tad had its duplicate in the record files on A
Deck above--of experiments and their scheduling aboard
both ships; plus bargraphs of the activities of the crewmen
on each ship through the next thirty days of coast toward
Mars orbit.

"Seventy-two experiments, total," said Fedya, "of which
there's nine of particular importance during this first
month's period, plus eight medical report-keeping experiments
that are continuing--"

"Plus housekeeping and exercise," interrupted Tad. "You

see what it's going to be like."

Fedya met his eyes.

"It will be busy, of course," said Fedya.
"Too busy--" Tad broke off. "Never mind. Forget it for
now. Le!'s check the bargraphs out and make sure we both
know what's going on on the other ship; and then get some
sleep ourselves. We'll need it."
Fedya nodded. Together, they bent their heads over the
bargraphs.


Now Tad sat up and glanced at the bargraphs for
Phoenix One laid out on the table beside his bed.

He was scheduled for S,/HK, Systems Housekeeping,
immediately after breakfast; and both Bap and Anoshi were


I68

involved likewise in continuing duties until after luncb--at
which time they would begin setting up the specific experiments,in
the various labs of the ship. He got to his [eet
with some little effort and headed for the waste management
room.


::i From there, shaved and clean from the shower with its
I': own recycling system, but still not yet really awake, he
went to the mass measurement device. Its controls had not
been adjusted to ignore the light pseudo-gravity provided
by the docked and rotating ships, so there was that to be
done before he could even fit himself into the horizontal
chair. Then, his slide forward in the chair and the jerk of
the braking system as it measured the force needed to stop
him started a faint headache behind his forehead. He got
out of the chair and read the result. Translated into pounds
of body weight, the mass-force necessary to stop him read
one hundred and seventy-nine. Three pounds less than he
had weighed yesterday morning before the launch--which
was ridiculous but undoubtedly correct. He entered the
figure in the log that was part of the device and went into
the wardroom.

He was the first one in. Bap and Anoshi had yet to take
their turns at getting weighed no-gravity style. He inflated
the pod about their dining area, and then stepped through
the pod hatch to sit down at his place at the serving table
and turned on the vacuum. There was a slight murmuring
as the fans started to draw air through the filter in the
pod wall and from the pod into the particle collector.
There were as yet no floating food particles in the air of
the pod for the collector to collect; but it was doing its
duty nonetheless.

Tad punched for coffee, and a carefully measured amount
poured into the container at his place. He lifted and sipped
it, grateful this trip had been planned so that it was possible
for him and the other two tO avoid drinking from
. tubes while the artificial gravity was operating. Thank God
attention had been paid to a few purely personal and emotional
matters like the pleasure of taking a shower and of
drinking hot coffee from a cup instead of from a tube. No,
not merely thank God, thank the men in past tours in the
Skylabs, who had proved the need for such things.

The bargraph for the day, which he knew by heart,


69

floated before his mnd's eye, as he considered what was
to be done before the next sleep period. He found himself
beginning to view the upcoming shipboard day with increasing
enthusiasm.
The sticky sound of the entrance to the pod being unsealed
brought his head around. Anoshi was climbing in,
followed by Bap, who turned to reseal the entrance. They
both sat down at the table; and Tad came fully awake,
looking at them.
"How'd the sleep go?" he asked.

"Not bad," said Anoshi. Bap laughed. He was the one
wearing spacesuit underwear today.

"I was being chased by elephants," he said. "And the
lead elephant was being ridden by our noble Expedition
Director, old Nick Henning."

"Did he catch you?" Anoshi asked, punching for a
stream of hot tea into his own container.

"I am here to tell the tale," said Bap, waving his own
container before he filled it. He looked around the pod
and then at Tad. "Cosy little breakfast nook. I wonder if
they had some ulterior motive in penning us up like this
for meals, besides the collecting of floating particles of food
from the air? The original Spacelab got along without this."

"And its crew inhaled a lot of stuff over a ninety-day
period," Anoshi said. "Rcmcmbcr all the worry over 'space
pneumonia" in men--"

"And women," said Bap.

"--and women who should have been free from virus
infections?"

"Of course 1 remember," said Bap. "But 1 am also considering
the effect that this enforced intimacy three times
every twenty-four hours may have on the human mind."

He, like the other two, had been punching for heated,
prepackaged foodstuffs, which now emerged from the table
slots before him. He opened the largest package and extracted
a disposable plastic fork/knife.
"What if I become violent some breakfast and cut your
throats?" he said.

"Then you'd have all the work to do by yourself from
then on," said Tad. He changed to a more serious tone.
"You're going to begin solar observations for flares in your
first period after this meal?"

I7O


Right away," said Bap. "I'll be using Numbers One
and Two remote cameras as telescopes. Maybe I'll get some
good pictures, if there's anything to take."

"Kennedy ought to warn us if a large flare crops up
early in the flight, the way they've been predicting," Tad
said. "It'd be something if we could spot it as soon as
they do--or before."

"We will," Bap said. "I promise we will."

They finished their breakfast, reduced the pod, and Tad
took the scraps of uneaten food, the packaging and the
other discardables to the waste management room to be
carefully weighed and disposed of. Just as the body wastes
of the marsnauts had to be measured and weighed, so their
food and liquid intake had to be measured and recorded
with every meal. This was Medical Experiment 22 on the
schedule. Then Bap went to his camera telescopes, Anoshi
got out the aerosol collector to take a sample of the ship's
air and discover what loose particles were afloat in it, in
spite of the meal table pod, and Tad went to Systems/

Housekeeping.

This early in the voyage, there was little housekeeping or
equipment repairs to be made. Tad covered all four decks
of the life zone of the ship within a short time, then went
directly to the Master Log of Phoenix One.
The Master Log was pretty much what its name implied.
It was to Phoenix One what a ship's log was to an oceangoing
vessel, with the complication that it and the Phoenix
Two's log as well, included not only the commander's
record of the voyage, day by day, but all recordings of
data made on that day, which be was able to review on a
computer screen before him and correct or amend with a
keyboard and a light-pencil. The records of Day One of
the Expedition, launch-day, were now awaiting Tad's attention.

When he had disposed of the log, Tad went out to find
Anoshi at work in the C Deck lab space that would be his
for his astronomical records. Face bent over the forty-fivedegree-angled
viewing plate, Anoshi was studying one of
the photos he had just taken of the solar corona. He was
apparently too wrapped up in his work to notice Tad, who
went on up across to the exercise section of C Deck to see
Bap there, in full spacesuit, working at the taskboard in

"Mode C of the experiment dealing with daily phsil
exerclse by each of them.

Mode C was constant physical exercise for twenty!:]l
minutes wearing a spacesuit. Mode B was similar work
without a suit; and Mode A was twenty energetic minutes
on an exercycle or jogging treadmill. Spacelab experience
had shown how necessary exercise was to the health of
humans away from normal gravity. Not absolutely necessary,
I hope, Tad thought grimly as he watched Bap,
remembering his plans if Fedya should decide to cooperate.
Bap, engrossed in the heavy work and the uncomfortable
spacesuit, didn't notice Tad watching any more than had
Anoshi.

Tad took the access tube and went up to B Deck. It
would be time for lunch in Jess than half an hour.


"... Our first piece of information today," said the
NASA official on the TV screen, addressing the press
conference, "is that because o] Nick Henning's illness, Bill
Ward, here--" he nodded to Bill, sitting upright beside him
at the long table cluttered with microphones and close-up
camera eyes "'.--will be taking over as Expedition Director.
You've all met Bill Before--"

"Have we?" asked Abri Ambedkar of the others, in
English.

"You remember," said Jens Wylie. "Bill Ward was the
man who came in after the marsnauts' luncheon to take

us out to the shuttle launch pad."

"Ah, yes," said Ambedkar.

He, Jens, Sergei Verigin, and Walther Guenther were
sitting in the lounge area of their quarters in the Merritt
Island Holiday Inn, watching the daily NASA press conference
on TV. It was just after they had finished lunch.
Later that afternoon, they were scheduled to hold a conference
of their own for the press.

"... absolutely on schedule." Bill Ward was already
answering a question from the floor. "So far everything
has gone exactly as expected. The ships are now docked
and the marsnauts are now into their first rest period,
according to the schedule. Yes?"

He nodded, pointing at a different section of the press
seats. A stocky, thin-haired young man stood up.

172


"Can you tell us--" His accent was French. "--if there
are any times when the schedule does not operate? Any
holidays, or relaxation periods for the marsnauts? And if

so, where are they at present on their schedule?"

	He sat down again.

"As far as we know, there aren't any holidays in space,"
said Bill. There was a small stir and sounds of chuckling
among the press crowd. "To answer your question, though,
there's no period that isn't accounted for on the schedule,
]tom the time the Expedition was launched to the time of
its return to Earth orbit, three years from now. The
schedule itself does call for open periods; both to relieve
the marsnauts from routine, and to ensure that any overscheduling
gets caught up with. There are no such open

periods in this first thirty days, however. ,4s you know,

this is when ground communications with the two Expedition
ships are at their best; and we want to take the maximum
advantage of that. Yes? Next?"

The TV camera moved to focus on another questioner.
"It's like climbing a mountain, I suppose," said Verigin
thoughtfully. "But, like climbing a big mountain, like that
one in the Himalayas that is the highest in the world; and
to climb it an expedition must take months. There may be
days of occasional rest along the route. But any celebration,
any vacation, must wait until the full job is done--"

He broke off. Sir Geoffrey, his face politely expressionless,
had just joined them, taking a seat. His eyes moved
over them, from Verigin to Guenther, to Ambedkar, to
Jens and finally back to Verigin again.

"Not interrupting anything, am I?".he said. He looked at
Verigin.

"Not at all," said the Russian deputy minister, reaching
out to turn the voice volume down on the TV set.

"That's good," said Sir Geoffrey. Iqe glanced again at
Jens, then back to Verigin. "Wouldn't want to be the unwanted
guest. We don't see much of you--ah--Wylie."

"Sorry," said Jens. "One of my special duties is to
hassle with.the press for the Administration. I have to keep
running out on errands to do with that."

"Yes. Well, duty first," said Sir Geoffrey. "Wouldn't you
say so, Sergei?" he went on, turning to Verigin.


			173

"And old Ahri, here," said Sir Geoffrey, turning to
Ambedkar, who did not seem pleased by Sir Geoffrey's
use of his first name. "You know what duty can be like, I
think? You were with Sergei and me at the first Pan
	European
	Conference--was
that before your time,

	Walther?"

"No," said Guenther, with a small cough. "I was there.
I was pretty iunior, then, though. The rest of you weren't
likely to notice lower echelon types like myself."

"Don't tell me you were caught up in that business when
the French presidential motorcade got routed clear off on

the road to Li6ge and came in three hours late?"

"Oh yes," said Guenther, laughing.

"Where were you when that was going on?" asked Verigin,
looking interestedly at Sir Geoffrey.

"Sir Geoffrey was in the bar of the Number One hotel,"
said Ahri.

"Wasn't I?" said Sir Geoffrey, almost triumphantly. "I
was there from one to nearly four, getting wound like an
eight-day clock. I must have had fifteen manhattans--that
bartender there had a special touch with manhattans.
Which reminds me--what do you think of this newest
trouble that was in the papers about President Fanzone
and the labor unions, regarding this Shared-Management
Consultation thing--"

"I've got a phone call I have to make," Jens interrupted

hastily. "Forgive me, I just remembered it."

He got up from his chair.

"Ah, well," said Sir Geoffrey, "see you a bit later on,
then."

He watched Jens move off down the corridor and step
into his own suite of rooms.

"What's the latet you've heard?" Verigin asked him. "I
don't mean about U.S. labor unions, of course."

"Duchess Stensla says someone's following her guests
when they drive off."

"You've been talking to Stensla?" Guenther said.
"Known her for years!" barked Sir Geoffrey, staring'
directly at the Pan-European deputy minister. "Know her
family well!"

"Local police, I assume," said Verigin.


t74

Not that," said Geoffrey. "She checked."

For a second or two, no one said anything, then Ahri.
Ambedkar spoke.

"But what does this mean?" he asked. "I'm not sure I
understand."

"Something's on the fire, that's my judgment," Sir
Geoffrey answered him. "Sounds like something's going
down. Amateur illegals about; and what's around here for
amateur illegals to be concerned about?"

"Except ourselves, you mean?" said Verigin, thoughtfully.
"But why do you use the word amateur? Here we
are on U.S. soil; the natural conclusion would be some U.S.
agency--" "

..... Because it damn well is amateur. The Duchess knows

that sort of difference."

"But that's ridiculous," said Ahri. "We're hardly, likely
ito go spying on ourselves."

':
	"There's Wylie . . ." said Guenther.

"I..." said Sir Geoffrey, spacing his words and making
them clear and distinct while he looked at the PanEuropean,
"don't . . . think . . . so."

"You don't?" said Verigin, softly. "Then what?"

"What, indeed?" said Sir Geoffrey, getting to his feet.
"Echo answers. Well, I must get back to my suite."

He went off, leaving a long silence behind him.


"The fact that the Expedition was On U.S. Eastern Daylight
Time made for coincidences. After the second meal period
of Day Two aboard the spacecraft, probably while the
Deputy Ministers back on Merritt island were sitting
back to sip on coffee following lunch, the marsnauts were
finishing their lunches thousands of miles deep in space.


I75

Anoshi was scheduled for Systems/Housekeeping. Bap and
Tad were due to go to work setting up experiments in the
labs, including the atmosphere and null-atmosphere lab
sections of the no-gravity pod between the two ships.

During the days just before the marsnauts had boarded
Phoenix One and Two, both ships had been on a standby
basis as far as internal systems went--with a single exception
in each ship, a sealed lab section on C Deck, within
which atmosphere pressure and normal temperature had
been maintained for the benefit of the so-called 'live'
subjects--ranging from field mice down through brine
shrimp, fruit flies and flatworms to simple molds and
spores. The seal on this lab had been broken when the
lab was opened during their first visual inspection of the
ship after the marsnauts boarded and brought her up to
working order. But the experimental subjects themselves
had been left until now in the care of the automatic
machinery that had kept them nourished and alive since
they were put aboard by the supply and fitting crews.

Now, Tad and Bap left the majority of the subjects still
in the formerly sealed lab. But certain of them were immediately
to be transferred--to the plant genetics lab, the
biomedical lab and the two sections of the pod. Tad and
Bap worked together to set up the plant genetics and the
biomedical lab sections; but when it came to the pod,
while Bap could reach the inside section through the
cryotex tube connecting with it and Phoenix Two, Tad
had to suit up and EVA, going outside the ship to the
airless, cold part of the pod from the batch opening to
space that lay in the perpetual shadow between the two
locked-together revolving ships.

The work was both difficult and clumsy in a spacesuit;
but the spores and cultures which Tad carried to the outer
pod were contained in trays that even heavy gloves could
handle with some dexterity. One by one, Tad fitted these
trays into the shelves and racks built into the airless
section of the pod, working in the illumination from the
pressurized section, showing through the milky, yielding
cryotex wall between the two parts. The blurred shadow
he saw coming and going beyond that wall as he worked
would be Bap, at work there, Tad thought.

--Unless it was Dirk or Fedya from Phoenix Two.

I76


Each ship was due to supply some materials and live
subjects to the pod experiments. Primarily, it was the U.S.
experiments on cryogenics that would be taking up space
in the pod compartments, although both the 'green-thumb'
paranormal plant response tests of the English, and the

:

. biorhythyms experiments of the Japanese were represented
here. In essence, these were experiments which had
been pioneered in the Skylabs. But they would be taking

iplace
under
	conditions here; in that they were

	different

	both farther from the sun, and subject to a skidding, side
	ways
motion that was caused by the two ships wheeling

	about their common center where the pod sections were.

	Tad finished his work and left. So far, no one from

	.: Phoenix Two had showed up to bring that spacecraft's

	trays of experimental materials to the outer pod--which

	was a little strange. ]If Tad remembered the bargraphs for

	Phoenix Two, correctly, someone from that ship ought to

	have been out here at the same time he was.

	Tad returned to Phoenix One, emerged into A Deck and

	began desuiting. Anoshi was waiting for him, and helped

	him off with the suit.

	"Bap's over in Phoenix Two," said Anosbi, as soon as

	Tad's helmet was off. "Fcdya had an accident with some

	oxygen tanks toppling over in one of the labs. It seems he's

	hurt his left hand."


Lin, watching from the window of her room in the
Peacock Motel, about half a mile from the Holiday, Inn,
had seen no blue rental Lancia that would be Jens's pull
up to the entrance, and was startled when her phone
bu,z, zed. She punched on sound only.

i,Yes?" she said.

LinT' said a voice she recognized. "It's me, Barney
Winstrom. Jens got caught up in some official business all
?of a sudden. He said he'd phoned and your room didn't
,answer. I m here to fill in for him as chauffeur."

"Oh. Yes, I just got back up from lunch downstairs.
That's good of you, Barney. I'll be right down."

She snatched up her miniattach6, took a fast check of
herself in the full-length mirror--the crisp skirt and blouse
looked eminently suitable for the Hansard interview, businesslike
but not severe--and went out, leaving the clutter

of the room behind her She had taken this place to give
her room to work, and to stash the growing pdes of reference
material on her interviewees.
Barney was in the station wagon in which he had taken
her to the launch. She went to it and he swung the door
open for her. His smile greeted her.

"My word," she said, glancing into the back of the car;
"what're all the papers for?"

"Just keeping up with what the foreign press is saying,"
he answered, lifting the car on its air-cushion and sliding
it around the driveway into the street. "There's no regular
outlet here for overseas reprintings. I had a batch of
copies of the foreign newspapers sent up from Miami."

She was half-turned, reaching out with one arm to
riffle the newspapers covering the half-moon curve of the
car'slounge seat behind them.

"La Prensa . . . London Times . . . something in German-Barney!
Japanese? You don't read Japanese?"

"Welt enough to get through the papers," he sad. "I like
languages, and I had about twelve years in assorted countries
overseas, some years back. I liked most of the countries
too--except France. My wife liked France."

"What do they all say?" She turned around and faced
forward in her seat again. "Oh--by .the way, you do
know where I'm going? I mean, you know how to get
there?"

"Been to the Hansards' before," said Barney.

"But what do they say--all those other papers?"

"Pretty much what American papers say. It's all the
same news."

"Why read them, then?"

"I'm a pro," said Barney. "It's my pleasure."

She studied his stubby profile, feeling a liking for him.

"What's your opinion," she asked, "about this space

business, and expeditions to Mars?"

He shrugged.

"We'll get there some day."

"Not this time?"

He shrugged again.

"You don't think much of it either, then," she said. "I
wish Jens would be a little more clear-headed about it."

178


"I didn't say I didn't think much of.it," he said, keeping
his eyes on the road that was leading them now down a
corridor between filling stations, and fast-food places. "I'm
just not one of your optimists in general, about anything.
As for Jens--maybe he's right."

"Right?" she said. "You think he's right to live in a
daydream that suddenly six men will land on Mars and a
new age is going to dawn where all problems will evaporate?"
"You're sure that's just the way he thinks of it?" said
Barney. He turned to his right, off on a sidestreet that
curved away between green trees. "I'd have put it a little
differently. He thinks it's our future. He thinks it's the
only future we've got--and maybe I agree with him on
that--whether we're a couple of people riding along in
a hoveraut0 like this one, or a couple of people with
ropes of twisted bark around our hips, watching the sky
for a moment and hearing a supersonic pass overhead,
before we go back to looking for a grasshopper or two to
keep our stomachs from being pasted to our backbones."

"Well. well," said Lin.

i: "All right, lady," said Barney. "Have it your own way.

But people like Jens with their daydreams actually do make
the world move forward. I've seen it happen, and I
believe it."

"What happens when the daydream goes crunch up
against reality?"

"When that day comes, he might surprise you."

"No£" said Lin, a little bleakly. "He won't. He won't
surprise me."

"Wait and see."

They had just come to the end of the street on which
they had been traveling. Barney turned left into another
street, slightly narrower. This was a pleasant, clean street.
Jacarandas marched along the boulevards on either side,
although the flowers they showed were sparse. Lin fell
silent; they drove without talking until he pulled up in
front of a large brown house with its backyard sloping

down to a man-made canal.

"Here we are," he said.

Lin opened the door, swung her legs out, holding them



	179

neatly together, knees and ankles. She looked back over
her shoulder at him.

"You're not coming in with me?"

He grinned.

"You want an old hand like me sitting in and criticizing?"
he said. "Come on, now. I'll pick you up in half an hour."

He leaned over to catch the door on her side and swing
it back, shut. He waved and pulled away from the curb.
She turned and went up the front walk, curving across the
lawn to a small screened porch. The door was open behind
the screen; and it was an ordinary, old-fashioned wire
screen--nothing electronic--but the house was not an old
or cheap one by any means. The lot on which it was built
would probably run around sixty thousand dollars, according
to the real estate guide she had been studying. Lin
reached for the doorbell; but before she could touch it,
the form of a woman loomed up out of the dimness beyond
the screen and the door swung open.

"I'm sorry, I meant to be watching for you," said
Wendy Hansard. "You're Ms. West, aren't you? Jens
Wylie's talked about you, often. Come on in."

Lin smiled and entered. Her eyes adjusted quickly to
the dimmer inside light and she saw she was standing at
the edge of a wide, sunken-floored living room, more
modern than the outside of the house would have indicated.
There was no other sound of other voices. The
Hansard children must be outside or away from the place.
Lin looked at their mother.

Jens, she saw, had been wrong when he had sald that
she and Wendy looked alike. They had very little in
common, really, except that they were both about the
same height and had athletically good figures. Wendy's
hair was a very light shade, not like Lin's own rich
brown; and it was almost too fine, the sort that would tend
to fluffiness and disorder. Otherwise, the best description
for Wendy Hansard was that she looked a little soft-edged.
Slightly worn. As if she had been just slightly overused by
her children and husband during her years with them; so
that there would be no going back for her to the real
attractiveness she must have had in her early twenties. No,
there was really no comparison between her and Lin, as
far as appearance went. Jens had been quite wrong. She


I8o

pressed the side of the miniattacM to start the recorder
inside.

"It's good of you to see me on such short notice," Lin
said, following her into the living room. They sat down
on short couches facing each other before a large, empty

i

fireplace of rough stone. A coffee pot and china cups were
on the table between them. "Jens promised to speak to
you about me, my firsi day down; but he didn't get it
done until just after the launch."

Wendy laughed, picking up the coffee pot. "Everybody's
so busy at launch time," she said. "You'll have coffee,

won't you?"

"Thanks." Lin had learned that whether she wanted
anything to drink or not, it relaxed those being interviewed
and made them more communicative when they played
host. "I really could use a cup."

"About the short notice--don't let it bother you at
all," said Wendy. "It's part of our job, being interviewed.
Everybody in the space effort gets used to it--even the
children."

"I suppose you're right. They aren't here--your children
I meanT'
"They'll be along in about ten minutes. I knew you'd
want to see them." Wendy handed over a full coffee cup
to Lin. "You don't have a photographer with you, or
coming, or anything like that?"
'q thought not for this," Lin said. "New World is the
sort of magazine that likes to stay away from patterns;
and it's my job to find out something different from the
sort of story a few dozen other interviewers bare written
up about you."

"Isn't that hard?"

kin sipped her coffee. It wa3 good. It would be.

"I need to be lucky," Lin said, and they both laughed.
"What I thought was that nearly everything that's been
done on you and the other marsnauts' wives has been this
sort of apple-pie, dab-of-flour-ou-the-nose sort oti thing. I

was hoping we could get into some other areas."

Wendy smiled.

"I don't have time for much in the way of other areas,"
she said.

"I can imagine," said Lin. "But you have to have


I81

opinions on the larger implications of a. space flight like
this--six nations working together to make the first
manned landing on another world. There's the matter of
your own philosophy, and how being involved in this
affects it."

"Philosophy's a pretty heavy word," said Wendy,
smiling.

"But you do have a philosophy.

"Oh, yes." Wendy put her cup down. "I don't mean like
a philosqphy at college--but that's beside the point. No,
my own philosophy's about getting things done."

"Getting things done?" Lin sipped again at her coffee.
It was also good not to be seen taking notes or wearing a
wrist recorder during an interview. Which was why she
had her recorder out of sight in her miniattach6.

"I mean," said Wendy, placing one word after the other
like someone carefully making her way across a fallen log
that bridged a creek, "I believe certain things have to be
done. They have to be done, because they're needed. And
the greatest use anyone can put oneself to is to do such
things. I suppose you'd call it a sort of philosophy of use--
an ethic of use."

She looked up from her cup and across the table at Lin.

"Maybe that sounds apple-pie and flour-onthe-nose

after all, come to think of it?" she said.

"No, no," said Lin. "Not at all."

"But I mean it in relation to large things as well as
small," said Wendy. "You can apply it to the way nations
ought to act as well as to the way individuals ought to act.
I mean, we give the children duties to do around the
house so that they'll learn what it's like to have respon.
sibilities. So they'll find out when a man or woman is
grown up, he or she can't just let things slide that need to
be done. Adults have to keep after themselves until they
get the necessary things done. It's the same way with communities,
or nations, or people in general. If there's something
that it's time for them to do, then they have to go
out and get busy and do it."

"And this Expedition to make a manned landing on Mars
is something that the world has to get done, nowmis that
what you mean?" Lin asked. This Wendy Hansard was

turning out to be a more promising subject than Lin had
hoped.

'iYes," said Wendy. "I really believe that. The world'
got no place to go, in a way, but to Mars. I mean, it's got
no place to turn to but some effort like this, to prove
people are capable of saving this planet and fulfilling the
dreams that everybody's always had for life right here on
Earth."

!i
		very interesting,"
	Lin, leaning

	"That's

	said

		forward

' attentively.

A small shadow for a second seemed to pass behind
Wendy's pale blue eyes.
"No, please go on," said Lin, quickly. "This is just the
sort of thing our readers get so seldom--an idea of what's
behind it all; the way someone like yourself, who's caught
up it in, sees it. You do see a purpose to all this technological
effort, then?"

"Of course there's a purpose!" said Wendy. "It's a lot
larger thing than the practical results that they're always
deviling the space effort to produce. We all have to keep
growing--we can't help it. It's a basic, instinctive, necessary
push for new territory and knowledge that's in all of
us. It's not just the 'nauts; it's all of us."

"You feel you and the children are a part of it?" asked
Lin,

	"Necessarily," said Wendy.

"That's a very good point for New World readers,"
said Lin. "Very good. Would you say that, in a way, you
and the children are as caught up in this Expedition as
your husband is?"

Wendy went away. Lin could feel the psychic distance
between them suddenly lengthen Damn, she thought, we

	were doing just fine and I had
			hit

		to

			go

					something

	pe,r, sonal. ,

		mean,
			went on, quickly, hunting for

	I

			is,'

				she

something to bring the other back, "I've been struck in
the many instances of people who are not only not 'nauts
but never could be, getting caught up in the space effort,
to the point that it seems to own them body and soul. Jens
is like that, now. Though I suppose he'll get over it once
he's back in Washington in a few weeks."


I 83

	"No," said Wendy, "I don't think he will."

Lin felt a chilliness, a strange anger along with the
positiveness in her voice.

"Well, maybe not," she said, lightly. "We'll see. After
all. he's still got to live here on Earth."

	'That

		doesn't matter," said Wendy.

Behind Lin, there was the abrupt sound of the screeff
door slamming, and the clatter of shoes that stopped
suddenly just inside the entrance. She turned and saw a
girl of perhaps fourteen, and a tall, thin boy in his late
teens.

She would never have imagined that she would feel so
relieved to have them appear.


Seated in the first restaurant he had come to, with a
cup of coffee he did not want cooling on the table before
him, Barney plodded though the less-familiar languages of
the newssheets in front of him. The single Russian copy
that had been brought him, except for.a brief summary of
Day One events, might have been written two weeks before
as far as the Expedition was concerned. But the English,
European, Indian and Japanese papers all conformed to
a remarkably similar pattern.

There was, in each case, a digest of information from
Expedition Control on the actions of the marsnauts themselves.
This was reechoed and amplified in almost every
paper by an interpretive and imaginative description, that
attempted to put the reader in the shoes of the marsnauts
and fill the gap left by the colorless official account. But
even these few pieces of news, put together, made up no
more than a small fraction of the wordage dealing with
the Expedition.

The overwhelming bulk of newsprint space was taken
up with related stories and feature articles. There were
accounts of important people from all over the world who
had been present at Cape Canaveral for the launch. There
were reports of speeches about the Expedition, and of
comments within speeches, by political and scientific
figures alike. There were prognostications of problems to
be encountered during the three years of the voyage,


I84

spaceshi.ps prior to launch, and diagrams of how the
booster shuttles had lifted them into the Mars-injection
orbit and then separated from their mother ship. Finally,
there was a welter of lightly-connected material, such as
one story in an Italian paper, confiding that Merritt Island
had become a new social center for the rich and famous
personalities of the civilized world; and might in time
become a cultural center.

Barney grinned a little, briefly, over that one, and then


I.
	farS°bered'fromlttheWaStruth,n°t Fortrue' thisbut firstWhatmonthit suggestedat least,WaStheren°t
would be a colony of newsworthy individuals around the

Cape, clustered about the small enclave of international



i tion.P°litiCalwhichandonlySCientifiCserved pe°pleto pointdraWnup whatthere.heby hadthe Expedi'known

would happen. The Expedition was being treated as the
hardly-important excuse for an international fiesta. Taken
entirely for granted was its eventual safe return, and the
accomplishments it was being required to perform along
the way. Taken for granted were the spacecraft, the marsnauts
and all the highly technical work and effort, knowledge
and skill of the six combined national space programs
that had put Phoenix One and Two on the road to Mars.

The newssheet-reading punic was being conditioned by
omission to the idea that no accident could happen now,
no unforeseen failure frustrate the Fxpedition. Let something
go wrong in the face of that conditioning, and
explaining it to the common citizens of the world would
not be easy.

Barney stopped reading and glanced at his watch. It
was ten to three--already past the time when he should
have been back to pick up Lin. He gathered up his papers
and left.


Tad and Fedya sat opposite each other at a wardroom
table. This time it was the wardroom of Phoenix Two;
and it was Tad who had brought the bargraphs that were


85

spread out on its surface. Fedya's left hand, wrapped i
gauze bandaging, rested upon some of these. Bern an,
Dirk had been with them up until a moment ago. Now, fo
the first time since Tad had come over from Phoenix On
with the bargraphs, he and Fedya were alone. Ta,
glanced at the bandaged hand.

"How bad is it, actually?" he asked in a low voice.

"As I told you when you first came over," said Fedy

emotionlessly, "bruised, that's all."
Their eyes met.
Tad nodded.

"All right," he said, turning to the bargraphs and push
ing a sheaf of them across the table to Fedya, who picke
them up with his uninjured hand, "here's how I thinl
wCd better handle it. One man takes care of the outsid
stion of the pod and all EVA duties for both ships. I'v,
juggled the other schedules to spread the work load out a
a result of this; and the parts of your own schedule tha
you won't be able to do one-handed."

Fedya studied the bargraphs for several minutes whil
Tad sat in silence. Then he looked across the table a
Tad.

"The work load is all right over here," he said. "Bu
over on Phoenix One, you're the one who's picking u]

the extra work that I'm being relieved of."

"Not directly," said Tad.

"No," said Fedya, "not directly. But it amounts to tw
hours of work of which I'm relieved, and nearly an hou
apiece off the schedules of Bern and Dirk. While over o
Phoenix One, you pick up four extra hours of dutiesand
I mean you personally."

Tad lOoked grimly at him.

"As Expedition Commander," he said, "I've got mor,
independent duties and more free time than anyone else
I'll be absorbing those four hours into that free time."

"You know," said Fedya, "that's not true--nor pos
sible."

"It's possible," said Tad.

"How?"

Tad sat back in his chair.

"As you told me when I first came over," he said

I86


coldly. "Your hand,s bruised, that's ill. I won't ask you

about "
	" "

	t again.

Fedya sat for a long second without saying anything.
"All right," he said, then, "I won't ask how you plan
to make this work. But what makes you think Expedition
Control will accept it?"

He waved his right hand at the bargraphs and the
penciled changes Tad had made upon them.

"They'll have to," Tad said. "They've got no choice
now. Out here, if it really comes down to it, no one can
give us orders but ourselves. And if they got excited

about it, that would be bad publicity for the Expedition."
Fedya nodded slowly.

"But you'll need help," he said. "You can't do all that
alone."

"No help," said Tad flatly. "And no discussion."

He reached out and swept the bargraphs back into a
pile in the middle of the table.

"And I have no choice, either?" said Fedya.

"That's right," said Tad. He got to his feet, pushing
back his chair from the table. "Don't spend your time
thinking" about me. You know we're all overscheduled,
here. It may not seem so bad the first week or two. But
by the third week, that lack of repair and down time is
going to be piling up. YOu'll all five be putting three or
four hours more a day than you're scheduled for. We
beth know that. I'm just taking on my extra hours now, in
accordance with an amendment of the schedules."

"And a week and a half or two weeks before the rest
of us," said Fedya, softly.

"I tell you, I can absorb most of that extra duty," said
Tad. He still kept his voice pitched low. I'll be in better
shape than any of you, three weeks from today."

"You will not," said Fedya. "And that is something else
we both know."
But, before Fedya could finish speaking, Tad had already
turned and left the wardroom. Fedya heard him
entering the access tube on his way back. through the
cryotex lane to Phoenix One. Soberly, Fedya rose, took
the bargraphs from the table under his arm and headed
toward his sleeping compartment.

I87


2O


"I don't like it," said Bill Ward on Day Sixteen. -:',

"Don't like what part of it?" Nick Henning asked. He
was sitting up in the bed of his private hospital room, looking
as if the massive coronary attack he had had just eight
days ago had never occurred, let alone like a man who was
four days out of extensive heart surgery. Nevertheless in
spite of the fact they were old friends, he was very conscious
right at this moment, of the fact that Bill Ward
had replaced him as Expedition Control Chief. Bill had
just dropped In to visit him, The private room he inhabited
was a pleasant one, looking East, and the flowers
on the window-sill looked crisp and well watered.

"... any part of it," Bill was saying, sitting stiffly upright
in the sunlight on the visitor's chair by the bed, his
face more irascible than usual under his close-cropped
gray hair. "I didn't want your job in the first place, damn
it!"

"I wasn't the one who stuck you with it," Nick said.
"Washington thought you were the best bet to keep Tad

in line, that's all."
	'i,.i

	"Keep hirh in line!" Bill made a small convulsive move
	ment
as if he wanted to get up and pace around the room,

	but would not indulge himself. "'The fact a man's a friend

	doesn't mean you're going to have more luck keeping

	him in line--it means you're going to have less." He

	hesitated. "You don't know the worst of it. That Under
	secretary
of Science for the Space Effort--Jens Wylie--

	came to me more than two weeks ago, on the morning of

	Day One, before launch. He wanted me to do something

	personally about the work schedules for the 'nauts,

	aboard the ships."


188 .

Nick frowned. "And you've never told anyone about
this?"

"For God's sake!" Bill exploded. "Isn't it enough of a
mess already? We know those boys are overscheduled
during this first thirty days. Washington knows it. Every
involved government knows it; and we all sit here like the
three monkeys---see no evil, hear no evil, tell nobody
about the goddamn evil["

"It's something that falls outside our area," said Nick.

"That's what everyone says. What it boils down to is
nobody wants to be the one to tell the king the bad news."
: : e king?" Nick stared at Bill.

"You know what I mean--the billions of so-called
common p'eople out there who've treating this thing as if it
was a show put on for their benefit and a promise of an
end forever to war and trouble and not enough to eat,"
said Bill. "Can,t the damn fools see that the same old
political backbiting and pulley-hauling is going on just
the way it always did-only now it's centered around this
Expedition? Anyway, I almost did what Wylie asked."

Nick's eyelids came down to narrow his gaze and his
eyes steadied on Bill.

"Good thing you didn't."

"Good for who? For Tad--for those others up there?"
said Bill. "It's not good for them." .

"This is something that just happens to be bigger than
just an ordinary space mission," said Nick. "It's tough on
them, being out in the front trench; but they're just going

to have to take it--there's no way we can help them."

Bill flashed an angry look at him.

"You know what I mean!" said Nick. He remembered
suddenly that he was a sick man and made an effort to
hold himself in calmness. "Our whole space program's at
stake. It's been at stake ever since each country involved
in this Expedition started loading it up with the'ir pet
experiments. Right from the beginning we've had the choice
of giving the 'nauts more than they could handle or face
the accusation that NASA was trying to hog the show.
That's still the situation unless the 'nauts themselves, or
someone else, speak up first."

He stopped speaking. Bill Ward sat scowling and silent.

"Don't tell me you're thinking of sticking the U.S.'s
neck out on this?" Nick said, slowly.

"Not yet," said Bill, still scowling. "But there was that
accident on Day Two to Fedya's hand . . . all right, it
turned out not to be anything impo/-tant. But that's space
out there; and things can happen when the men exposed
to it get too tired or physically eroded. Remember the two
Russian cosmonauts on the Soyuz mission who reached the
ground dead because of a mechanical error that probably
wouldn't have been made if they hadn't been suffering the
effects of being too long in no-gravity without our present
drugs or exercises?"

"But you aren't thinking of doing anything about this
situation on your own hook, are you?" persisted Nick.

"Not yet," said Bill. "Not yet."


Day Twenty-two/Phoenix Two: Dirk Welles sat in his
darkened cubicle, crosslegged on his bed with his back
against the bulkhead behind him. He was too tired to
sleep, but he knew that this was merely tension. If he
stayed unmoving and simply let his thoughts run, soon
he would let down in spite of himself and slumber would
come. Meanwhile, sitting here alone like this was almost as
good as sleep.

Privacy--some privacy at least--was one of his deep
and secret needs. He could survive without it as long as
things were going on--he could probably have survived
this whole Expedition without it; but the hunger for it
would always have been there and he was more healthy
if he could have it, as now. It was strange how the two
crews of the space vehicles differed on matters like this.
Over here on Phoenix Two, he, Bern and Fedya were all
privacy people. On Phoenix One, they were all adventurers,
the open ones.

From the beginning the world had never suspected this
privacy need of his. Fate had been kind in its design of
him. He had been grateful for needing to shave at twelve,
for his big bones, his jutting jaw. These physical signals
answered the immediate questions of other people as to
what sort of person he was; that first curiosity satisfied,
they looked no deeper, leaving him unsuspected in his


i9o ....

inner self. At the core of that inner self was something
quiet and personal, a place that had been open only to
himself until Penny had come along. Now they occupied
it together, while still giving each other the right to go one
step deeper yet and be completely solitary for. occasional
brief moments. This worked with Penny, because she was
the same sort of person he was.

What a miracle it had been, the two of them finding
each other! He had never even guessed that there could
be another like him in the world, let alone that that other
could be a woman, someone like Penny with whom he
could fall in love. Nor had she guessed there Could be
someone like him. They had never discussed this miracle
in words but they both recognized it and had told each
other about it in that special, wordless way in which they
had been able to communicate from the first. From the
beginning they had not needed to utter the words other
people spoke to each other aloud.

Perhaps, perhaps it was something like that with Bern
and his Joanna. Not the same thing, but something like it.
It had been inconceivable to Dirk and Penny that any
wife would not want to come to the launch of an Expedition
like this, to be with her husband right up to the last
moment. Of course, Anoshi's wife had not come, either;
but there was something about the difference in cultures,
the East and West of it, that seemed to make that notcoming
appear more reasonable in Anoshi and Reiko's case.
But Bern and Joanna had been married longer and had
children.

Still, obviously Bern cared deeply for Joanna and she
for him, as witness the daily letters and almost daily phone
calls that had passed between them. So it stood to reason
that they, too, must have their own mated, private togetherness-different
from, but similar to, what Penny
and he had.

Fedya . . . Fedya had no family any more, of course,
and never talked about his dead wife and children. That
was his particular inner privacy, and none of the rest of
them would intrude there under any circumstances,

I..,

naturally. So, the end result was that on this ship they


re all alike in that one way; more private, more


x 9 t

isolated one from another; than they were on Phoenix
.One.

The tension was beginning to leak out of Dirk's back
and shoulders, now. He could feel it going. His thoughts
turned back again to Penny and a warmth began to seep
through his limbs and body. She was so dear. It was
marvelous how she and he could still talk secretly together,
even across the lasercom link and all these miles of space,
how they could read behind each other's words and have
as personal a conversation as they wished, even though
their voice connection was as wide open as that between
two radio stations. They could still reassure each other
that they were well, and speak privately of their love,
without anyone else knowing. Not that either the others
aboard the two ships, or the people back at Expedition
Control, would deliberately listen in--in fact, there was a
particular effort made to ignore husband-and-wife conversations--but
even if they had, with Dirk and Penny it
would have made no difference. Because Dirk and Penny
could carry on two conversations at once, one aloud and
one in the silent channel that ran hidden behind their
spoken words.

"... I finally got interviewed by that magazine friend of

Jens Wylie," Penny had said the last time they had talked.
"Oh?" he had said, asking--did you mind it much?

"Yes," Penny answered--no, 1 didn't mind. I liked it.
"She's nice." I like her. She could be a/fiend:

"Well, that's good." I'm glad you've Jcund someone
there you can make a friend of. "What's she like?" What
makes you like her?

"Well, she's very strong and independent." She's solitary,
like us. "Good company, that sort of thing; and we get
along." She needs a ]fiend, too--a female friend.

"Well, I always liked Jens." Is she the same sort of
person he is?

"They've known each other some time." Yes, but there's
a problem there.

"Oh?" What sort of problem?

"She's really very interested in the way people think
who've deeply into the space effort." She's trying to understand
space--and its relationship to ]ens. She doesn't un.
derstand now.
"I should think Jens could explain that sort of thing
	](:]

for her." What's the matter with him, that he hasn't done
	"]

something about this himsel[?

"Well, he's been busy, of course . . ." He doesn't know
	"I

how she's trying to understand. "And of course, she is,

	|

too." And she won't or can't tell him.

"Seems to me a little digging would give her the answers."

You don't have to take on everybody else's problems.

"Why, when I can give her most of them?" It's not
taking on problems. 1 want to do it, for both o/them, and


i

because I like her.

	"There's that, of course." Whatever you want, love.

."And it's no effort." 1 know 1 can help her--help them
both. "Besides, it makes me feel useful." We've been so
lucky, so happy, you and I. I'd so like to help some other

i

people to that same kind of happiness.

	"Charge ahead, then." So would I, I suppose. "With my


	blessings." I love you, very much.

	"Blessings acknowledged." And 1 love you, more than

	anything. "I will then . . ."

	Memory slowed. In the darkness of the cubicle, Dirk's

	eyelids fluttered and dropped. Sleep reached up with gentle,

	impalpable arms and pulled him down to the cot. Warmth

	was all through him. He sent his now-drowsy mind reach
	ing
out across the far, far emptiness to another mind, back

	there somewhere.

	Good night, my love...

	Good night. He seemed to just catch the distant answer.

	Good night, good night, my dearest dear . . .


Day Twenty-two/Phoenix One: Tad woke with a con.
vulsive jerk; and lay in the dark, unable for the moment
to remember where he was or what the time was now. His
body ached for more sleep, yearned for it like some
desiccated desert plant yearning for rain. For the moment
he was aware of only two things--that deep, desperate
need for sleep; and the fact that he was disoriented, lost
in darkness with nothing to cling to but the grim urgency
that had driven him out of the cave of slumber back to
wakefulness, again.

Then it came back to him.

He looked at the illuminated face of the clock on his

i!r'c'	193

bedside table. The hands stood at 2300 hours. Eleven

Bap and Anoshi would be asleep by this time, sleeping the
heavy drugged sleep of the exhausted. For him, after a two
hour nap, there were his personal medical tests and the
log book to deal with.

He lay still for a few moments in the darkness, gathering
his will to rise. At first thought, the effort involved in
getting up seemed impossible. He felt like someone chained
hand and foot to the bed by fatigue; while before him,
sensed but invisible, loomed the ever-growing stack of
work to be done. Every day he attacked that stack, that
mountain, with superhuman efforts; but every day, at the
end of the day, it was higher. A little more time had been
lost from the overall schedule. One more impossibility had
been added to those already required of him. And the next
day another would be added.

He shoved the self-defeating image from him. Follow
your nose, he told himself. Keep the eyes in close focus on
the immediate grindstone. Look at the total of things and
you'll never make it---besides, for him, the current day
was not yet over. He had only allowed himself a two-hour
nap while Anoshi and Bap dropped safely off to sleep.
There were two more hours of work yet for him, before
he could come back to this bed where he was now.

Up--he forced himself to throw back the single cover
and sit up, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed. For
a second he slumped there; then with another convulsive
effort he was on his feet, headed toward the waste management
room and the shower.

The shower was beautiful. He stood, leaning and braced
against the metal walls of the narrow, upright cubicle,
letting its endlessly recycled and filtered four gallons of
water beat endlessly down upon his naked body, driving
some heat and life into his bones. Bless the water that
never quit. To heat it, he was burning ship's power for a
period of time long beyond the normal interval, but to
hell with that. They had power to spare and he was a piece
of machinery that needed an infusion of energy to get it
operating. Warmed at last to something like workin.g
temperature, he staggered out of the cubicle and headed
back to his sleeping compartment to dress.

194


	Dressed, he went into the wardroom and dropped down

at the dining tabl.e, punching for
			of coffee. Drinking

	a

		cup

it, he. stared with unfocused eyes at the wardroom bulkhead
opposite, where the dartboard hung, sprouting the
feathered darts from the last game. Now that he was this
far back into a waking mode, he did not really know how
alert he was. Undoubtedly, he was tired, but all he felt,
sitting at the wardroom table, was a sort of leaden brightness.
The effective modes for him were no longer awake or
asleep, but operative or inoperative.

It was, he thought as he sat drinking the coffee which
was pleasant for its heat but no longer much use as a
stimulant to him, a question of how far Anoshi and Bap
had also descended down this road to exhaustion on which
he himself was now far advanced. If he could not judge
his own condition any more, it was certain that he could
not trust himself to judge them. Of course, he had
started to bear the work a good week and a half before
the gradual accumulation of lost time on a too-crowded
schedule had begun to drive them to extra hours of
effort. From that, he should be able to count on their
having reserves of energy still that he had already
squandered. Of course, he would be going to work on the
log in a minute and in the results of their daily physical
checks, there should be some clue. But it was hard to be
certain...

He would get to work any minute now. But first, one
more cup of coffee...


,.. Ah-hah! Caught you at it, thought Tad, staring, at
his coffee container. His hand had just automatically
reached out and refilled the container from the spout
under his name on the wardroom wall against which the
table faced. Thought you'd con me into sitting here while
I drank a third cup, did you, he said to his hand. Well, it
won't work.

Carefully, not spilling a drop, he poured the contents of
the cup down between the bars of the drain under the
spout, to be metered there also and deducted from the
intake total the spout had been adding up for him in the
log. He got up and went out of the wardroom.


	:
	195

He took the access tube to A Deck and went to the log
console. Dropping heavily into the seat before it, he
punched up the Day Twenty-two figures and began his
study of them.

The recorded work schedule was already strongly at
odds with the bargraphs of the projected work schedules
aboard Phoenix One; and undoubtedly the same thing was
true aboard Phoenix Two. Meal periods had shrun, k to
as little as fifteen minutes on occasion, and there were no
open spaces between duties or experiments where one
'naut had a few minutes to wait until another could join
him for a two-man activity. The Systems/Housekeeping
periods were down to no more than five minutes. Finally,
to top the matter off, the record showed the whole day
running up to half an hour late into the normal beginning
of the sleep period between 2100 and 2200 hours.

That much obvious increase of the work load and added
use of time could stand in the official record. It was not
an impossible situation, on paper--or rather, on the
screen of the log here and back at Cape Kennedy. But on
the other hand, it was not a true record of the situation,
either.

What did not show on the record was the real trouble.
For example, all three of them aboard Phoenix One had
fallen into the habit of what they called "doing the
chores": rising an hour and a half to two hours early to
do any number of things that did not involve use of the
recording equipment aboard and which consequently did
not show up on the log.

Tad punched the log screen to focus in on the running
physical statistics on the three of them aboard. The overwork
was showing up as a weight loss for both Anoshi
and Bap in the mass experiment--Mr49. Bap had lost eight
pounds and Anoshi five as of Day Twenty-two's weighings.
Neither of those was an unreasonable figure. Tad decided
to leave them as they presently appeared on the record.
Experiment Mt 9 showed some calcium and nitrogen loss
by both men; but again it was not so great a loss that it
appeared threatening. Mo7--Negative Pressure, that experiment
which required a 'naut to sit in a device covering
him to the waist and fastened there with an airtight seal

I96


while air was exhausted below the ambient pressure of 5
psig, showed some cardiovascular changes that were not
good.

Tad drummed his fingers on the lower edge of the
console, debating with himself. It was one thing to stick
his own neck out: but something entirely different to risk
major damage to the other two. How many days were
left? Eight, to finish the first thirty-day period; after which
the schedule was to be cut almost in half. Risk it, he
decided, with Bap and Anoshi, a few days longer. He
left the MIo7 figures as entered.

He went on through the other checkpoints on the two
men---heart rate, blood pressure, vectorcardiograms. The
true figures on these would pass. The time and motion
studies, on the other hand, showed Bap and Anoshi fallen
off again; they had dropped sharply in performance in
the last three days. In this case, Tad made slight corrections
of the record, improving their marks slightly. So
slightly, in fact that nothing was risked, either way; but
enough of a change so that if, for any reason, he wished
to improve the record of their performance tomorrow, it
would not seem like a sudden change.

He left the log records dealing with Bap and Anoshi,
then, and went to those dealing with himself.

For a moment he sat, merely staring at these. It had been
a number of days since he had first begun to believe the
evidence of his own physical deterioration as reflected in
the records. Each day he corrected them to keep them
in the same range as the records oft his two crewmates;
and each day the correction had become more unbelievable.
It was true he was averaging no more than four to six.
hours of sleep out of the twenty-four and working at least

two hours more than the others; but it was hard to credit
that difference with causing him to fall apart as fast as the
record showed.

Of course, he knew what the real reason was. He had
known and figured on it before he ever spoke to Fedya
about incapacitating himself. Tad's plan had been to use
Fedya's injury as an excuse to juggle the work schedules
of all six of them so that he himself would pick up a
potential extra four hours of activities and each of the

rest would have his load lightened by a potential fortyeight
minutes apiece. One of the four extra hours Tad
would eventually need to put in was to be an hour of
ttvttv a(ter a and Anoshi were asleep; and he had
deliberately thrown his schedule out o phase with "heirs
to explain why they might wake to find him up and
around when they were resting.
But the other three hours he had intended to save by
simple cheating, by not doing certain scheduled activities
in which he alone was concerned and faking the log
records to show them as done. It had been a difficult
problem to find three hours of personal activity that he
felt could be eliminated without endangering the Expedition
and his crewmates. But he had done it, thanks mainly
to the eighty minutes he had saved by completely skipping
his daily exercise period.

He could not have done this aboard Skylab. There,
all such exercise required two men--the participator and
the observer. But one of the points NASA had yielded
on as the experiments piled up for the Expedition was the
requirement that all exercise be observed. Tad had only
needed to place his exercise period at the end of his day's
schedule, after Bap and Anoshi were asleep, and then
ignore it completely, except for recording fake evidence
of it in the log.

It had been a calculated risk. Early in the period of
manned spaceflight, it had been discovered that bodies
designed for gravity deteriorated rapidly in a no-gravity
situation. A few days without gravity were enough to do
noticeable damage. The Skylabs, with their complete lack
of gravity and long terms of duty by the men aboard them,
had come up with an answer to this--daily exercise.

The two ships of the Mars Expedition, docked together
and spinning, were not without gravity, even if it
was a gravity less than half of normal. There had been
evidence to show that a full gravity might not be what was
necessary to keep the human body in normal good condition.
Even a light gravity might be able to do it. Tad had
gambled on this being so . . . but there was no denying
the evidence he had been forced to correct daily for the
last two weeks. Even in a light gravity, exercise was

198


probably necessary. He had deliberately avoided exercise
and the effects on his body were piling up.

But.there was no going back, or no changing his plans,
now even if he had wanted to. With a weary breath, he


figures to more healthy-looking ones ....

"Yes," said the voice of Bap behind him. "You see, I
was right."

Tad dropped the light pencil and spun about in the
chair. He was braced to see Bap and Anoshi; but what he
did see was worse.

The man with Bap was Fedya.


The Washington chief of Gervais's section, the tall, thin,
half-balding man called Amory Hammond whom Albert
Gervais no longer trusted, was a coffee spiller. He was
also a coffee mopper-up. The two of them sat on opposite
sides of a booth in the motel coffee shop after lunch, with
Hammond drinking innumerable cups of coffee, spilling
innumerable spills into his saucer, and adding paper napkins
to soak them up.

Gervais sat watching him, without moving, behind the
mask of his own face. Until he could get rid of Hammond,
he was stuck with the man. The Air Force had charge of
general Security in anything to do with the deputy ministers
for space, for reasons that Gervais could not accept.
This should have been a complete operation from the nonmilitary
side. This way, as it was, with his team on the
bottom and the gold-braid characters up top, both sides
were hampered; snce he could not trust the Air Force to
look the other way when he had to do something a little


99

out of the ordinary; and naturally they were not going to
trust him to look the other way if they had to sweep
something under the rug. Since Hammond himself was not
Air Force, but his immediate superior was, the partnership
became uneasy at that point; and Hammond--as
Gervais was now certain---did not have what it took to
handle that uneasiness. He was showing visible signs of
coming apart. Add the fact that he had been working with
the Air Force so long that nobody in the home office really
knew him any more; and in addition to not trusting him, as
Gervais now did not, Gervais had always suspected him of
lacking the guts to carry anything through--in spite of the
good reports that Air Force was always sending over on
him. Hammond and Gervais had known each other off
and on over a period of nearly ten years now, and they
were exactly the same age.

"No problems at all, then?" Hammond asked, sucking
at his coffee cup.
"Not so far," said Gervais evenly. He was perfectly
polite. "All routine."

"And your crews all working well? You're satisfied with
them all?"

"No complaints," said Gervais.

Hammond emptied the last of the coffee in his cup,
finger-wagged at a passing waitress and waited until she
brought the bulbous glass coffee pot, cleared the soggy
papers from underneath his cup, and went away again.

"Some kid in town here got beaten up a few nights ago,
pretty thoroughly, the local cops tell me," Hammond said,
pouring large quantities of sugar in his cup and then adding
cream. "Any time you get a lot of people together, like at
one of these launches, there seem to be a few freaks among
the rest."

He looked sharply back at Gervais over the edge of his

cu,P, ias he lifted it. Gervais met his eyes calmly. .:,
suppose," said Gervais. <i

"The local cops say they aren't surprised too much at
anything that happens just before a launch," Hammond
went on, dropping his gaze away again, lifting his brimful
cup, spilling some of its contents into the saucer and drinking
deeply before ptitting it down again, "but after the

200


launch it goes back to being the same sleepy little neighborhood.
Nothing much happens during ordinary times, they
tell me.",

"No," said Gervais. "No, I wouldn't expect anything
freakish now that the crowd's clearing out. Of course, there
has to be a certain amount of felonies in the ordinary
course of things."

"As few as possible, we'd hope," muttered Hammond to
his cup

He reached over for one of the paper napkins, foIded it,
and put it in his saucer. The spilled coffee soaked into it and
became a brown stain on the paper. He studied the stain,
then looked up once more at Gervais.

"Did you hear?" he said. "They say there's been another
fuss about some of the team people using ex-c0ns to do
their dirty work for them.'

"Is that so?" said Gervais. "I hadn't heard. What teams
were they talking about?"

Hammond watched his coffee as he stirred it.

"Nobody seems to know for sure," he said. "But they

seem to think it's teams on the non-military side."

He waited but Gervais said nothing.

"Well," Hammond went on, "it's'probably no one ,we
know, particularly no one in our outfit. Most of our people
know the danger of anything like that getting in the
papers."

"Yes," said Gervais. "I'd say you're right,"

They sat there for a moment more of silence, while
Hammond drank coffee. Gervais put his hands before him
on the table and steepled the fingers together.

"You know the Duchess is out in the old mansion?" said

Hammond. "If she's around, there must be a few things
"going on."

"That old hitch," said Gervais quietly, "was over the hill
ten years ago. Before that she wasn't anything either, and
the people she had around here weren't anything but playpretties."

"Tell
me something I don't know," said Hammond. "This
is still an international matter. All the foreign ministers
will be around until the first month of the Expedition is

over; and we're worried about the newspapers and other
media."

"When weren't there newspapers to worry about?" Gervais
said. "We just keep our heads down and do our job
as USklal."

"All right," said Hammond. "You know I trust you,
Albert. I've always felt there was no one like you for a
situation like this. All right, then. I'll see you in a couple
of days when I get back from the home office."

His face twitched slightly. He stood up, picked up the
checks for both their lunches and walked toward the cash
register. Gervais sat still, looking after him, his own face
perfectly steady. When Hammond had paid the checks and
gone out into the hotel lobby, Gervais got to his feet and
went, not to that door, but to the swinging doors through
which the waitresses entered from the kitchen. He stepped
through the right-hand door, circled the tables where the
white-suited kitchen staff was at work and came to a
flight of stairs. Four steps down he came to a fire door
which let him into a corridor; and halfway down through
the corridor, going through a door to his left, he stepped
back into the office just off the lobby that was his own
headquarters. The only one on duty there at the moment
was Joe Kolin, a half-bald, kindly looking forty-year-old
man, beginning to sag a little bit about the jowls, and
wearing a cheap, summerweight business suit that was a

little too tight for him across the shoulders.

"Where's Brawley?" asked Gervais.

"Up in his room, catching some sleep, I think," said the
man in the palm beach suit. "Want me to call him?"

He reached for the stud at the base of the picturephone
on his desk.

"No," said Gervais, "I've got to go up anyway. I'll drop
in on him."

"Is Hammond going to be staying around?" asked the
other man.

"No. Going back," Gervais said.

"There's been talk that there's some kind of sticky business
going on here, to bring him down," said the agent.

"There's always talk," said Gervais. "There's always some
kind of business."

202


	,co hmg to do with Kil?"
	II

,' I'm responsible for Kilmartin Brawley, not you," said

Gervais. "But just to stop any rumors, the answer's no."

The Other nodded slowly and sat back in his chair, pick
ing
up the paperback book he had been reading. Gervais

went out into the lobby, across to the elevatbr, and took

one of its cars up to the seventh floor where all of his

own security team had their rooms. He went down the

silent, carpeted corridor to room 743, and tapped on it

with a fingernail.

"Yes?" said Kilmartin Brawley's voice, sounding close

to the door on the inside.

"It's me," said Gervais.

The lock rattled and the door opened. Gervais stepped

in, glancing around as Brawley closed the door and re
locked
it. Gervais's eye noted the rumpled bedspread and

the tangle of Brawley's hair.

"What is it?" Brawley asked.

"You're not showing a lot of intelligence, Kil," said

Gervais. "It's not smart to build a backfire against anything

I might have to do to you over these little adventures of

yours. Particularly, it's not smart to build a backfire by

setting up the fact we're sweeping trouble under the rug

down here. What made you talk to Hammond?"

Brawley's face twisted.

"Albert! Believe me, I wouldn't--I'd never do anything

like that!"

"You're telling me the truth?" Gervais watched him

closely.

"You know I'm telling the truth. I swear I'm telling the

truth!"

"You lie to me," said Gervais, "and I'll see you in a

straitjacket for the next sixty years. I'll lose you, Kil."

"I'm not lying."

"Hmm," Gervais stood a moment, thinking. "You know

of anybody else on the team who might be carrying stories

to higher-up?"

"Nobody," Brawley said. "They wouldn't do that, Albert,

anymore than I would."

Gervais stood a second longer.

"It just may be something is actually going oa," he said,


203

finally. "So keep your eyes open; and tell the rest of the
team to be particularly sharp--just in case."

He turned around, unlocked the door, and let himself
out again, closing the door behind him. Kil had been telling
the truth, that was plain. He did not have the guts for
reaI game-playing, which was why he would never be anything
more than one of the troops. Of course there was
nothing real going on--outside of whatever game it was
that he was beginning to zero in on, involving Willy Fesser
and whoever Willy would be working for. If it was not for
his need to do something about Hammond, he would let
Fesser have that game of his, unmolested. But right now,
it was just too useful to ignore. Not that whatever it was
would stay secret anyway. Situations like those at this
launch always took place in a fishbowl. Sooner or later,
unless you were a veteran like himself, or someone like
Mayence or Verigin, anything you did got found out.

Still caught in his own thoughts, he walked down the
hall, put a key into the door of his own room, let himself in,
and locked it behind him. He went to his bed, sat down
beside his phone, flicked it on to copy, and then punched
the three number code that he had inserted in there the
night after meeting Arthur DeMars, the thin, black ex¢on
with the pickup whom he had put to work keeping an eye
on the people at the Kelly estate. The phone buzzed its call
in his ears, but the screen did not light and no voice
answered.

He pressed a stud to leave an automatic message on the
other unit he was calling and spoke into his own phone.

"This is Jackson. Get in touch with me just as soon as
yOU can."

He flicked off the phone, got up and went over to sit
down in an armchair near the window. The bright, hot
daylight outside, dimmed by the light-responsive window,
left him illuminated Softly. There was certainly something
going on--no doubt about that.

A cold anger at the whole weak and vacillating tribe of
ordinary men formed inside him and began to rise as in
a wave of sickness toward his throat. With the practice of
long experience he willed it back down. The mirror across
the room gave him back his own image, showing not the


204

slightest change of expressibn; but when he was done
conquering his anger, sweat stood out on his forehead.

The one bright spot was that he now had an almost
good team--all except Kilmartin Brawley, of course. Kil
was a sour apple who would have to go, just as Amory
Hammond had to go. Outside of those two, however, the
people on the scene from his outfit were good and reliable
effectives. Even Kil could be an effective while he was still
around--as long as he was kept under control.

But before Gervais could take any real action, he needed
to know who was doing what. The only game in town was
the floor ,of ministers, upstairs; but there was literally
nothing concerning them that was worth two cents to anyone;
so why would anybody hire someone like Fesser to
go to the trouble of breaking through the security on them?
If there were something to be gained, it would be that
much easier to figure out who was after it. As it was, whatever
was going on was probably going on for some private
reason or other. That meant it could be any one of the
ministers themselves, and also any one of the other government
outfits besides his own, or even some large commercial
concern, like one of the engineering companies involved
in the Expedition. What Gervais needed was
something, anything, to go on, any kind of clue at all.
Once he had that, it was just a matter of checking until he
could zero in; and once he zeroed in it would be his
pleasure to take care of whoever was cansing the trouble
... and at the same time wrap up people like Hammond
and Kil.

Slowly and meticulously, in his own mind, Gervais
began to go over everything that he had seen, felt, or
learned, since he and the rest of the team had first arrived
on the job a little over two weeks ago. As he thought, he
opened the drawer in the desk beside him and got out a
towel-wrapped bundle. He unwrapped it, and laid out on
the desk top a heavy file, a small screw-on vise, and the
other souvenir paper-knife he had bought at the Space
Center Information Building. Still thinking, he fastened
the vise in position on the edge of the table and clamped
the knife in it, with its blade protruding.

He picked up the file and checked himself, abruptly,

looking down at his hands. Together they held the file
delicately but with the firm grip of practice, fingers gripping
it expertly at each end.

He paused and breathed deeply, slowly. He shifted his
fingers on the file. Now his hands held it roughly, clumsily,
the way someone might hold it who had never used such
a tool seriously before. Holding it so, he stroked at the
softly rounded point of the knife, and the light metal there
scraped away at his touch, becoming narrow and sharp.


22


"How long has this been going on?" asked Fedya, as he,
Anoshi and Bap stood facing Tad, still seated before the
log screen.

"What're you doing here?" demanded Tad.

Fedya ignored him. He took one long step forward to
level with Tad's chair and looked down at the page of the
log imaged on the screen.

"Hold on there--" Tad tried to spin around to face the
console; but Fedya pushed him back again and Bap caught
him, holding on. "What the hell--"

His voice was thick; and his legs, when he tried to gett0
his feet against Bap's arm, were without strength. Fedya
stood looking past him at the log records for a long

moment; then he stepped back and Bap let go of Tad.
"I'm senior--" Tad began. Fedya broke in on him.
"You are sick," he said, "a man who is seriously worn
out and sick. Bap, take a look at the figures on him in the
log."

Bap stepped past Fedya in histurn. This time, Tad made
no attempt to stop the log from being seen. He sat in his
chair, glaring at Fedya.

Bap said something softly but emphatically in a language

:206 ,

and turned to Tad, reaching out to close the fingers of his
left hand upon the pulse in Tad's left wrist and gently
lifting one of Tad's eyelids with the fingers of his right
hand. Then he let go of the eyelid; and a moment later
took his hand from the pulse.

"Tad," he said, looking down at Tad and shaking his

head. "Tad!"

Tad glared up at them all like a cornered wild dog.
"Cut it out!" he said, harshly. "You're not going to do
anything. You tell Expedition Control about me, and you'll
blow everything wide open."

"Expedition Control's already concerned," said Fedya,

"on the basis of the data on your vital signs during the
monitoring period each day."

"But they don't know what's going on here; and they

won't if we don't tell them!"

"That part's true enough," Bap said to the other two

beside him. "But he can't go on like this."

"No," said Fedya. His dark eyes were boring into Tad.

"So this was the way you thought you could get around the
overload of activities? How could you try something so
impossible?"

"Go to hell!" said Tad, savagely. "If the gravity had

been enough, I'd have been all right. It's just the lack of
exercise that's got to me."

Fedya glanced questioningly at Bap, who shrugged with

his eyebrows.

"Probably," said Bap. He looked back at Tad. "Anyway.

as the closest thing to a physician on this Expedition, I'm
personally ordering you to bed until further notice."

"There's things to be done," said Tad. "Nobody but me

can do them."

"They can wait ten hours," said Bap. "Even falsifying

that record can wait ten hours."

"What'll you tell Expedition, when they ask to have it
relayed to them tomorrow morning?"

"That they'll have to wait," said Fedya. "And meanwhile--"
he turned and walked over to seat himself at the
command console "--we'll put them on notice that our
activities schedule has to be cut, immediately."


o7

He flipped the communication switch and pushed th....l
lasercom control buttons.

"This is Phoenix One," he said into the mike grid of th
console before him. "Phoenix One. This is Fedya, for Mars
Expedition calling Expedition Control from Phoenix One.
Come in, Kennedy."

There was a perceptible delay. Already they were far
enough from Earth for communication lag. The screen
before him blurred with color and resolved itself into the
features of a thin-faced communications engineer with the
ranked consoles of Expedition Control at the Cape, behind
him.

"This is Expedition Control," he said. "This is Expedition
Control receiving you loud and clear, Phoenix One.
What's up, Fedya?"
"I want to talk to the Expedition Director," Fedya said.
"I must talk to Bill Ward, immediately . . ."


"... left him there, locked in the closet." Sir Geoffrey
wound up his story and the group about him laughed. One
laugh in particular, that of the Duchess, rang clearly across
neighboring conversations. Sir Geoffrey winked at her in
appreciation, and instantly realized that once again he was
sailing dangerously near his limit on drinks. It was a
damned annoying thought for someone who used to be able
to drink all night and the next day without showing it. He
would just have to quit for the evening, even though there
were at least a couple of hours more to go. Damn!

"But what happened to the man?" asked Bill Ward's
wife, Jenna.

"Happened? Haven't any idea;" said Sir Geoffrey. "May
still be there in the closet, for all I know."

More laughter. Bill felt a touch on his elbow. He turned,
and it was AI Murgatroyd.

"Fedya wants to talk to' you on the lasercom--right
away."

"What about?"

"I don't know," AI said.

Bill hesitated and looked around him. Sir Geoffrey'had
just begun another story. Bill beckoned Jenna to join him
and they walked off from the crowd.


o8

Bill waited until they were' well away from anyone who
might overhear, before turning to Jenna.

"Nothing desperate," he said. "But the 'nauts want to

talk to me about something. I'll have to run back to Ex
pedition
Control. Can you get a taxi home?"

"Oh, someone will give me a ride," she said. "Don't
worry about me." She looked up at his tall, thick-waisted
figure concernedly. "Don't forget you need your sleep."

"Of course, of course," Bill said. "Don't wait up for me,
though."

He turned and walked swiftly off toward the hotel entrance
next to the parking lot before she could give him
any more good advice. She had fussed over him ever since
Nick Henning's heart attack. He found his car in the
parking lot and headed back to the Cape.

It took him nearly forty minutes to get there, in spite of

the relatively empty, after-midnight highways. Ten minutes

later he was talking to Fedya.

"Where's Tad?" askcd Bill.

There was a delay, even at the light speed of the laser
communication beam, before the lips of Fedya's face in
the screen moved, and Fcdya's voice was heard.

"He's asleep, and he has a ranquilizcr in him. He can't

talk to you now."

, , "There's something you're not telling me," said Bill.

I "No " sad Fedya "What more do you need to krow?
The activity load is too heavy. All of us are worn down
by it. Tad was so worn down he was ready to collapse."

Bill thumbed a pile of log duplicate sheets that had been
brought to him while he had been talking.

"According to these, Tad--" he was beginning, when a
thought woke in the back of his brain. Quietly, he pushed
the sheets aside. "You're asking Expedition Control to cut
the experiment list?"

"Yes. They can cut it," said Fedya. He paused. "Or they

can face the fact ihat certain work will be left undone for

lack

	of

		time

			in which to do it."

"How--" Bill's voice surprised him by its hoarseness.

He cleared his throat and tried again. "How soon do you

want an answer?"

"Twenty-four hours," said Fedya.


t209

"Oh, now look here!" said Bill. "Cutting that list involves
checking with various governments--your own for one.
You can't mean twenty-four hours!"

"They can take as much time as they like," said Fedya,
"But starting immediately, on both ships, we will only do
what there is time for us to do in a normal day's workperiod."

"That's
not--" began Bill, and broke off as a paper was
pushed into his hand by someone standing nearby. He read
it and laughed. He looked back into the screen at Fedya.

"Saved by the bell," he said. "Guess what? We've just
got word of a solar flare that's due to hit you in five hours
and thirty-eight minutes. Did you get that?"

"I heard you," said Fedya. "We copy. A solar flare is
due to reach us in five hours and thirty-eight minutes. I
assume you mean a flare large enough for us to run the
lasercom tests."

"Of course," said Bill. "And running those tests means
you drop everything else and concentrate on them. You'd
better get started and put as much distance between the
two ships as you can. Meanwhile, I'll pass along your
request for a cut in the activities schedule."

"Good," said Fedya. "Phoenix Two will speak to you
again just before breaking off to lock communications contact
with Phoenix One for the duration of the LCO tests.
Over and out."
"Over and out," said Bill. The screen went blank. Bill
sat back in his chair, gazing at the unlit surface for a long
moment before he seemed to shake himself out of his
dark mood and look about for whomever had handed him
the note about the flare.

"Who gave me that?" he asked. "And how bad's it going
to be?"

"I did," said the communications engineer on duty, Mick
Howard, leaning in toward him. "And it's going to be
rough."


Tad leaped suddenly to full wakefulness out of deep
sleep, as if someone had shot a cannon off at his bedside.
He lay listening, but there was no sound. He felt lightheaded
but alert. Only his body was st, ill numb with ex-

2IO


haustion. He forced it up into a sitting position on the
edge of the bed . .. and floated off the bed surface entirely
into the air.

There was no gravity.

Phoenix One and Phoenix Two were .no longer docked
together and rotating.

In that moment he heard it again--the noise that had
roused him from sleep. It was the heavy clang of metal
against metal, somewhere forward in the ship--it sounded
as if it might be on A Deck almost directly over his head.

Tad jerked himself out of the bed; and pulled himself
through the gravityless environment to the hatch of the
access tube, then along the access tube up to A Deck, and
out on to A Deck. He saw Bap and Anoshi manhandling
thick metal sandwich panels into position about the control
consoles. As he emerged from the access tube they finished
locking the one they held into place against the line of
panels already up to the left of the consoles; and Bap saw
him.

"Awake, Tad?" Bap said. °'I was just coming down to
get you. We've got a-solar flare coming. In fact, it's already
here."

"A flare?" The infc;rmation jolted out of Tad all the
anger that had been building up in him at not being
wakened before this. For a second his mind was full only
of the situation that a large solar flare implied for Phoenix
One and Two. Then his anger returned with a rush. "Why'd
you let me sleep this long?"

"We were doing all right without you," said Anoshi. "The
radiation index is already starting to rise; and we're all
buttoned down outside, except for the lasercom--and that's

now matched with the LCO mirror on Phoenix Two."
"Where is Phoenix Two?" Tad asked.

"Fedya's moved her a good hundred and forty kilometers
off. We've both said our last words for the moment
to Expedition Control. Now, as soon as we get the storm
cellar set up here, we'll be ready to ride it out. You'd better
get dressed."

"Dressed?" Tad recognized suddenly that he was wearing
nothing but standard onboard duty clothes. Anoshi and
Bap were dressed in the undersuiting that went with their

211


spacesuits, including even biomedical sensors and the
semi-bulky EMU urine collection systems about their
crotches and waists. He looked at the new panel the two
were now picking up--the last one to be put in place to
surround the control system. The panels made up a
specially protected area which the 'nauts themselves referred
to as "the storm cellar."

"How soon should we be inside?" Tad asked.

"The next fifteen minutes, to be amply safe," panted
Bap. In no-gravity, the panels lacked normal weight; but

their mass and inertia made them problems to handle.

I'll be back up in ten," said Tad.

He turned and went hurriedly down the access tube to
B Deck. He got into his undersuiting, swallowed a hot cup
of coffee in the wardroom, made a hasty visit to the waste
disposal room and was back up the access tube and into
the storm cellar within the time limit he had given. He
entered through the gap where the last panel of the cellar
stood ajar; and he pulled it closed into its fitting with the
adjoining panel behind him.

Bap and Anoshi were already on their acceleration
couches, Tad pulled himself over to his and belted down.
He was once again clear-headed; but the heavy sleep had
reawakened his appreciation of what bodily tiredness
meant. He was like a live mind in a nearly unconscious

ca.rcas$.

"How long was I out?" he demanded.

"Nearly six hours," said Anoshi. "We got word of the
flare when Fedya told Expedition Control about cutting
the activities schedule, about an hour after Bap put you to
bed."
"And Fedya took Phoenix Two off? We're still holding
course?" Tad asked.
"Right. Right on both counts," said Anoshi.

"How intense a flare?"

"The forecast Kennedy gave us was upwards of twelve
thousand BeV at Earthpoint," said Anoshi. "That should
push it right up near the end of our scale."

He pointed at Phoenix One's outside counter. Twelve
thousand billion electron volts was more than threequarters of the way up'its line of measurement. Right now
the needle hung just above the bottom pin.

"Are we all buttoned up?" Tad said. "Did you get the
livesubjects from the labs into the safety room?"

"All of them, including the plants from the atmosphere
section of the pod. All the films out of the outside cameras
--everything. Relax, Tad," said Bap, cheerfully. "Every-'
thing's done. We didn't miss your presence at all."

"You.hope!" snapped Tad. He was still fighting his
exhaustion-deadened body; and Bap's usual humor irritated
instead of amusing him. He turned to the communi

ications
section of his console and punched buttons to call
Phoenix Two on the LCO.

Color swirled and became the face of Fedya. It was clear
and sharp; but then it should be. To the laser beam carrying
it between the outside copper mirror on Phoenix Two
to the duplicate mirror on Phoenix One, a hundred and
forty kilometers was no distance at all compared to the
work it would finally be called on to do, in maintaining
communications between Cape Canaveral and the Expedition,
once it had arrived at Mars. Theoretically, even the
billions of electron volts--the storm of proton and electron
particles thrown off by the solar flare following its first
burst of electromagnetic radiation--should not disturb it,
at this short distance. But that was one of the matters that
the Expedition was about to test. Both ships had aligned

their outside laser mirrors on each other, putting them out
of contact with Earth, except for radio communication;

and radio communication was limited, even with the more
powerful equipment, aboard Phoenix One, which was to
do the long-range tests once the Expedition reached Mars
orbit.

"Fedya?" said Tad, the second Fedya's face was identifiable.
"You did talk to Kennedy about cutting the schedule?"

"I spoke to Bill Ward," Fedya answered. "I told him that
in any case, we could none of us do more than there was
time to do in the normal waking hours, from now on."

"Good," said Tad. His mind jumped to another problem.
"About the log--"

"I said nothing."

Good. You had a last word with Expedition Contr0]
before realigning your LCO mirror?"

"Yes," said Fedya. "I called them to say we'd reached
our distance of one-forty klicks from you; and that
would open communication again as soon as the particl
storm was safely past its peak. Estimate is, that should
at least fifteen hours from the time of my last transmission
to them."

"All right," said Tad. "How's everybody over there?"

"Just lovely," said the voice of Dirk, before Fedya could

answer. "Snug as bugs ia our storm cellar here."
Fedya smiled a little.
"You, too?" he asked Tad ....

"Affirmative," said Tad. "We'll leave the communications
channel open for metering purposes. Feel free to talk
to us at any time."

"We will," said Fedya. "Over and not out."

"Over and not out to you," said Tad.

Fedya's face moved away from view of the screen
Phoenix Two, which now showed a portion of storm cellar
paneling and the paneling overhead of A Deck. Tad
leaned back on his couch against the pull of the strap.

"Maybe I'll take a nap," he said, "as long as there's
nothing more we can do right now. Yes, I think I'll . ..


And he began to dream almost immediately that
Phoenix One had reached Mars. She was buried deep
sand; and the sand, despite all they could do, was finding
small cracks and fissures in her hull, through which it came,
silently and inexorably trickling into the ship . . .


There was no sound to the solar storm, raging through
the vacuum about the ship, and even through the ship
itself. There was no sound, vibration, color nor appare'at
motion. There was only the needle climbing on the
meter. It climb'ed slowly to twelve thousand billion elee.
tron volts . . . and continued upward while the three in
the storm cellar of Phoenix One watched, and waited, and
waited some more; talking back and forth occasionally with
Phoenix Two.

"Look," said Anoshi, finally.

"e was pointing at the BeV meter. The other two looked.
It took a second to make sure that they were not seeing
simplywhat they hoped to see.

"It's backed off, all right," Tad said. "Just barely. ]But

backed off. Phoenix Two---"

He turned to the communications mike and the screen
of the LCO. But the view of the panels and ceiling enclosing
the command area of their sister ship was no longer

on the screen. Instead, the screen showed a slowly
drifting and changing pattern of random colors.

"Now what?" muttered Tad. His fingers went to the
controls of the LCO, while he repeated himself into the
mike grid. "Phoenix Two. Phoenix Two. Come in, please,
Phoenix One calling Phoenix Two. Do you read me,
Phoenix Two? Do you read me? Phoenix Two, this is
Phoenix One. Come in, Phoenix Two . . ."

The colors continued to drift, unresolved. Tad reached
oat and turned the gain upon the console speaker; but all

that resulted was a louder rush of background static.
"Either their LCO's out, or ours is," said Anoshi.
"Shouldn't go like that," said Tad, under his breath.
"What?" Anoshi asked.

"I said--" Tad raised his voice, harshly "--it shouldn't
go like that--in just a minute, and completely out."

He turned and flipped back the cover of the recording
strip on the LCO, puIIing out a long tongue of paper with
five parallel lines running lengthwise on it--running steadily
until, some eight inches from where Tad's hand grasped it,
the straight lines broke into a wild up-and-down marking
that continued back into the recorder.

"Went out suddenly, a little over ,t, hree minutes ago,
Tad said. He looked at the others. 'Were either of you
watching the screen then?"

Bap and Anoshi both shook their heads, watching him.


-: "WelT, it must be our unit," Tad said. "Either that, or
Phoenix Two is deliberately transmitting nonsense. Now
why would our LCO hold up beautifully a!l through the
storm and then go on the blink the minute the storm
started to back off?"

He looked at the BeV meter. The needle was now per-

Hil

eptibly down from the high peg against which it had been

resting. Bap glanced up at the ship's chronometer, high on
the console.

"The storm was stronger than they forecast," Bap said;
"but it's slackening off before they forecast it to. We should
have an hour or more of heavy particle bombardment to
wait out yet."

"As long as the storm fades, I'm not going to ask why,"
said Tad; and was startled for a second by the near-anger
in his voice. Get hold of yourself, he said, internally.
You're becoming as touchy as nitroglycerine. Becoming?
Or have you been like this these last couple of weeks and
been too tired to realize how you were acting with Bap and

a!l

However, there was no time for emotional self-examin -

tion now. The point to concentrate on was that the LCO
was malfunctioning. He looked once more at the BeV
meter. There was a red line near the bottom of its scale;
and a blue line below that. Once the indicator needle
dropped below the blue at the bottom of the scale, it would
be safe for a man in a spacesuit in EVA--extra-vehicular
activity--outside the ship.

"As soon as we get below the red," he told the other
two, "we can check everything right up to the point where
the system goes out through the hull to the positioning
controls of the mirror. Meanwhile, we can at least check
the console part of the system. And I suppose we might
try the radio--just for luck."

He reached out as he finished speaking; and keyed in
the radio system to the mike and the speaker. But at the
first touch of the volume control, the torrent of static that
poured in on their ears ruled out any possibility of communication
by radio with Phoenix Two.
"Long shot," he said, and made himself grin at Anoshi
and Bap. "All right, give me a hand at getting the front
panel of this console off and we'll start checking the Leo."

They went to work. But that part of the system which was
reachable within the area of the storm cellar was relatively
easy to check; and it was not long before they had proved
that there was no malfunction in the system as far as they
could reach it. They replaced the front panel of the console and Tad looked at the BeV meter. Its needle was already
below the red line.

"Dropping beautifully," said Tad, getting to his feet. "All
right, let's break out of this storm cellar and check the
system as far as we can the rest of the way inside."

Bap and Anoshi also rose. But Anoshi was frowning at
the BeV meter.

"I agree with you," said Bap, although Anoshi had not
said anything. "It's not what they told us to expect--the
storm dropping off this soon and this fast."

Tad felt the sudden gorge of his earlier irritation and
rage boil up automatically like a sour vomit taste in his
throat.

"Have you got some other suggestion for checking on the
situation?" he asked Bap. "We can't raise Phoenix Two,
let alone Expedition Control."

Bap merely frowned slightly, his dark brows joining in a
single black line above his fatigue-darkened eyes, apparently
more puzzled than provoked by Tad's words and the
edge in Tad's voice.

"We could sit tight for a few more hours," he said.
"Phoenix Two was the one who moved off from us. All we
have to do is wait and she'll be rejoining us, if the storm's
down and all communications are out."

"And what if she's in trouble on her own?" Tad demanded.
"What if she's in worse trouble than we are; and
needs us to contact her and get word back to Expedition
Control?"

He did not wait for Bap to answer, but walked directly
to the last panel that had been put in place to seal the
storm cellar. He broke the seal loose and pushed the panel
back, stepping into the open part of A Deck.

"All right," he said, heading for the access panel that
would allow them to begin tracing the LCO system beyond
the area that had been enclosed by the storm cellar.
"Somewhere along here we'll find the malfunction."

However, when they got the last access plate off, the LCO
wiring checked okay right up to the inner skin of the bkd

"That's it,', said Tad, disconnecting the leads from the
test unit and fist-thumping the access plate back into its
own tension-held position. "It's got to be in the positioning
motor unit for the mirror outside, then, just the way I
said. The storm was heavy enough to knock out any outside
electronic components."

"The positioning drive is shielded," said Bap. "That
whole housing below the mirror is shielded."

"Not enough," said Tad. "Not enough, goddamn it. Or
maybe you think we overlooked something !nside, and the
trouble's not out there after all?"

He stared at Bap. Bap's dark face was honed now by
tiredness to the sharpness of an axe blade chipped out of
gray flint. There was little humor left in him. Anoshi was
equally pared down, and silently watching them both.

"I mentioned the shielding only," Bap said. "Of course
it must be outside."
"Right then," said Tad, his voice again impersonal. He
turned and led the way toward the central ladder tube;
and they went up the metal rungs to the Control, Deck
again. Tad checked the needle on the radiation graph. It
was down now, on a good thirty-degree slope of fall; still
above the blue line by an inch or so but plunging.

"All right," said Tad. He checked the radio; but only the
mindless blare of static roared from the control console
speaker. I'll go EVA and have a look at the trouble outside
where it lives."

"We're not in the blue, yet," said Bap. "And there's
Expedition Control to check with before an EVA." iI,

ad looked at him again.

"No," said Anoshi. "Until the storm dies down there's
no reaching Expedition Control on the radio. And you
remember what we said--maybe Two's had the same
trouble. Without a radio she can't reach us---or Kennedy.
At least we have a chance of reaching Expedition by radio
in a day or two---even if the LCO's are out for good, for
both of us. We could lose Two, meanwhile."

"All right," said Bap, still standing, looking back at Tad.

"But you're Commander, Tad. I'll go--or Anoshi."
"I'm Commander. I'm going," said Tad.
He headed toward the ladder tube.
"You're not in the blue yet," Bap said.

"I heard you the first time you said that," Tad answered
without stopping, without turning. "But by the time I'm
suited and ready, it'll be down. That's a classic curve for
flare activity, there on the graph. Tell you what, though--"
he had to turn to face the other two as he began to back
down the ladder "--the sensor eyes are working all right.
Keep the picture on by Hatch Three. I'll wait to go out
until you tell me we're under the blue line. Okay?"

"Okay. Real fine," said Bap. "1'I1 keep the picture lit by
Hatch Three and advise you on the blue line."

"Right," said Tad. "And keep a radio and LCO watch

in case Two or Expedition comes back in again."
"Will do," said Anoshi.

Tad went on down the ladder, out of sight of the two
still on the Control Deck.


Over in Phoenix Two, a check of the Laser Communica-

tions System was also in progress; but with different results.
"There could be trouble outside," Bern said.
Fedya merely shook his head. They were in the Control
Area of Phoenix Two and while the other two stood behind
him, Fedya was seated at the test board of the LCO.

"Not likely," said Dirk, "We'd have trouble lights somewhere.
It's got to be the LCO over on One."

Fedya's long, thin fingers drummed thoughtfully on the
edge of the test board. Of the three men on Phoenix Two,
he showed his fatigue the least. Above his white coverall
collar his grave, handsome face looked not so much tired

Tas remote, considering, as if this were only another theoretical
problem to be worked out on the finite squares of
the chessboard.

"No radio," he said, turning the speaker sound up m
mentarily with its roar of static. "No LCO with One." He
turned the speaker sound down again. "Very well. Let
us see if we can make contact with Expedition Control.
Contact will prove our LCO is operational; and we can get

word about One to Control."

He looked up at Dirk.

"Dirk," he said. "You stay on the radio and try to raise
One that way, while I work the LCO into contact with
Kennedy."


At Merritt Island, the temperature was in the nineties.
Tom and Cassy had wanted to go swimming at the tennis
club pool. Wendy, thinking that Tad would have let them
go, had given in, packed them bag lunches and seen them
off on their bicycles. Left with the empty house and the
endless whispering of the air conditioner, she had gravitated
naturally to the garage and had ended up driving out
to Expedition Control. There was nothing particularly
alarming about the spacecraft passing through a solar storm.
In the storm cellar on each ship the men would be as safe
as if they were back on Earth. But her last LCO contact
with Tad four days ago had left her uncomfortable. He
was tired, that muchwas plain to see on his face in the
viewscreen. When he was tired, things never went their
best for him. It was when he was tired that he stubbed his
toe and broke it, or dented a fender on the car, or got word
that their real estate taxes had been raised.

When he was rested, it was just the opposite. Then the
flow of luck seemed to reverse and everything went wonderfully.
She had learned to trick him into lying down,
sometimes, and then deliberately let him oversleep, once
he did drop off. If he suspected what she was up to before
he fell asleep he was furious with her and himself. But if
he did not suspect until after he had slept, he was never
angry over what she, had done, no matter what the consequences
of his oversleeping turned out to be.

220


"Wll be all right," he always said; and somehow it always


There was no way she could trick him into sleeping now,
, over a laser communications beam, across four million
miles of empty space; but she wanted to feel herself in
contact, sharing whatever it was, with him--as anyone
might want to hold the hand of a loved one, even though
he was unconscious, while sitting with him in atx ambul.ace
racing him to the hospital.
When she got to Expedition Control, the glassed-in
observation booth was empty. But the gray skullcap of hair
belonging to Bill Ward was visible among the heads down
around the front consoles; and after awhile, glancing
around, Bill saw her up there. A moment later, the Assistant
Communications Engineer, a thin, brown-faced man
named Ed Ciro came up to the booth's speaker-mike.

"We're out of contact with both One and Two, right
now;" he told her. "The solar storm and the LCO in-flight
tests between the ships could either one be the reasons.
But both ought to be over by now. We should be making
communications contact again inside of half an hour. How
about some coffee?"
Wendy shook her head, no, staring down at Bill Ward
and the others in the room of ranked consoles beyond the
glass wall.


Tad was sweating by the time he was sealed into his
spacesuit by the Hatch Three airlock on the bottom deck;
and the suit temperature controls went automatically to
work to dry him off; so that he felt hot and chilled at the
same time--a feverish sort of feeling.

He remembered suddenly that he should have had
Anoshi follow him down to check him out in the suit
before he went EVA. He had not thought of it; and evidently
it had not occurred to Anoshi, either. It was. not
really necessary; but the fact they had both forgotten was
another symptom of the bone-tiredness that was afflicting
them all when it should not--that, and the sweat he had
worked up getting suited, were both warning signals from
their body systems. That was one of the bad effects of
fatigue--it not only impaired judgment and put your

temper on hair-trigger, it walled you off from the people
around you. You could not spare the energy to remember
that they were as worn out, as mistake-prone as you were;
and everything they did wrong irritated you ....

Tad suddenly realized he had been standing by Hatch
Three for some little time, holding the test kit he would
take outside to check the LCO. He spoke into his suit
phone.

"Bap? You've got me on screen, haven't you?"

"On screen. Right," came back Bap's voice.

"What's the matter? Are we still above the blue line on
the graph?"

There was a little silence before Bap answered.

"No. Just below, now. But the curve's flattening out a
bit. I wanted to give you a bit of margin below the blue

line."

"Never mind margin. The line is below the blue?" :
"Below the blue. Right."

"Then I'm going out," said Tad. "Light up the outside
sensor eye from Hatch Three, if you can, and keep me in

sight. I'll stay on tether."

"Sorry, Tad. Hatch Three sensor not responding. Maybe
you better keep talking and we'll record."

"Roger,'" said Tad. "I've already got the inner airlock
door open on Hatch Three .... I'm in the airlock now and
the inner door is closing. Evacuation of airlock . . . Do
you read me?"

"Read you fine," Bap's voice said. "And we copy that."
"All right,'! said Tad. "Outer airlock door now opening
I'm on my way out, tether behind me .... All the way out;
now. I'm pulling extra length of the tether out so I'll have

plenty of line to let me reach the mirror."

"Okay. Copying," said Bap.

"I'm going to stop this conducted tour for a minute or
two," Tad said, panting. "Running out of breath. I'll get
back to chatting with you in a few minutes when I star
down along the hull toward the mirror."

He fell silent, pulling out the last of the tether-cable that
not only tied him securely to Hatch Three and the ship,
but also contained his main primary air and phone lines.
Damned mess, he thought, sweating inside his helmet. His

magnetic shoe soles practically welded him to the skin of
the spacecraft. His chances of getting separated from the
ship were one in a million. So much easier if he had come
ut here untethered, simply with backpack oxygen for what
would not be more than twenty or thirty minutes' work...

"Give us a word, Tad." It was Bap's voice sounding in
his helmet. "Just so we know you're still with us."
"I'm here. Hold on. Talk to you shortly .... " Tad said.
He gathered up his tether and began the clumsy shuffle
down along the hull toward the small upright, square shape
of the LCO mirror, outlined by stars alone. He was in
darkness--Bap had changed the attitude of One enough
to put the slant bulk of the ship between him and the sun;
and so give him that much extra protection against radiation.
All right, thought Tad, good enough. Play it safe if you
like, Bap. The only problem might be uncovering the
mirror mount and testing out its positioning motor's components
in the dark. But he had the work light at his waist.
Try it anyway, he thought.

"All right," he said aloud over his phone to the two
inside the ship. "I've reached the mirror. Now I'll see about
getting the cover off the motor mount."

"Reading you fine and clear," answered Bap's voice. "We
copy that--you're going to take off the motor mount cover,

flOW."

"Going to try," muttered Tad. Tensing his leg muscles,
he pulled himself and the clumsy suit about him down on
its knees before the motor mount. He switched on his belt
light. The motor mount cover with its four recessed bolts
appeared just before him.

He got the socket wrench from his tool belt and went to
work to loosen the bolts.

"Talk," said Bap in his earphones. "Talk to us in here,
Tad."

"Sorry . . ." Tad said, breathlessly. "Too much to do,
here. I'll let you know, soon as I get something done."

He worked on. Eventually he got the bolts loosened and
the cover off. Inside was the neat tangle of components
and connections. He opened the test kit he had brought
and his gloved fingers clumsily picked up the leads, one

223


.... then the other, and pulled them out to attach to the

motor components.

"I've got the motor mount cover off," he said aloud,

suddenly remembering Bap. "I'm starting to test now."
"We copy that," said Bap.
Time went by.

"Some, news here for you," said Bap's voice, unexpectedly,
"Phoenix Two's getting through to us a little on
radio. Lots of static, but every so often they come through
clear. I've been talking back to them on our radio, telling
them about our LCO trouble, but they don't seem to read
me too well."

"How's their communications?" asked Tad, working
away.

"Say again?" Bap said.

"How's the LCO over on Two? Did it go out like ours
did?"

"Negative," said Bap. "They're all right. They're trying
to make LCO hookup back with Expedition Control. As I
say, I've been trying to tell them what's happened to ours,
but they aren't reading me too well--don't think they've
got it, yet."

"Keep trying," said Tad.
"Roger," answered Bap.
Tad went on testing.

"There's an AJK419I out here," he said, "and both
AJK6oLs acted like they were out at first, but they're both
responding, now. It's the signal amplification that's gone
out. The motor was getting the messages but it couldn't

'do anything with them. Also, an M84B connector, and an
AJK4123 are out. Check stores will you; and make sure
we've got replacements?"

"Roger. Will do;" said Bap. "I copy, search stores for an
AJK4IgI, M84B connector, an AJK4123. Anoshi's going
to check. I'm still trying to get our story told over the radio
to Two."

"Okay." Tad straightened up his cramped knees, rising
erect in his suit, held by the soles of his feet firmly to the
hull of the spacecraft. "I'll hold here while Anoshi looks
at stores. Let me know what he finds."

"Roger," said Bap. "How are you feeling?"

"Like twenty hours' more sleep," answered Tad. "'If you
don't mind, I'll just hang here and take it easy until Anoshi
gets .back with the word on those replacements."

"You do that," said Bap. "The next voice you hear will
be Anoshi's."

The suit phone went silent. Tad hung there weightless,
letting himself float in his suit, anchored by the magnetic
soles. He was so weary he felt empty inside; but just for
the moment not having to do anything was infinitely
pleasurable; and on the heels of such pleasure came something
like a moment of sanity.

He felt ashamed of the way he'd been chewing on Bap
and Anoshi. It might have been unconscious reaction to
fatigue on his part, but it had been hard on the other two
men, nonetheless. Actually, he could see now, he had been
indulging himself, lik the selfish head of a family who
says, "I'm important. I can take out my temper on you because
I'm important. But you can't take out your temper
on me."

I've got to quit this, he told himself, or we'll never
finish the trip.

And Expedition Control, he thought, had better trim
that priority list on the experiments, or I'll do it for them.
We can't take it. None of us can take it.

And no reason we should. In fact, we've gone by the
rules too long already. That's the difference between us
and the rest of the world. We try to make things work
even when it looks impossible--that's our instinct. The
instinct of most of the rest of them back there seems to be
to start looking for a way to duck out, the minute they
hear what needs to be done. But we're out here now; and
when you get right lown to it, we're the ones who go and
do. We listen to them when we're on the ground. We do
everything they say. But out here, we're like fish in the
water while they're back on dry land. In the long run we've
got to tell ourselves what's best for us to do.

He thought of the fact that they were all alike, in a
way--all six of them in the two ships. Never mind the fact
they all came from different cultures, different languages.
Out here it was so damn small, that kind of difference.
Out here it was like the hunting party in strange territory--


	F.C.--H
	225

really strange territory. And they were all here because
they wanted to be here--really wanted to be here. Not
lust like someone who thinks it'd be something special to
go out into space.

That's why we're all alike, here, Tad thought, and all
of us so different from those back there. We've got to be
different if we're going to live. And they've got to be
different back there, because they've never come out here
to know what it's really like.

Tad hung in his suit and lifted his faceplate to the stars.
"All right," safd Anoshi's voice in his helmet. "Tad,
we've got the replacements. I've brought them to Hatch
Three. You want to come back and get them? Or how
about my going out and putting them in?"

Tad heard him; but his mind held the words off from
registering for a moment while he looked at the stars. He
would answer in a second; but just for the moment, he
wanted to finish his look and his thought.

Oh, you beautiful, he said silently to the lights all
around him, oh, you damn beautiful, beautiful universe ....


Ed Ciro, who had been talking to Wendy in the booth,
broke off suddenly. '

"They're calling me down," he said. "Maybe they've got
LCO contact back. Just a minute--I'll be back."

He turned and went out of the booth, bounding down
the steps to the forward communications consoles. In the
first screen he saw the image of Fedya--a little wavery, but
recognizable; and the .voice that came through was only
slightly mush-mouthed by uncertain beam linkage.

"... had it over the radio, finally, from Bap," Fedya was
saying.

"You mean now?" It was Bill Ward, pushed in beside
the Communications Engineer for the Expedition. "You
mean he went out there as soon as their meter went under
the blue line?" Bill jerked his head aside to speak to one
of the engineers standing about. "Get me an estimate on
that." He turned back to the screen. "When did you hear,
there on Two?"

There was the short wait as Bill's words, even at light
speeds, traveled the distance to Phoenix Two.

"Radio contact has been bad until just now," Fedya said.
"Evidently Bap was trying to tell me all along that their
LCO ,motor control had been knocked out by the storm;
but I didn't understand him until now. Evidently Tad went
out as soon as their BeV showed it was safe to do so."

"And he's been out since? Get on that radio!" Ward
said. "Call One and tell Bap to get Tad back in there. There
was a burp of increased flare activity only twenty minutes
or so behind that first dip in radiation. Get on it!"

Bill stopped speaking. Before Fedya could answer, the
engineer Bill had asked a moment before for an estimate
came back with a piece of paper. Bill snatched it, glanced
at it; and stepped back from the screen toward the outskirts
of those standing nearby.

He looked up at the glass booth, then around him until
his eyes fell on Ed Ciro. He reached out, hooked his finger
i Ed's shirt pocket and drew Ed to him.

"That's Wendy up there, isn't it?" he muttered. "What
did you say before you came down here, just now?"

"I? Nothing," said Ed. "Just'that I'd find out what was
going on and come back up to tell her." He stared at
Bill Ward. "What is it?"

"Oh, Christ!" said Bill. "Christ!"

Grimacing, he stared at the paper in his hand, scratching
at his chin with one finger, briefly and furiously.

"She would be here!" Bill said. "This, of all times!" He
looked at Ed. "Tad went EVA to fix the LCO positioning
motor controls on One--they'd been knocked out by the
storm. Unless Fedya's got the facts wrong, Tad's been outside
for nearly an hour. Neither One or Two was in
contact with us here and we couldn't tell them to expect
a sudden rise in radiation count after the first fadeoff.
Fedya's passing the word to get Tad back in now; but what

good's that going to be?"

Ed stared.

"You mean he's been burned?" Ed asked. "Bad?"
"Bad," said Bill. He stared at Ed for a second. "Very
bad. He's been too exposed.. If he's been out there the way
it sounds..."

His voice trailed off. He glanced back at the booth.
"And there's Wendy!" he said. "And Christ, Christ, I've

4


got to go talk to her. I've got to tell her--that just while
she was standing here, waiting to hear about him . .

He stopped speaking. His big hands fell limply to his
sides, one of them still holding the paper.


2Tad came in through Hatch Three to the airlock into the
end of the access tube, down the tube and out onto Deck
A. In the spacesuit, it was necessary to back onto A Deck
through the hatch. When he turned around, he saw Bap
facing him a few feet off; and holding a radiation counter.

"Get out of that suit as quick as you can, Tad," Bap's
voice sounded in his earphones. "We've just got word from
Kennedy, relayed by radio from Phoenix Two. Something
went wrong--it was still hot outside, when you made the
EVA. Strip and we'll get to work on you right away."

"Hot?" said Tad. He felt a little emptiness just behind
his breastbone and noticed neither of the other men was
coming forward to help him off with his suit. "How hot?
How hot am I now?" He began to struggle out of the
spacesuit.

"Don't know what it was outside," Bap said. He looked
at the counter in his hand and hesitated. "Hard to say
about you. It's .jumping around. Say . . . a hundred and
eighty rem; probably most of that in your suit."

Tad got the helmet off and heard the soft buzzing of
the radiation counter. He climbed out of the suit and
dropped it at his feet, then stripped off everything else he
was wearing.

"Right," said Bap. "Now, down to the shower."

Tad preceded him into the access tube and down to B
Deck and into the waste management room.

"I contaminate this," he said, only half-jokingly as he

tepped inside, "and you two may have to go dirty the
rest of the Expedition."

"We can dump the water," said Bap. "Anyway, we'll see.
Scrub off as much as you can."

Tad closed the shower door and turned on the water.
He stayed under it until he heard Bap's voice calling him.
He stepped out and put on the fresh on-board suit Bap
had waiting for him.

"Now for the tough part," said Bap.

His voice was light; but Tad's fully alerted senses
caught something different in the way he spoke; an almostgentleness
that alarmed Tad even more. He did not have
to ask what the tough part was. They had all been fully
informed about procedures in case of radiation poisoning
of any of them--whether from space or from some accident
with the big nuclear engines in the shuttle that was to
be their main drive once they reached Mars.

He went ahead of Bap down to the infirmary and
stretched out on a table. A mass of clustered, red-filled
tubes stood in a cradle beside the table. It was fresh,
whole blood--thank God for recent improvements in
flash freezing and cryogenic storage that made it possible
for the spacecraft to carry supplies of fresh blood
with them in the frozen state. Bap had probably started
it quick-thawing with the deep-heaters before Tad had
stepped out of the access tube onto the floor of A Deck.

Bap was looming above him, dressed now in special
protective smock, mask and gloves, because now the time
had come when he would actually have to touch Tad's
body, itself undoubtedly radiating and dangerous. The
wearing of the protective clothing was laid down strictly
in the operating procedure, but still it made Bap look uncomfortably
alien and unfamiliar. Tad felt the small
pricking of needles as Bap hooked him up to the apparatus
that would flush his present contaminated blood from his
body and replace it with the clean blood in the tubes. Other
pricks followed; and Tad felt the anxiety quieting in him.
Bap must have given him some sort of tranquilizer. A
drowsiness approached him. He closed his eyes. The
surface of the table underneath him felt almost soft ....

s"Will you have a cigarette?" Bill Ward's thick fingers
trembled slightly as they offered Wendy the pack.

"No thanks. I don't smoke," said Wendy. After a second,
she added, "You know that."

"Oh, yes," said Bill. He put the pack of cigarettes back
in his pocket. "Of course."

She looked around the large, empty room from the conference
table where they sat. It was the unfitted firing room
in the Launch and Flight Control Center.

"I suppose you thought I'd be hysterical or some such
thing," she said emptily. "That's why you brought me in
here."

"I . . ." Bill shrugged his shoulders, helplessly. "I
didn't know."

"I wouldn't have," Wendy said. "I've been expecting
something like this, now, for a long time."

"Well," said Bill; and cleared his throat. But then he
fell silent again. She looked at him suddenly with a gray
face.

"It's really bad, isn't it?" :
"No, no--" Bill began.

"Don't lie to me," she said. "That just makes it worse."
"I'm not lying!" Bill exploded. "I don't say how bad it
is because I don't know. We don't know how much
radiation he ran into. We just don't know. Nobody does.
The chances are that it's light; and everybody on that ship
knows what to do immediately something like this happens.
In a day or two we'll probably know it wasn't anything,"

She sat still in her chair, half-facing his, at the end of
the conference table--still calling him a liar without
saying a word.

"Look," he said. "There probably won't be any word
for a while. But if you'd like to stay here, we can fix one
of the offices up for you. I can phone and get someone to

take over for you at your place with the kids."

She nodded, slowly.

"Yes, I'd like to stay close, here," she said. She got to
her feet. "But I want to go home first. I want to tell the
children about this myself before they hear about it some

other way. Then I'll come back."
Bill was on his own feet.
I'll drive you," he said.

230


	She almost smiled at him.

	"No," she said. "You know better than that. You've

	got to stay here. I've got the car downstairs. I can drive

	myself home and back here again without help."

	Bill hesitated.



"I'll send someone with you, then," he said. "Now,
I'm not going to argue about that. There's plenty of people

here who can be spared. I'll send Ed Ciro."

	"All right," she answered.

"Good," Bill said. "Now remember, no one knows anything
is really bad. It may be days before we know."

They went back to the Flight Control Room and Bill
spoke to Ed Ciro. Ed made a quick phone call to his own
home to say he might be late getting off shift, and came
down with Wendy to the parking lot.

	"Want me to drive?" Ed asked.

"No. I'd rather be doing something."

They drove back to the Hansards' house and pulled in,
stopping the car in the driveway short of the double
garage. Ed followed Wendy in through the side door to
the air-conditioned stillness of the house.
"Tom! Cassy!" called Wendy, as they passed the front
door. But the house received her words emptily.

	"Sit down, Ed," said Wendy. "I'll get you a beer."

	He shook his head.

	"No thankS."

	"Of course you'll have one," she said.

	"No. Really," he said. "Unless you want one--"

	She shook her head.

"I want something hot," she said. "Coffee. But you can
just as well have a beer. There's nothing for you to do
until we go back to Flight Control,"


"Don't fret me now," she said. 'q have to pack a bag and
phone around to get the children home so, I can talk to
them. I want you settlbd in a corner with your beer and
out of my way. Sit down."

He sat. She brought him an uncapped bottle of beer;' he
stayed in one of the big living room chairs, slowly drinking
it, while, she went into a bedroom. He could hear her
talking beyond its closed door.

After about ten minutes, she came out with a small,

black overnight bag, which she put down just inside the
side door.

"They'll be here soon," she said to Ed.

The youngest boy was the first to arrive, followed by
the girl, and then the older boy, Tom---only a year younger
than Ed's own son.

"Hi, Mr. Ciro," said Tom, in the semi-drawl that the
kids were all using nowadays. "Something up?"

"Your mother's in her bedroom with your brother and
sister," Ed said. "I think she wants to say something to
yOU."

He had tried to keep his voice casual; but Tom's face
sobered immediately, and he went quickly across the
living room, down the hall and into the bedroom, so quickly
that he swung the bedroom door not quite shut behind
him. In his chair in the living room, with nowhere to go,
Ed could not shut out Wendy's voice as it readhed faintly
but intelligibly to him.

"Come in, Tom, and Sit down here with the others."
"What is it?" Tom asked.

"I've been telling Cassy and Jimmy," she said. "Dad's
had an accident on the Expedition. He's feeling all right
now, Bill Ward tells me; but I wanted to tell you three
about it before it got into the news or you heard it from
someone else."

There was a slight pause as if she was waiting for some
word from one of the children; but none of them made a
sound.

"Dad was caught in the radiation from a solar flare,"
Wendy said. "It happened at a time when the Expedition
ships were out of communication with Expedition Control;
and Expedition Control couldn't tell them it might be
dangerous for Dad to go outside the ship. Bap helped to
take care of him the minute he got back inside; and now
Dad's resting while the others wait to see how he is.
Nobody knows just how he is, right now. I want you to
remember that. If you hear anyone making guesses about
that, or anything else, just remember, no one really knows.
As soon as anyone knows anything, they'll tell me first before
anyone else, and I'll tell you. I'm going back to spend
the night at Expedition Control so I'll be there if any
news comes in. There'll be someone coming over to make

dinner and stay the night with you; or I think the Swanns
wouldn't mind if you'd like to go stay with them for a
day or two the way we did during the launch. Would you
like to go to the Swarms?"

"No," said Tom's ,oicc quickly. "We'll stay here."

"All right," said Wcndy, becoming brisk. "That's settled

then. I'm going back with Mr. Ciro, now."
"Morn," said Tom.
"Yes?"
"It depends on how much radiation there was, doesn't
it?" Tom said. "It could be bad, couldn't it?"

"Yes," said Wcndy. "There's always danger. Nobody
right now seems to think it could be bad; and we pray it
won't. But the danger's always there."

"You'll call us as soon as you know--anything?" Tom
said. "Like how much the radiation was, or anything
like that?"

"I'll call you the minute I'm told anything myself," said
Wendy. "Kiss me now; I've got to go."

A moment later, Wendy came out of the bedroom,
followed by the three children. The little boy, limmy, had
large, wondering eyes fastened on his mother and the girl
caught and held.him by the hand as he started to follow
Wcndy and Ed through the side door.

"We'll be all right," said Tom. "You call us."

The three of them stood in the side door, Cassy still
holding tightly to the hand of the small boy, as Wcndy
backed the car down the driveway and turned away up the
street.


Tad drifted back to wakefulness to find himself lying
on the bed in his own sleeping compartment, with Bap
standing beside him holding a hypodermic needle--putting
it away on the bedside table, in fact. Tad had a vague
memory of being helped back here from the infirmary
compartment. He felt filled with lassitude, but otherwise
very good--perhaps the hypodermic needle he had just

seen had something to do with that.

"How am I?" he asked Bap.

"You're starting to be safe to touch." Bap smiled.

Tad came farther up the slope of Wakefulness into an
area of concern.
e33


"How's the ship?" he asked. "How's everything? What's

been
		9
	happening.

"Our
LCO's still out," said Bap. "We've been talking
to Phoenix Two by radio; and they've been talking to
Expedition Control. BOth ships got hit a lot harder by
the storm than we thought. All sorts of systems are knocked
out on both of uS. We're aR working to get things going
again."

Tad rose on one elbow.
"I've got to get up," he said.
Bap pushed him back down.

"No," said Bap. "You're supposed to rest."

"At least get me a phone hookup down here, then,."
said Tad. "Patch me in with the communications system
so I can talk to Fedya. I want to know what's going on."

"All right," said Bap. "We can do that much, I suppose."
He went out of the compartment. Some ten minutes
later, the intercom unit by Tad's bed buzzed. He propped
his pillow up against the bulkhead at the head of his bed
and sat up against it. He leaned over to snap on the phone;
and Anoshi's face took shape in its screen.

"We've got Fedya on the radio for you," said Anoshi.
"Hang on, there . . ."

The hiss and crackle of static moved in over his voice.
Anoshi's face stayed on the screen, but Fedya's voice came
through.

"Tad?"

"It's me," said Tad. "Can you hear me?"

"I can hear you all right. Can you understand me?"
"You're a little blurred by static," Tad said. "But not
enough to matter. Why haven't you got the Phoenix Two
back docked with us by this time?"

"The storm . . ." A louder rush of static did, at that
moment, wash out Fedya's words. "... control systems are
out all over the ship. Our maneuvering thrusters are not
responding properly. I was afraid we couldn't control any
docking attempt. We have trouble enough right now with.
out smashing the two ships together and damaging them.
We don't even want to risk approaching you too closely."

"Maybe We can dock with you holding still, then," Tad
said:

:34


"Anoshi tells me your control systems on the Phoenix
One are also unreliable," said Fedya.

The lips of Anoshi's image moved on the intercom
creen beside the bed.

"That's right, Tad," Anoshi said.

"What's holding up getting them fixed--here as well as
on Phoenix Two?"

' "The extent of the damage." Fedya's voice cut across
Anoshi's as Anoshi started to speak, then stopped. "And

the shortage of repair parts."
Tad stared at the screen.
"Say that again?"

"I said the shortage of repair parts," Fedya's voice
answered. "Both here and on Phoenix One. We do have
undamaged parts and equipment to substitute; but not
as much as we should. Remember, certain sections of
both ships that were originally planned to hold reserve
equipment and spare parts have been devoted instead to
the loading of equipment required for the experiments."

Tad swung his legs abruptly over the edge of the bed and
sat up facing the screen without benefit of pillow.

"So," he said, "now it pays off. They sent us out with
not enough supplies and equipment for repair on either


"Not necessarily," said Fedya. "What was sent was
probably considered adequate. But they didn't foresee
such extensive damage to both ships at the same time."

"That's not the point!" said Tad. "The point is, in order
to get more experimental stuff on board, they shaved the

repair margin too thin. Is that the situation, or isn't it?"
"You could put it in those terms," said Fedya.

"Have you talked to Expedition Control about this?"
"I gave them a brief-report," Fedya said. "I was waiting
until I had definite information on what we were short
before I went into the matter more deeply with them."

"You've still got your LCO working?" Tad demanded.
"Voice only. The picture is out. But I've been in voice
contact with Expedition Control exer since we realigned
Phoenix Two's mirror with them after losing contact with
Phoenix One."

t

"Patch me through to Bill Ward," said Tad.

Both Tad and Anoshi spoke at once; so that neither 0
was understandable. Anoshi's face moved out of
bedside screen and Bap's replaced it.

"Tad," said Bap, "you're in no shape to be talking to
anyone."

	"
	" "
	" fe

	Yes, I am, said Tad. I el fine. Fedya, patch

through to Expedition Control."

The picture on the screen vanished. The sound of sever

voices speaking at once tangled together and then

silent. Tad got half out of bed, thinking he would go u

to A Deck in person and force the issue. Then he s

back down again. They would not deliberately keep

from speaking to Expedition Control.
	I

Sure enough, after several minutes, the screen lit up

again with Anoshi's face and the speaker of the interc0m

hissed with radio static.

"All right, Tad," said Anoshi. "We're through to

pedition Control for you."

He stopped speaking; and a voice came through the

static that Tad recognized.

"Tad?" it said. "Tad, Wendy's here. She's been here

Expedition Control since we heard about you."

"Wendy?" said Tad. He leaned convulsively toward the

intercom. "Bill? That's you, Bill Ward, isn't it?"

"It's me," said Bill's voice. "Just a second--Wendy
-
"Tad!" It was Wendy's voice.

"Wendy, what're you doing there? Where are the kids?

"At home. They're all right. Tad, how are you?"

"I'm fine!" he said. "Fine! I don't feel a thing different

from usual. Look, don't you hang around Expedition Con.

trol. There's no need to."

"All right. Tad, honey, there's a doctor here that wants

to talk to you."

"Wendy--" Tad began; but another voice was already
speaking to him.

"Tad? This is Kim--Kim Sung. Can you hear me all
right?"

"Read you fine, doctor," said Tad, impatiently. Dr. Kim
Sung was one of the NASA physicians. "What is it?"

"I'd like you to answer some questions, Tad. How d
you feel at the moment?"

	"Fine, doctor."

236


"Any nausea, vomiting, diarrheaT' :
"No--I told you."

"How about earlier. Did you have any upsets like that
earlier?"

"Ater I came in and Bap pumped all the blood out of me
and shot me full of someone else's blood and a lot of
chemicals," said Tad. "I was a little nauseated, yes, and
felt bad. But that all went away some time ago---look,
Doe, don't let Wendy get away there, or Bill Ward. I've
got things to talk about with them, and things to do."

"I think you'd better take it easy for the present, Tad,"
said Kim Sung. "How's your appetite?"

"I'm not too hungry--but then I just woke up," said
Tad. "Honest, Doc, I'm fine. Got my hair still on my head,
and everything."

"Tell me, when you first came in from being outside
and exposed to the solar storm, did you feel at all warm
and feverish... ?"

The questioning went on. Gradually, it began to register
upon Tad that he was not going to be given the chance to
talk over the repairs situation with Bill Ward, after all.
Not merely that; but as the medical voice continued
evoking answers from him, his concern for the Expedition
began to move back in his mind and give way to a more
personal attention. That touch of immediate emotion that
had been like a small, cold finger touching behind his
breastbone when Bap had first told him he had been
exposed to the solar storm now returned; and this time
it lingered:


The three of them sat in one of the hotel rooms occupied
by Barney Winstrom's cable TV team. Equipment, papers,
glasses, empty fast-food cardboard, cartons made a small


37

jungle around them. Barney ffas in an armchair, and Jens
and Lin sat on a couch facing him. Lin was close to Jem,

one of her arms through his and her hands together, so
• that--though loosely--she touched and held him.

"And you don't know anything more than that?" Jem
was sayingr

"No more than you do, Jens," Barney said. "I don't
think there's any more to be known. Hansard got a dose:

How big a dose, nobody knows."

"How is Wendy?" Lin asked.

Barney shrugged. "They've got her and the kids under
security to keep the media away, There's no telling. But
she's a level-headed lady. I'll bet she's handling it."

"They've got no idea at all--how much radiation?"
Jens asked.

"They say not," Barney said.
"Then it could be all right."
"Maybe."

"You don't--" Jens looked at him. "You aren't sound.
ing very reassuring."

. "Who am I to tell?" Barney said.

"If you've got some reason for thinking it can't be all
right and there's no hope, tell me."

"Nothing . . . hard," said Barney.

"Soft, then, damn it!"

"All right," said Barney. "It's just feel, and experience.'
I think if there was hope, they'd be coming down harder
on the reassurance pedal. But they aren't. They're acting
instead like a bunch of doctors who keep telling you you
can't tell for sure until the tests, come back from the lab;
and you smell all the time that everything they've ever
seen tells them they don't need to see the tests."

"Oh, my God!" said Lin, so softly that she barely
breathed the words. Her hands closed on Jens's arm.

"Yes," said Jens. He felt bleak and cold inside. Even
the living warmth of Lin beside him could not change that.
"It was bound to happen."

"Can that!" said Barney. "Nothing's ever bound to
happen."

"This was," said Jens. He heard his voice as if it cae
back to him from a little distance away. "They were sent


238

out with too much to do, they got too tired, and they
had an accident. It was bound to happen."

"Now," said Barney, slowly, staring at him, "that's why

don't like you starry-eyed believers. The minute any!thing
goes wrong you think you see the inevitable at work."

"i'm something a little more than a starry-eyed believer,
Barney." The words came out more harshly than he had
intended.

"Jens!" said Lin swiftly. "Jens, he's trying to help."
"That's all right, Lin," said Barney.
Jens took two deep breaths.

"No, it's not all right," he said. "Sorry, Barney. It's the
damn frustration of it all. It's beginning to get to me."

"It does that. But look, Jens, there's nothing you can
do, nothing anyone can do right now, but sit tight and
see how it works out."

"I guess you're right," said Jens. "Okay. I'll sit still,
then--for now."


Wendy Hansard sat leaning back with her arms on the
armrest of the chair in the glass cube at the back of the
Expedition Control Room in the VAB. She was grateful
that this was not Houston. Up until two years ago Expedition
Control would have been in Houston, and she
would have been sitting waiting there now, separated from
friends and everything that was familiar, including their
home and possibly even the children. No, come to think of
it, the children would have wanted to go and she would
have given in. They at least would have been in Houston
with her. But that would have simply meant that they all
would have been away from home,

It was much better to face this at home, here, where
things were ordinary and handleable. Nothing should go
wrong, she told herself, curling her fingers around the
end of the armrest, nothing should go wrong in this place"
where everything had always come out all right before.

She looked out and ahead down the sloping floor of the
Expedition Control Center, past the consoles and screens
at the small knots of men clustering around the one near
the front where the screen was dark but where there was
a murmur of voices. Up there they were communicating,

239


but there was nothing in that communication to help her.
They were checking the state of Phoenix Two with
Feodor. If it happened that a transmission started to come
through that concerned Tad, they would call her on the
phone screen in front of her and key her in on it.

She breathed deeply, seeing the Expedition Control
Room as a whole, not focusing on any part of it. She was
alone in the glassed-in section right now. Earlier a number
of other people had come and sat with her, until she told
them that she really did not need or want company. She
preferred to be .alone with the room as a whole, whatever
transmissions might come in, and her own thoughts.

Those thoughts were ranging, now. She remembered
a little girl, wondering how grown-ups could sit so still
for so long without apparently having anything to occupy
them, like reading, or praying. She had tried praying
silently, here in this glass booth, as she had on the way
here with Ed Ciro, and aloud at other times when he
had been alone. But prayer, while soothing, was not what
her mind sought at the present moment, What she wanted
now had something to do with making everything all one
piece, all one whole; and she had the feeling that if she
could just let her mind wander, it would gather up all the
loose ends and tie them together.

She went on thinking about how it had been when she
was young, when she had marveled at people, at
sitting so still. She remembered the time her oldest
had scarlet fever and her mother sat up, unceasingly,
seemed, day and night with him for more than a week. Most
of that time her mother had been doing nothing. Merely
sitting as Wendy sat now, with her hands either in her lap
or on the arms of a chair. Wendy had sat also and watched
her mother until a worry had begun to creep into her
mind. If her brother could die, perhaps her mother could
die. Perhaps she could die even while you were sitting and
watching her.

Finally, Wendy had gone across and touched her
mother's arm Her mother had looked at her.

"What is it, Wendy-baby?" her mother had asked.

Relieved that her mother was unchanged, and filled with
a superstitious fear that if she mentioned the possibility

240


0 ath it migh't happen, Wendy had fallen back on a
question of her own.

"What were you thinking?" Wendy asked.

"Nothing . . ." her mother answered. "Nothing."

Now, years later, Wendy understood. Because now she,
too, was thinking nothing. Well, perhaps not nothing,

but thoughts that might as well be so, because they were

nothing that could be told to anyone else. They were
thoughts that had no real shape or value. In fact, she was
not really thinking them. She was merely sitting, and
letting them flow by themselves.
They slid through her mind like the passing cars of some

i endless train, going somewhere on a track with no end.
The image was a familiar one. Her father had been an

architect for a development company; and her family

had been continually on the move from one part of the
ccuntry to another. When she was younger, at each departure
she had struggled with the unhappiness of leaving
all her friends and the places she had grown familiar with.
Later on she had learned to sit back on the train that
carried them away each time, and just let it happen, let
the past go and be only on the train going to some place
new, as if continually starting over and over again was a
natural way of life.

In the end she had simply let the train carry her away
each time to wherever it wished.. There was a relief in
facing the fact that she had no control over what was
happening to her, a relief in just letting it happen. But
for all that, somewhere inside her there had always been
a buried hunger for a place where she would be able to
stay put, a place from which there would be no more
moving.

It was a huner that Tad had finally met, with a specific
place, an anchorage, a home where she could put down
roots. Unlike her, Tad had spent most of his growing
years in one house. He put down roots himself as unthinkingly
and instinctively as an oak, and like an oak,
whose rough, warm bark felt good to hug when no
one might be watching who would think you crazy for
doing it,. he was good for her to cling to. In the early
years of their marriage her friends had wondered how

241


she could stand being married to a test pilot.
not see how she could bear the daily worry and the u
certainty, the ever-present danger of an accident.

What they did not understand was that, from her vie
point, while an accident to Tad could rob her of him,
could never take away what he had given her, that ir
movable territory that now contained their home, tN
children, and their life together up to the present momen
It was not thinking small of Tad to acknowledge that s
had gotten far more from their life together than sh
could be robbed of by his death.

Yet she had never really thought beyond that morne
in which she might lose him. That far her thoughts ha
often gone, but no further. Nor did she think about it
this moment. Instead she let her thoughts run, like th
train on the endless track, clickety-clacking forever,
into the distance. She did not, even now, feel that mud
separated from him. Partly, this was his own doing.
had talked to her for years of a time in which travel t
the nearby planets and even to the nearby stars would
loom no larger in people's minds than taking a jet plan,
from this city to another one. In fact, he had used that
comparison in talking about space travel.

"Back a couple of hundred years ago," he had said,
"if I'd left here for Washington, I couldn't have made the
round trip in less than weeks or months and all sorts
things might have happened to me, or you and the. kids,
before I got back again. I might even not have got back,
Nowadays I can go up there on the morning plane and
back by evening. A thousand years ago, even five hundred
years ago, to go fifty miles to the next town was an ex.
pedition. Sometimes people didn't come back alive; and it
wasn't just because of enemies along the road, either.
There was natural accident, sickness and everything else.
Nowadays, though, we don't think a thing of hoppinl
back and forth across the ocean. And that's the way it's]
going to be, crossing space, for our great-great-grand-]
children. Mars may turn out to be just a little old Sunday l
drive for them. So there's no place I'm likely to go that'sl
really more than a Sunday drive, if you just put your
mind ahead a bit."

242


She believed that. In the early days of their marriage,
ibefore the children came, she had faced up to the dangers
of his life in her own way, by trying to be with him in mind
and spirit, even though they were separated physically
:by space and occupation. She had asked for only one
ithing then, and that was to know immediately if something
happened to him on his test flights. She had tried to
tie a psychic cord between them, so that she need not sit
and wonder and worry about possibilities--she would
know immediately if anything happened. She would know
.it before anyone could come and tell her; and, knowing
that she would know, she could go serenely about the business
of waiting down here on the ground while he was up
in the air taking chances with his life. With effort and
practice, she thought, she had succeeded in this. It had
seemed to her then that she could feel very clearly the
invisible thread that bound them together, while she was
down on the ground and he was away somewhere, up in a
new,, untried plane going several times the speed of sound.

The children had come; and with them around this
connection had not exactly been forgotten or withered
away, but it had moved into the background. She had not
lost it, as far as she knew. It was just simply that she had
not evoked it as often. For one thing she had the little
ones on her mind, with all their growing up and all their
sicknesses and all the concerns and fears that went with
raising them from infants; and for another, Tad had left
his test-piloting and become an astronaut; the danger did
not seem so frequent, so immediate and sharp.

Now, sitting in her glass cage at the back of the Expedition
Control Room, Wendy could not remember having
felt anything at the moment at which Tad must have been
exposed to the flare out there in space. But, she thought
now, this might have been because he himself had felt
nothing and had not even thought to worry until he came
back and got the word from the others that he had been
irradiated. Of course, since then, as at this moment, she
had felt once more very closely in touch with him. In all
that counted, she was there on Phoenix One with him.
Only her body and mind were left behind here in the Expedition
Control Room, sitting still and waiting, spinning

their endless stream of thoughtless thoughts like a spider
building an empty web.

But still it was not quite the same as it had been, back
before the children, when he had been a test pilot. For
she and Tad had grown together over the years, they
also grown apart. In a sense, they had become two com.
plete but separate beings, each one incorporating a
of the other. What Tad had of her she did not know
exactly, but she could feel that he did have something.
What she had of him was something of his strength,
something of his calmness, something of that same
to take root that she had missed earlier in her own life.

It was not all it should be, perhaps, but it was more
might have been--a good deal more. So now, there
only the waiting and she had finally learned how to' wai


"A shocking thing to happen so early in the expedition,"
said Ahri Ambedkar.

He and Walther Guenther were having drinks with
Sergei Verigin in Verigin's hotel suite. In half an
they were all scheduled for asemi-official dinner
businessmen and Disney Corporation people from
Disney World complex; but right now they had a
to discuss the news of Tad Hansard's radiation sickness.

"It's not without risk, this going into space,"
Guenther.

They were once more talking French. It had come to b
a small tradition of these three-cornered chats they had
been having lately. They sat in armchairs before the white.
brick fireplace in the lounge of Verigin's suite, a fireplace
in which there was no fire. Instead, the air

hummed softly in the wall ventilators.

"Accidents," said Guenther, "of course, can happen
any time."

"It's unfortunate, nonetheless," said Ambedkar, sipping
at the glass of grapefruit juice he held. "Coming so soon,
this way, it gives the whole expedition a sort how d
one say it--ramshackle look."

"Oh, I don't think it does all that much damage," said
Verigin. "And in compensation, it injects a note of high
tragedy which should generally gain sympathy for all our
people out there in space."

"There's that," observed Guenther. He was drinking it
martini made with gin of which even Sir Geoffrey would
have approved. "Still, as I say, it points up the risk. And
the member nations in my area particularly are going to
be thinking of the considerable financial investment."

"Come," said Ambedkar, "we are past the matter of
investment, surely? What fills the newspapers around the
world are stories of the human element. It makes bad
press that young men should be sent out to die."

"Not at all," said Guenther. "That's their business, after


"True," replied Ambedkar. "Still .... "

"I'm sure you are all aware," said Verigin, "that on any
large project there is a built-in casualty rate. Take the
construction of a large bridge, for example. Statistics will
tell you that by the time the bridge is completed a certain
percentage of the workers will have had accidents; and a
few of those accidents, again by statistical prediction, will
be fatal. This is all quite understandable. The main thing
is that such statistics shouldn't be allowed to interfere
with the advantageous-attention that the international
aspect of this expedition has been getting, and possibly may
still get for some time yet."

"Indeed," said Ambedkar, "it's to the advantages of all
nations to have this breathing space when public attention
is focused off the earth. That's why I am concerned that
the possible death of this Hansard might cause us all
difficulties."
"One does not die quickly from radiation poisoning,"
put in Guenther. "At least, unless that poisoning is massive;
and from what I've been able to gather, it probably isn't
that mitssive in this case."

"That's my impression, too," said Verigin. "I do not
think we should expect Colonel Hansard to die suddenly,
gentlemen."

"And in fact, he may recover," said Ambedkar.

"My medical advice seems to cast doubt on that;" said
Guenther.

"i don't believe anyone really knows, surely?" asked
Verigin. "The available information from Phoenix One
is too limited."

"It's annoying to be in the dark," said Ambedkar.

245


"To say nothing of the fact," said Guenther, "that tl
first one to learn anything will undoubtedly be Wylie."

Aha, thought Verigin, pouncing mentally---caught you,
Walther! Wylie will be not the first, but the last of us to
know, of course, since he's only a straw man for the U.S.
Pres!dent. You are dragging a herring across the trail,
aren t you--trying to throw the rest of us off the scent ia
case we've suspected anything? And your only reason for
doing that can be that you are the one who's been playing
around with this amateur spying Sir Geoffrey hinted at.
Who were you spying on--Wylie? Now that you're begin.
ning to suspect we suspect, you've just tried to give us a
reason for any little games we might stumble upon.
Verigin glanced across at Ambedkar briefly. Had that
old fox also picked up on Guenther's self-betrayal? Yes,
he had. It showed in the precisely judgmental way he held
his glass of grapefruit juice.

"In any case," Verigin said aloud, "regrettable as it is
that one of our marsnauts should pay with his life, that's
often the cost of great expeditions; and, in fact, of
progress in any field. I myself take the point of view that
we simply must bear up under all situations, including the
chance that he might not survive. We must keep our atten.
tion and our hopes concentrated on the other brave men
who are still healthy and moving toward a truly international
manned landing on our planetary neighbor."

"You don't suppose there might be any thought of send.
ing one of the ships back?" said Ambedkar, "I mean, so
as to return Hansard to the better medical care available
here?"

"Turn back one of the ships?" said Guenther.

"If they can come back from Mars, certainly they car
return from partway there?" said Ambedkar.

"Oh, I know it's physically possible," said Guenther,
little irritably, "I was thinking of the practicality of it."

"Whether it's physically possible or not," said Verigin
quietly, "I should think it would be the highest order of
impracticability to endanger the expedition by reducing it
from two ships to one. The single ship going on alone
would have no redundancy, no hope of assistance in case of
trouble. I should think a concern for the lives of the three


	46
	I

healthy men aboard Phoenix Two would outweigh the
tatural concern for the health and life of the one already
ill man on Phoenix One."

,"Absolutely!" said Guenther. "Besides, the hopes of a
world are tied to a successful journey of these two ships.
They must both go on, no matter what the cost. If I'm
asked, I shall put it in the strongest terms that there should
be no turning back out of a misguided concern for Colonel
Hansard. Don't you agree?"
"Indeed," said Ambedkar, "three lives must always
concern us more than one. I agree with you, Walther. I
feel most strongly both ships should go on; and I'll say so
also if I'm asked. How about you, Sergei? You agree to
that, don't you?"

"Oh, of course," murmured Verigin. "It begins more
and more to look as if this Expedition was less well prepared
than we thought. But of course there's nothing any
of us can do about it, now. All we can hope is that the
men on the ships will now make the proper effort to bring
it through all right. I feel myself that both ships must
continue, no matter what happens to Hansard. It's only
reasonable to expect that they should."


With two drinks in him, a perfect sense of contentment
and well-being took charge of Del Terrence. He leaned
against the soft cushioning of the booth restaurant, his
right hand wrapped around his glass, his left holding
Jonie Wextrum's right hand below the table top. He had
the curious, almost light-headed feeling that he would
like things to stay just as they were indefinitely; stay just
as they were, with the restaurant never closing, time never
advancing, .night never giving way to day, and everything
outside this dining room remaining nonexistent until

247


further notice. He was almost awed at how touched he
was that she had set up this surprise birthday dinner for
him.

"But you look so tired," Jonie was saying. "You don't
have to work that hard."

.... I do, though," he answered her, almost absently.

"No, you don't," said Jonie. "Are you ready to order
dinner now?"

"I guess so," he said and reached out to pick up the
two large folded menus of dark blue cardboard. He passed
one to Jonie and unfolded the other.

"Why don't you have--why don't we have the rack of
lamb for two?" Jonie said. "You'll like it."

"I will?" He put the menu down and looked at her. "You
wouldn't have ordered it already?"

"You'll like it. Wait and see," said Jonie.

He laughed.

"All right," he said. "Did you set this whole dinner up
in advance?"

"Well, I wanted to be sure it'd be done right."

The waiter, caught by Jonie's eye this time, was already
approaching the edge of their table.

"You can go ahead now," Jonie told him.

"Yes, ma'am."

The first thing he brought them was two large crabmeat
cocktails. Tasting his, Del found himself suddenly ravenous,
and remembered that he had had nothing but a sandwich
at about eleven o'clock unless he counted a dozen or so
cups of coffee. For a little while he forgot about anything
but eating. The rack of lamb turned out to be as good as
Jonie said it would be, and the champagne was superb.

Eventually, Del sat back, stuffed, comfortable and sleepy.
"Dessert?" asked Jonie.

"Let's have a cup of coffee first."

With the coffee before them, Jonie came back again to
the topic of his working too hard.

"I have to," he told her. "I was the one who told AI
that the slop in the system just before launch wasn't important.
Now the system's gone out on Phoenix One. Maybe
it isn't our fault, but . . ."

"Someone like AI has to understand how you could make
an honest mistake," said Jonie.

248 - i,

"Oh, he understands," Del said. "But the fact remains
that if it's an area of responsibility that belongs to you,
you've,got to make good. That holds true for me just like
,it holds true for him, and everybody else right up to the
'nauts off on Phoenix One and Two. Besides, it's not just

how he feels about it; it's how everybody out there feels."
"Well, he's the only one you're responsible to, isn't he?"

"No," said Del, slowly, "that isn't quite right either.
Actually, I'm responsible to the whole space program."

"That's an exaggeration and you know it," said Jonie.
"Of course, everybody there's responsible to the whole
program; but right now you're acting as if there was some
kind of special personal responsibility between you and it.
KilliNg yourself doesn't prove anything."

He did not want to argue with her, particularly at this
moment; but he did want her to understand. He launched
into a long description of how every element in the hardware
of the launch interactedl and how all the work of those
concerned with that hardware had to interact as well. She
listened, but he felt that he was not reaching her. She was
simply sitting there and storing ammunition with which
to debate him. He found himself looking away from her
steady gaze, staring uncomfortably out through the open-

work, at the bar and the TV screen. He broke off suddenly.
"What is it?" asked Jonie.

"Jack!" he muttered. "Jack Sharney. My boss, What the
hell?"
He slid around on the seat cushion, got up and went into
the bar. The TV was on a shelf too high above the floor
for him to reach and the sound was off. He turned to the
bartender polishing glasses behind the bar.

"Turn up the sound, will you?" he asked.

"Why, sure," the bartender said.

He put down glass and towel, walked a few steps up
the bar and reached underneath it. The sound came on,
not all the way, but loud enough to hear from where Del
stood.

By this time, however, the face oft the screen had
changed. It was no longer Jack Sharney's; it was the
relaxed face and professional voice of some annourlcer.

"... following the statement read by John Sharney, vicepresident
of Laserkind, Mr. Sharney was asked if the

49


statement meant that the laser communicati0n aM
Phoenix One were still operable, but that other systems
had broken down and were preventing the lasercom from
working .... "

Abruptly, Jack was back on the screen. His voice came
clearly to Del's ears.

"Of course," he said, "we've no way of knowing, with
communications out, exactly where the difficulty lies. However,
tests of our system both on the ground and in orbit
just before both ships left on their way to Mars showed
the system was functioning perfectly. We had a representa.
tive on hand during the launch to make sure our equipmerlt
worked; and in this case he reported to us that the system
was performing exactly as it should."

"But, Mr. Sharney," said a voice fromoff screen.
"Couldn't the radiation from the solar flare have interfered
with the working of the lasercom?"

"In the absence of complete data, of course anything is
possible," Jack said. "However, in the opinion of our
people on the spot the lasercom was responding perfectly
right up to the moment of the flare; and we know of no
way that even massive radiation could affect our controls
directly. As I emphasized in my statement, the natural
assumption is that Phoenix One is not getting orientation
on the broadcast antenna for the system--and orientation
can be critical in the matter of communication by laser.
That orientation is effected by a mechanical process that
should not be disrupted by radiation. On the other hand
if power isn't getting to the system, because of the solar
flare--if some electronic components that deliver power
to that system have broken down--then the system's not
going to work. But the components delivering power to the
orientation process were not of our manufacture--"

"What the hell are they doing to me?" breathed Del.
"Jack, what the hell are you doing?"

He felt an arm slip into his arm. Glancing to his right,

he saw Jonie standing beside him, holding onto him.
"What's wrong, Del?"

"Those bastards!" he muttered between teeth clenched
so tightly they ached. "Those complete bastardsI Listen
to what they're saying!"


250

However, by the time he had finished speaking Jack
Sharney was no longer on the screen. The announcer was
talking, once more, and the image was of a kitten, perched
,on the top of a telephone pole, with two fire department
rigs trying to rescue it. Del turned and led the way back to
their booth.

"What is it? What did they do?" asked Jonie, as they sat
down.

"You heard," said Del.

"Yes, but I didn't understand."

"What the hell wasn't there to understand? You saw
Jack--holding a press conference and answering questions
and telling the world that there's nothing wrong with our
equipment on Phoenix One!" Del gulped the half glass of
champagne that was still sitting in front of him. "Nothing
wrong! And here I am knocking myself silly to try to
find out why it's not working--and half the Expedition

Control crew trying right along with me!"

"Why would he do that?" Jonie asked.

"He did it because somebody told him to," Del said.
"And I know just who the damn hell that somebody was,
too----our beloved president Walter Kind himself. Old
Walter, beating NASA to the punch before they can start
asking why our equipment's no good!"
He was aware of Jonie staring at him.

"But--" Jonie struggled with her words "---don't they--
doesn't Jack and Walter Kind know it's not true, what
they're saying?"

"Hell, yes, they know it's not true. But it's the big lie,
don't you understand? Yell first and loud enough that it
wasn't your fault; and some of the public's going to believe
you--and even those who don't aren't going to be
sure until it's all checked out, and that could be two
years from now when the whole story's stale news!"

"But why'd they do something like this without telling
you first?"

"So I couldn't trip them up, of course! So they can sit
back there on the West Coast and lie safely, knowing I'm
the one who'll have to face people like A1, who'll know
the truth and think I was behind all this--this coverap!"

25I


. "You mean they're deliberately putting the blame on

you?" Jonie's face was pale.

"That's it," said Del. "The idea's to clear Lasercom's
skirts, at any cost. Oh, AI and the others out at the Space
Center are going to love this!"

"Well, why don't you go tell A1 then?" said Jonie.
"Tell him you didn't know anything about it. In fact, tell
him what they tried to do to you--and then quit. Tell
everybody it wasn't your idea and that it wasn't your
fault. Call a press conference of your own."

The heat of anger inside Del cooled unexpectedly. He
hesitated.

"I couldn't cut Lasercom's throat that way," he said.
"They're cutting your throat, aren't they?" said Jonie.
He looked at her and found her expression absolutely
ruthless.

"No," he said. "I wouldn't do that--t0 anyone."

He started to get out of the booth.

"But I'll tell you what I am going to do, though," he
said. "I'm going to call Walter Kind now."

He was halfway to the door of the restaurant when he
realized that Jonie was not behind him. He turned around
and went back and found her standing by the booth.

"I'll get the check. Just a minute. I'll be right with you,"
said Jonie.

"Sorry. I didn't think," he said.

"Never mind."

The waiter came with the check. Jonie paid him and
they went up to his room. Jonie perched on the armchair
by the window while Del sat down on the bed by the
phone on the nightstand. He punched the access code for
long distance and the number of Walter Kind's home in
Downey, California. There was a pause and then a

woman's voice spoke from a still blank screen.

"Hello?"

"Mrs. Kind?" said Del. "This is Del Terrence, the company
rep at Kennedy Space Center. Could I talk to Walt?"

The screen lit up, showing the pleasant soft face of a
woman in her mid-fifties.

"Oh, Del," she said. "Well . . . just a minute. I'll see if
he's here."

252



The face of Mrs. Kind moved off the screen to the
right, but the screen itself remained lit. Del waited.

"Come on, come on," he said after a bit, through his
,teeth. "Don't tell me he isn't home, Lauretta, or I'm going
to get a little impolite. I know he's home. He'll be sitting
there having his first drink before dinner, right now."

A few more minutes went by. The lean face of a man

in full middle age, wearing large, black-rimmed glasses,

flid onto the screen.

"Well, Del," the face said. "How's it going over there?"

"Not so good, Walt," said Del. "We're still not locating
what's wrong with the system. By the way, I just heard

press conference on network TV here."

so?" said Walt Kind.

"Yes," Del said, "that's so. It came at a bad time, Walt.

I thought I'd phone and tell you that."

"At a bad time?" Walt's eyebrows lifted on his high
forehead. "I don't see how that could be, Del. If there's any
danger one of our systems is going to be misunderstood by
the general public the sooner we get to that public With th,
correct answers the better."

"That's right," said Del, "provided they're the right
answers. Only, I think a few of Jack's answers may have

been wrong."

"Wrong?"

"Yes," Del said. "Wrong. Damned wrong. Upside down
Wrong, in fact."

"Del..." Walt peered at him from the screen. "You've

been working pretty hard at finding what the problem is
that's interfering with communications out there, haven't
you? Maybe you've been overdoing it. You know, you
can't carry the load all by yourself. There's a lot of other
people out there at Kennedy who have just as much responsibility
for what's going on as you have---and more."

"I don't think so, Walt," said Del. "And I don't think

it's somebody's system that's fouling ours up. I should
have listened to A1 Murgatroyd when he told me that
up there in the parking orbit he was getting more slop
than he got down here on the ground. I think it's our own
system that's broken down and I think it's up to us to find



it--not to put out smoke screens implying the trouble's
some place else."

"Well, you're the man on deck," Walt said. "And we
always want to listen to your opinion, Del. But you know
from back here it's necessary to look at the overall situation.
We've got a little more distance on this thing, seeing
it from the West Coast; and of course we've got a duty to
protect ourselves in case it is some other outfit's system
that's messing up ours. That's all Jack was thinking of,
I'm sure."

Del stared into the screen unbelievingly.

"Walt?" he said. "Walt, aren't I getting my point across?
That TV broadcast just now is going to raise bloody hell
here! Up until now we've had the NASA people on our
side. Sure, maybe our system broke down, but that sort of
thing happens and we've been trying our damnedest to
find and fix it. I've been trying the best I can to fix it. But
now, all of a sudden, we've gone to the public with a
statement that the communication problem's not our
fault--and these people here at Kennedy know damn will
it's our fault!"

"Just a minute, Del," said Walt. "We can't be sure
that. They can't be, either."

"They're sure enough, for God's sake!" said Del raggedly.
"Walt, that broadcast cut our throats out here. It cut my
throat. None of the people like AI Murgatroyd are going
to give me the time of day when they hear about what
Jack said! And I've got to work with them!"

Walt did not say anything for a moment. His face on
the screen seemed to settle in on itself, and when he
spoke again his voice was a little remote.
"Exactly what would you like us to do 'about it, Del?"
"There's only one thing you can do," Del said, leaning
into the screen, holding on hard to the table where the
phone unit sat. "Let me call AI, and maybe some others,
right now and tell them that that TV broadcast was un.
authorized, that it was an error. Let me tell them you'll be
following this up with a letter, but you wanted me to get
the word to them right away!"

"I don't think we can do anything like that," said
Walter. His voice was even more remote.


254

"You've got to, Walt," Del said.

"No," Walt said, almost as if Del had not spoken, "I
don't, see how we can do anything like that Del. Why don't
you get a good night's sleep and simply go on with your
work out there as usual? Let us worry about anything that
comes from here."

"Walt!" Del stared into the screen. "How can I go on
as usual, now?"

"To be frank with you, Del," said Walt, "I don't see
any real difficulty or problem for you in that. Now if you
actually feel there is a problem, maybe you'd better think
it through, get it down in detail, and then call me back.
We don't want you working against your own grain, there,
wb.ether there's really anything to worry about or not."

There was another silence; this time it stretched out for
more than a second or two. Del found himself waiting for
Walt to say something more, but Walt said nothing.

"All right, Walt," Del said at last, hoarsely. "Maybe
I will get some sleep."

"You do that, Del," said Walt. "Sleep's a great thing,
you know. Very often things look entirely different in the
morning. But call me any time, Del. So long."

The screen went blank. Del looked across the room and
met Jonie's unmoving gaze.

"Jesus," he said. "I feel like I'm working for a bunch
of cockroaches. They're great survivors, roaches, but being
around them makes you feel . . ." He could not go on.

She came over and put her arms around him.


27


The press conference was held in that same hotel where
the Deputy Ministers of Science of the countries cooperating
in the Expedition were still quartered, including Jens.
No place else was large enough for it except the enlarged

55


press stands out at the Cape, and it was awkward to get
all the newspeople there.

The fact was, as Jens had noticed, that the press corps
in the Cape area, instead of declining in numbers after
the launch, had in fact grown as the feature writers moved
in. Now there had been a sudden added, influx of men
and women with orange badges as word escaped of the
solar storm, the damage to the two spacecrafts and Tad's]
accident.

The ballroom was equipped with high balconies at the
back, overlooking the floor where folding chairs had been
set up. These balconies gave an opportunity to seat a few
groups of non-newspeople who were nevertheless concerned
or interested in the news conference. One of these
groups was made up of all the Deputy Ministers of Science
for the International Development of Space, including
Jens.

"Shame about that young man of yours," said Sir

Geoffrey, gruffly, sitting down next to Jens.

Jens nodded.

"Yes," he said. He felt that he ought to find something
more to answer; but no words came to him. He gave up
and leaned forward to see the Expedition Control people
filing onto the platform at the far end of the room and
taking seats behind the long table on it. There were five
of them, one brown-faced and oriental-looking; but the
only one Jens recognized was Bill Ward, who seated himself
in the center.
There was a moment of fiddling with the pencil micro.
phones among the water glasses on the table in front of
the five, then Bill Ward cleared his throat.

"All right," he said; his amplified voice boomed out
through the room. "We might as well get started here.
I'm going to give you a short statement to begin with,
then we can have questions."

He cleared his throat again, and glanced down at some
papers he had spread out before him on the table.

"'At twenty-three hundred hours, twenty-six minutes of
Day Twenty-two of the Mars Expedition," he read, "Expedition
Control received from Spacelab Two a prediction
of a strong solar flare, which prediction was communicated

256


to the Mars Expedition spacecraft with the information
that the Expedition had approximately five hours in which
to undock and separate the spacecraft in order that experiment
So82, a test of laser communication between the
ships during a solar storm, could be performed--"

He coughed, interrupting himself; and then went on.
"The two spacecraft," he said, "accordingly undocked
and separated a distance of one hundred and forty kilometers,
while the crews aboard both ships erected the
protective panels to create the storm cellar, so-called, as
described in Experiment M99. The estimate of the duration
of their stay in the storm cellar was placed by Expedition
Control at approximately fifteen hours, during
which time, because of the alignment of their LCO mirrors
on each other, neither craft was in communication with
Expedition Control."

He paused and took a sip of water from a glass before
him.

"At approximately seventeen hours, forty-one minutes of
Day Twenty-three," he continued, "the crew of Phoenix
One observed that their LCO was no longer communicating
with Phoenix Two. They checked for malfunction within
the area of the storm cellar and found nothing. At this
time, the meter reading the external radiation of the solar
storm was beginning to show an apparent reduction in
that radiation. The meter showed a continuing reduction;
and at the point where it showed that all danger was
passed for the marsnauts in movement within the spacecraft,
the crew of Phoenix One left their storm cellar
and traced the malfunctioning LCO system to the point at
which it went through the hull to the drive unit that positioned
the laser mirror outside the ship.

"It was evident that the malfunction was outside the
ship, rather than in. Radio communication being still
impossible under the solar storm conditions, Senior Mission
Commander Tadell Hansard, fearing that the LCO on
Phoenix Two might also be malfunctioning, decided on
an EVA to inspect the drive unit and the mirror outside
the hull.

"He accordingly suited up and made the EVA, unaware
that radiation outside the ship was still at danger


F.c.	57

levels. The force of the solar storm had been greater than
predicted; and, in fact, great enough to overload Phoenix
One's radiation meter, with the result that it had falsely

• showed the radiation reducing more rapidly than was
actually the case.

"As a result, Colonel Hansard suffered a presently unknown
degree of radiation poisoning. Luckily, the LCO
of Phoenix Two had not been affected by the solar storm;
and finding herself out of contact with Phoenix One by
that means, she contacted Expedition Control by LCO. and
Phoenix One by radio---the storm having decreased enough
to make this possible. As a result, she was able to convey
a warning about the dangerous level of radiation into
which Colonel Hansard had EVAed; and as soon as.
Colonel Hansard returned to the interior of Phoenix One,
his crewmates took steps to decontaminate him and offset
the effects of the radiation.

"He is now resting comfortably, according to our last
word from Phoenix One. However, both ships have
suffered extensive damage to their electronic control
systems as a result of the unexpected severity of the
solar storm; and the crews of both ships are busy checking
systems and putting them back into operation."

Bill ceased talking, shuffled his papers together and
looked out at the crowd.

"Copies of this release are available on tables at the
back of the room," he said. "Now, let's get to the question
period."

A woman was standing in the front row before he had
quite finished speaking. Behind her, several other people
who had been a second too slow sat down again.

"There is speculation--" Her voice was so faint that it
was barely audible up on the balcony where Jens was; then
a seeking microphone picked her up and the rest of her
words blasted from the wall speakers. "--that the U.$.
marsnaut, Tadell Hansard, has actually received a lethal
amount of radiation. Could you tell us if that is indeed the
fact?"

She sat down again. Bill bent his head toward the
oriental-featured man on his right.

"Kim? Do you want to take that?" he said. Jens's lagging
memory supplied the full name of the man addressed. Dr,

Kim Sung, one of the NASA physicians. Kim Sung was
leaning toward his own pencil mike.

"I'm afraid we have no idea how much radiation Tad
received," Kim said. "We have no means of knowing what
the radiation was outside Phoenix One at the time he
was exposed; and we would have no way of determining
the extent of the damage to him, physically, otherwise, at
this time. I might say, though, that to assume that any dose
of radiation poisoning is necessarily a lethal one would be
to fall into a pretty serious error."

Several other of the newspeople were now on their
feet; but the woman in the front row persisted.

"Bt you would not completely rule out the possibility
that he had received a lethal dose of radiation, Doctor?"

"In the absence of sufficient facts, all possibilities have
to be considered, certainly," said Kim. "But we aren't
spending a great deal of our time on that particular one."

"Next," said Bill Ward firmly, as the woman opened
her mouth again. She sat down. A man several rows back
with a European accent Jens could not pin down found
himself chosen by Bill's pointing finger.

"Have you any idea of the extent of the damage to the
two spacecraft, sir?" he called. "And if so--"

"No. No knowledge whatsoever, yet," said Bill. His
finger moved on. "Sorry to cut you off. But we've got a
large group here and we'd better limit it to a single
question apiece. Next!"

"Would you tell us--" It was another woman speaking.
"--if radiation damage to electronic systems alone would
be enough to permanently disable a spacecraft like Phoenix
One or Phoenix Two?"

"Jim?" Bill turned his head, passing the question along
to a balding, round-faced man on his right.

"Theoretically," James Howell, systems engineer for
the Expedition answered her, "if enough systems were
knocked out at once aboard her, one of the Phoenix craft
could be completely disabled. However, she'd remain
disabled only until her crew could repair the damage and
replace the necessary parts to get her w.orking again, which
is what the crews of Phoenix One and Two tell us they're
presently doing."

"Next!" said Bill.

"Assuming Tad Hansard is seriously ill from the radiation--or
worse," asked a black-skinned, turbaned man
standing among the rows of seats close to the wall on the
right side of the room, "how will this hamper the continuance
of the Expedition?"

"The Expedition," said Bill Ward, "is already redundant
in the fact that it consists of two identical ships, each 0[
which is capable of making the Expedition by itself. If
Tad's going to be laid up for a while,, of course, that will
require some readjustment of work schedules aboard at
least Phoenix One, and possibly aboard both ships."

"Can you tell us," called another woman toward the
rear of the room, "if it is correct that the crews of Phoenix
One and Two had already requested a readjustment of
the experiment priorities before the present emergency
happened?"

"The matter had come up for discussion, yes," said Bill,
harshly. "Bth the marsnauts and Expedition Control are
constantly evaluating and reevaluating the elements of
the Expedition for maximum performance. But of cou
anything like this has to take a back seat now to the larger
matter of getting the spacecraft back to full performance.
Next!"
"Assuming the death of Colonel Hansard as a result
this radiation poisoning . . ." began a man near the front.

Jens felt a sudden wave of nausea. It came on him so
suddenly that it was as sharp as an unexpected pain. He
clutched reflexively at the arm of the chair in which he
sat, pushed himself to his feet and stumbled unsteadily
back through a curtain and a door beyond into the silence
of the wide, carpeted corridor behind the balconies.

He was abruptly aware that someone had followed himl
It was Sir Geoffrey, and the tall old man had a grip on
his elbow, steadying him.

"Little shaky, there?" muttered Sir Geoffrey in his ear,
"You need a drink. Come along." .

He steered Jens down the corridor with a clutch that
was surprisingly powerful for someone of his apparent
age. They entered an elevator, descended to the second
floor lobby, and went into a large, dim bar with over.
stuffed furniture and one waitress. Sir Geoffrey piloted

Jens to a booth against a wall opposite the bar, and pushed
him into a seat there, sitting down opposite him. The
waitress came over.

"What would you like?" she asked.

"What's the specialty of the house?" Sir Geoffrey asked
her.

"The special drink?" she said. "The shamrock. That's
the name of the bar--the Shamrock Lounge."

"Shamrock? Irish whiskey, isn't it? All fight," said Sir
Geoffrey. "Bring him one."

"Nothing for you?" she asked.

"No. I--well, damn it, give me one, too."

"Two shamrocks," she said, and went off.

"Always order the special," said Sir Geoffrey looking
across the table of the booth at Jens. "Get more for your
money; and the chances are better than even that the
drink'll be made right, too."

Jens felt he ought to say something but the effort was
too much.

"That's right,", said Sir Geoffrey, encouragingly, "you
just sit there. As soon as you get a drink or two into you,
you'll feel better. Alcohol, coffee and iodine---cure anything
in the world, one of the three. Anyone who's had
malaria might want to add atabrine, perhaps. But we're
not in a malarial area, are we?"

There was a little pause. The waitress came back with
the two large cocktail glasses, green liquid lapping at their
rims, and set them down carefully in front of Jens and
the other man.

"Drink it, now," said Sir Geoffrey when the waitress
had gone. "Pour it down, if you're up to that. Most
irritating thing in the world, buy somebody a drink to
help their nerves and they sit there and play with it.
Women do that a lot. Here, I'll show you how."

He drank from his own cocktail glass. Jens reached out
and lifted the one in front of him to his lips. In the
moment before he sipped at it, he thought he could not
drink anything. Then it was in his mouth, and the taste
was minty and not unpleasant.

"That's better," said Sir Geoffrey. "Let it hit bottom
now, and you're halfway back to health. Upset about


6t.

Hansard, were you? You shouldn't be in this kind of
work. Bloody amateur--oh, I "know that's what your
government wanted to prop up in the shoes you're wearing;
but it's sickening all the same. Waitress, two more."

"No, one's plenty--" Jens began, but the waitress was
already giving the order to the bartender.

..... What you've got to face," said Sir Geoffrey, "is that
'- somebody's always bound to get hurt in things like this.

That's the way international politics is. That's why you
need professionals who know someone always gets caught
in the machinery. Can't do without the machinery, either,
We'd be back hitting each other over the heads with stone
clubs. So, where are you? Drink up the second one now,
Wylie. Just like you did the first."

Jens was, in fact, beginning to feel, if not better, at
least anesthetized to a small extent. He picked up the
second drink.

"It's always a mess," Sir Geoffrey said firmly. "Always.
You've got to learn to expect that and let it happen---"

"And to hell with everybody, I suppose?" Jens was a
little surprised to hear himself say it. The first drink was
already beginning to work on him.

"Not to hell with everybody!" said Sir Geoffrey, irritated,
"To hell with the situation and anyone who's so tangled
• up in it they can't get loose. You're a piece of the machinery
yourself if you're good at this work. You don't smash yourself
on the first problem that comes along; you keep yourself

in working order so you can be used again--and again."
"How about smashing the machinery instead?"
Sir Geoffrey looked at him.

"Now, you aren't going to go smashing any machinery,"
'he said. "Even if you could."

"This Expedition---" said Jens, a little thickly, and was
surprised to see that his second cocktail glass was empty.

Sir Geoffrey was already wagging a long forefinger in

signal to the bartender. "This Expedition was sabotaged
before the 'nauts even got into the shuttle and left
ground."

"No doubt," said Sir Geoffrey. "And you knew that
and did nothing about it. Nothing that made any differ.
enee, that is."

"Yes," said Jens, sickening again inside at the thought
of Tad Hansard.

"And you're not going to do anything now or later, take
my word for it," said Sir Geoffrey. "Now drink up, brace
up to the facts of life, and let's get back to that balcony
before the press conference ends and anyone notices we've
been gone--anyone important, I mean to say. Our fellow
workers in the vineyard don't count."


Fedya stood in his spacesuit orr the hull of Phoenix Two.
Half a kilometer away, the lighted part of the hull of
Phoenix One looked like a lopsided rectangle in the illumination
of the raw-sunlight. A wire from a spool clamped
to the hull of Phoenix Two by her Hatch Three led to
Fedya's belt; and an individual propulsion pack was
strapped to the shoulders of his suit.

Keeping his eye on the reflection of the distant spacecraft
hull he rose on his toes, flexing his bootsoles to cut
off their magnetic attraction to the metal of the hull
beneath them, and sprang outward from the ship. It felt
as if nothing had happened. There was no sensation of
movement; but then, extending his legs, he found no
solid surface with them, and, turning, he saw the hull of
Phoenix Two now something like his own length from him.

He turned back to locate the hull of Phoenix One with
his eyes, raised his gloved hand to the chest of his suit
and activated the propulsion pack.

Cold gasses spurted from the two thrusters at the tips
of the twin arms extending from the pack. Still, there was
ao feeling of movement toward Phoenix One; but when
he looked back again, he saw Phoenix Two visibly receding
from him, the bright, thin line of the wire from the slowly
unreeling spool in a catenary curve between himself and
the ship he had just left. He turned back to concentrate on
the lighted section of the hull of Phoenix One, toward
which he flew.

For some time, it was hard to see any change in it. But
gradually he became aware that the rectangle was apparently
growing out toward his right and shrinking in to
his left.. He was headed off at an angle that would take him
past the other spacecraft on his right, unless he corrected.

263


He corrected, gradually adding pressure to his right
thruster until the rectangle ceased'to grow in the manner
it had been growing.

He traveled on through space. There was no pull at all
that he could feel from the wire attached to the hea
belt at his waist. He noticed abruptly that the rectangle was
once again changing on him. Now it was narrowing--
narrowing rather rapidly, so he must be getting close to
Phoenix One. Getting close and sliding away at an angle
above it. He corrected again.

The rectangle broadened once more. He was now close
enough to see, within its lit area, the erect shape of the
copper LCO mirror and a corner of Phoenix One's Hatch
Three.

Fedya was correcting constantly now, as he zeroed in
on the other spacecraft. His target was no longer just the
hull itself, but that same Hatch Three. Playing with the
controls of his propulsion pack, he drifted toward it.
Abruptly, he found the need to decelerate was upon him.
The hull and the hatch were growing in size swiftly before
him. He rotated the handle on his chest that turned the
nozzles of the thrusters a hundred and eighty degrees, and
opened their valves full.

Once more, there were moments in which it seemed
what he had done was having no effect whatsoever. The
hull continued to swell toward him; and he drew up his
feet instinctively to take the shock of a hard landing. But
then, the swelling slowed, slowed . . . and he awoke suddenly,
only a few meters from his destination to discover
that he had now reversed his movement; and was in fact
drifting back, away from Phoenix One.

He cut off the valves completely, reversed the nozzles
of the thrusters again; and with weak jets of gas began to
work his way back toward the hull. It was a good five
minutes more, however, before his feet at last touched
down and the magnetics of his bootsoles gripped the
stranger hull.

He clumped over to Hatch Three and the bit which had
been welded beside the hatch to secure the end of the wire
he had carried over from Phoenix Two. As he was detaching
it from his belt and securing it, the cover of Hatch

264


Three opened; and, moving as ponderously as some
medie'al armored knight, another spacesuited figure
emerged to help him tie down the wire to the bit, and
connect it to the end of another wire waiting there, before
following him back down inside Phoenix One.
The manner of the other figure's movement identified

the man within its suit. It was Anoshi. At another, time
there would have been something cheerful said between
the two of them over the suit phones as they met. Now,
however, they went in silence together back inside the
ship, through the airlock at the end of its access tube and
on to A Deck where they removed their suits.

Desuited, finally, Fedya turned to face not only Anoshi,

but Bap and Tad. Tad was not even sitting down. He was
standing by his control console. Fedya went over to him
and gripped his hand.

"How are you feeling?" Fedya asked.

"Fine," Tad said. "I'm feeling up to anything and just

J fine "

Fedya smiled at him. But Tad was not looking fine. He

was looking . . . different. There was no greatly visible
change, but his face seemed more bony and pale than
Fedya had ever seen it before. For a moment, Fedya was
baffled as to why it gave that impression; then he realized
that Tad had already lost some of his hair. He had worn
it cut short always, so that the difference was not remarkable;
but now his hairline had gone back and scalp was
quite visible under what remained. Also, there was an air
of strain about him, a little tension, as if he were trying
to be polite at a social occasion when flu, or a bad cold,
was making him long to be at home, in bed.

265


The afternoon sun was reduced to kindness by the reacting
tint of the floor-to-ceiling polychromic windows. The small,
square, walnut-colored table between,the two chairs seemed
to glow with a golden hue in a dining room draped with
nets that held tridents, seashells, and other salt water arti.
facts.

"Very pleasant to get off by ourselves," said Ahri
Ambedkar, glancing around him. He and Sergei Verigin
sat almost alone in one corner of the dining room. "They

say the shrimp in particular are very good here."

"So I hear," agreed Verigin.

The restaurant in which they had chosen to have a late
and private lunch was the upper floor of a wood frame
establishment that gave the impression of projecting its
top level out over a flat, slow-moving Florida river. At
the foot of the building was what seemed to be a small
marina, filled witha number of pleasure boats of all sizes
from cabin outboards tO large and expensive ChrisCraft
cruisers; and the impression given was that a good percentage
of the diners had come by water. Verigin and Ambedkar,
however, had been chauffeured out here and dropped
off. The driver was due to pick them up again in two hours.

"Do you have any tea?" Ambedkar was asking the
waitress who had just appeared.

"I don't know. I'll see," she said. She smiled at them
both, a gentle-faced, somewhat raw-boned woman in her
forties. "And you, sir?"

"I think I'll have cognac," said Verigin. "Do you have
Cordon Bleau?"

"Yes, I'm sure," said the waitress. "Do you want that
on the rocks?" -
Verigin shuddered.


266


"No. No ice. Just in a wine glass, please."

"And what luck have you had in the case of your little

,dog?" asked Ambedkar, as the waitress went off.

Verigin brightened.

"That expedition director--Bill Ward," he said, "was
kind enough to get in touch with a brother of his, who's on
the staff of the veterinary school at the University of
Minnesota. It seems his brother knows of another staff
member who has a great deal of experience with the kind
of paralysis that Chupchik's suffering. The other staff
member's gone on a sabbatical, right now, but apparently
he's due back in a week or so. Ward's brother says hat
he'll have this other staff member get in touch with me. It
sounds as if I might be able to get the answer I need for
poor Chupchik's sake. I've written the good news to my

wife." ,

"Fortunate," said Ambedkar.

They chatted of inconsequential and personal things
until the end of their meal. Then they got around to more
important topics.

"You heard, I suppose," Verigin said, "that there's some
speculation the experiment load may indeed have been a
tittle too heavy; that this may have contributed to a
certain inefficiency on the part of the marsnauts, and this
inefficiency in turn may have led to the accident to Tadell
Hansard?"

"Yes," said Ambedkar. He sipped at a cup of tea the
waitress had just brought. Verigin drank cognac out of a
very small snifter glass.

"You and I know, of course," said Verigin, "that the
Americans saw this expedition as a chance for them to
gain what they call good publicity--extra international
goodwill to counteract the effect of the Shared-Management
System, which so recently quadrupled their gross national
product and once again favored them with a chance advantage
over the rest of us. We who work for the future
with our diversification and cottage indxastis Room that
such publicity is unimportant, not to say ephemeral. On
the other hand, national reputation does have some importance,
looked at from the standpoint of the immediate
moment."

267


"Oh, yes," said Ambedkar. "You're referring, I suppose,
to our earlier insistence on the maximum experimental program
for the expedition? You think that could now retur

to haunt us?"

Verigin gestured with the hand that held the snifter glass.

"Not haunt, exactly," he said. "it might be noticeable,
that's all."

"I don't really see what we might do about it now,
however," said Ambedkar. "Our earlier attitudes are oa

the record, and, of
		we acted on the instructions of

	course,

our governments."

"Naturally," said Veigin. "But that alone shouldn;t
cause too much trouble. After all, the Americans ALSO
strongly pushed for their full share of the experiment
program. On the other hand, we might keep a weather eye
out to see that nothing crops up to connect with and
complicate our earlier attitude. I mean, of course, that it
would be a good thing not to do anything that might
irritate such potentially irritable situations."

"You're right," said Ambedkar. "That's only common
sense. As we both know."

"To be sure." Verigin sighed. "Experience teaches that
perhaps the greatest art is the art of doing nothing. Par-


"Yes." Ambedkar sipped once more at his teacup and
put it back down on its saucer. "It's a shame it takes the
younger people so long to learn that."
"Some, like Wylie," said verigin, "probably never will
learn. But then, in my judgment, Wylie is not cut out for
potitics at this level--as you and I, my friend, are. Others,
perhaps, may learn it, but have not yet."

"You mean Guenther," Ambedkar said.

"I'm afraid so," said Verigin.

"It really is a pity," murmured Ambedkar to his teacup,
"I don't believe Guenther realizes the risks he runs sometimes."

"I agree," Verigin said. "I gather then that you have
fairly clear picture of what seems to be going on?"

"Well, one gathers some things, inevitably," said Ambed
kar carefully. "Naturally, in a situation such as this, th
ideal is one in which nothing out of the ordinary happens

68


On the other hand, when one is younger, like Guenther,
there is, perhaps a tendency to worry unduly about how
one will look in competition with older hands like ourelves,
if nothing at all happens. There is occasionally a
desire to justify inactivity by showing a certain amount of
energy expended."

"Quite true. And a perfectly harmless reaction under
ordinary conditions," said Verigin. "Up to the point, that
is, where there is suspicion that the activity has come to
the attention of those affected by such activity, to the
point where it may become a matter of interdepartmental
concern for them."

Ambedkar raised his eyebrows slightly.

L. "Oh?" he said. "I hadn't realized it had gone that far."
"I'm not sure that it has," said Verigin. "Of course, it's

	only conjecture based on experience in such matters.".

"Of course. But experienced conjecture should not be
taken lightly."

"Thank you. Still, even that could be relatively harmless,
as I say," Verigin went on. "But when accident takes
a hand--as in the case of this solar flare--bringing a
possibly fatal injury to one of the marsnauts, such activity
on the part of someone in accredited position runs the
risk of eventually bec6ming a matter for attention by the
press. Particularly under conditions such as we have at the
moment."

"Ah," said Ambedkar, "you mean this excessive, popular
reaction to the fact that Hansard may have been fatally
injured? I've been studying the newsfax reports, from
around the world. How curious that one man, who by his
own inadvertence has put himself in the position to be
perhaps fatally injured, should create such a wave of concern
from people of all cultures."

"Exactly," said Verigin. "Publics are always sentimental."
"When they can afford sentiment," said Ambedkar. "I'm
afraid this worldwide sympathy for Colonel Hansard will
make difficult any attempt to be realistic about the wisdom
'of another attempt at this Expedition."

"Of course it will," said Verigin. "Therefore, it's to our
own interest to understand exactly what brings about such
a popular reaction. Consider it from the point of view of

			269

		.

one of the world's masses. It costs him nothing to griev
and fear for the handsome marsnaut struck down by an
unearthly force while engaged in a high adventure 0i
behalf of the human race. The point is, however, that it!
may be remembered that we resisted cutting the experiment I
load--and that this may have been a corttributing fact0r,
to fatigue in the marsnauts, that may in turn have blunted
Hansard's ordinary good judgment about going outside
the ship while radiation was still high. In addition, it may
be remembered, when word of his accident first came we
went on record--not publicly, of course--as feeling that
the expedition to Mars should continue in spite of the
state of his health."

"Yes. I see," said Ambedkar thoughtfully. "Ordinarily
something like that might easily be forgotten. However,
with this emotional reaction the question is bound to arise,
with regard to Colonel Hansard, of 'what went wrong?'
And, of course, the next question after that must neces.
sarily be 'whose fault was it'?' I'm not suggesting that these
questions can't be properly answered, of course. It's merely
that in the process of answering them, control over another
attempt at the Expedition may slip out of governmental
hands into those of the popular press. Particularly since the
public desire to see the Expedition completed still remains."

"Outweighed, now," Verigin replied, "by a more sensible
perception of the situation on the part of us who are
close to the matter. My government feels strongly now
that for humanitarian reasons, as well as for the reason
that more damage may have been sustained by the spacecraft
than we know, that this attempt at the Expedition
should be ended and another attempt be very seriously
investigated before it isconsidered As you point out, there
will be a good deal of public attention to the matter to
begin with; and this will necessitate finding answers to those
questions you raise--particularly the matter of discovering
who was responsible--"
He broke off and eyed Ambedkar keenly. Ambedkar
nodded slightly.

"If this can be done expeditious/y," Verigin said, "it
may well be that much of what was originally envisioned


270

in the way of focusing public, and newspaper, attention
off-Earth, may still be won from this same present public
attitude during the months that follow the return of the
marsnauts, the healthy ones in particular. Of course, this
abort of the Expedition will merely be until a.new expedition
can be tried."

Ambedkar frowned across the table at his lunch partner.
"You don't seriously think..."

"Oh, of course not!" Verigin drank from his snifter glass.
"Such a concentration of political and public attention as
was required to produce effort one isn't likely to occur again
for a number of years, at least. It took a great deal of luck
just to make it conceivable in the first place. But if we can
make good use out of the canceling of this one, we may
in the long run be further ahead. After all; the important
areas of space are those just beyond our own atmosphere.
As long as we have room for our working--and other--
satellites, what do we need with more planets? We're wiser
than earlier generations, Ahri. They couldn't see that the
vacuum outside our atmosphere was valuable for industrial
and other activities which were impossible here on the
surface. But by that same token, we're wise enough--I
mean you, I, and other responsible people--to know when
to stop. The other worlds of this solar system are mere
rocks. It's inconceivable that they could ever have any real
value."

"You reassure me," said Ambedkar. "If my government
had thought that yours was at all serious about making

another expedition--"

"Come now."

"Of course," said Ambedkar. "But to return to this small
matter of the sub rosa activity here that you were talking
about earlier. I'm sure that I, and my government, would
feel that we would be best off disassociated from such a
chain of situations."

"Of course," said Verigin. "On the other hand, one could
say there might be a sort of community responsibility here.
After all, sometimes we can best protect ourselves by
operating within the areas of our own experience, but without
going through a great deal of official machinery. A
word of warning might be in order."


27i

paused.

"Unfortunately/' said Verigin, "our younger riend, ',
cause of the present international situation, may haw
certain distrust of my advice. It would be more effect
coming from someone else--someone without a ge0grap

cal border in common, so to speak."

"Hmm," said Ambedkar.

"The alternative," went on Verigin, "would be to,
nothing. In which case things might take any one of seve
natural courses."

"Yes," said Ambedkar, "we return to the golden 'n
that the preferable situation is one in which nothing at
happens."

"Exactly," said Verigin.

"Yes. Well, I shall certainly have to give the matter son
thought," said Ambedkar.

Their driver came and they returned to the hotel, whe
they parted, each to his own suite. Stepping back into tt
sitting room of his suite, Verigin found himself sudden
,veary. Things were no longer as easy for him as they h
been. He dropped into an overstuffed chair in the emp
suite and simply sat there, gazing at 'the walls around hit

In a little while, he told himself, he would get up ar
go in and take a nap before dinner; but right now he d
not feel he had the energy even for that. He sat, 1
thought, like a run-down battery waiting to be recharge
and his mind drifted off aimlessly in a number of directio

He became conscious after a bit that he was aga
thinking of the dogs--all of the dogs he had had over tl
years. After each one died there would be a period,
silent internal mourning; and he would be resolved new
to have another one. Then one day would rid him walkil
through the Bird Market in Moscow, and looking on,
more.-That particular flea market for pets was always fi
of dogs. Dogs of all sizes, all Shapes, all varieties. In tim
a puppy face would catch and hold him; he would stop
look, watch the small wriggling body, hear the faint squeal
puppy-barks and feel his fingers licked by a small pi
tongue; and it would begin again.

272


His thoughts came back to Chupchik, and to his wife.
He had tried not to sound triumphant in the letter he had
written, Elena Markovna. If he sounded too triumphant
over the fact that Chupchik could be brought back to
health, it might give that woman some ideas. She had been
maintaining for some time now that the only thing to do

with Chupchik was to have him killed.

Chupchik . . .

Verlgin became aware that his left arm was dangling over
the left armrest of the chair, his hand touching thin air. But
he could almost feel that his fingers touched the crisp fur
on the head of a ghost, the ghost of a small white dog.

"Chupchik," he murmured, his fingertips stroking the
gl,.ost head.

His thoughts wandered again. It was a bad place'and a
bad time. The younger people were always to be distrusted.
If Elena Markovna had only been a real wife to him all
these years, things might have been different. He had never
really wanted to lose himself in his work. lie had wanted
to be an ordinary husband, an ordinary father along with
being a good worker and a successful man. A man needed
three things in order to be whole. He needed work, wife
and children. Of those three, he had the work, but his
children had been kept away from him by her almost
from the time they had been born; and she had kept herself
at arm's length. Consequently, where most men had
three, he had had only one . . . and Chupchik. Chupchik,
and the other dogs before Chupchik.

Of course, it had made him good at his work. There was
no one here who in any way compared to him--well, perhaps
Sir Geoffrey. But the English were limited by nature
andtraining. There was no real comparison. Not that that
meant that it would ever be wise to ignore Sir Geoffrey.
It was now clear that Sir Geoffrey's guarded hint to that
idiot of a Guenther three weeks ago showed that he had
had an inkling that Guenther was fooling around with private
and personal spies long before Verigin himself had
been aware of it. The incredible imbecility of someone lik
Guenther playing around at amateur espionage in a situation
where there was nothing at all to be gained by such
nonsense... I


273

But Ahri waS reliable. There was no fear he would not
speak to Guenther. It would be all right ....

Half thinking, half dreaming, Verigin fell asleep in tei
chair where he sat.


Meanwhile, Ambedkar, who had gone to his own suite,
and sat for some little while thinking, was turning to te
table beside him to punch out a call on his phone to
Guenther's suite.

"May I drop in on you?" he asked in English, when he
got the Pan-European Deputy Minister in communication.

"By all means. Come ahead!" Guenther's face was enef.
getic and cheerful on the screen.

Ambedkar left his' own suite and went down the hall to
tap on the door to Guenther's. The door was opened b},
Berthold. Guenther himself was seated at a desk with some
papers piled in front of him, but he got to his feet at the
sight of Ambedkar.

"Reports. Reports..." he said in French, waving at t!a¢
desk, and walked over to greet Ambedkar. "What might I
offer you?"

"Nothing, thank you," said Ambedkar, still in English
"Well, I'll have a beer!" Guenther humored his guest by
moving to English also. He nodded at Berthold, who went
out of the room. "Now tell me. What's the interesting news
of the moment?"

The beer was brought in a tall, ample glass, and Guen.
ther drank thirstily from it.

"Sergei and I have just been having lunch at the Three
Anchors Inn," said Ambedkar. "Do you know it at all?"

"I don't think so," said Guenther. "Let me see . . . no,
I've never been there; but it seems to me someone mentioned
it."

"It's about twenty miles from here. A place overlooking

a river. The seafood is excellent," said Ambedkar.

"So you had a good lunch?"

"A fine lunch," Ambedkar said. "Of course, Sergei is an
enjoyable lunch companion."

"Indee,. Indeed!" said Guenther, nodding.

"In our occupation, as you know," said Ambedkar, "it*s
always difficult to maintain acquaintanceships. We're all

274


t the beck and call of our governments. But I must say
that over the years I have come to have a very high regard
for Sergei."

"Yes, I too," said Guenther, "he knows his way around.
No wonder he's lasted all these years."

"Experience, of course," said Ambedkar, in his precise,
almost-rhythmic English, "is very certainly the key to
everything. Naturally, we all have to think of our own jobs
and our own governments. Nonetheless, I've found it pays
to keep an ear open to people like Sergei who may sometimes
have the advantage of a slightly different slant on
the overall picture than I have myself."

"Yes," said Guenther. He sat, almost sprawled in his
overstuffed chair, the still half-full glass of beer resting
easily in one square hand. But his eyes had fastened on
the face of Ambedkar. "An outside view to compare with
is always damned valuable."

"Just the way I feel myself," said Ambedkar. "Which
is why I thought I'd drop by and chat with you. Sergei
seems disturbed about something--a minor thing, but perhaps
you might be able to shed a littIe more light on it
from your own point of view."

"Of course. Of course!" said Guenther. "We all have to
help each other. Any way I can be useful..."

"It has to do with this distressing rumor that the press

may be picking up."

"Rumor?"

"I assumed you had heard it," said Ambedkar. "I'm
referring of course to this idea that some amateur surveillance
has been going on in connection with our presence
here."

"Oh, that?" said Guenther, thoughtfully. "Yes... come
to think of it, I think I remember hearing something about
it."

"Rumors like this are always around," Ambedkar said
omfortably. "Whenever the representatives of more than
on government begin to associate on any particularly
important occasion. Or even without that much of an
excuse. Of course, in this instance we have the Duchess--
I assume you know about her--on the scene as well."

"Yes," said Guenther. "I've heard about her."

a"At any rate," said Ambedkar, linking his fingers to.
gether before him, "it's the sort of thing we might have paid

little attention to, but Sergei told me at lunch that he begins
to get the impression that the press may have heard f it,

and are ,trying to track it down."

Oh. Guenther was watching him closely again. "Just
what exactly did Sergei say?"

"I'm afraid I can't remember exactly." Ahri unlocked
his fingers and waved one hand gracefully. "In fact, my
memory isn't quite what it used to be. I may not be reporting
it exactly as the subject came up. But I do remember
him saying something about the fact that something
like this could be a concern to us all. You will recall how
we all acted for our governments in negotiating an increased
experiment load for the Expedition; and the press has
been getting the notion that this experiment load may have
been a factor in causing Tad Hansard to be overtired at the
time of the flare, so that in a way our position may have
been partially responsible for his accident."

"No," said Guenther. "I hadn't heard that."

"Well, now," said Ambedkar. "There is probably nothing
to it, of course. Sergei's point, however, was that possibly
we should all keep a weather eye on the sitnaion. There's
no telling where things will stop once the press finds something,
or believes it has found something; and of course the
business of Hansard receiving a possibly fatal dose of radia.
tion is a highly emotional topic with which the press is
likely to have a heyday for some time yet."

"Very true," said Guenther slowly. "But I'm most interested
in why Sergei thinks the press may have concluded
that there's some kind of surveillance going on. You're
sure he wasn't more specific?" '

"Oh, I hardly think he could be," said Ambedkar. "Undoubtedly
he was speaking on the basis of something that
just happened to come to his ear casually. But an old hand
like Sergei tends to notice such things; and, as I say, I find
myself that it pays to listen to him. After all, if you put
talk of foreign spying together with the fact that an
American was the one irradiated, particularly when the
report is in an American newspaper . . ."

"I'm sure you and he are both right," said Guenther. "I

276


feel inadequate, though. I wish I could be more help to
you. The,truth of the matter is I haven't heard any such
thi,ng mysel'f."

"Well, well," Ambedkar got to his fet. "It may be I'm
concerning myself unduly. In fact, if my memory isn't
tricking me--it really isn't too reliable these days--I think
I remember Sergei saying something about how all of us
here, with the exception of young Wylie, of course, would
be entirely competent to take proper steps in dealing with
such a situation if it ever should arise."

"I'm sure of that." Guenther was on his feet too. He set
the half-empty beer glass, from which he had not drunk
during the last few minutes at all, carefully down on the
coffee table. "If I were you I wouldn't worry. You also
might suggest to Sergei that I think there's nothing to
worry about. In fact, it seems to me I remember now
hearing that whatever may have been going on has since
been stopped and everything to do with it cleared away."

"That would be a great relief, if we could depend on it,"
said Ambedkar. "Particularly if all loose ends are tucked
away. Reporters are perfect demons for running down any
untidinesses. For example, it's almost impossible to hide
a person from them, nowadays, as you know."

"A person?" Guenther asked.

"Why, yes." Ambedkar wandered toward the door and
Guenther followed him. "People have a tendency to talk,
when found. A distressing tendency. And, as Sergei and I
were agreeing, the. press is expert at finding such."

"Of course. But I really can't conceive of anything like
that happening," said Guenther.

"It does sound inconceivable, doesn't it?" said Ambedkar.
"One would just like to be sure, that's all."

"Of course," said Guenther, opening the door for him.
"But as I say, personally, I'm not the least bit worried."

"Excellent." Ambedkar smiled at him. "Good afternoon.
We'll see you this evening at this Cocoa Beach affair?"

"I've been looking forward to it all day," Guenther said.
"Outside of the reports, there's been nothing else on my
mind ."

"Well, then," said Ambedkar and went off.

Guenther closed the door behind him and turned back

277


into the room. He walked slowly to the center of

stopped and stood thinking for a second. Then he lifted
.:his head and raised his voice, reverting to German.

"Dragons!" he .snarled. "Bedamned dragons! Berth01d,
get in here!"


29


Willy Fessr sat in an armchair in his room at the Bell
Tower Hotel, where he was registered under the name of
Robert K. Larsen. He was thinking. In his lap lay an unmarked
white envelope containing a sheaf of ten-dollar
bills--Jim Brille's weekly pay, which Willy would be taking
to the locker in the bus station shortly.

Willy was letting the present, overall situation run
through his mind. A number of small things had been
niggling at him lately; the general atmosphere, now that
trouble had turned up with the Mars Expedition, the fact
that Walther Guenther and that Berthold assistant of his
had turned out to be more amateur than even he had
guessed, and, just recently, the information that some
pickup truck had been following everybody leaving the
Duchess's place.

Willy could not remember being followed; but--and he
blamed himself for it-:-he had really not been paying
proper attention. But then who would have expected such
a daylight idiocy as someone tailing any of those who
headquartered themselves on the Duchess? To begin with,
there was no need to tail anyone like himself--since he
would not be involved in anything important, anyway--
and in the second place, who would be interested in doing
so?

Unless, he thought now, there was something going on
that he did not know about, so that somehow this Wylie


278 .

business he was into tied into something bigger, something
thoroughly professional?

Willy shivered a little at the thought. He wanted nothing
to do with the professionals of the established agencies.
They could get very real and very brutal with their wet
work and their executive actions. If there was something
going on that might involve that side of the business, it
was high time he was disconnected and safely elsewhere.

On the other hand, the Pan-European was paying him
eighteen hundred a week, and his only .costs were his
personal expenses, the regular small tab to the Duchess,
and what he paid Jim. Discretion was always the better
part of valor, but killing the goose that laid the golden
eggs at the first ambiguous hint of danger was not the way
to make a living in this line of work--

His phone rang.

Without moving his body as a whole, he reached out
one arm to press the sound-on stud. The viewscreen did
not light up, so whoever was at the other end of the connection
was also not interested in face-to-face conversation;
but a voice he recognized came from the unit. Is was
Berthold calling.

"Overseer Employment?" Berthold's voice was thinned
by the electronic connection so that it sounded more
English than Germanic.

I "Yes," said Willy.

"This is Ace Architects. We're going out of business,

so we won't be needing any more help supplied by you.
As of now, that groundsman you sent us is discharged.
He's no more concern of ours, but in view of the state of
his health, you might want to see that he takes a long trip.
We assume you or he will want to pick up his equipment
without any delay. Undoubtedly, you'll be traveling,
yourself, so---"

Willy picked up the envelope and took out the packet of
ten-dollar bills, which he transferred to the money-thick
wallet in the inside breast pocket of his own suitcoat. Then,
with the phone still talking behind him, he got to his feet,
went across the room and out the door of his room into
the hotel corridor.

He took the elevator down to the lobby, nodded briefly

279


to the desk clerk, who smiled at him as he passed, and
went out the front door. There were a couple of cabs

waiting there, and he got in the first one.

"Airport," he said. "Orlando."

He sat back as the cab pulled away from the hotel,
feeling a twinge of regret for his gray tweed sportcoat, still
hanging in the closet of his hotel room upstairs. But experience
had taught him to make such departures as these
without giving any sign that he was leaving. The most
compact luggage in the world was a well-filled wallet; and
the best use of time was always the putting of distance
between oneself and one's former employer before that'
former employer realized one was gone.

Or one's employees discovered one was gone.


Berthold let himself back into Guenther's suite with his
own key and closed the door behind him. He found Guenther
sitting in a chair, staring hard at him.

"Well?" demanded Guenther.

"I got the security man at the Bell Tower Inn to let me
in," said Berthold. "I didn't tell him who I was. I merely
gave him a little money, and told him I was worried about
my friend. Fesser wasn't there when we stepped inside.
His clothes were, though."

"His clothes?" Guenther got to his feet and began to
walk angrily back and forth across the room. "You think
he's still around, then?"

"It's possible, sir," said Berthold, watching him.

"No. He's not a fool. He simply left without taking anything
with him," said Guenther. "Was there any other sign?"

"His phone was still turned on. The channel was. open,"
said Berthold. "I made my excuses to the security man and
came back here."

"He's taken off all right," said Gtenther, savagely.
"Where does that leave us? What's the name of that man
he had working for him?"

"I can look that up if you want, sir," said Berthold, "but
it's probably not the correct name."

"No." Guenther stopped his pacing. "But if Fesser took
off without telling us, it's certain he didn't take time to
clean his man and that equipment out of that hotel room.-,
It's just sitting there waiting to be found."


280

"Sir," said Berthold, "I could go over, possibly pick the
lock, and clean the room out myself."

"Dor't be a God damned fool!" said Guenther. "If you
were found anywhere near that room, with what it has in
it, and with your position on my staff, where do you think
I'd be? Besides, the room's only pat of it. If that spy of
his doesn't hear from Willy, he may keep right on working;
and I as good as told Ambedkar the whole business would
be shut down!"

',The spy knows nothing about you, sir," Berthold said.
"That's something, at least," Guenther said, continuing to
pace. "But he's got to stop, or be stopped. Damn it to hell!
I should have known using that Fesser was too risky to be
worthwhile! What in Christ's name can we do?"

"Well, sir," said Berthold, "we can always alert Security
ourselves'."

Guenther stopped pacing abruptly and looked at the
younger man.


The phone on Albert Gervais's desk rang. He looked up

from the report he was filling out and took off his reading
glasses, laying them on the desk before him. He turned to
the phone and punched it on. No face appeared on the
screen, but a voice spoke.

"Is this the Security Office?"

"That's right," Gervais said. "Who's calling?"

"You might want to take a look in room fourteen
twenty-two," the voice said, and the hum of a disconnected
line came from the unit's receiver.

Gervais punched off thoughtfully. The voice had had an
English accent with some other European accent underlying
itkpossibly an Austrian one. He was almost willing
to bet he had heard it somewhere before. He sat for a
moment thinking, then picked up his glasses, took the ease

	them from the inside of his coat, put the glasses care
for

fully
in the case, and tucked it back in his inside jacket

pocket. He got to his feet.

"I'll be right back down," he said to Kilmartin Brawley,

who was working at another desk across the room from

his.

He went out across the lobby, and took the elevator up to
room I422. He tapped with his knuckle on the door and


28I

waited; but there was no answer. He reached into his
pocket for a passkey, unlocked the door, and let himself in.

It was an ordinary room, with some clothes in the closet,
a suitcase on the stand in the corner, and a tangle of equipment
on the table next to the window. He closed the door
behind him, walked quietly across the room and carefully
examined the equipment without touching any of it. A
slow, powerful feeling of triumph and satisfaction kindled
and began to grow in him. After a moment he nodded to
himself, turned around and went out again, carefully latch.
ing the door behind him.

He went upstairs to his own room, let himself in and
opened the drawer of the desk there. The souvenir paper
knife he had put there some days ago still lay there. He
picked it up and put it in the inside pocket of his jacket
next to the glasses in their case. Then he went back down
to the registration desk in the lobby.

"Who's in room I4227" he asked the short swarthy
young desk clerk on duty. The desk clerk turned to look
at the display board on the back of the pillar beside him,

hidden from where Albert stood.

"Wilson Stang."

"Know what he looks like?" Gervais asked. '

The clerk frowned, "I think so .... " he said slowly. "Sort
of a salesman type. Late thirties, early forties, kind of
heavy, about as tall as you are."

"Color hair?" Gervais prodded gently.
"Brown . . . I think," said the clerk.
"Mustache? Beard? Wears glasses?"

"No, no beard or mustache. And I don't think he wears
glasses."

"How long are you on duty here?" Gervais asked.
"Until seven."

"Let me know then, if you see him come in," said
Gervais. "Try to hold him here, if you can, while you get
word to me he's here. I'll be across in the office there;
and if I'm not there, there'll be somebody there who knows
how to find me."

"Sure," said the desk clerk.

Gervais looked closely at him.

"I mean that," he said softly. "The second he comes in,
I want to know."


::

"Yes, sir," said the desk clerk. "Yes, sir." <


The fried shrimp were very large and crisp. They seemed
to break apart at the touch of a fork.

"Hey, these are good!" Jim Brille said.

"Billy's brother fishes them," Aletha said. "He catches
for a number of eating places, but particularly for the
Three Anchors, that place on the river outaways. You
know it?"

"Yes," said Jim.

"Anyway, the Three Anchors is supposed to get the best,
but Billy's cousin rakes over their load so that the best of
the best comes here."

Jim chuckled. He and Aletha were seated on stiff,
straw-bottomed wood chairs in a roadside restaurant so
small that probably it could not have held more than thirty
people at the most. A tiny, white-painted bar filled one
corner.

\ "It pays to know your way around," he said.

"That's right," said Aletha. "I've been here all my life
and I ought to. What did you think of Jake's Place?"

Aletha had been having some new points and a new condenser
put into the motor of her car; and they had stopped
to check it, on the way out to an early dinner, before she
was due to go on night duty at the bar. The car was being.
repaired at Jake's Place, a three-pump filling station with
a small grocery store tacked onto one end of it, sitting on
the corner between the highway and a side road. Jake
himself, a slow-moving, stocky man in his early fifties, had
struck Jim as knowing his way around car motors. The
station was clattered but everything was where it could
be found. The little grocery store tacked on to it, on the
other hand, looked fly-blown, run-down and dusty. It was
apparently leased by Jake to a young couple who did not
know much about running it.

"I like Jake," Jim said. "Those kids he's got in the store
are trying to run it with one hand tied behind their back,
though."

"That's what he thinks," said Aletha. "He's had a
number of people running it, and he's getting tired of it.
Matter of fact, he's get.ting a little tired of working on cars,
too. He just inherited some money from a brother and he


283

wants to buy himself a place on a river, back outaways,

and .iust sit around from now on."

"Oh?" said Jim.

"Yes,',' Aletha said. "So all of the place he's got now is
for sale. '

Jim heard the words with a sort of slow, sad-happy
twisting of his guts. He had been expecting something like
this. He had never liked such moments; but this one in
particular, he had found himself both looking forward to
and dreading, out of all proportion to anything he had felt

in such situations before.

"Sure," he said.

"No, I mean it," Aletha looked squarely at him. "That's
a good-sized little lot there. For it and the filling station
and everything else he's got on it Jake figures he'd need
around thirty-two thousand. That means something like ten
thousand down with a mortgage."

"Mortgages come from banks," said Jim Brille.

"I know that," said Aletha. "And I can get one. Also,
I've got enough equity in my house now to raise the down
payment."
"You figuring on hiring me for a mechanic?" Jim
grinned.

"You know damn good and well what I'm saying,"
Aletha told him. "I want you to stay here permanently."

He reached across the table and touched her wrist with
the ends of his fingers.

"Don't be stupid," he said ....

"I'm not stupid," Aletha said. "I'm sharp. I know a good
thing when I see it."

"Look," said Jim. "What do I know about running
mama-and-papa store?"

"It wouldn't be a mama-and-papa store," said Aletha.
"You told me you could make a, living fixing TVs if you
wanted to. There's always TVs that need fixing. I saw what
you did with my set. Run a TV repair shop out of the
store front, and the filling station would pay the mortgage.
I could still hold onto my job and help out around the
place."

Jim shook his head.

284


"Leeth," he said. "If I had it in me to settle down, I'd
have settled down before this."

"Ne you wouldn't," said Aletha. "You wouldn't because
you weren't ready. You've been a kid, still kicking around,
wanting a high old night, every night. Now you're ready to
settle down; and I want to see you settled down. I don't
know what it is you've been doing here, but whatever it is,
it isn't something that's good for you. You really want to

get out of it; and this is the way you can."

Jim shook his head.

"It wouldn't work," he said.

"You think about it," said Aletha.

"It wouldn't work," said Jim again.

"Eat your shrimp before they get cold," said Aietha.
They talked about other things through the rest of the meal
and then Jim drove her to the Holiday Inn and let her off
outside.

"Now you think about that," said Aletha, as she got out
of the car.


She closed the door and he watched her go. As she
approached the door leading directly from outside to the
bar, it swung open, and was held for her by a tall, darkhaired
man in his thirties. Jim squinted at the man. It
looked like that Malcolm character she had been talking
about, the one who'd been bugging her, off and on now,
ever since before the launch. He was down here to buy a
house because he was being transferred into the area.

As Aletha disappeared into the rectangle of inner darkness,
the Malcolm figure turned, looked out at Jim's car
and hesitated, still holding open the street door to the
cocktail lounge,

Well, thought Jim, if you've got something to say to me,
come on out here and say it.

The other man, however, continued merely to stand
where he was, staring.

Maybe I should get out, Jim thought. He opened the
door and emerged, standing up on his side of the car and
looking back over its low roof directly at the man in the
doorway.. The other turned and went hastily into the
lounge, closing the door behirl him. Jim shrugged and got

back behind the wheel. Aletha could take care of herself
with anyone like that. As long as he was here, it would
be a good time to check the equipment in the hotel room
and put in some fresh tape units.

He put the car in gear, intending to drive around to the
back of the hotel and park, then changed his mind. His
money should be down in the bus-station locker by now.
The thought of Jake's place was still sticking in his head.
The possibility of settling down both enticed and appalled
him. He had become-almost superstitious about ceasing to
be on the move; but somebody like Aletha was not easy
to find and he was ready to quit traveling.

He put the car in gear and turned it to make the drive
down to the- bus station.


Malcolm followed the manager down a ground-floor
corridor of the hotel. He had a warm, good feeling within
him about what he had finally decided to do. He was not
the sort, he told himself, to complain without reason. In
fact, he had endured a good deal from this drifter who had
been hanging around Aletha. All other considerations
aside, society worked on the basis that those who were
important in it deserved something more than those who
were merely parasites upon it. After all, here he was, a
responsible family and professional man, certainly deserving
of a little relaxation, and here was this worthless flyby-night
whom a quiet word or two would remove ....

Once the drifter was out of the way, there was no doubt
that Aletha should turn to him without too much trouble.
He had had his successes that way before. If he had one
virtue, he told himself, following the manager, it was that
he knew the value of persistence with women like Aletha.
After a while, you simply wore them down. They gave up.
In essence, they knew that they were in no position to
control their lives, and when someone with a strong hand
came along and took charge, eventually they simply gave


The manager stopped at the door of a function room,
turned, opened it, and held it open for Malcolm. Malcolm
followed him in, and found the room had been turned into


286

an office with a number of desks and various pieces of office
equipment.

The onlyperson already in the room was a slim, middleaged
black man with an authoritarian, aristocratic look that
was not at all diluted by the fact that he was wearing
half-lens spectacles. He looked up from one of the desks
as Malcolm and the day manager came in.

"This is the gentleman I just called you about," the day
manager said. I'll leave him with you."

He went back out. Malcolm stepped to the desk and
looked down at the man behind it.

"Are you the hotel detective?" he asked.

"Security is my job," said Gervais. "You were complaining
about Mr. Stang?"

"Is that his name?" asked Malcolm. "I thought he might

have a roo here, but I didn't know his name. It is Stang?"
'What was the nature of your complaint?" Gervais said.
"Well, I'm not complaining personally," Malcolm said.
He looked around the room. "I'm in the hotel business
myself, but I've never seen a security setup this size before.
I suppose you're something special set up because of the
VIPs here for the Mars business?"

"If you'd rather not give me your complaint in person,"
Gervais said, "you can write a letter to the management of
the hotel."

"No . . . no, it's not that important," Malcolm said. "I
mean, I just think something should be done about it.
Being in the hotel business myself, I probably pay more
attention to the problems of the employees than the average
person does, and I thought someone ought to be told about

this Stang. That's all."

Gervais waited.

"Well, it's just that you might want to know he's been
paying a lot of attention to the women working in the
lounge--I mean, the bartenders--particularly the bartenders--and
the waitresses and such. Of course, there's
always a certain amount of that going on, but sometimes
it goes past the bounds of good taste; and most managements
I've been with have appreciated knowing about such
things before they can get out of hand. I just thought I'd
say a word to you quietly. I don't want to get involved,

87


myself; but now that I've told you what's going on, you
can suit yourself about whether you might want to look
into it yourselves .... "

He let the sentence trail off.

"That's it thenT" Gervais said. "That's what you wanted
to tell us?"

"Well, yes. That's essentially it."

"I see." Gervais picked up a sharp' plain, wooden pencil
from the desk and made a brief scribble on a notepad,
which Malcolm, looking at it upside down, was not able to
decipher. "Thank you."

"Not at all." Malcolm lingered. "You are going to do
something about it, though? I should think--"

n

"Do you know anything about this man, persO ally.

Gervais asked, still holding the pencil. "Where he works--
if he has family nearby?"

"Oh, I don't think he's got any family," Malcolm said
quickly. "I mean... I got the impression from one of the
bartender ladies that he's just one of those salesmen types
who move around all the time. I think she said he's out
work and looking for a job right now . . . I believe one
of the other girls that work in the bar said something about
that. And he's around at all hours. I don't see how
could do that if he ha a regular job."

Gervais made anothdr minuscule note.

"Yes," he said. "Very good. You've been very helpful."
He looked up at Malcolm.
"Thank you," he said again.

"As I told you, not at all." Malcolm felt a twinge of
annoyance. "You did say you were going to do something
about hm?

Gervais smiled, momentarily, and--it seemed to Malcolm--a
trifle coldly.

"We'll look into it."

"Yes. Well, I . . ." Malcolm shifted his weight from one
foot to another. He began to feel slightly foolish, slightly
schoolboyish, standing talking to this man who remained

seated behind his desk. "All right, then. Good-by."
"Good day," said Gervais.

Malcolm turned and walked out, an undefined resentment
beginning to seethe and burn inside him. He could at


288

least have stood up to thank me, Malcolm told himself, as

he let the door to the room swing close behind him. He

headed back toward the lounge.
	•


Driving down to the bus station, Jim let his mind play

Lwith the possibilities. If this nonsense business of bugging
the.room that Willy had him doing would keep up another

week or two, he would have some cash in hand, himself.
He already had eighteen hundred from the weeks past,
since he had spent almost nothing,'staying out at Aletha's.
Twenty-five hundred, even three thousand would not bring
him into what Aletha was suggesting, the way he should
come in--as an equal partner; but at least he would be

putting up enough to be useful and it would give him a

leg for his self-respect to stand on.

	He drove on, thinking, playing games with what he would

do to Jake's Place if he actually took it over. Aletha was
not wrong. The filling station could pay for itself, and
then some. Jim was not the world's greatest auto mechanic;
but he liked working at anything with his hands and he
knew enough about engines to handle whatever might come
in. Whatever the place was equipped to handle, that is.
If something too big did come in, he could simply tell
whoever brought it that there was no way to take care of
it without more equipment than he had. As for the TV
end of it, that would be a snap. Six or seven hundred
dollars would buy him all the tools he needed for the kind
of thing he would be doing with that, and he had worked
at something like that once before. He knew that he could
hang onto most of the customers he got, and pick up new
ones as fast as they might come in through the front door.
Aletha was right; the thing would work--from the financial
end, at least. Reaching the bus station, he parked and went
inside to the locker. He tried his key in it and the door
swung open.

	The locker was empty.

	Jim frowned. The locker was in the top row, just above

his own eye level. He reached up and felt around inside it;
but his fingers found nothing. There should have been a
white business.size envelope filled with ten-dollar bills. It
was the first time Willy had goofed up a payday.


			289

	F.C.--K
	• .

Thoughtfully, Jim closed the locker once more and ,went


over to the rack of phones along one wall of the station.

He punched out the phone number of the Duchess, and

waited. The phone rang at the other end, and a young,

dark-skinned male face formed on the. screen.

	"Duchess Stensla's," said the face.
	:ii:

,, "Could I speak to Willy Fesser?" Jim asked.

. "Moment, sir," said the face and disappeared from the

screen. Th face was gone more than one minute. Jim

whistled silently to himself between his teeth as he waited;

and finally the face came back.

"He not here," it said.

"Can I leave a message for him to call me?" Jim asked.

"With pleasure."

Jim gave the number of the pay phone he was at, punched

off, sat back and. waited.

Nothing happened during ten minutes. Jim got up at

the end of that time and went over to a coffee machine

to buy some coffee. He came back with the hot, full plastic

cup and sat down again. From time to time someone

passing by glanced curiously at the man sitting there with

an inoperative phone, but no one stopped or commented.


3O


Jim waited forty minutes before giving up. Among Willy's
few virtues was the business virtue of responding to such
calls immediately after he was told about them. Something
had undoubtedly come up. In which case Willy would be
getting in touch with Jim at the motel sooner or later.

Meanwhile, Jim thought, he might as well go back and
put some new tape units in the equipment. He went back
out to his car and drove at a moderate pace back to the


290 , '::

Holiday Inn. When he got there he parked behind it,
reached for the door handle to get out, and then stopped,
takinghis hand away again.

There was a touch of uneasiness inside him. Nothing
great, but it was there. It was not like Willy. to goof up a
payday. It was not like Willy to be so far from the phone
and from whatever message service he had set up that he
would not be answering a call within half an hour at the
outside.

Yet there had been no indication of any kind of trouble.
Jim sat a moment longer, then made up his mind. lie
got out of the car, went around and unlocked its trunk.
There was some newspaper there, wrapped around an
object about three feet long. He unwrapped the newspaper
and took it out. It was a crowbar, entirely new, still encased
in the brown paper the hardware store had taped
around it, and with the sales slip still inside the wrapping
paper, taped to the black metal.

Jim closed the trunk; and, carrying the still-wrapped
crowbar as if it was a new purchase, he went in through
a back door of the Holiday Inn, down a long, ground-floor
corridor and stepped out of its far end into the lobby. Fie
turned abruptly right to face the elevator and punched the
up button.

"Mr. Stang?" The call came from some little distance
behind his back. Jim stared at the up button. "Mr. Stang!"

Jim turned and saw the clerk from behind the registration
counter coming toward him across the lobby, a piece
of paper in his fingers.

"You're Mr. Stang, aren't you?" The clerk came up to

him, smiling, and handed him a small slip of paper. "This
"phone call came in for you. They said it was important."

"Thanks," said Jim. Almost as an afterthought, he
reached into his pocket, fumbled a dollar bill from his
wallet without taking the wallet out and handed it over tO
the clerk.

"That's all right, sir."

"No. Take it," Jim said.

"Thank you, Mr. Stang," said the clerk. "Did you want
, to call from down here? I can plug,you in from one of
.!he house phones, to the switchboard,.'

"No," said Jim. "I think I know what it is. It's not all

that important. I'll call later."

"Yes, sir."

The room clerk, turned and went" back across the lobby.
The elevator doors had just opened. Jim stepped in and
punched for the I4th floor. After a long second, the doors
closed again and he went up. In the elevator, alone, he
looked at the slip. The phone number and name on it
were unknown to him. The only person outside this hotel
who knew the name of Mr. Stang was Willy; and Willy
would never call for him here, under any name. Jim
crumpled the call slip and dropped it as the elevm0r
stopped at the I4th floor.

He reached room number 1422, unlocked its door and
stepped inside. Within, the air was dead still and nothing
was changed. He went over to the equipment and looked
at it. Yes, the tape units would need replacing. But for
some reason his fingers hesitated to act. He looked out the
window, not exactly sure why he did so. It had been late
afternoon when he had dropped off Aletha. It had been
deep twilight when he had driven back here. Now, with the
suddenness of the day-to-night change that Comes in lands
approaching the equator, it was already the beginning of
starlit evening, with a few tiny points of light incredibly
distant in the as yet imperfectly dark sky. Across the small
open space between him and the tower section of the
motel, the ground was in deep shadow. .

He turned once more to the equipment to change the
tape units; but again his inner feeling stopped him. It did
not feel right--just did not feel right. And there was that
phone call memo, just now.

He took a step back from the table on which everything
stood, turned and walked to the door. Before leaving, he
took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped off the
inner door handle. He opened the door and looked out.
Outside, the corridor was deserted and the air felt almost
as still as it had been in the room. He went out, wiped the
door handle and, using the handkerchief, latched it behind
him again. A sense of urgency was suddenly strong in him.
He did not even turn toward the elevators, but went instead
toward the stairway entrance he had gone through once


292 .

before. He stepped into it now and began quietly to descend
the stairs toward the main floor:

Two flights down, he thought he heard an echo to his
footsteps on the concrete steps. He stopped, but there
was no sound. He started up again, and once more he
thought he heard the echo.

He was now, to all intents and purposes, certain. He
began to go down the stairs more quickly and a little less
quietly, but still without clatter. The echo above him, now
clearly to be distinguished, kept pace with him. His eyes
kept track of the black numerals painted on the stairside
of the doors on each floor he passed. He went by them and
they were left above him in slow descending order . . .


When he reached the number 2 he leaned heavily
on the door on which it was marked and stepped quickly
out onto the soft carpet of the second-floor corridor. It
was deserted. He ran quickly toward the front of the
building to the wide front stairs curving down to the lobby.

He checked his speed once he came to the top of the
stairs and went down them at a more normal pace. The
desk clerk who had come up to him with the call slip
earlier was busy now with a couple of people and did not
see him. He turned from the bottom of the stairs and
stepped almost immediately out through the front entrance
of the hotel, went right and around the corner of it, and
walked rapidly toward the back of the hotel. The paperWrapped
crowbar was still in his hands. He had held to
it instinctively all this time; and he now found it giving
him a feeling of some security, as if it was an old friend--
in spite of the fact that this particular tool was one he
had never carried before.

He was not Consciously thinking, at the moment. Later
he could stop and take time to puzzle out what had gone
wrong. But right now the only thing he was concerned
with was the fact that his car was at the back of the motel
parking lot, and that he must get in it and get away.

The wall of this side of the hotel seemed enormously
long; but he came at last to the end of it, and was about
to plunge across the parking lot when he checked instinctively.
The broad-shouldered young man he had encountered when he had ventured one floor above the fourteenth
floor the first time he had been in the hotel, and
who had politely chased him back into the elevator and
downstairs, stood in the middle of the lot, legs Spread a
little and hands clasped behind his back as if waiting.

Jim looked around. As long as the man was there, his
car was out of reach. To go back toward the front of the
hotel was no good. Undoubtedly by this time there would
be someone waiting for him there, too. That left only one
direction in which he could run, and that was to his left,
across the narrow strip of parking lot there, continuing
on foot until he could get someplace where he could call a
cab, He turned and moved out between two of the cars
parked up against the sidewalk that circled the motel. As
he did, he thought he saw a figure come around the front
corner of the hotel, the same corner he had turned a few
moments before, but he did not wait to see who it might
be. He kept moving, across the open space between the
two rows of parked cars, past the cars in the far column,
and over a concrete wall about four feet high.

He came down the other side in the undergrowth of a
vacant lot. To his left were the backs of a row of small
stores, blocking hi, m off from access to the main street he
wanted to reach. Straight ahead there was an alley leading
into the parking area behind the storefronts.

He waded through the underbrush, made the parking
area and started down the alley. Walking more quietly now
that he was in the open, he heard a thud and then rustling
behind him. Glancing back over his shoulder, he saw a
dark figure just inside the concrete wall, silhouetted by the
lights of the Holiday Inn behind it and running toward him.
He turned and broke into a run once more himself.

The alley was dark and not long. He reached its far end,
saw a lamp-lit block leading left to the brightly lit street
he needed to reach. He stopped. He could hear the pounding
footsteps of the man chasing him, growing rapidly
louder as he stood there. Ahead, there was what seemed
to be a small park, perh-aps a block square in area, studded
with flowerbeds, bushes and small trees. He ran across the
street and into it, feeling the yielding grass and earth suddenly
underfoot. There was a chance he could get away

294


from his pursuers among the growth there and the
shadows; and, once free, he could then finally get to the
bright lights of the main street and find a phone booth
from which to call a cab.

He was winded now. He crossed the street and entered
the park, slipping behind the first lfirge bush he found.
Hidden, he turned and peered through its branches. The
alley mouth he had just left seemed empty and silent. For
a moment hope moved in him that his pursuer had given.
up. Then, a figure took shape in the darkness he watched.
It was the black man who had' been standing by the desk
that first day when Jim had followed the tall girl to the
dining room door, to make it seem as if his interest was
only in her. Now, after all his visits to the motel, Jim
knew who the other was--Albert Gervais, the security
agent about whom Willy had warned him.

In the alley mouth, now, Gervais stopped as Jim had
stopped. He stood still for a moment, looking into the park.
He might, Jim thought, merely be catching his breath, as
Jim had done--but something in lim doubted it. Gervais
was plainly in a lot better physical shape than Jim; and
he was probably five to ten years younger, as well. Iim
faded back into the park.

Farther in the light was less, but Jim!s eyes were adjusting
to the night. The light from the nearest lamp, nearly
half a block away, filtered among the growth and was
reinforced by the more distant glow of two street lamps ,on
the far side of the small park. It occurred to him that he
could start working toward the front of the park as well
as putting distance between himself and Albert Gervais.

He began to move cautiously in that direction, slipping
from bush to tree, and as he did so a memory came to
lighten his tension. He suddenly recalled that when Albert
Gervais had stood at the en.d of the alley he had not seemed
to be carrying any kind of a weapon with him. Of course,
he might well have a handgun out of sight; and, being
who he was, Gervais must also be good with his hands.
But if it was only hands--those against a crowbar were
hardly an even match, particularly with somebody like
Jim who had weight, as well as some muscle for club-using.
More to the point, though, thought Jim, moving quietly


295

through the shadows, was the fact that Gervais's emptyhandedness
could mean that he had no real hope of stopping
or arresting Jim--that maybe all the security man had
hoped for was to get a good look at whoever had been
the Mr. Stang in Room I42-.

Less than thirty yards from the main street end of the
park, Jim paused to look and listen from behind an Australian
pine. But, gazing through the fringe of needles on
the tips of its lower branches, he saw and heard nothing.
He was just about to move toward the lights of the main
street, when there was a sound like a branch breaking--
directly ahead of him, between him and his goal.

Jim froze. All he wanted, he told himself, was to get
away; and this Gervais must know it. But for some strange
reason the other insisted on following him. Now the
security agent was between him and the lighted street that
was his one road to escape.

Then the anger passed. The other was probably just
bucking for a promotion. That would be exactly the way
Jim's usual luck would run. He felt a touch of wry humor.
It was something like this that had always been his problem;
the fact that even in emergencies he could not work
up a good head of steam and hold it for more than a few
seconds. He had been born easygoing, and that fact had
made his life what it was. Now he could not even stay
worked up about the man who was chasing him. Gervais
was between him and the street; that was all there was to it.
There was obviously no point in going on that way; he
would have to keep moving in some other direction.

He turned once more to his right, to the way he had
been traveling ever since he had left the hotel. Ahead of
him through the small stretch of park that remained, and
across a narrow, residential street, was another row of
houses.

To leave the park and cross the street ahead was to
expose himself to Gervais. Possibly he could lose himself
between the farther houses and so get away; but on the
other hand he might just as likely find himself trapped
among backyard fences. He wished the other would get
tired and give up.

To give himself time to think Jim retreated toward the


,

He heard no more sounds from in front of him but an
inner, animal sense left him sure that Gervais was closing
in ,onhim.

Why back off like this? Jim asked himself, Why not just
let him catch up with me and then scare him off? I've got
-the crowbar and he's got nothing. So why not let him
catch up with me? The answer came immediately from the
back of his head. Because then you might have to hurt
him, you damn fool, and that's the last thing you want.
You know that.

He retreated farther, to the shelter of a fairly large bush
whose flowers were invisible in the gloom, but which was
filling the night air with heavy perfume. The gentle, warm,
moist darkness seemed to wrap about him and insist that
what was going on was unreal, could not be real. He
peered quickly in that same darkness. He could not simply
go on backing up like this. He would be at the back edge
of the park in another thirty or forty steps.

He looked once more over at the houses opposite; and
for the first time saw a gap between them, the entrance of
another alley. He had not expected to find anything like
that this far down toward the end of the block. He looked
toward the other row of houses at the bottom of the park.
Here also was the bare street; and beyond it, other back
yards in which he could possibly be trapped. If he waited
here much longer he would have to back up farther and
eventually he would not even have a choice of ways to go.
While he still had a choice he had better try the alley-mouth
opposite.

He bent low, taking advantage of what cover there was,
and ran as softly as possible through the park, across the
asphalt surface of the roadway, past the sidewalk and into
the darkness that was the alley opening. Once safely in its
deep shadow, he stopped and turned, looking out into the
park. He waited. The seconds went by. But there was
neither sound nor movement within the park, no indication
that Gervais was even still there.

Briefly, the thought crossed Jim's mind that he could
wait here for a safe time--four, five minutes or even
longer, possibly even ten minutes--and when there was no


97

sign of movement from the park, simply come out an
walk up the block to the light and escape. There would be
nothing to it, that way; he thought. Then common sense
returned to sober him. It would be the easiest thing in the
world for the man in the park 'to outwait him. Perhaps
Gervais knew where the alley now behind Jim led to?
There was no telling whether he did or not. And even if
he did not know, but still wanted to follow, he would
come after Jim into this farther alley, sooner or later.

On the other hand he might know that this alley led to
a dead end. In which case the reason he was still waiting
out there was for Jim to go into it, and trap himself
certainly. However, if the alley did not lead to a dead
end . . .

There were too many question marks. Jim felt a sudden
weariness of the whole business. He was sick of running--
but not sick enough so that he was ready yet to go out
and challenge Gervais, and put himself in a position where
he would have to use the crowbar. He was only weary
enough so that he did not want to stand puzzling any
longer. If the alley was a trap, it was a trap. He would go
in, and if Gervais came after him, what would happen to
him would be his own fault.

Jim turned and went deeper into the alley.

The light was dimmer there. Only the starlit sky above,
and some house lights, enabled Jim to move without feeling
his way. Once more, his eyes began to adjust, picking


out here a lightness in the darkness, a greyishness that on

closer approach turned out to be a garbage can, or the

white wall of a picket fence. He went on, not hearing any
thing
or anyone behind him. After a while he came out

into an open parking area like that he had crossed at the

rear of the storefronts next to the Holiday Inn.

Here, lighted windows from what looked like a small

apartment building shone down in the clearing with an

illumination like bri, ght moonlight. It was possible to see

clear across the parking lot; and Jim saw his earlier fear

had been correct. This alley came to a dead end, completelwalled-in
by buildings.
	,
	,

	He stopped, turned, and listened.

	He heard nothing and saw no one coming after hi


298

down the alley, But then, from where he stood in the light,
what he could see of the alley now was no more than
an ape/'ture of darkness. Still, a feeling of relief be
to stir inside him. At least, it was finally settled, one way
or another. There was no way out but back. He took a first
step to go back the way he had come, down the alley and
out to the street.

At that moment he saw, or felt, a movement in the alley
darkness.

In that first second it was feeling a much as sight. His
senses merely registered that something was moving out
of the alley into the parking area. Then it stepped clear
into the light and he saw it--saw his pursuer. It was Albert
Gervais; and Gervais, having stepped into the light, stopped
where he stood, still wearing his business suit and looking
calm, almost indifferent.

The feeling of relief was still with Jim. Things had finally
come down to a simple matter of doing, or not doing. He
spread his hands apart on the paper-wrapped crowbar,
holding it pointed horizontally forward before him at belt
level, crook end in advance, right hand near the back end,
left hand three quarters of the length up toward the crook.
He began to walk steadily toward Gervais.

Gervais's right arm moved up from his side. But his
hand did not lift to reach in his coat and come out with a
gun, which was the one thing Jim had really feared. Instead,
it came up as high as his waist, before him, holding
something bright and not more than a few inches long
The bright length projected from his fist, pointed toward
Jim;

Jim stopped. The relief was still with him, but now he
also felt a faint disgust. He had never liked knifefighters,
though he had never really been afraid of them. A knife
had to reach you to do any damage; and with something
like a club or a crowbar there was a reach advantage; and
in this case, he had a weight advantage as well. Besides he
knew how to use a crowbar. You did not swing with it, you
smashed it straight out in a line. No knife was in it with that.

"I don't want to break your arm," he said to Gervais.
"Just let me by."

Gervais stood where he was. The light falling on his face

299


from the apartment 'windows was enough so that Jim could
read its expression clearly, and there was no expression on
it. Gervais was merely waiting.

Again, a sudden sense of all this as being ridiculous, a
sudden urge to break into slightly crazy laughter, swept
through Jim. It had to be insane that this security man
should have chased him all this distance, and now was
seriously proposing to face him with a four-inch knife
blade. It just did not make sense. The only reasonable
explanation had to be that Gervais had not realized he did
not have a gun with him--and, having come this far and
now discovered it, was now trying to bluff Jim out with
some sort of pocket knife. In which case, all that it would
take for Jim to get away clean would be to be firm about
going forward, and using the crowbar if he had to.

Still--something about the immobility of Gervais's face
left a little doubt in Jim about his reasonable adding-up
of the situation. He could still not see any expression but,
watching the other man closely, Jim got the strong impres.
sion of a powerful effort of concentration in the other. At
the same time, the possibility of a government agent seriously
using a knife on a fugitive was so unbelievable that
it trampled down the impression.made by Gervais's face
and manner.

Jim walked forward.

"Just let me by, now," he said, almost soothingly, as if
he was talking to a young child.

But as he got two steps from Gervais, Jim's instincts
shouted a warning. The other man was too still, he was
holding the knife too steadily. There was no one thing
about him--it was all of him that screamed danger.

Reflexively, Jim lunged with the crowbar. He had been
pushing with his right hand and pulling back with his left,
so there was muscle tension behind the sudden flicking out
of the crowba.r's forward end, as his left hand let go of it.
The crook end drove forward in a line that should have
ended under Gervais's chin; but Gervais had flowed backward
one step and aside; and the weight of the crowbar
caused it to drive on with its momentum, wide of its
target.

There was suddenly a cold stink in Jim's nostrils, which
he recognized--not as fear, but as something very close to

300


it. Inside Him, there was the comg now
that the man he faced was here to kill himl But at the
same iime another part of himself, that part of himself that
had never been able to do things right, that had never
taken life seriously enough, could not take .even this seriously.
The alerted part of him raged at the unserious part
of himself, telling it for once to realize that it had to fight
for its life, that it had to want to win. But the unserious
part would not change; and there was no time nowo
change, after a lifetime of.being the way he was.

At full extension of his arm, he jerked the curved end
of the crowbar back to hook and tear Gervais's arm, but
Gervais was already flowing forward, inside the reach of
the bar. The crowbar followed him, but it touched nothing.
It was as if Gervais was made of smoke and the crowbar
could not catch him.'Jim saw the other loom close, almost
body to body, felt something like a light punch just below
his breastbone; and, unexpectedly, the world changed. Without
quite realizing what had happened, he no longer saw
Gervais but only the sky and stars. He was looking
Straight up, not horizontally. He was lying on his back
in the alley with the tall figure of Gervais standing milehigh
over him.

"Why... ?" he said. "Why..."

"Because I need a dead," came the savage whisper from
the figure over him.

The answer made no sense. A feeling of incredulity
flooded Jim for a brief moment; and then even the sky
and the stars faded, into full dark.


31


Tad was not fine. This was the second day now since the
return of the nausea and the general feeling of malaise that
he had felt a little after Bap had changed his blood, when


he had first come back into the ship after being exposed to

the radiation. Also, the drugs had him feeling fuzzy-minded
and unnatural. Now as then, he was determined to hide
the way he felt; only it was hard to tell how well he was
succeeding. The 'nauts had lived together too closely, too
long, to be easily fooled.

Fedya, Tad saw, certainly suspected. And Fedya was a
problem, since he represented what Tad feared most--
that Expedition Control might take command of the
Expedition away from him. From the moment he had
returned inside the ship after being exposed to the solar
storm, he had not forced his authority upon the other
'nauts; and neither Bap nor Anoshi, at least, had challenged
the fact that he still had it.

Fedya, however, as junior co-commander of the Expedition
might just be the one who would chaI!enge that
authority--with the result that Tad might lose it. And he
could not afford to lose it. He trusted none of the others
to take the necessary action with respect to himself, when
the time came; and the time would come soon now. He

turned from Fedya to Anoshi.
"Connected?" he asked.
Anoshi nodded.

"We're tied in by direct line now with the Phoenix Two
LCO," Anoshi said. He glanced at Fedya. "I take it for
granted Phoenix Two had the other end of the wire already
spliced to its LCO?"

"It's spliced in," said Fedya. "Why don't you call Expedition
Control and say we're ready here any time Bill

Ward is ready?"
	:


	"I'll do that," said Tad.

	He turned about and sat down at his control console. It

	was a little strange, after these several days of always going

	to the radio for outside communication, to be punching

	the buttons of the LCO as if the copper mirror outside the

	hull of Phoenix Two was still capable of being aligned

	properly. It almost seemed as if the picture and the voice

	that came in over the wire to-the LCO and mirror of

	Phoenix Two ought to have some noticeably different

	quality. But the image of Ed Ciro's face and the sound of

	his voice that the console produced was the same as it had

	been in past days before the solar storm.

3o2


"Phoenix One and Two calling Expedition Control,"
said Tad into the mike grid. "Do you read me?"

Ed's lips moved on the screen a moment later, and his
Voice answered.
'tRead you perfectly," he said. "You did get a cable
connection between the two craft then?"

"Fedya just did," said Tad. "So now we can shift
supplies between ships without docking." He was about
to say more but a wave of nausea stopped him. I'll . . .
pass you over to Fedya." He got up, stepping away from
the console so that he stood with his face turned away
from the others, waiting for the feeling of sickness to pass.

"Hello, Ed," he heard Fedya saying behind him. "I'm
on Phoenix One. Any time Bill Ward is ready to talk to
us, we're available."

"He'll be with you in a moment, Fedya. He's on the
phone just at the moment--here he comes now."


Bill saw Ed Ciro standing to one side of the Communications
Console in Expedition. Control, and waiting. He
walked over, feeling the weight of his years upon him.
He had lain awake most of the night rehearsing the words
in which he would be speaking to the 'nauts and had
finally fallen asleep about five A.M., his brain spinning
with speeches, none of which was any good. Now he felt
dull and heavy, like a man carrying his own mass in dead
weight--and he still did not know how he would say what
he had to say.

He reached the console and sat down before it.

"Hello, Phoenix One and Two," he said. He looked into
the face of Fedya, with the faces of Tad, Bap and Anoshi
behind him at Phoenix One communications. "Look, we've
gone over the data on both ships that you've been feeding
us during the last few days. As far as we can see, it boils
down to this--"

He glanced down at some papers he was carrying in his
hand; but it was an action of pure reflex. He did not have
to refresh his memory as to what their text told him.

"Both ships," he said into the silence from the screen,
"are operable with some limits. Both have suffered some
damage .to their electronic systems, particularly the con-

303


trol components of their communication systems--as a
result of radiation from the solar storm. Some of the
damage can be repaired by pooling spare parts from both
ships. But among the important systems which can't he
repaired is the LOC of Phoenix One---which means
Phoenix One is now dependent upon a radio or wired link
to Phoenix Two, and only Phoenix Two has LCO with
us here at Control. Also, there's damage to the main engines
of the shuttle module of Phoenix Two, of which only two
out of five will fire. In addition, you don't expect to be able
to repair your attitude controls well enough to redock the
two craft together. Am I right?"

He waited for the little time lag that would precede the
answer.

"Right," said Fedya.

Tad moved forward a little in the screen, almost as if
Fedya's speaking had triggered his recollection that he was
in command of the Expedition. His face, under the illumination
of the screen, looked gaunt and aged. Bill looked
away from him, glancing back down at the papers whose
contents he knew by heart.

"All right," Bill went on" slowly, "it .seems to us that
the possibilities add up like this: There's two practical
choices. One, both craft can continue on the Expedition
together but undocked, coasting to orbit around Mars.
However, with only two main engines on her shuttle
module and other damage, Phoenix Two will not be able
to depart Mars orbit; so at the time of departure, all
personnel will have to shift themselves and necessary
supplies aboard Phoenix One, to return in a single ship."

he had
He paused to give them time to absorb what

just said.

"Go on," said Tad, harshly.

"'Two," continued Bill, "we'll compute retro-fire figures
now, and both ships will fire to an Earth-reinjection orbit,
aborting this attempt at the Expedition and looking forward
to repairing both craft once they're back in Earth parking
orbit and a new window for a second try at the Expedition
can be chosen from available launch dates."

He paused again. There was that momentary pause of
transmission and response time; and then all the figures in

the screen moved slightly.

. ,

304

No," said Fedya.

"Just a minute, Fedya," said Tad. He looked over
Fedya's head, out of the screen, directly at Bill. "You're
saying there's no doubt that the Expedition'll be on again,

once the ships are fixed and ready to go a second time?"
"Of course there's no doubt," said Bill.
"No," said Bap. "Fedya's right."

"I don't think we believe you, Bill," said Tad, grimly.
"All the international business that made this trip possible
isn't going to be something you can turn on again when
you want to. I think we Vote to keep going."

Bill pressed his back against the support of his chair.
"I suppose," he said, making his voice deliberately grim
and harsh. "Very well, here it is, then. There's a lot of
public interest back here in seeing this Expedition completed;
and I didn't need to guess at what you all would
prefer to do. But you've got two crippled vehicles and
one sick crew member. Back here, we have to think in
terms of the whole Expedition, the whole spa6e program,
not just this one try at getting there. Frankly, we'd be
tempted to risk your continuing on toward Mars if it
weren't for two things. One, you've got Tad aboard, and
he needs the kind of medical attention you can't give him
there. Two, you aren't able to redock. We can't risk your
doing without at least some form of substitute gravity for
the length of time yet ahead of you. You've got most of
three years yet to go. So--sorry, gentlemen--but the decision
back here is that the present situation calls for an
abort. So if you'll start making ready at your end, we'll start
here working up the figures for your burn to an injection
orbit that will bring you to rendezvous with Earth in about
thirteen days."

"No," began Bap again. Tad leaned forward over
Fedya's shoulder, interrupting.
"Excuse me, Fedya," he said.

The picture disappeared from the screen. The red. light

=n Bill's console, that signated an interruptiot it communication,
came on.

"What?" said Bill, staring at the console

	was cut
		end," said Ed Ciro.

		their

I know that, damn it! sald, Bdl. What d they do that
for? What's going on out there?"

.




	' 305

"	contact.

	"Shall I signal with the radio that we're out of
	"9',

Ed asked.

"Of course. Of course!" Bill fumed. Ed sat down at
the adjoining console and became busy. Bill stayed where
he was, his mind in a whirl, staring at the 'dead screen
before him. These men were officers in the armed services,
used to following orders whether they approved of them
or not--not only that, but everything coming and going
over the communications link, every word, gesture and

happening on it became a matter of record ....

	The screen lit up again.

"Sorry about the interruption, Bill," Tad said. "I guess
I leaned on the keyboard down there by mistake. Now,
where were we?"

"How soon can you get both ships ready to fire?" asked
Bill, bluntly.

"Well, that's a question," said Tad, thoughtfully. None
Of them, Bill saw, had changed position. Tad was still
standing behind Fedya, who was seated at the console,
but all of them now seemed to be content to let Tad do
the talking. "We've got a problem we haven't brought
you up to date on. Phoenix One is going to have to make it
in small jumps. With everything else that's been happening,
I didn't get it logged, but when I was EVA on duty about a
week and a half ago, I was checking the control leads from
the Expedition module to the shuttle module. I'd gone
in through Hatch Four; and I took the shielding off the
leads for the check. The shielding floated away out the
hatch, and I was so woozy from lack of sleep that I forgot
all about the chance of a solar storm and didn't make a
hard enough try to catch it. So those connections went u
-shielded during the storm. I sneaked down and checked
them yesterday before I was supposed to be up and
around; and while all five engines on the shuttle module
here on Phoenix One still respond to controls, there's just
one deficiency. The steering engine won't lock in positign
during a burn. If we have to burn those engines, that
steering nozzle is going to creep out of proper alignment
and we'll fall off course. That means that the only safe
way to get Phoenix One back to Earth orbit isn't with
one long burn, but with a number of small burns, each one


306

corrected for the creeping of 'the steering nozzle on the
revious burn until a correct velocity and direction can
be built up."

He phused and took a breath.

"You see what it means," he said. "We may need five or
six burns, Expedition Control will have to figure a fresh

for Phoenix One after each burn and give a
corrected figure for the next burn. And the only way that
information for each new burn can reach Phoenix One is
through the LCO on Phoenix Two and then from Phoenix
Two by radio to Phoenix One."

Bill sat motionless in the screen---for a longer time than
the delay in transmission required. When he did speak
again his voice came heavily on their ears, saying only
what was in all their minds.

"Phoenix Two can't fire to an Earth reinjection orbit
with only two shuttle, engines."

"That's right," said Tad. "You'll need one man aboard
her when the. Phoenix One is firing to relay information
from Expedition Control. Me."

Bill's face stared at him from the screen. Behind Tad,
none of the others said anything; but there was a feeling
of negation from them that he could feel like a static discharge
against the short hairs remaining at the back of his
head.

"You're sick," said Bill, after a moment. "You're not
fit---even if we were considering something like that,"

"I'm fit enough," said Tad. "But I'm the most expendable.
[ got a real dose during that storm. But there's more than
that. There's a gamble to it. I'm a real spacecraft pilot--
the only one on board besides Fedya. I can fire those two
shuttle engines into as close to an Earth-injection orbit as
possible. Maybe close enough so that some support shuttles
can come out and find me, in time. Nobody else but
Fedya could make the most of that chance; and you'll
want him in Phoenix One to see that the majority of the
crews get home safe--particularly with that unreliable
steering engine."

Bill still sat, staring out from the screen at them. Finally
he sat forward.

"I can't agree to anything like that," he said.


307

Of course you can't," said Tad. "But go back and talk
it over there at Expedition Control. Then let us know.i
I'mnot worried. There's only one way you can decide;
because you've got an obligation to save as many of the
Expedition crew as you can. So, talk it over and decide.1
Only, don't take too long. I'm in fine shape now, as I say,


He stopped speaking. Bill, however, still stayed where


"Over and out," said Tad.

Bill stirred himself.

"Over and out," he echoed heavily,


"On Phoenix One, the screen went blark. Tad leaned on
the back of the console seat, slumping a little.

"You are a liar," said the voice of Bap, beside him.
"You feel much worse than you pretend, Tad."

"Go to hell," said Tad gently, without turning to face
the other man. For a moment, geared up by his talk with
Bill, he had forgotten how his body felt. But now the feel.
ing of malaise came back on him. He closed his eyes,
letting the sickness run about his body and limbs. "Go
to hell, all of you. It's on the ground that they'll have to
decide; and, as I said, they've got no choice."

"All the same," said Anoshi. "I'm going to check
that steering motor, right now; and see if it's crippled the
way you say."

"Go ahead," said Tad, "you'll find it like I said.
look if you want. It won't make any difference."


The phone rang in the darkness.

For a moment Jens merely lay on his bed listening to it.
He had been dreaming--about what he could not re.
member, some sort of semi-unpleasant dream of strugglin
with some duty in which other people would not cooperat
--and for a moment, still wrapped in the shreds of th
dream, he confused the sound of the phone with th
imaginary situation he had just left.

Then he came fully awake and reached out for the in
strument through the dark, fumbling for the on button
finally finding and punching it. ':


308 :
	,
	:,,

The Sreen sprang to colorful life and the image on it
|resolved it into the face of Bill Ward.

| "Mr. Wylie?" Bill said, squinting on the screen. "Have
|I reached Mr. Wylie? I can't see any image."

I "You've reached me," said Jens, thickly. He struggled
F up on one elbow and punched on the bedside table light.

"There you are," said Bill. "I'm sorry to call you at
four A.M. like this, but something important's come up
with the Expedition and I need your help."

"My help?" Still groggy from slumber, Jens turned the
two words over in his mind, trying to make sense out of
them; but remained baffled. "Me? What can I do?"

"I'm down in the lobby of your hotel," said Bill. "Can
I come up and talk to you? The security guard here says
y0u'll have to talk to him."

"Put him on." Jens yawned. A face he did not recognize
came on the. screen.

"It's all right," Jens told it, "Mr. Ward is personally
known to me. You can believe whatever identification he

showed you. Let him come up, would you please?"

"All right, Mr. Wylie."

The guard's face vanished. The screen went blank. Jens
punched off the phone, got heavily up out of bed and put
on a bathrobe. A few minutes later the doorbell of his
suite chimed.

He went to the door and let in Bill Ward, thanking the
security man who had brought him up.

"What can I do for you?" Jens asked, closing the door.
"I can catl down for coffee. Or maybe you'd rather have a
drink.

"Nothing, thanks," said Bill, seating himself in an armchair
as Jens sat down opposite him. Bill's thick fingers

drummed on the:end table by his chair. "Yes... a drink."
"Coffee for me," said Jens.

He turned to the phone unit on his own chairside table
and punched for room service. A slow voice--another
,security voice, regular room service was long since in

bed itself--answered.

"This is Jens-Wylie," said Jens. "Forgive me for asking
you this, but I've just had an unexpected visitor on an

309


emergency matter. There isn't any coffee ' b e down

there, is there?"

"Yes, sir," said the sectrity voice. I'll get some up to

you right away. I-ow many are there?"

"Just one coffee will do."

"I'11 send up a cup and a pot," said the voice.

that be all? I could probably manage a sandwich---"

"No, thanks. Just coffee. And thanks again. Good-byY.

"Good-by, sir,"

Jens punched off and looked back at Bill.

"I don't understand this," he said. "You said you

needed my help with something about the Expedition..

A sudden fear moved in him. He pushed it from him,

forcing himself up out of his chair and over to the little

bar in the corner Of the sitting room of the suite.

	"Bourbon?" he said. "Soda?"
	'

"Water," he heard Bill Ward say behind him. "I didn't
know who to turn to besides you. I've just been talking to
the 'nauts on the LCO. I had to break the news to them
that we'd decided to abort the Expedition."

"Abort?" Jens's hands stilled on the glass with bourbon
and ice cubes into which he was about to pour water.

"Abort this attempt at it," said Bill, stiffly. "We have to
get the vehicles back, get Tad off and get the damage
repaired. Then, as soon as we can get another date set up,
we'll be going again, naturally."

Jens forced his hands to move. He poured water into the
glass and carried it to Bill Ward, sitting down oppQsite
him. Feeling the other man's eyes, he suddenly read
them an almost abject, silent plea for understanding.

"It may not be that easy to get the Expedition going a
second time," Jens said slowly. "From the political standpoint
alone."

"That's . . . nonsense," said Bill. His voice firmed
"Nonsense. We've got the hardware already, there's windows
available all through the next two years. Of course
people will be disappointed. So were the 'nauts. In facl
that's why I'm here .... "

His voice slowed and became unsure again. He swallowed
part of his drink.

	"I shouldn't be doing this," he said, miserably. "I should

through channels. But Tad and the others didn't

like the idea of aborting, at all--"

"Good for them," said Jen.

"No,... not so good," said Bill, jerkily. "We'v got a
space program that's bigger than just this one Expedition.
I don't know--I got the impression . . . well, let me tell
you about my talk with them."

"You see," he said, when he was through, "it's the
most far-fetched thing in the world. It may be all in my
imagination. But I can't help worrying that they might do
something, try something that might really damage the
program . . . because they want to continue, so badly. I
thought the word had to be passed to . . . to whomever
might need to know .... "

"You mean the President."

"Yes." Bill nodded. The ice tinkled in his glass.

"What could he do?" Jens asked.

"I don't know. I can't imagine," said Bill. "But even if
it's the most remote chance in the world--we've struggled
all these years to keep the program alive.., at any rate; I
thought you might be able to pass the word along, quietly,
just in case."

Jens nodded.

"Well, I can do that," he said.

"I mean, now," said Bill, watching him. "I mean right
away."

"It's pretty late to be calling Washington."

"I know that," said Bill. "But I think--I know--it ought
to be done."

Jens nodded, slowly weighing the need Bill had made
clear against what this call might cost him. "All right."

It took Jens a few minutes to get through to Selden
Rethe at his home.

"Sorry to call at this hour,' Sel," he said. "But something's
come up."

After he finished, tfiere was a short pause at the other
end of the line. Then Selden spoke.

"Stay there," he said. "Both you and Ward stay right
where you are---you're in your hotel room, right, Jens?
I'll get back to you. Don't go any place until I do. It


311

might take two minutes or it might take ten hours--but

sit tight."

He broke the connection.
	']

"I can't stay here ten hours--" Bill said aghast.

"It won't be ten hours," said Jens'. "Fanzone's in Wash--
ington and Sel can get him on the phone in three minutes i."!1

if he wants. Sit back. Have another drink."
	.

	"No. Well, yes," said Bill.

Jens got up, took the other man's glass and carried it
over to the bar. He had made the drink and was just about
to bring it back, when his phone sounded.

He came quickly from the bar, set down the drink in
front of Bill, and keyed the phone on. Selden Rethe's face
filled the screen.

"He wants to talk to you both, face-to-face--and right
away," Selden said. "I'll set up transportation. Go down
now to the front of yotr hotel. By the time you get there,
your motor pool should have a car ready and waiting to

(


32-


The motors of the Vertical Takeoff and Landing Craft
muttered on a bass note that set Jens's ears ringing, as the
plane slowly sank level, and in a straight line like an elevator,
from two thousand feet to the landing pad behind the
White House. Rain drummed on the window beside Jens.
The sky to the east was beginning to lighten with dawn.

They touched down and the door opened. Filing out,
he and Bill were met by Selden Rethe, ducking under an
umbrella held by somebody who was undoubtedly a White
House security man.

"Come on!" said Selden.

He led the way at a trot to a side door of a building

312


hat might or might not have been a part of the White
House structure it was impossible to tell in the dark that
was intensified by the glare of lights about the landing
pad. A moment later they were indoors, walking down a
narrow, but thickly carpeted corridor. They stopped after
a distance before a pair of doors that opened to expose an
elevator.

"Wait here, will you, Jens?" said Selden.

He got in the elevator with Bill Ward, and the doors
shut on them. Jens stood fidgeting in the corridor. A few
minutes later, the elevator opened and Selden stepped

out alone, then put a friendly hand on Jens's arm.

"Come on," he said.

He led the way down the corridor a little farther and
then at right angles through a larger hallway to a door
opening on a large, comfortable-looking office-library.

"Sit down," he said, waving Jens into one of the deep
armchairs. "What would you like? Something to eat."

"Coffee," said Jens; and grinned a little. "I live on
coffee."
"So do I," said Selden. He punched on a phone that sat
on a desk and spoke to it, then dropped into a chair opposite
Jens. "Now, tell me more about this."
"I don't know any more," said Jens. "Bill Ward just
told me the same thing he told you when I got you on the
phone. I don't think he knows any more himself--just

what the 'nauts told him over the LCO."

"What's LCO stand for again?"

"Laser Communications System," said Jens. "Kennedy
and the spacecraft talk to each other over a beam of
coherent light. They even get picture as well as voice
over it."

"I see," said Selden. "However, I don't think you and
Mr. Ward know what it's like to wake up a president. And
to wake him with bad news . . ." He broke off, biting his
lower lip. "The hard part is having to take everything
these space people say on faith. I don't get it, myself.
They've been gone over four weeks. How is it they can

come home in thirteen days, or whatever?"

Jens blinked at the other.

"You don't understand that?" he said.


	--
	3x3

t	Selden looked at him, frowning.

"That's what I said. What's so surprising about that?"
he answered. "Most of the world is going to be asking
that same question once word of this gets out--that and
other questions that make less sense."

"But--" began Jens, and then stopped. For a moment
he had been ready to believe that Selden was not serious
in what he asked. Now he realized that Selden was serious;
and the realization of what that meant was a jolt. It was
like a door on what you had assumed to be a small closet
opening to reveal a vast and echoing darkness of unknown
dimensions. That any intelligent, well-educated man today
should show such an area of ignorance was bad enough.
That the man who did was private secretary to the President
of the United States and the man who had effectively
been the means of getting Jens his undersecretaryship to
the space effort---that was incredible.

"There's been diagrams in all the papers for the last
six :months," Jens said. "You must have seen them."

"Seen diagrams?" said Selden. "Oh, you mean about
the orbits the spaceships take, and the planets and so on.
Of course I saw them, Jens. But I didn't have time to study
them, naturally. I think you know what Washington is
like. How much time do I have to study space-flight diagrams
while I hold this job?"
	,

	"But you want to know now."

"Now I have to know!" Selden got up quickly from his
chair as a knock came at the door. He walked to it,
opened it, said a few words and closed it again. He came
back with a tray holding a coffee pot, cups, spoons, cream
and sugar. Dropping it on the desk, he poured the dark,

steaming liquid into a couple of the cups.

	"Sugar?" he said to Jens. "Cream?"

"Black," said Jens. Selden handed him one of the filled
cups.

"I have to know now," said Selden, more quietly, sitting
down again facing Jens. "Because I'm going to have to start
explaining it to a lot of other people---our man upstairs to
begin with. So--" he glanced at Jens "---I ask you. If it
takes them three weeks and more to get where they are,
how can they get back in thirteen days?"


314

Jens sipped at his coffee, watching the other man over
the rim. There was a curious sort of chemistry going on
inside him that he had never expected could take place
,in someone like .himselfl He had, he realized with a
sudden, summer-lighting flash of clarity, been put down
by experts all his lifemstarting with his senatorial father.
After that there had been a sequence of experts to look
down their noses at him and treat him as someone who
knew nothing. The older newspaper people on his father's
paper, the statehouse legislators, the experienced hands
on the news bureau in Washington when he was transferred
there. Then there had been the politicians on Capitol Hill
and here at the White House, and finally the deputy
ministers of science like Sir Geoffrey and Verigin. Even
Lin had once treated him like someone who needed the
guiding hand of a more experienced and knowledgable
person; and, with a sudden stark insight, he recognized
that more than half the fault had been his. With all these
people he had invited their superiority, adopting without
question his own role as inferior.

Ii

He had played the inferior to Selden Rethe, in just that
automatic fashion. Now, in unexpected shock he realized

that it was to him as an authority that Selden was turning,
for comfort, information and help; and that all along, underneath,
Selden had known him to be the stronger and
more expert.

With a start, Jens realized that the other man was still
waiting for an answer. Jens fumbled in his inside suitcoat
pocket and came out with a card case and a ballpoint pen.
He made three dots on a blank card and drew circles connetting
the outer two.

again! said Selden. "Can't you simply
"Not diagrams " "

explain it to me in plain English?"

"All right." Jens put the card away. "It's not really an
accurate comparison; but suppose you and I start out from
New York in cars going a hundred miles an hour. I'm
headed for Los Angeles, and you want to go to Seattle.
Say that I, in my car, am Earth; you and your car are the
two spacecraft on the Mars Expedition; and our speed
is continuous. ,After a few days on the road, we're still


315

level with each other, but spread apart You're west of
,Chicago, while I'm in Des Moines, Iowa."

" He paused and looked at Selden to see if the other man

was following him. Selden nodded.

"At that point," Jens went on, "something goes wrong
and you decide to join up with me, again, on the road to
Los Angeles. You can't simply turn and drive south towards
Des Moines, because I'm still traveling toward
L.A. at a hundred miles an hour. I'd be gone when you got
there. In the same way, Phoenix One or Two can't simply
turn and fire their engines toward Earth where it is now.
By the time they got here, Earth would have moved ahead,
since it's continually traveling in orbit around the sun.
So, you in your car would head southwest, figuring out
speed and distance so that you aim at someplace ahead of
where my car is noway, Rapid City, South Dakota--
planning to reach it atthe same time I'm due to arrive
there also."

	He paused again.

"All right," said Selden. "I'm with you so far. What's
the point?"

"The point," Jens said, "is that from just west of Chicago
to Rapid City, South Dakota, isn't as far as the distance
from New York to just west of Chicago. In other words,
our two cars have been separated for maybe two days,
but it'll only take a little more than half a day to get us
back together again."

Selden nodded again--and while he was still nodding
the phone on his desk buzzed. He got up and punched on
the set. A voice said something Jens could not quite
catch.

	"Yes, sir," said Selden. He punched off and turned back

to Jens.
	,

	"We're wanted upstairs," he said.

Jens rose and followed him out of the room. As they
went, it occurred to him that possibly even Paul Fanzone
--the President of the U.S., himself--might at the moment
be in Selden Rethe's position of needing answers, rath
than the position of giving them.


The room jens and Selden came to two floors up was
another office, a much larger and more luxuriously furn-

ished one. Bill Ward was seated stiffly in a black over,
stuffed armchair and Fanzone was pacing up and down
the carpet.

"Come in. Sit down." Fanzone pointed them to chairs
as they came in. Jens and Selden took seats.near Bill Ward.

"Listen, now," said Fanzone, turning to Bill Ward
abruptly. "You did the right thing--when I say you, I
mean all of you down there at the Cape. You were right to
come to me quietly this way. It'll be better if it's not generally
known that your suspicions came to me directly.
Let those who want to guess as much as they want. The
point is, they mustn't know certainly. I want you and

lens here to go back to Florida, immediately. Sel?"
"Sir?"

"Is there still a plane out there for them to go back in?"
"Standing by," said Selden.

"Good. Now, Bill, I want you to talk to the marsnauts
again, as privately as you can. You can do that, can't you?"

"There's no way anyone can intercept laser communication,"
Bill said. "It's not like radio."

"Then talk to them. Don't tell them you've seen me, or
talked to me. Just say you passed the matter on to your
superiors in the Space Agency; and it turns out the official
decision of the atmrt has to be delayed until the governments
participating in the Mars Expedition are at least

notified; and there may be some little delay because of
that. But probably not more than, twenty-four hours. Can

you do that?"

"Yes, sir," said Bill. "Only--"

"Never mind anything else," Fanzone said. "You do it,

just as I said. You, Jens!"

"Yes, sir?" said Jens.

"We're going to have to give you some more authority
than you've had up until now," Fanzone said. "I want you,
as soon as you get back, to do two things. One is to get
the deputy ministers of science for the various other countries
together with you and say that I asked you, personally,
to tell them, privately, about the decision to abort.
Then do it--just give them the hard information about
the damage to the ships; don't hint that anything more is
involved, or that there's been any special contact between


			37

you and me, except that I callea you early this morning

and asked you to talk to them. You can do that? .......
"Yes," said Jens.

"The second thing I want you to do, after thatnote,
alter you've given the complete story to the deputy ministers
and they've had an hour or two to contact their
governments--is hold a press conference. You can handle
a press conference on your own, of course? Can't he, Sel?"


"Yes, sir. He can," Selden said.

"Again, you tell the press nothing about the White
House in connection with this, except that it was suggested
you were the one to break the news to the world,
as our government's formal representative on the spot. You
tell them what there is to tell about the marsnauts and their
situation, except what you've been told not to tell. Say the
decision to abort is still up in the air, but it looks likely.
Sel will call you shortly after you're back down in Florida,
and let you know what we don't want given to the press
right now. That's all--except after both the ministers'
meeting and the press conference, you call Sel on scramble
circuit and give him a report of what the reactions were.
Is all that understood, now?"

"Yes, Mr. President," said Jens. "No mention of what
Mr. Ward--"

"No. Sel, take them back to their plane, now." The

thre other men rose and started to the door. "And Sel--"
'!Yes, sir?" Selden stopped and turned.

"As soon as they're off, get back up here," Said Fanzone.
"We're going to have to throw today's schedule into the
wastebasket and make up one that's altogether different."


Bill Ward sat hunched before the LCO screen, talking
to Tad.

"The foreign representatives, those deputy ministers of
science, got briefed this morning by Jens Wylie," Bill said.
"Wylie also had a press conference for the news people
to pass the word to them, after lunch. So things are
moving."

"Just so they keep moving," said Tad. "You said
twenty-four hours?"


318

"Yes. It might be quicker, though."

"It needs to be quicker," said Tad. He no longer had
any hair visible on his head as Bill viewed him in the

screen; and his face seemed to have fallen in until
he had almost a skull-like look that the bald head reinforced.

"By
the way," said Bill. "How're you feeling?"
"Fine,?' said Tad. "I'm just fine."


Jens Wylie sat in the sitting room of his hotel suite with
copies of nearly a dozen newspaper printouts in various
languages spread out on the rug in front of his chair. He
had done his best; but the headlines, as usual, had gone
for the worst.

CATASTROPHE FRAPPE LE VOL MARTIEN read
the one next to his right toe. SPACECRAFT BOTH FAlL
read the next nearest one, and so on from around the
world.

Maybe, he told himself, in its own way, it was a good
thing, this jumping to announce tragedy. Then, if they
managed to save five of the six marsnauts . . . he wished
Lin was back. He needed her to talk with.

But no matter what course events took, sooner or later
would come the witch-hunters, looking for someone to
blame for the failure of artificially high hopes.


Masahura Tatsukichi, the Japanese deputy minister of
space, sat talking to Anoshi. Each of the deputy ministers
had asked to speak to the marsnaut from his own country;
and although on Phoenix One and Two they were still
busy transferring repair parts, short interviews had been
set up. Guenther had already talked to Bern, and
Ambedkar to Bap.

"Regretable," said Masaharu to Anoshi, now, "that

such high hopes should end in tragedy."

"Regretable for all," replied Anoshi.

"Of course," said Masaharu, "but I have been aware
of your own strong desire to accomplish the completed
Expedition; and so I offer my sympathy on a personal
level."

"I deeply appreciate it," said Anoshi. "Personal regrets,


319

however, are nothing when weighed in the balance against
the greater loss .... "


. Verigin spoke to Fedya.

: "All that can be done on both ships is being done,
then?"

"Yes."

Verigin laned forwardto examine Fedya's image in the
screen more closely; and his tone gentled.

"My boy," he said, "you look thin. Quite thin and pale.
You haven't been exposed to anything like radiation
yourself, have you?"

"No," said Fedya. "I am only tired. As we all are."


Tad floated half-asleep in a fog of discomfort. He
too exhausted to stay awake but physically too miserable
fall completely into slumber. Vague thoughts and halfdreams
chased through his head. Most of the repairs that
could be made on the two ships had been made. This was
the fourth day since Bill Ward had told them of the decision
to abort; and still there was no woi'd to go ahead with it
from Expedition Control. Jens, whom he had spoken to
last when the deputy ministers were being allowed to
speak to the marsnauts of their respective nationalities, had
fumbled, trying to answer Tad's direct questions as to
why there should be any delay at all.

"Each government wants to consider the decision," Jens
said. "Each wants to make sure it isn't just rubber-stamping
a decision it'll regret later--"

"What happened to us had nothing to do with governments!"
Tad snapped. "It was an overloaded schedule and
a solar storm!"

"I know," said Jens unhappily. "And I know it is hard
to wait. But..."
But, thought Tad, drifting in his mist of discomfort,
Phoenix One and Two could not wait forever. He, for
one, could not wait; there was more riding on an immediate
movement than Jens or anyone back on the
ground realized--

He roused to recognize the figure of Bap, which had
loomed up in the darkness by his bed. Bap was smiling and
carrying a hypodermic syringe.


320

"Something new the docs down at Expedition Control
just suggested to keep you perky," Bap said.

"What is it . . ." Tad started to ask; but Bap was already
giving him the shot and it really did not matter.
Whatever it was, it wo.rked quickly. The needle had hardly
been withdrawn from his arm before the sickness trembling
all through his body and limbs began to quiet and diminish.
The feeling of malaise faded; and his overwhelming
tiredness claimed him.

"Working," he mumbled to Bap, who still stood by the
bed, "working fine. That's good. I'll need my rest."

"Yes, you will," said Bap.


Bap continued to stand by the bed until Tad's breathing
became slow and deep. Then he went back out and up
the access tube to A Deck. Anoshi was there, with Fedya,
Dirk and Bern.

"He's asleep," Bap said, as he came out of the access
tube hatch. "It's fairly short-action, though. He shouldn't
be out more than three or four hours."

"Good," said Fedya. "I'll get going, then."

Dirk and Bern helped him into his spacesuit.

"What if Expedition Control just delays in giving you
the figures for our first burn?" Bap asked.

"Then you'll make the first burn on our own figures,"
Fedya said, "and I say that to you as an order, since I'm
m command, now."

"Yes, sir," said Bap. But the smile that went with his
words faded almost immediately. Bern and Dirk were
fitting on Fedya's helmet now. As soon as they were done
and had stepped back, Bap held out his hand.

Fedya shook it. They did not say anything. Turning
slowly and clumsily about in a near circle, Fedya shook
aands in turn with Anoshi, Bern and Dirk. Then he turned
and left them, pulling himself into the access tube and
along the tube to the airlock at the end of it leading to
Hatch Three.

He emerged from Hatch Three into the unchanging
lights and dark of space. The propulsion pack was already
in place on his shoulders; but this time he would not
have to rely on it alone to cross the void between him and
?hoenix Two. He reached for a meter-long tether connected to the tool belt around the waist of his suit, and
clipped the metal loop at the free end of it over the wire
that now connected the two ships. Pushing off from the
hull of Phoenix One, he activated the propulsion pack and
slid along the line of the wire toward the other spacecraft.

At the far end, he detached his tether. He reached for
the wire where it was wound around its bit, then changed
his mind. With the inertia of Phoenix Two to hold it in
place, the first thrust of Phoenix One's engines would
snap the wire like a thread. He went down alone into
Phoenix Two's A Deck and took off his suit.

He sat at his control console and sent a call on the LC0
to Expedition Control.

"There's been a slight change in plans, here," Fedya
said to the communications engineer on duty who answered.
"We can't wait any longer to start Phoenix
toward Earth; and we will start with our own figures for
the first burn unless we get others from you in four hours'
time."

"Just a minute!" said the communications engineer. "This
is all over my head. Bill Ward's at home. Let me get him
here to talk to you."

Fedya shook his head.

"There's nothing to talk about," he said. "We're not
asking Expedition Control for permission to move. We're
telling Expedition Control that we are moving--now.
We'll be following the plan outlined by Tad in which one
man stays aboard Phoenix Two to handle transmission
of data to Phoenix One, while the other five travel in
Phoenix One. The only change will be in the places of the
pilots. Tad will pilot Phoenix One. I will stay aboard
Phoenix Two."

"Wait," said the engineer. "Phoenix Two, wait. Let me
talk to Tad."

"You cannot talk to Tad," said Fedya. "He's resting
before the work of bringing Phoenix One in. In any ease,
he is no longer in command of the Expedition. Because
of his illness, he has been relieved of his command; and
I, as second officer, have taken over."

The engineer stared out of the screen at Fedya.

322


"I'll get Bill Ward," he said, finally.

"By all means," said Fedya. "Get anyone you like. But
a/so get us the figures for the first bum in four hours or we
will proceed on our own."


Tad woke from the deepest sleep he had had in days to
find Bap shaking him.

"What is it?" he asked thickly.

"I'm sorry, Tad," said Bap, "but you'll have to get up.
Fedya's taken command of the Expedition and he's staying
aboard Phoenix Two, alone. You and I, and Anoshi, Dirk,

and Bern are all here on Phoenix One."

Tad stared, up at him blearily.

"Taken . . ." he muttered. "No, he can't."

"I'm afraid he has," said Bap. "Listen. He left this
tape for you. Listen."

Bap reached out and pushed the record button at the
base of the phone by Tad's bed. There was a second of
silence and then the sound of Fedya's voice, speaking in
the room.

"Forgive me, Tad," it said. "You did very well at hiding
the way you've been feeling; but we all know you too well.
It was plain that you are less strong and more sick than
you wished us to think. But time is running out without
the go-ahead from Expedition Control and we--both of us,
you and I have to think of the Expedition first and the
chance of saving the larger part of the crews. It's true that
handling Phoenix One down through a series of burns
needs a man with your experience. But in a pinch, Anoshi
or one of the others could at least attempt it, and probably
get close enough to Earth orbit to be found by shuttles
sent out to find Phoenix One. But what if you were alone

323


on Phoenix Two and your illness got to the point where you
could not transmit the necessary information from Expedition
Control on to Phoenix One?"

There was a pause in the tape. Then Fedya's voice took
up again.

"You see, Tad," he said. "The Expedition cannot afford
to have anyone but a well man on the LCO of Phoenix
Two. Forgive me, as I say--and believe me--I would not
have taken this from you for any lesser reason than the
good of the greatest number."

"Damn his eyes!" mumbled Tad. Then, slowly he shook
his head. "No, it's true. He wouldn't have, either."

"Either--what?" asked Bap, looking down at him with
strange curiosity.

"Get me upstairs. Get me to A Deck," said Tad, trying
to stand up. Bap caught his arm and helped him to his
feet. "I suspected something like this might happen. Has
Kennedy given us the word to go and the first burn figures?"

"Yes," said Bap, helping him out of the room and
through the hatch into the access tube. "Fedya told them
that if we didn't have burn. figures from them in four
hours, we'd go on our own figures. They just sent their
figures through. There's a permanent patch from the
Phoenix Two LCO to its radio. We pick up everything
that Expedition Control sends him by voice, as well as

what Fedya says to us 	"

As Bap talked, he was guiding Tad up the tube and out

on to A Deck. Tad dropped at last heavily into his usual

seat, the acceleration couch in its chair position before

the control console.

He leaned toward the console, lifted his hand toward

its controls, then dropped it again, leaning back in his

seat.

"Bap," he said. "I need somethitg. You must have some

kind of stimulant among those drugs of yours."

"You don't want anything like that," said Bap. "It'd

give you a lift for a short while, but then you'd feel even

worse."

"Get it for me," Tad said.

"Tad, listen to me--"

"Get it for me," repeated Tad. "I'm no good this way

324


ive me something to get my motor started turning over,

	|,and maybe I can keep it going myself."

		Bap turned and went off. He came back with a yellow

	|pill and a glass of water. Tad washed the pill down his

	throat and lay back, panting.
	.

After a few minutes, his panting slowed and, with an
li effort, he sat up to the controls again..He punched com-

	rnunications.

	"Fedya," he said. "Phoenix One to Phoenix Two."

"I'm right here, Tad," Fedya's voice came back immediately.
"And, as I said to you on the tape, forgive me."

"Nothing," said Tad, rubbing the back of his hand
across his dry lips. "You did the right thing. Bap said
Expedition Control had already sent through the burn
figures."

	"You've got them on printout in the console."

Tad looked down and punched for course data printout.
A tongue of paper darkened with figures marched slowly
out of the slot into his hands. He tore it off and studied it.
After a few minutes, he raised his head. He was sitting a
little straighter now as the stimulant took hold; and his
eyes were brighter.

"Fedya," he said, "let me talk to Expedition Control."
"We're right here, too, Phoenix One," answered Bill
Ward's voice after a short pause. "Fedya has us patched
in on his radio to you."

"Is this all there is to the first burn?" Tad asked.
"These figures?"

"That's right," said Bill. "Fedya's got his own set, of
course, for all the burn he can get at once, since he's only
going to have one to get as much course change and
velocity as he can before those two motors burn out. But
what we thought would be best for Phoenix One would
be to space out a number of small burns at first, to see if we
couldn't figure out some kind of pattern to the way that
steering engine of yours will creep. If we can figure out a
pattern, then we can try to allow for it in the later burns
at the same time as we're trying to straighten out your
COUTSe."

"Good." Tad nodded.

us know how it feels to you when the burn's on."

325


	"Right,'; said Tad.

"Let us know when you're ready to go, then," said Bill.
"We'll give you a firing time and an update of the figures
to then."

"Let's get settled here, first," said Tad. He turned to
look around at the other four men. "Bap and Anoshi, you'd
better take your seats in couch position. Dirk, Bern--you
two had better head down to B Deck and take a. bed
apiece, there. This isn't going to be much of a burn; but
there's no point in taking chances."

Bern and Dirk disappeared into the access tube as Anoshi
and Bap took their control seats, laying them back into
the couch position.

"Fire!" echoed Tad, pressing the firing button. Vibration
and sudden weight took them all aboard Phoenix
One for the first time since she had been booted from
Earth orbit.

But this was only a lesser and shorter version of the
three-gravity thrust that the spacecraft had felt then. The
firing was over, it seemed to Tad, almost b.efore it had
begun. But he had felt--he was positive he had felt--the
direction of the change of angle of thrust as the steering
motor crept off course even in that short time. He began
checking his instruments eagerly, to see what they could
tell him about the error the steering iet's movement would
have caused.

"Phoenix Two! Phoenix Two, this is Expedition Control!"
the radio speaker was saying. "Fedya, we were
in communication all through that firing period, and
we're in communication now, as far as we can tell. Come
in, Fedya!"
"Phoenix Two," said Fedya's voice. "We're in communication."
"What happened, Phoenix Two? Didn't you fire? If
you'd moved we would be out of communication now
until the LCO could realign between us."
"No," said Fedya; and Tad stopped checking his instruments,
abruptly to listen. "I didn't fire. There seems
to be some malfunction in the controls. It doesn't look
serious. I'll get down and check it. I can fire any time, of

course."

"We'll give you an update on your own figures, to the

326


next firing time of Phoenix One," said Expedition Control.
"Let us know about that malfunction as soon as you
establish what it is."

"Will do," said Fedya.

"Good. Phoenix One--Phoenix One---this is Expedition
Control. How did the burn go with you?"

"Fine," said Tad. "There was a creep, all right. I'll let
you know as soon as I get what information I have on it.
When is our next firing time?"

"As soon as we pinpoint your present position," said
Expedition Control, "and decide on the details of the next
burn. Estimate, twelve to sixteen hours. Without the LCO
on Phoenix Two alongside you, we're going to have to
hunt for you."

"Good hunting," said Tad.

He leaned back in the acceleration couch. He had meant
to make some more energetic answer, perhaps some joke
about little black sheep who had lost their way; but he did
not have the energy.


Strapped in his couch, Bern gazed at the softly-lit
cubicle around him and let his thoughts run. It was almost
disioyal to the rest of them to think it, but now that they
were irrevocably headed back toward Earth, he could not
deny a small reeling of joy inside him.

He had wanted more than anything else to be on this
Expedition and to approach Mars, even if he were for
some reason prevented from setting foot on it. But at the
same time he felt a we strong pull back to home, the
strong pull of the ]oyer, leading him back to Joanna and
the children. None of the others would have understood
this, exactly as it was. The Pan-European representative,
Walther Guenther, had not understood it at all in his brief
talk with Bern over the LOC, along with the other national
representatives speaking to their own marsnauts.
"We'll arrange to have your wife and children flown in
so that they will be here when you land," he had told Bern.

"Please, don't bother," Bern had answered. "We have a
picture, Joanna and I, of my coming back to our front
door, opening it, and finding her and the children waiting
for me there."
Guenther had not understood. He had been even a little

327


offended that what he had proposed as a kindness should
be rejected for this bizarre reason. We are both Europeans,
Bern thought now, gazing at the cubicle, but he is not a
real European. I am.

It is the family that counts. The family--primarily the
children. Always the children. The next generation is the
important one, whoever and whenever the generation may
be. We who are adults have ceased to be a hope and become
a reality. That does not make us less important, but
it does make us less valuable;

Much as he had wanted to set foot olx Mars, it had been
very much for Joanna and the children that he had wanted
to do so. Now he never would. Others would. There was
no doubt--and that was what people like Guenther and
all the host, the multitude of individuals back on Earth
who had not understood and who by mismanagement had
caused this accident and return to be---did not understand.
The Expedition was not halted. They only thought it was
halted. The human race would go on and stand on Mars
and on Venus eventually, and on all the other planets of
the Solar System, and on worlds around many other Suns.
There was no stopping it. As we had come out of the sea,
crawling amphibians, as we had taken over the land, as
we had built our homes everywhere from pole to pole, so
we would go on and build our homes and have our families
throughout the universe, as far as the eye of the human
imagination could see.

All that had been lost, from his individual point of
view, was a little thing compared to that large future. He,
himself, would not be one of those to go. That was a sad
thought. But on its heels came a bright one. He was
turned back to his own hearthfire, to his own promise of
that future, that shone from the faces of his own children.
He, alone and privately now, was disappointed but content.


"You understand," said Vassily Zacharin, "we must
ask for a thorough examination and explanation of this."
Vassily Zacharin was the Soviet Ambassador to the
United States of America. He and Verigin sat now in the
office of Paul Fanzone; and Paul Fanzone himself, sitting


328

behind his desk with Selden Rethe standing behind him,
nodded agreeably.

"I do understand," said Fanzone gently. "I've had
several of the representatives of the other powers involved
with us in this space effort call on me today. Of course it's
a great shock to us all that an Expedition that meant so
much to the world should find itself frustrated in this
tragic way."

"It's true, Mr. President," said Zacharin, "that we are
very concerned with the failure of the Mars Expedition
itself. But more important to the Soviet people is an answer
to the question of why Feodor Aleksandrovich Asturnov
should be the one of six marsnauts to give his life that the
others may live."

"He hasn't given it yet," said Fanzone drily.

"We understand," said Zacharin, "that the chances of his
bringing Phoenix Two close enough to Earth to be found
and rescued are so small as to hardly be worth computing.
You understand me, Mr. President, Feodor Aleksandrovich
is a brave man and we do not doubt that he would not
hesitate to offer to help his comrades even at the cost
of his almost certain death. It is simply that we understand
that your marsnaut Tadell Hansard first informed
Expedition Control that he was to be the one to stay on
Phoenix Two, since he was already dying from a lethal
exposure to radiation---"

"Tadell Hansard isn't dead yet, ei,ther," said Fanzone.
"And our doctors say no one will know whether he had a
lethal dose or not until they get him back here and
examine him."

"Undoubtedly," said Zacharin. "It is expected that
physicians wish to be absolutely certain before making any
pronouncement. But your doctors, like ours, like those of
the rest of the world, can hardly avoid seeing the information
of Colonel Hansard's steady deterioration as pointing
to anything but one overwhelming probability. In short,
few people qualified to interpret the symptoms doubt that
he is a dying man. The question therefore arises in the
minds of the peoples of the world--not just in the Soviet
Union--why a dying man is being brought back to Earth,

329


while a completely well man throws his life away in the
dying man's place."

"I can't really answer that question any better than
anyone else, including yourselves," said Fanzone. "Your
marsnaut has told us that he took over command from
Tad Hansard and made the change of ships between the
two of them on his own authority. We have the tape of his
telling Expedition Control so; and I believe you've heard
it played. Presumably you understand one of your own
nationals better than we do. Perhaps you can tell me why
he did it."

"We have no idea, of course, Mr. President," said
Zacharin, the even tenor of his voice monotonously ur/.
changing. "We only point out that the question exists;
and that since it was the marsnaut of your country that
was favored at the expense of ours, we would like to
be satisfied that the urgency to discover an explanation--
a thoroughly impartial explanation, without partisanship
toward any member of the Expedition--burns as strongly
in the minds of your people as it does in ours."

"You can be certain of that," said Fanzone. "We would
very much like to know why Colonel Asturnov deposed
the established senior commander of the Expedition without
authority. Also, why he took matters into his own
hands, even to the point of threatening to risk the lives -
of other members of the Expedition on a burn from
complete information, unless Expedition Control gave him
the necessary data."

"I'm sure, Mr. President," Zacharin said after a pause,
"you do not mean to imply some sort of accusation against
Colonel Asturnov?"

"Of course not," said Fanzone. "We are just, like your
government, very desirous of finding out just what caused
things to happen as they have. I think all of the world's
people who supplied marsnauts to this Expedition have a
common interest in that."

"I agree with you," said Zacharin, inclining his head.
"Then we'll all look forward to getting the Phoenix One
and Two back, so we can satisfy our interest." said Fanzone,
briskly.

"Yes indeed, Mr. President. You've been most kind. If
you'll excuse us, then?" Zacharin raised his eyebrows.

330


"Very good of you and Deputy Minister Verigin to
come and see us," said Fanzone, rising behind the desk.
Zacharin and Verigin were already on their feet.

"I will be informing my government immediately about

your equal interest in this matter," said Zacharin.
"Thank you. Good afternoon," said Fanzone.
"Good afternoon, Mr. President."

The two men went out. Fanzone, still standing, turned
and looked at Selden Rethe.

"Now the rock-throwing starts," said Fanzone. "The
public is hungry, Sel. Not just our public, but the public
all over the world. The hopes they all had for the Expedition
as a symbol of world cooperation were just too
damn high. Someone's going to have to be hung at high
noon for this, or governments all over the world are going
to be shaken up. Any idea who could fill the role of
scapegoat, Set?"

"No, sir," said Selden. He looked at Fanzone curiously,
and added, "Do you?"

"Yes," said Fanzone, bleakly, "the marsnauts, themselves,
of course. This business of theirs of moving without
authority will tie in nicely. But in any case, it'd have
had to have been them. Nothing or no one else is big
enough in this case to feed the wolves."


"Phoenix One, ready for your fourth burn?" asked
Expedition Control.

"Ready," said Tad, coming awake in the control seat
with a snap. Now, after three burns and more than six
days, he had become conditioned to the sound of the
voice of Expedition Control over the speaker. Since that
first burn he had not needed again the stimulant he had
demanded that Bap supply him. At the word that a burn
was imminent, his body chemistry had leaped into high
gear, repressing for the moment not only the vomiting
and diarrhea, but the feelings of nausea and spasm, and
the half-unreal sensation of waking dreams that made him
doubt at times that he was actually seated at the control
console on the Phoenix One. There had been other
moments recently, when he could have sworn he was back
at home, doing some painting on the house, or at the
beach with Wendy and the children. He had told Bap


? 33I

about them, and Bap had blamed them on the drugs; but
privately Tad had wondered if they were not a product
of something deeper and more true at work within him in
this final hour.

"Phoenix Two, how about you?" Expedition Control
was demanding. "Are you ready to fire this time?"

"I am afraid not," Fedya's voice said. Six day plus had
separated the two spacecraft enough now so a little static
washed out his words, now and then. "I haven't been able
to track down the trouble, yet; but I should find it soon.
I'm not going away, Expedition Control. I'll have my
chance to fire later."

"Better sooner than later, Phoenix Two," said Expedition
Control. "See if you can't find it before the next burn
time. Phoenix One, have you got your figures for the
burns?"

"I'll read them back to you," said Tad. Since the first
burn, when Phoenix One had still been in wired connection
with Phoenix Two, a printout of the burn figures
had been impossible. The only way they could be transmitted
to Tad was for Expedition Control to read them to
him over the radio patch from Phoenix Two; and the only
check on the accuracy of their transmission was to have
Tad read them back.

He began to read.


Lin had gone up to New York and was not back yet. Jens
took time out from the business of following the situation
aboard Phoenix One and Two to get together with Barney
about three o'clock in the afternoon. They sat together in
a booth down near one end of the bar that was almost
empty. There was only one other drinker there, except for
the female bartender and a tallish, thirty year old man with

332


black hair, and a heavy, dark look to his clothes, as if he
came from a more northern territory. He sat on a stool
down at the same end of the bar as the booth in which
Barney and Jens were seated. The bartender brought their
drinks around to them.

"Ah, thank you, nurse," cooed Barney as she came up.
"Just what we needed."

She gave him a brief smile, took the two glasses from her
tray and set them down on the table of the booth. Then she
turned and went back toward the bar.

"Wait," said Jens, suddenly, looking after her, "you made
a mistake--"

He broke off at the touch of Barney's hand on his arm.
He looked over and saw the other shaking his head.

"Let it go," Barney said. "If you don't want it, just sit a
bit and then I'll go up to the bar and order what you want
and bring it back myself."

"But she--"

She's not feeling too good," Barney said. "That guy
who got knifed to death here week before last was some-

body she knew."

"Oh."

Jens looked after her. She was just then going around
the end of the bar. As she went down behind it past the
man sitting on the stool, he said something to her in a
tone too low to be heard. She shook her head without
looking at him and went on up the bar to its farthest end
and began to work there. The man stared after her.

"Asshole!" said Barney, under his breath, staring at the
man. "Excuse me a minute, Jens."

He got up and crossed the dozen feet that separated their
booth from the man on the stool. Barney threw a hip on
an adjoining stool and stared at the other, who turned to
face him.

"Hi, there," Jens heard Barney say cheerfully, "I've seen
you around here quite a bit."

"Oh? Yes, I've seen you around here too." The man's
eyes for a second showed an unusual amount of white,
almost flashing in the gloom of the bar.

"Sure," said Barney. "Isn't it about time you gave the
wife and kids a ring?"

The white in the other's eyes showed again.

333


"What?"

"I said," Barney said, speaking softly still, but raising
his voice slightly--although not enough to do more than
carry to the far end of the bar, where the bartender now

stood--"isn't it about time you called the wife and kids?"
He smiled into the man's face again.
"I don't have any kids," the other said.

"Then it's about time you called your wife, isn't it?
Sitting around there with no kids, she'll be lonely. She'll be

worrying about you. Isn't it about time you called her?"

The man stared at Barney for a long moment.

"What are you really," he said, almost whispering, Sb
that Jens barely caught the words, "some sort of private
detective?" '

"Phones are out in the lobby," said Barney.

The man got off his stool, leaving his drink where it was.
He went hastily across the bar lounge and out through the
glass door into the lobby. Barney came back and sat down
once more opposite Jens. The lines in his face were deeper
and his face seemed to have squared.

"That bastard's been bothering her a couple of weeks
now, ever since before the launch," Barney said. "You'd
think he'd have sense enough to lay off."

"How'd you know he had a wife?" Jens asked.

"I can spot those bastards a mile off," said Barney.
Jens picked up the martini that had been brought him
instead of the scotch and soda he had asked for. He sipped
at it, giving Barney a little space of time to cool down;
and found it tasted better than he expected. He did not
ordinarily care for martinis; but he had found that drinking
what the people with him liked could make unattractive
drinks less so.

"Wouldn't she be better off at home?" Jens asked, finally.

"She feels better being busy. You know how it is," said
Barney.

"You say somebody she knew got knifed?" Jens asked.
"Sure. Didn't you hear about it? Ten days or so ago."

"With all this business about Tad I haven't had time to
look at the papers, lately."

"Some salesman between jobs. They found him in a sort
of alley behind an apartment building. No telling how he


334

got there. And Aletha, up there, doesn't seem to want to
talk about it--just as well, probably. Anyway, he'd been
"knifed and rolled. Probably some kid. It was one of the
Space Center souvenir paperknives, qhey found it still
stuck in him. Somebody had hacked at it with a file a few
times to put some sort of point on it--tbat's why they
think it was a kid that killed him. Sheer luck anything only
four inches long, even with a sharp point, killing a man
dead like that, in one stab. The kid's probably still running."

Barney's gaze went past Jens to the far end of the bar
where Aletha still worked, her head down.

"Forget it," he said, gently. "It's just part of the damn
hell of life, anyway. They were going together, I think; but
God alone knows what he was to her. Never mind." He
looked back at Jens. "Good to have a chance to sit down
with you once again, old buddy."

"Yes," said Jens, sipping again at the martini. "It's good.
I meant to break loose and talk to you before this; but
what with the accident on Phoenix .One, there just hasn't
'been any time."

"Come on, now," said Barney. "You just had better
company than me. Admit it."

	Jens laughed.


	"You mean Lin," he said.

	"Who else? She's a good lady."

"You're right, Barney." lens sobered. "Very right. I
admit it. She's better company than you. She's better
company than anybody."

	Barney looked at him with crinkled brows.

	"You had to get serious some day," Barney said.

	Jens looked down at his drink.

"I suppose so," he said slowly. "It's the craziest thing,
Barney. I met her about four years ago when I first went to
Washington to work for the news agency. I ran into her at
one of those parties the Swedish Embassy used to give.
And the minute I met her I liked her; but you know then
I just couldn't see anything permanent ever in it for the
two of us. She had too high-powered an engine. And you
know me---everybody says I was born with stars in my eyes
and I'll never get them out. It's true. If it wasn't the space
program, there'd be something else that I was geared on."

335


"So you ought to quit and become a free-lance writer,"
Barney said. "I told you that before. Particularly after you
get out of this political job you'r.e in now. What you ought
to write is good non-fiction books. We've got lots of nonfiction,
but most of it's crap."

"Funny. Lin said the same thing."

"Of course. Because it's what you ought to be doing.
You've got a newspaperman's nose; and you're interested
in more than the immediate story." Barney stared at him
over his martini. "Marry this Lin and settle down. Hell,
let her keep her job and support you while you're getting
started. Then she can quit and you keep her in luxury for

the rest of her life."

Jens laughed.

"I couldn't do that."

"How do you know?" Barney Said. "Ever tried?"

"I mean, I couldn't ask Lin to support me while I was
getting going. Anyway, she wouldn't."

"How do you know?" Barney said. "Ever ask her?"

Jens laughed again, but a little uncertainly this time. He
lifted his glass to his lips, and to his surprise found it empty.

"Here, give it to me," said Barney, standing up. I'll go
up to the bar and get them. What was it you wanted--
Scotch and soda?"

"Please," said Jens. "The martini didn't taste all that
bad; but if I drink those all afternoon I'm going to be
knocked out by dinner time. I'm not like you."
"Damn few are." Barney took the empty glasses off to
the bar.

He came back with a full martini glass, and a Scotch
highball which he put before Jens, as he sat down.

"That character at the bar never came back." Jens
nodded at the empty stool and the unfinished drink abandoned
before it.

"Want to bet be doesn't, either?" said Barney. "He
thought I was some sort of detective. He's called home by
this time and his wife won't be used to his doing that. She'll
be curious why he called; and that'll make him nervous
and guilty. He won't be back--today anyway. But how
about it, you going to let this Lin support you and make
you both happy?"

336


"You know I can't do that, Barney," Jens smiled. "But
I'd like to work out something. As I said, when I first met
her I didn't think the two of us could ever stand a steady
diet of each other. But you know, just during the launch
things have changed. I don't know what happened. But
now we seem to be thinking on the same track nearly all

the time. It's weird."

Nothzn, weird about t, said Barney. People ether
grow together or grow apart when they're rubbed up against
each other long enough. Maybe I ought to say people grow
like each other or else find out how they're different, if
they're boxed up together long enough. That's what hapened
to me when I was married. Wilma and I found out
how different we were from each other. But I've seen other
people find out how much alike they were. Sounds like it's
that way with you and Lin."

"I'd like to think so," said Jens slowly. "I guess... I do
think so. She went up to New York four days ago and she's
due back any time now. In fact, I thought she'd be in early
t0day--she's taken a room here again. You know, it's not
easy for me to judge, Barney. Everything's been happening
all at once, lately. If the Phoenix One and Two ever get
safely back, repaired and headed back out to Mars,
properly, then maybe I can sit down and get my head
straight about where Lin and I stand."

"Don't wait for that," said Barney. "That's going to be
never."

"Hey," Jens said, "but that's just this. attempt at the
Expedition that's being aborted. They'll be trying again in
about six months, as soon as they can choose a new window
for the launch."

"Come on now," said Barney. "You know better than
that. And what about the inquiry? You heard the announce-

ment about it on the noon news yesterday."

Jens frowned.

"No. No, I hadn't," he said. "What inquiry? And what's
it got to do with a new window for the Expedition in six
months?"

"Wake the hell up," said Barney. "I never saw it to fail.
Take the best .newsman in the world, put him in the spotlight
and all of a sudden he doesn't hear and he doesn't

337


think. What do you think the point of an inquiry is "an
inquiry into what happened to the spaceships as a result
of the solar storm?'.'

"'Oh, that kind of inquiry."

"Not that kind of inquiry, at all," Barney said. "They
aren't interested in the nuts-and-bolts answers. The point
is to cool down public opinion on another try at tN
Expedition."

"How do you get that?" Jens stared at Barney.

"Open your eyes and ears. It stands to reason---and even
if it didn't, six different governments can't keep a secret.
The word is in the air clear around the world. The inquiry
is to lay the blame for things breaking down ¢.n the
'nauts. To take some of the glitter 6ff them--and so some
of the glitter off another try."

Jens's lips felt stiff and cold.

"Barney," he said, "you're crazy!"

"Crazy, hell! If you weren't all wrapped up ten inches
deep in your diplomatic blanket, you'd have seen it yourself
by this time. It was a nice game, but the international
politicians have lost interest. They want to cash in their
chips and go to something else."

"Barney--Barney, l tell you, you're crazy," Jens said.
"I'm right in the middle of it with the other national reps.
The minute they heard about Tad's accident, their reaction
was that the Expedition should go on no matter what was
going to happen to Tad. They didn't even want to consider
sending him back to Earth on one of the ships."

"That may be the way they felt then," said Barney. "I'm
just telling you what the news is. From where I sit, a change
of your representatives' attitudes from what you say to
what the present rumor says isn't surprising. This isn't the
politician's kind of game, this Expedition. You ought to
know that, Jens."

"I don't follow you."

"Why, I mean something like this Mars Expedition
belongs to people like you, Jens," Barney said, "the nutty
ones with stars in their eyes--all the damn idealists and
the wonderful-tomorrows people. It doesn't really have
much to do with people like Verigin and Guenther and
the rest of them, to say nothing of everyone back home in
their governments. Those kind of people can get attracted

338


tO something like a Mars Expedition for a little while, because
it's like something pretty to eat that they think they're
going to like. But after they bite into it they find out it's
not their dish at all. Their kind of diet is whatever can be
turned to their advantage at he moment--and that means
turned one way today and another way tomorrow. Being
0he-way idealistic for months on end is too much of a
strain for the political crowd."

.i
	"I don't believe it," Jens said. "Barney, I tell you I don't

believe it."

Barney shrugged.

"Go make a phone call. Check."

"I will. I'll find out," said Jens. He psbed his drink
away from him. "Stay here. I'll phone Sir Geoffrey. If

there's anything like that really going on, he'll tell me."
"Good luck," Barney said.

In the lobby, Jens found a house phone, punched it on
and put in a call to Sir Geoffrey's suite. There was a
second's delay, then the.screen lit up with a face--but not
Sir Geoffrey's. It was the face of the officer of the day on
their security floors.

"Yes?" the O.D. said. "Oh, Mr. Wylie. What can I do
for you, sir?"

"I was calling Sir Geoffrey Mayence," Jens said. "But
there wasn't any answer. Do you have another number
where I can reach him?"

"Just a second, Mr. Wylie."

The O.D. disappeared from the screen momentarily, then
returned. "Sir Geoffrey can be reached at 4t-83z-59o9."

"Thanks," said Jens. He reached into his suitcoat pocket
for his electropencil, to make a note of the number on the
notepad screen below the phone.

"I can put you through to an outside line, sir," aid the
officer. "Would you like me to get Sir Geoffrey for you,
Mr. Wylie?"

"Oh--yes. Thanks," said Jens. "I'd appreciate that."
The screen before him cleared. He waited. Half a minute
later it abruptly lit up again with the face of a smiling
,oung man wearing an open-necked white shirt.

"Sir?" said the young man. He had a strong Castilian
accent. "Sir Geoffrey for you on the line in just a minute."

"Thanks," said Jens.


339

There was another short wait and the craggy featurs,a

of Sir Geoffrey appe,,a, red on the screen.
	,

	"That you, Wylie?' said Sir Geoffrey. "What is it?' R

	"Hello," lens said. Abruptly, he felt awkward. "I had a

	question to ask but maybe I shouldn't be asking it on the

	phone. When could I talk to you?"

	"i'm going to be out here all day--' Sir Geoffrey broke

	off and stared off to one side out of the screen. "What, Cl0?"

	He looked back into the screen and at lens. "Why don't

	you come out here?" he said. "I'm spending the day visiting

	the Duchess Stensla. She just invited you. Come along, and

	we can talk here, private as you wish."

	"Well, thanks," said lens. "That's good of her--and you.

When should I come?" ,

"Come along right away, why don't you? It s only
twenty-minute drive, down toward the end of the island.
You turn left as you leave the Holiday Inn there and---oh,
hell! Just ask the officer of the day to have somebody at
the motor pool give you directions, or give you a driver.
It's the old Kelly mansion, tell them."

"All right. I will," said lens. I'll come right out."

"See you shortly," said Sir Geoffrey. "Good-by."


The officer of the day made arrangements to provide a
car and a driver for lens. The driver had the directions
from the driver and the car that had taken Sir Geoffrey out
to the Duchess's place earlier. It was, as Sir Geoffrey had
predicted, a twenty-minute drive along a winding asphalt
road turning finally through a heavy gate and a little patch
of orange grove. A different white-shifted servant from the
one he had talked to on the phone met him at the door, and
took him inside .to a small but comfortable sitting room on
the second floor where he found both Sir Geoffrey and the
Duchess.

"Oh, there you are," said Sir Geoffrey, getting up as
lens was ushered in "Clothilde, this is the U.S. Undersecretary
for the Development of Slace, Mr. lens Wylie
Wylie, this is the Duchess Stensla."
"Geoffrey calls me Clothilde, and you should too," said
the Duchess, deeply, giving lens a firm hand in greeting.
"Can we give you something to drink, Mr. Wylie?"

340


	"Oh, I guess not," Jens said.

	"Come now," Sir Geoffrey said. "You need something.

	¢1o, make him take something."

	"Well," said Jens, "perhaps a sotch and soda."

	I 1l ha e one, too, said Sir Geoffrey. "Maybe they could

	send up a bottle, a siphon and some ice, CloT'

	"I'll see it's sent along," the Duchess said, moving toward

	the door. "And I'll leave you two to talk."

	"Please," said Jens. "Don't let me interrupt--"

	"I have things to do," the Duchess said. "You and I can

talk later, perhaps, Jens."

	She went out.

"Well!" said Sir Geoffrey, dropping into an armchair.
"Sit down, sit down. What's this you want to talk to me
aboutg"

"I just heard from a cable TV newsman, a friend of
mine," Jens said. "He was telling me that there's going to
be an inquiry into things that went wrong aboard Phoenix
One and Two."

"Yes. Announced it yesterday, I think," said Sir Geoffrey.
"I missed it," Jens said, slowly. "At any rate, what he
was telling me was that there was a rumor that the aim of
the inquiry was to put the blame on the 'nauts for the
accidents and the abort of the Expedition."

Sir Geoffrey's thick gray eyebrows drew together in a
frown.

"I just wondered if you knew anything about that," said
lens.

"Know?" barked Sir Geoffrey, "Know? Do you suppose
anything like that gets written down like an Order of the
Day, and sent off to everyone concerned?"

"I mean," said Jens, "is it true? Is that the real purpose
behind the inquiry?"

"Look here, Wylie, damn it!" said Sir Geoffrey. "Something
like this Expedition doesn't just happen in a vacuum,
you know. There's a lot of other things right here on Earth
that tie into it, in the case of every country involved. The
wind blew one way for quite a while. Now it's blowing the

other way, that's all."
"Then it's true."

	"True? Who's to say what's true? We don't deal in truth,


34I

you and I. We deal in what seems to be going down at the

moment. It was one thing yesterday, today it's something

else entirely."

"How do you feel about it?" Jens persisted.

"I? Fm not to have opinions of my own," said Sir

Geoffrey. "None of us are. You aren't, if it comes to that."

"I don't agree," said Jens. He felt strangely bleak inside.

"I've got a right to my own opinion."

Sir Geoffrey grunted. At that moment, the door opened

and one of the white-shifted servants came in with a tray

holding a bottle of White Horse, two large bottles of soda

water and a pair of tall tumblers.

"Here, sir?" the servant asked Sir Geoffrey, hovering

over a coffee table nearby.

"Yes, yes. Thanks," Sir Geoffrey said.

The servant put the tray down, picked up the bottle and

began to open it.

"You can leave that," said Sir Geoffrey. "We'll serve

ourselves."

"Yes, sir." The servant went out.

As the man disappeared, Sir Geoffrey got up, opened

the bottle, and poured the two glasses each a third full of

the liquor. Then he hesitated.

"Damn!" he said. "I don't take ice in whisky and they've

forgotten .to bring you any."

"That's all right," said Jens, looking uneasily at the

level of liquor in both glasses. "It doesn't matter, and I

like a lot of soda anyway."

"Oh. Very well." Sir Geoffrey splashed a small amount

of soda into his own glass. "Perhaps you'd like to fix your

own, then."

	Jens filled his glass with soda.
	i

	"Those men," he said, "tried to do the impossible under

	conditions that were deliberately made impossible. Now, to

crucify them when they fail
	"

	His throat hurt.

"I just can't believe it," he said. "For that matter I can't
believe the governments involved making such a shift in
attitude."

"That's because you're such a bloody amateur," grumbled
Sir Geoffrey, stretching out his long legs. "I think I said

g to you about that. Damn it--you, I, everybody
else like us, are each out on the end of a string. We dance
the way they tell us, and if that means doing a right-aboutface
twice a day, then we do a right-about-face twice a
day."

"I'm not talking about us," Jens said. "It's doing a rightabout-face
on the very thing that's most necessary to the
world that's got me. What's wrong with Russia and PanEurope
and the rest that they can't see what they're throwing
out the window by killing the chances of this Expedition
ever coming off?"

"How about your own government?" barked Sir Geoffrey
over the rim of his glass. "It's not only that they're as ready
as the rest to turn it round. They were the ones who moved

first to set this inquiry going."
Jens stared at him.
"What did you say?"

"I said," Sir Geoffrey repeated, "that it was your government
that moved first to set up this inqulry. If you're after

who threw the first stone at your 'nauts, that's who it was."
"They wouldn't do anything like that!"

"Of course they did! That's to say," Sir Geoffrey said
testily, "they haven't done it yet. It's what they're going to
do. There's got to be some explanation, somebody to carry
the can when a big show like this goes down in flames.
Oh, I don't mean courts-martial or any nonsense like that.
It's just that the inquiry will turn up the fact that the 'nauts
were the immediate cause of things going wrong. Not that
anything will be done to them. It'll be made perfectly
clear they were under an unusual strain, dead tired, and all
that. But the end result will be that they'll be shown to be
just human after all--not quite the supermen they've been
thought of as, up 'til now. And at the same time there'll be
talk of how much the whole business cost, and the loss and
expense and so forth."

"But that's just the sort of thing to put going into space
seriously back fifty years!" Jens said.

"Well, there it is," said Sir Geoffrey. "What's that old
saying about you can't make an omelet without breaking
eggs?"

"But they can't get away with that," said Jens. He took

343


a large swallow unthinkingly from his glass, choked on the
strong mixture, then managed to swallow it without coughing.
"The record will show that whatever happened to the
marsnauts happened because they were worn out from trying
to keep up with too heavy a load of experiments. And
the fact that the load of experiments was too heavy was
the fault of the governments that sent them out there."

"Ah, yes," said Sir Geoffrey, "But who's going to be
pointing at that particular part of the record? Oh, if somebody
stood up in public and accused the marsnauts of not
doing their job properly, people might go back and look

at the evidence. But it won't be anything like that. Also..."
Sir Geoffrey paused and cocked an eye at Jens.

"Also," he said, "the process isn't going to be as cruel as
you think. It'll be just a small hint here and there, so that
the people who were disappointed not seeing man land
on Mars will believe the reasons for it not happening tie
up to the marsnauts, even while they go right on feeling
sorry for the 'nauts as individuals."

"Then somebody ought to tell them," Jens said savagely.
"Somebody ought to tell them, even if I have to do it myself."

"You?
Don't be a fool," said Sir Geoffrey. "They'd throw
you in jail in two seconds."

Jens sat in silent bitterness.

"Drink your drink," Sir Geoffrey told him "I said you
were an amateur. This proves it. It's not your fault, of
course, but people like you shouldn't be allowed within five
miles of anything governmental. Governments are pieces
of machinery, Wylie. It's no use expecting them to be kind,
or considerate, or even to make much sense in the ordinary
way of things. But we've got to have them. Without them
everybody'd go their own damn way and then where would
we be? Since we've got to have them, we've got to learn to

put up with them. That's what you've got to do."
"Maybe," said Jens.

"Now, there you go," said Sir Geoffrey. "Next thing
you'll be telling me that you're going to start a bloody
revolution. Do that, and set everything right. Well, it
wouldn't, even if you did. And you won't. You've got too
much sense."

"Something," said Jens, "has to be done to save the space
effort. It nearly went down the drain for twenty years. Then
the governments woke up to the fact that there was energy
and power and wealth to be had by going into space and
the whole thing changed. For the first time in a while, we
had a chance; and out of that came this Mars Expedition--
the necessary next step, even if it didn't promise immediate
power or energy or wealth. And now it's all to go down
the drain simply because some governments don't want to
be embarrassed; and so they're willing to make scapegoats
out of the best people they had to send out there."

Jens stared at Sir Geoffrey. There was a pause. Beneath
the thick, fierce thicket of the gray eyebrows in the large,
bony face, he thought he saw something in Sir Geoffrey's
eyes that almost startled him--a fugitive glitter, the kind of
eager excitement that might have come into the eyes of Don
Quixote de la Mancha on seeing the windmill, or Alexander
of Macedon on looking eastward into Persia. Then it was
gone again. The old man was as frosty as ever.

"Now you have it," he said, drily, "and high time, too!"


As Jens drove away from the old Kelly estate, Lin had just
been picked up at the Orlando airport by Penny Welles.

"It's good of you to come," Lin said. "I could have
gotten a cab, or--"

"No, I'm glad to. And anyway," said Penny, "It gives me
something to do. It's quite tense, waiting."

As Penny pulled the car smoothly out on to the highway
and found her lane, then put the vehicle on autopilot,
Lin felt the other woman's eyes on her.

"Some trouble up in New York?" Penny asked.

"No," said Lin. "No."

345


She looked ahead out through the w,idshield, and shook
her head.

"I really didn't need to go," she said. "I just wanted to
get off by myself for a day or two."

Penny said nothing; and Lin was grateful for the silence.
One of the good things about Penny was her patience and
her refusal to intrude. They slid down the highway without
speaking for several minutes, and the quiet was soothing.
Lin felt the turmoil inside her subsiding.

"You know," Lin said, still watching the road ahead, "I
never was one for making friends. I never felt I was in
love with anyone until Jens."

"Me, too," said Penny. "Well, I mean, I wasn't the sort
to make friends at school; and I never thought I'd ever have
anything to do with a man, until Dirk appeared. I didn't
see how I could."

"But now it's different?" said Lin.

Penny laughed.

"It's absolutely the other way around with everything,"
she said. "But you wouldn't have liked me in school. I was
the kind who sat in a corner and everybody thought was
too nose-in-the-air to make friends, when the truth was,
didn't know how."

"You wouldn't have liked me," said Lin. "I didn't .have
any friends either. I was too busy pushing everybody else
around."

"Well, then," Penny said. "We've both changed."
"Yes--" said Lin, and caugbt bet breath.
They drove a little farther in silence.

"Would you like me to ask?" Penny said, finally.

"Oh, it's all turned around!" Lin burst out. She was still
staring at the roadway and the loudness of her own voice
in the small space of the ear interior shocked her. "Everything
I'd got all figured out goes the other way. I understood
Jens completely. He was completely impractical. All
the things he got wound up with weren't real, or important.
I was the one who was tied into real things. I was the one
who had my head on straight and knew what had meaning

and what didn't!" .

She stopped.

"And now?" said Penny, after a second.


346

"And now, it's the other way around!" Lin said. She was
suddenly conscious she had her hands locked together in
her lap, and made herself relax them. "All of a sudden, it's
just the opposite. The things I thought were important
aren't important at all. But the nonsense things Jens was
so woolly-headed about--it turns out they're important,
they're the real things!"

She turned to stare at Penny.

"That's why I had to get away! Everything's gone--
shi/t--under my feet. Black's white. White's black. Could
I be that wrong? Was I that far off all my life?"

"I don't know," said Penny, thoughtfully, staring ahead
out the windshield herself, now. "No, I don't think you
were. I know I wasn't. It was just that, after Dirk, the
world got wider, sort of; and because it was wider, the
values of everything had to be shifted around and something
that was--expensive, say--wasn't what you'd call
expensive any more; and something that I hadn't thought
was valuable became precious, and ... well, like that .... "

"But now I think he's right," said Lin. "I know he'd
right. All these stars, all these dragons he believes in--
they are the real things. And job, and income, and success
and security and making your mark in the world are still
there--but they don't count the way the principles and the
dreams do. How can you live like that, Penny? If they're
the important things, and they're made out of moonbeams
and thin air, then where can you anchor yourself? How
can you put down a foundation and build four solid walls
and a roof to keep out the weather when you're floating
among the clouds? Penny?"

"I don't know," said Penny. "The way you put it, I can't
answer you. But you do, you know. And, too, it's beside
the point, your worrying about it, because you wouldn't
be here now if you weren't already hooked. You'd have cut
out and left a long time ago--left Jens, I mean."

"Yes," said Lin under her breath. Ahead of them the
double lane of roadway ran perfectly straight and level and
without a turnoff until it was lost to sight.

"So," said Penny. "What you're really telling me is that
you've made up your mind."

347


Slowly, still staring at the eternal road before her, Lin
found herself nodding.


Back at the hotel, Jens detoured on his way across the
lobby to look once more into the lounge. There was an
emptiness inside him; and he had been hoping that Barney
was still there, and that he could talk to him. He needed
to talk to somebody. But Barney was gone. There were four
or five people in there he did not recognize and the bartender
was busy. He closed the glass door. He had left the
key to his suite at the desk. He went back and asked for it.

"Here you are, sir," said the room clerk. He turned to
the pigeonhole behind him, took a slip of paper and turned
back to pass it across to Jens. "This message was just left
for you."

Jens took the piecq of paper. It was a standard hotel
message form and on it were written the words: 1 just got
in. I'm in Room 29. Lin.

Jens shoved his own key absently into his pocket, and
still holding the note went to the elevators. He rode up to
the second floor, discovered a sign on the wall that told
him room I9 was among the rooms to his right and went
down to the corridor to them.

He knocked and the door was opened almost immediately
by Lin. He reached for her.

"What is it?" she asked, after she had kissed him, pushing
herself back to full arm's-length to look up into his
face. "You look like an elephant stepped on your toe."

"They're going to hold an inquiry," Jens said. "And

blame the 'nauts for the fact it didn't go."

She was looking very steadily at him.

"Come on in," she said, pulling him through the dor
and shutting it behind him. "Sit down and tell me about it."

She led him across the room to one of the two armchairs,
pushed him into that and sat down in the one opposite.

"When did you hear all this?" she said. "What happened?"

He told her all he had heard, from the rumor Barney
had mentioned to Sir Geoffrey's caution not to start any
revolutions.

"You aren't, are you?" she asked, when he was done.


348

"I don't know," he said wearily. "I've got to do some
	thing."

	"Like
talk to the President?"

	He laughed, shaking his head.

	"They're not interested in listening to my opinion," he

	said. "I had that made clear to me not only from the start,

	but half a dozen times since."

	"Well then, Sir Geoffrey's right," she said. "You might

	as well relax and face the fact that you're . . ."

	"I've got to do something about it, I tell you!"

	The anger in his voice jrred him.

	"If you can't, you can't, Jens."

	He hardly heard her. His mind was chewing at the

	problem as reflexively as a rat gnawing its way out of a

	cage.

	"I need to tell everybody to look at the record," he said.

	"If they'll look at what was done with the experimental

	load, there's no way the 'haUls can be blamed."

	He chuckled a little grimly.

	"Maybe I should take a full-page ad in the newspaper,"

	he said.

	"Jens," said Lin in a level voice, "just exactly what could ......

	they do to you if you made any kind of public announce
	ment
about this?"

	He glanced at her.

	': "That was Sir Geoffrey's point," he said. "Only I think

	what he was saying was, what wouldn't they do to me?"

L
	asking seriously,"
		said.
	.

		Lin

"Well, I took a loyalty oath and signed my life away to
get this job," said Jens. "I'm liable to fine and imprisonrnent;
if l violate it. Quite a lot of imprisonment--if I do
anything that can be considered treasonable, or if I go
against the orders of my superior, who in this case happens
to be the President of the United States, and it's his orders
I'd be going against."

"You were given an order not to speak up about something
like this9"

"I wasn't given authority to speak up," Jens said. "Anything
not authorized is forbidden. Lin--what's the differenee?
I'm not concerned about what they can do to me.
I'm concerned about what I ought to do."

349


	"You ought to figure first if it's going to do any good,"
Lin said. "If it's not to do any good, then getting yourself
thrown in jail for years is hardly worthwhile, is it?"

"Oh, it's worthwhile all right," Jens said. "Just the chance
that it might do some good makes it worthwhile."

He stopped talking and sat for a moment without saying
anything. Then he looked at her again..

"I don't know why I'm dodging all around the point
this way," he said. "I know what I've got to do. I knew it
from the minute I told Sir Geoffrey that I ought to do
something. I'll hold a press conference and simply tell the
newspeople what the truth is. After that, there's no wa
they can sit on the information."

He realized suddenly, looking at her really now for th
first time since she had let him in, how pale her face had
become.


"Well, Phoenix One," said Expedition Control, "I think
we may have some good news for you."

Tad woke with a start, came back from some strange
delirious dream, the details of which evaporated even a
he tried to remember them.

"What--" he started to say; but the word was only a dr'.
husk of sound. He tried to clear his throat, but it would
not clear. A hand offered him a cup of water and he took i
gratefully. He saw that it was Anoshi standing over him
there was always one of the others with him when he w
at the control console.

The water moistened his throat, and he could spea
aloud.

"What day is this?" he.,asked Anoshi. "How many burr
so far?"

"Tenth day. Seventh burn coming up."

"Did you hear me, Phoenix One?" Expedition Contr
said. Relayed from the now-distant Phoenix Two, the rad
was thin and scratchy with static. "I was saying we m
have some good news for-you, after all."

"I hear you," said Tad to the mike grid. "What is it?"
"Well, for one thing, you must be getting close. We'
starting to pick up that radio signal of yours. We ca
understand you on radio, yet, but we're beginning to briJ
you in. We'll be talking directly to you, -soon as we can/

350


a real directional fix on you." Expedition Control paused.
"That's one thing. The other thing is, we think we've got
the pattern of that creep in your steering motor figured out;
so we can correct for it in the next burn. If we're right, it
won't take more than one--maybe two---more burns to
bring you home."

Tad nodded. It did not occur to him to answer, until
Anoshi leaned forward to the mike grid.

"That's wonderful, Expedition Control," said Anoshi,
"you're wonderful."

"Thank you, Phoenix One. The compliment is returned--
is this someone else speaking?"

"This is Anoshi. Tad just had a frog in his throat for a
minute."

"I'm all right now, Expedition Control," said Tad.
"You've got some burn figures for us, then?"

"That's right," said Expedition Control. "Got them for
Phoenix Two, as well. You're going to go this time, aren't
you, Phoenix Two?"

There was a perceptible pause before radio waves
brought Fedya's answer to the speaker of the console on
Phoenix One, and Fedya's voice, like Expedition Control's,
was now dimmed by distance and static.

"Is this my last chance, Expedition Control?"
"Either your last or your next-to-last, Phoenix Two."
"Do not worry, then," said Fedya. "This time I'll fire."

"All right, then, Phoenix One and Two. Here's your
data."


Jens, Lin, Barney, and Sir Geoffrey sat in Lin's room at
the Holiday Inn.

"You're crazy, Jens," Barney was saying. "You're crazy
even to have thought of this. You tell him, Sir Geoffrey."
"Absolutely crazy," said Sir Geoffrey. "Insane."

"Give up," said Jens. "You aren't going to talk me out of
it. Anyway, that's not why I got in touch with the two of
you. I told you, Barney, I wanted you to spread the word
I'd be holding a press conference in the Tudor Room,
downstairs at three P.M.--"

"And I did," said Barney. "I did everything but announce
it on the air, and that's what you didn't want."
"--but I also wanted at least one news representative at


::; .
	35!

the conference I could count on to report what I say the
way I mean it. Just as I wanted you--" Jens turned to Sir
Geoffrey "--there to get it straight for the diplomatic
area."

"No harm in my doingthat, of course," sid Sir Geoffrey.
But there was an almost wistful note in his voice; and for a
second Jens thought he saw again the gleam of excitement
that had seemed visible momentarily in Sir Geoffrey?s eyes

out at the Kelly estate. "If I was a younger man--but of
• course, I'm not. I'm not."

"Then we're all set," said Jens. "I want as many news
people there as possible. But I can't risk being stopped--
and one official phone call to Gervais of the Air Force
people here could shut me down before I start."

"You'll make it," Barney said. "The wheels of officialdom
grind slow, even when they know what's going on; and I'm
willing to bet no one that matters has heard anything about
this, yet. You know as well as I do what happens when
you're media and you hear something. You may tell a close
friend or two in the business, but you don't start publishing

until you've got the story."

"We hope," said Lin.

"Anyway," said Jens, glancing at her briefly, and.then
back to Barney, "now I'm going to need a lawyer." i

"You want Paula Anisha, that's who you want," said

Barney. "You have your dues still paid up in the Guild?"
"Of course," Jens said.

"Then hold this thing off until I can get Paula Anisha, or
one of her legal team down here. I'll bet one of them could
be down here in four hours. You're going to need all the
protection you can get and the Newsworkers Guild--"

"--has muscle, but not as much as the U.S. government,"
said Jens. "No thanks, Barney. I don't dare wait. You must
know some local lawyer."

"All right," said Barney.

He moved over to the phone and begin punching out a
number.

"This is Barney Winstrom," he said to the smiling woman
who answered. "Is Tom around?" .


Jens, Lin, Sir Geoffrey, and Tom Haley, the lawyer
Barney had contacted--a tall, powerful, cheerful man with

white hair cut to a'one-inch Stubble---came into the Tudor
Room, one of the function rooms of the Holiday Inn, just
before the announced three o'clock time for the press
conference. Barney was already there, seated in the middle
of the first row of seats. The other four walked down the
side of the room to the platform at one end with its long
table and microphones. The ranks of folding chairs that
filled the rest of the room had only a sprinkling of people
already in them, but more were coming in.

	"Well, well," said Tom Haley, looking them over, "not

much of a gathering to hear a man accuse the leading
governments of the world. Are you sure you're going to
need me, Jens? I could have stayed at my office and got
partway caught up on my work."

	"There may not be many of them here," said Jens, "but

the ones that are here have large ears, and their papers or
stations or networks have large mouths. I'll need you, all
right."

	He went toward the center of the table.

	"Aren't you going to wait?" Lin asked. "There's a stream

of people still coming in."

	"Maybe you're right." Then, abruptly, Jens started

toward the chair at the center of the table. "No. See that
gray-haired woman coming down the side aisle? She's the
day manager of the Inn. Tom, will you try to stall her as
long as you can?"

	"No, no. You stick with him, Haley--and you, too, Miss

West," said Sir Geoffrey and there was no mistaking the
note of excitement in his voice now. "He may need you
beside him. Let me handle the manager. She's not going to
get past me "

	Without waiting for agreement, he turned, and went

toward that end of the platform that met the bottom of the
side aisle Jens had indicated. Jens seated himself at the
table, tapped the pencil microphone before him to make
sure it was live, and spoke.

	"Sorry to start while some of. you are still coming in,"

he said. "But my time may be limited. As most of you may
know, I'm Jens Wylie, U.S. Undersecretary of Science for
the Development of Space, and a former newsman myself."

Out of the corner of his eye he could see that the hotel
manager had reached the edge of the platform and wa


	.c.	.	353

halted there, facing Sir Geoffrey, who was looming impressively
over her.
"What I have to say won't take long in any case,"
said, "because I'm not going to give you information so
much as put you on the track of finding it yourselves. As
you know, the two spacecraft of the Mars Expedition have
been disabled by a solar storm--Expedition Control is
trying to bring them back to Earth orbit right now--and
Tad Hansard, one of the marsnauts, has suffered some bad
effects from radiation during the storm. You've also heard
that very soon now, an investigation will be started into
what factors were involved in the failure of this attempt at
the Expedition."

The mahager was still held up at the edge of the
platform, her way barred by Sir Geoffrey. But now, a
heavy, middle-aged man wearing the uniform of a hotel
security guard was standing beside her.

"There may be some voices raised to suggest that the
Cause of failure lay in the 'nauts themselves," Jens went on,
rapidly. "In connection with that I want to suggest that
you investigate the following possible chain of events. That
the publics of the various nations and nation-groups involved
in this Expedition eompe,ted against each other for
the time and effort that the 'nauts would have to spare for
scientific experiment and testing on the Expedition. That
the result of this competition was that the"nauts were given
an experimental schedule too heavy for them to handle in
the time available. That the 'nauts tried to handle this impossible
work load, regardless, with the result that fatigue
from overwork caused errors of judgment that led directly

to the radiation damage to Tad Hansard and both ships."
The uniformed guard tried to go around Sir Geoffrey.
"Stop that!" barked Sir Geoffrey, loud enough to be
heard over the public address system. Some heads turned to
look at him.

"The necessary information to check this is already in
your hands," Jens was saying, "and in the hands of the
public you inform. I suggest you check the bargraphs of
the 'nauts' schedules to establish whether the work required
of them could reasonably be accomplished in the overall
time available, unless all activities aboard the ship

354


miraculously free of any delay and time loss. I ask you to
examine the reports so far released of events on both
Phoenix One and Two; and decide for yourselves and your
readers whether it was the demands of the Expedition or
the marsnauts who are responsible for the failures. And
now--" said Jens, hastily pushing back his chair and rising
"---I must go."

"Just a minute," a voice called. "One question!"

Other voices joined in, already calling questions. Jens
ignored them, hastily leaving the stage by the short flight of
stairs at its far end, just as the hotel manager ducked under
Sir Geoffrey's arm and began to come on stage. Jens ran up
the opposite side of the room and escaped through the
door of the entrance.

To his surprise he had got away. Peeking back through
the door, he saw that Sir Geoffrey had followed the manager
on stage and they had become entangled in a crowd of
newspeople apparently eager to question them. Lin and
Tom, now ignored, were cming up the center aisle.

Jens closed the door again, and waited. After a second

or two, Lin and Tom came out and saw him.

"Better move while you can," said Tom.

They left the hotel for Tom's car, which was parked in
the hotel parking lot outside.

"Where to?" the lawyer asked as they slipped out into
the traffic of the street.

"Let's go 'back to my room and thirk," said Lin. She
looked at Jens. "We should have thought about the next
move before you got up to talk."

But Jens was supremely happy.

"Doesn't matter," he said. "They'll catch up with me

sooner or later. But meanwhile I might as well enjoy life."
"You'd better simmer down," said Lin.

"That's not bad advice," said Tom. His car was the
largest model air-cushion vehicle being made for private
use, and he slid it through the traffic with absentminded
skill. "Everyone who's come after you so far hasn't had
any arrest powers. When someone like that actually shows
up, though, all Lin and I are going to be able to do for
you is advise you to go quietly."

, They came finally to the Holiday Inn. The phone within

Jens and the lawyer followed, and heard her talking to
someone the tar end ?: the line.

"Yes, 111 be right out, she was saying. She punched off

I i and turned to them. "That was PennyWelles" She's Out at
Expedition Control and she says they finally figured out the

creeping of that steering engine on Phoenix One. The last
burn put the ship right where they expected her to be. One
more will bring them in--and they can talk directly to Tad
by radio, now, without going through LCO to Phoenix

Two!"

"Thank God," said Jens. .
"She says if we want to come out, she can get us into
the observation room and you might be safer there for a
while than you would be here---I phoned her while you
were in the bathroom, just before we went down from the
press conference.

"All right." Jens checked suddenly and looked back at
Tom Haley. "That's right, you won't be able to go in with
us. Wait, you can wear my press pass and see how far you
can get, if you like."

"I've got a press vehicle pass for our car and passengers,"
said Lin. "Unless they stop him inside the Flight Control
building, he'll be all right."

"Do you want to go?" Jens asked the lawyer.

"I like to see things through," said Tom. "And as soon
as word gets around you're there, somebody'll be tapping
on your shoulder inside fifteen minutes. I'll stick with
you as long I can."

"Good," said Jens.

They took Lin's rented car. The roads to the Cape were
almost deserted in the brilliant, late afternoon sunlight. As
Lin had guessed, the guard on the gate did not question
Tom; and they pulled into the parking lot beside the Flight
Control building. Inside, on the main floor, they hurried
past another guard who was talking on the telephone in
the lobby and did not see them pass.

The elevator took them up to the floor where the Flight
Control room was. But there was a third guard on duty at
the door of the room and this time Tom was stopped.


356

to get someone to phone Security for you," said
lens. He and Lin went on into the glassed-in observation
room, at the back of the sloping floor with its rows of
consoles. The room was all but filled with members of the
marsnauts' families and other observers. Penny was up
front and they did not try to make their way through to
her. Wendy Hansard was seated at one of the consoles,
apparently having just finished talking with Tad. A speaker
inside the observation room sounded with Tad's voice, over
a background of light static.

"... give me a time check."

His voice was heavy, blurred and slow, like the voice of
a man under drugs or just awakened.

"Time is four minutes, thirty-seven seconds to burn,"
answered an Expedition Control voice. "Four thirty-six
•.. four thirty-five . . . four thirty-four . . ."

"Copy," said Tad's voice. "Okay. Our time checks.
You've got a perceptible disk, seen from here."

"Glad to hear it," said Expedition Control. "Are you all
set with the figures for the final burn?"

"All set. All ready here. Just waiting it out," said Tad's
voice, slowly.

"Phoenix Two, how about you?" asked Expedition Control.
The light sound of static ceased, but there was no
other response. "Phoenix Two. Come in, Phoenix Two.
We're not reading you."

There was a faint murmur that swelled up clearly and
loudly, suddenly, with no static to be heard at all.

"... said that the LCO here seems to be fading in and
out on transmission for me," said Fedya's voice. "Can you
read me now, Expedition Control? Can you read me?"

"Roger. We read you now, Phoenix Two. We read you
clear and loud," said Expedition Control. "You were out
there for a few minutes again, then you faded back in all of
a sudden. Is your reception of us or of Phoenix One fading
likewise?"

"No. No fade from you. I'm receiving Phoenix One now
through you. Too much static on radio direct from Tad
now. Let me know if I fade out again."

"Are you set for burn, Phoenix Two? Have you got your
figures?"


357

"Will you make the burn all right this time, do you
think?"

There was a movement beside Jens, and he glanced aside
briefly to see Tom, now with a badge, slip into the room
beside him and stand listening. "If we lose contact with you
through the LCO, we won't be able to keep updating your
burn figures. You've got to go, this time."

"I intend to go," said the voice of Fedya. "Never mind
me, Expedition Control. Concentrate on getting Phoenix
One home safe."

"What is it?" Tom asked Jens. Unnecessarily, here he
spoke in a whisper. "That business about his going?"

"He's been having trouble getting the two workin
engines he's got to burn at all," Jens said. "He hasn't
able to fire at the same time as Phoenix One on any of
the burns since the two ships were together--"

He broke off. Expedition Control was talking to
again.

"... two shuttles," Expedition Control was saying.

will stand off when they meet you. The other will come
close enough to get a line to your Number Three hatch.
We'll send a pilot across to bring Phoenix One in the rest
of the way to orbit, and all of you will transfer over to the
shuttle. Understood?"

"Understood," said Tad. "How soon after we finish
burn should we rendezvous?"

"The shuttle should meet you in four hours ten minutes
after you finish your burn," Expedition Control said. "That's
provided you end up where you're supposed to.
shuttles are already on the way to that point, as we told
you earlier today."

"Copy," said Tad. "Four hours ten minutes after end
burn."

I-Iis voice was slowing even more as he talked, like a
record on an antique phonograph that had been underwound.

"Tad,"
said Expedition Control. "Tad, why don't you
let Anoshi or one of the others take over for this last burn?
It's all c and dried, now."

"Hell with that . . ." Tad's voice slurred drunkenly.
"Took her out--bring'er back. Fedya!"


358

clear, alert and free of background noise in comparison to
Tads that Jens almost started. It was almost as if Fedya had

spoken behind Jens and Tom in the observation room.
"Good hunting, partner." •

"Thank you.., partner," said Fedya. "And I wish..."
His voice faded once more, suddenly, into nothingness.
"Fedya?" said Tad, after a moment.
There was no answer.

"Phoenix Two's LCO is malfunctioning," Expedition

Control said. "We don't receive Fedya either, Tad."
Tad's voice muttered something unintelligible.

"One minute and counting," said Expedition Control.
"Ready for countdown, Phoenix One, Phoenix Two. Fiftysix
seconds . . . fifty-five . . . fifty-four . . ."

"You mean," Tom Haley whispered in Jens's ear, "the
other spaceship hasn't even started to come toward Earth?"

"Yes," said Jens. He was hardly listening. His attention
was all on Wendy, standing by the console with her back
turned to the end of the room. Her arms were at her side,
and her hands were clenched. There was no other sign of
tension about her. Someone else came into the observation
room behind Jens and Tom, but neither of them turned to
look.

"Twenty seconds..."

"Good luck, Phoenix One," said the voice of Fedya,
suddenly loud in the observation room, drowning out the
voice of Expedition Control's counting.

"Six seconds.., five seconds," said Expedition Control.
"Four . . . three . . . two . . . one . . . fire!"

A sudden roar of static erupted from the speaker, and
was hastily tuned down. It was silent in the observation
room. No one moved down in the control room proper.
Jens and Tom waited, breathing shallowly.

Finally, after a long time, the speaker came to life again
with the faint background of static Jens had heard originally.

"Phoenix
One," said Expedition Control. "Come in,
Phoenix One."

"Read you, Expedition Control," answered Tad's voice
suddenly. "All over. Burn went fine. Everything's fine."

"Roger, Phoenix One," said Expedition Control. "You


359

are on target. Repeat, you are on target. We're just getting
confirmation on that by the ATM in Skylab Two. Congratulations.
The shuttles will be with you soon."

"Thanks to you, Expedition Control," said Tad. "I thank
you, we all thank you..."

"Phoenix Two?" said Expedition Control. "Phoenix Two,
come in. This is Expedition Control calling Phoenix Two.
Do you read me?"

"I read you, Expedition Control." Fedya's voice swelled
up in volume suddenly from the speaker. "Great, good

work, Tad. My congratulations to all of you."

"Salute to you, Fedya," said Tad.

"Phoenix Two, this is Expedition Control. Did you accomplish
burn? Repeat, did you accomplish burn this time."

"I am sorry, Expedition Control," said Fedya. "Very
sorry. No, I did not born. But then I was not trying. Forgive
me for keeping you in the dark this long, but I wanted
to leave your minds free to concentrate on getting Phoenix
One home safely. I never intended to use the figures you
gave me."

"Phoenix Two? Hello, Phoenix Two. We're reading you,
but don't understand. Did you say you didn't intend to
burn at any time? What about the malfunction of your two
engines.

"There was none," said Fedya. "As I say, Expedition
Control, forgive me. If I had told you the truth to begin
with, you would have wanted to argue with me. I did not

argument, particularly useless argument, once my.ill

want

mind was made up."

"Phoenix Two, I don't understand--" Expedition Control's
voice suddenly broke off and was replaced by one
Jens knew. "Phoenix Two, this is Bill Ward. Fedya, what
are you talking about? Have you been deliberately choosing
to keep Phoenix Two as she is? Why, in God's name?"

"Leave him alone." It was Tad's voice suddenly, breaking
in. "We started out to go to Mars, Bill. If one man wants to
complete that Expedition, he's got a right to. Anyway,
what're you .going to do about it?"

"But . . ." began Bill; and stopped again.

"Please, Bill," said Fedya. "No arguments. We all know
that the Expedition has to be completed, if there are to be


36o

more missions after this one. This spacecraft is a small
capsule of all our efforts since time began; and someone
has to see it safely to its destination. We decided that when
you announced the abort. If it had not been me here in
Phoenix Two, it would have been one of the others---
Dirk, Bern, Anoshi, Bap. One of us would have stayed with
Phoenix Two."

"Hey," said Tad, thickly, "don't forget me, you damned
mutineer. It was my idea."

"I don't forget you, Tad," said Fedya. "But it had to be a

well man. One who could stay alive until Mars is reached,
and even after. Someone who could keep records and
even maintain as many of the experiments as possible, so
that the data will be there when the next ships come. I
know . . . I know what I did in taking this away from
you, Tad. But we agreed, all the rest of us agreed, that
it had to be done."

"Sure," said Tad. "Sure. If I'd been in shape to think

straight I'd have realized that earlier myself."

He stopped talking. There was no sound.

"Fedya?" Tad said. "Fedya, you still reading me? Fedya.w'
"Phoenix Two, come in," said Bill Ward. "Phoenix Two,
this is Expedition Control. We do not read you. Phoenix
Two, we've lost your transmission. Come in, Phoenix Two.
Phoenix Two, come in .... "

He continued talking. There was no answer.

Someone had come into the observation room a moment

ago, and stood just behind Jens. He stepped forward now
and Jens turned to look at him. He was a stocky young man
with blond hair who might have been a first cousin of
Kilmartin Brawley.

"Undersecretary Wylie?" He had a slow, southern ac-

cent, and he was holding out a wallet, opened to show a
card within bearing his photograph and several lines of
information. "FBI, Mr. Wylie. You are under arrest, sir,
on an open charge. Please come with me."

36I


36


It was all very polite and almost pleasant. The man who
had arrested Jens--his name was Morris J. Wello, according
to the credentials which he earnestly requested that
Jens read through carefully--took Jens by unmarked car
to an office in downtown Cocoa Beach, where forms were
filled out and the details from the papers sent over a
computer terminal to a main office in Washington. Jens
was required to sign the forms, which were in quintuplicate,

"So I'm a criminal now," he said as he put his name to
the last paper.

Wello looked shocked.

"Not at all," he said. "This just confirms the emergency
arrest action, and it's only good for twenty-four hours
from the moment of arrest. It's impossible to get a regular
order of arrest until you've been properly booked as a
matter of public record and your counsel fully informed.
Then an open hearing has to be held, and so on. Things
have changed a lot in the last ten years; and I'm sure you'll
find they've been changed for the better."

He opened a drawer and produced what looked like a
wristwatch.

"For example," he said, holding it up. "Do you know
about these?"
"It's that electronic handcuff thing, isn't it?"

"Well, I don't know if it's actually electronic--though
I suppose in part it is," said Wello, strapping the metal
strap of the device around Jens's naked left wrist. "I'm

afraid I don't know as much about it as I should."

He laughed, cheerfully.

"Not too tight, is it?" he asked. "If you'll look at the
dial there . . ."

,36


Jens looked. What he saw was a glass-covered dial showing
a scale marked from one to five hundred. A single
needle rested on the zero mark.

"You see mine?" went on Wello, laying his own left
hand and arm out on the desk before them. He wore his
own version of the device with the dial part on the inside
of his wrist instead of on the back of it as on the one
strapped to Jens.

"Now, you see, I set mine . . ." His fingers turned the
small knob on one side of the dial and the needle on his
instrument climbed up the scale to the number fifteen.
The needle on Jens's unit matched this movement.

"That's fifteen feet you and I can be separated, without
your unit reacting--what we call walk-about distance,"
said Wello. He grinned at Jens. "Most local police officers
will set it at about five feet and ask you to stand up and
walk away from them, so you can feel what it's like when
you go past the set distance; your unit reacts, and you
suddenly have trouble breathing; but with the caliber of
people we usually end up .escorting, we don't find that
necessary. You're aware, I'm sure, that even if you do
go over the line, the shortness of breath you feel won't be
enough to be really dangerous. It's just enough to immobilize
you."

"I'd heard that," said Jens.

"Yes," said Wello, "it really is a most civilized improvement
over old-fashioned handcuffs. For one thing I can
let you go to the john by yourself. Also it's a lot easier for
both of us if we're traveling together to have two hands
apiece to do things with, like eat and pick our noses, then
it is if we've three hands between the two of us. Then
of course, there's always that unexpected emergency in
which it becomes dangerous for two people to be chained
together. This new version of cuffs gets around all that."

"What if I get caught on a subway and you aren't
able to get on?" asked Jens. "I could become pretty uncomfortable
for quite a while before somebody could get to
me and disconnect me."

"We're trained not to let that happen," said Wello,
smiling again,

He reached into the middle drawer of a desk beside

IL

" 363

him and took out what looked like a heavy, wide-jawed pair
of pliers. He fastened the jaws on the buckle of the metal
strap that secured the electronic cuffs around Jens's wrist.
There was a faint crackling sound. When he took the pliers
away the buckle.had been melted into a shapeless blob of
metal.

Jens instinctively winced away from what he assumed
must be the touch of now-hot metal against his skin. But
his surprise, the apparently melted buckle was as cool as it
had been before.

"Another of the wonders of science," Wallo said cheerfully.
"Will you come with me now, Mr. Wylie? ....

They left the office and drove to the Orlando airport.
There, they picked up tickets that were waiting for them
on a commercial jet headed for Washington. The jet turned
out to be an all first-class flight, and they were given the
first two seats on the right hand side of the plane. Wello
chatted cheerfully throughout the flight. He was, it turned
oui booster of the space effort.

really jolted me," h said, "when I heard what you'd.

told those reporters. You mean those 'nauts were really
given more to do than they could handle?"

"More than they could handle without becoming
dangerously exhausted," said Jens.

Wello continued to ask questions. He was eager to hear
as much as Jens could tell him about the details of the
Expedition itself and everything connected with it. To
these things he listened with the attention and enjoyment

of

	a

		true

			enthusiast.

"If you feel that strongly about t, Jens satd o hun,
finally, "why don't you speak up? The only thing that's::
going to save the Expeditiotr--I don't mean this Expedition,
but the idea of any expedition to Mars, once this :
has gone down the tube- will be a large percentage of the
population insisting that we don't quit---here, at this point." ii

"Oh, well," said Wello. "The people in the space pro--
gram and in Washington here do know a lot more about it
than I do, after all. They must know what they're doing.
But it's a shame to have it all come to an end, as you say.
It's been fascinating to think of a frontier in space."

"Well, you could write a letter to your Representative
and your Senator," said Jens.

Wello smiled.

"This job of mine's a little sensitive, that way," he
answered.

They stopped talking, Eventually the jet landed and
they were met by a green, unmarked car, which drove
them to what seemed to be a large pleasant, resort hotel
with a small golf course attached, out in the Arlington
area. It was, indeed, very much like a hotel: Jens was
asked to sign a register, and then a man uniformed quite
like a bellman carried off his luggage, which had been

packed for him and brought from the Holiday Inn.
"This way please, Mr. Wylie," said Wello.

He led Jens off across the ground floor, through an
unmarked door and into another large office. Here there
were more papers to fill out, after which Jens was taken
back out and escorted by Wello up to a hotel-like room
on an upper floor.

The next five days consisted of nothing at all. It was
like being locked in a hotel room in any large, strange
city. Meals came regularly, and he was able to call down
to room service for reading material, snacks, evenhe
discovered a discreet amount of alcoholic beverages. The
TV provided him with the best holographic image he had
ever seen on any such set. But he was locked in, and in the
final essential his days and nights were as empty as any
prisoner's.

An almost blessed interruption came at last on the
morning of the sixth day, shortly after the ten A.M. news
program. Wello appeared unexpectedly, knocking on the
door and stepping in immediately afterwards, like a discreet
chambermaid.
"You've got a couple of visitors," he said. "Your lawyer

and a representative from the Newsworkers Guild."

"I still want to talk to a Miss Alinde West--"

"I'm trying to arrange that, Mr. Wylie," Wello said, "as
I told you. If you'll come along with me now, though,
both your lawyer and the Guild representative are downstairs."
They went down and Jens was led once more through
the unmarked, door on the lobby floor, through the office
there and into a back room set up like a lounge. Inside, to
his surprise, were Barney and a lean, tailored-looking


365

woman in her fifties with startling black hair and dark eyes,

and a/most as tall as Jens himself.

"Jens," said Barney, "this is Paula Anisha, senior at
torney
for the Newsworkers Guild."

"Oh, yes," Jens said, shaking hands with her. "I've

heard of you, of course, ever since I first started working

	on the newspaper back home."
	,

	"Well, I've been hearing about you, too, though not for

	quite that long," Paula Anisha said.

	Jens felt a sudden small sense of incongruity. This lady,

	who had reputedly been a terror to anyone trying to tilt

	with the Guild for the last twenty years, had a warm,

	slightly hoarse voice that would have fitted better on. the

	heroine of a television soap opera.

	"You still do have your membership in the Guild?" she

	asked now.

	"As a matter of fact, yes," Jens said. "I never did take

	myself too seriously as a government figure. I al.w,,ays

thought I'd get back to honest work one of these days. ii

"Not that it matters," put in Barney.

"No," Paula said. "It doesn't matter. The Guild would

be concerned in a case like yours, involving freedom of

expression, in any case. Why don't we all sit down; and

you go over the whole thing for me from the .time when

you started to hold this conference, and tell me exactly

why you decided to hold it?"

They pulled three of the comfortable chairs in the

lounge together and sat down. Jens found himself reach
ing
back to the moment in which Tad Hansard had

warned him during lunch that the experiment schedule

for the two ships was too heavy, and moving on from

there. It was not until he came to the account of his

arrest that he realized he had been talking almost unin
terruptedly
for an hour and a half.

"Sorry," he said to them both, "I didn't mean to keep

going like that."

"Not at all,;' said Paula. "That's exactly what I wanted,

Jens."

	|

She got to her feet.

"I've got it all here, recorded," she said, tapping the

small purse fastened to her left wrist. "From now on you'll

366
	:!!

be dealing mainly with other members of my Staff, since
I've got my hands full ninety per cent of the time. But
Jens, I think we've got a strong case--a very strong case."

Jens and Barney had both gotten to their feet in re-

sponse. She shook hands with them both now.

"Just sit tight," she smiled at Jens. "We'll be in touch

with you. And if you want to get in touch with the Guild,
simply tell your switchboard here to get hold of us. They
can't refuse to put you through to us by phone at any time

of the day or night. You'll remember that?"
"Absolutely," said Jens.
Paula left.

"Sit down againi" said Barney. "I've got some more

things to talk to you about."

"I've got some things to ask you," said Jens. "How's Lin?

How come she couldn't come and see me?"

"The government's doing its best to keep you completely

locked away from everybody," said Barney. "But they
can't keep out your attorneys, and they can't keep me out
as long as I'm officially designated the representative
from the Newsworkers Guild. We tried to get Lin in, too,

but we couldn't. Sit down.' .... ....
Jens sat do;n again, and Barney sat down with him.
"To begin with, how are they treating you?"

"Fine," said Jens. "Except that I'm about to go out

of my skull with boredom. I'm not used to being locked


"Not many people are," said Barney.

"Too much of this and you can begin to feel like you're

invisible. Like nobody knows you're there or cares,"

said Jens.

"That's the idea, of course," Barney nodded. "They

don't miss a trick. But it could be worse, Jens. Believe me,
it could be worse. As it is, that's the most they can do to
you with the media keeping its eye on them."

"I've been reading the papers and watching the news
broadcasts," said Jens. "I really did kick up a fuss, didn't


"You did that," said Barney.

"I couldn't bring myself to ask Paula," Jens said. "But

what does it look like they can do to me?"

367


"They can lock you up, all right," said Barney. "It's
just as well you didn't ask Paula. She doesn't have all the

answers at this stage of the game and all she could have
done would be to talk around the subject. But I can tell you

--yes, they can lock you up."

"And what else?"

"Well," said Barney, "if you're thinking about things
like electroshock treatment and things like that--no,
they're not going to be able to get away with anything
like that in your case. Yes, they'll send you to a therapy
center, just as if you'd robbed a bank. But, no, they won't
be able to play games with your head, via the drug route
or special therapy, or anything else. All they'll be able to
do is earnestly exhort you to mend your ways. In fact,
thdy'll even have to be a little careful how they do that."

"I feel a little guilty," s'aid Jens, "getting this sort of
V.I.P. treatment simply because I know a few people."

"Come off it," said Barney. "If you weren't the kind of
person who knew people, you wouldn't have been this
nation's representative to the Expedition. If you hadn't
been that, you wouldn't have stuck your neck out the
way you did and got into this mess. It all hangs together.
Now you're a small ant that a big government wants to
step on. But a big newsworkers' organization, with connections
to all the other newsworkers' organizations around
the world is going to make sure it keeps its feet inside the
legal lines. That's all."

Jens shivered. "To tell the truth," he said, staring at the
wall of the lounge opposite, "it's good to hear that. I've
picked up my share of horror stories about the present
decriminalization process over the last few years."

"Some of them aren't horror stories," said Barney, without
lowering his voice. In fact, it seemed to Jens that he
spoke if anything a little more loudly than he had been
talking earlier. "The point is that nothing like that's going
to happen to you."

"Watch it, Barney," said Jens, with half a smile, "the
room may be bugged."

"I know damn well it's bugged," said Barney, "and that's
why I want to make sure they've got me on record. It was
a good trick, this closing down the jails and sending every-

368


body in them to therapy centers. But any system can
develop a bad side--and there's a bad side there, too,
with people who end up in padded cells or straightjackets
for the rest of their lives. There are other people who get
their brains cooked with drugs or electronic treatments, or
even brainwashed without a finger being laid on them.
The point is, nothing like that is going to happen to you
or the Newsworkers Guild is going to be upset. Very upset."

Jens looked across at Barney and saw that his tace was
set and grim. The shiver he had felt earlier came back,
followed by a warm surge of gratitude toward Barney and
people like him.

"What would I do without you?" he said.

"You'd still do pretty well." The anger had gone out of
Barney's face and voice. "There's the political system, too,
to consider. Being the Undersecretary for the Development
of Space, even for a short while, you got to be a little too
noticeable to be filed away and forgotten. Even if the rest
of us weren't around, it'd be sticky going outside the
acceptable limits with someone like you. But it doesn't
hurt to have us here, too."

"You can say that again," Jens said.


On the way back from Washington after seeing Jens,
all the way on the taxi to the airport, on the flight down to
Orlando, and driving his rental car from there back to
Merritt Island, Barney had found himself prey to a disturbing,
but not altogether uncomfortable, emotion. At
first he could not put his finger on its exact nature. It was
as if, somewhere inside him, a wall had gone down, letting
a horde of unsuspected devils into the light of day, where
they had shriveled and died in the sun. He felt somewhat
disheveled internally from the crumbling of that part of
his interior architecture, but at the same time very relieved
that the devils--whose existence he had hardly suspected--
were now taken care of.

It took him nearly three quarters of the tip before he
began to be able to put a name to the devils and a label to
the wall. The wall had been the cynicism he had chosen
to hide behind ever since his marriage had broken up and
the devils, quite simply, had been the fears and doubts


369

about his own ineffectiveness as a man and as a human
being that had followed upon experiencing that breakup.

He faced the fact that it was Jens's actions, Jens's almost
romantic crusade on behalf of the astronauts, that had
worked the cure in him. He had ended up wanting a piece
of that action.

He suddenly knew he wanted to see Aletha again. For
the first time he recognized something more where she
was concerned than the deliberately casual interest he had
taken in women ever since he had faced the fact that
Wilma was gone for good. He saw now that he had
deliberately steered clear of Aletha simply because she was
the kind of person he could get serious about--and getting
serious again, setting himself up for another human failure,
was something that had terrified him.

Now that his mind had cleared, he saw a great deal
more than he might have suspected earlier. For one thing
he saw that Aletha herself labored under a burden of secret '
fear; only, in her case, the result had been that she had
given in to life. He wondered whether that giving in had
come on her at the time of her divorce, or had it been
something that had trapped her earlier? At any rate, there
was something in her that feared to take hold of any situa---

tion

	and

		try to make it go her own way, a sort of defeatism; I

and, contemplating his own recent escape from the ]
cynicism that had held him so long, Barney felt very keenly
that she did not really have to be afraid in that way, and
he found himself searching for some way he could trans-I.fer
he effect of hts own recent experience with Jens to her,

so that she, too, could break loose.

	was really a new feeling for him, this feeling he now iJ

It

had about her. There was an almost guilty aspect to it.
What if he had discovered it in himself while that friend'J
of hers--Jim Brille--had still been alive? What would::.i
he have done then'? Would he have been able to square ;II
it with his new self that he could step in and compete with
Jim for her? Or would the very fact that there was already
somebody there before him have been enough to shock
him back behind his wall again, to rebuild it and to hatch
out new demons of self-doubt?

It was impossible to tell.

37o


He reached the Holiday Inn and cruised the parking
lot looking for an open space. It was just before the
dinner hour and the lot was full. He finally found a spot
on the far side of the motel from the cocktail lounge. He
parked and went in the side entrance, crossed the lobby
and stepped into the cocktail lounge through the door
from the lobby.

He stood for a moment, adjusting his eyes to the
dimness. As the lounge resolved out of the gloom, he saw
that Aletha was apparently alone at the bar; and he was
just about to go over to her when the outside door to the
lounge opened and Malcolm Schroeder came in. There
was a curious smugness visible upon his face as he entered.
He came up to the bar like a cat approaching a dish of
thick cream. Behind the bar, Aletha was working, with
her head down. She did not raise it to look at Malcolm.
There was a qtickness and abruptness to her movements
that was interestingly at odds with the slinking smoothness
of Malcolm's approach---and, unexpectedly, hope kindled
in Barney.

Instead of moving up to the bar himself, he stepped off
to one side and sat down noiselessly at one of the.tables
back in the shadows. Malcolm sat down at the bar.
Plainly neither he nor Aletha had seen Barney.


Malcolm Schroeder came into the bar lounge of the

Holiday Inn and was pleased by what he saw. Aletha was
back on her regular evening shift that began at four-thirty
in the afternoon and ended when the bar closed at one
o'clock in the morning. Right now, at quarter of five, she
had just come on duty and was working behind a deserted
bar, setting up; and there were only two other people in
the room, up at the near end by the glass door, about as .....
far from her as they could be and still be in the same room.

Malcolm went down and took a seat opposite her.
"A Pabst," he said.
"Right."

Aletha finished washing the remaining glasses in the

sink before her, set them to drain, dried her hands, and
went to the bar to the beer cooler. She got out one of the
squat brown bottles of beer, uncapped it, brought it back,

37I


"They can lock you up, all right," said Barney. "It's

just as well you didn't ask Paula. She doesn't have all the
answers at this stage of the game and all she could have
done would be to talk around the subject. But I can tell you

--yes, they can lock you up."

"And what else?"

"Well," said Barney, "if you're thinking about things
like electroshock treatment and things like that--no,
they're not going to be able to get away with anything
like that in your case. Yes, they'll send you to a therapy
center, just as if you'd robbed a bank. But, no, they won't
be able to play games with your head, via the drug route
or special therapy, or anything else. All they'll be able to
do is earnestly exhort you to mend your ways. In fact,
they'll even have to be a little careful how they do that."

"I feel a little guilty," said Jens, "getting this sort of
V.I.P. treatment simply because I know a few people."

"Come off it," said Barney. "If you weren't the kind of
person who knew people, you wouldn't have been this
nation's representative to the Expedition. If you hadn't
been that, you wouldn't have stuck your neck out the
way you did and got into this mess. It all hangs together.
Now you're a small ant that a big government wants to
step on. But a big newsworkers' organization, with connections
to all the other newsworkers' organizations around
the world is going to make sure it keeps its feet inside the
legal lines. That's all."

Jens shivered. "To tell the truth," he said, staring at the
wait of the lounge opposite, "it's good to hear that. I've
picked up my share of horror stories about the present
decriminalization process oer the tast few years."

"Some of them aren't horror stories," said Barney, without
towering his voice. In fact, it seemed to Jens that he
spoke if anything a little more loudly than he had been
talking earlier. "The point is that nothing like that's going
to happen to you."

"Watch it, Barney," said Jens, with half a smile, "the
room may be bugged."

"I know damn well it's bugged," said Barney, "and that's
why I want to make sure they've got me on record. It was
a good trick, this closing down the jails and sending every-

368


body in them to therapy centers. But any system can
develop a bad side--and there's a bad side there, too,
with people who end up in padded cells or straightjackets
for the rest of their lives. There are other people who get
their brains cooked with drugs or electronic treatments, or
even brainwashed without a finger being laid on them.
The point is, nothing like that is going to happen to you
or the Newsworkers Guild is going to be upset. Very upset."

Jens looked across at Barney and saw that his face was
set and grim. The shiver he had felt earlier came back,
followed by a warm suyge of gratitude toward Barney and
people like him.

"What would I do without you?" he said.

"You'd still do pretty well." The anger had gone out of
Barney's face and voice. "There's the political system, too,
to consider. Being the Undersecretary for the Development
of Space, even for a short while, you got to be a little too
noticeable to be filed away and forgotten. Even if the rest
of us weren't around, it'd be sticky going outside the
acceptable limits with someone like you. But it doesn't
hurt to have us here, too."

"You can say that again," Jens said.


Onthe way back from Washington after seeing Jens,
all the way on the taxi to the airport, on the flight down to
Orlando, and driving his rental car from there back to
Merritt Island, Barney had found himself prey to a disturbing,
but not altogether uncomfortable, emotion. At
first he could not put his finger on its exact nature. It was
as if, somewhere inside him, a wall had gone down, letting
a horde of unsuspected devils into the light of day, where
they had shriveled and died in the sun. He felt somewhat
disheveled internally from the crumbling of that part of
his interior architecture, but at the same time very relieved
that the devils--whose existence he had hardly suspected--
were now taken care of.

It took him nearly three quarters of the tip before he
began to be able to put a name to the devils and a label to
the wail. The wall had been the cynicism he had chosen
to hide behind ever since his marriage had broken up and
the devils, quite simply, had been the fears and doubts


369

about his own ineffectiveness as a man and as a human
being that had followed upon experiencing that breakup.

He faced the fact that it was Jens's actions, Jens's almost

. romantic crusade on behalf of the astronauts, that had
worked the cure in him. He had ended up wanting a piece
of that action.

He suddenly knew he wanted to see Aletha again. For
the first time he recognized something more where she
was concerned than the deliberately casual interest 15e had
taken in women ever since he had faced the fact that
Wilma was gone for good. He saw now that he had
deliberately steered clear of Aletha simply because she was
the kind of person he could get serious about--and getting
serious again, setting himself up for another human failure,
was something that had terrified him.

Now that his mind had cleared, he saw a great deal
more than he might have suspected earlier. For one thinghe
saw that Aletha herself labored under a burden of secret
fear; only, in her case, the result had been that she had
given in to life. He wondered whether that giving in had
come on her at the time of her divorce, or had it been
something that had trapped her earlier? At any rate, there
was something in her that feared to take hold of any situation
and try to make it go her own way, a sort of defeatism;
and, contemplating his own recent escape from the
cynicism that had held him so long, Barney felt very keenly
that she did of really have to be afraid in that way, and
he found himself searching for some way he could transfer
the effect of his own recent experience with Jens to her,
so that she, too, could break loose.

It was really a new feeling for him, this feeling he now
had about her. There was an almost guilty aspect to it.
What if he had discovered it in himself while that friend
of hers--Jim Brill,e--had still been alive? What would
he have done then? Would he have been able to square
it with his new self that he could step in and compete with
Jim for her? Or would the very fact that there was already
somebody there before him have been enough to shock
him back behind his wall again, to rebuild it and to hatch
out new demons of self-doubt?

It was impossible to tell.

370


?,iHe reached the Holiday Inn and cruised the parking
lot looking for an open space. It was just before the
dinner hour and the lot was full. He finally found a spot
on the far side of the motel from the cocktail lounge. He
parked and went in the side entrance, crossed, the lobby
and stepped into the cocktail lounge through the door
from the lobby.

He stood for a moment, adjusting his eyes to the
dimness. As the lounge resolved out of the gloom, he saw
that Aletha was apparently alone at the bar; and he was
just about to go over to her when the outside door to the
lounge opened and Malcolm Schroeder came in. There
was a curious smugness visible upon his face as he entered.
He came up to the bar like a cat approaching a dish of
thick cream. Behind the bar, Aletha was working, with
her head down. She did not raise it to look at Malcolm.
There was a quickness and abruptness to her movements
that was interestingly at odds with the slinking smoothness
of Malcolm's approach---and, unexpectedly, hope kindled
in Barney.

Instead of moving up to the bar himself, he stepped off
to one side and sat down noiselessly at one of the tables
back in the shadows. Malcolm sat down at the bar.
Plainly neither he nor Aletha had seen Barney.


Malcolm Schroeder came into the bar lounge of the
Holiday Inn and was pleased by what he saw. Aletha was
back on her regular evening shift that began at four-thirty
in the afternoon and ended when the bar closed at one
o'clock in the morning. Right now, at quarter of five, she
had just come on duty and was working behind a deserted
bar, setting up; and there were only two other people in
the room, up at the near end by the glass door, about as
far from her as they could be and still be in the same room.

Malcolm went down and took a seat opposite her.
"A Pabst," he said.
"Right."

Aletha finished washing the remaining glasses in the
sink before her, set them to drain, dried her hands, and
went to the bar to the beer cooler. She got out one of the
squat brown bottles of beer, uncapped it, brought it back,

37I


and set it before him with a glass. She went back to washing
more glasses. In all of this she had not once looked
at him.

Malcolm poured the beer from the bottle into his glass.
Originally she had done this for him. In fact, it seemed if
he remembered rightly she had done this for him up until
a couple of weeks ago, after her boyfriend had been
killed. He had noticed that she did it for other people at
the bar who ordered beer.

"How's it going?" he asked.

"Fine," she said.

She put the last of her glasses upside down on the drainboard
of the bar sink, to dry and went down to the other
end of the bar. Malcolm sat for a while watching her and
then picked up his glass and beer bottle from the bar and
started to go to her end. As he did, she came back down
to the end he had just left.

He reversed himself and returned to take his original
stool at the bar.
"Look," he said, "you'll be taking your dinner break
around six-thirty, won't you? There's a little place a couple
of blocks down the street here on the left."

"The Harmon House," said Aletha, not looking up. "I
know it. No thanks, i'm going to be busy here."

"Don't be like that," said Malcolm. "You have a sandwich
and a cup of coffee here every night. You've got to
be getting tired of that."

"It suits me just fine."

"Come on, now. Anybody likes to eat out for a changel
And you could stand the change. I didn't notice that friend
of yours taking you out on your dinner hour all that often."

Aletha had begun to turn away. But now she turned
back, reached for some lemons and began peeling them.

"I don't think you know any friends of mine," she said
to the lemons.

Malcolm felt pleased. He bad finally gotten her attention.
A touch of humor, a little joking would do that sometimes.

"I know this one, all right," he said. "Or rather, I
ought to say I knew him, since be ended up down at the
morgue. You ought to be careful who you talk to in here.
No telling what kind of business some of these people
are in." :;

372


"Yes," said Aletha. The knife she was using to peel
with dug as deeply into the lemon she was peeling as its
inch and a half blade could manage on a slant.

"Yes," said Malcolm, wisely, "you can never tell what
the people you run into in a bar like this are like. I'm sure
you had no idea what that guy was like. But you can see
it's just lucky that you didn't get into some kind of trouble
with him."

He stopped and looked at her to see how she was
taking this. She was simply continuing to work with her
head down.

"Actually," he said, "what you really need is someone
to take care of you. Now, as you know, I'm going to be
moving down here just as soon as I buy a house. Of course
I'm married, and I'd have to spend a fair amount of time
at home with my wife; but there's no reason you and I--"

He broke off suddenly1 Aletha was flourishing the little
inch-and-a-half length of her paring knife only inches
before his face.

"You get the hell out of here!" said Aletha. "You get
the hell out of here and you get the hell away from me!
You aren't fit to be in the same room where he was[ Now
you get the hell away from me and you stay away from me
or I'll cut your balls off. And if you think I can't do it
I'll get help!"

He stared at her, stupefied. Her voice had raised and he
knew without looking that the other two people in the
room must be staring at him. The little knife was almost
touching his face and suddenly he was quite cold with fear.

He fell back off the bar and nearly went down. On his
feet he turned and went blindly but hastily to his left, and
out the door to the street into the open air. He was half
way down the parking lot toward his car before he
realized that he was running. He slowed down to a walk,
glancing around to see if anybody had seen him come
bolting out of the bar. However, no one was in sight. He
walked on to his car, feeling shaky inside, but getting his
breath and his self-control back as he went.

He reached the car, got inside and locked the doors all
around once he was in. He sat for a few minutes, just
catching his breath. Then he put the key in the ignition,


373

backed out and drove off. It was not until he was actually
out on the street headed down toward Melbourne that
he could feel his pulse and his breathing getting back to
normal.flood him.Gradually' however, a sense of relief begart!l

Thank God he had found out what she was like in time.
His knees felt weak at the thought that he might have set
up some kind of deal with her, and then had her explode
like that after the house was bought and Myrt was down
here. It was just his good luck to find out in time.

He drove along, his spirits rising. Yes, he was lucky in
some ways. Probably. the reason he hadn't gotten any
farther with her during the past few weeks was because
something inside him had instinctively realized what she
was like. Her and that boyfriend of .hers that got knifed
were obviously two of a kind. Of course, she had certainly
hidden that part of her well--for a moment he felt a ,twinge
of regret, thinking of her body moving around behind the
bar there. It would have been nice . . . but, no, it was
much better this way. When you came to look at it, everything
had turned out for the best--and why not, he
thought? It was men like him, the solid ones, who always
kept the world going--not trashy barmaids and flashy
newspeople, and dumb spacemen who didn't have the
sense to come in out of the sun. He chuckled at the joke,
and made a note to tell it to Myrt, explaining it first. He
drove on in the evening sunlight, reflecting that it was
only fair that he be lucky, as well as four-square and
hard-working. But it chilled him to think how she had
looked there, when she was waving the knife in his face.
And her language. God, what savages some women were!


Aletha had gone back to carving her lemons so fiercely
that she had not seen Barney come up to the bar from the
place in back where he had been seated. He sat down in
front of her, and she jumped and looked up. Then, the

tension leaked out of her at the sight of him.

"Oh, Barney!" she said. "It's you."

"Hey!" Barney said softly. "That was fine!"

She stared at him.

"You were here? You heard?"

"I walked in on it," said Barney. "Now, that was

•

ful. See what happens when you pick life up by the ears
and shake it?"

"I wasn't shaking life," she said in a voice that was
not altogether steady, "I was shaking him."

"You were shaking something you didn't like--that's
shaking him and everything else. That's taking charge of
your own life, lady," Barney said. "You were magnificent!"

She looked at him and smiled, still a bit uncertainly. He
smiled back. Their eyes held; and gradually the smiles
became warmer and more firm., Her free hand made a
little dabbing motion at the hair above her left ear and
then went quickly down again.

"What would you like?" she said, then laughed. "What
am I talking about? I know."

She turned away to go down the bar.

"No," he said quickly, "give me something else. Give
me--a ginger ale."

She stopped and turned back at him.

"You don't mean that!"

"I do. I do," said Barney. "I want a ginger ale more
than anything else in the w'orld. Well, almost."


Verigin was lying on the bed in his suite, not sleeping,.
but resting, when he heard a knock on the door to the
adjoining room. He waited to hear the sound of the door
being opened, but he did not hear it and after a while
there was the sound of the knock again.

Obviously, his aide had stepped out. Annoyed that he
should be disturbed in this moment of mindless peace
which he had just achieved after perhaps half an hour
of staring at the ceiling, Verigin got creakily up from the
bed and walked into the other room and up to the door
there. Luckily, he had lain down fully dressed. He even
had his shoes on.

"Who is it?" he called through the closed door.
"Ahri Ambedkar. Sergei, is that you?"
"Just a minute," said Verigin.

He fumbled with the lock of the door, unlatched it and
opened the door. Ambedkar came in.

"i just got back to the motel here," he said, proffering
an envelope. ".When I picked up my key from the desk,
they mentioned they had this letter for you. I knew you

375


were waiting for news from your wife, so I thought I'd
bring it up."

"Thank you. Thank you, my dear Ahri," said Sergei.
"But come in. Sit down."

Verigin led the way to a couple of chairs and they seated
themselves.

"Don't mind me," Ambedkar said. "Go ahead and open
it, by all means."

"No, no." Verigin put the letter down on an endtable.
"I can imagine what my wife has written."

The fact that Elena Markovna had taken nearly three
weeks to answer could mean only one thing, that she was
adjusting herself to this new defeat, the fact that he had
found a way to help Chupchik after all. It was a triumph
for him, and, as well as he liked Ambedkar, he preferred
to savor it by himself. He would read the letter after Ahri

gone.

ha"In any case, a couple of minutes' delay won't do any
harm," Verigin went on, "I do thank you for bringing it
to me. It seems I heard you were leaving. Does that mean

away?"

rig,Fmht afraid so." Ahri folded his hands before him. "My

government wishes to rethink the situation with the Expedition,
now that your Colonel Asturnov has chosen to
continue alone in a single spacecraft toward Mars, after
all. In connection with this, they've called me back to
talk the matter over."

"I'm sorry to see you leave, of course," said Verigin.
"But we'll be encountering each other fairly soon again, I :i:
imagine. Speaking for my government, we are, of course,

very proud of Feodor Aleksandrovich Asturnov at taking
such firm charge in an emergency. I'm sure your government,
as all others, will realize that he did the only thing
that was possible; and had we known the full facts o.f the
situation, we would have urged him to do just what he
did."

"I'm not entirely sure m, government shares that point
of view," said Ambedkar. But then, I'll know more after
I've got home and spoken with them. On a personal level,
Sergei, it has been quite pleasant having you to talk with
during these last few weeks."


376

"I can only say that same thing about you, my dear
fellow," said Verigin.

"Well, well, I must be going," said Ambedkar, getting
to his feet. "I understand that they've set an early trial
date for Jens Wylie. In camera proceedings, all very neat
and hush-hush."

"Yes," said Sergei, also rising and following Ambedkar
to the door. "Even in the United States something had to
be done after that press conference of his. No, I don't
think we'll be seeing or hearing anything more of Mr.
Wylie."

"No." Ambedkar sighed, pausing at the door, which
Verigin opened for him. "Sergei, what's going to happen to
the world after you and I and people like us retire? There'll

be nothing but amateurs; and the mess will be frightful."
Verigin nodded.

"I agree completely," he said, standing aside as Ambed-

kar passed out. "Good-by."

"Good-by."

Shutting the door behind Ambedkar, Verigin turned
back to the chair in which he had been sitting. He re-

seated himself and picked up the letter from Elena
Markovna, savoring again his feeling of triumph.

As a matter of fact, things had turned out rather well
all the way around. It was very good indeed that the Mars
Expedition now consisted of one Russian and one spaceship
going on to Mars. Whether young Asturnov would
make it was immaterial. The point was that for the next
five months the eyes of the world would be upon him and
the possibilities for making use of his lonely voyage and
adventure were unlimited. And, now to cap it all, a letter
acknowledging defeat in the matter of Chupchik from
Elena Markovna.

He ripped the envelope open and took the letter out. It
consisted of three small pages covered with the thin, dose
spidery handwriting of his wife. It was a handwriting impossible
to read without his glasses, and difficult even with,
them. He laid the pages down, went to get the glasses and
came back, fitting them on his nose. He sat down, picked
the letter up, and began to read.

377


Dearest;

I know how happy you must have been to find
someone who could help your poor Chupchik. I, too,
would feel happy for you if I could. Unfortunately/,
your letter came, literally, just a few moments too late.
Earlier that same day I had been consulting with our
veterinarian. Your poor Chupchik had had some sort
of spasm of the hind legs and after talking it over
with the veterinarian I could not feel it in my heart

to prolong the painful life of the little creature any
longer. Consequently, when your letter came. I had

already taken Chupchik to the veterinarian--:.:


The pages of the letter shook suddenly in Verigin's hand.
His eyes filled with tears and his throat congested.

"Liar!" he cried out loud in a strangled voice. "Liar!
Demon!"

The lines of handwriting swam before his eyes. He
blinked hard and tried to focus.


The veterinarian was most understanding, and your
little Chupchik slept away his life quite peacefully
under those good hands. I have had him buried with
your other little pets in the back garden-- 11


The welling moisture in his eyes made reading further
impossible. Verigin crushed the pages in his fist and sat
rigid in the chair, the tears streaming down his face,
muttering between his teeth.
"Demon! Demon . . 2'::'::


37


Wendy Hansard came through the side entrance into the
large, echoing employees' cafeteria on the ground floor of
the Flight Control Center, and looked around for Bill
Ward.

378 ,..


It took her a littl6 time to find him, and then she spotted
him sitting at one of the tables off near the corner to her
right. She went toward him, and he got up as he saw her
coming. His tray of goulash, salad, apple pie, milk and
coffee was on the table in front of him.

"Can I go get you something?" he asked.

"No, I've eaten," she said. "Go right on with your
lunch. I'll sit down and talk, if that's all right."

"Of course. It's good to see you," Bill said, as they sat.
"You know I've been meaning to call, but with the way
things have been . . ."

"I know," she said. 'l'hat's all right, Bill. I know you've
had your hands full. We've all had our hands full, including
the kids."

"Anyway," said Bill, "I should've checked with you
some time ago to see what I could do for you. You
shouldn't have to come hunting me."

"Actually," she said, "the reason I called up and wanted
to catch you on your lunch hour like this doesn't have
anything to do with the family. There's something that
I'd like to do, and I don't know how to go about it.
Maybe you can tell me how, or maybe you can even help
me with it."
"What is it?" asked Bill.

"Jens Wylie. That press conference, knowing in advance
they'd arrest him for it," said Wendy. "It was a
brave thing to do. I wanted to get in touch with him, to
thank him. But I can't seem to locate him or get to him
in any way. Do you know how I can find him and talk to
him, or write him?"

Bill pushed his empty lunch plate away and pulled his
apple pie toward him. He picked up a fork.

"I don't know," he said, doubtfully. "Apparently the
government wants him kept away from people, for the
moment at least."

"But they can't just lock him up somewhere and throw
away the key," said Wendy. "Legally, they can't do that."

"True." Bill took a forkful of apple pie. "You're quite
right, of course. They can't. I can ask around and see
what I can find out. But in any case, I'm sure he understands
that you're grateful for what he did for Tad and
the others."

"It's more than that, though," said Wendy. "That's why
I want to talk to him myself, personally. It's not just what
he did for Tad. It's what his speaking up did for me, for
all of us.'

Bill put his fork down and looked at her.

"I don't follow you," he said.

"His doing that meant something," Wendy said, "like
Tad wishing Fedya good luck when he learned that Fedya
had trapped him into coming back to Earth and Fedya
was going on alone to Mars to try to complete the Expedition.
Don't you see? Jens Wylie did the right thing, just
like Tad and Fedya did the right thing. That's why I
wanted to talk ,to him, to tell him that."

"I'll do the best I can to find out where he is," said Bill.
He sighed, picked up his coffee cup and drank from it,
then put it down again. "But the chances are it'll go for
nothing; just like the chances are his holding that press
conference'll go for nothing. That's the story of our life,
here. We knock ourselves out and one way or another the
rest of the world tends to waste it all. Did I tell you Del
Terrence quit as factory rep with LaserKind over the
breakdown of the lasercom on Phoenix One?" I

"Del Terrence?" Wendy frowned. "I don't think I know
him."

"Probably not, come to think of it," Bill said. "I forget
you and the other wives don't know all the people around
here the way the rest of us do. Anyway, he was a good man
who couldn't stand for what his own outfit was doing.
You know they went on TV with a statement that it wasn't
their fault, almost within hours of our finding out that the
lasercom had broken down?"

"And now this Del Terrence is out of of a job because
he spoke up, too? Is that it?" asked Wendy.

"As a matter of fact, no." Bill chuckled. "He got a new
job working for Disney World. Quality control engineer
on the weather dome system they're putting up for
EPCOT-Two."

"EPCOT-Two?"

"Yes," .said Bill. "Experimental Prototype City of
Tomorrow--number Two. You know, an updated version
of the EPCOT they built in the seventies, but including

38o


:all: the new space-industries material and technologies. It's
just like the first EPCOT, an actual working city, where
people will live and work--"

"I knew about EPCOT," said Wendy. "I just didn't
realize they were putting up a second one."

"Oh, yes," Bill said, "it's been on the drawing board
for three or four years-now. At any rate, Del got a job
with them; which worked out rather well, since it looks
like he's going to get married to his girl friend here in
town. But I'm getting off the subject."

"Not really," said Wendy. "That's exactly what I was
talking about--the people that go ahead and do what they
know is right, in spite of all the other people who do the
wrong things for their own reasons, selfish or otherwise. It
means a lot to know that people like that exist. I said it
wasn't just for Tad I wanted to thank Jens Wylie. It's
for me, as well. Thanks to him, I think I'm going to go
back to work."

	Bill stared at her.
	,

	"To work?" he said.



"I don't mean for perhaps quite a while yet, but
eventually," said Wendy. "The immediate future all depends
on the situation with Tad, of course."

Her gaze darkened. She looked down at the table, then
up again at Bill.
"I suppose," she said, "you know there isn't much hope."
"I understood," said Bill, stiffly, "that nobody was sure
about anything, about the extent of the damage that has
been done him."

"That's right," said Wendy. "No one really knows; and
we've got a right to go on hoping as long as we can. But
I've had to look ahead and think about what might have
to be done--by me and the kids, by everybody in the
family."

"But you won't need to work, surely?" Bill said. "I mean,
what with the government pensions and all--"
"Of course I wouldn't," Wendy interrupted. "We'd be
more than well off enough for me to sit and be nothing
but Tad's widow for the rest of my life. But living demands
more of anyone than just existing as a symbol. I never
realized that, really, until Jens Wylie stood up at that

38



l

press conference and spoke out. Then I realized I'd been
all ready to take the easy way if the worst happens. I'd
been all set to be like one of those nineteenth-century
widows who wore black for the rest of h+r life. That's not
what Tad would ever want. It's not what he's lived for
and what he may die for, for that matter. But it was
easier to plan on that than to face up to the idea that I
ought to go on living--not just survive, I mean, but go on

living in an active sense, if I'm to be left without him."
"But what kind of thing would you do?" Bill asked.
She smiled a little.

"It happens that I've already ben offered a job."

He stared at her.

"From an old friend," Wendy continued, "who thought
I might want an excuse to get out of the house, where I'd be
alone during the school hours now that the kids are all
in school. I don't know if you know Mike Blaine? He's in
real estate down in Cocoa. He said he could use me as a
part-time office manager--or even full time, later on, if I
wanted to put in the hours."

"Office manager?" Bill asked. "Have you any idea--"
"Oh, indeed I do. That's what I was doing most of the
time when Tad was in college, before he graduated and
joined the Air Force. Of course, once he was in the service
we were moving around too much and I had to give it up.

But actually, I'm a good office manager."
Bill looked at her with admiration.
"I'll bet you are," he said.

He drained the last of the coffee from his cup, almost
as if he was drinking a toast.

"Yes," he said, musingly, "that's very good. You're very
good, Wendy. You're remarkable. But you .wouldn't be
doing anything like that right away, would you?"

"Not for a year, anyway," she said. "We'll have to see
how fast Tad gets better, or... but in any case, this was
something I hadn't even the courage to think about--qhe
possibilities of what I might do afterwards, I mean---until
Jens Wylie spoke up; and I owe him thanks. So you will
try to find him for me?"

"I will indeed," said Bill. "In fact, now that I stop to


	382
	i



think of it, there's a word or two I'd like the chance to
say to him, myself."


Amory Hammond picked up his cup to drink from it and
then set it down again, spilling coffee down its side. He
lifted the cup once more and added another napkin from
the dispenser at his elbow to the stack already under the
cup, soaking up the previously spilled coffee.

"It could be something of a mess," he said, judiciously.
Albert Gervais, sitting across the table from him in
the Holiday Inn coffee shop, said nothing. Hammond was
not talking about his table manners. The words lay there
invisibly on the table between them. After a moment,
Hammond spoke again, looking up at Gervais.

"You don't know what I'm talking about?" he asked.
"No."

"Well, here we are all ready to clean things up and get
out of here," said Hammond. "And we learn through other
agencies and the overseas grapevine that the Pan-European

,,. ambassador was indulging in a littl6 private espionage here."
"Any details?" asked Gervais.

"Of course not," said Hammond. "The ones who leaked

it to us just wanted to worry us. It could even be a lie."
"Probably not," said Gervais.

"He'd be using some free lance, of course," said Hammond.
"Obviously, there's no harm done. But here we are
ready to clean up and get out, and word like that is hanging
around."
"Ignore it," Gervais said, watching him.

"You know I can't do that." Hammond drank from his
cup. "And you know why."

I' "I do?"

"Of course you do," said Hammond, looking at him

again. "There's that ridiculous business of that out-of-work
salesman--probably some queer--that got knifed here in
an alley. It couldn't have been worse. First the papers have
to make a fuss over the fact of what the odds are on a
little toy knife like that stopping a man dead; and making
all sorts of guesses of how it had to have been an accident1
and then this business about the Pan-European minister.
The result is it doesn't take long for other agencies to start

383


pointingout that it could be either a very lucky amateur or
a very good professional. Now you tell me who the professionals
were down here."

	"Us," said Gervais.

"Exactly." Hammond drank some more coffee and
spilled some more. This time he was too concerned to put
down a fresh napkin. "It hasn't come to an order to me to
investigate the thing yet, but that's what's next down the
line unless I can lightning-rod it somehow."

	"Well, perhaps you should," said Gervais.
	what

	"Are you crazy?" said Hammond. "Do you know

that would do to my record, even when we didn't turn up
anyone? From then on I wouldn't be trusted with anything
more sensitive than getting the groceries."

Gervais said nothing, and Hammond looked at him
narrowly.

"You're acting pretty damned unconcerned about all
this."

	"Why shouldn't 19" said Gervais. "You're the man with



the' responsibility, and that's fine with me."

"It's your team, too, they're talking about," said Hammond.
"You're the man in the field."

	Gervais smiled thinly, feeling contempt.

"Yes," he said. "I'm the man in the field, and that's what
I'm concerned with. From where I sit there's nothing but
the field. The field is where it all happens and it's where all
the responsibility comes home to roost, long before all the
talk and paperwork begins up top. I've been settling problems
before they were even noticed up top for twenty years
now."

"You might give some thought to settling this one then,"
said Hammond. "If the local cops could only turn up whoever
it was actually stuck the paperknife into that salesmantyp,,y.?,,

	"Because
then it'd be clear it wasn't one of our people!"

	"You're sure it wasn't?"

Hammond, who was reaching for his cup, stopped. He
gazed long and hard at Gervais.

"What are you trying to tell me?" he asked at last, in a
lowered voice.

	"I'm not trying to telI you anything," Gervais said.

"Oh, Christ!" breathed Hammond softly, staring down
at his coffee cup. "Who was it?"

"How would I know?" Gervais said. "You're the man in
charge. I didn't say it was anybody o our team. I ]ust
asked if you were sure--meaning that until we knew it
could just as well be one of us as anyone else."

"God,'! said Hammond. "This could ruin me."

He reached absently for his cup and then shoved it away
from him.

"Will you tell me who it is?" he demanded.

"I repeat," said Gervais clearly, meeting him eye to eye,
"I didn't say it was anyone on our team."

"Damn well you didn't have to," said Hammond. "Now
you tell me who it is!"

"No," answered Gervais, softly. The feeling of contempt
was rising in him. "I don't have to wipe your ass for you.
If you think it's somebody on the team, find him yourself."

"How am I supposed to do that? A man's discovered,
dead in an alley--an alley, mind you. Who on the team's
going to be running up and down alleys--" Hammond
broke off suddenly and his face cleared.

His eyes met Gervais's above the table. He almost smiled.
"Oh, yes . . ." he breathed softly. "There're those punk
kids that have been beaten up in alleys wherever your team
was from time to time, aren't there?"

Gervais sat, watching the white face change.

"You know who's been doing that," Hammond said.
"Suppose you tell me who he is. Is it who I think it is?"

"I don't have any hard knowledge," said Gervais, evenly.
"Brawley. Kilmartin Brawley." Hammond picked up his
coffee cup and drank from it without spilling a drop. He
put it back down in its napkin-laden saucer. "There's

nothing in his record, though."

"That's right."

Hammond's eyes flickered across to Gervais's.

"You'll back me up on this?" he asked. There was a

thin note of pleading in his voice.

"No," said Gervais.

They watched each other for a few seconds. The contempt
he felt had risen within him until he could almost
taste it.

i: "If he did," Hammond said, half to himself, "if he did,



e.c.- 385

of course, it's not his fault. It'll be a psychological condition
over which he probably has no control."

Gervais sat, saying nothing.

	"And theres nothing in his papers 	"

	Gervais continued to sit, waiting.

"We'll have to do it," Hammond muttered. "We'll have
to take him in for a psychiatric check. It could be purely
routine, of course. Yes."

"No reference to the knifing?" asked Gervais.

The relief that had begun to illuminate Hammond's face

disappeared suddenly, like the light of a lamp turned off.
"God, no!"

"You might be able to handle it that way," said Gervais.

.. Hammond's face regained its look of relief.

"Yes," he said, "of course. There shouldn't be any need
to get too specific and official--on paper, anyway. As far
as the records go, they can just show that he was sent in
for a routine psychiatric check-up. Meanwhile I'll pass the
word privately . . . and then if they find something, some
reason to hold him for a while..."

"A while?" Gervais said. Their eyes met.

"As long as necessary, of course," Hammond said
sharply. Holding Gervais's eye, he repeated, slowly, "as...

long...as...necessary." 'ii:.
Abruptly, he got to his feet.

"Stay here," he said. "I think I better make that phone
call now."

He went out of the coffee shop toward the lounge, and
the outside telephones. Gervais waited until he was out of
sight, then got up and left, stopping to pay his bill on the
way. He passed through the lobby unseen by Hammond,
who stood talking earnestly into a pay phone. Gervais
went on up to his room and sat down by the phone. He
punched for the office downstairs.

"If Hammond comes m, he said to the face that answered,
"tell him he can call me in my room, if he wants
me."

Gervais punched off and reached into the drawer below
the phone for notepaper and envelope. He laid out paper,
envelope and stamp, and took the slim silver pen from his
inside pocket. He put the date in the upper right-hand
corner of the paper and began to write a letter.


386


Dar son:

I will be returning to Washington within the next
week. Possibly, after a week or so there,. I can get a
few days off; in which case I will come down to see
you and your grandmother and we can go to the
Marine Museum.

I am glad to hear from your grandmother that you
have brought your grade in history back up to an A
level, along with the rest of your marks. There is no
substitute for excellence and never any excuse for
failure--


The phone buzzed, interrupting him. He laid his peh
down and punched it on. The face of Hammond formed on
the screen.

"Gervais, where the hell did you go to?" Hammond

demanded. "I wanted to talk to you some more--"
"Where are you Calling from?"

"From a pay phone in the lobby, of course!" Hammond
said. "Listen, get your tail down here. We've got a lot more "
to talk about."

"I can't think of anything."

"You can't think of anything!" Hammond said in a raw
hisper. "Look, this sweeps the situation here under the
rug as far as the records go. But I'm still going to be tapped
for not knowing there was somebody like Brawley on the
team down here. I'm still going to be shoved off in a corner
because they won't trust me. Come on down and help me
figure a way out of that!"

"What way?" said Gervais. "There isn't one."

Hammond stared at him from the screen, for a long
moment.

"No way? What do you mean?" His voice cracked. "No
way?"

The contempt spilled at last into Gervais's voice.

"What do you think?" he said. "You've sent him in for
a routine psychiatric investigation within days after you've
started getting heat over that knifing. You think they don't
read the papers, and they can't put two and two together?
Whether they get an admission to the knifing from him or
not won't matter. If I were you, I'd resign."

387


He punched off the set, picked up his silver pen again
and went back to the letter.


You will find that the world is divided into only two
classes. Those who are inept and therefore let things
happen to them, and those who are capable, who take
charge and make things happen to others. If you do
not put yourself into one class, you will fall into the
other. Those who are inept and allow things to happen
to them are better off dead, and it is most merciful
then to put them out of their misery. I would allow
no son of mine to ever be anything but one of those
who take charge of life and of their fellow men.

Your loving


Fedya watched his hands entering the observational figures
into the computer. He no longer consciously directed the
movements of those fingers. Over the past six and a half
months his body had reached the point where it did almost
all things automatically. They worked the experiments,
they kept the log, they did the housekeeping, all in all they
took care of as much of what there was to be done as he
was physically able to do.

He had long ago become aware that the duties--even the
curtailed duties he had set himself to take care of aboard
Phoenix Two--were too much for any individual. Somewhere
after that some of the responsibilities had simply
disappeared. He had not consciously dropped them; they
had just somehow become eliminated from the day's tasks.
He had not reported this to Expedition Control, because it
had taken place after the lasercom and radio links aboard


388

Phoenix Two had gone out in their turn. At least, he believed
they had gone out. Either that or else he had
: deliberately stopped using them.

"You were the one who stopped using them," said the
wraith of Mariya, his dead wife, "don't you remember?"

Mariya was not actually there of course. She,.their four
hildren who had died with her in the train wreck, and all
the other marsnauts who had ridden with him at launch
time, were present only in his mind. He was not deluded
that they were actually there, for he was quite sane still,
although surprisingly weak. No, he merely spoke out loud
to them and imagined them answering as any other lonely,
isolated man might talk to a cat or a picture and imagine
it answering him, just to break the silence of his exile.

He remembered, now. It had been when he began to
find himself breaking down physically that he had told
himself that the communications with Expedition Control
would no longer work. Of course, Kennedy was still getting
certain monitoring readouts about his physical health transmitted
automatically from the ship back to Earth. There
was nothing he could do about that. But he could pretend
conveniently that there was no way of talking back and
forth; and so a great many of the little things that were
happening to him need not be discussed or reported.

He was not even sure what was basically wrong with
him. It was barely possible that he had had a touch of
radiation also. But mainly the debilitation of his body
seemed to be a matter of the bone loss and other troubles
that had been expected to come to space voyagers in a
confined enclosure who were not getting sufficient exercise.

He had tried to exercise, of course, but with the whole
ship to handle, time and energy had been a problem. This,
plus the loneliness, plus an odd sort of minor infection
had weakened him.

"You're right, of course, Mariya," he said. He reached
for the folder beside him in which he had carefully noted
down his most recent symptoms, and once more entered
.them in the computer. Fever, cough, a general feeling of
weakness. Once more the computer informed him that he
was being slowly poisoned by an excess of microquantities
of zinc, normally a trace element in the human body. He


389 .

had carefully checked the ship to see where such zinc
poisoning .could be coming from, but he had been able to
find nothing.

In any case, the computer projection showed that this
intoxication would not become incapacitating until well
after he la.qded on Mars, and therefore it could be disregarded,
as long as he could handle the slight lightheadedhess
and weariness that he felt all the time.

He got up to make his regular housekeeping tour of the
spacecraft. As he went, not only Mariya and the children,
but the other marsnauts as well, went with him. When he
reached the galley, he sat down on one of the chairs by the
table. He felt vaguely that something hot to drink would be
pleasant, but it was too much effort to get up and get it.
Besides, he had other important matters on his mind. He
looked around at the imagined figures of Mariya, Iiiusha,
Kostya, Pavlushka, Vanya, Tad, Bap, Anoshi, Dirk, and
Bern. They were all listening attentively, waiting for him to
speak.

"It's only a little over forty-two days to Mars orbit, now," .]
he said. "We're almost there.' ....

He could feel that they were pleased, as pleased as he was
himself. To the world of people behind him this might look
like a historic Voyage; but actually it was simply a matter of
staying with things until they were accomplished. The
greatness of it lay not in what it was, but in what it
represented.

"Imagine the human race as one great animal," he told
the assembled spirits now. "Think of it as a hill of ants in
which all the ants are parts of one large living body; or a
great mollusc in which the cells of the body are what we
consider individuals. This great mollusc-like creature, which
we call Man, evolved from a primitive ancestor, let us say,
on the shores of a universal ocean. In the beginning, it may
not even have had any consciousness of what it wanted, or
where it wanted to go; but these things developed. Little by
little it became aware that it had the gift of dreaming, of
awareness.

"With this awareness, it begins to notice that where it
touches barrenness, things grow. It begins to discover that
it can grow and multiply and change the nature of the


390 .

beach on which it finds itself. Gradually, it grows and develops
until it is master of the little bay and the tidal pool
in ,,which it first came to consciousness.

At this point it encounters a crisis. It has filled all
available space ,in its immediate neighborhood. It looks
beyond its bay, its warm, shallow, saely enclosed waters,
at the rest of the beach and sees it stretching away to
eternity in either direction, lifeless, barren, and frightening.
Up until this moment, Man has paid very little attention to
the rest of the endless beach of which its bay is a part. It
has ignored the rest of the universe, in effect. But now,
having looked around, it finds it impossible to return to its
previous short-sighted, happy state in which it ignored
everything but its own small area.

"And then an inner conflict develops. Part of Man wishes
to move out, to explore and conquer the vast beaches beyond
its own territory. But another part of it is frightened
and wishes to stay where it is. This little bay has always
been secure and warm, this second part of it argues. Here,
we know what the rules are, how things wo.rk. Out there
the rules may not be the same. Perhaps there are unknown
dangers. Certainly we see no other life but ourselves.

"Bttt that is the glory of it, says the first part. ,,Ill these
infinite beaches lying there waiting for us to take for ourselves.
Isn't it a noble thing to do? To go out and spread
ourselves to eternity in both directions?

"But it may also be a painful thing to do, replies the
second, fearful part, the adventuring may be hard. The cost
may be high. What we win may be dearly bought.

"Nonetheless, retorts the first part, weare committed
by what we are to exploring what we know is there.

"So the creature debates within itself, fearful yet eager;
until finally the part that wishes to experiment, that wishes
to adventure, prevails so far that the creature determines
to send out a pseudopod into the next bay--a slender
tendril only, to adventure out across the dead and barren
land where no life has ever been before. This way it will
risk only a tiny part of itself, because the tendril is
expendable.

"And, of-course, this is its genius. In that expendability
is the great virtue of the creature. Unlike any other crea-

39I


tures which may have tried to survive on the universal
beach before and failed, it has'survived because it is willing
to sacrifice a part of itself in order to benefit the rest. So,
hesitantly, it puts out its tendril--not far at first, only just
over the small ridge between it and a small satellite bay,
divided from it by the ridge.

"Even this is a great adventure, and a great struggle is
- made to accomplish it. But finally the tendril's end touches
the alien soil of the satellite bay; and finds it cold, hard,
alien--but obtainable.

"Then the long, eternal struggle begins in earnest, because
the next step must be many times the trip to the
satellite bay; it must be clear into a different part of the
beach, a vast distance away. The conflict over whether this
much greater trip should be made, goes back and forth.
The creature is internally torn by it. Even when, at last,
the decision is made to send the tendril all that inconceivable
distance, to that strange and different place, the
struggle still continues while the tendril is going out. Still--
slowed, hampered by the division behind it, the tendril
continues to move forward; and eventually it touches--
touches what no part of the creature has ever touched
before--a different bay, a part of the unending universe
of the beach. And now, the die is cast. Even as triumph
thrills through the creature at its success, it realizes it can
never again be content to stay within its own small area.
It has gone outside and will never endure to be inside again.

"And so," concluded Fedya, looking at all the ghosts
around him, "you see everything is now accomplished.
Because if the unknownness of the universal beach can be
broken, can be violated, then nothing is unobtainable by
the creature that is called Man. Anything that it can conceive
can eventually be done; it knows that, now. All things
are conquerable, even death itself."

He looked at Mariya and the children. :
"And so, my dear ones--" he said to them. He looked
over at Tad. "And so, my comrades--when the Lander
from Phoenix Two touches down at last on Mars, your
deaths cease to be, because you will then have traveled
with me, in this spacecraft, to another part of the beach


392

and into the larger universe in which all things exist forever,
and life and work are eternal."

Fedya got up from his chair and moved on around the
ship in his routine of housekeeping.


3There was nothing resembling a manuscript-sized sheaf of

paper on the desk at which Jens had been invited to
sit in the Arlington, Virginia, Therapy Unit, Office Number

Jens braced himself for a fight. He was not leaving
without his writing.

"You'll find," said the U.S. Marshal behind the desk--
he was a short, almost clerical looking man with gold-tinted
contact lenses--"everything that was in your pockets at the
time you entered legal custody is in this envelope. And if
you'll just read and sign this last form . . ."

Jens, seated across from him, tore open the pink
velope and dumped change, watch, minicorder, and cardcase
onto the desk top. He scooped the items into the

pocket of his new civilian clothes and took up the form.
"What's this?" he said.

"Just your statement that you have no immediate complaints
about your treatment while under sentence. It's not
a blanket release for the government, of course. You have
up to six months to file charge against any officials or
personnel who, you believe, acted to you in an indecent,
inhumane or illegal manner while you were under their
authority."
"They were good enough," said Jens. He scrawled his
signature.
"Very nice of you to say so, Mr. Wylie." The guard took

it.

Jens grinned at him.

93


"Got my 'Mr.' back, have I?" he asked. "Nine months
of being called by your first name can get you out of the
habit."

"Yes, sir," said the marshal. "I can believe it. I understand
there's quite a movement on now for Federal therapy
units' personnel to be more formal and polite with their
custodees."

"Good," said Jens. "But prison's prison, no matter what
you do about it." He opened the card case and saw it was
empty. "My social security card?"

The marshal slid it across the desk to him. It was the
same plastic card he had carried for years, but it was now

a soft dove color, instead of its original white.

"Gray," said Jens, picking it up.

"Sorry, Mr. Wylie," said the marshal. "I understand
there's a presidential pardon in the works for you. But
until it's signed . . ."

"Don't let it worry you," said Jens. "As far as I'm concerned
that gray's a battle award."

"Yes, sir," said the marshal.

"Tell me one thing, though," said Jens. "Do all Federal
prisoners on their way out get treatment this polite? Or am
I an exception?"

"All of them of course, Mr. Wylie." The marshal stood
up and offered his hand.

Jens looked at it for a second.

"Where's my manuscript?" he demanded.

"Oh, sorry. I almost forgot." The marshal sat down
again, reached down out of sight behind his desk and came
up with two cardboard boxes that had once held blank
typing paper, bound together with cord into a single
package.

Jens's knees weakened with relief. But there was one
more point.

"If you don't mind," he said, and began to untie the
cord.

"Of course not. Would you like a knife?"

"No, thanks."

"A lot of us here'll be looking forward to reading i
when it comes out," said the marshal, watching benignly
as Jens untied the knots, opened the top box, and began to

riffle through its contents. "My wife's been reading the
articles you excerpted from it, and she says they're fascinating.
She always was a bug on the space program: I'll
probably wait until the movie comes, though. I'm not much
for books, myself--well, you know. But my wife wanted
me to ask you when will the full book be out?"

"I haven't got a publisher yet," said Jens. "I've got to
finish the book first."

The manuscript pages were all there. Paula Anisha had
told him that there was no way the government could
withhold his writings permanently; but they might try
legally to delay handing it over as long as possible, to
slow down publication.

Jens became conscious that the marshal was once more
holding his hand out across the desk top.

"What the hell," Jens said, and shook hands. "Good-by."
"Good-by, Mr. Wylie."

Jens stood up, holding his boxes.

"Which way out?"

"Let me take you," the marshal said.

He rose and came around the desk, revealing himself to

be even smaller than he had appeared sitting down.

"This way, please."

He led Jens out of the office, down the corridor, around
a corner and through a farther door into another office. A
gray-looking man was sitting there; and he got to his feet
as they came in.

"Sel!" said Jens. He stopped dead.
"Well, I'll leave you gentlemen."
The marshal went out.

"Hello, Jens," said Selden Rethe. Nine months did not
seem to have changed as much about him as the knot of
his tie. "I imagine you're eager to leave and find your two
friends; but I'd appreciate it if you'd take a little run with
me first to say a word with someone."

"Lin and Barney are waiting for me," Jens said. "Some
other time, maybe."

"We've talked to them. This will just take twenty minutes
or so. I'll bring you back here to meet them."

"Oh?" said Jens. "Just who is it you want me to see?"
Selden coughed.

395


"I don't think we should talk too much about that here,"

he answered. "He's an old friend who was around from
the beginning of the matter that brought you here. He

particularly wants to see you again, and talk to you."

Jens stared. "Are you telling me--"

Selden broke in. "Please, no names-out loud, anyway."

He shook his head, slowly. "Jens, I'm surprised at you.,
After all, you've been in the rooms of this establishment
fOrattributes.nearly,,a year. Conversational privacy's not one of their

"No, that's right." Jens hesitated. "You say Lin and
Barney know about this and they don't mind waiting?"

"They--I suppose I should say Ms. West, since she was

the one who said it--was glad to hear you might be talking

to our friend again."

"She did?" Jens thought for a second. "All right, then."
They went out of the office. Selden led them farther down
the corridor by which Jens had come here, to a heavy door
that slid lightly aside as they reached it, letting them into
a sort of visitor's lounge with a farther glass wall containing
a revolving door that let them out into a parking lot
beyond. They took an anonymous-looking blue air-cushion
car, which slid them softly above the pavement, out of the
grounds of the Arlington Federal Therapy Unit on to a
main surface route to Washington.

"I think I know what all this is about," Jens said, after
they had reached cruising speed and traveled some distance
without conversation. "The Administration wants me to sit

on this book of mine. Well, the answer's no."

"You're jumping to conclusions, Jens."

"I don't think so, I don't think so at all, Sel. Let me tell
you something. I was going to write the history of the
space program the way it ought to,be written, eight years
ago. I should have written it in my spare time, two years
ago. It took nine months of prison to make me understand
you don't sit around waiting for the right time to get words
on paper, you sit down anywhere without waiting and do
it. Now, I've finally got it written--well, almost all written
--and sections of it published. It happens that part of it
deals with things that may be embarrassing to the Administration.
Well, I can't help that. I set out to report a

396


history, and that's part of it. But if you think anything short
of death or hell itself, and I mean actual hell, is going to
delay the publication of it by one hour longer than it
physically takes to get it into print--"

	Jens broke off. He had been growing angrier and angrier

as he talked; and now he was beginning to hear his voice
snarling in the enclosed, air-conditioned bubble of the car.
The sound of it embarrassed him. He had not intended to
rant, but to say clearly and unyieldingly what his beliefs
and intentions were.

"Are you through, Jens?" asked Selden, in his unvarying
voice, after several seconds of silence.

	"For now," said Jens.

			me repeat, you're jumping to conclusions. The

	"Then

		let

Administration doesn't want you to do anything but publish
your history, any way you see fit. That's why the

'President wants to speak to you. Far from wanting to put
barriers in the way of its publication and success, I believe
you'll find him offering you the government's support and
wishes for your success."

Jens turned and stared at the other man's impassive
profile.

"Sel," he said, after a pause, "you're lying to me. It
won't do any good."

"I don't resent your saying that," said Selden. "I know
you've been expecting Opposition to the book's publication
ad the last nine months of your life would excuse any
reaction on your part. However, I'm only telling you the
truth."

"You can't be," said Jens. "Not after what I've been .,
through."

	"What you've been through is regretable, of course,"

said Selden. "But it doesn't change the present situation,
which is now a different situation than that of the time you
were taken into custody for violating your responsibilities
to your governmental position. I told you, and I believe
other people told you, Jens, that you never would understand
politics. Politics deals with human beings in mass,
which are unpredictable quantities. It follows that the only
plans of action which governments find workable are pragmatic
ones. If the wind changes, and the opportunity occurs


397

to take an improved course in a different direction, the .....
government changes also, and moves on the new tack.
That's one of the laws of the same history you're talking
about."

"What's changed so much that now it makes my book
something you all want?"

"We've got a responsible system in this society," said
Selden. "Granted, it makes all kinds of mistakes from
moment to moment, but overall it's committed to moving
with its basic principles in the large sense. If it didn't it'd
have gone down in ruins a long time since."

Jens glared at the other man. Abruptly, he realized his
jaw muscles were aching. He had been holding his teeth so
tightly clamped together in fierce suspicion that the muscles
were beginning to cramp.

"You mean people have finally begun to believe what
was done to the marsnauts--" he began.

"No," said Selden. "They would have learned that in
the long run, under our systeml eventually. You aren't the
only fanatic after truth in the world, Jens. I mean that the
situation now is different, as the result of a number of
events, including Tad Hansard's death, Feodor Asturnov's
going on alone to Mars, a certain indiscretion on the part
of one of the national representatives to the launch and the
Expedition, and the resulting unfortunate publicity surrounding
the actions of a--well--psychotically unfortunate
on our own governmental payroll--"

"What unfortunate?" asked Iens. "What accident?"
"Now," said Selden, "there's no need to go into that,
Jens. Besides the young man is currently under therapy
and there's strong hopes of reconstructing him, eventually
--though it may take some years."

"Oh, I see," said Jens. "Another patsy like me."

"Not at all!" said Selden. "This fellow actually was

. criminally psychotic. The incident that caused him to be
put under therapy wasn't his first--although it was the first .
fatal one."

"Well," said Jens, "even if that's true, it still sounds like
a late night movie. If you knew all this, why was I in iail
this last nine months?"

"The information was uncovered piece by piece," said

398


Selden, "not all at once. It's only in the long run that there's
no secrets in politics, Jens--that includes international
politics, of course."

"And this new situation makes my book all right with
the Administration?"

"Yes," said Selden. "The overall result of what's happened
has focused the attention of both sides of the world
very favorably on further space work, and particularly work
with Mars. We may well now get a second expedition inside
the next eight years or so; and both our side and the
population-rich nations have adjusted to using that fact as
a permanent talking point. So right now, and for the forseeable
future, national credibility is going to be of prime
importance; and the honesty of your book is a great asset."
"I see," said Jens.

He felt. scooped-out inside. He turned and stared through
the one-way transparency of the side of the car, as the
vehicle slipped along silently at high speed. He was pulling
together the old memory of a story he had heard, or read,
once, long ago---about a man who had rebelled against the
fact that his people believed in wearing leg irons on their
left legs. The man had reacted against the crippled and
ulcerated limbs that resulted and taken a sword to find
and kill whoever was responsible for the wearing.

Finally, after a long search he had been directed to the
home of the demon responsible, who could only be destroyed
if he was slain three times, thereby freeing the
people. However, the man was warned, the demon could
take many shapes. He must ignore whatever he saw and
strike regardless. He went and did so, and found himself
apparently forced to kill, in turn, his sister, father, and
mother--all of whom pleaded with him to spare them.

Afterwards, he had left the home of the demon and
returned to his own, where he found sister, father, and
mother dead, slain in the manner in which he had slain
their apparitions. But on the way home, everyone he had
encountered along the road had been wearing leg irons
on the opposite leg--the old way, they had told him,
having ben found to have been a superstition ....

Jens was not exactly sure why it should feel good to him
to have recalled the story, but when at last he had the


399

whole thing evoked to conscious memory, he felt oddly
satisfied, in fact, almost comforted. He sat back in his seat.

Eventually, the car left the main route, and moved into
a suburban area, stopping at last at a golf course. They left
it for a golf cart; and Selden drove them out to the
eleventh tee, where they found Paul Fanzone and his golfing
partner, someone Jens did not recognize.

In contrast to Selden, Fanzone looked changed---older
and more tired than Jens had seen him at the dinner in
Merritt Island, just before the launch. He walked off aside
with Jens, leaving Selden and the golfing partner patiently
waiting. There were no other golfers Jens could see waiting,
impatient to play through at this delay. Apparently such
things did not happen when presidents played.

"Jens," said Fanzone, when they stopped out of earshot
of the other two and turned to face each other, "how are
you?"

"I'm all right," said Jens.

"They treated you all right? I mean, no . . ."

"No straightjackets, drugs, or padded cells---no," said

Jens. "It was the full country-club situation."

Fanzone sighed.

"Good," he said. "I want you to know I gave orders--
quietly, of course. But my orders aren't always carried .out
in spirit as well as letter. I don't know what to say to you,

Jens. I apologize, of course. I was wrong."

"Wrong?"

The verbal echo was jolted out of Jens by surprise. The
last thing he had expected was Fanzone apologizing. Any
apology was not only not necessary, it was completely
gratuitous. Also, it had never occurred to Jens that presidents
apologized--at least to ordinary citizens, like himself,
and on unimportant matters.

He noticed again how old and tired Fanzone was looking;
and a rush of his old admiration and affection for the man
moved through him.

"Yes, of course," Fanzone said. "I didn't have the time
to really look into what you were saying about the experimental
load. So I took the words of other people--and they
were wrong."

"It doesn't matter," said Jens.

400


"You'll be getting a pardon, of course. But how I can
make up to you those nine months . . . only, once you
were committed, it was politically impossible for me to
reverse everything under the situation at the time. This is
the first chance I've had to get you out."

"It really doesn't matter," said Jens. "In fact, it did me a
favor. If I hadn't been locked up I'd probably have never

gotten down to writing my book so soon."

"Yes, your book."

"Selden tells me I've got the approval of the Administration
on it, now."

"Yes. Yes," said Fanzone. "In fact, any help we can give
you . . . I've read some of the magazine excerpts. You're
a good writer. But we always knew that."

"Thanks," said Jens. "But it's just a solid news style
paying off."

He waited. However, Fanzone did not say anything more
for a moment. He seemed to be struggling with himself.
He stared off at the trees that hid the fourteenth hole.

"Jens," he said, at last, turning abruptly to stand face
to face, "we grind slow, that's all. But I'd like you to believe
that in the end we grind fine. Most people--I mean
most people, even people in power, everywhere---believe in
civilization and have a stake in it. In the long run they do
work for it. Otherwise we wouldn't have any civilization at
all."

"I suppose so," said Jens. "All the same, any kind .of
progress we make seems to look more like a case of
fumbling forward than anything else."

"Yes. Well . . . that, too." Abruptly, Fanzone held out
his hand. "Will you keep in touch from time to time? I'd

really like to know how things go with you."

"If you'd like," said Jens.

"I would. I'll be out of office in another year and a half.
I don't think I'm Up to more than that, anyhow. They tell
you it's a big job in advance; but you can never believe how
big until you get into it. Maybe, a few years from now, you
and I can get together from time to time."

"All right," said Jens.

•
	They shook hands.

"Well,'" said Fanzone, turning abruptly and starting again


4Ol

toward the tee. "I've got to get back to my game. I really
don't like golf. It's the doctors make me play it."


Lin and Barney had been waiting a little more than an
hour in the visitors' parking lot of the institution in which
Jens had been an inmate for the last nine months. They
were parked in one of the slots, sitting in Barney's personal
two-door air cushion vehicle, Barney in the left of the two
bucket seats up front and Lin sitting alone on the curving
bench seat that filled the back.

"There he is," said Lin, suddenly. "Barney, pull out so
they'll see us!"

Barney started the car. He backed out and around, so
that they were in the middle of the lane between the two
rows of parked cars and headed toward the exit gate of the
lot. A blue sedan which had just entered the lot swung in
their direction, turned down the lane they were in and

pulled up parallel to Barney's car.

"That's them," said Barney.

Jens opened the door of the blue sedan, turned his head
to say a last word to Selden Rethe, and got out, closing the
door behind him. Selden pulled off. Jens opened the door
opposite Barney and climbed in, reaching out to shake
hands with Barney, but continuing to the back, where Lin
waited.

"Off we go," said Barney, putting the car in motion
toward the exit and the road beyond. Lin caught Jens as he

sat down beside her and held him fiercely, kissing him.
"Hello, love," said Jens softly, in her ear.

Lin began to tremble. Barney was pulling out of the
exit and turning on to the road and she did not want to
let go of Jens. She did not want to let go of him, ever. To

her own great astonishment, she burst into tears.
"Baby," said Jens, stroking her hair.
"Hang on to me," she gasped. "Hold me!"

His arms tightened around her. She clung to him. She
was not crying quietly at all. She was being very noisy
about it and Jens was soothing her, and Barney was sitting
there through all of it, only an arm's-length away, and she
did not care.

She buried her face in the warm crook between Jens's
shoulder and neck, and bawled.

They had to swing through downtown Washington to pick,
up Sir Geoffrey. He was standing just inside the front
window of the liquor store he had specified, saw them as
they pulled up at the curb and came out, clutching a package,
which he handled tenderly as he climbed in to take
the bucket seat beside Barney.

"What did you get?" Lia asked, after Sir Geoffrey had
welcomed Jens back to the streets of freedom and Barney
had once more pulled out into traffic.

"Oh? Wine," answered Sir Geoffrey, sliding the .bucket
seat back to its farthest position. "Just a very good
champagne I think Clo might like. You can't get it anywhere
else in this country."
"Only one bottle?" asked Lin, grinning.

"Well, it's just for the two of us, you know," said Sir
Geoffrey seriously, "and Clo only sips, nowadays. Once

on a time.., but then, that ,,w, as once on a time."
"Where are we going now? Jens asked.

"To the airport and back to Merritt Island," said Lin.

"There's a small celebration there, planned to mark your
getting out. No," she added soothingly, as Jens stiffened,

"nothing large. Just a bunch of local people---Bill Ward
and some others. A couple of handfuls of people only."

"Good," said Jens, settling back. "Nine months in there
quiets you down. I don't think I could take brass bands

right away. Anyway, the thing to celebrate isn't me. It's
Fedya riding Phoenix Two all the way to Mars, the way
he has; and the fact that what he's done, and Tad's death,
bought us a future in space."

"Got the papers, did you?" said Sir Geoffrey from the
front seat. "

"Oh, yes," said Jens. "I've been able to follow it all. All


4o3

about the radio signals from Fedya's body sensors that
could tell us he was still alive and active; the popular
reaction all over the world, the blame for the Expedition's
trouble finally-getting pinned where it belonged, on politicsas-usual--"

He
looked forward at Sir Geoffrey.

"No offense, in your case."

"Why not?" said Sir Geoffrey, cheerfully. "It was a good
system. Politics as usual helped build the Earth. I was all
for it, once. Not ashamed of the fact. But outside the
Earth, evidently it's a clog, not a benefit. Right. Scrap it
then. I have; and not ashamed of that, either."

"Geoff," said Lin, "was our strong right arm in getting
you loose this early, Jens. He was the man who knew just
what strings to pull and just what buttons to push--and
how."

"That so?" said Jens to Sir Geoffrey. "What dfd the
British government think of activity like that on your part?"

"Oh, Lord," said Sir Geoffrey, "I'm retired. I couldn't
have done that sort of thing,.otherwise. I quit right after
that press conference of yours. Now that I have, I don't
know why I didn't do it years ago. I can drink all I want
now, whenever I want. Odd thing, I used to fear I'd end
up one of those boozy old men that everybody dodges at
parties. But not at all?After a bit I just get sleepy and doze
off. Don't even snore, they tell me."

He looked back Over his shoulder, triumphantly, at Jens.
"What do you think of that?"
"Remarkable."

"Ah, well," said Sir Geoffrey, "it's just a natural talent,
I suppose. But then, I've never been what you might call
the average, ordinary sort of man."

"The celebration at Merritt Island's for Fedya, too," said
Lin. Jens turned back to face her. Beyond her profile there
appeared the high acoustical wall guarding the concrete
highway, a momentary blur of black color, warning of a
housing area behind it, where quiet was required.

"They're not putting me in the same bag with Fedya!"
said Jens.

"No, no. Not really," said Lin. "It's just that the two
things happened at the same time. You were freed, and

404


Fedya reached Mars ten days ago. If he's following the
schedule they calculate for him, he's due to land on the
surface today."

"All that distance . . ." said Jens, half to himself, his
eyes unfocusing on the concrete wall's blackness, like the
darkness of airless space between the starpoints, spanning
the highway on Earth to the rusty-colored crater-dust of
the Martian soil. "All that distance..."


As Jens had said, nine months of semi-solitary living
had had an effect on him. After an hour or so, he found
the crowd, and the voices of the party, too much for him.
He went looking for Lin, to whom in any case he wanted to
talk privately and alone. He had not yet told her about the
Administration's amazing about-face on his book. Some'thing
inside him had wanted to keep that for a surprise
package in a private moment between the two of them.

It was mid-afternoon by this time. The party was being
. held at the home of the Duchess--which seemed to have
unofficially become the home of Sir Geoffrey as well. It
was not the Same mansion she had occupied earlier, halfway
down the length of Merritt Island; but a--for her--
. incredibly modest home about two miles away, which
she had bought outright when, as Lin had told Jens, she
had unexpectedly decided to settle down there, rather than
in the West Indies.

The home was, therefore, nothing more than a modern,
spacious, four-bedroom place with den, library, swimming
pool, extensive grounds, private canal to the Banana River
and a large boathouse and dock to which was tied a thirtyfoot
cabin cruiser with flying bridge. She and Sir Geoffrey
used the boat frequently to go out by water for dinner.
Most surprising, there were hardly any servants to speak
of. The platoon of young men with strong Castillian accents
had all gone home to Spain, and their only replacements
had been a twice-a-week housekeeper and a once-a-week
maintenance crew.

With all this, however, the house and grounds were large
enough so that Jens had to hunt to find Lin. Right now, the
rest of the guests were mainly outside around the swimming
p0ol. He searched through the house and found her at

405


,

last in the large and airy kitchen. She was with the Du'hss,
washing dishes in a sink below a wide window that looked
out on the swimming pool and a cluster of deck chairs
holding Sir Geoffrey and some other guests.

"Hi," said Jens, stepping into the kitchen. "The dishwasher
break down?"
"It's full," said Lin, looking over her shoulder at him.
"What are you doing in here?"

"I'm not as up to society yet as I thought," he said. "Is
here anything I can do here?"

"You can take over for Clo," said Lin. She put down
the dish she had just finished drying and reached over to
untie the strings of the apron around the Duchess's waist.
"CIo, go on out and be a hostess. We can take care of
these."

I'll just put away this glassware we've done, first, then,"
said the Duchess. Even in a kitchen setting she gave the
impression of an international dealer m the fate of governments.
She stepped around Lin, who began tying the apron
on Jens, and started putting clean wine glasses back up
into one of the kitchen's many cupboards.

Jens, harnessed for duty, put his hands in the sink full
of warm soapy water, and found it comforting. From the
window in front of him, the voice of Sir Geoffrey floated
clearly into the kitchen.

"Sensitivity?" he said. "Fine for most, no doubt."

Jens looked out through the window and saw Sir Geoffrey
talking with a tall, black-haired man in his mid-twenties
and a small, very pretty girl of about the same age. His
memory, searching, turned up the fact that they were Del
Terrence and his wife Jonie--Del being the Laserkind
factory representative who had quit his company over the
lasercom failure on the spacecraft and now worked for
Disney World.

"Never was sensitive myself," Sir Geoffrey was continuing,
bending an intent eye on his two hearers. "Just
not born that way. You'd always have to hit me over the
head with a shovel first, to get my attention. Still once
you'd done that, I usually tried to do the right thing. Just


as when I lost my head and took young Wylie's side of it,
after that press conference of his ....

The Duchess chuckled.


406

"Dear Geoff," she said to Jens, "he really loves talking
about that. Do you notice he gets to be a little more o
the hero, and you get pushed more and more into the
background every time he tells it?"

"Yes," said Jens. "But it doesn't matter. I like him; and
he really did stick his neck out to help me, once the chips
were down."

"True enough. Still," said the Duchess. "Geoff saw his
chance to go out in a blaze of glory--honorable or dishonorable,
it didn't matter--and took it. Listen to him!"

"So What could I do after all that? I mean, tripping up
policemen, misdirecting FBI people, and everything else.
I had to resign.. But it's turned out all for the best. I'm free
to sit around at things like this, now; and I can drink as
much as I want without giving my government a black eye.
Always looked forward to that--always dreaded it too. I
was telling Wylie and Lin on the way here, it was a worry
of mine. I mean ending up as a staggering old souse who
can't say two words you can understand. But it turns out
I'm all right after all. Once I've had one too many, or two,
I simply need to take a little nap."

He settled himself deeper in his lawn chair.

"As now," he said, closing his eyes. Del and Jonie got
up from their own lawn chairs and went away around the
corner of the pool.

"Well, now," said the Duchess in a tone of satisfaction,
closing the cupboard doors. "That takes care of those.
Perhaps I will go and check up to see if anyone wants
anything."

She went out. Jens looked after her.

"I'd never have pictured her here, like this," he said to

Lin. "She seems happy as a clam."

"She is," said Lin.

"But, I mean it's something of a comedown after a
mansion, and servants and international intrigueif that's
what she was really tied up in."

"I think she prefers Geoff to all of that. Don't be fooled
by the way she talks about him."

"I suppose," said Jens, washing dishes. "He's certainly
happy enough for ten. And I like that new wife of Barney's.
What's her name, again?"

o

"Aletha."


			407

	,!


Jens stopped washing, holding a dish in midair.

"That's who she is, then. She was the bartender at the

Holiday Inn."
Lin looked at him curiously.
"Yo,u'd met her before?"

"Well, not exactly met her. I was in the bar there with
Barney one day . . ."

Jens's voice trailed off. He looked at Lin with an enormous
delight that had not so much to do with her, although
she was part of it, as with--he had once again realized--
threads; scarlet, gold and black, of no color and all colors,
making up the tapestry that he had envisioned in that
waking dream beside her months ago, just before the
launch--a grand woven design that was this flawed, glorious,
fallible, noble, selfish human enterprize.

Of course! This was the vision his book needed--the
image to pull it all together. Aletha would be one of the
background threads, a thread which now made its pattern
with the thread that was Barney's, changing both their
destinies, and in some way affecting what would happen
in decades and centuries to come, out in the dim reaches
of the solar system and beyond. Just as there was this Del
Terrence, whose gut-honesty had pushed him from Laserkind
to Disneyworld, and so bound his skills to constructing
mtdels for a new human environment, even though
he got his pay in the service of entertainers--another
thread on its own changing way, diving and surfacing
amidst the warp and woof of the background.

Every element of the design was around him, including
those which had been obscure to him, such as that of the
security man, Albert Gervais. Gervais, for instance, must
also have had his part in the pattern, a part that Jens
would probably never know in full detail. He himself, Lin,
Geoffrey, the Duchess, the 'nauts, Fedya out on Mars--
they all went into it, they all were part of it. Without any
one of them the whole pattern necessarily would be dif ....
ferent. And without him, himself, Senator Wylie's son, the
fake diplomat, the ex-newsman, it would have been very
different. And by God, by the stars, by anything else the
race would find itself swearing upon as it went on and out
and out to the unending reaches of that great purposeful

408


tapestry that unrolled before it to eternity, what he had
made of it all would stand, would be the first and best
explanation to the race of what it had all been about. This
sudden explosion of understanding was so strong in him
that he had to shake himself hard mentally to come back
to the present, to the kitchen, where Lin stood staring at him
curiously.

"What is it?" asked Lin.

He found he was not quite ready to tell her all about
it now. He wanted to settle it in his own mind first.
Tonight . . .

"I just remembered something," he said. "There's something
I've been waiting to tell you. I wanted a moment when
there weren't other people all around. You know Selden
Rethe took me off to talk with Paul Fanzone before bringing
me to meet you?"

"Sure."

"Well, Sel told me that the Administration isn't out to
interfere with my getting the book published after all. Just
the opposite. They're all for it. They want it. And Patti
even offered me any help the government could give me in
getting the facts."

"Hey!" said Lin. "How wonderful!"

He started to put his arms around her, realized they and
his hands were dripping with soapsuds and dried them
hastily on his apron before clutching her.

"Actually, even if they only half-deliver on that," he
said, letting her go, "there's all sorts of material I'd feel
shaky about using if I couldn't get the exact facts on it;
and the rest of the book is loaded with nothing but stuff
that needs to be checked for accuracy. Facts and figures--
you know, conclusions aren't worth anything if the author,
at least, doesn't know just what the facts and figures are
backing them up--"

"Look," said Lin, pushing him toward the full dishrack,
"if you're just going to stand there and talk, let me at the
sink. At least half the job'll get done that way."

"Well..." .lens let himself be transferred. He picked up
a dish and a dishtowel and started to dry it. "But you see
what that means. The way things are now, it's only a
matter of choosing between two publishers; and with the


409

Administration okaying my access to the information I
need, I cancheck everything out and come up with a
finished, ready-to-go manuscript in three months. And ; J
whichever publisher I choose to bring the book out has
been talking to me about the next one I'd do. You know
what that means. Barney used to keep telling me to marry
you and let you support me while I got the writing going.
But the way it's turned out, I can marry you and upport

);ou while you're getting your writing going--"

"Are you telling me, or asking me?"

"What? Oh, sorry. Asking--you will, won't you?"

"Of course, you damn fool!"

"Isn't it something, though?" said Jens, after another
small interruption in the business of getting the dishes
washed and dried. "Isn't it amazing how things get accomplished?
I told Fanzone I thought history was more
like a case of fumbling forward--as in football--than anything
else. And it's a fact. Look how in this instance everybody
made mistakes and still things were done. Did you
know I really wanted to be an astronaut, myself?"

"I guessed it," Lin answered.

"I mean literally. Oh, I knew it was an insane sort of
hope. I knew better than almost anyone how many hundreds
of thousands of men would be better qualified than
I'd ever be. But I couldn't help dreaming about it, the way,
at a football game, you can daydream that some miracle
might happen, the star quarterback might somehow get
taken out of the game; and you, the spectator, would for
some freak reason be asked, out of all the stadium, out of
the thousands of people there, to replace him. And you
would. And it would work. So my dream was like that,
and of course it never happened. But instead something
just as crazy and impossible is going to happen in the real
world, which is my getting this book done and published.
It's going to be a good book, too, Lin."

"It's going to be one of the great books."

He stared at her. Slowly he became conscious of the

fact he was still holding a dish and a dishtowel in his hands,
doing nothing with either. He put them both down on the
drainboard, and stepped to her. She was still facing the
sink with both hands in the dishwater; but he put his arms

around her from behind and held her, feeling how incredibly
warm and alive she was.

She started to lift her hands out of the sink, then left
them where they were and merely leaned her head back
so her cheek was against his.

"You and your dragons," she said. Behind her, he
thought he saw the ghost of the Senator, his father, looking
at him with speculative, wary, but grudgingly impressed,
eyes. There was a great deal in common between
the Senator and Lin, he now recognized.

"Ma- be "

y , the Senator seemed to be saying. "Well,

maybe..."


41


In his spacesuit, Fedya moved slowly and with great effort.
He had controlled the Mars lander also slowly and with
great effort--but precisely---down to a landing on the
surface of Mars. He had redoubled his exercising in the
past three months, he had even set up in the wardroom on
B Deck the "squirrel cage", as the emergency centrifuge
wheel was called; and spent two of his daily waking hours
under its simulation of gravity. But the many months of
slowly debilitating effect of almost no gravity and the
strange illness in him had continued to weaken him.

From the moment he had reached Mars orbit his head
had begun to clear of all dreams and fancies he had carried
about with him aboard the spacecraft for the last half of
the voyage. The imagined figures of his fellow marsnauts
and of Mariya and the children were gone now; although
they were always in the back of his mind. He was just
terribly feverish and weak. The gravity of Mars, only
three-fifths of Earth's, dragged him down and made his
arms and legs as they moved above the controls feel as if
they were hung with massive weights of lead.

41I


Nonetheless a minimal amount of strength could be made
to accomplish a great deal. With Phoenix Two in orbit
around Mars, he had worked the Mars excursion module
out of its storage compartment in the airless forward section
of the spacecraft and readied it for a landing on the
alien world below. He had entered it; and with a few
touches on the position thrusters separated it from its
mother craft.

The inboard comPuter of Phoenix Two had given him the
figures he needed. He had retrofired the MEM's descent
stage rocket motor for the descent, and fallen toward the
surface. As they approached, the protective shroud and a
portion of the heat shield was jettisoned--the latter an
automatic action to allow use of the ascent stage of the
MEM as an abort vehicle, unnecessary now; Fedya did
not intend to return to Phoenix Two.

Close to the Mars surface, now--it seemed to swell away
on all sides below him like a cratered surface of a larger
moon--Fedya used the descent stage motor again for
braking. His descent slowed, slowed, until he was finally
hovering, just above the surface. Then he went down.

The jar of landing was slight. Fedya sat where he was
at the controls, wrapped in silence: The weariness that
dragged him down into apathy, urged him to stay where
he was, comfortably seated, waiting for the final slowdown
of his body into death that was not far off, now. But he had
not come all this way to be found still encased in a vehicle,
some yards above the Martian soil.

For a couple of hours he rested. Then, with great effort,
he put himself into motion. It was an even slower business
here, on the Martian surface, but he struggled, and rested,
and struggled again.

Eventually, he was out of the MEM, and down its metal
ladder to the surface, having carried out, one at a time,
the few items he had determined to set up. One of these
was the laser reflector. Another, the United Nations' flag,
which he set up on the rubbled ground, together with
smaller flags of the six governments who had combined in
the Mars Expedition. With the colors of the artificially
stiffened flags standing out in the light of the distanceshrunken
sun, he turned to put up the iocator beacon that

ould be activated by those ¢vho came after him, searching
across the surface from their own touchdown location for
the spot where he had landed.

With these two items out of the way, his duty tasks were
done. He began to assemble the framework he had designed
and built on board the Phoenix Two during the last two
months. When it was done, it showed itself as a sort of
standing support--half chair, half crutches. He had positioned
it facing the sun; and when he backed into it, and
relaxed, it held him facing the light.

He hung in the support he had created. It was not uncomfortable
in Mars's light gravity; and now that he let go
of the struggle to work and live, he could feel that the end,
for him; was waiting and very close.

He sighed a little inside the spacesuit. Sleep was pulling
him down into silence and an end. Through weary eyes and
the face-plate of the suit, he looked out, past the excursion
module across the rubbled desertland of the Martian surface
to the horizon. A fine, orange-red dust lay everywhere,
drifted deep behind boulders and rocks. A memory of
something Tad had mentioned once, a quotation about the
"red sands of Mars" taken from some old book about the
planet . . . was it one of the fictions of Edgar Rice Burroughs
where the planet was called Barsoom, and fierce
hordes of great, green four-armed swordsmen rode massive
mounts across it? Fedya had never read any of the books
Tad had talked about, and could not now remember if the
quotation was from them, or from some other writing.

But this was the real Mars and he was here. Man was
here. Beyond the horizon, everywhere, the atmosphere was
full of a suspended dust, giving it a hazy look and scattering
the light of a more distant sun until the whole sky was
a bright orange pink--brighter than it should be if the
dust had not been there and only the shrunken sun had
been visible in a thin, blue sky. Outside his spacesuit the
daytime temperature at this moment was minus fifty degrees
centigrade. The Martian air was poisonous with
carbon dioxide. From all these things, his life systems
protected him; but that protection would be unnecessary
soon, though it would continue for some time after he
had no need of it.

wNonetheless, here he was. Here he would be, when those
who would come after would arrive to find him. They
would discover him, waiting, on his feet.

Far above him, in orbit, Phoenix Two faithfully continued
to rebroadcast to Earth the body signals radiorelayed
to it from the module and to the module from the
sensors in Fedya's underclothing beneath the spacesuit.
Those body signals were growing weaker, and at Kennedy,
back on Earth, they would be able to note and record the
moment in which the signals would stop entirely.

Before and after that moment, Phoenix Two would
continue to fall endlessly about Mars in the orbit into
which that world had captured her, rushing through space
above the red planet, glinting in the light from the far-off
sun, and waiting.

Waiting for the other men and women who would
come before too long now. Who must come, since there was
now no other choice. Because for human beings it had
always been that way. The road led always forward--and
there was no turning back.

It is the end of the twentieth century.
On the launching pad at Cape Canaveral a
space shuttle waits to ferry a multinational

crew of Marsnauts.on the first stage of

their three-year journey - the first

•
	manned expeditiinto Mars.

But as governments manoeuvre for
political advantage,.the crews struggle
with a growing crisis- While the world
watches the epoch-maling flight, one man
sees, amidst intrigUli and espionage,
the slow, sure growth of disaster. Only he
can stop it- if he has the courage.


THE FAR CALL: An epic story of the lure of
space, of mankind's aspirations and
failings, by a master:storyteer.


- .- -'- FICTION

0 7088 8033 9


"UK. 1 pound 25 penceAUSTRALIA $3.95" NEW ZE,L,NI
"Recommended Price