Done Without Eagles (by Philip St. John)

The triangulator registered eight thousand miles up from Earth, though naturally we couldn’t see the old ball behind us. When they built the Kickapoo, they left out all windows and covered her with a new laboratory product to bounce back hard radiations, which is why I have a couple of normal kids instead of half-monsters; cosmic rays just love to play around with a man’s genes and cause mutations if they get a chance. Anyway, the spy instruments we used were worth a whole factory of portholes.

Captain Lee Rogers ran his eyes over the raised indicators when I signaled that we’d made one diameter, and found them all grooved where they should be. He pushed back his shoulders and tapped down for normal space acceleration before swinging around to face me. “They all come back, Sammy,” he said, for no good reason I could see. “Once a man’s been outside the atmosphere, you can’t keep him grounded. Remember Court Perry?”

How could I help it, with some of the records he’d made still unbeaten? He’d won his eagles back in the old quartz-window days.

Then, when they built the Kickapoo as the first blind ship and made him captain, he’d made history and legends for six years, until even the die-hards admitted spy instruments worked, and every student in navigation school with marrying ideas darned near worshiped him. After that, his landings and takeoffs began to go sour, and got worse for months. They seemed to be improving again at the last, but it was too late then; the officials called him in and yanked his eagles, offering him an office job instead, which he turned down. That had been five years before and nobody had heard a word of the captain since.

“Sure,” I told Lee. “It was before I got my copilot ticket on the Kickapoo, but they gave us his life for inspirational reading in navigation school. Why?”

He handed me over a hen-scratched paper giving the passenger listings. “Take a look at the angel roll. The steward sent it up for my okay on the use of the superdeck cabin.”

“Inspector eyeing our flare?” The superdeck cabin is reserved for officials, usually, and lies right down the hall from the dugout. navigation roomnext to the captain and pilot’s quarters.

Lee shook his head. “Free-wing angels. We’re carrying a full load this trip, and they came aboard with ‘any consideration will be appreciated ‘passes, so I had to okay it You might read it, you know.”

It was an idea, though I was beginning to catch on. All the same, my eyes popped when I saw the names after Cabin O-A. “Captain Courtney R. Perry, Ret., and Stanley N. Perry, M.A., M.M., Ph.D, F.R.P.S., F.R.S.,” I read. “Mmm. So he’s come out of the hole. Who’s the alphabet?”

“Court Perry’s son, and that’s only part of his degrees and such. One of the hard-radiation mutes.” Mutation, he meant, not speechless. “Bom while the captain was on the old ships, so don’t be surprised when you see him. Claims he’s a superman, and maybe he is Get ready for trouble, Sammy.”

“I don’t get it.” I’d been wanting to meet Court Perry for years, and this looked like a first-class opportunity to me.

Lee grimaced. “Naturally, not knowing him. I was his pilot before they sacked him, though, and I know what he’ll think of another man pushing his ship. Inside of an hour, you’ll hear a knock on the door there, and won’t have to guess who it is.”

Lee was wrong, partly. It wasn’t more than half an hour before the knock came, and the door opened to show the hugest body I’d seen on a man six feet tall and not fat. It was topped by a head that was

simply magnificent; beautiful describes it better than handsome. And below thatwell, the man had four arms, all fully developed, and muscled like a gorilla’s, with long hands that ended in six tapering fingers apiece. Apparently the double shoulder system left no room for a waist, but ran in a straight line from hips up. I must have gasped, but the mute took no notice of it.

“Hi, Lee. How’s tricks?”

Lee gave him a rather troubled grin and came to his feet to grab one of the arms. “Not bad, Stan, though the two of you might have written once in a while. You’re looking good. How’s Court?”

“All right, I guess.” He swung a couple of hands in an uncertain gesture that gave me the heebies. “He wants to join you here for a while, if you don’t mind.”

“Afraid I can’t. The rules forbid passengers”

“What’s that?” The voice rapped out from the hall and swung me around to face a little, thin man with a ramrod down his back and a neat Vandyke on his face. He looked like the sort who’d hit heaven and been routed through hell on the return ticket, but come through it. Pride, authority, and indignation were all mixed, and another expression I couldn’t quite place. Something about him made me pull my stomach in and come to attention, even though he wasn’t wearing twin eagles on his old space cap.

“What’s that, Lee?” he rapped out again, pushing forward to the dugout. “When have I ever been an angel, eh? Don’t be an ass!”

Lee’s arm barred his way. “Sorry, sir, but technically you’re an angel now. The rule clearly states that no passengers are to be admitted to navigation or engine rooms under any circumstances. You taught me those rules were to be obeyed!”

“I taught you not to be a blamed fool! Out of my way, Lee. I’m coming in. I want to find out what’s happened to my ship while you’ve been running it. Stan, make way for me!”

Stan started forward, and I didn’t like the look of those bulkirfg shoulders, but Lee waved him back with a sharp gesture. There were little creases torturing his forehead, and the muscles along his jaw stood out sharply. “Sorry, Captain Perry. I’m wearing the eagles on this ship. Return to your quarters!”

For only a fraction of a second, Court Perry winced, and then his face froze into a blank. “Very good, Captain Rogers,” he said precisely, coming to salute. He executed a right-about-turn with a snap and marched down the hall, fingering the place where the eagles should have been, Stan following.

I swung to Lee. “Good Lord, man, did you have to”

“I had to.” The cigarette in his hands was mashed to a pulp, and he tossed it away savagely, fiddling with the controls, while the air machine clicked out the only noises in the room and I made myself busy with charts. Finally he shrugged and reached for another cigarette.

“Court Perry dug me out of an orphanage, Sammy, put me through navigation school, and taught me all he knew about running the Kickapoo. He’s” Lee stopped and looked to see how I was taking it. “All right, I suppose it does make me seem an ungrateful pup. But if I’d broken that rule or let him override my authority, he’d have hated me for a weakling and himself for having failed with me. Now let’s forget it and wait for his next move. He won’t give up on the first try,”

He didn’t. Almost as Lee finished speaking, the etherphone ikked from behind the controls and I jumped to answer it. ” ‘Lee Rogers,’” I read as it came over, ” ‘Captain, Kickapoo: Captain Courtney Perry and son are to have full freedom of ship. Signed, Redman, president’ How’d they get word through without sending on our transmitter?”

“Probably Stan built a sender from the pile of gadgets he always carries along.”

“In fifteen minutes?”

“Mm-hmm. He does those things when he wants to. I’ve seen him take a computator apart and reassemble it in ten.” Lee glanced at the clock and slid off the throne. “Take over. So Court still has pull in the office, it seems. Redman had no business interfering; we’re in space and my word is supposed to be final. Nothing I can do about it, though. Come inl”

The door snapped open to show Court Perry standing with his feet exactly on the imaginary line of the dugout, Stan behind him. He came to rigid attention and saluted stiffly. Lee returned it. “The freedom of the ship is yours, Captain Perry,” he acknowledged. “Sammy, see that Captain Perry is provided with a set of master keys to the lower decks.”

“Thank you, Captain Rogers.” Court’s square shoulders were perhaps a trifle farther back as he stepped over the line and approached the control seat. He reached out as I slid up to let him take it, then hesitated. “With your permission, sir.”

“Permission granted.” It was the first time I’d seen formality in space, and I felt awkward as a two-tailed comet between them. Lee

disappeared around the panel to the etherphone cubbyhole with a handful of miscellaneous and unrelated charts in his hands.

As Court took the seat I had vacated, the huge bulk of Stan moved in front of me, cutting off my view. He was almost too big for the little room. But I could hear the faint sounds of the old man’s fingers on the panel, as he tested it bit by bit. He grunted once or twice, and Stan seemed to mutter something, then twitched his arms slightly and looked around. Court got up.

“CopilotSammy’s the name, isn’t it? Good.” He nodded faintly at that. “Sammy, where are the testing instruments? I used to keep them under the panel, but apparently they’re no longer there.” “We don’t have testers, sir; at least, I’ve never seen any.” “No testers, eh?” He swallowed it carefully, then tossed his voice over the instrument panel. “Captain Rogers, your copilot informs me there are no instrument testers. Is that correct?”

Lee’s voice bounced back at him. “It is, Captain Perry. Under the new regulations, we’re checked over at both ends, and no tests are made in space. That system has proved entirely satisfactory.”

“Hmm. I distinctly remember explaining to you the reasons for space tests. Takeoff accelerations sometimes jar loose a delicate control, and furthermore, ground men are sometimes careless; they’re not trained in actual flight conditions, and their lives aren’t involved. I advise an immediate test of your instruments. Hall Indicator C responds slowly, and the meteor repeller itself may be at fault instead of the indicator.” “Sorry, sir, that’s impossible. We have no testers.” Court grimaced at that. “Your engine-room testers can be adapted. I believe I also taught you how that was done.”

“Sorry, Captain Perry,” Lee decided positively. “I don’t consider such measures necessary under the present regulations.”

Seeing the uselessness of arguing, Court shrugged. ‘Take over, Sammy,” he said, relinquishing the controls. “And if he’ll listen, yOu might remind Captain Rogers that Mars lies in the region of the Little Swarm now. Meteorseven peanut-sized onesaren’t pleasant company when the hull repellers are out of order. Now, if I could have those keys”

When the door closed again, Lee came out of the hole. “Easier

than I thought… Mmm. Nothing wrong with Indicator C that I

can see. It answers to a change in the hull charge perfectly. Wonder

what happens next.”

Nothing really happened for a while, except that Stan and Court

were poking over the ship in a methodless hunt for inefficiency. It was just that something was in the air, an unpleasantness that traveled from the control room down to the crew deck, and finally hit the passengers. But any little thing in space does that, and the old customers of the line shrugged and forgot it, as much as they could. Court wandered about the ship with Stan at his heels, but I could see no particular point to his activities.

I was off duty on a prowl when the first trouble came. Down from the cook’s galley came a caterwauling and sounds of some sort of scrap, with the shrill yelps of the little cook predominating. As I bounced around a corner, I saw Tony leave the deck in a flying leap and plunge toward the entrance of his domain.

Then one of Stan’s big arms came out carelessly and caught him in midair. “Naughty boy,” the mute said softly. “You’ll hurt yourself trying that. Lucky I was here to catch you.” He held the cook easily, while the little man squirmed and fumed helplessly.

“What’s going on here?” I wanted to know. Tony swung away at the sound of my voice and bounced up and down before me.

“Mr. Noyes, you gotta help me, you gotta! They steal my galley; they snoop all over; they won’t let me work. How can I cook without I get in? Get ‘em out, Mr. Noyes, kill ‘em, lock ‘em in irons. Oh, Santa Maria, I’ll kill ‘em so dead! Alia my help’s in there and I ain’t telling ‘em what to do! They’ll spoil the dinner. Get away from my galley, you bums, or I’ll make soup outa you both! Spoil my dinner, I feed you to pigs! Mr. Noyes, you gotta get ‘em out.”

Stan grinned at me and winked, which was my first indication that he had a sense of humor of some kind. ‘Tony’s a little overen-thusiastic, Sammy. Don’t mind him.” He caught one of the little man’s flailing fists and drew him close, patting his head. “Sh, Tony. Dad decided to investigate the galley, so we dropped down. Tony came in just as we were looking over his pans, and set up a squawk. When he grabbed a butcher knife and came at us, I had to put him out. Finished in there, Dad?”

“All finished.” Court appeared in the door. “Tony!”

The tone of voice cut through Tony’s indignation and left the cook at limp attention.

“Yes-sir?”

“Tony, you use too much grease, and you don’t clean your pans often enough! Look at that!” He held out a frying pan with a thin coat of oil on the bottom. “That carries one meal’s flavor over to the

next food. I’ve found grease on your griddles, too, thick enough to come off on my finger and half stale. Anything to say about it?”

“That new helper,” Tony suggested weakly. “Musta been the new helper.”

“So? Then teach that new helper to keep clean pans. I don’t like indigestion. All right, back to your work! Hello, Sammy. Any objections from headquarters?”

“Not this time, sir.” I suppose Lee would have objected, but Lee didn’t need to know. After all, there had been a slightly off taste to the food this voyage, and I didn’t have much use for Tony’s treatment of his assistants, anyway.

Court smiled, apparently in the best of spirits after his conquest of the galley. “Fine. I don’t suppose Captain Lee has followed my advice, eh? … No, I thought not. Thinks I’m a meddling old fool who had no business going over his head. Pigheadedmade him that way, I guess. Needs an accident to teach him good senseand he’ll get it, or I’m mistaken. Damn!”

He caught his foot against a swabber’s kit and lurched forward, grabbing at a handrail to regain his balance. “Who left that… that bucket in the middle of a man’s way? Rollins still bossing the middle decks? A fine way to run a ship! You go on with Sammy, Stan. I’m seeing Rollins.”

“Don’t want me to go with you, Dad?”

“No, I don’t need you. Rollins knows me well enough to behave himself. Swab pails in the middle of the deck!” He went muttering off toward the stairs that led to the crew quarters, carrying himself on parade dress. Stan and I turned up to the superdeck. He began filling his pipe with three hands, while I watched in fascinated silence until it was finished, and he turned back to me.

“Dad’s quite a remarkable man, Sammy,” he said. “You’re not getting a very good slant on him, I suppose, but if you knew him better you’d find it isn’t prejudice on my partI have no prejudices.” 

“I’ve seen one thing,” I agreed. “He’s the only man I ever knew who could be thoroughly provoked with the captain and not take it out on the copilot as well. It’s a pity he and Lee can’t get together.”

The mute threw open the door of his cabin and motioned me in. “Make yourself comfortable. I wouldn’t worry about Lee and Dad, fellow. They both put a ship’s command above Heaven and Earth, but that’ll be finished the minute we dock. Anyway, it’s sort of a farewell fling for Dad, so he’s making the most of it.”

“How do you mean, farewell trip? Thanks, yes.” The wine he

brought out of some little gadget was cold and delicious. He sampled his own before replying.

“Heart trouble, they told him. When he found out, he decided to make one more trip in the Kickapoo and settle down on Mars. No dying on Earth for him. Keep this under your hatLee’s not to know but the chances are all against his living another year. So I left the wife and kids behind and came along.”

“The wife and kids?” It had caught me off guard, and I blurted out the question like a darned fool.

There was a grin on his face then. “Sure, I’m married, and there are four children back in Dad’s old houseall like me. I’m a true mutation, you know; pass on my differences to any children. It’s my duty to continue my strain; otherwise the human race may have to wait a few thousand more years for another superman.”

There was certainly no false modesty about him; neither was his tone boasting. About all I could say to that was a grunt.

He grinned again. “It’s the truth, Sammy, so why should I deny it? I look strange to you; but you must admit I have advantages physically; among others, I’m practically immune to all diseases. I finished high school and college in the absolute minimum time. I got the T.R.P.S.’ after my name for working out a process for grinding lenses in a true parabola to an accuracy of one molecule’s thickness-using a colloidal abrasive suspended in air, and controlled by the irregularities themselves; that was something they said couldn’t be done. Want more proof?”

Something suddenly brought me up out of the seat and toward him, and I could feel a flood of anger running through me at his egotism. I hated the man with a red blood lust that made me crouch in grim determination to clutch and mangle and bite. Then, as quickly as it had come, it was gone, and I found him laughing at me. “Telepathic control, Sammy, so don’t feel foolish. Convinced of my right to call myself super now?”

It was as good an explanation of his ability as anything else, but there were still angles on it. “Okay, you’re a superman. But why aren’t you out turning the world over? I’ve never read of a superman in a story where the fellow minded his own business like the average man.”

“You won’tit isn’t interesting that way. But one superman in a world of normal men isn’t enough to do much. His best bet is to raise children and pass it on until only the supermen are leftthat’s the way nature did it. I learned early to speak and act like a normal

man, whatever differences there are in our way of thinking. Anyway, I was brought up by normal men, and I’m somewhat limited by that my children won’t be. More wine?”

I nodded, my head spinning. I’d felt about the same way in training school when I got my first whiff of butyl mercaptan in the chemistry class and was told a living animal could make and use a similar odor. It was a good thing Court came in then.

“Rollins knows better now,” he said, satisfaction heavy in his voice. “Sammy, your name’s sounding on the caller; captain wants you.” And as I slipped out of the cabin toward the dugout, I caught a less-welcome sentence from him. “Think I’ll look over the engine room tomorrow, Stan.”

All I could do was pray!

Apparently my prayers weren’t much good, though. Near the end of Captain Lee’s shift the next day, while I was waiting around to take over, the engine phone buzzed and McAllister’s voice rattled through it. Lee winced and held it out so we could both hear.

McAllister was in fine fettle. “Captain, there’s an old fool down here making trouble, with a freak to help him! Three of my best men have their arms broken and a couple are out. ‘Twas a lovely fight, while it lasted, but I’ve work to be done and no more time for play. What’ll I do with ‘em?”

“What happened? Where are they now?”

“They’re backed in a corner a-waiting for more competition right now, and the old man’s using highly uncomplimentary language, so they’ll get it. He came down to fiddle around, you might say, over the shininess of my turbines and the dripping of my oil, and I let him have his way with only a word or two dropped about his nose being a bit long. But when the freak found where one of the black gang had hidden some liquor and the old man broke the bottle, the bugger jumped him, and the freak joined the play. Naturally, the others didn’t stand by helpless, and I had a bit of a time quieting things down… . Shall I shoot them or use a club?”

Lee swore into the phone and then quieted down to make sense. “McAllister, put the fellow with the liquor in the brig! I’ll settle with you later. Keep the gang of cutthroats in line and send up the other twothey’ll come if you tell them I ordered it Did any outside the engine crew hear the fight?”

“No, just a little private party that your dainty little angels won’t know about. I hated to break it up, but I needed a few sound men to

run the engines, and I thought you might have some slight objection… . Okay, I’ve told ‘em, and they’re on the way up.”

“McAllister would!” Lee slapped the phone back onto its cradle and expounded further on the beauties of a captain’s life and the virtue of sundry individuals. “If he weren’t the best engineer out, I’d sack himand if there’s any more drinking or fighting aboard, I will anyway. He does enough brawling in portcome inl”

I don’t know what I’d expected; probably some pieces of man and mute, from the nature of McAllister’s black gang. Anyway, I was wrong. Court was highly undirty and unscratched, which could only mean Stan had done the actual fighting. The mute’s shirt would have made lint, and his general color was that of stale oil; but, except for a few slight scratches, he was untouched. I had a vision of those gorilla arms swinging all together, and began to see why McAllister had called Lee before the fight was completely finished.

“Discipline,” said Court, while Lee was still swallowing enough ire to clear speaking space in his throat, “is terrible aboard, sir. Since you will probably insist on retaining the creature that passes for your engineer, I have asked Stan to accept his invitation and meet him after we dock; I hope you’ll show better judgment in choosing the new engineer you’ll need.”

Lee was practically gagging by that time. “Captain Perry, you forget yourself! Only your age prevents me from confining you to the brig, sir! Keep out of my mind, Stan! That goes for you, too. If I suspect you of trying to control me, I’ll brig you before I break. Angels running my ship! You will return to your quarters and remain there until we dock. During that time, you may leave to dine, only, and you will refrain from all comments to the other passengers or any members of the crew. And you, Captain Perry, will remove the uniform you wear by courtesy, and dress in civilians!”

“That exceeds your authority, Lee,” Stan pointed out softly. Court was radiating a cold white anger that needed no speech. “It’s true that there was some trouble below, but we were not unauthorized in our search, and the fight was not of my making; I had no choice, unless I preferred to have my father and myself mutilated. There’s no need to strip Dad!”

“Except that he’s been scaring the angels with wild tales while his clothes give his words weight! He’s ruining my crew and destroying moralegenerally making a nuisance or a laughingstock of himself. I won’t have the uniform disgraced. To quarters!”

There was a click of heels from Court and the sound of feet slapping down the hall before his door shut. Stan stood a moment longer, spreading his hands at odd angles, then followed. With a glance at the clock, Lee clapped his hands down on the panel and jerked from the throne.

“Seven hours from Mars. Take over! Don’t call me unless there’s an emergency.”

That left me alone at the controls, and the peace should have been welcome, but wasn’t. I could still hear echoes bouncing from the walls, and the face of Court Perry kept getting in front of the controls. I never took sides in a ruction in a family or ship, but I’d have given half an eye to see the answer to this one. Grown men, I figured, are worse than kids, and you can’t spank them as easily. And when they’re hurt, I reckon the sting lasts longer.

If I hadn’t been darned fool enough to worry about something that wasn’t my business, I might have taken more notice of the slight quiver that touched the ship a couple of hours later, but I put it down to temporary lag in one tube, corrected it automatically, and went On roiling around mentally. In the back of my mind, I heard the door open softly and close, and was glad Lee had returned instead of getting drunk as I feared, but didn’t bother to look around. A hand slid across my back and gripped my shoulder before I swung to see Court Perry.

He’d put off his uniform and most of himself with it, and now Only a small, beaten old man stood there looking at me uncertainly. There’s a certain kind of hell in the back of the best minds, and Court had found it. The fact that there was no pain or bitterness on his face only made it worse, somehow. I slid out of the copilot Stool.

“Sit down, sir. Lee’s turned authority over to me and won’t be back for hours.” His look toward the chair was hesitant and I motioned toward it again. “I’m commanding now, and if I choose to, request your presence here as an adviser, nobody can do anything about it.”

“Don’t counter your captain too much, Sammy.” But he took the

tool, sinking down into it like a half-pricked balloon. “Sometime you may be running your own tick. I felt the ship lurch back there. Know what it was?”

‘Tube lag. I’ve corrected.”

“I thought so. You’d naturally make that mistake. It wasn’t tube lag. That lurch came from Hull Section C, or everything I’ve learned

bout the feeling of a ship is wrongand I don’t think so. That means

a peanut from the Little Swarm clipped up too close before the repellers functioned, and it was soaked up too quickly for recoil compensation. That’s dangerous business, and I couldn’t stay berthed with it going on.”

“Indicator’s registering.” I tapped out more current to the hull repeller and watched the pointer. It fluttered a second, and wabbled slowly overbut kept on going instead of stopping at the mark. “Hm-mm!”

“Exactly.”

Right then I began to see meteors swarming up as thick as peas in a can. I grabbed the phone, yelled down for the repair crew to jury-rig whatever was wrong. Court tapped me.

“Make,an overroll. They strike from the starboard side, and if we turn the weak section to port, it’ll help.” As he saw me grab for the calculator to figure my thrusts, he brushed my hands aside and laid his on the controls, feeling over the raised indicators with fingers that seemed jointless, then pulled on the firing pins. Spirit ran back over him.

The Kickapoo’s thwart tubes muttered obediently, and I could feel the faint press of overroll acceleration. While she was just starting, those long flickering fingers went back to the steering panel and made another lightning reset, twisted the delayed-fire dials, and punched the pins again to check when half-over was reached. I’d heard men claim ships could be handled by conditioned reflexes, but I’d never seen it tried before.

Court leaned back, his hands still playing over the indicators. “Not much chance of two meteors hitting the same spot for hours, anyway, but there’s no sense”

SSSping-owgh-ooOOM! Something burst in front of us, white-hot and flaming hotter as it struck through the etherphone and threw hot metal splattering over the dugout. One of us grabbed the other which, it wasn’t clearand we lurched toward the door, just as the last sounds subsided. There was a series of rolling slams, and the automatic air gates whammed shut, one, two, three, cutting the dugout in two just behind the panel. The local danger lights went off and we stopped our scramble for the door.

Then the thwart tubes burbled again, stopping the roll of the ship after the damage was done. From below came faint sounds of excitement that meant the angels were milling around with their fear on their arms, like a pack of sheep. Court snapped up and dived for the

angel communicator while I began bellowing down for the checking gang to patch the holes in the outer and inner sheaths.

His voice was brisk and confident. “The small meteor you just felt drove into the control room from which I’m speaking,” he announced. “No serious damage was done, and there is absolutely no danger. Passengers are requested to continue as before. The slight inconvenience caused will in no way affect them, nor the arrival time at our destination. I assure you, there is no cause for worry.”

As they began quieting down under his words and I turned to inspect the panels, Lee came bursting in and thrust himself in front of me. “What happened?”

I told him quickly, and he grunted. “Etherphone gone, of course. All instruments are dead! It must have hit the relay chamber and burned out the connections. We’re flying completely blind, without spy instruments! No way of contacting Earth, where the repair ships are; none on Mars at present. Even if we could get a message out, our momentum would carry us to Jupiter by the time they could reach us.”

“The controls are all right, though.” It was Court’s voice, breaking in on the gloom. “The overroll counterset worked. They’re not connected with the spy instruments, anyway.”

“What good are controls without indicators? You! I thought I gave orders you were to stay berthed! Is this accident more of your work, Captain Perry?”

“Easy, Lee.” I caught him just as Stan slid through the doorway, arms and all, and completely filled what was left of the dugout. “Court was helping me, at my request, and he almost succeeded in preventing this. He might still help if you’ll calm down and use your head. What next?”

“What can be next? Get Stan to signal Mars with the etherphone he used before and have them contact Earth, I guessand then wait.. There’s no chance of fixing the fused mess the meteor would make of the relays.”

Court shook his head. “We can’t wait. I promised the passengers they’d reach Mars on time, and I mean to see they do. I’ll fly it if you can’t.”

“Without instruments? Captain Perry, return to your quarters and keep this to yourself.”

“Without instruments!” Court’s voice was flat and positive.

“For the last time, will you get out?”

“No. I’m flying the Kickapoo to Mars Junctionl”

That was a little strong, even for me. “You can’t do it, sir. That would be mutiny.” I grabbed for one arm as Lee caught the other, but the old man braced himself and refused to move.

“It is mutiny,” he said. Then, as Lee let go and grabbed for the phone to summon help: “StanI”

Stan stood there for a second, then moved toward us, a slow frown creeping up on his face. A flurry of arms came at usthey must have been arms, at leastand I felt myself leave the floor, twist and turn in the air, and hit something. Blackout!

Lee’s voice, raging furiously and almost incoherently, was the first thing I knew later, except for the ringing that went on in my head, “behind bars till the devil catches pneumonia! I’ll”

Stan turned from some problem he was working on, and little furrows of concentration set on his brow. “Shut up, Lee! You’ll not say another word until we reach Mars. Understand?”

Lee opened his mouth and worked furiously, but nothing came out of it. Finally, he slumped back and gave up. The mute turned to me. “Sorry, Sammy, but I had to do it. Here, I’ll fix that headache for you.” Again there was a second of concentration, and the ringing was suddenly gone, though the lump on the back of my head was still there.

“Where are we now?”

“Half an hour from Mars; you’ve been out quite a while,” Court answered me. “Stan plotted a course from the co-ordinates I remembered were on the panel before the crash, and we’re using dead reckoning. Of course, there may be a slight error of a few hundred miles, but that isn’t much.”

Slight error! Technically, it was; but that wouldn’t help if we crashed square into the planet or missed completely. Lee writhed in the corner and managed a hissing sound. Well, there was nothing I could do now. Court had the ship and there was no chance of outside help. All I could do was ride along and prayfervently if not hopefully.

“Get a reading yet?” Court asked. “And better signal Mars to clear the fieldI may wobble a little.”

Stan picked up a little box with a few loops of wire sticking from it and began twisting a dial; it wasn’t big enough to be an etherphone, as I knew one, but a faint whisper from the headset reached me, after a brief pause. “They say all clear down there, Dad; I told them we were having

a little trouble. From the directional angle I get with the loop here, we’re about two seconds of an arc too high. Better correct.”

“Already done. Now if I can hit into the atmosphere right, and get the feel of the air currents so I can recognize the territory I’m in, we’ll be all set.” He hunched himself over the panel and sat waiting for a few aeons longer. Finally: “Ah, there’s the first layer of thin airwe’re still a little too fast! There, that should fix it. We’re getting down where the air currents have character now.”

“Junction on a line from us, almost,” Stan reported. “Correct to port one degree five and a half seconds … two minutes … eight seconds. Good!”

“Updraft. That puts us overmmm…”

Magic may have its place, but I wasn’t used to it aboard the Kickapoo. “Good Lord, Stan,” I begged, “do something about it! No man can fly a rocket by air currents and the feel of her! I can’t even tell an updraft from a hurricane in this heavy shell.”

“He can.” The calm in his voice was infuriating. “Dad’s memorized every square inch and reaction of the whole Kickapoo, until he knew every quiver of her hull and pull of her controls. Flew her for a year without using the vision plate. Dad’s been blind six years, Sammy!”

“But” That was too much for even Stan’s control, and Lee squeezed the one word out hoarsely.

“This time, I’ve been his eyes. Telepathy, you know. Dad didn’t want people to guess. When his eyesight began failingprobably from the radiation he used to have to takehe put those raised indicators in at his own expense and went ahead. And for your mental comfort, he made his last two landings with eyesight completely gone and without a hitch. If the officers’ board, hadn’t caught on, he’d still be running a regular tick, and Lee would be copiloting without guessing the truth.” ,

Maybe so, but the mental comfort he’d mentioned wasn’t there. Those raised indicators weren’t helping this trip, and Court hadn’t touched a control for five years. He’d been hunched over them while Stan was speaking, but now he broke in again.

“There’s Junction, by the feel of it. Test her, Stan; that should be the field.”

“I think it was.”

“Good! We’re high, from the sound of the backblast.” The Kickapoo veered around in a huge circle, Court fighting the controls to hold her on a level without indicators. Stan apparently was capable of

nothing but confidence, which wasn’t shared entirely by his father. Sweat began popping out on the old man’s face. “Can’t make it this time, either!” “Steady, Dad!”

“I’m steady enough.” Again the ship made a tight circle, her vanes shrieking against the air; her speed was low now, and she wobbled uncertainly. Court’s hands bleached white, and his face blanched suddenly. One fist jerked away spasmodically, slapped back, and the grim fight with the controls went on. I was cooking in my own sweat.

Then something slithered under us, the rockets died, and silence reigned. From the outside came a rattle, and we went into motion again in a-way that meant the field tractors were dragging us in. Safe! Stan was untying Lee and myself, and then Lee was muttering something I didn’t try to understand and moving toward Court.

The old captain watched his approach with a tired smile and came slowly to his feet. “It’s your throne again, Lee. It’s”

Hell splashed over his face at that moment! Stan barely managed to catch him as the legs buckled and failed him. But the salute he had started continued, and the voice went on faintly. “A very nice landing you made, Leeyou made, understand? …. My cap! … Where’s my cap?”

Lee caught himself and jerked his own cap up out of the comer where it had lain, making gulping motions in his throat. “Here, Captain,” he said, putting it on the old man’s head. “Here’s your cap.” Some of the agony left Court’s mouth as his fingers felt it and groped up the visor. “Eagles!” The smile that suffused his face might almost have been a prayer. “My eagles!”

Then Stan was laying the body down and clutching tight at Lee’s shaking shoulders. “Not your fault,” he was saying gently. “Not your fault, Lee. His heart”

I turned and stumbled out of the dugout to oversee the passengers who were landing after another uneventful trip to Mars.