PROMOTION TO SATELLITE

By RAY BRADBURY

Obscure Pietro Wanted to Be a “Beeg” ManBut He Never Dreamed What His Heroism on a Space-Ship Would Bring Him THE warning came sharply. “Watch it, you podano!” Pietro Dionetti shrank back instantly as a wall of curved metal whisked past his blue-black hair and narrow face.

“Sorry!” Morgan yawped down from the tractor crane. He shoved levers and the metal swung up to a dozen men waiting to fit it into the gaping side of the rocket ship. They guided it home, and the crane released it, went away for another.

Bit by bit, the integument of the projectile grew. Hours passed and Pietro worked with the others. They shaped the shell over a heart of dynamos and turbines and atom machines, intestinal jets, a million minute but potent organs each digesting and giving off energy. Getting a great ship ready to knock a hole in space.

Pietro heard the noon whistle blow and rode to the commissary on the monorail with Nucchi and Antonio and the others. “Santa Maria!” he vowed, “that ship she go like-a mercury. Strong as garlic. One day she is a naked skeleton. Yesterday, today, tomorrow, we give-a her clothes. And we worka like horse!” Shoving food into his wide mouth and talking around it, Pietro went on: “One thing bother me. Is this We build ship, no? We peta her and we do her up nice. Awright. But after that, what happens? You know, Nucchi, as well as I. You have seen.” He paused to load his spoon and crane it unerringly to his mouth. His black brows lifted.

“We finish herand then comes young punk from college and he climb in andzawooh!off goes her and thatsa all we ever see. Yes?” Nucchi nodded his ancient, wrinkled face over his meat.

“Nucchi, my friend, have you ever been to Mars?”

“No.”

“Have you been to Io, to Venus, to Jupiter, to Mercury? You have not. That I know. I, too, have not been. And is this right?” NUCCHI was not sure. He sucked on his spoon thoughtfully. He wiped his rosy, big-pored nose, shrugged his big shoulders and shook his head doubtfully.

Pietro hurried on. “No, it is not right.” Nucchi nodded, now sure, since Pietro said so. Pietro had gone to high school and should know.

“Looka me,” said Pietro. “Looka me, Nucchi.”

Nucchi looked. He saw the gentle olive face, the full, good-humored lips and bright strong teeth. He saw tumbling oily hair.

“I looka,” said Nucchi.

“Whatsa difference between me and this fella by name of Joseph Macom?” “You meanabeeg rocket manexplorer?”

“Thatsa right. Nowlooka, Nucchi, tell me, whatsa difference from Macom and me?” “I dunno,” said Nucchi slowly.

“I got two eyes. I got legs, ears, nose. I have more children than him. Si?” “Si, Pietro.”

“Then whatsa difference, tell me?”

“Pietro,” said Nucchi. “It is no good to to say, but you are not so smart. Is true” Piero waved a calloused hand.

“No, no, mia pabalo, I know that. But we both work, do we not?”

“You both work, Pietro.”

“And we both put great muscle in our work, si?”

“Si, Pietro.”

“So, no matter how mucha brain he got, he no work harder than me, is true?” “True, Pietro. You both work, you both get tired. You botha sleep. But, Pietro, he has been to college.” “Nucchi, mia proveino, one does not have to go to college to want to do somathing, somathing beeg!” “I no wanta do somathing beeger than sleep twelve hours night,” said Nucchi.

“No, no, Nucchi. Have you no dreams?”

“I dream of Marguerite”

“About the stars, Nucchi! About the stars”

But the time-whistle shrieked then and soon Nucchi and Pietro and Antonio and the others began the afternoon shift.

“Pietro,” said Nucchi. “It is no good to dream about stars. Think only of your bambini. Forget Macom, he is beeg man.” “I will be beeg man, too,” said Pietro. “I will sky-rocket, somaday.” “Somaday,” said Nucchi. “Somaday, Pietro, not today.”

Pietro was snug in the belly of the tractor motor making repairs and cursing his hot, endless curses of things he knew and understood but could not love.

“Somaday,” he said lashingly. “Somaday! No, not somaday, but today!” A voice came from outside.

“Hey, Dionetti, are you makin’ love to that engine or fixin’ it? Get goin’, this ship is scheduled for the Mars run in four weeks!” PIETRO writhed internally. “I am of twenty-seven years and of eight children and the rest of my life I must crawl into a hot engine’s belly and wrestle with it! Saint Michael hold my weary head!” He wormed his lean body out of the crane-hood and stared at the hot summer world around him. He said: “How ina blazes does one become great beeg man?” He spat furiously. “How ina blazes does one do it?” The boss glared at Pietro.

“You’ll get a great beeg can tied to you if you don’t yank that crane into line in ten seconds!” Pietro returned the glare.

“I donna have to stay here,” he cried suddenly. “I’m-a goin’ to Mr. Macom and do somathing beeg!” He flung down his monkey-wrench and stomped off.

“Hey, Dionetti, what about this crane?”

“Take the crane and”

The Boss considered the suggestion and rejected it… .

“What seems to be the trouble, Mister Mistereh,” Macom groped for the name.

Pietro supplied it. “Dionetti. Pietro Dionetti. I got eight kids and a wife and I wanta promotion.” Macom’s brown eyes ‘widened and his lips twitched in a half smile.

“Have you done anything, Mr. Dionetti, to deserve a promotion?”

“I work with my hands, I work with my heart. My head, maybe she’sa on strike, but still I worka with my body, Mr. Macom.” “Certainly. Certainly you work, Dionetti.” Macom nodded solemnly, eyes twinkling. “And so do others like you. Work and work again, that’s their lot. We all have to work.” Pietro threw in his trump card.

“But I am different, Mr. Macom. I am different. I see the stars.”

Macom looked surprised. This man might be deeper than he seemed.

“What do you mean, Dionetti?” he asked gently. “You see the stars?” Dionetti gazed at the ceiling as if all the planets swirled and floated there.

“At night I look like all men look, into the sky. But alla men do not see what Dionetti see. Is more than stars and moon, Mr. Macom. Is more than looking or seeing what you look at. Is feeling, Mr. Macom, feeling. That’s what I gotfeeling.” Macom leaned back in his swivel-chair. “But that’s hardly grounds for promotion, is it, Dionetti?” he asked kindly. Pietro looked shocked. “Grounds, Mr. Macom? Sure itsa grounds. Am I not different from others? Is not strong body different when itsa more than a body, when it try to think and feela more than the rest? Is it not then time for one to move?” “Where would you move?”

“Where?” said Dionetti. A pause, then a rocketing motion of one oily hand. “Move? Up. Up!

Macom broke into understanding laughter. He rose and held out his hand. “Mr. Dionetti” “Yes, sir?”

“You are going up!”

“Yes, Mr. Macom?”

“Positively, Mr. Dionetti. Shake.” Pietro was warmly pleased to find that Mr. Macom esteemed him enough to grip his greasy hand. He went out grinning with anticipation.

DIONETTI took another bite out of his salami sandwich and washed it down with a mouthful of red wine. He smacked his lips and patted his stomach. “Ah, Jesu-Guiseppe e’ Maria,” he exhaled. “Thatsa good. My wife, she fix best salami sandwich since-a Mussolini.” “How can you eat, Pietro? How can you eat, when in thirty minutes, only thirty, you must leave. When in thirty minutes the rocket she eat you up and take you to Mars?” “Nucchi, mia proveino, you are more nervous than me.”

“What will you do on the rocket?” asked Antonio.

“What will you do on Mars?” asked Philippe.

“How long you be gone?” asked Nucchi.

Pietro finished his sandwich and stood up to wipe his hands on his pants, then suddenly realized his oily denims were gone. Instead he wore pearl-colored tights and a snug chest-doublet with a V-neck. So he wiped his hands on Nucchi’s pants and Nucchi grinned to be thus honored.

“I not know how long I am gone,” said Pietro. “Six months. A year. Two years. But when I come back” Nucchi said. “Pietro, frontillio, are you not afraid?”

Pietro began to walk across the rocket field, and the six other Italians trailed him, wagging their heads.

“Afraid?” he said. “No. I have a nervous belly, si. And I don’t think clear, si. But I am not afraid.” “What sort of work will you do on the ship?” asked Antonio slyly, insinuatingly.

“Work? What do I do? Antonio, is it not enough that I go? It is not what I do now, but what I do later that will count. You wait. You see.” “You will be beeg man, Pietro?” Nucchi said.

“Yes, Nucchi. Beeg man.”

“How will we know you are beeg as you say?”

“How?” Pietro paused near the edge of a hangar. In the distance he saw a slender woman with eight children in graduated lengths approaching tearfullyhis wife and bambini.

“Just look at the sky. You will know how beeg I am. I own part of it somaday, you wait and see. Dionetti own part of the sky, and ships go ‘round thata place, pointing. So, that is how you know I am beeg man. That is how you know.” They all laughed together.

Tears streamed like mercury down Maria’s face, and, sobbing, she clung to Pietro. He kissed her, then tenderly but firmly put off her imploring hands and patted each bambina and bambino on the head.

“You will not come back, Pietro,” she wailed.

“You will see me again,” he said, nodding seriously.

“Sure, sure!” the others seconded. “Pietro, he live forever. Hesa tough as asteroid flint!” “There is the time-whistle,” said Pietro. “Now I must go. I have work. Take care of the bambini, Maria?” “Si.”

“I go.” He turned quickly, strode to the ship and popped in.

“I dun know,” muttered old Nucchi, watching the preparations. “Alongaside that sheep, an’ all that spacetskPietro, he look like awful leetle man. Awful leetle” His voice was lost in thunder as the ship roared away and disappeared.

IT WASN’T a pretty job. Pietro’s face got dirtier than ever before and his hands got re-calloused and his nice pearl-gray uniform had to be changed every ten hours, but he was happy as he hurtled through space. Labeled “machinist’s spit-boy” he lived among revolving drums and plunging pistons, in heat and oil and sweat, and his prayers were of gratitude for the wonder of it all.

The ship sang toward the moon, the tremble and mighty power of it quivering through Pietro’s every fiber. He had enough time before slipping into his bunk at the ten-hour break to glance through the double-glass port, wave his hand with vigor at Earth and shout: “Hey, Nucchi! Hey, Antonio! Hey, Maria! Looka me!”

But still there were moments of standing at that same port, feeling infinitesimally small. Feeling like a dust-moteone tiny little dust-mote with aspirations. It would be so hard to be a “beeg” man in the immensity of all this space.

“Well, here is Pietro Dionetti,” he sighed, “in space. Now what? How does one rent an asteroid, build a casa for onesa wife and bambini! How does one get beeg?” “Brr-aunch!” the radio howled. “Stations! Men to stations!” came the command.

Stations, stations, stations, the alert went along.

“Stand by for e-mer-gen-cee !” The words were spaced, clipped, clear. “Stay-shuns! Stay-shuns!” A wild avalanche of boots pounded stairways, ladders and hull floors. Voices blurred and mingled.

“Here, you!” A uniformed corporal-of-power hurtled past Pietro, panting, “Fall in, double!” Pietro scrambled after, head whirling, bewildered. They pounded for the control room and took their arms-slack, feet-apart, heads-up pose beside the door with twenty others.

The rest of the personnel gunned the ship. The captain entered, began rapping out commands like a teletype machine.

“MacLeod I”

“Yessir.”

“Check lifeboats. Stand by, ports open, in case!”

“Yes, sir.” A snapped salute, a patter of hard heels.

“Ryder!”

“Sir?”

“Provisionscheck! Six days in space, in case!”

A voice cut in from the audio:

“Sir!”

“Yes?”

“Temperature’s up, sir! Sector Twelve a mess! Free radium!”

“Bulkheads sealed?”

“Yes, sir. Heads 12-A, B and C! Give me a twenty-second report!”

THE captain turned to his men. “Not much for you to do. Stand by emergency boats. Wait orders. Then, when you’re notified, shove offquick! We had a cracked radium drum in Section Twelve. Radium all over the place. It’s nasty.

“The atom machines are working overtime because of the double strength radium, and we’re getting a chain of atom explosions started that won’t stop unless that radium is dumped. And if we don’t dump it in time

“Well, at least none of us will know what happens. It’ll be too quick. We can’t stop the jets. We’re riding full power now, using up as much as possible, giving us extra time to try and dump that free radium and stop the chain action!” “Sweet Mary!” muttered Pietro. “If Nucchi coulda be here now!”

“Briefly,” the captain hurried on, “someone’s got to go in Sector Twelve in a bulger, exposed to an overdose of active radium and every other kind of ray from here to Hellas. Someone has to pick up the radium drum and chuck it out the emergency port there. Now” Twenty-two men raised hands together. They all volunteered, Pietro among them, even though he did not quite understand all the details. He knew there was danger, though. Yes, he knew that.

“Hold it,” said the captain. “We haven’t time to waste. The man who goes in that room won’t come out again. He’ll be a carrier. We haven’t lead-slits thick enough to fight that air. He’ll be dead from the rays in a few hours. So it’s a one-way ticket, you understand.” Every hand remained up. The captain’s gray eyes flicked down the line, from one to another. Good men, all of them.

Pietro stepped forward.

“Captain, sir. Whichaway to Section Twelve?”

The captain’s eyes said “who’s this?” The sergeant at his elbow whispered: “Private Dionetti, sir. Machinist’s helper.” Pietro said, “I donna know these other men. But they have been in school further than me. They have beeg jobs, they have done beeg jobs all their life. You needa them, all of them. But you can easy get another spit-boy, sir.” The captain stared at Dionetti for a long moment.

“You know what you have to do?”

“I have your idea, and a few of mine own.”

“Why should I use you instead of the others?”

“Because I want promotion.”

“Why a promotion?” the captain pressed.

“Would I deserve it if I do the job, sir?”

“You most certainly would.”

“Then I will do it, Captain. It isa my job. It is my chance to do good, to be promoted.” Dionetti’s eyes glowed… .

INSIDE his bulging space suit, ready for the job, Pietro sweated and swore. He heard the captain’s voice and he felt the captain’s hands upon his shoulders. “Hear me, Dionetti?” “Yes, sir.”

“I’m promoting you now, in advanceCaptain Dionetti!”

They shook hands.

“Butbut, sir. Captain? Me a captain?”

“You may be a private in an oil-drum, but, hang it, you’re captain of our destinies!” The officer’s lips were grim as he turned Pietro around, locked his suit tight in back. .

“You have your ordersdon’t come back out. It might be best if you took this gun with you, to spare the suffering. I wish I could say ‘good luck,’ butGod be with you, Captain Dionetti!” And then Pietro was alone.

Sweat streamed down his face and his hands trembled as he unsealed Sector Twelve, opened the bulk-door, slipped in, slammed it heavily shut. The impact of almost unbearable heat staggered him for a moment, held him in his tracks.

The radium drum, a small thing with a cracked top, poured out deadly emanationsrays that whipped the atom-chain explosions into a series of ever-increasing, ever-broadening violence. The chain explosions would only stop when this outside disruptive, this radium, was disposed of. And there was only one way to do that nowheave the whole thing out through an E-port.

Pietro tossed aside the gun the captain had given him. Somehow he did not want it. Quick, hot minutes of work, then he lifted the twenty-five-pound radium drum and toted it toward the E-port. He walked laboriously, because of the fire in his veins and the bulging suit. He pressed a stud with his bulbous head-glass, watched the door hiss open and close behind him as he progressed.

His mind a tortured blur, he pressed a second stud inside the air-lock, and the door leading into outer space gaped wide. Earth swung below.

“I will fall, I will fall, to Earth,” he murmured. “Sweet, kind Jesu, will Maria see me fall, will Nucchi shake his head and cry? And my bambini, what of them?

“I will fall, I will fall. Is thisa the job I came after? Is this my first and my last beeg job?” Space whirled by that open E-port, black and strange and endless.

Pietro clutched the radium tightly to his breast, took four steps out and one beeg step down… .

NUCCHI shook his head. “I always say to Pietrosomaday, Pietro, not today. But I am wrong. Every day is now Pietro’s.” “Is that Daddy, mama? Is that Daddy?”

“Si, bambino, si! Yes, yes, that is your father!”

“You should be proud of him, Maria,” said Nucchi.

“I am proud. Somaday he say he will be big man. This I know is now true.” Nucchi shook his head sadly. “Oh, he isa so far up.”

The huge telescope towered over Nucchi and his five Italian friends, and over Maria and her children. A polite lieutenant-of-astronomy stood by, explaining: “You see, Mrs. Dionetti, when your husband stepped out of that ship with the radium, he not only saved men’s lives and a ship worth millions of dollars, but unknowingly he did one other remarkable thing.

“He began an orbit of his own around the Earth. His body traveled in such a direction that the play of gravity will keep him moving forever about the world.

“He will be Earth’s second satellite, a tiny companion to the moon, moving around and around and around.” “Did you hear that, bambini?”

The scientist went on:

The Government, in recognition of Mr. Dionetti’s heroism, has designated that orbit as his grave, the moon and stars his tombstone. A fitting tribute. All ships, henceforth, will detour that orbit, so that they may not disturb his resting-place.” They all looked through the telescope again, at that tiny, quiet speck far up in space, immortal in deathMaria, her children, the others, and Nucchi.

And Nucchi shook his head and cried and loudly blew his nose. “F-funny. Ettsa funny,” he said, finally, “but justa now, as I look up atta Pietro, I think I see him smile, think I hear him laugh and cry. He cry: ” ‘Hey, bambini! Hey, Maria! Hey Nucchi! Looka me!’ “

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