Earthbound (Winston Science Fiction Book 1) (6 page)

One day Captain Saunders had a word with him about that. “Pete,” he said, “there’s been a complaint registered against you.”

“A complaint? My work is satisfactory, isn’t it?”

“I don’t mean that.” Captain Saunders shook his head. “The Cadets feel that you resent them for some reason. Oh, they make jokes about it, but they keep asking about the ornery guy who works in the tower and brushes off all their questions. Why, Pete?”

Resent them? Anything, but that! All Pete wanted to do was keep his identity unknown, but to the Cadets it indicated resentment. There wasn’t much he could do about it, either. “I — I don’t know, sir. I’m busy, and. . .”

“Busy! You? When you can plot an orbit in ten minutes, inside that rapid-fire head of yours! No, that’s not it, Pete, but if they have a legitimate gripe, I’d like to know what it is.”

“Maybe they do have one, sir, but I can’t answer it. I —”

“It’s something in your past, isn’t it, Pete? Wait, don’t answer. You know, I could know more about this than you think. I could know a great deal more about it than you think.”

“I’d rather not discuss it, sir,” Pete said, and left the room in a hurry.

After that, the Cadet ships began to blast off. Each day at sunrise and sunset Pete would watch them go. The Cadets filing out to their waiting ships, trailing a thunderous chorus of the
Spaceman’s Chant
, the officers calling roll near the blasting pits, speech making by some local political figures — and then the tense moments in the tower while Pete sent each ship flashing off into the void on its carefully calculated orbit.

And each day, additional Cadets came into White Sands to start the whole thing all over again. It might be many weeks before all of them had been cleared off into space.

This caused a lot of commotion, and it kept Pete busy, so busy that for a time he almost forgot about Ganymede Gus. But one night he found a letter waiting in his room. He read:

Sonny: No need for us to meet from now on. That might be dangerous. When I want some information, you just mail it to Sam Smith (you remember Sam, don’t you?) care of General Delivery in White Sands. It looks to me like the
Crape Ring
should be blasting off for Mars within the week. Suppose you tell me when, and on what orbit. And no tricks this time — that’s friendly advice, sonny, because I have a little story to tell your father otherwise, and Sam might even decide to give him something like what you got, only worse.

Regards, Ganymede Gus.

Pete crumpled the note, thrust it in his pocket. Yes, the
Crape Ring
was set for blast-off the day after tomorrow, at sunrise. But it carried a fortune in precious stones, to be exhibited at the
Syrtis Major
City Museum. If he gave Gus the requested information, and if Gus were connected with pirates, Pete would be as guilty as anyone in the crew that had actually committed the act of piracy. Yet if he didn’t give that information, his whereabouts would be revealed — and worse. That much he already had resigned himself to: It was an eventuality, something which had to happen. In that case, he could go to the police and . . .

No! Sam Smith might carry out his threat, attacking Big Pete, injuring him, or more.

From far-off, a clock at the Carnival struck three when Pete sat down and wrote his note to Ganymede Gus. Every scratch of the pen was painful, but he got it all down. The precise moment of sunrise, the speed of the
Crape Ring
, the orbit he would plot for it. Pete went outside and posted the letter, and after that he did not bother to return to his room. He walked the streets of White Sands until dawn, realizing once that his steps carried him perilously close to his old neighborhood. Yes, there was the elementary school which he had attended, there the athletic field where he and his brother Jerry used to play, ages ago it seemed, and there was the library where he used to sit breathlessly and read about the exploits of his father and the other great spacemen who had carved out their destiny on the far planets.

He watched his shadow stalk out ahead of him and then disappear as he walked from street light to street light. He walked on across town to the Spaceport and then out among the silent waiting ships. The wind whistled in briskly from the west, moaning against the hulls and shrieking in the exposed lateral tubes of some of the ships, and the wind felt good against Pete’s face.

He had wanted to be a spaceman, and almost, he had made it. But in the end he had been rejected, and he found himself on an entirely different path now. Where might it end?

Pete could not tell, but he knew this: he would rather die than bring shame to the name which his father had burned in the bleak depths of space.

There were no blast-offs scheduled for sunrise the following morning, and Pete did not report to the tower until just before noon. By that time he was sleepy, but something about the bright, polished interior of the tower reminded him of a spaceship, and he felt his spirits lifting as he entered it.

“You look as if you haven’t slept in a week,” Captain Saunders told him.

Pete laughed. “Well, not quite a week, but I didn’t get much sleep last night.”

Saunders was smiling. “You see that door over there?”

“Of course I see it, sir.” It was the door which led from the observation room into Captain Saunders’ private office.

“Well, I want you to go through it. Right now.”

Pete nodded, scratching his head. What kind of order was that?

He opened the door, entered the little office.

Two men stood inside, One young — tall and gangling, his freckled face split in a broad grin. The other middle-aged, trying to look stern but grinning too.

Pete uttered an eager cry and ran forward.

Garr MacDougal and Big Pete came across the floor to meet him!

Chapter 7 — See
-
Garr Goes to Space

“You see,” Captain Saunders said later, “I knew something wasn’t quite right about Pete from the start. I didn’t know what, but I had a hunch I might find the Academy tied in there some place, especially when Pete tried to change the subject. I called the Academy, spoke to a Brian Mahoney. You know the rest.”

Big Pete nodded. “I also know Mahoney. We were great friends, in the old days. But that isn’t important. Pete, will you answer a question frankly? Good! Are you glad we found you?”

Pete nodded. “I — I think so. Funny, but I pictured all sorts of trouble, you know, like a tear jerker of a reunion, with you telling me to take it like a man, with Garr cracking silly jokes.”

“I resent that!” Garr shouted. “None of my jokes are silly.”

“Sorry,” Pete laughed. “With Garr cracking serious jokes.”

“Serious? That’s worse!”

“Anyway,” Pete continued, “you get what I mean. That’s what I expected, and I wanted to avoid it, at any cost. But when it finally happened, it wasn’t like that at all. I don’t understand.”

Big Pete touched flame to his pipe, puffed contentedly. “Don’t you see the mistake you made? All your life you’d dreamed of taking our name back into space, and when you learned that you couldn’t, you figured I’d feel as bad about it as you do. Well, I do feel bad — but it isn’t the end of the world for me, Pete, and it shouldn’t be that for you, either.”

“It’s not. It’s a lousy break, but . . .”

“But you’ll get over it, is that what you’re trying to say? Good! And listen, Pete, let me tell you something. You know, in a way it was even worse for us old spacehands. That twenty-five-year-old maximum hasn’t been around forever. It hit me when I was twenty-seven, just two years overage. The noise spread all over the Solar System when that bill was passed. Most of the spacemen at that time were suddenly declared too old, and with no more than sixty days’ notice, we were ordered off our commands.

“How do you think we liked it? Maybe objectively we knew it made sense. But that didn’t matter. We had opened the spacelanes, we knew everything there was to be known about spaceflight, and we found ourselves kicked out still in the prime of life, a bunch of kids still wet behind the ears taking our places. If you know your history, you’ll remember that caused a heap of trouble for a time. Veterans were marching on the various capitals, demanding the law be revoked. But it quieted down, and soon it was forgotten. All the old spacemen who wanted them got good ground jobs, good, that is, because they could still help spaceflight from the ground floor.

“And that’s where you come in, Pete. You can do the same thing. Sure, I’m disappointed that the name of Hodges won’t ride the rockets again, not this generation, anyway. But space travel is young and raw and it needs a lot of help, from all directions. You can do your part on the ground. You’re moving in the right direction with this tower job, and Captain Saunders tells me you’ve been doing some remarkable work, too.”

“He sure has,” Saunders agreed.

But Garr shook his head. “You’re missing the point, Mr. Hodges. Sure, I think Pete agrees with you about what he’s got to do from now on, but . . .”

“That’s it,” Pete nodded. “But I don’t think a harmless old injury should keep me out of space.”

Big Pete smiled. “There was a time I didn’t think two extra years should keep me out of space, and I already was a rocket-captain, Pete. Remember that.”

“This is different. They haven’t given me a chance!” Pete pounded his fast against his collarbone savagely. “See? See, it doesn’t hurt. It’s healed. Only they won’t give it a chance!”

“Hey!” Garr cried. “Calm down. I didn’t mean to start anything.”

“That’s all right. I just get this way once in a while, but I think I understand. If I have to do my work on the ground instead of in the sky, that’s the way it will be.”

Big Pete said “Then only one thing remains. You’ll have to come and live with us, with your mother and me. She’s missed you, Little Pete — umm-mm, not so little anymore!”

But Garr frowned. “No, Mr. Hodges. You’re wrong. Something else remains, too. You know whom I drew for a space companion? Old Roger Gorham, that’s who.”

“Oh, no!” Pete moaned.

“Yeah, he’s my new partner. It was supposed to be you and me, Pete, but then you washed out. No one wanted to ship off with Roger, so he and I were two extra men. They put us together, but that’s beside the point. Point is, Roger caused a lot of trouble, told a lot of lies — and they’re ready to give you a dishonorable discharge. His father totes a lot of power, you know.”

“Is that so?” Big Pete bristled. “Listen, son, I do too. Although I don’t like to use it . . .”

“That’s just it,” Pete insisted. “I don’t want you to use it. I’ll straighten this thing out myself. I don’t know how, but I’ll straighten it out.”

“I didn’t know about any of that,” Captain Saunders told them, “But the work you’re doing here will be in your favor. I’ll have some mighty nice things to say about you, Pete, because you deserve them. Which reminds me, I hate to cut this short, but I have a load of work to do. You can take today off and get acquainted with your folks all over again, Pete. I’ll see you tomorrow morning, when we push the
Crape Ring
off into space. Say, why don’t you come around too, Mr. Hodges, and see how things are done here in the tower?”

Big Pete nodded eagerly. “I’d like that.”

But suddenly Pete had turned white. “Jumping jets!” he cried. “The
Crape Ring
!”

Captain Saunders looked up sharply. “What’s the matter?”

“N-nothing. Only, only I’d like to change its orbit, that’s all.”

“What in space for? I told you to plot out the quickest possible orbit. Is that what you did?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then we won’t change it. They want that ship on Mars as soon as possible, and . . .”

“But,” Pete persisted, “I’ve plotted the
Ring
to cross Mars’ orbit. That’s faster, sure — but it wastes a lot of fuel.”

Captain Saunders frowned. “Don’t you think I know that? They want speed this time. Speed! Fuel doesn’t matter, not when they’re in a hurry. The orbit stays the same, Pete.”

“The same,” Pete echoed numbly. But Ganymede Gus had the information by now, and Pete would be sending the
Crape Ring
to a rendezvous with a pirate ship!

Pete tried to enjoy himself with Garr that afternoon. He took his friend to the Carnival and showed him the sights, gawking with him at the exhibits from the far worlds. Garr was very excited; over and over again he would say, “I’ll be out there soon! Me, Garr MacDougall” And then he would shake his head, “I’m sorry, Petey-boy. Maybe I shouldn’t talk like that, huh? I mean, with you —”

But Pete hardly listened. What did it matter if he never went to space? They didn’t send criminals out to space, anyway, and he’d be as guilty as Gus or Sam Smith or anyone else after tomorrow.

In the evening, a family reunion had been prepared at the Hodges’ house. Pete’s mother, a lovely woman entering middle age, had invited the Hodges clan from all over the city, and that meant more cousins and uncles and aunts than Pete could count. Garr was there too, and although the dinner had been planned as a welcome home for Pete, the younger folk clustered around the tall, red-headed youth who was soon to blast off for space. Their questions blended into a continuous babble of excitement.

“Have you ever been out before?”

“Where do you want to go? Mars? Venus? The asteroids?”

“Is it true that spacemen have to be stronger than other people?”

“What do you remember most about the Academy?”

“Do you think we’ll ever go beyond the Solar System and reach for the stars, Mr. MacDougal?”

“What’s your job out in space?”

“You won’t miss Earth at all, will you — you lucky guy!”

Once Garr confided to Pete, “I didn’t know that would happen! Just because I wear this uniform they only want to talk to me. Not much of a welcome home for you, is it, Pete?”

“What’s the difference? In a way I’m glad. I still don’t feel much like talking, anyway. You keep it up, Garr: the more they ignore me tonight, the better I’ll like it.”