Sense of Wonder: A Century of Science Fiction (171 page)

“Are the others guarding you?” Kent asked quickly.

“They’re down in the lower deck at the tanks and airlocks. They won’t allow me down on that deck. I’m up here in the middle-deck, absolutely alone.

“Jandron told me that we’d start out of here as soon as the fuel was in,” she added, “and he and the men were laughing about Krell.”

“Marta, could you in any way get space-helmets and get out to bring them over here to us?” Kent asked eagerly.

“There’s a lot of space-suits and helmets here,” she answered, “but I couldn’t get out with them, Rance! I couldn’t get to the airlocks with Jandron’s seven or eight men down there guarding them!”

Kent felt despair; then as an idea suddenly flamed in him, he almost shouted into the instrument:

“Marta, unless you can get over here with helmets for us, we’re all lost. I want you to put on a space-suit and helmet at once!”

* * * *

There was a short silence, and then her voice came, a little muffled. “I’ve got the suit and helmet on, Rance. I’m wearing the suit-phone inside it.”

“Good! Now, can you get up to the pilot-house? There’s no one guarding it or the upper-deck? Hurry up there, then, at once.”

Crain and the rest were staring at Kent. “Kent, what are you going to have her do?” Crain exclaimed. “It’ll do no good for her to start the Pallas: those guards will be up there in a minute!”

“I’m not going to have her start the
Pallas
,” said Kent grimly. “Marta, you’re in the pilot-house? Do you see the heavy little steel door in the wall beside the instrument-panel?”

“I’m at it, but it’s locked with a combination-lock,” she said.

“The combination is 6-34-77-81,” Kent told her swiftly. “Open it as quickly as you can.”

“Good God, Kent!” cried Crain. “You’re going to have her—?”

“Get out of there the only way she can!” Kent finished fiercely. “You have the door open, Marta?”

“Yes; there are six or seven control-wheels inside.”

“Those wheels control the
Pallas
’
exhaust-valves,” Kent told her. “Each wheel opens the valves of one of the ship’s decks or compartments and allows its air to escape into space. They’re used for testing leaks in the different deck and compartment divisions. Marta, you must turn all those wheels as far as you can to the right.”

“But all the ship’s air will rush out; the guards below have no suits on, and they’ll be—” she was exclaiming. Kent interrupted.

“It’s the only chance for you, for all of us. Turn them!”

There was a moment of silence, and Kent was going to repeat the order when her voice came, lower in tone, a little strange:

“I understand, Rance. I’m going to turn them.”

* * * *

There was silence again, and Kent and the men grouped round him were tense. All were envisioning the same thing—the air rushing out of the
Pallas
’
valves, and the unsuspecting guards in its lower deck smitten suddenly by an instantaneous death.

Then Marta’s voice, almost a sob: “I turned them, Rance. The air puffed out all around me.”

“Your space-suit is working all right?”

“Perfectly,” she said.

“Then go down and tie together as many space-helmets as you can manage, get out of the airlock, and try to get over here to the
Martian Queen
with them. Do you think you can do that, Marta?”

“I’m going to try,” she said steadily. “But I’ll have to pass those men in the lower-deck I just—killed. Don’t be anxious if I don’t talk for a little.”

Yet her voice came again almost immediately. “Rance, the pumping has stopped! They must have pumped all the fuel into the
Pallas
!”

“Then Jandron and the rest will be coming back to the
Pallas
at once!” Kent cried. “Hurry, Marta!”

The suit-phone was silent; and Kent and the rest, their faces closely pressed against the deck-windows, peered intently along the wreck-pack’s edge. The
Pallas
was hidden from their view by the wrecks between, and there was no sign as yet of the girl.

Kent felt his heart beating rapidly. Crain and Liggett pressed beside him, the men around them; Krell’s face was a mask as he too gazed. Kent was rapidly becoming convinced that some mischance had overtaken the girl when an exclamation came from Liggett. He pointed excitedly.

* * * *

She was in sight, unrecognizable in space-suit and helmet, floating along the wreck-pack’s edge toward them. A mass of the glassite space-helmets tied together was in her grasp. She climbed bravely over the stern of a projecting wreck and shot on toward the
Martian Queen
.

The airlock’s door was open for her, and, when she was inside it, the outer door closed and air hissed into the lock. In a moment she was in among them, still clinging to the helmets. Kent grasped her swaying figure and removed her helmet.

“Marta, you’re all right?” he cried. She nodded a little weakly.

“I’m all right. It was just that I had to go over those guards that were all frozen.…Terrible!”

“Get these helmets on!” Crain was crying. “There’s a dozen of them, and twelve of us can stop Jandron’s men if we get back in time!”

Kent and Liggett and the nearer of their men were swiftly donning the helmets. Krell grasped one and Crain sought to snatch it.

“Let that go! We’ll not have you with us when we haven’t enough helmets for our own men!”

“You’ll have me or kill me here!” Krell cried, his eyes hate-mad. “I’ve got my own account to settle with

Jandron!”

“Let him have it!” Liggett cried. “We’ve no time now to argue!”

Kent reached toward the girl. “Marta, give one of the men your helmet,” he ordered; but she shook her head.

“I’m going with you!” Before Kent could dispute she had the helmet on again, and Crain was pushing them into the airlock. The nine or ten left inside without helmets hastily thrust steel bars into the men’s hands before the inner door closed. The outer one opened and they leapt forth into space, floating smoothly along the wreck-pack’s border with bars in their grasp, thirteen strong.

Kent found the slowness with which they floated forward torturing. He glimpsed Crain and Liggett ahead, Marta beside him, Krell floating behind him to the left. They reached the projecting freighters, climbed over and around them, braced against them and shot on. They sighted the
Pallas
ahead now. Suddenly they discerned another group of eleven figures in space-suits approaching it from the wreck-pack’s interior, rolling up the tube-line that led from the
Pallas
as they did so. Jandron’s party!

* * * *

Jandron and his men had seen them and were suddenly making greater efforts to reach the
Pallas
. Kent and his companions, propelling themselves frenziedly on from another wreck, reached the ship’s side at the same time as Jandron’s men. The two groups mixed and mingled, twisted and turned in a mad space-combat.

Kent had been grasped by one of Jandron’s men and raised his bar to crack the other’s glassite helmet. His opponent caught the bar, and they struggled, twisting and turning over and over far up in space amid a half-score similar struggles. Kent wrenched his bar free at last from the other’s grasp and brought it down on his helmet. The glassite cracked, and he caught a glimpse of the man’s hate-distorted face frozen instantly in death.

Kent released him and propelled himself toward a struggling trio nearby. As he floated toward them, he saw Jandron beyond them making wild gestures of command and saw Krell approaching Jandron with upraised bar. Kent, on reaching the three combatants, found them to be two of Jandron’s men overcoming Crain. He shattered one’s helmet as he reached them, but saw the other’s bar go up for a blow.

Kent twisted frantically, uselessly, to escape it, but before the blow could descend a bar shattered his opponent’s helmet from behind. As the man froze in instant death Kent saw that it was Marta who had struck him from behind. He jerked her to his side. The struggles in space around them seemed to be ending.

Six of Jandron’s party had been slain, and three of Kent’s companions. Jandron’s four other followers were giving up the combat, floating off into the wreck-pack in clumsy, hasty flight. Someone grasped Kent’s arm, and he turned to find it was Liggett.

“They’re beaten!” Liggett’s voice came to him! “They’re all killed but those four!”

“What about Jandron himself?” Kent cried. Liggett pointed to two space-suited bodies twisting together in space, with bars still in their lifeless grasp.

Kent saw through their shattered helmets the stiffened faces of Jandron and Krell, their helmets having apparently been broken by each other’s simultaneous blows.

Crain had gripped Kent’s arm also. “Kent, it’s over!” he was exclaiming. “Liggett and I will close the
Pallas
’ exhaust-valves and release new air in it. You take over helmets for the rest of our men in the
Martian Queen
.”

* * * *

In several minutes Kent was back with the men from the
Martian Queen
. The
Pallas
was ready, with Liggett in its pilot-house, the men taking their stations, and Crain and Marta awaiting Kent.

“We’ve enough fuel to take us out of the dead-area and to Neptune without trouble!” Crain declared. “But what about those four of Jandron’s men that got away?”

“The best we can do is leave them here,” Kent told him. “Best for them, too, for at Neptune they’d be executed, while they can live indefinitely in the wreck-pack.”

“I’ve seen so many men killed on the
Martian Queen
and here,” pleaded Marta. “Please don’t take them to Neptune.”

“All right, we’ll leave them,” Crain agreed, “though the scoundrels ought to meet justice.” He hastened up to the pilot-house after Liggett.

In a moment came the familiar blast of the rocket-tubes, and the
Pallas
shot out cleanly from the wreck-pack’s edge. A scattered cheer came from the crew. With gathering speed the ship arrowed out, its rocket-tubes blasting now in steady succession.

Kent, with his arm across Marta’s shoulders, watched the wreck-pack grow smaller behind. It lay as when he first had seen it, a strange great mass, floating forever motionless among the brilliant stars. He felt the girl beside him shiver, and swung her quickly around.

“Let’s not look back or remember now, Marta!” he said. “Let’s look ahead.”

She nestled closer inside his arm. “Yes, Rance. Let’s look ahead.”

* * * *

Copyright © 1931 by Street & Smith Publications, Inc.

(1907–1988)

How you feel about Heinlein’s writing likely depends on how you first encounter him. Much of his earlier writing is astonishing in scope, and his young adult novels are magical, especially if you catch them at the right age. Later in his career he wrote much that was very political, and he liked to take a variety of approaches in different works. Someone whose only exposure to Heinlein was
Starship Troopers
(1959) might try to argue that he was an authority-loving fascist, without ever reading “The Long Watch” (1949) in which he movingly argued the exact opposite position. The joke about Heinlein was that it was hard to get a fix on his politics, since it was a moving target. At various times he was claimed to be everywhere from hard left to hard right politically, with the main commonality being a belief in the importance of individuals and a certain libertarian skepticism.

Heinlein graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1929 and planned on a military career, but was discharged as permanently disabled after a bout of tuberculosis. He floundered around looking for a new vocation, trying everything from speechwriting to silver mining before finally turning to writing science fiction. He quicly sold his first story (“Life-Line,” 1939) to
Astounding
. Within a year he was able to retire the mortgage on his house and write only what pleased him. (He was quietly generous to other writers who were less successful, helping to support Philip K. Dick at times, for instance.)

He wrote nothing during World War II; he was unsuccessful in trying to convince the Navy to return him to active duty, but he was able to work a the Philadelphia Navy Yard with L. Sprague de Camp and Isaac Asimov. After the war he began writing novels, producing sixteen between 1947 and 1959, including a series of wildly successful juvenile SF novels like
Rocket Ship Galileo
(1947) and
Have Space Suit, Will Travel
(1958). When “The Green Hills of Earth” was published in the
Saturday Evening Post
, Heinlein became the first science fiction writer to break out of the “pulp ghetto.”

Starship Troopers
(1959), with its military themes and introduction of powered armor, was both hugely influential and hugely controversial. One of the best responses to it was in Joe Haldeman’s “Hero” (p. 583), which became the novel
The Forever War
. Both
Starship Troopers
and
The Forever War
won Hugos. (Heinlein won four Hugos in all, including the first one awarded.)

Two years later, Heinlein published
Stranger in a Strange Land
, which became seen as a best-selling counterculture manifesto (as well as achieving notoriety for being mass murderer Charles Manson’s favorite book).

Heinlein experienced increasing health problems from the 1960s on. He continued to write and travel widely with his third wife, Virginia (Ginnie). His newer books were explicity geared to adults, and somehow less magical for it (even to their target audience). After having one of the first heart bypass operations, he had to give up most non-writing activities but he was healthy enough in the early 1980s to visit Antarctica, the only continent he hadn’t been on.

After Heinlein died of emphysema and congestive heart failure,
Grumbles from the Grave
was released, purportedly with all of the things he’d been too tactful to say while alive. The most controversial parts were edited out, however, leaving a much tamer book than he’d intended.

I’ll always associate this story with the space shuttle Columbia disaster in 2003, when a friend posted the poem that forms the core of the story to an editorial listserv by way of memorium. The title of the story comes from a line in C. L. Moore’s story, “Shambleau” (p. 283). The Rhysling Award, given each year for the best science fiction poetry, is named for Heinlein’s blind poet hero in this story.