The weight of acceleration was no worse than it had been the day before in the Santa Fe Trail but the drive persisted for more than five minutes, minutes that seemed like an endless hour. After they passed the speed of sound the compartment was relatively quiet. Don made a great effort and managed to turn his head a little. "Sir Isaac Newton's" great bulk was flattened to the deck, making Don think unpleasantly of a lizard crushed into a road. His eyestalks drooped like limp asparagus. He looked dead.
Don strained for breath and called out, "Are you all right?"
The Venerian did not stir. His voder instrument was covered by the sagging folds of his neck; it seemed unlikely that his tendrils could have managed the delicate touch required for its keys even had it been free. Nor did he reply in his own whistling speech.
Don wanted to go to him, but he was as immobilized k by the blast weight as is the bottommost player in a football pile up. He forced his head back where it belonged a so that he might breathe less painfully and waited.
When the blast died away his stomach gave one protesting flip-flop, then quieted down; either the anti-nausea shot had worked or he had his space balance again-or both. Without waiting for permission from the control room he quickly unstrapped and hurried to the Venerian. He steadied himself in the air, holding with one hand to the steel bands restraining his companion.
The dragon was no longer crushed to the deck plates; only the steel hoops kept him from floating around the compartment. Behind him his giant tail waved loosely, brushing the ship's plates and knocking off paint chips.
The eyestalks were still limp and each eye filmed over. The dragon stirred only in the meaningless motion of string in water; there was nothing to show that he was alive. Don clenched a fist and pounded on the creature's flat skull. "Can you hear me? Are you all right?"
All he got out of it was a bruised hand; Sir Isaac made no response. Don hung for a moment, wondering what to do. That his acquaintance was in a bad way he felt sure, but his training in first aid did not extend to Venerian pseudosaurians. He dug back into his childhood memories, trying to think of something.
The same ship's officer who had rearranged the berthing appeared at the forward or "upper" hatch, floating head "down." "All okay this deck?" he inquired perfunctorily and started to back out.
"No!" Don shouted. "Case of blast shock."
"Huh?" The officer swam on into the compartment and looked at the other passenger. He swore unimaginatively and looked worried. "This is beyond me; I never carried one before. How the deuce do you give artificial respiration to a thing as big as that?"
"You don't," Don told him. "His lungs are completely enclosed in his armor box."
"He looks dead. I think he's stopped breathing."
A memory floated to the top in Don's mind; he snatched it. "Got a cigarette?"
"Huh? Don't bother me! Anyhow the smoking lamp is out."
"You don't understand," Don persisted. "If you've got one, light it. You can blow smoke at his nostril plate and see whether or not he's breathing."
"Oh. Well, maybe it's a good idea." The spaceman got out a cigarette and struck it.
"But be careful," Don went on. "They can't stand nicotine. One big puff and then put it out."
"Maybe it's not such a good idea," the ship's officer objected. "Say, you sound like a Venus colonial?"
Don hesitated, then answered, "I'm a Federation citizen." It seemed like a poor time to discuss politics. He moved over to the dragon's chin, braced his feet against the deck plates and shoved, thus exposing the Venerian's nostril plate, which was located under the creature's head in the folds of his neck. Don could not have managed it, save that they were in free fall, making the bulky mass weightless.
The man blew smoke at the exposed opening. It eddied forward, then some of it curled inside; the dragon was still alive.
Still very much alive. Every eyestalk sprang to rigid attention; he lifted his chin, carrying Don with it, then he sneezed. The blast struck Don where he floated loosely and turned him over and over. He threshed in the air for a moment before catching a handhold on the hatch ladder.
The ship's officer was rubbing one wrist. "The beggar clipped me," he complained. "I won't try that again soon. Well, I guess he'll be all right."
Sir Isaac whistled mournfully; Don answered him. The spaceman looked at him. "You savvy that stuff?"
"Some."
"Well, tell him to use his squawk box. I don't!"
Don said, "Sir Isaac-use your voder." The Venerian tried to comply. His tentacles hunted around, ' found the keys of the artificial voice box, and touched them. No sounds came out. The dragon turned an eye at Don and whistled a series of phrases.
"He regrets to say that its spirit has departed," Don interpreted.
The ship's officer sighed. "I wonder why I ever left the grocery business? Well, if we can get it unlatched from him, I'll see if 'Sparks' can fix it."
"Let me," said Don and squirmed into the space between the dragon's head and the deck plates. The voder case, he found, was secured to four rings riveted to the Venerian's skin plates. He could not seem to find the combination; the dragon's tendrils fluttered over his hands, moved them gently out of the way, unfastened the box, and handed it to him. He wiggled out and gave it to the man. "Looks like he kind of slept on it," he commented.
"A mess," the other agreed. "Well, tell him I'll have them fix it if possible and that I'm glad he wasn't hurt."
"Tell him yourself; he understands English."
"Eh? Oh, of course, of course." He faced the Venerian who immediately set up a long shrilling. "What's he say?"
Don listened. "He says he appreciates your good wishes but that he is sorry to have to disagree; he is unwell. He says that he urgently requires" Don stopped and looked puzzled, then whistled the Venerian equivalent of "Say that again, please?"
Sir Isaac answered him; Don went on, "He says he's just got to have some sugar syrup."
"Huh?"
"That's what he says."
"I'll be - How much?"
There was another exchange of whistles; Don answered, -Uh, he says he needs at least a quarter of a-there isn't any word for it; it's an amount about equal to half a barrel, I'd say."
"You mean he wants half a barrel of waffle juice?"
"No, no, a quarter of that-an eighth of a barrel. What would that come to in gallons?"
"I wouldn't attempt it without a slipstick; I'm confused. I don't even know that we have any on board." Sir Isaac set up more frantic whistling. "But if we don't, I'll have the cook whip up some. Tell him to hold everything and take it easy." He scowled at the dragon, then left quite suddenly.
Don attached himself to one of the steel straps and asked, "How are you feeling now?"
The dragon replied apologetically to the effect that he needed to return to the egg for the moment. Don shut up and waited.
The captain himself showed up to attend the sick passenger. The ship, being in free trajectory for the satellite space station, would not require his presence in the control room until well past noon, New Chicago time; he was free to move around the ship. He arrived in company with the ship's doctor and followed by a man herding a metal tank.
The two conferred over the dragon, at first ignoring Don's presence. However neither of them knew the piping speech of the dragon tribe; they were forced to turn to Don. Through him Sir Isaac again insisted that he required sugar solution, as a stimulant. The captain looked worried. "I've read somewhere that sugar gets them drunk the same as alcohol does us."
Don again translated for the Venerian; what he had asked for was simply a medicinal dose.
The captain turned to the medical officer. "How about it, surgeon?"
The doctor stared at the bulkhead. "Captain, this is as far outside my duties as tap dancing."
"Confound it, man, I asked for your official opinion!"
The medical officer faced him. "Very well, sir-I would say that if this passenger should die, you having refused him something he had asked for, it would look very, very bad indeed."
The captain bit his lip. "As you say, sir. But I'll be switched if I want several tons of intoxicated dragon banging around in my ship. Administer the dose."
"Me, sir?"
"You, sir."
The ship being in free fall it was quite impossible to pour out the syrup and let the Venerian lick it up, nor was he physically equipped to use the "baby bottle" drinking bladder used by humans when weightless. But that had been anticipated; the tank containing the syrup was a type used in the galley to handle soup or coffee in free fall. It had a hand pump and an attachable hose.
It was decided, Sir Isaac concurring, to place the end of the hose well down the dragon's throat. But nobody seemed to want the job. Granted that Draco Veneris Wilsonii is a civilized race, to stick one's head and shoulders between those rows of teeth seemed to be inviting a breach in foreign relations.
Don volunteered for the job and was sorry when they took him up on it. He trusted Sir Isaac but recalled times when Lazy had stepped on his foot quite unintentionally. He hoped that the dragon had no unfortunate involuntary reflexes; apologies are no use to a corpse.
While he kept the end of the hose firmly in place he held his breath and was glad that he had taken that anti-nausea injection. Sir Isaac did not have halitosis, as dragons go, but dragons go rather far in that direction. The job done, he was happy to back out.
Sir Isaac thanked them all, via Don, and assured them that he would now recover rapidly. He seemed to fall asleep in the midst of whistling. The ship's doctor peeled one eyestalk and shined a hand torch at it. "The stuff has hit him, I think. We'll let him be and hope for the best."
They all left. Don looked his friend over, decided that there was no point in sitting up with him, and followed them. The compartment had no view port; he wanted at least one good look at Earth while they were still close by. He found what he sought three decks forward.
They were still only fifteen thousand miles out; Don had to crowd in close to the view port to see all of Earth at one time. It was, he had to admit, a mighty pretty planet; he was a little bit sorry to be leaving it. Hanging there against velvet black and pinpoint stars, drenched in sunlight so bright it hurt your eyes, it almost took your breath away.
The sunrise line had swung far into the Pacific past Hawaii, and North America was spread out to his gaze. Storm blanketed the Pacific Northwest, but the Midwest was fairly clear and the Southwest was sharp. He could make out where New Chicago was with ease; he could see the' Grand Can on and from it he could almost figure out where the range had to be. He was sure that with a small telescope he could have spotted it.
He gave up his place at last. He was soaking in the pleasant melancholy of mild homesickness and the comments of some of the other passengers were beginning to annoy him, not the cheerful inanities of tourists but the know-it-all remarks of self-appointed old timers, making their second trip out. He headed back to his own compartment.
He was startled to hear his name called. He turned and the ship's officer he bad met before floated up to him. He had with him Sir Isaac's voder. "You seem to be chummy with that over-educated crocodile you're bunking with; how about taking this to him?"
"Why, certainly."
"The radio officer says it needs an overhaul but at least it's working again." Don accepted it and went aft. The dragon seemed to be sleeping, then one eye waved at him and Sir Isaac whistled a salutation.
"I've got your voice box," Don told him. "Want me to fasten it on for you?"
Sir Isaac politely refused. Don handed the instrument to the fidgeting tendrils and the dragon arranged it to suit him. He then ran over the keys as a check, producing sounds like frightened ducks. Satisfied, he began to speak in English: "I am enriched by the debt you have placed upon me."
"It was nothing," Don answered. "I ran into the mate a couple of decks forward and be asked me to fetch it along."
"I do not refer to this artificial voice, but to your ready help when I was in distress and peril. Without your quick wit, your willingness to share mud with an untested stranger, and in passing your knowledge of the true speech, I might have lost my chance to attain the happy death."
"Shucks," Don answered, feeling somewhat pink, "it was a pleasure." He noticed that the dragon's speech was slow and somewhat slurred, as if his tentacles lacked their customary dexterity. Besides that, Sir Isaac's talk was more a pedantic than ever and much more Cockney-flavored-the voder was mixing aspirates with abandon and turning the theta sound into "f"; Don felt sure that the Earthman who had taught him to speak must have been born in earshot of Bow Bells.
He noticed as well that his friend could not seem to make up his mind which eye he wanted to use on him. He kept waggling one after another at Don, as if seeking one which would let him focus better. Don wondered if Sir Isaac had overestimated the proper size of a medicinal dose.
"Permit me," the Venerian went on, still with ponderous dignity, "to judge the worth of the service you have done me." He changed the subject. "This word `shucks'-I do not recognize the use you made of it. Husks of plants?"
Don struggled to explain how little and how much "shucks" could mean. The dragon thought it over and tapped out an answer. "I believe that I gain a portion of understanding. The semantic content of this word is emotional and variable, rather than orderly and descriptive. Its referent is the state of one's spirits?"
"That's it," Don said happily. "It means just what you want it to mean. It's the way you say it."
"Shucks," the dragon said experimentally. "Shucks. I seem to be getting the feel of it. A delightful word. Shucks." He went on, "The delicate nuances of speech must be learned from the living users thereof. Perhaps I may return the favor by helping you in some small wise with your already great mastery of the speech of my people? Shucks."
This confirmed Don's suspicion that his own whistling had become so villainous that it might do for popcorn vending but not for regular communication. "I certainly would appreciate a chance to brush up," he answered. "I haven't had a chance to speak `true speech' for years-not since I was a kid. I was taught by a historian who was working with my father on the (whistled) ruins. Perhaps you know him? His name was `Professor Charles Darwin.' " Don added the whistled or true version of the Venerian scholar's name.
"You ask me if I know (whistled)? He is my brother; his grandmother, nine times removed, and my grandmother, seven times removed, were the same egg. Shucks!" He added, "A learned person, for one so young."
Don was a bit taken aback to hear "Professor Darwin' described as "young"; as a child he had classed him and the ruins as being about the same age. He now had to remind himself that Sir Isaac might see it differently. "Say„ that's nice!" he answered. "I wonder if you knew my parents? Dr. Jonas Harvey and Dr. Cynthia Harvey?"
The dragon turned all eyes on him. "You are their egg? I have not had the honor of meeting them but all civilized persons know of them and their work. I am no longer surprised at your own excellence. Shucks!"
Don felt both embarrassment and pleasure. Not knowing what to say he suggested that Sir Isaac coach him for a while in "true speech," a suggestion to which the dragon readily assented. They were still so engaged when the warning signal sounded and a voice from the control room sang, out, "Strap down for acceleration) Prepare to match trajectories!"
Don placed his hands against his friend's armored sides and shoved himself back to his coach. He paused there and said, "Are you going to be all right?"
The dragon made a sound which Don construed as a hiccup cup, and tapped out, "I feel sure of it. This time I am fortified."
"I hope so. Say, you don't want to bung up your voder again. Want me to take care of it?"
"If you will, please."
Don went back and got it, then fastened it to his bags. He had barely time to fasten his safety belts when the first surge of acceleration hit them. It was not so bad, this time, neither as many gravities as the blast-off from Earth nor of as long duration, for they were not breaking free of Earth's crushing grip but merely adjusting trajectories-modifying the outer end of the Glory Roads elliptical path to make it agree perfectly with the circular orbit of Circum-Terra, the cross-roads station in space which was their destination.
The captain gave them one long powerful shove, waited, then blasted twice more for short intervals, without, Don noted, finding it necessary to invert and blast back. He nodded approval. Good piloting! - the captain knew his vectors. The bullhorn sang out, "Contact! Unstrap at will. Prepare to disembark."
Don returned the voder to Sir Isaac, then lost track of him, for the dragon again had to be taken aft to be transferred through the cargo hatch. Don whistled goodbye and went forward, towing his bags behind him, to go out through the passenger tube.
Circum-Terra was a great, confused mass in the sky. It had been built, rebuilt, added to, and modified over the course of years for a dozen different purposes-weather observation station, astronomical observatory, meteor count station, television relay, guided missile control station, high vacuum, strain-free physics laboratory, strain-free germ-free biological experiment station, and many other uses.
But most importantly it was a freight and passenger transfer station in space, the place where short-range winged rockets from Earth met the space liners that plied between the planets. For this purpose it had fueling tanks, machine shops, repair cages that could receive the largest liners and the smallest rockets and a spinning, pressurized drum - "Goddard Hotel"-which provided artificial gravity and Earth atmosphere for passengers and for the permanent staff of Circum-Terra.
Goddard Hotel stuck out from the side of Circum-Terra like a cartwheel from a pile of junk. The hub on which it turned ran through its center and protruded out into space. It was to this hub that a ship would couple its passenger tube when discharging or loading humans. That done, the ship would then be warped over to a cargo port in the non-spinning major body of the station. When the Glory Road made contact, there were three other ships in at Circum-Terra: the Valkyrie in which Don Harvey had passage for Mars, the Nautilus, just in from Venus and in which Sir Isaac expected to return home, and the Spring Tide, the Luna shuttle which alternated with its sister the Neap Tide.
The two liners and the moon ship were already tied up to the main body of the station; the Glory Road warped in at the hub of the hotel and immediately began to discharge passengers. Don waited his turn and then pulled himself along by handholds, dragging his bags behind him, and soon found himself inside the hotel, but still in weightless free fall in the cylindrical hub of the Goddard.
A man in overalls directed Don and the dozen passengers he was with to a point halfway along the hub where a large lift blocked further progress. Its circular door stood open and turned very slowly around, moving with the spinning hotel proper. "Get in," he ordered "Mind you get your feet pointed toward the floor."
Don got in with the others and found that the inside of the car was cubical. One wall was marked in big letters: FLOOR. Don found a handhold and steadied himself so that his feet would be on the floor when weight was applied. The man got in and started the car out toward the rim.
There was no feeling of weight at first, at least not toward the "floor." Don experienced a dizzy sensation as increasing spin sloshed the liquid about in his inner ear. He knew that he had ridden this elevator before, when he was eleven and heading for Earth and school, but he had forgotten its unpleasant aspects.
Soon the elevator stopped; the floor became the floor in earnest, though with considerably less than one gravity, and the upsetting sensation ceased. The operator opened the door and shouted, "Everybody out!"
Don walked into a large inner compartment, carrying his bags. It was already crowded with more than half of the ship's passengers. Don looked around for his dragon friend, then remembered that the ship would have to be moved around to a cargo port before the Venerian could disembark. He put his bags on the floor and sat down on them.
The crowd, for some reason, seemed unquiet. Don heard one woman say, "This is preposterous! We've been here at least half an hour and no one appears to know that we're here."
A man answered, "Be patient, Martha."
" `Patient' he says! Only one door out of the place and it locked-suppose there were a fire?"
"Well, where would you run to, dear? Nothing outside but some mighty thin vacuum."
She squealed. "Oh! We should have gone to Bermuda as I wanted to."
"As you wanted to?"
"Don't be petty!"
Another elevator load discharged and then another; the ship was empty. After many minutes more of grumbling, during which even Don began to wonder at the service, the only door other than the elevator door opened. Instead of a hotelman anxious to please his guests, in came three men in uniform. The two flank men were carrying mob guns cradled at their hips; the third man had only a hand pistol, still holstered. He stepped forward, planted his feet and set his fists on his hips. "Attention! Quiet, everybody."
He got it; his voice had the ring of command, which is obeyed without thinking. He went on, "I am Assault Sergeant McMasters of the High Guard, Venus Republic. My commanding officer has directed me to advise you of the present situation."
There was an additional short moment of silence, then a rising mutter of surprise, alarm, disbelief, and indignation. "Pipe down!" the sergeant shouted. "Take it easy. Nobody's going to get hurt-if you behave." He went on, "The Republic has taken over this station and everybody is being cleared out. You groundhogs will be shipped back to Earth at once. Those of you who are headed home to Venus will go home - provided you pass our loyalty check. Now, let's get sorted out."
A fussy, plump man pushed his way forward. "Do you realize, sir, what you are saying? `Venus Republic,' indeed. This is piracy!"
"Get back in line, fatty."
"You can't do this. I wish to speak to your commanding officer."
"Fatty," the sergeant said slowly, "back up before you get a boot in your belly." The man looked dumbfounded, then scuttled back into the crowd.
The sergeant continued, "Those of you going to Venus form a queue here at the door. Have your ID's and birth certificates ready."
The passengers, up to that time a friendly group of fellow travelers, split into hostile camps. Someone shouted, "Long live the Republic!", which was followed by the beefy sound of a fist striking flesh. One of the guards hurried into the crowd and stopped the impending riot. The sergeant drew his sidearm and said in a bored voice, "No politics, please. Let's get on with the job."
Somehow a line was formed. The second in line was the man who had cheered the new nation. His nose was dripping blood but his eyes were shining. As he offered his papers to the sergeant he said, "This is a great day! I've waited all my life for it."
"Who hasn't?" the sergeant answered. "Okay-on through the door for processing. Next!"
Don was busy trying to quiet down and arrange his whirling thoughts. He was forced at last to admit that this was it, this was war, the war that he had told himself was impossible. No cities had been bombed, not yet but this was the Fort Sumter of a new war; he was smart enough to see that. He did not have to be threatened with a boot in the belly to see what was in front of his face.
He realized with nervous shock that he bad just barely gotten away in time. The Valkyrie might be the last ship to Mars in a long, long time. With the transfer station in the hands of the rebels it might be the last one for years.
The sergeant had not said anything about passengers for Mars as yet; Don told himself that the sergeant's first effort must naturally be to sort out the citizens of the two belligerents. He decided that the thing to do was to keep his mouth shut and wait.
There was an interruption in the queue. Don beard the sergeant say, "You're in the wrong pew, bud. You go back to Earth."
The man he was speaking to answered, "No, no! Take a look at my papers; I'm emigrating to Venus."
"You're a little bit late to be emigrating. The situation has changed."
"Why? Sure, I know it has changed. I declare for Venus."
The sergeant scratched his head. "This one isn't in the book. Atkinson! Pass this man on through; we'll let the lieutenant figure it out."
When he had completed the group that wanted to go to Venus the sergeant went to a speech-only wall phone. "Jim? Mac speaking, from the nursery. They got that dragon out yet? No? Well, let me know when the Road is back at the chute; I want to load." He turned back to the crowd. "All right, you groundhogs-there'll be a delay so I'm going to move you into another room until we're ready to send you hack to Earth."
"Just a moment, Sergeant!" called out a male passenger.
"Yeah? What do you want?"
"Where do passengers for Luna wait?"
"Huh? Service discontinued. You're going hack to Earth."
"Now, Sergeant, let's be reasonable. I haven't the slightest interest in politics; it does not matter to me who administers this station. But I have business on the Moon. It is essential that I get to the Moon. A delay would cost millions!"
The sergeant stared at him. "Now isn't that just too bad! You know, brother, I've never had as much as a thousand at one time in my life; the thought of losing millions scares me." His manner suddenly changed. "You stupid jerk, have you ever thought what a bomb would do to the roof of Tycho City? Now line up, all of you, double file."
Don listened to this with disquiet. Still, the sergeant had not said anything about Mars. He got into line, but at the very end. When the tail of the line reached the door he stopped. "Get a move on, kid," said the sergeant.
"I'm not going back to Earth," Don told him.
"Huh?"
"I'm headed for Mars in the Valkyrie."
"Oh, I see. You mean you were, now you're headed back to Earth in the Glory Road."
Don said stubbornly, "Look, mister, I've got to get to Mars. My parents are there; they are expecting me."
The sergeant shook his head. "Kid I feel sorry for you. I really do. The Valkyrie isn't going to Mars."
"What?"
"She's being recommissioned as a cruiser of the High Guard. She's going to Venus. So I guess you had better go back to Earth. I'm sorry you won't be able to join your folks, but war is like that."
Don breathed slowly and forced himself to count up to ten. "I'm not going back to Earth. I'll wait right here until a ship does go to Mars."
The sergeant sighed. "If you do, you'll have to chin yourself on a star while you wait."
"Huh? What do you mean?"
"Because," he said slowly, "a few minutes after we blast off there will be nothing in this neighborhood but a nice, pretty radioactive cloud. Want to play a leading role in a Geiger counter?"
Don could not answer. His simian ancestors, beset with perils every moment of life, might have taken it calmly; Don's soft life had not prepared him for such repeated blows. The sergeant went on, "So it had better be the Glory Road for you kid. That's what your parents would want. Go back and find yourself a nice spot in the country; the cities are likely to be unhealthy for a while."
Don snapped out of it. "I'm not going back to Earth! I don't belong there; I'm not a native of Earth."
"Eh? What is your citizenship? Not that it matters; anybody who isn't a citizen of Venus goes back in the Glory Road."
"I'm a Federation citizen," Don answered, "but I can claim Venus citizenship."
"The Federation," the sergeant answered, "has had a slump in its stock lately. But what's this about Venus citizenship? Stop the double-talk and let's see your papers."
Don passed them over. Sergeant McMasters looked first at his birth certificate, then stared at it. "Born in free fall! I'll be a cross-eyed pilot - say, there aren't many like you, are there?"
"I guess not."
"But just what does that make you?"
"Read on down. My mother was born on Venus. I'm Venus native born, by derivation."
"But your pop was born on Earth."
"I'm native born there, too."
"Huh? That's silly."
"That's the law."
"There are going to be some new laws. I don't know just where you fit. See here - where do you want to go? Venus or Earth?"
"I'm going to Mars," Don answered simply.
The sergeant looked at him and handed back the papers. "It beats me. And I can't get any sense out of you. I'm going to refer it on up. Come along."
He led Don down a passageway and into a small compartment which had been set up as an orderly room. Two other soldiers were there; one was using a typer, the other was just sitting. The sergeant stuck his head in and spoke to the one who was loafing. "Hey, Mike-keep an eye on this character. See that he doesn't steal the station." He turned back to Don. "Give me those papers again, kid." He took them and went away.
The soldier addressed as Mike stared at Don, then paid no further attention to him. Don put his bags down and sat on them.
After several minutes Sergeant McMasters returned but ignored Don. "Who's got the cards?" he inquired.
"I have."
"Not your readers, Mike. Where are the honest cards?" The third soldier closed the typer, reached in a drawer and pulled out a deck of cards. The three sat down at the desk and McMasters started to shuffle. He turned to Don. "Care for a friendly game, kid?"
"Uh, I guess not."
"You'll never learn any cheaper." The soldiers played cards for half an hour or so while Don kept quiet and thought. He forced himself to believe that the sergeant knew what he was talking about; he could not go to Mars in the Valkyrie because the Valkyrie was not going to Mars. He could not wait for a later ship because the station - this very room he was sitting in - was about to be blown up.
What did that leave? Earth? No! He had no relatives on Earth, none close enough to turn to. With Dr. Jefferson dead or missing be had no older friends. Perhaps he could crawl back to the ranch, tail between his legs.
No! He had outgrown that skin and shed it. The ranch school was no longer for him.
Down inside was another and stronger reason: the security police in New Chicago had made of him an alien; he would not go back because Earth was no longer his.
Hobson's choice, he told himself; it's got to be Venus. I can find people there whom I used to know-or know Dad and Mother. I'll scrounge around and find some way to get from there to Mars; that's best. His mind made up, he was almost content.
The office phone called out: "Sergeant McMasters!" The sergeant laid down his hand and went to it, pulling the privacy shield into place. Presently he switched off and turned to Don. "Well, kid, the Old Man has settled your status; you're a `displaced person."'
"Hub?"
"The bottom fell out for you when Venus became an independent republic. You have no citizenship anywhere. So the Old Man says to ship you back where you come from . . . back to Earth."
Don stood up and squared his shoulders. "I won't go."
"You won't, eh?" McMasters said mildly. "Well, just sit hack down and be comfortable. When the time comes, we'll drag you." He started to deal the cards again.
Don did not sit down. "See here, I've changed my mind. If I can't get to Mars right away, then I'll go to Venus."
McMasters stopped and turned around. "When Commodore Higgins settles a point, it's settled. Mike, take this prima donna across and shove him in with the other groundhogs."
"But. . ."
Mike stood up. "Come on, you."
Don found himself shoved into a room packed with injured feelings. The Earthlings had no guards and no colonials in with them; they were giving vent freely to their opinions about events. "Outrage! We should blast every one of their settlements, level them to the ground!" "-I think we should send a committee to this commanding officer of theirs and say to him firmly-" "I told you we shouldn't have come!" "Negotiate? That's a sign of weakness." "Don't you realize that the war is already over? Man, this place isn't just a traffic depot; it's the main guided-missile control station. They can bomb every last city on Earth from here, like ducks on a pond!"
Don noticed the last remark, played it over in his mind, let it sink in. He was not used to thinking in terms of military tactics; up to this moment the significance of a raid on Circum-Terra had been lost on him. He had thought of it in purely personal terms, his own convenience.
Would they actually go that far? Bomb the Federation cities right off the map? Sure, the colonials had plenty to be sore about, but- of course, it had happened like that, once in the past, but that was history; people were more civilized now. Weren't they?
'Harvey! Donald Harvey!"
Everyone turned at the call. A Venus Guardsman was standing in the compartment door, shouting his name. Don answered, "Here."
"Come along."
Don picked up his bags and followed him out into the passageway, waited while the soldier re-locked the door. "Where are you taking me?"
"The C. O. wants to see you." He glanced at Don's baggage. "No need to drag that stuff."
"Uh, I guess I'd better keep it with me."
"Suit yourself. But don't take it into the C. O.'s office." He took Don down two decks where the "gravity" was appreciably greater and stopped at a door guarded by a sentry. "Here's the guy the Old Man sent for-Harvey."
"Go right on in."
Don did so. The room was large and ornate; it had been the office of the hotel manager. Now it was occupied by a man in uniform, a man still young though his hair was shot with grey. He looked up as Don came in; Don thought he looked alert but tired. "Donald Harvey?"
"Yes, sir." Don got out his papers.
The commanding officer brushed them aside. "I've seen them. Harvey, you are a headache to me. I disposed of your case once."
Don did not answer; the other went on, "Now it appears that I must reopen it. Do you know a Venerian named-" He whistled it.
"Slightly," Don answered. "We shared a compartment in the Glory Road."
"Hmm. . . . I wonder if you planned it that way?"
"What? How could I?"
"It could have been arranged and it would not be the first time that a young person has been used as a spy."
Don turned red. "You think I am a spy, sir?"
"No, it is just one of the possibilities I must consider. No military commander enjoys political pressure being used on him, Harvey, but they all have to yield to it. I've yielded. You aren't going back to Earth; you are going to Venus." He stood up. "But let me warn you; if you are a ringer who has been planted on me, all the dragons on Venus won't save your skin." He turned to a ship's phone, punched its keys, and waited; presently he said, "Tell him his friend is here and that I've taken care of the matter." He turned back to Don. "Take it."
Shortly Don heard a warm Cockney voice, "Don, my dear boy, are you there?"
"Yes, Sir Isaac."
The dragon shrilled relief. "When I inquired about you, I found some preposterous intention of shipping you back to that dreadful place we just quitted. I told them that a mistake had been made. I'm afraid I had to be quite firm about it. Shucks!"
"It's all fixed up now, Sir Isaac. Thanks."
"Not at all; I am still in your debt. Come to visit me when it is possible. You will, won't you?"
"Oh, sure!"
"Thank you and cheerio! Shucks."
Don turned away from the phone to find the task force commander studying him quizzically. "Do you know who your friend is?"
"Who he is?" Don whistled the Venerian name, then added, "He calls himself `Sir Isaac Newton."'
"That's all you know?"
"I guess so."
"Mmm-" He paused, then went on, "You might as well know what influenced me. `Sir Isaac,' as you call him, traces his ancestry directly back to the Original Egg, placed in the mud of Venus on the day of Creation. So that's why I'm stuck with yon. Orderly!"
Don let himself be led away without saying a word. Few if any Earthlings have been converted to the dominant religion of Venus; it is not a proselytizing faith. But none laugh at it; all take it seriously. A terrestrial on Venus may not believe in the Divine Egg and all that that implies; he finds it more profitable-and much safer-to speak of it with respect.
Sir Isaac a Child of the Egg! Don felt the sheepish awe that is likely to strike even the most hard-boiled democrat when he first comes in contact with established royalty. Why, he had been talking to him, just as if he were any old dragon-say one that sold vegetables in the city market.
Shortly he began to think of it in more practical ways. If anyone could wangle a way for him to get to Mars, Sir Isaac was probably just the bird who could do it. He turned it over in his mind-he'd get home yet!
But Don did not get to see his Venerian friend at once. He was herded into the Nautilus along with Venus-bound passengers from the Glory Road and a handful of technicians from Circum-Terra whose loyalties lay with Venus rather than with Earth. By the time he discovered that Sir Isaac had been transshipped to the Valkyrie it was too late to do anything about it.
The flag of the task force commander, High Commodore Higgins, was shifted from Circum-Terra back to the Nautilus, and Higgins moved at once to carry out the rest of the coup. The storming of Circum-Terra had been managed almost without bloodshed; it had depended on timing and surprise. Now the rest of the operation must be completed before any dislocation in ship schedules would be noticed on Earth.
The Nautilus and the Valkyrie had already been prepared for their long jumps; the Spring Tide's crew was removed to be sent to Earth and a crew supplied from the task force; she herself was fueled and provisioned for deep space. Although designed for the short jump to Lima, she was quite capable of making the trip to Venus. Space travel is not a matter of distance but of gravity potential levels; the jump from Circum-Terra to Venus required less expenditure of energy than did the terrible business of fighting up though Earth's field from New Chicago to Circum-Terra.
The Spring Tile shoved off in a leisurely, economical parabola; she would make the trip to Venus in free fall all the way. The Valkyrie blasted away to shape a fast, almost flat, hyperboloid orbit; she would arrive as soon or sooner than the Nautilus. The Nautilus was last to leave, for High Commodore Higgins had one more thing to do before destroying the station-a television broadcast on a globe-wide network.
All global broadcasts originated in, or were relayed through, the communications center of Circum-Terra. Since the Nautilus had touched in at Circum-Terra, a cosmic Trojan horse, the regular broadcasts had been allowed to continue uninterrupted. The commodore's C-6 staff officer (propaganda and nerve warfare) picked as the time for the commodore's announcement to Earth of the coup the time ordinarily given over to "Steve Brodie Says:" the most widely heard global news commentator. Mr. Brodie immediately followed the immensely popular "Kallikak Family" serial drama, an added advantage audience-wise.
The Glory Road had been allowed at last to blast off for Earth with her load of refugees but with her radios wrecked. The Nautilus lay off in space, a hundred miles outside, hanging in a parking orbit, waiting. Inside the space station, now utterly devoid of life, the television center continued its functions unattended. The commodore's speech had already been canned; its tape was threaded into the programmer and it would start as soon as the throb show was over.
Don watched it from a recreation lounge of the liner along with a hundred-odd other civilians. All eyes were on a big television tank set in the end of the compartment. A monitoring beam, jury-rigged for the purpose, brought the cast from Circum-Terra to the Nautilus and the radio watch in the ship was passing it on throughout the ship so that the passengers and crew might see and hear it.
As the day's serial episode closed, Celeste Kallikak had been arrested for suspected husband murder, Buddy Kallikak was still in the hospital and not expected to live, Father Kallikak was still missing, and Maw Kallikak was herself suspected of cheating on ration stamps-but she was facing it all bravely, serene in her knowledge that only the good die young. After the usual commercial plug ("The Only Soap with Guaranteed Vitamin Content for greater Vitacity!!!") the tank faded into Steve Brodie's trademark, a rocket trail condensing into his features while a voice boomed, "Steve Brodie, with tomorrow's news TODAY!"
It cut suddenly, the tank went empty and a voice said, "We interrupt this broadcast to bring you a special news flash." The tank filled again, this time with the features of Commodore Higgins.
His face lacked the synthetic smile obligatory for all who speak in public telecast; his manner and voice were grim. "I am High Commodore Higgins, commanding Task Force Emancipation of the High Guard, Venus Republic. The High Guard has seized Earth's satellite station Circum-Terra. We now have all of Earth's cities utterly at our mercy."
He paused to let it sink in. Don thought it over and did not like the thought. Everybody knew that Circum-Terra carried enough A-bomb rockets to smear any force or combination of forces that could be raised to oppose the Federation. The exact number of rocket bombs carried was a military secret, variously estimated between two hundred and a thousand. A rumor had spread through the civilians in the Nautilus that the High Guard had found seven hundred and thirty-two bombs ready to go, with component parts for many more, plus enough deuterium and tritium to make up about a dozen H bombs.
Whether the rumor was true or not, Circum-Terra certainly held enough bombs to turn the Terran Federation into a radioactive abattoir. No doubt with so much under ground many inhabitants of cities would survive, but any city, once bombed, would have to be abandoned; the military effect would be the same. And many would die. How many? Forty millions? Fifty millions? Don did not know.
The commodore went on, "Mercifully we stay our band. Earth's cities will not be bombed. The free citizens of Venus Republic have no wish to slaughter their cousins still on Terra. Our only purpose is to establish our own independence, to manage our own affairs, to throw off the crushing yoke of absentee ownership and of taxation without representation, which has bled us poor.
"In so doing, in so taking our stand as free men, we call on all oppressed and impoverished nations everywhere to follow our lead, accept our help. Look up into the sky! Swimming there above you is the very station from which I now address you. The fat and stupid rulers of the Federation have made of Circum-Terra an overseer's whip. The threat of this military base in the sky has protected their empire from the just wrath of their victims for more than five score years.
"We now crush it."
"In a matter of minutes this scandal in the clean skies, this pistol pointed at the heads of men everywhere on your planet, will cease to exist. Step out of doors, watch the sky. Watch a new sun blaze briefly and know that its light s the light of Liberty inviting all Earth to free itself.
"Subject peoples of Earth, we free men of the free Republic of Venus salute you with that sign!"
The commodore continued to sit and gaze steadily into the eyes of each of his colossal audience while the heartlifting beat of Morning Star of Hope followed his words. Don did not recognize the anthem of the new nation; he could not help but feel its surging promise.
Suddenly the tank went dead and at the same instant there was a flash of light so intense that it leaked through the shuttered ports and tormented the optic nerve. Don was still shaking his head from it when over the ship's announcing system came the call: "Safe to un-shutter!"
A petty officer stationed at the compartment's view port was already cranking the metal shield out of the way; Don crowded in and looked.
A second sun blazed white and swelled visibly as he watched. What on Earth would have been-so many terrible times had been-a climbing mushroom cloud was here in open space a perfect geometrical sphere, growing unbelievably. It swelled still larger, dropping from limelight white to silvery violet, became blotched with purple, red and flame. And still it grew, until it blanked out Earth beyond it.
At the time it was transformed into a radioactive cosmic cloud Circum-Terra had been passing over, or opposite, the North Atlantic; the swollen incandescent cloud was visible to most of the habitable portions of the globe, a burning symbol in the sky.
Immediately after the destruction of Circum-Terra the ship's warning signal howled and loudspeakers bellowed, ordering all hands to acceleration stations. The Nautilus blasted away, shaping her orbit for the weary trip to Venus. When she was up to speed and spin had been placed on her to permit sure footing the control room secured from blast stations. Don unstrapped and hurried to the radio room. Twice he had to argue to get past sentries.
He found the door open; everyone inside seemed busy and paid him no attention. He hesitated, then stepped inside. A long hand reached out and grabbed him by the scruff. "Hey! Where the deuce do you think you're going?"
Don answered humbly, "I just want to send a message."
"You do, eh? What do you think of that, Charlie?" His captor appealed to a soldier who was bending over a rig.
The second soldier pushed one earphone up. "Looks like a saba-toor. Probably an A-bomb in each pocket."
An officer wandered out of an inner room. "What goes on here?"
"Sneaked in, sir. Says he wants to send a message."
The officer looked Don up and down. "Sorry. No can do. Radio silence. No traffic outgoing."
"But," Don answered desperately, "I've just got to." Quickly he explained his predicament. "I've got to let them know where I am, sir."
The officer shook his head. "We couldn't raise Mars even if we were not in radio silence."
"No, sir, but you could beam Luna, for relay to Mars."
"Yes, I suppose we could - but we won't. See here, young fellow, I'm sorry about your troubles but there is no possibility, simply none at all, that the commanding officer will permit silence to he broken for any reason, even one much more important than yours. The safety of the ship comes first."
Don thought about it. "I suppose so," he agreed forlornly.
"However, I wouldn't worry too much. Your parents will find out where you are."
"Huh? I don't see how. They think I'm headed for Mars."
"No, they don't-or won't shortly. There is no secret now about what has happened; the whole system knows it. They can find out that you got as far as Circum-Terra; they can find out that the Glory Road did not fetch you back. By elimination, you must be on your way to Venus. I imagine that they are querying Interplanet about you right now."
The officer turned away and said, "Wilkins, paint a sign for the door saying, `Radio Silence-No Messages Accepted.' We don't want every civilian in the ship barging in here trying to send greetings to Aunt Hattie."
Don bunked in a third-class compartment with three dozen men and a few boys. Some passengers who had paid for better accommodations complained. Don himself had had first-class passage booked for the Valkyrie and Marsbut he was glad that he had not been silly enough to object when he saw the disgruntled returning with their tails between their legs. First-class accommodations, up forward, were occupied by the High Guard.
His couch was comfortable enough and a space voyage, dull under any circumstances, is less dull in the noise and gossip of a bunkroom than it is in the quiet of a first-class stateroom. During the first week out the senior surgeon announced that any who wished could avail themselves of cold-sleep. Within a day or two the bunkroom was half deserted, the missing passengers having been drugged and chilled and stowed in sleep tanks aft, there to dream away the long weeks ahead.
Don did not take cold-sleep. He listened to a bunkroom discussion, full of half facts, as to whether or not cold-sleep counted against a man's lifetime. "Look at it this way," one passenger pontificated. "You've got so long to live-right? It's built into your genes; barring accidents, you live just that long. But when they put you in the freezer, your body slows down. Your clock stops, so to speak. That time doesn't count against you. If you had eighty years coming to you, now you've got eighty years plus three months, or whatever. So I'm taking it."
"You couldn't be wronger," he was answered. "More wrong, I mean. What you've done is chop three months right out of your life. Not for me!"
"You're crazy. I'm taking it."
"Suit yourself. And another thing-" The passenger who opposed it leaned forward and spoke confidentially, so that only the entire bunkroom could hear. "They say that the boys with the bars up front question you while you are going under. You know why? Because the Commodore thinks that spies slipped aboard at Circum-Terra."
Don did not care which one was right. He was too much alive to relish deliberately "dying" for a time simply to save the boredom of a long trip. But the last comment startled him. Spies? Was it possible that the I.B.I. had agents right under the noses of the High Guard? Yet the I.B.I. was supposed to be able to slip in anywhere. He looked around at his fellow passengers, wondering which one might be traveling under a false identity.
He put it out of his mind-at least the I.B.I. was no longer interested in him.
Had Don not known that he was in the Nautilus headed for Venus he might well have imagined himself in the Valkyrie headed for Mars. The ships were of the same class and one piece of empty space looks like another. The Sun grew daily a little larger rather than smaller-but one does not look directly at the Sun, not even from Mars. The ship's routine followed the same Greenwich day kept by any liner in space; breakfast came sharp on the bell; the ship's position was announced each "noon"; the lights were dimmed at "night."
Even the presence of soldiers in the ship was not conspicuous. They kept to their own quarters forward and civilians were not allowed there except on business. The ship was forty-two days out before Don again had any reason to go forward-to get a cut finger dressed in sick bay. On his way aft he felt a hand on his shoulder and turned.
He recognized Sergeant McMasters. The sergeant was wearing the star of a master-at-arms, a ship's policeman. "What are you doing," he demanded, "skulking around here?"
Don held up his damaged digit. "I wasn't skulking; I was getting this attended to."
McMasters looked at it. "Mashed your finger, eh? Well, you're in the wrong passageway. This leads to the bomb room, not to passengers' quarters. Say, I've seen you before, haven't I?"
"Sure."
"I remember. You're the lad who thought he was going to Mars."
"I'm still going to Mars."
"So? You seem to favor the long way around-by about a hundred million miles. Speaking of the long way around, you haven't explained why I find you headed toward the bomb room."
Don felt himself getting red. "I don't know where the bomb-room is. If I'm in the wrong passage, show me the right one."
"Come with me." The sergeant led him down two decks where the spin of the ship made them slightly heavier and conducted Don into an office. "Sit down. The duty officer will be along."
Don remained standing. "I don't want to see the duty officer. I want to go back to my bunkroom."
"Sit down, I said. I remember your case. Maybe you were just turned around but could be you took the wrong turn on purpose."
Don swallowed his annoyance and sat. "No offense," said McMasters. "How about a slug of solvent?" He went to a coffee warmer and poured two cups.
Don hesitated, then accepted one. It was the Venerian bean, black and bitter and very strong. Don found himself beginning to like McMasters. The sergeant sipped his, grimaced, then said, "You must be born lucky. You ought to be a corpse by now."
"Huh?"
"You were scheduled to go back in the Glory Road, weren't you? Well?"
"I don't track you."
"Didn't the news filter aft? The Glory didn't make it."
"Huh? Crashed?"
"Hardly! The Federation groundhogs got jumpy and blasted her out of the sky. Couldn't raise her and figured she was booby-trapped, I guess. Anyhow they blasted her."
"Oh."
"Which is why I say you were born lucky, seeing as how you were supposed to go back in her."
"But I wasn't. I'm headed for Mars."
McMasters stared at him, then laughed. "Boy, have you got a one-track mind! You're as bad as a `move-over.' "
"Maybe so, but I'm still going to Mars."
The sergeant put down his cup. "Why don't you wise up? This war is going to last maybe ten or fifteen years. Chances are there won't be a scheduled ship to Mars in that whole time."
"Well . . . I'll make it, somehow. But why do you figure it will last so long?"
McMasters stopped to light up. "Studied any history?"
"Some."
"Remember how the American colonies got loose from England? They piddled along for eight years, fighting just now and then-yet England was so strong that she should have been able to lick the colonies any weekend. Why didn't she?"
Don did not know. "Well," McMasters answered, "you may not be a student of history, but Commodore Higgins is. He planned this strike. Ask him about any rebellion that ever happened; he'll tell you why it succeeded, or why it failed. England didn't lick the colonies because she was up to her ears in bigger wars elsewhere. The American rebellion was just a `police action'-not important. But she couldn't give proper attention to it; after a while it got to be just too expensive and too much trouble, so England gave up and recognized their independence."
"You figure this the same way?"
"Yes-because Commodore Higgins gave it a shove in the right direction. Figured on form, the Venus Republic can't win against the Federation. Mind you, I'm just as patriotic as the next-but I can face facts. Venus hasn't a fraction of the population of the Federation, nor one per cent of its wealth. Venus can't win-unless the Federation is too busy to fight. Which it is, or will be soon."
Don thought about it. "I guess I'm stupid."
"Didn't you grasp the significance of blowing up Circum-Terra? In one raid the Commodore had Earth absolutely helpless. He could have bombed any or all of Terra's cities. But what good would that have done? It would simply have gotten the whole globe sore at us. As it is, we've got two-thirds of the peoples of Earth cheering for us. Not only cheering but feeling frisky and ready to rebel themselves, now that Circum-Terra isn't sitting up there in the sky, ready to launch bombs at the first sign of unrest. It will take the Federation years to pacify the associate nations-if ever. Oh, the Commodore is a sly one!" McMasters glanced up. "'Tenshun!" he called out and got to his feet.
A lieutenant of the High Guard was in the doorway. He said, "That was a very interesting lecture, professor, but you should save it for the classroom."
"Not `professor,' Lieutenant," McMasters said earnestly. " `Sergeant,' if you please."
"Very well, Sergeant-but don't revert to type." He turned to Don. "Who is this and why is he loafing here?"
"Waiting for you, sir." McMasters explained the circumstances.
"I see," answered the duty officer. He said to Don, "Do you waive your right not to testify against yourself?"
Don looked puzzled. "He means," explained McMasters, "do we try the gimmick on you, or would you rather finish the trip in the brig?"
"The gimmick?"
"Lie detector."
"Oh. Go ahead. I've got nothing to hide."
"Wish I could say as much. Sit down over here." Mo-. Masters opened a cupboard, fitted electrodes to Don's head and a bladder gauge to his forearm. "Now," he said, "tell me the real reason why you were skulking around the bomb room!"
Don stuck to his story. McMasters asked more questions while the lieutenant watched a "wiggle" scope back of Don's head. Presently he said, "That's all, Sergeant. Chase him back where he belongs."
"Right, sir. Come along." They left the room together. Once out of earshot McMasters continued: "As I was saying when we were so crudely interrupted, that is why you can expect a long war. The `status' will stay `quo' while the Federation is busy at home with insurrections and civil disorder. From time to time they'll send a boy to do a man's job; we'll give the boy lumps and send him home. After a few years of that the Federation will decide that we are costing more than we are worth and will recognize us as a free nation. In the meantime there will be no ships running to Mars. Too bad!"
"I'll get there," Don insisted.
"You'll have to walk."
They reached "G" deck. Don looked around and said, "I know my way from here. I must have gone down a deck too many."
"Two decks," McMasters corrected, "but I'll go with you until you are back where you belong. There is one way you might get to Mars-probably the only way."
"Huh? How? Tell me how?"
"Figure it out. There won't be any passenger runs, not till the war is over, but it is a dead cinch that both the Federation and the Republic will send task forces to Mars eventually, each trying to pre-empt the facilities there for the home team. If I were you, I'd enlist in the High Guard Not the Middle Guard, not the Ground Forces-but the High Guard."
Don thought about it. "But I wouldn't stand much chance of getting to go along would I?"
"Know anything about barracks politics? Get yourself a job as a clerk. If you've any skill at kissing the proper foot, a clerk's job will keep you around Main Base. You'll be close to the rumor factory and you'll know when they finally get around to sending a ship to Mars. Kiss the proper foot again and put yourself on the roster. That's the only way you are likely to get to Mars. Here's your door. Mind you don't get lost up forward again."
Don turned McMasters' words over in his mind for the next several days. He had clung stubbornly to the idea that, when he got to Venus, he would find some way to wrangle passage to Mars. McMasters forced him to regroup his thoughts. It was all very well to talk about getting in some ship headed for Mars-somehow, legally or illegally, paid passenger, crew member, or stowaway. But suppose there were no ships heading for Mars? A lost dog might beat his way back to his master-but a man could not travel a single mile in empty space without a ship. A total impossibility.
But that notion of joining the High Guard? It seemed a drastic solution even if it would work and-little as Don knew about the workings of military organization-he held a dark suspicion that the sergeant had oversimplified things. Using the High Guard to get to Mars might prove as unsatisfactory as trying to hitch-hike on a Kansas twister.
On the other hand he was at the age at which the idea of military service was glamorous in itself. Had his feelings about Venus been just a touch stronger he could easily have persuaded himself that it was his duty to throw in with the colonists and sign up, whether it got him to Mars or not.
Enlisting held another attraction: it would give pattern to his life. He was beginning to feel the basic, gnawing tragedy of the wartime displaced person, the loss of roots. Man needs freedom, but few men are so strong as to be happy with complete freedom. A man needs to be part of a group, with accepted and respected relationships. Some men join foreign legions for adventure; still more swear on a bit of paper in order to acquire a framework of duties and obligations, customs and taboos, a time to work and a time to loaf, a comrade to dispute with and a sergeant to hate-in short, to belong.
Don was as "displaced" as any wanderer in history; he had not even a planet of his own. He was not conscious of his spiritual need-but he took to staring at the soldiers of the High Guard when he ran across them, imagining what it would be like to wear that uniform.
The Nautilus did not land, nor did she tie up to a space station. Instead her speed was reduced as she approached the planet so that she fell into a 2-hour, pole-to-pole parking orbit only a few hundred miles outside the silvery cloud blanket. The Venus colonies were too young, too poor, to afford the luxury of a great orbiting station in space, but a fast pole-to-pole parking orbit caused a ship to pass over every part of the spinning globe, an "orange slice" at each pass-like winding string on a ball.
A shuttle ship up from the surface could leave any spot on Venus, rendezvous with the ship in orbit, then land on its port of departure or on any other point having expended a theoretical minimum of fuel. As soon as the Nautilus had parked such shuttles began to swarm up to her. They were more airplane than spaceship, for, although each was sealed and pressurized to operate outside the atmosphere while making contact with orbiting spaceships, each was winged and was powered with ramjet atmosphere engines as well as with rocket jets. Like frogs, they were adapted to two media.
A shuttle would be launched to catapult from the surface, her ramjets would take hold and she would climb on her wings, reaching in the thin, cold heights of the upper stratosphere speeds in excess of three thousand miles an hour. There, as her ramjets failed for want of air, her rocket jets would take over and kick her forward to orbiting speed of around twelve thousand miles an hour and permit her to match in with a spaceship.
A nice maneuver! It required both precise mathematical calculation of times, orbits, fuel expenditure, and upper air weather and piloting virtuosity beyond mathematical calculation-but it saved pennies. Once the shuttle was loaded at the spaceship it was necessary only to nudge it with its rockets against the orbital direction whereupon the shuttle would drop into a lower orbit which would eventually intersect the atmosphere and let the pilot take a free ride back to the surface, glider fashion, killing his terrible speed by dipping ever lower into the thickening air. Here again the pilot must be an artist, for he must both kill his momentum and conserve it so that it would take him where he wanted to go. A shuttle, which landed out in the bush, a thousand miles from a port, would never make another trip, even if pilot and passengers walked away from the landing.
Don went down in the Cyrus Buchanan, a trim little craft of hardly three hundred feet wingspread. From a port Don watched her being warped in to match air locks and noticed that the triple globes of Interplanet Lines had been hastily and inadequately painted out on her nose and over had been stenciled: MIDDLE GUARD-VENUS REPUBLIC. This defaced insignia brought the rebellion home to him almost more than had the bombing of Circum-Terra. Interplanet was strong as government-some said it was the government. Now hardy rebels had dared to expropriate ships of the great transport trust, paint out the proud triple globes.
Don felt the winds of history blowing coldly around his ears. McMasters was right; he now believed that no ship would run from here to Mars.
When his turn came he pulled himself along through the air locks and into the Cyrus Buchanan. The craft's steward was still in the uniform of Interplanet but the company's insignia had been removed and chevrons had been sewed to his sleeves. With this change had come a change in manner; he handled the passengers efficiently but without the paid deference of the semi-servant.
The trip down was long, tedious, and hot, as an atmosphere-braking series always is. More than an hour after touch off the airfoils first took hold; shortly Don and the other passengers felt almost full weight pressing them into the cushions, then the pilot lifted her as he decided his ship was growing too hot, let her ride out and upward in free fall. Over and over again this happened, like a stone skipping on water, a nauseating cosmic roller coaster, vastly uncomfortable.
Don did not mind. He was a spaceman again; his stomach was indifferent to surges of acceleration or even the absence thereof. At first he was excited at being back in the clouds of Venus; presently he was bored. At long, long last he was awakened by a change in motion; the craft was whistling down in its final glide, the pilot stabbing ahead with radar for his landing. Then the Cyrus Buchanan touched, bounced, and quivered to the rushing water under her hull. She slowed and stopped. After a considerable wait she was towed to her berth. The steward stood up and shouted, "New London! Republic of Venus! Have your papers ready."
Don's immediate purpose was to ask his way to the I. T. & T. office, there to file a radiogram to his parents, but he was unable to leave at once; the passengers had to have their papers inspected and they themselves were subjected to physical examinations and questioning. Don found himself, hours later, still sitting outside the security office, waiting to be questioned. His irregular status had sent him to the end of the line.
In addition to being hungry, tired, and bored, his arms itched-they were covered from shoulders to wrists with needle pricks caused by extensive testing for immunities to the many weird diseases and fungus-like infections of the second planet. Having once lived there he retained immunity to the peculiar perils of Venus-a good thing, he mused, else he would have had to waste weeks in quarantine while being inoculated. He was rubbing his arms and wondering whether or not he should kick up a fuss when the door opened and his name was called.
He went inside. An officer of the Middle Guard sat at a desk, looking at Don's papers. "Donald Harvey?"
"Yes, sir."
"Frankly, your case puzzles me. We've had no trouble identifying you; your prints check with those recorded when you were here before. But you aren't a citizen."
"Sure I am! My mother was born here."
"Mmmm-" The official drummed on his desktop. "I'm not a lawyer. I get your point, but, after all, when your mother was born, there wasn't any such nation as Venus Republic: Looks to me as if you were a test case, with precedent still to be established."
"Then where does that leave me?" Don said slowly.
"I don't know. I'm not sure you have any legal right to stay here at all."
"But I don't want to stay here! I'm just passing through."
"Eh?
"I'm on my way to Mars."
"Oh, that! I've seen your papers-too bad. Now let's talk sense, shall we?"
"I'm going to Mars," Don repeated stubbornly.
"Sure, sure! And I'm going to heaven when I die. In the meantime you are a resident of Venus whether we like it or not. No doubt the courts will decide, eventually, whether you are a citizen as well. Mr. Harvey, I've decided to turn you loose."
"Huh?" Don was startled; it had not occurred to him that his liberty could be in question.
"Yes. You don't seem like a threat to the safety of Venus Republic and I don't fancy holding you in quarantine indefinitely. Just keep your nose clean and phone in your address after you find a place to stay. Here are your papers."
Don thanked him, picked up his bags and left quickly.
Once outside, he stopped to give his arms a good scratching.
At the dock in front of the building an amphibious launch was tied up; its coxswain was lounging at the helm.
Don said, "Excuse me, but I want to send a radio. Could you tell me where to go?"
"Sure. I. T. & T. Building, Buchanan Street, Main Island. Just down in the Nautilus?"
"That's right. How do I get there?"
"Jump in. I'll be making another trip in about five minutes. Any more passengers to come?"
"I don't think so."
"You don't sound like a fog-eater." The coxswain looked him over.
"Raised on the stuff," Don assured him, "but I've been away at school for several years."
"Just slid in under the wire, didn't you?"
"Yeah, I guess so."
"Lucky for you. No place like home, I guess." The coxswain looked happily around at the murky sky and the dark waters.
Shortly he started his engine and cast off lines. The little vessel slopped its way through narrow channels, around islands and bars barely above water. A few minutes later Don disembarked at the foot of Buchanan Street, main thoroughfare of New London, capital of the planet.
There were several people loafing around the landing dock; they looked him over. Two of them were runners for rooming houses; he shook them off and started up Buchanan Street. The street was crowded with people but was narrow, meandering, and very muddy. Two lighted signs, one on each side of the street, shone through the permanent fog. One read: ENLIST NOW!!! YOUR NATION NEEDS YOU; the other exhorted in larger letters: Drink COCACOLA - New London Bottling Works.
The I. T. & T. Building turned out to be several hundred yards down the street, almost at the far side of Main Island, but it was easy to find as it was the largest building on the island. Don climbed over the coaming at the entrance and found himself in the local office of Interplanetary Telephone and Televideo Corporation. A young lady was seated behind a counter desk. "I'd like to send a radiogram," he said to her.
"That's what we're here for." She handed him a pad and stylus.
"Thanks." Don composed a message with much wrinkling of forehead, trying to make it both reassuring and informative in the fewest words. Presently he handed it in.
The girl raised her brows when she saw the address but made no comment. She counted the words, consulted a book, and said, "That'll be a hundred and eighty-seven fifty." Don counted it out, noting anxiously what a hole that made in his assets.
She glanced at the notes and pushed them back. "Are you kidding?"
"What's the matter?"
"Offering me Federation money. Trying to get me in trouble?"
"Oh." Don felt again a sick feeling at the pit of his stomach that was getting to be almost a habit. "Look-I'm just down in the Nautilus. I haven't had time to exchange this stuff. Can I send the message collect?"
"To Mars?"
"What should I do?"
"Well, there's the bank just down the street. If I were you I'd try there."
"I guess so. Thanks." He started to pick up his message; she stopped him.
"I was 'about to say that you can file your message if you like. You've got two weeks in which to pay for it."
"Huh? Why, thanks!"
"Don't thank me. It can't go out for a couple of weeks and you don't have to pay until we are ready to send it."
"Two weeks? Why?"
"Because Mars is right smacko back of the Sun now; it wouldn't punch through. We'll have to wait on the swing."
"Well, what's the matter with relay?"
"There's a war on-or hadn't you noticed?"
"Oh-" Don felt foolish.
"We're still accepting private messages both ways on the Terra-Venus channel - subject to paraphrase and censoring but we couldn't guarantee that your message would be relayed from Terra to Mars. Or could you instruct someone on Earth to pay for the second transmission?"
"Uh - I'm afraid not."
"Maybe it's just as well. They might not relay it for you even if you could get someone to foot the bill. The Federation censors might kill it. So give me that traffic and I'll file it. You can pay for it later." She glanced at the message. "Looks like you sort of ran into hard luck. How old are you" She glanced again at the form. "-Don Harvey?"
Don told her.
"Hmmm . . . you look older. I'm older than you are; I guess that makes me your grandmother. If you need any more advice, just stop in and ask Grandmother Isobel - Isobel Costello."
"Uh, thanks, Isobel."
"Not at all. Usual I. T. & T. service." She gave him a warm smile. Don left feeling somewhat confused.
The bank was near the center of the island; Don remembered having passed it. The sign on the glass read: BANK OF AMERICA & HONGKONG. Over this had been stuck strips of masking tape and under it was another sign handwritten in whitewash: New London Trust & Investment Company. Don went in, picked the shortest queue, and presently explained his wants. The teller hooked a thumb toward a desk back of a rail. "See him."
At the desk was seated an elderly Chinese dressed in a long black gown. As Don approached he stood up, bowed, and said, "May I help you, sir?"
Don again explained and laid his wad of bills on the banker's desk. The man looked at it without touching it. "I am so sorry."
"What's the matter?"
"You are past the date when one may legally exchange Federation currency for money of the Republic."
"But I haven't had a chance to before! I just got in."
"I am very sorry. I do not make the regulations."
"But what am I to do?"
The banker closed his eyes, then opened them. "In this imperfect world one must have money. Have you something to offer as security?"
"Uh, I guess not. Just my clothes and these bags."
"No jewelry?"
"Well, I've got a ring but I don't suppose it's worth much."
"Let me see it."
Don took off the ring Dr. Jefferson had mailed to him and handed it over. The Chinese stuck a watchmaker's loop in his eye and examined it. "I'm afraid you are right. Not even true amber-merely plastic. Still-a symbol of security will bind the honest man quite as much as chains. I'll advance fifty credits on it."
Don took the ring back and hesitated. The ring could not possibly be worth a tenth of that sum . . . and his stomach was reminding him that flesh has its insistent demands. Still-his mother had spent at least twice that amount to make sure that this ring reached him (or the paper it had been wrapped in, he corrected himself) and Dr. Jefferson had died in a fashion somehow connected with this same bauble.
He put it back on his finger. "That wouldn't be fair. I guess I had better find a job."
"A man of pride. There is always work to be found in a new and growing city; good luck. When you have found employment come back and we can arrange an advance against your wages." The banker reached into the folds of his gown, pulled out a single credit note. "But eat first-a full belly steadies the judgment. Do me the honor of accepting this as our welcome to the newcomer."
His pride said no; his stomach said YES! Don took it and said, "Uh, thanks! That's awfully kind of you. I'll pay it back, first chance."
"Instead, pay it forward to some other brother who needs it." The banker touched a button on his desk, then stood up.
Don said goodbye and left.
There was a man loitering at the door of the bank. He let Don get a step or two ahead, then followed him, but Don paid him no attention, being very busy with his own worries. It was slowly beginning to grow on him that the bottom had dropped out of his world and that there might be no way to put it back together. He had lived in security all his life; he had never experienced emotionally, in his own person, the basic historical fact that mankind lives always by the skin of its teeth, sometimes winning but more often losing-and dying.
But never quitting. In a hundred yards of muddy street he began to grow up, take stock of his situation. He was more than a hundred million miles from where he meant to be. He had no way at once to let his parents know where be was, nor was it a simple matter of waiting two weeks-he was flat broke, unable to pay the high tariff.
Broke, hungry, and no place to sleep . . . no friends, not even an acquaintance unless, he recalled, you counted "Sir Isaac," but, for all he knew, his dragon friend might be on the other side of the planet. Certainly not close enough at hand to affect the ham-and-eggs problem!
He decided to settle that problem at once by spending the note the banker had given him. He recalled a restaurant a short distance back and stopped suddenly, whereupon a man jostled him.
Don said, "Excuse me," and noted that the man was another Chinese-noted it without surprise as nearly half of the contract labor shipped in during the early days of the Venerian colonies had been Orientals. It did seem to him that the man's face was familiar-a fellow passenger in the Nautilus? Then he recalled that he had seen him at the dock at the foot of the street.
"My fault," the man answered. "I should look where I'm going. Sorry I bumped you." He smiled most charmingly.
"No harm done," Don replied, "but it was my fault. I suddenly decided to turn around and go back."
"Back to the bank?"
"Huh?"
"None of my business, but I saw you coming out of the bank."
"As a matter of fact," Don answered, "I wasn't going back to the bank. I'm looking for a restaurant and I remembered seeing one back there."
The man glanced at his bags. "Just get in?"
"Just down in the Nautilus."
"You don't want that restaurant-not unless you have money to throw away. It's strictly a tourist trap."
Don thought about the single credit note in his pocket and worried. "Uh, where can a chap get a bite to eat? A good, cheap restaurant?"
The man took his arm. "I'II show you. A place down by the water, run by a cousin of mine."
"Oh, I wouldn't want to put you to any trouble."
"Not at all. I was about to refresh the inner man myself. By the way, my name is Johnny Ling."
"Glad to know you, Mr. Ling. I'm Don Harvey."
The restaurant was in a blind alley off the foot of Buchanan Street. Its sign advertised TWO WORLDS DINING ROOM-Tables for Ladies-WELCOME SPACEMEN. Three move-overs were hanging around the entrance, sniffing the odors and pressing their twitching noses against the screen door. Johnny Ling pushed them aside and ushered Don in.
A fat Cantonese stood behind the counter, presiding over both range and cash register. Ling called out, "Hi Charlie!"
The fat man answered, "Hello, Johnny," then broke into fluent cursing, mixing Cantonese, English, Portuguese, and whistle speech impartially. One of the move-overs had managed to slip in when the door was opened and was making a beeline for the pie rack, his little hooves clicking on the floor. Moving very fast despite his size the man called Charlie headed him off, took him by the ear and marched him out. Still cursing, Charlie returned to the pie rack, picked out half a pie that had seen better times and re turned to the door. He tossed the pie to the fauns, who scrambled for it, bleating and whimpering.
"If you didn't feed them, Charlie," commented Ling, "they wouldn't hang around."
"You damn mind your own business!"
Several customers were eating at the counter; they paid no attention to the incident. Ling moved closer to the cook and said, "Back room empty?"
Charlie nodded and turned his back. Ling led Don through a swinging door; they ended up in a booth in the back of the building. Don sat down and picked up a menu, wondering what he could get that would stretch his one credit as far as possible. Ling took it from him. "Let me order for you. Charlie really is a number-one cook."
"But. . ."
"You are my guest. No, don't argue. I insist." Charlie showed up at that point, stepping silently through the booth's curtain. He and Ling exchanged remarks in a rapid singsong; he went away, returning shortly with crisp, hot egg rolls. The aroma was wonderful and Don's stomach put a stop to his protests.
The egg rolls were followed by a main dish which Don could not place. It was Chinese cooking but it certainly was not the chop suey of the trade. Don thought that he could identify Venerian vegetables out of his childhood in it but he could not be sure. Whatever it was, it was just what he needed; he began to feel a warm glow of content and ceased to be worried about anything.
While he ate he found that he was telling Ling his life history with emphasis on recent events that had landed him unexpectedly on Venus. The man was easy to talk to and it did not seem polite simply to sit, wolfing his host's food and saying nothing.
Ling sat back presently and wiped his mouth. "You've certainly had an odd time of it, Don. What are you going to do now?"
Don frowned. "I wish I knew. I've got to find a job of some sort and a place to sleep. After that I've got to scrape up, or save up, or borrow, enough money to send word to my folks. They'll be worried."
"You brought some money with you?"
"Huh? Oh, sure, but it's Federation money. I can't spend it."
"And Uncle Tom wouldn't change it for you. He's a flinty hearted old so-and-so in spite of his smiles. He's still a pawnbroker at bottom."
" `Uncle Tom?' The banker is your uncle?"
"Eh? Oh, no, no-just a manner of speaking. He set up a hock shop here a long time ago. Prospectors would come in and pawn their Geiger counters. Next time out he'd grubstake 'em. Pretty soon he owned half the hot pits around here and was a banker. But we still call him `Uncle Tom.' "
Don had a vague feeling that Ling was too anxious to deny the relationship but be did not pursue the thought as it did not matter to him. Ling was continuing, "You know, Don, the bank isn't the only place where you can change Federation money."
"What do you mean?"
Ling dipped his forefinger in a puddle of water on the table top and traced out the universal credit sign. "Of course, it's the only legal place. Would that worry you?"
"Well. . ."
"It isn't as if there were anything wrong about changing it. It's an arbitrary law and they didn't ask you when they passed it. After all, it's your money. That's right, isn't it?"
"I suppose so."
"It's your money and you can do what you please with it. But this talk is strictly on the quiet-you understand that?"
Don didn't say anything; Ling went on, "Now just speaking hypothetically-how much Federation money do you have?"
"Uh, about five hundred credits."
"Let's see it."
Don hesitated. Ling said sharply, "Come on. Don't you trust me? After all it's just so much waste paper."
Don got out his money. Ling looked at it and took out his wallet, started counting out bills. "Some of those big bills will be hard to move," he commented. "Suppose we say fifteen per cent." The money he laid down looked exactly like that Don had placed on the table except that each note had been overprinted with VENUS REPUBLIC.
Don did a rapid calculation. Fifteen per cent of what he had came to seventyfive credits, more or less-not even half what he needed to pay for a radiogram to Mars. He picked up his money and started putting it back into his wallet.
"What's the matter?"
"It's no use to me. I told you I needed a hundred eighty-seven fifty to pay for my radiogram."
"Well-twenty per cent. And I'm doing you a favor because you're a youngster in trouble."
Twenty per cent was still only a hundred credits. "No."
"Be reasonablel I can't move it at more than a point or two over that; I might take a loss. Commercial money draws eight per cent now, the way things are booming. This stuff has to go into hiding, losing eight per cent every year. If the war goes on very long, it's a net loss. What do you expect?"
Fiscal theory was over Don's head; he simply knew that anything less than the price of a message to Mars did not interest him. He shook his head.
Ling shrugged and gathered up his money. "It's your loss. Say, that's a handsome ring you're wearing."
"Thanks."
"How much money do you say you needed?"
Don repeated it. "You see, I've just got to get word to my family. I don't really need money for anything else; I can work."
"Mind if I look at that ring?"
Don did not want to pass it over but there seemed no way to avoid it without being rude. Ling slipped it on; it was quite loose on his bony finger. "Just my size. And it's got my initial, too."
"Huh?"
"My milk name, `Henry.' I'll tell you, Don, I'd really like to help you out. Suppose we say twenty per cent on your money and I'll take the ring for the balance of what you need to send your 'gram. Okay?"
Don could not have told why he refused. But be was beginning to dislike Ling, beginning to regret being obligated to him for a meal. The sudden switch aroused his stubborn streak. "It's a family keepsake," he answered. "Not for sale."
"Eh? You're in no position to be sentimental. The ring is worth more here than it is on Earth-but I'm still offering you much more than it's worth. Don't be a fool!"
"I know you are," Don answered, "and I don't understand why you are. In any case the ring is not for sale. Give it back to me."
"And suppose I don't?"
Don took a deep breath. "Why then," he said slowly, "I suppose I'll have to fight you for it."
Ling looked at him for a moment, then took off the ring and dropped it on the table. He then walked out of the booth without saying anything more.
Don stared after him and tried to figure it out. He was still wondering when the curtain was pushed aside and the restaurant keeper came in. He dropped a chit on the table. "One and six," he said stolidly.
"Didn't Mr. Ling pay for it? He invited me to have dinner with him."
"One and six," Charlie repeated. "You ate. You pay."
Don stood up. "Where do you wash dishes around here? I might as well get started."
BEFORE the evening was over the job of washing dishes for his dinner developed into a fixed arrangement. The salary was small-Don calculated that it would take him roughly forever to save enough money to send a radiogram to his parents-but it included three meals a day of Charlie's superlative cooking. Charlie himself seemed a very decent sort under his gruffness. He expressed a complicated and most disparaging opinion of Johnny Ling, using the same highly spiced lingua franca that he had used on the moveovers. He also denied any relationship to Ling while attributing to Ling other relationships which were on the face of them improbable.
After the last customer was gone and the last dish dried Charlie made up a pallet for Don on the floor of the back room in which Don had dined. As Don undressed and crawled into bed he remembered that he should have phoned the space port security office and told them his address. Tomorrow would do, he thought sleepily; anyhow the restaurant had no phone.
He woke up in darkness with a feeling of oppression. For a terrified moment he thought someone was holding him down and trying to rob him. As he came wider awake he realized where he was and what was causing the oppressed feeling-move-overs. There were two of them in bed with him; one was snuggled up to his back and was holding onto his shoulders; the other was cradled in his lap, spoon-fashion. Both were snoring gently. Someone had undoubtedly left a door open for a moment and they had sneaked in.
Don chuckled to himself. It was impossible to be angry with the affectionate little creatures. He scratched the one in front of him between its horns and said, "Look, kids, this is my bed. Now get out of here before I get tough."
They both bleated and snuggled closer. Don got up, got each of them by an ear and evicted them through the curtain. "Now stay out!"
They were back in bed before he was.
Don thought about it and gave up. The back room had no door that could be closed. As for chucking them outside the building, the place was dark and still strange to him and he was not sure of the locations of light switches. Nor did he want to wake Charlie. After all there was no harm in bedding down with a move-over; they were cleanly little things, no worse than having a dog curl up against one-better, for dogs harbor fleas. "Move over," he ordered, unintentionally renaming them, "and give me some room."
He did not go at once to sleep; the dream that had awakened -him still troubled him. He sat up, fumbled in the dark, and found his money, which he tucked under him. He then remembered the ring, and, feeling somewhat foolish, he pulled on a sock and stuffed the ring far down into the sock.
Presently all three of them were snoring.
He was awakened by a frightened bleating in his ear. The next few moments were quite confused. He sat up, whispered, "Pipe down!" and started to smack his bedmate, when he felt his wrist grasped by a hand-not the thumbless little paw of a move-over, but a human hand.
He kicked out and connected with something. There was a grunt, more anguished bleating, and the click-click-click of little hooves on bare floor. He kicked again and almost broke his toe; the hand let go.
He backed away while getting to his feet. There were sounds of struggle near him and loud bleating. The sounds died down while he was still trying to peer through the darkness to find out what was happening. Then a light came on blindingly and he saw Charlie standing in the door, dressed in a wrap-around and a big, shiny cleaver. "What's the matter with you?" Charlie demanded.
Don did his best to explain but move-overs, dreams, and clutching hands in the dark were badly mixed together. "You eat too much late at night," Charlie decided. Nevertheless he checked the place, with Don trailing after.
When he came to a window with a broken catch he did not say anything but went at once to the cash register and the lock box. Neither seemed to have been disturbed. Charlie nailed up the broken catch, shoved the moveovers back into the night, and said, "Go to sleep," to Don. He returned to his own room.
Don tried to do so but it was some time before he could quiet down. Both his money and the ring were still at hand. He put the ring back on his finger and went to sleep with his fist clenched.
Next morning Don had plenty of time to think as he coped with an unending stack of dirty dishes. The ring was on his mind. He was not wearing it; not only did he wish to avoid plunging it repeatedly into hot water but also was now reluctant to display it.
Could it be possible that the thief was after the ring rather than his money? It seemed impossible-a half-credit piece of souvenir counter junk! Or perhaps five credits, he corrected himself, here on Venus where every important item was expensive. Ten at the outside.
But he was beginning to wonder; too many people had taken an interest in it. He reviewed in his mind how he had come by it. On the face of it, Dr. Jefferson had risked death-had died-to make sure that the ring went to Mars. But that was preposterous and because it was he had concluded by what seemed to be strict logic that it must have been the paper in which the ring was wrapped that must reach his parents on Mars. That conclusion had been confirmed when the I.B.I. had searched him and confiscated the wrapping paper.
Suppose he did assume the wild possibility that it was the ring itself that was important? Even so, how could anyone here on Venus be looking for that ring? He had just landed; he had not even known that he was coming to Venus.
He might have thought of several ways that that news could have gone on before him, but he did not. Moreover, he found it difficult to imagine why anyone would take any special pains on his account.
But he had one quality in a high degree; he was stubborn. He swore a mighty oath into the dishwater that he and the ring, together, would travel to Mars and that lie would deliver it to his father as Dr. Jefferson had asked him to.
Business slacked off a little in the middle of the afternoon; Don got caught up. He dried his hands and said to Charlie, "I want to go uptown for a while."
"What's a matter? You lazy?"
"We work tonight, don't we?"
"Sure we do. You think this is a tea room?"
"Okay, I work mornings and evenings-so I take a little time off in the afternoon. You've got enough clean dishes to last you for hours."
Charlie shrugged and turned his hack. Don left.
He picked his way through the mud and the crowd back up the street to the I. T. & T. Building. The outer room held several customers but most of them were using the automatic phones or waiting outside the booths for a chance to do so. Isobel Costello was back of the desk and did not seem too busy, although she was chatting with a soldier. Don went to the far end of the desk and waited for her to he free.
Presently she brushed off the enterprising soldier and came to him. "Well, if it isn't my problem child! How are you making out, son? Get your money changed?"
"No, the bank wouldn't take it. I guess you had better give me back my 'gram."
"No hurry; Mars is still in conjunction. Maybe you'll strike it rich."
Don laughed ruefully. "Not likely!" He told her what he was doing and where.
She nodded. "You could do worse. Old Charlie is all right. But that's a rough part of town, Don. Be careful, especially after dark."
"I will be. Isobel, would you do me a favor?"
"If it's not impossible, illegal, or scandalous-yes."
Don fished the ring out of his pocket. "Would you take care of this for me? Keep it safe until I want it back?"
She took it, held it up to look at it. "Careful!" Don urged. "Keep it out of sight."
"Huh?"
"I don't want anyone to know you have it. Get it out of sight."
"Well-" She turned away; when she turned back the ring was gone. "What's the mystery, Don?"
"I wish I knew."
"Huh?"
"I can't tell you any more than that. I just want to keep that ring safe. Somebody is trying to get it away from me."
"But- Look, does it belong to you?"
"Yes. That's all I can tell you."
She searched his face. "All right, Don. I'll take care of it."
"Thanks."
"No trouble-I hope. Look-stop in again soon. I want you to meet the manager."
"Okay, I will."
She turned away to take care of a customer. Don waited around until a phone booth was free, then reported his address to the security office at the space port. That done, he returned to his dishes.
Around midnight, hundreds of dishes later, Charlie turned away the last customer and locked the front door. Together they ate a meal there had been no time for earlier, one with chopsticks, one with fork. Don found himself almost too tired to eat. "Charlie," he asked, "how did you run this place with no help?"
"Had two helpers. Both joined up. Boys don't want to work these days; all they think about is playing soldier."
"So I'm filling two jobs, eh? Better hire another boy, or I might join up, too."
"Work is good for you."
"Maybe. You certainly take your own advice; I've never seen anybody work as hard as you do."
Charlie leaned back and rolled a cigarette of the shaggy native "crazy weed." "While I work I think about how someday I go home. A little garden with a wall around it. A little bird to sing to me." He waved his hand through choking smoke at the dreary walls of the restaurant. "While I cook, I don't see this. I see my little garden."
"Oh."
"I save money to go home." He puffed furiously. "I go home-or my bones will."
Don understood him; he had heard of "bone money" in his childhood. All the immigrant Chinese planned to go home; too often it was only a package of bones that made the trip. The younger, Venus-born Chinese laughed at the idea; to them Venus was home and China only a much-gummed tale.
He decided to tell Charlie his own troubles and did so, omitting any mention of the ring and all connected with it. "So you see, I'm just as anxious to get to Mars as you are to go home to China."
"Mars is a long way off."
"Yes-but I've got to get there."
Charlie finished his cigarette and stood up. "You stick with Charlie. Work hard and I cut you in on the profits. Someday this war nonsense will be over-then we both go." He turned to go. "G'night."
"Good night." This time Don checked personally to see that no moveovers had managed to sneak in, then retired to his cubbyhole. He was asleep almost at once, to dream of climbing endless mountain ranges of dishes, with Mars somewhere beyond.
Don was lucky to have a cubbyhole in a cheap restaurant as a place to sleep; the city was bursting at its seams. Even before the political crisis which had turned it into the capital of a new nation, New London had been a busy place, market place for a million square miles of back country and principal space port of the planet. The de facto embargo on interplanetary shipping resulting from the outbreak of war with the mother planet might eventually starve the fat off the city but as yet the only effect had been to spill into the town grounded spacemen who prowled the streets and sampled what diversions the town offered.
The spacemen were hardly noticed; much more numerous were the politicians. On Governor's Island, separated from Main Island by a stagnant creek, the Estates General of the new republic was in session; nearby, in what had been the gubernatorial mansion, the Executive General, his chief of State, and the departmental ministers bickered with each other over office space and clerical help. Already a budding bureaucracy was spilling over onto Main Island, South Island, East Spit, and Tombstone Island, vying with each other for buildings and sending rents sky high. In the wake of the statesmen and elected officials-and much more numerous-were the small fry and hangers-on of government, clerks who worked and special assistants who did not, world savers, men with Messages, lobbyists for and lobbyists against, men who claimed to speak for the native dragons but had never gotten around to learning whistle speech, and dragons who were quite capable of speaking on their own behalf-and did.
Nevertheless Governor's Island did not sink under the load
North of the city on Buchanan Island another city was burgeoning training camps for the Middle Guard and the Ground Forces. It was protested bitterly in the Estates that the presence of training grounds at the national capital was an invitation to national suicide, as one H-bomb could wipe out both the government and most of the armed forces of Venus-nevertheless nothing had been done about it. It was argued that the men had to have some place for recreation; if the training grounds were moved out into the trackless bush, the men would desert and go back to their farms and mines.
Many had deserted. In the meantime New London swarmed with soldiery. The Two Worlds Dining Room was jammed from morning until night. Old Charlie left the range only to tend the cash register; Don's hands were raw from hot water and detergent. Between times he stoked the water boiler back of the shack, using oily Chika logs hauled in by a dragon known as "Daisy" (but male despite the chosen name). Electric water heating would have been cheaper; electric power was an almost costless by-product of the atomic pile west of the city-but the equipment to use electric power was very expensive and almost unobtainable.
New London was full of such frontier contrasts. Its muddy, unpaved streets were lighted, here and there, by atomic power. Rocket-powered sky shuttles connected it with other human settlements but inside its own boundaries transportation was limited to shank's ponies and to the gondolas that served in lieu of taxis and tubes-some of these were powered, more moved by human muscle.
New London was ugly, uncomfortable, and unfinished, but it was stimulating. Don liked the gusty, brawling drive of the place, liked it much better than the hothouse lushness of New Chicago. It was as alive as a basketful of puppies, as vital as a punch in the jaw. There was a feeling in the air of new things about to happen, new hopes, new problems.
After a week in the restaurant Don felt almost as if he had been there all his life. Furthermore he was not unhappy at it. Oh, to be sure, the work was bard, and he still was determined to get to Mars-eventually-but in the meantime he slept well, ate well, and had his hands busy . . . and there were always the customers to talk and argue with-spacemen, guardsmen, smalltime politicians who could not afford the better restaurants. The place was a political debating club, city news desk, and rumor mill; the gossip swapped over Charlie's food was often tomorrow's headline in the New London Times.
Don kept up the precedent of a mid-afternoon break, even when he had no business to transact. If Isobel was not too busy, he would take her across the street for a coke; she was, as yet, his only friend outside the restaurant. On one such occasion she said, "No-come on inside. I want you to meet the manager."
"Eh?"
"About your 'gram."
"Oh, yes-I'd been meaning to, Isobel, but there's no point in it yet. I haven't got the money. I'm going to wait another week and hit Old Charlie for a loan. He can't replace me very easily; I think he'll come across to keep me in durance vile."
"That's no good-you ought to get a better job as soon as you can. Come on."
She opened the gate in the counter desk and led him into an office in the rear where she introduced him to a worried-looking middle-aged man. "This is Don Harvey, the young man I was telling you about."
The older man shook hands. "Oh, yes-something about a message to Mars, I think my daughter said."
Don turned to Isobel. " `Daughter'? You didn't tell me the manager was your father."
"You didn't ask me."
"But- Never mind. Glad to know you, sir."
"And you. Now about that message?"
"I don't know why Isobel brought me in here. I can't pay for it. All I have is Federation money."
Mr. Costello examined his nails and looked troubled. "Mr. Harvey, under the rules I am supposed to require cash payment for interplanetary traffic. I'd like to accept your Federation notes. But I can't; it's against the law." He stared at the ceiling. "Of course there is a black market in Federation money."
Don grinned ruefully. "So I found out. But fifteen, or even twenty per cent, is too low a rate. I still couldn't pay for my 'gram."
"Twenty per cent! The going rate is sixty per cent."
"It is? I guess I must have looked like a sucker."
"Never mind. I was not going to suggest that you go to the black market. In the first place-Mr. Harvey, I am in the odd position of representing a Federation corporation which has not been expropriated, but I am loyal to the Republic. If you walked out of here and returned shortly with money of the Republic instead of Federation notes, I would simply call the police."
"Oh, Daddy, you wouldn't! "
"Quiet, Isobel. In the second place, it's not good for a young man to have such dealings." He paused. "But perhaps we can work something out. Your father would pay for this message, would he not?"
"Oh, certainly!"
"But I can't send it collect. Very well; write a draft on your father for the amount; I'll accept it as payment."
Instead of answering at once, Don thought about it. It seemed to be the same thing as sending a message collect which he was willing to do-but running up debts in his father's name and without his knowledge stuck in his craw. "See here, Mr. Costello, you couldn't cash such a draft any time soon in any case: why don't I just give you an I.O.U and pay it back as quickly as possible? Isn't that better?"
"Yes and no. Your personal note is simply a case of letting you have interplanetary service on credit-which is what the rules forbid. On the other hand, a draft on your father commercial paper, equivalent to cash even if I can't cash it right away. A space lawyer's difference, granted-but it's the difference between what I can do and can't do with the corporation's affairs."
"Thanks," Don said slowly, "but I think I'll wait a while. I may be able to borrow the money elsewhere."
Mr. Costello looked from Don to Isobel, shrugged helplessly. "Oh, give me your I.O.U." he said snappishly. "Make it out to me, not to the company. You can pay me when you can." He looked again at his daughter who was smiling approval.
Don made out the note. When Isobel and he were out o earshot of her father, Don said, "That was a mighty generous thing for your father to do."
"Pooh!" she answered. "It just goes to show how far a doting father will go not to crimp his daughter's chances."
"Huh? What do you mean?"
She grinned at him. "Nothing. Nothing at all. Grandmother Isobel was pulling your leg. Don't take me. seriously."
He grinned back. "Then where should I take you? Across to the Dutchman's for a coke?"
"You've talked me into it."
When he got back to the restaurant he found, in addition to the inevitable stack of dishes, a heated discussion abou the draft bill pending in the Estates General. He pricked up his ears; if conscription came, he was sure fodder for it and he wanted to beat them to it by enlisting in the High Guard. McMasters' advice about the "only way to get to Mars" stuck in his mind.
Most of the opinions seemed to favor a draft, nor could Don argue against it; it seemed reasonable to him even though he would be caught in it. One quiet little man heard the others out, then cleared his throat. "There will be a draft," he announced.
The last speaker, a co-pilot still wearing the triple globe on his collar, answered, "Huh? What do you know about it, Shorty?"
"Quite a bit. Let me introduce myself-Senator Ollendorf of CuiCui Province. In the first place we don't need a draft; the nature of our dispute with the Federation is not such as to employ a large army. Secondly, our people are not of the temperament to put up with it. By the drastic process of selective immigration we have here on Venus a nation of hardy individualists almost anarchists. They don't take to forced service. Thirdly, the taxpayers will not support a mass army; we have more volunteers now than we can find money to pay for. Lastly, my colleagues and I are going to vote it down about three to one."
"Shorty," complained the co-pilot, "why did you bother with the first three reasons?"
"Just practicing the speech I mean to make tomorrow," apologized the Senator. "Now, sir, since you are so strong for the draft, pray tell why you haven't joined the High Guard? You are obviously qualified."
"Well, I'll tell you, just like you told me. First or firstly, I'm not a colonial, so it's not my war. Secondly, this is my first vacation since the time they grounded the Comet-class ships. And thirdly, I joined up yesterday and I'm drinking up my bounty money before reporting in. Does that satisfy you?"
"Completely, sir! May I buy you a drink?"
"Old Charlie doesn't serve anything but coffee-you ought to know that. Here, have a mug and tell us what's cooking over on Governor's Island. Give us the inside data."
Don kept his ears open and his mouth (usually) shut. Among other things he learned why the "war" was producing no military action-other than the destruction of Circum-Terra. It was not alone that a distance varying from about thirty million to better than one hundred, fifty million miles was, to say the least, awkwardly inconvenient for military communications; more important was the fear of retaliation which seemed to have produced a stalemate.
A sergeant technician of the Middle Guard outlined it to anyone who would listen: "Now they want to keep everybody up half the night with space raid alerts. Malarky! "
"Terra won't attack-the big boys that run the Federation know better. The war's over."
"Why do you figure they won't attack?" Don asked. "Seems to me we're sitting ducks here."
"Sure we are. One bomb and they blow this mudhole out of the swamp. Same for Buchanan. Same for CuiCui Town. What good does that do them?"
"I don't know, but I don't relish being A-bombed."
"You won't be! Use your head. They knock out a few shopkeepers and a lot of politicians-and they don't touch the back country. Venus Republic is as strong as ever-because those three spots are the only targets fit to bomb on this whole fogbound world. Then what happens?"
"It's your story; you tell me."
"A dose of reprisal, that's what-with all those bombs Commodore Higgins snagged out of Circum-Terra. We've got some of their fastest ships and we'd have the juiciest targets in history to shoot at. Everything from Detroit to Bolivarsteel mills, power plants, factories. They won't risk pulling our nose when they know we're all set to kick them in the belly. Let's be logical!" The sergeant set down his cup and looked around triumphantly.
A quiet man at the end of the counter had been listening. Now he said softly, "Yes-but how do you know that the strong men in the Federation will use logic?"
The sergeant looked surprised. "Huh? Oh, come off it! The war's over, I tell you. We ought to go home. I've got forty acres of the best rice paddies on the planet; somebody's got to get the crop in. Instead I'm sitting around here, playing space raid drill. The government ought to do something."