The Planet Strappers

  Produced by Greg Weeks, Joel Schlosberg, Fred Kiesche andthe Online Distributed Proofreading Team athttps://www.pgdp.net

  Transcriber's Note: Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. Text enclosed by asterisks was in bold face in the original (*bold*). The 3-dot ellipsis has been retained as in the original.

  Out There--the world's first space colony--adventures and dangers beyondhuman ken!

  The Planet Strappers

  RAYMOND Z. GALLUN

  *A Million Miles Beyond the Moon...*

  ... Nelson and Ramos sped on toward Mars in their tiny plastic-bubblespacecraft. They were on the alert--it didn't pay to take anything forgranted in the Big Vacuum....

  The way between the worlds was mostly empty space--except for theoutlaws of the void who drifted, patiently and vengefully waiting for avictim, then struck!

  Nelsen and Ramos tensed--blips on the radar screen! Maybe meteors...More blips--and fist-sized chunks of rock flicked through their fragilevehicles. Air puffed out ... and Nelson and Ramos were fighting fortheir lives...

  *... A Million Miles Beyond the Moon!*

  THE PLANET STRAPPERS

  Raymond Z. Gallun

  PYRAMID BOOKS, 444 Madison Avenue, New York 22, New York

  *THE PLANET STRAPPERS,*_by Raymond Z. Gallun_

  This book is fiction. No resemblance is intended between any characterherein and any person (Here or Out There), living or dead; any suchresemblance is purely coincidental.

  Published by Pyramid BooksFirst printing: _October 1961_

  _Printed in the United States of America_

  I

  The Archer Five came in a big packing box, bound with steel ribbons andmarked, _This end up--handle with care_. It was delivered at asubsidized government surplus price of fifty dollars to Hendricks'Sports and Hobbies Center, a store in Jarviston, Minnesota, that used todeal mostly in skin diving equipment, model plane kits, parts forsouping up old cars, and the like. The Archer Five was a bit obsoletefor the elegant U.S. Space Force boys--hence the fantastic drop in pricefrom two thousand dollars since only last June. It was still aplenty-good piece of equipment, however; and the cost change was a realbreak for the Bunch.

  By 4:30 that bright October afternoon, those members who were attendingregular astronautics classes at Jarviston Technical College had gatheredat Hendricks' store. Ramos and Tiflin, two wild characters withseldom-cut hair and pipe stem pants, who didn't look as if they could betrusted with a delicate unpacking operation, broke the Archer out with acare born of love, there in Paul Hendricks' big backroom shop, while themore stolid members--and old Paul, silent in his swivel chair--watchedlike hawks.

  "So who tries it on first?" Ramos challenged. "Dumb question. You,Eileen--naturally."

  Most Bunches have a small, hard, ponytailed member, dungareed like therest.

  Still kidding around, Ramos dropped an arm across Eileen Sands'shoulders, and got her sharp elbow jabbed with vigor into his stomach.

  She glanced back in a feminine way at Frank Nelsen, a tall, lean guy ofnineteen, butch-haircutted and snub featured. But he was the purposeful,studious kind, more an observer and a personal doer than a leader; hehadn't much time for the encouraging smiles of girls, and donning evenan Archer Five now instead of within a few hours, didn't exactlyrepresent his kind of hurry.

  "I'll wait, Eileen," he said. Then he nodded toward Gimp Hines. That theothers would also pick Gimp was evident at once. There were bravos andclapping, half for a joke.

  "Think I won't?" Gimp growled, tossing his crutches on a workbenchlittered with scraps of color-coded wire, and hopping forward on the oneleg that had grown to normal size. He sort of swaggered, Frank Nelsennoticed. Maybe the whole Bunch swaggered with him in a way, because,right now, he represented all of them in their difficult aim. GimpHines, with the nylon patch in his congenitally imperfect heart, andwith that useless right underpinning, had less chance of taking part inspace-development than any of them--even with all his talent formechanics and electronics.

  Two-and-Two (George) Baines, a large, mild person who was an expertbricklayer in his spare time, while he struggled to absorb the intricatemath that spacemen are supposed to know--he used to protest that hecould at least add two and two--bounced forward, saying, "I'll give yuha hand, Gimp."

  Mitch Storey, the lean colored kid with the passion for all plant life,and the specific urge to get somehow out to Mars, was also moving tohelp Gimp into the Archer. Gimp waved them off angrily, but they valetedfor him, anyhow.

  "Shucks, Gimp," Storey soothed. "Anybody needs assistance--the firsttime..."

  They got his good leg, and what there was of the other, into the boots.They laced carefully, following all they had learned from books. Theyrolled the wire-braced silicone rubber body-section up over his torso,guided his arms into the sleeves, closed the zipper-sealers and centeredthe chest plate. While the others checked with their eyes, theyinspected the nipples of the moisture-reclaimer and chlorophaneair-restorer capsules. They lifted the helmet of clear, darkened plasticover his head, and dogged it to the gasket with the automaticturnbuckles. By then, Gimp Hines' own quick fingers, in the gloves, werebusy snapping this and adjusting that. There was a sleepy hum ofaerating machinery.

  "It even _smells_ right, in here," Gimp growled muffledly, trying to benonchalant.

  There was loud laughter and clapping. Ramos whistled piercingly, withtwo fingers. The huge Kuzak twins, Art and Joe--both had footballscholarships at Tech--gave Indian yells. Eileen Sands clasped her handsover her head and went up on her toes like the ballet dancer she hadonce meant to be. Old Paul, in his chair, chortled, and slapped his arm.Even little David Lester said "Bravo!" after he had gulped. The applausewasn't entirely facetious.

  Gimp's whole self had borrowed hard lines and an air of competence fromthe Archer Five. For a second he looked like somebody who could reallycross millions of miles. There was a tiny, solar-poweredionic-propulsion unit mounted on the shoulders of the armor, betweenthe water-tank and the beam-type radio transmitter and receiver. Aminiaturized radar sprouted on the left elbow joint. On the inside ofthe Archer's chest plate, reachable merely by drawing an arm out of asleeve, emergency ration containers were racked. In the same place was asmall airlock for jettisoning purposes and for taking in more supplies.

  "What do yuh know--toilet facilities, yet!" Ramos chirped with spuriousnaivete, and there were guffaws which soon died out. After all, this_was_ a serious occasion, and who wanted to be a jerk? Now that theprice had been shoved down into the ground, they could probably gettheir Archer Fives--their all-important vacuum armor. They were one morehurdle nearer to the stars.

  Two regular members of the Bunch hadn't yet shown up. Ten were present,including Gimp in the Archie. All were different. Each had a name.

  But Frank Nelsen figured that numbers, names, and individual variationsdidn't count for much, just then. They were a crowd with an overallpersonality--often noisy, sometimes quiet like now, always a bit grim tosustain their nerve before all they had to learn in order to reducetheir inexperienced greenness, and before the thought of all theexpensive equipment they had to somehow acquire, if they were to takepart in the rapid adaptation of the solar system to human uses. Most ofall, their courage was needed against fear of a region that could bedeadly dangerous, but that to them seemed wonderful like nothing else.

  The shop smelled of paint, solvent and plastic, like most any other.Gimp, sitting in the Archer, beside the oil-burning stove, didn't sayany more. He forgot to play tough, and seemed to lose himself in amind-trip Out There--probably as far as he would ever get. His face,inside the helmet, now looked pinched. His freckles were very plain inhis pal
ed cheeks. Gimp was awed.

  So was everybody else, including Paul Hendricks, owner of the HobbyCenter, who was approaching eighty and was out of the running, thoughhis watery blue eyes were still showing the shine of boyhood, right now.

  Way back, Paul Hendricks used to barnstorm county fairs in awood-and-fabric biplane, giving thrill rides to sports and their girlsat five dollars a couple, because he had been born sixty years too soon.

  Much later in his spotty career, he had started the store. He had alsomeant to do general repair work in the backroom shop. But in recentyears it had degenerated into an impromptu club hall, funk hole,griping-arguing-and-planning pit, extracurricular study lab and projectsite for an indefinite horde of interplanetary enthusiasts who werethought of in Jarviston as either young adults of the most resourcefulkind--for whom the country should do much more in order to insure itsfuture in space--or as just another crowd of delinquents, more bent onsuicide and trouble-making than any hot rod group had ever been. PaulHendricks was either a fine, helpful citizen--among so many who weredisinterested and preoccupied--or a corrupting Socrates who deserved todrink hemlock.

  Frank Nelsen knew all this as well as most. He had been acquainted withPaul ever since, at the age of seven, he had come into the store and hadtried to make a down payment on a model building kit for a Y-71ground-to-orbit freight rocket--clearly marked $49.95 in the displaywindow--with his fortune of a single dime. Frank had never acquired aY-71 kit, but he had found a friend in Paul Hendricks, and a place tohang around and learn things he wanted to know. Later on, as now, he hadworked in the store whenever he had some free time.

  Frank leaned against a lathe, watching the others, the frosty thrill andsoul-searching hidden inside himself. Maybe it was hard to guess whatEileen Sands, standing near, was thinking, but she was the firm kind whowould have a definite direction. Perhaps unconsciously, she hummed atune under her breath, while her feet toyed with graceful steps. Nodoubt, her mind was also on the Big Vacuum beyond the Earth.

  But what is there about a dangerous dream? When it is far out of reach,it has a safe, romantic appeal. Bring its fulfillment a little closer,and its harsh aspects begin to show. You get a kick out of that, but youbegin to wonder nervously if you have the guts, the stamina, theresistance to loneliness and complete strangeness.

  Looking at a real Archie--with a friend inside it, even--did this toFrank Nelsen. But he could see similar reactions in some of the others.

  Mitch Storey sat, bent forward, on a box, staring at his big, sepiahands, in which he tossed back and forth a tiny, clear capsulecontaining a fuzzy fragment of vegetation from Mars. He had bought thissealed curio from Paul a year ago for fifty dollars--souvenirs that camefrom so far were expensive. And now, in view of what was happening tohopeful colonists of that once inhabited and still most Earth-like otherplanet, ownership of such a capsule on Earth seemed about to be banned,not only by departments of agriculture, but by bodies directly concernedwith public safety.

  Did the color photographs of Mars, among all the others that the Bunchhad thumbtacked to the shop walls, still appeal as strongly to Mitch?Did he still want to go out to that world of queer, swirled markings,like the fluid flow in the dregs of a paper coffee cup? Mitchwould--more so than ever. He had plant life in his soul, maybe fromwandering in the swamps near his home in Mississippi. He had beensupporting himself here at school by fixing gardens. If it was plantlife of a different, dangerous sort, with other billions of years ofdevelopment behind it, that just made the call stronger. Mitch just satand thought, now, the mouth organ he seldom played sagging forward inhis frayed shirt pocket.

  Ramos--Miguel Ramos Alvarez--only stood with his black-visored cappushed back on his head, and a cocky smirk of good humor on his mouth.Reckless Ramos, who went tearing around the country in an ancient motorscooter, decorated with squirrel tails and gaudy bosses, would hardly bedisturbed by any risky thing he wanted to do. The thumbtacked picturesof the systems of far, cold Jupiter and Saturn--Saturn stillunapproached, except by small, instrumented rockets--would be the thingsto appeal to him.

  The Kuzak twins stood alertly, as if an extra special homecomingfootball game was in prospect. But they weren't given to real doubts,either. From their previous remarks it was clear that the asteroids,those fragments of an exploded and once populated world, orbiting outbeyond Mars, would be for them. Osmium, iridium, uranium. The rich,metallic guts of a planet exposed for easy mining. Thousands ofprospectors, hopeful characters, and men brutalized by the life inspace, were already drifting around in the Asteroid Belt.

  Two-and-Two Baines wore a worried, perplexed expression. He was amassive, rather lost young man who had to keep up with the times, andwith his companions, and was certainly wondering if he was able.

  Little David Lester, the pedant, the mother's boy, who looked eighteenbut was probably older, pouted, and his heavy lips in his thin facemoved. "Cores," Nelsen heard him whisper. He had the habit of talking tohimself. Frank knew his interests. Drill cores withdrawn from the strataof another planet, and inspected for fossils and other evidences of itslong history, was what he probably meant. Seeing Gimp in the Archie hadset off another scientific reverie in his head. He was a whizz in anybook subject. Maybe he had the brains to be a great investigator of thepast, in the Belt or on Mars, if his mind didn't crack first, whichseemed sure to happen if he left Earth at all.

  But it was Glen Tiflin's reactions that were the strangest. He had hisswitch blade out, and was tossing it expertly against a walltwo-by-four, in which it stuck quivering each time. This seemed his oneskill, his pride, his proof of manhood. And he wanted to get into spacelike nobody else around, except maybe Gimp Hines. It wasn't hard tosense how his head worked--the whole Bunch knew.

  Tiflin's face seemed to writhe, now, with self-doubt and truculence; hiseyes were on the photos of the heroes, beginning way back; Goddard. VonBraun. Clifford, who had first landed on the far side of the Moon.LaCrosse, who had reached Mercury, closest to the sun. Vasiliev, who hadjust come back from the frozen moons of Jupiter, scoring a triumph forthe Tovies--somebody had started calling them that, a few years ago--upin high Eurasia, the other side of an ideological rift that stillthreatened the ever more crowded and competitive Earth, though mutualfear had so far kept the flare ups within limits. Bannon, whoseexpedition was even now exploring the gloomy cellar of Venus' surface,smothered in steam, carbon dioxide and poisonous formaldehyde.

  To Tiflin, as to the others, even such places were glamorous. But hewanted to be a big shot, too. It was like a compulsion. He was touchyand difficult. Three years back, he had been in trouble for breaking andentering. Maybe his worship of space, and his desire to get there andprove himself, were the only things that had kept him straight for solong--grimly attentive at Tech, and at work at his car-washing job,nights.

  In his nervousness, now, he stuck a cigarette savagely between his lips,and lighted it with a quick, arrogant gesture, hardly slowing down thecontinuous toss and recovery of his knife.

  This had begun to annoy big Art Kuzak. For one thing, Tiflin was doinghis trick too close to the mass of crinkly, cellophane-like stuff drapedover a horizontal wooden pole suspended by iron straps from the ceiling.The crinkly mass was one of the Bunch's major projects--their firstspace bubble, or bubb which they had been cutting and shaping with morecare and devotion than skill.

  "Cripes--put that damn shiv away, Tif!" Art snapped. "Or lose itsomeplace!"

  Ramos, who was a part-time mechanic at the same garage where Tiflinworked, couldn't help taunting. "Yeah--smoking, too. Oh-oh. Using upprecious oxygen. Better quit, pal. Can't do much of that Out There."

  This was a wrong moment to rib Tiflin. He was in an instant flare. Buthe ground out the cigarette at once, bitterly. "What do _you_ care whatI do, Mex?" he snarled. "And as for you two Hunky Kuzaks--you oversizedbulldozers--how about weight limits for blastoff? Damn--I don't care_how_ big you are!"

  In mounting rage, he was about to lash out with his fists, even at thetwo
watchful football men. But then he looked surprised. With a terribleeffort, he bottled up even his furious words.

  The Bunch was a sort of family. Members of families may love each other,but it doesn't have to happen. For a second it was as if Ramos hadTiflin spitted on some barb of his taunting smile--aimed at Tiflin'smost vulnerable point.

  Ramos clicked his tongue. What he was certainly going to remark was thatpeople who couldn't pass the emotional stability tests, just couldn'tget a space-fitness card. But Ramos wasn't unkind. He checked himself intime. "No sweat, Tif," he muttered.

  "Hey, Gimp--are you going to sit in that Archie all night?" Joe Kuzak,the easy-going twin, boomed genially. "How about the rest of us?"

  "Yeah--how about that, Gimp?" Dave Lester put in, trying to sound asbrash and bold as the others, instead of just bookish.

  Two-and-Two Baines, still looking perplexed, spoke in a hoarse voicethat sounded like sorrow. "What I wanna know is just how far this fiftybuck price gets us. Guess we have enough dough left in the treasury tobuy us each an Archer Five, huh, Paul?"

  Paul Hendricks rubbed his bald head and grinned in a way that attemptedto prove him a disinterested sideliner. "Ask Frank," he said. "He's yourhistorian-secretary and treasurer."

  Frank Nelsen came out of his attitude of observation enough to warn,"That much we've got, if we want as many as twelve Archies. And a littlebetter than a thousand dollars more, left over from the prize money."

  They had won twenty-five hundred dollars during the summer for buildinga working model of a sun-powered ionic drive motor--the kind useful fordeep-space propulsion, but far too weak in thrust to be any good,starting from the ground. The contest had been sponsored by--of alloutfits--a big food chain, Trans-Columbia. But this wasn't so strange.Everybody was interested in, or affected by, interplanetary travel, now.

  On a workbench, standing amid a litter of metal chips and scraps ofcolor-coded wire, was the Bunch's second ionic, full-size this time, andalmost finished. On crossed arms it mounted four parabolic mirrors; itsion guide was on a universal joint. Out There, in orbit or beyond, andin full, spatial sunlight, its jetting ions would deliver ten pounds ofcontinuous thrust.

  "A thousand bucks--that's nowhere near enough," Two-and-Two mournedfurther. "Doggone, why can't we get blasted up off the Earth--that coststhe most, all by itself--just in our Archies? They've got those littleionic drives on their shoulders, to get around with, after we're inorbit. Lots of asteroid hoppers live and ride only in their space suits.Why do they make us get all that other expensive equipment? Space bubbs,full-size ionics, lots of fancy instruments!"

  "'Cause it isn't legal, otherwise," Mitch Storey pointed out. "'Causenew men are green--it isn't safe for them, otherwise--theExtra-Terrestrial Commission thinks. Got to have all the gear to getclearance. Travelling light isn't even legal in the Belt. You knowthat."

  "Maybe we'll win us another prize," Ramos laughed, touching the crinklysubstance of their first bubb, hanging like a deflated balloon over theceiling pole.

  Tiflin sneered. "Oh, sure, you dumb Mex. Too many other Bunches, now.Too much competition. Like companies starting up on the Moon not hiringordinary help on Earth and shipping them out, anymore--saying contractguys don't stick. Nuts--it's because enough slobs save them the expenseby showing up on their own... Or like most all of us trying to get intothe Space Force. The _Real Elite_--sure. Only 25,000 in the Force, whenthere are over 200,000,000 people in the country to draw from. Just oneguy from Jarviston--Harv Diamond--ever made it. Choosy? We can get oldwaiting for them to review our submitted personal data, only to have achance to take their lousy tests!"

  Joe Kuzak grinned. "So down with 'em--down with the worthy old U.S.S.F.!We're on our own--to Serenitatis Base on the Moon, to the Belt,Pallastown, and farther!"

  Ramos still hovered near Eileen Sands. "What do you say, Sweetie?" heasked. "You haven't hardly made a comment."

  Eileen remained tough and withdrawn. "I'm just listening while you smartmale characters figure out everything," she snapped. "Why don't youbecome a listener, too, for a change, and go help Gimp out of thatArcher?"

  Ramos bowed elegantly, and obeyed the latter half of her suggestion.

  "I have a premonition--a hunch," little Lester offered, trying to soundfirm. "Our request for a grant from the Extra-Terrestrial DevelopmentBoard will succeed. Because we will be as valuable as anybody, OutThere. Then we will have money enough to buy the materials to make mostof our equipment."

  Joe Kuzak, the gentler twin, answered him. "You're right about onething, Les. We'll wind up building most of our own stuff--with our ownmitts...!"

  Some noisy conversation about who should try the Archer next, wasinterrupted when the antique customer's bell over the street door ofthe store, jangled. There was a scrape of shoe soles, as the twopreviously absent members of the Bunch, Jig Hollins and CharlieReynolds, arriving together by chance, came into the shop.

  Jig (Hilton) Hollins was a mechanic out at the airport. He was lean,cocky, twenty-four, with a stiff bristle of blond hair. Like CharlieReynolds, he added up what had just been happening, here, at a glance.Both were older than the others. They had regular jobs. Their educationswere completed, except for evening supplementary courses.

  "Well, the _men_ have arrived," Jig announced.

  Maybe Charlie Reynolds' faint frown took exception to this remark. Hewas the only one in a suit, grey and tasteful, with a subdued flash tomatch the kind of car he drove. Few held this against him, nor the factthat he usually spent himself broke, nor the further fact that J. JohnReynolds, tight-fisted president of the Jarviston First National Bank,was his grandfather. Charlie was an engineer at the new nuclearpowerhouse, just out of town. Charlie was what is generally known as aGood Guy. He was brash and sure--maybe too sure. He had a slightswagger, balanced by a certain benignancy. He was automatically theleader of the Bunch, held most likely to succeed in their aims.

  "Hi, gang," he breezed. "Otto is bringing beer, Pepsi and sandwichesfrom his joint across the street. Special day--so it's on me. Time torelax--maybe unsnarl. Any new problems?"

  "Still plenty of old ones," Frank Nelsen commented laconically.

  "Has anybody suddenly decided to back out?" Charlie chuckled. "It'stiresome for me always to be asking that." He looked around, meetingcarefully easy grins and grim expressions. "Nope--I guess we're allshaggy folk, bent on high and wild living, so far. So you know the onlyanswer we _can_ have."

  "Umhmm, Charlie," Art Kuzak, the tough, business-like twin, gruffed. "Wecan get the Archers, now. I think Frank has our various sizes noteddown. Let everybody sign up that wants an Archie. Better hurry,though--there'll be a run on them now that they're being almost givenaway... List all the other stuff we need--with approximate purchaseprice, or cost of construction materials, attached. Sure--we'll be wayshort of funds. But we can start with the items we can make, ourselves,now. The point is not to lose time. New restrictions may turn up, andgive us trouble, if we do. We'll have to ride our luck for a break."

  "Hell--you know the lists are ready, Art," Frank Nelsen pointed out. "Abubb for everybody--or the stuff to make it. Full-scale ionic drives,air-restorers and moisture-reclaimers, likewise. Some of the navigationinstruments we'll almost have to buy. Dehydrated food, flasks of oxygenand water, and blastoff drums to contain our gear, are all relativelysimple. Worst, of course, is the blastoff price, from one of thespaceports. Who could be rich enough to have a ground-to-orbit nuclearrocket of his own? Fifteen hundred bucks--a subsidized rate atthat--just to lift a man and a thousand pounds of equipment into orbit.Five thousand dollars, minimum per person, is what we're going to need,altogether."

  Gimp Hines, who always acted as if he expected to get off the Earth,too, had yielded his position inside the Archer to Tiflin, and hadhobbled close.

  "The cost scares a guy who has to go to school, too, so he can pass thetests," he said. "Well, don't worry, Frank. A thousand dollars buys alot of stellene for bubbs. And we can scratch up a few bucks of our ow
n.I can find a hundred, myself, saved from my TV repair work, and mynovelties business. Charlie, here, ought to be able to contribute athousand. Same for you, Hollins. That'll buy parts and materials forsome ionic motors, too."

  "Oh, certainly, Gimp," Hollins growled.

  But Charlie Reynolds grinned. "I can kick in that much, if I hold down awhile," he said. "Maybe more, later. What we've got to have, however, isa loan. We can't expect a grant from the Board. Sure they want morepeople helping to develop resources in space, but they're swamped withrequests. Let's not sweat, though. With a little time, I'll swingsomething... Hey, everybody! Proposition! I move that whoever wants anArcher put his name down for Frank. I further move that we have himorder us a supply of stellene, and basic materials for at least threemore ionic motors. I also suggest that everybody donate as much cash ashe can, no matter how little, and as much time as possible for makingequipment. With luck, and if we get our applications for space-fitnesstests mailed to Minneapolis within a week, at least some of us shouldget off Earth by next June. Now, shall we sign for the whole deal?"

  Art Kuzak hunched his shoulders and displayed white teeth happily. "I'ma pushover," he said. "Here I come. I like to see things roll."

  "Likewise," said his brother, Joe. Their signatures were both small, incontrast to their size.

  Ramos, fully clad in the Archer, clowned his way forward to write hisname with great flourishes, his ball point clutched in a space glove.

  Tiflin made a fierce, nervous scrawl.

  Mitch Storey wrote patiently, in big, square letters.

  Gimp chewed his lip, and signed, "Walter Hines," in a beautiful, austerescript, with a touch as fine as a master scientist's. "I'll go along asfar as they let me," he muttered.

  "I think it will be the same--in my case," David Lester stammered. Heshook so much that his signature was only a quavering line.

  "For laughs," Eileen Sands said, and wrote daintily.

  Two-and-Two Baines gulped, sighed, and made a jagged scribble, like thetrail of a rocket gone nuts.

  Jig Hollins wrote in swooping, arrogant circles, that came, perhaps,from his extra jobs as an advertising sky writer with an airplane.

  Frank Nelsen was next, and Charlie Reynolds was last. Theirs were themost indistinctive signatures in the lot. Just ordinary writing.

  "So here we all are, on a piece of paper--pledged to victory or death,"Reynolds laughed. "Anyhow, we're out of a rut."

  Nelsen figured that that was the thing about Charlie Reynolds. Somemight not like him, entirely. But he could get the Bunch unsnarled andin motion.

  Old Paul Hendricks had come back from waiting on some casual customersin the store.

  "Want to sign, too, Paul?" Reynolds chuckled.

  "Nope--that would make thirteen," Paul answered, his eyes twinkling."I'll watch and listen--and maybe tell you if I think you're off beam."

  "Here comes Otto with the beer and sandwiches," Ramos burst out.

  They all crowded around heavy Otto Kramer and his basket--all exceptFrank Nelsen and Paul Hendricks, and Eileen Sands who made the ancienttypewriter click in the little office-enclosure, as she typed up theorder list that Nelsen would mail out with a bank draft in the morning.

  Nelsen had a powerful urge to talk to the old man who was his long-timefriend, and who had said little all during the session, though he knewmore about space travel than any of them--as much as anybody can knowwithout ever having been off the Earth.

  "Hey, Paul," Frank called in a low tone, leaning his elbows across aworkbench.

  "Yeah?"

  "Nothing," Frank Nelsen answered with a lopsided smile.

  But he felt that that was the right word, when your thoughts andfeelings became too huge and complicated for you to express with anyease.

  Grandeur, poetry, music--for instance, the haunting popular song, _FireStreak_, about the burial of a spaceman--at orbital speed--in theatmosphere of his native planet. And fragments of history, such ascovered wagons. All sorts of subjects, ideas and pictures were swirlinginside his head. Wanting to sample everything in the solar system...Home versus the distance, and the fierce urge to build a wild history ofhis own... Gentleness and lust to be fulfilled, sometime. There would bea girl... And there were second thoughts to twist your guts and make youwonder if all your savage drives were foolish. But there was a duty tobe equal to your era--helping to give dangerously crowded humanity onEarth more room, dispersal, a chance for race survival, if someunimaginable violence were turned loose...

  He thought of the names of places Out There. SerenitatisBase--Serene--on the Moon. Lusty, fantastic Pallastown, on the GoldenAsteroid, Pallas... He remembered his parents, killed in a car wreckjust outside of Jarviston, four Christmases ago. Some present!... Butthere was one small benefit--he was left free to go where he wanted,without any family complications, like other guys might have. Poor DaveLester. How was it that his mother allowed him to be with the Bunch atall? How did he work it? Or was she the one that was right?...

  Paul Hendricks had leaned his elbows on the workbench, too."Sure--_nothing_--Frank," he said, and his watery eyes were bland.

  The old codger understood. Neither of them said anything for a minute,while the rest of the Bunch, except Eileen who was still typing, guzzledPepsi and beer, and wolfed hotdogs. There was lots of courage-liftingnoise and laughter.

  Ramos said something, and Jig Hollins answered him back. "Think there'llbe any girls in grass skirts out in the Asteroid Belt, Mex?"

  "Oh, they'll arrive," Ramos assured him.

  Nelsen didn't listen anymore. His and Paul's attention had wandered tothe largest color photo thumbtacked to the wall, above the TV set, andthe shelf of dog-eared technical books. It showed a fragile, pearlyring, almost diaphanous, hanging tilted against spatial blackness andpinpoint stars. Its hub was a cylindrical spindle, with radial guys offine, stainless steel wire. It was like the earliest ideas about a spacestation, yet it was also different. To many--Frank Nelsen and PaulHendricks certainly included--such devices had as much beauty as a yachtunder full sail had ever had for anybody.

  Old Paul smirked with pleasure. "It's a shame, ain't it, Frank--callinga pretty thing like that a 'bubb'--it's an ugly word. Or even a 'spacebubble.' Technical talk gets kind of cheap."

  "I don't mind," Frank Nelsen answered. "Our first one, here, could lookjust as nice--inflated, and riding free against the stars."

  He touched the crinkly material, draped across its wooden support.

  "It _will_," the old man promised. "Funny--not so long ago peoplethought that space ships would have to be really rigid--all metal. Sohow did they turn out? Made of stellene, mostly--an improved form ofpolyethylene--almost the same stuff as a weather balloon."

  "A few millimeters thick, light, perfectly flexible when deflated,"Nelsen added. "Cut out and cement your bubb together in any shape youchoose. Fold it up firmly, like a parachute--it makes a small packagethat can be carried up into orbit in a blastoff rocket with the bestefficiency. There, attached flasks of breathable atmosphere fill it outin a minute. Eight pounds pressure makes it fairly solid in a vacuum.So, behold--you've got breathing and living room, inside. There's nyloncording for increased strength--as in an automobile tire--though notnearly as much. There's a silicone gum between the thin double layers,to seal possible meteor punctures. A darkening lead-salt impregnation inthe otherwise transparent stellene cuts radiation entry below the dangerlevel, and filters the glare and the hard ultra-violet out of thesunshine. So there you are, all set up."

  "Rig your hub and guy wires," old Paul carried on, cheerfully. "Attachyour sun-powered ionic drive, set up your air-restorer, spin yourvehicle for centrifuge-gravity, and you're ready to move--out of orbit."

  They laughed, because getting into space wasn't as easy as they made itsound. The bubbs, one of the basic inventions that made interplanetarytravel possible, were, for all their almost vagabondish simplicity,still a concession in lightness and compactness for atmospheric transit,to that first and grea
test problem--breaking the terrific initial gripof Earth's gravity from the ground upward, and gaining stable orbitalspeed. Only a tremendously costly rocket, with a thrust greater than itsown weight when fully loaded, could do that. Buying a blastoff passage_had_ to be expensive.

  "Figuring, scrounging, counting our pennies, risking our necks," Nelsenchuckled. "And maybe, even if we make it, we'll be just a third-rategroup, lost in the crowd that's following the explorers... Just thesame, I wish you could plan to go, too, Paul."

  "Don't rub it in, kid. But I figure on kicking in a couple of thousandbucks, soon, to help you characters along."

  Nelsen felt an embarrassed lift of hope.

  "You shouldn't, Paul," he advised. "We've overrun and taken possessionof your shop--almost your store, too. You've waived any profit, wheneverwe've bought anything. That's enough favors."

  "My dough, my pleasure... Let's each get one of Reynolds' beers andhotdogs, if any are left..."

  Later, when all the others had gone, except Gimp Hines, they uncoveredthe Archer, which everyone else had tried. Paul got into it, first. ThenNelsen took his turn, sitting as if within an inclosed vault, hearingthe gurgle of bubbles passing through the green, almost living fluid ofthe air-restorer capsule. Chlorophane, like the chlorophyl of greenplants, could break up exhaled carbon dioxide, freeing the oxygen forre-breathing. But it was synthetic, far more efficient, and it could usemuch stronger sunlight as an energy source. Like chlorophyl, too, itproduced edible starches and sugars that could be imbibed, mixed withwater, through a tube inside the Archer's helmet.

  Even with the Archer enclosing him, Nelsen's mind didn't quite reach. Hehad learned a lot about space, but it remained curiously inconceivableto him. He felt the frost-fringed thrill.

  "Now we know--a little," he chortled, after he stood again, just in hisusual garb.

  It was almost eight o'clock. Gimp Hines hadn't gone to supper, or tocelebrate decision on one of the last evenings of any kind of freedomfrom work. He couldn't wait for that... Under fluorescent lights, he wasthreading wire through miniature grommets, hurrying to complete thefull-size ionic drive. He said, "Hi, Frank," and let his eyes drop,again, into absorption in his labors. Mad little guy. Tragic, sort of. Acripple...

  "I'll shove off, Paul," Nelsen was saying in a moment.

  Out under the significant stars of the crisp October night, Nelsen wasapproached at once by a shadow. "I was waiting for you, Frank. I got aproblem." The voice was hoarse sorrow--almost lugubrious comedy.

  "Math again, Two-and-Two? Sure--shoot."

  "Well--that kind is always around--with me," Two-and-Two Baines chuckledshakily. "This is something else--personal. We're liable--honest togosh--to _go_, aren't we?"

  "Some of us, maybe," Nelsen replied warily. "Sixty thousand bucks forthe whole Bunch looks like a royal heap of cabbage to me."

  "Split among a dozen guys, it looks smaller," Two-and-Two persisted."And you can earn royal dough on the Moon--just for example. Plenty topay back a loan."

  "Still, you don't pick loans off trees," Nelsen gruffed. "Not for ashoestring crowd like us. We look too unsubstantial."

  "Okay, Frank--have that part your way. I believe there still is a goodchance we _will_ go. I _want_ to go. But I get to thinking. Out There islike being buried in millions of miles of nothing that you can breathe.Can a guy stand it? You hear stories about going loopy fromclaustrophobia and stuff. And I got to think about my mother and dad."

  "Uh-huh--other people could be having minor second thoughts--includingme," Frank Nelsen growled.

  "You don't get what I mean, Frank. Sure I'm scared some--but I'm gonnatry to go. Well, here's my point. I'm strong, willing, not too clumsy.But I'm no good at figuring what to do. So, Out There, in order to havea reasonable chance, I'll have to be following somebody smart. I thoughtI'd fix it now--beforehand. You're the best, Frank."

  Nelsen felt the scared earnestness of the appeal, and the achy shock ofthe compliment. But in his own uncertainty, he didn't want to becarrying any dead weight, in the form of a dependent individual.

  "Thanks, Two-and-Two," he said. "But I can't see myself as any leader,either. Talk about it to me tomorrow, if you still feel like it. Rightnow I want to sweat out a few things for myself--alone."

  "Of course, Frankie." And Two-and-Two was gone.

  Frank Nelsen looked upward, over the lighted street. There was noMoon--site of many enterprises, these days--in the sky, now. Old Jupiterrode in the south. A weather-spotting satellite crept across zenith,winking red and green. A skip glider, an orbit-to-ground freightvehicle, possibly loaded with rich metals from the Belt, probably aboutto land at the New Mexico spaceport far to the west, moved near it.Frank felt a deliciously lonesome chill as he walked through thebusiness section of Jarviston. From somewhere, dance music lilted.

  In front of Lehman's Drug Store he looked skyward again, to see adazzling white cluster, like many meteors, falling. The gorgeous displaylasted more than a second.

  "Good heavens, Franklin Nelsen--what was that?"

  He looked down at the slight, aging woman, and stiffened slightly. MissRosalie Parks had been his Latin teacher in high school. Plenty of timesshe used to scold him for not having his translations of Caesar workedout. A lot she understood about a fella who had to spend plenty of timeworking to support himself, while attending school!

  "Good evening, Miss Parks," he greeted rather stiffly. "I think it wasthat manned weather satellite dumping garbage. It hits the atmosphere atorbital velocity, and is incinerated."

  She seemed to be immensely pleased and amused. "Garbage becoming beauty!That is rather wonderful, Franklin. I'll remember. Thank you and goodnight."

  She marched off with the small purchase she had made, in the directionopposite his own.

  He got almost to the house where he had his room, when there was anotherencounter. But it was nothing new to run into Nancy Codiss, the spindlyfifteen-year-old next door. He had a sudden, unbelievably expansiveimpulse.

  "Hi, Nance," he said. "I didn't get much supper. Let's go down toLehman's for a hamburger and maybe a soda."

  "Why--_good_--Frankie!"

  They didn't talk very much, walking down, waiting for their orders, oreating their hamburgers. But she wasn't as spindly as he used to think.And her dark hair, even features and slim hands were nicer than herecalled.

  "I hear you fellas got your space-armor sample, Frank."

  "Yep--we did. We're ordering more."

  Her expression became speculative. Her brown eyes lighted. "I've beenwondering if I should look Outward, too. Whether it makes sense--for agirl."

  "Could be--I've heard."

  Their conversation went something like that, throughout, with longsilences. Finally she smiled at him, very brightly.

  "The Junior Fall dance is in two weeks," she said. "But I guess you'llbe too busy to be interested?"

  "'Guess' just isn't the word, Nance. I regret that--truly."

  He looked and sounded as though he meant it. In some crazy way, itseemed that he _did_ mean it.

  He walked her home. Then he went to the next house, and up to his rentedroom. He showered, and for once climbed very early into bed, feelingthat he must have nightmares. About strange sounds in the thin winds,over the mysterious thickets of Mars. Or about some blackened, dried-outbody of a sentient being, sixty million years dead, floating free in theAsteroid Belt. A few had been found. Some were in museums.

  Instead, he slept the dreamless sleep of the just--if there was anyparticular reason for him to consider himself just.