Between Planets

  “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.” McMasters 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 colonie
s 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 by 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.”

  VIII

  “Foxes Have Holes and Birds of the Air Have Nests—”

  MATTHEW VIII:20

  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 funguslike 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 desk top. “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, capit
al 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 COCA-COLA—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.”