that's dried dirty--stiff. He hada freshly lit cigarette between his lips. He grinned nervously when hesaw me, butted the cigarette, said in a thin voice, "This is it,Anders. Ship goes up in twenty minutes."
"I know," I said.
He poked another cigarette at his lips. He said, "What?" in a startledtone.
"Nothing," I said. "All right, I'll get ready."
He lit the cigarette, took a puff that made the smoke do a freneticdance around his nostrils. He jabbed it at an ashtray, bobbed his headin a convulsive movement, said, "Righto!"
They strapped me in. Pop came to the open hatch. He stuck his headin, grinned, said, "Hi, guy," softly. There was something in his eyes.The Doll had told him how I hate sour notes.
"How's the Doll, Pop?" I forced myself to say it.
"Swell, Ed. Just got a call from her. On her way out here to see youtake off. Looks like she won't make it now though."
I didn't say anything. His eyes went down to the wallet I had proppedup on my knees. The wallet was open, celluloid window showing. Insidethe window was the Doll's picture.
"Tell her that, Pop," I said.
"Yeah, guy. Luck."
They shut the hatch.
There was no doubt about the takeoff. If one thing was perfected inthe XXE-1 it was that. The ship rose like the mercury in a thermometeron a hot day in July. I took it slow to fifty thousand feet.
"Fifty thousand," I said into the throat mike.
"Hear you, Anders." Melrose's voice.
"Smooth," I said. "Radar on me?"
"On you, Anders."
I let the ship have a little head. This job used the clutch of a taxcollector's claws for fuel. It just hooked itself on the nothingaround us and yanked--and there we were.
One hundred thousand.
"Double that," I said into the mike.
"Yeah, Anders. How is it?"
"Haven't yet begun. Radar still on me?"
I heard a nervous laugh. _He_ was nervous. "The General--GeneralHotchkiss just said something, Anders. He--ha, ha--he said you're onplot like stitches in a fat lady's hip. Ha, ha! He's got _us_ all institches. Ha, ha!"
_Ha, ha!_
This was it. I released my grip on the accelerator control, yet itslide up. They say you can't feel speed in the air unless there'ssomething relative within vision to tip you off. They're going to haveto revise that. You can not only feel speed you can reach out andbreak hunks off it--in the XXE-1, that is. I shook my head, took myeyes off the instruments and looked down at the Doll on my lap.
"Melrose?"
"Hear you, Anders."
"This is it. Reaching me on radar still?"
"Naturally."
"All right."
This was it. This was where the other four ships like the XXE-1--theradio controlled models--had disintegrated. This was where ithappened, and they didn't come back anymore.
I sucked in oxygen and let the accelerator control go over all theway.
Pulling a ship out of a steep dive, yes. Blackout then, yes. If the wingsstay with you everything's fine and you live to mention the incident atthe bar a little while later. Blackout accelerating--climbing--is not inthe books. But blackout, nevertheless. Not just plain blackout but athick mucous, slimy undulating blackout--the very black.
The very very black.
* * * * *
General Hotchkiss, "What's he saying, Melrose?"
Melrose, "Doesn't answer."
General Eaton, "Try again."
Melrose, "Yes sir."
General Hotchkiss, "What's he saying, Melrose?"
General Eaton, "Still nothing?"
Melrose, "Nothing."
General Hotchkiss, "Dammit, you've still got him on radar, haven'tyou?"
Melrose, "Yes sir."
General Hotchkiss, "Well, dammit, what's he doing?"
Melrose, "Still going up, sir."
General Eaton, "How far up?"
Melrose, "Signal takes sixty seconds to get back, sir."
General Hotchkiss, "God in heaven! One hundred and twenty thousandmiles out! Halfway to the moon. How much more fuel has he?"
Melrose, "Five seconds, sir. Then the auto-switch cuts in. Power willgo off until he nears atmosphere again. After that, if he isn'tconscious--well, I'm awfully afraid we've lost another ship."
General Eaton, "Cold blooded--"
* * * * *
The purple drapes before my eyes were wavering. Hung like rippledsteel pieces of a caisson suspended by a perilously thin whisper ofthread, they swayed, hesitated, shuddered their entire length, thenbegan to bend in the middle from the combined weights of thirteengalaxies. The bend became a cracking bulge that in another secondwould explode destruction directly into my face. I screamed.
"Is--is that you, Anders?"
I screamed good this time.
"An--Anders! You all right? What happened? I couldn't get through toyou?"
I took my hand from the accelerator control and stared numbly at it.The mark of it was deep in the skin. I sucked in oxygen.
"_Anders!_ Your power is off. When you hear the signal you've got justthree more seconds. You know what to do then. You've been out of theenvelope, Anders! You broke through the atmosphere!"
And then I heard him speak to somebody else--he must have beenspeaking to somebody else, he couldn't have meant me--"Crissake, giveme a cigarette. The guy's still alive."
I suppose I was grinning when they unstrapped me and slid me out ofthe hatch. They were grinning back at any rate. The ground held me upsurprisingly--like it always had all my life before. They'd stoppedgrinning now, their eyes were eating the inside of the ship. Theyweren't interested in me anymore--all they wanted was the instruments'readings.
My feet could still move me. Knew where to go. Knew where to find thedoor that had the simple word _Plotting_ on it.
The Doll was there with her father. The two of them didn't sayanything, just looked at me--just stared at me. I said, "He trieddamned hard. He put everything he had in it. He got me. He had me downand there wasn't any up again for the rest of the world. For me therewasn't."
They stared. Pop stared. The Doll stared.
"Just one thing he forgot," I muttered. "He gave me the tip-offhimself and then he forgot it. He told me I wasn't all me anymore,that a part of me had gone out to you since I was supposed to be inlove with you. And that's where the tip-off lies. I wasn't all meanymore but I hadn't lost anything. You know why, Doll?"
They stared.
"Simple--any damn fool would tumble. If I wasn't all me, then youweren't all you. Part of you was me--get it? And _you_ weren'tscheduled to bust out today. Not you--me! And that's what he couldn'twork over. That's what brought me down again. He couldn't touch that."I stopped for a moment.
I said suddenly, "What the hell you guys staring at?" I growled.
"That's my Baby," said the Doll.
"No strings," I said.
"Like we said." Her words were soft petals. "Like we said, Baby. Justlike we said."
"Sure. Only damn it, I don't like it that way. I _want_ strings, see?I want meshes of 'em, balls of 'em, like what comes in yarn--get it?"
The Doll grinned. "Sure, Baby--you're sure you want it that way?"
"Sure I'm sure. I just said it, didn't I? _Didn't_ I?"
"You just said it, Baby." She left her father's side, came over to me,put her arm in mine, pulled close. We turned, started to go out thedoor.
"Where you guys going?" asked Pop. We turned again. He looked likesomething was skipped somewhere on a sound track he'd been listeningto. I grinned.
"Gotta look for a Brown Bess," I said. "Museum just lost one."
* * * * *
Thank you for reading books on BookFrom.Net Share this book with friends