For Us, The Living

XI

Olga arrived one morning to find Perry walking the floor, and smoking. A pile of cigarette stubs alongside a barely-touched breakfast showed his state of mind. He flung her a curt greeting. Olga grinned.

"Little Merry Sunshine, no less. What's the matter, dopey? Come down with the Never-Get-Overs?"

Perry ground the butt of his cigarette savagely into a saucer. "All very well for you to joke, but it's serious to me. It's this damned place. I'm sick of it."

Olga's face became serious. "What's the trouble with this place, Perry? Anything wrong? Anything you need? Somebody been unkind to you?"

He scowled. "No. Nothing you can do anything about. The place is swell , and everybody is decent to me. I'm just sick of it, that's all. I know I have to stay here and need to stay here, and I'm not arguing about my sentence, but you can't make me like it. I'm going stir-crazy."

Olga's face cleared. "Why, Perry, you don't have to stay here."

"What? Why don't I? I was sent here for treatment."

"Surely. And you should spend quite a bit of your time here just for our convenience in treating you. But you are free to move around."

"Do you mean that?"

"I always mean what I say."

Perry's face lit up. "Stand clear, boys! Here we go! Say, where can I hire a sky car?"

"Take mine, if you like. I won't be needing it."

"That gives me an idea. Are you busy today? Could you come along? We could have a picnic."

"Why yes, I guess I could go. Sure you wouldn't rather be alone?"

"Hell, no. You're the perfect companion. You don't bother a fellow when he doesn't want to talk."

"Okay. Let's go. I'll see about something to eat."

A short while later Perry pressed back on the stick and they shot into the air at maximum lift. Higher and higher he took them, clear to the ceiling for the little craft. Then he spread his wings and accelerated to maximum speed. They shot along silently except for the muffled whir of the screw. Olga lounged on the cushions and watched him with the half smile of approval with which a mother watches a child at play. Tiring of straight flight, Perry put the machine through its paces, rotor maneuvering, climbing by wing, crashing, quick turns. Presently he leveled off, and spoke. "That was fun. I wish I had my old crate here, though. I'd show you some real acrobatics. Did you ever loop, or fly upside down? Or a power dive in formation? That'll take the enamel off your teeth. This is a grand little boat but it's a baby carriage with shock absorbers compared with our old fighting jobs."

"That sounds exciting, but wasn't it terribly dangerous?"

"Sure it was dangerous, unless you knew your job. Even then it wasn't a tea party. Lots of my pals got theirs from carelessness, or engine failure or something. But it was grand sport. Funny, I never got hurt in the air, but a measly little spill out of an automobile finishes me off. Only it didn't finish me." He grinned boyishly. "Damn funny thing about me popping over all these years. It worried me a lot at first. I was afraid I'd go to sleep and wake up somebody else. You know that Hindu pal of Gordon's. You remember he came to see me. He seems to think that Gordon and I are the same hombre using different memory tracks. I didn't understand it and don't see how he can prove it, but he claims that if Gordon comes back at all I'll simply have two memories. He talked a lot about serial observers and serial time sense. I didn't get it, but he did manage to reassure me." Olga patted his hand. "That's good. I'm glad."

"The best part about it is that I can go ahead and be a citizen of this world now and not feel like a freak. Say, are you hungry?"

"Not very, but I can usually eat." She patted her soft expanse of tummy.

"I kinda skipped breakfast. Let's drop down somewhere and eat outdoors."

"Okay. Where are we?" They bent over the map screen and Olga glanced out. She placed her finger on the map. "How about it?"

"Twenty minutes more or less. It's an inspiration."

"I'll get lunch ready while you whip up the horses." Half an hour later they were sitting at the south rim of the Grand Canyon, eating silently while they drank in the ageless wonder of the place. Perry broke the silence. "You know I've seen this many times before, twice since my arrival in this period and several times in my early life. It makes me feel as if the thing that happened to me in time is just a casual incident of no more import than the ten seconds of unconsciousness of a lightly knocked out boxer. Time has moved on here in the past hundred and fifty years, but the change is not perceptible."

Olga nodded but did not answer. She stared out and down. Presently she arose and brushed the crumbs from her coverall. "Let's get going. I have to take this place in small doses." She stepped into the car and loosened the zipper at her throat. Perry followed her, and sealed the door. Once off the ground, coveralls stowed, and cigarettes lighted, Perry inquired, "Whereto?"

"I don't care."

"Aren't we close to the Moon Rocket Experiment Grounds?"

"Yes, it's just east of Flagstaff. Want to see it?"

"Very much."

He leveled off, set his course and clamped the robot. Olga lay back and dozed in the warm contentment of digestion. Perry sat and watched her and mused to himself. This was a very pleasant trip, as much fun as it would have been if Diana were along instead of Olga. Or almost. Olga was a great kid, and a lot of fun to have around. He certainly was fond of her. Not what Master Hedrick suggested of course, he wasn't forming any attachment. He was in love with Diana and was loyal to her, whether such loyalty was customary or not. Could he have fallen in love with Olga if he had met her first? Possibly. She wasn't as beautiful as Diana, nor as young (Perry smiled at this. Time was too scrambled for age to matter.), but she was certainly as seductive in her own way. She didn't dress her hair nor use cosmetics with the consummate artistry of Dian', but she was always meticulously shaven and fastidious about her person to a degree unusual even in 2086. About her character and personality there could be no question; she was tops. Yes, he decided, he could have fallen deeply in love with her—if he hadn't met Diana first. Too bad he couldn't have known her when he was a bachelor. Was he attractive to her? She liked him, he was sure, but Olga seemed to like a lot of people. Did he as a man arouse any response in her as a woman? He would give a lot to know. He wondered what she would do if he were to make a pass at her.

His reverie was broken by the insistent ringing of the alarm gong. The robot checked flight and hovered. He glanced out and saw a series of bright red pylons marching over the rolling plateau. Miles beyond was a group of buildings. Just below was a small landing flat and hangars. The field lights flashed the landing signal and they obeyed. They were received by a wizened weather-beaten desert rat, who showed them where to park their car and indicated with a jerk of his thumb the stairway to the trans-tube. They descended and strapped themselves in the cylinder. Olga touched a button on the remote control panel, relays clicked, and they found themselves almost at once at the field station. They emerged from the stairwell into a large room equipped with a few chairs, a televue control station and some benches. It was almost deserted. A young man was talking to a girl dressed in an asbestos coverall. The hood and visor were pushed back, disclosing a tight mass of copper ringlets. She laughed at something he said and answered in a low tone. An elderly man with a preoccupied look entered from a corridor on the right and shuffled quickly into a side room. No one else was in sight. Olga and Perry stood uncertainly for a moment, then Perry advanced, touched the young man on the arm, and spoke.

"Excuse me."

The young man started, and turned around. "Oh, sorry. I didn't see you. May I do you a service?"

"Service," answered Perry. "We'd like to look around, if it's permitted."

"Certainly. Glad to have you. You'll need a guide though. Joe!"

A blond head appeared from behind the back of a couch, a strapping form followed it. "Yeah?"

"A couple of visitors 'ud like to take a gander around the plant. I've got to handle the controls for Vivian on this test run. Can you do it?"

"I guess so." The youth chucked a magazine into a chair and joined them, long arm and hand outstretched.

Perry thanked him. "Sure this won't put you out?"

"Not at all. Glad to have a little excitement. It's pretty dull around here. Come along. What would you like to see first? The rockets? Most everybody does." He led them into a huge gloomy shed. Dominating the interior was a great sleek metal behemoth that towered over their heads. Perry whistled.

"You've gone further than I thought."

Joe followed his glance. "That? You expect too much. That's just an obsolete strato-rocket. Her top speed won't take her over the heaviside layer. We've got her outfitted to simulate space conditions as far as we can. We've got a crew locked up in there now to see if they can take it without going off their heads. They've been in there six weeks now. Every now and then we give 'em a little surprise like bleeding out half their air pressure." He grinned. "There's another little surprise that they don't expect. One of 'em's under secret orders to go crazy and start trouble."

"Can't they get out?"

"Oh yes, if the skipper loses his nerve. Otherwise not."

Olga clenched her fists. "Why must you do that? It isn't human."

Joe fixed her with a sardonic eye. "Sister, if they can't stand that, what chance have they got in space?"

"Why go out in space? Isn't the earth big enough?"

Joe turned his attention back to Perry. "You can't make a man permanently contented in a nice, pretty, upholstered civilization. We've got to, that's all. There's something out there to be seen, and we're gonna have a look." Perry nodded. Olga held her peace. "But these babies here are what we're working on. Messenger rockets." He indicated a number of metal bodies roughly cylindroconical in shape. "These are rejected models but they look a lot like ones we've tried. One like this fellow got into a permanent orbit, we think. At least the data showed it making nearly five kilometers when it left."

Olga's lips moved. "That doesn't seem fast; three hundred kilometers per hour."

"Not three hundred; eighteen thousand. It was going five kilometers per second. That ain't enough though. We need a speed of eleven point three kilometers per second to break out of the earth's field entirely."

"That applies to shots rather than rockets, doesn't it?"

"That's right. You know something about ballistics, don't you, bud ? Any speed at all will do as long as our accelerating force is greater than gravitational force. The distances are enormous though. Without pretty heavy acceleration you'd grow old waiting to get there."

"Not from here to the moon, surely."

"Oh, no. That's no distance. But if we get there, we'll establish a base there and try some long hops. In a thin gravity field like the moon's we ought to be able to take off for any planet in the system."

"How much acceleration do you figure on using?"

"Two g's is about all that's healthy. I've taken that for ten hours in the centrifuge, but then I'm husky. It's uncomfortable though, and it made me sick to my stomach at first. Of course we can take as high as six or seven g's for a short time in a good corset and braces and a water cushion. I pass out at about five and half."

"What's a 'g'?" Olga whispered to Perry.

"Force of gravity at earth seal level. At two g's you'd feel twice as heavy as you do now."

"Now see this baby," continued Joe, indicating a silver grey torpedo-like body about ten feet long. "We've sent off eight like it towards old Luna. Her pay load is a lot of magnesium ribbon to make a flare. One of 'em got across, at least Flagstaff reported a spark in Mare Imbrium. Pick it up." Perry stooped over and prepared to heave. It came up lightly and he almost fell over backwards. "Light, ain't it? It's a tungsten aluminum alloy, lighter than potassium. Inert, too."

"I should think it would be porous," Perry commented.

"It is, but it's got a mirror surface inside about two molecules thick that would stop the breath of scandal. The only hard metal in it otherwise is the jets themselves."

"Look here," put in Olga, "If you've got a little one across, why not build a bigger one and ride it over?"

"Well, you see all this little fellow has to do is to climb up to the change over point—that's where the attraction of the moon and the earth are equal—then fall down. To get to the moon and back means to climb up, then climb down to the moon, using rocket fuel to break your fall, then climb up again and climb back down to earth again, four stages. We can't do that yet. But we do think that we are well on the way to building one that will do two of those stages; go up, swing in an orbit around the moon, then climb back down to earth again. That's what Vivian, the girl you saw in the lobby, is working on. She's going to ride the ground tests on some new fuel."

"What do the ground tests amount to?"

"They are the nearest thing to flight conditions we can manage on the ground. This stuff has been laboratory tested, and fired in ground jets, and a rocket designed for it which should be strong enough and light enough to do the trick. Today it is tested in a dummy rocket with a full control panel and full size jets, but the whole framework is tied down solid. The rocket reaction produces stress and strain instead of acceleration. We measure the stresses by instrument. If it all checks out the way it should, we'll try the real rocket in flight."

Olga interrupted. "If you've made all those preliminary tests, what can you learn by running a rocket that is tied down? You already have the data on what it will do."

Joe shook his head. "No, not quite. We know what we think it ought to do, but we knew that when the equations of synthesis were for it. But this stuff is all new. Suppose it does something different? We've got to know before a ship leaves the ground."

Perry put in a word. "Why is this girl Vivian running the tests? Isn't it a man's job?"

"It's her right to. She's the molecular synthesist who designed the fuel. This is as far as she can take it though, as she's not a rocket pilot."

A siren howled mournfully from outside the building. Joe moved toward the door. "Come along if you want to see it." They followed him back through the corridor, through the entrance hall and up a spiral staircase which gave into a small observation room. On the side toward the field was a wide shallow window of amber glass. Several persons who were lined up along this window made room for them. Joe spoke to one of the spectators. "How soon do they start?"

"Any minute now. There goes Vivian." Perry looked down and saw a small figure, bunchy in coveralls, climb a ladder to a manhole in the top of a stubby metal shape. The figure hesitated halfway in and turned its helmeted head toward the building. Perry thought he could detect the flash of a smile. An arm waved and the figure disappeared. The manhole cover closed into place from the inside, made a quarter turn and stopped. For a moment all was still in the room and nothing moved on the field. Perry could hear Olga's quick breathing at his ear. Then a little burst of violet flame showed from the stern of the test rocket. Somebody said "There she goes!" and the tension relaxed. The flame shot out again, lightened in color and became a blinding white as solid to the eye as white-hot metal. It fanned a trifle and made a myriad little green sparks where it licked the desert soil. A buzz of conversation spread around the room. "Pretty neat, what?"—"Yeah, she's got it this time."—"Watch it fade. That'ud be clean kinetic in vacuo."—Then charged, the main jet darkened, turned purple and quit. Smaller jets around the waist of the craft lighted one after another, and a nose jet blazed out for an instant. More comment came from around them.—"Pretty as a picture, one-two-three."—"Yeah, but I still like precession. Those fractional controls are too complicated."—"It looks nice though, doesn't it."—The smaller jets cut out and the stern jet cut in again, passing quickly from violet to white. It held steady for several minutes, then trembled and Perry thought that he detected a faint shadow on the under side. The whole flame turned a deep purple and split into two parts. He heard a shout of "Down!" and someone jerked savagely at his arm, unbalancing him. He fell across Olga as a white glare like photographer's flashlight temporarily blinded him. A dumb rumble, a short grinding shock, and then silence. He stumbled to his knees and blinked his eyes. Joe was beside him, already rising. They hurried to the window. Before him still lay the rocket but it had lurched awkwardly toward them and a split had opened for several feet near the stern jet. A cloud of yellowish oily smoke partially obscured the scene. Joe turned and hurried down the stairs. The other spectators were gone. Perry had not noticed when or how. He stared again at the sight, trying to interpret it, when Olga's voice sounded beside him.

"Whatever happened, Perry?"

"I don't know yet. Something went wrong."

"That pretty little redhead—Was she hurt?"

"I can't tell. I don't think so. The rocket doesn't look much damaged."

"Let's go down."

They went back down to the reception room and waited in unease for someone to show up. Presently Joe appeared and Perry caught his eye. "Oh yes, you folks. I'd forgotten you." He stopped by them, apparently annoyed and uneasy. Perry questioned him.

"What happened?"

"Nobody knows yet. Either fuel or the nozzles."

"Anyone hurt?"

"Only the operator."

"Killed?"

"They haven't said so yet. She was burned to a crisp and her right leg's gone. Say, I don't want to be rude but I'm awful busy. Will you excuse me?"

"Oh, of course! Sorry!" And he was gone.

Olga took Perry's arm. "Let's get out of here, please, Perry."

"Right." Neither spoke again until they were back in the sky car.