Starman Jones

3 EARTHPORT

The farm road crossed under the freight highway; Max came up on the far side and headed south beside the highway. The route was marked by "NO TRESPASS" signs but the path was well worn. The highway widened to make room for a deceleration strip. At the end of its smooth reach, a mile away, Max could see the restaurant Sam had mentioned.

He shinnied over the fence enclosing the restaurant and parking grounds and went to the parking stalls where a dozen of the big land ships were lined up. One was quivering for departure, its flat bottom a few inches clear of the metallic pavement. Max went to its front end and looked up at the driver's compartment. The door was open and he could see the driver at his instrument board. Max called out, "Hey, Mister!"

The driver stuck his head out. "What's itching you?"

"How are the chances of a lift south?"

"Beat it, kid." The door slammed.

None of the other freighters was raised off the pavement; their control compartments were empty. Max was about to turn away when another giant scooted down the braking strip, reached the parking space, crawled slowly into a stall, and settled to the ground. He considered approaching its driver, but decided to wait until the man had eaten. He went back toward the restaurant building and was looking through the door, watching hungry men demolish food while his mouth watered, when he heard a pleasant voice at his shoulder.

"Excuse me, but you're blocking the door."

Max jumped aside. "Oh! Sorry."

"Go ahead. You were first." The speaker was a man about ten years older than Max. He was profusely freckled and had a one-sided grin. Max saw on his cap the pin of the Teamsters' Guild. "Go on in," the man repeated, "before you get trampled in the rush."

Max had been telling himself that he might catch Sam inside--and, after all, they couldn't charge him just for coming in, if he didn't actually _eat_ anything. Underlying was the thought of asking to work for a meal, if the manager looked friendly. The freckled-faced man's urging tipped the scales; he followed his nose toward the source of the heavenly odors pouring out the door.

The restaurant was crowded; there was one vacant table, for two. The man slid into a chair and said, "Sit down." When Max hesitated, he added, "Go ahead, put it down. Never like to eat alone." Max could feel the manager's eyes on him, he sat down. A waitress handed them each a menu and the hauler looked her over appreciatively. When she left he said, "This dump used to have automatic service--and it went broke. The trade went to the _Tivoli_, eighty miles down the stretch. Then the new owner threw away the machinery and hired girls and business picked up. Nothing makes food taste better than having a pretty girl put it in front of you. Right?"

"Uh, I guess so. Sure." Max had not heard what was said. He had seldom been in a restaurant and then only in the lunch counter at Clyde's Corners. The prices he read frightened him; he wanted to crawl under the table.

His companion looked at him. "What's the trouble, chum?"

"Trouble? Uh, nothing."

"You broke?" Max's miserable expression answered him. "Shucks, I've been there myself. Relax." The man waggled his fingers at the waitress. "Come here, honey chile. My partner and I will each have a breakfast steak with a fried egg sitting on top and this and that on the side. I want that egg to be just barely dead. If it is cooked solid, I'll nail it to the wall as a warning to others. Understand me?"

"I doubt if you'll be able to get a nail through it," she retorted and walked away, swaying gently. The hauler kept his eyes on her until she disappeared into the kitchen. "See what I mean? How can machinery compete?"

The steak was good and the egg was not congealed. The hauler told Max to call him "Red" and Max gave his name in exchange. Max was pursuing the last of the yolk with a bit of toast and was considering whether it was time to broach the subject of a ride when Red leaned forward and spoke softly. "Max-- you got anything pushing you? Free to take a job?"

"What? Why, maybe. What is it?"

"Mind taking a little run southwest?"

"Southwest? Matter of fact, I was headin' that way."

"Good. Here's the deal. The Man says we have to have two teamsters to each rig--or else break for eight hours after driving eight. I can't; I've got a penalty time to meet--and my partner washed out. The flathead got taken drunk and I had to put him down to cool. Now I've got a check point to pass a hundred thirty miles down the stretch. They'll make me lay over if I can't show another driver."

"Gee! But I don't know how to drive, Red. I'm awful sorry."

Red gestured with his cup. "You won't have to. You'll always be the off-watch driver. I wouldn't trust little _Molly Malone_ to somebody who didn't know her ways. I'll keep myself awake with Pep pills and catch up on sleep at Earthport."

"You're going all the way to _Earthport?_"

"Right."

"It's a deal!"

"Okay, here's the lash up. Every time we hit a check point you're in the bunk, asleep. You help me load and unload--I've got a partial and a pick-up at Oke City-- and I'll feed you. Right?"

"Right!"

"Then let's go. I want to scoot before these other dust jumpers get underway. Never can tell, there might be a spotter." Red flipped a bill down and did not wait for change.

The _Molly Malone_ was two hundred feet long and stream lined such that she had negative lift when cruising. This came to Max's attention from watching the instruments; when she first quivered and raised, the dial marked ROAD CLEARANCE showed nine inches, but as they gathered speed down the acceleration strip it decreased to six.

"The repulsion works by an inverse-cube law," Red explained. "The more the wind pushes us down the harder the road pushes us up. Keeps us from jumping over the skyline. The faster we go the steadier we are."

"Suppose you went so fast that the wind pressure forced the bottom down to the road? Could you stop soon enough to keep from wrecking it?"

"Use your head. The more we squat the harder we are pushed up--inverse-cube, I said."

"Oh." Max got out his uncle's slide rule. "If she just supports her own weight at nine inches clearance, then at three inches the repulsion would be twenty-seven times her weight and at an inch it would be seven hundred and twenty-nine, and at a quarter of an inch--"

"Don't even think about it. At top speed I can't get her down to five inches."

"But what makes her go?"

"It's a phase relationship. The field crawls forward and Molly tries to catch up--only she can't. Don't ask me the theory, I just push the buttons." Red struck a cigarette and lounged back, one hand on the tiller. "Better get in the bunk, kid. Check point in forty miles."

The bunk was thwartships abaft the control compartment, a shelf above the seat. Max climbed in and wrapped a blanket around himself. Red handed him a cap. "Pull this down over your eyes. Let the button show." The button was a teamster's shield, Max did as he was told.

Presently he heard the sound of wind change from a soft roar to a sigh and then stop. The freighter settled to the pavement and the door opened. He lay still, unable to see what was going on. A strange voice said, "How long you been herding it?"

"Since breakfast at Tony's."

"So? How did your eyes get so bloodshot?"

"It's the evil life I lead. Want to see my tongue?"

The inspector ignored this, saying instead, "Your partner didn't sign his trick."

"Whatever you say. Want me to wake the dumb geek?"

"Umm ... don't bother. You sign for him. Tell him to be more careful."

"Right."

The _Molly Malone_ pulled out and picked up speed. Max crawled down. "I thought we were sunk when he asked for my signature."

"That was on purpose," Red said scornfully. "You have to give them something to yap about, or they'll dig for it."

Max liked the freighter. The tremendous speed so close to the ground exhilarated him; he decided that if he could not be a spaceman, this life would not be bad--he'd find out how high the application fee was and start saving. He liked the easy way Red picked out on the pavement ahead the speed line that matched the _Molly's_ speed and then laid the big craft into a curve. It was usually the outermost line, with the _Molly_ on her side and the horizon tilted up at a crazy angle.

Near Oklahoma City they swooped under the ring guides of the C.S.&E. just as a train went over--the _Razor_, by Max's calculations. "I used to herd those things," Red remarked, glancing up.

"You _did?_"

"Yep. But they got to worrying me. I hated it every time I made a jump and felt the weight sag out from under me. Then I got a notion that the train had a mind of its own and was just waiting to turn aside instead of entering the next guide ring. That sort of thing is no good. So I found a teamster who wanted to better himself and paid the fine to both guilds to let us swap. Never regretted it. Two hundred miles an hour when you're close to the ground is enough."

"Uh, how about space ships?"

"That's another matter. Elbow room out there. Say, kid, while you're at Earthport you should take a look at the big babies. They're quite something."

The library book had been burning a hole in his rucksack; at Oklahoma City he noticed a postal box at the freight depot and, on impulse, dropped the book into it. After he had mailed it he had a twinge of worry that he might have given a clue to his whereabouts which would get back to Montgomery, but he suppressed the worry--the book _had_ to be returned. Vagrancy in the eyes of the law had not worried him, nor trespass, nor impersonating a licensed teamster--but filching a book was a sin.

Max was asleep in the bunk when they arrived. Red shook him. "End of the line, kid."

Max sat up, yawning. "Where are we?"

"Earthport. Let's shake a leg and get this baby unloaded."

It was two hours past sunrise and growing desert hot by the time they got the _Molly_ disgorged. Red stood him to a last meal. Red finished first, paid, then laid a bill down by Max's plate. "Thanks, kid. That's for luck. So long." He was gone while Max still had his mouth hanging open. He had never learned his friend's name, did not even know his shield number.

Earthport was much the biggest settlement Max had ever seen and everything about it confused him--the hurrying self-centered crowds, the enormous buildings, the slidewalks in place of streets, the noise, the desert sun beating down, the flatness--why, there wasn't anything you could call a hill closer than the skyline!

He saw his first extra-terrestrial, an eight-foot native of Epsilon Gemini V, striding out of a shop with a package under his left arms--as casually, Max thought, as a farmer doing his week's shopping at the Corners. Max stared. He knew what the creature was from pictures and SV shows, but seeing one was another matter. Its multiple eyes, like a wreath of yellow grapes around the head, gave it a grotesque faceless appearance. Max let his own head swivel to follow it.

The creature approached a policeman, tapped the top of his cap, and said, "Excuse me, sahr, but can you tirect me to the Tesert Palms Athletic Club?" Max could not tell where the noise came out.

Max finally noticed that he seemed to be the only one staring, so he walked slowly on, while sneaking looks over his shoulder--which resulted in his bumping into a stranger. "Oh, excuse me!" Max blurted. The stranger looked at him. "Take it easy, cousin. You're in the big city now." After that he tried to be careful.

He had intended to seek out the Guild Hall of the Mother Chapter of Astrogators at once in the forlorn hope that even without his books and identification card he might still identify himself and find that Uncle Chet had provided for his future. But there was so much to see that he loitered. He found himself presently in front of Imperial House, the hotel that guaranteed to supply any combination of pressure, temperature, lighting, atmosphere, pseudogravitation, and diet favored by any known race of intelligent creatures. He hung around hoping to see some of the guests, but the only one who came out while he was there was wheeled out in a pressurized travel tank and he could not see into it.

He noticed the police guard at the door eyeing him and started to move on--then decided to ask directions, reasoning that if it was all right for a Geminian to question a policeman it certainly must be all right for a human being. He found himself quoting the extra-terrestrial. "Excuse me, sir, but could you direct me to the Astrogators' Guild Hall?"

The officer looked him over. "At the foot of the Avenue of Planets, just before you reach the port."

"Uh, which way do ..."

"New in town?"

"Yeah. Yes, sir."

"Where are you staying?"

"Staying? Why, nowhere yet. I just got here. I ..."

"What's your business at the Astrogators' Hall?"

"It's on account of my uncle," Max answered miserably.

"Your uncle?"

"He ... he's an astrogator." He mentally crossed his fingers over the tense.

The policeman inspected again. "Take this slide to the next intersection, change and slide west. Big building with the guild sunburst over the door--can't miss it. Stay out of restricted areas." Max left without waiting to find out how he was to know a restricted area. The Guild Hall did prove easy to find; the slidewalk to the west ducked underground and when it emerged at its swing-around Max was deposited in front of it.

But he had not eyes for it. To the west where avenue and buildings ended was the field and on it space ships, stretching away for miles--fast little military darts, stubby Moon shuttles, winged ships that served the satellite stations, robot freighters, graceless and powerful. But directly in front of the gate hardly half a mile away was a great ship that he knew at once, the starship _Asgard_. He knew her history, Uncle Chet had served in her. A hundred years earlier she had been built out in space as a space-to-space rocket ship; she was then the _Prince of Wales_. Years passed, her tubes were ripped out and a mass-conversion torch was kindled in her; she became the _Einstein_. More years passed, for nearly twenty she swung empty around Luna, a lifeless, outmoded hulk. Now in place of the torch she had Horst-Conrad impellers that clutched at the fabric of space itself; thanks to them she was now able to touch Mother Terra. To commemorate her rebirth she had been dubbed _Asgard_, heavenly home of the gods.

Her massive, pear-shaped body was poised on its smaller end, steadied by an invisible scaffolding of thrust beams. Max knew where they must be, for there was a ring of barricades spotted around her to keep the careless from wandering into the deadly loci.

He pressed his nose against the gate to the field and tried to see more of her, until a voice called out, "Away from there, Jack! Don't you see that sign?"

Max looked up. Above his head was a sign: RESTRICTED AREA. Reluctantly he moved away and walked back to the Guild Hall.