The Rolling Stones

VIII - THE MIGHTY BOOM

Captain Stone had all hands with the exception of Dr. Stone and Lowell compute their new orbit. They all worked from the same. data, using readings supplied by Traffic Control and checked against their own instruments. Roger Stone waited until all had finished before comparing results.

"What do you get, Hazel?"

"As I figure, Captain, you won't miss Mars by more than a million miles or so."

"I figure it right on."

"Well, now that you mention it, so do I."

"Cas? Pol? Meade?"

The twins were right together to six decimal places and checked with their father and grandmother to five, but Meade's answer bore no resemblance to any of the others. Her father looked it over curiously. "Baby girl, I can't figure out how you got this out of the computer. As near as I can tell you have us headed for Proxima Centauri."

Meade looked at it with interest. "Is that so? Tell you what let's use mine and see what happens. It ought to be interesting."

"But not practical. You have us going faster than light."

"I thought the figures were a bit large."

Hazel stuck out a bony forefinger. "That ought to be a minus sign, hon."

"That's not all that's wrong," announced Pollux. "Look at this – " He held out Meade's programming sheet.

"That will do, Pol," his father interrupted. "You are not called on to criticise Meade's astrogation."

"But -"

"Stow it."

"I don't mind, Daddy," Meade put in. "I knew I was wrong." She shrugged. "It's the first one I've ever worked outside of school. Somehow it makes a difference when it's real."

"It certainly does as every astrogator learns. Never mind, Hazel has the median figures. We'll log hers."

Hazel shook hands with herself. "The winnah and still cham­peen!"

Castor said, "Dad, that's final? No more maneuvers until you calculate your approach to Mars?"

"Of course not. No changes for six months at least. Why?"

"Then Pol and I respectfully request the Captain's permission to decompress the hold and go outside. We want to get to work on our bikes."

"Never mind the fake military-vessel phraseology. But I have news for you." He took a sheet of paper out of his belt pouch. "Just a moment while I make a couple of changes." He wrote on it, then fastened it to the control room bulletin board. It read:

SHIP'S ROUTINE

0700 Reveille (optional for Edith, Hazel, & Buster)

0745 Breakfast (Meade cooks. Twins wash dishes)

0900 School C & P, math

Meade, astrogation, coached by Hazel

Lowell, reeling, writhing, and fainting in coils - or whatever

his mother deems neces­sary

1200 End of morning session

1215 Lunch

1300 School C&P, math

Hydroponics chores, Meade

1600 End of afternoon session

1800 Dinner - All Hands initial ship's maintenance schedule.

SATURDAY ROUTINE - turn to after breakfast and clean ship, Hazel in charge. Captain's inspection at 1100. Personal laundry in afternoon.

SUNDAY ROUTINE - meditation, study, and recrea­tion. Make & Mend in afternoon.

Hazel looked it over. "Where are we headed, Rog? Botany Bay? You forgot to set a time to flog the peasants."

"It seems very reasonable to me."

"Possibly. Six gets you ten it won't last a week."

"Done. Let's see your money."

The twins had read it with dismay. Pollux blurted out, "But Dad! You haven't left us any time to repair our bikes - do you want us to lose our investment?"

"I've assigned thirty hours of study a week. That leaves one hundred and thirty-eight other hours. How you use them is your business as long as you keep our agreement about studying."

Castor said, "Suppose we want to start math at eight-thirty and again right after lunch? Can we get out of school that much earlier?"

"I see no objection."

"And suppose we study evenings sometimes? Can we work up some velvet?"

Their father shrugged. "Thirty hours a week - any reasonable variations in the routine will be okay, provided you enter in the log the exact times."

"Now that that's settled," Hazel commenced, "I regret to inforrn you, Captain, that there is one other little item on that Procrustean program that will have to be canceled for the time being at least. Much as I would enjoy inducing our little blos­som into the mysteries of astrogation I don't have the time right now. You'll have to teach her yourself."

"Why?"

"'Why" the man asks? You should know better than anyone. The Scourge ofthe Spaceways, that's why. I've got to hole up and write like mad for the next three or four weeks; I've got to get several months of episodes ahead before we get out of radio range."

Roger Stone looked at his mother sadly. "I knew it was bound to come, Hazel, but I didn't expect it to hit you so young. The mental processes dull, the mind tends to wander, the -"

"Whose mind does what? Why you young -"

"Take it easy. If you'll look over your left shoulder out the starboard port and squint your eyes, you might imagine that you see a glint on the War God. It can't be much over ten thousand miles away."

"What's that got to do with me?" she demanded suspiciously.

"Poor Hazel! We'll take good care of you, Mother, we're riding in orbit with several large commercial vessels; every one of them has burners powerful enough to punch through to Earth. We won't ever be out of radio contact with Earth."

Hazel stared out the port as if she could actually spot the War God. "Well, I'll be dogged," she breathed. "Roger, lead me to my room - that's a good boy. It's senile decay, all right You'd better take back your show; I doubt if I can write it."

"Huh, uh! You let them pick up that option; you've got to write it. Speaking of The Scum of the Waste Spaces, I've been meaning to ask you a couple of questions about it and this is the first spare moment we've had. In the first place, why did you let them sign us up again?"

"Because they waved too much money under my nose, as you know full well. It's an aroma we Stones have hardly ever been able to resist."

"I just wanted to make you admit it. You were going to get me off the hook - remember? So you swallowed it yourself."

"More bait."

"Surely. Now the other point: I don't see how you dared to go ahead with it, no matter how much money they offered. The last episode you showed me, while you had killed off the Galac­tic Overlord you had also left Our Hero in a decidedly untenable position. Sealed in a radioactive sphere, if I remember correctly, at the bottom of an ammonia ocean on Jupiter. The ocean was swarming with methane monsters, whatever they are, each hypnotised by the Overlord's mind ray to go after John Sterling at the first whiff - and him armed only with his Scout knife. How did you get him out of it?"

"We found a way," put in Pol. "If you assume -"

"Quiet infants. Nothing to it, Roger. By dint of superhuman effort Our Hero extricated himself from his predicament and-"

"That's no answer."

"You don't understand. I open the next episode on Gany­mede. John Sterling is telling Special Agent Dolores O'Shanahan about his adventure. He's making light of it, see? He's noble so he really wouldn't want to boast to a girl. Just as he is jokingly disparaging his masterly escape the next action starts and it's so fast and so violent and so bloody that our unseen audience doesn't have time to think about it until the commercial. And by then they've got too much else to think about."

Roger shook his head. "That's literary cheating."

"Who said this was literature? It's a way to help corporations take tax deductions. I've got three new sponsors."

"Hazel," asked Pollux, "where have you got them now? What's the situation?"

Hazel glanced at the chronometer. "Roger, does that schedule take effect today? Or can we start fresh tomorrow?"

He smiled feebly. "Tomorrow, I guess."

"If this is going to degenerate into a story conference, I'd better get Lowell. I get my best ideas from Lowell; he's just the mental age of my average audience."

"If I were Buster, I would resent that."

"Quiet!" She slithered to the hatch and called out, "Edith! May I borrow your wild animal for a while?"

Meade said, "I'll get him, Grandmother. But wait for me."

She returned quickly with the child. Lowell said, "What do you want, Grandma Hazel? Bounce tag?"

She gathered him in an arm. "No, son - blood. Blood and gore. We're going to kill off some villains."

"Swell!

"Now as I recall it - and mind you, I was only there once - I left them lost in the Dark Nebula. Their food is gone and so is the Q-fuel. They've made a temporary truce with their Arc­turian prisoners and set them free to help - which is safe enough because they are silicon-chemistry people and can't eat humans. Which is about what they are down to; the real question is - who gets barbecued for lunch? They need the help of the Arc­turian prisoners because the Space Entity they captured in the last episode and imprisoned in an empty fuel tank has eaten its way through all but the last bulkhead and itdoesn't have any silly previous prejudices about body chemistry. Carbon or sili­con; it's all one to it."

"I don't believe that's logical," commented Roger stone. "If its own chemistry was based-"

"Out of order," ruled Hazel. "Helpful suggestions only, please. Pol? You seem to have a gleam in your eye"

"This, Space Entity jigger can he stand up against radar wave lengths?"

"Now we're getting somewhere. But we've got to complicate it a bit Well, Meade?"

The twins started moving their bicycles outside the following day. The suits they wore were the same ones they had worn outdoors on the Moon, With the addition of magnetic boots and small rocket motors. These latter were strapped to their backs with the nozzles sticking straight out from their waists. An added pressure bottle to supply the personal rocket motor was mounted on the shoulders of each boy but, being weightless, the additional mass was little handicap.

"Now remember," their father warned them, "those boost units are strictly for dire emergency. Lifelines at all times. And don't depend on your boots when you shift lines, snap on the second line before you loose the first."

"Shucks, Dad, we'll be careful."

"No doubt. But you can expect me to make a surprise inspec­tion at any time. One slip on a safety precaution and it's the rack and thumb screws, plus fifty strokes of bastinado."

"No boiling oil?"

"Can't afford it. See here, you think I'm joking. If one of you should happen to get loose and drift away from the ship, don't expect me to come after you. One of you is a spare anyway."

"Which one?" asked Pollux. "Cas, maybe?"

"Sometimes I think it's one, sometimes the other. Strict com­pliance with ship's orders will keep me from having to decide at this time."

The cargo hatch had no airlock; the twins decompressed the entire hold, then opened the door, remembering just in time to snap on their lines as the door opened. They looked out and both hesitated. Despite their lifelong experience with vacuum suits on the face of the Moon this was the first time either one had ever been outside a ship in orbit.

The hatch framed endless cosmic night, blackness made colder and darker by the unwinking diamond stars many light-years away. They were on the night side of the Stone; there was nothing but stars and the swallowing depths. It was one thing to see it from the safety of Luna or through the strong quartz of a port; it was quite another to see it with nothing at all between one's frail body and the giddy, cold depths of eternity.

Pollux said, "Cas, I don't like this."

"There's nothing to be afraid of."

"Then why are my teeth chattering?"

"Go ahead; I'll keep a tension on your line."

"You are too good to me, dear brother - a darn sight too good! You go and I'll keep a tension on your line."

"Don't be silly! Get on out there."

"After you, Grandpa."

"Oh, well!" Castor grasped the frame of the hatch and swung himself out. He scrambled to click his magnetic boots to the side of the ship but the position was most awkward, the suit was cumbersome, and he had no. gravity to help him. Instead, he swung around and his momentum pulled his fingers loose from the smooth frame. His floundering motions bumped the side of the ship and pushed him gently away. He floated out, still floundering, until his line checked him three or four feet from the side. "Pull me in!"

"Put your feet down, clumsy!"

"I can't. Pull me in, you red-headed moron!"

"Don't call me "red-headed"." Pollux let out a couple of feet more line.

"Pol, quit fooling. I don't like this."

"I thought you were brave. Grandpa?"

Castor's reply was incoherent. Pollux decided that it had gone far enough; he pulled Castor in and, while holding firmly to a hatch dog himself, he grabbed one of Castor's boots and set it firmly against the side; it clicked into place. "Snap on your other line," he ordered.

Castor, still breathing heavily, looked for a padeye in the side of the ship. He found one nearby and walked over to it, picking up his feet as if he walked in sticky mud. He snapped his second line to the ring of the padeye and straightened up. "Catch," Pollux called out and sent his own second line snaking out to his twin

Castor caught it and fastened it beside his own. "All set?" asked Pollux. "I'm going to unsnap us in here."

"All secure." Castor moved closer to the hatch.

"Here I come."

"So you do." Castor gave Pollux's line a tug; Pollux came sailing out of the hatch - and Castor let him keep on sailing. Castor checked the line gently through his fingers, soaking up the momentum, so that Pollux reached the end of the fifty-foot line and stayed there without bouncing back.

Pollux had been quite busy on the way out but to no effect -sawing vacuum is futile. When he felt himself snubbed to a stop he quit straggling. "Pull me back!"

"Say "uncle"."

Pollux said several other things, some of which he had picked up dockside on Luna, plus some more colorful expressions derived from his grandmother. "You had better get off this ship," he concluded, "because I'm coming down this line and take your helmet off." He made a swipe for the line with one hand; Castor flipped it away.

"Say "even-Steven" then."

Pollux had the line now, having remembered to reach for his belt where it was hooked instead of grabbing for the bight." Suddenly he grinned. "Okay - "even-Steven"."

"Even-Steven it is. Hold still; I'll bring you in." He towed him in gently, grabbing Pol's feet and clicking them down as he approached. "You looked mighty silly out there," he commented when Pollux was firm to the ship's side.

His twin invoked their ritual. "Even-Steven!"

"My apologies, Junior. Let's get to work."

Padeyes were spaced about twenty feet apart all over the skin of the ship. They had been intended for convenience in rigging during overhauls and to facilitate outside inspections while underway; the twins now used them to park bicycles. They removed the bicycles from the hold half a dozen at a time, strung on a wire loop like a catch of fish. They fastened each clutch of bikes to a padeye; the machines floated loosely out from the side like boats tied up to an ocean ship.

Stringing the clusters of bicycles shortly took them over the 'horizon' to the day side of the ship. Pollux was in front carry­ing six bicycles in his left hand. He stopped suddenly. "Hey, Grandpa! Get a load of this!"

"Don't look at the Sun," Castor said sharply.

"Don't be silly. But come see this."

Earth and Moon swam in the middle distance in slender crescent phase. The Stone was slowly dropping behind Earth in her orbit, even more slowly drifting outward away from the Sun. For many weeks yet Earth would appear as a ball, a disc, before distance cut her down to a brilliant star. Now she appeared about as large as she had from Luna but she was attended by Luna herself. Her day side was green and dun and lavished with cottony clouds; her night side showed the jewels of cities.

But the boys were paying no attention to the Earth; they were looking at the Moon. Pollux sighed. "Isn't she beautiful?"

"What's the matter, Junior? Homesick?"

"No. But she's beautiful, just the same. Look, Cas, whatever ships we ever own, let's always register them out of Luna City. Home base."

"Suits. Can you make out the burg?"

"I think so."

"Probably just a spot on your helmet. I can't. Let's get back to work."

They had used all the padeyes conveniently close to the hatch and were working aft when Pollux said, "Wups I Take it easy. Dad said not to go aft of frame 65."

"Shucks, it must be "cool" back to 90, at least. We've used the jet less than five minutes."

"Don't be too sure; neutrons are slippery customers. And you know what a stickler Dad is, anyway."

"He certainly is," said a third voice.

They did not jump out of their boots because they were zipped tight. Instead they turned around and saw their father standing, hands on hips, near the passenger airlock. Pollux gulped and said, "Howdy, Dad."

"You sure gave us a start," Castor added sheepishly.

"Sorry. But don't let me disturb you; I just came out to enjoy the view." He looked over their work. "You've certainly got my ship looking like a junkyard."

"Well, we had to have room to work. Anyhow, who's to see?"

"In this location you have the Almighty staring down the back of your neck. But I don't suppose He'll mind."

"Say, Dad, Pol and I sort of guessed that you wouldn't want us to do any welding inside the hold?"

"You sort of guessed correctly - not after what happened in the Kong Christian."

" So we figured we could jury-rig a rack for welding out here. Okay?"

"Okay. But it's too nice a day to talk business." He raised his open hands to the stars and looked out. "Swell place. Lots of elbow room. Good scenery."

"That's the truth; But come around to the Sun side if you want to see something."

"Right. Here, help me shift my lines." They walked around the hull and into the sunlight. Captain Stone, Earth born, looked first at the mother planet. "Looks like a big storm is working up around the Philippines."

Neither of the twins answered; weather was largely a mystery to them, nor did they approve of weather. Presently he turned to them and said softly, "I'm glad we came, boys. Are you?"

"Oh, you bet!"

"Sure!" They had forgotten how cold and unfriendly the black depths around them had seemed only a short time before. Now it was an enormous room, furnished in splendor, though not yet fully inhabited. It was their own room, to live in, to do with as they liked.

They stood there for quite a long time, enjoying it At last Captain Stone said, "I've had all the sun I can stand for a while. Let's work around back into the shade." He shook his head to dislodge a drop of sweat from his nose.

"We ought to get back to work anyhow."

"I'll help you; we'll get done faster."

The Rolling Stone swung on and outward toward Mars; her crew fell into routine habits. Dr. Stone was handy at weightless cooking, unusually skilful, in fact, from techniques she had picked up during a year's internship in the free-fall research clinic in Earth's station. Meade was not so skilled but very little can be done to ruin breakfast. Her father supervised her hydro­ponics duties, supplementing thereby the course she had had in Luna City High School. Dr. Stone split the care of her least child with his grandmother and used her leisure placidly collating some years of notes for a paper 'On the Cumulative Effects of Marginal Hypoxia."

The twins discovered that mathematics could be even more interesting than they had thought and much more difficult - it required even more 'savvy' than they thought they had (already a generous estimate) and they were forced to stretch their brains. Their father caught up on the back issues of The Reactomotive World and studied his ship's manual but still had plenty of time to coach them and quiz them. Pollux, he discovered, was deficient in the ability to visualise a curve on glancing at ,an equation.

"I don't understand it," he said. "You got good marks in ana­lytical geometry."

Pollux turned red. "What's biting you?" his father demanded.

"Well, Dad, you see it's this way -"

"Go on."

"Well, I didn't exactly get good marks in analyt."

Eh? What is this? You both got top marks; I remember clearly."

"Well, now, you see - Well, we were awfully busy that semester and, well, it seemed logical... " His voice trailed off.

"Out with it! Out with it!"

"Cas took both courses in analyt." Pollux blurted out, "and I took both courses in history. But I did read the book."

"Oh, my!" Roger Stone sighed. "I suppose it's covered by the statute of limitations by this time. Anyhow, you are finding out the hard way that such offences carry their own punishments. When you need it, you don't know it worth a hoot."

"Yessir."

"But an extra hour a day for you, just the same - until you can visualise instantly from the equation a four-coordinate hyper­-surface in a non-Euclidean continuum - standing on your head in a cold shower."

"Yessir."

"Cas, what course did you fudge? Did you read the book?"

"Yes, sir. It was medieval European history, sir."

"Hmm... You're equally culpable, but I'm not too much concerned with any course that does not require a slide rule and tables. You coach your brother."

"Aye aye, sir."

"If you are pinched for time, I'll give you a hand with those broken-down bicycles, though I shouldn't."

The twins pitched into it, hard. At the end of two weeks Roger Stone announced himself satisfied with Pollux's profi­ciency in analytical geometry. They moved on to more rarefied heights... the complex logics of matrix algebra, frozen in beautiful arrays... the tensor calculus that unlocks the atom... the wild and wonderful field equations that make Man king of the universe... the crashing, mind-splitting intuition of Forsyte's Solution that had opened the 21st century and sent mankind another mighty step toward the stars. By the time Mars shone larger in the sky than Earth they had gone beyond the point where their father could reach them; they ploughed on together.

They usually studied together, out of the same book, floating head to head in their bunkroom, one set of feet pointed to celestial south, the other pair to the north. The twins had early gotten into the habit of reading the same book at the same time; as a result either of them could read upside down as easily as in the conventional attitude. While so engaged Pollux said to his brother, "You know, Grandpa, some of this stuff makes me think we ought to go into research rather than business. After all, money isn't everything."

"No," agreed Castor, "there are also stocks, bonds, and patent rights, not to mention real estate and chattels."

"I'm serious.

"We'll do both. I've finished this page; flip the switch when you're ready."

The War God, riding in a slightly different orbit, had been gradually closing on them until she could be seen as a 'star' by naked eye - a variable star that winked out and flared up every sixteen seconds. Through the Stone's coelostat the cause could easily be seen; the War God was tumbling end over end, per­forming one full revolution every thirty-two seconds to provide centrifugal 'artificial gravity' to coddle the tender stomachs of her groundhog passengers. Each half revolution the Sun's rays struck her polished skin at the proper angle to flash a dazzling gleam at the Stone. Through the 'scope the reflection was bright enough to hurt the eyes.

The observation turned out to be both ways. A radio message came in; Hazel printed it and handed it with a straight face to her son: "WAR GOD TO ROLLING STONE - PVT - ROG OLD BOY, I HAVE YOU IN THE SCOPE. WHAT IN SPACE HAVE YOU GOT ON YOU? FUNGUS? OR SEA WEEDS? YOU LOOK LIKE A CHRISI'MAS TREE. P. VANDENBERGH, MASTER."

Captain Stone glared at the message stat. "Why, that fat Dutchman'! I'll "fungus" him. Here, Mother, send this: "Mas­ter to Master - private message: In that drunken tumbling pigeon how do you keep your eye to a scope? Do you enjoy playing nursemaid to a litter of groundhogs? No doubt the dowagers fight over a chance to eat at the captain's table. Fun, I'll bet. R. Stone, Master"."

The answer came back: "ROGER DODGER YOU OLD CODGER, I'VE LIMITED MY TABLE TO FEMALE PASSENGERS CIRCA AGE TWENTY SO I CAN KEEP AN EYE ON THEM - PREFERENCE GIVEN TO BLONDES AROUND FIFTY KILOS MASS. COME OVER FOR DIN­NER. VAN."

Pollux looked out the port, caught the glint on the War God. "Why don't you take him up, Dad? I'll bet I could make it across on my suit jet with one spare oxy bottle."

"Don't be silly. We haven't that much safety line, even at closest approach. Hazel, tell him: "Thanks a million but I've got the prettiest little girl in the system cooking for me right now.""

Meade said, "Me, Daddy? I thought you didn't like my cooking?"

"Don't give yourself airs, snub nose. I mean your mother, of course."

Meade considered this. "But I look like her, don't I?"

"Some. Send it, Hazel."

"RIGHT YOU ARE! MY RESPECTS TO EDITH. "TRUTHFULLY, WHAT IS THAT STUFF? SHALL I SEND OVER WEEDKILLER, OR BARNACLE REMOVER? OR COULD WE BEAT IT TO DEATH WITH A STICK?"

"Why not tell him, Dad?" Castor inquired

"Very well, I will, send: "Bicycles: want to buy one?""

To their surprise Captain Vandenbergh answered:

"MAYBE. GOT A RALEIGH "SANDMAN"?"

"Tell him, "Yes!"

"Pollux put in. "A-number-one condition and brand-new tires. A bargain."

"Slow up there," his father interrupted. "I've seen your load. If you've got a bike in first-class condition, Raleigh or any other make, you've got it well hidden."

"Aw, Dad, it will be - by the time we deliver."

"What do you suppose he wants a bicycle for, dear?" Dr. Stone asked. "Prospecting? Surely not."

"Probably just sightseeing. All right, Hazel, you can send it - but mind you, boys, I'll inspect that vehicle-myself; Van trusts me."

Hazel pushed herself away from the rig. "Let the boys tell their own whoppers. I'm getting bored with this chit-chat."

Castor took over at the key, started to dicker. The passenger skipper, it developed, really was willing to buy a bicycle. After a leisurely while they settled on a price well under Castor's asking price, attractively under the usual prices on Mars, but profitably over what the boys had paid on Luna - this for delivery F.O.B. Phobos, circum Mars.

Roger Stone exchanged affectionate insults and gossip with his friend from time to time over the next several days. During the following week the War God came within phone range, but the conversations dropped off and stopped; they had exhausted topics of conversation. The War God had made her closest approach and was pulling away again; they did not hear from her for more than three weeks.

The call was taken by Meade. She hurried aft to the hold where her father was helping the twins spray enamel on recon­ditioned bicycles. "Daddy, you're wanted on the phone? War God, master to master - official."

"Coming." He hurried forward and took the call. "Rolling Stone, Captain Stone speaking."

"War God, commanding officer speaking. Captain, can you -

"Just a moment. This does not sound like Captain Vanden­bergh."

"It isn't. This is Rowley, Second Officer. I -"

"I understand that your captain wanted me, officially. Let me speak with him."

"I'm trying to explain, Captain." The officer sounded strained and irritable. "I am the commanding officer. Both Captain Van­denbergh and Mr. O'Flynn are on the binnacle list."

"Eh? Sorry. Nothing serious, I hope?"

"I'm afraid it is, sir. Thirty-seven cases on the sick list this morning - and four deaths."

"Great Scott, man! What is it?"

"I don't know, sir."

"Well, what does your medical officer say it is?"

"That's it, sir. The Surgeon died during the midwatch."

"Oh-"

"Captain, can you possibly match with us? Do you have enough maneuvering margin?"

"What? Why?"

"You have a medical officer aboard. Haven't you?"

"Huh? But she's my wife!" -

"She's an M.D., is she not?"

Roger Stone remained silent for a long moment. Then he said, "I'll call you back shortly, sir."

It was a top level conference, limited to Captain Stone, Dr. Stone, and Hazel. First, Dr. Stone insisted on calling the War God and getting a full report on symptoms and progress of the disease. When she switched off her husband said, "Well, Edith, what is it?"

"I don't know. I'll have to see it."

"Now, see here, I'm not going to have you risking -"

"I'm a doctor, Roger."

"You're not in practice, not now. And you are the mother of a family. It's quite out of the ques -"

"I am a doctor, Roger."

He sighed heavily. "Yes, dear."

"The only thing to be determined is whether or not you can match in with the War God. Have you two reached an answer?"

"We'll start computing."

"I'm going aft and check over my supplies." She frowned. "1 didn't expect to have to cope with an epidemic."

When she was gone Roger turned his face, twisted with indecision, to Hazel. "What do you think, Mother?"

"Son, you don't stand a chance. She takes her oath seriously. You've known that a long time."

"I haven't taken the Hippocratic oath! If I won't move the ship, there's nothing she can do about it."

"You're not a doctor, true. But you're a master in space. I guess the "succour & rescue" rule might apply."

"The devil with rules! This is Edith."

" Well," Hazel said slowly, "I guess I might stack the Stone family up against the welfare of the entire human race in a pinch, myself. But I can't decide it for you."

"I won't let her do it! It's not me. There's Buster - he's no more than a baby still; he needs his mother."

"Yes, he does."

"That settles it. I'm going aft and tell her."

"Wait a minute! If that's your decision, Captain, you won't mind me saying that's the wrong way to do it."

"Eh?"

"The only way you'll get it past your wife is to get on that computer and come out with the answer you're looking for... an answer that says it's physically impossible for us to match with them and still reach Mars."

"Oh. You're right. Look, will you help me fake it?"

"I suppose so."

"Then let's get busy."

"As you say, sir. You know, Roger, if the War God comes in with an unidentified and uncontrolled disease aboard, they'll never let her make port at Mars. They'll swing her in a parking orbit, fuel her up again, and send her back at next optimum."

"What of it? It's nothing to me if fat tourists and a bunch of immigrants are disappointed."

"Check. But I was thinking of something else. With Van and the first officer sick, maybe about to check in, if the second officer comes down with it, too, the War God might not even get as far as a parking orbit."

Roger Stone did not have to have the thought elaborated; a ship approaching a planet, unless manoeuvred at the last by a skilled pilot, can do one of only two things - crash, or swing on past and out endlessly into empty space to take up a comet-­like orbit which arrives nowhere ever.

He covered his face with his hands. "What do I do, Mother?"

"You are captain, son."

He sighed. "I suppose I knew it all along."

"Yes, but you had to struggle with it first." She kissed him. "Orders, son?"

"Let's get to it. It's a good thing we didn't waste any margin in departure."

"That it is."

When Hazel told the others the news Castor asked, "Does Dad want us to compute a ballistic?"

"No."

"A good thing - for we've got to get those bikes inboard, fast! Come on, Pol. Meade, how about suiting up and giving us a hand? Unless Mother needs you?"

"She does," answered Hazel, "to take care of Lowell and keep him out of the way. But you won't be bringing the bikes inboard."

"What? You can't balance the ship for maneuvers with them where they are. Besides, the first blast would probably snap the wires and change your mass factor."

"Cas, where are your brains? Can't you see the situation? We jettison."

"Huh? We throw away our bikes? After dragging almost to Mars?"

"Your bikes, all our books, and everything else we can do without. The rough run-through on the computer made that clear as quartz; it's the only way we can do this maneuver and still be sure of having a safe margin for homing in. Your father is checking over the weight schedule right now."

"But -, Castor's face suddenly relaxed and became impassive. "Aye aye, ma'am."

The twins were suiting up but had not yet gone outside when Pollux was struck by a notion. "Cas? We cut the bikes loose; then what happens?"

"We charge it off to experience - and try to recover from Four-Planets Transit. They won't pay up, of course."

"Use your skull. Where do the bikes end up?"

"Huh? Why, at Mars!"

" Right. Or pretty near. In the orbit we're in now, they swing in mighty close and then head down Sunside again. Suppose, on closest approach, we are standing there waiting to snag 'em?"

"Not a chance. It will take us just as long to get to Mars - and in a different orbit, same as the War God's?

" Yes, but just supposing. You know, I wish I had a spare radar beacon to hang on them. Then if we could reach them, we'd know where they were."

"Well, we haven't got one. Say! Where did you put that used reflecting foil?"

"Huh? Oh, I see. Grandpa, sometimes your senile decay is not quite so noticeable." The Stone had started out, of course, covered on one side of her living quarters by mirror-bright aluminium foil. As she drifted farther and farther from the Sun, reflecting the Sun's heat had grown less necessary, absorbing it more desirable. To reduce the load on the ship's heating and cooling system, square yards of it were peeled up and taken inside to store from week to week.

"Let's ask Dad."

Hazel stopped them at the hatch to the control room. "He's at the computer. What's the complaint?"

"Hazel, the reflecting foil we've been salvaging - is it on the jettison list?"

"Certainly. We'll pick up some more on Mars for the trip back. Why?"

"A radar corner - that's why!" They explained the plan. She nodded. "A long chance, but it makes sense. See here, wire everything we jettison to the bikes. We might get it all back."

"Sure thing!" The twins got busy. While Pollux gathered to­gether the bunches of bicycles, all but a few in good repair and brave with new paint. Castor constructed a curious geometrical toy. With 8-gauge wire, aluminium foil, and sticky tape he made a giant square of foil, edged and held flat with wire. This he bisected at right angles with a second square. The two squares he again bisected at the remaining possible right angle with a third square. The result was eight shiny right-angled corners facing among them in all possible directions - a radar reflector. Each corner would bounce radar waves directly back to source, a principle easily illustrated with a rubber ball and any room or box corner. The final result was to step up the effectiveness or radar from an inverse fourth-power law to an inverse square law - in theory, at least. In practice it would be somewhat less than perfectly efficient but the radar response of the assembly would be increased enormously. A mass so tagged would stand out on a radar screen like a candle in a cave.

This flimsy giant kite Castor anchored to the ball of bicycles and other jetsam with an odd bit of string. No stronger link was necessary; out here no vagrant wind would blow it away, no one would cut it loose. "Pol," he said, "go bang on the port and tell 'em we're ready."

Pollux walked forward and did so, rapping on the quartz first to attract his grandmother's attention, then tapping code to report. While he was gone Castor attached a piece of paper reading:

NOT FOR SALVAGE

This cargo is in free transit by intention. The undersigned owner intends to recover it and warns all parties not to claim it as abandoned. U.P. Rev. Stat. # 193401

Roger Stone, Master

P.Y. Rolling Stone, Luna

When Pollux came back he said, "Hazel says go ahead but take it easy."

"Of course." Castor untwisted the single wire that held the ungainly mass to the ship, then stood back and watched it. It did not move. He reached out and gave it the gentlest shove with his little finger, then continued watching. Slowly, slowly it separated from the ship. He wished to disturb its orbit as little as possible, to make it easy to find. The petty vector he had placed on it - an inch a minute was his guess - would act for all the days from there to Mars; he wanted the final sum to remain small.

Pollux twisted around and picked out the winking gleam of the War God. "Will the jet be clear of it when we swing ship?" he asked anxiously.

"Quit worrying. I already figured that."

The maneuver to he performed was of the simplest - point to point in space in a region which could be treated as free of gravity strain since the two ships were practically the same distance from the Sun and Mars was too far away to matter. There were four simple steps: cancellation of the slight vector difference between the two ships (the relative speed with which the War God was puffing away), acceleration toward the War God, transit of the space between them, deceleration to match orbits and lie dead in space relative to each other on arrival.

Steps one and two would be combined by vector addition; step three was simply waiting time. The operation would be two maneuvers, two blasts on the jet.

But step three, the time it would take to reach the War God, could be enormously cut down by lavish use of reactive mass. Had time been no object they could have, as Hazel put it, closed the gap 'by throwing rocks off the stern." There was an infinite number of choices, each requiring different amounts of reactive mass. One choice would have saved the bicycles and their per­sonal possessions - but it would have stretched the transit time out to over two weeks.

This was a doctor's emergency call - Roger Stone elected to jettison.

But he did not tell the twins this and he did not require them to work a ballistic. He did not care to let them know of the choice between sacrificing their capital or letting strangers wait for medical attention. After all, he reflected, the twins were pretty young.

Eleven hours from blast time the Stone hung in space close by the War God. The ships were still plunging toward Mars at some sixteen miles per second; relative to each other they were stationary - except that the liner continued her stately rotation, end over end. Dr. Stone, her small figure encumbered not only with space suit, pressure bottles, radio, suit jet, and life lines, but also with a Santa Claus pack of surgical supplies, stood with her husband on the side of the Stone nearest the liner. Not knowing exactly what she might need she had taken all that she believed could be spared from the stock of their own craft -drugs, antibiotics, instruments, supplies.

The others had been kissed good-by inside and told to stay there. Lowell had cried and tried to keep his mother from enter­ing the lock. He had not been told what was going on, but the emotions of the others were contagious.

Roger Stone was saying anxiously, "Now see here, the minute you have this under control, back you come - you hear?"

She shook her head. "I'll see you on Mars, dearest."

"No indeed! You -"

"No, Roger. I might act as a carrier. We can't risk it."

"You might act as a carrier corning back to us on Mars, too. Don't you ever expect to come back?"

She ignored the rhetorical question. "On Mars there will be hospitals. But I can't risk a family epidemic in space."

"Edith I've a good mind to refuse to-"

"They're ready for me, dear. See?"

Over their heads, two hundred yards away, a passenger lock on the rotation axis of the mighty ship had opened; two small figures spilled silently out, flipped neatly to boot contact, stood on the ship's side, their heads pointing 'down' at Mr. and Mrs Stone. Roger Stone called into his microphone, "War God!"

"WarGod aye aye!"

" Are you ready?"

"Whenever you are."

"Stand by for transfer."

Acting Captain Rowley had proposed sending a man over to conduct Dr. Stone across the gap. She had refused, not wishing to have anyone from the infected ship in contact with the Rolling Stone. Now she said, "Are my lines free for running, Roger?"

"Yes, dearest." He had bent several lines together, one end to her waist, the other to a padeye.

"Will you do my boots, dear?"

He kneeled and unzipped her magnetic boots without speak­ing, his voice having become uncertain. He straightened and she put her arms around him. They embraced awkwardly, hampered by the suits, hampered by the extra back pack she carried. "Adios, my darling," she said softly. "Take care of the children."

"Edith! Take care of yourself!"

"Yes, dear. Steady me now."

He slipped his hands to her hips; she stepped out of the boots, was now held against the ship only by his hands.

"Ready! One! Two!" They crouched down together. "Three!" She jumped straight away from the ship, her lines snaking after her. For long, long seconds she sailed straight out over his head, closing the gap between her and the liner. Presently it became evident that she had not leapt quite straight; her husband got ready to haul her back in.

But the reception committee was ready for the exigency. One of them was swinging a weighted line around his head; he let the end of it swing farther and farther out. As she started to move past the side of the War God he swung it against her safety line; the weighted end wrapped itself around her line. Back at the Rolling Stone Roger Stone snubbed her line and stopped her; the man on the liner gently pulled her in.

The second man caught her and snapped a hook to her belt, then unfastened the long line from the Stone. Before she entered the lock she waved, and the door closed.

Roger Stone looked at the closed door for a moment, then pulled in the line. He let his eyes drop to the pair of little boots left standing empty beside him. He pulled them loose, held them to him, and plodded back to his own airlock.