Rocket to Limbo - Alan E. Nourse, ebook, Temp
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//-->ROCKET TO LIMBOby ALAN E. NOURSEWOLF IV-THE PLANET FROM WHICH NO SHIP EVER RETURNED!Lars Heldrigsson was fresh out of the Colonial Service Academy and his firstassignment was a milk-run to Vega aboard theGanymede.Not a very exciting trip, exceptthat the ship's commander, Walter Fox, had explored and opened up more newcolony-worlds than any other man alive!But theGanymedehad hardly blasted off before Lars dicovered that not all the crewshared his admiration of their chief. Rumors circulated to the effect that Fox still believedthere were other intelligent beings in the galaxy; that they weren't going to Vega at all, but toWolf IV, the one planet from which no man had ever returned alive . . .Then the ship made landfall and Lars' first look out the viewport told him the rumors hadbeen rightl But it was the commander's announcement that clinched it. "We've landed onWolf IV," Fox said grimly, "and we're going to huntaliens!You men work with me - or you'llnever see Earth againl"Turn this book over for second complete novelQuotes from the reviews:"This is no ordinary star-jump: author Nourse had conceived a ^really'Credible plot withthree dimensional characters motivated by plausible reasoning. Furthermore, he has analmost uncanny ability to visualize the strange sensations and settings of the world of thefuture."- Virginia Kirkus"There is something haunting about rocket to limbo . .. The author suggests that if manhas faith, he can literally rearrange his environment to suit himself."-English Journal"The pace is good, suspense well sustained, and the conclusion satisfyingly surprising."-Best Setters"Better than most."- SanFrancisco ChronicleROCKET TOLIMBOby ALAN E. NOURSEACE BOOKS, INC. 23 West 47th Street, New York 36, N. Y.ROCKET TO LIMBOCopyright ©, 1957, by Alan E. NourseAn Ace Book, by arrangement with David McKay Co., Inc. All Rights- ReservedTo J. McP. H. who will write his own some dayPROLOGUEad astba, the words on the bronze plaque read.The heavy metal sheet was bright and new, gleaming red-brown in the afternoonsunlight. Great bolts of brass buckled it to the base of the launching rack, a slab of graygranite cut in a single piece from the living rock of the mountains high above the rocket port.Reaching up from the rack, the Star Ship stood like a silvery needle, poised, graceful, eagerto break away from the bonds of Earth-pointing upward toward the stars it sought.To the stars.The ship was namedArgonautin memory of that legendary ship and its crew that hadplunged into unknown waters so many centuries before. She had been built with tirelesscare and devotion; years had been spent outfitting her for the brave journey she was nowdaring to make. The finest engineers on Earth had designed her to carry the growth tanksand fuel blocks, the oxygen and reprocessing equipment, the libraries and informationbanks that her crew would require during the long voyage. Her massive engines had •beentested and retested to tolerances never before achieved on Earth.They had to be, for these engines must not fail.The ship's name was carved on the bronze plaque, and the names of the men andwomen of her crew. Below this the dates were written:Launched: March 3, 2008 Returned:There was no way of knowing when she would return, if she ever did return. There hadnever been a ship like the6 ROCKET TO LIMBOArgonautbefore. This was no clumsy orbit-craft to carry colonists and miners to theoutpost stations on Mars and Venus. TheArgonaut wasa Star Ship, designed for onepurpose-to carry her crew across the black gulf of space between the stars. Her destinationwas Alpha Centauri; her voyage might take centuries to complete.None of the crew who launched her would live to make landfall at her destination-theyknew that. But their children, or perhaps their children's children might survive to send theship blasting homeward again.TheArgonautwas bound on the Long Passage.Up on the scaffolding surrounding the ship, lights were shining, men were movingquickly up and down as last-minute preparations were completed. The gantry crane crept upand down, up and down, loading aboard the final crates of supplies. For weeks the giantnuclear engines had been warming, preparing for the sudden demand of power to thrust theship away from Earth's gravity. A chronometer clicked off the dwindling minutes. Graduallythe scaffolding cleared of men; the crane at last came down and stayed, its lights blinkingout.High up on the hull a pressure door swung slowly shut, sealing the silvery skin of thegreat ship.Around it, well beyond the range of blast gases, crowds of people stood waiting silently,thinking in their hearts what they could not put into words. Across the land eyes were turnedupward, hoping to catch at least a glimpse of the ship as she streaked up through the quietsky. Others saw it on silvery screens, or listened to the excited voice of the 3-V announcer.One thing was certain-the eyes of Earth were on theArgonaut,a crowded, war-weary,overpopulated, hungry Earth. The people knew the hope that lay behind the voyage: that theArgonautwould find a place where Earthmen could settle, could build homes and colonies,and so relieve the terrific press of people on their own crowded planet.ROCKET TO LIMBO 7But there was another reason too for the voyage. The stars were a challenge that Manhad to answer sometime. The time had come at last.A young woman of twenty stood in the crowd, watching the ship with sad eyes. Herhusband placed his arm around her shoulder and drew her closer to him."How are you doing?" he asked.She shivered. "I'm scared.""So am I. Everyone's scared, in a way. It means so much, and it's so frightening and yetso wonderful, too-you know?"She nodded and clung closer. Her father was the first officer of theArgonaut.She knewshe would never see him again, and she knew that he would never set foot on land again.The trip would take too long. His life was the ship now, and the ship was his life andresponsibility, the ship and the children who would be born aboard it."John, I wish we could go along."• He patted her shoulder. "I know. I do too. But our work Is here.""A hundred years, maybe two hundred! How can they hope to make it?"He watched the last of the ground-crew scurrying down the ramps, heard the expectanthush falling over the crowd. "I don't know, but they'll make it," he said firmly. "They wiH."There was a restless stirring as the seconds passed. Then, like thunder gathering in thedistance, rising louder and-founder, the roar began. White flame blossomed from the jet ofthe ship, billowed out in a searing mushroom against the fallout dampers, as the roarechoed and re-echoed down the valley. Slowly, as if lifted gently on the magic fire the shiprose; slowly, then faster, higher and higher. The mushroom became a tongue of fire as theroar rose to a scream and the ship drove heavenward. The eyes of Earth followed the8 ROCKET TO LIMBOgreat finger of light into the sky, not daring to breathe, waiting, waiting-And then the ship was gone. A sigh rippled through the crowds of people, and theyturned their faces away from the sky. Slowly the crowd began to melt away, leaving thegranite pedestal with the bronze plaque sitting in the gathering dusk, waiting to receive theship when she returned. When? No one knew. No one there would live to see it.The Long Passage had begun.The young woman clenched her husband's hand, and without a word they turned away.She felt her child move within her, and she smiled.He will be proud of his grandfather, she thought, if he's a he.She did not know that the great-grandson of this unborn son of hers would be the manwho would give mankind a Short Passage to the stars.Silently, John and Mary Koenig turned and left the field as darkness gathered.Chapter OneSTAR SHIP GANYMEDEad astha, the words on the bronze plaque read.The block of granite that held the plaque was darkened with age; the bronze itself wasgreen, the words obscure and hard to'make out. Lars Heldrigsson shifted his Spacer's packdown from his broad shoulder and bent over, squinting, to make out the letters.Launched: March 3, 2008 Returned:ROCKET TO LIMBO 9There was no date on the second line. Slowly the young man ran his eyes down thenames of the crewmen and felt the old familiar prickle of wonder and excitement starting atthe base of his spine. They must have been brave ones, those people, he thought. Trying tomake a Star-jump with ordinary unassisted thrust engines! It seemed incredible, and yetthey had done it. Where were they now? Dead long since, of course, but what about theirgrandchildren and great-grandchildren? Lars tried to imagine being born and raised in aStar Ship, depending upon tapes and films for knowledge of Earth and Earthmen leftbehind, never knowing the crunch of gravel under the feet, or the warm flush of a summerbreeze on the cheek. Had they finally reached a landfall, ever, anywhere?Certainly they had never returned to Earth. After three hundred and fifty years the granitelaunching rack still stood empty. The rocket port had grown up around it, engulfing it .as theyears passed, until it stood in the great central lobby of the busy Terminal, a silent monumentto the desperation and bravery of the ship that was launched there. " Nor had theArgonautever reached the planets of Alpha Centauri, its intended destination, for modernKoenig-drive ships had searched those planets long and diligently and found no trace, nosign that Man had ever come there. All tile near stars had been reached and explored bynow-Altair and Vega, Alpha Centauri and Sirius and Arcturus and the rtst-and nowhere hada sign been found. TheArgonauthad become a legend, a brave gesture of the past, but diethought of that hopeless voyage never failed to stir Lars Heldrigsson, to make him eager tobe off, impatient with the years of study that had been necessary to qualify him for theColonial Service Patrol. It was a legend of greatness, and there was still a challenge in thestars that time and a changing world 4sould never destroy.Pf this Lars Heldrigsson was very sure.10 ROCKET TO LIMBOHe shouldered his pack again, a tiny fifty-pound bundle, the weight limit allowedcrewmen on Colonial Service ships, and walked quickly up the long ramp into the mainTerminal Concourse. He was large for his eighteen years, standing a full six feet two, broadshouldered, powerful. His height and weight had been something of an issue when he hadentered the Colonial Service Academy five years before; since then he had gained anothertwo inches, and barely passed the physical examination before graduation, not because ofany sign of ill health but because of sheer size. His shock of yellow-white hair, his blue eyesand the flat, heavy features of his face revealed clearly his Nordic ancestry. He seemed tomove slowly and ponderously. Throughout his Me he had had to contend with smaller, fasterones who made the unfortunate mistake of assuming that Lars Heldrigsson couldn't movefast when he wanted to-to their enduring regret.Now he stepped briskly out into the Concourse, felt himself picked up and carried by thestreams of travelers, crewmen, colonists and Security men riding the rolling strips to andfrom the launching racks and loading platforms. Everywhere there was feverish activity andbustle. Across the way he saw lines of colonists waiting for their final physicals and baggagechecks before boarding the Star Ships that would carry them out to new homes, rugged-homes, perhaps, a far cry from the crowded mechanization of the cities of Earth, but homeswhere they could have land and food and a place to raise their children, homes linked toEarth by the strong bonds of Colonial Service ships that traveled to the stars and back inmonths.And down the Concourse were the flashing lights of the shuttles leading out to the shipsthemselves.Star Ship Tethys,now loading colonists and supplies for the fourth planet of Sirius, anold Colony, well established, rich in land, rich in Earth-mutated wheat, a sub-tropicalparadise with room for many thousands of families to settle andROCKET TO LIMBO 11grow, almost self-supporting now and soon to apply for in-' dependent elections andrepresentation in the Colonial Council.Star Ship Danton,taking men and machinery to the newly opened colony on AldebaranIII, a bitter place until Earth weather technicians and Earth civil engineers had carved afoothold for hungry Earthmen to find homes. A weatherbeaten fisherman made his way ontothe shuttle, with a gold ring in his ear and a tiny Arcturian monkey-bear on his shoulder,tossing three sparkling tele-dice in the air before him to amuse his pet and laughing as thecreature batted at them with a tawny paw. There were great seas and many fish onAldebaran III.Star Ship Mercedes,exploratory to the far system of Morua, a double star with endlesssummer on its seventh planet, a good prospect for a new colony in ten more years, after theexploratory crews and the survey crews and the engineering jerews and the pilot colonieshad done their work in opening it; a new escape valve for Earthmen who no longer had roomenough at home.Star Ship Ganymede-'<:Lars felt his heart pounding as he stepped across to the rolling strip bearing thegreen and white cross of theGany-mede.His ship! The assignment he had dreamed ofsince his first day in the Academy-to ship aboard theGanymedewith Walter Fox, the manwho had opened more planets colonization than any man since the first Koenig-drive shiphad left Earth; the man whose seal of approval on a planet was fc virtual guarantee of asuccessful and healthy colony. This *fip on theGanymedewould be no exploratory voyage,to be Jure- a full week now before blastoff to bunk down the new members of the crew andget the OfBcers-in-Training settled |a their duties; then a milk-run to Vega III to run a finalftheck on a colony about to be opened to free colonization- felt it would be a good trip togive an Officer-in-Training his12 ROCKET TO LIMBOspace legs. There would be exploratories later, to unvisited stars, to unknown dangers.Time enough for that, Lars thought. Now it was enough just to be assigned aboard theGanymede.He glanced at the chrono on his wrist and stepped off the strip at a refresher booth. Theassignment orders in his pocket instructed him to join his ship at 1400 hours; it was nowonly 1135. He had time to catch a shower and get himself into presentable uniform beforegoing aboard. He wanted his first impression to be a good one. He could see himself in hismind's eye, stepping off the gantry into the entrance lock of theGanymede,saluting the flagfirst, then the officer of the deck. Walter Fox himself, perhaps? No, that would be too much tohope for. But perhaps Mr, Lorry then, the second officer, returning his salute with casualbriskness and saying, "Name, Officerr"Heldrigsson, sir. Officer-in-Training. Planetary ecology.""Oh yes, one of the biology boys. You'll be working with Dr. Lambert, then.""Yes, sir. That's what I'd hoped. Where will I find him, sirr"Up in the lab, I suppose. Glad to have you aboard, Officer." And another salute.In the refresher booth skillful robot fingers helped Lars ease off his travel-staineduniform, picked through his pack for disposables and discarded them all with a whooshdown the disposal chute. As new clothing popped out of the slot Lars stepped into theshower stall, still glowing from his daydream. He relaxed as sheets of warm water anddetergent sponges enveloped him. Even five years of intensive study and preparation at theAcademy could never truly prepare a man for space-this was understood from the start-andneither could they explain in advance the feeling of tension and excitement, theindescribable fever of wonder and adventure that took possession of you the hour beforeyouROCKET TO LIMBO 13stepped aboard a Star Ship for your first Officer-in-Training assignment.He had tried to explain it to Dad during the two-week graduation furlough from which hewas just returning. It had been good to be home again for a few days, good to feel the warmwinds coming up from the south, • good to feel the bite of a pick once again in the rockynorth-central Greenland soil. The farm was the same as he had remembered it, the heavyhouse built of glacial rock, the huge granite fireplace, the outbuildings, the fields of wheatspreading forth for miles in every direction. Dad had seemed unchanged, too, his faceburned red and seamed by the wind, bis hands rough and brown. Mom looked older andmore tired, her eyes bright with worry as she greeted her son, but she had smiled throughthe worry, refusing to say a word to dampen his enthusiasm for his new assignment. ". Hehad spent the first days with old Black, the huge Labrador who guarded the farm against allassailants, hiking the hills and valleys he remembered so well from his childhood. But heknew the question would come, and presently ;ft did as he sat with Dad before the fire onenight after dinner.,.'. "Why do you want to go?" his father had asked him. "What are you looking for, Lars?What do you think you're going to find out there on a Star Ship that you won't find right hereat home?"Lars had grinned, a little embarrassed. Just like Dad, he thought, to dispense withpreliminaries and speak his mind bluntly. "I don't know, for sure. I just know I've got to do it. Iwant to go where nobody ever went before. I want to do things that nobody else has everdone, or ever could do." He patted Black's massive head, felt the dog muzzle his handaffectionately. "Black knows why I want to go. Ask |fim why he always wants to see what theother side of a hill looks like."14 ROCKET TO LIMBO'"And you have to go on a Star Ship for this?" Dad lit his pipe and watched his son'sface carefully. "You think all the frontiers are out there? You're wrong, son. Look at our farm,our Greenland. Why, in your Grandfather Heldrigsson's day our whole Greenland was anicecap!"Lars shrugged. "The weather technicians-" he said. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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//-->ROCKET TO LIMBOby ALAN E. NOURSEWOLF IV-THE PLANET FROM WHICH NO SHIP EVER RETURNED!Lars Heldrigsson was fresh out of the Colonial Service Academy and his firstassignment was a milk-run to Vega aboard theGanymede.Not a very exciting trip, exceptthat the ship's commander, Walter Fox, had explored and opened up more newcolony-worlds than any other man alive!But theGanymedehad hardly blasted off before Lars dicovered that not all the crewshared his admiration of their chief. Rumors circulated to the effect that Fox still believedthere were other intelligent beings in the galaxy; that they weren't going to Vega at all, but toWolf IV, the one planet from which no man had ever returned alive . . .Then the ship made landfall and Lars' first look out the viewport told him the rumors hadbeen rightl But it was the commander's announcement that clinched it. "We've landed onWolf IV," Fox said grimly, "and we're going to huntaliens!You men work with me - or you'llnever see Earth againl"Turn this book over for second complete novelQuotes from the reviews:"This is no ordinary star-jump: author Nourse had conceived a ^really'Credible plot withthree dimensional characters motivated by plausible reasoning. Furthermore, he has analmost uncanny ability to visualize the strange sensations and settings of the world of thefuture."- Virginia Kirkus"There is something haunting about rocket to limbo . .. The author suggests that if manhas faith, he can literally rearrange his environment to suit himself."-English Journal"The pace is good, suspense well sustained, and the conclusion satisfyingly surprising."-Best Setters"Better than most."- SanFrancisco ChronicleROCKET TOLIMBOby ALAN E. NOURSEACE BOOKS, INC. 23 West 47th Street, New York 36, N. Y.ROCKET TO LIMBOCopyright ©, 1957, by Alan E. NourseAn Ace Book, by arrangement with David McKay Co., Inc. All Rights- ReservedTo J. McP. H. who will write his own some dayPROLOGUEad astba, the words on the bronze plaque read.The heavy metal sheet was bright and new, gleaming red-brown in the afternoonsunlight. Great bolts of brass buckled it to the base of the launching rack, a slab of graygranite cut in a single piece from the living rock of the mountains high above the rocket port.Reaching up from the rack, the Star Ship stood like a silvery needle, poised, graceful, eagerto break away from the bonds of Earth-pointing upward toward the stars it sought.To the stars.The ship was namedArgonautin memory of that legendary ship and its crew that hadplunged into unknown waters so many centuries before. She had been built with tirelesscare and devotion; years had been spent outfitting her for the brave journey she was nowdaring to make. The finest engineers on Earth had designed her to carry the growth tanksand fuel blocks, the oxygen and reprocessing equipment, the libraries and informationbanks that her crew would require during the long voyage. Her massive engines had •beentested and retested to tolerances never before achieved on Earth.They had to be, for these engines must not fail.The ship's name was carved on the bronze plaque, and the names of the men andwomen of her crew. Below this the dates were written:Launched: March 3, 2008 Returned:There was no way of knowing when she would return, if she ever did return. There hadnever been a ship like the6 ROCKET TO LIMBOArgonautbefore. This was no clumsy orbit-craft to carry colonists and miners to theoutpost stations on Mars and Venus. TheArgonaut wasa Star Ship, designed for onepurpose-to carry her crew across the black gulf of space between the stars. Her destinationwas Alpha Centauri; her voyage might take centuries to complete.None of the crew who launched her would live to make landfall at her destination-theyknew that. But their children, or perhaps their children's children might survive to send theship blasting homeward again.TheArgonautwas bound on the Long Passage.Up on the scaffolding surrounding the ship, lights were shining, men were movingquickly up and down as last-minute preparations were completed. The gantry crane crept upand down, up and down, loading aboard the final crates of supplies. For weeks the giantnuclear engines had been warming, preparing for the sudden demand of power to thrust theship away from Earth's gravity. A chronometer clicked off the dwindling minutes. Graduallythe scaffolding cleared of men; the crane at last came down and stayed, its lights blinkingout.High up on the hull a pressure door swung slowly shut, sealing the silvery skin of thegreat ship.Around it, well beyond the range of blast gases, crowds of people stood waiting silently,thinking in their hearts what they could not put into words. Across the land eyes were turnedupward, hoping to catch at least a glimpse of the ship as she streaked up through the quietsky. Others saw it on silvery screens, or listened to the excited voice of the 3-V announcer.One thing was certain-the eyes of Earth were on theArgonaut,a crowded, war-weary,overpopulated, hungry Earth. The people knew the hope that lay behind the voyage: that theArgonautwould find a place where Earthmen could settle, could build homes and colonies,and so relieve the terrific press of people on their own crowded planet.ROCKET TO LIMBO 7But there was another reason too for the voyage. The stars were a challenge that Manhad to answer sometime. The time had come at last.A young woman of twenty stood in the crowd, watching the ship with sad eyes. Herhusband placed his arm around her shoulder and drew her closer to him."How are you doing?" he asked.She shivered. "I'm scared.""So am I. Everyone's scared, in a way. It means so much, and it's so frightening and yetso wonderful, too-you know?"She nodded and clung closer. Her father was the first officer of theArgonaut.She knewshe would never see him again, and she knew that he would never set foot on land again.The trip would take too long. His life was the ship now, and the ship was his life andresponsibility, the ship and the children who would be born aboard it."John, I wish we could go along."• He patted her shoulder. "I know. I do too. But our work Is here.""A hundred years, maybe two hundred! How can they hope to make it?"He watched the last of the ground-crew scurrying down the ramps, heard the expectanthush falling over the crowd. "I don't know, but they'll make it," he said firmly. "They wiH."There was a restless stirring as the seconds passed. Then, like thunder gathering in thedistance, rising louder and-founder, the roar began. White flame blossomed from the jet ofthe ship, billowed out in a searing mushroom against the fallout dampers, as the roarechoed and re-echoed down the valley. Slowly, as if lifted gently on the magic fire the shiprose; slowly, then faster, higher and higher. The mushroom became a tongue of fire as theroar rose to a scream and the ship drove heavenward. The eyes of Earth followed the8 ROCKET TO LIMBOgreat finger of light into the sky, not daring to breathe, waiting, waiting-And then the ship was gone. A sigh rippled through the crowds of people, and theyturned their faces away from the sky. Slowly the crowd began to melt away, leaving thegranite pedestal with the bronze plaque sitting in the gathering dusk, waiting to receive theship when she returned. When? No one knew. No one there would live to see it.The Long Passage had begun.The young woman clenched her husband's hand, and without a word they turned away.She felt her child move within her, and she smiled.He will be proud of his grandfather, she thought, if he's a he.She did not know that the great-grandson of this unborn son of hers would be the manwho would give mankind a Short Passage to the stars.Silently, John and Mary Koenig turned and left the field as darkness gathered.Chapter OneSTAR SHIP GANYMEDEad astha, the words on the bronze plaque read.The block of granite that held the plaque was darkened with age; the bronze itself wasgreen, the words obscure and hard to'make out. Lars Heldrigsson shifted his Spacer's packdown from his broad shoulder and bent over, squinting, to make out the letters.Launched: March 3, 2008 Returned:ROCKET TO LIMBO 9There was no date on the second line. Slowly the young man ran his eyes down thenames of the crewmen and felt the old familiar prickle of wonder and excitement starting atthe base of his spine. They must have been brave ones, those people, he thought. Trying tomake a Star-jump with ordinary unassisted thrust engines! It seemed incredible, and yetthey had done it. Where were they now? Dead long since, of course, but what about theirgrandchildren and great-grandchildren? Lars tried to imagine being born and raised in aStar Ship, depending upon tapes and films for knowledge of Earth and Earthmen leftbehind, never knowing the crunch of gravel under the feet, or the warm flush of a summerbreeze on the cheek. Had they finally reached a landfall, ever, anywhere?Certainly they had never returned to Earth. After three hundred and fifty years the granitelaunching rack still stood empty. The rocket port had grown up around it, engulfing it .as theyears passed, until it stood in the great central lobby of the busy Terminal, a silent monumentto the desperation and bravery of the ship that was launched there. " Nor had theArgonautever reached the planets of Alpha Centauri, its intended destination, for modernKoenig-drive ships had searched those planets long and diligently and found no trace, nosign that Man had ever come there. All tile near stars had been reached and explored bynow-Altair and Vega, Alpha Centauri and Sirius and Arcturus and the rtst-and nowhere hada sign been found. TheArgonauthad become a legend, a brave gesture of the past, but diethought of that hopeless voyage never failed to stir Lars Heldrigsson, to make him eager tobe off, impatient with the years of study that had been necessary to qualify him for theColonial Service Patrol. It was a legend of greatness, and there was still a challenge in thestars that time and a changing world 4sould never destroy.Pf this Lars Heldrigsson was very sure.10 ROCKET TO LIMBOHe shouldered his pack again, a tiny fifty-pound bundle, the weight limit allowedcrewmen on Colonial Service ships, and walked quickly up the long ramp into the mainTerminal Concourse. He was large for his eighteen years, standing a full six feet two, broadshouldered, powerful. His height and weight had been something of an issue when he hadentered the Colonial Service Academy five years before; since then he had gained anothertwo inches, and barely passed the physical examination before graduation, not because ofany sign of ill health but because of sheer size. His shock of yellow-white hair, his blue eyesand the flat, heavy features of his face revealed clearly his Nordic ancestry. He seemed tomove slowly and ponderously. Throughout his Me he had had to contend with smaller, fasterones who made the unfortunate mistake of assuming that Lars Heldrigsson couldn't movefast when he wanted to-to their enduring regret.Now he stepped briskly out into the Concourse, felt himself picked up and carried by thestreams of travelers, crewmen, colonists and Security men riding the rolling strips to andfrom the launching racks and loading platforms. Everywhere there was feverish activity andbustle. Across the way he saw lines of colonists waiting for their final physicals and baggagechecks before boarding the Star Ships that would carry them out to new homes, rugged-homes, perhaps, a far cry from the crowded mechanization of the cities of Earth, but homeswhere they could have land and food and a place to raise their children, homes linked toEarth by the strong bonds of Colonial Service ships that traveled to the stars and back inmonths.And down the Concourse were the flashing lights of the shuttles leading out to the shipsthemselves.Star Ship Tethys,now loading colonists and supplies for the fourth planet of Sirius, anold Colony, well established, rich in land, rich in Earth-mutated wheat, a sub-tropicalparadise with room for many thousands of families to settle andROCKET TO LIMBO 11grow, almost self-supporting now and soon to apply for in-' dependent elections andrepresentation in the Colonial Council.Star Ship Danton,taking men and machinery to the newly opened colony on AldebaranIII, a bitter place until Earth weather technicians and Earth civil engineers had carved afoothold for hungry Earthmen to find homes. A weatherbeaten fisherman made his way ontothe shuttle, with a gold ring in his ear and a tiny Arcturian monkey-bear on his shoulder,tossing three sparkling tele-dice in the air before him to amuse his pet and laughing as thecreature batted at them with a tawny paw. There were great seas and many fish onAldebaran III.Star Ship Mercedes,exploratory to the far system of Morua, a double star with endlesssummer on its seventh planet, a good prospect for a new colony in ten more years, after theexploratory crews and the survey crews and the engineering jerews and the pilot colonieshad done their work in opening it; a new escape valve for Earthmen who no longer had roomenough at home.Star Ship Ganymede-'<:Lars felt his heart pounding as he stepped across to the rolling strip bearing thegreen and white cross of theGany-mede.His ship! The assignment he had dreamed ofsince his first day in the Academy-to ship aboard theGanymedewith Walter Fox, the manwho had opened more planets colonization than any man since the first Koenig-drive shiphad left Earth; the man whose seal of approval on a planet was fc virtual guarantee of asuccessful and healthy colony. This *fip on theGanymedewould be no exploratory voyage,to be Jure- a full week now before blastoff to bunk down the new members of the crew andget the OfBcers-in-Training settled |a their duties; then a milk-run to Vega III to run a finalftheck on a colony about to be opened to free colonization- felt it would be a good trip togive an Officer-in-Training his12 ROCKET TO LIMBOspace legs. There would be exploratories later, to unvisited stars, to unknown dangers.Time enough for that, Lars thought. Now it was enough just to be assigned aboard theGanymede.He glanced at the chrono on his wrist and stepped off the strip at a refresher booth. Theassignment orders in his pocket instructed him to join his ship at 1400 hours; it was nowonly 1135. He had time to catch a shower and get himself into presentable uniform beforegoing aboard. He wanted his first impression to be a good one. He could see himself in hismind's eye, stepping off the gantry into the entrance lock of theGanymede,saluting the flagfirst, then the officer of the deck. Walter Fox himself, perhaps? No, that would be too much tohope for. But perhaps Mr, Lorry then, the second officer, returning his salute with casualbriskness and saying, "Name, Officerr"Heldrigsson, sir. Officer-in-Training. Planetary ecology.""Oh yes, one of the biology boys. You'll be working with Dr. Lambert, then.""Yes, sir. That's what I'd hoped. Where will I find him, sirr"Up in the lab, I suppose. Glad to have you aboard, Officer." And another salute.In the refresher booth skillful robot fingers helped Lars ease off his travel-staineduniform, picked through his pack for disposables and discarded them all with a whooshdown the disposal chute. As new clothing popped out of the slot Lars stepped into theshower stall, still glowing from his daydream. He relaxed as sheets of warm water anddetergent sponges enveloped him. Even five years of intensive study and preparation at theAcademy could never truly prepare a man for space-this was understood from the start-andneither could they explain in advance the feeling of tension and excitement, theindescribable fever of wonder and adventure that took possession of you the hour beforeyouROCKET TO LIMBO 13stepped aboard a Star Ship for your first Officer-in-Training assignment.He had tried to explain it to Dad during the two-week graduation furlough from which hewas just returning. It had been good to be home again for a few days, good to feel the warmwinds coming up from the south, • good to feel the bite of a pick once again in the rockynorth-central Greenland soil. The farm was the same as he had remembered it, the heavyhouse built of glacial rock, the huge granite fireplace, the outbuildings, the fields of wheatspreading forth for miles in every direction. Dad had seemed unchanged, too, his faceburned red and seamed by the wind, bis hands rough and brown. Mom looked older andmore tired, her eyes bright with worry as she greeted her son, but she had smiled throughthe worry, refusing to say a word to dampen his enthusiasm for his new assignment. ". Hehad spent the first days with old Black, the huge Labrador who guarded the farm against allassailants, hiking the hills and valleys he remembered so well from his childhood. But heknew the question would come, and presently ;ft did as he sat with Dad before the fire onenight after dinner.,.'. "Why do you want to go?" his father had asked him. "What are you looking for, Lars?What do you think you're going to find out there on a Star Ship that you won't find right hereat home?"Lars had grinned, a little embarrassed. Just like Dad, he thought, to dispense withpreliminaries and speak his mind bluntly. "I don't know, for sure. I just know I've got to do it. Iwant to go where nobody ever went before. I want to do things that nobody else has everdone, or ever could do." He patted Black's massive head, felt the dog muzzle his handaffectionately. "Black knows why I want to go. Ask |fim why he always wants to see what theother side of a hill looks like."14 ROCKET TO LIMBO'"And you have to go on a Star Ship for this?" Dad lit his pipe and watched his son'sface carefully. "You think all the frontiers are out there? You're wrong, son. Look at our farm,our Greenland. Why, in your Grandfather Heldrigsson's day our whole Greenland was anicecap!"Lars shrugged. "The weather technicians-" he said. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]