spacemen die at home 2

spacemen die at home 2

On our way to the 'copter parking field, Dean Dawson passed us. He was

a tall, willowy man, spectacled, looking the way an academy professor

should look.

 

"Ben," he called, "don't forget that offer. Remember you've got two

months to decide."

 

"No, thanks," I answered. "Better not count on me."

 

A moment later Mickey said, frowning, "What was he talking about, Ben?

Did he make you an offer?"

 

I laughed. "He offered me a job here at the Academy teaching

astrogation. What a life _that_ would be! Imagine standing in a

classroom for forty years when I've got the chance to--"

 

I hesitated, and you supplied the right words: "When you've got the

chance to be the first to reach a new planet. That's what most of you

want, isn't it? That's what Mickey used to want."

 

I looked at you as if you were Everson himself, because you seemed to

understand the hunger that could lie in a man's heart.

 

Then your last words came back and jabbed me: "That's what Mickey used

to want."

 

"_Used_ to want?" I asked. "What do you mean?"

 

You bit your lip, not answering.

 

"What did she mean, Mickey?"

 

Mickey looked down at his feet. "I didn't want to tell you yet, Ben.

We've been together a long time, planning to be on a rocket. But--"

 

"Yes?"

 

"Well, what does it add up to? You become a spaceman and wear a pretty

uniform. You wade through the sands of Mars and the dust of Venus. If

you're lucky, you're good for five, maybe ten years. Then one thing or

another gets you. They don't insure rocketmen, you know."

 

My stomach was full of churning, biting ice. "What are you trying to

say, Mickey?"

 

"I've thought about it a long time. They want me for Cargo Supervisor

of White Sands Port." He raised his hand to stop me. "I know. It's not

so exciting. I'll just live a lot longer. I'm sorry, Ben."

 

I couldn't answer. It was as if someone had whacked the back of my

knees with the blast of a jet.

 

"It doesn't change anything, Ben--right now, I mean. We can still have

a good weekend."

 

Charlie was muttering under his breath, smoldering like a bomb about to

reach critical mass. I shook my head dazedly at him as we got to the

'copter.

 

"Sure," I said to Mickey, "we can still have a good weekend."

 

* * * * *

 

I liked your folks, Laura. There was no star-hunger in them, of course.

They were simple and solid and settled, like green growing things,

deep-rooted, belonging to Earth. They were content with a home that was

cool on this warm summer night, with a 'copter and a tri-dimensional

video, and a handsome automatic home that needed no servants or

housework.

 

Stardust Charlie was as comfortable as a Martian sand-monkey in a

shower, but he tried courageously to be himself.

 

At the dinner table he stared glassily at nothing and grated, "Only hit

Mars once, but I'll never forget the kid who called himself a medic.

Skipper started coughing, kept it up for three days. Whoopin' cough,

the medic says, not knowin' the air had chemicals that turned to acid

in your lungs. I'd never been to Mars before, but I knew better'n that.

Hell, I says, that ain't whoopin' cough, that's lung-rot."

 

That was when your father said he wasn't so hungry after all.

 

Afterward, you and I walked onto the terrace, into the moonlit night,

to watch for crimson-tailed continental rockets that occasionally

streaked up from White Sands.

 

We gazed for a few seconds up into the dark sky, and then you said:

"Charlie is funny, isn't he? He's nice and I'm glad he's here, but he's

sort of funny."

 

"He's an old-time spaceman. You didn't need much education in those

days, just a lot of brawn and a quick mind. It took guts to be a

spaceman then."

 

"But he wasn't always a spaceman. Didn't he ever have a family?"

 

I smiled and shook my head. "If he had, he never mentioned it. Charlie

doesn't like to be sentimental, at least not on the outside. As far as

I know, his life began when he took off for the Moon with Everson."

 

You stared at me strangely, almost in a sacred kind of way. I knew

suddenly that you liked me, and my heart began to beat faster.

 

There was silence.

 

You were lovely, your soft hair like strands of gold, and there were

flecks of silver in your dark eyes. Somehow I was afraid. I had the

feeling that I shouldn't have come here.

 

You kept looking at me until I had to ask: "What are you thinking,

Laura?"

 

You laughed, but it was a sad, fearful laugh. "No, I shouldn't be

thinking it. You'd hate me if I told you, and I wouldn't want that."

 

"I could never hate you."

 

"It--it's about the stars," you said very softly. "I understand why you

want to go to them. Mickey and I used to dream about them when we were

kids. Of course I was a girl, so it was just a game to me. But once I

dreamed of going to England. Oh, it was going to be so wonderful. I

lived for months, just thinking about it.

 

"One summer we went. I had fun. I saw the old buildings and castles,

and the spaceports and the Channel Tube. But after it was over, I

realized England wasn't so different from America. Places seem exciting

before you get to them, and afterward they're not really."

 

I frowned. "And you mean it might be the same with the stars? You think

maybe I haven't grown up yet?"

 

Anxiety darkened your features. "No, it'd be good to be a spaceman,

to see the strange places and make history. But is it worth it? Is it

worth the things you'd have to give up?"

 

I didn't understand at first, and I wanted to ask, "Give up _what_?"

 

Then I looked at you and the promise in your eyes, and I knew.

 

All through the years I'd been walking down a single, narrow path.

 

Government boarding school, the Academy, my eyes always upward and on

the stars.

 

Now I'd stumbled into a cross-roads, beholding a strange new path that

I'd never noticed before.

 

_You can go into space_, I thought, _and try to do as much living in

ten years as normal men do in fifty. You can be like Everson, who died

in a Moon crash at the age of 36, or like a thousand others who lie

buried in Martian sand and Venusian dust. Or, if you're lucky, like

Charlie--a kind of human meteor streaking through space, eternally

alone, never finding a home._

 

_Or there's the other path. To stay on this little prison of an Earth

in cool, comfortable houses. To be one of the solid, rooted people with

a wife and kids. To be one of the people who live long enough to grow

old, who awake to the song of birds instead of rocket grumblings, who

fill their lungs with the clean rich air of Earth instead of poisonous

dust._

 

"I'm sorry," you said. "I didn't mean to make you sad, Ben."

 

"It's all right," I said, clenching my fists. "You made sense--a lot of

sense."

 

* * * * *

 

The next morning Charlie said good-bye in our room. He rubbed his

scarred face nervously as he cleared his throat with a series of thin,

tight coughs.

 

Then he pointed to a brown, faded tin box lying on the bed. "I'm

leavin' that for you. It's full of old stuff, souvenirs mostly. Thought

maybe you'd like to have 'em."

 

I scowled, not understanding. "Why, Charlie? What for?"

 

He shrugged as if afraid he might be accused of sentimentality. "Oh,

it's just that I've been dodgin' meteors now for twenty-five years.

That's a long time, boy. Ain't one spaceman in a thousand that lucky.

Some of these days, I won't be so lucky."

 

I tried to laugh. "You're good for another twenty-five years, Charlie."

 

He shook his head stiffly, staring at nothing. "Maybe. Anyway, I'm

gonna get off the Shuttle this time, make one more trip to Mars. Tell

you what. There's a little stone cafe on Mars, the _Space Rat_, just

off Chandler Field on the Grand Canal. When you get to Mars, take a

look inside. I'll probably be there."

 

He coughed again, a deep, rasping cough that filled his eyes with tears.

 

"Not used to this Earth air," he muttered. "What I need's some Martian

climate."

 

Suddenly that cough frightened me. It didn't seem normal. I wondered,

too, about his stiff movements and glassy stare. It was as if he were

drugged.

 

I shook the thought away. If Charlie was sick, he wouldn't talk about

going to Mars. The medics wouldn't let him go even as far as Luna.

 

We watched him leave, you and Mickey and I.

 

"When will you be back?" you asked.