A man could walk around the tiny asteroid
in the space of a few hours. But Jerry had only
minutes, to find and use—an invisible weapon!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy
November 1951
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Like I expected, the fairgrounds were crowded with thousands of thedrifter-families waiting for the big blast-off tomorrow. They throngedabout uncertainly, in anxious little knots, chattering friendly,meaningless things, making fast friends who would be forgotten in thebustle and competition, after blast-off.
Gramps stood apart from all this, and when he saw me he came runningthrough the mob on spindly legs, waving his arms frantically sothat I wouldn't miss him. As if I would. If there was anything moreincongruous here on the Martian landscape, anything that seemed moreout of place than did old Gramps, I didn't see it. Two hundred yearsago in another homestead rush, maybe he would have fit. The only thingI know about that is what I read in books, but I could picture Grampswith his battered old corncob pipe and his wizened face, leading a teamof mules or oxen or whatever animals they used.
"Hey, Jerry," he called. "Hey, kid, I got it!"
I'm no kid. I'm twenty-seven, six feet two, and I probably weigh twiceas much as Gramps does, wringing wet. But that's the way he was.
"Where's Clair?" I asked him. I hadn't seen my wife in a month. She hadgone to the Martian Fair with Gramps to put in a bid for one of the oldderelict ships, and now I had come here to join them, with a dime, aquarter and a crumpled dollar bill hardly filling the emptiness of myjumper-pocket.
"That girl!" He whistled. "She's back at the ship now, cleaning andpolishing, putting everything together with spit and string so youwouldn't know the old Karden Cruiser."
I felt something gnawing away, deep inside my stomach, and it wasn'tjust that I was hungry. "The what?" I demanded.
Gramps smiled, and right then I could have seen him rocking on a chairon a little porch, with a garden full of rose bushes and crab grass. Icould have seen him anyplace but here with Clair and me, on the eve ofthe great blast-off for the asteroid belt. "The what?" I said again.
"The old Karden Cruiser, Jerry. Neat little job. And cheap—theyalmost gave it away. You shoulda seen those durned fools. No one elsebid for it, I had it all to myself, first bid."
I tried to be patient. "You didn't expect anyone else to bid forthat, did you?"
He had a hurt look on his face. "Why not? A good ship, kid. When I wasyour age, younger, I went to Venus on one. I can remember—"
"That's it," I told him. "Fifty years ago the Karden might have beena good ship, but not now. Not now, Gramps. It's as obsolete as apea-shooter. Will it run?"
"You're durned tootin' it'll run. What do you think I paid? Go ahead,guess."
Something was still gnawing at my stomach. Gramps had had three hundreddollars to purchase our ship and equipment. You could stretch threehundred dollars a long way if you bought wisely these days. "You tellme," I said.
"Hundred and fifty. 'Nother hundred and a quarter for supplies—"
There's some old saying about letting old dogs lie or not crying overspilled milk or some such thing, but anyway, I reminded him, "Foranother twenty-five or thirty dollars you could have got a Wilson '13,maybe even a twelve-bank Carpenter."
"Couldn't," Gramps said. "Kid, let me tell you, I saw the nicestgui-tar. One of them old Martian type