JAYWALKER
BY ROSS ROCKLYNNE
Illustrated by DON DIBLEY
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Galaxy Science Fiction December 1950.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Women may be against progress because it means new
pseudo-widowhoods. Space-widowhood, for instance....
At last she was on the gangplank, entering the mouth of thespaceship—and nothing could ever stop her now. Not unless she brokedown completely in front of all these hurrying, Moon-bound passengers,in plain sight of the scattered crowd which clustered on the otherside of the space-field barriers. Even that possibility was denied herwhen two gently insistent middle-aged ladies indicated she was blockingthe way....
Somehow, dizzily, she was at her seat, led there by a smiling,brown-clad stewardess; and her azure-tipped fingers were clutching atthe pearl-gray plasta-leather of the chair arm. Her eyes, the azureof her nails, the azure (so she had been told) of Earth seen frominterplanetary space, grew hot. She closed them, and for a momentgave herself up to an almost physical yearning for the Toluca Lakehouse—the comfort, the safety, the—the sanity of it.
Stubbornly she forced herself back to reality. At any moment Jack,dark-eyed and scrappy, might come swinging down the long, shiningaisle. Jack—Captain Jack McHenry, if you please—must not know, yet,what she was doing to patch up their marriage.
She turned her face away from the aisle, covered her cheek with herhand to hide it. Her gaze went out through the ray-proof glass port tothe field, to the laboring beetle of a red tractor bearing the gangwayon its busy back, to the low, blast-proof administration building. Whenher gaze came to the tall sign over the entrance, she hurried it past;it was too late to think about that now, the square, shouting type thatread:
CAUTION
HAVE YOU PASSED YOUR PHYSICAL EXAMINATION?
Avoiding It May Cost Your Life!
"May I see your validation, please?"
Marcia McHenry stiffened. Had she read the sign aloud? She turnedstartled eyes up to the smiling stewardess, who was holding out awell-groomed hand. Marcia responded weakly to the smile, overcame asudden urge to blurt out that she had no validation—not her own,anyway. But her stiff fingers were already holding out the pink cardwith Nellie Foster's name on it.
"You're feeling well, Mrs. Foster?"
Feeling well? Yes, of course. Except for the—usual sickness. Butthat's so very normal.... Her numb lips moved. "I'm fine," she said.
Miss Eagen (which, her neat lapel button attested, was her name) madea penciled frown as lovely as her machined smile. "Some day," she toldMarcia, "we won't have to ask the passengers if they're well. It's soeasy to come aboard on someone else's validation, and people don't seemto realize how dangerous that is."
As Miss Eagen moved to the next seat, Marcia shrank into a smallhuddle, fumbling with the card until it was crammed shapeless into herpurse. Then from the depths of her guilt came rebellion. It was goingto be all right. She was doing the biggest thing she'd ever done, andJack would rise to the occasion, and it would be all right.
It had to be all right