Out of the far reaches of the universe sped
the meteor swarm, cosmic question marks destined
for annihilation in the sun. But one, approximately
half a pound of frozen destruction, had a
rendezvous near Japetus with Spaceboat 6.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories March 1954.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
It was comfortably cool in the functional, little control room, butMorley was sweating, gently and steadily. His palms were wet, and thethin thoughtful face, shining in the glow of the instrument panellight, was wrinkled in an agony of concentration and doubt. He wastrying to choose between the Scylla of waking Madsen with a corollaryof biting contempt involved, and the Charybdis of attempting to landsingle handed on Japetus, less than five hundred miles below. Neithercourse was appealing.
For the hundredth time he pondered miserably over the sad conditionof what had been a reasonably well ordered existence. The worst ofit was that he had only himself to blame, and he knew it. No one hadforced him to leave a comfortable, if poorly paid position with GeneralPlastics, and fill out an employment card at Satellites, Inc.
He could not explain the obscure compulsion that sparked his littlepersonal rebellion.
He didn't know, or need to know that other generations of Morleys hadfought in revolutions, or sailed in square riggers, or clawed gold frommountainsides. When he went to the spaceline, the puzzlement of his fewfriends was profound, but hardly more so than his own. And now, afteralmost a year of upheaval and change, he was piloting a spaceboat alongan involute curve ending on the surface of Saturn's eighth moon. And hewas still puzzled.
Satellites, Inc., had done as well as possible with the raw materialknown as Morley, Vincent, No. 4628. His psychograph indicated a bornsubordinate, with a normal I.Q., reasonably stable and trustworthythough below average in initiative. They didn't inform him of this,or the fact that they had analyzed the neurosis which had drivenhim to the spaceline, and which had created by that very action thetherapeutic aid he needed. Many spacemen had similar case histories.
It was those who fought the compulsion who sometimes turned down darkpathways of the mind.
For six months he attended cadet school, and graduated in due time,fourteenth in a class of fifty. The next day he was assigned as fourthengineman to the space freighter Solarian, bound to Port Ulysses,Titan, Saturn system, with a cargo of mining machinery and supplies.
They blasted off from Chicago Spaceport on a raw March midnight. Justanother rocket take-off, routine stuff, now. But have you ever seen it?The night, the wind, the distant city glow in the sky? On the stripsquats the massive bulk of the rocket, loading hatches closed, sealedport holes gleaming through the gusts of rain that sweep the field. Inthe sound proofed spaceport control tower the officials are relaxedover coffee and cigarettes; their part is over; they sit watching.
Somewhere in the mighty shell on the field, chronometer hands reach thecalculated second, a circuit closes, relays chatter briefly. The rocketigniters are firing, flame billows over the field, a low rumble fromthe tubes builds to a throbbing roar. Twenty miles away a housewifelooks up, a question on her face. Her husband listens and smiles. "It'sthe Saturn rocket. It's here in the paper, under Departures."
On the field the roar rises to an insane bellow of sound. Under themighty jets, the ten feet of concrete and the solid earth beneath itare shaking. In t