knowledge he'll never use. Lemme have your left arm.' The technician irradiated a patch on his forearm and injected the drug. 'Now just lay back and follow the bouncing light. Take it easy . . . relax . . . relax . . . and . . . close . . . your ... eyes ... and ... relax ... you're ... getting-'
Someone was standing in front of him, holding a hypodermic pressure injector 'That's all. You've had the antidote.'
'Huh?' said Matt. 'Wazzat?'
'Sit still a couple of minutes and then you can go.'
'Didn't it take?'
'Didn't what take? I don't know what you were being exposed to; I just came on duty.'
Matt went back to his room feeling rather depressed. He had been a little afraid of hypnosis, but to find that he apparently did not react to the method was worse yet. He wondered whether or not he could ever keep up with his studies if he were forced to study everything, outer languages as well, by conventional methods.
Nothing to do but to go back and see Lieutenant Wong about it-tomorrow, he decided.
Oscar was alone in the suite and was busy trying to place a hook in the wall of a common room. A framed picture was leaning against the chair on which he stood. 'Hello, Oscar.'
'Howdy, Matt.' Oscar turned his head as he spoke; the drill he was using slipped and he skinned a knuckle. He started to curse in strange, lisping speech. 'May maledictions pursue this nameless thing to the uttermost depths of world slime!'
Matt clucked disapprovingly. 'Curb thy voice, thou impious fish.'
Oscar looked up in amazement. 'Matt-I didn't know you knew any Venerian.'
Matt's mouth sagged open. He closed it, then opened it to speak 'Well, I'll be a- Neither did II'
VII TO MAKE A SPACEMAN
THE SEHGEANT CROUCHED in the air, his feet drawn up. 'At the count of one,' he was saying, 'take the ready position, with your feet about six inches from the steel. At the count of two, place your feet firmly against the steel and push off.' He shoved against the steel wall and shot into the air, still talking, 'Hold the count of four, turn on the count of five-' His body drew up into a ball and turned over a half turn, '-check your rotation-' His body extended again, '-and make contact on the count of seven-' His toes touched
the far wall, '-letting your legs collapse softly so that your momentum will be soaked up without rebound.' He collapsed loosely, like an empty sack, and remained floating near the spot where he had landed.
The room was a cylinder fifty feet in diameter in the center of the ship. The entire room was mounted in rollers and was turned steadily in the direction opposite to the spin of the ship and with the same angular speed: thus it had no net spin. It could be entered only from the end, at the center of rotation.
It was a little island of 'free fall'-the free-fall gymnasium. A dozen youngster cadets clung to a grab line running fore-and-aft along the wall of the gym and watched the sergeant. Matt was one of the group.
'And now, gentlemen, let's try it again. By the numbers-One! Two! Three!' by the count of five, at which time they all should have turned in the air, neatly and together, all semblance of order was gone. There were collisions, one cadet had even failed to get away from the grab line, and two cadets, refugees from a midair skirmish, were floating aimlessly toward the far end of the room. Their faces had the bewildered look of a dog trying to get traction on smooth ice as they threshed their arms and legs in an effort to stay their progress.
'No! No! No!' said the sergeant and covered his face with his hands. 'I can't bear to look. Gentlemen-please! A little coordination. Don't throw yourself at the far wall like an Airedale heading into a fight. A steady, firm shove- like this.'
He took off sideways, using the traction given him by his space boots, and intercepted the two deserters, gathering one in each arm and letting his momentum carry the three bodies slowly toward the far end of the grab line, 'Grab on,' he told them, 'and back to your places. Now, gentlemen-once more. Places! By the numbers-normal push off, with arrested contact-one!'
A few moments later he was assuring them that he would much rather teach a cat to swim.
Matt did not mind. He had managed to reach the far wall and stay there. Without grace, proper timing, nor at the spot he had aimed for, but he had managed it, after a dozen failures. For die moment he classed himself as a spaceman.
When the class was dismissed he hurried to his room and into his own cubicle, selected a spool on Martian history, inserted it in his projector, and began to study. He had been tempted to remain in the free-fall gymnasium to practice; he wanted very badly to pass the 'space legs' test-free-fall acrobatics-as those who had passed it and qualified in the use of basic space suits as well were allowed one liberty a month at Terra Station.
But he had had an extra interview with Lieutenant Wong a few days before. It had been brief, biting, and had been concerned with the efficient use of his time.
Matt did not want another such-nor the five demerits that went with it. He settled his head in the neck rest of his study chair and concentrated on the recorded words of the lecturer while scenes in color-stereo passed in front of him, portraying in chill beauty the rich past of the ancient planet.
The projector was much like the study box he had used at home, except that it was more gadgeted,1 could project in three dimensions, and was hooked in with the voice writer. Matt found this a great time-saver. He could stop the lecture, dictate a summary, then cause the projector to throw his printed notes on the screen.
Stereo-projection was a time-saver for manual subjects as well. 'You are now entering the control room of a type A-6 utility rocket,' the unseen lecturer would say, 'and will practice an airless landing on Luna'-while the camera moved through the door of the rocket's pilot room and panned down to a position corresponding to the pilot's head. From there on a pictured flight could be made very realistic.
Or it might be a spool on space suits. 'This is a four-hour suit,' the voice would say, 'type M, and may be worn anywhere outside the orbit of Venus. It has a low-capacity rocket unit capable of producing a total change of speed in a 300-lb. mass of fifty foot-seconds. The built-in radio has a suit-to-suit range of fifty miles. Internal heating and cooling is-' By the time Matt's turn came for space-suit drill he knew as much about it as could be learned without practice.
His turn came when he passed the basic free-fall test. He was not finished with free-fall drill-there remained group
precision drill, hand-to-hand combat, use of personal weapons, and other refinements-but he was judged able to handle himself well enough. He was free, too, to go out for free-fall sports, wrestling, bank tennis, jaijilai, and several others -up to now he had been eligible only for the chess club. He picked space polo, a game combining water polo and assault with intent to maim, and joined the local league, in the lowest or 'bloody nose' group.
He missed his first chance at space-suit drill because a battered nose had turned him into a mouth breather-the respirator for a type-M suit calls for inhaling through the nose and exhaling through the mouth. But he was ready and anxious the following week. The instructor ordered his group to 'Suit up!' without preliminary, as it was assumed that they had studied the instruction spool.
The last of the ship's spin had been removed some days before. Matt curled himself into a ball, floating free, and spread open the front of his suit. It was an unhandy process; he found shortly that he was trying to get both legs down one leg of the suit. He backed out and tried again. This time the big fishbowl flopped forward into the opening.
Most of the section were already in their suits. The instructor swam over to Matt and looked at him sharply. 'You've passed your free-fall basic?'
'Yes,' Matt answered miserably.
'It's hard to believe. You handle yourself like a turtle on its back. Here.' The instructor helped Matt to tuck in, much as if he were dressing a baby in a snow suit. Matt blushed.
The instructor ran through the check-off list-tank pressure, suit pressure, rocket fuel charge, suit oxygen, blood oxygen (measured by a photoelectric gadget clipped to the earlobe) and finally each suit's walky-talky unit. Then he herded them into the airlock.
Matt felt his suit swell up as the pressure died away in the lock. It was becoming slightly harder to move his arms and legs. 'Hook up your static lines,' called out the instructor. Matt uncoiled his from his belt and waited. Reports came in: 'Number one hooked.' 'Number two hooked.'
'Number three hooked,' Matt sang out into the mike in
