background nor spirit; space was changing.
«Now, Captain, you wouldn't begrudge an old man a trip home.»
The officer hesitated – several of the crew had stopped to listen. «I can't do it. 'Space Precautionary Act, Clause Six: No one shall enter space save as a licensed member of a crew of a chartered vessel, or as a paying passenger of such a vessel under such regulations as may be issued pursuant to this act.' Up you get and out you go.»
Rhysling lolled back, his hands under his head. «If I've got to go, I'm damned if I'll walk. Carry me.»
The Captain bit his lip and said, «Master-at-Arms! Have this man removed.»
The ship's policeman fixed his eyes on the overhead struts. «Can't rightly do it, Captain. I've sprained my shoulder.» The other crew members, present a moment before, had faded into the bulkhead paint.
«Well, get a working party!»
«Aye, aye, sir.» He, too, went away.
Rhysling spoke again. «Now look, Skipper – let's not have any hard feelings about this. You've got an out to carry me if you want to – the 'Distressed Spaceman' clause.»
» 'Distressed Spaceman,' my eye! You're no distressed spaceman; you're a space-lawyer. I know who you are; you've been bumming around the system for years. Well, you won't do it in my ship. That clause was intended to succor men who had missed their ships, not to let a man drag free all over space.»
«Well, now, Captain, can you properly say I haven't missed my ship? I've never been back home since my last trip as a signed-on crew member. The law says I can have a trip back.»
«But that was years ago. You've used up your chance.»
«Have I now? The clause doesn't say a word about how soon a man has to take his trip back; it just says he's got it coming to him. Go look it up, Skipper. If I'm wrong, I'll not only walk out on my two legs, I'll beg your humble pardon in front of your crew. Go on – look it up. Be a sport.»
Rhysling could feel the man's glare, but he turned and stomped out of the compartment. Rhysling knew that he had used his blindness to place the Captain in an impossible position, but this did not embarrass Rhysling – he rather enjoyed it.
Ten minutes later the siren sounded, he heard the orders on the bull horn for Up-Stations. When the soft sighing of the locks and the slight pressure change in his ears let him know that take-off was imminent he got up and shuffled down to the power room, as he wanted to be near the jets when they blasted off. He needed no one to guide him in any ship of the Hawk class.
Trouble started during the first watch. Rhysling had been lounging in the inspector's chair, fiddling with the keys of his accordion and trying out a new version of
And something, something, something 'Earth'» – it would not come out right. He tried again.
That was better, he thought. «How do you like that, Archie?» he asked over the muted roar.
«Pretty good. Give out with the whole thing.» Archie Macdougal, Chief Jetman, was an old friend, both spaceside and in bars; he had been an apprentice under Rhysling many years and millions of miles back.
Rhysling obliged, then said, «You youngsters have got it soft. Everything automatic. When I was twisting her tail you had to stay awake.»
«You still have to stay awake.» They fell to talking shop and Macdougal showed him the direct response damping rig which had replaced the manual vernier control which Rhysling had used. Rhysling felt out the controls and asked questions until he was familiar with the new installation. It was his conceit that he was still a jetman and that his present occupation as a troubadour was simply an expedient during one of the fusses with the company that any man could get into.
«I see you still have the old hand damping plates installed,» he remarked, his agile fingers flitting over the equipment.
«All except the links. I unshipped them because they obscure the dials.»
«You ought to have them shipped. You might need them.»
«Oh, I don't know. I think – « Rhysling never did find out what Macdougal thought for it was at that moment the trouble tore loose.
Macdougal caught it square, a blast of radioactivity that burned him down where he stood.
Rhysling sensed what had happened. Automatic reflexes of old habit came out. He slapped the discover and rang the alarm to the control room simultaneously. Then he remembered the unshipped links. He had to grope until he found them, while trying to keep as low as he could to get maximum benefit from the baffles. Nothing but the links bothered him as to location. The place was as light to him as any place could be; he knew every spot, every control, the way he knew the keys of his accordion.
«Power room! Power room! What's the alarm?»
«Stay out!» Rhysling shouted. «The place is 'hot.' « He could feel it on his face and in his bones, like desert sunshine.
The links he got into place, after cursing someone, anyone, for having failed to rack the wrench he needed. Then he commenced trying to reduce the trouble by hand. It was a long job and ticklish. Presently he decided that the jet would have to be spilled, pile and all.
First he reported. «Control!»
«Control aye aye!»
«Spilling jet three – emergency.»
«Is this Macdougal?»
«Macdougal is dead. This is Rhysling, on watch. Stand by to record.»
There was no answer; dumbfounded the Skipper may have been, but he could not interfere in a power room emergency. He had the ship to consider, and the passengers and crew. The doors had to stay closed.
The Captain must have been still more surprised at what Rhysling sent for record. It was:
Rhysling went on cataloguing the Solar System as he worked, « – harsh bright soil of Luna – ,» « – Saturn's rainbow rings – ,» « – the frozen night of Titan – ,» all the while opening and spilling the jet and flushing it clean. He finished with an alternate chorus —
–then, almost absentmindedly remembered to tack on his revised first verse:
The ship was safe now and ready to limp home shy one jet. As for himself, Rhysling was not so sure. That «sunburn» seemed sharp, he thought. He was unable to see the bright, rosy fog in which he worked but he knew it was there. He went on with the business of flushing the air out through the outer valve, repeating it several times to permit the level of radioaction to drop to something a man might stand under suitable armor. While he did this he sent one more chorus, the last bit of authentic Rhysling that ever could be:
Logic of Empire
«Don't be a sentimental fool, Sam!»
«Sentimental, or not,» Jones persisted, «I know human slavery when I see it. That's what you've got on Venus.»
Humphrey Wingate snorted. «That's utterly ridiculous. The company's labor clients are employees, working under legal contracts, freely entered into.»
Jones' eyebrows raised slightly. «So? What kind of a contract is it that throws a man into jail if he quits his job?»
