Rocket Ship Galileo (2 page)

The clearing was surrounded by a barbed wire fence, placed there at the insistence of Ross’s parents, to whom the land belonged, in order to keep creatures, both four-legged and two-legged, from wandering into the line of fire while the boys were experimenting. The gate in this fence was directly behind the barricade and about fifty feet from it.

They had had no occasion to glance in the direction of the gate since the beginning of the test run—indeed, their attentions had been so heavily on the rocket that anything less than an earthquake would hardly have disturbed them.

Ross and Morrie were a little in front with Art close at their heels, so close that, when they stopped suddenly, he stumbled over them and almost dropped his camera. “Hey, watch where you’re going, can’t you?” he protested. “Pick up your big feet!”

They did not answer but stood still, staring ahead and at the ground. “What gives?” he went on. “Why the trance? Why do—
oh!
” He had seen it too. “It” was the body of a large man, crumpled on the ground, half in and half out the gate. There was a bloody wound on his head and blood on the ground.

They all rushed forward together, but it was Morrie who shoved them back and kept them from touching the prone figure. “Take it easy!” he ordered. “Don’t touch him. Remember your first aid. That’s a head wound. If you touch him, you may kill him.”

“But we’ve got to find out if he’s alive,” Ross objected.

“I’ll find out. Here—give me those.” He reached out and appropriated the data sheets of the rocket test run from where they stuck out of Ross’s pocket. These he rolled into a tube about an inch in diameter, then cautiously placed it against the back of the still figure, on the left side over the heart. Placing his ear to the other end of the improvised stethoscope he listened. Ross and Art waited breathlessly.

Presently his tense face relaxed into a grin. “His motor is turning over,” he announced. “Good and strong. At least we didn’t kill him.”

“We?”

“Who do you think? How do you think he got this way? Take a look around and you’ll probably find the piece of the rocket that konked him.” He straightened up. “But never mind that now. Ross, you shag up to your house and call an ambulance. Make it fast! Art and I will wait here with…with, uh,
him
. He may come to and we’ll have to keep him quiet.”

“Okay.” Ross was gone as he spoke.

Art was staring at the unconscious man. Morrie touched him on the arm. “Sit down, kid. No use getting in a sweat. We’ll have trouble enough later. Even if this guy isn’t hurt much I suppose you realize this about winds up the activities of the Galileo Marching-and-Chowder Society—at least the rocketry-and-loud-noises branch of it.”

Art looked unhappy. “I suppose so.”

“‘Suppose’ nothing. It’s certain. Ross’s father took a very dim view of the matter the time we blew all the windows out of his basement—not that I blame him. Now we hand him this. Loss of the use of the land is the least we can expect. We’ll be lucky not to have handed him a suit for damages too.”

Art agreed miserably. “I guess it’s back to stamp collecting for us,” he assented, but his mind was elsewhere. Law suit. The use of the land did not matter. To be sure the use of the Old Ross Place on the edge of town had been swell for all three of them, what with him and his mother living in back of the store, and Morrie’s folks living in a flat, but—
law suit!
Maybe Ross’s parents could afford it; but the little store just about kept Art and his mother going, even with the afterschool jobs he had had ever since junior high—a law suit would take the store away from them.

His first feeling of frightened sympathy for the wounded man was beginning to be replaced by a feeling of injustice done him. What was the guy doing there anyhow? It wasn’t just trespass; the whole area was posted with warning signs.

“Let me have a look at this guy,” he said.

“Don’t touch him,” Morrie warned.

“I won’t. Got your pocket flash?” It was becoming quite dark in the clearing.

“Sure. Here…catch.”

Art took the little flashlight and tried to examine the face of their victim—hard to do, as he was almost face down and the side of his face that was visible was smeared with blood.

Presently Art said in an odd tone of voice, “Morrie—would it hurt anything to wipe some of this blood away?”

“You’re dern tootin’ it would! You let him be till the doctor comes.”

“All right, all right. Anyhow I don’t need to—I’m sure anyhow. Morrie, I know who he is.”

“You do? Who?”

“He’s my uncle.”

“Your
uncle!
”

“Yes, my uncle. You know—the one I’ve told you about. He’s my Uncle Don. Doctor Donald Cargraves, my ‘Atomic Bomb’ uncle.”

A MAN-SIZED CHALLENGE

• 2 •

“
AT LEAST I
’
M PRETTY SURE
it’s my uncle,” Art went on. “I could tell for certain if I could see his whole face.”

“Don’t you know whether or not he’s your uncle? After all, a member of your own family—”

“Nope. I haven’t seen him since he came through here to see Mother, just after the war. That’s been a long time. I was just a kid then. But it looks like him.”

“But he doesn’t look old enough,” Morrie said judiciously. “I should think—Here comes the ambulance!”

It was indeed, with Ross riding with the driver to show him the road and the driver cussing the fact that the road existed mostly in Ross’s imagination. They were all too busy for a few minutes, worrying over the stranger as a patient, to be much concerned with his identity as an individual. “Doesn’t look too bad,” the interne who rode with the ambulance announced. “Nasty scalp wound. Maybe concussion, maybe not. Now over with him—easy!—while I hold his head.” When turned face up and lifted into the stretcher, the patient’s eyes flickered; he moaned and seemed to try to say something. The doctor leaned over him.

Art caught Morrie’s eye and pressed a thumb and forefinger together. There was no longer any doubt as to the man’s identity, now that Art had seen his face.

Ross started to climb back in the ambulance but the interne waved him away. “But all of you boys show up at the hospital. We’ll have to make out an accident report on this.”

As soon as the ambulance lumbered away Art told Ross about his discovery. Ross looked startled. “Your uncle, eh? Your own uncle. What was he doing here?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t know he was in town.”

“Say, look—I hope he’s not hurt bad, especially seeing as how he’s your uncle—but is this
the
uncle, the one you were telling us about who has been mentioned for the Nobel Prize?”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. He’s my Uncle Donald Cargraves.”

“Doctor Donald Cargraves!” Ross whistled. “Jeepers! When we start slugging people we certainly go after big game, don’t we?”

“It’s no laughing matter. Suppose he dies? What’ll I tell my mother?”

“I wasn’t laughing. Let’s get over to the hospital and find out how bad he’s hurt before you tell her anything. No use in worrying her unnecessarily.” Ross sighed, “I guess we might as well break the news to my folks. Then I’ll drive us over to the hospital.”

“Didn’t you tell them when you telephoned?” Morrie asked.

“No. They were out in the garden, so I just phoned and then leaned out to the curb to wait for the ambulance. They may have seen it come in the drive but I didn’t wait to find out.”

“I’ll bet you didn’t.”

Ross’s father was waiting for them at the house. He answered their greetings, then said, “Ross—”

“Yes, sir?”

“I heard an explosion down toward your private stamping ground. Then I saw an ambulance drive in and drive away. What happened?”

“Well, Dad, it was like this: We were making a full-power captive run on the new rocket and—” He sketched out the events.

Mr. Jenkins nodded and said, “I see. Come along, boys.” He started toward the converted stable which housed the family car. “Ross, run tell your mother where we are going. Tell her I said not to worry.” He went on, leaning on his cane a bit as he walked. Mr. Jenkins was a retired electrical engineer, even-tempered and taciturn.

Art could not remember his own father; Morrie’s father was still living but a very different personality. Mr. Abrams ruled a large and noisy, children-cluttered household by combining a loud voice with lavish affection.

When Ross returned, puffing, his father waved away his offer to drive. “No, thank you. I want us to get there.” The trip was made in silence. Mr. Jenkins left them in the foyer of the hospital with an injunction to wait.

“What do you think he will do?” Morrie asked nervously.

“I don’t know. Dad’ll be fair about it.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Morrie admitted. “Right now I don’t want justice; I want charity.”

“I hope Uncle Don is all right,” Art put in.

“Huh? Oh, yes, indeed! Sorry, Art, I’m afraid we’ve kind of forgotten your feelings. The principal thing is for him to get well, of course.”

“To tell the truth, before I knew it was Uncle Don, I was more worried over the chance that I might have gotten Mother into a law suit than I was over what we might have done to a stranger.”

“Forget it,” Ross advised. “A person can’t help worrying over his own troubles. Dad says the test is in what you do, not in what you think. We all did what we could for him.”

“Which was mostly not to touch him before the doctor came,” Morrie pointed out.

“Which was what he needed.”

“Yes,” agreed Art, “but I don’t check you, Ross, on it not mattering what you think as long as you act all right. It seems to me that wrong ideas can be just as bad as wrong ways to do things.”

“Easy, now. If a guy does something brave when he’s scared to death is he braver than the guy who does the same thing but isn’t scared?”

“He’s less…no, he’s more… You’ve got me all mixed up. It’s not the same thing.”

“Not quite, maybe. Skip it.”

They sat in silence for a long time. Then Morrie said, “Anyhow, I hope he’s all right.”

Mr. Jenkins came out with news. “Well, boys, this is your lucky day. Skull uninjured according to the X-ray. The patient woke when they sewed up his scalp. I talked with him and he has decided not to scalp any of you in return.” He smiled.

“May I see him?” asked Art.

“Not tonight. They’ve given him a hypo and he is asleep. I telephoned your mother, Art.”

“You did? Thank you, sir.”

“She’s expecting you. I’ll drop you by.”

Art’s interview with his mother was not too difficult; Mr. Jenkins had laid a good foundation. In fact, Mrs. Mueller was incapable of believing that Art could be “bad.” But she did worry about him and Mr. Jenkins had soothed her, not only about Art but also as to the welfare of her brother.

Morrie had still less trouble with Mr. Abrams. After being assured that the innocent bystander was not badly hurt, he had shrugged. “So what? So we have lawyers in the family for such things. At fifty cents a week it’ll take you about five hundred years to pay it off. Go to bed.”

“Yes, Poppa.”

The boys gathered at the rocket testing grounds the next morning, after being assured by a telephone call to the hospital that Doctor Cargraves had spent a good night. They planned to call on him that afternoon; at the moment they wanted to hold a post-mortem on the ill-starred
Starstruck V
.

The first job was to gather up the pieces, try to reassemble them, and then try to figure out what had happened. Art’s film of the event would be necessary to complete the story, but it was not yet ready.

They were well along with the reassembling when they heard a whistle and a shout from the direction of the gate. “Hello there! Anybody home?”

“Coming!” Ross answered. They skirted the barricade to where they could see the gate. A tall, husky figure waited there—a man so young, strong, and dynamic in appearance that the bandage around his head seemed out of place, and still more so in contrast with his friendly grin.

“Uncle Don!” Art yelled as he ran up to meet him.

“Hi,” said the newcomer. “You’re Art. Well, you’ve grown a lot but you haven’t changed much.” He shook hands.

“What are you doing out of bed? You’re sick.”

“Not me,” his uncle asserted. “I’ve got a release from the hospital to prove it. But introduce me—are these the rest of the assassins?”

“Oh—excuse me. Uncle Don, this is Maurice Abrams and this is Ross Jenkins… Doctor Cargraves.”

“How do you do, sir?”

“Glad to know you, Doctor.”

“Glad to know you, too.” Cargraves started through the gate, then hesitated. “Sure this place isn’t booby-trapped?”

Ross looked worried. “Say, Doctor—we’re all sorry as can be. I still can’t see how it happened. This gate is covered by the barricade.”

“Ricochet shot probably. Forget it. I’m not hurt. A little skin and a little blood—that’s all. If I had turned back at your first warning sign, it wouldn’t have happened.”

“How did you happen to be coming here?”

“A fair question. I hadn’t been invited, had I?”

“Oh, I didn’t mean that.”