Rocket Ship Galileo (6 page)

“May I asked what it is?”

“Of course. Ross is scheduled to start in at the Technical Institute this fall. I think it’s more important for him to get a sound basic education than for him to be first man on the moon.” He turned away again.

“Wait a minute! If it’s his education you are worried about, would you consider me a competent teacher?”

“Eh? Well…yes.”

“I will undertake to tutor the boys in technical and engineering subjects. I will see to it that they do not fall behind.”

Mr. Jenkins hesitated momentarily. “No, Doctor, the matter is settled. An engineer without a degree has two strikes against him to start with. Ross is going to get his degree.” He stepped quickly to the door and called out, “Ross!”

“Coming, Dad.” The center of the argument ran downstairs and into the room. He looked around, first at Cargraves, then anxiously at his father, and finally at his mother, who looked up from her knitting and smiled at him but did not speak. “What’s the verdict?” he inquired.

His father put it bluntly. “Ross, you start in school in the fall. I cannot okay this scheme.”

Ross’s jaw muscles twitched but he did not answer directly. Instead he said to Cargraves, “How about Art and Morrie?”

“Art’s going. Morrie phoned me and said his father didn’t think much of it but would not forbid it.”

“Does that make any difference, Dad?”

“I’m afraid not. I don’t like to oppose you, son, but when it comes right down to cases, I am responsible for you until you are twenty-one. You’ve got to get your degree.”

“But…but…look, Dad. A degree isn’t everything. If the trip is successful, I’ll be so famous that I won’t need a tag on my name to get a job. And if I don’t come back, I won’t need a degree!”

Mr. Jenkins shook his head. “Ross, my mind is made up.”

Cargraves could see that Ross was fighting to keep the tears back. Somehow it made him seem older, not younger. When he spoke again his voice was unsteady. “Dad?”

“Yes, Ross?”

“If I can’t go, may I at least go along to help with the rebuilding job? They’ll need help.”

Cargraves looked at him with new interest. He had some comprehension of what the proposal would cost the boy in heartache and frustration.

Mr. Jenkins looked surprised but answered quickly. “You may do that—up till the time school opens.”

“Suppose they aren’t through by then? I wouldn’t want to walk out on them.”

“Very well. If necessary you can start school the second semester. That is my last concession.” He turned to Doctor Cargraves. “I shall count on you for some tutoring.” Then to his son, “But that is the end of the matter, Ross. When you are twenty-one you can risk your neck in a space ship if you like. Frankly, I expect that there will still be plenty of chance for you to attempt the first flight to the moon if you are determined to try it.” He stood up.

“Albert.”

“Eh? Yes, Martha?” he turned deferentially to his wife.

She laid her knitting in her lap and spoke emphatically. “Let him go, Albert!”

“Eh? What do you mean, my dear?”

“I mean, let the boy go to the moon, if he can.

I know what I said, and you’ve put up a good argument for me. But I’ve listened and learned. Doctor Cargraves is right; I was wrong. We can’t expect to keep them in the nest.

“Oh, I know what I said,” she went on, “but a mother is bound to cry a little. Just the same, this country was not built by people who were afraid to go. Ross’s great-great-grandfather crossed the mountains in a Conestoga wagon and homesteaded this place. He was nineteen, his bride was seventeen. It’s a matter of family record that their parents opposed the move.” She stirred suddenly and one of her knitting needles broke. “I would hate to think that I had let the blood run thin.” She got up and went quickly from the room.

Mr. Jenkins’ shoulders sagged. “You have my permission, Ross,” he said presently. “Doctor, I wish you good luck. And now, if you will excuse me…” He followed his wife.

GROWING PAINS

• 5 •

“
HOW MUCH FARTHER
?” The noise of the stripped-down car combined with desert wind caused Art to shout.

“Look at the map,” Ross said, his hands busy at the wheel in trying to avoid a jack rabbit. “It’s fifty-three miles from Route 66 to the turn-off, then seven miles on the turn-off.”

“We left Highway 66 about thirty-nine, forty miles back,” Art replied. “We ought to be in sight of the turn-off before long.” He squinted out across bare, colorful New Mexico countryside. “Did you ever see so much wide-open, useless country? Cactus and coyotes—what’s it good for?”

“I like it,” Ross answered. “Hang on to your hat.” There was a flat, straight stretch ahead, miles along; Ross peeled off and made the little car dig…seventy…eighty…ninety…ninety-five. The needle quivered up toward three figures.

“Hey, Ross?”

“Yeah?”

“This rig ain’t young any more. Why crack us up?”

“Sissy,” said Ross, but he eased up on the gas.

“Not at all,” Art protested. “If we kill ourselves trying to get to the moon, fine—we’re heroes. But if we bust our fool necks before we start, we’ll just look silly.”

“Okay, okay—is that the turn-off?”

A dirt road swung off to the right and took out over the desert. They followed it about a quarter of a mile, then pulled up at a steel gate barring the road. A strong fence, topped by barbed wire, stretched out in both directions. There was a sign on the gate:

DANGER
Unexploded Shells

Enter this area at your own risk. Disturb nothing—report all suspicious objects to the District Forester.

“This is it,” Ross stated. “Got the keys?” The area beyond was an abandoned training ground of the war, part of more than 8,000,000 acres in the United States which had been rendered useless until decontaminated by the hazardous efforts of army engineer specialists. This desert area was not worth the expense and risk of decontamination, but it was ideal for Cargraves; it assured plenty of room and no innocent bystanders—and it was rent free, loaned to the Association of Atomic Scientists, on Cargraves’ behalf.

Art chucked Ross some keys. Ross tried them, then said, “You’ve given me the wrong keys.”

“I don’t think so. Nope,” he continued, “those are the keys Doc sent.”

“What do we do?”

“Bust the lock, maybe.”

“Not this lock. Do we climb it?”

“With the rig under one arm? Be your age.”

A car crawled toward them, its speed lost in the vastness of the desert. It stopped near them and a man in a military Stetson stuck his head out. “Hey, there!”

Art muttered, “Hey, yourself,” then said, “Good morning.”

“What are you trying to do?”

“Get inside.”

“Don’t you see the sign? Wait a minute—either one of you named Jenkins?”

“He’s Ross Jenkins. I’m Art Mueller.”

“Pleased to know you. I’m the ranger hereabouts. Name o’ Buchanan. I’ll let you in, but I don’t rightly know as I should.”

“Why not?” Ross’s tone was edgy. He felt that they were being sized up as youngsters.

“Well…we had a little accident in there the other day. That’s why the lock was changed.”

“Accident?”

“Man got in somehow—no break in the fence. He tangled with a land mine about a quarter of a mile this side of your cabin.”

“Did it…kill him?”

“Deader ’n a door nail. I spotted it by the buzzards. See here—I’ll let you in; I’ve got a copy of your permit. But don’t go exploring. You stay in the marked area around the cabin, and stay on the road that follows the power line.”

Ross nodded. “We’ll be careful.”

“Mind you are. What are you young fellows going to do in there, anyway? Raise jack-rabbits?”

“That’s right. Giant jack-rabbits, eight feet tall.”

“So? Well, keep ’em inside the marked area, or you’ll have jack-rabbit hamburger.”

“We’ll be careful,” Ross repeated. “Any idea who the man was that had the accident? Or what he was doing here?”

“None, on both counts. The buzzards didn’t leave enough to identify. Doesn’t make sense. There was nothing to steal in there; it was before your stuff came.”

“Oh, it’s here!”

“Yep. You’ll find the crates stacked out in the open. He wasn’t a desert man,” the Ranger went on. “You could tell by his shoes. Must ’a’ come by car, but there was no car around. Doesn’t make sense.”

“No, it doesn’t seem to,” Ross agreed, “but he’s dead, so that ends it.”

“Correct. Here are your keys. Oh, yes—” He put his hand back in his pocket. “Almost forgot. Telegram for you.”

“For us? Oh, thanks!”

“Better put up a mail box out at the highway,” Buchanan suggested. “This reached you by happenstance.”

“We’ll do that,” Ross agreed absently, as he tore open the envelope.

“So long.” Buchanan kicked his motor into life.

“So long, and thanks again.”

“For Heaven’s sake, what does it say?,” Art demanded.

“Read it:”

PASSED FINAL TESTS TODAY. LEAVING SATURDAY. PLEASE PROVIDE BRASS BAND, DANCING GIRLS, AND TWO FATTED CALVES—ONE RARE, ONE MEDIUM. (signed) DOC AND MORRIE.

Ross grinned. “Imagine that! Old Morrie a rocket pilot! I’ll bet his hat doesn’t fit him now.”

“I’ll bet it doesn’t. Darn! We all should have taken the course.”

“Relax, relax. Don’t be small about it—we’d have wasted half the summer.” Ross dismissed the matter.

Art himself did not understand his own jealousy. Deep inside, it was jealousy of the fact that Morrie had been able to go to Spaatz Field in the company of Art’s idolized uncle, rather than the purpose of the trip. All the boys had had dual-control airplane instruction; Morrie had gone on and gotten a private license. Under the rules—out of date, in Art’s opinion—an airplane pilot could take a shortened course for rocket pilot. Doctor Cargraves held a slightly dusty aircraft license some fifteen years old. He had been planning to qualify for rocket operation; when he found that Morrie was eligible it was natural to include him.

This had left Ross and Art to carry out numerous chores for the enterprise, then to make their own way to New Mexico to open up the camp.

The warning to follow the power line had been necessary; the boys found the desert inside pock-marked by high explosive and criss-crossed with tracks, one as good as another, carved years before by truck and tank and mobile carrier. The cabin itself they found to be inside a one-strand corral a quarter of a mile wide and over a mile long. Several hundred yards beyond the corral and stretching away for miles toward the horizon was an expanse which looked like a green, rippling lake—the glassy crater of the atom bomb test of 1951, the UN’s Doomsday Bomb.

Neither the cabin nor the piled-up freight could hold their attention until they had looked at it. Ross drove the car to the far side of the enclosure and they stared.

Art gave a low respectful whistle. “How would you like to have been under that?” Ross inquired in a hushed voice.

“Not any place in the same county—or the next county. How would you like to be in a city when one of those things goes off?”

Ross shook his head. “I want to zig when it zags. Art, they better never have to drop another one, except in practice. If they ever start lobbing those things around, it ’ud be the end of civilization.”

“They won’t,” Art assured him. “What d’you think the UN police is for? Wars are out. Everybody knows that.”

“You know it and I know it. But I wonder if everybody knows it?”

“It’ll be just too bad if they don’t.”

“Yeah—too bad for
us
.”

Art climbed out of the car. “I wonder if we can get down to it?”

“Well, don’t try. We’ll find out later.”

“There can’t be any duds in the crater or anywhere in the area—not after that.”

“Don’t forget our friend that the buzzards ate. Duds that weren’t exposed to the direct blast might not go off. This bomb was set off about five miles up.”

“Huh? I thought—”

“You were thinking about the test down in Chihuahua. That was a ground job. Come on. We got work to do.” He trod on the starter.

The cabin was pre-fab, moved in after the atom bomb test to house the radioactivity observers. It had not been used since and looked it. “Whew! What a mess,” Art remarked. “We should have brought a tent.”

“It’ll be all right when we get it fixed up. Did you see kerosene in that stuff outside?”

“Two drums of it.”

“Okay. I’ll see if I can make this stove work. I could use some lunch.” The cabin was suitable, although dirty. It had a drilled well; the water was good, although it had a strange taste. There were six rough bunks needing only bedding rolls. The kitchen was the end of the room, the dining room a large pine table, but there were shelves, hooks on the walls, windows, a tight roof overhead. The stove worked well, even though it was smelly; Ross produced scrambled eggs, coffee, bread and butter, German-fried potatoes, and a bakery apple pie with only minor burns and mishaps.

It took all day to clean the cabin, unload the car, and uncrate what they needed at once. By the time they finished supper, prepared this time by Art, they were glad to crawl into their sacks. Ross was snoring gently before Art closed his eyes. Between Ross’s snores and the mournful howls of distant coyotes Art was considering putting plugs in his ears, when the morning sun woke him up.