The Past Through Tomorrow (50 page)

“Thank you, Doctor O’Neil—for all of us.” He switched off as quickly as could be managed gracefully.

Beaumont was looking at Clare with added respect, too. “I think,” he said, “that the next time I shall not interfere with your handling of the details. I’ll take my leave. Adieu, gentlemen—and Miss Cormet.”

When the door had rolled down behind him Grace remarked, “That seems to polish it off.”

“Yes,” said Clare. “We’ve ‘walked his dog’ for him; O’Neil has what he wants; Beaumont got what he wanted, and more besides.”

“Just what is he after?”

“I don’t know, but I suspect that he would like to be first president of the Solar System Federation, if and when there is such a thing. With the aces we have dumped in his lap, he might make it. Do you realize the potentialities of the O’Neil effect?”

“Vaguely,” said Francis.

“Have you thought about what it will do to space navigation? Or the possibilities it adds in the way of colonization? Or its recreational uses? There’s a fortune in that alone.”

“What do we get out of it?”

“What do we get out of it? Money, old son. Gobs and gobs of money. There’s always money in giving people what they want.” He glanced up at the Scottie dog trademark.

“Money,” repeated Francis. “Yeah, I suppose so.”

“Anyhow,” added Grace, “we can always go look at the ‘Flower.’”

“
WILL SHE HEAR YOU
?”

“If she’s on this face of the Moon. If she was able to get out of the ship. If her suit radio wasn’t damaged. If she has it turned on. If she is alive. Since the ship is silent and no radar beacon has been spotted, it is unlikely that she or the pilot lived through it.”

“She’s got to be found! Stand by, Space Station. Tycho Base, acknowledge.”

Reply lagged about three seconds, Washington to Moon and back. “Lunar Base, Commanding General.”

“General, put every man on the Moon out searching for Betsy!”

Speed-of-light lag made the answer sound grudging. “Sir, do you know how big the Moon is?”

“No matter! Betsy Barnes is there somewhere—so every man is to search until she is found. If she’s dead, your precious pilot would be better off dead, too!”

“Sir, the Moon is almost fifteen million square miles. If I used every man I have, each would have over a thousand square miles to search. I gave Betsy my best pilot. I won’t listen to threats against him when he can’t answer back. Not from anyone, sir! I’m sick of being told what to do by people who don’t know Lunar conditions. My advice—my official advice, sir—is to let Meridian Station try. Maybe they can work a miracle.”

The answer rapped back, “Very well, General! I’ll speak to you later. Meridian Station! Report your plans.”

Elizabeth Barnes, “Blind Betsy,” child genius of the piano, had been making a USO tour of the Moon. She “wowed ’em” at Tycho Base, then lifted by jeep rocket for Farside Hardbase, to entertain our lonely missilemen behind the Moon. She should have been there in an hour. Her pilot was a safety pilot; such ships shuttled unpiloted between Tycho and Farside daily.

After lift-off her ship departed from its programming, was lost by Tycho’s radars. It was…somewhere.

Not in space, else it would be radioing for help and its radar beacon would be seen by other ships, space stations, surface bases. It had crashed—or made emergency landing—somewhere on the vastness of Luna.

“Meridian Space Station, Director speaking—” Lag was unnoticeable; radio bounce between Washington and the station only 22,300 miles up was only a quarter second. “We’ve patched Earthside stations to blanket the Moon with our call. Another broadcast blankets the far side—from Station Newton at the three-body stable position. Ships from Tycho are orbiting the Moon’s rim—that band around the edge which is in radio shadow from us and from the Newton. If we hear—”

“Yes, yes! How about radar search?”

“Sir, a rocket on the surface looks to radar like a million other features the same size. Our one chance is to get them to answer…if they can. Ultrahigh-resolution radar might spot them in months—but suits worn in those little rockets carry only six hours air. We are praying they will hear and answer.”

“When they answer, you’ll slap a radio direction finder on them. Eh?”

“No, sir.”

“In God’s name, why
not
?”

“Sir, a direction finder is useless for this job. It would tell us only that the signal came from the Moon—which doesn’t help.”

“Doctor, you’re saying that you might
hear
Betsy—and not know where she is?”

“We’re as blind as she is. We hope that she will be able to lead us to her…if she hears us.”

“How?”

“With a Laser. An intense, very tight beam of light. She’ll hear it—”

“
Hear
a beam of light?”

“Yes, sir. We are jury-rigging to scan like radar—that won’t show anything. But we are modulating it to give a carrier wave in radio frequency, then modulating that into audio frequency—and controlling that by a piano. If she hears us, we’ll tell her to listen while we scan the Moon and run the scale on the piano—”

“All this while a little girl is
dying
?”

“Mister President—shut
up!
”

“
Who was THAT?
”

“I’m Betsy’s father. They’ve patched me from Omaha.
Please
, Mr. President, keep quiet and let them work. I want my daughter back.”

The President answered tightly, “Yes, Mr. Barnes. Go ahead, Director. Order anything you need.”

In Station Meridian the director wiped his face. “Getting anything?”

“No. Boss, can’t something be done about that Rio station? It’s sitting right on the frequency!”

“We’ll drop a brick on them. Or a bomb. Joe, tell the President.”

“I heard, Director. They’ll be silenced!”

“
Sh
! Quiet! Betsy—do you hear me?” The operator looked intent, made an adjustment.

From a speaker came a girl’s light, sweet voice: “—to hear somebody! Gee, I’m glad! Better come quick—the Major is hurt.”

The Director jumped to the microphone. “Yes, Betsy, we’ll hurry. You’ve got to help us. Do you know where you are?”

“Somewhere on the Moon, I guess. We bumped hard and I was going to kid him about it when the ship fell over. I got unstrapped and found Major Peters and he isn’t moving. Not dead—I don’t think so; his suit puffs out like mine and I hear something when I push my helmet against him. I just now managed to get the door open.” She added, “This can’t be Far-side; it’s supposed to be night there. I’m in sunshine, I’m sure. This suit is pretty hot.”

“Betsy, you must stay outside. You’ve got to be where you can see us.”

She chuckled. “That’s a good one. I see with my ears.”

“Yes. You’ll see us, with your ears. Listen, Betsy. We’re going to scan the Moon with a beam of light. You’ll hear it as a piano note. We’ve got the Moon split into the eighty-eight piano notes. When you hear one, yell, ‘
Now
!’ Then tell us what note you heard. Can you do that?”

“Of course,” she said confidently, “if the piano is in tune.”

“It is. All right, we’re starting—”

“
Now!
”

“What note, Betsy?”

“E flat the first octave above middle C.”

“This note, Betsy?”

“That’s what I said.”

The Director called out, “Where’s that on the grid? In Mare Nubium? Tell the General!” He said to the microphone, “We’re finding you, Betsy honey! Now we scan just that part you’re on. We change setup. Want to talk to your Daddy meanwhile?”

“Gosh! Could I?”

“Yes indeed!”

Twenty minutes later he cut in and heard: “—of course not, Daddy. Oh, a teensy bit scared when the ship fell. But people take care of me, always have.”

“Betsy?”

“Yes, sir?”

“Be ready to tell us again.”

“
Now
!” She added, “That’s a bullfrog G, three octaves down.”

“This note?”

“That’s right.”

“Get that on the grid and tell the General to get his ships up! That cuts it to a square ten miles on a side! Now, Betsy—we know
almost
where you are. We are going to focus still closer. Want to go inside and cool off?”

“I’m not too hot. Just sweaty.”

Forty minutes later the General’s voice rang out: “They’ve spotted the ship!
They see her waving
!”

MAYBE WE SHOULD
never have ventured out into space. Our race has but two basic, innate fears; noise and the fear of falling. Those terrible heights—Why should any man in his right mind let himself be placed where he could fall…and fall…and fall—But all spacemen are crazy. Everybody knows that.

The medicos had been very kind, he supposed. “You’re lucky. You want to remember that, old fellow. You’re still young and your retired pay relieves you of all worry about your future. You’ve got both arms and legs and are in fine shape.”

“Fine shape!” His voice was unintentionally contemptuous.

“No, I mean it,” the chief psychiatrist had persisted gently. “The little quirk you have does you no harm at all—except that you can’t go out into space again. I can’t honestly call acrophobia a neurosis; fear of falling is normal and sane. You’ve just got it a little more strongly than most—but that is not abnormal, in view of what you have been through.”

The reminder set him to shaking again. He closed his eyes and saw the Stars wheeling below him again. He was falling…falling endlessly. The psychiatrist’s voice came through to him and pulled him back. “Steady, old man! Look around you.”

“Sorry.”

“Not at all. Now tell me, what do you plan to do?”

“I don’t know. Get a job, I suppose.”

“The Company will give you a job, you know.”

He shook his head. “I don’t want to hang around a spaceport.” Wear a little button in his shirt to show that he was once a man, be addressed by a courtesy title of captain, claim the privileges of the pilots’ lounge on the basis of what he used to be, hear the shop talk die down whenever he approached a group, wonder what they were saying behind his back—no, thank you!

“I think you’re wise. Best to make a clean break, for a while at least, until you are feeling better.”

“You think I’ll get over it?”

The psychiatrist pursed his lips. “Possible. It’s functional, you know. No trauma.”

“But you don’t think so?”

“I didn’t say that. I honestly don’t know. We still know very little about what makes a man tick.”

“I see. Well, I might as well be leaving.”

The psychiatrist stood up and shoved out his hand. “Holler if you want anything. And come back to see us in any case.”

“Thanks.”

“You’re going to be all right. I know it.”

But the psychiatrist shook his head as his patient walked out. The man did not walk like a spaceman; the easy, animal self-confidence was gone.

Only a small part of Great New York was roofed over in those days; he stayed underground until he was in that section, then sought out a passageway lined with bachelor rooms. He stuck a coin in the slot of the first one which displayed a lighted “vacant” sign, chucked his jump bag inside, and left. The monitor at the intersection gave him the address of the nearest placement office. He went there, seated himself at an interview desk, stamped in his finger prints, and started filling out forms. It gave him a curious back-to-the-beginning feeling; he had not looked for a job since pre-cadet days.

He left filling in his name to the last and hesitated even then. He had had more than his bellyful of publicity; he did not want to be recognized; he certainly did not want to be throbbed over—and most of all he did not want anyone telling him he was a hero. Presently he printed in the name “William Saunders” and dropped the forms in the slot.

He was well into his third cigarette and getting ready to strike another when the screen in front of him at last lighted up. He found himself staring at a nice-looking brunette. “Mr. Saunders,” the image said, “will you come inside, please? Door seventeen.”

The brunette in person was there to offer him a seat and a cigarette. “Make yourself comfortable, Mr. Saunders. I’m Miss Joyce. I’d like to talk with you about your application.”

He settled himself and waited, without speaking.

When she saw that he did not intend to speak, she added, “Now take this name ‘William Saunders’ which you have given us—we know who you are, of course, from your prints.”

“I suppose so.”

“Of course I know what everybody knows about you, but your action in calling yourself ‘William Saunders’, Mr.—”

“Saunders.”

“—Mr. Saunders, caused me to query the files.” She held up a microfilm spool, turned so that he might read his own name on it. “I know quite a lot about you now—more than the public knows and more than you saw fit to put into your application. It’s a good record, Mr. Saunders.”

“Thank you.”

“But I can’t use it in placing you in a job. I can’t even refer to it if you insist on designating yourself as ‘Saunders.’”

“The name is Saunders.” His voice was flat, rather than emphatic.

“Don’t be hasty, Mr. Saunders. There are many positions in which the factor of prestige can be used quite legitimately to obtain for a client a much higher beginning rate of pay than—”

“I’m not interested.”

She looked at him and decided not to insist. “As you wish. If you will go to reception room B, you can start your classification and skill tests.”

“Thank you.”

“
If
you should change your mind later, Mr. Saunders, we will be glad to reopen the case. Through that door, please.”

Three days later found him at work for a small firm specializing in custom-built communication systems. His job was calibrating electronic equipment. It was soothing work, demanding enough to occupy his mind, yet easy for a man of his training and experience. At the end of his three months probation he was promoted out of the helper category.

He was building himself a well-insulated rut, working, sleeping, eating, spending an occasional evening at the public library or working out at the YMCA—and never, under any circumstances, going out under the open sky nor up to any height, not even a theater balcony.