The Potter of Firsk and Other Stories (78 page)

“You forget that I have destroyed the radio.”

“I remember noting a crate marked ‘Radio Parts’ stored in the starboard jet-pod.”

“I am sorry to disillusion you, Mr. Culpepper. That case is mislabeled.”

Ostrander jumped to his feet, left the wardroom. There was the sound of moving crates. A moment of silence. Then he returned. He glared at Henry Belt. “Whiskey. Bottles of whiskey.”

Henry Belt nodded. “I told you as much.”

“But now we have no radio,” said Lynch in an ugly voice.

“We never have had a radio, Mr. Lynch. You were warned that you would have to depend on your own resources to bring us home. You have failed, and in the process doomed me as well as yourself. Incidentally, I must mark you all down ten demerits for a faulty cargo check.”

“Demerits,” said Ostrander in a bleak voice.

“Now, Mr. Culpepper,” said Henry Belt. “What is your next proposal?”

“I don’t know, sir.”

Verona spoke in a placatory voice. “What would you do, sir, if you were in our position?”

Henry Belt shook his head. “I am an imaginative man, Mr. Verona, but there are certain leaps of the mind which are beyond my powers.” He returned to his compartment.

Von Gluck looked curiously at Culpepper. “It is a fact. You’re not at all concerned.”

“Oh, I’m concerned. But I believe that Mr. Belt wants to get home too. He’s too good a space-man not to know exactly what he’s doing.”

The door from Henry Belt’s compartment slid back. Henry Belt stood in the opening. “Mr. Culpepper, I chanced to overhear your remark, and I now note down ten demerits against you. This attitude expresses a complacence as dangerous as Mr. Sutton’s utter funk. You rely on my capabilities; Mr. Sutton is afraid to rely on his own. This is not the first time I have cautioned you against this easy vice.”

“Very sorry, sir.”

Henry Belt looked about the room. “Pay no heed to Mr. Culpepper. He is wrong. Even if I could repair this disaster, I would not raise a hand. For I expect to die in space.”

VII

The sail was canted vectorless, edgewise to the sun. Jupiter was a smudge astern. There were five cadets in the wardroom. Culpepper, Verona, and von Gluck sat talking in low voices. Ostrander and Lynch lay crouched, arms to knees, faces to the wall. Sutton had gone two days before. Quietly donning his space-suit, he had stepped into the exit chamber and thrust himself headlong into space. A propulsion unit gave him added speed, and before any of the cadets could intervene he was gone.

He had left a short note: “I fear the void because of the terrible attraction of its glory. I briefly felt the exaltation when we went out on sail inspection, and I fought it back. Now, since we must die, I will die this way, by embracing this black radiance, by giving myself wholly. Do not be sorry for me. I will die mad, but the madness will be ecstasy.”

Henry Belt, when shown the note, merely shrugged. “Mr. Sutton was perhaps too imaginative and emotional to make a sound space-man. He could not have been relied upon in any emergency.” And his sardonic glance seemed to include the rest of them.

Shortly thereafter Lynch and Ostrander succumbed to inanition, a kind of despondent helplessness: manic-depression in its most stupefying phase. Culpepper the suave, Verona the pragmatic and von Gluck the sensitive remained.

They spoke quietly to themselves, out of earshot of Henry Belt’s room. “I still believe,” said Culpepper, “that somehow there is a means to get ourselves out of this mess, and that Henry Belt knows it.”

Verona said, “I wish I could think so…We’ve been over it a hundred times. If we set sail for Saturn or Neptune or Uranus, the outward vector of thrust plus the outward vector of our momentum will take us far beyond Pluto before we’re anywhere near. The plasma jets could stop us if we had enough energy, but the shield can’t supply it and we don’t have another power source…”

Von Gluck hit his fist into his hand. “Gentlemen,” he said in a soft delighted voice.

Culpepper and Verona stared at him, absorbing warmth from the light in his face.

“Gentlemen,” said von Gluck, “I believe we have sufficient energy at hand. We will use the sail. Remember? It is bellied. It can function as a mirror. It spreads five square miles of surface. Sunlight out here is thin—but so long as we collect enough of it—”

“I understand!” said Culpepper. “We back off the hull till the reactor is at the focus of the sail and turn on the jets!”

Verona said dubiously, “We’ll still be receiving radiation pressure. And what’s worse, the jets will impinge back on the sail. Effect—cancellation. We’ll be nowhere.”

“If we cut the center out of the sail—just enough to allow the plasma through—we’d beat that objection. And as for the radiation pressure—we’ll surely do better with the plasma drive.”

“What do we use to make plasma? We don’t have the stock.”

“Anything that can be ionized. The radio, the computer, your shoes, my shirt, Culpepper’s camera, Henry Belt’s whiskey…”

VIII

The angel-wagon came up to meet Sail 25, in orbit beside Sail 40, which was just making ready to take out a new crew.

Henry Belt said, “Gentlemen, I beg that you leave no trash, rubbish, old clothing aboard. There is nothing more troublesome than coming aboard an untidy ship. While we wait for the lighter to discharge, I suggest that you give the ship a final thorough policing.”

The cargo carrier drifted near, eased into position. Three men sprang across space to Sail 40, a few hundred yards behind 25, tossed lines back to the carrier, pulled bales of cargo and equipment across the gap.

The five cadets and Henry Belt, clad in space-suits, stepped out into the sunlight. Earth spread below, green and blue, white and brown, the contours so precious and dear to bring tears to the eyes. The cadets transferring cargo to Sail 40 gazed at them curiously as they worked. At last they were finished, and the six men of Sail 25 boarded the carrier.

“Back safe and sound, eh, Henry?” said the pilot. “Well, I’m always surprised.”

Henry Belt made no answer. The cadets stowed their cargo, and standing by the port, took a final look at Sail 25. The carrier retro-jetted; the two sails seemed to rise above them.

The lighter nosed in and out of the atmosphere, braking, extended its wings, glided to an easy landing on the Mojave Desert.

The cadets, their legs suddenly loose and weak to the unaccustomed gravity, limped after Henry Belt to the carry-all, seated themselves and were conveyed to the administration complex. They alighted from the carry-all, and now Henry Belt motioned the five to the side.

“Here, gentlemen, is where I leave you. I go my way, you go yours. Tonight I will check my red book, and after various adjustments I will prepare my official report. But I believe I can present you an unofficial resumé of my impressions.

“First of all, this is neither my best nor my worst class. Mr. Lynch and Mr. Ostrander, I feel that you are ill-suited either for command or for any situation which might inflict prolonged emotional pressure upon you. I cannot recommend you for space-duty.

“Mr. von Gluck, Mr. Culpepper and Mr. Verona, all of you meet my minimum requirements for a recommendation, although I shall write the words ‘Especially Recommended’ only beside the names ‘Clyde von Gluck’ and ‘Marcus Verona’. You brought the sail back to Earth by essentially faultless navigation. It means that if I am to fulfill my destiny I must make at least one more voyage into space.

“So now our association ends. I trust you have profited by it.” Henry Belt nodded briefly to each of the five and limped off around the building.

The cadets looked after him. Culpepper reached in his pocket and brought forth a pair of small metal objects which he displayed in his palm. “Recognize these?”

“Hmf,” said Lynch in a flat voice. “Bearings for the computer disks. The original ones.”

“I found them in the little spare-parts tray. They weren’t there before.”

Von Gluck nodded. “The machinery always seemed to fail immediately after sail check, as I recall.”

Lynch drew in his breath with a sharp hiss. He turned, strode away. Ostrander followed him. Culpepper shrugged. To Verona he gave one of the bearings, to von Gluck the other. “For souvenirs—or medals. You fellows deserve them.”

“Thanks, Ed,” said von Gluck.

“Thanks,” muttered Verona. “I’ll make a stick-pin of this thing.”

The three, not able to look at each other, glanced up into the sky where the first stars of twilight were appearing, then continued on into the building where family and friends and sweethearts awaited them.

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The Dying Earth

1.
The Dying Earth
(1950) (aka
Mazirian the Magician
)

2.
Cugel the Clever
(1966) (aka
The Eyes of the Overworld
)

3.
Cugel’s Saga
(1966) (aka
Cugel: The Skybreak Spatterlight
)

4.
Rhialto the Marvellous
(1984)

Big Planet

1.
Big Planet
(1952)

2.
The Magnificent Showboats
(1975) (aka
The Magnificent Showboats of the Lower Vissel River, Lune XXII South, Big Planet
) (aka
Showboat World
))

Demon Princes

1.
The Star King
(1964)

2.
The Killing Machine
(1964)

3.
The Palace of Love
(1967)

4.
The Face
(1979)

5.
The Book of Dreams
(1981 )

Planet of Adventure

1.
The Chasch
(19648 (
City of the Chasch
)

2.
The Wannek
(1969) (
Servants of the Wankh
)

3.
The Dirdir
(1969)

4.
The Pnume
(1970)

Durdane

1.
The Anome
(1973)

2.
The Brave Free Men
(1973)

3.
The Asutra
(1974)

Alastor Cluster

1.
Trullion: Alastor 2262
(1973)

2.
Marune: Alastor 933
(1975)

3.
Wyst: Alastor 1716
(1978)

Lyonesse

1.
Suldrun’s Garden
(1983) (aka
Lyonesse
)

2.
The Green Pearl
(1985)

3.
Madouc
(1990)

Cadwal Chronicles

1.
Araminta Station
(1988)

2.
Ecce and Old Earth
(1991)

3.
Throy
(1992)

Gaean Reach

1.
The Domains of Koryphon
(1974) (aka
The Gray Prince
)

2.
Maske: Thaery
(1976)

Other Novels

Vandals of the Void
(1953)

The Rapparee (The Five Gold Bands/The Space Pirate
) (1953)

Clarges (To Live Forever
) (1956)

The Languages of Pao
(1958)

Gold and Iron (Slaves of the Klau/Planet of the Damned
) (1958)

Space Opera
(1965)

The Blue World
(1966)

Emphyrio
(1969)

The Dogtown Tourist Agency
(aka
Galactic Effectuator
) (1980)