Trapped in space (2 page)

"Jeff, we are both proud of you—proud you are going," his mother said.

When the taxi carrying his parents had slid away on its pad of whispering air, Jeff began to feel better. Now he had his job to do. He ran for the passenger gate.

"Hey, you star man!" The hoarse shout came after him. "What do I do with this thing?"

Jeff looked back. Another air taxi was floating at the curb. The cab man spilled out of it as if he were trying to walk on the air.

"Hey, star man!" His loud voice was thick. "How about some help?"

Jeff walked back, staring at the passenger in the cab. It looked a little like a starved child, and a little like a blown-up spider. It had a round black stomach

and thin black limbs covered with fur, and it was buzzing like a queer electric toy.

The cab man staggered to meet Jeff. "I wasn't expecting this for a fare, when they called me to the Space Life Center. I wouldn't have taken it, but a cop put it in my cab and told me somebody would meet it here."

"I can't help you," Jeff said. "I'm already late. Maybe I can find somebody at the ferry station who knows what this is all about."

Yet he felt sorry for the thing in the cab. It lay back in the seat as if the earth's pull were too strong for it. Its eyes were huge. When Jeff moved to go, it buzzed at him weakly.

He knew it was a space alien—a creature that did not belong on Earth. It must have come from one of the new planets. Star voyages often brought back strange life. Aliens had much to offer in the way of scientific knowledge, and almost all of them were friendly and helpful. Jeff thought of those "queer kinds of life" that had attacked, Ben. But this creature didn't look as though it would harm anyone.

The cab man hauled it roughly out of the seat and tried to stand it up. Its thin limbs folded and it fell to the pavement, still buzzing.

"I want my fare." The cab man came back to Jeff.

"It has no money. And no friends either, so far as I can see. Not after that raid alert."

Jeff knew that many people didn't trust aliens and stayed away from them. He wondered how long it would be before they were accepted on Earth.

The ferry was due to lift. The gates would soon be closing. Jeff didn't know the alien, and he had no time to waste. But he couldn't make himself leave the helpless creature.

"Here's the fare," Jeff said.

The cab man took his money and roughly set the alien's baggage on the pavement. The baggage was something that looked like a huge brown cocoon, a foot thick and a yard long. As the cab roared away, the alien buzzed faintly, pointing a thin arm at the cocoon.

Jeff bent over the buzzing thing. "How can I help you?" he asked. "What can I do?"

The only answer was more buzzing.

He thought it must be hurt or sick, but he had no idea what it needed. The buzzing meant nothing to him. He looked around for the person who was to meet the alien, and saw no one. He decided to look for a policeman.

As he turned, the creature whistled sharply. Its great eyes looked up at him and back at the hollow cocoon. It twisted like a broken bird on the pavement, dragging

itself a little way toward the cocoon. Maybe that was what it wanted.

Jeff rolled the cocoon toward it.

It made an eager little hum. Its huge eyes blinked and turned a pale gold color. Its thin, three-fingered hands reached for the cocoon. With Jeff helping, as gently as he could, it scrambled inside. Its lean limbs folded to fit the narrow space. Only the crown of its odd head stuck out, closing the cocoon. Its buzz became a sleepy song, like the purr of a happy cat.

Jeff stood up, feeling rather foolish. The ferry would lift in eleven minutes. The gates would close in one minute. He wondered what the admiral would say if he tried to explain that he had missed the ferry because he had stopped to help such a strange being.

''Buzz!" A girl's voice called behind him. "Are you all right?"

Another air taxi was sliding toward the curb. A slim girl jumped out and ran to the cocoon. She knelt over it, buzzing like a second electric toy.

The creature's head popped out of the cocoon. Brighter gold, its huge eyes shone up at her.

"I'm terribly sorry to be late." Her quick dark eyes looked up at Jeff. "I got caught in the space raid alert. So did Buzz. It was dreadful for him."

Gently she stroked the fuzzy head that was looking out of the cocoon.

"Our cab man left him out on the street in the alert. In the confusion we were separated. He doesn't understand much English and he must have felt the force of peoples' fear and hate during the raid. It must nearly have killed him."

The creature purred again. Its big eyes looked back at Jeff. Now they glowed with warm sparks of green and gold.

"Buzz wants to thank you." A smile flashed across the girl's lean face. "And I do, too. Buzz was—"

"I'm glad you got here/' Jeff broke in. "I have to go."

The gates had already closed. Now he could hear the first dull roar as the ferry built up power. High over the station, a thin mist formed and whirled inside the tube of force that was sweeping out a path through the air for the machine.

Seven minutes! Maybe they wouldn't open the gate for him. But at least he could try. He grabbed his light space bag and started running toward the gates.

"Wait—please!" the girl called after him. "We are going, too. Buzz says he will tell them to open the gates. He says they'll open the locks and hold the ferry five minutes for us. No time to explain—but you must help me carry Buzz!"

JefF ran on for half a second, wondering what she meant. How could Buzz tell them to open the gates? Why would they hold the ferry? But then he saw the gates sliding open for them.

He came back and picked up the brown cocoon. It felt lighter than it looked. He swung it to his shoulder like a roll of carpet. The girl slipped the space bag off his arm.

"Thanks!" she said. "Let me carry this."

He trotted toward the gates, the girl running beside him, buzzing. The cocoon buzzed back.

''Later!" she gasped at Jeff. "Later—we will explain."

The air lock into the ferry was open. Reaching hands hauled Jeff through it and took the cocoon. In another 90 seconds he was in his tiny cabin, lying back in the padded shock seat.

The launch field was roaring again, like a storm far away. Horns hooted. Jeff felt the shock, like something exploding under him. The ferry rose, putting pressure on Jeff so that soon he weighed half a ton.

The thrust seemed to go on forever, squeezing his body and dragging at his brain. He could hardly breathe.

When the main jets changed to the gentle push of the boosters, he felt too dull to think. He wanted to find the girl and talk to her about the queer little alien, but

the seat was too comfortable. Perhaps the flight shot had made him sleepy. . . .

When he woke, the ferry was falling toward the moon. He washed his face, brushed his uniform and went out on deck. The passenger deck had no real windows, but a big screen showed their approach.

The moon was swelling in that screen as they fell. It was a big bright ball against the dusty dark of space. He could see the wrinkled mountains and the round holes where shadows lay like puddles of ink.

Sickness hit the pit of his stomach.

Jeff felt ashamed, and angry at himself, and a little afraid. The truth was, heights had frightened him since he was very young. He had no idea why.

His brother Ben had climbed everything, their mother said, since he began to crawl—boxes and chairs and cabinet drawers. Later, it was trees and walls and even flag poles. Jeff had always tried to follow Ben, and he had always been afraid.

He had never talked about it, not even to Ben, but he had tried to fight that fear. At school he had tried high diving. He had practiced on the flying rings. But stifl he had been afraid.

Half the reason he had foflowed Ben through pilot training was to beat this old enemy. He had not beaten it entirely, but he had learned to keep it under control.

Most of the training hadn't been so bad, because it was on the ground. Even most of the training flights were not real, but with 3-D screens to show the look of space. Real flight was not so easy.

His flight alone in the old SP-y had left him weak and cold and dripping sweat. But at least he knew he had faced his fear at its worst and come out all right. It would never be so bad again.

Jeff tried not to look at the moon in the screen, but he couldn't pull his eyes away. The moon was a great sharp ball of rock; its face scarred and terrible. He waited for the strong retro jets that would catch the ferry and steer it into the landing net. All he could feel was the gentle thrust of the boosters, too weak to stop that ten-thousand-mile fall.

"Excuse me, Star Man Stone." A lean little man had touched his arm. "We are with the Space News Service." He waved toward a short fat man with a camera. "Will you speak to our 3-D audience?"

Jeff felt nervous in front of the camera, but he was glad to have something else to think about

"Tell us about the star ships," the news man said. "What are they like?"

"They are the smallest space ships," Jeff said. "And the fastest. They are used to discover the world of new

stars. They can do this because they have X-space drive."

''Will you explain X-space flight for our viewers?"

Jeff thought hard, trying to make it clear.

"In ordinary space/' he said, "the speed of light is the limit. Light seems fast—it goes 186,000 miles a second. But that's too slow for trips to the stars. Most trips would take hundreds of years at that rate. In X-space flight, we break the speed limit."

The lump was still in his stomach, but Jeff tried to grin, aware of the camera.

"The X-space drive twists each atom partly out of common space," he continued. "The mass of each atom drops toward zero. As mass goes down, speed goes up. A star ship can make a thousand light-years in ten hours."

He looked at the camera, explaining that. "One light-year is the distance light can go in one year. It's nearly six trillion miles."

"What makes X-space so dangerous?"

Jeff shook his head. "It isn't. You are safe in X-space flight. The risk is all in ordinary space, when you come back out of X-space drive."

"Why so?"

"You come out fast," Jeff said. "Too fast to see what's

ahead. Too fast for your instruments to be much help. You have to depend on yourself and your team—"

He stopped, hoping good men had been picked to go with him on the Topaz flight.

"You have to be extremely alert. There are so many objects that could smash your ship to bits if not avoided."

"How about the X-space ships? Are they dangerous?"

"Not a bit," Jeff said. "You see, the voyages carry an X-space station to each new star. The station has a beacon that guides arriving ships past any danger. Coming and going through the station, the big ships are as safe as this ferry."

"Thank you. Star Man Stone. We wish you luck on your rescue flight to Topaz."

The news man turned from Jeff to the 3-D camera.

"That was Star Man Jefferson Stone. He will be on the Topaz rescue flight. Now I see two other crew members that you will want to meet."

He hurried off across the deck, the fat camera man behind him. Jeff followed, eager to see who would be with him on the rescue flight.

"—Lupe Flor," the news man was saying. "She's an official star man. So is her friend here. They were picked as members of the Topaz rescue team, to go along with Star Man Stone."

Jeff walked over to the ring of passengers standing by. Lupe Flor, he saw, was the sHm dark girl who had come aboard the ferry with him. Her "friend" was the fuzzy little space alien.

CHAPTER 3

Moon Quake!

The scarred gray curve of the moon filled the big screen. And still the ferry fell.

Jeff watched the screen, listening for the jets that ought to be catching the falling ferry, thinking about the two strange members of his crew. A girl and a fuzzy alien—they couldn't be much good on the rescue flight. To find and help Ben, he needed trained men. The girl and the strange being were half the cause of the knot in his stomach.

"Thank you, Lupe Flor," he heard the news man say. "Now will you introduce your friend?"

Jeff slipped into the ring of people around them.

"I call him Buzz Dozen-Dozen."

Lupe Flor smiled down at the purring alien. Out of the cocoon, it looked different now. Its short fur had turned bright blue. Even its saucer eyes were blue now, happily watching Lupe.

"He has no real name/' she told the news man. "You see, he's not a separate person. Not like one of us. He's part of a multiple being, and he doesn't need a name when he's at home. The number on his space passport ends with 1212—that's where we got the Dozen-Dozen."

The news man looked at Lupe. "Would you explain a multiple being?"

"It's made of millions of parts," Lupe said. "Just as our own bodies are made of millions of cells. They all work together for each other. Each brother-sister has a body like Buzz's and all the parts think together."