Adventures in Time and Space

by Raymond J Healy

  One wonders how Columbus may have felt if circumstances had left him standing on the dock, watching his tiny fleet sail westward without him. Robert Heinlein has envisioned the man who mad space travel possible forced by ill-health to stand earthbound and watch the first rocket ship, his ship, soar out through space to the moon. The story of the frustrated pioneer is a rare combination or realistic detail and poignant charm.

  * * *

  On a high hill in Samoa there is a grave. Inscribed on the marker are these words:

  “Under the wide and starry sky

  Dig my grave and let me lie

  Glad did I live and gladly die

  And I lay me down with a will!

  “This be the verse which you grave for me:

  ‘Here he lies where he longed to be,

  Home is the sailor, home from the sea,

  And the hunter home from the hill.’ ”

  These lines appear another place ‌—‌ scrawled on a shipping tag torn from a compressed-air container, and pinned to the ground with a knife.

  It wasn’t much of a fair, as fairs go. The trottin’ races didn’t promise much excitement, even though several entries claimed the blood of the immortal Dan Patch. The tents and concession booths barely covered the circus grounds, and the pitchmen seemed discouraged.

  D.D. Harriman’s chauffeur could not see any reason for stopping. They were due in Kansas City for a directors’ meeting, that is to say, Harriman was. The chauffeur had private reasons for promptness, reasons involving darktown society on Eighteenth Street. But the Boss not only stopped, but hung around.

  Bunting and a canvas arch made the entrance to a large enclosure beyond the race track. Red and gold letters announced:

  This way to the MOON ROCKET!!!!

  See it in actual flight!

  Public Demonstration Flights

  Twice Daily

  This is the ACTUAL TYPE used by the

  First Man to reach the MOON!!!

  YOU can ride in it!! ‌—‌ $50.OO

  A boy, nine or ten years old, hung around the entrance and stared at the posters.

  “Want to see the ship, son?”

  The kid’s eyes shone. “Gee, mister. I sure would.”

  “So would I. Come on.” Harriman paid out a dollar for two pink tickets which entitled them to enter the enclosure and examine the rocket ship. The kid took his and ran on ahead with the single-mindedness of youth. Harriman looked over the stubby curved lines of the ovoid body. He noted with a professional eye that she was a single-jet type with fractional controls around her midriff. He squinted through his glasses at the name painted in gold on the carnival red of the body, Care Free. He paid another quarter to enter the control cabin.

  When his eyes had adjusted to the gloom caused by the strong ray filters of the ports he let them rest lovingly on the keys of the console and the semi-circle of dials above. Each beloved gadget was in its proper place. He knew them, graven in his heart.

  While he mused over the instrument board, with the warm liquid of content soaking through his body, the pilot entered and touched his arm.

  “Sorry, sir. We’ve got to cast loose for the flight.”

  “Eh?” Harriman started, then looked at the speaker. Handsome devil, with a good skull and strong shoulders, reckless eyes and a self-indulgent mouth, but a firm chin. “Oh, excuse me, Captain.”

  “Quite all right.”

  “Oh, I say, Captain, er, uh…”

  “McIntyre.”

  “Captain McIntyre, could you take a passenger this trip?” The old man leaned eagerly toward him.

  “Why, yes, if you wish. Come along with me.” He ushered Harriman into a shed marked OFFICE which stood near the gate. “Passenger for a check over, doc.”

  Harriman looked startled but permitted the medico to run a stethoscope over his thin chest, and to strap a rubber bandage around his arm. Presently he unstrapped it, glanced at McIntyre, and shook his head.

  “No go, doc?”

  “That’s right, Captain.”

  Harriman looked from face to face. “My heart’s all right ‌—‌ that’s just a flutter.”

  The physician’s brows shot up. “Is it? But it’s not just your heart; at your age your bones are brittle, too brittle to risk a takeoff.”

  “Sorry, sir,” added the pilot, “but the Bates County Fair Association pays the doctor here to see to it that I don’t take anyone up who might be hurt by the acceleration.”

  The old man’s shoulders drooped miserably. “I rather expected it.”

  “Sorry, sir.” McIntyre turned to go, but Harriman followed him out.

  “Excuse me, Captain‌—‌”

  “Yes?”

  “Could you and your, uh, engineer have dinner with me after your flight?”

  The pilot looked at him quizzically. “I don’t see why not. Thanks.”

  “Captain McIntyre, it is difficult for me to see why anyone would quit the Earth-Moon run.” Fried chicken and hot biscuits in a private dining room of the best hotel the little town of Butler afforded, three-star Hennessey and Corona-Coronas had produced a friendly atmosphere in which three men could talk freely.

  “Well, I didn’t like it.”

  “Aw, don’t give him that, Mac ‌—‌ you know damn well it was Rule G that got you.” McIntyre’s mechanic poured himself another brandy as he spoke.

  McIntyre looked sullen. “Well, what if I did take a couple o’ drinks? Anyhow, I could have squared that ‌—‌ it was the damn persnickety regulations that got me fed up. Who are you to talk? ‌—‌ Smuggler!”

  “Sure I smuggled! Who wouldn’t with all those beautiful rocks just aching to be taken back to Earth. I had a diamond once as big as… But if I hadn’t been caught I’d be in Luna City tonight. And so would you, you drunken blaster … with the boys buying us drinks, and the girls smiling and making suggestions…” He put his face down and began to weep quietly.

  McIntyre shook him. “He’s drunk.”

  “Never mind.” Harriman interposed a hand. “Tell me, are you really satisfied not to be on the run any more?”

  McIntyre chewed his lip. “No, he’s right of course. This barnstorming isn’t what it’s all cracked up to be. We’ve been hopping junk at every pumpkin doin’s up and down the Mississippi valley ‌—‌ sleeping in tourist camps, and eating at grease burners. Half the time the sheriff has an attachment on the ship, the other half the Society for the Prevention of Something or Other gets an injunction to keep us on the ground. It’s no sort of a life for a rocket man.”

  “Would it help any for you to get to the Moon?”

  “Well… Yes. I couldn’t get back on the Earth-Moon run, but if I was in Luna City, I could get a job hopping ore for the Company ‌—‌ they’re always short of rocket pilots for that, and they wouldn’t mind my record. If I kept my nose clean, they might even put me back on the run, in time.”

  Harriman fiddled with a spoon, then looked up. “Would you young gentlemen be open to a business proposition?”

  “Perhaps. What is it?”

  “You own the Care Free?”

  “Yeah. That is, Charlie and I do ‌—‌ barring a couple of liens against her. What about it?”

  “I want to charter her… for you and Charlie to take me to the Moon!”

  Charlie sat up with a jerk. “D’joo hear what he said, Mac? He wants us to fly that old heap to the Moon!”

  McIntyre shook his head. “Can’t do it, Mister Harriman. The old boat’s worn out. You couldn’t convert to escape fuel. We don’t even use standard juice in her ‌—‌ just gasoline and liquid air. Charlie spends all of his time tinkering with her at that She’s going to blow up some day.”

  “Say, Mister Harriman,” put in Charlie, “what’s the matter with getting an excursion permit and going in a Company ship?”

  “No, son,” the old man replied, “I can’t do that. You know the conditions under which the U. N. granted the Company a monopoly on lunar expl
oitation ‌—‌ no one to enter space who was not physically qualified to stand up under it. Company to take full responsibility for the safety and health of all citizens beyond the stratosphere. The official reason for granting the franchise was to avoid unnecessary loss of life during the first few years of space travel.”

  “And you can’t pass the physical exam?” Harriman shook his head.

  “Well, what the hell ‌—‌ if you can afford to hire us, why don’t you just bribe yourself a brace of Company docs? It’s been done before.”

  Harriman smiled ruefully. “I know it has, Charlie, but it won’t work for me. You see, I’m a tad too prominent. My full name is Delos D. Harriman.”

  “What? You are old D.D.? But hell’s bells, you own a big slice of the Company yourself ‌—‌ you practically are the Company; you ought to be able to do anything you like, rules or no rules.”

  “That is a not unusual opinion, son, but it is incorrect. Rich men aren’t more free than other men; they are less free, a good deal less free. I tried to do what you suggest, but, the other directors would not permit me. They are afraid of losing their franchise. It costs them a good deal in ‌—‌ uh ‌—‌ political contact expenses to retain it, as it is.”

  “Well, I’ll be a‌—‌ Can you tie that, Mac? A guy with lots of dough, and he can’t spend it the way he wants to.” McIntyre did not answer, but waited for Harriman to continue.

  “Captain McIntyre, if you had a ship, would you take me?”

  McIntyre rubbed his chin. “It’s against the law.”

  “I’d make it worth your while.”

  “Sure he would, Mr. Harriman. Of course you would, Mac. Luna City! Oh, baby!”

  “Why do you want to go to the Moon so badly, Mister Harriman?”

  “Captain, it’s the one thing I’ve really wanted to do all my life ‌—‌ ever since I was a young boy. I don’t know whether I can explain it to you, or not. You young fellows have grown up to rocket travel the way I grew up to aviation. I’m a great deal older than you are, at least fifty years older. When I was a kid practically nobody believed that men would ever reach the Moon. You’ve seen rockets all your lives, and the first to reach the Moon got there before you were a young boy. When I was a boy they laughed at the idea.

  “But I believed ‌—‌ I believed. I read Verne, and Wells, and Smith, and I believed that we could do it ‌—‌ that we would do it. I set my heart on being one of the men to walk the surface of the Moon, to see her other side, and to look back on the face of the Earth, hanging in the sky.

  “I used to go without my lunches to pay my dues in the American Rocket Society, because I wanted to believe that I was helping to bring the day nearer when we would reach the Moon. I was already an old man when that day arrived. I’ve lived longer than I should, but I would not let myself die… I will not! ‌—‌ until I have set foot on the Moon.”

  McIntyre stood up and put out his hand. “You find a ship, Mister Harriman. I’ll drive ‘er.”

  “Atta’ boy, Mac! I told you he would, Mister Harriman.”

  Harriman mused and dozed during the half-hour run to the north into Kansas City, dozed in the light troubled sleep of old age. Incidents out of a long life ran through his mind in vagrant dreams. There was that time… oh, yes, 1910 … A little boy on a warm spring night;

  “What’s that, Daddy?” ‌—‌ “That’s Halley’s comet, Sonny.” ‌—‌ “Where did it come from?” ‌—‌ “I don’t know, Son. From way out in the sky somewhere.” ‌—‌ “It’s beyoootiful, Daddy. I want to touch it.” ‌—‌ “ ‘Fraid not, Son.”

  “Delos, do you mean to stand there and tell me you put the money we had saved for the house into that crazy rocket company?” ‌—‌ “Now, Charlotte, please! It’s not crazy; it’s a sound business investment. Someday soon rockets will fill the sky. Ships and trains will be obsolete. Look what happened to the men that had the foresight to invest in Henry Ford.” ‌—‌ “We’ve been all over this before.” ‌—‌ “Charlotte, the day will come when men will rise up off the Earth and visit the Moon, even the planets. This is the beginning.” ‌—‌ “Must you shout?” ‌—‌ “I’m sorry, but‌—‌” ‌—‌ “I feel a headache coming on. Please try to be a little quiet when you come to bed.”

  He hadn’t gone to bed. He had sat out on the veranda all night long, watching the full Moon move across the sky. There would be the devil to pay in the morning, the devil and a thin-lipped silence. But he’d stick by his guns. He’d given in on most things, but not on this. But the night was his. Tonight he’d be alone with his old friend. He searched her face. Where was Mare Crisium? Funny, he couldn’t make it out. He used to be able to see it plainly when he was a boy. Probably needed new glasses ‌—‌ this constant office work wasn’t good for his eyes.

  But he didn’t need to see, he knew where they all were; Crisium, Mare Fecunditatis, Mare Tranquilitatis ‌—‌ that one had a satisfying roll! ‌—‌ the Apennines, the Carpathians, old Tycho with it’s mysterious rays.

  Two hundred and forty thousand miles ‌—‌ ten times around the Earth. Surely men could bridge a little gap like that. Why, he could almost reach out and touch it, nodding there behind the elm trees. Not that he could help. He hadn’t the education.

  “Son, I want to have a little serious talk with you.” ‌—‌ “Yes, Mother.” ‌—‌ “I know you had hoped to go to college next year‌—‌” (Hoped! He had lived for it. The University of Chicago to study under Moulton, then on to the Yerkes Observatory to work under the eye of Dr. Frost himself) ‌—‌ “and I had hoped so too. But with your father gone, and the girls growing up, it’s harder to make ends meet. You’ve been a good boy, and worked hard to help out. I know you’ll understand.” ‌—‌ “Yes, Mother.”

  “Extra! Extra! STRATOSPHERE ROCKET REACHES PARIS. Read aaaaallllll about ‘t.” The the little man in the bifocals snatched at the paper and hurried back to the office. ‌—‌ “Look at this, George.” ‌—‌ “Huh? Hmm, interesting, but what of it?” ‌—‌ “Can’t you see? The next stage is to the Moon!” ‌—‌ “God, but you’re a sucker, Delos. The trouble with you is, you read too many of those trashy magazines. Now I caught my boy reading one of ’em just last week, Stunning Stories, or some such title, and dressed him down proper. Your folks should have done you the same favor.” ‌—‌ Harriman squared his narrow, middle-aged shoulders. “They will so reach the Moon!” ‌—‌ His partner laughed. “Have it your own way. If baby wants the Moon, papa bring it for him. But you stick to your discounts and commissions; that’s where the money is.”

  The big car droned down the Paseo, and turned off on Armour Boulevard. Old Harriman stirred uneasily in his sleep and muttered to himself.

  “But Mister Harriman‌—‌” The young man with the notebook was plainly perturbed. The old man grunted.

  “You heard me. Sell ’em. I want every share I own realized in cash as rapidly as possible; Spaceways, Spaceways Provisioning Company, Artemis Mines, Luna City Recreations, the whole lot of them.”

  “It will depress the market. You won’t realize the full value of your holdings.”

  “Don’t you think I know that? I can afford it.”

  “What about the shares you had earmarked for Richardson Observatory, and for the Harriman Scholarships?”

  “Oh, yes. Don’t sell those. Set up a trust. Should have done it long ago. Tell young Kamens to draw up the papers. He knows what I want”

  The interoffice visor flashed into life. “The gentlemen are here, Mr. Harriman.”

  “Send ’em in. That’s all, Ashley. Get busy.” Ashley went out as McIntyre and Charlie entered. Harriman got up and trotted forward to greet them.

  “Come in, boys, come in. I’m so glad to see you. Sit down. Sit down. Have a cigar.”

  “Mighty pleased to see you, Mr. Harriman,” acknowledged Charlie. “In fact, you might say we need to see you.”

  “Some trouble, gentlemen?” Harriman glanced fro
m face to face. McIntyre answered him.

  “You still mean that about a job for us, Mr. Harriman?”

  “Mean it? Certainly, I do. You’re not backing out on me?”

  “Not at all. We need that job now. You see the Care Free is lying in the middle of the Osage River, with her jet split clear back to the injector.”

  “Dear me! You weren’t hurt?”

  “No, aside from sprains and bruises. We jumped.”

  Charlie chortled. “I caught a catfish with my bare teeth.”

  In short order they got down to business. “You two will have to buy a ship for me. I can’t do it openly; my colleagues would figure out what I mean to do and stop me. I’ll supply you with all the cash you need. You go out and locate some sort of a ship that can be refitted for the trip. Work, up some good story about how you are buying it for some playboy as a stratosphere yacht, or that you plan to establish an arctic-antarctic tourist route. Anything as long as no one suspects that she is being-outfitted for space flight.

  “Then, after the Department of Transport licenses her for strato flight, you move out to a piece of desert out west ‌—‌ I’ll find a likely parcel of land and buy it ‌—‌ and then I’ll join you. Then we’ll install the escape-fuel tanks, change the injectors, and timers, and so forth, to fit her for the hop. How about it?”

  McIntyre looked dubious. “It’ll take a lot of doing. Charlie, do you think you can accomplish that changeover without a dockyard and shops?”

  “Me? Sure I can ‌—‌ with your thick-fingered help. Just give me the tools and materials I want, and don’t hurry me too much. Of course, it won’t be fancy‌—‌”

  “Nobody wants it to be fancy. I just want a ship that won’t blow when I start slapping the keys. Isotope fuel is no joke.”

  “It won’t blow, Mac.”