Rocket Jockey

by Philip St John

  abDve the surface, since the gases were so dense that th<;y were heavier for the same volume than the ship.

  Instead, they would touch on the moons around Jupiter. Four of those moons were about the size of Earth's moon, or larger, and they rotated about the big pk.net at distances of from a quarter million to over a nillion miles.

  'Jetty looked at Dick's chart and saw that Dick had allowed a hundred and eight hours to reach Io, the inside moon. At full two gees, they could shave about ter hours off that, or a bit more. It wouldn't make up for all the time lost, but it would help. He doubted whether Mars could make it much before he did, and trird to renew his hope for success.

  Dick hadn't given up. It was impossible to tell about Tod MacLane; the engineer fussed over the tubes and motors, grumbling and fuming to himself, while he chewed great wads of the Venus gum savagely. He wa > always willing to talk about the Martians, but he refused to say what he thought of their chances.

  Jerry slept, and woke up stiff. The constant pressure of the acceleration had something to do with that, but he loiew that it was his own nerves, more than anything else. He'd begun to forget about the Institute, and even the bitterness at the dirty trick fate had played on him wa! wearing away. Now, all he could think of was the need to beat Mars.

  He saw that Dick seemed to be suffering from the sane strain. His brother's face was tensed, and his words were abstracted, as if he only half-listened. Jerry caught him often with his head down over the charts.

  "You all right, Dick?" he asked finally.

  Dick nodded, getting up and heading back toward the little cabin where he slept. "I'm fine, kid. Just keep trying to push the ship along faster than she'll gc. Feel like I could get out and run faster!"

  It was an easily acquired feeling. Once away from the planets, there was nothing by which they could judge their speed. Their bodies grew used to the extra feeling of weight, which remained constant, and thu stars were so far away that no movement of the ship mattered. A man could stand at the quartz ports in the control room, looking out for hours, and see no change. Mars had shrunk to a dot behind, and Jupiter was only a dot ahead—no change in size showed now.

  It would have been better if they could have known how the other ships were doing, but wise pilots long before had found that it didn't pay to try to discove* that. You couldn't figure who was ahead when every ■ body was following a course of his own choosing, and trying to beat the ones who were on the same course > with you was both futile and dangerous. All that coulc. be done was to make the best possible time, and hope you were good enough.

  Jerry finished his watch and went down to wake Dick. He was surprised to find the little cabin dark-usually, in space, men got into the habit of sleeping; with lights on, so that they'd be ready in case of ont of the rare collisions with a meteorite or other danger

  He found the bulb and screwed it in, but his ears noticed that something was wrong before the fight came on. Dick's breathing was heavy, and he was moaning softly with every breath.

  He was asleep, and Jerry saw by the bottle beside him that it was a drugged sleep. The left eye had swelled up, and was a patch of darker skin in his already tanned face. Even asleep, he was frowning in pain.

  Jerry let out a yell for Tod down the central shaft, closing the little cabin door before he did so. Nevertheless, the sound woke Dick, and he sat up, grabbing his head as the sudden motion seemed to send new waves of pain lashing through him.

  He tried to grin up at Jerry and the little engineer who came bounding to the door. But the effort wasn't successful. It looked more like a grimace of agony.

  "Just a headache, kid," he muttered. "Ill be all right. I can still see fine. Let me sleep an hour more, and I'll take over."

  Tod took a close look at him. "Crazy! Every Blaine ever born was crazy, and you kids are the worst! Dick, you stop your dadbumed lying and tell the truth!"

  "It's an order, Dick," Jerry said, as he eased his brother back gently onto the hammock. "Official!"

  He was on sure grounds there; one of the duties of a captain was to insure the health of his crew. Dick scowled for a second and reached for a cigarette. He'd made a joke of Jerry's being captain, as Jerry himself had treated it. It came as a jolt to him to realize that their positions really were changed. He blew out a slow cloud of smoke, and tried another grin, this time with more success.

  "You're right, Captain." He indicated the pills, and pulled out a thermometer from behind them. "I've pulled a flop at treating myself. Okay, I've got two degrees of fever, and it feels worse. Light hurts my eyes—oh, I can see fine, but it doesn't feel good. The whole side of my face feels as if someone walked on it. And I'm up against everything they've told me a migraine headache is. It's getting worse too. But I'll last till we hit Io!"

  Jerry met Tod's suddenly worried eyes, and lifted an eyebrow. The engineer jerked his thumb downward sharply. Jerry agreed.

  Dick had guessed the meaning. He stared at them, starting to shake his head. Then he sank back on the hammock. "How far out are we?"

  "Eighteen hours."

  "Eighteen more to stop—thirty-six to get back . . . We'll lose seventy-two hours!"

  Jerry reached up and unscrewed the bulb again. "So we lose it. You're confined to quarters, Dick. And officially, I'm still running the ship. We're heading back for Eros, unless the radio can get me the dope on how to treat you. Right?"

  Dick shrugged helplessly, while Tod began wrapping a thin blanket around him. Jerry went up to the control room. He cut off the power of the big tube, leaving only a slight amount of thrust to give enough gravity so that Dick wouldn't be thrown from his cot.

  Then he reached for the radio switch. He had little hope for it, but it had to be tried first. He began lining the little beam-antenna for Eros, and let the tubes warm up. Tod came in, so silently that Jerry didn't hear him until the gum popped loudly.

  "Never make it," Tod said. "Too far to reach. Good set on Eros, but they can't do miracles. Wait a minute."

  He was back half a minute later, with a big transformer in his hands. "You need power. You're working on the ship's normal 220 volts, boy—this'll give you double that. Overload the tubes, but maybe they'll take it. Darn fools! Told 'em they shoulda left the emergency overpower in, like we useta have. Now I gotta kill other stuff to make diis work. Ugh! There."

  The tubes glared hotly, and there was a rush in the phones. Jerry began calling Eros. He cut power for fifteen seconds, and threw the switch again. It would take over that time for the signal to reach Mars and return over the distance.

  Then the rushing sound cut off, and a voice reached him, faintly, but clearly enough. "Mars Interplanet, Eros. We get you. Come in, Last Hope."

  "Good man for a change," Tod muttered, as Jerry began sending details. "Sense enough not to waste time."

  It took fifteen minutes of off-and-on conversation before the doctor on Mars could get the facts, check with Dick's medical examination on Luna Center, and make up his mind. But that was less than Jerry had expected.

  "Fuel must be in the back of the eye, irritating the optic nerve—just a trace. It needs surgical draining. Whole system may be poisoned slightly. Better bring him back, Blaine." The voice hesitated, and then took on a curiously human tone for one of the usually terse, grim Martian humans. "And Blaine—our medical ethics are just as sound as any other planet's. It's an honest report, not an attempt to delay you. Get your brother back here!"

  Jerry acknowledged, and cut off the power. He'd heard that the Martian doctors were the best in the system, but he knew nothing of their ethics. He didn't care. He couldn't take chances. Tod was muttering, suspicious still, but he grimaced, reached for the controls, and began reversing the ship.

  Now he could have used that impossible ability to make a sweeping turn in space. But the laws of nature didn't change to please him. It took fifteen minutes more to turn over, and then the ship began blasting back for Mars.

  Dick grew slightly worse, and was deli
rious. Jerry sweated it out, occasionally snatching a little sleep. But the trip out that had seemed short, now seemed to be endless on the return leg.

  He was surprised to find that space was cleared for him, and marked with a big red cross at the field— a position nearest the gate. He rode down on a wash of flame, but steadied, careful that no jar would wake Dick, who was sleeping fitfully. It was a perfect landing.

  A man in white overalls and helmet with a caduceus emblem was running up the ladder before the ground could cool, and others were following with a sling,.

  There was none of the cold, stern hostility they had found on Mars before.

  The doctor pushed into the control room and followed Jerry, tossing words at the young man as they slid down. "Doctor Jorgens, Blaine. I talked to you. We're all set at the hospital to operate at once. Doctor Paulson, the best surgeon on Mars. This the patient?"

  He made a hasty examination, and quickly began working with a hypodermic. "This will make him feel better. I've got full emergency authority, straight from your Commission. If you need more fuel... I thought so. Gregg, get the ground men working on that fuel, and hook up the air hose."

  One of the men with the sling went off, and the other internes began bundling Dick gently into the hammock part of the affair, while others were fastening it with hooks to the outside of the Last Hope.

  "May I come?" Jerry asked.

  The doctor nodded. "Expected you to. Your man can supervise here at the ship while they're fueling, and you won't waste time. All right, easy now!"

  They lowered Dick gently, and a ground force carried him to the ambulance. Jerry dropped in beside the doctor, and they went screaming off across the sand toward the big hospital building. Dick slept quietly now.

  Jerry never could remember much of the hospital, save that he found none of die coldness or hatred he had expected on Mars. The Martians might be the most tough-shelled and treacherous people of all the colonies, but they seemed to take medical emergencies with as much feeling as the courteous, kindly Venusans might. Maybe the dark days of early settlement, when disease and privation had killed so many, had given them that attitude. For a moment, the race was forgotten.

  It was two hours later when Doctor Paulson, a slim, nervous man, came out. He smiled wearily, and nodded to Jerry. "It's drained. Lucky you got him back, or he'd have gone blind. Now, he'll be all right in a few weeks. Like to see him?"

  Dick lay in bed, with his face in bandages. He was still under the anesthetic, but the lines on his face had smoothed out. There was nothing Jerry could do, except to try to thank the doctors, particularly Doctor Jorgens.

  They shook it off, as a matter of course. "It's our business, Blaine. And don't worry about the expense— the Mars office of Sun Fuels has already offered to pay anything."

  "Can I help in any way, though?"

  "Get back and take off. He'll feel better when he comes to if he finds you're not wasting time, unless I'm wrong about that young man." Jorgens smiled. Some of the harshness of Mars mixed with the smile, but it was still the warm smile of an older man trying to comfort a younger. "The ambulance will take you back."

  They headed back to the ship with the big blinkers twisting on the ambulance. Sirens wouldn't work in the thin air of Mars.

  At the ship, the loading was already finished, and

  Tod had been told the news about Dick, obviously. He stood in the control room as Jerry got ready for take-off, shaking his head.

  "I still don't trust 'em, Jerry. They got some trick up their sleeve."

  Jerry shrugged. It didn't matter. Probably Mars had been happy enough to know that he had to put back; they didn't need to pull tricks when bad luck was helping them along the way. The Last Hope seemed jinxed. Or perhaps the Martians really were as human under it all as their ancestors from Earth had been.

  He cut on the big rocket, and they went up from Eros again, for the second time. It was Wednesday now, seven a.m. by Earth time. Before, they had been twenty-six hours behind. Now the trip out, the return, and the waiting had taken up seventy-five hours more. They were heading out finally on the second lap of the great race one hundred and one hours—more than four whole days—behind their schedule.

  As soon as he could, Jerry threw the ship onto automatic control and began figuring out a new course. The old one had been prepared by Dick, who depended as much on habit as mathematics to locate the position of the big planet with the help of the star charts. Jerry had to sweat it out on the calculator. Jupiter moved in its orbit over eight miles every second, which meant that it was more than two million miles farther along than it had been when the other course was charted. This made a small change in angle—since Jupiter's orbit was so huge a circle-but everything still had to be refigured.

  He was still rechecking, six hours out, though his new course had already been fed into the automatic pilot. The radio buzzed. Only the big station on Eros could have reached him at this distance, and he jerked for the phones.

  Dick's voice reached him faintly, since there was only normal power in the set. "Hi, kid."

  He shouted back, wondering whether he'd already missed the regulation identification or whether this was more medical cutting of red tape. He didn't care.

  "Feeling fine now," Dick's words came, seconds later. "They gave me only a minute, so here it is. Don't worry, they're treating me fine. Sun Fuels shipped an Earth nurse up from their office, over at Marsburg. Glad you took off at once. I'm weak as a kitten, but the news bucked me up. Beat 'em, kid! Over to you!"

  Jerry sent back the most cheerful words he could, not forgetting to tease Dick a litde about the nurse; it wouldn't sound honest without that. Then the official radio operator came on, with the proper formalities, and they signed off. Apparently the doctors were still keeping Dick under careful supervision, but it was good to know he was himself again.

  Tod grinned more happily at the news, and shoved Jerry out of the control chair. "You're beat, kid. Go catch some shut-eye."

  Jerry stumbled down the rail, and into his bunk. He hadn't known how tired he was. He'd been too busy worrying about the course and Dick to remember that it had been a long time since he'd had more than a touch of sleep.

  Now his eyes were closed almost at once. But the number of hours already lost kept running through his head, and he couldn't sleep properly. They might make it all up, but only if there was no more trouble. And he had a feeling there'd be plenty of that.

  He groaned suddenly. Trouble—and no Dick for advice. He was on his own now—pilot of a racing rocket, against the best pilots in the whole Solar System. And Dick was millions of miles away.

  It was a long time before sleep came to him.

  Chapter 5 now sPac*

  erry felt better after the sleep. Under double gravity, a man had to sleep more and his food intake

  y

  went up somewhat. Every movement required more work than it would under a normal weight-even blinking an eyelid took extra effort. It could become normal enough, in time, but the energy must be supplied somehow.

  His muscles were toughening in nicely, though. In the asteroids, under the varying pulls of weak planetoid gravity and terrific ship acceleration, he'd grown adaptable, as well as far stronger than any normal boy on Earth. He didn't look it, but he could lift twice his own weight on Earth with one hand, and without seeming to strain.

  It was for that reason that he'd been forbidden to join in any of the sports at Space Institute; Earth had a standing rule against deep-space men participating in sports, since no man who hadn't left the planet could compete with them.

  He reached for his glasses, and then remembered that he'd left them in the control room. They changed his appearance. He studied his face in the tiny mirror as he washed up, and decided to leave them off. Contact lenses were better, but he'd gotten into the habit of wearing glasses; on Earth he'd looked too old for his age before he began wearing them, due to the space tan and his experience with Dick. They'd given him a neu
tral age, along with the bookish look. Now, as captain of the ship, he'd do better to look as old as he could when he contacted other worlds.

  He relieved Tod, and began checking his calculations again, using a group of instruments to plot his position by several of the important stars. As far as he could determine, they were where they should be, and ticking along nicely at a higher acceleration than had ever before been attempted as a steady grind. They were approaching three million miles an hour in speed, and going faster with every second. Before they turned over and began slowing again, they'd be close to a speed of eight million miles an hour. It would probably be the all-time record up to now, since high speed could be built up only on a long run, and most long runs were made at lower acceleration.

  He went down to inspect the big tube and the engines. Everything seemed to be in good shape. The pyrometer that indicated the temperature of the tube was down in the green section, completely safe, and the turbine that operated off the tube heat was purring along, keeping the tiny, efficient little batteries charged.

  If they made the trip successfully, there could no longer be any question but that his father had been right. The fuel was behaving perfectly. He could remember his father only dimly, but it still felt good to know that Blaine's reputation as a fuel engineer was to be vindicated.

  Then the long trip began to drag on. They were too far out for word to reach him about Dick, but he felt sure that there was no real worry now. He began to draw up a map of the positions of the little moons around Jupiter, and to plot his course to use the smallest amount of time, according to their positions. It was a slow business of trial and error, where he had to calculate dozens of courses and choose the best. But it was here that he had the best chance to gain or lose time. Most of the pilots were poor navigators, and the ships had little machinery for calculation.