For Us, the Living

by Robert A. Heinlein

  “You’ve gone further than I thought.”

  Joe followed his glance. “That? You expect too much. That’s just an obsolete strato-rocket. Her top speed won’t take her over the heaviside layer. We’ve got her outfitted to simulate space conditions as far as we can. We’ve got a crew locked up in there now to see if they can take it without going off their heads. They’ve been in there six weeks now. Every now and then we give ’em a little surprise like bleeding out half their air pressure.” He grinned. “There’s another little surprise that they don’t expect. One of ’em’s under secret orders to go crazy and start trouble.”

  “Can’t they get out?”

  “Oh yes, if the skipper loses his nerve. Otherwise not.”

  Olga clenched her fists. “Why must you do that? It isn’t human.”

  Joe fixed her with a sardonic eye. “Sister, if they can’t stand that, what chance have they got in space?”

  “Why go out in space? Isn’t the earth big enough?”

  Joe turned his attention back to Perry. “You can’t make a man permanently contented in a nice, pretty, upholstered civilization. We’ve got to, that’s all. There’s something out there to be seen, and we’re gonna have a look.” Perry nodded. Olga held her peace. “But these babies here are what we’re working on. Messenger rockets.” He indicated a number of metal bodies roughly cylindro-conical in shape. “These are rejected models but they look a lot like ones we’ve tried. One like this fellow got into a permanent orbit, we think. At least the data showed it making nearly five kilometers when it left.”

  Olga’s lips moved. “That doesn’t seem fast; three hundred kilometers per hour.”

  “Not three hundred; eighteen thousand. It was going five kilometers per second. That ain’t enough though. We need a speed of eleven point three kilometers per second to break out of the earth’s field entirely.”

  “That applies to shots rather than rockets, doesn’t it?”

  “That’s right. You know something about ballistics, don’t you, bud? Any speed at all will do as long as our accelerating force is greater than gravitational force. The distances are enormous though. Without pretty heavy acceleration you’d grow old waiting to get there.”

  “Not from here to the moon, surely.”

  “Oh, no. That’s no distance. But if we get there, we’ll establish a base there and try some long hops. In a thin gravity field like the moon’s we ought to be able to take off for any planet in the system.”

  “How much acceleration do you figure on using?”

  “Two g’s is about all that’s healthy. I’ve taken that for ten hours in the centrifuge, but then I’m husky. It’s uncomfortable though, and it made me sick to my stomach at first. Of course we can take as high as six or seven g’s for a short time in a good corset and braces and a water cushion. I pass out at about five and half.”

  “What’s a ‘g’?” Olga whispered to Perry.

  “Force of gravity at earth seal level. At two g’s you’d feel twice as heavy as you do now.”

  “Now see this baby,” continued Joe, indicating a silver grey torpedo-like body about ten feet long. “We’ve sent off eight like it towards old Luna. Her pay load is a lot of magnesium ribbon to make a flare. One of ’em got across, at least Flagstaff reported a spark in Mare Imbrium. Pick it up.” Perry stooped over and prepared to heave. It came up lightly and he almost fell over backwards. “Light, ain’t it? It’s a tungsten aluminum alloy, lighter than potassium. Inert, too.”

  “I should think it would be porous,” Perry commented.

  “It is, but it’s got a mirror surface inside about two molecules thick that would stop the breath of scandal. The only hard metal in it otherwise is the jets themselves.”

  “Look here,” put in Olga, “If you’ve got a little one across, why not build a bigger one and ride it over?”

  “Well, you see all this little fellow has to do is to climb up to the change over point—that’s where the attraction of the moon and the earth are equal—then fall down. To get to the moon and back means to climb up, then climb down to the moon, using rocket fuel to break your fall, then climb up again and climb back down to earth again, four stages. We can’t do that yet. But we do think that we are well on the way to building one that will do two of those stages; go up, swing in an orbit around the moon, then climb back down to earth again. That’s what Vivian, the girl you saw in the lobby, is working on. She’s going to ride the ground tests on some new fuel.”

  “What do the ground tests amount to?”

  “They are the nearest thing to flight conditions we can manage on the ground. This stuff has been laboratory tested, and fired in ground jets, and a rocket designed for it which should be strong enough and light enough to do the trick. Today it is tested in a dummy rocket with a full control panel and full size jets, but the whole framework is tied down solid. The rocket reaction produces stress and strain instead of acceleration. We measure the stresses by instrument. If it all checks out the way it should, we’ll try the real rocket in flight.”

  Olga interrupted. “If you’ve made all those preliminary tests, what can you learn by running a rocket that is tied down? You already have the data on what it will do.”

  Joe shook his head. “No, not quite. We know what we think it ought to do, but we knew that when the equations of synthesis were for it. But this stuff is all new. Suppose it does something different? We’ve got to know before a ship leaves the ground.”

  Perry put in a word. “Why is this girl Vivian running the tests? Isn’t it a man’s job?”

  “It’s her right to. She’s the molecular synthesist who designed the fuel. This is as far as she can take it though, as she’s not a rocket pilot.”

  A siren howled mournfully from outside the building. Joe moved toward the door. “Come along if you want to see it.” They followed him back through the corridor, through the entrance hall and up a spiral staircase which gave into a small observation room. On the side toward the field was a wide shallow window of amber glass. Several persons who were lined up along this window made room for them. Joe spoke to one of the spectators. “How soon do they start?”

  “Any minute now. There goes Vivian.” Perry looked down and saw a small figure, bunchy in coveralls, climb a ladder to a manhole in the top of a stubby metal shape. The figure hesitated halfway in and turned its helmeted head toward the building. Perry thought he could detect the flash of a smile. An arm waved and the figure disappeared. The manhole cover closed into place from the inside, made a quarter turn and stopped. For a moment all was still in the room and nothing moved on the field. Perry could hear Olga’s quick breathing at his ear. Then a little burst of violet flame showed from the stern of the test rocket. Somebody said “There she goes!” and the tension relaxed. The flame shot out again, lightened in color and became a blinding white as solid to the eye as white-hot metal. It fanned a trifle and made a myriad little green sparks where it licked the desert soil. A buzz of conversation spread around the room. “Pretty neat, what?”—“Yeah, she’s got it this time.”—“Watch it fade. That’ud be clean kinetic in vacuo.”—Then charged, the main jet darkened, turned purple and quit. Smaller jets around the waist of the craft lighted one after another, and a nose jet blazed out for an instant. More comment came from around them.—“Pretty as a picture, one-two-three.”—“Yeah, but I still like precession. Those fractional controls are too complicated.”—“It looks nice though, doesn’t it.”—The smaller jets cut out and the stern jet cut in again, passing quickly from violet to white. It held steady for several minutes, then trembled and Perry thought that he detected a faint shadow on the under side. The whole flame turned a deep purple and split into two parts. He heard a shout of “Down!” and someone jerked savagely at his arm, unbalancing him. He fell across Olga as a white glare like photographer’s flashlight temporarily blinded him. A dumb rumble, a short grinding shock, and then silence. He stumbled to his knees and blinked his eyes. Joe was beside him, already
rising. They hurried to the window. Before him still lay the rocket but it had lurched awkwardly toward them and a split had opened for several feet near the stern jet. A cloud of yellowish oily smoke partially obscured the scene. Joe turned and hurried down the stairs. The other spectators were gone. Perry had not noticed when or how. He stared again at the sight, trying to interpret it, when Olga’s voice sounded beside him.

  “Whatever happened, Perry?”

  “I don’t know yet. Something went wrong.”

  “That pretty little redhead—Was she hurt?”

  “I can’t tell. I don’t think so. The rocket doesn’t look much damaged.”

  “Let’s go down.”

  They went back down to the reception room and waited in unease for someone to show up. Presently Joe appeared and Perry caught his eye. “Oh yes, you folks. I’d forgotten you.” He stopped by them, apparently annoyed and uneasy. Perry questioned him.

  “What happened?”

  “Nobody knows yet. Either fuel or the nozzles.”

  “Anyone hurt?”

  “Only the operator.”

  “Killed?”

  “They haven’t said so yet. She was burned to a crisp and her right leg’s gone. Say, I don’t want to be rude but I’m awful busy. Will you excuse me?”

  “Oh, of course! Sorry!” And he was gone.

  Olga took Perry’s arm. “Let’s get out of here, please, Perry.”

  “Right.” Neither spoke again until they were back in the sky car.

  XII

  For the next several days Perry reveled in his new-found freedom. He made a number of trips purely for the pleasure of being out and free. Sometimes one or both of the girls accompanied him, more often he went alone. He made a practice of telling Olga or someone in authority where he was going and when he expected to return, but met with no objection to any of his plans. His trips were varied. By now he had practically complete familiarity with the customs of the country and could get around even in a metropolis without arousing comment. He spent several days in San Francisco just looking around and getting acquainted. He dropped in at Berkeley and looked up Master Cathcart, who appeared glad to see him and showed him around the University. Perry was struck by the un-collegiate quality of the place. There seemed to be few students and little of the ant hill activity that characterized the academic institutions of his day. He asked Cathcart what the enrollment was.

  Cathcart answered, “About fifty thousand.”

  Perry commented that it must be vacation time.

  The older man said, no, but that few students were actually in residence at Berkeley. He explained that they made a practice of actually being present only when doing laboratory work, inasmuch as the lecture method had been superseded by the stereoscopic record, such as Perry had used. On the other hand there were close personal relationships between teachers and pupils, as most of the direct instruction was of the seminar rather than the classroom variety. Instruction was characterized by discussion groups and guidance in study rather than the cut-and-dried cram-and-exam methods of 1939.

  At this time Cathcart was preparing to leave for a trip to Washington to hear the closing debates of the session of Congress. This was primarily a vacation as he could have heard them as well or better in his home and studied the records at his leisure. But, as he told Perry, he liked to browse around the sessions at Washington and gossip with the officials in order to get the smell of the place. He felt that it helped him when interpreting the current scene to others.

  He learned that Perry had not yet been to Washington and invited him to come along. Perry explained somewhat diffidently that he was not entirely a free agent. However a call to Master Hedrick cleared that difficulty and Perry found himself headed for the Bay Rocket Port.

  This was Perry’s first trip by rocket. He spent the three hours as busy as a small boy with two ice cream cones. A transparent bulkhead separated the passengers’ seats from the navigation compartment. Perry placed himself in the first row of seats and tried to figure out the technique of the controls. In place of a stick the principal controls seemed to be a double bank of keys arranged above and below a flange that projected from under the instrument board. Perry asked Cathcart the reason for this peculiar arrangement, but the historian admitted that he had taken it for granted. Cathcart rang for the stewardess and held a short conference with her. She looked dubious but entered the navigation room, and got the ear of one of the pilots, who glanced back through the bulkhead and met Perry’s eyes. Then he said something to the stewardess, who nodded and re-entered the passenger compartment. She stopped by Cathcart and reported:

  “The Skipper says your friend can ride in the inspector’s seat if he’s strapped in and keeps quiet during maneuvering.”

  Perry arose, his face radiant, thanked the young woman and turned to Cathcart. “Sure you don’t mind?”

  “Not at all. I’d like to catch a nap.”

  The stewardess let him into the navigation room, and strapped him into a chair just behind and about ten inches higher than the pilot’s and navigator’s seats. The skipper gave him a curt nod and turned away. Perry followed his glance, saw the field lights turn red, then a light ahead showed green in double flashes. The skipper reached out and pinched a pair of control buttons between thumb and forefinger. A buzzer sounded and a transparency flashed, ‘PASENJERS STRAP IN’. Perry felt his own safety belt. The pilot pinched another pair of buttons, then several more in rapid succession. Perry felt heavy and a cloud of white smoke blotted out the view ports. It cleared away almost immediately, and the ground appeared far below. San Francisco vanished beneath them. The pilot’s hands moved nervously among the controls. Perry watched the numbers click past on the altigraph, two thousand—three—five—nine—thirteen—up and up. At twenty thousand meters the pilot leveled off and accelerated, faster and faster, until seventeen hundred kilometers per hour was reached. The light in the car had taken on an unreal quality, like the glares and sharp shadows of a welder’s arc. Outside the sky was a deep purple and stars shown clearly and without twinkling. Just ahead he saw the sickle of Leo beginning to rise. He twisted around in his seat and attempted to see the sun, but it was obscured by the stern of the ship. He was forced to content himself with imagining what the solar prominences and spots might be like. He recalled the warning printed on his ticket: ‘DANJER! OBTAN DARK GLASES FROM STUARDES BEFORE VUING SON’ and he had neglected to obtain dark glasses from the stewardess. Below the ground flowed past in plastic miniature, each detail sharp. It looked remarkably like the illuminated strip map that unrolled on the instrument board. A glowing red dot floated on the surface of the map. Perry recognized this as a dead reckoner of some sort and wondered how the trick was done. Air speed? Hardly. Earth induction? Possible but difficult, especially in latitude made good. Radio? More likely, but still a clever trick.

  When the pilot was satisfied with his combination, Perry ventured to speak. “Excuse me.” The pilot glanced back and his grimness relaxed a trifle.

  “Oh, it’s you. I’d forgotten you were here. Want something?”

  “Just one thing. Why are all your controls double?”

  “As a matter of fact they are quadruple, in parallel-series around each pilot’s chair. I suppose you mean why the pinch-buttons.”

  “Yes, why not ordinary push buttons?”

  “Each side is an ordinary push button, but you have to pinch a pair with thumb and forefinger to cause any action. Look.” He ran his finger along the key board, pressing a dozen or more keys. Nothing happened. “It’s a safety device against freezing on the keyboard at high acceleration. I could pass out and fall face down on the keyboard and never set off a jet. My partner could then land by squeezing the keys on his board. For example, if we had ordinary push buttons and I pressed the combination for maximum breaking, I’d be pushed hard upon the board by my own momentum, and I might not be able to release the controls. With this system I have to will to pinch or nothing happens.”


  “Thanks. Say, how long does it take to learn to be a rocket pilot?”

  The pilot looked at him curiously but answered his question. “If you are temperamentally fitted, three months should do. There is always more to learn.”

  The stewardess stuck in her head. “Ready for your tea, Skipper? And you, Jack?” The navigator gave a taciturn nod. The skipper assented, and said to Perry, “I think you’d better have your tea in the passenger compartment.”

  Perry unstrapped himself and returned to Cathcart, who nodded greeting. “See what you wanted to?”

  “Yes, and was dismissed most diplomatically.”

  Sandwiches, tea, and little cakes brought on sleep. Perry was awakened by the deceleration warning as they circled over Washington. Perry stared out. Here was a place which time had not changed beyond recognition. The Potomac and the tidal basin were below. There stood the Washington Monument and Lincoln still stared into the reflecting pool. The White House still sprawled among the budding trees, serene and cool. And on Capitol Hill the ponderous Greco-Roman majesty of the Capitol still stood, far-flung, solid, and enduring. He choked and sudden tears came to his eyes.

  The visit to Washington was amusing but without special incident. The constitutional changes were not apparent on the surface. The city was changed in many details, but the landmarks remained. The streets were unroofed, and, in the absence of surface traffic, constituted popular promenades and lounging places. Perry wandered about them and visited the museums and art galleries. He spent one afternoon in the gallery of the House listening without much interest to the debate Cathcart had come to hear. The president had directed the building of a fleet of fast, unarmed, long-radii patrol vessels, both air and surface, to maintain a constant patrol from the Aleutians through Hawaii and down to Ecuador, and ear-marked a portion of the dividend for that purpose. The President’s plan was practically unopposed, but one group wished to enlarge it with a new issue of money to provide more heavy armored short radii rockets for coast defense. The debate dragged on and a compromise seemed likely. As Perry was no longer in the navy this didn’t interest him much, especially as the type of armament proposed was obviously unsuited for foreign war. He concluded that the American people were both determined not to fight and determined to let the whole world know that they were prepared to resist invasion.