The man froze. The words and their meaning hit too close to reality for comfort. His whole mental universe depended on decisions made about things, and by systematic thoughts, that had no certainties - ever - about them. Military ‘science’ consisted of a half dozen basic thoughts - no more. The rest was the general’s on-the-spot fantasies . . . There was a possibility that he had fantasied wrong in bringing the fleet home as he had done.
Since the wrongness was not yet established, he was able to recover from her deadly onslaught. He managed a shrug, and showed the weary thought that women were dangerous. But also experience told him it was unwise to tell them that. So, now, with these awarenesses firmly fixed again, he said soothingly, ‘Honey, relax. This is the space age. Susan really belongs to it, and for a few hours she’s accepting that she does. So I’m delighted. Evidently, you don’t belong to the space age. I urge you, don't try to slow the march of progress.’
“Look who’s talking,’ said his wife, scathingly.
‘Please,’ said John Lane in a pained voice, 'don’t compare my opposition to the outfits to - ’ He broke off, wearily, ‘All right, you don’t want Susan to go. If you wish I’ll tell her that I was willing but that you said no. And that for the sake of peace in the family I shall have to back you up. Is that what you want?’ The blonde woman was abruptly confronted with the ultimate dilemma of the buck-passer, who had finally got the buck passed back with no other place for it to go. The prospect of having Susan hear those words from her husband was too much. Estelle sighed, and accepted defeat. And said. ‘No, I don’t want you to tell her that. I counted on you to have the courage to look Susan straight in the eye and say no. I can’t do it. So, all right, all right
you win.’
It was the man’s turn to sigh. ‘1 don’t know how this got to be my victory,’ he said. ‘But let me say one more thing only. Tell Susan there’ll be a flight warrant waiting for her when she gets to the field tomorrow morning. Will you do that?’
I will just love doing that,’ his wife agreed.
At first it was like getting into any transcontinental passenger jet. Only, in this one, Susan walked from the door a few short steps into the cockpit. There was a single seat in front of a view .window - at least it looked like a window. The view was approximately 210°, actually curving back and around the seat on either side. There were safety belts for four persons; and they sat side by side on the single seat. A faint, faint humming sound came from somewhere in the rear. In that sound was a feel of power. The awareness of how much power did something deep inside Susan. Her eyes widened a little, and she tightened her mouth and pressed her lips together to conceal a lurch of excitement. As she fastened her belt with slightly trembling fingers, she glanced at Captain Sennes who was busy doing the same thing.
And at that moment she was inwardly on the verge of doing something that she didn’t notice. Her impulse was to assign to the man the force of the machine. Admiration of the spacecraft kept threatening to transform into worship of the man who could fly it. As if he and the power of the ship were in some way an interacting unity.
Silently, he turned toward her; checked her three belts: the one around her waist, the one around her chest, and the one that attached to her helmet. He spoke his first words since they had come aboard. 'Move around. See how flexible everything is. Notice the limits.’
Susan pushed forward, sideways, and raised her head. All three belts had nearly a foot of give in them. She nodded her awareness; and that also was easy. Sennes had leaned back, and was pulling a cushioned microphone down to his mouth from a cradle above. He spoke into it; and she heard not a word but presumed he was talking to Control Tower. It gave her more time to look around. She now saw there was actually two glass sections separated by a foot-wide panel. One was the window with its view vista. The other had the shiny look of a TV tube. But it was a tube as big as the window, except that is curved down under her feet.
Beside her, Sennes was reaching up. This time he drew down a steering wheel, and adjusted it until it was about opposite his stomach. He glanced at Susan with a smile, and pointed at the lower glass. A picture was forming in front of him. It showed their craft from somewhere outside, a profile view. There was the long, wolflike nose, and the streamlined body with its wing and tail built for air flight. As Susan stared at it, the machine she was looking at lifted from the hangar floor, and floated through a roof opening and up into the sky beyond.
Since she felt no movement, she had a momentary sense of disappointment, and she said, ‘But I don’t feel anything. It is a simulation?’ Her gaze came up at that point, and now she saw through the view window that they were above the ground, and still going up. Her view was still of a portion of Spaceport, but also she could already see beyond the river to the farmland beyond. The converging highways, the forests, and, farther away, the mountains. Susan ventured, ‘We’re nicely airborne.’ In one of her jet flights to visit her mother’s parents, somebody had said that.
The beautiful man beside her shook his head. ‘ spaceborne’ smiled. ‘Omnivulture doesn’t need air to fly.’
‘But it has a wing.,. and a tail.’ -
True,’ he nodded. ‘We do use that for flight steadiness in the atmosphere.’-
But Susan was not listening. ‘Omivulture she shuddered, belatedly picking up that word.
‘It’s battle class,’ said Sennes,
‘What an awful name!’
‘But a beautiful machine.’
'It seems awfully easy to fly/ the girl said,
‘Well-l-l-ll - ’ said the man, doubtfully. For just a few moments, then, his mind’s eye looked into the inner workings of the spacecraft. Beginning with the Boarder computer. The Boarder was at the moment ‘feeding’ off of the Father computer in an underground vault almost directly below. The two computers exchanged a steady stream of information bits, but it was electronically understood between them that the ‘Father’ provided the sustenance: the Boarder merely ate what was offered. It could fly the ship without an outside source of ‘food/ but it never did unless it had to. But there was feedback. What the Boarder fed back was a sort of menu with a rapidly pointing finger, which said in effect: I’ll have some of this . .. and this ... and this....
During the brief period that Captain Sennes mentally reviewed just that one operation, Omnivulture rose ten thousand feet. Here were fleecy clouds. Through them and above them it soared, as his thought momentarily dwelt on the power that was being monitored so adroitly by the computers. A tiny light of green color flicked on-off rapidly on the panel in front of him, told him that an engineer in the buried vault in the ground had done his duty, looked in at the computer down there, and checked that power was ‘norm.’ Sennes could almost visualise the engineer glancing at another expert, and saying. ‘Jupiter level.’ He even fantasied the presence below of an ignorant VIP who in his innocence asked, ‘Jupiter level? What does that mean?’ And of course the engineer would lazily reply, ‘Well, sir, the nuclear power plants on Omnivulture class are built to lift off Jupiter or Saturn, and could even make a good try at escaping from the sun. It could accelerate to escape velocity but it actually has hovercraft capability and so can just lift away at any speed and simply fly by continuous nuclear thrust from any planet almost as if gravity does not exist.'
‘Hey!’ said the visitor, impressed - that was the way Sennes pictured it.
Above the clouds it had been blue for many miles. But those miles were soon behind and below. The sky became dark, and then black. On the panel another light flickered. Sennes said to Susan, ‘Boarder just switched over to Mother.’
The girl stared at him. ‘What does that mean?’ she asked. ‘Well-l-l-ll - ’ said Sennes. And stopped as the letters ‘Ac1
glowed for a second from the panel. In his mind’s eye, he now visualised the engineer in the space station which maintained a continuous orbit at 17,500-odd miles above Spaceport. It was common in these stations to have students under practical instruc
tion. So what the man pictured was the engineer who had just acknowledged, acceptance of Boarder by the Mother computer of the station, turning to the class, and saying, ‘Mother has picked up an Omnivulture Boarder. Who can explain what that means?’
‘Well, sir,’ — after a pause, from one student - eas I understand it, these Boarder computers always board near or equivalent. They’re not loyal to any particular parent, and in fact are willing to eat at any table in their code frame. As I decode those figures on that panel, this Boarder was feeding off a Father below, but after it came up through the atmosphere it switched to Mother up here for its food. And though Mother is thousands of miles farther away in terms of distance, the thick atmosphere creates interference that in terms of reception puts Father farther away. The vacuum of space, in effect, constitutes the equivalent of less distance.’
‘And why do we call the computer on the ground a Father, and the one up here a Mother?’
‘The analogy’ - another student - ‘sees the woman as a satellite revolving around the male planet.’
The little mental drama ran its course through Sennes’s mind. He said to Susan, ‘Well, I suppose it is fairly simple. Right now Mother is guiding us. If we get out of her range, Boarder can take over. If something happens to Boarder, then I’m called in, Meanwhile, I supervise the galaxy.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘Means’ - he grinned - ‘I can talk to a potential girl friend.'
She was sixteen years old. A little bit of child was still in her body, a lot in her mind. She had never been motivated to want to be older than she was. She sat there in the front of a battle monster within feet of the vacuum of space. The view was of infinity, a black heaven that was bright with points of life everywhere. It was a fabulous moment in her life; and she was grateful to this masterful man for being willing to take the time to bring her. But she was nobody’s girl friend. Very precisely, she began to explain these things to him; finished, ‘I can be a moocher,’ she said. ‘But I’ve already got someone I’m moocher to. That’s something Dolores never understood. She thought she was Lee’s girl friend. Marianne is a little bit like that, too, with Mike. Stopping being a moocher is no shock. Losing a boy friend is like being divorced. So’ - she looked at Sennes with an appealing
smile - ‘there you have it. Is it all right?’
He was twenty-eight years old, and he had simple answers for jabbers, designed to jar them out of their outfit brainwashing. “Will you marry me, Susan?’ he said in his most earnest voice. During the minutes that followed, he told a very silent girl about himself. Flight training at nineteen. Selection for special duty, Then after two years, disgust with space service. So for a year, asteroid mining, Boredom. As a result back to the service with no further regrets. ‘But I need exactly and precisely you for my, nest,’ he said.
Whereupon, he moved over in the seat the full foot that the safety belt allowed him. And he put out his arm, slipped it neatly between her waist and the seat, and with irresistible strength drew her up against him. ‘You see,’ he said, ‘this is really a love seat.’
It was quite uncomfortable. The pressure that the belts exerted pulled at their heads and bodies. In fact, even if Susan had wanted to be held, it was no fun. A strain, a struggle, a feeling of being twisted, and a sense of excessive muscle pull. Susan said with difficulty, ‘I think you ought to let me snap back into my proper position.’
‘In a moment,’ said the man good-humoredly. During that moment he brought his other arm around, and with his hand caught her head. As he pulled it just a little closer, he leaned over and put his cheek against hers. ‘You see,’ he said ‘jabber level affection is possible.’
‘Mooching,’ said Susan. ‘Cheek to cheek. But I’m not your moocher, Captain Sennes. So let me go, please.’
Throughout, the young officer had been watching the panel. Now, a light was flashing on it. And so he was actually in something of a hurry to release her. But he was careful. First, he warned her: ‘I am going to let you go, so be prepared. Brace yourself.’ Her body stiffened. She pushed against the belts. But he kept his arm around her as he eased her back to her proper place. Next, he eased himself to his position. Then he said, ‘We’re approaching Tombaugh, and will be landing in two minutes. Tombaugh, as you know, is a third of a mile thick, big enough to have a Father computer. So a capable Father is now guiding Omnivulture
‘I’m beginning to love Omnivulture' said Susan. ‘But I still think her name is horrible.’
‘You’ll have a different thought,’ was the man’s reply, ‘if he ever tangles with the enemy. Omnivulture, you see, has a real low-grade mission in the event of armed hostilities. She goes right down to where the garbage is, and eats it up,’
The graphic description seemed to reach the girl. Her expression changed. She looked at him and shook her head, and it was the action of somebody who had suddenly become disturbed. As if she were visualising what he was describing, the deadly fighting tactic that his words implied. ‘You mean,’ Susan said slowly, ‘you have to go in close and attack?’
Sennes gave her a swift glance with his almost jet black eyes. Then turned away rapidly to hide his momentary unconcealed triumph. Her expression seemed to imply that he had made the real kill and achieved the real purpose of this journey. A jabber’s heart had been captured, or at least gently stabbed. The man said lightly, ‘Well, Boarder and I go in close, and Omnivulture does the rest.’
‘B-But you could get killed?’ she protested faintly.
The officer’s face remained serene. But it was not a moment when he could give further attention to the girl. The moonlet, Tombaugh, was visible by its man-built domes in the near darkness ahead. The plastic domes reflected earthlight, not brilliantly but sufficiently well for visual recognition. ‘Since you’ve never been up,’ he said to Susan, ‘I want you to notice how difficult it is to see Tombaugh itself. Its surface is virtually nonreflective. It looks like the darkness of space. Notice?’
Susan leaned forward to peer into the darkness through the view window. Omnivulture had evidently slowed for a landing; and so the size of what they were coming to was a sudden awareness for her. Abruptly, something between the dome lights suggested its presence. A massive something. She gasped, cringed, shrank. But the seconds went by, and all that happened was - a door opened. At first it looked like a toy door. It grew larger. Then it also took on hugeness. It became the entrance to a vast airlock into which Omnivulture floated on spaceborne engines, and lightly settled to a concrete floor. The opening through which they had come was visible on the lower ‘glass’. The picture showed the doors closing. Sennes made a cautioning gesture at the girl, but he did not look at her. He was watching the panel. A flight flickered on it, and he nodded. In front of them a door began to open. It was the entrance into the main part of the hollowed-out interior, and Omnivulture rolled forward into the hangar that was revealed to their gazes.
'Here we are,’ Sennes said. His fingers grasped the wheel he had drawn down in front of his stomach just before take-off, and which he had not touched again until this instant. Now he grasped it and pushed it up above his head. ‘Forty-three thousand miles in thirty-eight minutes,’ he said with satisfaction. ‘Not bad. Our top speed was slightly oyer fifteen hundred miles a minute/
“But I scarcely felt anything said Susan,
'Thank Boarder for that,’ he said. He was working on his safety belts with practiced fingers, and had all of his off as she removed the one around her waist. ‘Let me help you with the other two/ he said. He undid them, and then leaned toward her face and kissed her lightly on the cheek within half an inch of her mouth. The girl started to pull away, but he had her arm, and said, ‘Just a minute, that’s on your cheek, not on your lips.’
‘Are you saying good night or good-bye?’ she asked in a severe tone.
‘No, of course not. Neither/
‘Outfitters get to kiss only when they’re separating. It’s a goodbye thing.’
/> ‘This is a special type of good-bye,’ said Sennes lightly. '"We’re saying good-bye for a few hours to Omnivulture. We’ll now have lunch, see some shows, then have dinner, and then maybe an evening show. After that we fly home, but by then we’ll be on the other side of earth and it will take nearly an hour to return to Spaceport.’ He paused ‘Sack?’
She nodded. Her cheeks puffed a little from the emotion she was holding in. It prevented her from speaking. Finally, she managed to gulp, ‘I’m not really dressed for all those things.’- ‘Nobody is, here,’ said the young officer, reassuringly. He smiled. ‘Better prepare for a little acclamation when they hear who you’re the daughter of.’
Susan tightened her Ups. ‘Jabbers are not allowed,’ she said in her severest tone, ‘to bulge on the strength of what their parents have done.’
The man grinned. ‘C’mon, now, admit it. You’re a little proud, aren’t you, of the old booter?’
Susan gave him a searching look. ‘How come you’re so sack on jabber chatter. I thought that was after your time.’
Sennes stiffened slightly. They were out of the long, sinister- looking machine now, and standing on the concrete. To divert attention from himself, he pointed off to his left. This way,’ he said. As they walked, he said, You know the story of this moonlet, don’t you?’
Susan shrugged apathetically. ‘It’s hard to avoid. The schools cram us with space stuff. It’s such a waste. Nobody’s going. Space is for outsiders from the real world. You know that. That’s where you came from, isn’t it - the real world?’
She could evidently let the subject go with little more than a dismissing shrug. But Sennes’s mind did not work that way. His memory came by pictures, and he now carefully explained this to the girl. He finished, ‘I’ve brought the subject up, and so according to my training I must now let the entire picture that’s in my mind run its course. Is that all right?’
‘What picture?’ Susan asked, astonished.
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