Reed Ballinger chose to ignore that.
“And bombed the Star Brain,” Andy said.
“Yes, and bombed the Star Brain.”
“He did it for Earth.”
“I think the Star Brain’s decision was fair to Earth.” Strayer shook his head. “It had to be fair, by objective standards. That was the way it had been built. And Ballinger didn’t do what he did for Earth. Ballinger was working for a group of business enterprises that was going to develop the Cygni planet. If they’d been allowed to, Reed Ballinger would have been a rich man. That was why he bombed the Star Brain.”
“With an Earth ship,” Andy said.
Turk didn’t say anything.
“Right. With an Earth ship under his command. Fortunately, the Star Brain was damaged but not destroyed.”
“Fortunately?” Turk asked.
“Of course fortunately. The Star Brain’s one function is to keep the peace. What if Ballinger had decided, after bombing the Brain, to bomb Capella as well? The point is, boys, you can’t take the law into your own hands. Ballinger tried. When the Star Brain was repaired, it passed the Edict. Thanks to Reed Ballinger, we’re outlawed from space. Thanks to Ballinger, Earth is ringed by monitoring satellites which would detect by infrared sensitivity any attempt on our part to send up a spaceship. Thanks to Ballinger, any ship that does make the attempt would be destroyed by the satellites before it cleared Luna’s orbit. You have Reed Ballinger to thank for all of that.”
Strayer settled back in his chair. His face was pale, his expression bleak. Then, quite suddenly, he smiled. Once again, the change was disconcerting. “But that’s history, boys, and you didn’t come here to ask about it. What are your plans?’ He turned to Turk first.
“I guess I’d like to work around the intercontinental ramjets,” Turk said. “It’s the nearest thing to spaceships we have left.”
“You and just about every ex-spaceman and ex Cadet,” Captain Strayer said.
Respectful but still truculent, Turk said, “Begging your pardon, sir, but if the Placement Center can’t get us the jobs we want, what’s it for?”
Strayer didn’t answer immediately. He stood and gazed out the window over the low rooftops of White
Sands’ buildings to where the tarmac of the spaceport could be seen. The sun was setting, the big skeletal gantries silhouetted against its ball of flame.
“Reorientation, first of all,” Strayer said, his back turned. “And orientation to a world without space travel. You’ll be interviewed again outside. We have your aptitude records here, naturally. We’ll find work for you somewhere, Cadet Ayoub. But I can’t guarantee the ramjets. Earth is a crowded planet, and over the centuries we’ve squandered our mineral wealth. May I suggest something?”
“Yes, sir” Turk said.
‘I’d like to suggest schooling. Any boy qualified as a Cadet, as you were, would qualify for just about any university on Earth, and the appropriations that used to go for the Academy would pay your tuition.”
“I don’t know whether I want to go back to school.” “Well, there’s no hurry. We want you to make up your own mind. Why don’t you take some time to think it over? While you do, you’ll have passes good for ramjet travel anywhere on Earth for six months— a chance to familiarize yourself with your native world, again. You can pick them up on the way out.” Strayer added, more slowly, “I hope you make the right decision, Cadet. With training, there are plenty of good jobs open to you on Earth, in engineering, in the pure sciences, in oceanographic farming. …”
He turned to Andy. “What about you, Cadet Marlow? Made up your mind yet?”
“I think my brother would like me to go back to school. I’d want to see him first and talk it over with him.”
Strayer was looking out the window again. The silence grew. Andy finally had to say, “That’s why the machine sent us in here, wasn’t it? Because you knew where I could find Frank?”
“When did you hear from him last?” Lambert Strayer asked.
“A few months ago. Frank isn’t much of a letter writer”
Strayer turned back from the window. ‘‘Your brother was a top spaceman,” he said. “He qualified as a ramjet pilot on his return to Earth. He flew the New York-Scandinavian run” Strayer breathed in deeply. “Brace yourself, lad. Two weeks ago there was an accident. His ramjet crashed. Your brother Frank is dead.”
Chapter 3 Secret Spacemen
THE sun had gone down by the time they reached the street again.
Andy had only been vaguely aware of the words of sympathy from Captain Strayer, of the pressure of Turk’s hand squeezing his arm, of the papers Turk had picked up for both of them in the reception-mech’s room. He couldn’t think. He wasn’t even aware of going down the escalator with Turk or, when they reached the street, of the cool night wind blowing in off the desert. He was walking, placing one foot down in front of the other mechanically, with the same mechanical inevitability of the reception-mech’s questions or, scores of light years away, of the Star Brain’s decisions.
Frank was dead.
His brother was dead.
He didn’t even feel grief yet, just numb disbelief.
Like Turk, Andy was an orphan. They had had that in common from their first days at the Academy—both their fathers had died heroically in space, seeking Earth’s destiny among the distant stars.
And now Frank, too. But Frank hadn’t been killed in space. He had died earthbound, on a ramjet shuttling passengers in two hours from New York across the Atlantic to Scandinavia.
If Reed Ballinger hadn’t acted rashly in the name of Earth, Frank would still be alive.
More than that, if the Star Brain hadn’t passed the Edict that ruled Earth out of space, Frank would still be alive. If Andy felt anything besides the terrible emptiness, it was savage resentment.
Each in his own way, Reed Ballinger and the Star Brain were responsible for what had happened to his brother… .
“Boys!”
It was dark on the street. A man hurried by, glaring at their uniforms contemptuously. He hadn’t spoken. They reached the comer of the block where the Placement Center was located. Then who was it who had spoken?
A figure detached itself from the shadowy facade of a building near the corner. He was a small, slim man wearing a one-piece jumper of either black or very dark blue. Andy couldn’t make out his features in the darkness.
“Got any plans, boys?” he asked.
Neither Andy nor Turk answered.
“Just came from the Placement Center, didn’t you?” The man laughed derisively. “They can’t help you there, can they? Didn’t even offer you a job, did they?” “No,” Turk admitted. “Jobs are hard to find for ex Cadets.”
“That’s true enough,” the man said, all at once sympathetic. “I asked you, what are your plans?”
Turk said, “Well, we don’t have any just yet.”
“I’ll bet they wanted you to go back to school. It’s a convenient way for getting you out of the way a few years. They got you into this, and now all they want to do is wash their hands of you.”
“Who are you to talk like that?” Andy said. “It wasn’t Captain Strayer’s fault” He was surprised to find himself defending the ex-spaceman. He didn’t like the stranger’s wheedling voice.
“My name’s Gault. I’m an ex-spacer just like Strayer.” Though no one was about, Gault came closer and whispered conspiratorily, “And I can tell you this … I know of ten Cadets who walked out of that Placement Center tonight and got jobs. Good ones, too.”
“You do?” Turk said. He was interested.
“That’s right.”
“What kind of jobs?”
“What kind did you want?”
“Ramjets, I guess,” Turk said. “But there isn’t a chance. That’s what everyone wants”
That’s what Frank had wanted, Andy thought. Gault said, “Better than ramjets, boy.”
“Are you kidding?” Turk exclaimed. “There i
sn’t an ex-spaceman who wouldn’t give his bottom credit to pilot a ramjet. It’s the nearest thing to spaceflight there is.”
“Better than ramjets,” Gault repeated. “That’s all I can say, now,
“Come on, Turk,” Andy told his friend. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Hold it a minute, boys,” Gault persisted. “Maybe I’ve got your future, the whole rest of your lives, right here in the palm of my hand. You just want to let it go? “
“What do we have to do?’
“Come with me is all. I already hired ten ex-Cadets tonight. They’re waiting. You two will make twelve.”
“Hired them to do what?” Andy demanded.
“You’ll see when we get … where we’re going.”
“If you’re an ex-spaceman/’ Andy challenged “let’s see your credentials.”
“All right, all right, so I didn’t come down after the Edict. They pulled my license on me.”
“What for?’
“Smuggling,” Gault said promptly. He laughed. “At least, that was what they called it. Just like they called Captain Reed Ballinger a mad dog when they could have closed ranks behind him as the greatest hero Earth’s ever known.” He shrugged then. “Well, if you want to be stupid enough not to come along, good riddance.”
“Wait a minute, Mr. Gault,” Turk said. He took Andy aside. “What have we got to lose?”
“He hasn’t even told us what kind of job.
“He said he can’t.”
“Doesn’t that bother you?”
“I still don’t think we have anything to lose,” Turk said.
Gault called to them, “Make up your minds, I don’t have all night”
Turk looked at Andy. “I … I’m sorry, Andy. I’m going with him. I’ve got to. What if he’s right about getting us out of the way at school? What if… .” Andy didn’t hear the rest of it. Suddenly the most important thing in the world was to keep Turk’s friendship. He had nothing else left, not now, and Turk was the best friend he’d ever had.
“… going to take the chance” Turk finished.
Andy listened to the wind moaning in off the desert. ‘Tm going with you,” he said.
A copter-cab took the three of them to White Sands airport, which lay south of the city about five miles from the all but abandoned spaceport. A twin-engined ramjet was waiting on the tarmac. As they approached, Andy saw a group of ex-Cadets filing out of the administration building in the glare of the tarmac floodlights.
Andy was drawn into a reunion with his Luna Academy classmates. He heard their shouts:
“Turk, you old Sirian!”
“Thought I’d see your ugly face here.”
“Hey look, there’s Andy, too.”
“Wouldn’t have been complete without them. Now we’re ready to go.”
Andy began to feel better. Turk was his friend, and these were his friends, too. What did it matter where they were going, as long as they were together?
Gault took the controls of the ramjet, and five minutes later they were roaring down the runway. Charlie Sands, one of Andy’s classmates, shouted over the thunder of the ramjets, “The only thing Mr. Gault would tell us is that we’re heading south.”
“That’s more than he told us,” Turk complained.
“To Mexico,” Charlie said, and then they all settled back and unfastened their safety belts as the ramjet reached cruising altitude at fifty thousand feet. At that height, the flame of the sunset was still visible in the west, but all the world below them was shrouded in darkness.
It was dark again when they landed two hours later. At the ramjet’s cruising speed, Andy realized, they had come a long way. If their destination really was Mexico, they must have flown south clear across the Mexican peninsula to the Yucatan jungle.
Charlie Sands unbolted the lugs of the ramjet’s door.
Here in Mexico, the night was windless. Beyond the asphalt of the runway, a fat moon hung low over tropical trees. Andy could smell the strange, alien perfume of the tropical air.
“Welcome aboard, boys”
Aboard? But they were just leaving the ramjet, weren’t they?
Andy and Turk were the first down the flight stairs after Gault himself.
That was when Andy saw rocket gantries silhouetted against the moonlit sky. There were dozens of them.
“Spaceships’” Turk cried.
Gault chided him, “Still want to pilot ramjets?”
It was true. Nose pointing skyward, hull hard against the superstructure of every gantry, was a spaceship.
On an Earth where spaceflight had been outlawed.
Chapter 4 Captain Ballinger
Even before the blazing tropical dawn burst over the Yucatan jungle, Andy was waiting at the dormitory window.
He had to see the gantries and spaceships again for himself. He’d had a brief view of them on landing, and then all of Gault’s recruits had been herded from the ramjet quickly across the chuckholed asphalt of what could only be an abandoned spaceport by two silent men who would answer none of the eager questions of the ex-Cadets.
They had been ushered to a dormitory and assigned beds. Fifteen minutes later the lights went out, and a few moments after that there had been a creaking, groaning sound outside. It was tantalizingly familiar, but Andy hadn’t been able to identify it. For a while the Cadets had talked excitedly—those were spaceships they had seen, it was as if their wildest dreams suddenly had come true, space wasn’t closed to them, somehow, someway, they’d be going to space again. They couldn’t believe it; it was too good to be true.
Turk’s last sleepy words to Andy were, “Now I’ll bet you’re glad you came along.”
When Andy awoke, he saw the mound of Turk’s sleeping form under the coversheet in the adjacent bed. All the others were still asleep, too. He padded barefoot to the window, where the gray predawn light seeped in. In his mind’s eye he pictured the gaunt shapes of the gantries, the sleek proud hulls of the secret spaceships.
He peered out the window expectantly.
And saw only the empty gray flatness of the abandoned spaceport, stretching drably to the rim of jungle
The gantries, the spaceships, were gone.
“Turk!” he called, and Turk and the others joined him at the window one by one, rubbing sleep from their eyes, stretching, then blinking and gaping.
“Where’d they go?” someone cried.
“What is this?” Charlie Sands wanted to know.
“Deserted… .”
“Impossible, last night they… .”
“Where’s Mr. Gault? Mr. Gault can explain it.” That was Turk.
Andy, who had had more time to adjust to the unexpected disappearance of the spaceships, was scowling. In the dim light he could barely make out dozens of large, dark circles on the pitted asphalt. Wordless, he touched Turk’s shoulder and pointed to one of them.
“Hey, wait a minute,” Turk said. “Are they underground?”
Andy nodded; then everyone was talking at once again. Andy hardly heard their words. Suppose, he thought, your job was to recruit spacemen on a world where spaceflight was illegal. Suppose your job was to recruit them among ex-spacemen and Cadets. Suppose you couldn’t tell them, because a few might balk and go to the authorities.
And finally, suppose you’d want to reveal the purpose of their ramjet flight to Mexico in the most dramatic way.
What way would be more effective than to have them see, silhouetted on their arrival against the tropic moon, the spaceships themselves?
That had been Gault’s job. He had planned it that way.
But of course the illegal spaceships couldn’t remain above the ground. A chance flyer might spot them from the air. So, Andy decided, once their dramatic purpose had been achieved, the gantries and spaceships had been lowered underground in their launching pits. That would explain the creaking and groaning they had all heard last night.
Conclusion: someone was assembling a fleet of illegal spaceships. Gault? S
omehow Andy didn’t think so. The little smuggler might make a good recruiting agent, but Andy just didn’t see him as the brains behind what was obviously a tremendous undertaking.
Andy’s thoughts were whirling. You hijack the powerplant of an abandoned spaceship one place, the hull another, the fittings a third. Then take them secretly by surface truck, monorail, and ramjet transport to Mexico, assemble them again… .
An amplified voice in the dormitory boomed: “Attention, new recruits! All new recruits to the administration building. Follow the green arrows to the administration building”
“That means us,”
Andy’s stomach was grumbling protestingly by the time his interview ended. The last meal he’d eaten was aboard “Tycho III” before landing in White Sands.
It was an exhaustive interview conducted by an ex-spaceman named Odet, and it reminded Andy of his first day at Luna Academy. Taking notes throughout, Odet asked him the same sort of thorough questions he’d been asked at his arrival on the moon a year ago. Further, Odet was intensely curious about Andy’s training at Luna Academy.
“First-year man?” he asked.
“Yes, that’s right”
“Had you started to specialize?”
Andy nodded.
“Pilot?’
“No” Andy school at Luna.”
Odet smiled. “Fledgling astrogator, eh? That’s splendid. We have a shortage of astrogators. We can really use you”
“Can I ask what this is all about? I mean, what can you use me for?”
“You saw the spaceships, didn’t you?’
“‘Yes, sir”
“We can use you to astrogate … aboard a spaceship”
“But… .”
“It will all be explained”
And a fresh flow of questions started.
Andy didn’t find out what it was all about that day, or the next, or the day after that.
Instead, it was ahnost as if he had returned to Luna Academy. In fact, he never had worked so hard at the task he loved. He spent hours at underground control-cabin mockups; saw motion pictures of space through make-believe viewports; had to plot interstellar orbits and then replot them and then change them again.
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