It was a little difficult the next morning at breakfast. Clonar and all Ron’s family sat together in the dinette. There was such a vast difference between this and the leave-taking of a friend whom they would see again.
“Is there no possibility whatever that we’ll see you again?” said George Barron.
Clonar shook his head. “The resources of our entire people are called upon to promote such an expedition as this. Perhaps in time to come spaceflights will become less costly in resources, and such far journeys as this will become routine. But that is generations away.”
“Perhaps radio communication—by the system you have given us.”
But even as he said it he knew that it was a foolish and a sentimental answer. There was nothing they could exchange by this means, and when he said it he knew he was thinking only of the nostalgia of Clonar’s departure.
“I have a confession to make,” said Clonar to Mrs. Barron. “I should have told you before that we overheard the argument you had with your friends because of me. I’m sorry it occurred. I hope no permanent enmity was created.”
Mrs. Barron flushed and laughed. “That dressing down did them good. I thought I did myself proud, didn’t you? And we’ll all be better because of you, Clonar. I think we’ll treat each other just a little better because you’ve been here.”
Ron glanced at the clock. “It’s almost time,” he said. “Are you coming with us?”
His father shook his head. “I think not. We would prefer to say good-by here, Clonar. It has been very wonderful having you with us.”
At the car, Pete was waiting dolefully as if with full understanding of what was taking place. Clonar rubbed the dog’s ears.
“We don’t have the custom of giving names to our pets, but when I get home I’m going to name mine Pete.”
Anne was waiting for them. After picking her up, they turned the car into the hills again. The spot where Clonar had directed his commander to send the scout ship on its secret mission of picking him up was near the wreckage of the first vessel. It was across the highway and in a small, flat valley hidden from the road.
Cillispie and two aides were there when they arrived. Dan followed in his own car. They were all who were to witness the scene.
Clonar had taken a few personal items from the wreckage, and these he carried in a couple of bags. The remainder of the ship had been turned over to Gillispie after destruction of a few devices that Clonar believed should not be left.
Standing now in the clearing they seemed to have nothing to say to each other. The occasional click of Dan’s camera was the only sound.
Occasionally they raised their eyes to scan the sky above. It was a clear, bright blue with ragged bubbles of cloud not far above the mountain tips. And then suddenly they caught sight of a gleaming spot of light.
“Is that it?” whispered Ron.
“I think so. It will be one of the little scouts.”
They watched it drop like a discus hurled from the sky. Ron watched Gillispie’s astonishment and wonder at the maneuverability of that ship against which he might have had to pit his own.
It hissed over the tops of the grass and settled to a halt fifty feet from them. Almost at once an upper hatch opened at the center of the disc, and a figure appeared. He waved greetings of obvious joy to Clonar.
Clonar leaped to the radial walkway and ran toward the pilot, embracing him warmly. For a moment the murmur of their words spilled out toward the watchers.
Ron passed up the bags and Clonar handed them in to the interior of the ship. Then Clonar jumped to the ground again. His hand clamped upon Ron’s arm.
He looked into the eyes of Ron and Anne for a long moment. “Listen,” he said quickly, “I don’t have to leave you. Come with me, Ron! Come with me to my world. You and Anne. You would never be lonely there because there are two of you.
“You cannot imagine the things I could show you! We’ll see ten thousand suns on the way home. There will be all the learning and mystery you have ever dreamed of. Come home with me!”
Anne looked up into Ron’s face with a frightened quickening of her heart. She felt the fierce tightening of his arm about her waist. Sweat broke out upon his lip as he tried to form an answer.
“No! No—Ron!” Anne whispered.
In a moment his arm relaxed. The tension of that wild dream left his face. He smiled at Clonar and shook his head.
“No. It wouldn’t work. We belong here. We have a job to do on our own world—it needs to be made better than it is, as you have seen.
“But more than that, man has no right to spaceflight until he can make it under his own power.”
“I knew that would be your answer, of course,” said Clonar. “I thought perhaps I could tempt you. But you are right. It’s just that we three are luckier than any of the rest of our people.”
For an instant his eyes turned in the direction of the ravine where his father and brother and the other crewmen were buried.
“I must go now,” he said abruptly. “Good-by, Ron-Anne.”
He raced over the curving surface of the disc. For a moment he stood in the open hatch and waved. And then it closed him from their sight forever.
Ron and Anne moved back quickly, but the ship rose straight up, not turning aside until it disappeared from their sight. They continued staring long after it was gone.
Then Anne put her hands upon Ron’s shoulders and looked into his eyes. “You’ll never be sorry, will you?”
His hands closed upon her wrists. “No. It was just that the vision of what we might have had almost overwhelmed me. It wouldn’t have been right. It wouldn’t even have been good for us.”
Then his face turned upward again, searching the sky.
“But someday we’ll make it—under our own power, and we’ll have a right to it then.”
Glossary
AERODYNAMIC: referring to the science of the atmosphere in motion, particularly as it affects aircraft design.
BREADBOARD LAYOUT: a slang term used by engineers to describe a temporary arrangement of electrical parts. They are mounted on a flat board and wires can be readily changed from one terminal to another for testing purposes and to make circuit alterations.
CALIBRATED: compared with a standard. An electrical meter, after being manufactured, is calibrated by applying currents of known values and the dial marked to read these known values. Thereafter, the meter can be used to read unknown values.
COMPONENTS: parts, particularly of electronic equipment. The tubes, condensers, resistors, etc., of a radio set are its components.
GALAXY: a group of stars. The largest grouping made by astronomers. These are sometimes called “island universes” because they are composed of stars relatively close together, but enormous distances of millions of light-years separate the galaxies from each other. The Earth belongs to a lens-shaped galaxy, and looking out toward the edge of it we see the band of stars forming it. We call this the Milky Way. INTERGALACTIC SPACE: referring to the great distances between the galaxies.
METEORITE (METEOR): Particles varying in size from dust specks to chunks of rock a mile or two in diameter. They move through space between the planets and sometimes enter the Earth’s atmosphere, when they are seen as “shooting stars.” In the air they burn up because of the heat generated by their movement, and resulting compression of air in front of them.
OSCILLATOR: a device for producing waves or vibrations, particularly radio waves.
RADIAL WALKWAY: Clonars ship was in the form of a disc with the corridors radiating from the center like the spokes of a wheel. These corridors are spoken of as “radial walkways” and are connected with one another by cross corridors in the form of concentric circles.
SCHEMATIC DIAGRAMS: a form of diagram in which electrical or mechanical parts are represented by symbols instead of pictures.
SEMANTICS: referring to the science of General Semantics originated by Count Korzybski. It is the study of the meanings found in all for
ms of communication and their effects upon man.
SOLAR SYSTEM: any system composed of one or more suns, and one or more planets revolving about the sun (or suns).
WAVE GENERATOR: the name given to Clonar’s mechanism for producing the particular type of radio wave used in the communication system on his world. The corresponding Earth device is the oscillator.
WAVE PACKET: an energy unit used in the atomic science of Clonar’s people, but unknown to Earthmen.
Son of the Stars Page 16
