Godspeed (2 page)

For the spacers out beyond Tyrone seeking the particular light elements that were so rare on Erin, that was all. But once, ten generations ago, there had been the Godspeed Drive. Travel to the far-off stars, and commerce between them, had been an everyday event. Until one day, quite suddenly, no more ships from the stars had arrived in the Maveen system.

It may sound odd, but having learned so much, my interest was less in the Godspeed Drive than it was in the space travelers who risked their lives on and around the Forty Worlds. The Drive, if it had ever existed, was long-dead history—Mother, when I asked her, denied that there had ever been any such thing; Uncle Duncan and many other people said the same. But the spacers were here, real, undeniable. They were
today,
they were excitement. I could not have Godspeed. But I could have space.

When I reached my fifteenth birthday, I was at last allowed to use our little sailboat that sat on the jetty downhill from the house. The rules were simple: I must stay close to shore, I must never venture out in anything but light breezes, and I must never sail after dark.

If I am going to be as honest as I know how in telling everything that happened, here is a good place to begin. I broke those rules, all three of them. But I did not do it when I was at the house, with Mother there to keep an eye on me.

When she had a visitor on the way, and I was ready to be packed off to stay with Uncle Toby, I always asked if I could go to Toltoona by water, sailing along close to the shore of Lake Sheelin. Provided that the weather was good, Mother would agree. Then I would be out of her sight for anything from a day to a week, and old Uncle Toby, blurred of vision, hard of hearing, and unsteady on his legs, was happy enough to see me away early in the morning, and back as late as I pleased.

I gradually learned by trial and error what I could and could not do on the lake. The ideal situation was a strong and steady breeze from the north. That would allow me to sail right across Lake Sheelin without tacking, and come back the same way. I thought that I could be at the eastern shore in two hours and home again, when I chose to come home, in two more. That would give me most of the day to be where I wanted to be: at the Muldoon Spaceport.

On my first trip across I was too nervous about what I was doing, and too worried about my return, to enter the port itself. I hove to just offshore, ate my lunch, and stared at a baffling complex of buildings. There were scores of them, and I could not guess what they were for. What I most wanted to see, of course, was a launch or a landing, close up, but there was never a sign of one. After an hour and a half of goggling at everything, and pretending to be fishing or busy with my boat whenever anyone came down one of the jetties where the cargo boats were moored, I reluctantly headed back to Toltoona. I arrived at Uncle Toby's house, to his annoyance and mine, with most of the day to kill.

On my next visit I was much bolder. With no signs telling me to keep out, I moored my boat at the end of a jetty and went ashore. One of the first things I came to was a board showing a layout of the whole Muldoon Port. It had been placed there for the convenience of people from the lake cargo vessels, but it served me just as well. I stood there until I had a general feeling of where everything was. Then I started walking. The rest of the day was like a dream.

The great launch circles were my first target. Even from a distance I had seen the sky towers and the communication systems surrounding them. Invisible to me were the open grids beneath their bases, awaiting the surge of energy that would power landings and take-offs. After a few uncertain minutes I moved close to the guarding fence. I watched and waited for a long time, and finally realized what I ought to have deduced from my own experience: The launch activity happened close to sunset. All I would see now were preparations.

I moved on, to the monster domes of the maintenance shops. I did not dare to go in—there were too many people whose job seemed to be only to watch what others were doing—but I hovered at the hangar doors and thrilled to the sight of the repair men swarming over the bowl-shaped ferry ships, each as big as our house. I stared in fascination at the glittering cushion plates being fixed underneath them. They could be removed after launch and left in high orbit, whenever a ferry ship was needed for use farther off in space. To most people those cushions might seem no more than big round concave dishes, but because I knew their purpose I thought I had never seen anything so beautiful.

On that visit I hardly noticed the dents and scars and patches and the mended metal seams. It certainly never occurred to me that ships so battered on the outside might be no better within.

But one of the men near the door finally had his eye on me, and was starting to edge in my direction. I had done nothing wrong, but I felt guilty, and walked away toward one of the huge, metal-roofed rooms that served as combination marketplace and restaurant.

I went in, and saw more spacers in the next thirty seconds than I had dreamed existed.

They lounged at tables covered with food and drink, or stood leaning on bare walls. And they were talking, talking, talking. The whole room buzzed with spaceman chatter. I wanted to hear every word.

Except that the heads turning casually to glance at me did not move away. I was conspicuous, not because of my age—there were dozens of boys no older than me, serving food and drink—but because of my dress. Everyone else was either twice my age, or wearing the service uniform of white coat and blue tight pants.

More people were staring at me. It was time to leave. I walked quickly out of the restaurant and retreated to the shore, determined to talk Mother into making me a white coat and blue pants when I got back.

When
I got back. There was the hitch. I had lost track of time, and I had also not allowed for the fact that the wind usually dropped in the late afternoon to a light air. I set sail for the west shore, but the boat crept along, hardly creating a ripple in the still lake water.

That is how I came to see my first close-up space launch.

Darkness had fallen across the lake almost before I left the jetty. I had no problem with my destination, because Toltoona was a sizable patch of lights on the other side. But when I was no more than a tenth of the way across the lake, there was suddenly light behind me. A strange violet glow lit my white sail, and everything in the boat changed to peculiar and unnatural colors.

I turned. A ship was going up, balancing on top of a violet column of light. The ascent was slow, almost stately. I was close enough to see the return beam, a thin stream of matter that I knew was moving at close to the speed of light. It was a paler blue, and its line followed exactly back into the center of the power laser. A faint crackle of ionization carried to me across the water.

And suddenly the boat was picking up speed. I could not tell how much was natural wind, and how much I was feeling a byproduct of the huge energies being generated and dissipated back at Muldoon Port. But by the time the launch was complete and the violet beam had vanished, we were finally moving at a decent speed. Two long hours later I was tying the boat up alongside one of the Toltoona wharves. I sneaked up the hill, on into Uncle Toby's house the back way—and learned that he was not nearly as blurred in vision or hard of hearing as I hoped.

"And where in the name of Kevin do you think you've been?" he asked, when I was hardly in the door.

And then, before I could say a word, "And don't you be giving me any of your made-up stories, either, Jay Hara. You've been away across the lake, you have, and that in the dark. And poor Molly worrying herself sick about you."

"Mother knows I've been away?"

"And why else would she be worrying? She was here earlier. She wants you home as soon as you can get. And how do you think I look, with never a word to offer her as to where you were, or when you might be back?"

"How did you know I'd been across the lake?"

"Where else would a boy be, who eats and drinks and sleeps space, and has a boat? Did you have dinner, then?"

"No. I've had nothing since before lunch."

I was expecting food, or at least sympathy. But Uncle Toby sniffed and said, "Well, that's your own fool fault, isn't it? Dinner has been and gone. Get on home now—and not in the boat. Along the road."

"But Mother has a visitor. I thought he was going to be at the house for three more days."

"He is. This is different. Home you go, Jay. If you're lucky, Molly might give you something to eat when you get there."

Uncle Toby had my little backpack all ready to go. I started out for home. It was cloudy and pitch-dark, but there was no chance of getting lost. The lake was on my right hand, the embankment on my left. The road ran from Toltoona to our house, and ended just beyond it. There was hardly ever any traffic. I walked briskly, because it was late autumn, and the nights were already turning cold.

My head was filled with visions of Muldoon Port and that nighttime space launch, and the memory of the sail back to Toltoona through ghostly darkness. I doubt that I gave one thought to Mother's odd change of mind, suddenly wanting me home even though she had a guest staying with her.

And once I arrived home, and had a chance to talk with Paddy Enderton, it seemed the most natural thing in the world that Mother should want me there with her.

CHAPTER 3

It was more than five years since I had stayed at the house while Mother entertained one of her visitors. In that time I must have changed a lot in how I saw things, for it seemed to me, as soon as I stepped inside, that the man sitting in our best chair was quite different from all the others that I had met.

As I opened the door he gave a great nervous jerk upwards in his seat, then abruptly swiveled in the chair to find out who had come in. I saw a huge head, thick-bearded and dark-haired. It surmounted massive shoulders, and a bigger chest than that of any spaceman I had ever seen. His face was very pale, and free of the usual spacer broken veins and burns. Instead it wore an odd expression of surprise and caution.

But the biggest difference was in Mother.

"About time," she said. "Mr. Enderton, this is my son, Jay. He'll give you a hand to carry your things upstairs. He's big and strong."

Not one word about where I had been, or what I had been doing until so late. Which was just fine by me. But odder than this was Mother's attitude towards the visitor. There was none of the
glow
about her that I had always seen with other men guests, no sideways cocking of the head, no little touches or quick glances. Instead she sounded very practical and businesslike as she pointed behind me to the doorway.

"Get to it,Jay," she said. "It's too much for me."

I had noticed the great box when I came in—I could hardly miss it, the way that it filled half the entrance. If I was supposed to carry that upstairs, I would need lots of help. But Paddy Enderton was already standing up and coming toward me. Seated, his size had been deceptive. He possessed the head and torso of a giant, but his legs proved to be so short that he was no taller than me.

"You're Jay, then," he said gruffly. He stared hard, measuring my build, but made no move to shake my hand. "Aye, you seem strong enough. Let's do it."

I could see the remains of dinner still on the table, and that would have been my first preference. But Enderton had gone past me, and was already reaching down to a handle on the side of the box. He lifted it easily, one-handed. I took the other handle without much hope that I would be able to move it at all. To my amazement, the chest came easily off the ground.

I wondered, had Enderton really needed my help?

Yes, he had. We headed up the stairs without my feeling much strain, but Enderton gasped and gulped at every step. At the top, to my surprise, he took a turn to the left along the landing.

To explain that surprise, I have to say that our house had three bedrooms. The one at the front, looking out over the lake, was my room. The two at the back were Mother's bedroom and a small guest bedroom right next to it, where visitors always slept.

The left turn off the landing led to my room, and only to my room. And when we went into it, I found that all my belongings had disappeared.

"It's all right." Mother had followed us up the stairs. "Mr. Enderton said he absolutely had to have the front room. You're in the guest bedroom, Jay. I moved your things. It won't be for long."

"How long?" It was ridiculous, moving me out of my own room for just a couple of days.

Now mother did look at Enderton, but it was nothing more than simple inquiry.

He had put down his side of the box and straightened up, the breath rattling in his throat. "I told you," he wheezed at last. "I'm not sure." He had one hand pressed to his massive rib cage, and his face was even paler than before.

"I'm not sure," he repeated after another long pause. "Maybe three or four weeks."

He said nothing more, but stood there scowling and panting, and glancing every second or two at the sealed box. He was clearly waiting, and after a few more seconds Mother nodded at me. "Come on, then," she said, and led the way back downstairs.

"He's
horrible
," I burst out, as soon as we were in the living-room and out of earshot. "Why are you letting him stay with us for even a night, let alone a month?"

Mother hesitated. She had been loading a plate with cold meat and bread. "Now then, Jay," she said mildly. She handed me the plate. "Paddy Enderton is not what I expected, that I'll admit. But he's going to pay more than anyone ever paid. And for nothing, too."

"It's not for nothing! You're feeding him, aren't you? And you let him have my room."

"That's . . . different."

"It sure is. Why didn't you leave me with Uncle Toby until he was gone?"

"So you could go sailing off across the lake again, and worry your old uncle sick?" But Mother sounded more thoughtful than angry. "I just feel better with you here, and Uncle Duncan, too. Eat your dinner, now, and clear up afterwards. I'm going off to bed."