The Mile Long Spaceship (13 page)

Heustis and his aid began half heartedly looking at the floor also. Disgustedly the young man said, "Chief, this is solid concrete. There's not a crack in it. Besides an elevator needs cables, doesn't it? Where are they?"

They looked at Talbot. They waited.

"They have it! I was in it. They're smart enough to travel in space and send messages. They could conceal an elevator, couldn't they?" They didn't say anything and he shrilled at them, "It's here! I saw it, don't you understand? I saw it!"

His face was contorted and very pale as he looked from one to the other of them and suddenly with a wild cry he threw himself on the old silver haired man, knocking him down, clutching at his throat. "Where is it? Tell them about the radio set." He was still screaming hysterically when Heustis and Winters finally pulled him off the semi-conscious Delimarcarios.

They explained a little of it to the shop keeper while they waited for the ambulance. Mr. Talbot sat handcuffed to a chair, tears of frustration dimming his eyes. Over and over he kept repeating, "They could hide it if they wanted to."

Delimarcarios shook his head sadly, "I am at fault, gentlemen. When I observed him deliberately smashing his watch across the street, I assumed he was just an eccentric. I should have notified someone then that he needed care."

They had been gone nearly two hours when Heustis returned to his desk to face overtime work to get the papers cleared out. He looked quizzically at the youog man, "Think he'll snap out of it?"

"Doubt it. Who'd ever thought such a little guy could swing a right like he could?" He nursed his jaw ruefully. "He really did smash his watch against the lamp post. Shards of the crystal were still there."

"Never can tell what it will take to crack a mind. He wanted to build that skyscraper so badly that he made up that story and made himself believe it just to get a piece of land."

Back in his shop Delimarcarios turned the
Open
sign to read Closed and humming happily to himself locked up. He rode down the elevator still humming. To his companion before the communication set he said, "I made him a gift of truth. With such a gift a wise man can change a world, but a foolish man—he can only destroy himself."

The dust
started blowing before the chaplain finished and when Connie said, "I do," she tasted the grit and knew her words had gone unheard. Hank's hand squeeezed hers a bit and the rest went by in a blur of swirling sand and heat and wind-swept-away words heard only in her heart, not with her ears. They turned afterwards and looked up at the ship rising bluntly behind them, its snub nose obscured in the dust cloud that had pitted and torn and shot through and through Connie's extravagant lace and satin gown.

Someone yelled, "Come on, kids, or we'll be buried alive. Let's get the party rolling."

Hank and Connie stood hand in hand before the ship and slowly turned toward one another, searching in the obliterating sand and dust, the taste of sand on their mouths when they kissed. Then they too ran after the others toward the mess hall where the party was awaiting them.

They went to Tucson for the weekend honeymoon and in the predawn of Monday morning they were driving again toward the base, fulfilled, happy. Connie looked at Hank's thin face, deeply tanned, but too drawn for perfect health, the result of the three years of tension. His narrow hand rested on her leg just above the knee and she stroked it lightly watching the lines of his face come into bolder relief as the day hurried as if eager for the burning sun to be born anew. They didn't speak, only occasionally smiling into each other's eyes, too content for the utterance of mere words that could say only so much, none of it vital as their love was vital.

Connie closed her eyes dreamily and relived the weekend minute by minute, not knowing how or when conversation with Phylis intruded and gained preponderance over her thoughts.

"Look, Connie, you're letting yourself in for more grief than you can take. You and Hank are happy now, aren't you? What if you are separated at take-off? It will be seven years before he can be declared legally dead and until then you'll be a married woman. Honey, in seven years you'll be pushing thirty."

"We won't be separated. Hank is sure of the astrophysicist post and I'll keep up in the bio-chemistry lab," Connie laughed at her.

"All right, suppose you both do get selected. Do you think life aboard the ship will conform to Earth's morality laws and customs? There'll be five or six men for every woman aboard. How long do you think Hank could stand a situation like the one that will necessarily develop?"

"Oh, Phylis, shut up!" Connie retorted indignantly. "We are both adults and are both going into this thing with our eyes open. If that happens, it just will and we'll be able to stand it. First and foremost I'll be Mrs. Hank Quenton."

"Take-off smoke will automatically make that Mrs. Eligible," Phylis said maliciously. She softened immediately however and put her arms around the other girl. "You poor little goose," she said soberly. "Since I couldn't talk you out of it, let me be your maid of honor."

There was a smile on Connie's face when Hank shook her awake and they were before their barrack's one-room apartment, home for the next year until take-off of Earth's first star ship.

The days settled to the routine again quickly and it was almost as if they hadn't even married. She had problems to settle concerning biology, and problems about chemistry and problems that had nothing to do with either. And there were tests and classes and homework and physical exercise to be done. They ate together, when they could, in the mess hall and slept together when they could arrange the same hours in the small one-room home. Connie was deliriously happy.

She knew she would beat him home by at least an hour on their second month's anniversary, and she hurried, planning what to wear to celebrate. She opened the door quickly and was thankful for the air conditioned coolness that greeted her. Her eyes widened as she saw a figure rising from the chair by the window.

"Don!" she exclaimed and her hand stayed at the button she was undoing. Without realizing it she had gone pale and the other hand was clenched tightly. Don worked with Hank. Immediately she knew one of the tests had gone wrong. The centrifuge? The altitude chamber?

"Get hold of yourself, Connie," Don said quickly. "He's ok. They took out his appendix. That's all."

"His appendix!" Relief flooded through her, washing the strength from her legs and she sank into the other chair. "But there wasn't anything wrong with him. He's never had a bit of stomach trouble."

"The doc said it had to go. Preventive medicine. He wanted me to tell you about it and tell you not to do anything rash. He'll be able to see you tomorrow."

During the next hour she tried to get to Hank, but the night nurse at the infirmary was adamant and told her to return in the morning between ten and eleven.

"But just let me look at him! I won't even go inside his room. I have to know he's all right," she begged.

"Sorry, ma'am. Orders," he said courteously and escorted her to the door, standing there watching until she finally turned and walked away, shoulders sagging, tears threatening to spill over at a word.

She found Phylis in the general lounge.

"Honey, what can you do about it?" she asked callously. "So they took out his appendix. Everyone out here has to have it done to qualify. Last week it was your wisdom teeth. As routine as inspecting for t.b."

"But they should have told me! I'm his wife! I had a right to know. What if something had gone wrong? What if he'd called for me?"

"Well, nothing did, and even if he had called for you, he didn't need you. Now you'd better get some dinner and some sleep. For all you know this could be part of your testing. Someone could be recording your every action to see how you bear up under strain and surprise." Connie felt something freeze within her and she thought distantly, two rabbits with one snare. She was sure they were studying her reaction. Raising her voice slightly she said quite clearly, "I hope they get it down right. I'm furious with them. At the whole scheming set-up. What right do they have to take people and manipulate them like so many animated puppets? They don't own my soul and if they make me mad, there's nothing I signed yet that says I have to grin and turn the other cheek."

Later she wondered what the psychologists thought when they studied that. Hank had been given the opportunity to contact her, she learned with indignation, and he had turned it down. "Don't you see, darling. Everything they do has a reason. They had to be sure I wasn't too dependent on you. I suspected it as soon as I saw Zorin there watching me."

The psychologists were the worst, and of them Zorin was the one she feared the most. They pounced on them at all hours, presenting problems that had no solutions, asking questions that made no sense, trying to tear out their very minds and dissect them into tiny cross sections so they could know exactly what was thought, what was felt. Connie was proud of Hank for outguessing them, but the little voice within her still protested that it was unnatural for a man's wife not to know about his surgery. He was so self-sufficient, she thought, that actually he didn't need her. She'd been of no use to him that other time when Zorin had got under his skin. He had returned at three in the morning, stiff and cold and hard, so icily controlled that she had been almost afraid of him.

"Darling, what happened? What did they do to you?"

"Go to sleep, Connie. It's nothing."

"But Hank..."

"I said it's nothing! Steve's flunked out. He left half an hour ago. They let me take him to town." And then it came out. "Zorin wanted to know how I felt seeing my best friend leave."

Connie had become silent with the awakened memory of that other night and the nameless fear, fear that couldn't be identified and examined, was smothering her, making breathing difficult. They had taken Steve's appendix out too. The thoughts Phylis had planted in her mind came back with overpowering force. What if she didn't make it? With thought giving the idea an identity, it came back repeatedly, each time stronger and with more urgency. What would she do without him? She knew that she had promised herself for life that day when they tasted sand saying the magic words, regardless of what happened after take-off. The feeling persisted for days and finally she knew what she must do.

"Hank, I think we should go to the sperm bank." She lay with his arm about her shoulders and felt him become taut with her words.

"Don't be ridiculous, Connie. It's either both of us or neither of us. Either way there's plenty of time."

"But Hank..." There was so much she wanted to say. She couldn't let him stay because of her. She had known that from the beginning. She knew she would die before she let it happen. Better that one of them should live the dream they both shared than neither of them. From the original four thousand, six hundred would be chosen, and if he were one of them, no power existed that could deny him. She said, "Darling, be reasonable. There are inheritance laws for one thing. Without children I wouldn't be able to touch your bank account, and that would be a hardship. Think of all those thousands of dollars sitting there and me drooling about them and not able to get even a peek."

She shushed his protest with a quick kiss and continued hurriedly, "And I just sort of figure a little-long-lanky-tow-headed junior edition of you would be better than all the memories I could conjure. And besides, think of all the other women who might want to conceive a child by you, and this way you could refer them to the dispensary with an indifferent wave of your hand."

He wasn't amused and it got worse. The next day neither of them was speaking and they might have continued that way until take-off if Dr. Zorin hadn't called for Connie that afternoon.

"Mrs. Quenton," he asked mildly, "what do you think of marriage?"

He knew. Connie didn't question how; it was enough that he did. Cautiously she answered, "I think it's fine, Doctor."

"Naturally," he smiled and she found herself stiffening her guard even more. "But in the broader sense, speaking in general terms, not subjectively, what function do you consider marriage to satisfy?"

"I think," she hedged, "that would depend entirely on the couple concerned. There are probably as many answers to that as there are married people."

"Um. And your own? What did you hope to accomplish by legalizing what was already an acceptable condition? Did you think it would give you a better chance to make the trip together?"

"Of course not! Actually I was afraid it might cause a great big minus ten to be put by our names," she cried. "I love Hank, Doctor. Can't you understand that? I love him and I wanted to marry him."

"And you want to bear his children, don't you?"

"Yes!" she flung out recklessly. "Isn't that the natural thing for a woman to want! Doesn't every woman want to bear the child of the man she loves?"

"Is that why you wanted to be married?"

"I don't know! I don't know!" She fought down her rebellion at the questions and the talk went on for almost another hour without bringing it down any closer than that. Before she left he told her all the men would be required to visit the sperm bank, for the protection of the unborn generations of children.

She walked back to her own room dejectedly not even noticing the heat or the eternally swirling dust that clogged her nose and caused her eyes to smart. Hank was waiting for her, his arms outstretched, drinks standing on the dresser steaming slightly.

"Hank," she moaned and buried her face against him blurting out an incoherent account of the interview. "I'll be flunked out too. I know I will. He must think I'm hopelessly neurotic."

"You answer too quickly, honey. You have to learn to control yourself better. He was needling you and you fell for it. You have to learn to suspect a hidden trap behind everything they say to you."

"I'll try, Hank. I promise you I will. No more blow ups. I swear!"

She did try, but weekly the tension mounted. People they were accustomed to seeing about would drop from sight and they'd think they had been eliminated only to find them present once more. And the problems became more and more complex, the heat more intense, and the hours longer. Sleep was interrupted countless times so that reactions could be tested. Their most intimate hours together, hours growing harder and harder to find, were most often the ones broken into with the hateful message to report to the department on the double.