Starman Jones Read online

  OFF THE CHARTS

  The stars were doing the crawling together that marked the last moments before transition to another area of space. They suddenly blinked out and were replaced by another starry firmament.

  The Captain lounged back. “Well,” he said happily, “I see we made it again.” He got up and headed for the hatch.

  Max looked up, trying to recall what piece of this new sky they were facing. Kelly was looking up, too. “Yes, we came through,” Max heard him mutter. “Bu where?

  The Asgard had come out in unknown space. It wasn’t on any of their charts, and they were hopelessly lost!

  “Robert A. Heinlein is probably more responsible than any other man for the curious development of modern science fiction… He made his name as a science fiction writer with vigorous stories about the impact of futuristic technology on society. He speculated fearlessly…

  —The New Yorker

  By Robert A. Heinlein

  Published by Ballantine Books

  BETWEEN PLANETS

  CITIZEN OF THE GALAXY

  THE DOOR INTO SUMMER

  DOUBLE STAR

  FARMER IN THE SKY

  FRIDAY

  GRUMBLES FROM THE GRAVE

  HAVE SPACE SUIT—WILL TRAVEL

  JOB: A COMEDY OF JUSTICE

  THE NUMBER OF THE BEAST

  THE PUPPET MASTERS

  RED PLANET

  ROCKET SHIP GALILEO

  THE ROLLING STONES

  SPACE CADET

  THE STAR BEAST

  STARMAN JONES

  TIME FOR THE STARS

  TUNNEL IN THE SKY

  WALDO & MAGIC, INC.

  VL: 6 & up

  IL: 7 & up

  A Dell Rey® Book

  Published by The Ballantine Publishing Group

  Copyright © 1953 by Robert A. Heinlein

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States of America by the Ballantine Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

  http://www.randomhouse.com

  Cover art by Rick Sternback

  ISBN 0-345-32811-6

  This edition published by arrangement with Charles Scribner’s Sons

  Printed in Canada

  First Ballantine Books Edition: February 1975

  30 29 28 27

  For My Friend, Jim Smith

  CONTENTS

  The Tomahawk

  Good Samaritan

  Earthport

  The Astrogators’ Guild

  “…Your Money and My Know-How…”

  “Spaceman” Jones

  Eldreth

  Three Ways to Get Ahead

  Chartsman Jones

  Garson’s Planet

  “Through the Cargo Hatch”

  Halcyon

  Transition

  Anywhere

  “This Isn’t a Picnic”

  “—Over a Hundred Years—”

  Charity

  Civilization

  A Friend in Need

  “—A Ship is Not Just Steel—”

  The Captain Of the Asgard

  The Tomahawk

  1

  THE TOMAHAWK

  Max liked this time of day, this time of year. With the crops in, he could finish his evening chores early and be lazy. When he had slopped the hogs and fed the chickens, instead of getting supper he followed a path to a rise west of the barn and lay down in the grass, unmindful of chiggers. He had a book with him that he had drawn from the county library last Saturday, Bonforte’s Sky Beasts: A Guide to Exotic Zoology, but he tucked it under his head as a pillow. A blue jay made remarks about his honesty, then shut up when he failed to move. A red squirrel sat on a stump and stared at him, then went on burying nuts.

  Max kept his eyes to the northwest. He favored this spot because from it he could see the steel stilts and guide rings of the Chicago, Springfield, & Earthport Ring Road emerge from a slash in the ridge to his right. There was a guide ring at the mouth of the cut, a great steel hoop twenty feet high. A pair of stilt-like tripods supported another ring a hundred feet out from the cut. A third and last ring, its stilts more than a hundred feet high to keep it level with the others, lay west of him where the ground dropped still more sharply into the valley below. Half way up it he could see the power-link antenna pointing across the gap.

  On his left the guides of the C.S.&E. picked up again on the far side of the gap. The entering ring was larger to allow for maximum windage deviation; on its stilts was the receptor antenna for the power link. That ridge was steeper; there was only one more ring before the road disappeared into a tunnel. He had read that, on the Moon, entrance rings were no larger than pass-along rings, since there was never any wind to cause variation in ballistic. When he was a child, this entrance ring had been slightly smaller and, during an unprecedented windstorm, a train had struck the ring and produced an unbelievable wreck, with more than four hundred people killed. He had not seen it and his father had not allowed him to poke around afterwards because of the carnage, but the scar of it could still be seen on the lefthand ridge, a darker green than the rest.

  He watched the trains go by whenever possible, not wishing the passengers any bad luck—but still, if there should happen to be a catastrophe, he didn’t want to miss it.

  Max kept his eyes fixed on the cut; the Tomahawk was due any instant. Suddenly there was a silver gleam, a shining cylinder with needle nose burst out of the cut, flashed through the last ring and for a breathless moment was in free trajectory between the ridges. Almost before he could swing his eyes, the projectile entered the ring across the gap and disappeared into the hillside—just as the sound hit him.

  It was a thunderclap that bounced around the hills. Max gasped for air. “Boy!” he said softly. “Boy, oh boy!” The incredible sight and the impact on his ears always affected him the same way. He had heard that for the passengers the train was silent, with the sound trailing them, but he did not know; he had never ridden a train and it seemed unlikely, with Maw and the farm to take care of, that he ever would.

  He shifted to a sitting position and opened his book, holding it so that he would be aware of the southwestern sky. Seven minutes after the passing of the Tomahawk he should be able to see, on a clear evening, the launching orbit of the daily Moonship. Although much farther away and much less dramatic than the nearby jump of the ring train, it was this that he had come to see. Ring trains were all right, but spaceships were his love—even a dinky like the moon shuttle.

  But he had just found his place, a description of the intelligent but phlegmatic crustaceans of Epsilon Ceti IV, when he was interrupted by a call behind him. “Oh, Maxie! Maximilian! Max…mil…yan!”

  He held still and said nothing.

  “Max! I can see you, Max—you come at once, hear me?”

  He muttered to himself and got to his feet. He moved slowly down the path, watching the sky over his shoulder until the barn cut off his view. Maw was back and that was that—she’d make his life miserable if he didn’t come in and help. When she had left that morning he had had the impression that she would be gone overnight—not that she had said so; she never did—but he had learned to read the signs. Now he would have to listen to her complaints and her petty gossip when he wanted to read, or just as bad, be disturbed by the slobbering stereovision serials she favored. He had often been tempted to sabotage the pesky SV set—by rights with an ax! He hardly ever got to see the programs he liked.

  When he got in sight of the house he stopped suddenly. He had supposed that Maw had ridden the bus from the Corners and walked up the draw as usual. But there was a sporty little unicycle standi
ng near the stoop—and there was someone with her.

  He had thought at first it was a “foreigner”—but when he got closer he recognized the man. Max would rather have seen a foreigner, any foreigner. Biff Montgomery was a hillman but he didn’t work a farm; Max couldn’t remember having seen him do any honest work. He had heard it said that Montgomery sometimes hired out as a guard when one of the moonshine stills back in the hills was operating and it might be so—Montgomery was a big, beefy man and the part might fit him.

  Max had known Montgomery as long as he could remember, seen him loafing around Clyde’s Corners. But he had ordinarily given him “wagon room” and had had nothing to do with him—until lately: Maw had started being seen with him, even gone to barn dances and huskings with him. Max had tried to tell her that Dad wouldn’t have liked it. But you couldn’t argue with Maw—what she didn’t like she just didn’t hear.

  But this was the first time she had ever brought him to the house. Max felt a slow burn of anger starting in him.

  “Hurry up, Maxie!” Maw called out. “Don’t stand there like a dummy.” Max reluctantly moved along and joined them. Maw said, “Maxie, shake hands with your new father,” then looked roguish, as if she had said something witty. Max stared and his mouth sagged open.

  Montgomery grinned and stuck out a hand. “Yep, Max, you’re Max Montgomery now—I’m your new pop. But you can call me Monty.”

  Max stared at the hand, took it briefly. “My name is Jones,” he said flatly.

  “Maxie!” protested Maw.

  Montgomery laughed jovially. “Don’t rush him, Nellie my love. Let Max get used to it. Live and let live; that’s my motto.” He turned to his wife. “Half a mo’, while I get the baggage.” From one saddlebag of the unicycle he extracted a wad of mussed clothing; from the other, two flat pint bottles. Seeing Max watching him, he winked and said, “A toast for the bride.”

  His bride was standing by the door; he started to brush on past her. She protested, “But Monty darling, aren’t you going to—”

  Montgomery stopped. “Oh. I haven’t much experience in these things. Sure.” He turned to Max—“Here, take the baggage”—and shoved bottles and clothes at him. Then he swung her up in his arms, grunting a bit, and carried her over the threshold, put her down and kissed her while she squealed and blushed. Max silently followed them, put the items on the table and turned to the stove. It was cold, he had not used it since breakfast. There was an electric range but it had burned out before his father had died and there had never been money to repair it. He took out his pocket knife, made shavings, added kindling and touched the heap with an Everlite. When it flared up, he went out to fetch a pail of water.

  When he came back Montgomery said, “Wondered where you’d gone. Doesn’t this dump even have running water?”

  “No.” Max set the pail down, then added a couple of chunks of cord wood to the fire.

  His Maw said, “Maxie, you should have had dinner ready.”

  Montgomery interceded pleasantly with, “Now, my dear, he didn’t know we were coming. And it leaves time for a toast.” Max kept his back to them, giving his full attention to slicing side meat. The change was so overwhelming that he had not had time to take it in.

  Montgomery called to him. “Here, son! Drink your toast to the bride.”

  “I’ve got to get supper.”

  “Nonsense! Here’s your glass. Hurry up.”

  Montgomery had poured a finger of amber liquid into the glass; his own glass was half full and that of his bride at least a third. Max accepted it and went to the pail, thinned it with a dipper of water.

  “You’ll ruin it.”

  “I’m not used to it.”

  “Oh, well. Here’s to the blushing bride—and our happy family! Bottoms up!”

  Max took a cautious sip and put it down. It tasted to him like the bitter tonic the district nurse had given him one spring. He turned back to his work, only to be interrupted again. “Hey, you didn’t finish it.”

  “Look, I got to cook. You don’t want me to burn supper, do you?”

  Montgomery shrugged. “Oh, well—the more for the rest of us. We’ll use yours for a chaser. Sonny boy, when I was your age I could empty a tumbler neat and then stand on my hands.”

  Max had intended to sup on side meat and warmed-over biscuits, but there was only half a pan left of the biscuits. He scrambled eggs in the grease of the side meat, brewed coffee, and let it go at that. When they sat down, Montgomery looked at it and announced, “My dear, starting tomorrow I’ll expect you to live up to what you told me about your cooking. Your boy isn’t much of a cook.” Nevertheless, he ate heartily. Max decided not to tell him that he was a better cook than Maw—he’d find out soon enough.

  Presently, Montgomery sat back and wiped his mouth, then poured himself more coffee and lighted a cigar. Maw said, “Maxie, dear, what’s the dessert?”

  “Dessert? Well—there’s that ice cream in the freezer, left over from Solar Union Day.”

  She looked vexed. “Oh, dear! I’m afraid it’s not there.”

  “Huh?”

  “Well, I’m afraid I sort of ate it one afternoon when you were out in the south field. It was an awfully hot day.”

  Max did not say anything, he was unsurprised. But she was not content to leave it. “You didn’t fix any dessert, Max? But this is a special occasion.”

  Montgomery took his cigar out of his mouth. “Stow it, my dear,” he said kindly. “I’m not much for sweets, I’m a meat-and-potatoes man—sticks to the ribs. Let’s talk of pleasanter things.” He turned to Max. “Max, what can you do besides farm?”

  Max was startled. “Huh? I’ve never done anything else. Why?”

  Montgomery touched the ash of the cigar to his plate. “Because you are all through farming.”

  For the second time in two hours Max had more change than he could grasp. “Why? What do you mean?”

  “Because we’ve sold the farm.”

  Max felt as if he had had a rug jerked out from under him. But he could tell from Maw’s face that it was true. She looked the way she always did when she had put one over on him—triumphant and slightly apprehensive.

  “Dad wouldn’t like that,” he said to her harshly. “This land has been in our family for four hundred years.”

  “Now, Maxie! I’ve told you I don’t know how many times that I wasn’t cut out for a farm. I was city raised.”

  “Clyde’s Corners! Some city!”

  “It wasn’t a farm. And I was just a young girl when your father brought me here—you were already a big boy. I’ve still got my life before me. I can’t have it buried on a farm.”

  Max raised his voice. “But you promised Dad you’d…”

  “Stow it,” Montgomery said firmly. “And keep a civil tongue in your head when you speak to your mother—and to me.”

  Max shut up.

  “The land is sold and that’s that. How much do you figure this parcel is worth?”

  “Why, I’ve never thought about it.”

  “Whatever you thought, I got more.” He gave Max a wink. “Yes, sir! It was a lucky day for your mother and you when she set her cap for me. I’m a man with his ear to the ground. I knew why an agent was around buying up these worn-out, worthless pieces of property. I…”

  “I use government fertilizers.”

  “Worthless I said and worthless I meant. For farming, that is.” He put his finger along his nose, looked sly, and explained. It seemed that some big government power project was afoot for which this area had been selected—Montgomery was mysterious about it, from which Max concluded that he didn’t know very much. A syndicate was quietly buying up land in anticipation of government purchase. “So we held ’em up for five times what they expected to pay. Pretty good, huh?”

  Maw put in, “You see, Maxie? If your father had known that we would ever get…”

  “Quiet, Nellie!”

  “But I was just going to tell him how much…”
<
br />   “‘Quiet!’ I said.”

  She shut up. Montgomery pushed his chair back, stuck his cigar in his mouth, and got up. Max put water on to heat for the dishes, scraped the plates and took the leavings out to the chickens. He stayed out quite a spell, looking at the stars and trying to think. The idea of having Biff Montgomery in the family shook him to his bones. He wondered just what rights a stepfather had, or, rather a step-stepfather, a man who had married his stepmother. He didn’t know.

  Presently, he decided that he had to go back inside, much as he hated to. He found Montgomery standing at the bookshelf he had built over the stereo receiver; the man was pawing at the books and had piled several on the receiver. He looked around. “You back? Stick around, I want you to tell me about the livestock.”

  Maw appeared in the doorway. “Darling,” she said to Montgomery, “can’t that wait till morning?”

  “Don’t be in a hurry, my dear,” he answered. “That auctioneer fellow will be here early. I’ve got to have the inventory ready.” He continued to pull books down. “Say, these are pretty things.” He held in his hands half a dozen volumes, printed on the finest of thin paper and bound in limp plastic. “I wonder what they’re worth? Nellie, hand me my specs.”

  Max advanced hastily, reached for them. “Those are mine!”

  “Huh?” Montgomery glanced at him, then held the books high in the air. “You’re too young to own anything. No, everything goes. A clean sweep and a fresh start.”

  “They’re mine! My uncle gave them to me.” He appealed to his mother. “Tell him, Maw.”

  Montgomery said quietly, “Yes, Nellie, set this youngster straight—before I have to correct him.”

  Nellie looked worried. “Well, I don’t rightly know. They did belong to Chet.”

  “And Chet was your brother? Then you’re Chet’s heir, not this young cub.”