A Tenderfoot in Space Page 2

  But this meeting he was allowed to attend because it was Charlie's last Scout meeting on Earth. Nixie was not aware of that but he greatly enjoyed the privilege, especially as the meeting was followed by a party at which Nixie became comfortably stuffed with hot dogs and pop. Scoutmaster McIntosh presented Charlie with a letter of withdrawal, certifying his status and merit badges and asking his admission into any troop on Venus. Nixie joined happily in the applause, trying to outbark the clapping.

  Then the Scoutmaster said, 'Okay, Rip."

  Rip was senior patrol leader. He got up and said, "Quiet, fellows. Hold it, you crazy savages! Charlie, I don't have to tell #you that we're all sorry to see you go...but we hope you have a swell time on Venus and now and then send a postcard to Troop Twenty-Eight and tell us about it -- we'll post 'em on the bulletin board. Anyhow, we wanted to get you a going-away present. But Mr. McIntosh pointed out that you were on a very strict weight allowance and practically anything would either cost you more to take with you than we had paid for it, or maybe you couldn't take it at all, which wouldn't be much of a present.

  "But it finally occurred to us that we could do one thing. Nixie -- "

  Nixie's ears pricked. Charlie said softly, "Steady, boy."

  "Nixie has been with us almost as long as you have. He's been around, poking his cold nose into things, longer than any of the tenderfeet, and longer even than some of the second class. So we decided he ought to have his own letter of withdrawal, so that the troop you join on Venus will know that Nixie is a Scout in good standing. Give it to him, Kenny."

  The scribe passed over the letter. It was phrased like Charlie's letter, save that it named "Nixie Vaughn, Tenderfoot Scout" and diplomatically omitted the subject of merit badges. It was signed by the scribe, the scoutmaster, and the patrol leaders and countersigned by every member of the troop. Charlie showed it to Nixie, who sniffed it. Everybody applauded, so Nixie joined happily in applauding himself.

  "One more thing," added Rip. "Now that Nixie is officially a Scout, he has to have his badge. So send him front and center."

  Charlie did so. They had worked their way through the Dog Care merit badge together while Nixie was a pup, all feet and floppy ears; it had made Nixie a much more acceptable member of the Vaughn family. But the rudimentary dog training required for the merit badge had stirred Charlie's interest; they had gone on to Dog Obedience School together and Nixie had progressed from easy spoken commands to more difficult silent hand signals.

  Charlie used them now. At his signal Nixie trotted forward, sat stiffly at attention, front paws neatly drooped in front of his chest, while Rip fastened the tenderfoot badge to his collar, then Nixie raised his right paw in salute and gave one short bark, all to hand signals.

  The applause was loud and Nixie trembled with eagerness to join it. But Charlie signalled "hold & quiet," so Ni-xie remained silently poised in salute until the clapping died away. He returned to heel just as silently, though quivering with excitement. The purpose of the ceremony may not have been clear to him -- if so, he was not the first tenderfoot Scout to be a little confused. But it was perfectly clear that he was the center of attention and was being approved of by his friends; it was a high point in his life.

  But all in all there had been too much excitement for a dog in one week; the trip to White Sands, shut up in a travel case and away from Charlie, was the last straw. When Charlie came to claim him at the baggage room of White Sands Airport, his relief was so great that he had a puppyish accident, and was bitterly ashamed.

  He quieted down on the drive from airport to spaceport, then was disquieted again when he was taken into a room which reminded him of his unpleasant trips to the veterinary -- the smells, the white-coated figure, the bare table where a dog had to hold still and be hurt. He stopped dead.

  "Come, Nixie!" Charlie said firmly. "None of that, boy. Up!"

  Nixie gave a little sigh, advanced and jumped onto the examination table, stood docile but trembling.

  "Have him lie down," the man in the white smock said. "I've got to get the needle into the large vein in his foreleg."

  Nixie did so on Charlie's command, then lay tremblingly quiet while his left foreleg was shaved in a patch and sterilized. Charlie put a hand on Nixie's shoulder blades and soothed him while the veterinary surgeon probed for the vein. Nixie bared his teeth once but did not growl, even though the fear in the boy's mind was beating on him, making him just as afraid.

  Suddenly the drug reached his brain and he slumped limp.

  Charlie's fear surged to a peak but Nixie did not feel it. Nixie's tough little spirit had gone somewhere else, out of touch with his friend, out of space and time -- wherever it is that the "I" within a man or a dog goes when the body wrapping it is unconscious.

  Charlie said shrilly, "Is he all right?"

  "Eh? Of course."

  "Uh...I thought he had died."

  "Want to listen to his heart beat?"

  "Uh, no -- if you say he's all right. Then he's going to be okay? He'll live through it?"

  The doctor glanced at Charlie's father, back at the boy, let his eyes rest on Charlie's lapel. "Star Scout, eh?"

  "Uh, yes, sir."

  "Going on to Eagle?"

  "Well...I'm going to try, sir."

  "Good. Look, son. If I put your dog over on that shelf, in a couple of hours he'll be sleeping normally and by tomorrow he won't even know he was out. But if I take him back to the chill room and start him on the cycle -- " He shrugged. "Well, I've put eighty head of cattle under today. If forty percent are revived, it's a good shipment. I do my best."

  Charlie looked grey. The surgeon looked at Mr. Vaughn, back at the boy. "Son, I know a man who's looking for a dog for his kids. Say the word and you won't have to worry about whether this pooch's system will recover from a shock it was never intended to take."

  Mr. Vaughn said, "Well, son?"

  Charlie stood mute, in an agony of indecision. At last Mr. Vaughn said-sharply, "Chuck, we've got just twenty minutes before we must check in with Emigration. Well? What's your answer?"

  Charlie did not seem to hear. Timidly. he put out one hand, barely touched the still form with the staring, unseeing eyes. Then he snatched his hand back and squeaked, "No! We're going to Venus -- both of us!" -- turned and ran out of the room.

  The veterinary spread his hands helplessly. "I tried."

  "I know you -- did, Doctor," Mr. Vaughn answered gravely. "Thank you."

  The Vaughns took the usual emigrant routing: winged shuttle rocket to the inner satellite station, ugly wingless ferry rocket to the outer station, transshipment there to the great globular cargo liner Hesperus. The jumps and changes took two days; they stayed in the deepspace ship for twenty-one tedious weeks, falling in half-elliptical orbit from Earth down to Venus. The time was fixed, an inescapable consequence of the law of gravity and the sizes and shapes of the two planetary orbits.

  At first Charlie was terribly excited. The terrific highgravity boost to break away from Earth's mighty grasp was as much of a shocker as he had hoped; six gravities is shocking, even to those used to it. When the shuttle rocket went into free fall a few minutes later, utter weightlessness was as distressing, confusing -- and exciting -- as he had hoped. It was so upsetting that he would have lost his lunch had he not been injected with anti-nausea drug.

  Earth, seen from space, looked as it had looked in color-stereo pictures, but he found that the real thing is as vastly more satisfying as a hamburger.is better than a picture of one. In the outer satellite station, someone pointed out to him the famous Captain Nordhoff, just back from Pluto. Charlie recognized those stern, lined features, familiar from TV and news pictures, and realized with odd surprise that the hero was a man, like everyone else. He decided to be a spaceman and famous explorer himself.

  S. S. Hesperus was a disappointment. It "blasted" away from the outer station with a gentle shove, onetenth gravity, instead of the soul-satisfying, bonegrinding, ear-shattering blast w
ith which the shuttle had left Earth. Also, despite its enormous size, it was terribly crowded. After the Captain had his ship in orbit to intercept Venus five months later, he -- placed spin on his ship to give his passengers artificial weight -- which took from Charlie the pleasant neW feeling of weightlessness which he had come to enjoy.

  He was bored silly in five days -- and there were five months of it ahead. He shared a cramped room with his father and mother and slept in a hammock swung "nightly" (the ship used Greenwich time) between their bunks. Hammock in place, there was no room in the cubicle; even with it stowed, only one person could dress at a time. The only recreation space was the messrooms and they were always crowded. There was one view port in his part of the ship. At first it was popular, but after a few days even the kids didn't bother, for the view was always the same: stars, and more stars.

  By order of the Captain, passengers could sign up Tor a "sightseeing tour." Charlie's chance came when they were two weeks out -- a climb through accessible parts of the ship, a quick look into the power room, a longer look at the hydroponics gardens which provided fresh air and part of their food, and a ten-second glimpse through the door of the Holy of Holies, the control room, all accompanied by a lecture from a bored junior officer. It was over in two hours and Charlie was again limited to his own, very crowded part of the ship.

  Up forward there were privileged passengers, who had staterooms as roomy as those of the officers and who enjoyed the luxury of the officers' lounge~ Charlie did not find out that they were aboard for almost a month, but when he did, he was righteously indignant.

  His father set him straight. "They paid for it."

  "Huh? But we paid, too. Why should they get -- "

  "They paid for luxury. Those first-class passengers each paid~ about three times what your ticket cost, or mine. We got the emigrant rate -- transportation and food and a place to sleep."

  "I don't think it's fair."

  Mr. Vaughn shrugged. "Why should we have something we haven't paid for'~"

  "Uh,...well, Dad, why should they be able to pay for luxuries we can't afford?"

  "A good question. Philosophers ever since Aristotle have struggled with that one. Maybe you'll tell me, someday."

  "Huh? What do you mean, Dad?"

  "Don't say 'Huh.' Chuck, I'm taking you to a brandnew planet. If you try, you can probably get rich. Then maybe you can tell me why a man with money can command luxuries that poor people can't."

  "But we aren't poor!"

  "No, we are not. But we aren't rich either. Maybe you've got the drive to get rich. One thing is sure: on Venus the opportunities are all around you. Never mind -- how about a game before dinner?"

  Charlie still resented being shut out of the nicest parts of the ship -- he had -- never felt like a second-class anything (citizen, or passenger) before in his life; the feeling was not pleasant. He decided to get rich on Venus. He would make the biggest uranium strike in history; then he would ride first class between Venus and Earth whenever he felt like it -- that would teach those stuck-up snobs!

  He then remembered he had already decided to be a famous spaceman. Well, he would do both. Someday he would own a space line...and one of the ships would be his private yacht. But by the time the Hesperus reached the halfway point he no longer thought about it.

  The emigrants saw little of the ship's crew, but Charlie got acquainted with Slim, the emigrants' cook. Slim was called so for the reason that cooks usually are; he sampled his own wares all day long and was pear shaped.

  Like all space ships, the Hesperus was undermanned except for astrogators and engineers -- why hire a cook's helper when the space can be sold to a passenger? It was cheaper to pay high wages to a cook who could perform production-line miracles without a helper. And Slim could.

  But he could use a helper. Charlie's merit badge in cooking plus a willingness to do as he was told made him Slim's favorite volunteer assistant. Charlie got from it something to do with his time, sandwiches and snacks whenever he wanted them, and lots of knowledgeable conversation. Slim had not been to college but his curiosity had never dried up; he had read everything worth reading in several ship's libraries and had kept his eyes open dirtside on every inhabited planet in the Solar System.

  "Slim, what's it like on Venus?"

  "Mmm...pretty much like the books say. Rainy. Hot. Not too bad at Borealis, where you'll land."

  "Yes -- but what's it like?"

  "Why not wait and see? Give that stew a stir...and switch on the shortwaver. Did you know that they used to figure that Venus couldn't be lived on?"

  "Huh? No, I didn't."

  "struth. Back in the days when we didn't have space flight, scientists were certain that Venus didn't have either oxygen nor water. They figured it was a desert, with sand storms and no air you could breathe. Proved it, all by scientific logic."

  "But how could they make such a mistake? I mean, obviously, with clouds all over it and -- "

  "The clouds didn't show water vapor, not through a spectroscope they didn't. Showed lots of carbon dioxide, though, and by the science of the last century they figured they had proved that Venus couldn't support life."

  "Funny sort of science! I guess they were pretty ignorant in those days."

  "Don't go running down our~grandfathers. If it weren't for them, you and I would be squatting in a cave, scratching fleas. No, Bub, they were pretty sharp; they just didn't have all the facts. We've got more facts, but that doesn't make us smarter. Put them biscuits over here. The way I see it, it just goes to show that the only way to tell what's in a stew is to eat it...and even then you aren't always sure. Venus turned out to be a very nice place. For ducks. If there were any ducks there. Which there ain't."

  "Do you like Venus?"

  "I like any place I don't have to stay in too long. Okay, let's feed the hungry mob."

  The food in the Hesperus was as good as the living accommodations were bad. This was partly Slim's genius, but was also the fact that food in a space ship costs by its weight; what it had cost Earthside matters little compared with the expense of lifting it off Earth. The choicest steaks cost the spaceline owners little more than the same weight of rice -- and any steaks left over could be sold at high prices to colQnists weary .for a taste of Earth food. So the emigrants ate as well as the first class passengers, even though not with fine service and fancy surroundings. When Slim was ready he opened a shutter in the galley partition and Charlie dealt out the wonderful viands like chow in a Scout camp to passengers queued up with plates. Charlie enjoyed this chore. It made him feel like a member of the crew, a spaceman himself.

  Charlie almost managed not to worry about Nixie, having told himself that there was nothing to worry about. They were a month past midpoint, with Venus only six weeks away before he discussed it with Slim. "Look, Slim, you know a lot about such things. Nixie'll make it all right...won't he?"

  "Hand me that paddle; Mmm...don't know as I ever ran across a dog in space before. Cats now...cats belong in space. They're clean and neat and help to keep down mice and rats."

  "I don't like cats."

  "Ever lived with a cat? No, I see you haven't. How can you have the gall not to like something you don't know anything about? Wait till you've lived with a cat, then tell me what you think. Until then...well, who told you were entitled to an opinion?"

  "Huh? Why, everybody is entitled to his own opinion!"

  "Nonsense, Bub. Nobody is entitled to an opinion about something he is ignorant of. If the Captain told me how to bake a cake, I would politely suggest that he not stick his nose into my trade...contrariwise, I never tell him how to plot an orbit to Mars."

  "Slim, you're changing the subject. How about Nixie? He's going to be all right...isn't he?"

  "As I was saying, I don't have opinions about things I don't know. Happens I don't know dogs. Never had one as a kid; I was raised in a big city. Since then I've been in space. No dogs."

  "Darn it, Slim! -- you're being evasive:
You know about sleep-freeze. I know you do."

  Slim sighed. "Kid, you're going to die someday and so am I. And so is your pup. It's the one thing we can't avoid. Why, the ship's reactor could blow up and nOne of us would know what hit us till they started fitting us with haloes. So why fret about whether your dog comes out of sleep-freeze? Either he does and you've worried unnecessarily...or he doesn't and there's nothing you can do about it."

  "So you don't think he will?"

  "I didn't say that. I said it was foolish to worry."

  But Charlie did worry; the talk with Slim brought it to the top of his mind, worried him more and more as the day got closer. The last month seemed longer to him than the four dreary months that had preceded it. --

  As for Nixie, time meant nothing to him. Suspended between life and death, he was not truly in the Hesperus at all; bu1~ somewhere el-se, outside of time. It was merely his shaggy little carcass that lay, stored like a ham, in the frozen hold of the ship.

  Eventually the Captain slowed his ship, matched her with Venus and set her in a -- parking orbit alongside Venus's single satellite station. After transshipment and maddening delay the Vaughns were taken down in the winged shuttle Cupid into the clouds of Venus and landed at the north pole colony, Borealis.

  For Charlie there was a still more maddening delay: cargo (which included Nixie) was unloaded after passengers and took many days because the mighty Hesperus held so much more than the little Cupid. He could not even go over to the freight sheds to inquire about Nixie as immigrants were held at the reception center for quarantine. Each one had received many shots during the five-month trip to innoculate them against the hazards of Venus; now they found that they must wait not only on most careful physical examination and observation to make sure that they were not bringing Earth diseases in with them but also to receive more shots not available aboard ship. Charlie spent the days with sore arms and gnawing anxiety.