The Past Through Tomorrow Read online

  “But— Oh, the devil! What can we do about it?”

  “Nothing. Things are bound to get a whole lot worse before they can get any better. Let’s have a drink.”

  The Menace from Earth

  MY NAME is Holly Jones and I’m fifteen. I’m very intelligent but it doesn’t show, because I look like an underdone angel. Insipid.

  I was born right here in Luna City, which seems to surprise Earthside types. Actually, I’m third generation; my grandparents pioneered in Site One, where the Memorial is. I live with my parents in Artemis Apartments, the new co-op in Pressure Five, eight hundred feet down near City Hall. But I’m not there much; I’m too busy.

  Mornings I attend Tech High and afternoons I study or go flying with Jeff Hardesty—he’s my partner—or whenever a tourist ship is in I guide groundhogs. This day the Gripsholm grounded at noon so I went straight from school to American Express.

  The first gaggle of tourists was trickling in from Quarantine but I didn’t push forward as Mr. Dorcas, the manager, knows I’m the best. Guiding is just temporary (I’m really a spaceship designer), but if you’re doing a job you ought to do it well.

  Mr. Dorcas spotted me. “Holly! Here, please. Miss Brentwood, Holly Jones will be your guide.”

  “‘Holly,’” she repeated. “What a quaint name. Are you really a guide, dear?”

  I’m tolerant of groundhogs—some of my best friends are from Earth. As Daddy says, being born on Luna is luck, not judgment, and most people Earthside are stuck there. After all, Jesus and Gautama Buddha and Dr. Einstein were all groundhogs.

  But they can be irritating. If high school kids weren’t guides, whom could they hire? “My license says so,” I said briskly and looked her over the way she was looking me over.

  Her face was sort of familiar and I thought perhaps I had seen her picture in those society things you see in Earthside magazines—one of the rich playgirls we get too many of. She was almost loathsomely lovely… nylon skin, soft, wavy, silver-blond hair, basic specs about 35-24-34 and enough this and that to make me feel like a matchstick drawing, a low intimate voice and everything necessary to make plainer females think about pacts with the Devil. But I did not feel apprehensive; she was a groundhog and groundhogs don’t count.

  “All city guides are girls,” Mr. Dorcas explained. “Holly is very competent.”

  “Oh, I’m sure,” she answered quickly and went into tourist routine number one: surprise that a guide was needed just to find her hotel, amazement at no taxicabs, same for no porters, and raised eyebrows at the prospect of two girls walking alone through “an underground city.”

  Mr. Dorcas was patient, ending with: “Miss Brentwood, Luna City is the only metropolis in the Solar System where a woman is really safe—no dark alleys, no deserted neighborhoods, no criminal element.”

  I didn’t listen; I just held out my tariff card for Mr. Dorcas to stamp and picked up her bags. Guides shouldn’t carry bags and most tourists are delighted to experience the fact that their thirty-pound allowance weighs only five pounds. But I wanted to get her moving.

  We were in the tunnel outside and me with a foot on the slidebelt when she stopped. “I forgot! I want a city map.”

  “None available.”

  “Really?”

  “There’s only one. That’s why you need a guide.”

  “But why don’t they supply them? Or would that throw you guides out of work?”

  See? “You think guiding is makework? Miss Brentwood, labor is so scarce they’d hire monkeys if they could.”

  “Then why not print maps?”

  “Because Luna City isn’t flat like—” I almost said, “—groundhog cities,” but I caught myself.

  “—like Earthside cities,” I went on. “All you saw from space was the meteor shield. Underneath it spreads out and goes down for miles in a dozen pressure zones.”

  “Yes, I know, but why not a map for each level?”

  Groundhogs always say, “Yes, I know, but—”

  “I can show you the one city map. It’s a stereo tank twenty feet high and even so all you see clearly are big things like the Hall of the Mountain King and hydroponics farms and the Bats’ Cave.”

  “The Bats’ Cave,‘” she repeated. “That’s where they fly, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, that’s where we fly.”

  “Oh, I want to see it!”

  “OK. It first . .(. or the city map?”

  She decided to go to her hotel first. The regular route to the Zurich is to slide up and west through Gray’s Tunnel past the Martian Embassy, get off at the Mormon Temple, and take a pressure lock down to Diana Boulevard. But I know all the shortcuts; we got off at Macy-Gimbel Upper to go down their personnel hoist. I thought she would enjoy it.

  But when I told her to grab a hand grip as it dropped past her, she peered down the shaft and edged back. “You’re joking.”

  I was about to take her back the regular way when a neighbor of ours came down the hoist. I said, “Hello, Mrs. Greenberg,” and she called back, “Hi, Holly. How are your folks?”

  Susie Greenberg is more than plump. She was hanging by one hand with young David tucked in her other arm and holding the Daily Lunatic, reading as she dropped. Miss Brentwood stared, bit her lip, and said, “How do I do it?”

  I said, “Oh, use both hands; I’ll take the bags.” I tied the handles together with my hanky and went first.

  She was shaking when we got to the bottom. “Goodness, Holly, how do you stand it? Don’t you get homesick?”

  Tourist question number six… I said, “I’ve been to Earth,” and let it drop. Two years ago Mother made me visit my aunt in Omaha and I was miserable—hot and cold and dirty and beset by creepy-crawlies. I weighed a ton and I ached and my aunt was always chivvying me to go outdoors and exercise when all I wanted was to crawl into a tub and be quietly wretched. And I had hay fever. Probably you’ve never heard of hay fever—you don’t die but you wish you could.

  I was supposed to go to a girls’ boarding school but I phoned Daddy and told him I was desperate and he let me come home. What groundhogs can’t understand is that they live in savagery. But groundhogs are groundhogs and loonies are loonies and never the twain shall meet.

  Like all the best hotels the Zurich is in Pressure One on the west side so that it can have a view of Earth. I helped Miss Brentwood register with the roboclerk and found her room; it had its own port. She went straight to it, began staring at Earth and going ooh! and ahh!

  I glanced past her and saw that it was a few minutes past thirteen; sunset sliced straight down the tip of India—early enough to snag another client. “Will that be all, Miss Brentwood?”

  Instead of answering she said in an awed voice, “Holly, isn’t that the most beautiful sight you ever saw?”

  “It’s nice,” I agreed. The view on that side is monotonous except for Earth hanging in the sky—but Earth is what tourists always look at even though they’ve just left it. Still, Earth is pretty. The changing weather is interesting if you don’t have to be in it. Did you ever endure a summer in Omaha?

  “It’s gorgeous,” she whispered.

  “Sure,” I agreed. “Do you want to go somewhere? Or will you sign my card?”

  “What? Excuse me, I was daydreaming. No, not right now—yes, I do! Holly, I want to go out there! I must! Is there time? How much longer will it be light?”

  “Huh? It’s two days to sunset.”

  She looked startled. “How quaint. Holly, can you get us space suits? I’ve got to go outside.”

  I didn’t wince—I’m used to tourist talk. I suppose a pressure suit looked like a space suit to them. I simply said, “We girls aren’t licensed outside. But I can phone a friend.”

  Jeff Hardesty is my partner in spaceship designing, so I throw business his way. Jeff is eighteen and already in Goddard Institute, but I’m pushing hard to catch up so that we can set up offices for our firm: “Jones & Hardesty, Spaceship Engineers.” I’m very bright
in mathematics, which is everything in space engineering, so I’ll get my degree pretty fast. Meanwhile we design ships anyhow.

  I didn’t tell Miss Brentwood this, as tourists think that a girl my age can’t possibly be a spaceship designer.

  Jeff has arranged his classes to let him guide on Tuesdays and Thursdays; he waits at West City Lock and studies between clients. I reached him on the lockmaster’s phone. Jeff grinned and said, “Hi, Scale Model.”

  “Hi, Penalty Weight. Free to take a client?”

  “Well, I was supposed to guide a family party, but they’re late.”

  “Cancel them. Miss Brentwood… step into pickup, please. This is Mr. Hardesty.”

  Jeff’s eyes widened and I felt uneasy. But it did not occur to me that Jeff could be attracted by a groundhog… even though it is conceded that men are robot slaves of their body chemistry in such matters. I knew she was exceptionally decorative, but it was unthinkable that Jeff could be captivated by any groundhog, no matter how well designed. They don’t speak our language!

  I am not romantic about Jeff; we are simply partners. But anything that affects Jones & Hardesty affects me.

  When we joined him at West Lock he almost stepped on his tongue in a disgusting display of adolescent rut. I was ashamed of him and, for the first time, apprehensive. Why are males so childish?

  Miss Brentwood didn’t seem to mind his behavior. Jeff is a big hulk; suited up for outside he looks like a Frost Giant from Das Rheingold; she smiled up at him and thanked him for changing his schedule. He looked even sillier and told her it was a pleasure.

  I keep my pressure suit at West Lock so that when I switch a client to Jeff he can invite me to come along for the walk. This time he hardly spoke to me after that platinum menace was in sight. But I helped her pick out a suit and took her into the dressing room and fitted it. Those rental suits take careful adjusting or they will pinch you in tender places once out in vacuum… besides there are things about them that one girl ought to explain to another.

  When I came out with her, not wearing my own, Jeff didn’t even ask why I hadn’t suited up—he took her arm and started toward the lock. I had to butt in to get her to sign my tariff card.

  The days that followed were the longest in my life. I saw Jeff only once… on the slidebelt in Diana Boulevard, going the other way. She was with him.

  Though I saw him but once, I knew what was going on. He was cutting classes and three nights running he took her to the Earthview Room of the Duncan Hines. None of my business!—I hope she had more luck teaching him to dance than I had. Jeff is a free citizen and if he wanted to make an utter fool of himself neglecting school and losing sleep over an upholstered groundhog that was his business.

  But he should not have neglected the firm’s business!

  Jones & Hardesty had a tremendous backlog because we were designing Starship Prometheus. This project we had been slaving over for a year, flying not more than twice a week in order to devote time to it—and that’s a sacrifice.

  Of course you can’t build a starship today, because of the power plant. But Daddy thinks that there will soon be a technological break-through and mass-conversion power plants will be built—which means starships. Daddy ought to know—he’s Luna Chief Engineer for Space Lanes and Fermi Lecturer at Goddard Institute. So Jeff and I are designing a self-supporting interstellar ship on that assumption: quarters, auxiliaries, surgery, labs— everything.

  Daddy thinks it’s just practice but Mother knows better—Mother is a mathematical chemist for General Synthetics of Luna and is nearly as smart as I am. She realizes that Jones & Hardesty plans to be ready with a finished proposal while other designers are still floundering.

  Which was why I was furious with Jeff for wasting time over this creature. We had been working every possible chance. Jeff would show up after dinner, we would finish our homework, then get down to real work, the Prometheus… checking each other’s computations, fighting bitterly over details, and having a wonderful time. But the very day I introduced him to Ariel Brentwood, he failed to appear. I had finished my lessons and was wondering whether to start or wait for him—we were making a radical change in power plant shielding—when his mother phoned me. “Jeff asked me to call you, dear. He’s having dinner with a tourist client and can’t come over.”

  Mrs. Hardesty was watching me so I looked puzzled and said, “Jeff thought I was expecting him? He has his dates mixed.” I don’t think she believed me; she agreed too quickly.

  All that week I was slowly convinced against my will that Jones & Hardesty was being liquidated. Jeff didn’t break any more dates—how can you break a date that hasn’t been made?—but we always went flying Thursday afternoons unless one of us was guiding. He didn’t call. Oh, I know where he was; he took her iceskating in Fingal’s Cave.

  I stayed home and worked on the Prometheus, recalculating masses and moment arms for hydroponics and stores on the basis of the shielding change. But I made mistakes and twice I had to look up logarithms instead of remembering… I was so used to wrangling with Jeff over everything that I just couldn’t function.

  Presently I looked at the name plate of the sheet I was revising. “Jones & Hardesty” it read, like all the rest. I said to myself, “Holly Jones, quit bluffing; this may be The End. You knew that someday Jeff would fall for somebody.”

  “Of course… but not a groundhog.”

  “But he did. What kind of an engineer are you if you can’t face facts? She’s beautiful and rich—she’ll get her father to give him a job Earthside. You hear me? Earthside‘. So you look for another partner… or go into business on your own.”

  I erased “Jones & Hardesty” and lettered “Jones & Company” and stared at it. Then I started to erase that, too—but it smeared; I had dripped a tear on it. Which was ridiculous!

  The following Tuesday both Daddy and Mother were home for lunch which was unusual as Daddy lunches at the spaceport. Now Daddy can’t even see you unless you’re a spaceship but that day he picked to notice that I had dialed only a salad and hadn’t finished it. “That plate is about eight hundred calories short,” he said, peering at it. “You can’t boost without fuel—aren’t you well?”

  “Quite well, thank you,” I answered with dignity.

  “Mmm… now that I think back, you’ve been moping for several days. Maybe you need a checkup.” He looked at Mother.

  “I do not either need a checkup!” I had not been moping—doesn’t a woman have a right not to chatter?

  But I hate to have doctors poking at me so I added, “It happens I’m eating lightly because I’m going flying this afternoon. But if you insist, I’ll order pot roast and potatoes and sleep instead!”

  “Easy, punkin‘,” he answered gently. “I didn’t mean to intrude. Get yourself a snack when you’re through… and say hello to Jeff for me.”

  I simply answered, “OK,” and asked to be excused; I was humiliated by the assumption that I couldn’t fly without Mr. Jefferson Hardesty but did not wish to discuss it.

  Daddy called after me, “Don’t be late for dinner,” and Mother said, “Now, Jacob—” and to me, “Fly until you’re tired, dear; you haven’t been getting much exercise. I’ll leave your dinner in the warmer. Anything you’d like?”

  “No, whatever you dial for yourself.” I just wasn’t interested in food, which isn’t like me. As I headed for Bats’ Cave I wondered if I had caught something. But my cheeks didn’t feel warm and my stomach wasn’t upset even if I wasn’t hungry.

  Then I had a horrible thought. Could it be that I was jealous? Me?

  It was unthinkable. I am not romantic; I am a career woman. Jeff had been my partner and pal, and under my guidance he could have become a great spaceship designer, but our relationship was straightforward… a mutual respect for each other’s abilities, with never any of that lovey-dovey stuff. A career woman can’t afford such things—why look at all the professional time Mother had lost over having me!

  No
, I couldn’t be jealous; I was simply worried sick because my partner had become involved with a groundhog. Jeff isn’t bright about women and, besides, he’s never been to Earth and has illusions about it. If she lured him Earthside, Jones & Hardesty was finished.

  And somehow, “Jones & Company” wasn’t a substitute: the Prometheus might never be built.

  I was at Bats’ Cave when I reached this dismal conclusion. I didn’t feel like flying but I went to the locker room and got my wings anyhow.

  Most of the stuff written about Bats’ Cave gives a wrong impression. It’s the air storage tank for the city, just like all the colonies have—the place where the scavenger pumps, deep down, deliver the air until it’s needed. We just happen to be lucky enough to have one big enough to fly in. But it never was built, or anything like that; it’s just a big volcanic bubble, two miles across, and if it had broken through, way back when, it would have been a crater.

  Tourists sometimes pity us loonies because we have no chance to swim. Well, I tried it in Omaha and got water up my nose and scared myself silly. Water is for drinking, not playing in; I’ll take flying. I’ve heard groundhogs say, oh yes, they had “flown” many times. But that’s not flying. I did what they talk about, between White Sands and Omaha. I felt awful and got sick. Those things aren’t safe.

  I left my shoes and skirt in the locker room and slipped my tail surfaces on my feet, then zipped into my wings and got someone to tighten the shoulder straps. My wings aren’t ready-made condors; they are Storer-Gulls, custom-made for my weight distribution and dimensions. I’ve cost Daddy a pretty penny in wings, outgrowing them so often, but these latest I bought myself with guide fees.

  They’re lovely!—titanalloy struts as light and strong as bird bones, tension-compensated wrist-pinion and shoulder joints, natural action in the alula slots, and automatic flap action in stalling. The wing skeleton is dressed in styrene feather-foils with individual quilling of scapulars and primaries. They almost fly themselves.