Sea Legs by Frank Quattrocchi (read a book txt) π
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- Author: Frank Quattrocchi
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On the eighteenth day, automatic machinery freed them from their imprisoning cots. Clumsily and awkwardly at first, the men began to walk, to hold their heads and arms in proper attitudes. They laughed and joked about it and kidded those who were slow at adjusting. Then they again began taking paraoxylnebutal in preparation for the free-fall flight to Terra.
Only one of the score of men in the centrifuge tank remained voluntarily in his cot.
"Space article violator," the old man informed Craig. "Psycho, I think. Went amuck with some extraterritorials. Killed a dozen."
"What will they do, exile him?"
"Not to Chociante, if that's what you mean. They just jerked his space card and gave him a one-way ticket to Terra."
"For twelve murders?" asked Craig incredulously.
"That's enough, son." The old man eyed Craig for an instant before looking away. "Pick something to talk about. What do you figure on doing when you get to Terra, for instance?"
"I'm going into Import. My father was in it for twenty years."
"Sure," said the old spaceman, watching a group of young crewmen engaged in an animated conversation.
"It's a good job. There's a future to it."
"Yeah."
Why did he have to explain anything at all to the old space tramp?
"Once I get set up, I'll probably try to open my own business."
"And spend your weekends on Luna."
Craig half rose from his cot, jarred into anger.
But the old spaceman turned, smiling wryly. "Don't get hot, kid. I guess I spent too long in Zone V." He paused to examine his wrinkled hands. They were indelibly marked with lever callouses. "You get to thinking anyone who stays closer'n eighty light years from Terra is a land-lubber."
Craig relaxed, realizing he had acted childishly. "Used to think the same. Then I took the exam and got this job."
"Whereabouts?"
"Los Angeles."
The old man looked up at Craig. "You don't know much about Terra, do you, son?"
"Not much."
"Yeah. Well, I hope you ain't disappointed."
"My father was born there, but I never saw it. Never hit the Solar System, matter of fact. Never saw much of anything close up. I stood it a long time, old man, this hitting atmospheres all over the Universe."
But the spaceman seemed to have lost interest. He was unpacking some personal belongings from a kit.
"What are you doing in Grav 1?" Craig asked.
The old man's face clouded for an instant. "In the old days, they used to say us old-timers acted like clocks. They used to say we just ran down. Now they got some fancy psychology name for it."
Craig regretted his question. He would have muttered some word of apology, but the old man continued.
"Maybe you've read some of the old sea stories, or more'n likely had 'em read to you. Sailors could go to sea until they just sort of dried up. The sea tanned their skins and stiffened their bones, but it never stiffened their hearts. When they got old, it just pulled them in.
"But space is different. Space is raw and new. It tugs at your guts. It sends the blood rushing through your veins. It's like loving. You don't become a part of space the way you do the old sea, though. It leaves you strictly alone. Except that it sucks you dry, takes all the soup out of you, leaves you brittle and oldβold as a dehydrated piece of split leather.
"Then one day it shoots a spurt of blood around in one of your old veins. Something gives. Space is through with you then. And if you can stand this whirligig conditioning, you're through with space."
"You can't figure it. Some of 'em urp all over and turn six shades of green."
"You got to watch the ones that don't."
"Yeah, you got to watch the ones that don't. Especially the old ones."
"He's old. You think it was his heart?"
"Who knows?"
"They'll dump him, won't they?"
"After a tracer is sent through. But it won't do any good."
"He probably outlived everybody that ever knew him."
"Wouldn't be surprised. Here, grab his leg."
Robert Craig folded the flight jacket tightly and stuffed it into the cylindrical carton. A sleeve unwound just as he did so, making it difficult to fit into the place he had made for it. Exasperated, he refolded it and jammed it in place. Smaller rolls of underclothing were then fitted in. When he was satisfied with the layer, he tossed in a small handful of crystals and began to fill the next layer. After the carton was completely filled, he ignited the sealing strip and watched as the plastic melted into a single, seamless whole. It was ready for irradiation. Probably in another ten years his son-to-be would put it on and play spaceman. But Craig swore he'd make sure that the kid knew what a stinking life it was.
At 1300 hours, the ferry bumped heavily alongside the starboard lock. It was the signal for relief in the passengers' quarters; many were beginning to feel a reaction to the short free-fall flight from the headquarters satellite.
The audio called out: "Flight Officer Robert Craig. Flight Officer Robert Craig. Report to Orderly 12. Report to Orderly 12 through the aft door."
With pangs of anxiety he could not completely suppress, Craig obeyed.
Orderly 12 handed him a message container.
"Who's it from? Somebody on Terra?"
"From a private spaceman named Morgan Brockman."
"Brockman?"
"He was with you in the grav tank."
"The old man!"
The message container produced a battered punch card. Craig straightened it and was about to reach into his pocket for a hand transcriber. But then he noticed the card bore only a few irregular punches and was covered with rough hand printing.
Son, when the flunkies get around to giving you this, they'll have shot me out the tube. How do I know? Same way you know when your turbos are going to throw a blade. It's good this way.
There's something you can do for me if you want to. Way back, some fifty years ago, there was a woman. She was my wife. It's a long story I won't bother you with. Anyway, I left her. Wanted to take her along with me, but she wouldn't go.
Earth was a lot different then than it is now. They don't have to tell me; I know. I saw it coming and so did Ethel. We talked about it and I knew I had to go. She wouldn't or couldn't go. Wanted me to stay, but I couldn't.
I tried to send her some units once in a while. Don't know if she ever got them. Sometimes I forgot to send them at all. You know, you're way out across the Galaxy, while she's home.
Go see her if you can, son. Will you? Make sure she gets the unit transfer I made out. It isn't much out of seventy years of living, but she may need it. And maybe you can tell her a little bit about what it means to be out there. Tell her it's open and free and when you got hold of those levers and you're trying for an orbit on something big and new and green.... Hell, you remember. You know how to tell her.
Her name is Ethel Brockman. I know she'll still use my name. Her address is or was East 71, North 101, Number 4. You can trace her easy if she moved. Women don't generally shove off and not leave a forwarding address. Not Ethel, at least.
Craig put the battered card in his pocket and walked back through the door to the passenger room. How did you explain to an old woman why her husband deserted her fifty years before? Some kind of story about one's duty to the Universe? No, the old man had not been in Intergalactic. He had been a tramp spaceman. Well, why had he left?
Fifty years in space. Fifty years! Zone V had been beyond anybody's imagination that long ago. He must have been in on the first Cetusian flights and shot the early landings in Cetus II. God only knew how many times he had battled Zone 111b pirates....
Damn the old man! How did one explain?
Craig descended the ramp from the huge jet and concentrated on his impressions. One day he would recall this moment, his first on the planet Terra. He tried to recall his first thrill at seeing Los Angeles, 1500 square miles of it, from the ship as it entered the atmosphere.
He was about to step off the last step when a man appeared hurriedly. A rather plump man, he displayed a toothy smile on his puffy red face.
"A moment, sir. Just a little greeting from the Terra. You understand, of course. Purely routine."
Craig remained on the final step of the ramp, puzzled. The man turned to a companion at his right.
"We can see that this gentleman has come from a long, long way off, can't we?"
The other man did not look up. He was peering into what seemed to Craig to be a kind of camera.
"We can allow the gentlemen to continue now, can't we? It wasn't that we believed for a minute, you understand ... purely routine."
Both men were gone in an instant, leaving Craig completely bewildered.
"You goin' to move on, buddy, or you want to go back?"
Craig turned to face a line of his fellow passengers up the ramp behind him.
"Who was that?" Craig asked.
"Customs. Bet you never got such a smooth screening before, eh?"
"You mean he screened me? What for?"
"Hard to say," the other passenger said. "You'll get used to this. They get it over with quick."
Craig made his way toward the spaceport administration building. His first physical contact with Terra had passed unnoticed.
"Sir! Sir!" cried a voice behind him.
He wheeled to see a man walking briskly toward him.
"You dropped this, sir. Quite by accident, of course."
Craig examined the small object the man had given him before rushing off toward an exit.
It was an empty PON tube he had just discarded. He couldn't understand why the man had bothered until he realized that the plastaloid floor of the lobby displayed not the faintest scrap of paper nor trace of dirt.
The Import personnel man was toying with a small chip of gleaming metal. He did not look directly at Craig for more than an instant at a time, and commented on Craig's description of his trip through the city only very briefly between questions.
"It's a good deal bigger than I imagined," Craig was saying. "Haven't seen much of it, of course. Thought I'd check in here with you first."
"Yes, naturally."
"Thought you could give me some idea of conditions...."
"Conditions?"
"For instance, what part of the city I should live in. That is, what part is closest to where I'll work."
"I see," said the man noncommittally. It seemed to Craig that he was about to add something. He did not, however, but instead rose from his chair and walked to the large window overlooking an enormous section of the city far below. He stared out the window for a time, leaving Craig seated uncomfortably in the silent room. There was a distracted quality about him, Craig thought.
"You are the first man we have had from the Intergalactic Service," the personnel man said finally.
"That so?"
"Yes." He turned to face Craig briefly before continuing. "You must find it very strange here."
"Well, I've never seen a city so big."
"Yes, so big. And also...." He seemed to consider many words before completing the sentence. "And also different."
"I haven't been here very long," said Craig. "Matter of fact, I haven't been anywhere very long. This is my first real experience with life on a planet. As an adult, anyway."
The personnel man seated himself once more and pressed a button on a small instrument. A secretary entered the office from a door to Craig's left.
"Miss Wendel, this is Mr. Craig. Mr. Craig, my secretary. Mr. Craig will enter Minerals and Metals, Zone V."
They exchanged formal greetings. She was a moderately pretty girl of medium height and, to Craig, a pleasantly rounded figure. He would have attempted to catch her eye had she not immediately occupied herself with unfolding the legs of a small instrument she was carrying.
"This is Mr. Craig's first landing on Terra, Miss Wendel," the personnel man continued. "Actually, we shall have to consider him in much the same way we would an extraterrestrial."
The girl glanced at Craig, casting him a cool, impersonal smile.
"He was formerly a flight officer in the Intergalactic Space Service." The statement was delivered in an almost exaggeratedly casual tone.
The girl glanced at him once more, this time with a definite quizzical look in her brown
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