Short Fiction by Mack Reynolds (ready to read books .TXT) 📕

in an obscure tavern, called, with commendable restraint, simply Sam’s Bar, lapping up Martian brandy and facing the prospect of returning to the spaceport in a few hours with no particular enthusiasm.

I only half-noticed the old man who got up on the stool next to me. Sam came over and asked him what he’d have.

The oldster carefully counted out some coins on the bar and said, “Wine, Sam; a glass of Martian wine.”

“You know I don’t want your money, Joseph,” Sam told him.

The old man answered reproachfully, “The wine would taste that much the less, my friend, if I had not earned it by the sweat of my.⁠ ⁠…”

“Okay,” Sam sighed. He poured the wine and rang up the money and went off to wait on someone else.

A halftripper sidled up to me. “How about a drink, spaceman?” he whined. “I’m a graduate of the academy myself, class of ’72.” He must have noted my United Space Lines uniform.

“Sorry,” I said gruffly, keeping my back to him. Any spaceman can tell you that if you talk to a halftripper for long you’ll soon be showing symptoms of space cafard yourself. The underlying terror in him; the mind shattering fear of space; the way he stares at you, thinking that you can go home, while he is afraid to risk the trip. There are few of them that can hide their disease.

“I need a shot bad,” he whispered urgently. He probably did, too. Few halftrippers are able to secure jobs on the planets of their exile. Most of them become beachcombers of space. Of course, there are some exceptions, especially if they have money and connections.

I shuddered. “Beat it,” I grated, hating myself and him.

The fear of space cafard must be somewhat similar to that of seasickness every new sailor had back in ancient days when man sailed the oceans of Terra. He never knew until he made his first voyage if he was going to be susceptible; and, if he turned out to be, it meant the sea wasn’t for him.

Of course, space cafard goes tragically further. A new man usually succumbs his first few hours in space, if he is going to get it at all. He probably makes it to the next planet, sometimes not; sometimes he goes incurably mad, right off the bat. But even if he does make it, wild horses could never get him on another rocketship. He becomes a halftripper, marooned on an alien world. Usually, although I have known of several exceptions, if you don’t get it on your first trip, it seldom bothers you; you’re immune for the rest of your life.

He repeated, “How about it, spaceman?”

Sam began to approach threateningly. He couldn’t afford to have halftrippers hang out in his place. For one thing, the shipping lines would soon declare him out of bounds for their crews. You just can’t let good men come in contact with obvious victims of space cafard.

The old-timer Sam had called Joseph was distressed. “You know not what you say,” he told me gently.

I managed a sneer. “Am I supposed to buy a drink for every spacebum that comes along?”

The halftripper’s eyes lit up and he came closer to the old man. “How about it, pop? Could you loan me the price of a nip of woji?”

Joseph’s face was compassionate. “I am sorry, brother, I myself have nothing, but I commend you to the generosity of the tavern keeper.”

I snorted at that. I could imagine how much generosity the space leper would get from the bartender.

That’s where the surprise came. Sam sighed. “Okay, halftripper, what’ll it be?”

The spacebum ordered a double woji, got it down quickly, as though he was afraid Sam might change his mind, and then beat it to find a place to have his dreams when the full force of the also-narcotic drink hit him.

I finished my brandy, ordered another, and grinned wryly at the old-timer. “You give me kert for telling him to beat it, but you give Sam the high sign to let him have woji with which to rot out his brains. I’d think I was being the kinder of the two of us.”

“Each man’s salvation is within himself,” Joseph said softly. “You won’t redeem him by attempting to keep him from his weaknesses.”

“You talk like a saint but I notice you’re sitting here at a bar.”

He looked at me penetratingly, and there was vast emptiness behind his eyes. “There is little to enjoy in life,” he said softly, “but I have had ample time to investigate all of the supposed pleasures. At one time I drank greatly and kept myself in a state of continual intoxication for a period longer than you could believe. Then I went through a state when I let nothing pass my lips but water. Now I see the mistake of both extremes and can enjoy an occasional glass without feeling the need of swilling it down until intoxication dulls me.”

He had me interested now. I said, “You sound as though you’ve found the way in which to get the greatest satisfaction from everything in life but I notice that you don’t appear particularly happy.”

He was silent for a long time. Finally he sighed and answered, “Happiness is not to be found in wine, nor in food, nor in beautiful women, nor even in wealth and power. It is from within, what you have done, what you are in the eyes of your fellow man.”

He looked as though he was about to say more, but he fell silent, his eyes on something far away, although he seemed to be looking directly into my face. Then a light returned to them and he came back to our conversation. “I am sorry,” he said. “For a moment you reminded me of someone I knew long and long ago. But now I must be on my way.” He left his drink half-finished on the bar and walked wearily to the door.

Sam took his glass away and wiped the bar