The Golden Age Of Science Fiction Vol Iii Part 68

Of course, he needed money. He might travel at half fare, but even that would be expensive. And then there was the matter of food. He'd have to stay hidden until the s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p took off and there was no turning back, and at the thought of crouching in some dark hold, motionless for hours, cramped, and with an empty stomach-- He wasn't going to starve himself. Even Comets Carter couldn't have gone without eating and got very far in his pursuit of Rogan. Plato would have to acquire money for flight, fare and food.

The book, of course, he couldn't think of selling. It was only a decicredit novel in the first place, and somewhat worn at that. And the other students would have laughed at him for reading it. But his infra-red bedside lamp and his goggles and the s.p.a.ce-receptor radio he had built out of spare parts--those should bring him enough to travel and live on for a few days.

He made his first sale in the free time that evening, to a young squirt in the neighboring dormitory who had a pa.s.sion akin to his own. He liked to listen to tales of high adventure, of the kind the radiocasters loved and the teachers in the school frowned upon. Having arrived here from Earth only six months before, he had difficulty adjusting to the type of derring-do featured on the Venus stations, and he lacked a s.p.a.ce-receptor that would bring him his favorites from the next planet. He snapped up, at the bargain price of ten credits, the receptor that Plato offered.

There was a little difficulty with the infra-red lamp and goggles. The customer Plato had selected turned out to be rather suspicious. He demanded, "Where did you steal them?"

Plato explained patiently, "I didn't steal them. I made them myself."

"That's a lot of hot oxo-nitrogen. You hooked them some place, and if they ever find out--"

"Okay," said Plato, "if you don't want them, you don't have to take them. I can sell them to somebody else."

He allowed the young skeptic to try the goggles on and read by the light of the lamp. He knew little of the psychology of salesmans.h.i.+p, but with what might be called Platonic shrewdness, he sensed that once the prospect had experienced the joys of using the magic articles, he would never give them up.

The method worked. And soon Plato was richer by fifteen credits, instead of the ten or twelve he had hoped for.

He had a few other odds and ends, which he sold for as much as they would bring. After all, once he was out in s.p.a.ce, he wouldn't need them any more.

In the middle of the next day, when the bell sounded the end of the cla.s.s on Planetary Geography and it was time to go to the cla.s.s on Animal Physiology, Plato picked himself up and walked out. One of the 'copter custodians looked at him suspiciously, but Plato didn't dignify the man by paying him direct attention.

He muttered to himself, "Always picking on me. I don't see why he can't send somebody else on his errands." It was better than the forged pa.s.s signed with the headmaster's name.

The pa.s.s itself came in handy when he bought a flight ticket. The ticket agent also stared at him suspiciously, but Plato was ready for him. He had prepared the slip of paper beforehand, tracing the headmaster's name laboriously from one of the lists of regulations attached to the wall.

To make pursuit as difficult as possible for any one who tried to trail him, Plato asked for a ticket not to s.p.a.ce Junction, where he was going, but to Venusberg, in the opposite direction. Both tickets cost about the same; the ticket to Venusberg, in fact, cost three decicredits more. Once on the plane-drawn glider, he could explain to the conductor that the agent had made a mistake and offer the ticket he had. Since the company would lose nothing by the transaction, there was no reason why the conductor should object.

Plato was proud of this bit of trickery, and he flattered himself that by means of it he had entirely thrown off pursuit. It must be remembered that he was only ten years old.

On the glider-flight, he found himself sitting next to a middle-aged woman who wore gla.s.ses and was surrounded by packages. She beamed at him, as she did at every one else around her, and Plato shrank back into his seat. If there was anything he didn't want on this trip, it was to be mothered.

But he couldn't escape her. She said, "My, my, you're awfully young to be traveling alone. This the first time?"

"Yes, ma'am," said Plato nervously, afraid of the embarra.s.sing questions he could read on her face.

Hastily he stared out over the side and gasped, "Gee, how small everything is!"

Imagine anyone who had traveled vicariously through s.p.a.ce with Comets Carter being awed by a flight in a plane-drawn glider! But the ruse worked.

She said, "Yes, it is frightening, isn't it? Even worse than s.p.a.ce travel."

"You've been in s.p.a.ce, ma'am?"

"Bless your heart, I've been in s.p.a.ce more times than you could shake a stick at. The takeoff isn't so nice, I'll admit, but after that you're just sailing free. What are you going to be when you grow up?"

They had his future all planned for him, but he knew that he wasn't going to be any of the things they wanted him to be.

He said boldly, "A s.p.a.ce explorer."

She laughed. "You youngsters are all alike inside, no matter how different you seem. My boy was the same way when he was young. But he got over it. A s.p.a.ce explorer, no less!"

Plato didn't answer. It was only a half hour's trip, and the conductor was walking down the aisle. Plato found it difficult to take his eyes off him. He was afraid that the man would take a look at his ticket, say, "Wrong plane, son," and turn him over to the stationmaster at s.p.a.ce Junction, to be s.h.i.+pped back.

In his nervousness, Plato had difficulty getting his ticket out of his pocket. As he had expected, the conductor said, "You're on the wrong flight."

The motherly woman exclaimed, "Oh, isn't that a shame! Are they waiting for you in Venusberg?"

Plato said tearfully, "Yes, ma'am." The tearfulness wasn't hard to manage; he'd learned the trick at school.

"That's too bad. How are you going to get there?"

"I don't know. I had just enough money to pay for this ticket."

"Doesn't the company correct mistakes, Conductor?"

"Not mistakes the pa.s.sengers make," said the conductor sourly. "I'm sorry, boy, I'll have to take that ticket."

The woman's eyes flashed and, as the conductor moved on, she said, "The nasty thing. They have no consideration at all. Look, child." For a moment Plato thought she was going to offer him flight fare from s.p.a.ce Junction to Venusberg, but she was not, he discovered, as motherly as that. "You know what you'll do when you get off? Send a 'gram, collect, to your people in Venusberg. They'll wire you your fare. And you'll reach them in a couple of hours."

"Thank you, ma'am," he said, not feeling thankful at all. So it was all right to be sympathetic, he thought indignantly, up to the point where sympathy might cost her money. Like most people, she was free-handed only with advice.

Who wanted advice?

At s.p.a.ce Junction he waved her a shy farewell, and then turned and disappeared into the station crowd.

At the takeoff grounds, his heart sank. As he might have expected, the entrance to the s.p.a.ce tarmac was well guarded. How was he going to become a stowaway on a s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p if he couldn't even get close to it?

He wandered around outside, staring through the charged wire fence at the crowds, the s.p.a.cemen, the s.h.i.+ps inside. They were gigantic s.h.i.+ning things, those wonderful s.h.i.+ps, each so long that he realized for the first time how far away they must have been and how rapidly they must have traveled, for those he saw had seemed to him like shooting stars. They were pointed almost straight up. Near the stern of each s.h.i.+p was a vacuum-pit to absorb the radioactive exhaust gases.

His eye caught an old tub, its s.h.i.+niness dulled, its hull faintly scarred. Just such a s.h.i.+p, he thought with a thrill, as the one on which Comets Carter had been shanghaied on that momentous occasion when ...

The old freighter swung a great circle, its torsion jets blasting desperately in an effort to keep it on an even keel. This, thought Comets Carter, was it. This was the foul revenge that Rogue Rogan had planned, the evil death he had plotted with his unhuman companions. In a moment the pulsating radiations of electroid rays would set off the cargo of ghoulite, and when the interplanetary echoes of the explosion died away, Comets Carter would be no more than a series of photon packets, his body torn apart, his very atoms converted into radiation that was hurtling with the speed of light to the far corners of the universe....

It hadn't happened that way, of course. But if it had happened--well, it might have on just such a tub as this.

A guard saw him peering through the fence, and said, "What are you looking at, kid?"

"Those s.h.i.+ps," said Plato, honestly enough. And then he added, to throw the man off the track, "Gee, I'd be scared to go up in one of them. No, sir, you couldn't get me into one of them for a million credits."

The man laughed. "They're not for the likes of you. A lot of those s.h.i.+ps go to other stars."

"Other stars? Gos.h.!.+ Does that little one, the Marie T.--"

"That tub? Just an interplanetary freighter. But even that isn't for you. Now run along and mind your own business."

Plato was happy to run along. Unfortunately, he realized, running along didn't help him to get past the fence.

And then he had a fear-inspiring thought. He couldn't tell an interplanetary s.h.i.+p from an interstellar. What if he did manage, somehow, to get in and stow away--and then found himself on a s.h.i.+p bound for no more distant port than Earth, from which he could easily be sent home in disgrace?

It sent a s.h.i.+ver through him. Fortunately, it also stimulated his mind. After all, there were such things as newspapers, and the school, nuisance in many ways though it was, had taught him to read.

He bought a paper and turned at once to the s.h.i.+pping news section. As he had hoped, every s.h.i.+p was listed. He checked off some of the names he had glimpsed on the field, and found happily that their destinations were printed in the most routine manner.

There still remained the question of how to get past the guards. This, he suddenly realized, was a question impossible to solve on an empty stomach. It had been many hours since he had eaten lunch.

There were a dozen restaurants in the s.p.a.ceport, and he selected one carefully, studying the illuminated menus and the prices before daring to enter. If that motherly old woman had been as kind-hearted as she pretended to be, he wouldn't have had to worry so much about prices. As it was, he knew that he had money enough for only two days, and after that--his stomach could complain all it wanted to, it would have to go unfed.

He chose from the menu only items that he never tasted at school--dishes made from real plant and animal life, with just enough synthetics to give them flavor. He couldn't say that he liked what he ate, but at least it gave him the feeling of being on his own, of having made the break with his tame past as complete as possible. Earth-beef tasted too strong; Venus seaweed stew had a pungency that he didn't like.

He finished his plate only because he had been taught that to leave food over was wasteful. And for the first time he began to wonder what they would feed him on the s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p. Suppose he got on one that wasn't scheduled to make port for five years--and all he received to eat was stuff like this? The thought made him shudder. Here was a hards.h.i.+p of s.p.a.ce travel that the books he read had never mentioned.

After eating, he slumped back in his chair. He hadn't realized he was so completely exhausted until a hand shook his shoulder. Then he awoke with a start.

A waiter said, "This is no place to sleep, youngster."

"I'm sorry, sir. I was tired and I didn't realize."

"You been here for a long time. Waiting for someone?"

"Yes, sir. Something must have held him up."

"Seems to me that I noticed you walk in here about three hours ago. That's a long time to wait."

"That's what I thought, sir. I can't understand what happened."

"Well, you can't hang around here. I'll tell you what I'll do, though. I'll turn you over to the matron in our Lost and Found room, and she'll look out for you. Follow me."

In a daze, Plato followed. But as his feet were set into motion, so was his brain. By now, of course, the search for him must be well on. They must have traced him to the station, and perhaps, despite his clever trick with the ticket, they had found the flight he had taken. For all he knew, they might be waiting for him in the Lost and Found room, ready to seize him the moment he showed his face there.

He hadn't gone so far to be recaptured so easily. As they pa.s.sed an exit door, Plato darted out. He heard the waiter's surprised shout, but he didn't wait to reply. In a second, he had lost himself in the crowd.

He knew now that if he was going to get aboard an interstellar vessel, he would have to do so soon. What would Comets Carter have done in Plato's place--if Comets had been in one of his brighter moods? And then he had it. He saw a messenger coming down the street, gleaming in his uniform, and, somewhat nervously, approached him.

"May I speak to you?" asked Plato, with school-taught politeness.

"What about, bud? I'm busy."

"Well, I've been wanting to get Captain Halverson's autograph. He's on the s.p.a.ce Symphony--"

"So what?"

"Well, the thing is, they won't let me past the gate. So I thought that if I wore a messenger's uniform--"

The other boy glared at him. "Are you off your Norbert? I wouldn't let you wear this uniform for a zillion credits."

Plato swallowed nervously, and said in desperation, "I don't have a zillion credits, but I've got eight, and I'll give them to you if you let me wear it. Just half an hour, that's all it'll take. It's the last chance I'll have to ask him. He's bound for Rigel, and he won't be back for five years, and you see--"

His voice tapered to a thin, tearful squeak as the messenger looked at him.

"You're offering me eight s.p.a.ce-lousy credits?"

"It's all I have. We'll just change clothes for a few minutes, and that'll be all. Please, I've got to see him. I know that if I do, he'll give me his autograph."

"Okay," said the messenger unexpectedly. "But hurry back. I'll be at the gate waiting for you."

As they exchanged clothes, Plato was almost feverish with excitement. But he knew that if he expected to get past the guard, he would have to control himself. The clothes didn't fit too well, even though the messenger was small, and he must do nothing that would arouse the guard's suspicion.

He said to the messenger, "Gee, thanks. You don't know how much this means to me." And then, with a mental grip on himself so tense that it hurt physically, he approached the guard, and said casually, "Earth 'gram for Captain Halverson."

The guard hardly looked at him. He was past the gate!

He had been tricky again. Once out of sight of the guard, he made not for the s.p.a.ce Symphony, but for the Long Ranger, bound for Aldebaran.

"Earth 'gram for Captain Brinjar," he muttered, doing his best to look bored, as if delivering 'grams to s.h.i.+ps was an old thing to him. And then he was aboard!

It was not quite what he expected. The smooth walls were such as he might have found in his own dormitory. The quarters, he saw, were cramped, although for someone his size they were at least adequate. And the pa.s.sageways, although brilliantly lighted, were mere narrow tunnels.

From the main pa.s.sageway, other tunnels branched off bewilderingly, and Plato hesitated until he realized that his very confusion gave him an excuse for poking his nose into all sorts of places. He followed one of the tunnels until he came to a door: ENGINE ROOM--KEEP OUT.

He entered. A mechanic looked up.

"Earth 'gram for Captain Brinjar. They said he was around here."

"Not here," replied the mechanic. "Try the cargo hold."

Plato backed out and set off down the corridor again, noting the direction arrows and signs. TO MAIN LOUNGE--no good. TO CAPTAIN'S CABIN--worse. He didn't want to find the captain and lose his excuse for being there.

And then he saw TO FOOD STORAGE and knew that he need look no further. This was a place both to hide and to eat, until the s.h.i.+p took off, and the crew found him, and had to accept him as one of themselves.

He opened the door to the food storage hold with an elaborate caution that turned out to be unnecessary. There was no one inside. He settled down between two packing cases and let out his breath. He had made it. He had stowed away successfully, and in a few hours he would be out in s.p.a.ce, traveling between the stars, fighting, adventuring-- A yawn almost wiped the smile off his face.