Farmer in the Sky (4 page)

He looked embarrassed. “That was a mistake. I suppose I did it because I knew you would raise Cain about it and I wanted to put it off.”

“But I would have understood if you had only
told
me. I know why you want to marry her—”

“Eh?”

“I should have known when you mentioned that business about rules. You have to get married so that we can go to Ganymede——”

“What?”

I
was startled. I said, “Huh? That's right, isn't it? You told me so yourself. You said—”

“I said nothing of the sort!” Dad stopped, took a deep breath, then went on slowly, “Bill, I suppose you possibly could have gathered that impression—though I am not flattered that you could have entertained it. Now I'll spell out the true situation: Molly and I are not getting married in order to emigrate. We are emigrating because we are getting married. You may be too young to understand it, but I love Molly and Molly loves me. If I wanted to stay here, she'd stay. Since I want to go, she wants to go. She's wise enough to understand that I need to make a complete break with my old background. Do you follow me?”

I said I guessed so.

“I'll say goodnight, then.”

I answered, “Goodnight.” He turned away, but I added, “George—” He stopped.

I blurted out. “You don't love Anne any more, do you?”

Dad turned white. He started back in and then stopped. “Bill,” he said slowly, “it has been some years since I've laid a hand on you—but this is the first time I ever wanted to give you a thrashing.”

I thought he was going to do it. I waited and I had made up my mind that if he touched me he was going to get die surprise of his life. But he didn't come any nearer; he just closed the door between us.

After awhile I took another shower that I didn't need and went to bed. I must have lain there an hour or more, thinking that Dad had wanted to hit me and wishing that Anne were around to tell me what to do. Finally I switched on the dancing lights and stared at them until they knocked me out.

Neither one of us said anything until breakfast was over and neither of us ate much, either. Finally Dad said, “Bill, I want to beg your pardon for what I said last night. You hadn't done or said anything to justify raising a hand to you and I had no business thinking it or saying it.”

I said, “Oh, that's all right.” I thought about it and added, “I
guess I shouldn't have said what I did.”

“It was all right to say it What makes me sad is that you could have thought it. Bill, I've never stopped loving Anne and I'll never love her any less.”

“But you said—” I stopped and finished, “I just don't get it.”

“I guess there is no reason to expect you to.” George stood up. “Bill, the ceremony is at fifteen o'clock. Will you be dressed and ready about an hour before that time?”

I hesitated and said, “I won't be able to, George. I've got a pretty full day.”

His face didn't have any expression at all and neither did his voice. He said, “I see,” and left the room. A bit later he left the apartment. A while later I. tried to call him at his office, but the autosecretary ground out the old stall about “Would you like to record a message?” I didn't. I figured that George would be home some time before fifteen hundred and I got dressed in my best. I even used some of Dad's beard cream.

He didn't show up. I tried the office again, and again, got the “Would-you-like-to-record-a-message?” routine. Then I braced myself and looked up the code on Mrs. Kenyon.

He wasn't there. Nobody was there.

The time crawled past and there was nothing I could do about it. After a while it was fifteen o'clock and I knew that my father was off somewhere getting married but I didn't know where. About fifteen-thirty I went out and went to a show.

When I got back the red light was shining on the phone. I dialed playback and it was Dad: “Bill I tried to reach you but you weren't in and I can't wait. Molly and I are leaving on a short trip. If you need to reach me, call Follow Up Service, Limited, in Chicago—we'll be somewhere in Canada. We'll be back Thursday night. Goodbye.” That was the end of the recording.

Thursday night—blast-off was Friday morning.

Dad called me from Mrs. Kenyon's—I mean from Molly's—apartment Thursday night. We were both polite but uneasy. I said yes, I was all ready and I hoped they had had a nice time. He said they had and would I come over and we would all leave from there in the morning.

I said I hadn't known what his plans were, so I had bought a ticket to Mojave port and had reserved a room at Hotel Lancaster. What did he want me to do?

He thought about it and said, “It looks like you can take care of yourself, Bill.”

“Of course I can.”

“All right. We'll see you at the port. Want to speak to Molly?”

“Uh, no, just tell her hello for me.”

“Thanks, I will.” He switched off.

I went to my room and got my kit—fifty-seven and fifty-nine hundredths pounds; I couldn't have added a clipped frog's hair. My room was bare, except for my Scout uniform. I couldn't afford to take it, but I hadn't thrown it away yet.

I picked it up, intending to take it to the incinerator, then stopped. At the physical exam I had been listed at one hundred thirty-one and two tenths pounds mass in the clothes I would wear for blast off.

But I hadn't eaten much the last few days.

I stepped into the 'fresher and onto the scales—one hundred twenty-nine and eight tenths. I picked up the uniform and stepped back on the scales—one hundred thirty-two and five tenths.

William, I said, you get no dinner, you get no breakfast, and you drink no water tomorrow morning. I bundled up my uniform and took it along.

The apartment was stripped. As a surprise for the next tenant I left in the freezer the stuff I had meant to eat for supper, then switched all the gadgets to zero except the freezer, and locked the door behind me. It felt funny; Anne and George and I had lived there as far back as I could remember.

I went down to subsurface, across town, and caught the In-Coast tube for Mojave. Twenty minutes later I was at Hotel Lancaster in the Mojave Desert.

I soon found out that the “room” I had reserved was a cot in the billiard room. I trotted down to find out what had happened.

I showed the room clerk the 'stat that said I had a room coming to me. He looked at it and said, “Young man, have you ever tried to bed down six thousand people at once?”

I said no, I hadn't.

“Then be glad you've got a cot. The room you reserved is occupied by a family with nine children.”

I went.

The hotel was a madhouse. I couldn't have gotten anything to eat even if I hadn't promised myself not to eat; you couldn't get within twenty yards of the dining room. There were children underfoot everywhere and squalling brats galore. There were emigrant families squatting in the ball room. I looked them over and wondered how they had picked them; out of a grab bag?

Finally I went to bed. I was hungry and got hungrier. I began to wonder why I was going to all this trouble to hang on to a Scout uniform I obviously wasn't going to use.

If I had had my ration book I would have gotten up and stood in line at the dining room—but Dad and I had turned ours in. I still had some money and thought about trying to find a free-dealers; they say you can find them around a hotel. But Dad says that “free-dealer” is a fake word; they are black marketeers and no gentleman will buy from them.

Besides that I didn't have the slightest idea of how to go about finding one.

I got up and got a drink and went back to bed and went through the relaxing routine. Finally I got to sleep and dreamed about strawberry shortcake with real cream, the kind that comes from cows.

I woke up hungry but I suddenly remembered that this was it!—my last day on Earth. Then I was too excited to be hungry. I got up, put on my Scout uniform and my ship suit over it.

I thought we would go right on board. I was wrong.

First we had to assemble under awnings spread out in front of the hotel near the embarking tubes. It wasn't air conditioned outside, of course, but it was early and the desert wasn't really hot yet. I found the letter “L” and sat down under it, sitting on my baggage. Dad and his new family weren't around yet; I began to wonder if I was going to Ganymede by myself. I didn't much care.

Out past the gates about five miles away, you could see the ships standing on the field, the
Daedalus
and the
Icarus,
pulled off the Earth-Moon run for this one trip, and the old
Bifrost
that had been the shuttle rocket to Supra-New-York space station as far back as I could remember.

The
Daedalus
and the
Icarus
were bigger but I hoped I would get the
Bifrost;
she was the first ship I ever saw blast off.

A family put their baggage down by mine. The mother looked out across the field and said, “Joseph, which one is the
Mayflower?”

Her husband tried to explain to her, but she still was puzzled. I nearly burst, trying to keep from laughing. Here she was, all set to go to Ganymede and yet she was so dumb she didn't even know that the ship she was going in had been built out in space and couldn't land anywhere.

The place was getting crowded with emigrants and relatives coming to see them off, but I still didn't see anything of Dad. I heard my name called and turned around and there was Duck Miller. “Gee, Bill,” he said, “I thought I'd missed you.”

“Hi, Duck. No, I'm still here.”

“I tried to call you last night but your phone answered 'service discontinued,' so I hooked school and came up.”

“Aw, you shouldn't have done that.”

“But I wanted to bring you this.” He handed me a package, a whole pound of chocolates. I didn't know what to say.

I thanked him and then said, “Duck, I appreciate it, I really do. But I'll have to give them back to you.”

“Huh? Why?”

“Weight Mass, I mean. I can't get by with another ounce.”

“You can carry it.”

“That won't help. It counts just the same.”

He thought about it and said, “Then let's open it.”

I said, “Fine,” and did so and offered him a piece. I looked at them myself and my stomach was practically sitting up and begging. I don't know when I've been so hungry.

I gave in and ate one. I figured I would sweat it off anyhow; it was getting hot and I had my Scout uniform on under my ship suit—and that's no way to dress for the Mojave Desert in June! Then I was thirstier than ever, of course; one thing leads to another.

I went over to a drinking fountain and took a very small drink. When I came back I closed the candy box and handed it back to Duck and told him to pass it around at next Scout meeting and tell the fellows I wished they were going along. He said he would and added, “You know, Bill, I wish I was going. I really do.”

I said I wished he was, too, but when did he change his mind? He looked embarrassed but about then Mr. Kinski showed up and then Dad showed up, with Molly and the brat—Peggy—and Molly's sister, Mrs. van Metre. Everybody shook hands all around and Mrs. van Metre started to cry and the brat wanted to know what made my clothes so bunchy and what was I sweating about?

George was eyeing me, but about then our names were called and we started moving through the gate.

George and Molly and Peggy were weighed through and then it was my turn. My baggage was right on the nose, of course, and then I stepped on the scales. They read one hundred and thirty-one and one tenth pounds—I could have eaten another chocolate.

“Check!” said the weightmaster, then he looked up and said, “What in the world have you got on, son?”

The left sleeve of my uniform had started to unroll and was sticking out below the half sleeve of my ship suit. The merit badges were shining out like signal lights.

I didn't say anything. He started feeling the lumps the uniform sleeves made. “Boy,” he said, “you're dressed like an arctic explorer; no wonder you're sweating. Didn't you know you weren't supposed to wear anything but the gear you were listed in?”

Dad came back and asked what the trouble was? I just stood there with my ears burning. The assistant weightmaster got into the huddle and they argued what should be done. The weightmaster phoned somebody and finally he said, “He's inside his weight limit;
 
if he wants to call that monkey suit part of his skin, we'll allow it. Next customer, please!”

I trailed along, feeling foolish. We went down inside and climbed on the slide strip, it was cool down there, thank goodness. A few minutes later we got off at the loading room down under the rocket ship. Sure enough, it was the
Bifrost,
as I
found out when the loading elevator poked above ground and stopped at the passenger port. We filed in.

They had it all organized. Our baggage had been taken from us in the loading room; each passenger had a place assigned by his weight. That split us up again; I was on the deck immediately under the control room. I found my place, couch 14-D, then went to a view port where I could see the
Daedalus
and the
Icarus.

A brisk little stewardess, about knee high to a grasshopper, checked my name off a list and offered me an injection against dropsickness. I said no, thanks.

She said, “You've been out before?”

I admitted I hadn't; she said, “Better take it.”

I said I was a licensed air pilot; I wouldn't get sick I didn't tell her that my license was just for copters. She shrugged and turned away. A loudspeaker said, “The
Daedalus
is cleared for blasting.” I moved up to get a good view.

The
Daedalus
was about a quarter of a mile away and stood up higher than we did. She had fine lines and was a mighty pretty sight, gleaming in the morning sunshine. Beyond her and to the right, clear out at the edge of the field, a light shone green at the traffic control blockhouse.

She canted slowly over to the south, just a few degrees.