American Science Fiction Five Classic Novels 1956-58 Read Online Free PDF

locked behind us as a recorded voice said, “Watch your step, please, and heed radiation warnings. The Terminal Company is not responsible for accidents beyond the gate.”
    Dak punched an entirely different code in the little car; it wheeled around, picked a track, and we took off out under the field. It did not matter to me, I was beyond caring.
    When we stepped out of the little car it went back where it came from. In front of me was a ladder disappearing into the steel ceiling above. Dak nudged me. “Up you go.” There was a scuttle hole at the top and on it a sign: RADIATION HAZARD —Optimax 13 Seconds. The figures had been chalked in. I stopped. I have no special interest in offspring but I am no fool. Dak grinned and said, “Got your lead britches on? Open it, go through at once, and straight up the ladder into the ship. If you don’t stop to scratch, you’ll make it with at least three seconds to spare.”
    I believe I made it with five seconds to spare. I was out in the sunlight for about ten feet, then I was inside a long tube in the ship. I used about every third rung.
    The rocket ship was apparently small. At least the control room was quite cramped; I never got a look at the outside. The only other spaceships I had ever been in were the Moon shuttles Evangeline and her sister ship the Gabriel , that being the year in which I had incautiously accepted a lunar engagement on a co-op basis—our impresario had had a notion that a juggling, tightrope, and acrobatic routine would go well in the one-sixth gee of the Moon, which was correct as far as it went, but he had not allowed rehearsal time for us to get used to low gravity. I had to take advantage of the Distressed Travelers Act to get back and I had lost my wardrobe.
    There were two men in the control room; one was lying in one of three acceleration couches fiddling with dials, the other was making obscure motions with a screw driver. The one in the couch glanced at me, said nothing. The other one turned, looked worried, then said past me, “What happened to Jock?”
    Dak almost levitated out of the hatch behind me. “No time!” he snapped. “Have you compensated for his mass?”
    “Yes.”
    “Red, is she taped? Tower?”
    The man in the couch answered lazily, “I’ve been recomputing every two minutes. You’re clear with the tower. Minus forty-, uh, seven seconds.”
    “Out of that bunk! Scram! I’m going to catch that tick!”
    Red moved lazily out of the couch as Dak got in. The other man shoved me into the copilot’s couch and strapped a safety belt across my chest. He turned and dropped down the escape tube. Red followed him, then stopped with his head and shoulders out. “Tickets, please!” he said cheerfully.
    “Oh, cripes!” Dak loosened a safety belt, reached for a pocket, got out the two field passes we had used to sneak aboard, and shoved them at him.
    “Thanks,” Red answered. “See you in church. Hot jets, and so forth.” He disappeared with leisurely swiftness; I heard the air lock close and my eardrums popped. Dak did not answer his farewell; his eyes were busy on the computer dials and he made some minor adjustment.
    “Twenty-one seconds,” he said to me. “There’ll be no rundown. Be sure your arms are inside and that you are relaxed. The first step is going to be a honey.”
    I did as I was told, then waited for hours in that curtaingoing-up tension. Finally I said, “Dak?”
    “Shut up!”
    “Just one thing: where are we going?”
    “Mars.” I saw his thumb jab at a red button and I blacked out.

II
    What is so funny about a man being dropsick? Those dolts with cast-iron stomachs always laugh—I’ll bet they would laugh if Grandma broke both legs.
    I was spacesick, of course, as soon as the rocket ship quit blasting and went into free fall. I came out of it fairly quickly as my stomach was practically empty—I’d eaten nothing since breakfast—and was simply wanly miserable the remaining eternity of that