Distant Planet: SF Boxed Set (Illustrated Edition). Leigh Brackett

It came out of her. All the subconscious suspicion and fear that had gathered secretly all afternoon and fermented like a wine in her. All the little revelations and knowledges and sense that had bothered her all day and which she had logically and carefully and sensibly rejected and censored. Now it exploded in her and shook her to bits.

      "There, there," she said, sobbing against the door. "We're safe until tonight. Maybe we can sneak out, maybe we can escape!"

      Henry blew up, too, but for another reason. "Are you crazy? Why'd you throw that key away! Damn it, honey!"

      "Yes, yes, I'm crazy, if it helps, but stay here with me!"

      "I don't know how in hell I can get out!"

      "Quiet. They'll hear us. Oh, God, they'll find us soon enough—"

      Below them, Mink's voice. The husband stopped. There was a great universal humming and sizzling, a screaming and giggling. Downstairs, the audio-televisor buzzed and buzzed insistently, alarmingly, violently. Is that Helen calling? thought Mrs. Morris. And is she calling about what I think she's calling about?

      Footsteps came into the house. Heavy footsteps.

      "Who's coming in my house?" demanded Henry, angrily. "Who's tramping around down there?"

      Heavy feet. Twenty, thirty, forty, fifty of them. Fifty persons crowding into the house. The humming. The giggling of the children. "This way!" cried Mink, below.

      "Who's downstairs?" roared Henry. "Who's there!"

      "Hush, oh, nonononono!" said his wife, weakly, holding him. "Please, be quiet. They might go away."

      "Mom?" called Mink, "Dad?" A pause. "Where are you?"

      Heavy footsteps, heavy, heavy, very HEAVY footsteps came up the stairs. Mink leading them.

      "Mom?" A hesitation. "Dad?" A waiting, a silence.

      Humming. Footsteps toward the attic. Mink's first.

      They trembled together in silence in the attic, Mr. and Mrs. Morris. For some reason the electric humming, the queer cold light suddenly visible under the door crack, the strange odor and the alien sound of eagerness in Mink's voice, finally got through to Henry Morris, too. He stood, shivering, in the dark silence, his wife beside him.

      "Mom! Dad!"

      Footsteps. A little humming sound. The attic lock melted. The door opened. Mink peered inside, tall blue shadows behind her.

      "Peek-a-boo," said Mink.

      Rocket Summer

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      The crowd gathered to make a curious noise this cold grey morning before the scheduled Birth. They arrived in gleaming scarlet tumble-bugs and yellow plastic beetles, yawning and singing and ready. The Birth was a big thing for them.

      He stood alone up in his high office tower window, watching them with a sad impatience in his grey eyes. His name was William Stanley, president of the company that owned this building and all those other work-hangars down on the tarmac, and all that landing field stretching two miles off into the Jersey mists. William Stanley was thinking about the Birth.

      The Birth of what? Stanley's large, finely sculptured head felt heavier, older. Science, with a scalpel of intense flame would slash wide the skulls of engineers, chemists, mechanics in a titanic Caesarian, and out would come the Rocket!

      "Yezzir! Yezzir!" he heard the far-off, faint and raucous declarations of the vendors and hawkers. "Buy ya Rocket Toys! Buy ya Rocket Games! Rocket Pictures! Rocket soap! Rocket teethers for the tiny-tot! Rocket, Rocket, Rocket! Hey!"

      Shutting the open glassite frame before him, his thin lips drew tight. Morning after morning America sent her pilgrims to this shrine. They peered in over the translucent restraint barrier as if the Rocket were a caged beast.

      He saw one small girl drop her Rocket toy. It shattered, and was folded under by the moving crowd's feet.

      "Mr. Stanley?"

      "Uh? Oh, Captain Greenwald. Sorry. Forgot you were here." Stanley measured his slow, thoughtful steps to his clean-topped desk. "Captain," he sighed wearily, "you're looking at the unhappiest man alive." He looked at Greenwald across the desk. "That Rocket is the gift of a too-generous science to a civilization of adult-children who've fiddled with dynamite ever since Nobel invented it. They—"

      He got no further. The office door burst inward. A tall, work-grimed man strode swiftly in—all oil, all heat, all sunburnt, wrinkled leather skin. Rocket flame burnt in his dark, glaring eyes. He stopped short at Stanley's desk, breathing heavily, leaning against it.

      Stanley noticed the wrench in the man's fist. "Hello, Simpson."

      Simpson swore bitterly. "What's all this guff about you stopping the Rocket tomorrow?" he demanded.

      Stanley nodded. "This isn't a good time for it to go up."

      Simpson snorted. "This isn't a good time," he mimicked. Then he swore again. "By George, it's like telling a woman her baby's been still-born!"

      "I know it's hard to understand—"

      "Hard, hell!" shouted the man. "I'm Head Mechanic! I've worked two years! The others have worked, too! And the Rocket'll travel tomorrow or we'll know why!"

      Stanley crushed out his cigar, inside his fist. The room swayed imperceptibly in his vision. Sometimes, one wanted to use a gun—he shook away the thought. He kept his tongue.

      Simpson raged on. "Mr. Stanley, you have until three this afternoon to change your mind. We'll pull strings and you'll be out of your job by the week-end! If not—" and he said the next words very slowly, "how would your wife look with her head bashed in, Mister Stanley?"

      "You can't threaten me!"

      The door slammed in Stanley's face. Simpson was gone.

      * * * * *

      Captain Greenwald put out a manicured hand. On one slender finger shone a diamond ring. His wrist was circled by an expensive watch. His shiny brown eyes were invisibly cupped by contact lenses. Greenwald was past fifty inside; outside he seemed barely thirty. "I advise you to forget it, Stanley. Man's waited a million years for tomorrow."

      Stanley's hand shook, lighting a cigarette. "Look here, Captain, where are you going?"

      "To the stars, of course."

      Stanley snapped out the alcohol match. "In the name of heaven, stop the melodrama and inferior semantics. What kind of thing is this you're handing the people? What'll it do to races, morals, men and women?"

      Greenwald laughed. "I'm only interested in reaching the Moon. Then I'll come back to earth, and retire, happily, and die."

      Stanley stood there, tall and very grey. "Does the effect of the introduction of the crossbow to English and French history interest you?"

      "Can't say I know much about it."

      "Do you recall what gunpowder's invention did to civilization?"

      "That's irrelevant!"

      "You must admit if there'd been some subjective planning with the auto and airplane, millions of lives would've been saved, and many wars prevented. An ethical code should've been written for all such inventions and strictly observed, or else the invention forfeited."

      Greenwald shook his head, grinning. "I'll let you handle that half of it. I'll do the traveling. I'm willing to abide by any such rules, if you'll draw them up and enforce them. All I want is to reach the Moon first. I've got to get downstairs now. We're still loading the ship, you know, in spite of your decree. We expect to get around you somehow. I'm sympathetic,