 CHAPTER VIII. It wasn't long before the perimeter watch, returning from a patrol that had taken them some distance out, brought in a makeshift dwelling-bub made from odds and ends of Steline. They had also picked up its occupant, a lean comic character, with an accent and a strange way of talking. Funny that you'd turn up here, Igor, isn't it, Nelson said dryly. Igor sniffed, as if with sorrow. He had been roughed up some. Very funny, also simple. You making a house, so I am making a house for this identical purpose. People from Ceres are already being here. In consequence, I am also arriving. Nobody are saying what are proper doing and thinking, so I am informed. I am believing. OK, Igor, when, being not true, I am going away again. The tone was bland, the pale eyes look naïve and artless, except perhaps for a hard shrewd glint deep down. Joe Cusack was present. We searched him, Frank, he said. His bub too, he's clean as far as we can tell, not even a weapon. I also asked him some questions. I savvy a little of his real lingo. I'll ask them over, Nelson answered. Igor, a friend named Tiflin, wouldn't be around some place, would he? The large space-comedian didn't even hesitate. I am thinking not very far, not knowing precisely. Somebody more is being here likewise. Belt Parney, you are knowing this one? Plenty jollies, new fellows, not having much supplies. Only many new rocket launchers they are receiving from some place. You are understanding this? Bad luck here, it is meaning. Frank eyed the man warily, with mixed doubt and liking. I don't think you can be going away again right now, Igor, he said. We don't have a jail, but a guard will be as good. The watch didn't give the alarm for several hours. Three hisses in the phones made vocally. Then one, then two more. North, second quadrant, that meant. Direction of the first attack. Ionic drives functioned. The cluster of bubs began to scatter further. People knew that if Igor had told the truth, the outlook was very poor. Too much deployment would thin the defenses too much. And against new homing rockets, if Parney really had them, it would be almost useless. A relatively small number of men riding free in armor could smash the much larger targets from almost any distance. Nelson didn't stay in his prefab. Being in his archer, he could be his own less easily identifiable, less easily hit command post, while he fired his own homing missiles at the far off radar specks of the attackers. He ordered everyone not specifically need it inside the bubs for some defense purpose to jump clear. In the first half minute he saw at least fifty compartmented prefabs partly crumble, as explosives tore into them. A dozen torn open were deflated entirely. The swimming pool globe was punctured, and a cloud of frosty vapor made rainbows in the sunshine as the water boiled away. Far out, Nelson saw the rockets he and his own men had launched, sparkling soundlessly, no doubt scoring some too. The attackers didn't even try to get close yet. Far greater damage would have to be inflicted before panic and disorganization might give them sufficient advantage. But such damage would take only minutes. Too much would reduce the loot. So now there was a halt in the firing, and another component of fear was applied. It was a growling, taunting voice. Nelson. And all you silly bladder-brains. This is Belp Parnay. Ever hear of him? Come back from hell, huh? Not with just rocks this time. The latest surest equipment. Want to give up now, Nelson? You and your nice, civilized people? Cripes, what will you cranks try next? Villages built in nothing and on nothing? Thanks, though, brother. What a blowout this is going to provide. Parnay's tone had shifted, becoming mincingly mocking. Then hard and joyful at the end. Maybe he shouldn't have suggested so plainly what would happen. Unless something was done soon. Maybe he shouldn't have sounded just a little bit unsure of himself under all his bluff. Because Nelson had made preparations that matched a general human trend. Now he saw a condition that fit it in, making an opportunity. So he began to taunt Parnay back. We've got a lot of the latest type rockets to throw too, Parnay. You'd have quite a time trying to take us, but there's more. Just look behind you, Parnay, and all around. Not too far. Who's silly? Who's the jerk? Some new guys are in your crowd, I hear. Then they won't have much against them. They aren't real outlaws. Do you think they want to keep following you around, stinking in their armor? When what we've got is what they're bound to want right now, too? Taken here, what I'm saying, Parnay, every one of them must have a weapon in his hands. Why you, stupid clown, you're in a trap. We will give them what they need most, without them having the risk of getting killed. In space, they will have to be a lot of things forgotten. But not for you, or for the rough old timers with you. Come on, you guys, out there. There's a folded bub, right here, waiting for each of you. Take it anywhere you want, away from here, of course. Parnay, big, important belt, Parnay. Are you still alive? Nelson had his own sneering tone of mockery. He used it to best advantage. But with fear in his heart. Plenty of his act was only counter-bluff. But now, as he paused, he heard two and two banes, mournful voice continue the barrage of persuasion. Flowers, Parnay, we ain't got many yet. But you won't care. Fellas, do you want to keep being pushed around by this loud mouth who likes to run and lets you sweat for him? Because he's mostly alone and needs company. Believe me, I know what it's like out there, too. At a certain point, all you really want is something a little like home. And the chief ain't kidding. It was all planned. Try us and see. Send a couple of the guys in. They'll come out with the proof. Other voices were shouting, Wake up, you suckers. You'll never take us, you stupid slobs. Come on and try it, if that's what you want to be. What happened could never have happened so quickly if Parnay's doubtless considerably disgruntled following hadn't been disturbed further by intrigue beforehand. Nelson heard Parnay roar, commands, and curses that might have awed many a man. But then there was a cluster of minute sparks in the distance. As rockets not launched by the defenders, honed and exploded. There was a pause. Then many voices were audible, shouting at the same time with scarcely any words clear. Several minutes passed like that. Then there was almost silence. So has it happened, Nelson growled into his phone? It has, came the mocking answer. P. Cavalier, Nelson, salute the new top-out law. Don't faint. I knew I'd make it, and don't try anything you might regret. I'm coming in with a couple of my jolly lads. You'd better not Welsh on your promises, because the others are armed and waiting. The guys with Tiflin looked more tired than tough. Out from under their fierce, truculent bravado showed the fierce hunger of common things and comforts. Nelson knew. The record was in his own memory. You'll get your bubs right away, he told them. Then send the others in, a pair at a time. After that, go and get lost. Make your own place, town, whatever you want to call it. Leland, Corbett, Sharp, fit these guys out, will you? All this happened under the sardonic gaze of Glen Tiflin, and before the puzzled eyes of Joe Cusack and two and two Baines, a dozen others were hovering near. Nelson lowered his voice and called, Nance. She answered at once, I'm all right, Frank, a few people to patch, some beyond that. I'm in the hospital with Doc Forbes. You guys can find something useful to do, Nelson snapped at the gathering crowd. Well, Frankie, Tiflin, taunted, aren't you going to invite me in to your fancy new quarters? Joe and two and two also looked as though they could stay on the drink. On the sun-deck, Tiflin spoke again. I suppose you've got it figured, Nelson. Nelson answered him in a clipped fashion. Thanks. But let's not dawdle too much. I've got a lot of wreckage to put back together. Maybe I've still got it figured wrong, Tiflin. But lately I begin to think the other way. You were always around when trouble was cooking, like part of it, or like a good cop. The first might still be right. Tiflin sneered genially. Some cops can't carry badges, and they don't always stop trouble, but they try. Anyhow, what side do you think I was on after Fessler kicked me around for months? Let Igor go. He got law and order in his soul. I kind of like having him around. But keep your mouths buttoned, will you? I'm talking to you, Mr. Baines, and you, Mr. Kuzak, as well as to you, Nelson. And I'll take my bub along, the same as the other ninety or so guys who are left from Parnay's crowd. I've got to look good with them. Cheers, you slobs. See you around. Afterwards Joe growled. Hell, what do you know, him, special police, undercover, USUN, or what? Shut up, Nelson growled. Though he had sensed it coming, and had met it calmly, the Tiflin switch was something that Frank Nelson had trouble getting over. It confused him. It made him want to laugh. Another thing that began to bother him even more was the realization that the violence represented by Fessler, Fanshawe, Parnay, and thousands of others like them back through history was bound to crop up again. It was part of the complicated paradox of human nature, and it was hard to visualize a time when there wouldn't be followers, frustrated slobs who wanted to get out and kick over the universe. Nelson had felt such urges cropping up within himself, so this wasn't the end of trouble, especially not out here in raw space. This was still far too big for man-made order. So it wasn't just the two opposed space navies patrolling more quietly now between Cirrus and Pallas. That condition could pass. The way people always choose, or were born to, different sides was another matter, or was it just a natural competition of life in whatever form. More disturbing, perhaps, was the mere fact of trying to live here, so close to natural forces that could kill in an instant. For example, Nelson often saw two children and a dog racing around inside one of the rotating bubs, having fun as if just in a backyard. If the stallion were ripped, the happy picture would change to horror. How long would it take to get adjusted to and accept such a chance? Thoughts like that began to disturb Nelson. Out here, in all this enormous freedom, the shift from peaceful routine to tragedy could be quicker than ever before. But it wasn't thinking about such grim matters that actually threw Frank Nelson. That got him truly mixed up. It was Parnay's attack, ten men and two women had been killed. There were also twenty-seven injured. Such facts he could accept. They didn't disturb him too much, either. Yet there was a curious sort of straw that broke the camel's back. One might have said. The incident took place quite a while after the assault, out on an inspection tour in his archer. He happened to glance through the transparent wall of the sun-deck of a prefab he was passing. In a moment he was inside, grinning happily, Miss Rosalie Parks was lecturing him. You needn't be surprised that I am here, Franklin. Oh tempora, oh mores, Cicero once said. Oh the times, oh the customs. But we needn't be so pessimistic. I am in perfect health, and ten years below retirement age. Young people, I suspect, will still be taught Latin if they choose, or there will be something else. Of course, I had heard of your project. It was quite easy for you not to notice my arrival, but I came with the latest group, straight from Earth. Nelson was very pleased that Miss Parks was here. He told her so. He stayed for cakes and coffee. He told her that it was quite right for her to keep up with the times. He believed this himself. Afterwards though, in his own quarters, he began to laugh. Her presence was so incongruous, so fantastic. His laughter became wild, then it changed to great, rasping hiccups. Too much that was unbelievable by old standards had happened around him. This was delayed reaction to space. He had heard of such a thing. But he had hardly thought that it could apply to him any more. Well, he knew what to do. Tranquilizer tablets were particularly forgotten things to him, but he gulped one now. In a few minutes he seemed OK again. Yet he couldn't help thinking back to the bunch, the planet strappers. To the wild fulfillment they had sought. So most of them had made it. They had become men the hard way, except of course Eileen, the disstaffed side. They had planned Caloli to meet and compare adventures in ten years. And this was still less than seven. How long had it been since he had even beamed old Paul in Jarveston? Now that most of the Circus fever had left him, it seemed futile even to consider such a thing. It involved memories buried in enormous time, distance, change, and unexpectedness. Glenn Tiffin, the sour, space-wild punk, had become a cop. Had Tiffin even saved his Frank Nelson's life once long ago, persuading a jolly lad leader to cast him adrift for a joke, rather than kill him and ram us outright? Charlie Reynolds, the bunch member whom everybody had thought most likely to succeed. Well, Charlie was dead from a simple thing and buried on Venus. He was unknown, except to his acquaintances. Jake Hollins, the guy who played it safe, was just as dead. Eileen Sands was a celebrity in Cyrene, in Palestine, and the whole Belt. Mechs Ramos, of the flapping squirrel-tails on an old motor-scooter, now belonged to the history of exploration, though he no longer had real hands or feet, and very likely was now dead somewhere out toward interstellar space. David Lester, the timid one, had become successful in his own way, and was the father of one of the first children to be born in the Belt. Two and two Baines had one enough self-confidence to make cracks about the future. Jim Pines, once the saddest case in the whole bunch, had been for a long time perhaps the best adjusted to the big vacuum. Art Kuzak, one-time hunky football player, was a power among the asteroids. His brother Joe had scarcely changed personally. About himself Nelson got the most lost. What had he become after his wrong guesses and his great luck, and the fact that he had managed to see more than most? Generally he figured that he was still the same freewheeling vagabond by intention, but too serious to quite make it work out. Sometimes he actually gave people orders. It came to him as a surprise that he must be almost as rich as old Jay John Reynolds, who was still drawing wealth from a comparatively small loan, futilely at his age unless he had really aimed at the idea of bettering the future. Nelson's busy mind couldn't stop. He thought of three other world cultures he had glimpsed. Two had destroyed each other. The third and strangest was still to be reckoned with. There he came to the Mitch story, the colored guy with a romantic name. Of all the planet strappers, his history was the most fabulous. Maybe now, with a way of living an open space started, and with the planets ultimately to serve only as sources of materials, Mitch's star people would be left in relatively peace for centuries. Frank Nelson began the chuckle again, as if something, everything, was funny, which perhaps it was in a way. Because the whole view, personal and otherwise, seemed too huge and unpredictable for his wits to grasp. It was as if neither he nor any other person belonged where he was at all. He checked his thoughts in time, otherwise he would have commenced hiccuping. That was the way it went for a considerable succession of arbitrary 24-hour day periods. As long as he kept his attention on the tasks in hand, he was OK, he felt fine. Still the project was proceeding almost automatically just now. The first cluster of prefabs had grown until it had been split into halves, which moved a million miles apart, circling the sun. And he knew that there were other clusters built by other outfits growing and dividing into widely separated portions of the same great ring-like zone. Maybe the old problems were beat, safety? If deployment was the answer to that, it was certainly there, to a degree at least. In enough check it was certainly available. Freedom of mind and action? There wasn't much question that that would work out to. Home comfort and a kind of life not too unfamiliar? In the light of detached logic and observation that was going fine, too. In the main, people were adjusting very quickly and eagerly, perhaps too quickly. That was where Nelson always got scared, as if he had become a nervous old man. The big vacuum had grandeur. It could seem gentle. Could children, women, and men, everybody, sometimes forget, learn to live with it without losing their respect for it, until suddenly it killed them? That was the worst point, if he let himself think. And how could he always avoid that? From there his thoughts would branch out into his multiple uncertainties, confusions and puzzlements. Then those strangling hiccups would come. And who could be taking devil killers all the time? He hadn't avoided Nance Cotus. He talked with her every day, lunched with her, even held her hand. Otherwise a restraint had come over him. Because something was all wrong with him, and was getting worse. Just one urge was clear, now inside him. She knew, of course, that he was loused up, but she didn't say anything. Finally he told her. You were right, Nance. I was fumbling my way, too. Space fatigue, the medic told me, just a little while ago. He agrees with me that I should go back to earth. I've got to go, to take a look at everything from the small end again. Of course I've always had the longing, and now I can go. It has been a year since the worst of the Cirtus fever. I've had the fever, and sometimes the longing, Frank, she said after she had studied him for a moment. I think I'd like to go. OK, if you want to, Nance, it's me that's flunking out, pal. He chuckled apologetically, almost slightly. My part has to be a one-person deal. I don't know whether I'll ever come back. And you seem to fit out here. She looked at him coolly for almost a minute. All right, Frank, she said quietly. Follow your nose. It's just liable to be right on the beam, for you. I might follow mine, I don't know. Joe and two and two are around, if you need anything, Nance, he said. I'll tell them, Gimp, I hear, is on the way. Not much point in my waiting for him, though. Somehow he loved Nance Cottis as much or more than ever. But how could he tell her that and make sense? Not much made sense to him any more. It seemed that he had to get away from everybody that he had ever seen in space. Fifty hours before his departure, with a returning bub caravan that had brought more Earth immigrants, Nelson acquired a traveling companion, who had arrived from Palestine with a small caravan bringing machinery. The passenger hostess brought him to Nelson's prefab. He was a grave little guy, five years old. He was solemn, polite, frightened, tall for his age. Funny how corn and kids grew at almost zero gravity. The boy handed Nelson a letter. From my father and mother, sir, he said. Nelson read the typed missive. Dear Frank, the rumor has come that you are going home. You have our very best wishes, as always. Our son Davy is being sent to his paternal grandmother, now living in Minneapolis. He will go to school there. He is capable of making the trip without any special attention. But a small imposition. If you can manage it, please look in on him once in a while on the way. We would appreciate this favor. Thank you. Take care of yourself, and we shall hope to see you somewhere within the next few months. Your sincere friends, David and Helen Lester. A lot of nerve, Nelson thought at first, but he tried the grin engagingly at the kid and almost succeeded. We're in luck, Dave, he said. I'm going to Minneapolis, too. I'm afraid of a lot of things. What are you afraid of? The small fry's jutting lip trembled. Earth, he said, a great big planet. Hoppers tell me that I won't even be able to stand up or breathe. Nelson very nearly laughed and went into hiccups again, fantastic, another viewpoint, seeing through the other end of the telescope. But how else would it be for a youngster born in the belt, while being sent, in the old colonial pattern, to the place that his parents regarded as home? Those jokers, Nelson scoffed, they're pulling your leg, it just isn't so, Davey. Anyhow, during the trip, the big bub will be spun fast enough so that we will get used to the greater Earth gravity. Let me tell you something, I guess it's space in the belt that I'm afraid of. I never quite got over it, silly, huh? But as Nelson watched the kid brighten, he remembered that he himself had been scared of Earth too, scared to return to show weakness to lack pride. Well, to hell with that, he had accomplished enough now, maybe to cancel such objections. Now it seems that he had to get to Earth before it vanished because of something he had helped start. Silly, of course. He and Davey traveled fast and almost in luxury. Within two weeks they were in orbit around the bulk of the old world. Then in the powerful tender, with its nuclear-retard rockets, there was the blast in, the reverse of that costly agony that had once met hard one and enormous freedom, when he was poor in money and rich in mighty yearning. But now Nelson yielded, in all, to the mother clutch of the gravity. The whole process had been gentle and improved. There were special anti-knock seats. There was sound and vibration insulation. Even Davey's slight fear was more than half thrill. At the new Minneapolis port, Nelson delivered David Lester, Jr., into the care of his grandmother, who seemed much more human than Nelson once had thought long ago. Then he excused himself quickly. Seeking the shelter of anonymity, he bought a rucksack for his few clothes, and boarded a bus which dropped him at Jarveston, Minnesota, at 2 a.m. He thrust his hands into his pockets, partly like a lonesome tramp, partly like some carefree immortal, and partly like a mixed-up wreath, who didn't quite know who or what he was or where he belonged. In his wallet he had about five hundred dollars. How much more he might have commanded he couldn't even guess. Whoops, fella. He told himself, that's too weird, too indigestible. Don't start hip-cupping again. How old are you, twenty-five or twenty-five thousand years? Whoops, careful. The full moon was past Zenith, looking much as it always had. The blue-tinted air-domes of colossal industrial development were mostly too small at this distance to be seen without a glass. Good. With wondering absorption he sniffed the mingling of ripe field and road-smells, born on the warm breeze of the late August night. Some few cars evidently still ran on gasoline. For a moment he watched neon signs blink. In the desertion he walked past Lehmann's drugstore and Otto Kramer's bar, and crossed over to pause for a nameless moment in front of Paul Hendrick's hobby-center, which was all dark and seemed a little changed. He took to a side-street and one back the rustle of trees and the click of his heels in the silence. A few more buildings, that was about all that was visibly different in Jarveston, Minnesota. A young cop item has returned to the main-drag and paused near a street-lamp. He had a flash of panic, thinking that the cop was somebody grown up now who would recognize him, but at least it was no one that he remembered. The cop grinned. Get settled into a hotel-buddy, he said, or else move on out of town. Nelson grinned back and ambled out to the highway, where intermittent clumps of traffic whispered. There he paused and looked up at the sky again. The electric beacon of a weather-observation satellite blinked on and off, moving slowly. This had long since set, with hard to see mercury proceeding it. Jupiter glowed in the south, Mars looked as remote and changeless as it must have looked in the Stone Age. The asteroids were never even visible here without a telescope. The people that he knew and the events that he had experienced out there were like myths now. How could he ever put here and there together and unite the mismatched halves of himself and his experience? He had been born on earth the single home of his kind from the beginning. How could he ever have been out there? He didn't try to hitch a ride. He walked a fourteen miles to the next town, bought a small tent, provisions, and a special, miniaturized radio. Then he slipped into the woods along Hickman's Lake where he used to go. There he camped through September and deep into October. He fished, he swam again, he dropped stones into the water and watched the circles form with a kind of puzzled groping in his memory. He retreated from the staggering magnificence of his recent past and clutched at old simplicities. On those rare occasions when he shaved he saw the confused sickness in his face reflected by his mirror. This for a moment he felt hot and then cold as if his blood still held a tiny trace of citrus fever. If there was such a thing, no, don't start to laugh, he warned himself. Relax, let Phantoms fade away. Somewhere the multiple bigness of nothing, of life and death, of success and unfairness and surprise, must have reality but not here. Occasionally he listened to news on the radio, but mostly he shut it off, out. Until boredom at last began to overtake him, because he had been used to so much more than what was here. Until specifically one morning when the news came too quickly and with too much impact. It was recording scratchy and full of unthinkable distance. Frank, Gimp, two and two, Paul, Mr. Reynolds, Otto, Les, Joe, Art, everybody, especially you, Eileen. Remember what you promised when I get back, Eileen? Here I am on Pluto, edge of the star desert, clear saline all the way. All I see yet is twilight, rocks, mountains, snow, which must be frozen atmosphere, and one big star, Sol. But I'll get the data and be back. Nelson listened to the end with panic in his face, as if such adventures and such living were too gigantic and too rich. He hiccuped once, then he held himself very still and concentrated. He had known that voice out there, and here, too. Now he heard it again, here, but from out there. It became like a joining force to bring them both together within himself. Though, how could it be? Romasey said aloud, made it. Another good guy, accomplishing what he wanted. Hey, hey, that's swell. Like things should happen. He didn't hiccup any more or laugh. By being very careful, he just grimmed instead. He arose to his feet slowly. What am I doing here, wasting time? He seemed to ask the woods. Without picking up his camping gear at all, he headed for the road, from the ride to Jarveston, where he arrived before eight o'clock. Somebody had started ringing the city hall bell. Celebration? Romasey was the most logical place for Nelson to go. But he passed it by, following a hunch to his old street. She had almost said that she might come home, too. He touched the buzzer. Not looking too completely disheveled himself, he stood there as a girl, briskly, early in dress, and in pulse, so as not to waste the bright morning, opened the door. Yeah, nance me, he croaked apologetically. Romasey has reached Pluto. I know Frankie, she burst out. But his words rushed on. I've been goofing off, by Hickman's Lake. Over now, emotional indigestion, I guess, from living too big before I could take it. I figured you might be here. If you weren't, I'd come, because I know where I belong, nance. I hope you're not angry. Maybe we're pulling together at last. Angry? When I was the first fumbler, how could that be, Frank? Oh, I knew where you were. Folks found out. I told them to leave you alone, because I understood some of what you were digging through, because it was a little the same for me. So you see, I didn't just tag after you. She laughed a little. That wouldn't be proud, would it, even though Joe and two and two said I had to go bring you back. His arms went tight around her, right there on the old porch. Nance, love you, he whispered. And we've got to be tough. Everybody's got to be tough, to match what we'd come to, even little kids. But it was always like that on any kind of frontier, wasn't it? A few will get killed, but more will live, many more. Like that Frank Nelson shook the last of the cobwebs out of his brain, and got back to his greater destiny. I'll buy all that philosophy, Nance chuckled gently, but you still look as though you need some breakfast, Frank. He grinned. Later, let's go see Paul first. A big day for him, because of promos. Paul is getting feeble, I suppose. Nelson's face had sobered. Not so you could notice it much, Frank, Nance answered. There's a new therapy, another side of what's coming, I guess. They walked the few blocks. The owner of the Hobby Center was now a long-time member of K-R-N-H Enterprises. He had the means to expand and modernize the place beyond recognition, but clearly he had realized that some things should not change. In the display window, however, there gleamed a brand new archer nine, beautiful as a garden, or a town floating, unsupported under the stars, beautiful as the future, which was born of the past. A bunch of the fellows, the current crop of aficionados, were inside the store, making lots of noise over the news. Was that chip-potter grown tall? Was that his same old dog, Blaster? Frank Nelson could see Paul Hendrick's white, fringed bald spot. Go ahead, open the door, or are you still scared, Nance challenged lightly? No, just anticipating Nelson gruffed. And seeing if I can remember what's out there, Serene, Bub, Belt, Palace, he spoke the words like comic incantations, yet with a dash of reverence. Suprebia, Nancy teased. That is somebody's impertinent joke he growled in feigned salinity. Anyhow, it would be too bad if something that important couldn't take a little ribbing, shucks. We've hardly started to work yet. He drew Nance back a pace, out of sight of those in the store, and kissed her long, and rather savagely. With all its super complications, life still seems pretty nice, he commented. The door squeaked, just as it used to, as Nelson pushed it open. The old overhead bell jangled. Pale, watery eyes lifted and lighted with another fulfillment. Well, Frank, long time no see. End of Chapter 8, Part 2. Recording by Richard Kilmer, Real Medina, Texas. End of The Planet Strapers by Raymond Z. Gallum.