The Captain looked at me. "William Lermer?" he said.
I said, "Yessir."
He said, "Iwill read from yesterday's log: 'On twenty-one August at oh-seven-oh-four system standard, while cruising in free fall according to plan, the ship was broached by a small meteorite. Safety interlocks worked satisfactorily and the punctured volume, compartment H-twelve, was isolated with no serious drop in pressure elsewhere in the ship.
" 'Compartment H-twelve is a bunk room and was occupied at the time of the emergency by twenty passengers. One of the passengers, William J. Lermer, contrived a makeshift patch with materials at hand and succeeded in holding sufficient pressure for breathing until a repair party could take over.
" 'His quick thinking and immediate action unquestionably saved the lives of all persons in compartment H-twelve.' "
The Captain looked up from the log and went on, "A certified copy of this entry, along with depositions of witnesses, will be sent to Interplanetary Red Cross with recommendation for appropriate action. Another copy will be furnished you. I have no way to reward you except to say that you have my heart-felt gratitude. I know that I speak not only for the officers but for all the passengers and most especially for the parents of your bunk mates."
He paused and waggled a finger for me to come closer. He went on in a low voice, to me alone, "That really was a slick piece of work. You were on your toes. You have a right to feel proud."
I said I guessed I had been lucky.
He said, "Maybe. But that sort of luck comes to the man who is prepared for it."
He waited a moment, then said, "Lermer, have you ever thought of putting in for space training?"
I said I suppose I had but I hadn't thought about it very seriously. He said, "Well, Lermer, if you ever do decide to, let me know. You can reach me care of the Pilots' Association, Luna City."
With that, mast was over and we went away, George and I together and Molly and Peggy following along. I heard Peggy saying, "That's my brother."
Molly said, "Hush, Peggy. And don't point."
Peggy said, "Why not? He is my brother—well, isn't he?"
Molly said, "Yes, but there's no need to embarrass him."
But I wasn't embarrassed.
Mr. Ortega looked me up later and handed me a little, black, twisted piece of metal, about as big as a button. "That's all there was left of it," he said, "but I thought you would like to have it—pay you for messing up your Scout suit, so to speak."
I thanked him and said I didn't mind losing the uniform; after all, it had saved my neck, too. I looked at the meteorite. "Mr. Ortega, is there any way to tell where this came from?"
"Not really," he told me, "though you can get the scientific johnnies to cut it up and then express an opinion—if you don't mind them destroying it."
I said no, I'd rather .keep it—and I have; I've still got it as a pocket piece. He went on, "It's either a bit of a comet or a piece of the Ruined Planet. We can't tell which because where we were there shouldn't have been either one."
"Only there was," I said.
"As you say, there was."
"Uh, Mr. Ortega, why don't they put enough armor on a ship to stop a little bitty thing like this?" I remembered what the skin of the ship looked like where it had been busted; it seemed awful thin.
"Well, now, in the first place, this meteor is a real giant, as meteors go. In the second place—do you know anything about cosmic rays, Bill?"
"Uh, not much, I guess."
"You undoubtedly know that the human body is transparent to primary cosmic radiation and isn't harmed by it. That is what we encounter out here in space. But metal is not completely transparent to it and when it passes through metal it kicks up all sorts of fuss—secondary and tertiary and quaternary cosmic radiation. The stuff cascades and it is not harmless, not by a darn sight. It can cause mutations and do you and your descendants a lot of harm. It adds up to this: a man is safest in space when he has just enough ship around him to keep the air in and ultraviolet out."
Noisy didn't have much to say around the compartment for the next couple of days and I thought maybe he had learned his lesson. I was wrong. I ran into him in one of the lower passageways when there was nobody else around. I started to go around him but he stepped in my way. "I want to talk to you," he said.
"Okay," I answered. "What's on your mind?" "You think you're pretty smart, don't you?" I didn't like the way he said it, nor what he said. I said, "I don't think I'm smart; I am smart." He made me tired.
"Pretty cocky, aren't you? You think I ought to be kissing your hand and telling you how grateful I am for saving my life, don't you?"
I said, "Oh, yeah? If that's what is worrying you, you can just skip it; I didn't do it for you."
"I know that," he answered," and I'm not grateful, see?"
"That's fine with me," I told him. "I wouldn't want a guy like you being grateful to me."
He was breathing hard. "I've had just about enough of you," he said slowly. And the next thing I knew I had a mouthful of knuckles and I was down.
I got up cautiously, trying to surprise him. But it was no good; he knocked me down again. I tried to kick him while I was down, but he danced out of my way.
The third time he hit me I stayed down. When I quit seeing stars he was gone—and I hadn't managed to lay a finger on him. I never was any good in a fight; I'm still talking when I ought to be slugging.
I went to a scuttlebutt and bathed my face. Hank ran across me there and asked me what in the world I had been doing. I told him I had run into a door. I told Dad the same thing.
Noisy didn't bother me any more and we never had anything to say to each other again. I lay awake a long time that night, trying to figure it out. I didn't get it. The chap who thought up that malarkey about "my strength is as the strength of ten because my heart is pure" certainly had never met Noisy Edwards. For my taste Noisy was a no good so-and-so and I wished I had been able to use his face to stuff the hole the meteor made. I thought about a number of ways to fix him, but none of them was any good. As Dad says, sometimes there just isn't any cure for a situation.
9. The Moons of Jupiter
Nothing much happened until it was time to make our approach to Jupiter, except that a four-year-old kid turned up missing. The kid's parents searched all around and they passed the word from the control room for everybody to keep an eye open but they still couldn't find him.
So we had a chance to try out the Scouts' emergency organization. The ship's officers couldn't search the ship, since there was just the Captain and two watch officers and Mr. Ortega and his assistant chief. Captain Harkness supplied plans to each of the Scoutmasters and we went through that ship like a kid searching his clothes for a half credit. We turned the kid up, all right, in about twenty minutes. Seems the little devil had snuck into the hydroponics room while it was being serviced and had got himself locked in.
While he was in there he had got thirsty and had tried to drink the solutions they raise the plants in–had drunk some, in fact. The result was just about what you would expect. It didn't do him any real harm but, boy, was that place a mess!
I was talking to Dad about it that night over a game. Peggy had a Girl Scout meeting and Molly was off somewhere; we were alone for once. The baby's mother had raised particular Ned, just as if there had really been something wrong—I mean, what can happen in a space ship? The kid couldn't fall overboard.