“The Mobile Launcher,” Groton said. “With a standard Saturn VI workhorse booster. Rather old design, but reliable.”
“And that booster is—”
“Our shuttle.”
Somehow Ivo had visualized a pint-sized rocket, a space-dinghy built for two. He should have known better.
The launch vehicle was thirty-three feet in diameter at the base and not much smaller at the top. From a distance the clustered thrust-engines — six of them — appeared diminutive, under the bulk of the vehicle. They were like bowl-shaped buttons sewn on — but up close he’d discovered that each was the size of an igloo. Saturn VI was a monster; Ivo had some inkling of the terrible power leashed within it, since it had to be enough to hurl the entire mass into space.
“This one’s a one-stage booster. Nine million pounds of thrust, and it’s the most versatile vehicle in the program,” Groton said as they ascended in the elevator within the launcher-structure. “Used to take three stages to achieve orbit, but now it’s mostly payload. These freighters are usually unmanned, so we’ll be the only passengers aboard this time. Nothing to do but relax and enjoy the ride.”
“Who touches the match to it?”
“Ignition is automatic.”
“Suppose it fizzles?”
Groton did not reply. The lift stopped, and they traversed the high catwalk leading to the minuscule entrance-port near the top of the rocket.
Ivo looked down. The concrete launch-pad looked precariously small from this elevation, and the abutting structures were like so many white dominoes. The great torso of Saturn VI seemed to narrow at the base, with a tiny skirt at the ground.
Ivo found himself gripping the rail, afraid of the narrow height. Groton did not seem to notice.
“Where are you taking me?” Ivo inquired again as the automatic countdown commenced for takeoff. “Is Brad doing research at an orbiting station?”
“No.”
“The moon?”
“No.”
“Then where — ?”
“The macroscope.”
Of course! That was where Bradley Carpenter would be!
But the realization triggered another surge of nervousness. Brad would never have summoned him to such a place unless—
Ignition.
Ivo thought the rocket would shake itself apart. He thought his eardrums would implode. He thought he was a dry bean rattling loose in a tin can… in a tornado.
Gradually, through the blast of sound and vertigo, he became aware of the meaning and practice of multiple-gravity acceleration. Now his vision was of a medieval torture chamber: tremendous weights slowly crushing breath and life from the fettered victim. Had he undertaken such stress voluntarily?
Free-will, where is now thy—
But he knew that it only hit this level for a few seconds. He hoped he never had occasion to endure the same for minutes. His chest was aching as the load upon it reluctantly decreased; his fight for air had not been figurative.
Eventually there was free-fall. Then a bone-bruising jar as the lower segment of the rocket was jettisoned, and a resumption of acceleration, this time of bearable force.
“Hey!” Ivo gasped. “Didn’t you say this was a one-stage item? What are we — ?”
“I said a one-stage booster. Not the most economical arrangement to achieve escape-velocity, but reliable. Government wanted to standardize on one model, and this was it. Actually, those discarded shells orbit for a considerable period; quite a few have become useful workshops in space, and eventually we’ll run them all down and use the metal for another station. That should make a favorable impression on the taxpayer.” Groton seemed to have no trouble talking against the acceleration.
How long would the journey take? He decided not to inquire. The macroscope station was known to be five or six light seconds away from Earth — say about a million miles.
Eventually the second drive terminated and permanent free-fall set in. Groton remained strapped to his couch and fell asleep. Ivo took this as a hint that the remainder of the flight would be long and tedious, since they had nothing to do but ride. He could not even appreciate the view; the single port overlooked nothing but emptiness. He tried to think of it as an evocative withdrawal from Earth, the Ancestral Home, but his imagination failed him this time. He dozed.
He dreamed of childhood: ten years old in the great city of Macon, population three thousand, three hundred and twenty-three by the latest census, plus a couple thousand blacks. His brother Clifford was eight and baby Gertrude barely two, that summer of ’52; he liked them both, but mostly he played Cotton Merchant with his friend Charley. They would set up as dealers, buying and selling, tunneling their warehouses from the rich red clay sides of the deep gully beside the highway. When the big slow wagons bound for the city passed, he and Charley would jump out and grab away handfuls of the cotton to store in the warehouses. If the slaves tending the wagons noticed, they never said anything, so long as the piracy was minimal.
Or picking up hickory nuts for pretend-money or jewelry; or searching for arrowheads, or simply fishing. It was fun out of doors. Nature was beautiful even in the winter, but this was summer.
Sometimes he would wander through the forest, playing his flute, and the neighbors would hear him and just shake their heads and smile, and the slaves would nod with the beat.
Ivo woke as they docked at the macroscope station. Actually, there had been several sleeps and two meals from tubes, but the unstructured time left nothing worth remembering. The free-fall state, too, had disoriented his perception of the passing hours. His life on Earth seemed at once hours and years distant, another plane of reality or memory.
Still there was no excitement. He knew that a complex chain of maneuvers had been accomplished, and that control had been duly shifted from Ground Control to Station Control, possibly with intermediate Controls between, as though the rocket were the baton in a relay race. But none of that had been evident to the passengers. Even the docking was tame; for all that was visible, they might have been stepping from the subway onto the platform back on Earth. Ivo was disappointed; like any tourist, he thought wryly.
A space officer wearing UN insignia was on hand to check them in and to supervise the unloading of supplies. The lightness of Ivo’s body attested to his off-planet location; the station’s rotation provided “gravity” via centrifugal force, and this would be the inner ring, with the smallest actual velocity.
There was no physical inspection or other clearance; the over-thorough processes at Kennedy sufficed, apparently, as well they might. But where was he supposed to go now?
“Mr. Archer — report to compartment nineteen, starboard, G-norm shell,” the officer said abruptly, making him feel as though he were being inducted into the navy.
“That’s it,” Groton said. “I’ll drop you off — or would you rather find your own way?”
“I would rather find my own way.”
Groton looked at him, surprised, but let him go. “G-norm is level eight,” he said.
“Section eight. Right.” But of course Groton didn’t get it.
Ivo dutifully made the traverse, stepping into the lift for the descent to the specified level. The numbers indicating the shells blinked to life as he passed them, very much in the manner of the floors of an apartment building. He fancied that he could feel his weight increase, and that his feet were heavier than his head, specific gravity considered. Did the pull vary that sharply?