The entire family met him at the station and copied him home. His mother had cried a little and his father had shaken hands very vigorously. It seemed to Matt that his kid brother had grown almost incredibly. It was good to see them, good to be back in the old family bus. Matt would have piloted the copter himself had not Billie, his brother, gone straight to the controls.
The house had been redecorated throughout. His mother obviously expected favorable comment and Matt had given it-but he hadn't really liked the change. It had not been what he had pictured. Besides that, the rooms seemed smaller. He decided that it must be the effect of redecorating; the house couldn't have shrunk!
His own room was filled with Bill's things, although Bill had been temporarily evicted to his old room, now turned into a hobby room for his toother. The new arrangements were sensible, reasonable-and annoying.
In thinking it over Matt knew that the changes at home had had nothing to do with his decision. Certainly not! Nor his father's remarks about posture, even though they had stuck in his craw-He and his father had been alone in the living room, just before dinner, and Matt had been pacing up and down, giving an animated and, he believed, interesting account of the first time he had soloed. His father had taken advantage of a pause to say, "Stand up, son."
Matt stopped. "Sir?"
"You are all crouched over and seem to be limping. Does your leg still bother you?"
"No, my leg is fine."
"Then straighten up and "square your shoulders. Look proud. Don't they pay any attention to your posture at school?''
"What's wrong with the way I was walking?"
Bill had appeared in the door just as the subject had come up. "I'll show you, Mattie," he had interrupted, and proceeded to slouch across the room in a grotesque exaggeration of a spaceman's relaxed and boneless glide. The boy made it look like the amble of a chimpanzee. "You walk like that."
"The devil I do!"
"The devil you don't."
"Bill!" said his father. "Go wash up and get ready for dinner. And don't talk that way. Go on, now!" When the younger son had left his father turned again to Matt and said, "I thought I was speaking privately, Matt. Honestly, it's not as bad as Bill makes out; it's only about half that bad."
"But- Look, Dad, I walk just like everybody else-among spacemen, I mean. It comes of getting used to free-fall. You carry yourself sort of pulled in, for days on end, ready to bounce a foot off a bulkhead, or grab with your hands. When you're back under weight, after days and weeks of that, you walk the way I do. 'Cat feet' we call it."
"I suppose it would have that effect," his father had answered reasonably, "but wouldn't it be a good idea to practice walking a little every day, just to keep in form?"
"In free-fall? But-" Matt had stopped, suddenly aware that there was no way to bridge the gap.
"Never mind. Let's go in to dinner."
There had been the usual round of family dinners with aunts and uncles. Everyone asked him to tell about school, about what it felt like to go out into space. But, somehow, they had not actually seemed very interested. Take Aunt Dora.
Great-aunt Dora was the current family matriarch. She had been a very active woman, busy with church and social work. Now she was bedfast and had been for three years. Matt called on her because his family obviously expected it. "She often complains to me that you don't write to her, Matt, and- "
"But, Mother, I don't have time to write to everyone!"
"Yes, yes. But she's proud of you, Matt. Shell want to ask you a thousand questions about everything. Be sure to wear your uniform-she'll expect it."
Aunt Dora had not asked a thousand questions; she had asked just one- why had he waited so long to come to see her? Thereafter Matt found himself being informed, in detail, on the shortcomings of the new pastor, the marriage chances of several female relatives and connections, and the states of health of several older women, many of them unknown to him, including details of operations and postoperative developments.
He was a bit dizzy when he escaped, pleading a previous date.
Yes, maybe that was it-it might have been the visit to Aunt Dora that convinced him that he was not ready to resign and remain in Des Moines. It could not have been Marianne.
Marianne was the girl who had made him promise to write regularly-and, in fact, he had, more regularly than had she. But he had let her know that he was coming home and she had organized a picnic to welcome him back. It had been jolly. Matt had renewed old acquaintances and had enjoyed a certain amount of hero worship from the girls present. There had been a young man there, three or four years older than Matt, who seemed unattached. Gradually it dawned on Matt that Marianne treated the newcomer as her property.
It had not worried him. Marianne was the sort of girl who never would get clearly fixed in her mind the distinction between a planet and a star. He had not noticed this before, but it and similar matters had come up on the one date he had had alone with her.
And she had referred to his uniform as "cute."
He began to understand, from Marianne, why most Patrol officers do not marry until their mid-thirties, after retirement.
The clock in Pikes Peak Station showed thirty minutes until up-ship. Matt began to worry that Tex's casual way might have caused the other three to miss connections, when he spotted them in the crowd. He grabbed his jump bag and went toward them.
They had their backs toward him and had not seen him as yet. He sneaked up behind Tex and said in a hoarse voice, "Mister-report to the Commandant's office."
Tex jumped into the air and turned completely around. "Matt! You horse- thief, don't scare me like that!"
"Your guilty conscience. Hi, Pete. Hello, Oscar."
"How's the boy, Matt? Good leave?"
"Swell."
"Here, too." They shook hands all around.
"Let's get aboard."
"Suits." They weighed in, had their passes stamped, and were allowed to proceed on up to where the New Moon stood upright and ready in the catapult cradle, her mighty wings outstretched. A stewardess showed them to their seats.
At the ten-minute warning Matt announced, "I'm going up for some makee-learnee. Anybody with me?"
"I'm going to sleep," denied Tex.
"Me, too," added Pete. "Nobody ever sleeps in Texas. I'm dead."
Oscar decided to come along. They climbed up to the control room and spoke to the captain. "Cadets Dodson and Jensen, sir-request permission to observe."
"I suppose so," the captain grunted. "Strap down." The pilot room of any licensed ship was open to all members of the Patrol, but the skippers on the Terra-to-Station run were understandably bored with the practice.
Oscar took the inspector's chair; Matt had to use deck pads and straps. His position gave him an excellent view of the co-pilot and mate, waiting at the airplane-type controls. If the rocket motor failed to fire, after catapulting, it would be the mate's business to fight the ship into level flight and bring her down to a deadstick landing on the Colorado prairie.
The captain manned the rocket-type controls. He spoke to the catapult control room, then sounded the siren. Shortly thereafter the ship mounted up the face of the mountain, at a bone-clamping six gravities. The acceleration lasted only ten seconds; then the ship was flung straight up at the sky, leaving the catapult at 1300 miles per hour.
They were in free-fall and climbing. The captain appeared to be taking his time about cutting in the jet; for a moment Matt held to the excited hope that an emergency landing was going to be necessary. But the jet roared on time.
When they had settled in their orbit and the jet was again silent, Matt and Oscar thanked the captain and went back to their proper seats. Tex and Pete were both asleep; Oscar followed suit at once. Matt decided that he must have missed quite a bit in letting himself be talked out of finishing his leave in Texas.
His thoughts went back-to the problem he had been considering. Certainly he had not decided to stick simply because his own leave had been fairly quiet; he had never thought of home as being a nightclub, or a fair ground.