The door opened, and the circus manager came in. “Bell.”
“Yeah?”
“Let me smell your breath.”
“Oh, can it.”
“You dry?”
“Dry as a blotter.”
“O.K. Now, listen. Straight shot. Blastoff, apogee three hundred miles, retrojet, land in the lake behind us. Got it?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, just remember it. She’s loaded to the hilt. She takes a lot to get her off. But don’t go wasting the spare stuff. No fancy ideas. Get it?”
“Check.”
“Who’s dressing you?”
“Barney.”
“Good.”
Barney walked in and told the circus manager to beat it.
“Touchy little guy, ain’t you?” the manager said.
“You want to listen to the leaks?” Barney asked. “I ain’t getting nothing out of this.”
“O.K. O.K. Blastoff at seven-thirty. I want him to shake a few hands at seven-fifteen. Press. Stuff like that.”
“Ask him,” Barney said. “He ain’t got his helmet on.”
“O.K.,” Bell said. “O.K.”
The manager left, and Barney helped Bell get into the G-suit. Carefully, Bell stepped into one leg, then the other. Barney started pulling zippers, and then Bell’s torso slipped into the suit, and finally Barney strapped down the helmet. He attached a hose from the suit to the oxygen tank; then he attached a smaller hose to the suit and taped the other end of it behind his own ear.
“O.K., Jack. Here goes.” Slowly, Barney turned the knob on the oxygen tank and waited for the suit to inflate. He heard the gas flow out of the tank, but no air reached his ear. “The sucker’s leaking like a sieve,” he said.
“Give it more juice!” Bell shouted.
Barney increased the pressure on the valve, and the astronaut’s suit inflated slowly. Barney’s eyes watched the tarnished silver material lose its creases, and he listened to the exhaust behind his ear. He knew there were leaks; he could tell by the lack of pressure behind his ear. He ran his hands over the suit. He knew where to look for the leaks — the armpits, under the neck, at the seat. Sure. They were there. Big leaks. “She’ll never hold,” Barney said.
“She’ll hold!” Bell shouted. “Just glue them.”
Barney reached into his pocket and pulled out a tube of liquid rubber and slowly mended each hole, waiting for the rubber to harden, repressurizing the suit, listening, feeling, listening, gluing.
“I’ve got you tight at ten G’s,” Barney yelled. “You get any cute ideas and you’ll turn into a jigsaw puzzle.”
“Run ‘er up,” Bell said.
“What for? You ain’t goin’ nowhere past three hundred miles.”
“Run ‘er up, Barney.”
Barney increased the pressure. He watched the G-meter. Eleven Gs, twelve, thirteen — then he heard the leaks again. “See?” he said, pointing to one of them.
“Glue it,” Bell said.
Barney glued and reduced the pressure. He held up both hands. “Ten Gs is all she’ll take. And you’ll be lucky at that.”
The circus manager came to the door. “Ready?”
“Yeah,” Barney said.
The circus manager looked at Barney, then at Bell, and led the way as they walked the two hundred yards to the missile, past the snake show, the belly dancers, the penny pitches, a hot-dog stand, a wheel of fortune.
Heavy ropes held back about a hundred spectators. There was no press. Bell knew there’d be no press. He stepped over the ropes and looked at the missile. It was an old-timer. The markings “U.S. Army” had been crudely painted out, and the words “Kingsley Shows” ran up the length of the missile, the paint faded and scorched.
Bell felt better when he was knee-deep in vapor at the base of the missile. There was no elevator, just a steel ladder. He mounted the ladder, and Barney trailed behind him. There were sixty-five steps, and on the fiftieth Bell stopped and looked at the corroding seams of the missile’s skin. He pointed to them for Barney to see and continued his climb until he reached the hatch of the capsule. There he did not hesitate, but stepped in and lay down on the well-worn leather couch. He spread his arms and waited for Barney to strap him in.
Barney puffed heavily and sat down on the floor of the capsule. He made a thumbs-down gesture in front of Bell’s helmet, but Bell yelled, “Strap on!”
“She ain’t safe!” Barney yelled. “Forget it. Well go fishing.”
“She’ll go,” Bell said.
“Ditch the ride,” Barney pleaded. “Let’s go fishing.”
“Count down!” Bell shouted.
Barney mechanically strapped the shoulder braces and leg braces. He took a last pressure reading of the suit, then started to step out.
“Jack, for Christ’s sake. Eject. Go up and eject.”
“Count down, Barney.”
Barney reached in his pocket and pulled out the tube of liquid rubber. He squeezed the tube and poured a small mound of rubber on the instrument panel in front of Bell. “Just watch the rubber, Jack,” Barney said. “If she starts to bubble—” He pointed down. “Retrojet. Do you hear me?”
Bell watched Barney and smiled. “Cut bait!” Bell shouted, and Barney left the capsule, sealed it, and descended the long steel ladder. He joined the circus manager in the control wagon.
“You sure that jockey was sober, Barney?” the manager asked.
“What do you want for two hundred bucks?”
“I want my missile back in one piece.”
“Did you ever shake the President’s hand?” Barney asked.
The manager looked at him. “He don’t go around shaking carnies’ hands.”
“No, I guess he don’t.”
Barney left the control wagon and heard the loudspeaker. “Ladies and gentlemen, at the count of zero you will witness a manned space flight. At the controls — Jack Bell, the second man to reach the moon. Are you ready now? Count down… ten — nine — eight — seven—”
Barney could barely hear the countdown, and yet, out of habit, he counted to himself as he walked down the highway. He saw, over his shoulder, the lights dim behind him as the circus generators ignited die fuel, and then he saw his shadow clearly ahead of his body as the blastoff lit the countryside. He could not bring himself to look back and see whether his friend lifted off the pad. He walked on, and his right hand played nervously with the tube of rubber cement in his pocket. Then he yanked it out and threw it into the gully at one side of the road.
THE BEAT CLUSTER
by Fritz Leiber
The latest thing in subnuclear theory (I learned from an article in The Saturday Evening Post) is that the sub-particles have subparticles — and those subparticles have. . ad infinitum. That is, it may be impossible to reach the ultimate submicroscopic unit of the atom.
A similar likelihood has been evident for some time in the case of scholarly-literary distinctions. For instance: science fiction is a subform of science fantasy, which is a subform of fantasy, which is a subform of fiction — and still, within s-f, the afficionado subdivides repeatedly.
The subspecies most widely identified with the field as a whole is, of course, the space story: this is what is commonly considered the “science fiction” that “science has caught up with.” Science fiction (meaning: the space story) is dead— they say — because it has become true-adventure; and they would be right, if science fiction (or even the space story) were limited to speculation about rockets and orbits. But when we consider the people in those now so-nearly-true-adventure orbits…