Alan E. Nourse (2 page)

_Contents

CHAPTER
                                                                                                  
page

I've Never
Been
There
 
.....
    
ix

1.
   
The Mission
..........................................................
     
1

2.
   
The Letter
..............................................................
    
13

3.
   
The Land
of
Incredible Cold
  
...
    
23

4.
   
"There's Trouble
at
the
Colonyr
.
  
.
    
36

5.
   
Ambush
...................................................................
   
47

6.
   
The Prisoner
.........................................................
    
61

7.
   
Revolt!
.....................................................................
    
75

8.
   
"That Man Is Dangerous—"
  
...
    
90

9.
   
The Big Secret
.....................................................
....
100

10.
   
The Wreck
of
the Snooper
  
.
  
.
  
.
  
.
      
114

11.
   
The Ultimatum
..................................................
    
127

12.
   
A Desperate Chance
........................................
....
137

13.
   
The Secret
of
the Tunnel
  
....
    
149

14.
   
Trapped!
.................................................................
    
160

15.
   
The Closing Ring
...............................................
....
171

16.
   
"I'll Bach
You
to
a
Man!"
  
.
  
.
  
.
  
.
        
181

17.
   
A Fearful Choice
................................................
   
192

18.
   
"When Two Strong Men-
"
....
      
202

_{Chapter
J
The
Mi;}

cLEGRAM!
Telegram
for Tucker Benedict!"
Tuck Benedict awoke with a start, jarred from his troubled, fuzzy
dream. At first he couldn't orient himself; then he recognized the curved
glass windows and the corridor of the giant cross-country jet liner. The trim,
blue-uniformed figure of the stewardess was moving down the aisle, and he
caught her eye as she passed his seat.

"I'm Tucker Benedict," he said. The
stewardess smiled, and handed him the folded blue envelope. "This came in
just after we left Denver," she said. "Hope
it's
good news!"

Tuck
nodded and took the envelope, pulling the little plastic opener-tab with
trembling fingers. In these days of fast rocket mail, a telegram was an event.
Who could be wiring him?
Certainly not someone back at
school.
He was a graduate now, his diploma was carefully placed away in
its folder in his inside jacket pocket, and with it the letter that was far
more precious to him than any diploma in the world: the letter from the Dean of
Admissions of the Polytechnic

Institute of Earth, announcing that he had
been accepted at the Institute with the next incoming class.
Even as he thought of it, Tuck's heart
skipped a beat, and a chill of apprehension shivered up his spine. Could
something have gone wrong with the scholarship? They
couldn't
have changed their minds now, not with the
formal announcements to be made at the International Rocketry Exhibit in just
two days— The blue tissue of the telegram crackled in his hand as he laid it
open, and he hardly dared to breathe as he read it:

PERSON
TO PERSON TUCKER BENEDICT CARE OF INTERNATIONAL JET LINERS INC. EN ROUTE NEW
YORK:

DEAR
TUCK ARRIVED CATSKILL ROCKET PORT THIS MORNING WILL MEET YOUR JET IN NEW YORK
CAN YOU MISS A DAY OF THE EXHIBIT? MARS JOB CLEANED UP HOME FOR A SANDWICH AT
LEAST LOVE DAD

Tuck sat back in the deep jet-liner seat,
undecided whether to laugh or cry or whoop for joy. Dad was home! After three
long, long years, dad was home again, waiting to meet him in New York! He sat
staring through the
plexiglass
window, looking down
on the green and white and silvery pattern passing on the ground far below,
hardly able to believe the wonderful news. He remembered clearly the note his
father had sent him from Mars at Christmas time—and at that time Colonel
Benedict had not expected to be home for another two years at least. But now—in
his excitement Tuck could hardly sit still. In just another half-hour he would
be seeing his father!

Tuck
and his father had been very close, not so many years before. Tuck had been too
young to remember when his mother died, and his earliest recollections were
of life with dad in the big, spacious New York apartment, high above the Hudson
River overlooking the beautiful terraced parks and smoothly winding highways of
the great metropolis. Those had been happy years, before his father had been
persuaded to join the Security Commission, the "Interplanetary Trouble
Shooters," as the Colonel called it, to be sent from one end of the Solar
System to the other on jobs of investigation and diplomacy. The Colonel had
been with the Commission for over eight years, and Tuck was justifiably proud
that his father had risen to a position of importance—after all, the Security
Commission was one of the most critical cogs in the whole great commercial
machine that had spread out from the cities of Earth to all corners of the
Solar System. But Tuck was jealous of the times when his father was away,
perhaps tracing down missing supplies that had never reached their destination
at the colony on Mars, perhaps smoothing out the bitter feelings of the groups
working on the rehabilitation of Venus, perhaps persuading the miners far out
in the Asteroid Rings to obey the channeling and landing procedures when they
came back home to weigh in their precious cargoes of platinum and uranium.
These trips had been long, sometimes taking Colonel
Benediet
away for years, and busy as Tuck was with his studies, he had always dreamed of
the time when dad would come home for good, and the two of them could take up
the old life where they had left it.

Tuck
frowned, his steady gray eyes scanning the telegram again, a puzzled frown
crossing his forehead. "Home for a sandwich at least," his father had
said. Could that mean that this was to be only a short stay, another of those
brief visits back to Earth after a long assignment? There was something odd
about the tone of the telegram—it didn't sound quite like dad. But they could
worry about that together when the liner reached New York. It was enough for
now that he was to see his father again, after all these long years.

Happily,
Tuck stared through the observation bay that opened almost to the floor
alongside his feet. He was a sturdy-looking youth, rather slight of build, but
wiry, and browned from the West Coast sun. His gray eyes were lively in a
grave, thoughtful face, and his short brown hair had succumbed to a neat
combing, perhaps for the first time in months, and only after long and diligent
persuasion. As the jet motors hummed in his ears, he was far too excited to
sleep again, and the minutes passed slowly. Far, far below, through the blanket
of hazy white clouds, he caught a glimpse of the long, straight double ribbons
of silver crossing the broad plains, the New York-Los Angeles Rolling Roads
that carried the huge volumes of overland freight across the continent. Far to
the north the Rocky Mountains were giving way to rolling plains, and by squinting
a good deal and watching closely he could just make out the great glowing dome
of the Montana Solar Energy Converter. He had visited this great plant once, during
the years at Prep, and he knew several of his classmates who had been accepted
at the Solar Energy School in Helena, to study the theory and engineering
behind Solar Energy Conversion. The great plants all over the world converted
the enormous energy of the sunlight into heat, light and power to supply the
luxurious cities and quiet suburban towns, and the ruthenium from the lonely
outpost mining colony on Titan was the catalyst which made this energy conversion
possible.

Yet
for all its importance and complexity, Tuck could never have become interested
in Solar Energy work as a career. For him there was only one field, only one
work of importance, and he
itched
with impatience to
get started, to begin the studies that would lead him to his goal.

It
was not that there was anything so wonderful and new about rocket travel. The
first rocket from Earth had reached the moon well over two hundred years
before, in 1976. In
a.d
. 2180, the year that Tuck was born, the
rocket ship
Planet
Nine
had returned from
Pluto, the farthest planet from the sun, with a complete file of maps, surface
data, exploratory notes, and astronomical data on Pluto, as well as
astro
-photographs of the tenth planet that had been
discovered skimming its frigid course still farther out in the blackness of
space. A large farming colony had been thriving on Mars for a hundred and fifty
years, and the great Solar Converter being built on Venus would soon be at work

reconverting
those arid deserts and windswept crags into
a lush tropical paradise for farmers and vacationers. The exploration of the
Solar System was almost complete, except for the mopping up—but there were
other frontiers, greater frontiers, and these were the frontiers that excited
Tuck. For beyond the limits of the Solar System lay the black wastes of deep
space, the unbridgeable gulf that led to the stars. And someday, Tuck knew,
some man would find a way to go to the stars-Tuck sat back in his seat,
fingering the letter of acceptance to the Polytechnic Institute excitedly.
Some man would learn a way, some man would discover how to take a rocket ship
and leave the Solar System light-years behind, and go to the stars. And all his
life Tuck had dreamed that he might be that man—

«
          
«
           
«
           
o
           
o

The liner landed just at dusk. From the bay
Tuck strained his eyes trying to see his father's familiar figure, waiting in
the crowd behind the blast barrier, but the bright lights threw the people into
darkness. Carefully he checked his bags with the automatic redcap, punching
the address of his father's apartment on the metal consignment tape; then he
gathered up his coat and followed the crowd down the gangway onto the smooth
concrete of the landing platform, still trying to peer ahead into the darkness.
And then he saw Colonel Benedict, standing tall and straight, his gray hair
crisp, blue eyes wrinkled into a quizzical smile. Tuck let out a cry, and broke
into a run, working his way through the crowd, and then he was wringing his
father s hand, and the two of them were trying to talk at once as they made
their way down into the Terminal Building.

"But
you said in your last letter that it might be two more years—I had no idea that
you'd be back so soon—"

The
Colonel's eyes twinkled. "I just wanted to see if you could still take a
surprise."

"Surprise!
I almost dropped through the seat!"
Tuck regarded his father proudly. "Dad, it's wonderful. You couldn't look
better."

"Feel
great, too. I don't like getting out of bed in the morning as much as I used
to, but I'm probably getting old—"

Tuck
grinned. "Then I'm getting old, too. How was the passage home?"

"Not
bad. They don't jockey those ships around like they once did—steady,
responsible hands at the wheel, you know, now that the Mars-Earth run is just a
trip around the block. Feels fine to be back
Earthside
,
though—those ships have plenty of good clean air and all that, but there's
nothing to compare with a breeze in off the ocean."

"And
the Mars job is all finished? Everything
done,
and you
can stay home for a while now?" Tuck's eyes were eager. "Just think,
we could spend the whole summer here in New York, and maybe we could get in a
fishing trip up North, if you could get away. Remember how we used to fish,
Dad?"

"Yes,
I remember. I could never forget." The Colonel's face was suddenly grave,
and he started down into the taxi terminal, effectively cutting off further