Starman's Quest Page 5

  _Chapter Four_

  The next morning, Roger Bond told him all about the dance.

  "It was the dullest thing you could imagine. Same old people, same dustyold dances. Couple of people asked me where you were, but I didn't tellthem anything."

  "Good."

  They wandered on through the heap of old, ugly buildings that composedthe Starmen's Enclave. "It's just as well they think I was sick," Alansaid. "I was, anyway. Sick from boredom."

  He and Roger sat down carefully on the edge of a crumbling stone bench.They said nothing, just looking around. After a long while Alan brokethe uncomfortable silence.

  "You know what this place is? It's a ghetto. A self-imposed ghetto.Starmen are scared silly of going out into the Earther cities, so theykeep themselves penned up in this filthy place instead."

  "This place is really old. I wonder how far back those run-downbuildings date."

  "Thousand years, maybe more. No one ever bothers to build new ones. Whatfor? The starmen don't mind living in the old ones."

  "I almost wish the medical clearance hadn't come through after all,"said Roger moodily.

  "How so?"

  "Then we'd be still quarantined up there. We wouldn't be able to comedown and get another look at the kind of place this really is."

  "I don't know which is worse--to be cooped up in quarantine or to gowandering around a dismal hole like the Enclave." Alan stood up,stretched, and took a deep breath. "Phew! Get a lungful of that sweet,fresh, allegedly pure Terran air! I'll take ship atmosphere, stale as itis, any time over this smoggy soup."

  "I'll go along with that. Say, look--a strange face!"

  Alan turned and saw a young starman of about his own age coming towardthem. He wore a red uniform with gray trim instead of theorange-and-blue of the _Valhalla_.

  "Welcome, newcomers. I suppose you're from that ship that just put down?The _Valhalla_?"

  "Right. Name's Alan Donnell, and this is Roger Bond. Yours?"

  "I'm Kevin Quantrell." He was short and stocky, heavily tanned, with asquare jaw and a confident look about him. "I'm out of the starship_Encounter_, just back from the Aldebaran system. Been in the Enclavetwo weeks now--with a lot more ahead of me."

  Alan whistled. "Aldebaran! That's--let's see, 109 years round trip. Youmust be a real old-timer, Quantrell!"

  "I was born in 3403. Makes me 473 years old, Earthtime. But I'mactually only seventeen and a half. Right before Aldebaran we made a hopto Capella, and that used up 85 years more in a hurry."

  "You've got me by 170 years," Alan said. "But I'm only seventeenmyself."

  Quantrell grinned cockily. "It's a good thing some guy thought up thisTally system of chalking up every real day you live through. Otherwisewe'd be up to here in confusion all the time."

  He leaned boredly against the wall of a rickety building which once hadproudly borne the chrome-steel casing characteristic of early 27thCentury architecture, but whose outer surface was now brown and scalyfrom rust. "What do you think of our little paradise?" Quantrell askedsarcastically. "Certainly puts the Earther cities to shame."

  He pointed out across the river, where the tall, glistening buildings ofthe adjoining Earther city shone in the morning sunlight.

  "Have you ever been out there?" Alan asked.

  "No," Quantrell said in a tight voice. "But if this keeps up muchlonger----" He clenched and unclenched his fists impatiently.

  "What's the trouble?"

  "It's my ship--the _Encounter_. We were outspace over a century, youknow, and when we got back the inspection teams found so many thingswrong with the ship that she needs just about a complete overhauling.They've been working her over for the last two weeks, and the way itlooks it'll be another couple of weeks before she's ready to go. And Idon't know how much longer I can stand being penned up in thisEnclave."

  "That's exactly how your brother----" Roger started to say, and stopped."Sorry."

  "That's okay," Alan said.

  Quantrell cocked an eye. "What's that?"

  "My brother. I had a twin, but he got restless and jumped ship last timewe were down. He got left behind at blastoff time."

  Quantrell nodded understandingly. "Too bad. But I know what he was upagainst--and I envy the lucky so-and-so. I wish _I_ had the guts to justwalk out like that. Every day that goes by in this place, I say I'mgoing over the hill next day. But I never do, somehow. I just sit hereand wait."

  Alan glanced down the quiet sun-warmed street. Here and there a coupleof venerable-looking starmen were sitting, swapping stories of theiryouth--a youth that had been a thousand years before. The Enclave, Alanthought, is a place for old men.

  They walked on for a while until the buzzing neon signs of a feelietheater were visible. "I'm going in," Roger said. "This place isstarting to depress me. You?"

  Alan shot a glance at Quantrell, who made a face and shook his head. "Iguess I'll skip it," Alan said. "Not just now."

  "Count me out too," Quantrell said.

  Roger looked sourly from one to the other, and shrugged. "I think I'llgo all the same. I'm in the mood for a good show. See you around, Alan."

  After Roger left them, Alan and Quantrell walked on through the Enclavetogether. Alan wondered whether it wasn't a good idea to have gone tothe feelie with Roger after all; the Enclave was starting to depresshim, too, and those three-dimensional shows had a way of taking yourmind off things.

  But he was curious about Quantrell. It wasn't often he had a chance totalk with someone his own age from another ship. "You know," he said,"we starmen lead an empty life. You don't get to realize it until youcome to the Enclave."

  "I decided that a long time ago," Quantrell said.

  Alan spread his hands. "What do we do? We dash back and forth throughspace, and we huddle here in the Enclave. And we don't like either oneor the other, but we fool ourselves into liking them. When we're inspace we can't wait to get to the Enclave, and once we're down here wecan't wait to get back. Some life."

  "Got any suggestions? Some way of fixing things up for us withoutqueering interstellar commerce?"

  "Yes," Alan snapped. "I do have a suggestion. Hyperspace drive!"

  Quantrell laughed harshly. "Of all the cockeyed----"

  "There you are," Alan said angrily. "First thing you do is laugh. Aspacewarp drive is just some hairbrained scheme to you. But haven't youever considered that Earth's scientists won't bother developing such adrive for us if we don't care ourselves? They're just as happy the waythings are. _They_ don't have to worry about the FitzgeraldContraction."

  "But there's been steady research on a hyperdrive, hasn't there? Eversince Cavour, I thought."

  "On and off. But they don't take it very seriously and they don't getanywhere with it. If they'd really put some men to work they'd findit--and then there wouldn't be any more Enclaves or any FitzgeraldContraction, and we starmen could live normal lives."

  "And your brother--he wouldn't be cut off from his people the way heis----"

  "Sure. But you laughed instead of thinking."

  Quantrell looked contrite. "Sorry. Guess I didn't put much jet behind mythink-machine that time. But a hyperdrive would wipe out the Enclavesystem, wouldn't it?"

  "Of course! We'd be able to come home from space and take a normal partin Earth's life, instead of pulling away and segregating ourselveshere."

  Alan looked up at the seemingly unreachable towers of the Earther cityjust across the river from the Enclave. Somewhere out there was Steve.And perhaps somewhere out there was someone he could talk to about thehyperdrive, someone influential who might spur the needed research.

  The Earther city seemed to be calling to him. It was a voice that washard to resist. He savagely jammed down deep inside him the tiny innervoice that was trying to object. He turned, looking backward at thedingy dreary buildings of the Enclave.

  He looked then at Quantrell. "You said you've been wanting to breakloose. You want to get out of the Enclave, eh, Kevin?"

  "Yes," Quantrell
said slowly.

  Alan felt excitement beginning to pound hard in the pit of his stomach."How'd you like to go outside there with me? See the Earther city?"

  "You mean _jump ship_?"

  The naked words, put just that bluntly, stung. "No," Alan said, thinkingof how his father's face had gone stony the time Alan had told him Stevewasn't coming back. "I mean just going out for a day or so--a sort ofchange of air. It's five days till the _Valhalla's_ due to blast off,and you say the _Encounter_ is stuck here indefinitely. We could just gofor a day or so--just to see what it's like out there."

  Quantrell was silent a long time.

  "Just for a day or so?" he asked, at last. "We'll just go out, and havea look around, just to see what it's like out there." He fell silentagain. Alan saw a little trickle of sweat burst out on Quantrell'scheek. He felt strangely calm himself, a little to his own surprise.

  Then Quantrell smiled and the confidence returned to his tanned face."I'm game. Let's go!"

  But Rat was quizzical about the whole enterprise when Alan returned tohis room to get him.

  "You aren't serious, Alan. You really are going over to the Earthercity?"

  Alan nodded and gestured for the little extra-terrestrial to take hisusual perch. "Are you daring to take my word in vain, Rat?" he asked inmock histrionics. "When I say I'm going to do something, I do it." Hesnapped closed his jacket and flipped the switch controlling the archaicfluorescent panels. "Besides, you can always stay here if you want to,you know."

  "Never mind," Rat said. "I'm coming." He leaped up and anchored himselfsecurely on Alan's shoulder.

  Kevin Quantrell was waiting for them in front of the building. As Alanemerged Rat said, "One question, Alan."

  "Shoot."

  "Level, now: are you coming back--or are you going over the way Stevedid?"

  "You ought to know me better than that. I've got reasons for going out,but they're not Steve's reasons."

  "I hope so."

  Quantrell came up to them, and it seemed to Alan that there wassomething unconvincing about his broad grin. He looked nervous. Alanwondered whether he looked the same way.

  "All set?" Quantrell asked.

  "Set as I'll ever be. Let's go."

  Alan looked around to see if anybody he knew might be watching. Therewas no one around. Quantrell started walking, and Alan fell in behindhim.

  "I hope you know where you're going," Alan said. "Because I don't."

  Kevin pointed down the long winding street. "We go down to the foot ofthis street, turn right into Carhill Boulevard, head down the main drivetoward the bridge. The Earther city is on the other side of the river."

  "You better be right."

  They made it at a fairly good clip through the sleepy Enclave, passingrapidly through the old, dry, dusty streets. Finally they came to theend of the street and rounded the corner onto Carhill Boulevard.

  The first thing Alan saw was the majestic floating curve of the bridge.Then he saw the Earther city, a towering pile of metal and masonry thatseemed to be leaping up into the sky ahead of them, completely fillingthe view.

  Alan pointed to the bridge-mouth. "That's where we go across, isn't it?"

  But Quantrell hung back. He stopped in his tracks, staring dangle-jawedat the immense city facing them.

  "There it is," he said quietly.

  "Sure. Let's go, eh?" Alan felt a sudden burst of impatience and startedheading toward the approach to the bridge.

  But after three or four paces he realized Quantrell was not with him. Heturned and saw the other spaceman still rooted to the ground, gazing upat the vast Earther city as if in narcoshock.

  "It's big," Quantrell murmured. "_Too_ big."

  "_Kevin!_ What's wrong?"

  "Leave him alone," Rat whispered. "I have a hunch he won't be going withyou."

  Alan watched in astonishment as Quantrell took two steps hesitantlybackward away from the bridge, then a third. There was a strange, almostthunderstruck expression on Kevin's face.

  Then he broke out of it. He shook his head.

  "We aren't really going across--huh, Donnell?" He gave a brittle littlelaugh.

  "Of course we are!" Alan looked around nervously, hoping no one from the_Valhalla_ had spotted him in all this time. Puzzled at Quantrell'ssudden hesitation after his earlier cockiness, Alan took a couple ofshuffling steps toward the bridge, slowly, keeping his eyes on the otherstarman.

  "I can't go with you," Kevin finally managed to say. His face wasflushed and strained-looking. He was staring upward at the seeminglytopless towers of the city. "It's too big for me." He choked back ahalf-whimper. "The trouble with me is--the--trouble--with--me--is----"Quantrell lowered his head and met Alan's stare. "I'm afraid, Donnell.Stinking sweaty afraid. The city's too big."

  Red-faced, he turned and walked away, back up the street.

  Alan silently watched him go.

  "Imagine that. Afraid!"

  "It's a big place," Rat warned. "Don't you feel the same way? Just alittle?"

  "I feel perfectly calm," Alan said in utter sincerity. "I know why I'mgoing over there, and I'm anxious to get moving. I'm not running away,the way Steve was. I'm going to the Earther city to find my brother andto find Cavour's drive, and to bring them both back here!"

  "That's a tall order, Alan."

  "I'll do it."

  Alan reached the approach to the bridge in a few more brisk steps andpaused there. The noonday sun turned the long arch of the bridge into agolden ribbon in the sky. A glowing sign indicated the pedestrianwalkway. Above that, shining teardrop autos whirred by, leaving fainttrails of exhaust. Alan followed the arrows and soon found himself onthe bridge, heading for the city.

  He glanced back a last time. There was no sign of Kevin. The Starmen'sEnclave seemed utterly quiet, almost dead.

  Then he turned and kept his gaze forward. The Earther city was waitingfor him.