Chapter 4
You could call those five days aboard the Jehad a honeymoon, although the usual definition did not apply to Mr. and Mrs. William Drake. Not only had I promised to keep the marriage on a purely platonic level, but Gail, by her actions and formality, gave me to understand that I was not expected to even go through the motions of playing the newlywed husband.
However, it was a happy time for all of us, and I include Dr. Spartan, even though he might never again be described as being in sympathetic rapport with the rest of us.
As soon as we had cut loose from the capsule and filled the plasma craft with air, we got the artificial gravity in operation by starting some auxiliary rockets which made the ship rotate slowly. The gravity was only ten per cent, but it was sufficient to keep us from floating around the room. We took off our spacesuits and laughed uproariously at our costumes—shorts, T-shirts and lightweight sandals which had magnetic strips in the soles to assist the artificial gravity in holding us to the floor.
Axel relayed our messages back to the earth, telling of our safe arrival, and Dr. Spartan and Warner Joel got the plasma motors going. There were four banks of three motors each encircling the ship. Although we had twelve engines, we planned to use only eight at a time. Four were for emergencies and extra power, when needed.
There were no portholes except in the control room and even here the outside view was partially blocked by a huge nuclear reactor, well shielded and stuck out in front of the ship. This supplied all our electrical power. However, there were video cameras on the outside—in the front and rear of the craft—so that we could always see the heavens about us on the monitor screens. There were four of these in the control room and four more in the main cabin, which was the middle segment of the ship. There were six sections, not counting the rear cupola where Gail was quartered. The control dome was in front. Dr. Spartan’s private cabin, which was partitioned for sleeping and working, was second.
The large main cabin was where we did most of our living, if you can call it that. Directly behind it was a small galley and storeroom for our food supplies. Next was the lavatory and shower room, and the rear segment was filled with machinery—air and water-cycling equipment, laundry, and some electrical tools for repairing the ship.
There wasn’t much to see outside after we got in space but, during those early days when we circled the earth and gained momentum, we had a beautiful view of our world. There was also a procession of multicolored and unwinking stars. The sun, too, was beautiful because the corona could always be seen.
Probably it was because we were so busy in those first days that we got along so well. Or maybe it was the excitement of finding everything so new and different. From the moment we boarded the ship, we were in another world, an independent planet, no longer associated with the earth.
We had to learn to walk in diminished gravity; we had to accustom ourselves to looking up and finding a companion sleeping on the ceiling as if he were stuck there. Even the day was changed. Because there were five of us, we had a 25-hour day, each man, with the exception of Dr. Spartan, taking a five-hour control-room shift. The terrestrial day no longer had any meaning, since our little planet rotated once every 30 seconds.
We had a garden—two trays, one above and one below the tube that carried electrical wiring the length of the ship. We planted hybrid vegetables in the garden—plants using a minimum of water and converting a maximum of carbon dioxide into oxygen. However, the air-cycling machinery was sufficient for most purposes.
Our biggest problem was water. Due to its weight and bulk, we carried as little water as possible, since a great deal of it was already being used to shield the nuclear reactor. For all other purposes—drinking, preparation of dehydrated foods, laundry, sanitation and irrigation of the garden—there was a tank containing 35 gallons. Excess water, removed from the air and extracted from all waste products, was purified and distilled twice, then used again.
At first, Gail Loring made the trip pleasant by her very presence. She was pretty and cheerful, and the fact that she revealed so much in the way of feminine charm in her space clothing caused the usual male response. Not that we were a pack of wolves. There is nothing wrong with looking, or even giving a mental whistle. I think Gail read our minds and I’m sure she enjoyed it.
Axel’s face mirrored his thoughts in a slow grin. Dr. Joel, who was acting with the vigor of a sales manager at a customers’ convention, treated her to adoring, but not necessarily fatherly, witticisms. Morrie Grover positively drooled when she was around and made a great thing of helping her out with various tasks, even though I think Gail would have preferred not to have the help. Spartan watched her, too, but it was impossible to read his thoughts. As I said, everything was milk and honey in those days.
But after we had the ship functioning, the garden growing, and our schedules perfected, we suddenly found that there was not enough to do. The looks that had been innocently male, began slowly to change to something else.
Gail, who had usually shown me less attention than the others, apparently because I had a greater legal right to claim more attention, spoke of it one day when she came through the machinery room while I was washing out the dirty uniforms.
I’d brought a projector and a microfilm of a book on astrogation and was reading when she paused beside the washer. “Need help, Bill Drake?” she asked in a friendly tone.
I looked up and smiled. “Now that was a nice, wifely thing to say.” I told her. “Unfortunately it’s my turn to do the laundry so you don’t have to help.”
“But you wouldn’t throw me out if I did?” she asked.
“There’s really nothing to do,” I said, nodding toward the automatic washer which was halfway through its cycle. “But if you’d like to join in a little small talk about the universe at large, I’ll be thankful for company. You realize, don’t you, that this is the first time the bride and groom have really been alone together since they were married?”
She frowned. “Let’s not talk about that, Bill Drake,” she said.
“Why not? Afraid that if we mention it too often we might suddenly realize we’re married?”
She nodded her head slowly. “Something like that.”
I shut off the projector. I had no interest in astrogation at the moment. “Is that why you avoid me?”
“I don’t avoid you.”
“You always find time to horse around with Morrie,” I said.
Now she smiled. “Are you by any chance jealous?” she asked. “If you are, you have no right.”
“Damnit, I’m not. I just want equal time,” I said. “I should have the right to want as much time with my legal wife as those other bums.”
“I’m doing the laundry with you,” she said teasingly. “That’s the first time I’ve done that with anybody on this ship.”
“I’m in your debt, gracious lady,” I said. There was a trace of sarcasm, less than I felt, in my voice.
She heard it, too, and gave me a sharp glance. “I do want to talk to you about something, Bill Drake,” she said.
“Sure. The laundry doesn’t need attention. Let’s talk.”
“You’ve noticed that we’re not the jolly little group we started out to be when we first boarded the ship, haven’t you?”
“Yes, but it’s because we’re getting bored. We’ve been going around the earth in a spiral, like a merry-go-round. We don’t seem to be getting anyplace.”
“That’s not what I mean,” she said. “We are getting someplace. The spiral widens a little more each turn. Very soon now—perhaps within hours—we’ll break away from the earth. We all realize it. And the farther away from earth we go, the less we’ll feel bound by standards of the earth.”
I frowned. “I don’t see what you’re driving at, Gail.”
She glanced toward the bulkhead door at the end of the room. It led to the shower room and lavatory. She glided toward it, using the familiar “space walk” we all had learned in order to conform to the very light, artificial gravity. She opened the door, peered in, then closed it and returned. “Just wanted to be sure we really were alone,” she said. “What I wanted to talk about was Dr. Spartan. It—it’s the way he looks at me.”
“We all look at you,” I said. “I thought most girls liked it and felt like they were slipping when men stopped looking.”
“That’s right, when you speak of a normal male look,” she said. “But the bearded monster frightens me.”
“Relax,” I said. “He won’t get out of hand. That old boy is no fool and he won’t pull any raw deals. The one I’d look out for is Morrie. He acts like a crazy kid sometimes. You can’t always figure him.”
“Morrie!” she exclaimed. “Bill Drake, you are jealous! He’s just a kid.”
“That’s what I said, a crazy kid.”
“And I’m two years older than he is.” The washer stopped spinning and I went over and began removing the duds and putting them in the dryer.
She started to get up to help me. She’d been sitting cross-legged on the floor, as we all did because we had no chairs aboard. “Don’t bother,” I told her. “This isn’t hard work.”
She sat down again. “Do you realize, Bill Drake, that there are no laws here in space excepting those laid down by Spartan?”
“I can think of a few of Newton’s laws that he has no control over.”
“I’m not talking about physical laws. Spartan is more powerful than any nabob who ever lived on earth—he is a greater despot than Caesar, than the Pharaohs. That’s why he’s stand-offish with everyone. He has the power of life and death over us all.”
I closed the dryer and set the timer. “Forget it, Gail,” I told her, dropping down beside her. “Spartan’s like a military commander. Not only our lives, but the success of this mission are his responsibility. He can’t very well get chummy with buck privates.” I didn’t particularly love the guy, but I thought—then—that I understood him.
“We’re not buck privates,” she said, with a woman’s logic and hatred of metaphor.
“Okay. We’re second looeys. Now, what shall I do? Go to Spartan and say, ‘Listen, you old goat, stop looking lecherously at my wife-in-name-only’?”
“This is no joking matter, Bill Drake. I may be your wife-in-name-only but there was a good sound reason for our marriage. You have to keep me from—uh—well, getting involved. You’re a sort of chaperon.”
I groaned.
“Let me tell you something,” she went on. “During my first trick in the control room—not long after we started our routine on this ship—Spartan came in and spent almost the five hours with me. He talked to me as I’d never been talked to before, Bill Drake. He told me to move my sleeping bag into his compartment and live there. He made it sound as if it were my duty and that I’d be shirking if I didn’t.”
I gaped at her. “The hell he did!” I just couldn’t believe it. “You must have misunderstood him—”
“I most certainly did not!” she said. “Don’t you believe me?”
“Well, the guy isn’t any tin god,” I said. “But he didn’t force you to do what he’d suggested.”
“Do you know why?” she asked. When I didn’t answer she went on. “Because I told him that if he did, he’d have to explain to the whole crew. He’d wind up with a red-hot mutiny on his hands. And when we returned from Mars, I’d nail his hide to the Pentagon, or some other conspicuous place.”
I whistled. “And he took it?”
“Not meekly. He said that if he wished, he could “take care” of the whole crew. And if I repeated what he said to me, to anyone, he’d brand it as a pack of lies. He particularly cautioned me against telling you. He said he didn’t want to be forced into “taking care” of you.”
“But you told me,” I said.
“I’m warning you, Bill Drake. Watch out for Spartan. He doesn’t intend for you to return alive—or anyone else who opposes him.”
I no longer understood Spartan. Would he kill to have his way? I had suspected his hatred since the day the wedding was agreed upon. “He wanted to marry you,” I said, “but you changed the plan. Why didn’t he object then?”
“Because he couldn’t on the earth. And when I made a point of platonic marriage he thought he could fit it into his plan.”
My heart bounded hopefully. “It wasn’t a platonic marriage you wanted?” I asked softly. I tried to take her hand but she pulled it away.
“No, Bill!” It was the first time since we’d left the earth, that she used my first name alone. “I really meant it when I suggested it. I knew Spartan. I’d been in space with him before, but I managed him. This is different. I wanted you to protect me—but not as a husband.”
My heart sank and I felt helpless. I walked over to the dryer. “Lots of dirty laundry today,” I said.
“You can say that again,” she replied.
Spartan’s voice came over the intercom as I started to take the laundry from the dryer.
“Attention, please. Just fifteen seconds ago, the Jehad reached the escape velocity for this distance from the earth. We have broken away from terrestrial gravity. Mr. Ludson and I are now computing the necessary corrections to put us on the proper orbit to reach Mars.”
Gail looked at me and I stared back at her. We had gone beyond the point of no return.