Ten minutes later the siren sounded, he heard the orders on the bull horn for Up-Stations. When the soft sighing of the locks and the slight pressure change in his ears let him know that take-off was imminent he got up and shuffled down to the power room, as he wanted to be near the jets when they blasted off. He needed no one to guide him in any ship of the Hawk cla.s.s.
Trouble started during the first watch. Rhysling had been lounging in the inspector"s chair, fiddling with the keys of his accordion and trying out a new version of _Green Hills_.
"Let me breathe unrationed air again
Where there"s no lack nor dearth"
And "something, something, something "Earth"" -- it would not come out right. He tried again.
"Let the sweet fresh breezes heal me
As they rove around the girth
Of our lovely mother planet,
Of the cool green hills of Earth."
That was better, he thought. "How do you like that, Archie?" he asked over the muted roar.
"Pretty good. Give out with the whole thing." Archie Macdougal, Chief Jetman, was an old friend, both s.p.a.ceside and in bars; he had been an apprentice under Rhysling many years and millions of miles back.
Rhysling obliged, then said, "You youngsters have got it soft. Everything automatic. When I was twisting her tail you had to stay awake."
"You still have to stay awake." They fell to talking shop and Macdougal showed him the direct response damping rig which had replaced the manual vernier control which Rhysling had used. Rhysling felt out the controls and asked questions until he was familiar with the new installation. It was his conceit that he was still a jetman and that his present occupation as a troubadour was simply an expedient during one of the fusses with the company that any man could get into.
"I see you still have the old hand damping plates installed," he remarked, his agile fingers flitting over the equipment.
"All except the links. I unshipped them because they obscure the dials."
"You ought to have them shipped. You might need them."
"Oh, I don"t know. I think--" Rhysling never did find out what Macdougal thought for it was at that moment the trouble tore loose. Macdougal caught it square, a blast of radioactivity that burned him down where he stood.
Rhysling sensed what had happened. Automatic reflexes of old habit came out. He slapped the discover and rang the alarm to the control room simultaneously. Then he remembered the unshipped links. He had to grope until he found them, while trying to keep as low as he could to get maximum benefit from the baffles. Nothing but the links bothered him as to location. The place was as light to him as any place could be; he knew every spot, every control, the way he knew the keys of his accordion.
"Power room! Power room! What"s the alarm?"
"Stay out!" Rhysling shouted. "The place is "hot."" He could feel it on his face and in his bones, like desert sunshine.
The links he got into place, after cursing someone, anyone, for having failed to rack the wrench he needed. Then he commenced trying to reduce the trouble by hand. It was a long job and ticklish. Presently he decided that the jet would have to be spilled, pile and all.
First he reported. "Control!"
"Control aye aye!"
"Spilling jet three -- emergency."
"Is this Macdougal?"
"Macdougal is dead. This is Rhysling, on watch. Stand by to record."
There was no answer; dumbfounded the Skipper may have been, but he could not interfere in a power room emergency. He had the ship to consider, and the pa.s.sengers and crew. The doors had to stay closed.
The Captain must have been still more surprised at what Rhysling sent for record. It was:
We rot in the molds of Venus,
We retch at her tainted breath.
Foul are her flooded jungles,
Crawling with unclean death."
Rhysling went on cataloguing the Solar System as he worked, "--harsh bright soil of Luna--","--Saturn"s rainbow rings--","--the frozen night of t.i.tan--", all the while opening and spilling the jet and fishing it clean. He finished with an alternate chorus --
"We"ve tried each spinning s.p.a.ce mote
And reckoned its true worth:
Take us back again to the homes of men
On the cool, green hills of Earth."
--then, almost absentmindedly remembered to tack on his revised first verse:
"The arching sky is calling
s.p.a.cemen back to their trade.
All hands! Stand by! Free falling!
And the lights below us fade.
Out ride the sons of Terra,
Far drives the thundering jet,
Up leaps the race of Earthmen,
Out, far, and onward yet--"
The ship was safe now and ready to limp home shy one jet. As for himself, Rhysling was not so sure. That "sunburn" seemed sharp, he thought. He was unable to see the bright, rosy fog in which he worked but he knew it was there. He went on with the business of flushing the air out through the outer valve, repeating it several times to permit the level of radioaction to drop to something a man might stand under suitable armor. While he did this he sent one more chorus, the last bit of authentic Rhysling that ever could be:
"We pray for one last landing
On the globe that gave us birth;
Let us rest our eyes on fleecy skies