"Take it easy. The patrol from Deimos was already close by when you let go. They tracked you on the "scope, matched orbits with you, and picked you up. First time in history, I guess. Now keep quiet. You"re a sick man - you hung there more than two hours, Bill."
The meowing started up again, louder than ever. He got up on his knees and looked out over the windowsill. The kitten was still away to the left on the ledge. He thrust his head cautiously out a little further, remembering not to look at anything but the kitten and the ledge. "Here, kitty!" he called. "Here, kit-kit-kitty! Here, kitty, come kitty!"
The kitten stopped washing and managed to look puzzled.
"Come, kitty," he repeated softly. He let go the windowsill with his right hand and gestured toward it invitingly. The kitten approached about three inches, then sat down. "Here, kitty," he pleaded and stretched his arm as far as possible.
The fluff ball promptly backed away again.
He withdrew his arm and thought about it. This was getting nowhere, he decided. If he were to slide over the edge and stand on the ledge, he could hang on with one arm and be perfectly safe. He knew that, he knew it would be safe - he needn"t look down!
He drew himself back inside, reversed himself, and, with great caution, gripping the sill with both arms, let his legs slide down the face of the building. He focused his eyes carefully on the corner of the bed.
The ledge seemed to have been moved. He could not find it, and was beginning to be sure that he had reached past it, when he touched it with one toe - then he had both feet firmly planted on it. It seemed about six inches wide. He took a deep breath.
Letting go with his right arm, he turned and faced the kitten. It seemed interested in the procedure but not disposed to investigate more closely. If he were to creep along the ledge, holding on with his left hand, he could just about reach it from the corner of the window - He moved his feet one at a time, baby fashion, rather than pa.s.s one past the other. By bending his knees a trifle, and leaning, he could just manage to reach it. The kitten sniffed his groping fingers, then leaped backward. One tiny paw missed the edge; it scrambled and regained its footing. "You little idiot!" he said indignantly, "do you want to bash your brains out?"
"If any," he added. The situation looked hopeless now; the baby cat was too far away to be reached from his anchorage at the window, no matter how he stretched. He called "Kitty, kitty" rather hopelessly, then stopped to consider the matter.
He could give it up.
He could prepare himself to wait all night in the hope that the kitten would decide to come closer. Or he could go get it.
The ledge was wide enough to take his weight. If he made himself small, flat to the wall, no weight rested on his left arm. He moved slowly forward, retaining the grip on the window as long as possible, inching so gradually that he hardly seemed to move. When the window frame was finally out of reach, when his left hand was flat to smooth wall, he made the mistake of looking down, down, past the sheer wall at the glowing pavement far below.
He pulled his eyes back and fastened them on a spot on the wall, level with his eyes and only a few feet away. He was still there!
And so was the kitten. Slowly he separated his feet, moving his right foot forward, and bent his knees. He stretched his right hand along the wall, until he was over and a little beyond the kitten.
He brought it down in a sudden swipe, as if to swat a fly. He found himself with a handful of scratching, biting fur.
He held perfectly still then, and made no attempt to check the minor outrages the kitten was giving him. Arms still outstretched, body flat to the wall, he started his return. He could not see where he was going and could not turn his head without losing some little of his margin of balance. It seemed a long way back, longer than he had come, when at last the fingertips of his left hand slipped into the window opening.
He backed up the rest of the way in a matter of seconds, slid both arms over the sill, then got his right knee over. He rested himself on the sill and took a deep breath. "Man!" he said aloud. "That was a tight squeeze. You"re a menace to traffic, little cat."
He glanced down at the pavement. It was certainly a long way down - looked hard, too.
He looked up at the stars. Mighty nice they looked and mighty bright. He braced himself in the window frame, back against one side, foot pushed against the other, and looked at them. The kitten settled down in the cradle of his stomach and began to buzz. He stroked it absent-mindedly and reached for a cigarette. He would go out to the port and take his physical and his psycho tomorrow, he decided. He scratched the kitten"s ears. "Little fluff head," he said, "how would you like to take a long, long ride with me?"
REQUIEM.
On a high hill in Samoa there is a grave. Inscribed on the marker are these words:
"Under the wide and starry sky Dig my grave and let me lie Glad did I live and gladly die And I lay me down with a will!
"This be the verse which you grave for me: "Here he lies where he longed to be, Home is the sailor, home from the sea, And the hunter home from the hill.""
These lines appear another place -- scrawled on a shipping tag torn from a compressed-air container, and pinned to the ground with a knife.
It wasn"t much of a fair, as fairs go. The trottin" races didn"t promise much excitement, even though several entries claimed the blood of the immortal Dan Patch. The tents and concession booths barely covered the circus grounds, and the pitchmen seemed discouraged.
D.D. Harriman"s chauffeur could not see any reason for stopping. They were due in Kansas City for a directors" meeting, that is to say, Harriman was. The chauffeur had private reasons for promptness, reasons involving darktown society on Eighteenth Street. But the Boss not only stopped, but hung around.
Bunting and a canvas arch made the entrance to a large enclosure beyond the race track. Red and gold letters announced:
This way to the MOON ROCKET!!!!
See it in actual flight!
Public Demonstration Flights Twice Daily This is the ACTUAL TYPE used by the First Man to reach the MOON!!!
YOU can ride in it!! -- $50.OO
A boy, nine or ten years old, hung around the entrance and stared at the posters.
"Want to see the ship, son?"
The kid"s eyes shone. "Gee, mister. I sure would."
"So would I. Come on." Harriman paid out a dollar for two pink tickets which ent.i.tled them to enter the enclosure and examine the rocket ship. The kid took his and ran on ahead with the single-mindedness of youth. Harriman looked over the stubby curved lines of the ovoid body. He noted with a professional eye that she was a single-jet type with fractional controls around her midriff. He squinted through his gla.s.ses at the name painted in gold on the carnival red of the body, _Care Free_. He paid another quarter to enter the control cabin.
When his eyes had adjusted to the gloom caused by the strong ray filters of the ports he let them rest lovingly on the keys of the console and the semi-circle of dials above. Each beloved gadget was in its proper place. He knew them, graven in his heart.
While he mused over the instrument board, with the warm liquid of content soaking through his body, the pilot entered and touched his arm.
"Sorry, sir. We"ve got to cast loose for the flight."
"Eh?" Harriman started, then looked at the speaker. Handsome devil, with a good skull and strong shoulders, reckless eyes and a self-indulgent mouth, but a firm chin. "Oh, excuse me, Captain."
"Quite all right."
"Oh, I say, Captain, er, uh. . ."
"McIntyre."
"Captain McIntyre, could you take a pa.s.senger this trip?" The old man leaned eagerly toward him.
"Why, yes, if you wish. Come along with me." He ushered Harriman into a shed marked OFFICE which stood near the gate. "Pa.s.senger for a check over, doc."
Harriman looked startled but permitted the medico to run a stethoscope over his thin chest, and to strap a rubber bandage around his arm. Presently he unstrapped it, glanced at McIntyre, and shook his head.
"No go, doc?"
"That"s right, Captain."
Harriman looked from face to face. "My heart"s all right -- that"s just a flutter."
The physician"s brows shot up. "Is it? But it"s not just your heart; at your age your bones are brittle, too brittle to risk a take-off."
"Sorry, sir," added the pilot, "but the Bates County Fair a.s.sociation pays the doctor here to see to it that I don"t take anyone up who might be hurt by the acceleration."
The old man"s shoulders drooped miserably. "I rather expected it."