Rocket to Limbo

Around it, well beyond the range of blast gases, crowds of people stood waiting silently, thinking in their hearts what they could not put into words. Across the land eyes were turned upward, hoping to catch at least a glimpse of the ship as she streaked up through the quiet sky. Others saw it on silvery screens, or listened to the excited voice of the 3-V announcer. One thing was certain—the eyes of Earth were on the Argonaut, a crowded, war-weary, overpopulated, hungry Earth. The people knew die hope that lay behind the voyage: that the Argonaut would find a place where Earthmen could settle, could build homes and colonies, and so relieve the terrific press of people on their own crowded planet.

But there was another reason too for the voyage. The stars were a challenge that Man had to answer sometime. The time had come at last.

A young woman of twenty stood in the crowd, watching the ship with sad eyes. Her husband placed his arm around her shoulder and drew her closer to him.

“How are you doing?” he asked.

She shivered. “I’m scared.”

“So am I. Everyone’s scared, in a way. It means so much, and it’s so frightening and yet so wonderful, too—you know?”

She nodded and clung closer. Her father was the first officer of the Argonaut. She knew she would never see him again, and she knew that he would never set foot on land again. The trip would take too long. His life was the ship now, and the ship was his life and responsibility, the ship and the children who would be born aboard it.

“John, I wish we could go along.”

He patted her shoulder. “I know. I do too. But our work is here.”

“A hundred years, maybe two hundred! How can they hope to make it?”

He watched the last of the ground-crew scurrying down the ramps, heard the expectant hush falling over the crowd. “I don’t know, but they’ll make it,” he said firmly. “They will—”

There was a restless stirring as the seconds passed. Then, like thunder gathering in the distance, rising louder and lounder, the roar began. White flame blossomed from the jet of the ship, billowed out in a searing mushroom against the fallout dampers, as the roar echoed and re-echoed down the valley. Slowly, as if lifted gently on the magic fire the ship rose; slowly, then faster, higher and higher. The mushroom became a tongue of fire as the roar rose to a scream and the ship drove heavenward. The eyes of Earth followed the great finger of light into the sky, not daring to breathe, waiting, waiting—

And then the ship was gone. A sigh rippled through the crowds of people, and they turned their faces away from the sky. Slowly the crowd began to melt away, leaving the granite pedestal with the bronze plaque sitting in the gathering dusk, waiting to receive the ship when she returned. When? No one knew. No one there would live to see it.

The Long Passage had begun.

The young woman clenched her husband’s hand, and without a word they turned away. She felt her child move within her, and she smiled.

He will be proud of his grandfather, she thought, if he’s a he.

She did not know that the great-grandson of this unborn son of hers would be the man who would give mankind a Short Passage to the stars.

Silently, John and Mary Koenig turned and left the field as darkness gathered.

Chapter One Star Ship Ganymede

Ad astra, the words on the bronze plaque read.

The block of granite that held the plaque was darkened with age; the bronze itself was green, the words obscure and hard to make out. Lars Heldrigsson shifted his Spacer’s pack down from his broad shoulder and bent over, squinting, to make out the letters.

Launched: March 3, 2008

Returned:

There was no date on the second line. Slowly the young man ran his eyes down the names of the crewmen and felt the old familiar prickle of wonder and excitement starting at the base of his spine. They must have been brave ones, those people, he thought. Trying to make a Star-jump with ordinary unassisted thrust engines! It seemed incredible, and yet they had done it. Where were they now? Dead long since, of course, but what about their grandchildren and great-grandchildren? Lars tried to imagine being born and raised in a Star Ship, depending upon tapes and films for knowledge of Earth and Earthmen left behind, never knowing the crunch of gravel under the feet, or the warm flush of a summer breeze on the cheek. Had they finally reached a landfall, ever, anywhere?

Certainly they had never returned to Earth. After three hundred and fifty years the granite launching rack still stood empty. The rocket port had grown up around it, engulfing it as the years passed, until it stood in the great central lobby of the busy Terminal, a silent monument to the desperation and bravery of the ship that was launched there.