Rocket to Limbo

“But isn’t that a challenge? They took an icy wasteland here and made it the richest wheatland in the world. Look at the valley of the Amazon. It was a jungle once. Now its crops feed millions of people. Siberia, Antarctica—rich lands, son. There’s work for you here on Earth.”

The clatter of dishes in the kitchen had stopped, and Lars knew his mother was listening. He shook his head. “I’ve thought about it, and it’s no good. This is your frontier, not mine. There’s no more room on Earth, hasn’t been for years. We need colonies, and the Star Ships have to find them. And I couldn’t have a better ship than the Ganymede. You know that Commander Fox is the best planet-breaker in the business.”

“It’s a dangerous business.”

Lars grinned. “Is that supposed to scare me off?”

“But you don’t know how dangerous it may be,” his mother said from the doorway. “Suppose you found aliens on some planet you went to, some race of horrible monsters.”

Lars laughed and gave her a bear hug. “Now you’re just digging up things to worry about. There aren’t any monsters. Hundreds of ships have gone to hundreds of stars and never a monster. At least not an intelligent monster. They haven’t found a single sign of alien intelligence anywhere. There aren’t any aliens.”

“Your Commander Fox thinks there are,” his father said soberly.

“He’s never found any. I don’t think he ever will, either. It’s just a pet idea of his.”

“We still hate to see you go.”

“You’d think I was going on a Long Passage or something,” Lars said. “It isn’t like that. With Koenig drive in our ship we’ll be out to Vega III and back in two months. I won’t be gone for so long.”

And yet now, as he slipped into the factory-fresh uniform and checked his pack again, he felt a pang of regret at leaving the place where he was born and raised, where his family had lived since his great-grandfather had come north from Iceland to break the newly opened wheatland. It was a good home, and he would always love it, but he knew that his frontier, somehow, was on the other side of the hill.

Showered, and immaculate in the new uniform, Lars stopped at an Eating Bar for coffee and a burger-steak, offering his Colonial Service card to the robot cashier. Then he stepped onto the rolling strip again. His Service Card and order sheets were in his pocket, readily at hand. As he reached the loading gates, he noticed that no shuttle car was waiting at the end of the strip, which seemed strange. Usually a car waited at each gate to carry passengers out to the ships. He flashed his card briskly to the guard at the gate and started to push through the turnstile to the shuttle platform.

“Hold it, there!”

He stopped. The guard was staring at him suspiciously. “What’s wrong?” Lars asked.

“You,” said the guard. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“To the Ganymede.”

“The Ganymede is off limits to all personnel. That’s straight from Security.”

“But I’m on the crew of the Ganymede,” Lars protested. “I can show you my orders.”

Out of nowhere a gray-cloaked officer of the Security Police had appeared at Lars’ side. “Trouble here?”

The guard nodded vigorously. “Caught this man trying to board the Ganymede. You know our special orders.”

“Of course.” The Security man turned his eyes to Lars. “You have papers?”

“Look, I belong on the Ganymede,” Lars said hotly. “What’s all the trouble?”

“If what you say is so, you have papers to prove it. Let me see them.”

Lars fumbled open his order sheets and handed them over. The officer scanned them. “Sorry. This won’t quite do. You’d better come along with me.”

“But it says right there—”

“I can see what it says. I see a robotyped order sheet carrying a robotyped authorization to go aboard. But I don’t see any countersignature.”

Lars’ jaw sagged and he felt his face flushing. “I—I forgot to get it. I was just starting my leave when the orders came, and it slipped my mind in the rush of things—”

The Officer gave him a peculiar look. “That so? You’d better come along with me.”

Lars followed the Security man down a side corridor and into an elevator. Moments later they emerged into a long room one side of which was lined with cubicles. The officer stopped at a desk, flipped the switch on a viewscreen. “Hardy here,” he said. “Get Jackson down here, and contact the Ganymede for me right away. We have a man here trying to crash the gate. May be carrying forged orders, we’ll soon know. Yes, yes, of course it’s urgent!”

He broke contact and turned to Lars. “Now, then. Lets see about those orders. In here.”

He led Lars into a cubicle and strapped him into the seat of an Identi-robot. Lars pressed his palms against the charged metal plates, winced as the bright purple flash of the retinoscope clicked in his eyes. His card and orders were placed in a photochamber.

“I don’t see why you’re making all this fuss,” he said.

“Suppose I weren’t authorized to go aboard the Ganymede? So what? Would it be such a crime?”