The clasp finally broke when he pulled with his thumb. The rest of the hand hung, broken and disfigured. With a surge of power he pushed himself out of the chair. The femur in his right leg cracked and broke at the same time the lower strap did. Pulling with his good hand and pushing with his left leg he squirmed across the floor to the spacesuit cabinet.
The air in the cabin was almost a vacuum. He had to keep blinking to wash away the ice crystals that formed on his eyes. His heart was beating at four times its regular rate to force the trace of oxygen to the dying body.
Jon III was aware of these things, but they didn't bother him. His world had always been like that. The only way he could regain the peace of his mindless oblivion was to finish what he had started. He never knew, had never been taught, that dying was also a way out.
Carefully and methodically he pulled down the spacesuit and climbed into it. He turned the oxygen on and closed the last zipper. Then he closed his eyes with a sigh of relief.
Jon II opened his eyes and felt the pain. He could bear it now because he knew he was going to get out of this mess and save the ship. An emergency patch stopped the rush of air and while pressure was building up from the reserve tanks he examined the board. The ship could be flown on the secondary and manual circuits. All he had to do was rig them.
When the pressure reached seven pounds he stripped off the space-suit and gave himself first aid. He was a little surprised to see the state his right hand was in. He couldn't remember doing that. Jon II wasn't equipped to solve that kind of problem though. He hurried the dressings and burn ointment and turned back to his repairs. It was going to be a successful trip after all.
Jon never knew about Jon III — he was the unknown safety factor that was there always, dormant and waiting. Jon I thought Jon II had got them out of the mess. Jon II didn't bother to think about things like that. His job was to fly the ship.
Jon recuperated slowly at the hospital on Jupiter 8. He was amazed at the amount of damage his body had suffered, yet pulled through. The pain was bad for a long time, but he didn't really mind. It wasn't too high a price to pay.
He wasn't going to be a liar anymore. He had been a pilot, even if for only a few seconds.
He had seen the stars in space.
THE LIGHT FANTASTIC
In my magazine-editing days I edited an issue or two of a magazine titled Fantasy Fiction. I took over as editor from Fletcher Pratt when he stepped down to sue the publisher. (All the other editors helped him with the lawsuit since the publisher was uniformly hated by his staff.) I even wrote a fantasy novella with Kay MacLean titled Web of the Norns. Published, I believe, in this same magazine.
I also bought a complete run of Unknown since Brian Aldiss and I were to edit Best from Unknown to follow our Best from Astounding-Analog anthology. Alas, this never came to pass.
But as much as I enjoy fantasy a look at the record reveals that I obviously do not seem to be writing it. Out of all my short stories I find just two that can be called fantasy. This was never a deliberate decision, just that when my mind thinks "story" — it doesn't think "fantasy."
At Last, the True Story of Frankenstein
"And here, before your very eyes, is the very same monster built by my much-admired great-great-grandfather, Victor Frankenstein, built by him from pieces of corpses out of the dissecting rooms, stolen parts of bodies freshly buried in the grave, and even chunks of animals from the slaughterhouse. Now look—" The tailcoated man on the platform swung his arm out in a theatrical gesture and the heads of the close-packed crowd below swung to follow it. The dusty curtains flapped aside and the monster stood there, illuminated from above by a sickly green light. There was a concerted gasp from the crowd and a shiver of motion.
In the front row, pressed against the rope barrier, Dan Bream mopped his face with a soggy handkerchief and smiled. It wasn't such a bad monster, considering that this was a cheapjack carnival playing the small-town southern circuit. It had a dead-white skin, undampened by sweat even in this steambath of a tent, glazed eyes, stitches and seams showing where the face had been patched together, and the two metal plugs projecting from the temples — just like in the movie.
"Raise your right arm!" Victor Frankenstein V commanded, his brusque German accent giving the words a Prussian air of authority. The monster's body did not move, but slowly — with the jerking motion of a badly operating machine — the creature's arm came up to shoulder height and stopped.
"This monster, built from pieces from the dead, cannot die, and if a piece gets too worn out I simply stitch on a new piece with the secret formula passed down from father to son from my great-greatgrandfather. It cannot die nor feel pain — as you see—"
This time the gasp was even louder and some of the audience turned away while others watched with eager eyes. The barker had taken a foot-long and wickedly sharp needle, and had pushed it firmly through the monster's biceps until it protruded on both sides. No blood stained it and the creature made no motion, as though completely unaware that anything had been done to its flesh.
"… impervious to pain, extremes of heat and cold, and possessing the strength of ten men…"
Behind him the voice droned on, but Dan Bream had had enough. He had seen the performance three times before, which was more than satisfactory for what he needed to know, and if he stayed in the tent another minute he would melt. The exit was close by and he pushed through the gaping, pallid audience and out into the humid dusk. It wasn't much cooler outside. Life borders on the unbearable along the shores of the Gulf of Mexico in August, and Panama City, Florida, was no exception. Dan headed for the nearest air-conditioned beer joint and sighed with relief as the chill atmosphere closed around his steaming garments. The beer bottle frosted instantly with condensation as did the heavy glass stein, cold from the freezer. The first big swallow cut a path straight down to his stomach. He took the beer over to one of the straight-backed wooden booths, wiped the table off with a handful of paper napkins and flopped onto the bench. From the inner pocket of his jacket he took some folded sheets of yellow copy paper, now slightly soggy, and spread them before him. After adding some lines to the scribbled notes he stuffed them back into his jacket and took a long pull on his beer. Dan was halfway through his second bottle when the barker, who called himself Frankenstein the Fifth, came in. His stage personality had vanished along with the frock coat and a monocle, and the Prussian haircut now looked like a common crewcut.
"You've got a great act," Dan called out cheerfully, and waved the man over. "Will you join me for a drink?"
"Don't mind if I do," Frankenstein answered in the pure nasal vowels of New York City, the German accent apparently having disappeared along with the monocle. "And see if they have a Schlitz or a Bud or anything beside the local swamp water."
He settled into the booth while Dan went for the beers, and groaned when he saw the labels on the bottles.
"At least it's cold," he said, shaking salt into his to make it foamy, then half-drained the stein in a long deep swallow. "I noticed you out there in front of the clems for most of the shows today. Do you like the act — or you a carny buff?"
"It's a good act. I'm a newsman, name's Dan Bream."
"Always pleased to meet the press, Dan. Publicity is the life of show business, as the man said. I'm Stanley Arnold — call me Stan."
"Then Frankenstein is just your stage name?"
"What else? You act kinda dim for a reporter — are you sure. .?" He waved away the Press card that Dan pulled from his breast pocket. "No, I believe you, Dan, but you gotta admit the question was a little on the rube side. I bet you even think that I have a real monster in there!"