«I’m a rocket mech, Bill. Union Transport doesn’t use rockets.»
«It would be administrative work, Max. From that point of view what’s the difference between rockets and stratojets?»
«I don’t like stratojets. That’s the difference.»
«Rockets are going out, Max. And besides—my God, you can’t be just a mech all your life.»
«Why can’t I? And damn it, rockets are not going out. Not until we get something better.»
Bill laughed. «Such as sewing machines?»
I’ll never live that sewing machine episode down.
I smiled back at him, though, because by now it was funny to me too. Maybe it had been funny even then. It had cost me nearly two weeks’ time and nearly a thousand dollars cash but a really good joke on yourself is worth at least that.
Bill cleared his throat again, but Merlene saved me. She said, «Oh, let him alone, Bill. He’s going, whatever we say, so why spoil the last evening?»
I walked across the room and patted her shoulder. «My angel,» I said. «Can we have a drink to that?»
For a moment she looked doubtful. I said patiently, «It’s all right, darling. I am not an alcoholic—at least not in the sense that I can’t do normal social drinking or even get pixilated once in a while without it ‘starting me off.’ Now in celebration of my imminent departure, may I mix us a round of martinis?»
She jumped up. «I’ll make them, Max.» She walked out of the room and her walk was a dance. Both Bill’s eyes and mine followed her.
«Good gal,» I told him.
«Max, why don’t you get married and settle down?»
«At my age? I’m too young to settle down.»
«Seriously.»
«I’m serious.»
Bill shook his head slowly. Well, that’s the way I felt about him and his way of life.
Merlene spared us pitying one another further by bringing in the drinks. We touched glasses.
«Luck to you, Max,» Merlene said. «Decided where you’re going?»
«San Francisco.»
«Rocket mech on Treasure Island again?»
«Probably, but not right away. I meant what I said about resting up a little first.»
«But why not stay here until you’re ready to go back to work?»
«Something happening there I want to look in on, maybe give a hand with. News item I heard on the viddy last night.»
Bill said, «Bet I know which item. That crazy dame who’s running for senator and wants to send a rocket to Jupiter. My God, Jupiter. What have Mars and Venus got us?»
My poor little brother, my poor brother who was rich in money and bereft of vision, my blind blind brother.
I said, «Listen, children, I’m going to catch the two a. m. jet plane. And it’s only eight o’clock now, so that’s six hours away. Here’s a suggestion. You two haven’t taken advantage of having an expert baby sitter since I’ve been here and this is your last chance. Why don’t you rev up the hellie and run into Seattle for an evening out. Night club or something, see some live entertainment. If you get back by one-thirty or so Bill can run me to the stratoport in plenty of time to make the plane.»
Merlene looked reproachful. «Your last evening here and you think we’d rather—»
«Whatever you’d rather,» I told her, «I’d rather you did. I’ve got some thinking to do and some planning. And some packing. Off with you.»
I talked them into it.
My suitcase by the door, ready. It wasn’t heavy; I travel lightly and live lightly. Physical possessions tie you down and God knows we’re tied down enough without them.
I went back upstairs to my bedroom, or to the room that had been my bedroom for the past three weeks and which was the guest room again now that all my things were out of it. This time I didn’t turn on the light. I tiptoed across the room quietly—as I had packed quietly, because it was right next to the room Billy and Easter were sleeping in—opened the window and stepped through it onto the railed upper porch.
It was a beautiful night. Warm and clear. Mount Ranier in the distance, the near distance.
Overhead and in the far distance the lights in the sky that are stars. The stars they tell us we can never reach because they are too far away. They lie; we’ll get there. If rockets won’t take us, something will.
There’s got to be an answer.
We got to the moon, didn’t we? And Mars and Venus—
Thank God I was in on that, back in the glorious sixties when man erupted suddenly into space, the first step, the first three steps toward the stars.
I was there, I was in on it. Spaceman First Class Max Andrews.
And now? What are we doing now to reach the stars?
The stars—listen, do you know what a star is?
Our sun is a star and all the stars in the sky are suns. We know now that most of them have planets revolving about them, as Earth and Mars and Venus and the other planets of the solar system revolve around our sun.
And there are a hell of a lot of stars.
That isn’t profanity; it’s understatement. There are about a thousand million stars in our own galaxy. A thousand million stars, most of them with planets. If they average only one planet apiece that’s a thousand million planets. If one out of a thousand of those planets happens to be Earth-type—one with a breathable atmosphere, about the same size and distance from its sun as Earth so its temperature and gravity would be similar—then there ought to be at least a million planets in our own galaxy which man can colonize and on which he can live a normal life, on which he can be fruitful and multiply.
A million worlds for us to reach and take and live on.
But that’s going to be only the start, the beginning. That’s only our own galaxy, as tiny in relation to the universe as our little solar system is to our galaxy.
There are a hell of a lot of galaxies. There are more galaxies of stars in the universe than there are stars in our own galaxy. At least a thousand million times a thousand million suns.
A million times a million planets, habitable by man. Do you know how that figures out? To twenty-five planets or so apiece for every member of the human race, every man, woman and child.
Since no one can populate a planet all by himself let’s say fifty planets per couple. Fifty planets, and if we hold the average population density down to three billion per planet, times fifty—we’ll have to get there first of course, but when we do it’s going to take a lot of multiplying to populate all those worlds. Well, the human race has always been good at that, hasn’t it?
Or maybe we’ll find some of them already populated. Well, that will be interesting too. Just what will they be populated with?
San Francisco at three-fifteen in the morning. The damn stratojet was late. They always are.
I bought a tabloid at the jetport on Angel Island and caught a helicab to Union Square, the only place right downtown where they’ll let the hellies land. To try my strength I walked up Nob Hill to the Mark; it winded me a little but not too badly.
The Mark’s an old hotel, run-down, and cheap—you can get a single for as little as fifteen a day. When I was a kid it was famous for its view of the harbor and the bridges; now there are mostly higher buildings around it. But if you can get a room above the seventh floor and on the California-Mason corner you can still see northeast over the low buildings of the Chinese section and you can see Treasure Island, where the rockets land. Maybe there’d be one going out or coming in tonight and even from a distance the sight of a rocket taking off or landing in the dark is a beautiful thing. I hadn’t seen a rocket for some months now and I was lonesome for the sight of one. I’d been away from them too long. So I asked for a high room in the right corner of the building.