I called the hospital and was told Ellen had had a quiet night and that her condition was good. Grundleman hadn’t come in yet so I couldn’t ask about visiting Ellen. I left word to have him call me as soon as he came in.
I phoned room service and had a triple-sized breakfast sent up to my room so I wouldn’t have to get away from the telephone. I ate all of it.
Grundleman phoned a little after nine o’clock. He told me that Ellen was «resting nicely.»
«Is that double-talk or does it mean that the odds are better?»
«Much better. They’re definitely, strongly in her favor now.»
«Will I be able to see her this afternoon?»
«Probably. Want to phone me about one o’clock? Or are you going to stay in your room where I can reach you?»
«Both,» I said. «I’ll be here if you want to reach me, and I’ll phone you at one if I haven’t heard from you sooner.»
I knew he wouldn’t be calling back right away so it was a good time for me to try to reach Klockerman in Africa, which might tie up my phone for a while. I knew he’d want to know about Ellen and I thought too that I’d better let him know that I was playing hooky from the job he’d given me. He might even want to rocket back and take over himself if he didn’t think the man I’d put in charge there could handle things.
I knew he was in Johannesburg and told the operator she could probably find out where he was staying by checking with the American embassy there. She could and did; within twenty minutes I was telling him what had happened.
«Thank God,» he said, when I’d brought him up to date on Ellen. «It’s odds-on now, then?»
«Definitely. But what about the job? I left Gresham in charge. Can he handle it?»
«Hell yes; don’t worry about it. I’m not going to. Just keep me posted on Ellen. Call me again if there’s any change or let me know when she’s out of danger. How’s everything on the Jupiter deal? I know it went through okay—we got that news even over here. But I mean your tie-in with it. All okay?»
I told him it was and explained how Ellen had endangered herself by holding off on the operation until she had everything wrapped up for me.
He said, «She’s a wonderful woman, Max.»
As though he was telling me something I didn’t know.
Grundleman beat me to the punch. I’d been watching the time to call him at one o’clock and my phone rang three minutes sooner.
He said, «She’s doing fine and she’s awake now. You can have half an hour with her whenever you get here. But please stop in my office first; I want to talk to you.»
«You’re talking to me now. Tell me whatever it is now and save me worrying on the way over. Is anything wrong?»
«Not exactly. Physically, she’s doing fine, considering the operation was what it was and was less than twenty-four hours ago. But something’s wrong with her morale. For some reason she’s feeling depressed and pessimistic, much more so than she was before the operation—and God knows there was cause for it then. That’s why I’m allowing you as much as half an hour with her. I want you to cheer her up, tell her I told you that the operation was a complete success and that she’s past all danger. I told her that myself, but she doesn’t quite believe me.»
«I’ll tell her. But is she out of danger?»
«Almost.»
«I don’t know what almost means. Quote me odds.»
«Well—as of this moment I’d say she has three chances out of four.»
«Right,» I said. «That’s language I can understand. And I’ll do my best to cheer her up. Only I’ve got a suggestion I want you to consider.»
«What is it?»
«That you let me tell her the truth. If I try to lie to her, as you did, she’ll know it even more surely than she knew you were lying. Let me level with her and tell her she now has three chances out of four. She’ll not only like that but she’ll believe it, and it’ll do her more good than all the lies I could tell her.»
«Hmmm. Maybe you’ve got something there, Mr. Andrews. Only let’s stretch it a little. Say nine chances out of ten.»
«The truth or nothing. She’ll know if I stretch it.»
«All right then, the truth. But remember, don’t get excited about anything while you’re with her, and don’t let her get excited either. If you want to kiss her, do so lightly, and don’t let her move her head. But she knows about that.»
Thick white bandages this time instead of chestnut hair. But she smiled up at me. «Hope I haven’t worried you too much, darling.»
«You’ve been worrying me plenty, but don’t worry about me. How are you feeling? Any pain?»
«No pain, but I feel awfully weak. You’d better do most of the talking.»
I pulled up a chair close. «Fine. What shall I talk about?»
«First, have they told you the truth about my chances as of now?»
«Yes,» I said, and told her in detail about my conversation with Grundleman on the phone.
Her eyes brightened a little. «Fine, Max. Yes, you were right. It’s a lot better to know the real odds, when they’re three to one in my favor, than to be handed a line and have to wonder. Three chances out of four; that’s better than I’d guessed. I feel better to know the truth.»
«I knew you would. All right, anything special you want me I’d talk about?»
«About yourself, darling. What you told me yesterday, the sewing machine episode, made me realize how little I knew about you except while you were a spaceman or learning to be one. Before you were seventeen and after you became a rocket mech. What was your childhood like?»
«Nothing very exciting. I was born in Chicago, as I told you, in nineteen-forty. In a four-room third-story flat over a paint store on State Street ten blocks south of the Loop; that was a tough district then.
«I was second of three children; had a sister two years older than I; she died about twenty years ago. And one brother five years younger—Bill. Our old man was a streetcar conductor, and a pretty heavy drinker.
«I grew up as a tough kid, ran with a gang that committed petty crimes and a few that weren’t so damn petty. A lot of my childhood playmates ended up behind bars, and I don’t mean as bartenders. I guess only one thing saved me from going the same way.
«From the time I could read, I read all the science fiction I could lay my hot little hands on. Comic books—remember them? Then magazines and novels. There was wonderful stuff being written then—or it seemed wonderful to me. Adventures on Mars and the other planets and across the galaxy and to the farthest galaxies. They knew space travel was coming, the boys who wrote those early science fiction yarns. They had the Dream, and they gave me the Dream. There was stardust in what they wrote, and it got in my eyes. I knew space travel was coming and I knew I was going to be a spaceman.
«That’s what kept me in line, kept me from going too far astray. I knew I had to keep my name off the police blotter, keep out of the reformatory, or they wouldn’t let me in the space corps when one was formed. That’s what kept me in school when my friends stayed out, because I was able to figure even then that I’d have to have an education to go where I wanted to go.
«God, the fights I had because I wouldn’t duck school with the kids I ran with and they thought I was sissy, or when they thought I was yellow because I wouldn’t risk getting a record by helping them roll drunks or burgle stores. Did me good, though; toughened me up and taught me that nothing is easy and you have to fight for what you want. I wanted space, and I fought for it.
«And all the while we were growing up and living under the shadow of the A-bomb, under the threat of all-out atomic war any minute—and I was glad of it, reveled in it. I loved it because I could see even then that it was fear and fear only that would ever make a government spend the billions it would have to spend to get us the space station and the moon and the planets. I didn’t care how big a risk we were taking, didn’t care how afraid we got to be, if being afraid got us started toward the stars.