STARMAN JONES, 1953 by Robert A. Heinlein. A Puke(TM) Audiobook

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STARMAN JONES by Robert A. Heinlein.
Copyright 1953 by Robert A. Heinlein.
Published by Ballantine Books All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States of America by Ballantine Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
This edition published by arrangement with Charles Scribner’s Sons First Ballantine Books Edition: February 1975
ISBN 0-345-32811-6
For my friend Jim Smith
Reformatted for Machine Text, PukeOnaPlate MMXXIII
CONTENTS
1. The Tomahawk
2. Good Samaritan
3. Earthport
4. The Astrogators’ Guild
5. “… Your Money and My Know-How …”
6. “Spaceman” Jones
7. Eldreth
8. Three Ways to Get Ahead
9. Chartsman Jones
10. Garson’s Planet
11. “Through the Cargo Hatch”
12. Halcyon
13. Transition
14. Anywhere
15. “This Isn’t a Picnic”
16. “, Over a Hundred Years, ”
17. Charity
18. Civilization
19. A Friend in Need
20. “, A Ship Is Not Just Steel, ”
21. The Captain of the Asgard
22. The Tomahawk

STARMAN JONES.
Copyright 1953 by Robert Heinlein.
One.
THE TOMAHAWK.
Max liked this time of day, this time of year. With the crops in, he could finish his evening chores early and be lazy. When he had slopped the hogs and fed the chickens, instead of getting supper he followed a path to a rise west of the barn and lay down in the grass, unmindful of chiggers. He had a book with him that he had drawn from the county library last Saturday, Bonforte’s Sky Beasts: A Guide to Exotic Zoology, but he tucked it under his head as a pillow. A blue jay made remarks about his honesty, then shut up when he failed to move. A red squirrel sat on a stump and stared at him, then went on burying nuts.
Max kept his eyes to the northwest. He favored this spot because from it he could see the steel stilts and guide rings of the Chicago, Springfield, and Earthport Ring Road emerge from a slash in the ridge to his right. There was a guide ring at the mouth of the cut, a great steel hoop twenty feet high. A pair of stilt-like tripods supported another ring a hundred feet out from the cut. A third and last ring, its stilts more than a hundred feet high to keep it level with the others, lay west of him where the ground dropped still more sharply into the valley below. Half way up it he could see the powerlink antenna pointing across the gap.
On his left the guides of the C S and E picked up again on the far side of the gap. The entering ring was larger to allow for maximum windage deviation; on its stilts was the receptor antenna for the power link. That ridge was steeper; there was only one more ring before the road disappeared into a tunnel. He had read that, on the Moon, entrance rings were no larger than pass-along rings, since there was never any wind to cause variation in ballistic. When he was a child this entrance ring had been slightly smaller and, during an unprecedented windstorm, a train had struck the ring and produced an unbelievable wreck, with more than four hundred people killed. He had not seen it and his father had not allowed him to poke around afterwards because of the carnage, but the scar of it could still be seen on the lefthand ridge, a darker green than the rest.
He watched the trains go by whenever possible, not wishing the passengers any bad luck, but still, if there should happen to be a catastrophe, he didn’t want to miss it.
Max kept his eyes fixed on the cut; the Tomahawk was due any instant.
Suddenly there was a silver gleam, a shining cylinder with needle nose burst out of the cut, flashed through the last ring and for a breathless moment was in free trajectory between the ridges. Almost before he could swing his eyes the projectile entered the ring across the gap and disappeared into the hillside, just as the sound hit him.
It was a thunderclap that bounced around the hills. Max gasped for air.
“Boy!” he said softly. “Boy, oh boy!” The incredible sight and the impact on his ears always affected him the same way. He had heard that for the passengers the train was silent, with the sound trailing them, but he did not know; he had never ridden a train and it seemed unlikely, with Maw and the farm to take care of, that he ever would.
He shifted to a sitting position and opened his book, holding it so that he would be aware of the southwestern sky. Seven minutes after the passing of the Tomahawk he should be able to see, on a clear evening, the launching orbit of the daily Moonship. Although much father away and much less dramatic than the nearby jump of the ring train it was this that he had come to see.
Ring trains were all right, but spaceships were his love, even a dinky like the moon shuttle.
But he had just found his place, a description of the intelligent but phlegmatic crustaceans of Epsilon Ceti Four, when he was interrupted by a call behind him. “Oh, Maxie! Maximilian! Max, mi, yan!”
He held still and said nothing.
“Max! I can see you, Max, you come at once, hear me?”
He muttered to himself and got to his feet. He moved slowly down the path, watching the sky over his shoulder until the barn cut off his view. Maw, was back and that was that, she’d make his life miserable if he didn’t come in and help. When she had left that morning he had had the impression that she would be gone overnight, not that she had said so; she never did, but he had learned to read the signs. Now he would have to listen to her complaints and her petty gossip when he wanted to read, or just as bad, be disturbed by the slobbering stereovision serials she favored. He had often been tempted to sabotage the pesky SV set, by rights with an ax! He hardly ever got to see the programs he liked.
When he got in sight of the house he stopped suddenly. He had supposed that Maw had ridden the bus from the Corners and walked up the draw, as usual.
But there was a sporty little unicycle standing near the stoop, and there was someone with her.
He had thought at first it was a “foreigner”, but when he got closer he recognized the man. Max would rather have seen a foreigner, any foreigner.
Biff Montgomery was a Hillman but he didn’t work a farm; Max couldn’t remember having seen him do any honest work. He had heard it said that Montgomery sometimes hired out as a guard when one of the moonshine stills back in the hills was operating and it might be so, Montgomery was a big, beefy man and the part might fit him.
Max had known Montgomery as long as he could remember, seen him loafing around Clyde’s Corners. But he had ordinarily given him “wagon room” and had had nothing to do with him, until lately: Maw had started being seen with him, even gone to barn dances and huskings with him.
Max had tried to tell her that Dad wouldn’t have liked it. But you couldn’t argue with Maw, what she didn’t like she just didn’t hear.
But this was the first time she had ever brought him to the house. Max felt a slow burn of anger starting in him.
“Hurry up, Maxie!” Maw called out. “Don’t stand there like a dummy.” Max reluctantly moved along and joined them. Maw said, “Maxie, shake hands with your new father,” then looked roguish, as if she had said something witty. Max stared and his mouth sagged open.
Montgomery grinned and stuck out a hand. “Yep, Max, you’re Max Montgomery now, I’m your new pop. But you can call me Monty.”
Max stared at the hand, took it briefly. “My name is Jones,” he said flatly.
“Maxie!” protested Maw.
Montgomery laughed jovially. “Don’t rush him, Nellie my love. Let Max get used to it. Live and let live; that’s my motto.” He turned to his wife.
“Half a mo’, while I get the baggage.” From one saddlebag of the unicycle he extracted a wad of mussed clothing; from the other, two flat pint bottles.
Seeing Max watching him he winked and said, “A toast for the bride.”
His bride was standing by the door; he started to brush on past her. She protested, “But Monty darling, aren’t you going to.”
Montgomery stopped. “Oh. I haven’t much experience in these things.
Sure.” He turned to Max,” Here, take the baggage”, and shoved bottles and clothes at him. Then he swung her up in his arms, grunting a bit, and carried her over the threshold, put her down and kissed her while she squealed and blushed. Max silently followed them, put the items on the table and turned to the stove. It was cold, he had not used it since breakfast. There was an electric range but it had burned out before his father had died and there had never been money to repair it. He took out his pocket knife, made shavings, added kindling and touched the heap with an Everlite.
When it flared up he went out to fetch a pail of water.
When he came back Montgomery said, “Wondered where you’d gone. Doesn’t this dump even have running water?”
“No,” Max set the pail down, then added a couple of chunks of cord wood to the fire.
His Maw said, “Maxie, you should have had dinner ready.”
Montgomery interceded pleasantly with, “Now, my dear, he didn’t know we were coming. And it leaves time for a toast.” Max kept his back to them, giving his full attention to slicing side meat. The change was so overwhelming that he had not had time to take it in.
Montgomery called to him. “Here, son! Drink your toast to the bride.”
“I’ve got to get supper.”
“Nonsense! Here’s your glass. Hurry up.”
Montgomery had poured a finger of amber liquid into the glass; his own glass was half full and that of his bride at least a third. Max accepted it and went to the pail, thinned it with a dipper of water.
“You’ll ruin it.”
“I’m not used to it.”
“Oh, well. Here’s to the blushing bride, and our happy family! Bottoms up!”
Max took a cautious sip and put it down. It tasted to him like the bitter tonic the district nurse had given him one spring. He turned back to his work, only to be interrupted again. “Hey, you didn’t finish it.”
“Look, I got to cook. You don’t want me to burn supper, do you?”
Montgomery shrugged. “Oh, well, the more for the rest of us. We’ll use yours for a chaser. Sonny boy, when I was your age I could empty a tumbler neat and then stand on my hands.”
Max had intended to sup on side meat and warmed-over biscuits, but there was only half a pan left of the biscuits. He scrambled eggs in the grease of the side meat, brewed coffee, and let it go at that. When they sat down Montgomery looked at it and announced, “My dear, starting tomorrow I’ll expect you to live up to what you told me about your cooking. Your boy isn’t much of a cook.” Nevertheless he ate heartily. Max decided not to tell him that he was a better cook than Maw, he’d find out soon enough.
Presently Montgomery sat back and wiped his mouth, then poured himself more coffee and lighted a cigar. Maw said, “Maxie, dear, what’s the dessert?”
“Dessert? Well, there’s that ice cream in the freezer, left over from Solar Union Day.”
She looked vexed. “Oh, dear! I’m afraid it’s not there.”
“Huh?”
“Well, I’m afraid I sort of ate it one afternoon when you were out in the south field. It was an awfully hot day.”
Max did not say anything, he was unsurprised. But she was not content to leave it. “You didn’t fix any dessert, Max? But this is a special occasion.”
Montgomery took his cigar out of his mouth. “Stow it, my dear,” he said kindly. “I’m not much for sweets, I’m a meat-and-potatoes man, sticks to the ribs. Let’s talk of pleasanter things.” He turned to Max. “Max, what can you do besides farm?”
Max was startled. “Huh? I’ve never done anything else. Why?”
Montgomery touched the ash of the cigar to his plate. “Because you are all through farming.”
For the second time in two hours Max had more change than he could grasp. “Why? What do you mean?”
“Because we’ve sold the farm.”
Max felt as if he had had a rug jerked out from under him. But he could tell from Maw’s face that it was true. She looked the way she always did when she had put one over on him, triumphant and slightly apprehensive.
“Dad wouldn’t like that,” he said to her harshly. “This land has been in our family for four hundred years.”
“Now, Maxie! I’ve told you I don’t know how many times that I wasn’t cut out for a farm. I was city raised.”
“Clyde’s Corners! Some city!”
“It wasn’t a farm. And I was just a young girl when your father brought me here, you were already a big boy. I’ve still got my life before me. I can’t live it buried on a farm.”
Max raised his voice. “But you promised Dad you’d.”
“Stow it,” Montgomery said firmly. “And keep a civil tongue in your head when you speak to your mother, and to me.”
Max shut up.
“The land is sold and that’s that. How much do you figure this parcel is worth?”
“Why, I’ve never thought about it.”
“Whatever you thought, I got more.” He gave Max a wink. “Yes, sir! It was a lucky day for your mother and you when she set her cap for me. I’m a man with his ear to the ground. I knew why an agent was around buying up these worn-out, worthless pieces of property. I.”
“I use government fertilizers.”
“Worthless I said and worthless I meant. For farming, that is.” He put his finger along his nose, looked sly, and explained. It seemed that some big government power project was afoot for which this area had been selected, Montgomery was mysterious about it, from which Max concluded that he didn’t know very much. A syndicate was quietly buying up land in anticipation of government purchase. “So we held ‘em up for five times what they expected to pay. Pretty good, huh?”
Maw put in, “You see, Maxie? If your father had known that we would ever get.”
“Quiet, Nellie!”
“But I was just going to tell him how much.”
“‘Quiet!’ I said.”
She shut up. Montgomery pushed his chair back, stuck his cigar in his mouth, and got up. Max put water on to heat for the dishes, scraped the plates and took the leavings out to the chickens. He stayed out quite a spell, looking at the stars and trying to think. The idea of having Biff Montgomery in the family shook him to his bones. He wondered just what rights a stepfather had, or, rather a step-stepfather, a man who had married his stepmother. He didn’t know.
Presently he decided that he had to go back inside, much as he hated to.
He found Montgomery standing at the bookshelf he had built over the stereo receiver; the man was pawing at the books and had piled several on the receiver. He looked around. “You back? Stick around, I want you to tell me about the live stock.”
Maw appeared in the doorway. “Darling,” she said to Montgomery, “can’t that wait till morning?”
“Don’t be in a hurry, my dear,” he answered. “That auctioneer fellow will be here early. I’ve got to have the inventory ready.” He continued to pull books down. “Say, these are pretty things.” He held in his hands half a dozen volumes, printed on the finest of thin paper and bound in limp plastic.
“I wonder what they’re worth? Nellie, hand me my specs.”
Max advanced hastily, reached for them. “Those are mine!”
“Huh?” Montgomery glanced at him, then held the books high in the air.
“You’re too young to own anything. No, everything goes. A clean sweep and a fresh start.”
“They’re mine! My uncle gave them to me.” He appealed to his mother.
“Tell him, Maw.”
Montgomery said quietly, “Yes, Nellie, set this youngster straight, before I have to correct him.”
Nellie looked worried. “Well, I don’t rightly know. They did belong to Chet.”
“And Chet was your brother? Then you’re Chet’s heir, not this young cub.”
“He wasn’t her brother, he was her brother-in-law!”
“So? No matter. Your father was your uncle’s heir, then, and your mother is your father’s heir. Not you, you’re a minor. That’s the law, son. Sorry.”
He put the books on the shelf but remained standing in front of them.
Max felt his right upper lip begin to twitch uncontrollably; he knew that he would not be able to talk coherently. His eyes filled with tears of rage so that he could hardly see. “You, you, thief!”
Nellie let out a squawk. “Max!”
Montgomery’s face became coldly malignant. “Now you’ve gone too far. I’m afraid you’ve earned a taste of the strap.” His fingers started unbuckling his heavy belt.
Max took a step backward. Montgomery got the belt loose and took a step forward. Nellie squealed, “Monty! Please!”
“Keep out of this, Nellie.” To Max he said, “We might as well get it settled once and for all who is boss around here. Apologize!”
Max did not answer. Montgomery repeated, “Apologize, and we’ll say no more about it.” He twitched the belt like a cat lashing its tail. Max took another step back; Montgomery stepped forward and grabbed at him.
Max ducked and ran out the open door into darkness. He did not stop until he was sure that Montgomery was not following. Then he caught his breath, still raging. He was almost sorry that Montgomery had not chased him; he didn’t think that anyone could match him on his home grounds in the dark.
He knew where the wood pile was; Montgomery didn’t. He knew where the hog wallow was. Yes, he knew where the well was, even that.
It was a long time before he quieted down enough to think rationally.
When he did, he was glad it had ended so easily, Montgomery outweighed him a lot and was reputed to be a mean one in a fight.
If it had ended, he corrected. He wondered if Montgomery would decide to forget it by morning. The light was still on in the living room; he took shelter in the barn and waited, sitting down on the dirt floor and leaning against the planks. After a while he felt terribly tired. He considered sleeping in the barn but there was no fit place to lie down, even though the old mule was dead. Instead he got up and looked at the house.
The light was out in the living room, but he could see a light in the bedroom; they were still awake, surely. Someone had closed the outer door after his flight; it did not lock so there was no difficulty getting in, but he was afraid that Montgomery might hear him. His own room was a shed added at the kitchen end of the main room, opposite the bedroom, but it had no outside door.
No matter, he had solved that problem when he had first grown old enough to wish to get in and out at night without consulting his elders. He crept around the house, found the saw horse, placed it under his window, got on and wiggled loose the nail that held the window. A moment later he stepped silently down into his own room. The door to the main part of the house was closed but he decided not to risk switching on the light. Montgomery might take it into his head to come out into the living room and see a crack of light under his door. He slipped quietly out of his clothes and crawled into his cot.
Sleep wouldn’t come. Once he began to feel that warm drowsiness, then some tiny noise had brought him wide, stiff awake. Probably just a mouse, but for an instant he had thought that Montgomery was standing over his bed. With his heart pounding, he sat up on the edge of his cot, still in his skin.
Presently he faced up to the problem of what he was to do, not just for the next hour, not just tomorrow morning, but the following morning and all the mornings after that. Montgomery alone presented no problem; he would not voluntarily stay in the same county with the man. But how about Maw?
His father had told him, when he had known that he was dying, “Take care of your mother, son.” Well, he had done so. He had made a crop every year, food in the house and a little money, even if things had been close.
When the mule died, he had made do, borrowing McAllister’s team and working it out in labor.
But had Dad meant that he had to take care of his stepmother even if she remarried? It had never occurred to him to consider it. Dad had told him to look out for her and he had done so, even though it had put a stop to school and did not seem to have any end to it.
But she was no longer Missus Jones but Missus Montgomery. Had Dad meant for him to support Missus Montgomery?
Of course not! When a woman married, her husband supported her.
Everybody knew that. And Dad wouldn’t expect him to put up with Montgomery. He stood up, his mind suddenly made up.
The only question was what to take with him.
There was little to take. Groping in the dark he found the rucksack he used for hunting hikes and stuffed into it his other shirt and his socks. He added Uncle Chet’s circular astrogation slide rule and the piece of volcanic glass his uncle had brought back for him from the Moon. His citizen’s identification card, his toothbrush, and his father’s razor, not that he needed that very often, about completed the plunder.
There was a loose board back of his cot. He felt for it, pulled it out and groped between the studs, found nothing. He had been hiding a little money from time to time against a rainy day, as Maw couldn’t or wouldn’t save. But apparently she had found it on one of her snooping tours. Well, he still had to leave; it just made it a little more difficult.
He took a deep breath. There was something he must get, Uncle Chet’s books, and they were still (presumably) on the shelf against the wall common with the bedroom. But he had to get them, even at the risk of meeting Montgomery.
Cautiously, most slowly, he opened the door into the living room, stood there with sweat pouring down him. There was still a crack of light under the bedroom door and he hesitated, almost unable to force himself to go on. He heard Montgomery muttering something and Maw giggle.
As his eyes adjusted he could see by the faint light leaking out under the bedroom door something piled at the outer door. It was a deadfall alarm of pots and pans, sure to make a dreadful clatter if the door were opened.
Apparently Montgomery had counted on him coming back and expected to be ready to take care of him. He was very glad that he had sneaked in the window.
No use putting it off, he crept across the floor, mindful of the squeaky board near the table. He could not see but he could feel and the volumes were known to his fingers. Carefully he slid them out, being sure not to knock over the others.
He was all the way back to his own door when he remembered the library book. He stopped in sudden panic.
He couldn’t go back. They might hear him this time, or Montgomery might get up for a drink of water or something.
But in his limited horizon, the theft of a public library book, or failure to return it, which was the same thing, was, if not a mortal sin, at least high on the list of shameful crimes. He stood there, sweating and thinking about it.
Then he went back, the whole long trek, around the squeaky board and tragically onto one he had not remembered. He froze after he hit it, but apparently it had not alarmed the couple in the room beyond. At last he was leaning over the SV receiver and groping at the shelf.
Montgomery, in pawing the books, had changed their arrangement. One after another he had to take them down and try to identify it by touch, opening each and feeling for the perforations on the title page.
It was the fourth one he handled. He got back to his room hurrying slowly, unbearably anxious but afraid to move fast. There at last, he began to shake and had to wait until it wore off. He didn’t chance closing his door but got into his clothes in the dark. Moments later he crept through his window, found the saw horse with his toe, and stepped quietly to the ground.
His shoes were stuffed on top of the books in his rucksack; he decided to leave them there until he was well clear of the house, rather than chance the noise he might make with his feet shod. He swung wide around the house and looked back. The bedroom light was still on; he started to angle down toward the road when he noticed Montgomery’s unicycle. He stopped.
If he continued he would come to the road the bus passed along. Whether he turned right or left there, Montgomery would have a fifty-fifty chance of catching him on the unicycle. Having no money he was dependent on Shank’s ponies to put distance under him; he could not take the bus.
Shucks! Montgomery wouldn’t try to fetch him back. He would say good riddance and forget him!
But the thought fretted him. Suppose Maw urged him? Suppose Montgomery wouldn’t forget an insult and would go to any trouble to “get even”?
He headed back, still swinging wide of the house, and cut across the slopes toward the right of way of the C S and E.

Two.
GOOD SAMARITAN.
He wished for a light, but its lack did not bother him much. He knew this country, every slope, almost every tree. He stayed high, working along the hillside, until he reached the exit ring where the trains jumped the gap, and there he came out on the road used by the ring road’s maintenance crews.
He sat down and put on his shoes.
The maintenance road was no more than a track cut through trees; it was suited to tractor treads but not to wheels. But it led down across the gap and up to where the ring road disappeared in the tunnel through the far ridge. He followed it, making good time in the born mountaineer’s easy, loose-jointed walk.
Seventy minutes later he was across the gap and passing under the entrance ring. He went on until he was near the ring that marked the black entrance to the tunnel. He stopped at what he judged to be a safe distance and considered his chances.
The ridge was high, else the rings would have been built in a cut rather than a tunnel. He had often hunted on it and knew that it would take two hours to climb it, in daylight. But the maintenance road ran right through the hill, under the rings. If he followed it, he could go through in ten or fifteen minutes.
Max had never been through the ridge. Legally it was trespass, not that that bothered him, he was trespassing now. Occasionally a hog or a wild animal would wander into the tunnel and be trapped there when a train hurtled through. They died, instantly and without a scratch. Once Max had spotted the carcass of a fox just inside the tunnel and had ducked in and salvaged it.
There were no marks on it, but when he skinned it he found that it was a mass of tiny hemorrhages. Several years earlier a man had been caught inside; the maintenance crew brought out the body.
The tunnel was larger than the rings but no larger than necessary to permit the projectile to ride ahead of its own reflected shock wave. Anything alive in the tunnel could not avoid the wave; that unbearable thunderclap, painful at a distance, was so loaded with energy as to be quick death close up.
But Max did not want to climb the ridge; he went over the evening schedule of trains in his mind. The Tomahawk was the one he had watched at sundown; the Javelin he had heard while he was hiding in the barn. The Assegai must have gone by quite a while ago though he didn’t remember hearing it; that left only the midnight Cleaver. He then looked at the sky.
Venus had set, of course, but he was surprised to see Mars still in the west. The Moon had not risen. Let’s see, full moon was last Wednesday.
Surely.
The answer he got seemed wrong, so he checked himself by taking a careful eyesight of Vega and compared it with what the Big Dipper told him.
Then he whistled softly, despite everything that had happened it was only ten o’clock, give or take five minutes; the stars could not be wrong. In which case the Assegai was not due for another three-quarters of an hour. Except for the faint chance of a special train he had plenty of time.
He headed into the tunnel. He had not gone fifty yards before he began to be sorry and a bit panicky; it was as dark as a sealed coffin. But the going was much easier as the bore was lined to permit smooth shockwave reflections. He had been on his way several minutes, feeling each step but hurrying, when his eyes, adjusting to complete darkness, made out a faint grey circle far ahead. He broke into a trot and then into a dead run as his fear of the place piled up.
He reached the far end with throat burned dry and heart laboring; there he plunged downhill regardless of the sudden roughening of his path as he left the tunnel and hit the maintenance track. He did not slow up until he stood under stilt supports so high that the ring above looked small. There he stood still and fought to catch his breath.
He was slammed forward and knocked off his feet.
He picked himself up groggily, eventually remembered where he was and realized that he had been knocked cold. There was blood on one cheek and his hands and elbows were raw. It was not until he noticed these that he realized what had happened; a train had passed right over him.
It had not been close enough to kill, but it had been close enough to blast him off his feet. It could not have been the Assegai; he looked again at the stars and confirmed it. No, it must have been a special, and he had beaten it out of the tunnel by about a minute.
He began to shake and it was minutes before he pulled himself together, after which he started down the maintenance road as fast as his bruised body could manage. Presently he became aware of an odd fact; the night was silent.
But night is never silent. His ears, tuned from babyhood to the sounds and signs of his hills, should have heard an endless pattern of little night noises, wind in the leaves, the scurrying of his small cousins, tree frogs, calls of insects, owls.
By brutal logic he concluded correctly that he could not hear, “deef as a post”, the shock wave had left him deaf. But there was no way to help it, so he went on; it did not occur to him to return home. At the bottom of this draw, where the stilts were nearly three hundred feet high, the maintenance road crossed a farm road. He turned down hill onto it, having accomplished his first purpose of getting into territory where Montgomery would be less likely to look for him. He was in another watershed now; although still only a few miles from home, nevertheless by going through the ridge he had put himself into a different neighborhood.
He continued downhill for a couple of hours. The road was hardly more than a cart track but it was easier than the maintenance road. Somewhere below, when the hills gave way to the valley where the “foreigners” lived, he would find the freight highway that paralleled the ring road on the route to Earthport, Earthport being his destination although he had only foggy plans as to what he would do when he got there.
The Moon was behind him now and he made good time. A rabbit hopped onto the road ahead, sat up and stared, then skittered away. Seeing it, he regretted not having brought along his squirrel gun.
Sure, it was worn out and not worth much and lately it had gotten harder and harder to buy the slugs thrown by the obsolete little weapon, but rabbit in the pot right now would go mighty nice, mighty nice! He realized that he was not only weary but terribly hungry. He had just picked at his supper and it looked like he’d breakfast on his upper lip.
Shortly his attention was distracted from hunger to a ringing in his ears, a ringing that got distressingly worse. He shook his head and pounded his ears but it did not help; he had to make up his mind to ignore it. After another half mile or so he suddenly noticed that he could hear himself walking.
He stopped dead, then clapped his hands together. He could hear them smack, cutting through the phantom ringing. With a lighter heart he went on.
At last he came out on a shoulder that overlooked the broad valley. In the moonlight he could make out the sweep of the freight highway leading southwest and could detect, he thought, its fluorescent traffic guide lines.
He hurried on down.
He was nearing the highway and could hear the rush of passing freighters when he spotted a light ahead. He approached it cautiously, determined that it was neither vehicle nor farm house. Closer approach showed it to be a small open fire, visible from uphill but shielded from the highway by a shoulder of limestone. A man was squatting over it, stirring the contents of a can resting on rocks over the fire.
Max crept nearer until he was looking down into the hobo jungle. He got a whiff of the stew and his mouth watered. Caught between hunger and a hillman’s ingrown distrust of “foreigners” he lay still and stared. Presently the man set the can off the fire and called out, “Well, don’t hide there! Come on down.”
Max was too startled to answer. The man added, “Come on down into the light. I won’t fetch it up to you.”
Max got to his feet and shuffled down into the circle of firelight. The man looked up. “Howdy. Draw up a chair.”
“Howdy.” Max sat down across the fire from the tramp. He was not even as well dressed as Max and he needed a shave. Nevertheless he wore his rags with a jaunty air and handled himself with a sparrow’s cockiness.
The man continued to stir the mess in the can then spooned out a sample, blew on it, and tasted it. “About right,” he announced. “Four-day mulligan, just getting ripe. Find yourself a dish.” He got up and picked over a pile of smaller cans behind him, selected one. Max hesitated, then did the same, settling on one that had once contained coffee and appeared not to have been used since. His host served him a liberal portion of stew, then handed him a spoon. Max looked at it.
“If you don’t trust the last man who used it,” the man said reasonably, “hold it in the fire, then wipe it. Me, I don’t worry. If a bug bites me, he dies horribly.” Max took the advice, holding the spoon in the flames until the handle became too hot, then wiped it on his shirt.
The stew was good and his hunger made it superlative. The gravy was thick, there were vegetables and unidentified meat. Max didn’t bother his head about the pedigrees of the materials; he simply enjoyed it. After a while his host said, “Seconds?”
“Huh? Sure. Thanks!”
The second can of stew filled him up and spread through his tissues a warm glow of well-being. He stretched lazily, enjoying his fatigue. “Feel better?” the man asked.
“Gee, yes. Thanks.”
“By the way, you can call me Sam.”
“Oh, my name is Max.”
“Glad to know you, Max.”
Max waited before raising a point that had been bothering him. “Uh, Sam? How did you know I was there? Did you hear me?”
Sam grinned. “No, but you were silhouetted against the sky. Don’t ever do that, kid, or it may be the last thing you do.”
Max twisted around and looked up at where he had lurked. Sure enough, Sam was right. He’d be dogged!
Sam added, “Traveled far?”
“Huh? Yeah, quite a piece.”
“Going far?”
“Uh, pretty far, I guess.”
Sam waited, then said, “Think your folks’ll miss you?”
“Huh? How did you know?”
“That you had run away from home? Well, you have, haven’t you?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I guess I have.”
“You looked beat when you dragged in here. Maybe it’s not too late to kill the goose before your bridges are burned. Think about it, kid. It’s rough on the road. I know.”
“Go back? I won’t ever go back!”
“As bad as that?”
Max stared into the fire. He needed badly to get his thoughts straight, even if it meant telling a foreigner his private affairs, and this soft-spoken stranger was easy to talk to. “See here, Sam, did you ever have a stepmother?”
“Eh? Can’t remember that I ever had any. The Central Jersey Development Center for State Children used to kiss me good night.”
“Oh.” Max blurted out his story with an occasional sympathetic question from Sam to straighten out its confusion. “So I lit out,” he concluded. “There wasn’t anything else to do. Was there?”
Sam pursed his lips. “I reckon not. This double stepfather of yours, he sounds like a mouse studying to be a rat. You’re well shut of him.”
“You don’t think they’ll try to find me and haul me back, do you?”
Sam stopped to put a piece of wood on the fire. “I am not sure about that.”
“Huh? Why not? I’m no use to him. He doesn’t like me. And Maw won’t care, not really. She may whine a bit, but she won’t turn her hand.”
“Well, there’s the farm.”
“The farm? I don’t care about that, not with Dad gone. Truthfully, it ain’t much. You break your back trying to make a crop. If the Food Conservation Act hadn’t forbidden owners to let farm land fall out of use, Dad would have quit farming long ago. It would take something like this government condemnation to make it possible to find anybody to take it off your hands.”
“That’s what I mean. This joker got your mother to sell it. Now my brand of law may not be much good, but it looks as if that money ought to come to you.”
“What? Oh, I don’t care about the money. I just want to get away from them.”
“Don’t talk that way about money; the powers-that-be will have you shut up for blasphemy. But it probably doesn’t matter how you feel, as I think Citizen Montgomery is going to want to see you awful bad.”
“Why?”
“Did your father leave a will?”
“No, why? He didn’t have anything to leave but the farm.”
“I don’t know the ins and outs of your state laws, but it’s a sure thing that at least half of that farm belongs to you. Possibly your stepmother has only lifetime tenure in her half, with reversion to you when she dies. But it’s a certainty that she can’t grant a good deed without your signature.
Along about time your county courthouse opens up tomorrow morning the buyers are going to find that out. Then they’ll come high-tailing up, looking for her, and you. And ten minutes later this Montgomery hombre will start looking for you, if he hasn’t already.”
“Oh, me! If they find me, can they make me go back?”
“Don’t let them find you. You’ve made a good start.”
Max picked up his rucksack. “I guess I had better get moving. Thanks a lot, Sam. Maybe I can help you someday.”
“Sit down.”
“Look, I had better get as far away as I can.”
“Kid, you’re tired out and your judgment has slipped. How far can you walk tonight, the shape you’re in? Tomorrow morning, bright and early, we’ll go down to the highway, follow it about a mile to the freighters’ restaurant south of here and catch the haulers as they come out from breakfast, feeling good. We’ll promote a ride and you’ll go farther in ten minutes than you could make all night.”
Max had to admit that he was tired, exhausted really, and Sam certainly knew more about these wrinkles than he did. Sam added, “Got a blanket in your bindle?”
“No, just a shirt, and some books.”
“Books, eh? Read quite a bit myself, when I get a chance. May I see them?”
Somewhat reluctantly Max got them out. Sam held them close to the fire and examined them. “Well, I’ll be a three-eyed Martian! Kid, do you know, what you’ve got here?”
“Sure.”
“But you ought not to have these. You’re not a member of the Astrogators’ Guild.”
“No, but my uncle was. He was on the first trip to Beta Hydrae,” he added proudly.
“No foolin’!”
“Sure as taxes.”
“But you’ve never been in space yourself? No, of course not.”
“But I’m going to be!” Max admitted something that he had never told anyone, his ambition to emulate his uncle and go out to the stars. Sam listened thoughtfully. When Max stopped, he said slowly, “So you want to be an astrogator?”
“I certainly do.”
Sam scratched his nose. “Look, kid, I don’t want to throw cold water, but you know how the world wags. Getting to be an astrogator is almost as difficult as getting into the Plumbers’ Guild. The soup is thin these days and there isn’t enough to go around. The guild won’t welcome you just because you are anxious to be apprenticed. Membership is hereditary, just like all the other high-pay guilds.”
“But my uncle was a member.”
“Your uncle isn’t your father.”
“No, but a member who hasn’t any sons gets to nominate someone else.
Uncle Chet explained it to me. He always told me he was going to register my nomination.”
“And did he?”
Max was silent. At the time his uncle had died he had been too young to know how to go about finding out. When his father had followed his uncle events had closed in on him, he had never checked up, subconsciously preferring to nurse the dream rather than test it. “I don’t know,” he said at last. “I’m going to the Mother Chapter at Earthport and find out.”
“Hum, I wish you luck, kid.” He stared into the fire, sadly it seemed to Max. “Well, I’m going to grab some shut-eye, and you had better do the same. If you’re chilly, you’ll find some truck back under that rock shelf, burlap and packing materials and such. It’ll keep you warm, if you don’t mind risking a flea or two.”
Max crawled into the dark hole indicated, found a half-way cave in the limestone. Groping, he located the primitive bedding. He had expected to be wakeful, but he was asleep before Sam finished covering the fire.
He was awakened by sunlight blazing outside. He crawled out, stood up and stretched the stiffness out of his limbs. By the sun he judged it to be about seven o’clock in the morning. Sam was not in sight. He looked around and shouted, not too loudly, and guessed that Sam had gone down to the creek for a drink and a cold wash, Max went back into the shelter and hauled out his rucksack, intending to change his socks.
His uncle’s books were missing.
There was a note on top of his spare shirt: “Dear Max,” it said, “There is more stew in the can. You can warm it up for breakfast. So long, Sam P S, Sorry.”
Further search disclosed that his identification card was missing, but Sam had not bothered with his other pitiful possessions. Max did not touch the stew but set out down the road, his mind filled with bitter thoughts.

Three.
EARTHPORT.
The farm road crossed under the freight highway; Max came up on the far side and headed south beside the highway. The route was marked by “NO TRESPASS” signs but the path was well worn. The highway widened to make room for a deceleration strip. At the end of its smooth reach, a mile away, Max could see the restaurant Sam had mentioned.
He shinnied over the fence enclosing the restaurant and parking grounds and went to the parking stalls where a dozen of the big land ships were lined up. One was quivering for departure, its flat bottom a few inches clear of the metallic pavement. Max went to its front end and looked up at the driver’s compartment. The door was open and he could see the driver at his instrument board. Max called out, “Hey, Mister!”
The driver stuck his head out. “What’s itching you?”
“How are the chances of a lift south?”
“Beat it, kid.” The door slammed.
None of the other freighters was raised off the pavement; their control compartments were empty. Max was about to turn away when another giant scooted down the braking strip, reached the parking space, crawled slowly into a stall, and settled to the ground. He considered approaching its driver, but decided to wait until the man had eaten. He went back toward the restaurant building and was looking through the door, watching hungry men demolish food while his mouth watered, when he heard a pleasant voice at his shoulder.
“Excuse me, but you’re blocking the door.”
Max jumped aside. “Oh! Sorry.”
“Go ahead. You were first.” The speaker was a man about ten years older than Max. He was profusely freckled and had a one-sided grin. Max saw on his cap the pin of the Teamsters’ Guild. “Go on in,” the man repeated, “before you get trampled in the rush.”
Max had been telling himself that he might catch Sam inside, and, after all, they couldn’t charge him just for coming in, if he didn’t actually eat anything. Underlying was the thought of asking to work for a meal, if the manager looked friendly. The freckled-faced man’s urging tipped the scales; he followed his nose toward the source of the heavenly odors pouring out the door.
The restaurant was crowded; there was one vacant table, for two. The man slid into a chair and said, “Sit down.” When Max hesitated, he added, “Go ahead, put it down. Never like to eat alone.” Max could feel the manager’s eyes on him, he sat down. A waitress handed them each a menu and the hauler looked her over appreciatively. When she left he said, “This dump used to have automatic service, and it went broke. The trade went to the Tivoli, eighty miles down the stretch. Then the new owner threw away the machinery and hired girls and business picked up. Nothing makes food taste better than having a pretty girl put it in front of you. Right?”
“Uh, I guess so. Sure.” Max had not heard what was said. He had seldom been in a restaurant and then only in the lunch counter at Clyde’s Corners.
The prices he read frightened him; he wanted to crawl under the table.
His companion looked at him. “What’s the trouble, chum?”
“Trouble? Uh, nothing.”
“You broke?” Max’s miserable expression answered him. “Shucks, I’ve been there myself. Relax.” The man waggled his fingers at the waitress.
“Come here, honey chile. My partner and I will each have a breakfast steak with a fried egg sitting on top and this and that on the side. I want that egg to be just barely dead. If it is cooked solid, I’ll nail it to the wall as a warning to others. Understand me?”
“I doubt if you’ll be able to get a nail through it,” she retorted and walked away, swaying gently. The hauler kept his eyes on her until she disappeared into the kitchen. “See what I mean? How can machinery compete?”
The steak was good and the egg was not congealed. The hauler told Max to call him “Red” and Max gave his name in exchange. Max was pursuing the last of the yolk with a bit of toast and was considering whether it was time to broach the subject of a ride when Red leaned forward and spoke softly. “Max, you got anything pushing you? Free to take a job?”
“What? Why, maybe. What is it?”
“Mind taking a little run southwest?”
“Southwest? Matter of fact, I was headin’ that way.”
“Good. Here’s the deal. The Man says we have to have two teamsters to each rig, or else break for eight hours after driving eight. I can’t; I’ve got a penalty time to meet, and my partner washed out. The flathead got taken drunk and I had to put him down to cool. Now I’ve got a check point to pass a hundred thirty miles down the stretch. They’ll make me lay over if I can’t show another driver.”
“Gee! But I don’t know how to drive, Red. I’m awful sorry.”
Red gestured with his cup. “You won’t have to. You’ll always be the off-watch driver. I wouldn’t trust little Molly Malone to somebody who didn’t know her ways. I’ll keep myself awake with Pep pills and catch up on sleep at Earthport.”
“You’re going all the way to Earthport?”
“Right.”
“It’s a deal!”
“Okay, here’s the lash up. Every time we hit a check point you’re in the bunk, asleep. You help me load and unload, I’ve got a partial and a pick-up at Oke City, and I’ll feed you. Right?”
“Right!”
“Then let’s go. I want to scoot before these other dust jumpers get underway. Never can tell, there might be a spotter.” Red flipped a bill down and did not wait for change.
The Molly Malone was two hundred feet long and stream lined such that she had negative lift when cruising. This came to Max’s attention from watching the instruments; when she first quivered and raised, the dial marked ROAD CLEARANCE showed nine inches, but as they gathered speed down the acceleration strip it decreased to six.
“The repulsion works by an inverse-cube law,” Red explained. “The more the wind pushes us down the harder the road pushes us up. Keeps us from jumping over the skyline. The faster we go the steadier we are.”
“Suppose you went so fast that the wind pressure forced the bottom down to the road? Could you stop soon enough to keep from wrecking it?”
“Use your head. The more we squat the harder we are pushed up, inverse-cube, I said.”
“Oh.” Max got out his uncle’s slide rule. “If she just supports her own weight at nine inches clearance, then at three inches the repulsion would be twenty-seven times her weight and at an inch it would be seven hundred and twenty-nine, and at a quarter of an inch.”
“Don’t even think about it. At top speed I can’t get her down to five inches.”
“But what makes her go?”
“It’s a phase relationship. The field crawls forward and Molly tries to catch up, only she can’t. Don’t ask me the theory, I just push the buttons.”
Red struck a cigarette and lounged back, one hand on the tiller. “Better get in the bunk, kid. Check point in forty miles.”
The bunk was thwartships abaft the control compartment, a shelf above the seat. Max climbed in and wrapped a blanket around himself. Red handed him a cap. “Pull this down over your eyes. Let the button show.” The button was a teamster’s shield, Max did as he was told.
Presently he heard the sound of wind change from a soft roar to a sigh and then stop. The freighter settled to the pavement and the door opened.
He lay still, unable to see what was going on. A strange voice said, “How long you been herding it?”
“Since breakfast at Tony’s.”
“So? How did your eyes get so bloodshot?”
“It’s the evil life I lead. Want to see my tongue?”
The inspector ignored this, saying instead, “Your partner didn’t sign his trick.”
“Whatever you say. Want me to wake the dumb geek?”
“Um, don’t bother. You sign for him. Tell him to be more careful.”
“Right.”
The Molly Malone pulled out and picked up speed. Max crawled down. “I thought we were sunk when he asked for my signature.”
“That was on purpose,” Red said scornfully. “You have to give them something to yap about, or they’ll dig for it.”
Max liked the freighter. The tremendous speed so close to the ground exhilarated him; he decided that if he could not be a spaceman, this life would not be bad, he’d find out how high the application fee was and start saving. He liked the easy way Red picked out on the pavement ahead the speed line that matched the Molly’s speed and then laid the big craft into a curve. It was usually the outermost line, with the Molly on her side and the horizon tilted up at a crazy angle.
Near Oklahoma City they swooped under the ring guides of the C S and E just as a train went over, the Razor, by Max’s calculations. “I used to herd those things,” Red remarked, glancing up.
“You did?”
“Yep. But they got to worrying me. I hated it every time I made a jump and felt the weight sag out from under me. Then I got a notion that the train had a mind of its own and was just waiting to turn aside instead of entering the next guide ring. That sort of thing is no good. So I found a teamster who wanted to better himself and paid the fine to both guilds to let us swap.
Never regretted it. Two hundred miles an hour when you’re close to the ground is enough.”
“Uh, how about space ships?”
“That’s another matter. Elbow room out there. Say, kid, while you’re at Earthport you should take a look at the big babies. They’re quite something.”
The library book had been burning a hole in his rucksack; at Oklahoma City he noticed a postal box at the freight depot and, on impulse, dropped the book into it. After he had mailed it he had a twinge of worry that he might have given a clue to his whereabouts which would get back to Montgomery, but he suppressed the worry, the book had to be returned. Vagrancy in the eyes of the law had not worried him, nor trespass, nor impersonating a licensed teamster, but filching a book was a sin.
Max was asleep in the bunk when they arrived. Red shook him. “End of the line, kid.”
Max sat up, yawning. “Where are we?”
“Earthport. Let’s shake a leg and get this baby unloaded.”
It was two hours past sunrise and growing desert hot by the time they got the Molly disgorged. Red stood him to a last meal. Red finished first, paid, then laid a bill down by Max’s plate. “Thanks, kid. That’s for luck. So long.” He was gone while Max still had his mouth hanging open. He had never learned his friend’s name, did not even know his shield number.
Earthport was much the biggest settlement Max had ever seen and everything about it confused him, the hurrying self-centered crowds, the enormous buildings, the slidewalks in place of streets, the noise, the desert sun beating down, the flatness, why, there wasn’t anything you could call a hill closer than the skyline!
He saw his first extra-terrestrial, an eight-foot native of Epsilon Gemini Five, striding out of a shop with a package under his left arms, as casually, Max thought, as a farmer doing his week’s shopping at the Corners.
Max stared. He knew what the creature was from pictures and SV shows, but seeing one was another matter. Its multiple eyes, like a wreath of yellow grapes around the head, gave it a grotesque faceless appearance. Max let his own head swivel to follow it.
The creature approached a policeman, tapped the top of his cap, and said, “Excuse me, sahr, but can you tirect me to the Tesert Palms Athletic Club?” Max could not tell where the noise came out.
Max finally noticed that he seemed to be the only one staring, so he walked slowly on, while sneaking looks over his shoulder, which resulted in his bumping into a stranger. “Oh, excuse me!” Max blurted. The stranger looked at him. “Take it easy, cousin. You’re in the big city now.” After that he tried to be careful.
He had intended to seek out the Guild Hall of the Mother Chapter of Astrogators at once in the forlorn hope that even without his books and identification card he might still identify himself and find that Uncle Chet had provided for his future. But there was so much to see that he loitered.
He found himself presently in front of Imperial House, the hotel that guaranteed to supply any combination of pressure, temperature, lighting, atmosphere, pseudogravitation, and diet favored by any known race of intelligent creatures. He hung around hoping to see some of the guests, but the only one who came out while he was there was wheeled out in a pressurized travel tank and he could not see into it.
He noticed the police guard at the door eyeing him and started to move on, then decided to ask directions, reasoning that if it was all right for a Geminian to question a policeman it certainly must be all right for a human being. He found himself quoting the extra-terrestrial. “Excuse me, sir, but could you direct me to the Astrogators’ Guild Hall?”
The officer looked him over. “At the foot of the Avenue of Planets, just before you reach the port.”
“Uh, which way do.”
“New in town?”
“Yeah. Yes, sir.”
“Where are you staying?”
“Staying? Why, nowhere yet. I just got here. I.”
“What’s your business at the Astrogators’ Hall?”
“It’s on account of my uncle,” Max answered miserably.
“Your uncle?”
“He, he’s an astrogator.” He mentally crossed his fingers over the tense.
The policeman inspected again. “Take this slide to the next intersection, change and slide west. Big building with the guild sunburst over the door, can’t miss it. Stay out of restricted areas.” Max left without waiting to find out how he was to know a restricted area. The Guild Hall did prove easy to find; the slidewalk to the west ducked underground and when it emerged at its swing-around Max was deposited in front of it.
But he had not eyes for it. To the west where avenue and buildings ended was the field and on it space ships, stretching away for miles, fast little military darts, stubby Moon shuttles, winged ships that served the satellite stations, robot freighters, graceless and powerful. But directly in front of the gate hardly half a mile away was a great ship that he knew at once, the starship Asgard. He knew her history, Uncle Chet had served in her. A hundred years earlier she had been built out in space as a space-to-space rocket ship; she was then the Prince of Wales. Years passed, her tubes were ripped out and a mass-conversion torch was kindled in her; she became the Einstein. More years passed, for nearly twenty she swung empty around Luna, a lifeless, outmoded hulk. Now in place of the torch she had Horst-Conrad impellers that clutched at the fabric of space itself; thanks to them she was now able to touch Mother Terra. To commemorate her rebirth she had been dubbed Asgard, heavenly home of the gods.
Her massive, pear-shaped body was poised on its smaller end, steadied by an invisible scaffolding of thrust beams. Max knew where they must be, for there was a ring of barricades spotted around her to keep the careless from wandering into the deadly loci.
He pressed his nose against the gate to the field and tried to see more of her, until a voice called out, “Away from there, Jack! Don’t you see that sign?”
Max looked up. Above his head was a sign: RESTRICTED AREA. Reluctantly he moved away and walked back to the Guild Hall.

Four.
THE ASTROGATORS’ GUILD.
Everything about the hall of the Mother Chapter was to Max’s eyes lavish, churchlike, and frightening. The great doors opened silently as he approached, dilating away into the walls. His feet made no sound on the tesselated floor. He started down the long, high foyer, wondering where he should go, when a firm voice stopped him. “May I help you, please?”
He turned. A beautiful young lady with a severe manner held him with her eye. She was seated behind a desk. Max went up to her. “Uh, maybe you could tell me, Ma’am, who I ought to see. I don’t rightly know just.”
“One moment. Your name, please?” Several minutes later she had wormed out of him the basic facts of his quest. “So far as I can see, you haven’t any status here and no excuse for appealing to the Guild.”
“But I told you.”
“Never mind. I’m going to put it up to the legal office.” She touched a button and a screen raised up on her desk; she spoke to it. “Mister Hanson, can you spare a moment?”
“Yes, Grace?”
“There is a young man here who claims to be a legacy of the Guild. Will you talk with him?”
The voice answered, “Look, Grace, you know the procedures. Get his address, send him on his way, and send his papers up for consideration.”
She frowned and touched another control. Although Max could see that she continued to talk, no sound reached him. Then she nodded and the screen slid back into the desk. She touched another button and said, “Skeeter!”
A page boy popped out of a door behind her and looked Max over with cold eyes. “Skeeter,” she went on, “take this visitor to Mister Hanson.”
The page sniffed. “Him?”
“Him. And fasten your collar and spit out that gum.”
Mister Hanson listened to Max’s story and passed him on to his boss, the chief legal counsel, who listened to a third telling. That official then drummed his desk and made a call, using the silencing device the girl had used.
He then said to Max, “You’re in luck, son. The Most Worthy High Secretary will grant you a few minutes of his time. Now when you go in, don’t sit down, remember to speak only when spoken to, and get out quickly when he indicates that the audience is ended.”
The High Secretary’s office made the lavishness that had thus far filled Max’s eyes seem like austerity. The rug alone could have been swapped for the farm on which Max grew up. There was no communication equipment in evidence, no files, not even a desk. The High Secretary lounged back in a mammoth easy chair while a servant massaged his scalp. He raised his head as Max appeared and said, “Come in, son. Sit down there. What is your name?”
“Maximilian Jones, sir.”
They looked at each other. The Secretary saw a lanky youth who needed a haircut, a bath, and a change of clothes; Max saw a short, fat little man in a wrinkled uniform. His head seemed too big for him and Max could not make up his mind whether the eyes were kindly or cold.
“And you are a nephew of Chester Arthur Jones?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I knew Brother Jones well. A fine mathematician.” The High Secretary went on, “I understand that you have had the misfortune to lose your government Citizen’s Identification. Carl.”
He had not raised his voice but a young man appeared with the speed of a genie. “Yes, sir?”
“Take this young man’s thumb print, call the Bureau of Identification, not here, but the main office at New Washington. My compliments to the Chief of Bureau and tell him that I would be pleased to have immediate identification while you hold the circuit.”
The print was taken speedily; the man called Carl left. The High Secretary went on, “What was your purpose in coming here?” Diffidently Max explained that his uncle had told him that he intended to nominate him for apprenticeship in the guild.
The man nodded. “So I understand. I am sorry to tell you, young fellow, that Brother Jones made no nomination.”
Max had difficulty in taking in the simple statement. So much was his inner pride tied to his pride in his uncle’s profession, so much had he depended on his hope that his uncle had named him his professional heir, that he could not accept at once the verdict that he was nobody and nothing. He blurted out, “You’re sure? Did you look?”
The masseur looked shocked but the High Secretary answered calmly, “The archives have been searched, not once, but twice. There is no possible doubt.”
The High Secretary sat up, gestured slightly, and the servant disappeared.
“I’m sorry.”
“But he told me,” Max said stubbornly. “He said he was going to.”
“Nevertheless he did not.” The man who had taken the thumb print came in and offered a memorandum to the High Secretary, who glanced at it and waved it away. “I’ve no doubt that he considered you. Nomination to our brotherhood involves a grave responsibility; it is not unusual for a childless brother to have his eye on a likely lad for a long time before deciding whether or not he measures up. For some reason your uncle did not name you.”
Max was appalled by the humiliating theory that his beloved uncle might have found him unworthy. It could not be true, why, just the day before he died, he had said, he interrupted his thoughts to say, “Sir, I think I know what happened.”
“Eh?”
“Uncle Chester died suddenly. He meant to name me, but he didn’t get a chance. I’m sure of it.”
“Possibly. Men have been known to fail to get their affairs in order before the last orbit. But I must assume that he knew what he was doing.”
“But.”
“That’s all, young man. No, don’t go away. I’ve been thinking about you today.” Max looked startled, the High Secretary smiled and continued, “You see, you are the second ‘Maximilian Jones’ who has come to us with this story.”
“Huh?”
“Huh indeed.” The guild executive reached into a pocket of his chair, pulled out some books and a card, handed them to Max, who stared unbelievingly.
“Uncle Chet’s books!”
“Yes. Another man, older than yourself, came here yesterday with your identification card and these books. He was less ambitious than you are,” he added dryly. “He was willing to settle for a rating less lofty than astrogator.”
“What happened?”
“He left suddenly when we attempted to take his finger prints. I did not see him. But when you showed up today I began to wonder how long a procession of ‘Maximilian Jones’s‘ would favor us. Better guard that card in the future, I fancy we have saved you a fine.”
Max placed it in an inner pocket. “Thanks a lot, sir.” He started to put the books in his rucksack. The High Secretary gestured in denial.
“No, no! Return the books, please.”
“But Uncle Chet gave them to me.”
“Sorry. At most he loaned them to you, and he should not have done even that. The tools of our profession are never owned individually; they are loaned to each brother. Your uncle should have turned them in when he retired, but some of the brothers have a sentimental fondness for having them in their possession. Give them to me, please.”
Max still hesitated. “Come now,” the guildsman said reasonably. “It would not do for our professional secrets to be floati