Celia refused to take it back. "Oh now, Dolly," she snapped, "don't be stuffy and proud and stupid! We have millions. Wewantyou to have it. You certainly need it; you can't deny that. So please accept it and make us happy."
"It's wonderful of you both," said Solly. "But you know how it is. We just can't."
"We just can't," repeated Dolly.
"Oh please, please," cried Celia, and she was really getting emotional. "Don't you realize. This is the last time we'll ever see you! You're going to a far-away world, our two dearest friends. And this may seem like a lot of money, but it really isn't. It's all the gifts and presents we would give you in a lifetime, rolled up into one. It's funny little baby clothes when your children are born. It's anniversary gifts. It's for your boy's bar mitzvah and your daughter's confirmation. It's wedding presents when they grow up. It's—it's funeral wreaths!"
Celia started to cry, and Dolly started to cry, and they hugged each other and started to cry even more, and the tears rolled down their cheeks. And the tears rolled down my cheeks, and Solly's too, I guess, and we shook hands very solemnly. And Celia stuffed the envelope into Dolly's hand. And then all of us really cut loose and bawled—I covering my face with my hands, and Solly burying his face in a handkerchief. Only Freddie wasn't crying at first. He was just standing there looking bewildered. And then he got scared and started to cry too, hanging onto my pants leg with one hand, and trying to reach Celia with the other.
And then, thank God, the first guests arrived, ringing the bell, so that we had a compelling reason to stop.
The party was still going strong when we left at eleven. Solly and Dolly walked us out to our car. There really wasn't much left to say. We had found each other in friendship again, and would never again be nearer than nine-tenths of a light-year.
"A pity!" said Solly, and I knew what he meant.
The evening was very cool. Celia began to shiver. We took off, and the cabin heater warmed up the thermometer, but still we felt cold. Freddie sat in the front seat between us, dozing lightly.
Our Cad Super roared through the night. Even at full power, Spaceport, Nevada, was thirty minutes away. The moon set rapidly. The night grew darker.
"I fear that we will be caught," said Celia tonelessly, like a voice dissociated from body.
Our ship's nose wavered slowly between Procyon and Pollux, Canis Minor and Gemini, back and forth, droning on in the blackness.
"I fear for our little boy," said Celia like a soul lost in a maze of warped space. "What will they do to him?"
"They'll never lay hands on him," I said softly.
The Serpent writhed and Charioteer rocked as Twins dueled the Crab and Hunter pursued Bull.
"That was a fine gesture you made," Celia whispered.
"What?"
"Giving them the money. I'm proud of you."
The lights of Spaceport glowed on the horizon. It was a vast complex of launching sites, covering a hundred square miles. But only one ship could blast off at a time, and that ship would be flooded by searchlights. I singled out the Venus rocket and we descended.
It was eleven-thirty-two. I handed Celia her two tickets.
As we approached the Venus compound I could see several police cars parked on the field. Passengers seemed to be leaving rather than entering the ship. The gangway was crowded with people pouring out of the spacelock.
"They're looking for us," I muttered.
"Is that why they're all getting off?" said Celia.
"They must be shaking down the entire ship."
"This is the moment I feared." She tightened her grip on Freddie.
"There must be a way of getting aboard!" I said.
We edged forward to the gates of the field.
"There is no way of getting aboard," said Celia. Her voice was hopeless. She motioned at a large bulletin board.
The sign read: VENUS FLIGHTS CANCELLED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE BECAUSE OF CIVIL DISORDERS ON THAT PLANET.
I was weary and defeated, but I said, "Honey, we're not licked. We can still go to Australia."
"I have a better idea," Celia exclaimed. It was as though a new current of life, a new gusher of hope, had burst through the surface. "Let's go to Primus Gladus!"
It was four in the morning. We had told Solly and Dolly the straight story.
"Do you think we can get a berth on the ship?" my wife queried anxiously. "Is there any way you can help us?"
The Mendelsohns exchanged glances.
"I don't know," said Solly. "Truthfully. Let me think about it a few minutes."
"Since you've told us the truth about yourselves," said Dolly, "do you mind hearing some things you don't know about us?"
"All cards might as well be face up," I replied.
"Well listen, you two. It isn't easy to emigrate to another system. If you're a shlub, yes. But not if you're a soil chemist, or any other kind of scientist or advanced technician. Earth won't let the boys with know-how get out of its clutches." Dolly's eyes were burning with a message she only half-dared to communicate. "Does this give you any clues?" she asked, eagerly scanning our faces.
Suddenly the parts fit perfectly. "Solly! You did it deliberately. You washed out of school! You let your career fall to pieces. On purpose!"
Solly was nodding and smiling rather grimly.
"But why?" I demanded. "You had such brilliant prospects here on Earth. Why did you do it?"
"Surely you of all people must know by now," said Dolly excitedly. "Can you and your family go on living in this kind of a world? Can you endure this police-state tyranny now that you know what it is? Can you accept the hypocrisy, the masquerade behind pious slogans? What is this thing they call Competition? Is it really good? Is it really the expression of democracy? Is it what they want or is it forced on them?"
"Dolly, you're asking more questions than you're answering," said Celia, trying to head her off.
"Or is it organized greed? Simple dog-eat-dog? The law of jungle cunning and brute force re-affirmed? If we must compete, let it not be as maggots swarming over a half-eaten pie! Let's get people to vie with one another in service to mankind!"
Dolly had worked herself into a kind of evangelical zeal, with Solly nodding hypnotically in agreement.
I answered calmly, trying not to strain our newly healed friendship. "I don't go along with you on some of the things you say, Dolly. I personally think competition is the mainspring of progress—"
Solly started to protest.
"—material progress," I added.
"Well, maybe," said Celia, and in a flash I could see what had gone wrong with Freddie's home-life, from the school principal's point of view. "But I can't see what competitiveness has to do with creative art, or the pure sciences, or philosophy. I think it's positively destructive in those areas. The real struggle there is internal, not external. To me, competition is only a part of life not the whole of it."
"You're all wrong!" I shouted. "My only concern is with the welfare of Freddie. That's what got us into this predicament. I want you to understand that I'm for the system ninety-five per cent!"
Solly, Dolly, and Celia smiled. That irritated me but I let the matter drop.
"Let's consider what's to be done," I said.
"Yes," said Solly very seriously. "I can tell you this about the star-ship. On a voyage of two and a half years, nothing can be done haphazardly, at the last minute. Every berth has to be accounted for long in advance. Our baggage has been calculated down to the last ounce. The number of farming implements, the number of livestock—even the number of children you may have en route!—are strictly allocated."
"In other words, the only way we can get aboard is if someone dies or doesn't show up at the last minute?" said Celia.
"Or if you can persuade someone not to make the trip."
"And in addition get by the police," I added softly.
At seven that morning the airbus stopped to pick up the Mendelsohns and their hand luggage. We had worked out some kind of half-baked plan that I didn't think would go over with the ship's officials. We set a rendezvous time and place and waved them off. Then we got into our Cad Super. For the second time it bore us west to Spaceport.
As we neared the field, Celia commented, "You know, darling, this car is pretty conspicuous in the daytime."
"I'm hungry, mommy," said Freddie who had missed out on breakfast altogether. Celia gave him a soggy hors d'oeuvre, which was all that was left from the Mendelsohn's party.
I had been thinking about what to do with our expensive car. I brought it down almost a mile from the star-shipPericles.
"You two will have to walk the rest of the way," I said cheerily. "I'll meet you at our rendezvous point in about twenty-five minutes."
The time was now seven-thirty. The ship blasted off at nine. I put our car in a steep climb and circled the field at an altitude of ten thousand feet, where I could see which of the many spaceships were loading passengers.
I chose one ship arbitrarily at the opposite end of the field from the star-ship. It turned out to be an Asteroid surveyor, paying its way with a hundred or so passengers to Ganymede. I set down in the adjoining lot, and fixed the degravity controls so that the ship hovered a few inches off the ground, and left it that way to drift across the field with the wind until it attracted the inevitable attention.
I walked to the next shuttle bus stop and rode across to thePericles. It was a gigantic ship, twenty times the capacity of a Venus or Mars rocket. Comet-shaped, engineered to approach fifty per cent of the speed of light through cumulative acceleration, the star-ship had two vast cargo entrances in addition to the passenger airlock. In one, which was now closing, I caught sight of crated farm machinery. Into the other, herds of cattle were being driven.
It was nearly eight o'clock. I approached thePericleswarily. We were all supposed to meet by the livestock gate. Dozens of people were milling about, some ranchers, some colonizers, bargaining at the last minute over a sheep or a goat or a horse or a cow to replace a dead or sick animal. That some of the men were detectives I did not doubt. I saw Celia close to the entrance with Freddie. We exchanged glances of recognition, but kept widely separated.
Solly came up. "I checked with the captain about Dolly and me waiving our right to have a child during the voyage, and taking Freddie with us instead. You were right. He wouldn't buy it."
"That was tremendously generous of you even to offer."
"But," said Solly, "there's been one cancellation!"
Our eyes met. "What's the fare?" I inquired.
"Two thousand." Solly looked down for a moment, then threw back his head. "Look, that's still your money, even if you did give it to us. Dolly and I are willing ... would be happy to pay Freddie's fare. And take care of him as our own if you and Celia can't get on."
"My son has no future on Earth," I said. "If Celia's willing, I am. Go talk to her."
Solly went to Celia. She did not once look in my direction and I was glad. In the end, Freddie went with Solly, and I could tell what the lie was. Solly was going to show Freddie the insides of the wonderful ship.
It was a quarter after eight. Only forty-five minutes before take-off. Celia and I were going to be left behind. There didn't seem much reason for further pretense. I took my wife's hand.
"Little did we know how important your going-away present would be. Solly used two thousand of it to pay Freddie's fare."
Celia shook her head. "He didn't have to do that."
"Sweetheart, all we have left is about a hundred and fifty credits."
"That may be allyouhave left," she said proudly, "but that isn't allwehave left. If my addition is correct, we have ninety thousand cash credits in my purse, right at this minute!"
"What! How do you mean?"
Celia put her arm in mine. "I played a dirty trick on you, darling. You signed and I added another zero."
"You took out a hundred thousand! No wonder that teller made such a fuss."
"Dear, I thought you might have to use a little bribery. I knew Freddie was in trouble, and that was my fault, of course. I'm the villain in his home-life!" She smiled ruefully, then looked at thePericles, her eyes brimming with tears. "But I had no idea they'd try to take him away from us!"
My thoughts pulsed wildly. "Look, Celia! We can both get aboard! Give me the money!" I took her purse and ran over to the huddle of colonizers.
"I've got ninety-thousand cash credits! Who'll give up his place on thePericles?"
The group turned to face me in astonishment. One man came forward. I thought I saw a gun hidden in his sleeve. "Ninety thousand?"
"That's right. Who wants it?"
"Ninety thousand is a small fortune," said the man. "Anyone with that kind of money shouldn't need to pull up stakes on Earth and start life all over again on a new planet. Should he?"
"I don't imagine so. Who'll take ninety thousand for his place on thePericles?" I repeated over his shoulder.
"Unless he has some special, very compelling reason for leaving Earth," the stranger continued.
A colonizer ran up breathlessly. "Ninety thousand? Let me see it!"
I opened the purse, pulled out the wad of bills, and flung the purse on the ground.
The colonizer riffed through the wad. "That's for me! I'll take it!"
He reached for the money.
"Just a minute," I said. "It's yours after you give that lady over there your berth and make it legal with the ship."
"Hey," said a companion, "how about all your belongings? Your cattle and equipment? You haven't time any more to take it off."
"Heck, my whole outfit isn't worth more than fifteen thousand! I'll give it to the lady."
He ran to Celia and the two of them dashed for the passenger ramp. It was eight-thirty-five. Twenty-five minutes before take-off.
I put the money in my coat pocket.
"I don't think," said the stranger, "that this transaction is going through." He stepped so close we were almost jaw to jaw. "Let me see your identity tag."
"Who are you trying to impersonate?" I said.
"A common ordinary rancher," he replied, flashing his badge. "Now let's see your identification."
"Certainly." I showed him my false wrist tag.
"Donald Simpson, I see." He stared at me through narrowed eyes. "Where did you find that, Mr. Sponsor?"
"Sponsor? Is that the guy you're looking for? I have about a dozen other documents to prove I'm Simpson. If you have the patience to look at them."
I opened the briefcase and handed him the packet. They had cost me thousands and they were awfully good forgeries. They slowed the detective down quite a bit.
"Why are you offering that kind of money to get the lady on board?"
"Because I'm awfully anxious to get rid of her."
"You didn't happen to put a kid aboard that ship too, for the same reason?"
"If you think I did, why don't you go look?"
"I may do that, mister. You know, we can hold this ship on the field for an hour or more if we think it would prove profitable."
I saw Celia waving from the passenger gangway, and the colonizer come sprinting our way.
"It's done!" he exclaimed breathlessly. "Let's have the money."
I reached into my pocket.
The detective laid his hand on my arm. "I said I didn't think this transaction was going through." He turned to the colonizer. "You'd better switch things back to the way they were."
"No," I said, pressing the gun through my coat pocket into the belly of the detective, "don't pay any attention to this character." I crossed over with my other hand and withdrew the money.
"Take this," I said to the colonizer, "and get out of here. Fast as you can!"
He was confused but not on basic things. He took his money and virtually ran.
Ten minutes to nine.
They were closing up the passenger airlock, removing the ramp.
"You know," said the detective very quietly, "my buddy is coming. He won't understand this embrace we're in. I'm quite sure he won't like it one bit."
The last of the animals were being led into the livestock hold. The ranchers were dispersing. The colonizers were all aboard. We stood virtually alone beside the ship.
"I am prepared to be killed," I said, "and to take you with me in the process."
A police car hovered in the air beside us.
"Say!" yelled its pilot. "They've found the Sponsor car over next to the Asteroid surveyor!" He pointed across the field. "They're searching the ship. We've got to help. Hop on!"
I stepped back, with my hand still in my pocket.
"Yes," I said, "hop on!"
The detective clambered aboard the police car. He gave me a look that I'll always remember. A sort of sneer and a sort of smile. "Good luck, Simpson," he said.
The police car whisked away.
Five minutes to nine.
I wheeled and ran to the livestock hold. The hatch was about shut and I knew it was too late. 'Goodbye, my darlings! Goodbye!'
Then the hatch jammed and could not close the last six inches and I saw the reason. A steer had broken loose and charged the door. His head was caught in the opening. His neck had snapped instantly and he was dead.
They re-opened the hatch long enough to fling the thousand-pound carcass onto the field. And that was all the time I needed to come aboard.
A crew member hollered at me: "Do you belong here?"
"Yes," I replied, "I certainly do."
As I said it, the ship blasted heavenward and I was flung to the deck. I started to curse, and then I chuckled. I was stretched out ignominiously beside a cow in the fresh-smelling hay.
I, Bart Sponsor, Top Competitor, starting a new life. This way!
Well Solly, I mused,understand the planet we're going to has lots of rocky acres.