Fee of the Frontier, H. B. Fyfe [english novels for beginners TXT] 📗

turned right into a narrow street, went along it about fifty yards, and paused where it was crossed by a still narrower alley. Hoping I remembered the way, I groped along the lefthand branch of the alley. A trace of light had begun to soften the sky over the dome, but had not yet seeped down to ground level.

Howlet's soft footsteps trailed me. I knocked on what seemed to be the right door. There was no answer—only to be expected. I hammered again.

"No one aboard, it would appear," murmured Meadows.

It was meant as a question. I shrugged in the darkness and banged longer and louder. Finally, listening at the flimsy panel, I detected muffled footsteps.

The door opened a crack.

"It's Tony Lewis, Lilac."

The black opening widened, until she must have seen the two behind me. She wore a thin robe that glimmered silver in the dim light.

"Send the boy out, Lilac," I said.

"Why should I?"

That much was good; she might have pretended not to have him there.

"He has to catch his ship, Lilac."

Behind me, I heard Howlet stir uneasily. The door began to close, but my foot was in the track. Howlet could not see that.

"Don't shut it, sister," he said, "or we'll smash it down!"

He could have too, in about ten seconds, the way they build on Mars.

"You wanna get yourself lynched?" Lilac warned him.

"Over a—on account of you?"

"Shut up, Howlet!" I interrupted. "Let me talk to the lady alone!"

He must have understood my tone; he let Meadows pull him away a few steps.

"And less of the 'lady' business outa you," said Lilac, but low enough to keep it private. "We both know Mars, so let's take things the way they are."

"That's why I came, Lilac. Taking things that way means he has to go."

"What're you gonna say? He has a job to do, or some such canal dust?"

"Not exactly. They might pick up another third pilot. They might manage somehow without any. But he won't like himself much, later, for missing his chance."

She swung the edge of the door back and forth in impatient little jerks. Finally, she took her hand off the latch and let it roll free. She still blocked the opening, however, and I waited.

"Look, Tony," she said after a pause, "what makes you think I couldn't settle down with him? I never figured to be an ... entertainer ... all my life. With the stake I already got together, we could start something. A mine, maybe, or a tractor service like yours. Mars is growing—"

"Pull your head inside the dome and breathe right!" I snapped at her. "I don't mind your dreaming, Lilac, but there isn't any more time."

It was light enough now to see her stiffen. She glared at me.

"You tryin' to say I couldn't make a home here? You know better, Tony. Some of the best known women on Mars didn't exactly come here first-class!"

I held up my hand. She was beginning to get loud.

"It wouldn't matter if you were a princess. It's not what he'd think of you; it's what he'd wonder about himself, piloting a sand-buggy instead of a rocket."

In the alley, one of the spacers shuffled his feet impatiently. I hurried on, hoping to clinch it before she turned stubborn.

"You, at least, ought to understand men better than most, Lilac. Maybe it doesn't make sense, but it would be smarter to grab him after he's had his share of space instead of before."

It was hard to breathe without sounding loud in the stillness. Just as I had to swallow or choke, Lilac's shoulders slumped an inch or two.

"I'll wake him up," she said in a tired voice.

Feeling as if I had struck her, I stepped back into the alley. A few minutes later, Konnel slipped out and shut the door behind him. No one said a word. From the set of his shoulders, it seemed that he might be just as glad the alley was dim; but he simply trailed along behind.

We walked back to Number Four Airlock in a silence that had me counting the footsteps. When we reached the tractor parking lot, I cleared my throat.

"Wait a minute. I'll warm up my sand-saucer and give you a lift to your ship."

"Maybe we won't need to impose on you any more, Tony," said Howlet. "Looks like those machines over there are going out."

I followed his gesture and, by luck, caught the eye of a driver I knew. I waved and jerked my thumb at the spacers beside me.

"Let's go!" said Howlet as the tractor slowed. "Thanks for everything, Tony. Get yourself some sleep; the night watches in these domes are rough."

Konnel waited until they were a few steps away. Even then, he hesitated.

"Forget it!" I said. "You aren't the first spacer they had to pump out of some odd corner. Look me up when you get back!"

He shook hands and trotted after his friends. They scrambled up the ladder to the cab. The tractor picked up speed, lumbering into the airlock.

Later, a little after noon, I crawled out of bed and watched the flare of their pipes as the ship streaked up into the dark Martian sky. I hoped they would make it—almost as much as I wished it could have been me.

Well, I still come out to the wall of whatever dome I find myself in, to watch the sky a while—not that I'll see those boys coming down at this late date! They must have splattered to a puddle on Jupiter, or slipped back into the sun, or taken up a cold, dark orbit out where they'll never bother anyone. Nobody will ever know for sure, I suppose.

If I had it to do over again?

No, of course I don't feel funny about it. If they weren't the ones, it would have been another crew. By the law of averages, a certain number of bad tries seems to go with every new push out into space. Maybe there's no reason it has to be like that, but it always has. When the bad luck is used up, someone makes a new frontier.

Why say "superstition"? Each new orbit out from the sun has cost plenty in money, ships, and lives; it's the admission price.

Sure, it was too bad about Konnel and his little girl—who, by the way, later married a very important man in Asaph Dome. It would have been nice to see Meadows wind up rich, or for Howlet to become mayor of the dome, but what could I do? Which one should I have talked into staying for the sake of love or money or power, without even being able to go in his place?

Every time Man pushes ahead a little, a percentage of the pushers pay the fare. Still, it will be healthier if we push out of this planetary system before someone else pushes in.

For all we know, they may be on the way.

THE END End of Project Gutenberg's Fee of the Frontier, by Horace Brown Fyfe