Short Fiction, Mack Reynolds [best book reader txt] 📗

in a space-scout was the work of an individual, not of a team. Perhaps it would be different someday in the future when machines and instruments had been developed further; but now it was an individualistic game, each man for himself.

And probably it was because of this training that he, Phil Mooney, was unable to get back into the crowd after the war had ended. He was an individualist who rebelled against working not only for but even with someone else.

He should have known better. Industry had reached beyond the point where one man goes out by himself and makes a fortune⁠—or even a living, he thought wryly. It’s the day of the big concerns, of tremendous trusts and cartels, who didn’t even have to bother with the task of squeezing out tiny competitors like himself. He was out before he started.

The Mooney Space Service. He snorted in self deprecation.

Oh, well.

He pulled himself erect and made his way to the bunk. The kid was awake. He grinned down at her and said, “How’s it going, Lillian?”

Her eyes seemed glazed, even worse than they’d been yesterday, but she tried to smile back at him. “All right,” she whispered, her child’s voice so low he could hardly make it out. “Where’s mother.⁠ ⁠…”

Phil Mooney held a finger to his lips. “Maybe you’d better not talk too much, Lillian. Your mother and father are⁠ ⁠… they’re all right. The thing now is to get you to the hospital and make you well again. Understand?”

Kitty Kildare was saying indignantly, “What’s this about no insurance on Luna?”

“Use your head, Kitty,” Jake grunted. “What company’d be crazy enough to insure anybody working on Luna? By the way, that was a good piece on Mooney and the Marshall kid.”

“Did you read it?” Kitty Kildare was pleased.

He shuddered. “No, but the letters have been pouring in. Maybe you ought to do another. Take it from some other angle this time.”

“That’s why I wanted to know about the insurance. Do you realize that this child, this poor, sick, defenseless child, is penniless? Actually, I mean. Bad enough that her parents have left her an orphan, but, Jake, that child is penniless.”

“All right, all right,” he told her, “work on that for tomorrow’s column.”

Ed came up with another radiotype report, just as Kitty was leaving. “This guy Mooney’s calling all the other spaceports now, Jake. Evidently he’s getting desperate; he’s only two days out. And by the way, here’s a new angle. This guy Harry Marshall, the kid’s father, was a wartime buddy of Phil Mooney; they went to cadet school or something together.”

Jake growled thoughtfully, “He hasn’t got a chance, but it makes a tremendous story. Get somebody to rig up a set in the radiotype room, Ed, and we’ll see if we can listen in.”

There was a desperate, tense, taut inflection in his voice now.

“Calling New Albuquerque Spaceport or Oneonta Spaceport. Phil Mooney calling any Earth spaceport. Phil Mooney Calling Oneonta, New Albuquerque, Casablanca, Mukden, any Earth spaceport. Emergency. Emergency. Request landing instructions. Have Lillian Marshall, eight years old, needing immediate medical care, aboard. Please come in any Earth Spaceport.”

Calling Phil Mooney. New Albuquerque calling Phil Mooney. Ambulance waiting on grounds. Receiving you perfectly. Come in.⁠ ⁠…

Calling Phil Mooney. Casablanca Spaceport Calling Phil.⁠ ⁠…

Calling Phil Mooney. Mukden Spaceport Calling.⁠ ⁠…

Calling Phil Mooney. Oneonta Spaceport Calling Phil Mooney.⁠ ⁠…

Ed Kerry looked up over the set in the radiotype room at the city editor. He wet his lips carefully and said, “He’s only got one day now. They’ve got to pick him up in hours or he’s sunk.”

Jake said, “I never did understand how that works. Why can’t he land himself? I know he can’t, but why?”

The reporter shrugged. “I don’t quite get it either, but evidently the whole operation is pretty delicate stuff. They bring him down with radar, somehow or other. It’s not like landing an airplane. Landing a spacecraft is done from the ground up⁠—not from the spacecraft down. The pilot has comparatively little to do about it. At least, that’s the way it is with nine ships out of ten.”

The set began to blare again, and they both listened tensely. It was Phil Mooney.

“Listen, you guys down there. If you’re sitting around playing craps or something, I’m going to have a few necks to break when I get down.”

The two newspapermen stared at each other over the set. Ed Kerry ran his tongue over his lips again.

The strained tone had gone from the voice of the space-pilot now and had been replaced by one of hopelessness. He said, “I don’t know who I think I’m kidding. I know darn well that something’s wrong with my receiver and I can’t find out what it is. Maybe my sender is off too, for all I know. All I can pick up is some girl singing something about white roses. White roses, yet! I want landing instructions and I get white roses.”

Ed Kerry jerked his head up and snapped, “Holy jumping hell, he’s able to pick some commercial station!”

Jake came to his feet, stuck his neck out of the door and yelled at the top of his voice, “Phil Mooney is receiving some commercial station! Some dame singing something about white roses! Check every station in the city! Find out if any of them are broadcasting some dame singing about white roses.”

Ladies and gentlemen, we interrupt this program for an emergency situation. Undoubtedly, you have heard on your newscasts and have read in your papers of the tragic case of Lillian Marshall, child victim of an atomic explosion on Luna which orphaned her and necessitated her immediate flight to an Earth hospital.

For the past three days the spacecraft carrying her, piloted by war hero Phillip Mooney, has been having trouble with its radio. Due to circumstances surrounding landing of spacecraft, the two have been given up as lost in spite of the fact that almost hourly it has been possible to receive messages from Mooney.

It is now revealed that he is able to pick up