Short Fiction - Fritz Leiber (desktop ebook reader .TXT) 📗

although one-quarter G isn’t much, it piles up in a few seconds to quite a jerk. I spread that jerk into several little ones.

Well, the last jerk came and the line didn’t part and Trompled Love didn’t crumple much, though the Shaula-light showed me several very nasty-looking wrinkles in it. And there I was trailing along after the ship, though out to one side, and feeling about as much strain on the line as if I were hanging from a cliff on the moon, and knowing I was going about five feet a second faster every second.

My idea wanting to be out to the side (and bless my impulses for realizing it was the one important thing!) was to keep my line and myself out of the beam. An ionic jet doesn’t look hot from the side. But from straight on it’s a lot brighter than an arc light⁠—it’s almost as tight as a laser beam⁠—and I didn’t want to think about what it would do to me, even trailing as I was a hundred yards aft.

Though of course long before it had ruined me, it would have disintegrated my line.

My being out to the side was putting the ship off balance on its jet and presumably throwing its course toward base and Shaula-near little by little into error. But that was the least of my worries, believe me.

I thought for a bit and remembered I could talk to Jeff over my suit radio. I decided to try it, not without misgivings.

I tongued it on and said, “Jeff. Oh, Jeff. I’m out here. You forgot me.”

I was going to say some more, but just then he broke in, angry and so loud it made my helmet ring, with, “Joseph! Did you hear anything then?” A pause, then, “Well, clean the wax out of your ears, stupid, because I did! I think we got an enemy out there!”

Another and longer pause, while my blood curdled a bit thicker, then, “Well, okay, Joseph, I’ll go along with you this time. But if I hear the enemy once more, I’m going to suit up and take a rifle and sit in the airlock door until I’ve potted him.”

I tongued the radio off quick, fearful I’d sneeze or something. I had only one faint consolation: Joseph seemed to be a bit on my side, or maybe he was just lazy.

I thought some more, a mite frantic-like now, and after a while I said to myself, Been going five minutes now, so I’m doing about a quarter of a mile a second⁠—that’s fifteen miles a minute, wow!⁠—but out here velocities are purely relative. My suit does a little better than a quarter G full on. Okay. I’ll jet to the ship.

No sooner said than acted on⁠—I was beginning to rely too much on impulse now. The suit jet killed my false weight at once and I was off, mighty careful to aim myself along my line or a little outside it, so as not to wander over into the beam.

Pretty soon the tail and Trompled Love were getting noticeably bigger.

Then a lot bigger.

Then my suit fuel ran out.

I’d built up enough velocity so that I was still gaining on the ship for a few seconds. In fact, I almost made it. My gauntlet was about to close on Trompled Love when the ship started slowly to pull away. Oh, it was frustrating!

I remembered then what I should have a lot earlier, and grabbed for the ship-end of my line so as not to lose the distance I’d gained⁠—and in my haste I knocked it away from me. The only good thing was that I didn’t knock it out of the notch.

Now I was losing space to the ship faster and faster. Yet all I could do was reel in the me-end of the line as fast as I could. Suddenly the whole line straightened and gave me a bigger jerk than I’d intended. I could see Trompled Love crumple a little. And I was swinging just a bit, like a pendulum.

I used a glove-friction to spread the rest of the jerk, but still I was at the end of my line and Trompled Love had crumpled a bit more before I was coasting along with the ship again.

My side of Trompled Love was bent back maybe twenty degrees. The eye of the beam shone at me from the tail like a pale blue moon. For quite a while it brightened and dimmed as I ticktock swung.

Meanwhile I was beating my skull for not having thought earlier of the obvious slow-but-safe way of doing it, instead of that lunatic suit-jetting. I once heard a psychologist say we’re mental slaves to power-machinery and I guess he had something.

Clearly all I had to do was climb handover-hand up the line to the ship. At moon gravity that would be easy. If I should get tired I only had to clamp on and rest.

So I waited for my emotions to settle a bit, and then I reached along the line and gave a smooth, medium-strength heave.

Maybe there is something to E.S.P.⁠—at least in a devilish sort of way⁠—because I picked the exact moment when Jeff decided to feed the beam more juice.

There was a big jerk and I saw Trompled Love crumple a lot, so that it was pointing more than forty-five degrees aft.

Now there was a steady pull on the line like I was hanging from a cliff on Mars. And the eye of the beam was a blue moon not so pale⁠—in fact more like a sizzling blue sun seen through a light fog.

After that I just didn’t have the heart to try the climb again. Once I started to draw myself up, very cautious, but on the first handhold I seemed to feel along the line Trompled Love crumpling some more and I quit for good.

I figured that at this boost Jeff would be up to proper speed for Shaula-near in less than