The Science Fiction anthology - Andre Norton

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      “It’s nothing but junk!”

      Junk, whispered everyone, getting hysterical.

      “Don’t let him get away!”

      Mr. Thirkell tried to break and run, but a thousand possum traps closed on him from every side. He withered.

      Everybody walked around in circles like blind mice. There was a confusion and a weeping that lasted for five minutes as they went over and touched the Rocket, the Dented Kettle, the Rusty Container for God’s Children.

      “Well,” said Mrs. Bellowes. She stepped up into the askew doorway of the rocket and faced everyone. “It looks as if a terrible thing has been done to us,” she said. “I haven’t any money to go back home to Earth and I’ve too much pride to go to the Government and tell them a common man like this has fooled us out of our life’s savings. I don’t know how you feel about it, all of you, but the reason all of us came is because I’m eighty-five, and you’re eighty-nine, and you’re seventy-eight, and all of us are nudging on toward a hundred, and there’s nothing on Earth for us, and it doesn’t appear there’s anything on Mars either. We all expected not to breathe much more air or crochet many more doilies or we’d never have come here. So what I have to propose is a simple thing—to take a chance.”

      She reached out and touched the rusted hulk of the rocket.

      “This is our rocket. We paid for our trip. And we’re going to take our trip!”

      Everyone rustled and stood on tiptoes and opened an astonished mouth.

      Mr. Thirkell began to cry. He did it quite easily and very effectively.

      “We’re going to get in this ship,” said Mrs. Bellowes, ignoring him. “And we’re going to take off to where we were going.”

      Mr. Thirkell stopped crying long enough to say, “But it was all a fake. I don’t know anything about space. He’s not out there, anyway. I lied. I don’t know where He is, and I couldn’t find Him if I wanted to. And you were fools to ever take my word on it.”

      “Yes,” said Mrs. Bellowes, “we were fools. I’ll go along on that. But you can’t blame us, for we’re old, and it was a lovely, good and fine idea, one of the loveliest ideas in the world. Oh, we didn’t really fool ourselves that we could get nearer to Him physically. It was the gentle, mad dream of old people, the kind of thing you hold onto for a few minutes a day, even though you know it’s not true. So, all of you who want to go, you follow me in the ship.”

      “But you can’t go!” said Mr. Thirkell. “You haven’t got a navigator. And that ship’s a ruin!”

      “You,” said Mrs. Bellowes, “will be the navigator.”

      She stepped into the ship, and after a moment, the other old ladies pressed forward. Mr. Thirkell, windmilling his arms frantically, was nevertheless pressed through the port, and in a minute the door slammed shut. Mr. Thirkell was strapped into the navigator’s seat, with everyone talking at once and holding him down. The special helmets were issued to be fitted over every gray or white head to supply extra oxygen in case of a leakage in the ship’s hull, and at long last the hour had come and Mrs. Bellowes stood behind Mr. Thirkell and said, “We’re ready, sir.”

      He said nothing. He pleaded with them silently, using his great, dark, wet eyes, but Mrs. Bellowes shook her head and pointed to the control.

      “Takeoff,” agreed Mr. Thirkell morosely, and pulled a switch.

      Everybody fell. The rocket went up from the planet Mars in a great fiery glide, with the noise of an entire kitchen thrown down an elevator shaft, with a sound of pots and pans and kettles and fires boiling and stews bubbling, with a smell of burned incense and rubber and sulphur, with a color of yellow fire, and a ribbon of red stretching below them, and all the old women singing and holding to each other, and Mrs. Bellowes crawling upright in the sighing, straining, trembling ship.

      “Head for space, Mr. Thirkell.”

      “It can’t last,” said Mr. Thirkell, sadly. “This ship can’t last. It will—”

      It did.

      The rocket exploded.

      Mrs. Bellowes felt herself lifted and thrown about dizzily, like a doll. She heard the great screamings and saw the flashes of bodies sailing by her in fragments of metal and powdery light.

      “Help, help!” cried Mr. Thirkell, far away, on a small radio beam.

      The ship disintegrated into a million parts, and the old ladies, all one hundred of them, were flung straight on ahead with the same velocity as the ship.

      As for Mr. Thirkell, for some reason of trajectory, perhaps, he had been blown out the other side of the ship. Mrs. Bellowes saw him falling separate and away from them, screaming, screaming.

      There goes Mr. Thirkell, thought Mrs. Bellowes.

      And she knew where he was going. He was going to be burned and roasted and broiled good, but very good.

      Mr. Thirkell was falling down into the Sun.

      And here we are, thought Mrs. Bellowes. Here we are, going on out, and out, and out.

      There was hardly a sense of motion at all, but she knew that she was traveling at fifty thousand miles an hour and would continue to travel at that speed for an eternity, until....

      She saw the other women swinging all about her in their own trajectories, a few minutes of oxygen left to each of them in their helmets, and each was looking up to where they were going.

      Of course, thought Mrs. Bellowes. Out into space. Out and out, and the darkness like a great church, and the stars like candles, and in spite of everything, Mr. Thirkell, the rocket, and the dishonesty, we are going toward the Lord.

      And there, yes, there, as she fell on and on, coming toward her, she could almost discern the outline now, coming toward her was His mighty golden hand, reaching down to hold her and comfort her like a frightened sparrow....

      “I’m Mrs. Amelia Bellowes,” she said quietly, in her best company voice. “I’m from the planet Earth.”

      “We’re somewhat to the south, I think,” Ri said, bending over the crude field map. “That ridge,” he pointed, “on our left, is right here.” He drew a finger down the map. “It was over here,” he moved the finger, “over the ridge, north of here, that we sighted them.”

      Extrone asked, “Is there a pass?”

      Ri looked up, studying the terrain. He moved his shoulders. “I don’t know, but maybe they range this far. Maybe they’re on this side of the ridge, too.”

      Delicately, Extrone raised a hand to his beard. “I’d hate to lose a day crossing the ridge,” he said.

      “Yes, sir,” Ri said. Suddenly he threw back his head. “Listen!”

      “Eh?” Extrone said.

      “Hear it? That cough? I think that’s one, from over there. Right up ahead of us.”

      Extrone raised his eyebrows.

      This time, the coughing roar was more distant, but distinct.

      “It is!” Ri said. “It’s a farn beast, all right!”

      Extrone smiled, almost pointed teeth showing through the beard. “I’m glad we won’t have to cross the ridge.”

      Ri wiped his forehead on the back of his sleeve. “Yes, sir.”

      “We’ll pitch camp right here, then,” Extrone said. “We’ll go after it tomorrow.” He looked at the sky. “Have the bearers hurry.”

      “Yes, sir.”

      Ri

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