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Read Ebook: The Odyssey of Sam Meecham by Fritch Charles E
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Ebook has 94 lines and 6579 words, and 2 pages
"Call up the foreman," Sam said. "Tell him I'm sick. No, wait." He paused, smiling coldly. That would leave him an out; he could always go back to the job if he changed his mind. He said slowly, "Tell him I've quit."
"Tell him I've quit," Sam insisted. That was the thing. Burn your bridges behind you so you can't turn back, so the only road is ahead.
Sam Meecham was going to the stars, and he would never return!
The atomic engine came that afternoon, neat and shiny and sleek, with all the wires in their proper places, checked and double-checked by a sober human cog in the prison from which Sam Meecham had just escaped.
Sam busied himself in the hangar, lifting out the old engine and replacing it with the new one. Carefully, he settled it into its housing and bolted it down. Then he rearranged the wires into the pattern outlined on the sheet of paper.
Dorothy brought him coffee. That surprised him but he accepted it gratefully.
"Can--can I help you, Sam?" she offered.
He looked at her, perhaps a little disappointed that her face was serious. He said, "Sure you're not just trying to be nosey?"
A sharp pain darted into her eyes and she turned away.
"Wait," he said.
He called himself a fool. It was another of her tricks and he was falling for it. He put a restraining hand on her arm and remembered another time eight years ago when the touch would have sent electric thrills coursing through him. Oddly, he felt a small remnant of the pleasure stir within him.
"All right," he said gruffly. "All right, you can help."
So he was a fool. He'd been a fool before and chances were he'd be one again more often than he'd care to admit. In a short while, hours perhaps, he'd be gone--and he'd never see Dorothy again. Somehow the thought was not as comforting as he had expected, and he tried to work off a lingering doubt that rose to plague him.
They worked through the afternoon, testing any weak parts the rocket might have, bracing the struts, checking for leaks. Sam found two space-suits in the locker. He'd better leave one, he thought. They were expensive and Dorothy might need one sometime. With him gone, she couldn't afford to throw money around. Yet he might need it more than she ever would. For a minute he stood undecided, and then he put them both in the locker.
Dorothy came into the room and smiled wearily at him. "It'll go any place now," she told him proudly.
In her eyes Sam saw an indefinable something. Something he might have seen eight years ago--but mixed with it was a sadness he had not known she could possess. Guiltily, he turned his gaze away.
"We--we'd better go in and eat," he said, looking at his watch without seeing it.
She didn't say anything, and that was odd. Sam wished she would nag and complain as she always had before. He wondered why he wished that, when only a short time before he had wanted just the opposite. It was with a start that he realized the reason. He was running away. That was it. He was running away, and he wanted to be deathly certain that he had good cause to run. Slowly the suspicion was creeping over him that the situation had changed slightly, was changing more.
He would leave tonight, he told himself, before he weakened enough to shelve his plans for another comfortable rut.
Sam's voice was a little hoarse. "What are you doing here? What do you want?" He had finished loading enough supplies aboard the rocket to last him months.
Dorothy came toward him from the darkness.
"It's no use," he said. "You can't talk me out of it this time."
But she only smiled sadly and said, "I know that, Sam. I came to say good-bye."
"Good-bye?"
"You're leaving, aren't you?"
"Yes." He looked at the ground, studying the darkness.
"I'm sorry, Sam," she said. "We started out wrong. Maybe, if we tried again--"
But Sam said quickly, "No. I'm sorry too, but people don't change."
Her hair was soft in the same moonlight that had shone eight years before, and Sam Meecham felt a desire that had been too long unfulfilled.
"Dorothy, I--"
He hesitated. The decision came hard to him, for much of his life had been devoted to giving in to the decisions of others. This was the moment he had been waiting for, and now at the last moment he was uncertain.
He said suddenly, "Can you pack a few things?"
"Sam--" Her voice in the darkness was eager. Her hands touched his. Soft hands.
"You'd better hurry," he told her.
Sam watched her go to the house, and doubts began to gnaw at him. Was he going to destroy his plans now at a whim? He felt an impulse to get into the rocket and leave without her--yet he thought of the cold emptiness of space and himself drifting through alien worlds, alone, lonely. Perhaps it was wrong but he couldn't condemn her for something that was partly his fault. He was trying to become the person he once might have been, and it was only fair that she should have the same chance.
Dorothy came hurrying back, a suitcase in her hand, and there was an eagerness about her that pleased him. He helped her put the suitcase on board.
"Dorothy--"
Her voice was soft and low. "Yes, Sam?" Starlight danced in her eyes.
He pulled her gently to him. He kissed her, and that night eight years ago came back, and in his arms was the young eager bride he had known, the one he loved.
Minutes later they rose on wings of fire, in a slow upward spiral that quickened painlessly. Sam had not questioned the hyperdrive. It had worked in the factory and it would work here. He watched the needle cross the dial in a swift, steady movement.
Dorothy placed her hand in his. "Where are we going, darling?"
Sam Meecham smiled at her, confident that he had made the most important decision in his life. He pointed through the forward window.
Ahead of them lay the stars.
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