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Read Ebook: Round-and-Round Trip by Fyfe H B Horace Bowne Wood Wallace Illustrator
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Ebook has 206 lines and 10579 words, and 5 pages
Winstead's next awakening was in the echo of a terrified scream.
A light was turned on and he discovered that the man-eating vine which had been strangling him was in reality an acceleration net. The face that floated before him was clean-shaven and anxious.
With considerable mental effort, Winstead deduced that the face was inquiring as to his health.
"Quite ... fine ... thank ... you," he answered with difficulty. "Haven't we met somewhere?"
"Sure! Last week, Mr. Winstead, when we took you to Topaz IV," said the face.
He groped dizzily for a question that would not make him sound a complete idiot. The pilot saved him.
"Oh. I ... see," murmured Winstead.
Unzipping the opening of his net, he floated himself out gingerly.
"I ... didn't notice," said Winstead. "Tell me--how long were you down at Topaz?"
"Three days," the spacer told him. "They sure took a liking to you there, Mr. Winstead. A big crowd brought you out to the spaceport with Callahan. We found your bag under his desk by ourselves, but I don't know where you got that orange suit."
Winstead looked down at his clothing for the first time and flinched.
"But that was yesterday," continued the pilot. "You ought to be feeling like some chow by now, eh? Hey wait--the door is down here, Mr. Winstead!"
He found a good many travelers wandering about the clean, beautifully furnished waiting room of the Agency here. Winstead sank into a softly upholstered armchair, opened his bag, and began to sort out his papers. No sooner did he look up from this task than there appeared before him a pleasantly smiling, gray-haired man. He was about Winstead's height, but chunky and full of bounce.
"My name is John Aubrey," he announced. "I trust I can be of service. Are you stopping here on Bessie?"
"No, I--I'm just passing through," said Winstead. "I assume you are the Agency official here?"
"One of them," Aubrey said. "Ah, your papers? Thank you. We can just step this way into my office if you like."
He threaded his way between chairs, tables, and occasional travelers to one of a row of offices. It was the size of a large closet, but cheerfully decorated. Aubrey gave Winstead a chair and sat himself down behind an extremely modern desk to commit the required formalities upon the traveler's papers. The ultimate destination ticket Winstead had included gave him pause.
"Well, well, well!" he exclaimed. "Achernar X! Really! You must be with the government, I suppose? Or a scientist? As I recall, Achernar is rather blue for human use, except our research outpost there, isn't it?"
"I--er--I am engaged in a little research," said Winstead. "You did very well to remember the place offhand."
He was awakened before dawn by the soft chime of his bedside screen. A touch of the button brought on the happy features of Aubrey.
He pushed the audio button and answered.
"Good morning, Mr. Winstead," said the Agency man brightly. "Sorry to call so early, but I was extremely lucky to find you a passage toward Achernar."
"Not sure I want to go," Winstead muttered into his pillow.
Aubrey, apparently not hearing him, bubbled merrily on. There would be an aircar on the hotel roof for Winstead in half an hour. Haste was necessary because the ship was leaving from a spaceport fifty miles outside the city. Indeed, Winstead could count himself fortunate to have had the chance so quickly. Aubrey had found it only by checking all the private spacelines. After all, Achernar was a long way off.
Winstead thanked him blearily before switching off. He then dialed the hotel store, but got no more answer than he expected. Giving up thoughts of his new suit, he rose and struggled into his clothes.
Queen Bess had not yet poked her corona above the horizon when the aircar delivered him to a little island spaceport south of the city. A stocky, taciturn shadow met him. They walked silently out to a ship that towered darkly overhead.
"No inside elevator?" asked Winstead, peering at the skeleton framework rising beside the ship.
"Too much load."
They rode a creaking platform up through the chilly breeze until Winstead thought they would go past the nose of the monster. Clutching his bag in one hand and the single railing in the other, he edged across a narrow gangway to an airlock. Inside, he followed the crewman down a short, three-foot-diameter shaft to a square chamber, catching his bag on the ladder no more than a few times.
In the more adequate light here, the spacer was revealed as a swarthy man with a muscular, dark-stubbled face. He wore tight trousers and shirt of navy blue and a knit cap that might once have been white. With a preoccupied air, he pulled open a small door on the bulkhead at chest level.
"Let's have your bag," he said.
Winstead handed it over. The spacer shoved it into what seemed to be a spacious compartment in spite of the yard-square door.
"Now you," he said. "I'll give you a hand up."
"Up where?" asked Winstead innocently.
"In there. That's your acceleration compartment. Plenty of room. Armored, air-conditioned, has its own emergency rations of air and water."
Winstead stooped to peer into the opening. It was deeper than he had thought, but a three-foot square was not much of a cross section. All surfaces inside were thickly padded and springy to the touch.
"Here's the light switch," the spacer said, turning on a soft interior light. "The rest of the facilities and instructions are on this plate beside the hatch. Okay now, grab that handhold up there so you go in feet first. Alley-oop!"
"Make yourself comfortable," said the spacer. "Just don't forget to close the hatch when the takeoff buzzer sounds. You'd better listen for it."
He turned away. Winstead saw him look into several other little windows along the bulkhead.
"Are there other passengers?" asked Winstead.
"No. Just checking to see if all my crew stayed. Always seems to be one that slides down the pipe before takeoff. Dunno why they sign on if they don't like the risk."
"What--what risk?"
He pulled open a door and nodded in gloomy satisfaction when the compartment proved to be empty.
The spacer gnawed upon a very short thumbnail. "What's dangerous?" he retorted at last. "You can get killed any day under a downcoming aircar."
Winstead considered. "Where's the captain?" he inquired.
"I'm the captain."
"But--aren't you preparing to blast off?"
"I generally let my second pilot do it," said the spacer.
"But why? I thought--"
"Why? Because I own the ship, that's why."
"What has that got to do with it?" said Winstead. "I should think you'd want all the more to handle it yourself!"
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