Read Ebook: Heir Apparent by Nourse Alan Edward Terry W E Illustrator

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Ebook has 86 lines and 7483 words, and 2 pages

Her eyes were wide with pain and sadness. "There's no other way, Ben?"

"If you love him, Marny, that's the only thing you can do--"

Bart was waiting for me, several nights later, when I got in from the hospital. He was lying on the couch when I closed the door. His shirt was open at the neck, and he didn't even move as I hung up my jacket in the closet. Then he said: "Hi, Ben. Been waiting for you."

"Beer?"

He shook his head and sat up. He looked like he'd been through the dishwasher. There were grey circles under his eyes, and he hadn't shaved for a couple of days. But, worst of all was the look in his eyes--a look of bewilderment and torture I'd never seen there before.

"You look like hell," I said.

"I feel like hell."

"Marny?"

He nodded, and lit a cigarette. After a puff or two he snubbed it out in distaste. "Let's get some dinner," he said. All the way down to the diner he sat in the car with his chin sunk in his chest. Finally he was facing me in a booth, and he couldn't avoid my eyes any longer. "Marny and I had a talk last night."

"That's nice," I said. "What did you decide?"

"Oh, it was awful. Why can't I keep my big yap shut once in a while? I tried to reason with her, Ben. And she was so damn calm and collected, and wouldn't budge an inch, so I started losing my temper, and then she really blew up--" He looked at me miserably. "She's too good to lose, Ben. It doesn't matter what it involves."

He couldn't meet my eyes. "I'm not going. I'm mailing my resignation to Dillon tonight."

I just gaped at him. "Say that again, slower."

"It's no go, Ben. I'm staying home."

"So you can marry that girl?"

He nodded silently.

"So that's it," I said disgustedly. "The kitty cat has really shown her claws. What are you, a puppet or something?"

"Aw, now Ben--"

He looked up puzzled. "I--I just decided not to go, Ben. Maybe after we're married she'll see things differently, but it just doesn't figure any other way."

I snorted. "It figures like a Hollywood production. Straight down the line. Get the brains to working, Bart! Do you really think she's going to marry you and let you go? Like so much baloney! What woman wants to be a space-widow? She's not so dumb, Bart. She's playing for keeps, and she isn't even subtle about it."

"But what am I going to do? I'm in love with her, Ben."

"Do you think she loves you?"

"I--I'm sure of it."

"But she won't even try to understand your side! My god, Bart, can't you see what's happening? She's selfish, Bart. Just plain selfish. She wants you, and she wants you on her own terms. There won't be any compromise. Turn in that resignation, and you're sunk--"

Anger lit in his eyes then. "It's not selfishness," he said doggedly.

"Then what do you call it? Has she even listened to you? Has she given even one little minute's consideration to how you feel?" I set down my coffee cup in disgust. "Marny is a woman," I said slowly. "To women, a husband and a home are the end of existence. Oh, there are other things, sure, but basically, a woman wants a husband, and somewhere, deep in her mind she has a picture of the vine-covered cottage in the country and all the rest of the bilge that goes with it. Where does a space-man fit into that picture? He doesn't. So there won't be any space-man. Do you think she really loves you, Bart? If she did, would she try to keep you here?"

"But I love her, Ben--"

And then I saw the old light coming back into his eyes, the light I knew I would see, the light that always appeared in his eyes when he talked about the stars. I knew the key was turned now, that he could never change, that he knew he had to go. "There's no end to the possibilities," he said softly. "There's simply no end."

He set down his coffee cup, and the light was still in his eyes. But there was something else in his eyes, too, that hadn't been there before. Call it pain, if you want, or disappointment. "I'll have to think, Ben. I'll just have to think. But thanks for making me think."

I drained my cup, and sat back with a sigh, and felt the music sing through me. I knew the answer, now. "You won't be sorry," I said.

So the Star-jump Station went up under his direction, the most colossal task ever undertaken in space, prelude to another infinitely more colossal task, the establishment of a Warp receiver big enough to handle a ship. Bart was the man the eyes of the world were watching when he closed the last port on the new little ship, waved a rakish farewell to the engineers and friends crowded near the ship, and then, with a burst of brilliant purple, threw in the Warp, and flashed into the hyperspace men had dreamed of but never before seen, jumping for the stars--

He didn't make it, of course. The ship was an impossible, audacious experiment, he didn't really have a chance. They brought him back, his body wrenched and broken from the shock, the little ship torn almost into ribbons. And from the wreckage they found the flaw, the vital information to make safe Warp passage possible. They brought his body back to Star-jump Station, and placed it with reverence in the pitted little ship with which he had started his fabulous career. They knew that the brilliant life was gone, like the last ashes of a dying nova. And they knew that he had lead the way to the greatest era in the history of Man--

I knew the whole story, of course. I knew the force that drove him, I knew why he never came home. I knew the truth of the last night he had seen Marny, the bitterness in his eyes and voice as he left. I knew the depth of the love he had carried with him to the stars, and the horrible dread he held in his heart of ever again coming back to the earth he left, the dread of ever again seeing the girl he had loved. I knew the depth of that personal battle that drove him closer to the stars that were his, and ever away from the Earth which dealt him his greatest bitterness--

And the girl? Marny should be home very soon now. It's getting late, past 10:30, and the bridge-club never lasts later than 10:00. It's been a quiet, comfortable evening, without a call, but a storm is blowing up from the West, and the kids are getting restless. But, she'll be home very soon, and go upstairs to kiss the kids goodnight, and it'll be nice to lie in bed and listen to the thunder crack. Matter of fact, I think I heard the garage doors slamming just a minute or two ago. She still prefers the three-wheeler to the 'copter, particularly with the parking problems we're having with 'copters these days. She should be in any minute.

But then, it may be a while before she comes. Sometimes she stops on the porch, and just stands there, staring up at the stars, if the night is clear. I've seen her, standing there for almost an hour, sometimes, just staring up at the blackness with tears in her eyes. But she always comes in, and I never ask her what she's been thinking. I don't think I'd want to know.

And me? I never look at the stars.

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