Chapter II

He was rustier than he had realized. It was not only the four years away from the levers of the control room and the split-second decision of high speed, it was the four years of rotting in skid row. His muscles were stringy, his skin was slaty, his eyes were slow. He was flab and ached and off his feed. He was slow and overcompensating in his motions. He missed his aim by yards and miscalculated his position and his speed and his direction so badly that Donaldson, who rode in the co-pilot's seat, sat there with his hands poised over the levers and clutched convulsively or pressed against the floor with his feet, chewing his lips with concern as Farradyne flopped the sky cruiser roughly here and there like a recruit.

It took him a month of practise on Mercury to get the hang of it again. A solid month of severe discipline, living in the ship and taking exercise and routine practise to refine his control. He found that making the change from the rotgut jungle juice to White Star Trail was not too hard because his mind was busy all the time and he did not need the high-powered stuff. White Star Trail was a godsend to the man who liked the flavor of fine Scotch whiskey but could not afford to befog his coordination by so much as a single ounce of the pure quill.

Eventually they 'soloed' him; Donaldson sat in the easy chair in the salon below talking to Clevis, and he could hear them discussing problems unrelated to him. Their voices came over the squawk-box system clear enough to be understood. It gave Farradyne confidence. He took the Lancaster Eighty-One into the sky, circled Mercury and began landing procedure. For a moment, then, he relived that black day in his past:

He had called the spaceport, "Semiramide calling North Venus Tower."

"Aye-firm, Semiramide, from North Venus Tower."

"Semiramide requesting landing instructions; give with the dope, Tower."

"Tower to Semiramide. Beacon Nine at one hundred thousand feet, Landing Area Twelve. Traffic is one Middleton Seven-Six-Two at thirty thousand taking off from Beacon Two and one Lincoln Four-Four landing at Beacon Seven. Keep an eye peeled for a Burbank Eight-Experimental that's been scooting around at seventy thousand. That's all."

"Aye-firm, Tower."

Then had come the voice of a woman behind him. Just a murmur--perhaps a sigh of wonder from a woman who had just been shown for the first time in her life the intricacies of rack and panel of meter and gage and lever and shining device that surrounds the space pilot to demand every iota of his attention during take-off or landing. In Farradyne's recollection, there were two kinds of people: one kind stood in the center of such an array and held their hands together for fear of upsetting something; the other couldn't keep their damned hands off a button or a lever even if it meant their own electrocution.

There were thirty-three people aboard, thirteen of them women, and Farradyne wondered which of them it was. He didn't care. "Get the hell below," he snapped over his shoulder.

A young man made some sound. Farradyne was even sharper; a woman might wander up, interested, but a man should know that this was a deadly curiosity. "Take her below, you imbecile," he snarled.

An older man chimed in with something that sounded like an agreement to Farradyne's order; there was a very brief three-way argument that lasted until one of them fell for the lure of a dark pilot-lamp and an inviting push-button. The Semiramide bucked like a wasp-stung colt and the silver-dull sky over North Venus Spaceport whirled--

* * * * *

Farradyne was shocked out of his vivid daydream by the matter-of-fact voice of the Mercury Port's dispatcher: "Lancaster from Tower, you are a half degree off landing course. Correct."

Farradyne responded, "Instructions received, Tower. Will correct. Will correlate instruments after landing."

"Aye-firm, Lancaster Eighty-One."

Farradyne's solo landing was firm and easy; almost as good as he used to do in the days before--

He put it out of his mind and went below to Clevis and Donaldson. The latter asked him what had been the matter with the course.

"I hit a daydream of the Semiramide," admitted Farradyne.

"Better forget it."

"I came out of it," said Farradyne shortly.

"Okay?" Clevis looked at Donaldson. The pilot nodded. "Okay, Farradyne, you're ready. This is your ship; you're cleared to Ganymede on speculation. You'll play it from there. There's enough money in the strong-locker to keep you going for a long time on no pickups at all, and you'll get regular payment for the Pluto run. Just remember, no shenanigans."

"No games," promised Farradyne.

Clevis stood up. "I hope you mean that," he said earnestly. "If nothing else, remember that your--er--misfortune on Venus four years ago may have put you in a position to be a benefactor to the same mankind you hate. I hope you'll find that they are as quick to applaud a hero as to condemn a louse. Don't force me to admit that my hope of running down the hellblossom outfit was based on a bum hunch. Don't let me down, Farradyne."

Clevis left then, before Farradyne could find words. Donaldson left with him, but stopped at the spacelock to hurl at Farradyne: "Luck, fella."

An hour later Farradyne was a-space between Mercury and Ganymede. On his own in space for the first time in four long aching years. Not quite a free man, but at least no prisoner. He took a deep breath once he was out of control-range and could put the Lancaster on the autopilot. Gone were the smells and the rotting filth of the fungus fields; here were the bright clear stars in the velvety sky. Here was freedom--freedom of the body, at least. Maybe even freedom of the soul. But not freedom of the intellect, yet. He had a tough row to hoe and the tougher row of his innocence to turn up into the light of day.

But for the first time since he'd been thrown flat on his face, Farradyne felt that he had a chance.