Requiem On a high hill in Samoa there is a grave. Inscribed on the marker are these words: "Under the wide and starry sky Dig my grave and let me lie Glad did I live and gladly die And I lay me down with a will! "This be the verse which you grave for me: 'Here he lies where he longed to be, Home is the sailor, home from the sea, And the hunter home from the hill.'" These lines appear another place -- scrawled on a shipping tag torn from a compressed-air container, and pinned to the ground with a knife. It wasn't much of a fair, as fairs go. The trottin' races didn't promise much excitement, even though several entries claimed the blood of the immortal Dan Patch. The tents and concession booths barely covered the circus grounds, and the pitchmen seemed discouraged. D.D. Harriman's chauffeur could not see any reason for stopping. They were due in Kansas City for a directors' meeting, that is to say, Harriman was. The chauffeur had private reasons for promptness, reasons involving darktown society on Eighteenth Street. But the Boss not only stopped, but hung around. Bunting and a canvas arch made the entrance to a large enclosure beyond the race track. Red and gold letters announced: This way to the MOON ROCKET!!!! See it in actual flight! Public Demonstration Flights Twice Daily This is the ACTUAL TYPE used by the First Man to reach the MOON!!! YOU can ride in it!! -- $50.OO A boy, nine or ten years old, hung around the entrance and stared at the posters. "Want to see the ship, son?" The kid's eyes shone. "Gee, mister. I sure would." "So would I. Come on." Harriman paid out a dollar for two pink tickets which entitled them to enter the enclosure and examine the rocket ship. The kid took his and ran on ahead with the single-mindedness of youth. Harriman looked over the stubby curved lines of the ovoid body. He noted with a professional eye that she was a single-jet type with fractional controls around her midriff. He squinted through his glasses at the name painted in gold on the carnival red of the body, _Care Free_. He paid another quarter to enter the control cabin. When his eyes had adjusted to the gloom caused by the strong ray filters of the ports he let them rest lovingly on the keys of the console and the semi-circle of dials above. Each beloved gadget was in its proper place. He knew them, graven in his heart. While he mused over the instrument board, with the warm liquid of content soaking through his body, the pilot entered and touched his arm. "Sorry, sir. We've got to cast loose for the flight." "Eh?" Harriman started, then looked at the speaker. Handsome devil, with a good skull and strong shoulders, reckless eyes and a self-indulgent mouth, but a firm chin. "Oh, excuse me, Captain." "Quite all right." "Oh, I say, Captain, er, uh. . ." "McIntyre." "Captain McIntyre, could you take a passenger this trip?" The old man leaned eagerly toward him. "Why, yes, if you wish. Come along with me." He ushered Harriman into a shed marked OFFICE which stood near the gate. "Passenger for a check over, doc." Harriman looked startled but permitted the medico to run a stethoscope over his thin chest, and to strap a rubber bandage around his arm. Presently he unstrapped it, glanced at McIntyre, and shook his head. "No go, doc?" "That's right, Captain." Harriman looked from face to face. "My heart's all right -- that's just a flutter." The physician's brows shot up. "Is it? But it's not just your heart; at your age your bones are brittle, too brittle to risk a take-off." "Sorry, sir," added the pilot, "but the Bates County Fair Association pays the doctor here to see to it that I don't take anyone up who might be hurt by the acceleration." The old man's shoulders drooped miserably. "I rather expected it." "Sorry, sir." McIntyre turned to go, but Harriman followed him out. "Excuse me, Captain--" "Yes?" "Could you and your, uh, engineer have dinner with me after your flight?" The pilot looked at him quizzically. "I don't see why not. Thanks." "Captain McIntyre, it is difficult for me to see why anyone would quit the Earth-Moon run." Fried chicken and hot biscuits in a private dining room of the best hotel the little town of Butler afforded, three-star Hennessey and Corona-Coronas had produced a friendly atmosphere in which three men could talk freely. "Well, I didn't like it." "Aw, don't give him that, Mac -- you know damn well it was Rule G that got you." McIntyre's mechanic poured himself another brandy as he spoke. McIntyre looked sullen. "Well, what if I did take a couple o' drinks? Anyhow, I could have squared that -- it was the damn persnickety regulations that got me fed up. Who are you to talk? -- Smuggler!" "Sure I smuggled! Who wouldn't with all those beautiful rocks just aching to be taken back to Earth. I had a diamond once as big as... But if I hadn't been caught I'd be in Luna City tonight. And so would you, you drunken blaster ... with the boys buying us drinks, and the girls smiling and making suggestions..." He put his face down and began to weep quietly. McIntyre shook him. "He's drunk." "Never mind." Harriman interposed a hand. "Tell me, are you really satisfied not to be on the run any more?" McIntyre chewed his lip. "No, he's right of course. This barnstorming isn't what it's all cracked up to be. We've been hopping junk at every pumpkin doin's up and down the Mississippi valley -- sleeping in tourist camps, and eating at grease burners. Half the time the sheriff has an attachment on the ship, the other half the Society for the Prevention of Something or Other gets an injunction to keep us on the ground. It's no sort of a life for a rocket man." "Would it help any for you to get to the Moon?" "Well. . . Yes. I couldn't get back on the Earth-Moon run, but if I was in Luna City, I could get a job hopping ore for the Company -- they're always short of rocket pilots for that, and they wouldn't mind my record. If I kept my nose clean, they might even put me back on the run, in time." Harriman fiddled with a spoon, then looked up. "Would you young gentlemen be open to a business proposition?" "Perhaps. What is it?" "You own the _Care Free_?" "Yeah. That is, Charlie and I do -- barring a couple of liens against her. What about it?" "I want to charter her... for you and Charlie to take me to the Moon!" Charlie sat up with a jerk. "D'joo hear what he said, Mac? He wants us to fly that old heap to the Moon!" McIntyre shook his head. "Can't do it, Mister Harriman. The old boat's worn out. You couldn't convert to escape fuel. We don't even use standard juice in her -- just gasoline and liquid air. Charlie spends all of his time tinkering with her at that She's going to blow up some day." "Say, Mister Harriman," put in Charlie, "what's the matter with getting an excursion permit and going in a Company ship?" "No, son," the old man replied, "I can't do that. You know the conditions under which the U. N. granted the Company a monopoly on lunar exploitation -- no one to enter space who was not physically qualified to stand up under it. Company to take full responsibility for the safety and health of all citizens beyond the stratosphere. The official reason for granting the franchise was to avoid unnecessary loss of life during the first few years of space travel." "And you can't pass the physical exam?" Harriman shook his head. "Well, what the hell -- if you can afford to hire us, why don't you just bribe yourself a brace of Company docs? It's been done before." Harriman smiled ruefully. "I know it has, Charlie, but it won't work for me. You see, I'm a tad too prominent. My full name is Delos D. Harriman." "What? You are old D.D.? But hell's bells, you own a big slice of the Company yourself -- you practically are the Company; you ought to be able to do anything you like, rules or no rules." "That is a not unusual opinion, son, but it is incorrect. Rich men aren't more free than other men; they are less free, a good deal less free. I tried to do what you suggest, but, the other directors would not permit me. They are afraid of losing their franchise. It costs them a good deal in -- uh -- political contact expenses to retain it, as it is." "Well, I'll be a-- Can you tie that, Mac? A guy with lots of dough, and he can't spend it the way he wants to." McIntyre did not answer, but waited for Harriman to continue. "Captain McIntyre, if you had a ship, would you take me?" McIntyre rubbed his chin. "It's against the law." "I'd make it worth your while." "Sure he would, Mr. Harriman. Of course you would, Mac. Luna City! Oh, baby!" "Why do you want to go to the Moon so badly, Mister Harriman?" "Captain, it's the one thing I've really wanted to do all my life -- ever since I was a young boy. I don't know whether I can explain it to you, or not. You young fellows have grown up to rocket travel the way I grew up to aviation. I'm a great deal older than you are, at least fifty years older. When I was a kid practically nobody believed that men would ever reach the Moon. You've seen rockets all your lives, and the first to reach the Moon got there before you were a young boy. When I was a boy they laughed at the idea. "But I believed -- I believed. I read Verne, and Wells, and Smith, and I believed that we could do it -- that we would do it. I set my heart on being one of the men to walk the surface of the Moon, to see her other side, and to look back on the face of the Earth, hanging in the sky. "I used to go without my lunches to pay my dues in the American Rocket Society, because I wanted to believe that I was helping to bring the day nearer when we would reach the Moon. I was already an old man when that day arrived. I've lived longer than I should, but I would not let myself die... I will not! -- unti...
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