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| Hmn. This guy's getting a bit weird... |
Fritz Leiber
A HITCH IN SPACE
Worlds of Tomorrow, August 1963.
My Space-partner was a good reliable
sidekick—but his partner was something else.
Once when I was doing a hitch with the Shaulan Space
Guard out Scorpio way, my partner Jeff Bogart developed just about the most
harmless psychosis you could imagine: he got himself an imaginary companion.
And the
imaginary companion turned out to be me.
Well, I’m a
pretty nice guy and so having two of me in the ship didn’t seem a particularly
bad idea. At first. In fact there’d be advantages of it, I thought. For
instance, Jeff liked to talk a weary lot ... and the imaginary Joe Hansen could
spell me listening to him, while I projected a book or just harkened to the
wheels going around in my own head against the faint patter of starlight on the
hull.
I met Jeff
first at a space-rodeo, oddly enough, but now the two of us were out on a
servicing check of the orbital beacons and relays and rescue depots of the five
planets of the Shaulan system. A completely routine job, its only drawback that
it was lengthy. Our ship was an ionic jeep that looked like a fancy fountain
pen, but was very roomy for three men—one of them imaginary.
I caught on to
Jeff’s little mania by overhearing him talking to me. I’d be coming back from
the head or stores or linear accelerator or my bunk, and I’d hear him yakking
at me. It embarrassed me the first time, how to go back into the cabin when the
other me was there. But I just swam in, and without any transition-strain at
all that I could observe Jeff looked around at me, smiling sort of glaze-eyed,
and said warmly, “Joe. My buddy Joe. Am I glad they paired us.”
If Jeff had a
major fault, as opposed to a species of nuttiness, it was that he was strictly
a speak-only-good, positive-thinking guy who always deferred to me. Even
idolized me, if you can imagine that. He’d give me such fulsome praise I’d be
irked ten times an orbit.
Another thing
that helped me catch on was that he always called the other me Joseph.
At first I thought the whole thing might be a gag, or
maybe a deliberate way of letting off steam against me without violating his
always-a-sweet-guy code—like happy husbands cursing in the bathroom—but then
came the scrambled eggs.
I’d slept late
and when I squinted into the cabin there was Jeff hovering over a plate of
yellow fluff and shaking his finger at my empty seat and saying, “Dammit,
Joseph, eat your scrambled eggs, I cooked ’em ’specially for you,” and when he
crawfished out toward the galley a couple seconds later he was saying, “Now you
start on those eggs, Joseph, before I get back.”
I thought for
a bit and then I slid into my place and polished them off.
When he
floated in with the coffee he gave me another of those glaze-eyed God-fearing
looks—but just a mite disappointed, I thought—and said, “Dammit, Joe, you’re
perfect! You always clean your plate.”
Apparently
when I was there, Joseph just didn’t exist for Jeff. And vice versa. It was
sort of eerie, especially with the hum of space in my ears like a seashell and
nobody else for five million miles.
Beginning with
the scrambled eggs, I discovered that Jeff didn’t exactly idolize Joseph—or
even take with him the attitude of “My buddy can do no wrong,” like he did with
me. I overheard him criticizing Joseph. Reasonably at first; then I heard him
chewing him out—next bullying him.
It made me
wistful, that last, thinking how good it would feel to be full-bloodedly cursed
to my face once in a while instead of all the sweetness and light. And right
there I got the idea for some amateur therapy, Shaula-Deva help me.
I waited for a
moment when we were both relaxed and then I said, “Jeff, the trouble with you
is you’re too nice. You ought to criticize things more. For a starter,
criticize me. Tell me my faults. Go ahead.”
He flushed a
little and said, “Dammit, Joe, how can I? You’re perfect!”
“No man is
perfect, Jeff,” I told him solemnly, feeling pretty foolish.
“But you’re my
buddy I always can trust,” he protested, squirming a bit. “I wish you wouldn’t
talk this way.”
***
“Jeff, you can’t trust anybody too far,” I said. “Even
good guys can do bad things. When I was a boy there was a kid named Harry I
practically worshipped. We lived on a pioneer world of Fomalhaut that had good
snow, and we’d hitch rides with our sleds off little airscrew planes taking
off. We’d each have a long white line on his sled and loop it beforehand around
the plane’s tail-gear and back to the sled. Then we’d hide. As soon as the
pilot got aboard we’d jump on our sleds and each grab the free end of his line
and have one comet of a ride, until the plane took off. Then we’d quick let go.
“Well, one
frosty morning I let go and nothing happened, except I started to rise. Harry
had tied the free end of my line tight to my sled.
“I could have
just rolled off, I suppose, but I didn’t want to lose my sled or my line
either. Luckily I had a sheath knife handy and I used it. I even made a
whizeroo of a landing. But ever afterwards my feelings toward Harry—”
“Stop it,
please, Joe!” Jeff interrupted, very red in the face and shaking a little.
“That boy Harry was utterly evil. And I don’t want to hear any more about this,
or anything like it, ever again. Understand?”
I told him
sure I did. Heck, I could see I’d gone the wrong way about it. I even begged his
pardon.
After that I
just sweated it out. But I found I couldn’t spend much time on books or my
thoughts, I’d keep listening for what Jeff was saying to Joseph. And sometimes
when he’d pause for Joseph’s reply I’d catch myself waiting for the imaginary
me to make one. So I took to staying in the same cabin as Jeff as much as I
could.
That seemed to
make him uncomfortable after a while, though he pretended to glory in it. He’d
ask me questions like, “Tell me about life, Joe. So I’ll know how to handle
myself if we’re ever parted.”
But the
weariest things come to an end, even duty orbits around Shaula. And so the time
came when we were servicing our last beacon—outside the planet Shaula-by, it
was. Next step would be a fast interplanetary orbit for Base at Shaula-near.
I was out
working—on a safety line of course, but suit-jetting around more than I needed
to, just for the pure joy of it, so that my suit tank was almost dry. I’d
switched my suit radio off for a bit, because, working in space, Jeff had taken
to just gabbling to me nervously all the time—maybe because he figured there
couldn’t be room for Joseph with him in his suit.
***
 |
| ...just scrambling eggs for a buddy... |
I finished up
and paused for a last look at the ship. She was sweetly slim from her conical
living quarters to the taper-tail of her ionic jet, but she had more junk on
her than an amateur asteroid prospector hangs on his suit the first time out.
Every duty orbit, fifty scientists come with permission from the Commandant to
hang some automatic research gadget on the hull. The craziest one this time was
a huge flattened band of gold-plated aluminum, little more than foil-thick,
attached crosswise just in front of the tail and sticking out twenty feet on
each side. I don’t know what it was there for—maybe to measure the effects of
space on a Moebius strip—but it looked like a wedding ring that had been
stepped on. So Jeff and I called it Trompled Love.
But in spite
of the junk, the ship looked mighty sweet against the saffron steppes and
baby-blue seas of Shaula-by with Shaula herself, old Lambda Scorpii, flaming
warm and wildly beyond, and with “United States” standing out big as life on
the ship’s living quarters. United States of Shaula, of course.
***
I was almost dreaming out there, thinking how it
hadn’t been such a terrible duty after all, when I saw the ship begin to slide
past Shaula.
Poking out of
her tail, ghostlier than the flame over a cafe royale, was the evil blue glow
of her jet. In an instant I’d guessed exactly what had happened and was beating
myself on the head for not having anticipated it. Joseph had swum into the
cabin right after Jeff. And Jeff had yelled at him. “It’s about time, you lazy
lunkhead! Everything secure? Okay, I’m switching on the beam!” And I’d probably
brought the whole thing about by telling him that damfool sled story—and then
sticking to him so close he just had to get rid of me, so as to be with Joseph.
Meanwhile the
ship was gathering speed in her sneaky way and the wavy safety line between me
and the airlock was starting to straighten.
As you know,
an ionic jet’s only good space-to-space. It’s not for heavy-G work; ours could
deliver only one-half G at max and was doing less than one-quarter now. Which
meant the ship was starting off slower than most ground cars.
But the beam
would fire for hours, building up to a terminal velocity of fifteen miles a
second and carrying the ship far, far away from lonely Joe Hansen.
Except that we
were tied together, of course.
I was very
grateful then for the weeks I’d practiced space-roping, though I’d never won
any prizes with it, because without thinking I started to whip my line very
carefully. And on the third try, just as it was getting pretty straight, I
managed to settle it in a notch in one outside end of Trompled Love. After that
I took up strain on the line as gradually as I could, letting it friction
through my gloves for as long as I could before putting all my mass on
it—because although one-quarter G isn’t much, it piles up in a few seconds to
quite a jerk. I spread that jerk into several little ones.
Well, the last
jerk came and the line didn’t part and Trompled Love didn’t crumple much,
though the Shaula-light showed me several very nasty-looking wrinkles in it.
And there I was trailing along after the ship, though out to one side, and
feeling about as much strain on the line as if I were hanging from a cliff on
the moon, and knowing I was going about five feet a second faster every second.
My idea wanting to be out to the side (and bless my
impulses for realizing it was the one important thing!) was to keep my line and
myself out of the beam. An ionic jet doesn’t look hot from the side. But from
straight on it’s a lot brighter than an arc light—it’s almost as tight as a
laser beam—and I didn’t want to think about what it would do to me, even
trailing as I was a hundred yards aft.
Though of
course long before it had ruined me, it would have disintegrated my line.
My being out
to the side was putting the ship off balance on its jet and presumably throwing
its course toward base and Shaula-near little by little into error. But that
was the least of my worries, believe me.
I thought for
a bit and remembered I could talk to Jeff over my suit radio. I decided to try
it, not without misgivings.
I tongued it
on and said, “Jeff. Oh, Jeff. I’m out here. You forgot me.”
I was going to
say some more, but just then he broke in, angry and so loud it made my helmet
ring, with, “Joseph! Did you hear anything then?” A pause, then, “Well, clean
the wax out of your ears, stupid, because I did! I think we got an enemy out
there!”
Another and
longer pause, while my blood curdled a bit thicker, then, “Well, okay, Joseph,
I’ll go along with you this time. But if I hear the enemy once more, I’m going
to suit up and take a rifle and sit in the airlock door until I’ve potted him.”
I tongued the
radio off quick, fearful I’d sneeze or something. I had only one faint
consolation: Joseph seemed to be a bit on my side, or maybe he was just lazy.
 |
| The good ship Lollipop. |
I thought some
more, a mite frantic-like now, and after a while I said to myself, Been
going five minutes now, so I’m doing about a quarter of a mile a second—that’s
fifteen miles a minute, wow!—but out here velocities are purely relative. My
suit does a little better than a quarter G full on. Okay. I’ll jet to the ship.
No sooner said
than acted on—I was beginning to rely too much on impulse now. The suit jet
killed my false weight at once and I was off, mighty careful to aim myself
along my line or a little outside it, so as not to wander over into the beam.
Pretty soon
the tail and Trompled Love were getting noticeably bigger.
Then a lot
bigger.
Then my suit
fuel ran out.
I’d built up enough velocity so that I was still
gaining on the ship for a few seconds. In fact, I almost made it. My gauntlet
was about to close on Trompled Love when the ship started slowly to pull away.
Oh, it was frustrating!
I remembered
then what I should have a lot earlier, and grabbed for the ship-end of my line
so as not to lose the distance I’d gained—and in my haste I knocked it away
from me. The only good thing was that I didn’t knock it out of the notch.
Now I was
losing space to the ship faster and faster. Yet all I could do was reel in the
me-end of the line as fast as I could. Suddenly the whole line straightened and
gave me a bigger jerk than I’d intended. I could see Trompled Love crumple a
little. And I was swinging just a bit, like a pendulum.
I used a
glove-friction to spread the rest of the jerk, but still I was at the end of my
line and Trompled Love had crumpled a bit more before I was coasting along with
the ship again.
My side of
Trompled Love was bent back maybe twenty degrees. The eye of the beam shone at
me from the tail like a pale blue moon. For quite a while it brightened and
dimmed as I tick-tock swung.
Meanwhile I
was beating my skull for not having thought earlier of the obvious
slow-but-safe way of doing it, instead of that lunatic suit-jetting. I once
heard a psychologist say we’re mental slaves to power-machinery and I guess he had
something.
Clearly all I
had to do was climb hand-over-hand up the line to the ship. At moon gravity
that would be easy. If I should get tired I only had to clamp on and rest.
So I waited
for my emotions to settle a bit, and then I reached along the line and gave a
smooth, medium-strength heave.
Maybe there is
something to ESP—at least in a devilish sort of way—because I picked the exact
moment when Jeff decided to feed the beam more juice.
There was
a big jerk and I saw Trompled Love crumple a lot, so that it was
pointing more than forty-five degrees aft.
Now there was
a steady pull on the line like I was hanging from a cliff on Mars. And the eye
of the beam was a blue moon not so pale—in fact more like a sizzling blue sun
seen through a light fog.
After that I
just didn’t have the heart to try the climb again. Once I started to draw
myself up, very cautious, but on the first handhold I seemed to feel along the
line Trompled Love crumpling some more and I quit for good.
I figured that
at this boost Jeff would be up to proper speed for Shaula-near in less than two
hours. Well, I had suit-oxy and refrigeration for longer than that.
Of course if
Jeff decided not to cut the beam on schedule, maybe with the idea of eloping
with Joseph to the next solar system—well, I’d discover then whether suit-oxy
running out would stimulate me to try the climb again alongside the beam.
(Or I could
wait until he got her up near the speed of light, when by the General Theory of
Relativity the line ought to be shortened enough so that I could hop aboard if
I were sudden enough about it.... No, Joe Hansen, you quit that, I told
myself, you don’t want to die with the gears in your head all stripped.)
Thinking about
the beam got me wondering exactly how close I was to it. I unshipped my
suit-antenna and pulled it out to full length—about eight feet—and fished
around with it in the direction of the beam.
Nothing seemed
to happen to it. It didn’t glow or anything; but I suddenly got a little
electric shock, and when I drew it back I could see three inches of the tip
were gone and the next couple inches were pitted. So much for curiosity.
Next I
reattached the antenna to my suit—which turned out to be a lot more troublesome
job than unshipping it—and tongued on the radio with the idea of listening in
on Jeff.
***
Right away I heard him say, “Wake up, Joseph! I’m
going to tell you your faults again. I got a new way of cataloguing
them—chronologically. Begin with childhood. You hitched sled-rides on
airplanes. That was bad, Joseph, that was against the law. If the man had
caught you doing it, if he’d seen you whizzing along there back of him, he’d
have had every right to shoot you down in cold blood. Life is hard, Joseph,
life is merciless....”
Right then I
felt a tickle in my throat.
I tried quick
to shut off the radio, but it is remarkably difficult to tongue anything when
you have a cough coming. It came out finally in a series of squeaky glubs.
“Snap to,
Joseph, and listen hard,” I heard Jeff say. “It’s started again. Animal noises
this time. You know if they make spacesuits for black panthers, Joseph?”
I tongued off
the radio quick, before the follow-up cough came.
I didn’t have
anything left to do now but think. So I thought about Jeff—how there seemed to
be one Jeff who hated my guts and another Jeff who idolized me and another Jeff
sneaking around in a jungle of sabertooth tigers and ... heck, there was
probably a good twenty Jeffs sitting around inside his skull, some in light,
some in darkness, but all of them watching each other and arguing together all
the time. It was an odd way to think of a personality—a sort of
perpetual Kaffeeklatsch—but it had its points. Maybe some of the little
guys weren’t Jeffs at all, but his father and mother and a caveman ancestor or
two and maybe some great-great-grandchild butting in now and then from the
future....
Well, I saw
that speculation was getting out of hand so, taking a tip from Jeff, I began to
count my own sins.
It took quite
a while. Some of them were pretty interesting reading, almost enough to take my
mind off my predicament, but I tired of it finally.
Then I began
to count the stars.
It was really
the longest two hours plus I ever spent, except maybe the time my first big
girl disappeared. But I don’t know. The experiences are hard to compare.
I was about
halfway through the stars when I went weightless. For an awful instant I
thought the line had parted at last, but then I looked toward the ship and saw
the bright little moon was gone.
***
Right away I gave a couple of tugs on the line and
began to close slowly with the tail. No trouble at all—actually my only
difficulty was resisting the temptation to build up more momentum, which would
have resulted in a crash landing.
I softed-in on
Trompled Love okay, except there was a big spark. The beam must have charged me
good. Then I worked my way to the true hull. After that there were handholds.
Finally I got
to a porthole in the living quarters, and I looked in, and there was Jeff
jawing away at my empty seat. I put my helmet against the hull and very faintly
I heard him say, “Joseph, I’m still worried about the enemy. I keep thinking I
hear him or it. I’m going to make us some coffee, so we’ll stay real alert. You
break out the guns.”
I don’t suppose
anyone ever moved quite so quietly and so quickly in a spacesuit as I
did then. I got in the airlock, I got her up to pressure, I got unsuited—and
all in less than five minutes, I’m sure. Maybe less than four.
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| Fritz Leiber. |
I swam to the
cabin. It was empty. I slid into my seat just as Jeff floated in with the
coffee.
He went real
pale when he spotted me. I saw there might be some trouble this time with the
Joseph-Joe transition. But I knew the only way to play it was real cool. I
nested there in my seat as if I hadn’t a worry or urge in the world—though my
nerves and throat were just screaming for a squirt of that coffee.
“Joe!” he
squeaked at last. “Migod, you gave me an awful scare. I thought you’d done a
bunk, I thought, you’d spaced yourself, I kept picturing you outside the ship.”
“Why no,
Jeff,” I answered quietly. “One way or another, I’ve been in this seat ever
since take-off.”
His brow
wrinkled as he thought about that.
I looked at
the board and noticed that our terminal trip-velocity read fifteen miles a
second. My, my.
Finally Jeff
said, “That’s right, you have.” And then, just a shade unhappily, “I might have
known. You always tell the truth, Joe—you’re perfect.”
END
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