Fee of the Frontier Part 1

Fee of the Frontier.

by Horace Brown Fyfe.

From inside the dome, the night sky is a beautiful thing, even though Deimos and Phobos are nothing to brag about. If you walk outside, maybe as far as the rocket field, you notice a difference.

Past the narrow developed strip around the dome, the desert land lies as chilled and brittle as it did for eons before Earthmen reached Mars. The sky is suddenly raw and cruel. You pull your furs around your nose and check your oxygen mask, and wish you were _inside_ something, even a thin wall of clear plastic.

I like to stand here, though, and look out at it, just thinking about how far those s.h.i.+ps grope out into the dark nowadays, and about the men who have gone out there on a few jets and a lot of guts. I knew a bunch of them ... some still out there, I guess.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

There was a time when nearly everything had to be rocketed out from Earth, before they organized all those chemical tricks that change the Martian crops to real food. Domes weren't fancy then. Adequate, of course; no sense in taking chances with lives that cost so much fuel to bring here. Still, the colonies kept growing. Where people go, others follow to live off them, one way or another. It began to look like time for the next step outward.

Oh, the Asteroids ... sure. Not them. I did a bit of hopping there in my own time. In fact--on account of conditions beyond my choice and control--I spent too much time on the wrong side of the hull s.h.i.+elds.

One fine day, the medics told me I'd have to be a Martian for the rest of my life. Even the one-way hop back to Earth was "not recommended."

So I used to watch the s.h.i.+ps go out. I still remember one that almost missed leaving. _The Martian Merchant._ What joker thought that would be a good name for an exploring s.h.i.+p I can't imagine, but it always happens that way.

I was starting my cross-country tractor line then, and had just made the run from Schiaparelli to Asaph Dome, which was not as nice as it is now but still pretty civilized for the time. They had eight or ten bars, taverns, and other amus.e.m.e.nts, and were already getting to be quite a city.

One of the taverns near the western airlock was named the _Stardust_, and I was approaching, measuring the sand in my throat, when these s.p.a.cers came out. The first one in sight was a blocky, dark-haired fellow. He came rolling through the door with a man under each arm.

Just as I got there, he made it to his feet somehow and cracked their heads together exactly hard enough to bring peace. He acted like a man used to handling things with precision. He glanced quickly at me out of a square, serious face, then plunged back through the splintered door toward the breakup inside.

In a moment, he came out again, with two friends who looked the worse for wear. The tall, lean youngster wore a junior pilot's bands on the sleeves of his blue uniform. His untidy hair was rumpled, as if someone had been hanging onto it while in the process of giving him the s.h.i.+ner.

The other one was shorter and a good deal neater. Even with his tunic ripped down the front, he gave the impression of making it his life business to be neat. He was turning gray at the temples and growing a little bulge under his belt, which lent a dignity worthy of his trim mustache and expression of deferential politeness. He paused briefly to hurl an empty bottle at someone's head.

"Better take the alley there," I told the blocky one, on impulse.

"It'll bring you out at the tractor lot and I'll give you a lift to your s.h.i.+p."

He wasted no time on questions, just grabbed his friends and disappeared before the crowd came out. I walked around a couple of corners and back to my tractor bus. This lot was only a clear s.p.a.ce inside the Number Four Airlock. At that time, two or three tractors came in every day from the mines or other domes. Most of the traffic was to and from the s.p.a.ceport.

"Who's that?" asked a low voice from the shadows.

"Tony Lewis," I answered.

The three of them moved into the dim light from the airlock guardpost.

"Thanks for the steer," said the blocky one, "but we can stay till morning."

He seemed as fresh as if he had just landed. His friends were a trifle worn around the edges.

"Keep playing that rough," I said, "and you may not make it to morning."

He just grinned. "We have to," he said, "or the s.h.i.+p can't blast off."

"Oh, you three make the s.h.i.+p go, huh?"

"Just about. This is Hugh Konnel, the third pilot; the gent with the dignified air is Ron Meadows, the steward. I'm Jim Howlet, and I look after the fuel system."

I admitted that the s.h.i.+p could hardly do without them. Howlet's expression suggested that he was searching his memory.

"Lewis ..." he murmured. "I've heard of Tony Lewis somewhere. You a s.p.a.cer?"

"Used to be," I told him. "Did some piloting in the Belt."

Young Konnel stopped fingering his eye.

"Oh, I've heard of you," he said. "Even had to read some of your reports."

After that, one thing led to another, with the result that I offered to find somewhere else to relax. We walked south from the airlock, past a careless a.s.sortment of buildings. In those days, there was not much detailed planning of the domes. What was necessary for safety and for keeping the air thicker and warmer than outside was done right; the remaining s.p.a.ce was grabbed by the first comers.

Streets tended to be narrow. As long as an emergency truck could squeeze through at moderate speed, that was enough. The buildings grew higher toward the center of the dome, but I stopped while they were still two stories.

The outside of Jorgensen's looked like any other flimsy construction under the dome. We had just pa.s.sed a row of small warehouses, and the only difference seemed to be the lighted sign at the front.

"We can stop at the bar inside while we order dinner," I said.

"Sounds good," said Howlet. "I could go for a decent meal. Rations on an exploring s.h.i.+p run more to calories than taste."

The pilot muttered something behind us. Howlet turned his head.

"Don't worry about it, Hughie," he retorted. "It'll be all over the dome by tomorrow anyway."

"But they said not to--"

"Mr. Lewis won't say anything, and he's not the only s.p.a.cer who'll guess it."

It was easy to figure out. s.h.i.+ps did little exploring in the Belt now--plenty of untouched rocks there but nothing really unknown.

"Exploring" could only mean that a hop to Jupiter was in the works at last. There had already been rumors about a few wide swings outside the Belt.

Well, it was just about time.

I would have liked to go too, and it was more than just a s.p.a.cer's curiosity. To my mind, man _had_ to move out in s.p.a.ce. Being only halfway in control of his own planetary system was no state to be found in by the first interstellar visitors.

That is a meeting bound to happen sooner or later. It would be better for the human race to be able to do the visiting, I thought.

The inside of Jorgensen's always surprised new visitors to Asaph Dome.

It was different from anything on Earth, and yet not too much like the real Mars either. That way, Jorgensen hoped to catch both the sandeaters and the tourists. The latter came to rough it in local color, the former to dream of a better world.