The Band Played On

CHAPTER I

Inside the rocket grounds, the band was playing the inevitable Heroes' March while the cadets snapped through the final maneuvers of their drill. Captain Thomas Murdock stopped at the gate near the visitors' section, waiting until the final blatant notes blared out and were followed by the usual applause from the town kids in the stands. The cadets broke ranks and headed for their study halls, still stepping as if the band played on inside their heads.

Maybe it did, Murdock thought. There had been little parade drill and less music back on Johnston Island when his group won their rocket emblems fifteen years before; yet somehow there had been a sense of destiny, like a drum beating in their brains, to give them the same spring to their stride. It had sent most of them to their deaths and a few to command positions on the moon, long before the base was transferred here to the Florida coast.

Murdock shrugged and glanced upwards. The threatening clouds were closing in, scudding across the sky in dark blobs and streaks, and the wind velocity was rising. It was going to be lousy weather for a take-off, even if things got no worse.

Behind him, a boy's voice called out. "Hey, pilot!"

He glanced about, but there was no other pilot near. He hesitated, frowning. Then, as the call was repeated, he turned doubtfully toward the stands. Surprisingly, a boy of about twelve was leaning over the railing, motioning toward him and waving a notebook emphatically.

"Autograph, pilot?"

Murdock took the book and signed the blank page automatically, while fifty pairs of eyes watched. No other books were held out, and there was complete silence from the audience. He handed the pencil and notebook back, trying to force a friendly smile onto his face. For a moment, there was a faint ghost of the old pride as he turned back across the deserted parade ground.

It didn't last. Behind him, an older voice broke the silence in disgusted tones. "Why'd you do that, Shorty? He ain't no pilot!"

"He is, too. I guess. I know a pilot's uniform," Shorty protested.

"So what? I already told you about him. He's the garbage man!"

There was no vocal answer to that—only the ripping sound of paper being torn from the notebook.

Murdock refused to look back as the boys left the stands. He went across the field, past the school buildings, on toward the main sections of the base—the business part, where the life-line to the space station and the moon was maintained. A job, he told himself, was a job. It was a word he would never have used six ships and fifteen years before.

The storm flag was up on the control tower, he saw. Worse, the guy cables were all tight, anchoring the three-stage ships firmly down in their blast deflection pits. There were no tractors or tankers on the rocket field to service the big ships. He stared through the thickening gloom toward the bay, but there was no activity there, either. The stage recovery boats were all in port, with their handling cranes folded down. Obviously, no flight was scheduled.

It didn't fit with predictions. Hurricane Greta was hustling northward out to sea, and the low ceiling and high winds were supposed to be the tag end of that disturbance, due to clear by mid-day. This didn't look that way; it looked more as if the weather men on the station had goofed for the first time in ten years.

Murdock stared down the line toward his own ship, set apart from the others, swaying slightly as the wind hit it. Getting it up through the weather was going to be hell, even if he got clearance, but he couldn't wait much longer. Greta had already put him four days behind his normal schedule, and he'd been counting on making the trip today.

There was a flash bulletin posted outside the weather shack, surrounded by a group of young majors and colonels from the pilot squad. Murdock stepped around them and into the building. He was glad to see that the man on duty was Collins, one of the few technicians left over from the old days on the Island.

Collins looked up from his scowling study of the maps and saluted casually without rising. "Hi, Tommy. How's the hog business?"

"Lousy," Murdock told him. "I'm going to have a hungry bunch of pigs if I don't get another load down. What gives with the storm signals? I thought Greta blew over."

Collins pawed the last cigarette out of a pack and shook his head as he lighted up. "This is Hulda, they tell me. Our geniuses on the station missed it—claimed Hulda was covered by Greta until she grew bigger. We're just beginning to feel her. No flights for maybe five days more."

"Hell!" It was worse than Murdock had feared. He twisted the weather maps to study them, unbelievingly. Unlike the newer pilots, he'd spent enough time in the weather shack to be able to read a map or a radar screen almost as well as Collins. "The station couldn't have goofed that much, Bill!"

"Did, though. Something's funny up there. Bailey and the other brass are holding some pow-wow about it now, over at Communications. It's boiling up to a first-class mess."

One of the teletypes began chattering, and Collins turned to it. Murdock moved outside where a thin rain was beginning to fall, whipping about in the gusts of wind. He headed for the control tower, knowing it was probably useless. In that, he was right; no clearances for flight could be given without General Bailey's okay, and Bailey was still tied up in conference, apparently.

He borrowed a raincape and went out across the field toward his ship. The rain was getting heavier, and the Mollyann was grunting and creaking in her pit as he neared her. The guying had been well enough done, however, and she was in no danger that he could see. He checked the pit gauges and records. She'd been loaded with a cargo of heavy machinery, and her stage tanks were fully fueled. At least, if he could get clearance, she was ready to go. She was the oldest ship on the field, but her friction-burned skin covered sound construction and he had supervised her last overhaul himself.

Then he felt the wind picking up again, and his stomach knotted. He moved around to the more sheltered side of the ship, cursing the meteorologists on the station. If they'd predicted this correctly, he could have arranged to take off during the comparative lull between storms. Even that would have been bad enough, but now....

Abruptly, a ragged klaxon shrieked through the air in a series of short bursts, sounding assembly for the pilots. Murdock hesitated, then shrugged and headed out into the rain. He could ignore the signal if he chose, since he'd been on detached duty for years, except when actually scheduled for flight; yet it was probably his best chance to see Bailey. He slogged along while the other pilots trotted across the field toward Briefing on the double. Even now, covered with slickers and tramping through mud, they seemed to be on parade drill, as if a drum were beating out the time for them.

Murdock found a seat at the rear, separate from the others, out of old habit. Up front, an improvised crap game was going on; elsewhere, they were huddled in little groups, their young faces too bright and confident. Nobody noticed him until Colonel Lawrence Hennings glanced up from the crap game. "Hi, Tommy. Want in?"

Murdock shook his head, smiling briefly. "Can't afford it this week," he explained.

A cat could look at royalty; and royalty was free to look at or speak to anyone—even a man who ferried garbage for the station. At the moment, Hennings was king, even in this crowd of self-determined heroes. There was always one man who was the top dog. Hennings' current position seemed as inevitable as Murdock's own had become.

Damn it, someone had to carry the waste down from the station. The men up there couldn't just shove it out into space to have it follow their orbit and pile up around them; shooting it back to burn up in Earth's atmosphere had been suggested, but that took more fuel in the long run than bringing it down by ship. With nearly eight hundred men in the doubly expanded station, there was a lot of garbage, too. The job was as important as carrying the supplies up, and took just as much piloting skill. Only there was no band playing when the garbage ship took off, and there could never be a hero's mantle over the garbage man.

It had simply been his bad luck that he was pilot for the first load back. The heat of landing leaked through the red-hot skin of the cargo section, and the wastes boiled and steamed through the whole ship and plated themselves against the hull when it began to cool, until no amount of washing could clean it completely; after that, the ship was considered good for nothing but the carrying of garbage down and lifting such things as machine parts, where the smell wouldn't matter. He'd gone on detached duty at once, exiled from the pilot shack; it was probably only imagination, but the other men swore they couldn't sleep in the same room with him.

He'd made something of a joke of it at first, while he waited for his transfer at the end of the year. He'd finally consented to a second year when they couldn't get anyone else for the job. And by the end of five years of it, he knew he was stuck; even a transfer wouldn't erase his reputation as the garbage man, or give him the promotions and chances for leadership the others got. Oh, there were advantages in freedom, but if there had been anything outside of the service he could do....

The side door opened suddenly and General Bailey came in. He looked older than his forty years, and the expression on his face sobered the pilots almost at once. He took his time in dropping to the chair behind the table, giving them a chance to come to order. Murdock braced himself, watching as the man took out a cigarette. Then, as it was tapped sharply on the table to pack the end, he nodded. It was going to be a call for volunteers! The picture of the weather outside raced through his mind, twisting at his stomach, but he slid forward on his seat, ready to stand at once.

"At ease, men." Bailey took his time lighting the cigarette, and then plunged into things. "A lot of you have been cursing the station for their forecast. Well, you can forget that—we're damned lucky they could spot Hulda at all. They're in bad shape. Know what acrolein is? You've all had courses in atmospherics. How about it?"

The answer came out in pieces from several of the pilots. Acrolein was one of the thirty-odd poisons that had to be filtered from the air in the station, though it presented no problem in the huge atmosphere of Earth. It could get into the air from the overcooking of an egg or the burning of several proteins. "You can get it from some of the plastics, too," one of the men added.

Bailey nodded. "You can. And that's the way they got it, from an accident in the shops. They got enough to overload their filters, and the replacements aren't enough to handle it. They're all being poisoned up there—just enough to muddle their thinking at first, but getting worse all the time. They can't wait for Hulda to pass. They've got to have new filters at once. And that means—"

"Sir!" Hennings was on his feet, standing like a lance in a saddle boot. "Speaking for my crew, I ask permission to deliver whatever the station needs."

Murdock had been caught short by Hennings' sudden move, but now he was up, protesting. His voice sounded as hollow as he felt after the ringing tones of the younger man. "I'm overdue already on schedule, and by all rights—"

Bailey cut him off, nodding to Hennings. "Thank you, Colonel. We'll begin loading at once, while Control works out your tapes. All right, dismissed!" Then finally he turned to Murdock. "Thanks, Tom. I'll record your offer, but there's no time for us to unload your ship first. Afraid you're grounded for the storm."

He went out quickly, with Hennings following jauntily at his heels.

The others were beginning to leave, grumbling with a certain admiration at Hennings' jumping the gun on them. Murdock trailed along, since there was no chance for him to change the orders now. He wondered what excuse would have been used if he'd been first to volunteer and if his ship had been empty. The choice of pilot had probably been made before the token request for volunteers, and he was certain that his name hadn't been considered.

The storm seemed to have let up when he started across the field, but it was only a lull. Before he could reach the shelter of the weather shack, it began pelting down again, harder than ever. He stopped inside the door to shake off some of the wetness. Collins was intently studying one of the radar screens where a remote pickup was showing conditions, alternately working a calculator and yelling into a phone. He looked up, made a desperate motion with his fingers for a cigarette, and went back to the phone.

Murdock shoved a lighted smoke toward him, then pulled a stool up to the window where he could watch the field. By rights, he should be heading back to his farm, to do what he could there; but he had no intention of leaving before the take-off. Lifting a ship in this weather was mostly theory. It had been done once on the Island, but the big ships were still too unstable to make it anything but a desperate emergency measure. He'd discussed it with the pilot after that trip, and he'd spent a lot of time trying to work out a method in case he had to try it, but Hennings had his sympathy now. It took more than courage and confidence to handle this situation.

He studied the storm, trying to get the feel of it. During his first two years back here, he'd spent a lot of his free time flying a light plane, and some of the weather had been fairly bad. It gave him some idea of what Hennings had to face; he wondered whether the younger pilot realized what was coming.

Sodium lights were blazing on the field, he saw, clustered about Hennings' Jennilee, and men were slipping and sliding around in the mud, getting her ready and loading the filter packs. Two men were being run up on a lift to the crew entrance; Hennings carried both a co-pilot and a radio man, though many of the pilots now used only a single crewman.

Collins looked up from the phone. "Fifteen minutes to zero," he reported.

Murdock grunted in surprise. He'd expected the take-off to be two hours later, on the next swing of the station. It must mean that orders for loading the ship had been given before Bailey came into Briefing. It confirmed his suspicion that the pilot had been picked in advance.

A few minutes later, Hennings appeared, marching across the field toward the lift in the middle of a small group. Several of them rode up with him. As the lift began creaking backward, the pilot stood poised in the lock, grinning for the photographers. Naturally, the press had been tipped off; the service had learned long before that maximum publicity helped in getting the fattest possible appropriations.

When the lock was finally sealed and the field cleared, Murdock bent over the counter to study the radar screens. The storm was apparently erratic, from the hazy configurations he could see. Zero would be a poor choice for the take-off, though, from what he could estimate. Hennings would be smarter to delay and make manual corrections on his tape.

Then the klaxon went on, signalling the take-off. The last man on the field was darting for cover. From the blast pit, a dull, sickly red began to shine as the rockets were started. Murdock swore. The fool was taking off on schedule, trusting to his tapes!

The smoky red exhaust ran up the spectrum to blue, and the ship began to tremble faintly. The sound rose to crescendo. Now the Jennilee started to lift. Wind hit it, throwing it toward the side of the pit. The wings of the top stage caught most of the force, and the whole ship was tilting—the worst thing that could happen. They should have swivelled the ship around to put the wings parallel to most of the storm, instead of bucking it.

Murdock heard Collins' breath catch harshly, but suddenly the worst danger was over. A lull for a second or so gave Hennings his chance. He was at least riding his controls over the automatics. The blast deflection vanes shot the blue flame sidewise, and the ship shifted its bottom, righting itself. It was beginning to make its real climb now. The wings near the top literally vibrated like the arms of a tuning fork, and the blast trail was ragged. Yet she rose, her blast roar rising and falling as the wind altered, blowing some of the sound away from the watchers.

Now the Doppler effect began to be noticeable, and the sound dropped in pitch as the Jennilee fought her way up. The overcast of scudding clouds hid all but the bright anger of the exhaust.

Murdock turned with the technician to another radar screen. Unlike those in Control, it wasn't set properly to catch the ship, but a hazy figure showed in one edge. "Right into some of the nastiest stuff blowing!" Collins swore.

CHAPTER II

He was right. The timing had been as bad as possible. The blob of light on the screen was obviously being buffeted about. Something seemed to hit the top and jerk it.

The screen went blank, then lighted again. Collins had shifted his connections, to patch into the signal Control was watching. The blip of the Jennilee was now dead center, trying to tilt into a normal synergy curve. "Take it up, damn it!" Murdock swore hotly. This was no time to swing around the Earth until after the ship was above the storm. The tape for the automatic pilot should have been cut for a high first ascension. If Hennings was panicking and overriding it back to the familiar orbit....

As if the pilot heard him, the blip began rising again. It twisted and bucked. Something seemed to separate from it. There was a scattering of tiny white dots on the screen, drifting behind the ship. Murdock couldn't figure them. Then he forgot them as the first stage let go and began falling backward from the ship, heading on its great arc toward the ocean. Recovery would be rough. Now the second stage blasted out. And finally, the ship was above the storm and could begin to track toward its goal.

Abruptly the speaker in the corner snapped into life, and Hennings' voice sounded from it. "Jennilee to Base. Cancel the harps and haloes! We're in the clear!"

Collins snapped his hand down against a switch, killing the speaker. "Hotshot!" he said thickly, and yet there was a touch of admiration in his voice. "Ten years ago, they couldn't build ships to take what he gave it. So that makes him a tin god on wheels. Got a cigarette, Tommy?"

Murdock handed him the package and picked up the slicker again. He'd seen enough. The ship should have no further trouble, except for minor orbital corrections, well within the pilot's ability. For that matter, while Collins' statement was true enough, Hennings deserved a lot of the credit. And if he had to boast a little—well, maybe he deserved credit for the ability to snap back to normal after the pounding his body and nerves must have taken.

In the recreation hall, some of the pilots were busy exaggerating the dangers of the take-off for the newsmen, making it sound as if no parallel feat had been performed in all history. Murdock found a phone where he had some privacy and put through a call to let Pete and Sheila know when he'd be back—and that he was returning without a load. They'd already heard the news, however. He cut the call short and went out across the soggy field, cursing as his shoes filled with water. From the auditorium of the school, he could hear the band practicing; he wondered for a moment whether the drumbeat could make the cadets feel like heroes as they moved through mud with shoes that squished at every step. It had no such lifting effect on him.

The parking lot beyond the drill grounds was almost deserted, and his big truck seemed to huddle into the wind like a lonely old bull buffalo. He started the turbine and opened the cab heater, kicking off his sodden shoes. The dampness in the air brought out the smell of refuse and pigs from the rear, but he was used to it; anyhow, it was better than the machine-human-chemical stench of the space station.

Driving took most of his attention. The truck showed little wind-sway and the roads were nearly deserted, but vision was limited and the windshield kept steaming up, in spite of the silicone coating. He crawled along, grumbling to himself at the allocation of money for tourist superhighways at the expense of the back roads.

A little ways beyond the base, he was in farm country. It was totally unlike the picture of things he'd had originally. He'd expected only palm trees and citrus groves in Florida, though he'd known vaguely that it was one of the major cattle-producing states. This part wasn't exactly like the Iowa section where he'd grown up, but it wasn't so different, either.

Pete Crane had introduced him to it. At the time, Pete was retiring after twenty years of service and looking for something to do. He'd found a small farm twenty miles from Base and had approached Murdock with the hope of getting the station garbage for food for the hogs he planned to buy. The contractor who took care of the Base garbage wouldn't touch the dehydrated, slightly scorched refuse, and disposal had always been a problem.

They ended up as partners, with permanent rights to all the station wastes. Pete's sister, Sheila, joined them to keep house for them. It beat living in hotels and offered the first hope for the future Murdock had. Unless his application for Moon service was accepted—which seemed unlikely, since he was already at the age limit of thirty-five—he had no other plans for his own compulsory twenty-year retirement. The farm also gave some purpose to his job as garbage collector for the station.

For two years, everything went well. Maybe they grew over-confident then. They sank everything into new buildings and more livestock. When the neighboring farm suddenly became available, they used all their credit in swinging the mortgage, leaving no margin for trouble. And trouble came when Pete was caught in front of a tractor that somehow slipped into gear; he was hospitalized for five weeks, and his medical insurance was only enough for a fraction of the cost. Now, with Hulda cancelling the critically necessary trip to the station....

The truck bumped over the last half mile and into the farm-yard. Murdock parked it near the front door and jumped out. He let out a yell and made a bee-line for the kerosene heater, trying to get his feet warm on the floor near it. The house was better built than many in Florida, but that wasn't saying much. Even with the heater going, it was probably warmer in their new pig sty.

Sheila came through the dining room from the kitchen, spotted his wet feet, and darted for his bedroom. In a second she was back with dry clothes. "Change in here where it's warm. I'll have lunch ready in a couple of minutes," she told him, holding her face up for a kiss.

Sheila wasn't a beautiful woman and apparently didn't care. Murdock's mother would probably have called her plain good looks "wholesome," and referred to her slightly overweight body as "healthy." He only knew that she looked good to him, enough shorter to be comfortable, eyes pleasantly blue, and hair some shade of brown that seemed to fit her.

He pulled her to him snugly, but she wriggled away after a brief kiss. "Pete's in town, trying to get help. He'll be back any minute," she warned him.

He grinned and let her go. They'd gone through the romantic binge of discovering each other long enough ago to be comfortable with each other now, except for the occasional arguments when she didn't want to wait. Mostly, though, she had accepted their agreement. In eight more months he'd be thirty-six and too old for assignment on the Moon; if he didn't make that, they'd get married. But he had no intention of leaving her tied to him if he did leave, since the chance of taking her along was almost nil. Pete had backed him up on his decision, too.

He slipped into coveralls and dry boots and went out to the dining room, where a hot meal was waiting. At least their credit was good at the local grocery between paydays. He filled her in on what had happened while they ate. At the hour mark, he switched on the television to the news. It was filled with the station emergency and rescue, of course. Most of it seemed to be devoted to pictures of Hennings entering the ship and a highly colored account of the flight. But at least he learned that the flight had been completed. It made good publicity for the service. A sound track of a band playing the Heroes' March had been spliced into the movies. Maybe that was good publicity, too. He had to admit that Hennings fitted the music better than he could have done.

For a moment, the racket of the wind outside died, and another sound reached his ears. The hogs knew it was past feeding time and were kicking up a fuss. Murdock grimaced. He shoved away from the table, feeling almost guilty at having stuffed himself, and dug rain clothes out of the back closet. He hated going out in the weather again, but the animals had to be pacified.

They heard him coming and set up more of a racket. He bent against the wind and made a dash for it, getting his feet wet again in a puddle. But the inside of the building was warmer than the house, as he had expected. He lifted the cover of the mash cooker and began ladling out the food into the troughs. His pail was scraping the bottom of the cooker, while the sleek Poland China hogs fought and shoved toward the spot where he was emptying it. They'd been on half rations since yesterday, and they were obviously hungry.

He stopped when he had used half of what was in the cooker and headed for the next building. On the way, he paused for a futile look in the big storage shed, but he knew the answer. Pete had used the last bag of grain in cooking the day's food. They'd exhausted the last of the waste from the station earlier and had to fall back on the precious commercial feed usually only used as a supplement. Damn Greta and double damn Hulda! If the weekly predictions had been right, he could have wangled clearance for a flight ahead of schedule, before the storms, and they wouldn't be in this mess.

It was worse in the brooder house. The sows seemed to know that milk for their sucklings depended on their feeding. They received a somewhat larger portion, but it disappeared from the troughs as he watched. The animals fought for the last scraps and then began rushing about looking for more. They were smart enough to know he was the source of it, and they stared at him, expressing their demands in eloquent hog language. They weren't like other animals. Cows were too stupid to realize they'd been gypped, sheep were always yelling even when things went well. But hogs could pretty nearly swear in English when they felt robbed, as these did. Even the sucklings were squealing unhappily in sympathy with their mothers.

Murdock heard the door open behind him and turned to see Pete coming in, drenched to the skin. He looked worn out, and his back was still stiff from the accident, though he'd made a fine recovery. "Hi, Tom. Sis told me what happened at the field. Good thing, too. This stuff's no good for flights. How long till it clears?"

"Five days!" Murdock told him, and saw the older man flinch. The hogs might not starve to death in that time, but they'd suffer, as well as losing weight that would be hard to put back. He had no idea of how it would affect the milk supply for the little pigs, and he didn't want to guess.

They left the squealing hogs and slogged back to the house to change before Pete would report on his luck in town. It seemed to be all bad. They could get a loan against the mature hogs or they could sell some, but with the week-end coming up they would have to wait for money until they would no longer need it. Their credit at the only feed and grain store was used up.

Murdock frowned at that. "You mean Barr wouldn't let us have enough to carry us over in an emergency like this? After all our business with him?"

"Barr's gone north on some business," Pete reported. "His brother-in-law's running things. Claims he can't take the responsibility. Offered to lend me twenty bucks himself if I needed it, but no credit from the store. And he can't locate Barr. Darn it, if I hadn't had to get in front of that tractor—"

"If!" Sheila snorted. "If I hadn't insisted you two pay the hospital in full, or if I hadn't splurged on spring clothes.... How much can we get for my car?"

Pete shrugged. "About half enough, but not till maybe Tuesday or Wednesday, after title transfer. I already asked at Circle Chevy. How about getting the weather reports, Sheila? With our luck, the center of Hulda might pass right here!"

There seemed no immediate danger of that, though. Hulda was following Greta, due to swing out to sea, and they'd miss the worst of her. Anyhow, Murdock knew that Bill Collins would call them if the farm was in danger. But with predictions gone sour from the station, they couldn't be sure. The new buildings were supposed to be hurricane proof, but....

They spent the afternoon trying to play canasta and listening to the rain and wind, until Pete slapped the cards back in the drawer in disgust. They ate early, dawdling over the food to kill time. Finally, the two men went out reluctantly. This time they scraped the bottom of the cookers dry. There was no sense in trying to spread the little food further and thinner.

How would a hero feel when a hog looked at him with hungry eyes? Or would the band playing destiny in his head drown out the frantic squealing of the animals? Murdock sighed and turned sickly back toward the house, with Pete at his heels.

Sheila met them at the door, motioning for silence and pointing to the television set. More news was finally coming through on the rescue flight by Hennings. And there was a picture on the screen showing the little third-stage rocket as seen from the station. It was obvious without the announcer's comment that the wings had been nearly wrenched from it and that it was in no condition for the return flight. Murdock's respect for Hennings' courage went up another notch. After a buffeting like that, it was a wonder he'd been able to make the effort of speaking to Base at all.

Then the rest of the news began to penetrate, and even the carefully chosen words couldn't make it sound too good. "... loss of filters when the airlock was sprung open on take-off was considerable, but it is believed that the replacements will be adequate until another flight can be made. Dr. Shapiro on the station reports that the men seem to be bearing up well, except for the two children. Plans are being made to isolate them in a special room, with extra filtration...."

Commander Phillips' kids, Murdock thought. The man had no business keeping them up there, anyhow. But the business about the sprung airlock....

Then he remembered the smaller blips on the radar screen that had separated from the Jennilee, before the first stage broke away. He frowned, trying to figure things more carefully. Just a few filters couldn't have made that much trace on the radar! But with the hasty packing, as he'd seen it, and the ship beginning to turn so the airlock was down, enough could have spilled to account for the trace—nearly the whole cargo, in fact!

He started for the phone, then shook his head. This would be better in person. He grabbed for the zipper on his coveralls and headed for his bedroom, while Pete frowned in slow comprehension.

"Tom, you can't do it!"

"I can try," he called back. "Warm up the truck, Sheila."

The zipper stuck. He swore at it, then forgot it. He wasn't dressing for parade drill. He dragged on his uniform cap, slipped into boots that might give some protection from the mud on the field, and stuffed his necessary papers and cards into the pockets of the coveralls. The service slicker was dry now, and he used it to hide most of his appearance.

"Any word of another flight planned?" he called out. It would be a sorry mess to reach the field just as some young pilot was taking off, ending any chance he had.

"None." Pete had the door open, and one of his big hands slapped against Murdock's shoulder. "Luck, you idiot!"

CHAPTER III

Murdock jumped out and into the open door of the truck. He started to shove Sheila out of the driver's seat, but she shook her head and began gunning the turbine. "I can handle this as well as you can, Tom. I won't have you starting that after wearing yourself out driving in. And stop looking at me like that! I'm not going to say what I'm thinking about this!"

He settled back in the passenger seat, reaching one hand out to touch her briefly. "Thanks, Hon," he said, as the truck swung out of the driveway and picked up speed on the road. She'd never been the kind to talk about worrying over his life, as some of the wives of the pilots did. She took it as part of him, and accepted it, however she felt. Now she was pushing the big truck to the maximum safe speed, as if sharing his eagerness.

After a second, she caught his hand in hers and smiled, without taking her eyes from the road. He relaxed on the seat, letting the swish of the wipers and the muffled storm sounds lull him into a half trance, resting as much as he could. He should be thinking of what he'd say to Bailey, but the relaxation was more important.

He was half asleep when the truck stopped at the guard house. He began fumbling for his papers, but the guard swung back after flashing his face and called out something. A corporal darted out of the shack and into the truck, reaching for the wheel. "General Bailey's expecting you and the young lady, sir," he said. "I'll take care of your truck."

Murdock grunted in surprise. Pete must have managed to get through to Bailey. It might make things more difficult, but it would at least save time; that could be important, if he were to take off while the station was in optimum position.

Bailey's aide met them at GHQ, escorting them directly to the general's private office, and closing the door behind them. Bailey glanced at Murdock's appearance, frowned, and motioned them to chairs. His own collar was unbuttoned and his cap lay on the desk, indicating that formality was out the window. He lifted a bottle toward three waiting glasses. "Tom? Miss Crane?"

He seemed to need the drink more than they did. His face was gray with fatigue and his hand was unsteady. But his voice was normal enough as he put down the empty glass. "All right, Tom, I know what you're here for. What makes you think I'm crazy enough to send another ship up in this weather?"

"A couple of kids who may be dying up there," Murdock answered. He saw the general flinch and knew he'd guessed right; the service wouldn't want the publicity of their deaths without further effort to save them, and the pressure on Bailey must be terrific by now. "How many filters got through?"

"Two bundles—out of thirty! But losing a man and ship won't help anything. I've turned down about every pilot here already. I'd need at least three good reasons why you're a better choice before I'd even consider you, in spite of the hell Washington's raising. Got them?"

He should have been thinking of them on the ride here, Murdock realized. "Experience, for one thing. I've made almost a thousand flights on the run I was assigned," he said, making no effort to conceal the bitterness that crept into his voice. "Has any of your hotshots made a hundred yet?"

Bailey shook his head. "No."

"How about ability to operate solo without help from the automatic pilot? You can't trust machinery in unpredictable situations, and there's no time for help from a crew." The combination of improved ships and the difficulty of getting a crew for the garbage run had resulted in Murdock's operating solo most of the time for nearly five years now. He saw two of Bailey's fingers go up, and groped for something that would finish his case. Again, he heard the bitterness in his voice. "Third, expendability. What's a garbage man and an old ship against your bright hopes for tomorrow?"

"I've thought of the first two already. They're valid. The third isn't." Bailey filled a second glass halfway, his eyes on the liquor. "I can get plenty of pilots, Tom. So far, I haven't been able to find one other reliable garbage man, as you call it—after fifteen years! You'll have to do better than that."

Sheila's heels tapped down on the floor sharply. "After fifteen years of doing a job nobody else will take, don't you think Tom has any right to a favor from you? Isn't that good enough a reason?"

Bailey swung his gaze to her, surprise on his face. He studied her for half a minute, nodding slowly. "My God, you're actually willing to have him go!" he said at last. "I thought.... Never mind. If you're willing to trust his ability, it's no reason I should. Or maybe it is. Maybe I want to be convinced. All right, Tom, we'll unload your ship and get the filters in. Want me to pick a volunteer crew for you?"

"I'll take it solo," Murdock told him. The fewer lives he was responsible for, the better; anyhow, there would be no time for help through the critical first few miles. "And leave the machinery in. Your filters are all bulk and no weight. She'll pitch less with a full load, from what I saw today. I'll be better off with that ballast."

Bailey reached for the phone and began snapping orders while Murdock turned to say good-bye to Sheila. She made it easier than he'd expected.

"I'll wait here," she told him. "You'll need the truck when you come down." She kissed him again quickly, then shoved him away. "Go on, you don't have time for me now."

She was right in that, he knew. He started for Control at a run, surprised when a covered jeep swung beside him. Lights came on abruptly, showing the Mollyann dimly through the murk, with men and trucks pouring toward her. He sent the driver of the jeep after them with orders to see about turning the base so the wings of the third stage would be edge on to the wind. In Control, he found everything disorganized, with men still dazed from sleep staring at him unbelievingly. But they agreed to set up the circuit that would give him connection through his viewing screen to the weather radar. Over the phone, Collins' language was foul and his voice worried, but he caught onto what was wanted almost at once.

The Mollyann was shaking against her guy cables as the jeep took him out to her; removal of the cables would be the last thing before take-off. Half a dozen tractors were idling nearby, and Bailey came running toward him, waving toward the top and yelling something about turning her.

Murdock shrugged. He hadn't expected things to be smooth in this last-minute rush; if he had to take her up wrong, he had to. "Okay, forget it," he said. "So you can't turn her. I'll manage."

"Take a look," Bailey told him, pointing up again, a tired grin on his face. "The way the wind is now, she's perfect. We finally checked, after getting all set, and there she was."

It was true, and Murdock swore hotly at his own stupidity in not checking first. The big wings were parallel to the wind already, saving them precious minutes. It still left the steering vanes on the upper stage at the mercy of the wind, but they were stubbier, and hence considerably sturdier.

The portable lift was running up the filter packs. He climbed on as a flashbulb went off near him and began going up. He heard some sort of cry from the photographer, but there was no time for posing now, and he couldn't have looked less suitable for pictures, anyhow. There'd be time for that on his return, he hoped.

He checked the stowing of the packs and made sure that they were lashed down well enough to ride up, even if his airlock broke open. The technician in charge pointed out the extra dogs they were installing on the lock, swearing it would hold through anything. It looked right. The ship was swaying and bobbing noticeably up here, and he could hear the creak of the cables. He tried to close his ears as he crawled up the little ladder to the control cabin and began the final check-out. There was a yell from the speaker as he cut on connections to Control, but he paid little attention to it. After fifteen years, he had little need of them to tell him the exact second of ideal take-off. He found the picture of the weather on the screen as he settled into the acceleration couch under the manual control panel, designed to swivel as a unit under changing acceleration.

The weather image was his biggest hope. Here, his study could pay off and give him the advantage he needed. It might look showy to take off on the split second and fight whatever the weather handed out; he preferred to pick his own time, if possible. With luck, he could spot a chance to ride up without being tipped for the first few seconds.

He glanced at the chronometer and began strapping himself down, while trying to absorb the data on the storm Collins was sending into his earphones. The weatherman had several screens to work from, and could give a better general picture than the single one Murdock was able to watch.

He began to get the feel of it. The wind, this far from the center of the hurricane, was erratic; there were moments of comparative quiet, and some measure of prediction was possible from the pattern on the screen. The real trick of taking off was to take advantage of every break. Once he began ascension, he'd have to trust to the automatic reflexes he'd developed and the general plan he'd worked out over the years as pure theory, with little help from reasoned thought. But until then, he could use his brains to make it as easy as it could possibly be.

He had no desire to take what was coming as a personal challenge. The kids in the station and the pigs on the farm were interested in results, not in his show of bravery.

Collins' voice cut off as Control interrupted to notify him that loading was complete and that the lifts, trucks and men were all clear.

He put one hand on the switch that would unlock the guy cables simultaneously. With the other, he started the peroxide pump for the fuel and threw the switch to ignite the rockets. He could hear the whine of the pump and feel the beginnings of power rumble through the ship, but he kept it at minimum. His eyes were glued to the weather picture on the screen that indicated his best chance coming up. Control was going crazy. With their count-off already finished, they wanted him off! Let them stew! A few seconds' difference in take-off was something he could correct for later.

Then his hand depressed the main blast lever all the way, a split second before he released the cable grapples. The Mollyann jumped free and began to walk upstairs on stilts, teetering and yawing in the wind. But his choice of take-off time had been correct. For the first hundred feet, she behaved herself, though the wind was driving him away from the blast deflection pit.

Then hell began. Acceleration mauled him backwards until only muscles toughened by a thousand previous flights could stand the power he was using. His fingers and arms could barely move against it. Yet they had to dance across the controls. The ship twisted and tilted, with every plate of her screaming in agony from the torsion and distortion of the pressures. Somehow, automatically, his fingers found a combination that righted her. His ears were clogged with the heavy pounding of his blood, his sense of balance was frozen, and his eyes could barely manage to focus on the dials in front of him.

He had stopped normal thinking and become a machine. The ship spun crazily in the twisting chaos of pressure differences. Unaccountably, she stayed upright as his hands moved with an unwilling life of their own, while fuel poured out at a rate that should have blacked him out from the acceleration. It was wasteful, but his only chance was to get through the storm in the shortest possible time and hang the consequences. If he could make the station at all, there would be fuel there for his return kick-off.

He was making no effort to tilt into a normal curve. A red light on the controls sprang into hazy existence before his eyes. The ship was going too fast for the height, heating the hull. He had to risk that, though.

Then surprisingly, the ship began to steady. He'd climbed over the storm.

He cut power back to normal, feeling a return of thought and hearing, and began tilting slowly to swing around the Earth toward his destination on the other side and a thousand miles up. It would make a rotten imitation of a synergy curve, but he'd survived! He felt the big first stage let go, followed by a brief moment with no pressure, until the second stage roared out. Only a little over a minute had passed in the storm, in spite of the hours of torture he had felt.

A voice started shouting in his phones, but he paid no attention to it. Now was his chance to say something heroic, to make the jest that was the ultimate in braggadocio!

"Shut up, damn it! I'm all right!" he screamed into the microphone. How could he figure out a proper saying for the papers when they wouldn't let him alone? Then slowly he realized he'd already answered, and it was too late for pretty phrases.

The second stage kicked off finally, and the third stage went on alone. He set up the rough corrections for his atypical take-off, hoping he hadn't missed too much, while the second hand swept around until he could cut off all power and just drift. Then he lay back, welcoming weightlessness. He was trembling now, and his whole body seemed to be a mass of bruises he couldn't remember getting. Sweat poured from his forehead and goose pimples rose on his arms. He barely made it to the little cabinet in time to be sick without splattering the whole cabin.

He made a lousy hero. The only music in his head was the ringing in his ears and the drumming in his heart!

Yet the trip up was by far the easier part of his job. He still had to bring his cargo down in its unpowered glide through a storm that would be closer to its worst, or the whole trip would be useless for him, no matter how many lives it saved.

He was feeling almost himself again, though, when he finally matched orbits with the station. As far as he could determine, his wings and stabilizers were still sound, and air pressure in the cargo space indicated nothing had sprung there. He even had a few drops of fuel left after making his final corrections. At least he'd done an adequate job of piloting on the ascension.

With luck, he'd get the Mollyann down again intact. But he'd need that luck!

CHAPTER IV

The big multi-tube affair into which the station had grown looked normal enough in the sunlight. But the men who came out in the little space ferry showed the hell of slow poisoning they'd been through, even over their jubilation at the sight of the filters. When they made seal-to-seal contact and he released the lock, the smell of their air was positively foul. They must have been reporting their plight as a lot better than it really was.

Commander Phillips came through first, almost crying as he grabbed Murdock's hand. He seemed at a complete loss for words.

"Hello, Red," Murdock greeted him. Phillips had been part of his own class, fifteen years before. "How are the kids?"

"Shapiro says they'll be okay, once we get some filters that aren't plated with contaminants. Tommy, I'd invite you over for champagne right now, but our air would ruin it. Just figure that anything I've got...."

Murdock cut him off. "I'll call it quits if you'll get this cargo out and my usual load in here on the double, along with some fuel. And you might have one of your engineers look over my wings for signs of strain. I've got to ride the next orbit back, two hours from now."

"Go back into that! You're crazy!" Phillips' shock drove everything else from the man's face. "You can't do it! I won't clear you!"

"I thought you were just offering me anything you had," Murdock pointed out.

It took five minutes more of heavy arguing to arrange it, and he might not have succeeded even then if he'd waited until the commander had recovered from his first burst of gratitude, or if the man hadn't been worn down by the poisons in the air and the fatigue of their desperate fight for survival. Phillips was hoarse and sick when he finally gave in and stumbled back to the loaded ferry. He croaked something about idiocy and grateful humanity and took off. Murdock tried, idly, to untangle it in his mind, but at the moment he was again more concerned with hungry pigs.

It was too busy a stretch for him to have time to worry. The square magnesium cans of dehydrated garbage began to come out, along with fuel. Sick men were somehow driving themselves to a final burst of energy as they stowed things carefully to preserve the trim of the ship. From outside, there was a steady tapping and hammering as others went over the skin of the controls with their instruments.

At the end, there was another visit from Phillips, with more arguing. But finally the man gave in again. "All right, damn it. Maybe you can make it. I certainly hope so. But you're not going it alone. You'll take Hennings along as co-pilot. He volunteered."

"Send him over, then," Murdock said wearily. He should have expected something like that. Hennings apparently reacted to the smell of glory like a warhorse to gunpowder.

He took a final look at the cargo, nodding in satisfaction. There was enough waste there to keep the farm going until they were over the hump. If Barr got back and they could enrich it with commercial food on temporary credit, Pete and he would be in clover. He pulled himself about and up to the control cabin, to see the ferry coming out on its last trip.

A minute later, Hennings came through the connecting seal and dogged it closed. "Hi, Tommy," he called out. "Ah, air again. How about letting me run her down for you? You look beat."

"The automatic pilot's disconnected," Murdock told him curtly. It had begun misfunctioning some twenty trips back, and he'd simply cut it out of the circuits, since he seldom used it.

Some of the starch seemed to run out of the younger man. He halted his march toward the controls and stared down at them doubtfully. Actually, little automatic piloting could be done on the down leg of a flight, but pilots were conditioned into thinking of the automatics almost reverently, ahead of anything else on the ship. It dated from the days when the ascension would have been physically impossible without such aid, and Murdock had felt the same for the first five years of piloting.

"Better strap in," he suggested.

Hennings dropped into the co-pilot couch while Murdock ran through the final check. The ship began swinging slowly about as the gyroscopes hummed, lining up for the return blast. "Ten seconds," Murdock announced. He ran a count in his head, then hit the blast lever gently. They began losing speed and dropping back toward Earth, while the station sailed on and away.

Then, with power off, there was nothing to do but stare at what was coming. It would still be night at Base, and even the sodium flares and radar beacons wouldn't be as much help as they should be in the storm. This time, they'd have to depend on lift, like a normal plane landing. It would be tough for any plane, for that matter, though possible enough in fully powered flight. But they had to come down like a glider. If there were any undetected strains in the wings....

"You came up without a tape?" Hennings asked suddenly.

Murdock grimaced, resenting the interruption to his brooding. He liked Hennings better as a cocky hero than as a worried young man. "A tape's no good for unpredictable conditions."

"Okay, if you say so," the younger man said doubtfully at last. He sat staring at the controls with an odd look on his face. Then surprisingly, he laughed and settled back loosely in his seat. "I guess maybe you don't need me, then."

He was snoring five minutes later. Murdock scowled at him, suspecting it was an act at first. Finally he shrugged and turned back to his worrying. He knew there'd been a good measure of luck to his take-off, in spite of all his careful efforts. He couldn't count on luck for the landing.

He could still put in an emergency call and ask to land at some large airfield out of the storm, in theory. But it would do no good. Hulda was blanketing too great an area; any other field would be so far from the farm that trucking the garbage back would be out of the question. He might as well have remained at the station. Besides, he was already on a braking orbit that would bring him near Base, and changes now would involve risks of their own.

He watched the thin haze of the upper atmospheric levels approach, trying to force his muscles to relax and his nerves to steady. The worst part of the return was the chance for nervousness to build up. Hennings went on snoring quietly, floating in the co-pilot's couch. His relaxation didn't help Murdock any.

It was almost a relief when they finally hit the first layers of detectable air, where the controls became effective again, and where he could take over. The ship had to be guided steadily now, its dip into atmosphere coördinated with its speed to avoid the dangers of skipping out or of going low enough to overheat. Murdock eased her down, watching his instruments but depending more on the feel of the Mollyann. A feeling of weight began to return along with noise from outside, while the hull pyrometer rose to indicate that friction was working on them, turning their speed into heat. This part of the descent was almost a conditioned reflex to him by now. Outside, he knew, the skin of the ship would be rising slowly to red heat, until they could lose enough speed to drop into the lower layers of air where they could cool off.

The heat in the cabin rose slowly. The Mollyann was an old model among the ships; her cabin was less completely insulated and airtight than most of the others. But for the brief period of high heat, she was safe enough. Slowly the air picked up a faint odor, that grew stronger as the hot hull radiated into the cargo space. He hardly noticed it, until Hennings woke up sniffing.

"Garbage," Murdock told him. "There's still enough water in it to boil off some. You get used to it."

They were dropping to denser air now, and he could feel perspiration on his palms. He dried them hastily. His head felt thick, and his stomach began to knot inside him. "Contact Control and have them shoot me the weather," he told Hennings.

When the pattern of it snapped onto the screen, he felt sicker. There was going to be no area of relative calm this time, and he couldn't wait for one to appear. He tried to get the weather pattern fixed in his mind while their descent flattened and they came closer to the storm area. He'd have to turn and follow the course set by the wind, heading into it; it meant coming down on a twisting curve, since there was some local disturbance near the field.

Then the first bumpiness registered. The ship seemed to sink and skid. There was no pressure of acceleration now, but his fingers felt weighted with lead, almost too slow to adjust the controls. The Mollyann dipped and tilted, and his stomach came up in his throat. He heard Hennings gasp, but he had no time to look at the other. The top of the storm was a boiling riot of pockets.

Things were getting worse by the second now. The last few miles were going to be hell. Lift wasn't steady, and eddies in the driving storm shook and twisted the ship. Her wing-loading wasn't bad, but she lacked the self-correcting design of the light planes he'd flown. The wings groaned and strained, and the controls seemed frozen. He was on the weather map now, a white blip that scudded along the edge. It gave him orientation, but the sight of his course offered little reassurance.

They hit a larger pocket and seemed to drop a hundred feet. The wings creaked sickeningly, and something whined from the rear controls. The elevators abruptly bucked back at him, catching him unaware, and he had to brace himself and fight against them, putting his muscles into it. Obviously, the servo assist had conked out. Probably something had happened during take-off. He was left with only his own strength to buck the currents now, operating on the mechanical cable. If that couldn't hold...!

He was sweating as he fought the buffeting. In spite of his best efforts, they were pitching more now. Another violent swoop came, and was followed by a thump and scraping from the cargo section. The ship lost trim. Some of the cans had come loose from their fastenings and were skidding about!

He saw Hennings jerk from his couch and fight his way to the hatch. He yelled angrily, knowing the fool could get killed by something grinding into him down there. Then he had no time to worry as the heavy odor told him the boy had already gone through the hatch. He fought to hold the ship steady, but there was no predicting its behavior. His muscles were overworked and unable to handle the controls as smoothly as they should. Now the field was only a few miles away, and he had to buck and twist his way through the wind to arrive within the limits of the landing strip. To make things worse, the wind velocity must have been higher than he had estimated, and he had lost more speed than he could afford. It was going to be close, if he made it at all.

Then the ship began steadying as he could feel the trim restored. He had only time for a single sigh of relief before Hennings was up, dripping with sweat and garbage odor as he groped his way back to the couch. Murdock tried to call his thanks, knowing the courage it had taken to risk the cargo hold. But Hennings' whole attention was focussed sickly on the weather map.

The field was coming at them, but not soon enough. Too much speed had been lost to the wind resistance. Murdock tried to flatten the glide, but gave up at once. They were already as near a stall as he dared risk in this stuff, and they'd still miss the field by a mile! They'd land and go crashing into trees, rocks and maybe even houses down there!

Murdock swore and grabbed for the blast lever. There was no time to warm up properly, but he had to have more speed.

He heard Hennings' voice yell a single shocked word before his hand moved the lever. Behind them, sound roared out for a split second and the ship lurched forward. Power such as that wasn't meant for minor corrections in speed, and there was no way to meter it out properly, yet it was the only possible answer. He cut the blast, then threw it on again for a split second. Then he had to snap his hand back to the elevator controls, fighting against them to regain stability.

He couldn't risk more speed. If they undershot, they were lost. And if their speed were too high, there would be no second chance to try a landing. They couldn't turn and circle in the storm. They were only getting through by heading straight into the wind, jockeying to avoid cross currents. Beyond the field was the ocean, and these modern ships weren't designed for water landings—particularly in the seas they'd find running now.

A glint of yellow caught his eye. The field markers! And he was too high. He threw his weight against the sloppy controls and felt the ship beginning to go down. He'd picked up too much speed in the brief burst of power, but he had to land somehow at once.

He could make out some of the flares now, and he had to aim between them. He kicked out the landing wheels and fought her down savagely. He was already past the near edge of the field. Too far!

Suddenly the wheels hit. The ship bounced as the wind caught it from below and began slewing it around. Then it hit again, while he fought with brakes and controls to right it. It staggered, skidded, and went tearing down the runway. Ahead of them, the crash fence loomed up in the yellow light. Ten feet—another ten—

Murdock felt the ship hit and bounce. He was just feeling his relief that their speed was too low to crash through when his head struck against the control panel, and his mind exploded in a shower of hot sparks that slowly turned black.

He had a vague period of semi-consciousness after that when he realized Hennings was carrying him out of the ship, with rain pelting on him and the sound of the gale in his ears. Something bright went off, and he had a vision of the photo they must have taken: Hennings carrying a body from the Mollyann—Hennings, immune to all accidents, standing poised and braced against the storm, marching straight toward the photographers, smiling....

There was another vague period when he seemed to hear the voices of Sheila and Bailey. The prick of a needle....

He swam up from a cloud of dark fuzz at last. There was a dull ache in his head and a bump on his scalp. The light hurt his eyes when he opened them, and he clamped them shut again, but not before he saw he was on a couch in the recreation hall. At least that must mean no concussion; it had been just an ordinary bump, on top of the strain and nervous fatigue.

From outside, there was a confused mixture of sounds and a hammering that seemed to be against the building. He started to pull himself up to look for the cause, but it was too much effort for the moment. He started to drift off into a half doze, until he heard steps, and Hennings' voice.

"... absolutely magnificent, Miss Crane! I'll never forget it. He didn't even try to kid around to keep his spirits up. He just sat there without a sign of worry, as if he was doing a regular milk run. He didn't bat an eyelash when he had to decide to use power. So help me, he was like one of the heroes out of the kids' serials I used to watch. And that lousy reporter writing that I brought the ship down. If I find him—"

"Forget it, Larry," Sheila's voice said quietly.

"I won't forget it! It was bad enough they cut him down to a quarter column on the take-off and had to call it a lull in the storm! But this time I'm going to see they print the facts!"

"That should give them another column on how you're modestly trying to give credit to someone else," Sheila answered quietly. "Let them print what they want. It won't change the facts that we all know. And Tom won't mind too much. He's used to the way things are."

Murdock opened his eyes again and sat up, cutting off their conversation. He still felt groggy, but after a second his vision cleared. He smiled at Sheila and pulled her down beside him.

"She's right, Hennings. Let them print what they like. It's good publicity for the service the way they probably have it. Besides, you did your share." He reached out a hand for the younger man's arm, conscious that he couldn't even do that with the right flourish. "It took guts, trimming the cargo when you did. I meant to thank you for that."

Hennings muttered something awkwardly, and then straightened into his old self as he marched out the door to leave them alone. Sheila smiled after him with a mixture of fondness and amusement.

"What happened to the Mollyann and her cargo? And how's the farm making out?" Murdock asked her a moment later.

"The farm's safe enough, from the latest reports," she told him. "And the ship's a little banged up, but nothing serious. General Bailey sent the cadets out to load the cargo into our truck. He said a little garbage smell should be good for them." She smiled again, then glanced at her watch. "He should be back now, for that matter."

Murdock grinned wryly. It was a shame the hogs would never know the attention their food was getting. It must have been something to see the cadets practicing being heroes while unloading the smelly cans. He glanced out the window, but the storm was still too thick for clear vision. Someone scurried past, just outside, and there was more banging and a flurry of activity beyond the door, but apparently it had nothing to do with Bailey's return.

It was five minutes more before the general came in, walking over to stare at Murdock. "Your truck's outside, Tom. And don't bring it through the gates again until you're wearing a proper uniform!" He chuckled. "With eagles on the collar. I've been trying to wrangle them for you a long time now. Congratulations, Colonel! You earned them!"

Murdock pulled Sheila closer as he accepted Bailey's hand, feeling, the strength of her against him. There were other strengths, too—the words he'd heard Hennings saying, the recognition and security the new rank offered, the awareness that he hadn't failed his job. But he still found himself awkward and unable to rise to the occasion. He didn't try, but silently let Bailey guide them toward the door.

Then he turned. "There's one other thing. That application for Moon service—"

He felt Sheila stiffen briefly and relax against him again, but his words brought the general to a complete standstill.

Bailey's head nodded, reluctantly. "All right," he said at last. "I hate to let you go, Tom, but I'll put it through with a recommendation."

"Don't!" Murdock told him. "Tear it up! I've got a lot of hogs depending on the garbage run."

He threw the door open and saw the loaded truck waiting outside. He started toward it, drawing Sheila with him. Then he stopped, his mouth open in surprise, seeing what had caused all the banging he had heard.

There was a wide, clumsy plywood canopy built over the doorway now, running out to the truck. Lined up under it were all the pilots, with Hennings at the front, moving forward to open the door of the truck with a flourish. Precisely as Murdock's foot touched the ground, the band struck up the notes of Heroes' March.

Feeling like a fool, Murdock stumbled forward, awkwardly helping Sheila in and getting into the driver's seat, while fifty pairs of eyes remained zeroed in on him. Hennings shut the door with another flourish and stepped back into the ranks.

And suddenly Murdock knew what to do. He leaned from the window of the truck as Sheila settled into position beside him. He grinned at the pilots, raised his hand, placed his thumb against his nose and wriggled his fingers at them.

Hennings' face split into a wide grin and his arm lifted in the same salute, with fifty others following him in the gesture by a split second.

Murdock rolled up the window, and the big trick began moving across the field, heading toward home and the hogs.

Behind him, the band played on, but he wasn't listening.