Alan E. Nourse - Rocket to Limbo.pdf - Nourse, Alan E - margozap

ROCKET TO LIMBO

by ALAN E. NOURSE

WOLF IV-THE PLANET FROM WHICH NO SHIP EVER RETURNED!

Lars Heldrigsson was fresh out of the Colonial Service Academy and his first

assignment was a milk-run to Vega aboard the Ganymede. Not a very exciting trip, except

that the ship's commander, Walter Fox, had explored and opened up more new

colony-worlds than any other man alive!

But the Ganymede had hardly blasted off before Lars dicovered that not all the crew

shared his admiration of their chief. Rumors circulated to the effect that Fox still believed

there were other intelligent beings in the galaxy; that they weren't going to Vega at all, but to

Wolf IV, the one planet from which no man had ever returned alive . . .

Then the ship made landfall and Lars' first look out the viewport told him the rumors had

been rightl But it was the commander's announcement that clinched it. "We've landed on

Wolf IV," Fox said grimly, "and we're going to hunt aliens! You men work with me - or you'll

never see Earth againl"

Turn this book over for second complete novel

Quotes from the reviews:

"This is no ordinary star-jump: author Nourse had conceived a ^really'Credible plot with

three dimensional characters motivated by plausible reasoning. Furthermore, he has an

almost uncanny ability to visualize the strange sensations and settings of the world of the

future."

- Virginia Kirkus

"There is something haunting about rocket to limbo . .. The author suggests that if man

has faith, he can literally rearrange his environment to suit himself."

- English Journal

"The pace is good, suspense well sustained, and the conclusion satisfyingly surprising."

- Best Setters

"Better than most."

- San Francisco Chronicle

ROCKET TO LIMBO

by ALAN E. NOURSE

ACE BOOKS, INC. 23 West 47th Street, New York 36, N. Y.

ROCKET TO LIMBO

An Ace Book, by arrangement with David McKay Co., Inc. All Rights- Reserved

To J. McP. H. who will write his own some day

PROLOGUE

ad astba, the words on the bronze plaque read.

The heavy metal sheet was bright and new, gleaming red-brown in the afternoon

sunlight. Great bolts of brass buckled it to the base of the launching rack, a slab of gray

granite cut in a single piece from the living rock of the mountains high above the rocket port.

Reaching up from the rack, the Star Ship stood like a silvery needle, poised, graceful, eager

to break away from the bonds of Earth-pointing upward toward the stars it sought.

To the stars.

The ship was named Argonaut in memory of that legendary ship and its crew that had

plunged into unknown waters so many centuries before. She had been built with tireless

care and devotion; years had been spent outfitting her for the brave journey she was now

daring to make. The finest engineers on Earth had designed her to carry the growth tanks

and fuel blocks, the oxygen and reprocessing equipment, the libraries and information

banks that her crew would require during the long voyage. Her massive engines had •been

tested and retested to tolerances never before achieved on Earth.

They had to be, for these engines must not fail.

The ship's name was carved on the bronze plaque, and the names of the men and

women of her crew. Below this the dates were written:

Launched: March 3, 2008 Returned:

There was no way of knowing when she would return, if she ever did return. There had

never been a ship like the

6 ROCKET TO LIMBO

Argonaut before. This was no clumsy orbit-craft to carry colonists and miners to the

outpost stations on Mars and Venus. The Argonaut was a Star Ship, designed for one

purpose-to carry her crew across the black gulf of space between the stars. Her destination

was Alpha Centauri; her voyage might take centuries to complete.

None of the crew who launched her would live to make landfall at her destination-they

knew that. But their children, or perhaps their children's children might survive to send the

ship blasting homeward again.

The Argonaut was bound on the Long Passage.

Up on the scaffolding surrounding the ship, lights were shining, men were moving

quickly up and down as last-minute preparations were completed. The gantry crane crept up

and down, up and down, loading aboard the final crates of supplies. For weeks the giant

nuclear engines had been warming, preparing for the sudden demand of power to thrust the

ship away from Earth's gravity. A chronometer clicked off the dwindling minutes. Gradually

the scaffolding cleared of men; the crane at last came down and stayed, its lights blinking

out.

High up on the hull a pressure door swung slowly shut, sealing the silvery skin of the

great ship.

Around it, well beyond the range of blast gases, crowds of people stood waiting silently,

thinking in their hearts what they could not put into words. Across the land eyes were turned

upward, hoping to catch at least a glimpse of the ship as she streaked up through the quiet

sky. Others saw it on silvery screens, or listened to the excited voice of the 3-V announcer.

One thing was certain-the eyes of Earth were on the Argonaut, a crowded, war-weary,

overpopulated, hungry Earth. The people knew the hope that lay behind the voyage: that the

Argonaut would find a place where Earthmen could settle, could build homes and colonies,

and so relieve the terrific press of people on their own crowded planet.

ROCKET TO LIMBO 7

But there was another reason too for the voyage. The stars were a challenge that Man

had to answer sometime. The time had come at last.

A young woman of twenty stood in the crowd, watching the ship with sad eyes. Her

husband placed his arm around her shoulder and drew her closer to him.

"How are you doing?" he asked.

She shivered. "I'm scared."

"So am I. Everyone's scared, in a way. It means so much, and it's so frightening and yet

so wonderful, too-you know?"

She nodded and clung closer. Her father was the first officer of the Argonaut. She knew

she would never see him again, and she knew that he would never set foot on land again.

The trip would take too long. His life was the ship now, and the ship was his life and

responsibility, the ship and the children who would be born aboard it.

"John, I wish we could go along."

• He patted her shoulder. "I know. I do too. But our work Is here."

"A hundred years, maybe two hundred! How can they hope to make it?"

He watched the last of the ground-crew scurrying down the ramps, heard the expectant

hush falling over the crowd. "I don't know, but they'll make it," he said firmly. "They wiH."

There was a restless stirring as the seconds passed. Then, like thunder gathering in the

distance, rising louder and-founder, the roar began. White flame blossomed from the jet of

the ship, billowed out in a searing mushroom against the fallout dampers, as the roar

echoed and re-echoed down the valley. Slowly, as if lifted gently on the magic fire the ship

rose; slowly, then faster, higher and higher. The mushroom became a tongue of fire as the

roar rose to a scream and the ship drove heavenward. The eyes of Earth followed the

8 ROCKET TO LIMBO

great finger of light into the sky, not daring to breathe, waiting, waiting-

And then the ship was gone. A sigh rippled through the crowds of people, and they

turned their faces away from the sky. Slowly the crowd began to melt away, leaving the

granite pedestal with the bronze plaque sitting in the gathering dusk, waiting to receive the

ship when she returned. When? No one knew. No one there would live to see it.

The Long Passage had begun.

The young woman clenched her husband's hand, and without a word they turned away.

She felt her child move within her, and she smiled.

He will be proud of his grandfather, she thought, if he's a he.

She did not know that the great-grandson of this unborn son of hers would be the man

who would give mankind a Short Passage to the stars.

Silently, John and Mary Koenig turned and left the field as darkness gathered.

Chapter One

STAR SHIP GANYMEDE

ad astha, the words on the bronze plaque read.

The block of granite that held the plaque was darkened with age; the bronze itself was

green, the words obscure and hard to'make out. Lars Heldrigsson shifted his Spacer's pack

down from his broad shoulder and bent over, squinting, to make out the letters.

Launched: March 3, 2008 Returned:

ROCKET TO LIMBO 9

There was no date on the second line. Slowly the young man ran his eyes down the

names of the crewmen and felt the old familiar prickle of wonder and excitement starting at

the base of his spine. They must have been brave ones, those people, he thought. Trying to

make a Star-jump with ordinary unassisted thrust engines! It seemed incredible, and yet

they had done it. Where were they now? Dead long since, of course, but what about their

grandchildren and great-grandchildren? Lars tried to imagine being born and raised in a

Star Ship, depending upon tapes and films for knowledge of Earth and Earthmen left

behind, never knowing the crunch of gravel under the feet, or the warm flush of a summer

breeze on the cheek. Had they finally reached a landfall, ever, anywhere?

Certainly they had never returned to Earth. After three hundred and fifty years the granite

launching rack still stood empty. The rocket port had grown up around it, engulfing it .as the

years passed, until it stood in the great central lobby of the busy Terminal, a silent monument

to the desperation and bravery of the ship that was launched there. " Nor had the Argonaut

ever reached the planets of Alpha Centauri, its intended destination, for modern

Koenig-drive ships had searched those planets long and diligently and found no trace, no

sign that Man had ever come there. All tile near stars had been reached and explored by

now-Altair and Vega, Alpha Centauri and Sirius and Arcturus and the rtst-and nowhere had

a sign been found. The Argonaut had become a legend, a brave gesture of the past, but die

thought of that hopeless voyage never failed to stir Lars Heldrigsson, to make him eager to

be off, impatient with the years of study that had been necessary to qualify him for the

Colonial Service Patrol. It was a legend of greatness, and there was still a challenge in the

stars that time and a changing world 4sould never destroy.

Pf this Lars Heldrigsson was very sure.

10 ROCKET TO LIMBO

He shouldered his pack again, a tiny fifty-pound bundle, the weight limit allowed

crewmen on Colonial Service ships, and walked quickly up the long ramp into the main

Terminal Concourse. He was large for his eighteen years, standing a full six feet two, broad

shouldered, powerful. His height and weight had been something of an issue when he had

entered the Colonial Service Academy five years before; since then he had gained another

two inches, and barely passed the physical examination before graduation, not because of

any sign of ill health but because of sheer size. His shock of yellow-white hair, his blue eyes

and the flat, heavy features of his face revealed clearly his Nordic ancestry. He seemed to

move slowly and ponderously. Throughout his Me he had had to contend with smaller, faster

ones who made the unfortunate mistake of assuming that Lars Heldrigsson couldn't move

fast when he wanted to-to their enduring regret.

Now he stepped briskly out into the Concourse, felt himself picked up and carried by the

streams of travelers, crewmen, colonists and Security men riding the rolling strips to and

from the launching racks and loading platforms. Everywhere there was feverish activity and

bustle. Across the way he saw lines of colonists waiting for their final physicals and baggage

checks before boarding the Star Ships that would carry them out to new homes, rugged-

homes, perhaps, a far cry from the crowded mechanization of the cities of Earth, but homes

where they could have land and food and a place to raise their children, homes linked to

Earth by the strong bonds of Colonial Service ships that traveled to the stars and back in

months.

And down the Concourse were the flashing lights of the shuttles leading out to the ships

themselves.

Star Ship Tethys, now loading colonists and supplies for the fourth planet of Sirius, an

old Colony, well established, rich in land, rich in Earth-mutated wheat, a sub-tropical

paradise with room for many thousands of families to settle and

ROCKET TO LIMBO 11

grow, almost self-supporting now and soon to apply for in-' dependent elections and

representation in the Colonial Council.

Star Ship Danton, taking men and machinery to the newly opened colony on Aldebaran

III, a bitter place until Earth weather technicians and Earth civil engineers had carved a

foothold for hungry Earthmen to find homes. A weatherbeaten fisherman made his way onto

the shuttle, with a gold ring in his ear and a tiny Arcturian monkey-bear on his shoulder,

tossing three sparkling tele-dice in the air before him to amuse his pet and laughing as the

creature batted at them with a tawny paw. There were great seas and many fish on

Aldebaran III.

Star Ship Mercedes, exploratory to the far system of Morua, a double star with endless

summer on its seventh planet, a good prospect for a new colony in ten more years, after the

exploratory crews and the survey crews and the engineering jerews and the pilot colonies

had done their work in opening it; a new escape valve for Earthmen who no longer had room

enough at home.

Star Ship Ganymede-

'<: Lars felt his heart pounding as he stepped across to the rolling strip bearing the

green and white cross of the Gany-mede. His ship! The assignment he had dreamed of

since his first day in the Academy-to ship aboard the Ganymede with Walter Fox, the man

who had opened more planets colonization than any man since the first Koenig-drive ship

had left Earth; the man whose seal of approval on a planet was fc virtual guarantee of a

successful and healthy colony. This *fip on the Ganymede would be no exploratory voyage,

to be Jure- a full week now before blastoff to bunk down the new members of the crew and

get the OfBcers-in-Training settled |a their duties; then a milk-run to Vega III to run a final

ftheck on a colony about to be opened to free colonization- felt it would be a good trip to

give an Officer-in-Training his

12 ROCKET TO LIMBO

space legs. There would be exploratories later, to unvisited stars, to unknown dangers.

Time enough for that, Lars thought. Now it was enough just to be assigned aboard the

Ganymede.

He glanced at the chrono on his wrist and stepped off the strip at a refresher booth. The

assignment orders in his pocket instructed him to join his ship at 1400 hours; it was now

only 1135. He had time to catch a shower and get himself into presentable uniform before

going aboard. He wanted his first impression to be a good one. He could see himself in his

mind's eye, stepping off the gantry into the entrance lock of the Ganymede, saluting the flag

first, then the officer of the deck. Walter Fox himself, perhaps? No, that would be too much to

hope for. But perhaps Mr, Lorry then, the second officer, returning his salute with casual

briskness and saying, "Name, Officerr

"Heldrigsson, sir. Officer-in-Training. Planetary ecology."

"Oh yes, one of the biology boys. You'll be working with Dr. Lambert, then."

"Yes, sir. That's what I'd hoped. Where will I find him, sirr

"Up in the lab, I suppose. Glad to have you aboard, Officer." And another salute.

In the refresher booth skillful robot fingers helped Lars ease off his travel-stained

uniform, picked through his pack for disposables and discarded them all with a whoosh

down the disposal chute. As new clothing popped out of the slot Lars stepped into the

shower stall, still glowing from his daydream. He relaxed as sheets of warm water and

detergent sponges enveloped him. Even five years of intensive study and preparation at the

Academy could never truly prepare a man for space-this was understood from the start-and

neither could they explain in advance the feeling of tension and excitement, the

indescribable fever of wonder and adventure that took possession of you the hour before

you

ROCKET TO LIMBO 13

stepped aboard a Star Ship for your first Officer-in-Training assignment.

He had tried to explain it to Dad during the two-week graduation furlough from which he

was just returning. It had been good to be home again for a few days, good to feel the warm

winds coming up from the south, • good to feel the bite of a pick once again in the rocky

north-central Greenland soil. The farm was the same as he had remembered it, the heavy

house built of glacial rock, the huge granite fireplace, the outbuildings, the fields of wheat

spreading forth for miles in every direction. Dad had seemed unchanged, too, his face

burned red and seamed by the wind, bis hands rough and brown. Mom looked older and

more tired, her eyes bright with worry as she greeted her son, but she had smiled through

the worry, refusing to say a word to dampen his enthusiasm for his new assignment. ". He

had spent the first days with old Black, the huge Labrador who guarded the farm against all

assailants, hiking the hills and valleys he remembered so well from his childhood. But he

knew the question would come, and presently ;ft did as he sat with Dad before the fire one

night after dinner.

,.'. "Why do you want to go?" his father had asked him. "What are you looking for, Lars?

What do you think you're going to find out there on a Star Ship that you won't find right here

at home?"

Lars had grinned, a little embarrassed. Just like Dad, he thought, to dispense with

preliminaries and speak his mind bluntly. "I don't know, for sure. I just know I've got to do it. I

want to go where nobody ever went before. I want to do things that nobody else has ever

done, or ever could do." He patted Black's massive head, felt the dog muzzle his hand

affectionately. "Black knows why I want to go. Ask |fim why he always wants to see what the

other side of a hill looks like."

14 ROCKET TO LIMBO

'"And you have to go on a Star Ship for this?" Dad lit his pipe and watched his son's

face carefully. "You think all the frontiers are out there? You're wrong, son. Look at our farm,

our Greenland. Why, in your Grandfather Heldrigsson's day our whole Greenland was an

icecap!"

Lars shrugged. "The weather technicians-" he said.

Alan E. Nourse - Rocket to Limbo.pdf

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