Ripped by an asteroid stray, the space-ship
drifted helplessly ... until suddenly, across the
shuddering deeps, a strange voice called to her.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories Spring 1949.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
I recall that when I was just a boy hanging around the old Mojave spaceyards, there was an old timer there who used to sing an old song. Helearned it from his father and he from his grandfather who used toprospect for gold in the Death Valley country.
The old timer was really ancient when I knew him, because he couldremember the war with the Federal States that used to be calledGermany and Japan. There was a strangeness about him, or so it seemsto me now. Listening to him sing those pioneer ballads caught atthe imagination and woke dreams. Of course, I was young then, andimpressionable. But his tales were my gospel. There were some among theyard hands who claimed he was a survivor of the first crew back fromLuna, but that was probably loose talk. In those days every yard hadits "Selenite man."
It was from him, though, that I heard my first spaceman's yarns. Yarnsabout the ships that were built when Venus and Mars were the outpostsof the system ... the frontier.
He used to tell of the strange ways in which those old ships took onpersonality ... character, if you like ... in the eyes of the menwho crewed them. When he spoke I could almost feel the thrill ofthose punishing vertical takeoffs, and I could smell the stink ofgasoline and feel the icy nimbus of liquid oxygen. I could feel toothe throbbing of the first crotchety atomics under my feet and thequivering sense of aliveness it gave....
Somehow, I don't believe the old man was embroidering fantasies for me.I think even then he knew.
I grew older and left Mojave for a dozen berths on as many ships, but Inever forgot the old timer and his stories. And it's odd that the shipthat proved his claims to me should bear the name he used to sing inthat pioneer ballad of his. My first command ... the R. S. Clementine.
I know that you'll not believe what I'm going to say about that ship.The Spatial Academy had filled you with book-learning and covered youwith gold braid. But it's killed your imagination. Academies have a wayof doing that. To you this will be an old spaceman's shaggy dog story.But no matter. I know what I know. I was there when Clem was born, andI watched her as she went home.
Fortunately, atomic drives are outdated now. The new warships are theregular thing. Atomics didn't last long, and in a way it's a goodthing. At least no crew will ever have to go through what mine wentthrough, and no ship turn into a fey thing like Clem did.
The strange thing about it is that I cared for that ship. I cared forher from the first moment I saw her lying somnolently among the rustinghulks in the graveyard near Canalopolis.
Remember, this was a long time ago. Even then, the old timer of theMojave yards must have been fifteen years dead and gone. Canalopoliswas a desert outpost on the edge of Syrtis Major cowering under thelash of the everlasting sandstorms, but just then it was a boomtown.
A lot of the vital force had drained away from the urge to colonizewhen Mars and Venus had turned out to be s