Touch the SKY
By ALFRED COPPEL
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Startling Stories Summer 1955.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The sign said: RIDE THE ROCKET! TWICE AROUND THE UNIVERSE FOR 25¢!Which was cheap enough, Pete Moore thought. Cheap enough at twice thefare.
Glory giggled and pulled at his arm. "Let's ride, Pete. Let's see whatyou're in for."
He smiled down at her thinly, because it wasn't really anything forher to giggle about, but that was Glory for you. She was young enough,gay enough, to be able to make a joke of it, and that was good and heshouldn't spoil it. Not many other wives would feel like that. Not manyother wives would want to spend his last night home on the midway, forthat matter. But then again, that was Glory.
He listened to the tinny carousel music and the babble of the crowd,the laughter and the mingled drone of barkers. He smelled the tangof roasting popcorn and the hot-doggy stink of the lunchcounters. Helooked at the ferris wheel and the crazy swoop of lights that was thescenic railway and the people crowding along the boardwalk with kewpiedolls and spun-sugar candy cones in their hands.
Question! his mind demanded: Is this reality?
Answer: Of course. What else?
I've been too long away from cities, he thought. Too many silent nightsin the desert, too many high flights in cold blue air. Too long awayfrom Glory?
He felt guilty and depressed at the thought. It wasn't the way for aman to feel. Not before the great adventure. Still, he couldn't avoidan almost homesick longing for the deep darkness of the desert and thesilver ship waiting there.
Soon, he thought. Three days; three days and a few hours.
He felt a tug at his arm.
"Pete!" Glory was smiling up at him, half-aggrieved, half-loving. Helooked again at the garishly painted sign.
RIDE THE ROCKET!
"Let's ride it, Pete," Glory said. "Let's!"
There was something in her smile that touched him. Pride? That, andlove and youth. To her, he was the man. For her, and for all theworld. The one who was going to reach out beyond the far horizon andtouch the sky and bring back a pot of gold for everyone.
She thinks no one else could do it, he told himself. That's love. Therewere a dozen qualified men, and yet—
The moonshot was his.
RIDE THE ROCKET!
"All right, baby," he said.
As he paid their fare for the rocket-ride, Pete found himself lookingat the girl in the booth. Tired eyes and stringy hennaed hair. Nodreams there. He had an impulse to tell her that soon he'd really beriding the rocket and that from then on things would be different.
New frontiers and new dreams for everybody. Up and up.
The girl's eyes met his, and it was Pete who looked away. You don'ttalk frontiers to pale, worn faces and eyes bleached of color by tinnymusic and stinks and men.
They walked up a wooden ramp to where a little metal bullet on railswaited. The paint, once bright, was all scuffy. A sour-faced attendantin grayish coveralls stood by a large lever.
"Fasten ya seat belts, Mac."
"We're off to the sky," Glory said.
Somewhere old machinery wheezed.
The little bullet began to move along the rails toward a hingedtrap-door in a wall painted to look like clouds.
"Hold my hand, Pete," Glory said breathlessly.
Glory, Glory, he thought. Young and simple and in love with life. Anykind of