Ordeal in Space

Maybe we should never have ventured out into space. Our race has but two basic, innate fears; noise and the fear of falling. Those terrible heights - Why should any man in his right mind let himself be placed where he could fall... and fall... and fall - But all spacemen are crazy. Everybody knows that.

The medicos had been very kind, he supposed. 'You're lucky. You want to remember that, old fellow. You're still young and your retired pay relieves you of all worry about your future. You've got both arms and legs and are in fine shape.'

'Fine shape!' His voice was unintentionally contemptuous.

'No, I mean it,' the chief psychiatrist had persisted gently. 'The little quirk you have does you no harm at all - except that you can't go into space again. I can't honestly call acrophobia a neurosis; fear of falling is normal and sane. You've just got it a little more strongly than most - but that is not abnormal, in view of what you have been through.'

The reminder set him to shaking again. He closed his eyes and saw the stars wheeling below him again. He was falling, falling endlessly. The psychiatrist's voice came through to him and pulled him back. 'Steady, old man! Look around you.'

'Sorry.'

'Not at all. Now tell me, what do you plan to do?'

'I don't know. Get a job, I suppose.'

'The Company will give you a job, you know.'

He shook his head. 'I don't want to hang around a spaceport.' Wear a little button in his shirt to show that he was once a man, be addressed by a courtesy title of captain, claim the privileges of the pilots' lounge on the basis of what he used to be, hear the shop talk die down whenever he approached a group, wonder what they were saying behind his back - no, thank you!

'I think you're wise. Best to make a clean break, for a while at least, until you are feeling better.'

'You think I'll get over it?'

The psychiatrist pursed his lips. 'Possible. It's functional, you know. No trauma.'

'But you don't think so?'

'I didn't say that. I honestly don't know. We still know very little about what makes a man tick.'

'I see. Well, I might as well be leaving.'

The psychiatrist stood up and shoved out his hand. 'Holler if you want anything. And come back to see us in any case.'

'Thanks.'

'You're going to be all right. I know it.'

But the psychiatrist shook his head as his patient walked out. The man did not walk like a spaceman; the easy, animal self-confidence was gone.

Only a small part of Great New York was roofed over in those days; he stayed underground until he was in that section, then sought out a passageway lined with bachelor rooms. He stuck a coin in the slot of the first one which displayed a lighted 'vacant' sign, chucked his jump bag inside, and left. The monitor at the intersection gave him the address of the nearest placement office. He went there, seated himself at an interview desk, stamped in his finger prints, and started filling out forms. It gave him a curious back-to-the-beginning feeling; he had not looked for a job since pre-cadet days.

He left filling in his name to the last and hesitated even then. He had had more than his bellyful of publicity; he did not want to be recognized; he certainly did not want to be throbbed over - and most of all he did not want anyone telling him he was a hero. Presently he printed in the name 'William Saunders' and dropped the forms in the slot.

He was well into his third cigarette and getting ready to strike another when the screen in front of him at last lighted up. He found himself staring at a nice-looking brunette. 'Mr. Saunders,' the image said, will you come inside, please? Door seventeen.'

The brunette in person was there to offer him a seat and a cigarette. 'Make yourself comfortable, Mr. Saunders. I'm Miss Joyce. I'd like to talk with you about your application.' He settled himself and waited, without speaking.

When she saw that he did not intend to speak, she added, 'Now take this name "William Saunders" which you have given us - we know who you are, of course, from your prints.

'I suppose so.'

'Of course I know what everybody knows about you, but your action in calling yourself "William Saunders", Mr. -'

'Saunders.'

'- Mr. Saunders, caused me to query the files.' She held up a microfilm spool, turned so that he might read his own name on it. 'I know quite a lot about you now - more than the public knows and more than you saw fit to put into your application. It's a good record, Mr. Saunders.'

'Thank you.'

'But I can't use it in placing you in a job. I can't even refer to it if you insist on designating yourself as "Saunders".'

'The name is Saunders.' His voice was flat, rather than emphatic.

'Don't be hasty, Mr. Saunders. There are many positions in which the factor of prestige can be used quite legitimately to obtain for a client a much higher beginning of pay than-'

'I'm not interested.'

She looked at him and decided not to insist. 'As you wish. If you will go to reception room B, you can start your classification and skill tests.'

'Thank you.'

'If you should change your mind later, Mr. Saunders, we will be glad to reopen the case. Through that door, please.'

Three days later found him at work for a small firm specializing in custom-built communication systems. His job was calibrating electronic equipment. It was soothing work, demanding enough to occupy his mind, yet easy for a man of his training and experience. At the end of his three months' probation he was promoted out of the helper category.

He was building himself a well-insulated rut, working, sleeping, eating, spending an occasional evening at the public library or working out at the YMCA - and never, under any circumstances, going out under the open sky nor up to any height, not even a theater balcony.

He tried to keep his past life shut out of his mind, but his memory of it was still fresh; he would find himself daydreaming - the star-sharp, frozen sky of Mars, or the roaring night life of Venusburg. He would see again the swollen, ruddy bulk of Jupiter hanging over the port on Ganymede, its oblate bloated shape impossibly huge and crowding the sky.

Or he might, for a time, feel again the sweet quiet of the long watches on the lonely reaches between the planets. But such reveries were dangerous; they cut close to the edge of his new peace of mind. It was easy to slide over and find himself clinging for life to his last handhold on the steel sides of the Valkyrie, fingers numb and failing, and nothing below him but the bottomless well of space.

Then he would come back to Earth, shaking uncontrollably and gripping his chair or the workbench.

The first time it had happened at work he had found one of his benchmates, Joe Tully, staring at him curiously. 'What's the trouble, Bill?' he had asked. 'Hangover?'

'Nothing,' he had managed to say. 'Just a chill.'

'You better take a pill. Come on - let's go to lunch.'

Tully led the way to the elevator; they crowded in. Most of the employees - even the women - preferred to go down via the drop chute, but Tully always used the elevator. 'Saunders', of course, never used the drop chute; this had eased them into the habit of lunching together. He knew that the chute was safe, that, even if the power should fail, safety nets would snap across at each floor level - but he could not force himself to step off the edge.

Tully said publicly that a drop-chute landing hurt his arches, but he confided privately to Saunders that he did not trust automatic machinery. Saunders nodded understandingly but said nothing. It warmed him toward Tully. He began feeling friendly and not on the defensive with another human being for the first time since the start of his new life. He began to want to tell Tully the truth about himself. If he could be sure that Joe would not insist on treating him as a hero - not that he really objected to the role of hero. As a kid, hanging around spaceports, trying to wangle chances to go inside the ships, cutting classes to watch take-offs, he had dreamed of being a 'hero' someday, a hero of the spaceways, returning in triumph from some incredible and dangerous piece of exploration. But he was troubled by the fact that he still had the same picture of what a hero should look like and how he should behave; it did not include shying away from open windows, being fearful of walking across an open square, and growing too upset to speak at the mere thought of boundless depths of space.