He paused and waggled a finger for me to come closer. He went on in a low voice, to me alone, “That really was a slick piece of work. You were on your toes. You have a right to feel proud.”
I said I guessed I had been lucky.
He said, “Maybe. But that sort of luck comes to the man who is prepared for it.”
He waited a moment, then said, “Lermer, have you ever thought of putting in for space training?”
I said I suppose I had but I hadn’t thought about it very seriously. He said, “Well, Lermer, if you ever do decide to, let me know. You can reach me care of the Pilots’ Association, Luna City.”
With that, mast was over and we went away, George and I together and Molly and Peggy following along. I heard Peggy saying, “That’s my brother.”
Molly said, “Hush, Peggy. And don’t point.”
Peggy said, “Why not? He is my brother—well, isn’t he?”
Molly said, “Yes, but there’s no need to embarrass him.”
But I wasn’t embarrassed.
Mr. Ortega looked me up later and handed me a little, black, twisted piece of metal, about as big as a button. “That’s all there was left of it,” he said, “but I thought you would like to have it—pay you for messing up your Scout suit, so to speak.”
I thanked him and said I didn’t mind losing the uniform; after all, it had saved my neck, too. I looked at the meteorite. “Mr. Ortega, is there any way to tell where this came from?”
“Not really,” he told me, “though you can get the scientific johnnies to cut it up and then express an opinion—if you don’t mind them destroying it.”
I said no, I’d rather .keep it—and I have; I’ve still got it as a pocket piece. He went on, “It’s either a bit of a comet or a piece of the Ruined Planet. We can’t tell which because where we were there shouldn’t have been either one.”
“Only there was,” I said.
“As you say, there was.”
“Uh, Mr. Ortega, why don’t they put enough armor on a ship to stop a little bitty thing like this?” I remembered what the skin of the ship looked like where it had been busted; it seemed awful thin.
“Well, now, in the first place, this meteor is a real giant, as meteors go. In the second place—do you know anything about cosmic rays, Bill?”
“Uh, not much, I guess.”
“You undoubtedly know that the human body is transparent to primary cosmic radiation and isn’t harmed by it. That is what we encounter out here in space. But metal is not completely transparent to it and when it passes through metal it kicks up all sorts of fuss—secondary and tertiary and quaternary cosmic radiation. The stuff cascades and it is not harmless, not by a darn sight. It can cause mutations and do you and your descendants a lot of harm. It adds up to this: a man is safest in space when he has just enough ship around him to keep the air in and ultraviolet out.”
Noisy didn’t have much to say around the compartment for the next couple of days and I thought maybe he had learned his lesson. I was wrong. I ran into him in one of the lower passageways when there was nobody else around. I started to go around him but he stepped in my way. “I want to talk to you,” he said.
“Okay,” I answered. “What’s on your mind?” “You think you’re pretty smart, don’t you?” I didn’t like the way he said it, nor what he said. I said, “I don’t think I’m smart; I am smart.” He made me tired.
“Pretty cocky, aren’t you? You think I ought to be kissing your hand and telling you how grateful I am for saving my life, don’t you?”
I said, “Oh, yeah? If that’s what is worrying you, you can just skip it; I didn’t do it for you.”
“I know that,” he answered,” and I’m not grateful, see?”
“That’s fine with me,” I told him. “I wouldn’t want a guy like you being grateful to me.”