He should have made chief engineer by the time he signed for the Jovian loop trip, but, after the Drywater pioneer trip, he had been fired, blacklisted, and grounded at Luna City for having spent his time writing a chorus and several verses at a time when he should have been watching his gauges. The song was the infamous _The Skipper is a Father to his Crew_, with the uproariously unprintable final couplet.
The blacklist did not bother him. He won an accordion from a Chinese barkeep in Luna City by cheating at onethumb and thereafter kept going by singing to the miners for drinks and tips until the rapid attrition in spacemen caused the Company agent there to give him another chance. He kept his nose clean on the Luna run for a year or two, got back into deep space, helped give Venusburg its original ripe reputation, strolled the banks of the Grand Canal when a second colony was established at the ancient Martian capital, and froze his toes and ears on the second trip to Titan.
Things moved fast in those days. Once the power-pile drive was accepted the number of ships that put out from the LunaTerra system was limited only by the availability of crews. Jetmen were scarce; the shielding was cut to a minimum to save weight and few married men cared to risk possible exposure to radioactivity. Rhysling did not want to be a father, so jobs were always open to him during the golden days of the claiming boom. He crossed and recrossed the system, singing the doggerel that boiled up in his head and chording it out on his accordion.
The master of the _Goshawk_ knew him; Captain Hicks had been astrogator on Rhysling’s first trip in her. “Welcome home, Noisy,” Hicks had greeted him. “Are you sober, or shall I sign the book for you?”
“You can’t get drunk on the bug juice they sell here, Skipper.” He signed and went below, lugging his accordion.
Ten minutes later he was back. “Captain,” he stated darkly, “that number two jet ain’t fit. The cadmium dampers are warped.”
“Why tell me? Tell the Chief.”
“I did, but he says they will do. He’s wrong.”
The captain gestured at the book. “Scratch out your name and scram. We raise ship in thirty minutes.”
Rhysling looked at him, shrugged, and went below again.
It is a long climb to the Jovian planetoids; a Hawk-class clunker had to blast for three watches before going into free flight. Rhysling had the second watch. Damping was done by hand then, with a multiplying vernier and a danger gauge. When the gauge showed red, he tried to correct it — no luck.
Jetmen don’t wait; that’s why they are jetmen. He slapped the emergency discover and fished at the hot stuff with the tongs. The lights went out, he went right ahead. A jetman has to know his power room the way your tongue knows the inside of your mouth.
He sneaked a quick look over the top of the lead baffle when the lights went out. The blue radioactive glow did not help him any; he jerked his head back and went on fishing by touch.
When he was done he called over the tube, “Number two jet out. And for crissake get me some light down here!”
There was light — the emergency circuit — but not for him. The blue radioactive glow was the last thing his optic nerve ever responded to.
2
“As Time and Space come bending back to shape this starspecked scene,
The tranquil tears of tragic joy still spread their silver sheen;
Along the Grand Canal still soar the fragile Towers of Truth;
Their fairy grace defends this place of Beauty, calm and couth.
“Bone-tired the race that raised the Towers, forgotten are their lores,
Long gone the gods who shed the tears that lap these crystal shores.
Slow heats the time-worn heart of Mars beneath this icy sky;
The thin air whispers voicelessly that all who live must die —
“Yet still the lacy Spires of Truth sing Beauty’s madrigal
And she herself will ever dwell along the Grand Canal!”
— from The Grand Canal, by permission of Lux Transcriptions, Ltd., London and Luna City