Someone called out, “Hey, Carol! What you got in the trunk?”
She threw him a grin. “Rocks.”
“Ham sandwiches, I’ll bet. Save me one.
“I’ll save you a rock, sweetheart.”
Too soon the attendant called out, “Number seven Walker, Roderick L.”
Rod went quickly to the gate. The attendant shoved a paper into his hand, then shook hands. “Good luck, kid. Keep your eyes open.” He gave Rod a slap on the back that urged him through the opening, dilated to man size.
Rod found himself on the other side and, to his surprise, still indoors. But that shock was not as great as immediate unsteadiness and nausea; the gravity acceleration was much less than earthnormal.
He fought to keep from throwing up and tried to figure things out. Where was he? On Luna? On one of Jupiter’s moons? Or somewhere ‘way out there?
The Moon, most likely Luna. Many of the longer jumps were relayed through Luna because of the danger of mixing with a primary, particularly with binaries. But surely they weren’t going to leave him here; Matson had promised them no airless test areas.
On the floor lay an open valise; he recognized it absentmindedly as the one Caroline had been carrying. At last he remembered to look at the paper he had been handed.
It read:
SOLO SURVIVAL TESTRecall Instructions
1. You must pass through the door ahead in the three minutes allowed you before another candidate is started through. An overlapping delay will disqualify you.
2.Recall will be by standard visual and sound signals. You are warned that the area remains hazardous even after recall is sounded.
3.The exit gate will not be the entrance gate. Exit may be as much as twenty kilometers in the direction of sunrise.
4. There is no truce zone outside the gate. Test starts at once. Watch out for stobor. Good luck!
B. P.M.
Rod was still gulping at low gravity and staring at the paper when a door opened at the far end of the long, narrow room he was in. A man shouted, “Hurry up! You’ll lose your place.”
Rod tried to hurry, staggered and then recovered too much and almost fell. He had experienced low gravity on field trips and his family had once vacationed on Luna, but he was not used to it; with difficulty he managed to skate toward the far door.
Beyond the door was another gate room. The attendant glanced at the timer over the gate and said, “Twenty seconds. Give me that instruction sheet.”
Rod hung onto it. “I’ll use the twenty seconds.”as much as twenty kilometers in the direction of sunrise. A nominal eastward direction call it “east.” But what the deuce was, or were, “stobor”?
“Time! Through you go.” The attendant snatched the paper, shutters rolled back, and Rod was shoved through a dilated gate.
He fell to his hands and knees; the gravity beyond was something close to earthnormal and the change had caught him unprepared. But he stayed down, held perfectly still and made no sound while he quickly looked around him. He was in a wide clearing covered with high grass and containing scattered trees and bushes; beyond was dense forest.
He twisted his neck in a hasty survey. Earth type planet, near normal acceleration, probably a Gtype sun in the sky . . . heavy vegetation, no fauna in sight but that didn’t mean anything; there might be hundreds within hearing. Even a stobor, whatever that was.
The gate was behind him, tall dark green shutters which were in reality a long way off. They stood unsupported in the tall grass, an anomalism unrelated to the primitive scene. Rod considered wriggling around behind the gate, knowing that the tangency was onesided and that he would be able to see through the locus from the other side, see anyone who came out without himself being seen.
Which reminded him that he himself could be seen from that exceptional point; he decided to move.
Where was Jimmy? Jimmy ought to be behind the gate, watching for him to come out, or watching from some other spy point. The only certain method of rendezvous was for Jimmy to have waited for Rod’s appearance; Rod had no way to find him now.