Citizen in Space

I’m really in trouble now, more trouble than I ever thought possible. It’s a little difficult to explain how I got into this mess, so maybe I’d better start at the beginning.

Ever since I graduated from trade school in 1991 I’d had a good job as sphinx valve assembler on the Starling Spaceship production line. I really loved those big ships, roaring to Cygnus and Alpha Centaurus and all the other places in the news. I was a young man with a future, I had friends, I even knew some girls.

But it was no good.

The job was fine, but I couldn’t do my best work with those hidden cameras focused on my hands. Not that I minded the cameras themselves; it was the whirring noise they made. I couldn’t concentrate.

I complained to Internal Security. I told them, look, why can’t I have new, quiet cameras, like everybody else? But they were too busy to do anything about it.

Then lots of little things started to bother me. Like the tape recorder in my TV set. The FBI never adjusted it right, and it hummed all night long. I complained a hundred times. I told them, look, nobody else’s recorder hums that way. Why mine? But they always gave me that speech about winning the cold war, and how they couldn’t please everybody.

Things like that make a person feel inferior. I suspected my government wasn’t interested in me.

Take my Spy, for example. I was an 18-D Suspect – the same classification as the Vice-President – and this entitled me to part-time surveillance. But my particular Spy must have thought he was a movie actor, because he always wore a stained trench coat and a slouch hat jammed over his eyes.

He was a thin, nervous type, and he followed practically on my heels for fear of losing me.

Well, he was trying his best. Spying is a competitive business, and I couldn’t help but feel sorry, he was so bad at it. But it was embarrassing, just to be associated with him. My friends laughed themselves sick whenever I showed up with him breathing down the back of my neck. “Bill,” they said, “is that the best you can do?” And my girl friends thought he was creepy.

Naturally, I went to the Senate Investigations Committee, and said, look, why can’t you give me a trained Spy, like my friends have?

They said they’d see, but I knew I wasn’t important enough to swing it.

All these little things put me on edge, and any psychologist will tell you it doesn’t take something big to drive you bats. I was sick of being ignored, sick of being neglected.

That’s when I started to think about Deep Space. There were billions of square miles of nothingness out there, dotted with too many stars to count. There were enough Earth-type planets for every man, woman and child. There had to be a spot for me.

I bought a Universe Light List, and a tattered Galactic Pilot. I read through the Gravity Tide Book, and the Interstellar Pilot Charts. Finally I figured I knew as much as I’d ever know.

All my savings went into an old Chrysler Star Clipper. This antique leaked oxygen along its seams. It had a touchy atomic pile, and spacewarp drives that might throw you practically anywhere. It was dangerous, but the only life I was risking was my own. At least, that’s what I thought.

So I got my passport, blue clearance, red clearance, numbers certificate, space-sickness shots and deratification papers. At the job I collected my last day’s pay and waved to the cameras. In the apartment, I packed my clothes and said good-bye to the recorders. On the street, I shook hands with my poor Spy and wished him luck.

I had burned my bridges behind me. All that was left was final clearance, so I hurried down to the Final Clearance Office. A clerk with white hands and a sun lamp tan looked at me dubiously.

“Where did you wish to go?” he asked me.

“Space,” I said.

“Of course. But where in space?”

“I don’t know yet,” I said. “Just space. Deep Space. Free Space.”

The clerk sighed wearily. “You’ll have to be more explicit than that, if you want a clearance. Are you going to settle on a planet in American Space? Or did you wish to emigrate to British Space? Or Dutch Space? Or French Space?”

“I didn’t know space could be owned,” I said.

“Then you don’t keep up with the times,” he told me, with a superior smirk. “The United States has claimed all space between coordinates 2XA and D2B, except for a small and relatively unimportant segment which is claimed by Mexico. The Soviet Union has coordinates 3DB to LO2 – a very bleak region, I can assure you. And then there is the Belgian Grant, the Chinese Grant, the Ceylonese Grant, the Nigerian Grant —”

I stopped him. “Where is Free Space?” I asked.

“There is none.”

“None at all? How far do the boundary lines extend?”

“To infinity,” he told me proudly.

For a moment it fetched me up short. Somehow I had never considered the possibility of every bit of infinite space being owned. But it was natural enough. After all, somebody had to own it.

“I want to go into American Space,” I said. It didn’t seem to matter at the time, although it turned out otherwise.

The clerk nodded sullenly. He checked my records back to the age of five – there was no sense in going back any further – and gave me the Final Clearance.

The spaceport had my ship all serviced, and I managed to get away without blowing a tube. It wasn’t until Earth dwindled to a pinpoint and disappeared behind me that I realized that I was alone.

Fifty hours out I was making a routine inspection of my stores, when I observed that one of my vegetable sacks had a shape unlike the other sacks. Upon opening it I found a girl, where a hundred pounds of potatoes should have been.

A stowaway. I stared at her, open-mouthed.

“Well,” she said, “are you going to help me out? Or would you prefer to close the sack and forget the whole thing?”

I helped her out. She said, “Your potatoes are lumpy.”

I could have said the same of her, with considerable approval. She was a slender girl, for the most part, with hair the reddish blond color of a flaring jet, a pert, dirt-smudged face and brooding blue eyes. On Earth, I would gladly have walked ten miles to meet her. In space, I wasn’t so sure.

“Could you give me something to eat?” she asked. “All I’ve had since we left is raw carrots.”

I fixed her a sandwich. While she ate, I asked, “What are you doing here?”

“You wouldn’t understand,” she said, between mouthfuls.

“Sure I would.”

She walked to a porthole and looked out at the spectacle of stars – American stars, most of them – burning in the void of American Space.

“I wanted to be free,” she said.

“Huh?”

She sank wearily on my cot. “I suppose you’d call me a romantic,” she said quietly. “I’m the sort of fool who recites poetry to herself in the black night, and cries in front of some absurd little statuette. Yellow autumn leaves make me tremble, and dew on a green lawn seems like the tears of all Earth. My psychiatrist tells me I’m a misfit.”

She closed her eyes with a weariness I could appreciate. Standing in a potato sack for fifty hours can be pretty exhausting.

“Earth was getting me down,” she said. “I couldn’t stand it – the regimentation, the discipline, the privation, the cold war, the hot war, everything. I wanted to laugh in free air, run through green fields, walk unmolested through gloomy forests, sing —”

“But why did you pick on me?”

“You were bound for freedom,” she said. “I’ll leave, if you insist.”

That was a pretty silly idea, out in the depths of space. And I couldn’t afford the fuel to turn back.

“You can stay,” I said.

“Thank you,” she said very softly. “You do understand.”

“Sure, sure,” I said. “But we’ll have to get a few things straight. First of all —” But she had fallen asleep on my cot, with a trusting smile on her lips.

Immediately I searched her handbag. I found five lipsticks, a compact, a phial of Venus V perfume, a paper-bound book of poetry, and a badge that read: Special Investigator, FBI.

I had suspected it, of course. Girls don’t talk that way, but Spies always do.

It was nice to know my government was still looking out for me. It made space seem less lonely.

The ship moved into the depths of American Space. By working fifteen hours out of twenty-four, I managed to keep my spacewarp drive in one piece, my atomic piles reasonably cool, and my hull seams tight. Mavis O’day (as my Spy was named) made all meals, took care of the light housekeeping, and hid a number of small cameras around the ship. They buzzed abominably, but I pretended not to notice.

Under the circumstances, however, my relations with Miss O’day were quite proper.

The trip was proceeding normally – even happily – until something happened.

I was dozing at the controls. Suddenly an intense light flared on my starboard bow. I leaped backward, knocking over Mavis as she was inserting a new reel of film into her number three camera.

“Excuse me,” I said.

“Oh, trample me anytime,” she said.

I helped her to her feet. Her supple nearness was dangerously pleasant, and the tantalizing scent of Venus V tickled my nostrils.

“You can let me go now,” she said.

“I know,” I said, and continued to hold her. My mind inflamed by her nearness, I heard myself saying, “Mavis – I haven’t known you very long, but —”

“Yes, Bill?” she asked.

In the madness of the moment I had forgotten our relationship of Suspect and Spy. I don’t know what I might have said. But just then a second light blazed outside the ship.

* * *

I released Mavis and hurried to the controls. With difficulty I throttled the old Star Clipper to an idle, and looked around.

Outside, in the vast vacuum of space, was a single fragment of rock. Perched upon it was a child in a spacesuit, holding a box of flares in one hand and a tiny spacesuited dog in the other.

Quickly we got him inside and unbuttoned his spacesuit.

“My dog —” he said.

“He’s all right, son,” I told him.

“Terribly sorry to break in on you this way,” the lad said.

“Forget it,” I said. “What were you doing out there?”

“Sir,” he began, in treble tones, “I will have to start at the start. My father was a spaceship test pilot, and he died valiantly, trying to break the light barrier. Mother recently remarried. Her present husband is a large, black-haired man with narrow, shifty eyes and tightly compressed lips. Until recently he was employed as a ribbon clerk in a large department store.

“He resented my presence from the beginning. I suppose I reminded him of my dead father, with my blond curls, large oval eyes and merry, outgoing ways. Our relationship smouldered fitfully. Then an uncle of his died (under suspicious circumstances) and he inherited holdings in British Space.

“Accordingly, we set out in our spaceship. As soon as we reached this deserted area, he said to mother, ‘Rachel, he’s old enough to fend for himself.’ My mother said, ‘Dirk, he’s so young!’ But soft-hearted, laughing mother was no match for the inflexible will of the man I would never call father. He thrust me into my spacesuit, handed me a box of flares, put Flicker into his own little suit, and said, ‘A lad can do all right for himself in space these days.’ ‘Sir,’ I said, ‘there is no planet within two hundred light years.’ ‘You’ll make out,’ he grinned, and thrust me upon this spur of rock.”

The boy paused for breath, and his dog Flicker looked up at me with moist oval eyes. I gave the dog a bowl of milk and bread, and watched the lad eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Mavis carried the little chap into the bunk room and tenderly tucked him into bed.

I returned to the controls, started the ship again, and turned on the intercom.

“Wake up, you little idiot!” I heard Mavis say.

“Lemme sleep,” the boy answered.

“Wake up! What did Congressional Investigation mean by sending you here? Don’t they realize this is an FBI case?”

“He’s been reclassified as a 10-F Suspect,” the boy said. “That calls for full surveillance.”

“Yes, but I’m here,” Mavis cried.

“You didn’t do so well on your last case,” the boy said. “I’m sorry, ma’am, but Security comes first.”

“So they send you,” Mavis said, sobbing now. “A twelve-year-old child —”

“I’ll be thirteen in seven months.”

“A twelve-year-old child! And I’ve tried so hard! I’ve studied, read books, taken evening courses, listened to lectures —”

“It’s a tough break,” the boy said sympathetically. “Personally, I want to be a spaceship test pilot. At my age, this is the only way I can get in flying hours. Do you think he’ll let me fly the ship?”

I snapped off the intercom. I should have felt wonderful. Two full-time Spies were watching me. It meant I was really someone, someone to be watched.

But the truth was, my Spies were only a girl and a twelve-year-old boy. They must have been scraping bottom when they sent those two.

My government was still ignoring me, in its own fashion.

We managed well on the rest of the flight. Young Roy, as the lad was called, took over the piloting of the ship, and his dog sat alertly in the co-pilot’s seat. Mavis continued to cook and keep house. I spent my time patching seams. We were as happy a group of Spies and Suspect as you could find.

We found an uninhabited Earth-type planet.

Mavis liked it because it was small and rather cute, with the green fields and gloomy forests she had read about in her poetry books. Young Roy liked the clear lakes, and the mountains, which were just the right height for a boy to climb.

We landed, and began to settle.

Young Roy found an immediate interest in the animals I animated from the Freezer. He appointed himself guardian of cows and horses, protector of ducks and geese, defender of pigs and chickens.

This kept him so busy that his reports to the Senate became fewer and fewer, and finally stopped altogether.

You really couldn’t expect any more from a Spy of his age.

And after I had set up the domes and force-seeded a few acres, Mavis and I took long walks in the gloomy forest, and in the bright green and yellow fields that bordered it.

One day we packed a picnic lunch and ate on the edge of a little waterfall. Mavis’ unbound hair spread lightly over her shoulders, and there was a distant enchanted look in her blue eyes. All in all, she seemed extremely un-Spylike, and I had to remind myself over and over of our respective roles.

“Bill,” she said after a while.

“Yes?” I said.

“Nothing.” She tugged at a blade of grass.

I couldn’t figure that one out. But her hand strayed somewhere near mine. Our fingertips touched, and clung.

We were silent for a long time. Never had I been so happy.

“Bill?”

“Yes?”

“Bill dear, could you ever —”

What she was going to say, and what I might have answered, I will never know. At that moment our silence was shattered by the roar of jets. Down from the sky dropped a spaceship.

Ed Wallace, the pilot, was a white-haired old man in a slouch hat and a stained trench coat. He was a salesman for Clear-Flo, an outfit that cleansed water on a planetary basis. Since I had no need for his services, he thanked me, and left.

But he didn’t get very far. His engines turned over once, and stopped with a frightening finality.

I looked over his drive mechanism, and found that a sphinx valve had blown. It would take me a month to make him a new one with hand tools.

“This is terribly awkward,” he murmured. “I suppose I’ll have to stay here.”

“I suppose so,” I said.

He looked at his ship regretfully. “Can’t understand how it happened,” he said.

“Maybe you weakened the valve when you cut it with a hacksaw,” I said, and walked off. I had seen the telltale marks.

Mr. Wallace pretended not to hear me. That evening I overheard his report on the interstellar radio, which functioned perfectly. His home office, interestingly enough, was not Clear-Flo, but Central Intelligence.

Mr. Wallace made a good vegetable farmer, even though he spent most of his time sneaking around with camera and notebook. His presence spurred Young Roy to greater efforts. Mavis and I stopped walking in the gloomy forest, and there didn’t seem time to return to the yellow and green fields, to finish some unfinished sentences.

But our little settlement prospered. We had other visitors. A man and his wife from Regional Intelligence dropped by, posing as itinerant fruit pickers. They were followed by two girl photographers, secret representatives of the Executive Information Bureau, and then there was a young newspaper man, who was actually from the Idaho Council of Spatial Morals.

Every single one of them blew a sphinx valve when it came time to leave.

I didn’t know whether to feel proud or ashamed. A half-dozen agents were watching me – but every one of them was a second-rater. And invariably, after a few weeks on my planet, they became involved in farmwork and their Spying efforts dwindled to nothing.

I had bitter moments. I pictured myself as a testing ground for novices, something to cut their teeth on. I was the Suspect they gave to Spies who were too old or too young, inefficient, scatterbrained, or just plain incompetent. I saw myself as a sort of half-pay retirement plan Suspect, a substitute for a pension.

But it didn’t bother me too much. I did have a position, although it was a little difficult to define. I was happier than I had ever been on Earth, and my Spies were pleasant and cooperative people.

Our little colony was happy and secure.

I thought it could go on forever.

Then, one fateful night, there was unusual activity. Some important message seemed to be coming in, and all radios were on. I had to ask a few Spies to share sets, to keep from burning out my generator.

Finally all radios were turned off, and the Spies held conferences. I heard them whispering into the small hours. The next morning, they were all assembled in the living-room, and their faces were long and somber. Mavis stepped forward as spokeswoman.

“Something terrible has happened,” she said to me. “But first, we have something to reveal to you.

Bill, none of us are what we seemed. We are all Spies for the government.”

“Huh?” I said, not wanting to hurt any feelings.

“It’s true,” she said. “We’ve been Spying on you, Bill.”

“Huh?” I said again. “Even you?”

“Even me,” Mavis said unhappily.

“And now it’s all over,” Young Roy blurted out.

That shook me. “Why?” I asked.

They looked at each other. Finally Mr. Wallace, bending the rim of his hat back and forth in his calloused hands, said, “Bill, a resurvey has just shown that this sector of space is not owned by the United States.”

“What country does own it?” I asked.

“Be calm,” Mavis said. “Try to understand. This entire sector was overlooked in the international survey, and now it can’t be claimed by any country. As the first to settle here, this planet, and several million miles of space surrounding it, belong to you, Bill.”

I was too stunned to speak.

“Under the circumstances,” Mavis continued, “we have no authorization to be here. So we’re leaving immediately.”

“But you can’t!” I cried. “I haven’t repaired your sphinx valves!”

“All Spies carry spare sphinx valves and hacksaw blades,” she said gently.

Watching them troop out to their ships I pictured the solitude ahead of me. I would have no government to watch over me. No longer would I hear footsteps in the night, turn, and see the dedicated face of a Spy behind me. No longer would the whirr of an old camera soothe me at work, nor the buzz of a defective recorder lull me to sleep.

And yet, I felt even sorrier for them. Those poor, earnest, clumsy, bungling Spies were returning to a fast, efifcient, competitive world. Where would they find another Suspect like me, or another place like my planet?

“Good-bye, Bill,” Mavis said, offering me her hand.

I watched her walk to Mr. Wallace’s ship. It was only then that I realized that she was no longer my Spy.

“Mavis!” I cried, running after her. She hurried toward the ship. I caught her by the arm. “Wait. There was something I started to say in the ship. I wanted to say it again on the picnic.”

She tried to pull away from me. In most unromantic tones I croaked, “Mavis, I love you.”

She was in my arms. We kissed, and I told her that her home was here, on this planet with its gloomy forests and yellow and green fields. Here with me.

She was too happy to speak.

With Mavis staying, Young Roy reconsidered. Mr. Wallace’s vegetables were just ripening, and he wanted to tend them. And everyone else had some chore or other that he couldn’t drop.

So here I am – ruler, king, dictator, president, whatever I want to call myself. Spies are beginning to pour in now from every country – not only America.

To feed all my subjects, I’ll soon have to import food. But the other rulers are beginning to refuse me aid. They think I’ve bribed their Spies to desert.

I haven’t, I swear it. They just come.

I can’t resign, because I own this place. And I haven’t the heart to send them away. I’m at the end of my rope.

With my entire population consisting of former government Spies, you’d think I’d have an easy time forming a government of my own. But no, they’re completely uncooperative. I’m the absolute ruler of a planet of farmers, dairymen, shepherds and cattle raisers, so I guess we won’t starve after all. But that’s not the point. The point is: how in hell am I supposed to rule?

Not a single one of these people will Spy for me.