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As things turned out, it was more than a week before the Vulcan Adventurer took to the spaceways. When it became known that Vesh and Skem were going to the Games and that Droth would be represented at the Olympiad, excitement mounted on the water planet. Everyone wanted to have a look at the athletes before they left, and the spaceport island was soon surrounded by vessels of all descriptions, carrying more curious citizens than the port could accommodate. The athletes were showered with gifts and their coach was offered new trading opportunities, so that it began to look as if the ship would never get away.
Regretfully, Tris felt at last compelled to call a halt.
"Just hold onto your bargains till the next time around," he declared. "We'll be back, never fear, never fear, bringing your pair of young champions. At that time you can show your appreciation by renewing your offers. Now our holds are full, and if we don't get off, we'll be late all along the line and maybe miss the Games entirely."
And so blast-off hour was irrevocably set. The time came, and amid much shouting and cheering and final goodbyes, the Vulcan Adventurer prepared to lift from Droth.
Skem had fluctuated between uncertainty and expectation. First he was afraid his father would say no. That he would let Vesh go, but consider his son too young. Perhaps once the busy engineer had given permission to Vesh, he could not contemplate the problem of taking care of his lively son in his daughter's absence. In any event, he agreed that Skem should go, only expressing a little surprise that anyone should want him.
Assured of parental permission, Skem started to worry lest the trader should change his mind. Maybe all he wanted was Vesh, and would now discover that Skem was too young to compete. He worried so much that he stopped eating, and when the day of departure arrived, his sister started to notice.
"What's the matter with you?" she demanded. "You look odd, and I've been too busy to keep an eye on you. If you're going to be sick, you'd better not go."
Skem assured her that he felt fine, but he got away from her as quickly as possible. He said goodbye to his father and retreated into the ship, where he had hid himself in his cabin until blastoff. Yet as he lay in his bunk and tried not to count the minutes, he started to wonder if he did in fact feel funny.
He looked about the small, austere room, where everything was designed for utility and compactness. The bunk with the acceleration harness; the built-in, fold-back seat, table, and toilet arrangements; the miniature closet for gear. It was all very much like his cabin on the flota and he felt quite at home as he strapped down for blastoff.
He'd read enough about space to know what to expect and counted the seconds from the 1st engine vibrations to the sudden increase of gravity that told him the ship was blasting. It was all as he had anticipated, and soon the motors cut off and the youngster felt himself afloat in great silence.
Now that the ship was in space, he felt secure and he reached to release the belt. But even that slight movement gave him an unhappy feeling in the pit of his stomach. Skem prayed quietly that he was not going to be spacesick. It was the boast of Droth that a spaceman from that planet, reared from infanthood on its tossing seas, could withstand any rigors that space had to offer. Was he, Skem, about to refute that tradition? Such a catastrophe would be too embarrassing to contemplate, and he determined to find out for himself, here in his cabin, before going up to be with the others.
Of course, if there were something wrong with him, some minor illness as Vesh had hinted before blastoff, she could do nothing about it now. It was too late to take him back, and they'd just have to make the best of it.
Skem flung off the belt and in one movement pushed himself up from the bunk and onto his feet. And then a wholly unexpected thing happened. He sailed across the room, narrowly missing the closet, and came to rest against the opposite wall about 4 feet up from the floor.
The boy grabbed wildly and managed to seize a hand-hold, probably put there for just such a contingency. He clung to this, assessing the various scrapes and bruises he'd recieved and feeling his stomach turn over several times in a sickening manner. He knew what the trouble was now---he was in free fall! But his new friends had told him that the ship had artificial gravity.
"A bit lighter than what you're used to," Tris had said, "but you won't have any trouble. It's quite easy to navigate----in fact, you'll find it pleasant all around."
Now, just who was he kidding! Skem berated the trader mentally. This was not any kind of light G. This was no G at all! Well, if the rest of them could take it, so could he. He'd just learn how, right here and now. The boy spent the next 15 minutes trying to get himself down to the floor and over to the door. Several times he nearly made it, and then an injudicious movement in one direction would send him flying off in the opposite direction. He was beginning to tire and in a last desperate effort managed to get back to the bunk, where he hastily clamped the belt across his stomach. Even as he lay there, his body tried to drift off.
It was an eerie feeling, but Skem made himself lie quietly and assess the situation.342Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlLhrQeOCoH
Why would the trader tell him they had grav, if they didn't? Was he afraid he'd change his mind? Did they really want him that much? For a few minutes Skem basked in the thought that the team needed him so badly that he coach would lie to get him. Of course, they hadn't done that! He'd have come if they had double grav. If they worked in super heat or bitter cold, Skem tried to imagine some other disagreeable environment, but nothing seemed as upsetting as total zero grav.
As he thought about it, he wondered how Vesh was holding up. But of course, she had elected to strap down in the lounge with the rest of the crew. What was she doing now? What were they all doing? It seemed too ridiculous that he could not get to his door to go out and see. Were they going to work the whole trip under these conditions? Or had they simply forgotten to turn on the gravity?
A slight sound outside his door told him that his sister must've come down to her cabin next to his. He let out a yell calculated to carry beyond the door. The next minute it opened and Vesh stood there.
Stood. She wasn't even holding on. Skem craned his neck to look at her.
"What's the matter, dear?" she asked. "Aren't you feeling well? Come on up with the rest of us."
"That's what I've been trying to do. But I can't get out of the door. How do you manage it, Sis?"
"The door?" asked Vesh, puzzled. "What's the matter with the door?"
She took a step into the room and the next minute she was grabbing frantically for the nearest bulkhead. The scream she gave reached well beyond the cabin and the corridor.
"What is it, Skem? What have you done to your room?"
"Zero grav. And I didn't do it. Isn't it this way all over?"
"Certainly not!"
But before she could say more, the doorway was filled with a group of astonished faces, demanding to know what was going on. All the young men were talking at the same time.
"What's the matter? Is he sick, Vesh? Come out and join the fun, kid!"
They were interrupted and silenced by Zeth Tristotha, who shoved them all aside, took one quick look at the room, and bellowed: "Turn on the cabin's grav, somebody! Who the devil turned it off? This kind of thing's no laughing matter!"
Nobody owned up as the culprit, but Merl and Jan-o quickly fiddled with some dials outside the door, and Skem felt his stomach settled down to its correct position within his frame. Ship's gravity was in operation. Almost unbelieving, the boy got off the bunk and found that his feet stayed anchored to the floor.
"I'm sorry," Merl apologized. "We fixed the rooms up in such a hurry, what with the reloading and the new trade goods. We must've forgotten to turn on the grav. How about your room, Vesh? Everything a-OK there?"
"Oh, quite all right," she said, steadying her voice and step as he shepherded Skem into the corridor. "But I didn't know you could have gravity in one part of the ship and not in all of it."
"You see, we don't use centrifugal force," Tris explained. "We don't spin the ship. It's applied to the floors, and can be turned on and off like a light. We don't use it in the storage compartments, unless we carry something that could be harmed by zero grav. And these cabins were storage. As Merl said, we fixed them up in a hurry."
"I'm sure it was all a mistake," said Vesh. "Skem understands."
"Gives you an idea of what things were like in the good old days," said Jan-o. "Before they knew how to turn on and off the grav," Merl said.
"Well, now that that's all cleared up, let's get back to Control," the trader suggested. "Come along, my son, you'll want o get a look at your planet before we pass out of the system."
Tris put his hand on the boy's shoulder and led him away, Vesh following close behind. The three athletes stood a moment while Merl checked the gauges.
"Seems to me I remember turning that thing on," he muttered. "Are you sure you didn't touch it, Jan-o?"
"You turned it on? I turned it on! We both did, and that you have it." Jan-o was very glib with his explanation.
Merl and Shaun looked at him suspiciously, and Shaun remembered the expression on Skem's face. "That was a fool thing to do," he said. "We've been dinning it into the boy that there are to be no tricks aboard ship. And now you come up with this!"
"Ah, he had it coming to him! The little brat! Think how he made us sound in front of all those people!"
"Jan-o!" cried Merl, horrified. "You did do it! If you know what's good for you, you'll never let him know!"
"Who's letting him know? Think I want to be fouled up with Tris? It was all a mistake, like I said. Only now the kid knows what it's like to look foolish."
His two friends exchanged glances.
"This has got to stop here," said the runner. "We won't say anything, and don't you say anything. And don't you dare do it again!"
"All right, all right," muttered Jan-o, as they made their way back to the lounge. "But you both seem to have forgotten your sense of humor!"
The Vulcan Adventurer continued on her way and the new members of the team quickly settled into the routine prescribed by their coach. Jan-o was delighted at he opportunity to study space science and surprised all his elders with his ability to learn a difficult subject. Vesh professed small interest in that, and set herself to study the histories of the various planets in the Cluster.
Both the new members of the team were fascinated with the techniques of exercise during space flight, and applied themselves so diligently to the running while that Tris had to reschedule the time periods. By the time the Adventurer had visited the planetary systems of Vamlok, Tafon and Elax and taken on still more young athletes, the apparatus was being used 24 hours a day.
On Vamlok III were added two girl runners, Becka and Bzia. They were assigned to share Vesh's cabin, and soon persuaded her to work with them for the relay race.
At Tafon, the three Dodover brothers came aboard, Davis, George and Olaf specialized in the broad jump, the standing jump, and the pole vault. With Merl, they made up a team for the men's relay race.
And from the one inhabited planet of the star Elax, Tris picked up his only wrestler. He found Devon Hates battling three other youths over some petty insult and just managing to stay on top. After breaking up the fight, Tris looked the burly young man over and asked he would like to go to the Games."
"You'll have to learn the rules," he said. "It's no good getting thrown out on a technicality. But here's be time enough on the way, and that's one sport I can teach aboard ship. Not like running or swimming or throwing! And all you need are the fine points. You've got the makings of a champion, I can tell that!"
By this time the Vulcan Adventurer was getting crowded. In fact, on Elax V, her captain had to cut down on trading. He could no longer afford to take on bargains indiscriminately, and was forced to leave most of his new cargo in a planetside warehouse.
"Have to consider the comfort of my team," he said regretfully, as he watched his newly acquired bales and crates being transferred to a storage shed. "I'll return and pick 'em up when I bring back your new champion, So mind you keep it all safe until then."
Even so the crew's quarters were crowded, and Shaun wondered secretly just what Tris meant by the team's comfort. The whole ship's company was put on two shifts, so that some could sleep while the others worked. Shaun found himself squeezed in with 2 of the 3 brothers from Tafon, while the 3rd was assigned to bunk with Merl and Jan-o. Vesh had alternate shifts with the two girls from Vamlok, and by an inspired stroke the wrestler was put into Skem's cabin. The boy took one look at the tall, well-muscled man from Elax and decided that jokes were best forgotten for the trip's duration.
As he never tired of saying, Zeth Tristotha ran a tight ship. The schedules of work, sleep, eat, train, study were so precisely worked out for all the athletes on each shift that there was no time for any friction between individuals, let alone for anyone to get bored.
One subject nobody tired of studying was the History of the Olympics. Tris had a whole reel devoted to the story, and the young athletes were surprised to learn how differently the contests had been conducted at various periods in Earth's history.
"Remember, these Games originated back in the dawn of man's development," he told them, when they discussed their studies after supper. "It wasn't like those big shows they put on at the time of the first space flights. No, in the Greek era things were much simpler. Different cities ran their own games, some more famous and important than others. And a good athlete would just set out with his trainer and wander from 1 to the another. Why, there was 1 man I read about. He was on his way to a contest and he arrived at a place called Salamis just when they were about to fight a big, important battle. The Greeks were at war with their enemies, the Persians. This athlete figured he'd better join the fight, and it took so long he was late and missed the Games entirely."
The trader waited while the laughter and exclamations died down.
"I figure we're about like the Greeks of that early time. Still simple and not overorganized. In another generation, every planet in the Cluster will have its own team, with elimination competitions and all that stuff. But right now we're all working together to show this part of the Cluster what it's all about. And it may depend on each one of you. If you take back a gold starburst when you get home, your planet will be that much quicker to get ready for the next time. Get the idea?"
The youngsters all nodded seriously, in agreement, feeling the weight of responsibility for the future of the Olympiad.
"Now, let me tell you another thing," said Tris. "We've got to have a banner---a flag to carry in the big parade. They'll have flags from every big planet in the Galaxy. Ours must represent each one of your planets. So get busy. Work out a design and the girls can sew it up."
The making of the banner took many a long evening. But, after much argument and suggestion, a design was finally chosen and the girls stitched away at it until a magnificent banner was created.
And so they came at last to Pevoria in the Zemalla Sector. As they swung into orbit about the planet, everybody squeezed into the lounge to watch on the ship's telescreen. Even the members of the shift that would normally be sleeping staggered out, rubbing their eyes, for a first view of the pleasure planet.
She spun silently before them, a beautiful shining orb of green and blue and misty white. As the young people stared, trying to discern the forms and outlines of continents and oceans, Tris popped his head out from the navigation cubicle.
"Well, there she is, team!" he cried. "Think she's beautiful? I hope so. This is the planet where all of you are going to make history! Now get on the job, everybody, and help me put this crate down there in one piece!"
Docking on Pevoria proved to be complicated. There was far more traffic in orbit than on any of the athletes' home planets.
"They've got the highest rate in the Cluster," Tris told them. "It may even beat most planets in the Galaxy. They set this planet apart to keep it natural and unspoiled for vacationers, and now everybody comes here and messes it up. What's the matter with Traffic Control, Merl? Haven't you contacted them yet?"
The trader had put his most experienced crew to work on the landing problems, and everyone else was told to sit down in the lounge and keep quiet. Presently Merl made contact and recieved the number and location of the port where they should dock.
Tris consulted his maps. "That's unacceptable. Tell him we're here for the Olympiad and don't want to go halfway around their planet in order to get to the stadium."
Merl relayed this information, then replied, "He says everybody's here for the Olympiad. There's no parking room left near the stadium and you'd better take this while it's available."
The trader swore. "Tell him we're competing in the Games and we've got to be near the stadium. Here, let me talk to him."
Tris hopped out of the command cubicle and into the communications kiosk, which was so small that Verl had to move out into the lounge, where he stared down disconsolately at the picture on the screen.
"Looks like a beautiful place," he muttered, "if we can ever get down there."
Mindful of their coach's positive orders and the general tension that emanated from the little man, none of the youngsters dared to say anything. All watched the scene below them and wondered where the Olympiad arena might be, and the spot where the traffic authorities wanted them to land.
Presently, Tris came out of communications, issuing orders in all directions. "All right, take over again, Merl. And come along, Shaun and Jan-o. We've got to put her in parking orbit while they think it over. Here're the coordinates they've given us. Don't make a mistake now, 'cause there's lots of stuff flying about up here, even if you don't see it right away."
There followed another period of silent concentration, while the watchers at the telescreen tried unsuccessfully to catch sight of some other vehicle in orbit near them. At last the maneuver was completed and Tris and his two assistants stepped back into the lounge.
"Well, I guess we can take a breather," he announced. "Everybody except Merl. You keep right on the channel, son. Don't let 'em forget we're here. For the rest of us, maybe the girls can scramble up some grub. Anything quick and easy. And while we eat I'll give you all your first briefing."
The lounge returned to overcrowded normalcy and Vesh and the girls from Vamlok brought plates of food from the commissary. Merl ate with his headphones on, but he moved them back on his head when the trader started talking.
"You've all had a good look at Pevoria down there," he said. "It don't look much different from any planet in the Cluster. From up here, that is. Oh, there's a bit more gaseous material in this system. Makes for more spectacular sunsets, prettier twilights. The glowing clouds of Zemalla, they call it. One of the things that made the powers that he set this planet aside as something special. But that's not what you have to watch out for. This planet you're about to land on is very different from the home planet of any and every one of you kids. Remember that before you go off half-cocked."
He paused to let his words sink in and his listeners waited and tried to imagine how different this planet might be.
A small, imperative voice broke the quiet. "How's it different, Mr. Tris? Does it have more land?"
"You're darn tootin' it's got more land!" Tris turned upon Skem. "But every planet's got more land than your home. That's not what I mean at all. What I mean is the people you're going to meet. The clothes they'll be wearing, the buildings they'll inhabit. And the things! You're going to see more things than you've ever dreamed existed. So don't take a notion that you want something the minute you see it. Remember that you're here to compete. Put your mind on winning and nothing else. If you win, then you may be able to afford a few of the many things you think you're going to have!"
There was a chorus of protest. "Oh, is that all! We don't want anything. Don't worry about us, Tris. Who wants a lot of junk, anyhow?"
"I don't think you understand," the coach interrupted. "Maybe I could explain it by saying that Pevoria is more sophisticated than any planet any of you have known. It's cosmopolitan, if you understand the word. Large cities have been banned on Pevoria, and yet you could call the entire planet a city. You'll see people from every corner of the Galaxy. Not only the Cluster, mind you. And aliens from the far reaches of the universe. And they'll all have more wealth than you can imagine. Otherwise, they'd not have been able to come. They'll all be here to have a good time and they'll look upon you---upon all the Olympiad competitors---as just part of their entertainment. Don't let yourselves be taken in by 'em. Remember that you're here to compete in the Olympiad. An old and honorable custom. Keep yourselves in a world apart and keep your minds on your main purpose: to win for your planet!"
There was another murmur of protest and acquiescence, but before definite words emerged, Merl stuck his head out of the cubicle and called the trader. "Hey, that man's back again. He says if we stay up here for three days, there may be a berth at the Olympiad port."
Zeth was on his feet. "Why, the almighty numbskull! Let me talk to him!"
Merl was again thrust out of his corner and the athletes listened in amazed silence to the string of invective that their coach poured out on the control officer.
"Please remember that we're competing in your celebrated games!" he cried. "I've got a whole team of athletes from around the Cluster. And if you don't get us down within six hours, I'll claim damages for lack of practice time. They need time for adaptation, as you well know, and a chance to train in your environment. Do you want me to file bias charges against you?" And then more agreeably, "All right, you do that. You look into it."
There was another long silence, and finally Zeth heaved an audible sight. "Well, that's more like it," he said. "How soon did you say? Don't worry, we'll be right here. Just give us the coordinates for descent. Forget about Zex Mounter. He's got the time and money to get himself about your planet in any of a number of ways."
The trader flung off the headphones and gestured to Merl.
"Take over, my son. And all the rest of you, prepare for landing. They're giving us the space reserved for some V.I.P. and we want to be ready to grab it the minute directives come through."
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