THE JET JOCKEYS

                          By R. W. STOCKHEKER

           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
                Thrilling Wonder Stories, August 1947.
         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]


There was something in the way that little Venusian fire dancer looked
at me when I passed her on my way down the ramp to the rocket racks to
get Suvia Jalmin's shiny Space Midget that started me thinking.

This jet burn I picked up the time I pinwheeled into the force fence on
the big Zeta socket track on Mars hadn't exactly left me looking like a
glamor flash from the telecolor screens. Only up until now I had never
let that worry me because the way I figure it you don't race rockets
with your face anyhow.

The way I figure it, it's nerve not profile that slams the big sizzle
sticks around the magnet bends.

Still, when I caught the look in that little space dame's eyes--as
though I'm some kind of slime mutant fresh out of a spore bog--I got
to wondering. I remembered a dozen other girls I had met suddenly in a
dozen other dark corners.

I remembered why from one end of the Great Galaxy Circuit to the other
I'm billed as "Death" Benton, and it's not because of the chances I
take. And I remembered, finally, that in the last two years I've been
making about as much headway with Suvia Jalmin as a hay-burning burro
on a star lane.

All the rest of the way down to the racks I thought it over, and it
always came out the same. I could see that what I needed was a quick
trip down to that new Venusian super-clinic in the Interplanetary
Settlement for a complete remodeling job. By the time I got back up to
the starting platform with the Space Midget I had a plan for getting
that remodeling job done, all worked out, neat and pretty, in my skull.

       *       *       *       *       *

Suvia was waiting in front of the grandstand when I rolled her rocket
off the pneumatic lift. The kid does a stunt act in between races that
is considered tops in the Galaxy circuit. The Samson arcs, focusing
on her, hit her curly, spun-honey hair, setting up a glow that put a
gleaming nimbus around her crash helmet.

Suvia is one quarter Martian, a combination that makes her twice as
gorgeous as anything else in curves on either Mars or Earth. Up in the
stands the crowd was giving the usual big hand of appreciation at her
appearance. Even the track robots were maybe doing a bit of applauding,
too.

In her translucent sennilite suit with the airplast gliding wings
folded at her sides, Suvia made a picture most men would joyfully have
missed a parade of comets to see.

A hundred times I've told myself it's sheer blasphemy for such a
luscious bit of femininity to be risking her neck like this, day
after day. Yet tough stunting is in the kid's blood. Ever since her
grandfather rode the first space ship to Mars there has been a Jalmin
somewhere, risking life and limb just for the devil of it.

When she picked up the sound of her rocket on the platform, she turned
what was left of her audience smile my way. For a moment I almost
forgot the crash scars. Only not quite.

"Right on the dot, Pete," she said. "Nice crowd up there, isn't it?"

I boosted her up into the cockpit, making the usual little show of
adjusting this and that to help build up suspense.

"Yes, it's a nice crowd," I said. "And every mother's one of them would
be thrilled to pieces if something nice and fatal happened to you, so
be careful. You going to watch the finals?"

Suvia had her hand on the cowl plate lever, ready to close the top
plate, but she hesitated, bearing down on me with both eyes.

"I always watch the finals," she cried. "You know that, Pete Benton.
Why? Are you up to some crazy scheme again?"

[Illustration: "Are you up to some crazy scheme again, Pete Benton?"
asked Suvia.]

For a moment I had half a notion to tell her about the fire dancer and
my plan for letting a plastic doc go to work on the scar tissue on my
face. But I braked on the idea fast.

"Scheme, baby?" I said innocently. "All I was getting at is there's
going to be some high-grade blasting out there in a little while. I've
got an idea Skid is just about right to take the big race today."

I'm talking about my partner, Skid Burman, of course. We've been
knocking around the circuits together ever since he won the finals two
years ago here at Astrola with a rocket we built in the old Benton
tunglite plant out of shoestrings and baling wire.

At the mention of Skid's name, however, I could see the kid's jaw line
harden, freezing out all the dimple. Her husky little voice picked up
an edge.

"I wasn't going to mention it, Pete," she said, "but now that you've
brought the subject up, that isn't exactly the way the boys in the bull
ring seem to have it doped out."

Well, that's the way it is. A rider takes a couple of fourths or worse
and right away he's all figured out as through, washed up and ready for
the cargo routes.

"Skid's all right," I told her. "Is that any reason to think, just
because he's blasted a few slow races recently, that he's running out
of nerve, like a jelly-armed Qxeas from Outer Space?"

"Could be, Pete. Slamming into the force fence isn't any picnic for
anybody. You shouldn't have to be told that. And plenty of top riders
have gone soft after taking the kind of smash-up Skid took last year
on the Alpha Centauri track. It--it--look, Pete, why don't you play it
smart for once and get out of this racket while you can. Rocket racing
is nothing but death and danger anyway. Make this your last race."

"My last race!" I yelped. "And the Big Blast only a few months off,
too. You don't know what you're saying, baby. Why Skid and I are
practically a cinch to take it."

       *       *       *       *       *

Her eyes flared like a solar corona. "The Big Blast!" She bit the words
out like a curse. "That's all every rocket man from here to Jupiter
lives and breathes for--a chance to shoot space in a racing tube so
light it ought not to be allowed outside the ionosphere. You--you make
me sick, Pete Benton."

She slammed her cowl plate shut, almost catching my fingers, and
signaled for the boom to swing her up into one of the starting tubes.

I waited just long enough to hear her boosters start to purr; then I
beat it for the rocket pits. Watching the kid come sailing down on
those big, glistening wings through a pattern of beamed high-voltage
flashes is more than I can take. One miscalculation in that
heart-slamming maneuver with death and you couldn't find the pieces
with an electronic microscope. I beat it and I beat it fast.

Down in the pits I found a tight spun circle of rocket riders, mechs,
and rack attendants gathered around a sleek, fluorescent blue rocket.

The presence of that circle caused me to uncork a hustle that jolted
every merylite pin in my stiff leg. Nothing but trouble, I knew, would
bring a gang like that together just before a big race, and I had a
good idea of just what kind of trouble was stirring.

Elbowing in between a pair of pot-bellied Martian mechs, I worked
toward the center of the circle. Just as I expected, two guys in
fabraglas jumpers were facing each other like a pair of gamecocks.

About their faces there was a sharp bitterness that gave me a pretty
good indication of just how tense the situation was, because ordinarily
both Skid Burman and Steve Ranklin are two of the easiest going riders
on the circuit.

The circle tightened behind me. For weeks this blow-off had been
building up to explosive proportions. Even the video papers had got
hold of it. It made good flash, the kind of stuff the public laps up.
You know how it goes: "What two rocket riders are fighting over what
blond telecutie from the Coast Studios?" It was drama and romance and
violence all mixed up with the death defying blasts of the big tubes.

I shoved my way in between the two. "Take it easy, Skid," I pleaded.
"This is no time to pick a scrap. If you guys got anything to settle,
wait until after the race."

Steve's blond head jerked around. "You keep out of this, Pete," he said
harshly. "The time to settle this is right now, before something like
that Meton track thing happens again."

Well, I thought, that does it. The Meton crack-up wasn't something you
could discuss calmly, coolly, and without getting blood all over the
place.

Skid's voice thinned out to a razor edge. "Don't say that, Steve," he
said. "You know that Meton crash was an accident. When I take a magnet
bend I don't make room for any driver--not even Pete."

"And I say that 'accident' was a deliberate attempt to slam me into the
force fence. The only accident part about it was that you landed there
yourself."

I braced for trouble. Only it never came. Jet Markham, First Zone
Officer for the Astrola track, picked that moment to push his way
through the crowd. He took one look at the two squaring off there in
the ring, and cocked a finger as solid as a mooring mast.

"Break it up, boys," he snapped. "Any scrapping here now, and neither
one of you will ever race in this park again."

That calm, heavy voice was like an ultrasonic fire extinguisher. I
could see the red seep out of Steve's face. He hesitated, his long,
bony hands curling and uncurling at his sides. Then, with an abrupt
gesture of acquiescence he turned and crossed over to his big Space
Ace, and climbed slowly in.

I grabbed Skid's arm, tugging him in the opposite direction.

"Come on, Skid," I said. "We got a race to ride."

He gave me a crooked grin. "I know, Pete. Dames certainly play the
devil with racing, don't they?"

That reminded me of the little fire dancer and why I had been hunting
Skid.

"Look, Skid," I said. "We're pretty low on cash right now, aren't we?"

"That's right, Pete. If it weren't for you, we wouldn't even be eating."

"Then even if you take a first today, if one of us suddenly needed a
large hunk of cash, there wouldn't be anything left over that isn't
already earmarked for the Big Blast, would there?"

He gave me a sharp glance. "Make it plainer, Pete," he said.

       *       *       *       *       *

I told him about my brain-wave and what brought it on.

"What I mean," I went on, "is that if I decided to have this face of
mine fixed up, we'd have to find a new source of income to pay for it,
wouldn't we?"

The idea seemed to stagger him. "Get your face fixed up!" he yelped.
"Are you crazy, Pete? Why those scars are worth good hard cash to you.
They're all that keeps you racing the big cylinders today. You know
that, Pete."

I guess I did. You see, I ride for the Galaxy circuit under a queer
set-up. What I mean is that the circuit pays me a straight salary just
to put a little more color into a race.

Instead of setting out to win, I'm hired to ride the magnet bends,
making hair-brained skids and turns, the kind of trick stuff that looks
good to the stands, but kills real speed. And the only reason I get by
with most of the stuff I pull is because I've built up a reputation on
this tough mug of mine.

I'm considered to be the sort of guy who would rather wreck his rocket
than give an inch to another rider.

"I know, Skid," I said. "But I don't figure to go on racing rockets
forever. Someday I'm bound to meet up with a nice girl, and--well, what
is she going to think of this face of mine?"

Skid's finger traced a pattern along the sleek side of his rocket.

"Look, Pete," he said. "In the first place, there's nothing really
wrong with your face. Believe me, those scars give you the kind of
tough charm most women go for. And in the second place, it wouldn't do
you any good to have your face fixed, Pete, because you're just the
sort of guy who would get it banged up all over again, if just from
falling over the nearest baby carriage."

Maybe I would have gone for that kind of talk if it hadn't been for
that little plate-eyed space kid. But now I had my mind made up.

"I'm serious about this, Skid," I insisted. "I'm going to have this
pan fixed up, if it's the last thing I ever do. And it looks like the
only way I can get the cash is to go out there and place in the Double
Century this afternoon."

Skid's teeth made a little clicking sound.

"Now I know you are crazy, Pete," he said. "I'll admit you're one of
the greatest trick riders who ever put a rocket around a tube. But the
moment you set out to race, you go completely haywire. You know that
too."

I did know it. It's a funny thing. Just riding around the tube to put
on a show, the way I'm paid to do, I'm like a robot. Up in my head
there's a little timing device that tells me just how fast, down to the
last split second, a rocket can take a magnet bend.

I can work out to the last fraction of an ounce the carom I can afford
to take off the force fence or another rocket without wrecking. But the
moment I go out to win, the tube guards start hanging out the crash
warning again.

Still, there was the look in that little space dancer's eyes.

"This time it's going to be different, Skid," I said. "That last crash
at Xovia was a lesson to me."

Skid gave up. He knew, as well as I, that the only thing I learned from
the Xovia smash-up was that the nurses on Venus are tough kids to work
into a clinch. But he didn't try to argue any longer. All he did was
give me a shove toward my heavy, scarlet-finned cylinder.

"If that's the way it is, Pete," he said, "I'm for you to the limit."

Up in the stands I caught the usual half-hysterical burst of applause
that always signals the finish of Suvia's act. With a sigh of relief
I eased myself down into the cockpit of my rocket. A moment later the
metallic, robot-toned voice of the tube starter crackled from the
loudspeaker, announcing the line-up for the Double Century.

At the finish of this announcement, the boom swung down to lift the
first of the big racing rockets into the starting racks. Its appearance
brought an instant responsive roar from the stands. That sound beat
down into the pits with all the solidness of a slab from Sirius.

A quarter million voices, hiked to scream-pitch by excitement, is
impressive beyond description, and Astrola, with its vast network of
vacuum tube trains, often draws crowds of that size.

       *       *       *       *       *

Four years ago, when Maza Boruu first introduced this brand new sport
of rocket racing on Mars, nobody would have dreamed he was turning
loose a sensation that would sweep the planetary system like a
Jupiterian fire storm. But a year after the first rocket took the
magnet bends at Zonuu, you couldn't have counted the tracks on a family
of centipedes.

On Earth, especially, the response was tremendous. With the perfection
of the Celetron robot, and its introduction into industry, time was
beginning to become an item of increasingly boring magnitude to the
majority of the populace. The result was that this new and exceedingly
dangerous sport was pounced on by the people of Earth with all the
gusto of a hungry carnivore on a juicy side of caveman.

Even so, jaded nerves or not, there's nothing else this side of the
fourth dimension that for sheer thrill can touch rocket racing.
The spectacle of twenty big torpedoes thundering along before the
ground-quivering blast impact of their jets, unleashing power better
suited to the vastness of space than to a race track, is soul shaking.
That riotous kaleidoscope of shifting, glow-colored cylinders would
move a Cela pulp man.

Even after years of racing, the mere anticipation of the coming ride
was enough to start my pulse to pounding. In an effort to counteract
this stirring excitement, I tried to concentrate on the track.

Since the last time Skid and I had jammed around the big elliptic
here at Astrola, the place had undergone a thorough remodelling. The
old stands had been dismantled and replaced with new ones fabricated
of jadette, that dark green bubble plastic recently developed in the
Fabraglas Laboratories. The design of these stands followed closely the
weird atomic style of the architecture of Mars.

The infield of the track, except for the video screen that brought the
fifty-mile track within constant view of the stands and the huge Zoduu
nuclear pile out in the center, was laid out in geometrically patterned
beds of Vassong's vibrating orchid mutations.

Now, disturbed by the crowd noise, these orchids kept up a constant
quivering, forming swiftly changing color combinations. A heavy
perfume, as titillating as wine, rose from these blooms.

The track itself was the usual elliptical super-panta magnet, with
arches of tennilite spaced around it at quarter-mile intervals. These
tennilite arches, when under full charge from the Zoduu nuclear pile,
builds up the tubular force fence which guards the stands, and the
force field which holds the terrific speed of the rockets under control.

This set-up of magnet and arches was the same combination as that first
used by Boruu on Mars.

The voice of the announcer, calling Sirius 50 into position, jerked my
attention back from the field equipment. Sirius 50 belongs to little
Agu Ziggy, one of the original Martian riders from that first race at
Zonuu, and I knew I was starting in the tube next to Ziggy.

       *       *       *       *       *

With Sirius 50 on the move, I stooped down to get my polarized Beta-X
visor out of its compartment. My helmet, when I straightened out,
missed Suvia's blond head by inches. She had reached over the cockpit
rim and was pulling back one of my hinged earphone flaps.

"Pete," she yelped in my ear, "what happened down in the rocket pits
between Skid and Steve?"

The bad side of my face was covered by the crash helmet, so I felt
pretty good.

"Nothing important, baby," I told her. "I doubt if it disturbs the
Andromeda Nebula a bit."

She gave me a look you could have fried an atom with, and climbed up a
step higher.

"Those little fire dancers Mil Gaines brought over from the Paris races
are down in the dressing rooms, squeaking like a caveful of bats about
a fight, Pete."

"Pay them no attention, baby," I told her. "Those dizzy little space
dames are always squeaking like a caveful of bats. I remember getting
drunk in a joint up on Venus where--"

She reached down and rattled my earphone jack, nearly blasting my
eardrums loose.

"This is serious, Pete," she wailed. "Answer me."

"I am answering you," I said. "I'm telling you there wasn't any fight.
Jet Markham cooled them off."

"But how worked up did Steve get? Would he try to do anything desperate
in the race--like trying to wreck Skid's rocket?"

"Hold it, kid," I said. "Just what did those little spacies say?"

Before she could answer, one of the little Celetron robots came
clicking up and tried to push the sliding cockpit cover shut under
Suvia's nose. She brushed it off with a sweep of her arm, causing it to
whir plaintively. That's one thing about women, even Suvia, they've no
respect for machinery. Those robots are precision instruments, too.

"It was that little dancer Azi Maruu runs around with," she said then,
"who was doing most of the talking. I gathered Maruu has been needling
Steve all week until he's reached a stage where he'll just about go out
there and try to wreck Skid's rocket if it kills them both. The little
dancer was spilling all this dope because she wanted the troupe to bet
everything on Maruu to cop the 'Double.'"

That made sense in pieces big enough to start a meteor. Shades of
little galaxies, I thought bitterly, the one day I decide to go out and
drive a race, a thing like this has to happen.

"Guys have tried to wreck Skid before, baby," I said, trying to keep
the trouble out of my voice. "I wouldn't give it another thought. Now
you'd better let Percy here get those boom magnets fixed before he
blows a tube."

My big, scarlet-finned Comet slid into the starting tube with hardly a
jolt. From the corner of my eye I could see the familiar golden bulk
of Sirius 50, its outlines somewhat blurred by the semi-transparent
walls of the starting tube. On the other side, in the pole position, a
gleaming white Tri Planet-built Star Car was being swung into place.
The driver of the Star Car was a new-comer to the circuit--a nice
looking blond-headed kid who brought his rocket up from Antarctica for
this race.

The white Star Car was the last rocket to go into the tubes and it
filled out the top tier. There are four of these tiers with five tubes
to the tier here at Astrola, as at most of the newer tracks. The
favorites usually draw the lower tier, where the pull of the force
field is tougher and the going slower. This makes for closer and more
exciting races since the rockets scramble for the better positions on
the upper levels.

       *       *       *       *       *

Outside my rocket I noticed the guide-line color bands on the force
fence deepen suddenly, almost obscuring the stands. Although these
bands were invisible to the crowd, they stood out sharply in my
specially ground lenses, tracing the dome-shaped path of the force
fence. This force fence, despite its apparent fragility, can stop a
churning rocket on a pinpoint. And it has stopped plenty of them, too.
Not even radar controlled cushioning jets and the strong repellent
force the fence exerted can keep a rocket from going into it.

When the color bands steadied to racing ready, I felt for the
accelerator paddles, jabbing them all the way home. With the paddles
completely depressed, the forward propulsion jets were all set to fire
simultaneously when the starter threw the radio-controlled master
switch in the judges' stand.

On the instrument board in front of me the keys that operated trimming
jets and repulsion magnets shone with a dull green incandescence.

The ten-second warning signal let go with a sharp buzz in my earphones.
I braced myself, pulling my neck down as far as it would go. And then
suddenly my stomach was trying to push its way through the back of my
spine and into the contacts of my anti-black-out belt. In one awful
surge my big sizzle buggy kicked itself out of the starting tube.

That first magnet bend on the big elliptic is always the worst.
Anything can happen when twenty bunched up rockets go into that curve
still fighting the blasting surge of their starting momentum.

Automatically I set my repulsion magnets and increased the starboard
trimming jets to ride the fence around. It's the only safe way to take
that first tight corner. With the magnets of one rocket playing against
the next and the last ship cushioned against the fence, you're in a
groove as neat and cozy as a baby in a crib.

It's the safe way, but it drags off speed in a hurry, and now and then
you run into a rider with just the combination of iron nerves and
ivory skull that gives him the idea he can get around on skill and
jets alone. This time it was the kid in the white rocket. Maybe he saw
himself winning his first try in the big time, just like the guy in the
book.

Maybe his girl was parked somewhere up there in the stands, popping
off with every quivering inch of her young chassis, and he wanted to
look good. Or maybe it was just that the brain-drugging ecstasy of
super-speed got him. In any case, he went into that tough corner as
though he had half of space on either side of him, trying to ride his
racing jets around.

He couldn't make it and I knew he couldn't. But, so help me, when he
started that inevitable skid toward me I braked and gave way. Instead
of holding steady and making him swallow his speed, the way I had
learned to do in years of racing and months of knitting my bones in
the hospitals of five planets and a couple of asteroids, I gave him
room. And right there I knew I'd finally learned something. For the
first time in years of riding I was doing the safe thing, and I knew,
then, that I was all set to ride a race.

My giving way must have crossed the kid up. Maybe he didn't figure that
a guy with a string of crashes so long it would scare a light-year
would make room for a young squirt fresh out of the country fair
circuits, and he was planning on crowding me just enough to swing him
around the bend. Now, in a desperate effort to stop his skid, he cut
his port jets and blasted all out with the starboard side.

This sudden application of power swung him back toward the fence, and
he had to reverse propulsions to keep from crashing. In a moment he was
bouncing back and forth, vibrating like a tuning fork and losing speed
so fast it looked as though he were standing still.

I swung over into the pole position. Ziggy's gold cylinder followed
right along, drawing a stream of sparks as he caromed off my ectovent.
It was the kind of trick stuff Ziggy likes--slashing, skidding,
grandstand riding that congealed the customer's blood. Ordinarily I
would have welcomed this chance for a little fancy riding, but now I
blasted Ziggy to hades and back.

       *       *       *       *       *

In the low tier I could see Skid's blue rocket jamming along half a
length out in front. How he managed to pull a lead from that bunch of
wolves he was riding with must have been part miracle. Next to him
I had a brief glimpse of the nose of Maruu's ship. On the outside,
Steve's big stick was hugging the force fence.

I settled down to shake off Ziggy, pouring out all the speed I could
get from my multiple jets. Slowly the laps were building up. Bend after
bend came slamming around, each one eating up a little more energy and
nerve, making it just a little harder to take the break that would
finally come.

Phil March, driving a slim, pale green rocket, made that break. He
found a hole between Ziggy and Chuck Larson and came blasting up from
the third level to fill it. That stirred up things below. Through my
floor plates I caught a glimpse of two rockets shooting for the place
the pale green rocket had just left.

They hit that hole at the same time, both going too fast to avoid
a crash. Sparks lanced out from behind as they came together. They
careened toward the force fence, and I saw a gentile ripple run along
the color bands. A high, pulsating whine ripped into my earphones.

For a fraction of a second those two rockets appeared to hang
motionless, nose up, back there in the tube. Then a sheet of flame
lashed out, enveloping them both. I felt the hair beneath my helmet
crawl, the way it always does when a bad crash turns up.

I counted to five fast before my radio picked up the warning bell from
the supersonic fire extinguisher. A moment later the starter's voice
cracked out.

"All clear on levels one, two, and three," he gave us the go ahead. "On
four, keep to the outside fence."

That gave us racing room, and the faster rockets were beginning to come
up now in bellowing roars, spraying heat and taking their openings
where they found them. With March's green rocket beside him, Ziggy left
off crowding me and went to work on him, pulling every trick he knew
out of that screwy brain of his. For the first time in over a hundred
races I found myself riding out in front, and that old devil speed got
me.

We high-blasted into the grandstand stretch, the racing jets churning
the big torpedoes toward the fence and the cushioning jets slamming
them back again. And with that crowd out there keyed up to hysteria
pitch, some of the excitement appeared to seep through to Ziggy. All at
once he seemed to go completely haywire.

It's funny how a thing like that can catch you in a race, but it can.
You go along, driving for all you've got, and all at once your mind
whips back to something some other rider did in another race. You start
hating that guy with every fiber in your body. You rake him with the
hottest coals in Hades, and that's not enough. You pull him apart and
slam him in the face with the pieces. You're beyond all logic and all
reason for the moment.

With the feel of the grandstand in him, it was that way with Ziggy.
Without any warning he started to swarm all over the green rocket.
Surprised by this outburst, March tried to go up where there wasn't any
up.

I could see the red glow flashing in his cockpit as the radar sent out
its fence warning. Instantly, to keep from crashing, March braked,
at the same time giving out with his full jet-cushioning power. That
shoved him back and down, and he kept right on diving to the bottom
tier to miss the jet blasts of the lower rockets.

Maruu came churning up from below, trying for the hole that Ziggy had
left and was closing it up rapidly. It was suicidal driving, even for
Maruu. Maybe the little Martian was expecting Ziggy to give him room.
Or maybe he was so set on getting out between Skid and Steve, so they
could get on with their private feud, that he tossed all caution to the
winds.

With anybody but Maruu and Ziggy it would have been quick curtains
right there and then. As it was, the crowd saw action that would
have made the inside of a working atom smasher look like a nursery
hotted up in that tube. In a moment the track was a maelstrom of
skittering rockets going into fantastic little dances as the drivers
fought desperately for control. The scene was all set for searing,
brain-numbing disaster.

And then, suddenly, it was over. Somehow that jam uncorked itself. One
instant I was gritting my teeth for the first searing pain of snapping
bones, and reaching for my crash button, and the next instant I was
riding all alone on the top level, with just Skid and Steve packed
together a couple of rocket lengths behind, and the rest of the field
streaming back toward the bend.

That knocked the last vestige of caution out of me. I really set sail.

       *       *       *       *       *

Now it was not the kid in the big white Space Star who was seeing
himself winning the Astrola. It was not the kid in the white rocket,
with one or two races under his belt and the crowd noise still in his
brain and dreaming of a girl in the stands. It was a guy with a face
like a gargoyle, a guy with a hundred wrecks on a hundred different
tracks behind him.

Just like that I forgot the long months spent in plastic braces,
learning the hard way how to ride the sizzle sticks. I forgot the
bitter pain and the midnight horror of waking up screaming, fighting
the controls of some sluing nightmare monster. I forgot I was the only
guy who ever fired his rocket off the force fence and lived to tell
about it, and I went into the curve like a meteor diving into the sun.

It must have looked good from the stands. It must have picked that
mass of screaming rocket fans up in one hysterical wave. But it
couldn't last. For almost a lap, so hopped up was I, I managed to stay
out in front of Skid and Steve and the trailing field. Then they began
to inch their way up, picking up pace, high-blasting into the corners
and out again, the two blackened hulks of the burned-out rockets
marking the laps like death-stones.

They crept up and went out in front. They took a corner locked
together, sliding until they almost skimmed the outside fence. They
came swinging back, Skid's blue rocket skidding dangerously close in
front of me, his blast driving me to the side.

And then I began to get it. I began to understand that headlong pace,
and the shock of understanding drove all the exhilaration of speed
out of me. Those two maniacs weren't riding a race, they were having
themselves a duel--fighting it out for a girl there at the top of the
tube. I hung on grimly, my eyes almost popping from my head, waiting
for the crack-up that this killing speed was bound to bring.

It came with millisecond suddenness. I saw Steve claw his big
space-black rocket over the way a marsh-grafk pulls over just before he
charges. The tail of his rocket whipped once with a sort of challenging
motion. Then he gunned straight for Skid.

I braked, momentum driving my harness deep into my ribs. Through the
screen of my bow jets I caught a blurred impression of streaking color.
Out of that blur Skid's ship came plunging, starting a horrible side
slip toward the fence. Just before it hit, it straightened out, its
crumpled jets somehow managing to compensate for the slide.

And out of that blur Steve's Space Ace also came hurtling. It
pinwheeled end over end, spraying out sparks like a crazy lightning
bug. Only it didn't straighten out. It slammed into the force fence,
drawing a red hot streak from bow to stern. It raised a screech that
must have drowned out the single horrified roar from the stands as
it nosed along the fence, its starboard jet out of commission, its
port firing at full blast and holding it to the fence with relentless
pressure. And inside his rocket Steve was slowly frying to death.

In a thousand nightmares I had seen that thing happen over and over
again until it came to have a terrible familiarity about it. I didn't
even have to think--there wouldn't have been time for that. When I
acted it was in a precision pattern that had been acid-etched in my
brain one afternoon on the force fence at Zeta park. Just like Captain
Space in the video color cartoon I set sail for the ventro-fin of
Steve's smoking cylinder. The shearing nose of my rocket cut through it
and into the blasting core of the jet behind it.

With that kind of leverage something had to give, and I reached for the
crash button just as blackness hit me....

       *       *       *       *       *

An airy green room, filled with the heady odor of Moon orchids, came
floating up out of that blackness. The combination was old stuff to me.
I didn't even have to feel for the bandages or see Skid's big grin just
beyond the fever chart to know where I was. Only this time one thing
was not exactly the same. This time Suvia was standing beside Skid. She
worked up a shaky sort of smile for me.

Skid came trotting around the side of the bed.

"We're all set for the Big Blast, pal," he said happily. "Even with our
tubes curled we managed to win the 'Double.'"

Well, it's always nice to win.

"How's Steve?" I asked.

"A little scorched around the edges," Skid said. "But he'll pull
through. You pried him off the fence in the nick of time. That was nice
work, Pete."

All of a sudden I began to feel sorry for Steve. Maybe Astrola was kind
of important to him too. Maybe winning it was also the difference to
him between a girl with the sun in her hair and a glow that runs soft
as moonlight in her eyes and an ache as big as the Alisco crater.

Nothing as sentimental as that could have shown on my mug, but Suvia
seemed to get the idea anyway.

"Judy Carlyle is with Steve now, Pete," she told me. "She took the
first tube in from the Coast when she heard Steve was hurt. They're
planning on getting married as soon as he's well again. Steve is going
to give up racing."

I shot a quick glance at Skid, but the grin on his face was
undisturbed, and I knew by this that losing or winning a race was more
important to Skid than losing or winning a girl.

Now that everything was all right with both Steve and Skid, I began to
feel sorry all for myself. Maybe I tried to tell myself, I can still
fix up my crate and dig out a second or third at Canyon Track. Maybe,
with a little luck and a heavy foot on the corners, I can still get
enough cash for my face.

That couldn't have shown, either, but Suvia got it. The next instant
she was on her knees beside my bed, her head buried on my pillow.

"You big lug," she said in my ear, "do you think I care about a few
scars--the kind of scars you get from taking the fence at Zeta rather
than wreck another rocket--the kind of scars you pick up throwing away
a first at Astrola to try to save another rider from the fence?"

Just like that I forgot the look in that little Venusian fire dancer's
eyes. All those space kids are screwballs anyway.