Part 2
But a peal of derisive laughter roared through his mind. There had been reporters, news stories. He had said things that had been splashed across a million newspapers. Back out now? Tell the world what a coward he was? Then everybody would know--the boys down below, Matty, Dad--Dad had never actually _said_ it, but it had always been there, as long as Scotty could remember. He had tried and tried to make up for his small size, for his skinny legs and bony chest.
It hadn't been his fault that Dad was such a big man, such a rugged, powerful man. Those long hunting trips up through Canada--a man had to share the load, there was no place for weakness and weariness there. And Dad had taken him along, once, until he had tired, and turned his ankle on a short portage. They had carried him out--and he knew that he had lost his Dad that day. Dad hadn't admitted it, but it was true. There was always the half-hidden disgust and sadness and disappointment in his cool, grey eyes--
"_Minus two, Scotty. Final check--_"
His hand flicked out automatically, as fear and dismay welled up in his mind. Everything he had ever done he had flubbed, somehow--he searched frantically through his mind for one small, pure act of absolute bravery, unadorned by words, unaltered by empty rationalizations and built-up courage, and his mind yielded nothing but hoarse, heavy laughter. Somewhere there was a key. It had started somewhere, if only he could remember. Somewhere beneath the years of futile failure, there was a core--
"_Sixty seconds, Scotty--Good luck, boy!_"
He froze, his hands clutching the safety belt in a grip of iron as the words pounded in his ear: "--forty--thirty five--thirty--twenty five--"
And then, like a great door opening up in his mind, he remembered--
* * * * *
A day so long ago, so deeply buried that it had not come to mind in years. A day when he had been walking down a village street, on the way to the store for his mother, a small boy, hardly ten--
A group of boys, appearing suddenly from the old garage he was passing. A thin-faced lad, tall and sharp-boned, with cold eyes and a sneer on his thin lips. Other boys, too, mostly bigger than he. His eyes widened, and he started to back away when Thin-face grabbed his collar, pulled him up sharp. "Where you think you goin', bud?"
"Just down the street--"
"Who said you could walk on this street?"
"It's not your street. I can walk where I want--"
A gleam of cruelty in Thin-face's eyes. "Sissy thinks he's smart." A sharp-knuckled hand struck him across the nose. "You want to fight?"
Scotty shook his head, eyes wide. "No, I just want to--" His eye caught one of the others, sidling around behind him--
"Stand still!"
He had been paralyzed. The rabbit-punch struck him a hammer-blow, and tears streamed down his face. Thin-face hit him again, and blood spurted from his nose. "Put up your hands and fight--"
"I can't--"
"You'd better fight, sissy--I'll kill ya!"
"I don't want to fight--" The fear, the mortification, the blind, paralyzing fear. Another blow struck him, and he tumbled backwards over the boy who had crouched behind him, and struck his head on the sidewalk. They had roared with laughter, and one of them kicked him. And then he was on his feet, darting between them, running for his life, running with blind fear snarling at his heels, down an alley, into a backyard, across into another alley--He had seen the open cellarway, then, and crawled down in, heart pounding in his throat, waiting as the boys came through the yard, looking, laughing at the sport, walking on. He waited for hours before he dared come out, and every minute of those hours he trembled, desperately sick and ashamed, wondering what Dad would ever think of him if he should find out--
* * * * *
Something struck him in the chest then, a firm, gentle pressure that grew and grew as the cabin vibrated with a powerful roar. The pressure grew larger, choking the breath from him. In a last terrible panic of fear Scotty tried to fight his safety belt open, tried to cry out to _stop, stop, stop_, but it was too late. He pressed back, deeper and deeper into the couch as the age-long seconds ticked by--and in the viewer the Earth fell away, farther and farther, dwindling, dimming--
He heard the explosion as the first stage disengaged, and his mind froze as the pressure shoved harder at his chest. Then suddenly there was a jerk, a bone-crushing jar that nearly broke his neck, and the ship started spinning crazily.
"_Scotty--Scotty, can you hear me?_" It was Mitch's voice in the earphones, heavy with frantic urgency. "_Can you hear me, Scotty?_"
Scotty groaned. "I can hear you," he croaked.
"Scotty, the second stage didn't disengage properly--you've got it on your tail yet--"
Scotty gasped for breath, trying to focus his mind on the present, trying to drive out the paralyzing phantoms of the past. "Second--stage?"
"It--wait a minute--you're way off course--there it goes, you've lost it--" There was a scraping sound in the earphones, and then the General's voice snapped out, sharp and clear. "Scotty--listen, boy, you're off course, you aren't out far enough--you'll have to orbit back--"
"Orbit?" The word was wrenched from his throat, and he stared at the viewer in horror.
"Listen, Scotty, get this straight--can you hear me, lad?"
"Yeah, yeah, I can hear--"
"Then listen. Orbit your ship. Slam down the cut-off and--"
"I can correct," Scotty cried. "I can get back on beam, and make it--"
"Scotty, you'd use too much fuel. You didn't get out far enough, you dragged dead weight--"
"I can correct--"
"You'll never be able to land up there. If you do, you'll never be able to take off again--"
"I've--got--to--get--out--there!"
The General's voice was frantic. "This is an order, man. _Orbit your ship._ We'll find some way to get you down. But you'll have to come back--"
Something exploded in Scotty's mind then. Rage bubbled over in his mind, and he was screaming in the speaker, "I'm going on out. I'm going to land up there--I can't flub it now, I can't--"
"Scotty, _orbit while you can_. There'll be another try--"
"I can't hear you--"
"_I said--_"
"_I'm going out._ Get somebody up there to get me if you want to, but I'm going--"
He ripped off the earphones, the bitterness and rage and frustration of long years welling into his mind. He was seething, almost crying out in his rage. Everything he had ever done he had flubbed--but he wouldn't flub this one. Fiercely, he went to work on the controls, tears rolling down his cheeks as he worked. He was going to go on, if it killed him--
* * * * *
He felt the ship respond to its new course, slightly, and then, gradually, the weight began to lift from his chest. He sank back, panting. Up in the screen was a pale yellow ball, and he was racing toward it as fast as a man could race. There would be plenty of time for the sensitive calculations, for careful course-plotting, later. But he was not going back.
They might get a ship up to get him in time--and again, they might not. He had food and water for ten days at full rations. He could live for thirty days on it. Maybe more. And when the rations were gone, how long could he live then?
_How long did we live in the jungle without food or water?_
He sat back, then, and laughed. It would be better to die up there, than to spend the rest of his life dying down on Earth. Dying every day, a thousand thousand deaths--
They might be able to rescue him, with fast work, with a fearful margin of incredible luck. But it didn't really matter to him now whether they did or didn't. He knew that now. He had already died, back there on the ground, waiting for the zero-count to come. He was reborn now, a new man with a great, courageous job to do. This time he would do the job right. Fear was behind him now, for he could never be afraid again like he had been afraid a few short minutes before. The gauntlet was run.
He would land on the Moon, and no man nor memory would stop him from doing it. No fear, no cowardice--
_Because a coward would have turned back--_
He settled back in the couch, and drifted into sleep with a peaceful smile on his lips.