Part 3

"Is proprietor of a very pleasant world. A world of very nice people, Nicholas, who enjoy living in their way, and get a kick out of seeing other people enjoy it. They think a little differently than a lot of folks."

"That makes 'em bad, I suppose?"

"No."

Joel looked into the thin face, the intent, dark eyes. The look was in them.

And Joel guessed he was finally letting himself realize what the look really meant.

It was a look that meant a hunger for all that Joel hated, and more....

It was a look that meant, even now after all these years, that Sam still hurt inside, and hurt badly.

"Why--why couldn't it have been the other way _around_, Sam," Joel said hoarsely.

The other looked up at him. "You do hate it that much, don't you."

"Look Sam, you've gotta get my point! I don't think that crew did anything wrong! They didn't. They just decided to stop being hunks of machinery."

Carruthers smiled. "I get your point, Skipper. And I'm going to let you figure this one out all by yourself. But I'd like to tell you something first, just sort of as a point of information; maybe it'll help. Skipper, I had a girl once, too."

Joel stood still. Then he turned, opened his mouth to speak, then clamped it hard shut.

"They told me I couldn't pilot. But I could help, and my help was needed--everybody's was, because this wasn't a matter of a government project. This was a matter of a race of people who were building a ladder--a big, tall ladder, Nicholas. Sometimes it was a killer. Sometimes a heartbreaker. Sometimes a laughingstock. _But it belonged to men, and they lived and died for it; they built it, and it's theirs to climb, Nicholas!_"

Joel watched the other's worn face, and now the hurt was naked in it.

"She said, Nicholas, that it was all off if I decided to go up to space. I loved her, Skipper. _And I loved the tall ladder._"

Joel whirled. "Sure, and what's it got us, Sam? A bellyful of cold, aching loneliness--our guts twisted and squeezed until the life's dried up in 'em--and what do we get? What do those wrangling, yapping, bellyaching rotters back home give us for it? Pension us off when we can't see our blast-off studs anymore and forget about us.

"They take the stuff we bring 'em--just as if it grew on trees, just as if it grew into a neat, pretty package somewhere all by itself! With money they can buy it--with enough money they can buy all of it! Even if we had to get it with the air sucked out of us, with our brains boiled out of us, with our crazy heads busted in.

"And you know what, Sam? There was even a time when they said we couldn't do it at all! A hundred years ago, they laughed at us for trying to get to the moon! They laughed, Sam--and those who didn't laugh _didn't even give a damn at all_!

"So I was to tell the girl I'd marry her later, but that right now they thought I ought to be a pilot! I was to say to my life: I'll live you later, but right now I've got to be a pilot.... And I was to freeze my insides for twenty years showing 'em they were wrong to laugh, and that it was time they gave a damn, that what I could bring home was going to mean a lot to the world they live on!

"And like a fool I did!

"And Sam--Sam, they're still yapping like little dogs for a piece of meat--not just a good piece of meat, but all wrapped up nice and fancy, no mistakes allowed, every time they whistle! And the whistling gets so easy, Sam--so easy. You can even do it while you're stabbing your neighbor in the back, while you're selling his kids down the river--even while you're taking your next breath to yap some more!

"They can go to hell, Sam! They can go to hell."

Joel slumped down in the chair behind the mahogany desk.

The surgeon looked at him, looked away.

"You've made up your mind, then."

"That's right."

"I suppose Dobermann and I can get the ship back somehow."

"You'll make it."

"I guess we will. Unless the rest feel the way you do--and I know half the crew thinks this is quite a place. In which case, of course, I suppose they'll survive, back home, even without the mneurium-4--they have for a long time. But there is one thing."

"Yeah, yeah."

"These people are fine people, as you've--found out. You couldn't even replace that _dhennah_."

"How did you--"

"They're swell folks, Nicholas, and always will be," the surgeon said softly, "and they've never built a thing, _and never will_.

"They don't know greed, because no one has ever achieved anything worth another's wanting.

"They don't know jealousy, because no one has ever obtained anything that another couldn't.

"They don't know hate, because no one has ever discovered a thing for which to fight that another thinks of sufficient value to fight for.

"Only--if they don't know hate or jealousy, Skipper--then, _they don't know love_!"

Quietly, Carruthers rose from his chair. For a moment, he hesitated. "What is it you're lonely for, Nicholas?" he asked, and then he left the fore-waist bridge.

* * * * *

There was a mushroom of sun-fire against the blackness of the cool night, and a thunder of power.

Slowly, ponderously, the _White Whale_ backed down her column of flame, hesitated, flared again for a final time from her thick stem, and then settled to Earth.

Gantries rolled into position. And the sound of lock-hatches clanging open thrilled the length of the _White Whale_, and there were the muffled voices of men, and the voices became shouts with the joy loud in them.

The men trooped down from their great metal monster as fast as the lifts would carry them, and in small groups and in crowds they made their boisterous way across the landing plaza and toward home.

And when the shouts had died, a last man descended the smooth sides of the _White Whale_.

His eyes glanced over the great bulk of her, making certain she was secure. Then he, too, walked from her, but not as quickly as the rest.

Captain Nicholas Joel walked slowly, because he was tired.

On every side of him, in dark shadow against the night, there were tall, slender, streamlined shapes pointing toward the stars.

His slow boot-steps echoed from their hulls as he passed, a tiny midge of a thing, between them.

As Sam had said, these were things that Man had made.

And among them again was the _White Whale_.

They had said he was a good pilot.