From Venus to Earth, and all the way between,
it was a hell of a world for men ... and
Apprentice Burnerman O'Rielly particularly.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories Summer 1955.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The intercom roared fit to blow O'Rielly back to Venus. "Burner Four!"
"On my way, sir!"
At the first flash of red on the bank of meters Apprentice BurnermanO'Rielly had slammed the safety helmet on his head; he was alreadythrowing open the lock to the burner room. The hot, throbbing rumblewhipped around him and near crushed his breath away. Power! Power ofthe universe trapped here and ready to destroy its captors given onechance! Swiftly O'Rielly unlocked the controls and reset them. Thethrobbing rumble changed tone.
Old Callahan's voice crackled now through the helmet's ear contact."Well, Mr. O'Rielly?"
"Fusion control two points low, sir."
O'Rielly wondered had Callahan passed out, was so long before the oldBurner Chief demanded hoarsely, "Didn't you lock them controls beforeblast-off?"
"If every control hadn't been locked in correct setting," O'Riellyanswered from his own angry bewilderment, "the error would haveregistered before blast-off—wouldn't it, sir?"
"So a control reset itself in flight, hey?"
"I don't know yet, sir."
"Well, Mr. O'Rielly, you better know before we orbit Earth!"
The icy knot in O'Rielly's stomach jerked tighter. A dozen burners onthis ship; why did something crazy have to happen to O'Rielly's? In ahundred years, so the instructors—brisk females all—had told O'Riellyin pre-flight school, no control had ever been known to slip. But onehad moved here. Not enough to cause serious trouble this far out fromEarth. On blast-down, though, with one jet below peak, the uneventhrust could throw the ship, crash it, the whole lovely thing and allaboard gone in a churning cloud.
Sweat pouring off him, O'Rielly prowled around his burner. Design ofthe thing had been bossed by dames of course; what on Earth wasn't anymore? Anyway, nobody could get to a burner except through its watchroom. Anyone entered or left there, a bell clanged, lights flashedand a meter registered beside the Burnerman's bunk and on the BurnerChief's console up in the flight room full of beautifully efficientofficers. Ever since Venus blast-off O'Rielly had been in Four's watchroom. Nobody had passed through. O'Rielly knew it. Callahan knew it.By now the Old Woman herself, Captain Millicent Hatwoody, had probablyinquired what was in charge of Burner Four.
Well, ma'am, O'Rielly searched every cranny where even a three-tailedmouse of Venus could have stowed away. His first flight, and O'Riellysaw himself washed out, busted to sweeper on the blast-off stands ofsome God-forsaken satellite. He staggered back into his watch room. Andhis brain was suddenly taken apart and slapped together again. Feltthat way.
She was sitting on his bunk. No three-tailed mouse. No Old Womaneither. Oh, she was a female human, though, this creature at whichO'Rielly stood gaping. Yes, ma'am!
"I was in your burner room." Her voice matched the rest of her, a blendof loveliness unlike anything outside a guy's most secret dreams. "Icouldn't stand the heat any longer and I couldn't open that big door.So I moved one of your controls a tiny bit. All the noise in there,naturally you couldn't hear me walk out while your back was turnedresetting the control."
O'Rielly suddenly felt like turning her over his knee and whaling heruntil she couldn't sit for a year. This, mind you, he felt in an agewh