They made several trips to the Moon in the next two years, acquiring information and experience and dexterity in handling the Phoebus. They received an assignment of five hundred sailor technicians through the Bureau of Meteorology to help build a bigger ship, and the keel was laid.

But Captain Pickens couldn't wait for the bigger ship. In 2122 they took off for Mars. Pickens had called to Healey the night before.

"You're a Marine in every sense of the word, Healey. I'm making you lieutenant commander. You will continue to be my adjutant."

"Thank you, sir."

"I've put it on the video so your father will see it," Pickens said, suddenly soft-voiced. "I know he'd like to know."

Healey was startled. "Did you know him, sir?"

Pickens' jaws clenched. "I skippered a cruiser under your dad. He's a million per cent. He fought for me all the way through. And he used to dream of the time when you would have a ship of your own, Commander."

"Yes, sir," Healey whispered. It was hard to talk past the lump in his throat.

It was a smooth trip, almost monotonous. Nine days later they brought the Phoebus down on the red alkali of Mars. It was afternoon and the sun was overhead, clear and distinct, but its light was pretty feeble.

Healey was trembling with excitement, but trembling inwardly. He kept his face calm as he looked around him and he knew that every man of the two hundred, even though they were hardened spacemen by now, felt just as he did. The officers on the bridge looked at Pickens. The captain took a deep breath and said to Healey:

"Commander, the lock will not be opened until morning. The chemists and biologists, and so on, must have time for their tests. This isn't the Moon, you know." He looked piercingly at Healey.

Healey nodded. "No, sir, it isn't."

That last line of Pickens' expressed the feelings of all, Healey knew, although nobody commented. The Moon seemed like small time stuff now. The Moon was really a part of Earth, but Mars—Mars was a real planet in its own right, not a satellite of Earth. Now they were really interplanetary travelers, and it was a little frightening.

There were issues of rum that night, a hangover from the old British 

 Prev. P 8/51 next