SLOW BURN
BY HENRY STILL
The problems of space were multiple enough
without the opinions and treachery of Senator
McKelvie—who really put the "fat into the fire".
All Kevin had to do was get it out....
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Worlds of If Science Fiction, October 1955.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
"Tell 'em to look sharp, Bert. This pickup's got to be good." KevinMorrow gulped the last of his coffee and felt its bitter acid gurglearound his stomach. He stared moodily through the plastic portwhere the spangled skirt of stars glittered against the black satinof endless night and a familiar curve of the space station swungponderously around its hub.
Four space-suited tugmen floated languidly outside the rim. Beyond themthe gleaming black and white moonship tugged gently at her mooringlines, as though anxious to be off.
Bert Alexander radioed quiet instructions to the tugmen.
"Why the hell couldn't he stay down there and mind his own business?"Kevin growled. "McKelvie's been after our hide ever since we got theappropriation, and now this." He slapped the flimsy radio-gram.
He looked up as the control room hatch opened. Jones came in from theastronomy section.
"Morning, commander," he said. "You guys had breakfast yet? Mess closesin 30 minutes." Kevin shook his head.
"We're not hungry," Bert filled in.
"You think you've got nerves?" Jones chuckled. "I just looked in onMark. He's sleeping like a baby. You wouldn't think the biggest day ofhis life is three hours away."
"McKelvie's coming up to kibitz," Morrow said.
"McKelvie!"
"The one and only," Bert said. "Here, read all about it."
He handed over the morning facsimile torn off the machine when thestation hurtled over New England at 18,000 miles an hour. The upperhalf of the sheet bore a picture of the white-maned senator. Clearlyetched on his face were the lines of too many half-rigged elections,too many compromises.
Beneath the picture were quotes from his speech the night before.
"As chairman of your congressional watchdog committee," the senatorhad said, "I'll see that there's no more waste and corruption on thisspace project. For three years they've been building a rocket—the moonrocket, they call it—out there at the space station.
"I haven't seen that rocket," the senator had continued. "All I've seenis five billion of your tax dollars flying into the vacuum of space.They tell me a man named Mark Kramer is going to fly out in that rocketand circle the moon.
"But he will fail," McKelvie had promised. "If God had intended manto fly to the moon, he would have given us wings to do it. Tomorrow Ishall fly out to this space station, even at the risk of my life. I'llreport the waste and corruption out there, and I'll report the failureof the moon rocket."
Jones crumpled the paper and aimed at the waste basket.
"Pardon me while I vomit," he said.
"We've been there," Kevin sighed deeply. "I suppose Max Gordon will behappy."
"He'll wear a hole in his tongue on McKelvie's boots," Bert saidbitterly.
"Is it that bad?"
"How else would he get a first class spaceman's badge?" Morrow said."He can't add two and two. But if stool pigeons had wings, he'd flylike a jet. We can't move up here without McKelvie knowing and howlingabout it.
"Don't worry," Jones said, "If the moon rocket makes it, public opinionwi