SPACEMEN ARE BORN
By BOLLING BRANHAM
Everyone knows that spacemen are born—not
made. But grav-bound Trase Barnes, No. 1 v.p.
of Air-Lines, Inc., bet his arrogant soul that
he could shoot Saturn's rings—and live.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories May 1952.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Curse it, I am too old to go to space, and why can't I be content withthat?
Must I hear the spacemen's songs and the stories they tell, so thatthe breath of romance aches each day in my bones? For here on Earth'scool moon I am as close to the sky as I need be, and the sky is closeenough to me.
But those spacemen who go to Saturn—ah, they have viewed a scene thatexists nowhere else in all our universe, and I think they delightin singing the Saturn "Home Song" in my ears and telling me of thewonders of Saturn's skies.
For have you ever been to Saturn? No, you needn't go away, for in amoment I'm going to tell the story of Trase Barnes. But in order tounderstand him you've got to know about Saturn.
For, you see, you're coasting when you come in, riding with idlingjets, cutting in under the edge of the outside ring, into the darknessaway from the sun. On the fourth day you go between the big ring andthe crape, and then, when you look above you—you see one magnificentreason why men go to space.
There's Saturn.
The God of Time, he is, and you're looking out over the flatness of therings at the yellow bulk of a planet, filling your sky ahead. Yellow,streaked with purple streamers, fading away at the edges into theblackness that is eternal space. Yes, fortunes have been made and loston trips to Saturn, but no one loses the memory of how it looks whenyou shoot the rings.
Now about Trase Barnes....
Trase was born here on the Moon, right in the dispatcher's station,with the pull of artificial gravity helping to push the blood aroundfor the first time in his little squalling body.
You know what gravity does for you? Of course, it's the reason thattoday spacemen are a special breed. Back when every country was racingto get the first rocket on the moon no one thought much about gravityexcept how to nullify it.
But when the first men got out in space on the way to the moon, theycouldn't think much of gravity except how to get back to it. Theydidn't get back, nor did the men on the next trip, nor the next sixteenbrave crews that darted off into the night sky with the howling firecoming out below them. It was number 19 before they found the trouble,for aboard it was the first crew member with spacemen's ear—and don'twe know now that spacemen are born?
Maybe you know they're born and not made, and maybe you don't know why.I'll tell you then, cause my story isn't right without it.
Back when I was a kid in Tennessee, I used to raise a thousand chickensevery spring and never lost but a few. But there was one chicken oneyear that I'll remember for the rest of my days. He never was able towalk. From the time he was hatched he kept falling on his face, or hisbehind, and rolling over and over, with the other chickens walking onhim. So one day I asked the