Journey Between Worlds by Sylvia Engdahl Page A

Mother had once wanted to live there, so I supposed you couldn’t go by looks. Still, Dad had admitted that he felt like a little boy when it came to space, and there was definitely nothing little-boyish about this man. He had a kind of poise I hadn’t felt in anyone before. I could tell he wasn’t nervous about the trip, or excited, either. Happy, maybe, but not excited.
    The access tunnel was deep below the field in order to withstand the rockets’ blast force. As we came out of the elevator we saw that there was a monorail waiting for us. We were practically the last load to come down; the loudspeakers were warning, “Last call for the 13:45 shuttle . . . all passengers for the S.S. Susan Constant should now be checked in.”
    In the tunnel my hands turned to ice. I sat there staring at the blue lights flashing past us, and I forgot all about the puzzling young man. All too soon we were whisked into another elevator, and up beside the ship. “We’re in compartment B,” Dad said casually. I wasn’t ready to feel casual about being anywhere inside a spaceship.
    The compartment had large, foam-padded seats, arranged in a circle, which converted to acceleration couches, reclining all the way back. The flight attendant was going around helping people to get all the straps fastened and seeing that everything was locked into place. Before long a second flight attendant came up through the center hatch from the lower compartment and began to dispense the spacesickness and tranquilizer shots. The people across from us had children, one of whom promptly set up a wail. I watched sympathetically. There are advantages to being four years old; you don’t have to hide your feelings.
    The flight attendant was very reassuring. “This won’t hurt one bit, honey,” she told the child. (It didn’t; the stuff came in its own little tube, with a charge of compressed air or something—no needle.) The intercom speaker over our heads came to life with an amplified hum. “This is your captain speaking,” a calm voice told us. “On behalf of Tri Planets Corporation I would like to welcome you aboard. Our flight time today will be four hours, fifteen minutes; rendezvous with the S.S. Susan Constant will be completed at approximately 23:00 Greenwich mean time. We are now in the final phase of countdown and will be lifting off about twenty minutes from now. If you have any questions, one of your flight attendants will be glad to help you.” As he finished, soft music filled the compartment.
    I lay back and fixed my eyes on the rivets in the ceiling, wondering if they would broadcast the countdown. On a plane you can at least see what’s happening; they retract the boarding tube, taxi out to the runway, and so forth. In this ship there was nothing to watch. Any minute, I could be pinned to the couch by goodness knows how many g’s of acceleration.
    The seat next to me was empty. “It was reserved,” the flight attendant said, “but the lady must have changed her mind at the last moment.”
    â€œShe may show up yet,” Dad said.
    â€œIt’s too late now; we’ve sealed the airlock.”
    â€œSealed” had a very permanent sound. I was thinking that the holder of that seat had shown a good deal of sense, when the young man whose lunch table we had shared appeared at the hatch. He came directly toward us and sat down beside me. “Hi,” he said. “I heard there was an empty seat up here, and since you weren’t in the compartment below—”
    â€œWould you like your book?” I asked him. “My things are fastened down under here, but I guess there’s time for me to get it. They won’t weigh us any more, will they?”
    â€œNo, but don’t bother now,” he said. He reddened, for a moment losing the air of cool confidence. “Say, I hope you don’t think that’s why I came