One Was Stubbron by L. Ron Hubbard Page A

enthusiasm for paper glory
and distaste for generals. Angel knew him well. The aide, in Angel’s day at the
Point, had been an upperclassman, a noted grind, a shuddery bore and the darling of
his seniors. He didn’t look any better to Angel this morning.
    â€œBeg pardon, sir,” said the aide sidewise to the general, “but we’ve
just time to brief him as we ride down. Here, this way Lieutenant.” And, abetted by
the usherlike habit peculiar to the breed of aides, he got Angel into the car.
    â€œNow,” said the aide to Angel, who was hard put to stifle his groans and
shivers at the unearthly hour, “you have been thoroughly briefed. But there must be
a quick resumé unless you think you are thoroughly cognizant of your duties.”
    Angel would have answered but the sound came out as a groan.
    â€œVery well,” said the aide, just as though his were the really important
job and Angel was just a sort of paperweight, very needful to aides but not at all
important. “The staff is terribly interested in your surveys.
    â€œYou will confine yourself wholly to this one task. It has been thought
wisest to entrust a topographer with this first mission because, after all, that’s
the way things are done. We’ve insufficient reconnaissance to send up a main
body.”
    Angel would have added that he was a guinea pig. They didn’t even know
if he could really get to the moon. But aides talk like that and lieutenants somehow
let them.
    â€œAs soon as you have completed a survey of an elementary sort you will
televise your maps, then send a complete set in a pilot rocket and return if you are
able. But you are not to risk bringing the maps back personally.”
    They were little enough sure he’d ever get there, much less get
back.
    â€œYou will phone all data back to us. Our tests show that the wave can
travel much further than that. Anything you may think important, beyond maps and
perhaps geology, you are permitted to note and report.
    â€œUnder no circumstances are you to attempt to change any control
settings in your ship. Everything is all prenavigated and proper setting will be
phoned to you for your return.
    â€œAll instructions are here in this packet.”
    Angel shoved the brown envelope into his jacket and felt twinges of pain
as he did so.
    â€œMy boy,” said the general, getting a word in there somehow, “this is a
glorious occasion. You have been chosen for your courage and loyalty and it is a
great honor. A great honor, my boy. You will, I am sure, be a credit to your
country.”
    Angel didn’t mean it to be a groan but that is the way it came out. They
had chosen him because he was the smallest man ever to enter West Point, his height
having been waived because of the lump of tin—the Congressional Medal
of Honor , no less—he had won as an enlisted man (under age) in
the war.
    They had needed a topographer who wouldn’t subtract from
payload. Space travel was to begin with seeming to create a demand for a race of
small men. But he didn’t tell the general this and they came to the end of the
ride.
    T he aide expertly ushered Angel
out into the bleak blackness of the takeoff field, where every officer and
newspaperman who could wangle it was all buttoned up to the ears and massed about
the whitish blob of the ship.
    The flight surgeon took over, and protected Angel from the back swats
and got him through to the ladder. The two smallish master sergeants—Whittaker and
Boyd—were waiting at the top in the open door of the ship. Metal glinted beyond them
in the lighted interior.
    Whittaker was methodically chewing a huge wad of tobacco and Boyd was
humming a bawdy tune as he stared up at the romantically round and glowing moon in
the west. They were taking off away from it for reasons best known to the US Navy
navigators who had set the course.
    A commander was hurrying about, muttering sums, and he paused only