Astounding Science Fiction, British Edition — page 31: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

.. AND A STAR TO STEER HER BY” lives to put a rocket on the Moon, had sweated on the hot, dry desert of New Mexico to throw a V-2 a hundred miles into the sky, had been laughed at as fanatics, had lived and breathed and talked and dreamed rockets all their lives. Men like Oberth, Ley, Winkler, Goddard, and those who had followed in their footsteps, sharing the dream, believing—knowing it could be done and would be done. He didn’t bother to wipe the tears from his eyes. He had to go back. The patio of Vanderhoff’s small house was cool in the evening air. Somewhere a chicada was singing its song. Vanderhoff offered Garver a cigar. “You said you wanted to talk business. Shoot.” Declining the cigar and taking out a cigarette, Garver leaned forward in his chair with the white cylinder between the fingers of his left hand. ““Have you sold the Fafnir yet?” “No. Why?” | Garver breathed a sigh of relief. “What do you want for her?” Vanderhoff didn’t even look sur- prised. He puffed leisurely on his cigar. “I’m not sure I want to sell,” he said slowly. “T'll make you a deal,” Garver put in quickly. “You were complaining that you were going stir-crazy for lack of something to do, right?” “Right.” “I have an answer. You’ve got the Fafnir, and I’ve got the Traveler’s Tavern. Want to swap?” Vanderhoff looked at him, startled. “You're crazy!” “No, I’m serious. I want the ship.” “It’s old. It won’t lift.” “IT know that. I know what it needs. I know how to fix it. I made her fly once before.” _ Shaking his head, Vanderhoff told him, “I won’t swap with you, Garv. I'd be robbing you.” 29 “All right, tell me how much you want for her!’ Garver exploded. “T’ll sell the restaurant and give you cold — cash!”’ “Now, now,” Vanderhoff soothed, — “don’t blast off with your locks wide open. I didn’t say I wouldn’t do business. First, 1 want to find out something. You’re pretty sharp at this tavern business. Inside of four months, you’ve made a new and expensive place pay off like a game of Luna Jug-a-rum with a green dealer. You’ve got talents in that direction. Why do you want to give that up?” “Van, it’s the difference between toil and work,” Garver told him. “Running that place is not what I really want to do. I’ve discovered that I don’t have to.” “Got the old sky fever, huh?” Vanderhoff chuckled. “Nobody to hire you, so you go back anyway as your own skipper, eh? Why in the name of Saturn’s Rings didn’t you decide that months ago?’’ “I thought I could change,” Garver admitted. “Nobody can change their basic make-up,” Vanderhoff pointed out. ““You were in space because you liked it; you had to like it to stick with it fifteen years. It became part of your own personal make-up. You know men, Garv; you were a first mate. It’s a wonder you didn’t see it.” “I knew men, all right,” Garver said quietly, “but very few men know themselves.”- “All right, Garv, you want to ge back.”” The old free trader. pointed his cigar at him. “But tell me this: how are you going to make it pay? That was the main reason I had to leave. I’d have kept going otherwise until I dropped dead on the deck. My family have been traders and merchants and merchantmen skippers ever since the Fifteenth Century. I grew up with the ledgers and ware- CONE DOOKS com