Alan Edward Nourse

“ Matt crawled down from the truck as four men ran by with crowbars, shouting at the top of their lungs. Matt stared at the crowd surrounding the fallen ship, shouting, raising torches high in the dark night—
He watched for a long moment, but something flickered in his mind. It was a picture of mad, frantic destruction on all sides of him, but something was whispering softly in his ear. Loevy's words. Loevy's intense face. There is something far more precious than any one Rocket ship here—
Staring at the screaming mob, Matthews suddenly knew what Loevy had meant. ”

“ The old man stood there, a strange light in his wild eyes, staring first at Matt, then at the blue papers in the box. "I see now why you wanted to be alone!" He looked up at Matt, a long, slow, savage look. "Dump it, Matt," he said, motioning to the box.
Matthews' arm tightened around the carton. "I want these," he said softly. "You've got your Rocket, Moe. They'll never build another one—"
"I said dump it." There was a harsh edge to the old man's voice. "We're cleaning the place out. Everything. There'll never be another one, never, as long as the world lives." ”

“ They had no food, and the ring of guerillas surrounding the ship like a tight net would see that they got no food. It had been a long wait—but soon they would struggle out, begging for food and water, leaving the ship standing alone—
To be wrecked, and ripped, and torn into a thousand bitter pieces—
A soldier suddenly appeared in a spotlight inside the huge fence gate, rifle half-raised in his hands. He let out a shout and brought the rifle up to his shoulder. "Halt!"
The jeep's tires screeched. Then Loevy raised the flag again and waved it. "Truce," he called out. "We're unarmed." ”

“ Fifty-four days since the crash, and things are getting worse every day. Even time has stood still; they've forgotten to use the calendar. There'll never be a world like you knew before, Colonel—but the agony and suffering and chaos must be paid for, somehow, and the Rocket is the price. Until the whole world knows that the Rocket is utterly destroyed, there will be no faith in government or people or anything else."
Loevy glanced nervously at Matthews, towering against the wall watching the discussion sourly. Then he looked back at the Colonel and leaned forward. "Let them take the ship. ”

“ Matt kicked the rifle across the room, throwing the blue-prints back into the box. Panting, he shot out the light, and fled across the compound toward the opened gate.
Somewhere out there Mary would be waiting. And maybe Loevy's group was still alive, somewhere, maybe they still knew a way toward recovery now that the Rocket was destroyed. The fifty-four days of chaos might be over now. They would know what to do with the precious box. It would be in safe hands until men were ready to build again. ”

“ Loevy's voice was sharp in the still room.
"I'll hold this Ship until things get straightened out," the Colonel snapped.
"Colonel—things aren't going to straighten out. This isn't just a little depression we're in now, it isn't a small business recession that will just up and stabilize soon. This is an economic crash that has thrown the world back a thousand years. We may never recover from the crash that came on the first of July. The government is gone, Colonel. There isn't any government. The army has dissolved into the hills, hunting for food. ”

“ Moe's eyes blazed. "They can't try to launch it," he snarled. "It's got to be smashed—smashed so hard they'll never dare try to make another one—" His hand clenched on his rifle until the knuckles were white.
Matt leaned forward eagerly. "Let me go down there, Moe. We've got dynamite. I could find a way to climb the fence, maybe, and start the works off. Once something went bang from the inside and broke their control of the place, we could mop them up."
Moe's hand relaxed. "You'd never make it alive." ”

“ Matthews spat. "Old man Gorham has command of four hundred men down at the ship. They'll shoot anybody that comes close on sight." He looked up at Moe, caught the old man's blue eyes sharply. "I don't like this guy, Moe. I think we'd better take care of him."
Moe shook his head. "Take it easy, Matt. The man thinks maybe he can get this siege broken. Thinks Gorham may surrender if he knows what's happened—in Washington, all over the country."
Loevy nodded, bobbing his head eagerly. "I knew Gorham—before the crash. He's an old-guard soldier, he'll honor a truce flag." ”

“ What does it matter if there's a Rocket out here—we can't eat Rockets, we need food. The City folks are coming out in hordes. There was a man said the water supply wasn't going to last to the north, that the cars were lined up three deep from the coast clear out to Salt-Lake, bumper to bumper, a week ago. They stole gasoline from the refineries, before they blew them up. They're all heading east and north—oh, Matt, take me home—"
He stood there in the dim light of the flashlight, and then knelt down beside her, holding her against him. ”

“ Matt shot a glance at Loevy, crouched at a nearby fire, and he lowered his voice. "And there was something Loevy said—about something more valuable than the ship itself—Look, Moe, we don't know how far the Ship had gone before the crash. Maybe all the calculations were completed."
Moe stared at the fire for a long moment. A tall, lanky man stumbled up the trail by flashlight, sending down a shower of pebbles. He stopped before the fire. "All quiet, Moe. They closed up shop after the delegation left."
Moe nodded to the man. "Tell Mike to alert his men, Tommy. Get everybody looking alive." ”

“ Loevy snorted. "The Army isn't planning anything. The Army is starving to death. The nearest contingent is in San Diego, and they've got their hands full just scouring the countryside for food. They've got no fuel to come here with even if they felt like it—"
Matt scowled. "He could still be a spy."
Moe Arhelger nodded slowly, his eyes narrowing at the city man. Then he looked up at Matt. "I know. That's why I want him to go down to the Ship. ”

“ He knows he can't get out and neither can his men. He knows there won't be any supplies coming in for him." Matt rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "And the look of the place—the look of the ship. I couldn't see much, of course, but it didn't look right—"
The old man's eyes narrowed. "What do you mean by that?"
Matt's forehead creased into a worried frown. "I don't know. I think they're trying to complete the Rocket for a flight."
"But that's crazy!" Moe exploded. "They don't have the supplies, they don't have the calculator power, they haven't got power for anything. We've seen to that. ”

“ The only money with any value is being paid out by the hospitals for blood to restock their banks. And without money there isn't any food. The people in the cities are starving—standing in the streets starving because food isn't coming in. ”

“ They were well guarded, no one could get through them. There were half a dozen dead soldiers lying out in the desert to attest to that, soldiers who had tried to break through to the main highway during the past three weeks. What held Matt's interest right now was the huge cyclone-fence enclosure in the center of the circle of fires. ”