F. L. Wallace

“ No one had ever returned from compulsive pursuit of the illusionary woman, though in early days radio contact had been made with ships racing toward the Sun.
The heredity block was self-enforcing.
Deviously, the race protected itself, or something higher watched over it to assure human continuity. Marlowe wasn't sure which, but it was there.
"I think you're on the wrong track," he said. "Shield the ship completely and it won't matter how long the trip takes. The crew can work in safety." ”

“ Change the design of our lastest ship. Instead of a heavy-hulled, superfast rocket, requiring the utmost in bodily coordination and stamina, reverse every specification. Permeability to radiation no objection."
He chuckled. Demarest would threaten to resign. It violated every precept he had ever learned. But the engineer would change his mind when he saw the rest of it.
Marlowe read on: "Top speed need not be high. Emphasis should be placed on safety. Must be maneuverable by operators whose reactive time is not fast, but whose judgment and foresight are trustworthy. Stress simplicity. ”

“ The best way is to get the ship from one place to another faster. It's time in space that hurts. Less exposure time, more trips before the crew has to retire. It adds up to the same thing."
On Mars, Amantha fondled the picture. "Pretty. But it ain't real." She laid it aside.
Ethan squinted at it. "I could make you think it was. Get it enlarged, solidified. Have them make it soft, big as a baby. You could hold it in your lap."
"Outgrew playthings years ago." Amantha adjusted the chair switch, but the rocking motion was no comfort. ”

“ Records showed that if the old couple were not actually senile incompetents, they were close to it. Now that they'd returned the ship in good condition, legal action against them would be dangerous. Everyone had grandparents and knew that they were sometimes foolish. It was a spot to get out of as gracefully as the company could.
It was as training director for Interplanet Transport, however, that he was interested in them.
"You were in space for nearly four months," he said. "Few people take that much exposure to radiation at one time. We had to determine the state of your health. ”

“ Ethan turned the picture over, face down. "Nope. Hate to back you up, 'Mantha, but it ain't the same. There's nothing like a baby, wettin' and squallin' and smilin', stubborn when it oughtn't to be and sweet and gentle when you don't expect it. Robo-dolls don't fool anybody who's ever held the real thing."
In the interval, Earth had drawn ahead. The gap between the two planets was widening.
"That's another fallacy," objected the training director. "The body can stand just so much acceleration. We're near the limit. What good are faster ships?" ”

“ You'll break every brittle bone in your body if you fall."
"Ain't so brittle," said Amantha, making way for Ethan who had followed her. "My, it's cold!" She began shivering. "Invite us in to get warm."
"You can't go in. I'm busy. Hey, wait!" The pilot hurried after her into the control compartment.
Amantha was looking around when he arrived. "Cozy but kind of bare," she said. "Why don't you hang up pictures?"
"Most fabulous pictures you'll ever see are right there."
Amantha followed his glance. "Nothing but Mars. I can see that every day." She puzzled over it. "Oh, you're teasing an old woman. ”

“ Women have got to rest between kids."
"It's not another child," said the robot with disinterest. "It has to do with one of the ills flesh is heir to and machines are not. Nothing serious."
Ethan fidgeted, turning up his collar. Water began flowing from the eaves. "Stop arguin' and let us in. Jimmy will turn off your juice when he finds you've kept his folks outside."
"Folks? He has none here. A mother and father living happily on Mars. They died quite recently, lost in space and plunging into the Sun."
"Make up your mind," Amantha said peevishly. ”

“ Demarest bent a paperweight ship until it snapped. "It's something. You're gaining on the heredity block. What's the chief factor?"
"Anti-radiation clothing. We just can't make them effective enough."
Across space, on distant Mars, Amantha reached for the picture. "How can you tell he ain't sickly? You can't see without glasses."
Ethan reared up. "Jimmy's boy, ain't he? Our kids were always healthy, 'specially the youngest. Stands to reason their kids will be better." ”

“ They had it soft, while he, the guard, had to stay in cold discomfort.
"We're going to visit a friend of my son," said Amantha. "They were pilots together. Do you object?"
He didn't, but there were some who would. The order made sense with respect to little boys who would otherwise swarm over the field, falling off ships or getting stuck in rocket tubes.
"What have you got?" he asked, eying Amantha's parcel dubiously.
"I baked something." She opened a corner of the package and the smell drifted out. "Made it with Martian fruit. Not much of it around these days." ”

“ Both of us have to work with what's possible, not what we dream of. I'll build my ship; you find the right crew to man it."
Marlowe went back to his graphs. Machines could be changed, but the human body clung stubbornly to the old patterns. He couldn't select his crews any younger—but was there perhaps a racial type more resistant to radiation? Where? No place that he knew of. Maybe the biologists could produce one, he thought hopefully, and knew he was fooling himself. Human beings weren't fruit flies ”

“ Others are in keeping with the mental age. The weakest organs govern, of course; they should live another thirty years, as if they really were in their seventies. However, locomotion and judgment should not be impaired until the very end. ”

“ Micro-samples of brain cells seem to be taken from someone about forty or fifty. Physical reactions are slow but firm and consistent. There are puzzling aspects. Certain obscure functions apparently are those of septuagenarians. ”

“ The results were not: the nerve was directly stimulated, producing aural and visual hallucinations.
Normally, the hallucination was blanked out. But as the level of body radioactivity increased, so did the strength of the vision. It dominated consciousness. The outside world ceased to have meaning. ”