Interstellar travel -- Fiction; Science fiction; Television programs -- Fiction
But the ship went back to Earth. And on Earth Jamison became the leading
television personality of all time, describing and extrapolating the
delicious dangers and the splendid industrial opportunities of
star-travel. Bell was his companion and co-star. Presently Jamison
conceded privately to Cochrane that he and Bell would need shortly to
take off on another journey of exploration with some other expedition.
Neither of them thought to retire, though they were well-off enough.
They were stock-holders in the Spaceways company, which guaranteed them
a living.
Cochrane put Spaceways, Inc., into full operation. He fought savagely
against personal publicity, but he worked himself half to death. He
spent hours every day in frenzied haggling, and in the cynical
examination of deftly booby-trapped business proposals. His lawyers
insisted that he needed an office--he did--and presently he had four
secretaries and there developed an entire hierarchy of persons under
him. One day his chief secretary told him commiseratingly that somebody
had waited two hours past appointment-time to see him.
It was Hopkins, who had not been willing to interrupt his dinner to
listen to a protest from Cochrane. Hopkins was still exactly as
important as ever. It was only that Cochrane was more so.
It woke Cochrane up. He stormed, to Babs, and ruthlessly cancelled
appointments and abandoned or transferred enterprises, and made
preparations for a more satisfactory way of life.
They went, in time, to the Spaceways terminal, to take ship for the
stars. The terminal was improvised, but it was busy. Already eighteen
ships a day went away from there in Dabney fields. Eighteen others
arrived. Jones was already off somewhere in a ship built according to
his own notions. Officially he was doing research for Spaceways, Inc.,
but actually nobody told him what to do. He puttered happily with
improbable contrivances and sometimes got even more improbable results.
Holden was already off of Earth. He was on the planet of the shaggy
beasts, acting as consultant on the cases of persons who arrived there
and became emotionally disturbed because they could do as they pleased,
instead of being forced by economic necessity to do otherwise.
But this day Babs and Cochrane went together into the grand concourse of
the Spaceways terminal. There were people everywhere. The hiring-booths
of enterprises on the three planets now under development took
applications for jobs on those remote worlds, and explained how long one
had to contract to work in order to have one's fare paid. Chambers of
Commerce representatives were prepared to give technical information to
prospective entrepreneurs. There were reservation-desks, and
freight-routing desks, and tourist-agency desks ...
"Hmmm," said Cochrane suddenly. "D'you know, I haven't heard of Dabney
in months! What happened to him?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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