The band played on

by LESTER DEL REY
Illustrated by SCHOENHERR
The Heroes' March was fitting for most spacemen. Somehow, though, if just didn't apply to a space-borne garbage man!
Lester del Rey says: I've grown more and more unhappy about the trend to stories laid a thousand years ahead and a megaparsec away. So every once in a while, I like to sit down with an idea where I can be pretty darned honest about probable facts and see if some of the old, basic, simple ideas can't be twisted. He has a good point there, and we think you'll agree he has succeeded in his aim in The Band Played On.
CHAPTER I
Inside the rocket grounds, the band was playing the inevitable Heroes' March while the cadets snapped through the final maneuvers of their drill. Captain Thomas Murdock stopped at the gate near the visitors' section, waiting until the final blatant notes blared out and were followed by the usual applause from the town kids in the stands. The cadets broke ranks and headed for their study halls, still stepping as if the band played on inside their heads.
Maybe it did, Murdock thought. There had been little parade drill and less music back on Johnston Island when his group won their rocket emblems fifteen years before; yet somehow there had been a sense of destiny, like a drum beating in their brains, to give them the same spring to their stride. It had sent most of them to their deaths and a few to command positions on the moon, long before the base was transferred here to the Florida coast.
Murdock shrugged and glanced upwards. The threatening clouds were closing in, scudding across the sky in dark blobs and streaks, and the wind velocity was rising. It was going to be lousy weather for a take-off, even if things got no worse.
Behind him, a boy's voice called out. Hey, pilot!
He glanced about, but there was no other pilot near. He hesitated, frowning. Then, as the call was repeated, he turned doubtfully toward the stands. Surprisingly, a boy of about twelve was leaning over the railing, motioning toward him and waving a notebook emphatically.