A lot of the vital force had drained away from the urge to colonize when Mars and Venus had turned out to be so inhospitable. That's why there were old ships and to spare in the Canalopolis yards. It looked as though the outward flood of humanity had reached its limit. The Asteroid Belt made deep space too dangerous to reach for mere colonization. A catalyst was needed.
It was supplied when Carvel's exploratory crew reached Europa and found gold.
Gold! In the same way that the cry from Sutter's Mill had brought a flood of new life out to the wilderness that was California centuries back, so Carvel's news brought men out from Terra to seek their fortunes in the darkness of deep space ... on that tiny, unknown worldlet spinning close to the bosom of mighty Jupiter.
The ink on my Master's ticket was barely dry when I jumped the Centurion as she dropped gravs at Canalopolis. I was set for a ship of my own. With a few carefully hoarded dollars in my overalls and a lot of brass I figured that I could get me a command. A few trips through the Belt would put me in velvet. Of course, I knew it was dangerous and uncharted, but the canal city was full of grizzled sourdoughs and eager youngsters all willing to pay plenty for transport to Europa. I figured I couldn't miss.
That's where the R. S. Clementine came in. I bought her with a few dollars cash and a whole lot of credit. During those hectic days a man with a space pilot's license and a Master's rating could just about write his own ticket.
I signed a note for fifty thousand and took possession of the ship. The fueling took five thousand ... inerted plutonium came high on Mars, and the victualling took another two thousand. It didn't bother me. Ink and paper were cheap enough.
Then I spent two days rounding up a crew on a share and share alike basis, and another day lining up fifty passengers at two thousand a head. I was in business.
My Second Officer was a grizzled old rum-dum called Swanson. He was a laconic old soul who loved spacing only a jot better than he loved Martian alky. But he was a sharp man for the firing consoles; I never knew a better one.
I was lucky to get a physicist, too, though it turned out unlucky for him. He was a green youngster just out of Cal Tech who fell prey to the gold fever and found himself stranded on Mars a few million miles from the lode. I talked him into signing on for a minimum of three trips on the promise that his share of the take would make him a fine grub-stake out on Europa. When I think of it now, I feel as though I personally killed him. He didn't want to help crew Clem, but he was on the spot and I talked him into it. Green as grass he was. But he had brains. Brains for working atomics ... nothing else. Holcomb, his name was. I'll never forget it.
The R. S. Clementine ... it was shortened to Clem even before takeoff ... was an atomic multiple pulse three hundred footer. The pile that drove her was housed in a long sheathed tube-shaft that ran from just aft of the Control deck to the nozzles along her longitudinal axis. It was an inefficient system, but to me it looked like pure beauty. After all, she was my first command.