There was one thing about being in free fall. You had lots of time to sit and think. Too much time, perhaps.
You had the time to think it all over. And over and over again.
There was the war which had torn you from the routine into which life had settled, from friends and relations and sweethearts, and thrown you into a one man space-fighter in which you sometimes stayed for weeks on end without communication with anyone, friend or foe.
There had probably been no equivalent situation in the history of past warfare to the one man space-scouts. The nearest thing to them might have been the flyers of 1914, in the first World War—but, of course, they were up there alone only for hours at a time, not weeks.
"You develop self-reliance, men," was the way the colonel had put it. "You develop self-reliance, or you're sunk.
"You're in space by yourself, alone. You can't use your radio or they can locate you. If something happens, some emergency, or some contact with the enemy, you're on your own. You have to figure it out; there's no superior officer to do your thinking; you're the whole works."
And the colonel had been right, of course. It was a matter of using your own wits, your own ability. Fighting in a space-scout was the work of an individual, not of a team. Perhaps it would be different someday in the future when machines and instruments had been developed further; but now it was an individualistic game, each man for himself.
And probably it was because of this training that he, Phil Mooney, was unable to get back into the crowd after the war had ended. He was an individualist who rebelled against working not only for but even with someone else.
He should have known better. Industry had reached beyond the point where one man goes out by himself and makes a fortune—or even a living, he thought wryly. It's the day of the big concerns, of tremendous trusts and cartels, who didn't even have to bother with the task of squeezing out tiny competitors like himself. He was out before he started.
The Mooney Space Service. He snorted in self deprecation.