She smiled sympathetically, tossing her titian curls. Her large clear eyes were sincere and direct. “Would it make any difference to the examining board if I did believe in you?” she asked.
“No, they’d still lift my license if they wanted to,” he answered, “but it would make a lot of difference to me.”
“You said it wasn’t your fault,” she said softly, “and I believe you, Toby.”
Suddenly Toby didn’t feel quite so lonely. “It helps a lot to know that one person, at least, believes in me,” Toby said gratefully. “Thanks, Deb.”
Dr. Shepard called his daughter back. Toby had half expected Deb to say what she had. She was a swell person. Even since she had been transferred to his school class, he had known her as a quiet girl who couldn’t believe the worst in anybody. Like Lou and himself, she was doing extra summer work in order to earn her space nurse’s rating sooner. Her father was considered one of the best space surgeons. Toby had never been one of his favorites among the fellows who came to see Deb. Toby had heard from Deb that her father regarded him as reckless and too ambitious for his age. The doctor’s own education had been a plodding one, hence his inability to accept the idea of young people still in high school piloting rockets.
The flight continued to be a tense one for Toby as the dragging hours passed. Dr. Shepard kept Deb in the back, leaving Toby with only the cold remote stars for companionship. When Toby slept, he put the rocket on automatic pilot, but he could not completely relax.
On the last leg of the journey, Toby heard a buzz on his radio set and tuned it in. It was Lieutenant Cameron, operations officer at the space station, and Toby’s heart froze with dread as his sobering message came through:
“I’ve been instructed to tell you that this is your last trip as a pilot, Workman, at least for a long time. The investigation of the craft in which you had the accident is nearly completed, and there seems to be no mechanical defect upon which the disaster can be blamed. I’m afraid it boils down simply to a serious error of judgment, Workman. I’m sorry, but the chief says your license will be revoked upon your return to the space station.”
“Yes, sir,” Toby murmured, and signed off numbly.
Although the message was not exactly a surprise, Toby hadn’t known it was going to be so hard to take. It made him feel all empty and hopeless inside. He had a strong urge to get up and walk right out of the ship into the black deeps, there to drift in the weightless vacuum forever. But the fact that he was responsible for his passengers kept him in his seat, told him to stick to his job and see it through, to dare hope even in this grimmest hour.