THE OLD WAY
By MILTON LESSER
A man could walk around the tiny asteroid
in the space of a few hours. But Jerry had only
minutes, to find and use—an invisible weapon!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy
November 1951
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Like I expected, the fairgrounds were crowded with thousands of the drifter-families waiting for the big blast-off tomorrow. They thronged about uncertainly, in anxious little knots, chattering friendly, meaningless things, making fast friends who would be forgotten in the bustle and competition, after blast-off.
Gramps stood apart from all this, and when he saw me he came running through the mob on spindly legs, waving his arms frantically so that I wouldn't miss him. As if I would. If there was anything more incongruous here on the Martian landscape, anything that seemed more out of place than did old Gramps, I didn't see it. Two hundred years ago in another homestead rush, maybe he would have fit. The only thing I know about that is what I read in books, but I could picture Gramps with his battered old corncob pipe and his wizened face, leading a team of mules or oxen or whatever animals they used.
"Hey, Jerry," he called. "Hey, kid, I got it!"
I'm no kid. I'm twenty-seven, six feet two, and I probably weigh twice as much as Gramps does, wringing wet. But that's the way he was.
"Where's Clair?" I asked him. I hadn't seen my wife in a month. She had gone to the Martian Fair with Gramps to put in a bid for one of the old derelict ships, and now I had come here to join them, with a dime, a quarter and a crumpled dollar bill hardly filling the emptiness of my jumper-pocket.