John Christopher - The Drop

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The Drop

By JOHN CHRISTOPHER

Certainly the cheapest way to get where you want to go is to be deported. And there are times

when it proves the only possible way!

Illustrated by EMSH

WATER was always short between planets, even on a ship like the Ironrod, so my first goal in

Forbeston on Mars was always the pool. I stripped down to trunks, ultraviolet checked, and plunged out

into the green-tinted water. After blowing around a while, I lay back and floated. Above, beyond the

almost invisible protective dome, there was the purple velvet of the Martian sky, flecked, nova that the

Sun was low on the horizon, with the larger stars. One of them, unwinking and tremendous, was

green—Earth, of course.

From the pool to the club; the usual routine. The Senior Officers' Club was on the corner of 49th and

X, just across from the Department of Commerce building. I had belonged to it two years now, and at

34 was no longer the youngest member. A prodigy of 31 had got his master's ticket two or three months

before.

I checked in, and from his little cubbyhole Steve recognized me which was certainly an honor. He

brought my mail down from it: box: half a dozen bills, two vocoletters from a distant cousin, and a pile of

advertising voco-flips.

Steve said: "Where've you been, Captain Newsam?"

The individual naming was another part of his technique. I had noticed that people he really had

known for years he just called "Captain," "Commodore," or whatever it was.

"Venus to Mercury run," I told him. "Clarke's Point, Karsville, Mordecai—the usual."

"You get around," he said. "I stick here."

I'd heard the complaint from him before, and also from others in Forbeston and at other landfalls.

They mostly looked contented enough, though.

"One place is like another," I told him tiredly.

"Yes," he said. "I've heard that. What you're used to, I figure. Going in to eat?"

"Directly." I dropped the vocoffips in a disposal chute. "Do something for me, Steve."

"Any old thing. What is it?"

"Check me Captain Gains."

He didn't hesitate long, but I'm used to observing small actions and probing them—I did a thesis on

behavior for my diploma. I saw Steve's eyes flicker, and the involuntary movement of his hands.

He said: "I'll check him, Captain. I haven't seen him around much lately."

"How lately?" I asked quietly.

He was smooth again now. "Well, you know how it is. With serving officers, you don't always know

whether they're here or away. Even when they're at Forbeston, they don't always come into the club.

Hunting trips and such."

"Your memory's not bad, Steve. Just when did you last see him?"

He pretended to consider. "Might be two months. How long you been gone?"

"Just over two months."

"Yes, I'd say that's about it." "Thanks. Check him for me all the same. Check him all over. I'm going

in to eat."

I FOUND an empty table by the window, and ordered. This part of the club overlooked the

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John Christopher - The Drop

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