Theodore Sturgeon - The Girl Had Guts

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The Girl Had Guts

by Theodore Sturgeon

The cabby wouldn't take the fare ("Me take a nickel from Captain Gargan? Not in this life!"), and the

doorman welcomed me so warmly I almost forgave Sue for moving into a place that had a doorman.

And then the elevator and then Sue. You have to be away a long time, a long way, to miss someone like

that, and me, I'd been farther away than anyone ought to be for too long plus six weeks. I kissed her and

squeezed her until she yelled for mercy, and when I got to where I realized she was yelling we were clear

back to the terrace, the whole length of the apartment away from the door. I guess I was sort of

enthusiastic, but as I said … oh, who can say a thing like that and make any sense? I was glad to see my

wife, and that was it.

She finally got me quieted down and my uniform jacket and shoes off and a dish of ale in my fist, and

there I lay in the relaxer looking at her just the way I used to when I could come home from the base

every night, just the way I'd dreamed every off-duty minute since we blasted off all those months ago.

Special message to anyone who's never been off Earth: Look around you. Take a good long look

around. You're in the best place there is. A fine place.

I said as much to Sue, and she laughed and said, "Even the last six weeks?" and I said, "I don't want to

insult you, baby, but yes: even those six weeks in lousy quarantine at the lousy base hospital were good,

compared to being anyplace else. But it was the longest six weeks I ever spent; I'll give you that." I pulled

her down on top of me and kissed her again. "It was longer than twice the rest of the trip."

She struggled loose and patted me on the head the way I don't like. "Was it so bad really?"

"It was bad. It was lonesome and dangerous and—and disgusting, I guess is the best word for it."

"You mean the plague."

I snorted. "It wasn't a plague."

"Well, I wouldn't know," she said. "Just rumors. That thing of you recalling the crew after twelve hours of

liberty, for six weeks of quarantine …"

"Yeah, I guess that would start rumors." I closed my eyes and laughed grimly. "Let 'em rumor. No one

could dream up anything uglier than the truth. Give me another bucket of suds."

She did, and I kissed her hand as she passed it over. She took the hand right away and I laughed at her.

"Scared of me or something?"

"Oh lord no. Just … wanting to catch up. So much you've done, millions of miles, months and months …

and all I know is you're back, and nothing else."

"I brought the Demon Lover back safe and sound," I kidded.

She colored up. "Don't talk like that." The Demon Lover was my Second, name of Purcell. Purcell was

one of those guys who just has to go around making like a bull moose in fly-time, bellowing at the moon

and banging his antlers against the rocks. He'd been to the house a couple or three times and said things

about Sue that were so appreciative that I had to tell him to knock it off or he'd collect a punch in the

mouth. Sue had liked him, though; well, Sue was always that way, always going a bit out of her way to

get upwind of an animal like that. And I guess I'm one of 'em myself; anyway, it was me she married. I

said, "I'm afraid ol' Purcell's either a blowhard or he was just out of character when we rounded up the

crew and brought 'em all back. We found 'em in honky-tonks and strip joints; we found 'em in the

buzzoms of their families behaving like normal family men do after a long trip; but Purcell, we found him

at the King George Hotel"—I emphasized with a forefinger—"alone by himself and fast asleep, where he

tells us he went as soon as he got earthside. Said he wanted a soak in a hot tub and twenty-four hours

sleep in a real 1-G bed with sheets. How's that for a sailor ashore on his first leave?"

She'd gotten up to get me more ale. "I haven't finished this one yet!" I said.

She said "Oh" and sat down again. "You were going to tell me about the trip."

"I was? Oh, all right, I was. But listen carefully, because this is one trip I'm going to forget as fast as I

can, and I'm not going to do it again, even in my head."

· · · · ·

I don't have to tell you about blast-off—that it's more like drift-off these days, since all long hops start

from Outer Orbit satellites, out past the Moon—or about the flicker-field by which we hop faster than

light, get dizzier than a five-year-old on a drug-store stool, and develop more morning sickness than

Mom. That I've told you before.

So I'll start with planetfall on Mullygantz II, Terra's best bet to date for a colonial planet, five-nines Earth

Normal (that is, .99999) and just about as handsome a rock as ever circled a sun. We hung the blister in

stable orbit, and Purcell and I dropped down in a super-scout with supplies and equipment for the

ecological survey station. We expected to find things humming there, five busy people and a sheaf of

completed reports, and we hoped we'd be the ones to take back the news that the next ship would be

the colony ship. We found three dead and two sick, and knew right away that the news we'd be taking

back was going to stop the colonists in their tracks.

Clement was the only one I'd known personally. Head of the station, physicist and ecologist both, and

tops both ways, and he was one of the dead. Joe and Katherine Flent were dead. Amy Segal, the

recorder—one of the best in Pioneer Service—was sick in a way I'll go into in a minute, and Glenda

Spooner, the plant biologist, was—well, call it withdrawn. Retreated. Something had scared her so badly

that she could only sit with her arms folded and her legs crossed and her eyes wide open, rocking and

watching.

Anyone gets to striking hero medals ought to make a platter-sized one for Amy Segal. Like I said, she

was sick. Her body temperature was wildly erratic, going from 102 all the way down to 96 and back up

again. She was just this side of breakdown and must have been like that for weeks, slipping across the

line for minutes at a time, hauling herself back for a moment or two, then sliding across again. But she

knew Glenda was helpless, though physically in perfect shape, and she knew that even automatic

machinery has to be watched. She not only dragged herself around keeping ink in the recording pens and

new charts when the seismo's and hygro's and airsonde recorders needed them, but she kept Glenda fed;

more than that, she fed herself.

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