THE STOKER
AND THE STARS
BY JOHN A. SENTRY
Illustrated by van Dongen
now him? Yes, I knowhim—knew him. Thatwas twenty years ago.
Everybody knowshim now. Everybodywho passed him on the street knowshim. Everybody who went to the sameschools, or even to different schoolsin different towns, knows him now.Ask them. But I knew him. I livedthree feet away from him for a monthand a half. I shipped with him andcalled him by his first name.
What was he like? What was hethinking, sitting on the edge of hisbunk with his jaw in his palm andhis eyes on the stars? What did hethink he was after?
Well ... Well, I think he— Youknow, I think I never did know him,after all. Not well. Not as well assome of those people who're writingthe books about him seem to.
I couldn't really describe him toyou. He had a duffelbag in his handand a packed airsuit on his back. Theskin of his face had been dried outby ship's air, burned by ultravioletand broiled by infra red. The pupilsof his eyes had little cloudy specks inthem where the cosmic rays had shotthrough them. But his eyes weresteady and his body was hard. Whatdid he look like? He looked like aman.
It was after the war, and we werebeaten. There used to be a school ofthought among us that deplored ourcombativeness; before we had evermet any people from off Earth, even,you could hear people saying wewere toughest, cruelest life-form inthe Universe, unfit to mingle withthe gentler wiser races in the stars,and a sure bet to steal their galaxyand corrupt it forever. Wherethese people got their information, Idon't know.
We were beaten. We moved outbeyond Centaurus, and Sirius, andthen we met the Jeks, the Nosurwey,the Lud. We tried Terrestrial know-how,we tried Production Miracles,we tried patriotism, we tried damningthe torpedoes and full speedahead ... and we were smashed backlike mayflies in the wind. We died indroves, and we retreated from theguttering fires of a dozen planets, wedug in, we fought through the lastditch, and we were dying on Earthitself before Baker mutinied, shotCope, and surrendered the remainderof the human race to the wiser, gentlerraces in the stars. That way, welived. That way, we were permittedto carry on our little concerns, andmind our manners. The Jeks and theLud and the Nosurwey returned totheir own affairs, and we knew theywould leave us alone so long as wedidn't bother them.
We liked it that way. Understandme—we didn't accept it, we didn'tknuckle under with waiting murderin our hearts—we liked it. We weregrateful just to be left alone again.We were happy we hadn't beenwiped out like the upstarts the restof the Universe thought us to be.When they let us keep our own solarsystem and carry on a trickle of tradewith the outside, we accepted it forthe fantastically generous gift it was.Too many of our best men were deadfor us to have any remaining claimon these things in our own right. Iknow how it was. I was there, twentyyears ago. I was a little, pudgyman with short breath and a high-pitchedvo