 NO PLACE TO GO
by Edward J. Bellin
There was Mars and there was Gallacher in his rocket with plenty of fuel, yet he 
could never reach the red planet! No place to go in rockets!
Cold and lonely as he roared through space, Gallacher whimpered softly to 
himself. Mars was so far behind, and Earth was so far ahead ...



GALLACHER was no doctor of Philosophy or Science, no more than a humble 
'mister', and as such could not hope to rise beyond the modest university 
readership which he had held for some score of years. He was in the Department 
of Physics, and his job was little more than the especially dirty one of 
correcting examinations and reading the hardy perennial themes submitted by 
generation after generation of students. He was also the man who punched 
calculating machines late into the afternoon, tabulating work of men higher up 
and preparing their further ground.
He left the university grounds as the sun was setting over the Hudson, jammed a 
dark green, crumpled felt hat on his head and walked briskly home to the 
five-room bungalow where he had lived since his marriage.
Entering through the kitchen door he was greeted by no more than a curt nod from 
his wife, and his buoyant gait reduced to a hesitant shuffle. For Mrs. 
Gallacher, with her bitter tongue, endless ills and higgling economy was the 
terror of her husband.
Dinner was, as always, a grim affair punctuated by little bitter queries from 
the distaff side--money, always. Why didn't he stand up to Professor Van Bergen 
for a raise? Then he'd be able to get a little car and not have to walk two 
miles from home and back on the highway like a common tramp. And why didn't he 
see her cousin, the realtor, about another place near here but where those 
terrible Palisades wouldn't arouse her acrophobia. Gallacher had shuddered when 
his wife, seven years ago, first proudly told him that she "had" acrophobia. He 
knew then that it would not be the last said on the subject.
Vaguely he wiped his mouth with a napkin and said: "'M going down for a little 
tinkering . . ."
"Tinkering!" spat Mrs. Gallacher poisonously. "You in that cellar where I can't 
keep my washing machine because it's cluttered up with--"
He heard her out, smiling deprecatingly, and without answering went into the 
tiny foyer and opened the cellar door with two keys. His wife did not have 
copies of either.
Down the steps he snapped a switch, and the plot-sized basement sprang into 
sharp being under the glareless brilliance of the most modern refractory 
glow-tube installation. He smiled proudly on the place and its furnishings. 
This, he thought, is my real life, and I can deny it nothing.
From the shelf of black-bound, imperishable notebooks, through great racks of 
reagents, turning lathe, forge, reference library, glassware and balances to the 
electronics and radioactivity outfits, nothing was lacking to make up an almost 
complete experimental set-up for advanced work in physics, chemistry or 
practical mechanics.
Gallacher, sitting there among his tools, had a spark of something in his eyes 
that would have baked his wife. He opened a notebook and stared almost 
feverishly down at the half-written page. The last words had been: "--to dry set 
in 12 hrs. This cmpnd to be xmnd tomorrow."
Swallowing gingerly, he turned the book face down and lifted a tray from a 
drying rack cunningly placed in the cool draft of a window high up in the wall. 
Removing a tiny speck of the marble-sized, flinty mass that rested on the glass 
surface he inserted it into a spectroscope's field chamber, then snapped on the 
current that sent his electric bills soaring higher month by month. The speck 
glowed a vivid white; he squinted through a series of colored filters at the 
incandescent particle. Then, sighing inaudibly, he lit the projector's bulb. On 
the calibrated ground-glass screen appeared the banded spectrum of the compound.
Gallacher ticked off the bands with a pencil. Thoughtfully he turned up his 
notebook and wrote: "Spctrscpe confirms 100%."
MRS. GALLACHER was in bed, a magazine flung irritably on the floor beside her. 
As she heard the steps of her husband coming slowly up the cellar stairs she 
settled her hair and scowled.
He came through the door and blinked dazedly. "Still up?" he asked. "I had some 
special work to do--finishing my tinkering...." He smiled feebly.
"Tinkering!" She crowded into his own word all the vitriolic indignation of 
which her small, mean soul was capable. Then, seeing his face, she paused, 
frightened and almost terrified. For it was white and giddy with triumph. 
"Andrew," she said sharply, "what have you done?"
"My series of experiments," he said mildly. "Tonight I closed my notebooks. My 
work is finished--and successful." Then, astonishingly, he blazed forth: "Edith! 
What I have done no man has done before me--in this house I have synthesized the 
perfect rocket fuel." He smiled as he saw her face pale. "The fumbling 
adventurers who tried three times to reach the Moon and finally blew themselves 
up--their mistake was not to wait for me. Their fuel was not only dangerous but 
too weak for the job; any adding machine could have told them that. I have been 
working with explosive propellants for seventeen years, and have you ever heard 
one of my thousands of tests? No, for I worked calmly and with small quantities. 
And yet through me the universe has been opened to man! Venus, Luna, Mars--"
"Mars," whispered Mrs. Gallacher inaudibly. Then, for the first time in many 
years she addressed her husband sweetly: "Andrew, what are you going to do now?"
"Publish my facts," he rapped. "Take my place among the immortals of science."
"Just--have them printed in some magazine?" she asked, bewildered.
"That would be sufficient," he said. "I shall give my work to the world." He 
turned into himself, smiling secretly at the thought of honorary degrees, 
banquets, plaques....
"Andrew," snapped his wife, "if you think that I'll allow you to waste this 
stuff you're mistaken. For your own sake, Andrew, for your own sake I ask you to 
come to your senses!" Her eyes grew hard as she mused, "We could be rich--richer 
than anyone!" A sudden purpose crystallized in her mind. "How big would one of 
your ships have to be?" she demanded.
"Thinking of that Lunar Rocket?" he asked. "Foolishness! All a ship powered with 
my propellant needs is living quarters, a hull, about a half-ton firing chamber 
with an infusible exhaust tube and tanks holding a few cubic feet. Foolproof 
firing apparatus weighs about two pounds. I could build a rocket myself."
"Yes," she said abstractedly. "I know that." And in her mind the proud boast was 
spinning, "Wife of the first interplanetary traveller!" How she could lord it 
over the full-professors' wives who wouldn't invite her to tea more than twice a 
year! She'd show them-- "Andrew," she began carefully....
AND SO IT WAS that Gallacher found himself with a sick headache and groaning 
muscles roaring through space in the tiniest one-man rocket imaginable, 
following only his bare specifications, from end to end no larger than a light 
automobile. Far astern was Mars, red planet that he had not reached, and 
frustration bit into his vitals.
He had resigned his readership and raised money from relations, finance 
companies and every source he knew of to build this little space-scooter. His 
exultation as he plunged through the stratosphere of Earth and the sky went from 
violet to black had tempered and was now quite gone. The flaw--well, how could 
he have known? He had been a physico-chemist, and this insane adventuring was 
none of his doing, he thought confusedly. Ahead he could plainly see North 
America. He wondered if he could land as quietly as he had taken off, not one 
person in the world knowing except himself and his wife. Then he would publish 
the incredible proofs of his journey and his fuel. Then he would patent his 
compound and possibly lease contracts for its manufacture.
Era of progress incredible, to come from his mind alone! Huge ships of 
unemployed immigrants leaving for the fertile soil of Venus. Astronomers to 
establish observatories on airless asteroids and see with incredible clarity the 
answers to old, vexatious riddles--freighters winging their ways to icy worlds 
undreamed of for rare hauls of alien artisanry and produce, making Mother Earth 
a richer and fairer place to be on--
He laughed chatteringly. No; he had forgotten again. It was not to be so; it was 
not to be at all. Ahead there loomed New York State. He fired off his one 
braking rocket-tube and began to head South above the Hudson. Why not, he 
wondered, plunge beneath those waters--now? He shuddered. If he was to land it 
would be without photographs, without data, without a hope for the future of Mr. 
Gallacher except a slow, corroding old age.
The rocket passed low above Poughkeepsie, and he began to recognize landmarks. 
Ahead were the palisaded banks of the river, and above--East Side--was his 
cottage. He had taken off from a field near by, and there he was to have landed 
in triumph.
His headache was worse; the needles of pain lanced into his skull so savagely 
that he almost shot past the field without seeing it. But, not quite. Almost at 
the last moment possible, he slanted the ship downward and cut loose all his 
brakes. He hit Earth with a terrible shock, for all the safety devices aboard, 
and lay on his side in the canted pit of the rocket until he heard a vigorous 
clanging on the side. His wife's face peered exultantly through the quartz 
porthole. He looked at her, struggling to recognize the woman, then reached. out 
to open the heavy door of the little craft. His strength was not enough; he 
heaved himself to his feet and leaned on the sealing bar, bearing down heavily. 
It gave. With a sucking noise, the rubber-lipped door yielded and swung open. He 
lifted himself through the port and dropped onto the ground, resting against the 
warm side of the ship.
"I came over as soon as I heard the rockets," said his wife. "Are you all 
right?"
"Sick," he answered weakly, holding his head.
"Never mind that," she said. "How did the ship behave? Did you have any 
trouble?"
"'M a scientist," he replied plaintively, "not an adventurer. Shouldn't have 
gone-my fuel-useless . . ." His voice trailed off incoherently.
"Useless!" she snapped, startled. "You got to Mars!"
"No!" he gasped. "I didn't. Nobody can."
"Andrew!" she cried, "what are you saying?"
With a terrible effort he fought his way through a haze of pain and confusion. 
He said, in lecturer style: "Now and then meteors hit Earth that do not behave 
as meteors should." Someone had to know this, he thought bitterly, before he ran 
down. He could see figures far away, figures sprinting toward the ship.
"They drift down, observers say--Charles Fort tells of many instances--yet, as 
soon as they strike Earth, or rather, high ground, they fall normally--the rest 
of the way. Just heavy pieces of rock."
The woman stared bespelled at his blank, lax face. "The reason--didn't know. But 
now--know too well. I didn't land on Mars. No one can. Gravity is just like 
magnetism. Likes repel each other. I was charged with Earth gravity; Mars 
charged with the same sort of stuff." Gallacher laughed hysterically. "I 
couldn't get near it," he complained. "Nobody can--meteors that land the usual 
way have another kind of gravity-- from outside the Solar System, must be."
Suddenly, bitterly, he cried: "Shouldn't have gone! Fuel, useless. No good for 
anything except rockets. Rockets useless. Nowhere to land. No place to go in 
rockets!"
And those were the last sane words that he uttered in his life.



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