Gib Takes a Space Test

Gib Bromfield was nine, and the thing he wanted to do most was to make a flight into space. A colony on the Moon had already been started for scientific research, and a huge man-made space platform circled the Earth once every twenty-four hours.

“I want to go back to the Moon with you, Father,” Gib would plead every time Mr. Bromfield came home on a furlough.

“I’m afraid you’re still a little young, Gib,” his father would reply. “Some day you will be able to go out into space with me, but not yet.”

Mr. Bromfield was a construction engineer, and he was helping to build a big spaceport on the Moon. He came home to see his family every six months. Each time he returned, Gib couldn’t wait to meet him at the front door of their prefabricated home.

Gib would shake hands with him like a man and take his bags from him. Then he would step back and admire the tall, handsome man in the glossy black boots and gray uniform of the Space Service. By this time, Mother usually came running up, followed by Sandra, Gib’s little sister.

On Mr. Bromfield’s latest visit, Gib waited until the usual family talk had subsided before he started asking his father about his recent adventures. After Father had brought him up to date, Gib asked the same question he always asked:

“Father, my I go back with you this time for a short visit—just a short one?”

Mr. Bromfield smiled and rumpled Gib’s blond hair. “It’s not the time element, Gib,” he said patiently. “It’s the rigors of space itself, which are much rougher than Captain Rocket on TV would have us believe.”

Gib’s face fell. He had hoped that this time his father would give in and let him go back. Mr. Bromfield could see that his son was disappointed. He stared at Gib thoughtfully for a moment, then spoke again.

“All right, Gib, I’ll put you through S.Q.T. If you pass it and still want to go spaceward, I’ll take you.”

“Gee, do you mean that?” Gib burst out.

He was so excited he didn’t know what to do. Gib had never had any doubt that he would pass the S.Q.T.—the Space Qualification Test—that all those who go spaceward must take.

Mr. Bromfield went immediately to the video-phone and put through a call to S.Q.T., having them place Gib’s name on the space test list.

“Thanks, Father!” Gib said excitedly. “At last I’ll be going spaceward!”

“We’ll see,” Mr. Bromfield replied soberly.

Gib spent the next afternoon on the first part of the test, which was a complete physical examination.

“It didn’t hurt the tiniest bit,” Gib joked with his father that night. “If all the parts of the test are as easy as this first one, I won’t have any trouble.”

Mr. Bromfield did not say anything, but he smiled to himself as though he knew something that Gib did not know.

Gib and his father took the elevated expressway to the S.Q.T. center early the next morning in their atom-powered Johnson Superjet. The final portions of Gib’s test would be covered today.

The first part was familiarity with the space suit. In company with about fifty other candidates, Gib was given a supply of clothing. Then everyone was shown how to zip up their thickly insulated suits in front. Next, an attendant snapped metal cylinders to their shoulders and screwed the flexible tubing into valves on their suits. Last to be put on were helmets of light metal that had a darkened glass in front so that the wearer could look out.

“Now, all of you turn the little black knob on your chests,” the tester said. His voice sounded muffled to Gib because of the helmet he wore.

Gib turned his knob and felt his suit blowing up like a balloon as air flowed in from the oxygen tanks.

“This is how you would be dressed for a walk on the Moon,” the tester told them. “Now I want all of you to walk into the next room.”

As Gib went into the room with the others, he was thinking how easy the test had been up until now. And what fun it was taking the very tests that Captain Rocket himself must have taken at one time! He thought his father was surely mistaken for having doubted his ability to pass the S.Q.T.

The tester left the room and shut the door. In a few moments Gib began to have a strange sensation. He was feeling lighter and lighter, and the others with him were beginning to float right off the floor!

Gib struggled frantically as he felt himself go off balance. Each movement he made, however, shot him off at swift, crazy angles. He felt himself sweating with fear, and for the first time he was believing that maybe the S.Q.T. wasn’t going to be so easy after all.