II

Dusty Britton entered the lower cabin of the three-stage rocket and flopped into a chair."Quite a show," he said with a trace of scorn.

Martin Gramer, the producer of the long series of Dusty Britton pictures puffed his cigar and nodded with self-satisfaction."Not bad," he said."Not bad at all."

"Gramer, how the hell long is this nonsense going to go on?"

"Until you're ready to retire."

"I'm ready now."

"For good?"

"I could do something else, you know. After all, I am an—"

Martin Gramer eyed the husky young man with derision."You say 'actor' and I'll blow a gasket," said Gramer.

"Then what the hell am I doing here?" roared Dusty.

"You're here because you have an honest-looking face and a pair of broad shoulders to go with it. You're the living embodiment of John Darling Trueheart, and you can act the part, providing some bright guy lays out the floor plan and coaches you."

Dusty growled,"Why not hire the bright guy?"

"Because he's got a face that would scare children and the physique of an underfed fieldmouse. Pull you out of that hero role you're in and you'd fall so flat on your face that folks would be calling you Old Doormat. Now snap out of it, Dusty, and be glad you've got hold of a good thing. Stop looking for something you couldn't handle."

Angrily Dusty got up out of his chair."I suppose you think it's fun to have to go roaming around the country wearing this jazzed-up surveyor's suit with a three-pound chunk of rusty iron clanking on my hip."

"To date they've sold three and a quarter million replicas of that Dusty Britton Blaster you're so contemptuous of, and you've received ten cents for every one that crossed the counter. What's so damned bad about that?"

"I feel silly."

Gramer roared with laughter, then cut it to one short bark as he cooled down to eye Britton angrily."What's so damned silly about being a model of honor and respect for several million kids?" he demanded.

"Did you ever think how imbecilic it sounds to be Dusty Britton of The Space Patrol, with no space to patrol, wearing a blaster that doesn't blast? And wearing a pack of medals stamped out in the model shop? What does it all add up to?"

Martin Gramer tossed the stump of his cigar at the disposal chute and faced Dusty with a hard expression."It adds up to a lot, Dusty. It adds up to a damned good living for you. It adds up to—maybe something you're too dumb to understand, but I'll spiel it off anyway—being an ideal. Damn it, man, there's millions of kids in this world that eat, think and dream about the Space Patrol and Dusty Britton. You're an idol as well as an ideal, Dusty. Kids follow a big name man. It's a darned sight better that they follow an ideal rooted in virtue, strength, honesty and chivalry than to have them trying to emulate characters like Shotgun Hal Machin or Jos