He pushed himself back to the front of the ship. There was a padded chair there, with a long panel in front of it. He strapped himself into the chair and studied the panel.
It consisted of two blank screens, one much larger than the other. Under the large screen were two buttons, marked vision-front, and vision-back. A dial beneath the buttons was calibrated for focus. The small screen was unmarked.
Not finding any other controls, he pushed the vision-front button. The screen cleared, showing black space with the brilliant points of the stars before him. He stared at it for a long time, open-mouthed, then turned away.
The first thing to do, he told himself, was to assemble all the knowledge at his disposal and see what he could deduce from it.
“I am a man,” he said. “I am in a spaceship, in space. I know what stars are, and what planets are. Let me see—” He had a rudimentary knowledge of astronomy, less of physics and chemistry. He remembered some English literature, although he couldn’t think of any writers except Traudzel, a popular novelist. He remembered the authors of several history books, but couldn’t place their contents.
He knew the name for what he had: Amnesia.
Suddenly, he had a great desire to see himself, to look at his own face. Surely, recognition and memory would follow. He shoved himself across the room again, and started searching for a mirror.
There were lockers. built into the walls, and he opened them hastily, spilling the contents into the weightless air. In the third locker he found a shaving kit and a small steel mirror. He studied the reflection anxiously.
A long irregular face, drained of color. Dark stubble growing on the chin. Bloodless lips.
The face of a stranger.
He fought down fresh panic and searched the cabin, looking for some clue to his identity. Quickly he pawed through the floating boxes, shoving them aside when they proved to contain nothing but food or water. He looked on.
Floating in one corner of the cabin was a sheet of scorched paper. He seized it.
“Dear Ran,” it began. “The bio-chem boys have been doing some hurry-hurry last-minute checking on the pento. Seems there’s a strong chance it might induce amnesia. Something about the strength of the drug, plus the near-traumatic experience you’re undergoing, whether you’re aware of it or not. Now they tell us! Anyhow, I’m dashing off this note at zero minus fourteen minutes, just as a refresher for you in case they’re right.
“First, don’t look for any controls. Everything’s automatic, or it should be if this pile of cardboard and glue holds together. (Don’t blame the technicians; they had practically no time to get it finished and away before flash moment).
“Your course is set for automatic planetary selection, so just sit tight. I don’t suppose you could forget Marselli’s theorem, but in case you have, don’t worry about landing among some eighteen-headed intelligent centipedes. You’ll reach humanoid life because it has to be humanoid life.
“You may be a bit battered after blastoff, but the pento will pull you through. If the cabin is messy, it’s because we just didn’t have time to check everything for stress-strain tolerances.
“Now for the mission. Go at once to Projector One in Locker Fifteen. The projector is set for self-destruction after one viewing, so make sure you understand it. The mission is of ultimate importance,. Doc, and every man and woman on Earth is with you. Don’t let us down.”
Someone named Fred Anderson had signed it.
Ran—automatically using the name given in the letter—started looking for Locker Fifteen. He found at once where it had been. Lockers Eleven through Twenty-five were fused and melted. Their contents were destroyed.
That was that. Only the scorched paper linked him now with his past, his friends, all Earth. Even though his memory was gone, it was a relief to know that the amnesia had an explanation.
But what did it mean? Why had they thrown the ship together in such a rush? Why had they placed him in it—alone—and sent him out? And this all-important mission—if it was so vital, why hadn’t they safeguarded it better?
The note raised more questions than it answered. Frowning, Ran pushed himself back to the panel. He looked out the screen again, at the spectacle of the stars, trying to reason it out.
Perhaps there was a disease. He was the only person not infected. They had built the ship and shot him out to space. The mission? To contact another planet, find an antidote, and bring it back—
Ridiculous.
He looked over the panel again, and pushed the button for vision-rear.
And almost fainted.
A glaring, blinding light filled the entire screen, scorching his eyes. Hastily he cut down the field of focus, until he was able to make out what it was.
A nova. And the letter had mentioned the flash-moment.
Ran knew that Sol was the nova. And that Earth was consumed.
There was no clock on the ship, so Dr. Ran had no idea how long he had been traveling. For a long time he just drifted around dazed, coming back to the screen constantly.
The nova dwindled as the ship speeded on.
Ran ate and slept. He wandered around the ship, examining, searching. The floating boxes were in the way, so he started to pull them down and secure them.
Days might have passed, or weeks.
After a while, Ran started to put the facts he knew into a coherent structure. There were gaps and questions in it, probably untruths as well, but it was a beginning.
He had been chosen to go in the spaceship. Not as a pilot, since the ship was automatic, but for some other reason. The letter had called him “doc”. It might have something to do with his being a doctor.
Doctor of what? He didn’t know.
The makers of the ship had known Sol was going nova. They couldn’t, evidently, rescue any sizable portion of Earth’s population. Instead, they had sacrificed themselves and everyone else to make sure of rescuing him.
Why him?
He was expected to do a job of the greatest importance. So important that everyone had been subordinated to it. So important that the destruction of Earth itself seemed secondary, as long as the mission was accomplished.
What could that mission be?
Dr. Ran couldn’t conceive of anything so important. But he had no other theory that came even close to fitting the facts as he knew them.
He tried to attack the problem from another viewpoint. What would he do, he asked himself, if he knew that Sol was going nova in a short time, and he could rescue only a limited number of people with a certainty of success?
He would have sent out couples, at least one couple, in an attempt to perpetuate human stock.
But evidently the leaders of Earth hadn’t seen it that way.
After a time, the small screen flashed into life. It read: Planet. Contact 100 hours.
He sat in front of the panel and watched. After a long time the digits changed. Contact 99 hours.
He had plenty of time. He ate, and went back to work getting the ship into what order he could.
While he was storing boxes in the remaining lockers, he found a carefully packaged and fastened machine. He recognized it as a projector at once. On its side was engraved a large “2”.
A spare, he thought, his heart pounding violently. Why hadn’t he thought of that? He looked into the viewer and pushed the button.
The film took over an hour. It started with a poetic survey of Earth; flashes of her cities, fields, forests, rivers, oceans. Her people, her animals, all in brief vignettes. There was no sound track.
The camera moved to an observatory, explaining its purpose visually. It showed the discovery of the Sun’s instability, the faces of the astrophysicists who discovered it.
Then the race against time began, and the rapid growth of the ship. He saw himself, running up to it, grinning at the camera, shaking someone’s hand, and disappearing inside. The film stopped there. They must have stored the camera, given him the injection, and sent him off.
/> Another reel started.
“Hello, Ran,” a voice said. The picture showed a large, calm man in a business suit. He looked directly at Ran out of the screen.
“I couldn’t resist this opportunity to speak to you again, Dr. Ellis. You’re deep in space now, and you’ve undoubtedly seen the nova that has consumed Earth. You’re lonely, I daresay.
“Don’t be, Ran. As representative of Earth’s peoples, I’m taking this final chance to wish you luck in your great mission. I don’t have to tell you that we’re all with you. Don’t feel alone.”
“You have, of course, seen the film in Projector One, and have a thorough understanding of your mission. This portion of film—with my face and voice on it—will be automatically destroyed, in the same way. Naturally, we can’t let extraterrestrials in on our little secret yet.
“They’ll find out soon enough. You can feel free to explain anything on the remainder of this film to them. It should win you plenty of sympathy. Make no reference, of course, to the great discovery or the techniques that stemmed from it. If they want the faster-than-light drive, tell them the truth—that you don’t know how it’s propagated, since it was developed only a year or so before Sol went nova. Tell them that any tampering with the ship will cause the engines to dissolve.
“Good luck, doctor. And good hunting.” The face faded and the machine hummed louder, destroying the last reel.
He put the projector carefully back in its case, tied it into the locker, and went back to the control pane.
The screen read: Contact 97 hours.
He sat down and tried to place the new facts into his structure. As background, he remembered vaguely the great, peaceful civilization of Earth. They had been almost ready to go for the stars when the Sun’s instability was found. The faster-than-light drive had been developed too late.
Against that background he had been selected to man the escape ship. Only him, for some unfathomable reason. The job given him was thought more important, evidently, than any attempts at race-survival.
He was to make contact with intelligent life, and tell them about Earth. But he was to withhold any mention of the greatest discovery and its resulting techniques.
Whatever they were.
And then he was to perform his mission—
He felt as though he could burst. He couldn’t remember. Why hadn’t the fools engraved his instructions on bronze?
What could it be?
The screen read, Contact 96 hours.
Dr. Ran Ellis strapped himself into the pilot chair and cried from sheer frustration.
The great ship looked, probed and reported. The small screen flashed into life. Atmosphere-chlorine. Life-nonexistent. The data was fed to the ship’s selectors. Circuits closed, other circuits opened. A new course was set up, and the ship speeded on.
Dr. Ellis ate and slept and thought.
Another planet was reported, examined and rejected.
Dr. Ellis continued thinking, and made one unimportant discovery.
He had a photographic memory. He discovered this by thinking back over the film. He could remember every detail of the hour-long spectacle, every face, every movement.
He tested himself as the ship went on, and found that the ability was a constant. It worried him for a while, until he realized that it was probably a factor in his selection. A photographic memory would be quite an asset in learning a new language.
Quite an irony, he thought. Perfect retention—but no memory.
A third planet was rejected.
Ellis outlined the possibilities he could think of, in an effort to discover the nature of his mission.
To erect a shrine to Earth? Possibly. But why the urgency, then, the stressed importance?
Perhaps he was sent out as a teacher. Earth’s last gesture, to instruct some inhabited planet in the ways of peace and co-operation.
Why send a doctor on a job like that? Besides, it was illogical. People learn over millennia, not in a few years. And it just didn’t fit the mood of the two messages. Both the man in the film and the note-writer had seemed practical men. It was impossible to think of either of them as altruists.
A fourth planet came into range, was checked and left behind.
And what, he wondered, was the “great discovery” ? If not the faster-than-light drive, what could it be? More than likely a philosophical discovery. The way man could live in peace, or something like that.
Then why wasn’t he supposed to mention it?
A screen flashed, showing the oxygen content of the fifth planet. Ellis ignored it, then looked up as generators deep in the body of the ship hummed into life.
Prepare for landing, the screen told him.
His heart leaped convulsively, and Ellis had a momentary difficulty breathing.
This was it. A terror filled him as gravitation tugged at the ship. He fought it, but the terror increased. He screamed and tore at his straps as the ship started to go perceptibly down.
On the big screen was the blue and green of an oxygen planet.
Then Ellis remembered something. “The emergence from deep space into a planetary system is analogous to the emergent birth-trauma.” A common reaction, he told himself, but an easily controllable one for a psychiatrist—
A psychiatrist!
Dr. Randolph Ellis, psychiatrist. He knew what kind of doctor he was. He searched his mind for more information, fruitlessly. That was as far as it went.
Why had Earth sent a psychiatrist into space?
He blacked out as the ship screamed into the atmosphere.
Ellis recovered almost at once as the ship landed itself. Unstrapping, he switched on the vision-ports. There were vehicles coming toward the ship, filled with people.
Human-appearing people.
He had to make a decision now, one that would affect the rest of his time on this planet. What was he going to do? What would his course of action be?
Ellis thought for a moment, then decided he would have to play by ear. He would extemporize. No communication would be possible until he had learned the language. After that, he would say that he was sent from Earth to . . . to—
What?
He would decide when the time came. Glancing at the screens, he saw that the atmosphere was breathable.
The side of the ship swung open, and Ellis walked out.
He had landed on a subcontinent called Kreld, and the inhabitants were Kreldans. Politically, the planet had reached the world-government stage, but so recently that the inhabitants still were identified with the older political divisions.
With his photographic memory Ellis found no difficulty learning the Kreldan language, once a common basis had been established for key words. The people, of the common root Man, seemed no more foreign than some members of his own race. Ellis knew that this eventuality had been predicted. The ship would have rejected any other. The more he thought of it, the more he was certain that the mission depended on this similarity.
Ellis learned and observed, and thought. He was due, as soon as he had mastered the tongue sufficiently, to meet the ruling council. This was a meeting he dreaded, and put off as long as he could.
Nevertheless, the time came.
He was ushered through the halls of the Council Building, to the door of the Main Council Room. He walked in with the projector under his arm.
“You are most welcome, sir,” the leader of the council said. Ellis returned the salutation and presented his films. There was no discussion until everyone had seen them.
“Then you are the last representative of your race?” the council leader asked. Ellis nodded, looking at the kindly, seamed old face.
“Why did your people send only you?” another council member asked. “Why weren’t a man and woman sent?” The same question, Ellis thought, that I’ve been asking myself.
“It would be impossible,” he told them, “for me to explain the-psychology of my race in a few words. Our decision was contained in our very sense of being.”
A meaningless lie, he thought to himself. But what else could he say?
“You will have to explain the psychology of your race sometime,” the man said.
Ellis nodded, looking over the faces of the council. He was able to estimate the effect of the beautifully prepared film on them; they were going to be pleasant to this last representative of a great race.
“We are very interested in your faster-than-light drive,” another council member said. “Could you help us attain that?”
“I’m afraid not,” Ellis said. From what he had learned, he knew that their technology was pre-atomic, several centuries behind Earth’s.
“I am not a scientist. I have no knowledge of the drive. It was a late development.”
“We could examine it ourselves,” a man said.
“I don’t think that would be wise,” Ellis told him. “My people consider it inadvisable to give a planet technological products beyond their present level of attainment.” So much for theory. “The engines will overload if tampered with.”
“You say you are not a scientist,” the old leader asked pleasantly, changing the subject. “If I may ask, what are you?”
“A psychiatrist,” Ellis said.
They talked for hours. Ellis dodged and faked and invented, trying to fill in the gaps in his knowledge. The council wanted to know about all phases of life on Earth, all the details of technological and social advances. They wondered about Earth’s method of pre-nova detection. And why had he decided to come here? And finally, in view of coming alone, was his race suicidally inclined?
“We will wish to ask you more in the future,” the old council leader said, ending the session.
“I shall be happy to answer anything in my power,” Ellis said.
“That doesn’t seem to be much,” a member said.
“Now Elgg—remember the shock this man has been through,” the council leader said. “His entire race has been destroyed. I do not believe we are being hospitable.” He turned to Ellis.
“Sir, you have helped us immeasurably as it is. For example, now that we know the possibility of controlled atomic power, we can direct research toward that goal. Of course, you will be reimbursed by the state. What would you like to do?”
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