Various Fiction

by Robert Sheckley

  The second and third explosions went off as he came into the ship’s shadow. Quickly he stripped off his Omegan outer garments. Under them, he wore a facsimile of guard’s uniform. Now he ran toward the landing stage.

  The loudspeaker voice was calling loudly for order. The guards were still bewildered.

  The fourth explosion threw Barrent to the ground. He got to his feet instantly and sprinted up the landing stage. He was inside the ship. Outside, he could hear the guard captain shouting orders. The guards were beginning to form into ranks, their weapons ready to use against the restive crowd. They were retreating to the ship in good order.

  Barrent had no more time to listen. He was standing in a long, narrow corridor. He turned to the right and raced toward the bow of the ship. Far behind him, he could hear the heavy marching tread of the guards.

  Now, he thought, the information he had been given about the ship had better be right, or the expedition was finished before it began.

  He sprinted past rows of empty cells, and came to a door marked Guard Assembly Room. A lighted green bulb above the door showed that the air system was on. He went by it, and came to another door. An enterprising member of Group Two had opened that door just before his disembarkation. Barrent tried it now, and found it unlocked. Within was a room stacked high with spare engine parts. He entered and closed the door.

  The guards marched down the corridor. Barrent could hear them talking as they entered the assembly room.

  “What do you think started those explosions?”

  “Who knows? Those prisoners are crazy, anyhow.”

  “They’d blow up the whole planet, if they could.”

  “Good riddance.”

  “Yeah. Well, it didn’t cause any damage. There was an explosion like that about fifteen years ago. Remember?”

  “I wasn’t here then.”

  “Well, it was worse than this. Two guards were killed, and maybe a hundred prisoners.”

  “What started it?”

  “Don’t know. These Omegans just enjoy blowing things up.”

  “Next thing you know, they’ll be trying to blow us up.”

  “Not a chance. Not with the guardships up there.”

  “You think so? Well, I’ll be damned glad to get back to the checkpoint.”

  “You said it. Be good to get off this ship and live a little.”

  “It isn’t a bad life at the checkpoint, but I’d rather go back to Earth.”

  “Well, you can’t have everything.”

  The last of the guards entered the assembly room and dogged the door shut. Barrent waited. After a while, he felt the ship vibrate. It was beginning its takeoff.

  He had already learned some valuable information. Apparently all or most of the guards got off at the checkpoint. Did that mean that another detachment of guards got on? Probably. And a checkpoint implied that the ship was searched for escaped prisoners. It was probably only a perfunctory search, since no prisoner had escaped in the history of Omega. Still, he would have to figure out a way of avoiding it.

  But he would face that when the time came. Now he felt the vibration stop, and he knew that the ship had left the surface of Omega. He was aboard, unobserved, and the ship was on its way to Earth. So far, everything had gone according to plan.

  For the next few hours, Barrent stayed in the storage room. He was feeling very tired, and his joints had begun to ache. The air in the small room had a sour, exhausted smell. Forcing himself to his feet, Barrent walked to the air vent and put his hand over it. No air was coming through. He took a small gauge out of his pocket. The oxygen content of the room was falling rapidly.

  Cautiously, he opened the storeroom door and peered out. Although he was dressed in a perfect replica of guard’s uniform, he knew he couldn’t pass among those men who knew each other so well. He had to stay in hiding. And he had to have air.

  The corridors were deserted. He passed the guard assembly room and heard faint murmurs of conversation inside. The green light glowed brightly over the door. Barrent walked on, beginning to feel the first signs of dizziness. His gauge showed him that the oxygen content in the corridor was starting to fall quite rapidly.

  The Group had assumed that the air system would be used throughout the ship. Now Barrent could see how illogical that was. With only guards and crew aboard, there was no need to supply air for the entire huge ship. There would be air in the little man-inhabited islands of the guard room and the crew’s section, and nowhere else.

  Barrent hurried down the dim, silent corridors, gasping for breath. The air was rapidly growing bad. Perhaps it was being used in the assembly room before the ship’s main air supply was touched.

  He passed unlocked doors, but the green bulbs above them were unlighted. He had a pounding headache, and his legs felt as though they were turning to jelly. He tried to figure out a course of action.

  The crew’s section seemed to offer him the best chance. Ship’s personnel might not be armed. Even if they were, they would be less ready for trouble than the guards. Perhaps he could hold one of the officers at gunpoint, perhaps he could take over the ship.

  It was worth trying. It had to be tried.

  At the end of the corridor he came to a staircase. He climbed past a dozen deserted levels, and came at last to a stencilled sign on one of the walls. It read Officer’s Country, and an arrow pointed the way.

  Barrent took the plastic needlebeam out of his pocket and staggered down the corridor. He was beginning to lose consciousness. Black shadows formed and dissipated on the edges of his vision. He was experiencing vague hallucinations, flashes of horror in which he felt the corridor walls falling in on him. He found that he was on his hands and knees, crawling toward a door marked Control Room. No Admittance except to Ship’s Officers.

  The corridor seemed to be filled with gray fog. It cleared momentarily, and Barrent realized that his eyes were not focusing properly. He pulled himself to his feet and turned the door handle. It began to open. He took a firm grip on the needle-beam and tried to prepare himself for action.

  But, as the door opened, darkness closed irrevocably around the edges of his vision. He thought he could see startled faces, hear a voice shouting, “Watch out! He’s got a gun!” And then the blackness closed completely around him, and he fell endlessly forward into the control room.

  CHAPTER 22

  BARRENT’S return to consciousness was sudden and complete. He sat up and saw that he had fallen inside the control room. The metal door was closed behind him, and he was breathing without difficulty. He could see no sign of the crew. They must have gone after the guards, assuming he would stay unconscious.

  He scrambled to his feet, instinctively picking up his needlebeam. He examined the weapon closely, then frowned and put it away. Why, he wondered, would the crew leave him alone in the control room, the most important part of the spaceship? Why would they leave him armed?

  He tried to remember the faces he had seen just before he collapsed. They were indistinct memories, vague and unfocused figures with hallow, dreamlike voices. Had there really been people in here?

  The more he thought about it, the more certain he was that he had conjured those people out of his fading consciousness. There had been no one here. He was alone in the ship’s nerve center.

  He approached the main control board. It was divided into ten stations. Each section had its rows of dials, whose slender indicators pointed to incomprehensible readings. Each had its switches, wheels, rheostats, and levers.

  Barrent walked slowly past the stations, watching the patterns of flashing lights that ran to the ceiling and rippled along the walls. The last station seemed to be some kind of over-all control for the rest. A small screen was marked: Coordination, Manual Automatic. The Automatic part was lighted. There were similar screens for navigation, lookout, collision control, sub-space entry and exit, normal space entry and exit, and landing. All were on automatic. Further on he found the programming screen, which clicked off
the progress of the flight in hours, minutes, and seconds. Time to checkpoint one was now 29 hours, 4 minutes, 51 seconds. Stopover time was three hours. Time from the checkpoint to Earth was 480 hours.

  The control board flashed and hummed to itself, serene and self-sufficient. Barrent couldn’t help feeling that the presence of a human in this temple of the machine was sacrilege.

  He checked the air ducts. They were set for automatic feed, giving just enough air to support the room’s present human population of one.

  But where was the crew? Barrent could understand the necessity of operating a spaceship largely on an automatic programming system. A structure as huge and complex as this had to be self-sufficient. But men had built it, and men had punched out the programs. Why weren’t men present to monitor the switchboards, to modify the program when necessary? Suppose the guards had needed more time on Omega? Suppose it became necessary to bypass the checkpoint and return directly to Earth? Suppose it was imperative to visit some other planet? Who re-set the programs, who gave the spaceship its orders, who was the guiding intelligence that directed the entire operation? A machine couldn’t think, it could only follow orders. Where were the men who could think, and guide the ship accordingly? Where were the captain and the crew?

  Barrent looked around the control room. He found a storage bin filled with oxygen respirators. He put one on, tested it, and went into the corridor.

  After a long walk, he reached a door marked Crew’s Quarters. Inside, the room was neat and bare. The beds stood in neat rows, without sheets or blankets. There were no clothes in the closets, no personal possessions of any kind. Barrent left and inspected the officers’ and captain’s quarters. He found no sign of recent human habitation.

  He returned to the control room. It was apparent now that the ship had no crew. Perhaps the authorities on Earth felt so certain of their schedules and the reliability of their ship that they had decided a crew was superfluous. Perhaps . . .

  But it seemed to Barrent a reckless way of doing things. There was something very strange about an Earth that allowed spaceships to run without human supervision.

  He decided to suspend further judgment until he had acquired more facts. For the time being, he had to think about the problems of his own survival. There was concentrated food in his pockets, but he hadn’t been able to carry much water. Would the crewless ship have supplies? He had to remember the detachment of guards, down below in their assembly room. And he had to think about what was going to happen at the checkpoint, and what he would do about it at that time.

  Barrent found that he did not have to use his own food supplies. In the officers’ mess, machines still dispensed food and drink at the push of a button. Barrent didn’t know if these were natural or chemically reconstituted foods. They tasted fine and seemed to nourish him, so he really didn’t care.

  He explored part of the ship’s upper levels. After becoming lost several times, he decided not to take any more unnecessary risks. The life-center of the ship was its control room, and Barrent spent most of his time there.

  He found a viewport. Activating the switch that opened the shutters, Barrent was able to look out on the vast spectacle of stars glowing in the blackness of space. Stars without end stretched past the furthest limits of his imagination. Looking at this, Barrent felt a vast surge of pride. This was where he belonged, and those unknown stars were his heritage.

  The time to the checkpoint dwindled to six hours. Barrent watched new portions of the control board come to life, checking and altering the forces governing the ship, preparing for a landing. Three and a half hours before landing, Barrent made an interesting discovery. He found the central communication system for the entire ship. By turning on the receiving end, he could overhear the conversations in the guards’ room.

  He didn’t learn much that was useful to him. Either through caution or lack of concern, the guards didn’t discuss politics. Their lives were spent on the checkpoint, except for occasional brief leaves to Earth. Some of the things they said Barrent found incomprehensible. But he continued to listen, fascinated by anything these men of Earth had to say.

  “Swimming pools are pretty good.”

  “Me, I’d rather swim in a lake.”

  “You ever go swimming in Florida? The ocean is so warm . . .”

  “I don’t like salt water.”

  “The year before I was drafted into the Guards, I won third prize at the Dayton Orchid Fair.”

  “I’m buying a little retirement house in Antarctica.”

  “How much longer you got to serve, kid?”

  “Eighteen years.”

  “Well, someone’s got to do it.”

  “Sure. But why me?”

  “Checkpoint’s not so bad. It’s a pretty little place.”

  “Everything’s artificial on it, though. The air, flowers, and food . . .”

  “Well, you can’t have everything. You got your family there.”

  “They want to get back to Earth.”

  “After five years on the checkpoint, you can’t take Earth. The gravity gets you.”

  “I’ll get used to gravity.”

  “Your legs’ll varicose.”

  “So I’ll get new legs.”

  “Anyone wanna play some poker?”

  From these conversations, Barrent learned that the grimfaced guards were extremely human beings, just like the prisoners on Omega. Most of the guards didn’t like the work they were doing. Like the Omegans, they longed for a return to Earth.

  He stored the information away. The ship had reached the checkpoint, and the giant switchboard flashed and rippled, making its final adjustments for the intricate job of docking.

  At last the maneuver was completed and the engines shut down to standby. Through the communications system, Barrent heard the guards leave their assembly room. He followed them down the corridors to the landing stage. He heard the last of them, as he left the ship, say, “Here comes the goon squad. Whatcha say, boys?”

  There was no answer. The guards were gone, and there was a new sound in the corridors; the heavy marching feet of what the guard had called the goon squad.

  There seemed to be a lot of them. Their inspection began in the engine rooms, and moved methodically upward. From the sounds, they seemed to be opening every door on the ship and searching every room and closet.

  Barrent held the needlebeam in his perspiring hand and wondered where, in all the territory of the ship, he could hide. He would have to assume that they were going to look everywhere. In that case, his best chance lay in evading them and hiding in a section of the ship already searched.

  He slipped on a respirator and moved into the corridor.

  CHAPTER 23

  HALF an hour later, Barrent still hadn’t figured out a way of getting past the goon squad. They had finished inspecting the lower levels and were moving up to the control room deck. Barrent could hear them marching down the hallways. He kept on walking, a hundred yards in front of them, trying to find some way of hiding.

  There should be a staircase at the end of this passageway. He could take it down to a different level, a part of the ship which had already been searched. He hurried on, wondering if he were wrong about the location of the staircase. He still had only the haziest idea of the layout of the ship. If he were wrong, he would be trapped.

  He came to the end of the corridor, and the staircase was there. The footsteps behind him sounded closer. He started down, peering backwards over his shoulder.

  And ran headfirst into a man’s huge chest.

  Barrent flung himself back, bringing his plastic gun to bear on the enormous figure. But he stopped himself from firing. The thing that stood in front of him was not human.

  It stood nearly seven feet high, dressed in a black uniform with Inspection Team—Android B212, stencilled on its front. Its face was a stylization of a human’s, cleverly sculptured out of putty-colored plastic. Its eyes glowed a deep, impossible red. It swayed on two legs, balanci
ng carefully, looking at Barrent, moving slowly toward him. Barrent backed away, wondering if a needlebeam could stop it.

  He never had a chance to find out, for the android walked past him and continued up the stairs. Stencilled on the back of his uniform were the words, Rodent Control Division. This particular android, Barrent realized, was programmed only to look for rats and mice. The presence of a stowaway made no impression on him. Presumably the other androids were similarly specialized.

  He stayed in an empty storage room on a lower level until he heard the sounds of the androids leaving. Then he hurried back to the control room. No guards came aboard. Exactly on schedule, the big ship left the checkpoint, traveling to Earth.

  The rest of the journey was uneventful. Barrent slept and ate and watched the spectacle of the stars through the viewport. He tried to visualize the planet he was coming to, but no pictures formed in his mind. What sort of a people built huge starships but failed to equip them with a crew? Why did they send out inspection teams, then give those teams the narrowest and most specialized sort of vision? Why did they have to deport a sizeable portion of their population—and then fail to control the conditions under which the deportees lived and died? Why was it necessary for them to wipe the prisoners’ minds clean of all memory of Earth?

  Barrent couldn’t think of any answers. He would have to wait until he arrived on Earth.

  The control room clocks moved steadily on, counting off the minutes and hours of the trip. The spaceship emerged from subspace and went into deceleration orbit around a blue and green world which Barrent observed with mixed emotions. He found it hard to realize that he was returning at last to Earth, a home he hardly remembered.

  CHAPTER 24

  THE spaceship landed at noon on a brilliant sunlit day, somewhere on Earth’s North American continent. Barrent had planned on waiting for darkness before leaving; but the control room screens flashed a warning: All passengers and crew must disembark at once. Ship rigged for full decontamination procedure. Twenty minutes.