The Valley

by Richard Stockham

  Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net

  Transcriber's Note:

  This etext was produced from IF Worlds of Science Fiction June 1954. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.

  THE VALLEY

  By Richard Stockham

  Illustrated by Ed Emsh

  _If you can't find it countless millions of miles in space, come back to Earth. You might find it just on the other side of the fence--where the grass is always greener._

  * * * * *

  The Ship dove into Earth's sea of atmosphere like a great, silverfish.

  Inside the ship, a man and woman stood looking down at the expanse ofland that curved away to a growing horizon. They saw the yellow groundcracked like a dried skin; and the polished stone of the mountains andthe seas that were shrunken away in the dust. And they saw how thecity circled the sea, as a circle of men surround a water hole in adesert under a blazing sun.

  The ship's radio cried out. "You've made it! Thank God! You've madeit!"

  Another voice, shaking, said, "President--Davis is--overwhelmed. Hecan't go on. On his behalf and on behalf of all the people--with ourhope that was almost dead, we greet you." A pause. "Please come in!"

  The voice was silent. The air screamed against the hull of the ship.

  "I can't tell them," said the man.

  "Please come in!" said the radio. "Do you hear me?"

  The woman looked up at the man. "You've got to Michael!"

  "Two thousand years. From one end of the galaxy to the other. Not onegrain of dust we can live on. Just Earth. And it's burned to acinder."

  A note of hysteria stabbed into the radio voice. "Are you all right?Stand by! We're sending a rescue ship."

  "They've got a right to know what we've found," said the woman. "Theysent us out. They've waited so long--."

  He stared into space. "It's hopeless. If we'd found another planetthey could live on, they'd do the same as they've done here."

  He touched the tiny golden locket that hung around his neck. "Rightnow, I could press this and scratch myself and the whole farce wouldbe over."

  "No. A thousand of us died. You've got to think of them."

  "We'll go back out into space," he said. "It's clean out there. I'mtired. Two thousand years of reincarnation."

  She spoke softly. "We've been together for a long time. I've lovedyou. I've asked very little. But I need to stay on Earth. Please,Michael."

  He looked at her for a moment. Then he flipped a switch. "Milky Way toEarth. Never mind the rescue ship. We're all right. We're coming in."

  * * * * *

  The great, white ship settled to Earth that was like a plain afterflood waters have drained away.

  The man and woman came out into the blazing sunlight.

  A shout, like the crashing of a thousand surfs, rose and broke overthem. The man and woman descended the gang-plank toward the officialsgathered on the platform. They glanced around at the massed field ofwhite faces beneath them; saw those same faces that had been turnedtoward them two thousand years past; remembered the cheers and thecries that had crashed around them then, as they and the thousand hadstood before the towering spires of the ships, before the takeoff.

  And, as then, there were no children among the milling, graspingthrong. Only the same clutching hands and voices and arms, asking foran answer, a salvation, a happy end.

  Now the officials gathered around the man and the woman, and spoke tothem in voices of reverence.

  A microphone was thrust into Michael's hand with the whisperedadmonition to tell the people of the great new life waiting for them,open and green and moist, on a virgin planet.

  The cries of the people were slipping away and a stillness growinglike an ocean calm and, within it, the sound of the pumps, throbbing,sucking the water from the seas.

  And then Michael's voice, "The thousand who left with us are dead. Forsome time we've known the other planets in our solar system wereuninhabitable. Now we've been from one end of the galaxy to the other.And this is what we've found.... We were given Earth. There's no placeelse for us. The rest of the planets in the galaxy were given toothers. There's no place else for them. We've all had a chance to makethe best of Earth. Instead we've made the worst of it. So we're hereto stay--and die." He handed the microphone back.

  The silence did not change.

  The President grasped Michael's arm. "What're you saying?"

  A buzzing rose up from the people like that of a swarm of frightenedbees. The sea of white faces swayed and their voices began to cry. Thedin and motion held, long and drawn out, with a wail now and afluttering beneath it.

  Michael and the woman stood above them in the center of the pale,hovering faces of the officials.

  "Good God," said the President. "You've got to tell them what you saidisn't true!"

  "We've been searching two thousand years for a truth," said Michael."A thousand of us have died finding it. I've told it. That's the wayit's got to be."

  The President swayed, took the microphone in his hands.

  "There's been some mistake!" he cried. "Go back to the pumps and thedistilleries! Go back to the water vats and the gardens and theflocks! Go back! Work and wait! We'll get the full truth to you.Everything's going to be _all right_!"

  Obediently the mass of faces separated, as though they were being spunaway on a whirling disk. Michael and the woman were swallowed up, likepebbles inside a closing hand, and carried away from the great, whiteship.

  * * * * *

  They ushered the man and woman into the beamed and paneled councilchambers and sat them in thick chairs before the wall of polished wooddesks across which stared the line of faces, silent and waiting. Andon a far wall, facing them all, hung a silver screen, fifty feetsquare.

  The President stood. "Members of the council." He paused. "As youheard, they report--complete failure." He turned to Michael. "And now,the proof."

  Michael stood beside the motion picture projector, close to his chair.The lights dimmed. There was only the sound of the pumps throbbing inthe darkness close and far away, above and beneath and all around.Suddenly on the screen appeared an endless depth of blackness filledwith a mass of glowing white, which extended into the room around thewatching people, seeming to touch them and then spreading, like anocean, farther away and out and out into an endless distance.

  Now streaks of yellow fire shot into the picture, like a swarm oflightning bugs, the thin sharp nosed shadows of space ships, hurtling,like comets, toward the clustered star smear. And then silent thoughtsflashed from the screen into the minds of the spectators; of timepassing in months, years and centuries, passing and passing until theythemselves seemed to be rushing and rushing into the blackness towardblinding balls of white light, the size of moons.

  The dark shapes of smaller spheres circling the blinding ones movedforward into the picture; red, blue, green, yellow, purple and manymixtures of all these, and then one planet filled the screen, seemingto be inflated, like a balloon, into a shining red ball. There was arazor edge of horizon then and pink sky and an expanse of crimson.Flat, yellow creatures lay all around, expanding and contracting. Aroaring rose and fell like the roaring of a million winds. Then fearflowed out of the picture into the minds of the watchers so that theygasped and cringed, and a silent voice told them that the atmosphereof this planet would disintegrate a human being.

  Now the red ball seemed to pull away from them into the blackness andthe blinding balls of l
ight, and all around could be seen the streaksof rocket flame shooting away in all directions.

  Suddenly a flash cut the blackness, like the flare of a match, anddied, and the watchers caught from the screen the awareness of thedeath of a ship.

  They were also aware of the rushing of time through centuries and theysaw the streaking rocket flames and planets rushing at them; sawcreatures in squares and circles, in threads wriggling, in lumps andblobs, rolling jumping and crawling; saw them in cloud forms whiskingabout, changing their shapes, and in flowing wavelets of water. Theysaw creatures hopping about on one leg and others crawling atincredible speeds on a thousand; saw some with all the numbers of legsand arms in between; and were aware of creatures that were