Astounding Science Fiction Stories Vol 1

by Anthology

  The Captain and the medical officer stared at one another. There seemed to be nothing to say.

  VI

  For man's sense is falsely asserted to be the standard of things: on the contrary, all the perceptions, both of the senses and the mind, bear reference to man and not to the universe; and the human mind resembles those uneven mirrors which impart their own properties to different objects ... and distorts and disfigures them ... For every one ... has a cave or den of his own which refracts and discolors the light of nature. --Sir Francis Bacon (1561--1626)

  It was the Captain who moved first. He went to the remaining bulkhead, spun a dog, and opened a cabinet. From it he took a rack of spare radar parts and three thick coils of wire. Paresi, startled, turned and saw Hoskins peering owlishly at the Captain.

  Anderson withdrew some tools, reached far back in the cabinet, and took out a large bottle.

  "Oh," said Paresi. "That.... I thought you were doing something constructive."

  In the far shadows, Hoskins turned silently back to his game. The Captain gazed down at the bottle, tossed it, caught it. "I am," he said. "I am."

  He came and sat beside the doctor. He thumbed off the stopper and drank ferociously. Paresi watched, his eyes as featureless as the imprisoning dark.

  "Well?" said the Captain pugnaciously.

  Paresi's hands rose and fell, once. "Just wondering why."

  "Why I'm going to get loopin', stoopin' drunk? I'll tell you why, head-shrinker. Because I want to, that's why. Because I like it. I'm doing something I like because I like it. I'm not doing it because of the inversion of this concealed repression as expressed in the involuted feelings my childhood developed in my attitude toward the sex-life of beavers, see, couch-catechizer old boy? I like it and that's why."

  "I knew a man who went to bed with old shoes because he liked it," said Paresi coldly.

  The Captain drank again and laughed harshly. "Nothing can change you, can it, Nick?"

  Paresi looked around him almost fearfully. "I can change," he whispered. "Ives is gone. Give me the bottle."

  Something clattered to the deck at the hem of the black curtain.

  "'S another hallucination," said the Captain. "Go pick up the hallucination, Nicky-boy."

  "Not my hallucination," said Paresi. "Pick it up yourself."

  "Sure," said the Captain good-naturedly. He waited while Paresi drank, took back the bottle, tilted it sharply over his mouth. He wiped his lips with the back of his hand, exhaled heavily, and went to the blackness across the cabin.

  "Well, what do you know," he breathed.

  "What is it this time?"

  Anderson held the thing up. "A trophy, that's what." He peered at it. "All-American, 2675. Little statue of a guy holding up a victory wreath. Nice going, little guy." He strode to Paresi and snatched away the bottle. He poured liquor on the head of the figurine. "Have a drink, little guy."

  "Let me see that."

  Paresi took it, held it, turned it over. Suddenly he dropped it as if it were a red-hot coal. "Oh, dear God...."

  "'Smatter, Nick?" The Captain picked up the statuette and peered at it.

  "Put it down, put it down," said the doctor in a choked voice. "It's--Johnny...."

  "Oh it is, it is," breathed the Captain. He put down the statuette gingerly on the table, hesitated, then turned its face away from them. With abrupt animation he swung to Paresi. "Hey! You didn't say it looked like Johnny. You said it was Johnny!"

  "Did I?"

  "Yup." He grinned wolfishly. "Not bad for a psychologist. What a peephole you opened up! Graven images, huh?"

  "Shut up, Anderson," said Paresi tiredly. "I told you I'm not going to let you needle me."

  "Aw now, it's all in fun," said the Captain. He plumped down and threw a heavy arm across Anderson's shoulders. "Le's be friends. Le's sing a song."

  Paresi shoved him away. "Leave me alone. Leave me alone."

  Anderson turned away from him and regarded the statuette gravely. He extended the bottle toward it, muttered a greeting, and drank. "I wonder...."

  The words hung there until Paresi twisted up out of his forlorn reverie to bat them down. "Damn it--what do you wonder?"

  "Oh," said the Captain jovially, "I was just wondering what you'll be."

  "What are you talking about?"

  Anderson waved the bottle at the figurine, which called it to his attention again, and so again he drank. "Johnny turned into what he thinks he is. A little guy with a big victory. Hoskins, there, he's going to be a slide-rule, jus' you wait and see. Ol' Ives, that's easy. He's goin' to be a beer barrel, with beer in it. Always did have a head on him, Ives did." He stopped to laugh immoderately at Paresi's darkening face. "Me, I have no secrets no more. I'm going to be a coat of arms--a useless philosophy rampant on a field of stars." He put the open mouth of the bottle against his forehead and pressed it violently, lowered it and touched the angry red ring it left between his eyes. "Mark of the beast," he confided. "Caste mark. Zero, that's me and my whole damn family. The die is cast, the caste has died." He grunted appreciatively and turned again to Paresi. "But what's old Nicky going to be?"

  "Don't call me Nicky," said the doctor testily.

  "I know," said the Captain, narrowing his eyes and laying one finger alongside his nose. "A reference book, tha's what you'll be. A treatise on the ... the post-nasal hysterectomy, or how to unbutton a man's prejudices and take down his pride.... I swiped all that from somewhere....

  "No!" he shouted suddenly; then, with conspiratorial quiet, he said, "You won't be no book, Nicky boy. Covers aren't hard enough. Not the right type face. Get it?" he roared, and dug Paresi viciously in the ribs. "Type face, it's a witticism."

  Paresi bent away from the blow like a caterpillar being bitten by a fire-ant. He said nothing.

  "And finally," said the Captain, "you won't be a book because you got ... no ... spine." He leapt abruptly to his feet. "Well, what do you know!"

  He bent and scooped up an unaccountable object that rested by the nearest shadows. It was a quarter-keg of beer.

  He hefted it and thumped it heavily down on the table. "Come on, Nick," he chortled. "Gather ye round. Here's old Ives, like I said."

  Paresi stared at the keg, his eyes stretched so wide open that the lids moved visibly with his pulse. "Stop it, Anderson, you swine...."

  The Captain tossed him a disgusted glance and a matching snort. From the clutter of radar gear he pulled a screwdriver and a massive little step-down transformer down on its handle. The bung disappeared explosively inside the keg, and was replaced by a gout of white foam. Paresi shrieked.

  "Ah, shaddup," growled Anderson. He rummaged until he found a tube-shield. He stripped off a small length of self-welding metal tape and clapped it over the terminal-hole at the closed end of the shield, making it into an adequate mug. He waited a moment while the weld cooled, then tipped the keg until solid beer began to run with the foam. He filled the improvised mug and extended it toward Paresi.

  "Good ol' Ives," he said sentimentally. "Come on, Paresi. Have a drink on Ives."

  Paresi turned and covered his face like a frightened woman.

  Anderson shrugged and drank the beer. "It's good beer," he said. He glanced down at the doctor, who suddenly flung himself face down across the couch with his head hanging out of sight on the opposite side, from which came the sounds of heaving and choking.

  "Poor ol' Nick," said the Captain sadly. He refilled the mug and sat down. With his free hand he patted Paresi's back. "Can't take it. Poor, poor ol' Nick...."

  After that there was a deepening silence, a deepening blackness. Paresi was quiet now, breathing very slowly, holding each breath, expelling air and lying quiet for three full seconds before each inhalation, as if breathing were a conscious effort--more; as if breathing were the whole task, the entire end of existence. Anderson slumped lower and lower. Each time he blinked his lids opened a fraction less, while the time his eyes stayed closed became a fraction of a se
cond longer. The cabin waited as tensely as the taut pose of the rigid little victory trophy.

  Then there was the music.

  It was soft, grand music; the music of pageantry, cloth-of-gold and scarlet vestments; pendant jewels and multicolored dimness shouldering upward to be lost in vaulted stone. It was music which awaited the accompaniment of whispers, thousands of awed, ritualistic sibilants which would carry no knowable meaning and only one avowed purpose. Soft music, soft, soft; not soft as to volume, for the volume grew and grew, but soft with the softness of clouds which are soft for all their mountain-size and brilliance; soft and living as a tiger's throat, soft as a breast, soft as the act of drowning, and huge as a cloud.

  Anderson made two moves: he raised his head, and he spun the beer in his mug so its center surface sank and the bubbles whirled. With his head up and his eyes down he sat watching the bubbles circle and slow.

  Paresi rose slowly and went to the center of the small lighted space left to them, and slowly he knelt. His arms came up and out, and his upturned face was twisted and radiant.

  Before him in the blackness there was--or perhaps there had been for some time--a blue glow, almost as lightless as the surrounding dark, but blue and physically deep for all that. Its depth increased rather than its light. It became the ghost of a grotto, the mouth of a nameless Place.

  And in it was a person. A ... presence. It beckoned.

  Paresi's face gleamed wetly. "Me?" he breathed. "You want--me?"

  It beckoned.

  "I--don't believe you," said Paresi. "You can't want me. You don't know who I am. You don't know what I am, what I've done. You don't want me...." His voice quavered almost to inaudibility. "... do you?"

  It beckoned.

  "Then you know," sang Paresi in the voice of revelation. "I have denied you with my lips, but you know, you know, you know that underneath ... deep down ... I have not wavered for an instant. I have kept your image before me."

  He rose. Now Anderson watched him.

  "You are my life," said Paresi, "my hopes, my fulfillment. You are all wisdom and all charity. Thank you, thank you ... Master. I give thee thanks oh Lord," he blurted, and walked straight into the blue glow.

  There was an instant when the music was an anthem, and then it too was gone.

  Anderson's breath whistled out. He lifted his beer, checked himself, then set it down gently by the figurine of the athlete. He went to the place where Paresi had disappeared, bent and picked up a small object. He swore, and came back to the couch.

  He sucked his thumb and swore again. "Your thorns are sharp, Paresi."

  Carefully he placed the object between the beer keg and the statuette. It was a simple wooden cross. Around the arms and shaft, twisted tightly and biting deeply into the wood, was a thorny withe. "God all mighty, Nick," Anderson said mournfully, "you didn't have to hide it. Nobody'd have minded."

  "Well?" he roared suddenly at the blackness, "what are you waiting for? Am I in your way? Have I done anything to stop you? Come on, come on!"

  His voice rebounded from the remaining bulkhead, but was noticeably swallowed up in the absorbent blackness. He waited until its last reverberations had died, and then until its memory was hard to fix. He pounded futilely at the couch cushions, glared all about in a swift, intense, animal way. Then he relaxed, bent down and fumbled for the alcohol bottle. "What's the matter with you, out there?" he demanded quietly. "You waiting for me to sober up? You want me to be myself before you fix me up? You want to know something? In vino veritas, that's what. You don't have to wait for me, kiddies. I'm a hell of a lot more me right now than I will be after I get over this." He took the figurine and replaced it on the other side of the keg. "Tha's right, Johnny. Get over on the other side of ol' Beer-belly there. Make room for the old man." To the blackness he said, "Look, I got neat habits, don't leave me on no deck, hear? Rack me up alongside the boys. What is it I'm going to be? Oh yeah. A coat of arms. Hey, I forgot the motto. All righty: this is my motto. 'Sic itur ad astra'--that is to say, 'This is the way to the men's room.'"

  Somewhere a baby cried.

  Anderson threw his forearm over his eyes.

  Someone went "Shh!" but the baby went right on crying.

  Anderson said, "Who's there?"

  "Just me, darling."

  He breathed deeply, twice, and then whispered, "Louise?"

  "Of course. Shh, Jeannie!"

  "Jeannie's with you, Louise? She's all right? You're--all right?"

  "Come and see," the sweet voice chuckled.

  Captain Anderson dove into the blackness aft. It closed over him silently and completely.

  On the table stood an ivory figurine, a quarter-keg of beer, a thorny cross, and a heart. It wasn't a physiological specimen; rather it was the archetype of the most sentimental of symbols, the balanced, cushiony, brilliant red valentine heart. Through it was a golden arrow, and on it lay cut flowers: lilies, white roses, and forget-me-nots. The heart pulsed strongly; and though it pumped no blood, at least it showed that it was alive, which made it, perhaps, a better thing than it looked at first glance.

  Now it was very quiet in the ship, and very dark.

  VII

  ... We are about to land. The planet is green and blue below us, and the long trip is over.... It looks as if it might be a pleasant place to live....

  A fragment of Old Testament verse has been running through my mind--from Ecclesiastes, I think. I don't remember it verbatim, but it's something like this:

  To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven: A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted.

  For me, anyway, I feel that the time has come. Perhaps it is not to die but something else, less final or more terrible.

  In any case, you will remember, I know, what we decided long ago--that a man owes one of two things to his planet, to his race: posterity, or himself. I could not contribute the first--it is only proper that I should offer the second and not shrink if it is accepted.... --From a letter by Peter Hoskins to his wife.

  In the quiet and the dark, Hoskins moved.

  "Checkmate," he said.

  He rose from his chair and crossed the cabin. Ignoring what was on the table, he opened a drawer under the parts cabinet and took out a steel rule. From a book rack he lifted down a heavy manual. He sat on the end of the couch with the manual on his knees and leafed through it, smoothing it open at a page of physical measurements. He glanced at the floor, across it to the black curtain, back to the one exposed bulkhead. He grunted, put the book down, and carried his tape to the steel wall. He anchored one end of it there by flipping the paramagnetic control on the tape case, and pulled the tape across the room. At the blackness he took a reading, made a mark.

  Then he took a fore-and-aft measurement from a point opposite the forward end of the table to one opposite the after end of the bunk. Working carefully, he knelt and constructed a perpendicular to this line. He put the tape down for the third time, arriving again at the outboard wall of darkness. He stood regarding it thoughtfully, and then unhesitatingly plunged his arm into it. He fumbled for a moment, moving his hand around in a circle, pressing forward, trying again. Suddenly there was a click, a faint hum. He stepped back.

  Something huge shouldered out of the dark. It pressed forward toward him, passed him, stopped moving.

  It was the port.

  Hoskins wiped sweat away from his upper lip and stood blinking into the airlock until the outer port opened as well. Warm afternoon sunlight and a soft, fresh breeze poured in. In the wind was birdsong and the smell of growing things. Hoskins gazed into it, his mild eyes misty. Then he turned back to the cabin.

  The darkness was gone. Ives was sprawled on the after couch, apparently unconscious. Johnny was smiling in his sleep. The Captain was snoring st
ertorously, and Paresi was curled up like a cat on the floor. The sunlight streamed in through the forward viewports. The manual wheel gleamed on the bulkhead, unbroken.

  Hoskins looked at the sleeping crew and shook his head, half-smiling. Then he stepped to the control console and lifted a microphone from its hook. He began to speak softly into it in his gentle, unimpressive voice. He said:

  "Reality is what it is, and not what it seems to be. What it seems to be is an individual matter, and even in the individual it varies constantly. If that's a truism, it's still the truth, as true as the fact that this ship cannot fail. The course of events after our landing would have been profoundly different if we had unanimously accepted the thing we knew to be true. But none of us need feel guilty on that score. We are not conditioned to deny the evidence of our senses.

  "What the natives of this planet have done is, at base, simple and straightforward. They had to know if the race who built this ship could do so because they were psychologically sound (and therefore capable of reasoning out the building process, among many, many other things) or whether we were merely mechanically apt. To find this out, they tested us. They tested us the way we test steel--to find out its breaking point. And while they were playing a game for our sanity, I played a game for our lives. I could not share it with any of you because it was a game only I, of us all, have experience in. Paresi was right to a certain degree when he said I had retreated into abstraction--the abstraction of chess. He was wrong, though, when he concluded I had been driven to it. You can be quite sure that I did it by choice. It was simply a matter of translating the contactual evidence into an equivalent idea-system.

  "I learned very rapidly that when they play a game, they abide by the rules. I know the rules of chess, but I did not know the rules of their game. They did not give me their rules. They simply permitted me to convey mine to them.

  "I learned a little more slowly that, though their power to reach our minds is unheard-of in any of the seven galaxies we know about, it still cannot take and use any but the ideas in the forefront of our consciousness. In other words, chess was a possibility. They could be forced to take a sacrificed piece, as well as being forced to lose one of their own. They extrapolate a sequence beautifully--but they can be out-thought. So much for that: I beat them at chess. And by confining my efforts to the chessboard, where I knew the rules and where they respected them, I was able to keep what we call sanity. Where you were disturbed because the port disappeared, I was not disturbed because the disappearance was not chess.