by James Gunn
Migliardo shrugged helplessly. “You're the doctor."
Barr's eyelids flickered. “Mama,” he said.
Migliardo turned to the pole. “I'm going to talk to Shepherd."
The deck was silent then except for the voice of a mistreated child saying, “Mama."
IX
When the lights came on, Faust was blinking. “Those poor, damn bastards,” he said softly. It was almost a prayer.
Danton was staring blankly at the screen, his hands clenched in his lap. “I can't take any more,” he said hoarsely.
Faust said, “Don't blame yourself, Amos."
Danton looked at Faust with eyes filled with guilt and horror. “I sent them out, Jim. Me. I sent them into that. I killed Ted. I made Iron into a homicidal maniac."
“I picked them,” Lloyd said.
Faust said, “Nobody's responsible. It's space. Those men went because they had to, just as you came out, Amos, because you had to. Any new environment is hungry. Men tame it by dying for it. Men died for the Western Hemisphere, to tame the Antarctic, to develop atomic power, to build skyscrapers and roads. Men died to build the Little Wheel and the Big Wheel. Space is hungry, too. And men stick their heads in its mouth because they're men."
“Too old,” Danton said, shaking his white head, “I grew old too soon.” He turned and walked erectly out of the room.
“Thanks,” Lloyd said quietly.
“You think I didn't mean it?"
“I know you meant it. But that wasn't all you meant. You didn't tell him we'd have to give up if the Santa Maria doesn't make it."
“He knows it,” Faust said.
“Another film?"
“No,” Faust said. He smiled wearily. “Like Amos, I can't take any more.” He tried to sound cheerful. “Well, maybe they'll make it. There's still five of them."
“Five?"
“Sure. Barr, Jelinek, Holloway, Shepherd, Migliardo."
“Jim,” Lloyd said, “only five men went aboard that ship when it started for Mars. One of them is dead."
“But there's five!"
“What does Shepherd look like?"
Faust said thoughtfully, “He's got a beard. Rather tired, deepset eyes—"
“How do you know, Jim? You've never seen him."
Faust looked startled. “I must have. I can almost see him now—He must have been a stowaway. That's why he wasn't in the first few films. Behind that sealed panel—?"
“Jim,” Lloyd repeated, “you've never seen him."
Faust rubbed his eyes hard with his knuckles. “You're right. He was on the control deck the whole film. Hallucination? How do you account for it?"
Lloyd shrugged helplessly. “I know the seed, but I can't account for the flower. There's that safety factor we told them about. And there was a posthypnotic suggestion we gave them: if they were ever in desperate trouble, there would be help."
“Barr thought you were tricky."
“No trick, Jim. It's real. There's help. But we never expected it to take this form.” Lloyd's jaw tightened. “Come on, Jim, I'll show you your cabin."
He led Faust down the spoke to the other side of the wheel and the cabin he had once occupied when he had first come out.
“Amos is having some dinner sent in for the two of you,” Lloyd said. “He'll expect you in his cabin next door at 1800. Anything you'd like?"
Faust shook his head. As Lloyd turned toward the spoke, Faust said in a puzzled voice, “If I never saw Shepherd, how did I know what he looked like?"
Lloyd said, “I wish you could answer that question for me."
The hot, steamy hydroponics room was on the other side of the Wheel beyond the air-conditioning unit. A wide, flat tank of green-scummed water took up most of the floor space. The algae in the tank were absorbing carbon dioxide from the Wheel's air and producing fifty times their own volume of oxygen every hour.
Beyond the big tank was a smaller one in which flowers and vegetables were growing. An old man was puttering among them—not really old, but old by spaceman's standards. He was fifty.
Lloyd saluted. “General Kovac!"
Kovac waved carelessly at him. “Relax, Lloyd. I'm just the gardener now. If Amos and I hadn't been young officers together, he'd never have let me retire to this job and you know it.” His wrinkled face creased in a smile. “Thanks, though."
Lloyd smiled back. “I wondered, Max, if maybe you could spare me some flowers."
Kovac picked up a box wrapped in thick padding. “All boxed and insulated. Gardenias, Amos said."
Lloyd took the box and looked down at it, biting his lower lip. “Gardenias. You and Amos—"
“Shut up now,” Kovac snapped. “Don't want to hear any more about it. Neither does Amos. Tell Terry not to be a fool."
“Thanks, Max. I'll try."
The recreation room of the cottage was empty. Lloyd wondered where the boys were. He unwrapped the insulation from the box and opened it. The gardenias were as fresh and white as if they had been just picked on Earth. Lloyd looked down at them, took a deep breath, and lifted the door to the living room.
Terry looked up as he came down the ladder. She was ironing a frilly dress. She started to say something and stopped. Lloyd dropped the last few feet and landed lightly. “For you,” he said, presenting the gardenias.
Terry looked at the flowers, and her face crumpled. Blindly, she held out her hand to take them. She raised them to her face and breathed in their fragrance.
“Oh, Lloyd,” she said. “They're beautiful."
Lloyd said, “Not as beautiful as you.” His voice was husky.
Terry's face was flushed. “I don't know what to say."
“Don't say anything. If I brought you flowers every time I wanted to say ‘I love you’ there'd be no room in the cottage for us. I do love you, Terry. More than anything. More than my job. If you want to go Inside—I'll go with you."
“Oh, Lloyd!” She brushed her eyes with the back of one hand. “I do sound like a fool, don't I? You know I wouldn't take you away. I just—I just want to feel needed."
“If you should leave me,” Lloyd said, “the stars might as well fall out of the sky."
She looked at him searchingly. “I almost believe you mean that. Oh, I will believe it. Lloyd!” She out her arms around him and squeezed him tightly to her. “I'm so happy."
He could feel her heart beating against his chest, hard and fast. He thought, If only I wasn't a psychologist, if I could stop analyzing myself and everyone around me, if I could act blindly instead of always the right way. Well, he thought, don't you love her? Yes. Yes!
Her face was raised to his, her eyes closed. His mouth descended on hers, hard and demanding. Her lips parted.
When he raised his head the words were tumbling out, “Terry, we're going to throw the nine cottages together with the tenth in the middle for a recreation center. You'll have a chance to see the other families oftener. There'll be dances, card parties, movies, all kinds of get-togethers. We'll have a real community—"
She put a finger across his lips and murmured, “That's fine, honey. That's wonderful.” He kissed her again.
With that communion of marriage that sometimes makes explanations unnecessary, he said irrelevantly, “What about the boys?"
“They're taking a nap,” she whispered, clinging to him.
He picked her up and carried her easily toward the bedroom. She opened her eyes and whispered, “The iron, honey."
Swearing, he stormed back across the room, yanked out the cord with a jerk, and stamped back toward the bedroom.
Terry sighed. She was smiling.
X
One hundred and ninety-seven days out. The Santa Maria swept on through space with its animate and inanimate cargo. Earth was far behind now. Mars was appreciably closer—it showed a perceptible disk.
Holloway was lying in his bunk. He was propped up by a ripped piece of padding against the pressure of his belt so that he could stare out the port. He was
much thinner. His eyes were burned holes in the blank sheet of his face.
Barr was taped to the framework of his bunk. Migliardo clung with one leg to a stanchion beside it. He was trying to feed Barr cut-up steak from a covered dish with a pair of tongs. Migliardo put a bite of meat into Barr's mouth. Barr spat it out.
“You're trying to poison me!” Barr screamed. “I ain't gonna eat anything! You're trying to get rid of me."
“Iron,” Migliardo said patiently, grabbing the bit of meat out of the air and holding it in his hand, “you saw me get the meat out of the freezer. You saw me put it in the range. You saw me take it out and bring it, over here. If you don't eat, you'll die for sure."
Barr's body flopped in the air as he struggled against the tape that bound him to the bunk, but he could get no leverage. Even Barr was gaunt. “I ain't gonna eat!” he shouted. “And I ain't gonna die. One of these days I'm get loose, and I'm gonna kill everyone of you—you and Emil and Burt and’ Ted and—Everybody but Shepherd. He's nice to me..."
Migliardo sighed and pushed away. He scraped the food into the garbage ejector and floated to the pole, Barr's hysterical obscenities following inexorably. He pulled himself to the control deck. Jelinek was sitting in the navigator's chair. He was sighting at Mars through the telescope.
“Emil,” Migliardo said.
Jelinek jumped and banged his eye on the eyepiece of the telescope. He looked around, rubbing his eye.
“What are you doing?"
Jelinek grinned sheepishly. “Practicing my navigation. Burt isn't going to be much help, and if something should happen—"
“To me?” Migliardo nodded. “Good idea. I guess I should practice my piloting. But I never was much of a pilot. Anyway, there's Shepherd."
They looked at each other steadily, considering all the possibilities. Migliardo's face relaxed. “We're going to get through, hey, Emil?"
“You and me and Shepherd."
“You know, I was never what you would call a good Catholic, but I've been praying lately. Shepherd and me. Maybe it's helped."
“Maybe. But don't forget that the Lord helps those who help themselves. How are the engines?"
“Number two rigid-mount is pitted, but it should stand up under one more firing easily—two if we're lucky."
Barr was still screaming. Migliardo listened for a moment. He said, “I don't know how much longer I can take it, Emil. Night and day that goes on. You can't get away from it. Doesn't he ever sleep?"
“He takes catnaps all day long. We don't notice. We should be like Burt. He doesn't notice anything.” Jelinek studied Migliardo. “He's bound to weaken. He hasn't eaten for a week, and if we tried to feed him intravenously like Burt, he'd tear out the IV."
Migliardo listened to Barr and shivered. “Anything we can do?"
“I ran out of morphine a month ago; reserpine doesn't help. Besides, he thinks he's being poisoned."
Migliardo rubbed his mouth nervously. “It's like taking care of a baby, feeding him, washing him, bringing him bedpans. Only a baby can't talk."
“I'd spell you, Mig—you know that. But it only makes him worse. He's more afraid of me."
Migliardo bit his lower lip. “Sure. Sorry. Sometimes it just gets too much for me—” He turned his head to listen. “There! He stopped.” His expression changed. “That was quick. Too quick. I'll go check."
He slid along the pole. There was a brief period of silence and then Migliardo's horrified shouts, “Emil! For God's sake, Emil!"
There was a red haze in the living deck. Red droplets floated in the air. Barr was lying in his bunk, his jugular vein still spurting blood into the air. Jelinek caught the bunk's framework and pressed his hand to the three-inch, horizontal gash in Barr's throat, but the pumping had already slowed. It stopped as Jelinek fumbled for the vein. Barr was dead.
Barr's eyes were open. In them was a mixture of terror and hatred. The door to the locker beside his head was standing open. His right arm was free. In his right hand was a razorsharp clasp knife. The knife and the hand were covered with blood. His whole body was bathed in blood.
So was Migliardo, who clung to the bunk beside Jelinek. Between red smears, his face was white.
“It's all over, Mig,” Jelinek said quietly. “Better clean up."
Migliardo said slowly, “I never knew a man had so much blood in him.” He seemed unable to move.
Jelinek pushed him toward the shower stall. “Go sponge off. And put those shorts in the ejector.” When he heard the brief hiss of water from the stall, Jelinek drifted to his bunk and took a towel from his locker. Slowly he wiped the blood from his hand. “Did you see anything, Burt?"
Holloway was staring out the port. “No,” he said distantly, “I haven't seen anything. Only the stars. Earth is still a long ways off. Sometimes I don't think we will ever get there. I think maybe Earth is just a dream I dreamed one night, and there isn't really an Earth at all. Or maybe I'm just a dream someone else is dreaming. Then it wouldn't matter. Dreams don't matter.” His voice trailed away.
The red fog was gone, sucked away through the air-conditioning intakes, but many spherical red drops still floated aimlessly in the air. Methodically Jelinek slapped at them with the towel. When there were only minute droplets that air movement would take care of, Jelinek tied the stained towel around Barr's neck and closed the staring eyes.
Migliardo came out of the shower stall, clean, naked, and very pale. The room was oppressively silent as he went to his locker for a pair of shorts.
Jelinek said, “Barr's better off now. He was incurable, even if we could have got him back to Earth. Let's get him to the storage deck."
They towed the body to the pole and along it to the deck next to the airlock door. “Shepherd?” Jelinek said.
They stood there, Jelinek and Migliardo, their heads bowed above Barr's restless body. After a few moments they looked up. Jelinek said, “Thanks, Shepherd. Mig?"
Migliardo nodded silently and began putting on his suit.
“When you get back,” Jelinek said, “you and Shepherd better clean up the splashes. Get rid of the bunk canvas through the ejector. I'm going back on watch."
Migliardo nodded again and lowered his helmet over his head. Jelinek adjusted the wing nuts and then went along the pole toward the control deck. As he passed the living deck, he looked slowly around the deck and frowned. Then he continued along the pole.
XI
Without turning on the lights, Lloyd said to the two heads between him and the screen, “The two hundred and sixtieth day film has just been processed. Shall we run it?"
Danton said hoarsely, “Yes. It will tell the story."
Faust said, “Run it."
The film flickered on the screen.
XII
Two hundred and sixty days out. In front of the Santa Maria, Mars was a vast disk, glowing red and white and green. It was 8,500 miles away. The canals were clearly visible, natural faults in the Martian crust through which fog rolled from the south pole. The surface seemed to rotate with ever-increasing speed.
Ignition was sixty-four minutes away.
Migliardo was sitting in the table slings reading a book bound in black leather. It was a Bible.
Jelinek was floating beside Holloway's bunk. The navigator's eyes were closed. His chest scarcely seemed to move. Jelinek held his wrist and counted to himself. Finally he nodded in the silence and glanced at the clock. “Sixty-two minutes until ignition. We'd better get busy, Mig."
Migliardo did not look up. “Shepherd will take care of it."
“Mig—” Jelinek began and hesitated. “I've been going through the log, Mig. I can't find any mention of Shepherd before one hundred and twelve days out."
Migliardo shrugged. “You made a mistake."
“No. I was surprised. I checked twice. Mig, what does Shepherd look like?"
Migliardo kept on reading. “You know what he looks like.
He's got a beard. Sad, deepset eyes—"
&n
bsp; “A sort of towel wrapped around his hips?"
“Of course not,” Migliardo said. “He wears khaki shorts like the rest of us."
Jelinek sighed and drifted toward Migliardo. “So he does. It's amazing he should look the same to both of us."
“Why? That's how he looks."
Jelinek caught the edge of the table and brought his face close to Migliardo's. “Because, Mig, he really isn't there."
Migliardo looked up sharply. “Don't say that, Emil! We're jittery enough as it is. Don't you crack on us!"
“Think back, Mig,” Jelinek said softly. “A long, long way. Back to the moment when we boarded this ship from the Little Wheel. Phillips had said good-by, Danton had said good-by; we were all alone, now, and the taxi had taken us to the Santa Maria, and we were there where we would live, some of us, for two and a half years. Who was there, Mig?"
Migliardo's forehead furrowed. “You and me and Iron and Burt and Ted and—and—” He looked at Jelinek with wide, dark eyes. “Shepherd wasn't there."
“When did he get on, Mig?"
“How could he get on after we had started, Emil? He wasn't there and now he is. That's all."
“Guess for me, Mig. What is Shepherd?"
“You guess."
“I'll tell you something else I've been checking on. The supplies. Just the two of us have been eating, Mig. Just the three of us, counting Burt, have been breathing and drinking. Shepherd doesn't eat or drink or breathe.
“What would I call him? A mass hallucination, whatever that might be. The manifestation of a deep-felt need triggered by certain instructions given us and perhaps by a posthypnotic suggestion. But I don't think it was planned."
Migliardo said, “That's just witch doctor stuff, Emil."
Jelinek nodded. “True. But the subconscious plays some funny tricks. Now you guess for me."
“You're wrong about the first mention of Shepherd. What about the face Burt saw through the port? What about the stowaway Ted saw?"
“That would make him something—not human."
“Whatever he is, he's not human. How do we know what waits for man in interplanetary space?"