by James Gunn
“That's not your best guess, Mig."
“My best guess isn't a guess; it's a faith. Why do we call him Shepherd? Did he tell us? Did one of us name him? Or was it something else that just came to us?"
“You tell me."
Migliardo said softly. “'The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.’”
“That's a good guess, Mig,” Jelinek said slowly. “Maybe better than mine. It has all the stigmata of a psychological truth and contact points with experience—the still waters and the valley of the shadow of death. I wish I wasn't such a skeptic. I'd like to pray with you and Shepherd. The trouble is—I haven't seen Shepherd lately."
“Emil—!” Migliardo began. “I've been wanting to tell you something for a long time."
“Confession?” Jelinek asked gently.
“In more ways than one. I killed Barr."
“I know you did. The tape that held his wrist was cut, not torn. He couldn't have cut it until he had the knife, and he couldn't get the knife until his hand was free. Besides, Barr would never have committed suicide. He would have cut loose and come after us."
Migliardo put his hand across his eyes. “He was my friend."
“It was what he would have wanted a friend to do—if he had been sane enough to know a friend. There are none of us innocent, Mig.” Jelinek looked at the clock. “Twenty-five minutes until ignition."
An expression of concern crossed Migliardo's face. “If Shepherd isn't real, then we can't—He's on the control deck, isn't he, Emil?"
Jelinek frowned. “I don't know. I haven't seen him lately."
Migliardo was already pulling his legs free of the slings. He swung along the pole hastily and stopped with his head just beyond the partition. “Shepherd! Emil, he's gone!” He came back along the pole and, searched the living deck with dark, frightened eyes. “Shepherd! Shepherd!"
He kept on moving along the pole until he reached the storage deck. “Shepherd!” he called. And despairingly, “Shepherd?"
Suddenly Jelinek moved. “Mig!” He leaped toward the pole.
“Shepherd!” Migliardo called once more and then the airlock door clanged shut. Before Jelinek could reach the door, he heard the hissing sound of air escaping.
Jelinek turned, gnawing his mustache, and opened the lockers along the wall. Migliardo's suit was there. So were the other four. Jelinek looked at the airlock door and said softly, “So long, Mig. I hope you find him."
With a great weariness, he pulled himself along a pole to the living deck. There was a great silence in the ship, a silence alive and unbearable. Jelinek looked at the clock. Twenty minutes until ignition. He looked at Holloway. He could barely see his chest move.
“The silence,” he muttered. “That's the worst."
He floated to Holloway and felt his pulse again. He frowned, turned to a cabinet set in the wall, and withdrew one end of a coil of plastic tubing. There was a needle on the end of it. Jelinek found a vein on Holloway's arm, inserted the needle, and turned on the tiny motor that forced the sugar solution drop by drop into Holloway's vein.
Jelinek floated to his locker, opened it, and removed a hypodermic already filled with a clear liquid. He studied it for a moment, looked at Holloway, and then looked at the clock. Fifteen minutes until ignition.
He tossed the hypodermic back into the locker and slammed the door. He pulled himself swiftly along the pole to the control deck and strapped himself into the captain's chair. His eyes ran over the master controls, his fingers hovering over the control board. Ten minutes more. Not enough time.
Suddenly there came the sound of pumps churning and water surging. Jelinek looked down at his fingers. They had not touched the control board.
There was a series of small explosions somewhere in the ship, like firecrackers in the distance on the Fourth of July. Jelinek listened. Somewhere motors started and flywheels turned. Mars slowly began to slip away from the astrogation dome as the ship turned. Through a porthole in the side Jelinek could see a giant white globe floating gently away. It was an empty fuel tank.
Jelinek smiled suddenly and took his hand away from the control board. “Ah, there, Shepherd!"
Mars appeared in the living-deck porthole by Holloway's bunk. It filled it completely, a spinning red, white, and green sphere.
Holloway pushed himself upright in his bunk, his eyes open, a shaky finger pointing. From that arm the plastic tube dangled and swung. “Earth!” Holloway shouted. His eyelids flickered. His eyes rolled back. Slowly, under the pressure of his belt straps, he sank toward the bunk. When he was parallel with it again, his chest was not moving.
“Burt!” Jelinek called from the control deck. He did not call again. The speaker imbedded in the stanchion by Holloway's bunk was utterly silent. “You weren't so bad a navigator, Burt. After all, Columbus never knew he had discovered the New World."
He stared around the room, watching the lights winking and changing color, the dials turning, the ship silhouette on the artificial horizon slowly changing shape. The control deck was alive...
He listened to the sounds it made, the cluckings and the tickings, the whines and the creaks. He smelled the air, all the mingled, ineradicable stinks of men sweating and breathing and eliminating, as if he were smelling it for the first time in a long while, and the smell was sweet. He ran his hands along the chair arms.
He put his hand over the control panel and pressed the button marked “Air Conditioner—Stop.” One of the sounds—a whisper—was no more. He then pressed the button beside it: “Air—Eject.” A red light sprang to life on the control board; a thin whistling noise began.
“Lloyd,” Jelinek said softly, “I suppose you're watching. You never told me, but I guess that's the way it had to be. I hope you've learned something.” He chuckled; it was almost a happy sound. “Perhaps to pick a better psychologist."
His voice changed, sobered. “I'm sorry, Lloyd. I couldn't face it—the loneliness and the silence. I think the silence was worst of all.
“Tell Amos—the crew was a failure—but the ship was a success. And tell him—there'll be a ship—out here—in good working order—with fuel and supplies—if anyone—ever makes it"
After a little the whistling stopped and the air was gone. On the control deck two blind eyes looked out at the circling stars and two deaf ears listened to the sound of rocket engines screaming...
XIII
The silence in the little room was almost as unbearable as that aboard the Santa Maria. Lloyd had forgotten to turn on the lights. Nobody noticed; nobody said anything. When Lloyd finally remembered, Danton was still clutching the arms of his chair in knuckle-whitened hands, tears rolling down his face unashamedly.
Faust was shading his eyes with his hands. “So,” he said finally, “I must prepare for the worst. There is little time."
Lloyd's voice sounded strange to him. “What could you do with two years?"
Faust looked up quickly. His eyes, too, were damp. “Where would we get two years?"
“The ship isn't expected back until then."
“How could you fake it that long?"
Lloyd said methodically, “The Santa Maria has taken up its orbit around Mars, six hundred and twenty miles up. It will be sending back telemetered reports from its telescopic examination of the surface, from its sounding missiles, and there are even several missiles equipped to land on Mars, conduct geological explorations within a limited radius, analyze samples, and telemeter back their findings.
“That was our safety factor—apart from special, unlikely emergencies such as that meteor damage, the ship alone was capable of making the trip and doing the job. Subconsciously the men realized it. They personified the ship; they called it Shepherd. It wasn't enough..."
Lloyd stopped
, then began again. “The ship's reports will give us something to announce from time to time. As far as the crew is concerned, we don't have to know about it If we need more time still, we can announce that the ship will wait for the next favorable opportunity to return."
“Too many people know. You couldn't keep it a secret."
Lloyd sighed. “We're used to keeping secrets, aren't we, Amos? The men who are working on the films will be here until we're ready to release the information. They have years of work ahead of them."
“Maybe it could be done,” Faust admitted, “but why? Do you think, you can pick a better crew—one that will succeed where those men failed?"
Danton's voice was cold and harsh.
“Those were the best!"
“Then where are you going to get the spacemen?” Faust asked gently.
“We aren't,” Danton said fiercely. “Turn on that still of the Santa Maria!" The picture of the ship appeared on the screen, silvery white and fragile. “There's your spaceman. That's all there will ever be—packed solid with usable stuff. No neuroses, no tummy aches, no weakness, no indecision, no space-madness. It doesn't need oxygen, food, or water, medicine, sterilizers, entertainment, and the rest of the junk we have to have to survive. Just servo-mechanisms and telemetering devices. Robots. There's your spaceman. He can travel anywhere, sense almost everything, do almost anything, and never worry about coming back."
Faust shook his head.
“No, Amos,” Lloyd said, “it won't do. As a research tool, it's fine. As a symbol it just won't do. Men's representatives, meaningful representatives, must be living, breathing, fearful men like themselves. They've got to be men doing something the people who are left behind think they could have done, given the opportunity—men whose doings give them glory. You told me that once, Amos. Do you remember? I've never forgotten."
Faust said slowly. “How long do you need?"
“Eight years maybe. Ten years for sure."
“That's a long time."
“Mars will wait."
“Where are you going to get them,” Faust asked, “these spacemen?"
Lloyd knew that he had his ten years. “If we can't find them readymade, we'll have to make them ourselves."
XIV
In the airlock of the cottage, Lloyd extracted himself from his suit, picked up his insulated box, and opened the inner door. Two squirming bundles of exuberance launched themselves at him, plastic helmets on their dark heads, ray guns in their hands, shouting their welcomes, “Daddy, you're home early! Play spaceman with us! Hey, Daddy?"
“Hello,” Lloyd said gently. “Hello, spacemen."
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
THE CAVE OF NIGHT reprinted from Galaxy Science Fiction. Copyright, 1955, by Galaxy Publishing Corp.
HOAX reprinted from If. Copyright, 1955, by Quinn Publishing Co., Inc.
THE BIG WHEEL reprinted from Fantastic Universe. Copyright, 1956, by King-Size Publications, inc.
POWDER KEG reprinted from If Copyright 1958, by Quinn Publishing Co., Inc.
SPACE IS A LONELY PLACE reprinted from Venture Science Fiction. Copyright, 1957, by Fantasy House, Inc.
Copyright © 1986 by James E. Gunn
Cover design by Open Road Integrated Media
ISBN 978-1-4976-2943-1
This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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