by Hal Annas
She was dumbfounded.
“It seems that you may have found an answer to cellular breakdown which brings on age. Will you give us your impression of why men die?”
She groped for words. “They just grow tired,” she said. “I asked the doctor at Recovery why men die. He said that medical science had not found the answer. He said that the body was able to reproduce every cell of itself and did that many times during one lifetime. But eventually men grow tired and die.”
“And what was it that you concluded made them tired?”
“Gravity,” Sue said simply. “That constant pull we fight against. It—”
“Wait!”
There were hurried movements.
A comfortable couch was pushed forward.
“Will you please relax, Mrs. Wilson? We have your complete record. We know exactly how you’ve worked.”
Sue shook her head. “I’ll still be tired, no matter how much I relax. Gravity still goes on, pulling us down. One day I’ll die, not because I’m old, but because I’m tired.”
“One of you gentlemen please place another pillow behind her,” said a Councilman. “Now, Mrs. Wilson, we are going to place this matter in the hands of our scientists. We want you to remain here.”
“But I have to go back. I’m needed in the factory.”
“They’ll make out, Mrs. Wilson.”
“But I know those machines, just as our men know their ships. I can make them produce. I’m valuable in the factory.”
“You are indeed, but we have another task for you.”
“But Alfred? He’ll—”
“Your husband is waiting for you in a ship which is almost ready to go out.”
“Out? But Alfred? He mustn’t ever fight again. You can’t make him do that. Send me instead. I promised him, but—send me in his place.”
“We are sending you both, Mrs.
Wilson. And I think it is proper to assure you that the tide has turned.”
“Oh!”
“Just a little more time. Just a little more work.”
“Oh!”
“For nearly two years the balance of strength has been swinging in our favor. We have purposely let ships through in the later years, but those that got inside the orbit of Uranus never got out again. The attrition has at last given us overwhelming strength, for we have produced.” The man paused. Sue sat numb. Another spoke: “We have been building up a Fifth Sector, part of it on Earth and part near Polaris. It has been the best kept secret of the age. But the Earthside part of it has been in action. It can no longer remain a secret. We are going to strike. We are going to lure the enemy in close and then envelope him. It will be much like the big strike which occurred nearly two years ago. But this time we will crush him. We have finally produced the new weapons.”
“Oh!”
“And now, if you are ready, the men will take you to the ship.”
SUE moved in a daze. Somewhere up the shaft toward the surface they changed to a car that ran horizontally on a rail. They came out, miles away, in a huge dome in the center of which was a converted warship.
In the ship she found Albert. He had his new arm and held her close for a long moment.
“I know the machines in the factories,” she said. “I’ve lived with them most of my life, but I won’t know how to operate the weapons. You’ll have to show me.”
“Huh?”
“You’ll have to show me how to fight, Al. I’ve thought about it, but I just can’t understand it.”
“Fight? Sue the fighting is almost over. I couldn’t tell you. It’s been a secret. The last battle is in the making now. You can’t even dream of the forces we’ve assembled. They can jolt planets out of their orbits, burst suns. This is the beginning of the future I’ve wanted to tell you about.”
“I’ll do my best, Al. I’ll try—”
“Sue, look at me. You’re not going to fight. Neither am I. This ship is going into an orbit about the planet.”
“The lower ring, the last one before the ground defenses?”
“No, Sue. Open your mind just a moment and let me see inside you.”
“Hold me.”
Finally he understood and explained: “This ship is to go into an orbit to nullify gravity. Science doesn’t have to depend on trial and error. They can calculate a thing mathematically and predict the results. They worked out your idea that gravity is what breaks down the cells. The answer is that the body will not age so long as it replaces its cells and gets rid of its old ones. To free the body of gravity will slow down the cellular breakdown. In ten years you won’t age as much as you would in one in a field of “gravity. Is it clear?”
“Will that postpone the change of life?”
“Medical science is certain that it will. It devolves upon aging.”
“Does that mean that I’ll—”
“It does, Sue. It means that about fifty years from now when the sperm revives in men, you women will have children again.”
“But Al, we’ll be—”
“No, Sue. Well feel and look about as we ordinarily would in our twenties. And thousands, millions of ships, will soon be released to be converted. A whole populace will live in ships—at least until children begin being born.”
“Will we—”
“Yes, Sue. We’ll have a few ounces of weight in the orbit. Our cells will more than replace themselves. We’ll adjust to it, carry along hydroponic plants and everything we need. We’ll be strong and vigorous, with nothing much to do but study, work out new things in the arts and sciences, and—”
“And what. Al?”
“Make love.”
“Oh!” she said. “Deep inside me I’ve always believed in that bright future. I was trying to remember that each tomorrow would bring it closer.”
“The big job is almost done, Sue. Let’s keep on remembering tomorrow.”
“Hold me close, Al.”
THE END
Fishers of Men
“Were stronger than men in some ways,” Jean Lee told Cyleen, “we have more endurance in the long run. But we can’t face death and deadly danger alone, the way they can.” It didn’t make sense to Cyleen until she found herself alone as no other woman had ever been . . .
CYLEEN MOXBY caught her breath, pressed her tall, stately figure against the bulkhead. She had never before seen Holby Gradwell looking as though he had just taken one in the solar-plexus, and she had been with the troupe a year Earthtime, come November.
Gradwell staggered past her blindly, pudgy jaw slack, narrow shoulders hunched forward. Even his paunch seemed to have shrunken and slipped an inch lower; his face was ghastly.
Cyleen stared after him, blue eyes worried, smooth brow trying to crinkle. She brushed a wisp of blonde hair back from her eyes, swung about on high heels which made her nearly six feet tall, and hurried to the lounge.
Except for Jean Lee Misha the lounge was vacant. Jean Lee looked puzzled but not worried. She was alternately sipping from a glass, puffing on a cigaret and blowing smoke-rings. She rolled her black eyes from the direction of the port, looked at Cyleen.
“What’s up?” Cyleen asked huskily. “Gradwell sick?”
Jean Lee sat forward in the plush chair. “How do I know?” She lifted plump shoulders and let them fall. “If he is, every male aboard ship is sick.”
“Space-sickness?”
Jean Lee frowned. “No, dearie. We’re not hopping about the cosmos with a bunch of jive-jerries who get butterfly bellies every time we alter course. You know better than that.”
“Then what?”
“Look, honey: men get upset about things that don’t bother us. We’re tougher than men, but they don’t know it. If they think something is wrong, they’re not going to tell us; they don’t want to frighten us. They’ve got some deep-rooted instinct which makes them want to protect you and me and every female aboard. It’s just the way men are. And take it from me, honey, you’d better go along with the idea. If men didn’t feel that way about women
, we wouldn’t be worth a snap of my fingers.”
“But I don’t understand,” Cyleen persisted. “Gradwell almost walked over me. He looked stunned; I don’t think he even saw me.”
Jean Lee shrugged. “Go ask your Jack Roland. Maybe you can make him talk.”
Color rose in Cyleen’s pale cheeks. “You know he isn’t my Jack Roland.”
“You’re crazy about the big brute.”
“I admire him. So does every other girl in the troupe. And the men, too.
Who wouldn’t? He’s got everything.”
“Except money,” Jean Lee corrected.
Cyleen bristled. “If he had money to carry on his experiments, he wouldn’t be with this troupe. He’s not a natural actor; he’s a scientist.”
Jean Lee smirked. “You said it, sister; he isn’t an actor at all. He just can’t make believe. If he wasn’t so big and handsome he wouldn’t be with the troupe.”
Cyleen turned away. She found Jack Roland in the chart room.
“Jack,” she said, “what’s up?”
He turned slowly, lines showing in his strong features. “Nothing much,” he said. “Everything’s going to be all right.”
“Jack!” Cyleen studied what she could see of his brown eyes behind half-closed lids. “Jack, what is it? You frighten me. I’ve never seen you look like this before. You look—I describe it—older, worried or something.”
“Indigestion, maybe,” he said evenly. “Don’t worry about it.”
“Mr. Gradwell, and now you.” Cyleen’s cheeks twitched. “Jack, you never pretend, and I’ve never known you to lie; tell me what you men are keeping from us.”
Roland leaned against the table. “This thing isn’t for girls,” he said. “You let us work it out. And the less you bother us the more chance we’ll have.”
“But Jack, can’t you tell me? Maybe I could help!”
Roland’s full lips clamped tight, and his eyes blinked impatiently. “Please don’t ask any more questions,” he said, and turned back to the charts.
CYLEEN drew back, swallowed. She turned slowly, glanced back once. She caught a glimpse of Benson, chief pilot, staggering along the passage. She hurried after him.
“Mr. Benson,” she said, clutching his arm, “what’s happened?”
Benson shrugged her off. “I’ve got a wife aboard,” he said bitterly; “she’s all the pestering I can stand. If you girls in the troupe don’t lay off me, I’m going to complain to the captain and get you confined to quarters.”
“Has something gone wrong with the engines?” Cyleen persisted.
“No. Nothing has gone wrong with the ship. And we don’t call them engines; we call them reactors. All you girls have been around enough to know what the score is on a spaceship. Be your age; let me alone.”
“Are we off-course, or anything?”
“No, we’re not off-course. We’re on it, and it looks as though we’re going to stay on it—maybe forever.”
“Huh? You mean, we’re in a warp or something, and just going right on and on through space?”
“No!” Benson said sharply. “We’re not in a warp. If you’ll go up to the observatory you can switch on the telescope and see our destination less than a quarter parsec away.”
“Then we’ll soon be there?”
“We will not. Uh, excuse me . . . I’m not supposed to tell you that. Don’t mention it to the captain, please.”
“Of course not. But what’s happened?”
“Why don’t you go and stay with the other girls?” Benson reasoned. “Some of them are fixing things for a party, I understand. Why don’t you go and help?”
“But I’ve got to know what it’s all about,” Cyleen insisted. “I’m frightened. Something terrible must have happened, or you men wouldn’t be like this.”
Benson placed a hand on her shoulder. “Don’t spread any talk like that among the women,” he warned. “We’ve got enough trouble now.”
“But what can it possibly be? If the ship is all right and we’re moving all right, and—”
“We aren’t.”
“You mean, we’ve stopped?”
Benson shrugged. “Promise you won’t ask any more questions, and I’ll answer that.”
“I won’t ask any more right now.”
“All right. Everything indicates that we’re moving at three-quarter speed, but we’re not getting any nearer to our destination, and we’re not getting any farther away from the stars behind us.”
“Then the stars and planets are moving with us?”
“No. They are not moving different from what they ordinarily do. But we are moving, fast, and we’re not getting anywhere.”
“What happens when you try to go the other way?”
Benson frowned. “You promised you wouldn’t ask any more questions.”
“I’m sorry.”
“That’s all right. The fact is, we have stopped and reversed and turned. We still don’t get anywhere.”
“But if that’s all it is,” Cyleen said sweetly, “I’m sure you men wall figure it out in no time at all. I don’t see what everybody is so worried about.”
Benson nodded. “If that was all, we would already have figured it.” He strode away, called back over his shoulder: “Don’t start any wild talk among the women. Nothing is going to happen to you as long as men are alive in the ship to prevent it.”
Cyleen was pondering this when Jean Lee came up behind her. “So he gave you that story about being stalled in space, did he?”
Cyleen eyed the shorter girl. “He’s telling the truth, of course; but there’s something worse, much worse.”
Jean Lee nodded. “Of course. But honey, you’re not helping the men by. nagging for information. Take it from an old trouper who remembers the first skycan to get out beyond the orbit of Mars: something big and pretty frightful has happened. The men are working themselves to death trying to figure some way to get us women out of whatever it is. They don’t expect to come out of it alive themselves. I know men, honey, and I’m telling you this because I want you to let them alone.”
“But why couldn’t they tell us and let us share it?”
“Look, honey!” Jean Lee linked an arm through Cyleen’s and led her to a rightangle passage with a port at the end of it. “One time back on Earth I left the stage for a while. I married and had a daughter. My husband was an adventurous man, but he settled down on my account, and made only an occasional trip to Venus or Mars. We made a lot of short hops around the surface of Earth.”
JEAN LEE paused dreamily. Cyleen waited, watched the dreamy look change to one of pain.
“One day we had an accident,” Jean Lee went on. “Just my husband, my daughter, and I in the ship. It was an atmosphere-craft and something fouled one wing; it went out of control. My husband got my daughter and I into parachute harness, actually threw us out of the ship. Then I remembered there had not been but two parachutes aboard to begin with. My husband knew. He knew it when he strapped the harness on us.”
Jean Lee hesitated, blew her nose, wiped her eyes.
“When we got down,” she added, “and I got to the wreck, there were men all around it. They tried to keep me back. They didn’t know I just had to see Arthur one more time; they did know what the sight would do to me. They must have known someway that, in the future, I would wake night after night screaming at the sight of Arthur all twisted and broken, his insides torn out.”
Cyleen experienced momentary dizziness.
“I’m sorry, honey. You’re pale as a ghost; I thought you could take it better than that. Anyway, you see what I’m trying to make you understand. If those men had had their way, I’d gone on seeing Arthur alive and strong and brave, and so determined and positive in his last effort as he flung us from the ship. You understand?” Cyleen nodded weakly.
“So if these men here won’t tell you something,” Jean Lee said, “it’s probably something you can’t take any better than I took seeing Arthur all broken. The
best thing for every woman aboard is to have a lot of understanding, to be patient, and do everything in their power to help the men any way they can.”
“And just a little while ago you were telling me how tough we women are,” Cyleen argued; “you said we were tougher than men.”
“We are in the long run,” Jean Lee reasoned; “we have more endurance. But when I saw Arthur last I went into hysteria. Men are different.”
“I know, but I don’t understand.”
“It’s this way, Cyleen: men don’t mind danger to themselves. They face it and get a thrill out of it. But there is something deeply ingrained, maybe an instinct to keep the race alive, that makes them want to shelter women from danger.”
“Not all men. Some are brutes.”
“You are thinking of some of those you see across the footlights—the playboys, the irresponsible, the immature—and you’re thinking of the situations that develop in lovenests, in drinking-bouts, and in the more sordid side of life. You’re not thinking about real men at their best. Honey, don’t ever underestimate real men.”
“But couldn’t we do something?”
“Yes. We could take some coffee round. I imagine your Jack Roland would like a cup, maybe with a touch of brandy in it.”
“He drinks scotch when he drinks,” Cyleen said quickly.
Jean Lee smiled. “Know all about him, don’t you? Well, take him some scotch.”
Cyleen felt self-conscious about carrying a drink to the chart-room, especially for someone else. It would have seemed natural, she knew, to carry her own drink there and then offer to share it with anyone present. She slowed her steps as she approached the entrance.
The voice of Jamill, astrogator, reached her ears: “It’s so confined, sir, it can’t be but one thing.”
Cyleen paused.
“And that?” It was the captain’s deep voice.
“They are rolling a small segment of space, sir.” It was the astrogator again. “We alter our course; the roll changes with us. We use full grav-compen and try to reverse our flight; the grain of the roll reverses. It’s just like being inside a hollow sphere which is floating free—or maybe a better illustration would be a treadmill. Everything to indicate we’re moving, but we don’t move.”