The 13th Science Fiction MEGAPACK®: 26 Great SF Stories!

by Lake, Jay

He had read of the personality-splits that sometimes occurred when there was an acute conflict between the Puritan and satyr, or the good and evil, components of the psyche. But never having previously run across a real-life example he had failed to tumble to the truth when he had entered Burns’s birthplace cottage and seen Smith sitting at the table.

  When such splits occurred, the stronger component took over completely and the weaker component was exiled to the country of the mind. In Blake’s case, the Puritan component had been the stronger, and the satyr component the weaker. Hence the latter had had to go. Smith, therefore, was but another aspect of himself—a flesh-and-blood alter ego who was overplaying his role in an attempt to force Blake into a response that would make the two of them one again.

  Knowing who Smith was supplied Blake with the answer to who Sabrina York was.

  Unconsciously he had been aware all along of Smith’s presence in the English park image. When he discovered that Deirdre had entered his mind he had been so utterly horrified over the prospect of her running into his depraved alter ego that he had unconsciously concealed her presence from himself by supplying her with a fictitious identity. She had deliberately ransacked the little office and left her handkerchief behind in the process in order to apprise him of her whereabouts and to induce him to follow her, but he had rejected the initials “D. E.” on her handkerchief and substituted the initials of the first name that came into his mind—Sabrina York. Next he had needed a logical reason to go after her and bring her back. His profession had supplied part of it, and his father-complex had supplied the other.

  In entering his mind instead of going to New Earth, Deirdre had disobeyed him and thus, after a fashion, had symbolically destroyed him. Hence “Sabrina York” had become the murderer of her father, and Blake had set out in pursuit of her in his capacity as a psycheye. Deirdre had been careful to leave a clear trail, and the reason she had dropped her brooch was to assure him that he was on the right track.

  Smith was wiping his mouth and grinning at the same time. Now he advanced upon the girl again. Twenty years fell from Blake’s shoulders as he shoved the man aside. The column of Deirdre’s neck was strong and shapely. Her breasts were in full and virginal bloom. Who is she that looketh forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners? Hungrily Blake took her in his arms.

  When, a long time later, he released her, Smith had disappeared.

  * * * *

  The three Erinyes were standing forlornly in the street when Blake and Deirdre left the hut. The hatred had vanished from their faces and they were looking at each other as though they had just lost their last friend. Certainly they had lost their raison d’etre. Blake sighed. Having created them, he was responsible for their welfare. Now that they were unemployed it was up to him to do something about it.

  Deirdre was regarding them with wide eyes. “Eumenides yet!” she gasped. “Oh, Nate, if you aren’t the darndest!”

  Blushing, Blake took her arm and beckoned to the Erinyes to follow him. He led the way cross-country to the Walden Pond image. Thoreau was still sitting under the tall pine, gazing raptly up at the blurred bird. The sunlight was warm and benign. Blake almost wished he could remain there himself. He had always been partial to Walden Pond.

  He faced the three Erinyes.

  He left them planning their new way of life.

  Being human, he would probably have need of them again.

  TO SAVE EARTH, by Edward W. Ludwig

  Originally published in Worlds of Tomorrow, October 1963.

  For more than six years the silver rocket was like a tomb buried at the Earth’s center. It wore the blackness of interstellar space for a shroud, and ten thousand gleaming stars were as the eyes of hungry, waiting worms.

  Five of the inhabitants of the rocket moved like zombies, stone-faced and dull-eyed, numb even to their loneliness.

  The sixth inhabitant did not move at all. He sat silent and unseeing. The sixth inhabitant was mad.

  There had been times when all of them—mad and near-mad—had forgotten that they hurtled through space, that they were men and that they were growing old. Occasionally they had even forgotten that the destiny of mankind might lie in their hands like a fragile flower to be preserved or crushed.

  But now came a moment six years one month and five days after their departure from Earth. The sole planet of Sirius loomed green and blue in the ship’s magni-screen. The sight of the shining planet was like a heavenly trumpet call, a signal for resurrection.

  The inhabitants stirred, rubbed their eyes, and tried to exhume forgotten hopes and memories from the lethargy of their minds.…

  * * * *

  “What do you think?” asked Lieutenant Washington.

  Captain Jeffrey Torkel, gaunt-faced and gray, stiffened his lean body. At this moment all memory had left him, like a wind-tossed balloon leaping out of his skull.

  It’s happened again, he thought. I’ve forgotten. Oh God, why must I keep forgetting?

  “Tell me what you think, Captain,” said a balding, dark-skinned man clad in khakis.

  Captain Torkel stared at the blue-green, cloud-mottled image in the screen. Where was he? Certainly not in South Dakota. Certainly not on a field of golden, bristling wheat. No, he had the feeling that much time had passed since those boyhood days on the Dakota farm.

  He glanced at the strange man who had spoken to him. The balloon snapped back into his skull. Memory returned.

  At least it wasn’t gone for a week this time, he thought. Thank you, God.

  “You must be thinking something,” persisted the man who had become Lieutenant Washington.

  The captain rubbed his gray stubble of beard. “I guess I’m thinking that we’re afraid and bewildered. We’re not as full of strength and hope as saviors of the race should be. Sure, what we find here today will mean either life or death for the race. But the concept has been with us for too long. It’s already made us half-mad. And the same part of our minds is afraid to hope lest it be disappointed. After all, the planet might be radioactive or uninhabitable, or—”

  “But, Lord, Captain! Even with the sub-spatial drive it’s taken us six years to get here. If there’s a God who answers prayers, it’s got to be a good planet. Sirius has only one planet. This is the last chance left for the race. And look at it, Captain! The blue places must be water and the green must be land. It’s bigger than Earth, but it looks almost like it!”

  Captain Torkel nodded. “Whether it’s good or bad, we still can’t win, really. If it’s bad, humanity dies and we stay on the ship for the rest of our lives. If it’s good, we’ll still be on it for twelve more years—six years back to Earth and another six to return here.”

  Lieutenant Washington began to shake. “I don’t know if I could take twelve more years in space. Twelve years of eating and sleeping and playing chess in the silence and nothing but darkness outside, and trying to find a micro-movie we haven’t seen a hundred times—all that, over and over—” He closed his eyes. “I don’t think the others could take it either. They’d probably become like Kelly.”

  Kelly was the mad one.

  “We have no other choice, Lieutenant. If the planet’s habitable, we have to take the news back.”

  The lieutenant shuddered. “I—I need a drink,” he faltered. “I know. I said I wasn’t going to drink today. I’m not either. Not much. I want to be on my feet when we hit that planet. But—excuse me, Captain.”

  Captain Torkel watched the gaunt officer stride to the aft compartment. He suddenly realized that the lieutenant was bald. The top of his Negroid skull shone like a dark egg. When had that happened? Only a short time ago, it seemed, the lieutenant had been a young man with soft thick hair. Those six years did it, thought Captain Torkel, those six dark, silent, crazy years.

&n
bsp; * * * *

  The lieutenant returned a few seconds later, calmer now, reeking with the stench of laboratory alcohol spilled on his jacket.

  Captain Torkel, as always, pretended not to notice the stench.

  “Captain,” said Lieutenant Washington deeply.

  “Yes?”

  “Suppose the astrophysicists back on Earth were wrong. They said the sun would blow up in exactly twelve years, two months and fifteen days. How could they get it that close? Suppose this planet is habitable, suppose it could be a new home for humanity. And suppose we start back home with the news, and then the sun turns into a nova ahead of schedule—say, in twelve years, two months and three days, when we’re still a week away.”

  Captain Torkel swallowed hard. “We have to allow a margin for error, of course. But I don’t think those predictions will be off by more than a day or two. After all, they’ve been corroborated in all the broadcasts we’ve been able to pick up.”

  He smiled grimly. “So if the planet’s habitable, we have to start back to Earth almost at once. We can’t allow ourselves more than a day to rest and try to get the madness out of our systems.”

  “Oh, God,” murmured Lieutenant Washington, closing his eyes.

  “If we only had our transmitter,” Captain Torkel mused, “we could stay here. We wouldn’t have to—”

  “Damn him,” interrupted the lieutenant, opening his eyes and clenching his fists. “Damn him!”

  “Kelly?”

  “Kelly. Why did he do it, Captain? Why did he throw every piece of transmitting equipment over-board?”

  “Maybe a part of his mind hated Earth. Maybe unconsciously he didn’t want to save humanity. Kelly’s crazy. You can’t account for the actions of a crazy man.”

  Lieutenant Washington was shaking again. “And so we can’t radio Earth about what we find. If the planet’s good, we have to tell Earth the hard way—by traveling through space for six more years. Captain, I—I think I’m going to have to get a dr—”

  Footsteps sounded on the deck behind them. Van Gundy, the lean, hawk-nosed jetman, rushed up to them. He was breathing heavily and trembling.

  “Captain, Fox stole my harmonica!”

  Captain Torkel scowled. For a moment he forgot Van Gundy’s name and who the lean man was. Then he remembered.

  “Stole your harmonica. Why?”

  “He won’t tell me. He’s a thief, Captain. He’s always stealing things. You ought to—”

  “Tell him I said for him to give it back to you. Tell him I said that.”

  “Yes, sir.” Van Gundy clasped his trembling hands. “But that isn’t all, Captain. Garcia said if I got my harmonica back and kept playing it, he’d kill me.”

  “Oh, God. Tell Garcia I said he couldn’t.”

  “Yes, sir.” Van Gundy turned toward the aft compartment, then spun back, eyes blazing. “I won’t let ’em scare me, Captain. If they don’t leave me alone. I’ll kill them.”

  * * * *

  “The men are like rotting trees,” said Captain Torkel a few moments later, “and you can’t tell which way they’ll fall. Fox steals. Van Gundy is afraid of everything and everybody. Garcia keeps breaking things and threatening violence. Someday he’ll break a port, and that’ll be it. Finis.”

  Lieutenant Washington said, with a hiccough, “Too bad we didn’t insist on having a psychiatrist in the crew. Fox probably thinks he’s been cheated out of his youth, and unconsciously he’s trying to steal it back. Van Gundy has been knocked around so much that everything in the universe is a source of terror to him. Garcia breaks things.”

  He laughed sourly, blowing hot alcoholic breath into the captain’s face. “And me, I’m a dipso who’s no good to himself or anyone. You, Captain…sometimes I suspect that your memory isn’t quite what it use to be.”

  Captain Torkel scratched his stubbled chin. “Six psycho-specimens trying to save humanity. How did we become so detestable? Are all Earthmen like us?”

  “Don’t you remember?”

  “Remember?”

  “Yes. How when the U. N. announced about the blowup every interstellar rocket and spaceman in the System was commissioned to discover new worlds. Each ship was given a destination and an interstellar ether-radio to send back its findings. Mechanics and technicians still on Earth were put to work building new rockets to carry the race to its future home—if one were found. We and the Star Queen were at the bottom of the barrel. The oldest ship; the crew that ordinarily would have been grounded.”

  Captain Torkel murmured, “I remember. There were fourteen interstellar ships then. Six cracked up smashing through the Einstein Barrier, according to what we picked up on the ether receiver. The others reached their destinations and not one found a habitable world. And newer ships sent out later had no better luck. Now, all the nearest star systems have been reached, and there isn’t time for the ships to go on to other systems. By an ugly little prank of Fate, we’re Earth’s last chance.”

  He straightened. He pressed the warning buzzer and flicked on the rocket’s intercom.

  “All hands to their crash-chairs,” he intoned.

  II

  The crewmen appeared in the rear of the control room. Hesitantly, they approached the massive, semicircular control panel with its hundred flashing red and blue lights.

  Fox was in the lead.

  “Captain,” the small-boned, brown-bearded radarman said solemnly, “can we take a look before we belt down?”

  “A short one.”

  The men looked.

  Fox seemed ready to kiss the image of the planet. Van Gundy, wide-eyed, trembled before it as if at any instant it might destroy him. Garcia, the swarthy engineer, glowered at it as though threatening to crush it like an eggshell.

  “I want Kelly to see this,” said Fox. He hurried aft, nervously stroking his beard.

  An instant later he returned, leading the former radioman by the hand. Kelly’s soft blue eyes stared vacantly out of a pink, cherubic face. He was as plump as a dumpling, and his hair was as red as prairie fire. His short body moved woodenly.

  “Come on, Kelly,” said Fox. “You got to see this. Nobody’s going to stop you from seeing this, by God.”

  The fire-haired man stood before the magni-screen.

  Fox pointed. “See it?”

  Kelly stared.

  “He can’t see it,” rumbled Garcia. “He’s crazy.”

  “Not too crazy to see this,” Fox retorted.

  Kelly’s head bent forward. His lip quivered. “Home,” he mumbled.

  Fox jerked, eyes widening. “Hey, Kelly spoke! Did you hear that? He spoke! First time in two years!”

  “Home,” Kelly mumbled again.

  “No, not home,” Fox explained. “It’s the only planet of Sirius.”

  “Hell,” said Garcia, “if it’ll make him happier, let him think it’s Earth.”

  “No, it’s the only planet of—”

  “We can’t be saying ‘the only planet of Sirius’ all the time. We got to give it a name.”

  “Home,” mumbled the madman.

  “What kind of a name would that be?” growled Garcia.

  Captain Torkel said, patiently, “Kelly didn’t mean that for a name. He was just saying the word.”

  Fox cried, “Let’s name it after Kelly. Kelly’s Planet!”

  Van Gundy stepped forward. He was trembling. His trembling seemed as much a part of him as sight in his eyes. “No,” he said.

  “Why not?” snapped Fox.

  “Because of what he did. He took the transmitter and—”

  “We know all that. He couldn’t help it. He’s a schizophrenic. That doesn’t mean we can’t name a world after him, does it?”

  Garcia balled his ha
nds into fists. “Fox is right. I say we call it Kelly’s Planet. How about it, Captain?”

  “It’s all right with me,” said the captain.

  “Then Kelly’s Planet it is!” cried Fox.

  “Strap down,” Captain Torkel said. “This is it. We’re going to land.”

  Then he said the words again in his mind: This is it. This is the world that will give death or life to humanity, madness or sanity to us.

  * * * *

  The midnight blackness of space dissolved into gentle twilight as the Star Queen slid into the atmosphere of Kelly’s Planet. The grumble of the jets became audible and then swelled until it was like a rebirth of the thunderous sound of an April takeoff more than six years ago.

  Captain Torkel switched on the second layer of bow jets, braced himself in his crash-chair. Despite the effects of the deceleration compensator, his face was swollen and distorted. It was as if the soul was bubbling out of his body.

  He realized that he should have commenced deceleration some ninety minutes ago. But he had forgotten.

  The image of the planet broadened in the magni-screen. It filled the screen, then seemed to spill out of it. Captain Torkel beheld an expanse of blue which, in a silent explosion, was transformed into the cerulean calm of a sea. The blue was swept away. The brownish gold of mountains stabbed briefly upward, faded into the shadowy green of rushing forest. Then came the glassy green of a meadow.

  The Star Queen paused, shaking with vibration. Its nose arched upward.

  The Star Queen landed with an almost imperceptible thump. The atomic engines spluttered, coughed, died. The men unbuckled themselves, tested their limbs, slid off their chairs. They moved to the portholes like frightened old men treading on slippery ice.

  They looked out.

  * * * *

  They stared for a long moment. “I don’t believe it,” said Fox at last. “It’s a mirage. We’re still in space.”