by Fritz Leiber
FOURTH MAN: (Newly named Alaric Arkalion III) I look forward to this as a stimulating adventure. Does the fact that they select men for the Nowhere Journey once every seven hundred and eighty days strike anyone as significant?
SECOND MAN: I got my own problems.
ALARIC ARKALION: This is not a thalamic problem, young man. Not thalamic at all.
THIRD MAN: Young man? Who are you kidding?
ALARIC ARKALION: (Who realizes, thanks to the plastic surgeon, he is the youngest looking of all, with red cheeks and peachfuzz whiskers) It is a problem of the intellect. Why seven hundred and eighty days?
FIRST MAN: I read the magazine, too, chief. You think we’re all going to the planet Mars. How original.
ALARIC ARKALION: As a matter of fact, that is exactly what I think.
SECOND MAN: Mars?
FIRST MAN: (Laughing) It’s a long way from Mars to City Hall, doc.
SECOND MAN: You mean, through space to Mars?
ALARIC ARKALION: Exactly, exactly. Quite a coincidence, otherwise.
FIRST MAN: You’re telling me.
ALARIC ARKALION: (Coldly) Would you care to explain it?
FIRST MAN: Why, sure. You see, Mars is—uh, I don’t want to steal your thunder, chief. Go ahead.
ALARIC ARKALION: Once every seven hundred and eighty days Mars and the Earth find themselves in the same orbital position with respect to the sun. In other words, Mars and Earth are closest then. Were there such a thing as space travel, new, costly, not thoroughly tested, they would want to make each journey as brief as possible. Hence the seven hundred and eighty days.
FIRST MAN: Not bad, chief. You got most of it.
THIRD MAN: No one ever said anything about space travel.
FIRST MAN: You think we’d broadcast it or something, stupid? It’s part of a big, important scientific experiment, only we’re the hamsters.
ALARIC ARKALION: Ridiculous. You’re forgetting all about the Cold War.
FIRST MAN: He thinks we’re fighting a war with the Martians. (Laughs) Orson Wells stuff, huh?
ALARIC ARKALION: With the Russians. The Russians. We developed A bombs. They developed A bombs. We came up with the H bomb. So did they. We placed a station up in space, a fifth of the way to the moon. So did they. Then—nothing more about scientific developments. For over twenty years. I ask you, doesn’t it seem peculiar?
FIRST MAN: Peculiar, he says.
ALARIC ARKALION: Peculiar.
SECOND MAN: I wish my Congressman.…
FIRST MAN: You and your Congressman. The way you talk, it was your vote got him in office.
SECOND MAN: If only I could get out and talk to him.
ALARIC ARKALION: No one is permitted to leave.
FIRST MAN: Punishable by a prison term, the law says.
SECOND MAN: Oh yeah? Prison, shmision. Or else go on the Nowhere Journey. Well, I don’t see the difference.
FIRST MAN: So, go ahead. Try to escape.
SECOND MAN: (Looking at the guards) They got them all over. All over. I think our mail is censored.
ALARIC ARKALION: It is.
SECOND MAN: They better watch out. I’m losing my temper. I get violent when I lose my temper.
FIRST MAN: See? See how the guards are trembling.
SECOND MAN: Very funny. Maybe you didn’t have a good job or something? Maybe you don’t care. I care. I had a job with a future. Didn’t pay much, but a real blue chip future. So they send me to Nowhere.
FIRST MAN: You’re not there yet.
SECOND MAN: Yeah, but I’m going.
THIRD MAN: If only they let you know when. My back is killing me. I’m waiting to pull a sick act. Just waiting, that’s all.
FIRST MAN: Go ahead and wait, a lot of good it will do you.
THIRD MAN: You mind your own business.
FIRST MAN: I am, doc. You brought the whole thing up.
SECOND MAN: He’s looking for trouble.
THIRD MAN: He’ll get it.
ALARIC ARKALION: We’re going to be together a long time. A long time. Why don’t you all relax?
SECOND MAN: You mind your own business.
FIRST MAN: Nuts, aren’t they. They’re nuts. A sick act, yet.
SECOND MAN: Look how it doesn’t bother him. A failure, he was. I can just see it. What does he care if he goes away forever and doesn’t come back? One bread line is as good as another.
FIRST MAN: Ha-ha.
SECOND MAN: Yeah, well I mean it. Forever. We’re going away, someplace—forever. We’re not coming back, ever. No one comes back. It’s for good, for keeps.
FIRST MAN: Tell it to your congressman. Or maybe you want to pull a sick act, too?
THIRD MAN: (Hits First Man, who, surprised, crashes back against a table and falls down) It isn’t an act, damn you!
GUARD: All right, break it up. Come on, break it up.…
ALARIC ARKALION: (To himself) I wish I saw that ten million dollars already—if I ever get to see it.
* * * *
They drove for hours through the fresh country air, feeling the wind against their faces, listening to the roar their ground-jet made, all alone on the rimrock highway.
“Where are we going, Kit?”
“Search me. Just driving.”
“I’m glad they let you come out this once. I don’t know what they would have done to me if they didn’t. I had to see you this once. I—”
Temple smiled. He had absented himself without leave. It had been difficult enough and he might yet be in a lot of hot water, but it would be senseless to worry Stephanie. “It’s just for a few hours,” he said.
“Hours. When we want a whole lifetime. Kit. Oh, Kit—why don’t we run away? Just the two of us, someplace where they’ll never find you. I could be packed and ready and—”
“Don’t talk like that. We can’t.”
“You want to go where they’re sending you. You want to go.”
“For God’s sake, how can you talk like that? I don’t want to go anyplace, except with you. But we can’t run away, Steffy. I’ve got to face it, whatever it is.”
“No you don’t. It’s noble to be patriotic, sure. It always was. But this is different, Kit. They don’t ask for part of your life. Not for two years, or three, or a gamble because maybe you won’t ever come back. They ask for all of you, for the rest of your life, forever, and they don’t even tell you why. Kit, don’t go! We’ll hide someplace and get married and—”
“And nothing.” Temple stopped the ground-jet, climbed out, opened the door for Stephanie. “Don’t you see? There’s no place to hide. Wherever you go, they’d look. You wouldn’t want to spend the rest of your life running, Steffy. Not with me or anyone else.”
“I would. I would!”
“Know what would happen after a few years? We’d hate each other. You’d look at me and say ‘I wouldn’t be hiding like this, except for you. I’m young and—’”
“Kit, that’s cruel! I would not.”
“Yes, you would. Steffy, I—” A lump rose in his throat. He’d tell her goodbye, permanently. He had to do it that way, did not want her to wait endlessly and hopelessly for a return that would not materialize. “I didn’t get permission to leave, Steffy.” He hadn’t meant to tell her that, but suddenly it seemed an easy way to break into goodbye.
“What do you mean? No—you didn’t.…”
“I had to see you. What can they do, send me for longer than forever?”
“Then you do want to run away with me!”
“Steffy, no. When I leave you tonight, Steffy, it’s for good. That’s it. The last of Kit Temple. Stop thinking about me. I don’t exist. I—never was.” It sounded ridiculous, even to him.
“Kit
, I love you. I love you. How can I forget you?”
“It’s happened before. It will happen again.” That hurt, too. He was talking about a couple of statistics, not about himself and Stephanie.
“We’re different, Kit. I’ll love you forever. And—Kit… I know you’ll come back to me. I’ll wait, Kit. We’re different. You’ll come back.”
“How many people do you think said that before?”
“You don’t want to come back, even if you could. You’re not thinking of us at all. You’re thinking of your brother.”
“You know that isn’t true. Sometimes I wonder about Jase, sure. But if I thought there was a chance to return—I’m a selfish cuss, Steffy. If I thought there was a chance, you know I’d want you all for myself. I’d brand you, and that’s the truth.”
“You do love me!”
“I loved you, Steffy. Kit Temple loved you.”
“Loved?”
“Loved. Past tense. When I leave tonight, it’s as if I don’t exist anymore. As if I never existed. It’s got to be that way, Steffy. In thirty years, no one ever returned.”
“Including your brother, Jase. So now you want to find him. What do I count for? What.…”
“This going wasn’t my idea. I wanted to stay with you. I wanted to marry you. I can’t now. None of it. Forget me, Steffy. Forget you ever knew me. Jase said that to our folks before he was taken.” Almost five years before Jason Temple had been selected for the Nowhere Journey. He’d been young, though older than his brother Kit. Young, unattached, almost cheerful he was. Naturally, they never saw him again.
“Hold me, Kit. I’m sorry…carrying on like this.”
They had walked some distance from the ground-jet, through scrub oak and bramble bushes. They found a clearing, fragrant-scented, soft-floored still from last autumn, melodic with the chirping of nameless birds. They sat, not talking. Stephanie wore a gay summer dress, full-skirted, cut deep beneath the throat. She swayed toward him from the waist, nestled her head on his shoulder. He could smell the soft, sweet fragrance of her hair, of the skin at the nape of her neck. “If you want to say goodbye…” she said.
“Stop it,” he told her.
“If you want to say goodbye.…”
Her head rolled against his chest. She turned, cradled herself in his arms, smiled up at him, squirmed some more and had her head pillowed on his lap. She smiled tremulously, misty-eyed. Her lips parted.
He bent and kissed her, knowing it was all wrong. This was not goodbye, not the way he wanted it. Quickly, definitely, for once and all. With a tear, perhaps, a lot of tears. But permanent goodbye. This was all wrong. The whole idea was to be business-like, objective. It had to be done that way, or no way at all. Briefly, he regretted leaving the encampment.
This wasn’t goodbye the way he wanted it. The way it had to be. This was auf weidersen.
And then he forgot everything but Stephanie.…
* * * *
“I am Alaric Arkalion III,” said the extremely young-looking man with the old, wise eyes.
How incongruous, Temple thought. The eyes look almost middle-aged. The rest of him—a boy.
“Something tells me we’ll be seeing a lot of each other,” Arkalion went on. The voice was that of an older man, too, belying the youthful complexion, the almost childish features, the soft fuzz of a beard.
“I’m Kit Temple,” said Temple, extending his hand. “Arkalion, a strange name. I know it from somewhere.… Say! Aren’t you—don’t you have something to do with carpets or something?”
“Here and now, no. I am a number. A-92-6417. But my father is—perhaps I had better say was—my father is Alaric Arkalion II. Yes, that is right, the carpet king.”
“I’ll be darned,” said Temple.
“Why?”
“Well,” Temple laughed. “I never met a billionaire before.”
“Here I am not a billionaire, nor will I ever be one again. A-92-6417, a number. On his way to Mars with a bunch of other numbers.”
“Mars? You sound sure of yourself.”
“Reasonably. Ah, it is a pleasure to talk with a gentleman. I am reasonably certain it will be Mars.”
Temple nodded in agreement. “That’s what the Sunday supplements say, all right.”
“And doubtless you have observed no one denies it.”
“But what on Earth do we want on Mars?”
“That in itself is a contradiction,” laughed Arkalion. “We’ll find out, though, Temple.”
They had reached the head of the line, found themselves entering a huge, double-decker jet-transport. They found two seats together, followed the instructions printed at the head of the aisle by strapping themselves in and not smoking. Talking all around them was subdued.
“Contrariness has given way to fear,” Arkalion observed. “You should have seen them the last few days, waiting around the induction center, a two-ton chip on each shoulder. Say, where were you?”
“I—what do you mean?”
“I didn’t see you until last evening. Suddenly, you were here.”
“Did anyone else miss me?”
“But I remember you the first day.”
“Did anyone else miss me? Any of the officials?”
“No. Not that I know of.”
“Then I was here,” Temple said, very seriously.
Arkalion smiled. “By George, of course. Then you were here. Temple, we’ll get along fine.”
Temple said that was swell.
“Anyway, we’d better. Forever is a long time.”
Three minutes later, the jet took off and soared on eager wings toward the setting sun.
* * * *
“Men, since we are leaving here in a few hours and since there is no way to get out of the encampment and no place to go over the desert even if you could,” the microphone in the great, empty hall boomed as the two files of men marched in, “there is no harm in telling you where you are. From this point, in a limited sense, you shall be kept abreast of your progress.
“We are in White Sands, New Mexico.”
“The Garden Spot of the Universe!” someone shouted derisively, remembering the bleak hot desert and jagged mountain peaks as they came down.
“White Sands,” muttered Arkalion. “It looks like space travel now, doesn’t it, Kit.”
Temple shrugged. “Why?”
“White Sands was the center of experiments in rocketry decades ago, when people still talked about those things. Then, for a long time, no one heard anything about White Sands. The rockets grew here, Kit.”
“I can readily see why. You could look all your life without finding a barren spot like this.”
“Precisely. Someone once called this place—or was it some other place like it?—someone once called it a good place to throw old razor blades. If people still used razor blades.”
The microphone blared again, after the several hundred men had entered the great hall and milled about among the echoes. Temple could picture other halls like this, other briefings. “Men, whenever you are given instructions, in here or elsewhere, obey them instantly. Our job is a big one, complicated and exacting. Attention to detail will save us trouble.”
Someone said, “My old man served a hitch in the army, back in the sixties. That’s what he always said, attention to details. The army is crazy about things like that. Are we in the army or something?”
“This is not the army, but the function is similar,” barked the microphone. “Do as you are told and you will get along.”
Stirrings in the crowd. Mutterings. Temple gaped. Microphone, yes—but receivers also, placed strategically, all around the hall, to pick up sound. Telio receivers too, perhaps? It made him feel something like a goldfish.
Apparently someone
liked the idea of the two-way microphones. “I got a question. When are we coming back?”
Laughter. Hooting. Catcalls.
Blared the microphone: “There is a rotation system in operation, men. When it is feasible, men will be rotated.”
“Yeah, in thirty years it ain’t been whatsiz—feasible—once!”
“That, unfortunately, is correct. When the situation permits, we will rotate you home.”
“From where? Where are we going?”
“At least tell us that.”
“Where?”
“How about that?”
There was a pause, then the microphone barked: “I don’t know the answer to that question. You won’t believe me, but it is the truth. No one knows where you are going. No one. Except the people who are already there.”
More catcalls.
“That doesn’t make sense,” Arkalion whispered. “If it’s space travel, the pilots would know, wouldn’t they?”
“Automatic?” Temple suggested.
“I doubt it. Space travel must still be new, even if it has thirty years under its belt. If that man speaks the truth—if no one knows…just where in the universe are we going?”
CHAPTER III
“Hey, looka me. I’m flying!”
“Will you get your big fat feet out of my face?”
“Sure. Show me how to swim away through air, I’ll be glad to.”
“Leggo that spoon!”
“I ain’t got your spoon.”
“Will you look at it float away. Hey spoon, hey!”
“Watch this, Charlie. This will get you. I mean, get you.”
“What are you gonna do?”
“Relax, chum.”
“Leggo my leg. Help! I’m up in the air. Stop that.”
“I said relax. There. Ha-ha, lookit him spin, just like a top. All you got to do is get him started and he spins like a top with arms and legs. Top of the morning to you, Charlie. Ha-ha. I said, top of the.…”
“Someone stop me, I’m getting dizzy.”
They floated, tumbled, spun around the spaceship’s lounge room in simple, childish glee. They cavorted in festive weightlessness.