by Fritz Leiber
“I’m glad,” said Jason. “Can’t expect a girl to wait without hope.…”
“Then there’s no hope we’ll ever get back?”
Jason laughed harshly. “You tell me. Earth isn’t merely sixty thousand light years away. Kit, do you know what a light year is?”
Temple said he thought he did.
“Sixty thousand of them. A dozen eternities. But the Earth we know is also dead. Dead five thousand years. The folks, Center City, Ann, her husband—all dust. Five thousand years old.… Don’t mind me, Kit.”
“Sure. Sure, I understand.” But Temple didn’t, not really. You couldn’t take five thousand years and chuck them out the window in what seemed the space of a heart beat and then realize they were gone permanently, forever. Not a period of time as long as all of recorded civilization—you couldn’t take it, tack it on after 1992 and accept it. Somehow, Temple realized, the five thousand years were harder to swallow than the sixty thousand light years.
“Well,” with a visible effort, Jason snapped out of his reverie. Temple accepted a cigarette gratefully, his first in a long time. In fifty centuries, he thought bitterly, burrowing deeper into a funk.
“Well,” said Jason, “I’m acting like a prize boob. How selfish can I get? There must be an awful lot you’d like to know, Kit.”
“That’s all right. I was told I’d be indoctrinated.”
“Ordinarily, you would. But there’s no shipment now, none for another three months. Say, how the devil did you get here?”
“That’s a long story. Nowhere Journey, same as you, with a little assist to speed things up on Mars. Jase, tell me this: what are we doing here? What is everyone doing here? What’s the Nowhere Journey all about? What kind of a glorified foot-race did I see a while ago, with a bunch of creatures out of the telio science-fiction shows?”
Jason put his own cigarette out, changed his mind, lit another one. “Sort of like the old joke, where does an alien go to register?”
“Sort of.”
“It’s a big universe,” said Jason, evidently starting at the beginning of something.
“I’m just beginning to learn how big!”
“It would be pretty unimaginative of mankind to consider itself the only sentient form of life, Earth the only home of intelligence, both from a scientific and a religious point of view. We kind of expected to find—neighbors out in space. Kit, the sky is full of stars, most stars have planets. The universe crawls with life, all sorts of life, all sorts of intelligent life. In short, we are not alone. It would be sort of like taking the jet-shuttle from Washington to New York during the evening rush and expecting to be the only one aboard. In reality, you’re lucky to get breathing space.
“There are biped intelligences, like humans. There are radial intelligences, one-legged species, tall, gangling creatures, squat ones, pancake ones, giants, dwarfs. There are green skins and pink skins and coal black—and yes, no skins. There are…but you get the idea.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Strangely enough, most of these intelligences are on about the same developmental level. It’s as if the Creator turned everything on at once, like a race, and said ‘okay, guys get started.’ Maybe it’s because, as scientists figure, the whole universe got wound up and started working as a unit. I don’t know. Anyway, that’s the way it is. All the intelligences worth talking about are on about the same cultural level. Atomics, crude spaceflight, wars they can’t handle.
“And this is interesting, Kit. Most of ’em are bipedal. Not really human, not fully human. You can see the difference. But seventy-five percent of the races I’ve encountered have had basic similarities. A case of the Creator trying to figure out the best of all possible life-patterns and coming up with this one. Offers a wide range for action, for adaptation, stuff like that. Anyway, I’m losing track of things.”
“Take it easy. From what you tell me I have all the time in the world.”
“Well, I said all the races are developmentally parallel. That’s almost true. One of them is not. One of them is so far ahead that the rest of us have hardly reached the crawling stage by comparison. One of them is the Super Race, Kit.
“Their culture is old, incredibly old. So old, in fact, that some of us figure it’s been hanging around since before the Universe took shape. Maybe that’s why all the others are on one level, a few thousand million years behind the Super Race.
“So, take this Super Race. For some reason we can’t understand, it seems to be on the skids. That’s just figurative. Maybe it’s dying out, maybe it wants to pack up and leave the galaxy altogether, maybe it’s got other undreamed of business other undreamed of places. Anyway, it wants out. But it’s got an eon-old storehouse of culture and maybe it figures someone ought to have access to that and keep the galaxy in running order. But who? That’s the problem. Who gets all this information, a million million generations of scientific problems, all carefully worked out? Who, among all the parallel races on all the worlds of the Universe? That’s quite a problem, even for our Super Race boys.
“You’d think they’d have ways to solve it, though. With calculating machines or whatever will follow calculating machines after Earthmen and all the others find the next faltering step after a few thousand years. Or with plain horse sense and logic, developed to a point—after millions of years at it—where it never fails. Or solve the problem with something we’ve never heard of, but solve it anyway.”
“What’s all this got to do with—? I mean, it’s an interesting story and when I get a chance to digest it I’ll probably start gasping, but what about Nowhere and.…”
“I’m coming to that. Kit, what would you say if I told you that the most intelligent race the Universe has ever produced solves the biggest problem ever handed anyone—by playing games?”
“I’d say you better continue.”
“That’s the purpose of Nowhere, Kit. Every planet, every race has its Nowhere. We all come here and we play games. Planet with the highest score at the end of God knows how long wins the Universe, with all the science and the wisdom needed to fashion that universe into a dozen different kinds of heaven. And to decide all this, we play games.
“Don’t get the wrong idea. I’m not complaining. If the Superboys say we play, then we play. I’d take their word for it if they told me I had fifteen heads. But it’s the sort of thing which doesn’t let you get much sleep. Oh, Earth has a right to be proud of its record. United North America is in second place on a competition that’s as wide as the Universe. But we’re not first. Second. And I have a hunch from what’s been going on around here that the games are drawing to a close.
“Fantastic, isn’t it? Out of thousands of entrants, we’re good enough to place second. But some planet out near the star Deneb has us hopelessly outclassed. We might as well get the booby prize. They’ll win and own the Universe—us included.”
Jason had leaned forward as he spoke, and was sitting on the edge of his chair now. The room was comfortably cool, but sweat beaded his forehead, dripped from his chin.
Temple lit another cigarette, inhaling deeply. “You said the United States—North America—was second. I thought this was a planet-wide competition, planet against planet.”
“Earth is the one exception I’ve been able to find. The Deneb planet heads the list, then comes North America. After that, the planet of a star I never heard of. In fourth place is the Soviet Union.”
“I’ll be damned,” said Temple. “Well, okay. Mind if I store that away for future reference? I’ve got another question. What kind of—uh, games do we play?”
“You name it. Mental contests. Scientific problems to be worked out with laboratories built to our specifications. Emotional problems with scores of men driven neurotic or worse every year. Problems of adaptability. Responses to environmental challenge. Stamina contests.
Tests of strength, of endurance. Tests to determine depths of emotion. Tests to determine objectivity in what should be an objective situation. But the way everything is organized it’s almost like a giant-sized, never ending Olympic Games, complete with some cockeyed sports events too, by the way.”
“With all the pageantry, too?”
“No. But that’s another story.”
“Anyway, what I saw was a foot-race! And sorry, Jase, but I have another question.”
Jason shrugged, spread his hands wide.
“How come all this talk about rotation? It isn’t possible, not with a fifty century gap.”
“I know. They just let us in on that little deal a couple of years ago. Till then, we didn’t know. We thought it was distance only. In time, after all this was over, we could go home. That’s what we thought,” Jason said bitterly. “Actually, it’s twice five thousand years. Five to come here, five to return. Ten thousand years separate us from the Earth we know, and even if we could go home, that wouldn’t be going home at all—to Earth ten thousand years in the future.
“Oh, they had us hoodwinked. Afraid we might say no or something. They never mentioned the length or duration of the trip. I don’t understand it, none of us do and we have some top scientists here. Something to do with suspended animation, with contra-terrene matter, with teleportation, something about latent extra-sensory powers in everyone, about the ability to break down an object—or a creature or a man—to its component atoms, to reverse—that’s the word, reverse—those atoms and send them spinning off into space as contra-terrene matter.
“It all boils down to putting a man in a machine on Mars, pulling a lever, materializing him here five thousand years later.” Jason smiled with only a trace of humor. “Any questions?”
“About a thousand,” said Temple. “I—”
Something buzzed on Jason’s desk and Temple watched him pick up a microphone, say: “Co-ordinator speaking. What’s up?”
The voice which answered, clear enough to be in the room with them and without the faintest trace of mechanical or electrical transfer, spoke in a strange, liquid-syllabled language Temple had never heard. Jason responded in the same language, with an apparent ease which surprised Temple—until he remembered that his brother had always had a knack of picking up foreign languages. Maybe that was why he held the Co-ordinator’s job—whatever it was he co-ordinated.
There was fluency in the way Jason spoke, and alarm. The trouble-lines etched deeply on his face stood out sharply, his eyes, if possible, grew more intense. “Well,” he said, putting the mike down and staring at Temple without seeing him, “I’m afraid that does it.”
“What’s the trouble?”
“Everything.”
“Anything I can do?”
“Item. The Superboys have discovered that Earth has two contingents here—us and the Soviets. They’re mad. Item. Something will be done about it. Item. Soviet Russia has made a suggestion, or that is, its people here. They will put forth a champion to match one of our own choosing in the toughest grind of all, something to do with responding to environmental challenge, which doesn’t mean a hell of a lot unless you happen to know something about it. Shall I go on?”
And, when Temple nodded avidly. “We automatically lose by default. One of the rules of that particular game is that the contestant must be a newcomer. It’s the sort of game you have to know nothing about, and incidentally, it’s also the sort of game a man can get killed at. Well, the Soviets have a whole contingent of newcomers to pick from. We don’t have any. As the Superboys see it, that’s our own tough luck. We lose by default.”
“It seems to me—”
“How can anything ‘seem to you?’ You’re new here.… I’m sorry Kit. What were you saying?”
“No. Go ahead.”
“That’s only the half of it. Right after Russia takes our place and we’re scratched off the list, the games go into their final phase. That was the rumor all along, and it’s just been confirmed. Interesting to see what they do with all the contestants after the games are over, after there’s no more Nowhere Journey.”
“We could go back where we came from.”
“Ten thousand years in the future?”
“I’m not afraid.”
“Well, anyway, the Soviets put up a man, we can’t match him. So it looks like the U.S.S.R. represents Earth officially. Not that it matters. We hardly have the chance of a very slushy snowball in a very hot hell. But still—”
“Our contestant, this guy who meets the Russians’ challenge, has to be a newcomer?”
“That’s what I said. Well, we can close up shop, I guess.”
“You made a mistake. You said no newcomers have arrived. I’m here, Jase. I’m your man. Bring on your Russian Bear.” Temple smiled grimly.
CHAPTER VIII
“You got to hand it to Temple’s kid brother.”
“Yeah. Cool as ice cubes.”
“Are you guys kidding? He doesn’t know what’s in store for him, that’s all.”
“Do you?”
“Now that you mention it, no. Isn’t a man here who can say for sure what kind of environmental challenges he’ll have to respond to. Hypno-surgery sees to it the guys who went through the thing won’t talk about it. As if that isn’t security enough, the subject’s got to be a brand new arrival!”
“Shh! Here he comes.”
The brothers Temple entered Earth City’s one tavern quietly, but on their arrival all the speculative talk subsided. The long bar, built to accommodate half a hundred pairs of elbows comfortably, gleamed with a luster unfamiliar to Temple. It might have been marble, but marble translucent rather than opaque, giving a beautiful three-dimensional effect to the surface patterns.
“What will it be?” Jason demanded.
“Whatever you’re drinking is fine.”
Jason ordered two scotches, neat, and the brothers drank. When Jason got a refill he started talking. “Does T.A.T. mean anything to you, Kit?”
“Tat? Umm—no. Wait a minute! T.A.T. Isn’t that some kind of protective psychological test?”
“That’s it. You’re shown a couple of dozen pictures, more or less ambiguous, never cut and dry. Each one comes from a different stratum of the social environment, and you’re told to create a dramatic situation, a story, for each picture. From your stories, for which you draw on your whole background as a human being, the psychometrician should be able to build a picture of your personality and maybe find out what, if anything, is bothering you.”
“What’s that to do with this response to environmental challenge thing?”
“Well,” said Jason, drinking a third scotch, “the Super Boys have evolved T.A.T. to its ultimate. T.A.T.—that stands for Thematic Apperception Test. But in E.C.R.—environmental challenge and response, you don’t see a picture and create a dramatic story around it. Instead, you get thrust into the picture, the situation, and you have to work out the solution—or suffer whatever consequences the particular environmental challenge has in store for you.”
“I think I get you. But it’s all make believe, huh?”
“That’s the hell of it,” Jason told him. “No, it’s not. It is and it isn’t. I don’t know.”
“You make it perfectly clear,” Temple smiled. “The red-headed boy combed his brown hair, wishing it weren’t blond.”
Jason shrugged. “I’m sorry. For reasons you already know, the E.C.R. isn’t very clear to me—or to anyone. You’re not actually in the situation in a physical sense, but it can affect you physically. You feel you’re there, you actually live everything that happens to you, getting injured if an injury occurs…and dying if you get killed. It’s permanent, although you might actually be sleeping at the time. So whether it’s real or not is a question for philosophy. From
your point of view, from the point of view of someone going through it, it’s real.”
“So I become part of this—uh, game in about an hour.”
“Right. You and whoever the Russians offer as your competition. No one will blame you if you want to back out, Kit; from what you tell me, you haven’t even been adequately trained on Mars.”
“If you draw on the entire background of your life for this E.C.R., then you don’t need training. Shut up and stop worrying. I’m not backing out of anything.”
“I didn’t think you would, not if you’re still as much like your old man as you used to be. Kit…good luck.”
* * * *
The fact that the technicians working around him were Earthmen permitted Temple to relax a little. Probably, it was planned that way, for entering the huge white cube of a building and ascending to the twelfth level on a moving ramp Temple had spotted many figures, not all of them human. If he had been strapped to the table by unfamiliar aliens, if the scent of alien flesh—or non-flesh—had been strong in the room, if the fingers—or appendages—which greased his temples and clamped an electrode to each one had not felt like human fingers, if the men talking to him had spoken in voices too harsh or too sibilant for human vocal chords—if all that had been the case whatever composure still remained his would have vanished.
“I’m Dr. Olson,” said one white-gowned figure. “If any injuries occur while you lie here, I’m permitted to render first aid.”
“The same for limited psychotherapy,” said a shorter, heavier man. “Though a fat lot of good it does when we never know what’s bothering you, and don’t have the time to work on it even if we did know.”
“In short,” said a third man who failed to identify himself, “you may consider yourself as the driver of one of those midget rocket racers. Do they still have them on Earth? Good. You are the driver, and we here in this room are the mechanics waiting in your pit. If anything goes wrong, you can pull out of the race temporarily and have it repaired. But in this particular race there is no pulling out: all repairs are strictly of a first-aid nature and must be done while you continue whatever you are doing. If you break your finger and find a splint appearing on it miraculously, don’t say you weren’t warned.”