Voyage To Eternity

by Robert Sheckley

  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 yougot to do is get him started and he spins like a top with arms andlegs. Top of the morning to you, Charlie. Ha-ha. I said, top ofthe...."

  "Someone stop me, I'm getting dizzy."

  They floated, tumbled, spun around the spaceship's lounge room insimple, childish glee. They cavorted in festive weightlessness.

  "They're happy now," Arkalion observed. "The novelty of free fall, ofweighing exactly nothing, strikes them as amusing."

  "I think I'm getting the hang of it," said Temple. Clumsily, he made afew tentative swimming motions in the air, propelling himself forwarda few yards before he lost his balance and tumbled head over heelsagainst the wall.

  Arkalion came to him quickly, in a combination of swimming and pushingwith hands and feet against the wall. Arkalion righted him expertly,sat down gingerly beside him. "If you keep sudden motions to aminimum, you'll get along fine. More than anything else, that's thesecret of it."

  Temple nodded. "It's sort of like the first time you're on ice skates.Say, how come you're so good at it?"

  "I used to read the old, theoretical books on space-travel." The wordspoured out effortlessly, smoothly. "I'm merely applying the theoriesput forward as early as the 1950's."

  "Oh." But it left Temple with some food for thought. Alaric Arkalionwas a queer duck, anyway, and of all the men gathered in thespaceship's lounge, he alone had mastered weightlessness with hardlyany trouble.

  "Take your ice skates," Arkalion went on. "Some people put them on anduse them like natural extensions of their feet the first time. Othersfall all over themselves. I suppose I am lucky."

  "Sure," said Temple. Actually, the only thing odd about Arkalion washis old-young face and--perhaps--his propensity for coming up with theright answers at the right times. Arkalion had seemed so certain ofspace-travel. He'd hardly batted an eyelash when they boarded a long,tapering, bullet-shaped ship at White Sands and thundered off into thesky. He took for granted the change-over to a huge round ship at thewheel-shaped station in space. Moments after leaving the spacestation--with a minimum of stress and strain, thanks to the almost-nilgravity--it was Arkalion who first swam through air to the viewportand pointed out the huge crescent earth, green and gray and brown,sparkling with patches of dazzling silver-white. "You will observe itis a crescent," Arkalion had said. "It is closer to the sun than weare, and off at an angle. As I suspected, our destination is Mars."

  * * * * *

  Then everyone was saying goodbye to earth. Fantastic, it seemed. Therewere tears, there was laughter, cursing, promises of return, awkwardverbal comparisons with the crescent moon, vows of faithfulness tolovers and sweethearts. And there was Arkalion, with an avidexpression in the old eyes, Arkalion with his boyish face, not sayinggoodbye so much as he was calling hello to something Temple could notfathom.

  Now, as he struggled awkwardly with weightlessness, Temple called ithis imagination. His thought-patterns shifted vaguely, withoutmotivation, from the gleaming, polished interior of the ship with itssmell of antiseptic and metal polish to the clear Spring air of Earth,blue of sky and bright of sun. The unique blue sky of Earth which hesomehow knew could not be duplicated elsewhere. Elsewhere--the worditself bordered on the meaningless.

  And Stephanie. The brief warm ecstasy of her--once, forever. Hewondered with surprising objectivity if a hundred other names, ahundred other women were not in a hundred other minds while everyonestared at the crescent Earth hanging serenely in space--with each nameand each woman as dear as Stephanie, with the same combination of fireand gentle femininity stirring the blood but saddening the heart.Would Stephanie really forget him? Did he want her to? That part ofhim burned by the fire of her said no--no, she must not forget him.She was his, his alone, roped and branded though a universe separatedthem. But someplace in his heart was the thought, the understanding,the realization that although Stephanie might keep a small place forhim tucked someplace deep in her emotions, she must forget. He wasgone--permanently. For Stephanie, he was dead. It was as he had toldher that last stolen day. It was.... _Stephanie, Stephanie, how much Ilove you...._

  Struggling with weightlessness, he made his way back to the small roomhe shared with Arkalion. Hardly more than a cubicle, it was, withsufficient room for two beds, a sink, a small chest. He lay down andslept, murmuring Stephanie's name in his sleep.

  * * * * *

  He awoke to the faint hum of the air-pumps, got up feeling rested,forgot his weightlessness and floated to the ceiling where only anoutthrust arm prevented a nasty bump on his head. He used hand gripson the wall to let himself down. He washed, aware of no way to preventthe water he splashed on his face from forming fine droplets andspraying the entire room. When he crossed back to the foot of his bedto get his towel he thrust one foot out too rapidly, lost his balance,half-rose, stumbled and fell against the other bed which, like allother items of furniture, was fastened to the floor. But his elbowstruck sleeping Arkalion's jaw sharply, hard enough to jar the man'steeth.

  "I'm sorry," said Temple. "Didn't mean to do that," he apologizedagain, feeling embarrassed.

  Arkalion merely lay there.

  "I said I'm sorry."

  Arkalion still slept. It seemed inconceivable, for Temple's elbowpained him considerably. He bent down, examined his inert companion.

  Arkalion stirred not a muscle.

  Vaguely alarmed, Temple thrust a hand to Arkalion's chest, feltnothing. He crouched, rested the side of his head over Arkalion'sheart. He listened, heard--nothing.

  What was going on here?

  "Hey, Arkalion!" Temple shook him, gently at first, then with savageforce. Weightless, Arkalion's body floated up off the bed, taking thecovers with it. His own heart pounding furiously, Temple got it downagain, fingered the left wrist and swallowed nervously.

  Temple had never seen a dead man before. Arkalion's heart did notbeat. Arkalion had no pulse.

  Arkalion was dead.

  Yelling hoarsely, Temple plunged from the room, soaring off the floorin his haste and striking his head against the ceiling hard enough tomake him see stars. "This guy is dead!" he cried. "Arkalion is dead."

  Men stirred in the companionway. Someone called for one of the armedguards who were constantly on patrol.

  "If he's dead, you're yelling loud enough to get him out of hisgrave." The voice was quiet, amused.

  Arkalion.

  "What?" Temple blurted, whirling around and striking his head again. Alittle wild-eyed, he reentered the room.

  "Now, who is dead, Kit?" demanded Arkalion, sitting up and stretchingcomfortably.

  "Who--is dead? Who--?" Open-mouthed, Temple stared.

  * * * * *

  A guard, completely at home with weightlessness, entered the cubiclebriskly. "What's the trouble in here? Something about a dead man, theysaid."

  "A dead man?" demanded Arkalion. "Indeed."

  "Dead?" muttered Temple, lamely and foolishly. "Dead...."

  Arkalion smiled deprecatingly. "My friend must have been talking inhis sleep. The only thing dead in here is my appetite. Weightlessnessdoesn't let you become very hungry."

  "You'll grow used to it," the guard promised. He patted his paunchhappily. "I am. Well, don't raise the alarm unless there's sometrouble. Remember about the boy who cried wolf."

  "Of course," said Temple. "Sure. Sorr
y."

  He watched the guard depart.

  "Bad dream?" Arkalion wanted to know.

  "Bad dream, my foot. I accidentally hit you. Hard enough to hurt. Youdidn't move."

  "I'm a sound sleeper."

  "I felt for your heart. It wasn't beating. It wasn't!"

  "Oh, come, come."

  "Your heart was not beating, I said."

  "And I suppose I was cold as a slab of ice?"

  "Umm, no. I don't remember. Maybe you were. You had no pulse, either."

  Arkalion laughed easily. "And am I still dead?"

  "Well--"

  "Clearly a case of overwrought nerves and a highly keyed imagination.What you need is some more sleep."

  "I'm not sleepy, thanks."

  "Well, I think I'll get up and go down for breakfast." Arkalionclimbed out of bed gingerly, made his way to the sink and was soongargling with a bottle of prepared mouthwash, occasionally sprayingweightless droplets of the pink liquid up at the ceiling.

  Temple lit a cigarette with shaking fingers, made his way toArkalion's bed while the man hummed tunelessly at the sink. Temple lethis hands fall on the sheet. It was not cold, but comfortably cool.Hardly as warm as it should have been, with a man sleeping on it allnight.

  Was he still imagining things?

  "I'm glad you didn't call for a burial detail and have me expelledinto space with yesterday's garbage," Arkalion called over hisshoulder jauntily as he went outside for some breakfast.

  Temple cursed softly and lit another cigarette, dropping the first oneinto a disposal chute on the wall.

  * * * * *

  Every night thereafter, Temple made it a point to remain awake afterArkalion apparently had fallen asleep. But if he were seekingrepetition of the peculiar occurrence, he was disappointed. Not onlydid Arkalion sleep soundly and through the night, but he snored.Loudly and clearly, a wheezing snore.

  Arkalion's strange feat--or his own overwrought imagination, Templethought wryly--was good for one thing: it took his mind off Stephanie.The days wore on in endless, monotonous routine. He took some booksfrom the ship's library and browsed through them, even managing tofind one concerned with traumatic catalepsy, which stated that asevere emotional shock might render one into a deep enough trance tohave a layman mistakenly pronounce him dead. But what had been thesevere emotional disturbance for Arkalion? Could the effects ofweightlessness manifest themselves in that way in rare instances?Temple naturally did not know, but he resolved to find out if he couldafter reaching their destination.

  One day--it was three weeks after they left the space station, Templerealized--they were all called to assembly in the ship's large mainlounge. As the men drifted in, Temple was amazed to see the progressthey had made with weightlessness. He himself had advanced to handyfacility in locomotion, but it struck him all the more pointedly whenhe saw two hundred men swim and float through air, pushing themselvesalong by means of the hand-holds strategically placed along the walls.

  The ever-present microphone greeted them all. "Good afternoon, men."

  "Good afternoon, mac!"

  "Hey, is this the way to Ebbetts' Field?"

  "Get on with it!"

  "Sounds like the same man who addressed us in White Sands," Templetold Arkalion. "He sure does get around."

  "A recording, probably. Listen."

  "Our destination, as you've probably read in newspapers and magazines,is the planet Mars."

  Mutterings in the assembly, not many of surprise.

  "Their suppositions, based both on the seven hundred eighty day lapsebetween Nowhere Journeys and the romantic position in which the planetMars has always been held, are correct. We are going to Mars.

  "For most of you, Mars will be a permanent home for many years tocome--"

  "Most of us?" Temple wondered out loud.

  Arkalion raised a finger to his lips for silence.

  "--until such time as you are rotated according to the policy ofrotation set up by the government."

  Temple had grown accustomed to the familiar hoots and catcalls. Healmost had an urge to join in himself.

  "Interesting," Arkalion pointed out. "Back at White Sands they claimednot to know our destination. They knew it all right--up to a point.The planet Mars. But now they say that all of us will not remain onMars. Most interesting."

  "--further indoctrination in our mission soon after our arrival on thered planet. Landing will be performed under somewhat less strain thanthe initial takeoff in the Earth-to-station ferry, since Mars exertsless of a gravity pull than Earth. On the other hand, you have beenweightless for three weeks and the change-over is liable to make someof you sick. It will pass harmlessly enough.

  "We realize it is difficult, being taken from your homes withoutknowing the nature of your urgent mission. All I can tell younow--and, as a matter of fact, all I know--"

  "Here we go again," said Temple. "More riddles."

  "--is that everything _is_ of the utmost urgency. Our entire way oflife is at stake. Our job will be to safeguard it. In the months whichfollow, few of you will have any big, significant role to play, butall of you, working together, will provide the strength we need. Whenthe _cadre_--"

  "So they call their guards teachers," Arkalion commented dryly.

  "--come around, they will see that each man is strapped properly intohis bunk for deceleration. Deceleration begins in twenty-sevenminutes."

  _Mars_, thought Temple, back in his room with Arkalion. _Mars._ He didnot think of Stephanie, except as a man who knows he must spend therest of his life in prison might think of a lush green field, or thecool swish of skis over fresh, powdery snow, or the sound of yardarmscreaking against the wind on a small sailing schooner, or the tang ofwieners roasting over an open fire with the crisp air of fall againstyour back, or the scent of good French brandy, or a woman.

  Deceleration began promptly. Before his face was distorted and hiseyes forced shut by a pressure of four gravities, Temple had time tosee the look of complete unconcern on Arkalion's face. Arkalion, infact, was sleeping.

  He seemed as completely relaxed as he did that morning Temple thoughthe was dead.