Voyage To Eternity

by Robert Sheckley

  CHAPTER VI

  "What a cockeyed world," said Alaric Arkalion Sr. to his son. "Youcertainly can't plan on anything, even if you do have more money thanyou'll ever possibly need in a lifetime."

  "Don't feel like that," said young Alaric. "I'm not in prison anylonger, am I?"

  "No. But you're not free of the Nowhere Journey, either. There is anunheralded special trip to Nowhere, two weeks from today, I have beeninformed."

  "Oh?"

  "Yes, oh. I have also been informed that you will be on it. You didn'tescape after all, Alaric."

  "Oh. Oh!"

  "What bothers me most is that scoundrel Smith somehow managed toescape. They haven't found him yet, I have also been informed. Andsince my contract with him calls for ten million dollars 'for servicesrendered,' I'll have to pay."

  "But he didn't prevent me from--"

  "I can't air this thing, Alaric! But listen, son: when you go whereyou are going, you're liable to find another Alaric Arkalion, yourdouble. Of course, that would be Smith. If you can get him to cut hisprice in half because of what has happened, I would be delighted. Ifyou could somehow manage to wring his neck, I would be even moredelighted. Ten million dollars--for nothing."

  * * * * *

  "I'm so excited," murmured Mrs. Draper. Stephanie watched her on oneof the new televiewers, recently installed in place of the telephone.

  "What is it?"

  "Our bill has been passed by a landslide majority in both houses ofCongress!"

  "Ooo!" cried Stephanie.

  "Not very coherent, my dear, but those are my sentiments exactly. Intwo weeks there will be a Journey to Nowhere, a special one which willinclude, among its passengers, a woman."

  "But the study which had to be made--?"

  "It's already been made. From what I gather, they can't take it veryfar. Most of their conclusions had to be based on supposition. Theimportant thing, though, is this: a woman _will_ be sent. The way theC.E.L. figures it, my dear, is that a woman falling in the twenty-oneto twenty-six age group should be chosen, a woman who meets all therequirements placed upon the young men."

  "Yes," said Stephanie. "Of course. And I was just thinking that Iwould be--"

  "Remember those chickens!" cautioned Mrs. Draper. "We already have onehundred seventy-seven volunteers who'd claw each other to pieces for achance to go."

  "Wrong," Stephanie said, smiling. "You now have one hundredseventy-eight."

  "Room for only one, my dear. Only one, you know."

  "Then cross the others off your list. I'm already packing my bag."

  * * * * *

  When Temple regained consciousness, it was with the feeling that nomore than a split second of time had elapsed. So much had happened sorapidly that, until now, he hadn't had time to consider it.

  Arkalion had vanished.

  Vanished--he could use no other word. He was there, standing in thebooth--and then he wasn't. Simple as that. Now you see it, now youdon't. And goodbye, Arkalion.

  But goodbye Temple, too. For hadn't Temple entered the same booth,waiting but a second until Arkalion activated the mechanism at theother end? And certainly Temple wasn't in the booth now. He smiled atthe ridiculously simple logic of his thoughts. He stood in an openfield, the blades of grass rising to his knees, as much brilliantpurple as they were green. Waves of the grass, stirred like tide bythe gentle wind, and hills rolling off toward the horizon in whicheverdirection he turned. Far away, the undulating hills lifted to a halfsoft mauve sky. A somber red sun with twice Sol's apparent disc buthalf its brightness hung midway between zenith and horizon completingthe picture of peaceful other-worldliness.

  Wherever this was, it wasn't Earth--or Mars.

  Nowhere?

  Temple shrugged, started walking. He chose his direction at random,crushing an easily discernible path behind him in the surprisinglybrittle grass. The warm sun baked his back comfortably, thesoft-stirring wind caressed his cheeks. Of Arkalion he found not atrace.

  Two hours later Temple reached the hills and started climbing theirgentle slopes. It was then that he saw the figure approaching on therun. It took him fully half a minute to realize that the runner wasnot human.

  * * * * *

  After months of weightless inactivity, things started to happen forSophia. The feeling of weight returned, but weight as she never hadfelt it before. It was as if someone was sitting on every inch of herbody, crushing her down. It made her gasp, forced her eyes shut and,although she could not see it, contorted her face horribly. She lostconsciousness, coming to some time later with a dreadful feeling ofloginess. Someone swam into her vision dimly, stung her arm brieflywith a needle. She slept.

  She was on a table, stretched out, with lights glaring down at her.She heard voices.

  "The new system is far better than testing, comrade."

  "Far more efficient, far more objective. Yes."

  "The brain emits electromagnetic vibration. Strange, is it not, thatno one before ever imagined it could tell a story. A completelyaccurate story two years of testing could not give us."

  "In Russia we have gone far with the biological, psychologicalsciences. The West flies high with physics. Give them Mars; bah, theycan have Mars."

  "True, Comrade. The journey to Jupiter is greater, the time consumedis longer, the cost, more expensive. But here on Jupiter we can dosomething they cannot do on Mars."

  "I know."

  "We can make supermen. Supermen, comrade. A wedding of Nietzsche andMarx."

  "Careful. Those are dangerous thoughts."

  "Merely an allusion, comrade. Merely a harmless allusion. But you takean ordinary human being and train him on Jupiter, speeding histime-sense and metabolic rate tremendously with certain endocrinesecretions so that one day is as a month to him. You take him andsubject him to big Jupiter's pull of gravity, more than twiceEarth's--and in three weeks you have, yes--you have a superman."

  "The woman wakes."

  "Shh. Do not frighten her."

  Sophia stretched, every muscle in her body aching. Slowly, as in adream, she sat up. It required strength, the mere act of pulling hertorso upright!

  "What have you done to me?" she cried, focussing her still-dim visionon the two men.

  "Nothing, comrade. Relax."

  Sophia turned slowly on the table, got one long shapely leg drapedover its edge.

  "Careful, comrade."

  What were they warning her about? She merely wanted to get up andstretch; perhaps then she would feel better. Her toe touched thefloor, she swung her other leg over, aware of but ignoring hernakedness.

  "A good specimen."

  "Oh, yes, comrade. So this time they send a woman among the others.Well, we shall do our work. Look--see the way she is formed, so lithe,loose-limbed, agile. See the toning of the muscles? Her beauty willremain, comrade, but Jupiter shall make an amazon of her."

  * * * * *

  Sophia had both feet on the floor now. She was breathing hard, feltsuddenly sick to her stomach. Placing both her hands on the tableedge, she pushed off and staggered for two or three paces. Shecrumpled, buckling first at the knees then the waist, and fell in awrithing heap.

  "Pick her up."

  Hands under her arms, tugging. She came off the floor easily, dimlyaware that someone carried her hundred and thirty pounds effortlessly."Put me down!" she cried. "I want to try again. I am crippled,crippled! You have crippled me...."

  "Nothing of the sort, comrade. You are tired, weak, and Jupiter'sgravity field is still too strong for you. Little by little, though,your muscles will strengthen to Jupiter's demands. Gravity will keepthem from bulging, expanding; but every muscle fibre in you will havetwice, three times its original strength. Are you excited?"

  "I am tired and sick. I want to sleep. What is Jupiter?"

  "Jupiter is a planet circling the sun at--never mind, comrade. Youhave much to learn, bu
t you can assimilate it with much less troublein your sleep. Go ahead, sleep."

  Sophia retched, was sick. It had been years since she cried. Butnaked, afraid, bewildered, she cried herself to sleep.

  Things happened while she slept, many things. Certain endocrineextracts accelerated her metabolism astonishingly. Within half an hourher heart was pumping blood through her body two hundred beats perminute. An hour later it reached its full rate, almost one thousandcontractions every sixty seconds. All her other metabolic functionsincreased accordingly, and Sophia slept deeply for a week ofsubjective time--in hours. The same machine which had gleanedeverything from her mind far more accurately than a battery of tests,a refinement of the electro-encephalogram, was now played in reverse,giving back to Sophia everything it had taken plus electrospool afterelectrospool of science, mathematics, logic, economics, history(Marxian, these last two), languages (including English), semanticsand certain specialized knowledge she would need later on theStalintrek.

  Still sleeping, Sophia was bathed in a warm whirlpool of soothingliquid; rubbed, massaged, her muscle-toning begun while she rested andregained her strength. Three hours later, objective time, she awokewith a headache and with more thoughts spinning around madly insideher brain than she ever knew existed. Gingerly, she tried standingagain, lifting herself nude and dripping wet from a tub of steamingamber stuff. She stood, stretched, permitted her fright to vanish witha quick wave of vertigo which engulfed her. She had been fedintravenously, but a tremendous hunger possessed her. Before eating,however, she was to find herself in a gymnasium, the air close andstifling. She was massaged again, told to do certain exercises whichseemed simple but which she found extremely difficult, forced to rununtil she thought she would collapse, with her legs, dragging likelead.

  She understood, now. Somehow she knew she was on Jupiter, the fifthand largest planet, where the force of gravity is so much greater thanon Earth that it is an effort even to walk. She also knew that hermetabolic rate had been accelerated beyond all comprehension and thatin a comparatively short time--objective time--she would have thriceher original strength. All this she knew without knowing how she knew,and that was the most staggering fact of all. She did what her curtinstructors bid, then dragged her aching muscles and her headache intoa dining room where tired, forlorn-looking men sat around eating.Well, the food at least was good. Sophia attacked it ravenously.

  * * * * *

  It did not take Temple long to realize that the creature runningdownhill at him, leaving a crushed and broken wake in the purple andgreen grass, was not human. At first Temple toyed with the idea of aman on horseback, for the creature ran on four limbs and had two leftover as arms. Temple gaped.

  The whole thing was one piece!

  Centaur?

  Hardly. Too small, for one thing. No bigger than a man, despite thethree pairs of limbs. And then Temple had time to gape no longer, forthe creature, whatever it was, flashed past him at what he now had toconsider a gallop.

  More followed. Different. Temple stared and stared. One could havebeen a great, sentient hoop, rolling downhill and gathering momentum.If he carried the wheel analogy further, a huge eye stared at him fromwhere the hub would have been. Something else followed with kangarooleaps. One thick-thewed leg propelled it in tremendous, fifteen-foothopping strides while its small, flapper-like arms beat the airprodigiously.

  Legions of creatures. All fantastically different. _I'm going crazy_,Temple thought, then said it aloud. "I'm going crazy."

  Theorizing thus, he heard a whir overhead, whirled, looked up.Something was poised a dozen feet off the ground, a large, box-likeobject seven or eight feet across, rotors spinning above it. That, atleast, he could understand. A helicopter.

  "I'm lowering a ladder, Kit. Swing aboard."

  Arkalion's voice.

  Stunned enough to accept anything he saw, Temple waited for the ropeladder to drop, grasped its end, climbed. He swung his legs over asill, found himself in a neat little cabin with Arkalion, who hauledthe ladder in and did something to the controls. They sped away.Temple had one quick moment of lucid thought before everything whichhad happened in the last few moments shoved logic aside. What he hadobserved looked for all the world like a foot-race.

  "Where the hell _are_ we?" Temple demanded breathlessly.

  Arkalion smiled. "Where do you think? Journey's end. Welcome toNowhere, Kit. Welcome to the place where all your questions can beanswered because there's no going back. Sorry I set you down in thatfield by mistake, incidentally. Those things sometimes happen."

  "Can I just throw the questions at you?"

  "If you wish. It isn't really necessary, for you will be indoctrinatedwhen we get you over to Earth city where you belong."

  "What do you mean, there's no going back? I thought they had arotation system which for one reason or another wasn't practical atthe moment. That doesn't sound like no going back, ever."

  Arkalion grunted, shrugged. "Have it your way. I _know_."

  "Sorry. Shoot."

  "Just how far do you think you have come?"

  "Search me. Some other star system, maybe?"

  "Maybe. Clean across the galaxy, Kit."

  Temple whistled softly. "It isn't something you can grasp just byhearing it. Across the galaxy...."

  "That isn't too important just now. How long did you think the journeytook?"

  Temple nodded eagerly. "That's what gets me. It was amazing, Alaric.Really amazing. The whole trip couldn't have taken more than a momentor two. I don't get it. Did we slip out of normal space into someother--uh, continuum, and speed across the length of the galaxy likethat?"

  "The answer to your question is yes. But your statement is way off.The journey did not take seconds, Kit."

  "No? Instantaneous?"

  "Far more than seconds. To reach here from Earth you travelled fivethousand years."

  "What?"

  "More correctly, it was five thousand years ago that you left Mars.You would need a time machine to return, and there is no such thing.The Earth you know is the length of the galaxy and five thousand yearsbehind you."