Voyage To Eternity

by Robert Sheckley

  CHAPTER VII

  It could have been a city in New England, or maybe Wisconsin. MainStreet stretched for half a mile from Town Hall to the smalldepartment store. Neon tubing brightened every store front, busyproprietors could be seen at work through the large plate glasswindows. There was the bustle you might expect on any Main Street inNew England or Wisconsin, but you could not draw the parallelindefinitely.

  There were only men. No women.

  The hills in which the town nestled were too purple--not purple withdistance but the natural color of the grass.

  A somber red sun hung in the pale mauve sky.

  This was Earth City, Nowhere.

  Arkalion had deposited Temple in the nearby hills, promised they wouldsee one another again. "It may not be so soon," Arkalion had said,"but what's the difference? You'll spend the rest of your life here.You realize you are lucky, Kit. If, you hadn't come, you would havebeen dead these five thousand years. Well, good luck."

  Dead--five thousand years. The Earth as he knew it, dust. Stephanie, afifty generation corpse. Nowhere was right. End of the universe.

  Temple shuffled his feet, trudged on into town. A man passed him onthe street, stooped, gray-haired. The man nodded, did a milddouble-take. _I'm an unfamiliar face_, Temple thought.

  "Howdy," he said. "I'm new here."

  "That's what I thought, stranger. Know just about everyone in thesehere parts, I do, and I said to myself, now there's a newcomer. Funnyyou didn't come in the regular way."

  "I'm here," said Temple.

  "Yeah. Funny thing, you get to know everyone. Eh, what you say yourname was?"

  "Christopher Temple."

  "Make it my business to know everyone. The neighborly way, I alwayssay. Temple, eh? We have one here."

  "One what?"

  "Another fellow name of Temple. Jase Temple, son."

  "I'll be damned!" Temple cried, smiling suddenly. "I will be damned.Tell me, old timer, where can I find him?"

  "Might be anyplace. Town's bigger'n it looks. I tell you, though, JaseTemple's our co-ordinator. You'll find him there, the co-ordinator'soffice. Town Hall, down the end of the street."

  "I already passed it," Temple told the old man. "And thanks."

  Temple's legs carried him at a brisk pace, past the row of storefronts and down to the Town Hall. He read a directory, climbed aflight of stairs, found a door marked:

  JASON TEMPLE Earth City Co-ordinator

  Heart pounding, Temple knocked, heard someone call, "Come in."

  He pushed the door in and stared at his brother, just rising to facehim.

  * * * * *

  "Kit! Kit! What are you doing ... so you took the journey too!"

  Jason ran to him, clasped his shoulders, pounded them. "You sure arelooking fit. Kit, you could have knocked me over with half a feather,coming in like that."

  "You're looking great too, Jase," Temple lied. He hadn't seen hisbrother in five years, had never expected to see him again. But heremembered a full-faced, smiling man somewhat taller than himself,somewhat broader across the shoulders. The Jason he saw lookedforty-five or fifty but was hardly out of his twenties. He had fierce,smouldering eyes, gaunt cheeks, graying hair. He seemed a bundle ofrestless, nervous energy.

  "Sit down, Kit. Start talking, kid brother. Start talking and don'tstop till next week. Tell me everything. Everything! Tell me about theblue sky and the moon at night and the way the ocean looks on a windyday and...."

  "Five years," said Temple. "Five years."

  "Five thousand, you mean," Jason reminded him. "It hardly seemspossible. How are the folks, Kit?"

  "Mom's fine. Pop too. He's sporting a new Chambers Converto. Youshould see him, Jase. Sharp."

  "And Ann?" Jason looked at him hopefully. Ann had been Jason'sStephanie--but for the Nowhere Journey they would have married.

  "Ann's married," Temple said.

  "Oh. Oh. That's swell, Kit. Really swell. I mean, what the hell, agirl shouldn't wait forever. I told her not to, anyway."

  "She waited four years, then met a guy and--"

  "A nice guy?"

  "The best," said Temple. "You'd like him."

  Temple saw the vague hurt come to Jason's smouldering eyes. Then itwas the same. One part of Jason wanted her to remain his over anunthinkable gap, another part wanted her to live a good, full life.

  "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 thousandlight 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 isalso dead. Dead five thousand years. The folks, Center City, Ann, herhusband--all dust. Five thousand years old.... Don't mind me, Kit."

  "Sure. Sure, I understand." But Temple didn't, not really. Youcouldn't take five thousand years and chuck them out the window inwhat seemed the space of a heart beat and then realize they were gonepermanently, forever. Not a period of time as long as all of recordedcivilization--you couldn't take it, tack it on after 1992 and acceptit. Somehow, Temple realized, the five thousand years were harder toswallow 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. _Infifty centuries_, he thought bitterly, burrowing deeper into a funk.

  "Well," said Jason, "I'm acting like a prize boob. How selfish can Iget? 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 anotherthree months. Say, how the devil _did_ you get here?"

  "That's a long story. Nowhere Journey, same as you, with a littleassist to speed things up on Mars. Jase, tell me this: what are wedoing here? What is everyone doing here? What's the Nowhere Journeyall 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 beginningof something.

  "I'm just beginning to learn _how_ big!"

  "It would be pretty unimaginative of mankind to consider itself theonly sentient form of life, Earth the only home of intelligence, bothfrom a scientific and a religious point of view. We kind of expectedto find--neighbors out in space. Kit, the sky is full of stars, moststars have planets. The universe crawls with life, all sorts of life,all sorts of intelligent life. In short, we are not alone. It would besort of like taking the jet-shuttle from Washington to New York duringthe 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 radialintelligences, one-legged species, tall, gangling creatures, squatones, pancake ones, giants, dwarfs. There are green skins and pinkskins and coal black--and yes, no skins. There are ... but you get theidea."

  "Uh-huh."

  "Strangely enough, most of these intelligences are on about the samedevelopmental level. It's as if the Creator turned everything on atonce, like a race, and said 'okay, guys get started.' Maybe it'sbecause, as scientists figure, the whole universe got wound up andstarted 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 samecultural level. Atomics, crude spaceflight, wars they can't handle.

  "And this is interesting, Kit. Most of 'em are bipedal. Not reallyhuman, not fully human. You can see the difference. But seventy-fivepercent of the races I've encountered have had basic similarities. Acase of the Creator trying to figure out the best of all p
ossiblelife-patterns and coming up with this one. Offers a wide range foraction, for adaptation, stuff like that. Anyway, I'm losing track ofthings."

  "Take it easy. From what you tell me I have all the time in theworld."

  "Well, I said all the races are developmentally parallel. That'salmost true. One of them is not. One of them is so far ahead that therest of us have hardly reached the crawling stage by comparison. Oneof them is the Super Race, Kit.

  "Their culture is old, incredibly old. So old, in fact, that some ofus figure it's been hanging around since before the Universe tookshape. Maybe that's why all the others are on one level, a fewthousand million years behind the Super Race.

  "So, take this Super Race. For some reason we can't understand, itseems to be on the skids. That's just figurative. Maybe it's dyingout, maybe it wants to pack up and leave the galaxy altogether, maybeit's got other undreamed of business other undreamed of places.Anyway, it wants out. But it's got an eon-old storehouse of cultureand maybe it figures someone ought to have access to that and keep thegalaxy in running order. But who? That's the problem. Who gets allthis information, a million million generations of scientificproblems, all carefully worked out? Who, among all the parallel raceson all the worlds of the Universe? That's quite a problem, even forour Super Race boys.

  "You'd think they'd have ways to solve it, though. With calculatingmachines or whatever will follow calculating machines after Earthmenand all the others find the next faltering step after a few thousandyears. Or with plain horse sense and logic, developed to apoint--after millions of years at it--where it never fails. Or solvethe 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 storyand when I get a chance to digest it I'll probably start gasping, butwhat about Nowhere and...."

  "I'm coming to that. Kit, what would you say if I told you that themost intelligent race the Universe has ever produced solves thebiggest 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 itsNowhere. We all come here and we play games. Planet with the highestscore at the end of God knows how long wins the Universe, with all thescience and the wisdom needed to fashion that universe into a dozendifferent kinds of heaven. And to decide all this, we play games.

  "Don't get the wrong idea. I'm not complaining. If the Superboys saywe play, then we play. I'd take their word for it if they told me Ihad fifteen heads. But it's the sort of thing which doesn't let youget 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 aswide as the Universe. But we're not first. Second. And I have a hunchfrom what's been going on around here that the games are drawing to aclose.

  "Fantastic, isn't it? Out of thousands of entrants, we're good enoughto place second. But some planet out near the star Deneb has ushopelessly outclassed. We might as well get the booby prize. They'llwin and own the Universe--us included."

  Jason had leaned forward as he spoke, and was sitting on the edge ofhis chair now. The room was comfortably cool, but sweat beaded hisforehead, dripped from his chin.

  Temple lit another cigarette, inhaling deeply. "You said the UnitedStates--North America--was second. I thought this was a planet-widecompetition, planet against planet."

  "Earth is the one exception I've been able to find. The Deneb planetheads the list, then comes North America. After that, the planet of astar I never heard of. In fourth place is the Soviet Union."

  "I'll be damned," said Temple. "Well, okay. Mind if I store that awayfor 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 outwith laboratories built to our specifications. Emotional problems withscores of men driven neurotic or worse every year. Problems ofadaptability. 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 objectivesituation. But the way everything is organized it's almost like agiant-sized, never ending Olympic Games, complete with some cockeyedsports 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 haveanother question."

  Jason shrugged, spread his hands wide.

  "How come all this talk about rotation? It isn't possible, not with afifty century gap."

  "I know. They just let us in on that little deal a couple of yearsago. Till then, we didn't know. We thought it was distance only. Intime, after all this was over, we could go home. That's what wethought," Jason said bitterly. "Actually, it's twice five thousandyears. Five to come here, five to return. Ten thousand years separateus from the Earth we know, and even if we could go home, that wouldn'tbe going home at all--to Earth ten thousand years in the future.

  "Oh, they had us hoodwinked. Afraid we might say no or something. Theynever mentioned the length or duration of the trip. I don't understandit, none of us do and we have some top scientists here. Something todo with suspended animation, with contra-terrene matter, withteleportation, something about latent extra-sensory powers ineveryone, about the ability to break down an object--or a creature ora man--to its component atoms, to reverse--that's the word,reverse--those atoms and send them spinning off into space ascontra-terrene matter.

  "It all boils down to putting a man in a machine on Mars, pulling alever, materializing him here five thousand years later." Jason smiledwith 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 amicrophone, say: "Co-ordinator speaking. What's up?"

  The voice which answered, clear enough to be in the room with them andwithout the faintest trace of mechanical or electrical transfer, spokein a strange, liquid-syllabled language Temple had never heard. Jasonresponded in the same language, with an apparent ease which surprisedTemple--until he remembered that his brother had always had a knack ofpicking up foreign languages. Maybe that was why he held theCo-ordinator's job--whatever it was he co-ordinated.

  There was fluency in the way Jason spoke, and alarm. The trouble-linesetched deeply on his face stood out sharply, his eyes, if possible,grew more intense. "Well," he said, putting the mike down and staringat 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 contingentshere--us and the Soviets. They're mad. Item. Something will be doneabout it. Item. Soviet Russia has made a suggestion, or that is, itspeople here. They will put forth a champion to match one of our ownchoosing in the toughest grind of all, something to do with respondingto environmental challenge, which doesn't mean a hell of a lot unlessyou happen to know something about it. Shall I go on?"

  And, when Temple nodded avidly. "We automatically lose by default. Oneof the rules of that particular game is that the contestant must be anewcomer. It's the sort of game you have to know nothing about, andincidentally, 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 andwe'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_ thegames are over, after t
here'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 itlooks like the U. S. S. R. represents Earth officially. Not that itmatters. We hardly have the chance of a very slushy snowball in a veryhot hell. But still--"

  "Our contestant, this guy who meets the Russian's challenge, has to bea 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.