by Chad Oliver
“Together!”
There was more, much more, in the same vein. The man’s presence was hypnotic; the people in the Square were like puppets, desperate to believe. The woman in the white gown never moved, staring up and out with blank and lovely eyes. The torches hissed at the platform corners; they were like the jets of a ship, pushing out orange columns of flame …
Lee wanted to let himself go, wanted to be caught up in it all, to be part of it. Something in him yearned to surrender, to float, to be absorbed. But he could not believe. There was a wall in him that would not break. Behind that wall, he knew that he needed something he had not yet found. He did not know what that something was, but he knew that Edson Hewitt wasn’t it.
“Join hands, citizens! Touch! The time has come!”
“Come!”
Lee was startled as hands sought his. He found himself clasped by an old man on his right; the hand was frail and dry like a wad of long-dead skin. A woman—no longer young, but not yet old—caught his left hand. Her palm was moist and strong. Her fingers contracted convulsively. There seemed to be an irregularity in her hand, a patch of different texture, a small object—
Lee kept looking straight ahead. His own palms began to sweat. He had lost his anonymity; he might be remembered. Of course, the meeting was not really illegal; free speech was still protected in the Colony. It would have been impossible to hold a large clandestine meeting anywhere in the Colony, especially not in the Square. There were no secrets in this world. Still, an activity can be forbidden whether it is illegal or not. Young people were supposed to stay in their homes during the night hours. His father had expressly warned him about attending this gathering. Old John Melner had strong opinions about Edson Hewitt …
“Now! Project! The ship will come! Make it aware!”
“Aware!”
The torches flared higher. There was a scent like perfume, a sweetness that animated the still air. Moans came from the crowd.
A man quite close to Lee began to babble. The sounds that came from his mouth resembled words, but the language was unknown to Lee. In the dancing torchlight, Lee saw flecks of white foam on his lips. A woman fainted. She sank to her knees and was kept from falling by those who held her hands. Somewhere, there was a cry of anguish, then sobbing.
The torches brightened into a final blinding flash. With an abruptness that was shocking, they went out. There was only the steady pale light of the city. Edson Hewitt and the blond woman in the white gown were gone.
The ceremony was over.
Lee disengaged his right hand; the old man simply stood where he was, whimpering softly. The woman on his left had vanished.
Lee became conscious of something sticking to the palm of his left hand.
An irregularity, a small object—
He closed his fist around it.
He turned and ran.
Old John Melner glanced at his watch. He lifted his thin hand and stroked his thatch of fine white hair. He noticed that his hand was trembling slightly. He felt the weight of his years.
“Give him another thirty minutes to be on the safe side,” he said. His voice was steady, but it took an effort. “Then I’ll go home.”
“Are you sure it worked?” Dana Bigelow paced nervously back and forth across the sparsely furnished antiseptic room. His back was bent; Dana was in constant low-level pain.
John Melner shrugged and settled himself in his chair. Dana’s fretfulness always made him try to relax; it was like an antidote. “I know my son. Lee knew about the meeting. I was carefully not at home. My wife was conspicuously asleep. So Lee went to hear Edson Hewitt pour out his garbage. He couldn’t possibly stay away—don’t you remember when you were seventeen years old?”
“No,” said Dana Bigelow.
“I do. I would have gone just to look at the blonde. Lee is no different; he’s a good boy. Okay. I know Paula, too. She found him, just as she was supposed to do. She found him if she had to crawl through that crowd. So Lee has got the note, and he got it under suitably dramatic circumstances. He’ll take it from there, or I have terribly misjudged my son.”
Dana Bigelow continued to pace. “Are you sure we’re doing the right thing? We’re taking an awful chance. The computers can’t figure all the variables. I’m worried about Lee, even if it works. And I just don’t know about us—”
John Melner scowled. He looked formidable despite his age; the man had a will that had grown stronger with the years. “We don’t have a vast amount to lose, you and I. In any case, the threat to us—and to the Colony—is minimal. As for Lee, of course we can’t be sure we’re doing the right thing. That’s the trouble with us, anyway—we always have to be so sure. The only certainty, my friend, is death—and that’s about what we’ve got here. The time has come to take a chance or two. We can’t take it; we’re too old, too set in our ways, too secure. We value our security too highly, miserable as it is. That’s a penalty of age. Lee is different: he’s young, dammit, and full of juice and crazy romantic dreams. Lee suffers from the disease of youth—he thinks he’s immortal, that agony can never touch him, that the world can be changed. Okay; that’s what we need. You say you are worried about Lee. So am I—worried if he stays, worried if he goes. Lee is my son, remember? My only son, and a son that came late in life. That’s my answer to you, Dana. If he knew the whole story, do you doubt which choice he would make?”
Dana Bigelow stopped pacing. His eyes flashed from beneath his bushy brows. “I know what he would do. That’s not the point. By definition, the young lack experience. They have no basis on which to judge. It’s up to us to protect them.”
“Protect them from what? From life? What do all our experiences amount to? Have they been all that salutary? Dana, we’re a bunch of zombies living in a glass cage. What kind of record is that?”
“The Colony has survived. We’re alive.”
“Are we? It’s a matter of definition. Anyway, we’re two old men locked in a senile argument. The thing is done. The decision has been made. What we have to do now is get out of the way and let it happen.”
“You’re very confident.”
“No, not that. Call it by another name.”
Old John Melner sat quietly then, looking at nothing, waiting to go home.
Lee Melner ran back through the pale streets of the city. His face was flushed with excitement. He felt like a fugitive, although he could not believe that he had done anything really wrong. He did not look at the object clutched in his hand.
His home was a unit in a housing complex not far from the edge of the Colony; the great dome was closer to him now, starting its downward curve to meet the ground and form the seal of the city wall. The apartment was substantial, occupying three levels of the eight-story building, but from the street it was indistinguishable from the other units. There was, of course, no yard. The only grass and the only trees in the Colony grew in a tiny park not far from the Square. Sometimes—three times since Lee had been alive—flowers grew there.
He slipped the object into his pocket and pressed the combination of the door. The door hissed open. Lee moved inside, trying to control his harsh breathing. The house was silent; the lights were on as always in the lower level. He glanced at the familiar room. It was large and had a kind of warmth that came from long acquaintance. At the same time, there was almost nothing in it that was unusual or unique. There were no paintings, no books, no curious oddments of furniture. Everything had been made in the Colony, mass-produced by singularly unimaginative machines.
Everything but one item.
In the center of the room, on a stand protected by a plastic cover, there was an empty glass jar that had once held instant coffee. It had a faded red label on it with yellow lettering. It still had a lid.
It had come from earth.
It was more than an antique. It was something from a now unreachable world that seemed sometimes to be a dream.
It was priceless.
Lee activated the field
lift that carried him silently to the third level. He did not pause at the second floor; he assumed that his mother was still asleep. If she had awakened, or if his father had returned and found him gone—
Well, he would soon know.
He stepped out into his room. He had no brothers or sisters; hardly anyone did. The third level was his alone.
Everything was exactly as he had left it. The bed was rumpled with pillows under the warmer to look—hopefully—like a sleeping body. His desk was neat and clean, the computer terminals off. The photograph of Ellen was on the stand by the bed, as always. The globe of earth glowed softly in the corner: deep blue and gentle green and rich brown. It was nothing like the world he knew.
Lee shrugged off his clothes and put on his sleeping tunic. He rearranged the pillows and switched off the overhead lights. He dug into the pocket of his discarded clothing and felt the small wadded object.
He carried it into the bed with him.
Carefully, trying to control the shaking of his hands, he unfolded the packet and smoothed it out. As he had suspected—indeed, known with a certainty that left no room for doubt—it was a message.
He examined it in the faint illumination of the bed light.
The note read:
Lee, you have been chosen. Your selection has involved years of study and analysis. We have chosen you because we know that you can be trusted and because your personality profile shows that you can succeed.
Much depends on you. Much has been kept from you. There has been no word from earth for thirty-five terrestrial years. Earth may no longer exist. The ships will never come.
You have your life before you. If you wish to live as others have lived, huddled in fear in this Colony prison and waiting for extinction, disregard this message.
If you want more than that—if you have the courage to follow your heart—you have only to act.
Lee, there is another world out there, beyond the Colony dome. It is waiting for us. The air is good, the white sun shines, the strong winds blow. There are people out there. Not people like us, but they are humanoid. They have not forgotten how to laugh and how to dream. We have much to offer them. They have more to offer us. One man can make the contact, if he is the right man.
There is a way out, contrary to what you have been taught. In addition to the main lock, there is a small emergency exit. It is simple to operate, from both the inside and the outside. The directions are engraved in a panel just to the left of the exit.
There is always danger in the unknown. You must be aware of this when you make your choice. If you choose not to go, you will live in comfort and security. You must decide whether that is all you want.
We will not contact you again if you stay in the Colony. If you do go Outside, and if you do not fail, you will be contacted by someone you know.
You will be the first. Remember that. Our trust in you is great.
Go to the house of Gilbert McAllister on the edge of the Colony not far from your home. The house is empty now. The door combination has been altered so that it is the same as your own. The lift in the main chamber on what appears to be the bottom floor will go DOWN if you press the control marked EMERGENCY. It will take you to the exit.
The rest is up to you, Lee.
Good luck from all of us.
The message was unsigned.
Lee got up, concealed the refolded packet in his desk, and returned to bed.
He switched off the bed light.
Lee Melner never closed his eyes that night, but he dreamed many dreams.
Although it seemed an eternity, it actually took him two months to make up his mind.
He went many times to the house of Gilbert McAllister. Twice, he checked the combination on the door. It worked, and he found that he was not surprised. He did not go in.
He lived in a state of constant turmoil. Outwardly, he was calm enough; he sleepwalked through the set routines of his gray life. Inwardly, he was seething. He could not think and yet his mind was racing. He ached to tell someone, share what he knew. He came very close to taking Ellen into his confidence. Something made him hold back; he was afraid to involve her.
Not yet, not yet.
Long before he was aware that he had made a final decision, Lee caught himself making plans. This time would be safe; that time would not. What to wear, what to take. How to carry food and water. Whether or not to leave a message in case he did not return …
A night came. He could not sleep. That day there had been rain Outside; he had seen the sheets of water washing across the dome. That night, as he lay in his bed, he heard the distant roar of thunder. It was the third time in his life that he had heard it. He shivered and his heart pounded. He knew that he had to go.
A week later, he went.
Very early in the morning, while the Colony slept, Lee returned to the house of Gilbert McAllister. He pressed the combination and the familiar door whispered open.
He stepped inside, and the door closed behind him. The house was nothing special—a unit like all the others. It was neat and clean and had an empty smell about it.
He moved through the pale interior illumination and located the lift. There was a small switch on the bottom of the control panel. It was clearly marked: EMERGENCY. DO NOT TOUCH.
He threw the switch.
The lift went down. It went farther than he had expected, and then stopped.
He was in a large, barren chamber. The walls and floor and ceiling were all a muted brown. There was nothing in the room. There was no sound except for a gentle hissing from the air vents. The room was a little cold.
A sealed airlock portal was set flush into the wall that was closest to the edge of the dome. It was not large—just big enough to admit two men at once—but it was the same general type as the huge main lock that Lee had seen many times.
There was a panel just to the left of the lock. When Lee stepped in front of it, a red warning light appeared. Words flashed on the panel: DANGER. THIS IS AN EMERGENCY EXIT. DO NOT OPEN WITHOUT AUTHORIZATION
The directions were engraved on the panel.
The instructions were not complicated.
Lee took a deep breath and activated the lock.
John Melner sat with his head in his hands. He was desperately afraid. He could not lie to himself. The ultimate responsibility was his.
“Lee never had a chance,” he said. His voice was tired and barely audible. “The message was too calculated. He was an iron filing drawn to a magnet, a starving man moving toward food. We made the decision for him.”
Dana Bigelow paced as always, his face a frozen mask. “We have switched roles, John. It is futile to blame yourself for what had to be done. The thing may work, you know. I have every confidence in Lee. His prognosis is strong.”
“Yes, but we manipulated him.”
“We had to. The Colony is staring down a dead-end tunnel. We are stagnant, static, afraid to act. We know what the problem is and what caused it. We were abandoned here; God knows why. We were dumped and left. We found ourselves on an alien world and none of the fancy plans were ever implemented. We knew how to survive: stay put, don’t make waves, don’t take chances. We had it drilled into us. It was all we knew. We were too infernally wise and experienced to break out of the shell. We needed something we did not have. We needed a man of action …”
“We needed a hero,” John Melner said quietly. “A quaint, old-fashioned primordial hero. A bringer of fire, a slayer of dragons, an opener of the way. A man who ignored the odds, took the long chance, welcomed a challenge. A dreamer, a doer, a man of impulse. In short, a young man whose mind was not too cluttered up with the knowledge of what he couldn’t or shouldn’t do. We had the young man. We worked on him a little, but basically he was what he was. We provided the opportunity. It is the situation that creates the hero—or breaks him. We set it up. We baited the trap.”
“There was no alternative. Most of us exist in a kind of paralysis of routine. We worship order b
ecause it has kept us alive. The rest of us—Edson Hewitt and his cape-flapping friends—have retreated into sheer ceremonialism and mystical flapdoodle. Harmless, maybe, but it won’t get us anywhere. We had to try. If we didn’t, we wouldn’t last more than a generation or two. We’ll just curl up in a ball and whimper ourselves to death.”
“But he’s my son, Dana. Logic won’t help me now—and it won’t help him. The world out there is tougher than Lee can possibly know. And those—savages—are dangerous. There were—troubles—when we first came here. You remember young Tom Bailey. He was going to make friends with them. They tore him apart and ate him.”
“That was a long time ago, John.”
“Yes, a long time ago …”
They could remember, both of them. Fifty years, half a century, a lifetime. They had come from a crowded earth, more than eleven light-years to the fifth planet of the Procyon system. There had been great plans then, plans to start a new life, plans to work with the inhabitants of Procyon V, plans for visits back to earth.
Plans …
For seven years the ships had come on schedule, driving through the gray reaches of space prime. The Colony had been successful. For a while, it was a good place to be: alive, creative, sure.
And then the ships had stopped.
There was no warning; there could be no warning. The ships from earth simply did not come.
Messages, yes. But they were old transmissions, long outdated. It took better than ten years for radio waves to span the gulf between earth and Procyon V. It took more than twenty years to send a message and receive a reply.
There was no clue to what had happened in any of the messages. There had been no word at all for the last thirty-five years. That meant, of course, that the transmissions from earth had ceased even before the last ships had come …
The colonists were cut off, isolated, forgotten. It was a shock beyond belief, and it hurt. The scars went deep.
It was anybody’s guess what had happened. A political revolution, possibly, a revolt against the exploration of space. A religious upheaval and a creed that space travel was evil. A plague, a war, a lapse into barbarism.