VI
Somewhere along the way, this and other matters became too profound for me. I absorbed what I could; but my field is action and feeling, not deep penetration, like Dr. Lanvin's. He pursued androidal conversion down to its last secret. Drawings and formulae, changed to Earthly terms, went down on parchment, and into his head. He toyed with the wondrous slimes of another kind of life, and at last understood them.
Jan and I were lesser beings. Buffaloed and a little dazed, we would wander off from the labs. Often we swam and laughed. Part of our personalities was adjusting to the fantastic region of The Small. But we worried, too. About our original bodies, and about a reticence before questioning, on the part of even Kobolah. Then Jan expressed another thing:
"Have I learned to read suspicion in the manner of the local folks, Charlie? Their minds are beyond us. But to them, recently, we have been strange giants beyond easy imagining. Now, do they especially resent having their greatest secret given to us? Do they object to the advice of their version of George, that we should have it? I feel a danger, Charlie. They could destroy us, or keep us here. Already they won't let us go up to the surface of the asteroid, though gosh knows what we could do there."
Jan and I were crouching in a little glade, in a lush cavern where the sun shone. No one else was near. I said softly:
"From the surface, I think we might get back to Ganymede and the Intruder, and maybe to ourselves, if it's not too late."
Jan looked at me with a wondering frown. "Yes, she mused. A few inches is a mile to us. Some ways, our movements are terribly limited. But in other respects, we're more free. With only a jet rod, we might travel those thousands of miles."
"It's an idea to keep in reserve," I said. "But there's another trouble. We've been here for about two months—counting one for the changing of our forms. Would our own bodies, even if they are still alive, or our ship and Bowhart and Scharber, still be where they were, after so long?"
A trapped, icy feeling came over me.
Jan was a real pal. You didn't have to hide your fears from her. She was a courageous realist. Her little rounded face only looked sort of stern.
"What to do, Charlie?" she answered. "Wait and see, I guess. Funny how important old familiar circumstances are. But we'll get along—even always being what we are, now. Darn Doc, though, never thinking about anything but his studying. Double-darn our Xian sponsor, Kobolah! Hint about our personal futures, lately, and he gets as elusive as all the history of his kind!"
I chuckled bitterly, and then quoted some of the things Kobolah had buzzed at us: "'Leaving soon? How soon is soon? To a long life, a century is nothing. Are you not happy?...' Yeah, that's Kobolah! A demoniac cross between something we'll never quite understand, and a kid denying with naive aplomb that he stole the cookies."
Yes, an elusive inertia of suspicion was all around us now, like a barrier.
Jan and I got through to Doc Lanvin at last, penetrating his studious fog. An overtone of grimness came into his mild expression.
"I've noticed the change in Xian attitude, too," he admitted. "It's a shame to be wanting to skip out on them, now that I've learned all that is necessary. But with the biggest piece of potential human history in my possession, I could hardly let minor qualms deter me much, could I? We'll find a road to freedom."
Yet it turned out less easy than Doc hoped. Time after time we approached various surface airlocks. Redoubled Xian guard-groups pushed us back gently. Neither stealth nor violence had any chance of being effective. We were constantly watched and outnumbered. Twice we tried hiding in metal boxes, full of parts destined for the surface-assemblies of the tiny world's slowly developing star motors. Both times we were promptly discovered, and pulled forth with emphasis. Xian voices buzzed. Their eyes were cold. After that second try, Doc had a wild look, like somebody with a treasure that he can't use.
"No star trips for us, yet," he growled. "Not with another bigger purpose back home. Somehow I'll get there, or stop living!"
A little later we were back in the familiar laboratories. It was night, deepened by the fact that the sun was now eclipsed by Ganymede. But in the windowless lab with its electron lamps, this couldn't matter. Kobolah puttered in a corner. No one else was with us.
Keyed up and angry inside, I noticed a rather unobtrusive combination of circumstances—three new jet rods in a corner; small nets of fine wire, containing steel cylinders of supplies. Casually stuck to a metal prong on the wall was a parchment map, showing a vertical shaft leading to an airlock—the lab's private exit. Beside the map, a little used grille was slightly ajar.
Excitement became a kind of panic inside me. I looked at Jan. Her long lashes blinked knowingly. Doc nodded and walked casually away. The parchments of the secret he had gained were nearby. As if only to add further notes, he took the vast sheaf out of its compartment and carefully divided it into three. Midway in this operation, Kobolah turned toward us. Millions of years of difference in background, and in physical, mental, and emotional form, looked at us from great, cold eyes. A nervous chill came over me, both from the bleakness of discovery and frustration, again, and from the namelessness of that gaze.
Finally the monster imitated a harsh laugh. "Call this outburst peculiar," he buzzed. "Coming from nothing. But I happened to think that it is easy to be a fool, and often one will never know which way is foolish. Remember that."
He turned his attention back to the sputtering electrical apparatus over which he had been working.
"Thank you, Kobolah," Jan said nervously. He did not reply.
We divided the parchment among us, gathered up the equipment, and slipped quietly past the exit grille. An air current lifted us up the shaft to an unguarded airlock, whose control devices were readily responsive.
"Somebody stacked the deck for us," Doc whispered. "The scientist's logic, against popular doubts, maybe? Better to let us escape, than to release us openly, eh? I hope he doesn't get into trouble with his people. Or is there a deeper trick? Well, we'll soon know."
We emerged onto the deserted surface. We were micro-androids in space; dust-grain things matched against the universe, and the future of man. But we were part of both.
In the shadow of the asteroid world's eclipse by Ganymede, there was still soft light from Jupiter. Now we joined ourselves like mountain climbers, with a thoughtfully provided floss cable. Then, with small bursts from our jet-tubes, we leapt.
Soon we were falling toward Ganymede, accelerated by its attraction. It was a trip of many hours. Our jet rods checked our speed while we were still in space, and the satellite's atmosphere became a supporting cushion. We had an advantage over full-sized people—we could not fall to destruction. Instead we had to search for downdrafts to help force our descent with the rods.
Completing our journey, however, was not especially difficult. In Ganymede's glowing crescent we located a foamy dot—the airdomes of Port Hoverton. From this reference point it was easy to determine where we had left the Intruder. We got down into a prevailing wind. Thereafter our progress was swift.
After a few more hours, and some jockeying with our jet rods, we knew we were over the right place. We could speak audibly again, now.
Doc's grin was a bit forced. "You can even see its circular imprint in the dust," he said. "But the Intruder is gone."
Jan pointed below. "There's a space tent, Charlie!" she exclaimed. "The little brown dot! See? And somebody's standing before it!"
Swiftly we jetted down toward that bulging, inflated tent, fitted with its zippered airlock compartment. It stood alone in frigid desolation. "S.S. Intruder" was lettered on its side.
We alighted on the plastic face window of the armored figure, and clung to scratches in the material.
From this position we looked at the face of the man, huge, handsome to our former view, but made ugly by magnification. The skin-pores were craters. Individual scales of the epidermis, with the living cells beneath, were all visible, on forehead and nose, a
nd around the colossal eyes, in which the separate flecks of pigmentation could be seen. It was an impressive, belittling vista.
The colossal jaw worked slightly: the narrowed gaze looked grim.
"It's Scharber!" Jan said. "He stayed here to keep watch, hoping for a sign from us, I'll bet! He knew part of what we were doing. But now he doesn't even notice us, any more than you notice motes on a windowpane. And how can we talk to him? He could never hear our voices directly. How can we get anything across?"
The riddle faced us tautly, as if we were trapped forever in a lesser dimension, even beyond communication with our own kind.
"The jet rods again!" Doc shouted. "He'll see the spark of blue fire!"
Doc braced himself in a scratch ridge in the plastic and squeezed the trigger of his rod. At a little distance, the glassy surface boiled up in dazzling flame. When the thread of intense atomic heat was broken off, a smoldering pit was left in the outer surface of Scharber's face window. A mere pinprick.
But plainly Scharber had observed, and added it up. His great eyes widened; the plateaux that were his cheeks, paled. In the canyon-like ridges of his brow, came the sweat of fear. Drops of it were bulging lakes, rushing down past the lopped-off redwood trunks of the blond bristle along his jowls.
It was then that I found that another's fear of the unknown can inspire fear—which was easy to feel, anyway, when looking up at that mighty visage. Here was I, minute before this Atlas. I felt outclassed beyond measure.
There came suddenly a great shock of sound. Almost, it was more a heavy vibration, like an earthquake. Quivering with it, Jan, Doc and I clung to the roughness of Scharber's face window. Yet it had the beat of recognizable words. Scharber was speaking:
"So you've come, damn you, whoever you are! Like you came for some part of Lanvin and Charlie Harver and his wife. Well, their bodies, still in deep coma, were shipped back to Earth a week ago on the Jovian! We have scientists to figure out what you've done to my pals. Bowhart has gone to help the scientists with what we know! So look out! We're strong on Earth. We can fight and punish. So—to hell with you!"
Scharber was terrified before the unknown, but defiant and brave. The oldest human virtue was there, and it gave me a lift.
"I wish we could thank him for that kind of talk," Jan said.
"Maybe we can," Doc answered. "But our big problem is to get home fast, now. Ships from Ganymede to Earth run only every two months, and if the Jovian left only a week ago, there aren't any ships here! And how long before coma becomes death? When it has already gone on for so long? I know how you two must feel. With me, maybe it's not quite so bad. But darn, I still need that carcass of mine!"
I looked again at Scharber's frightened face. I had hoped that he could help us. But without space craft, that was unlikely. Oh, a call might be sent for a rescue vessel. But it would be sixty or so Earth-days in arriving, even if involved explanations of our peculiar position could be made by interworld radio.
"There's a way to communicate with Scharber," I said. "We could probably get him to have a message sent to Bowhart to recall the Intruder. But to turn a fully accelerated space ship around in mid-trajectory is no simple trick. Anyhow, there'd still be a bad delay."
"So, beyond trying to locate some small craft at Port Hoverton, there's just one other thing for us to do," Doc said grimly.
Jan expressed it for us: "Use the same method that we used to come here from the sub-moon of the Kobolah's people? Go without a ship at all? Achieve a high velocity; trust ourselves to something over four hundred million miles of empty void unprotected? Is that what you mean, Dr. Lanvin?"
Her small face looked pinched and awed.
"That's exactly what I mean," Doc replied. "As things are, I believe that it is considerably the best way. Oh, we can still die, I imagine, under certain circumstances! But the stakes are pretty big. I'd suggest that you stay behind, Jan, until we could send for you. But the form that was you is also one of those in a coma; and time is undoubtedly precious. Yes, there's desperation of at least a minor kind in what I suggest. But I think we've got all that we will need. And being as tiny as dust gives us certain definite advantages."
Jan looked at me soberly. "Sometimes small, inert objects actually leave worlds on their own, don't they, Charlie?" she mused. "Not only atmospheric molecules achieving escape velocity, but sometimes much more massive particles? At least, there was the Arrhenius theory of the propagation of life throughout space—by means of spores torn from the upper air of one world by the light-pressure of its mother star, and propelled by the same force across the interstellar regions to the planets of other suns. About ourselves—well—aren't we about the right size and toughness to travel in approximately the same way?"
I looked at Jan, gulped hard, breathed "Okay," raggedly. Then I returned my attention to the enormity that was Scharber's face.
He had hardly moved; his eyes continued to search the curve of his face window, as if needing another sign from out of the unknown—as if, in fascination, he feared to miss such a sign. But his sweat of terror, at least, was subsiding.
"He can help us, a little," I said. "But staying here, he's unhappy, and can't do any good."
Doc nodded.
"So we do the right thing," I chuckled. "First we change position; mount to the top of the metal flange that frames his face window. Just let go of this plastic surface, you two."
My jet rod flashed. The cable of floss which joined us all, drew Jan and Doc after me, as I shot outward through the air to the crest of the flange. There we clung. I had to hold on tight to resist the kick of the rod, which would have hurled us far out into the air again, as I used it for a pencil to etch a message on Scharber's face window with its long needle of atomic heat.
It was like writing on the sky. My arm swung wide. But the range of about half an inch, with the rod's energy roaring at full, was about right to give me a normal-sized script. The jet's kick was trying to break my arm, otherwise it wasn't too hard to do.
I even tried writing backwards so that Scharber could read my message normally from inside his helmet. Where the needle of heat touched, plastic seethed, and a visible line was left.
I wrote:
It's us, Scharber. Lanvin, the Harvers. Changed. Micro-androids now—like race of Xian origin. Friendly. Go home, Scharber. But please send radiogram. Urge imperative need to keep our bodies alive. Will return to them. A million thanks for everything.
The eyes of the Atlas who was our friend, stared again. Lakes of nervous reaction came into them. The plains of the cheeks whitened, as with some strange frost.
The eyes of the Atlas who was our friend stared ... stared fearfully at the message being inscribed so mysteriously on his plastic helmet.
The earthquake spoke:
"Charlie? Or am I going space nuts? Maybe this could be.... But who ever heard of it!..."
Panic at his own thoughts made Scharber move suddenly. The movement threw Jan and Doc and me from the frame of his face window. As we tumbled in the thin, methane atmosphere of Ganymede, I heard Doc laugh.
"Scharber will probably be all right," he said. "It's the shock of difference, again. But the message won't vanish from the plastic. He won't think that madness made him dream it. He's tough and young. He'll straighten out.... Come on, let's get started—for Earth!"
VII
We were lifted upward toward the limits of the atmosphere by the jets of our rods, aided by natural updrafts, which we sought out. Joined together as a group by the floss cable, we were certainly far heavier than any of Arrhenius' theoretical spores; but we had the advantage of intelligence to seek out forces to help us. We were not inert particles to be buffetted by chance impulses of nature.
We attained the high ionosphere of Ganymede where the sky was almost as black as space, where accelerated residual molecules beat against us, giving us some of their upward motion, and where sound had almost been smothered by the vacuum. There, Doc clutched mine and Jan's hands for
sonic contact, and said thinly:
"Last chance for vocal speech. We'd better know how we all feel. In the parchments we carry we have about the greatest possible material gift to man, a dream of his from his beginnings. Practical freedom from death, from physical affliction. Immensely increased range of possibilities. The universe, in almost all of its phases, can truly become his stamping ground, now. It's a treasure that men would kill to have. To me it is an inevitable and wonderful step of progress. But there's a confusion in it, based on a split in human nature. You've seen and felt how it works. The mistrust of old instincts for the completely different and revolutionary. Fear and even horror that invokes a savage compulsion to fight back. There's trouble ahead—between the two halves of man's character—represented by eagerness and revulsion. We know how it is from our own feelings. The android bodies we now have are the substance of the treasure, the gift. We exult at its legendary advantages; yet we have a terror of a strange exile, if we can't get back to our weak, natural flesh! The answer, on Earth, when the Big Change really comes, will be emotional adjustment, acclimation, time. Right?"
I answered Doc quickly: "You're looking for possible treachery in our nerves—opposition. Don't worry, Doc. I know every feeling you've mentioned. But the balance is all on the side of belief that progress is inevitable and good. I say this as a pretty average guy, Doc. Let Jan speak for herself."
My wife smiled. "Charlie knows I agree," she said. "So let's get the show on the road...."
We rose still higher in the atmosphere, to a place where the rising sun's rays were like a thin wind blowing against us. It was the pressure of light, the same thing that makes the vanes of an antique photometer spin. Gently, but with increasing speed, we were urged into space. One thing was wrong. Our Earthward course was to sunward, against that minute thrust of solar light. But there was a way to correct part of this.
Ten (Stories) to The Stars Page 23
