(5/15) The Golden Age of Science Fiction Volume V: An Anthology of 50 Short Stories

by Various

  He opened his eyes again to look past the Pornsens, out of the curving port of his office-lab in the Exodus VII's flank, at the scene outside the ship.

  At the edge of the clearing he could see Danny Stern and his crew, tiny beneath the cavernous sunbeam-shot overhang of giant leaves. Danny was standing up at the controls of the 'dozer, waving his arms. His crew was struggling to get a log set so he could shove it into place with the 'dozer. They were repairing a break in the barricade--the place where one of New Earth's giant saurians had come stamping and whistling through last night to kill three colonists before it could be blasted out of existence.

  It was difficult. Damned difficult. A brand-new world here, all ready to receive the refugees from dying Earth. Or rather, all ready to be made ready, which was the task ahead of the Exodus VII's personnel.

  An Earth-like world. Green, warm, fertile--and crawling, leaping, hooting and snarling with ferocious beasts of every variety. Farrel could certainly see the women's point in banding together and refusing to produce children. Something inside a woman keeps her from wanting to bring life into peril--at least, when the peril seems temporary, and security is both remembered and anticipated.

  Pornsen said, "I guess I feel just about like Mary does. I--I don't see any reason for having a kid until we get this place ironed out and safe to live in."

  "That's going to take time, Ralph." Farrel clasped his hands in front of him and delivered the speech he had delivered so often in the past few weeks. "Ten or twelve years before we really get set up here. We've got to build from the ground up, you know. We'll have to find and mine our metals. Build our machines to build shops to build more machines. There'll be resources that we won't find, and we'll have to learn what this planet has to offer in their stead. Colonizing New Earth isn't simply a matter of landing and throwing together a shining city. I only wish it were.

  "Six weeks ago we landed. We haven't yet dared to venture more than a mile from this spot. We've cut down trees and built the barricade and our houses. After protecting ourselves we have to eat. We've planted gardens. We've produced test-tube calves and piglets. The calves are doing fine, but the piglets are dying one by one. We've got to find out why.

  "It's going to be a long, long time before we have even a minimum of security, much less luxury. Longer than you think.... So much longer that waiting until the security arrives before having children is out of the question. There are critters out there--" he nodded toward the port and the busy clearing beyond--"that we haven't been able to kill. We've thrown everything we have at them, and they come back for more. We'll have to find out what will kill them--how they differ from those we are able to kill. We are six hundred people and a spaceship, Ralph. We have techniques. That's all. Everything else we've got to dig up out of this planet. We'll need people, Mary; we'll need the children. We're counting on them. They're vital to the plans we've made."

  Mary Pornsen said, "Damn the plans. I won't have one. Not now. You've just done a nice job of describing all my reasons. And all the other girls feel the same way."

  * * * * *

  She looked out the window at the 'dozer and crew. Danny Stern was still waving his arms; the log was almost in place. "George and May Wright were killed last night. So was Farelli. If George and May had had a child, the monster would have trampled it too--it went right through their cabin like cardboard. It isn't fair to bring a baby into--"

  Farrel said, "Fair, Mary? Maybe it isn't fair not to have one. Not to bring it into being and give it a chance. Life's always a gamble--"

  "It doesn't exist," Mary said. She smiled. "Don't try circumlocution on me, Doc. I'm not religious. I don't believe that spermatozoa and an ovum, if not allowed to cuddle up together, add up to murder."

  "That isn't what I meant--"

  "You were getting around to it--which means you've run out of good arguments."

  "No. I've a few left." Farrel looked at the two stubborn faces: Mary's, pleasant and pretty, but set as steel; Ralph's, uncomfortable, thoughtful, but mirroring his definite willingness to follow his wife's lead.

  Farrel cleared his throat. "You know how important it is that this colony be established? You know that, don't you? In twenty years or so the ships will start arriving. Hundreds of them. Because we sent a message back to Earth saying we'd found a habitable planet. Thousands of people from Earth, coming here to the new world we're supposed to get busy and carve out for them. We were selected for that task--first of judging the right planet, then of working it over. Engineers, chemists, agronomists, all of us--we're the task force. We've got to do the job. We've got to test, plant, breed, re-balance, create. There'll be a lot of trial and error. We've got to work out a way of life, so the thousands who will follow can be introduced safely and painlessly into the--well, into the organism. And we'll need new blood for the jobs ahead. We'll need young people--"

  Mary said, "A few years one way or the other won't matter much, Doc. Five or six years from now this place will be a lot safer. Then we women will start producing. But not now."

  "It won't work that way," Farrel said. "We're none of us kids any longer. I'm fifty-five. Ralph, you're forty-three. I realize that I must be getting old to think of you as young. Mary, you're thirty-seven. We took a long time getting here. Fourteen years. We left an Earth that's dying of radioactive poisoning, and we all got a mild dose of that. The radiation we absorbed in space, little as it was, didn't help any. And that sun up there--" again he nodded at the port--"isn't any help either. Periodically it throws off some pretty damned funny stuff.

  "Frankly, we're worried. We don't know whether or not we can have children. Or normal children. We've got to find out. If our genes have been bollixed up, we've got to find out why and how and get to work on it immediately. It may be unpleasant. It may be heart-breaking. But those who will come here in twenty years will have absorbed much more of Earth's radioactivity than we did, and an equal amount of the space stuff, and this sun will be waiting for them.... We'll have to know what we can do for them."

  "I'm not a walking laboratory, Doc," Mary said.

  "I'm afraid you are, Mary. All of you are."

  Mary set her lips and stared out the port.

  "It's got to be done, Mary."

  She didn't answer.

  "It's going to be done."

  "Choose someone else," she said.

  "That's what they all say."

  She said, "I guess this is one thing you doctors and psychologists didn't figure on, Doc."

  "Not at first," Farrel said. "But we've given it some thought."

  MacGuire had installed the button convenient to Farrel's right hand, just below the level of the desk-top. Farrel pressed it. Ralph and Mary Pornsen slumped in their chairs. The door opened, and Doctor John J. MacGuire and Ted Harris, the Exodus VII's chief psychologist, came in.

  * * * * *

  When it was over, and the after-play had been allowed to run its course, Farrel told the Pornsens to go into the next room and shower. They came back soon, looking refreshed. Farrel ordered them to get back into their clothes. Under the power of the hypnotic drug which their chairs had injected into them at the touch of the button, they did so. Then he told them to sit down in the chairs again.

  MacGuire and Harris had gathered up their equipment, piling it on top of the operating table.

  MacGuire smiled. "I'll bet that's the best-monitored, most hygienic sex act ever committed. I think I've about got the space radiations effect licked."

  Farrel nodded. "If anything goes wrong, it certainly won't be our fault. But let's face it--the chances are a thousand to one that something will go wrong. We'll just have to wait. And work." He looked at the Pornsens. "They're very much in love, aren't they? And she was receptive to the suggestion--beneath it all, she was burning to have a child, just like the others."

  MacGuire wheeled out the operating table, with its load of serums, pressure-hypos and jury-rigged thingamabobs which he was testing on alternate couples. Ted
Harris stopped at the door a moment. He said, "I think the suggestions I planted will turn the trick when they find out she's pregnant. They'll come through okay--won't even be too angry."

  Farrel sighed. They'd been over it in detail several times, of course, but apparently Harris needed the reassurance as much as he did. He said: "Sure. Now scram so I can go back into my act."

  Harris closed the door. Farrel sat down at his desk and studied the pair before him. They looked back contentedly, holding hands, their eyes dull.

  Farrel said, "How do you feel?"

  Ralph Pornsen said, "I feel fine."

  Mary Pornsen said, "Oh, I feel wonderful!"

  Deliberately Farrel pressed another button below his desk-top.

  The dull eyes cleared instantly.

  "Oh, you've given it some thought, Doc?" Mary said sweetly. "And what have you decided?"

  "You'll see," Farrel said. "Eventually."

  He rose. "That's all for now, kids. I'd like to see you again in one month--for a routine check-up."

  Mary nodded and got up. "You'll still have to wait, Doc. Why not admit you're licked?"

  Ralph got up too, and looked puzzled.

  "Wow," he said. "I'm tired."

  "Perhaps just coming here," Farrel said, "discharged some of the tension you've been carrying around."

  The Pornsens left.

  Farrel brought out some papers from his desk and studied them. Then, from the file drawer, he selected the record of Hugh and Alice Farrel. Alice would be at the perfect time of her menstrual cycle tomorrow....

  Farrel flipped his communicator.

  "MacGuire," he said. "Tomorrow it's me."

  MacGuire chuckled. Farrel could have kicked him. He put his chin in his hands and stared out the port. Danny Stern had the log in place in the barricade. The bulldozer was moving on to a new task. His momentary doubt stilled, Farrel went back to work.

  * * * * *

  Twenty-one years later, when the ships from Earth began arriving, the log had been replaced by a stone monument erected to the memory of the Exodus VII, which had been cut apart for its valuable steel. Around the monument was a park, and on three sides of the park was a shining town--not really large enough to be called a city--of plastic and stone, for New Earth had no iron ore, only zinc and a little copper. This was often cause for regret.

  Still it was a pretty good world. The monster problem had been licked by high-voltage cannon. Now in their third generation since the landing, the monsters kept their distance. And things grew--things good to eat.

  And even without steel, the graceful, smoothly-functioning town looked impressive--quite a thing to have been built by a handful of beings with two arms and two legs each.

  It hadn't been, entirely. But nobody thought much about that any more. Even the newcomers got used to it. Things change.

  THE END

  * * *

  Contents

  ZERO HOUR

  by Alexander Blade

  By accident Bobby discovered the rocket was about to be shot to the Moon. Naturally he wanted to go along. But could he smuggle himself aboard?

  Dad had already gone when Bobby got up. This disappointed Bobby a little but then he remembered--this was the big day. Naturally Dad would get over to the project early. And at four o'clock-- Bobby shivered deliciously at the thought of it.

  He ate his breakfast in silence with Mom across the table drinking a cup of coffee and looking at a fashion catalogue. He was glad she was occupied because he didn't want to talk; not today he didn't. Might spill something secret. Might even let out the big secret. That would be terrible.

  Of course, all things were secret at Buffalo Flats. So secret top scientists like Dad didn't even discuss them with wives like Mom. And wives like Mom never asked.

  So it was really something to sit there eating breakfast knowing that, today, Dad was going to rocket to the Moon. And with Mom not even knowing the Lunar project was in the works, so naturally not dreaming that he was going with Dad! The thrill was overpowering.

  Maybe they would have radio communication after they got there and he would call back and say, Hello, Mom! Guess where I am? On the moon with Dad! And Mom would say, Why, Bobby! Scaring me to death like this! I was looking all over for you. Sounding very angry but not being really angry after all. Because maybe Dad would cut in and say, Yeah, he's right here with me, dear. What do you think of this boy of ours?

  Bobby gulped the last of his cereal so he could go outside and wriggle for joy. As he got up from his chair, Mom said, "And what's your plan for today, young man? Davy Crockett or Buck Rogers?"

  Bobby had a quick thought--a sudden temptation. Why not give Mom a hint? Why he could even tell her and she still wouldn't know. Then later, after he was gone, she would remember back and say, That boy! When he tells you something he really means it.

  Bobby smiled and said, "I think I'll go to the moon today."

  Mom smiled too and went back to her fashions. "Well, see to it your fuel mixture is correct."

  "I'll check it. And Mom--I might not be home for lunch."

  "Where will you be?"

  "Oh, I don't know."

  "Well, mind your manners and say thank you when you leave."

  Mrs. Kendall, still smiling, watched Bobby dash out into the yard. Living on a restricted government area had one compensation at least. You didn't have to worry about your children. Four dozen families, all with offspring, trapped behind ten-foot patrolled fence. Here, nobody worried about their children. They came and went and at noon a mother fed whatever number happened to be in the house at the time. Mrs. Kendall usually drew six or seven. It would be a relief to dodge the chore for one Saturday....

  * * * * *

  Out in the backyard, Bobby fussed around his space rocket a little: tightening a screw here--hammering in a nail there. Just until he could slip away without Mom noticing his direction.

  It wasn't a bad rocket at that, he thought. Six feet long with two seats and a keen instrument panel. But kid stuff of course. After he found the way in through the sewer he hadn't paid any more attention to his own ship.

  He could see Mom through the window, back in her book, so he went casually out through the back gate and turned left, kicking at pebbles as he sauntered along and trying to look as though he had no place to go. Had to be careful. Didn't want to bump into any of the other kids today, either.

  The way in through the sewer was at a place behind Laboratory B. There was a kind of an alley there that nobody ever walked through and then this round lid you could lift up and look under. And a ladder you could climb down.

  Bobby hadn't dared go down at first. But, after thinking about it overnight, his curiosity won out and he went back and ducked down into the lower level. He called it a sewer because of sewers being underground, but this place was clean and had bunches of wires strung in every direction and faint little lights you could see by.

  Bobby went further and further every trip he took, never telling anybody because you weren't supposed to talk about things at Buffalo Flats--not even to the other kids.

  Then he found the big drome where they were building the rocket. It was so sleek and beautiful and shiny that he just stared at it--up through the grating in the floor that was for air circulation or something.

  He didn't know it was the moon rocket at first. Not until he'd gone back several times to peek up at it and then one day two scientists came walking along right in front of his nose.

  One of them was Dad.

  Bobby almost called out but he caught himself and just listened to them talking. This was the first time his conscience bothered him about going underneath the drome. He thought about it a lot--whether it was the right thing to do. And while he was never able to still his conscience completely, he quieted down by saying he really wasn't doing any harm because he'd never told anybody what he saw.

  He learned the rocket was going to the moon by listening to Dad and the other scientists talk when they thou
ght they were alone. And it was funny. Because even there, they spoke in low voices and didn't give too much away.

  He had known now for three days that at four o'clock the roof would open and the drome would be turned into a blast-pit and the rocket would shoot out through space to the moon.

  That was all he did know for sure. None of the men had said who was going on the first trip to the moon. Nothing had been said on that subject at all, but Bobby knew Dad would go. He would have to. After all, Dad was the second biggest scientist at Buffalo Flats. Second only to Schleimmer himself and Professor Schleimmer was very old and certainly wouldn't make the trip. That left Dad. Dad would just have to go in order to run the rocket. There probably wasn't anybody else smart enough in the whole place.

  The idea of going himself had been born the previous day--when he found a larger grating in the floor near the rocket and realized if he was very careful he could climb out of the sewer and duck into the rocket when nobody was looking. Once inside he was pretty sure he'd find a place to hide until blast-off.

  All the men would probably be strapped in bunks but if he found a place he could wedge himself in he didn't think he'd get hurt. Then, halfway to the moon he would come out and find Dad and would he be surprised!

  At first, thinking about it, he'd been scared but after he realized how proud Dad and Mom would be, he made up his mind.

  Now, crouched beside the grating near the ship, he waited while two men--technicians in white overalls--walked by.

  One of them said, "Well, whatever happens, she'll make a big splash."

  "You said it. Hope the brains know what they're doing."

  That made Bobby mad. Who said Dad didn't know what he was doing? Dad was just about the smartest scientist in the world.