But they hadn’t brought him back—
The thought came again, strongly, growing into horrible certainty. He shuddered, a huge sob breaking from his lips. He knew, he was sure. He had been waiting, hoping, fighting until he had satisfied them and they would stop. But now he saw the picture, from a different angle, with terrible clarity.
They weren’t going to stop. They were never going to stop subjecting him to these horrors. No matter how much he took, no matter how long he kept going, they would never stop.
He had been fighting for a lost cause, fighting to satisfy the insatiable. And he could keep fighting, and running, and fighting, until he toppled over dead.
Anger broke through the despair, blinding anger, anger that tore at his heart and twisted his mouth into a snarl of rage. He had been bilked, fooled, sold down the river. He was just another experiment, a test case, to see how much a live danger-trained spaceman could stand, to be run to death on a treadmill like a helpless, mindless guinea pig—
For the greater good of humanity, they had said. He spat on the sand. He didn’t care about humanity any more. To enable men to go to the stars! Bother the stars! He was a man, he’d fought a grueling battle,, he’d faced death in the most horrible forms his own mind could conceive. He wasn’t going to die, not in the face of the worst that Connover and Schiml and their psych-training crews could throw at him!
He leaned back on the sand, red anger tearing through his veins. It was his own mind he was fighting, these things had come from his own mind, directed by Schiml’s probing needles, stimulated by tiny electrical charges, horribly real, but coming from his own mind nevertheless. They could kill him, oh yes, he never lost sight of that fact.
But he could kill them, too.
He saw the huge rock coming at quite a distance. It was black, and jagged, like a monstrous chunk of coal, speeding straight for his head, careening through the air like some idiotic missile from hell. With bitter anger Robert Cox stood up, facing the approaching boulder, fixing his mind in a single, tight channel, and screamed “Stop!” with all the strength he had left.
And the boulder faltered in mid-flight, and slowed, and vanished in a puff of blue light.
Cox turned to face the shifting, junglelike shore line, his muscles frozen, great veins standing out in his neck. It’s not true, his mind screamed to him, you can wake yourself up, they won’t help you, but you can do it yourself, you can make it all go away, you yourself can control this mind of yours—
And then, like the mists of a dream, the world began fading away around him, twisting like wraiths in the thin, pungent air, changing, turning, changing again, as the last of his strength crept out of his beaten body, and his mind sank with the swirling world into a haze of unconsciousness. And the last thing he saw before blackout was a girl’s sweet face, tearful and loving, hovering close to his, calling his name—
He was awake quite suddenly. Slowly, he stared around the bright, cheerful hospital room. His bed was by a window, and he looked out at the cool morning sun beaming down on the busy city below. Far below he could see the spreading buildings and grounds of the Hoffman Medical Center, like a green oasis in the teeming city. And far in the distance he saw the gleaming silver needlepoints of the starships that he knew were waiting for him.
He turned his face toward the tall, gaunt man in white by his bedside. “Paul,” he said softly, “I came through.”
“You came through.” The doctor smiled happily, and sat down on the edge of the bed.
“But I had to terminate the test all by myself. You couldn’t have stopped it for me.”
Schiml nodded gravely. “That was the last step you had to take, the really critical step of the whole test. I couldn’t have told the others about it, of course. They’d never have let me start the test if they had known. Connover wouldn’t even stick with the part that he’d agreed upon. But without that last step, the test would have been worthless. Can you see that?”
Cox nodded slowly. “I had to rise above the physical reaction level, somehow, I had to force myself—”
“There’s no way for us to know what you’ll find, out there, when you go.” Schiml said slowly. “All we knew was what the others found, and what it did to them. They couldn’t survive what they found. But we knew that training in reactive, fight-or-flight level of response to danger wouldn’t be good enough, either. You would have to have razor-sharp reactions plus full rational powers, even at the very end of your physical rope. We had to know that you had that—” He reached over to inspect Cox’s bandaged head for a moment, his fingers infinitely gentle. “If the horrors you faced had been fakes, to be turned off when the going got tough, you wouldn’t have been driven to that last ebb of resourcefulness that will save you—when you go to the stars. That was the final jump, the one the others didn’t realize—that you had to discover, finally: That we weren’t going to help you; that if you were to be saved, ultimately, it had to depend on you and you alone. You see, when you go where the other starmen went, no one will be with you to help. It’ll be you and you alone. But whatever alien worlds you find, you’ll have a strange sort of guardian angel to help you.”
“The training—”
“That’s right. Training on an unconscious level, of course, but there in your mind nevertheless, a sharpening of your senses, of your analytical powers—an overwhelmingly acute fight-or-flight sense to protect you, no matter what nightmares you run into.”
Cox nodded. “I know. What you called it, at the beginning of training—a sort of brother, hidden, but always there. And this testing was the final step, to see if I could survive such nightmares.”
“And you’ll take it with you to the stars, the nightmare knowledge and experience. It’s hidden deep in your mind, but it’ll be there when you need it. You’ll be the next man to go—you and your nightmare brother.”
Cox stared out the window for a long moment. “Mary’s all right?” he asked softly.
“She’s waiting to see you.”
Robert Cox sat up slowly, his mind clear in the remembrance of the ordeal he had been through— a hideous ordeal. Terrible, but necessary, so that when he came back, he would not be as the others had been. So that men could go to the stars with safety, and come back with safety.
Slowly he remembered his anger. He gripped the doctor’s hand, squeezed it tightly. “Thanks, Paul,” he said. “If I come back—”
“You mean, when you come back,” said Dr. Schiml, grinning. “When you come back, we’ll all have a beer together. That’s what we’ll do.”
SECOND CHANCE
WALTER KUBILIUS and FLETCHER PRATT
★ ★
The human imagination is a curious mechanism. It is almost impossible for people to believe something until they have actually experienced it. Ever since 1945, for instance, the atom bomb has been a reality, and the possibilities of global destruction implied in it are familiar to anyone who can read or listen to a radio. And yet little has been done to stave off the fearful dangers to humanity which a world war of atomic weapons would unleash. Almost everyone expects another war, and an atomic war at that, yet practically all effort and thinking is directed toward winning such a war, not forestalling it.
As atomic weapons increase in power, it will be impossible to limit their ultimate effects to the enemy, as this story makes very plain. If the atomic stockpiles of the next war are large enough, there is a strong probability that the Earth will become something like the smoking ruin described by Mr. Kubilius and Mr. Pratt. As far as the human race is concerned, that will almost certainly be the end.
Less than a century ago, the human race had a demonstration of what violent explosions can do to the surface of the Earth. In August of 1883 an obscure island volcano in Sunda Strait blew up in the course of an eruption. Enormous tidal waves followed. An atmospheric wave traveled to the opposite side of the world four times, and returned to its point of origin three times. Dust from the explosion spread to every corner
of the Earth and reddened sunsets and dawns from Scandinavia to the Cape of Good Hope. This explosion of the volcano of Krakatoa was probably the most violent physical event in recorded history, but today hardly a person in a thousand has so much as heard of it.
Krakatoa should serve as an object lesson to every sensible person. If the dust from its explosion had been radioactive, it is probable that a large part of the human race would have perished less than a century ago. There is no hiding place from poisoned air except in the sort of military citadel the authors of this story describe. So, if a new world war spreads radioactive dust through the Earth’s atmosphere, humanity may be exterminated like so much vermin. It is not an attractive prospect.
Science-fiction writers have sounded a warning of this possibility in story after story, even before the first atom bomb was detonated. Not many of them hold out as much hope for a second chance as Mr. Kubilius and Mr. Pratt. Their story has a happy ending, but not a very likely one.
The wisest thing will be not to have the war at all. Second chances aren’t frequent.
★ ★
General-of-the-armies Alvin Weinburger jabbed stubby fingers at the map, spearing the chief cities of the Cominworld. The little circle of six tarnished stars on his collar glinted dully.
“I think I can promise you,” he said, “that this time there will be neither retaliation nor recovery. We have enough of the V-68s to wipe them out in a single offensive. In fact, we are so certain of the results that our request for the concurrence of the civilian authority may be regarded as almost a pure formality. Gentlemen, World War IV is practically over!”
His eyes swung round the semicircle. Behind him, the hatchet face of Chief of Staff Sir Barnaby Malcolm cracked into a smile, and Marechal Laporte’s long, gloomy moustaches vibrated rather like the whiskers of a cat.
Clifford Dayton, Chairman of the Civilian Authority, said quietly: “Has the Staff established what would be the physiographical and meteorological effects of the release of this additional number of hydrobombs in the region between Kazan and Lake Balkhash?”
Weinburger turned toward his Chief of Staff. Malcolm stood up. “Undoubtedly, they would be somewhat severe,” he said. “We are making one of the heaviest concentrations of hydro-bombs in history, and we could expect a certain number of volcanoes to break out along the line of their underground release. But—” he smiled again, and where previously it had been charming, it was now somewhat wolfish—“this will only make it the more difficult for those of our enemies who survive the original shock.”
There was a little stir among the members of the Civilian Authority, but it was Dayton who spoke again: “I see. Then you have no objection to exterminating their civilian population, in spite of our declarations?” General Weinburger’s face flushed a trifle, and he seemed to gather himself for a few seconds; the silence was punctuated only by the soughing of the air-machines that supplied the general command post far beneath the South Dakota prairie. Then the general said, in the tone of patience one might adopt toward a child that was rather slow of comprehension:
“Mr. Dayton, may I point out to you that under the conditions of this war the term ‘civilian population is a purely legalistic definition? Every man, woman and child in the territory of the Western Alliance is engaged either in the production of war materials or in providing food for those who do produce them. We have every reason to believe that it is not different in the Cominworld.”
Sir Barnaby cut in. “Mr. Dayton is old enough to remember the days of World War III, when the distinction between military and civilian population still had some validity. I am not suggesting that we abolish the wise provision by which the assent of the Civilian Authority is necessary to major strategic decisions, but I quite agree with General Weinburger when he says that the assent is a pure formality. In all of us, the would-be civilian has been swallowed up by military necessity.”
Without answering the last part of this speech, Dayton said slowly: “Yes, I am old enough to remember World War III—on the civilian front. I was in New York when the ruins were still radiating and the bodies were unburied. Gentlemen, have you any concept of what that was like?”
Sir Barnaby shrugged. “Not much worse than Chicago or Tver today, I fancy,” he said.
Old Marechal Laporte made a sound in his throat. “Time is of the essence. Please to sign.” He reached over and his hand pushed impatiently at the authorization papers.
Without appearing to see him, Dayton turned. “General Weinburger and his Staff do not appear to have looked deeply into the question I first proposed. Perhaps we can enlighten him. Dr. Sanchez, will you have that recording made by the robot plane over the Andes thrown on the screen, then the ones from the Caucasus and from Indonesia?” The lights snapped out, and the men turned to face the telescreen that filled one wall of the command post. At first nothing was visible but rolling clouds of smoke that changed color and thinned, but never so much as to permit even a sight of ground. Then the plane that carried the recording apparatus dipped; an ominous booming came from the soundtrack, and the watchers could see the long range of Andean peaks, one after another, some merely sending thin columns of smoke into the swirling overcast, some shooting up jets of flame in which boulders bounced like marbles.
“Behold the fate of my unhappy continent!” said Sanchez, with a slight catch in his voice.
The picture changed—not so much in character as in location, for the mountains were not quite so steep here. But there was the same range upon range of smoking mountains, and from the side of one a slow flow of lava was making its way down to quench itself boilingly in a sullen grey sea.
“The Caspian end of the Caucasus,” explained Dr. Sanchez.
Weinburger barked a laugh. “Ha! And they thought they could keep their war plants safe by putting them underground in the mountains!”
“Yes, these are the effect of hydro-bombs e-driven into the mountains by penetrating rockets, as you of the military have wished,” said Sanchez.
On the screen the picture had changed again. This time the chain of mountains appeared to rise directly from the sea, and at one point to the right of the vision a vast boiling and a cloud of steam indicated an underwater eruption.
Sanchez said: “These conditions are not individual, but everywhere—everywhere.”
“They are something we all know about,” said General Weinburger. “Is it your purpose to tell us that the same conditions will exist where the Russian underground cities now lie? We know that already, too. That is the purpose of our offensive.”
“I have only to say that these volcanoes increase daily the quantity of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Already our Earth is almost blanketed in cloud. We see the sun no more.”
Weinburger started to say something, but Dayton held up his hand. “Van Zandt,” he said. “Now your recording.”
This time there were no volcanoes visible on the screen, only a picture of ominous black mountains that turned and twisted as the robot plane carried the camera above and across them. In a few of the valleys lay what appeared to be little streaks of snow under the dark overcast sky.
The voice of Van Zandt spoke: “This picture was made less than a week ago above the south polar cap. You gentlemen will see that it is almost entirely melted, and that what is left of it is going rapidly. I need not remind you that the seaboard cities are already drowned out, and the whole Mississippi valley is flooded as high as St. Louis.”
“Well, conditions in the Cominworld are no better,” said General Weinburger, “and after our coming offensive they will be worse. Gentlemen, this is war and destruction, a question of their lives or ours.
We can have no security as long as they exist; and I remind you, gentlemen, that you cannot have an omelette without breaking eggs.”
Dayton said: “General, the trouble is that too many eggs have already been broken. Tell him, Dr. Sanchez.”
The South American said, soberly: “There is no hope whatever of a
decrease in the CO2 content of the atmosphere. The volcanoes produce more; the cloud banks become thicker. Our Earth is becoming a tropical planet. I have flown over Central America—only a string of green slime between these continents, not habitable.”
Sir Barnaby Malcolm gave an audible sniff. Marechal Laporte shrugged his shoulders.
“This is not the only question,” said Dayton, soberly. “You gentlemen know very well that the Vladisoff anti-germ virus has wiped out all the wheat, barley, rye, corn and oats grown above ground, just as the bombings have wiped out a third of our people —a third of those left after World War III. What Dr. Sanchez is telling you is that on the tropical planet the Earth has become, there is no possibility of recovering these resources. The only thing our ground will produce is tropical growths, all lush stems and no grains.”
“For ten thousand years,” said Sanchez.
Sir Barnaby stood up again. “An appalling prospect,” he said. “But as I remember, not exactly one on our agenda. I understand we were met to discuss the prospect of the V-68 offensive.”
“That’s the reason I brought the matter up,” said Dayton. “The Civilian Authority wishes to use the V-68s for another purpose.”
For a moment there was silence in the room. The Englishman was the first to speak. “May I ask what this other purpose is?”
“We propose to use them to reach and colonize the planet Venus.”
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