by John Wyndham
“That's so Doc. There are two small meteorite holes, but they would not get direct beams from there.”
“Fine. Then keep 'em just like that. Take care they don't get warmed. Don't try anything the instruction-sheet says. The point is that though the success of the Hapson freeze is almost sure, the resuscitation isn't. In fact, it's very dodgy indeed — a poorer than twenty-five-per-cent chance at best. You get lethal crystal formations building up, for one thing. What I suggest is that you try to get 'em back exactly as they are. Our apparatus here will give them the best chance they can have. Can you do that?”
Gerald Troon thought for a moment. Then he said:
“We don't want to waste this trip — and that's what'll happen if we pull the derelict out of our side to leave a hole we can't mend. But if we leave her where she is, plugging the hole, we can at least take on a half-load of ore. And if we pack that well in, it'll help to wedge the derelict in place. So suppose we leave the derelict just as she lies, and the men too, and seal her up to keep the ore out of her. Would that suit?”
“That should be as good as can be done,” the doctor replied. “But have a look at the two men before you leave them. Make sure they're secure in their bunks. As long as they are kept in space conditions about the only thing likely to harm them is breaking loose under acceleration, and getting damaged.”
“Very well, that's what we'll do. Anyway, we'll not be using any high acceleration the way things are. The other poor fellow shall have a space burial...”
An hour later both Gerald and his companions were back in the Celestis's living-quarters, and the First Officer was starting to manoeuvre for the spiral-in to Psyche. The two got out of their space-suits. Gerald pulled the derelict's log from the outside pocket, and took it to his bunk. There he fastened the belt, and opened the book.
Five minutes later Steve looked across at him from the opposite bunk, with concern.
“Anything the matter, Cap'n? You're looking a bit queer.”
“I'm feeling a bit queer, Steve ... That chap we took out and consigned to space, he was Terence Rice, wasn't he?”
“That's what his disc said,” Steve agreed.
“H'm.” Gerald Troon paused. Then he tapped the book. “This,” he said, “is the log of the Astarte. She sailed from the Moon-Station 3 January 2149 — forty-five years ago — bound for the Asteroid Belt. There was a crew of three: Captain George Montgomery Troon, engineer Luis Gom-pez, radio-man Terence Rice...
“So, as the unlucky one was Terence Rice, it follows that one of those two back there must be Gompez, and the other — well, must be George Montgomery Troon, the one who made the Venus landing in 2144 ... And, incidentally, my grandfather...”
“Well,” said my companion, “they got them back all right. Gompez was unlucky, though — at least I suppose you'd call it unlucky — anyway, he didn't come through the resuscitation. George did, of course...
“But there's more to resuscitation than mere revival. There's a degree of physical shock in any case, and when you've been under as long as he had there's plenty of mental shock, too.
“He went under, a youngish man with a young family; he woke up to find himself a great-grandfather; his wife a very old lady who had remarried; his friends gone, or elderly; his two companions in the Astarte dead.”
“That was bad enough, but worse still was that he knew all about the Hapson System. He knew that when you go into a deep-freeze the whole metabolism comes quickly to a complete stop. You are, by every known definition and test, dead ... Corruption cannot set in, of course, but every vital process has stopped; every single feature which we regard as evidence of life has ceased to exist...
“So you are dead...”
“So if you believe, as George does, that your psyche, your soul, has independent existence, then it must have left your body when you died.”
“And how do you get it back? That's what George wants to know — and that's why he's over there now, praying to be told...”
I leant back in my chair, looking across the place at the dark opening of-the church door.
“You mean to say that that young man, that George who was here just now, is the very same George Montgomery Troon who made the first landing on Venus, half a century ago?” I said.
“He's the man,” he affirmed.
I shook my head, not for disbelief, but for George's sake.
“What will happen to him?” I asked.
“God knows,” said my neighbour. “He is getting better; he's less distressed than he was. And now he's beginning to show touches of the real Troon obsession to get into space again.
“But what then? ... You can't ship a Troon as crew. And you can't have a Captain who might take it into his head to go hunting through Space for his soul...
“Me, I think I'd rather die just once...”
BOOK INFORMATION
THE BEST OF JOHN WYNDHAM
SPHERE BOOKS LIMITED
30/32 Gray's Inn Road, London WCIX 8JL
First published in Great Britain by Sphere Books Ltd 1973
Copyright © The Executors of the Estate of the late John Wyndham 1973
Anthology copyright © Sphere Books Ltd 1973
Introduction copyright © Leslie Flood 1973
Bibliography copyright © Gerald Bishop 1973
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The Lost Machine: Amazing Stories, 1932
The Man from Beyond: Wonder Stories, 1934
Perfect Creature: Tales of Wonder, 1937
The Trojan Beam: Fantasy, 1939
Vengeance by Proxy: Strange Stories, 1940
Adaptation: Astounding Science Fiction, 1949
Pawley's Peepholes: Science Fantasy, 1951
The Red Stuff: Marvel Science Stories, 1951
And the Walls Came Tumbling Down: Startling Stories, 1951
Dumb Martian: Galaxy Science Fiction, 1952
Close Behind Him: Fantastic, 1953
The Emptiness of Space: New Worlds, 1960
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
Set in Linotype Times
Printed in Great Britain by
Richard Clay (The Chaucer Press) Ltd, Bungay, Suffolk.
ISBN 0 7221 9369 6
