The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume One 1929-1964--The Greatest Science Fiction Stories of All Time Chosen by the Members of the Science Fiction Writers of America

by Robert Silverberg

  “Surely,” said Webster, impatiently, “that could wait until some other time.”

  “The mechanic said not, sir,” Jenkins told him. “It might go at any minute. The entire charge of power—”

  “Yes, yes,” agreed Webster, “I suppose so.”

  He fidgeted with his hat. “I just remembered,” he said, “something I must do. Something that must be done at once. I must get home. I can’t wait several hours.”

  He hitched forward to the edge of the chair, eyes staring at the milling crowd.

  Faces—faces—

  “Perhaps you could televise,” suggested Jenkins. “One of the robots might be able to do it. There is a booth—”

  “Wait, Jenkins,” said Webster. He hesitated a moment. “There is nothing to do back home. Nothing at all. But I must get there. I can’t stay here. If I have to, I’ll go crazy. I was frightened out there on the ramp. I’m bewildered and confused here. I have a feeling—a strange, terrible feeling. Jenkins, I—”

  “I understand, sir,” said Jenkins. “Your father had it, too.”

  Webster gasped. “My father?”

  “Yes, sir, that is why he never went anywhere. He was about your age, sir, when he found it out. He tried to make a trip to Europe and he couldn’t. He got halfway there and turned back. He had a name for it.”

  Webster sat in stricken silence.

  “A name for it,” he finally said. “Of course there’s a name for it. My father had it. My grandfather—did he have it, too?”

  “I wouldn’t know that, sir,” said Jenkins. “I wasn’t created until after your grandfather was an elderly man. But he may have. He never went anywhere, either.”

  “You understand, then,” said Webster. “You know how it is. I feel like I’m going to be sick—physically ill. See if you can charter a ’copter—anything, just so we get home.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Jenkins.

  He started off and Webster called him back.

  “Jenkins, does anyone else know about this? Anyone—”

  “No, sir,” said Jenkins. “Your father never mentioned it and I felt, somehow, that he wouldn’t wish me to.”

  “Thank you, Jenkins,” said Webster.

  Webster huddled back into his chair again, feeling desolate and alone and misplaced. Alone in a humming lobby that pulsed with life—a loneliness that tore at him, that left him limp and weak.

  Homesickness. Downright, shameful homesickness, he told himself. Something that boys are supposed to feel when they first leave home, when they first go out to meet the world.

  There was a fancy word for it—agoraphobia, the morbid dread of being in the midst of open spaces—from the Greek root for the fear—literally, of the market place.

  If he crossed the room to the television booth, he could put in a call, talk with his mother or one of the robots—or, better yet, just sit and look at the place until Jenkins came for him.

  He started to rise, then sank back in the chair again. It was no dice. Just talking to someone or looking in on the place wasn’t being there. He couldn’t smell the pines in the wintry air, or hear familiar snow crunch on the walk beneath his feet or reach out a hand and touch one of the massive oaks that grew along the path. He couldn’t feel the heat of the fire or sense the sure, deft touch of belonging, of being one with a tract of ground and the things upon it.

  And yet—perhaps it would help. Not much, maybe, but some. He started to rise from the chair again and froze. The few short steps to the booth held terror, a terrible, overwhelming terror. If he crossed them, he would have to run. Run to escape the watching eyes, the unfamiliar sounds, the agonizing nearness of strange faces.

  Abruptly he sat down.

  A woman’s shrill voice cut across the lobby and he shrank away from it. He felt terrible. He felt like hell. He wished Jenkins would get a hustle on.

  The first breath of spring came through the window, filling the study with the promise of melting snows, of coming leaves and flowers, of north-bound wedges of waterfowl streaming through the blue, of trout that lurked in pools waiting for the fly.

  Webster lifted his eyes from the sheaf of papers on his desk, sniffed the breeze, felt the cool whisper of it on his cheek. His hand reached out for the brandy glass, found it empty, and put it back.

  He bent back above the papers once again, picked up a pencil and crossed out a word.

  Critically, he read the final paragraphs:

  The fact that of the two hundred fifty men who were invited to visit me, presumably on missions of more than ordinary importance, only three were able to come, does not necessarily prove that all but those three are victims of agoraphobia. Some may have had legitimate reasons for being unable to accept my invitation. But it does indicate a growing unwillingness of men living under the mode of Earth existence set up following the breakup of the cities to move from familiar places, a deepening instinct to stay among the scenes and possessions which in their mind have become associated with contentment and graciousness of life.

  What the result of such a trend will be, no one can clearly indicate since it applies to only a small portion of Earth’s population. Among the larger families economic pressure forces some of the sons to seek their fortunes either in other parts of the Earth or on one of the other planets. Many others deliberately seek adventure and opportunity in space while still others become associated with professions or trades which make a sedentary existence impossible.

  He flipped the page over, went on to the last one.

  It was a good paper, he knew, but it could not be published, not just yet. Perhaps after he had died. No one, so far as he could determine, had ever so much as realized the trend, had taken as matter of course the fact that men seldom left their homes. Why, after all, should they leave their homes?

  Certain dangers may be recognized in—

  The televisor muttered at his elbow and he reached out to flip the toggle.

  The room faded and he was face to face with a man who sat behind a desk, almost as if he sat on the opposite side of Webster’s desk. A gray-haired man with sad eyes behind heavy lenses.

  For a moment Webster stared, memory tugging at him.

  “Could it be—” he asked and the man smiled gravely.

  “I have changed,” he said. “So have you. My name is Clayborne. Remember? The Martian medical commission—”

  “Clayborne! I’d often thought of you. You stayed on Mars.”

  Clayborne nodded. “I’ve read your book, doctor. It is a real contribution. I’ve often thought one should be written, wanted to myself, but I didn’t have the time. Just as well I didn’t. You did a better job. Especially on the brain.”

  “The Martian brain,” Webster told him, “always intrigued me. Certain peculiarities. I’m afraid I spent more of those five years taking notes on it than I should have. There was other work to do.”

  “A good thing you did,” said Clayborne. “That’s why I’m calling you now. I have a patient—a brain operation. Only you can handle it.”

  Webster gasped, his hands trembling. “You’ll bring him here?”

  Clayborne shook his head. “He cannot be moved. You know him, I believe. Juwain, the philosopher.”

  “Juwain!” said Webster. “He’s one of my best friends. We talked together just a couple of days ago.”

  “The attack was sudden,” said Clayborne. “He’s been asking for you.”

  Webster was silent and cold—cold with a chill that crept upon him from some unguessed place. Cold that sent perspiration out upon his forehead, that knotted his fists.

  “If you start immediately,” said Clayborne, “you can be here on time. I’ve already arranged with the World Committee to have a ship at your disposal instantly. The utmost speed is necessary.”

  “But,” said Webster, “but … I cannot come.”

  “You can’t come!”

  “It’s impossible,” said Webster. “I doubt in any case that I am needed. Surely, you yourself—”
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  “I can’t,” said Clayborne. “No one can but you. No one else has the knowledge. You hold Juwain’s life in your hands. If you come, he lives. If you don’t, he dies.”

  “I can’t go into space,” said Webster.

  “Anyone can go into space,” snapped Clayborne. “It’s not like it used to be. Conditioning of any sort desired is available.”

  “But you don’t understand,” pleaded Webster. “You—”

  “No, I don’t,” said Clayborne. “Frankly, I don’t. That anyone should refuse to save the life of his friend—”

  The two men stared at one another for a long moment, neither speaking.

  “I shall tell the committee to send the ship straight to your home,” said Clayborne finally. “I hope by that time you will see your way clear to come.”

  Clayborne faded and the wall came into view again—the wall and books, the fireplace and the paintings, the well-loved furniture, the promise of spring that came through the open window.

  Webster sat frozen in his chair, staring at the wall in front of him.

  Juwain, the furry, wrinkled face, the sibilant whisper, the friendliness and understanding that was his. Juwain, grasping the stuff that dreams are made of and shaping them into logic, into rules of life and conduct. Juwain, using philosophy as a tool, as a science, as a stepping stone to better living.

  Webster dropped his face into his hands and fought the agony that welled up within him.

  Clayborne had not understood. One could not expect him to understand since there was no way for him to know. And even knowing, would he understand? Even he, Webster, would not have understood it in someone else until he had discovered it in himself—the terrible fear of leaving his own fire, his own land, his own possessions, the little symbolisms that he had erected. And yet, not he, himself, alone, but those other Websters as well. Starting with the first John J. Men and women who had set up a cult of life, a tradition of behavior.

  He, Jerome A. Webster, had gone to Mars when he was a young man, and had not felt or suspected the psychological poison that ran through his veins. Even as Thomas a few months ago had gone to Mars. But thirty years of quiet life here in the retreat that the Websters called a home had brought it forth, had developed it without his even knowing it. There had, in fact, been no opportunity to know it.

  It was clear how it had developed—clear as crystal now. Habit and mental pattern and a happiness association with certain things—things that had no actual value in themselves, but had been assigned a value, a definite, concrete value by one family through five generations.

  No wonder other places seemed alien, no wonder other horizons held a hint of horror in their sweep.

  And there was nothing one could do about it—nothing, that is, unless one cut down every tree and burned the house and changed the course of waterways. Even that might not do it—even that—

  The televisor purred and Webster lifted his head from his hands, reached out and thumbed the tumbler.

  The room became a flare of white, but there was no image. A voice said: “Secret call. Secret call.”

  Webster slid back a panel in the machine, spun a pair of dials, heard the hum of power surge into a screen that blocked out the room.

  “Secrecy established,” he said.

  The white flare snapped out and a man sat across the desk from him. A man he had seen many times before in televised addresses, in his daily paper.

  Henderson, president of the World Committee.

  “I have had a call from Clayborne,” said Henderson.

  Webster nodded without speaking.

  “He tells me you refuse to go to Mars.”

  “I have not refused,” said Webster. “When Clayborne cut off the question was left open. I had told him it was impossible for me to go, but he had rejected that, did not seem to understand.”

  “Webster, you must go,” said Henderson. “You are the only man with the necessary knowledge of the Martian brain to perform this operation. If it were a simple operation, perhaps someone else could do it. But not one such as this.”

  “That may be true,” said Webster, “but—”

  “It’s not just a question of saving a life,” said Henderson. “Even the life of so distinguished a personage as Juwain. It involves even more than that. Juwain is a friend of yours. Perhaps he hinted of something he has found.”

  “Yes,” said Webster. “Yes, he did. A new concept of philosophy.”

  “A concept,” declared Henderson, “that we cannot do without. A concept that will remake the solar system, that will put mankind ahead a hundred thousand years in the space of two generations. A new direction of purpose that will aim toward a goal we heretofore had not suspected, had not even known existed. A brand new truth, you see. One that never before had occurred to anyone.”

  Webster’s hands gripped the edge of the desk until his knuckles stood out white.

  “If Juwain dies,” said Henderson, “that concept dies with him. May be lost forever.”

  “I’ll try,” said Webster. “I’ll try—”

  Henderson’s eyes were hard. “Is that the best you can do?”

  “That is the best,” said Webster.

  “But, man, you must have a reason! Some explanation.”

  “None,” said Webster, “that I would care to give.”

  Deliberately he reached out and flipped up the switch.

  Webster sat at the desk and held his hands in front of him, staring at them. Hands that had skill, held knowledge. Hands that could save a life if he could get them to Mars. Hands that could save for the solar system, for mankind, for the Martians an idea—a new idea—that would advance them a hundred thousand years in the next two generations.

  But hands chained by a phobia that grew out of this quiet life. Decadence—a strangely beautiful—and deadly—decadence.

  Man had forsaken the teeming cities, the huddling places, two hundred years ago. He had done with the old foes and the ancient fears that kept him around the common campfire, had left behind the hobgoblins that had walked with him from the caves.

  And yet—and yet.

  Here was another huddling place. Not a huddling place for one’s body, but one’s mind. A psychological campfire that still held a man within the circle of its light.

  Still, Webster knew, he must leave that fire. As the men had done with the cities two centuries before, he must walk off and leave it. And he must not look back.

  He had to go to Mars—or at least start for Mars. There was no question there, at all. He had to go.

  Whether he would survive the trip, whether he could perform the operation once he had arrived, he did not know. He wondered vaguely, whether agoraphobia could be fatal. In its most exaggerated form, he supposed it could.

  He reached out a hand to ring, then hesitated. No use having Jenkins pack. He would do it himself—something to keep him busy until the ship arrived.

  From the top shelf of the wardrobe in the bedroom, he took down a bag and saw that it was dusty. He blew on it, but the dust still clung. It had been there for too many years.

  As he packed, the room argued with him, talked in that mute tongue with which inanimate but familiar things may converse with a man.

  “You can’t go,” said the room. “You can’t go off and leave me.”

  And Webster argued back, half pleading, half explanatory. “I have to go. Can’t you understand? It’s a friend, an old friend. I will be coming back.”

  Packing done, Webster returned to the study, slumped into his chair.

  He must go and yet he couldn’t go. But when the ship arrived, when the time had come, he knew that he would walk out of the house and toward the waiting ship.

  He steeled his mind to that, tried to set it in a rigid pattern, tried to blank out everything but the thought that he was leaving.

  Things in the room intruded on his brain, as if they were part of a conspiracy to keep him there. Things that he saw as if he were seeing them for the first
time. Old, remembered things that suddenly were new. The chronometer that showed both Earthian and Martian time, the days of the month, the phases of the moon. The picture of his dead wife on the desk. The trophy he had won at prep school. The framed short snorter bill that had cost him ten bucks on his trip to Mars.

  He stared at them, half unwilling at first, then eagerly, storing up the memory of them in his brain. Seeing them as separate components of a room he had accepted all these years as a finished whole, never realizing what a multitude of things went to make it up.

  Dusk was falling, the dusk of early spring, a dusk that smelled of early pussy willows.

  The ship should have arrived long ago. He caught himself listening for it, even as he realized that he would not hear it. A ship, driven by atomic motors, was silent except when it gathered speed. Landing and taking off, it floated like thistledown, with not a murmur in it.

  It would be here soon. It would have to be here soon or he could never go. Much longer to wait, he knew, and his high-keyed resolution would crumble like a mound of dust in beating rain. Not much longer could he hold his purpose against the pleading of the room, against the flicker of the fire, against the murmur of the land where five generations of Websters had lived their lives and died.

  He shut his eyes and fought down the chill that crept across his body. He couldn’t let it get him now, he told himself. He had to stick it out. When the ship arrived he still must be able to get up and walk out the door to the waiting port.

  A tap came on the door.

  “Come in,” Webster called.

  It was Jenkins, the light from the fireplace flickering on his shining metal hide.

  “Had you called earlier, sir?” he asked.

  Webster shook his head.

  “I was afraid you might have,” Jenkins explained, “and wondered why I didn’t come. There was a most extraordinary occurrence, sir. Two men came with a ship and said they wanted you to go to Mars.”

  “They are here,” said Webster. “Why didn’t you call me?”

  He struggled to his feet.