"I would. I would!"
"Know what would happen after a few years? We'd hate each other. You'd look at me and say 'I wouldn't be hiding like this, except for you. I'm young and—'"
"Kit, that's cruel! I would not."
"Yes, you would. Steffy, I—" A lump rose in his throat. He'd tell her goodbye, permanently. He had to do it that way, did not want her to wait endlessly and hopelessly for a return that would not materialize. "I didn't get permission to leave, Steffy." He hadn't meant to tell her that, but suddenly it seemed an easy way to break into goodbye.
"What do you mean? No—you didn't...."
"I had to see you. What can they do, send me for longer than forever?"
"Then you do want to run away with me!"
"Steffy, no. When I leave you tonight, Steffy, it's for good. That's it. The last of Kit Temple. Stop thinking about me. I don't exist. I—never was." It sounded ridiculous, even to him.
"Kit, I love you. I love you. How can I forget you?"
"It's happened before. It will happen again." That hurt, too. He was talking about a couple of statistics, not about himself and Stephanie.
"We're different, Kit. I'll love you forever. And—Kit ... I know you'll come back to me. I'll wait, Kit. We're different. You'll come back."
"How many people do you think said that before?"
"You don't want to come back, even if you could. You're not thinking of us at all. You're thinking of your brother."
"You know that isn't true. Sometimes I wonder about Jase, sure. But if I thought there was a chance to return—I'm a selfish cuss, Steffy. If I thought there was a chance, you know I'd want you all for myself. I'd brand you, and that's the truth."
"You do love me!"
"I loved you, Steffy. Kit Temple loved you."
"Loved?"
"Loved. Past tense. When I leave tonight, it's as if I don't exist anymore. As if I never existed. It's got to be that way, Steffy. In thirty years, no one ever returned."
"Including your brother, Jase. So now you want to find him. What do I count for? What...."
"This going wasn't my idea. I wanted to stay with you. I wanted to marry you. I can't now. None of it. Forget me, Steffy. Forget you ever knew me. Jase said that to our folks before he was taken." Almost five years before Jason Temple had been selected for the Nowhere Journey. He'd been young, though older than his brother Kit. Young, unattached, almost cheerful he was. Naturally, they never saw him again.
"Hold me, Kit. I'm sorry ... carrying on like this."
They had walked some distance from the ground-jet, through scrub oak and bramble bushes. They found a clearing, fragrant-scented, soft-floored still from last autumn, melodic with the chirping of nameless birds. They sat, not talking. Stephanie wore a gay summer dress, full-skirted, cut deep beneath the throat. She swayed toward him from the waist, nestled her head on his shoulder. He could smell the soft, sweet fragrance of her hair, of the skin at the nape of her neck. "If you want to say goodbye...." she said.
"Stop it," he told her.
"If you want to say goodbye...."
Her head rolled against his chest. She turned, cradled herself in his arms, smiled up at him, squirmed some more and had her head pillowed on his lap. She smiled tremulously, misty-eyed. Her lips parted.
He bent and kissed her, knowing it was all wrong. This was not goodbye, not the way he wanted it. Quickly, definitely, for once and all. With a tear, perhaps, a lot of tears. But permanent goodbye. This was all wrong. The whole idea was to be business-like, objective. It had to be done that way, or no way at all. Briefly, he regretted leaving the encampment.
This wasn't goodbye the way he wanted it. The way it had to be. This was auf weidersen.
And then he forgot everything but Stephanie....
* * * *
I am Alaric Arkalion III," said the extremely young-looking man with the old, wise eyes.
How incongruous, Temple thought. The eyes look almost middle-aged. The rest of him—a boy.
"Something tells me we'll be seeing a lot of each other," Arkalion went on. The voice was that of an older man, too, belying the youthful complexion, the almost childish features, the soft fuzz of a beard.
"I'm Kit Temple," said Temple, extending his hand. "Arkalion, a strange name. I know it from somewhere.... Say! Aren't you—don't you have something to do with carpets or something?"
"Here and now, no. I am a number. A-92-6417. But my father is—perhaps I had better say was—my father is Alaric Arkalion II. Yes, that is right, the carpet king."
"I'll be darned," said Temple.
"Why?"
"Well," Temple laughed. "I never met a billionaire before."
"Here I am not a billionaire, nor will I ever be one again. A-92-6417, a number. On his way to Mars with a bunch of other numbers."
"Mars? You sound sure of yourself."
"Reasonably. Ah, it is a pleasure to talk with a gentleman. I am reasonably certain it will be Mars."
Temple nodded in agreement. "That's what the Sunday supplements say, all right."
"And doubtless you have observed no one denies it."
"But what on Earth do we want on Mars?"
"That in itself is a contradiction," laughed Arkalion. "We'll find out, though, Temple."
They had reached the head of the line, found themselves entering a huge, double-decker jet-transport. They found two seats together, followed the instructions printed at the head of the aisle by strapping themselves in and not smoking. Talking all around them was subdued.
"Contrariness has given way to fear," Arkalion observed. "You should have seen them the last few days, waiting around the induction center, a two-ton chip on each shoulder. Say, where were you?"
"I—what do you mean?"
"I didn't see you until last evening. Suddenly, you were here."
"Did anyone else miss me?"
"But I remember you the first day."
"Did anyone else miss me? Any of the officials?"
"No. Not that I know of."
"Then I was here," Temple said, very seriously.
Arkalion smiled. "By George, of course. Then you were here. Temple, we'll get along fine."
Temple said that was swell.
"Anyway, we'd better. Forever is a long time."
Three minutes later, the jet took off and soared on eager wings toward the setting sun.
* * * *
Men, since we are leaving here in a few hours and since there is no way to get out of the encampment and no place to go over the desert even if you could," the microphone in the great, empty hall boomed as the two files of men marched in, "there is no harm in telling you where you are. From this point, in a limited sense, you shall be kept abreast of your progress.
"We are in White Sands, New Mexico."
"The Garden Spot of the Universe!" someone shouted derisively, remembering the bleak hot desert and jagged mountain peaks as they came down.
"White Sands," muttered Arkalion. "It looks like space travel now, doesn't it, Kit."
Temple shrugged. "Why?"
"White sands was the center of experiments in rocketry decades ago, when people still talked about those things. Then, for a long time, no one heard anything about White Sands. The rockets grew here, Kit."
"I can readily see why. You could look all your life without finding a barren spot like this."
"Precisely. Someone once called this place—or was it some other place like it?—someone once called it a good place to throw old razor blades. If people still used razor blades."
The microphone blared again, after the several hundred men had entered the great hall and milled about among the echoes. Temple could picture other halls like this, other briefings. "Men, whenever you are given instructions, in here or elsewhere, obey them instantly. Our job is a big one, complicated and exacting. Attention to detail will save us trouble."
Someone said, "My old man served a hitch in the army, back in the sixties. That's what he always said, atte
ntion to details. The army is crazy about things like that. Are we in the army or something?"
"This is not the army, but the function is similar," barked the microphone. "Do as you are told and you will get along."
Stirrings in the crowd. Mutterings. Temple gaped. Microphone, yes—but receivers also, placed strategically, all around the hall, to pick up sound. Telio receivers too, perhaps? It made him feel something like a goldfish.
Apparently someone liked the idea of the two-way microphones. "I got a question. When are we coming back?"
Laughter. Hooting. Catcalls.
Blared the microphone: "There is a rotation system in operation, men. When it is feasible, men will be rotated."
"Yeah, in thirty years it ain't been whatsiz—feasible—once!"
"That, unfortunately, is correct. When the situation permits, we will rotate you home."
"From where? Where are we going?"
"At least tell us that."
"Where?"
"How about that?"
There was a pause, then the microphone barked: "I don't know the answer to that question. You won't believe me, but it is the truth. No one knows where you are going. No one. Except the people who are already there."
More catcalls.
"That doesn't make sense," Arkalion whispered. "If it's space travel, the pilots would know, wouldn't they?"
"Automatic?" Temple suggested.
"I doubt it. Space travel must still be new, even if it has thirty years under its belt. If that man speaks the truth—if no one knows ... just where in the universe are we going?"
CHAPTER III
Hey, looka me. I'm flying!"
"Will you get your big fat feet out of my face?"
"Sure. Show me how to swim away through air, I'll be glad to."
"Leggo that spoon!"
"I ain't got your spoon."
"Will you look at it float away. Hey spoon, hey!"
"Watch this, Charlie. This will get you. I mean, get you."
"What are you gonna do?"
"Relax, chum."
"Leggo my leg. Help! I'm up in the air. Stop that."
"I said relax. There. Ha-ha, lookit him spin, just like a top. All you got to do is get him started and he spins like a top with arms and legs. Top of the morning to you, Charlie. Ha-ha. I said, top of the...."
"Someone stop me, I'm getting dizzy."
They floated, tumbled, spun around the spaceship's lounge room in simple, childish glee. They cavorted in festive weightlessness.
"They're happy now," Arkalion observed. "The novelty of free fall, of weighing exactly nothing, strikes them as amusing."
"I think I'm getting the hang of it," said Temple. Clumsily, he made a few tentative swimming motions in the air, propelling himself forward a few yards before he lost his balance and tumbled head over heels against the wall.
Arkalion came to him quickly, in a combination of swimming and pushing with hands and feet against the wall. Arkalion righted him expertly, sat down gingerly beside him. "If you keep sudden motions to a minimum, you'll get along fine. More than anything else, that's the secret of it."
Temple nodded. "It's sort of like the first time you're on ice skates. Say, how come you're so good at it?"
"I used to read the old, theoretical books on space-travel." The words poured out effortlessly, smoothly. "I'm merely applying the theories put forward as early as the 1950's."
"Oh." But it left Temple with some food for thought. Alaric Arkalion was a queer duck, anyway, and of all the men gathered in the spaceship's lounge, he alone had mastered weightlessness with hardly any trouble.
"Take your ice skates," Arkalion went on. "Some people put them on and use them like natural extensions of their feet the first time. Others fall all over themselves. I suppose I am lucky."
"Sure," said Temple. Actually, the only thing odd about Arkalion was his old-young face and—perhaps—his propensity for coming up with the right answers at the right times. Arkalion had seemed so certain of space-travel. He'd hardly batted an eyelash when they boarded a long, tapering, bullet-shaped ship at White Sands and thundered off into the sky. He took for granted the change-over to a huge round ship at the wheel-shaped station in space. Moments after leaving the space station—with a minimum of stress and strain, thanks to the almost-nil gravity—it was Arkalion who first swam through air to the viewport and pointed out the huge crescent earth, green and gray and brown, sparkling with patches of dazzling silver-white. "You will observe it is a crescent," Arkalion had said. "It is closer to the sun than we are, and off at an angle. As I suspected, our destination is Mars."
* * * *
Then everyone was saying goodbye to earth. Fantastic, it seemed. There were tears, there was laughter, cursing, promises of return, awkward verbal comparisons with the crescent moon, vows of faithfulness to lovers and sweethearts. And there was Arkalion, with an avid expression in the old eyes, Arkalion with his boyish face, not saying goodbye so much as he was calling hello to something Temple could not fathom.
Now, as he struggled awkwardly with weightlessness, Temple called it his imagination. His thought-patterns shifted vaguely, without motivation, from the gleaming, polished interior of the ship with its smell of antiseptic and metal polish to the clear Spring air of Earth, blue of sky and bright of sun. The unique blue sky of Earth which he somehow knew could not be duplicated elsewhere. Elsewhere—the word itself bordered on the meaningless.
And Stephanie. The brief warm ecstasy of her—once, forever. He wondered with surprising objectivity if a hundred other names, a hundred other women were not in a hundred other minds while everyone stared at the crescent Earth hanging serenely in space—with each name and each woman as dear as Stephanie, with the same combination of fire and gentle femininity stirring the blood but saddening the heart. Would Stephanie really forget him? Did he want her to? That part of him burned by the fire of her said no—no, she must not forget him. She was his, his alone, roped and branded though a universe separated them. But someplace in his heart was the thought, the understanding, the realization that although Stephanie might keep a small place for him tucked someplace deep in her emotions, she must forget. He was gone—permanently. For Stephanie, he was dead. It was as he had told her that last stolen day. It was.... Stephanie, Stephanie, how much I love you....
Struggling with weightlessness, he made his way back to the small room he shared with Arkalion. Hardly more than a cubicle, it was, with sufficient room for two beds, a sink, a small chest. He lay down and slept, murmuring Stephanie's name in his sleep.
* * * *
He awoke to the faint hum of the air-pumps, got up feeling rested, forgot his weightlessness and floated to the ceiling where only an outthrust arm prevented a nasty bump on his head. He used hand grips on the wall to let himself down. He washed, aware of no way to prevent the water he splashed on his face from forming fine droplets and spraying the entire room. When he crossed back to the foot of his bed to get his towel he thrust one foot out too rapidly, lost his balance, half-rose, stumbled and fell against the other bed which, like all other items of furniture, was fastened to the floor. But his elbow struck sleeping Arkalion's jaw sharply, hard enough to jar the man's teeth.
"I'm sorry," said Temple. "Didn't mean to do that," he apologized again, feeling embarrassed.
Arkalion merely lay there.
"I said I'm sorry."
Arkalion still slept. It seemed inconceivable, for Temple's elbow pained him considerably. He bent down, examined his inert companion.
Arkalion stirred not a muscle.
Vaguely alarmed, Temple thrust a hand to Arkalion's chest, felt nothing. He crouched, rested the side of his head over Arkalion's heart. He listened, heard—nothing.
What was going on here?
"Hey, Arkalion!" Temple shook him, gently at first, then with savage force. Weightless, Arkalion's body floated up off the bed, taking the covers with it. His own heart pounding furiously, Temple got it down again, fingered
the left wrist and swallowed nervously.
Temple had never seen a dead man before. Arkalion's heart did not beat. Arkalion had no pulse.
Arkalion was dead.
Yelling hoarsely, Temple plunged from the room, soaring off the floor in his haste and striking his head against the ceiling hard enough to make him see stars. "This guy is dead!" he cried. "Arkalion is dead."
Men stirred in the companionway. Someone called for one of the armed guards who were constantly on patrol.
"If he's dead, you're yelling loud enough to get him out of his grave." The voice was quiet, amused.
Arkalion.
"What?" Temple blurted, whirling around and striking his head again. A little wild-eyed, he reentered the room.
"Now, who is dead, Kit?" demanded Arkalion, sitting up and stretching comfortably.
"Who—is dead? Who—?" Open-mouthed, Temple stared.
* * * *
A guard, completely at home with weightlessness, entered the cubicle briskly. "What's the trouble in here? Something about a dead man, they said."
"A dead man?" demanded Arkalion. "Indeed."
"Dead?" muttered Temple, lamely and foolishly. "Dead...."
Arkalion smiled deprecatingly. "My friend must have been talking in his sleep. The only thing dead in here is my appetite. Weightlessness doesn't let you become very hungry."
"You'll grow used to it," the guard promised. He patted his paunch happily. "I am. Well, don't raise the alarm unless there's some trouble. Remember about the boy who cried wolf."
"Of course," said Temple. "Sure. Sorry."
He watched the guard depart.
"Bad dream?" Arkalion wanted to know.
"Bad dream, my foot. I accidentally hit you. Hard enough to hurt. You didn't move."
"I'm a sound sleeper."
"I felt for your heart. It wasn't beating. It wasn't!"
"Oh, come, come."
"Your heart was not beating, I said."
"And I suppose I was cold as a slab of ice?"
"Umm, no. I don't remember. Maybe you were. You had no pulse, either."
The 8th Golden Age of Science Fiction MEGAPACK ™: Milton Lesser Page 17
