by Rod Serling
Corry’s voice interrupted her. “It must be Allenby’s ship,” he said thoughtfully. “It’s the only one that ever comes close. They stop at the other asteroids, then go home.” He looked away pensively “That means they’ll probably be here by morning.” His voice was heavy with question. “I wonder why!”
Alicia rose. “Corry? What does it mean?”
He smiled at her in the darkness. “In the morning we’ll find out.” He held out a hand to her and she moved back down to him, clinging to him, and Corry felt again the closeness...almost the oneness. He put his lips to her hair then touched her cheek and then her chin. He kissed her and was no longer aware of desert or stars or of the tiny dot of light that hurtled through space toward them.
Like all dawns, it was bright and hot and the stillness was broken only by the distant voice of Allenby. His shout carried over the silence and after a moment Corry could see him running from far off beyond the first ring of dunes. Behind him were two space-suited figures trying to keep up with the commander. When Allenby reached Corry he was out of breath, his face white with exhaustion.
“Where the hell have you been?” Allenby asked.
Corry saw something special in his face, a look he had not seen before. “Right here. You have trouble?”
Allenby grinned, some of the exhaustion seeping away. “No, we didn’t have any trouble.” He took a side look at the other two men who also grinned—even Adams. Allenby touched Corry’s shoulder. He was obviously trying to restrain himself There was something going on that Corry couldn’t guess at.
“This is a scheduled stop,” Allenby said.
“We’ve got good news for you, Corry,” said Adams.
Corry looked from face to face and he said, “That’s fine, but I’m not interested.”
Allenby squinted against the sun, then grinned again. “You better hear what it is.”
“Allenby. I’m not interested.”
“You will be. This I guarantee.”
Corry again studied the faces of the space-suited men and took a step back from them. There was suspicion now, a germ of doubt and the beginning of an alarm.
“Allenby,” he said. “Give me a break, will you? I don’t want any trouble.”
Allenby laughed. “We don’t either, Corry—”
Adams turned to Jensen. “He gets worse,” he said. “If we’d come a month later, he’d have been eating sand or something.”
Corry suddenly felt that he had to get away from these men. He turned with a kind of enforced nonchalance and started away from them back toward the shack.
“Corry!” Allenby called out after him.
Corry walked faster and then, hearing Allenby’s footsteps behind him, broke into a dead run.
“Corry!” Allenby caught up with him, grabbed him by the shoulders and whirled him around. “Listen, you Goddamn idiot. It’s this way! Your sentence has been reviewed. You’ve been given a pardon. We’re to take you back home on the ship.”
Corry’s eyes went wide. His mouth was open. He did not believe what he heard. Allenby saw the look and laughter came back into his voice, the laughter of relief; the laughter of the bearer of such fantastically good tidings that they could almost not be put into words.
“But I’m going to tell you something, you dumb bastard,” Allenby roared at him. “We’ve got to take off from here in exactly twenty-one minutes. We can’t wait any longer. We’ve been dodging meteor storms all the way out and we’re almost out of fuel. Any longer than twenty-one minutes, we’ll have passed the point of departure and then I don’t think we’d ever make it.”
Tears were in Corry’s eyes as he looked at Allenby and the two men who stood on one of the dunes watching him. Corry closed his eyes, blinking back the wetness. He tried to speak and for a moment nothing came out.
“Allenby…Allenby, wait just a minute, will you?” He opened his eyes. “What did you just say? What did you just say about a—”
“A pardon,” Allenby said, his voice rich and deep and still full of laughter. “A pardon, Corry.”
“But it won’t do any of us any good,” Adams called out, “unless you get your stuff together and ready to move, Corry. We’ve picked up three other men off asteroids and we’ve only got room for about fifteen pounds of stuff. So you’d better pick up what you need in a hurry and leave the rest of it behind.” He looked off, grinning, in the direction of the shack. “Such as it is,” he added.
Corry’s voice shook with excitement and he tried to throttle himself “Stuff?” he asked. “My stuff? I don’t even have fifteen pounds of stuff.”
He started to laugh as he walked back toward the shack. The words came out between gusts of laughter, roaring, unquenchable, joyful laughter. Laughter of such massive relief and thanksgiving that it was unrelated to any emotion he had ever felt before.
“I’ve got a shirt,” he said as he walked, “a pencil and a ledger book and a pair of shoes.” The tears rolled down his cheeks as he laughed again. “A Goddamn pair of shoes, that’s what I’ve got.” He looked across the bare space toward the antique car. “The car you can keep here. That’ll be for the next poor devil.”
Allenby shook his head. “There won’t be any next poor devil, Corry. There won’t be any more exiles. This was the last time.”
“Good,” Corry said. “Wonderful. Thank God for that.”
He talked as they walked back toward the shack, his words spewing out, propelled by his excitement and the incredible joy he felt.
“We’ll let it rest here then. The farthest auto graveyard in the universe, and Alicia and I will wave to it as we leave. Well just look out of a porthole and throw it a kiss good-by. The car, the shack, the salt flats, the range. The whole bloody works! Alicia and I will just—”
He was suddenly aware of the silence and finally he brought himself to look up at Allenby’s face. It looked white and somber. Behind him Adams had stopped, puzzled.
“Who, Corry?” Adams asked. “Who?”
Allenby shut his eyes tight. “Oh my dear God,” he whispered. “I forgot her.”
Corry again looked from face to face and then stopped on Allenby. “Allenby…” It was almost an accusation. “Allenby, it’s Alicia.”
Jensen whispered to Adams, “He’s out of his mind, isn’t he?”
Adams started a slow walk toward Corry. “Who’s Alicia, Corry?”
Corry smiled, shaking his head at what was obviously an absurdity that they shouldn’t know Alicia, that they shouldn’t be aware of her.
“Who’s Alicia?” he laughed aloud. “Adams, you idiot! Who’s Alicia? You brought her! She’s a woman—” Then catching Allenby’s look, his voice was softer. “A robot. But closer to a woman,” he added. “She’s kept me alive, Allenby. I swear to God—if it weren’t for her,” he looked around at the circle of silent faces.
“What’s the matter?” Corry asked. “You worried about Alicia?” He shook his head. “You needn’t be. Alicia’s harmless. She’s like a woman. She is a woman. And she’s gentle and kind and without her, Allenby, I tell you without her I’d have been finished. I’d have given up.” His voice was quiet now. “You would have had to come back here only to bury me.”
Adams looked at the commander. “That’s what you wouldn’t let us look at, huh? The crate with the red tag?”
Allenby turned away.
“I’m sorry, Captain,” Corry said to him, “but I had to let it out—”
Allenby held up his hand. “That’s all right, Corry. That’s all over with. But unfortunately, that’s not the problem—”
Again Corry laughed high and uncontrollable. “Problem? There aren’t any problems. There are no more problems in Heaven or on Earth. We’ll pack up fifteen pounds of stuff and we’ll climb in that ship of yours and when we get back to the beautiful green Earth—”
He stopped abruptly. In some hidden portion of his mind realization had come to him. His lips formed the silent words. “Fifteen pounds.” Then he whispered it,
“Fifteen pounds.” It came out now as a shout, “Fifteen pounds!” He reached out and grabbed Allenby, his face taut, his eyes pleading. “You’ve got to have room for more than that, Allenby. Throw out stuff. Throw out equipment. Alicia weighs more than fifteen pounds.”
Allenby very slowly reached up to remove Corry’s hands from his suit. His voice was heavy with misery. “That’s the point,” he said quietly. “We’re stripped now, Corry. We’ve got room for you and nothing else except that ledger of yours and the pencil.” He shook his head slowly back and forth. “You’ll have to leave the robot behind.”
Corry stared at him aghast. His voice shook. “She’s not just a robot, Allenby. You don’t understand. You simply don’t understand. You leave her behind...that’s...that’s murder.”
Allenby shook his head again. “I’m sorry, Corry. I don’t have any choice! God, man, don’t you understand? I simply don’t have any choice!”
Corry backed away, his body suddenly feeling cold. “No, Allenby. You don’t understand. You can’t leave her behind,” He suddenly turned and screamed. “Alicia! Come here!” He whirled around toward the three men. “You’ll see,” he shouted at them. “You’ll see why you can’t leave her behind. Alicia!” he shouted again.
He turned and ran toward the shack, climbing the steps in a single bound, slamming against the door and flinging himself into an empty room. Allenby was behind him. The other two stood on the porch.
“Where is she, Corry?” Allenby asked.
“I don’t know But when you see her, you’ll know why you can’t leave her behind.”
“Look, Corry,” Adams said from the porch, “we just want you to get your gear packed and get out of here.” He looked at his watch nervously. “We’ve only got about ten minutes. How about it, Captain?”
Allenby took a deep breath. “Come on, Corry,” he said gently.
Corry backed into the room. “I’m not leaving, Allenby,” he said. “I told you that. I can’t leave.”
He stood against the far wall. It was incredible to him that they didn’t understand. It was beyond belief that they didn’t perceive what surely must be such an evident truth. You couldn’t leave a beautiful woman alone on an asteroid. Not someone like Alicia.
Allenby read his thoughts. He gritted his teeth, his fingers clenched and unclenched. He took a step toward Corry. “Corry,” he said, “this is our last trip here. This is everybody’s last trip. It’s off the route now. That means no supplies, no nothing. That means if you stay here—you die here. And that way, there’d be a day, Corry, when you’d pray for death to come quicker than it’s bargained for.”
Corry shook his head, rejecting him, rejecting his words. There was no logic. There were no answering facts. There was just this one simple truth. “I can’t leave her behind, Allenby. And you won’t take her. So that means I stay.” His face agonized, he threw himself against the window and screamed out toward the desert beyond. “Alicia! Alicia...don’t come. Stay away!”
Allenby moved across the room hurriedly. He grabbed Corry, pulled him close to him. It was now and only now. The thing had to be done now.
“Corry,” he said, “I saw this...this thing get crated and shoved into a box.”
“I don’t care,” Corry whispered.
“She’s a machine, Corry. She’s a motor with wires, tubes, and batteries.”
“She’s a woman,” Corry said brokenly. “Oh God, Allenby, she’s a woman. She’s my woman.”
Jensen’s voice came from the porch. “Captain, we’ve only got four minutes, sir. We’ve got to leave, sir.”
Adams came in, tense and frightened. “How about it, Captain Allenby? What do you say we leave him here?”
Allenby shook his head. “We can’t leave him here. Sick, mad, or half-alive, we’ve got to bring him back. Those are the orders—” He turned again toward Corry. “It isn’t just you now, Corry,” he said evenly “Now it’s all of us. So that means we can’t talk anymore and we can’t argue with you. We simply have to take you with us.”
Allenby felt a shock of pain in his stomach as Corry lunged against him, flailing with an elbow and pushing him aside. Adams toppled sideways as Corry backhanded him away. They could hear him shouting as he raced across the desert away from the shack.
“Alicia! Alicia!”
Allenby was on his feet and out the door in a moment, Adams and Jensen following. It was as if the whole purpose of Allenby’s life was funneled into this pursuit. He had to take this man back. He had to save him.
A hundred yards ahead he saw Corry stop and then disappear in a gully. When he reached the spot he was almost afraid to look. Adams and Jensen caught up with him and he heard them gasp.
Corry was kneeling beside the figure of a woman. She looked up at them with eyes like a frightened child’s. Corry saw the three space-suited figures. Desperation clawed at his voice.
“Alicia, talk to them,” he begged. “Tell them you’re a woman. Explain to them.”
Allenby walked slowly down the dune toward the gully. He had a rocket pistol in a holster on his belt. He unbuckled it as he walked. “Corry,” he pleaded, “you’ve got to understand this.” He stopped a few feet from them. His voice was an agonized whisper. “I don’t have any choice. God help me, I just don’t have any choice.”
He took the gun out of the holster and held it up. Corry turned to him, still on his knees.
“Allenby, she’s a human being. Don’t you understand, Allenby? Alicia’s a human being.” He started to crawl toward Allenby, sobbing.
“Allenby, Allenby, she’s a human being. She’s a human being, Allenby. She’s a human being—”
His voice was drowned out by the shrieking whine of the rocket pistol as it blasted the hot stillness of the morning. Corry felt his blood congeal and something, he didn’t know what, forced him to turn and look at the woman behind him.
She had been hit in the face and the force of the blast had lifted her off the ground and flung her aside. She lay against the side of the dune, propped up like a puppet. The big hole where had been the face ringed by brown curls was a horror of twisted wires, smashed tubes, and a thin spiral of smoke. The remnant of an eye hung down in front and incredibly a voice yet came from this.
“Corry,” it said. “Corry...Corry...” It made other sounds like a record running down on a turntable and then it was quiet.
“Captain,” Adams said, “it’s got to be now.”
Allenby, staring down at the gun in his hand, nodded. “It will be now,” he said softly. Then he looked at Corry. “Let’s go, Corry. It’s time to go home.”
The four men walked across the desert toward the spaceship that awaited them. Corry moved like an automaton.
“It’s all behind you now, Corry,” Allenby said to him as they approached the ship. “It’s all behind you. Like a bad dream. A nightmare. And when you wake up, you’ll be on Earth. You’ll be home.”
“Home?” Corry’s voice sounded hollow and strange.
“That’s right,” Allenby said. He touched the other man’s arm. “All you’re leaving behind you, Corry, is loneliness.”
Corry stopped, then slowly turned to stare back toward the glinting metal thing that was the shack and beyond it, to the right, a tiny blob of color that was a woman’s dress, lying in the sand. He could not cry now except those silent tears that come from deep within.
“I must remember,” he said. “I must remember to keep that in mind.”
He let Allenby take his elbow, turn him around and lead him to the giant metal cylindrical thing that stood poised pointing impatiently toward the sky. Moments later there was a roar, and the ship headed upward.
Down below on a microscopic piece of sand that floated through space was a fragment of a man’s life. Left to rust were the place he’d lived in and the machines he’d used. Without use they would disintegrate from the wind and the sand and the years that acted upon them. All of Mr. Corry’s machines...including the one made in his image and
kept alive by love. It lay mutilated in the sand. It had become obsolete.
Mr. Dingle, The Strong
It was that uniquely American institution known as the neighborhood bar, small, softly lit and at this moment catering to that unsophisticated pre-cocktail group whose drinking was a serious business undisturbed and uncomplicated by the social frivolities of the five-thirty crowd. The latter group were the cocktail folks whose alcohol was part of a master plan of either business contacts or logistically planned seduction.
Reading left to right in the small, dark room were first, Mr. Anthony O’Toole the proprietor, who watered his drinks like geraniums, but who stood foursquare for peace and quiet and booths for ladies.
A scrawny, tired-faced, hollow-cheeked customer sat across from him and this man’s name was Joseph J. Callahan. He was an unregistered bookie whose entire life was any sporting event with two sides and a set of odds. His concept of a “meeting at the summit” was the dialogue between a catcher and a pitcher with more than one man on base.
Sitting next to him, with his nose a quarter of an inch away from Mr. Callahan’s, was Mr. Hubert Kransky, whose two hundred and fifty-eight pounds were packed into a five-foot-eight frame the way onions are crowded into pickled herring jars. Mr. Kransky had a voice like a French horn and perpetually florid cheeks that burned crimson whenever his dander went up, an occasion which was both frequent and regular.
In a sense Mr. Kransky was the spokesman for every anonymous bettor who had ever dropped rent money on a horse race, a prize fight, or a floating crap game. It was his custom during these Indian summer afternoons to take out his frustrations, not to mention his insolvency, on any vulnerable fellow bar-stool companion within arm’s and fist’s reach.
And sitting across the room was a spindle-framed, gentle-faced little man in glasses, drinking a beer and listening to the conversation. On the table beside him was a vacuum cleaner, resplendent with attachments and odd impedimenta that made it look like a cross between a sickly octopus and a surplus bagpipe.
