Futures Past

by James White

  " 'I'm awful sorry, old man. I had an inkling how you felt, you know, and I suggested you for the job, but—if you want to hear a very unfunny joke I can tell one. They thought you too valuable to risk in a . . .' Then it penetrated. 'Again!' What do you mean 'again?' "

  "He was quiet for a long time. I could see he was trying to make a difficult decision, the sort that one's life depends on. They don't come any harder than that. Then he made up his mind.

  " 'I had hoped this would be unnecessary, Doc, but this place . . . security, red tape, restrictions, screening . . . I'm lost. I just can't cope with it all. I thought when I was forced down two years ago in north Ontario everything would be all right. A bit difficult at first maybe, but just a matter of time. I had the language, of course, that was part of my job, and I had a good idea of the high stage of technological development of the place, so things looked rosy. True, my ship was in little pieces, all of them at the bottom of a lake, with all the communicating gear, but with my ability I should be off here in no time, I thought. Well, you can guess what happened. When we met on the South Pole job I'd about given up hope, but now ... listen to that a minute!'

  "The radio was turned on low, a request record program. An old disc of that indestructible crooner was spinning. The voice, warm, friendly, and frankly sentimental, was singing,'... winds are the gustiest, the roads the dustiest, the friends the trustiest, way back home . . .' There was a lot more, about green hills and cool streams and long, sweet-smelling grass rippling in a hot summer breeze, and boyhood memories of . . . Oh, that song had practically everything. He went on.

  " 'That song puts my feelings across better than I can, but it doesn't say half of the . . . the . . .' He stopped, at a loss for words, then blurted out, 'Oh, Doc, I want to go home."

  "Allen confessing he was an extra-terrestrial shook me. But somehow I wasn't really surpri—"

  "Stop!" The major's voice was unrecognizable. "That's enough." The others came bolt upright, three of them said, 'Extra-terrestrial!' in perfect unison, and somebody else whispered, 'He's mad.' Controlling himself with difficulty Turner silenced the incipient uproar and continued.

  "Now you want us to believe Allen wasn't even human —a man from Mars or maybe Venus. That's silly. You know as well as I do what conditions are on those planets. And that ship is only an orbital rocket, it couldn't even reach the moon, much less ... But why do I bother wasting my breath, you aren't even trying to be reasonable in your story. Let's have it straight: Where did he come from, and what was his purpose?"

  "He didn't tell me where he came from—-I don't think he was allowed to." Mathewson could see the major going red again, and hurried on. "But it was definitely an extra-solar planet. He didn't intend going in the rocket. That was to be used merely to take him to the parent ship based on Titan. Small ships can't mount overdrive . . ." One of the technicians muttered, "Anybody knows that," and shook his head dazedly. ". . . or he might possibly have used it to go directly home. His job was a minor one. While the rest of the party did their research on the outer planets he was sent here to look the place over again and find out roughly how soon we would get into space, so that their race would know when to expect contact if the work on Titan took longer than planned. If we already had space travel, no matter how crude and inefficient the method, they would have been bound to contact us and obtain permission to occupy the satellite. But as we hadn't even left the Earth, and their project would take at the very longest only a little over three years, this was unnecessary, and we were left in blissful ignorance.

  "He was given eight months to do the job. The first six went in brushing up on the language; even with his training this was a little difficult. He knew it already, of course, but the recordings he'd studied back home had been made and translated during the original survey, and were sixty-odd years out of date. The remaining two months were spent in digging up and relaying to the mother ship as much information as was possible without actually landing. There was some spare time when that chore was finished, so he decided to risk a landing. This was strictly forbidden and very definitely contra-regs, of course, but he liked the look of the place and he wanted to pick up a few souvenirs.

  "On the way down he sideswiped a mountaintop, and flopped into a deep freshwater lake. The scoutship and everything in it was converted into finely reduced junk, but he was able to walk away from it, though he had to use a spacesuit as the wreck was one hundred-odd feet under water."

  Mathewson paused, thinking of Allen's long, hard struggle to adapt to the customs of a world of aliens, and his almost hopeless resolve to rejoin his friends, and the desperate battle to make sure the Woomera ship would be finished in time. He looked over at the civilians. They were watching him intently, taking it all in. Maybe they weren't believing any of it, but they were definitely interested. Ellison was agog. The major was tapping his slightly yellowish teeth with his pencil, with the air of one waiting not too patiently for somebody to shut up and stop wasting his time. Before he could put the thought into words the doctor continued quickly.

  "He had to take the first ship. It would have been easier to wangle a passage on a later ascent, but the mother ship would have left for home by that time. As it was, there was a very close race against time. After he told me all about it that night we began to work on the drive that was to take him to Titan. It is a surprisingly simple affair, a little like the, as yet, theoretical Ion Drive we talk about sometimes, though his model was very inefficient because Terran makeshifts were used instead of the proper equipment. By this time he was the sole authority on everything electrical that went into the ship, so there was no difficulty in installing the thing. But some of the apparatus just couldn't be disguised as normal gear and had to be carried aboard a little before takeoff.

  "The plan was to ascend to the group of 'cargo' rockets which contained the basic equipment and skeleton structure for the space station, and join them in their six-hour polar orbit. Then he had to round them up into a tight bunch and, using some of the parts they carried, finish the drive unit. The drive completed, he was to radio the base here and then blow for Titan. The whole business was to be finished in eight hours at most, but five would have been plenty of time." Mathewson looked across at the two N.C.O.'s at their screens, and ended worriedly, "I hope nothing has happened to him."

  "Let's make this as simple as possible. You say 'Allen' came from another planet, had an accident, got stranded, and you gave him a spaceship to help him to get home again." Turner was furious. He showed it by being mildly reproving and very, very sarcastic. "That was terribly generous of you. Giving a twelve billion pound spaceship to an almost perfect stranger, and him not even an Earth-man." The major tsk tsk'd and fell silent.

  For the first time since the doctor had been brought in, Ellison spoke up. He addressed the major. "You don't get it, sir." Apparently he'd forgotten completely that he was the official pilot; his voice was awed, his eyes shone joyously. "The gift of the ship will make a big impression on Allen's friends. It is a friendly act toward a highly advanced and probably extremely powerful race, one they can't ignore. And, the most important item, it will Drove to them that we are civilized." Then he amended, "At least, some of us are." A technician beside him vigorously nodded agreement.

  "Oh, no! Not you, too." From the look on Major Turner's face he obviously thought they should both have been certified long ago, but before h# could give the thought expression the singsong voice of the sergeant at the receiver focused all attention on the incoming message.

  "Capetown reporting in. Radar shows two distinct traces, means ship is definitely pulling away from station. Signal indicates separation of about seven five yards, with this distance steadily increasing though at a very slow rate. Seeing nil, sun in the way. Ends."

  In the silence that followed the report Doctor Mathew-son could be heard whispering, "He's not dead. Did you hear that? He's moving. He's not dead." There was a terrific load off his mind.

  The major s
miled wolfishly. "No, he's not dead, yet." He had everyone's attention now. When he went on, his tone was neither bitingly sarcastic nor pitched high in anger, it was low, clear and under perfect control. It sounded briskly efficient and very, very tough.

  "I know what Allen is, even though I don't know who he is specifically, and by this time you should know, too. I'm beginning to feel a little sorry for all of you. You people, and especially the doctor, were completely taken in by a consummate actor and expert psychologist who sized you up to a 'T' and pulled the principle of the Big Lie on you. It might have been anyone, but you, Mathew-son, fell for it. I'll ask one question. Did you build and test any of this Ion Drive equipment yourself?"

  The Doctor shook his head. "No, but I've got three notebooks filled with circuit diagrams and equations. Besides, he said it worked only in a vacuum."

  "I thought so. There is no Ion Drive, no base on Titan and no extra-solar planet. You should be able to see that now. Another thing. He was to link up with the 'cargo' rockets in the six-hour orbit and remain there for not more than eight hours, ostensibly to complete assembly of the 'drive.' Well, he's now been gone over two days, and I'm afraid to think what damage he has done to our equipment there. If he's smashed it, another five years will be needed to replace it and build the space station and global TV relay we had hoped to have in partial operation early next year. He was to leave that orbit: in fact, the last report shows he has already begun to, but he's not going to Titan. Instead he will return to Earth with a very valuable ship, and he won't land anywhere near here. I can't be absolutely sure of the damage he's done the space station gear, so I'm waiting until the ship is a few miles away from it before I blast him. When he is a safe distance away from it a 'cargo' rocket with its payload replaced by a homing device and an adequate charge of HE on proximity fuse will be sent up on radio control. I can't allow that ship to fall into the wrong hands." He finished grimly, "Mister Allen has had it."

  There was a stunned silence, broken by Mathewson, who gasped, "You can't do that. What about . . . ?" But he was drowned in the general hubbub. Somebody was shouting, "What about those gadgets?" at the top of his voice and another, just a little lower in volume was stating loudly, "He did talk funny. Remember that ti—" The rest was noisy but indecipherable. The major hit the desktop a smash with his fist and yelled, "Quiet!"

  In easy stages the room grew quiet. Suddenly the sergeant at one of the radar screens leaned forward tensely, then clipped out, "Got her now, sir."

  Turner nodded curtly in acknowledgment and addressed the civilians again. "The ship has just been picked up on radar. It is due to pass over this point in roughly fifteen minutes. Eleven minutes before that occurs we will launch the interceptor missile—" He looked at his watch, and outside there was a sudden whistling thunder that climbed and faded and died in the high blue sky. "There it goes."

  Mathewson bowed his head. His shoulders sagged and he seemed to have grown suddenly old. The others too, were deathly silent, listening to the dying echoes of the takeoff. What their thoughts were was anybody's guess, but they were sad ones, one could tell that from their faces. On the wall a hitherto unused speaker crackled loudly and burst into life.

  "Allen calling base. Hope you can hear me, Doc. Hi, there! Is the major being nasty? On the level, I hope everything went off O.K. I'd have called you sooner but I had to break into the transmitter for parts for the drive. There were breakages on the way up, that's why I've had to hang around so long. But everything's fine now and I'm on my way. Doc, I feel like dancing. . . . Bet Major Turner is having a fit at this moment, but you've got those notebooks so nobody'll mind me swiping this old rowboat of yours. But warn them that the experiment must be carried out in space. The field from the coils in the converter stage, especially in atmos— but you know all this, Doc, we've been through it before. I have to sign off now, this sender is strictly from breadcrumbs, I've got to keep spitting on one of the terminals to insure a good contact, so you can image what it's like. I'm going now, Doc . . . home." The metallic voice stopped. There was an awkward silence, then it said simply, "Thanks, Doc." The words seemed queerly distorted, due probably to atmospherics, or maybe emotion, then there was a sharp click and silence returned.

  The first sergeant cleared his throat and said plaintively, "Sir, the target seems to be radiating strongly on this wavelength, I can't get a fix with this glare covering the..."

  He was interrupted by the other N.C.O., who seemed to have forgotten all the strict rules about the use of emotionless singsong when delivering messages. He was almost shouting. "Sir, Melbourne reporting in. Says radar's gone nuts, but seeing's fine. Scope shows ship is traveling in a sharp outward spiral at between four and six G's, fairly belting along, they say. They want to know how the fa . . . Oh, excuse me, sir . . . how can we possibly bit anything going that fast with the makeshift thing we sent after it? And why is the ship trailing what appears to be an incandescent searchlight beam forty-odd miles long? Asks what the bl. . . er, is going on anyway?" Breathless, he waited for the reply.

  The civilians were being very rowdy and obstreperous, so he. couldn't hear the reply, which was just as well perhaps. It wasn't very polite.

  CURTAIN CALL

  THE crater was small and typical, just another unnamed pockmark on the wrinkled and pitted face of the Moon in the vicinity of Petavius. But it did give a good view of Earth, Mitchell saw, as he stood among his battery of telescopic cameras and tape recorders; and the ringwall was high enough to shade the sensitive equipment from the solar glare. That was important if he was to get clear, sharp pictures with no fogging.

  Or, he amended bitterly, that would be important—if there were people left to look at his pictures.

  On the ground a few yards away a thing that resembled a lizard only slightly moved restlessly. Beside it something that looked like a withered prune floating in a spherical gob of syrup began to hop slowly up and down, making little flat dimples in the soft pumice. A completely opaque cube that held something else remained motionless. The slow, awful thoughts that weren't his own began to well up into his mind again: reproach, utter helplessness, and a great wave of pity.

  Shut up! Mitchell thought savagely. Leave me alone!

  The vast minds withdrew and his thoughts were his own property again. But they would still be listening in, he knew, and watching. And they would listen and watch carefully, so as not to miss a thing. There was going to be quite a show here any minute now, an unparalleled spectacle maybe. Excitement, thrills, sudden death. Like the galactic rubbernecks they were, they wouldn't want to miss any of it.

  But he was not being fair, Mitchell knew, calling them that. As he looked again at the beautiful blue crescent Earth hanging up there, he thought that they would be just as pleased if nothing at all happened. He'd got that impression from them somehow.

  "Mitch!" said a tinny voice in his ear. "Can you hear me? The wind's changing again, Mitch. This might be it."

  A long flex connected the receiver on the ground with the RT socket in his helmet, allowing him to listen while moving about. He felt an unreasoning urge to yank the plug out and stop that voice for good. It had begun to get on his nerves. It had said substantially the same thing three minutes ago. It had been saying it every few minutes for the last two hours.

  Mitchell told the voice that he could hear it, and that that was good. His tone was deliberately lacking in warmth, but the voice still wanted to talk.

  "Wh-what's it feel like being the only man on the Moon?" the voice asked. Even at a quarter of a million miles it sounded jittery. "Aren't you lonesome up there?"

  Mitchell glanced involuntarily at the extra-terrestrial menagerie squatting nearby. He hadn't told Earth about them yet—they had enough on their minds up there already. They wouldn't have believed him anyway.

  "It feels," he replied with great fervor, "extremely crowded."

  "All right, all right." the voice said angrily. "If you don't want to talk, say so, you sarcas
tic . . ." It broke off. When it went on it sounded more friendly, but hurt, puzzled. "Sorry, Mitch. I didn't mean that. But I don't understand you. All alone up there, and at a time like this . .." There was a click, and silence.

  But he liked being alone, that was the main reason he'd asked for this job. Didn't they know that? And about not understanding him—that was a laugh. He didn't understand himself half the time. He only knew that he didn't like people—close up, that was. They were, in a way, disease spots, just so many wild variables in an otherwise sane and scientifically well-ordered universe. If you got too close to them they infected you with the same variability. They infected you with things like hate and friendship and courage and love, and more often as not they made you very unhappy. Mitchell knew. It was better to keep them at a distance.

  Back on Earth people were always telling Mitchell to pull himself out of it, and live a little. They would act very friendly, these people brought into contact with him during his work. They would slap him on the back, tell him to re- lax, that they wouldn't bite him, and ask him out for a drink. The more tactless ones advised him to see a psychiatrist. His reply to them all was usually the same, and they rarely advised him twice. He had a gift for lifting the skin off a person's back with just a few softly spoken sentences, and he found it hard not to use it. Mitchell knew what he was alright. He was simply a hermit. Unfortunately, hermits were out of date.

  But he was good at his job. People went for his sound and TV news commentaries in a large way. In them he had things to say about everything, and about practically everybody—rude, libelous, corrosively sarcastic things. But they were true things he talked about; bigotry, graft, injustice. The people lapped up his words and his insults and demanded more. Naturally they didn't believe he meant half the things he said—nobody could dislike people that much.