A Gift From Earth

by Larry Niven

  Above and to the left, a waterfall. He angled that way.

  The ship shot past the void edge. Suddenly most of Plateau was below him. Doug cut his thrust and looked around.

  He snarled. He’d picked the wrong waterfall.

  There were no spacecraft; but he could see cars all across the land, all colors, most of them staying near the ground. There were houses, and all were large. Loeffler’s house must be about average in size. Sure, Hooker rebuked himself. They’ve got more room. Did he plan that too? Hiding from me!

  Could that be it?

  Hooker dropped. It was a great rounded house, like an enormous boulder with picture windows built into it. There was a river… and it was close to the void edge.

  That was it. But was Loeffler there?

  It didn’t matter. Hooker back-angled his ship and came to a stop over the house. His drive licked down. The house erupted in flame.

  Hooker laughed. He shouted, “You won’t use that as a hiding place! Are you dead, Greg? If you’re not, I’ll find you wherever you hide!” Still laughing, he increased thrust and rose into the sky. Below him was a boiling lava pit.

  He needed a city. A city would have records. He could search them to find where Loeffler was now.

  But he’d have to be careful. Loeffler had taken over Earth. Hooker didn’t know how long it had taken him, but he’d been on Plateau more than twelve years; he must have made some progress here.

  Hooker’s radio sounded.

  It was a sound Hooker had never heard before. It was very loud and very terrible. Hooker reached to turn off the radio. His arms stopped halfway. He couldn’t move them. He settled back in his seat. A strange, peaceful expression spread across his face. Presently a voice began to give orders, and Hooker obeyed.

  “Lucky he had his radio on.”

  The second man nodded. “He could have wiped out this whole world. I hate these fusion drives. Land him, will you? I’ll call the Hospital.”

  “Whose house was that?”

  “I don’t know. Let’s hope nobody was in it. Will you please get him down? If it wears off, he’ll turn off the radio; and then where will we be?”

  Year 2584.4 AD, Hospital Plateau.

  They quit work at five o’clock. Hooker was exhausted. The chain gang had been planting trees where a generation of special mold had made sufficient soil to support them. Machines did some of the work, but mainly the chain gang used their hands.

  Planting trees gave Hooker a feeling of accomplishment. Even as president of Skyhook he had never felt so useful.

  He was bone tired until dinner arrived, and then he was ravenous. By the time he finished dinner, he was no longer tired. He went to his room and read until eight o’clock. Psychotherapy was at eight.

  “What I’ve been thinking about…” he told the doctor. “I want to know if I killed anyone.”

  “Why?”

  Words formed a bottleneck in Hooker’s throat. It had stopped him before during other psychotherapy sessions. He never knew how to answer that particular question. This time he forced out some kind of an answer.

  “I want to know how guilty I am!”

  “You know what you were trying to do. Whatever you did is done. How will feeling guilty help anything?”

  “I don’t know. But if I’m not supposed to feel guilty, why am I in prison? And don’t tell me it’s a hospital. I know it’s a hospital. It’s also a prison.”

  “Of course it is.”

  He’d killed four people. He’d killed Joanna Loeffler and her daughter and son-in-law and grandson. Greg Loeffler had been elsewhere. They waited a year to tell Hooker.

  Year 2565.1, Between Stars.

  “Doug!”

  Hooker jumped.

  The radio yelled, “Doug, this is Greg. Answer me!”

  Hooker hesitated only a moment. This was what he had dreaded. Loeffler must have a com laser on him with a directional signal in it. Hooker told the autopilot to follow it back.

  The radio didn’t wait. “Answer me, damn you! You know what I want!”

  What was with Greg? How could he possibly expect Hooker to answer immediately? It would take hours for Hooker’s com laser to cross the gap to Plateau. Hooker shifted nervously. The autopilot beeped, and he said, “I’m here, Greg. I didn’t want to talk to you. I left Plateau because I couldn’t face you. You must know how sorry I am for what happened.”

  Greg’s voice didn’t wait. “Doug! Why don’t you answer? Is it because you think I’m going to kill you?”

  Hooker came bolt upright in his chair. Oh!

  Suddenly it was appallingly clear. Loeffler, shouting into a com laser, forgetting the lightspeed gap, was not a sane Loeffler.

  Tau Ceti was a white flare in the stern scope. Wunderland’s sun was too dim to see from here. Hooker turned on his ramscoop field: a complex process, most of which would be handled by the autopilot. Then he got up and began to pace.

  “You cowardly, murdering…” Loeffler’s speech turned profane. His accusations, justified at first, became wildly imaginative. Hooker listened, trying to gauge the depth of Greg’s insanity. It was one more item on his burden of guilt.

  Why didn’t somebody stop him? A com laser was too powerful not to leak. Plateau radios must be picking this up.

  And where had he gotten a com laser? The Plateau station was closed to all but qualified personnel. But Greg owned a ship with a com laser.

  A ship just like this one.

  Almost calmly, Hooker sat down at the control board. He connected the autopilot screen to the stern scope. Tau Ceti glowed brightly off center. Hooker centered it, then began to enlarge it. The screen turned yellowish-white, with a blue point moving off screen near the top. Hooker centered that, enlarged it.

  A deep-blue flare with a black dot in the center.

  Loeffler was coming after him.

  Loeffler’s hoarse voice stopped suddenly. Then, it giggled. “Tricked you,” it said, suddenly calm.

  The stern scope turned deep red.

  Damn, thought Hooker. He did trick me. The scope screen would not transmit more light than human eyes could bear, but there was a dial to register the light falling on the scope. That dial registered maximum. Loeffler was using his com laser as a weapon. At maximum power it could easily have blanketed Earth’s solar system with a clearly read signal, but Loeffler was firing it at an object only lighthours distant.

  He could kill me, Hooker thought. He could do it.

  It wouldn’t be fast. Loeffler was firing from behind at that part of Hooker’s ship which was built to stand fusion flame applied for years. But eventually things would melt.

  Greg was jubilant. “I’m going to burn you, Doug! Just like you burned Joanna and Marcia and Torn and little Greg! But slower! Slower, you…” And there was more profanity.

  Needles were rising. Hull-temperature indicators, power-consumption meters, climbed toward pink zones nobody had ever expected them to touch.

  Doug Hooker rubbed his eyes. He waited for an inspiration, and none came. Needles touched their pink zones. Bells rang, and Doug turned them off. After a bit he left the control room and went downstairs and lay down on the masseur couch.

  He’s going to kill me. The thought seemed far away, drowned in the groaning comfort of the massage.

  All I wanted was a new life. I wanted to go away and start over. The couch was a hard, enveloping caress.

  He won’t let me. He wants to kill me. And who has a better right?

  Let him kill me.

  No.

  It was difficult to struggle out of the couch, for the couch was not finished with him. During a massage one must be in a defeatist frame of mind. Otherwise one tenses; one’s automatic defenses take over. But somehow Doug pulled himself free of the gentle, grasping embrace, and somehow he got upstairs to the control room. He was still covered with massage oil.

  A man attacked has the right to defend himself. I paid for my crime.

  Doug sat down in the cont
rol chair, used a key to unlock a panel. There were override switches underneath. One turned off the ship’s alarm bells; one allowed excess power in the ship’s circuitry; three others set up the sequence that would blow the ship apart if the drive or the ramscoop failed. Everything under the panel was an override switch for the ship’s automatic safety precautions. Doug flipped one switch and closed the panel. Then he twisted a dial hard over, as far as it would go.

  His com laser was already fixed on Loeffler’s ship. Now it would burn.

  Hooker turned off his fusion drive to reduce the heat pouring in at the ship’s stern. Now he had a good chance. He was firing his laser at Loeffler’s nose, where there was less protection. The massive, almost invulnerable bulk of the ramscoop would absorb most of the beam; but the lifesystem was wider than the ramscoop, and it would catch a lot of light. Eventually its walls would melt.

  Hooker would kill Loeffler before Loeffler could kill Hooker.

  Doug went back to the masseur couch. He felt very tired.

  The lifesystem became hot—unbearably hot. When Doug felt he could stand it no longer, he went upstairs to throw, another override switch. When he had done that, the cooling equipment would get more power, and his lifesystem would be cool until relays or busbars burned out.

  At the control panel he found that it wasn’t necessary. The ruby glow was gone from the rear scope screen. Loeffler’s laser had burned out or lost its target.

  Loeffler’s ship was still there, still following. Hooker started his drive and turned off his laser. He was on his way to Wunderland, with Loeffler following.

  Year 2589.0, Ship's Time.

  Turnover. Loeffler was still behind him. Hooker had long been convinced that Loeffler’s com laser was burned out. He had used his own com laser, but Loeffler never answered.

  And now he used it again.

  “Greg,” he said, “you’ve been following me for three and a half years. I assume that you want justice on Wunderland. You’re entitled to state your case there. But now it’s turnover time, in case you hadn’t noticed, and I’m turning around. Please do the same.”

  He used the gyros to swing the ship.

  He was as nearly sane as a 'doc could make him. In three and a half years he had almost forgotten about Loeffler or at least had learned to accept him as an endurable evil. And there was this: Loeffler had a 'doc. He must have used it. A 'doc would not keep a man sane under undue stress, but Hooker could at least hope that Loeffler would use the law instead of weapons. The law might punish Hooker, despite double jeopardy laws, but it would also protect him.

  He fell tail first toward Wunderland.

  Now a point of light showed in the front scope. Hooker watched for it to turn. It was small, that dot of light; for Loeffler had fallen far behind in the race toward Wunderland. Hooker’s ramscoop was taking part of Loeffler’s fuel, since Loeffler was in his shadow.

  Hours after turnover the point of light moved. Loeffler had gotten his message… or seen him turn. The point of light became a line of light, then swung back to a point.

  It still had a dot in the center.

  “No,” said Hooker.

  A black dot in the center of a blob which showed mostly blue.

  “No. You’re going the wrong way. Turn around, you idiot!”

  The ships were diving nose-on at each other.

  Hurriedly Hooker swung his ship around. I should have known, he told himself. Loeffler wants to ram. When I accelerate to the side, so does he, because otherwise I might get around him. But he won’t let me slow down.

  If I get within three hundred miles of his ramscoop…

  It was a stalemate. Loeffler couldn’t catch Hooker, and Hooker couldn’t escape Loeffler. But only Loeffler had the power to give up the game.

  Year 2590.0, AD, Plateau.

  Loughery came to Plateau in a colonizing ramship, It was a common practice in those days for Earth to finance one-way trips to the colony worlds simply to get people off the planet. On his sixtieth birthday Loughery, having had enough of being a UN official, took the UN up on its offer.

  He could have chosen any of the colony worlds. He chose Plateau because the social structure fascinated him. When he had learned enough, he intended to become a lawyer.

  “That won’t be easy,” the mountaineer cop told him. Loughery had stopped the guy as he was coming off duty and offered to buy him drinks and dinner in return for information. “The mountaineer laws aren’t as difficult as Earth’s, at least from what I hear, but you may have trouble understanding the ethics behind them.”

  “I gather a mountaineer is a Plateau dweller.”

  “Right. Like a crashlander comes from We Made It and a flatlander comes from Earth.”

  “About the ethics.”

  “Hmmm.” The cop scratched the back of his head. “Tell you what. The records building is still open. Let’s walk over and I’ll find you a few examples.”

  He had to use three electronic keys to get to the files. Once inside, he looked around him, lips puckered judiciously. “I’ll start you with an easy one,” he said. And he pulled a tape out of a drawer filled with similar tapes. “Let’s run this.”

  They played it.

  “Hooker,” said Loughery. “I remember him. Damnit, I’m the one who sent out the warning. I thought the 'doc had cured him. I’m as guilty as he is.”

  The cop looked very coldly at Loughery. “Could you have stopped him?”

  “No. But I could have stressed the warning.”

  “As long as there was a warning. Now, do you understand the logic behind Hooker’s sentence?”

  “I’m afraid not. He got two years imprisonment for negligent homicide, with simultaneous psychotherapy and conditioning. Psychotherapy is a lost art on Earth, by the way. I don’t question why he only got two years, but why negligent homicide?”

  “There’s the crux. He wasn’t guilty of murder, was he?”

  “I’d say yes.”

  “But we say he was insane. That’s a legitimate plea.”

  “Then why was he punished?”

  “For letting himself become insane. He knew he was a potential paranoid; all he had to do was stay in reach of a working autodoc. And he didn’t. Four people died. Negligent homicide.”

  Loughery nodded. His head was spinning.

  “What isn’t here on the tape is the follow-up. Loeffler tried to kill Hooker.”

  “Oh?”

  “Hooker left in a ramship. Loeffler went after him. They had a big duel with com lasers. Now, let’s suppose Hooker had won that battle and killed Loeffler. What then?”

  “Self-defense.”

  “Not at all. Murder.”

  “But why?”

  “Loeffler was insane. And he was insane as a direct result of Hooker’s crime, not through Loeffler’s own negligence. Hooker could run or hide or yell for help or talk Loeffler into accepting treatment. He could not strike back. If he’d killed Loeffler, he’d have gotten fifty years for murder.”

  “Maybe I should be a farmer. What did happen?”

  “I wouldn’t know. Neither of them ever came back to Plateau.”

  Year 120,000 Approx.

  Fifty years?

  The flap of a gnat’s wing.

  The long chase was nearing its end. At first Hooker had gained on his pursuer, for Loeffler’s ramscoop was not getting as much hydrogen as Hooker’s. Loeffler’s ship was in the shadow of Hooker’s. At one time they had been lightyears apart. But now Loeffler’s ship was gaining, for Hooker’s ship had reached terminal velocity.

  There had to be a limit on the velocity of a fusion-powered ramship. It was this: when the exhaust velocity of the fusion drive was no greater than the velocity of the interstellar hydrogen hitting the ramscoop, the ship could go no faster. Hooker had reached that limit tens of thousands of years ago. And so had his pursuer.

  But Loeffler’s ship was using hydrogen that had, slipped through Hooker’s ramscoop. The hydrogen wasn’t hitting Loeffle
r’s ramscoop field as hard. It had absorbed velocity from Hooker’s.

  Loeffler was close behind.

  The chase could end within decades.

  Once upon a time Hooker had hoped Loeffler would give up and turn around. Surely he would realize that Hooker could not be caught! But the years had stretched to decades, and every year Loeffler waited meant four years trying to get back to Wunderland. He’d have had to decelerate before he could begin the long flight home, and deceleration would take as many decades as he had spent fleeing. So Hooker had spent two hours a day before the scope screen, watching the stars crawl past year by year, waiting for Loeffler to turn around.

  The years had stretched into centuries, and still Hooker spent two hours a day watching the rear scope screen. Now there were no more stars ahead, but only the distant muddled dots of galaxies, and the stars behind were taking on a vagueness like curdled milk. And when the centuries had become millennia, Hooker no longer believed his enemy would let him go. But still he spent two hours per ship’s day before the scope screen, watching the galaxy drop away.

  He was totally a man of habits now. He had not had an original thought in centuries. The ship’s clock governed his life in every detail, taking him to the autodoc or the kitchen or the gym or the steam room or the bedroom or the bathroom. You’d have thought he was an ancient robot following a circular tape, no longer able to respond to outside stimuli.

  He looked more like an aged robot than an aged man. From a distance he would have looked twenty. The 'doc had taken good care of him, but there were things the 'doc could not do. The oldest living man had been short of four hundred years old when that machine was made. Moscow Motors had had no way of knowing what a man would need when his life could be measured in tens of thousands of years. So the face was young; but the veneer was cracked, and the muscles no longer showed any kind of expression, and the habit patterns of the man were deeply grooved into the DNA memory processes of the brain.