Far From This Earth

by Chad Oliver

  There were blessings and speeches galore. Even old Captain Fondren made a speech, and the new Navigator was presented to much applause.

  Sam endured it all.

  Then the lights dimmed and the screen glowed.

  The character of the music changed sharply. It was grim, threatening, with an insistent beat that thumped you in the chest.

  Sam was suddenly conscious that he was very close to the screen.

  In spite of himself, he tensed, waiting.

  The palms of his hands began to sweat.

  It started with a vicious abruptness, slamming him back into his seat.

  Sound that was more than sound, sound that tore at you with a solid physical impact. Light that was more than light, light that seared your eyeballs with a flash that mocked the sun.

  Sam screamed with the rest, and his voice was less than nothing. He closed his eyes, and the brilliance hammered through his eyelids. He trembled violently. He had no mind, no spirit, no personality. He wasn’t Sam Kingsley, he wasn’t anybody. He was just a spot of horror in a maelstrom of violence, trying to hang on, trying to ride it out.

  The ripping, screeching roar ceased.

  The dead silence flowed in with a shock of its own.

  Sam opened his eyes. At first, he couldn’t see. There was only a voice, speaking into the emptiness.

  The voice said: This is Earth. This was your planet. Look at it now.

  Sam looked, his heart thudding like a wild thing in his chest.

  He saw desolation, and death, and worse than death. He saw great cities gutted, their buildings shattered, their streets ripped like tissue paper. Black windows stared at him with cold stone eyes. A few figures that might have been human stumbled through the ruins, clawing at their faces, their shredded clothes, their blistered bodies.

  He saw a land that had been green, and was green no more. A sere, scorched desert where nothing lived, where the very idea of life was blasphemy. No trees, no water, no crops.

  Nothing.

  A red sun glared in a murky sky.

  He saw people. He saw men, women, and children: all dead or dying. A man, his naked body swollen with blisters, leaping into a swimming pool, holding himself under, gulping at the water like a fish from a nightmare sea. A blind woman sitting in what had once been an automobile, trying to feed a baby that could no longer move.

  Sam could not watch it all. He was sick and dizzy. He could not think.

  The voice was still speaking: This is what a war did to your world. This is what hydrogen bombs and cobalt bombs and germ bombs did to your world. This is what people like you did to their own world when they couldn’t grow up in time.

  There was more.

  There was enough so that it rammed its message into your insides. No man could sit through this and ever forget it. Sam felt himself scaled down to size, and he discovered that there were bigger things than Sam Kingsley in the universe. This is not a finding that any young man makes with pleasure, and it was doubly difficult for Sam.

  But you cannot argue with obliteration.

  The voice said: These are the other planets that make up your solar system. These are the worlds we explored before the end came. These are the worlds we could reach.

  Sam knew of these worlds, knew them from the history books. But he saw them now as though for the first time, saw them through a mist of despair.

  The wind-whipped seas of sand that were Mars.

  The violet desolation that was Venus.

  The frozen forbidding hell that was Saturn.

  All of them.

  Hopeless.

  There was nowhere in our solar system that could shelter us. Our own world was dying. We did what we could.

  We built the Ships.

  The Ships filled the screen, immense towers of metal, standing like colossal silver tombstones in the graveyard of the world. Of course, most of them had been built long before the last poisoning of the Earth. They had been designed for man’s greatest adventure, the exploration of the stars. They were not fundamentally different from the spaceships that had touched down on the planets of the solar system. Unhappily, no faster-than-light drive had been invented, in the nick of time or otherwise, and although men were working on the secrets of prolonged suspended animation, this had not as yet proved practical.

  In any event, the problem was academic.

  The Ships had to go.

  They were planned to be entirely self-sufficient. Green plants in great hydroponic tanks provided the air, synthetic foods nourished in chemical vats supplied the means of support, and an entire Ship formed a balanced ecological system that would maintain life for generations—provided the population remained stable.

  To Sam, it was a strange thing indeed to see a ship from the outside. The Ship had always been a curved horizon of gray metal walls, a tangle of catwalks, a cluster of houses and tanks and sealed corridors that were dark caves of mystery. From the outside, it was a thing of beauty, but not the home he had always known.

  Where sunlight and air and rolling land surrounded the Ship on the screen, there was now only the star-dusted infinity of space, an emptiness more hostile to life than the polluted world the Ship had left behind. Sam had never seen that dark sea he sailed, but he had grown up with the ever-present knowledge of its existence. For the people of the Ship, the Outside was death itself. At night, when the lights were low, you would lie in your bed and feel that strangest of seas lapping at the walls of your room, those icy waves seeping into your head and your nerves and your blood….

  The voice said: You are all the passengers on a Ship. You who hear my voice may be the only human beings left; each Ship follows a different course. It may take centuries before you reach a world you can live on, circling a sun I cannot even imagine. You may never find it. But remember your Heritage! Remember that you are men, and remember what happened to men on Earth! You must begin again, you children of Earth. And you must be careful, you must be wise. If ever you find hate in your hearts, remember, remember …

  And it happened again.

  The light that was beyond light, the blasting roar that was a crazed river of sound. The twisted cities, the poisoned air, the shrieks of the ruined and the maimed …

  The screen darkened.

  The lights in the Show came on again.

  There was a terrible silence, for what was there to say? Sam kept his eyes straight ahead, afraid somehow to look around him.

  Captain Fondren walked up to the stage, his body bent with years, his hair gray and lifeless.

  “This is your Heritage,” he said slowly, speaking the ancient ritual. “We all have a sacred trust to preserve what we can. All who hear my voice are adults, members of the people. You will conduct yourselves accordingly throughout your lives. We dare not fail. It is my duty to inform you that this Ship has now been in space for three hundred and ninety-seven years. I ask you to join me in prayer.”

  He paused, his old eyes looking far beyond the Ship.

  “The Lord is my shepherd …”

  The ancient words filled the chamber. It was one of those rare moments when mumbled phrases and familiar rituals suddenly become charged with meaning. The words were strong words, but Sam could hardly hear them.

  Three hundred and ninety-seven years, he thought. Three hundred and ninety-seven years.

  If they had not found what they sought in all that time, they would never find it.

  The voyage would never end.

  The Ship was all there was.

  Sam was impressed by Heritage Day, impressed and scared. For the first time in his life, he began to understand the Ship and the people who lived in it.

  His people were a frightened people, a refugee people. They were conservative and cautious because they were trying to survive. They were existing in a kind of cultural suspended animation, just hanging on between disaster and a new beginning.

  The words of his parents meant a little more now.

  “Sam, Sam, why can’t
you be like the other little boys? Why do you always want to be getting into trouble? Now, do your homework and we’ll have a nice synthesteak for you when you’re through.” That was Mom, a colorless, shapeless woman, going through the motions of life without ever really living.

  And Dad, a big man like Sam, somehow tragic, somehow defeated before he had ever gone into battle. “You can’t change the world, son. The rules are there for a reason. You’ve got to do your part, son, whether you like it or not.”

  Sam tried.

  He told himself that he had been a fool. He was to live in the Ship, and he had only one life to live. Who was he to think he was better than other people?

  He was assigned work in the main hydroponics chamber, and he learned his job dutifully. He forced himself to be interested in the growing plants and in the chemical sea in which they grew. He regulated the sun lamps and adjusted the chemical flows with precision. He grew to like the fresh air of the chamber and looked forward to going to work every morning. At least, the hydroponics chamber was green, it was alive. The dead air piped in from the rest of the Ship depressed him, and going home at night was not pleasant.

  And yet, Sam was not happy. He tried to be like the others, but he found no magic switch that would shut off his mind. If only the air would move more, if only it would flow in something different from its orderly, measured channels! If only the wind would blow, if only he could have clouds and storms and rivers of rain!

  Sam still dreamed at night, and that was fatal.

  He did not marry, and that added to his discontent. There were times when his body seethed as though with fever, times when the thoughts of women were like a sickness in his stomach. He tried to fall into what the people called love, but he could not. He would try one girl and then another, and each time something within him would rebel.

  “Sam, try to be nice like the others….”

  “Sam, you mustn’t say such things, they’re wicked….”

  “Sam, you’re so silly …”

  For five years, Sam worked in the hydroponics chamber at the same job. He did it well. He did it better than it had ever been done before.

  But he was not promoted.

  No one ever sounded him out about joining the Crew, not even Bob.

  The other men of his own age moved on up the scale. Every one of them was a member of the Crew. Sam stayed in the hydroponics chamber, and after five years he knew he was stuck there for life. The Council didn’t trust him, would never trust him. His crime was that he was different, and on the Ship that was the worst crime of all.

  One evening, when he was working late with the plants, he looked up to see Ralph Holbrook watching him. Ralph was the same age as Sam; they had gone through the ceremony of Heritage Day together. Ralph had been a timid boy, but he was cocky now in his new uniform.

  He was also a little drunk.

  “Still at it, eh Sam?”

  “Looks that way.”

  “Like your work?”

  “Can’t complain.”

  “You’d better like it, Sam boy.”

  Sam turned and faced him. “Meaning?”

  “You know what I mean: you used to think you were really something, didn’t you? Picking on everybody, swaggering around like you owned the Ship. Where are you now, Sam boy? Where are you now?”

  Sam felt the old anger surging up within him. He clenched his big fists, bowed his neck. His eyes narrowed. “Take it easy, Ralph. I don’t want to hurt you.”

  Ralph laughed. “Still think you’re tough, Sam boy? Still think you can be a big man with your fists? Come on, Sam! Try something!”

  Sam took a step forward, his heart pounding. He could beat Ralph to a pulp, and he knew it.

  But he stopped.

  Striking a member of the Crew?

  He didn’t dare.

  “Run along, Ralph,” he said quietly. “Mommy’s probably waiting up for you.”

  Ralph Holbrook stepped in and slapped his face with the palm of his hand.

  Sam didn’t move.

  Ralph laughed again, turned, and walked proudly out of the chamber.

  Sam’s face was expressionless.

  He turned back to his work, did what he had to do, and left the hydroponics room. The dead air clogged his nostrils as he walked.

  There was no outward sign that anything had changed. He was just the same Sam Kingsley, big and awkward and alone, walking home from work, his footsteps trailing him with empty echoes.

  But Sam had been pushed over the threshold.

  He had not made the decision; it had been made for him.

  The gray hopeless monotony of his life had been nibbling away at him for a long time. The future stretched away before him like a featureless plain, without life, without color, without purpose.

  He was caught in an alien world, trapped in a Ship in the deeps of space. There was nothing in that orderly world for him, nothing but an existence that was less than life.

  Very well.

  He had tried to live by their rules, and had failed.

  From now on, he would make his own rules.

  His step quickened, he was more alert than he had been in years. All his life he had been fascinated by those dark tunnels that burrowed away into the depths of the Ship. Those forbidden caves were the only frontiers he had. High officers of the Crew were the only people who were ever permitted in most of them, and it was clear by now that Sam would never be a member of the Crew.

  He had no real plan. He simply knew that he had to do something, and there was only one place to start.

  He ate a hearty meal and took a nap.

  For once, his sleep was untroubled.

  He woke up four hours later, stuffed his pockets with food, and tested his tubelight. He stepped out of the house into the gloom of the sleeping Ship.

  His feet were sure beneath him, and there was nothing clumsy about him now. Like a shadow, he moved across a little-used catwalk that spanned the black belly of the Ship.

  A dark tunnel loomed before him.

  A faintly glowing sign said: AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY

  Sam smiled and stepped into the cave of night.

  He took off his shoes, careful to make no sounds that might be overheard. It was pitch dark in the corridor, but he was afraid to use his tubelight yet. Looking back over his shoulder, he could see the tunnel entrance framed by the Ship’s night lights.

  He moved along as fast as he dared, the fingers of his left hand lightly touching the wall to guide him. The passage seemed straight as a needle, and progress was not difficult. Nevertheless, he felt a nervousness he couldn’t shake off. From his earliest childhood, he had been told never to go into one of those corridors, told of horrible things that lurked there, waiting.

  He fancied that he was old enough now to discount such nursery tales, but just the same—

  Something cold hit him in the face.

  Sam ducked, fell flat on the floor. He stifled a scream, then managed a feeble grin as he realized what had happened. He had run into a door. He risked the light, and in its pencil beam he saw that the door was an ordinary metal one, sealing off the passage. There was another sign on it: KEEP OUT.

  Sam tried the door.

  It was unlocked.

  He swung it open, stepped through, and closed it again behind him. He blinked his eyes. This tunnel was larger, and the lights were still on. It had a well-used air about it. He hesitated, figuring out his position. If he turned left, he would wind up back at the town where the people lived. If he turned right, he would be moving toward the bow of the Ship, toward the Control Room.

  Sam went right.

  He almost ran along, his shoes dangling around his neck. He felt the cold sweat on his body, the anxious thudding of his heart. It was all so simple, so like a dream, hurrying down this silent passage, the Ship around him like a monstrous beast, waiting, waiting …

  What would they do to him if they caught him here? He tried not to think about it. He just kept goi
ng as fast as he could, his shoes bruising his chest, the tubelight gripped in his hand as though it were a weapon—

  He rounded a turn, and stopped as though he had slammed into a wall. He held his breath, his lungs straining, the sweat dripping down his sides in icy streams.

  There were two Crewmen in the corridor.

  It was a moment frozen in time; it seemed to go on forever. The two men were seated at a small table, playing cards. One man was facing Sam, but his eyes were on the cards in his hand. Just beyond the table, there was a blaze of light from the open door of the Control Room.

  Sam stood stock still. He was afraid to move, and afraid not to move. Almost involuntarily, he retreated back around the turn. He leaned against the wall, gasping with the effort to breathe silently.

  Guards! Here, in the middle of the night. Why?

  Had they seen him, caught just a flicker of movement? They would surely have spotted him if they had been alert, but why should they be alert? The Ship was run with the precision of a clock; people were never where they shouldn’t be.

  Still—

  He tried to hold his breath, tried to listen.

  Voices.

  They had seen him!

  “You’re just jumpy. I didn’t hear anything.”

  “I tell you, there was something there.”

  “You just don’t like your hand.” Laughter. “Did it have two heads, or three?”

  “OK, OK. Maybe I’m crazy. But I’m going to have a look.”

  A chair scraped across a metallic floor.

  Run!

  Sam sprinted down the tunnel, heedless of the noise, as fast as he could go. The passage was hideously straight, there was no place to hide. He damned himself for a fool, but it was too late now. If he could just find a pool of shadow, a curve in the corridor, anything—

  “Hey!”

  They had seen him.

  Sam redoubled his efforts. He determined not to panic. He mustn’t let himself go, he had to think …

  The guards couldn’t have recognized him, not at that distance. He could outrun them, he was certain of that. If he could get back to that branching passage, he could slip into the sleeping town and nobody would ever be the wiser.