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diff --git a/21988-h/21988-h.htm b/21988-h/21988-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e38d8d0 --- /dev/null +++ b/21988-h/21988-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,2848 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Breaking Point, by James E. Gunn</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + p { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; + } + hr { width: 25%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; + } + + + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + + .pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + } /* page numbers */ + + + .blockquot{margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 10%;} + + .bb {border-bottom: solid 2px;} + .bl {border-left: solid 2px;} + .bt {border-top: solid 2px;} + .br {border-right: solid 2px;} + .bbox {border: solid 2px;} + + .center {text-align: center;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + .u {text-decoration: underline;} + + .caption {font-weight: bold;} + + .figcenter {margin: auto; + text-align: left; + padding: 2em 0em 2em 0em} + + .title {width: 250px; + font-family: sans-serif; } + + .topspacer {width: 250px; + height: 75px; } + + .bottomspacer {width:250px; + height:280px;} + + .intro {width: 248px; + font-family: sans-serif; } + + .tnote {background-color: #EEE; + color: inherit; + margin: 2em 10% 1em 10%; + padding: 0.5em 1em 0.5em 1em;} + + p.author {text-align: right;} + +ins.correction {border-bottom-style: dashed; + border-bottom-color: red; + border-bottom-width: 1px; + text-decoration: none;} + + hr.full { width: 100%; + margin-top: 3em; + margin-bottom: 0em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + height: 4px; + border-width: 4px 0 0 0; /* remove all borders except the top one */ + border-style: solid; + border-color: #000000; + clear: both; } + pre {font-size: 85%;} + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, Breaking Point, by James E. Gunn</h1> +<pre> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre> +<p>Title: Breaking Point</p> +<p>Author: James E. Gunn</p> +<p>Release Date: July 2, 2007 [eBook #21988]</p> +<p>Language: English</p> +<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p> +<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BREAKING POINT***</p> +<p> </p> +<h3>E-text prepared by Greg Weeks, Pat A. Benoy,<br /> + and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br /> + (http://www.pgdp.net)</h3> +<p> </p> +<div class='tnote'> +<p class='center'>Transcriber's Note:</p> +<p>Transcriber notes in the +text are identified by red dashed <ins class='correction'>underlines</ins>. +Hovering the cursor over the underlined text will reveal minor typographical errors +present in the original text which have been corrected by the transcriber. +</p> +<p>This etext was produced from Space Science Fiction, March, 1953. Extensive +research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication +was renewed.</p> +</div> + +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p> </p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="background-image:url(images/tp.png); background-repeat: no-repeat; width: 500px;"> + +<div class='topspacer'> </div> + +<div class='title'> + +<h1><span style='background-color:white;'>BREAKING<br /> POINT</span> +</h1></div> + +<div class='bottomspacer'> </div> + +<div class="intro"> +<p class='center' style='font-size: 120%'>BY JAMES E. GUNN</p> + +<p class='center' style='font-size: 90%'>ILLUSTRATED BY EBEL</p> + + +<p>The ship was proof against any test, but the men inside her could be +strained and warped, individually and horribly. Unfortunately, while the +men knew that, they couldn't really believe it. The Aliens could—and +did.</p></div> + +<div class='topspacer'> </div> + +</div> + + +<hr /> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 416px;"> +<img src="images/fp.png" width="416" height="600" alt="Frontispiece: +spaceman studying a chessboard." title="" /> +</div> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span><i>They sent the advance unit out to scout the new planet in the +</i>Ambassador<i>, homing down on the secret beeping of a featureless +box dropped by an earlier survey party. Then they sat back at +GHQ and began the same old pattern of worry that followed every +advance unit.</i></p> + +<p><i>Not about the ship. The </i>Ambassador<i> was a perfect machine, +automatic, self-adjusting, self-regulating. It was built to last +and do its job without failure under any and all conditions, as +long as there was a universe around it. And it could not fail. +There was no question about that.</i></p> + +<p><i>But an advance unit is composed of men. The factors of safety +are indeterminable; the duplications of their internal +mechanisms are conjectural, variable. The strength of the unit +is the sum of the strengths of its members. The weakness of the +unit can be a single small failing in a single man.</i> </p></div> + +<p><em>Beep ... boop ...</em></p> + +<p>"Gotcha!" said Ives. Ives was Communications. He had quick eyes, quick +hands. He was huge, almost gross, but graceful. "On the nose," he +grinned, and turned up the volume.</p> + +<p><em>Beep ... boop ...</em></p> + +<p>"What else do you expect?" said Johnny. Johnny was the pilot—young, +wide, flat. His movements were as controlled and decisive as those of +the ship itself, in which he had an unshakeable faith. He slid into the +bucket seat before the great master console.</p> + +<p><em>Beep ... boop ...</em></p> + +<p>"We expect the ship to do her job," said Hoskins, the Engineer. He was +mild and deft, middle-aged, with a domed head and wide, light-blue eyes +behind old fashioned spectacles. He shared Johnny's belief in the +machine, but through understanding rather than through admiration. "But +it's always good to see her do it."</p> + +<p><em>Beep ... boop ...</em></p> + +<p>"Beautiful," said Captain Anderson softly, and he may have been talking +about the way the ship was homing in on the tiny, featureless box that +Survey had dropped on the unexplored planet, or about the planet itself, +or even about the smooth integration of his crew.</p> + +<p><em>Beep ... boop ...</em></p> + +<p>Paresi said nothing. He had eyebrows and nostrils as sensitive as a +radarscope, and masked eyes of a luminous black. Faces and motives were +to him what gauges and log-entries were to the Engineer. Paresi was the +Doctor, and he had many a salve and many a splint for invisible ills. He +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span>saw everything +and <ins class='correction' title='The orignal text read undertsood.'>understood</ins> much. He +leaned against the bulkhead, his gaze flicking from one to the other of +the crew. Occasionally his small mustache twitched like the antennae of +a cat watching a bird.</p> + +<p>Barely audible, faint as the blue outline of a distant hill, hungry and +lost as the half-heard cry of a banshee, came the thin sound of high +atmosphere against the ship's hull.</p> + +<p>An hour passed.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><em>Bup-bup-bup-bup ...</em></p> + +<p>"Shut that damned thing off!"</p> + +<p>Ives looked up at the pilot, startled. He turned the gain down to a +whisper. Paresi left the bulkhead and stood behind Johnny. "What's the +matter?" he asked. His voice was feline, too—a sort of purr.</p> + +<p>Johnny looked up at him quickly, and grinned. "I can put her down," he +said. "That's what I'm here for. I—like to think maybe I'll get to do +it, that's all. I can't think that with the autopilot blasting out an +'on course'." He punched the veering-jet controls. It served men +perfectly. The ship ignored him, homed on the beam. The ship computed +velocity, altitude, gravity, magnetic polarization, windage; used and +balanced and adjusted for them all. It adjusted for interference from +the manual controls. It served men perfectly. It ignored them utterly.</p> + +<p>Johnny turned to look out and downward. Paresi's gaze followed. It was a +beautiful planet, perhaps a shade greener than the blue-green of earth. +It seemed, indefinably, more park-like than wild. It had an air of +controlled lushness and peace.</p> + +<p>The braking jets thundered as Johnny depressed a control. Paresi nodded +slightly as he saw the pilot's hand move, for he knew that the autopilot +had done it, and that Johnny's movement was one of trained reflex. The +youngster was intense and alert, hair-trigger schooled, taught to +pretend in such detail that the pretense was reality to him; a precise +pretense that would become reality for all of them if the machine +failed.</p> + +<p>But of course the machine would not fail.</p> + +<p>Fields fled beneath them, looking like a crazy-quilt in pastel. On them, +nothing moved. Hoskins moved to the viewport and watched them mildly. +"Very pastoral," he said. "Pretty."</p> + +<p>"They haven't gotten very far," said Ives.</p> + +<p>"Or they've gotten very far indeed," said Captain Anderson.</p> + +<p>Johnny snorted. "No factories. No bridges. Cow-tracks and goat paths."</p> + +<p>The Captain chuckled. "Some<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> cultures go through an agrarian stage to +reach a technological civilization, and some pass through technology to +reach the pastoral."</p> + +<p>"I don't see it," said Johnny shortly, eyes ahead.</p> + +<p>Paresi's hand touched the Captain's arm, and the Captain then said +nothing.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><em>Pwing-g-g!</em></p> + +<p>"Stand by for landing," said the Captain.</p> + +<p>Ives and Hoskins went aft to the shock-panels in the after bulkhead. +Paresi and the Captain stepped into niches flanking the console. Johnny +touched a control that freed his chair in its hydraulic gimbals. Chair +and niches and shock-panels would not be needed as long as the +artificial gravity and inertialess field functioned; it was a ritual.</p> + +<p>The ship skimmed treetops, heading phlegmatically for a rocky bluff. A +gush of flame from its underjets and it shouldered heavily upward, just +missing the jagged crest. A gout of fire forward, another, and it went +into a long flat glide, following the fall of a foothill to the plain +beyond. It held course and reduced speed, letting the ground billow up +to it rather than descending. There was a moment of almost-flight, +almost-sliding, and then a rush of dust and smoke which over-took and +passed them. When it cleared, they were part of the plain, part of the +planet.</p> + +<p>"A good landing, John," Paresi said. Hoskins caught his eye and frowned. +Paresi grinned broadly, and the exchange between them was clear: <em>Why do +you needle the kid?</em> and <em>Quiet, Engine-room. I know what I'm doing.</em> +Hoskins shrugged, and, with Ives, crossed to the communications desk.</p> + +<p>Ives ran his fat, skilled hands over the controls and peered at his +indicators. "It's more than a good landing," he grunted. "That +squeak-box we homed in on can't be more than a hundred meters from here. +First time I've ever seen a ship bullseye like that."</p> + +<p>Johnny locked his gimbals, ran a steady, sensitive hand over the turn of +the console as if it were a woman's flank. "Why—how close do you +usually come?"</p> + +<p>"Planetfall's close enough to satisfy Survey," said the Captain. "Once +in a while the box will materialize conveniently on a continent. But +this—this is too good to be true. We practically landed on it."</p> + +<p>Hoskins nodded. "It's usually buried in some jungle, or at the bottom of +a sea. But this is really all right. What a lineup! Point nine-eight +earth gravity, Earth-type atmosphere—"</p> + +<p>"Argon-rich," said, Ives, from the panel. "Very rich."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span></p> + +<p>"That'll make no real difference," Hoskins went on. "Temperature, about +normal for an early summer back home ... looks as if there's a fiendish +plot afoot here to make things easy for us."</p> + +<p>Paresi said, as if to himself, "I worry about easy things."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>"Yeah, I know," snorted Johnny, rising to stretch. "The head-shrinker +always does it the hard way. You can't just dislike rice pudding; it has +to be a sister-syndrome. If the shortest distance is from here to there, +don't take it—remember your Uncle Oedipus."</p> + +<p>Captain Anderson chuckled. "Cut your jets, Johnny. Maybe Paresi's +tortuous reasoning does seem out of order on such a nice day. But +remember—eternal vigilance isn't just the price of liberty, as the old +books say. It's the price of existence. We know we're here—but we don't +know where 'here' is, and won't until after we get back. This is +<em>really</em> Terra Incognita. The location of Earth, or even of our part of +the galaxy, is something that has to be concealed at all costs, until +we're sure we're not going to turn up a potentially dangerous, possibly +superior alien culture. What we don't know can't hurt Earth. No +conceivable method could get that information out of us, any more than +it could be had from the squeak-box that Survey dropped here.</p> + +<p>"Base all your thinking on that, Johnny. If that seems like leaning over +backwards, it's only a sample of how careful we've got to be, how many +angles we've got to figure."</p> + +<p>"Hell," said the pilot. "I know all that. I was just ribbing the +bat-snatcher here." He thumbed a cigarette out of his tunic, touched his +lighter to it. He frowned, stared at the lighter, tried it again. "It +doesn't work. <em>Damn</em> it!" he barked explosively, "I don't like things +that don't work!"</p> + +<p>Paresi was beside him, catlike, watchful. "Here's a light. Take it easy, +Johnny! A bum lighter's not that important."</p> + +<p>Johnny looked sullenly at his lighter. "It doesn't work," he muttered. +"Guaranteed, too. When we get back I'm going to feed it to Supply." He +made a vivid gesture to describe the feeding technique, and jammed the +lighter back into his pocket.</p> + +<p>"Heh!" Ives' heavy voice came from the communications desk. "Maybe the +natives are primitives, at that. Not a whisper of any radio on any band. +No powerline fields, either. These are plowboys, for sure."</p> + +<p>Johnny looked out at the sleeping valley. His irritation over the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> +lighter was still in his voice. "Imagine that. No video or trideo. No +jet-races or feelies. What do people do with their time in a place like +this?"</p> + +<p>"Books," said Hoskins, almost absently. "Chess. Conversation."</p> + +<p>"I don't know what chess is, and conversation's great if you want to +tell somebody something, like 'bring me a steak'," said Johnny. "Let's +get out of this fire-trap," he said to the Captain.</p> + +<p>"In time," said the Captain. "Ives, DX those radio frequencies. If +there's so much as a smell of radiation even from the other side of this +planet, we want to know about it. Hoskins, check the +landing-suits—food, water, oxygen, radio, everything. Earth-type planet +or no, we're not fooling with alien viruses. Johnny, I want you to +survey this valley in every way you can and plot a minimum of three +take-off vectors."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>The crew fell to work, Ives and Hoskins intently, Johnny off-handedly, +as if he were playing out a ritual with some children. Paresi bent over +a stereomicroscope, manipulating controls which brought in samples of +air-borne bacteria and fungi and placed them under its objective. +Captain Anderson ranged up beside him.</p> + +<p>"We could walk out of the ship as if we were on Muroc Port," said +Paresi. "These couldn't be more like Earth organisms if they'd been +transplanted from home to delude us."</p> + +<p>The Captain laughed. "Sometimes I tend to agree with Johnny. I never met +a more suspicious character. How'd you ever bring yourself to sign your +contract?"</p> + +<p>"Turned my back on a couple of clauses," said Paresi. "Here—have a +look."</p> + +<p>At that moment the usually imperturbable Ives uttered a sharp grunt that +echoed and re-echoed through the cabin. Paresi and the Captain turned. +Hoskins was just coming out of the after alleyway with an oxygen bottle +in his hand, and had frozen in his tracks at the sharp sound Ives had +made. Johnny had whipped around as if the grunt had been a lion's roar. +His back was to the bulkhead, his lean, long frame tensed for fight or +flight. It was indescribable, Ives' grunt, and it was the only sound +which could have had such an effect on such a variety of men—the same +shocked immobility.</p> + +<p>Ives sat over his Communications desk as if hypnotized by it. He moved +one great arm forward, almost reluctantly, and turned a knob.</p> + +<p>A soft, smooth hum filled the room. "Carrier," said Ives.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span></p> + +<p>Then the words came. They were English words, faultlessly spoken, loud +and clear and precise. They were harmless words, pleasant words even.</p> + +<p>They were: "<em>Men of Earth! Welcome to our planet.</em>"</p> + +<p>The voice hung in the air. The words stuck in the silence like insects +wriggling upon a pin. Then the voice was gone, and the silence was +complete and heavy. The carrier hum ceased. With a spine-tingling brief +blaze of high-frequency sound, Hoskins' oxygen-bottle hit the steel +deck.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>Then they all began to breathe again.</p> + +<p>"There's your farmers, Johnny," said Paresi.</p> + +<p>"Knight to bishop's third," said Hoskins softly.</p> + +<p>"What's that?" demanded Johnny.</p> + +<p>"Chess again," said the Captain appreciatively. "An opening gambit."</p> + +<p>Johnny put a cigarette to his lips, tried his lighter. "Damn. Gimme a +light, Ives."</p> + +<p>Ives complied, saying over his big shoulder to the Captain, "In case you +wondered, there was no fix on that. My direction-finders indicate that +the signal came simultaneously from forty-odd transmitters placed in a +circle around the ship which is their way of saying 'I dunno'."</p> + +<p>The Captain walked to the view bubble in front of the console and peered +around. He saw the valley, the warm light of mid-afternoon, the +too-green slopes and the blue-green distances. Trees, rocks, a balancing +bird.</p> + +<p>"It doesn't work," muttered Johnny.</p> + +<p>The Captain ignored him. "'<em>Men of Earth....</em>'" he quoted. "Ives, +they've gotten into Survey's squeak-box and analyzed its origin. They +know all about us!"</p> + +<p>"They don't because they can't," said Ives flatly. "Survey traverses +those boxes through second-order space. They materialize near a planet +and drop in. No computation on earth or off it could trace their +normal-space trajectory, let alone what happens in the second-order +condition. The elements the box is made of are carefully averaged +isotopic forms that could have come from any of nine galaxies we know +about and probably more. And all it does is throw out a VUHF signal that +says <em>beep</em> on one side, <em>boop</em> on the other, and <em>bup-bup</em> in between. +It does <em>not</em> speak English, mention the planet Earth, announce anyone's +arrival and purpose, or teach etiquette."</p> + +<p>Captain Anderson spread his hands. "They got it from somewhere. They +didn't get it from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> us. This ship and the box are the only Terran +objects on this planet. Therefore they got their information from the +box."</p> + +<p>"Q.E.D. You reason like Euclid," said Paresi admiringly. "But don't +forget that geometry is an artificial school, based on arbitrary axioms. +It just doesn't work where the shortest distance is <em>not</em> a straight +line.... I'd suggest we gather evidence and postpone our conclusions."</p> + +<p>"How do you think they got it?" Ives challenged.</p> + +<p>"I think we can operate from the fact they got it, and make our analyses +when we have more data."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>Ives went back to his desk and threw a switch.</p> + +<p>"What are you doing?" asked the Captain.</p> + +<p>"Don't you think they ought to be answered?"</p> + +<p>"Turn it off, Ives."</p> + +<p>"But—"</p> + +<p>"Turn it off!" Ives did. An expedition is an informal, highly democratic +group, and can afford to be, for when the situation calls for it, there +is never any question of where authority lies. The Captain said, "There +is nothing we can say to them which won't yield them more information. +Nothing. For all we know it may be very important to them to learn +whether or not we received their message. Our countermove is obviously +to make no move at all."</p> + +<p>"You mean just sit here and wait until they do something else?" asked +Johnny, appalled.</p> + +<p>The Captain thumped his shoulder. "Don't worry. We'll do something in +some other area than communications. Hoskins—are those landing suits +ready?"</p> + +<p>"All but," rapped Hoskins. He scooped up the oxygen bottle and +disappeared.</p> + +<p>Paresi said, "We'll tell them something if we <em>don't</em> answer."</p> + +<p>The Captain set his jaw. "We do what we can, Nick. We do the best we +can. Got any better ideas?"</p> + +<p>Paresi shrugged easily and smiled. "Just knocking, skipper. Knock +everything. Then what's hollow, you know about."</p> + +<p>"I should know better than to jump salty with you," said the Captain, +all but returning the doctor's smile. "Johnny. Hoskins. Prepare for +exploratory patrol."</p> + +<p>"I'll go," said Paresi.</p> + +<p>"Johnny goes," said the Captain bluntly, "because it's his first trip, +and because if he isn't given something to do he'll bust his adrenals. +Hoskins goes, because of all of us, the Engineer is most expendable. +Ives stays because we need hair-trigger communications. I stay to +correlate what goes on outside with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> what goes on inside. You stay +because if anything goes wrong I'd rather have you fixing the men up +than find myself trying to fix you up." He squinted at Paresi. "Does +that knock solid?"</p> + +<p>"Solid."</p> + +<p>"Testing, Johnny," Ives said into a microphone. Johnny's duplicated +voice, from the open face-plate of his helmet and from the intercom +speaker, said, "I hear you fine."</p> + +<p>"Testing, Hoskins."</p> + +<p>"If I'd never seen you," said the speaker softly, "I'd think you were +right here in the suit with me." Hoskins' helmet was obviously buttoned +up.</p> + +<p>The two men came shuffling into the cabin, looking like gleaming ghosts +in their chameleon-suits, which repeated the color of the walls. +"Someday," growled Johnny, "there'll be a type suit where you can +scratch your—"</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>"Scratch when you get back," said the Captain. "Now hear this. Johnny, +you can move fastest. You go out first. Wait in the airlock for thirty +seconds after the outer port opens. When Ives gives you the beep, jump +out, run around the bows and plant your back against the hull directly +opposite the port. Hold your blaster at the ready, aimed down—you hear +me? <em>Down</em>, so that any observer will know you're armed but not +attacking. Hoskins, you'll be in the lock with the outer port open by +that time. When Johnny gives the all clear, you'll jump out and put your +back against the hull by the port. Then you'll both stay where you are +until you get further orders. Is that clear?"</p> + +<p>"Aye."</p> + +<p>"Yup."</p> + +<p>"You're covered adequately from the ship. Don't fire without orders. +There's nothing you can get with a blaster that we can't get first with +a projector—unless it happens to be within ten meters of the hull and +we can't depress to it. Even then, describe it first and await orders to +fire except in really extreme emergency. A single shot at the wrong time +could set us back a thousand years with this planet. Remember that this +ship isn't called <em>Killer</em> or <em>Warrior</em> or even <em>Hero</em>. It's the Earth +Ship <em>Ambassador</em>. Go to it, and good luck."</p> + +<p>Hoskins stepped back and waved Johnny past him. "After you, Jets."</p> + +<p>Johnny's teeth flashed behind the face-plate. He clicked his heels and +bowed stiffly from the waist, in a fine burlesque of an ancient +courtier. He stalked past Hoskins and punched the button which +controlled the airlock.</p> + +<p>They waited. Nothing.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span></p> + +<p>Johnny frowned, jabbed the button again. And again. The Captain started +to speak, then fell watchfully silent. Johnny reached toward the button, +touched it, then struck it savagely. He stepped back then, one foot +striking the other like that of a clumsy child. He turned partially to +the others. In his voice, as it came from the speaker across the room, +was a deep amazement that rang like the opening chords of a prophetic +and gloomy symphony.</p> + +<p>He said, "The port won't open."</p> + + + + +<h2><a name="II" id="II"></a>II</h2> + + +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>The extremes of mysticism and of pragmatism have their own +expressions of worship. Each has its form, and the difference +between them is the difference between</i> deus ex machina <i>and</i> +deus machina est.</p> + +<p class='author'><i>—E. Hunter Waldo</i> </p></div> + + +<p>"Of course it will open," said Hoskins. He strode past the stunned pilot +and confidently palmed the control.</p> + +<p>The port didn't open.</p> + +<p>Hoskins said, "Hm?" as if he had been asked an inaudible question, and +tried again. Nothing happened. "Skipper," he said over his shoulder, +"Have a quick look at the meters behind you there. Are we getting +auxiliary power?"</p> + +<p>"All well here," said Anderson after a glance at the board. "And no +shorts showing."</p> + +<p>There was a silence punctuated by the soft, useless clicking of the +control as Hoskins manipulated it. "Well, what do you know."</p> + +<p>"It won't work," said Johnny plaintively.</p> + +<p>"Sure it'll work," said Paresi swiftly, confidently. "Take it easy, +Johnny."</p> + +<p>"It won't work," said Johnny. "It won't work." He stumbled across the +cabin and leaned against the opposite bulkhead, staring at the closed +port with his head a little to one side as if he expected it to shriek +at him.</p> + +<p>"Let me try," said Ives, going to Hoskins. He put out his hand.</p> + +<p>"<em>Don't!</em>" Johnny cried.</p> + +<p>"Shut up, Johnny," said Paresi.</p> + +<p>"All right, Nick," said Johnny. He opened his face plate, went to the +rear bulkhead, keyed open an acceleration couch, and lay face down on +it. Paresi watched him, his lips pursed.</p> + +<p>"Can't say I blame him," said the Captain softly, catching Paresi's eye. +"It's something of a shock. This shouldn't <em>be</em>. The safety factor's too +great—a thousand per cent or better."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I know what you mean," said Hoskins. "I saw it myself, but I don't +believe it." He pushed the button again.</p> + +<p>"I believe it," said Paresi.</p> + +<p>Ives went to his desk, clicked the transmitter and receiver switches on +and off, moved a rheostat or two. He reached up to a wall toggle, turned +a small air-circulating fan on and off. "Everything else seems to work," +he said absently.</p> + +<p>"This is ridiculous!" exploded the Captain. "It's like having your keys +home, or arriving at the theater without your tickets. It isn't +dangerous—it's just stupid!"</p> + +<p>"It's dangerous," said Paresi.</p> + +<p>"Dangerous how?" Ives demanded.</p> + +<p>"For one thing—" Paresi nodded toward Johnny, who lay tensely, his face +hidden. "For another, the simple calculation that if nothing inside this +ship made that control fail, something outside this ship did it. And +<em>that</em> I don't like."</p> + +<p>"That couldn't happen," said the Captain reasonably.</p> + +<p>Paresi snorted impatiently. "Which of two mutually exclusive facts are +you going to reason from? That the ship can't fail? Then this failure +isn't a failure; it's an external control. Or are you going to reason +that the ship <em>can</em> fail? Then you don't have to worry about an external +force—but you can't trust anything about the ship. Do the trick that +makes you happy. But do only one. You can't have both."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>Johnny began to laugh.</p> + +<p>Ives went to him. "Hey, boy—"</p> + +<p>Johnny rolled over, swung his feet down, and sat up, brushing the fat +man aside. "What you guys need," Johnny chuckled, "is a nice kind +policeman to feed you candy and take you home. You're real lost."</p> + +<p>Ives said, "Johnny, take it easy and be quiet, huh? We'll figure a way +out of this."</p> + +<p>"I already have, scrawny," said Johnny offensively. He got up, strode to +the port. "What a bunch of deadheads," he growled. He went two steps +past the port and grasped the control-wheel which was mounted on the +other side of the port from the button.</p> + +<p>"Oh my God," breathed Anderson delightedly, "the manual! Anybody else +want to be Captain?"</p> + +<p>"Factor of safety," said Hoskins, smiting himself on the brow. "There's +a manual control for everything on this scow that there can be. And we +stand here staring at it—"</p> + +<p>"If we don't win the furlined teacup...." Ives laughed.</p> + +<p>Johnny hauled on the wheel.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span></p> + +<p>It wouldn't budge.</p> + +<p>"Here—" Ives began to approach.</p> + +<p>"Get away," said Johnny. He put his hands close together on the rim of +the wheel, settled his big shoulders, and hauled. With a sharp crack the +wheel broke off in his hands.</p> + +<p>Johnny staggered, then stood. He looked at the wheel and then up at the +broken end of its shaft, gleaming deep below the surface of the +bulkhead.</p> + +<p>"Oh, fine...." Ives whispered.</p> + +<p>Suddenly Johnny threw back his head and +<ins class='correction' title='The orignal text read loosend.'>loosened</ins> a burst of high, hysterical laughter. It echoed back and forth +between the metal walls like a torrent from a burst dam. It went on and +on, as if now that the dam was gone, the flood would run forever.</p> + +<p>Anderson called out "Johnny!" three times, but the note of command had +no effect. Paresi walked to the pilot and with the immemorial practice +slapped him sharply across the cheeks. "Johnny! Stop it!"</p> + +<p>The laughter broke off as suddenly as it had begun. Johnny's chest +heaved, drawing in breath with great, rasping near-sobs. Slowly they +died away. He extended the wheel toward the Captain.</p> + +<p>"It broke off," he said, finally, dully, without emphasis.</p> + +<p>Then he leaned back against the hull, slowly slid down until he was +sitting on the deck. "Broke right off," he said.</p> + +<p>Ives twined his fat fingers together and bent them until the knuckles +cracked. "Now what?"</p> + +<p>"I suggest," said Paresi, in an extremely controlled tone, "that we all +sit down and think over the whole thing very carefully."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>Hoskins had been staring hypnotically at the broken shaft deep in the +wall. "I wonder," he said at length, "which way Johnny turned that +wheel."</p> + +<p>"Counter-clockwise," said Ives. "You saw him."</p> + +<p>"I know that," said Hoskins. "I mean, which way: the right way, or the +wrong way?"</p> + +<p>"Oh." There was a short silence. Then Ives said, "I guess we'll never +know, now."</p> + +<p>"Not until we get back to Earth," said Paresi quickly.</p> + +<p>"You say 'until', or 'unless'?" Ives demanded.</p> + +<p>"I said 'until', Ives," said Paresi levelly, "and watch your mouth."</p> + +<p>"Sometimes," said the fat man with a dangerous joviality, "you pick the +wrong way to say the right thing, Nick." Then he clapped the slender +doctor on the back. "But I'll be good. We sow no panic seed, do we?"</p> + +<p>"Much better not to," said<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> the Captain. "It's being done efficiently +enough from outside."</p> + +<p>"You are convinced it's being done from outside?" asked Hoskins, peering +at him owlishly.</p> + +<p>"I'm ... convinced of very little," said the Captain heavily. He went to +the acceleration couch and sat down. "I want out," he said. He waved +away the professional comment he could see forming on Paresi's lips and +went on, "Not claustrophobia, Nick. Getting out of the ship's more +important than just relieving our feelings. If the trouble with the port +is being caused by some fantastic <em>something</em> outside this ship, we'll +achieve a powerful victory over it, purely by ignoring it."</p> + +<p>"It broke off," murmured Johnny.</p> + +<p>"Ignore <em>that</em>," snorted Ives.</p> + +<p>"You keep talking about this thing being caused by something outside," +said Paresi. His tone was almost complaining.</p> + +<p>"Got a better hypothesis?" asked Hoskins.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>"Hoskins," said the Captain, "isn't there some way we can get out? What +about the tubes?"</p> + +<p>"Take a shipyard to move those power-plants," said Hoskins, "and even if +it could be done, those radioactive tubes would fry you before you +crawled a third of the way."</p> + +<p>"We should have a lifeboat," said Ives to no one in particular.</p> + +<p>"What in time does a ship like the <em>Ambassador</em> need with a lifeboat?" +asked Hoskins in genuine amazement.</p> + +<p>The Captain frowned. "What about the ventilators?"</p> + +<p>"Take us days to remove all the screens and purifiers," said Hoskins, +"and then we'd be up against the intake ports. You could stroll out +through any of them about as far as your forearm. And after that it's +hull-metal, skipper. <em>That</em> you don't cut, not with a piece of the Sun's +core."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>The Captain got up and began pacing, slowly and steadily, as if the +problem could be trodden out like ripe grapes. He closed his eyes and +said, "I've been circling around that idea for thirty minutes now. Look: +the hull can't be cut because it is built so it can't fail. It doesn't +fail. The port controls were also built so they wouldn't fail. They do +fail. The thing that keeps us in stays in shape. The thing that lets us +out goes bad. Effect: we stay inside. Cause: something that wants us to +stay inside."</p> + +<p>"Oh," said Johnny clearly.</p> + +<p>They looked at him. He raised his head, stiffened his spine against the +bulkhead. Paresi smiled at him. "Sure, Johnny.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> The machine didn't fail. +It was—controlled. It's all right." Then he turned to the Captain and +said carefully, "I'm not denying what you say, Skipper. But I don't like +to think of what will happen if you take that tack, reason it through, +and don't get any answers."</p> + +<p>"I'd hate to be a psychologist," said Ives fervently. "Do you +extrapolate your mastications, too, and get frightened of the stink you +might get?"</p> + +<p>Paresi smiled coldly. "I control my projections."</p> + +<p>Captain Anderson's lips twitched in passing amusement, and then his +expression sobered. "I'll take the challenge, Paresi. We have a cause +and an effect. Something is keeping us in the ship. Corollary: We—or +perhaps the ship—we're not welcome."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>"<em>Men of Earth,</em>" quoted Ives, in an excellent imitation of the +accentless English they had heard on the radio, "<em>welcome to our +planet.</em>"</p> + +<p>"They're kidding," said Johnny heartily, rising to his feet. He dropped +the control wheel with a clang and shoved it carelessly aside with his +foot. "Who ever says exactly what they mean anyhow? I see that +conclusion the head-shrinker's afraid you'll get to, Skipper. If we +can't leave the ship, the only other thing we can do is to leave the +planet. That it?"</p> + +<p>Paresi nodded and watched the Captain closely. Anderson turned abruptly +away from them all and stood, feet apart, head down, hands behind his +back, and stared out of the forward viewports. In the tense silence they +could hear his knuckles crack. At length he said quietly, "That isn't +what we came here for, Johnny."</p> + +<p>Johnny shrugged. "Okay. Chew it up all you like, fellers. The only other +choice is to sit here like bugs in a bottle until we die of old age. +When you get tired of thinking that over, just let me know. I'll fly you +out."</p> + +<p>"We can always depend on Johnny," said Paresi with no +<ins class='correction' title='The orignal text reads detectible.'>detectable</ins> emphasis at all.</p> + +<p>"Not on me," said Johnny, and swatted the bulkhead. "On the ship. +Nothing on any planet can stop this baby once I pour on the coal. She's +just got too much muscles."</p> + +<p>"Well, Captain?" asked Hoskins softly.</p> + +<p>Anderson looked at the basking valley, at the too-blue sky and the +near-familiar, mellow-weathered crags. They waited.</p> + +<p>"Take her up," said the Captain. "Put her in orbit at two hundred kilos. +I'm not giving up this easily."</p> + +<p>Ives swatted Johnny's broad<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> shoulder. "That's a take-off <em>and</em> a +landing, if I know the Old Man. Go to it, Jets."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>Johnny's wide white grin flashed and he strode to the control chair. +"Gentlemen, be seated."</p> + +<p>"I'll take mine lying down," said Ives, and spread his bulk out on the +acceleration couch. The others went to their take-off posts.</p> + +<p>"On automatics," said the Captain, "Fire away!"</p> + +<p>"Fire away!" said Johnny cheerfully. He reached forward and pressed the +central control.</p> + +<p>Nothing happened.</p> + +<p>Johnny put his hand toward the control again. It moved as if there were +a repellor field around the button. The hand moved more and more slowly +the closer it got, until it hovered just over the control and began to +tremble.</p> + +<p>"On manual," barked the Captain. "Fire!"</p> + +<p>"Manual, sir," said Johnny reflexively. His trembling hand darted up to +an overhead switch, pulled it. He grasped the control bars and dropped +the heels of his hands heavily on the firing studs. From somewhere came +a muted roar, a whispering; a subjective suggestion of the thunder of +reaction motors.</p> + +<p>A frown crossed Paresi's face. The rocket noise was gone as the mind +reached for it, like an occluded thought. The motors were silent; there +wasn't a tremor of vibration. Yet somewhere a ghost engine was warming +up, preparing a ghost ship for an intangible take-off into nothingness.</p> + +<p>He snapped off the catch of his safety belt and crossed swiftly and +silently to the console. Johnny sat raptly. A slow smile of satisfaction +began to spread over his face. His gaze flicked to dials and gauges; he +nodded very slightly, and brought both hands down like an organist +playing a mighty chord. He watched the gauges. The needles were still, +lying on their zero pins, and where lights should have flickered and +flashed there was nothing. Paresi glanced at Anderson and met a worried +look. Hoskins had his head cocked to one side, listening, puzzled. Ives +rose from the couch and came forward to stand beside Paresi.</p> + +<p>Johnny was manipulating the keys firmly. His fingers began to play a +rapid, skillful, silent concerto. His face had a look of intense +concentration and of complete self-confidence.</p> + +<p>"Well," said Ives heavily. "That's a bust, too."</p> + +<p>Paresi spun to him. "<em>Shh!</em>" It was done with such intensity that Ives +recoiled. With a warning look at him, Paresi walked<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> to the Captain, +whispered in his ear.</p> + +<p>"My God," said Anderson. "All right, Doctor." He came forward to the +pilot's chair. Johnny was still concentratedly, uselessly at work. +Anderson glanced inquiringly at Paresi, who nodded.</p> + +<p>"That does it," said the Captain, loudly. "Nice work, Johnny. We're +smack in orbit. The automatics couldn't have done it better. For once it +feels good to be out in space again. Cut your jets now. You can check +for correction later."</p> + +<p>"Aye, sir," said Johnny. He made two delicate adjustments, threw a +master switch and swung around. "Whew! That's work!"</p> + +<p>Facing the four silent men, Johnny thumbed out a cigarette, put it in +his mouth, touched his lighter to it, drew a long slow puff.</p> + +<p>"Man, that goes good...."</p> + +<p>The cigarette was not lighted. Hoskins turned away, an expression of +sick pity on his face. Ives reached abruptly for his own lighter, and +the doctor checked him with a gesture.</p> + +<p>"Every time I see a hot pilot work I'm amazed," Paresi said +conversationally. "Such concentration ... you must be tuckered, Johnny."</p> + +<p>Johnny puffed at his unlit cigarette. "Tuckered," he said. "Yeah." There +were two odd undertones to his voice suddenly. They were fatigue, and +eagerness. Paresi said, "You're off-watch, John. Go stretch out."</p> + +<p>"Real tired," mumbled Johnny. He lumbered to his feet and went aft, +where he rolled to the couch and was almost instantly asleep.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>The others congregated far forward around the controls, and for a long +moment stared silently at the sleeping pilot.</p> + +<p>"I don't get it," murmured Ives.</p> + +<p>"He really thought he flew us out, didn't he?" asked Hoskins.</p> + +<p>Paresi nodded. "Had to. There isn't any place in his cosmos for machines +that don't work. Contrary evidence can get just so strong. Then, for +him, it ceased to exist. A faulty cigarette lighter irritated him, a +failing airlock control made him angry and sullen and then hysterical. +When the drive controls wouldn't respond, he reached his breaking point. +Everyone has such a breaking point, and arrives at it just that way if +he's pushed far enough."</p> + +<p>"Everyone?"</p> + +<p>Paresi looked from face to face, and nodded somberly. Anderson asked, +"What knocked him out? He's trained to take far more strain than that."</p> + +<p>"Oh, he isn't suffering from any physical or conscious mental<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> fatigue. +The one thing he wanted to do was to get away from a terrifying +situation. He convinced himself that he flew out of it. The next best +thing he could do to keep anything else from attacking him was to sleep. +He very much appreciated my suggestion that he was worn out and needed +to stretch out."</p> + +<p>"I'd very much appreciate some such," said Ives. "Do it to me, Nick."</p> + +<p>"Reach your breaking point first," said the doctor flatly, and went to +place a pillow between Johnny's head and a guard-rail.</p> + +<p>Hoskins turned away to stare at the peaceful landscape outside. The +Captain watched him for a moment, then: "Hoskins!"</p> + +<p>"Aye."</p> + +<p>"I've seen that expression before. What are you thinking about?"</p> + +<p>The engineer looked at him, shrugged, and said mildly, "Chess."</p> + +<p>"What, especially?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, a very general thing. The reciprocity of the game. That's what +makes it the magnificent thing it is. Most human enterprises can gang up +on a man, slap him with one disaster after another without pause. But +not chess. No matter who your opponent might be, every time he does +something to you, <em>it's your move</em>."</p> + +<p>"Very comforting. Have you any idea of how we move now?"</p> + +<p>Hoskins looked at him, a gentle surprise on his aging face. "You missed +my point, Skipper. <em>We</em> don't move."</p> + +<p>"Oh," the Captain whispered. His face tautened as it paled, "I ... I +see. We pushed the airlock button to get out. Countermove: It wouldn't +work. We tried the manual. Countermove: It broke off. And so on. Now +we've tried to fly the ship out. Oh, but Hoskins—Johnny broke. Isn't +that countermove enough?"</p> + +<p>"Maybe. Maybe you're right. Maybe the move wasn't trying the drive +controls, though. Maybe the move was to do what was necessary to knock +Johnny out." He shrugged again. "We'll very soon see."</p> + +<p>The Captain exhaled explosively through his nostrils. "We'll find out if +it's our move by moving," he gritted. "Ives! Paresi! We're going to go +over this thing from the beginning. First, try the port. You, Ives."</p> + +<p>Ives grunted and went to the ship's side. Then he stopped.</p> + +<p>"<em>Where is the port?</em>"</p> + +<p>Anderson and Paresi followed Ives' flaccid, shocked gaze to the bulkhead +where there had been the outline of the closed port, and beside it the +hole which had held the axle of the manual wheel, and which now was a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> +smooth, seamless curtain of impenetrable black. But Hoskins looked at +the Captain first of all, and he said "<em>Now</em> it's our move," and only +then did he turn with them to look at the darkness.</p> + + + + +<h2><a name="III" id="III"></a>III</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>The unfamiliar, you say, is the unseen, the completely new and +strange? Not so. The epitome of the unfamiliar is the familiar +inverted, the familiar turned on its head. View a familiar place +under new conditions—a deserted and darkened theater, an empty +night club by day—and you will find yourself more influenced by +the emotion of strangeness than by any number of unseen places. +Go back to your old neighborhood and find everything changed. +Come into your own home when everyone is gone, when the lights +are out and the furniture rearranged—there I will show you the +strange and frightening ghosts that are the shapes left over +when reality superimposes itself upon the images of memory. The +goblins lurk in the shadows of your own room....</i></p> + +<p class='author'>Owen Miller<br /> +Essays on Night and the Unfamiliar </p></div> + + +<p>For one heart-stopping moment the darkness had seemed to swoop in upon +them like the clutching hand of death. Instinctively they had huddled +together in the center of the room. But when the second look, and the +third, gave them reassurance that the effect was really there, though +the cause was still a mystery, then half the mystery was gone, and they +began to drift apart. Each felt on trial, and held tight to himself and +the picture of himself he empathized in the others' eyes.</p> + +<p>The Captain said quietly, "It's just ... there. It doesn't seem to be +spreading."</p> + +<p>Hoskins gazed at it critically. "About half a meter deep," he murmured. +"What do you suppose it's made of?"</p> + +<p>"Not a gas," said Paresi. "It has a—a sort of surface."</p> + +<p>Ives, who had frozen to the spot when first he saw the blackness on his +way to the port, took another two steps. The hand which had been half +lifted to touch the control continued upward relievedly, as if glad to +have a continuous function even though its purpose had changed.</p> + +<p>"Don't touch it!" rapped the Captain.</p> + +<p>Ives turned his head to look at the Captain, then faltered and let the +hand drop. "Why not?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly not a liquid," Paresi mused, as if there had been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> no +interruption. "And if it's a solid, where did that much matter come +from? Through the hull?"</p> + +<p>Hoskins, who knew the hull, how it was made, how fitted, how treated +once it was in place, snorted at the idea.</p> + +<p>"If it was a gas," said Paresi, "there'd be diffusion. <em>And</em> convection. +If it were poisonous, we'd all be dead. If not, the chances are we'd +smell it. And the counter's not saying a thing—so it's not +radioactive."</p> + +<p>"You trust the counter?" asked Ives bitterly.</p> + +<p>"I trust it," said Paresi. His near-whisper shook with what sounded like +passion. "A man must have faith in something. I hold that faith in every +single function of every part of this ship until each and every part is +separately and distinctly proved unworthy of faith!"</p> + +<p>"Then, by God, you'll understand my faith in my own two hands and what +they feel," snarled Ives. He stepped to the bulkhead and brought his +meaty hand hard against it.</p> + +<p>"<em>Touché</em>," murmured Hoskins, and meant either Ives' remark or the flat, +solid smack of the hand against the blackness.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>In his sleep, Johnny uttered a high, soft, careless tinkle of youthful, +happy laughter.</p> + +<p>"Somebody's happy," said Ives.</p> + +<p>"Paresi," said the Captain, "what happens when he wakes up?"</p> + +<p>Paresi's eyebrows shrugged for him. "Practically anything. He's reached +down inside himself, somewhere, and found a way out. For him—not for +any of the rest of us. Maybe he'll ignore what we see. Maybe he'll think +he's somewhere else, or in some other time. Maybe he'll <em>be</em> someone +else. Maybe he won't wake up at all."</p> + +<p>"Maybe he has the right idea," said Ives.</p> + +<p>"That's the second time you've made a crack like that," said Paresi +levelly. "Don't do it again. You can't afford it."</p> + +<p>"We can't afford it," the Captain put in.</p> + +<p>"All right," said Ives, with such docility that Paresi shot him a +startled, suspicious glance. The big communications man went to his +station and sat, half-turned away from the rest.</p> + +<p>"What are they after?" complained the Captain suddenly. "What do they +want?"</p> + +<p>"Who?" asked Paresi, still watching Ives.</p> + +<p>Hoskins explained, "Whoever it was who said 'Welcome to our planet.'"</p> + +<p>Ives turned toward them, and Paresi's relief was noticeable.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> Ives said, +"They want us dead."</p> + +<p>"Do they?" asked the Captain.</p> + +<p>"They don't want us to leave the ship, and they don't want the ship to +leave the planet."</p> + +<p>"Then it's the ship they want."</p> + +<p>"Yeah," amended Ives, "without us."</p> + +<p>Paresi said, "You can't conclude that, Ives. They've inconvenienced us. +They've turned us in on ourselves, and put a drain on our intangible +resources as men and as a crew. But so far they haven't actually done +anything to us. We've done it to ourselves."</p> + +<p>Ives looked at him scornfully. "We wrecked the unwreckable controls, +manufactured that case-hardened darkness, and talked to ourselves on an +all-wave carrier with no source, about information no outsider could +get?"</p> + +<p>"I didn't say any of that." Paresi paused to choose words. "Of course +they're responsible for these phenomena. But the phenomena haven't hurt +us. Our reactions to the phenomena are what has done the damage."</p> + +<p>"A fall never hurt anyone, they told me when I was a kid," said Ives +pugnaciously. "It's the sudden stop."</p> + +<p>Paresi dismissed the remark with a shrug. "I still say that while we +have been astonished, frightened, puzzled and frustrated, we have not +been seriously threatened. Our water and food and air are virtually +unlimited. Our ability to live with one another under emergency +situations has been tested to a fare-thee-well, and all we have to do is +recognize the emergency as such and that ability will rise to optimum." +He smiled suddenly. "It could be worse, Ives."</p> + +<p>"I suppose it could," said Ives. "That blackness could move in until it +really crowded us, or—"</p> + +<p>Very quietly Hoskins said, "It <em>is</em> moving in."</p> + +<p>Captain Anderson shook his head. "No...." And hearing him, they slowly +recognized that the syllable was not a denial, but an exclamation. For +the darkness was no longer a half-meter deep on the bulkhead. No one had +noticed it, but they suddenly became aware that the almost-square cabin +was now definitely rectangular, with the familiar controls, the +communications wall, and the thwartship partition aft of them forming +three sides to the encroaching fourth.</p> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 402px;"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> +<img src="images/illo3.png" width="402" height="600" +alt="Nude woman on chess motif." title="" /> +</div> + +<p>Ives rose shaking and round-eyed from his chair. He made an unspellable +animal sound and rushed at the blackness. Paresi leaped for him, but not +fast enough. Ives collided sickeningly against the strange jet surface +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span>and fell. He fell massively, gracelessly, not prone but on wide-spread +knees, with his arms crumpled beneath him and the side of his face on +the deck. He stayed there, quite unconscious, a gross caricature of +worship.</p> + +<p>There was a furiously active, silent moment while Paresi turned the fat +man over on his back, ran skilled fingers over his bleeding face, his +chest, back to the carotid area of his neck. "He's all right," said +Paresi, still working; then, as if to keep his mind going with words to +avoid conjecture, he went on didactically, "This is the other fear +reaction. Johnny's was 'flight.' Ives' is 'fight.' The empirical result +is very much the same."</p> + +<p>"I thought," said Hoskins dryly, "that fight and flight were survival +reactions."</p> + +<p>Paresi stood up. "Why, they are. In the last analysis, so is suicide."</p> + +<p>"I'll think about that," said Hoskins softly.</p> + +<p>"Paresi!" spat Anderson. "Medic or no, you'll watch your mouth!"</p> + +<p>"Sorry, Captain. That <em>was</em> panic seed. Hoskins—"</p> + +<p>"Don't explain it to me," said the engineer mildly. "I know what you +meant. Suicide's the direct product of survival compulsions—drives that +try to save something, just as fight and flight are efforts to save +something. I don't think you need worry; immolation doesn't tempt me. +I'm too—too interested in what goes on. What are you going to do about +Ives?"</p> + +<p>"Bunk him, I guess, and stand by to fix up that headache he'll wake up +to. Give me a hand, will you?"</p> + +<p>Hoskins went to the bulkhead and dropped a second acceleration couch. It +took all three of them, working hard, to lift Ives' great bulk up to it. +Paresi opened the first-aid kit clamped under the control console and +went to the unconscious man. The Captain cast about him for something to +do, something to say, and apparently found it. "Hoskins!"</p> + +<p>"Aye."</p> + +<p>"Do you usually think better on an empty stomach?"</p> + +<p>"Not me."</p> + +<p>"I never have either."</p> + +<p>Hoskins smiled. "I can take a hint. I'll rassle up something hot and +filling."</p> + +<p>"Good man," said the Captain, as Hoskins disappeared toward the after +quarters. Anderson walked over to the doctor and stood watching him +clean up the abraded bruise on Ives' forehead.</p> + +<p>Paresi, without looking up, said, "You'd better say it, whatever it is. +Get it out."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span></p> + +<p>Anderson half-chuckled. "You psychic?"</p> + +<p>Paresi shot him a glance. "Depends. If you mean has a natural +sensitivity to the tension spectra coupled itself with some years of +practice in observing people—then yes. What's on your mind?"</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>Anderson said nothing for a long time. It was as if he were waiting for +a question, a single prod from Paresi. But Paresi wouldn't give it. +Paresi waited, just waited, with his dark face turned away, not helping, +not pushing, not doing a single thing to modify the pressure that +churned about in the Captain.</p> + +<p>"All right," said the Captain irritably. "I'll tell you."</p> + +<p>Paresi took tweezers, a retractor, two scalpels and a hypodermic case +out of the kit and laid them in a neat row on the bunk. He then picked +up each one and returned it to the kit. When he had quite finished +Anderson said, "I was wondering, <em>who's next?</em>"</p> + +<p>Paresi nodded and shut the kit with a sharp click. He looked up at the +Captain and nodded again. "Why does it have to be you?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"I didn't say it would be me!" said the Captain sharply.</p> + +<p>"Didn't you?" When the Captain had no answer, Paresi asked him, "Then +why wonder about a thing like that?"</p> + +<p>"Oh ... I see what you mean. When you start to be afraid, you start to +be unsure—not of anyone else's weaknesses, but of your own. That what +you mean?"</p> + +<p>"Yup." His dark-framed grin flashed suddenly. "But you're not afraid, +Cap'n."</p> + +<p>"The hell I'm not."</p> + +<p>Paresi shook his head. "Johnny was afraid, and fled. Ives was afraid, +and fought. There's only one fear that's a real fear, and that's the one +that brings you to your breaking point. Any other fear is small potatoes +compared with a terror like that. Small enough so no one but me has to +worry about it."</p> + +<p>"Why you, then?"</p> + +<p>Paresi swatted the first-aid kit as he carried it back to its clamp. +"I'm the M. O., remember? Symptoms are my business. Let me watch 'em, +Captain. Give me orders, but don't crowd me in my specialty."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>"You're insubordinate, Paresi," said Anderson, "and you're a great +comfort." His slight smile faded, and horizontal furrows appeared over +his eyes. "Tell me why I had that nasty little phase of doubt about +myself."</p> + +<p>"You think I can?"</p> + +<p>"Yes." He was certain.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span></p> + +<p>"That's half the reason. The other half is Hoskins."</p> + +<p>"What are you talking about?"</p> + +<p>"Johnny broke. Ives broke. Your question was, 'who's next?' You doubt +that it will be me, because I'm <em>de facto</em> the boy with all the answers. +You doubt it will be Hoskins, because you can't extrapolate how he might +break—or even if he would. So that leaves you."</p> + +<p>"I hadn't exactly reasoned it out like that—"</p> + +<p>"Oh yes you had," said Paresi, and thumped the Captain's shoulder. "Now +forget it. Confucius say he who turn gaze inward wind up crosseyed. +Can't afford to have a crosseyed Captain. Our friends out there are due +to make another move."</p> + +<p>"No they're not."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>The doctor and the Captain whirled at the quiet voice. "What does that +mean, Hoskins?"</p> + +<p>The engineer came into the cabin, crossed over to his station, and began +opening and closing drawers. "They've moved." From the bottom drawer he +pulled out a folded chessboard and a rectangular box. Only then did he +look directly at them. "The food's gone."</p> + +<p>"Food?... gone where?"</p> + +<p>Hoskins smiled tiredly. "Where's the port? Where's the outboard +bulkhead? That black stuff has covered it up—heating units, +foodlockers, disposal unit, everything." He pulled a couple of chairs +from their clips on the bulkhead and carried them across the cabin to +the sheet of blackness. "There's water," he said as he unfolded the +chairs. On the seat of one he placed the chessboard. He sat on the other +and pushed the board close to the darkness. "The scuttlebutt's inboard, +and still available." His voice seemed to get fainter and fainter as he +talked, as if he were going slowly away from them. "But there's no food. +No food."</p> + +<p>He began to set up the pieces, his face to the black wall.</p> + + + + +<h2><a name="IV" id="IV"></a>IV</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>The primary function of personality is self-preservation, but +personality itself is not a static but a dynamic thing. The +basic factor in its development, is integration: each new +situation calls forth a new adjustment which modifies or alters +the personality in the process. The proper aim of personality, +therefore, is not permanence and stability, but unification. The +inability of a personality to adjust to or integrate a new +situation, the resistance of the personality to unification, and +its</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> <i>efforts to preserve its integrity are known popularly as +insanity.</i></p> + +<p class='author'> +—Morgan Littlefield,<br /> +Notes on Psychology. +</p></div> + +<p><em>"Hoskins!"</em></p> + +<p>Paresi grabbed the Captain's arm and spun him around roughly. "Captain +Anderson! Cut it!" Very softly, he said, "Leave him alone. He's doing +what he has to do."</p> + +<p>Anderson stared over his shoulder at the little engineer. "Is he, now? +Damn it, he's still under orders!"</p> + +<p>"Got something for him to do?" asked the doctor cooly.</p> + +<p>Anderson looked around, at the controls, out at the sleeping mountains. +"I guess not. But I'd like to know he'd take an order when I have one."</p> + +<p>"Leave him alone until you have an order. Hoskins is a very steady head, +skipper. But just now he's on the outside edge. Don't push."</p> + +<p>The Captain put his hand over his eyes and fumbled his way to the +controls. He turned his back to the pilot's chair and leaned heavily +against it. "Okay," he said. "This thing is developing into a duel +between you and those ... those colleagues of yours out there. I guess +the least we ... I ... can do is not to fight you while you're fighting +them."</p> + +<p>Paresi said, "You're choosing up sides the wrong way. They're fighting +us, all right. We're only fighting ourselves. I don't mean each other; I +mean each of us is fighting himself. We've got to stop doing that, +skipper."</p> + +<p>The Captain gave him a wan smile. "Who has, at the best of times?"</p> + +<p>Paresi returned the smile. "Drug addicts ... Catatonics ... +illusionaries ... and saints. I guess it's up to us to add to the +category."</p> + +<p>"How about dead people?"</p> + +<p>"Ives! How long have you been awake?"</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>The big man shoved himself up and leaned on one arm. He shook his head +and grunted as if he had been punched in the solar plexus. "Who hit me +with what?" he said painfully, from between clenched teeth.</p> + +<p>"You apparently decided the bulkhead was a paper hoop and tried to dive +through it," said Paresi. He spoke lightly but his face was watchful.</p> + +<p>"Oooh...." Ives held his head for a moment and then peered between his +fingers at the darkness. "I remember," he said in a strained whisper. He +looked around him, saw the engineer huddled against his chessboard. +"What's he doing?"</p> + +<p>They all looked at the engineer<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> as he moved a piece and then sat +quietly.</p> + +<p>"Hey, Hoskins!"</p> + +<p>Hoskins ignored Ives' bull voice. Paresi said, "He's not talking just +now. He's ... all right, Ives. Leave him alone. At the moment, I'm more +interested in you. How do you feel?"</p> + +<p>"Me, I feel great. Hungry, though. What's for chow?"</p> + +<p>Anderson said quickly, "Nick doesn't want us to eat just now."</p> + +<p>"Thanks," muttered Paresi in vicious irony.</p> + +<p>"He's the doctor," said Ives good-naturedly. "But don't put it off too +long, huh? This furnace needs stoking." He fisted his huge chest.</p> + +<p>"Well, this is encouraging," said Paresi.</p> + +<p>"It certainly is," said the Captain. "Maybe the breaking point is just +the point of impact. After that the rebound, hm?"</p> + +<p>Paresi shook his head. "Breaking means breaking. Sometimes things just +don't break."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>"Got to pass," said a voice. Johnny, the pilot, was stirring.</p> + +<p>"Ha!" Anderson's voice was exultant. "Here comes another one!"</p> + +<p>"How sure are you of that?" asked the doctor. To Johnny, he called, +"Hiya, John?"</p> + +<p>"I got to pass," said Johnny worriedly. He swung his feet to the deck. +"You see," he said earnestly, "being the head of your class doesn't make +it any easier. You've got to keep that and pass the examinations too. +You've got two jobs. Now, the guy who stands fourth, say—he has only +one job to do."</p> + +<p>Anderson turned a blank face to Paresi, who made a silencing gesture. +Johnny put his head in his hands and said, "When one variable varies +directly as another, two pairs of their corresponding values are in +proportion." He looked up. "That's supposed to be the keystone of all +vector analysis, the man says, and you don't get to be a pilot without +vector analysis. And it makes no sense to me. What am I going to do?"</p> + +<p>"Get some shuteye," said Paresi immediately. "You've been studying too +hard. It'll make more sense to you in the morning."</p> + +<p>Johnny grinned and yawned at the same time, the worried wrinkles +smoothing out. "Now that was a real educational remark, Martin, old +chap," he said. He lay down and stretched luxuriously. "<em>That</em> I can +understand. You may wear my famous maroon zipsuit." He turned his face +away and was instantly asleep.</p> + +<p>"Who the hell is Martin?" Ives demanded. "Martin who?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Shh. Probably his roommate in pre-pilot school."</p> + +<p>Anderson gaped. "You mean he's back in school?"</p> + +<p>"Doesn't it figure?" said Paresi sadly. "I told you that this situation +is intolerable to him. If he can't escape in space, he'll escape in +time. He hasn't the imagination to go forward, so he goes backward."</p> + +<p>Something scuttled across the floor. Ives whipped his feet off the floor +and sat like some cartoon of a Buddha, clutching his ankles. "What in +God's name was that?"</p> + +<p>"I didn't see anything," said Paresi.</p> + +<p>The Captain demanded, "What was it?"</p> + +<p>From the shadows, Hoskins said, "A mouse."</p> + +<p>"Nonsense."</p> + +<p>"I can't stand things that scuttle and slither and crawl," said Ives. +His voice was suddenly womanish. "Don't let anything like that in here!"</p> + +<p>From the quarters aft came a faint scratching, a squeak. Ives turned +pale. His wattles quivered.</p> + +<p>"Snap out of it, Ives," said Paresi coldly. "There isn't so much as a +microbe on this ship that I haven't inventoried. Don't sit there like +little Miss Muffet."</p> + +<p>"I know what I saw," said Ives. He rose suddenly, turned to the black +wall, and bellowed, "Damn you, send something I can fight!"</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>Two mice emerged from under the couch. One of them ran over Ives' foot. +They disappeared aft, squeaking. Ives leapt straight up and came down +standing on the couch. Anderson stepped back against the inboard +bulkhead and stood rigid. Paresi walked with great purpose to the +medical chest, took out a small black case and opened it.</p> + +<p>Ives cowered down to his knees and began to blubber openly, without +attempting to hide it, without any articulate speech. Paresi approached +him, half-concealing a small metal tube in his hand.</p> + +<p>A slight movement on the deck caught Anderson's eye. He was unable to +control a shrill intake of breath as an enormous spider, hairy and +swift, darted across to the couch and sprang. It landed next to Ives' +knee, sprang again. Paresi swung at it and missed, his hand catching +Ives heavily just under the armpit. The spider hit the deck, skidded, +righted itself and, abruptly, was gone. Ives caved in around the impact +point of Paresi's hand and curled up silently on the couch. Anderson ran +to him.</p> + +<p>"He'll be all right now," said Paresi. "Forget it."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Don't tell me he fainted! Not Ives!"</p> + +<p>"Of course not." Paresi held up the little cylinder.</p> + +<p>"Anesthox! Why did you use that on him?"</p> + +<p>Paresi said irritably, "For the reason one usually uses anesthox. To +knock a patient out for a couple of hours without hurting him."</p> + +<p>"Suppose you hadn't?"</p> + +<p>"How much more of that scuttle-and-slither treatment do you think he +could have taken?"</p> + +<p>Anderson looked at the unconscious communications man. "Surely more than +that." He looked up suddenly. "Where the hell <em>did</em> that vermin come +from?"</p> + +<p>"Ah. Now you have it. He dislikes mice and spiders. But there was +something special about these. They couldn't be here, and they were. He +felt that it was a deliberate and personal attack. He couldn't have +handled much more of it."</p> + +<p>"Where did they come from?" demanded the Captain again.</p> + +<p>"<em>I</em> don't know!" snapped Paresi. "Sorry, skipper ... I'm a little +unnerved. I'm not used to seeing a patient's hallucinations. Not that +clearly, at any rate."</p> + +<p>"They were Ives' hallucinations?"</p> + +<p>"Can you recall what was said just before they appeared?"</p> + +<p>"Uh ... something scuttled. A mouse."</p> + +<p>"It wasn't a mouse until someone said it was." The doctor turned and +looked searchingly at Hoskins, who still sat quietly over his chess.</p> + +<p>"By God, it was Hoskins. Hoskins—what made you say that?"</p> + +<p>The engineer did not move nor answer. Paresi shook his head hopelessly. +"Another retreat. It's no use, Captain."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>Anderson took a single step toward Hoskins, then obviously changed his +mind. He shrugged and said, "All right. Something scuttled and Hoskins +defined it. Let's accept that without reasoning it out. So who called up +the spider?"</p> + +<p>"You did."</p> + +<p>"<em>I</em> did?"</p> + +<p>In a startling imitation of the Captain's voice, Paresi quoted, "Don't +sit there like Miss Muffet!"</p> + +<p>"I'll be damned," said Anderson. "Maybe we'd all be better off saying +nothing."</p> + +<p>Paresi said bitterly, "You think it makes any difference if we <em>say</em> +what we think?"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps...."</p> + +<p>"Nup," said Paresi positively. "Look at the way this thing works. First +it traps us, and then it shows us a growing darkness. Very basic. Then +it starts<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> picking on us, one by one. Johnny gets machines that don't +work, when with his whole soul he worships machines that do. Ives gets a +large charge of claustrophobia from the black stuff over there and goes +into a flat spin."</p> + +<p>"He came out of it."</p> + +<p>"Johnny woke up too. In another subjective time-track. Quite harmless +to—to Them. So they left him alone. But they lowered the boom on Ives +when he showed any resilience. It's breaking point they're after, +Captain. Nothing less."</p> + +<p>"Hoskins?"</p> + +<p>"I guess so," said Paresi tiredly. "Like Johnny he escaped from a +problem he couldn't handle to one he could. Only instead of regressing +he's turned to chess. I hope Johnny doesn't bounce back for awhile, yet. +He's too—Captain! He's gone!"</p> + +<p>They turned and stared at Johnny's bunk. Or—where the bunk had been +before the black wall had swelled inwards and covered it.</p> + + + + +<h2><a name="V" id="V"></a>V</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>"... and there I was, Doctor, in the lobby of the hotel at +noon, stark naked!"</i></p> + +<p><i>"Do you have these dreams often?"</i></p> + +<p><i>"I'm afraid so, Doctor. Am I—all right? I mean ..."</i></p> + +<p><i>"Let me ask you this question: Do you believe that these +experiences are real?"</i></p> + +<p><i>"Of course not!"</i></p> + +<p><i>"Then, Madam, you are, by definition, sane; for insanity, in +the final analysis, is the inability to distinguish the real +from the unreal."</i> </p></div> + +<p>Paresi and the Captain ran aft together, and together they stopped four +paces away from the bulging blackness.</p> + +<p>"<em>Johnny!</em>" The Captain's voice cracked with the agonized effort of his +cry. He stepped to the black wall, pounded it with the heel of his hand.</p> + +<p>"He won't hear you," said Paresi bleakly. "Come back, Captain. Come +back."</p> + +<p>"Why him? Why Johnny? They've done everything they could to Johnny; you +said so yourself!"</p> + +<p>"Come back," Paresi said again, soothing. Then he spoke briskly: "Can't +you see they're not doing anything to him? They're doing it to us!"</p> + +<p>The Captain stood rigidly, staring at the featureless intrusion. He +turned presently. "To us," he parroted. Then he stumbled blindly to the +doctor, who put a firm hand on his biceps and walked with him to the +forward acceleration couch.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span></p> + +<p>The Captain sat down heavily with his back to this new invasion. Paresi +stood by him reflectively, then walked silently to Hoskins.</p> + +<p>The engineer sat over his chessboard in deep concentration. The far edge +of the board seemed to be indefinite, lost partially in the mysterious +sable curtain which covered the bulkhead.</p> + +<p>"Hoskins."</p> + +<p>No answer.</p> + +<p>Paresi put his hand on Hoskins' shoulder. Hoskins' head came up slowly. +He did not turn it. His gaze was straight ahead into the darkness. But +at least it was off the board.</p> + +<p>"Hoskins," said Paresi, "why are you playing chess?"</p> + +<p>"Chess is chess," said Hoskins quietly. "Chess may symbolize any +conflict, but it is chess and it will remain chess."</p> + +<p>"Who are you playing with?"</p> + +<p>No answer.</p> + +<p>"Hoskins—we need you. Help us."</p> + +<p>Hoskins let his gaze travel slowly downward again until it was on the +board. "The word is not the thing," he said. "The number is not the +thing. The picture, the ideograph, the symbol—these are not the thing. +Conversely ..."</p> + +<p>"Yes, Hoskins."</p> + +<p>Paresi waited. Hoskins did not move or speak. Paresi put his hand on the +man's shoulder again, but now there was no response. He cursed suddenly, +bent and brought up his hand with a violent smash and sent board and +pieces flying.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>When the clatter had died down Hoskins said pleasantly, "The pieces are +not the game. The symbols are not the thing." He sat still, his eyes +fixed on the empty chair where the board had been. He put out a hand and +moved a piece where there was no piece to a square which was no longer +there. Then he sat and waited.</p> + +<p>Paresi, breathing heavily, backed off, whirled, and went back to the +Captain.</p> + +<p>Anderson looked up at him, and there was the glimmer of humor in his +eyes. "Better sit down and talk about something different, Doctor."</p> + +<p>Paresi made an animal sound, soft and deep, far back in his throat, +plumped down next to the Captain, and kneaded his hands together for a +moment. Then he smiled. "Quite right, skipper. I'd better."</p> + +<p>They sat quietly for a moment. Then the Captain prompted, "About the +different breaking point...."</p> + +<p>"Yes, Captain?"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps you can put your<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> finger on the thing that makes different men +break in different ways, for different reasons. I mean, Johnny's case +seemed pretty clear cut, and what you haven't explained about Hoskins, +Hoskins has demonstrated pretty clearly. About Ives, now—we can skip +that for the time he'll be unconscious. But if you can figure out where +you and I might break, why—we'd know what to look for."</p> + +<p>"You think that would help?"</p> + +<p>"We'd be prepared."</p> + +<p>Paresi looked at him sharply. "Let's hypothesize a child who is afraid +of the dark. Ask him and he might say that there's a <em>something</em> in dark +places that will jump out at him. Then assure him, with great authority, +that not only is he right but that it's about to jump any minute, and +what have you done?"</p> + +<p>"Damage," nodded the Captain. "But you wouldn't say that to the child. +You'd tell him there was nothing there. You'd <em>prove</em> there wasn't."</p> + +<p>"So I would," agreed the doctor. "But in our case I couldn't do anything +of the kind. Johnny broke over machines that really didn't work. Hoskins +broke over phenomena that couldn't be measured nor understood. Ives +broke over things that scuttled and crawled. Subjectively real +phenomena, all of them. Whatever basic terrors hide in you and in me +will come to face us, no matter how improbable they might be. And you +want me to tell you what they are. No, skipper. Better leave them in +your subconscious, where you've buried them."</p> + +<p>"I'm not afraid," said the Captain. "Tell me, Paresi! At least I'll +know. I'd rather know. I'd so <em>damn</em> much rather know!"</p> + +<p>"You're sure I can tell you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"I haven't psychoanalyzed you, you know. Some of these things are very +hard to—"</p> + +<p>"You do know, don't you?"</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>"Damn you, yes!" Paresi wet his lips. "All right, then. I may be doing a +wrong thing here.... You've cuddled up to the idea that I'm a very +astute character who automatically knows about things like this, and +it's been a comfort to you. Well, I've got news for you. I didn't figure +all these things out. I was told."</p> + +<p>"Told?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, told," said Paresi angrily. "Look, this is supposed to be +restricted information, but the Exploration Service doesn't rely on +individual aptitude tests alone to make up a crew. There's another +factor—call it an inaptitude factor. In its simplest terms, it comes to +this: that a crew can't work together only if<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> each member is the most +efficient at his job. He has to <em>need</em> the others, each one of the +others. And the word <em>need</em> predicates <em>lack</em>. In other words, none of +us is a balanced individual. And the imbalances are chosen to match and +blend, so that we will react as a balanced unit. Sure I know Johnny's +bugaboos, and Hoskins', and yours. They were all in my indoctrination +treatments. I know all your case histories, all your psychic +push-buttons."</p> + +<p>"And yours?" demanded the Captain.</p> + +<p>"Hoskins, for example," said Paresi. "Happily married, no children. +Physically inferior all his life. Repressed desire for pure science +which produced more than a smattering of a great many sciences and made +him a hell of an engineer. High idealistic quotient; self sacrifice. +Look at him playing chess, making of this very real situation a +theoretical abstraction ... like leaving a marriage for deep space.</p> + +<p>"Johnny we know about. Brought up with never failing machines. Still +plays with them as if they were toys, and like any imaginative child, +turns to his toys for reassurance. He needs to be a hero, hence the +stars....</p> + +<p>"Ives ... always fat. Learned to be easy-going, learned to laugh <em>with</em> +when others were laughing <em>at</em>, and bottling up pressures every time it +happened. A large appetite. He's here to satisfy it; he's with us so he +can eat up the galaxies...."</p> + +<p>There was a long pause. "Go on," said the Captain. "Who's next? You?"</p> + +<p>"You," said the doctor shortly. "You grew up with a burning curiosity +about the nature of things. But it wasn't a scientist's curiosity; it +was an aesthete's. You're one of the few people alive who refused a +subsidized education and worked your way through advanced studies as a +crewman on commercial space-liners. You became one of the youngest +professors of philosophy in recent history. You made a romantic marriage +and your wife died in childbirth. Since then—almost a hundred missions +with E.A.S., refusing numerous offers of advancement. Do I have to tell +you what your bugaboo is now?"</p> + +<p>"No," said Anderson hoarsely. "But I'm ... not afraid of it. I had no +idea your ..." He swallowed. "... information was that complete."</p> + +<p>"I wish it wasn't. I wish I had some things to—wonder about," said +Paresi with surprising bitterness.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>The Captain looked at him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> shrewdly. "Go on with your case histories."</p> + +<p>"I've finished."</p> + +<p>"No you haven't." When Paresi did not answer, the Captain nudged him. +"Johnny, Ives, Hoskins, me. Haven't you forgotten someone?"</p> + +<p>"No I haven't," snarled Paresi, "and if you expect me to tell you why a +psychologist buries himself in the stars, I'm not going to do it."</p> + +<p>"I don't want to be told anything so general," said the Captain. "I just +want to know why <em>you</em> came out here."</p> + +<p>Paresi scowled. The Captain looked away from him and hazarded, "Big frog +in a small pond, Nick?"</p> + +<p>Paresi snorted.</p> + +<p>Anderson asked, "Women don't like you, do they, Nick?"</p> + +<p>Almost inaudibly, Paresi said, "Better cut it out, skipper."</p> + +<p>Anderson said, "Closest thing to being a mother—is that it?"</p> + +<p>Paresi went white.</p> + +<p>The Captain closed his eyes, frowned, and at last said, "Or maybe you +just want to play God."</p> + +<p>"I'm going to make it tough for you," said Paresi between his teeth. +"There are several ways you can break, just as there are several ways to +break a log—explode it, crush it, saw it, burn it.... One of the ways +is to fight me until you win. Me, because there's no one else left to +fight you. So—I won't fight with you. And you're too rational to attack +me unless I do. <em>That</em> is the thing that will make it tough. If you must +break, it'll have to be some other way."</p> + +<p>"Is that what I'm doing?" the Captain asked with sudden mildness. "I +didn't know that. I thought I was trying to get your own case history +out of you, that's all. What are you staring at?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing."</p> + +<p>There was nothing. Where there had been forward viewports, there was +nothing. Where there had been controls, the communication station, the +forward acceleration panels and storage lockers; the charts and +computers and radar gear—there was nothing. Blackness; featureless, +silent, impenetrable. They sat on one couch by one wall, to which was +fixed one table. Around them was empty floor and a blackness. The +chess-player faced into it, and perhaps he was partly within it; it was +difficult to see.</p> + +<p>The Captain and the medical officer stared at one another. There seemed +to be nothing to say.</p> + + + +<h2><a name="VI" id="VI"></a>VI</h2> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span></p><div class="blockquot"><p><i>For man's sense is falsely asserted to be the standard of +things: on the contrary, all the perceptions, both of the senses +and the mind, bear reference to man and not to the universe; and +the human mind resembles those uneven mirrors which impart their +own properties to different objects ... and distorts and +disfigures them ... For every one ... has a cave or den of his +own which refracts and discolors the light of nature.</i></p> + +<p class='author'> +—Sir Francis Bacon<br /> +(1561—1626) +</p></div> + +<p>It was the Captain who moved first. He went to the remaining bulkhead, +spun a dog, and opened a cabinet. From it he took a rack of spare radar +parts and three thick coils of wire. Paresi, startled, turned and saw +Hoskins peering owlishly at the Captain.</p> + +<p>Anderson withdrew some tools, reached far back in the cabinet, and took +out a large bottle.</p> + +<p>"Oh," said Paresi. "That.... I thought you were doing something +constructive."</p> + +<p>In the far shadows, Hoskins turned silently back to his game. The +Captain gazed down at the bottle, tossed it, caught it. "I am," he said. +"I am."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>He came and sat beside the doctor. He thumbed off the stopper and drank +ferociously. Paresi watched, his eyes as featureless as the imprisoning +dark.</p> + +<p>"Well?" said the Captain pugnaciously.</p> + +<p>Paresi's hands rose and fell, once. "Just wondering why."</p> + +<p>"Why I'm going to get loopin', stoopin' drunk? I'll tell you why, +head-shrinker. Because I want to, that's why. Because I like it. I'm +doing something I like because I like it. I'm not doing it because of +the inversion of this concealed repression as expressed in the involuted +feelings my childhood developed in my attitude toward the sex-life of +beavers, see, couch-catechizer old boy? I like it and that's why."</p> + +<p>"I knew a man who went to bed with old shoes because he liked it," said +Paresi coldly.</p> + +<p>The Captain drank again and laughed harshly. "Nothing can change you, +can it, Nick?"</p> + +<p>Paresi looked around him almost fearfully. "I can change," he whispered. +"Ives is gone. Give me the bottle."</p> + +<p>Something clattered to the deck at the hem of the black curtain.</p> + +<p>"'S another hallucination," said the Captain. "Go pick up the +hallucination, Nicky-boy."</p> + +<p>"Not my hallucination," said Paresi. "Pick it up yourself."</p> + +<p>"Sure," said the Captain good-naturedly. He waited while Paresi drank, +took back the bottle, tilted it sharply over his mouth. He wiped his +lips with the back<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span>of his hand, exhaled heavily, and went to the +blackness across the cabin.</p> + +<p>"Well, what do you know," he breathed.</p> + +<p>"What is it this time?"</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 409px;"> +<img src="images/illo4.png" width="409" height="600" alt="Spaceman in melting room." title="" /> +</div> + + +<p>Anderson held the thing up. "A trophy, that's what." He peered at it. +"<em>All-American, 2675.</em> Little statue of a guy holding up a victory +wreath. Nice going, little guy." He strode to Paresi and snatched away +the bottle. He poured liquor on the head of the figurine. "Have a drink, +little guy."</p> + +<p>"Let me see that."</p> + +<p>Paresi took it, held it, turned it over. Suddenly he dropped it as if it +were a red-hot coal. "Oh, dear God...."</p> + +<p>"'Smatter, Nick?" The Captain picked up the statuette and peered at it.</p> + +<p>"Put it down, put it down," said the doctor in a choked voice. +"It's—Johnny...."</p> + +<p>"Oh it is, it is," breathed the Captain. He put down the statuette +gingerly on the table, hesitated, then turned its face away from them. +With abrupt animation he swung to Paresi. "Hey! You didn't say it looked +like Johnny. You said it <em>was</em> Johnny!"</p> + +<p>"Did I?"</p> + +<p>"Yup." He grinned wolfishly. "Not bad for a psychologist. What a +peephole you opened up! Graven images, huh?"</p> + +<p>"Shut up, Anderson," said Paresi tiredly. "I told you I'm not going to +let you needle me."</p> + +<p>"Aw now, it's all in fun," said the Captain. He plumped down and threw a +heavy arm across Anderson's shoulders. "Le's be friends. Le's sing a +song."</p> + +<p>Paresi shoved him away. "Leave me alone. Leave me alone."</p> + +<p>Anderson turned away from him and regarded the statuette gravely. He +extended the bottle toward it, muttered a greeting, and drank. "I +wonder...."</p> + +<p>The words hung there until Paresi twisted up out of his forlorn reverie +to bat them down. "Damn it—<em>what</em> do you wonder?"</p> + +<p>"Oh," said the Captain jovially, "I was just wondering what you'll be."</p> + +<p>"What are you talking about?"</p> + +<p>Anderson waved the bottle at the figurine, which called it to his +attention again, and so again he drank. "Johnny turned into what he +thinks he is. A little guy with a big victory. Hoskins, there, he's +going to be a slide-rule, jus' you wait and see. Ol' Ives, that's easy. +He's goin' to be a beer barrel, with beer in it. Always did have a head +on him, Ives did." He stopped to laugh immoderately at Paresi's +dark<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span>ening face. "Me, I have no secrets no more. I'm going to be a coat +of arms—a useless philosophy rampant on a field of stars." He put the +open mouth of the bottle against his forehead and pressed it violently, +lowered it and touched the angry red ring it left between his eyes. +"Mark of the beast," he confided. "Caste mark. Zero, that's me and my +whole damn family. The die is cast, the caste has died." He grunted +appreciatively and turned again to Paresi. "But what's old Nicky going +to be?"</p> + +<p>"Don't call me Nicky," said the doctor testily.</p> + +<p>"I know," said the Captain, narrowing his eyes and laying one finger +alongside his nose. "A reference book, tha's what you'll be. A treatise +on the ... the post-nasal hysterectomy, or how to unbutton a man's +prejudices and take down his pride.... I swiped all that from +somewhere....</p> + +<p>"No!" he shouted suddenly; then, with conspiratorial quiet, he said, +"You won't be no book, Nicky boy. Covers aren't hard enough. Not the +right type face. Get it?" he roared, and dug Paresi viciously in the +ribs. "Type face, it's a witticism."</p> + +<p>Paresi bent away from the blow like a caterpillar being bitten by a +fire-ant. He said nothing.</p> + +<p>"And finally," said the Captain, "you won't be a book because you got +... no ... spine." He leapt abruptly to his feet. "Well, what do you +know!"</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>He bent and scooped up an unaccountable object that rested by the +nearest shadows. It was a quarter-keg of beer.</p> + +<p>He hefted it and thumped it heavily down on the table. "Come on, Nick," +he chortled. "Gather ye round. Here's old Ives, like I said."</p> + +<p>Paresi stared at the keg, his eyes stretched so wide open that the lids +moved visibly with his pulse. "Stop it, Anderson, you swine...."</p> + +<p>The Captain tossed him a disgusted glance and a matching snort. From the +clutter of radar gear he pulled a screwdriver and a massive little +step-down transformer down on its handle. The bung disappeared +explosively inside the keg, and was replaced by a gout of white foam. +Paresi shrieked.</p> + +<p>"Ah, shaddup," growled Anderson. He rummaged until he found a +tube-shield. He stripped off a small length of self-welding metal tape +and clapped it over the terminal-hole at the closed end of the shield, +making it into an adequate mug. He waited a moment while the weld +cooled, then tipped the keg until solid beer began to run with the foam. +He filled the improvised mug and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> extended it toward Paresi.</p> + +<p>"Good ol' Ives," he said sentimentally. "Come on, Paresi. Have a drink +on Ives."</p> + +<p>Paresi turned and covered his face like a frightened woman.</p> + +<p>Anderson shrugged and drank the beer. "It's good beer," he said. He +glanced down at the doctor, who suddenly flung himself face down across +the couch with his head hanging out of sight on the opposite side, from +which came the sounds of heaving and choking.</p> + +<p>"Poor ol' Nick," said the Captain sadly. He refilled the mug and sat +down. With his free hand he patted Paresi's back. "Can't take it. Poor, +poor ol' Nick...."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>After that there was a deepening silence, a deepening blackness. Paresi +was quiet now, breathing very slowly, holding each breath, expelling air +and lying quiet for three full seconds before each inhalation, as if +breathing were a conscious effort—more; as if breathing were the whole +task, the entire end of existence. Anderson slumped lower and lower. +Each time he blinked his lids opened a fraction less, while the time his +eyes stayed closed became a fraction of a second longer. The cabin +waited as tensely as the taut pose of the rigid little victory trophy.</p> + +<p>Then there was the music.</p> + +<p>It was soft, grand music; the music of pageantry, cloth-of-gold and +scarlet vestments; pendant jewels and multicolored dimness shouldering +upward to be lost in vaulted stone. It was music which awaited the +accompaniment of whispers, thousands of awed, ritualistic sibilants +which would carry no knowable meaning and only one avowed purpose. Soft +music, soft, soft; not soft as to volume, for the volume grew and grew, +but soft with the softness of clouds which are soft for all their +mountain-size and brilliance; soft and living as a tiger's throat, soft +as a breast, soft as the act of drowning, and huge as a cloud.</p> + +<p>Anderson made two moves: he raised his head, and he spun the beer in his +mug so its center surface sank and the bubbles whirled. With his head up +and his eyes down he sat watching the bubbles circle and slow.</p> + +<p>Paresi rose slowly and went to the center of the small lighted space +left to them, and slowly he knelt. His arms came up and out, and his +upturned face was twisted and radiant.</p> + +<p>Before him in the blackness there was—or perhaps there had been for +some time—a blue glow, almost as lightless as the surrounding dark, but +blue and physically deep for all that. Its<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> depth increased rather than +its light. It became the ghost of a grotto, the mouth of a nameless +Place.</p> + +<p>And in it was a person. A ... <em>presence</em>. It beckoned.</p> + +<p>Paresi's face gleamed wetly. "Me?" he breathed. "You want—me?"</p> + +<p>It beckoned.</p> + +<p>"I—don't believe you," said Paresi. "You can't want me. You don't know +who I am. You don't know what I am, what I've done. You don't want +me...." His voice quavered almost to inaudibility. "... do you?"</p> + +<p>It beckoned.</p> + +<p>"Then you know," sang Paresi in the voice of revelation. "I have denied +you with my lips, but you know, you know, you know that underneath ... +deep down ... I have not wavered for an instant. I have kept your image +before me."</p> + +<p>He rose. Now Anderson watched him.</p> + +<p>"You are my life," said Paresi, "my hopes, my fulfillment. You are all +wisdom and all charity. Thank you, thank you ... Master. I give thee +thanks oh Lord," he blurted, and walked straight into the blue glow.</p> + +<p>There was an instant when the music was an anthem, and then it too was +gone.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>Anderson's breath whistled out. He lifted his beer, checked himself, +then set it down gently by the figurine of the athlete. He went to the +place where Paresi had disappeared, bent and picked up a small object. +He swore, and came back to the couch.</p> + +<p>He sucked his thumb and swore again. "Your thorns are sharp, Paresi."</p> + +<p>Carefully he placed the object between the beer keg and the statuette. +It was a simple wooden cross. Around the arms and shaft, twisted tightly +and biting deeply into the wood, was a thorny withe. "God all mighty, +Nick," Anderson said mournfully, "you didn't have to hide it. Nobody'd +have minded."</p> + +<p>"Well?" he roared suddenly at the blackness, "what are you waiting for? +Am I in your way? Have I done anything to stop you? Come on, come on!"</p> + +<p>His voice rebounded from the remaining bulkhead, but was noticeably +swallowed up in the absorbent blackness. He waited until its last +reverberations had died, and then until its memory was hard to fix. He +pounded futilely at the couch cushions, glared all about in a swift, +intense, animal way. Then he relaxed, bent down and fumbled for the +alcohol bottle. "What's the matter with you, out there?" he demanded +quietly. "You waiting for me to sober up? You<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> want me to be myself +before you fix me up? You want to know something? <em lang='la'>In vino veritas</em>, +that's what. You don't have to wait for me, kiddies. I'm a hell of a lot +more me right now than I will be after I get over this." He took the +figurine and replaced it on the other side of the keg. "Tha's right, +Johnny. Get over on the other side of ol' Beer-belly there. Make room +for the old man." To the blackness he said, "Look, I got neat habits, +don't leave me on no deck, hear? Rack me up alongside the boys. What is +it I'm going to be? Oh yeah. A coat of arms. Hey, I forgot the motto. +All righty: this is my motto. '<em lang='la'>Sic itur ad astra</em>'—that is to say, +'This is the way to the men's room.'"</p> + +<p>Somewhere a baby cried.</p> + +<p>Anderson threw his forearm over his eyes.</p> + +<p>Someone went "Shh!" but the baby went right on crying.</p> + +<p>Anderson said, "Who's there?"</p> + +<p>"Just me, darling."</p> + +<p>He breathed deeply, twice, and then whispered, "Louise?"</p> + +<p>"Of course. <em>Shh</em>, Jeannie!"</p> + +<p>"Jeannie's with you, Louise? She's all right? You're—all right?"</p> + +<p>"Come and see," the sweet voice chuckled.</p> + +<p>Captain Anderson dove into the blackness aft. It closed over him +silently and completely.</p> + +<p>On the table stood an ivory figurine, a quarter-keg of beer, a thorny +cross, and a heart. It wasn't a physiological specimen; rather it was +the archetype of the most sentimental of symbols, the balanced, +cushiony, brilliant red valentine heart. Through it was a golden arrow, +and on it lay cut flowers: lilies, white roses, and forget-me-nots. The +heart pulsed strongly; and though it pumped no blood, at least it showed +that it was alive, which made it, perhaps, a better thing than it looked +at first glance.</p> + +<p>Now it was very quiet in the ship, and very dark.</p> + + + + +<h2><a name="VII" id="VII"></a>VII</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>... We are about to land. The planet is green and blue below +us, and the long trip is over.... It looks as if it might be a +pleasant place to live....</i></p> + +<p><i>A fragment of Old Testament verse has been running through my +mind—from Ecclesiastes, I think. I don't remember it verbatim, +but it's something like this:</i></p> + +<p><i>To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose +under heaven: A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to +mourn, and a time to dance; A time to get, and a time to lose; a +time to keep, and a time to cast away; A time to be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> born, and a +time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which +is planted.</i></p> + +<p><i>For me, anyway, I feel that the time has come. Perhaps it is +not to die but something else, less final or more terrible.</i></p> + +<p><i>In any case, you will remember, I know, what we decided long +ago—that a man owes one of two things to his planet, to his +race: posterity, or himself. I could not contribute the +first—it is only proper that I should offer the second and not +shrink if it is accepted....</i></p> + +<p class='author'>—From a letter by Peter Hoskins to his wife. </p></div> + +<p>In the quiet and the dark, Hoskins moved.</p> + +<p>"Checkmate," he said.</p> + +<p>He rose from his chair and crossed the cabin. Ignoring what was on the +table, he opened a drawer under the parts cabinet and took out a steel +rule. From a book rack he lifted down a heavy manual. He sat on the end +of the couch with the manual on his knees and leafed through it, +smoothing it open at a page of physical measurements. He glanced at the +floor, across it to the black curtain, back to the one exposed bulkhead. +He grunted, put the book down, and carried his tape to the steel wall. +He anchored one end of it there by flipping the paramagnetic control on +the tape case, and pulled the tape across the room. At the blackness he +took a reading, made a mark.</p> + +<p>Then he took a fore-and-aft measurement from a point opposite the +forward end of the table to one opposite the after end of the bunk. +Working carefully, he knelt and constructed a perpendicular to this +line. He put the tape down for the third time, arriving again at the +outboard wall of darkness. He stood regarding it thoughtfully, and then +unhesitatingly plunged his arm into it. He fumbled for a moment, moving +his hand around in a circle, pressing forward, trying again. Suddenly +there was a click, a faint hum. He stepped back.</p> + +<p>Something huge shouldered out of the dark. It pressed forward toward +him, passed him, stopped moving.</p> + +<p>It was the port.</p> + +<p>Hoskins wiped sweat away from his upper lip and stood blinking into the +airlock until the outer port opened as well. Warm afternoon sunlight and +a soft, fresh breeze poured in. In the wind was birdsong and the smell +of growing things. Hoskins gazed into it, his mild eyes misty. Then he +turned back to the cabin.</p> + +<p>The darkness was gone. Ives was sprawled on the after couch, apparently +unconscious. Johnny<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> was smiling in his sleep. The Captain was snoring +stertorously, and Paresi was curled up like a cat on the floor. The +sunlight streamed in through the forward viewports. The manual wheel +gleamed on the bulkhead, unbroken.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>Hoskins looked at the sleeping crew and shook his head, half-smiling. +Then he stepped to the control console and lifted a microphone from its +hook. He began to speak softly into it in his gentle, unimpressive +voice. He said:</p> + +<p>"Reality is what it is, and not what it seems to be. What it seems to be +is an individual matter, and even in the individual it varies +constantly. If that's a truism, it's still the truth, as true as the +fact that this ship cannot fail. The course of events after our landing +would have been profoundly different if we had unanimously accepted the +thing we knew to be true. But none of us need feel guilty on that score. +We are not conditioned to deny the evidence of our senses.</p> + +<p>"What the natives of this planet have done is, at base, simple and +straightforward. They had to know if the race who built this ship could +do so because they were psychologically sound (and therefore capable of +reasoning out the building process, among many, many other things) or +whether we were merely mechanically apt. To find this out, they tested +us. They tested us the way we test steel—to find out its breaking +point. And while they were playing a game for our sanity, I played a +game for our lives. I could not share it with any of you because it was +a game only I, of us all, have experience in. Paresi was right to a +certain degree when he said I had retreated into abstraction—the +abstraction of chess. He was wrong, though, when he concluded I had been +driven to it. You can be quite sure that I did it by choice. It was +simply a matter of translating the contactual evidence into an +equivalent idea-system.</p> + +<p>"I learned very rapidly that when they play a game, they abide by the +rules. I know the rules of chess, but I did not know the rules of their +game. They did not give me their rules. They simply permitted me to +convey mine to them.</p> + +<p>"I learned a little more slowly that, though their power to reach our +minds is unheard-of in any of the seven galaxies we know about, it still +cannot take and use any but the ideas in the forefront of our +consciousness. In other words, chess was a possibility. They could be +forced to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> take a sacrificed piece, as well as being forced to lose one +of their own. They extrapolate a sequence beautifully—but they can be +out-thought. So much for that: I beat them at chess. And by confining my +efforts to the chessboard, where I knew the rules and where they +respected them, I was able to keep what we call sanity. Where you were +disturbed because the port disappeared, I was not disturbed because the +disappearance was not chess.</p> + +<p>"You're wondering, of course, how they did what they did to us. I don't +know. But I can tell you what they did. They empathize—that is, see +through our eyes, feel with our fingertips—so that they perceive what +we do. Second, they can control those perceptions; hang on a distortion +circuit, as Ives would put it, between the sense organ and the brain. +For example, you'll find all our fingerprints all around the port +control, where, one after the other, we punched the wall and thought we +were punching the button.</p> + +<p>"You're wondering, too, what I did to break their hold on us. Well, I +simply believed what I knew to be the truth; that the ship is unharmed +and unchanged. I measured it with a steel tape and it was so. Why didn't +they force me to misread the tape? They would have, if I'd done that +measuring first. At the start they were in the business of turning every +piece of pragmatic evidence into an outright lie. But I outlasted the +test. When they'd finished with their whole arsenal of sensory lies, +they still hadn't broken me. They then turned me loose, like a rat in a +maze, to see if I could find the way out. And again they abided by their +rules. They didn't change the maze when at last I attacked it.</p> + +<p>"Let me rephrase what I've done; I feel uncomfortable cast as a +superman. We five pedestrians faced some heavy traffic on a surface +road. You four tried nobly to cross—deaf and blindfolded. You were all +casualties. I was not; and it wasn't because I am stronger or wiser than +you, but only because I stayed on the sidewalk and waited for the light +to change....</p> + +<p>"So we won. Now ..."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>Hoskins paused to wet his lips. He looked at his shipmates, each in +turn, each for a long, reflective moment. Again his gentle face showed +the half-smile, the small shake of the head. He lifted the mike.</p> + +<p>"... In my chess game I offered them a minor piece in order to achieve a +victory, and they accepted. My interpretation is that they want <em>me</em> for +further<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> tests. This need not concern you on either of the scores which +occur to you as you hear this. First: The choice is my own. It is not a +difficult one to make. As Paresi once pointed out, I have a high +idealistic quotient. Second: I am, after all, a very minor piece and the +game is a great one. I am convinced that there is no test to which they +can now subject me, and break me, that any one of you cannot pass.</p> + +<p>"But you must in no case come tearing after me in a wild and thoughtless +rescue attempt. I neither want that nor need it. And do not judge the +natives severely; we are in no position to do so. I am certain now that +whether I come back or not, these people will make a valuable addition +to the galactic community.</p> + +<p>"Good luck, in any case. If the tests shouldn't prove too arduous, I'll +see you again. If not, my only regret is that I shall break up what has +turned out to be, after all, a very effective team. If this happens, +tell my wife the usual things and deliver to her a letter you will find +among my papers. She was long ago reconciled to eventualities.</p> + +<p>"Johnny ... the natives will fix your lighter....</p> + +<p>"Good luck, good-bye."</p> + +<p>Hoskins hung up the microphone. He took a stylus and wrote a line: +"<em>Hear my recording. Pete.</em>"</p> + +<p>And then, bareheaded and unarmed, he stepped through the port, out into +the golden sunshine. Outside he stopped, and for a moment touched his +cheek to the flawless surface of the hull.</p> + +<p>He walked down into the valley.</p> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BREAKING POINT***</p> +<p>******* This file should be named 21988-h.txt or 21988-h.zip *******</p> +<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/1/9/8/21988">http://www.gutenberg.org/2/1/9/8/21988</a></p> +<p>Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed.</p> + +<p>Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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