initial commit of ebook 32351HEADmain

1 files changed, 5220 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/32351.txt b/32351.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b0c0aa8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/32351.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,5220 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Voyage To Eternity, by Milton Lesser
+
+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 www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Voyage To Eternity
+
+Author: Milton Lesser
+
+Release Date: May 12, 2010 [EBook #32351]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VOYAGE TO ETERNITY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                         Transcriber's Note:
+
+    This etext was produced from Imagination Stories of Science and
+    Fantasy July 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence
+    that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.
+
+
+                          VOYAGE TO ETERNITY
+
+
+                                  By
+
+                            Milton Lesser
+
+
+     Temple faced leaving Earth--and the girl he loved--if his
+     country drafted him. But the hard part was in knowing he'd
+     never return!...
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+When the first strong sunlight of May covered the tree-arched avenues
+of Center City with green, the riots started.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The people gathered in angry knots outside the city hall, met in the
+park and littered its walks with newspapers and magazines as they
+gobbled up editorial comment at a furious rate, slipped with dark of
+night through back alleys and planned things with furious futility.
+Center City's finest knew when to make themselves scarce: their
+uniforms stood for everything objectionable at this time and they
+might be subjected to clubs, stones, taunts, threats, leers--and
+knives.
+
+But Center City, like most communities in United North America, had
+survived the Riots before and would survive them again. On past
+performances, the damage could be estimated, too. Two-hundred
+fifty-seven plate glass windows would be broken, three-hundred twelve
+limbs fractured. Several thousand people would be treated for minor
+bruises and abrasions, Center City would receive half that many damage
+suits. The list had been drawn clearly and accurately; it hardly ever
+deviated.
+
+And Center City would meet its quota. With a demonstration of
+reluctance, of course. The healthy approved way to get over social
+trauma once every seven-hundred eighty days.
+
+
+"Shut it off, Kit. Kit, please."
+
+The telio blared in a cheaply feminine voice, "Oh, it's a long way to
+nowhere, forever. And your honey's not coming back, never, never,
+never...." A wailing trumpet represented flight.
+
+"They'll exploit anything, Kit."
+
+"It's just a song."
+
+"Turn it off, please."
+
+Christopher Temple turned off the telio, smiling. "They'll announce
+the names in ten minutes," he said, and felt the corners of his mouth
+draw taut.
+
+"Tell me again, Kit," Stephanie pleaded. "How old are you?"
+
+"You know I'm twenty-six."
+
+"Twenty-six. Yes, twenty-six, so if they don't call you this time,
+you'll be safe. Safe, I can hardly believe it."
+
+"Nine minutes," said Temple in the darkness. Stephanie had drawn the
+blinds earlier, had dialed for sound-proofing. The screaming in the
+streets came to them as not the faintest whisper. But the song which
+became briefly, masochistically popular every two years and two months
+had spoiled their feeling of seclusion.
+
+"Tell me again, Kit."
+
+"What."
+
+"You know what."
+
+He let her come to him, let her hug him fiercely and whimper against
+his chest. He remained passive although it hurt, occasionally stroking
+her hair. He could not assert himself for another--he looked at his
+strap chrono--for another eight minutes. He might regret it, if he
+did, for a lifetime.
+
+"Tell me, Kit."
+
+"I'll marry you, Steffy. In eight minutes, less than eight minutes,
+I'll go down and get the license. We'll marry as soon as it's legal."
+
+"This is the last time they have a chance for you. I mean, they won't
+change the law?"
+
+Temple shook his head. "They don't have to. They meet their quota this
+way."
+
+"I'm scared."
+
+"You and everyone else in North America, Steffy."
+
+She was trembling against him. "It's cold for June."
+
+"It's warm in here." He kissed her moist eyes, her nose, her lips.
+
+"Oh God, Kit. Five minutes."
+
+"Five minutes to freedom," he said jauntily. He did not feel that way
+at all. Apprehension clutched at his chest with tight, painful
+fingers, almost making it difficult for him to breathe.
+
+"Turn it on, Kit."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He dialed the telio in time to see the announcer's insincere smile.
+Smile seventeen, Kit thought wryly. Patriotic sacrifice.
+
+"Every seven-hundred eighty days," said the announcer, "two-hundred of
+Center City's young men are selected to serve their country for an
+indeterminate period regulated rigidly by a rotation system."
+
+"Liar!" Stephanie cried. "No one ever comes back. It's been thirty
+years since the first group and not one of them...."
+
+"Shh," Temple raised a finger to his lips.
+
+"This is the thirteenth call since the inception of what is popularly
+referred to as the Nowhere Journey," said the announcer. "Obviously,
+the two hundred young men from Center City and the thousands from all
+over this hemisphere do not in reality embark on a Journey to Nowhere.
+That is quite meaningless."
+
+"Hooray for him," Temple laughed.
+
+"I wish he'd get on with it."
+
+"No, ladies and gentlemen, we use the word Nowhere merely because we
+are not aware of the ultimate destination. Security reasons make it
+impossible to...."
+
+"Yes, yes," said Stephanie impatiently. "Go on."
+
+"... therefore, the Nowhere Journey. With a maximum security lid on
+the whole project, we don't even know why our men are sent, or by what
+means. We know only that they go somewhere and not nowhere, bravely
+and not fearfully, for a purpose vital to the security of this nation
+and not to slake the thirst of a chessman of regiments and divisions.
+
+"If Center City's contribution helps keep our country strong, Center
+City is naturally obligated...."
+
+"No one ever said it isn't our duty," Stephanie argued, as if the
+announcer could indeed hear her. "We only wish we knew something about
+it--and we wish it weren't forever."
+
+"It isn't forever," Temple reminded her. "Not officially."
+
+"Officially, my foot. If they never return, they never return. If
+there's a rotation system on paper, but it's never used, that's not a
+rotation system at all. Kit, it's forever."
+
+"... to thank the following sponsors for relinquishing their time...."
+
+"No one would want to sponsor _that_," Temple whispered cheerfully.
+
+"Kit," said Stephanie, "I--I suddenly have a hunch we have nothing to
+worry about. They missed you all along and they'll miss you this time,
+too. The last time, and then you'll be too old. That's funny, too old
+at twenty-six. But we'll be free, Kit. Free."
+
+"He's starting," Temple told her.
+
+A large drum filled the entire telio screen. It rotated slowly, from
+bottom to top. In twenty seconds, the letter A appeared, followed by
+about a dozen names. Abercrombie, Harold. Abner, Eugene. Adams,
+Gerald. Sorrow in the Abercrombie household. Despair for the Abners.
+Black horror for Adams.
+
+The drum rotated.
+
+"They're up to F, Kit."
+
+Fabian, Gregory G....
+
+Names circled the drum slowly, like viscous alphabet soup.
+Meaningless, unless you happened to know them.
+
+"Kit, I knew Thomas Mulvany."
+
+N, O, P....
+
+"It's hot in here."
+
+"I thought you were cold."
+
+"I'm suffocating now."
+
+R, S....
+
+"T!" Stephanie shrieked as the names began to float slowly up from the
+bottom of the drum.
+
+Tabor, Tebbets, Teddley....
+
+Temple's mouth felt dry as a ball of cotton. Stephanie laughed
+nervously. Now--or never. Never?
+
+Now.
+
+Stephanie whimpered despairingly.
+
+TEMPLE, CHRISTOPHER.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Sorry I'm late, Mr. Jones."
+
+"Hardly, Mr. Smith. Hardly. Three minutes late."
+
+"I've come in response to your ad."
+
+"I know. You look old."
+
+"I am over twenty-six. Do you mind?"
+
+"Not if you don't, Mr. Smith. Let me look at you. Umm, you seem the
+right height, the right build."
+
+"I meet the specifications exactly."
+
+"Good, Mr. Smith. And your price."
+
+"No haggling," said Smith. "I have a price which must be met."
+
+"Your price, Mr. Smith?"
+
+"Ten million dollars."
+
+The man called Jones coughed nervously. "That's high."
+
+"Very. Take it or leave it."
+
+"In cash?"
+
+"Definitely. Small unmarked bills."
+
+"You'd need a moving van!"
+
+"Then I'll get one."
+
+"Ten million dollars," said Jones, "is quite a price. Admittedly, I
+haven't dealt in this sort of traffic before, but--"
+
+"But nothing. Were your name Jones, really and truly Jones, I might
+ask less."
+
+"Sir?"
+
+"You are Jones exactly as much as I am Smith."
+
+"Sir?" Jones gasped again.
+
+Smith coughed discreetly. "But I have one advantage. I know you. You
+don't know me, Mr. Arkalion."
+
+"Eh? Eh?"
+
+"Arkalion. The North American Carpet King. Right?"
+
+"How did you know?" the man whose name was not Jones but Arkalion
+asked the man whose name was not Smith but might as well have been.
+
+"When I saw your ad," said not-Smith, "I said to myself, 'now here
+must be a very rich, influential man.' It only remained for me to
+study a series of photographs readily obtainable--I have a fine memory
+for that, Mr. Arkalion--and here you are; here is Arkalion the Carpet
+King."
+
+"What will you do with the ten million dollars?" demanded Arkalion,
+not minding the loss nearly so much as the ultimate disposition of his
+fortune.
+
+"Why, what does anyone do with ten million dollars? Treasure it.
+Invest it. Spend it."
+
+"I mean, what will you do with it if you are going in place of my--"
+Arkalion bit his tongue.
+
+"Your son, were you saying, Mr. Arkalion? Alaric Arkalion the Third.
+Did you know that I was able to boil my list of men down to thirty
+when I studied their family ties?"
+
+"Brilliant, Mr. Smith. Alaric is so young--"
+
+"Aren't they all? Twenty-one to twenty-six. Who was it who once said
+something about the flower of our young manhood?"
+
+"Shakespeare?" said Mr. Arkalion realizing that most quotes of lasting
+importance came from the bard.
+
+"Sophocles," said Smith. "But, no matter. I will take young Alaric's
+place for ten million dollars."
+
+Motives always troubled Mr. Arkalion, and thus he pursued what might
+have been a dangerous conversation. "You'll never get a chance to
+spend it on the Nowhere Journey."
+
+"Let me worry about that."
+
+"No one ever returns."
+
+"My worry, not yours."
+
+"It is forever--as if you dropped out of existence. Alaric is so
+young."
+
+"I have always gambled, Mr. Arkalion. If I do not return in five
+years, you are to put the money in a trust fund for certain designated
+individuals, said fund to be terminated the moment I return. If I come
+back within the five years, you are merely to give the money over to
+me. Is that clear?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I'll want it in writing, of course."
+
+"Of course. A plastic surgeon is due here in about ten minutes, Mr.
+Smith, and we can get on with.... But if I don't know your name, how
+can I put it in writing?"
+
+Smith smiled. "I changed my name to Smith for the occasion. Perfectly
+legal. My name is John X. Smith--now."
+
+"That's where you're wrong," said Mr. Arkalion as the plastic surgeon
+entered. "Your name is Alaric Arkalion III--_now_."
+
+The plastic surgeon skittered around Smith, examining him minutely
+with the casual expertness that comes with experience.
+
+"Have to shorten the cheek bones."
+
+"For ten million dollars," said Smith, "you can take the damned things
+out altogether and hang them on your wall."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Sophia Androvna Petrovitch made her way downtown through the bustle of
+tired workers and the occasional sprinkling of Comrades. She crushed
+her _ersatz_ cigarette underfoot at number 616 Stalin Avenue, paused
+for the space of five heartbeats at the door, went inside.
+
+"What do you want?" The man at the desk was myopic but bull-necked.
+
+Sophia showed her party card.
+
+"Oh, Comrade. Still, you are a woman."
+
+"You're terribly observant, Comrade," said Sophia coldly. "I am here
+to volunteer."
+
+"But a woman."
+
+"There is nothing in the law which says a woman cannot volunteer."
+
+"We don't make women volunteer."
+
+"I mean really volunteer, of her own free will."
+
+"Her--own--free will?" The bull-necked man removed his spectacles,
+scratched his balding head with the ear-pieces. "You mean volunteer
+without--"
+
+"Without coercion. I want to volunteer. I am here to volunteer. I want
+to sign on for the next Stalintrek."
+
+"Stalintrek, a woman?"
+
+"That is what I said."
+
+"We don't force women to volunteer." The man scratched some more.
+
+"Oh, really," said Sophia. "This is 1992, not mid-century, Comrade.
+Did not Premier Stalin say, 'Woman was created to share the glorious
+destiny of Mother Russia with her mate?'" Sophia created the quote
+randomly.
+
+"Yes, if Stalin said--"
+
+"He did."
+
+"Still, I do not recall--"
+
+"What?" Sophia cried. "Stalin dead these thirty-nine years and you
+don't recall his speeches? What is your name, Comrade?"
+
+"Please, Comrade. Now that you remind me, I remember."
+
+"What is your name."
+
+"Here, I will give you the volunteer papers to sign. If you pass the
+exams, you will embark on the next Stalintrek, though why a beautiful
+young woman like you--"
+
+"Shut your mouth and hand me those papers."
+
+There, sitting behind that desk, was precisely why. Why should she,
+Sophia Androvna Petrovitch, wish to volunteer for the Stalintrek?
+Better to ask why a bird flies south in the winter, one day ahead of
+the first icy gale. Or why a lemming plunges recklessly into the sea
+with his multitudes of fellows, if, indeed, the venture were to turn
+out grimly.
+
+But there, behind that desk, was part of the reason. The Comrade. The
+bright sharp Comrade, with his depth of reasoning, his fountain of
+gushing emotions, his worldliness. _Pfooey!_
+
+It was as if she had been in a cocoon all her life, stifled, starved,
+the cottony inner lining choking her whenever she opened her mouth,
+the leathery outer covering restricting her when she tried to move. No
+one had ever returned from the Stalintrek. She then had to assume no
+one would. Including Sophia Androvna Petrovitch. But then, there was
+nothing she would miss, nothing to which she particularly wanted to
+return. Not the stark, foul streets of Stalingrad, not the workers
+with their vapid faces or the Comrades with their cautious, sweating,
+trembling, fearful non-decisions, not the higher echelon of Comrades,
+more frightened but showing it less, who would love the beauty of her
+breasts and loins but not herself for you never love anything but the
+Stalinimage and Mother Russia herself, not those terrified
+martinet-marionettes who would love the parts of her if she permitted
+but not her or any other person for that matter.
+
+Wrong with the Stalintrek was its name alone, a name one associated
+with everything else in Russia for an obvious, post-Stalin reason. But
+everything else about the Stalintrek shrieked mystery and adventure.
+Where did you go? How did you get there? What did you do? Why?
+
+A million questions which had kept her awake at night and, if she thought
+about them hard enough, satisfied her deep longing for something
+different. And then one day when stolid Mrs. Ivanovna-Rasnikov had said,
+"It is a joke, a terrible, terrible joke they are taking my husband Fyodor
+on the Stalintrek when he lacks sufficient imagination to go from here to
+Leningrad or even Tula. Can you picture Fyodor on the Stalintrek? Better
+they should have taken me. Better they should have taken his wife." That
+day Sophia could hardly contain herself.
+
+As a party member she had access to the law and she read it three
+times from start to finish (in her dingy flat by the light of a
+smoking, foul-smelling, soft-wax candle) but could find nothing
+barring women from the Stalintrek.
+
+Had Fyodor Rasnikov volunteered? Naturally. Everyone volunteered,
+although when your name was called you had no choice. There had been
+no draft in Russia since the days of the Second War of the People's
+Liberation. Volunteer? What, precisely, did the word mean?
+
+She, Sophia Androvna Petrovitch would volunteer, without being told.
+Thus it was she found herself at 616 Stalin Avenue, and thus the
+balding, myopic, bull-necked Comrade thrust the papers across his desk
+at her.
+
+She signed her name with such vehemence and ferocity that she almost
+tore through the paper.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+_Three-score men sit in the crowded, smoke-filled room. Some drink
+beer, some squat in moody silence, some talk in an animated fashion
+about nothing very urgent. At the one small door, two guards pace back
+and forth slowly, creating a gentle swaying of smoke-patterns in the
+hazy room. The guards, in simple military uniform, carry small, deadly
+looking weapons._
+
+FIRST MAN: Fight City Hall? Are you kidding? They took you, bud.
+Don't try to fight it. I know. I _know_.
+
+SECOND MAN: I'm telling you, there was a mistake in the records. I'm
+over twenty-six. Two weeks and two days. Already I wrote to my
+Congressman. Hell, that's why I voted for him, he better go to bat for
+me.
+
+THIRD MAN: You think that's something? I wouldn't be here only those
+doctors are crazy. I mean, crazy. Me, with a cyst big as a golf ball
+on the base of my spine.
+
+FIRST MAN: You too. Don't try to fight it.
+
+FOURTH MAN: (Newly named Alaric Arkalion III) I look forward to this
+as a stimulating adventure. Does the fact that they select men for the
+Nowhere Journey once every seven hundred and eighty days strike anyone
+as significant?
+
+SECOND MAN: I got my own problems.
+
+ALARIC ARKALION: This is not a thalamic problem, young man. Not
+thalamic at all.
+
+THIRD MAN: Young man? Who are you kidding?
+
+ALARIC ARKALION: (Who realizes, thanks to the plastic surgeon, he is
+the youngest looking of all, with red cheeks and peach-fuzz whiskers)
+It is a problem of the intellect. Why seven hundred and eighty days?
+
+FIRST MAN: I read the magazines, too, chief. You think we're all going
+to the planet Mars. How original.
+
+ALARIC ARKALION: As a matter of fact, that is exactly what I think.
+
+SECOND MAN: Mars?
+
+FIRST MAN (Laughing) It's a long way from Mars to City Hall, doc.
+
+SECOND MAN: You mean, through space to Mars?
+
+ALARIC ARKALION: Exactly, exactly. Quite a coincidence, otherwise.
+
+FIRST MAN: You're telling me.
+
+ALARIC ARKALION: (Coldly) Would you care to explain it?
+
+FIRST MAN: Why, sure. You see, Mars is--uh, I don't want to steal your
+thunder, chief. Go ahead.
+
+ALARIC ARKALION: Once every seven hundred and eighty days Mars and the
+Earth find themselves in the same orbital position with respect to the
+sun. In other words, Mars and Earth are closest then. Were there such
+a thing as space travel, new, costly, not thoroughly tested, they
+would want to make each journey as brief as possible. Hence the seven
+hundred and eighty days.
+
+FIRST MAN: Not bad, chief. You got most of it.
+
+THIRD MAN: No one ever said anything about space travel.
+
+FIRST MAN: You think we'd broadcast it or something, stupid? It's part
+of a big, important scientific experiment, only we're the hamsters.
+
+ALARIC ARKALION: Ridiculous. You're forgetting all about the Cold War.
+
+FIRST MAN: He thinks we're fighting a war with the Martians. (Laughs)
+Orson Wells stuff, huh?
+
+ALARIC ARKALION: With the Russians. The Russians. We developed A
+bombs. They developed A bombs. We came up with the H bomb. So did
+they. We placed a station up in space, a fifth of the way to the moon.
+So did they. Then--nothing more about scientific developments. For
+over twenty years. I ask you, doesn't it seem peculiar?
+
+FIRST MAN: Peculiar, he says.
+
+ALARIC ARKALION: Peculiar.
+
+SECOND MAN: I wish my Congressman....
+
+FIRST MAN: You and your Congressman. The way you talk, it was your
+vote got him in office.
+
+SECOND MAN: If only I could get out and talk to him.
+
+ALARIC ARKALION: No one is permitted to leave.
+
+FIRST MAN: Punishable by a prison term, the law says.
+
+SECOND MAN. Oh yeah? Prison, shmision. Or else go on the Nowhere
+Journey. Well, I don't see the difference.
+
+FIRST MAN: So, go ahead. Try to escape.
+
+SECOND MAN: (Looking at the guards) They got them all over. All over.
+I think our mail is censored.
+
+ALARIC ARKALION: It is.
+
+SECOND MAN: They better watch out. I'm losing my temper. I get violent
+when I lose my temper.
+
+FIRST MAN: See? See how the guards are trembling.
+
+SECOND MAN: Very funny. Maybe you didn't have a good job or something?
+Maybe you don't care. I care. I had a job with a future. Didn't pay
+much, but a real blue chip future. So they send me to Nowhere.
+
+FIRST MAN: You're not there yet.
+
+SECOND MAN: Yeah, but I'm going.
+
+THIRD MAN: If only they let you know when. My back is killing me. I'm
+waiting to pull a sick act. Just waiting, that's all.
+
+FIRST MAN: Go ahead and wait, a lot of good it will do you.
+
+THIRD MAN: You mind your own business.
+
+FIRST MAN: I am, doc. You brought the whole thing up.
+
+SECOND MAN: He's looking for trouble.
+
+THIRD MAN: He'll get it.
+
+ALARIC ARKALION: We're going to be together a long time. A long time.
+Why don't you all relax?
+
+SECOND MAN: You mind your own business.
+
+FIRST MAN: Nuts, aren't they. They're nuts. A sick act, yet.
+
+SECOND MAN: Look how it doesn't bother him. A failure, he was. I can
+just see it. What does he care if he goes away forever and doesn't
+come back? One bread line is as good as another.
+
+FIRST MAN: Ha-ha.
+
+SECOND MAN: Yeah, well I mean it. Forever. We're going away,
+someplace--forever. We're not coming back, ever. No one comes back.
+It's for good, for keeps.
+
+FIRST MAN: Tell it to your Congressman. Or maybe you want to pull a
+sick act, too?
+
+THIRD MAN: (Hits First Man, who, surprised, crashes back against a
+table and falls down) It isn't an act, damn you!
+
+GUARD: All right, break it up. Come on, break it up....
+
+ALARIC ARKALION: (To himself) I wish I saw that ten million dollars
+already--_if_ I ever get to see it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They drove for hours through the fresh country air, feeling the wind
+against their faces, listening to the roar their ground-jet made, all
+alone on the rimrock highway.
+
+"Where are we going, Kit?"
+
+"Search me. Just driving."
+
+"I'm glad they let you come out this once. I don't know what they
+would have done to me if they didn't. I had to see you this once. I--"
+
+Temple smiled. He had absented himself without leave. It had been
+difficult enough and he might yet be in a lot of hot water, but it
+would be senseless to worry Stephanie. "It's just for a few hours," he
+said.
+
+"Hours. When we want a whole lifetime. Kit. Oh, Kit--why don't we run
+away? Just the two of us, someplace where they'll never find you. I
+could be packed and ready and--"
+
+"Don't talk like that. We can't."
+
+"You want to go where they're sending you. You want to go."
+
+"For God's sake, how can you talk like that? I don't want to go
+anyplace, except with you. But we can't run away, Steffy. I've got to
+face it, whatever it is."
+
+"No you don't. It's noble to be patriotic, sure. It always was. But
+this is different, Kit. They don't ask for part of your life. Not for
+two years, or three, or a gamble because maybe you won't ever come
+back. They ask for all of you, for the rest of your life, forever, and
+they don't even tell you why. Kit, don't go! We'll hide someplace and
+get married and--"
+
+"And nothing." Temple stopped the ground-jet, climbed out, opened the
+door for Stephanie. "Don't you see? There's no place to hide. Wherever
+you go, they'd look. You wouldn't want to spend the rest of your life
+running, Steffy. Not with me or anyone else."
+
+"I would. I would!"
+
+"Know what would happen after a few years? We'd hate each other. You'd
+look at me and say 'I wouldn't be hiding like this, except for you.
+I'm young and--'"
+
+"Kit, that's cruel! I would not."
+
+"Yes, you would. Steffy, I--" A lump rose in his throat. He'd tell her
+goodbye, permanently. He had to do it that way, did not want her to
+wait endlessly and hopelessly for a return that would not materialize.
+"I didn't get permission to leave, Steffy." He hadn't meant to tell
+her that, but suddenly it seemed an easy way to break into goodbye.
+
+"What do you mean? No--you didn't...."
+
+"I had to see you. What can they do, send me for longer than forever?"
+
+"Then you do want to run away with me!"
+
+"Steffy, no. When I leave you tonight, Steffy, it's for good. That's
+it. The last of Kit Temple. Stop thinking about me. I don't exist.
+I--never was." It sounded ridiculous, even to him.
+
+"Kit, I love you. I love you. How can I forget you?"
+
+"It's happened before. It will happen again." That hurt, too. He was
+talking about a couple of statistics, not about himself and Stephanie.
+
+"We're different, Kit. I'll love you forever. And--Kit ... I know
+you'll come back to me. I'll wait, Kit. We're different. You'll come
+back."
+
+"How many people do you think said _that_ before?"
+
+"You don't want to come back, even if you could. You're not thinking
+of us at all. You're thinking of your brother."
+
+"You know that isn't true. Sometimes I wonder about Jase, sure. But if
+I thought there was a chance to return--I'm a selfish cuss, Steffy. If
+I thought there was a chance, you know I'd want you all for myself.
+I'd brand you, and that's the truth."
+
+"You do love me!"
+
+"I loved you, Steffy. Kit Temple loved you."
+
+"Loved?"
+
+"Loved. Past tense. When I leave tonight, it's as if I don't exist
+anymore. As if I never existed. It's got to be that way, Steffy. In
+thirty years, no one ever returned."
+
+"Including your brother, Jase. So now you want to find him. What do I
+count for? What...."
+
+"This going wasn't my idea. I wanted to stay with you. I wanted to
+marry you. I can't now. None of it. Forget me, Steffy. Forget you ever
+knew me. Jase said that to our folks before he was taken." Almost five
+years before Jason Temple had been selected for the Nowhere Journey.
+He'd been young, though older than his brother Kit. Young, unattached,
+almost cheerful he was. Naturally, they never saw him again.
+
+"Hold me, Kit. I'm sorry ... carrying on like this."
+
+They had walked some distance from the ground-jet, through scrub oak
+and bramble bushes. They found a clearing, fragrant-scented,
+soft-floored still from last autumn, melodic with the chirping of
+nameless birds. They sat, not talking. Stephanie wore a gay summer
+dress, full-skirted, cut deep beneath the throat. She swayed toward
+him from the waist, nestled her head on his shoulder. He could smell
+the soft, sweet fragrance of her hair, of the skin at the nape of her
+neck. "If you want to say goodbye...." she said.
+
+"Stop it," he told her.
+
+"If you want to say goodbye...."
+
+Her head rolled against his chest. She turned, cradled herself in his
+arms, smiled up at him, squirmed some more and had her head pillowed
+on his lap. She smiled tremulously, misty-eyed. Her lips parted.
+
+He bent and kissed her, knowing it was all wrong. This was not
+goodbye, not the way he wanted it. Quickly, definitely, for once and
+all. With a tear, perhaps, a lot of tears. But permanent goodbye. This
+was all wrong. The whole idea was to be business-like, objective. It
+had to be done that way, or no way at all. Briefly, he regretted
+leaving the encampment.
+
+This wasn't goodbye the way he wanted it. The way it had to be. This
+was _auf weidersen_.
+
+And then he forgot everything but Stephanie....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"I am Alaric Arkalion III," said the extremely young-looking man with
+the old, wise eyes.
+
+How incongruous, Temple thought. The eyes look almost middle-aged. The
+rest of him--a boy.
+
+"Something tells me we'll be seeing a lot of each other," Arkalion
+went on. The voice was that of an older man, too, belying the youthful
+complexion, the almost childish features, the soft fuzz of a beard.
+
+"I'm Kit Temple," said Temple, extending his hand. "Arkalion, a
+strange name. I know it from somewhere.... Say! Aren't you--don't you
+have something to do with carpets or something?"
+
+"Here and now, no. I am a number. A-92-6417. But my father is--perhaps
+I had better say was--my father is Alaric Arkalion II. Yes, that is
+right, the carpet king."
+
+"I'll be darned," said Temple.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Well," Temple laughed. "I never met a billionaire before."
+
+"Here I am not a billionaire, nor will I ever be one again. A-92-6417,
+a number. On his way to Mars with a bunch of other numbers."
+
+"Mars? You sound sure of yourself."
+
+"Reasonably. Ah, it is a pleasure to talk with a gentleman. I am
+reasonably certain it will be Mars."
+
+Temple nodded in agreement. "That's what the Sunday supplements say,
+all right."
+
+"And doubtless you have observed no one denies it."
+
+"But what on Earth do we want on Mars?"
+
+"That in itself is a contradiction," laughed Arkalion. "We'll find
+out, though, Temple."
+
+They had reached the head of the line, found themselves entering a
+huge, double-decker jet-transport. They found two seats together,
+followed the instructions printed at the head of the aisle by
+strapping themselves in and not smoking. Talking all around them was
+subdued.
+
+"Contrariness has given way to fear," Arkalion observed. "You should
+have seen them the last few days, waiting around the induction center,
+a two-ton chip on each shoulder. Say, where _were_ you?"
+
+"I--what do you mean?"
+
+"I didn't see you until last evening. Suddenly, you were here."
+
+"Did anyone else miss me?"
+
+"But I remember you the first day."
+
+"Did anyone else miss me? Any of the officials?"
+
+"No. Not that I know of."
+
+"Then I was here," Temple said, very seriously.
+
+Arkalion smiled. "By George, of course. Then you were here. Temple,
+we'll get along fine."
+
+Temple said that was swell.
+
+"Anyway, we'd better. Forever is a long time."
+
+Three minutes later, the jet took off and soared on eager wings toward
+the setting sun.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Men, since we are leaving here in a few hours and since there is no
+way to get out of the encampment and no place to go over the desert
+even if you could," the microphone in the great, empty hall boomed as
+the two files of men marched in, "there is no harm in telling you
+where you are. From this point, in a limited sense, you shall be kept
+abreast of your progress.
+
+"We are in White Sands, New Mexico."
+
+"The Garden Spot of the Universe!" someone shouted derisively,
+remembering the bleak hot desert and jagged mountain peaks as they
+came down.
+
+"White Sands," muttered Arkalion. "It looks like space travel now,
+doesn't it, Kit."
+
+Temple shrugged. "Why?"
+
+"White sands was the center of experiments in rocketry decades ago,
+when people still talked about those things. Then, for a long time, no
+one heard anything about White Sands. The rockets grew here, Kit."
+
+"I can readily see why. You could look all your life without finding a
+barren spot like this."
+
+"Precisely. Someone once called this place--or was it some other place
+like it?--someone once called it a good place to throw old razor
+blades. If people still used razor blades."
+
+The microphone blared again, after the several hundred men had entered
+the great hall and milled about among the echoes. Temple could picture
+other halls like this, other briefings. "Men, whenever you are given
+instructions, in here or elsewhere, obey them instantly. Our job is a
+big one, complicated and exacting. Attention to detail will save us
+trouble."
+
+Someone said, "My old man served a hitch in the army, back in the
+sixties. That's what he always said, attention to details. The army is
+crazy about things like that. Are we in the army or something?"
+
+"This is not the army, but the function is similar," barked the
+microphone. "Do as you are told and you will get along."
+
+Stirrings in the crowd. Mutterings. Temple gaped. Microphone, yes--but
+receivers also, placed strategically, all around the hall, to pick up
+sound. Telio receivers too, perhaps? It made him feel something like a
+goldfish.
+
+Apparently someone liked the idea of the two-way microphones. "I got a
+question. When are we coming back?"
+
+Laughter. Hooting. Catcalls.
+
+Blared the microphone: "There is a rotation system in operation, men.
+When it is feasible, men will be rotated."
+
+"Yeah, in thirty years it ain't been whatsiz--feasible--once!"
+
+"That, unfortunately, is correct. When the situation permits, we will
+rotate you home."
+
+"From where? Where are we going?"
+
+"At least tell us that."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"How about that?"
+
+There was a pause, then the microphone barked: "I don't know the
+answer to that question. You won't believe me, but it is the truth. No
+one knows where you are going. No one. Except the people who are
+already there."
+
+More catcalls.
+
+"That doesn't make sense," Arkalion whispered. "If it's space travel,
+the pilots would know, wouldn't they?"
+
+"Automatic?" Temple suggested.
+
+"I doubt it. Space travel must still be new, even if it has thirty years
+under its belt. If that man speaks the truth--if no one knows ... just
+where in the universe _are_ we going?"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+"Hey, looka me. I'm flying!"
+
+"Will you get your big fat feet out of my face?"
+
+"Sure. Show me how to swim away through air, I'll be glad to."
+
+"Leggo that spoon!"
+
+"I ain't got your spoon."
+
+"Will you look at it float away. Hey spoon, hey!"
+
+"Watch this, Charlie. This will get you. I mean, get you."
+
+"What are you gonna do?"
+
+"Relax, chum."
+
+"Leggo my leg. Help! I'm up in the air. Stop that."
+
+"I said relax. There. Ha-ha, lookit him spin, just like a top. All you
+got to do is get him started and he spins like a top with arms and
+legs. Top of the morning to you, Charlie. Ha-ha. I said, top of
+the...."
+
+"Someone stop me, I'm getting dizzy."
+
+They floated, tumbled, spun around the spaceship's lounge room in
+simple, childish glee. They cavorted in festive weightlessness.
+
+"They're happy now," Arkalion observed. "The novelty of free fall, of
+weighing exactly nothing, strikes them as amusing."
+
+"I think I'm getting the hang of it," said Temple. Clumsily, he made a
+few tentative swimming motions in the air, propelling himself forward
+a few yards before he lost his balance and tumbled head over heels
+against the wall.
+
+Arkalion came to him quickly, in a combination of swimming and pushing
+with hands and feet against the wall. Arkalion righted him expertly,
+sat down gingerly beside him. "If you keep sudden motions to a
+minimum, you'll get along fine. More than anything else, that's the
+secret of it."
+
+Temple nodded. "It's sort of like the first time you're on ice skates.
+Say, how come you're so good at it?"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"I used to read the old, theoretical books on space-travel." The words
+poured out effortlessly, smoothly. "I'm merely applying the theories
+put forward as early as the 1950's."
+
+"Oh." But it left Temple with some food for thought. Alaric Arkalion
+was a queer duck, anyway, and of all the men gathered in the
+spaceship's lounge, he alone had mastered weightlessness with hardly
+any trouble.
+
+"Take your ice skates," Arkalion went on. "Some people put them on and
+use them like natural extensions of their feet the first time. Others
+fall all over themselves. I suppose I am lucky."
+
+"Sure," said Temple. Actually, the only thing odd about Arkalion was
+his old-young face and--perhaps--his propensity for coming up with the
+right answers at the right times. Arkalion had seemed so certain of
+space-travel. He'd hardly batted an eyelash when they boarded a long,
+tapering, bullet-shaped ship at White Sands and thundered off into the
+sky. He took for granted the change-over to a huge round ship at the
+wheel-shaped station in space. Moments after leaving the space
+station--with a minimum of stress and strain, thanks to the almost-nil
+gravity--it was Arkalion who first swam through air to the viewport
+and pointed out the huge crescent earth, green and gray and brown,
+sparkling with patches of dazzling silver-white. "You will observe it
+is a crescent," Arkalion had said. "It is closer to the sun than we
+are, and off at an angle. As I suspected, our destination is Mars."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Then everyone was saying goodbye to earth. Fantastic, it seemed. There
+were tears, there was laughter, cursing, promises of return, awkward
+verbal comparisons with the crescent moon, vows of faithfulness to
+lovers and sweethearts. And there was Arkalion, with an avid
+expression in the old eyes, Arkalion with his boyish face, not saying
+goodbye so much as he was calling hello to something Temple could not
+fathom.
+
+Now, as he struggled awkwardly with weightlessness, Temple called it
+his imagination. His thought-patterns shifted vaguely, without
+motivation, from the gleaming, polished interior of the ship with its
+smell of antiseptic and metal polish to the clear Spring air of Earth,
+blue of sky and bright of sun. The unique blue sky of Earth which he
+somehow knew could not be duplicated elsewhere. Elsewhere--the word
+itself bordered on the meaningless.
+
+And Stephanie. The brief warm ecstasy of her--once, forever. He
+wondered with surprising objectivity if a hundred other names, a
+hundred other women were not in a hundred other minds while everyone
+stared at the crescent Earth hanging serenely in space--with each name
+and each woman as dear as Stephanie, with the same combination of fire
+and gentle femininity stirring the blood but saddening the heart.
+Would Stephanie really forget him? Did he want her to? That part of
+him burned by the fire of her said no--no, she must not forget him.
+She was his, his alone, roped and branded though a universe separated
+them. But someplace in his heart was the thought, the understanding,
+the realization that although Stephanie might keep a small place for
+him tucked someplace deep in her emotions, she must forget. He was
+gone--permanently. For Stephanie, he was dead. It was as he had told
+her that last stolen day. It was.... _Stephanie, Stephanie, how much I
+love you...._
+
+Struggling with weightlessness, he made his way back to the small room
+he shared with Arkalion. Hardly more than a cubicle, it was, with
+sufficient room for two beds, a sink, a small chest. He lay down and
+slept, murmuring Stephanie's name in his sleep.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He awoke to the faint hum of the air-pumps, got up feeling rested,
+forgot his weightlessness and floated to the ceiling where only an
+outthrust arm prevented a nasty bump on his head. He used hand grips
+on the wall to let himself down. He washed, aware of no way to prevent
+the water he splashed on his face from forming fine droplets and
+spraying the entire room. When he crossed back to the foot of his bed
+to get his towel he thrust one foot out too rapidly, lost his balance,
+half-rose, stumbled and fell against the other bed which, like all
+other items of furniture, was fastened to the floor. But his elbow
+struck sleeping Arkalion's jaw sharply, hard enough to jar the man's
+teeth.
+
+"I'm sorry," said Temple. "Didn't mean to do that," he apologized
+again, feeling embarrassed.
+
+Arkalion merely lay there.
+
+"I said I'm sorry."
+
+Arkalion still slept. It seemed inconceivable, for Temple's elbow
+pained him considerably. He bent down, examined his inert companion.
+
+Arkalion stirred not a muscle.
+
+Vaguely alarmed, Temple thrust a hand to Arkalion's chest, felt
+nothing. He crouched, rested the side of his head over Arkalion's
+heart. He listened, heard--nothing.
+
+What was going on here?
+
+"Hey, Arkalion!" Temple shook him, gently at first, then with savage
+force. Weightless, Arkalion's body floated up off the bed, taking the
+covers with it. His own heart pounding furiously, Temple got it down
+again, fingered the left wrist and swallowed nervously.
+
+Temple had never seen a dead man before. Arkalion's heart did not
+beat. Arkalion had no pulse.
+
+Arkalion was dead.
+
+Yelling hoarsely, Temple plunged from the room, soaring off the floor
+in his haste and striking his head against the ceiling hard enough to
+make him see stars. "This guy is dead!" he cried. "Arkalion is dead."
+
+Men stirred in the companionway. Someone called for one of the armed
+guards who were constantly on patrol.
+
+"If he's dead, you're yelling loud enough to get him out of his
+grave." The voice was quiet, amused.
+
+Arkalion.
+
+"What?" Temple blurted, whirling around and striking his head again. A
+little wild-eyed, he reentered the room.
+
+"Now, who is dead, Kit?" demanded Arkalion, sitting up and stretching
+comfortably.
+
+"Who--is dead? Who--?" Open-mouthed, Temple stared.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A guard, completely at home with weightlessness, entered the cubicle
+briskly. "What's the trouble in here? Something about a dead man, they
+said."
+
+"A dead man?" demanded Arkalion. "Indeed."
+
+"Dead?" muttered Temple, lamely and foolishly. "Dead...."
+
+Arkalion smiled deprecatingly. "My friend must have been talking in
+his sleep. The only thing dead in here is my appetite. Weightlessness
+doesn't let you become very hungry."
+
+"You'll grow used to it," the guard promised. He patted his paunch
+happily. "I am. Well, don't raise the alarm unless there's some
+trouble. Remember about the boy who cried wolf."
+
+"Of course," said Temple. "Sure. Sorry."
+
+He watched the guard depart.
+
+"Bad dream?" Arkalion wanted to know.
+
+"Bad dream, my foot. I accidentally hit you. Hard enough to hurt. You
+didn't move."
+
+"I'm a sound sleeper."
+
+"I felt for your heart. It wasn't beating. It wasn't!"
+
+"Oh, come, come."
+
+"Your heart was not beating, I said."
+
+"And I suppose I was cold as a slab of ice?"
+
+"Umm, no. I don't remember. Maybe you were. You had no pulse, either."
+
+Arkalion laughed easily. "And am I still dead?"
+
+"Well--"
+
+"Clearly a case of overwrought nerves and a highly keyed imagination.
+What you need is some more sleep."
+
+"I'm not sleepy, thanks."
+
+"Well, I think I'll get up and go down for breakfast." Arkalion
+climbed out of bed gingerly, made his way to the sink and was soon
+gargling with a bottle of prepared mouthwash, occasionally spraying
+weightless droplets of the pink liquid up at the ceiling.
+
+Temple lit a cigarette with shaking fingers, made his way to
+Arkalion's bed while the man hummed tunelessly at the sink. Temple let
+his hands fall on the sheet. It was not cold, but comfortably cool.
+Hardly as warm as it should have been, with a man sleeping on it all
+night.
+
+Was he still imagining things?
+
+"I'm glad you didn't call for a burial detail and have me expelled
+into space with yesterday's garbage," Arkalion called over his
+shoulder jauntily as he went outside for some breakfast.
+
+Temple cursed softly and lit another cigarette, dropping the first one
+into a disposal chute on the wall.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Every night thereafter, Temple made it a point to remain awake after
+Arkalion apparently had fallen asleep. But if he were seeking
+repetition of the peculiar occurrence, he was disappointed. Not only
+did Arkalion sleep soundly and through the night, but he snored.
+Loudly and clearly, a wheezing snore.
+
+Arkalion's strange feat--or his own overwrought imagination, Temple
+thought wryly--was good for one thing: it took his mind off Stephanie.
+The days wore on in endless, monotonous routine. He took some books
+from the ship's library and browsed through them, even managing to
+find one concerned with traumatic catalepsy, which stated that a
+severe emotional shock might render one into a deep enough trance to
+have a layman mistakenly pronounce him dead. But what had been the
+severe emotional disturbance for Arkalion? Could the effects of
+weightlessness manifest themselves in that way in rare instances?
+Temple naturally did not know, but he resolved to find out if he could
+after reaching their destination.
+
+One day--it was three weeks after they left the space station, Temple
+realized--they were all called to assembly in the ship's large main
+lounge. As the men drifted in, Temple was amazed to see the progress
+they had made with weightlessness. He himself had advanced to handy
+facility in locomotion, but it struck him all the more pointedly when
+he saw two hundred men swim and float through air, pushing themselves
+along by means of the hand-holds strategically placed along the walls.
+
+The ever-present microphone greeted them all. "Good afternoon, men."
+
+"Good afternoon, mac!"
+
+"Hey, is this the way to Ebbetts' Field?"
+
+"Get on with it!"
+
+"Sounds like the same man who addressed us in White Sands," Temple
+told Arkalion. "He sure does get around."
+
+"A recording, probably. Listen."
+
+"Our destination, as you've probably read in newspapers and magazines,
+is the planet Mars."
+
+Mutterings in the assembly, not many of surprise.
+
+"Their suppositions, based both on the seven hundred eighty day lapse
+between Nowhere Journeys and the romantic position in which the planet
+Mars has always been held, are correct. We are going to Mars.
+
+"For most of you, Mars will be a permanent home for many years to
+come--"
+
+"Most of us?" Temple wondered out loud.
+
+Arkalion raised a finger to his lips for silence.
+
+"--until such time as you are rotated according to the policy of
+rotation set up by the government."
+
+Temple had grown accustomed to the familiar hoots and catcalls. He
+almost had an urge to join in himself.
+
+"Interesting," Arkalion pointed out. "Back at White Sands they claimed
+not to know our destination. They knew it all right--up to a point.
+The planet Mars. But now they say that all of us will not remain on
+Mars. Most interesting."
+
+"--further indoctrination in our mission soon after our arrival on the
+red planet. Landing will be performed under somewhat less strain than
+the initial takeoff in the Earth-to-station ferry, since Mars exerts
+less of a gravity pull than Earth. On the other hand, you have been
+weightless for three weeks and the change-over is liable to make some
+of you sick. It will pass harmlessly enough.
+
+"We realize it is difficult, being taken from your homes without
+knowing the nature of your urgent mission. All I can tell you
+now--and, as a matter of fact, all I know--"
+
+"Here we go again," said Temple. "More riddles."
+
+"--is that everything _is_ of the utmost urgency. Our entire way of
+life is at stake. Our job will be to safeguard it. In the months which
+follow, few of you will have any big, significant role to play, but
+all of you, working together, will provide the strength we need. When
+the _cadre_--"
+
+"So they call their guards teachers," Arkalion commented dryly.
+
+"--come around, they will see that each man is strapped properly into
+his bunk for deceleration. Deceleration begins in twenty-seven
+minutes."
+
+_Mars_, thought Temple, back in his room with Arkalion. _Mars._ He did
+not think of Stephanie, except as a man who knows he must spend the
+rest of his life in prison might think of a lush green field, or the
+cool swish of skis over fresh, powdery snow, or the sound of yardarms
+creaking against the wind on a small sailing schooner, or the tang of
+wieners roasting over an open fire with the crisp air of fall against
+your back, or the scent of good French brandy, or a woman.
+
+Deceleration began promptly. Before his face was distorted and his
+eyes forced shut by a pressure of four gravities, Temple had time to
+see the look of complete unconcern on Arkalion's face. Arkalion, in
+fact, was sleeping.
+
+He seemed as completely relaxed as he did that morning Temple thought
+he was dead.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+"Petrovitch, S. A.!" called the Comrade standing abreast of the head
+of the line, a thin, nervous man half a head shorter than the girl
+herself. Sophia Androvna Petrovitch strode forward, took a pair of
+trim white shorts from the neat stack at his left.
+
+"Is that all?" she said, looking at him.
+
+"Yes, Comrade. Well, a woman. Well."
+
+Without embarrassment, Sophia had seen the men ahead of her in line
+strip and climb into the white shorts before they disappeared through
+a portal ahead of the line, depositing their clothing in a growing
+pile on the floor. But now it was Sophia's turn, after almost a two
+hour wait. Not that it was chilly, but....
+
+"Is that all?" she repeated.
+
+"Certainly. Strip and move along, Comrade." The nervous little man
+appraised her lecherously, she thought.
+
+"Then I must keep some of my own clothing," she told him.
+
+"Impossible. I have my orders."
+
+"I am a woman."
+
+"You are a volunteer for the Stalintrek. You will take no personal
+property--no clothing--with you. Strip and advance, please."
+
+Sophia flushed slightly, while the men behind her began to call and
+taunt.
+
+"I like this Stalintrek."
+
+"Oh, yes."
+
+"We are waiting, Comrade."
+
+Quickly and with an objective detachment which surprised her, Sophia
+unbuttoned her shirt, removed it. Her one wish--and an odd one, she
+thought, smiling--was for wax for her ears. She loosened the three
+snaps of her skirt, watched it fall to the floor. She stood there
+briefly, lithe-limbed, a tall, slim girl, then had the white shorts
+over her nakedness in one quick motion. She still wore a coarse
+halter.
+
+"All personal effects, Comrade," said the nervous little man.
+
+"No," Sophia told him.
+
+"But yes. Definitely, yes. You hold up the line, and we have a
+schedule to maintain. The Stalintrek demands quick, prompt obedience."
+
+"Then you will give me one additional item of clothing."
+
+The man looked at Sophia's halter, at the fine way she filled it. He
+shrugged. "We don't have it," he said, clearly enjoying himself.
+
+In volunteering for the Stalintrek, Sophia had invaded man's domain.
+She had watched not with embarrassment but with scorn while the men in
+front of her got out of their clothing. She had invaded man's domain,
+and as she watched them, the short, flabby ones, the bony ones with
+protruding ribs and collar-bones, those of milky white skin and soft
+hands, she knew most of them would bite off more than they could chew
+if ever they tried what was the most natural thing for men to try with
+a lone woman in an isolated environment. But she _was_ in a man's
+world now, and if that was the way they wanted it, she would ask no
+quarter.
+
+She reached up quickly with one hand and unfastened the halter,
+catching it with her free hand and holding it in front of her breasts
+while the nervous little man licked his lips and gaped. Sophia grabbed
+another pair of the white shorts, tore it quickly with her strong
+fingers, fashioning a crude covering for herself. This she pulled
+around her, fastening it securely with a knot in back.
+
+"You'll have to give that back to me," declared the nervous little
+Comrade.
+
+"I'll bet you a samovar on that," Sophia said quietly, so only the man
+heard her.
+
+He reached out, as if to rip the crude halter from her body, but
+Sophia met him half-way with her strong, slim fingers, wrapping them
+around his biceps and squeezing. The man's face turned quickly to
+white as he tried unsuccessfully to free his arm.
+
+"Please, that hurts."
+
+"I keep what I am wearing." She tightened her grip, but gazed serenely
+into space as the man stifled a whimper.
+
+"Well--" the man whispered indecisively as he gritted his teeth.
+
+"Fool!" said Sophia. "Your arm will be black and blue for a week.
+While you men grow soft and lazy, many of the women take their
+gymnastics seriously, especially if they want to keep their figures
+with the work they must do and the food they must eat. I am stronger
+than you and I will hurt you unless--" And her hand tightened around
+his scrawny arm until her knuckles showed white.
+
+"Wear what you have and go," the man pleaded, and moaned softly when
+Sophia released his numb arm and strode through the portal, still
+drawing whistles and leers from the other men, who missed the by-play
+completely.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"So we're on Mars!"
+
+"It ain't Nowhere after all, it's Mars."
+
+"Wait and see, buster. Wait and see."
+
+"Kind of cold, isn't it? Well, if this was Venus and some of them
+beautiful one-armed dames was waiting for us--"
+
+"That's just a statue, stupid."
+
+"Lookit all them people down there, will you?"
+
+"You think they're Martians?"
+
+"Stupid! We ain't the first ones went on the Nowhere Journey."
+
+"What are we waiting for? It sure will feel good to stretch your
+legs."
+
+"Let's go!"
+
+"Look out, Mars, here I come!"
+
+It would have been just right for a Hollywood epic, Temple thought.
+The rusty ochre emptiness spreading out toward the horizon in all
+directions, spotted occasionally with pale green and frosty white, the
+sky gray with but a shade of blue in it, distant gusts of Martian wind
+swirling ochre clouds across the desert, the spaceship poised on its
+ungainly bottom, a great silver bowling ball with rocket tubes for
+finger holes, and the Martians from Earth who had been here on this
+alien world for seven-hundred-eighty days or twice seven-eighty or
+three times, and who fought in frenzied eagerness, like savages, to
+reach the descending gangplank first.
+
+Earth chorus: Hey, Martians, any of you guys speak English? Hah-ha, I
+said, any of you guys....
+
+Where are all them canals I heard so much about?
+
+You think maybe they're dangerous? (Laughter)
+
+No dames. Hey, no dames....
+
+Who were you expecting, Donna Daunley?
+
+What kind of place is Mars with no women?
+
+What do they do here, anyway, just sit around and wait for the next
+rocket?
+
+I'm cold.
+
+Get used to it, brother, get used to it.
+
+Look out, Mars, here I come!
+
+Martian chorus: Who won the Series last year, Detroit?
+
+Hey, bud, tell me, are dames still wearing those one piece things, all
+colors, so you see their legs up to about here and their chests down
+to about here? (Gestures lewdly)
+
+Which one of you guys can tell me what it's like to take a bath? I
+mean a real bath in a real bath tub.
+
+Hey, we licked Russia yet?
+
+We heard they were gonna send some dames!
+
+Dames--ha-ha, you're breaking my heart.
+
+Tell me what a steak tastes like. So thick.
+
+Me? Gimme a bowl of steamed oysters. And a dame.
+
+Dames. Girls. Women. Females. Chicks. Tomatoes. Frails. Dames. Dames.
+Dames....
+
+They did not seem to mind the cold, these Earth-Martians. Temple
+guessed they never spent much time out of doors (above ground, for
+there were no buildings?) because all seemed pale and white. While the
+sun was weaker, so was the protection offered by a thinner atmosphere.
+The sun's actinic rays could burn, and so could the sand-driving wind.
+But pale skins could not be the result of staying indoors, for Temple
+noted the lack of man-made structures at once. Underground, then. The
+Earth-Martians lived underground like moles. Doing what? And for what
+reason? With what ultimate goal, if any? And where did those men who
+did not remain on Mars go? Temple's head whirled with countless
+questions--and no answers.
+
+Shoulder to shoulder with Arkalion, he made his way down the
+gangplank, turning up the collar of his jumper against the stinging
+wind.
+
+"You got any newspapers, pal?"
+
+"Magazines?"
+
+"Phonograph records?"
+
+"Gossip?"
+
+"Newsfilm?"
+
+"Who's the heavyweight champ?"
+
+"We lick those Commies in Burma yet?"
+
+"Step back! Watch that man. Maybe he's your replacement."
+
+"Replacement. Ha-ha. That's good."
+
+All types of men. All ages. In torn, tattered clothing, mostly. In
+rags. Even if a man seemed more well-groomed than the rest, on closer
+examination Temple could see the careful stitching, the patches, the
+fades and stains. No one seemed to mind.
+
+"Hey, bud. What do you hear about rotation? They passed any laws yet?"
+
+"I been here ten years. When do _I_ get rotated?"
+
+"Ain't that something? Dad Jenks came here with the first ship. Don't
+you talk about rotation. Ask Dad."
+
+"Better not mention that word to Dad Jenks. He sees red."
+
+"This whole damn planet is red."
+
+"Want a guided tour of nowhere, men? Step right up."
+
+Arkalion grinned. "They seem so well-adjusted," he said, then
+shuddered against the cold and followed Temple, with the others,
+through the crowd.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They were inoculated against nameless diseases. (Watch for the needle
+with the hook.)
+
+They were told again they had arrived on the planet Mars. (No
+kidding?)
+
+Led to a drab underground city, dimly lit, dank, noisome with mold and
+mildew. (Quick, the chlorophyll.)
+
+Assigned bunks in a dormitory, with four men to a room. (Be it ever so
+humble--bah!)
+
+Told to keep things clean and assigned temporarily to a garbage pickup
+detail. (For this I left Sheboygan?)
+
+Read to from the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and
+Public Law 1182 (concerned with the Nowhere Journey, it told them
+nothing they did not already know).
+
+Given as complete a battery of tests, mental, emotional and physical,
+as Temple ever knew existed. (Cripes, man! How the hell should I know
+what the cube root of -5 is? I never finished high school!)
+
+Subjected to an exhaustive, overlong, and at times meaningless
+personal interview. (No, doc, honest. I never knew I had
+a--uh--anxiety neurosis. Is it dangerous?)
+
+"How do you do, Temple? Sit down."
+
+"Thank you."
+
+"Thought you'd like to know that while your overall test score is not
+uncanny, it's decidedly high."
+
+"So what?"
+
+"So nothing--not necessarily. Except that with it you have a very well
+balanced personality. We can use you, Temple."
+
+"That's why I'm here."
+
+"I mean--elsewhere. Mars is only a way station, a training center for
+a select few. It takes an awful lot of administrative work to keep
+this place going, which explains the need for all the station
+personnel."
+
+"Listen. The last few weeks I had everything thrown at me.
+Everything, the works. Mind answering one question?"
+
+"Shoot."
+
+"What's this all about?"
+
+"Temple, I don't know!"
+
+"You what?"
+
+"I know you find it hard to believe, but I don't. There isn't a man
+here on Mars who knows the whole story, either--and certainly not on
+Earth. We know enough to keep everything in operation. And we know
+it's important, all of it, everything we do."
+
+"You mentioned a need for some men elsewhere. Where?"
+
+The psychiatrist shrugged. "I don't know. Somewhere. Anywhere." He
+spread his hands out eloquently. "That's where the Nowhere Journey
+comes in."
+
+"Surely you can tell me something more than--"
+
+"Absolutely not. It isn't that I don't want to. I can't. I don't
+know."
+
+"Well, one more question I'd like you to answer."
+
+The psychiatrist lit a cigarette, grinned. "Say, who is interviewing
+whom?"
+
+"This one I think you can tackle. I have a brother, Jason Temple.
+Embarked on the Nowhere Journey five years ago. I wonder--"
+
+"So that's the one factor in your psychograph we couldn't figure
+out--anxiety over your brother."
+
+"I doubt it," shrugged Temple. "More likely my fiancee."
+
+"Umm, common enough. You were to be married?"
+
+"Yes." _Stephanie, what are you doing now? Right now?_
+
+"That's what hurts the most.... Well, yes, I can find out about your
+brother." The psychiatrist flicked a toggle on his desk. "Jamison,
+find what you can on Temple, Jason, year of--"
+
+"1987," Temple supplied.
+
+"1987. We'll wait."
+
+After a moment or two, the voice came through, faintly metallic:
+"Temple, Jason. Arrival: 1987. Psychograph, 115b12. Mental aggregate,
+98. Physcom, good to excellent. Training: two years, space perception
+concentrate, others. Shipped out: 1989."
+
+So Jase had shipped out for--Nowhere.
+
+"Someday you'll follow in your brother's footsteps, Temple. Now,
+though, I have a few hundred questions I'd like you to answer."
+
+The psychiatrist hadn't exaggerated. Several hours of questioning
+followed. Once reminded of her, Temple found it hard to keep his
+thought off Stephanie.
+
+He left the psychiatrist's office more confused than ever.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Good morning, child. You Stephanie Andrews?"
+
+Stephanie hadn't felt up to working that first morning after Kit's
+final goodbye. She answered the door in her bathrobe, saw a small,
+middle-aged woman with graying hair and a kind face. "That's right.
+Won't you come in?"
+
+"Thank you. I represent the Complete Emancipation League, Miss
+Andrews."
+
+"Complete Emancipation League? Oh, something to do with politics.
+Really, I'm not much interested in--"
+
+"That's entirely the trouble," declared the older woman. "Too many of
+us are not interested in politics. I'd like to discuss the C.E.L. with
+you, my dear, if you will bear with me a few minutes."
+
+"All right," said Stephanie. "Would you like a glass of sherry?"
+
+"In the morning?" the older woman smiled.
+
+"I'm sorry. Don't mind me. My fiance left yesterday, took his final
+goodbye. He--he embarked on the Nowhere Journey."
+
+"I realize that. It is precisely why I am here. My dear, the C.E.L.
+does not want to fight the government. If the government decides that
+the Nowhere Journey is vital for the welfare of the country--even if
+the government won't or can't explain what the Nowhere Journey
+is--that's all right with us. But if the government says there is a
+rotation system but does absolutely nothing about it, we're interested
+in that. Do you follow me?"
+
+"Yes!" cried Stephanie. "Oh, yes. Go on."
+
+"The C. E. L. has sixty-eight people in Congress for the current term.
+We hope to raise that number to seventy-five for next election. It's a
+long fight, a slow uphill fight, and frankly, my dear, we need all the
+help we can get. People--young women like yourself, my dear--are
+entirely too lethargic, if you'll forgive me."
+
+"You ought to forgive _me_," said Stephanie, "if you will. You know,
+it's funny. I had vague ideas about helping Kit, about finding some
+way to get him back. Only to tackle something like that alone.... I'm
+only twenty-one, just a girl, and I don't know anyone important. No
+one ever comes back, that's what you hear. But there's a rotation
+system, you also hear that. If I can be of any help...."
+
+"You certainly can, my dear. We'd be delighted to have you."
+
+"Then, eventually, maybe, just maybe, we'll start getting them rotated
+home?"
+
+"We can't promise a thing. We can only try. And I never did say we'd
+try to get the boys rotated, my dear. There is a rotation system in
+the law, right there in Public Law 1182. But if no men have ever been
+rotated, there must be a reason for it."
+
+"Yes, but--"
+
+"But we'll see. If for some reason rotation simply is not practicable,
+we'll find another way. Which is why we call ourselves the
+C.E.L.--Complete Emancipation League--for women. If men must embark on
+the Nowhere Journey--the least they can do is let their women
+volunteer to go along with them if they want to--since it may be
+forever. Let a bunch of women get to this Nowhere place and you'll
+never know what might happen, that's what I say."
+
+Something about the gray haired woman's earthy confidence imbued
+Stephanie with an optimism she never expected. "Well," she said,
+smiling, "if we can't bring ourselves to Mohammed.... No, that's all
+wrong! ... to the mountain...?"
+
+"Yes, there's an old saying. But it isn't important. You get the idea.
+My dear, how would you like to go to Nowhere?"
+
+"I--to Kit, anywhere, anywhere!" _I'll never forget yesterday, Kit
+darling. Never!_
+
+"I make no promises, Stephanie, but it may be sooner than you think.
+Morning be hanged, perhaps I will have some sherry after all. Umm, you
+wouldn't by any chance have some Canadian instead?"
+
+Humming, Stephanie dashed into the kitchen for some glasses.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There were times when the real Alaric Arkalion III wished his father
+would mind his own business. Like that thing about the Nowhere
+Journey, for instance. Maybe Alaric Sr. didn't realize it, but being
+the spoiled son of a billionaire wasn't all fun. "I'm a dilettante,"
+Alaric would tell himself often, gazing in the mirror, "a bored
+dilettante at the age of twenty-one."
+
+Which in itself, he had to admit, wasn't too bad. But having reneged
+on the Nowhere Journey in favor of a stranger twice his age who now
+carried his, Alaric's, face, had engendered some annoying
+complications. "You'll either have to hide or change your own
+appearance and identity, Alaric."
+
+"Hide? For how long, father?"
+
+"I can't be sure. Years, probably."
+
+"That's crazy. I'm not going to hide for years."
+
+"Then change your appearance. Your way of life. Your occupation."
+
+"I have no occupation."
+
+"Get one. Change your face, too. Your fingerprints. It can be done.
+Become a new man, live a new life."
+
+In hiding there was boredom, impossible boredom. In the other
+alternative there was adventure, intrigue--but uncertainty. One part
+of young Alaric craved that uncertainty, the rest of him shunned it.
+In a way it was like the Nowhere Journey all over again.
+
+"Maybe Nowhere wouldn't have been so bad," said Alaric to his father,
+choosing as a temporary alternative and retreat what he knew couldn't
+possibly happen.
+
+Couldn't it?
+
+"If I choose another identity, I'd be eligible again for the Nowhere
+Journey."
+
+"By George, I hadn't considered that. No, wait. You could be older
+than twenty-six."
+
+"I like it the way I am," Alaric said, pouting.
+
+"Then you'll have to hide. I spent ten million dollars to secure your
+future, Alaric. I don't want you to throw it away."
+
+Alaric pouted some more. "Let me think about it."
+
+"Fair enough, but I'll want your answer tomorrow. Meanwhile, you are
+not to leave the house."
+
+Alaric agreed verbally, but took the first opportunity which presented
+itself--that very night--to sneak out the servants' door, go downtown,
+and get stewed to the gills.
+
+At two in the morning he was picked up by the police for disorderly
+conduct (it had happened before) after losing a fistfight to a much
+poorer, much meaner drunk in a downtown bar. They questioned Alaric at
+the police station, examined his belongings, went through his wallet,
+notified his home.
+
+Fuming, Alaric Sr. rushed to the police station to get his son. He was
+met by the desk sergeant, a fat, balding man who wore his uniform in a
+slovenly fashion.
+
+"Mr. Arkalion?" demanded the sergeant, picking at his teeth with a
+toothpick.
+
+"Yes. I have come for Alaric, my son."
+
+"Sure. Sure. But your son's in trouble, Mr. Arkalion. Serious
+trouble."
+
+"What are you talking about? If there are any damages, I'll pay. He
+didn't--hurt anyone, did he?"
+
+The sergeant broke the toothpick between his teeth, laughed. "Him?
+Naw. He got the hell beat out of him by a drunk half his size. It
+ain't that kind of trouble, Mr. Arkalion. You know what an 1182 card
+is, mister?"
+
+Arkalion's face drained white. "Why--yes."
+
+"Alaric's got one."
+
+"Naturally."
+
+"According to the card, he should have shipped out on the Nowhere
+Journey, mister. He didn't. He's in serious trouble."
+
+"I'll see the district attorney."
+
+"More'n likely, you'll see the attorney general. Serious trouble."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+The trouble with the Stalintrek, Sophia thought, was that it took
+months to get absolutely nowhere. There had been the painful pressure,
+the loss of consciousness, the confinement in this tight little world
+of dormitories and gleaming metal walls, the uncanny feeling of no
+weight, the ability--boring after a while, but interesting at
+first--to float about in air almost at will.
+
+Then, how many months of sameness? Sophia had lost all track of time
+through _ennui_. But for the first brief period of adjustment on the
+part of her fellows to the fact that although she was a woman and
+shared their man's life she was still to be inviolate, the routine had
+been anything but exciting. The period of adjustment had had its
+adventures, its uncertainties, its challenge, and to Sophia it had
+been stimulating. Why was it, she wondered, that the men who carried
+their sex with strength and dignity, the hard-muscled men who could
+have their way with her if they resorted to force were the men who did
+not violate her privacy, while the weaklings, the softer, smaller men,
+or the average men whom Sophia considered her physical equals were the
+ones who gave her trouble?
+
+She had always accepted her beauty, the obvious attraction men found
+in her, with an objective unconcern. She had been endowed with sex
+appeal; there was not much room in her life to exploit it, even had
+she wanted to. Now, now when she wanted anything but that, it gave her
+trouble.
+
+Her room was shared, of necessity, with three men. Tall, gangling
+Boris gave her no trouble, turned his back when she undressed for the
+evening, even though she was careful to slip under the covers first.
+Ivan, the second man, was short, thin, stooped. Often she found him
+looking at her with what might have been more than a healthy interest,
+but aside from that he kept his peace. Besides, Ivan had spent two
+years in secondary school (as much as Sophia) and she enjoyed
+conversing with him.
+
+The third man, Georgi, was the troublemaker. Georgi was one of those
+plump young men with red cheeks, big, eager eyes, a voice somewhat too
+high. He was an avid talker, a boaster and a boor. In the beginning he
+showered attentions on Sophia. He insisted on drawing her wash-basin
+at night, escorted her to breakfast every morning, told her in
+confidence of the conquests he had made over beautiful women (but not
+as beautiful as you, Sophia). He soon began to take liberties. He
+would sit--timorously at first, but with growing boldness--on the
+corner of her bed, talking with her at night after the others had
+retired, Ivan with his snores, Boris with his strong, deep breathing.
+And night after night, plump Georgi grew bolder.
+
+He would reach out and touch Sophia, he would insist on tucking her in
+at night (let me be your big brother), he would awaken her in the
+morning with his hand heavy on her shoulder. Finally, one night at
+bedtime, she heard him conversing in low whispers with Ivan and Boris.
+She could not hear the words, but Boris looked at her with what she
+thought was surprise, Ivan nodded in an understanding way, and both of
+them left the room.
+
+Sophia frowned. "What did you tell them, Georgi?"
+
+"That we wanted to be alone one evening, of course."
+
+"I never gave you any indication--"
+
+"I could see it in your eyes, in the way you looked at me."
+
+"Well, you had better call them back inside and go to bed."
+
+Georgi shook his head, approached her.
+
+"Georgi! Call them back or I will."
+
+"No, you won't." Georgi followed her as she retreated into a corner of
+the room. When she reached the wall and could retreat no further, he
+placed his thick hands on her shoulders, drew her to him slowly. "You
+will call no one," he rasped.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+She ducked under his arms, eluded him, was on the point of running to
+the door, throwing it open and shouting, when she reconsidered. If she
+did, she would be asking for quarter, gaining a temporary reprieve,
+inviting the same sort of thing all over again.
+
+She crossed to the bed and sat down. "Come here, Georgi."
+
+"Ah." He came to her.
+
+She watched him warily, a soft flabby man not quite so tall as she
+was, but who nevertheless out-weighed her by thirty or forty pounds.
+In his eagerness, he walked too fast, lost his footing and floated
+gently to the ceiling. Smiling as demurely as she could, Sophia
+reached up, circled his ankle with her hand.
+
+"I never could get used to this weightlessness," Georgi admitted. "Be
+nice and pull me down."
+
+"I will be nice. I will teach you a lesson."
+
+He weighed exactly nothing. It was as simple as stretching. Sophia
+merely extended her arm upwards and Georgi's head hit the ceiling
+with a loud _thunk_. Georgi groaned. Sophia repeated the procedure,
+lowering her arm a foot--and Georgi with it--then raising it and
+bouncing his head off the ceiling.
+
+"I don't understand," Georgi whined, trying to break free but only
+succeeding in thrashing his chubby arms foolishly.
+
+"You haven't mastered weightlessness," Sophia smiled up at him. "I
+have. I said I would teach you a lesson. First make sure you have the
+strength of a man if you would play a man's game."
+
+Still smiling, Sophia commenced spinning the hand which held Georgi's
+ankle. Arms and free leg flailing air helplessly, Georgi began to
+spin.
+
+"Put me down!" he whined, a boy now, not even pretending to be a man.
+When Sophia shoved out gently and let his ankle go he did a neat flip
+in air and hung suspended, upside down, his feet near the ceiling, his
+head on a level with Sophia's shoulders. He cried.
+
+She slapped his upside down face, carefully and without excitement,
+reddening the cheeks. "I was--only joking," he slobbered. "Call back
+our friends."
+
+Sophia found one of the hard, air-tight metal flasks they used for
+drinking in weightlessness. With one hand she opened the lid, with the
+other she grasped Georgi's shoulder and spun him in air, still upside
+down. She squirted the water in his face, and because he was upside
+down and yelling it made him choke and cough. When the container was
+empty she lowered Georgi gently to the floor.
+
+Minutes later, she opened the door, summoned Boris and Ivan, who came
+into the room self-consciously. What they found was a thoroughly
+beaten Georgi sobbing on the floor. After that, Sophia had no trouble.
+Week after week of boredom followed and she almost wished Georgi or
+someone else would _look_ for trouble ... even if it were something
+she could not handle, for although she was stronger than average and
+more beautiful, she was still a woman first, and she knew if the right
+man....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Did you know that radio communication is maintained between Earth and
+Mars?" the Alaric Arkalion on Mars asked Temple.
+
+"Why, no. I never thought about it."
+
+"It is, and I am in some difficulty."
+
+"What's the matter?" Temple had grown to like Arkalion, despite the
+man's peculiarities. He had given up trying to figure him out,
+feeling that the only way he'd get anywhere was with Arkalion's
+co-operation.
+
+"It's a long story which I'm afraid you would not altogether
+understand. The authorities on Earth don't think I belong here on the
+Nowhere Journey."
+
+"Is that so? A mistake, huh? I sure am glad for you, Alaric."
+
+"That's not the difficulty. It seems that there is the matter of
+impersonation, of violating some of the clauses in Public Law 1182.
+You're glad for me. I'm likely to go to prison."
+
+"If it's that serious, how come they told you?"
+
+"They didn't. But I--managed to find out. I won't go into details,
+Kit, but obviously, if I managed to embark for Nowhere when I didn't
+have to, then I wanted to go. Right?"
+
+"I--uh, guess so. But why--?"
+
+"That isn't the point. I _still_ want to go. Not to Mars, but to
+Nowhere. I still can, despite what has happened, but I need help."
+
+Temple said, "Anything I can do, I'll be glad to," and meant it. For
+one thing, he liked Arkalion. For another, Arkalion seemed to know
+more, much more than he would ever say--unless Temple could win his
+confidence. For a third, Temple was growing sick and tired of Mars
+with its drab ochre sameness (when he got to the surface, which was
+rarely), with its dank underground city, with its meaningless
+attention to meaningless detail. Either way, he figured there was no
+returning to Earth. If Nowhere meant adventure, as he suspected it
+might, it would be preferable. Mars might have been the other end of
+the galaxy for all its nearness to Earth, anyway.
+
+"There is a great deal you can do. But you'll have to come with me."
+
+"Where?" Temple demanded.
+
+"Where you will go eventually. To Nowhere."
+
+"Fine." And Temple smiled. "Why not now as well as later?"
+
+"I'll be frank with you. If you go now, you go untrained. You may need
+your training. Undoubtedly, you will."
+
+"You know a lot more than you want to talk about, don't you?"
+
+"Frankly, yes.... I am sorry, Kit."
+
+"That's all right. You have your reasons. I guess if I go with you
+I'll find out soon enough, anyway."
+
+Arkalion grinned. "You have guessed correctly. I am going to Nowhere,
+before they return me to Earth for prosecution under Public Law 1182.
+I cannot go alone, for it takes at least two to operate ... well,
+you'll see."
+
+"Count me in," said Temple.
+
+"Remember, you may one day wish you had remained on Mars for your
+training."
+
+"I'll take my chances. Mars is driving me crazy. All I do is think of
+Earth and Stephanie."
+
+"Then come."
+
+"Where are we going?"
+
+"A long, long way off. It is unthinkably remote, this place called
+Nowhere."
+
+Temple felt suddenly like a kid playing hookey from school. "Lead on,"
+he said, almost jauntily. He knew he was leaving Stephanie still
+further behind, but had he been in prison on the next street to hers,
+he might as well have been a million miles away.
+
+As for Arkalion--the thought suddenly struck Temple--Arkalion wasn't
+necessarily leaving his world further behind. Perhaps Arkalion was
+going home....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Stephanie picked up the phone eagerly. In the weeks since her first
+meeting with Mrs. Draper of the C.E.L., the older woman had been a
+fountain of information and of hope for her. Stephanie for her part
+had taken over Mrs. Draper's job in her own section of Center City:
+she was busy contacting the two hundred mothers and fifty sweethearts
+of the Nowhere Journey which had taken Kit from her. And now Mrs.
+Draper had called with information.
+
+"We've successfully combined forces with some of the less militant
+elements in both houses of Congress," Mrs. Draper told her over the
+phone. "Do you realize, my dear, this marks the first time the C.E.L.
+has managed to put something constructive through Congress? Until now
+we've been content merely to block legislation, such as an increase in
+the Nowhere contingent from...."
+
+"Yes, Mrs. Draper. I know all that. But what about this constructive
+thing you've done."
+
+"Well, my dear, don't count your chickens. But we _have_ passed the
+bill, and we expect the President won't veto it. You see, the
+President has two nephews who...."
+
+"I know. I know. What bill did you pass?"
+
+"Unfortunately, it's somewhat vague. Ultimately, the Nowhere
+Commission must do the deciding, but it does pave the way."
+
+"For what, Mrs. Draper?"
+
+"Hold onto your hat, my dear. The bill authorizes the Nowhere Commission
+to make as much of a study as it can of conditions--wherever our boys are
+sent."
+
+"Oh." Stephanie was disappointed. "That won't get them back to us."
+
+"No. You're right, it won't get them back to us. That isn't the idea
+at all, for there is more than one way to skin a cat, my dear. The
+Nowhere Commission will be studying conditions--"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"How can they? I thought everything was so hush-hush, not even
+Congress knew anything about it."
+
+"That was the first big hurdle we have apparently overcome. Anyway,
+they will be studying conditions with a view of determining if one
+girl--just one, mind you--can embark on the Nowhere Journey as a pilot
+study and--"
+
+"But I thought they could make the journey only once every
+seven-hundred-eighty days."
+
+"Get Congress aroused and you can move mountains. It seems the expense
+entailed in a trip at any but those times is generally prohibitive,
+but when something special comes up--"
+
+"It can be done! Mrs. Draper, how I love to talk with you!"
+
+"See? There you go, my dear, counting your chickens. One girl will be
+sent, if the study indicates she can take it. _One_ girl, Stephanie, and
+only after a study. She'd merely be a pilot case. But afterwards.... Ah,
+afterwards.... Perhaps someday soon qualified women will be able to join
+their men in Nowhere."
+
+"Mrs. Draper, I love you."
+
+"Naturally, you will tell all this to prospective C.E.L. members. Now
+we have something concrete to work with."
+
+"I know. And I will, I will, Mrs. Draper. By the way, how are they
+going to pick the girl, the one girl?"
+
+"Don't count your chickens, for Heaven's sake! They haven't even
+studied the situation yet. Well, I'll call you, my dear."
+
+Stephanie hung up, dressed, went about her canvassing. She thought
+happy thoughts all week.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Shh! Quiet," cautioned Arkalion, leading the way down a flight of
+heavy-duty plastic stairs.
+
+"How do you know your way around here so well?"
+
+"I said quiet."
+
+It was not so much, Temple realized, that Arkalion was really afraid
+of making noise. Rather, he did not want to answer questions.
+
+Temple smiled in the semi-darkness, heard the steady drip-drip-drip of
+water off somewhere to his left. Eons before the coming of man on this
+stopover point to Nowhere, the Martian waters had retreated from the
+planet's ancient surface and seeped underground to carve, slow drop by
+drop, the caverns which honey-combed the planet. "You know your way
+around so well, I'd swear you were a Martian."
+
+Arkalion's soft laugh carried far. "I said there was to be no noise.
+Please! As for the Martians, the only Martians are here all around
+you, the men of Earth. Ahh, here we are."
+
+At the bottom of the flight of stairs Temple could see a door,
+metallic, giving the impression of strength without great weight.
+Arkalion paused a moment, did something with a series of levers, shook
+his head impatiently, started all over again.
+
+"What's that for?" Temple wanted to know.
+
+"What do you think? It is a combination lock, with five million
+possible combinations. Do you want to be here for all of eternity?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Then quiet."
+
+Vaguely, Temple wondered why the door wasn't guarded.
+
+"With a lock like this," Arkalion explained, as if he had read
+Temple's thought, "they need no other precaution. It is assumed that
+only authorized personnel know the combination."
+
+Then had Arkalion come this way before? It seemed the only possible
+assumption. But when? And how? "Here we are," said Arkalion.
+
+The door swung in toward them.
+
+Temple strode forward, found himself in a great bare hall,
+surprisingly well-lighted. After the dimness of the caverns, he
+hardly could see.
+
+"Don't stand there scowling and fussing with your eyes. There is one
+additional precaution--an alarm at Central Headquarters. We have about
+five minutes, no more."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At one end of the bare hall stood what to Temple looked for all the
+world like an old-fashioned telephone booth, except that its walls
+were completely opaque. On the wall adjacent to it was a single lever
+with two positions marked "hold" and "transport". The lever stood
+firmly in the "hold" position.
+
+"You sure you want to come?" Arkalion demanded.
+
+"Yes, I told you that."
+
+"Good. I have no time to explain. I will enter the conveyor."
+
+"Conveyor?"
+
+"This booth. You will wait until the door is shut, then pull the lever
+down. That is all there is to it, but, as you can see, it is a two-man
+operation."
+
+"But how do I--"
+
+"Haste, haste! There are similar controls at the other end. You pull
+the lever, wait two minutes, enter the conveyor yourself. I will fetch
+you--if you are sure."
+
+"I'm sure, dammit!"
+
+"Remember, you go without training, without the opportunity everyone
+else has."
+
+"You already told me that. Mars is half-way to eternity. Mars is
+limbo. If I can't go back to Earth I want to go--well, to Nowhere.
+There are too many ghosts here, too many memories with nothing to do."
+
+Arkalion shrugged, entered the booth. "Pull the lever," he said, and
+shut the door.
+
+Temple reached up, grasped the lever firmly in his hand, yanked it. It
+slid smoothly to the position marked "transport." Temple heard
+nothing, saw nothing, began to think the device, whatever it was, did
+not work. Did Arkalion somehow get _moved_ inside the booth?
+
+Temple thought he heard footfalls on the stairs outside. Soon,
+faintly, he could hear voices. Someone banged on the door to the hall.
+Licking dry lips, Temple opened the booth, peered inside.
+
+Empty.
+
+The voices clamored, fists pounded on the door. Something clicked.
+Tumblers fell. The door to the great, bright hall sprung outward.
+Someone rushed in at Temple, who met him savagely with a short,
+chopping blow to his jaw. The man, temporarily blinded by the dazzling
+light, stumbled back in the path of his fellows.
+
+Temple darted into the booth, the conveyor, and slammed it shut.
+
+Fingers clawed on the outside.
+
+A sound almost too intense to be heard rang in Temple's ears. He lost
+consciousness instantly.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+"What a cockeyed world," said Alaric Arkalion Sr. to his son. "You
+certainly can't plan on anything, even if you do have more money than
+you'll ever possibly need in a lifetime."
+
+"Don't feel like that," said young Alaric. "I'm not in prison any
+longer, am I?"
+
+"No. But you're not free of the Nowhere Journey, either. There is an
+unheralded special trip to Nowhere, two weeks from today, I have been
+informed."
+
+"Oh?"
+
+"Yes, oh. I have also been informed that you will be on it. You didn't
+escape after all, Alaric."
+
+"Oh. Oh!"
+
+"What bothers me most is that scoundrel Smith somehow managed to
+escape. They haven't found him yet, I have also been informed. And
+since my contract with him calls for ten million dollars 'for services
+rendered,' I'll have to pay."
+
+"But he didn't prevent me from--"
+
+"I can't air this thing, Alaric! But listen, son: when you go where
+you are going, you're liable to find another Alaric Arkalion, your
+double. Of course, that would be Smith. If you can get him to cut his
+price in half because of what has happened, I would be delighted. If
+you could somehow manage to wring his neck, I would be even more
+delighted. Ten million dollars--for nothing."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"I'm so excited," murmured Mrs. Draper. Stephanie watched her on one
+of the new televiewers, recently installed in place of the telephone.
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"Our bill has been passed by a landslide majority in both houses of
+Congress!"
+
+"Ooo!" cried Stephanie.
+
+"Not very coherent, my dear, but those are my sentiments exactly. In
+two weeks there will be a Journey to Nowhere, a special one which will
+include, among its passengers, a woman."
+
+"But the study which had to be made--?"
+
+"It's already been made. From what I gather, they can't take it very
+far. Most of their conclusions had to be based on supposition. The
+important thing, though, is this: a woman _will_ be sent. The way the
+C.E.L. figures it, my dear, is that a woman falling in the twenty-one
+to twenty-six age group should be chosen, a woman who meets all the
+requirements placed upon the young men."
+
+"Yes," said Stephanie. "Of course. And I was just thinking that I
+would be--"
+
+"Remember those chickens!" cautioned Mrs. Draper. "We already have one
+hundred seventy-seven volunteers who'd claw each other to pieces for a
+chance to go."
+
+"Wrong," Stephanie said, smiling. "You now have one hundred
+seventy-eight."
+
+"Room for only one, my dear. Only one, you know."
+
+"Then cross the others off your list. I'm already packing my bag."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When Temple regained consciousness, it was with the feeling that no
+more than a split second of time had elapsed. So much had happened so
+rapidly that, until now, he hadn't had time to consider it.
+
+Arkalion had vanished.
+
+Vanished--he could use no other word. He was there, standing in the
+booth--and then he wasn't. Simple as that. Now you see it, now you
+don't. And goodbye, Arkalion.
+
+But goodbye Temple, too. For hadn't Temple entered the same booth,
+waiting but a second until Arkalion activated the mechanism at the
+other end? And certainly Temple wasn't in the booth now. He smiled at
+the ridiculously simple logic of his thoughts. He stood in an open
+field, the blades of grass rising to his knees, as much brilliant
+purple as they were green. Waves of the grass, stirred like tide by
+the gentle wind, and hills rolling off toward the horizon in whichever
+direction he turned. Far away, the undulating hills lifted to a half
+soft mauve sky. A somber red sun with twice Sol's apparent disc but
+half its brightness hung midway between zenith and horizon completing
+the picture of peaceful other-worldliness.
+
+Wherever this was, it wasn't Earth--or Mars.
+
+Nowhere?
+
+Temple shrugged, started walking. He chose his direction at random,
+crushing an easily discernible path behind him in the surprisingly
+brittle grass. The warm sun baked his back comfortably, the
+soft-stirring wind caressed his cheeks. Of Arkalion he found not a
+trace.
+
+Two hours later Temple reached the hills and started climbing their
+gentle slopes. It was then that he saw the figure approaching on the
+run. It took him fully half a minute to realize that the runner was
+not human.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After months of weightless inactivity, things started to happen for
+Sophia. The feeling of weight returned, but weight as she never had
+felt it before. It was as if someone was sitting on every inch of her
+body, crushing her down. It made her gasp, forced her eyes shut and,
+although she could not see it, contorted her face horribly. She lost
+consciousness, coming to some time later with a dreadful feeling of
+loginess. Someone swam into her vision dimly, stung her arm briefly
+with a needle. She slept.
+
+She was on a table, stretched out, with lights glaring down at her.
+She heard voices.
+
+"The new system is far better than testing, comrade."
+
+"Far more efficient, far more objective. Yes."
+
+"The brain emits electromagnetic vibration. Strange, is it not, that
+no one before ever imagined it could tell a story. A completely
+accurate story two years of testing could not give us."
+
+"In Russia we have gone far with the biological, psychological
+sciences. The West flies high with physics. Give them Mars; bah, they
+can have Mars."
+
+"True, Comrade. The journey to Jupiter is greater, the time consumed
+is longer, the cost, more expensive. But here on Jupiter we can do
+something they cannot do on Mars."
+
+"I know."
+
+"We can make supermen. Supermen, comrade. A wedding of Nietzsche and
+Marx."
+
+"Careful. Those are dangerous thoughts."
+
+"Merely an allusion, comrade. Merely a harmless allusion. But you take
+an ordinary human being and train him on Jupiter, speeding his
+time-sense and metabolic rate tremendously with certain endocrine
+secretions so that one day is as a month to him. You take him and
+subject him to big Jupiter's pull of gravity, more than twice
+Earth's--and in three weeks you have, yes--you have a superman."
+
+"The woman wakes."
+
+"Shh. Do not frighten her."
+
+Sophia stretched, every muscle in her body aching. Slowly, as in a
+dream, she sat up. It required strength, the mere act of pulling her
+torso upright!
+
+"What have you done to me?" she cried, focussing her still-dim vision
+on the two men.
+
+"Nothing, comrade. Relax."
+
+Sophia turned slowly on the table, got one long shapely leg draped
+over its edge.
+
+"Careful, comrade."
+
+What were they warning her about? She merely wanted to get up and
+stretch; perhaps then she would feel better. Her toe touched the
+floor, she swung her other leg over, aware of but ignoring her
+nakedness.
+
+"A good specimen."
+
+"Oh, yes, comrade. So this time they send a woman among the others.
+Well, we shall do our work. Look--see the way she is formed, so lithe,
+loose-limbed, agile. See the toning of the muscles? Her beauty will
+remain, comrade, but Jupiter shall make an amazon of her."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Sophia had both feet on the floor now. She was breathing hard, felt
+suddenly sick to her stomach. Placing both her hands on the table
+edge, she pushed off and staggered for two or three paces. She
+crumpled, buckling first at the knees then the waist, and fell in a
+writhing heap.
+
+"Pick her up."
+
+Hands under her arms, tugging. She came off the floor easily, dimly
+aware that someone carried her hundred and thirty pounds effortlessly.
+"Put me down!" she cried. "I want to try again. I am crippled,
+crippled! You have crippled me...."
+
+"Nothing of the sort, comrade. You are tired, weak, and Jupiter's
+gravity field is still too strong for you. Little by little, though,
+your muscles will strengthen to Jupiter's demands. Gravity will keep
+them from bulging, expanding; but every muscle fibre in you will have
+twice, three times its original strength. Are you excited?"
+
+"I am tired and sick. I want to sleep. What is Jupiter?"
+
+"Jupiter is a planet circling the sun at--never mind, comrade. You
+have much to learn, but you can assimilate it with much less trouble
+in your sleep. Go ahead, sleep."
+
+Sophia retched, was sick. It had been years since she cried. But
+naked, afraid, bewildered, she cried herself to sleep.
+
+Things happened while she slept, many things. Certain endocrine
+extracts accelerated her metabolism astonishingly. Within half an hour
+her heart was pumping blood through her body two hundred beats per
+minute. An hour later it reached its full rate, almost one thousand
+contractions every sixty seconds. All her other metabolic functions
+increased accordingly, and Sophia slept deeply for a week of
+subjective time--in hours. The same machine which had gleaned
+everything from her mind far more accurately than a battery of tests,
+a refinement of the electro-encephalogram, was now played in reverse,
+giving back to Sophia everything it had taken plus electrospool after
+electrospool of science, mathematics, logic, economics, history
+(Marxian, these last two), languages (including English), semantics
+and certain specialized knowledge she would need later on the
+Stalintrek.
+
+Still sleeping, Sophia was bathed in a warm whirlpool of soothing
+liquid; rubbed, massaged, her muscle-toning begun while she rested and
+regained her strength. Three hours later, objective time, she awoke
+with a headache and with more thoughts spinning around madly inside
+her brain than she ever knew existed. Gingerly, she tried standing
+again, lifting herself nude and dripping wet from a tub of steaming
+amber stuff. She stood, stretched, permitted her fright to vanish with
+a quick wave of vertigo which engulfed her. She had been fed
+intravenously, but a tremendous hunger possessed her. Before eating,
+however, she was to find herself in a gymnasium, the air close and
+stifling. She was massaged again, told to do certain exercises which
+seemed simple but which she found extremely difficult, forced to run
+until she thought she would collapse, with her legs, dragging like
+lead.
+
+She understood, now. Somehow she knew she was on Jupiter, the fifth
+and largest planet, where the force of gravity is so much greater than
+on Earth that it is an effort even to walk. She also knew that her
+metabolic rate had been accelerated beyond all comprehension and that
+in a comparatively short time--objective time--she would have thrice
+her original strength. All this she knew without knowing how she knew,
+and that was the most staggering fact of all. She did what her curt
+instructors bid, then dragged her aching muscles and her headache into
+a dining room where tired, forlorn-looking men sat around eating.
+Well, the food at least was good. Sophia attacked it ravenously.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It did not take Temple long to realize that the creature running
+downhill at him, leaving a crushed and broken wake in the purple and
+green grass, was not human. At first Temple toyed with the idea of a
+man on horseback, for the creature ran on four limbs and had two left
+over as arms. Temple gaped.
+
+The whole thing was one piece!
+
+Centaur?
+
+Hardly. Too small, for one thing. No bigger than a man, despite the
+three pairs of limbs. And then Temple had time to gape no longer, for
+the creature, whatever it was, flashed past him at what he now had to
+consider a gallop.
+
+More followed. Different. Temple stared and stared. One could have
+been a great, sentient hoop, rolling downhill and gathering momentum.
+If he carried the wheel analogy further, a huge eye stared at him from
+where the hub would have been. Something else followed with kangaroo
+leaps. One thick-thewed leg propelled it in tremendous, fifteen-foot
+hopping strides while its small, flapper-like arms beat the air
+prodigiously.
+
+Legions of creatures. All fantastically different. _I'm going crazy_,
+Temple thought, then said it aloud. "I'm going crazy."
+
+Theorizing thus, he heard a whir overhead, whirled, looked up.
+Something was poised a dozen feet off the ground, a large, box-like
+object seven or eight feet across, rotors spinning above it. That, at
+least, he could understand. A helicopter.
+
+"I'm lowering a ladder, Kit. Swing aboard."
+
+Arkalion's voice.
+
+Stunned enough to accept anything he saw, Temple waited for the rope
+ladder to drop, grasped its end, climbed. He swung his legs over a
+sill, found himself in a neat little cabin with Arkalion, who hauled
+the ladder in and did something to the controls. They sped away.
+Temple had one quick moment of lucid thought before everything which
+had happened in the last few moments shoved logic aside. What he had
+observed looked for all the world like a foot-race.
+
+"Where the hell _are_ we?" Temple demanded breathlessly.
+
+Arkalion smiled. "Where do you think? Journey's end. Welcome to
+Nowhere, Kit. Welcome to the place where all your questions can be
+answered because there's no going back. Sorry I set you down in that
+field by mistake, incidentally. Those things sometimes happen."
+
+"Can I just throw the questions at you?"
+
+"If you wish. It isn't really necessary, for you will be indoctrinated
+when we get you over to Earth city where you belong."
+
+"What do you mean, there's no going back? I thought they had a
+rotation system which for one reason or another wasn't practical at
+the moment. That doesn't sound like no going back, ever."
+
+Arkalion grunted, shrugged. "Have it your way. I _know_."
+
+"Sorry. Shoot."
+
+"Just how far do you think you have come?"
+
+"Search me. Some other star system, maybe?"
+
+"Maybe. Clean across the galaxy, Kit."
+
+Temple whistled softly. "It isn't something you can grasp just by
+hearing it. Across the galaxy...."
+
+"That isn't too important just now. How long did you think the journey
+took?"
+
+Temple nodded eagerly. "That's what gets me. It was amazing, Alaric.
+Really amazing. The whole trip couldn't have taken more than a moment
+or two. I don't get it. Did we slip out of normal space into some
+other--uh, continuum, and speed across the length of the galaxy like
+that?"
+
+"The answer to your question is yes. But your statement is way off.
+The journey did not take seconds, Kit."
+
+"No? Instantaneous?"
+
+"Far more than seconds. To reach here from Earth you travelled five
+thousand years."
+
+"What?"
+
+"More correctly, it was five thousand years ago that you left Mars.
+You would need a time machine to return, and there is no such thing.
+The Earth you know is the length of the galaxy and five thousand years
+behind you."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+It could have been a city in New England, or maybe Wisconsin. Main
+Street stretched for half a mile from Town Hall to the small
+department store. Neon tubing brightened every store front, busy
+proprietors could be seen at work through the large plate glass
+windows. There was the bustle you might expect on any Main Street in
+New England or Wisconsin, but you could not draw the parallel
+indefinitely.
+
+There were only men. No women.
+
+The hills in which the town nestled were too purple--not purple with
+distance but the natural color of the grass.
+
+A somber red sun hung in the pale mauve sky.
+
+This was Earth City, Nowhere.
+
+Arkalion had deposited Temple in the nearby hills, promised they would
+see one another again. "It may not be so soon," Arkalion had said,
+"but what's the difference? You'll spend the rest of your life here.
+You realize you are lucky, Kit. If, you hadn't come, you would have
+been dead these five thousand years. Well, good luck."
+
+Dead--five thousand years. The Earth as he knew it, dust. Stephanie, a
+fifty generation corpse. Nowhere was right. End of the universe.
+
+Temple shuffled his feet, trudged on into town. A man passed him on
+the street, stooped, gray-haired. The man nodded, did a mild
+double-take. _I'm an unfamiliar face_, Temple thought.
+
+"Howdy," he said. "I'm new here."
+
+"That's what I thought, stranger. Know just about everyone in these
+here parts, I do, and I said to myself, now there's a newcomer. Funny
+you didn't come in the regular way."
+
+"I'm here," said Temple.
+
+"Yeah. Funny thing, you get to know everyone. Eh, what you say your
+name was?"
+
+"Christopher Temple."
+
+"Make it my business to know everyone. The neighborly way, I always
+say. Temple, eh? We have one here."
+
+"One what?"
+
+"Another fellow name of Temple. Jase Temple, son."
+
+"I'll be damned!" Temple cried, smiling suddenly. "I will be damned.
+Tell me, old timer, where can I find him?"
+
+"Might be anyplace. Town's bigger'n it looks. I tell you, though, Jase
+Temple's our co-ordinator. You'll find him there, the co-ordinator's
+office. Town Hall, down the end of the street."
+
+"I already passed it," Temple told the old man. "And thanks."
+
+Temple's legs carried him at a brisk pace, past the row of store
+fronts and down to the Town Hall. He read a directory, climbed a
+flight of stairs, found a door marked:
+
+    JASON TEMPLE
+    Earth City Co-ordinator
+
+Heart pounding, Temple knocked, heard someone call, "Come in."
+
+He pushed the door in and stared at his brother, just rising to face
+him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Kit! Kit! What are you doing ... so you took the journey too!"
+
+Jason ran to him, clasped his shoulders, pounded them. "You sure are
+looking fit. Kit, you could have knocked me over with half a feather,
+coming in like that."
+
+"You're looking great too, Jase," Temple lied. He hadn't seen his
+brother in five years, had never expected to see him again. But he
+remembered a full-faced, smiling man somewhat taller than himself,
+somewhat broader across the shoulders. The Jason he saw looked
+forty-five or fifty but was hardly out of his twenties. He had fierce,
+smouldering eyes, gaunt cheeks, graying hair. He seemed a bundle of
+restless, nervous energy.
+
+"Sit down, Kit. Start talking, kid brother. Start talking and don't
+stop till next week. Tell me everything. Everything! Tell me about the
+blue sky and the moon at night and the way the ocean looks on a windy
+day and...."
+
+"Five years," said Temple. "Five years."
+
+"Five thousand, you mean," Jason reminded him. "It hardly seems
+possible. How are the folks, Kit?"
+
+"Mom's fine. Pop too. He's sporting a new Chambers Converto. You
+should see him, Jase. Sharp."
+
+"And Ann?" Jason looked at him hopefully. Ann had been Jason's
+Stephanie--but for the Nowhere Journey they would have married.
+
+"Ann's married," Temple said.
+
+"Oh. Oh. That's swell, Kit. Really swell. I mean, what the hell, a
+girl shouldn't wait forever. I told her not to, anyway."
+
+"She waited four years, then met a guy and--"
+
+"A nice guy?"
+
+"The best," said Temple. "You'd like him."
+
+Temple saw the vague hurt come to Jason's smouldering eyes. Then it
+was the same. One part of Jason wanted her to remain his over an
+unthinkable gap, another part wanted her to live a good, full life.
+
+"I'm glad," said Jason. "Can't expect a girl to wait without hope...."
+
+"Then there's no hope we'll ever get back?"
+
+Jason laughed harshly. "You tell me. Earth isn't merely sixty thousand
+light years away. Kit, do you know what a light year is?"
+
+Temple said he thought he did.
+
+"Sixty thousand of them. A dozen eternities. But the Earth we know is
+also dead. Dead five thousand years. The folks, Center City, Ann, her
+husband--all dust. Five thousand years old.... Don't mind me, Kit."
+
+"Sure. Sure, I understand." But Temple didn't, not really. You
+couldn't take five thousand years and chuck them out the window in
+what seemed the space of a heart beat and then realize they were gone
+permanently, forever. Not a period of time as long as all of recorded
+civilization--you couldn't take it, tack it on after 1992 and accept
+it. Somehow, Temple realized, the five thousand years were harder to
+swallow than the sixty thousand light years.
+
+"Well," with a visible effort, Jason snapped out of his reverie.
+Temple accepted a cigarette gratefully, his first in a long time. _In
+fifty centuries_, he thought bitterly, burrowing deeper into a funk.
+
+"Well," said Jason, "I'm acting like a prize boob. How selfish can I
+get? There must be an awful lot you'd like to know, Kit."
+
+"That's all right. I was told I'd be indoctrinated."
+
+"Ordinarily, you would. But there's no shipment now, none for another
+three months. Say, how the devil _did_ you get here?"
+
+"That's a long story. Nowhere Journey, same as you, with a little
+assist to speed things up on Mars. Jase, tell me this: what are we
+doing here? What is everyone doing here? What's the Nowhere Journey
+all about? What kind of a glorified foot-race did I see a while ago,
+with a bunch of creatures out of the telio science-fiction shows?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Jason put his own cigarette out, changed his mind, lit another one.
+"Sort of like the old joke, where does an alien go to register?"
+
+"Sort of."
+
+"It's a big universe," said Jason, evidently starting at the beginning
+of something.
+
+"I'm just beginning to learn _how_ big!"
+
+"It would be pretty unimaginative of mankind to consider itself the
+only sentient form of life, Earth the only home of intelligence, both
+from a scientific and a religious point of view. We kind of expected
+to find--neighbors out in space. Kit, the sky is full of stars, most
+stars have planets. The universe crawls with life, all sorts of life,
+all sorts of intelligent life. In short, we are not alone. It would be
+sort of like taking the jet-shuttle from Washington to New York during
+the evening rush and expecting to be the only one aboard. In reality,
+you're lucky to get breathing space.
+
+"There are biped intelligences, like humans. There are radial
+intelligences, one-legged species, tall, gangling creatures, squat
+ones, pancake ones, giants, dwarfs. There are green skins and pink
+skins and coal black--and yes, no skins. There are ... but you get the
+idea."
+
+"Uh-huh."
+
+"Strangely enough, most of these intelligences are on about the same
+developmental level. It's as if the Creator turned everything on at
+once, like a race, and said 'okay, guys get started.' Maybe it's
+because, as scientists figure, the whole universe got wound up and
+started working as a unit. I don't know. Anyway, that's the way it is.
+All the intelligences worth talking about are on about the same
+cultural level. Atomics, crude spaceflight, wars they can't handle.
+
+"And this is interesting, Kit. Most of 'em are bipedal. Not really
+human, not fully human. You can see the difference. But seventy-five
+percent of the races I've encountered have had basic similarities. A
+case of the Creator trying to figure out the best of all possible
+life-patterns and coming up with this one. Offers a wide range for
+action, for adaptation, stuff like that. Anyway, I'm losing track of
+things."
+
+"Take it easy. From what you tell me I have all the time in the
+world."
+
+"Well, I said all the races are developmentally parallel. That's
+almost true. One of them is not. One of them is so far ahead that the
+rest of us have hardly reached the crawling stage by comparison. One
+of them is the Super Race, Kit.
+
+"Their culture is old, incredibly old. So old, in fact, that some of
+us figure it's been hanging around since before the Universe took
+shape. Maybe that's why all the others are on one level, a few
+thousand million years behind the Super Race.
+
+"So, take this Super Race. For some reason we can't understand, it
+seems to be on the skids. That's just figurative. Maybe it's dying
+out, maybe it wants to pack up and leave the galaxy altogether, maybe
+it's got other undreamed of business other undreamed of places.
+Anyway, it wants out. But it's got an eon-old storehouse of culture
+and maybe it figures someone ought to have access to that and keep the
+galaxy in running order. But who? That's the problem. Who gets all
+this information, a million million generations of scientific
+problems, all carefully worked out? Who, among all the parallel races
+on all the worlds of the Universe? That's quite a problem, even for
+our Super Race boys.
+
+"You'd think they'd have ways to solve it, though. With calculating
+machines or whatever will follow calculating machines after Earthmen
+and all the others find the next faltering step after a few thousand
+years. Or with plain horse sense and logic, developed to a
+point--after millions of years at it--where it never fails. Or solve
+the problem with something we've never heard of, but solve it anyway."
+
+"What's all this got to do with--? I mean, it's an interesting story
+and when I get a chance to digest it I'll probably start gasping, but
+what about Nowhere and...."
+
+"I'm coming to that. Kit, what would you say if I told you that the
+most intelligent race the Universe has ever produced solves the
+biggest problem ever handed anyone--by playing games?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"I'd say you better continue."
+
+"That's the purpose of Nowhere, Kit. Every planet, every race has its
+Nowhere. We all come here and we play games. Planet with the highest
+score at the end of God knows how long wins the Universe, with all the
+science and the wisdom needed to fashion that universe into a dozen
+different kinds of heaven. And to decide all this, we play games.
+
+"Don't get the wrong idea. I'm not complaining. If the Superboys say
+we play, then we play. I'd take their word for it if they told me I
+had fifteen heads. But it's the sort of thing which doesn't let you
+get much sleep. Oh, Earth has a right to be proud of its record.
+United North America is in second place on a competition that's as
+wide as the Universe. But we're not first. Second. And I have a hunch
+from what's been going on around here that the games are drawing to a
+close.
+
+"Fantastic, isn't it? Out of thousands of entrants, we're good enough
+to place second. But some planet out near the star Deneb has us
+hopelessly outclassed. We might as well get the booby prize. They'll
+win and own the Universe--us included."
+
+Jason had leaned forward as he spoke, and was sitting on the edge of
+his chair now. The room was comfortably cool, but sweat beaded his
+forehead, dripped from his chin.
+
+Temple lit another cigarette, inhaling deeply. "You said the United
+States--North America--was second. I thought this was a planet-wide
+competition, planet against planet."
+
+"Earth is the one exception I've been able to find. The Deneb planet
+heads the list, then comes North America. After that, the planet of a
+star I never heard of. In fourth place is the Soviet Union."
+
+"I'll be damned," said Temple. "Well, okay. Mind if I store that away
+for future reference? I've got another question. What kind of--uh,
+games do we play?"
+
+"You name it. Mental contests. Scientific problems to be worked out
+with laboratories built to our specifications. Emotional problems with
+scores of men driven neurotic or worse every year. Problems of
+adaptability. Responses to environmental challenge. Stamina contests.
+Tests of strength, of endurance. Tests to determine depths of emotion.
+Tests to determine objectivity in what should be an objective
+situation. But the way everything is organized it's almost like a
+giant-sized, never ending Olympic Games, complete with some cockeyed
+sports events too, by the way."
+
+"With all the pageantry, too?"
+
+"No. But that's another story."
+
+"Anyway, what I saw _was_ a foot-race! And sorry, Jase, but I have
+another question."
+
+Jason shrugged, spread his hands wide.
+
+"How come all this talk about rotation? It isn't possible, not with a
+fifty century gap."
+
+"I know. They just let us in on that little deal a couple of years
+ago. Till then, we didn't know. We thought it was distance only. In
+time, after all this was over, we could go home. That's what we
+thought," Jason said bitterly. "Actually, it's twice five thousand
+years. Five to come here, five to return. Ten thousand years separate
+us from the Earth we know, and even if we could go home, that wouldn't
+be going home at all--to Earth ten thousand years in the future.
+
+"Oh, they had us hoodwinked. Afraid we might say no or something. They
+never mentioned the length or duration of the trip. I don't understand
+it, none of us do and we have some top scientists here. Something to
+do with suspended animation, with contra-terrene matter, with
+teleportation, something about latent extra-sensory powers in
+everyone, about the ability to break down an object--or a creature or
+a man--to its component atoms, to reverse--that's the word,
+reverse--those atoms and send them spinning off into space as
+contra-terrene matter.
+
+"It all boils down to putting a man in a machine on Mars, pulling a
+lever, materializing him here five thousand years later." Jason smiled
+with only a trace of humor, "Any questions?"
+
+"About a thousand," said Temple. "I--"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Something buzzed on Jason's desk and Temple watched him pick up a
+microphone, say: "Co-ordinator speaking. What's up?"
+
+The voice which answered, clear enough to be in the room with them and
+without the faintest trace of mechanical or electrical transfer, spoke
+in a strange, liquid-syllabled language Temple had never heard. Jason
+responded in the same language, with an apparent ease which surprised
+Temple--until he remembered that his brother had always had a knack of
+picking up foreign languages. Maybe that was why he held the
+Co-ordinator's job--whatever it was he co-ordinated.
+
+There was fluency in the way Jason spoke, and alarm. The trouble-lines
+etched deeply on his face stood out sharply, his eyes, if possible,
+grew more intense. "Well," he said, putting the mike down and staring
+at Temple without seeing him, "I'm afraid that does it."
+
+"What's the trouble?"
+
+"Everything."
+
+"Anything I can do?"
+
+"Item. The Superboys have discovered that Earth has two contingents
+here--us and the Soviets. They're mad. Item. Something will be done
+about it. Item. Soviet Russia has made a suggestion, or that is, its
+people here. They will put forth a champion to match one of our own
+choosing in the toughest grind of all, something to do with responding
+to environmental challenge, which doesn't mean a hell of a lot unless
+you happen to know something about it. Shall I go on?"
+
+And, when Temple nodded avidly. "We automatically lose by default. One
+of the rules of that particular game is that the contestant must be a
+newcomer. It's the sort of game you have to know nothing about, and
+incidentally, it's also the sort of game a man can get killed at.
+Well, the Soviets have a whole contingent of newcomers to pick from.
+We don't have any. As the Superboys see it, that's our own tough luck.
+We lose by default."
+
+"It seems to me--"
+
+"How can anything 'seem to you?' You're new here.... I'm sorry Kit.
+What were you saying?"
+
+"No. Go ahead."
+
+"That's only the half of it. Right after Russia takes our place and
+we're scratched off the list, the games go into their final phase.
+That was the rumor all along, and it's just been confirmed.
+Interesting to see what they do with all the contestants _after_ the
+games are over, after there's no more Nowhere Journey."
+
+"We could go back where we came from."
+
+"Ten thousand years in the future?"
+
+"I'm not afraid."
+
+"Well, anyway, the Soviets put up a man, we can't match him. So it
+looks like the U. S. S. R. represents Earth officially. Not that it
+matters. We hardly have the chance of a very slushy snowball in a very
+hot hell. But still--"
+
+"Our contestant, this guy who meets the Russian's challenge, has to be
+a newcomer?"
+
+"That's what I said. Well, we can close up shop, I guess."
+
+"You made a mistake. You said no newcomers have arrived. I'm here,
+Jase. I'm your man. Bring on your Russian Bear." Temple smiled grimly.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+"You got to hand it to Temple's kid brother."
+
+"Yeah. Cool as ice cubes."
+
+"Are you guys kidding? He doesn't know what's in store for him, that's
+all."
+
+"Do _you_?"
+
+"Now that you mention it, no. Isn't a man here who can say for sure
+what kind of environmental challenges he'll have to respond to.
+Hypno-surgery sees to it the guys who went through the thing won't
+talk about it. As if that isn't security enough, the subject's got to
+be a brand new arrival!"
+
+"Shh! Here he comes."
+
+The brothers Temple entered Earth City's one tavern quietly, but on
+their arrival all the speculative talk subsided. The long bar, built
+to accommodate half a hundred pairs of elbows comfortably, gleamed
+with a luster unfamiliar to Temple. It might have been marble, but
+marble translucent rather than opaque, giving a beautiful
+three-dimensional effect to the surface patterns.
+
+"What will it be?" Jason demanded.
+
+"Whatever you're drinking is fine."
+
+Jason ordered two scotches, neat, and the brothers drank. When Jason
+got a refill he started talking. "Does T.A.T. mean anything to you,
+Kit?"
+
+"Tat? Umm--no. Wait a minute! T.A.T. Isn't that some kind of
+projective psychological test?"
+
+"That's it. You're shown a couple of dozen pictures, more or less
+ambiguous, never cut and dry. Each one comes from a different stratum
+of the social environment, and you're told to create a dramatic
+situation, a story, for each picture. From your stories, for which you
+draw on your whole background as a human being, the psychometrician
+should be able to build a picture of your personality and maybe find
+out what, if anything, is bothering you."
+
+"What's that to do with this response to environmental challenge
+thing?"
+
+"Well," said Jason, drinking a third scotch, "the Super Boys have
+evolved T.A.T. to its ultimate. T.A.T.--that stands for Thematic
+Apperception Test. But in E.C.R.--environmental challenge and
+response, you don't see a picture and create a dramatic story around
+it. Instead, you get thrust into the picture, the situation, and you
+have to work out the solution--or suffer whatever consequences the
+particular environmental challenge has in store for you."
+
+"I think I get you. But it's all make believe, huh?"
+
+"That's the hell of it," Jason told him. "No, it's not. It is and it
+isn't. I don't know."
+
+"You make it perfectly clear," Temple smiled. "The red-headed boy
+combed his brown hair, wishing it weren't blond."
+
+Jason shrugged. "I'm sorry. For reasons you already know, the E.C.R.
+isn't very clear to me--or to anyone. You're not actually in the
+situation in a physical sense, but it can affect you physically. You
+_feel_ you're there, you actually live everything that happens to you,
+getting injured if an injury occurs ... and dying if you get killed.
+It's permanent, although you might actually be sleeping at the time.
+So, whether it's real or not is a question for philosophy. From your
+point of view, from the point of view of someone going through it,
+it's real."
+
+"So I become part of this--uh, game in about an hour."
+
+"Right. You and whoever the Russians offer as your competition. No one
+will blame you if you want to back out, Kit; from what you tell me,
+you haven't even been adequately trained on Mars."
+
+"If you draw on the entire background of your life for this E.C.R.,
+then you don't need training. Shut up and stop worrying. I'm not
+backing out of anything."
+
+"I didn't think you would, not if you're still as much like your old
+man as you used to be. Kit ... good luck."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The fact that the technicians working around him were Earthmen
+permitted Temple to relax a little. Probably, it was planned that way,
+for entering the huge white cube of a building and ascending to the
+twelfth level on a moving ramp Temple had spotted many figures, not
+all of them human. If he had been strapped to the table by unfamiliar
+aliens, if the scent of alien flesh--or non-flesh--had been strong in
+the room, if the fingers--or appendages--which greased his temples and
+clamped an electrode to each one had not felt like human fingers, if
+the men talking to him had spoken in voices too harsh or too sibilant
+for human vocal chords--if all that had been the case whatever
+composure still remained his would have vanished.
+
+"I'm Dr. Olson," said one white-gowned figure. "If any injuries occur
+while you lie here, I'm permitted to render first aid."
+
+"The same for limited psychotherapy," said a shorter, heavier man.
+"Though a fat lot of good it does when we never know what's bothering
+you, and don't have the time to work on it even if we did know."
+
+"In short," said a third man who failed to identify himself, "you may
+consider yourself as the driver of one of those midget rocket racers.
+Do they still have them on Earth? Good. You are the driver, and we
+here in this room are the mechanics waiting in your pit. If anything
+goes wrong, you can pull out of the race temporarily and have it
+repaired. But in this particular race there is no pulling out: all
+repairs are strictly of a first-aid nature and must be done while you
+continue whatever you are doing. If you break your finger and find a
+splint appearing on it miraculously, don't say you weren't warned."
+
+"Best of luck to you, young man," said the psychotherapist.
+
+"Here we go," said the doctor, finding the large vein on the inside of
+Temple's forearm and plunging a needle into it.
+
+Temple's senses whirled instantly, but as his vision clouded he
+thought he saw a large, complex device swing down from the ceiling and
+bathe his head in warming radiation. He blinked, squinted, could see
+nothing but a swirling, cloudy opacity.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Approximately two seconds later, Sophia Androvna Petrovitch watched as
+the white-gowned comrade tied a rubber strap around her arm, waited
+for the vein to swell with blood, then forced a needle in through its
+thick outer layer. Was that a nozzle overhead? No, rather a lens, for
+from it came amber warmth ... which soon faded, with everything else,
+into thick, churning fog....
+
+Temple was abruptly aware of running, plunging headlong and blindly
+through the fiercest storm he had ever seen. Gusts of wind whipped at
+him furiously. Rain cascaded down in drenching torrents. Foliage,
+brambles, branches struck against his face; mud sucked at his feet.
+Big animal shapes lumbered by in the green gloom, as frightened by the
+storm as was Temple.
+
+His head darted this way and that, his eyes could see the gnarled tree
+trunks, the dense greenery, the lianas, creepers and vines of a
+tropical rain forest--but dimly. Green murk swirled in like thick
+smoke with every gust of wind, with the rain obscuring vision almost
+completely.
+
+Temple ran until his lungs burned and he thought he must exhale fire.
+His leaden feet fought the mud with growing difficulty for every
+stride he took. He ran wildly and in no set direction, convinced only
+that he must find shelter or perish. Twice he crashed bodily into
+trees, twice stumbled to his knees only to pull himself upright again,
+sucking air painfully into his lungs and cutting out in a fresh
+direction.
+
+He ran until his legs balked. He fell, collapsing first at the knees,
+then the waist, then flopping face down in the mud. Something prodded
+his back as he fell and reaching behind him weakly Temple was aware
+for the first time that a bow and a quiver of arrows hung suspended
+from his shoulders by a strong leather thong. He wore nothing but a
+loin cloth of some nameless animal skin and he wondered idly if he had
+slain the animal with the weapon he carried. Yet when he tried to
+recollect he found he could not. He remembered nothing but his frantic
+flight through the rain forest, as if all his life he had run in a
+futile attempt to leave the rain behind him.
+
+Now as he lay there, the mud sucking at his legs, his chest, his
+armpits, he could not even remember his name. Did he have one? Did he
+have a life before the rain forest? Then why did he forget?
+
+A sense not fully developed in man and called intuition by those who
+fail to understand it made him prop his head up on his hands and
+squint through the downpour. There was something off there in the
+foliage ... someone....
+
+A woman.
+
+Temple's breath caught in his throat sharply. The woman stood half a
+dozen paces off, observing him coolly with hands on flanks. She stood
+tall and straight despite the storm and from trim ankles to long,
+lithe legs to flaring loin-clothed hips, to supple waist and tawny
+skin of fine bare breasts and shoulders, to proud, haughty face and
+long dark hair loose in the storm and glistening with rain, she was
+magnificent. Her long, bronzed body gleamed with wetness and Temple
+realized she was tall as he, a wild beautiful goddess of the jungle.
+She was part of the storm and he accepted her--but strangely, with the
+same fear the storm evoked. She would make a lover the whole world
+might relish (what world, Temple thought in confusion?) but she would
+make a terrible foe.
+
+And foe she was....
+
+"I want your bow and arrows," she told him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Temple wanted to suggest they share the weapon, but somehow he knew in
+this world which was like a dream and could tell him things the way a
+dream would and yet was vividly real, that the woman would share
+nothing with anybody.
+
+"They are mine," Temple said, climbing to his knees. He remembered the
+animal-shapes lumbering by in the storm and he knew that he and the
+animals would both stalk prey when the storm subsided and he would
+need the bow and arrows.
+
+The woman moved toward him with a liquid motion beautiful to behold,
+and for the space of a heartbeat Temple watched her come. "I will take
+them," she said.
+
+Temple wasn't sure if she could or not, and although she was a woman
+he feared her strangely. Again, it was as if something in this
+dream-world real-world could tell him more than he should know.
+
+Making up his mind, Temple sprang to his feet, whirled about and ran.
+He was plunging through the wild storm once more, blinded by the
+occasional flashes of jagged green lightning, deafened by the peals of
+thunder which followed. And he was being pursued.
+
+Minutes, hours, more than hours--for an eternity Temple ran. A
+reservoir of strength he never knew he possessed provided the energy
+for each painful step and running through the storm seemed the most
+natural thing in the world to him. But there came a time when his
+strength failed, not slowly, but with shocking suddenness. Temple
+fell, crawled a ways, was still.
+
+It took him minutes to realize the storm no longer buffeted him, more
+minutes to learn he had managed to crawl into a cave. He had no time
+to congratulate himself on his good fortune, for something stirred
+outside.
+
+"I am coming in," the woman called to him from the green murk.
+
+Temple strung an arrow to his bow, pulled the string back and faced
+the cave's entrance squatting on his heels. "Then your first step
+shall be your last. I'll shoot to kill." And he meant it.
+
+Silence from outside. Deafening.
+
+Temple felt sweat streaming under his armpits; his hands were clammy,
+his hands trembled.
+
+"You haven't seen the last of me," the woman promised. After that,
+Temple knew she was gone. He slept as one dead.
+
+When Temple awoke, bright sunlight filtered in through the foliage
+outside his cave. Although the ground was a muddy ruin, the storm had
+stopped. Edging to the mouth of the cave, Temple spread the foliage
+with his hands, peered cautiously outside. Satisfied, he took his bow
+and arrows and left the cave, pangs of hunger knotting his stomach
+painfully.
+
+The cave had been weathered in the side of a short, steep abutment a
+dozen paces from a gushing, swollen stream. Temple followed the course
+of the stream as it twisted through the jungle, ranging half a mile
+from his cave until the water course widened to form a water-hole. All
+morning Temple waited there, crouching in the grass, until one by one,
+the forest animals came to drink. He selected a small hare-like thing,
+notched an arrow to his bow, let it fly.
+
+The animal jumped, collapsed, began to slink away into the
+undergrowth, dragging the arrow from its hindquarters. Temple darted
+after it, caught it in his hands and bashed its life out against the
+bole of a tree. Returning to his cave he found two flinty stones,
+shredded a fallen branch and nursed the shards dry in the strong
+sunlight. Soon he made a fire and ate.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the days which followed, Temple returned to the water-hole and
+bagged a new catch every time he ventured forth. Things went so well
+that he began to range further and further from his cave exploring.
+Once however, he returned early to the water-hole and found footprints
+in the soft mud of its banks.
+
+The woman.
+
+That she had been observing him while he had hunted had never occurred
+to Temple, but now that the proof lay clearly before his eyes, the
+old feeling of uncertainty came back. And the next day, when he crept
+stealthily to the water-hole and saw the woman squatting there in the
+brush, waiting for him, he fled back to his cave.
+
+The thought hit him suddenly. If she were stalking him, why must he
+flee as from his own shadow? There would be no security for either of
+them until either one or the other were gone--and gone meant dead.
+Then Temple would do his own stalking.
+
+For several nights Temple hardly slept. He could have found the
+water-hole blindfolded merely by following the stream. Each night he
+would reach the hole and work, digging with a sharp stone, until he
+had fashioned a pit fully ten feet deep and six feet across. This he
+covered with branches, twigs, leaves and finally dirt.
+
+When he returned in the morning he was satisfied with his work. Unless
+the woman made a careful study of the area, she would never see the
+pit. All that day Temple waited with his back to the water-hole,
+facing the camouflaged pit, the trap he had set, but the woman failed
+to appear. When she also did not come on the second day, he began to
+think his plan would not work.
+
+The third day, Temple arrived with the sun, sat as before in the tall
+grass between the pit and the water-hole and waited. Several paces
+beyond his hidden trap he could see the tall trees of the jungle with
+vines and creepers hanging from their branches. At his back, a man's
+length behind him was the water-hole, its deepest waters no more than
+waist-high.
+
+Temple waited until the sun stood high in the sky, then was fascinated
+as a small antelope minced down to the water-hole for a drink. _You'll
+make a fine breakfast tomorrow, he thought, smiling._
+
+Something, that strange sixth sense again, made Temple turn around and
+stand up. He had time for a brief look, a hoarse cry.
+
+The woman had been the cleverer. She had set the final trap. She stood
+high up on a branch of one of the trees beyond the hidden pit and for
+an instant Temple saw her fine figure clearly, naked but for the
+loincloth. Then the soft curves became spring-steel.
+
+The woman arched her body there on the high branch, grasping a stout
+vine and rocking back with it. Temple raised his bow, set an arrow to
+let it fly. But by then, the woman was in motion.
+
+Long and lithe and graceful, she swung down on her vine, gathering
+momentum as she came. Her feet almost brushed the lip of Temple's pit
+at the lowest arc of her flight, but she clung to the vine and it
+began to swing up again like a pendulum--toward Temple.
+
+At the last moment he hunched his shoulder and tried to raise his arms
+for protection. The woman was quicker. She gathered her legs up under
+her, still clutching the vine with her slim, strong hands. The vine's
+arc carried her up at him; her knees were at a level with his head and
+she brought them up savagely, close together striking Temple brutally
+at the base of his jaw. Temple screamed as his head was jerked back
+with terrible force.
+
+The bow flew from his fingers and he fell into the water-hole, flat on
+his back.
+
+Sophia let the vine carry her out over the water, then dropped from
+it. Waist deep, she waded to where the man lay, unconscious on his
+back, half in, half out of the shallowest part of the water. She
+reached him, prodded his chest with her foot. When he did not stir,
+she rocked her weight down gracefully on her long leg, forcing his
+head under water. With a haughty smile, she watched the bubbles
+rise....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the small room where Temple's body lay in repose on a table the
+white-smocked doctor looked at the psychotherapist questioningly.
+"What's happening?"
+
+"Can't tell, doctor. But--"
+
+Suddenly Temple's still body rocked convulsively, his neck stretched,
+his head shot up and back. Blood trickled from his mouth.
+
+The doctor thrust out expert hands, examined Temple's jaw dexterously.
+
+"Broken?" the psychotherapist demanded in a worried voice.
+
+"No. Dislocated. He looks like he's been hit by a sledge hammer,
+wherever he is now, whatever's happening. This E.C.R. is the damndest
+thing."
+
+Temple's still form shuddered convulsively. He began to gasp and
+cough, obviously fighting for breath. An ugly blue swelling had by now
+lumped the base of his jaw.
+
+"What's happening?" demanded the psychotherapist.
+
+"I can't be sure," said the doctor, shaking his head. "He seems to
+have difficulty in breathing ... it's as if he were--drowning."
+
+"Bad. Anything we can do?"
+
+"No. We wait until this particular sequence ends." The doctor examined
+Temple again. "If it doesn't end soon, this man will die of
+asphyxiation."
+
+"Call it off," the psychotherapist pleaded. "If he dies now Earth will
+be represented by Russia. Call it off!"
+
+Someone entered the room. "_I_ have the authority," he said,
+selecting a hypodermic from the doctor's rack and piercing the skin
+of Temple's forearm with it. "This first test has gone far enough. The
+Russian entry is clearly the winner, but Temple must live if he is to
+compete in another."
+
+The wracking convulsions which shook Temple's body subsided. He ceased
+his choking, began to breathe regularly. With grim swiftness, the
+doctor went to work on Temple's dislocated jaw while the man who had
+stopped the contest rendered artificial respiration.
+
+The man was Alaric Arkalion.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Comrade Doctor was exultant. "Jupiter training, comrade, has given
+us a victory."
+
+"How can you be sure?"
+
+"Our entrant is unharmed, the contest has been called. Wait ... she is
+coming to."
+
+Sophia stretched, rubbed her bruised knees, sat up.
+
+"What happened, Comrade?" the doctor demanded.
+
+"My knees ache," said Sophia, rubbing them some more. "I--I killed
+him, I think. Strange, I never dreamed it would be that real."
+
+"In a sense, it _was_ real. If you killed the American, he will stay
+dead."
+
+"Nothing mattered but that world we were in, a fantastic place. Now I
+remember everything, all the things I couldn't remember then."
+
+"But your--ah, dream--what happened?"
+
+Sophia rubbed her bruised knees a third time, ruefully. "I knocked him
+unconscious with these. I forced his head under water and drowned him.
+But--before I could be sure I finished the job--I came back.... Funny
+that I should want to kill him without compunction, without reason."
+Sophia frowned, sat up. "I don't think I want anymore of this."
+
+The doctor surveyed her coldly. "This is your task on the Stalintrek.
+This you will do."
+
+"I killed him without a thought."
+
+"Enough. You will rest and get ready for the second contest."
+
+"But if he's dead--"
+
+"Apparently he's not, or we would have been informed, Comrade
+Petrovitch."
+
+"That is true," agreed the second man, who had remained silent until
+now. "Prepare for another test, Comrade."
+
+Sophia was on the point of arguing again. After all it wasn't fair. If
+in the dream-worlds which were not dream worlds she was motivated by
+but one factor and that to destroy the American and if she faced him
+with the strength of her Jupiter training it would hardly be a
+contest. And now that she could think of the American without the
+all-consuming hatred the dream world had fostered in her, she realized
+he had been a pleasant-looking young man, quite personable, in fact.
+_I could like him_, Sophia thought and hoped fervently she had not
+drowned him. Still, if she had volunteered for the Stalintrek and this
+was the job they assigned her....
+
+"I need no rest," she told the doctor, hardly trusting herself, for
+she realized she might change her mind. "I am ready any time you are."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+His name was Temple and it was the year 1960. Hectic end of a decade,
+1960. Ancient Joe Stalin was still alive, drugged half senseless
+against the tortures of an incurable stomach cancer, although the
+world thought he died in 1953. He would hang on grimly another year
+and a half, yielding the reins of empire to stout Malenkov who in the
+space of a few years would lose them to a crafty schoolteacherish
+whiplash called Beria. 1960--eleventh year of the fantastic Korean
+situation, in which the Land of the Morning Sun had become, with no
+pretentions to the contrary, a glorified training camp for the armies
+of both sides.
+
+The Cold War flared hot in Burma by mid-1960. Indo-China was a Red
+Fortress and with Tibet hopelessly behind the Iron Curtain, India
+awoke to the fact that neutrality was an impossibility in the era of
+pushbuttonry, lending her chaotic bulk to the West. Mao Tse Tung fell
+before an assassin's bullet in Peking, but a shining new political
+sewage system cleared the streets of celebration before it fairly got
+under way. Inside of forty-eight hours, China had a new Red
+boss--imported from Moscow.
+
+For some reason, it took until 1960 for the first batch of
+Hiroshima-Nagasaki mutants not to miscarry, and Sunday Supplement
+editors had a field day with the pathetic little creatures, one of
+which was born with two heads and actually survived for ten years. In
+1960 the first manned spaceship reached Luna, but the public knew
+nothing of this for another fourteen months. In the United States the
+increase in taxes and prices was matched everywhere except in the
+pocketbook of the white collar worker by an increase in wages.
+Shortages in all branches of engineering forced the government to
+subsidize engineering students and exempt them permanently from the
+draft and the soon-to-be-started Nowhere Journey, while engineers'
+salaries rose to match those of top business executives. Big news in
+the world of sports was the inclusion in the baseball Major Leagues of
+eight teams from the Pacific Coast, replacing the World Series with
+what was to become a mathematician's nightmare, the Triangle Game.
+
+But Christopher Temple had his own problems. He had his own life, too,
+which had nothing to do with the life of the real Christopher Temple,
+departed thirty-odd years later on the Nowhere Journey. Or rather,
+this _was_ Christopher Temple, living his second E.C.R.... Temple who
+had lost once, and who, if he lost again, would take the dreams and
+hopes of the Western world down into the dust of defeat with him. But
+as the fictional (although in a certain sense, real) Christopher
+Temple of 1960, he knew nothing of this.
+
+The world could go to pot. The world was going to pot, anyway. Temple
+shuddered as he poured a fourth Canadian, downing it in a tasteless,
+burning gulp. Temple was a thermo-nuclear engineer with government
+subsidized degrees from three universities including the fine new one
+at Desert Rock. Temple was a thermo-nuclear engineer with top-secret
+government clearance. Temple was a thermo-nuclear engineer with more
+military secrets buzzing around inside his head than in a warehouse of
+burned Pentagon files.
+
+Temple was also a thermo-nuclear engineer whose wife spied for the
+Russians.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He'd found out quite by accident, not meaning to eavesdrop at all.
+Returning home early one afternoon because the production engineer
+called a halt while further research was done on certain unstable
+isotopes, Temple was surprised to find his wife had a gentleman
+caller. He heard their voices clearly from where he stood out in the
+sun-parlor, and for a ridiculous instant he was torn between slinking
+upstairs and ignoring them altogether or barging into the living room
+like a high school boy flushed with jealousy. The mature thing to do,
+of course, was neither, and Temple was on the point of walking
+politely into the living room, saying hello and waiting for an
+introduction, when snatches of the conversation stopped him cold.
+
+"Silly Charles! Kit doesn't suspect a thing. I would _know_."
+
+"How can you be sure?"
+
+"Intuition."
+
+"On a framework of intuition you would place the fate of Red Empire?"
+
+"Empire, Charles?" Temple could picture Lucy's raised eyebrow. He
+listened now, hardly breathing. For one wild moment he thought he
+would retreat upstairs and forget the whole thing. Life would be much
+simpler that way. A meaningless surrender to unreality, however, and
+it couldn't be done.
+
+"Yes, Empire. Oh, not the land-grabbing, slave-dominating sort of
+things the Imperialists used to attempt, but a more subtle and hence
+more enduring empire. Let the world call us Liberator, we shall have
+Empire."
+
+Lucy laughed, a sound which Temple loved. "You may keep your ideology,
+Charles. Play with it, bathe in it, get drunk on it or drown yourself
+in it. I want my money."
+
+"You are frank."
+
+Temple could picture Lucy's shrug. "I am a paid, professional spy. By
+now you have most of the information you need. I shall have the rest
+tonight."
+
+"I'll see you in hell first!" Temple cried in rage, stalking into the
+room and almost smiling in spite of the situation when he realized how
+melodramatic his words must sound.
+
+"Kit! Kit...." Lucy raised hand to mouth, then backed away flinching
+as if she had been struck.
+
+"Yeah, Kit. A political cuckold, or does Charles get other services
+from you as well?"
+
+"Kit, you don't...."
+
+The man named Charles motioned for silence. Dapper, clean-cut,
+good-looking except for a surly, pouting mouth, he was a head shorter
+than either Temple or Lucy. "Don't waste your words, Sophia. Temple
+overheard us."
+
+_Sophia?_ thought Temple. "Sophia?" he said.
+
+Charles nodded coolly. "The real Mrs. Temple was observed, studied,
+her every habit and whim catalogued by experts. A plastic surgeon, a
+psychologist, a sociologist, a linguist, a whole battery of experts
+molded Sophia here into a new Mrs. Temple. I must congratulate them,
+for you never suspected."
+
+"Lucy?" Temple demanded dully. Reason stood suspended in a limbo of
+objective acceptance and subjective disbelief.
+
+"Mrs. Temple was eliminated. Regrettable because we don't deal in
+senseless mayhem, but necessary."
+
+Temple was not aware of leaving limbo until he felt the bruising
+contact of his knuckles with Charles' jaw. The short man toppled, fell
+at his feet. "Get up!" Temple cried, then changed his mind and tensed
+himself to leap upon the prone figure.
+
+"Hold it," Charles told him quietly, wiping blood from his lips with
+one hand, drawing an automatic from his pocket with the other. "You'd
+better freeze, Temple. You die if you don't."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Temple froze, watched Charles slither away across the high-piled green
+carpet until, safely away across the room, he came upright groggily.
+He turned to the dead Lucy's double. "What do you think, Sophia?"
+
+"I don't know. We could get out of here, probably get along without
+the final information."
+
+"That isn't what I mean. Naturally, we'll never receive the final
+facts. I mean, what do you think about Temple?"
+
+Sophia said she didn't know.
+
+"Left alone, he would go to the police. Kidnapped, he would be worse
+than useless. Harmful, actually, for the authorities would suspect
+something. Even worse if we killed him. The point is, we don't want
+the authorities to think Temple gave information to anybody."
+
+"Gave is hardly the word," said Sophia. "I was a good wife, but also a
+good gleaner. One hundred thousand dollars, Charles."
+
+"You bitch," Temple said.
+
+"Later," Charles told the woman. "The solution is this, Sophia: we
+must kill Temple, but it must look like suicide."
+
+Sophia frowned in pretty concern. "Do we have to ... kill him?"
+
+"What's the matter, my dear? Have you been playing the wifely role too
+long? If Temple stands in the way of Red Empire, Temple must die."
+
+Temple edged forward.
+
+"Uh-uh," said Charles, "mustn't." He waved the automatic and Temple
+subsided.
+
+"Is that right?" Sophia demanded. "Well, you listen to me. I have
+nothing to do with your Red Empire. I fled the Iron Curtain, came here
+to live voluntarily--"
+
+"Do you really think it was on a voluntary basis that you went? We
+allowed you to go, Sophia. We encouraged it. That way, the job of our
+technicians was all the simpler. Whether you like it or not, you have
+been a cog in the machine of Red Empire."
+
+"I still don't see why he has to die."
+
+"Leave thinking to those who can. You have a smile, a body, a certain
+way with men. I will think. I think that Temple should die."
+
+"I don't," Sophia said.
+
+"We're delaying needlessly. The man dies." And Charles raised his
+automatic, sufficiently irked to forget his suicide plan.
+
+A gap of eight or nine feet separated the two men. It might as well
+have been infinity--and it would be soon, for Temple. He saw Charles'
+small hand tighten about the automatic, saw the trigger finger grow
+white. The weapon pointed at a spot just above his navel and briefly
+he found himself wondering what it would feel like for a slug to rip
+into his stomach, burning a path back to his spine. He decided to make
+the gesture at least, if he could do no more. He would jump for
+Charles.
+
+Sophia beat him to it--and because Lucy was dead and Sophia looked
+exactly like her and Temple could not quite accept the fact, it seemed
+the most natural thing in the world. Cat-quick, Sophia leaped upon
+Charles' back and they went down together in a twisting, thrashing
+tangle of arms and legs.
+
+Temple did not wait for an invitation. He launched himself down after
+them, and then things began to happen ... fast.
+
+Sophia rolled clear, rose to her hands and knees, panting. Charles sat
+up cursing, nursing a badly scratched face. Temple hurtled at him,
+stretched him on his back again, began to pound hard fists into his
+face.
+
+Charles did not have the automatic. Neither did Temple.
+
+Something exploded against the back of Temple's head violently,
+throwing him off Charles and tumbling him over. Dimly he saw Sophia
+following through, the automatic in her hand, butt foremost. Temple's
+senses reeled. He tried to rise, succeeded only in a kind of
+shuddering slither before he subsided. He wavered between
+consciousness and unconsciousness, heard as in a dream snatches of
+conversation.
+
+"Shoot him ... shoot him!"
+
+"Shut up ... I have ... gun ... go to hell."
+
+"... kill ... only way."
+
+"My way is different ... out of here ... discuss later."
+
+"... feel...."
+
+"I said ... out of here...."
+
+The voices became a meaningless liquid torrent cascading into a black
+pit.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Now Temple sat with a water-glass a third full of Canadian in his
+hand, every once in a while reaching up gingerly to explore the
+bruised swelling on his head, the blood-matted hair which covered it.
+To be a cuckold was one thing, but to be the naive, political pawn
+sort of cuckold who is not a cuckold at all, he told himself, is far
+worse. To live with his woman, eat the meals she cooked for him, talk
+to her, think she understood him, sympathize with him, to make love to
+her with passion while she responds with play-acting for a hundred
+thousand dollar salary was suddenly the most emasculating thing in the
+world for Temple. He had not thought to ask how long it had been going
+on. Better, perhaps, if he never knew. And somewhere lost in the maze
+of his thoughts was the grimmest, bleakest reality of them all: Lucy
+was dead. Lucy--dead. But where did Lucy leave off, where did Sophia
+begin? Was Lucy dead that night they returned more than a little drunk
+from the Chamber's party, that night they danced in the living room
+until dawn obscured the stars and he carried Lucy upstairs. Lucy or
+Sophia? And the day they motored to the lake, their secret lake,
+hardly more than a dammed, widened stream and dreamed of the things
+they could do when the Cold War ended? Lucy--or Sophia? Had he ever
+noticed a difference in the way Lucy-Sophia cooked, in the way she
+spoke, the way she let him make love to her? He thought himself into a
+man-sized headache and found no answers. This way at least the loss of
+his wife was not as traumatic as it might have been. He knew not when
+she died or how and, in fact, Lucy-Sophia seemed so much like the real
+thing that he did not know where he could stop loving and start
+hating.
+
+And the girl, the Russian girl, had saved his life. Why? He couldn't
+answer that one either, unless if it were as Charles suggested: Sophia
+had studied Lucy so carefully, had learned her likes and dislikes, her
+wants and desires, had memorized and practised every quirk of her
+character to such an extent that Sophia was Lucy in essence.
+
+Which, Temple thought, would make it all the harder to seek out Sophia
+and kill her.
+
+That was the answer, the only answer. Temple felt a dull ache where
+his heart should have been, a pressure, a pounding, an unpleasant,
+unfamiliar lack of feeling. If he took his story to the F.B.I. he had
+no doubt that Charles, Sophia and whoever else worked this thing with
+them would be caught, but he, Temple, would find himself with a
+lifelong, unslakable emotional thirst. He had to quench it now and
+then feel sorry so that he might heal. He had to quench it with
+Sophia's blood ... alone.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He found her a week later at their lake. He had looked everywhere and
+had about given up, almost, in fact, ready to turn his story over to
+the police. But he had to think and their lake was the place for that.
+
+Apparently Sophia had the same idea. Temple parked on the highway half
+a mile from their lake, made his way slowly through the woods, golden
+dappled with sunlight. He heard the waters gushing merrily, heard the
+sounds of some small animal rushing off through the woods. He saw
+Sophia.
+
+She lay on their sunning rock in shorts and halter, completely
+relaxed, an opened magazine face down on the rock beside her, a pair
+of sunglasses next to it. She had one knee up, one leg stretched out,
+one forearm shielding her eyes from the sun, one arm down at her side.
+Seeing her thus, Temple felt the pressure of his automatic in its
+holster under his arm. He could draw it out, kill her before she was
+aware of his presence. Would that make him feel better? Five minutes
+ago, he would have said yes. Now he hesitated. Kill her, who seemed as
+completely Lucy as he was Temple? Send a bullet ripping through the
+body which he had known and loved, or the body that had seemed so much
+like it he had failed to tell the difference?
+
+Murder--Lucy?
+
+"No," he said aloud. "Her name is Sophia."
+
+The girl sat up, startled. "Kit," she said.
+
+"Lucy."
+
+"You can't make up your mind, either." She smiled just like Lucy.
+
+Dumbly, he sat down next to her on the rock. Strong sunlight had
+brought a fine dew of perspiration to the bronzed skin of her face.
+She got a pack of cigarettes out from under the magazine, lit one,
+offered it to Temple, lit another and smoked it. "Where do we go from
+here?" she wanted to know.
+
+"I--"
+
+"You came to kill me, didn't you? Is that the only way you can ever
+feel better, Kit?"
+
+"I--" He was going to deny it, then think.
+
+"Don't deny it. Please." She reached in under his jacket, withdrawing
+her hand with the snub-nosed automatic in it. "Here," she said, giving
+it to him.
+
+He took the gun, hefted it, let it fall, clattering, on the rock.
+
+"Listen," she said. "I could have told you I was Lucy. If I said now
+that I am Lucy and if I kept on saying it, you'd believe me. You'd
+believe me because you'd want to."
+
+"Well," said Temple.
+
+"I am not Lucy. Lucy is dead. But ... but I was Lucy in everything but
+being Lucy. I thought her thoughts, dreamed her dreams, loved her
+loves."
+
+"You killed her."
+
+"No. I had nothing to do with that. She was killed, yes. Not by me.
+Kit, if I asked you when Lucy stopped, and ... when I began, could you
+tell me?"
+
+He had often thought about that. "No," he said truthfully. "You're as
+much my wife as--she was."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+She clutched at his hand impulsively. Then, when he failed to
+respond, she withdrew her own hand. "Then--then I _am_ Lucy. If I am
+Lucy in every way, Lucy never died."
+
+"You betrayed me. You stood by while murder was committed. You are
+guilty of espionage."
+
+"Lucy loved you. I am Lucy...."
+
+"... Betrayed me...."
+
+"For a hundred thousand dollars. For the chance to live a normal life,
+for the chance to forget Leningrad in the wintertime, watery potato
+soup, rags for clothing, swaggering commissars, poverty, disease. Do
+you think I realized I could fall in love with you so completely? If I
+did, don't you think that would have changed things? I am not Sophia,
+Kit. I was, but I am not. They made me Lucy. Lucy can't be dead, not
+if I am she in every way."
+
+"What can we do?"
+
+"I don't know. I only want to be your wife...."
+
+"Well, then tell me," he said bitterly. "Shall I go back to the plant
+and continue working, knowing all the time that our most closely
+guarded secret is in Russian hands and that my wife is responsible?"
+He laughed. "Shall I do that?"
+
+"Your secrets never went anywhere."
+
+"Shall I ... _what_?"
+
+"Your secrets never went anywhere. Charles is dead. I have destroyed
+all that we took. I am not Russian any longer. American. They made me
+American. They made me Lucy. I want to go right on being Lucy, your
+wife."
+
+Temple said nothing for a long time. He realized now he could not kill
+her. But everything else she suggested.... "Tell me," he said. "Tell
+me, how long have you been Lucy? You've got to tell me that."
+
+"How long have we been married?"
+
+"You know how long. Three years."
+
+Sophia crushed her cigarette out on the rock, wiped perspiration
+(tears?) from her cheek with the back of her hand. "You have never
+known anyone but me in your marriage bed, Kit."
+
+"You--you're lying."
+
+"No. They did what they did on the eve of your marriage. I have been
+your wife for as long as you have had one."
+
+Temple's head whirled. It had been a quick courtship. He had known
+Lucy only two weeks in those hectic post-graduate days of 1957. But
+for fourteen brief days, it was Sophia he had known all along.
+
+"Sophia, I--"
+
+"There is no Sophia, not any more."
+
+He had hardly known Lucy, the real Lucy. This girl here was his wife,
+always had been. Had the first fourteen days with Lucy been anything
+but a dream? He was sorry Lucy had died--but the Lucy he had thought
+dead was Sophia, very much alive.
+
+He took her in his arms, almost crushing her. He held her that way,
+kissed her savagely, letting passion of a different sort take the
+place of murder.
+
+_This is my woman_, he thought, and awoke on his white pallet in
+Nowhere.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"I am awake," said Temple.
+
+"We see that. You shouldn't be."
+
+"No?"
+
+"No. There is one more dream."
+
+Temple dozed restfully but was soon aware of a commotion. Strangely,
+he did not care. He was too tired to open his eyes, anyway. Let
+whatever was going to happen, happen. He wanted his sleep.
+
+But the voice persisted.
+
+"This is highly irregular. You came in here once and--"
+
+"I did you a favor, didn't I?" (That voice is familiar, Temple
+thought.)
+
+"Well, yes. But what now?"
+
+"Temple's record is now one and one. In the second sequence he was the
+victor. The Soviet entry had to extract certain information from him
+and turn it over to her people. She extracted the information well
+enough but somehow Temple made her change her mind. The information
+never went anyplace. How Temple managed to play counterspy I don't
+know, but he played it and won."
+
+"That's fine. But what do you want?"
+
+"The final E.C.R. is critical." (The voice was Arkalion's!) "How
+critical, I can't tell you. Sufficient though, if you know that you
+lose no matter how Temple fares. If the Russian woman defeats Temple,
+you lose."
+
+"Naturally."
+
+"Let me finish. If Temple defeats the Russian woman, you also lose.
+Either way, Earth is the loser. I haven't time to explain what you
+wouldn't understand anyway. Will you cooperate?"
+
+"Umm-mm. You did save Temple's life. Umm-mm, yes. All right."
+
+"The third dream sequence is the wrong dream, the wrong contest with
+the wrong antagonist at the wrong time, when a far more important
+contest is brewing ... with the fate of Earth as a reward for the
+victor."
+
+"What do you propose?"
+
+"I will arrange Temple's final dream. But if he disappears from this
+room, don't be alarmed. It's a dream of a different sort. Temple won't
+know it until the dream progresses, you won't know it until
+everything is concluded, but Temple will fight for a slave or a free
+Earth."
+
+"Can't you tell us more?"
+
+"There is no time, except to say that along with the rest of the
+Galaxy, you've been duped. The Nowhere Journey is a grim, tragic
+farce.
+
+"Awaken, Kit!"
+
+Temple awoke into what he thought was the third and final dream.
+Strange, because this time he knew where he was and why, knew also
+that he was dreaming, even remembered vividly the other two dreams.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Stealth," said Arkalion, and led Temple through long, white-walled
+corridors. They finally came to a partially open door and paused
+there. Peering within, Temple saw a room much like the one he had
+left, with two white-gowned figures standing anxiously over a table.
+And prone on the table was Sophia, whom Temple had loved short moments
+before, in his second dream. Moments? Years. (Never, except in a
+dream.)
+
+"She's lovely," Arkalion whispered.
+
+"I know." Like himself, Sophia was garbed in a loose jumper and
+slacks.
+
+"Stealth," said Arkalion again. "Haste." Arkalion disappeared.
+
+"Well," Temple told himself. "What now? At least in the other dreams I
+was thrust so completely into things, I knew what to do." He rubbed
+his jaw grimly. "Not that it did much good the first time."
+
+Temple poked the partially-ajar door with his foot, pushing it open.
+The two white-smocked figures had their backs to him, leaned intently
+over the table and Sophia. Without knowing what motivated him, Temple
+leaped into the room, grasped the nearer figure's arm, whirled him
+around. Startled confusion began to alter the man's coarse features,
+but his face went slack when Temple's fist struck his jaw with
+terrible strength. The man collapsed.
+
+The second man turned, mouthing a stream of what must have been
+Russian invective. He parried Temple's quick blow with his left hand,
+crossing his own right fist to Temple's face and almost ending the
+fight as quickly as it had started. Temple went down in a heap and was
+vaguely aware of the Russian's booted foot hovering over his face. He
+reached out, grabbed the boot with both hands, twisted. The man
+screamed and fell and then they were rolling over and over, striking
+each other with fists, knees, elbows, gouging, butting, cursing.
+Temple found the Russian's throat, closed his hands around it,
+applied pressure. Fists pounded his face, nails raked him, but slowly
+he succeeded in throttling the Russian. When Temple got to his feet,
+trembling, the Russian stared blankly at the ceiling. He would go on
+staring that way until someone shut his eyes.
+
+Not questioning the incomprehensible, Temple knew he had done what he
+must. Hardly seeking for the motive he could not find he lifted the
+unconscious Sophia off the table, slung her long form across his
+shoulder, plodded with her from the room. Arkalion had said haste. He
+would hurry.
+
+He next was aware of a spaceship. Remembering no time lag, he simply
+stood in the ship with Arkalion. And Sophia.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He knew it was a spaceship because he had been in one before and
+although the sensation of weightlessness was not present, they were in
+deep space. Stars you never see through an obscuring atmosphere hung
+suspended in the viewports. Cold-bright, not flickering against the
+plush blackness of deep space, phalanxes and legions of stars without
+numbers, in such wild profusion that space actually seemed three
+dimensional.
+
+"This is a different sort of dream," said Sophia in English. "I
+remember. I remember everything. Kit--"
+
+"Hello." He felt strangely shy, became mildly angry when Arkalion
+hardly tried to suppress a slight snicker. "Well, that second dream
+wasn't our idea," Temple protested. "Once there, we acted ... and--"
+
+"And...." said Sophia.
+
+"And nothing," Arkalion told them. "You haven't time. This is a
+spaceship, not like the slow, blumbling craft your people use to reach
+Mars or Jupiter."
+
+"Our people?" Temple demanded. "Not yours?"
+
+"Will you let me finish? Light is a laggard crawler by comparison with
+the drive propelling this ship. Temple, Sophia, we are leaving your
+Galaxy altogether."
+
+"Is that a fact?" said Sophia, her Jupiter-found knowledge telling her
+they were traveling an unthinkable distance. "For some final contest
+between us, no doubt, to decide whether the U. S. S. R. or the U. S.
+represents Earth? Kit, I l-love you, but...."
+
+"But Russia is more important, huh?"
+
+"No. I didn't say that. All my training has been along those lines,
+though, and even if I'm aware it is indoctrination, the fact still
+remains. If your country is truly better, but if I have seen your
+country only through the eyes of Pravda, how can I ... I don't know,
+Kit. Let me think."
+
+"You needn't," said Arkalion, smiling. "If the two of you would let me
+get on with it you'd see this particular train of thought is
+meaningless, quite meaningless." Arkalion cleared his throat.
+
+"Strange, but I have much the same problem as Sophia has. My
+indoctrination was far more subtle though. Far more convincing, based
+upon eons of propaganda methods. Temple, Sophia, those who initiated
+the Nowhere Journey for hundreds of worlds of your galaxy did so with
+a purpose."
+
+"I know. To decide who gets their vast knowledge."
+
+"Wrong. To find suitable hosts in a one-way relationship which is
+hardly symbiosis, really out and out parasitism."
+
+"What?"
+
+And Sophia: "What are you talking about?"
+
+"The sick, decadent, tired old creatures you consider your superiors.
+Parasites. They need hosts in order to survive. Their old hosts have
+been milked dry, have become too highly specialized, are now incapable
+physically or emotionally of meeting a wide variety of environmental
+challenges. The Nowhere Journey is to find a suitable new host. They
+have found one. You of Earth."
+
+"I don't understand," Temple said, remembering the glowing accounts of
+the 'superboys' he had been given by his brother Jason. "I just don't
+get it. How can we be duped like that? Wouldn't someone have figured
+it out? And if they have all the power everyone says, there isn't much
+we can do about it, anyway."
+
+Arkalion scowled darkly. "Then write Earth's obituary. You'll need
+one."
+
+"Go ahead," Sophia told Arkalion. "There's more you want to say."
+
+"All right. Temple's thought is correct. They have tremendous power.
+That is why you could be duped so readily. But their power is not
+concentrated here. These much-faster-than-light ships are an extreme
+rarity, for the power-drive no longer exists. Five ships in all, I
+believe. Hardly enough to invade a planet, even for them. It takes
+them thousands of years to get here otherwise. Thousands. Just as it
+took me, when I came to Mars and Earth in the first place."
+
+"What?" cried Temple. "You...."
+
+"I am one of them. Correct. I suppose you would call me a subversive,
+but I have made up my mind. Parasitism is unsatisfactory, when the
+Maker got us started on symbiosis. Somewhere along the line, evolution
+took a wrong turn. We are--monsters."
+
+"What do you look like?" Sophia demanded while Temple stood there
+shaking his head and muttering to himself.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"You couldn't see me, I am afraid. I was the representative here to
+see how things were going, and when my people found you of the Earth
+divided yourselves into two camps they realized they had been
+considering your abilities in halves. Put together, you are probably
+the top culture of your galaxy."
+
+"So, we win," said Temple.
+
+"Right and wrong. You lose. Earthmen will become hosts. Know what a
+back-seat driver is, Temple? You would be a back seat driver in your
+own body. Thinking, feeling, wanting to make decisions, but unable to.
+Eating when the parasite wants to, sleeping at his command, fighting,
+loving, living as he wills it. And perishing when he wants a new
+garment. Oh, they offer something in return. Their culture, their way
+of life, their scientific, economic, social system. It's good, too.
+But not worth it. Did you know that their economic struggle between
+democratic capitalism and totalitarian communism ended almost half a
+million years ago? What they have now is a system you couldn't even
+understand."
+
+"Well," Temple mused, "even if everything you said were true--"
+
+"Don't tell me you don't believe me?"
+
+"If it were true and we wanted to do something about it, what could we
+do?"
+
+"Now, nothing. Nothing but delay things by striking swiftly and
+letting fifty centuries of time perform your rearguard action. Destroy
+the one means your enemy has of reaching Earth within foreseeable time
+and you have destroyed his power to invade for a hundred centuries. He
+can still reach Earth, but the same way you journeyed to Nowhere. Ten
+thousand years of space travel in suspended animation. You saw me that
+way once, Temple, and wondered. You thought I was dead, but that is
+another story.
+
+"Anyway, let my people invade your planet, ten thousand years hence.
+If Earth takes the right direction, if democracy and free thought and
+individual enterprise win over totalitarian standardization as I think
+they will, your people will be more than a match for the decadent
+parasites who may or may not have sufficient initiative to cross space
+the slow way and attempt invasion in ten thousand years."
+
+"Ten thousand?" said Temple.
+
+"Five from Earth to Nowhere. The distance to my home is far greater,
+but the rate of travel can be increased. Ten thousand years."
+
+"Tell me," Temple demanded abruptly, "is this a dream?"
+
+Arkalion smiled. "Yes and no. It is not a dream like the others
+because I assure you your bodies are not now resting on a pair of
+identical white tables. Still in the other dreams physical things
+could happen to you, while now you'll find you can do things as in a
+dream. For example, neither one of you knows the intricacies of a
+spaceship, yet if you are to save your planet, you must know the
+operation of the most intricate of all space ships, a giant space
+station."
+
+"Then we're not dreaming?" asked Temple.
+
+"I never said that. Consider this sequence of events about half way
+between the dream stage you have already seen and reality itself.
+Remember this: you'll have to work together; you'll have to function
+like machines. You will be handling totally alien equipment with only
+the sort of knowledge which can be played into your brains to guide
+you."
+
+Sophia sighed. "Being an American, Kit is too much of an individual to
+help in such a situation."
+
+Temple snorted. "Being a cog in a simple, state-wide machine is one
+thing--orienting yourself in a totally new situation is another."
+
+"Yes, well--"
+
+"See?" Arkalion cautioned. "See? Already you are arguing, but you must
+work together completely, with not the slightest conflict between you.
+As it is, you hardly have a chance."
+
+"What about you?" said Sophia practically. "Can't you help?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Arkalion shook his head. "No. While I'd like to see you come out of
+this thing on top, I would not like to sacrifice my life for it--which
+is exactly what I'd do if I remained with you and you lost.
+
+"So, let's get down to detail. Imagine space being folded, imagine
+your time sense slowing, imagine a new dimension which negates the
+need for extensive linear travel, imagine anything you want--but we
+are in the process of moving nine hundred thousand light years through
+deep space. There is a great galaxy at that distance, almost a twin of
+your Milky Way: you call it the Andromeda Nebula. Closer to your own
+system are the two Magellanic Clouds, so called, something else which
+you table NGC 6822, and finally the Triangulum Galaxy. All have
+billions of stars, but none of the stars have life. To find life
+outside your galaxy you must seek it across almost a million light
+years. My people live in Andromeda.
+
+"Guarding the flank of their galaxy and speeding through
+inter-galactic space at many light years per minute is what you might
+call a space station--but on a scale you've never dreamed of. Five of
+your miles in diameter, it is a fortress of terrible strength, a
+storehouse of half a million years of weapon development. It has been
+arranged that the one man running this station--"
+
+"Just one?" Temple asked.
+
+"Yes. You will see why when you get there. It has been arranged that
+he will leave, ostensibly on a scouting expedition. You see, I am not
+alone in this venture. At any rate, he will report that the space
+station has been taken--as, indeed, it will be, by the two of you. The
+only ships capable of overtaking your station in its flight will be
+the only ships capable of reaching your galaxy before cultural
+development gives you a chance to survive. They will attack you. You
+will destroy them--or be destroyed yourselves. Any questions?"
+
+The whole thing sounded fantastic to Temple. Could the fate of all
+Earth rest on their shoulders in a totally alien environment? Could
+they be expected to win? Temple had no reason to doubt the former, as
+wild as it sounded. As for the latter, all he could do was hope. "Tell
+me," he said, "how will we learn the use of all the weapons you claim
+are at our disposal?"
+
+"Can you answer that for him, Sophia?" Arkalion wanted to know.
+
+"Umm, I think so. The same way I had all sorts of culture crammed into
+me on Jupiter."
+
+"Precisely. Only take it from me our refinement is far better, and the
+amount you have to learn actually is less."
+
+"What I'd like to know--" Sophia began.
+
+"Forget it. I want some sleep and you'll learn everything that's
+necessary at the space station."
+
+And after that, ply Arkalion as they would with questions, he slumped
+down in his chair and rested. Temple could suddenly understand and
+appreciate. He felt like curling up into a tight little ball himself
+and sleeping until everything was over, one way or the other.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+"It's all so big! So incredible! We'll never understand it! Never...."
+
+"Relax, Sophia. Arkalion said--"
+
+"I know what Arkalion said, but we haven't learned anything yet."
+
+Hours before, Arkalion had landed them on the space station, a
+gleaming, five-mile in diameter globe, and had quickly departed. Soon
+after that they had found themselves in a veritable labyrinth of
+tunnels, passageways, vaults. Occasionally they passed a great glowing
+screen, and always the view of space was the same. Like a magnificent,
+elongated shield, sparkling with a million million points of light,
+pale gold, burnished copper, blue of glacial ice and silver white, the
+Andromeda Galaxy spanned space from upper right to lower left. Off at
+the lower right hand corner they could see their space station;
+apparently the viewer itself stood far removed in space, projecting
+its images here at the globe.
+
+Awed the first time they had seen one of the screens, Temple said,
+"All the poets who ever wrote a line would have given half their lives
+to see this as we see it now."
+
+"And all the writers, musicians, artists...."
+
+"Anyone, who ever thought creatively, Sophia. How can you say it's
+breathtaking or anything like that when words weren't ever spoken
+which can...."
+
+"Let's not go poetic just yet," Sophia admonished him with a smile.
+"We'd better get squared away here, as the expression goes, before
+it's too late."
+
+"Yes.... Hello, what's this?" A door irised open for them in a solid
+wall of metal. Irised was the only word Temple could think of, for a
+tiny round hole appeared in the wall spreading evenly in all
+directions with a slow, uniform, almost liquid motion. When it was
+large enough to walk through, they entered a completely bare room and
+Temple whirled in time to see the entrance irising shut.
+
+"Something smells," said Sophia, sniffing at the air.
+
+Sweet and cloying, the odor grew stronger. Temple may have heard a
+faint hissing sound. "I'm getting sleepy," he said.
+
+Nodding, Sophia ran, banged on the wall where the door had opened so
+suddenly, then closed. No response. "Is it a trap?"
+
+"By whom? For what?" Temple found it difficult to keep his eyes from
+closing. "Fight it if you want, Sophia. I'm going to sleep." And he
+squatted in the center of the floor, staring vacantly at the bare
+wall.
+
+Just as Temple was drifting off into a dream about complex machinery
+he did not yet understand but realized he soon would, Sophia joined
+him the hard way, collapsing alongside of him, unconscious and
+sprawling gracelessly on the floor.
+
+Temple slept.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Sleepy-head, get up." Sophia stirred as he spoke and shook her. She
+yawned, stretched, smiled up at him lazily. "How do you feel now?"
+
+"Hungry, Kit."
+
+"That's a point. It's all right now, though. I know exactly where the
+food concentrates are kept. Three levels below us, second segment of
+the wall. You can make those queer doors iris by pressing the wall
+twice, with about a one second interval."
+
+They found the food compartment, discovered row on row of cans, boxes,
+jars. Temple opened one of the cans, gazed in disappointment on a
+sorry looking thing the size of his thumb. Brown, shriveled, dry and
+almost flaky, it might have been a bird.
+
+Sophia turned up her nose. "If that's the best this place has to
+offer, I'm not so hungry anymore."
+
+Suddenly, she gaped. So did Temple. A savory odor attracted their
+attention, steam rising from the small can added to their interest.
+Amazing things happened to the withered scrap of food on exposure to
+the air. Temple barely had time to extract it from the can, burning
+his fingers in the process, when it became twice the can's size. It
+grew and by the time it finished, it was as savory looking a five
+pound fowl as Temple had ever seen. Roasted, steaming hot, ready to
+eat.
+
+They tore into it with savage gusto.
+
+"Stephanie should see me now," Temple found himself saying and
+regretted it.
+
+"Stephanie? Who's that?"
+
+"A girl."
+
+"Your girl?"
+
+"What's the difference? She's a million light years and fifty
+centuries away."
+
+"Answer me."
+
+"Yes," said Temple, wishing he could change the subject. "My girl." He
+hadn't thought of Stephanie in a long time, perhaps because it was
+meaningless to think of someone dead fifty centuries. Now that the
+thoughts had been stirred within him, though, he found them poignantly
+pleasant.
+
+"Your girl ... and you would marry her if you could?"
+
+He had grown attached to Sophia, not in reality, but in the second of
+their dream worlds. He wished the memory of the dream had not lingered
+for it disturbed him. In it he had loved Sophia as much as he now
+loved Stephanie although the one was obtainable and the other was a
+five-thousand year pinch of dust. And how much of the dream lingered
+with him, in his head and his heart?
+
+"Let's forget about it," Temple suggested.
+
+"No. If she were here today and if everything were normal, would you
+marry her?"
+
+"Why talk about what can't be?"
+
+"I want to know, that's why."
+
+"All right. Yes, I would. I would marry Stephanie."
+
+"Oh," said Sophia. "Then what happened in the dream meant ...
+nothing."
+
+"We were two different people," Temple said coolly, then wished he
+hadn't for it was only half-true. He remembered everything about the
+dream-which-was-more-than-a-dream vividly. He had been far more
+intimate with Sophia, and over a longer period of time, than he had
+ever been with Stephanie. And even if Stephanie appeared impossibly on
+the spot and he spent the rest of his life as her husband, still he
+would never forget his dream-life with Sophia. In time he could let
+himself tell her that. But not now; now the best thing he could do
+would be to change the subject.
+
+"I see," Sophia answered him coldly.
+
+"No, you don't. Maybe some day you will."
+
+"There's nothing but what you told me. I see."
+
+"No ... forget it," he told her wearily.
+
+"Of course. It was only a dream anyway. The dream before that I almost
+killed you out of hatred anyway. Love and hate, I guess they
+neutralize. We're just a couple of people who have to do a job
+together, that's all."
+
+"For gosh sakes, Sophia! That isn't true. I loved Stephanie. I still
+would, were Stephanie alive. But she's--she's about as accessible as
+the Queen of Sheba."
+
+"So? There's an American expression--you're carrying a torch."
+
+Probably, Temple realized, it was true. But what did all of that have
+to do with Sophia? If he and Sophia ... if they ... would it be fair
+to Sophia? It would be exactly as if a widower remarried, with the
+memory of his first wife set aside in his heart ... no, different, for
+he had never wed Stephanie, and always in him would be the desire for
+what had never been.
+
+"Let's talk about it some other time," Temple almost pleaded, wanting
+the respite for himself as much as for Sophia.
+
+"No. We don't have to talk about it ever. I won't be second best, Kit.
+Let's forget all about it and do our job. I--I'm sorry I brought the
+whole thing up."
+
+Temple felt like an unspeakable heel. And, anyway, the whole thing
+wasn't resolved in his mind. But they couldn't just let it go at that,
+not in case something happened when the ships came and one or both of
+them perished. Awkwardly, for now he felt self-conscious about
+everything, he got his arms about Sophia, drew her to him, placed his
+lips to hers.
+
+That was as far as he got. She wrenched free, shoved clear of him. "If
+you try that again, you will have another dislocated jaw."
+
+Temple shrugged wearily. If anything were to be resolved between them,
+it would be later.
+
+When the ships came moments afterwards--seven, not the five Arkalion
+predicted--they were completely unprepared.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Temple spotted them first on one of the viewing screens, half way
+between the receiver and the space station itself, silhouetted against
+the elongated shield of Andromeda. They soared out of the picture,
+appeared again minutes later, zooming in from the other direction in
+two flights of four ships and three.
+
+"Come on!" Sophia cried over her shoulder, irising the door and
+plunging from the room. Temple followed at her heels but her Jupiter
+trained muscles pushed her lithe legs in long, powerful strides and
+soon she outdistanced him. By the time he reached the armaments vault,
+breathless, she was seated at the single gun-emplacement, her fingers
+on the controls.
+
+"Watch the viewing screen and tell me how we're doing," Sophia told
+him, not taking her eyes from the dials and levers.
+
+Temple watched, fascinated, saw a thin pencil of radiant energy leap
+out into space, missing one of the ships by what looked like a scant
+few miles. He called the corrective azimuth to her, hardly surprised
+by the way his mind had absorbed and now could use its new-found
+knowledge.
+
+Temple understood and yet did not understand. For example, he knew the
+station had but one gun and Sophia sat at it now, yet in certain ways
+it didn't make sense. Could it cover all sectors of space? His mind
+supplied the answer although he had not been aware of the knowledge an
+instant before: yes. The space station did not merely rotate. Its
+surface was a spherical projection of a moving Moebius strip and
+although he tried to envision the concept, he failed. The weapon could
+be fired at any given point in space at twenty second intervals,
+covering every other conceivable point in the ensuing time.
+
+Sophia was firing again and Temple watched the thin beam leap across
+space. "Hit!" he roared. "Hit!"
+
+Something flashed at the front end of the lead ship. The light blinded
+him, but when he could see again only six ships remained in
+space--casting perfect shadows on the Andromeda Galaxy! The source of
+light, Temple realized triumphantly, was out of range, but he could
+picture it--a glowing derelict of a ship, spewing heat, light and
+radioactivity into the void.
+
+"One down," Sophia called. "Six to go. I like your American
+expressions. Like sitting ducks--"
+
+She did not finish. Abruptly, light flared all around them. Something
+shrieked in Temple's ears. The vault shuddered, shook. Girders
+clattered to the floor, stove it in, revealing black rock. Sophia was
+thrown back from the single gun, crashing against the wall, flipping
+in air and landing on her stomach.
+
+Temple ran to her, turned her over. Blood smeared her face, trickled
+from her lips. Although she did not move, she wasn't dead. Temple half
+dragged, half carried her from the vault into an adjoining room. He
+stretched her out comfortably as he could on the floor, ran back into
+the vault.
+
+Molten metal had collected in one corner of the room, crept sluggishly
+toward him across the floor, heating it white-hot. He skirted it,
+climbed over a twisted girder, pushed his way past other debris, found
+himself at the gun emplacement.
+
+"How dumb can I get?" Temple said aloud. "Sophia ran to the gun, must
+have assumed I set up the shields." Again, it was an item of
+information stored in his mind by the wisdom of the space station.
+Protective shields made it impossible for anything but a direct hit on
+the emplacement to do them any harm, only Temple had never set the
+shields in place. He did so now, merely by tripping a series of
+levers, but glancing at a dial to his left he realized with alarm that
+the damage possibly had already been done. The needle, which measured
+lethal radiation, hovered half way between negative and the critical
+area marked in red and, even as Temple watched it, crept closer to the
+red.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+How much time did he have? Temple could not be sure, bent grimly over
+the weapon. It was completely unfamiliar to his mind, completely
+unfamiliar to his fingers. He toyed with it, released a blast of
+radiant energy, whirled to face the viewing screen. The beam streaked
+out into the void, clearly hundreds of miles from its objective.
+
+Cursing, Temple tried again, scoring a near miss. The ships were
+trading a steady stream of fire with him now, but with the shielding
+up it was harmless, striking and then bouncing back into space. Temple
+scored his first hit five minutes after sitting down at the gun,
+whooped triumphantly and fired again. Five ships left.
+
+But the dial indicated an increase in radioactivity as newly created
+neutrons spread their poison like a cancer. Behind Temple, the vault
+was a shambles. The pool of molten metal had increased in size, almost
+cutting off any possibility of escape. He could jump it now, Temple
+realized, but it might grow larger. Consolidating its gains now, it
+had sheared a pit in the floor, had commenced vaporizing the rock
+below it, hissing and lapping with white-hot insistence.
+
+Something boomed, grated, boomed again and Temple watched another
+girder bounce off the floor, dip one end into the molten pool and
+clatter out a stub. Apparently the damage was extensive; a structural
+weakness threatened to make the entire ceiling go.
+
+Temple fired again, got another ship. He could almost feel death
+breathing on his shoulder, in no great hurry but sure of its prize. He
+fired the weapon.
+
+If one ship remained when they could no longer use the gun, they would
+have failed. One ship might make the difference for Earth. One....
+
+Three left. Two.
+
+They raked the space station with blast after blast--futilely. They
+spun and twisted and streaked by, offering poor targets. Temple waited
+his chance ... and glanced at the dial which measured radioactivity.
+He yelped, stood up. The needle had encroached upon the red area.
+Death to remain where he was more than a moment or two. Not quick
+death, but rather slow and lingering. He could do what he had to, then
+perish hours later. His life--for Earth? If Arkalion had known all the
+answers, and if he could get both ships and if there weren't another
+alternative for the aliens, the parasites.... Temple stabbed out with
+his pencil beam, caught the sixth ship, then saw the needle dip
+completely into the red. He got up trembling, stepped back, half
+tripped on the stump of a girder as his eyes strayed in fascination to
+the viewing screen. The seventh ship was out of range, hovering off in
+the void somewhere, awaiting its chance. If Temple left the gun the
+ship would come in close enough to hit the emplacement despite its
+protective shielding. Well, it was suicide to remain there--especially
+when the ship wasn't even in view.
+
+Temple leaped over the molten pool and left the vault.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He found Sophia stirring, sitting up.
+
+"What hit me?" she said, and laughed. "Something seems to have gone
+wrong, Kit ... what...?"
+
+"It's all right now," he told her, lying.
+
+"You look pale."
+
+"You got one. I got five. One ship to go."
+
+"What are you waiting for?" And Sophia sprang to her feet, heading for
+the vault.
+
+"Hold it!" Temple snapped. "Don't go in there."
+
+"Why not. I'll get the last ship and--"
+
+"_Don't go in there!_" Temple tugged at her arm, pulled her away from
+the vault and its broken door which would not iris closed any more.
+
+"What's the matter, Kit?"
+
+"I--I want to finish the last one myself, that's all."
+
+Sophia got herself loose, reached the circular doorway, peered inside.
+"Like Dante's Inferno," she said. "You told me nothing was the matter.
+Well, we can get through to the emplacement, Kit."
+
+"No." And again he stopped her. At least he had lived in freedom all
+his life and although he was still young and did not want to die,
+Sophia had never known freedom until now and it wouldn't be right if
+she perished without savoring its fruits. He had a love, dust fifty
+centuries, he had his past and his memories. Sophia had only the
+future. Clearly, if someone had to yield life, Temple would do it.
+
+"It's worse than it looks," he told her quietly, drawing her back from
+the door again. He explained what had happened, told her the
+radioactivity had not quite reached critical point--which was a lie.
+"So," he concluded, "we're wasting time. If I rush in there, fire, and
+rush right out everything will be fine."
+
+"Then let me. I'm quicker than you."
+
+"No. I--I'm more familiar with the gun." Dying would not be too bad,
+if he went with reasonable certainty he had saved the Earth. No man
+ever died so importantly, Temple thought briefly, then felt cold fear
+when he realized it would be dying just the same. He fought it down,
+said: "I'll be right back."
+
+Sophia looked at him, smiling vaguely. "Then you insist on doing it?"
+
+When he nodded she told him, "Then,--kiss me. Kiss me now, Kit--in
+case something...."
+
+Fiercely, he swept her to him, bruising her lips with his. "Sophia,
+Sophia...."
+
+At last, she drew back. "Kit," she said, smiling demurely. She took
+his right hand in her left, held it, squeezed it. Her own right hand
+she suddenly brought up from her waist, fist clenched, driving it
+against his jaw.
+
+Temple fell, half stunned by the blow, at her feet. For the space of
+a single heartbeat he watched her move slowly toward the round
+doorway, then he had clambered to his feet, running after her. He got
+his arms on her shoulders, yanked at her.
+
+When she turned he saw she was crying. "I--I'm sorry, Kit. You
+couldn't fool me about.... Stephanie. You can't fool me about this."
+She had more leverage this time. She stepped back, bringing her small,
+hard fist up from her knees. It struck Temple squarely at the point of
+the jaw, with the strength of Jovian-trained muscle behind it.
+Temple's feet left the floor and he landed with a thud on his back.
+His last thought of Sophia--or of anything, for a while--made him
+smile faintly as he lost consciousness. For a kiss she had promised
+him another dislocated jaw, and she had kept her promise....
+
+
+Later, how much later he did not know, something soft cushioned his
+head. He opened his eyes, stared through swirling, spinning murk. He
+focussed, saw Arkalion. No--_two_ Arkalions standing off at a
+distance, watching him. He squirmed, knew his head was cushioned in a
+woman's lap. He sighed, tried to sit up and failed. Soft hands
+caressed his forehead, his cheeks. A face swam into vision, but
+mistily. "Sophia," he murmured. His vision cleared.
+
+It was Stephanie.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"It's over," said Arkalion. "We're on our way back to Earth, Kit."
+
+"But the ships--"
+
+"All destroyed. If my people want to come here in ten thousand years,
+let them try. I have a hunch you of Earth will be ready for them."
+
+"It took us five thousand to reach Nowhere," Temple mused. "It will
+take us five thousand to return. We'll come barely in time to warn
+Earth--"
+
+"Wrong," said Arkalion. "I still have my ship. We're in it now, so
+you'll reach Earth with almost fifty centuries to spare. Why don't you
+forget about it, though? If human progress for the next five thousand
+years matches what has been happening for the last five, the parasites
+won't stand a chance."
+
+"Earth--five thousand years in the future," Stephanie said dreamily.
+"I wonder what it will be like.... Don't be so startled, Kit. I was a
+pilot study on the Nowhere Journey. If I made it successfully, other
+women would have been sent. But now there won't be any need."
+
+"I wouldn't be too sure of that," said the real Alaric Arkalion III.
+"I suspect a lot of people are going to feel just like me. Why not go
+out and colonize space. We can do it. Wonderful to have a frontier
+again.... Why, a dozen billionaires will appear for every one like my
+father. Good for the economy."
+
+"So, if we don't like Earth," said Stephanie, "we can always go out."
+
+"I have a strong suspicion you will like it," said Arkalion's double.
+
+Alaric III grinned. "What about you, bud? I don't want a twin brother
+hanging around all the time."
+
+Arkalion grinned back at him. "What do you want me to do, young man?
+I've forsaken my people. This is now my body. Tell you what, I promise
+to be always on a different continent. Earth isn't so small that I'll
+get in your hair."
+
+Temple sat up, felt the bandages on his jaw. He smiled at Stephanie,
+told her he loved her and meant it. It was exactly as if she had
+returned from the grave and in his first exultation he hadn't even
+thought of Sophia, who had perished all alone in the depths of space
+that a world might live....
+
+He turned to Arkalion. "Sophia?"
+
+"We found her dead, Kit. But smiling, as if everything was worth it."
+
+"It should have been me."
+
+"Whoever Sophia was," said Stephanie, "she must have been a wonderful
+woman, because when you got up, when you came to, her name was...."
+
+"Forget it," said Temple. "Sophia and I have a very strange
+relationship and...."
+
+"All right, you said forget it. Forget it." Stephanie smiled down at him.
+"I love you so much there isn't even room for jealousy.... Ummm....
+Kit...."
+
+"Break up that clinch," ordered Arkalion. "We're making one more stop
+at Nowhere to pick up anyone who wants to return to Earth. Some of 'em
+probably won't but those who do are welcome...."
+
+"Jason will stay," Temple predicted. "He'll be a leader out among the
+stars."
+
+"Then he'll have to climb over my back," Alaric III predicted happily,
+his eyes on the viewport hungrily.
+
+Temple's jaw throbbed. He was tired and sleepy. But satisfied. Sophia
+had died and for that he was sad, but there would always be a place
+deep in his heart for the memory of her: delicious, somehow exotic,
+not a love the way Stephanie was, not as tender, not as sure ... but a
+feeling for Sophia that was completely unique. And whenever the
+strangeness of the far-future Earth frightened Temple, whenever he
+felt a situation might get the better of him, whenever doubt clouded
+judgment, he would remember the tall lithe girl who had walked to her
+death that a world might have the freedom she barely had tasted. And
+together with Stephanie he would be able to do anything.
+
+Unless, he thought dreamily as he drifted off to sleep, his head
+pillowed again on Stephanie's lap, he'd wind up with a bum jaw the
+rest of his life.
+
+THE END
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Voyage To Eternity, by Milton Lesser
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VOYAGE TO ETERNITY ***
+
+***** This file should be named 32351.txt or 32351.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        https://www.gutenberg.org/3/2/3/5/32351/
+
+Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+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.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+https://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+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 www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+https://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at https://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit https://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including including checks, online payments and credit card
+donations.  To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     https://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.