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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/33842-h.zip b/33842-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..ad32512 --- /dev/null +++ b/33842-h.zip diff --git a/33842-h/33842-h.htm b/33842-h/33842-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4814245 --- /dev/null +++ b/33842-h/33842-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,1078 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of By Earthlight, by Bryce Walton + </title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; background-color: #FFFFFF; +} + + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; +} + +p { + margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; +} + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; +} + + +.tr {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; margin-top: 5%; margin-bottom: 5%; padding: 2em; background-color: #f6f2f2; color: black; border: dotted black 1px;} + +.blockquot { + margin-left: 35%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +.center {text-align: center;} + +/* Images */ +.figcenter { + margin: auto; + text-align: center; +} + +.figleft { + float: left; + clear: left; + margin-left: 0; + margin-bottom: 0em; + margin-top: 0.25em; + margin-right: 0.25em; + padding: 0; + text-align: center; +} + +/* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of By Earthlight, by Bryce Walton + +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: By Earthlight + +Author: Bryce Walton + +Release Date: October 6, 2010 [EBook #33842] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BY EARTHLIGHT *** + + + + +Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<div class="tr"><p class="center">Transcriber's Note:</p> +<p class="center">This etext was produced Science Fiction Stories 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.</p></div> +<p> </p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" id="coverpage" width="500" height="716" alt="" title="" /> +</div> +<p> </p> +<div class="blockquot"><i>We all have to die sometime, but it's more the manner of<br /> +our going, and the reason why we must die when we do that's the rub.</i></div> +<p> </p> +<h1><i>By Earthlight</i></h1> +<p> </p> +<h2><i>by </i>BRYCE WALTON</h2> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;"> +<img src="images/image_001.jpg" width="600" height="295" alt="" title="" /> +</div> +<p> </p> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_t1.jpg" alt="T" width="45" height="50" /></div> +<p>he rocket skin was like a dun-colored wall in the dim light under the +hill. Three anonymous men who were beyond suspicion, who had worked on +the rocket, were taking Barlow up in the elevator, up along the +rocket's curving walls.</p> + +<p>Earlier, scores of men had climbed up many ladders to various +platforms where doors opened into the rocket's compartments for the +insertion and repair of the many highly-specialized instruments.</p> + +<p><i>It was still—so damn still here!</i></p> + +<p>Some guards were way down below somewhere in the shadows, but they +didn't notice anything. The three men were regular workers and there +were last minute things to be done. It all looked quite logical.</p> + +<p>Over in the blockhouse, some of America's most important political and +military figures were sitting over instruments and charts, waiting, +discussing.</p> + +<p>One of the three men was talking, explaining things to Barlow about +the rocket, about the pressure-suit he was to wear. Barlow listened +and got it all straight. Barlow was helped into the suit. It weighed +700 pounds, and after they had encased him in it—all but the huge +helmet-plate—he lay there absolutely helpless, on a dolly, waiting +to be rolled into the rocket's compartment.</p> + +<p>The anonymous faces he'd never seen before, and would never see again, +looked down at him. He blinked several times and moistened his lips. +The suit was like a lead coffin. He didn't feel dead, but supposedly +dead and unable to tell any one. A ridiculous way to feel!</p> + +<p>What was the matter with him? He'd expected to die, all the time, from +the start. Everybody died! Few could experience what he was +experiencing. Death was worth this. One last kick, the biggest kick of +all for Hal Barlow. You lived for kicks, so what was the matter?</p> + +<p>He couldn't move his limbs; he could barely lift his head. Encased in +700 pounds of suit. Helpless. A pencil-flash flickered on and off. A +couple of eyes shone. A whisper. "The kit is fastened to your belt. +The instructions are in an air-tight capsule inside the kit. If you're +caught, and the paper's removed, it will disintegrate; now we'll slide +you inside."</p> + +<p>The helmet slid over his face. It was absolutely dark. The suit, +all-enclosing mobile shelter, atmosphere-pressure, +temperature-control, mobility and electric power to manipulate tools. +Its own power plant. It reprocessed continuously the precious air +breathed by the occupant, putting it back into circulating supply +after enriching it. The rocket was cold and alien and it would support +no life; the suit alone protected him. The rocket was just metal and +gadgets; only the suit stood between him and an agonizing death from +acceleration, deceleration, extremes of heat and cold.</p> + +<p>The dolly was rolling him in through the small opening. His encased +body being slid, stuffed, jammed into something like a wad of ammo +into a barrel. His body was entirely constricted. He couldn't hear +anything. It was black. He could shift his massive helmet slightly. It +clanged against metal, and the sound inside the helmet was like rusty +thunder.</p> + +<p>His blood boiled softly. He felt like a child shut up in the dark. He +thought of the radio in the suit, and desperately manipulated the +controls by the small control-panel in the metal hand of the suit.</p> + +<p>The voices seemed to quiet whatever had been boiling up in him. He had +started to scream; he remembered that now. Somehow, with an intense +effort, he had suppressed the scream, clamped his teeth on it. Now the +voices helped. He realized how much time had passed in the quick +pressured dark. Voices preparing to send the first rocket to the moon. +Quiet voices with all the suspense and tension held down by long +military habit.</p> + +<p>He had started being afraid. More than that. He had been going to +scream. He—Hal Barlow! Where was the excitement, the great thrill, +the big kick he had anticipated, to compensate for a voluntary dying?</p> + +<p>He felt only anxiety. Afraid the terror would return. He had never +admitted fear before. He thought back a little, trying to recall +something that would explain the fear.</p> + +<p>"<i>X minus one!</i>"</p> + +<p>He felt as if an immense cyst of suppuration had burst inside of him. +Sweat teared his eyes.</p> + +<p><i>If they had psyched me, I'd know. I wouldn't be afraid. What would +they have found? Why am I afraid now when I've never been afraid in my +life?</i></p> + +<p>Or had he? He couldn't remember. He tried to think of something +immediate....</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_t.jpg" alt="T" width="36" height="40" /></div> +<p>wo hours before, Barlow had paused on the second floor of the men's +barracks on the White Sands, New Mexico, Proving Grounds and looked +put. He shivered a little. It was a lonely spot, maybe the loneliest +in the world. Especially at night. Even here, Barlow managed to be +with someone most of the time—but the same dullards got boring. Even +women (like Lorraine), who said they loved him, were futile +companions; a guy whose future was death couldn't get emotionally +involved.</p> + +<p>He went into his three-room dump and switched on the radio at once. He +needed the sound of voices and the music. He started to undress in the +dark. But the cold and frigid moonlight came in and shone on the bed; +it revealed the body lying there. The face looking up at Barlow was +his own! His breath thinned. His hands were wet.</p> + +<p>It did him a lot more justice than any mirror, or the reflection in a +woman's eyes. The half-boyish, half-man face with the thin wiry lips, +the blond curling hair and the sun-burned, cynical face. The blue eyes +that seemed never quite able to smile. The face on the bed never +would; it was dead.</p> + +<p>Barlow turned. Part of the shadow in the corner moved. A voice. +"D-716."</p> + +<p>The 16 meant that this was that number among the hundred possible +goals of duty and sacrifice. The D of course meant Death, and Barlow +had known since having been given the number years ago what his end +would be.</p> + +<p>There were many other ways, some worse than dying. Loss of identity +by plastic surgery. Barlow's appearance had been thoroughly altered +three times. Some had volunteered for the torture and concentration +camps of the East. Barlow had done that, too; anything for kicks.</p> + +<p>He'd never bothered to indoctrinate himself with the philosophy of the +Brotherhood with its seven rituals of self-denial and discipline, its +long program of learning the love of humanity, the unity of each with +all people and with the Universe.</p> + +<p>He had his own philosophy. You were born, and then you died; the rest +was just a living job.</p> + +<p>You lived as an individual, and not as a cog—if you had the guts for +it. You lived for the excitement and the thrill of danger and the +maintenance of individuality—if you could. Otherwise you might as +well die when you were born—because then the stretch between wasn't +worth the price.</p> + +<p>That was Barlow's way. Only the <i>manner</i> of dying was important. +Everybody had to die. All that the Brotherhood really worked for was +the goal of enabling everybody to live as long as possible, and +finally to die with dignity and moral integrity. Barlow didn't need +their philosophy; basically, that was all he, too, really +wanted—maybe.</p> + +<p>The man was indistinct in the shadows. An anonymous figure without a +name. "The man on the bed has made the supreme sacrifice for the +cause."</p> + +<p>"So he's dead," Barlow said casually. "So what?"</p> + +<p>"It took a lot of work to make such an exact resemblance. One of our +members brought him in through the guards in a supply truck. It's easy +to bring in a dead man who'll never go back out—except as someone who +was already in. You of course."</p> + +<p>"No one will know what is to happen to the real me then?"</p> + +<p>"No one. It will be assumed that you committed suicide."</p> + +<p>Barlow grinned thinly.</p> + +<p>"There's been no change in your attitude? Your willingness to—"</p> + +<p>"Die? None. Willing Barlow, always ready to drop dead at a moment's +notice."</p> + +<p>"You're the only one of the Brotherhood who's never submitted to the +rituals and the psyching; we hope that isn't bad. Your service has +been excellent. But I wish you had submitted to a psyching before this +assignment, because there's one basic weakness, an Achilles Heel, in +everyone, and on an assignment so vital as this, it would be worth +knowing, in advance...."</p> + +<p>"Get someone else if you're worried."</p> + +<p>"You're the only member we have, who's inside the grounds here, who +can stand the acceleration and deceleration."</p> + +<p>"Ah," Barlow exclaimed. "This sounds big."</p> + +<p>"It couldn't be bigger," the anonymous man said. "Than a one-way trip +to the moon!"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_t.jpg" alt="T" width="36" height="40" /></div> +<p>he man explained some things to Barlow. Barlow didn't say anything. +Maybe there was a slight tremor in his lips, but he didn't think so.</p> + +<p><i>The first man into space. The first man to the Moon!</i></p> + +<p>"... a world atomic war may break within six months. In spite of +propaganda being fed to the people, trying to paint this atomic war as +just another war, we know it will probably be the last war, the end of +civilization. So our philosophical revolution, the revolution of men's +minds, will begin in approximately six months from tonight. But if +this last war breaks, our centuries-old plan will fail; it will never +even materialize.</p> + +<p>"The revolution is quite delicate. Simultaneously, all over the world, +at a specific time, and under rigidly-controlled and favorable +circumstances, the movement we have been building so long will spring +up. Nothing can stop it then, once the spiritual fires begin to burn! +But it can't begin until the exact scheduled moment. Your job will be +to attempt to prolong this present 'peace' until our plan can go into +effect. That's why you're making this trip to the moon."</p> + +<p>Barlow laughed. "That doesn't mean a damn thing to me. To me, the only +important thing is that I'm the first man into space. That's enough +for anyone to know."</p> + +<p>"Is it?"</p> + +<p>"I'm just Hal Barlow, a guy who's had several other names, and who's +really only a number! I joined the Brotherhood for kicks, not +lectures! I'll do this job, in my own way, because I want to do it. +For Hal Barlow!"</p> + +<p>The man in the shadows nodded slowly. "Can't you feel what it means? +Our spiritual revolution? You've read some of the works we've printed +on it. This feeling of oneness with humanity. That's the real value. +Can't you—"</p> + +<p>Barlow said. "Isn't the offer of my life enough?"</p> + +<p>The shadow said. "Maybe—for us, for people. But what about you? Maybe +there are some things even you can't face alone. And think of those +people out there; they need and cling to each other, even to each +others' madness. Living in futile hope while going on down the crazy +toboggan-ride to their own destruction. The living loudly and in +public, because to be silent allows reality to enter in on feet of +terror; and because 'to be alone' means madness. The simulated gaiety +of the bars every night, with the shadows outside that never seem to +go away, even under the glare of neon. They've never had a chance to +plan, to live with any hope for the future. Burdened down by anxiety, +they've built up a defense of falseness, and underneath, the terrible +fear of the atomic bomb is a constant inner sickness!"</p> + +<p>Barlow grinned. "A nice speech, but I already know those things. What +I'm really interested in is what I'm supposed to do."</p> + +<p>So the man explained to Barlow some things about why he was going on a +one-way trip to the moon in a rocket intended for no man to be in, in +a rocket intended for no living thing.</p> + +<p>After the man had gone, Barlow quickly snapped on the radio again, and +he felt better with the music and human voices. For a moment there, he +had seemed to feel a tinge of fear. What the devil? Psyche-screening? +So he was capable of fear; who wasn't? He didn't need psyching. What +indignity to the individual—to have the fingerprints of psychiatrists +all over your brain!</p> + +<p><i>I'm Hal Barlow! The first man into space. The first man to the Moon!</i></p> + +<p>He had gotten to the rocket-launching site early and had sat in the +moonlight smoking a cigarette. He felt odd inside and he didn't know +why. The moon had a cold effect on him. He was worried, about himself.</p> + +<p>The whole area had been painted and disguised with all the arts of +camouflage; everything appearing from the air looked like sand and +sage and rock and hill. The rocket itself was built inside the hill, +which served as a giant launching-barrel to guide the rocket with the +exact accuracy demanded in its take-off.</p> + +<p>The moon had loomed large and still and cold.</p> + +<p>"<i>... ten, nine, eight....</i>"</p> + +<p>So he was back inside the suit, inside the rocket, jammed into a +barrel like a wad of ammo. Now he was beginning to see what might +cause his terror. His Achilles Heel. But it was too late. What would +they have found if they'd psyched him?</p> + +<p>A wild kid—old, but still driven by the urges of a kid who hadn't +grown up. A lot of surface things, the inside of him covered over. +Obsessed with exterior things, he had never given himself a chance to +see inside himself. Afraid. Always been with people, beer, women, +bars, juke-boxes, noises, excitement. Never alone—</p> + +<p>No parents that he could remember. He'd run away from the middle-west +orphanage and heard about the Brotherhood from a friendly priest, and +the priest had taken him into the organization. Strictly for kicks +though, Barlow had warned. The priest had smiled with wisdom—"You +don't know your own true motives, my boy."</p> + +<p>"<i>... seven, six, five, four....</i>"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_j.jpg" alt="J" width="22" height="40" /></div> +<p>ust Hal Barlow. That was all right, but the real Hal Barlow was +unknown. He'd never realized, with all his screaming about +individualism, how much he'd depended on people. He had loved no one. +He had seemed to love them when he was with them, but could never form +any solid associations. Now all the people he had never really known +became as shadows thrown upon the wall of his brain. He felt the sweat +soaking his skin. Alone. Destined for it like a twin, whose double has +died at birth. Always—in league with those on the other side of the +looking-glass.</p> + +<p>"<i>... three... two....</i>"</p> + +<p>He screamed; <i>no, I can't do it, I can't face it—</i></p> + +<p><i>Someone—listen—</i></p> + +<p>The dull muted explosion miles away, and the terrific compression and +the wash of numbing, deafening sound beating back around him. +Everything inside him seeming to whirl up and come down in a crash. +The seeming to slide around in the dihedrals of time and space, +slipping in and out of being like a ball-bearing in a maze....</p> + +<p>First man to the moon. In a rocket meant for no man. Not a rocket. A +coffin—on a one-way trip—</p> + +<p><i>And I—maybe the one, the very one they should never have sent.</i></p> + +<p> </p> + +<p>With each degree of returning consciousness, more and more capacity +for fighting the fear. He cursed the fear and wrestled with it like a +man with an invisible opponent down an endless flight of stairs.</p> + +<p>He felt too alone, isolated; then he thought of the readings. They +could be flashed into a small screen in the face-plate by manipulating +the fingers of his right hand. He tried to concentrate on the readings +as an aid in fighting the fear.</p> + +<p>... in the stratosphere, eighty kilometers, rocket's temperature minus +a hundred and fifty degrees. Hundred and twenty-five kilometers, lower +part of ionosphere, up plus one hundred and fifty—and then on up +where it was somewhere around a thousand degrees, and who cared? He +was beyond that—away way out—somewhere—</p> + +<p>It went on a long time and then ... nothing but darkness ... the +lonely song of the gyroscopes. His own voice ... distant, alien ... +raving ... a kind of delirium ... then sometime, an awareness of the +cutting down of power, the brief warning of intuition, the concussion. +And as consciousness came back again, the knowing that he had hit too +hard in spite of the lighter moon gravity.</p> + +<p>His head throbbing crazily and around him the absolute darkness and +silence and the warm ache in his head, the dizziness and the warm +stickiness flowing down his face.</p> + +<p>He lay there, afraid of retching. He moved his finger to release more +oxygen. He could smell himself, the sharp bite of fear and the odor of +blood.</p> + +<p>He felt panic. He experimented. He could move easily here where the +seven-hundred pound suit weighed only 140 pounds. He switched on the +suit's light beam. The anonymous man had said. "<i>Get out of the rocket +at once, silently!</i>"</p> + +<p>He squeezed out of the barrel, into the larger compartment. He got the +compartment door open. Half blind by shock, he was out in the Lunar +night. "<i>When you get outside, stop right there. Read the +instructions!</i>"</p> + +<p>He had a panicky desire to fall to his knees, cling to the rocket. He +stood there stiffly. "It isn't fair," he whispered over and over. "I +can't do it!"</p> + +<p><i>Read the instructions.</i></p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_a.jpg" alt="A" width="37" height="40" /></div> +<p>lone, a man—one man—on the moon. No movement, no sound, no air, no +life. Only sharp black and white contrast of lifeless shadow to +accentuate the awful and final loneliness. Occasional meteors striking +into the pumice dust—silently, voicing the stillness of his own +terror.</p> + +<p>He read the instructions. He hooked the capsule out of the kit, opened +it. The suit's single light beaming like a Cyclopean eye.</p> + +<p>The giant walls of Albategnius the center of the moon's visible disk +towered bleakly up around ... everywhere ... lifelessness, just broken +rock ... no water to erode. No voices, no faces, no life anywhere. +Just Barlow. Barlow and a rocket.</p> + +<p>And the stars and somewhere, the earth in the sky, sharp as molten +steel in the eyes. The rocket watched him and listened. This was a +target rocket. 240,000 miles away in the New Mexico blockhouse, they +were watching through the rocket's eyes, feeling through the rocket's +mechanical nervous system. The rocket carried instruments to test out +flight calculations, controls, conditions on the moon. It carried +self-operating information about the range of temperatures, radiation, +gravitational influences and other conditions to be encountered on the +journey and here on the moon's surface. It wouldn't return; only the +results of its sensory apparatus were returning now and would keep on +returning until the rocket's power ran out.</p> + +<p>The rocket was equipped with every kind of instrument—trackers, +telemeters, and it was sending back sound and sight like a human eye +and ear. Radar stations, television stations, G.E. wagons down there +receiving information from the rocket....</p> + +<p>The instructions told Barlow exactly where to stand so the +television-eyes could pick up his image. He found himself leaning in +using the kit, getting the radio apparatus out of his suit connected +properly.</p> + +<p>He was starting, making gestures, while the terrible fear of +loneliness and isolation, his Achilles Heel, made the alien +surroundings reel and slip and tremble as though at any moment he was +going to crumble, fail, surrender.</p> + +<p>The bleeding from his nose and ears had stopped. No pain; that wasn't +the trouble. It was being alone, the idea of dying alone....</p> + +<p>The bulbous suit carried him over the terrain. Clouds of pumice-dust +drifted. He felt like an infant walking, his feet threatening to fold +under him. The rocket seemed to be drawing him back toward it. It +seemed warm and friendly as he walked the required distance away from +it. On Earth they were seeing him now—a man on the moon where there +should be no men. He would explain it to them; that was his job. To +give them an explanation that would frighten them, freeze the +inevitable war-drift for six months more. So the Brotherhood could +act—the Brotherhood only needed time.</p> + +<p>But what about Barlow? Sure, everybody had to die, but no one should +have to die the way Barlow is being asked to. He couldn't do it!</p> + +<p>But he stood there, and the rocket transmitted his image and his words +back to the blockhouse at White Sands, New Mexico. He said what the +instructions told him to.</p> + +<p>"We've been observing you; we saw the rocket coming in. You think +you're the first to send a rocket here, but you're not. We've been +here quite a while. Long enough to have set up a small colony. We've +built a city near a uranium mine. There are large processing works, +rocket installations and living quarters. There are atomic warhead +rockets too...."</p> + +<p>He stopped. His legs were weak, so much pressure for such light +gravity....</p> + +<p>... rockets on the moon's dark side, out of your reach. But we can +reach you. The world is just a target rotating beneath us. We have +unlimited deposits of uranium and other radioactive metals; you are +completely helpless. Any further attempts to come to the moon will +meet with destruction. We will enforce peace if we can. Any indication +down there of any power planning to start a war, and we'll send our +own atomic warhead rockets down.</p> + +<p>"We are primarily scientists and technicians. The annihilation of +civilization would have been inevitable anyway, so we've nothing to +lose by this last attempt to maintain peace by the only means left—by +force. We'll bomb any power that attempts to launch atom bombs, or +begins any form of military aggression. And remember—no more rockets +to the moon!</p> + +<p>"And who are we? WE are not America, Russia, France, Britain, +Yugoslavia, China, Japan, Italy, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, +Spain, Portugal, Canada, Texas, or any South American country. We are +no country at all. We are of ALL countries. We are here to protect all +countries from every other country, and we will try to do this by +force if necessary. Remember—no more rockets to the moon. We will +atom-bomb any nation attempting any form of military aggression."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_t.jpg" alt="T" width="36" height="40" /></div> +<p>he Brotherhood was very old, the outgrowth of an ancient Eastern +philosophical cult of non-resistance and peace. With six months more, +the Brotherhood could win the peace, maybe forever. If the speech just +made frightened the Americans enough, they wouldn't try anything. The +only other powers that might start a war within six months were +Russia, China, Yugoslavia. And they were too uncertain as to whether +or not America had already reached the moon. Who controlled the Moon +controlled Earth. They had been afraid for some time that perhaps +America had already gotten to the moon. Mutual fear of retaliation had +postponed the last war this long.</p> + +<p>The Brotherhood knew social-psychology. They figured this would work.</p> + +<p>Barlow felt himself backing away from the rocket. They were watching +him, the rocket's eyes and ears. Taking his voice and image back to +earth, back to voices and laughter and music and sound and warmth and +women ... with a sob, he twisted away from the rocket, turned, fell +to his thighs in thick pumice-dust, kept on struggling through lazy +streaming dust ribbons and he didn't look back. He was watched; he +mustn't look back at the rocket again.</p> + +<p>Meteors exploded soundlessly on the beds of lava and seas of dust, +shooting up thick motionless sprays that seemed almost solid. Above +him, like splintered steel, stretched the thousands of feet of crater +wall. He reached the sharp wall of rock, managed to get around it and +out of sight of the rocket. He fell. He lay there, his suit blending +with the cold and airless landscape.</p> + +<p>He screamed. He clawed his way up, started back again, back toward the +rocket. Hell with the Brotherhood. He was for Hal Barlow. Just for Hal +Barlow. He'd tell the truth. It wouldn't be long then. They'd send +other rockets up then. This was for Hal Barlow. The isolation pressed +in, pressed him faster, throwing him crazily over the dust toward the +rocket. Then they'd know the truth, send up other rockets, ... not +this way, with no more sounds, voices, any moving thing. No way for a +man to die....</p> + +<p>It wasn't death; it was the way of dying. No one should die this +way—so alone. Especially Barlow, who feared loneliness more than +anything else.</p> + +<p>He fell. One foot slid into a crack filled with pumice dust fine as +powder. He hooked the big steel hooks on the ends of his arms at the +rock, and clung there, his helmet barely pushing up through the dust. +He struggled for a while, desperately with his mind filling with +visions of the rocket. He wanted to live now, make up for all the +living he'd missed for so long.</p> + +<p>He looked around, still struggling. Light gravity, little weight, but +he was so weak now, and still the rocket wasn't in sight. He crawled +on his stomach, dragging the bulbous suit over the rock. He could get +around the rock. He had to. Out of sight, but so near, was the warm +human rocket.</p> + +<p>He ran into the rock and collapsed with a long wet sigh. He gasped. +Pain throbbed damply over his chest. He moved ... just enough to turn +over on his back. He slid up a little so that he was sitting there +staring at the frigid, barren, naked emptiness of utter silence and +desolation. What had the man said? "<i>No man is alone who has learned +the secret of oneness with the world...?</i>"</p> + +<p>He thought about the Brotherhood, seriously now, for the first time. +Many men before him had died for it. An entirely new approach to +society and the individual. Working from the inside out, there would +be more than a mere deflection of evil. There would be suppression at +the source, in the individual will.</p> + +<p>An end of national idolatry that threatened the existence of +civilization. Man was superhuman in power and glory, subhuman in +morality. After the spiritual revolution, never again the monstrous +evils arising when remote abstractions like "nation" and "state" are +regarded as realities more concrete and significant than human beings.</p> + +<p>And no man is an island unto himself....</p> + +<p>Unity....</p> + +<p>He looked up. He saw the Earth then.</p> + +<p>It shone down upon him through the Lunar night, twenty times brighter +than moonlight. He felt warmth. There were faces in the shadows, +hopeful women's faces and the eager innocent faces of children who had +not yet learned hopelessness and hate. They might never learn it now.</p> + +<p>He grinned. It was funny, you had to get so far away to look back and +see all the people on earth as one, one face, one heart—one world—it +looked like one world from here.</p> + +<p>It wasn't cold as Barlow lay there and looked up at the bright shining +disk. He closed his eyes. The Earthlight seemed to warm him, as the +sunlight had once warmed him, long ago in childhood, on a lazy summer +afternoon.</p> +<p> </p> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 150px;"> +<img src="images/image_002.jpg" width="150" height="150" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of By Earthlight, by Bryce Walton + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BY EARTHLIGHT *** + +***** This file should be named 33842-h.htm or 33842-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/3/8/4/33842/ + +Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://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. 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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: By Earthlight + +Author: Bryce Walton + +Release Date: October 6, 2010 [EBook #33842] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BY EARTHLIGHT *** + + + + +Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + Transcriber's Note: + + This etext was produced Science Fiction Stories 1953. Extensive + research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this + publication was renewed. + + + _We all have to die sometime, but it's more the manner of + our going, and the reason why we must die when we do that's + the rub._ + + + _By Earthlight_ + + + _by_ BRYCE WALTON + + * * * * * + + + + +[Illustration] + +The rocket skin was like a dun-colored wall in the dim light under the +hill. Three anonymous men who were beyond suspicion, who had worked on +the rocket, were taking Barlow up in the elevator, up along the +rocket's curving walls. + +Earlier, scores of men had climbed up many ladders to various +platforms where doors opened into the rocket's compartments for the +insertion and repair of the many highly-specialized instruments. + +_It was still--so damn still here!_ + +Some guards were way down below somewhere in the shadows, but they +didn't notice anything. The three men were regular workers and there +were last minute things to be done. It all looked quite logical. + +Over in the blockhouse, some of America's most important political and +military figures were sitting over instruments and charts, waiting, +discussing. + +One of the three men was talking, explaining things to Barlow about +the rocket, about the pressure-suit he was to wear. Barlow listened +and got it all straight. Barlow was helped into the suit. It weighed +700 pounds, and after they had encased him in it--all but the huge +helmet-plate--he lay there absolutely helpless, on a dolly, waiting +to be rolled into the rocket's compartment. + +The anonymous faces he'd never seen before, and would never see again, +looked down at him. He blinked several times and moistened his lips. +The suit was like a lead coffin. He didn't feel dead, but supposedly +dead and unable to tell any one. A ridiculous way to feel! + +What was the matter with him? He'd expected to die, all the time, from +the start. Everybody died! Few could experience what he was +experiencing. Death was worth this. One last kick, the biggest kick of +all for Hal Barlow. You lived for kicks, so what was the matter? + +He couldn't move his limbs; he could barely lift his head. Encased in +700 pounds of suit. Helpless. A pencil-flash flickered on and off. A +couple of eyes shone. A whisper. "The kit is fastened to your belt. +The instructions are in an air-tight capsule inside the kit. If you're +caught, and the paper's removed, it will disintegrate; now we'll slide +you inside." + +The helmet slid over his face. It was absolutely dark. The suit, +all-enclosing mobile shelter, atmosphere-pressure, temperature-control, +mobility and electric power to manipulate tools. Its own power plant. It +reprocessed continuously the precious air breathed by the occupant, +putting it back into circulating supply after enriching it. The rocket was +cold and alien and it would support no life; the suit alone protected him. +The rocket was just metal and gadgets; only the suit stood between him and +an agonizing death from acceleration, deceleration, extremes of heat and +cold. + +The dolly was rolling him in through the small opening. His encased +body being slid, stuffed, jammed into something like a wad of ammo +into a barrel. His body was entirely constricted. He couldn't hear +anything. It was black. He could shift his massive helmet slightly. It +clanged against metal, and the sound inside the helmet was like rusty +thunder. + +His blood boiled softly. He felt like a child shut up in the dark. He +thought of the radio in the suit, and desperately manipulated the +controls by the small control-panel in the metal hand of the suit. + +The voices seemed to quiet whatever had been boiling up in him. He had +started to scream; he remembered that now. Somehow, with an intense +effort, he had suppressed the scream, clamped his teeth on it. Now the +voices helped. He realized how much time had passed in the quick +pressured dark. Voices preparing to send the first rocket to the moon. +Quiet voices with all the suspense and tension held down by long +military habit. + +He had started being afraid. More than that. He had been going to +scream. He--Hal Barlow! Where was the excitement, the great thrill, +the big kick he had anticipated, to compensate for a voluntary dying? + +He felt only anxiety. Afraid the terror would return. He had never +admitted fear before. He thought back a little, trying to recall +something that would explain the fear. + +"_X minus one!_" + +He felt as if an immense cyst of suppuration had burst inside of him. +Sweat teared his eyes. + +_If they had psyched me, I'd know. I wouldn't be afraid. What would +they have found? Why am I afraid now when I've never been afraid in my +life?_ + +Or had he? He couldn't remember. He tried to think of something +immediate.... + + * * * * * + +Two hours before, Barlow had paused on the second floor of the men's +barracks on the White Sands, New Mexico, Proving Grounds and looked +put. He shivered a little. It was a lonely spot, maybe the loneliest +in the world. Especially at night. Even here, Barlow managed to be +with someone most of the time--but the same dullards got boring. Even +women (like Lorraine), who said they loved him, were futile +companions; a guy whose future was death couldn't get emotionally +involved. + +He went into his three-room dump and switched on the radio at once. He +needed the sound of voices and the music. He started to undress in the +dark. But the cold and frigid moonlight came in and shone on the bed; +it revealed the body lying there. The face looking up at Barlow was +his own! His breath thinned. His hands were wet. + +It did him a lot more justice than any mirror, or the reflection in a +woman's eyes. The half-boyish, half-man face with the thin wiry lips, +the blond curling hair and the sun-burned, cynical face. The blue eyes +that seemed never quite able to smile. The face on the bed never +would; it was dead. + +Barlow turned. Part of the shadow in the corner moved. A voice. +"D-716." + +The 16 meant that this was that number among the hundred possible +goals of duty and sacrifice. The D of course meant Death, and Barlow +had known since having been given the number years ago what his end +would be. + +There were many other ways, some worse than dying. Loss of identity +by plastic surgery. Barlow's appearance had been thoroughly altered +three times. Some had volunteered for the torture and concentration +camps of the East. Barlow had done that, too; anything for kicks. + +He'd never bothered to indoctrinate himself with the philosophy of the +Brotherhood with its seven rituals of self-denial and discipline, its +long program of learning the love of humanity, the unity of each with +all people and with the Universe. + +He had his own philosophy. You were born, and then you died; the rest +was just a living job. + +You lived as an individual, and not as a cog--if you had the guts for +it. You lived for the excitement and the thrill of danger and the +maintenance of individuality--if you could. Otherwise you might as +well die when you were born--because then the stretch between wasn't +worth the price. + +That was Barlow's way. Only the _manner_ of dying was important. +Everybody had to die. All that the Brotherhood really worked for was +the goal of enabling everybody to live as long as possible, and +finally to die with dignity and moral integrity. Barlow didn't need +their philosophy; basically, that was all he, too, really +wanted--maybe. + +The man was indistinct in the shadows. An anonymous figure without a +name. "The man on the bed has made the supreme sacrifice for the +cause." + +"So he's dead," Barlow said casually. "So what?" + +"It took a lot of work to make such an exact resemblance. One of our +members brought him in through the guards in a supply truck. It's easy +to bring in a dead man who'll never go back out--except as someone who +was already in. You of course." + +"No one will know what is to happen to the real me then?" + +"No one. It will be assumed that you committed suicide." + +Barlow grinned thinly. + +"There's been no change in your attitude? Your willingness to--" + +"Die? None. Willing Barlow, always ready to drop dead at a moment's +notice." + +"You're the only one of the Brotherhood who's never submitted to the +rituals and the psyching; we hope that isn't bad. Your service has +been excellent. But I wish you had submitted to a psyching before this +assignment, because there's one basic weakness, an Achilles Heel, in +everyone, and on an assignment so vital as this, it would be worth +knowing, in advance...." + +"Get someone else if you're worried." + +"You're the only member we have, who's inside the grounds here, who +can stand the acceleration and deceleration." + +"Ah," Barlow exclaimed. "This sounds big." + +"It couldn't be bigger," the anonymous man said. "Than a one-way trip +to the moon!" + + * * * * * + +The man explained some things to Barlow. Barlow didn't say anything. +Maybe there was a slight tremor in his lips, but he didn't think so. + +_The first man into space. The first man to the Moon!_ + +"... a world atomic war may break within six months. In spite of +propaganda being fed to the people, trying to paint this atomic war as +just another war, we know it will probably be the last war, the end of +civilization. So our philosophical revolution, the revolution of men's +minds, will begin in approximately six months from tonight. But if +this last war breaks, our centuries-old plan will fail; it will never +even materialize. + +"The revolution is quite delicate. Simultaneously, all over the world, +at a specific time, and under rigidly-controlled and favorable +circumstances, the movement we have been building so long will spring +up. Nothing can stop it then, once the spiritual fires begin to burn! +But it can't begin until the exact scheduled moment. Your job will be +to attempt to prolong this present 'peace' until our plan can go into +effect. That's why you're making this trip to the moon." + +Barlow laughed. "That doesn't mean a damn thing to me. To me, the only +important thing is that I'm the first man into space. That's enough +for anyone to know." + +"Is it?" + +"I'm just Hal Barlow, a guy who's had several other names, and who's +really only a number! I joined the Brotherhood for kicks, not +lectures! I'll do this job, in my own way, because I want to do it. +For Hal Barlow!" + +The man in the shadows nodded slowly. "Can't you feel what it means? +Our spiritual revolution? You've read some of the works we've printed +on it. This feeling of oneness with humanity. That's the real value. +Can't you--" + +Barlow said. "Isn't the offer of my life enough?" + +The shadow said. "Maybe--for us, for people. But what about you? Maybe +there are some things even you can't face alone. And think of those +people out there; they need and cling to each other, even to each +others' madness. Living in futile hope while going on down the crazy +toboggan-ride to their own destruction. The living loudly and in +public, because to be silent allows reality to enter in on feet of +terror; and because 'to be alone' means madness. The simulated gaiety +of the bars every night, with the shadows outside that never seem to +go away, even under the glare of neon. They've never had a chance to +plan, to live with any hope for the future. Burdened down by anxiety, +they've built up a defense of falseness, and underneath, the terrible +fear of the atomic bomb is a constant inner sickness!" + +Barlow grinned. "A nice speech, but I already know those things. What +I'm really interested in is what I'm supposed to do." + +So the man explained to Barlow some things about why he was going on a +one-way trip to the moon in a rocket intended for no man to be in, in +a rocket intended for no living thing. + +After the man had gone, Barlow quickly snapped on the radio again, and +he felt better with the music and human voices. For a moment there, he +had seemed to feel a tinge of fear. What the devil? Psyche-screening? +So he was capable of fear; who wasn't? He didn't need psyching. What +indignity to the individual--to have the fingerprints of psychiatrists +all over your brain! + +_I'm Hal Barlow! The first man into space. The first man to the Moon!_ + +He had gotten to the rocket-launching site early and had sat in the +moonlight smoking a cigarette. He felt odd inside and he didn't know +why. The moon had a cold effect on him. He was worried, about himself. + +The whole area had been painted and disguised with all the arts of +camouflage; everything appearing from the air looked like sand and +sage and rock and hill. The rocket itself was built inside the hill, +which served as a giant launching-barrel to guide the rocket with the +exact accuracy demanded in its take-off. + +The moon had loomed large and still and cold. + +"_... ten, nine, eight...._" + +So he was back inside the suit, inside the rocket, jammed into a +barrel like a wad of ammo. Now he was beginning to see what might +cause his terror. His Achilles Heel. But it was too late. What would +they have found if they'd psyched him? + +A wild kid--old, but still driven by the urges of a kid who hadn't +grown up. A lot of surface things, the inside of him covered over. +Obsessed with exterior things, he had never given himself a chance to +see inside himself. Afraid. Always been with people, beer, women, +bars, juke-boxes, noises, excitement. Never alone-- + +No parents that he could remember. He'd run away from the middle-west +orphanage and heard about the Brotherhood from a friendly priest, and +the priest had taken him into the organization. Strictly for kicks +though, Barlow had warned. The priest had smiled with wisdom--"You +don't know your own true motives, my boy." + +"_... seven, six, five, four...._" + + * * * * * + +Just Hal Barlow. That was all right, but the real Hal Barlow was +unknown. He'd never realized, with all his screaming about +individualism, how much he'd depended on people. He had loved no one. +He had seemed to love them when he was with them, but could never form +any solid associations. Now all the people he had never really known +became as shadows thrown upon the wall of his brain. He felt the sweat +soaking his skin. Alone. Destined for it like a twin, whose double has +died at birth. Always--in league with those on the other side of the +looking-glass. + +"_... three... two...._" + +He screamed; _no, I can't do it, I can't face it--_ + +_Someone--listen--_ + +The dull muted explosion miles away, and the terrific compression and +the wash of numbing, deafening sound beating back around him. +Everything inside him seeming to whirl up and come down in a crash. +The seeming to slide around in the dihedrals of time and space, +slipping in and out of being like a ball-bearing in a maze.... + +First man to the moon. In a rocket meant for no man. Not a rocket. A +coffin--on a one-way trip-- + +_And I--maybe the one, the very one they should never have sent._ + + * * * * * + +With each degree of returning consciousness, more and more capacity +for fighting the fear. He cursed the fear and wrestled with it like a +man with an invisible opponent down an endless flight of stairs. + +He felt too alone, isolated; then he thought of the readings. They +could be flashed into a small screen in the face-plate by manipulating +the fingers of his right hand. He tried to concentrate on the readings +as an aid in fighting the fear. + +... in the stratosphere, eighty kilometers, rocket's temperature minus +a hundred and fifty degrees. Hundred and twenty-five kilometers, lower +part of ionosphere, up plus one hundred and fifty--and then on up +where it was somewhere around a thousand degrees, and who cared? He +was beyond that--away way out--somewhere-- + +It went on a long time and then ... nothing but darkness ... the +lonely song of the gyroscopes. His own voice ... distant, alien ... +raving ... a kind of delirium ... then sometime, an awareness of the +cutting down of power, the brief warning of intuition, the concussion. +And as consciousness came back again, the knowing that he had hit too +hard in spite of the lighter moon gravity. + +His head throbbing crazily and around him the absolute darkness and +silence and the warm ache in his head, the dizziness and the warm +stickiness flowing down his face. + +He lay there, afraid of retching. He moved his finger to release more +oxygen. He could smell himself, the sharp bite of fear and the odor of +blood. + +He felt panic. He experimented. He could move easily here where the +seven-hundred pound suit weighed only 140 pounds. He switched on the +suit's light beam. The anonymous man had said. "_Get out of the rocket +at once, silently!_" + +He squeezed out of the barrel, into the larger compartment. He got the +compartment door open. Half blind by shock, he was out in the Lunar +night. "_When you get outside, stop right there. Read the +instructions!_" + +He had a panicky desire to fall to his knees, cling to the rocket. He +stood there stiffly. "It isn't fair," he whispered over and over. "I +can't do it!" + +_Read the instructions._ + + * * * * * + +Alone, a man--one man--on the moon. No movement, no sound, no air, no +life. Only sharp black and white contrast of lifeless shadow to +accentuate the awful and final loneliness. Occasional meteors striking +into the pumice dust--silently, voicing the stillness of his own +terror. + +He read the instructions. He hooked the capsule out of the kit, opened +it. The suit's single light beaming like a Cyclopean eye. + +The giant walls of Albategnius the center of the moon's visible disk +towered bleakly up around ... everywhere ... lifelessness, just broken +rock ... no water to erode. No voices, no faces, no life anywhere. +Just Barlow. Barlow and a rocket. + +And the stars and somewhere, the earth in the sky, sharp as molten +steel in the eyes. The rocket watched him and listened. This was a +target rocket. 240,000 miles away in the New Mexico blockhouse, they +were watching through the rocket's eyes, feeling through the rocket's +mechanical nervous system. The rocket carried instruments to test out +flight calculations, controls, conditions on the moon. It carried +self-operating information about the range of temperatures, radiation, +gravitational influences and other conditions to be encountered on the +journey and here on the moon's surface. It wouldn't return; only the +results of its sensory apparatus were returning now and would keep on +returning until the rocket's power ran out. + +The rocket was equipped with every kind of instrument--trackers, +telemeters, and it was sending back sound and sight like a human eye +and ear. Radar stations, television stations, G.E. wagons down there +receiving information from the rocket.... + +The instructions told Barlow exactly where to stand so the +television-eyes could pick up his image. He found himself leaning in +using the kit, getting the radio apparatus out of his suit connected +properly. + +He was starting, making gestures, while the terrible fear of +loneliness and isolation, his Achilles Heel, made the alien +surroundings reel and slip and tremble as though at any moment he was +going to crumble, fail, surrender. + +The bleeding from his nose and ears had stopped. No pain; that wasn't +the trouble. It was being alone, the idea of dying alone.... + +The bulbous suit carried him over the terrain. Clouds of pumice-dust +drifted. He felt like an infant walking, his feet threatening to fold +under him. The rocket seemed to be drawing him back toward it. It +seemed warm and friendly as he walked the required distance away from +it. On Earth they were seeing him now--a man on the moon where there +should be no men. He would explain it to them; that was his job. To +give them an explanation that would frighten them, freeze the +inevitable war-drift for six months more. So the Brotherhood could +act--the Brotherhood only needed time. + +But what about Barlow? Sure, everybody had to die, but no one should +have to die the way Barlow is being asked to. He couldn't do it! + +But he stood there, and the rocket transmitted his image and his words +back to the blockhouse at White Sands, New Mexico. He said what the +instructions told him to. + +"We've been observing you; we saw the rocket coming in. You think +you're the first to send a rocket here, but you're not. We've been +here quite a while. Long enough to have set up a small colony. We've +built a city near a uranium mine. There are large processing works, +rocket installations and living quarters. There are atomic warhead +rockets too...." + +He stopped. His legs were weak, so much pressure for such light +gravity.... + +... rockets on the moon's dark side, out of your reach. But we can +reach you. The world is just a target rotating beneath us. We have +unlimited deposits of uranium and other radioactive metals; you are +completely helpless. Any further attempts to come to the moon will +meet with destruction. We will enforce peace if we can. Any indication +down there of any power planning to start a war, and we'll send our +own atomic warhead rockets down. + +"We are primarily scientists and technicians. The annihilation of +civilization would have been inevitable anyway, so we've nothing to +lose by this last attempt to maintain peace by the only means left--by +force. We'll bomb any power that attempts to launch atom bombs, or +begins any form of military aggression. And remember--no more rockets +to the moon! + +"And who are we? WE are not America, Russia, France, Britain, +Yugoslavia, China, Japan, Italy, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, +Spain, Portugal, Canada, Texas, or any South American country. We are +no country at all. We are of ALL countries. We are here to protect all +countries from every other country, and we will try to do this by +force if necessary. Remember--no more rockets to the moon. We will +atom-bomb any nation attempting any form of military aggression." + + * * * * * + +The Brotherhood was very old, the outgrowth of an ancient Eastern +philosophical cult of non-resistance and peace. With six months more, +the Brotherhood could win the peace, maybe forever. If the speech just +made frightened the Americans enough, they wouldn't try anything. The +only other powers that might start a war within six months were +Russia, China, Yugoslavia. And they were too uncertain as to whether +or not America had already reached the moon. Who controlled the Moon +controlled Earth. They had been afraid for some time that perhaps +America had already gotten to the moon. Mutual fear of retaliation had +postponed the last war this long. + +The Brotherhood knew social-psychology. They figured this would work. + +Barlow felt himself backing away from the rocket. They were watching +him, the rocket's eyes and ears. Taking his voice and image back to +earth, back to voices and laughter and music and sound and warmth and +women ... with a sob, he twisted away from the rocket, turned, fell +to his thighs in thick pumice-dust, kept on struggling through lazy +streaming dust ribbons and he didn't look back. He was watched; he +mustn't look back at the rocket again. + +Meteors exploded soundlessly on the beds of lava and seas of dust, +shooting up thick motionless sprays that seemed almost solid. Above +him, like splintered steel, stretched the thousands of feet of crater +wall. He reached the sharp wall of rock, managed to get around it and +out of sight of the rocket. He fell. He lay there, his suit blending +with the cold and airless landscape. + +He screamed. He clawed his way up, started back again, back toward the +rocket. Hell with the Brotherhood. He was for Hal Barlow. Just for Hal +Barlow. He'd tell the truth. It wouldn't be long then. They'd send +other rockets up then. This was for Hal Barlow. The isolation pressed +in, pressed him faster, throwing him crazily over the dust toward the +rocket. Then they'd know the truth, send up other rockets, ... not +this way, with no more sounds, voices, any moving thing. No way for a +man to die.... + +It wasn't death; it was the way of dying. No one should die this +way--so alone. Especially Barlow, who feared loneliness more than +anything else. + +He fell. One foot slid into a crack filled with pumice dust fine as +powder. He hooked the big steel hooks on the ends of his arms at the +rock, and clung there, his helmet barely pushing up through the dust. +He struggled for a while, desperately with his mind filling with +visions of the rocket. He wanted to live now, make up for all the +living he'd missed for so long. + +He looked around, still struggling. Light gravity, little weight, but +he was so weak now, and still the rocket wasn't in sight. He crawled +on his stomach, dragging the bulbous suit over the rock. He could get +around the rock. He had to. Out of sight, but so near, was the warm +human rocket. + +He ran into the rock and collapsed with a long wet sigh. He gasped. +Pain throbbed damply over his chest. He moved ... just enough to turn +over on his back. He slid up a little so that he was sitting there +staring at the frigid, barren, naked emptiness of utter silence and +desolation. What had the man said? "_No man is alone who has learned +the secret of oneness with the world...?_" + +He thought about the Brotherhood, seriously now, for the first time. +Many men before him had died for it. An entirely new approach to +society and the individual. Working from the inside out, there would +be more than a mere deflection of evil. There would be suppression at +the source, in the individual will. + +An end of national idolatry that threatened the existence of +civilization. Man was superhuman in power and glory, subhuman in +morality. After the spiritual revolution, never again the monstrous +evils arising when remote abstractions like "nation" and "state" are +regarded as realities more concrete and significant than human beings. + +And no man is an island unto himself.... + +Unity.... + +He looked up. He saw the Earth then. + +It shone down upon him through the Lunar night, twenty times brighter +than moonlight. He felt warmth. There were faces in the shadows, +hopeful women's faces and the eager innocent faces of children who had +not yet learned hopelessness and hate. They might never learn it now. + +He grinned. It was funny, you had to get so far away to look back and +see all the people on earth as one, one face, one heart--one world--it +looked like one world from here. + +It wasn't cold as Barlow lay there and looked up at the bright shining +disk. He closed his eyes. The Earthlight seemed to warm him, as the +sunlight had once warmed him, long ago in childhood, on a lazy summer +afternoon. + + * * * * * + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of By Earthlight, by Bryce Walton + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BY EARTHLIGHT *** + +***** This file should be named 33842.txt or 33842.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/3/8/4/33842/ + +Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://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. 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