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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e611548 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #51091 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/51091) diff --git a/old/51091-h.zip b/old/51091-h.zip Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 67f2542..0000000 --- a/old/51091-h.zip +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/51091-h/51091-h.htm b/old/51091-h/51091-h.htm deleted file mode 100644 index b02caef..0000000 --- a/old/51091-h/51091-h.htm +++ /dev/null @@ -1,1105 +0,0 @@ -<!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=us-ascii" /> - <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> - <title> - The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Deep One, by Neil P. 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Ruzic - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - - - -Title: The Deep One - -Author: Neil P. Ruzic - -Release Date: January 31, 2016 [EBook #51091] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DEEP ONE *** - - - - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - - - - - -</pre> - - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/cover.jpg" width="371" height="500" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="titlepage"> -<h1>THE DEEP ONE</h1> - -<p>By NEIL P. RUZIC</p> - -<p>Illustrated by DILLON</p> - -<p>[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from<br /> -Galaxy Science Fiction March 1957.<br /> -Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that<br /> -the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]</p> - -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph3"><i>There wasn't a single mistake in the plan for<br /> -survival—and that was the biggest mistake!</i></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>For centuries, the rains swept eight million daily tons of land into -the sea. Mountains slowly crumpled to ocean floors. Summits rose again -to see new civilizations heaped upon fossils of the old.</p> - -<p>It was the way of the Earth and men knew it and did not worry. The end -was always in the future. Ever since men first learned to make marks on -cave walls, the end remained in the future.</p> - -<p>Then the future came. The records told men how the Sun was before, so -they knew it was swollen now. They knew the heat was not always this -hot, or the glacier waters so fast, the seas so high.</p> - -<p>They adapted—they grew tanner and moved farther pole-ward.</p> - -<p>When the steam finally rose over equatorial waters, they moved to the -last planet, Pluto, and their descendants lived and died and came to -know the same heat and red skies. Finally there came the day when they -couldn't adapt—not, at least, in the usual way.</p> - -<p>But they had the knowledge of all the great civilizations on Earth, so -they built the last spaceship.</p> - -<p>They built it very slowly and carefully. Their will to live became -the will to leave this final, perfect monument. It took a hundred and -fifty years and during all that time they planned every facet of its -operation, every detail of its complex mechanisms. Because the ship had -a big job to do, they named it <i>Destiny</i> and people began to think of -it not as the last of the spaceships, but as the first.</p> - -<p>The dying race sowed the ship with human seed and hopefully named its -unborn passengers Adam, Eve, Joseph and Mary. Then they launched it -toward the middle of the Milky Way and lay back in the red light of -their burning planet.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>All this was only a memory now, conserved in the think-tank of a -machine that raced through speckled space, dodging, examining, -classifying, charting what it saw. Behind, the Sun shrank as once it -swelled, and the planets that were not consumed turned cold in their -orbits. The Sun grew fainter and went out, and still the ship sped -forward, century after century, cometlike, but with a purpose.</p> - -<p>At many of the specks, the ship circled, sucking in records, passing -judgment, moving on—a bee in the garden of stars. Finally, hundreds -of light-years from what had been its home, it located an Earth-type -world, accepted it from a billion miles off, and swung into an approach -that would last exactly eighteen years.</p> - -<p>Immediately, pumps delivered measured quantities of oxygen and nitrogen -atoms. Circuits closed to move four tiny frozen eggs next to frozen -spermatozoa. The temperature gradually increased to a heat once -maintained by animals now extinct.</p> - -<p>The embryos grew healthily and at term were born of plastic wombs.</p> - -<p>The first voices they heard were of their real mothers. Soft, caressing -songwords. Melodious, warm, recorded women voices, each different, -bell-clear, vivacious, betraying nothing of the fact that they were -dead these long centuries.</p> - -<p>"I am your mother," each voice told its belated offspring. "You can see -me and hear me and touch what appears to be me, and together with your -cousins, you'll grow strong and healthy...."</p> - -<p>The voices sang on and the babies gurgled in their imported terran -atmosphere. The words were meaningless but important, for it had been -learned on the now dead world that these sounds were one of the factors -in love and learning.</p> - -<p>Day after day, the voices lapped warm over the children. Plastic -feeders provided nutrition as noiseless pumps removed excess carbon -dioxide.</p> - -<p>In one end of the ship, a miniature farm was born hydroponically, its -automatic grinders pre-digesting ripe vegetables for the children. -Animals were born, too, for food, but also companionship, and later to -stock New Earth ahead.</p> - -<p>As the babies began to understand, the woman voices merged into -one mechanical mother who could be heard and seen and summoned on -panel screens throughout the ship. Everything became as Earthlike as -possible, but because the environment was artificial, the children grew -aware of their purpose in life at an age rarely reached on ancient -Earth.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>They were two years old when their Mecmother informed them: "You are -unlike any children ever born. You are the last of a dead race, but -you must live. You must not be afraid. You must do everything humanly -possible to live."</p> - -<p>When they were four, Mecmother introduced them to Mecteacher and said -to pay attention for five hours each day. Mecteacher took their IQs and -explained to Adam that he had a greater capacity than Eve, Joseph and -Mary, and was therefore their leader.</p> - -<p>Soon afterward, all the children started "school," but Adam excelled. -At seven, he knew all about landing the ship. He played that he was -already eighteen and the ship was no longer on automatic.</p> - -<p>He was in everything and everywhere. His tow hair poked above the -control board. His busy fingers hand-picked an experimental meal from -the farmroom. When he learned how to turn the artificial gravity switch -off in the recroom, his child legs floated haphazardly somewhere above -his head. And in the sunroom, where heat-lamp walls were triggered by -the degree of an occupant's tan, Adam's freckled face stared through -the visiport, seeing in his mind's eye the New Earth he would one day -conquer.</p> - -<p>He lived fully, asking questions, accepting the answers, receiving -instructions. Some of them he testily disobeyed, was punished -compassionately, and learned respect and a kind of love for the mecs.</p> - -<p>He played the games of childhood, but he played them alone. Once he was -gazing out a port, imaginatively sorting the stars of his universe into -shapes of the animals in the ship's farm. Mecfather lit up at a nearby -panel, glowing faintly red. Adam resisted an impulse to shiver—the -panel always made him flinch when it glowed red. Red, he was being -conditioned, was his conscience, brought out by Mecfather until he grew -old enough to bring it out himself.</p> - -<p>"Why aren't you playing with the other children?" Mecfather asked. -"I've been watching you all day and you've avoided them on every -occasion."</p> - -<p>Though he feared him, Adam loved Mecfather as he had been taught to -do and did not hesitate to confide. But how could he explain that the -other children did not seem as <i>real</i> to him as the mecs?</p> - -<p>"I don't know," Adam answered truthfully.</p> - -<p>"They don't ignore you. They ask you to play, but you always go off by -yourself. Don't you like them?"</p> - -<p>"They're flat, Father. They're not deep—like you."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Silent hidden computers assembled the answer, correlated, circuited a -mechanical smile. Certainly—a child brought up with only three real -children and three talking images in his universe could not distinguish -between reality and appearance. On the screen, Adam saw Mecfather -smile, the panel no longer red.</p> - -<p>The voice was quiet now and full of understanding. "It is I who am -flat, Adam. I am only an image, a voice. I am here when you need me to -help, but I am not deep. Your cousins are deep; I am the flat one. You -will understand better when you grow older."</p> - -<p>Electronically, Mecfather was worried. He called a "conference" of the -other mecs and their circuits joined in a complicated analog: What was -the probable outcome of this beginning of disharmony? There were too -many variables for an immediate answer, but the query was stored in -each mec's memory banks for later answer.</p> - -<p>When the mecconference began, the panel switched off and Adam walked -thoughtfully through the ship's corridors. Unexpectedly, he spotted the -other children. He turned quickly into a room before they saw him and -ducked behind the largest of the couches.</p> - -<p>He was in the aft recroom, he realized, not having paid attention to -where he was going. What was it all about? Did Mecfather really mean it -when he said the cousins were deeper than the mecs? Adam could believe -he was different from his parents and teacher—after all, he was -only seven—but he couldn't accept the information that he was <i>not</i> -different from his cousins. Somehow, he thought, I am alone....</p> - -<p>He heard noises, the loud boisterousness of Joseph, the high-pitched -squeal of Eve, the grating laugh of Mary. Adam cringed deeper behind -the big couch. He <i>was</i> different. <i>He</i> didn't make sounds like that.</p> - -<p>"Adam! Oh, A-dam! A-dam!" the cousins called, each their own way. "Come -out wherever you are, Adam! Come out and play!"</p> - -<p>From behind the couch, Adam saw the beginnings of an infantile but -systematic search. The three of them were looking behind things, under -furniture, in back of hatches. They tried moving everything they saw, -but couldn't budge the heavy couch Adam hid behind.</p> - -<p>Looking for escape, Adam's eyes caught a round metallic handle set -flush into the heavy deck carpet. He lifted it and pulled. Nothing -happened. He stood up, bracing his feet against the deck and heaved -with all his strength. It didn't move.</p> - -<p>Then he experimentally turned the handle—to the right until it -clicked faintly, then the left, around twice, another faint click, but -different, a left-hand click, he knew somehow. So he turned again to -the left, this time three turns—and then the click was heavy, almost -audible. He pulled the handle and a door formed out of the carpet, -swinging easily open.</p> - -<p>Just then, Joseph peered behind the couch. "Boo!"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Adam jumped into the opening, the heavy door slamming shut overhead. -Below, he stood erect and was surprised to feel the hair on his head -brush the ceiling.</p> - -<p>He was frightened, but he calmed when he realized there were many -places on the ship he hadn't been before. Mecteacher revealed them -to him, but very slowly, and he supposed he would not be told about -<i>everything</i> for many years. As he recovered his sense of balance, he -became aware of a faint luminescence around him. It seemed to have no -source, but was stronger in the distance.</p> - -<p>He began to explore, groping at first, then more smoothly, efficiently, -as his eyes adjusted to the semi-darkness. A long corridor opened -up before him and what appeared before to be an illusion of distance -actually <i>was</i> distance. He guessed he was near the engine compartment -and vaguely sensed that the luminescence had something to do with the -nuclear engines that Mecteacher told him moved the ship.</p> - -<p>It was warm in here. Not physically warm but friendy warm, like when -Mecmother spoke her comfort. The similarity almost made him cry, for he -understood, even in his seven years, that Mecmother was but the image -of his real mother who lived long ago and said those words of sympathy -to a child yet unborn. He wanted her now, even her image, but he didn't -call because he'd have to explain why he was hiding from his cousins.</p> - -<p>He shivered then, thinking that Mecfather and Mecteacher knew where -he was and would light up their panels red. He thought, "Are you down -here, Mecfather?" Nothing answered, so he spoke the thought, and again -the walls stayed dark.</p> - -<p>That was why it was so friendy warm in here, he realized. His -mecconscience was left above!</p> - -<p>Deciding that the others might miss him, he retraced his steps, located -the trapdoor in the ceiling, pushed it open and ascended. The others -were sitting on the floor, dumbfounded, as Adam climbed out and -slammed the hatch shut.</p> - -<p>"How did you get down there?" Joseph asked.</p> - -<p>Adam remained silent. After a moment, Eve and Mary lost interest in the -question and started skipping a length of rope.</p> - -<p>Joseph persisted. "How? I pulled, too!"</p> - -<p>Adam didn't answer. He knew the bigger boy would forget about it if he -changed the subject. "How is it you're not with Mecteacher?"</p> - -<p>"We were. But he made us look for you."</p> - -<p>The closest wall panel lit bright red. It was Mecteacher. "<i>Adam! How -did you open that?</i>"</p> - -<p>"I turned it—a certain way," he said evasively. Adam didn't want his -cousins to learn how.</p> - -<p>"But how did you know?"</p> - -<p>"I—I reasoned it."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The image faded as the new information was assimilated. Mecteacher's -voice said, "Wait a while, Adam."</p> - -<p>The computer circuited the other mec's memory banks. After ten minutes, -the "conference" was over and Mecteacher returned to the screen. He -asked Adam to come alone to the classroom. The others were dismissed.</p> - -<p>Reluctantly, Adam did as he was told. In the classroom, he stood -stiffly in front of the central panels. All three mecs lit up, their -color this time a tranquilizing blue.</p> - -<p>"Adam, we are not real people in the <i>now</i>," Mecmother began. "Do you -understand that?"</p> - -<p>"Y-yes, I understand. You are—planned—fixed before."</p> - -<p>"That's right, Adam. We are pre-set. We have a very large number of -choices and actions, but we are not infinite."</p> - -<p>"Infinite?"</p> - -<p>"We are limited in the help we can give you. We were real—like you—a -long, long time ago. We exist now only to help you and the other -children. We are here to educate you, to love and console you—and one -other thing. We are here to settle your conflicts, to make sure you -don't hurt each other."</p> - -<p>"But I didn't hurt anyone, Mecmother!"</p> - -<p>"Not yet, Adam, but avoiding the others the way you do could be the -first sign of trouble."</p> - -<p>"How do you <i>know</i>? How can you talk if you aren't real?"</p> - -<p>"What you hear is a combination of recorded words that are -electronically put together to answer an almost infinite number of your -questions. But do not think of me as not real. I was merely in another -time. Do you understand that?"</p> - -<p>"Yes."</p> - -<p>"Then you also are able to see that your ability to reason things—to -understand what I am telling you now, for instance, is a remarkable -thing."</p> - -<p>"You mean because I'm not like the others?"</p> - -<p>"You have a superior mind. You are the leader, but do not regard -yourself as better than the others. You have more intelligence, yes, -but do not look down on your cousins for that. They may develop other -qualities better than yours. Stay simple, Adam, and you will be able to -live among them and thereby make the human race live again. The name of -this ship is <i>Destiny</i>. Do you know why?"</p> - -<p>"Yes—I know."</p> - -<p>"Be with the other children then. Play with them. You'll need each -other to live on New Earth—eleven years from now."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>He thought sullenly, how can I play with them when they're <i>flat</i>? But -he didn't object out loud to Mecmother. He didn't like her this way. -Explanation was Mecteacher's job and discipline Mecfather's. Mecmother -should be warm and loving.</p> - -<p>Mecteacher appeared and asked Adam to call in the other children so the -science lesson could start.</p> - -<p>He found them tanning in the sunroom, their unclothed bodies evenly -browned from invisible light. They followed Adam without question, but -seemed to take a long time doing it. Joseph insisted first in donning -clothes, but he put on protective clothing first. Then, realizing the -absurdity of it, he switched to his formality suit—the loose-fitting -robe Mecteacher instructed the children to wear to lend dignity to the -classwork.</p> - -<p>During Joseph's delay, the girls ambled off somewhere and returned only -when Adam shouted after them in exasperation. Quickening his pace, -Adam reached the classroom first and asked Mecteacher, "Are the other -children—deep?"</p> - -<p>"Deep? Yes, Adam, Mecfather explained that to you. Why are you -confused? It's us, the mecs, who are flat. The other children are -healthy, living beings. The cells from which all of you were born were -selected after years of controlled breeding. Your parents were the -finest the human race could produce—intelligent, strong, healthy, high -survival quotient. Is this what you mean by deep?"</p> - -<p>"Partly, but also—<i>feeling</i>. I think I feel things better."</p> - -<p>The other children waddled in, took their seats and switched on -robomonitors in the ritual of classroom procedure. They all looked at -Mecteacher in the central panel.</p> - -<p>Mecteacher motioned Adam to his chair-desk and began the lesson. He -described Old Earth and how it circled Old Sol with the other worlds -and the way the moons circled the planets—all of them condensed into -spheres and all the spheres turning in harmony.</p> - -<p>He interrupted himself when Mary's robomonitor registered only partial -comprehension. "What don't you understand, Mary? Is it <i>sphere</i>?"</p> - -<p>"I know what a sphere is," she said, remembering a previous lesson. "A -sphere is an apple or an orange—"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Mecteacher detected a covert wince from Adam's monitor. The teacher -appeared to Adam on his desk panel where the others couldn't see or -hear. "Do not think this is because she is not—deep, Adam. She is only -seven and not as advanced for her age as you are. You understand how we -mecs are pre-set?"</p> - -<p>"Yes."</p> - -<p>"In the classroom, then, if we don't go fast enough for you, try to -be patient. We can only deviate within set limits. It is not a new -problem, Adam. On Earth, it impeded the educational system from the -beginning."</p> - -<p>Simultaneously with his conversation with Adam, Mecteacher held up -an apple on the central panel and re-explained the age-old analogy -between the apple and the Earth, the red skin and the Terran crust, and -further, the supposition that New Earth ahead would be like Old Earth -and the apple.</p> - -<p>Eve wanted to know whether New Earth would have a New Moon.</p> - -<p>"That's an interesting question, Eve. But we are still too many -millions of miles away to know yet. Before you are ready to leave the -ship, you will know."</p> - -<p>In the months that passed, Adam tried associating more with the other -children. He played their games, which seemed to him to be played -without a purpose, but they wouldn't or couldn't play his—with one -exception.</p> - -<p>He showed them how to turn off the artificial gravity in the recroom -and they became obsessed with the same physical euphoria he had -discovered for himself. But even while in free-fall, Adam maintained -his need for reason and couldn't indulge their pointless pastimes for -long. Often, when he grew tired of free-falling, he visited his lonely -chamber under the deck and explored the working parts of the ship.</p> - -<p>On almost each occasion when he returned, he was caught by one of the -mecs and punished with fiercely glowing red panels. Remembering a -previous conversation with the mecs, Adam reasoned that their present -dissatisfaction with him was not real. After all, he recalled, they -were pre-set. They <i>had</i> to act like that when he disobeyed them. Going -against them wasn't necessarily the same as doing wrong.</p> - -<p>It took an act of will and intelligence far in advance of his -seven years, for Adam realized that if he continued like this, the -conditioning would eat at his brain like acid and guilt would rise -in the etch. So, from under the ship's deck, he turned the mecs -permanently off.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The stars changed with the passing years. The blue giant Adam used to -watch from the darkside port was now a diamond chip lost in starmilk -night. Ahead, a new jewel grew larger in the quartz port, a sapphire -blazing hot and big—bigger than any star in his memory, closer than -the <i>Destiny</i> had ever come to a star.</p> - -<p>Adam understood why the star was so big. He was eighteen Old Earth -years of age now and the star was New Sol. Soon there would be a New -Earth and maybe a New Moon. His destiny was near, his job decided. He -would locate the planet, orbit it, search for a clear space and land. -Then he and the others—</p> - -<p>The others. The repulsive, flighty, inconsistent trio. They were -alike, all right, with never a serious thought in their heads. Why -weren't they concerned with their destiny as he was? If he were a -genius as the mecs once told him, why weren't the others also geniuses? -They all came from the best stock of Old Earth. No, it wasn't just that -he was supernormal; the others were—flat, undeep.</p> - -<p>For years, he had kept peace by yielding to their demands. He suffered -their company, succumbed to their activities. But every so often, when -he felt especially disgusted, he retreated to his private sanctum under -the deck. This was such a time now, he felt, as Eve and Mary giggled -over to him.</p> - -<p>They were not nude as had been the custom aboard the ship ever since he -turned off the mecs. They had clothes draped over parts of them that -seemed somehow to make them more than nude. But they wore red coloring -on their lips that he thought was repulsive.</p> - -<p>He ducked behind the couch, clicked open the familiar combination and -descended into the only peace he ever knew. He sat at a chair-table he -had lowered into the compartment long ago, and peered pensively at the -drawings before him. If Mecteacher were here, he thought, the orbit -wouldn't be so difficult to calculate. He'd explain how to do it.</p> - -<p>And then, he wondered, would Mecteacher have taught the others how -to be deep? Or was depth something inside, something that could not -be altered by education? If this were a world with other people, he -thought, would my cousins be considered abnormals—or would I?</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>He pondered the question for a moment, then decided, as he had so often -in the past, that it was truly the cousins who were the flat ones. They -were deviants from an average that couldn't exist on the <i>Destiny</i>, -but which must have once existed elsewhere. They had been flat at -seven—perhaps when children are supposed to be flat, as Mecmother had -suggested—but they stayed that way. At eighteen, as at seven, they -still played the same games with scarcely any variation.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/illus.jpg" width="356" height="500" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>He heard them rummaging above, attempting again and again to pull open -the hatch. It had happened this way for years: They'd try to open the -trapdoor for an hour or two, then give it up and turn their attention -to something else. They never thought to turn the handle. Maybe an -undeep person wouldn't be able to reason the combination clicks, but -only a completely flat one would persist in pulling when it always -ended in failure.</p> - -<p>Possibly, he thought, the cosmic rays had been more destructive to -their egg cells. Or maybe the alien radiations subtracted something -from the other cells to add to his. If this were true, he was partly a -product of the others and owed his depth to them.</p> - -<p>Adam felt sorry for his cousins then and wished he hadn't hurt them -by avoiding their presence. Despite their undepth, they must have -feelings. The mecs probably wouldn't have been able to give them depth -but, he remembered, the other role of the mecs was to prevent each one -of them from harming the others. In their role as arbitrator, Adam -realized, they might have stopped him from hurting them so.</p> - -<p>Filled with remorse, he left his desk-chair and walked stoop-shouldered -under the low ceiling. At the trapdoor, he opened the combination on -the inside lock handle and pushed upward. It wouldn't open. He tried -again, but it wasn't the lock that was stuck. They must have slid -something heavy over the hatch, something he couldn't move.</p> - -<p>He tried calling to them, but his voice was lost in the insulative -metal of the deck. Finally he sat down, conserving his strength for a -final onslaught.</p> - -<p>If he couldn't open the hatch, he realized vividly it would be not -only his failure, but the failure of the human race.</p> - -<p>But maybe it did not have to be so. Maybe the differences in the others -weren't biological—maybe they were environmental. And with that -thought, he made his way through the narrow passageway and reversed his -deed of eleven years past. He turned the mecs back on.</p> - -<p>Returning to the hatch, he reworked the combination to make sure it was -not the lock that held him. He pushed upward with all his strength, -steadily with increasing pressure, until the beads of perspiration -turned into gulleys that streamed down his face.</p> - -<p>Exhausted, he crawled back to his chair and lay across the desk -littered with calculations of a landing he would never make. The soft -luminescence from the <i>Destiny's</i> nuclear engines crept forward and -caressed him.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>In the aft recroom, Eve and Mary were admiring Joseph's strength in -being able to push the heavy couch over Adam's trapdoor.</p> - -<p>Three wall panels lit red. All the mecs appeared together. "It's time -for your science lesson," one said. "But where is Adam?"</p> - -<p>"He's in the trapdoor," they answered flatly.</p> - -<p>The panel turned green, reserving its redness for the delinquent Adam -when he would choose to appear.</p> - -<p>Mecteacher began, "Now about the Solar System...."</p> - -<p>But the cousins didn't listen. Joseph had turned the gravity switch off -and they were too busy floating upended, trying new positions, laughing -at each other's ridiculous postures in the ship without bottom. The -game was not a new one, but it was newly discovered and they reveled in -its glories.</p> - -<p>Month after month, they played their weightless games while the -mecs implored them to come down. The constellations shifted in the -visiports. New Sol grew larger and then smaller as the <i>Destiny</i> sped -toward its unseen planet.</p> - -<p>In the recroom, the mecvoices were only noises to the trio now, -annoying noises that could be silenced, they discovered, with forceful -kicks to the red-glowing panels.</p> - -<p>When all the mecscreens had been smashed and the weightless games grew -boring, Mary looked out the sunroom port. She was surprised to see a -rust-yellow sphere hanging in the sky. She watched it seriously for a -time, frowning as it grew bigger and filled a third of her horizon. -Then she called Eve and Joseph.</p> - -<p>Mary pointed and they all stared in bewilderment. She opened her eyes -wide and laughed with glee. "It's an apple," she said. "An apple in the -sky!"</p> - -<p>But Joseph wasn't fooled. Dimly he remembered something Adam had told -him—something about a thing that would appear in the sky. He fought -hard bringing it to conscious memory. Then he started aft toward the -recroom. In there, under the couch, he remembered, was Adam. Adam would -remind him what it was.</p> - -<p>Suddenly Joseph smiled, his face flushed. He turned back to the sunroom -port. He wouldn't have to ask Adam, after all. For a moment, he watched -to make sure, while the huge yellow sphere swam closer.</p> - -<p>"No, Mary," he said triumphantly. "It's not an apple in the sky. Apples -are red. It's an orange!"</p> - - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Deep One, by Neil P. Ruzic - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DEEP ONE *** - -***** This file should be named 51091-h.htm or 51091-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/1/0/9/51091/ - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan 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 print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law 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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Ruzic - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - - - -Title: The Deep One - -Author: Neil P. Ruzic - -Release Date: January 31, 2016 [EBook #51091] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DEEP ONE *** - - - - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - - - - - - - - - THE DEEP ONE - - By NEIL P. RUZIC - - Illustrated by DILLON - - [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from - Galaxy Science Fiction March 1957. - Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that - the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] - - - There wasn't a single mistake in the plan for - survival--and that was the biggest mistake! - - -For centuries, the rains swept eight million daily tons of land into -the sea. Mountains slowly crumpled to ocean floors. Summits rose again -to see new civilizations heaped upon fossils of the old. - -It was the way of the Earth and men knew it and did not worry. The end -was always in the future. Ever since men first learned to make marks on -cave walls, the end remained in the future. - -Then the future came. The records told men how the Sun was before, so -they knew it was swollen now. They knew the heat was not always this -hot, or the glacier waters so fast, the seas so high. - -They adapted--they grew tanner and moved farther pole-ward. - -When the steam finally rose over equatorial waters, they moved to the -last planet, Pluto, and their descendants lived and died and came to -know the same heat and red skies. Finally there came the day when they -couldn't adapt--not, at least, in the usual way. - -But they had the knowledge of all the great civilizations on Earth, so -they built the last spaceship. - -They built it very slowly and carefully. Their will to live became -the will to leave this final, perfect monument. It took a hundred and -fifty years and during all that time they planned every facet of its -operation, every detail of its complex mechanisms. Because the ship had -a big job to do, they named it _Destiny_ and people began to think of -it not as the last of the spaceships, but as the first. - -The dying race sowed the ship with human seed and hopefully named its -unborn passengers Adam, Eve, Joseph and Mary. Then they launched it -toward the middle of the Milky Way and lay back in the red light of -their burning planet. - - * * * * * - -All this was only a memory now, conserved in the think-tank of a -machine that raced through speckled space, dodging, examining, -classifying, charting what it saw. Behind, the Sun shrank as once it -swelled, and the planets that were not consumed turned cold in their -orbits. The Sun grew fainter and went out, and still the ship sped -forward, century after century, cometlike, but with a purpose. - -At many of the specks, the ship circled, sucking in records, passing -judgment, moving on--a bee in the garden of stars. Finally, hundreds -of light-years from what had been its home, it located an Earth-type -world, accepted it from a billion miles off, and swung into an approach -that would last exactly eighteen years. - -Immediately, pumps delivered measured quantities of oxygen and nitrogen -atoms. Circuits closed to move four tiny frozen eggs next to frozen -spermatozoa. The temperature gradually increased to a heat once -maintained by animals now extinct. - -The embryos grew healthily and at term were born of plastic wombs. - -The first voices they heard were of their real mothers. Soft, caressing -songwords. Melodious, warm, recorded women voices, each different, -bell-clear, vivacious, betraying nothing of the fact that they were -dead these long centuries. - -"I am your mother," each voice told its belated offspring. "You can see -me and hear me and touch what appears to be me, and together with your -cousins, you'll grow strong and healthy...." - -The voices sang on and the babies gurgled in their imported terran -atmosphere. The words were meaningless but important, for it had been -learned on the now dead world that these sounds were one of the factors -in love and learning. - -Day after day, the voices lapped warm over the children. Plastic -feeders provided nutrition as noiseless pumps removed excess carbon -dioxide. - -In one end of the ship, a miniature farm was born hydroponically, its -automatic grinders pre-digesting ripe vegetables for the children. -Animals were born, too, for food, but also companionship, and later to -stock New Earth ahead. - -As the babies began to understand, the woman voices merged into -one mechanical mother who could be heard and seen and summoned on -panel screens throughout the ship. Everything became as Earthlike as -possible, but because the environment was artificial, the children grew -aware of their purpose in life at an age rarely reached on ancient -Earth. - - * * * * * - -They were two years old when their Mecmother informed them: "You are -unlike any children ever born. You are the last of a dead race, but -you must live. You must not be afraid. You must do everything humanly -possible to live." - -When they were four, Mecmother introduced them to Mecteacher and said -to pay attention for five hours each day. Mecteacher took their IQs and -explained to Adam that he had a greater capacity than Eve, Joseph and -Mary, and was therefore their leader. - -Soon afterward, all the children started "school," but Adam excelled. -At seven, he knew all about landing the ship. He played that he was -already eighteen and the ship was no longer on automatic. - -He was in everything and everywhere. His tow hair poked above the -control board. His busy fingers hand-picked an experimental meal from -the farmroom. When he learned how to turn the artificial gravity switch -off in the recroom, his child legs floated haphazardly somewhere above -his head. And in the sunroom, where heat-lamp walls were triggered by -the degree of an occupant's tan, Adam's freckled face stared through -the visiport, seeing in his mind's eye the New Earth he would one day -conquer. - -He lived fully, asking questions, accepting the answers, receiving -instructions. Some of them he testily disobeyed, was punished -compassionately, and learned respect and a kind of love for the mecs. - -He played the games of childhood, but he played them alone. Once he was -gazing out a port, imaginatively sorting the stars of his universe into -shapes of the animals in the ship's farm. Mecfather lit up at a nearby -panel, glowing faintly red. Adam resisted an impulse to shiver--the -panel always made him flinch when it glowed red. Red, he was being -conditioned, was his conscience, brought out by Mecfather until he grew -old enough to bring it out himself. - -"Why aren't you playing with the other children?" Mecfather asked. -"I've been watching you all day and you've avoided them on every -occasion." - -Though he feared him, Adam loved Mecfather as he had been taught to -do and did not hesitate to confide. But how could he explain that the -other children did not seem as _real_ to him as the mecs? - -"I don't know," Adam answered truthfully. - -"They don't ignore you. They ask you to play, but you always go off by -yourself. Don't you like them?" - -"They're flat, Father. They're not deep--like you." - - * * * * * - -Silent hidden computers assembled the answer, correlated, circuited a -mechanical smile. Certainly--a child brought up with only three real -children and three talking images in his universe could not distinguish -between reality and appearance. On the screen, Adam saw Mecfather -smile, the panel no longer red. - -The voice was quiet now and full of understanding. "It is I who am -flat, Adam. I am only an image, a voice. I am here when you need me to -help, but I am not deep. Your cousins are deep; I am the flat one. You -will understand better when you grow older." - -Electronically, Mecfather was worried. He called a "conference" of the -other mecs and their circuits joined in a complicated analog: What was -the probable outcome of this beginning of disharmony? There were too -many variables for an immediate answer, but the query was stored in -each mec's memory banks for later answer. - -When the mecconference began, the panel switched off and Adam walked -thoughtfully through the ship's corridors. Unexpectedly, he spotted the -other children. He turned quickly into a room before they saw him and -ducked behind the largest of the couches. - -He was in the aft recroom, he realized, not having paid attention to -where he was going. What was it all about? Did Mecfather really mean it -when he said the cousins were deeper than the mecs? Adam could believe -he was different from his parents and teacher--after all, he was -only seven--but he couldn't accept the information that he was _not_ -different from his cousins. Somehow, he thought, I am alone.... - -He heard noises, the loud boisterousness of Joseph, the high-pitched -squeal of Eve, the grating laugh of Mary. Adam cringed deeper behind -the big couch. He _was_ different. _He_ didn't make sounds like that. - -"Adam! Oh, A-dam! A-dam!" the cousins called, each their own way. "Come -out wherever you are, Adam! Come out and play!" - -From behind the couch, Adam saw the beginnings of an infantile but -systematic search. The three of them were looking behind things, under -furniture, in back of hatches. They tried moving everything they saw, -but couldn't budge the heavy couch Adam hid behind. - -Looking for escape, Adam's eyes caught a round metallic handle set -flush into the heavy deck carpet. He lifted it and pulled. Nothing -happened. He stood up, bracing his feet against the deck and heaved -with all his strength. It didn't move. - -Then he experimentally turned the handle--to the right until it -clicked faintly, then the left, around twice, another faint click, but -different, a left-hand click, he knew somehow. So he turned again to -the left, this time three turns--and then the click was heavy, almost -audible. He pulled the handle and a door formed out of the carpet, -swinging easily open. - -Just then, Joseph peered behind the couch. "Boo!" - - * * * * * - -Adam jumped into the opening, the heavy door slamming shut overhead. -Below, he stood erect and was surprised to feel the hair on his head -brush the ceiling. - -He was frightened, but he calmed when he realized there were many -places on the ship he hadn't been before. Mecteacher revealed them -to him, but very slowly, and he supposed he would not be told about -_everything_ for many years. As he recovered his sense of balance, he -became aware of a faint luminescence around him. It seemed to have no -source, but was stronger in the distance. - -He began to explore, groping at first, then more smoothly, efficiently, -as his eyes adjusted to the semi-darkness. A long corridor opened -up before him and what appeared before to be an illusion of distance -actually _was_ distance. He guessed he was near the engine compartment -and vaguely sensed that the luminescence had something to do with the -nuclear engines that Mecteacher told him moved the ship. - -It was warm in here. Not physically warm but friendy warm, like when -Mecmother spoke her comfort. The similarity almost made him cry, for he -understood, even in his seven years, that Mecmother was but the image -of his real mother who lived long ago and said those words of sympathy -to a child yet unborn. He wanted her now, even her image, but he didn't -call because he'd have to explain why he was hiding from his cousins. - -He shivered then, thinking that Mecfather and Mecteacher knew where -he was and would light up their panels red. He thought, "Are you down -here, Mecfather?" Nothing answered, so he spoke the thought, and again -the walls stayed dark. - -That was why it was so friendy warm in here, he realized. His -mecconscience was left above! - -Deciding that the others might miss him, he retraced his steps, located -the trapdoor in the ceiling, pushed it open and ascended. The others -were sitting on the floor, dumbfounded, as Adam climbed out and -slammed the hatch shut. - -"How did you get down there?" Joseph asked. - -Adam remained silent. After a moment, Eve and Mary lost interest in the -question and started skipping a length of rope. - -Joseph persisted. "How? I pulled, too!" - -Adam didn't answer. He knew the bigger boy would forget about it if he -changed the subject. "How is it you're not with Mecteacher?" - -"We were. But he made us look for you." - -The closest wall panel lit bright red. It was Mecteacher. "_Adam! How -did you open that?_" - -"I turned it--a certain way," he said evasively. Adam didn't want his -cousins to learn how. - -"But how did you know?" - -"I--I reasoned it." - - * * * * * - -The image faded as the new information was assimilated. Mecteacher's -voice said, "Wait a while, Adam." - -The computer circuited the other mec's memory banks. After ten minutes, -the "conference" was over and Mecteacher returned to the screen. He -asked Adam to come alone to the classroom. The others were dismissed. - -Reluctantly, Adam did as he was told. In the classroom, he stood -stiffly in front of the central panels. All three mecs lit up, their -color this time a tranquilizing blue. - -"Adam, we are not real people in the _now_," Mecmother began. "Do you -understand that?" - -"Y-yes, I understand. You are--planned--fixed before." - -"That's right, Adam. We are pre-set. We have a very large number of -choices and actions, but we are not infinite." - -"Infinite?" - -"We are limited in the help we can give you. We were real--like you--a -long, long time ago. We exist now only to help you and the other -children. We are here to educate you, to love and console you--and one -other thing. We are here to settle your conflicts, to make sure you -don't hurt each other." - -"But I didn't hurt anyone, Mecmother!" - -"Not yet, Adam, but avoiding the others the way you do could be the -first sign of trouble." - -"How do you _know_? How can you talk if you aren't real?" - -"What you hear is a combination of recorded words that are -electronically put together to answer an almost infinite number of your -questions. But do not think of me as not real. I was merely in another -time. Do you understand that?" - -"Yes." - -"Then you also are able to see that your ability to reason things--to -understand what I am telling you now, for instance, is a remarkable -thing." - -"You mean because I'm not like the others?" - -"You have a superior mind. You are the leader, but do not regard -yourself as better than the others. You have more intelligence, yes, -but do not look down on your cousins for that. They may develop other -qualities better than yours. Stay simple, Adam, and you will be able to -live among them and thereby make the human race live again. The name of -this ship is _Destiny_. Do you know why?" - -"Yes--I know." - -"Be with the other children then. Play with them. You'll need each -other to live on New Earth--eleven years from now." - - * * * * * - -He thought sullenly, how can I play with them when they're _flat_? But -he didn't object out loud to Mecmother. He didn't like her this way. -Explanation was Mecteacher's job and discipline Mecfather's. Mecmother -should be warm and loving. - -Mecteacher appeared and asked Adam to call in the other children so the -science lesson could start. - -He found them tanning in the sunroom, their unclothed bodies evenly -browned from invisible light. They followed Adam without question, but -seemed to take a long time doing it. Joseph insisted first in donning -clothes, but he put on protective clothing first. Then, realizing the -absurdity of it, he switched to his formality suit--the loose-fitting -robe Mecteacher instructed the children to wear to lend dignity to the -classwork. - -During Joseph's delay, the girls ambled off somewhere and returned only -when Adam shouted after them in exasperation. Quickening his pace, -Adam reached the classroom first and asked Mecteacher, "Are the other -children--deep?" - -"Deep? Yes, Adam, Mecfather explained that to you. Why are you -confused? It's us, the mecs, who are flat. The other children are -healthy, living beings. The cells from which all of you were born were -selected after years of controlled breeding. Your parents were the -finest the human race could produce--intelligent, strong, healthy, high -survival quotient. Is this what you mean by deep?" - -"Partly, but also--_feeling_. I think I feel things better." - -The other children waddled in, took their seats and switched on -robomonitors in the ritual of classroom procedure. They all looked at -Mecteacher in the central panel. - -Mecteacher motioned Adam to his chair-desk and began the lesson. He -described Old Earth and how it circled Old Sol with the other worlds -and the way the moons circled the planets--all of them condensed into -spheres and all the spheres turning in harmony. - -He interrupted himself when Mary's robomonitor registered only partial -comprehension. "What don't you understand, Mary? Is it _sphere_?" - -"I know what a sphere is," she said, remembering a previous lesson. "A -sphere is an apple or an orange--" - - * * * * * - -Mecteacher detected a covert wince from Adam's monitor. The teacher -appeared to Adam on his desk panel where the others couldn't see or -hear. "Do not think this is because she is not--deep, Adam. She is only -seven and not as advanced for her age as you are. You understand how we -mecs are pre-set?" - -"Yes." - -"In the classroom, then, if we don't go fast enough for you, try to -be patient. We can only deviate within set limits. It is not a new -problem, Adam. On Earth, it impeded the educational system from the -beginning." - -Simultaneously with his conversation with Adam, Mecteacher held up -an apple on the central panel and re-explained the age-old analogy -between the apple and the Earth, the red skin and the Terran crust, and -further, the supposition that New Earth ahead would be like Old Earth -and the apple. - -Eve wanted to know whether New Earth would have a New Moon. - -"That's an interesting question, Eve. But we are still too many -millions of miles away to know yet. Before you are ready to leave the -ship, you will know." - -In the months that passed, Adam tried associating more with the other -children. He played their games, which seemed to him to be played -without a purpose, but they wouldn't or couldn't play his--with one -exception. - -He showed them how to turn off the artificial gravity in the recroom -and they became obsessed with the same physical euphoria he had -discovered for himself. But even while in free-fall, Adam maintained -his need for reason and couldn't indulge their pointless pastimes for -long. Often, when he grew tired of free-falling, he visited his lonely -chamber under the deck and explored the working parts of the ship. - -On almost each occasion when he returned, he was caught by one of the -mecs and punished with fiercely glowing red panels. Remembering a -previous conversation with the mecs, Adam reasoned that their present -dissatisfaction with him was not real. After all, he recalled, they -were pre-set. They _had_ to act like that when he disobeyed them. Going -against them wasn't necessarily the same as doing wrong. - -It took an act of will and intelligence far in advance of his -seven years, for Adam realized that if he continued like this, the -conditioning would eat at his brain like acid and guilt would rise -in the etch. So, from under the ship's deck, he turned the mecs -permanently off. - - * * * * * - -The stars changed with the passing years. The blue giant Adam used to -watch from the darkside port was now a diamond chip lost in starmilk -night. Ahead, a new jewel grew larger in the quartz port, a sapphire -blazing hot and big--bigger than any star in his memory, closer than -the _Destiny_ had ever come to a star. - -Adam understood why the star was so big. He was eighteen Old Earth -years of age now and the star was New Sol. Soon there would be a New -Earth and maybe a New Moon. His destiny was near, his job decided. He -would locate the planet, orbit it, search for a clear space and land. -Then he and the others-- - -The others. The repulsive, flighty, inconsistent trio. They were -alike, all right, with never a serious thought in their heads. Why -weren't they concerned with their destiny as he was? If he were a -genius as the mecs once told him, why weren't the others also geniuses? -They all came from the best stock of Old Earth. No, it wasn't just that -he was supernormal; the others were--flat, undeep. - -For years, he had kept peace by yielding to their demands. He suffered -their company, succumbed to their activities. But every so often, when -he felt especially disgusted, he retreated to his private sanctum under -the deck. This was such a time now, he felt, as Eve and Mary giggled -over to him. - -They were not nude as had been the custom aboard the ship ever since he -turned off the mecs. They had clothes draped over parts of them that -seemed somehow to make them more than nude. But they wore red coloring -on their lips that he thought was repulsive. - -He ducked behind the couch, clicked open the familiar combination and -descended into the only peace he ever knew. He sat at a chair-table he -had lowered into the compartment long ago, and peered pensively at the -drawings before him. If Mecteacher were here, he thought, the orbit -wouldn't be so difficult to calculate. He'd explain how to do it. - -And then, he wondered, would Mecteacher have taught the others how -to be deep? Or was depth something inside, something that could not -be altered by education? If this were a world with other people, he -thought, would my cousins be considered abnormals--or would I? - - * * * * * - -He pondered the question for a moment, then decided, as he had so often -in the past, that it was truly the cousins who were the flat ones. They -were deviants from an average that couldn't exist on the _Destiny_, -but which must have once existed elsewhere. They had been flat at -seven--perhaps when children are supposed to be flat, as Mecmother had -suggested--but they stayed that way. At eighteen, as at seven, they -still played the same games with scarcely any variation. - -He heard them rummaging above, attempting again and again to pull open -the hatch. It had happened this way for years: They'd try to open the -trapdoor for an hour or two, then give it up and turn their attention -to something else. They never thought to turn the handle. Maybe an -undeep person wouldn't be able to reason the combination clicks, but -only a completely flat one would persist in pulling when it always -ended in failure. - -Possibly, he thought, the cosmic rays had been more destructive to -their egg cells. Or maybe the alien radiations subtracted something -from the other cells to add to his. If this were true, he was partly a -product of the others and owed his depth to them. - -Adam felt sorry for his cousins then and wished he hadn't hurt them -by avoiding their presence. Despite their undepth, they must have -feelings. The mecs probably wouldn't have been able to give them depth -but, he remembered, the other role of the mecs was to prevent each one -of them from harming the others. In their role as arbitrator, Adam -realized, they might have stopped him from hurting them so. - -Filled with remorse, he left his desk-chair and walked stoop-shouldered -under the low ceiling. At the trapdoor, he opened the combination on -the inside lock handle and pushed upward. It wouldn't open. He tried -again, but it wasn't the lock that was stuck. They must have slid -something heavy over the hatch, something he couldn't move. - -He tried calling to them, but his voice was lost in the insulative -metal of the deck. Finally he sat down, conserving his strength for a -final onslaught. - -If he couldn't open the hatch, he realized vividly it would be not -only his failure, but the failure of the human race. - -But maybe it did not have to be so. Maybe the differences in the others -weren't biological--maybe they were environmental. And with that -thought, he made his way through the narrow passageway and reversed his -deed of eleven years past. He turned the mecs back on. - -Returning to the hatch, he reworked the combination to make sure it was -not the lock that held him. He pushed upward with all his strength, -steadily with increasing pressure, until the beads of perspiration -turned into gulleys that streamed down his face. - -Exhausted, he crawled back to his chair and lay across the desk -littered with calculations of a landing he would never make. The soft -luminescence from the _Destiny's_ nuclear engines crept forward and -caressed him. - - * * * * * - -In the aft recroom, Eve and Mary were admiring Joseph's strength in -being able to push the heavy couch over Adam's trapdoor. - -Three wall panels lit red. All the mecs appeared together. "It's time -for your science lesson," one said. "But where is Adam?" - -"He's in the trapdoor," they answered flatly. - -The panel turned green, reserving its redness for the delinquent Adam -when he would choose to appear. - -Mecteacher began, "Now about the Solar System...." - -But the cousins didn't listen. Joseph had turned the gravity switch off -and they were too busy floating upended, trying new positions, laughing -at each other's ridiculous postures in the ship without bottom. The -game was not a new one, but it was newly discovered and they reveled in -its glories. - -Month after month, they played their weightless games while the -mecs implored them to come down. The constellations shifted in the -visiports. New Sol grew larger and then smaller as the _Destiny_ sped -toward its unseen planet. - -In the recroom, the mecvoices were only noises to the trio now, -annoying noises that could be silenced, they discovered, with forceful -kicks to the red-glowing panels. - -When all the mecscreens had been smashed and the weightless games grew -boring, Mary looked out the sunroom port. She was surprised to see a -rust-yellow sphere hanging in the sky. She watched it seriously for a -time, frowning as it grew bigger and filled a third of her horizon. -Then she called Eve and Joseph. - -Mary pointed and they all stared in bewilderment. She opened her eyes -wide and laughed with glee. "It's an apple," she said. "An apple in the -sky!" - -But Joseph wasn't fooled. Dimly he remembered something Adam had told -him--something about a thing that would appear in the sky. He fought -hard bringing it to conscious memory. Then he started aft toward the -recroom. In there, under the couch, he remembered, was Adam. Adam would -remind him what it was. - -Suddenly Joseph smiled, his face flushed. He turned back to the sunroom -port. He wouldn't have to ask Adam, after all. For a moment, he watched -to make sure, while the huge yellow sphere swam closer. - -"No, Mary," he said triumphantly. "It's not an apple in the sky. Apples -are red. It's an orange!" - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Deep One, by Neil P. 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