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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..c17bb19 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #60762 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/60762) diff --git a/old/60762-8.txt b/old/60762-8.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 34f8576..0000000 --- a/old/60762-8.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,1806 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Divers, by James Stamers - -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 Divers - -Author: James Stamers - -Release Date: November 22, 2019 [EBook #60762] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DIVERS *** - - - - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - - - - - - - - - the Divers - - By JAMES STAMERS - - _The key to Fred's success - was simple ... he may not have - had much of a mind, but it - was all his, nobody else's!_ - - [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from - Worlds of If Science Fiction, January 1960. - Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that - the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] - - -He had forgotten the beer again. He remembered that he had forgotten -only as he opened the apartment door. A wave of smoke and onions and -hamburger flowed past him into the dingy corridor and he stumbled on -the garbage pail, plunked right in the doorway for him to lug along the -passage to the chute. The bed was not made in one of their two rooms -and newspapers littered the other. Elsie was in the kitchen. - -"Fred! Fred, did you remember my beer?" - -He closed the door so that the neighbors would not hear the row to -come, except through the walls. - -"Didja, Fred?" - -She stood akimbo in the kitchen doorway, a cigarette hanging from her -lips, her dressing gown loose and spotted, her feet in old scuffs. - -"I forgot," he mumbled. "I'll go now." - -Oh, no, he wouldn't. Not until he had heard a full resumé of his lack -of character, lack of enterprise, ambition, decency, thoughtfulness, -manhood, semblance of virtue. - -"I said I was going, Elsie. I said I was going, didn't I?" - -"Well, my day! You remembered my name!" - -It was true he rarely used her name or called her any husbandly term -such as dear or darling instead, and rarely looked at her at all if he -could avoid it inconspicuously. Ten years of marriage--ten years of -legal proximity, rather, for nothing in him was married to anything in -her any more. - -"I don't know why you married me," he said. - -"Makes you wonder, doesn't it? Go on, get out." - - * * * * * - -He almost knocked the man over as he left the apartment. The man was -standing there, about to ring the bell. Well dressed, clean, expensive -overcoat, polished shoes, black hat and a mild friendly face. - -"Mr. Frederick Williams?" the man asked. - -"Yes," said Fred. - -"You entered the _Sunday News_ competition for a free space ride?" - -"Yes. Did I win it?" - -"Unfortunately, no," said the man. - -"Oh. Well, excuse me, I've got to go and get something." - -"I'll come with you. My name is Howard Sprinnell, Mr. Williams, and -I've been examining the entries to that competition. Frankly, we think -you have considerable talent." - -"Mister," said Fred over his shoulder as they went down the stairs, "if -you're trying to sell me something--" - -"I don't want a penny from you, Mr. Williams." - -"Then what--" - -"We would merely appreciate a few hours of your time, at your -convenience." - -"A few hours?" Fred said, distressed. By working double shift in the -automation-parts supply house, he could just keep going, financially -and physically. The question of mental fatigue was exclusively Elsie's -province and there he had a rough working technique for responding -without really listening. His job called for no mental effort greater -than reading a shipping list, and his home life certainly didn't. -Most of the time he had nothing in his mind at all; the days passed -faster that way. But Elsie and the job kept him tired. Odd how just not -listening wrung you out and drained you off. - -"We are, of course, very glad to offer you compensation for your time, -Mr. Williams," said the man. - -Elsie would just drink it away. He'd have to haul crates of bourbon -instead of cans of beer, that's all. - -"Not interested," he said. - -That was it. That was the way to keep a salesman stalled. Just "not -interested." Keep saying it and nothing else. They all said they were -not salesmen and weren't selling anything. Every salesman he had ever -met at the door said that. _Galactic Encyclopedia_, Nuclear Brush, Your -Venus Vacation, video subscriptions, even the Federal numbers game, -they all started out by offering you a special opportunity and were not -selling you anything. The man was still talking. - -"Not interested," Fred said. - -"Fred," said the man as they reached the bottom of the stairs, "I'm -doing you a favor. I'm not supposed to tell you this, but either you -come voluntarily or you'll come anyway. Why not get paid for it?" - -"Not interested. And if anyone wants me, they can come and get me. I -don't care. I just don't care." - -He slouched off into the rain toward the supermarket. - -As Dr. Howard Sprinnell watched him go he took a small silver case -from his top-coat pocket. He raised the case to his lips and said -quietly: "Sprinnell here. No. A clear case, but no. Pick him up." - - * * * * * - -The squad car arrived silently on its jets as Fred Williams reached -the door of the apartment house. He was carrying a pack of beer in -each hand and was glad to see the man had gone. That's all you had to -do--just keep saying "not interested" until they went away. - -"O.K., bud." - -The troopers took him on both sides, grasped his arms, and levered him -round. - -"Hey!" Fred protested. "The beer's for my wife. She's waiting for it. -Please, fellers, I'll never hear the end of it if she doesn't get her -beer." - -"Joe," said the trooper on Fred's right, jerking his head in the -direction of the door behind them. - -A third trooper climbed out of the squad car, took the packs from -Fred's hands and walked into the apartment house. He climbed the stairs -swiftly, wrinkling his nose at the stale thickness of the air, knocked -on the apartment door and waited for Elsie to open it. - -"Here's your beer," he said shortly. - -"Where's Fred?" - -"Your husband is being detained in connection with a robbery at his -office." - -"Fred! Are you kidding? Fred hasn't the sense or the guts! How long -will he be gone?" - -"Two or three weeks." - -"Oh," said Elsie, scratching herself disinterestedly. "Well, thanks for -the beer." - -She shut the door and the trooper returned to the squad car. He looked -at Fred sympathetically but said nothing. The squad car took off, then -turned on its sirens. - -"What's this all about?" asked Fred Williams from the back seat. - -"Just excitement, bud. We live a dull life." - -You think you do, you should live mine. I don't care anyway. If I ask -them what I'm doing in this squad car, I'll get a silly answer. - -"A guy called Spinner or something send for you?" - -"We don't get sent for, bud. Where have you been, the Middle Ages?" - - * * * * * - -He had a point there. Security troopers were under direct control of -the President and came and went as they pleased. The satellite stations -gave them general directives and the President directed the stations. -Fred Williams grinned at the thought of Spinner, or whatever his name -was, calling the President to call a satellite station to call these -cops to come and get him. He would have been shocked and frightened if -anyone had told him this was almost exactly what had happened. - -They shot into the garage of an ordinary Federal police station, a -large tiled vault smelling of hoses, soap and water. The troopers took -him upstairs, along wax-polished corridors, through swinging doors and -out of the muttered voices, footsteps, paper rattling and telephone -tinkle of the station, into the smooth silence of a surgery. That -fellow Spinner was waiting in a white doctor's coat. - -"They pick you up too?" Fred Williams said. - -The Security troopers hoisted him into a dentist's chair, saluted the -other man and went away. - -"You can leave any time you wish, Fred. If you do, though, I'll have -you brought back. I'm Dr. Howard Sprinnell." - -"Funny, I thought your name was Cloud Spinner or something," Fred -confessed. - -"That's very interesting." The doctor leaned forward across his desk. -"What made you think that?" - -"I just remembered it that way, that's all." - -"Ah. You have an unusual mind, Fred. No, I mean it. And just to show -you this is not fooling, I have a call here for you from the President." - -"From Jake?" - -"From President Jackson, yes." - - * * * * * - -Dr. Sprinnell pressed a green button on the video control on his desk. -The wall panel lit and President Jackson's familiar face looked at Fred -Williams. - -"Mr. Williams," said the President. "The nation has called you to an -unusual task. On your complete cooperation and absolute discretion in -not mentioning to anyone--to anyone at all--what you may now learn -depend matters of the utmost consequence to us all. I wish you good -luck and Godspeed." - -The panel went dark and the doctor switched off. - -"That was Jake himself," Fred Williams said. "Talking to me." - -Like the many thousand million in the System, Fred referred to the -President familiarly as Jake, but he never thought he would get to talk -to him, or be talked to personally. - -"What did he want to talk to me for?" Fred asked, dazed. - -"That's what I want to show you," said Dr. Sprinnell. "You understood -what the President said about keeping this entirely confidential?" - -"Hell, no one would believe it if I said I'd been talking to the -President, anyway." - -"That's what we figure," said the doctor, smiling slightly. He picked -up a pack of cards and flipped five of them onto the desk, a circle, a -cross, two wavy lines, a rectangle and a star. "These are Zener cards, -Fred. Ever see them before?" - -No, but they didn't look like much. This was cockeyed, the whole -situation--having the President call him so that he and a quack could -play cards. - -"It will be clearer in a little while," Dr. Howard Sprinnell said. "But -first we must run this little check. Please point to one of these cards -every minute when I say 'now.'" - -Fred shifted himself in the high chair and pointed to one of the -five cards obediently every minute. After twenty minutes, the doctor -increased the rate. He noted every selection. - -"Last lap now, Fred." - -He was sick of this, but it was better than sitting in the apartment -with Elsie. Fred pointed to a card for the last time. - -"And now," the doctor said, standing up and feeding his notations into -a machine in the corner of the room, "we have here the results." - -He pulled a tape from the machine as it purred out, and showed it to -Fred. It was a score of some sort. - -"In another room," Dr. Howard Sprinnell explained, "we have a -synchronized telepath trying to influence your selections of these -cards. If you have psi qualities, Fred, these results will show how -high they are. If you have none, then your chances of picking the right -card are one in five. That goes for picking the card ahead of the -right one, or behind it, or two ahead and so on. In other words, if -the cards had been selected here by a machine instead of you, we would -expect twenty per cent of the answers to be right, by sheer chance--or -statistical probability, to put it more accurately." - -"So how did I do? Am I a mind-reader? That would make me laugh." - - * * * * * - -The doctor glanced at the result tape he was holding. - -"You have the results we want," he said. "Otherwise I would not tell -you this. You would be thanked, given a reward, made a fuss of by some -civil servant of prominence and sent home in style." - -He looked up at Fred in the dentist's chair. - -"Do you remember that contest in the _Sunday News_?" - -Fred Williams remembered it. Every week there had been a puzzle picture -to identify. The contest had lasted nearly a year. He remembered -particularly that each week there had been a cut of the room in which -entries were to be judged, a large editorial office, just above the -puzzle picture. Just a room. He had wondered why they bothered to put -it in. - -"There was a picture of a room in the paper," said the doctor, "where -each week, without any possibility of fraud or anyone seeing it except -the judges, the solution to the puzzle was hung up on the wall in -the middle of the picture shown in the paper. The puzzles themselves -were meaningless. We wanted to see how many people wrote in the -right solution just from seeing the picture of the empty room. The -right solution, of course, was the one hanging in that room at that -time, which no one could see, and which was selected an hour before -publication of the paper each week by random selection in a dictionary." - -"So what did I get, a consolation prize?" asked Fred. - -"In a way," the doctor smiled. "But not for coming near winning. The -top twenty winners were highly gifted people we recruited into the -Psi faculties of Duke, Harvard, Oxford, Paris and elsewhere. They -scored consistently throughout the year with a better than probability -deviation." - -"Huh?" - -"They got a lot more right than they could by chance alone. But your -results were even more interesting to us. You got the same result here, -just now, on the Zener cards." - -"I'm still in the running?" - -"Fred, quite seriously, you are the best candidate we've ever met. -Hence the special treatment. In the history of the System Government, -there have only been ten other people with results similar to yours." - -"Is that so? Well, I suppose you know what you're doing, Doc. But I -never had a premonition in my life." - -Doctor Howard Sprinnell frowned. "I should _hope_ not. Almost everyone -has some psi capacities, but we're not interested in minor phenomena. -This is a government department, Fred. Here a thing has to work all the -time, whenever it's needed, wherever it's needed. A faculty professor -has off-days when he couldn't roll a die against chance. But you can't." - -"Look, doc. I think you've got the wrong man. I'm Fred Williams. -Frederick L. Williams. Are you sure--" - -"Look yourself," interrupted the doctor, leaning over to wave the tape -under Fred's nose. "Chance would give you twenty per cent right--one -out of five. Look at your result." - -Fred took the tape and studied it. "You've read it wrong. This says -several million per cent." - -"It says _zero_ per cent. _Nil._ Not _one_ answer right, Fred. The -millions are the probabilities of that deviation ... oh, never mind. -See the big black zero?" - -"Yes, Doc." - -"That is your result. It's statistically almost impossible, but you've -done it. You did it with the puzzle in the competition. You did not get -one single, solitary answer right. _Not one!_ Even a machine gets one -out of five right, Fred. Don't you see?" - -No, he didn't, and it seemed to be just what Elsie was always -complaining about. He lacked this and lacked that. And now he couldn't -even do what a machine did. - -"Okay, Doc," Fred said tiredly. "So I'm dumber than a machine. That -figures." - -"If you talk like that, you are," snapped Doctor Howard Sprinnell. -"You have the highest negative Psi rating in the Solar System. -No clairvoyance, no telepathy, no induced hallucinations, no -precognitions, no telekinesis, no psi-screens, no interference of any -kind. When we send you out into--well, never mind, Fred. The main point -at present is that you are a very, very rare observer." - -"That's fine," Fred said. "Look, Doc, I feel beat." - -"You're meant to. Hell, man, I've been tiring you for two hours now. -And what's more, I'll give you a little warning in advance. We aren't -going to let you eat for three days either. You're going to be so tired -that your body is going to loosen its grip. Don't worry, you won't die. -Ten people have done this before you and they're all right. You'll -meet them all soon. Now just hold still." - -Dr. Howard Sprinnell slipped a hypo needle swiftly into Fred's neck, -withdrew it and dabbed with a piece of surgical wool. - -"Off you go, Fred." - - * * * * * - -He was breaking into pieces, but he didn't care. He slept and woke -and slept and woke in the chair in old Cloud Spinner's office and now -he was coming apart and he just did not care. Fred Williams had had -several years of simple apathy. It came naturally to him. His body -rested, tired and inert, lacking in vigor from lack of food, and his -mind separated slowly from it, like a man standing up in a pool of -pygmies. His heart, hands, liver, stomach, viscera had their pygmy -minds all bundled in with his, and now falling away in separation as he -rose from them. - -His mind rose away from his body in the chair altogether. He viewed his -body with unconcern, and the chair in which it sat, and the room, and -through the walls the surrounding offices, and the rooms of the Federal -police station, where the Security trooper named Joe who had taken the -beer sat picking his teeth and gabbing with a pair of young Federal -cops, and the roof of the block in which the station stood. - -His mind went up like a balloon, rising swiftly into the atmosphere, -and the city shrank away under him like a toy plan, a kid's aid to -Better Civics, Home Town box VI, no Solar Credits necessary. He shifted -automatically away from the main airport, but a moment later he went -clean through an airliner cockpit, cabins with passengers, exhaust, -and out exactly where he was before. His mind followed the airliner -involuntarily, until he asked himself why, and immediately continued -rising into the sky, looking down at the ground and the great spherical -horizon. - -His mind rose into cloud and examined minutely a water molecule -floating from a piece of dust as big as a rock. His sense of proportion -sent him shooting out of the top of the cloud suddenly, like a startled -fish. The ground became a globe gradually, and as the clouds below -became little wisps over the light blue haze of the Earth, his feeling -of liberation increased and he rose faster. He went through layer after -layer of radiation sparking fitfully around him, and fiercer belts. And -then the dust thinned out like scattered transparent ball bearings, and -his mind approached the satellite stations riding over the Earth. He -was tempted to go through one, but it seemed unimportant and he rose -out. - -The Moon was swinging down away from him, a vast pitted ball bigger to -his mind than the Earth now. He put on more speed, so that his mind -flashed away from the Sun. Then as he paused an odd thing happened. -One moment he was up there, alone above the small Earth and its -smaller Moon, and the next instant his mind had flashed right into the -center of the Sun, deep in the inferno of its core, where violence and -variegated light surrounded him. And then he was out again, and his -mind zoomed off as if he were sitting in the front seat of a low-slung -car with the landmarks coming at a rush toward him and away to the -side. The Galaxy fell away behind his mind in this fashion and the -Great Nebula of Andromeda passed by. - -His mind roamed for a while among the other galactic clusters and the -spiral galaxies. He found his mind could appear at any point he wished, -without the long rush through space. He could transfer instantaneously -from place to place, and he hopped in this way at random from Crab to -Lagoon and in to Polaris and out to the Great Spiral of Ursa Major, and -onward to the open centers of the universe. - -In deeper space, where endless banks of galaxies roller-coasted away -from each other, he felt a change of quality come over his mind. It -turned within itself where all the vivid stars became mere floating -lights on the surface of a bubble outside. Here, within his mind, -was deeper space and yet another liberation. His mind hung like a -grape about to empty into a vat, which in this larger sense was truly -himself. Insofar as he, Fred Williams, was a mind, it was only a skin -around the greater liquid, in which indeed he perceived all things held -in common. - -He was about to throw off the skin and mingle in this condition where -he and the Magellanic Clouds and Joe the Security trooper's toothpick -had a single existence, when he was back in the chair in the office. - -His body settled over him again. He felt compressed and imprisoned and -robbed. His head turned as if it were on antiquated pulleys and his -arms and shoulders were strung together awkwardly. - -"It's bad to be back, isn't it? You'll never get used to that. But that -was one hell of a Dive." - - * * * * * - -Fred Williams looked at the other people in the office. There were ten -of them and Dr. Howard Sprinnell. Three were women, and all except the -doctor had large eyes. - -That was what you noticed about them, their enormous gentle eyes and -their slightly thin faces. The doctor held a mirror up for him to see -his own face, and it was much the same. - -"They thought we had lost you there for a while," said the doctor. -"All Divers do that on their first trip out--but you, I'm told, almost -joined the Lord." - -"Is that what This is?" - -"It's a matter outside our field," said Dr. Howard Sprinnell carefully, -"and a matter of choice as to name. But mystical evidence seems to -point that way." - -One of the girls laughed. "You're embarrassing the Solar Government, -Fred. They are not supposed to have any sectarian views. But that's -what we Divers think the This is. My name's Milly. This is Pat, and -Joan, Bill, Ed, Al, John, Anthony, Ricardo and Mitch. Welcome to the -Divers, Fred." - -Fred Williams smiled around. The women were attractive, all -brown-haired and nicely shaped. The seven men were just regular guys -you might meet anywhere. But then, he wasn't anything to win a prize -himself. - -"So far as we are concerned, Fred," Dr. Howard Sprinnell said, "and -this is official, there is the normal conscious mind, the subliminal -mind of which we are not usually conscious but which is apparently a -parcel of regional physical minds and the mind you roam in, and there -is the unconscious mind, which does not seem to belong to any one -person, although everyone has it, and which you people embarrass me by -referring to as the This. - -"All we know, officially, is that the This is the natural or original -home of the universe, and the only reason we know that is because we -don't want Divers to disappear into it and not come out. You're all too -rare. I gather it is almost unbearable to come out of. But you'll just -have to avoid the temptation to go home, as it were. After all, it has -taken several million years to get man out here where he is and what he -is. And the second reason is that the entire Solar Government depends -on the people in this room for information." - -Fred Williams looked at the others. They were serious. The smallest of -the girls, Pat, caught him looking and smiled. - -She turned to the doctor. "Can I tell Fred?" - -"You followed him, so you may as well. _I_ don't know what you Divers -feel. But the Defense Council is waiting for the rest of you and we -must hurry along." - -Dr. Howard Sprinnell patted Fred on the shoulder as he passed. He stood -aside for the other Divers to leave the room, nodded to Pat and Fred, -and shut the door behind him. - -Fred Williams levered his body off the dentist's chair and stood -unsteadily. The girl took his arm. She was smaller than he, the top -of her head reaching to his mouth, small, delicate and scented with -heather. - -"There's a lounge next door--you may not have noticed it on the way -out--and there's always a bowl of fruit and some cheese and biscuits -there. Let's go in." - -He followed her. - -Even the short walk helped accustom himself to his body again. And the -room was large and airy, overlooking the central park of the city and -the clouds beyond the tall buildings in the distance. - -He stood looking out at the view and eating an apple while she sliced -cheese and laid the pieces on a plate with some biscuits for him. Then -she sat down, folded her hands in her lap and looked at him. She was -wearing a white-and-blue-check dress. She looked young and fresh and -alive. The room was clean and fresh. He could not think of Elsie and -that apartment as being in the same world. - -"Did the doc say you followed me?" Fred asked eventually. - -"One of us always goes with a new Diver on the first trip." - -"What did I look like? I mean was there anything to see?" - -"Oh, yes." Pat laughed. "As a matter of fact, our minds look like the -inside of eggs out there." - -"But a plane went through me. And I shot for some reason into the Sun." - - * * * * * - -He turned and looked disbelievingly up into the sky. - -The Sun made him blink and his eyes watered. - -"Now I can't even look at it," he said, "any more than I could before." - -"Show me your mind," she said simply. "Where is it?" - -"Well ..." - -"That's the whole point of the Divers. A mind is not in space-time. It -is connected with a body which is--or, to be exact, it is associated -with--a physical brain, which in turn can work a mouth and hands to -communicate what the mind has seen. The Solar Government has the -problem in reverse. They can send ships through hyper-space; otherwise, -as you know, we could never have populated the Galaxy. Why, Polaris, -which you visited, is over a thousand light-years from Earth! They can -make matter shift in and out of hyper-space. But they can't communicate -that far away. Radiation won't take the shift. So the government can -either send radio waves out and wait a couple of thousand years for -the answer, or it has to shuttle whole ships to and fro just to get a -simple message. - -"Worse, from a defense viewpoint, there are times when they must have -information fast and when the nature of the news means that no ship -will be either available or allowed to become available to carry the -news. Suppose you are an intelligent life-form off Canopus and you -think up a magnificent way of taking over the Solar System. You're six -hundred and fifty light-years away, but time is no problem because -either you live longer than that or you have a tribe-culture. Even if -the system had a billion police ships, which it hasn't, it could never -be sure of catching Canopus preparing, or intercepting whatever horror -they sent off. And even if it were lucky, the ship would have to come -back itself to get the news to the Solar Government. - -"A Diver can send his mind instantaneously from one end of the universe -to the other, he can examine atomic particles or survey galaxies, he -can see through matter as if it were full of holes--which it is--he can -patrol sectors and report exactly what he found there. He can dive into -deep space and be free." - -"Yes," Fred Williams said. "That's it. Free. That's exactly how we -feel, isn't it?" - -"Never mind. You'll be going out again. Regularly. With me at first -until you get patroling under control. And then on your own." - -"Are we always hungry?" asked Fred Williams, taking another apple. - -"It helps. The government would like us to be permanently at the point -of death, but that is fortunately impractical. The less hold our bodies -have, the easier it is to go out. There's one other point, though. -And since you're coming with me on your training, I'd prefer you to -know--no matter what the rules say. Whenever you go near another living -being in a Dive, your mind can see the other mind, and you can read it -from the pictures in it. It's difficult to describe, but you'll see for -yourself. And if the mind you are looking at is connected up to a body, -as we are now, and if the pictures don't seem to fit the situation, you -can take it that they refer to events still in the future as far as -that body is concerned. The mind has a different space-time existence -from the body, obviously, and quite often it is ahead in time. That's -why we have to be negative Psi. Anyone can Dive, but only a negative -Psi can remain objective about other beings' minds. A Psi would collect -other minds' contents and get them confused with his own--future and -present all messed up, full of symbols--take a look at a Psi's mind -sometime on the way back. There are a lot of accidental roamers around -on Earth." - -"If we can read other minds," Fred Williams said thoughtfully, "then we -Divers could have a hell of a lot of power." - -He was surprised when Pat laughed. - -"We all think of that," she said, "but so did the Solar Government. We -have a bunch of Psis and Security troops tracing us all the time when -we're in the body. But the real hold on us is not that. How would you -feel if you were told you could never Dive again?" - -"I--I wouldn't like that." - -"You see? And you've only been on the first experimental Dive. Imagine -when it is your whole life." - -Fred Williams nodded slowly. - -Then he asked: "Where do you live?" - -"Oh, no. Divers never mix. Our existence is a top-secret. And the -risk of losing two Divers in a single accident would keep the Defense -Council awake at night." - -"But everyone was here today." - -"To welcome you. That's a big occasion to us." - -"It's the biggest thing that ever happened to me," Fred Williams said. - -"I know," Pat answered quietly. "I saw your mind. But I'll change that, -Fred." - -She stood up and brushed her hands over her dress. - -"Where will I see you again?" he asked. - -"You never will." - -He stood up to protest. - -"Not in the body," she amended. - -He looked so mournful that she walked over and kissed him. - -"There's a good-by present, Diver. But _we_ will meet regularly." - - * * * * * - -Finding him sitting with a pile of apple cores beside him, the doctor -clicked his tongue reprovingly. - -"Tell me, Doc, how could you stop me Diving?" asked Fred worriedly. - -"Fill you full of vitamins and carbohydrates and alcohol and send you -on a pleasure-cruise with a lot of accomplished women," said Dr. Howard -Sprinnell promptly. "Or allow you to stuff yourself with apples, for a -start. Now come along or I'll bar you from the exercise room." - -Fred Williams followed him thoughtfully. - -"By the way," the doctor said over his shoulder, "your wife thinks -you're under arrest. You've been here four days so far and we can keep -you another ten or so. After that you'll have to go back. You're on -our payroll now, but you'd better keep your job. Or we can find you -a heavier one, if you're not tired enough. We'll seal a miniature -transmitter into your larynx under the skin before you leave, so that -you can report audibly from wherever you are. Diving has the same -effect on the body as sleep, you'll find, so you can do both at once. -I'll grade off the injections before you leave here. Now this is the -political field as we know it...." - -They stood in a large lecture hall, filled with spaced models of the -Solar System, set in the Milky Way and surrounded by the related -galaxies. - -"Here's the spiral in Andromeda," said the doctor, using a long -pointer. "I understand you went there...." - -He took Fred Williams on a general tour of the hall. - -"Of course there are others not shown here," he concluded. "The -Coma-Virgo system of galaxies, for one example. But these are the -ones _politically_ important at this time. In Sagittarius, we have a -problem. There's a human colony there--a very early one, as a matter -of fact--which we're sending an envoy to. But we don't know what sort -of an envoy they are expecting, whether he should be a technical -agronomist, a sociologist, a radiation expert, or a plain folksy -reminder of Earth, or what. A simple problem really, but a mistake will -cost us several billion credits to correct. So your first assignment, -under Pat's tuition, will be to find out and report. When you get -back, you'll rank officially as a Diver. Rendezvous is over the -Peninsula, above San Francisco; you can't miss it. Take your mind there -before you leave and come back there on the way in. Around fifteen -thousand feet is the recommended height, but that, like your mind, is -immaterial, if you'll pardon the pun. And now I suggest you go down -to the police gym and take some good strong exercise so that you feel -properly tired for the journey." - -Dr. Howard Sprinnell put his hands in his pockets and gazed at his -polished shoes. - -"I don't quite know how to say this, Fred," he continued, "but I'm -responsible for you Divers. You're entitled to your own forms of -amusement, of course, but please remember you are being watched by -Psis. No dropping in on the President's bedroom. Other people's -bedrooms, all right, though I trust you'll keep out of mine. But do -nothing that could make you be considered a security risk. That is the -_only_ thing that would worry us." - -Fred Williams assured him and left the hall to go down to the police -gym. He did not understand why the warning should be necessary. On -the other hand, you could take it as a delicate permission to do -anything that was not a security risk. He passed the police canteen -and restrained himself from going in to order a doughnut with Martian -syrup. It would keep him from Diving. - - * * * * * - -He rose into the atmosphere above the city and headed across America to -the rendezvous above the West Coast. The Earth spun away from beneath -him. He had time to be surprised that in the few hours back on Earth -he had forgotten the unburdened clarity of mind in a Dive. He knew who -he was. He was unquestionably Fred Williams up here, as much as he was -Fred Williams down there. But here he felt different, free, while down -there he was embedded and obscured in a shell of a body. Here, this -time, his vision was not limited to a forward cone but extended in a -complete sphere around him. - -He saw the large nick in the coast ahead and came down to meet his -tutor Diver. - -Pat had said he looked like the inside of an egg, but he was not -prepared for the great ovoid poised there below him. He came up to -her with a rush and found he was even bigger by comparison. When they -touched, he heard her voice. There was a slight resistance as his mind -met hers and then she slipped inside his, so that he enclosed her mind -within his ovoid mind. - -"One of the disadvantages of a Diver," she said quietly within him, -"is that we can only talk to each other by contact. A Psi could see our -thoughts radiating out like an aurora, but we can't. We travel this way -when two Divers are together, which isn't often, so that we both think -of going to the same place. If we do get separated, come back here -immediately and we'll start again." - -"Fine." - -"_Please._ The very _gentlest_ suggestion of vocalizing will do. That -was like a cannon." - -"Sorry." - -"Much better. Now, gently, out. Think of rising slowly.... That's -right." - -They rose away from the Earth. - -"Over there," she prompted, "is the galactic spiral arm we are in. See, -running from Orion? The Solar System is out here on a limb. Over here -is where we're going, deep into the Galaxy, our own galaxy. You'll soon -pick up the main roads. See that fan-shaped arch? That's a T-Tauri -variable, signposts to us. Think of being just off that one now." - -He did--and there they were, in a dark lane of the Milky Way. - -"Now you can imagine what would happen if we were moving separately and -turned our minds to different points. You have to go back and start -again then. Now, we're going down this dark lane." - -They moved through the splendor of the Milky Way, through vast lanes -of fine dark nebulae, across a giant rift, past glowing clouds of -hydrogen and oxygen and bright expanding shells, rings within rings, -flowing out from intense stars in their center as if the star were a -pebble dropped in a pond of burning space, the planetary nebulae. - -The Sagittarian region was well known to Pat and she commented on the -Lagoon, and Omega and Trifid Nebula suspended around them. The local -system they sought lay off a loose globular star cluster, one of a -crowd here deep in toward the center of the Galaxy, the bright core -around which the spiral arms of the entire Milky Way ponderously swung. - -He was part engrossed in the technique of moving his mind, part awed -by the variety and beauty of the Galaxy, and part lost in the beauty -of the mind within him. She moved with deft, clear thought like the -chime of crystals. The sensory images of Earth were gross and distorted -projections of the way he saw her, but she was at once the beating -rhythm beneath rock-and-roll and the abstracted clarity of Chopin, the -summer wind and the warmth of a wine. He held her mind within his in a -new union so complete that anything else was mere fumbling. - -"Thank you," he heard her voice say gently, and they sank down toward -the rings of small planets they had come to visit. - - * * * * * - -A colony from Earth implied an atmosphere, and several planets in the -group indeed looked fuzzy. The two Divers skimmed rapidly from one to -another in a general survey, selected the largest of those which might -support man, and sank down through its belts of radiation. - -The central mass of land lay beneath thin clouds, through which the -local sun shone in drifting spotlights over the cultivated areas and -irregular groups of cities. - -"When we get closer," her voice said, "you'll see them walking about -inside their minds, which to us will be cloudy colored eggs around -them. They cannot see this, of course, any more than a non-Psi or we -ourselves on Earth. If it isn't obvious what they are thinking, we'll -have to go close enough to touch their minds with ours. But be very -careful before you do that. If they are very empty-minded, there is a -risk that their body magnetism will polarize your mind in temporarily. -You can get out again, but it's messy and unpleasant while it lasts. -And it's almost impossible to avoid being sucked into a medium's mind, -so I hope they haven't got any." - -They were now over the main city and headed toward a large domed -building, apparently modeled on the Capitol. - -"How did they get here?" he asked. - -"We don't really know. The contacts so far have been by radio to a -very early investigating fleet. Obviously they must have come out -after the hyper-space drive was invented--we're over twenty thousand -light-years from Earth, here, I'm told--but they don't seem to realize -the difficulties of sending them the envoy they asked for. Assuming -these are the people that wanted one." - -"Look, an old landcar--down there on the street!" he exclaimed. - -The colony apparently still used ground vehicles. As they came closer, -they could see people walking in the streets and moving in and out -of doorways. There were no moving sidewalks, personal vertijets, -anti-gravs. It was cleaner but otherwise as old-fashioned as the -quarter in which Fred Williams lived on Earth. - -"Imagine coming so far--to find this," he said, disappointed. - -"You'll find colonies are usually several generations behind, but let's -not be too hasty," she said. "We can have a look around later. First, -let's see if we have the right planet and get this envoy matter out of -the way. Down through the dome, here." - -They passed through the weather sheathing and curved girders of the -dome into an assembly hall full of human beings, seated around a -central dais. The colonists had apparently been inspired by Congress. A -quick glance at their minds showed they were politicians, no better and -no worse than the Earth variety, intent on compromise and the exchange -of benefits between the groups of interests they seemed to represent. -Several carried visibly in their minds one fixed interest and a quick -count showed that agriculture was, in one form or another, the main -business of the colony. - -"I think that answers it," she said. "We'll have to check on the other -planets, but farm problems seem to be what they're most concerned -about." - -He felt dissatisfied. "Shouldn't we touch one of their minds to see if -this is really the political center? It may only be a village meeting." - -It seemed incongruous to use the wonderful reach of Diving to gather -little facts like this and to depart knowing nothing else. Then again, -he recalled the doctor describing it as a simple problem. - -He felt her mind move understandingly within his. "All right, let's -touch the Speaker and see how far his authority goes. He'd be very -conscious of a superior Congress if there is one." - -They moved together to the dais and brushed against the Speaker's mind. -The short, bald man sitting impressively in the center of the bubble -immediately leaned forward and banged his gavel. The entire assembly -rose to their feet and stood still. The Speaker slouched in his chair. -His mind shook off the influences of his body and rose up to touch the -two of them. - -"Welcome, at last," he said. - -"You have been expecting us?" - -"Of course. Though why do you say 'us'?" - -They moved partly from each other, overlapping only at the extreme -limit of their own minds, so that he could see there were two of them -together. - -A gasp sounded in the Speaker's mind like an echo and there was a -movement throughout the assembly. - -"Can they hear us?" Pat asked. - -"Naturally. Psi capacity is a minimum requirement for the Senate. Can't -you hear us?" - -"Only by mental contact." - -"How odd," the Speaker replied. "Still, we ourselves cannot merge in -each other, only into housings." - -"Housings?" - -"But surely.... You must know. Of course you must." - -"I'm afraid we don't." - -"For heaven's sake, what part of the Solar System do you come from that -you don't know a housing when you see one? Ganymede, Mercury, Jove, -Venus, Bacchus? Although I was under the impression that the entire -system used the same terms." - -"One moment," Fred said. "What system are you talking about?" - -"This system here, naturally." - -"We come from a different part of the Galaxy, a part that is called the -Solar System by those who live there." - -There was a multiple rustling of thoughts which disturbed the Speaker -momentarily. - -"Please, gentlemen, please! Will every Senator please quit his housing -so that we have less of these physical interruptions?" - - * * * * * - -Every member of the assembly sat down, relaxed his body and rose gently -above it with a clear and uncluttered mind. - -"Thank you, Senators," the Speaker said. "Now. Do we understand that -you come from some other part of our galaxy?" - -"Yes," Pat said. "We call it the Milky Way." - -"So do we." - -"You probably brought the name with you." - -"You are suggesting that _we_ came from _you_ and brought the name of -the Galaxy with us?" - -"Why, yes." - -"I see. Would you identify this solar system of yours?" - -Pat held in her mind a picture of the Solar System and the Sun, -embedded in the long spiral arm of the Galaxy. She made the image of -the Earth expand and contract in emphasis. - -"Thank you. So you come from that little system, do you? How -interesting. And yet you have never heard of housings." - -"We call them bodies." - -"Well, so they are. I recall a primitive energy transmission we had -here long ago. We extended an invitation to the operators, but they -have not so far arrived. They came from your system, or so they said." - -"They did. They contacted you by what we call radio. We were sent, -frankly, to see what sort of envoy should be sent here to you." - -"Ah! There has been a natural confusion. We thought you were here from -one of our outer systems where we are having some difficulty raising -the right housing. In fact, we were just debating the correct form of -grain to transmit to feed the housings on. They are in the awkward -stage of having sufficient minds to exist, but insufficient nerve -cortex to enable us to enter them. Our local representatives--whom we -mistook you for--have been having a very difficult time for several -hundred years, but we will soon find the answer. Now, we will be glad -to receive an envoy from your system. We are always glad to receive -representatives from our successful colonies. As to the type of envoy, -anyone with a broad galactic viewpoint will do. We will, of course, be -glad to offer housing and the usual facilities." - -"When you say housing, you mean bodies?" - -"Naturally. Bodies such as these Senators' or my own are the most -adaptable for this climate. If you go in to our Ganymede or out to Jove -you would have to use a local--er--body, because these human types -would melt or suffocate respectively. But the local housings in silica -and in ammonia crystal have proved quite adequate for normal locomotion -and physical work there. The normal facilities of the sport planets -would be available, to be sure. We are quite proud of our slither -bodies, I suppose you would call them, in the snow worlds--quite a -recent development. I fear we are not too luxurious here, but galactic -opinion forces us to make our housings do almost everything they are -capable of doing--walk, drive, cook and other such menial tasks. But -then at least everyone knows we are not spending the revenue on our -own housing--er--our own bodies. Only last century we barely averted -a political threat to make all Senators' bodies sleep out in the open -weather. But obviously it is much more expensive to keep breeding new -bodies than build a shelter such as this one. Even taxpayers can see -that." - -The Speaker's mind echoed general agreement from the Senators. - -"It will come as a surprise," Pat said clearly, "but our system -believes _we_ colonized _yours_." - -This met polite and general laughter in which the Speaker joined. - -"Perhaps," he said, "you would care to communicate direct with the -Senators who were in charge of your system during the developmental -stages. Will the Senators please come forward for contact?" - -Seven of the minds above the floor of the Senate drifted over to touch -peripherally against each other and against Pat and Fred. - -"When we first undertook that project," one or all of them said, -"your system was entirely unpopulated. On the third planet, we found, -however, roughly humanoid apes in isolated caves and by selective -breeding we succeeded in making that species into a housing identical -with those we use on this planet. Unfortunately, only the less stable -minds of the Galaxy were prepared to live quite so far out and we -eventually lost touch. Is the same housing still used?" - -"So much so," Pat told them, "that we cannot normally detach -ourselves." - -"You mean you send _bodies_ from place to place?" - -"Yes. The radio signals you received were from a spaceship containing -men in their own bodies." - -"Remarkable. Naturally, we accept your statement. But this implies -considerable technical skill--and a prodigious disregard for the -taxpayers' money. You mean there were actually _men_ out there in -_bodies_ sending energy transmissions, instead of visiting us in the -mind from Earth?" - -"Yes." - -"Remarkable. _Very_ remarkable. Can you spare the time to tell us more -about this? We can accommodate you with a double housing or separate -housing, whichever you prefer." - -"May I withdraw to consult with my colleague?" Pat asked. - -"Of course. We will continue our debate." - -The Senators returned to their forms and the Speaker, sinking back into -his body, recalled the assembly to their discussion of agricultural -problems. - - * * * * * - -Over the dome, Pat slipped inside Fred Williams' mind again. They -thought of the enormous space-ships developed over many centuries -and at uncounted cost to give men favorable odds in an unfavorable -environment. And of the hazardous shifting of power based on -bomb-satellites, and the fence upon fence of security precautions -on which Earth and the Solar System depended. Or rather, when they -considered it, on which their local population depended. It was not a -problem for two Divers but for a team of specialists. - -They returned to the Speaker. - -"We would like to consult with the original Earth Senators again and -perhaps borrow two--housings--for a a short while." - -"With the greatest pleasure." - -The Senators concerned quitted their housings and floated across the -assembly to join them. They all rose together to the outside of the -dome, where they would not disturb the debate below. - -"One of the questions," Fred said, "is what happens if we died--by -accident, for example--while in a borrowed housing." - -"You imply a question as to what happens to _any_ of your people, since -they have lost the power to detach themselves, or do not make use of -it." - -"Yes." - -"Unfortunately," one or all of the Senators replied, "we do not know. -It is said there is a continual production of new minds in the -universe, which appear here and there, wherever there are suitable -housings. Others disagree but have no real answer. If we lend you -housing--a panther-style body for personal racing on the grass steppes, -say, or a vast whale-style body for enjoying some of our oceans, and -so on, there is some risk. Among certain cultures, we find a return of -the mind to a similar vacant housing. In other places, we have found -an obscuration of the mind. We think there are parallel universes -differing from this as mind-form differs from substance. And we -believe each mind continues in these further dimensions. This would be -practical if you were unable to leave a dying housing. Our advice is -not to get caught in any accidents. - -"Should it be advantageous to you, we will keep housings ready for you -here. One male and one female, of course. Ah--on one question which you -did not ask--you will find our guest housings are a uniform breed which -became popular on your Planet among the Greeks and Romans as ideal -godlike forms, shortly before we returned here. - -"And as to the other question you have not asked--we never interfere -with local cultures, for the greater the variety of each, the greater -the enrichment of all. Your system is entirely safe; we propose to -observe it more closely from now on. It is our impression, however, -that you would be wise _not_ to mention the galactic system we -represent, when you return to your Earth. It would be too upsetting to -the established pattern. We are all human beings, but we have solved -the same problems in very different ways." - -"We have not solved ours," Fred said. - -"Oh, neither have we. But at least the few of us here, including -yourselves, at any time as our guests, have achieved what you would -probably call immortality." - -"We are free to accept your invitation at any time?" - -"Certainly." - -"Then we will report that no other envoy is needed," Pat said clearly. - -"That would be beneficial indeed." - -"And may we send you a very limited number of friends?" - -"Your guests shall be our guests. Again, we suggest you limit knowledge -of us so far as possible." - -"We are called Divers because we can leave our bodies. Only Divers -could visit you in this way, and we will not send any others." - -"Thank you. It is largely our fault. We have come across traces here -and there of other colonies which we assumed were the successful -result of past experiments. It occurs to us now that several of these -may be in fact body-bound expeditions from your solar system. We will -investigate and correct our catalogues." - -"We can be of assistance there," Pat answered. - -"Excellent. We wish you Godspeed and a pleasant return." - - * * * * * - -The nine minds released contact and moved apart. Fred felt Pat's mind -slip into his. They rose off the dome and increased speed, soaring into -the sky and out, above the ring of planets. - -"Why didn't we borrow a couple of bodies?" Fred asked. - -He could picture himself strutting elegantly in the body of a Greek -god, with Pat to match beside him. - -"Please stop that--we're zigzagging about. You're new, Fred. Every -Diver goes through the same routine--a pep-talk from the President, -Doctor Sprinnell's little tricks, your first Dive all over the -universe, and then routine patrols. What you don't know is that -whenever we Divers come into contact with another race or another form -of life, we are invariably offered gifts of some sort. Primitives sense -the presence of a Diver and put on a show, lay out food and their -treasures. The more advanced, using trained telepaths, try to bribe -us. And so on, without exception." - -"Okay, so I'm new, Pat. So I don't know the pattern. A few days ago I -was a slob in an automation-parts supply house and now I'm here with -you at the back end of the Milky Way, or the center, whichever way you -look at it. But Doc Spinner made some pretty odd cracks to me about -security and I don't like the idea of being spied on all the time back -on Earth." - -"No Diver does. The Defense Council put us in business, but now they -are afraid of us, in a way. We can go anywhere and see anything. We -might have a look at their secret installations or their private files. -Then we _would_ be in trouble." - -"Well, I didn't ask to come into this. But now that I'm in and a Diver, -just one fancy move by Security and I'm off to get another body. That -sounds odd, doesn't it? But I mean it." - -"I'm glad." - -"Eh?" - -"I'm very glad, Fred. I wanted to see how you'd take it. I feel the -same way. It's true we're always offered presents, but immortality is -something larger than a present. And to get out from under the thumb of -the Psis and their spying is something all of us have been longing for." - -"And I'll tell you something else, Pat. From now on, if the other -Divers agree, we'll do what we want. Oh, the Solar System can have -its patrolling. I'll have to learn how that's done from you. We'll -tell them what they want to know. But one sign of interference and -we're off, and they can keep the bodies. We won't tell them they are -a backward colony that has forgotten how to Dive. But we know it. We -won't tell them the rest of the Galaxy is run from the center back in -Sagittarius by humans who can Dive. But we know that too. If I thought -at all about it, I thought we were freaks, useful nuisances. And I -didn't mind being ordered about. But we're not freaks, Pat. We're the -_normal_ human beings that the Senate back there meant to create. It's -the Solar System that is lop-sided, not us." - -"I'm not--overinfluencing you, Fred?" - -"Hell, of course you are. I can hardly think of you without looping -around a star. But the facts are the same. And from today, we're not -Divers. We're the _Free_ Divers, housing where we wish to, seeing what -we want...." - -"And protecting the Solar System, Fred." - -"Well--they're entitled to that. And we'll keep to their security -regulations for our bodies on Earth, if it makes them happy. We can -afford to give a little here and there." - -They shot together through the nearest T-Tauri variable arch and -zoomed happily. After a while, they returned to the rendezvous off the -American coast on Earth. The other Divers were waiting for them. - -"It's a custom," Pat told him as they approached the nine Divers, -hovering in space, "to greet you as a new Diver." - -They closed together as they met, within Fred's larger shell. He told -them. There were no doubts among their minds. - -"Sooner or later," Fred finished, "one of us was bound to meet the true -Galactics we've just met. It happened to be Pat and myself. I'm new and -don't know much about Diving, but I've seen enough to know that from -now on I'm a Free Diver." - -"So are we all," they answered. - - * * * * * - -Returning across America in the one shell, they scattered confusion -and headache throughout the psi-watching stations in their path by the -scramble of eleven sets of thoughts. Then they separated and left Fred -to go down to his body while they returned to theirs in the different -places Security had put them. Pat followed him down as a precaution. - -This time, Fred Williams' body fitted his mind with a greater feeling -of strangeness but less muddling. The smaller consciousnesses of his -body did not obscure his perceptions; he was aware of it as a housing -for his mind. - -He looked at Dr. Howard Sprinnell, who had listened to him so far in -silence, uncommenting and unmoved, a mild, friendly face in the small -medical room. - -"So, Fred. I warned you, Pat warned you. You go out on two Dives, a -few days after discovering that such things exist, and you come back -to give me an ultimatum for the Solar Government. A lifetime here in -the drabbest, almost medieval surroundings of the city and, after a few -days, you come back announcing you're a Free Diver, owing nothing to -anyone. Is that right? Do you still stick to that?" - -Fred nodded. - -"You realize what we can do to you, Fred? Dammit, on your first Dive -you almost went out of space-time altogether, only you didn't know what -you were doing. Do you know what you're doing now? Do you think I've -spent twenty years searching for negative Psis for government service -so that you can turn them against the Solar System?" - -"Hold on, Doc. No one said anything about being against the Solar -System. If there's work to be done, we'll do it. But in our own way and -without being spied on." - -"Just give me one reason why the government should trust you, with the -entire Security system." - -"Because," Fred said carefully, "you may have my body, but in my mind I -am a Free Diver." - -"And nothing anyone can say will change that, eh?" - -"No." - -"You know," Dr. Howard Sprinnell said reflectively, "you're talking as -if you had another body cached away somewhere." - -"Whoever heard of that?" - -"Lots of people, Fred. Voodoo zombies, certain Mahayana religious -leaders, prehistoric Egyptians--there's quite a well documented -tradition. But the great problem has always been to find a leader with -the courage to do it scientifically and in the interests of all the -people, not just the members of some sect. Give a man the universe to -play in and he doesn't mind a few rules as long as he's allowed to -play. Finding negative Psis and creating the Divers as an organized -official body was easy compared with the task of completing the -experiment--_by making one of them revolt_! Nine of the ten before -you were too easily satisfied. Diving according to the rules and -regulations was enough for them." - -"Who was the tenth?" - -"Pat. She was the prettiest and most discontented. I thought I could -stir up some fire." - -"You did." - -"Ah, good. I am high-Psi, by the way. I seem to feel she's somewhere -around here. However ... I can never be a Diver myself, but years ago I -formed the theory that a lot of phenomena could be explained by minds -reaching out beyond their bodies. Now be careful, Fred. I don't want to -_know_. The Security Psis are very real and there are a lot of things -I cannot afford to know. I'm a Solar Government servant, remember. But -it seemed to me there might conceivably be a life-form somewhere in -the universe which used the body as a vehicle for its convenience. I -hoped one day the Divers would find such a life-form, and if I made the -regulations stiff enough and supplied one or two other irritations, -one Diver might decide to make the jump, to revolt and stand on his -own feet. Free Divers, you called yourselves, eh? A good name. I don't -want to know where your base--your other base--is, Fred. I only want to -know there is a group of people willing to serve the Solar Government -regardless of time, theoretically for eternity--that's what it amounts -to when you work it out. As I say, I'm just a government servant. And -thanks, Free Diver." - -He held out his hand and shook Fred's. "From now on, Fred, you can -all come and go as you wish. If you feel like keeping to the security -regulations, fine. But I'll make it clear to the Defense Council that -there's nothing they can do about it if you don't. Men who don't mind -losing their bodies have always been somewhat beyond the power of a -government." - -"On that basis, Doc, I don't mind continuing the way you planned." - -"Laryngeal transmitter, continue your cover-job and the rest?" - -"Don't see why not." - -"Come along then. You're due to be released from jail." - -Fred followed the doctor into the operating room. - - * * * * * - -He remembered the beer this time. Elsie lay back on her bed, drinking -from the can, one of her scuffs dangling from a bare toe. - -"The trouble with you, Fred, is you can't even rob an office." - -"I didn't." - -"That's what I mean. See? You just can't do anything." - -He lay back on his own bed and looked at her. There were a lot of -things you didn't mind putting up with, voluntarily. You married her, -so you'd look after her, trudge to the shipping room to work and trudge -back. The tireder you got, the better. - -For evening came every day, and with the evening came sleep for his -housing and eight hours for patrolling the Galaxy. And beyond the -system, out beyond the dark lanes, there were endless forms of life ... -and the two great developments of men, one stemming from the other in -different ways, but each expanding, colonizing, growing ... all with -problems for the Free Divers he led. - -"Wouldja get me another beer, Fred?" - -"Sure." - -He remembered to slouch into the kitchen, as if he did not care. And -when you considered it, he didn't care at all. This was one path of -human developments the Senators never thought of. - -"Trouble with you, Fred, is you're just a negative character. You -weren't when I married you, but you are now." - -Well, she was certainly entitled to a beer for that. - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Divers, by James Stamers - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DIVERS *** - -***** This file should be named 60762-8.txt or 60762-8.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/0/7/6/60762/ - -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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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 Divers - -Author: James Stamers - -Release Date: November 22, 2019 [EBook #60762] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DIVERS *** - - - - -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="343" height="500" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="titlepage"> -<h1>the Divers</h1> - -<h2>By JAMES STAMERS</h2> - -<p class="ph1"><i>The key to Fred's success<br /> -was simple ... he may not have<br /> -had much of a mind, but it<br /> -was all his, nobody else's!</i></p> - -<p>[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from<br /> -Worlds of If Science Fiction, January 1960.<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>He had forgotten the beer again. He remembered that he had forgotten -only as he opened the apartment door. A wave of smoke and onions and -hamburger flowed past him into the dingy corridor and he stumbled on -the garbage pail, plunked right in the doorway for him to lug along the -passage to the chute. The bed was not made in one of their two rooms -and newspapers littered the other. Elsie was in the kitchen.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/illus1.jpg" width="251" height="500" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>"Fred! Fred, did you remember my beer?"</p> - -<p>He closed the door so that the neighbors would not hear the row to -come, except through the walls.</p> - -<p>"Didja, Fred?"</p> - -<p>She stood akimbo in the kitchen doorway, a cigarette hanging from her -lips, her dressing gown loose and spotted, her feet in old scuffs.</p> - -<p>"I forgot," he mumbled. "I'll go now."</p> - -<p>Oh, no, he wouldn't. Not until he had heard a full resumé of his lack -of character, lack of enterprise, ambition, decency, thoughtfulness, -manhood, semblance of virtue.</p> - -<p>"I said I was going, Elsie. I said I was going, didn't I?"</p> - -<p>"Well, my day! You remembered my name!"</p> - -<p>It was true he rarely used her name or called her any husbandly term -such as dear or darling instead, and rarely looked at her at all if he -could avoid it inconspicuously. Ten years of marriage—ten years of -legal proximity, rather, for nothing in him was married to anything in -her any more.</p> - -<p>"I don't know why you married me," he said.</p> - -<p>"Makes you wonder, doesn't it? Go on, get out."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>He almost knocked the man over as he left the apartment. The man was -standing there, about to ring the bell. Well dressed, clean, expensive -overcoat, polished shoes, black hat and a mild friendly face.</p> - -<p>"Mr. Frederick Williams?" the man asked.</p> - -<p>"Yes," said Fred.</p> - -<p>"You entered the <i>Sunday News</i> competition for a free space ride?"</p> - -<p>"Yes. Did I win it?"</p> - -<p>"Unfortunately, no," said the man.</p> - -<p>"Oh. Well, excuse me, I've got to go and get something."</p> - -<p>"I'll come with you. My name is Howard Sprinnell, Mr. Williams, and -I've been examining the entries to that competition. Frankly, we think -you have considerable talent."</p> - -<p>"Mister," said Fred over his shoulder as they went down the stairs, "if -you're trying to sell me something—"</p> - -<p>"I don't want a penny from you, Mr. Williams."</p> - -<p>"Then what—"</p> - -<p>"We would merely appreciate a few hours of your time, at your -convenience."</p> - -<p>"A few hours?" Fred said, distressed. By working double shift in the -automation-parts supply house, he could just keep going, financially -and physically. The question of mental fatigue was exclusively Elsie's -province and there he had a rough working technique for responding -without really listening. His job called for no mental effort greater -than reading a shipping list, and his home life certainly didn't. -Most of the time he had nothing in his mind at all; the days passed -faster that way. But Elsie and the job kept him tired. Odd how just not -listening wrung you out and drained you off.</p> - -<p>"We are, of course, very glad to offer you compensation for your time, -Mr. Williams," said the man.</p> - -<p>Elsie would just drink it away. He'd have to haul crates of bourbon -instead of cans of beer, that's all.</p> - -<p>"Not interested," he said.</p> - -<p>That was it. That was the way to keep a salesman stalled. Just "not -interested." Keep saying it and nothing else. They all said they were -not salesmen and weren't selling anything. Every salesman he had ever -met at the door said that. <i>Galactic Encyclopedia</i>, Nuclear Brush, Your -Venus Vacation, video subscriptions, even the Federal numbers game, -they all started out by offering you a special opportunity and were not -selling you anything. The man was still talking.</p> - -<p>"Not interested," Fred said.</p> - -<p>"Fred," said the man as they reached the bottom of the stairs, "I'm -doing you a favor. I'm not supposed to tell you this, but either you -come voluntarily or you'll come anyway. Why not get paid for it?"</p> - -<p>"Not interested. And if anyone wants me, they can come and get me. I -don't care. I just don't care."</p> - -<p>He slouched off into the rain toward the supermarket.</p> - -<p>As Dr. Howard Sprinnell watched him go he took a small silver case -from his top-coat pocket. He raised the case to his lips and said -quietly: "Sprinnell here. No. A clear case, but no. Pick him up."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The squad car arrived silently on its jets as Fred Williams reached -the door of the apartment house. He was carrying a pack of beer in -each hand and was glad to see the man had gone. That's all you had to -do—just keep saying "not interested" until they went away.</p> - -<p>"O.K., bud."</p> - -<p>The troopers took him on both sides, grasped his arms, and levered him -round.</p> - -<p>"Hey!" Fred protested. "The beer's for my wife. She's waiting for it. -Please, fellers, I'll never hear the end of it if she doesn't get her -beer."</p> - -<p>"Joe," said the trooper on Fred's right, jerking his head in the -direction of the door behind them.</p> - -<p>A third trooper climbed out of the squad car, took the packs from -Fred's hands and walked into the apartment house. He climbed the stairs -swiftly, wrinkling his nose at the stale thickness of the air, knocked -on the apartment door and waited for Elsie to open it.</p> - -<p>"Here's your beer," he said shortly.</p> - -<p>"Where's Fred?"</p> - -<p>"Your husband is being detained in connection with a robbery at his -office."</p> - -<p>"Fred! Are you kidding? Fred hasn't the sense or the guts! How long -will he be gone?"</p> - -<p>"Two or three weeks."</p> - -<p>"Oh," said Elsie, scratching herself disinterestedly. "Well, thanks for -the beer."</p> - -<p>She shut the door and the trooper returned to the squad car. He looked -at Fred sympathetically but said nothing. The squad car took off, then -turned on its sirens.</p> - -<p>"What's this all about?" asked Fred Williams from the back seat.</p> - -<p>"Just excitement, bud. We live a dull life."</p> - -<p>You think you do, you should live mine. I don't care anyway. If I ask -them what I'm doing in this squad car, I'll get a silly answer.</p> - -<p>"A guy called Spinner or something send for you?"</p> - -<p>"We don't get sent for, bud. Where have you been, the Middle Ages?"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>He had a point there. Security troopers were under direct control of -the President and came and went as they pleased. The satellite stations -gave them general directives and the President directed the stations. -Fred Williams grinned at the thought of Spinner, or whatever his name -was, calling the President to call a satellite station to call these -cops to come and get him. He would have been shocked and frightened if -anyone had told him this was almost exactly what had happened.</p> - -<p>They shot into the garage of an ordinary Federal police station, a -large tiled vault smelling of hoses, soap and water. The troopers took -him upstairs, along wax-polished corridors, through swinging doors and -out of the muttered voices, footsteps, paper rattling and telephone -tinkle of the station, into the smooth silence of a surgery. That -fellow Spinner was waiting in a white doctor's coat.</p> - -<p>"They pick you up too?" Fred Williams said.</p> - -<p>The Security troopers hoisted him into a dentist's chair, saluted the -other man and went away.</p> - -<p>"You can leave any time you wish, Fred. If you do, though, I'll have -you brought back. I'm Dr. Howard Sprinnell."</p> - -<p>"Funny, I thought your name was Cloud Spinner or something," Fred -confessed.</p> - -<p>"That's very interesting." The doctor leaned forward across his desk. -"What made you think that?"</p> - -<p>"I just remembered it that way, that's all."</p> - -<p>"Ah. You have an unusual mind, Fred. No, I mean it. And just to show -you this is not fooling, I have a call here for you from the President."</p> - -<p>"From Jake?"</p> - -<p>"From President Jackson, yes."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Dr. Sprinnell pressed a green button on the video control on his desk. -The wall panel lit and President Jackson's familiar face looked at Fred -Williams.</p> - -<p>"Mr. Williams," said the President. "The nation has called you to an -unusual task. On your complete cooperation and absolute discretion in -not mentioning to anyone—to anyone at all—what you may now learn -depend matters of the utmost consequence to us all. I wish you good -luck and Godspeed."</p> - -<p>The panel went dark and the doctor switched off.</p> - -<p>"That was Jake himself," Fred Williams said. "Talking to me."</p> - -<p>Like the many thousand million in the System, Fred referred to the -President familiarly as Jake, but he never thought he would get to talk -to him, or be talked to personally.</p> - -<p>"What did he want to talk to me for?" Fred asked, dazed.</p> - -<p>"That's what I want to show you," said Dr. Sprinnell. "You understood -what the President said about keeping this entirely confidential?"</p> - -<p>"Hell, no one would believe it if I said I'd been talking to the -President, anyway."</p> - -<p>"That's what we figure," said the doctor, smiling slightly. He picked -up a pack of cards and flipped five of them onto the desk, a circle, a -cross, two wavy lines, a rectangle and a star. "These are Zener cards, -Fred. Ever see them before?"</p> - -<p>No, but they didn't look like much. This was cockeyed, the whole -situation—having the President call him so that he and a quack could -play cards.</p> - -<p>"It will be clearer in a little while," Dr. Howard Sprinnell said. "But -first we must run this little check. Please point to one of these cards -every minute when I say 'now.'"</p> - -<p>Fred shifted himself in the high chair and pointed to one of the -five cards obediently every minute. After twenty minutes, the doctor -increased the rate. He noted every selection.</p> - -<p>"Last lap now, Fred."</p> - -<p>He was sick of this, but it was better than sitting in the apartment -with Elsie. Fred pointed to a card for the last time.</p> - -<p>"And now," the doctor said, standing up and feeding his notations into -a machine in the corner of the room, "we have here the results."</p> - -<p>He pulled a tape from the machine as it purred out, and showed it to -Fred. It was a score of some sort.</p> - -<p>"In another room," Dr. Howard Sprinnell explained, "we have a -synchronized telepath trying to influence your selections of these -cards. If you have psi qualities, Fred, these results will show how -high they are. If you have none, then your chances of picking the right -card are one in five. That goes for picking the card ahead of the -right one, or behind it, or two ahead and so on. In other words, if -the cards had been selected here by a machine instead of you, we would -expect twenty per cent of the answers to be right, by sheer chance—or -statistical probability, to put it more accurately."</p> - -<p>"So how did I do? Am I a mind-reader? That would make me laugh."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The doctor glanced at the result tape he was holding.</p> - -<p>"You have the results we want," he said. "Otherwise I would not tell -you this. You would be thanked, given a reward, made a fuss of by some -civil servant of prominence and sent home in style."</p> - -<p>He looked up at Fred in the dentist's chair.</p> - -<p>"Do you remember that contest in the <i>Sunday News</i>?"</p> - -<p>Fred Williams remembered it. Every week there had been a puzzle picture -to identify. The contest had lasted nearly a year. He remembered -particularly that each week there had been a cut of the room in which -entries were to be judged, a large editorial office, just above the -puzzle picture. Just a room. He had wondered why they bothered to put -it in.</p> - -<p>"There was a picture of a room in the paper," said the doctor, "where -each week, without any possibility of fraud or anyone seeing it except -the judges, the solution to the puzzle was hung up on the wall in -the middle of the picture shown in the paper. The puzzles themselves -were meaningless. We wanted to see how many people wrote in the -right solution just from seeing the picture of the empty room. The -right solution, of course, was the one hanging in that room at that -time, which no one could see, and which was selected an hour before -publication of the paper each week by random selection in a dictionary."</p> - -<p>"So what did I get, a consolation prize?" asked Fred.</p> - -<p>"In a way," the doctor smiled. "But not for coming near winning. The -top twenty winners were highly gifted people we recruited into the -Psi faculties of Duke, Harvard, Oxford, Paris and elsewhere. They -scored consistently throughout the year with a better than probability -deviation."</p> - -<p>"Huh?"</p> - -<p>"They got a lot more right than they could by chance alone. But your -results were even more interesting to us. You got the same result here, -just now, on the Zener cards."</p> - -<p>"I'm still in the running?"</p> - -<p>"Fred, quite seriously, you are the best candidate we've ever met. -Hence the special treatment. In the history of the System Government, -there have only been ten other people with results similar to yours."</p> - -<p>"Is that so? Well, I suppose you know what you're doing, Doc. But I -never had a premonition in my life."</p> - -<p>Doctor Howard Sprinnell frowned. "I should <i>hope</i> not. Almost everyone -has some psi capacities, but we're not interested in minor phenomena. -This is a government department, Fred. Here a thing has to work all the -time, whenever it's needed, wherever it's needed. A faculty professor -has off-days when he couldn't roll a die against chance. But you can't."</p> - -<p>"Look, doc. I think you've got the wrong man. I'm Fred Williams. -Frederick L. Williams. Are you sure—"</p> - -<p>"Look yourself," interrupted the doctor, leaning over to wave the tape -under Fred's nose. "Chance would give you twenty per cent right—one -out of five. Look at your result."</p> - -<p>Fred took the tape and studied it. "You've read it wrong. This says -several million per cent."</p> - -<p>"It says <i>zero</i> per cent. <i>Nil.</i> Not <i>one</i> answer right, Fred. The -millions are the probabilities of that deviation ... oh, never mind. -See the big black zero?"</p> - -<p>"Yes, Doc."</p> - -<p>"That is your result. It's statistically almost impossible, but you've -done it. You did it with the puzzle in the competition. You did not get -one single, solitary answer right. <i>Not one!</i> Even a machine gets one -out of five right, Fred. Don't you see?"</p> - -<p>No, he didn't, and it seemed to be just what Elsie was always -complaining about. He lacked this and lacked that. And now he couldn't -even do what a machine did.</p> - -<p>"Okay, Doc," Fred said tiredly. "So I'm dumber than a machine. That -figures."</p> - -<p>"If you talk like that, you are," snapped Doctor Howard Sprinnell. -"You have the highest negative Psi rating in the Solar System. -No clairvoyance, no telepathy, no induced hallucinations, no -precognitions, no telekinesis, no psi-screens, no interference of any -kind. When we send you out into—well, never mind, Fred. The main point -at present is that you are a very, very rare observer."</p> - -<p>"That's fine," Fred said. "Look, Doc, I feel beat."</p> - -<p>"You're meant to. Hell, man, I've been tiring you for two hours now. -And what's more, I'll give you a little warning in advance. We aren't -going to let you eat for three days either. You're going to be so tired -that your body is going to loosen its grip. Don't worry, you won't die. -Ten people have done this before you and they're all right. You'll -meet them all soon. Now just hold still."</p> - -<p>Dr. Howard Sprinnell slipped a hypo needle swiftly into Fred's neck, -withdrew it and dabbed with a piece of surgical wool.</p> - -<p>"Off you go, Fred."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>He was breaking into pieces, but he didn't care. He slept and woke -and slept and woke in the chair in old Cloud Spinner's office and now -he was coming apart and he just did not care. Fred Williams had had -several years of simple apathy. It came naturally to him. His body -rested, tired and inert, lacking in vigor from lack of food, and his -mind separated slowly from it, like a man standing up in a pool of -pygmies. His heart, hands, liver, stomach, viscera had their pygmy -minds all bundled in with his, and now falling away in separation as he -rose from them.</p> - -<p>His mind rose away from his body in the chair altogether. He viewed his -body with unconcern, and the chair in which it sat, and the room, and -through the walls the surrounding offices, and the rooms of the Federal -police station, where the Security trooper named Joe who had taken the -beer sat picking his teeth and gabbing with a pair of young Federal -cops, and the roof of the block in which the station stood.</p> - -<p>His mind went up like a balloon, rising swiftly into the atmosphere, -and the city shrank away under him like a toy plan, a kid's aid to -Better Civics, Home Town box VI, no Solar Credits necessary. He shifted -automatically away from the main airport, but a moment later he went -clean through an airliner cockpit, cabins with passengers, exhaust, -and out exactly where he was before. His mind followed the airliner -involuntarily, until he asked himself why, and immediately continued -rising into the sky, looking down at the ground and the great spherical -horizon.</p> - -<p>His mind rose into cloud and examined minutely a water molecule -floating from a piece of dust as big as a rock. His sense of proportion -sent him shooting out of the top of the cloud suddenly, like a startled -fish. The ground became a globe gradually, and as the clouds below -became little wisps over the light blue haze of the Earth, his feeling -of liberation increased and he rose faster. He went through layer after -layer of radiation sparking fitfully around him, and fiercer belts. And -then the dust thinned out like scattered transparent ball bearings, and -his mind approached the satellite stations riding over the Earth. He -was tempted to go through one, but it seemed unimportant and he rose -out.</p> - -<p>The Moon was swinging down away from him, a vast pitted ball bigger to -his mind than the Earth now. He put on more speed, so that his mind -flashed away from the Sun. Then as he paused an odd thing happened. -One moment he was up there, alone above the small Earth and its -smaller Moon, and the next instant his mind had flashed right into the -center of the Sun, deep in the inferno of its core, where violence and -variegated light surrounded him. And then he was out again, and his -mind zoomed off as if he were sitting in the front seat of a low-slung -car with the landmarks coming at a rush toward him and away to the -side. The Galaxy fell away behind his mind in this fashion and the -Great Nebula of Andromeda passed by.</p> - -<p>His mind roamed for a while among the other galactic clusters and the -spiral galaxies. He found his mind could appear at any point he wished, -without the long rush through space. He could transfer instantaneously -from place to place, and he hopped in this way at random from Crab to -Lagoon and in to Polaris and out to the Great Spiral of Ursa Major, and -onward to the open centers of the universe.</p> - -<p>In deeper space, where endless banks of galaxies roller-coasted away -from each other, he felt a change of quality come over his mind. It -turned within itself where all the vivid stars became mere floating -lights on the surface of a bubble outside. Here, within his mind, -was deeper space and yet another liberation. His mind hung like a -grape about to empty into a vat, which in this larger sense was truly -himself. Insofar as he, Fred Williams, was a mind, it was only a skin -around the greater liquid, in which indeed he perceived all things held -in common.</p> - -<p>He was about to throw off the skin and mingle in this condition where -he and the Magellanic Clouds and Joe the Security trooper's toothpick -had a single existence, when he was back in the chair in the office.</p> - -<p>His body settled over him again. He felt compressed and imprisoned and -robbed. His head turned as if it were on antiquated pulleys and his -arms and shoulders were strung together awkwardly.</p> - -<p>"It's bad to be back, isn't it? You'll never get used to that. But that -was one hell of a Dive."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Fred Williams looked at the other people in the office. There were ten -of them and Dr. Howard Sprinnell. Three were women, and all except the -doctor had large eyes.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/illus2.jpg" width="481" height="500" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>That was what you noticed about them, their enormous gentle eyes and -their slightly thin faces. The doctor held a mirror up for him to see -his own face, and it was much the same.</p> - -<p>"They thought we had lost you there for a while," said the doctor. -"All Divers do that on their first trip out—but you, I'm told, almost -joined the Lord."</p> - -<p>"Is that what This is?"</p> - -<p>"It's a matter outside our field," said Dr. Howard Sprinnell carefully, -"and a matter of choice as to name. But mystical evidence seems to -point that way."</p> - -<p>One of the girls laughed. "You're embarrassing the Solar Government, -Fred. They are not supposed to have any sectarian views. But that's -what we Divers think the This is. My name's Milly. This is Pat, and -Joan, Bill, Ed, Al, John, Anthony, Ricardo and Mitch. Welcome to the -Divers, Fred."</p> - -<p>Fred Williams smiled around. The women were attractive, all -brown-haired and nicely shaped. The seven men were just regular guys -you might meet anywhere. But then, he wasn't anything to win a prize -himself.</p> - -<p>"So far as we are concerned, Fred," Dr. Howard Sprinnell said, "and -this is official, there is the normal conscious mind, the subliminal -mind of which we are not usually conscious but which is apparently a -parcel of regional physical minds and the mind you roam in, and there -is the unconscious mind, which does not seem to belong to any one -person, although everyone has it, and which you people embarrass me by -referring to as the This.</p> - -<p>"All we know, officially, is that the This is the natural or original -home of the universe, and the only reason we know that is because we -don't want Divers to disappear into it and not come out. You're all too -rare. I gather it is almost unbearable to come out of. But you'll just -have to avoid the temptation to go home, as it were. After all, it has -taken several million years to get man out here where he is and what he -is. And the second reason is that the entire Solar Government depends -on the people in this room for information."</p> - -<p>Fred Williams looked at the others. They were serious. The smallest of -the girls, Pat, caught him looking and smiled.</p> - -<p>She turned to the doctor. "Can I tell Fred?"</p> - -<p>"You followed him, so you may as well. <i>I</i> don't know what you Divers -feel. But the Defense Council is waiting for the rest of you and we -must hurry along."</p> - -<p>Dr. Howard Sprinnell patted Fred on the shoulder as he passed. He stood -aside for the other Divers to leave the room, nodded to Pat and Fred, -and shut the door behind him.</p> - -<p>Fred Williams levered his body off the dentist's chair and stood -unsteadily. The girl took his arm. She was smaller than he, the top -of her head reaching to his mouth, small, delicate and scented with -heather.</p> - -<p>"There's a lounge next door—you may not have noticed it on the way -out—and there's always a bowl of fruit and some cheese and biscuits -there. Let's go in."</p> - -<p>He followed her.</p> - -<p>Even the short walk helped accustom himself to his body again. And the -room was large and airy, overlooking the central park of the city and -the clouds beyond the tall buildings in the distance.</p> - -<p>He stood looking out at the view and eating an apple while she sliced -cheese and laid the pieces on a plate with some biscuits for him. Then -she sat down, folded her hands in her lap and looked at him. She was -wearing a white-and-blue-check dress. She looked young and fresh and -alive. The room was clean and fresh. He could not think of Elsie and -that apartment as being in the same world.</p> - -<p>"Did the doc say you followed me?" Fred asked eventually.</p> - -<p>"One of us always goes with a new Diver on the first trip."</p> - -<p>"What did I look like? I mean was there anything to see?"</p> - -<p>"Oh, yes." Pat laughed. "As a matter of fact, our minds look like the -inside of eggs out there."</p> - -<p>"But a plane went through me. And I shot for some reason into the Sun."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>He turned and looked disbelievingly up into the sky.</p> - -<p>The Sun made him blink and his eyes watered.</p> - -<p>"Now I can't even look at it," he said, "any more than I could before."</p> - -<p>"Show me your mind," she said simply. "Where is it?"</p> - -<p>"Well ..."</p> - -<p>"That's the whole point of the Divers. A mind is not in space-time. It -is connected with a body which is—or, to be exact, it is associated -with—a physical brain, which in turn can work a mouth and hands to -communicate what the mind has seen. The Solar Government has the -problem in reverse. They can send ships through hyper-space; otherwise, -as you know, we could never have populated the Galaxy. Why, Polaris, -which you visited, is over a thousand light-years from Earth! They can -make matter shift in and out of hyper-space. But they can't communicate -that far away. Radiation won't take the shift. So the government can -either send radio waves out and wait a couple of thousand years for -the answer, or it has to shuttle whole ships to and fro just to get a -simple message.</p> - -<p>"Worse, from a defense viewpoint, there are times when they must have -information fast and when the nature of the news means that no ship -will be either available or allowed to become available to carry the -news. Suppose you are an intelligent life-form off Canopus and you -think up a magnificent way of taking over the Solar System. You're six -hundred and fifty light-years away, but time is no problem because -either you live longer than that or you have a tribe-culture. Even if -the system had a billion police ships, which it hasn't, it could never -be sure of catching Canopus preparing, or intercepting whatever horror -they sent off. And even if it were lucky, the ship would have to come -back itself to get the news to the Solar Government.</p> - -<p>"A Diver can send his mind instantaneously from one end of the universe -to the other, he can examine atomic particles or survey galaxies, he -can see through matter as if it were full of holes—which it is—he can -patrol sectors and report exactly what he found there. He can dive into -deep space and be free."</p> - -<p>"Yes," Fred Williams said. "That's it. Free. That's exactly how we -feel, isn't it?"</p> - -<p>"Never mind. You'll be going out again. Regularly. With me at first -until you get patroling under control. And then on your own."</p> - -<p>"Are we always hungry?" asked Fred Williams, taking another apple.</p> - -<p>"It helps. The government would like us to be permanently at the point -of death, but that is fortunately impractical. The less hold our bodies -have, the easier it is to go out. There's one other point, though. -And since you're coming with me on your training, I'd prefer you to -know—no matter what the rules say. Whenever you go near another living -being in a Dive, your mind can see the other mind, and you can read it -from the pictures in it. It's difficult to describe, but you'll see for -yourself. And if the mind you are looking at is connected up to a body, -as we are now, and if the pictures don't seem to fit the situation, you -can take it that they refer to events still in the future as far as -that body is concerned. The mind has a different space-time existence -from the body, obviously, and quite often it is ahead in time. That's -why we have to be negative Psi. Anyone can Dive, but only a negative -Psi can remain objective about other beings' minds. A Psi would collect -other minds' contents and get them confused with his own—future and -present all messed up, full of symbols—take a look at a Psi's mind -sometime on the way back. There are a lot of accidental roamers around -on Earth."</p> - -<p>"If we can read other minds," Fred Williams said thoughtfully, "then we -Divers could have a hell of a lot of power."</p> - -<p>He was surprised when Pat laughed.</p> - -<p>"We all think of that," she said, "but so did the Solar Government. We -have a bunch of Psis and Security troops tracing us all the time when -we're in the body. But the real hold on us is not that. How would you -feel if you were told you could never Dive again?"</p> - -<p>"I—I wouldn't like that."</p> - -<p>"You see? And you've only been on the first experimental Dive. Imagine -when it is your whole life."</p> - -<p>Fred Williams nodded slowly.</p> - -<p>Then he asked: "Where do you live?"</p> - -<p>"Oh, no. Divers never mix. Our existence is a top-secret. And the -risk of losing two Divers in a single accident would keep the Defense -Council awake at night."</p> - -<p>"But everyone was here today."</p> - -<p>"To welcome you. That's a big occasion to us."</p> - -<p>"It's the biggest thing that ever happened to me," Fred Williams said.</p> - -<p>"I know," Pat answered quietly. "I saw your mind. But I'll change that, -Fred."</p> - -<p>She stood up and brushed her hands over her dress.</p> - -<p>"Where will I see you again?" he asked.</p> - -<p>"You never will."</p> - -<p>He stood up to protest.</p> - -<p>"Not in the body," she amended.</p> - -<p>He looked so mournful that she walked over and kissed him.</p> - -<p>"There's a good-by present, Diver. But <i>we</i> will meet regularly."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Finding him sitting with a pile of apple cores beside him, the doctor -clicked his tongue reprovingly.</p> - -<p>"Tell me, Doc, how could you stop me Diving?" asked Fred worriedly.</p> - -<p>"Fill you full of vitamins and carbohydrates and alcohol and send you -on a pleasure-cruise with a lot of accomplished women," said Dr. Howard -Sprinnell promptly. "Or allow you to stuff yourself with apples, for a -start. Now come along or I'll bar you from the exercise room."</p> - -<p>Fred Williams followed him thoughtfully.</p> - -<p>"By the way," the doctor said over his shoulder, "your wife thinks -you're under arrest. You've been here four days so far and we can keep -you another ten or so. After that you'll have to go back. You're on -our payroll now, but you'd better keep your job. Or we can find you -a heavier one, if you're not tired enough. We'll seal a miniature -transmitter into your larynx under the skin before you leave, so that -you can report audibly from wherever you are. Diving has the same -effect on the body as sleep, you'll find, so you can do both at once. -I'll grade off the injections before you leave here. Now this is the -political field as we know it...."</p> - -<p>They stood in a large lecture hall, filled with spaced models of the -Solar System, set in the Milky Way and surrounded by the related -galaxies.</p> - -<p>"Here's the spiral in Andromeda," said the doctor, using a long -pointer. "I understand you went there...."</p> - -<p>He took Fred Williams on a general tour of the hall.</p> - -<p>"Of course there are others not shown here," he concluded. "The -Coma-Virgo system of galaxies, for one example. But these are the -ones <i>politically</i> important at this time. In Sagittarius, we have a -problem. There's a human colony there—a very early one, as a matter -of fact—which we're sending an envoy to. But we don't know what sort -of an envoy they are expecting, whether he should be a technical -agronomist, a sociologist, a radiation expert, or a plain folksy -reminder of Earth, or what. A simple problem really, but a mistake will -cost us several billion credits to correct. So your first assignment, -under Pat's tuition, will be to find out and report. When you get -back, you'll rank officially as a Diver. Rendezvous is over the -Peninsula, above San Francisco; you can't miss it. Take your mind there -before you leave and come back there on the way in. Around fifteen -thousand feet is the recommended height, but that, like your mind, is -immaterial, if you'll pardon the pun. And now I suggest you go down -to the police gym and take some good strong exercise so that you feel -properly tired for the journey."</p> - -<p>Dr. Howard Sprinnell put his hands in his pockets and gazed at his -polished shoes.</p> - -<p>"I don't quite know how to say this, Fred," he continued, "but I'm -responsible for you Divers. You're entitled to your own forms of -amusement, of course, but please remember you are being watched by -Psis. No dropping in on the President's bedroom. Other people's -bedrooms, all right, though I trust you'll keep out of mine. But do -nothing that could make you be considered a security risk. That is the -<i>only</i> thing that would worry us."</p> - -<p>Fred Williams assured him and left the hall to go down to the police -gym. He did not understand why the warning should be necessary. On -the other hand, you could take it as a delicate permission to do -anything that was not a security risk. He passed the police canteen -and restrained himself from going in to order a doughnut with Martian -syrup. It would keep him from Diving.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>He rose into the atmosphere above the city and headed across America to -the rendezvous above the West Coast. The Earth spun away from beneath -him. He had time to be surprised that in the few hours back on Earth -he had forgotten the unburdened clarity of mind in a Dive. He knew who -he was. He was unquestionably Fred Williams up here, as much as he was -Fred Williams down there. But here he felt different, free, while down -there he was embedded and obscured in a shell of a body. Here, this -time, his vision was not limited to a forward cone but extended in a -complete sphere around him.</p> - -<p>He saw the large nick in the coast ahead and came down to meet his -tutor Diver.</p> - -<p>Pat had said he looked like the inside of an egg, but he was not -prepared for the great ovoid poised there below him. He came up to -her with a rush and found he was even bigger by comparison. When they -touched, he heard her voice. There was a slight resistance as his mind -met hers and then she slipped inside his, so that he enclosed her mind -within his ovoid mind.</p> - -<p>"One of the disadvantages of a Diver," she said quietly within him, -"is that we can only talk to each other by contact. A Psi could see our -thoughts radiating out like an aurora, but we can't. We travel this way -when two Divers are together, which isn't often, so that we both think -of going to the same place. If we do get separated, come back here -immediately and we'll start again."</p> - -<p>"Fine."</p> - -<p>"<i>Please.</i> The very <i>gentlest</i> suggestion of vocalizing will do. That -was like a cannon."</p> - -<p>"Sorry."</p> - -<p>"Much better. Now, gently, out. Think of rising slowly.... That's -right."</p> - -<p>They rose away from the Earth.</p> - -<p>"Over there," she prompted, "is the galactic spiral arm we are in. See, -running from Orion? The Solar System is out here on a limb. Over here -is where we're going, deep into the Galaxy, our own galaxy. You'll soon -pick up the main roads. See that fan-shaped arch? That's a T-Tauri -variable, signposts to us. Think of being just off that one now."</p> - -<p>He did—and there they were, in a dark lane of the Milky Way.</p> - -<p>"Now you can imagine what would happen if we were moving separately and -turned our minds to different points. You have to go back and start -again then. Now, we're going down this dark lane."</p> - -<p>They moved through the splendor of the Milky Way, through vast lanes -of fine dark nebulae, across a giant rift, past glowing clouds of -hydrogen and oxygen and bright expanding shells, rings within rings, -flowing out from intense stars in their center as if the star were a -pebble dropped in a pond of burning space, the planetary nebulae.</p> - -<p>The Sagittarian region was well known to Pat and she commented on the -Lagoon, and Omega and Trifid Nebula suspended around them. The local -system they sought lay off a loose globular star cluster, one of a -crowd here deep in toward the center of the Galaxy, the bright core -around which the spiral arms of the entire Milky Way ponderously swung.</p> - -<p>He was part engrossed in the technique of moving his mind, part awed -by the variety and beauty of the Galaxy, and part lost in the beauty -of the mind within him. She moved with deft, clear thought like the -chime of crystals. The sensory images of Earth were gross and distorted -projections of the way he saw her, but she was at once the beating -rhythm beneath rock-and-roll and the abstracted clarity of Chopin, the -summer wind and the warmth of a wine. He held her mind within his in a -new union so complete that anything else was mere fumbling.</p> - -<p>"Thank you," he heard her voice say gently, and they sank down toward -the rings of small planets they had come to visit.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>A colony from Earth implied an atmosphere, and several planets in the -group indeed looked fuzzy. The two Divers skimmed rapidly from one to -another in a general survey, selected the largest of those which might -support man, and sank down through its belts of radiation.</p> - -<p>The central mass of land lay beneath thin clouds, through which the -local sun shone in drifting spotlights over the cultivated areas and -irregular groups of cities.</p> - -<p>"When we get closer," her voice said, "you'll see them walking about -inside their minds, which to us will be cloudy colored eggs around -them. They cannot see this, of course, any more than a non-Psi or we -ourselves on Earth. If it isn't obvious what they are thinking, we'll -have to go close enough to touch their minds with ours. But be very -careful before you do that. If they are very empty-minded, there is a -risk that their body magnetism will polarize your mind in temporarily. -You can get out again, but it's messy and unpleasant while it lasts. -And it's almost impossible to avoid being sucked into a medium's mind, -so I hope they haven't got any."</p> - -<p>They were now over the main city and headed toward a large domed -building, apparently modeled on the Capitol.</p> - -<p>"How did they get here?" he asked.</p> - -<p>"We don't really know. The contacts so far have been by radio to a -very early investigating fleet. Obviously they must have come out -after the hyper-space drive was invented—we're over twenty thousand -light-years from Earth, here, I'm told—but they don't seem to realize -the difficulties of sending them the envoy they asked for. Assuming -these are the people that wanted one."</p> - -<p>"Look, an old landcar—down there on the street!" he exclaimed.</p> - -<p>The colony apparently still used ground vehicles. As they came closer, -they could see people walking in the streets and moving in and out -of doorways. There were no moving sidewalks, personal vertijets, -anti-gravs. It was cleaner but otherwise as old-fashioned as the -quarter in which Fred Williams lived on Earth.</p> - -<p>"Imagine coming so far—to find this," he said, disappointed.</p> - -<p>"You'll find colonies are usually several generations behind, but let's -not be too hasty," she said. "We can have a look around later. First, -let's see if we have the right planet and get this envoy matter out of -the way. Down through the dome, here."</p> - -<p>They passed through the weather sheathing and curved girders of the -dome into an assembly hall full of human beings, seated around a -central dais. The colonists had apparently been inspired by Congress. A -quick glance at their minds showed they were politicians, no better and -no worse than the Earth variety, intent on compromise and the exchange -of benefits between the groups of interests they seemed to represent. -Several carried visibly in their minds one fixed interest and a quick -count showed that agriculture was, in one form or another, the main -business of the colony.</p> - -<p>"I think that answers it," she said. "We'll have to check on the other -planets, but farm problems seem to be what they're most concerned -about."</p> - -<p>He felt dissatisfied. "Shouldn't we touch one of their minds to see if -this is really the political center? It may only be a village meeting."</p> - -<p>It seemed incongruous to use the wonderful reach of Diving to gather -little facts like this and to depart knowing nothing else. Then again, -he recalled the doctor describing it as a simple problem.</p> - -<p>He felt her mind move understandingly within his. "All right, let's -touch the Speaker and see how far his authority goes. He'd be very -conscious of a superior Congress if there is one."</p> - -<p>They moved together to the dais and brushed against the Speaker's mind. -The short, bald man sitting impressively in the center of the bubble -immediately leaned forward and banged his gavel. The entire assembly -rose to their feet and stood still. The Speaker slouched in his chair. -His mind shook off the influences of his body and rose up to touch the -two of them.</p> - -<p>"Welcome, at last," he said.</p> - -<p>"You have been expecting us?"</p> - -<p>"Of course. Though why do you say 'us'?"</p> - -<p>They moved partly from each other, overlapping only at the extreme -limit of their own minds, so that he could see there were two of them -together.</p> - -<p>A gasp sounded in the Speaker's mind like an echo and there was a -movement throughout the assembly.</p> - -<p>"Can they hear us?" Pat asked.</p> - -<p>"Naturally. Psi capacity is a minimum requirement for the Senate. Can't -you hear us?"</p> - -<p>"Only by mental contact."</p> - -<p>"How odd," the Speaker replied. "Still, we ourselves cannot merge in -each other, only into housings."</p> - -<p>"Housings?"</p> - -<p>"But surely.... You must know. Of course you must."</p> - -<p>"I'm afraid we don't."</p> - -<p>"For heaven's sake, what part of the Solar System do you come from that -you don't know a housing when you see one? Ganymede, Mercury, Jove, -Venus, Bacchus? Although I was under the impression that the entire -system used the same terms."</p> - -<p>"One moment," Fred said. "What system are you talking about?"</p> - -<p>"This system here, naturally."</p> - -<p>"We come from a different part of the Galaxy, a part that is called the -Solar System by those who live there."</p> - -<p>There was a multiple rustling of thoughts which disturbed the Speaker -momentarily.</p> - -<p>"Please, gentlemen, please! Will every Senator please quit his housing -so that we have less of these physical interruptions?"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Every member of the assembly sat down, relaxed his body and rose gently -above it with a clear and uncluttered mind.</p> - -<p>"Thank you, Senators," the Speaker said. "Now. Do we understand that -you come from some other part of our galaxy?"</p> - -<p>"Yes," Pat said. "We call it the Milky Way."</p> - -<p>"So do we."</p> - -<p>"You probably brought the name with you."</p> - -<p>"You are suggesting that <i>we</i> came from <i>you</i> and brought the name of -the Galaxy with us?"</p> - -<p>"Why, yes."</p> - -<p>"I see. Would you identify this solar system of yours?"</p> - -<p>Pat held in her mind a picture of the Solar System and the Sun, -embedded in the long spiral arm of the Galaxy. She made the image of -the Earth expand and contract in emphasis.</p> - -<p>"Thank you. So you come from that little system, do you? How -interesting. And yet you have never heard of housings."</p> - -<p>"We call them bodies."</p> - -<p>"Well, so they are. I recall a primitive energy transmission we had -here long ago. We extended an invitation to the operators, but they -have not so far arrived. They came from your system, or so they said."</p> - -<p>"They did. They contacted you by what we call radio. We were sent, -frankly, to see what sort of envoy should be sent here to you."</p> - -<p>"Ah! There has been a natural confusion. We thought you were here from -one of our outer systems where we are having some difficulty raising -the right housing. In fact, we were just debating the correct form of -grain to transmit to feed the housings on. They are in the awkward -stage of having sufficient minds to exist, but insufficient nerve -cortex to enable us to enter them. Our local representatives—whom we -mistook you for—have been having a very difficult time for several -hundred years, but we will soon find the answer. Now, we will be glad -to receive an envoy from your system. We are always glad to receive -representatives from our successful colonies. As to the type of envoy, -anyone with a broad galactic viewpoint will do. We will, of course, be -glad to offer housing and the usual facilities."</p> - -<p>"When you say housing, you mean bodies?"</p> - -<p>"Naturally. Bodies such as these Senators' or my own are the most -adaptable for this climate. If you go in to our Ganymede or out to Jove -you would have to use a local—er—body, because these human types -would melt or suffocate respectively. But the local housings in silica -and in ammonia crystal have proved quite adequate for normal locomotion -and physical work there. The normal facilities of the sport planets -would be available, to be sure. We are quite proud of our slither -bodies, I suppose you would call them, in the snow worlds—quite a -recent development. I fear we are not too luxurious here, but galactic -opinion forces us to make our housings do almost everything they are -capable of doing—walk, drive, cook and other such menial tasks. But -then at least everyone knows we are not spending the revenue on our -own housing—er—our own bodies. Only last century we barely averted -a political threat to make all Senators' bodies sleep out in the open -weather. But obviously it is much more expensive to keep breeding new -bodies than build a shelter such as this one. Even taxpayers can see -that."</p> - -<p>The Speaker's mind echoed general agreement from the Senators.</p> - -<p>"It will come as a surprise," Pat said clearly, "but our system -believes <i>we</i> colonized <i>yours</i>."</p> - -<p>This met polite and general laughter in which the Speaker joined.</p> - -<p>"Perhaps," he said, "you would care to communicate direct with the -Senators who were in charge of your system during the developmental -stages. Will the Senators please come forward for contact?"</p> - -<p>Seven of the minds above the floor of the Senate drifted over to touch -peripherally against each other and against Pat and Fred.</p> - -<p>"When we first undertook that project," one or all of them said, -"your system was entirely unpopulated. On the third planet, we found, -however, roughly humanoid apes in isolated caves and by selective -breeding we succeeded in making that species into a housing identical -with those we use on this planet. Unfortunately, only the less stable -minds of the Galaxy were prepared to live quite so far out and we -eventually lost touch. Is the same housing still used?"</p> - -<p>"So much so," Pat told them, "that we cannot normally detach -ourselves."</p> - -<p>"You mean you send <i>bodies</i> from place to place?"</p> - -<p>"Yes. The radio signals you received were from a spaceship containing -men in their own bodies."</p> - -<p>"Remarkable. Naturally, we accept your statement. But this implies -considerable technical skill—and a prodigious disregard for the -taxpayers' money. You mean there were actually <i>men</i> out there in -<i>bodies</i> sending energy transmissions, instead of visiting us in the -mind from Earth?"</p> - -<p>"Yes."</p> - -<p>"Remarkable. <i>Very</i> remarkable. Can you spare the time to tell us more -about this? We can accommodate you with a double housing or separate -housing, whichever you prefer."</p> - -<p>"May I withdraw to consult with my colleague?" Pat asked.</p> - -<p>"Of course. We will continue our debate."</p> - -<p>The Senators returned to their forms and the Speaker, sinking back into -his body, recalled the assembly to their discussion of agricultural -problems.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Over the dome, Pat slipped inside Fred Williams' mind again. They -thought of the enormous space-ships developed over many centuries -and at uncounted cost to give men favorable odds in an unfavorable -environment. And of the hazardous shifting of power based on -bomb-satellites, and the fence upon fence of security precautions -on which Earth and the Solar System depended. Or rather, when they -considered it, on which their local population depended. It was not a -problem for two Divers but for a team of specialists.</p> - -<p>They returned to the Speaker.</p> - -<p>"We would like to consult with the original Earth Senators again and -perhaps borrow two—housings—for a a short while."</p> - -<p>"With the greatest pleasure."</p> - -<p>The Senators concerned quitted their housings and floated across the -assembly to join them. They all rose together to the outside of the -dome, where they would not disturb the debate below.</p> - -<p>"One of the questions," Fred said, "is what happens if we died—by -accident, for example—while in a borrowed housing."</p> - -<p>"You imply a question as to what happens to <i>any</i> of your people, since -they have lost the power to detach themselves, or do not make use of -it."</p> - -<p>"Yes."</p> - -<p>"Unfortunately," one or all of the Senators replied, "we do not know. -It is said there is a continual production of new minds in the -universe, which appear here and there, wherever there are suitable -housings. Others disagree but have no real answer. If we lend you -housing—a panther-style body for personal racing on the grass steppes, -say, or a vast whale-style body for enjoying some of our oceans, and -so on, there is some risk. Among certain cultures, we find a return of -the mind to a similar vacant housing. In other places, we have found -an obscuration of the mind. We think there are parallel universes -differing from this as mind-form differs from substance. And we -believe each mind continues in these further dimensions. This would be -practical if you were unable to leave a dying housing. Our advice is -not to get caught in any accidents.</p> - -<p>"Should it be advantageous to you, we will keep housings ready for you -here. One male and one female, of course. Ah—on one question which you -did not ask—you will find our guest housings are a uniform breed which -became popular on your Planet among the Greeks and Romans as ideal -godlike forms, shortly before we returned here.</p> - -<p>"And as to the other question you have not asked—we never interfere -with local cultures, for the greater the variety of each, the greater -the enrichment of all. Your system is entirely safe; we propose to -observe it more closely from now on. It is our impression, however, -that you would be wise <i>not</i> to mention the galactic system we -represent, when you return to your Earth. It would be too upsetting to -the established pattern. We are all human beings, but we have solved -the same problems in very different ways."</p> - -<p>"We have not solved ours," Fred said.</p> - -<p>"Oh, neither have we. But at least the few of us here, including -yourselves, at any time as our guests, have achieved what you would -probably call immortality."</p> - -<p>"We are free to accept your invitation at any time?"</p> - -<p>"Certainly."</p> - -<p>"Then we will report that no other envoy is needed," Pat said clearly.</p> - -<p>"That would be beneficial indeed."</p> - -<p>"And may we send you a very limited number of friends?"</p> - -<p>"Your guests shall be our guests. Again, we suggest you limit knowledge -of us so far as possible."</p> - -<p>"We are called Divers because we can leave our bodies. Only Divers -could visit you in this way, and we will not send any others."</p> - -<p>"Thank you. It is largely our fault. We have come across traces here -and there of other colonies which we assumed were the successful -result of past experiments. It occurs to us now that several of these -may be in fact body-bound expeditions from your solar system. We will -investigate and correct our catalogues."</p> - -<p>"We can be of assistance there," Pat answered.</p> - -<p>"Excellent. We wish you Godspeed and a pleasant return."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The nine minds released contact and moved apart. Fred felt Pat's mind -slip into his. They rose off the dome and increased speed, soaring into -the sky and out, above the ring of planets.</p> - -<p>"Why didn't we borrow a couple of bodies?" Fred asked.</p> - -<p>He could picture himself strutting elegantly in the body of a Greek -god, with Pat to match beside him.</p> - -<p>"Please stop that—we're zigzagging about. You're new, Fred. Every -Diver goes through the same routine—a pep-talk from the President, -Doctor Sprinnell's little tricks, your first Dive all over the -universe, and then routine patrols. What you don't know is that -whenever we Divers come into contact with another race or another form -of life, we are invariably offered gifts of some sort. Primitives sense -the presence of a Diver and put on a show, lay out food and their -treasures. The more advanced, using trained telepaths, try to bribe -us. And so on, without exception."</p> - -<p>"Okay, so I'm new, Pat. So I don't know the pattern. A few days ago I -was a slob in an automation-parts supply house and now I'm here with -you at the back end of the Milky Way, or the center, whichever way you -look at it. But Doc Spinner made some pretty odd cracks to me about -security and I don't like the idea of being spied on all the time back -on Earth."</p> - -<p>"No Diver does. The Defense Council put us in business, but now they -are afraid of us, in a way. We can go anywhere and see anything. We -might have a look at their secret installations or their private files. -Then we <i>would</i> be in trouble."</p> - -<p>"Well, I didn't ask to come into this. But now that I'm in and a Diver, -just one fancy move by Security and I'm off to get another body. That -sounds odd, doesn't it? But I mean it."</p> - -<p>"I'm glad."</p> - -<p>"Eh?"</p> - -<p>"I'm very glad, Fred. I wanted to see how you'd take it. I feel the -same way. It's true we're always offered presents, but immortality is -something larger than a present. And to get out from under the thumb of -the Psis and their spying is something all of us have been longing for."</p> - -<p>"And I'll tell you something else, Pat. From now on, if the other -Divers agree, we'll do what we want. Oh, the Solar System can have -its patrolling. I'll have to learn how that's done from you. We'll -tell them what they want to know. But one sign of interference and -we're off, and they can keep the bodies. We won't tell them they are -a backward colony that has forgotten how to Dive. But we know it. We -won't tell them the rest of the Galaxy is run from the center back in -Sagittarius by humans who can Dive. But we know that too. If I thought -at all about it, I thought we were freaks, useful nuisances. And I -didn't mind being ordered about. But we're not freaks, Pat. We're the -<i>normal</i> human beings that the Senate back there meant to create. It's -the Solar System that is lop-sided, not us."</p> - -<p>"I'm not—overinfluencing you, Fred?"</p> - -<p>"Hell, of course you are. I can hardly think of you without looping -around a star. But the facts are the same. And from today, we're not -Divers. We're the <i>Free</i> Divers, housing where we wish to, seeing what -we want...."</p> - -<p>"And protecting the Solar System, Fred."</p> - -<p>"Well—they're entitled to that. And we'll keep to their security -regulations for our bodies on Earth, if it makes them happy. We can -afford to give a little here and there."</p> - -<p>They shot together through the nearest T-Tauri variable arch and -zoomed happily. After a while, they returned to the rendezvous off the -American coast on Earth. The other Divers were waiting for them.</p> - -<p>"It's a custom," Pat told him as they approached the nine Divers, -hovering in space, "to greet you as a new Diver."</p> - -<p>They closed together as they met, within Fred's larger shell. He told -them. There were no doubts among their minds.</p> - -<p>"Sooner or later," Fred finished, "one of us was bound to meet the true -Galactics we've just met. It happened to be Pat and myself. I'm new and -don't know much about Diving, but I've seen enough to know that from -now on I'm a Free Diver."</p> - -<p>"So are we all," they answered.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Returning across America in the one shell, they scattered confusion -and headache throughout the psi-watching stations in their path by the -scramble of eleven sets of thoughts. Then they separated and left Fred -to go down to his body while they returned to theirs in the different -places Security had put them. Pat followed him down as a precaution.</p> - -<p>This time, Fred Williams' body fitted his mind with a greater feeling -of strangeness but less muddling. The smaller consciousnesses of his -body did not obscure his perceptions; he was aware of it as a housing -for his mind.</p> - -<p>He looked at Dr. Howard Sprinnell, who had listened to him so far in -silence, uncommenting and unmoved, a mild, friendly face in the small -medical room.</p> - -<p>"So, Fred. I warned you, Pat warned you. You go out on two Dives, a -few days after discovering that such things exist, and you come back -to give me an ultimatum for the Solar Government. A lifetime here in -the drabbest, almost medieval surroundings of the city and, after a few -days, you come back announcing you're a Free Diver, owing nothing to -anyone. Is that right? Do you still stick to that?"</p> - -<p>Fred nodded.</p> - -<p>"You realize what we can do to you, Fred? Dammit, on your first Dive -you almost went out of space-time altogether, only you didn't know what -you were doing. Do you know what you're doing now? Do you think I've -spent twenty years searching for negative Psis for government service -so that you can turn them against the Solar System?"</p> - -<p>"Hold on, Doc. No one said anything about being against the Solar -System. If there's work to be done, we'll do it. But in our own way and -without being spied on."</p> - -<p>"Just give me one reason why the government should trust you, with the -entire Security system."</p> - -<p>"Because," Fred said carefully, "you may have my body, but in my mind I -am a Free Diver."</p> - -<p>"And nothing anyone can say will change that, eh?"</p> - -<p>"No."</p> - -<p>"You know," Dr. Howard Sprinnell said reflectively, "you're talking as -if you had another body cached away somewhere."</p> - -<p>"Whoever heard of that?"</p> - -<p>"Lots of people, Fred. Voodoo zombies, certain Mahayana religious -leaders, prehistoric Egyptians—there's quite a well documented -tradition. But the great problem has always been to find a leader with -the courage to do it scientifically and in the interests of all the -people, not just the members of some sect. Give a man the universe to -play in and he doesn't mind a few rules as long as he's allowed to -play. Finding negative Psis and creating the Divers as an organized -official body was easy compared with the task of completing the -experiment—<i>by making one of them revolt</i>! Nine of the ten before -you were too easily satisfied. Diving according to the rules and -regulations was enough for them."</p> - -<p>"Who was the tenth?"</p> - -<p>"Pat. She was the prettiest and most discontented. I thought I could -stir up some fire."</p> - -<p>"You did."</p> - -<p>"Ah, good. I am high-Psi, by the way. I seem to feel she's somewhere -around here. However ... I can never be a Diver myself, but years ago I -formed the theory that a lot of phenomena could be explained by minds -reaching out beyond their bodies. Now be careful, Fred. I don't want to -<i>know</i>. The Security Psis are very real and there are a lot of things -I cannot afford to know. I'm a Solar Government servant, remember. But -it seemed to me there might conceivably be a life-form somewhere in -the universe which used the body as a vehicle for its convenience. I -hoped one day the Divers would find such a life-form, and if I made the -regulations stiff enough and supplied one or two other irritations, -one Diver might decide to make the jump, to revolt and stand on his -own feet. Free Divers, you called yourselves, eh? A good name. I don't -want to know where your base—your other base—is, Fred. I only want to -know there is a group of people willing to serve the Solar Government -regardless of time, theoretically for eternity—that's what it amounts -to when you work it out. As I say, I'm just a government servant. And -thanks, Free Diver."</p> - -<p>He held out his hand and shook Fred's. "From now on, Fred, you can -all come and go as you wish. If you feel like keeping to the security -regulations, fine. But I'll make it clear to the Defense Council that -there's nothing they can do about it if you don't. Men who don't mind -losing their bodies have always been somewhat beyond the power of a -government."</p> - -<p>"On that basis, Doc, I don't mind continuing the way you planned."</p> - -<p>"Laryngeal transmitter, continue your cover-job and the rest?"</p> - -<p>"Don't see why not."</p> - -<p>"Come along then. You're due to be released from jail."</p> - -<p>Fred followed the doctor into the operating room.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>He remembered the beer this time. Elsie lay back on her bed, drinking -from the can, one of her scuffs dangling from a bare toe.</p> - -<p>"The trouble with you, Fred, is you can't even rob an office."</p> - -<p>"I didn't."</p> - -<p>"That's what I mean. See? You just can't do anything."</p> - -<p>He lay back on his own bed and looked at her. There were a lot of -things you didn't mind putting up with, voluntarily. You married her, -so you'd look after her, trudge to the shipping room to work and trudge -back. The tireder you got, the better.</p> - -<p>For evening came every day, and with the evening came sleep for his -housing and eight hours for patrolling the Galaxy. And beyond the -system, out beyond the dark lanes, there were endless forms of life ... -and the two great developments of men, one stemming from the other in -different ways, but each expanding, colonizing, growing ... all with -problems for the Free Divers he led.</p> - -<p>"Wouldja get me another beer, Fred?"</p> - -<p>"Sure."</p> - -<p>He remembered to slouch into the kitchen, as if he did not care. And -when you considered it, he didn't care at all. This was one path of -human developments the Senators never thought of.</p> - -<p>"Trouble with you, Fred, is you're just a negative character. You -weren't when I married you, but you are now."</p> - -<p>Well, she was certainly entitled to a beer for that.</p> - - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Divers, by James Stamers - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DIVERS *** - -***** This file should be named 60762-h.htm or 60762-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/0/7/6/60762/ - -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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