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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..03d6b08 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #63990 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/63990) diff --git a/old/63990-0.txt b/old/63990-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 7b52ec1..0000000 --- a/old/63990-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,998 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Palimpsest, by Roger Dee - -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 -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this ebook. - -Title: Palimpsest - -Author: Roger Dee - -Release Date: December 08, 2020 [EBook #63990] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -Produced by: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed - Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PALIMPSEST *** - - - - - PALIMPSEST - - By ROGER DEE - - _Care to sire a brand new race? Then - get aboard the Terra IV, only spaceship - to escape demolished Earth, and enter - the new-born Venusian sweepstakes_. - - [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from - Planet Stories November 1951. - Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that - the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] - - -_The first Venusian ship to reach Earth found a single isolated tribe -of human beings roving the bushlands of a large island in the southern -hemisphere. The Earthmen were without exception dark of skin and eye, -and their hair, which was jet-black, was as kinky as koola wool. All -were backward to the point of savagery, fleeing in superstitious terror -before every attempt at communication._ - -_Val Conna and his crew--nine tall young men, fair-skinned and lordly -and alike enough to have been brothers--made an exhaustive search that -carefully bypassed ruined cities still radioactive past the safety -point, and after ten days abandoned their quest in disappointment._ - -_"I find no resemblance between this remnant of Earth's people and -ourselves," announced Mach Bren, expedition anthropologist, "except -a bipedal structure which only bears out our theory of like species -developing on like worlds, and this similarity is sharply negated by -impossible divergence in racial characteristics. Neither people could -have changed so greatly during the four thousand years we know our -culture has existed on Venus, and therefore it is obvious that we did -not stem from Earthmen nor they from us."_ - -_There was no argument._ - -_"Then the puzzle of our origin is still unsolved," said Val Conna, -and gave the order to blast-off. So they left Earth for home, already -planning further expeditions to the outer planets in search of the -world of their birth...._ - - * * * * * - -Somehow Hanlon had wormed his way into their quarters and was waiting -when Geddes and Lowe and Hovic, crew of the _Terra IV_, returned to -base from their final interview with the press. Hanlon had been drunk -for days, and was in pitiable condition. His hand shook violently and -the bloodshot shine of his eyes was like a reflection to the fiery red -of his unkempt hair. - -"I had to say good-bye before the blast-off," he said, with a sorry -attempt at his old assurance. "After all, I was one of you until a -couple of months ago, and I ... well, I wanted to wish you luck. I wish -I were going to Venus with you." - -They considered him without particular emotion, three dark, compact -men in their late twenties, calm with the nerveless poise of long -indoctrination and utterly sure of themselves. Hovic, bluntest of the -three, ignored Hanlon and went directly to the bathroom to brush his -teeth. - -"You lost your chance when you flunked training, Hanlon," Geddes said. -"Just now you're a definite irritant, and we can't afford being upset -just before the flight. You'll have to go." - -Hanlon avoided his eyes, looking thoroughly hangdog and disreputable. -He needed a shave badly and his careless clothing had been slept in -more than once. - -"I could have borne the surgical operations," he said. "A man's -appendix and tonsils and teeth can be dangerous in space or on -another planet where he can't get medical attention--but their damned -psycho-conditioning was too much. How could I know what I'd really be -like when those cold-blooded Foundation specialists got through with -me?" - -"It takes a specially adapted kind of man to beat space," Geddes -pointed out patiently. "We can't risk neurosis out there, any more than -we can risk appendicitis or abscessed teeth. The Foundation learned -a lot from those first three failures, Hanlon. This time it's not -repeating its old errors." - -Hovic came out of the bathroom, replacing his dentures. He was the -heaviest of the crew, a muscular Slav with the unimaginative man's -natural directness. "You're washed up, Hanlon. Why don't you get out -and leave us alone?" - -At the door Hanlon hesitated, his face averted. "You'll be blasting off -in another six hours, leaving everything behind. You will be heroes -when you come back and you'll be rich...." - -Geddes felt his lip curling. "But right now we've no use for our spare -credits, is that it? You'd like to make a last touch before we go, and -if we don't come back the debt won't worry you, Hanlon." - -Lowe came between them, digging out his wallet. He was a slender, -sensitive sort, the only one of the three who had been really friendly -with Hanlon before the Irishman's congenital wildness led to his -discharge. - -"Let it go, Ged. What do a few credits mean to us now?" - -He emptied his wallet, dropping yellow notes into Hanlon's ready hands. -After a moment Geddes followed suit, but Hovic stood fast. - -"He can stay sober for my part," Hovic growled. "Let him go back to his -gambling friends and his wenches if he wants a handout." - -Hanlon pocketed his alms and grinned at Geddes, the hangdog look -melting before his old recklessness. "Keep a close eye on my pal Hovic, -Ged. Ten to one he cracks up on you at null-area and finishes the trip -under hypnol." - - * * * * * - -They forgot him the instant he was gone, turning to their last-minute -packing, laying out the heavy coveralls they would wear during the -flight, shaving and showering before their final nap. - -In the shower, Geddes caught Lowe fingering the pale scar of his -appendectomy and frowning thoughtfully. Without his dentures Lowe -looked older and uncertain and somehow shrunken, and in spite of his -conditioned calm Geddes felt a cold stirring of alarm. - -"Forget Hanlon's carping," he said. He punched Lowe in the ribs, trying -to be jocular. "Those Foundation medics know what they're about. Come -on, we've got to get our beauty sleep before the jumpoff." - -When they awoke three hours later and dressed for the flight they found -that Hanlon had paid them a second visit and had stolen all three of -their wrist chronometers, expensive instruments easily negotiable for -their weight in platinum. - -"Cheap at the price," said Geddes, and shrugged away the loss with -conditioned equanimity. Lowe had no comment. Only Hovic grumbled. - -"Those chronos will keep him in Irish whiskey for weeks," he said. "I -hope the louse drinks himself to death on it." - -On that note they went down to the Foundation staff car that waited -to take them to the launching site--three calm, resolute young men, -serenely confident and prepared for anything. - -They arrived at dusk, just as the last supply drum was being hoisted -into the vertical bronze spindle of the _Terra IV_. They went up the -tall personnel ladder, undisturbed by the actinic lightnings of -photographers' flash-bulbs, and vanished one at a time into the belly -of the ship that was finally to bridge the emptiness between Earth and -Venus. They sealed the port, checked the instrument gauges and the -medicine cabinet with its hypnol equipment, and strapped themselves -down on jointed pneumatic acceleration couches. - -A red-glowing bulb on the instrument panel turned amber and then green. -Geddes pressed the firing button.... - -Weight bore them down like a giant hand. They were not disturbed. -Inured to acceleration and knowing the exact instant when their -discomfort must cease. They waited patiently, eyes closed, blackout -fended off by past conditioning in centrifuges and endless sessions of -psychological preparation. - -They were free of Earth's atmosphere in a matter of minutes. At the -end of an hour the chemical jets cut out and atomic propulsors took -over, shoving the _Terra IV_ on at a lessened acceleration that would -bring her to Venus, allowing for orbital drift corrections, in exactly -twenty-seven days. - -Communicating with the Foundation later was in theory a simple matter -of narrow-beam linkage. The _Terra I_ had proved that in 1969, -twenty-nine years before, when frozen fuel lines sent her drifting -derelict into space. The catch was that the atomic drive with its -monstrous din of interference must be shut off before the radio could -operate. - -It was eight days before null-area was reached, but long before that -time--on the second day out, to be exact--the _Terra IV's_ first -emergency struck. - -Lowe, making a routine check of supply crates lashed to bulkhead -eye-bolts in the hold, heard a frantic hammering that originated, not -from the outside hull as his first startled fancy had it, but from -inside an airtight drum stenciled "_FILM_." - -He called Geddes and Hovic, more for moral support than for assistance, -and together they ripped open the drum. Inside they found Hanlon, -unconscious upon a litter of food tins and exhausted oxygen flasks. - -There was also a whiskey bottle among the ruck. Hanlon, true to form, -was very drunk. - - * * * * * - -They carried Hanlon out of the hold and strapped him into the radio -chair, a position not to be used for another six days. They clamped -an oxygen mask over his purpled face and fed him intravenously, and -finally his impossibly resilient constitution threw off the effects of -acceleration, Irish whiskey and near-asphyxiation. - -He laughed in their faces when they asked why he had stowed away. - -"I'm dodging the draft," he said. "There's going to be another war any -day now--the last one." - -Hanlon was quite sane in spite of the punishment he had taken at -blast-off and later in the stifling prison of his hideout, and his -prophecy shook them more than they dared admit. - -"It's been coming to a head for months," he said. "They wouldn't have -told you at the Foundation, because they didn't want you distracted -from training, but the bombs will be dropping before we reach Venus. -You'll see when you get the radio working." - -They kept Hanlon strapped to the radio couch, knowing better than to -trust him, giving him temporary freedom for the physical necessities -only when all three were on hand to guard him. They made their -astronomical readings and orbital corrections as their instructions -prescribed, concealing even from each other their eagerness for the day -when the atomic uproar of the propulsors could be cut and they could -assure themselves via tight-beam that Hanlon was wrong. - -They spoke little among themselves, but Hanlon talked incessantly, -chafing against his bonds and lapsing periodically into near-delirium -until his first insistent craving for alcohol wore off. Later he set -himself to assess their chances of landing safely on Venus, ignoring -after his headlong fashion everything that had been taught him before -his discharge from the Foundation. - -"The _Terra I_ missed, back in 1969," he said once. "The Foundation -picked up her signals clear out past Jupiter when she went derelict. -They never did quite prove that the _Terra II_ was lost in 1980. -The boys at Palomar claimed that her fuel pile went up just outside -Venus' atmosphere, but they didn't have time for a spectroanalysis. -It could have been an electrical discharge instead--there's bound to -be a hell of a difference in potential between worlds, or between a -space-irradiated ship and a planet as close to the sun as Venus." - -They tried to ignore his arguments, resisting the thought that after -all their preparation they might not be the first to set foot on the -new world. Too, they could not lay claim to Venus as a Foundation -possession if the _Terra II_ had landed first. She had been a privately -owned ship, manned, along with his family, by a reckless and fabulously -rich Irish misogynist named Sean Connors. - -The _Terra III_, which was built by the Foundation but manned by Army -personnel, made the jump in 1991, and fell pilotless into the sun when -her crew mutinied against their single officer. - -And if Hanlon had guessed right, the _Terra IV_ in 1998 might be the -last. - -They endured his theorizing until even their conditioned calm wore -thin, and silenced him finally by threatening to put him under hypnol -for the remainder of the trip. Hanlon lapsed into sullen silence and -worked secretively at his bonds. The situation stagnated endlessly -until the eight-day acceleration period was up, when they released -Hanlon from his couch in order to use the radio. - -In their eagerness to make contact with Earth they neglected to bind -Hanlon again, which was a mistake, since he had not been conditioned -as they had against the weird physiological reaction to weightlessness -that followed the cutting of the drive. - -To Hanlon it was like being dumped suddenly into a bottomless shaft -down which he fell endlessly. His heart came into his throat, his -ears roared, the instinctive fear of falling inherited from arboreal -ancestors knotted his stomach with terror and drove out all reason. - -"I'm falling!" he screamed, and snatched at a guide-rail. "Falling...." - -Disoriented mechano-controls reacted wildly, refusing him balance, and -he smashed into a bulkhead. Geddes and Lowe tackled him while Hovic -tried to fend all three gyrating bodies from the instrument board, but -Hanlon was not to be quieted. He screamed and threshed like a maniac, -his limbs jerking with spastic overcompensation to every movement. - -They pinned him down finally and shot enough hypnol into him to keep -him unconscious for days. They left him floating limply with his belt -snapped to a bulkhead ring and turned their attention to the tight-beam -communicator, coddling into intelligibility the first blurred signal -that reached them from Earth. - -It was as well that Hanlon was not conscious, since his prophecy was -fulfilled to the letter. On Earth, war had come--and gone. - -They never picked up more than that single dying signal, but before -it flickered out they understood that the cataclysm had been atomic, -planet-wide, and final. And when that last wavering link with Earth -was gone they looked at each other palely over the dead radio and felt -the impossible realization of racial extinction rising up like madness -behind the psycho-blocks of their carefully-conditioned sanity. - -"So Hanlon was right, after all," Lowe said, and choked on the words. - -They found nothing to say after that until the impressed urgency of -their mission reasserted itself and they turned back to the job at -hand. There was still Venus.... - - * * * * * - -They did not rouse Hanlon from his hypnol stupor until the _Terra IV_ -fell into her spiral orbit for planetfall. Geddes broke the news to him -then, steeling himself against Hanlon's biting irony. - -"So you were right," Geddes finished baldly. "Earth is done for. Dead." -He was thinking at the moment in terms of cities and governments and -cultures, and the Irishman's reaction was sharply disconcerting. - -"Done for?" Hanlon said, and hid his face in his hands. "_God--all the -little people!_" - -He was so quiet after that that the others, busy with the precarious -business of landing, forgot him. He was still silent when the _Terra -IV_ dipped into the first milky mists of atmosphere and a sudden great -blaze of white fire lashed up from the planet below and struck her with -the crash of a million thunderbolts. - -The _Terra IV_ staggered, rolled half over and righted herself with -a thin scream of straining gyros. The atomic propulsors faltered, -recovered and drove them on into the roiling mists. - -"Static charge," Geddes heard himself saying flatly. "So Hanlon was -right again. It would have looked like a fuel pile letting go, if -anybody were left on Earth to see it." - -There was, miraculously, no serious damage. They brought the ship down, -stern first, upon the waiting breast of Venus. - -"The Silver Planet," Lowe said in the sudden quiet. "It was to have -been the New Earth, remember?" - -It was not until then that they learned the reason for Hanlon's quiet. -Under cover of the landing he had plundered the supply cabinet for a -plastobottle of medicinal alcohol, and was far into the process of -drinking himself blind. - -He cursed them thickly when they took the bottle from him. "Go out and -claim your planet, you synthetic heroes. I don't want any part of it. I -wish to hell I'd stayed on Earth." - -They went, prompted by a conditioning that fell just short of -posthypnotic suggestion, but this time they did not make the mistake -of leaving their stowaway free. They overpowered the raging Hanlon and -strapped him to the radio couch again before they put on their airsuits -and went outside. - -They climbed down the long personnel ladder and stood together on -alien soil, feeling the brief thrill of accomplishment anticipated -and allowed for by their Foundation mentors. But their elation was -short-lived. They remembered what had happened to Earth and that there -was no going home again, and there remained only the dreary routine of -exploring a world that would never be used. - -The ship had landed beside a clear, shallow river, a sluggish tributary -feeding a larger river that emptied in the distance into a steaming, -horizon-bound sea. The sky above was a smooth silver shell, with a -vast circular rainbow surrounding the spot where Sol hid behind miles -of vapor-laden air. The terrain undulated, closely turfed and dotted -with wooded knolls, from the river upward to a low line of foothills -that guarded a purple range of mountains beyond. Between the ship and -the hills, undisturbed by the uproar of the _Terra IV's_ landing, a -scattered herd of fat, piebald creatures grazed comfortably. - -They set about their business methodically, filling their little -sterilized boxes with samples of air and soil and vegetation. Lowe went -down to the edge of the shallow river and drew a bottle full of water, -leaving behind him in the mud great shapeless tracks that looked more -like the spoor of a mailed monster than of a man. - -He brought it back to Geddes and Hovic, and the three of them stood -with their prizes in their hands and looked at each other dumbly. - -"Why do we have to go on with this?" Lowe asked. "Why don't we just go -into the ship and push the pile up to critical mass and go up with it? -What's the use?" - - * * * * * - -They were trying to think of an answer when they saw the boat coming -across the river--a clumsy thing jerry-rigged from salvaged sheets -of alloy, rowed by two women who were unmistakably human. Both women -were dressed in brief utilitarian garments fashioned from pale green -parachute silk. Their bare arms flashed white in the silver sunlight. -Their red hair blew long and free in the wind. - -Hovic found his tongue first. "Hanlon was right again. The Connors -brought the _Terra II_ down safely after all!" - -The makeshift boat touched shore. The girl at the bow stood up, -cradling an out-moded blast rifle in her arms. - -"Throw away your weapons," she called peremptorily. "And take off those -stupid airsuits. We'll have a look at the kind of men you are before -you're welcomed to our planet!" - -They discarded their belt guns gladly and shucked off the clumsy -airsuits, breathing the warm air with the relief of men suddenly -awakened from nightmare. They went down to the water's edge with the -feeling of destiny upon them. - -In the boat, their first shock was the knowledge that they were not -guests, but prisoners. The two women retreated warily to the stern, -significantly holding the blast rifle ready. Geddes and Hovic rowed. -Lowe tried patiently for conversation. - -He learned little except the bare fact of their presence. The girl with -the rifle was Myrna Connors, and her sister was named Glenna. Their -mother and an older brother had been killed in the landing crash of the -_Terra II_, and Sean Connors himself, a hopeless paraplegic from the -same catastrophe, waited at the camp for his daughters to return. Both -women were under thirty, handsome in an elemental fashion, patently -hostile and utterly without feminine restraint of manner. - -They listened without comment, either uninterested or uncaring, to -Lowe's account of what had happened to Earth. Neither of them, Geddes -thought, could have been more than seven or eight years old when the -_Terra II_ crashed. They had seen no human being except their father -for eighteen years and they felt no compassion for a world they had all -but forgotten. - -They reached the Connors' camp in mid-afternoon, when the solar halo -was just touching the western horizon. They were on the higher ground -of the foothills now, where the air was cooler and the few open -swales were carpeted with fragrant, butter-yellow little flowers. The -camp itself was a primitive thing, a hundred-foot stockade of wooden -stakes driven Kaffir-wise into the soft soil to enclose three flimsy, -thatch-roofed huts. - -Myrna Connors held them with her blast rifle outside the central hut -while her sister went in. There was a brief murmur of voices, the -girl's mingling with a man's hoarser muttering. When Glenna came out -again her attitude had altered indefinably, and when she looked the -three men over her eyes held an odd speculation. - -"Father will see you now," she said. "Don't argue with him. He's very -weak, and argument upsets him." - -They found Sean Connors propped upon a ragged couch made from a -salvaged acceleration chair, a frail and twisted old man with a bald, -freckled scalp and a wild tangle of bristling red beard. The piercing -blue stare he turned upon them had the unnatural heat of a mind -brooding long past the point of safety. - -"So they killed themselves off," he whispered, and made a coughing -sound that might have been laughter. "And you're the best they could -send to keep the race going." - -He blinked angrily when Geddes tried to speak. "Don't argue--why else -do you think you were sent here, with Earth an ash heap behind you? But -there's one too many of you. You'll have to draw lots." - -He flew into a senile rage when they stood silent, and they saw that he -was wholly obsessed by the idea. "Would you argue with Fate, you fools? -Or did they send me a crew of unnaturals, with no use for women?" - -He went into a fit of coughing, choking on his own fury. When they went -out again he had subsided into a querulous muttering, the vacant babble -of his voice lost in his tangled beard. - -The two women were waiting outside. Myrna Connors had put aside -her rifle and her stare had taken on some of her sister's brazen -speculation. - -"Father's right," she said. "Glenna and I have talked it over, and -there's something about the three of you that makes you too much alike -for a choice. You'll have to draw lots." - -"You'd settle it like that?" Hovic demanded incredulously. "You'd have -us just toss a coin, or draw straws?" - -She bent her head toward the hut to listen to the old man's ravings. -"Father won't live longer than another month or two. After that, what -else is there? What difference does it make?" - -They stood there blankly while the prismatic solar halo slipped down to -the vague, far skyline. A cool wind sprang up, heavy with the smell of -the yellow turf-flowers, and somewhere on the plains below the piebald -grazers hooted at each other with a sound like the muted lowing of -doves. - -"You're right, of course," Geddes said. "We've got the race to think -of, as well as ourselves. We'll draw lots." - - * * * * * - -They moved away to the compound wall, leaving the women to stare after -them with open impatience. Geddes took up a dead twig and broke it into -three pieces, two long and one short. - -"There's more to it than this," he said, keeping his voice down. -"Regardless of our opinions. And our opinions aren't what they would -be if we hadn't been so thoroughly conditioned to--" - -"You forgot something, Ged," Hovic cut in. "What about Hanlon?" - -"I haven't forgotten Hanlon," Geddes said. "That's why I wanted to talk -to you in private. Because we've been given a chance, by a miracle, to -start over again from scratch, this time with knowledge enough not to -make the old deadly mistakes. We're stable, and Hanlon isn't--that's -why the Foundation chose us and rejected him. And we can't take the -chance of having Hanlon cutting in here with his carping hedonism and -his way with women, don't you see? We can't risk letting a wild strain -like his into the new race. It isn't going to be easy, because we're -conditioned against personal violence, but we've got to get rid of -Hanlon." - -They stared at him, digesting the idea. - -"It doesn't have to be violent," Geddes argued. "He's under hypnol -already. We've only to keep him that way." - -Lowe shook his head. "I couldn't do it, Ged. I couldn't force myself to -it." - -Hovic was tougher. "It's the only way. Hanlon begged a handout from us -and then stole our chronos to smuggle himself here. He'd never let us -alone. He'd make such trouble that we'd have to kill him in the end. -Why not now, when it's easier?" - -"Then it's settled," Geddes said. "Two of us, the winners, stay here. -The loser goes back to the ship and to Hanlon. Ready?" - -They nodded. Geddes held out his closed fist, the tips of his twigs -barely showing. - -Lowe, his underlip bitten palely between even dentures, drew the first -long straw. Hovic drew the other. Geddes opened his hand and stared -down at the short twig on his palm. Somehow it had not seemed possible -that _he_ should lose; it was like death, a thing that happened only to -others. - -"Good enough," he said. "After all it was my idea, wasn't it?" - -He moved away with the twig still clutched in his hand. By nightfall he -had retraced his way to the river and the _Terra IV_. - - * * * * * - -He was sitting on the dew-wet turf with his back against the personnel -ladder when he heard them coming. A cone of light fanned into the -darkness from the open port above him, poking a yellow finger into the -mists and shedding a diffuse glow that reached to the river below. - -Hanlon lay on the grass beside him, shaved and bathed and dressed in -clean shorts and singlet. He had eaten enormously after Geddes woke him -from the hypnol, and under the tedium of their waiting he had dozed -off, his chest rising and falling in the even rhythm of sleep. - -Hovic and Lowe splashed through the water and came up out of the -darkness, their hair streaming, eyes shining whitely in pinched faces. -They were muddy and dirty--and beaten. - -"You didn't do it," Hovic said hoarsely when he saw Hanlon. "Thank -Heaven for that. How did you guess?" - -"I've sat here all night, thinking about it," Geddes said. "I thought -about the two of you up there claiming your rights as winners, and I -should have gotten a vicarious excitement out of it. But I didn't, and -finally I knew why. They threw you out, didn't they?" - -They avoided his eyes. "It was awful," Lowe said miserably. "They -were--furious. I wanted to die." - -"So Hanlon was right again," Geddes said. "Doesn't that mean something -to you, that he was right every time? He knew instinctively from the -start that a man's natural belligerence springs directly from his sex, -and that the Foundation wouldn't risk its making trouble among us on -the trip. So they--eliminated it. That's why I brought Hanlon out of -hypnol, because they hadn't gotten that far with him before he washed -out. Because he is our last hope of keeping the race alive." - -The three of them stood and watched the play of dreams across Hanlon's -sleeping face with something like awe in their eyes. - -"I was just wondering," Lowe said, "if something like this may have -happened before? If the whole thing may not be like one of those old -parchment writings the archaeologists dig up, where an earlier story -has been erased and a newer one written over it? A palimpsest, I think -it's called.... How do we know where _we_ came from, in the beginning?" - -Geddes stooped and shook Hanlon awake. "You'll find the boat by the -river," he said. "You're starting out fresh with a new world, Hanlon. -Take care of it." - - * * * * * - -They had climbed the personnel ladder and were closing the port behind -them when they heard the splashing of water as Hanlon swam the river. A -moment later his high, ringing yell drifted back and was lost without -echo on the plain. - -"He didn't waste time on the boat," Hovic said, enviously. - -They were strapping themselves in for the _Terra IV's_ final flight -when Geddes laughed for the first time since the blast-off. - -"I think Lowe's right," he said when they stared at him. "I wish I -could come back again, after a few hundred generations. I wonder what a -whole planet of Hanlons would look like?" - - * * * * * - -_"... and therefore we can say with certainty that we did not descend -from Earthmen," Mach Bren concluded his report to the Venusian -Archaeological Society. "For how can we possibly conceive of kinship -with a people whose skin and hair are_ black_?"_ - -_The meeting was widely televised, and over the face of the Silver -Planet a hundred million other red-haired Venusians shook their heads -in shocked wonderment and agreed with him._ - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PALIMPSEST *** - -***** This file should be named 63990-0.txt or 63990-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/3/9/9/63990/ - -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 -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this ebook. - -Title: Palimpsest - -Author: Roger Dee - -Release Date: December 08, 2020 [EBook #63990] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -Produced by: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed - Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PALIMPSEST *** -</pre> -<div class="titlepage"> - -<h1>PALIMPSEST</h1> - -<h2>By ROGER DEE</h2> - -<p><i>Care to sire a brand new race? Then<br /> -get aboard the Terra IV, only spaceship<br /> -to escape demolished Earth, and enter<br /> -the new-born Venusian sweepstakes</i>.</p> - -<p>[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from<br /> -Planet Stories November 1951.<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><i>The first Venusian ship to reach Earth found a single isolated tribe -of human beings roving the bushlands of a large island in the southern -hemisphere. The Earthmen were without exception dark of skin and eye, -and their hair, which was jet-black, was as kinky as koola wool. All -were backward to the point of savagery, fleeing in superstitious terror -before every attempt at communication.</i></p> - -<p><i>Val Conna and his crew—nine tall young men, fair-skinned and lordly -and alike enough to have been brothers—made an exhaustive search that -carefully bypassed ruined cities still radioactive past the safety -point, and after ten days abandoned their quest in disappointment.</i></p> - -<p><i>"I find no resemblance between this remnant of Earth's people and -ourselves," announced Mach Bren, expedition anthropologist, "except -a bipedal structure which only bears out our theory of like species -developing on like worlds, and this similarity is sharply negated by -impossible divergence in racial characteristics. Neither people could -have changed so greatly during the four thousand years we know our -culture has existed on Venus, and therefore it is obvious that we did -not stem from Earthmen nor they from us."</i></p> - -<p><i>There was no argument.</i></p> - -<p><i>"Then the puzzle of our origin is still unsolved," said Val Conna, -and gave the order to blast-off. So they left Earth for home, already -planning further expeditions to the outer planets in search of the -world of their birth....</i></p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Somehow Hanlon had wormed his way into their quarters and was waiting -when Geddes and Lowe and Hovic, crew of the <i>Terra IV</i>, returned to -base from their final interview with the press. Hanlon had been drunk -for days, and was in pitiable condition. His hand shook violently and -the bloodshot shine of his eyes was like a reflection to the fiery red -of his unkempt hair.</p> - -<p>"I had to say good-bye before the blast-off," he said, with a sorry -attempt at his old assurance. "After all, I was one of you until a -couple of months ago, and I ... well, I wanted to wish you luck. I wish -I were going to Venus with you."</p> - -<p>They considered him without particular emotion, three dark, compact -men in their late twenties, calm with the nerveless poise of long -indoctrination and utterly sure of themselves. Hovic, bluntest of the -three, ignored Hanlon and went directly to the bathroom to brush his -teeth.</p> - -<p>"You lost your chance when you flunked training, Hanlon," Geddes said. -"Just now you're a definite irritant, and we can't afford being upset -just before the flight. You'll have to go."</p> - -<p>Hanlon avoided his eyes, looking thoroughly hangdog and disreputable. -He needed a shave badly and his careless clothing had been slept in -more than once.</p> - -<p>"I could have borne the surgical operations," he said. "A man's -appendix and tonsils and teeth can be dangerous in space or on -another planet where he can't get medical attention—but their damned -psycho-conditioning was too much. How could I know what I'd really be -like when those cold-blooded Foundation specialists got through with -me?"</p> - -<p>"It takes a specially adapted kind of man to beat space," Geddes -pointed out patiently. "We can't risk neurosis out there, any more than -we can risk appendicitis or abscessed teeth. The Foundation learned -a lot from those first three failures, Hanlon. This time it's not -repeating its old errors."</p> - -<p>Hovic came out of the bathroom, replacing his dentures. He was the -heaviest of the crew, a muscular Slav with the unimaginative man's -natural directness. "You're washed up, Hanlon. Why don't you get out -and leave us alone?"</p> - -<p>At the door Hanlon hesitated, his face averted. "You'll be blasting off -in another six hours, leaving everything behind. You will be heroes -when you come back and you'll be rich...."</p> - -<p>Geddes felt his lip curling. "But right now we've no use for our spare -credits, is that it? You'd like to make a last touch before we go, and -if we don't come back the debt won't worry you, Hanlon."</p> - -<p>Lowe came between them, digging out his wallet. He was a slender, -sensitive sort, the only one of the three who had been really friendly -with Hanlon before the Irishman's congenital wildness led to his -discharge.</p> - -<p>"Let it go, Ged. What do a few credits mean to us now?"</p> - -<p>He emptied his wallet, dropping yellow notes into Hanlon's ready hands. -After a moment Geddes followed suit, but Hovic stood fast.</p> - -<p>"He can stay sober for my part," Hovic growled. "Let him go back to his -gambling friends and his wenches if he wants a handout."</p> - -<p>Hanlon pocketed his alms and grinned at Geddes, the hangdog look -melting before his old recklessness. "Keep a close eye on my pal Hovic, -Ged. Ten to one he cracks up on you at null-area and finishes the trip -under hypnol."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>They forgot him the instant he was gone, turning to their last-minute -packing, laying out the heavy coveralls they would wear during the -flight, shaving and showering before their final nap.</p> - -<p>In the shower, Geddes caught Lowe fingering the pale scar of his -appendectomy and frowning thoughtfully. Without his dentures Lowe -looked older and uncertain and somehow shrunken, and in spite of his -conditioned calm Geddes felt a cold stirring of alarm.</p> - -<p>"Forget Hanlon's carping," he said. He punched Lowe in the ribs, trying -to be jocular. "Those Foundation medics know what they're about. Come -on, we've got to get our beauty sleep before the jumpoff."</p> - -<p>When they awoke three hours later and dressed for the flight they found -that Hanlon had paid them a second visit and had stolen all three of -their wrist chronometers, expensive instruments easily negotiable for -their weight in platinum.</p> - -<p>"Cheap at the price," said Geddes, and shrugged away the loss with -conditioned equanimity. Lowe had no comment. Only Hovic grumbled.</p> - -<p>"Those chronos will keep him in Irish whiskey for weeks," he said. "I -hope the louse drinks himself to death on it."</p> - -<p>On that note they went down to the Foundation staff car that waited -to take them to the launching site—three calm, resolute young men, -serenely confident and prepared for anything.</p> - -<p>They arrived at dusk, just as the last supply drum was being hoisted -into the vertical bronze spindle of the <i>Terra IV</i>. They went up the -tall personnel ladder, undisturbed by the actinic lightnings of -photographers' flash-bulbs, and vanished one at a time into the belly -of the ship that was finally to bridge the emptiness between Earth and -Venus. They sealed the port, checked the instrument gauges and the -medicine cabinet with its hypnol equipment, and strapped themselves -down on jointed pneumatic acceleration couches.</p> - -<p>A red-glowing bulb on the instrument panel turned amber and then green. -Geddes pressed the firing button....</p> - -<p>Weight bore them down like a giant hand. They were not disturbed. -Inured to acceleration and knowing the exact instant when their -discomfort must cease. They waited patiently, eyes closed, blackout -fended off by past conditioning in centrifuges and endless sessions of -psychological preparation.</p> - -<p>They were free of Earth's atmosphere in a matter of minutes. At the -end of an hour the chemical jets cut out and atomic propulsors took -over, shoving the <i>Terra IV</i> on at a lessened acceleration that would -bring her to Venus, allowing for orbital drift corrections, in exactly -twenty-seven days.</p> - -<p>Communicating with the Foundation later was in theory a simple matter -of narrow-beam linkage. The <i>Terra I</i> had proved that in 1969, -twenty-nine years before, when frozen fuel lines sent her drifting -derelict into space. The catch was that the atomic drive with its -monstrous din of interference must be shut off before the radio could -operate.</p> - -<p>It was eight days before null-area was reached, but long before that -time—on the second day out, to be exact—the <i>Terra IV's</i> first -emergency struck.</p> - -<p>Lowe, making a routine check of supply crates lashed to bulkhead -eye-bolts in the hold, heard a frantic hammering that originated, not -from the outside hull as his first startled fancy had it, but from -inside an airtight drum stenciled "<i>FILM</i>."</p> - -<p>He called Geddes and Hovic, more for moral support than for assistance, -and together they ripped open the drum. Inside they found Hanlon, -unconscious upon a litter of food tins and exhausted oxygen flasks.</p> - -<p>There was also a whiskey bottle among the ruck. Hanlon, true to form, -was very drunk.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>They carried Hanlon out of the hold and strapped him into the radio -chair, a position not to be used for another six days. They clamped -an oxygen mask over his purpled face and fed him intravenously, and -finally his impossibly resilient constitution threw off the effects of -acceleration, Irish whiskey and near-asphyxiation.</p> - -<p>He laughed in their faces when they asked why he had stowed away.</p> - -<p>"I'm dodging the draft," he said. "There's going to be another war any -day now—the last one."</p> - -<p>Hanlon was quite sane in spite of the punishment he had taken at -blast-off and later in the stifling prison of his hideout, and his -prophecy shook them more than they dared admit.</p> - -<p>"It's been coming to a head for months," he said. "They wouldn't have -told you at the Foundation, because they didn't want you distracted -from training, but the bombs will be dropping before we reach Venus. -You'll see when you get the radio working."</p> - -<p>They kept Hanlon strapped to the radio couch, knowing better than to -trust him, giving him temporary freedom for the physical necessities -only when all three were on hand to guard him. They made their -astronomical readings and orbital corrections as their instructions -prescribed, concealing even from each other their eagerness for the day -when the atomic uproar of the propulsors could be cut and they could -assure themselves via tight-beam that Hanlon was wrong.</p> - -<p>They spoke little among themselves, but Hanlon talked incessantly, -chafing against his bonds and lapsing periodically into near-delirium -until his first insistent craving for alcohol wore off. Later he set -himself to assess their chances of landing safely on Venus, ignoring -after his headlong fashion everything that had been taught him before -his discharge from the Foundation.</p> - -<p>"The <i>Terra I</i> missed, back in 1969," he said once. "The Foundation -picked up her signals clear out past Jupiter when she went derelict. -They never did quite prove that the <i>Terra II</i> was lost in 1980. -The boys at Palomar claimed that her fuel pile went up just outside -Venus' atmosphere, but they didn't have time for a spectroanalysis. -It could have been an electrical discharge instead—there's bound to -be a hell of a difference in potential between worlds, or between a -space-irradiated ship and a planet as close to the sun as Venus."</p> - -<p>They tried to ignore his arguments, resisting the thought that after -all their preparation they might not be the first to set foot on the -new world. Too, they could not lay claim to Venus as a Foundation -possession if the <i>Terra II</i> had landed first. She had been a privately -owned ship, manned, along with his family, by a reckless and fabulously -rich Irish misogynist named Sean Connors.</p> - -<p>The <i>Terra III</i>, which was built by the Foundation but manned by Army -personnel, made the jump in 1991, and fell pilotless into the sun when -her crew mutinied against their single officer.</p> - -<p>And if Hanlon had guessed right, the <i>Terra IV</i> in 1998 might be the -last.</p> - -<p>They endured his theorizing until even their conditioned calm wore -thin, and silenced him finally by threatening to put him under hypnol -for the remainder of the trip. Hanlon lapsed into sullen silence and -worked secretively at his bonds. The situation stagnated endlessly -until the eight-day acceleration period was up, when they released -Hanlon from his couch in order to use the radio.</p> - -<p>In their eagerness to make contact with Earth they neglected to bind -Hanlon again, which was a mistake, since he had not been conditioned -as they had against the weird physiological reaction to weightlessness -that followed the cutting of the drive.</p> - -<p>To Hanlon it was like being dumped suddenly into a bottomless shaft -down which he fell endlessly. His heart came into his throat, his -ears roared, the instinctive fear of falling inherited from arboreal -ancestors knotted his stomach with terror and drove out all reason.</p> - -<p>"I'm falling!" he screamed, and snatched at a guide-rail. "Falling...."</p> - -<p>Disoriented mechano-controls reacted wildly, refusing him balance, and -he smashed into a bulkhead. Geddes and Lowe tackled him while Hovic -tried to fend all three gyrating bodies from the instrument board, but -Hanlon was not to be quieted. He screamed and threshed like a maniac, -his limbs jerking with spastic overcompensation to every movement.</p> - -<p>They pinned him down finally and shot enough hypnol into him to keep -him unconscious for days. They left him floating limply with his belt -snapped to a bulkhead ring and turned their attention to the tight-beam -communicator, coddling into intelligibility the first blurred signal -that reached them from Earth.</p> - -<p>It was as well that Hanlon was not conscious, since his prophecy was -fulfilled to the letter. On Earth, war had come—and gone.</p> - -<p>They never picked up more than that single dying signal, but before -it flickered out they understood that the cataclysm had been atomic, -planet-wide, and final. And when that last wavering link with Earth -was gone they looked at each other palely over the dead radio and felt -the impossible realization of racial extinction rising up like madness -behind the psycho-blocks of their carefully-conditioned sanity.</p> - -<p>"So Hanlon was right, after all," Lowe said, and choked on the words.</p> - -<p>They found nothing to say after that until the impressed urgency of -their mission reasserted itself and they turned back to the job at -hand. There was still Venus....</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>They did not rouse Hanlon from his hypnol stupor until the <i>Terra IV</i> -fell into her spiral orbit for planetfall. Geddes broke the news to him -then, steeling himself against Hanlon's biting irony.</p> - -<p>"So you were right," Geddes finished baldly. "Earth is done for. Dead." -He was thinking at the moment in terms of cities and governments and -cultures, and the Irishman's reaction was sharply disconcerting.</p> - -<p>"Done for?" Hanlon said, and hid his face in his hands. "<i>God—all the -little people!</i>"</p> - -<p>He was so quiet after that that the others, busy with the precarious -business of landing, forgot him. He was still silent when the <i>Terra -IV</i> dipped into the first milky mists of atmosphere and a sudden great -blaze of white fire lashed up from the planet below and struck her with -the crash of a million thunderbolts.</p> - -<p>The <i>Terra IV</i> staggered, rolled half over and righted herself with -a thin scream of straining gyros. The atomic propulsors faltered, -recovered and drove them on into the roiling mists.</p> - -<p>"Static charge," Geddes heard himself saying flatly. "So Hanlon was -right again. It would have looked like a fuel pile letting go, if -anybody were left on Earth to see it."</p> - -<p>There was, miraculously, no serious damage. They brought the ship down, -stern first, upon the waiting breast of Venus.</p> - -<p>"The Silver Planet," Lowe said in the sudden quiet. "It was to have -been the New Earth, remember?"</p> - -<p>It was not until then that they learned the reason for Hanlon's quiet. -Under cover of the landing he had plundered the supply cabinet for a -plastobottle of medicinal alcohol, and was far into the process of -drinking himself blind.</p> - -<p>He cursed them thickly when they took the bottle from him. "Go out and -claim your planet, you synthetic heroes. I don't want any part of it. I -wish to hell I'd stayed on Earth."</p> - -<p>They went, prompted by a conditioning that fell just short of -posthypnotic suggestion, but this time they did not make the mistake -of leaving their stowaway free. They overpowered the raging Hanlon and -strapped him to the radio couch again before they put on their airsuits -and went outside.</p> - -<p>They climbed down the long personnel ladder and stood together on -alien soil, feeling the brief thrill of accomplishment anticipated -and allowed for by their Foundation mentors. But their elation was -short-lived. They remembered what had happened to Earth and that there -was no going home again, and there remained only the dreary routine of -exploring a world that would never be used.</p> - -<p>The ship had landed beside a clear, shallow river, a sluggish tributary -feeding a larger river that emptied in the distance into a steaming, -horizon-bound sea. The sky above was a smooth silver shell, with a -vast circular rainbow surrounding the spot where Sol hid behind miles -of vapor-laden air. The terrain undulated, closely turfed and dotted -with wooded knolls, from the river upward to a low line of foothills -that guarded a purple range of mountains beyond. Between the ship and -the hills, undisturbed by the uproar of the <i>Terra IV's</i> landing, a -scattered herd of fat, piebald creatures grazed comfortably.</p> - -<p>They set about their business methodically, filling their little -sterilized boxes with samples of air and soil and vegetation. Lowe went -down to the edge of the shallow river and drew a bottle full of water, -leaving behind him in the mud great shapeless tracks that looked more -like the spoor of a mailed monster than of a man.</p> - -<p>He brought it back to Geddes and Hovic, and the three of them stood -with their prizes in their hands and looked at each other dumbly.</p> - -<p>"Why do we have to go on with this?" Lowe asked. "Why don't we just go -into the ship and push the pile up to critical mass and go up with it? -What's the use?"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>They were trying to think of an answer when they saw the boat coming -across the river—a clumsy thing jerry-rigged from salvaged sheets -of alloy, rowed by two women who were unmistakably human. Both women -were dressed in brief utilitarian garments fashioned from pale green -parachute silk. Their bare arms flashed white in the silver sunlight. -Their red hair blew long and free in the wind.</p> - -<p>Hovic found his tongue first. "Hanlon was right again. The Connors -brought the <i>Terra II</i> down safely after all!"</p> - -<p>The makeshift boat touched shore. The girl at the bow stood up, -cradling an out-moded blast rifle in her arms.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/illus.jpg" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>"Throw away your weapons," she called peremptorily. "And take off those -stupid airsuits. We'll have a look at the kind of men you are before -you're welcomed to our planet!"</p> - -<p>They discarded their belt guns gladly and shucked off the clumsy -airsuits, breathing the warm air with the relief of men suddenly -awakened from nightmare. They went down to the water's edge with the -feeling of destiny upon them.</p> - -<p>In the boat, their first shock was the knowledge that they were not -guests, but prisoners. The two women retreated warily to the stern, -significantly holding the blast rifle ready. Geddes and Hovic rowed. -Lowe tried patiently for conversation.</p> - -<p>He learned little except the bare fact of their presence. The girl with -the rifle was Myrna Connors, and her sister was named Glenna. Their -mother and an older brother had been killed in the landing crash of the -<i>Terra II</i>, and Sean Connors himself, a hopeless paraplegic from the -same catastrophe, waited at the camp for his daughters to return. Both -women were under thirty, handsome in an elemental fashion, patently -hostile and utterly without feminine restraint of manner.</p> - -<p>They listened without comment, either uninterested or uncaring, to -Lowe's account of what had happened to Earth. Neither of them, Geddes -thought, could have been more than seven or eight years old when the -<i>Terra II</i> crashed. They had seen no human being except their father -for eighteen years and they felt no compassion for a world they had all -but forgotten.</p> - -<p>They reached the Connors' camp in mid-afternoon, when the solar halo -was just touching the western horizon. They were on the higher ground -of the foothills now, where the air was cooler and the few open -swales were carpeted with fragrant, butter-yellow little flowers. The -camp itself was a primitive thing, a hundred-foot stockade of wooden -stakes driven Kaffir-wise into the soft soil to enclose three flimsy, -thatch-roofed huts.</p> - -<p>Myrna Connors held them with her blast rifle outside the central hut -while her sister went in. There was a brief murmur of voices, the -girl's mingling with a man's hoarser muttering. When Glenna came out -again her attitude had altered indefinably, and when she looked the -three men over her eyes held an odd speculation.</p> - -<p>"Father will see you now," she said. "Don't argue with him. He's very -weak, and argument upsets him."</p> - -<p>They found Sean Connors propped upon a ragged couch made from a -salvaged acceleration chair, a frail and twisted old man with a bald, -freckled scalp and a wild tangle of bristling red beard. The piercing -blue stare he turned upon them had the unnatural heat of a mind -brooding long past the point of safety.</p> - -<p>"So they killed themselves off," he whispered, and made a coughing -sound that might have been laughter. "And you're the best they could -send to keep the race going."</p> - -<p>He blinked angrily when Geddes tried to speak. "Don't argue—why else -do you think you were sent here, with Earth an ash heap behind you? But -there's one too many of you. You'll have to draw lots."</p> - -<p>He flew into a senile rage when they stood silent, and they saw that he -was wholly obsessed by the idea. "Would you argue with Fate, you fools? -Or did they send me a crew of unnaturals, with no use for women?"</p> - -<p>He went into a fit of coughing, choking on his own fury. When they went -out again he had subsided into a querulous muttering, the vacant babble -of his voice lost in his tangled beard.</p> - -<p>The two women were waiting outside. Myrna Connors had put aside -her rifle and her stare had taken on some of her sister's brazen -speculation.</p> - -<p>"Father's right," she said. "Glenna and I have talked it over, and -there's something about the three of you that makes you too much alike -for a choice. You'll have to draw lots."</p> - -<p>"You'd settle it like that?" Hovic demanded incredulously. "You'd have -us just toss a coin, or draw straws?"</p> - -<p>She bent her head toward the hut to listen to the old man's ravings. -"Father won't live longer than another month or two. After that, what -else is there? What difference does it make?"</p> - -<p>They stood there blankly while the prismatic solar halo slipped down to -the vague, far skyline. A cool wind sprang up, heavy with the smell of -the yellow turf-flowers, and somewhere on the plains below the piebald -grazers hooted at each other with a sound like the muted lowing of -doves.</p> - -<p>"You're right, of course," Geddes said. "We've got the race to think -of, as well as ourselves. We'll draw lots."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>They moved away to the compound wall, leaving the women to stare after -them with open impatience. Geddes took up a dead twig and broke it into -three pieces, two long and one short.</p> - -<p>"There's more to it than this," he said, keeping his voice down. -"Regardless of our opinions. And our opinions aren't what they would -be if we hadn't been so thoroughly conditioned to—"</p> - -<p>"You forgot something, Ged," Hovic cut in. "What about Hanlon?"</p> - -<p>"I haven't forgotten Hanlon," Geddes said. "That's why I wanted to talk -to you in private. Because we've been given a chance, by a miracle, to -start over again from scratch, this time with knowledge enough not to -make the old deadly mistakes. We're stable, and Hanlon isn't—that's -why the Foundation chose us and rejected him. And we can't take the -chance of having Hanlon cutting in here with his carping hedonism and -his way with women, don't you see? We can't risk letting a wild strain -like his into the new race. It isn't going to be easy, because we're -conditioned against personal violence, but we've got to get rid of -Hanlon."</p> - -<p>They stared at him, digesting the idea.</p> - -<p>"It doesn't have to be violent," Geddes argued. "He's under hypnol -already. We've only to keep him that way."</p> - -<p>Lowe shook his head. "I couldn't do it, Ged. I couldn't force myself to -it."</p> - -<p>Hovic was tougher. "It's the only way. Hanlon begged a handout from us -and then stole our chronos to smuggle himself here. He'd never let us -alone. He'd make such trouble that we'd have to kill him in the end. -Why not now, when it's easier?"</p> - -<p>"Then it's settled," Geddes said. "Two of us, the winners, stay here. -The loser goes back to the ship and to Hanlon. Ready?"</p> - -<p>They nodded. Geddes held out his closed fist, the tips of his twigs -barely showing.</p> - -<p>Lowe, his underlip bitten palely between even dentures, drew the first -long straw. Hovic drew the other. Geddes opened his hand and stared -down at the short twig on his palm. Somehow it had not seemed possible -that <i>he</i> should lose; it was like death, a thing that happened only to -others.</p> - -<p>"Good enough," he said. "After all it was my idea, wasn't it?"</p> - -<p>He moved away with the twig still clutched in his hand. By nightfall he -had retraced his way to the river and the <i>Terra IV</i>.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>He was sitting on the dew-wet turf with his back against the personnel -ladder when he heard them coming. A cone of light fanned into the -darkness from the open port above him, poking a yellow finger into the -mists and shedding a diffuse glow that reached to the river below.</p> - -<p>Hanlon lay on the grass beside him, shaved and bathed and dressed in -clean shorts and singlet. He had eaten enormously after Geddes woke him -from the hypnol, and under the tedium of their waiting he had dozed -off, his chest rising and falling in the even rhythm of sleep.</p> - -<p>Hovic and Lowe splashed through the water and came up out of the -darkness, their hair streaming, eyes shining whitely in pinched faces. -They were muddy and dirty—and beaten.</p> - -<p>"You didn't do it," Hovic said hoarsely when he saw Hanlon. "Thank -Heaven for that. How did you guess?"</p> - -<p>"I've sat here all night, thinking about it," Geddes said. "I thought -about the two of you up there claiming your rights as winners, and I -should have gotten a vicarious excitement out of it. But I didn't, and -finally I knew why. They threw you out, didn't they?"</p> - -<p>They avoided his eyes. "It was awful," Lowe said miserably. "They -were—furious. I wanted to die."</p> - -<p>"So Hanlon was right again," Geddes said. "Doesn't that mean something -to you, that he was right every time? He knew instinctively from the -start that a man's natural belligerence springs directly from his sex, -and that the Foundation wouldn't risk its making trouble among us on -the trip. So they—eliminated it. That's why I brought Hanlon out of -hypnol, because they hadn't gotten that far with him before he washed -out. Because he is our last hope of keeping the race alive."</p> - -<p>The three of them stood and watched the play of dreams across Hanlon's -sleeping face with something like awe in their eyes.</p> - -<p>"I was just wondering," Lowe said, "if something like this may have -happened before? If the whole thing may not be like one of those old -parchment writings the archaeologists dig up, where an earlier story -has been erased and a newer one written over it? A palimpsest, I think -it's called.... How do we know where <i>we</i> came from, in the beginning?"</p> - -<p>Geddes stooped and shook Hanlon awake. "You'll find the boat by the -river," he said. "You're starting out fresh with a new world, Hanlon. -Take care of it."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>They had climbed the personnel ladder and were closing the port behind -them when they heard the splashing of water as Hanlon swam the river. A -moment later his high, ringing yell drifted back and was lost without -echo on the plain.</p> - -<p>"He didn't waste time on the boat," Hovic said, enviously.</p> - -<p>They were strapping themselves in for the <i>Terra IV's</i> final flight -when Geddes laughed for the first time since the blast-off.</p> - -<p>"I think Lowe's right," he said when they stared at him. "I wish I -could come back again, after a few hundred generations. I wonder what a -whole planet of Hanlons would look like?"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p><i>"... and therefore we can say with certainty that we did not descend -from Earthmen," Mach Bren concluded his report to the Venusian -Archaeological Society. "For how can we possibly conceive of kinship -with a people whose skin and hair are</i> black<i>?"</i></p> - -<p><i>The meeting was widely televised, and over the face of the Silver -Planet a hundred million other red-haired Venusians shook their heads -in shocked wonderment and agreed with him.</i></p> - -<pre style='margin-top:6em'> -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PALIMPSEST *** - -This file should be named 63990-h.htm or 63990-h.zip - -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: -http://www.gutenberg.org/6/3/9/9/63990/ - -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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