He climbed the ladder to the airlock door and stood there for a moment
watching the jeep carry its passengers across the field to a safe
distance. Then he went inside and strapped himself into the seat.
"Okay, Cantrell," Control said. "Blast off when ready."
"Right," Cantrell said into the radio. He closed the airlock door and
checked pressure gauges. "In ten seconds," he said, activating the
firing mechanism. Mentally he counted: ten, nine, eight, seven....
The rocket shuddered, and Cantrell found himself pressed suddenly into
the seat. In the viewscreens Earth spun dizzily away from him. After a
few minutes the push ceased and weightlessness began.
"Everything okay, Cantrell?" the radio said, after awhile. It was Evans.
"Fine, Colonel," Cantrell said. "Not a dog or a cat in sight."
"Can you see Earth?"
Cantrell manipulated dials, activating the lower television eyes.
"There she is," he said. "Looks real impressive. I can see nearly all
of North America now and a good part of the Pacific. The land looks
queer from up here,"--he frowned--"something like--" He broke off,
staring. "Like--"
"Like what?" Jarvis' voice demanded suddenly. "It looks like what,
Cantrell?"
Cantrell shook his head bewilderedly. "Nothing," he said uncertainly.
He felt a sudden irritation that Jarvis couldn't let him alone even
with so much of space intervening. "It looks like I'm going to make it
to the moon, that's all."
"You were going to say something else, Cantrell, what?"
"Let him alone, Jarvis," Evans whispered; "he's got enough to worry
about."
"That's right," Cantrell said irritably, "and I'm going to worry about
it in silence." He reached for the radio switch.
"But, Cantrell--" Evans said. Then the radio went dead.
Cantrell grinned and watched Earth getting smaller below. The grin
faded as he thought of his almost-spoken comparison of a few minutes
before, of the land resembling the shriveled skin of an animal.
Jarvis would have made much of that, of course, with his psychiatric
ramblings. Yet, the comparison was disturbing just the same. Why did
he torture himself?
He regarded Earth skeptically, hoping to subdue the irrational
thoughts. Certainly the shape was not that of an animal. At least
not an Earth animal. But then it wouldn't have to be, he reminded
himself--and felt doubly irritated at the reminder. It looked very
different from the globes he'd seen picturing the planet. It looked
almost--_alive_. From this height, great forests resembled tiny hairs,
mountain ridges and canyons were skin blemishes and pores; the great
oceans looked like giant mouths, open and hungry.
Cantrell laughed nervously. It was ridiculous. Yet the more he looked,
the more Earth receded below him, the more the resemblances increased.
He stared at the planet. It was ridiculous, but there were even several
portions below that looked like great eyes staring at him. As he
watched, one blinked.
Cantrell screamed. The sound was shrill in the narrow control chamber.
Then he cursed and felt ashamed.
"I'm going crazy," he told himself. His voice was hoarse. "Jarvis was
right."
But the thought failed to help. The sudden feeling of terror was still
with him, and he found himself trembling. It was only a cloud, he told
himself, only a cloud passing over a section of land that from this
distance looked like an eye. He tried to laugh away the fear, but the
sound stuck in his throat. He felt his heart beating faster than it
should.
"No," he said desperately, looking away, "no, I'm okay. My mind is
clear, and I'm all right. It's just being up here that gives a guy the
jitters. Fear of the unknown. Things look different when you're not
close to them. Got to calm down. Take it easy."
His hands trembled.
"Scientists don't have all the right answers even about our Earth
here," Jarvis had said. "We know as much about Earth as a flea knows
about the dog or the cat he's on."
The words echoed in Cantrell's memory, and he forced himself to look
down at Earth. It was a planet, that was all, an inanimate mass and
nothing more. "... as much as a flea knows ..." But was it possible
that a flea might not realize the animal he was on was an animal?
He had a headache, and he shook his head in an effort to clear it.
His vision blurred, refocussed with astounding clarity. Lines flowed
together with sudden meaning. Before his gaze rivers became veins, eyes
stared at him curiously, ocean-mouths yawned. The truth burst upon him
then, with a sudden flash that drove his blood coursing through his
body, with a realization that jerked him as though he had been struck
with a whip. He laughed insanely at the thought, and the laughter
exploded in the narrow cabin and flowed over him in torrents, echoing.
He was the only one in the world who could see things as they really
were. He was as certain of that as he was of his own existence. He
knew now, and his was the only knowledge: Earth was a space animal,
the humans parasites like fleas on a cat or a dog. And the Earthlings
didn't know, they didn't even suspect!
The radio buzzed. He pressed a button.
"Cantrell," Evans' harassed voice came. "This is an order: maintain
contact at all times, until the moment you set foot back on Earth.
Understand?"
Cantrell laughed with his strange secret knowledge. "I'm not coming
back," he said happily. He was the only one who could escape this
animal, the only one, and he felt elated at this, felt a sense of power
he'd not known. "I'm not going to be a parasite crawling on the back of
an animal." The thought sickened him, and he gagged.
"Cantrell!" It was Jarvis. "Cantrell, listen to me--"
"No," Cantrell said. "You listen to me."
And he told them about Earth being a space-animal. His mind rebelled at
the thought, but he forced himself on for he wanted Jarvis to suffer
down there, he wanted them all to suffer with the knowledge of what
they were. Where was their pompous self-importance now, their flea's
dream of conquering the universe?
"He's crazy," Evans whispered.
"Cantrell, listen to me," Jarvis said.
But Cantrell was staring in horrified fascination at Earth dwindling
below, at the space-animal watching him. "No!" he cried. "No, it's
too late." And he shut off the radio and ripped the wires from their
moorings.
Ahead of him lay the moon. He switched screens to look at it. It was
chalky and pockmarked, like the skin of a diseased animal. Great
iridescent veins glowed through its body. From a crater bed a great
baleful eye regarded him.
Cantrell screamed again and frantically pressed studs on the control
panel. The rocket shot flame from its side tubes and turned in a short
arc, swinging the moon from sight. The forward viewscreens showed the
stars now, and beyond them an infinite blackness.
"I'll be safe out there," Cantrell told himself.
The rocket leaped forward.
* * * * *
"You were right," Evans said bitterly, putting down the radiophone with
a gesture of helplessness. "Now, what do we do?"
Jarvis shrugged. "Start over," he said. "What else is there to do? Find
someone else to pilot another rocket."
"Someone without Cantrell's hallucinations," Jarvis ammended.
"And pray that they _were_ hallucinations," Jarvis amended further.