His name was Temple and it was the year 1960. Hectic end of a decade,
1960. Ancient Joe Stalin was still alive, drugged half senseless
against the tortures of an incurable stomach cancer, although the
world thought he died in 1953. He would hang on grimly another year
and a half, yielding the reins of empire to stout Malenkov who in the
space of a few years would lose them to a crafty schoolteacherish
whiplash called Beria. 1960--eleventh year of the fantastic Korean
situation, in which the Land of the Morning Sun had become, with no
pretentions to the contrary, a glorified training camp for the armies
of both sides.
The Cold War flared hot in Burma by mid-1960. Indo-China was a Red
Fortress and with Tibet hopelessly behind the Iron Curtain, India
awoke to the fact that neutrality was an impossibility in the era of
pushbuttonry, lending her chaotic bulk to the West. Mao Tse Tung fell
before an assassin's bullet in Peking, but a shining new political
sewage system cleared the streets of celebration before it fairly got
under way. Inside of forty-eight hours, China had a new Red
boss--imported from Moscow.
For some reason, it took until 1960 for the first batch of
Hiroshima-Nagasaki mutants not to miscarry, and Sunday Supplement
editors had a field day with the pathetic little creatures, one of
which was born with two heads and actually survived for ten years. In
1960 the first manned spaceship reached Luna, but the public knew
nothing of this for another fourteen months. In the United States the
increase in taxes and prices was matched everywhere except in the
pocketbook of the white collar worker by an increase in wages.
Shortages in all branches of engineering forced the government to
subsidize engineering students and exempt them permanently from the
draft and the soon-to-be-started Nowhere Journey, while engineers'
salaries rose to match those of top business executives. Big news in
the world of sports was the inclusion in the baseball Major Leagues of
eight teams from the Pacific Coast, replacing the World Series with
what was to become a mathematician's nightmare, the Triangle Game.
But Christopher Temple had his own problems. He had his own life, too,
which had nothing to do with the life of the real Christopher Temple,
departed thirty-odd years later on the Nowhere Journey. Or rather,
this _was_ Christopher Temple, living his second E.C.R.... Temple who
had lost once, and who, if he lost again, would take the dreams and
hopes of the Western world down into the dust of defeat with him. But
as the fictional (although in a certain sense, real) Christopher
Temple of 1960, he knew nothing of this.
The world could go to pot. The world was going to pot, anyway. Temple
shuddered as he poured a fourth Canadian, downing it in a tasteless,
burning gulp. Temple was a thermo-nuclear engineer with government
subsidized degrees from three universities including the fine new one
at Desert Rock. Temple was a thermo-nuclear engineer with top-secret
government clearance. Temple was a thermo-nuclear engineer with more
military secrets buzzing around inside his head than in a warehouse of
burned Pentagon files.
Temple was also a thermo-nuclear engineer whose wife spied for the
Russians.
* * * * *
He'd found out quite by accident, not meaning to eavesdrop at all.
Returning home early one afternoon because the production engineer
called a halt while further research was done on certain unstable
isotopes, Temple was surprised to find his wife had a gentleman
caller. He heard their voices clearly from where he stood out in the
sun-parlor, and for a ridiculous instant he was torn between slinking
upstairs and ignoring them altogether or barging into the living room
like a high school boy flushed with jealousy. The mature thing to do,
of course, was neither, and Temple was on the point of walking
politely into the living room, saying hello and waiting for an
introduction, when snatches of the conversation stopped him cold.
"Silly Charles! Kit doesn't suspect a thing. I would _know_."
"How can you be sure?"
"Intuition."
"On a framework of intuition you would place the fate of Red Empire?"
"Empire, Charles?" Temple could picture Lucy's raised eyebrow. He
listened now, hardly breathing. For one wild moment he thought he
would retreat upstairs and forget the whole thing. Life would be much
simpler that way. A meaningless surrender to unreality, however, and
it couldn't be done.
"Yes, Empire. Oh, not the land-grabbing, slave-dominating sort of
things the Imperialists used to attempt, but a more subtle and hence
more enduring empire. Let the world call us Liberator, we shall have
Empire."
Lucy laughed, a sound which Temple loved. "You may keep your ideology,
Charles. Play with it, bathe in it, get drunk on it or drown yourself
in it. I want my money."
"You are frank."
Temple could picture Lucy's shrug. "I am a paid, professional spy. By
now you have most of the information you need. I shall have the rest
tonight."
"I'll see you in hell first!" Temple cried in rage, stalking into the
room and almost smiling in spite of the situation when he realized how
melodramatic his words must sound.
"Kit! Kit...." Lucy raised hand to mouth, then backed away flinching
as if she had been struck.
"Yeah, Kit. A political cuckold, or does Charles get other services
from you as well?"
"Kit, you don't...."
The man named Charles motioned for silence. Dapper, clean-cut,
good-looking except for a surly, pouting mouth, he was a head shorter
than either Temple or Lucy. "Don't waste your words, Sophia. Temple
overheard us."
_Sophia?_ thought Temple. "Sophia?" he said.
Charles nodded coolly. "The real Mrs. Temple was observed, studied,
her every habit and whim catalogued by experts. A plastic surgeon, a
psychologist, a sociologist, a linguist, a whole battery of experts
molded Sophia here into a new Mrs. Temple. I must congratulate them,
for you never suspected."
"Lucy?" Temple demanded dully. Reason stood suspended in a limbo of
objective acceptance and subjective disbelief.
"Mrs. Temple was eliminated. Regrettable because we don't deal in
senseless mayhem, but necessary."
Temple was not aware of leaving limbo until he felt the bruising
contact of his knuckles with Charles' jaw. The short man toppled, fell
at his feet. "Get up!" Temple cried, then changed his mind and tensed
himself to leap upon the prone figure.
"Hold it," Charles told him quietly, wiping blood from his lips with
one hand, drawing an automatic from his pocket with the other. "You'd
better freeze, Temple. You die if you don't."
* * * * *
Temple froze, watched Charles slither away across the high-piled green
carpet until, safely away across the room, he came upright groggily.
He turned to the dead Lucy's double. "What do you think, Sophia?"
"I don't know. We could get out of here, probably get along without
the final information."
"That isn't what I mean. Naturally, we'll never receive the final
facts. I mean, what do you think about Temple?"
Sophia said she didn't know.
"Left alone, he would go to the police. Kidnapped, he would be worse
than useless. Harmful, actually, for the authorities would suspect
something. Even worse if we killed him. The point is, we don't want
the authorities to think Temple gave information to anybody."
"Gave is hardly the word," said Sophia. "I was a good wife, but also a
good gleaner. One hundred thousand dollars, Charles."
"You bitch," Temple said.
"Later," Charles told the woman. "The solution is this, Sophia: we
must kill Temple, but it must look like suicide."
Sophia frowned in pretty concern. "Do we have to ... kill him?"
"What's the matter, my dear? Have you been playing the wifely role too
long? If Temple stands in the way of Red Empire, Temple must die."
Temple edged forward.
"Uh-uh," said Charles, "mustn't." He waved the automatic and Temple
subsided.
"Is that right?" Sophia demanded. "Well, you listen to me. I have
nothing to do with your Red Empire. I fled the Iron Curtain, came here
to live voluntarily--"
"Do you really think it was on a voluntary basis that you went? We
allowed you to go, Sophia. We encouraged it. That way, the job of our
technicians was all the simpler. Whether you like it or not, you have
been a cog in the machine of Red Empire."
"I still don't see why he has to die."
"Leave thinking to those who can. You have a smile, a body, a certain
way with men. I will think. I think that Temple should die."
"I don't," Sophia said.
"We're delaying needlessly. The man dies." And Charles raised his
automatic, sufficiently irked to forget his suicide plan.
A gap of eight or nine feet separated the two men. It might as well
have been infinity--and it would be soon, for Temple. He saw Charles'
small hand tighten about the automatic, saw the trigger finger grow
white. The weapon pointed at a spot just above his navel and briefly
he found himself wondering what it would feel like for a slug to rip
into his stomach, burning a path back to his spine. He decided to make
the gesture at least, if he could do no more. He would jump for
Charles.
Sophia beat him to it--and because Lucy was dead and Sophia looked
exactly like her and Temple could not quite accept the fact, it seemed
the most natural thing in the world. Cat-quick, Sophia leaped upon
Charles' back and they went down together in a twisting, thrashing
tangle of arms and legs.
Temple did not wait for an invitation. He launched himself down after
them, and then things began to happen ... fast.
Sophia rolled clear, rose to her hands and knees, panting. Charles sat
up cursing, nursing a badly scratched face. Temple hurtled at him,
stretched him on his back again, began to pound hard fists into his
face.
Charles did not have the automatic. Neither did Temple.
Something exploded against the back of Temple's head violently,
throwing him off Charles and tumbling him over. Dimly he saw Sophia
following through, the automatic in her hand, butt foremost. Temple's
senses reeled. He tried to rise, succeeded only in a kind of
shuddering slither before he subsided. He wavered between
consciousness and unconsciousness, heard as in a dream snatches of
conversation.
"Shoot him ... shoot him!"
"Shut up ... I have ... gun ... go to hell."
"... kill ... only way."
"My way is different ... out of here ... discuss later."
"... feel...."
"I said ... out of here...."
The voices became a meaningless liquid torrent cascading into a black
pit.
* * * * *
Now Temple sat with a water-glass a third full of Canadian in his
hand, every once in a while reaching up gingerly to explore the
bruised swelling on his head, the blood-matted hair which covered it.
To be a cuckold was one thing, but to be the naive, political pawn
sort of cuckold who is not a cuckold at all, he told himself, is far
worse. To live with his woman, eat the meals she cooked for him, talk
to her, think she understood him, sympathize with him, to make love to
her with passion while she responds with play-acting for a hundred
thousand dollar salary was suddenly the most emasculating thing in the
world for Temple. He had not thought to ask how long it had been going
on. Better, perhaps, if he never knew. And somewhere lost in the maze
of his thoughts was the grimmest, bleakest reality of them all: Lucy
was dead. Lucy--dead. But where did Lucy leave off, where did Sophia
begin? Was Lucy dead that night they returned more than a little drunk
from the Chamber's party, that night they danced in the living room
until dawn obscured the stars and he carried Lucy upstairs. Lucy or
Sophia? And the day they motored to the lake, their secret lake,
hardly more than a dammed, widened stream and dreamed of the things
they could do when the Cold War ended? Lucy--or Sophia? Had he ever
noticed a difference in the way Lucy-Sophia cooked, in the way she
spoke, the way she let him make love to her? He thought himself into a
man-sized headache and found no answers. This way at least the loss of
his wife was not as traumatic as it might have been. He knew not when
she died or how and, in fact, Lucy-Sophia seemed so much like the real
thing that he did not know where he could stop loving and start
hating.
And the girl, the Russian girl, had saved his life. Why? He couldn't
answer that one either, unless if it were as Charles suggested: Sophia
had studied Lucy so carefully, had learned her likes and dislikes, her
wants and desires, had memorized and practised every quirk of her
character to such an extent that Sophia was Lucy in essence.
Which, Temple thought, would make it all the harder to seek out Sophia
and kill her.
That was the answer, the only answer. Temple felt a dull ache where
his heart should have been, a pressure, a pounding, an unpleasant,
unfamiliar lack of feeling. If he took his story to the F.B.I. he had
no doubt that Charles, Sophia and whoever else worked this thing with
them would be caught, but he, Temple, would find himself with a
lifelong, unslakable emotional thirst. He had to quench it now and
then feel sorry so that he might heal. He had to quench it with
Sophia's blood ... alone.
* * * * *
He found her a week later at their lake. He had looked everywhere and
had about given up, almost, in fact, ready to turn his story over to
the police. But he had to think and their lake was the place for that.
Apparently Sophia had the same idea. Temple parked on the highway half
a mile from their lake, made his way slowly through the woods, golden
dappled with sunlight. He heard the waters gushing merrily, heard the
sounds of some small animal rushing off through the woods. He saw
Sophia.
She lay on their sunning rock in shorts and halter, completely
relaxed, an opened magazine face down on the rock beside her, a pair
of sunglasses next to it. She had one knee up, one leg stretched out,
one forearm shielding her eyes from the sun, one arm down at her side.
Seeing her thus, Temple felt the pressure of his automatic in its
holster under his arm. He could draw it out, kill her before she was
aware of his presence. Would that make him feel better? Five minutes
ago, he would have said yes. Now he hesitated. Kill her, who seemed as
completely Lucy as he was Temple? Send a bullet ripping through the
body which he had known and loved, or the body that had seemed so much
like it he had failed to tell the difference?
Murder--Lucy?
"No," he said aloud. "Her name is Sophia."
The girl sat up, startled. "Kit," she said.
"Lucy."
"You can't make up your mind, either." She smiled just like Lucy.
Dumbly, he sat down next to her on the rock. Strong sunlight had
brought a fine dew of perspiration to the bronzed skin of her face.
She got a pack of cigarettes out from under the magazine, lit one,
offered it to Temple, lit another and smoked it. "Where do we go from
here?" she wanted to know.
"I--"
"You came to kill me, didn't you? Is that the only way you can ever
feel better, Kit?"
"I--" He was going to deny it, then think.
"Don't deny it. Please." She reached in under his jacket, withdrawing
her hand with the snub-nosed automatic in it. "Here," she said, giving
it to him.
He took the gun, hefted it, let it fall, clattering, on the rock.
"Listen," she said. "I could have told you I was Lucy. If I said now
that I am Lucy and if I kept on saying it, you'd believe me. You'd
believe me because you'd want to."
"Well," said Temple.
"I am not Lucy. Lucy is dead. But ... but I was Lucy in everything but
being Lucy. I thought her thoughts, dreamed her dreams, loved her
loves."
"You killed her."
"No. I had nothing to do with that. She was killed, yes. Not by me.
Kit, if I asked you when Lucy stopped, and ... when I began, could you
tell me?"
He had often thought about that. "No," he said truthfully. "You're as
much my wife as--she was."
* * * * *
She clutched at his hand impulsively. Then, when he failed to
respond, she withdrew her own hand. "Then--then I _am_ Lucy. If I am
Lucy in every way, Lucy never died."
"You betrayed me. You stood by while murder was committed. You are
guilty of espionage."
"Lucy loved you. I am Lucy...."
"... Betrayed me...."
"For a hundred thousand dollars. For the chance to live a normal life,
for the chance to forget Leningrad in the wintertime, watery potato
soup, rags for clothing, swaggering commissars, poverty, disease. Do
you think I realized I could fall in love with you so completely? If I
did, don't you think that would have changed things? I am not Sophia,
Kit. I was, but I am not. They made me Lucy. Lucy can't be dead, not
if I am she in every way."
"What can we do?"
"I don't know. I only want to be your wife...."
"Well, then tell me," he said bitterly. "Shall I go back to the plant
and continue working, knowing all the time that our most closely
guarded secret is in Russian hands and that my wife is responsible?"
He laughed. "Shall I do that?"
"Your secrets never went anywhere."
"Shall I ... _what_?"
"Your secrets never went anywhere. Charles is dead. I have destroyed
all that we took. I am not Russian any longer. American. They made me
American. They made me Lucy. I want to go right on being Lucy, your
wife."
Temple said nothing for a long time. He realized now he could not kill
her. But everything else she suggested.... "Tell me," he said. "Tell
me, how long have you been Lucy? You've got to tell me that."
"How long have we been married?"
"You know how long. Three years."
Sophia crushed her cigarette out on the rock, wiped perspiration
(tears?) from her cheek with the back of her hand. "You have never
known anyone but me in your marriage bed, Kit."
"You--you're lying."
"No. They did what they did on the eve of your marriage. I have been
your wife for as long as you have had one."
Temple's head whirled. It had been a quick courtship. He had known
Lucy only two weeks in those hectic post-graduate days of 1957. But
for fourteen brief days, it was Sophia he had known all along.
"Sophia, I--"
"There is no Sophia, not any more."
He had hardly known Lucy, the real Lucy. This girl here was his wife,
always had been. Had the first fourteen days with Lucy been anything
but a dream? He was sorry Lucy had died--but the Lucy he had thought
dead was Sophia, very much alive.
He took her in his arms, almost crushing her. He held her that way,
kissed her savagely, letting passion of a different sort take the
place of murder.
_This is my woman_, he thought, and awoke on his white pallet in
Nowhere.
* * * * *
"I am awake," said Temple.
"We see that. You shouldn't be."
"No?"
"No. There is one more dream."
Temple dozed restfully but was soon aware of a commotion. Strangely,
he did not care. He was too tired to open his eyes, anyway. Let
whatever was going to happen, happen. He wanted his sleep.
But the voice persisted.
"This is highly irregular. You came in here once and--"
"I did you a favor, didn't I?" (That voice is familiar, Temple
thought.)
"Well, yes. But what now?"
"Temple's record is now one and one. In the second sequence he was the
victor. The Soviet entry had to extract certain information from him
and turn it over to her people. She extracted the information well
enough but somehow Temple made her change her mind. The information
never went anyplace. How Temple managed to play counterspy I don't
know, but he played it and won."
"That's fine. But what do you want?"
"The final E.C.R. is critical." (The voice was Arkalion's!) "How
critical, I can't tell you. Sufficient though, if you know that you
lose no matter how Temple fares. If the Russian woman defeats Temple,
you lose."
"Naturally."
"Let me finish. If Temple defeats the Russian woman, you also lose.
Either way, Earth is the loser. I haven't time to explain what you
wouldn't understand anyway. Will you cooperate?"
"Umm-mm. You did save Temple's life. Umm-mm, yes. All right."
"The third dream sequence is the wrong dream, the wrong contest with
the wrong antagonist at the wrong time, when a far more important
contest is brewing ... with the fate of Earth as a reward for the
victor."
"What do you propose?"
"I will arrange Temple's final dream. But if he disappears from this
room, don't be alarmed. It's a dream of a different sort. Temple won't
know it until the dream progresses, you won't know it until
everything is concluded, but Temple will fight for a slave or a free
Earth."
"Can't you tell us more?"
"There is no time, except to say that along with the rest of the
Galaxy, you've been duped. The Nowhere Journey is a grim, tragic
farce.
"Awaken, Kit!"
Temple awoke into what he thought was the third and final dream.
Strange, because this time he knew where he was and why, knew also
that he was dreaming, even remembered vividly the other two dreams.
* * * * *
"Stealth," said Arkalion, and led Temple through long, white-walled
corridors. They finally came to a partially open door and paused
there. Peering within, Temple saw a room much like the one he had
left, with two white-gowned figures standing anxiously over a table.
And prone on the table was Sophia, whom Temple had loved short moments
before, in his second dream. Moments? Years. (Never, except in a
dream.)
"She's lovely," Arkalion whispered.
"I know." Like himself, Sophia was garbed in a loose jumper and
slacks.
"Stealth," said Arkalion again. "Haste." Arkalion disappeared.
"Well," Temple told himself. "What now? At least in the other dreams I
was thrust so completely into things, I knew what to do." He rubbed
his jaw grimly. "Not that it did much good the first time."
Temple poked the partially-ajar door with his foot, pushing it open.
The two white-smocked figures had their backs to him, leaned intently
over the table and Sophia. Without knowing what motivated him, Temple
leaped into the room, grasped the nearer figure's arm, whirled him
around. Startled confusion began to alter the man's coarse features,
but his face went slack when Temple's fist struck his jaw with
terrible strength. The man collapsed.
The second man turned, mouthing a stream of what must have been
Russian invective. He parried Temple's quick blow with his left hand,
crossing his own right fist to Temple's face and almost ending the
fight as quickly as it had started. Temple went down in a heap and was
vaguely aware of the Russian's booted foot hovering over his face. He
reached out, grabbed the boot with both hands, twisted. The man
screamed and fell and then they were rolling over and over, striking
each other with fists, knees, elbows, gouging, butting, cursing.
Temple found the Russian's throat, closed his hands around it,
applied pressure. Fists pounded his face, nails raked him, but slowly
he succeeded in throttling the Russian. When Temple got to his feet,
trembling, the Russian stared blankly at the ceiling. He would go on
staring that way until someone shut his eyes.
Not questioning the incomprehensible, Temple knew he had done what he
must. Hardly seeking for the motive he could not find he lifted the
unconscious Sophia off the table, slung her long form across his
shoulder, plodded with her from the room. Arkalion had said haste. He
would hurry.
He next was aware of a spaceship. Remembering no time lag, he simply
stood in the ship with Arkalion. And Sophia.
* * * * *
He knew it was a spaceship because he had been in one before and
although the sensation of weightlessness was not present, they were in
deep space. Stars you never see through an obscuring atmosphere hung
suspended in the viewports. Cold-bright, not flickering against the
plush blackness of deep space, phalanxes and legions of stars without
numbers, in such wild profusion that space actually seemed three
dimensional.
"This is a different sort of dream," said Sophia in English. "I
remember. I remember everything. Kit--"
"Hello." He felt strangely shy, became mildly angry when Arkalion
hardly tried to suppress a slight snicker. "Well, that second dream
wasn't our idea," Temple protested. "Once there, we acted ... and--"
"And...." said Sophia.
"And nothing," Arkalion told them. "You haven't time. This is a
spaceship, not like the slow, blumbling craft your people use to reach
Mars or Jupiter."
"Our people?" Temple demanded. "Not yours?"
"Will you let me finish? Light is a laggard crawler by comparison with
the drive propelling this ship. Temple, Sophia, we are leaving your
Galaxy altogether."
"Is that a fact?" said Sophia, her Jupiter-found knowledge telling her
they were traveling an unthinkable distance. "For some final contest
between us, no doubt, to decide whether the U. S. S. R. or the U. S.
represents Earth? Kit, I l-love you, but...."
"But Russia is more important, huh?"
"No. I didn't say that. All my training has been along those lines,
though, and even if I'm aware it is indoctrination, the fact still
remains. If your country is truly better, but if I have seen your
country only through the eyes of Pravda, how can I ... I don't know,
Kit. Let me think."
"You needn't," said Arkalion, smiling. "If the two of you would let me
get on with it you'd see this particular train of thought is
meaningless, quite meaningless." Arkalion cleared his throat.
"Strange, but I have much the same problem as Sophia has. My
indoctrination was far more subtle though. Far more convincing, based
upon eons of propaganda methods. Temple, Sophia, those who initiated
the Nowhere Journey for hundreds of worlds of your galaxy did so with
a purpose."
"I know. To decide who gets their vast knowledge."
"Wrong. To find suitable hosts in a one-way relationship which is
hardly symbiosis, really out and out parasitism."
"What?"
And Sophia: "What are you talking about?"
"The sick, decadent, tired old creatures you consider your superiors.
Parasites. They need hosts in order to survive. Their old hosts have
been milked dry, have become too highly specialized, are now incapable
physically or emotionally of meeting a wide variety of environmental
challenges. The Nowhere Journey is to find a suitable new host. They
have found one. You of Earth."
"I don't understand," Temple said, remembering the glowing accounts of
the 'superboys' he had been given by his brother Jason. "I just don't
get it. How can we be duped like that? Wouldn't someone have figured
it out? And if they have all the power everyone says, there isn't much
we can do about it, anyway."
Arkalion scowled darkly. "Then write Earth's obituary. You'll need
one."
"Go ahead," Sophia told Arkalion. "There's more you want to say."
"All right. Temple's thought is correct. They have tremendous power.
That is why you could be duped so readily. But their power is not
concentrated here. These much-faster-than-light ships are an extreme
rarity, for the power-drive no longer exists. Five ships in all, I
believe. Hardly enough to invade a planet, even for them. It takes
them thousands of years to get here otherwise. Thousands. Just as it
took me, when I came to Mars and Earth in the first place."
"What?" cried Temple. "You...."
"I am one of them. Correct. I suppose you would call me a subversive,
but I have made up my mind. Parasitism is unsatisfactory, when the
Maker got us started on symbiosis. Somewhere along the line, evolution
took a wrong turn. We are--monsters."
"What do you look like?" Sophia demanded while Temple stood there
shaking his head and muttering to himself.
* * * * *
"You couldn't see me, I am afraid. I was the representative here to
see how things were going, and when my people found you of the Earth
divided yourselves into two camps they realized they had been
considering your abilities in halves. Put together, you are probably
the top culture of your galaxy."
"So, we win," said Temple.
"Right and wrong. You lose. Earthmen will become hosts. Know what a
back-seat driver is, Temple? You would be a back seat driver in your
own body. Thinking, feeling, wanting to make decisions, but unable to.
Eating when the parasite wants to, sleeping at his command, fighting,
loving, living as he wills it. And perishing when he wants a new
garment. Oh, they offer something in return. Their culture, their way
of life, their scientific, economic, social system. It's good, too.
But not worth it. Did you know that their economic struggle between
democratic capitalism and totalitarian communism ended almost half a
million years ago? What they have now is a system you couldn't even
understand."
"Well," Temple mused, "even if everything you said were true--"
"Don't tell me you don't believe me?"
"If it were true and we wanted to do something about it, what could we
do?"
"Now, nothing. Nothing but delay things by striking swiftly and
letting fifty centuries of time perform your rearguard action. Destroy
the one means your enemy has of reaching Earth within foreseeable time
and you have destroyed his power to invade for a hundred centuries. He
can still reach Earth, but the same way you journeyed to Nowhere. Ten
thousand years of space travel in suspended animation. You saw me that
way once, Temple, and wondered. You thought I was dead, but that is
another story.
"Anyway, let my people invade your planet, ten thousand years hence.
If Earth takes the right direction, if democracy and free thought and
individual enterprise win over totalitarian standardization as I think
they will, your people will be more than a match for the decadent
parasites who may or may not have sufficient initiative to cross space
the slow way and attempt invasion in ten thousand years."
"Ten thousand?" said Temple.
"Five from Earth to Nowhere. The distance to my home is far greater,
but the rate of travel can be increased. Ten thousand years."
"Tell me," Temple demanded abruptly, "is this a dream?"
Arkalion smiled. "Yes and no. It is not a dream like the others
because I assure you your bodies are not now resting on a pair of
identical white tables. Still in the other dreams physical things
could happen to you, while now you'll find you can do things as in a
dream. For example, neither one of you knows the intricacies of a
spaceship, yet if you are to save your planet, you must know the
operation of the most intricate of all space ships, a giant space
station."
"Then we're not dreaming?" asked Temple.
"I never said that. Consider this sequence of events about half way
between the dream stage you have already seen and reality itself.
Remember this: you'll have to work together; you'll have to function
like machines. You will be handling totally alien equipment with only
the sort of knowledge which can be played into your brains to guide
you."
Sophia sighed. "Being an American, Kit is too much of an individual to
help in such a situation."
Temple snorted. "Being a cog in a simple, state-wide machine is one
thing--orienting yourself in a totally new situation is another."
"Yes, well--"
"See?" Arkalion cautioned. "See? Already you are arguing, but you must
work together completely, with not the slightest conflict between you.
As it is, you hardly have a chance."
"What about you?" said Sophia practically. "Can't you help?"
* * * * *
Arkalion shook his head. "No. While I'd like to see you come out of
this thing on top, I would not like to sacrifice my life for it--which
is exactly what I'd do if I remained with you and you lost.
"So, let's get down to detail. Imagine space being folded, imagine
your time sense slowing, imagine a new dimension which negates the
need for extensive linear travel, imagine anything you want--but we
are in the process of moving nine hundred thousand light years through
deep space. There is a great galaxy at that distance, almost a twin of
your Milky Way: you call it the Andromeda Nebula. Closer to your own
system are the two Magellanic Clouds, so called, something else which
you table NGC 6822, and finally the Triangulum Galaxy. All have
billions of stars, but none of the stars have life. To find life
outside your galaxy you must seek it across almost a million light
years. My people live in Andromeda.
"Guarding the flank of their galaxy and speeding through
inter-galactic space at many light years per minute is what you might
call a space station--but on a scale you've never dreamed of. Five of
your miles in diameter, it is a fortress of terrible strength, a
storehouse of half a million years of weapon development. It has been
arranged that the one man running this station--"
"Just one?" Temple asked.
"Yes. You will see why when you get there. It has been arranged that
he will leave, ostensibly on a scouting expedition. You see, I am not
alone in this venture. At any rate, he will report that the space
station has been taken--as, indeed, it will be, by the two of you. The
only ships capable of overtaking your station in its flight will be
the only ships capable of reaching your galaxy before cultural
development gives you a chance to survive. They will attack you. You
will destroy them--or be destroyed yourselves. Any questions?"
The whole thing sounded fantastic to Temple. Could the fate of all
Earth rest on their shoulders in a totally alien environment? Could
they be expected to win? Temple had no reason to doubt the former, as
wild as it sounded. As for the latter, all he could do was hope. "Tell
me," he said, "how will we learn the use of all the weapons you claim
are at our disposal?"
"Can you answer that for him, Sophia?" Arkalion wanted to know.
"Umm, I think so. The same way I had all sorts of culture crammed into
me on Jupiter."
"Precisely. Only take it from me our refinement is far better, and the
amount you have to learn actually is less."
"What I'd like to know--" Sophia began.
"Forget it. I want some sleep and you'll learn everything that's
necessary at the space station."
And after that, ply Arkalion as they would with questions, he slumped
down in his chair and rested. Temple could suddenly understand and
appreciate. He felt like curling up into a tight little ball himself
and sleeping until everything was over, one way or the other.