[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Galaxy Science Fiction September 1951.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
When nobody aboard ship remembers where it's
going, how can they tell when it has arrived?
Every day for a week now, Rikud had come to the viewport to watch
the great changeless sweep of space. He could not quite explain the
feelings within him; they were so alien, so unnatural. But ever since
the engines somewhere in the rear of the world had changed their tone,
from the steady whining Rikud had heard all twenty-five years of his
life, to the sullen roar that came to his ears now, the feelings had
grown.
If anyone else had noticed the change, he failed to mention it. This
disturbed Rikud, although he could not tell why. And, because he had
realized this odd difference in himself, he kept it locked up inside
him.
Today, space looked somehow different. The stars--it was a meaningless
concept to Rikud, but that was what everyone called the bright
pinpoints of light on the black backdrop in the viewport--were not
apparent in the speckled profusion Rikud had always known. Instead,
there was more of the blackness, and one very bright star set apart
by itself in the middle of the viewport.
If he had understood the term, Rikud would have told himself this was
odd. His head ached with the half-born thought. It was--it was--what
was it?
Someone was clomping up the companionway behind Rikud. He turned and
greeted gray-haired old Chuls.
"In five more years," the older man chided, "you'll be ready to sire
children. And all you can do in the meantime is gaze out at the stars."
Rikud knew he should be exercising now, or bathing in the rays of the
health-lamps. It had never occurred to him that he didn't feel like it;
he just didn't, without comprehending.
Chuls' reminder fostered uneasiness. Often Rikud had dreamed of the
time he would be thirty and a father. Whom would the Calculator select
as his mate? The first time this idea had occurred to him, Rikud
ignored it. But it came again, and each time it left him with a feeling
he could not explain. Why should he think thoughts that no other man
had? Why should he think he was thinking such thoughts, when it always
embroiled him in a hopeless, infinite confusion that left him with a
headache?
Chuls said, "It is time for my bath in the health-rays. I saw you here
and knew it was your time, too...."
His voice trailed off. Rikud knew that something which he could not
explain had entered the elder man's head for a moment, but it had
departed almost before Chuls knew of its existence.
"I'll go with you," Rikud told him.
* * * * *
A hardly perceptible purple glow pervaded the air in the room of the
health-rays. Perhaps two score men lay about, naked, under the ray
tubes. Chuls stripped himself and selected the space under a vacant
tube. Rikud, for his part, wanted to get back to the viewport and watch
the one new bright star. He had the distinct notion it was growing
larger every moment. He turned to go, but the door clicked shut and a
metallic voice said. "Fifteen minutes under the tubes, please."
Rikud muttered to himself and undressed. The world had begun to annoy
him. Now why shouldn't a man be permitted to do what he wanted, when
he wanted to do it? _There_ was a strange thought, and Rikud's brain
whirled once more down the tortuous course of half-formed questions and
unsatisfactory answers.
He had even wondered what it was like to get hurt. No one ever got
hurt. Once, here in this same ray room, he had had the impulse to hurl
himself head-first against the wall, just to see what would happen.
But something soft had cushioned the impact--something which had come
into being just for the moment and then abruptly passed into non-being
again, something which was as impalpable as air.
Rikud had been stopped in this action, although there was no real
authority to stop him. This puzzled him, because somehow he felt that
there should have been authority. A long time ago the reading machine
in the library had told him of the elders--a meaningless term--who had
governed the world. They told you to do something and you did it, but
that was silly, because now no one told you to do anything. You only
listened to the buzzer.
And Rikud could remember the rest of what the reading machine had said.
There had been a revolt--again a term without any real meaning, a term
that could have no reality outside of the reading machine--and the
elders were overthrown. Here Rikud had been lost utterly. The people
had decided that they did not know where they were going, or why, and
that it was unfair that the elders alone had this authority. They were
born and they lived and they died as the elders directed, like little
cogs in a great machine. Much of this Rikud could not understand, but
he knew enough to realize that the reading machine had sided with the
people against the elders, and it said the people had won.
Now in the health room, Rikud felt a warmth in the rays. Grudgingly, he
had to admit to himself that it was not unpleasant. He could see the
look of easy contentment on Chuls' face as the rays fanned down upon
him, bathing his old body in a forgotten magic which, many generations
before Rikud's time, had negated the necessity for a knowledge of
medicine. But when, in another ten years, Chuls would perish of old
age, the rays would no longer suffice. Nothing would, for Chuls. Rikud
often thought of his own death, still seventy-five years in the future,
not without a sense of alarm. Yet old Chuls seemed heedless, with only
a decade to go.
Under the tube at Rikud's left lay Crifer. The man was short and heavy
through the shoulders and chest, and he had a lame foot. Every time
Rikud looked at that foot, it was with a sense of satisfaction. True,
this was the only case of its kind, the exception to the rule, but it
proved the world was not perfect. Rikud was guiltily glad when he saw
Crifer limp.
But, if anyone else saw it, he never said a word. Not even Crifer.
* * * * *