16
After dinner that “night” they gathered in the ship’s control cabin. The time had come to plot out another polyencephalic world. To make it function it had to be a joint projection from all of them; otherwise, as in the final stages of the Delmak-O world, it would rapidly disintegrate.
In fifteen years they had become very skilled.
Especially Tony Dunkelwelt. Of his eighteen years, almost all had been spent aboard Persus 9. For him, the procession of polyencephalic worlds had become a normal way of life.
Captain Belsnor said, “We didn’t do so bad, in a way; we got rid of almost two weeks.”
“What about an aquatic world this time?” Maggie Walsh said. “We could be dolphin-like mammals living in warm seas.”
“We did that,” Russell said. “About eight months ago. Don’t you remember it? Let’s see… yes; we called it Aquasoma 3 and we stayed there three months of real time. A very successful world, I would say, and one of the most durable. Of course, back then we were less hostile.”
Seth Morley said, “Excuse me.” He rose and walked from the ship’s cabin into the narrow passageway.
There he stood, alone, rubbing his shoulder. A purely psychosomatic pain remained in it, a memory of Delmak-O which he would probably carry for a week. And that’s all, he thought, that we have left of that particular world. Just a pain, a rapidly-fading memory.
How about a world, he thought, in which we lie good and dead, buried in our coffins? That’s what we really want.
There had been no suicides aboard the ship for the last four years. Their population had become stabilized, at least temporarily.
Until Mrs. Rockingham dies, he said to himself.
I wish I could go with her, he thought. How long, really, can we keep on? Not much longer. Thugg’s wits are scrambled; so are Frazer’s and Babble’s. And me, too, he thought. Maybe I’m gradually breaking down, too. Wade Frazer is right; the murders on Delmak-O show how much derangement and hostility exists in all of us.
In that case, he thought suddenly, each escape world will be more feral… Russell is right. It is a pattern.
He thought, We will miss Roberta Rockingham when she dies; of us, she is the most benign and stable.
Because, he realized, she knows she is soon going to die.
Our only comfort. Death.
I could open vents here and there, he realized, and our atmosphere would be gone. Sucked out into the void. And then, more or less painlessly, we could all die. In one single, brief instant.
He placed his hand on the emergency release-lock of a nearby hatch vent. All I have to do, he said to himself, is move this thing counterclockwise.
He stood there, holding onto the release-lock, but doing nothing. What he intended to do had made him frozen, as if time had stopped. And everything around him looked twodimensional.
A figure, coming down the corridor from the rear of the ship, approached him. Bearded, with flowing, pale robes. A man, youthful and erect, with a pure, shining face.
“Walker,” Seth Morley said.
“No,” the figure said. “I am not the Walker-on-Earth. I am the Intercessor.”
“But we invented you! We and T.E.N.C.H. 889B.” The Intercessor said, “I am here to take you away. Where would you like to go, Seth Morley? What would you like to be?”
“An illusion, you mean?” he said. “Like our polyencephalic worlds?”
“No,” the Intercessor said, “You will be free; you will die and be reborn. I will guide you to what you want, and to what is fitting and proper for you. Tell me what it is.”
“You don’t want me to kill the others,” Seth Morley said, with abrupt comprehension. “By opening the vents.”
The Intercessor inclined his head in a nod. “It is for each of them to decide. You may decide only for yourself.”
“I’d like to be a desert plant,” Seth Morley said. “That could see the sun all day. I want to be growing. Perhaps a cactus on some warm world. Where no one will bother me.”
“Agreed.”
“And sleep,” Seth Morley said. “I want to be asleep but still aware of the sun and of myself.”
“That is the way with plants,” the Intercessor said. “They sleep. And yet they know themselves to exist. Very well.” He held out his hand to Seth Morley. “Come along.”
Reaching, Seth Morley touched the Intercessor’s extended hand. Strong fingers closed around his own hand. He felt happy. He had never before been so glad.
“You will live and sleep for a thousand years,” the Intercessor said, and guided him away from where he stood, into the stars.
Mary Morley, stricken, said to Captain Belsnor, “Captain, I can’t find my husband.” She felt wet slow tears make their way down her cheeks. “He’s gone,” she said, in a half-wail.
“You mean he isn’t on the ship anymore?” Belsnor said. “How could he get out without opening one of the hatches? They’re the only way out of here, and if he opened one of the hatches our internal atmosphere would cease; we’d all be dead.”
“I know that,” she said.
“Then he still must be on the ship. We can search for him after we have our next polyencephalic world plotted out.”
“Now,” she said fiercely. “Look for him now.”
“I can’t,” Belsnor said.
Turning, she started away from him.
“Come back. You have to help.”
“I’m not coming back,” she said. She continued on, down the narrow corridor, into the galley. I think he was here last, she said to herself. I still sense him here, in the galley, where he spends so much of his time.
Huddled in the cramped little galley she heard their voices dim, gradually and slowly, into silence. They’ve gone into polyencephalic fusion again, she realized. Without me, this time. I hope they’re happy now. This is the first time I haven’t gone with them, she thought. I’ve missed out. What should I do? she asked herself. Where should I go?
Alone, she realized. Seth’s gone; they’re gone. And I can’t make it by myself.
By degrees she crept back into the control cabin of the ship.
There they lay, in their individual cubicles, the many-wired cylinders covering their heads. All cylinders were in use except for hers… and for Seth’s. She stood there, trembling with hesitation. What did they feed into the computer this time? she wondered. What are the premises, and what has T.E.N.C.H. 889B deduced from that?
What is the next world going to be like?
She examined the faintly-humming computer… but, of all of them, only Glen Belsnor really knew how to operate it. They had of course used it, but she could not decipher the settings. The coded output baffled her, too; she remained by the computer, holding the punched tape in her hands… and then, with effort, made up her mind. It must be a reasonably good place, she told herself. We’ve built up so much skill, so much experience; it’s not like the nightmare worlds we found ourselves in at first.
True, the homicidal element, the hostility, had grown. But the killings were not real. They were as illusory as killings in a dream.
And how easily they had taken place. How easy it had been for her to kill Susie Smart.
She lay down on the cot which belonged to her, anchored within her own particular cubicle, plugged in the life-protek mechanism, and then, with relief, placed the cylinder over her head and shoulders. Its modulated hummm sounded faintly in her ears: a reassuring noise and one which she had heard so many times in the past, over the long and weary years.
Darkness covered her; she breathed it into herself, accepting it, demanding it… the darkness took over and, presently, she realized that it was night. She yearned, then, for daylight. For the world to be exposed—the new world which she could not yet see.
Who am I? she asked herself. Already it had become unclear in her mind. The Persus 9, the loss of Seth, their empty, trapped lives—all these faded from her like a burden released. She thought only of the daylight ahead; lifting her wrist to her face she tried to read her watch. But it was not running. And she could not see.