I’m going home. I’ve started putting course data in the computers.
July 4th. They say they are going back with me. It seems they like me so much, they don’t want to be without me. I will have to decide.
July 12th. It is dreadfully hard to think, for they are sending like mad.
I am not so altruistic, so unselfish, that I would condemn myself to a lifetime of listening to prott if I could get out of it. But suppose I ignore the warnings of instinct, the dictates of conscience, and return to Earth, anyhow—what will be the result?
The prott will go with me. I will not be rid of them. And I will have loosed a wave of prott on Earth.
They want passionately to send about—ing the—. They have discovered that Earthmen are potential receptors. I have myself to blame for that. If I show them the way to Earth…
The dilemma is inherently comic, I suppose. It is none the less real. Oh, it is possible that there is some way of destroying prott, and that the resources of Earth intelligence might discover it. Or, failing that, we might be able to work out a way of living with them. But the danger is too great; I dare not ask my planet to face it. I will stay here.
The Ellis is a strong, comfortable ship. According to my calculations, there is enough air, water and food to last me the rest of my natural life. Power—since I am not going back—I have in abundance. I ought to get along all right.
Except for the prott. When I think of them, my heart contracts with despair and revulsion. And yet—a scientist must be honest—it is not all despair. I feel a little sorry for them, a little flattered at their need for me. And I am not, even now, altogether hopeless. Perhaps some day—some day—I shall understand the prott.
I am going to put this diary in a permaloy cylinder and jet it away from the ship with a signal rocket. I can soup up the rocket’s charge with power from the fuel tanks. I have tried it on the calculators, and I think the rocket can make it to the edge of the gravitational field of the Solar System.
Goodbye, Earth. I am doing it for you. Remember me.
Fox put the last page of the manuscript down. “The poor bastard” he said.
“Yeah, the poor bastard. Sitting out there in deep space, year after year, listening to those things bellyaching, and thinking what a savior he was.”
“I can’t say I feel much sympathy for him, really. I suppose they followed the signal rocket back.”
“Yeah. And then they increased. Oh, he fixed it, all right.”
There was a depressed silence. Then Fox said, “I’d better go. Impatient.”
“Mine, too.”
They said goodbye to each other on the curb. Fox stood waiting, still not quite hopeless. But after a moment the hateful voice within his head began: “I want to tell you more about—ing the—.”
NEW RITUAL
The big white freezer purred away smoothly in the pantry. Marie Bates looked at it admiringly. It was really more company than Henry was, she thought—better-looking, more useful and it made soothing, companionable noises. She was ever so glad she had bought it. It had been a wonderful bargain.
She opened the freezer and dropped in the package of apricots she had just processed. The rest of the ‘cots weren’t ready yet, but she couldn’t resist putting the new freezer to work at once. Frost was already forming on its side.
She went back into the kitchen and began scalding and blanching the other ‘cots. She ought to be ashamed of herself for feeling that way about Henry, she supposed. He was a good husband, a good provider, and he had a lot on his mind—the farm, his lodge work, the new ritual. But…
Would he notice me, she thought suddenly, if I came out in the dining room with feathers in my hair, war paint on my face, and did a little war dance in my bloomers? She giggled at the picture. Wasn’t she silly? She did get the craziest ideas!
She was putting the peeled and pitted apricots in the containers when Henry came in from the barn, where he had been pitching hay, for a drink of water. “Want to see my new freezer, Henry?” she asked brightly. “I got it at Fergus’ sale with the egg money. It was real cheap.” Sometimes she thought that if she just kept talking to Henry, he’d give in and start talking to her too. Even if he was a lot older than she was.
“Uh? No, not now.” He pushed past her and started back to the barn. His short, stolid back retreated rapidly.
He wasn’t angry, he wasn’t annoyed, he wasn’t anything. He just didn’t notice her. Marie stared after him with eyes that were beginning to smart. It was like living with a clam. Wasn’t there anything in the world he’d talk to her about? Not the farm or his lodge work or politics—she knew, she’d tried. Weren’t there any other subjects? Food?
Well, once he’d said a pot roast of hers was good, and once he’d mentioned an angel cake. And when they were first married, years ago, he’d said that his mother had baked wonderful blueberry pies. That was quite a lot of talk on one subject, for Henry.
Blueberry pie. She went on filling the ‘cots into the polyethylene bags. Well, that wasn’t very helpful. Nobody in Ovid grew blueberries. The climate and the soil weren’t right for them, and there wasn’t moisture enough. She supposed there might be some canned blueberries in the store.
She filled the bags and sealed the cartons. She wrote “Apricots” and the date on the outside. How much easier fixing the cartons had been than canning would have been! No steamy kitchen, scalded fingers, nasty cracked jars. And fresh fruit in the wintertime would be 100 percent better than canned. She wished Henry had let her talk about the freezer to him. Oh, well. She stacked the cartons on her forearm and went out to the pantry. She opened the deep freeze.
She halted, surprised. She’d put in the package of apricots herself not more than an hour and a half ago. She’d written “Apricots” on the outside. The package itself, a tiny object in the vast white reaches of the freezer, was just the same as it had been. But now the word “Blueberries” was neatly printed on the cardboard side.
Blueberries! What could have happened? Could she have written that herself by mistake? She was sure she hadn’t. She couldn’t! She hadn’t even been thinking of blueberries. But that was what the carton said.
Cautiously Marie reached into the freezer and lifted the package out. It felt as hard as a rock. The contents must be frozen now. She stacked her load of cartons rather wobblingly on the edge of the freezer, and opened the package that said “Blueberries.”
There were blueberries in it.
She could see them plain as plain through the trans parent polyethylene wrapper. Blueberries! How on earth could they have got there?
One of the as yet unfrozen cartons of apricots, falling from the edge of the freezer with a thump, startled her. She dumped them hastily into the freezing compartment, shut the lid, and went back to the kitchen with her blueberries. She tore off the polyethylene wrapper and pried one of the blueberries from the frozen mass. After a little hesitation, she tasted it.
She’d had blueberries only once or twice before, but they’d had the same inky flavor as this one. They—Marie Bates hesitated no longer. She got out a mixing bowl, flour, salt, lard. She was going to make a pie.
Henry ate two pieces of the pie at supper. Marie watched anxiously, while he chomped stolidly away. At last she couldn’t wait any longer. “How’s the pie, Henry?” she asked, brushing at the crumbs on the tablecloth.