50 in 50

For science fiction, read adventure fiction, for that is what it was for many decades. In their time H. G. Wells' books were referred to as "scientific romances." No, not like Barbara Cartland's tales of snogging and bodice ripping. This is romance meaning "a tale depicting heroic or marvelous achievements, colorful events or scenes, chivalrous devotion, unusual, even supernatural, experiences, or other matters of a kind to appeal to the imagination." A description not too wide of the mark of describing science fiction itself.

Then science fiction came of age. In the magazines of the fifties the softer sciences were featured side by side with the traditional physics, chemistry and engineering. Ecology came on the scene, along with psychology and psychiatry. Not to mention Scientology a few years later. This was a freedom that SF really needed. A chance to look inside the protagonist's skull — as well as into the guts of his rocket engine.

I enjoyed this new freedom as you will see here.

Not me, not Amos Cabot!

The morning mail had arrived while Amos Cabot was out shopping and had been thrown onto the rickety table in the front hall. He poked through it even though he knew there would be nothing for him; this wasn't the right day. On the thirteenth his Social Security check came and on the twenty-fourth the union check. There never was anything else, except for a diminishing number of cards every Christmas. Nothing, he knew it.

A large blue envelope was propped against the mirror but he couldn't make out the name, damn that skinflint Mrs. Peavey and her two-watt bulbs. He bent over and blinked at it — then blinked again. By God it was for him, and no mistake! Felt like a thick magazine or a catalog: he wondered what it could possibly be and who might have sent it to him. Clutching it to his chest with a knobby and liver-spotted hand he began the long drag up the three flights of stairs to his room. He dropped his string bag with the two cans of beans and the loaf of day-old white bread onto the drainboard and sat down heavily in his chair by the window. Unsealing the envelope he saw that it was a magazine, a thick glossy one with a black cover. He slid it out onto his lap and stared at it with horrified eyes.

Hereafter the title read in black, prickly Gothic letters against a field of greenish-gray. Underneath it was subtitled "The Magazine of Preparedness." The rest of the cover was black, solid midnight black, except for an inset photograph shaped like a tombstone that had a cheerful view of a cemetery filled with flower blossoms, ranked headstones, and brooding mausoleums. Was this all a very bad joke? It didn't seem so as Amos flipped through the pages, catching quick glimpses of caskets, coffins, cemetery plots, and urns of mortal ashes. With a grunt of disgust he threw the magazine onto the table and as he did so a letter fell out and drifted to the floor. It was addressed to him, on the magazine's stationery, there was no mistake.

My Dearest Sir:

Welcome to the contented family of happy readers of Hereafter — The Magazine of Preparedness that smooths the road ahead. You, who are about to die, we salute you! A long, happy life lies behind you, while ahead the Gates of Eternity are swinging open to welcome you, to return you to the bosom of your loved ones long since passed on. Now, at this friendly final hour, we stand behind you ready to help you on your way. Have you settled your will? Bet you've been remiss — but that's no problem now. Just turn to page 109 and read the inspirational article "Where There's a Will" and learn all there is to know. And then, on page 114, you'll find a full-sized, fold-out will that can be torn out along the handy perforations. Just fill in the few blanks, sign your name and have your local notary public (he's usually in the stationery store!) witness the signature. Don't delay! And have you considered cremation? There is a wonderfully inspirational message from Dr. Phillip Musgrove of The Little Church Around the Corner from the Crematorium on page. .

Amos picked up the magazine with shaking hands and threw it the length of the room, feeling slightly better when it tore in two.

"What do you mean I'm going to die — what do you say that for?" he shouted, then lowered his voice as Antonelli next door hammered on the wall. "What's the idea of sending a filthy thing like that to a person? What's the idea?"

What was the idea? He picked the two halves of the magazine up and smoothed them out on the table. It was all too good-looking, too expensive to be a joke — these were real ads. After some searching he found the contents page and worked his way through the fine print, which he could read, until he came to the publisher's name: Saxon-Morris Publishers, Inc. They must have money because they were in the Saxon-Morris Building. He knew it, one of the new granite slabs on Park Avenue.

They weren't getting away with it! A spark of anger blazed bravely in Amos Cabot's thin bosom. He had made the Fifth Avenue Coach Company send him a letter of apology about the way that driver had talked to him on St. Patrick's Day. And the Triborough Automatic Drink Company had refunded him fifty cents in stamps for coins their machines had consumed without giving refreshment in return. Now Saxon-Morris was going to find out that they couldn't get away with it either!

It had been warm out, but March was a changeable month so he put on his heavy wool muffler. A couple of dollars should more than cover the costs of the excursion, bus fares, and a cup of tea in the Automat, so he took two wrinkled bills from behind the sugar can. Watch out, Saxon-Morris, you just watch out.

It was very difficult to see anyone at Saxon-Morris without an appointment. The girl with upswept red hair and layers of glazed makeup wasn't even sure that they had a magazine called Hereafter. There was a list of all the Saxon-Morris publications on the wall behind her red, kidney-shaped desk, but the gold letters on dark green marble were hard to read in the dim light. When he kept insisting she searched through a booklet of names and telephone numbers and finally, reluctantly, agreed that it was one of their magazines.

"I want to see the editor."

"Which editor is it you want to see?"

"Any editor, don't matter a damn." Her cold manner became even colder when the word touched her. "Might I ask your business?"

"That's my business. Let me see the editor."

It was more than an hour before she found someone whom he could see, or perhaps she just grew tired of his sitting there and glowering at her. After a number of muffled conversation she hung up the phone.

"If you just go through that door there, first turn to the right then up one half-flight, fourth door on the left, Mr. Mercer will see you. Room seven eighty-two."

Amos was instantly lost in the maze of passages and gray doors, but the second time he stumbled into a mail room one of the bored youths led him to 782. He pushed in without knocking.

"You Mercer, the editor of Hereafter?"

"Yes, I'm Mercer." He was a chubby man with a round face and rounder glasses, squeezed behind a desk that filled the end of the tiny and windowless office. "But this is circulation, not editorial. The girl at the front desk said you had a circulation problem."

"I got a problem all right — why you sending me your blasted magazine that I don't want?"

"Well — perhaps I can help you there. Which publication are you referring to. .?"

"Hereafter, that's the one."

"Yes, that's one in my group." Mercer opened two files before he found the right folder; then he scratched through it and came up with a sheet of paper. "I'm afraid I can't be of any help to you, Mr. Cabot, you must be on the free subscription list and we can't cancel them. Sorry."

"What do you mean, 'sorry'! I don't want the filthy thing and you better stop sending it!"

Mercer tried to be friendly and succeeded in conjuring up an artificial smile. "Let's be reasonable, Mr. Cabot, that's a high-quality magazine and you are receiving it for nothing; why a subscription costs ten dollars a year! If you have been lucky enough to be chosen for a free sub you shouldn't complain…"

"Who chose me for a free subscription? I didn't send anything in."

"No, you wouldn't have to. Your name probably appeared on one of the lists that we purchase from insurance companies, veterans' hospitals, and the like. Hereafter is one of our throwaway magazines.

Of course I don't mean that we throw them away, on the contrary they go to very selected subscribers — and we don't make our costs back from subscriptions but from the advertisers' fees. In a sense they underwrite the costs of these fine magazines, so you can say it is sort of a public service. For new mothers, for instance, we buy lists from all the hospitals and send out six-month subs of Your Baby, with some really fine advice and articles, and of course the ads, which are educational in themselves…"

"Well I'm no new mother. Why you sending me your rag?"

"Hereafter is a bit different from Your Baby, but is still a service publication. It's a matter of statistics, sir. Every day just so many people die, of certain ages and backgrounds and that kind of thing. The people in the insurance companies — actuaries I think they call them — keep track of all these facts and figures and draw up plenty of graphs and tables. Very accurate, they assure me. They have life expectancy down to a fine art. They take a man, say, like yourself, of a certain age, background, physical fitness, environment, and so on, and pinpoint the date of death very exactly. Not the day and hour and that kind of thing — I suppose they could if they wanted to — but for our purposes a period of two years is satisfactory. This gives us a number of months and issues to acquaint the subscriber with our magazine and the services offered by our advertisers, so by the time the subscriber dies the ad messages will have reached saturation."

"Are you telling me I'm going to die inside the next two years?" Amos shrieked hoarsely, flushing with anger.

"I'm not telling you, sir, no indeed!" Mercer drew away a bit and wiped some of the old man's spittle from his glasses with his handkerchief. "That is the actuaries' job. Their computer has come up with your name and sent it to me. They say you will die within two years. As a public service we sent you Hereafter. A service — nothing more."

"I ain't going to die in two years, not me! Not Amos Cabot!"

"That is entirely up to you, sir. My position here is just a routine one. Your subscription has been entered and will be canceled only when a copy is returned with the imprint 'Addressee Deceased.' "

"I'm not going to die!"

"That might possibly happen, though I can't recall any cases offhand. But since it is a two-year subscription I imagine it will expire automatically at the end of the second year, if not cancelled beforehand. Yes, that's what would happen."

It ruined Amos's day, and though the sun was shining warmly he never noticed it. He went home and thought so much about the whole thing that he couldn't sleep. The next day was no better and he began to wonder if this was part of the message the dreadful magazine had conveyed. If death was close by — they were so sure of it— why did he not relax and agree with them? Send in his will, order the plot, tomb, gravestone, Last Message forms, and quietly expire.

"No! They'll not do it to me!"

At first he thought he would wait for next month's copy and write "Addressee Deceased" and send it back to them, that would stop the copies coming sure enough. Then he remembered fat little Mercer and could see his happy expression when the cancellation crossed his desk. Right again, dead on schedule as always. Old fool should've known you can't lick statistics. Old fool indeed! He would show them. The Cabots were a long-lived family no matter what the records said, and a hardheaded one too. They weren't going to kill him off that easily.

After much wheedling he got in to see the doctor at his old union and talked him into making a complete and thorough physical checkup.

"Not bad, not bad at all for an old boy," the doctor told him while he was buttoning his shirt.

"I'm only eighty-two; that's not old."

"Of course it's not," the doctor said soothingly. "Just statistics, you know; a man of your age with your background…"

"I know all about those damned statistics; I didn't come to you for that. What's the report say?"

"You can't complain about your physical shape, Amos," he said, scanning the sheet. "Blood pressure looks all right, but you're leaning toward anemia. Do you eat much liver and fresh greens?"

"Hate liver. Greens cost too much."

"That's your choice. But remember — you can't take it with you. Spend some more money on food. Give your heart a break — don't climb too many stairs."

"I live three flights up; how do I avoid stairs?"

"That's your choice again. If you want to take care of the old ticker move to the ground floor. And vitamin D in the winter and…"

There was more, and after he had swallowed his first anger Amos made notes. There were food and vitamins and sleep and fresh air and a whole list of nonsense as long as your arm. But there was also the two-year subscription of Hereafter, so he bent back over his notes.

Without his realizing why, the next months passed quickly. He was busy, finding a room on the ground floor, changing his eating habits, getting settled in his new place. At first he used to throw out Hereafter whenever its gloomy bulk shadowed his mail slot, but when a year had passed he grew bolder. There was an ad for mausoleums and one of the finest had a big tag on it labeled in RESERVED FOR Yoy. "NOT FOR ME!!!" he scrawled above and tore it from the magazine and mounted it on the wall. He followed it with other pictures, friendly gravediggers beckoning toward raw openings in the earth, cut-to-order coffins with comfortable padding, and all the rest. When eighteen months had passed he enjoyed himself throwing darts at "A Photograph of the Founder of Incino-Top-Rate, the Urn for Eternity" and carefully checked off the passing days on the calendar.

Only in the final few months did he begin to worry. He felt fine and the union doctor congratulated him for being a great example, but this didn't matter. Were the actuaries right — had his time almost run out? He could have worried himself to death, but that was not the way Cabots died! He would face this out and win.

First there were weeks left, then only days. The last five days before the copy was due he locked himself in his room and had the delicatessen send up food. It was expensive but he wasn't going to risk any accidents in the street, not now. He had received his twenty-four copies and his subscription should have expired. The next morning would tell. He could not fall asleep at all that night, even though he knew that regular sleep was important, but just lay there until the sky brightened. He dozed for a bit then, but woke up as soon as he heard the postman's footsteps outside. This was the day. Would the magazine be there? His heart was pounding and he made himself go slow as he got into the bathrobe. His room was the first on the ground floor, right next to the entrance, and all he had to do was step out into the hall and open the front door.

"Morning," he said to the postman.

"Yeah," the man answered, slinging his heavy bag around and digging into it. Amos closed the door first, then feverishly went through the mail.

It wasn't there.

He had won!

If this was not the happiest day in his life it was close to it. Besides this, his victories over the bus company and the coin-machine crooks were nothing. This was a war won, not a battle. He'd licked them, licked their statistics and actuaries, accountants, mechanical brains, card files, clerks, and editors. He had won! He went out and drank a beer, the first one in two years, — then another. Laughed and talked with the gang at the bar. He had won! He fell into bed late and slept like a log until he was dragged awake by his landlady knocking on the door.

"Mail for you, Mr. Cabot. Mail."

Fear gripped him, then slowly ebbed away. It couldn't be. In two years Hereafter had never been late once, not one day. It must be some other mail — though this wasn't his check day. He slowly opened the door and took the large envelope, his grip so loose that it almost fell from his fingers.

Only when he had laid it on the bed did he breathe naturally again — it wasn't Hereafter in its vile blue envelope; this one was a gentle pink. It did contain a magazine though, just about the size of Hereafter, a bulky magazine with lots of pages. Its title was Senility— and the black letters were drawn in such a way that they looked as though they were made of cracked and crumbling stone — and underneath it said The Magazine of Geri-ART-trics. There was a picture of a feeble old man in a wheelchair with a blanket around his shoulders, sucking water through a curved glass tube. Inside was more. Ads for toilet chairs and hemorrhoid cushions, crutches and crank beds, articles on "Learn Braille When the Eyesight Goes," and "Happy Though Bedridden.” and "Immobile for Twenty-five Years." A letter dropped out of the magazine and he half-read phrases here and there.

Welcome to the family. . the magazine of geri-ART-trics that teaches you the art of growing old. . many long years ahead of you. . empty years. . what happiness to find a copy in your mailbox every month. . speaking book edition for the blind. . Braille for the blind and deaf. . every month. .

There were tears in his eyes when he looked up. It was dark, a rainy and cold April morning with the wind rattling the window. Raindrops ran down the glass like great, cold tears.

The Gods Themselves Throw Incense

One instant the spaceship Yuri Gagarin was a thousand-foot-long projectile of gleaming metal, the next it was a core of flame and expanding gas, torn fragments and burning particles. Seventy-three people died at that moment, painlessly and suddenly. The cause of the explosion will never be determined since all the witnesses were killed while the pieces of wreckage that might have borne evidence were hurtling away from each other towards the corners of infinity. If there had been any outside witness, there in space, he would have seen the gas cloud grow and disperse while the pieces of twisted metal, charred bodies, burst luggage and crushed machines moved out and away from each other. Each had been given its own velocity and direction by the explosion and, though some fragments traveled on a parallel course for a time, individual differences in speed and direction eventually showed their effect until most fragments of the spatial debris rushed on alone through the immensity of space. Some of the larger pieces had companions: a book of radio-frequency codes orbited the ragged bulk of the ship's reactor, held in position by the gravitic attraction of its mass. Farther away the gape-mouthed, wide-eyed corpse of the assistant purser clutched the soft folds of a woman's dress in its frozen hands. But the unshielded sun scorched the fibers of the cloth while the utter dryness of space desiccated it, until it powdered and tore and centrifugal force pushed it slowly away. It was obviously impossible for anyone to have survived the explosion, but the blind workings of chance that kill may save as well.

There were three people in the emergency capsule and one, the woman, was still unconscious, having struck her head when the ship erupted. One of the two men was in a state of shock, his limbs hanging limply while his thoughts went round and round incessantly like a toy train on a circular track. The other man was tearing at the seal of a plastic flask of vodka.

"All the American ships carry brandy," he said as he stripped off a curl of plastic, then picked at the cap with his nails. "British ships stock whiskey in their medical kits, which is the best idea, but I had to pull this tour on a Russian ship. So look what we get—" His words were cut off as he raised the flask to his mouth and drank deeply.

"Thirty thousand pounds in notes," Damian Brayshaw said thickly. "Thirty thousand pounds. . good God. . they can't hold me responsible." One heel drummed sluggishly against the padded side of the capsule and moved him away from it a few inches. He drifted slowly back. Even though his features were flaccid with shock, and his white skin even paler now, with a waxen hue, it could be seen that he was a handsome man. His hair, black and cut long, had burst free of its careful dressing and hung in lank strands down his forehead and in front of his eyes. He raised his hand to brush at it, but never completed the motion.

"You want a drink, chum?" the other man asked, holding out the flask-. "I think you need it, chum, knock it back."

"Brayshaw. . Damian Brayshaw," he said, as he took the bottle. He coughed over a mouthful of the raw spirit and for the first time his attention wandered from the lost money, and he noticed the other's dark green uniform with the gold tabs on the shoulders. "You're a spaceman… a ship's officer."

"Correct. You've got great eyesight. I'm Second Lieutenant Cohen. You can call me Chuck. I'll call you Damian."

"Lieutenant Cohen, can you tell—"

"Chuck."

"— can you tell me what happened? I'm a bit confused." His actions matched his words as his eyes roamed over the curved, padded wall of the closed deadlight, to the wire-cased bulb then back down to the row of handles labeled with incomprehensible Cyrillic characters.

"The ship blew up," Lieutenant Cohen said tonelessly, but his quick pull at the flask belied the casualness of his words. Years of service in space had carved the deep wrinkles at the corners of his eyes and grayed the barely seen stubble of his shaven head, yet no amount of service could have prepared him to accept casually the loss of his ship. "Have some more of this," he said, passing over the vodka flask. "We have to finish it. Blew up, that's all I knew, just blew up. I had the lock of this capsule open, inspection check, I got knocked halfway through it. You were going by, so I grabbed you and pushed you in, don't you remember?"

Damian hesitated in slow thought, then shook his head no.

"Well, I did. Grabbed you, then the girl, she was lying on the deck out cold. Just as I stuffed her in I heard the bulkhead blowing behind me so I climbed in right on top of her. Vacuum sucked the inner hatch shut even before I could touch it."

"The others. .?"

"Dead, Damian boy, every single one. Sole survivors, that's us."

Damian gasped. "You can't be sure," he said.

"I'm sure. I watched from the port. Torn to pieces. Blew up. The blast scaled off the chunk of ship we were in just long enough for us to get into this can. Even then there wouldn't have been enough time if I hadn't had the lid open and knew the drill. Don't expect those kind of odds to pay off twice in a lifetime."

"Will anyone find us?" There was a faint tremor in his voice. Chuck shrugged.

"No telling. Give me back the booze before you squeeze the bottle out of shape."

"You can send a message, there must be a radio in this thing."

Chuck gasped happily after a throat-destroying drink and held the almost empty flask up to the light. "Save a little to bring the girl around. You must have been out on your feet, Damian lad, you lay right there all the time watching me send the SOS. I stopped just as soon as I tried the receiver."

"I don't remember. It must have been the shock — but why did you stop transmitting? I don't understand."

Chuck bent and pulled at one of the handles below them. The padded lid lifted to reveal the controls of a compact transceiver. He flipped a switch and a waterfall-like roar filled the tiny space, then was silenced as he turned it off and closed the lid. Damian shook his head.

"What does that mean?" he asked. "Solar flare. Storm on the sun. We can never push a signal through that kind of interference. All we can do is hold our water until it stops. Say, it looks like our girlfriend is coming around."

They both turned to look at her where she lay on the padded wall of the capsule, Damian's eyes widening as he realized for the first time just how attractive she was. Her hair was deep, flaming red, lovely even in the tangled disarray that framed her face. Only the ugly bruise on her forehead marred the pink smoothness of her skin, and her figure was lush, clearly defined by the tight-bodiced, full-skirted dress. The skirt had ridden up, almost to her waist, revealing graceful and supple legs and black-lace sequined undergarments.

"Really," Damian said, putting his hand out, then pulling it back. "It's not right. Shouldn't we. . adjust her garments?"

"Help yourself," Chuck smiled. "But I was enjoying it. I've never seen — what do you call them? knickers — quite like that before. Very fancy." But he was pulling her skirt down even as he said it. Her head turned and she moaned.

"Can she be badly hurt?" Damian asked. "Have you done anything for her?"

"I have no idea, and no, in that order. Unless you're a doctor—"

"No, I'm not."

"— there is nothing we can do. So I let her sleep. When she conies to I'll give her a slug of this paint remover. Never give drink to anyone unconscious, it could get in the lungs, First Aid Course 3B, Space Academy."

Both men watched, silently, as her eyelids slowly opened, disclosing gray, lovely eyes that moved their gaze across their faces and about the cramped interior of the capsule. Then she began to scream, emptying her lungs in a single spasm of sound then gasping them full again only to repeat the terrified sound. Chuck let her do this three times before he cracked her across the face with his open hand leaving an instant red imprint on the fairness of her skin. The screams broke off and she began to sob.

"You shouldn't—" Damian began.

'"Of course I should," Chuck said. "Medicinal. She got it out of her system and now she's having a good cry. I'm Chuck.” he told the girl, "and this is Damian. What's your name?"

"What happened to us? Where are we?"

"Chuck and Damian. What's yours?"

"Please tell me. I'm Helena Tyblewski. What happened?"

"I know you, at least I've heard of you," Damian said. "You're with the Polish artists at Mooncenter—"

"Socialities later, boy. We're in an emergency capsule, Helena, in good shape. We have water, food, oxygen — and a radio to call for help. I'm telling you that so you'll realize how well off we are compared to the others aboard the Yuri. There was an accident. Everyone else is dead."

"And. . what will happen to us?"

"A good question. You can help me find out. Drain this vodka bottle, I need the empty flask. And let me have your shoes — yours too, Damian."

"What are you talking about? What for?" Chuck began to loosen the wing nuts that held the deadlight sealed in place.

"A fair question," he said. "Since I'm the only member of the ship's company present, I'm automatically in command. But we're a little too cramped here for me to pull rank, so I'll tell you what I know and what I want to do. When the accident happened we were, roughly, a quarter of the way from the moon to Earth. Where we are now I have no idea, and it is important that I find out."

The deadlight came free and he swung it to one side, disclosing the capsule's single porthole. Outside, the stars cut ribbons of white light across the darkness, while the Earth made a wider, greenish band.

"As you can see we are rotating about the major axis of this thermos bottle. I'll need star sights to plot our position, which means we have to slow down or stop this thing. Luckily the outer hatch opening faces the direction of motion, so anything ejected from it will slow us down. The more the mass and the greater the speed of ejection, the more retardation we'll get. There isn't much surplus to throw away in one of these capsules, that's why I want your shoes. The temperature controls work fine, so you won't need them. Okay?"

There were no arguments. Their shoes went into the lock along with the empty flask, some of the padding from the wall, and all the other small items that could be accumulated. Chuck sealed the inner hatch and pumped in oxygen from the tanks to raise the pressure as high as possible. When he threw the handle that opened the latch on the outer door, the capsule seemed to start spinning around them and they tumbled together against the wall.

"Sorry," Damian said, reddening as he realized that his arms were around Helen and he was lying on top of her. She smiled as they drifted away from the padding and there was suddenly no up and down as they floated in free fall. Chuck frowned at the stars moving leisurely by the port.

"That should be good enough to get some sightings. If not, we can jettison some more junk."

He undipped his comparison dectant from the holder on his belt and pointed it out of the port, squinting through it. "That is going to take a while," he said, "so relax. With this gadget I can measure the angular distance of up to five astronomical objects; it will remember the angles and its tiny, microminiaturized brain can even do some of the basic computations. But it will still take time. So let's trade confidences, get to know each other, real chummy if you get what I mean. Me, I'm the simple one. Bronx High School, Columbia, the Academy — then the moon run ever since. What about you, Helena? Our limey friend said you were an artiste. A singer? Going to let us have an aria or two?"

Helena compressed her lips. "I am not that sort of artiste. I create— the newest and most expressive art form, light mobiles."

"I've seen them," Chuck said, sighting on another star. "They always hurt my eyes and give me a headache. What about you, Damian, are you a bank robber or an embezzler?"

"Sir!"

"Well don't blame me for asking, not after all that mumbling you were doing about thirty thousand pounds, gone, gone."

Damian clutched his hands together, tightly. "I'm with the British embassy. It was currency, in my charge. I was transferring it back to Earth. Now it's gone…"

Chuck laughed. "Don't be an idiot. It's just paper, it's been destroyed. They'll just write it off and print some more."

Damian smiled sheepishly. "You're right, of course. I never stopped to think of that after the accident. Stupid of me."

"We all have our bad days. Now talk to yourselves for a couple of minutes while I run these figures through the meat grinder."

The conversation lagged while he pecked at the tiny computer. As the first shock of the tragedy faded, the other two began to feel the pressing loneliness of their position. Once they stopped talking the only sound was the almost inaudible hum of the air-circulating fan, and the occasional click of the computer. The naked bulb shone down, the stars drifted by in the blackness of the port. They were warm and comfortable in their capsule. Six feet by twelve feet inside. A container of comfort, one man wide and two men high, packed with the necessities to sustain life. Yet two inches away, on the other side of the insulated wall, was the endless emptiness of space.

"That's that," Chuck said, and slipped the dectant back into its sheath. "Now let's see what the chow is like in this commie canister." The others almost smiled at the welcome hoarseness of his voice.

"What about your figures? Where are we?" Helena asked.

"I have no idea," Chuck said, throwing back a large padded lid in the end of the capsule. "That's not exactly correct. I have a reading that places us somewhere between the Earth and the moon. But I wasn't on the bridge and I have no idea where we were before the explosion. So we'll wait awhile, at least an hour, then I'll shoot some more sights. Comparing the two positions should give us an idea of our course and speed. Anyone thirsty?" He reached in and removed one of the containers of water that were ranked like giant bullets in a clip.

"I will take some, please," Helena said.

"Just suck it through the teat in the end…"

"I have drunk it free fall before, thank you."

"Sorry, sweetheart, I forgot you were an old space hand. Something to eat with it?" He withdrew a flat, brownish package and frowned at it. "Looks like a cardboard deck of cards. Can anyone here read Russian better than I can?"

"I'm sure I can," Helena said, taking the package and glancing at it briefly. "These are latkes, it says so clearly on the outside."

"Dehydrated potato pancakes…" he choked out. "I'm beginning to think the rest of the people in the Yuri were the lucky ones."

"Not even in jest," Damian said. "Touch wood when you say that."

"I doubt if there is any in this capsule, if you don't count the latkes."

When they had finished, Chuck counted the stores, then opened another lid to check the reading on the meter attached to the oxygen tanks. He tried the radio again, but there was only the waterfall of static. At the end of an hour he did his observations once more, then computations.

"Well, I'll be damned.” he said.

"Is something wrong?" Damian asked.

"Let me check again."

Only after he had done everything a third time did he speak to them. There was no humor in his voice now.

"I'll lay it right on the line. We're in trouble. We had the luck to be behind the explosion — in relation to the ship's direction of travel, that is — and it had the effect of canceling a good part of our momentum."

"I don't understand what you are talking about." Helena said firmly.

"Then I'll simplify it. If the ship hadn't blown it would have reached Earth in about two days. But this capsule doesn't have the same speed anymore. It's going to be three to four weeks before we get near enough to Earth to send a message and be picked up."

"So what is wrong with that? It will be uncomfortable certainly, the lack of privacy here with you two men—"

"Will you let me finish? It will be more than uncomfortable, it will be deadly. We have food — though we could go without eating for that long. The water is recycled so there is no shortage there. But these capsules are too small to carry CO₂ regenerations. Our oxygen will run out in about two weeks. We'll be a week dead before we can send a message that anyone can hear and act on."

"Is there no way out?" Damian asked. "I don't know. If we—"

"This is nonsense!" Helena burst in. "We can radio the moon, Earth, they'll send ships."

"It's not that easy," Chuck said. "I know what ships there are on the moon and I know their range. We're practically outside their zone of operation now, not forgetting the fact that we can't even contact them. If the solar storm lasts even a few hours more we have to write them off. They won't even be able to pick up our signals by that time. After that it is the long haul to Earth, contacting one of the satellite stations, waiting while they plot our position and a ship can reach us. Three weeks absolute minimum, probably four."

Helena began to cry then, and he didn't try to stop her. It was something to cry about. He waited until she had finished and then, since neither of the others had seemed to see the obvious answer, he told them, in a flat and toneless voice.

"The amount of air that three people breathe in two weeks is the same amount that two people breathe in three weeks. It might even last a little longer with proper care,"

There was a long moment of silence before Damian spoke. "You do realize what you are saying? There is no other way out of this?"

"I've gone over everything, every possibility. This is the only way that some of us stand a chance. Sure death for three. A fifty-fifty chance for two. Not good odds, but better than no odds."

"But — someone will have to die to give the others a chance to live?"

"Yes, putting it simply, that's the way it will have to be."

Damian took a deep breath. "And the one to die won't be you. You're needed to navigate and to work the radio—"

"Not at all. Though I confess to a sneaking wish that it really were that way. The navigation is done. It will take me about ten minutes to show you both how to operate the radio and call for help. There is unlimited power from the solar cells so the signal can go out continuously once the solar storm is over."

"That is — well — very decent of you. You could have told us differently and we would have believed you. Makes it a bit easier on me, if you know what I mean. For a moment there, with Miss Ty-blewski out of it it looked like I was going to be the reluctant volunteer. So it is you or I…"

"No, one of the three of us," Chuck said.

"I'm sorry, you can't possibly mean that a woman—"

"I can and do. This is no game, Damian, of women and children first into the lifeboat. This is death, one hundred percent certain that I am talking about. All lives are equal. We are all in this together. I'm sure Helena appreciates your gesture, but I don't think she is the kind of person who wants to take advantage of it. Am I right?" he asked, turning to the girl.

"You're a pig," she hissed. "A fat, stupid pig."

"I'm wrong," Chuck said flatly, facing Damian. "I'll issue the order and take the responsibility. You can both sign it as witnesses, under protest if you like…"

"You want to kill me, I know, to save yourself," Helena shouted. "You don't care—"

"Please, don't," Damian said, taking her by the arms, but she shook him off, pushing him so hard he hit the opposite side of the capsule.

"Who do you think you are to set yourself up as a judge of life and death!"

"I am the officer in charge of this vessel," Chuck said in a voice of great weariness. "There are rules and orders for this sort of occasion and I am on my oath to follow them. This is the correct procedure, an equal chance for all to survive, no favoritism."

"You are just using that for an excuse."

"You are welcome to think so. However, I agree with the rule and think it the only just one…"

"I'll have nothing to do with it."

"That is your choice. But the results are binding on you whether you partake or not." He looked over at Darnian who, white-faced, had been listening silently. "You talk to her, Darnian, perhaps she'll listen to you. Or do you agree with her?"

"I… really don't know. It is so hard to say. But we… that is, there isn't much choice really."

"None," Chuck said.

It was something Damian would never have considered doing before, putting his arms about a girl whom he had just met, but everything was very different now. He held her and she leaned against him and sobbed and it was very natural for both of them.

"Let's get this over with," Chuck said, "the worst thing we can do is wait. And we'd all better agree beforehand what is going to happen. I have three identical squares of plastic here, and I've marked one of them with an X. Take a look at them. And three pieces of brown wrapper from this food pack. You do it, Damian, twist a piece of wrapper around each square, twist each one the same way so they can't be told apart. Now shake them up in your cupped hands so you don't know which is which. All right. Let them float right there in the middle where we can all see them."

Damian opened his cupped hands and the three twists of plastic drifted in free fall. One floated away from the others and he prodded it back into position. They all stared, they could not help themselves, fixedly and intently at the tiny scraps of destiny.

"Here's what will happen next," Chuck said. "We'll each take one. I'll draw last. I have a pill in my belt, it's standard spacer gear, and whoever draws the piece with the X takes the pill six hours from now—" he looked at his watch—"at exactly 1900 hours. Is it understood and agreed? This is it. There is no going back or mind-changing later. Now and forever. Agreed?"

Tight-lipped, Damian only gave a quick nod. Helena said or did nothing, beyond flashing Chuck a look of utter hatred.

"It is agreed then," he said. "The pill is instantaneous and absolutely painless. Here we go. Helena, do you want to draw first?"

"No," she said unbelievingly. "You can't…"

"We have no other choice, do we," Damian told her, and managed to smile. "Here, let me draw first. You can have the second one."

"Don't open it," Chuck said as Damian reached out and took the nearest one. "Go ahead, Helena, none of us is enjoying this."

She did not move until Chuck shrugged and reached for a wrapped marker himself. Then her hand lashed out and she clutched the one he had been about to take. "That's mine.” she said.

"Whatever you say." Chuck smiled wryly and took the remaining one. "Open them up.” he said.

The others did not move, so he carefully unwrapped his and held up the square. It was blank on both sides. Helena gasped.

"Well, I'm next I imagine.” Damian said and slowly unfolded his. He looked at it, then quickly closed his fist.

"We have to see it too," Chuck told him. Damian slowly opened his hand to show a blank. "I knew it would be a trick!" Helena screamed and threw hers from her. Damian caught it when it rebounded from the wall, opened it at arm's length to reveal the scrawled black X.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, not looking at her. "I think we need a drink," Chuck told them as he twisted about to burrow in one of the lockers. "There are at least four more liters of vodka stowed down here with the water jugs, for some obscure Russian reason, and now is the time we can use them."

Damian took a deep breath so his voice wouldn't shake when he talked. "I'm sorry, I can't go along with this. If we come out of this I couldn't live with myself. I think I had better take Helena's place…"

"No!" Chuck Cohen said, outwardly angry for the first time. "It invalidates everything, all the choosing. You've put your life on the line — isn't that enough? Death hits by chance in space, the way it hit the others on the ship and missed us. It has hit again. The matter is closed." He pulled out a container and started the party by drinking a good fifth of it in one gulp.

Perhaps that was why the vodka was there. Helena, still unbelieving, drank because it was handed to her by the two men who could not look her in the eye. It numbed. If you drank enough it numbed.

The stars slipped by outside the uncovered port, the thermostat kept the temperature at a comfortable twenty-two degrees centigrade and the fan hummed as it circulated the air, pumping in metered amounts of the oxygen, each minute lowering the infinitely precious level in the tanks.

"Lower metabolism…" Chuck said, then closed his eyes so he wouldn't see the spinning walls of the capsule — nor the two others who were at the end of the capsule, as far as they could get from him. We found his mouth with the flask and sucked in a burning measure of the liquid. "Metabolism is oxidation and we gotta save oxygen, eat, eat less, burn less. Go three weeks without food. Good for the figure. Lie down. Move less, burn less. . oxygen…" His grumbling voice died away and the plastic flask floated free of his limp fingers.

"No, no, I can't," Helena sobbed and held to Damian. She had drunk little, but fear had affected her even more strongly.

"No, you shouldn't, shouldn't," Damian said and drank again because he did not know what to do. He bent to kiss her hair and somehow had his lips against the tear-cold dampness of her cheek, then on the full warmth of her mouth.

She was suddenly aware of him. Her lips responded and her arms were about him, her body pressing against him, her legs thrusting. They floated freely in the air, rotating slowly locked in tight embrace.

"I want you, I don't want to die, I can't, I can't," Helena sobbed and took his hand, putting it inside her dress onto the bare, warm firmness of her breast. "Help me, help me…"

Damian kissed her in a roaring wave of sensation. He knew that the spaceman was there, unconscious, only feet away, yet he didn't care. The escape from the wreck, the unbearable tension of gambling with his own life, the amount he had drunk, the closeness of death, the passion of the woman's flesh against his, all of this combined to wipe away everything except the burning awareness of her presence and the rising passion she evoked.

"Come to me, I need you," she whispered in his ear, then took it hard between her teeth. "I can't die. Why should I? He wants it, that pig. Only he wants it. He wants death, why can't he die? Why didn't he leave me in the ship? He gave me my life and now he will take it away again. And you too, you'll see, after me he'll find a way to kill you. What does he need either of us for? You can't believe a thing he said, why should we? He's brutal, deadly, a monster. He's going to kill me. You want me and he is going to kill me."

"Helena…" he whispered, as his flesh touched hers.

"No!" she wailed, and pushed him from her. He did not understand. He pressed forward again but she held him from her. "No, I cannot, I want to, but I cannot. Not with him here, not before I die. But I do want you…"

Then she was gone, and when he turned to look for her he became dizzy and saw her bending over the end of the capsule. Time moved strangely, too fast, yet slow at the same time. She was gone a long time, yet she was suddenly back and putting something cold into his hand.

"Take this," she whispered, "it's from the medical kit. I can't do it, you must. Someone must die. He must die, you can do it. He is the biggest. Do it then come back to me. I'll be here, I'll be with you always, just do this for me."

Blinking, Damian looked down at the glittering scalpel on his palm, at her hand closing his fingers over it. "Do it!" she breathed and pulled him, drifting, the length of the tiny space until he hung over the snoring spaceman. ''DO IT!" the voice said and, not knowing quite what he was doing or why, he raised his fist high.

"There!" her voice said and her finger swam before him touching the sleeping man on the side of the neck, just on a thick and pulsing artery.

"Do it!" Her lips touched moistly down his face and in a sudden spasm he struck down at the bare flesh.

It was the bellow of a wounded beast. Sober, awake in the instant, with the pain tearing red fingers into his neck. Chuck reared up, lashing out with his hands. The scalpel was plunged an inch deep into his flesh, lodged in the thick mastoid muscle of his neck, bleeding floating red spheres into the air.

His hands clutched Damian and, still roaring with agony, he began to beat him as only a spacer knows how to do, holding one hand behind his head so he could not recoil away while the other fist pounded and crushed his face. Damian fought back, trying to escape the pain, but there was no escape. As they battled Helena's voice shattered about them.

"He tried to kill you, Chuck, he wanted me but I told him no. So he tried to kill you while you slept. A coward! Rape me, he tried. . kill him. . put him out of the ship. Here, the port!"

She pushed over to the airlock and opened the inner port as she had seen him do earlier. The lock was just big enough for a man. "In here!" she screeched.

Her words came through Chuck's anger and fitted it, telling him what he really wanted to do. Holding the other by the throat he spun him across the capsule and began to jam him, struggling into the tiny space. The scalpel fell from his neck and slow droplets bubbled in its wake.

Damian's body went suddenly limp and Chuck pushed in the legs and then a dangling arm.

"No, you don't have to force me," Damian said quietly. "It's all right now. I'll go. I deserve it."

Something of the man's tones penetrated Chuck's rage and he hesitated, blinking at the other.

"It's only fair," Damian said. "I attacked you, I admit that, tried to kill you. It doesn't matter that she used herself to make me do it, promised everything — then helped you when she saw I hadn't succeeded. There was something in me that let me do it…"

"Don't believe him, he's lying!" Helena wailed.

''No, I have no reason to lie. I'm taking your place, Helena, so at least don't vilify me. I tried to kill him for you — and for myself."

"She wanted you to do this?" Chuck said thickly, blinking through his pain.

"You both want me dead," she screamed, then tore at the heavy computer on Chuck's belt. He groped for it as she pulled it loose, and was only half turned towards her when heavy pain and blackness crushed against his skull.

"About time you came around," Damian said. "Drink this." Chuck felt the bandage on his neck when he bent to put the spout to his lips. He looked around the room while he sucked in the water. "How long have I been out?" he asked.

"About nine hours. You lost some blood and you have a hole in your head."

"There are just two of us here?"

"That's right," Damian said, and the smile was gone now. "Maybe I figured this wrong, but it's over and done now. I tried to kill you. I didn't succeed and — fairly enough — you tried to kill me right back. But neither of us managed to finish the job. Maybe I'm thinking wrong, but I feel the score is even now and no recriminations."

"You don't hear me complaining. And Helena?"

Damian looked uncomfortable. "Well. . the six hours were almost up. And she did agree on the drawing. And she did lose. She attacked me with the scalpel. I'm afraid your computer was completely smashed. I had to dispose of it."

"The insurance will replace it," Chuck said hoarsely. "God, my neck hurts. Head, too."

"Do you think we'll make it?" Damian asked.

"The odds are a hell of a lot better now than they were nine hours ago."

"Yes, one could say that. Perhaps the powers that be have been propitiated by Miss Tyblewski's noble gesture. Upon such sacrifices. . the gods themselves throw incense." He looked out, unseeing, at the blackness beyond the port. "Do you think that should we get out of this, we should, well, mention Helena. .?"

"Helena who?" Chuck said. "Seventy-four people died when the Yuri Gagarin blew. We're the sole survivors."

You Men of Violence

"I hate you, Raver.” the captain shouted, his strained face just inches away, "and I know you must hate me too."

" 'Hate' is too strong a word.” the big man said quietly. "I think 'despise' is much better."

There was no advance warning of the blow — the captain was too good a fighter for that — just the sudden jab that drove his fist into the other's stomach. Raver's only reaction was a slight and condescending grin. This infuriated the captain, who, though a head shorter than Raver, was still over six feet tall, and he expected some reaction other than scorn from the people he hit. In a blind rage he pummeled the other's unresisting form until Raver, leaking blood from nose and mouth, fell across the captain's desk, then slid limply to the floor.

"Get this carrion out," the captain ordered, rubbing at his bruised knuckles. "And clean up this filth." There were smears of blood across the surface of the desk, and everything on it had been swept to the floor when Raver fell. The captain realized then that the blood was on him too and he dabbed at it distastefully with the kerchief from his sleeve. Still, there was some satisfaction in seeing the half-conscious bulk being carried from the room. "Now who is smiling," he shouted after them, then went out himself to wash and change.

Though the captain did not know it yet, he was the loser. From the moment he had boarded the prison ship two weeks earlier, Raver had been planning this encounter. All of his actions, his earlier confrontations with the captain, the hunger strike when the Phreban had been tortured — every bit of it had been planned with this final scene in mind. Raver had pushed the buttons, the captain had reacted as planned, and Raver had won. He leaned against the metal wall of his cell, clutching tightly the pencil-sized communicator that was concealed by his giant fist. When he had fallen across the desk he had palmed it. This was the reason for everything he had done.

Sighing heavily, Raver slumped to the floor and rolled over on his side. It was no accident that his back was to the glass eye of the monitor pickup, or that the barred door of his cell was in sight. Unobserved — and safe from surprise visitors — he allowed himself to smile as he set to work.

He had only a single tool, a nail which he had hidden in his boot sole and filed flat against the metal side of his bunk during the night. The squared tip now made a tiny screwdriver. His hand was a vise and his fingernails pliers and wrench. It was enough. There was no one still alive who knew Raver's real name, or anything about his earlier life before he went into crime and politics, and he certainly did not look like a typical microtechnician. Yet that was what he was, and a highly skilled one as well. The case of the communicator sprang open under his touch and the delicate leaves of the circuits fanned out. He went to work. There were only a few hours left to setdown and he needed all of them.

With infinite patience he disassembled the components, then rejoined them in new circuitry of his own design. He struck an arc from the tiny battery to solder the connections, and could only hope that enough power remained to operate his device. It took a fraction over three hours to construct and for all of that time he lay still, with just his hands moving, an apparently unconscious bulk to the watchers in the prisoner control center. Only when the work was done did he permit himself to groan and stretch and to climb shakily to his feet. As he went to the barred door he stumbled, then held to the bars with one hand and pressed his forehead against the cool metal. In the preceding weeks he had stood this way for a good part of the waking day, so it was not considered unusual.

His right hand, shielded by his body, slid the wire probe into the opening of the lock while he slowly turned the knob on the variable capacitor.

An RF lock is theoretically pickproof, but that is just theory. In practice a trained technician can cause the circuit to resonate at the keying frequency, which is what Raver did. A needle flickered briefly, and he made careful adjustments until it jumped across the dial and up against its stop. This was the operating frequency. Then he went to the sink and cleaned some of the blood from his face and at the same time reversed connections so that the probe became a transmitter. He was ready.

When the hooters sounded the two-minute warning for strapping down he paused for a moment at the door before going to his cot, which served double duty as an acceleration couch. The device had worked: he had felt the click as the electronic actuator had opened the lock. The door was open. Just before the landing rockets flared he pulled up his blanket and rolled over on his side to face the wall.

The rear jets kicked hard with three G's and the webbing of the bed stretched and creaked while Raver pulled himself slowly to his feet. This was the only time he could be sure that the guards in the prison control center would not be watching him. While they were fighting the deceleration he had to do what must be done. One shuffling step at a time he lurched his way across the cell, the muscles in his legs knotted and rock hard. The stool's three metal legs were welded to the floor and he had examined them and felt their thickness days "earlier. Dropping heavily to his knees he seized the nearest leg in both hands, tensed his body — then pulled. The leg broke free with a sharp crack, and the other two were detached the same way. Then a slow shuffle back to the bed, onto which he put the stool and pulled the blanket over it. The ruse would not bear close examining, but it had to fool the watching guard on the screens for only a brief time. Back across the cell to the door, through it, close it, lock it, and down the passageway. His knees crumpled as more jets cut in for landing, five G's or more, but Raver continued on his hands and knees. He could move about safely only as long as the rockets were firing. When they cut out the crewmen and guards would unstrap and come out and he would be caught. Painfully and slowly he dragged himself across the passageway to the connecting ladder and began to work his way down.

The jets stopped when he was halfway to the bottom. He let go of the ladder and dropped.

Since the gravity on Houdt is less than Earth normal and because the fall was only fifteen feet, Raver did not injure himself, although he landed heavily. He rolled and crashed into the door with his shoulder as he came to his feet, throwing it open. Then he was through and running, heading for the spacesuit locker. All around him he knew men were unstrapping themselves and rising, on their way. A door opened as he passed it and there was the sudden loud murmur of voices. Someone started through it — then turned to say something.

Raver hit the door of the locker, went through and closed it, and leaned against it.

There was no alarm. Neither was there any time to waste. He took a long, shuddering breath, ignored his aching muscles, and turned to the racked space suits. The largest one, with its flexible fabric stretched to the limit, made a snug fit and he pulled it on. If he closed the helmet it would draw instant attention inside the ship — but if he left it open he would be instantly recognized. But the extra oxygen tanks would shield his face and serve a double purpose. The large refill tanks weighed over a hundred pounds apiece, so he did not dare take more than two. Carrying more might draw attention. He had to go left so he swung the tanks onto his right shoulder and pushed the door open. When he went out he walked with his shoulder almost brushing the wall, and the tanks shielded his face from view.

Footsteps passed him, but he was not stopped. He went down two decks and saw the guard on the emergency airlock just as the alarms sounded. Raver walked on steadily, neither faster nor slower, though the guard jumped nervously and slipped his rifle from his shoulder and held it at port arms.

"What is it? What's happened?" he called to Raver, then turned to look down the connecting corridor. The pulsating hooters split the air. "Who are you?" the guard asked when Raver came closer. It was only then, far too late, that he tried to bring his rifle to bear.

Raver reached out with his free hand and took the man by the throat so he could not shout a warning, then pulled him close so he could not use the gun. One long finger moved up to the artery under the guard's ear and clamped down, cutting off the flow of blood to the brain. The man struggled helplessly for a few seconds, then slumped, unconscious. Raver was careful to lay him gently on the deck before he stripped him of weapon and munition pouches, slung the rifle over his shoulder and opened the airlock. There were shouts behind him as he closed and dogged it shut, but he ignored them.

"Get him," the captain ordered, his face suffused with blood. "Bring him back to me. Kill him only if you must, because I want to see him die. Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir," Lieutenant N'Ness said, keeping his face expressionless. "I'll need a squad of the most fit men to go with me."

"You have them. What do you plan to do?"

N'Ness snapped open a map and spread it on the desk. He was a career soldier and after this tour of field duty he was returning to staff college. He explained with professional brevity and clarity.

"The ship is here, near the base of the cliff, within the usual landing area. Raver can gain nothing by going toward the prison mines here — and in fact all the observers place him on an eighty-six-degree course toward the foothills here. This makes sense. The nearest mining settlement — other than the prison — is here, on the other side of the mountains. It is operated by Puliaans."

"The devil!"

"Exactly. If Raver reaches them they will give him sanctuary and there is nothing that we can do about it."

"I know what I would like to do…" the captain mumbled, clenching his fist.

"You're not the only one," Lieutenant N'Ness said. "But Puliaa has three times our population and five times our industrial capacity. There is nothing that we can do."

"Yet. Someday though…"

"To be sure. Meanwhile, the escaped prisoner is heading for sanctuary. He has taken two refill tanks in addition to the tank on his suit. This will give him enough oxygen to reach the Puliaan mine— but only by the most direct route. If he tries to hide or dodge about he will not make it in time. I intend to follow at once with the best men available, each carrying a single spare oxygen tank. We will be light and fast. We will capture him and return."

"Go, then. You have my instructions."

The squad had already suited up and N'Ness hurried to join them. In spite of the need for speed he checked every weapon, ammunition pouch, and oxygen tank before moving them out. Then they left on the double, across the plain and into the foothills, following directions radioed from the ship, heading for the spot where Raver had vanished from sight.

"I have it," N'Ness radioed back. "Dislodged stones, footprints, there is a clear trail here that I can follow. Next report in one hour." He led the squad into the mountains of Houdt.

Houdt. A ruined and gutted world with its atmosphere stripped away in some ancient cataclysm, its surface riven and its metallic core laid bare. There were heavy metals here for the taking, all the power metals that made a voyage across the light years possible. Since there was still more than enough for all, there was no competition and the planet's surface was dotted with mines, each maintained by a different world or syndicate. The best of them were robot operated, the worst of them manned by human slaves.

Raver had the temperament to be neither a slave nor a slave holder, yet there was no other choice on his world. He had gone into opposition to the established regime and it was remarkable that his opposition had lasted as many years as it had before he, inevitably, ended up on Houdt. Nor was he dead yet. Once over the mountains and down into the Puliaan settlement and he would be safe.

The oxygen tanks were slung on his back to free his arms, and he needed his arms on these steep slopes. As he pulled himself up the face of the fissured rock, it exploded silently next to him, boulders dust and gravel billowing out. He felt the concussion through his fingertips and let go his hold and slid back down to the safety of the jagged rocks below. Looking through a fissure he saw his pursuers for the first time, kneeling in an ordered row as they fired. As soon as he vanished from sight they jumped to their feet and came on. Raver went on as well, taking a longer course, which would keep him out of their sights.

"We'll rest now," Lieutenant N'Ness ordered as the sun neared the horizon. His men dropped. The chase had begun soon after dawn and the days here were twenty standard hours long. They were in the far northern latitudes, where the axial tilt conspired to form a night less than three hours in length. N'Ness had considered pushing on through the darkness, but it would not be worthwhile. The climbing was almost impossible at night and his men were exhausted. They would bleep and catch the slave before another sunset.

"A two-man guard, one hour for each watch.” he said. "Stack all the extra oxygen tanks here. In the morning we'll top our tanks and see how many of these we can leave behind."

Most of them were asleep before he finished talking. He kicked the nearest one awake to help him collect the tanks, then they sat, back to back, for the first watch.

The sunlight hit first on the highest peaks at dawn, but without an atmosphere to diffuse the light only the smallest, reflected part fell on the camp. The third watch, on the lieutenant's orders, was waking the men up and they were just starting to stir when the night exploded.

It was light, flame, then darkness and the shouts of frightened men in the darkness. The lieutenant beat them into order and the arrival of full dawn showed them that their reserve store of oxygen had been destroyed.

Reconstructing what had happened was not hard. Raver must have crept close during the night, lain there, then walked in at dawn, just one more space-suited man. He had put a bomb of some kind in among the tanks, then escaped in the confusion following the blast. N'Ness had underestimated him.

"He will pay for it," the lieutenant said coldly. "He lost his lead by coming back to do this — and he will not regain it. Fall in and check tanks."

The spare oxygen cylinders were gone, but there was still some oxygen left in the suit tanks. With ruthless efficiency N'Ness bled these tanks into his, until his was full and the others close to empty. "Get back to the ship," he ordered. "As soon as you get past these last hills use your radio; you should be able to raise either the ship or the mine. Tell them to bring oxygen out to meet you in case you don't have enough to make it all the way. I'm going on and I'll bring the prisoner back. Report that to the captain. Now move out."

N'Ness did not watch them go, in fact he had already forgotten their existence. He was going to catch Raver. He was going to march him back at gunpoint. It would make the captain very happy and it would look very good on his record. He almost ran up the slope ahead.

The lieutenant was the lighter man, he was more lightly burdened, and he had the advantage of being the follower, not the pathfinder. Where Raver had worked his way around a difficult patch of broken rock, N'Ness went straight through, counting upon his speed and agility. He did not slow nor rest and his panting breath was echoed by the whine of the conditioning unit as it labored to remove the excess water vapor and heat. It was an insane chase, but as long as he did not slip or collapse from exhaustion it could have only one end.

Raver pulled himself up onto the broad ledge and through a gap in the rocks he could see the tall pithead workings of the Puliaan mines. He started forward when his radio crackled in his ear, and N'Ness's voice said, "Just hold it, right where you are." He stopped dead and looked slowly around.

Lieutenant N'Ness stood on the ledge above, pointing his energy rifle. "Turn around," N'Ness said, "and start right back where you came from." He waggled the muzzle of the gun in the correct direction.

"Thank you, no," Raver said, sitting down and slinging the oxygen tank to the ground. "I have no intention of returning, in spite of your invitation."

"Enough talk. You have ten seconds to start moving — before I pull this trigger."

"Pull and be damned. I die here or I die back there. What difference does that make to me?"

N'Ness had not expected this, and he had to think a moment before he answered. The steel edge of command was gone from his voice when he finally spoke. "You're a reasonable man, Raver. There's no reason to die out here, not when you can live and work…"

"Don't act stupid, the role doesn't become you. We both know that mine slaves are there for life — and a short life at that. There'll be no more chances to escape. You're the paid killer. Shoot."

N'Ness estimated the reserves in his tank and the spare Raver carried and sat down himself. "You can leave out the insults," he said. "I may have killed men in the line of duty, but I've never tortured or butchered people the way your so-called Pacifist Party—"

"Stop," Raver ordered, lifting his head. "You're a victim of your own propaganda. It's all lies. We do not kill. Think for yourself, if you are able to. Have you ever seen any of the atrocities committed that you speak about? Other than by your own people, that is."

"I'm not here to argue with you…"

"Unsatisfactory, try again. Have you seen these things?"

''No, I haven't — but that's only because we shot first and fast before they could happen."

"Just as unsatisfactory, Lieutenant. You are avoiding the truth. You kill, we do not. That is the basic and important difference between us. You are the animal heritage of mankind, we are its future."

"Not so holy, please. You attacked the guard on the ship, and last night you tried to kill me and my men."

"That is not true. I do not kill. I rendered the guard unconscious ^ar*d I used the guard's rifle and ammunition as a bomb to destroy your oxygen, to force you to turn back. Was anyone injured?"

"No,! but— "

"Yes, but.” Raver said loudly, jumping to his feet. "That is all the difference. Our aggressive traits brought us to the top of the animal kingdom, now we must renounce killing if we are to progress. We have this violence within us — I don't deny I have it myself — but what good is our intellect if we cannot control it? Any man can desire a woman he sees in the street or jewelry in a display window, yet only the sick men rape and steal. We all possess the capacity for violence. Only the sick man kills."

"Not sickness," N'Ness said, waggling the gun in Raver's direction. "Just good sense. This wins arguments. The sensible man knows he can't fight a gun, so he gets one himself and evens the score. That's something you people will never learn. We always win. We kill you."

"Yes, you kill us in great numbers, but you cannot win. You do not change a man's mind by eliminating him. What do you do when everyone is on the other side? Shoot them all? And after you have killed every man, woman, and child — what do you do with your world?"

"You're being stupid now. This has been tried before, and whenever the leaders are killed the mob does what it is told."

"Then there is something new come into the universe.” Raver said quietly. "Perhaps it is the next development, Homo superior, a mutation, men who are constitutionally unable to kill. This is not my theory, there have been scientific papers written on it…"

"All nonsense!"

"Not really. Look at what happened on Puliaa."

"Propaganda. The Pacifist Party there may be temporarily in power, but watch what happens at the first sign of trouble."

"They've had their trouble and they've weathered it well so far. And it is truth that a worldwide nonviolent rebellion put them into power. It is what everyone wanted."

"Lies!"

"I doubt it." Raver smiled. "You can't ignore the fact that the entire planet is now vegetarian. Something happened. Why don't you look into it before it is too late? I'm not the first one to believe that those who live by the sword die by it."

"That's enough talk," N'Ness said, standing. "You'll come back with me now."

"No."

"If you don't come I'll shoot you down, now, and send men for your body. You have no choice."

"Would you do that? Just pull the trigger and kill a man? Remove a life for no reason? I find it hard to imagine; I am incapable of such an evil act."

"It is not evil — and I have good reason. You are an enemy, I have orders…"

"Those are not reasons, just excuses. An animal kills to eat or in defense of its life, or the lives of others. All else is corruption."

"One last warning," N'Ness said, aiming the gun steadily at the other's midriff. "Your arguments mean nothing. Come with me or I shoot you."

"Don't do this to yourself, Lieutenant. Here is a chance rarely offered to your kind. You can stop killing. You can go with me to Puliaa and discover what it is like not to be an animal. Don't you realize the rapist rapes himself? Who would want to live in the head of a rapist? So does the killer kill himself, and this is probably the only kind of killing a man of peace can understand. We do not like it, but by necessity we accept it. Only when your kind is gone can my kind make this galaxy the place it should be."

"You fool," the lieutenant shouted. "You're dying, not me. Your last chance."

"You kill yourself," Raver said calmly. The lieutenant's lips pulled back from his teeth and he shouted with rage as he pulled the trigger.

The gun blew up, killing him instantly.

"I'm sorry," Raver said. "I tried to tell you. During the night I fixed your rifle to explode when fired, as I did the other. I was hoping that you would come with me."

Head lowered with sorrow, Raver turned and walked toward the mine visible below.

A Civil Service Servant

Precisely at nine in the morning the post office opened and the first customers were allowed to enter. Howards knew this, yet, as he straightened his Book on the counter before him, he could not prevent himself from glancing worriedly at the big clock on the wall. Why? This was just a workday like any other day. God, the fear, deep down, as the long black pointer clicked another notch toward the vertical.

Just another day, why should he be so concerned? He tittered nervously and turned his key in the lock of the multifrank before him, just as two people appeared on the other side of the counter.

"I wish to post this letter to Sierra Leone," the man said.

"A two-credit insurance stamp," the woman said.

Instantly, they began to squabble as to which of them had been there first, their voices crescendoing shriller and higher. Howards slapped his left hand on the Book and raised his right.

"Stop," he said, and they did, struck by the authority in his voice. "Reference B-86Y/234 in the Book of Postal Regulations states that all differences of opinion and priority are to be settled by the serving clerk. That is myself. Ladies first. Here is your insurance stamp, madam."

His fingers were snapping over the complex controls of the multi-frank even as he spoke, and he was secretly proud of the assured way that he said it. The man stepped aside, the woman timidly proffered her insurance book as he stood with his finger poised over the Activate button. With his free hand he flipped the book open, dropped it into the slot and pressed the button.

"That will be twenty-two credits eighty, madam." The bills went into the cash receptacle and her change rattled into the delivery cup. "Next," he said, not without a certain amount of condescension.

The man said nothing; he knew better than to argue. He certainly did. What was in the Book was correct. The man stepped away and Howards thought that this day had certainly begun busily enough: but why the little shivering knot of fear, Howards? he wondered to himself, and rubbed at the spot in his midriff with his knuckles.

A large, dark man with a full black beard filled the space outside the counter. "Do you know what this is?" he bellowed.

"I certainly do," Howards said. (Did his voice crack a little?) "That is a needle gun."

"You are correct," the man hissed in a voice like the breaking of poison waves. "It fires a needle soundlessly with such great speed that contact with the human body produces a hydrostatic wave that utterly destroys the nervous system. Would you like that?" White teeth appeared in the tangle of black beard.

"I would not like my nervous system utterly destroyed."

"You will then pay me the sum of four thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine credits."

"I have no till or money. Cash is centrally supplied. ."

"Fool I know all that. I also know that the payment of any sum over five thousand credits must be especially authorized for any position. Therefore — four thousand nine hundred ninety-nine credits. At once."

"At once," Howards said crisply, and spoke aloud as he hit the keys. "Four, nine, nine, nine…"

"Now activate."

Howards hesitated for a mere fraction of an instant, sucked in his breath, then snapped his finger down on the Activate button.

There was the rattle of small change from the delivery cup and the man glanced down at it just as a gush of white vapor shot out into his face. He screamed and writhed and fell as the full force of the regurgitants, irritants, and vesicants hit him at once.

"Foolish man," Howards said into the handkerchief he raised to his face, stepping back, away from the gas. "Security was onto him as soon as I rang up four hundred and ninety-nine million, nine hundred thousand credits. Just a simple decimal shift…"

It was almost nine and the first customer would be in soon. A day like any other day — then why was he feeling this way? What way? As if he were imprisoned in the back of his own brain and screaming. Foolishness, this was not a proper thought for a public servant to have.

"Help me," the old woman said just as the black hand touched the hour.

"Of course, madam." Where had she come from, like that, so quickly?

"It is my pension," pushing a battered and torn payment book across the counter with her scaling, shivering hand. "They will not pay me my money."

"Money due is always paid," Howards said, flipping open the rusty book while trying to touch it only with the tips of his fingers. He Pointed to a torn fragment of paper. "Here is the reason. The page is missing. To authorize payment you must get form 925/lk(43) and have it filled out."

"I have it," the woman told him, and pushed over — almost threw, in fact) — an even more creased and soiled piece of paper. Howards hoped that none of his feelings were revealed on his face as he turned and read it.

"This is the correct form, madam, but it is not completely rilled out. In this blank here you must enter your deceased husband's insurance number."

"I do not know his number," the woman shrilled and clutched tightly to the counter's edge. "He is dead and his papers, they were all destroyed, you see."

"In that case you must obtain form 276/po(67), which is an application to the proper authorities for the required information." He pushed the papers with what he hoped was a smile. "You can obtain an application for this form—"

"I will die first," the old woman screamed and threw all her papers into the air so that they fluttered down around her like filthy confetti. "I have not eaten for a week. I demand justice. I must have money for food…"

It was all quite distasteful. "I wish I could oblige, madam, but I have no authority. You should apply for the form of application to see the Emergency officer…"

"I will be dead first!" she shouted hoarsely, and thrust her face toward his. He could smell her sour breath and quickly withdrew. "Have you no pity on someone my age? I could be your mother."

"Thankfully, madam, you are not. My mother has the proper forms…"

"Forms!" Her voice screeched higher and higher until it cracked. "You care more for forms than for human life. I swore I would kill myself unless I obtained money for food today. Save me!"

"Please do not threaten. I have done what I can." Had he? Was there some authority he should summon? Was he correct—?

"Better a quick death than one of slow starvation. Money — or I die!"

She had a large bread knife now and was waving it before him. Was this a threat? Did it call for the guards?

"I cannot…" Howards gasped, and his fingers hovered over the keys in an agony of indecision. Guards? Doctor? Police?

"Then I die, and it is a world I do not regret losing." She held one hand on the counter, palm up, and with a savage slash of the knife almost severed the hand from the wrist. Thick blood spurted high.

"What have you done?" he shouted and reached for the keys. But she began to scream and wave her arm and blood spattered him and gushed over the counter.

"The Book!" he gasped. "You're getting blood on the Book! You cannot!" He pulled it away and began to dab at it with his handkerchief, then remembered that he had not yet summoned help. He hesitated, torn, then put the Book in the farthest corner and rushed back to his position. There was blood everywhere — had he made a mistake? — and the woman had sunk from sight but he could still hear her moans.

"Medical assistance," he said quickly into the microphone. "First aid needed. At once."

Should he do something for her? But he could not leave his station. And the blood, everywhere, on his hands and shirt. He held them out in horror. He had never seen so much blood, human blood, before. .

And at nine o'clock, precisely, the post office would open. Another day, just like any other.

What was wrong with his hands? Was there something he should remember? Like a vanishing echo a memory rushed away — a memory of what? There was nothing wrong: he was at his position where he belonged, with his Book close at hand and the shining mass of the multifrank before him. He belonged, of course he belonged — then why, again, a fleeting, fading, frightening memory that it was wrong?

Why was he looking at his hands? Howards shivered and unlocked the machine and cleared it, flipped the test and operational switch so the light glowed green, checked the cleared reading and set up 4,999. .

This was not right. Why had he done it? With a furtive glance over his shoulder he quickly cleared the machine. The long black hand of the clock clicked one notch forward and was vertical and an immense queue of people formed outside his position. They were jammed solid, all looking at him, quiet now, though there was a murmur from the rear.

"Good morning, sir," he said to the red-faced gentleman who headed the line. "What may I—"

"None of your conversation. I want service not chatter. This letter, special delivery, at once, to Capitello, Salerno, Italy. What will it cost?"

"That depends," Howards said, reaching for the envelope, which the man pulled back.

"Depends upon what, damn it? I want to mail this thing, not talk about it."

There was a murmur of impatience from the waiting people and, smiling insincerely, Howards said, "It depends upon the weight, sir. Special-delivery letters are delivered by orbiting rocket and the charge varies according to the weight."

"Then you can damn well stop talking about it and weigh it," he said, thrusting the letter forward.

Howards took it, dropped it into the slot, then read off the price.

"Too damn much," the man shouted. "Mailed a letter to Capitello yesterday and it cost less."

"It probably weighed less, sir."

"I wanna mail this package," a small child said, thrusting an untidy bundle onto the counter.

"Are you calling me a liar?" the red-faced man shouted, growing even redder.

"No, sir — just a minute, sonny — I simply stated that if it cost less it weighed less…"

"Damn nerve, call a man a liar, ought to thrash you. Wish to see your supervisor at once."

"My supervisor does not see the public. If you wish to file a complaint the Complaint Office is in room eight-nine-three-four— don't do that!" he added as the child pushed the package further across the counter so that it slid off the inner edge and fell to the floor. Something inside broke with a loud plop and an awful stench seeped out.

"You broke it!" the child screamed.

"I did not; take it at once," Howards said, picking it up by an end of string and dangling it outside. The child ignored it and began to cry loudly.

"Man ought to be horsewhipped, treating a child like that!"

"Room eight-nine-three-four," Howards said through clenched lips, hoping the man would leave.

A tall young man with red hair was bobbing up and down behind the weeping child. "I would like to send a telegram to my uncle saying, 'Dear Uncle, Need at once credits one hundred—' "

"Would you please fill out the telegraph form," Howards said, pressing the switch that delivered a printed form into the dispenser outside.

"Bit of difficulty," the young man said, holding up both of his hands, which were swathed in bandages and plaster. "Can't write, but I can dictate it to you, won't take a moment. 'Dear Uncle—' "

"I am very sorry but I cannot accept dictated telegrams. However, any public phone will take them."

"Bit of trouble getting the coins in the slot. 'Dear Uncle—' "

"Cruel and heartless," the young girl next in line sniffed.

"I would like to help you," Howards said, "but it is forbidden by regulations. However I am sure that someone near the end of the line will write your telegram for you, then I will be happy to accept it."

"How very smart of you," the young girl said. She was exceedingly attractive and when she leaned forward her breasts rested tidily on the counter's edge. She smiled. "I would like to buy some stamps.” she said.

Howards smiled back, with utmost sincerity this time. "I would be extremely happy to oblige, miss_; except for the fact that we no longer issue stamps. The amount of postage is printed directly on the envelope."

"How clever of you. But isn't it possible to buy commemorative stamps still held in the postal vaults?"

"Of course, that is a different matter. Sale to the public of commemorative issues is authorized in the Book by Reference Y-23H/48."

"How very intelligent of you to remember all of that! Then I would like the Centenary of the Automatic Diaper Service—"

"Nerve, damned nerve, trying to get rid of me," the red face said, thrusting across at him. "Room eight-nine-four-four is closed."

"I have no doubt that Room eight-nine-four-four is closed," Howards said calmly. "I do not know what is in Room eight-nine-four-four. But the Complaints Office is in Room eight-nine-three-four."

"Then why in blazes did you tell me eight-nine-four-four?"

"I did not."

"You did!"

"Never. I do not make that kind of mistake."

Mistake? Howards thought. Mistake! Oh, no.

"I'm afraid I have made a small mistake," he said, white-faced, to the girl. "There is a later special order on the entry canceling the issue of all commemorative stamps across the counter."

"But that should make no difference," she said, pouting prettily. "You can sell me a little teensy diaper stamp…"

"If it was within my power nothing would give me greater pleasure, but the regulations cannot be broken."

"Your head can be broken just like you broke this!" an immense and angry man said thrusting the girl aside and pushing the crumpled package under Howards' nose. The stench was overwhelming.

"I assure you, sir, I did not break that. Would you kindly remove—"

"My son said you did."

"Nevertheless, I did not."

"Call my boy a liar?!" the man roared and reached across the counter and grabbed Howards by the shirt.

"Stop that," Howards gasped and tried to pull away and heard the material tear. He groped out and hit the guard switch. It snapped off clean and rattled to the floor. Howards pulled back harder and most of his shirt came away in the man's hand.

"Stamp, please," someone said and a letter dropped into the slot.

"That will be two credits," Howards said, hitting the breakdown button ithen ringing up the postage.

"You said Room eight-nine-four-four.” the red face shouted.

"Been mistreating the machine," a sour-faced repairman said, appearing beside Howards.

"Never, I just touched it and it broke."

"These machines never break."

"Help me," a frail old woman said, pushing a battered and torn payment book across the counter with a scaly and shaking hand. "It is my pension. They will not pay me my money."

"Money due is always paid," Howards said, closing his eyes for an instant — why? — then reaching for the book. He caught sight of the man pushing up to the counter, a man with a tangle of black beard and a hateful expression.

"I know—" Howards began, then stopped. What did he know? Something pressed hard inside his head and tried to burst out.

"I do not know his number," the old woman screamed. "He is dead and his papers, they were all destroyed, you see."

"Do you know what this is? It is a needle gun."

"Not in Room eight-nine-four-four."

"Just one diaper…"

Howards clutched graspingly at his head and did not know if he was screaming or if he was hearing someone else scream.

Welcome blackness engulfed him.

"Now just sip this and you will find yourself feeling fine in a few moments."

Howards took the cup that the Examiner held out to him and was surprised to discover that he needed both hands to hold it. He noticed that the backs of his hands were beaded with sweat. As he sipped he felt the helmet lifting from his head and when he looked up he had a swift glimpse of it just before it vanished through a recess in the ceiling.

"The examination — aren't you going to proceed?"

The Examiner chuckled and steepled his heavy fingers on the desk before him. "A not uncommon reaction," he said. "The examination is complete."

"I have no memory. It seemed as though the helmet came down, then went up again. Though my hands are covered with sweat." He looked at them, then shivered with realization. "Then the examination is over. And I—"

"You must have patience," the Examiner told him with ponderous dignity. "The results must be analyzed, compared, a report drawn up. Even electronically this takes time. You should not complain."

"Oh, I am not complaining, Examiner," Howards said quickly, lowering his eyes. "I am grateful."

"You should be. Just think of the way all of this used to be. Hours of oral and written examinations, with the best marks going to the crammers. You can't cram for a simulator examination."

"I do know that, Examiner."

"Just a few moments of unconsciousness and the machine mentally puts you through your paces, puts you into situations and judges how you respond to them. Real situations that a postal clerk would face during the normal course of his duties."

"Normal duties, of course," Howards said, frowning at his hands, then.wiping them quickly against his side.

The Examiner stared at the figures that raced across the screen on his desk. "Not as good as I expected, Howards," he said sternly. "You'll not be a postal clerk this year."

"But — I was so sure — the twelfth time."

"There is more to clerking than just knowing the Book. Go away. Study. Apply yourself. Your grade this time is high enough so that your student's status will continue for another year. Work harder. Very few students are carried past their fifteenth year."

Howards stood, helplessly, and turned before he left. "My wife asked me to ask you. . we're not getting younger. . planning permission for a child…"

"Out of the question. There is the population problem for one thing, and your status for another. If you were a clerk the application might be considered."

"But there are so few clerks," Howards said weakly.

"There are so few positions. Be happy you are a registered student with rations and quarters. Do you know what it is like to be an Under-unemployed?"

"Thank you, sir. Goodbye, sir. You have been most kind."

Howards closed the door quickly behind him — why did he keep thinking there was blood on his hands? He shook his head to clear it.

It would be hard to tell Dora. She had hoped so.

But at least he still had his Book. And a whole year to memorize it again. That would be good. And there would be inserts and additions, that was always good.

He walked by the post office in the lobby of the building with,his eyes averted.

Captain Bedlam

"What is space like? How do the naked stars really look? Those are hard questions to answer." Captain Jonathan Bork looked around at the eager, intent faces waiting for his words, then dropped his eyes to his space-tanned hands on the table before him.

"Sometimes it's like falling into a million-mile pit, other times you feel like a fly in the spiderweb of eternity, naked under the stars. And the stars are so different — no flickering, you know, just the tiniest spots of solid light."

Even as he told them he cursed himself a thousand times for the liar he was. Captain Bork, spaceship pilot. The single man privileged to see the stars in the space between worlds. And after five round trips to Mars, he had no idea of what it was really like out there. His body piloted the ship, but Jonathan Bork had never seen the inside of a ship's control room.

Not that he ever dared admit it aloud. When people asked him what it was like he told them — using one of the carefully memorized speeches from the textbooks.

With an effort he pulled his mind away from the thought and back to the table surrounded by guests and relatives. The dinner was in his honor, so he tried to live up to it. The brandy helped. He finished most of it, then excused himself as soon as he could.

The family house was old enough to have a pocket-sized backyard. He went there, alone, and put his back against the dark building still warm from the heat of the day. The unaccustomed brandy felt good, and when he looked up the stars wheeled in circles until he closed his eyes.

Stars. He had always looked at the stars. From the time he had been a child they had been his interest and his drive. Everything he had ever done or studied had that one purpose behind it. To be one of the select few to fly the space lanes. A pilot.

He had entered the academy when he was seventeen, the minimum age. By the time he was eighteen he knew the whole thing was a fake.

He had tried to ignore the truth, to find some other explanation. But it was no good. Everything he knew, everything he was taught in the school added up to one thing. And that was an impossible conclusion.

It was inescapable and horrible so finally he had put it to the test.

It happened in physiology class, where they were working out problems in relation to orientation and consciousness in acceleration, using Paley's theorem. He had raised his hand timidly, but Eagle-Eye Cherniki had spotted it and growled him to his feet. Once he was committed the words came out in a rush.

"Professor Cherniki, if we accept Paley's theorem, in a problem like this with only minimal escape-G, we go well below the consciousness threshold. And the orientation factor as well, it seems to me. . that, well…"

"Mr. Bork, just what are you trying to say?" Cherniki's voice had the cold incision of a razor's edge.

Jon took the plunge. "There can be only one conclusion. Any pilot who takes off in a ship will be knocked out or unable to orientate enough to work the controls."

The classroom rocked with laughter and Jon felt his face warm and redden. Even Cherniki allowed himself a cold grin when he answered.

"Very good. But if what you say is true, then it is impossible to fly in space — and we do it every day. I think you will find that in the coming semester we will go into the question of changing thresholds under stress. That should—"

"No, sir," Jon broke in. "The texts do not answer this question— if anything they avoid it. I've read every text for this course as well as other related texts—"

"Mr. Bork, are you calling me a liar?" Cherniki's voice was as frigid as his eyes. A dead hush fell over the classroom. "You are dismissed from this class. Go to your quarters and remain there until you are sent for."

Trying not to stumble, Jon went across the room and out the door. Every eye was fixed on him and he felt like a prisoner on the last mile. Instead of getting an answer to his question it looked as if he had got himself in deep trouble. Sitting in his room he tried not to think of the consequences.

He had never been certain he could get into pilot training — even though it had been his only ambition. Just about one out of one hundred made it that far, the rest ending up in the thousand other jobs of the space fleet. Very few washed completely out of the Academy; the entrance requirements were so high that deadheads never got that far. Of course, there were exceptions — and it was beginning to look like he was one of them.

When the intercom finally called him to the president's office he was almost ready for it. He still jumped when it barked for him then he got up quickly and left taking the elevator to the executive level. The cold-faced secretary nodded him in, and he was alone with the Admiral.

Admiral Sikelm had retired from active service when he took over the presidency of the Academy. He had never lost the manner or voice of command and everyone on campus referred to him only as "the Admiral." Jon had never been this close to him before and was struck speechless. The Admiral, however, did no barking or growling, just talked quietly to put him at ease.

"I have seen Professor Cherniki and he told me what happened in class. I have also listened to the taped recording of your conversation with him."

This doubly surprised Jon, it was the first he had heard that the classes contained concealed recorders. The Admiral went on, with the very last words Jon had expected to hear.

"Congratulations, Mr. Bork, you have been accepted for pilot training. Your classes begin next week — if you wish to continue training?" Jon started to talk, but the Admiral stopped him with an upraised palm. "I want you to listen first before you give me your answer. As you have already discovered, space flight is not all that it appears to be.

"When we first hit space we were losing nine out of ten ships. And not through mechanical failure either. Telemetering equipment on the pilots showed us where the trouble lay — space is just not made for the human body. Gravity changes, blood pressure, free fall, radiation narcosis, all of these combined with a dozen other causes we discovered later to put the pilot out of action. If he didn't black out completely or lose control, the disorientation of the new stimuli made it impossible for him to operate the ship.

"So we had a stalemate. Plenty of good ships with no one to fly them. We tried drugs, hypnosis and a number of other things to fit men for space. They all failed for the same reason. By the time we adjusted men for space they were so doped and controlled that they were again unable to do the job.

"It was Dr. Moshe Kahn who solved the problem — you've heard of him?"

"Just vaguely — wasn't he first director of the Psych Corps?"

"Yes — that's all he is known for in the public record. Maybe, someday, he can get the credit due him. Dr. Kahn was the man who enabled us to conquer space.

"His theory, that was proven to be absolutely true, was that man as we know him, Homo sapiens, is unfit for space. Dr. Kahn set out to create Homo nova, men who could live and work in space. Under the correct mental conditions the human body is capable of unusual feats — such as walking through fire or possessing the rigid strength of a hypnotized patient. Dr. Kahn reasoned that the body's potentialities are great enough, all he had to do was create the mind of Homo nova. This he did by inducing a condition of dual personality in adults—"

"I don't understand, sir.” Jon broke in. "Wouldn't it have been easier to work with children, babies — condition them from the very beginning?"

"Of course.” the Admiral said, "but happily we have laws to prevent just that sort of thing. Dr. Kahn never considered that approach; he used men, volunteers — most of them with some experience in space. Cases of multiple personality have been documented as far back as the nineteenth century, but no one had ever tried to create a separate personality. Kahn did it and he created the kind of personality he wanted. What is too upsetting or uncomfortable for a normal person is the natural environment of these new personalities. They are able to pilot ships between the planets. Using frozen sleep, passengers could also be carried to the planets without experiencing the terrible rigors of space.

"The entire program has been kept a secret — for good and obvious reasons. I can hear the howls now if people knew they were traveling with an unconscious pilot — an insane pilot I imagine they would call it since this is a kind of induced insanity. The only people who know about the program are the instructors, the pilots and a few high officials.

"Since the pilots are all volunteers — and the program works — there are no ethical rules being broken. As you have seen, even the students in this school have no idea of the real nature of a space pilot. If they accept the cover-up in their textbooks, they go on to other jobs in the Corps. If they have the capacity to think and understand — like you— they will understand the need for a program like this. They will have the knowledge to know what they are getting into if they volunteer.

"I think that covers the whole picture — unless you have any questions?"

Jon thought for a moment. "Just one, and it may sound a little foolish. Just what are the physical symptoms connected with this training? I mean, I would like to know, will I really be a little bit—"

"Insane? Only by definition. The new personality, Jon II, can only exist in the specialized environment of the ship's control cabin. Your original personality, Jon I, assumes command all the time on the outside. The only sensation you will have will be periods of amnesia. The personalities are distinct and separate. Each blacks out completely when the other is dominant."

Jon's mind was made up — had been made up for quite a while.

"I still look forward to being a pilot, Admiral. I don't see that all of this alters that fact any."

They shook hands then, the Admiral a little sadly. He had done this many times before. He knew it did not always turn out exactly as the young volunteers imagined.

Jon left the school the same afternoon, without seeing any of his classmates. The Pilot Training School was in a different part of the same base and a new world altogether.

The thing he liked most was the feeling of having arrived. He was no longer treated like a student, but as a responsible equal. He was one of a select few. There were only twelve students in the school at the time and over fifteen hundred men on the training staff. It soon became obvious why.

The first few weeks were mostly physical examinations and tests. Then came the endless sessions with the encephalograph and in the hypno chambers. Jon had nightmares at first, and many days had a period of half-awake, strange sensations. This was only in the beginning. The first step in the program was separating the two personalities completely. Once this happened Jon I had no knowledge of Jon II. Time went by very fast for him since he wasn't aware of most of the training.

Part of the program was orientation, teaching him how to accept and live with the hidden half of his mind. He, of course, could never meet Jon II, but he did watch another pilot's II personality. Jenkins was the one he saw, a slim boy about a year older than Jon. It was a Fine Motor Control Under Acceleration test that he watched. He found it hard to believe. The Jenkins in the test chair only faintly resembled the one he knew. Jenkins II had an expressionless face and a smoothness of motion that Jenkins I could never have. He sat in the acceleration cage that moved in sudden surges in random directions. At the same time Jenkins II had to throw small switches on a control board in response to a changing signal pattern. His fingers moved carefully, flicking the tiny switches placed only an inch apart — while the cage made sudden three-G swoops. Jenkins It's muscles were bar-hard to counteract the acceleration, but it was more than mere strength that gave the control. Heightened perception noted every thrust as it started and the opposed muscles countered with exactly the right amount of counterthrust. It was the automatic balance of an old sailor on a pitching ship, refined down to the smallest motion.

When Jon II was firmly established, Jon I had some uncomfortable experiences. Instead of coming through in the psych room one day, he found himself in the hospital. There was a tremendous gash across his palm and two fingers were broken.

"Training accident," the doctor said. "Something went wrong in the G cage and you saved yourself a good bit of injury by grabbing a bracing rod. Hurt your hand a little, that's all. Here's the rod."

The doctor smiled when he gave Jon the piece of metal — and he could see why. It was half-inch steel and the weight of his body on his fingers had bent and broken the rod. Jon I would have difficulty bending it with a hammer.

All of the training was not for Jon II's benefit. Once the second personality was strongly established, training time was split about fifty-fifty. Jon I learned everything there was to know about a spacer— outside of the control room. He took charge of the ship on the ground — checkups, repairs, even passenger goodwill. Jon I was the pilot and everyone had to have faith in him. They could never know that he blacked out whenever he entered the control room. He tried many times to see it, but never could. The control room was the deeply implanted device that triggered the personality shift. As soon as Jon I took a step through the door — or even as much as glanced inside — he was through. Jon II was in his domain and took over instantly.

Graduation day was the most important and at the same time the most frustrating day of his entire life. There was no such thing as a graduating class. As each pilot finished his training he graduated at a public ceremony. Most of the base personnel turned out, at least thirty thousand men. They paraded and Jon marched out in front of them in his pilot's black uniform. The Admiral himself took out the platinum wings — oldest symbol of mass flight — and snapped them on. It was a moment to remember.

There was just time to say goodbye to his family, when the ship was ready. That was another feature of graduation day. The new pilot made his first flight. A short hop to the moon with a shipload of supplies — but still a flight. He had climbed the ramp to the entrance, turned to wave to his family, small specks in the distance. Then he had stepped into the control room.

Then he had stepped out through the lock onto the surface of the moon.

There had been no sensation of time. One instant he had been on Earth, in the next breath he was on the moon. Only the fact that he was wearing a spacesuit and his muscles were tired and sore convinced him. It was the most anticlimactic experience of his life. .

In the garden on Earth, looking up at the newly risen moon, Jon thought about the past and tasted it dry as ashes in his mouth. Inside the house someone laughed and he heard the tinkle of bottle against glass. He pushed the thoughts away then and remembered where he was.

His family's house, the party in his honor. He had put them off time after time, then was finally forced to accept. It was just as bad as he had thought it would be. It is one thing to live a lie with yourself — something totally different to be a false hero in your own home.

Squaring his shoulders and flicking a speck of invisible dust from his jacket, he went back inside.

The following morning he reported to base for the forty-eight-hour examination and sweat period that preceded all flights. His physical system was tuned to maximum potentiality by the doctors while he was briefed on the flight. It was to be the longest yet, and the most important.

"A long trip," the briefing officer said, tapping the chart, "to Jupiter — or rather the eighth satellite. One of the retrograde ones. There is a base and an observatory there now, as you know, but a new bunch of observers are going out. Astrophysicists to do work with Jupiter's gravity. Twelve of them and all their equipment. That's quite a load. Your main concern — or rather II's — will be the asteroid belt. You can't get too far away from the ecliptic so you may contact meteoric debris. We've had some trouble that way already. With a little luck you should complete a successful flight."

Jon shook hands with the passengers when they came aboard and checked the technicians when they sealed the freeze chambers. When everything was secured he climbed an internal companionway to the control room. This was the point where he always held back a bit. Once he pushed open the door he was committed. It was the last act of free will he had, then Jon II took over. He hesitated only a second, then pushed the door open, thinking to himself, Next stop, Jupiter.

Only it wasn't Jupiter, it was pain.

He couldn't see and he couldn't hear. A thousand sensations were forced on him at once. They added up to pain. Bigger, redder and more horrifying than he ever thought possible. It took an effort of will to blink his eyes and try to focus them.

In front of him was the viewpoint and beyond it was the stars. He was in space, in the cabin of the ship. For an instant he almost forgot the pain at the sight of the stars spread out before him. Then the pain was back and he was trying to understand what had happened, wanting to do something to end the torment. The cabin was dark, the only illumination the lights on the giant control boards. They flickered and changed, he had no idea of their meaning or what to do.

Then the pain was too much and he screamed and lost consciousness.

In the few moments Jon I had been in command of their body, Jon II had drained away a little of his panic. He had lost control and blacked out. He couldn't let it happen again. Neural blocks cut off a good deal of the pain, but enough seeped through to interfere with his thinking. A meteorite — it must have been a meteorite.

There was a fist-sized opening in the front bulkhead, and air was roaring out through the gap. He could see a single star through the hole, brighter and clearer than any star he had ever seen before. The meteorite had made that hole, then hit the wall behind him. That must have been the explosion and the glare when it vaporized. It had done a lot of damage, sprayed molten metal all over him and destroyed the circuits in his chair pedestal. It was getting hard to breathe, the air was almost gone. And cold.

The spacesuit was in its locker, just ten feet away. Only the straps that held him in the chair couldn't be opened. The electric release was destroyed, the mechanical release jammed. He struggled with the clasps, but he only had his bare hands.

All the time it was getting harder to breathe. The panic was there again and he could no longer fight it away.

Jon II gasped and his eyes closed. Jon I opened them.

The pain was overwhelming and washed over him instantly. Jon's eyes closed again and his body slumped forward.

Then he straightened and jerkily the eyelids opened. For a moment his eyeballs rolled unsteadily, then fixed. They looked straight ahead and were almost vacant of anything like reason.

For Jon III was closer to the basic animal than any man or animal that had ever walked the Earth. Survive was the only thing he knew. Survive and save the ship. He was dimly aware of Jon I and Jon II and could call on their memories if he needed to. He had no memories or thoughts of his own — except pain. Born in pain and doomed forever to live in pain, his whole world was pain.

Jon III was a built-in safety device, an admission that there might be times when even the II personality of a pilot couldn't save the ship. Only in the last extreme, when all else had failed, could the III personality assume control.

There was nothing at all subtle about Jon Ill's control. See a problem — solve the problem. The memory, still in his forebrain, was Get the spacesuit. He started to stand up, then realized for the first time he couldn't. With both hands he pulled against the strap across his chest, but it didn't break. The clasp was the answer; he had to open that.

No tools, just his hands. Use his hands. He put one finger inside the clasp and pulled. The finger bent, stretched and broke. Jon III felt no pain at all, no emotion. He put his second finger in and tugged again. The second finger was almost pulled off, and hung only by a Piece of flesh. He put in the third finger.

The clasp finally broke when he pulled with his thumb. The rest of the hand hung, broken and disfigured. With a surge of power he pushed himself out of the chair. The femur in his right leg cracked and broke at the same time the lower strap did. Pulling with his good hand and pushing with his left leg he squirmed across the floor to the spacesuit cabinet.

The air in the cabin was almost a vacuum. He had to keep blinking to wash away the ice crystals that formed on his eyes. His heart was beating at four times its regular rate to force the trace of oxygen to the dying body.

Jon III was aware of these things, but they didn't bother him. His world had always been like that. The only way he could regain the peace of his mindless oblivion was to finish what he had started. He never knew, had never been taught, that dying was also a way out.

Carefully and methodically he pulled down the spacesuit and climbed into it. He turned the oxygen on and closed the last zipper. Then he closed his eyes with a sigh of relief.

Jon II opened his eyes and felt the pain. He could bear it now because he knew he was going to get out of this mess and save the ship. An emergency patch stopped the rush of air and while pressure was building up from the reserve tanks he examined the board. The ship could be flown on the secondary and manual circuits. All he had to do was rig them.

When the pressure reached seven pounds he stripped off the space-suit and gave himself first aid. He was a little surprised to see the state his right hand was in. He couldn't remember doing that. Jon II wasn't equipped to solve that kind of problem though. He hurried the dressings and burn ointment and turned back to his repairs. It was going to be a successful trip after all.

Jon never knew about Jon III — he was the unknown safety factor that was there always, dormant and waiting. Jon I thought Jon II had got them out of the mess. Jon II didn't bother to think about things like that. His job was to fly the ship.

Jon recuperated slowly at the hospital on Jupiter 8. He was amazed at the amount of damage his body had suffered, yet pulled through. The pain was bad for a long time, but he didn't really mind. It wasn't too high a price to pay.

He wasn't going to be a liar anymore. He had been a pilot, even if for only a few seconds.

He had seen the stars in space.