One Step From Earth

One Step From Earth

THIS LANDSCAPE WAS DEAD. It had never lived. It had been born dead when the planets first formed, a planetary stillbirth of boulders, coarse sand, jagged rock. The air was thin and so cold that it was closer to the vacuum of space than to any habitable atmosphere. Though it was nearly noon and the pallid, tiny disc of the sun was high overhead, the sky was dark, the wan light shining on the uneven plain that was unmarked by any footprint. Silent, lonely, empty.

Only the shadows moved. The sun paced its way slowly across the horizon until it set. Night came and with it an ever greater cold. Silently the dark hours passed, the stars arched by overhead, until on the opposite horizon the sun appeared once again.

Then something changed. High above there was a tiny flicker of movement as the sun glanced from some shining surface, a motion where none had existed ever before. It grew to a spot of light that blossomed suddenly into a long tongue of flame. The flame continued, even brighter as it came close to the surface, dropped, hovering. Dust billowed out and the rocks melted and then the flame was gone.

The squat cylinder dropped the last few feet and landed on wide-stretched legs. Shock absorbers took up the impact, giving way, then slowly leveling out the body of the device. It bobbed slightly for a few seconds and was still.

Minutes passed and nothing more happened. The dust had long settled and the molten slag hardened and cracked in the cold.

With sudden, sharp explosions the side of the cylinder blew away and landed on the ground some yards distant. The capsule bobbed slightly in reaction to this but quickly came to rest. In the area uncovered by the discarded plate were a number of small devices, all ringed about a gray plate, some two feet in diameter, that resembled an obscured porthole.

Nothing else happened for quite a while, as though some hidden internal device were marking time. It reached a decision because, with a distant humming, an antenna began to emerge from its opening. At first it projected straight out from the side of the capsule, until a curved section emerged, then it began to slowly rise until it towered into the air. Even as it was erecting itself a compact television camera moved jerkily into view on the end of a jointed arm. It hesitantly changed directions until it was above the circular plate and angled down toward it and the patch of ground below. Apparently satisfied it locked into this position.

With a loud ping the circular plate changed color and character. It was now a deep black and it seemed to shift without moving. A moment later a transparent plastic container appeared, coming from the surface of the plate as though emerging from a door, dropping forward and hitting the ground, rolling over.

The white rat inside the container was terrified at first, knocked off its feet and dropped onto its side as the tube struck the ground. The rat rolled onto its feet and scurried about trying to get a grip with its claws on the slippery walls, climbing up then sliding back to the bottom again. In a few moments it settled down, blinking its pink eyes at the gray wastes outside. There was nothing moving, nothing to see. It sat and began to smooth its long whiskers with its paws. The cold had not yet penetrated the thick walls.

The picture on the television screen was very blurred, but considering the fact that it had been broadcast from the surface of Mars to a satellite in orbit, had then been relayed to the Lunar station and from there sent to Earth, it wasn't really a bad picture. Through the interference and the snow the container could be clearly seen, with the rat moving about inside of it.

"Success?" Ben Duncan asked. He was a wiry, compact man with close-cropped hair and tanned, leathery skin. There were networks of wrinkles in the corners of his eyes as though he had squinted a lot in very cold weather or before a glaring sun. He had done both. His complexion was in direct contrast to that of the technicians and scientists manning the banks of instruments. Other than the few Negroes and one Puerto Rican, all of them were the fishbelly white of city dwellers.

"It looks good so far," Dr. Thurmond said. His degree was in physics from MIT. He was quite proud of it and insisted on its being used at all times. "Wave form fine, no attenuation, flat response, the trial subject went through with a one point three on the co-ord which can't be bettered."

"When can we go through?"

"In about an hour, maybe a little more: If biology gives the okay. They'll want to examine this transmission on the first subject, maybe send another one through. If everything is in the green you and Thasler will go through at once while conditions are optimum."

"Yes, of course, shouldn't wait," Otto Thasler said. Then, "Excuse me." He hurried away. A small man who wore thick-rimmed glasses. His hair was sandy and thin and he had a slouch from many hours over a laboratory bench so that he looked older than he was. And he was nervous. There was a fine beading of sweat on his face and this was the third time he had gone to the toilet in less than an hour. Dr. Thurmond had noticed it, too.

"Otto is jumpy," he said. "But I don't think he will he any trouble."

"He'll he all right once we get there. It is the waiting that bothers people," Ben Duncan said.

"It doesn't bother you?" Dr. Thurmond was curious, but there was also a thin edge of malice to his words.

"Of course it does. But let's say that I have been over this waiting part many times before. I've never gone to Mars through a matter transmitter before but I have been in some strange positions."

"I'm sure you have. Professional adventurer or some such." The malice was clear now; the distrust of the man who was used to giving orders toward the man who did not take them.

"Not quite. I'm a geologist and a petrologist. Some of the rare earths you use in this lab come from lodes I found. They are not always in the most accessible places."

"Well that's fine." Dr. Thurmond's flat tone of voice did not reflect his words. "You have had plenty of experience taking care of yourself so you will be able to help Otto Thasler. He's the man in charge, the one who has to do the work, and you will assist him."

"Of course," Ben said and turned and walked away.

They were a clannish bunch and made no secret of the fact that he was an outsider. They would never have hired him if there had been one of their own people who could do the job. Transmatter Ltd. was richer than many governments, stronger than some as well. But they knew the value of the right man in the right job. A matter transmitter engineer for the trip was easy enough to find; just pick a suitable man from the staff and ask him to volunteer. Otto, a lifetime employee, had had very little choice. But who would take care of him? In this overpopulated world of 1993 there were few frontiers left and even fewer men who knew their way around them. Ben had been in the Himalayas when the copter had come for him. His prospecting expedition was canceled, pressure was put on from Transmatter, and a far better contract offered. He had been pressured into signing on, but that did not matter. Transmatter did not realize, and he had never told them, that he would have gone for one-tenth the preposterous salary they offered — or even for free. These indoor types just could not realize that he wanted to make this trip.

There was a door nearby that opened onto a balcony and he went out to look over the city. He tamped tobacco into his pipe but did not light it. There would be no smoking soon and he might as well begin to get used to it. The air was fairly fresh at this height, but the smog and haze closed in below. Mile after mile of buildings and streets stretched to the horizon, jammed, packed, and turbulent with people. It could have been any city on Earth. They were all like this — or worse. He had come out through Calcutta and he still had nightmares about it.

"Mr. Duncan, come quickly, they are waiting for you."

The technician shifted from one foot to the other and wrung his hands worriedly, holding the door open with his foot. Ben smiled at him, in no hurry, then handed over his pipe.

"Hold that until I get back, will you."

The dressers had almost finished with Otto by the time Ben appeared, and his own team rushed forward. They pulled off his coverall, then dressed him from the skin out in layer after layer of protective fabrics. Thermal underwear, a skintight silk cover over that, an electrically heated suit next, electric socks. It was done quickly. Dr. Thurmond came in while their outer suits were being closed and looked on approvingly.

"Leave the outer suit seals open until you get into the chamber," he said. "Let's go."

Like a mother hen with a parade of chicks, he led the way across the cluttered transmission room, between the banks of instruments and under the high busbars. The technicians and engineers turned to watch when they passed and there was even one cheer that was quickly stifled when Dr. Thurmond looked coldly toward the man. Two dispatchers were waiting for them in the pressure chamber and they closed and sealed the door behind Dr. Thurmond and the two heavily garbed men. They were beginning to sweat. Dr. Thurmond pulled on a heavy coat as the cold air was pumped in.

"This is the final countdown," he said. "I'll repeat your instructions just one more time." Ben could have recited them equally well but he remained silent. "We are now lowering the air temperature and pressure until it matches the Martian atmosphere. Readings just taken there show the temperature at twenty degrees below zero fahrenheit and holding steady. Air pressure is ten millimeters of mercury. We are dropping to that pressure now. There is no measurable amount of oxygen in the air. Masks at all time, that is never to be forgotten. We are breathing almost pure oxygen in this chamber, but you will put on your masks before you leave…." He stopped and yawned and his ears popped, trying to equalize the pressure in his inner ear. "I will now go into the airlock."

He went and finished his lecture from there, watching them through the inset window. Ben ignored the drone of his voice and Otto seemed too paralyzed to listen. A thermostat closed in the battery case in the small of his back and Ben felt the heating elements grow warm inside his suit. The oxygen tank was slung onto his back and his face mask with built-in goggles was buckled into place. He automatically bit onto the oxygen tube and inhaled.

"Ready for the first man," Dr. Thurmond said, his voice squeaky and distant in the thin atmosphere.

For the first time Ben looked at the shining black disc of the matter transmitter set into the far wall. One of the dressers tossed a test cube into it as Ben lay face down on the table. While they were rolling the table forward the report came in. Everything in the green.

"Hold it," Ben said, and the table stopped. He turned to look at Otto Thasler who was sitting rigid, facing the opposite wall. Ben could imagine the terrified expression on the hidden face. "Relax, Otto, it's a piece of cake. I'll he waiting for you at the other end. Relax and enjoy it, man, we're making history."

There was no answer, nor had he expected one. The quicker this part was over the better. They had been practicing the maneuver for weeks and he automatically took the position. Right arm straight forward ahead of him, left arm tight at his side. The matter transmitter screen grew like a great dark eye as the table rolled forward, until it was all he could see in front of him.

"Do it," he ordered, and they pushed smoothly against his feet.

Sliding. Hand wrist arm vanishing. Feeling nothing. A moment of recoil, of twisting pain, as his head went through, then he was looking at the coarse pebbles on the ground. He pushed aside the test cube and put his hand flat to break his fall. Then his other arm was through and his legs. Falling sideways in an easy roll his hip struck something hard.

Ben sat up, rubbing the sore spot and looked at the plastic container that he had landed on. Inside was a dead rat, rigid, wide-eyed, and frozen. A nice omen. He turned quickly away and went through the rest of the drill. The microphone was hanging in the same spot as on the mockup and he switched it on.

"Ben Duncan to control. Arrived okay. No problems." He should say more than that on this historical moment but his brain was empty of inspiration. He looked around at the low, dark hills, the crater nearby, the tiny, bright sun. There was nothing that really could be said.

"Send Otto through. Over and out."

He stood, brushing some dust from his side, and looked at the shining plate. Minutes passed before the loudspeaker rasped, the voice so distorted he had to strain for the meaning.

"We read you. Stand by for transmission. Thasler coming through."

Otto's hand appeared even before the voice ended. It took the radio waves nearly four minutes to reach Mars, but the matter transmission was almost instantaneous since it went through Bhattacharya space where time, as it is normally constituted, does not exist. Otto's arm dropped limply and Ben took him by the shoulders, a dead weight that he eased to the ground. Rolling him over Ben saw that his eyes were closed. But he seemed to be breathing regularly. He was probably unconscious. Transmission shock they called it. It wasn't uncommon. He should come to in a few minutes. Ben dragged him to one side and went back to the radio.

"Otto is here. Out cold but he okay. Send the junk through."

Then he waited. The wind made a thin whistling noise as it blew against his mask, and he felt the cold of it touching his cheeks. He did not mind: there was something almost reassuring that the wind could blow, the hard ground push against his feet, that the sun still shone. For all the evidence of his senses he could still he on Earth, perhaps on one of the high plateaus in Assam that he had so recently left. Consciously he knew that the sunshine here was half as strong as back on Earth. But he could remember cloudy, misty days with far less sun. Gravity? With all the equipment he was burdened with he was aware of no difference. Rounded, red hills in the distance, thin bluish clouds drifting across the sun. A remote corner of Earth, that's all it was. He could not grip the reality of Mars. If he had crossed space in a ship, taken weeks or months, he would have believed it. But a few minutes before he had been standing on Earth. He scuffed at the gravel with his boot and saw the second plastic tube that had been sent through with the struggling rat inside.

It was cold, freezing to death. It would scratch pathetically at the containing walls, then huddle up and shiver. And it had its mouth open, gasping. It appeared to have an even chance of running out of air or freezing. Just a laboratory animal; thousands like it died every day in the cause of science. On Earth. But this one was here, perhaps the only other living thing on the planet. Ben knelt and twisted the lid off the tube.

The end was quicker than he had thought possible. The rat took one breath of the Martian air, gave a convulsive contraction of its entire body — and died. Ben had not thought it would be like that. Of course he had been told on Earth that the great danger of the Martian atmosphere was its complete dryness, containing only an unmeasurable trace of water vapor. They had said that inhaling it would scorch the mucous membranes in the nose, throat, and lungs so fiercely that it would be the same as breathing concentrated sulphuric acid. This had seemed a little preposterous. Then. The rat's staring dark eye filmed as it froze. Ben straightened up and pushed his face mask tighter against his face. Then went to check Otto, still unconscious, to make sure his was correctly in place, too.

No, this was not Earth. He could believe it now.

"Attention please," the loudspeaker chattered. "Will you he able to handle equipment yourself? Is Thasler still unconscious? Loads were estimated for two-man manipulation. Report."

Ben grabbed the microphone.

"God damn you — send that stuff through! By the time you get this message twelve minutes will have been shot. Send it! If anything gets broken you can send replacements. We're alone here, can you understand that, with just the oxygen we have and nothing else, stuck at the other end of a one-way door a couple of hundred million miles from Earth. Send everything — now! Send it!"

Ben paced up and down, hammering his fist into his palm, kicking the test blocks and the rat sarcophagus to one side. The fools! He looked at Otto who seemed to be enjoying his rest. A wonderful beginning. He dragged the man to one side where he wouldn't get stepped on. He came back to the screen just as the end of a canister began to emerge.

"And about time!"

Grabbing the end he ran forward until the other end appeared and clanged to the ground. OXYGEN — FOOD the painted letters on it read. Fine. He kicked it rolling to one side and jumped for the next one.

The demand regulator on his back was clicking regularly, feeding him an almost steady flow of pure oxygen, and his head was swimming with fatigue. The ground all about was littered with containers, tubes, and bundles of all lengths, but with the same diameter. Otto tapped him on the shoulder and he dropped the case he was dragging.

"I passed out, I'm sorry. Is anything—"

"Shut up and grab that tube that's jamming up in front of the screen."

One, two more, then Ben looked on and blinked as a shining dural plate fell from the screen and clattered to the ground. He bent over and saw that someone had lettered on it with red grease pencil.

"SUGGEST YOU CHECK OXYGEN TANK LEVEL. ERECT SHELTER. CHANGE TANKS."

"Someone is thinking now," Ben muttered and jerked his thumb at the tank on his back. "What does it read?"

"Just a quarter left."

"They're right. Erecting the shelter gets priority."

Otto rooted about among the canisters while Ben stretched out the long and unwieldy fabric sausage The fastenings snapped open easily and he spread it out flat just as he had done in training. Only during training he had not hovered on the edge of exhaustion, fighting the heavy shelter material with clumsy gloves. It was finally done and he looked up to see Otto fastening a tank to an inlet tube with the quick fastening attachment.

"What the hell do you think you are doing?" Ben said, the words rasping in his dry throat. He hit Otto on the shoulder, knocking him sprawling.

Otto just lay there, wide-eyed and silent, as though he thought Ben had gone mad. Shaking with anger Ben pointed to the connection.

"Use your eyes. Stay alert. Or you will kill us both. You were attaching a red pipe to a green tank."

"I'm sorry… I didn't notice—"

"Of course you didn't, you stupid slob. But you have to here. Red is oxygen, what we breathe and what inflates the shelter. Green is the insulating gas that goes into the double wall. Not poisonous, but just as deadly because we can't breathe it."

Ben made the connections himself and would not let Otto come near, even threatening him with the wrench when he tried to. One tank of oxygen blew the shelter up to a pudding-shaped mound. The second erected it to a firm dome and the pressure valve on the inlet sealed shut automatically. Ben knew that he was almost out of oxygen, but he could not stop before he finished this. He attached the green tank and left it alone to fill the insulating layer by itself. Now the heater. He was dragging it toward the airlock on the shelter. Letting go he staggered one step, two, then dropped unconscious.

"More soup?" Otto asked.

"A good idea." He sipped the cup empty and passed it over. "I'm sorry about the names I called you. Particularly since you managed to save my life right afterwards." Otto looked uncomfortable and bent over the pressure stove.

"That's all right, Ben. I deserved what you called me and more. I must have panicked. I'm not used to this kind of thing the way you are."

"I've never been to Mars before!"

"You know what I mean. You've been everywhere else. I've been to college and to the job and holidays in the Bahamas. I'm a city boy, a real urban dweller."

"You did fine when I blacked out."

"Without you there to back me up I suppose I had to. Your tank was empty and I was sure it was anoxia.

I knew the shelter had oxygen in it so I just dragged you in here as quick as I could. I pulled off your mask and you seemed to be breathing okay, but it was cold so I went after the heater, then the food. That was all. I just did what had to he done." His words trickled off into silence and he looked owl-like and frightened again behind his heavy-rimmed glasses.

"But that is all that had to be done. All that can be done." Ben leaned forward, hammering the words home. "No one could have done more. It is about time you stopped thinking of yourself as one more city boy and faced the fact that you are one of the only two Martian explorers in the whole solar system."

Otto thought about it and almost straightened up his shoulders. "That is true, isn't it?"

"Don't you forget it. The worst is over. We are safely through that box of tricks, which is always what troubled me, and we are at home on Mars. We have food, water, everything we need for months. All we have to do is take normal precautions and we do our job and go back as heroes. Rich ones."

"We have to set up the transmitter first, but that shouldn't he difficult."

"I'll take your word for it, thanks." Ben took the soup and sipped at it noisily because it was hot. "I have no idea why we even have to build another MT when we have one here. In fact I don't even know how the thing works and no one ever bothered to tell me."

"It's simple enough." Otto relaxed, on familiar ground, eager to explain, forgetting their situation for the moment. Which is just why Ben, who knew a good deal about MT theory, had asked him the question.

"The discovery of Bhattacharya space is what made matter transmission possible. Bhattacharya space — or B-space — is analogous to our three-dimensional continuum but nevertheless lies outside of it. But we can penetrate it. The interesting thing is that wherever we penetrate it, from whatever location in our own universe, we appear to come through in the same place there. So by careful alignment it is possible to have two screens sharing the same portion of B-space. The B-space in effect is allowed to penetrate into our space before each screen so that as far as we are concerned the screens no longer exist in our space-time continuum. Whatever enters one comes out of the other. That is it, simply, of course."

"Simple enough — as long as you leave out the details about how the gadget is built. But it doesn't explain why we can't leave Mars in the same manner that we came."

"There are a number of factors involved, but the more important ones are alignment power and physical distance."

"You told me distance doesn't affect the screens."

"It doesn't, directly, but it makes alignment much more difficult. The screen out there that was rocketed here to Mars has a two-foot working diameter, about the very largest we could send. Almost all of its power goes to holding its existence. The transmitter on Earth reaches out and — it is difficult to describe — latches onto it, holds it in shape, stabilizes it to receive transmission. But the same process won't happen in reverse."

"What would happen if something were sent back in the other direction?"

"There is no 'other direction.' Anything put into this transmitter would be converted to Y radiation and simply sprayed into Bhattacharya space."

"Doesn't sound healthy at all. What do you say we recharge our oxygen tanks and move the rest of the stuff in here that we are going to need? Then get some sleep."

"I'm with you."

They gathered only the immediate essentials — food, air-scrubbing equipment, and the like — then crawled into their sleeping bags. The next day they were both feeling much better and finished setting up the camp. On the third day the first pieces of the big matter transmitter were sent through.

It was a component engineer's nightmare. All the units, whatever their function, had to have been designed to fit through a two-foot hole. A number of compromises had been made. After a good many sleepless nights over the drawing boards it had been finally decided that a diesel-electric generator could not be modified enough to get it through Some nameless subengineer bestowed credit on his superiors by suggesting that enough high-charge batteries could he sent through to activate the big six-foot screen long enough to push the generator through in one piece.

The supporting frame had been set up and they had adapted a routine. Ben, who was in far better shape for the physical work, was doing most of the construction work, while Otto worked in the shelter assembling the electronic components. They helped each other when they had to. Ben finally tightened the last bolt on the steel frame, kicked it affectionately, and cycled through the airlock into the shelter. In the morning they could start wiring in the screen-face elements.

Otto was slumped over the work bench, his face flattened against a printed circuit module, his skin red and flushed. His hand was resting on the hot soldering iron and the air stank with the smell of burnt flesh.

Ben dragged him over to his bunk, feeling the burning heat of his flesh all the while. "Otto he said; shaking him, but the man was limp. His breathing was heavy and slow and he would not regain consciousness. Ben made a thorough job of bandaging the severely burnt hand and tried to order his thoughts. He was no doctor, but he had enough field training with medicine to be able to identify most severe diseases and traumatic injuries. This fitted no categories. His mind sheered away from any thoughts of what it really might he. He finally gave Otto a heavy shot of penicillin and made notes of the man's temperature, respiration, and pulse. Sealing his suit he went to the capsule and called Earth.

"I want this transcribed. I am going to give you some information. Do not answer until I am finished and when I am done do not radio but type copy and send it through the MT. All right. Otto is hurt, sick, something, I'm not sure. These are the details."

He sent what he had observed and what he had done, then waited the slow minutes until his message was received and the answer had arrived. As he finished reading it he crumpled the paper in anger and grabbed the mike.

"Yes, I have considered the possibility of a Martian disease and no, I will not research and send reports. Get a doctor through at once. Offer enough and you'll get a volunteer. Start sending his equipment now while you are finding and dressing him. Then you can send through your microscope and sampling equipment and I will be glad to look for microorganisms in the dirt or wherever you want. As we reported, we found some small plantlike growths, but we didn't bother them. The biologists can look into that. I'll look for your germs for you but only after you have done what I tell you."

His message was understood. Transmatter Ltd. were just as eager as he was to ensure the safety of the expedition; they had a lot of money tied up in it, and were not at all hesitant to risk some more lives in the effort. The doctor, a bewildered young staff medic — who had just signed papers that made his wife financially independent for life — dropped to the ground less than half an hour after the last of his equipment and supplies had arrived. Ben hurried him into the shelter and peeled off his outer clothing.

"I've set up all your stuff on the bench there. Your patient is waiting."

"My name is Joe Parker," the doctor said, but he lowered his extended hand when he saw the look on Ben's face. He hurried over to the sick man. Even after a complete examination he was reluctant to admit the truth.

"It could be an unusual disease—"

"Don't dodge the point. Have you ever seen anything like it before?"

"No, but—"

"That's what I thought."

Ben sat down heavily and poured himself a waterglass of the medicinal brandy, then hesitated and poured a smaller one for the doctor.

"A new disease, something really new? A Martian disease?"

"Probably. That's what it looks like. I'll do everything in my power, Ben, but I have no idea how it will turn out."

They both already knew although they would not admit it out loud. In spite of all the medicines and supportive treatment Otto died two days later. Parker made a postmortem examination and discovered that most of the victim's brain had been destroyed by an unknown organism. He froze samples and made numerous slides while Ben worked on the large transmitter. Word about what had happened must have circulated among the staff on Earth because it took four more days to get an engineer volunteer to finish the technical end of the MT. He was a frightened, silent man named Mart Kennedy and Ben did not talk to him about it because he did not really want to know what pressures had been used. The work went quickly then, even though a dark shadow seemed to hang over their lives. They ate together without much conversation and pushed the construction. Dr. Parker had been working hard and thought that he had obtained a transparent liquid that contained the submicroscopic agent responsible for the disease. This was tightly stoppered and sealed in a case for transmission as soon as the screen was operating.

On the morning of the day operating tests were to begin, Mart Kennedy rose early to watch the sunrise. He had barely been aware of his surroundings since he had arrived, working with almost no rest on the big screen. That was all right too; thinking about the Martian crud was avoided that way. It was a misapplied, supposedly funny name that did not conceal the waiting horror. Certain death. Mars, it certainly was something. In his most wayout dreams, reading space fiction as a kid, he had never thought he would ever be here. He yawned and went to put the coffee on, then woke the others. Ben's eyes opened instantly and he nodded, fully awake. Parker wouldn't stir and he shook him by the shoulder — then jerked his hand away in sudden fear.

"Ben," he called out, stammering over the sounds as he did when disturbed. "S-something's wrong here."

"The same, the symptoms are all the same," Ben said, hitting his fist again and again against the side of the bed without realizing it. "He has it all right. We'll give him the shots and get the screen working. There's nothing else we can do."

The big matter transmitter had been ready to go the day before, but they had all been too tired to finish the job. Ben made the sick man as comfortable as he could, giving him the medication that had not worked before, then joined Mart Kennedy.

"Everything tests in the green," Mart said. "Ready to activate whenever you say."

"That is right now. The sooner the better."

"Right."

The screen flickered and darkened, then went black all over. Ben had scrawled send generator on a canister lid and he threw it into the screen. It vanished To Earth — or into radiation in B-space. Nothing happened. Seconds trickled by. The batteries could hold the screen for only about a minute.

Then it appeared. The leading edge of the wheeled platform dropped to the ground, and they pulled hard on the handles. The heavy motor-generator came through and they rolled it aside. Behind them the screen wavered and the field died.

"Hook up the leads while I fire it up," Ben said.

He cracked open the valves on the fuel and oxygen tanks and pressed the starter. It kicked over with the first turn. Prewarmed before it had been sent. As the power built up, the transmitter screen was restored A container with a frightened rat came through; and they returned it at once. There were more tests, more rats, and Ben sent a message through with them about Dr. Parker. The answer came quickly enough.

"WE ARE PULLING YOU ALL OUT," the typed message read. "EQUIPMENT IS TO BE LOCKED ON AUTOMATIC AND WE WILL OPERATE FROM THIS END. THANK YOU FOR YOUR AID. TRANSMISSION WILL BEGIN. SEND DR. PARKER THROUGH FIRST."

Ben scrawled a quick note and sent it.

"What will happen to US?"

"A SEALED QUARANTINE UNIT HAS BEEN ESTABLISHED WITH ENTRANCE ONLY BY MT. YOU WILL BE CARED FOR. EVERYTHING POSSIBLE WILL BE DONE."

Let's get Parker," Ben said after he had read the note.

They dressed the unconscious man, and Ben made sure that the oxygen tube could not slip out of his mouth. A stretcher had been sent through earlier and they rolled him onto it and strapped him into place.

"Take the front," Ben said and they started toward the airlock. It was cramped, even with the stretcher standing on end, but they got through. Ben took up his end of the stretcher without a word, without even looking back, and they went to the large transmitter. It was big enough for them to all go through together.

The light was stronger than they were used to, and Ben's legs felt heavier. When he opened his face mask the air was thick and had unusual smells in it. They stood in a bare hallway with a transparent wall. At least a hundred men were watching them from the other side.

"Dr. Thurmond speaking, here are your instructions," a loudspeaker said. "You will—"

"Can you hear me?" Ben broke in.

"Yes. You will wait until—"

"Shut up and listen closely. You now have two specimens, a sick man and a well one. That's enough. I'm going back to Mars. If I have to die I might as well die there." He turned to the plate but Dr. Thurmond's voice stopped him.

"You cannot. It is forbidden. The screen is turned off. You will do as ordered

"No I won't," Ben said loudly, and even smiled a little. "I have taken my last order. Those weeks on Mars helped me understand a little about my life on Earth. I don't like people in crowds, in large, stinking, depressing numbers, eating and reproducing and polluting this earth. It was a fine place before the people spoiled it. I'm going back to the world they haven't spoiled. Yet. With some luck perhaps they never will. I remember a dead rat, he came with me to Mars. A laboratory specimen. And that is all I am now in your eyes and I won't have it. I would far rather be the first Martian."

The crowd parted as Dr. Thurmond came forward and stood looking through the transparent wall at Ben, just inches away. He was angry but he controlled it. He raised the wireless microphone and spoke.

"That is all very nice, but it does not bear on the case to hand. You are an employee and bound by contract and you will do as you are ordered. Your room is number three and you will go—"

"I will go back to Mars." Ben slipped the chrome steel pinch bar out of his pocket and tapped it against the window. Some of the men shrank back but Dr. Thurmond did not move.

"This is a tool," Ben told them. "I will use it. I will find a door or a crack or a window gasket and I will lever away until I get through to your side: And then all the nice Martian crud germs will come out and eat you. So it is really you, Dr. Thurmond, who has no choice. Or rather a choice of two possibilities. You can kill me or send me back to Mars. Now make up your mind."

Dr. Thurmond's face was drawn with hatred though his voice was calm as ever.

"I won't mention loyalty to you, Duncan, because you have none. But I will tell you that too much money has been spent to jeopardize things now. You will do as ordered."

"I will not!" Ben said, and swung the pinch bar so hard that a chip flew from the plastic surface. This time even Dr. Thurmond winced away.

"Can't you understand that I don't like it here and I am not staying here. And that just for once you have found someone whom you cannot order about. I'll be of immense value on Mars if the crud doesn't knock me over. Use that to convince yourself. But do it quick."

Another chip cracked off the window as he hit it. Dr. Thurmond did not speak but stood rigid. It wasn't until a third chip dropped to the floor that he turned his back suddenly.

"Activate the transmitter," he ordered, then turned off the microphone. The screen went dark. Ben looked at the shimmering surface, then back at the observers.

"Don't make any mistakes, Dr. Thurmond," Ben said. "I know you can have that screen out of sync and can send me through into B-space as a spurt of radiation. And that is that. But I sincerely hope that you are not going to be that wasteful. I won't ask you for any sympathy, since I know it would please you immensely to kill me in that fashion. But I must remind you that others have heard this talk we have had and you must have superiors who will resent the loss of a valuable man like myself, manager-to-be of your Martian settlement. Why I'll bet they could fire you just as fast as you fire your underlings."

Ben started toward the screen, then looked back to face the still silent audience.

"I'll do a good job of running things on Mars. If I live I'll keep on doing the work, so you lose nothing by it. But if I don't do it I imagine you'll find other applicants for the job pretty hard to come by."

Without waiting for an answer he sealed his face mask and stepped into the screen.