Pilgrimage to Earth

DEADHEAD

I drove down to Marsport a few hours after the Earth ship landed. There were diamond-tip drills on board, which I had had on requisition for over a year. I wanted to claim them before someone took them. That’s not to imply that anyone would steal anything; we’re all gentlemen and scientists here on Mars. But things are hard to get, and theft-by-priority is the way a gentleman-scientist steals what he needs.

I loaded my drills into the jeep just as Carson from Mining drove up waving a Most Urgent Top Crash Priority. Luckily, I had had the good sense to secure a topmost priority from Director Burke. Carson was so pleasant about it that I gave him three drills.

He chugged away on his scooter, over the red sands of Mars that look so good in color photography, but gum up engines so completely.

I walked over to the Earth ship, not because I give a damn about spaceships, but just to look at something different.

Then I saw the deadhead.

He was standing near the spaceship, his eyes as big as saucers, looking at the red sand, the scorched landing pits, the five buildings of Marsport. The expression on his face said, “Mars! Gee!”

I groaned inwardly. I had more work that day than I could accomplish in a month. But the deadhead was my problem. Director Burke, in a moment of unusual whimsy, had said to me, “Tully, you have a way with people. You understand them. They like you. Therefore I am appointing you Mars Security Chief.”

Which meant I was in charge of deadheads.

This particular one was about twenty years old. He was over six feet tall, with perhaps a hundred some very odd pounds of ill- nourished meat on his bones. His nose was turning a bright red in our healthy Martian climate. He had big, clumsy-looking hands, big feet, and he was gasping like a fish out of water in our healthy Martian atmosphere. Naturally, he didn’t have a respirator. Deadheads never do.

I walked up to him and said, “Well, how do you like it here?”

“Gol-lee?” he said.

“Quite a feeling, isn’t it?” I asked him. “Actually standing on a real honest-to-John alien planet.”

“I’ll say it is!” the deadhead gasped. He was turning a faint blue from oxygen starvation, all except the tip of his nose. I decided to let him suffer a little longer.

“So you stowed away on that freighter,” I said. “You rode deadhead to wonderful, enchanting, exotic Mars.”

“Well, I don’t think you could call me a stowaway,” he said, fighting for breath. “I sorta—sorta—”

“Sorta bribed the captain,” I finished for him. By this time, he was weaving unsteadily on his long, skinny legs. I pulled out my spare respirator and clapped it over his nose.

“Come on, deadhead,” I said. “I’ll get you something to eat. Then you and I are going to have a serious talk.”

I held his arm on the way to the mess hall, because he was goggling so hard he would have fallen over something and broken it. Inside, I boosted the atmosphere and warmed some pork and beans for him.

He wolfed them down, leaned back in the chair and grinned ear from ear. “My name’s Johnny Franklin,” he said. “Mars! I can’t believe I’m really here.”

That’s what all the deadheads say, those who survive the trip. There are about ten attempts a year, but only one or two make it alive. They’re such idiots, most of them. A deadhead manages to sneak on board a freighter, in spite of all the security checks.

The ship takes off at about twenty Gs and, without special protection, the deadhead is crushed flat. If he survives that, radiation gets him. Or he’s asphyxiated in the airless hold, before he can reach the pilot’s compartment.

We’ve got a special graveyard here, just for deadheads.

But a few of them pull through and they walk onto Mars with big hopes and stars in their eyes.

I’m the guy who has to disillusion them.

“Just what did you come to Mars for?” I asked.

“I’ll tell you,” Franklin said. “On Earth you gotta do just like everybody else does. You gotta think like everybody else and act like everybody else or they lock you up.”

I nodded. Earth was stable now, for the first time in the history of mankind. World peace, world government, world prosperity. The authorities wanted to keep it that way. I think they go too far in the suppression of even harmless individualism, but who am I to say? Things will probably relax in a hundred years or so, but that’s not good enough for a deadhead living now.

“So you felt the need of new horizons,” I said.

“Yes, sir,” Franklin said. “I hope this doesn’t sound too corny to you, sir, but I want to be a pioneer. I don’t care how hard it is. I’ll work! You’ll see, just let me stay, please, sir! I’ll work so hard—”

“Doing what?” I asked.

“Huh?” He looked startled for a moment. Then he said, “I’ll do anything.”

“But what can you do? We could use a good inorganic chemist, of course. Do your skills happen to run along that line?”

“No, sir,” the deadhead said.

I didn’t enjoy doing this, but it was important to impress the grim and unpalatable truth upon deadheads. “So your field isn’t chemistry,” I mused. “Might have a spot for a topnotch geologist. Or possibly a statistician.”

“I’m afraid—”

“Tell me, Franklin, have you got your Ph.D.?”

“No, sir.”

“Doctorate? Masters? Have you even got a B.S.?”

“No, sir,” Franklin said miserably. “I never even finished high school.”

“Then just what do you think you can do here?” I asked.

“Well, sir,” Franklin said. “I read where the Project is scattered all over Mars. I thought I could be maybe a messenger, sorta. And I can also do carpentry, and some plumbing and—there must be something I can do here.”

I poured Franklin another cup of coffee and he looked at me, his big eyes pleading. The deadheads always look like that when we reach this point. They think that Mars is like Alaska in the ‘70s, or Antarctica in 2000; a frontier for brave determined men. But Mars isn’t a frontier. It’s a dead end.

“Franklin,” I said, “did you know that Mars Project is not self- supporting, and may never be? Did you know that it costs the project about fifty thousand dollars a year to maintain a man here? Do you figure you’re worth a salary of fifty thousand a year?”

“I won’t eat much,” Franklin said. “And once I get the hang of things I’ll—”

“And,” I broke in, “were you also aware that there isn’t a man on Mars who doesn’t hold at least the title of Doctor?”

“I didn’t know that,” Franklin whispered.

Deadheads never do. I have to tell them. So I told Franklin that scientists do the plumbing, carpentry, messenger work, the cooking, cleaning, and repairing, all in their spare time. Not well, perhaps, but it gets done.

The fact is: There is no unskilled labor on Mars. We just can’t afford it.

I thought he’d burst into tears, but he managed to control himself.

He stared wistfully around the room, looking at everything in our crummy little mess hall. You see, it was all Martian.

“Come on,” I said, standing up. “I’ll find a bed for you. Tomorrow we’ll arrange your passage back to Earth. Don’t feel so bad. At least you’ve seen Mars.”

“Yes, sir.” The deadhead stood up wearily. “But, sir, I am not going back to Earth.”

I didn’t argue with him. A lot of deadheads talk big. How was I to know what this one had in his mind?

After settling Franklin, I returned to my lab and did a few hours’ work that absolutely had to be done. Then I fell into bed exhausted.

The next morning, I went to wake Franklin. He wasn’t in his bed. Immediately I thought of the possibility of sabotage. Who knows what a thwarted pioneer will do? Pull some rods out of the pile, perhaps, or set off the fuel dump. I scurried around the camp looking frantically, and finally found him at the half-built spec lab.

The spec lab was necessarily a spare-time project with us. Whenever anyone had an extra half hour, he mortared a few bricks, sawed out a table-top, or screwed hinges on a door. No one could be spared from his work long enough to really put the thing together.

Franklin had accomplished more in a few hours than most of us had in a few months. He was a good carpenter, all right, and he worked as though all the furies of hell were pursuing him.

“Franklin!” I shouted.

“Yes, sir.” He hurried over to me. “Just wanted to do something for my keep, Mr. Tully. Give me a few more hours and I’ll have a roof on her. And if no one’s using those pipe lengths over there, I could maybe finish the plumbing by tomorrow.”

Franklin was a good man, all right. He was just the sort Mars needed. By all the rules of human decency and justice I should have patted him on the shoulder and said, “Boy, book-learning isn’t everything. You can stay. We need you.”

I really wanted to say just that. But I couldn’t. There are no success stories on Mars. No deadhead makes good. We scientists can manage the carpentry and plumbing, poor though the results may be. And we just can’t afford duplication of skills.

“Will you please stop making this hard for me, Franklin? I’m a softhearted slob. You’ve convinced me. But all I can do is enforce the rules. You must go back.”

“I can’t go back,” Franklin said very softly.

“Huh?”

“They’ll lock me up if I go back,” Franklin said.

“All right, tell me about it,” I groaned. “But please make it quick.”

“Yes, sir. Like I told you,” Franklin said. “On Earth, you gotta do like everybody else, and think like everybody else. Well, that was fine for a while. But then I discovered The Truth.”

“You what?”

“I discovered The Truth,” Franklin said proudly. “I found it by accident, but it was really very simple. It was so simple, I taught it to my sister, and if she could learn it, anyone could. Then I tried to teach it to everybody.”

“Go on,” I said.

“Well, everybody got very angry. They told me I was crazy, I should shut up. But I couldn’t shut up, Mr. Tully, because it was The Truth. So when they went to lock me up, I came to Mars.”

Oh, great, I thought. Franklin was just what we needed on Mars. A good, old-fashioned religious fanatic to preach to us hardened scientists. And he was just what the doctor ordered for me. Now, after sending him back to Earth—to prison—I could suffer guilt feelings for the rest of my life.

“And that isn’t all,” Franklin said.

“You mean there’s more to this pathetic tale?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Go on,” I said with a sigh.

“They’re after my sister, too,” Franklin said. “You see, after she saw The Truth, she was as eager to teach it as me. It’s The Truth, you know. So now she has to hide, until—until—” He wiped his nose and gulped miserably. “I thought I could show you how good I’d be on Mars, and then my sister could join me and—”

“Stop!” I said.

“Yes, sir.”

“I don’t want to hear any more,” I told him. “I’ve already listened to you too much.”

“Would you like me to tell you The Truth?” Franklin asked eagerly. “I could explain—”

“Not another word,” I barked.

“Yes, sir.”

“Franklin, there is nothing, absolutely nothing I can do for you. You haven’t got the qualifications. I haven’t the authority to allow you to stay. But I will do the only thing I can do. I’ll speak to the Director about you.”

“Gee! Thanks a lot, Mr. Tully. Would you explain to him that I haven’t really recovered from that trip yet? Once I get my strength back, I’ll show you—”

“Sure, sure,” I said and hurried off.

The Director stared at me as though I had slipped my regulator. “But Tully,” he said, “you know the rules.”

“Sure,” I said. “But he really would be useful. And I hate to ship him back to the police.”

“It costs fifty thousand dollars a year to maintain a man on Mars,” the Director said. “Do you think he’s worth a salary of—”

“I know, I know,” I said. “But he’s such a pathetic case, and he’s so eager, and we could use—”

“All deadheads are pathetic,” the Director said.

“Yeah. After all, they’re inferior human beings, not like us scientists. So back he goes.”

“Ed,” the Director spoke quietly. “I can see resentment building between us over this. Therefore I’m going to leave it up to you. You know that there are close to ten thousand applications a year for a berth in Mars Project. We turn back better men than ourselves. Kids in the universities study for years to fill a specific place here, and then find the position already taken. Considering all that, do you honestly feel that Franklin should stay?”

“I—I—oh, dammit, no, if you put it that way.” I was still angry.

“Is there any other way to put it?” the Director asked.

“Of course not.”

“It’s a sad situation when many are called but few are chosen,” the Director mused. “There’s a need for a new frontier. I’d like to open Mars wide open for colonization. And someday we will. But not until we’re self-supporting.”

“Right,” I said. “I’ll arrange for the deadhead’s return.”

Franklin was working on the roof of the spec lab when I returned, and he had only to look at my face to know what the answer was.

I climbed in my jeep and drove to Marsport. I had quite a few harsh words to say to the captain of the space freighter who had allowed Franklin on board. Too much of that stuff goes on. This joker was going to carry Franklin back to Earth.

The freighter was in the blast pit, its nose pointing skyward. Clarkson, our atomics man, was readying it for takeoff.

“Where’s the captain of this heap?” I asked.

“No captain,” Clarkson said. “This is a drone model. Radio- controlled.”

My stomach started to do slow flip-flops. “No captain?”

“Nope.”

“Any crew?”

“Not on a drone,” Clarkson said. “You know that, Tully.”

“In that case,” I said brightly, “there’s no oxygen on board.”

“Of course not!”

“And no radiation shielding.”

“That’s right.” Clarkson stared at me.

“And no insulation.”

“Just enough to keep the hull from melting.”

“I suppose it took off at top acceleration. Thirty-five or so Gs.”

“Sure,” Clarkson said. “That’s the economical way, if you haven’t got humans on board. What’s eating you?”

I didn’t answer him. I just walked to the jeep and roared back to the spec lab. My stomach was no longer doing flip-flops. It was spinning like a top.

A human couldn’t have lived through that trip. Not a chance. Not a chance in ten billion. It was a physical impossibility.

When I reached the lab, Franklin had completed the roof and was on the ground, connecting pipes. It was lunchtime, and several of the men from Mining were helping him.

“Franklin,” I said.

“Yes, sir?”

I took a deep breath. “Franklin, did you come here on that freighter?”

“No, sir,” he said. “I tried to tell you that I didn’t bribe no captain, but you wouldn’t—”

“In that case,” I spoke very slowly, “how did you get here?”

“By using The Truth!”

“Could you show me?”

Franklin considered for a moment. “The trip tired me out something awful, Mr. Tully,” he said, “but I guess I could.”

And he disappeared.

I stood there, blinking. Then one of the Mining men pointed overhead. There was Franklin, hovering at about three hundred feet.

In another moment, he was standing beside me again, his nose pinched and red from the cold.

It looked like instantaneous transfer. Oh, brother.

“Is that The Truth?” I asked.

“Yes, sir,” Franklin said. “It’s a different way of looking at things. Once you see it—really see it—you can do all sorts of things.

But they called it a—a hallucination on Earth, and they said I had to stop hypnotizing people and—”

“You can teach this?” I asked.

“Sure,” Franklin said. “It may take a little time, though.”

“That’s all right. I guess we can afford a little time. Yessiree, I guess we sure can. Yessiree, a little time spent on The Truth might be well spent—”

I don’t know how much longer I would have gone on babbling, but Franklin broke in eagerly.

“Mr. Tully, does that mean I can stay?”

“You can stay, Franklin. As a matter of fact, if you try to leave, I’ll shoot you.”

“Oh, thank you, sir! And how about my sister? Can she come?”

“Oh, yes, most certainly,” I said. “Your sister can come. Any time she—”

I heard a startled shriek from the Mining men. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end, and I turned very slowly.

There stood a girl, a tall, skinny girl with eyes as big as saucers. She stared around like a sleepwalker and murmured, “Mars! Gol-lee!”

Then she turned to me and blushed.

“I’m sorry, sir,” she said. “I—I was listening in.”