Wandering Stars: An Anthology of Jewish Fantasy and Science Fiction

^{GEO. ALEC EFFINGER} Paradise Last

THERE WERE FIVE MEN who ran the world. They were called Representatives, though democratic elections had long ago been eliminated as “too inaccurate.” There was a Representative of North America, one of South America, one each from Europe, Asia, and Africa. They had all been in power for a long time, and they seemed to enjoy it. The citizens of their continental domains were glad of that. The last thing the overburdened people needed was a war.

Helping the Representatives in their duties was TECT. More comprehensive than just a calculating device, TECT was an immense machine buried far beneath the surface of the earth. It contained the sum total of everything mankind had yet learned about the universe; but, of course, so did several private and public computer installations throughout the world. TECT had special powers and abilities, though, which set it apart from other species of machine. It understood. Questions could be asked of it which were impossible to translate into basic computer binary input. TECT could interpret all human languages; if a built-in imprecision of common speech led to ambiguity, TECT would query the speaker. One might ask, “What is the difference between right and wrong?” and expect a quick reply. The machine’s answer would not be merely a philosophic abstract compiled from the vast recorded literature of the human race; that is what one would receive from the other, more accessible computers. No, from TECT there would be a slight pause, and then a closely reasoned, “personal” opinion made on the basis of TECT’s current measure of data. Such questions were rarely asked, of course; even from TECT, the answers were never conclusive, always impractical. And it was a very practical world.

What else was going on? Well, the population of the world was becoming joyfully homogeneous. Representatives had come and gone, but all their strategies were to one end; the idea was that the more people were alike, the better they’d all get along. And naturally the better everyone got along, the more power the Representatives would have. Of course, the great masses of people were aware that they were being exploited and manipulated. They understood it, at least on a subconscious level. But people do want to get along; it’s really so much pleasanter that way. And, too, the Representatives had so much power already, there wasn’t any other choice.

That didn’t mean that there weren’t still pockets of diversity. In the many generations of Representative rule, the distinctions among the races had not been entirely obliterated. The genetic laws of nature insisted at rare intervals on producing individuals with identifiably Negroid or Oriental features. These people often took government-sponsored jobs as “slum-dwellers,” living as their ancestors had done before the era of the Representatives. Small ghettos were organized on a strictly voluntary basis, in order to preserve museum-like tableaux of moribund cultures.

Less popular with the state and their fellow citizens were those who clung to cultural differences, as opposed to mere mistakes of breeding. Such groups as intellectuals, artists, homosexuals, and Communists, all of which had enjoyed greater freedom of expression before the Representative regime, were openly attacked. Perhaps the most extensive cultural enclave, and one of the most abused, were the Jews. Their ancient heritage of loyalty to family and to doctrinal ideals had preserved them from total assimilation; the other citizens worried that this would upset the Representatives and cause violent social repercussions. The citizens made their anxiety and their displeasure evident; but, far from being angered by the Jews’ persistence, the Representatives frequently made statements honoring the minority’s courageous and heart-warming tenacity. Still, the other citizens were not mollified.

Into this world, then, a boy named Murray Rose was born to Jewish parents. They weren’t very Jewish; they didn’t observe the Sabbath in any particular way, they were frequently startled by the arrival of Holy Days, and they were openly amused by their conservative friends’ attention to kashrut, the traditional dietary laws. The Rose family maintained a tenuous link to their heritage, more out of sentiment than anything else. But they were careful not to be identified as one of the “troublesome” Jews.

When Murray was ten years old, his grandfather came to visit. Murray was excited; he had never met Grandpa Zalman, but he had often heard the old man’s name mentioned. Murray’s parents were more anxious than excited. When the old man arrived, the three adults stood facing each other uncomfortably, while Murray hid behind his father. Grandpa Zalman looked different than the boy had imagined; the old man’s great gray eyebrows and long beard gave him a fierce look that confused Murray. He had always been told that Grandpa Zalman was odd, but very gentle.

“Hello, Julie,” said the old man. He kissed his daughter and shook hands with his son-in-law.

“It’s nice to see you again,” said Murray’s father. There was a long, tense silence.

“This must be Murray,” said Grandpa Zalman. Murray’s father took the boy’s wrist and presented him to his grandfather. Murray said hello and shook hands. He was dismayed by how huge and rough Grandpa Zalman’s hands were.

In the next few days Murray spent a lot of time with his grandfather. Murray’s father was gone all day at work, and his mother was much too busy with housework to entertain her father. The old man and the boy took walks around the neighborhood together and talked. At first Murray was a little timid, but after a while he realized that Grandpa Zalman was different than his parents in a way that was both foreign and strangely pleasant.

It was chilly and overcast one afternoon when Murray and Grandpa Zalman were sitting on a bench in the park. Murray had grown fond of his grandfather. He knew from their actions that his parents did not like Grandpa Zalman as well. The longer he stayed, the less he talked. Now they sat under a heavy sky, and Grandpa Zalman said nothing at all.

“What’s in the bag, Grandpa?” asked Murray.

Grandpa Zalman stared at the brick path. The boy’s question startled him from his thoughts. He shook the brown paper sack; its contents rustled. “Crumbs,” he said. “I brought crumbs for the birds.”

“Will they let you feed the pigeons?”

Grandpa Zalman sighed. “I don’t know,” he said. “They used to. I used to feed the birds every day. It made me feel better. We used to get along very well, the pigeons and I. I gave them food; they pretended that they liked me. They were truly grateful for the crumbs. That’s more than people will admit.”

“Can I feed them?” asked Murray.

“Let me do it first,” said Grandpa Zalman. “Then if the CAS police come running with their clubs, it’ll just be me, an old man, who gets beaten.”

“Okay,” said Murray.

Grandpa Zalman opened the bag and tossed a handful of crumbs on the bricks. Several pigeons landed immediately and began pecking frantically at the offering. The old man gave the bag to Murray, who sprinkled more crumbs around his feet. “Are they bread crumbs?” he asked.

“No,” said Grandpa Zalman, “they’re matzo.”

“What’s that?”

The grandfather watched Murray sadly. “Matzo. Don’t you know what next week is? Passover?”

Murray looked up at Grandpa Zalman. “Passover?” he said.

“A Holy Day. A celebration.”

“Like Skirt Day?” asked Murray, puzzled.

“Come on, Murray,” said Grandpa Zalman. “I feel like walking.” Murray spilled the rest of the matzo crumbs in a heap for the pigeons and ran after the old man. They left the park and walked homeward. After a while the grandfather stopped to examine the display in the window of a small fichestore. He had said nothing to the boy since leaving the park; now he silently held the door open, and Murray preceded him into the dark shop.

“Can I help you?” asked the proprietor, looking skeptically at Grandpa Zalman’s beard and strange clothes.

“I want the afternoon tectape,” said the old man. “And I wonder if you have any fiches, maybe, on the history of the Jews. Their customs.”

The proprietor frowned. “We got a small section for religion,” he said. “The Representative’s office isn’t crazy about selling that kind of stuff. They’re cracking down now, you know. I don’t know what they’re worried about. It doesn’t move very good, anyway. If we got any Jewish stuff, it’ll be in there, but I think it’s mostly Moslem and Christian myths. A couple of artfiches.”

“Thank you,” said Grandpa Zalman. He went to the small bin that the store’s owner had indicated. There were a couple of dozen plastic microfiches, each one a microminiature book, designed to be read with the aid of a fichereader or projector. None interested the old man. He glanced at Murray, who had never been in a fichestore; the boy was wandering from bin to bin, picking up random fiches and holding them to the light, vainly trying to read them unenlarged. “Would you like one?” asked Grandpa Zalman.

“No, I don’t think so,” said Murray. “We don’t have a reader at home, anyway. Dad says we’ll buy one when I get to high school.” Grandpa Zalman shrugged and paid for the newstape, printed out by the store’s small tect console. As they left the store a CAS officer brushed by the old man. The. policeman scowled and shoved Grandpa Zalman out of the way.

“You guys ought to be more careful,” said the CAS man. “You ain’t got much time left, the way it is.”

Grandpa Zalman said nothing. He took Murray’s hand and walked off in the other direction. “The world is filling up with hoodlums,” he said at last.

“They don’t like you, do they, Grandpa Zalman?”

“No, they don’t like me. And they don’t like you, either. They don’t like anybody.”

“Is it because we’re Jewish?” asked Murray.

“No,” said Grandpa Zalman slowly. “No, I don’t think that has anything to do with it. Maybe a little.” Then they went home. Grandpa Zalman read his tectape, and Murray went out to play knockerball with his friends. Two days later the boy’s father took Grandpa Zalman to the public teletrans tect. Murray never saw his grandfather again.

But the old man had had his effect on the boy. In the guest room Murray found three fiches, which Grandpa Zalman had forgotten or left intentionally. Murray took them to school, where he browsed through them on one of the library’s fichereaders. They were the first fiches that he had ever had all to his own; they weren’t textfiches, but they weren’t picturefiches, either. One was a long collection of Jewish lore that Murray found fascinating. He wondered what had happened to all the curious laws and customs. He asked his mother, and she said, “They’re still around. Not here, but around. There’s still plenty of people like your grandfather. But they’re learning, slow but sure. The Representatives are doing their best for us, and it’s people like Grandpa Zalman who make it harder. They’re learning, though.” Murray was doubtful. It seemed to him a sad thing that all the old Jewish ways were being neglected.

As Murray got older he took more interest in his education. After he read the three leftover fiches, he explored the school’s library and saved his money to buy more. When Murray was fourteen he learned that Grandpa Zalman had died; Murray was filled with grief for the first time in his life. He felt that he had never thanked his grandfather for all the old man had shown him. Murray was determined to repay Grandpa Zalman, and to make some sort of memorial to the old man, whom Murray’s parents were gratefully forgetting as quickly as possible.

Tenth-year Tests were scheduled for Murray’s class in the middle of February; Murray had just turned fifteen. Through the first six years of his schooling he had seemed to be just another unexceptional student, destined for the army or the CAS work legions. But then, after his grandfather’s visit, he showed a sudden and dramatic improvement. Murray entered the Test room anxiously, unaware of the envious glances he drew from his fellow students. The Test lasted six hours, and he was one of the first to complete his tapes. The next day he was ordered to the office of the school’s master.

“Come in, Mr. Rose,” said Master Jennings. “Get comfortable. I have some good news for you.”

Murray relaxed. He always felt terribly guilty when he was called into the office, even though he knew he hadn’t done anything wrong. He sat in a chair opposite the master’s desk and waited.

“This afternoon TECT finished evaluating the Tenth-year Tests. You did very well yesterday, Mr. Rose. In fact, you finished first in our school. Congratulations.” Murray smiled; he was proud, and happy that in a small way he had repaid Grandpa Zalman. “More importantly,” said Master Jennings, “your score led everyone else in the district. This is the first time our school has had that distinction. Of course, you can understand how grateful we are for that honor. More to the point, though, is the reward you’ve won for yourself.”

Murray knew that the higher scores earned special privileges from the Representatives and TECT. “When you called me in,” he said, “I began to think that perhaps something special had happened. I’ve been hoping for a new fichereader.”

The master laughed. “You’ll be getting a lot better than that,” he said. “As a district winner, you’re entitled to a Mark VII tect unit, installed in your home. That comes with complete infotape, newstape, computape, and entertainment capabilities. Everything but the teletrans unit. Only the continental winners get the big one. And you’re still in the running for that; many of the other districts haven’t had their Tenth-year Tests as yet. The final winner will be announced next week.”

Murray was astonished. He would have his own tect, right in the house! That meant access to virtually every facet of TECT itself, except the data classified for security purposes. Of course, he’d still have to use the public teletrans tect facilities. But that was hardly a disappointment….

As promised, the continental winner was named several days later. It wasn’t Murray; he wasn’t at all let down, for on the same afternoon his own prize, the Mark VII tect, was installed in his house. His parents were proud and a little amazed. They weren’t imaginative enough to understand all that the tect represented. Murray stayed up well into the night asking the console questions, having it project pages of books on many esoteric subjects, playing games of go and chess against TECT’s Level Nine Opposition.

In the following years, of course, the unit helped Murray even further in his studies. He excelled in high school, and produced a brilliant score on his Twelfth-year Test. He was curious about what kind of prize he would win for that. Nothing was mentioned the next day. Murray was very disappointed. All through the final three weeks before graduation, Murray hoped that he would be called into Master Jennings’ office again. That did not happen, either. Murray graduated from school, receiving a huge ovation from the audience when he went to take his diploma. At home that afternoon, a message was waiting for him on the tect’s CRT readout. It said:

The tect’s Advise light was flashing, meaning that TECT had been asking for an immediate answer since quarter to one. It was now nearly four. He identified himself and the light went out. “Reply to 12:48:36 Query, 9 July, 467. Reply affirm.” Then, to be safe, he typed in yes after Accept?** on the tect’s screen. He had no idea what the real circumstances were, but it seemed to him that TECT was offering Murray a planet. The boy had never heard of such a thing. In a few seconds the promised list appeared:

And so on. The tectscreen filled with hundreds of entries in TECT’s master star catalogue. But none of the planets were described; Murray, still not fully appreciating that he was being given an entire world, had nothing useful on which to base his choice. The list went on, ending at last with:

“Query,” he said.

“According to contemporary standards,” said Murray, “rate the planets on the list, insofar as the following criteria are concerned: comfort of climate and terrain, probability of cultivating normal dietary constituents, minimum at least of aesthetic pleasures, lack of serious dangers consisting of animal, vegetable, mineral, geological, and meteorological threats, at least one potential homesite with optimum conditions implied by the above and entailing what we understand to be essential for normal life and human happiness. Narrow the list to three choices.”

TECT ransacked its memories for nearly a minute. Finally the original list of worlds on the CRT vanished, replaced by Epsilon Eridani, Planet D; Tau Ceti, Planet C; and Pasogh 1874, Planet C.

“Print data on the three choices. Request hard copy.” Immediately, full profiles of the three planets appeared in the form of fiches, through a slot beneath the CRT screen. Murray studied the material for a couple of hours. Just before dinner he went to the tect. After Choice?** he typed, Pasogh 1874, Planet C. Then he went out and told his parents, who laughed skeptically. The next morning another message on the tect waited for him. It said:

“Rose, Gordon J.,” said Murray.

“He’s my father.”

And that was it. Murray stared at the console for several seconds, still futilely trying to understand what had happened. He had been given a planet. That in itself was unbelievable enough; but he was expected—no, he was compelled—to settle on the unknown place in a matter of hours. He thought about how he would break the news to his parents. He went back to the tect. He identified himself to the console and waited for the ?** to appear. When it did, he said, “Request.”

“I’d like a printout of all material relayed through this console since l0July 467 YR RepGreet.” In a few seconds a fiche appeared in the slot. Murray took the fiche into the living room and explained the situation to his parents. Their skepticism of the previous day turned first to wonder, then to pride, and at last to horror.

“Tomorrow?” cried Murray’s mother. “What kind of a thing is that? Tomorrow?”

“You’re going away? Where?” asked his father, who couldn’t comprehend the magnitude of the situation.

“I’m going to another planet,” said Murray wearily. “Somewhere out in space. By another star. They gave it to me.”

“But what about us?” asked his mother, sobbing. “What about you? What about college? Are you going all by yourself?”

“I guess so,” said Murray. He hadn’t thought about it that way, the only human being on an entire world. He felt cold suddenly, frightened and lonely.

“Who are these Representatives?” said his father. “How can they tear a family apart like this? How can they ruin a fine boy’s life?”

“You don’t understand,” said Murray. “It’s an honor. Not even the Representatives themselves have a whole planet to govern. It’s a special award, because of how well I did in school.”

“I want you here, Murray,” said his mother. Murray just sighed. He explained to his father about the job of acting as Murray’s agent; then Murray went back to his room to pack.

The next day he awoke early, dressed, made himself a small breakfast, and checked his suitcases again. His father came into Murray’s room and shook his son’s hand. “Your mother’s upset,” he said. “I gave her a pill last night, so she won’t wake up until after you’re gone.”

“Okay,” said Murray. “I’ll miss her. I’ll miss you.”

“It’s a hell of an opportunity, I suppose,” said Murray’s father. “I have to get down to the Substation. It’s getting late.” Murray loaded his luggage into his small car. His father stood on the driveway, looking worried and sad. Just before Murray began backing out of the drive, his father came to the car and shook hands again. Murray said nothing.

There were only a few people in the Substation. Teletrans was an expensive way to travel; people made long journeys by train, or they saved their money for the trip by tect. There didn’t seem to be anyone to meet Murray. He went up to a uniformed CAS guard and explained his predicament.

“Certainly, Mr. Rose,” said the guard. He spoke with more deference than Murray had ever experienced. “Just check in at the TECT desk over there.” Murray began to wrestle his suitcases across the broad, polished floor, but to his surprise the guard offered to carry one of the bags. Murray nodded, and carried the other suitcase to the TECT control station.

“Mr. Rose?” asked one of the uniformed women there. Murray nodded. “Just sign here, and step through. You’ll have to leave those bags behind.”

“But I’ll need—”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Rose,” said the woman. “The office of the Representative specified ‘No Luggage.’ It costs too much to ship it through, and they’ve taken care of all your needs on the other side.” Murray shrugged and signed the release form.

“Through here?” he asked, pointing to a small door in the building’s wall, apparently leading back out to the parking lot. The woman waved him away impatiently. Murray took a deep breath, opened the door, and walked through.

He was on another world.

Behind him there was the sound of the door sighing closed. He turned around quickly, but there was no hint of building or portal. Murray stood in the midst of a meadow of tall, waving grass. The field ran unbroken to the horizon, the light turquoise color of the grass making the scene more like a seascape than virgin prairie. To his left, on a small knoll, stood a house. Murray walked toward it, enjoying the odd smells of the plants and the moist red soil. The sun was low in the sky; whether it was rising or setting he could not immediately decide. The star around which Planet C traveled was of a more orange color than Earth’s sun. And the sky had a magenta tint to it that startled Murray several times on the way to the house.

A note was tacked to the front gate. It said:

Murray took the note and walked up the path to the house. It looked like a typical midwestern farmhouse, with picket fence, porch swing, curtained windows, and smoking chimney. The one error was the color. The house was painted a traditional farmhouse red, which looked terrible in the orange light, under a magenta sky. Murray made a mental note to do something about it. Inside, the house was lovely. It was furnished in an old-fashioned, comfortable style. The kitchen and the bathroom plumbing were efficient and attractive. Murray wandered through the rooms, climbed the stairs and explored more rooms, gazed through all the windows until he realized how silent it was. It was incredibly quiet.

He grew hungry. There was no food in the kitchen at all. There were the promised leaflets, though. One said, Welcome to Planet C! in huge Gothic script letters. It gave a short description of the various edible plants growing in Murray’s fields, with photographs of the fruits or vegetables in ripe and unripe stages. Murray wanted something quick to munch on, before he got on with the job of settling in.

He riffled through the pamphlets until he came to a description of a semi-aware creature housed in the barn. The thing was actually a colony of dozens of football-sized, amoebalike creatures. These jellyballs could be found oozing along the ground during the summer, and frozen into solid white stones in the wintertime. In the soft stage, two or more could be tossed into a container, where they would coalesce into a single entity. When this happened, the creature would begin producing tough gray objects, about once a week. If more single jellyballs were added and assimilated, the gray lumps formed more frequently. These gray things, according to the booklet, settled down through the unsolid body of the aggregate creature; the lumps were a great deal more dense, and in the wild eventually were left behind in the path of the jellyball. The creature in the barn was housed in a wooden tub with a trapdoor on the bottom. Just inside, between the trapdoor and the creature, was a layer of wire netting with holes large enough for the gray lumps to pass through. Murray had merely to open the trapdoor to let the gray lumps fall out, and close it before the jellyanimal itself began to drip down. If more young jellyballs were found, they could always be tossed in to improve the stock. The gray lumps had to be boiled thoroughly; otherwise they were intensely poisonous. Afterward they were softer and quite palatable. According to the pamphlet.

Obviously, the gray lumps were supposed to become a staple of his diet. Murray felt a queasy feeling grow in his stomach. The other beasts with which the planet and the thoughtfulness of the Representative provided him were equally as unsettling. But a living had to be made from them. Murray went outside to the barn, to inspect his cattle.

As the weeks passed, Murray adjusted quickly to the new environment. There was too much work to do to waste time in loneliness and petty regrets. Every day after dark, when he had made himself a strange-looking but nonetheless appetizing meal, Murray entertained himself with the tect. He had no lack of reading material, nor would he ever. The tect supplied him with movies, music, games, and almost everything else stored within TECT’s immense subterranean memory banks. Yet sometimes Murray wondered if this were the sort of goal toward which Grandpa Zalman had urged him with his eccentric scholarship.

After a while Murray learned the planet’s oddities. Days were twenty-six hours long. The year was nearly a month shorter than on Earth. Planet C had no moons. Seasonal weather patterns became familiar. The various instructions for the feeding of livestock and the care of the field crops were inaccurate or incomplete in places; practical experiments complemented the information supplied by TECT. Sometimes Murray was lonely, of course; after the arrival of winter, with the snow piled around the house so deeply that he despaired of getting into the barn to feed the animals, he had the first real opportunity to ponder and to experience an initial tinge of sorrow. He went for walks across the snow-deadened prairie, staring at the new constellations that glowed in the moonless sky like fiery eyes in a fading dream. He liked to stand and look back toward the house; the lights and the fireplace blazing through the front windows gave him a sense of belonging that he had never felt at home with his parents. This was his world. He could name those eerie constellations, and no one could dispute him. He could travel the face of the world and name continents, oceans, deserts, ranges of mountains. He could raise cities to rival the choking metropolises of Earth….

When he began to think like that, he always laughed. Out in the snow, his breath blowing out in quick clouds, Murray admitted his loneliness but was content nonetheless. He was building, and it gave him satisfaction. Even if Planet C never did have sprawling cities, it made no difference. Murray was happy. He felt an unshakeable unity with the world, a sort of faith in himself and in God’s eternal gifts; even here, circling Pasogh 1874, Grandpa Zalman’s simple ideals seemed to apply. Wherever he went in his immense realm, Murray felt the presence of Grandpa Zalman. And, eventually, Murray informed TECT that from then on Planet C would be known as Zalman.

The winter passed slowly but enjoyably. Murray had followed the advice of TECT and stored food for himself and the livestock; there was no problem at all about running out of provisions. Fuel for the fire was not essential, as the house seemed to be receiving natural gas from some local supply. Murray had learned that the dried stalks of one of the food crops made excellent, slow-burning firewood, but he hadn’t been able to store enough for frequent fires. Next year he’d know better, but now he had to ration the fuel. That was a shame, because there was nothing he enjoyed more than building a fire in the living room fireplace and listening to music.

Spring came, and with it an incredible amount of work. Alone, Murray had to prepare the fields for planting, seed the few acres, and maintain the young plants against the natural pests that lived in the high grass around the farm. Murray worked long days, glad of the extra hours of sunlight that Zalman’s slower rotation allowed him. Perhaps because he was laboring for himself alone, the work was never frustrating or tedious. At night, exhausted and aching, he was nevertheless satisfied. He knew that he could never have achieved that degree of fulfillment on Earth.

In the middle of the summer Murray realized that he had been on Zalman for almost a year, and had thought very little about his parents. He wondered if somehow he could contact them. He asked the tect, and it suggested that Murray dictate a letter, which would be relayed to a public tect near Murray’s old home, and from there by messenger to Murray’s parents. He was glad to have the chance, but he was nervous, too. He wondered if his parents could understand how happy he was, how what had seemed like a strange and cruel punishment was really the reward the Representative had promised. He wondered if he could try to explain that without hurting their feelings. Finally, he addressed a short, noncommittal note to them; he never received a reply to it.

The summer and then the autumn passed. It was time again to begin the harvest. Murray’s livestock had multiplied during the year, as well. He now had three large tubs of jellyanimals, each producing three or four gray lumps a day. He learned that the lumps could be stored unboiled for an indefinite length of time, and that after boiling they could be chopped and fed to the other animals; the livestock seemed to thrive with this addition to their diet. The draft animals, which Murray had named “stupes,” were large bearlike creatures with shaggy white coats. They had intelligent expressions, but three of them had almost starved before Murray realized that they were too stupid to look for their food beyond its normal place. He had rearranged the inside of the barn and moved the feeding troughs; the stupes had nearly died before they adjusted. Now there were six adult stupes and four helpless cubs. The TECT booklet said that they might be slaughtered for food, but Murray tended to doubt that. He preferred to delay that experiment, at least another year. The other animals were doing just as well; there were a dozen creatures that looked like squirrels the size of large dogs, which supplied Murray with a thin blue “milk”; there were scores of tiny things which Murray called “mice,” although they were more like lizards with fur, and which had an inscrutable but vital relationship with the stupes; there were several members of a trisexual species of flightless bird, which ate the unboiled gray lumps of the jellyanimals and regurgitated an ugly but nutritious porridge; and there were other animals, to all of which Murray had grown accustomed and even fond.

The second winter began, raged, and passed. A new spring woke the land, and with it came the first communication from Earth in many months. Murray was astonished to see the red Advise light flashing when he came in for the evening meal. He hurried to read the message:

“Yes,” said Murray, mystified and somewhat upset. “Query,” he said.

“Whom am I marrying?” he asked.

“Oh,” said Murray. Then he went into the kitchen to boil some gray lumps.

Like the periodic Tests in school, like the seemingly arbitrary way in which Murray had been settled on Zalman, the order to appear and be married reflected the total control possessed by the Representatives. Early in his life Murray had learned not to try to comprehend their sometimes baffling commands; now, he had the spring planting to worry about. He gave no further thought to the situation until the day of his return to Earth.

Murray knew that the subceiver would appear at eleven o’clock, RepNA time. He had to ask his tect what time that would be on Zalman; it was three o’clock in the morning. Murray sighed; he was glad the portal would be marked by flares. Still half asleep after the tect roused him according to his instructions, Murray hurried into his clothes and drank a quick cup of prairie grass tea. He wasn’t excited at all, not about returning to Earth or getting married. He checked his animals carefully, giving them a double ration of fodder in case he had to be away longer than he planned. Then he went out into the chilly darkness and walked toward the flares and the faintly glowing portal.

He stepped through, into a long hallway of gray cinderblocks. There was a large green arrow fastened to the wall, and Murray followed it toward a green metal door at the end of the hall. He paused outside for a moment, then knocked. A voice from the other side called to him to enter.

There were a couple of dozen chairs inside, most of them occupied by young men and women with anxious expressions. There was also a long line of couples leading up to a battered brown desk. The man behind the desk looked up from a form he was filling out and glanced at Murray. “Name?” he asked.

“Murray. Murray Rose.”

“Last name first, first name, middle initial,” said the exasperated clerk.

“Oh. Rose, Murray S.”

The clerk frowned. “All right. Let’s see, you’re with, uh, Stone, Sharon F. She’s not here yet. Take a seat. When she comes in, you can both get in this line.”

Murray sat down and waited, feeling at last some nervous symptoms. While he waited, he examined the other people in the room. They all seemed to be bright young men and women; who could tell what roles the Representative had chosen for them? Murray wondered if he looked any different than they, if his two years of hard work on Zalman showed in his face, his hands, his bearing. Soon he noticed his eyes burning; the air in the room was obnoxiously foul. The dense gray clouds of smog outside the Hall would excite no nostalgic thrills in Murray. Neither would the crowded streets and the filthy sidewalks. Murray was shocked by his own reaction. After all, here he was after a long absence, once more on the planet of his birth; all he felt was an impatience to get it all over with and go home—back to Zalman.

After about twenty minutes, the door opened and a young woman entered. The clerk shot his harried look at her and asked her name. “Stone,” she said. Murray watched her with more interest. This was the girl whom the Representative and TECT had picked to be his wife.

“You’re with Rose, over there,” said the clerk. “The two of you get at the back of the line.”

Murray stood and met her at the end of the line. He smiled hesitantly. “I’m Murray Rose,” he said.

She sighed. “Hello,” she said. There didn’t seem to be anything else to say, so they waited in silence. The marriage routine was very short, being merely a few questions concerning data updates, new addresses, future plans, and so on, and then the bride and groom’s presentation of positive identification.

When they had satisfied the clerk’s impersonal curiosity, he waved them away. “Next,” he said wearily.

“Is that all?” asked Murray later, as they searched for the way out of the building. “No official congratulations or anything?”

“What do you want?” asked Sharon. “A national yontif?”

“I don’t know,” said Murray. “I guess I’m more sentimental than I should be.”

“So,” said Sharon, “we’re eppes married. How many kids do we want?” She laughed, and Murray looked at her, bewildered; then he laughed.

“It is a little strange. What do we do now? You want to tell me all about yourself?”

“No. We have years for that. Where do you live?”

Murray paused briefly. “Well, see, it’s like this. I live on another planet.”

Sharon stopped short. “What?” she cried.

“I did pretty well in school. After the Twelfth-year Test they gave me this planet. I have a small farm. It’s a lot of work, but it’s very nice. I think you’ll like it.”

“Nu! You’re Jewish, right?”

Murray shrugged. “Sort of,” he said. “Nobody in my family really practiced at it.”

“Still,” said Sharon bitterly. “That’s the way the Representatives work it, you know. If they find a smart Jew, they figure some way of getting him out of circulation. They’ve bought you out. You won’t make any trouble for them wherever it is you live.”

“That’s politics,” said Murray. “I don’t believe in politics. At least, not on my wedding day.”

“Yes, but I do,” said Sharon. “Man, they really pulled a good one this time. They took care of the both of us in one shot.”

They walked some more, at last finding the door out of the Hall of Adjustments. “Where to?” asked Murray.

“My folks live in San Diego,” said Sharon. “I don’t know anybody in this town.”

“Maybe we could visit my parents. That would surprise them.”

Murray’s parents were surprised. “I thought you were off on some weird star or something,” said his father.

“I was brought back. The Representative ordered me. I got married this afternoon.”

“Married!” cried Murray’s mother. “Is this her? Your wife, I mean?”

“Yes; this is Sharon. Sharon, these are my parents.” The four of them talked for a while, and then Murray excused himself to go to sleep. As he left, his parents and Sharon were discussing plans for a wedding reception. Murray’s mother was already on the phone, calling relatives.

It was evening when Murray awoke. Sharon and his parents were eating dinner. They greeted him when he came into the kitchen. “Sit down, son,” said Murray’s father. “I want to hear all about this place you live on.”

“I sent you a letter a while ago,” said Murray. “Didn’t you ever get it?”

“No,” said his mother. “But that’s the post office for you.”

“I named the planet after Grandpa Zalman.”

There was a long pause. “Oh,” said Murray’s father. “What do you do for a living these days?”

Murray sighed. “I farm,” he said. “I have some fields and some livestock. It’s good, honest, hard work. I like it.”

“What do you do the rest of the time?” asked his mother. “You don’t go into town and fool around, do you? Sharon, you’ll have to watch him, I know. He’s at that age now. You’ll see.” The two women exchanged smiles, and Murray’s father slapped his son’s shoulder.

“There isn’t any town,” said Murray. “I’m the only one there.”

“How far away are your neighbors, then?” asked his father.

“No neighbors. I’m the only one on the whole world.”

Murray’s mother frowned. “That’s stupid, Murray,” she said. Sharon said nothing, but carried her plate to the sink. There was another silence.

“There’s going to be a party tomorrow, Murray,” said Sharon at last. “Your mother called all your old friends, too.”

“Great,” he said. “I’ve been wondering what happened to them all.”

The next afternoon Sharon, Murray, and his parents arrived at the Gutrune Kaemmer Jewish Community Center; the main hall was filling with Murray’s relatives and friends. It had been hastily decorated; a photographer from the local newstape took pictures, for Murray’s Test scores and his unique award had made him a celebrity in the neighborhood. Murray smiled and shook hands with everyone, and tried to introduce his new wife; he found to his dismay that he had trouble remembering the names of even some of the nearest relatives and closest friends. Finally, he was able to get away from the crowd with Billy Corman, his best friend from school, and Sharon.

“Things have really changed,” said Corman.

“I see already,” said Murray. “What happened to the big whatchamacallit—”

“Mogen David,” said Sharon quietly.

“Yeah,” said Murray. “They used to have it hanging on the wall there. A big, heavy old stainless steel thing.”

“I don’t know,” said Corman. “Some building inspector was checking on the wiring in the new wing, and decided they needed some kind of connections. I think they had to take down some of the paneling, right where the Star was. When the workmen left, they forgot to put it back. I guess the Center just never got around to it.”

“Very shrewd,” said Sharon. “They must send those inspectors to special school to learn that kind of thing.”

“Huh?” said Corman.

“I think my bride here is a radical,” said Murray. “A paranoid radical.”

Corman looked embarrassed. “Those are the worst kind,” he said, straining to make a joke. No one acknowledged it.

Murray and Sharon said goodbye to the friends and relatives soon thereafter; they had to be back at the TELETRANS Substation by five o’clock that evening. Murray’s parents wished them luck, and Murray’s mother kissed Sharon and cried. Everyone shouted their farewells, and Murray escorted his wife from the Center; they got a cab almost immediately, went straight to the Substation, and soon had signed in at the TECT desk. The yawning attendant indicated the portal, and Murray stepped through. A few seconds later Sharon joined him in the gently waving grasses of Zalman. It was only a few hours after dawn on his planet.

“For a sky, that’s a pretty strange color,” said Sharon. She was pushing the tall grass away from her, but the turquoise stalks swept back and brushed her face. She frowned in annoyance.

“I guess you’ll have to get used to it,” said Murray. “I have. Come on; you can see the house. I want to check the livestock.”

“What do you have?”

“They’re not earth animals. You’ll have to be prepared.”

“Look, Murray, this isn’t my idea. If I don’t feel up to playing the courageous chalutz, I won’t. Who knows? You may have gotten a real bad bargain. What if I go crazy?”

“It’s really a good farm,” said Murray. “And now there won’t be as much work.”

“There won’t be as much for you, let me remind you. I get the feeling there’s going to be a whole lot more for me.”

“It’s a good farm.”

“It’s how they bought your manhood, yekl,” said Sharon. Murray didn’t answer. “Wonderful, what a match that shadchen machine stuck me with,” she muttered.

“Look,” called Murray. “This is one of the animals that live around here.” He held up a small jellyball. “You get a couple of them and they sort of mush together. They make gray things that you can eat.”

“Feh!” said Sharon.

“You carry it,” said Murray. “You have to get over your fear.”

“It isn’t fear,” she said shrilly. “It’s disgust.”

The first few days were unpleasant. Sharon refused to have anything to do with the animals. Even the vegetables from the fields made her run from the table at mealtime. Soon her hunger grew to the point where she had to compromise. She ate a few vegetables, and some of the boiled gray lumps. She admitted that they were reasonably pleasant in taste; but her intellect betrayed her, and after she thought about the source of the food she hurried to the bathroom again. It wasn’t as bad the next day, and then it wasn’t long before she was eating well again. From then on she helped Murray in all the day’s chores, although forever after she had a particular distaste for the jellyanimals.

Murray had come back to the house for a quick lunch one day. It was now near the end of summer, and the day’s routines had none of the urgency of the spring planting or the fall harvest. Sharon had fixed a special meal for him, hamburgers made from ground stupe meat.

“You’re incredible,” said Murray.

“I figured you’d like it,” said Sharon. “How long has it been since you had a good old greasy hamburger?”

“Too long. One of the things I was hoping to do when I went back to get married was fill up on things like that. You know, pizzas and cheap French fries.”

“I know how you feel already. I’d give anything for some honest drive-in trayf. It wouldn’t be so bad, except that this isn’t our choice. If you never had the chance to decide, you never had the chance to make your own mistake. The Representatives have cheated you out of your own humanity. They’ve just forgotten about free will.”

Murray sighed. “Don’t start that again, Sharon, okay? This is my little Garden of Eden. You keep forgetting if you’re Eve or the serpent. You’re forever trying to make the Representatives sound like corruption personified. How many other people do you know who have a whole, clean, beautiful world all to themselves? You just can’t make a gift like that out of evil intentions.”

“For thousands of years we’ve swallowed that einredenish. They say, ‘Go on. Make money. Gather possessions. But just don’t get pushy.’ And the nuchshleppers go right along with them. Every time we seem to be pulling our people together, somebody throws cold water on our smoldering desire, scatters the flame of our spirit. Being driven out of our own land into exile wasn’t bad enough. But then for centuries, wherever small communities of Jews gathered, the machers in power devoted themselves to splitting up even those tiny groups.”

“That’s the racial paranoia my father yelled about all the time,” said Murray. “It’s stupid. What’s the matter, you need to be persecuted? You can’t have someone hand you a gift horse without looking it in the mouth?”

“Bubkes! I know some Trojans that would’ve been a lot better off if they had. Anyway, now the Representatives have found the real answer. This is a neat thing they’ve done. Nobody can accuse them of genocide. Even you can’t see what they’re doing.”

“What are they doing?”

“You know what the Diaspora means?”

“No,” said Murray.

“It used to mean the community of Jews living outside Israel. There used to be great numbers of Jews throughout the world. Now there isn’t. Mostly, there are a couple of million Jews in Israel, living in sort of an amusement park for the Representatives. And some more scattered neighborhoods in the rest of the world. Now they’re taking the best of our people and spreading them even further. A dispersion of the Dispersion. It’s much more effective than killing them would be. No one is angered, no one is vengeful. I mean, you certainly looked happy enough when you visited your parents, nu?”

“All right,” said Murray, rubbing his eyes with his rough fingers, “suppose you tell me why they bother?”

“Go to that damn machine of yours,” said Sharon. Murray frowned, not understanding, but he went to the tect. “Now ask it a question,” she said. “Ask it what a Jew is.”

Murray did so. The answer was immediate:

“That’s why they bother,” said Sharon. “It’s all the reason they need.”

Her ideas were as foreign to Murray as Grandpa Zalman’s had been; but, after he had thought about them, he discovered that he couldn’t find an easy reply. When he had made that admission, Murray decided that Sharon at least deserved the attention he had given to his grandfather’s odd ways. The summer ended. Several weeks later, he went to the tect and asked a few more questions. “How many other individuals have been given their own planet?” he said.

“What percentage of those people are Jewish or of Jewish extraction?”

“And what percentage of the population of the Earth is Jewish or of Jewish extraction?”

Those figures seemed to substantiate Sharon’s angry charges. But, still, Murray didn’t agree that giving virgin worlds away was a scheme to destroy the Jewish people. It may just be the result of a natural superiority among Jewish students, at least as far as what the Twelfth-year Test measured. But then Murray had a sudden thought. “How many known, habitable worlds are there in the universe, besides Earth?” he asked.

There! “How many other people are living on the world known as Zalman, other than Murray and Sharon Rose?”

Murray took the information to Sharon. “I have to apologize,” he said. “It looks like your view of things may be a little more accurate than mine. I’m either naïve or just stupid. If the Representatives will lie about meaningless things like this, who knows what else they’ve been lying about?”

Sharon smiled at him sadly. “Twenty-two other people, scattered around the face of a world. A regular little shtetl, if we could all get together. That’s what Jews have been saying since Genesis.”

“I guess it’s too late, now.”

“It may be too late for you and me,” said Sharon. “We’ve sold the birthright. We’ve betrayed our ancestors. And for what? Some gray lumps.”

Murray was still upset by his discoveries, and Sharon’s words only irritated him. He grew defensive. “So what should I be doing?” he said loudly. “Fighting them by myself?”

“We should be conserving what little remains of our heritage,” said Sharon softly. “You never cared much for that, did you?”

“You can’t blame me for my environment,” said Murray.

“I can, if you keep making its mistakes.”

Murray slammed his hand down on the table. “You want me to go back to Earth? Lead an uprising? Murray Maccabeus, for pity’s sake?”

“Murray, that light on the machine is flashing,” said Sharon. He turned around, startled. There was a message coming through.

“You think they’ve been listening?” asked Murray.

“Probably,” said Sharon with a scowl. “What difference does it make?”

Murray hurried to the tect. The CRT screen displayed the news:

“Congratulations,” said Murray. “The Representative strikes again.”

“Have you noticed how when that gonif strikes, he always seems to hit me?” said Sharon. Murray looked at her; she laughed, and he felt relieved. “Having a baby has taken more than one good revolutionary out of the action,” she said. “But at least I can train him to take care of those jellyanimals. That’s the trouble with this planet. No hired hands.”

“That’s a terrible thing to say,” said Murray. “Our baby—”

“I was only kidding.”

“I had this vision of you raising him to be an employee instead of a son. I can never tell when you’re serious.”

“Wait until you get to know me,” she said. “Then you can worry.”

“So tell me. How are you going to raise a kid without chicken soup?”

Sharon laughed. “I was waiting for that. No, really, I figure we can make a good enough broth out of stupe bones. Stupe soup. Feh!”

“And then this champion we’re raising can go back to Earth and bust heads for us,” said Murray.

Sharon suddenly got serious. “You know, Murray,” she said, “I don’t want to believe we’re the only ones who have discovered what the Representatives are doing. I mean, they’ve scattered our best minds, but those minds are still functioning. Our kid won’t be any Messiah. Not by himself. But maybe around these planets, we’re making a generation of Messiahs.”

“That’s a very heroic thought,” said Murray. “I guess you have to tell yourself things like that, to keep yourself going.” Now Sharon stared at her husband, until he laughed.

“I’m going to crown you one of these days, chachem, if you don’t stop mocking me. Look, the Hebrews were wandering around leaderless, oppressed by all sorts of people and ideas. Then came Moses. Now everybody’s oppressed and lost, not just our small tribe. So instead of one man, the world needs one strong family of men to stand up and fight back. What Moses is to the Jews, the Jews can be to all mankind.”

“And before the Messiah comes, isn’t the prophet Elijah supposed to return?” asked Murray with a smile. “I like that. It makes me Elijah. Mom would be proud.”

“No,” said Sharon, “it makes us Elijah. And the spirit of Elijah is with us. It’s Succoth.”

“What?”

“A feast. A harvest thanksgiving. There are traditions. We’ll build a booth in the fields, and we’ll eat our meals there. It will remind us of the temporary shelters of the Hebrews in their years of wandering. It can mean the temporary kind of dominance the Representatives have over us, if you want. We’re supposed to have willow and myrtle and other branches, but I suppose we can substitute. It’s the thought that counts, isn’t it?”

Murray kissed Sharon lightly on the cheek. “You’re very special,” he said. “You’re a little insane, but you’re special.”

“And you, luftmensh, you’re just dumb.”

“Let’s hurry up and have that baby, so we can all get out of here,” said Murray, sighing.

“Relax. We’ve waited this long, we can wait a little longer.”

“What do I do in the meantime?” asked Murray.

“You can help me get the rest of those bluebeans in,” she said. “And then we can start on the booth.” Murray nodded and started to go back outside. “Nu,” said Sharon. “I made this for you.”

Murray looked at the little thing she had pulled from her pocket. “What is it?” he asked.

“It’s a yarmulke. Take it.”

He hesitated for a second. Then he took it from her and put it on. It was time they got to work.