Gold: The Final Science Fiction Collection Read online

  “Why not? Surely the Central Computer, which evaluated your scholastic record and your social and personal background can be trusted in its judgments. And if you do well, it will be a great achievement for you, for right here we are on the cutting edge of a new technology.”

  “I know that, sir,” said Sam. “Back on Earth, everyone is very excited about it. No one before has ever tried to get close to a neutron star and make use of its energy.”

  “Yes?” said Gentry. “I haven’t been on Earth for two years. What else do they say about it? I understand there’s considerable opposition?” His eyes probed the boy.

  Sam shifted uneasily, aware he was being tested. He said, “There are people on Earth who say it’s all too dangerous and might be a waste of money.” “Do you believe that?”

  “It might be so, but most new technologies have their dangers and many are worth doing despite that. This one is, I think.”

  “Very good. What else do they say on Earth?”

  Sam said, “They say the Commander isn’t well and that the project might fail without him.” When Gentry didn’t respond, Sam said, hastily, “That’s what they say.”

  Gentry acted as though he did not hear. He put his hand on Sam’s shoulder and said, “Come, I’ve got to show you to your Corridor, introduce you to your roommate, and explain what your initial duties will be. “ As they walked toward the elevator that would take them downward, he said, “What was your first choice in assignment, Chase?”

  “Neurophysiology, sir.”

  “Not a bad choice. Even today, the human brain continues to be a mystery. We know more about neutron stars than we do about the brain, as we found out when this project first began.”

  “Oh?”

  “Indeed! At the start, various people at the base-it was much smaller and more primitive then- reported having experienced hallucinations. They never caused any bad effects, and after a while, there were no further reports. We never found out the cause.”

  Sam stopped, and looked up and about again, “Was that why the Dome was built, Dr. Gentry? “

  “No, not at all. We needed a place with a completely Earth-like environment, for various reasons, but we haven’t isolated ourselves. People can go outside freely. There are no hallucinations being reported now.”

  Sam said, “The information I was given about Energy Planet is that there is no life on it except for plants and insects, and that they’re harmless.”

  “That’s right, but they’re also inedible, so we grow our own vegetables, and keep some small animals, right here under the Dome. Still, we’ve found nothing hallucinogenic about the planetary life.”

  “Anything unusual about the atmosphere, sir?”

  Gentry looked down from his only slightly greater height and said, “Not at all. People have camped in the open overnight on occasion and nothing has happened. It is a pleasant world. There are streams but no fish, just algae and water-insects. There is nothing to sting you or poison you. There are yellow berries that look delicious and taste terrible but do no other harm. The weather’s pretty nearly always good. There are frequent light rains and it is sometimes windy, but there are no extremes of heat and cold.”

  “And no hallucinations any more, Dr. Gentry?”

  “You sound disappointed,” said Gentry, smiling.

  Sam took a chance. “Does the Commander’s trouble have anything to do with the hallucinations, sir?”

  The good nature vanished from Gentry’s eyes for a moment, and he frowned. He said, “What trouble do you refer to?”

  Sam flushed and they proceeded in silence.

  Sam found few others in the Corridor he had been assigned to, but Gentry explained it was a busy time at the forward station, where the power system was being built in a ring around the neutron star-the tiny object less than ten miles across that had all the mass of a normal star, and a magnetic field of incredible power.

  It was the magnetic field that would be tapped. Energy would be led away in enormous amounts and yet it would all be a pinprick, less than a pinprick, to the star’s rotational energy, which was the ultimate source. It would take billions of years to bleed off all that energy, and in that time, dozens of populated planets, fed the energy through hyperspace, would have all they needed for an indefinite time.

  Sharing his room was Robert Gillette, a dark-haired, unhappy-looking young man. After cautious greetings had been exchanged, Robert revealed the fact that he was sixteen and had been “grounded” with a broken arm, though the fact didn’t show since it had been pinned internally.

  Robert said, ruefully, “It takes a while before you learn to handle things in space. They may not have weight, but they have inertia and you have to allow for that.”

  Sam said, “They always teach you that in-” He was going to say that it was taught in fourth-grade science, but realized that would be insulting, and stopped himself.

  Robert caught the implication, however, and flushed. He said, “It’s easy to know it in your head. It doesn’t mean you get the proper reflexes, till you’ve practiced quite a bit. You’ll find out.” Sam said, “Is it very complicated to get to go outside.”

  “No, but why do you want to go? There’s nothing there.” “Have you ever been outside.”

  “Sure,” but he shrugged, and volunteered nothing else.

  Sam took a chance. He said, very casually, “Did you ever see one of these hallucinations they talk about?”

  Robert said, “Who talks about?”

  Sam didn’t answer directly. He said, “ A lot of people used to see them, but they don’t anymore.

  Or so they say.”

  “So who say?”

  Sam took another chance. “Or if they see them, they keep quiet about them.”

  Robert said gruffly, “Listen, let me give you some advice. Don’t get interested in these-whatever they are. If you start telling yourself you see-uh-something, you might be sent back. You’ll lose your chance at a good education and an important career.”

  Robert’s eyes shifted to a direct stare as he said that.

  Sam shrugged and sat down on the unused bunk. “ All right for this to be my bed? “

  “It’s the only other bed here,” said Robert, still staring. “The bathroom’s to your right. There’s your closet, your bureau. You get half the room. There’s a gym here, a library, a dining area.” He paused and then, as though to let bygones be bygones, said, “I’ll show you around later.” “Thanks,” said Sam. “What kind of a guy is the Commander?”

  “He’s aces. We wouldn’t be here without him. He knows more about hyper spatial technology than anyone, and he’s got pull with the Space Agency, so we get the money and equipment we need.”

  Sam opened his trunk and, with his back to Robert, said casually, “I understand he’s not well.” “Things get him down. We’re behind schedule, there are cost-overruns, and things like that. Enough to get anyone down.”

  “Depression, huh? Any connection, you suppose, with-”

  Robert stirred impatiently in his seat, “Say, why are you so interested in all this?” “Energy physics isn’t really my deal. Coming here-”

  “Well, here’s where you are, mister, and you better make up your mind to it, or you’ll get sent home, and then you won’t be anywhere. I’m going to the library.”

  Sam remained in the room alone, with his thoughts.

  It was not at all difficult for Sam to get permission to leave the Dome. The Corridor-Master didn’t even ask the reason until after he had checked him off.

  “I want to get a feel for the planet, sir.”

  The Corridor-Master nodded. “Fair enough, but you only get three hours, you know. And don’t wander out of sight of the Dome. If we have to look for you, we’ll find you, because you’ll be wearing this,” and he held out a transmitter which Sam knew had been tuned to his own personal wavelength, one which had been assigned him at birth. “But if we have to go to that trouble, you won’t be allowed out again for a pr
etty long time. And it won’t look good on your record, either. You understand?”

  It won’t look good on your record. Any reasonable career these days had to include experience and education in space, so it was an effective warning. No wonder people might have stopped reporting hallucinations, even if they saw them.

  Even so, Sam was going to have to take his chances. After all, the Central Computer couldn’t have sent him here just to do energy physics. There was nothing in his record that made sense out of that.

  As far as looks were concerned, the planet might have been Earth, some part of Earth anyway, some place where there were a few trees and low bushes and lots of tall grass.

  There were no paths and with every cautious step, the grass swayed, and tiny flying creatures whirred upward with a soft, hissing noise of wings.

  One of them landed on his finger and Sam looked at it curiously. It was very small and, therefore, hard to see in detail, but it seemed hexagonal, bulging above and concave below. There were many short, small legs so that when it moved it almost seemed to do so on tiny wheels. There were no signs of wings till it suddenly took off, and then four tiny, feathery objects unfurled.

  What made the planet different from Earth, though, was the smell. It wasn’t unpleasant, it was just different. The plants must have had an entirely different chemistry from those on Earth; that’s why they tasted bad and were inedible. It was just luck they weren’t poisonous.

  The smell diminished with time, however, as it saturated Sam’s nostrils. He found an exposed bit of rocky ledge he could sit on and considered the prospect. The sky was filled with lines of clouds, and the Sun was periodically obscured, but the temperature was pleasant and there was only a light wind. The air felt a bit damp, as though it might rain in a few hours.

  Sam had brought a small hamper with him and he placed it in his lap and opened it. He had brought along two sandwiches and a canned drink so that he could make rather a picnic of it.

  He chewed away and thought: Why should there be hallucinations?

  Surely those accepted for a job as important as that of taming a neutron star would have been selected for mental stability. It would be surprising to have even one person hallucinating, let alone a number of them. Was it a matter of chemical influences on the brain?

  They would surely have checked that out.

  Sam plucked a leaf, tore it in two and squeezed. He then put the torn edge to his nose cautiously, and took it away again. A very acrid, unpleasant smell. He tried a blade of grass. Much the same.

  Was the smell enough? It hadn’t made him feel dizzy or in any way peculiar.

  He used a bit of his water to rinse off the fingers that had held the plants and then rubbed them on his trouser leg. He finished his sandwiches slowly, and tried to see if anything else might be considered unnatural about the planet.

  All that greenery. There ought to be animals eating it, rabbits, cows, whatever. Not just insects, innumerable insects, or whatever those little things might be, with the gentle sighing of their tiny feathery wings and the very soft crackle of their munch, murich, munchings of leaves and stalks.

  What if there were a cow-a big, fat cow-doing the munching? And with the last mouthful of his second sandwich between his teeth, his own munching stopped.

  There was a kind of smoke in the air between himself and a line of hedges. It waved, billowed, and altered: a very thin smoke. He blinked his eyes, then shook his head, but it was still there.

  He swallowed hastily, closed his lunch box, and slung it over his shoulder by its strap. He stood up.

  He felt no fear. He was only excited-and curious.

  The smoke was growing thicker, and taking on a shape. Vaguely, it looked like a cow, a smoky, insubstantial shape that he could see through. Was it a hallucination? A creation of his mind? He had just been thinking of a cow.

  Hallucination or not, he was going to investigate. With determination, he stepped toward the shape.

  Part Two

  Sam Chase stepped toward the cow outlined in smoke on the strange, far planet on which his education and career were to be advanced.

  He was convinced there was nothing wrong with his mind. It was the “hallucination “ that Dr. Gentry had mentioned, but it was no hallucination. Even as he pushed his way through the tall rank grasslike greenery, he noted the silence, and knew not only that it was no hallucination, but what it really was.

  The smoke seemed to condense and grow darker, outlining the cow more sharply. It was as though the cow were being painted in the air.

  Sam laughed, and shouted, “Stop! Stop! Don’t use me. I don’t know a cow well enough. I’ve only seen pictures. You’re getting it all wrong.”

  It looked more like a caricature than a real animal and, as he cried out, the outline wavered and thinned. The smoke remained but it was as though an unseen hand had passed across the air to erase what had been written.

  Then a new shape began to take form. At first, Sam couldn’t quite make out what it was intended to represent, but it changed and sharpened quickly. He stared in surprise, his mouth hanging open and his hamper bumping emptily against his shoulder blade.

  The smoke was forming a human being. There was no mistake about it. It was forming accurately, as though it had a model it could imitate, and of course it did have one, for Sam was standing there.

  It was becoming Sam, clothes and all, even the outline of the hamper and the strap over his shoulder. It was another Sam Chase.

  It was still a little vague, wavering a bit, insubstantial, but it firmed as though it were correcting itself, and then, finally, it was steady.

  It never became entirely solid. Sam could see the vegetation dimly through it, and when a gust of wind caught it, it moved a bit as if it were a tethered balloon.

  But it was real. It was no creation of his mind. Sam was sure of that.

  But he couldn’t just stand there, simply facing it. Diffidently, he said, “Hello, there.”

  Somehow, he expected the Other Sam to speak, too, and, indeed, its mouth opened and closed, but no sound came out. It might just have been imitating the motion of Sam’s mouth.

  Sam said, again, “Hello, can you speak?”

  There was no sound but his own voice, and yet there was a tickling in his mind, a conviction that they could communicate.

  Sam frowned. What made him so sure of that? The thought seemed to pop into his mind.

  He said, “Is this what has appeared to other people, human people-my kind-on this world?” No answering sound, but he was quite sure what the answer to his question was. This had appeared to other people, not necessarily in their own shape, but something. And it hadn’t worked.

  What made him so sure of that? Where did these convictions come from in answer to his questions?

  Yes, of course, they were the answers to his questions. The Other Sam was putting thoughts into his mind. It was adjusting the tiny electric currents in his brain cells so that the proper thoughts would arise.

  He nodded thoughtfully at that thought, and the Other Sam must have caught the significance of the gesture, for it nodded, too.

  It had to be so. First a cow had formed, when Sam had thought of a cow, and then it had shifted when Sam had said the cow was imperfect. The Other Sam could grasp his thoughts somehow, and if it could grasp them, then it could modify them, too, perhaps.

  Was this what telepathy was like, then? It was not like talking. It was having thoughts, except that the thoughts originated elsewhere and were not created entirely of one's own mental operations. But how could you tell your own thoughts from thoughts imposed from outside?

  Sam knew the answer to that at once. Right now, he was unused to the process. He had never had practice. With time, as he grew more skilled at it, he would be able to tell one kind of thought from another without trouble.

  In fact, he could do it now, if he thought about it. Wasn't he carrying on a conversation in a way?

  He was wondering, and then knowing
. The wondering was his own question, the knowing was the Other

  Sam's answer. Of course it was.

  There! The “of course it was,” just now, was an answer.

  “Not so fast, Other Sam,” said Sam, aloud. “Don't go too quickly. Give me a chance to sort things out, or I'll just get confused.”

  He sat down suddenly on the grass, which bent away from him in all directions. The Other Sam slowly tried to sit down as well.

  Sam laughed. “Your legs are bending in the wrong place.”

  That was corrected at once. The Other Sam sat down, but remained very stiff from the waist up. “Relax,” said Sam.

  Slowly, the Other Sam slumped, flopping a bit to one side, then correcting that.

  Sam was relieved. With the Other Sam so willing to follow his lead, he was sure good will was involved. It was! Exactly!

  “No,” said Sam. “I said, not so fast. Don't go by my thoughts. Let me speak out loud, even if you can't hear me. Then adjust my thoughts, so I'll know it's an adjustment. Do you understand?”

  He waited a moment and was then sure the Other Sam understood.

  Ah, the answer had come, but not right away. Good! “Why do you appear to people?” asked Sam. He stared earnestly at the Other Sam, and knew that the Other Sam wanted to communicate with people, but had failed.

  No answer to that question had really been required. The answer was obvious. But then, why had they failed?

  He put it in words. “Why did you fail? You are successfully communicating with me.”

  Sam was beginning to learn how to understand the alien manifestation. It was as if his mind were adapting itself to a new technique of communication, just as it would adapt itself to a new language. Or was Other Sam influencing Sam’s mind and teaching him the method without Sam even knowing it was being done?

  Sam found himself emptying his mind of immediate thoughts. After he asked his question, he just let his eyes focus at nothing and his eyelids droop, as though he were about to drop off to sleep, and then he knew the answer. There was a little clicking, or something, in his mind, a signal that showed him something had been put in from outside.