Pebble in the Sky Read online

  “Nonsense,” was the immediate reply. “I have no intention of dying first. Do I look like the sort of man who would die first? I’m living twelve years, three months, and four days, and there’s not a man here with the hardihood to deny it.” And he looked very fierce indeed.

  A slim young man took a long, dandyish cigarette from between his lips to say darkly, “It’s well for them that can calculate it out to a day. There’s many a man living past his time.”

  “Ah, surely,” said another, and there was a general nod and a rather inchoate air of indignation arose.

  “Not,” continued the young man, interspersing his cigarette puffs with a complicated flourish intended to remove the ash, “that I see any objection to a man—or woman—wishing to continue on past their birthday to the next Council day, particularly if they have some business to clean up. It’s these sneaks and parasites that try to go past to the next Census, eating the food of the next generation—” He seemed to have a personal grievance there.

  Arvardan interposed gently, “But aren’t the ages of everyone registered? They can’t very well pass their birthday too far, can they?”

  A general silence followed, admixtured not a little with contempt at the foolish idealism expressed. Someone said at last, in diplomatic fashion, as though attempting to conclude the subject, “Well, there isn’t much point living past the Sixty, I suppose.”

  “Not if you’re a farmer,” shot back another vigorously. “After you’ve been working in the fields for half a century, you’d be crazy not to be glad to call it off. How about the administrators, though, and the businessmen?”

  Finally the elderly man, whose fortieth wedding anniversary had begun the conversation, ventured his own opinion, emboldened perhaps by the fact that, as a current victim of the Sixty, he had nothing to lose.

  “As to that,” he said, “it depends on who you know.” And he winked with a sly innuendo. “I knew a man once who was sixty the year after the 810 Census and lived till the 820 Census caught him. He was sixty-nine before he left off. Sixty-nine! Think of that!”

  “How did he manage that?”

  “He had a little money, and his brother was one of the Society of Ancients. There’s nothing you can’t do if you’ve got that combination.”

  There was general approval of that sentiment.

  “Listen,” said the young man with the cigarette emphatically, “I had an uncle who lived a year past—just a year. He was just one of these selfish guys who don’t feel like going, you know. A lot he cared for the rest of us. . . . And I didn’t know about it, you see, or I would have reported him, believe me, because a guy should go when it’s his time. It’s only fair to the next generation. Anyway, he got caught all right, and the first thing I knew, the Brotherhood calls on me and my brother and wants to know how come we didn’t report him. I said, hell, I didn’t know anything about it; nobody in my family knew anything about it. I said we hadn’t seen him in ten years. My old man backed us up. But we got fined five hundred credits just the same. That’s when you don’t have any pull.”

  The look of discomposure on Arvardan’s face was growing. Were these people madmen to accept death so—to resent their friends and relatives who tried to escape death? Could he, by accident, be on a ship carrying a cargo of lunatics to asylum—or euthanasia? Or were these simply Earthmen?

  His neighbor was scowling at him again, and his voice broke in on Arvardan’s thoughts. “Hey fella, where’s ‘back there’?”

  “Pardon me?”

  “I said—where are you from? You said ‘back there.’ What’s ‘back there’? Hey?”

  Arvardan found the eyes of all upon him now, each with its own sudden spark of suspicion in it. Did they think him a member of this Society of Ancients of theirs? Had his questioning seemed the cajolery of an agent provocateur?

  So he met that by saying, in a burst of frankness, “I’m not from anywhere on Earth. I’m Bel Arvardan from Baronn, Sirius Sector. What’s your name?” And he held out his hand.

  He might as well have dropped an atomic explosive capsule into the middle of the plane.

  The first silent horror on every face turned rapidly into angry, bitter hostility that flamed at him. The man who had shared his seat rose stiffly and crowded into another, where the pair of occupants squeezed closely together to make room for him.

  Faces turned away. Shoulders surrounded him, hemmed him in. For a moment Arvardan burned with indignation. Earthmen to treat him so. Earthmen! He had held out the hand of friendship to them. He, a Sirian, had condescended to treat with them and they had rebuffed him.

  And then, with an effort, he relaxed. It was obvious that bigotry was never a one-way operation, that hatred bred hatred!

  He was conscious of a presence beside him, and he turned toward it resentfully. “Yes?”

  It was the young man with the cigarette. He was lighting a new one as he spoke. “Hello,” he said. “My name’s Creen. . . . Don’t let those jerks get you.”

  “No one’s getting me,” said Arvardan shortly. He was not too pleased with the company, nor was he in the mood for patronizing advice from an Earthman.

  But Creen was not trained to the detection of the more delicate nuances. He puffed his cigarette to life in man-sized drags and tapped its ashes over the arm of the seat into the middle aisle.

  “Provincials!” he whispered with contempt. “Just a bunch of farmers. . . . They lack the Galactic view. Don’t bother with them. . . . Now you take me. I got a different philosophy. Live and let live, I say. I got nothing against Outsiders. If they want to be friendly with me, I’ll be friendly with them. What the hell—They can’t help being an Outsider just like I can’t help being an Earthman. Don’t you think I’m right?” And he tapped Arvardan familiarly on the wrist.

  Arvardan nodded and felt a crawling sensation at the other’s touch. Social contact with a man who felt resentful over losing a chance to bring about his uncle’s death was not pleasant, quite regardless of planetary origin.

  Creen leaned back. “Heading for Chica? What did you say your name was? Albadan?”

  “Arvardan. Yes, I’m going to Chica.”

  “That’s my home town. Best damned city on Earth. Going to stay there long?”

  “Maybe. I haven’t made any plans.”

  “Umm. . . . Say, I hope you don’t object to my saying that I’ve been noticing your shirt. Mind if I take a close look? Made in Sirius, huh?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “It’s very good material. Can’t get anything like that on Earth. . . . Say, bud, you wouldn’t have a spare shirt like that in your luggage, would you? I’d pay for it if you wanted to sell it. It’s a snappy number.”

  Arvardan shook his head emphatically. “Sorry, but I don’t have much of a wardrobe. I am planning to buy clothes here on Earth as I go along.”

  “I’ll pay you fifty credits,” said Creen. . . . Silence. He added, with a touch of resentment, “That’s a good price.”

  “A very good price,” said Arvardan, “but, as I told you, I have no shirts to sell.”

  “Well . . .” Creen shrugged. “Expect to stay on Earth quite a while, I suppose?”

  “Maybe.”

  “What’s your line of business?”

  The archaeologist allowed irritation to rise to the surface. “Look, Mr. Creen, if you don’t mind, I’m a little tired and would like to take a nap. Is that all right with you?”

  Creen frowned. “What’s the matter with you? Don’t your kind believe in being civil to people? I’m just asking you a polite question; no need to bite my ear off.”

  The conversation, hitherto conducted in a low voice, had suddenly amplified itself into a near shout. Hostile expressions turned Arvardan’s way, and the archaeologist’s lips compressed themselves into a thin line.

  He had asked for it, he decided bitterly. He would not have gotten into this mess if he had held aloof from the beginning, if he hadn’t felt the necessity of vaunting his damne
d tolerance and forcing it on people who didn’t want it.

  He said levelly, “Mr. Creen, I didn’t ask you to join me, and I haven’t been uncivil. I repeat, I am tired and would like to rest. I think there’s nothing unusual in that.”

  “Listen”—the young man rose from his seat, threw his cigarette away with a violent gesture, and pointed a finger—“you don’t have to treat me like I’m a dog or something. You stinking Outsiders come here with your fine talk and standoffishness and think it gives you the right to stamp all over us. We don’t have to stand for it, see. If you don’t like it here, you can go back where you came from, and it won’t take much more of your lip to make me light into you, either. You think I’m afraid of you?”

  Arvardan turned his head away and stared stonily out the window.

  Creen said no more, but took his original seat once again. There was an excited buzz of conversation round and about the plane which Arvardan ignored. He felt, rather than saw, the sharpened and envenomed glances being cast at him. Until, gradually, it passed, as all things did.

  He completed the journey, silent and alone.

  The landing at the Chica airport was welcome. Arvardan smiled to himself at the first sight from the air of the “best damned city on Earth,” but found it, nevertheless, an immense improvement over the thick, unfriendly atmosphere of the plane.

  He supervised the unloading of his luggage and had it transferred into a biwheel cab. At least he would be the only passenger here, so that if he took care not to speak unnecessarily to the driver, he could scarcely get into trouble.

  “State House,” he told the cabby, and they were off.

  Arvardan thus entered Chica for the first time, and he did so on the day that Joseph Schwartz escaped from his room at the Institute for Nuclear Research.

  Creen watched Arvardan leave with a bitter half-smile. He took out his little book and studied it closely between puffs at his cigarette. He hadn’t gotten much out of the passengers, despite his story about his uncle (which he had used often before to good effect). To be sure, the old guy had complained about a man living past his time and had blamed it on “pull” with the Ancients. That would come under the heading of slander against the Brotherhood. But then the geezer was heading for the Sixty in a month, anyway. No use putting his name down.

  But this Outsider, that was different. He surveyed the item with a feeling of pleasure: “Bel Arvardan, Baronn, Sirius Sector—curious about the Sixty—secretive about own affairs—entered Chica by commercial plane 11 a.m. Chica time, 12 October—anti-Terrestrian attitude very marked.”

  This time maybe he had a real haul. Picking up these little squealers who made incautious remarks was dull work, but things like this made it pay off.

  The Brotherhood would have his report before half an hour was up. He made his way leisurely off the field.

  8

  Convergence at Chica

  For the twentieth time Dr. Shekt leafed through his latest volume of research notes, then looked up as Pola entered his office. She frowned as she slipped on her lab coat.

  “Now, Father, haven’t you eaten yet?”

  “Eh? Certainly I have. . . . Oh, what’s this?”

  “This is lunch. Or it was, once. What you ate must have been breakfast. Now there’s no sense in my buying meals and bringing them here if you’re not going to eat them. I’m just going to make you go home for them.”

  “Don’t get excited. I’ll eat it. I can’t interrupt a vital experiment every time you think I ought to eat, you know.”

  He grew cheerful again over the dessert. “You have no idea,” he said, “the kind of man this Schwartz is. Did I ever tell you about his skull sutures?”

  “They’re primitive. You told me.”

  “But that’s not all. He’s got thirty-two teeth: three molars up and down, left and right, counting one false one that must be homemade. At least I’ve never seen a bridge that has metal prongs hooking it onto adjacent teeth instead of being grafted to the jawbone. . . . But have you ever seen anyone with thirty-two teeth?”

  “I don’t go about counting people’s teeth, Father. What’s the right number—twenty-eight?”

  “It sure as Space is. . . . I’m still not finished, though. We took an internal analysis yesterday. What do you suppose we found? . . . Guess!”

  “Intestines?”

  “Pola, you’re being deliberately annoying, but I don’t care. You needn’t guess; I’ll tell you. Schwartz has a vermiform appendix, three and a half inches long, and it’s open. Great Galaxy, it’s completely unprecedented! I have checked with the Medical School—cautiously, of course—and appendixes are practically never longer than half an inch, and they’re never open.”

  “And just what does that mean?”

  “Why, he’s a complete throwback, a living fossil.” He had risen from his chair and paced the distance to the wall and back with hasty steps. “I tell you what, Pola, I don’t think we ought to give Schwartz up. He’s too valuable a specimen.”

  “No, no, Father,” said Pola quickly, “you can’t do that. You promised that farmer to return Schwartz, and you must for Schwartz’s own sake. He’s unhappy.”

  “Unhappy! Why, we’re treating him like a rich Outsider.”

  “What difference does that make? The poor fellow is used to his farm and his people. He’s lived there all his life. And now he’s had a frightening experience—a painful one, for all I know—and his mind works differently now. He can’t be expected to understand. We’ve got to consider his human rights and return him to his family.”

  “But, Pola, the cause of science—”

  “Oh, shush! What is the cause of science worth to me? What do you suppose the Brotherhood will say when they hear of your unauthorized experiments? Do you think they care about the cause of science? I mean, consider yourself if you don’t wish to consider Schwartz. The longer you keep him, the greater the chance of being caught. You send him home tomorrow night, the way you originally planned to, do you hear? . . . I’ll go down and see if Schwartz wants anything before dinner.”

  But she was back in less than five minutes, face damp and chalky. “Father, he’s gone!”

  “Who’s gone?” he asked, startled.

  “Schwartz!” she cried, half in tears. “You must have forgotten to lock the door when you left him.”

  Shekt was on his feet, throwing a hand out to steady himself. “How long?”

  “I don’t know. But it can’t be very long. When were you last there?”

  “Not fifteen minutes. I had just been here a minute or two when you came in.”

  “Well, then,” with sudden decision, “I’ll run out. He may simply be wandering about the neighborhood. You stay here. If someone else picks him up, they mustn’t connect him with you. Understand?”

  Shekt could only nod.

  Joseph Schwartz felt no lifting of the heart when he exchanged the confines of his prison hospital for the expanses of the city outside. He did not delude himself to the effect that he had a plan of action. He knew, and knew well, that he was simply improvising.

  If any rational impulse guided him (as distinct from mere blind desire to exchange inaction for action of any sort), it was the hope that by chance encounter some facet of life would bring back his wandering memory. That he was an amnesiac he was now fully convinced.

  The first glimpse of the city, however, was disheartening. It was late afternoon and, in the sunlight, Chica was a milky white. The buildings might have been constructed of porcelain, like that farmhouse he had first stumbled upon.

  Stirrings deep within told him that cities should be brown and red. And they should be much dirtier. He was sure of that.

  He walked slowly. He felt, somehow, that there would be no organized search for him. He knew that, without knowing how he knew. To be sure, in the last few days he had found himself growing increasingly sensitive to “atmosphere,” to the “feel” of things about him. It was part of the strangeness in his mind,
since—since . . .

  His thought trailed away.

  In any case, the “atmosphere” at the hospital prison was one of secrecy; a frightened secrecy, it seemed. So they could not pursue him with loud outcry. He knew that. Now why should he know that? Was this queer activity of his mind part of what went on in cases of amnesia?

  He crossed another intersection. Wheeled vehicles were relatively few. Pedestrians were—well, pedestrians. Their clothes were rather laughable: seamless, buttonless, colorful. But then so were his own. He wondered where his old clothes were, then wondered if he had ever really owned such clothes as he remembered. It is very difficult to be sure of anything, once you begin doubting your memory on principle.

  But he remembered his wife so clearly; his children. They couldn’t be fictions. He stopped in the middle of the walk to regain a composure suddenly lost. Perhaps they were distorted versions of real people, in this so unreal-seeming real life, whom he must find.

  People were brushing past him and several muttered unamiably. He moved on. The thought occurred to him, suddenly and forcibly, that he was hungry, or would be soon, and that he had no money.

  He looked about. Nothing like a restaurant in sight. Well, how did he know? He couldn’t read the signs.

  He gazed into each store front he passed. . . . And then he found an interior which consisted in part of small alcoved tables, at one of which two men sat and another at which a single man sat. And the men were eating.

  At least that hadn’t changed. Men who ate still chewed and swallowed.

  He stepped in and, for a moment, stopped in considerable bewilderment. There was no counter, no cooking going on, no signs of any kitchen. It had been his idea to offer to wash the dishes for a meal, but—to whom could he make the offer?

  Diffidently, he stepped up to the two diners. He pointed, and said painstakingly, “Food! Where? Please.”

  They looked up at him, rather startled. One spoke fluently, and quite incomprehensibly, patting a small structure at the wall end of the table. The other joined in, impatiently.