The tomorrow people

Messenger—7:45 A.M. (C.S.T.)

He came awake to vicious clarity. The long dreamless pill-induced sleep had left him over-rested, too fresh, too thinking, conscious, and aware.

But this was Wednesday: the last day. He’d be in the Dome that night. He was not absolutely sure he could make it. For the first Goddam time in his life, he was not certain he would be able to come through.

Something strangely like exultation surged through him.

And what in hell was that for? What was so special about not being good enough?

He knew, but damned if he’d tell himself.

One thing he told himself, all right, at the beginning, and that was still good. He got through Sunday and Monday and Tuesday; he could make it through ten more hours and stick with it. Maybe he’d crack up and go tell Chris off or open an air lock or any damn thing. But he wasn’t drinking this trip. Not this trip.

Whatever happened after he got there, he’d get there cold sober. Then it was up to her....

Monday night was the worst. Monday night and Tuesday. He got through that all right, he could make ten lousy hours. But he hadn’t had a goddam drink yet, and he wasn’t going to. Not this trip....

Ten hours?

The bastard was jeering at him. So okay, laugh. Ten hours is pretty damn long. Yeah.

He got up, and planned his time. Breakfast. That was as far as he could get. Lunch, later. And all the time in between.

Sunday, and Monday morning he had seen the control rooms and comm rooms and cargo shuttles and climbed around the massive ion engine. The heat exchangers were old stuff; so was most of the rest. But he had looked at everything, examined, inspected. He could handle this job himself if he had to now. He didn’t have to. Basil would. Basil ... he’d trained with Laughlin and Wendt, but wasn’t tapped for the Colombo trip. So now he was a Space ferry jockey....

Good boy, Basil, he made the grade. Didn’t go too far out like we did....

Basil would brake into Zeroville orbit. Should have started by now, he thought, shouldn’t they? Then he felt the difference, and knew he’d been feeling it all along. Deceleration. Not much yet, but you started easy with ions and let it build. No blast, no sweat.

Monday, after lunch, nothing to do except sit in the damn lounge and watch them all lushin’ it up. Hell with that. Hell of a trip not to drink on; nothing else to do. Half the victims got stoned first night out and stayed that way.

He spent Monday afternoon in the dining room, drinking coffee, watching out the pretty picture window while the Moon came around and around, bigger each time—if you happened to have micro-calipers to measure with. He stared out long enough so he found out one thing: empty Space didn’t bug him at all. He already knew that the birds were okay. He had almost enjoyed it, going through the business end of the wheel with the guys. It wasn’t going that bugged him; it was where the Hell you went.

Which was just what he’d said all along. But now he knew. Chris had kept him knocked out the whole trip up and back before; so they hadn’t been so damn sure either...? Well, now he was.

He sat there until Chris came in and saw him. Then he sat there long enough to make sure Chris knew he was looking out. Then he swung down to the crew lounge and found a poker game getting under way.

He was okay till the game broke up. After that, it was bad. That was the only time he almost broke down. A couple of shots would’ve put him to sleep at least. He spent the time from two in the morning till six, when they started to serve breakfast, sitting in the damn dark dining room, watching the Moon grow so slowly you didn’t know it, except that you knew it.

After people started to show up, it was better; he had to keep up some front, when they were watching him.

Chris stayed out of his way; he stayed out of Chris’. He was disappointed, some, but glad; Chris probably knew he came on as Mac’s man. So that was that. No battles. Everybody knew what side they were on. At least Mac and Chris knew. Johnny knew what side he was on, too, but it wasn’t what they thought.

Turnabout, that’s all, he thought with silent grim pleasure. They used me; now I use them. Let ’em all bleed....

Tuesday was bad anyhow—bad all day long. If he’d had to stay awake Tuesday night, he didn’t know—

The Medic asked him, did he want a sleeping pill. Well, Hell, plenty of people took sleeping pills. Only now he was wide-awake, rested, and much too clear in the head. Maybe I should of stood out of bed...?

Ten hours.... He didn’t know what was going to happen, but he was sure of this much: he was not going to drink; and he was not—voluntarily, anyhow—damn it, not without a fight—going to sleep out anything the rest of the passengers could take.

Dollars Dome—11 A.M. (C.S.T.)

They stopped at the office to see if Thad had any news yet. He did; but nothing special. If there had been any trouble, or anything out of the way at all, on board the Messenger, it was not being broadcast.

“They probably kept him sedated anyhow,” Phil pointed out, as they crossed the Mall to the Med Building where his office was.

She shook her head. “No. Not this time.”

“Oh?” He looked at her curiously. Under his eyes, she lost some of the quiet certainty with which she had heard both Thad’s report and Phil’s comment.

“I mean, I don’t think so. I—” She flashed a quick smile. “—have a hunch, let’s say.”

“Tell me more.”

“I will,” she said soberly. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about, Phil.”

But she said nothing more till they were in his office. Then she took out two small rolls of sound tape, and handed them to him.

“I’d like you to hear these for yourself before I say anything,” she told him. “I made them out at the Shack. One was Monday. The other’s yesterday.”

He turned spools over in his hand dubiously.

“You care to give me any notion of what I’m listening to? Or for?”

“I thought perhaps you should just hear them first, but—I guess it’ll make more sense if I tell you this much first. After we talked about that—telepathy bit, I got to thinking, and I realized I’d just been scared by the idea. Kind of foolish, I guess.... All this time I’ve been going around telling people I believe in—or, well, that I think there’s a lot of sense in some of the work they’ve done in E.S.P.—Then as soon as something happens to show me, I back off and say, ‘Oh, no, not for me, friend!’” She smiled wryly. Phil grinned.

“Honey, I told you to start with, this Shack stuff was spooky. Something makes sense, that doesn’t necessarily make it feel sensible. I still get shivers when I try to think what they mean by an ‘infinite universe.’ Stuff like that.”

“Maybe so. Anyhow, I think I’m over—” She stopped herself. “That’s not true. I’m still scared as hell. But I’m scared of having a baby too, and scared of what might happen tonight, when Johnny comes, and—I’m scared of lots of things I know are real, and even know I’ll get through all right.”

He cleared his throat. “Okay, kid. I hope you love me too. Now:—what’s the bit with the tapes?”

“Well, I tried to think how I might be able to find out scientifi—I guess, experimentally is a better word? Anyhow, I thought if I got a recorder fixed up so that I could talk what I was thinking out there—at least I’d find out what I do think there—I told you, I’m never positive afterwards just when I got some idea, or just where it came from—?”

He nodded.

“And then, if it turned out to have anything on it that we could check.... Well, then I’d know. Or at least, we’d know there was something worth working on. Well, you know what I mean.”

“I think so. Just one thing, Lee. You want me to play these, so I gather you do think there’s something—” He smiled. “—something ‘worth working on?’”

“I’d rather not say what I think before—”

“I didn’t ask you to. I told you what I think, right now. It’s just that it’s the way you talk about the whole business that makes me think so. So I play these tapes, see? And let’s say I think there’s something there—let’s say, at a minimum, something that needs to be looked into more?” He paused. “Lee, you’re not forgetting that Johnny’s coming? He’ll be here tonight. I don’t know what happens after that. Neither do you. I just don’t see the news story on why he’s coming. Why in hell would he come up here for McLafferty if he wouldn’t for you or Chris?”

“Phil—” She put a hand on his arm, stopping him. “Listen first, will you? I’ve heard them. I know there’s something that—well, just listen, will you? We’ll talk later. But I haven’t forgotten about Johnny, believe me. That’s partly why I wanted to give you the tapes now—before he gets here. And partly why I guess I don’t want to talk about it right now. I can’t decide anything much till he comes anyhow. And—well, whatever happens, I’d like to think that—I mean, let’s say I back out of the whole thing and go home and never say bad words like ESP again—If there’s anything in this thing, I have a hunch it’s not me especially. I just happen to be the one it—happened to? That’s as good a way as any to put it. So—so shut up and listen first, will you?”

“Right.” He put a hand on her shoulder. “One other thing, Lee—while the saying’s still good. Don’t forget I made an offer?”

“I won’t,” she said. She stepped forward quickly inside his arm, kissed him, and turned and left. “I’ve got a class for the next hour,” she said at the door. “Then I’ll be in my room till about two or three. After that, I’ll be out at the Shack, if you want to talk to me about any of the stuff there.”

Zeroville—11:15 A.M. (C.S.T.)

The morning had been all right.

He’d never had more than theoretical training on ion drive; there was no working ship with one when the Colombo took off. Now, roaming on invitation between the rocket rooms and control centers, he began to realize just what a monumental accomplishment the Messenger was. It was one thing to have the figures in your head: thrust and cost, tonnage, performance, all that. But for John Wendt, at least, nothing convinced but performance. The math told you what to expect—what your chances were. After that, metal and plastic and power, and flesh and blood and brains made it work.

If it worked, it was time to believe in it; not until then.

He spent the morning acquiring belief in the ion drive. He made a point of not thinking ahead. But as the drive shut out, and the great wheel, shorn of all velocity, slid onto the Zeroville coasting track, he had no alternative. Eleven-fifteen. TOA Moon Dome announced for seven-thirty. Eight hours, fifteen minutes.

Lunch, of course. Then what? There’d be nothing doing in crew quarters, once the shuttles left—

Sonofabitch!

He wouldn’t be on the wheel; he’d be in the shuttle. In Shuttle Two: out like a light. With all the other squares.

All passengers made the shuttle-leg under sedation. All passengers....

The speaker overhead came to life: “All passengers please board your shuttles. Prepare for sedation.”

Johnny found Basil, and thanked him. “Nice of you to let me hang around so much,” he said. “I’d have flipped my top sitting it out with the damn riders the whole way.”

“Pleasure, Johnny. I mean it. Hell, it was good to see you again. I don’t want to stick my nose where it ain’t wanted, but—like man, if you’re gonna be around again—oh, crap, you know what I mean.”

“Thanks, Bass. Tell you the truth, I don’t know yet myself. But you got no one to blame but yourself if they kick you out and give me your job. Hell—I felt so much like crew this trip, I forgot all about the shuttle-leg, till they hollered just now.” The announcer barked again, and started “Last call.”

Johnny took off down the shaft.

He had it made!

Red Dome—3:50 A.M. (S.S.T.) (2:30 P.M. C.S.T.)

“... helicopter sighted at base of hill 29.3 kilometres N. 17° E. from Playfair Crater. Flight reconnaissance fully establishes identity of vehicle. No indication of presence of pilot, M. Harounian. No superficial evidence of forced landing. Ground search to be conducted pending permission from U.S.A.A. authorities to conduct same within 50-kilometre zone.”

Dr. Chen tapped the stiff paper of the official report thoughtfully on his desk. Then he switched on the phone, and asked for the S.U.A.R. hostel at World Dome.

That seemed probably the best way to go about it. Besides which, Dr. Christensen was not at Dollars Dome, and no second-in-command would want to take responsibility for such a decision.

Dollars Dome—4:30 P.M. (C.S.T.)

Phil Kutler sat at his desk, with a dozen sheets of rapidly typed pages spread out in front of him. He picked up one, glanced at it, put it down, picked up another. He shook his head, marveling or disbelieving, or just dazed: he wasn’t sure which.

On each page, he had collected what seemed to be associated bits from the two tapes. Now he began stacking sheets, sorting them into two piles. In one were the “weirdies”: what they seemed to mean was not even worth thinking about yet, he told himself firmly. The other stack held more coherent and familiar bits which, however, seemed probable “normal” thought ramblings. He picked up the next page:

“I will come, yes, I come ... I hear you call. I know it is time now I will leave this place ... come to where love sends the call out ... I too love, have warmth, I bring my breath with ... come now to know, learn, tell, teach, exchange ... come with love to love....”

That was from Monday. From the Tuesday tape: “... came to us ... to me ... to us, me-all, came seeking, not knowing, almost, not-sure ... came with openness, with warm-breathing ... came to find and to speak and know....”

He put it with the others, then took it off. This one was worth at least asking about. He knew in advance what the answer would be. No one had come to the Dome or the Shack; if they had, the whole Dome would know it. But—it hung together too well. He set it aside, separately. The next two went onto the stack. He pulled the remaining page toward him, and sat staring at it.

“... each time around it’s closer, bigger ... need a damn microcaliper to know it but true, it is ... Lisa, Lee, love....”

It wasn’t till that bit came out near the end of the Monday tape that Phil understood why she had waited till today to tell him, or why she would not stay while he played them. Damn few things that would really embarrass Lee—but her own voice talking love-talk to her would be one too much!

“... To you, just to you ... screw ’em all ... but I dammit I damn I love you, you’re too damn good for me but if I still can I’ll get you back ... round again, bigger, I can’t see the difference, but know ... too damn many things don’t see, don’t have to not-know account of that. Don’t see you either ... baby, babe, doll, wait ... damn it hurts, scared, Lee, you know?, damn, I’m scared ... but I’m coming, babe, here I come, wait!”

Also on Monday’s tape: “... bastard, but not so bad. Smart bastard anyhow ... just for now, though ... up there, he’s the boss ... good man, Goddammit, you like the guy or not, good man in his job, and he knows not here, not know ... Mac-go-to-hell, who cares which one? Just you kid, the rest of ’em drop dead all I care....”

The page was a full one. Tuesday’s sections included mentions of someone named Bass, and a man called Kenny, and something about a poker game, scraps on a smashed window, subpoena server, a bit about “Mac”—McLafferty?

Well, this page at least could be checked. He folded it, tucked it in his jacket pocket, and left the office.

Downstairs, he turned, without quite planning to, in the direction of the Ad Building. In the back of his mind was the question of whether to speak to Thad about the tapes. He knew he wouldn’t; and with Chris on his way back, it didn’t make sense, anyhow. But he was not quite ready to see Lisa yet, and he very much wanted to talk to someone.

He’d kill some time with Thad, anyhow.

Better that way. His thoughts could work themselves out better on their own, in their hidden places, than he could do by conscious effort.

Dollars Dome—4:45 P.M. (C.S.T.)

The suave exterior of the U.S. Envoy to World Dome, the Honorable Andrew Kenneth Gahagan—a diplomat of the old school—appeared sadly shaken on the phone screen: whether by emotion, bad radio transmission, or creeping senility, Thad could not tell.

When he heard what the Honorable Gahagan had to say, he ruled out the likelihood of poor transmission. The other two choices remained equally possible, since the biochemist had no way of knowing just how serious, realistically speaking, a Red “invasion” of territorial boundaries might be.

“It can’t wait two-three hours?” he asked. “Dr. Christensen will be here at seven, and I think it should be authorized by him personally.”

“My own feeling in the matter,” said the Honorable Gahagan “is that it should be authorized by Mexcity or not at all. I felt obliged, however, to determine your attitudes before communicating with State on the matter.”

Thad felt an almost irrepressible urge to say, Oh, hell, tell ’em come on over, if they’ll send their bio chief in the party ... or perhaps, You know, some of the babes there aren’t bad. Tell ’em to shoot us a photo and we’ll look for ourselves ... or even just, Oh, foof! He exercised his will power to its fullest extent and said instead:

“Look, let me buzz you back in five minutes. I’ve got something here I have to get out of the way, and then I’ll see what we can do about it.”

He switched off and said to Kutler, who had come in sometime during the conversation, “You get that bit?”

“Just the tailend.”

“The Honorable is all worked up because the Reds have asked permission to conduct a search for the pilot—girl pilot, I might add—of a helicopter of theirs that seems to have landed in some kind of trouble inside our zone. I wouldn’t’ve thought twice myself, but Old Horsefeathers has me worried. And maybe with this whole Security investigation bit—”

“Man, you don’t read the news. It’s sex they’re discovering now, not Security,” Phil interjected.

“Oh. Well, maybe being as it’s a girl pilot—Got it!” he said suddenly. “What do you think of doing it this way? Tell ’em sure, and we’ll help. Set it up so any search team is mixed? Then there can’t be any snooping or anything. What do you think?”

“Sounds good to me,” Phil said. “It can’t wait till Chris comes, hey?”

“This babe has been missing about twelve hours, and they don’t know if she’s hurt or in shock or anything.”

“Well, we can’t very well refuse permission then. I guess the mixed search is about the best bet.”

“Yeah.” He reached for the phone switch, hesitated, picked up a scrap of paper from the desk. “Do me a favor, will you? Get a few guys to run on out to this location right away and look over the plane. That’s where it’s supposed to be. Meantime, I’ll tell Ole Mustachios what the score is, and let—Nope. I’ll call Plato first, and then tell Gahagan. That way he can’t stall.”

Phil nodded approvingly, took the paper, and started out. “Hey, Thad,” he said first. “Lee’s out at the Shack. Suppose I get the squad to drop me off there on the way, and bring her back in? You don’t need me for anything around here?”

“No. Good idea. Glad you thought of it.”

Dollars Dome—7:30 P.M. (C.S.T.)

When he came out of it, Chris was standing next to the couch, watching him. He got himself unbuckled, stood up, stretched. Chris watched, and said nothing. Johnny straightened out, felt his feet steady under him, and took a stance facing the other man, not more a foot away.

“All right, Johnny, you got here,” Chris said. “Now what?”

“What I said to start with,” he replied evenly. “I want to see Lisa. I hear by the newspapers—” The hell with that crap! He didn’t ask why....

“I see by the newscasts,” Chris picked up on it, “That you are here as a ‘special investigator’ for Mr. McLafferty—whatever that is.”

Johnny said nothing.

“Are the newscasts right?”

“Ask McLafferty.”

“You’re closer.”

“Listen, Chris. I came for Lee. You can make it easy or make it tough. We used to be friends, so I tell you this once: I came for my girl. You and Mac can both go to whatever kind of Hell they keep for guys like you. And I’ll foul you up as cheerfully as him if you get in my way. I came for my girl. The rest of your politicking fornicating foolishness doesn’t concern me at all.”

Chris thought it over. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll cooperate with you in anything Lee wants. Outside of that, I warn you, step out of line just once, just by one toe, and—I’m the boss here. That’s all.”

“Okay. Now where’s my girl?”

“You know the room. If she’s not there, try Kutler.”

Dollars Dome—7:50 P.M. (C.S.T.)

“He’s pretty damn busy,” Bourgnese said. “If it’s something I can take care of...?”

“You Number Two boy here?” Johnny demanded.

“You could put it that way,” the other man said coldly.

“Okay. I’ll put it that way. Can you authorize me a half-track?”

“You’re kiddin’!”

Well, what in Hell is so special about wanting a car? “What are they, made out of solid gold or something? Nobody but the Big Cheese can sign ’em out?”

“Look, before you flip completely, friend, leave me advise you that there probably isn’t even a car in the Dome. If they’re not all out already, they ought to be. And what makes you so damn eager to get in on it?”

“In on what? I’m looking for Lisa.”

“Well, try Kutler if she’s not in her room. He brought her back in—”

“He’s not here and neither is she.”

“You sure of that? He went out for her—Hell, it must’ve been five-thirty or so—”

“I’m sure. She’s at the Shack.”

Bourgnese stared at him a moment.

“You tried the dining room and dance room and all that jazz? I know he was bringing her right back.”

“Listen,” Johnny said, straining all his nerves for patience. “They’re not here. They’re at the Shack. Hell, I don’t know where he is, and I don’t give a damn. But she’s there.”

“How do you know?”

“How the Hell do you think I—?” He stopped cold. How did he know? “They’re both there,” he said, and knew it was true. “I don’t know who the hell else is with them, but they’re both there.”

“Wait a minute,” Bourgnese went to the phone and called the Shack Guardhouse. “Charlie! Is Miss Trovi still there?”

“Yeah. Her and the other babe and the Doc. Some half-track dropped him off couple hours ago. They’re all in there.”

“Right. Thanks, Charlie.” He switched off and got Lock Supply.

“Give me the call number on Kutler’s suit.”

“Hold on. Here it is. Five-nine-cue-six-emm.”

“Thanks.” He switched off and on again, dialled the helmet radio number. Nothing. “Damn!”

He turned back to Johnny. “Okay,” he said, “Let’s go.”

They strode rapidly across the Mall to Lock Supply. Bourgnese signed out suits for both of them.

Johnny turned to Thad as the other man started away. “Thanks,” he said. “I don’t know why in Hell you’re doing it. But thanks.”

“No,” Bourgnese said. “I guess you wouldn’t know why.”

The Shack—8 P.M.—Phil Kutler

The two women sat, one at each side of the tank, gazing into it. Lisa’s voice droned as the tape wound from spool to spool:

“... but I-all did not know ... idea of unit-body discrete-person too far back with memory haze ... and not-alike, even when ... but when? how far back? ... so long I had been one-and-all ... recalled haze-memory, but too much lost with no-need-to-know ... had to begin, to learn, fresh, new ... too slow, too slow....”

“He’s coming!”

The words cracked like a whiplash in his helmet; he jumped back, out of touch, put a hand to his face-plate in reflexive feeling for damage, that snap had been so sharply physical.

The plate was intact. Of course. He smiled foolishly, leaned toward her again; found he had to force himself to retouch helmets. That crack had hurt.

“Johnny?” he asked.

No answer. Then out of the side of his eye he saw she was nodding her head inside the helmet.

“Can you tell if anyone’s with him?”

Pause. “Somebody, yes ... not Chris ... Thad?”

That seemed likely.

“How is he—What kind of a mood—? I mean Johnny.”

She giggled. “Fierce!”

Great! But she didn’t sound worried. “That’s good?” he asked sourly.

“Depends....”

He backed off to look at her. The half-smile on her face was—in Moonsuit and helmet, in a half-enclosed shack on the Moon’s friendless face—absurd, ludicrous ... nothing short of outrageously funny with its eternal-mysterious-female. So laugh already! He didn’t. Sure, he thought, funny, like ... crazy, man ... but how would it look if she smiled it for you? Then he realized she could probably hear this as well—or more clearly than?—anything he said aloud through the helmets. And then, with relief, but with bitterness too: If she were listening, that is....

She wasn’t. She was listening only to one man, the man at the wheel of the half-track, now visibly nearing at full speed across the Moon dustcakes—coming for her.

And the half-smile was gone. A full, lovely smile now, and moist eyes too. What the hell is he saying?

None of your damn business!

He started again. It was going to take getting used to: getting to know when you had thought a thing for yourself, or had it thought to you. That one was himself—he thought.

He leaned forward again. “Does Maria know?”

“Of course. We were just thinking....” Then it happened again: a sort of stereo-thought in his mind, coming from both, complete, in-agreement, and did-he-agree? Was this the best way?

He nodded, straightened up, and walked through the door to wait outside.

The Shack—8 P.M.—Thad Bourgnese

“It ought to be Phil,” he said tensely. “I’ll try him again.” This time the reply was immediate; nothing wrong with Doc’s suit then; he’d just been switched off before.

Switched off? The guy goes out to get Lisa, stays out himself instead, and turns off his set. Nice going....

“Hi,” Phil said. “Johnny with you?”

“Yeah. What in hell are you doing out here? And where’s Lee?”

“Right inside. Waiting. Also, we have a guest.”

“Guest?” If that meant what he thought it did, this was one too much. “Who’s the guest?”

“I hate to shout,” Phil said. “You dig me, man!”

Yeah? I do, do I? Then what in the name of all-holy have you been sitting out here for? The whole damn Dome goes out hunting, and....

The half-track ground to a screeching halt. Wendt was out almost before it stopped. Thad turned off the ignition and followed. He saw Johnny’s taller figure march like incarnate doom on the man at the door.

“For krissakes, Phil,” he started, and would have said, Let him in! but it was unnecessary. Kutler had moved before Wendt got there. Johnny went through, and Phil stepped back in front of the door.

Thad walked up slowly. He was trying hard to hold onto the irritation he knew he should still feel.

“What gives?” he asked, and managed a frown.

“Lee said, just Johnny, first, please. That’s all.”

“Just? What’s with your company?”

“She’ll be out.” Kutler’s calm ought to be infuriating. But all he felt was: Well, Phil’s got some sense; he must know what he’s doing....

“You wouldn’t mind filling me in some?” he asked.

“Glad to. Turn off your radio. I don’t want to tell the whole world.”

The two men touched helmets, and Phil started talking. A moment later, a bulky figure in an ill-fitting, clearly-marked, S.U.A.R. suit came out of the Shack. The three of them headed for the pressurized Guardhouse.

The Shack—8 P.M.—Johnny Wendt

He stepped through the doorway into dimness and a kind of—warmth? In the center of the pavilion—that’s all it really was—a tank set on the ground bubbled evilly around an enormous hump of moldy grey-white, kneaded-looking, knobbed, and ridged.

Two suited figures sat, one on each side of the tank. As he entered, the one at the far end arose, walked around the tank, came toward him.

Lee?

It wasn’t, of course. He would have known by her walk, and when she came close enough, by her face.... But before he saw these things at all, he knew it wasn’t. Lee sat with her back to him. The other woman—Maria?—smiled as she passed, and went out.

Lee sat where she was, back to him. But—

Johnny, oh Johnny, my darling, my love!

It was not in words. The thought of the words, the idea of speaking, was there; and it seemed that he heard: but what was most real about it came through without symbols, and surely without any sounds. It was just—

Warmth. Lisa-to-Johnny-warmth. Love.

Nothing to question or worry or doubt or solicit or yearn for or want or need or define. Just love-as-is ... love-actuality ... love-known, love-before, love-after ... a place to rest and be warm through inside himself.

He had felt it before.

He had felt it and it had been false.

He had felt it, not Lisa-to-Johnny, but—

No!

If he screamed aloud, nobody knew it. He didn’t know. His head ached, either from the resounding scream inside the helmet, or else from the need to scream, kept in his head.

Doug, get out! Get out, damn it! Get out of here! Damn it, you’re dead! Don’t you know you’re dead?

The figure at the tank rose, and began to turn.

Johnny stood helpless, rooted. He would have fled if he could. But the warm flood embraced him, caressed him, held him bound. Frightening, enticing, beckoning, threatening, stiflingly suffocating, vibrantly life-giving. And—

He had run from it before. He could run no more.

The figure turned toward him entirely, and stepped forward.

It was not Doug. Doug was dead.

It was Lee. Lee, Lisa, Lisa-love, Lisa-loves-John....

Her walk.... Her love.... Her face, smiling up at him, close and closer still, through the plastic helmet plate, tearfully?, lovingly, hers.

Lee!

He reached out his arms.

She came into them—almost. His gauntletted hands gripped the backs of her shoulders, and she looked up, laughing. The rigid fabric of his suit was pressed against hers, and there they stood, each one behind his own life-saving column of air inside the pressured suits, in a mad caricature of embrace. Laughter broke loose inside him and bubbled up. He bent his head; helmets touched; and their laughing mingled and merged and grew whole. It raced into the current of love-warmth, and pulled him with it, turning and twisting and sporting in cascading torrents of lovely-Lisa-laughs-with-love....

How long they stood there in the wondrous half-embrace he did not know: two enclosed islands inside their Moonsuits, making love through glass walls by the side of a strange pool of—

He shuddered.

—of bubbling putrescence, of—

A friend! she said sharply.

Friend!? He looked at the tank and he shuddered again. Looked back at his Lisa. “Hey, babe,” he said gently, his helmet against hers, “I think we better get you—”

Not yet! She smiled. But she hadn’t waited to hear what he said. And she hadn’t opened her mouth when she spoke.

Nor had he—the first time.

You know it’s true, darling....

Her voice, yes, but voiceless.... Their helmets now were clear inches apart. Listen! she insisted.

Monday afternoon, she told him, reciting, you sat in the Messenger dining room and watched the Moon, and you thought you could see it get bigger and bigger each time it went around, if you could have microcalipers to measure with....

This morning, you watched every step of the ion blast....

Yesterday....

It went on and on. It battered, without hurt; pushed, without tearing; forced itself into his consciousness tenderly, gently, inexorably. It was true. It worked.

Like the ion engine—like anything—it worked! He saw it work, felt it work, knew it worked. So it was true.

Why?

How?

I’ll show you, darling.... He let her draw him back to the tank, and sat down beside her.

The Shack—8 P.M.—In the Guardhouse

“You are Maria Harounian?” Bourgnese asked sternly.

“Yes.”

“You speak English?”

“Only few words.”

“You are from Red Dome—from the S.U.A.R. Dome?”

She nodded.

He turned to Kutler.

“How long has she been with you in there?”

“She was there when I got there; two hours, maybe? I don’t know if you noticed, Thad. She’s—quite pregnant. You might ask her to sit.”

“All right. Would you like to sit down, Maria?”

She shook her head. “No-thank.” She smiled. When she smiled, her wide blonde face looked remarkably like Lisa Trovi’s long dark-skinned face.

“You saw her enter the Shack?”

Some shuffling of feet. “Yes, sir.”

“And you permitted her to enter?”

“Well, yessir. Miss Trovi said—”

“You did not see fit to inform us in Dome?”

“Sir, Miss Trovi said this lady was with her. She took all responsibility.”

“But you knew a search was being conducted for Miss Harounian?”

“Well, yes, but we didn’t know it was her. Miss Trovi came to the door, and said, her and her friend going in to the Shack, let ’em know if anyone tries to call....”

“You didn’t ask who her ‘friend’ was?” Thad shook his head, incredulous. These men were good guards. They knew their job.

“Well, no sir.”

“Sir—”

It was the Russian girl. “Yes?”

“Sir—she want us. Calling now.”

There was an odd sort of urgency in her voice, in her face, her whole stance.

“Right!” The three of them started back to the Shack, with just one small part of Thad’s mind still wondering why neither he nor the guards had called Chris yet.

Inside the Shack, Lisa waited, with Johnny beside her. She smiled a welcome to the Soviet girl; included the two men afterwards. She beckoned Phil. “Start the tape? I’ll try to keep talking it.”

Mars—April, 1975—Doug Laughlin

The Earthman stood beneath a violet sky, on rusty sands, and turned, inch by inch, slowly, feeling with all his ... something he had no word for ... exactly as at home he might have felt with a moist finger for the source of wind.

He made three complete turns before he stopped. He nodded, satisfied. That was the way. It didn’t change. The tenth time in four days now, and always the same.

He went into the ship, and entered the direction in the Log.

The brother-Earthman slept. The first one sat at the big book and wrote. He covered two pages, and went back and read them through, nodding. Then went back to what he had written before, and read that. He nodded again.

He closed the book, and sat thinking. Then he stood up and went to the bunk where the brother-Earthman slept. He reached out a hand and drew it back again. Reached out and drew back. As if a wall stood between them. It seemed like a wall: from the brother-Earthman there was a sort of cloud of No—Don’t touch!

He backed off from the bunk, somewhat sadly. Got into his heat suit and mask. Went down to the cargo hatch. Checked out a sand-cat. Started it up. Stood out on the sands while the motor warmed in the dawn chill. Made his inching turns again: nodded, deeply satisfied, certain now.

In his mind, he went back inside to the brother-Earthman, walled in his bunk with sleep and No. Stood there, thinking, and went back inside and to the Log. Looked through the pages, four of them on which he had written what at last he believed, what he was going to find out for sure.

Wanted to leave what he said, but not leave information to follow with. If he was mad, let one death be enough. Four pages, two sheets, and each sheet somewhere on it had the destination. He thought:—

If he was right, explanations would follow. If he were wrong—what difference why?

He tore out the sheets. Left the ship. Started out, to find the Mars-people whose love-thoughts, greetings, warm yearnings and welcomes came like a wind, like a breeze, like a flood of light, beam of caresses, from a direction he now knew he knew....

Mars—April, 1975—Martian

I-all waited, eager, sending out callings: joyous, rejoicing, preparing reception; calling in airmakers, calling in watercells, calling in; calling for the Earthman coming....

... I-all, a planet-wide oneness of readying: for new exchange, learning, contact, emotion, give-and-take, take-and-give; from/to/with/alongside/between/together with this unit-body of Earthman approaching....

... I-all, ready now, knowing from last time, from Earth-other-brothers who came in first great ship, knowing ahead this time: air, water vapor—without these the Earth-bodies cannot survive; old memories stirring, from before me-all, once on a time when the I-we who lived before me-all were discrete bodies alive in a fluid of water-air; back, distant-far back before the drying and thinning of atmosphere....

... I-all, descended, evolved, changed, mutated, attenuated, substance of sentience: broken to one-cells; joined in one-thinkingness; stretched out to use all the sparse vapors spread round a planet; combined, united, one-minded but many-celled—starch-makers, water-bags, air-holders, carriers, sun-suckers, thought-senders, soil-savers, moss-tenders, all of the others, all of the kinds of me-us, one-cell and one-cell; and here in the dim place of safehold, the grouped one-cells, planners and thoughtmakers fed, watered, warmed, by my-our other-I’s, sending out callings for feeders, airers, for heaters, waterers, all to send extras with carriers to the vault, to tend the Earth-brother....

Doug would have been all right, except that he misjudged the distance. If he had realized he’d have to go all the way to the old city to reach It-Them, he would have done the whole thing differently. He’d have told Wendt where he meant to go—if not why—and taken a heli. If he realized, he would have lived.

If They-It had realized—if the two Russians had come to It-Them sooner after the crash, had lived a bit longer to tell more and learn more, if They-It had been able to learn from the first two that for Earth-bodies the life of the brain alone is not sufficient—If It-They had understood the whole human mechanism, perhaps he’d have lived.

Whether the Martian (call it that; call it “it”, there is no proper pronoun) could have summoned resources sufficient to keep Doug alive—for years, as it would have been—until help came, the Moon-Martian did not know. But the Martian had too little information to plan ahead, and it took planning.

It could have stopped him; would have, had it known his supplies would run out before he reached the vault, or that its own preparations were foolishly inadequate. But the centuries—aeons? millennia? How long, Moon-Martian also did not know—of one-ness, alone in togetherness with all just oneself, the long-long loneliness had only been outlined, sharp-edged, and identified, when the two Russians came for so short a time.

Laughlin came closer, and it sent its call stronger and clearer, more endearing. Laughlin’s cat sputtered and failed, and without thinking, he strapped the spare oxy tank on his back and set out afoot.

He lived ten days inside the vault beneath what he and Johnny had decided must have been a Martian bank, but had been built especially to guard, preserve, tend, grow, the brain-centre of the planet-wide “body” of the last Martian—the brain into which was poured the memory and knowledge, skill and affections and hopes and dreams and lost beliefs and yearnings and ideals of a race which could not in its own first form survive the stripping of the atmosphere from the old planet.

He lived, intact, ten days; his brain, for which there was enough starch, air, and water, stayed alive and able to communicate—how long?—Moon-Martian did not know—a long time, too-long, till he was sure the Martian knew enough now for the next Earthmen; then he chose not-to-live.

It was his choice to make. The Martian did not like it, but complied; it had no choice.

Wednesday, October 19, 1977, 10:15 P.M. (C.S.T.)

The two bulky figures entered the half-track, and the taller one sealed the door behind them.

When he turned back to her, the woman had already opened the car’s oxy valve, and removed her helmet.

Without taking his eyes from her face, he reached up and undid the clasps on his, broke the gasket seal, and lifted the bowl off his head. He stepped forward, and she took one step at the same time, meeting him. For the first time in two months, they met each other’s lips.

He stripped off his gauntlets, and held her head in his hands, drinking in the touch and look and scent and feel of her. From the neck down, the limp pressure suits swathed them both in formless fabric armor; but hands and heads were free to caress; a smile could be finger-traced as well as seen; a murmured word was clear to a close ear.

For minutes, they stood close as the cloth barriers would let them be, not thinking anything, not saying anything in words that mattered. Then, still without words, he started the car, and they sat together, his arm around her, her head on his chest, for all the world like two wistful teenagers, while the ’track chugged torpidly back over the black face of the old Moon, under the gleaming greenfaced glow of Earth.

Perhaps half way back, the words began. And then they tumbled out, questions on both sides coming so eagerly that nothing could really start to be answered.

It was a curious double-level conversation, too: because while their spoken words explored the wide new world opened up by the events at the Shack, the unspoken dialogue between them continued to re-enforce itself, and re-create their private world of love and close communication. The contact, once made, seemed quite able to function on its own, independent of the—

—whatever-it-was? Lisa, in snatches, told Johnny as much as she had been able to figure out, with Thad’s help and Phil’s, about the growth and differentiation of the Mars-bugs. The bubbling vat was a sort of brain-center. It extended nerve-like networks to all other colonies of bugs. Here on the Moon, where zealous “jailors” fed and tended the “brain,” the network was just a sort of habit; on Mars, it served the vital function of connecting the water-holders, the oxygen-makers, the perceptors and proprioceptors and nutriment-synthesizers. The adaptation-or-mutation puzzler which had first caught the attention of the Dome scientists was not too different in nature from the sort of “instinctive” decision that sets the sex and functions of each new-made egg in an ant colony. All genes for each caste are present at birth; the environment of the particular cell determines the final role of the member. And the choice of environment for that cell? With a functioning conscious brain, it was much easier to understand in the—Martian? Moon-Martian? The friend, was the way Lee thought of it—than it was in an ant colony.

She was telling him how Phil had forced her to recognize and experiment with the psi effects, when the call came. It came on the radio—but that was one minute after they had reversed direction, and started back toward the other half-track. It came first in Lee’s awareness.

In the middle of a sentence, she broke off, and at the same instant, in the wordless sentence of love she was “speaking”, she stopped to say, They’re out of gas.

Later, John realized that if she’d said it aloud, he still would have doubted. But in the inner dialogue there was no space for doubt or disbelief. He heard it, knew it, and acted on it, long seconds before they had switched on and warmed up their radio set, to call for help.

And by that time, he’d had the next thought.

He told Bourgnese, on the radio, that they were on their way, and asked them to stay tuned in. Then he switched off and started to ask Lee if she would try something—then knew she already knew, and before he could tell her exactly what it was he wanted, felt the opening channel between his own mind and the—friend—and switched on the set again.

“Bourgnese?”

“Right here.”

“Listen, this might be just for laughs, but give your buggy a try again, will you?”

“Tonight I’ll try anything, man,” Thad said, and then, “She won’t catch, John. We’re bone dry.”

“Forget the starter. Listen—just get in gear and drive. I mean—damn it, this sounds nuts. Pretend you’ve got gas. Like, try it once, okay?”

“What can I lose?”

A moment’s wait, and an exclamation—hardly more than a whoosh of air, but it contained all the bafflement, delight, suspicion, excitement, and fascination that gave them the answer. Then, very calmly: “Nice going, John. We’ll make it back, I guess.”

The new world of collaboration had started.