Infinity One (13 page)

When his watch was over he did not wait for his relief to come. He didn’t like the man. The feeling was mutual and by leaving early they could each avoid the other as much as was possible. Praeger went directly to his cubicle, lay down on his bunk, and opened the channel, both audio and visual, on the ceiling com and observation screen.

Julian’s face came on promptly on the hour.

“EW—CX233 here,” Julian said.

“EW-CX066,” Praeger said. Julian looked his usual pale self, green eyes with the look of other time still in them. “Hello, Julian. What have you been doing?”

“There was a reporter here. I made a tape of the whole thing, if you can call it an interview. Want to hear it?”

“Go ahead. My vacation was the usual. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

Julian’s face disappeared and the expressionless face of the reporter appeared. The face smiled just before it spoke.

“Julian—that’s the name you are known by?”

“Yes.”

“Will you describe your work for our viewers, Julian?”

“I am a water sculptor. I make thin plastic molds and fill them with water. Then I put them out into the void and when they solidify I go out and strip off the plastic. You can see most of my work orbiting my home.”

“Isn’t the use of water expensive?”

“I re-use much of it. And I am independently wealthy.” “What’s the point of leaving your work outside?”

“On Earth the wind shapes rock. Here space dust shapes the ice, mutilates it, and I get the effect I want. Then I photograph the results in color, and make more permanent versions here inside.”

Praeger watched Julian and the reporter float over to a large tank of water.

“Inside here,” Julian said, “you see the permanent figures. When I spin the tank the density of each becomes apparent, and each takes its proper place in the suspension.”

“Do you ever work with realistic subjects?”

“No.”

“Do you think you could make a likeness of the Earth?”

“Why?” Praeger saw Julian smile politely. The reporter suddenly looked uncomfortable. The tape ended and Julian’s face appeared.

“See what they send up here to torment me?”

“Is the interview going to be used anywhere?” Praeger asked.

“They were vague about it.”

“Have you been happy?”

Julian didn’t answer. For a few moments both screens were still portraits. Both men knew all the old complaints, all the old pains. Both knew that the UN was doing secret extra-solar work, and they both knew that it was the kind of work that would revive them, just as it might give the Earth a new lease on life. But they would never have a share of it. Only a few more years of routine service, Praeger knew, and then retirement—to what? To a crowded planet.

Both men thought the same thought at that moment— the promise of space was dead, unless men moved from the solar system.

“Julian,” Praeger said softly, “I’ll call you after my next watch. Julian nodded and the screen turned gray.

On impulse Praeger pushed the observation button for a look at station 233. It was a steel and plastic ball one hundred feet in diameter. Praeger knew that most of Julian’s belongings floated in the empty center, tied together with line. When he needed something he would bounce around the tiny universe of objects until he found it. Some parts of the station were transparent. Praeger remembered peering out once to catch sight of one of Julian’s ice sculptures. He saw a pale white ghost peering in back at him for a moment, and then passing.

Praeger watched the silent ball that housed his friend of a lifetime. Eventually, he knew, he would join Julian in his retirement. A man could live a long time in zero-g.

The alarm in his cublicle rang and Higgins’ voice came over the audio. “That fool! Doesn’t he see that orbital debris coming toward him?”

Praeger had perhaps ten seconds left to see station 233 whole. The orbital junk hit hard and the air was gone into the void. The water inside, Praeger knew, froze instantly. Somewhere inside the ruptured body of Julian floated among his possessions even as the lights on the station winked out.

Praeger was getting into his suit, knowing there was no chance to save Julian. He made his way down the emergency passage from his cubicle, futilely dragging the spare suit behind him.

The airlock took an age to cycle. When it opened he gave a great kick with his feet and launched himself out toward the other station. Slowly it grew in front of him, until he was at the airlock. He activated the mechanism and when the locks were both open he pushed himself in toward the center of the little world.

Starlight illuminated Julian’s white, ruptured face.

Through the clear portion of the station Praeger saw the earth’s shadow eclipse the full moon: a bronze shield.

For a long time after Praeger drifted in the starlit shell. He stared at the dark side of the earth, at the cities sparkling like fireflies; never sleeping, billions living in metal caves; keeping time with the twenty-four hour workday; and where by night the mannequins danced beneath the flickering screens, their blood filled with strange potions which would give them their small share of counterfeit happiness.

Praeger tried to brush away the tears floating inside his helmet, but with no success. They would have to wait until he took his suit off. When the emergency crew arrived an hour later, he took charge.

The station was a hazard now and would have to be removed. He agreed. All this would be a funeral rite for Julian, he thought, and he was sure the artist would approve.

He removed all of Julian’s written material and sent it down to his publishers, then put Julian’s body in a plastic sack and secured it to the north pole of the station bubble.

He left the sculptures inside. On the body Praeger found a small note:

When we grow up we'll see the earth not as a special place, just one place. Then home will be the starry cosmos. Of couse this has always-been the case. It is we who will have changed. I have nothing else to hope for
.

The hulk continued in its orbit for three weeks, until Praeger sent a demolition crew out to it and blew it out of existence. He watched on the monitor as they set the charges that would send it into a new orbit. Station 233 would leave the solar system at an almost ninety degree angle to the plane of the ecliptic, on a parabolic path which would not bring it back to Sol for thousands of years. It would make a dandy comet someday, Praeger thought.

He watched the charges flare up, bum for thirty seconds, and die. Slowly the bubble moved off toward the top of the screen. He watched it until it disappeared from the screen. In twenty-four hours it would be beyond the boundaries of Earth. Interstellar gas and dust would scar it out of all recognition: a seed on the wind.

Subject:    Altitudinal Readjustment of Ceiling Quanta

Documents:    Documents are enclosed.

Number of Documents:    One.

Nature of Document # 1. 

Communication received from

Operations Sector Officer, Sector 19, H. E. Penny.

Relevant Facts:

Communication received by Courier:

Most Special and Most Urgent—at
0800 

hours Eastern Daylight Time, 5/1/76. 

Receiving office, Operation P-Button HQ.

Document #1

FROM: OPERATIONS SECTOR OFFICER, SECTOR 19, H. E. PENNY 4/27/76 

TO: CHIEF, OPERATION P-BUTTON.

SUBJECT: 

REPORT RECEIVED FROM SECTOR 

FIELD AGENT C. N. LITTLE, THIS 

DATE, 0600 HOURS

SIR:

FIELD AGENT CHARLES (CHICK) N. LITTLE 

REPORTS AN INCIDENT OF OCCIPITAL 

IMPACT, 0500 HOURS, THIS DATE.

ALL OBSERVATONS AND PERTINENT DATA 

THIS SECTOR OF OPERATIONS STRONGLY 

INDICATE THAT THE SKY IS FALLING.

REPEAT: ALL OBSERVATIONS AND PERTINENT DATA 

THIS SECTOR STRONGLY INDICATE 

THAT THE SKY IS FALLING.

MOST URGENT ALL POTENTIALLY AFFECTED 

AGENCIES AND PERSONNEL BE INFORMED 

WITHOUT DELAY.

RESPECTFULLY:

SIGNED: HENN E. PENNY

HENNINGTON E. PENNY, OP: SEC: OFF.

Miriam Allen deFord is science fiction's only active octogenarian. May it turn out that she has discovered the secret of immortality, so that we may look forward to many more years and many more stories such as . . .

It wasn’t even a carnival or a circus—just one flat car with a huge tent erected over it, down by the old railroad tracks. It must have come in late Friday night, for it was there early Saturday morning when the first farmers from the country around came for the Saturday market.

The big sign in front, painted in orange and black, said:

The only tame man-eating

TIGER

In captivity!

So tame YOU can come right in his CAGE! !

Come one, come all

50¢ admission including visit in CAGE

With Earth’s only domesticated BENGAL TIGER! ! !

Bart Holland had come to town with his uncle in the truck. When they’d sold out the peas and tomatoes and com, he’d be free for the rest of the day, with money in his pocket to spend. He could hike back, or maybe somebody would give him a lift; this was his day and he’d saved up for it. In the back of his mind was the thought of a girl—no special girl, and none of the pick-ups in the park—but a sort of dream-girl: pretty and friendly, a town girl instead of the hicks around home, but nice.

And he’d hardly pulled out the tail-gate of the truck and arranged the crates on it for the first customers, while his uncle wandered over for a smoke and a chat 
with some of the other market people, when he saw her.

She was standing outside the tent, but not reading the sign or anything, just standing as if she were enjoying the sunshine. Her face had the bright curiosity of a stranger in a new place. She was small and rather pale, with dark hair falling around her shoulders, and there was something odd about her clothing, but Bart couldn’t determine what; it was becoming, anyway, and she was very pretty.

He couldn’t keep from staring, and his eyes drew hers and she smiled. Girls did smile often at the lean six-foot boy with his mop of yellow hair and good strong face, but that was usually as far as they got; he was too shy to do more than smile, back. Today was going to be different; he had made up his mind to that. With his heart fluttering a little he strolled over to her.

“Nice day,” he ventured. He had to clear his throat before the words came out.

“Oh, yes,” she piped, in a fluting voice. “Does your... does the sun always shine like this here?”

“Not always,” he answered, wondering where she had come from that she didn’t know it rained only too often on summer Saturdays. “But we’re having a good summer.

“What are you and the man going to do with all those plants?” she asked, gesturing toward the truck.

Bart laughed; he couldn’t help it. She wasn’t a town girl, she was a big city girl, who probably thought fruit and vegetables grew in cellophane bags in supermarkets.

“He’s my uncle,” he said. “Saturday’s market day; people from town will be along soon to buy the stuff. We come in every week. My uncle’s farm is about five miles from here.”

“Oh.” She glanced back at the tent, a sort of cautious glance, and Bart realized that she must be with the show.

“Is that true?” he asked, “About the tiger? I’ve been to lots of circuses, and I’ve seen trained lions and tigers, but not even the trainer would get into the cage with one of them—not without a protection.”

“Oh, yes, My—the trainer and I go in all the time; we even leave the door open sometimes, but he never comes out. And anyone who pays to come in is welcome to go in the cage too, and see him close to and even pat him; he doesn’t mind.”

“Is he just a cub? Did you raise him from a baby?” “Oh, no, he’s full grown—ten feet long. And we bought him from a zoo, a year ago. He wasn’t born there, though; he was captured in the jungle.”

“And you mean that in a year you’ve tamed a full-grown tiger so that anybody can come near to him and touch him?"

“Oh, yes. We—the trainer has a method. He can tame any animal on the planet.”

“This I’ve got to see. Will you be here all day?”

“All day till we move on tonight.”

“Well, I have to stay here and help my uncle, but by the end of the afternoon we’ll be through and I can do what I like. If I—if I come in then, will I be seeing you?” She laughed.