COMPLEAT Collected SFF Works, page 363
Before that threat human conflicts altered.
But not quite instantly. There was a brief, stunned interval in which Martine struggled with the readjustment of his own mind, changing rage over into terror, triumph into the awareness of defeat.
He pointed his revolver.
"Go back in," he said. "Turn it off."
"No," Dyson said.
"I'll count three."
"I'd rather be dead."
Martine hesitated a moment. Then, "White," he said.
White was staring at the bright mouth of the cave. It blinked and went dark. He licked his lips.
"No, sir," he said.
"Go in yourself," Dyson said to Martine, grinning, seeing the older man's face lighted again by the renewed glare from the cave. He waited until the thunder ceased briefly to vibrate, and said, "It's easy, you know. Just push the dampers in again. Either way, you lose. Stay where you are and you're washed up as a commander. Or go in the cave. You'll get back to Earth with the cargo and maybe you'll wear more stars on your shoulders—only you won't have any shoulders."
"Shut up," Martine said crisply.
The thunders rolled.
Martine drew a noisy breath and yanked the control-carriage toward him. It came on its spindling legs, like a dog. He turned a dial. There was a clank of metal on rock and the robot moved slowly into sight toward them. He had cancelled its commands, then, and Dyson's orders were erased from its mind. But too late. Much too late.
Now it began to move mindlessly toward the cave.
"Fine," Dyson jeered. "That's the way to save the fuel, all right. It'll ruin the robot, of course, so it can't pilot the ship. But what of it? Mars is a nice place to live!"
Martine began to curse him.
"Oh shut up," Dyson said. "You're through. So's Earth. When the Blow-Up comes, we'll be out of it right here in our Ark, watching the Deluge from a nice safe distance."
The thunders rolled.
Martine made his mistake. He fell back on argument. His voice was still firm, but what he said was, "Earth needs our cargo—"
Dyson took a long chance and swung his arm. The revolver sailed out of Martine's grip and thudded softly on the moss at Benjy White's feet. That meant Martine's finger hadn't been inside the guard, on the trigger. And that meant many things ...
"Our cargo?" Dyson echoed, poised on his toes and watching Martine intently, ready to forestall the slightest move toward the revolver. He wanted to pick it up himself, but that would instantly change the plane of conflict from moral to physical, and on the moral plane he knew he was already the winner.
Why didn't White pick it up? Why had White come along, anyhow? Whose side was he on? Probably he didn't know himself. Dyson grimaced angrily at him. But he kept on talking:
"We haven't got the cure for the Blow-Up in our cargo, Martine. There isn't any cure. And for one reason—just one. That's people. Men and women. They're no good, Martine. So they're going to die. All of them." He nodded toward the roaring cave. "This is the way the world ends," he said.
-
MARTINE LOOKED UP the slope, listened to the thunder. He didn't move. He had nothing to say. Watching him, Dyson realized that he didn't care whether White picked up the gun or not. He, had won without guns.
"All right, Martine," he said, almost casually. "Let's have the helmet. You won't be needing the transmitter any more."
There was a pause. The thunders rolled. Dyson glanced at White, who was staring at the pale eye of the cave. Dyson stooped swiftly and picked up the gun.
"Johnny."
It was White, still looking as if hypnotized into the cave-eye.
"Well?"
"Listen."
The thunders rolled.
"I hear it," Dyson said. Martine neither moved nor spoke.
"Pint-sized Blow-Up," White said. "The real one would be a lot worse. Noisier. Somehow I never thought of that before. The noise."
"We won't hear it."
"We'd see it, though. I'd see it. I'd know." He wrenched his gaze away from the glare of the cavern and looked up into the dark, toward the blue-green star of Earth. "Poochie," he said slowly, "was always afraid of thunder."
Dyson felt the bottom of his stomach drop out. He didn't know why yet, not with his mind. But there was some danger approaching that had taken the lead away from him, out of his control. It was coming closer and closer, with every word White spoke and every slow thought that took shape in his brain.
"I told you about Poochie," White said. "She used to be my wife, once. And the only thing that ever scared her was thunder. Used to hang on to me when—"
The thunders rolled.
"Benjy," Dyson said, his mouth dry. "Benjy—"
"So I'm crazy," White said. "Can't help what you think, kid. I never thought the Blow-Up would sound like this. I think I ought to be around where Poochie could find me, if she wanted, in case the Blow-Up comes."
He started up the slope toward the cave.
"Benjy!" Dyson said. His voice trembled. "You'd be dead in six months. And what good would it do? Our cargo can't stop the Blow-Up."
"How do you know?" White asked over his shoulder. "It's not for us to say. Our job wasn't to stop the Blow-Up. It was to get some Martian ores back home. A man ought to do his job if he takes the pay for it."
"Benjy! Don't move! I tell you, you can't stop the Blow-Up!"
"I sure as hell can stop this one," White said, and went on up the slope.
"Benjy, if you take another step I'll shoot!"
White glanced over his shoulder.
"No you won't, Johnny," he said. "No, you won't."
Dyson tried to squeeze the trigger.
He couldn't.
He concentrated on White's silhouetted back and sighted along the revolver, and he forced a command down his arm, into his index finger. But the message never got through. Martine moved faster.
-
MARTINE took the long, quick forward step and slammed the edge of his palm down on Dyson's wrist. The gun exploded in mid-air as it spun away.
The thunders rolled.
"Benjy!" Dyson shouted. It came out a thin whisper. He had to stop Benjy. He had to. Benjy mustn't go into that cave. It was very, very wrong, somehow, for anyone but Johnny Dyson to go into that cave. He took a step forward, but Martine, revolver ready, blocked his path. Martine, the truant officer, ready to collar him and drag him back to Earth. Back to work, discipline, responsibility.
Work. Discipline. Responsibility—
"Oh, no, no!" Johnny Dyson whispered. In his mind's eye he saw his fragile Martian Eden glisten under the moons, all its palaces and shining towers beginning to dissolve around him.
A Geiger began to tick in his brain.
It ticked faster and louder.
It roared.
Then he felt the flash. He felt the top of his head open and the bursting nova explode and the ballooning black cloud spurt upward through the sutures of his skull. The cloud rolled out enormously, its edges curling over and under in the familiar, the terrible shape of doom. He looked up to see it ...
He saw the Earth-star, blue-green against the dark. He saw it change. He saw it change ...
The explosion in his head must have been only a faint and remote echo, he thought, of that other and larger and farther nova-burst. For an instant half the sky was blotted out in the white glare of exploding Earth. He saw it happen.
Then the glare receded and condensed. The Earth-star took shape again, no longer blue for purity and green for peace, but a dreadful, shaking, unstable glow.
This is the way the world ends ...
Not with a bang, but a whimper.
He heard himself laughing.
He stumbled up the slope after White.
"Benjy!" he yelled. "Benjy, wait! It's happened! Didn't you hear? Look up—it's happened!"
White slogged on, not turning. Dyson labored after him, seized his shoulder. White paused and looked uncertainly into his face. Dyson couldn't stay still. He couldn't stop laughing. He danced—the old, old dance of triumph. When Martine reached the spot he danced around Martine too.
"What's happened?" Martine shouted at him.
"The end of the world!" Dyson shrilled. "This is the way, all right. You must have heard it! Earth's gone. We're safe. Safe in Eden. Look up, you dopes, look up!"
Two of the men looked up, while the third danced. Danced and laughed. Johnny couldn't stop laughing, even when Martine and White lowered their gaze and stared at him.
"Dyson," Martine said in a curious, low voice. "Dyson. Listen. Nothing's happened. You must have—imagined it. Look up, see for yourself."
Johnny looked. It was still there, all right. A trembling white glare in the sky. He laughed more shrilly than ever.
"But Dyson—" Martine said. White shook his head at him, reached out and took Johnny by the arm, stopping his dance.
"It's all right, Johnny," he said. "You're safe now. Everything's fine. Now you just take it easy and wait for me. I'll be back in a little while." He whispered something to Martine. Then he started up the slope again, toward the cave.
Johnny stared after him.
"Benjy!"
There was no answer.
"Benjy, what's the matter with you? You don't need to save the fuel now. Earth's gone. We're safe. We don't have to go back. Don't you understand—"
"Easy," Martine said. "It's all right."
White went on slowly up the hill, his shoulders hunched as if against a wind that was now blowing. He was getting smaller and smaller, vanishing into the microcosm. Johnny Dyson blinked into the white eye of the cave. Then the rolling thunders swallowed Benjy.
-
AFTER A WHILE THEY were in the ship again, ready for the take-off. And, after that, Martine and White talked as if they had actually left Mars, headed back toward—well, not Earth, because obviously there was no Earth. Where, then?
Johnny tried to figure it out. When he asked questions the answers he got were so irrational that he had to translate them into his own terms; but presently he found a solution that satisfied him. When they said "Earth" they meant it only as a symbol. They were, logically enough, going to try to locate another habitable planet somewhere, a planet even better than Mars, where they could rebuild Eden.
And that was all right too. Because, after thinking it over, Johnny realized that it would have taken a lot of hard work to build his Martian Eden, even with the robot to help. It would have been quite a responsibility.
It was better to let the older men have the responsibility.
Of course the Blow-Up must have been quite a shock to Martine and White. It was difficult for them to readjust. But it did no harm to let them pretend. The name didn't matter. They thought of the new, undiscovered planet as Earth. When they found it they might even call it Earth—New Earth, in memory of the bad Old Earth that was gone. Gone forever, with all its worthless, evil infestations of humanity. For that Johnny couldn't really feel regret.
He made allowances for his companions, even when they acted a little crazy. It was odd, being the only completely sane man in the ship.
He waited. There was a period of vivid, confusing dreams in which he almost imagined himself back on Earth, but presently the dreams passed and were gone., Then he was able to sleep soundly again.
... Johnny's spaceship kept on going.
Sometimes he wondered when it would reach its destination. He was tired of the artificial days and nights of the ship, and those viziports with their disturbingly vivid images of what no longer existed. It had been pointless, after all, trying to disguise the blackness of space with those visions of Old Earth outside the windows. And it had been rather foolish to disguise the robot so that it looked like a man in white when it came in to bring him food and get its orders from him.
Someday when he felt more like it, he would change the orders and remake the robot, casting it back into its metal reality. But he was tired. He had to rest. He mustn't take on any unnecessary responsibilities now, because the day was coming when the ship would land on a habitable planet and his work would begin.
And he'd do his job. He'd do it well. He hadn't given up. Oh no, not Johnny Dyson.
His own father had lain down on the job, of course, first trying to pass the buck to Johnny, and then, when that failed, simply by going insane. A complete refusal to accept responsibility. Yes, that was the only sin—giving up. For if his father had stayed on the job, he might have found an answer. After all, Dr. Gerald Dyson had been a brilliant man.
But Dr. Gerald Dyson had given up. He had ended his career in an insane asylum, very likely so happy in his ultimate retreat that he'd never even known it when the Blow-Up came.
If I'd had my father's chances, I'd have kept on fighting to the last ditch, Johnny thought. But I've got my own job. It isn't too late. And if the ship ever reaches a habitable world, I'll start right in working at it.
He glanced at the viziport images of a world that had given up and therefore had died, quickly and painlessly.
Johnny smiled.
He was so happy in his spaceship room that he never knew it when the real Blow-Up came.
The End
PARADISE STREET
Astounding Science Fiction - September 1950
(as by Lawrence O'Donnell)
The pioneer who carves some semblance of order, some way of life, from a raw planet naturally feels he owns the place. The settler who follows and tames the planet feels differently. And then there is always the third factor to set off the fireworks ...
-
Loki planet rolled its wild ranges and untrodden valleys up out of darkness toward morning under Morgan's thundering ship. Morgan was in a hurry. His jets roared out ice-plumes in the thin, high air; writing the scroll of his passage enormously in vapor across half Loki's pale sky. There was no other visible trace of man anywhere in the world.
Behind Morgan in the cargo bin there were three kegs with sehft washing about oilily inside them. They made the tiny cabin smell of cinnamon, and Morgan liked the smell. He liked it for itself, and for the pleasant memories it evoked of valley canebrakes and hillside forests where he had gathered his cargo in discomfort, danger and perfect freedom. He also liked it because it was going to be worth fifty thousand credits at Ancibel Key.
Either fifty thousand, or nothing.
That depended on how soon he reached Ancibel Key. He had caught a microwave message back there in the predawn over Great Swamp, and he had been pushing his ship to top speed ever since. He had also been muttering angrily, kicking the ship along her course, cursing her and Loki planet and mankind in general, after the fashion of men who are much alone and talk to themselves for company.
Radar patterns pulsed noiselessly across the screen before him, and ahead under a blanket of morning fog he knew Ancibel Key lay sprawled. Around the edges of the fog he could see the telltale marks of civilization spread out upon the soil of Loki—carbon-blacked fields with neat straight roads between them, racks of orchards checkering the sides of valleys he remembered wild and lonely. He thought of old days not very long ago, when he had hunted the bearded Harvester bulls across these meadows and trapped sehft-rats where the orchards grew.
The sky was a little soiled already, above Ancibel Settlement. Morgan wrinkled his lean, leather face and spat.
"People!" he said with fierce contempt to the pulse of the radar pattern. "Settlers! Scum!"
Behind him in the clear morning the vapor-trail of his journey swept in one enormous plume clear back to the horizon, back over Wild Valley, over Lookout Peak and Nancy Lake and the Harvester Range. He decelerated above the invisible landing field, and the soft gray fog closed over him. The plume of the passage he had scrawled over half a planet dissipated slowly above the peaks and the lakes that had been his alone for a long time now, grew dim and broad, and vanished.
-
Morgan stamped into the assay office with a carboy of sehft swashing on his shoulder. He moved in a haze of cinnamon. The assay office was also general store, now. Morgan scowled around the too-neat shelves, the laden bins and labeled barrels. Toward the back a red-headed youngster with the dark tan of Mars on his freckled face was waiting on—yes, Morgan looked twice to make sure—a parson. A parson on Loki!
The Mars-tanned boy was belted into a slick silver apron. So was the storekeeper himself. Suppressing a snort of contempt, Morgan gazed past the heavy, bent shoulders of a settler in brown knitted orlon and met the keen and faded blue eyes of Warburg, assay agent turned storekeep.
