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Measure for a Loner · 20 Short Science Fiction Stories

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Section fifteen of twenty short science fiction stories by various authors.
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Measure for
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: a Loaner by Jim Harmon. You can measure everything these days, heat, light, gravity, reflexes,
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: force fields, star drives, and now I know there is
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: even a measure for a loaner. So, General, I came
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: to tell you I found the loneliest man in the
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: world for space force. How am I supposed to rate
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: his loneliness for you? In Mega's Sorrows or kill Afares?
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: I suspect I know quite a library on the subject,
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: but you know more about stripes and bars. Don't try
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: to stop me this time, General, now that you mention it,
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: I'm not drunk. I had to have something to back
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: me up, so I stopped off at the dispensary and
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: stole a needle. I want you to get off my
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: back with that kind of talk. I've got enough there
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: and it bends me over like I had bad kidneys.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: It isn't any of King Kong's little brothers. They overrate
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: the stuff. It isn't the way you've been writing me either.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: Never mind what I'm carrying. Whatever it is, and believe
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: me it is, I have to get rid of it.
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  Speaker 1: Let me tell it. For God's sake, then, for security's sake.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: I thought you would let me tell it. General been
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: coming in here and giving you pieces of it for
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: months now, but now I want to let you be
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: drenched in the whole thing. You're going to take it all.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: There were the two of them, the two lonely men,
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: and I found them for you. You remember the way
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: I found them for you. The innercom on my desk
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: made an electronic noise at me, and the words I'd
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: been arranging in my mind for the morning letters splattered
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: into alphabet soup, like a printer dropping a prepared slug
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  Speaker 1: of type. I made the prom upper motion to steal
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: the sound. Yes, I grunted. My secretary cleared her throat
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: on my time, Doctor Thorne. She said, there's a mister
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: Madison here to see you. Elays claim to be from
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: the Star Project. He could come in and file his claim,
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: I told the girl. I rummaged in the wastebasket and
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: uncrumpled the morning's facsimile newspaper. It was full of material
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: about the Star Project. We were building man's first interstellar spaceship,
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: A surprising number of people considered it important. Flipping from
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: the rear to page one, wild Bill Starr in the comics,
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: who had been blasting all the way to forty first
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: subspace universe for decades, was HARKing back to the good
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: old days of man's first star flight, which he had
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: made himself through the magic of time travel. The editor
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: was calling the man to make the jaunt, the Linburg
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: of space, and the staff photographer displayed a still of
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: space force pie and pressure suit up front, with his
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: face blotted out by an air brushed interrogation mark who
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: was going to be the Lindburgh of space. We had
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: used up the Columbus of space, the Magellan of space,
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: the van Wreck of space. Now it was time for
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: the lone Eagle, one man who had weighed out the
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: light years to alpha century. I remembered the first Lindburgh.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: I rode a bus fifty miles to see him at
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: an Air Force Day celebration when I was a dewy
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: eared kid. It's funny how kids still worship heroes who
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: did everything before they were even born. Uncle Max had
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: told me about standing outside the hospital with a bunch
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: of boys his own age. The evening, Babe Ruth died
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: of cancer. Lindburgh seemed like an old man to me
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: when I finally saw him, but still active. Nobody had
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: forgotten him. When a speech was over, I cheered him
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: with the rest, just as if I knew what he
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: had been talking about. But I probably knew more about
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: what he meant than as a boy than I did.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: Feeling the reality of the newspaper in my hands grown up,
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: I could only smile at myself for wanting to go
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: to the stars myself. Madison rapped on my office door
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: and breezed in efficiently. I've always thought Madison was a
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: rather irritating man, likable but irritating. He's too good looking
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: in an assuming masculine way to dress so neatly it
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: makes him look like a mannequin. The polite way of
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  Speaker 1: his using small words slowly and distinctly proves that he
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: loves his fellow man, even if his fellow always does
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: have less brains or authority than Madison himself. That belief
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: would be forgivable in him if it wasn't so often true.
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: Madison folded himself into the canary yellow client's chair at
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  Speaker 1: my direction and took a leather bound pocket secretary from
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  Speaker 1: insight his almost too snug jacket. Doctor Thorne, He said expansively,
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: we need you to help us locate an atavism. I
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: flick a professional smile no three at him lightly. I'm
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: a historical psychologist. I told him that sounds in my line.
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  Speaker 1: Which of your ancestors are you interested in having me analyze?
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: I use the word atavism to mean a reversion to
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  Speaker 1: the primitive. I made a pencil mark on my desk pad.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: I could make notes as well as he could read them. Yes,
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  Speaker 1: I see, I murmured. We don't use the term that way.
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: Perhaps you don't understand my work. It's been an honest
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: way to make a living for a few generations, but
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: it's so specialized it might sound foolish to someone outside
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  Speaker 1: the psychological industry. I psychoanalyze historical figures for history books,
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: of course, and scholars interested descendants. What all? And that's
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: all I do what you have done, Madison admitted. But
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: your government is certain you can do this new work
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: for them, in fact, that you are one of the
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: few men prepared to locate this esoteric that is this
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: odd aberration. Since I understand you often have to deal
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: with it in analyzing the past, doctor, we want you
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: to find us a lonely man. I laid my chrome
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: yellow pencil down carefully beside the cream colored pad. History
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: is full of loneliness. Most of the so called great
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: men were rather neurotic. But I thought, Madison, that introspection
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: was pretty much a thing of the well past. The
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: government representative inhaled deeply and steepled his manicured fingers. Our
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: system of childhood psychoconditioning succeeds in bearing loneliness in the
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: subconscious so completely that even the records can't reveal if
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: it was ever present. I cleared my throat in order
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: to stall to think. I'm not acquainted with contemporary psychology. Madison,
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: when this comes as news to me, you mean people
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: aren't really well adjusted today, that they have just been
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: conditioned to act as if they were. He nodded, Yes,
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: that's it. It's ironic. Now we need a lonely man,
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: and we can't find him to pilot the interstellar spaceship
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: for the Evening Star. Yes, Madison agreed. I picked up
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: my pencil and held it between my two index fingers.
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: I couldn't think of a damn thing to say. The
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: whole problem Madison was saying, goes back to the early
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: days of space travel. Men were confined in a small
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: area facing infinite space for measureless periods in free fall.
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: Men cracked and ships they cracked up. But as space
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: travel advanced, ships got larger, carried more people, more ties
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  Speaker 1: and reminders of human civilization. Pilots became more normal. I
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: made myself look up at the earnest young man. But
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: now now, I said, now you want me to find
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: you an abnormal pilot who is used to being alone,
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: who can stand it, maybe even like it. Right, I
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: constructed a genuine smile for him for the first time, Madison,
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: do you really think I can find your man when
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: evidently all the government agencies have failed. The government representative
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: pocketed his note book deftly, then spread his hands clumsily
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: for an instant at least, doctor, He said, you may
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: know it if you do find him. It was a
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: lonely job to find a lonely man, General, And maybe
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: it was a crooked job to walk a crooked mile
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: to find a crooked man. I had to do it alone.
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  Speaker 1: No one else had enough experience in primitive psychology to
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: recognize the phenomenon of loneliness. Even as Madison had said,
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: the working condition suited me. I had to think by myself,
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: but I had a comfortable staff to carry out my ideas.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: I liked my new office and the executive apartment the
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: government supplied me. I had authority and respect, and I
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: had security. The government assured me they would find further
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  Speaker 1: use for my services after I found them their man.
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: I knew this was to keep me from dragging my tracks,
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: but nevertheless I got right down to work. I found
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: Gordon Mayverick exactly five weeks from the day Madison first
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: visited me in my old office. Of course, I planned
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: the whole thing, doctor Thorne. Gordon said crisply. I knew
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  Speaker 1: what he meant, although I hadn't guessed it before he
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: could tell it to me himself. I decided, doesn't seem
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: too much to brag about, I said, anybody who can
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: make up a grocery list should be able to figure
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: out how to isolate himself on seal Island. He sat forward,
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  Speaker 1: a lean viking with a hot Latin glance, very confident
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  Speaker 1: of himself. I reckoned on you locating me on you
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  Speaker 1: hustling me back to pilot the Evening Star. That's why
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: I hold in here. I can't accept your story, I lied, cheerfully.
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  Speaker 1: Nobody is going to maroon himself on an island for
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  Speaker 1: three years because of a wild possibility like that. Maverick smiled,
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: and his sureness swelled out until it almost jabbed me
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  Speaker 1: in the stomach. I took a broad gamble, he said,
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: but it hit the wire, didn't it. I didn't reply,
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  Speaker 1: but he had his answer. I scanned the report Madison
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: had given me from intelligence concerning the man's unorthodox behavior.
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: Maverick had quit his postgraduate studies and passed by the
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  Speaker 1: secured job that had been waiting for him eighteen months
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  Speaker 1: in a genial government office to barricade himself in an
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  Speaker 1: old shelter on Seal Island. It was hard to know
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: what to make of it. He had brought impressive stores
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: of food with him, books, sound, and vision tapes, but
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: not telephone or television. For the next three three years,
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: he had had no contact with humanity at all, and
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: he said he had planned it all sure, he drawled.
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: I knew the government was looking for somebody to steer
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: the Interstellarship that's been gossip for decades. That job, he said, distinctly,
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: is one I would give a lot to settle into.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: I looked at him across my unlittered, brand new desk
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  Speaker 1: and accepted his irritating blonde masculinity, disliked him, admired him,
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  Speaker 1: and continued to examine him to decide on my final evaluation.
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  Speaker 1: You've given three years already, I said, examining the sheets
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: of the report with which I was thoroughly familiar. He twitched.
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: He didn't like that, not spending three years. It was spendthrift,
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  Speaker 1: even if a goodbye. He was planning on winding up
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  Speaker 1: somewhere important, and to do it he had to invest
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: his years properly. You're trying to make me believe you
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: deliberately extra related the government's need for a man who
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: could stand being alone for long periods, and then tried
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: to phony up references for the work by staying on
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  Speaker 1: that island. I don't like that word phony, Maverick growled. No,
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: you name your word for it. Maverick unhinged to his
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: full height. It was proof, he said, a test. A
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: man can't test himself a lot, you know, the big
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: blonde snorted I know, I told him dryly. A man
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: who isn't a hopeless manic depressive can't consciously create a
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: test for himself that he knows he will fail. You
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: proved you could stay alone on an island, buster, you
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: didn't prove you could stay alone in a spaceship out
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: in the middle of infinity for three years. Why didn't
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: you rent a conventional rocket and try looking at some
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: of her local space? It all looks much the same.
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: Maverick sat down. I don't know why I didn't do that,
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: he whispered, probably for the first time since he had
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: got clever enough to beat up his big brother. Maverick
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: was doubting himself just a little, for just a time.
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: I don't know whether it was good or bad for him.
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: Contemporary psychology isn't my line, but I knew I couldn't
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: trust at cocky kid. But I had to find out
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: if he could still hit the target uncocked. Stan Johnson
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: was our second lonely man, remember general he was stubborn.
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: I questioned him for half an hour the first day,
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  Speaker 1: two hours the second, and on the third I turned
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: him over to Madison. Then, as I was having my lunch,
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: I suddenly thought of something and made steps back to
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: my office. I got there just in time to grab
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: Madison's bony wrist. The thing in his fist was silver
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: and sharp, a hypodermic needle. Johnson's forearm was tanned below
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: the torn Pastell's sleeve. Two sad faced young men were
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: holding him politely by the shoulders in a canvas chair.
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: Johnson met my glance expressionlessly. I tugged on Madison's arm, sharply,
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: what's in that damn sticker polypantheum. Madison's face was as
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: blank as Johnson's, only his body seemed at once tired
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: and taut. What's it for? I rasped. You're the psychologist,
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: he said, sharply. I met his eyes and held on,
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: but it was impossible to stare him down. I don't
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: know about physical methods. I told you. I've been dealing
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: with people in books, films, tapes all my life, not
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: living men up until now. Can't you absorb that? Apparently
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: I have more experience with these things than you? Then, doctor,
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: shall I proceed? You shall not? I cried omniscently. I
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: know enough to understand we can't get the results the
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: government wants by drugs. You going to put that away?
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: Madison nodded once. All right, he said. I unshackled my fingers,
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: and he put the shining needle away in his case,
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: in his suit coat pocket. I understand Thorne. He said
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: that the general won't like this. I turned around and
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: looked at him. Did he order you to drug Johnson?
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: The government agent shook his head. I didn't think so.
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: I was beginning to understand government operations. He only wanted
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: it done. Get out. Madison and his assistants marched out
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: in orthodox Euclidian triangle formation. The doors hissed shut. You
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: know what? The words jerked out from Johnson. I think
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: the bunch of you are crazy crazy. I decided to
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: treat him like a client. Maybe that was the way
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: contemporary psychologists handled their men. I sat on the edge
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: of the desk, jauntily, confidently and tried to let the
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: domino mask up a father image. You may as well
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: get a straight stand. The government needs you, and it's
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: pointless for you to say that need is unconstitutional or anything.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: Bring it up, and it won't be long When survival
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: is outside the rules, the rules change. The eyes of
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: Johnson were strikingly like Maverick's dark and unsettled. Only this boy, younger,
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: smaller than the Nordic, had an appropriate skin tone stained
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: by the tropical sun somewhere in his ancestral past. He
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: dropped his gaze, expelled his breath mightdily, and pounded one
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: angular knee with a half closed fist. I'm not complaining
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: about conscription without representation, doctor, but I can't make any
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: sense out of these fool questions you keep firing at me.
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: What in blazes are you trying to get at? What
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: kind of reason are you after for my stain by myself?
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: I just do it because I like it that way.
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: With a galvanic jolt, I realized he was telling the
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: painfully simple truth. I groaned at the realization Maverick had
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: convinced all of us that in our well adjusted, or
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: at any rate, well conditioned world, somebody had to have
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: some purposeful reason in loneliness solitude, so on that one instance,
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: our thinking had already been patterned. Discarding all the other
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: evidence of generations that the lonely man was only a
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: personality type like Johnson, I felt I had achieved at
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: least the quantum state of a fool Johnson silently studied
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: the half cupped hands laying in his lap. The hunting
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: lodge in the Andes seemed as good a place as
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: any to live after mother and father were killed. You
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: might think it was lonesome at night in the mountains,
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: but it isn't at all. You aren't alone when you
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: can watch the burning world shadow of the bow of God.
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: I cleared my throat the poor kids. Sounded like he
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: would begin spouting something akin to poetry next, So I
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: bel I told him that doesn't finish it. We have
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: to convince them. I don't like this, but the simplest
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: way would be to volunteer for their inhibitor injection. I
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: found out Madison and his crowd don't believe men awake,
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: only assorted dopes. Johnson deflated his area of the room
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: with his breath. Intake Okay, he said, at last, I guess. So.
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: When Johnson gave us what we needed to clear the problem,
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: it didn't take me long to finish processing the rest
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: of the handful of possible loaners we had located. Unlike Johnson,
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: all the rest had reasons for their self imposed loneliness.
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: Unlike Maverick, none of their reasons were associated with the
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: interstellar flight. They instead involved literary research, swindles, isolated paranoid insanity,
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: and other things in which the government had no interest.
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: Suddenly I found my job was done and that we
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: had located only two of them. Madison read my final
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: report braced on the edge of my desk, his hand,
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: Comradeiley on my shoulder. Good job, Doc, he vouched, replacing
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: the papers on my blodder with a final rustle. Now
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: I've got good news for you. The government wants you
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: to test these boys for us. Now that you've found
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: them for us, I closed my jaw. That's completely out
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: of line, my line. I know you need a contemporary
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: man for that job. Madison punched me on the bicep
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: fast enough to hurt. Doc. After this project, you know
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: more about contempt stuff than any professor who got his
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: degree studying the textbooks you wrote. It was impossible to
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: dislike Madison except for practiced periods. That was probably one
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: reason he had his job. All Right, I growled, get
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: your dirty pants off my clean desk, and I'll get
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: out the bottle. We'll celebrate. Huh. But you know how
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: I felt, general, You remember how I tried to get
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: out of it. I felt like I had led in
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: the lambs, and now I had to help shear them.
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: As a part time historian, I can tell you there's
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: a word for that, Judas Goat, give or take a word.
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: It isn't the real thing, Doc Madison spelled out for me,
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: wearing a lemon twist of a smile. I looked at
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: the twin banks of gage facings and circuit housings, in
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: which centered TV screens were picturing either Maverick or Johnson.
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: Red and sea green lights chased each other around the
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: control boards. Died were born again on the screens. The
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: three colored negatives mixed to purple, shifted through a series
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: of wrong combinations and settled into normal as the stereo
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: oscillation echoed, convexed insanely, and deepened to hold. Video reception
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: is lousy from five hundred thousand miles out. I was
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: too eye heavy to be surprised. Don't tell me this
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: is the strange flight of Richard Clayton all over again.
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: Madison clapped me on the shoulder and breathe minted me
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: eyes on twittering round faces who wrote that poh no no,
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: walk up to fake space conditions for them but calculate
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: the cost of the real interstellarship. We couldn't trust either
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: of them with it. Yet you didn't really think we
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: could afford two ships. Why do you think we haven't
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: told one man about his opposite in a second ship?
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: No safety margin allowable in our appropriation doc or so
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: they tell me. There's enough fuel and food to take
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: Johnson and Maverick a long way, but not the distance.
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: He shook his lean head almost wistfully. Damn it, Madison,
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: what do you mean I've been beating my lobes out
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: for weeks for nothing. I tested them, I checked them out.
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: Either was capable of making the flight successfully for their
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: own different reasons. Madison took his hand off my shoulder
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: and made a fist of it. I'm not questioning your decision,
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: Will you ram that through your obscene skull thorn? Who is? I? Whispered?
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: Not me, not I, not I the general I announced,
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: just not me. Was he actually trembling? But it wasn't
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: concern about what I thought of him. Somebody closer, Maybe
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: things were building up for him. He jammed his nose
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: almost up against the glass dial surfaces, swaying gently in
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: his cups staring slightly cross eyed at the Herald numbers.
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: You'll continue your tests from here, Madison said, tell them
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: they're going to die. My face was at once cool
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: and damp. That's a tough examination, I gasped a lie.
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: Madison told me the boys at Psycha Center worked out
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: the problems you told me you wanted me. I screamed
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: at him. Furiously, control your passionate, dainty voice. You worked
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: well with those two. The experts could work through you better,
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: right through me, like a razor blade through Margarine. I said,
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: it's not fair. No, it's science. Psychology is a science,
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: not an art. Don't damn me. I'm not the inventor.
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: Madison continued, I'm one of them. I murmured, But I
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: just as rather you didn't blame me either. Madison punched
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: the button for me with a palsied, manicured thumb. Guess what, Mavrick,
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: I said, viciously, you're going to die. What the blazes
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: are you babbling about? The blonde doll snapped at me
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: from the box of the video screen. I scanned the
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: type stiff backed idiot prompters. Madison shoved into my fist.
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: It's true, you can't get out alive. What's happened? His
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: face perfectly blank, nothing out of the ordinary, I said,
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: They have just informed me it was planned this way.
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: It was impossible to build a round trip ticket. Yet
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: you need a lot of fuel to make coarse adjustments
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: for the curvature of space. So forth, the radio will
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: send back your reports on the Alpha Centurion planets. Undoubtedly,
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: by all rules of probability, they won't support life without
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: a mass of equipment. They suckered me too, Maverick, I
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: swear you turning back. No, he said, almost immediately. I
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: thought you were after the rewards, trained to get them.
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: You won't be able to enjoy them posthumously. The video blanked.
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: He had turned off his camera. I guess I thought so.
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: Maverick's voice said, but I kinda like it out here alone.
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: I like people, but back there there's no one to touch.
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: They smother you, but you can't reach them. I can't
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: do anything better back there than I can do here.
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: Madison got a bottle, and he and I got sloppily drunk,
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: leaning on each other, singing innocently obscene songs of our youth.
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: The technicians, good government men were openly disgusted with us
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: two hours after we had contacted Maverick. I left Madison
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: snoring on the desk and lurched to the control board,
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: bunching my soiled shirt at the throat with my hand.
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: I called Johnson, going to die. Johnson tricked, you can't
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: get back, Johnson, not ever, no fuel. Ha, you can
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: ever go home again? Johnson like that, You damned running nose,
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: little poet. His dark face worked weakly. Ha. He sure's
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: thunderation didn't like it. He asked for the bloody details,
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: and I fed them to him. Turning back, aren't you,
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: I jeered. I just wanted a place and time for thinking,
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: he said, across the solar system. But I'll die, and
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: I don't know if you can dream in death. Just
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: what I thought, I sneered. I'm not turning back, he
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: said slowly. People need me. I've got a job to do,
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: haven't I haven't I No, I screamed at him. You're
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: just using that as an excuse to kill yourself. Don't
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: try to tell me you're not weak. Don't you try
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: to make me think you're strong. Hear me, Johnson, hear me,
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: but he couldn't hear me. One of the government technicians
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: had broken the contact before that last spurt. This is good,
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: Madison said, pawning fuzzily at his pocket. Really good. I
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: studied the three or four watch dials wobbling up and
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: down my elongated wrist. They seemed to say it was
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: almost sunrise. I alert at Madison. Yeah, yeah, what is it?
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: Huh huh. He shoved a crumpled card into my laxed fingers. Now,
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: he said, now tell them, yeah, yeah, tell them. The
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: whole thing is useless. My stomach wretched dryly, grinding the
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: sober pills to dust between its alterating walls. Mayvrick, I
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: said to the empty video tube. They made a mistake.
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: They underestimated the curvature. You can't reach alpha centauri. You
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: can't correct enough. Free space is all you'll hit. Ever,
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: you may as well come home. The voice came out
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: of nowhere, from nothing. I don't want to come back.
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: I like it here. This is what I've always been
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: trying to get, and I never knew it. Madison grabbed
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: my arm with pronged fingers. Shut up, Doc, that's just
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: the way the government wants him to be Johnson, I
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: said to the creased face on the screen. They made
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: a mistake. They underestimated curvature. You can't reach Alpha Centauri.
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: You can't correct enough. Free space is all you'll hit.
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: Ever you, I may as well come back, Johnson sighed,
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: a whisper of breath across the miles. I'll keep going.
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: No one has ever been so far out before I
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: can report valuable things. I stood there. The textbooks reported
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: takes muscular effort to frown, more so than to smile.
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: But my face seemed to flow into the lines of
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: pain so hard it ached without any effort of my will,
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: and I knew it would hurt to smile. They passed
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: the final test, Madison said at my side, tell them
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: it was a test. I would do it for him.
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: I didn't need to do it for myself. I motioned
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: the technician to open both channels. The ship you are in,
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: I said, with no need to tell them of each other,
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: is not the real Evening Star. It will not take
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: you to the stars. This has only been a test
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: to credit your fitness to pilot the real interstellar craft
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: of the Star Project. You must return to the lunar satellite.
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: This is a direct order. The two screens remained blank.
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: Only the windless silence of space echoed over Johnson's channel,
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: but the tapes later proved that I actually did hear
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: a whispered laugh from Mavriick. I faced Madison. They won't
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: come back. They could have passed any test, except the
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: fact that what we put them through was only a
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: test for their own reasons. They will keep going as
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: far as they can. Madison took out his note book
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: and seemed to look for vital information, except that he
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: never cracked the cover. Of course, we can't get them
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: back if they won't come, he said. If cybernetic remotes
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: functioned operationally at this distance, we wouldn't have to send
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: men at all. He replaced the pocket secretary and looked
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: at me edgewise speculatively. I touched his arm. Let's find
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: another bottle, I said. He stepped back. You found them,
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: you tested them, you killed them, and the government man
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: walked away and left me standing with a murderer. You
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: see it now, don't you. General. What I'm carrying around
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: on my back is guilt, not a guilt complex, not
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: guilt fixation, just plain old Abel Caine guilt. In this nice,
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: well ordered age, I'm a killer and everybody knows it.
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: You see our mistake. General, We sent men with variable
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: amounts of loneliness. These amounts could alter. But now we
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: have a golden opportunity. The evening star is waiting, and
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: I have found for you a man with the true
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: measure of loneliness. It is impossible for this man to
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: become any more or any less lonely. It isn't the
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: ultimate possible loneliness. Understand that, General, It's just that, by
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: himself or with others, he is always in a crowd
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: of three, no more, no less. The Interstateship is waiting.
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: So tell me, General, have you ever seen a lonelier
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: man than me, your humble servitor, Doctor Thorne? No, I
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: mean it, have you? End of Section fifteen.