Voyage To Eternity Page 8

  CHAPTER VIII

  "You got to hand it to Temple's kid brother."

  "Yeah. Cool as ice cubes."

  "Are you guys kidding? He doesn't know what's in store for him, that'sall."

  "Do _you_?"

  "Now that you mention it, no. Isn't a man here who can say for surewhat kind of environmental challenges he'll have to respond to.Hypno-surgery sees to it the guys who went through the thing won'ttalk about it. As if that isn't security enough, the subject's got tobe a brand new arrival!"

  "Shh! Here he comes."

  The brothers Temple entered Earth City's one tavern quietly, but ontheir arrival all the speculative talk subsided. The long bar, builtto accommodate half a hundred pairs of elbows comfortably, gleamedwith a luster unfamiliar to Temple. It might have been marble, butmarble translucent rather than opaque, giving a beautifulthree-dimensional effect to the surface patterns.

  "What will it be?" Jason demanded.

  "Whatever you're drinking is fine."

  Jason ordered two scotches, neat, and the brothers drank. When Jasongot a refill he started talking. "Does T.A.T. mean anything to you,Kit?"

  "Tat? Umm--no. Wait a minute! T.A.T. Isn't that some kind ofprojective psychological test?"

  "That's it. You're shown a couple of dozen pictures, more or lessambiguous, never cut and dry. Each one comes from a different stratumof the social environment, and you're told to create a dramaticsituation, a story, for each picture. From your stories, for which youdraw on your whole background as a human being, the psychometricianshould be able to build a picture of your personality and maybe findout what, if anything, is bothering you."

  "What's that to do with this response to environmental challengething?"

  "Well," said Jason, drinking a third scotch, "the Super Boys haveevolved T.A.T. to its ultimate. T.A.T.--that stands for ThematicApperception Test. But in E.C.R.--environmental challenge andresponse, you don't see a picture and create a dramatic story aroundit. Instead, you get thrust into the picture, the situation, and youhave to work out the solution--or suffer whatever consequences theparticular environmental challenge has in store for you."

  "I think I get you. But it's all make believe, huh?"

  "That's the hell of it," Jason told him. "No, it's not. It is and itisn't. I don't know."

  "You make it perfectly clear," Temple smiled. "The red-headed boycombed his brown hair, wishing it weren't blond."

  Jason shrugged. "I'm sorry. For reasons you already know, the E.C.R.isn't very clear to me--or to anyone. You're not actually in thesituation in a physical sense, but it can affect you physically. You_feel_ you're there, you actually live everything that happens to you,getting injured if an injury occurs ... and dying if you get killed.It's permanent, although you might actually be sleeping at the time.So, whether it's real or not is a question for philosophy. From yourpoint of view, from the point of view of someone going through it,it's real."

  "So I become part of this--uh, game in about an hour."

  "Right. You and whoever the Russians offer as your competition. No onewill blame you if you want to back out, Kit; from what you tell me,you haven't even been adequately trained on Mars."

  "If you draw on the entire background of your life for this E.C.R.,then you don't need training. Shut up and stop worrying. I'm notbacking out of anything."

  "I didn't think you would, not if you're still as much like your oldman as you used to be. Kit ... good luck."

  * * * * *

  The fact that the technicians working around him were Earthmenpermitted Temple to relax a little. Probably, it was planned that way,for entering the huge white cube of a building and ascending to thetwelfth level on a moving ramp Temple had spotted many figures, notall of them human. If he had been strapped to the table by unfamiliaraliens, if the scent of alien flesh--or non-flesh--had been strong inthe room, if the fingers--or appendages--which greased his temples andclamped an electrode to each one had not felt like human fingers, ifthe men talking to him had spoken in voices too harsh or too sibilantfor human vocal chords--if all that had been the case whatevercomposure still remained his would have vanished.

  "I'm Dr. Olson," said one white-gowned figure. "If any injuries occurwhile you lie here, I'm permitted to render first aid."

  "The same for limited psychotherapy," said a shorter, heavier man."Though a fat lot of good it does when we never know what's botheringyou, and don't have the time to work on it even if we did know."

  "In short," said a third man who failed to identify himself, "you mayconsider yourself as the driver of one of those midget rocket racers.Do they still have them on Earth? Good. You are the driver, and wehere in this room are the mechanics waiting in your pit. If anythinggoes wrong, you can pull out of the race temporarily and have itrepaired. But in this particular race there is no pulling out: allrepairs are strictly of a first-aid nature and must be done while youcontinue whatever you are doing. If you break your finger and find asplint appearing on it miraculously, don't say you weren't warned."

  "Best of luck to you, young man," said the psychotherapist.

  "Here we go," said the doctor, finding the large vein on the inside ofTemple's forearm and plunging a needle into it.

  Temple's senses whirled instantly, but as his vision clouded hethought he saw a large, complex device swing down from the ceiling andbathe his head in warming radiation. He blinked, squinted, could seenothing but a swirling, cloudy opacity.

  * * * * *

  Approximately two seconds later, Sophia Androvna Petrovitch watched asthe white-gowned comrade tied a rubber strap around her arm, waitedfor the vein to swell with blood, then forced a needle in through itsthick outer layer. Was that a nozzle overhead? No, rather a lens, forfrom it came amber warmth ... which soon faded, with everything else,into thick, churning fog....

  Temple was abruptly aware of running, plunging headlong and blindlythrough the fiercest storm he had ever seen. Gusts of wind whipped athim furiously. Rain cascaded down in drenching torrents. Foliage,brambles, branches struck against his face; mud sucked at his feet.Big animal shapes lumbered by in the green gloom, as frightened by thestorm as was Temple.

  His head darted this way and that, his eyes could see the gnarled treetrunks, the dense greenery, the lianas, creepers and vines of atropical rain forest--but dimly. Green murk swirled in like thicksmoke with every gust of wind, with the rain obscuring vision almostcompletely.

  Temple ran until his lungs burned and he thought he must exhale fire.His leaden feet fought the mud with growing difficulty for everystride he took. He ran wildly and in no set direction, convinced onlythat he must find shelter or perish. Twice he crashed bodily intotrees, twice stumbled to his knees only to pull himself upright again,sucking air painfully into his lungs and cutting out in a freshdirection.

  He ran until his legs balked. He fell, collapsing first at the knees,then the waist, then flopping face down in the mud. Something proddedhis back as he fell and reaching behind him weakly Temple was awarefor the first time that a bow and a quiver of arrows hung suspendedfrom his shoulders by a strong leather thong. He wore nothing but aloin cloth of some nameless animal skin and he wondered idly if he hadslain the animal with the weapon he carried. Yet when he tried torecollect he found he could not. He remembered nothing but his franticflight through the rain forest, as if all his life he had run in afutile attempt to leave the rain behind him.

  Now as he lay there, the mud sucking at his legs, his chest, hisarmpits, he could not even remember his name. Did he have one? Did hehave a life before the rain forest? Then why did he forget?

  A sense not fully developed in man and called intuition by those whofail to understand it made him prop his head up on his hands andsquint through the downpour. There was something off there in thefoliage ... someone....

  A woman.

  Temple's breath caught in his throat sharply. The woman stood half adozen paces off, observing him coolly with han
ds on flanks. She stoodtall and straight despite the storm and from trim ankles to long,lithe legs to flaring loin-clothed hips, to supple waist and tawnyskin of fine bare breasts and shoulders, to proud, haughty face andlong dark hair loose in the storm and glistening with rain, she wasmagnificent. Her long, bronzed body gleamed with wetness and Templerealized she was tall as he, a wild beautiful goddess of the jungle.She was part of the storm and he accepted her--but strangely, with thesame fear the storm evoked. She would make a lover the whole worldmight relish (what world, Temple thought in confusion?) but she wouldmake a terrible foe.

  And foe she was....

  "I want your bow and arrows," she told him.

  * * * * *

  Temple wanted to suggest they share the weapon, but somehow he knew inthis world which was like a dream and could tell him things the way adream would and yet was vividly real, that the woman would sharenothing with anybody.

  "They are mine," Temple said, climbing to his knees. He remembered theanimal-shapes lumbering by in the storm and he knew that he and theanimals would both stalk prey when the storm subsided and he wouldneed the bow and arrows.

  The woman moved toward him with a liquid motion beautiful to behold,and for the space of a heartbeat Temple watched her come. "I will takethem," she said.

  Temple wasn't sure if she could or not, and although she was a womanhe feared her strangely. Again, it was as if something in thisdream-world real-world could tell him more than he should know.

  Making up his mind, Temple sprang to his feet, whirled about and ran.He was plunging through the wild storm once more, blinded by theoccasional flashes of jagged green lightning, deafened by the peals ofthunder which followed. And he was being pursued.

  Minutes, hours, more than hours--for an eternity Temple ran. Areservoir of strength he never knew he possessed provided the energyfor each painful step and running through the storm seemed the mostnatural thing in the world to him. But there came a time when hisstrength failed, not slowly, but with shocking suddenness. Templefell, crawled a ways, was still.

  It took him minutes to realize the storm no longer buffeted him, moreminutes to learn he had managed to crawl into a cave. He had no timeto congratulate himself on his good fortune, for something stirredoutside.

  "I am coming in," the woman called to him from the green murk.

  Temple strung an arrow to his bow, pulled the string back and facedthe cave's entrance squatting on his heels. "Then your first stepshall be your last. I'll shoot to kill." And he meant it.

  Silence from outside. Deafening.

  Temple felt sweat streaming under his armpits; his hands were clammy,his hands trembled.

  "You haven't seen the last of me," the woman promised. After that,Temple knew she was gone. He slept as one dead.

  When Temple awoke, bright sunlight filtered in through the foliageoutside his cave. Although the ground was a muddy ruin, the storm hadstopped. Edging to the mouth of the cave, Temple spread the foliagewith his hands, peered cautiously outside. Satisfied, he took his bowand arrows and left the cave, pangs of hunger knotting his stomachpainfully.

  The cave had been weathered in the side of a short, steep abutment adozen paces from a gushing, swollen stream. Temple followed the courseof the stream as it twisted through the jungle, ranging half a milefrom his cave until the water course widened to form a water-hole. Allmorning Temple waited there, crouching in the grass, until one by one,the forest animals came to drink. He selected a small hare-like thing,notched an arrow to his bow, let it fly.

  The animal jumped, collapsed, began to slink away into theundergrowth, dragging the arrow from its hindquarters. Temple dartedafter it, caught it in his hands and bashed its life out against thebole of a tree. Returning to his cave he found two flinty stones,shredded a fallen branch and nursed the shards dry in the strongsunlight. Soon he made a fire and ate.

  * * * * *

  In the days which followed, Temple returned to the water-hole andbagged a new catch every time he ventured forth. Things went so wellthat he began to range further and further from his cave exploring.Once however, he returned early to the water-hole and found footprintsin the soft mud of its banks.

  The woman.

  That she had been observing him while he had hunted had never occurredto Temple, but now that the proof lay clearly before his eyes, theold feeling of uncertainty came back. And the next day, when he creptstealthily to the water-hole and saw the woman squatting there in thebrush, waiting for him, he fled back to his cave.

  The thought hit him suddenly. If she were stalking him, why must heflee as from his own shadow? There would be no security for either ofthem until either one or the other were gone--and gone meant dead.Then Temple would do his own stalking.

  For several nights Temple hardly slept. He could have found thewater-hole blindfolded merely by following the stream. Each night hewould reach the hole and work, digging with a sharp stone, until hehad fashioned a pit fully ten feet deep and six feet across. This hecovered with branches, twigs, leaves and finally dirt.

  When he returned in the morning he was satisfied with his work. Unlessthe woman made a careful study of the area, she would never see thepit. All that day Temple waited with his back to the water-hole,facing the camouflaged pit, the trap he had set, but the woman failedto appear. When she also did not come on the second day, he began tothink his plan would not work.

  The third day, Temple arrived with the sun, sat as before in the tallgrass between the pit and the water-hole and waited. Several pacesbeyond his hidden trap he could see the tall trees of the jungle withvines and creepers hanging from their branches. At his back, a man'slength behind him was the water-hole, its deepest waters no more thanwaist-high.

  Temple waited until the sun stood high in the sky, then was fascinatedas a small antelope minced down to the water-hole for a drink. _You'llmake a fine breakfast tomorrow, he thought, smiling._

  Something, that strange sixth sense again, made Temple turn around andstand up. He had time for a brief look, a hoarse cry.

  The woman had been the cleverer. She had set the final trap. She stoodhigh up on a branch of one of the trees beyond the hidden pit and foran instant Temple saw her fine figure clearly, naked but for theloincloth. Then the soft curves became spring-steel.

  The woman arched her body there on the high branch, grasping a stoutvine and rocking back with it. Temple raised his bow, set an arrow tolet it fly. But by then, the woman was in motion.

  Long and lithe and graceful, she swung down on her vine, gatheringmomentum as she came. Her feet almost brushed the lip of Temple's pitat the lowest arc of her flight, but she clung to the vine and itbegan to swing up again like a pendulum--toward Temple.

  At the last moment he hunched his shoulder and tried to raise his armsfor protection. The woman was quicker. She gathered her legs up underher, still clutching the vine with her slim, strong hands. The vine'sarc carried her up at him; her knees were at a level with his head andshe brought them up savagely, close together striking Temple brutallyat the base of his jaw. Temple screamed as his head was jerked backwith terrible force.

  The bow flew from his fingers and he fell into the water-hole, flat onhis back.

  Sophia let the vine carry her out over the water, then dropped fromit. Waist deep, she waded to where the man lay, unconscious on hisback, half in, half out of the shallowest part of the water. Shereached him, prodded his chest with her foot. When he did not stir,she rocked her weight down gracefully on her long leg, forcing hishead under water. With a haughty smile, she watched the bubblesrise....

  * * * * *

  In the small room where Temple's body lay in repose on a table thewhite-smocked doctor looked at the psychotherapist questioningly."What's happening?"

  "Can't tell, doctor. But--"

  Suddenly Temple's still body rocked convulsively, his neck stretched,his head shot up and back. Blood trickled from his mouth.r />
  The doctor thrust out expert hands, examined Temple's jaw dexterously.

  "Broken?" the psychotherapist demanded in a worried voice.

  "No. Dislocated. He looks like he's been hit by a sledge hammer,wherever he is now, whatever's happening. This E.C.R. is the damndestthing."

  Temple's still form shuddered convulsively. He began to gasp andcough, obviously fighting for breath. An ugly blue swelling had by nowlumped the base of his jaw.

  "What's happening?" demanded the psychotherapist.

  "I can't be sure," said the doctor, shaking his head. "He seems tohave difficulty in breathing ... it's as if he were--drowning."

  "Bad. Anything we can do?"

  "No. We wait until this particular sequence ends." The doctor examinedTemple again. "If it doesn't end soon, this man will die ofasphyxiation."

  "Call it off," the psychotherapist pleaded. "If he dies now Earth willbe represented by Russia. Call it off!"

  Someone entered the room. "_I_ have the authority," he said,selecting a hypodermic from the doctor's rack and piercing the skinof Temple's forearm with it. "This first test has gone far enough. TheRussian entry is clearly the winner, but Temple must live if he is tocompete in another."

  The wracking convulsions which shook Temple's body subsided. He ceasedhis choking, began to breathe regularly. With grim swiftness, thedoctor went to work on Temple's dislocated jaw while the man who hadstopped the contest rendered artificial respiration.

  The man was Alaric Arkalion.

  * * * * *

  The Comrade Doctor was exultant. "Jupiter training, comrade, has givenus a victory."

  "How can you be sure?"

  "Our entrant is unharmed, the contest has been called. Wait ... she iscoming to."

  Sophia stretched, rubbed her bruised knees, sat up.

  "What happened, Comrade?" the doctor demanded.

  "My knees ache," said Sophia, rubbing them some more. "I--I killedhim, I think. Strange, I never dreamed it would be that real."

  "In a sense, it _was_ real. If you killed the American, he will staydead."

  "Nothing mattered but that world we were in, a fantastic place. Now Iremember everything, all the things I couldn't remember then."

  "But your--ah, dream--what happened?"

  Sophia rubbed her bruised knees a third time, ruefully. "I knocked himunconscious with these. I forced his head under water and drowned him.But--before I could be sure I finished the job--I came back.... Funnythat I should want to kill him without compunction, without reason."Sophia frowned, sat up. "I don't think I want anymore of this."

  The doctor surveyed her coldly. "This is your task on the Stalintrek.This you will do."

  "I killed him without a thought."

  "Enough. You will rest and get ready for the second contest."

  "But if he's dead--"

  "Apparently he's not, or we would have been informed, ComradePetrovitch."

  "That is true," agreed the second man, who had remained silent untilnow. "Prepare for another test, Comrade."

  Sophia was on the point of arguing again. After all it wasn't fair. Ifin the dream-worlds which were not dream worlds she was motivated bybut one factor and that to destroy the American and if she faced himwith the strength of her Jupiter training it would hardly be acontest. And now that she could think of the American without theall-consuming hatred the dream world had fostered in her, she realizedhe had been a pleasant-looking young man, quite personable, in fact._I could like him_, Sophia thought and hoped fervently she had notdrowned him. Still, if she had volunteered for the Stalintrek and thiswas the job they assigned her....

  "I need no rest," she told the doctor, hardly trusting herself, forshe realized she might change her mind. "I am ready any time you are."