C Kornbluth - His Share of Glory The Complete Short Science Fiction

Mamie Tung slipped through the tube, notified the rating to run for Star Macduff. She returned to take her stand beside the E.O.

There was a whining as Macduff put on his fields full power; the air blued.

With one mighty, indignant wail of protest the Gentleman ceased to exist. All the temporary magnetisms he had set up dissolved; half the equipment in the room fell apart for lack of rivets; the lights and sparks died in mid-air.

"Schizophrenia," said Mamie, scribbling in a notebook.

"Brutal. Effective."

"But if he'd solved those problems …"

"The Gentleman was young and ignorant at best—didn't know when to stop. Very low critical faculty."

The Calculator and Yancey Mears slid through the tube, breathlessly surveyed the wreckage of the computations room.

"Take us a week to clean this up," said Yancey Mears.

The Executive, for the first time since the ship had found life, spoke into a phone plate, gave orders to affect the course.

"Stop the sphere."

"Yes, Officer. Cut?"

"Cut. Look out, Yancey."

An agglomeration of cogwheels and styli jumped at her ankle, buried the points in her flesh. Star Macduff squirted it with his portable field set-up. It fell apart even as the Gentleman had.

"Ugly thing," said the woman, inspecting her wounds. "The Gentleman might have been worse."

Like a paramecium skirting the bulk of a minnow in some unthinkable stagnant pool, Sphere Nine edged close around the rim of the mighty solid that hung in space and marked the end of the long, long quest after the cosmic rays that so disturbingly played hob with attempts at self-improvement.

The project of landing was conceived by the Executive Officer; it took no less a mind than his to consider the possibility of dropping the sphere anywhere but in a cradle which had been built to order. But the protoplasm—whatever it was—would offer no interference; the sphere might sink gently to the surface, even penetrate to some considerable distance; there would be no harm in that.

Sphere Nine was in top order; the ravaged computations room had been set aright; the crew of ordinaries had been given a going-over by Mamie Tung and pronounced sound and trustworthy. The Officers themselves were high as so many kites, reaction-speeds fast and true, toned-up to the limit. It was to be regretted that the strain of contact with the Gentleman had vanished, perhaps. A certain recklessness had crept into their manner.

The protoplasmal mass which blanketed their heavens at one stroke became instead the floor beneath their feet as its gravity twisted their psychology 180 degrees around. They felt as through they hung above a sea of dry slime that moved not at all, whose sole activity was the emission of cosmic rays and invisible spores of life that smeared any agar dish exposed to it.

Quietly the sphere lowered itself, quietly touched the surface of the sea, quietly slipped into it, the path it made closing behind.

Through layers of dark-colored stuff they drifted, then through layers of lighter-colored stuff, then into a sort of ash heap. Embedded in the tough jelly-like matter were meteors by the thousand, planet fragments, areas of frozen gas. It was like the kitchen-midden of a universe.

The strange, silent passage through the viscid medium was uninterrupted; Star Macduff plotted a course through the rubbish. The ratings steered faithfully by his figures; as they passed the gravelly stuff, the dream-like progress continued, the protoplasm growing lighter yet in color. Finally unmistakable radiance shone through a thinning layer.

Sphere Nine broke through the tough, slimy-dry stuff to be bathed in the light of a double star with a full retinue of fifteen planets.

"Impossible," said Star Macduff.

"Agreed. But why?"

"Assuming that a star should coincide with another long enough to draw out a filament of matter sufficient for fifteen planets, the system would be too unstable—wouldn't last long enough to let the suns get into the red giant stage."

"Artificial?"

"If they're real they're artificial, Will."

"Attention E.O.! Attention!" gargled the phone hysterically.

"What is it?"

"Rating Eight speaking, Officer. There's something coming at the forward slice."

Will Archer swiveled around the telescope while the rating gave the coordinates of whatever they had picked up. Archer finally found it and held it. It was a spiral of some kind headed at them, obviously, speed more than a mile a second and decelerating.

"Stop ship. Cut."

"Cut, Officer."

"That thing can't reach us for a while yet. Meantime let's consider what we just got ourselves into."

"We just got ourselves through a big slew of protoplasm that acts as a sort of heavenly sphere—primum mobile—for a solar system that our Calculator considers unlikely."

"True. I suggest that we keep ourselves very carefully in check now.

There's been some laxity of thinking going on during the voyage; it is understandable. We've all been under extraordinary stress. Now that the hardest part—perhaps—is over, we cannot afford to relax. By all accounts what is coming at us is a vessel. It is unlikely to suppose that this protosphere is accidental; if it were, there would be as much reason to believe that there is intelligent life on those fifteen planets, inasmuch as they are so close to the source of life-spores. I hope that in whatever befalls us we shall act as worthy representatives of our species."

"Pompous ass!" rang through the ship. The E.O. turned very red.

"May we come aboard?" asked the laughing voice again.

"By all means," said the psychologist. "It would be somewhat foolish to deny you entrance when you've already perfected communications."

"Thank you."

There slipped through the hull of the sphere three ordinary-looking persons of approximately the same build as Will Archer. They were conventionally dressed.

"How did you do that?" asked the Calculator.

"Immaterial. The matter, I mean. I mean, the topic," said one of them.

"That's one fiendish language you speak. The wonder is that you ever managed to get off the ground."

"If our intrusion into your solar system is resented," said the E.O., "we'll leave at once. If it is not, we should like to examine that shell you have.

We would gratefully accept any knowledge you might offer us from your undoubtedly advanced civilization."

"Eh? What's that?"

"He means," explained another of the visitors to the sphere, "that we're stronger than he is, and that he'd like to become strong enough to blow us to powder."

"Why didn't he say so?" asked the second.

"Can't imagine. Limitations of his symbology, I expect. Now, man, can you give us a good reason why we should help you become strong enough to blow us to powder?" Stiffly Archer nodded to Mamie Tung.

"We have no claim on you, nor have you on us. We wish to take a sample of your protosphere and depart for our own system."

"In other words, my good woman, you realize that time doesn't figure largely in this matter, and that you don't care whether you or your grandchildren blow us to powder?"

"I can't understand it," commented one of the others in a stage whisper.

"Why this absurd insistence on blowing us to powder?"

"Do I pretend to understand the processes of a lump of decaying meat?"

declared the first. "I do not."

"No more than I. What makes them go?"

"Something they call 'progress.' I think it means blowing everything else to powder."

"What unpleasantness!"

"So I should say. What do you propose doing to them?"

"We might blow them to powder."

"Let's find out first what makes them run." The first turned on Yancey Mears. "Why are you built differently from the E.O.? We can allow for individual variations, but even to this untrained eye there's a staggering discrepancy."