Bob Shaw - Who Goes Here?

“Same to you, fellers,” he called. “Watch out for rust.”

Chuckling with satisfaction, he boosted the ship high into the afternoon sky and set a course for Porterburg, the city he presumed to be his home.

In an older type of craft the navigational problems would have been considerable, but Peace simply flew in a sharp climb until he had reached orbital height—a manoeuvre which took only ten seconds—and could see the entire western seaboard of the North American continent laid out beneath him. From there it was easy to pick out the estuary of the Columbia River, in the middle latitudes of the long narrow Republic of Califanada which stretched from Mexico to Alaska. He could also see the planetary terminator sweeping in from the east, and knew the short winter’s day was drawing to a close in Porterburg and Fort Eccles.

Cool intangible fingers stroked his spine as he realized that his previous self was down there at that moment, preparing to carry his burden of remorse for one more night before making the fateful visit to the Legion’s recruiting station. It briefly occurred to Peace that he had no intention of joining the Legion and therefore no longer required a lever to get him out of a service contract. The wisest thing might be to steal away quietly and allow his past, with all its guilt, to remain a mystery. He flirted with the notion for a moment, then shook his head and put the ship into a steep descent. Unhampered by inertial and aerodynamic effects, the vessel reached the vicinity of Porterburg in some twenty seconds.

As the city appeared on the forward screen, an accretion of silvery cubes on a broad bend of the Columbia, he remembered he was now guilty of stealing a spaceship and was likely to be arrested if he put down at any civil or military landing field. Making a snap decision, he overflew Porterburg by about forty kilometres and selected a snow-covered pasture which was reasonably close to a small community, but screened from it by low hills. The ship settled with a jolt and the control room door slid aside to admit a gust of chill November air.

Peace stepped out into the silent twilight and took his bearings. Bordering the field was a second-class roadway which looked as though it ran straight to the community he had noticed from the air. There was nobody in the area who could have seen his arrival, and within a matter of minutes darkness would cloak both the spaceship and Peace’s subsequent movements. A comforting sense of being in command of the situation burgeoned within him as he realized that all he had to do was play it cool until the morning, avoid attracting any attention, and—above all—control his tendency to become involved in silly accidents.

Turning up his collar, he squared his shoulders and set off walking towards the road.

“Just a moment, young man,” a woman’s voice called imperiously. “Where do you think you’re going?”

Peace froze in his tracks, his eyes wide with disbelief, and turned around.

The door in the ship’s central passenger section had sprung open and, almost filling it, was a stout, middle-aged woman wearing a straw sun bonnet and a flowered dress. Other portly and middle-aged ladies, similarly attired, milled about behind her in the lighted interior, emitting bleats of consternation. Peace staggered like a man who had been sandbagged as he realized he had stolen a ship which was full of Aspatrian passengers.

“See that?” another woman said, joining the first in the doorway. “He’s drunk! I told you the pilot was drunk. Coffee all over me I’ve got, and it’s all his fault.”

“Where are we anyway?” a third chimed in. “This doesn’t look like the Sunnyside Weight-free Pleasure Asteroid to me.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Peace mumbled, backing away. Gradually gaining speed until he had reached the safe maximum for that form of perambulation, he turned and ran as fast as he could. The party of stout ladies watched until he had faded out of sight in the gathering dusk before turning to each other with looks of indignation. Silence reigned for several seconds, and then—by mutual consent—they produced subetheric whistles from their purses and blew a long and concerted blast of pure outrage.

Five thousand kilometres away to the south-east, where the afternoon sun was still shining on a Pacific atoll, two gold-gleaming supermen—who had been staring irresolutely at the sand—suddenly raised their heads. They remained in a listening posture for a time, red fire pulsing in their eyes, the hairless domes of their skulls reflecting the sun’s brilliance.

At last the giants turned to each other, nodded, and ran down a sloping shelf of coral into the sea. Too heavy and compacted for swimming, they continued to run along the ocean floor after the water had closed over their heads, and sea creatures prudently darted out of the way as the invaders of their domain struck a course for Califanada.

Panting loudly with exhaustion, Peace leaped over a boundary ditch and reached the verge of the deserted highway. Snow which had been cleared from the road itself formed a low moraine on each side. Slithering over this last barrier with some difficulty, Peace brushed snow and ice droplets from his clothing, shoved his hands in his pockets and began walking in the direction of the nearby settlement.

Everything is still all right, he assured himself. Those old trouts on the ship are bound to be a bit upset, but they don’t know how lucky they are I changed my mind about going far beyond the meagre confines of this galaxy and all the galaxies about it, and the suffering a C-change bit. That would have really given them something to complain about! Anyway, it will be hours before they can contact police, and in the meantime I’ve got plenty of money for transport, I’m correctly and inconspicuously dressed, I’m close to Porterburg, and I’m fit and healthy-except for a suspected fracture of the lower mandible, and perhaps some frostbite.

All I have to do now, he impressed on himself, building up his confidence, is stop being so damned accident prone. Play it cool! Blend into the background! Even I can stay out of trouble till the morning.

The concentrated dose of positive thinking had an immediate effect on Peace’s spirits. A certain amount of spring returned to his stride and a few minutes later—as though honoring the promise of divine assistance for those who help themselves—the lights of a bus appeared in the distance. As the vehicle drew closer Peace saw that its destination was Porterburg, and he breathed a sigh of gratitude. He signalled the driver to stop and, avoiding any possibility of having his toes flattened by a wheel on the narrow road, mounted the glassy bank of snow and waited until the bus had drawn up in front of him. Its doors opened with a pneumatic gasp. Peace edged forward, his feet shot out from under him, the icy surface hit the back of his head and, with no perceptible lapse of time, he found himself lying, hands still in pockets, in pitch darkness under the bus. Metal components churned dangerously near the tip of his nose as he struggled to get his hands free of the pockets, which had suddenly developed a vice-like grip on his wrists.

“Where did that joker go?” The bus driver’s voice could scarcely be heard above the noise of machinery, but it had a distinct note of impatience.

“I’m down here,” Peace croaked. “Help me somebody!”

“People flag you down, and then it turns out they don’t want a ride after all,” the driver grumbled. “I don’t know—it must be a new craze.”

There came the sound of doors closing, the bus rolled forward and its nearside wheel brushed the hair on top of Peace’s head. He was congratulating himself on, at least, having escaped a gory death when a projection near the vehicle’s rear end struck him in the ribs and trundled him along the ground for a short distance before releasing him in an untidy heap in the centre of the road.