Рэй Брэдбери - Perchance to Dream (Asleep in Armageddon)

You don't want death and you don't expect death. Something goes wrong, your rocket tilts in space, a planetoid jumps up, blackness, movement, hands over the eyes, a violent pulling back of available powers in the forejets, the crash.

The darkness. In the darkness, the senseless pain. In the pain, the nightmare.

He was not unconscious.

Your name? asked hidden voices. Sale, he replied in whirling nausea. Leonard Sale. Occupation? cried the voices. Space man! he cried, alone in the night. Welcome, said the voices. Welcome, welcome. They faded.

He stood up in the wreckage of his ship. It lay like a folded, tattered garment around him.

The sun rose and it was morning.

Sale prised himself out of the small airlock and stood breathing heavily. Luck. Sheer luck. His suit was intact; his oxygen breathable. A few minutes' checking showed him he had two months' supply of oxygen and food. Fine! And this — he prowled through the wreckage. Miracle of miracles! The radio was intact.

He shuttered out the message on the sending key. CRASHED ON PLANETOID 787. SALE. HELP. SALE. HELP.

Minutes passed; the reply came: HELLO, SALE. THIS IS ADDAMS IN MARSPORT. SENDING RESCUE SHIP LOGARITHM. WILL ARRIVE PLANETOID 787 SIX DAYS. HANG ON.

Sale did a little dance.

It was simple as that. One crashed. One had food. One radioed for help. Help came. Voila! he shouted.

The sun rose and was warm. He felt no sense of mortality. Six days would be no time at all. He would eat, he would read, he would sleep. He glanced at his surroundings. No dangerous animals; a tolerable oxygen supply. What more could one ask? Beans and bacon, was the answer. He touched the machinery in his helmet that popped food into his mouth.

After breakfast he smoked a cigarette slowly, deeply, blowing out through the special helmet tube. He nodded contentedly. What a life! Not a scratch on him. Luck, sheer luck!

His head nodded. Sleep, he thought.

Good idea. Forty winks. Plenty of time to sleep, take it easy. Six whole long, luxurious days of idling and philosophizing. Sleep.

He stretched himself out, tucked his arm under his head, and shut his eyes.

Insanity came in to take him. The voices whispered.

Sleep, yes, sleep, said the voices. Ah, sleep, sleep.

He opened his eyes. The voices stopped. Everything was normal. He shrugged. He shut his eyes casually, fitfully. He settled his long body.

Eeeeeeeeeeee, sang the voices far away.

Ahhhhhhhhh, sang the voices.

Sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep, sang the voices.

Die, die, die, die, die, sang the voices.

Oooooooooooo, cried the voices.

Mmmmmmmmmnwimmmmnmimmm, a bee ran through his brain.

He sat up. He shook his head. He blinked at the crashed ship. Hard metal. He felt the solid rock under his fingers. He saw the real sun warming the blue sky.

Let's try sleeping on our back, he thought. He adjusted himself, lying back down. His watch ticked on his wrist. The blood burned in his veins.

Sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep, sang the voices.

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh, sang the voices.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh, sang the voices.

Die, die, die, die, die. Sleep, sleep, die, sleep, die, sleep, die! Oohhh. Ahhhh. Eeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Blood tapped in his ears. The sound of the wind rising.

Mine, mine, said a voice. Mine, mine, he's mine; he's mine!

No mine, mine, said another voice. No, mine, mine, he's mine!

No, ours, ours, sang ten voices. Ours, ours, he's ours!

His fingers twitched. His jaws spasmed. His eyelids jerked.

At last, at last, sang a high voice. Now, now. The long time, the waiting. Over, over, sang the high voice. Over, over at last!

It was like being undersea. Green songs, green visions, green time. Bubbled voices drowning in deep liquors of sea tide. Faraway choruses chanting senseless rhymes. Leonard Sale stirred in agony.

Mine, mine, cried a loud voice. Mine, mine! shrieked another. Ours, ours, shrieked the chorus.

The din of metal, the crash of sword, the conflict, the battle, the fight, the war. All of it exploding, his mind fiercely torn apart.

Eeeeeeeeee!

He leaped up, screaming. The landscape melted and flowed.

A voice said, «I am Tylle of Rathalar. Proud Tylle, Tylle of the Blood Mound and the Death Drum. Tylle of Rathalar, Killer of Men!»

Another spoke, «I am Iorr of Wendillo, Wise Iorr. Destroyer of Infidels!»

The chorus chanted. «And we the warriors, we the steel, we the warriors, we the red blood rushing, the red blood falling, the red blood steaming m the sun ―»

Leonard Sale staggered under the burden. «Go away!» he cried. «Leave me, in God's name, leave me!»

Eeeeeee, shrieked the high sound of steel hot on steel.

Silence.

He stood with the sweat boiling out of him. He was trembling so violently he could not stand. Insane, he thought. Absolutely insane. Raving insane. Insane!

He jerked the food kit open, did something to a chemical packet. Hot coffee was ready in an instant. He mouthed it through the helmet tube greedily. He shivered. He sucked in raw gulps of breath.

Let's be logical, he thought, sitting down heavily. The coffee seared his tongue. No record of insanity in the family for two hundred years. All healthy, well-balanced. No reason for insanity now. Shock? Silly. No shock. I'm to be rescued in six days. No shock to that. No danger. Just an ordinary planetoid. Ordinary, ordinary; ordinary place. No reason for insanity. I'm sane.

Oh? cried a small metal voice within. An echo. Fading.

«Yes!» he cried, beating his fists together. «Sane!»

Hahhahhahhahhahhahhahhah. Somewhere a vanishing laughter.

He whirled about. «Shut up, you!» he cried.

We didn't say anything, said the mountains. We didn't say anything, said the sky. We didn't say anything, said the wreckage.

«All right then,» he said, swaying. «See that you don't.»

Everything was normal.

The pebbles were getting hot. The sky was big and dark. He looked at his fingers and saw the way the sun burned on every black hair. He looked at his boots and the dust on them. Suddenly he felt very happy because he made a decision. I won't go to sleep, he thought. I'm having nightmares, so why sleep? There's your solution.

He made a routine. From nine o'clock in the morning, which was this minute, until twelve, he would walk around and see the planetoid. He would write on a pad with a yellow pencil everything he saw. Then he would sit down and open a can of oily sardines, and some canned fresh bread with good butter on it, and pass it in through the helmet airlocks. From twelve-thirty until four he would read nine chapters of War and Peace. He took the book from the wreckage, and laid it where he might find it later. There was a book of T. S. Eliot's poetry, too. That might be nice.

Supper would come at five-thirty and then from six until ten he would listen to the radio from Earth. There would be a couple of bad comedians telling jokes and a bad singer singing some songs, and the latest news flashes, signing off at midnight with the U.N. anthem.

After that?

He felt sick.

I'll play solitaire until dawn, he thought. I'll sit up and drink hot black coffee and play solitaire, no cheating, until sunrise.

Ho, ho, he thought.

«What did you say?» he asked himself, aloud.

«I said 'Ha ha',» he replied. «Some time, you'll have to sleep.»

«I'm wide awake,» he said.

«Liar!» he retorted, enjoying the conversation.

«I feel fine,» he said.

«Hypocrite,» he replied.

«I'm not afraid of the night or sleep or anything,» he said.

«Very funny,» he said.

He felt bad. He wanted to sleep. And the fact that he was afraid of sleep made him want to lie down all the more and shut his eyes and curl up. «Comfy-cosy?» asked his ironic censor.