The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Sense of Wonder, by Milton Lesser
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Title: The Sense of Wonder
Author: Milton Lesser
Release Date: February 24, 2016 [EBook #51296]
Language: English
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The Sense of Wonder
By MILTON LESSER
Illustrated by HARRY ROSENBAUM
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Galaxy Science Fiction September 1951.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
When nobody aboard ship remembers where it's
going, how can they tell when it has arrived?
Every day for a week now, Rikud had come to the viewport to watch
the great changeless sweep of space. He could not quite explain the
feelings within him; they were so alien, so unnatural. But ever since
the engines somewhere in the rear of the world had changed their tone,
from the steady whining Rikud had heard all twenty-five years of his
life, to the sullen roar that came to his ears now, the feelings had
grown.
If anyone else had noticed the change, he failed to mention it. This
disturbed Rikud, although he could not tell why. And, because he had
realized this odd difference in himself, he kept it locked up inside
him.
Today, space looked somehow different. The stars--it was a meaningless
concept to Rikud, but that was what everyone called the bright
pinpoints of light on the black backdrop in the viewport--were not
apparent in the speckled profusion Rikud had always known. Instead,
there was more of the blackness, and one very bright star set apart
by itself in the middle of the viewport.
If he had understood the term, Rikud would have told himself this was
odd. His head ached with the half-born thought. It was--it was--what
was it?
Someone was clomping up the companionway behind Rikud. He turned and
greeted gray-haired old Chuls.
"In five more years," the older man chided, "you'll be ready to sire
children. And all you can do in the meantime is gaze out at the stars."
Rikud knew he should be exercising now, or bathing in the rays of the
health-lamps. It had never occurred to him that he didn't feel like it;
he just didn't, without comprehending.
Chuls' reminder fostered uneasiness. Often Rikud had dreamed of the
time he would be thirty and a father. Whom would the Calculator select
as his mate? The first time this idea had occurred to him, Rikud
ignored it. But it came again, and each time it left him with a feeling
he could not explain. Why should he think thoughts that no other man
had? Why should he think he was thinking such thoughts, when it always
embroiled him in a hopeless, infinite confusion that left him with a
headache?
Chuls said, "It is time for my bath in the health-rays. I saw you here
and knew it was your time, too...."
His voice trailed off. Rikud knew that something which he could not
explain had entered the elder man's head for a moment, but it had
departed almost before Chuls knew of its existence.
"I'll go with you," Rikud told him.
* * * * *
A hardly perceptible purple glow pervaded the air in the room of the
health-rays. Perhaps two score men lay about, naked, under the ray
tubes. Chuls stripped himself and selected the space under a vacant
tube. Rikud, for his part, wanted to get back to the viewport and watch
the one new bright star. He had the distinct notion it was growing
larger every moment. He turned to go, but the door clicked shut and a
metallic voice said. "Fifteen minutes under the tubes, please."
Rikud muttered to himself and undressed. The world had begun to annoy
him. Now why shouldn't a man be permitted to do what he wanted, when
he wanted to do it? _There_ was a strange thought, and Rikud's brain
whirled once more down the tortuous course of half-formed questions and
unsatisfactory answers.
He had even wondered what it was like to get hurt. No one ever got
hurt. Once, here in this same ray room, he had had the impulse to hurl
himself head-first against the wall, just to see what would happen.
But something soft had cushioned the impact--something which had come
into being just for the moment and then abruptly passed into non-being
again, something which was as impalpable as air.
Rikud had been stopped in this action, although there was no real
authority to stop him. This puzzled him, because somehow he felt that
there should have been authority. A long time ago the reading machine
in the library had told him of the elders--a meaningless term--who had
governed the world. They told you to do something and you did it, but
that was silly, because now no one told you to do anything. You only
listened to the buzzer.
And Rikud could remember the rest of what the reading machine had said.
There had been a revolt--again a term without any real meaning, a term
that could have no reality outside of the reading machine--and the
elders were overthrown. Here Rikud had been lost utterly. The people
had decided that they did not know where they were going, or why, and
that it was unfair that the elders alone had this authority. They were
born and they lived and they died as the elders directed, like little
cogs in a great machine. Much of this Rikud could not understand, but
he knew enough to realize that the reading machine had sided with the
people against the elders, and it said the people had won.
Now in the health room, Rikud felt a warmth in the rays. Grudgingly, he
had to admit to himself that it was not unpleasant. He could see the
look of easy contentment on Chuls' face as the rays fanned down upon
him, bathing his old body in a forgotten magic which, many generations
before Rikud's time, had negated the necessity for a knowledge of
medicine. But when, in another ten years, Chuls would perish of old
age, the rays would no longer suffice. Nothing would, for Chuls. Rikud
often thought of his own death, still seventy-five years in the future,
not without a sense of alarm. Yet old Chuls seemed heedless, with only
a decade to go.
Under the tube at Rikud's left lay Crifer. The man was short and heavy
through the shoulders and chest, and he had a lame foot. Every time
Rikud looked at that foot, it was with a sense of satisfaction. True,
this was the only case of its kind, the exception to the rule, but it
proved the world was not perfect. Rikud was guiltily glad when he saw
Crifer limp.
But, if anyone else saw it, he never said a word. Not even Crifer.
* * * * *
Now Crifer said, "I've been reading again, Rikud."
"Yes?" Almost no one read any more, and the library was heavy with the
smell of dust. Reading represented initiative on the part of Crifer; it
meant that, in the two unoccupied hours before sleep, he went to the
library and listened to the reading machine. Everyone else simply sat
about and talked. That was the custom. Everyone did it.
But if he wasn't reading himself, Rikud usually went to sleep. All the
people ever talked about was what they had done during the day, and it
was always the same.
"Yes," said Crifer. "I found a book about the stars. They're also
called astronomy, I think."
This was a new thought to Rikud, and he propped his head up on one
elbow. "What did you find out?"
"That's about all. They're just called astronomy, I think."
"Well, where's the book?" Rikud would read it tomorrow.
"I left it in the library. You can find several of them under
'astronomy,' with a cross-reference under 'stars.' They're synonymous
terms."
"You know," Rikud said, sitting up now, "the stars in the viewport are
changing."
"Changing?" Crifer questioned the fuzzy concept as much as he
questioned what it might mean in this particular case.
"Yes, there are less of them, and one is bigger and brighter than the
others."
"Astronomy says some stars are variable," Crifer offered, but Rikud
knew his lame-footed companion understood the word no better than he
did.
Over on Rikud's right, Chuls began to dress. "Variability," he told
them, "is a contradictory term. Nothing is variable. It can't be."
"I'm only saying what I read in the book," Crifer protested mildly.
"Well, it's wrong. Variability and change are two words without
meaning."
"People grow old," Rikud suggested.
A buzzer signified that his fifteen minutes under the rays were up, and
Chuls said, "It's almost time for me to eat."
Rikud frowned. Chuls hadn't even seen the connection between the two
concepts, yet it was so clear. Or was it? He had had it a moment ago,
but now it faded, and change and old were just two words.
His own buzzer sounded a moment later, and it was with a strange
feeling of elation that he dressed and made his way back to the
viewport. When he passed the door which led to the women's half of the
world, however, he paused. He wanted to open that door and see a woman.
He had been told about them and he had seen pictures, and he dimly
remembered his childhood among women. But his feelings had changed;
this was different. Again there were inexplicable feelings--strange
channelings of Rikud's energy in new and confusing directions.
He shrugged and reserved the thought for later. He wanted to see the
stars again.
* * * * *
The view had changed, and the strangeness of it made Rikud's pulses
leap with excitement. All the stars were paler now than before, and
where Rikud had seen the one bright central star, he now saw a globe of
light, white with a tinge of blue in it, and so bright that it hurt his
eyes to look.
Yes, hurt! Rikud looked and looked until his eyes teared and he had to
turn away. Here was an unknown factor which the perfect world failed
to control. But how could a star change into a blinking blue-white
globe--if, indeed, that was the star Rikud had seen earlier? There
was that word change again. Didn't it have something to do with age?
Rikud couldn't remember, and he suddenly wished he could read Crifer's
book on astronomy, which meant the same as stars. Except that it was
variable, which was like change, being tied up somehow with age.
Presently Rikud became aware that his eyes were not tearing any longer,
and he turned to look at the viewport. What he saw now was so new that
he couldn't at first accept it. Instead, he blinked and rubbed his
eyes, sure that the ball of blue-white fire somehow had damaged them.
But the new view persisted.
Of stars there were few, and of the blackness, almost nothing. Gone,
too, was the burning globe. Something loomed there in the port, so huge
that it spread out over almost the entire surface. Something big and
round, all grays and greens and browns, and something for which Rikud
had no name.
A few moments more, and Rikud no longer could see the sphere. A section
of it had expanded outward and assumed the rectangular shape of the
viewport, and its size as well. It seemed neatly sheered down the
middle, so that on one side Rikud saw an expanse of brown and green,
and on the other, blue.
Startled, Rikud leaped back. The sullen roar in the rear of the world
had ceased abruptly. Instead an ominous silence, broken at regular
intervals by a sharp booming.
Change--
"Won't you eat, Rikud?" Chuls called from somewhere down below.
"Damn the man," Rikud thought. Then aloud: "Yes, I'll eat. Later."
"It's time...." Chuls' voice trailed off again, impotently.
But Rikud forgot the old man completely. A new idea occurred to him,
and for a while he struggled with it. What he saw--what he had always
seen, except that now there was the added factor of change--perhaps did
not exist _in_ the viewport.
Maybe it existed _through_ the viewport.
That was maddening. Rikud turned again to the port, where he could see
nothing but an obscuring cloud of white vapor, murky, swirling, more
confusing than ever.
"Chuls," he called, remembering, "come here."
"I am here," said a voice at his elbow.
Rikud whirled on the little figure and pointed to the swirling cloud of
vapor. "What do you see?"
Chuls looked. "The viewport, of course."
"What else?"
"Else? Nothing."
Anger welled up inside Rikud. "All right," he said, "listen. What do
you hear?"
"Broom, brroom, brrroom!" Chuls imitated the intermittent blasting of
the engines. "I'm hungry, Rikud."
The old man turned and strode off down the corridor toward the dining
room, and Rikud was glad to be alone once more.
* * * * *
Now the vapor had departed, except for a few tenuous whisps. For a
moment Rikud thought he could see the gardens rearward in the world.
But that was silly. What were the gardens doing in the viewport? And
besides, Rikud had the distinct feeling that here was something far
vaster than the gardens, although all of it existed in the viewport
which was no wider than the length of his body. The gardens, moreover,
did not jump and dance before his eyes the way the viewport gardens
did. Nor did they spin. Nor did the trees grow larger with every jolt.
Rikud sat down hard. He blinked.
The world had come to rest on the garden of the viewport.
* * * * *
For a whole week that view did not change, and Rikud had come to accept
it as fact. There--through the viewport and in it--was a garden. A
garden larger than the entire world, a garden of plants which Rikud had
never seen before, although he had always liked to stroll through the
world's garden and he had come to know every plant well. Nevertheless,
it was a garden.
He told Chuls, but Chuls had responded, "It is the viewport."
Crifer, on the other hand, wasn't so sure. "It looks like the garden,"
he admitted to Rikud. "But why should the garden be in the viewport?"
Somehow, Rikud knew this question for a healthy sign. But he could
not tell them of his most amazing thought of all. The change in the
viewport could mean only one thing. The world had been walking--the
word seemed all wrong to Rikud, but he could think of no other, unless
it were running. The world had been walking somewhere. That somewhere
was the garden and the world had arrived.
"It is an old picture of the garden," Chuls suggested, "and the plants
are different."
"Then they've changed?"
"No, merely different."
"Well, what about the viewport? _It_ changed. Where are the stars?
Where are they, Chuls, if it did not change?"
"The stars come out at night."
"So there is a change from day to night!"
"I didn't say that. The stars simply shine at night. Why should they
shine during the day when the world wants them to shine only at night?"
"Once they shone all the time."
"Naturally," said Crifer, becoming interested. "They are variable."
* * * * *
Rikud regretted that he never had had the chance to read that book on
astronomy. He hadn't been reading too much lately. The voice of the
reading machine had begun to bore him. He said, "Well, variable or not,
our whole perspective has changed."
And when Chuls looked away in disinterest, Rikud became angry. If only
the man would realize! If only anyone would realize! It all seemed so
obvious. If he, Rikud, walked from one part of the world to another,
it was with a purpose--to eat, or to sleep, or perhaps to bathe in the
health-rays. Now if the world had walked from--somewhere, through the
vast star-speckled darkness and to the great garden outside, this also
was purposeful. The world had arrived at the garden for a reason. But
if everyone lived as if the world still stood in blackness, how could
they find the nature of that purpose?
"I will eat," Chuls said, breaking Rikud's revery.
Damn the man, all he did was eat!
Yet he did have initiative after a sort. He knew when to eat. Because
he was hungry.
And Rikud, too, was hungry.
Differently.
* * * * *
He had long wondered about the door in the back of the library, and
now, as Crifer sat cross-legged on one of the dusty tables, reading
machine and book on astronomy or stars in his lap, Rikud approached the
door.
"What's in here?" he demanded.
"It's a door, I think," said Crifer.
"I know, but what's beyond it?"
"Beyond it? Oh, you mean _through_ the door."
"Yes."
"Well," Crifer scratched his head, "I don't think anyone ever opened
it. It's only a door."
"I will," said Rikud.
"You will what?"
"Open it. Open the door and look inside."
A long pause. Then, "Can you do it?"
"I think so."
"You can't, probably. How can anyone go where no one has been before?
There's nothing. It just isn't. It's only a door, Rikud."
"No--" Rikud began, but the words faded off into a sharp intake of
breath. Rikud had turned the knob and pushed. The door opened silently,
and Crifer said, "Doors are variable, too, I think."
Rikud saw a small room, perhaps half a dozen paces across, at the other
end of which was another door, just like the first. Halfway across,
Rikud heard a voice not unlike that of the reading machine.
He missed the beginning, but then:
--therefore, permit no unauthorized persons to go through this
door. The machinery in the next room is your protection against the
rigors of space. A thousand years from now, journey's end, you may
have discarded it for something better--who knows? But if you have
not, then here is your protection. As nearly as possible, this ship
is a perfect, self-sustaining world. It is more than that: it is
human-sustaining as well. Try to hurt yourself and the ship will
not permit it--within limits, of course. But you can damage the
ship, and to avoid any possibility of that, no unauthorized persons
are to be permitted through this door--
Rikud gave the voice up as hopeless. There were too many confusing
words. What in the world was an unauthorized person? More interesting
than that, however, was the second door. Would it lead to another
voice? Rikud hoped that it wouldn't.
When he opened the door a strange new noise filled his ears, a gentle
humming, punctuated by a _throb-throb-throb_ which sounded not unlike
the booming of the engines last week, except that this new sound didn't
blast nearly so loudly against his eardrums. And what met Rikud's
eyes--he blinked and looked again, but it was still there--cogs and
gears and wheels and nameless things all strange and beautiful because
they shone with a luster unfamiliar to him.
"Odd," Rikud said aloud. Then he thought, "Now there's a good word, but
no one quite seems to know its meaning."
Odder still was the third door. Rikud suddenly thought there might
exist an endless succession of them, especially when the third one
opened on a bare tunnel which led to yet another door.
Only this one was different. In it Rikud saw the viewport. But how? The
viewport stood on the other end of the world. It did seem smaller, and,
although it looked out on the garden, Rikud sensed that the topography
was different. Then the garden extended even farther than he had
thought. It was endless, extending all the way to a ridge of mounds way
off in the distance.
And this door one could walk through, into the garden. Rikud put his
hand on the door, all the while watching the garden through the new
viewport. He began to turn the handle.
Then he trembled.
What would he do out in the garden?
He couldn't go alone. He'd die of the strangeness. It was a silly
thought; no one ever died of anything until he was a hundred. Rikud
couldn't fathom the rapid thumping of his heart. And Rikud's mouth felt
dry; he wanted to swallow, but couldn't.
Slowly, he took his hand off the door lever. He made his way back
through the tunnel and then through the room of machinery and finally
through the little room with the confusing voice to Crifer.
By the time he reached the lame-footed man, Rikud was running. He did
not dare once to look back. He stood shaking at Crifer's side, and
sweat covered him in a clammy film. He never wanted to look at the
garden again. Not when he knew there was a door through which he could
walk and then might find himself in the garden.
It was so big.
* * * * *
Three or four days passed before Rikud calmed himself enough to
talk about his experience. When he did, only Crifer seemed at all
interested, yet the lame-footed man's mind was inadequate to cope with
the situation. He suggested that the viewport might also be variable
and Rikud found himself wishing that his friend had never read that
book on astronomy.
Chuls did not believe Rikud at all. "There are not that many doors in
the world," he said. "The library has a door and there is a door to the
women's quarters; in five years, the Calculator will send you through
that. But there are no others."
Chuls smiled an indulgent smile and Rikud came nearer to him. "Now, by
the world, there are two other doors!"
Rikud began to shout, and everyone looked at him queerly.
"What are you doing that for?" demanded Wilm, who was shorter even than
Crifer, but had no lame foot.
"Doing what?"
"Speaking so loudly when Chuls, who is close, obviously has no trouble
hearing you."
"Maybe yelling will make him understand."
Crifer hobbled about on his good foot, doing a meaningless little jig.
"Why don't we go see?" he suggested. Then, confused, he frowned.
"Well, I won't go," Chuls replied. "There's no reason to go. If Rikud
has been imagining things, why should I?"
"I imagined nothing. I'll show you--"
"You'll show me nothing because I won't go."
Rikud grabbed Chuls' blouse with his big fist. Then, startled by what
he did, his hands began to tremble. But he held on, and he tugged at
the blouse.
"Stop that," said the older man, mildly.
* * * * *
Crifer hopped up and down. "Look what Rikud's doing! I don't know what
he's doing, but look. He's holding Chuls' blouse."
"Stop that," repeated Chuls, his face reddening.
"Only if you'll go with me." Rikud was panting.
Chuls tugged at his wrist. By this time a crowd had gathered. Some of
them watched Crifer jump up and down, but most of them watched Rikud
holding Chuls' blouse.
"I think I can do that," declared Wilm, clutching a fistful of Crifer's
shirt.
Presently, the members of the crowd had pretty well paired off, each
partner grabbing for his companion's blouse. They giggled and laughed
and some began to hop up and down as Crifer had done.
A buzzer sounded and automatically Rikud found himself releasing Chuls.
Chuls said, forgetting the incident completely, "Time to retire."
In a moment, the room was cleared. Rikud stood alone. He cleared his
throat and listened to the sound, all by itself in the stillness. What
would have happened if they hadn't retired? But they always did things
punctually like that, whenever the buzzer sounded. They ate with the
buzzer, bathed in the health-rays with it, slept with it.
What would they do if the buzzer stopped buzzing?
This frightened Rikud, although he didn't know why. He'd like it,
though. Maybe then he could take them outside with him to the big
garden of the two viewports. And then he wouldn't be afraid because he
could huddle close to them and he wouldn't be alone.
* * * * *
Rikud heard the throbbing again as he stood in the room of the
machinery. For a long time he watched the wheels and cogs and gears
spinning and humming. He watched for he knew not how long. And then he
began to wonder. If he destroyed the wheels and the cogs and the gears,
would the buzzer stop? It probably would, because, as Rikud saw it, he
was clearly an "unauthorized person." He had heard the voice again
upon entering the room.
He found a metal rod, bright and shiny, three feet long and half as
wide as his arm. He tugged at it and it came loose from the wires that
held it in place. He hefted it carefully for a moment, and then he
swung the bar into the mass of metal. Each time he heard a grinding,
crashing sound. He looked as the gears and cogs and wheels crumbled
under his blows, shattered by the strength of his arm.
Almost casually he strode about the room, but his blows were not
casual. Soon his easy strides had given way to frenzied running. Rikud
smashed everything in sight.
When the lights winked out, he stopped. Anyway, by that time the room
was a shambles of twisted, broken metal. He laughed, softly at first,
but presently he was roaring, and the sound doubled and redoubled in
his ears because now the throbbing had stopped.
He opened the door and ran through the little corridor to the smaller
viewport. Outside he could see the stars, and, dimly, the terrain
beneath them. But everything was so dark that only the stars shone
clearly. All else was bathed in a shadow of unreality.
Rikud never wanted to do anything more than he wanted to open that
door. But his hands trembled too much when he touched it, and once,
when he pressed his face close against the viewport, there in the
darkness, something bright flashed briefly through the sky and was gone.
Whimpering, he fled.
* * * * *
All around Rikud were darkness and hunger and thirst. The buzzer did
not sound because Rikud had silenced it forever. And no one went to
eat or drink. Rikud himself had fumbled through the blackness and the
whimpering to the dining room, his tongue dry and swollen, but the
smooth belt that flowed with water and with savory dishes did not run
any more. The machinery, Rikud realized, also was responsible for food.
Chuls said, over and over, "I'm hungry."
"We will eat and we will drink when the buzzer tells us," Wilm replied
confidently.
"It won't any more," Rikud said.
"What won't?"
"The buzzer will never sound again. I broke it."
Crifer growled. "I know. You shouldn't have done it. That was a bad
thing you did, Rikud."
"It was not bad. The world has moved through the blackness and the
stars and now we should go outside to live in the big garden there
beyond the viewport."
"That's ridiculous," Chuls said.
Even Crifer now was angry at Rikud. "He broke the buzzer and no one can
eat. I hate Rikud, I think."
There was a lot of noise in the darkness, and someone else said, "I
hate Rikud." Then everyone was saying it.
Rikud was sad. Soon he would die, because no one would go outside with
him and he could not go outside alone. In five more years he would have
had a woman, too. He wondered if it was dark and hungry in the women's
quarters. Did women eat?
Perhaps they ate plants. Once, in the garden, Rikud had broken off a
frond and tasted it. It had been bitter, but not unpleasant. Maybe the
plants in the viewport would even be better.
"We will not be hungry if we go outside," he said. "We can eat there."
"We can eat if the buzzer sounds, but it is broken," Chuls said dully.
Crifer shrilled, "Maybe it is only variable and will buzz again."
"No," Rikud assured him. "It won't."
"Then you broke it and I hate you," said Crifer. "We should break you,
too, to show you how it is to be broken."
"We must go outside--through the viewport." Rikud listened to the odd
gurgling sound his stomach made.
A hand reached out in the darkness and grabbed at his head. He heard
Crifer's voice. "I have Rikud's head." The voice was nasty, hostile.
Crifer, more than anyone, had been his friend. But now that he had
broken the machinery, Crifer was his enemy, because Crifer came nearer
to understanding the situation than anyone except Rikud.
The hand reached out again, and it struck Rikud hard across the face.
"I hit him! I hit him!"
Other hands reached out, and Rikud stumbled. He fell and then someone
was on top of him, and he struggled. He rolled and was up again, and
he did not like the sound of the angry voices. Someone said, "Let us
do to Rikud what he said he did to the machinery." Rikud ran. In the
darkness, his feet prodded many bodies. There were those who were too
weak to rise. Rikud, too, felt a strange light-headedness and a gnawing
hurt in his stomach. But it didn't matter. He heard the angry voices
and the feet pounding behind him, and he wanted only to get away.
It was dark and he was hungry and everyone who was strong enough to run
was chasing him, but every time he thought of the garden outside, and
how big it was, the darkness and the hunger and the people chasing him
were unimportant. It was so big that it would swallow him up completely
and positively.
He became sickly giddy thinking about it.
But if he didn't open the door and go into the garden outside, he would
die because he had no food and no water and his stomach gurgled and
grumbled and hurt. And everyone was chasing him.
He stumbled through the darkness and felt his way back to the library,
through the inner door and into the room with the voice--but the
voice didn't speak this time--through its door and into the place of
machinery. Behind him, he could hear the voices at the first door, and
he thought for a moment that no one would come after him. But he heard
Crifer yell something, and then feet pounding in the passage.
Rikud tripped over something and sprawled awkwardly across the floor.
He felt a sharp hurt in his head, and when he reached up to touch it
with his hands there in the darkness, his fingers came away wet.
He got up slowly and opened the next door. The voices behind him were
closer now. Light streamed in through the viewport. After the darkness,
it frightened Rikud and it made his eyes smart, and he could hear those
behind him retreating to a safe distance. But their voices were not
far away, and he knew they would come after him because they wanted to
break him.
Rikud looked out upon the garden and he trembled. Out there was life.
The garden stretched off in unthinkable immensity to the cluster of
low mounds against the bright blue which roofed the many plants. If
plants could live out there as they did within the world, then so could
people. Rikud and his people _should_. This was why the world had moved
across the darkness and the stars for all Rikud's lifetime and more.
But he was afraid.
He reached up and grasped the handle of the door and he saw that his
fingers were red with the wetness which had come from his hurt head.
Slowly he slipped to the cool floor--how his head was burning!--and for
a long time he lay there, thinking he would never rise again. Inside he
heard the voices again, and soon a foot and then another pounded on
the metal of the passage. He heard Crifer's voice louder than the rest:
"There is Rikud on the floor!"
Tugging at the handle of the door, Rikud pulled himself upright.
Something small and brown scurried across the other side of the
viewport and Rikud imagined it turned to look at him with two hideous
red eyes.
Rikud screamed and hurtled back through the corridor, and his face
was so terrible in the light streaming in through the viewport that
everyone fled before him. He stumbled again in the place of the
machinery, and down on his hands and knees he fondled the bits of metal
which he could see in the dim light through the open door.
"Where's the buzzer?" he sobbed. "I must find the buzzer."
Crifer's voice, from the darkness inside, said, "You broke it. You
broke it. And now we will break you--"
Rikud got up and ran. He reached the door again and then he slipped
down against it, exhausted. Behind him, the voices and the footsteps
came, and soon he saw Crifer's head peer in through the passageway.
Then there were others, and then they were walking toward him.
His head whirled and the viewport seemed to swim in a haze. Could it
be variable, as Crifer had suggested? He wondered if the scurrying
brown thing waited somewhere, and nausea struck at the pit of his
stomach. But if the plants could live out there and the scurrying thing
could live and that was why the world had moved through the blackness,
then so could he live out there, and Crifer and all the others....
So tightly did he grip the handle that his fingers began to hurt. And
his heart pounded hard and he felt the pulses leaping on either side of
his neck.
He stared out into the garden, and off into the distance, where the
blue-white globe which might have been a star stood just above the row
of mounds.
* * * * *
Crifer was tugging at him, trying to pull him away from the door, and
someone was grabbing at his legs, trying to make him fall. He kicked
out and the hands let go, and then he turned the handle and shoved the
weight of his body with all his strength against the door.
It opened and he stepped outside into the warmth.
The air was fresh, fresher than any air Rikud had ever breathed. He
walked around aimlessly, touching the plants and bending down to feel
the floor, and sometimes he looked at the blue-white globe on the
horizon. It was all very beautiful.
Near the ship, water that did not come from a machine gurgled across
the land, and Rikud lay down and drank. It was cool and good, and when
he got up, Crifer and Wilm were outside the world, and some of the
others followed. They stood around for a long time before going to the
water to drink.
Rikud sat down and tore off a piece of a plant, munching on it. It was
good.
Crifer picked his head up, from the water, his chin wet. "Even feelings
are variable. I don't hate you now, Rikud."
Rikud smiled, staring at the ship. "People are variable, too, Crifer.
That is, if those creatures coming from the ship are people."
"They're women," said Crifer.
They were strangely shaped in some ways, and yet in others completely
human, and their voices were high, like singing. Rikud found them oddly
exciting. He liked them. He liked the garden, for all its hugeness.
With so many people, and especially now with women, he was not afraid.
It was much better than the small world of machinery, buzzer,
frightening doors and women by appointment only.
Rikud felt at home.
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