I drank it off and instantly felt better.
And then I felt worse.
I hadn’t been carrying a glass of Old Space Ranger around with me all this time! And there wasn’t anyone about who could have placed it in my hand!
And yet I had just had a drink!
And instead of being in that aircab I was sitting on nothing!
What had happened to the aircab? Certainly I still must be in it!
And there I was, purring along in the aircab again.
“Driver,” I said, “I don’t understand—”
“Don’t try it on me!” snarled a face beside the meter. It vanished, all but the eyes, and these were so malevolent that I looked away.
The aircab vanished, too.
I sat very still on whatever this solidity was and tried to get myself straightened out. I had spoken to that driver twice and each time he had almost appeared. And I felt that the next time I tried to bring him out he would certainly deal roughly with me after the way of hackies. Each time I had imagined things it seemed that those things had come to pass.
Was I, then, a figment of my own imagination?
Shiver the thought!
Could I bring anything I wanted into being with my own thought? In his Rise and Fall of the American Empire, Tribbon hinted at the future possibility that the world and even the Universe might be destroyed by combined thought, the world and the Universe evidently being nothing but an idea. Had humanity committed mass suicide or mass combination to the exclusion of matter? And was I, then, the only one left whose belief in his own individuality was so great that that individuality still existed? And being the only individual mind still possessed by a man, could I create at will?
Or was I doomed for ever and ever to drift aimlessly through this clammy mist, timeless and alone?
I could not bear the thought. Tribbon had stated that man’s one redeeming feature was his own ability to create, and that he, therefore, assigned creativeness to God. And Tribbon had said that when man no longer created, then man would no longer be. I had been the last manual farmer. Was I then the last man with ability to create?
Certainly if anything could be saved or if anything could exist, then it must be created by myself.
That was it!
I must create!
I glowed with the idea. I walked around on my created solidity and laughed aloud. Always before I had had to callous my hands and besweat my brow, but now I only had to think. And what things wouldn’t I create! I came as close to dancing as I ever did in all my life.
The mist!
I would create sunlight!
With all my wit I concentrated, and then! Then a shaft of light came from somewhere and played its beam upon me and warmed my rheumatic bones.
Sunlight!
By my own imagination I could bring to being light and warmth and cheer! I sang out, so great was my joy.
Now let me create a meadow. A meadow which I would surround with trees and cross with a brook. I closed my eyes and concentrated and, when I opened them again, there was the meadow!
I started to caper out into the tall grass and then, midpace, stopped dead still. What had happened to the sunlight? The mist so befogged this meadow that it could scarcely be seen. Sunlight!
Sunlight!
And there it came again, that pleasant, golden beam.
But as soon as the sunlight came, the meadow vanished!
How uncertain all this was! Was it possible that I could create but not enduringly? That I could create and maintain only one object at a time? Did these things depend wholly upon my ability to concentrate upon them?
And even while I pondered the question, the sunlight faded before the mist and I was again surrounded by the clammy grayness. But for all my disappointment, I had established one thing: that I could bring things into being even if I could not maintain them.
Certainly there must be some solution to this sort of thing. If I gave it enough thought, perhaps I could manage a way to trap sunlight and meadows into reality.
I sat down upon my solidity and pursed my lips and stroked my chin. Try as I might I could not remember if Tribbon had had anything to say upon the subject of concentration.
I thumbed hopefully through the index, but the only reference close to it was “Concentration Camps: New York, San Francisco, Washington.” I stared into the mist a while and when I looked back at the book, it was gone. Oh, well, I thought, I would rather have some Old Space Ranger anyway.
I drank it off.
And it made me hungry.
So I ate the steak.
Feeling better, I again got restless. I could not sit around on an imagined solidity for all eternity. I could call down the sunlight at will, but I couldn’t keep it there, and so I gave over. And then it occurred to me that the reason I thought I was standing upon something was because I had always stood upon something and was so used to the idea that I could not shake it.
And the instant it became an “idea” only, I fell. And I became scared. And I landed.
If I could only talk this over with someone, I sighed. But I was careful not to think I saw anyone, for people did not seem to like being hauled back from wherever they had gone. Certainly somewhere in all this there must be at least one other man. To think that I was the only one was conceit of the most outrageous kind. Somewhere there was somebody. And if he and I could just get together then he might know enough and I might know enough to put some semblance of a world together and keep it together.
Again I wandered—and floundered—and fell when I thought about my solidity—and landed—and pawed through this endless mist.
Once or twice I thought I saw people. But I could not be sure, for I was careful not to think they were people. And when I had spent a timeless space in stumbling about I forgot my caution and, seeing a misty thing which looked like a man, thought he was a man.
Very briefly he assumed a shape. It was nebulous and distorted as though I looked at him through a drinking glass just emptied of milk.
“Stop it!” he cried in a thin voice. “By what right have you dragged me back? Vanish and be saved!”
And he vanished.
From somewhere came caroling voices and an ineffably sweet harmony which I could not associate with any instruments I had ever heard. For an instant there came over me an exquisite longing to forget myself and my misery and join that chorus. But then I remembered Flerry and George Smiley and, doggedly, I went on with my search. Half an eternity, it seemed, of toiling search.
It took me a long while to discover that other one. A long while. I felt I had swum through a light-year of mist, had fallen through the bottom of the Universe and had scrambled skyward to the sun itself. But I found him.
He was a definite shape before I had any chance to think of him, and when I thought him not there he still was there.
I had found him!
He was above me perhaps fifty feet and he seemed to be sitting on air and dangling his feet over the edge. Great gouts of mist rolled between us, blotting us from one another’s sight. But each time the mist cleared, there we were again. I could not contain myself for joy and he seemed to feel much the same way, for he waved his arms down at me and beckoned me up. I beckoned him to come down. We must have been farther apart than it seemed to our eyes, for he could not hear me nor I him.
He was evidently frightened to let go of his perch in air and so I had to take the initiative. I looked along the way from me to him and thought hard about a stair. And step by step the stair appeared. I ran up it, shouting at him the while, but, in my enthusiasm, I forgot the stair and it vanished.
I landed as soon as I was frightened of earth’s impact and again built the stair. This time I looked at the steps as I went up and this time I arrived.
He was a diminutive fellow with a face which attested to a b
elligerent turn of mind. And his first greeting to me was, “Did you do all this?”
“No. George Smiley did it.”
“Who?”
“George Smiley.”
“Must have been an Earthman. I am from Carvon myself.”
“Never heard of that,” I said.
“Well, it was a nice place. I was researching on the regime of Vaso on Wwhmanin and all of a sudden my book vanished and here I was. And here I am.”
“Here we both are,” I said. “I’ve been looking all over for you. I need help. Did you see those stairs I just built?”
“Yes, but they’re gone now. It wasn’t such a good job.”
“Well, I’ve discovered that all we have to do is think of something real hard and then it will come about. And if we can remember it—”
“If we can remember it. I’ve been trying to concentrate on a ham sandwich for a day and a half, but I keep forgetting it before I can eat it. Woops. There it goes again.”
“Now look,” I said. “I’ll think about it, too.”
“No, let’s get something to sit on first. I don’t know what’s under me and I don’t—”
“Don’t say that!” said I, barely saving him from falling. “All right, we’ll think of a table. There! There’s a table. Now you keep thinking about that table while I get a couple of chairs—”
He shut his eyes and kept a grip on the table. I shut mine and imagined us sitting on chairs. And then there we were, sitting on chairs—
“It’s gone!” he said. And sure enough, the table was gone again. We had thought too hard about chairs. Finally we managed to feel natural and remember chairs and think of the table, too, and so, with some relief, we alternated thinking about things until we had something to eat and drink. But the trouble was that each time we would take a bite of something we would forget about the table and the food would plummet out of sight.
Somehow we filled up and then, looking thoughtful, he said, “You know, if we could just get practiced enough to think about all sorts of things, you and I, we could build the world back just about the way we want it. But the first thing we’ve got to do is to put the sun in the sky. I’m sick of this murk!”
“All right,” said I, “I’ll think about the sun.”
And the sun shone brightly down. I must have been fairly well in practice, for I kept on talking and kept the sun up there at the same time.
“Now you think of Earth,” I said.
He thought about Earth and a sort of uneasy motion was set up under us and flashy bits of scenery popped into view and vanished and popped up again. Chinese tombs and a far-off domed city and a ferryboat on a lake all appeared and disappeared.
“It’s not much use,” he said. “It just can’t be done all at once. Let’s imagine one town and then, when we get used to that and believe in it, we’ll imagine the fields around it—”
“All right. But we really ought to imagine something to build the town on. A great globe in the sky, twenty-five thousand miles in circumference—”
“Let’s be different,” he said suddenly. “As long as you and I can do this all by ourselves, we’ll just put this together on some new principles. There’s no use copying what we’ve already had. Now how about living inside the earth—” He stopped in awe. “Why, we—”
I cried, “Why … why, we’re—”
“Yes,” he said, “yes, we’re—”
Oh, no, gentlemen,” said a silkily sardonic voice. And we both whipped around to find George Smiley standing there in his flashtex cape. “If there is anything to be built, then I shall build it. You two are the most stubborn of all, but you’ve agreed with each other. And now you can agree with me.
“I worked for years to sell the world the idea of nonexistence. And if anyone intends to build a world then it shall be me. Who put that sun in my sky?” And he waved his hand toward it and the sun went out.
“We’ve got a perfect right,” said my friend.
“No, you have not,” grinned George Smiley. “I faded all things into nothingness, even Time, for myself. And because I made the whole world believe and all the Universe, then the Universe is mine. And I shall build.”
“Why, you’re trying to set yourself up as—”
“Yes,” said George Smiley to my friend. “Yes, indeed.”
“We have just as much right!” howled my friend.
“I shall then give you half of it,” said George Smiley. “The lower, hotter half. I shall create a world for you alone to rule.”
“No!” protested my friend.
“Yes,” said George Smiley. “It’s a quaint idea I got out of an old book. Now begone, both of you!”
And suddenly we were falling again. But this time no matter how much ground I thought about, no ground was there to stay me. My friend was soon separated from me and he did not see the water which suddenly spread below me. I know he did not, for he was still falling when last I saw him.
As for myself, I climbed out on a muddy bank of the Seine and wrung the water out of my clothes.
The United States Marines didn’t even ask me any questions when they locked me in their jail as a possible enemy airman.
And I didn’t volunteer any answers.
I was too glad not to have to think about that bunk before I stretched out upon it.
George Smiley can have the Universe for all I’ll ever care.
A Can of Vacuum
A Can of Vacuum
BIGBY OWEN PETTIGREW reported, one fine August day, to the Nineteenth Project, Experimental Forces of the Universe, United Galaxies Navy, and was apparently oblivious of the fact that ensigns, newly commissioned out of the civilian UIT and utterly ignorant of military matters, were not likely to overwhelm anyone with the magnificence of their presence.
The adjutant took the orders carelessly and as carelessly said his routine speech: “Space Admiral Banning is busy but it will count as a call if you leave your card, Mr. Pettigrew.”
Bigby Owen Pettigrew chewed for a while on a toothpick and then said: “It’s all right. I’ll wait. I got lots of time.”
The office yeoman stared and then carefully restrained his mirth. The adjutant looked carefully at Pettigrew. There was a lot of Pettigrew to look upon and the innocent-appearing mass of it grinned a friendly grin.
The adjutant leaned back. The Universal Institute of Technology was doubtlessly a fine school so far as civilian schools went and it indubitably turned out very good recruits for the science corps. But this wasn’t the first time that the adjutant had wished that a course in naval courtesy and law could be included there. The practical-joking Nineteenth would probably take this boy apart, button by stripe and cell by hair. Obviously Pettigrew really thought an ensign could call on a space admiral just like that.
“Perhaps,” said the adjutant, “you have some important recommendations to make concerning the way he’s running the project.”
Pettigrew shook his head solemnly, all sarcasm lost upon him. “No. Just like to get the lay of the land, kind of.”
“Are you sure,” said the adjutant, “that you haven’t some brilliant new theory you’d like to explain to him? Perhaps a new hypothesis for nebula testing?”
With a calm shake of his head, Pettigrew said, “Shucks, no. I’m away behind on my lab work.”
The yeoman at the side desk was beginning to turn deep indigo with strangling mirth and managed, only at the last instant, to divert guffaws into a series of violent sneezes.
“You got a cold?” said Pettigrew.
The poor yeoman floundered out, made the inside of Number Four hangar and there was found some ten minutes later, in a state of aching exhaustion, by several solicitous mates who thought he had been having a fit. He tried for some time to communicate the cause of all this. But his mates did not laugh. They looked pityingly at him. br />
“Asteroid fever,” said one.
“Probably got a columbar throngustu, poor fellow.”
“Looks more like haliciticosis,” said a third, vainly trying to feel the yeoman’s pulse.
“All right,” said the yeoman. “All right. You’re a flock of horse-faced ghouls. You wouldn’t believe your mother if she said she was married! Doubt it! But he’s here, I tell you. And that’s what he did. And you mark my words, give that guy ten days on this station and none of you will ever be the same again.”
The yeoman spoke louder and truer than he knew.
Carpdyke, the sad and suffering project assignment officer, who felt naked when he went to dinner without a couple of exploding cigars and a dematerializing pork chop, leaned casually up against the hangar door. The enlisted men had not seen him and they jumped. When they saw it was Carpdyke, they jumped again, further.
“What,” said Carpdyke, “did you say this young gentleman’s name was?”
“Pettigrew,” said the yeoman, very nervous.
“Hmmm,” said Carpdyke. “Well, men, I’m sure you have work to do.” He was gloomy now, the way he always got just before he indulged his humor.
The group disappeared. Carpdyke went sadly back to his office and sat there for a long, long time. He might have been studying the assignment chart. It reached twelve feet up and eighteen feet across and was a three-dimensional painting of two million light-years of Universe. Here and there colored tacks marked the last known whereabouts of scout ships which were possibly going about their duties collecting invaluable fuel data and possibly not.
Carpdyke grew sadder and sadder until he looked like a bloodhound. His chief raymaster’s mate chanced to look up, saw it and very, very nervously looked down. Just what was coming, the chief knew not. He hoped it wasn’t coming to him. Carpdyke had been known to stoop so low as to rig a bridegroom’s quarters with lingerie the morning of the wedding. He had even installed Limburger cheese in a spaceship’s air supply. And once—well, the chief just sat and shuddered to recall it.
The door opened casually and Bigby Owen Pettigrew, garbed newly in a project-blister-suit-less-mask, the fashion there on lonely Dauphiom where beards grew in indirect proportion to the number of women, entered under the cloud of innocence.