He pointed to the cubicle again. “Three hundred sixty cubic feet, about,” he said. “Enough for one man and supplies for a month, or fifteen people and supplies for a week. That’s the limit to the size of the colony we could send out. With no assurance,” he added bitterly, “that they’d land anywhere they could live for a minute.”
“Frustrating,” Falk agreed. “But I still don’t see why you’re here - with a gun. I can understand that if a member of the race that built that thing came through - and I must say it seems unlikely - that would be an important event. But why kill him when he steps out?”
“Dammit,” said Wolfert violently, “it isn’t my policy, Falk. I only work here.”
“I understand that,” Falk said. “But do you have any idea what’s behind the policy?”
“Fear,” said Wolfert promptly. “They’ve got too much at stake.” He leaned against the wall again, gesturing with his pipe-stem. “Do you realize,” he said, “that we could have interstellar colonization without this gadget, on our own? Certainly. Not now, but fifty, a hundred years from now - if we worked at it. Give us a fuel source efficient enough so that we can accelerate continuously for as long as eight months, and we could reach the stars well within a man’s lifetime. But do you know why we won’t?
“They’re afraid. They’re even afraid to plant colonies here on Mars, or on Jupiter’s moons, simply because transportation takes too long. Imagine a colony cut off from Earth by a five-or ten-year trip. Say something goes wrong - a man like yourself, naturally immune to analogue treatment. Or a man who somehow evades the treatment, then manages to take it over, change it. Say he cuts out the one directive, ‘You must do nothing against the policy or interests of Earth.’ Then you’ve got two communities again, not one. And then—?”
Falk nodded soberly. “War. I see now. They don’t dare take even the smallest chance of that.”
“It isn’t a question of daring; they can’t. That’s one of the directives in their own conditioning, Falk.”
“So we’ll never get to the stars.”
“Unless,” said Wolfert, “somebody walks out of that Doorway who understands how it works. The voltage is high, but not high enough to kill - we hope. He’s supposed to be stunned. If the current doesn’t stop him, and he tries to get back into the Doorway, I’m supposed to shoot to cripple. But at all events, he’s supposed to be stopped. He isn’t to be allowed to go back and warn others to stay away from this station. Because if we had that knowledge - how to alter the system so that it would be selective—”
“Then we’d have colonies, all right,” finished Falk. “Everyone just around the corner from Earth. All just alike. The loonies shall inherit the Universe…. I hope nobody ever comes through.”
“I don’t think you’re likely to be disappointed,” said Wolfert.
II
He prowled the rest of the cabin with Wolfert, resting at intervals until his strength returned. There wasn’t much to see: the Doorway room, with a spyhole Falk had not noticed between it and the bedroom; the room that housed radio, radar, and the computer that controlled the grazing orbits of the supply rockets; the power plant, and the compressor that kept the cabin’s air at breathable pressure; kitchen, bathroom, and two storage chambers.
The radio room had a window, and Falk stood there a long time, looking out over the alien desert, violet now as the sun dropped toward the horizon. Stars glittered with unfamiliar brilliance in the near-black sky, and Falk found his gaze drawn to them even against the tug of that unearthly landscape.
In his mind he sketched hairlines of fire across the sky— a cat’s cradle of stars. The thought that tomorrow he would be standing on a planet of one of those suns was like an icy douche; the mind recoiled from it as from the thought of personal death. But at the same time it lured him. He felt like a boy standing on the edge of an unsounded pool whose black waters might hold treasure or death: he was afraid to dive, and yet he knew that he must.
How could a man feel otherwise, he wondered, knowing that the way was open, that he had only to step forward?
Wolfert said abruptly, “You haven’t asked me whether I reported to Earth when I found you in that freighter shell.”
Falk looked at him. “You did, of course,” he said. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll be gone long before they can do anything about me. You’ll tell them that I overpowered you and escaped through the Doorway - they won’t be able to prove otherwise - unless you’re conditioned against lying?”
“No,” said Wolfert, “I’m not. That part’s all right, with one emendation: I’ll say I revived you, then shot and buried you. But what made you so sure that I’d be - sympathetic?”
“You’re here,” said Falk simply. “You’re a volunteer. They haven’t got to the stage of conditioning people to do jobs they don’t want to do, though I suppose they will eventually. And when I’d heard you speak, I knew you were intelligent. So - you’re a hermit. You don’t like the madhouse they’re making of Earth, any more than I do.”
“I don’t know,” said Wolfert slowly. “Perhaps you’re assuming too much similarity.” He looked down at his ever-present pipe, tamping the tobacco with a horny thumb. “I don’t feel as you do about the analogue system, or the present government. I’m adjusted, there. In my personal universe, it works. I can see that it will lead to disaster eventually, but that doesn’t bother me much. I’ll be dead.”
He looked at Falk earnestly. “But I want the stars,” he said.
“That’s an emotional thing with me…There are no slugs in these cartridges.” He indicated the gun at his hip. “Or in any of the ammunition I’ve got. They didn’t condition me against that.”
Falk stared at him. “Look,” he said abruptly, “you’ve got a directive against stepping through that Doorway, is that right?”
The other nodded.
“Well, but is there any reason why I couldn’t knock you over the head and drag you through?”
Wolfert smiled wryly, shaking his head slowly. “No good,” he said. “Somebody’s got to stay, this end.”
“Why?”
“Because there’s a chance that you’ll find the secret out there, somewhere. That’s what you’re hoping, too, isn’t it? You’re not just looking for a place to hide - you could do that in a thousand places on Earth. You’re after knowledge, and in spite of what I’ve told you, you’re hoping you’ll be allowed to bring it back and make the Earth over.”
“It sounds a little quixotic,” said Falk, “but you’re right.”
Wolfert shrugged, letting his gaze drift away again. “Well, then… there’s got to be somebody here. Somebody with no slugs in his gun. If I went with you, they’d take good care to send a different sort of man next time.”
He met Falk’s eyes again briefly. “Don’t waste time feeling sorry for me,” he said. “You may not believe it, but I’m quite happy here. When I’m… alone, that is.”
Falk had been wondering why the government had not sent a married couple instead of a single man, who might go mad from sheer loneliness. Now it struck him that he had been stupid. Wolfert had a wife, undoubtedly; the best kind - one who suited him perfectly, who would never be fickle, or want to return to Earth; one who cost nothing to feed, consumed no air, and had not added an ounce of weight when Wolfert had been shipped out here. And on Mars it did not ordinarily matter that no one else could see her.
He felt an inward twinge of revulsion and instantly knew that Wolfert had seen and understood it. The man’s cheeks flushed, and he turned away to stare through the window, his lips thin and hard.