Store of the Worlds: The Stories of Robert Sheckley (16 page)

The two men, suited and helmeted, paused in front of the hatch. Fleming seized the hatch in his gloved hands, and pulled it completely open. Cautiously they aimed their flash-lights inside, looked, and jerked abruptly back. Then Howard motioned impatiently, and Fleming started in.

There was the body of a man inside, half out of the pilot's chair, frozen forever in that unstable position. His face was fleshed enough to show his death agony, but the skin had been eaten bone deep in spots by some disease.

Piled high in the rear of the ship were dozens of wooden cases. Fleming broke one open and flashed his light inside.

“Food,” Howard said.

“Must have tried to hide in the space station,” Fleming said.

“Looks that way. He never made it.” They left the ship quickly, a little disgusted. Skeletons were acceptable; they were self-contained entities in themselves. But this corpse was too eloquently dead.

“So who turned on the lights?” Fleming asked, on the surface of the station.

“Perhaps they were on automatic relay,” Howard said doubtfully. “There couldn't be any survivors.”

They walked across the surface of the station, and found the entrance.

“Shall we?” asked Fleming.

“Why bother?” Howard said quickly. “The race is dead. We might as well go back and file our claim.”

“If there's even one survivor in there,” Fleming reminded him, “the planet's his by law.”

Howard nodded unwillingly. It would be too bad to make the long, expensive trip back to Earth, return with their surveying teams, and find someone cozily keeping house in the space station. It would be different if survivors were hiding on the planet. Legally, they would still have a valid claim. But a man in the space station, which they had neglected to examine—

“I suppose we must,” Howard said, and opened the hatch.

Within, they were in total darkness. Howard turned his flashlight on Fleming. In its yellow glow, Fleming's face was completely shadowless, stylized like a primitive mask. Howard blinked, a little frightened at what he saw, for at that moment, Fleming's face was completely depersonalized.

“Air's breathable,” Fleming said, and immediately regained his personality.

Howard pushed back his helmet and turned up the light. The sheer mass of the walls seemed to crush in on him. He groped in his pocket, found a radish, and popped it in his mouth for morale.

They started forward.

For half an hour they walked along a narrow, winding corridor, their flashlights pushing the darkness ahead of them. The metal floor, which had seemed so stable, began to creak and groan from hidden stresses, setting Howard's nerves on edge. Fleming seemed unaffected.

“This place must have been a bombing station,” he remarked after a while.

“I suppose so.”

“Simply tons of metal here,” Fleming said conversationally, tapping one of the walls. “I suppose we'll have to sell it for junk, unless we can salvage some of the machinery.”

“The price of scrap metal—” Howard began. But at that instant a section of floor opened directly under Fleming's feet. Fleming plunged out of sight so quickly that he didn't have a chance to scream, and the section of floor slammed back into place.

Howard staggered back, as though physically struck. His flashlight seemed to blaze maniacally for a moment, then fade. Howard stood perfectly still, his hands raised, his mind caught in the timelessness of shock.

The shock wave receded slowly, leaving Howard with a dull, pounding headache. “—is not particularly good just now,” he said inanely, finishing his sentence, wishing that nothing had happened.

He stepped close to the section of floor and called, “Fleming.”

There was no answer. A shudder passed over his body. He shouted, “Fleming!” at the top of his lungs, leaning over the sealed floor. He straightened up, his head pounding painfully, took a deep breath, turned, and trotted back to the entrance. He did not allow himself to think.

The entrance, however, was sealed, and its fused edges were still hot. Howard examined it with every appearance of interest. He touched it, tapped it, kicked it. Then he became aware of the darkness pressing against him. He whirled, perspiration pouring down his face.

“Who's there?” he shouted down the corridor. “Fleming! Can you hear me?”

There was no answer.

He shouted, “Who did this? Why did you flash the station lights? What did you do to Fleming?” He listened for a moment, then went on, sobbing for breath. “Unseal the entrance! I'll go, and I won't tell anyone!”

He waited, shining his light down the corridor, wondering what lay behind the darkness. Finally he screamed, “Why don't you open a trapdoor under
me?
”

He lay back against the wall, panting. No trapdoor opened. Perhaps, he thought, no trapdoor will. The thought gave him a moment's courage. Sternly he told himself that there had to be another way out. He walked back up the corridor.

An hour later he was still walking, his flashlight stabbing ahead, and darkness creeping at his back. He had himself under control now, and his headache had subsided to a dull ache. He had begun to reason again.

The lights could have been on automatic circuit. Perhaps the trapdoor had been automatic, too. As for the self-sealing entrance—that could be a precaution in time of war, to make sure that no enemy agent could sneak in.

He knew that his reasoning wasn't too sound, but it was the best he could do. The entire situation was inexplicable. That corpse in the spaceship, the beautiful dead planet—there was a relationship, somewhere. If only he could discover where.

“Howard,” a voice said.

Howard jumped back convulsively, as though he had touched a high-tension wire. Immediately his headache resumed.

“It's me,” the voice said. “Fleming.”

Howard flashed his light wildly in all directions. “Where? Where are you?”

“About two hundred feet down, as well as I can judge,” Fleming said, his voice floating harshly down the corridor. “The audio hookup isn't very good, but it's the best I can do.”

Howard sat down in the corridor, because his legs refused to hold him up. He was relieved, however. There was something sane about Fleming being two hundred feet down, something very human and understandable about an imperfect audio hookup.

“Can you get up? How can I help you?”

“You can't,” Fleming said, and there was a crackle of static which Howard thought was a chuckle. “I don't seem to have much ... body left.”

“But where
is
your body?” Howard insisted seriously.

“Gone, smashed in the fall. There's just enough left of me to hook into circuit.”

“I see,” said Howard, feeling strangely light-headed. “You're now just a brain, a pure intelligence.”

“Oh, there's a little more to me than that,” Fleming said. “As much as the machine needs.”

Howard started to giggle nervously, for he had an image of Fleming's gray brain swimming in a pool of crystal water. He stopped himself, and said, “The machine? What machine?”

“The space station. I imagine it's the most intricate machine ever built. It flashed the lights and opened the door.”

“But why?”

“I expect to find out,” Fleming said. “I'm a part of it now. Or perhaps it's a part of me. Anyhow, it needed me, because it's not really intelligent. I supply that.”

“You? But the machine couldn't know you were coming!”

“I don't mean me, specifically. The man outside, in the ship, he was probably the real operator. But I'll do. We'll finish the builder's plans.”

Howard calmed himself with an effort. He couldn't think any more right now. His only concern was to get out of the station, back to his ship. To do this, he had Fleming to work with; but a new, unpredictable Fleming. He sounded human enough—but was he?”

“Fleming,” Howard said tentatively.

“Yes, old man?”

That was encouraging. “Can you get me out of here?”

“I think so,” Fleming's voice said. “I'll try.”

“I'll come back with neurosurgeons,” Howard assured him. “You'll be all right.”

“Don't worry about me,” Fleming said. “I'm all right now.”

Howard lost count of the hours he walked. One narrow corridor followed another, and dissolved into still more corridors. He grew tired, and his legs began to stiffen. As he walked, he ate. There were sandwiches in his knapsack, and he munched on them mechanically, for strength.

“Fleming,” he called finally, stopping to rest.

After a long pause he heard a barely recognizable sound, like metal grating against metal.

“How much longer?”

“Not much longer,” the grating, metallic voice said. “Tired?”

“Yes.”

“I will do what I can.”

Fleming's voice was frightening, but silence was even more frightening. As Howard listened, he heard an engine, deep in the heart of the station, spurt into life.

“Fleming?”

“Yes?”

“What is all this? Is it a bomb station?”

“No. I do not know the purpose of the machine yet. I am still not entirely integrated.”

“But it does have a purpose?”

“Yes!” The metallic voice grated so loud that Howard winced. “I possess a beautifully functional interlocking apparatus. In temperature control alone I am capable of a range of hundreds of degrees in a microsecond, to say nothing of my chemical mixing stores, power sources, and all the rest. And, of course, my purpose.”

Howard didn't like the answer. It sounded as though Fleming were identifying with the machine, merging his personality with that of the space station. He forced himself to ask. “Why don't you know what it's for yet?”

“A vital component is missing,” Fleming said, after a pause. “An indispensable matrix. Besides, I do not have full control yet.”

More engines began to throb into life, and the walls vibrated with the sound. Howard could feel the floor tremble under him. The station seemed to be waking up, stretching, gathering its wits. He felt as though he were in the stomach of some giant sea monster.

Howard walked for several more hours, and he left behind him a trail of apple cores, orange peels, fatty bits of meat, an empty canteen, and a piece of waxed paper. He was eating constantly now, compulsively, and his hunger was dull and constant. While he ate he felt safe, for eating belonged with the spaceship, and Earth.

A section of wall slid back suddenly. Howard moved away from it.

“Go in,” a voice, which he tentatively identified as Fleming's said.

“Why? What is it?” He turned his flashlight into the hole, and saw a continuous moving strip of floor disappearing into the darkness.

“You are tired,” the voice like Fleming's said. “This way is faster.”

Howard wanted to run, but there was no place to go. He had to trust Fleming, or brave the darkness on either side of his flashlight.

“Go in.”

Obediently Howard climbed in, and sat down on the moving track. Ahead, all he could see was darkness. He lay back.

“Do you know what the station is for yet?” he asked the darkness.

“Soon,” a voice answered. “We will not fail them.”

Howard didn't dare ask who it was Fleming wouldn't fail. He closed his eyes and let the darkness close around him.

The ride continued for a long time. Howard's flashlight was clamped under his arm, and its beam went straight up, reflecting against the polished metal ceiling. He munched automatically on a piece of biscuit, not tasting it, hardly aware that it was in his mouth.

Around him, the machine seemed to be talking, and it was a language he didn't understand. He heard the labored creak of moving parts, protesting as they rubbed against each other. Then there came the liquid squirt of oil, and the pacified parts moved silently, perfectly. Engines squeaked and protested. They hesitated, coughing, then hummed pleasantly into life, And continually, through the other sounds, came the click-clack of circuits, changing, rearranging themselves, adjusting.

But what did it mean? Lying back, his eyes closed, Howard did not know. His only touch with reality was the biscuit he had been chewing, and soon that was gone, and only a nightmare was left in its place.

He saw the skeletons, marching across the planet, all the billions in sober lines, moving through the deserted cities, across the fat black fields, and out into space. They paraded past the dead pilot in his little spaceship, and the corpse stared at them enviously. Let me join you now, he asked, but the skeletons shook their heads pityingly, for the pilot is still burdened with flesh. When will the flesh slough away, when will he be free of its burden, asked the corpse, but the skeletons only shook their heads. When? When the machine is ready, its purpose learned. Then the skeleton billions will be redeemed, and the corpse freed of his flesh. Through his ruined lips the corpse pleads to be taken now. But the skeletons perceive only his flesh, and his flesh cannot abandon the food piled high in the ship. Sadly they march on, and the pilot waits within the ship, waiting for his flesh to melt away.

“Yes!”

Howard awakened with a start, and looked around. No skeletons, no corpse. Only the walls of the machine, close around him. He dug into his pockets, but all the food was gone. His fingers scratched up some crumbs, and he put them on his tongue.

“Yes!”

He
had
heard a voice! “What is it?” he asked.

“I know,” the voice said triumphantly.

“Know? Know what?”

“My purpose!”

Howard jumped to his feet, flashing his light around. The sound of the metallic voice echoed around him, and he was filled with a nameless dread. It seemed horrible, suddenly, that the machine should know its purpose.

“What is your purpose?” he asked, very softly.