Stephen Marlowe

“ That's the purpose of Nowhere, Kit. Every planet, every race has its Nowhere. We all come here and we play games. Planet with the highest score at the end of God knows how long wins the Universe, with all the science and the wisdom needed to fashion that universe into a dozen different kinds of heaven. ”

“ In volunteering for the Stalintrek, Sophia had invaded man's domain. She had watched not with embarrassment but with scorn while the men in front of her got out of their clothing. She had invaded man's domain, and as she watched them, the short, flabby ones, the bony ones with protruding ribs and collar-bones, those of milky white skin and soft hands, she knew most of them would bite off more than they could chew if ever they tried what was the most natural thing for men to try with a lone woman in an isolated environment. ”

“ He wondered with surprising objectivity if a hundred other names, a hundred other women were not in a hundred other minds while everyone stared at the crescent Earth hanging serenely in space—with each name and each woman as dear as Stephanie, with the same combination of fire and gentle femininity stirring the blood but saddening the heart. ”

“ Ten thousand years of space travel in suspended animation. You saw me that way once, Temple, and wondered. You thought I was dead, but that is another story.
"Anyway, let my people invade your planet, ten thousand years hence. If Earth takes the right direction, if democracy and free thought and individual enterprise win over totalitarian standardization as I think they will, your people will be more than a match for the decadent parasites who may or may not have sufficient initiative to cross space the slow way and attempt invasion in ten thousand years." ”

“ He'd hardly batted an eyelash when they boarded a long, tapering, bullet-shaped ship at White Sands and thundered off into the sky. He took for granted the change-over to a huge round ship at the wheel-shaped station in space. Moments after leaving the space station—with a minimum of stress and strain, thanks to the almost-nil gravity—it was Arkalion who first swam through air to the viewport and pointed out the huge crescent earth, green and gray and brown, sparkling with patches of dazzling silver-white. ”

“ You will destroy them—or be destroyed yourselves. Any questions?"
The whole thing sounded fantastic to Temple. Could the fate of all Earth rest on their shoulders in a totally alien environment? Could they be expected to win? Temple had no reason to doubt the former, as wild as it sounded. As for the latter, all he could do was hope. "Tell me," he said, "how will we learn the use of all the weapons you claim are at our disposal?"
"Can you answer that for him, Sophia?" Arkalion wanted to know.
"Umm, I think so. The same way I had all sorts of culture crammed into me on Jupiter." ”

“ One part of Jason wanted her to remain his over an unthinkable gap, another part wanted her to live a good, full life.
"I'm glad," said Jason. "Can't expect a girl to wait without hope...."
"Then there's no hope we'll ever get back?"
Jason laughed harshly. "You tell me. Earth isn't merely sixty thousand light years away. Kit, do you know what a light year is?"
Temple said he thought he did.
"Sixty thousand of them. A dozen eternities. But the Earth we know is also dead. Dead five thousand years. The folks, Center City, Ann, her husband—all dust. Five thousand years old.... Don't mind me, Kit." ”

“ Stars you never see through an obscuring atmosphere hung suspended in the viewports. Cold-bright, not flickering against the plush blackness of deep space, phalanxes and legions of stars without numbers, in such wild profusion that space actually seemed three dimensional.
"This is a different sort of dream," said Sophia in English. "I remember. I remember everything. Kit—"
"Hello." He felt strangely shy, became mildly angry when Arkalion hardly tried to suppress a slight snicker. "Well, that second dream wasn't our idea," Temple protested. ”

“ Alaric Arkalion was a queer duck, anyway, and of all the men gathered in the spaceship's lounge, he alone had mastered weightlessness with hardly any trouble.
"Take your ice skates," Arkalion went on. "Some people put them on and use them like natural extensions of their feet the first time. Others fall all over themselves. I suppose I am lucky."
"Sure," said Temple. Actually, the only thing odd about Arkalion was his old-young face and—perhaps—his propensity for coming up with the right answers at the right times. Arkalion had seemed so certain of space-travel. ”

“ You are tired, weak, and Jupiter's gravity field is still too strong for you. Little by little, though, your muscles will strengthen to Jupiter's demands. Gravity will keep them from bulging, expanding; but every muscle fibre in you will have twice, three times its original strength. Are you excited?"
"I am tired and sick. I want to sleep. What is Jupiter?"
"Jupiter is a planet circling the sun at—never mind, comrade. You have much to learn, but you can assimilate it with much less trouble in your sleep. Go ahead, sleep."
Sophia retched, was sick. ”

“ We allowed you to go, Sophia. We encouraged it. That way, the job of our technicians was all the simpler. Whether you like it or not, you have been a cog in the machine of Red Empire."
"I still don't see why he has to die."
"Leave thinking to those who can. You have a smile, a body, a certain way with men. I will think. I think that Temple should die."
"I don't," Sophia said.
"We're delaying needlessly. The man dies." And Charles raised his automatic, sufficiently irked to forget his suicide plan. ”

“ Temple smiled. He had absented himself without leave. It had been difficult enough and he might yet be in a lot of hot water, but it would be senseless to worry Stephanie. "It's just for a few hours," he said.
"Hours. When we want a whole lifetime. Kit. Oh, Kit—why don't we run away? Just the two of us, someplace where they'll never find you. I could be packed and ready and—"
"Don't talk like that. We can't."
"You want to go where they're sending you. You want to go."
"For God's sake, how can you talk like that? I don't want to go anyplace, except with you. But we can't run away, Steffy. ”

“ Arkalion grinned back at him. "What do you want me to do, young man? I've forsaken my people. This is now my body. Tell you what, I promise to be always on a different continent. Earth isn't so small that I'll get in your hair."
Temple sat up, felt the bandages on his jaw. He smiled at Stephanie, told her he loved her and meant it. It was exactly as if she had returned from the grave and in his first exultation he hadn't even thought of Sophia, who had perished all alone in the depths of space that a world might live....
He turned to Arkalion. "Sophia?"
"We found her dead, Kit. ”

“ My fiance left yesterday, took his final goodbye. He—he embarked on the Nowhere Journey."
"I realize that. It is precisely why I am here. My dear, the C.E.L. does not want to fight the government. If the government decides that the Nowhere Journey is vital for the welfare of the country—even if the government won't or can't explain what the Nowhere Journey is—that's all right with us. But if the government says there is a rotation system but does absolutely nothing about it, we're interested in that. Do you follow me?"
"Yes!" cried Stephanie. ”

“ Ten thousand years."
"Tell me," Temple demanded abruptly, "is this a dream?"
Arkalion smiled. "Yes and no. It is not a dream like the others because I assure you your bodies are not now resting on a pair of identical white tables. Still in the other dreams physical things could happen to you, while now you'll find you can do things as in a dream. For example, neither one of you knows the intricacies of a spaceship, yet if you are to save your planet, you must know the operation of the most intricate of all space ships, a giant space station." ”

“ In the beginning he showered attentions on Sophia. He insisted on drawing her wash-basin at night, escorted her to breakfast every morning, told her in confidence of the conquests he had made over beautiful women (but not as beautiful as you, Sophia) . He soon began to take liberties. He would sit—timorously at first, but with growing boldness—on the corner of her bed, talking with her at night after the others had retired, Ivan with his snores, Boris with his strong, deep breathing. And night after night, plump Georgi grew bolder. ”

“ Arkalion told them. "You haven't time. This is a spaceship, not like the slow, blumbling craft your people use to reach Mars or Jupiter."
"Our people?" Temple demanded. "Not yours?"
"Will you let me finish? Light is a laggard crawler by comparison with the drive propelling this ship. Temple, Sophia, we are leaving your Galaxy altogether."
"Is that a fact?" said Sophia, her Jupiter-found knowledge telling her they were traveling an unthinkable distance. "For some final contest between us, no doubt, to decide whether the U. S. S. R. or the U. S. represents Earth? Kit, I l-love you, but...." ”

“ Sophia told Arkalion. "There's more you want to say."
"All right. Temple's thought is correct. They have tremendous power. That is why you could be duped so readily. But their power is not concentrated here. These much-faster-than-light ships are an extreme rarity, for the power-drive no longer exists. Five ships in all, I believe. Hardly enough to invade a planet, even for them. It takes them thousands of years to get here otherwise. Thousands. Just as it took me, when I came to Mars and Earth in the first place." ”

“ The third day, Temple arrived with the sun, sat as before in the tall grass between the pit and the water-hole and waited. Several paces beyond his hidden trap he could see the tall trees of the jungle with vines and creepers hanging from their branches. At his back, a man's length behind him was the water-hole, its deepest waters no more than waist-high. ”

“ Arkalion went on. The voice was that of an older man, too, belying the youthful complexion, the almost childish features, the soft fuzz of a beard.
"I'm Kit Temple," said Temple, extending his hand. "Arkalion, a strange name. I know it from somewhere.... Say! Aren't you—don't you have something to do with carpets or something?"
"Here and now, no. I am a number. A-92-6417. But my father is—perhaps I had better say was—my father is Alaric Arkalion II. Yes, that is right, the carpet king."
"I'll be darned," said Temple.
"Why?"
"Well," Temple laughed. "I never met a billionaire before." ”

“ They raked the space station with blast after blast—futilely. They spun and twisted and streaked by, offering poor targets. Temple waited his chance ... and glanced at the dial which measured radioactivity. He yelped, stood up. The needle had encroached upon the red area. Death to remain where he was more than a moment or two. Not quick death, but rather slow and lingering. He could do what he had to, then perish hours later. His life—for Earth? If Arkalion had known all the answers, and if he could get both ships and if there weren't another alternative for the aliens, the parasites.... ”

“ You pull the lever, wait two minutes, enter the conveyor yourself. I will fetch you—if you are sure."
"I'm sure, dammit!"
"Remember, you go without training, without the opportunity everyone else has."
"You already told me that. Mars is half-way to eternity. Mars is limbo. If I can't go back to Earth I want to go—well, to Nowhere. There are too many ghosts here, too many memories with nothing to do."
Arkalion shrugged, entered the booth. "Pull the lever," he said, and shut the door.
Temple reached up, grasped the lever firmly in his hand, yanked it. ”

“ If human progress for the next five thousand years matches what has been happening for the last five, the parasites won't stand a chance."
"Earth—five thousand years in the future," Stephanie said dreamily. "I wonder what it will be like.... Don't be so startled, Kit. I was a pilot study on the Nowhere Journey. If I made it successfully, other women would have been sent. But now there won't be any need."
"I wouldn't be too sure of that," said the real Alaric Arkalion III. "I suspect a lot of people are going to feel just like me. Why not go out and colonize space. We can do it. ”

“ ALARIC ARKALION: Once every seven hundred and eighty days Mars and the Earth find themselves in the same orbital position with respect to the sun. In other words, Mars and Earth are closest then. Were there such a thing as space travel, new, costly, not thoroughly tested, they would want to make each journey as brief as possible. ”

“ Not the stark, foul streets of Stalingrad, not the workers with their vapid faces or the Comrades with their cautious, sweating, trembling, fearful non-decisions, not the higher echelon of Comrades, more frightened but showing it less, who would love the beauty of her breasts and loins but not herself for you never love anything but the Stalinimage and Mother Russia herself, not those terrified martinet-marionettes who would love the parts of her if she permitted but not her or any other person for that matter. ”

“ Consider this sequence of events about half way between the dream stage you have already seen and reality itself. Remember this: you'll have to work together; you'll have to function like machines. You will be handling totally alien equipment with only the sort of knowledge which can be played into your brains to guide you."
Sophia sighed. "Being an American, Kit is too much of an individual to help in such a situation."
Temple snorted. "Being a cog in a simple, state-wide machine is one thing—orienting yourself in a totally new situation is another."
"Yes, well—"
"See?" Arkalion cautioned. ”

“ Charles told him quietly, wiping blood from his lips with one hand, drawing an automatic from his pocket with the other. "You'd better freeze, Temple. You die if you don't."
emple froze, watched Charles slither away across the high-piled green carpet until, safely away across the room, he came upright groggily. He turned to the dead Lucy's double. "What do you think, Sophia?"
"I don't know. We could get out of here, probably get along without the final information."
"That isn't what I mean. Naturally, we'll never receive the final facts. I mean, what do you think about Temple?" ”

“ The West flies high with physics. Give them Mars; bah, they can have Mars."
"True, Comrade. The journey to Jupiter is greater, the time consumed is longer, the cost, more expensive. But here on Jupiter we can do something they cannot do on Mars." ”

“ If he had been strapped to the table by unfamiliar aliens, if the scent of alien flesh—or non-flesh—had been strong in the room, if the fingers—or appendages—which greased his temples and clamped an electrode to each one had not felt like human fingers, if the men talking to him had spoken in voices too harsh or too sibilant for human vocal chords—if all that had been the case whatever composure still remained his would have vanished. ”