A Scatter of Stardust Read online

  “...said he loved me and then, when he found out just what I was, he didn’t want to know any longer...

  “...guess it’s bad enough not having a home world without them wanting to sit on a body...”

  The complaints sighed like a wind in the motionless air, a dirge of misery and lack of confidence; the sound of the persecuted who are persecuted only in their imagination; the fretful cry of those without hope and without pride.

  Don Carlin had heard it all before, so often before. These people were without faith and without purpose. He had found them, one by one, had talked to them and had persuaded them, one by one, to join him on this long trip out to the edge of the galaxy, far away from the warm, comfortable worlds.

  So many worlds. So many races each with its own home, and one race, scattered now, with no home of its own. It was a peculiar feeling this, to be of a race without a home. Earthmen were wanderers, merging into little groups, keeping, despite themselves, their own heritage. They were a race without a planet, resident on any world with the tolerance to accept them, humble with the need of accepting charity.

  And yet not all were humble. Some there were who could walk upright and lift their eyes to the stars and glow with the inner conviction that they shared something wonderful and noble, something no other member of any other race could share. And those who could do that were respected and were the happier because of it.

  A bell sounded and a voice requested his presence in the captain’s cabin. He sighed. Kleenahn, as usual, was curious. It must be almost time for the Pilgrims to visit the shrine.

  *

  The captain was curious but his politeness overrode his curiosity. He gestured Don to a chair and the liquid sibilants of their common language rustled the air like the sportive leapings of many fish.

  “You have been here many times, Earthman Carlin.”

  “As you well know, captain.”

  “As indeed I do.” Kleenahn paused, searching for the right thing to say. “A strange place, this world. You call it a shrine?”

  ^Yes.”

  “A shrine, if my understanding is correct, is the repository of something sacred.”

  “That is so.”

  “Something sacred to Earthmen?”

  “Yes.”

  There was a pause. The sounds of sportive fish died as they were touched by the wand of silence. Through the cabin port Carlin could see the figures of men, dwarfed by the distance, advancing over the low horizon toward the ship.

  “I know the history of this place,” said the captain abruptly. “Five thousand years ago it was discovered by men of your race. Their ship had wandered far from the regular space lanes, indeed, had wandered far from any inhabited sphere. There was no reason or logic for them to have come here. What brought them?”

  “An accident. Their ship was not as this ship is. It was old, unreliable. They landed here for repairs. Some of them stayed.”

  “And Earthmen have remained here ever since.” Kleenahn mused. His eyes were thoughtful “Accident, Earthman Carlin?”

  “It could be so termed, Captain Kleenahn. Providence would be a better word.”

  “Why is it that no person other than of Earth is permitted to visit the shrine?”

  Carlin remained silent.

  “Why is it that no Earthman who has visited the shrine will tell of what he saw?”

  Again Carlin gave no answer.

  “Earthmen!” Kleenahn gave a gesture which, in a man, would have been a shrug. “Will we ever be able to fully understand you? A homeless race, their own planet destroyed by war, wandering over a thousand worlds. You should have no pride, no ambition, and yet there is something within you which we can never know. The same thing, perhaps, which gave you the stars and yet destroyed your own world. This furious lust for progress, the driving pursuit of knowledge which should have waned by now but which has not.”

  “We are an old race,” said Carlin.

  “You are children,” corrected the captain. “When you first ventured beyond your system we were there to greet you.”

  “You had space travel,” admitted Carlin. “But we improved your ships. You had a stagnant culture. We exploded it into a thriving spate of commerce. You took ten thousand years to lift yourselves from steam to atomic power; we took a few decades. It does not become you or those like you to despise the people of Earth.”

  “The fault, I think, lies within yourselves,” said Kleenahn mildly. “You despise yourselves and imagine that you are persecuted. Too many of your race lack pride. Too few remember their accomplishments.”

  “That is true.” Carlin glanced again through the port; the figures outside were now very close. “The Custodians approach,” he said. “Have the Pilgrims your permission to leave the ship?”

  “Naturally.”

  Kleenahn sighed as Carlin went about his business, then rested an appendage on a button to summon the navigator. He felt a strange reluctance to be alone.

  *

  “They have been gone a long time.” Aarne paced the room. “Are they always as long as this?”

  “They have crossed half the galaxy; we should not be impatient.”

  “Odd.” Aarne could not contain himself. “Did you see those Custodians?”

  “Of course.”

  “The way they were dressed?”

  “They dress in the way of a fashion five thousand years old.” Kleenahn stared speculatively through the port. “In a sense we have traveled back through time. This place is sacred to Earthmen. They have kept a part of it isolated against change. Their clothes, other things.”

  “The shrine?”

  “Especially the shrine.”

  “Odd,” said Aarne again. “Very odd.” He halted before the port. “Tell me, captain, have you never been tempted to join the Pilgrims?”

  “Often, but it would be useless. I am not an Earthman.”

  “Some races look much like that of Earth,” hinted the navigator. “It would be interesting to discover just what it is they keep in their shrine.”

  “Interesting? Perhaps.” Kleenahn did not look at the other. “And perhaps dangerous as well. Remember, this is the only sacred thing the Earthmen possess.”

  “A tiny world, a superstition, a ritual!” Aarne snorted. “The dying remnant of a dying race.”

  “You think that?”

  “What else? You saw them leave the ship. Did they inspire respect?”

  “They cannot inspire what they themselves do not possess,” said Kleenahn. “When they left this ship the Pilgrims respected neither themselves nor their race.”

  “And when they return?”

  “You will see.”

  The captain leaned forward toward the port. Outside the world was deserted. The Custodians and the Pilgrims had passed from sight in a long, straggling line. They had gone — somewhere. They would do — what? They would return — different.

  That was all he knew. All he would ever know.

  What they would do, where they had gone, how they would be altered, these things were questions an Earthman would die to answer. Kleenahn was not human; in him and his race the fires of curiosity burned low, an intellectual warmth rather than a consuming flame. Aarne, too, despite his apparent impetuosity, was the same. Of all the races in the galaxy none could rival that of dead Earth in the driving need to know.

  That terrible lust for knowledge had lifted them to the stars, had destroyed their own planet and left them resident guests on tolerant worlds. The same need dragged them half across the galaxy to a place discovered only five thousand years before, in a segment of space which could never have been visited since Creation.

  Such a race could never forget. Individuals, perhaps, but the race never. And yet the race was judged by the individual. Why then did so many individuals lack pride? Why then did the race as a whole command such respect?

  Kleenahn sighed and waited as he had waited so often before.

  And, after a long while, the Pilgrims returned.


  *

  They came over the low horizon as if they marched to soundless bands beneath the flutter of invisible banners. They came with faces set with purpose and with shoulders stiffened with pride. They had left the ship a defeated rabble. They returned a victorious army.

  “Incredible!” Aarne stared at them, then at the captain. “They aren’t the same people.”

  “I told you to expect miracles.”

  “But this!” The navigator shook his head. “I see it but I simply can’t believe it.”

  “They have pride,” said Kleenahn. “They left without pride, they return with it.”

  “Is that what their shrine does for them?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “A thing which gives them pride?” Aarne shook his head, bewildered. “Can such a thing be?”

  Kleenahn gestured toward the Pilgrims.

  “I see them,” said the navigator. “But how?”

  Kleenahn flipped a switch. Mechanical ears on the hull aimed themselves at the marching Pilgrims. Voices trickled from the speakers like the rolling surge of long trapped waves.

  “...so old! That’s what got me. So old!”

  “...ten million years at least and there’s no arguing about it, not with that deposit all over him. Can you beat that! Ten million years ago we...”

  “...it shows who is the oldest. And did you see his eyes? Blue, just like mine. I wonder if, maybe, he and I could be...”

  “...makes a man feel warm inside just thinking about it.”

  “...and he thought that I wasn’t good enough for him! Why, the Johnny-come-lately, if he only knew...”

  “...keep it to ourselves though. You heard what the man said, just keep it to ourselves. No sense in causing a lot of bad feeling. They’ve been good to us in their way and we don’t want them to start feeling inferior, but...”

  The voices died as if the Pilgrims had become aware of the mechanical ears listening to their excited words. The speakers rushed with a blur of meaningless sound. Kleenahn waited a moment then opened the circuit.

  “Is it always like this?” Aarne had understood little. “Always.”

  “Will it last?”

  “It will last.” Kleenahn gestured toward the Pilgrims. “You may meet these people again and, when you do, they will not have altered. A little quieter, perhaps, but that will be all. They will stand as straight and stare as hard and, within themselves, they will carry something stronger than anything we know.”

  “Pride?”

  “More than that. Conviction, perhaps, I do not know.” Aarne looked at the Pilgrims through the port, wondering with the dull curiosity of his race, what it was they must have seen. He had up until now tended to feel a little sorry for the Earthmen, a little impatient and, sometimes, a little disgusted that they should be so devoid of racial pride. That had been on the journey out. The journey back, he knew, would be very different. The Pilgrims no longer regarded themselves as inferior.

  “They are still a long way off,” he said. “Shall I send the flitter out to them, captain?”

  “No,” said Kleenahn. “I like to see them march.”

  Survival Demands!

  There was a new girl at the desk, a pert young blonde with full lips and calculating eyes. They narrowed a little as I stated my name and errand.

  “Captain Tolsen?” Her pause was as artificial as the routine checking of the cards. “I’m sorry, commander, but I’m afraid that he’s on the restricted list.”

  “I know that.” Surely the girl would have been briefed? “If you will look again,” I said gently, “you will find that I am on the list of permitted visitors.” Then, as she hesitated, “Contact Professor Malkin and inform him that I am here!”

  She didn’t like it, I could tell that. She considered herself too young, too beautiful for any man, let alone a grizzled old space commander, to have used that tone with her. But it had been a long journey to the Institute, my leg ached and I was short on patience. So I snapped at her as I would to a crewman and, like a crewman, she obeyed.

  Malkin was pleased to see me. He crossed the reception hall, hand outstretched, his old, crinkled eyes beaming with pleasure. It was good to see that pleasure, good to feel the firm grasp of his hand.

  “John! It’s good to see you.” He tilted his head toward the desk. “Trouble?”

  “Bad liaison,” I said. “She didn’t know that I’m permitted to visit Tolsen.”

  “I’ll fix that.” He walked toward the desk and didn’t trouble to lower his voice. “Commander Hamilton is permitted to visit Captain Tolsen whenever he wishes. Is that understood?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Then mark it on your cards.” He re-joined me. “A new broom,” he explained. “Mary went off to get married and we’ve been saddled with this would-be tridi star. She thinks it smart to be awkward, but shell settle down.”

  Knowing Malkin I could believe it. He ran the Institute as I ran one of my ships. We walked down white corridors, past green-tinted rooms, striding on the soft foam plastic of the floor, the air-conditioned atmosphere tinged with the scent of pine.

  It was a quiet, restful place, a modem counterpart of a medieval monastery, though here men did not seek the salvation of their souls and the world by means of prayer. Instead they tried, by seeking understanding of the workings of the mind, to find a means of salvation of the human race.

  Malkin talked as he always did, saying the same things that I had heard before but which both of us knew it was essential that I should never forget.

  “A lot of people have the wrong impression of our work here,” he said. “Our title is probably the cause of that. The Institute for the Study of Mental Aberration means only one thing to the majority; we care for the insane.”

  “The trick being to define insanity.”

  “As soon as any man or woman stops thinking as the majority thinks they should think, then that person is regarded as insane.” Malkin sounded bitter. “So much for the tolerance of the human race.” He paused before a door, slid open a panel, gestured for me to look inside.

  It was a small room, the floor, walls, ceiling, even the furniture all thickly covered with green-tinted plastic foam. A woman sat on the low bed. She wore a loose smock which hid the lines of her body. Her hands rested limply in her lap. Her head was tilted back a little and her eyes, wide and unblinking, stared at something no one but herself could see.

  “A dreamer,” whispered Malkin. “A visionary, a woman divorced from reality — and one of the finest examples of prescience I have ever met. Insane? Or merely talented with unusual mental powers?”

  He closed the panel, led the way down the corridor.

  “There are others,” he continued. “So many others. All, in a greater or lesser degree, possessed of extrasensory powers. Precognition, levitation, telepathy, every parapsychological faculty you can mention; we’ve got them all.” His voice became even more bitter. “We have them and yet we haven’t. We know what they have and what could be done with it but always there is something which eludes us. A matter of communication, of understanding, a failure to detect the undetectable with the instruments we possess.”

  “Could that be because most of them have a low intelligence?” It was a theory to which I had given much thought. “A man could be very bright in one field and absolutely dumb in another. Could it be that possession of these faculties hampers normal intellectual development?”

  “Perhaps,” his assent was grudging. “But the evidence isn’t conclusive. And we have examples which deny that theory.”

  “Tolsen?”

  “He and others, but Tolsen is the prime example. If only — ”

  Malkin was intelligent and one of the fairest men I had ever met, but he was human and could not wholly deny his heritage. I sensed the wash of anger, the radiated hatred of what had happened. I rested my hand on his arm.

  “It couldn’t have been avoided.”

  “I suppose not.”

&nb
sp; “We had no choice,” I said. “No choice at all.”

  “There is always a choice,” he said flatly. “Don’t take the coward’s way, John. You know better than that.”

  I felt my anger rising. I quelled it; anger had no right in a place like this. And Malkin was correct. There had been a choice, but it was one which I had not dared to take.

  *

  Tolsen sat in his usual position, leaning back in his chair, a magazine in his lap, his eyes staring through the window toward the fluffy white clouds drifting against the blue of the sky.

  He seemed normal enough, clean, neatly dressed, his mouth firm, his features placid, but it was the little things which betrayed what he was and why he was here.

  Nothing of space had been permitted to enter this room. No picture of the planets, not even the wonderfully beautiful, heart-gripping pictograph of Earth as seen from the moon, a copy of which could be found in almost every household. Even the magazines had been vetted so as to eliminate all news of other worlds. The books were mostly historical romances or prespace novels. There were no souvenirs, no. statues, no newspapers, even, with outerworld news. There was nothing to remind him of his past, not even anything from his actual service with the fleet.

  And on the table was the big bottle of tablets which had given his features that look of calm tranquillity.

  He looked up as I entered the room, some of the calmness leaving his face and giving me a glimpse of the tormented mind beneath. But the drugs were strong and after that one betraying moment the defenses of his detachment returned to build a wall between us.

  “John!” His smile was genuine. “I’m glad to see you. How’s everything?”

  “Much as usual. Work, work and still more work.” I sat down, resting my leg, letting some of the peace of this place enter into me. “And yourself?”

  He shrugged; it was answer enough.

  I lit a cigarette, conscious of the trembling of my hands, hating myself for what I had to do and yet knowing that it had to be done. Memory is a tricky thing and the determination of yesterday becomes the compromise of today. Sometimes it is essential to return to that yesterday to bolster that determination. And Tolsen was my yesterday.