Address: Centauri, F. L. Wallace [best ereader for pc .txt] 📗

yet. And so they had to make the best choice of what was at hand."

They started walking again and Docchi leaned against her. "I think you're right. The general's expedition, all specialists and experts, including the military, who are specialists of another kind, was not a representative group. The butterflies could study them forever but they wouldn't get a true picture.

"But they had to know exactly what humans are like, what their potentialities are, and how they live together. And so they took us."

"It seems strange," said Jeriann, sliding her arm around him. "Until now I've never thought of us as normal. But even if the aliens had refused both of us and asked for another group of colonists they wouldn't have done as well. Colonists for a special planet are specially selected—hardiest, strongest, most aggressive or discontented—there would always be something to throw them off.

"But accidents cut across everything, age, intelligence, sex, occupation. Name it and it's here. We're the only representative group that ever left Earth or ever will."

"It's odd," agreed Docchi. "But it doesn't match what happens when we meet our first aliens. It's nothing like anyone imagined. Here we stand, face to face across the stars. There is no competition for inhabitable planets since our definitions are mutually exclusive. But we are afraid; neither side wants war. And so we go ahead cautiously, looking for signs in the other that will reassure us."

"I don't know," said Jeriann. "We're being tested. Will we measure up?"

"We won't fail. In spite of what we may seem to some of our own people, we're average men and women—and man hasn't stopped climbing upward since that day somebody built the first fire."

Jeriann squeezed him and they slowed. In their wandering they had come to gravity center. They looked at each other and decided to go in. Jeriann opened the door and there was a light down the hall. They went to it and looked in.

Jordan was in front of the scanner, scowling at it in fierce concentration. "I hope those idiots got it down straight," he muttered back at them.

"Don't be so concerned. You took it apart for them, didn't you?"

"Yeah, but it doesn't mean I made them understand." He wiped his forehead. "However, even if they don't know what it's all about, somebody ought to be able to build another. It'll work if they use a little sense."

Docchi smiled. "Don't discount what gravity experts know. After they get through thinking over the ideas in those circuits they'll doll up the scanner and before you know it they'll have a machine that can reach us from Earth."

"That'll be the day," said Jordan. "Let's hope they don't. It's bad enough they know we're here—but if they have to look at us too...." He shook his head.

"You're wrong," said Anti, coming in and sitting down. "Won't be that way at all." She bent and began rubbing her legs. "My poor feet. I've been walking around for the longest time—full weight too."

"Why won't it?" said Jordan. "Remember what happened the last time we got in touch with them."

"Not the same people," said Anti. "There were always some, like the doctor, who didn't think we had to be beautiful to talk to us or be near. We'll get more of that kind. They don't have to call unless they want to."

"And last time we weren't anybody, less than a thousand and not an important person in the lot. Now we're representatives to the Centauri system."

"Profit," said Jordan. "You think they won't be able to afford to show their feelings. I wish I could agree. But even with the gravity drive they can't carry much between here and Earth. In the next fifty years the trade that goes out of here won't make one person rich."

"I disagree. Ideas don't weigh much and there'll be lots of those flying back and forth. And was there ever anything more valuable?" Anti smiled. "But there's more. We won't be the same. Only yesterday Cameron said he saw Nona looking worriedly at a book. It won't be long before she gets the idea and wham—new books."

"She was never the one who had trouble. Anyway, she'll never speak."

"She doesn't have to as long as she can write—and get some idea of what we're saying."

"Then she's all right and that will make the doctor happy." Jordan was dubious. "But what of us—Docchi, Jeriann, me—the rest?"

Anti leaned back and slid off her sandals, wriggling her toes in voluptuously and looking at them with wondering pleasure. "Me? I don't plan to dance again, but in a year or so I'll get around. The doctor expects Docchi to have arms in the next three or four years if the principle he discovered with Maureen works out.

"And even you, Jordan, may be kicking again, though it will take longer. Say four or five years for you."

"I'll kick," scoffed Jordan, but his disbelief wasn't as strong as it had been.

"Sure you will," said Anti. "It may not be as quick as we expect. Of course if we learn anything from interchange of science with the aliens the time may be shortened. Cameron says they're bound to help us advance, just as we'll aid them. He's cautious though, and doesn't want to figure that in until it actually occurs."

"I'll believe it then," said Docchi. "But you didn't mention Jeriann. Or do you consider her already normal?"

Anti frowned at her toes and slipped her feet into the sandals. "No, I don't. She seems to be in nearly perfect health. But don't believe everything you see."

"Darling," said Jeriann. "When did I have my last capsule? I don't have any with me."

"An hour or so ago."

"Are you sure? My time sense keeps warning me."

"If you think we should let's go and get one."

"She knows," said Anti. "I heard the doctor telling her that her case looked easy but wasn't. She'll be the last."

"Wait," called Docchi who scarcely heard what Anti was saying. He hurried out into the hall after Jeriann. He was gone a few minutes, and when he came back there was a handprint flaming and furious on his face.

He looked at Anti dully. "I didn't say anything. I told her to wait and I'd go with her."

"She can't help it," said Anti. "I thought it was time you knew."

"What is there to know?" he said bitterly. "She's upset because she can't eat. Compared to some of us it's merely an inconvenience. I resent her childishness."

"It was always there for you to see but you never looked close enough," sighed Anti. "How many times has she had to control herself."

"But I never said anything——"

"I know what you said," answered Anti. "When she had her accident it was a very hot day. She was a young girl and was busy playing and didn't realize how badly she wanted it until she started for the fountain. She was struck down before she reached it. Now—what was it you told her?"

"A drink," he said, staring at Anti in dismay. "I told her——"

"Twenty years of thirst. But you knew there was nothing that is even moist in her house. The shower spouts fine dry particles. And she had no pictures that show lakes or rivers. Go find her."

Water. It was life because it came before life. There were creatures that could exist quite comfortably without light. There were some that died in the half strength of the sun, to whom the visible spectrum and beyond was inimical. There were others that didn't need oxygen, anerobic microorganisms which perished in the free atmosphere because of the presence of a substance commonly considered necessary for living things.

But there was nothing that could exist without water. Life on Earth originated there and to it must always return. It was the cradle of the first cell, and the mother too. There were minute cells that lived motionless and free floating in water long before any living thing learned to swim through its droplet universe. Before there were fins or hands and feet, eyes to respond to light, and an orifice to eat and shape fine noises with—there was water. And any living creature that had a mouth from time to time might refresh its lips with the common and precious fluid.

Except Jeriann.

The psychotechnicians knew they could condition her and so it had been done. She could not drink, would not. She would resist if it were forced upon her, struggle until her bones broke. But even the psychotechnicians who had created the mental block hadn't completely trusted it. And so a place had been built for her in which she would not be reminded of water, the one thing she never got enough of.

Because the habit of life was strong and water meant survival. This was not something she imagined. It was buried in the memory of the cells, deeper than any mind, going back to the beginning. Twenty years of never enough.

Docchi stumbled out. It was neither light nor dawn when he found her. The side of the asteroid was turned away from the sun but though the planet was rising brightly and filled much of the sky there were still deep shadows within the dome. "I've been waiting for you," she said quietly as he came near. Her face reflected the planet shine.

"Jeriann," he said.

"Look at it," she said.

"I see."

"But you're looking at me." She turned his head toward the planet. "There. If you look closely you can see sunlight sparkling on the ocean. Isn't it beautiful?"

"Someday you'll lie on the beach and let the waves wash over you."

"Someday," she said.

ADDRESS: CENTAURI

by F. L. Wallace

Imagine, if you can, that Christopher Columbus never existed—that in his place was a fantastic crew of circus freaks. They would be our heroes of history as discoverers of the New World. We all would honor the Fat Woman, erect statues to the Human Firefly, perhaps name a continent after the Half Man-Half Machine. Ridiculous? Preposterous? Well, maybe not....

Mankind is faced with such a possibility in this unusual science fiction novel. In a future age of interplanetary travel new worlds and alien races are awaiting discovery and a decision must be made. Who will be the first interstellar explorers—and make the first alien contact?

On a tiny asteroid between Mars and Jupiter a handful of people seek the honor. They are "the Accidentals." They are pathetic, crippled and deformed humans, half or quarter men and women, fractional organisms masquerading as people. To many they are just "circus freaks", but to themselves they are still members of the human race. Their plan is sound. The galaxy has long since been conquered and now the distant stars await the probing of Earthmen. Yet the stars are very very far away and the exploratory trips will be very very long. Ordinary men would find the voyages nearly unbearable. The Accidentals, though, are not ordinary men. The medical skills which have kept them alive have given them incredible endurance. They are unbelievably tough, nearly immortal. They are the ones who could be the star-flung explorers.

From that begins one of the strangest flights to the Stars that mankind may ever see.

"Science-Fiction at its Best"

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Address: Centauri, by F. L. Wallace