Collision Course Read online

“I am of the Rosgollans, Earthman. I shall be your guide until we land.”

  “And—where are we being taken…?”

  “To Rosgolla, Earthman.” The answer was bland, forthright, and totally noninformative.

  Bernard shook his head. It’s all an hallucination, that’s the answer, he thought grimly. It’s the only explanation. Even in the Greater Magellanic Cloud they simply don’t have beings that can come drifting through the solid walls of a spaceship and who speak perfect Terran.

  He struggled to his feet.

  “Dominici!” he barked. “Get up! Havig! Get off your knees! Can’t you see it isn’t real? We’re having an hallucination, all of us!”

  “Do you really believe that?” the Rosgollan asked gently. There was the hint of an amused laugh. The quiet voice said without malice, “You pitiful little creatures, so arrogantly deciding for yourselves what may and what may not be called real! Far more exists in the universe than Earthmen may ever understand, even though you think you hold dominion over all. We are not hallucinations. Far from it, Earthman.”

  Bernard’s cheeks burned. He bowed his head, thinking… more things in heaven and earth, Horatio …

  He bit his lip and remained silent.

  Peals of enormous silent laughter thundered through the cabin now. The strange being seemed vastly amused by the pretensions of the humans. “We were like you, once, Earthmen—hundreds of thousands of your years ago. We were eager, questing, brawling, foolish, petty little beings. Even as you are today. We survived that stage of our development. Perhaps you shall, too.”

  Stone looked up, his face pasty-white. He moistened his lips and said, “How—how did you find us? Was it you that caused us to get lost?”

  “No,” replied the Rosgollan. “We watched you from afar as your race developed, but we had no desire for contact with you. Until the moment came when we learned that a ship of yours was approaching our galaxy. We feared, at first, that you had come seeking us—but we saw at once that you were lost. I was sent to guide you to safety! There is much you must be told.”

  “Where—how…” Stone stammered.

  “Enough,” the Rosgollan said, in a firm tone that brooked no debate. “The answers will come to you later, all in due course. I will return.”

  The light winked out.

  The Rosgollan was gone.

  The vision screen showed the yellow sun swelling to cover an entire quadrant of space.

  In the cabin, four frightened men stared at each other in confusion and dismay.

  Stone found words first. Wild-eyed, he asked, “Did we really see it?”

  “Yes, we saw it,” Havig said. His face was even more grim than usual. “It appeared there in that corner. It glowed. It spoke to us.”

  Bernard abruptly began to laugh. It was a dry, thin, ratcheting laugh that held little mirth. The others frowned at him.

  “He’s amused,” Stone said. “What’s the joke?” Dominici asked.

  “The joke’s on us,” Bernard said. “On all of us in this cabin, and on the Norglans, and on poor old Technarch McKenzie too. You remember what Skrinri and Vortakel told us? The terms of the ultimatum?”

  “Sure,” Stone said. He imitated the tone of the Norglans. ” You may keep these worlds. All other worlds belong to Norgla.’”

  “That’s right,” Bernard said. “In a puffed-up huff of cosmic pride, we came across space to the Norglans, magnanimously offering to divide the universe equally with them. In even greater pride, they sent us packing. And who were we, anyway, to say, This universe is ours? Insects! Apes! Lowly grubbing creatures of no particular importance!”

  “We are men,” Havig said stoutly.

  Bernard wheeled to face the Neopuritan. ” Men!” he mocked. “You talk about knowing the ways of God, Havig. What do you know? What does God care for you, for all of us? We’re an insignificant part of creation. If He exists, he regards us as just another life-form. Nothing special about us. We’re worms in a puddle, and because we happened to be the lords and masters of our particular puddle we tried to say we owned the cosmos!”

  “Hold on a minute here, Bernard,” Dominici protested. “Is it your turn to go nuts now? What are you trying to tell us, anyway?”

  In a quiet voice Bernard said, “I’m not really sure what I want to say—yet. But I think I see what’s ahead for us. I think we’re going to be put into our true slot in the order of things. We’re not lords of creation. We’re hardly even civilized, in the eyes of these people. Did you hear what the Rosgollan said? They were like us, a few hundred thousand years ago! On their time-scale, it’s only a couple of minutes since we came down from the trees, just two or three seconds since we learned how to read and write, just a fraction of an instant since we got even the slightest control over our environment.”

  “All right, all right,” Dominici said. “So they’re greatly advanced…”

  “Greatly?” Bernard shrugged. “The difference is inconceivable. The evolutionary gulf between that—that being and us is so tremendous we can’t begin to imagine it. It’s enough to knock some of the arrogance out of you, isn’t it, to find out that you’re not really king of the heap?”

  “Earth will be in for some surprises,” Havig remarked quietly.

  “If we ever get back,” said Dominici.

  “Earth will be in for surprises, all right,” Bernard said. “Surprises enough to upset the applecart with a crash. We had it good too long. Supreme masters of all we surveyed. It was bad enough finding the Norglans cluttering up our nice universe—but now, on top of that, to run into these people…”

  “And who knows what other races there may be?” Stone said suddenly, a trace of wildness in his eyes. “In Andromeda, in the other galaxies? Creatures far beyond even the Rosgollans…”

  It was a numbing thought.

  Bernard looked away, feeling a kind of dizziness at the sudden revelation of the universe’s immensity. Man was not alone. Far from it. And on planets incredibly distant, older races thrived and watched the brash newcomers. Bernard’s eyeballs throbbed; his throat was dry, his lips gummed together.

  He could still see, in his mind’s eye, that weird golden glow. Could still hear the calm, assured voice ringing in his mind. Could still remember the infinitely humiliating words…

  “Let’s go up front,” he suggested. “We ought to tell Laurance about it.”

  “Yes, we should,” Stone said.

  They made their way fore. But there was no need to tell Laurance the story of the strange visitation. The crewmen were sitting in their cramped cabin looking dazed and shaken.

  “You saw it too?” Dominici asked.

  “The Rosgollan?” Laurance said. “Yes. Yes, we saw it too.” His voice was utterly flat.

  Clive began to giggle. It began as a ratcheting hoo-ha sound deep in his chest, rising rapidly in pitch until it approached hysteria. For an instant no one moved. Bernard strode quickly across the cabin, grabbed Clive by the bunched-up collar of his shirt, and slapped him three times, hard, without pause.

  “Stop it! Cut it out, Clive!”

  The giggling stopped. Clive blinked, shook his head, rubbed his flaming cheeks. Bernard stared down in surprise at his fingers, which still tingled with the impact of the blows. He realized it was the first time in his life he had ever struck another human being. But it had been the sensible thing to do; if not checked, Clive’s giggling might have infected them all within moments. Just now all of them rode the thin edge between sanity and madness. Bernard moistened his lips.

  “We can’t let this crack us up!”

  “Why not?” Laurance asked tonelessly. “It’s the end, isn’t it? The finish for all our big talk of galactic empires? Now we know just how insignificant we are. Just the mammals who happen to live on a certain little yellow sun in that little galaxy there on the screen. We may have spread to a few other worlds, but that isn’t the same as saying we’re masters of the universe, is it?”

  Bernard did not reply. H
e stared at the master screen in the control panel. A planet hung large in the visual focus. The XV-ftl had drifted into an orbit round it, an ever-narrowing orbit.

  “We’re landing,” Bernard said.

  THIRTEEN

  The planet of the Rosgollans was not at all as Bernard had expected it to be. His idea of the home of a super-race was a kind of super-Earth, with vaulting burnished towers springing to the skies, meticulously planned parks providing contrast to the urban scene, flexibridges linking buildings at heights dizzying to the eye.

  He was wrong.

  Perhaps the Rosgollans had had such things once; in any event, they had long since discarded the empty majesty of massive cities. The scene that lay before the Earthmen, as they left the ship—which had floated down, feather-light, in defiance of all laws of inertia and mass—was one of pastoral serenity.

  Gentle green hills rolled out to the horizon. Dotting the green here and there were the pastel tones of small houses that seemed to sprout as organically from the ground as the low, stubby trees. There was no sign of industry, none of transportation.

  “Just like fairyland,” Dominici said softly.

  “Or like Paradise,” murmured Havig.

  Bernard said, “It’s the post-technological phase of civilization, I’m sure. Remember the withering-away of the state that the ancient Marxists were forever trumpeting about? Well, this is it, I’m sure.” He realized he was speaking in a hushed whisper, as though this were a museum or a house of worship.

  The nine of them stood together not far from the ship, waiting for a Rosgollan to put in an appearance. The air was sharp, with an alien tang to it, but it felt good to the lungs. A coolish breeze blew in from the hills. The sun was high in the sky, and looked redder, cooler than was the sun of Earth.

  Just when they were beginning to grow impatient, a Rosgollan appeared, winking into view out of nowhere between one instant and the next.

  “Teleportation,” Bernard murmured. “Even better than a transmat; you don’t need a mechanical rig.”

  It was impossible to tell whether the Rosgollan was the same one that had come to them aboard the ship. This was about of a size with that other, but its features and body were partially concealed by the blur of light that attended these people wherever they went.

  “We shall go to the others,” said the Rosgollan in its soft unspeaking voice.

  The golden glow suddenly enswaddled them all; Bernard felt a moment of womblike warmth, and then the light dropped away, and the ship vanished.

  They were inside one of the alien houses. The Rosgollan said, “Be comfortable. The interrogation is about to begin.”

  “Interrogation?” Laurance asked. “What kind of interrogation? What are you planning to do with us, anyway?”

  “You will come to no harm, Commander Laurance,” was the soft reply.

  Bernard tugged at Laurance’s arm. “Better just relax and take things as they come,” he whispered. “Arguing with these people won’t do a bit of good.”

  Despite himself, he smiled. Rising defiantly to tell the Rosgollans off was something like an ancient Roman defying a fusion bomb by shouting at it, ” Civis Romanus sum! Hands off! I am a Roman citizen!” The bomb would pay little attention; neither, Bernard suspected, would these Rosgollans. But he felt a fundamental surety that these beings of light would not be capable of bringing about any harm.

  The Earthmen made themselves comfortable. There was no furniture in the room, only soft red cushions, on which they sat. Although the cushions were marvelously comfortable, and seemed to invite reclining, Bernard and the others remained sitting tensely upright.

  In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, there were three more Rosgollans in the room. Looking from one to the next, Bernard could see no discernible difference; they were as identical as though all had been stamped from the same mold.

  “The interrogation will now begin,” came the serene word from one (or was it all?) of them.

  “Don’t answer a thing!” Laurance snapped suddenly. “We don’t want to give them any vital information. Remember, we’re prisoners here, no matter how well they happen to treat us!”

  Despite Laurance’s outburst, the interrogation began. There was nothing Laurance could do to prevent it. Not a word was spoken, not even in their peculiar mental voice; but, beyond doubt, there was a flow of information. The Rosgollans were simply drawing what they wanted to know, without troubling to ask.

  The interrogation seemed to last only an instant, though Bernard was not sure: perhaps it took hours, but the hours were shrunken to a point in time. He could not tell. But he felt the outflow of information.

  The four Rosgollans drew everything from him: his childhood, his disastrous first marriage, his academic career, his interests and crochets, his second marriage, his unlamented divorce. All this they took from him in an instant, examined, discarded as being personal and therefore of only incidental interest.

  In the next layer they drew from him the summons from the Technarch, the journey to the Norglan colony, the unsatisfactory meeting with the Norglans, the bungled voyage home.

  Then it was over. The tendril of thought the Rosgollans had inserted into the brains of the Earthmen snapped back. Bernard blinked, stunned a little by the snapping of the contact. He felt drained, hollow, exhausted. He felt as though his brain had been drawn forth, examined very carefully, and put back into place.

  And the Rosgollans were laughing.

  There was no sound in the room, and, as ever, the faces of the strange beings were veiled in impenetrable light. But the impression of laughter hung in the air. Bernard felt his face grow red, without quite knowing why he felt shame. There had been nothing in his mind of which he was ashamed. He had lived his life, sought the ends he thought desirable, cheated no man, wronged no one intentionally. But the Rosgollans were laughing.

  Laughing at me, he wondered? Or at someone else here? Or at all of us, at all the human race?

  The unheard laughter died away. The Rosgollans came close to each other; their fields of light seemed to coalesce strangely.

  “You’re laughing at us!” Laurance cried belligerently. “Laughing, you damned superior beings!”

  Bernard touched his arm again. “Laurance…”

  The alien reply was gentle and perhaps a trifle self-reproachful. “Yes, we are amused. We ask your forgiveness, Earthmen, but we are amused!”

  Again the laughter rang out silently. Bernard realized that these Rosgollans were not quite the noble and mature beings he had been regarding them as. They could laugh at the struggles of a younger race. It was a patronizing laugh. Bernard frowned uncertainly, trying to fit the laughter into the culture-pattern he was constructing for the Rosgollans. Angels did not patronize, he thought. And until this moment he had regarded them almost as angelic, with their auras of light and their serenity of motion and their seemingly boundless powers of mind. But angels would not laugh at mortals that way.

  “We will leave you alone a while,” the Rosgollans said. The light vanished. The earthmen turned to look at each other dazedly.

  “So that’s what it’s like to be interrogated,” Dominici said. “I could feel them prowling around in my head—and I couldn’t shut them out. Imagine it—fingers stroking your bare brain!” He shuddered at the memory.

  “So now we’re pets,” said Laurance bitterly. “I guess the Rosgollans will come from all over the universe to play with us.”

  “Why are they doing all this?” Hernandez demanded. “Why did they have to drag us down here and toy with us?”

  “More important,” said Dominici. “How are we going to get out of here?”

  “We aren’t,” said Bernard in a flat voice. “Not unless the Rosgollans decide to let us go. We aren’t exactly masters of our own fate.”

  “You’re turning into a defeatist, Bernard,” Dominici said warningly. “Ever since the moment these things first grabbed hold of the ship, you’ve been taking the blackest possible interpr
etation of everything.”

  “I’m just looking at things realistically. There’s nothing to be gained by deluding ourselves. We’re in a mess. How are we going to escape, Dominici? You answer that. Where’s the Ship?”

  “Why—uh…”

  Dominici paused. With a cold frown on his face, he walked to the door of the room. The door obediently drew back as he approached, and he stepped out, into the open. The others followed him through the obliging doorway and into the outdoors.

  Green hills rolled to the horizon in gentle undulations.

  Fleecy clouds broke the harsh metallic blueness of the sky.

  There was no sign of the ship.

  None at all.

  Bernard shrugged meaningfully. “You see, we might be anywhere on this planet. Anywhere at all. Five, ten, even fifteen thousand miles from the ship. Am I being defeatist? How are we going to get back? By transmat? Teleportation? On foot? Which direction do we go? I’m not trying to be pessimistic. I just don’t think we’ve got any way of getting free.”

  “So we’re prisoners, then,” Dominici said bitterly. “Prisoners of these—these super-beings!”

  “Even if we could reach the ship,” said Havig, “they would only bring us back, the same way they brought us here originally. Bernard’s right. We are totally at their mercy. We cannot alter that.”

  “Why don’t you pray?” Stone asked.

  Havig merely shrugged. “I have never ceased praying. But I fear we have fallen into a situation which God has designed for us, and from which He will not free us until His purpose is attained.”

  Bernard knelt in the meadow just outside the building. He snatched up a stalk of saw-edged grass with a snapping motion of his hand, taking a perverse pleasure in the slight sting of the grass cutting into his skin.

  It was a painful business, this being gently wafted to Rosgolla. It struck at the center of a man’s soul to take hold of him this way, to render him completely helpless, to keep him in this sort of smiling bondage.

  Bernard clenched and unclenched his fists angrily. He thought back across only a short span of time to the easy-living dilettante whose self-centered life had been punctured by the Technarch’s call. Then I sat in my vibrochair and lived my own quiet life. And now I am a representative of Earth in who knows what macrocosmic judging?