Time for the Stars Read online

  Presently Pat looked worried and said, “See here, Uncle Steve, is there any chance that they will let us? Or should Tom and I just forget it?”

  “Eh? Of course they are going to let you do it.”

  “Huh? It didn’t look like it tonight. If I know Dad, he would skin us for rugs rather than make Mum unhappy.”

  “No doubt. And a good idea. But believe me, boys, this is in the bag…provided you use the right arguments.”

  “Which is?”

  “Mmm…boys, being a staff rating, I’ve served with a lot of high brass. When you are right and a general is wrong, there is only one way to get him to change his mind. You shut up and don’t argue. You let the facts speak for themselves and give him time to figure out a logical reason for reversing himself.”

  Pat looked unconvinced; Uncle Steve went on, “Believe me. Your pop is a reasonable man and, while your mother is not, she would rather be hurt herself than make anybody she loves unhappy. That contract is all in your favor and they can’t refuse—provided you give them time to adjust to the idea. But if you tease and bulldoze and argue the way you usually do, you’ll get them united against you.”

  “Huh? But I never tease, I merely use logical—”

  “Stow it, you make me tired. Pat, you were one of the most unlovable brats that ever squawled to get his own way…and, Tom, you weren’t any better. You haven’t mellowed with age; you’ve simply sharpened your techniques. Now you are being offered something free that I would give my right arm to have. I ought to stand aside and let you flub it. But I won’t. Keep your flapping mouths shut, play this easy, and it’s yours. Try your usual loathsome tactics and you lose.”

  We would not take that sort of talk from most people. Anybody else and Pat would have given me the signal and he’d ’ve hit him high while I hit him low. But you don’t argue that way with a man who wears the Ceres ribbon; you listen. Pat didn’t even mutter to me about it.

  So we talked about Project Lebensraum itself. Twelve ships were to go out, radiating from Sol approximately in axes of a dodecahedron—but only approximately, as each ship’s mission would be, not to search a volume of space, but to visit as many Sol-type stars as possible in the shortest time. Uncle Steve explained how they worked out a “mini-max” search curve for each ship but I did not understand it; it involved a type of calculus we had not studied. Not that it mattered; each ship was to spend as much time exploring and as little time making the jumps as possible.

  But Pat could not keep from coming back to the idea of how to sell the deal to our parents. “Uncle Steve? Granting that you are right about playing it easy, here’s an argument that maybe they should hear? Maybe you could use it on them?”

  “Um?”

  “Well, if half a loaf is better than none, maybe they haven’t realized that this way one of us stays home.” I caught a phrase of what Pat had started to say, which was not “one of us stays home,” but “Tom stays home.” I started to object, then let it ride. He hadn’t said it. Pat went on, “They know we want to space. If they don’t let us do this, we’ll do it any way we can. If we joined your corps, we might come home on leave—but not often. If we emigrate, we might as well be dead; very few emigrants make enough to afford a trip back to Earth, not while their parents are still alive, at least. So if they keep us home now, as soon as we are of age they probably will never see us again. But if they agree, not only does one stay home, but they are always in touch with the other one—that’s the whole purpose in using us telepath pairs.” Pat looked anxiously at Uncle Steve. “Shouldn’t we point that out? Or will you slip them the idea?”

  Uncle Steve did not answer right away, although I could not see anything wrong with the logic. Two from two leaves zero, but one from two still leaves one.

  Finally he answered slowly, “Pat, can’t you get it through your thick head to leave well enough alone?”

  “I don’t see what’s wrong with my logic.”

  “Since when was an emotional argument won by logic? You should read about the time King Solomon proposed to divvy up the baby.” He took a pull at his glass and wiped his mouth. “What I am about to tell you is strictly confidential. Did you know that the Planetary League considered commissioning these ships as warships?”

  “Huh? Why? Mr. Howard didn’t say—”

  “Keep your voice down. Project Lebensraum is of supreme interest to the Department of Peace. When it comes down to it, the root cause of war is always population pressure no matter what other factors enter in.”

  “But we’ve abolished war.”

  “So we have. So chaps like me get paid to stomp out brush fires before they burn the whole forest. Boys, if I tell you the rest of this, you’ve got to keep it to yourselves now and forever.”

  I don’t like secrets. I’d rather owe money. You can’t pay back a secret. But we promised.

  “Okay. I saw the estimates the Department of Peace made on this project at the request of LRF. When the Avant-Garde was sent out, they gave her one chance in nine of returning. We’ve got better equipment now; they figure one chance in six for each planetary system visited. Each ship visits an average of six stars on the schedule laid out—so each ship has one chance in thirty-six of coming back. For twelve ships that means one chance in three of maybe one ship coming back. That’s where you freaks come in.”

  “Don’t call us ‘freaks’!” We answered together.

  “‘Freaks,’” he repeated. “And everybody is mighty glad you freaks are around, because without you the thing is impossible. Ships and crews are expendable—ships are just money and they can always find people like me with more curiosity than sense to man the ships. But while the ships are expendable, the knowledge they will gather is not expendable. Nobody at the top expects these ships to come back—but we’ve got to locate those earth-type planets; the human race needs them. That is what you boys are for: to report back. Then it won’t matter that the ships won’t come back.”

  “I’m not scared,” I said firmly.

  Pat glanced at me and looked away. I hadn’t telepathed but I had told him plainly that the matter was not settled as to which one of us would go. Uncle Steve looked at me soberly and said, “I didn’t expect you to be, at your age. Nor am I; I’ve been living on borrowed time since I was nineteen. By now I’m so convinced of my own luck that if one ship comes back, I’m sure it will be mine. But do you see why it would be silly to argue with your mother that half a set of twins is better than none? Emotionally your argument is all wrong. Go read the Parable of the Lost Sheep. You point out to your mother that one of you will be safe at home and it will simply fix her mind on the fact that the other one isn’t safe and isn’t home. If your Pop tries to reassure her, he is likely to stumble onto these facts—for they aren’t secret, not the facts on which the statisticians based their predictions; it is just that the publicity about this project will emphasize the positive and play down the negative.”

  “Uncle Steve,” objected Pat, “I don’t see how they can be sure that most of the ships will be lost.”

  “They can’t be sure. But these are actually optimistic assumptions based on what experience the race has had with investigating strange places. It’s like this, Pat: you can be right over and over again, but when it comes to exploring strange places, the first time you guess wrong is the last guess you make. You’re dead. Ever looked at the figures about it in just this one tiny solar system? Exploration is like Russian roulette; you can win and win, but if you keep on, it will kill you, certain. So don’t get your parents stirred up on this phase of the matter. I don’t mind—a man is entitled to die the way he wants to; that’s one thing they haven’t taxed. But there is no use in drawing attention to the fact that one of you two isn’t coming back.”

  CHAPTER V

  THE PARTY OF THE SECOND PART

  Uncle Steve was right about the folks giving in; Pat left for the training course three weeks later.

  I still don’t know just how it was that Pa
t got to be the one. We never matched for it, we never had a knock-down argument, and I never agreed. But Pat went.

  I tried to settle it with him several times but he always put me off, telling me not to worry and to wait and see how things worked out. Presently I found it taken for granted that Pat was going and I was staying. Maybe I should have made a stand the day we signed the contract, when Pat hung back and let me sign first, thereby getting me down on paper as the party of the second part who stayed home, instead of party of the third part who went. But it had not seemed worth making a row about, as the two were interchangeable by agreement among the three parties to the contact. Pat pointed this out to me just before we signed; the important thing was to get the contract signed while our parents were holding still—get their signatures.

  Was Pat trying to put one over on me right then? If so, I didn’t catch him wording his thoughts. Contrariwise, would I have tried the same thing on him if I had thought of it? I don’t know, I just don’t know. In any case, I gradually became aware that the matter was settled; the family took it for granted and so did the LRF people. So I told Pat it was not settled. He just shrugged and reminded me that it had not been his doing. Maybe I could get them to change their minds…if I didn’t care whether or not I upset the applecart.

  I didn’t want to do that. We did not know that the LRF would have got down on its knees and wept rather than let any young and healthy telepath pair get away from them; we thought they had plenty to choose from. I thought that if I made a fuss they might tear up the contract, which they could do up till D-Day by paying a small penalty.

  Instead I got Dad alone and talked to him. This shows how desperate I was; neither Pat nor I ever went alone to our parents about the other one. I didn’t feel easy about it, but stammered and stuttered and had trouble making Dad understand why I felt swindled.

  Dad looked troubled and said, “Tom, I thought you and your brother had settled this between you?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to tell you! We didn’t.”

  “What do you expect me to do?”

  “Why, I want you to make him be fair about it. We ought to match for it, or something. Or you could do it for us and keep it fair and square. Would you?”

  Dad gave attention to his pipe the way he does when he is stalling. At last he said, “Tom, I don’t see how you can back out now, after everything is settled. Unless you want me to break the contract? It wouldn’t be easy but I can.”

  “But I don’t have to break the contract. I just want an even chance. If I lose, I’ll shut up. If I win, it won’t change anything—except that I would go and Pat would stay.”

  “Mmm…” Dad puffed on his pipe and looked thoughtful. “Tom, have you looked at your mother lately?”

  I had, but I hadn’t talked with her much. She was moving around like a zombie, looking grief-stricken and hurt. “Why?”

  “I can’t do this to her. She’s already going through the agony of losing your brother; I can’t put her through it on your account, too. She couldn’t stand it.”

  I knew she was feeling bad, but I could not see what difference it would make if we swapped. “You’re not suggesting that Mum wants it this way? That she would rather have Pat go than me?”

  “I am not. Your mother loves you both, equally,”

  “Then it would be just the same to her.”

  “It would not. She’s undergoing the grief of losing one of her sons. If you swapped now, she would have to go through it afresh for her other son. That wouldn’t be fair.” He knocked his pipe against an ash tray, which was the same as gaveling that the meeting was adjourned. “No, son, I’m afraid that you will just have to stand by your agreement.”

  It was hopeless so I shut up. With Dad, bringing Mum’s welfare into it was the same as trumping an ace.

  Pat left for the training center four days later. I didn’t see much of him except the hours we spent down at the TransLunar Building for he was dating Maudie every night and I was not included. He pointed out that this was the last he would see of her whereas I would have plenty of time—so get lost, please. I did not argue; it was not only fair, taken by itself, but I did not want to go along on their dates under the circumstances. Pat and I were farther apart those last few days than we had ever been.

  It did not affect our telepathic ability, however, whatever this “tuning” was that some minds could do went right on and we could do it as easily as we could talk…and turn it off as easily, too. We didn’t have to “concentrate” or “clear our minds” or any of that Eastern mysticism nonsense. When we wanted to “talk,” we talked.

  When Pat left I felt lost. Sure, I was in touch with him four hours a day and any other time I cared to call him, but you can’t live your whole life doing things by two’s without getting out of joint when you have to do things by one’s. I didn’t have new habits yet. I’d get ready to go someplace, then I would stop at the door and wonder what I had forgotten. Just Pat. It is mighty lonesome to start off somewhere by yourself when you’ve always done it with someone.

  Besides that, Mum was being brightly cheerful and tender and downright unbearable, and my sleep was all broken up. The training center worked on Switzerland’s time zone which meant that I, and all other twins who were staying behind no matter where on. Earth they were, worked our practice messages on Swiss time, too. Pat would whistle in my ears and wake me at two in the morning each night and then I would work until dawn and try to catch up on sleep in the daytime.

  It was inconvenient but necessary and I was well paid. For the first time in my life I had plenty of money. So did all of our family, for I started paying a fat board bill despite Dad’s objections. I even bought myself a watch (Pat had taken ours with him) without worrying about the price, and we were talking about moving into a bigger place.

  But the LRF was crowding more and more into my life and I began to realize that the contract covered more than just recording messages from my twin. The geriatrics program started at once. “Geriatrics” is a funny term to use about a person not old enough to vote but it had the special meaning here of making me live as long as possible by starting on me at once. What I ate was no longer my business; I had to follow the diet they ordered, no more sandwiches picked up casually. There was a long list of “special hazard” things I must not do. They gave me shots for everything from housemaid’s knee to parrot fever and I had a physical examination so thorough as to make every other one seem like a mere laying on of hands.

  The only consolation was that Pat told me they were doing the same to him. We might be common as mud most ways but we were irreplaceable communication equipment to LRF, so we got the treatment a prize race horse or a prime minister gets and which common people hardly ever get. It was a nuisance.

  I did not call Maudie the first week or ten days after Pat left; I didn’t feel easy about her. Finally she called me and asked if I were angry with her or was she in quarantine? So we made a date for that night. It was not festive. She called me “Pat” a couple of times, which she used to do every now and then and it had never mattered, since Pat and I were used to people mixing up our names. But now it was awkward, because Pat’s ghost was a skeleton at the feast.

  The second time she did it I said angrily, “If you want to talk to Pat, I can get in touch with him in half a second!”

  “What? Why, Tom!”

  “Oh, I know you would rather I was Pat! If you think I enjoy being second choice, think again.”

  She got tears in her eyes and I got ashamed and more difficult. So we had a bitter argument and then I was telling her how I had been swindled.

  Her reaction wasn’t what I expected. Instead of sympathy she said, “Oh, Tom, Tom! Can’t you see that Pat didn’t do this to you? You did it to yourself.”

  “Huh?”

  “It’s not his fault; it’s your own. I used to get so tired of the way you let him push you around. You liked having him push you around. You’ve got a ‘will to fail.’”

/>   I was so angry I had trouble answering. “What are you talking about? That sounds like a lot of cheap, chimney-corner psychiatry to me. Next thing you know you’ll be telling me I have a ‘death wish.’”

  She blinked back tears. “No. Maybe Pat has that. He was always kidding about it but, just the same, I know how dangerous it is. I know we won’t see him again.”

  I chewed that over. “Are you trying to say,” I said slowly, “that I let Pat do me out of it because I was afraid to go?”

  “What? Why, Tom dear, I never said anything of the sort.”

  “It sounded like it.” Then I knew why it sounded like it. Maybe I was afraid. Maybe I had struggled just hard enough to let Pat win…because I knew what was going to happen to the one who went.

  Maybe I was a coward.

  We made it up and the date seemed about to end satisfactorily. When I took her home I was thinking of trying to kiss her good night—I never had, what with the way Pat and I were always in each other’s hair. I think she expected me to, too…when Pat suddenly whistled at me.

  “Hey! You awake, mate?”

  (“Certainly,”) I answered shortly. (“But I’m busy.”)

  “How busy? Are you out with my girl?”

  (“What makes you think that?”)

  “You are, aren’t you? I figured you were. How are you making out?”

  (“Mind your own business!”)

  “Sure, sure! Just say hello to her for me. Hi, Maudie!”

  Maudie said, “Tom, what are you so preoccupied about?”

  I answered, “Oh, it’s just Pat. He says to say hello to you.”

  “Oh…well, hello to him from me.”

  So I did. Pat chuckled. “Kiss her good night for me.”

  So I didn’t, not for either of us.

  But I called her again the next day and we went out together regularly after that. Things began to be awfully pleasant where Maudie was concerned…so pleasant that I even thought about the fact that college students sometimes got married and now I would be able to afford it, if it happened to work out that way. Oh, I wasn’t dead sure I wanted to tie myself down so young, but it is mighty lonely to be alone when you’ve always had somebody with you.