auto-cannibalism. How long in there, in terms of years? 0.000000000067 seconds for the body to Jaunt, but how long for the unparticulated consciousness? A hundred years? A thousand? A million? A billion? How long alone with your thoughts in an endless field of white? And then, when a billion eternities have passed, the crashing return of light and form and body. Who wouldn't go insane? 'Ricky'he began, but the Jaunt attendants had arrived with their cart. 'Are you ready?' one asked. Mark nodded. 'Daddy, I'm scared,' Patty said in a thin voice. 'Will it hurt?' 'No, honey, of course it won't hurt,' Mark said, and his voice was calm enough, but his heart was beating a little fastit always did, although this would be something like his twenty-fifth Jaunt. 'I'll go first and you'll see how easy it is.'The Jaunt attendant looked at him questioningly. Mark nodded and made a smile. The mask descended. Mark took it in his own hands and breathed deep of the dark.
* * *
The first thing he became aware of was the hard black Martian sky as seen through the top of the dome which surrounded Whitehead City. It was night here, and the stars sprawled with a fiery brilliance undreamed of on earth. The second thing he became aware of was some sort of disturbance in the recovery roommutters, then shouts, then a shrill scream. Oh dear God, that's Marilys! he thought, and struggled up from his Jaunt couch, fighting the waves of dizziness. There was another scream, and he saw Jaunt attendants running toward their couches, their bright red jumpers flying around their knees. Marilys staggered toward him, pointing. She screamed again and then collapsed onthe floor, sending an unoccupied Jaunt couch rolling slowly down the aisle with one weakly clutching hand. But Mark had already followed the direction of her pointing finger. He had seen. It hadn't been fright in Ricky's eyes; it had been excitement. He should have known, because he knew RickyRicky, who had fallen out of the highest crotch of the tree in their backyard in Schenectady when he was only seven, who had broken his arm (and was lucky that had been all he'd broken); Ricky who dared to go faster and further on his Slideboard than any other kid in the neighborhood; Ricky who was first to take any dare. Ricky and fear were not well acquainted. Until now. Beside Ricky, his sister still mercifully slept. The thing that had been his son bounced and writhed on its Jaunt couch, a twelve-yearold boy with a snow-white fall of hair and eyes which were incredibly ancient, the corneas gone a sickly yellow. Here was a creature older than time masquerading as a boy; and yet it bounced and writhed with a kind of horrid, obscene glee, and at its choked, lunatic cackles the Jaunt attendants drew back in terror. Some of them fled, although they had been trained to cope with just such an unthinkable eventuality. The old-young legs twitched and quivered. Claw hands beat and twisted and danced on the air; abruptly they descended and the thing that had been his son began to claw at its face. 'Longer than you think, Dad!' it cackled. 'Longer than you think! Held my breath when they gave me the gas! Wanted to see! I saw! I saw! Longer than you think!' Cackling and screeching, the thing on the Jaunt couch suddenly clawed its own eyes out. Blood gouted. The recovery room was an aviary of screaming voices now. 'Longer than you think, Dad! I saw! I saw! Long Jaunt! Longer than you think'It said other things before the Jaunt attendants were finally able to bear it away, rolling its couch swiftly away as it screamed and clawed at the eyes that had seen the unseeable forever and ever; it said other things, and then it began to scream, but Mark Oates didn't hear it because by then he was screaming himself.
* * *
'The Jaunt' - This was originally for Omni, which quite rightly rejected it because the science is so wonky. It was Ben Bova's idea toe the colonists in the story mining for water, and I have incorporated that in this version.
'The Jaunt' first appeared in Twilight Zone magazine, copyright © 1981 by
Stephen King. This version is taken from Skeleton Crew © 1985 by Stephen King.
