obviously disappointed but he said, “Well, yes, of course.”
Tracy said, “I’ll be gone for the full eight hours.” Jo Edmonds said, “It’s your affair. When I took you to the Dream Palace in Torremolinos and you asked me if I had ever tried it and asked me what, I told you that it wasn’t any of your business. And you went into the gardens of Hasan something or other.”
“Yes.”
“Well, have you ever read the poem of Samuel Coleridge,
“Yes,” Tracy said. “I had a lot of time to read, in hospitals, concentration camps… prisons. Yes, I’ve read it. I understand that he wrote it under the influence of laudanum, didn’t recognize it when he came out of the influence of the drug, and never finished it.”
“So I’ve read too,” Jo said. “However, I can recommend Xanadu. I suspect, even more worthwhile than your Hasan whatever-his-name gardens.”
“No thanks,” Tracy told him. “I have another thing in mind.” He allowed himself a grin at the other. “Something more exciting.”
“I doubt it,” Jo said, in resignation. He hadn’t expected Tracy Cogswell to get hooked on the programmed dream bit.
But Tracy Cogswell not only spent eight hours at the Dream Palace that day but every day for the next two weeks or more. His way of life became somewhat frenetic. He allowed himself six hours of sleep, exercised hard, usually jogging and shadow punching, for two hours, and spent the balance of his time at hurried meals and before his autoteacher. The other three saw precious little of him; even Betty, who still occupied his bed.
Needless to say, they were distressed at his actions. Finally, at dinner one night, Walter Stein confronted him on the matter.
“Tracy,” he said, his voice conciliatory, “I believe that Jo has already told you that it is quite possible to become so addicted to the programmed dreams that there is no return. Your real life goes down the drain.”
“It won’t happen to me,” Tracy told him.
Jo said, “That’s what they all say, some of them even after they’ve been hooked. Some get hooked on women and other sensuous pleasures, some on the thrills of war, various things. What have you been specializing in, Tracy?”
Tracy smiled at him. He said, “I’ve been piloting that spaceship the Russians flew to Mars. I started with blast-off, and now, each day, I’ve been taking up where I left off at the previous eight-hour period. I’ve finally made the whole round trip, including the stay on Mars.”
“Good heavens,” Betty blurted. “Why?”
Tracy didn’t answer her. Instead, he looked at Stein and said, “Would it be possible to take that Jupiter probe out of mothballs?”
The academician was flustered. “Why… why I suppose so. All the pertinent information would be in the computer data banks. And there are still some technicians, those in charge of the automated communications satellites and the moon observatories. From time to time it is necessary to launch a new satellite, or send equipment to Luna. If there were any repairs, or whatever, undoubtedly they could be made.”
Tracy took a sip of his wine before saying, “If I volunteered to pilot that Jupiter probe, would it attract much attention?”
Walter Stein frowned. “Probably,” he said. “People are jaded now. Any new fad, any new excitement, will bring their attention. There’s precious little in the news, year in and year out, to cause excitement. A while ago someone invented a new game, Battle Chess. Within six months, half the population of Earth was playing it, with world champions and everything else. A year later, it was forgotten. Yes, you’d attract a great deal of attention. On your way out, they’d be on the edge of their chairs, waiting for you to have a failure of your spacecraft. When and if you returned, they’d probably forget your name within months.”
Jo said mildly, “You don’t impress me as being the glory-grabber type, old chap.”
Tracy looked at him. He said, “While going to the Dream Palace eight hours of each day, I was also studying on the autoteacher everything I could about space and the training of an astronaut, or cosmonaut. I’m a man of action. This life I’ve been leading with you three isn’t for me. I want to be up and doing something.”
They were aghast. Stein blurted, “But the program, the new goal, the new society to plan?”
Tracy shook his head at them wearily. He said, “I worked it over and over. There is no program of change. The fact is, there’s nothing particularly wrong with this socioeconomic system. It works as well, or better, than any in history.” He took a deep breath before going on. “The shortcoming is in the people who live in it.”
Betty said indignantly, “But, Tracy, they’re destroying themselves, and, as a result, eventually the race!”
“It’s not the fault of the system,” he insisted. “It’s the fault of the individuals. Everybody doesn’t destroy themselves under it. You three for instance. And that small percentage you say are still needed by the International Congress of Guilds to keep things going.”
Walter Stein sighed. “I suspect that you’re right,” he said. “Frankly, I never have been able to vizualize a social system to replace this one, even if the people would stand for it and they probably wouldn’t.”
Tracy said, “Where is the Jupiter probe located?”
“In North America, at the spaceport near what used to be the city of Greater Washington.”
“Will you help me make arrangements to volunteer to pilot it to Jupiter?”
Walter Stein said lowly, and in resignation, “Yes, certainly. I brought you here, against your will. You have always been free to go. My big dream has turned out to be a mistake, but that is not your fault. You tried. You did your best.”
The takeoff was less than two months later.
Tracy Cogswell had made his goodbyes to Betty and Academician Walter Stein, and to Jo Edmonds, whom he had grown to like increasingly over the months. The three of them had accompanied him to the Greater Washington area and were present at the blast-off.
Three persons out of four in the world were glued to their tri-di sets. It went like clockwork. The spacecraft was in perfect condition.
Even with the new nuclear engines, the trip was a long one. Each day Tracy made a laser-beam report back to Earth.
Each day, at that time, the Steins and Jo Edmonds sat before their screens, waiting for him. Sometimes he would send them a personal message, usually a humorous quip… which was understandable. Precious little was happening that was new, nor would it, until he reached the vicinity of the giant planet.
And as he did, at long last, Earth’s interest in him grew to new heights. Would he make it? Would Jupiter grab him in her powerful gravity and suck him down into the swirling gases that seemed to cover her surface?
He was within a couple of thousand kilometers of Ganymede when the tragedy struck.
He had been making more reports than usual as Jupiter grew larger before him. So he was on the laser beam when it happened.
Suddenly, in the midst of a description of the satellite Ganymede, he blurted, “Something has just materialized only a few kilometers from me. It’s a giant… a giant spaceship… It must be as big as an aircraft carrier, like the
His voice was high, almost shrill. “There’s something strange about it. I can feel thought waves or something coming from it… they’re malevolent. It’s like a wave of hate… I… I can feel it! It’s monstrous! They hate us! They
