The Unteleported Man

Matson said, "I'll tell you that, dear, when I see the shot." He went to the comboard, sent out the already implemented request for the field rep who was to cross over to Whale's Mouth to be brought to his satellite. These instructs had to be given orally and not over lines; to line it was to howl it broadcast.

In fact perhaps he had already communicated too much to Rachmael. But — in such a business one took risks. And he could assume that Rachmael's callback had emanated from a public booth; the man, although an amateur, was at least cautious. And these days such caution was not paranoid; it was practical.

On the TV screen in 3-D color with olfactory track the round, jovial features of President Omar Jones of Newcolonizedland said, "You folks there on good old overcrowded Terra" — and, behind him, faded in a scene of miles of open veldt-like park — "you amaze us. We hear you're going to send a ship here, by hyper-see, and it'll arrive in... let's see." He pretended to be con­templating.

Before the set (not quite paid for) Jack McElhatten, a hard-working, easy-going, good-natured guy, said to his wife, "Chrissakes, look at that open land." It reminded him of his sweet, fragile childhood, of years ago and now gone, the Oregon Trail part of Wyoming west of Cheye

"Shh," Ruth said.

On the screen President Omar Jones of Newcolon­izedland said, "In just about eighteen years, folks, that ship will arrive this way and park down. So here's what we've done; we've set aside November 24, 2032, as Fly­ing Dutchman Day. The day that ship reaches us." He chuckled. "I'll be, um, ninety-four and, sorry to say, probably not here to participate in Flying Dutchman Day. But maybe posterity, including some of you young folks — "

"You hear that?" McElhatten said to his wife, in­credulous. "Some nut is going to go the old way. Eighteen years in 'tween space! When all you have to do — "

"BE QUIET," Ruth said, furiously, trying to listen.

" — be here to greet this Mr. Applebaum," President Omar Jones intoned in clowning solemnity. "Ba

The frontier, he thought. Their neighbors in the tiny cramped conapt with which they shared a bathroom... or had, up until last month, at which point the Pattersons had emigrated to Whale's Mouth. The vid-sig let­ters from Jerome Patterson; god, they had raved about conditions across on the other side. If anything, the info spots — ads, to be exact — had understated the beauty of the real-sit over there. The beauty — and the opportu­nity.

"We need men," President Omar Jones was declar­ing. "Good strong men who can do any kind of work. Are you that man? Able, willing, with get-up-and-go, over eighteen years of age? Willing to start a new life, using your mind and your hands, the skills God gave you? Think about it. What are you doing with those hands, those skills, right now?"

Doing quality-control on an autofac line, McElhatten thought to himself bitterly; a job which a pigeon could do better; fact was, a pigeon did do so, to check his work.

"Can you imagine," he said to his wife, "holding down a job where a pigeon has a better eye than you for mis-tolerances?" And that was exactly his situation; he ejected parts which were not properly aligned, and, when he missed, the pigeon noted the miss, the defective part allowed to pass: it picked out the misaligned part, pecked a reject-button which kicked the part from the moving belt. And, as they quit and emigrated, the quality control men at Krino Associates were, one by one, replaced by pigeons.

He stayed on now, really, only because the union to which he belonged was strong enough to insist that his seniority made it mandatory for Krino to keep him on. But once he quit, once he left —

"Then," he said to Ruth, "the pigeon moves in. Okay, let it; we're going across to Whale's Mouth, and from then on I won't be competing with birds." Com­peting, he thought, and losing. Offering my employers the poorer showing. "And Krino will be glad," he said, with misery.

"I just wish," Ruth said, "that you had a particular job lined up over there at Newcolonizedland. I mean, they talk about 'all the jobs,' but you can't take 'all the jobs.' What one job are you — " She hesitated. "Skilled for?" After all, he had worked for Krino Associates for ten years.

"I'm going to farm."

She stared at him.

"They'll give us twenty acres. We'll buy sheep here, those black-faced ones. Suffolk. Take six across, five ewes and a ram, put up fences, build ourselves a house out of prefab sections — " He knew he could do it. Others had, as they had described — not in impersonal ads — but in letters vid-signaled back and then tran­scribed by the Vidphone Corporation and posted on the bulletin board of the conapt building.

"But if we don't like it," Ruth murmured apprehen­sively, "we won't be able to come back; I mean, that seems so strange. Those teleportation machines... working one way only."

"The extra-galactic nebulae," he said patiently. "The recession of matter outward; the universe is exploding, growing; the Telpor relates your molecules as energy configurations in this outflow — "

"I don't understand," Ruth said. "But I do know this," she said, and, from her purse, brought a leaflet.

Studying the leaflet, McElhatten scowled. "Cranks. This is hate literature, Ruth. Don't accept it." He began to crumple it up.

"They don't call themselves by a hating name. 'Friends of a United People.' They're a small group of worried, dedicated people, opposed to — "

"I know what they're opposed to," McElhatten said. Several of them worked at Krino Associates. "They say we Terrans should stay within the Sol system. Stick together. Listen." He crumpled up the leaflet. "The history of man has been one vast migration. This to Whale's Mouth; it's the greatest yet — twenty-four light-years! We ought to be proud." But naturally there'd be a few idiots and cranks opposing history.

Yes, it was history and he wanted to be part of it. First it had been New England, then Australia, Alaska, and then the try — and failure — on Luna, then on Mars and Venus, and now — success. At last. And if he waited too long he would be too old and there would be too many expatriates so free land would no longer be avail­able; the government at Newcolonizedland might with­draw its land offer any time, because after all, every day people streamed over. The Telpor offices were swamped.

"You want me to go?" he asked Ruth. "Go first — and send a message back, once I have the land and am ready to begin building? And then you and the kids can come?"

Nervously, she said, "I hate to be parted from you."

"Make up your mind."

"I guess," she said, "we should go together. If we go at all. But these — letters. They're just impulses onto energy lines."

"Like telephone or vidphone or telegraph or TV mes­sages. Has been for one hundred years."

"If only real letters came back."

"You have," he said, derisively, "a superstitious fear."

"Maybe so," Ruth admitted. But it was a real fear nonetheless. A deep and abiding fear of a one-way trip from which they could never return, except, she thought, eighteen years from now, when that ship reaches the Fomalhaut system.