The Unteleported Man

She picked up the evening 'pape, examined the article, jeering in tone, about this ship, the Omphalos. Capable of transporting five hundred, but this time carrying one sole man: the ship's owner. And, the article said, he was fleeing to escape his creditors; that was his motive.

But, she thought, he can come back from Whale's Mouth.

She envied — without understanding why — that man. Rachmael ben Applebaum, the 'pape said. If we could cross over now with you, she thought, if we asked —

Her husband said quietly, "If you won't go, Ruth, I'm going alone. I'm not going to sit there day after day at that quality-control station, feeling that pigeon breathing down the back of my neck."

She sighed. And wandered into the common kitchen which they shared with their righthand neighbors, the Shorts, to see if there was anything left of their monthly ration of what the bill of lading called cof-bz. Synthetic coffee beans.

There was not. So, instead, she morosely fixed herself a cup of synthetic tea. Meanwhile, the Shorts — who were noisy — came and went, in and out of the kitchen. And, in her living room, her husband sat before the TV set, an enraptured child, listening to, following with devout and absorbed full attention the nightly report from Whale's Mouth. Watching the new, the next, world.

I guess, she thought, he's right.

But something deep and instinctive within her still objected. And she wondered queerly why. And she thought, then, once more of Rachmael ben Applebaum, who, the 'pape said, was attempting the eighteen-year trip without deep-sleep equipment; he had tried and failed to obtain it, the 'pape said gleefully; the guy was so marginal an operator, such a fly-by-nighter, that he had no credit, pos or otherwise. The poor man, she thought. Conscious and alone for eighteen whole years; couldn't the company that makes those deep-sleep units donate the equipment he needs?

The TV set in the living room declared, "Remember, folks, it's Old Mother Hubbard there on Terra, and the Old Woman who lived in a shoe; you've got so many children, folks, and just what do you plan to do?"

Emigrate, Ruth decided, without enthusiasm. Appar­ently.

And — soon.

5

Against Rachmael ben Applebaum's tiny flapple the great hull of his one asset of economic value — and that attached through the courts — bumped in the darkness, and at once automatic mechanisms came into operation. A hatch whined open; i

He could safely pass from his meager rented flapple into the Omphalos, as it hung in powerless orbit around Mars at .003 astronomical units.

Directly he had crossed through the lock-series — without use of a pressure suit or oxygen gear — Al Dosker said to him, eying him and with laser pistol in hand, "I thought it might be a simulacrum, supplied by THL. But the EEG and EKG machines say you're not." He held out his hand; and Rachmael shook. "So you're making the trip anyhow, without the deep-sleep components. And you think, after eighteen years, you'll be sane? I wouldn't be." His dark, sharp-cut face was filled with compassion. "Can't you induce some fray to come along? One other person, and what a difference, especially if she's — "

"And quarrel," Rachmael said, "and wind up with one corpse. I'm taking an enormous edu-tape library; by the time I reach Fomalhaut I'll be speaking Attic Greek, Latin, Russian, Italian — I'll be reading alchem­ical texts from the Middle Ages and Chinese classics in the original from the sixth century." He smiled, but it was an empty, frozen smile; he was not fooling Dosker, who knew what it was like to try an inter-system run without deep-sleep. Because Dosker had made the three-year-trip to Proxima. And, on the journey back, had insisted, from his experience, on deep-sleep.

"What gets me," Rachmael said, "is that THL has gotten to the blackmarket. That they're even able to dry up illegal supplies of mi

"You know," Dosker said slowly, "that one of Lies Incorporated's experienced field reps is crossing, using a regular Telpor terminal, like the average fella. So we may be contacting the Omphalos within the next week; you may be able to turn back; we may save you the eighteen years going, and, or have you forgotten, the eighteen years returning?"

"I'm not sure," Rachmael said, "if I make it I'll come back." He was not fooling himself; after the trip to Fomalhaut he might be physically unable to start back — whatever conditions obtained at Whale's Mouth he might stay there because he had to. The body had its limits. So did the mind.

Anyhow they now had more to go on. Not only the failure of the old time capsule ever to reach the Sol system — and conveniently forgotten by the media — but the Vidphone Corporation of Wes-Dem's absolute refusal, under direct, legal request by Matson Glazer-Holliday, to reactivate its Prince Albert B-y satellite orbiting Fomalhaut. This one fact alone, Rachmael re­flected, should have frightened the rational citizen. But —

The people did not know. The media had not re­ported it.

Matson, however, had leaked the info to the small, militant, anti-emigration org, the Friends of a United People. Mostly they were old-fashioned, elderly and fearful, whose distrust of emigration by means of Telpor was based on neurotic reasons. But — they did print pamphlets. And Vidphone Corp's refusal had duly been noted immediately in one of their Terra-wide broad-sheets.

But how many persons had seen it — that Rachmael did not know. He had the intuition, however, that very few people had. And — emigration continued.

As Matson said, the footprints leading into the predator's lair continued to increase in number. And still none led out.

Dosker said, "All right, I am now officially, formally surrendering the Omphalos back to you. She appears to check out through every system, so you should have nothing to fear." His dark eyes glinted. "I tell you what, ben Applebaum. During your eighteen years of null-deep-sleep you can amuse yourself as I've been, during the last week." He reached to a table, picked up a leather-backed book. "You can," he said quietly, "keep a diary."

"Of what?"

"Of a mind," Dosker said, "deteriorating. It'll be of psychiatric interest." Now he did not seem to be joking.

"So even you," Rachmael said, "consider me — "

"Without deep-sleep equipment to drop your metab­olism you're making a terrible mistake to go. So maybe the diary won't be a transcript of human deterioration; maybe that's already taken place."

Wordlessly, Rachmael watched the dark, lithe man step through the lock, disappear, out of the Omphalos and into the tiny rented flapple.

The lock clanged shut. A red light flicked on above it and he was alone, here in this, his giant passenger liner, as he would be for eighteen years and maybe, he thought, maybe Dosker is right.

But still he intended to make the trip.

At three o'clock a.m. Matson Glazer-Holliday was awakened by one of his staff of automatic villa servants. "Your lord, a message from a Mr. Bergen Phillips. From Newcolonizedland. Just received. And you asked — "

"Yes." Matson sat up, spilling the covers from Freya, who slept on; he grabbed his robe, slippers. "Let's have it."

The message, typed out by routine printers of the Vid­phone Corp, read:

BOUGHT MY FIRST ORANGE TREE. LOOKS LIKE A BIG CROP.

COME ON JOIN MOLLY AND ME.