A World Out of Time
(fragment)
He failed to see Pierce at the next exercise period. It was just as well. He was somewhat groggy. As usual he ate dinner like a starving man. He returned to the dorm, rolled into his bunk and was instantly asleep.
He looked up during study period the next day and found Pierce watching him. He blinked, fighting free of a mass of data on the attitude jet system that bled plasma from the inboard fusion plant that was also the emergency electrical power source, and asked, "Pierce, what's a biological package probe?"
"I would have thought they would teach you that. You know what to do with the probes, don't you?"
"The teaching widget gave me the procedures two days ago. Slow up for certain systems, kill the fields, turn a probe loose and speed up again."
"You don't have to aim them?"
"No. I gather they aim themselves. But I have to get them down below a certain velocity or they'll fall right through the system."
"Amazing. They must do all the rest of it themselves." Pierce shook his head. "I wouldn't have believed it. Well, Corbell, the probes steer for an otherwise terrestrial world with a reducing atmosphere. They outnumber oxygen-nitrogen worlds about three to one in this region of the galaxy and probably everywhere else too-as you may know, if your age got that far."
"But what do the probes do?"
"They're biological packages. A dozen different strains of algae. The idea is to turn a reducing atmosphere into an oxygen atmosphere, just the way photosynthetic life forms did for Earth, something like fifteen-limes-ten-to-the-eighth years ago." The checker smiled, barely. His small narrow mouth wasn't built to express any great emotion. "You're part of a big project."
"Good Lord. How long does it take?"
"We think about fifty thousand years. Obviously we've never had the chance to measure it."
"But, good Lord! Do you really think the State will last that long? Does even the State think it'll last that long?"
"That's not your affair, Corbell. Still-" Pierce considered. "I don't suppose I do. Or the State does. But humanity will last. One day there will be men on those worlds. It's a Cause, Corbell. The immortality of the species. A thing bigger than one man's life. And you're part of it."
He looked at Corbell expectantly.
Corbell was deep in thought. He was running a fingertip back and forth along the straight line of his nose.
Presently he asked, "What's it like out there?"
"The stars? You're-"
"No, no, no. The city. I catch just a glimpse of it twice a day. Cubistic buildings with elaborate carvings at the street level-"
"What the bleep is this, Corbell? You don't need to know anything about Selerdor. By the time you come home the whole city will be changed."
"I know, I know. That's why I hate to leave without seeing something of the world. I could be going out to die. . ." Corbell stopped. He had seen that considering look before, but he had never seen Pierce actually angry.
The checker's voice was flat, his mouth pinched tight. "You think of yourself as a tourist."
"So would you if you found yourself two hundred years in the future. If you didn't have that much curiosity you wouldn't be human."
"Granted that I'd want to look around. I certainly wouldn't demand it as a right. What were you thinking when you foisted yourself off on the future? Did you think the future owed you a debt? It's the other way around, and time you realized it!"
Corbell was silent.
"I'll tell you something. You're a rammer because you're a born tourist. We tested you for that. You like the unfamiliar; it doesn't send you scuttling back to something safe and known. That's rare."
The checker's eyes said: And that's why I've decided not to wipe your personality yet. His mouth said, "Was there anything else?"
Corbell pushed his luck. "I'd like a chance to practice with a computer like the ship's autopilot-computer."
"We don't have one. But you'll get your chance in two days. You're leaving then."
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