TO SAVE EARTH
BY EDWARD W. LUDWIG
ILLUSTRATED BY VAN DOGEN
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Worlds of Tomorrow October 1963
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The life of everyone on Earth depended on
their sanity ... which they had long ago lost!
For more than six years the silver rocket was like a tomb buried atthe Earth's center. It wore the blackness of interstellar space for ashroud, and ten thousand gleaming stars were as the eyes of hungry,waiting worms.
Five of the inhabitants of the rocket moved like zombies, stone-facedand dull-eyed, numb even to their loneliness.
The sixth inhabitant did not move at all. He sat silent and unseeing.The sixth inhabitant was mad.
There had been times when all of them—mad and near-mad—had forgottenthat they hurtled through space, that they were men and that they weregrowing old. Occasionally they had even forgotten that the destiny ofmankind might lie in their hands like a fragile flower to be preservedor crushed.
But now came a moment six years one month and five days after theirdeparture from Earth. The sole planet of Sirius loomed green and bluein the ship's magni-screen. The sight of the shining planet was like aheavenly trumpet call, a signal for resurrection.
The inhabitants stirred, rubbed their eyes, and tried to exhumeforgotten hopes and memories from the lethargy of their minds....
"What do you think?" asked Lieutenant Washington.
Captain Jeffrey Torkel, gaunt-faced and gray, stiffened his lean body.At this moment all memory had left him, like a wind-tossed balloonleaping out of his skull.
It's happened again, he thought. I've forgotten. Oh God, why must Ikeep forgetting?
"Tell me what you think, Captain," said a balding, dark-skinned manclad in khakis.
Captain Torkel stared at the blue-green, cloud-mottled image in thescreen. Where was he? Certainly not in South Dakota. Certainly not on afield of golden, bristling wheat. No, he had the feeling that much timehad passed since those boyhood days on the Dakota farm.
He glanced at the strange man who had spoken to him. The balloonsnapped back into his skull. Memory returned.
At least it wasn't gone for a week this time, he thought. Thank you,God.
"You must be thinking something," persisted the man who had becomeLieutenant Washington.
The captain rubbed his gray stubble of beard. "I guess I'm thinkingthat we're afraid and bewildered. We're not as full of strength andhope as saviors of the race should be. Sure, what we find here todaywill mean either life or death for the race. But the concept has beenwith us for too long. It's already made us half-mad. And the same partof our minds is afraid to hope lest it be disappointed. After all, theplanet might be radioactive or uninhabitable, or—"
"But, Lord, Captain! Even with the sub-spatial drive it's taken us sixyears to get here. If there's a God who answers prayers, it's got tobe a good planet. Sirius has only one planet. This is the last chanceleft for the race. And look at it, Captain! The blue places must bewater and the green must be land. It's bigger than Earth, but it looksalmost like it!"
Captain Torkel nodded. "Whether it's good or bad, we still can't win,really. If it's bad, humanity dies and we stay on the ship for therest of our lives. If it's good, we'll still be on it for tw