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The Impossible Voyage Home
By F. L. WALLACE
Illustrated by DICK FRANCIS
[Transcriber Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science FictionAugust 1954. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that theU.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
[Sidenote: _The right question kept getting the wrong answer--but oldEthan and Amantha got the right answer by asking the wrong question!_]
"Space life expectancy has been increased to twenty-five months and sixdays," said Marlowe, the training director. "That's a gain of a fullmonth."
_Millions of miles from Earth, Ethan also looked discontentedly proud."A mighty healthy-looking boy," he declared._
Demarest bent a paperweight ship until it snapped. "It's something.You're gaining on the heredity block. What's the chief factor?"
"Anti-radiation clothing. We just can't make them effective enough."
_Across space, on distant Mars, Amantha reached for the picture. "Howcan you tell he ain't sickly? You can't see without glasses."_
_Ethan reared up. "Jimmy's boy, ain't he? Our kids were always healthy,'specially the youngest. Stands to reason their kids will be better."_
_"Now you're thinking with your forgettery. They were all sick, one timeor another. It was me who took care of them, though. You always couldfind ways of getting out of it." Amantha touched the chair switch._
The planets whirled around the Sun. Earth crept ahead of Mars, Venusgained on Earth. The flow of ships slackened or spurted forth anew,according to what destination could be reached at the moment:
"A month helps," said Demarest. "But where does it end? You can'tenclose a man completely, and even if you do, there still is the air hebreathes and food he eats. Radiation in space contaminates everythingthe body needs. And part of the radioactivity finds its way to thereproductive system."
* * * * *
Marlowe didn't need to glance at the charts; the curve _was_ beginningto flatten. Mathematically, it was determinable when it wouldn't rise atall. According to analysis, Man someday might be able to endure theradiation encountered in space as long as three years, if exposure timeswere spaced at intervals.
But that was in the future.
"There's a lot you could do," he told Demarest. "Shield the atomics."
"Working on it," commented Demarest. "But every ounce we add cuts downon the payload. The best way is to get the ship from one place toanother faster. It's time in space that hurts. Less exposure time, moretrips before the crew has to retire. It adds up to the same thing."
_On Mars, Amantha fondled the picture. "Pretty. But it ain't real." Shelaid it aside._
_Ethan squinted at it. "I could make you think it was. Get it enlarged,solidified. Have them make it soft, big as a baby. You could hold it inyour lap."_
_"Outgrew playthings years ago." Amantha adjusted the chair switch, butthe rocking motion was no comfort._
_Ethan turned the picture over, face down. "Nope. Hate to back you up,'Mantha, but it ain't the same. There's nothing like a baby, wettin' andsquallin' and smilin', stubborn when it oughtn't to be and sweet andgentle when you don't expect it. Robo-dolls don't fool anybody who'sever held the real thing."_
In the interval, Earth had drawn ahead. The gap between the two planetswas widening.
"That's another fallacy," objected the training director. "The body canstand just so much acceleration. We're near the limit. What good arefaster ships?"
"That's your problem," said Demarest. "Get me tougher crewmen. Young,afraid of nothing, able to take it."
It always ended here--younger, tougher, the finest the raceproduced--and still not good enough. And after years of training, theyhad twenty-five months to function as spacemen. It was a precious thing,flight time, and each trip was as short as science could make it.Conjunction was the magic moment for those who went between the planets.
It was the heredity block that kept Man squeezed, confined to Earth,Mars and Venus, preventing him from ranging farther. The heredity blockwas a racial quantity, the germ plasm, but not just that. Crew andpassengers were protected as much as possible from radiation encounteredin space and that which originated in the ship's drive. The protectionwasn't good enough. Prolonged exposure had the usual effects,sterilization or the production of deformed mutations.
Man was the product of evolution on a planet. He didn't step out intospace without payment.
* * * * *
The radiation that damaged genes and chromosomes and tinier divisionsalso struck nerve cells. Any atom might be hit, blazing, into fissionand decaying into other elements. The process was complicated. Theresults were not: the nerve was directly stimulated, producing aural andvisual hallucinations.
Normally, the hallucination was blanked out. But as the level of bodyradioactivity increased, so did the strength of the vision. It dominatedconsciousness. The outside world ceased to have meaning.
The hallucination took only one form, a beautiful woman outside theship, unclad and beckoning.
It was the image of vanished fertility that appeared once the person wasincapable of reproducing _as a human_.
Why this was so hadn't been determined. Psychologists had investigatedand learned only that it invariably occurred after too great exposure.There was another thing they learned. No, that had come first. This wasthe reason they had investigated.
In the Solar System, the greatest single source of radiation, includingthe hard rays, was the Sun. It was natural that the siren image shouldseem stronger in that direction, that it should fade or retreat towardits origin. No one had ever returned from compulsive pursuit of theillusionary woman, though in early days radio contact had been made withships racing toward the Sun.
The heredity block was self-enforcing.
Deviously, the race protected itself, or something higher watched overit to assure _human_ continuity. Marlowe wasn't sure which, but it wasthere.
"I think you're on the wrong track," he said. "Shield the shipcompletely and it won't matter how long the trip takes. The crew canwork in safety."
Demarest grunted. "Some day we'll have an inertia-free drive and itwon't matter how much mass we use. It does now. Our designs are acompromise. Both of us have to work with what's possible, not what wedream of. I'll build my ship; you find the right crew to man it."
Marlowe went back to his graphs. Machines could be changed, but thehuman body clung stubbornly to the old patterns. He couldn't select hiscrews any younger--but was there perhaps a racial type more resistant toradiation? Where? No place that he knew of. Maybe the biologists couldproduce one, he thought hopefully, and knew he was fooling himself.Human beings weren't fruit flies; by the time enough generations rolledaround for the resistant strain to breed true--and leave a surplus toman the ships--he would be long dead and the problem solved.
The best of humanity would be dead, too, wiped out by sterilization.
Or the Solar System would be peopled by mutant monstrosities.
* * * * *
Far away, and not concerned with the problem, Ethan shrugged resignedly."Guess we'll have to get used to the idea--we just won't see him till hegrows up--if we'll still be around."
"You've got years and years ahead of you, and not worth a thing thewhole time!" Amantha snapped.
"Damnation," said Ethan wistfully, "I'd like to dandle him."
"Won't be the same when he grows up and comes here," Amantha conceded."There I go agreein' with you! What'
s got into me?"
"Maybe we can get on the next slow ship. They run them once in a whilefor people with weak hearts." He considered. "Don't know whether RetiredCitizens' Home will let us go, though."
"Retired Citizens!" She blew her nose scornfully. "They think we don'tknow it's just a home for the aged!" She threw away the tissue. "Thinkthey'll let us?"
"It won't be them so much that'll stop us. Our hearts ain't too good andwe haven't got much space time to use. We shouldn't have gone to Venus."
"We had to see Edith and Ed and their kids and we had to