Rocket to Limbo

“This is where the Masters are,” Lars said. “This is where we’ll find our answers.”

“I hope so,” said Peter, but his voice sounded as uncertain as Lars felt.

The woman had not led them here at once. First they had been taken back to their quarters, where a meal was waiting if they had been able to eat it. Fresh clothing was laid out, a hot running shower.

“Why, this is like a hanging in the old days back home!” Peter had cried out in dismay. “The last meal, the fancy preparations. You don’t know what you’ve gotten us into!”

“But this is the answer we’ve been looking for, cant you see that?” Lars said. “I told you there would be a place where these Masters would be found, and there is!”

“What do you know about the Masters?” Peter’s voice was bitter.

“No more than you do, but didn’t you see how the people acted? Didn’t you feel the—the expectancy? Peter, this is something we’ve been expected to do ever since we were brought into the city. This is what was supposed to happen—sometime.”

“I think you’re crazy,” snapped Peter. “We haven’t learned a thing that makes sense since we got here.”

“But we can make some pretty good guesses,” Lars said. “The ship on the ridge, for instance. It came here, some time a long time ago, and crashed. Now we know that it was a ship from Earth, the old Argonaut, carrying Earthmen. Not the ones that were aboard when it left Earth, of course, but those that were born en route. Right?”

“All right. So what?”

“The ship came, and crashed, and now, centuries later, another ship comes from Earth and finds a city on this planet with people living here. Very peculiar people, a very strange city, but people. It isn’t coincidence, Peter. It can’t be. These City-people are Earthmen. Their ancestors were born on Earth, just as certainly as yours were. Their fathers and grandfathers came here on the Argonaut and somehow came through the crash alive, and survived.”

“But do you think they act like Earthmen?” Peter protested. “Building a city like this, using the powers they have—”

“Why not?” said Lars. “We know of these powers on Earth. They’re pretty crude, but even the most stick-in-the-mud scientists recognize that they exist now: telepathy, telekinesis, teleportation. We knew about those things back in the twentieth century! Some workers in the field even claim that all Earthmen have those powers, to some very slight extent.”

Lars changed into fresh clothing as Peter stared at him glumly. “But here we see people with extra-sensory powers magnified a thousand times, so strong their whole civilization is based on ESP. No wonder they don’t know about science or mechanics. They don’t need to. These people not only have ESP, they know how to use it.”

Peter chewed his lip. “And you think that the Masters, whatever they are, were the ones that trained them to use these powers?”

“Exactly. Just the way the City-people have been training us!”

“Then why just us? Why not the rest of the crewmen?”

“I don’t know,” said Lars, “but I think we’re going to find out in this place they’re taking us to.”

It had seemed logical enough then, in the familiar surroundings of their room in the city, but now, facing the black oval door Lars was no longer so certain. The City-people hung back at the edge of the platform, watching them expectantly as they approached the great hemisphere. At a distance the black oval looked like a yawning hole in the side of the thing, waiting to receive them. Only now they saw that it was a solid door, closed and fit so tightly that only a hairline crack showed around it. There was no knob, no handle. Nothing but polished black.

Lars and Peter stopped, and looked at each other. They felt the tension rising among the City-people behind them. “What do we do now?” Peter hissed. “This thing looks solid.”

Lars reached out, pushed at the edge of the door. It didn’t budge. “It is solid,” he muttered.

“But we can’t stop now. We’ve got to get in there.”

“I think maybe we can,” said Lars. “The lessons. The thing the City-people have been trying to train us to do.

Maybe that’s the key we need. Maybe we aren’t supposed to get through this door until that training is completed.”

“You mean teleportation,” Peter said.

“They can do it,” said Lars. He stared steadily at the heavy black slab, and suddenly imagined that once again he was staring at the viewscreen outside their quarters. He imagined that the woman from the city was there at his side, urging him on, guiding his mind. He tried to blot out all other thoughts, to concentrate every ounce of his strength on one single purpose:

To reach the other side of that door.

He felt the sickening feeling grow in the pit of his stomach; then he felt himself jerk. Then, as though a light had been snapped off, he was through the door. He had not moved a muscle, but he was through it. An instant later Peter appeared by his side—out of nowhere.