Rocket to Limbo

The last barrier was behind them. They were in the place of the Masters.

At first Lars thought they were standing in the corridor outside their quarters in the city. He was inside, in semi-darkness, and his eyes picked up only the vague form of viewscreens for a moment. Then he accommodated, and saw other details.

The feeling of alienness remained. The chamber was hemispherical and almost bare, except for two viewscreens and two stools. By each viewscreen was a spindle filled with the flat, disc-like tape spools.

There was nothing else in the chamber. Lars glanced at Peter. Then there are no Masters here, he thought.

Peter nodded toward the screens. No, but these tapes were left for us. Together they took places in front of the screens, and fed the tapes onto the reels.

The first ones were ordinary 3-V tapes. They were poor films, ancient and scratchy, very much like the home 3-V films Lars had often made years before. The images were poor, but they could make them out clearly.

They saw a Star Ship in its berth deep in the green mountain slopes. They saw cranes carrying up cargo, passengers. There was no question which ship it was. The ancient Argonaut, preparing for the Long Passage to Alpha Centauri.

The tape clicked, and they were looking through the after-ports, watching the billowing gust of blast-off, watching Earth dwindle and grow small behind. And through the forward ports, only the blackness of space. The crew of the Argonaut knew that they would never reach their destination; they would not live that long. But their children . . . .

There were many scenes and fragments on the viewscreen then, films collected and stored by the crew of the Earth ship, an attempt to keep a history of the passage. Slowly the picture developed for Lars and Peter, a picture of bravery and frustation and failure.

The discovery that the course was wrong, that even the finest instruments in the finest laboratories on Earth had not been able to calculate and chart a course accurate enough for such a journey. Alpha Centauri approached, and passed, and dwindled in the distance as men died and babies were born. Not enough fuel to make the correction and hope for a safe landing. Nothing to do but plunge on toward something beyond, a faint star listed on the charts as Wolf.

Decades later the star-shapes had changed, and the destination star Wolf was near.

Finally, the approach to the star. A different crew, poorly trained, without adequate fuel, attempting to land the great ship on an alien planet—

Abruptly the tape flickered off.

Lars and Peter rested before the next tape. “They couldn’t have landed it safely,” Peter said slowly. “They must have known that, long before they tried it.”

“Maybe,” said Lars. “But their babies, I remember reading about the cradles that were installed on the Argonaut. To protect the new babies from, almost any disaster.” He filed the new tape on the spindle. “Perhaps there is more here.”

The tapes were different now. Before, they had been records made by humans, seen through human eyes. Now it was different. There were no clear images on the viewscreen, yet Lars could see the images projected in his mind with perfect clarity. He realized, suddenly, that he was seeing through an alien mind, with alien thoughts, as the images flickered and changed.

An image of the Star Ship approaching, too fast, too hard, out of control. It came in shallow to the surface of Wolf IV, striking the high mountain ridge, driving down among the rocky crags, turning over in horrible slow motion as flame spurted up.

But not everyone aboard was dead. The crewmen, yes. But deep in the heart of the ship, the cradles nestled the children of the crewmen in strong steel arms, safe.

Alien creatures on the surface of Wolf IV saw the crash, searched the wreckage, hoping to learn something of the creatures who had come from so far. They found the records —tapes, films, voices, the library of the ship, the records of the crew and its history. Alien minds pored over them, learning, studying, seeking to see Earth men as Earthmen had been on Earth.

But most of all they sought for signs that Earthmen had what they knew as the Strength, the universal power of mind that bound intelligent creatures throughout the universe into a union of peace and strength, and raised them above the beasts.

The alien creatures found only disappointment.

No trace of the Strength?

No trace. They were a barren race, to judge from their records. Vocal communication. Physical science and mechanical civilization. No evidence of the Strength anywhere. No sign that they could even recognize it.