All these earths, p.1
All These Earths, page 1
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All These Earth's
By Busby, F.M.
PART ONE:
PEARSALL'S RETURN
The door was locked so Pearsall rang the door chime—who carries a housekey light-years down the Galaxy's arm and back, eight months by Skip Drive? It was long enough, he saw, for the white paint to begin flaking off the door. Pearsall had applied that paint, slowly and lovingly after sanding down the roughness, only a few weeks before Hawk Flight's departure. The industrial fumes were getting worse.
His wife opened the door. "Who—? Woody!" She flung herself to him, arms tight around—but only for a moment. Then she recoiled and staggered back, face contorted.
"No! No!" She backed away toward the living room, hands clenching and unclenching, gray eyes wide and mouth gone slack with shock.
He followed, but didn't try to touch her. "What's the matter, Glenna?" Everything was happening too fast—he couldn't believe her reaction, let alone understand it. "You heard the ship was in, didn't you?" Her face was pale, the fine cheekbones standing out from the faint hollows below. She shook her head; her mouth worked but no words came out.
"You've cut your hair," he said. She had always worn it long and straight; now it was a mass of short curls, tinted a lighter red-brown than he remembered. One curl hung loose over her right eyebrow, near the tiny black mole at the corner of her eye. Almost as tall as he, still slim, she stood rigidly defensive, angles of bone accenting her loose beige robe.
"Who are you? What do you want?"
It didn't make sense. He tried to smile but the smile died—he suppressed an impulse to reach out to her. "Well, who do I look like?" His tone was gentle. "Have I changed so much in only eight months?"
Her hands, fists, stood out a little from her sides, shaking. "Whoever you are, it isn't funny! It's a cruel, cruel joke!" Now he felt the edge of panic—sweat prickled at his armpits.
She turned and ran to the bedroom, paused in the doorway. "Get out! You get out of here! I have a gun. My—my husband's. So you just better get out of here!" She disappeared behind the half-open door—he heard her rummaging through drawers.
To Pearsall, his mind stalled at dead center, the chime of the picturephone came almost as a relief. Automatically he set his bag on the floor and crossed the room to flip the answer switch. The thought came that he'd never heard of anyone being shot while answering the phone, and he almost grinned. But not quite—a bullet wasn't what he feared.
The chubby-faced man on the screen was familiar by sight but not by name—a junior member of the spaceport commander's staff. The picture's bluish tint did not aid recognition.
"Yes," the man said, "we thought you might be there." He waved Pearsall to silence. "We've pinpointed the discrepancy in the records, that was noted when Hawk Flight landed. Admiral Forgues wants to discuss that with you. Meanwhile, a John Laird urgently requests that you call him at his home. One of your navigation personnel, I believe. The young man seemed almost hysterical."
Forgues, the port commander, moved into the picture. "I'll take it—I'll take it." Peripherally, Pearsall saw Glenna in the bedroom doorway. She'd found the old automatic pistol but her arm hung slack; the gun pointing at the floor as she watched Pearsall and the screen.
"All right," said Forgues, "let's get to the bottom of this. Who are you, anyway?"
Exasperation drove out fear. Pearsall exhaled, hard. "Sir, I am Commander Harwood Jay Pearsall, First Officer on Hawk Flight. You've known me for years. Is my identity in doubt?"
"It certainly is. Whoever you are, you're not Woody Pearsal, and what you were doing on Hawk Flight, I don't know. But I intend to find out. So you might as well tell the truth. Now."
"Damn it, sir, I am Woody Pearsall." He shook his head, briskly to clear the cobwebs. "Who the hell else would I be?"
Forgues grinned tightly. "Well, in that case, we do have a problem. Because, you see, you're dead."
The viewscreen, as Pearsall maneuvered Hawk Flight to its final descent, was spattered with random moving dots. He jiggled a tuning knob slightly, but saw no improvement.
The knob was sticky. He made a mental note to tell young Laird that if he absolutely had to eat on watch, for God's sake to wipe his hands before touching the equipment.
The landing area showed clearly enough, but the flashing dots were a distraction. The viewing equipment was due for a full overhaul—but then, so was the entire ship. And so was Pearsall.
The spaceport looked unfamiliar, somehow. To his right toward the nearby city he remembered a soaring tower, topping a white, shining building. Surely it couldn't have been torn down in the eight months he'd been away—the building had been almost new. Perhaps he was confusing one spaceport with another—perhaps an overdose of Skip Drive was fogging his memory. He put full attention to landing the ship. The impact was barely noticeable.
"Nice grounding, Woody." The voice over the intercom was Captain Vaille's. "Give the watch to Laird and report here to my quarters, would you, please?"
Pearsall acknowledged. "All yours," he said to John Laird. "See you next on the ground, probably. The maintenance crew will be here to relieve you as soon as our landing blast cools. When they arrive, call the captain's quarters for clearance and you're home free."
"Yes, sir," said Laird. "Now remember, Commander, I want you and your wife to meet my family, have dinner with us, as soon as you can. You have the address?"
"Right." He tipped Laird a mock salute and left.
The captain's quarters were one deck below. Halfway down the narrow ladder Pearsall's heel caught on a torn edge of plastic; he almost fell, but caught himself. "Damned old crock really needs some work," he grumbled. But he patted the bulkhead beside him, to soften the curse, before proceeding to the captain's cabin.
Vaille was big, taller and heavier than Pearsall. On his desk were a bottle and two small glasses.
"A toast, Woody? It's been a hard trip, but a good one." They raised their glasses, then sipped. The liquor was an off world product, a brandy from Harper's Touchdown. Golden flecks hung in the dark fluid; its aftertaste was tart fruit.
"You're right, skipper—a good, hard trip." Eight months on high Skip Factor, never landing, only slowing a few times for fly-by reconnaissance of new planetary systems, took a lot out of men and ship alike. But the odds had been good to them—Hawk Flight's unmanned one-way probes had discovered two new habitable planets, potential colony sites.
"We should be able to disembark in an hour or two," said Vaille. "All the tapes and solar wind samples are boxed to go, and I imagine everyone has his own stuff packed, or nearly. I can throw my gear together in five minutes."
Pearsall grinned. "Me, too. Or leave it—and good riddance." Vaille laughed with him. It was good to be home; even the normally reticent captain was affected.
In due time the maintenance-and-repair crew boarded. Its chief brought clearance papers, thus accepting responsibility for the ship—red tape was minimal. Spaceport personnel began the unloading of cargo. And finally Hawk Flight's crew, fifteen men and nine women, trod the catwalk to the outside gantry, rode the elevator down and touched shoe soles to Earth's concrete rind. As always, that moment gripped Pearsall's throat.
Port Commander Forgues no longer greeted returning crews personally. Many ships came and went now, and Forgues had other duties; procedures had been streamlined. Even the newspersons stayed away, making do with official handouts unless a real news item were involved. Announcement of the two new colony planets, Pearsall guessed, would soon bring them running.
He didn't recognize the subordinate who was preparing to do the honors. The man struck him as a bit of a fussbudget, with his clipboard in one hand and pencil shifted awkwardly back and forth between handshakes.
"Captain Vaille? Yes." Checkmark, shift pencil, handshake. "Welcome. Honored, sir." End of handshake. Shift pencil. "First Officer Frantiszek?" Checkmark. Shift pencil.
"No. I'm First Officer Pearsall." No handshake. The pencil wavered.
"Pearsall? Must be a mixup. Where's Frantiszek?"
Pearsall looked for Vaille to answer, but the captain was talking with someone else a few feet away. ""I replaced Frantiszek when he broke his leg skiing, a week before we left. Funny you didn't get the correction."" The mishap had boosted Pearsall to First Officer a year or two before he had expected the promotion.
Erase checkmark, scribble note. "All right; we'll check it out," the man said, and moved along to the next person. No handshake for Pearsall. Bored, he withdrew his attention while the man checkmarked and handshook his way down the list.
A tone of exclamation broke his reverie. "Laird? My roster shows no John Laird. What is your position on this ship?"
"Junior Navigator, sir," the boy answered. "On Commander Pear sail's watch."
"Pearsall, eh? Neither of you on my roster." He harumphed. "We'll check it out." No handshake for Laird, either.
They were escorted to a nearby building for a quick, perfunctory medical check. Orin Teague, Hawk Flight's own medical officer, had made thorough examinations and certified the ship's complement as free of alien infection, but the minimum formality was still observed.
Then they were free, the two dozen, to go where they would and do what they could. "Report back Tuesday morning," said the man with the discrepant list. "0800 sharp. That gives you seventy-two hours, less a few." By Tuesday, Pearsall thought, their reports would b e analyzed—the reports they had prepared during the past in-flight months. Until then, Hawk Flight's crew was superfluous. That suited him just fine.
He shook all the hands he could find, waved goodbyes and left to catch a city-bound tube train. On arrival he used his spaceman's priority card to rent a ground car. He checked its fuel cell reading and set off for Fisher's Landing, the small neighboring town that was home. He didn't call first; it had never been his habit.
During his absence some street routings had been changed. He found his usual access to the throughway was one-way in the wrong direction. Rather than taking time to solve the new layout, he settled for an older, secondary arterial and soon made his way out of the city into a countryside of rolling hills.
It was the time of autumn when leaves turn color but have yet to fall. One small maple, half yellow and half red, so entranced him that he pulled over and stopped—just to look, to make it part of him.
He left before he was done with his tree, because now he was so near that he could no longer wait to see Glenna. Married almost twenty-five years, more than half his life—still she brought all his senses alive. First, to see her…
Either the signs were changed or he'd daydreamed—he missed his rurnoff. But he circled, found an unfamiliar road with the proper designation. Soon he was back on his homeward route, and entering Fisher's Landing. Until he turned onto his own street he didn't realize he had been driving faster than usual.
He parked in front and paused a moment to look at the house, savoring the weathered wood. Ivy was growing to cover the bay window again; it needed cutting back. A brick, maybe more than one, was missing from the chimney top—he tried to remember if he'd seen it before. He couldn't be sure. No matter—he'd have to fix it, anyway.
He got out of the car and locked it, taking only his bag, leaving his other luggage for later. He strode up the flagstone walk, finally giving his impatience its head.
By habit he reached into his pocket for the house key. Then he laughed and rang the door chime.
"Dead, sir?" Pearsall stared at Forgues's blue-tinted image and shook his head. "One of us has to be crazy."
"That's possible," said the admiral. "Why else would you pretend to be a man who was killed more than a year ago? Tube train failure—you must have seen it in the news. The propelling field collapsed; cars smashed out through the girders. At least seventy dead."
"Not me, though." Now he remembered the disaster. "I missed that train."
"Obviously," said Forgues, "but Pearsall didn't. You look like him—or like his twin if he had one—but you can't be Woody. I attended the funeral myself, damn it! So, who are you?"
To Pearsall, none of it made sense—but somewhere there had to be a handle, a place to apply logic and twist hard.
"Ask the captain," he said. "Captain Vaille—he can vouch for me."
Forgues shook his head. "Can't locate him. He and his wife went off somewhere, left no word."
"But, any of the other officers—or the crew?" The admiral's head still moved side to side, his face stony in negation. "Or even— the fussy fellow with the clipboard. He saw me come off the ship—"
""But he didn't see you get on. Or where you got on." Abruptly, Forgues' face went stiff, his eyes wide.
At first Pearsall didn't get it—and then he did. He laughed. "Hawk Flight made no outworld landings, Admiral. We had no occasion to use the airlocks, even. Run the telemetry tapes through your computers." Faced with questions that had answers, he felt his mind coming alive, working surely.
The admiral's grin was sheepish. "All right; that's easy enough to check. We can scratch the suggestion that you're some kind of alien. But that doesn't tell me who you are. So you tell me!"
Pearsall shook his head. "I've done that. Sir, with all due respect, we're wasting time. There's a mistake somewhere—I don't know what it is. I'll report Tuesday as ordered. Meanwhile I have a couple of personal problems to attend to—urgent ones." Before the admiral could reply he hit the cutoff switch. He caught himself worrying, with one fingertip, the spot at the crown of the head where his hair was thinning, and took his hand away.
And what of Glenna? He turned and saw her standing near the bedroom doorway, the old handgun hanging loose in her hand. She stared at him, but now in puzzlement rather than outrage.
"Well, Glenna? Am I me—the man you married?"
"You can't be." He could barely hear her words. "Woody is dead—I saw him buried." She winced. "Oh, you look like him, talk and act like him—but you can't be him." The gun dropped to the carpet. "I wish to God you could. But you can't." She put her hands to her face—leaning back against the wall she slowly sank to the floor and sat there, sobbing.
Knowing he must not touch her, Pearsall moved to squat facing her, not close enough to threaten. Quietly, he spoke.
"Glenna—Glenna." Again, "Glenna." Repeating slowly, until she raised her head and looked at him.
"I am Woody," he said, -"Woody Pearsall. I look and talk and act like him—and love like him—because I am him. I'm me, Glenna, nobody else. A long time ago we married each other— remember?" Blankfaced, her head shook slowly.
"The tube train didn't kill me, that night, because I missed it."
"I was late for dinner; you were really angry when I finally got home, until we saw the news of the wreck."
"I've been gone eight months, on Hawk Flight. Before we left, you and I had a champagne dinner—more champagne than dinner, I'm afraid. Then we took a boat out near the middle of Lake Fisher and made love there. Don't you remember?"
"I'd like to. Oh, I'd like to!" Then her voice went dull. "But I can't—because it didn't happen."
"To me it did. And you were there; you were all of it. Try to remember!"
"I'd like to," she said again. "But I saw my husband dead." Facing him, she was like a blank wall.
"I'm dead and I'm not dead." He spoke more to himself than to her. "We made love on the lake and we didn't. I was on the ship but I wasn't. The admiral helped bury me—but I'm not buried!
"Glenna!" His voice rang, jarring her alert. "I don't know what's wrong, but if there's any way I can, I'll find out." He sighed and touched her hair gingerly, as though it might electrocute him. "I have to leave now, for a while. But try, just try to know who I am. Will you?"
She could manage no words but she nodded, then fled, crying. Gently he shut the bedroom door behind her, then moved again to the phone.
John Laird's line was busy. Pearsall calculated—it was less than an hour's drive—best to go now, without calling ahead. And better, he thought, not to stay in one place too long—Forgues might decide to have him pulled in, rather than wait until Tuesday. The front door key was on its usual hook in the kitchen; he took it.
Dusk had come, the time of beauty that is dangerous to drivers. Pearsall drove fast but with full concentrated alertness—officially he might be dead but factually he was alive and determined to remain so.
He passed an apartment high-rise; it loomed gray, square and ugly, but the massed upper windows reflected the last of the day's sun as molten copper. The glow fit his mood; he watched until it passed to the side of his vision.
The Laird home was hidden in a semisuburban housing cluster, a puzzle piece of contrived curving streets that changed names at every jogging. By backtracking and persistence Pearsall found the address he sought.
In the dim light the house both sprawled and soared; its style of architecture had bloomed rapidly and dated almost as fast. He parked in the double-width driveway and approached the huge, oval front door. Finding no pushbutton, he knocked.
An older, heavier version of John Laird opened the door. "All right, what do you want?" The man sounded as harassed as he looked, with his rumpled hair, high color and heavy breathing.
"I'm looking for John Laird."
"You found him. What do you want with me?"
"The John Laird I know is younger. Your son, perhaps?"
"No—Christ, no! But maybe you'd better come in, at that. You might be able to help."
"Help? How?" But Pearsall thought he knew.
"A young man came here. He says he's my son, claims to be named John Laird. I came home this afternoon—my wife was half-crazy, this boy we never saw calling her "mother," and then me, "father." We never saw him before, I swear!"
