Certainty

By Robert Silverberg

Wharton said, “How long ago was this picture taken?”

“About an hour, sir. But you were in Deepsleep, and we didn’t think—”

“No, you didn’t think,” Wharton said acidly. “O. K., let’s have the rest of the story. You sent warnings to the ship, I hope.”

Crosley nodded. “We beamed them wide-channel in Terran, General Galactic, Dormirani, Leesor, and Fawd. We sent the same message in each language: telling them that this is a Terran observation outpost, that they can’t land here without prior permission, that they would have to depart at once, By this time they had completed their landing. We estimate their position at about one hundred twenty miles northeast of here, on the Creston Plateau.”

“And did you get an answer?”

“A few minutes ago. It was in what Breckenridge says is a Fawdese dialect. They said, in effect, that they didn’t recognize Terran sovereignty over this planet, for one thing, and for another they had come here to make certain scientific observations. They said they’d leave here in a week or two, after they’ve completed their observations.”

“To which you made what reply?” Wharton said.

Crosley shook his head. “None, sir. I got word that you were coming out of Deepsleep, and so…”

“…And so you passed the buck to me. All right, lieutenant. In your position I’d have done the same thing. Get me Breckenridge.”

“Yes, sir.”

Lieutenant Crosley performed a smart little salute and about-faced. Alone, Wharton shook his big, shaggy head sadly. This was what came of a century of unbroken Galactic peace. Youngsters like Crosley didn’t even know what war meant. And a bunch of aliens thought it could put down on a Terran outpost planet without as much as a by-your-leave. Wharton sighed, feeling his age, admitting to himself that he had hoped to serve out his last few years without incident. He was getting close to the hundred-twenty-five-year mark; mandatory retirement came at age one hundred thirty. And only an hour and a half of Deepsleep every day kept him going now. Well, there was going to be an incident, now, whether he liked it or not. Colonel Wharton straightened his shoulders.

Captain Breckenridge entered the room. The linguistics man was short and stocky, with choppy, irregular features and stubby red hair. “Sir?”

“Breckenridge, you say this alien ship spoke to you in Fawd?”

“A Fawdese dialect, sir.”

“That’s what I’m getting after. Where is that ship from? The Fawd Confederacy knows better than to plonk a ship down on Terran property. Unless the Fawds are looking to provoke a war, that is.”

Breckenridge said, “Oh, these aren’t Fawds, sir. They simply speak a Fawdese dialect. Plenty of peoples in the Fawdese sector speak Fawd without belonging to the Confederacy.”

“You’re stating the obvious,” Wharton said irritably. “I want to know where these people are from.”

“The best I can give is an educated guess.”

“Well?”

“They come from the western tip of the Fawdese lingual sector. That’s plain from their shifted vowels. There are three Fawdese-speaking races out that way: the Cyross, the Halivanu, and the Dortmuni.” Breckenridge ticked them off on his fingers. “The Cyross aren’t a technological people. They wouldn’t be sending ships this far for centuries. The Dortmuni are passive-resistance nonbelligerents. They wouldn’t be looking for trouble either. That leaves the Halivanu as the likely senders of that ship up on the plateau. You know, of course, the legends about the Halivanu—”

“Just legends. That’s all they are.”

“They’ve been documented pretty well. It’s been proven that—”

“Nothing’s been proven, Breckenridge! Hear me? Nothing has been proven about the Halivanu.” Wharton rose, gripping the edges of his desk. He realized that his legs were quivering. Just to hammer the point across, he said, “I’m not interested in hearing about any strange powers the Halivanu may be thought to have. I’m interested only in getting them off this planet, and getting them off fast. Come on across to the signal room with me. I’ll send these Halivanu packing right now.”

There were all sorts of legends about the Halivanu, Wharton admitted dourly to himself as he and Breckenridge crossed the clearing and entered the outpost’s communications room. Spacemen venturing into the Fawdese sector had brought back stories about mental vampires that could suck a man’s mind dry, and similar gory tales. But nothing had ever been proven. The Halivanu were introverted humanoids who had little to do with the rest of the universe, keeping to themselves and seeking no outside contacts. Eerie legends always sprang up about recluses, Wharton thought. He shrugged away his uneasiness. His job was to protect the integrity of the boundaries of the Terran sphere, boundaries which these Halivanu—if they were Halivanu—were clearly transgressing.

“Set up contact with that ship,” Wharton ordered.

Signalman Marshal acknowledged and began turning dials. After a few moments he looked up and said, “I can’t get them to recognize me, sir.”

“That’s all right. They’ll be listening, never worry. Breckenridge, you’re better at this dialect business than I’d be. Pick up the mike and tell them that they’re trespassing on Terran ground, and that they have exactly… ah, make it three hours… three hours to blast off. Otherwise we’ll be compelled to treat their landing as an act of war.”

Nodding, Breckinridge began to speak. Wharton found that he could understand most of what was being said; he knew the basic Fawd tongue, of course, since it was one of the live great root-languages of the galaxy, and the Halivanu language differed from Fawd only in a broadening of the vowels, minor grammatical simplifications, and inevitable vocabulary shifts.

There was silence for a full minute after Breckenridge had finished.

“Repeat it,” Wharton said.

Breckenridge recited the ultimatum a second time. Again, the only response was silence. Nearly two minutes ticked by; fidgeting, Wharton was on the verge of ordering yet another repeat when the speaker sputtered and emitted, in a dry, rasping tone, the word, “Eritomor—”

It was the Fawdese for “Earthmen.” A moment later came more Fawdese words, spoken slowly and carefully. Wharton’s face went steely as he listened. The Halivanu spokesman was explaining politely that since the Free World of Halivanth did not recognize the Terran claim to this uninhabited world, there was no reason why the Halivanu ship should leave. However, the Halivanu had no desire to claim the planet for themselves, but they simply wished to carry out certain solar observations over a period of some nine or ten Galactic Standards days, after which time they would be glad to depart.

At the conclusion of the statement, Breckenridge said, “They declare that they don’t recognize our claim and—”

Wharton shut him up with an impatient gesture. “I understood the message, lieutenant.” He picked up the microphone himself and said, in halting Fawdese, “This is Colonel Dean Wharton speaking. If you want to make solar observations here, you’ll have to clear it through regular diplomatic channels. I’m not authorized to grant any landings. And so I have to request that you—”

He was interrupted by a voice from the speaker. “Eritomor… vor held d’chayku kon derinilak—”

It was the same speech the Havilanu spokesman had delivered before, repeated in the same slow, flat tone, as though spoken to a wayward child. Annoyed, Wharton waited till the Havilanu was finished, and tried to speak again. But he got no more than a few words out before the Havilanu reply started for the third time.

“It’s a tape,” Marshall murmured. “They’ve got the ends looped together and it’s going to keep repeating indefinitely.”

“Let’s monitor it for a while,” Wharton said.

They monitored it. After the tenth successive repetition he ordered the signalman to shut down. Nothing was going to be gained through radio ultimatums, obviously. The Havilanu simply would not listen. The only thing to do, clearly, was to send an emissary over to the alien ship to explain things in person. And if that didn’t work—

Other steps would be necessary. “Sound a Red Alert,” Wharton said. “We’d better start getting this place tightened up for battle. Just in case,” he added. “Just in case.”

The thirty-seven men of the Bartlett V outpost occupied their battle stations with obvious relish. To most of them, an alien invasion—even an invasion by only one ship—was a pleasant diversion indeed, for men serving a three-year hitch on an empty planet a thousand light-years from home. The break from the usual routine of observation and report-filing was more than welcome.

Colonel Wharton shared none of their delight, though. He was old enough to remember what war was like—as a raw recruit in 2716 he had taken part in the mop-up activities of the Terra-Dormiran conflict, just over a hundred years before. There hadn’t been war in the galaxy since. And, inasmuch as there wasn’t a man in his outfit older than ninety, none of his men had any real idea of what a galactic war was like. Ships splitting open in midspace like gaffed fish, whole continents leveled in scorched-earth campaigns, an entire generation of young men practically wiped out—-no, there was nothing nice about war, from any angle. But maybe a century of peace had caused galactic complacence. Certainly no alien ship would have dared make a landing like this in the last century, Wharton thought. And who could have imagined such a reply to an ultimatum from a Terran commanding officer?

The worst part of the situation was that the responsibility was all his. The quickest subradio message to Earth would take a month to arrive; a month more would be needed for a reply. If he waited, Terra’s territorial integrity could have been violated a dozen times over. So the buck ended with Colonel Wharton. If the Halivanu insisted on remaining, he could choose between blasting them off the planet and probably starting a war, or letting them stay and thereby issuing an open invitation to the entire universe to come trespass on Terran worlds. It wasn’t a pretty choice. But there was no one he could go to for advice except men of his own rank, on other outpost worlds, and it was senseless to do that. He would have to make his own decisions.

Breckenridge came up to him as he stood observing the conversion of the outpost to a fort. The post was amply armed, and Wharton held regular artillery drills. But he had never dreamed he would actually be ordering a Red Alert out here on this relatively nonstrategic world.

“Sir?”

“What is it, Breckenridge?”

“I’d like to volunteer for the job of going to see the Halivanu, sir. I think I’m the best fitted man for talking to them.”

Wharton nodded. Breckenridge had been his choice; but the man had made matters simpler by volunteering. “Accepted, captain. Order Smithson to break out a jetsled for you. You’ll leave at once.”

“Any special instructions?”

“Repeat that ultimatum to them, as a starter. Make it clear that we’re automatically bound to blast them down if they don’t get off here in a couple of hours. Get the point across that we can’t help ourselves, that it’s our job to destroy any alien ships that make unauthorized landings, and that therefore the responsibility for starting a possible war is all theirs.”

“I’ve got it, sir.”

“Good. Don’t bluster, don’t threaten—just convince them that our hands are tied. Make them see the pickle we’re in. I don’t want to shoot at them, but I will if I have to—and I’ll have to if they stay here. Tell them they can make all the solar observations they want if they’ll only go through the proper channels.”

Breckenridge nodded. There were beads of sweat on his face. He looked troubled.

Wharton said, “You don’t have to volunteer for this, captain. There are other men I could send if—”

“It’s my job. I’m not withdrawing.”

“You’re worried about those crazy stories you’ve heard, Breckenridge. I can almost read your mind.”

“The stories are… nothing but stories, sir,” Breckenridge said stolidly. “Just so much jetwash. May I leave, now, sir?”

Wharton smiled. “You’re a good man, Breckenridge. Dismissed.”

By jetsled it would take more than an hour for Breckenridge to reach the alien spaceship; allow him half an hour for parleying, Wharton thought, and an hour or so to return. Make it three hours round trip. So if Breckenridge were successful, the Halivanu ship would be blasting off about the same time that Breckenridge returned to base. If, Wharton thought. He stood for nearly half an hour in front of the radar screen, staring at the white blip that represented the Halivanu ship a hundred twenty miles away, and at the tiny white bug racing northeast across the screen that was the reflected image of Breckenridge’s sled.

Then he walked away and tried to busy himself in routine activities. But his mind kept going back to the Halivanu incident. He felt very tired. There was nothing he wanted to do more than crawl into the Deepsleep tank and let the cool therapeutic fluids wash over him.

Wharton reminded himself forcibly that he had already taken his Deepsleep time for the day. He rationed it strictly, one session and no more per diem. Which meant he’d have to stay on his pins unaided.

The afternoon shadows lengthened. Bartlett V was a moonless world, and night fell fast. The little sun was dipping rapidly toward the horizon, casting an orange light over the empty, barren plains. The radar screen showed that Breckenridge was now on his way back.

He returned four hours after he had departed. The screen still showed the Halivanu ship on the plateau. The linguist reported immediately to Colonel Wharton.

“Well?”

Breckenridge smiled wanly. “It’s all arranged, sir. They’ll be leaving next week, as soon as they’ve completed their observations.”

Wharton sat down abruptly. “What did you say?”

“I agreed to let them stay, sir.”

Wharton felt as though he’d been tomahawked. In a rigidly controlled voice he said, “You agreed to let them stay, Breckenridge? How polite of you! But I thought I sent you there to deliver an ultimatum—not to make agreements.”

“Of course, sir. But I discussed it with them and we agreed it would be unreasonable to drive them away before they had finished their observations. They clearly don’t mean any harm. They’re not even carrying armaments, sir.”

“Breckenridge, are you out of your head?” Wharton asked, aghast.

“Sir?”

“How can you stand there and talk such drivel to me? Your opinion of their harmlessness is irrelevant, and you know it. You were sent bearing an ultimatum. I wanted their reply.”

“But we talked it over, sir. It can’t hurt us to make a little concession like this.”

“Breckenridge, did those aliens drug you ? You’re talking like a madman. What right did you have—”

“You said yourself that you would rather give in and let them stay than start a war, sir. And since they insisted on staying, I followed your instructions and told them it would be O. K., provided they left when—”

“Followed my instructions?” Wharton roared. His hand drummed menacingly on the desk top. “When did you ever hear me say such a thing?”

“Why, just before I left,” Breckenridge said innocently.

“Now I know you’re out of your head. I never said a word about granting concessions to them, I told you to let them know that if they weren’t off this planet by my deadline I’d be compelled to destroy them. Not a syllable about concessions. And—”

“I beg to contradict you, sir, but—”

Sighing, Wharton rang for his orderly. A moment later the man stuck his head in the door. Wharton said, “Rogers, take Captain Breckenridge to the infirmary and have him detained for a psychiatric examination. And send Smithson to me.”

Smithson entered a few minutes afterward. The enlisted man stood diffidently near the door.

Wharton said, “Tell me exactly what transpired between Captain Breckenridge and the aliens.”

Smithson shook his head. “Sorry, but I can’t, colonel. I didn’t go into the alien ship. Captain Breckenridge wanted me to wait outside in the sled.”

Keeping his voice tight, Wharton said: “Oh. In that case you can’t help me, Smithson. Dismissed.”

“Yes, sir.”

Wharton waited until the door closed, and put his head in his hands. His shoulders slumped wearily.

He hadn’t given Breckenridge any instructions to parley. Yet the linguist swore up and down that he had. What would make a solid man like Breckenridge snap like that?

Wharton shook his head. They told stories about the Halivanu, vague stories of vaguer mental powers. But that stuff was—Breckenridge himself had put a name to it—jetwash, Wharton was certain of it. In his time he had seen too many legends fade like the dreams they were to be taken in by anything new. Imaginative spacemen always attributed mystical powers to little-known races, but such attributions had to be discounted pretty near to one hundred per cent.

Drawing in his breath sharply, Wharton jabbed down on his call-button. The orderly appeared.

“Send me Lieutenant Crosley, quick-quick.”

Crosley arrived five minutes later. It was nearly night now. The lieutenant looked paler, less relaxed than ever. He was a recent Academy product, not much past thirty.

Leaning forward, Wharton said, “We’ve got some complications, lieutenant. Incidentally, I’m making a tape recording of this conversation.”

Crosley nodded. “Complications, sir?”

“I sent Breckenridge to the aliens with an ultimatum this afternoon. I wanted him to tell them they had three hours to get off the planet, or I’d open fire. But instead he granted them permission to stay here until they finished their observations, and now he claims he said so on my authority.”

“I wondered why he was taken to psych ward.”

“Now you know. I don’t pretend to understand why he cracked up, Crosley, but I do know we’ve got. to send another man to the Halivanu right away, withdrawing Breckenridge’s permission and telling them to get moving,”

“Of course, sir.”

“I’d like you to go, Crosley. Right now. Take one of the enlisted men with you, and make sure you both go into the Halivanu ship. Tell them that the previous messenger was unauthorized, that you’re the authorized messenger, that if they don’t blast off by sunrise we’ll be farced to let them have it.”

Crosley looked a little paler, but he remained steady. “I’ll leave right away, sir.”

“Before you go: repeat the message you’re bearing,”

Crosley repeated it.

“You won’t attempt to negotiate with them, lieutenant. Is that clear?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You’ll deliver the ultimatum and leave. It isn’t essential that you wait around for an answer. If they’re still here by morning, we’ll blast them.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You understand what I’m saying now? You won’t tell me later that I authorized you to negotiate?”

Crosley smiled. “Of course not, sir.”

“Get going, then.”

The hours passed. Taps sounded, but Wharton remained awake, pacing his office uneasily. Starlight, bright in the moonless dark, filtered through his windows. Wharton clenched his fists and stared out into the night.

He pitied Breckenridge. It was a hellish thing to lose your grip on actuality. To maintain that something is true when it’s flatly false. The psych tests had shown nothing; Breckenridge firmly and positively believed that he had been instructed to parley. Schizophrenia, the psych officer said. But schizophrenia wasn’t something a person got suddenly, like a twisted ankle, was it? It was a slowly building pattern of action and belief. And Breckenridge had always seemed one of the most stable men of all.

Inescapably Wharton came to the conclusion that the Halivanu had done something to him. But Breckenridge said they hadn’t, and the EEG tests revealed no hint of recent drugging or hypnosis. Not that the EEG was necessarily infallible—

Wharton glowered at his faint reflection in the window. He was certain the Halivanu had no mysterious powers. They were just another isolationist race, bent on their own destinies and aloof from the rest of the universe. That was no reason for crediting them with magical abilities.

A light glimmered outside. Wharton heard the roar of the jetsled. Crosley was returning.

Impatiently, Wharton dashed outside. The night air was clear, cold, tangy, Crosley and his driver, an enlisted man named Rodriguez, were getting out of the sled.

They saluted when they saw him. Returning the salute with a shaky arm, Wharton said, “Did you run into any trouble?”

“No, sir. But we didn’t find him, either,” Crosley replied. “We searched for hours, but—”

“What in the name of the cosmos are you babbling about?” Wharton demanded in a choked voice, “You didn’t find whom?”

“Why, Breckenridge, of course,” Crosley said. He exchanged a puzzled glance with Rodriguez. “We traveled in wide circles just as you said, until—”

Wharton felt dizzy, “What’s this about looking for Breckenridge?”

“Didn’t you send us out to look for him? He got lost in the plains coming back from his trip to the alien ship, and we were ordered to look for him. Sir? Sir, are you feeling all right?”

Cold fingers seemed to be encircling Wharton’s heart. “Come inside with me, lieutenant. You too, Rodriguez.”

He led them into his office and played for them the tape he had made of his conversation with Crosley earlier. The two men listened in growing confusion.

When the tape had run its course, Wharton said, “Do you still maintain that I sent you out to look for Breckenridge?”

“But… yes—”

“Breckenridge is asleep in the infirmary. He was never lost. He came back hours ago. I sent you out to deliver an ultimatum. Didn’t you recognize your own voice, Crosley?”

“It sounded like me, yes. But … I don’t remember… that is—”

Further questioning led down the same dead end. The tape transcript only bewildered Crosley. He grew paler and paler. He was certain they had merely traveled in wide circles looking for Breckenridge, and Rodriguez backed him up on that. Even when Wharton assured him that he had watched their path on the radar, and they had gone direct to the Halivanu ship and returned straightaway, they shook their heads.

“We never went near that ship, sir. Our orders—”

“All right, lieutenant. Go to bed. You too, Rodriguez. Maybe in the morning you’ll have better memories.”

Wharton could not sleep. First Breckenridge, then Crosley and Rodriguez, all of them returning from the Halivanu ship with insane stories. The first cracks began to appear in Wharton’s self-confidence. Maybe there was something in those spacehounds’ tales of the Halivanu.

No. Beyond belief.

But how else to explain what had happened to his men ? Schizophrenia wasn’t contagious, was it? It was hard to swallow the fact that three men had gone out to the aliens and three men had returned… changed. That was the only word for it. And changed retroactively. Crosley even denied the validity of the tape he had made.

By morning, Wharton knew what his only choice was. He was no longer concerned primarily with protecting Terra’s sovereignty. That was important, but not as important as finding out just what kind of hocus-pocus the Halivanu had pulled on his men. And the only way to find out was to go to the aliens himself.

But, of course, certain necessary precautions ought to be taken—just in case.

When morning came he sent for Captain Lowell, one of the senior officers—the senior officer, with both Breckenridge and Crosley on the unreliable list. “Lowell, I’m going to make a trip to the Halivanu ship myself. You’re in charge of the base till I get back. And—listen carefully—I’m going to give the Halivanu four hours to get off this planet. At the end of four hours’ time I want you to blast them with the heavy-cycle guns, even if I order you not to do it. Got that? Go against my direct order, if you have to.”

Lowell looked utterly befuddled. “Sir, I don’t understand—”

“Don’t try to understand. Just listen. I’ve made a tape of this conversation. Keep it safe and play it for me when I get back.”

Leaving behind a sorely confused Lowell, Wharton made his way out to the jetsled. Smithson, who had piloted Breckenridge, was again at the controls.

They traveled in silence, the jets boosting the sled quickly and smoothly over the flat plains. The sun rose higher as they traveled. Wharton found himself yearning for the comfort of Deepsleep. But that would have to wait a few more hours, he thought The matter would be settled, one way or another, in a few hours. If only Lowell would have the guts to disobey him, in case he came back changed. Wharton smiled. He was confident he’d return in full command of his senses.

It was midmorning when the sled reached the plateau where the Halivanu had established camp. Wharton saw tents surrounding the sleek alien-looking spaceship, and half a dozen Halivanu were busily setting up instrumentation. They were tall, thin beings with coarse-grained, glossy gray-green skin. As the sled pulled up, one of them detached himself from the group and came toward Wharton.

“You Earthmen must enjoy paying us visits,” the alien said in the Fawdese dialect. “By my count, you’re the third.”

“And the last,” Wharton said. Despite himself, he felt an uneasy chill. The Halivanu had a strange, sickly-sweet odor and was nearly seven feet tall.

“What is your message?” the Halivanu asked, and in the same instant Wharton felt something like a feather brushing the back of his skull.

“I… what are you doing?” He put his hand to the back of his head—but the feather still tickled him—

And then his panic died away.

“Well?” the alien demanded.

Wharton smiled. “I’m the Terran commander. I’ve come to … to tell you that it’s all right… that you can stay here until you’re through.”

“Thank you,” said the Halivanu gravely. He smiled, revealing black gums, and Wharton returned the smile. “Is that all?”

“Yes. Yes, that’s all,” Wharton said. He looked at Smithson. “We didn’t have anything else to say, did we, Smithson?”

Smithson shrugged. “I don’t think so, sir.”

“Good. We might as well go back, then.”

Lowell greeted him as the jetsled rumbled into the center of the compound. “Did all go well, sir?”

“Fine,” Wharton said.

“The Halivanu are leaving, then?”

“Leaving?” Wharton frowned. “Why should they be leaving? They’ve only begun their work.”

“But… Colonel—”

“Yes, what is it?” Wharton snapped testily.

“You left an order—you said that at the end of four hours we should open fire on the Halivanu if they were still here,”

Wharton frowned and started to walk on. “Must have been a mistake, Lowell. Order countermanded.”

Lowell ducked around and put himself in front of the colonel. “I’m sorry, sir. You told me to proceed on schedule even against your direct order.”

“Nonsense!”

“There’s a tape recording in your office—”

“I don’t care. The Halivanu have permission to stay here. Let’s have no talk of going against my direct orders, shall we?”

Mottled blotches appeared on Lowell’s jowly face. “Colonel, I know this sounds strange, but you yourself insisted—”

“And I myself countermand the order! Do I have to make it any clearer, captain ? Please get out of my way. I say ‘please’ because you’re an officer, but—”

Lowell stood his ground. Sweat rolled down his forehead. “The tape—”

“Will you give ground, Lowell?”

“No, sir. You definitely specified that I should not listen to any subsequent order countermanding your original one. And therefore—”

“Any commanding officer who gives a nonretractable order has to be out of his head,” Wharton snapped. He signaled to two of the men nearby. “Place Captain Lowell in restrictive custody. I may be easy-going, but I won’t tolerate insubordination.”

Lowell, still protesting, was borne away. Wharton went on into his office. A tape was in the recorder. With a thoughtful frown he nudged the playback knob and listened.

“…I’m going to give the Halivanu four hours to get off this planet. At the end of four hours’ time I want you to blast them with the heavy-cycle guns, even if I order you not to do it. Got that? Go against my direct order…”

Wharton’s shaggy eyebrows lifted questioningly. Beyond a doubt it was his own voice. But why should he have said such a thing? The Halivanu had every right to be here. Why, right here on his desk was the authorization from Terra, allowing them to stop here for a while and make solar observations. The paper was right here—he fumbled through a pile of documents without coming across it. He shrugged. It had probably been misfiled. But he knew it was here, somewhere. He had seen it with his own eyes, after all.

What about the tape, then? Colonel Wharton shook his head and decided he must be getting old, to have ever given Lowell weird orders like that. Somewhere deep in his mind a silent voice was lifted in inner protest, but the complaint, wordless, never reached conscious levels. Yawning wearily, Wharton flipped the erase knob on the tape recorder, waited until the message was completely obliterated, and ambled over to the infirmary for his ninety minutes of Deepsleep.

Content

Certainty
By Robert Silverberg