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MURPHY’S HALL

183

But wasn’t the Premier of United Africa saying those industries ought to be forbidden, they’re too wasteful, and any country that keeps them going is an enemy of the human race?

Gunfire rattles in the streets. Some female voice somewhere is screaming.

I’ve got to get Mother out of here. That’s the last thing I can do for Dad.

After ten years of studying to be a food engineer or a doctor, I’ll probably feel too tired to care about the moon. After another ten years of being a desk pilot and getting fat, I’ll probably be outraged at any proposal to spend my tax money—

—except maybe for defense. In Siberia they’re preaching that strange new missionary religion. And the President of Europe has said that if necessary, his government will denounce the ban on nuclear weapons.

The ship passed among the stars bearing a crew of dead bones. After a hundred billion years it crossed the Edge—not the edge of space or time, which does not exist, but the Edge—and came to harbor at Murphy’s Hall.

And the dust which the cosmic rays had made began to stir, and gathered itself back into bones; and from the radiation-corroded skeleton of the ship crept atoms which formed into flesh; and the captain and his men awoke. They opened themselves and looked upon the suns that went blazing and streaming overhead.

“We’re home,” said the captain.

184

The Unicorn Trade

Proud at the head of his men, he strode uphill from the dock, toward the hall of the five hundred and forty doors. Comets flitted past him, novae exploded in dreadful glory, planets turned and querned, the clinker of a once living world drifted by, new life screamed its outrage at being born.

The roofs of the house lifted like mountains against night and the light-clouds. The ends of rafters jutted beyond the eaves, carved into dragon heads. Through the doorway toward which the captain led his crew, eight hundred men could have marched abreast. But a single form waited to greet them; and beyond him was darkness.

When the captain saw who that was, he bowed very deeply.

The other took his hand. “We have been waiting,” he said.

The captain’s heart sprang. “Mary too?”

“Yes, of course. Everyone.”

Me. And you. And you. And you in the future, if you exist. In the end, Murphy’s Law gets us all. But we, my friends, must go to him the hard way. Our luck didn’t run out. Instead, the decision that could be made was made. It was decided for us that our race—among the trillions which must be out there wondering what lies beyond their skies—is not supposed to have either discipline or dreams. No, our job is to make everybody nice and safe and equal, and if this happens to be impossible, then nothing else matters.

MURPHY’S HALL

185

If I went to that place—and I’m glad that this is a lie—I’d keep remembering what we might have done and seen and known and been and loved.

Murphy’s Hell.

—Poul and Karen Anderson

SINGLE JEOPARDY

Benrud contented himself with phoning Horner and inviting him to drop in, have a drink, and discuss a little business.

He stood for a minute with his hand still on the phone, a short man who had never been heavy and was now being hollowed out by approaching death. The breath toiled in his throat. But for some reason, possibly a small excitement which stimulated the glands, pain had left him. He felt pain only in the pause after talking, and so he remained silent as much as possible.

Now if he could just sleep nights. The sheer work of operating his lungs kept him awake as much as the cough, and he could scarcely remember a day when weariness had not filled his skull with sand. The condition hadn’t been very long in him, a matter of months, but the

186

SINGLE JEOPARDY

187

memory of the years before, years of health, had already grown blurred.

The house was very silent. Moira had taken the kids to visit her mother, a hundred miles away. That was at Benrud’s instigation: he had explained there was a lot to do and he would be poor company till it was finished.