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Read Ebook: The Barrier by Walton Bryce Raymond Ramon Illustrator
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Ebook has 84 lines and 6547 words, and 2 pages
Stevens' mind screamed. "But I'm returning--help me, I don't want to go back. I want to stay, to stay--"
"You are John Stevens--" the voice, the thought, drifted to him from what seemed infinite spaces.
"Yes, yes--"
"There is a distortion, you do not understand. Someday you will. You are premature. The pattern is rigid, and everything has its set moment of alteration. This distortion, I cannot explain. We are not perfect here. There is yet a higher reality, and a higher one still, and the stages are infinite. But you will be back, John Stevens. Soon. Very soon."
"When--when?"
A column of sound arose and shattered in glittering spray. "The matrix has the answer. John Stevens--no this is not your time. You call it a week. Seven days. Such terms are meaningless here. To us, it is happening now. We can see it happening. We can see you coming through the barrier--to stay--to learn--to live as we live--"
"When?" he screamed at the fading thought.
"Soon. A week. Seven days. It is here. The Matrix has the answer...."
"Now. Let me stay," Stevens screamed. "I don't want to go back."
"You are not really here, or you could not go back. This is a glimpse. Many have had it. Someday you will understand. But in seven days--"
The radio voice was shrill. "Can you hear? Can you hear? There has been five seconds of unexplainable static! Can you hear?"
"Sure, I can hear," he said hoarsely. He blinked, stared at the blurred instruments against his eyes. Suddenly he shouted. "I'm still alive, you get that? I've passed the velocity apex, and I'm still alive!"
He heard Major Kanin's voice. Some of the fatuousness was lost in the emotion of triumph. "Great! Great, you've done it! Now you've got to bring her in! That pardon--"
All right. He would do that. He had been a super-boy, a jet-gyrene himself, once. A big-shot, a wonder boy jet-hero, before he got that jealous quirk that had turned out to be baseless. A feud that had gone on for years and culminated in a fight, and Bill Carson had died from concussion. There had been nothing between Doris and Carson, but it was too late to think about that now.
The Military had been harsh, and he'd known he couldn't bear the confinement. And he hadn't wanted Doris to suffer for his psychological blowup either. He had volunteered for what should have been suicide--but he still lived. He couldn't understand that. He should be Dead. He knew that. But he wasn't, and he knew he would bring her in. A pardon--
The world was small for Stevens. A coffin, a cannon-barrel. And he was stuffed in it. His hands alone could move over the simple controls, and his eyes could move over the gauges. A jet-pilot had to learn a special feel to bring in a jet-ship. And Stevens had learned that "feel" rapidly, years ago. It seemed a long time ago when he had taken that harsh training: a few hours in a conventional flyer, a few more in a Mustang 60. Then that rending day when he had "checked out" in a jet-trainer.
"But I'll bring it in," he whispered. Smoke curled through the Coffin. The heat expanded around him rapidly. He thought of the ejector, but he was too low now, coming in. He tried to scream. The crackling wavering heat inside his helmet was intolerable. The controls were jammed. His hands fell away and he dropped his head helplessly and the world exploded....
This time there was a crowd, and they acted differently. They were enthusiastic. There were doctors and nurses. Their faces were twisted with admiration. Stronger than the admiration was a fearful kind of disbelief. The Doctor touched his lips with his tongue and coughed uneasily as he stared at Stevens.
Major Kanin was beaming. "Man," his voice boomed through the hospital room. "Man! You're alive. No one knows how you can be alive, but you are! We've licked it. It's a miracle!"
Voices agreed with that in a chorus of incredulous whispers. Miracle....
The Major said, "I've already got that pardon coming through, Stevens. It'll be probational of course, but that will all be forgotten now, Stevens. You're something special."
The doctors and nurses stared at him with unbelieving eyes.
"You've been examined thoroughly, Stevens, and you're all right, not a scratch! It's impossible, but it's true. Every doctor here, every mechanic, says it's impossible. Your ship's just a pile of melting metal, Stevens, but you crawled out of it absolutely uninjured. Nobody understands it, but everybody's glad!"
The Doctor whispered. "Miracles like this sometimes happen, but no one can explain them. His body should be torn to pieces, burned. Well, he certainly had to have had some unique physical quality to have gotten through the high velocity peak."
"Yes, you hear that, Stevens?" the Major boomed.
Stevens was staring at the ceiling. He was trying to think, to remember.
"Now listen to this, Stevens. You went up a convict, and now you're a hero. You're in perfect physical condition, so we're going right ahead with Project Ultimo. And you'll handle the rocket, Stevens! If anyone can get to the Moon, you can, from this exhibition today!"
"What's that," Stevens said. He looked at their faces.
"It'll take a week to get the rocket ready," the Major said. "It's the Moon now, Stevens! The Moon!"
"The Moon," Stevens repeated.
"This will be no secret, Stevens!" Major Kanin stood up, his chest out, his heavy-jowled face glowing with triumph. "The world will know about it when you take off, this time. This won't be secret. The Enemy will know then that they've lost! Lost, utterly and unquestionably. With military bases on the Moon, they'll be helpless and they'll know it when you make that successful flight! One week, Stevens!"
Stevens looked out the window at the gray curtain of rain. "What was that? One week--" Something stirred in his memory. He grappled for it, lost it. He closed his eyes.
"Seven days, Stevens, that's all!"
He didn't answer. For an instant, behind the bottomless darkness of his closed lids, he saw something--something intangible and shimmering, beyond the grayness and rain. And then it was gone.
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