THE ETERNAL QUEST
A Novelette by Joseph Gilbert
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Astonishing Stories, October 1942.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
"I have come," said the little man, "a new Moses, to lead my people tothe Promised Land." He said it slowly, with dramatic restraint. "Fatehas led me to a star, and I have returned to show mankind the way to athing it has not known for over a hundred years—hope!"
He was not quite five feet tall, with a chubby face and a beet-rednose, straw-colored hair, and mild gray eyes. He was nondescript.And it seemed very strange, somehow, that this ridiculous little mancould stand there on that platform, with the gleaming majesty of thatfive-hundred-foot spaceship in the background dwarfing him—and facingthat battery of telecasters, talk to two billion people and awaken inthem a thing that had been dormant for a century or more.
He said, "We have died spiritually, and the eternal quest of man forcontentment has almost ceased—for he knows, in his barren, bitterheart that there is no contentment to find." He paused, and thetremendous crowd that filled the rocket-ground were weirdly silent,waiting. "No longer shall only the Space Patrol know the thrills ofadventure and discovery. We, too...."
Robert Lawrence smiled whimsically and cut off the televisor. It wasalmost impossible to hear the speaker, anyway, for no matter how wellsound-proofed a Space Patrol ship is, the noise is still deafening toone not long accustomed to it. You can't stop the vibrations of anatomic engine.
Besides, the reference of the little man to the adventure and discoveryof the Space Patrol was rather amusing to one who held that job, andwas tired of it.
You took up a tight orbit around Mars and were bored to death for somefour weeks, and then there was an order to intercept a gang of wildyoungsters who had run past the Interplanetary Way Station withoutsignaling, for the thrill of it.
Occasionally you sent out a call for a battle cruiser when you spotteda private ship that wouldn't answer your demand for call letters, andif part of the crew tried to run for it in the life rocket, you wouldchase them out as far as Venus before you got a magnetic grapple onthem.
Then you risked your life, but it still wasn't much fun, because thecrew was probably made up of a bunch of scatter-brained kids, witha hysterical finger on the trigger of their blasters, ready to killinstantly when you got them in the corner.
The rest of the time you dropped in on settlers who were sick and triedto bring them around; answered any call for help on the planet or inyour sector of space; acted as a sort of watchdog; and wondered whatthe hell to do with yourself.
Still, it was the only life left for a strong, active man, and he hadbeen following it for four years now and would certainly continueit until the little man's plans were carried out. And carried outthey would be—of that he was confident. Proud, too. Proud that hisquiet faith in the future of mankind had proven itself in spite ofthe contempt and cynical ridicule of some of the best minds in thedecadent, dying Science Hall, where he had received his training forthis job.
Not, he thought wryly, that they didn't have excellent reason fortheir cynicism. Few people had quite as much opportunity as he to seewhat was happening to the world, how effeminate its inhabitants werebecoming. The patrol had been recently cut in hal