The Project Gutenberg eBook of The gates of pearl This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook. Title: The gates of pearl Author: David Mason Release date: November 3, 2026 [eBook #79917] Language: English Original publication: New York: Royal Publications, Inc., 1957 Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/79917 Credits: Tom Trussel - Stories of Futures Past (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Luminist Archive) *** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GATES OF PEARL *** The Gates of Pearl by David Mason =A space station, of all places, should be off limits to unauthorized personnel—especially when they’re dead!= Henry Gordon closed the rubber-gasketed door marked ASTROPHYSICS SECTION 22 behind him, and went to the panel. He checked the clock settings that drove the telescope and changed the plate holder. For a moment he stopped to look out through the tiny viewport at the deep black of space outside, spangled with unblinking stars. Henry was still a little new to life on the Orbit Station; it would be a long time before he could look at the outside view without excitement. He turned away, and started for the safety door. At that moment, Athalie Gordon (1919-1972) entered through the solid steel bulkhead at Henry Gordon’s right elbow, and walked through the other wall, outward, in the general direction of the constellation of Boötes. Henry had been only a child in 1972, but he remembered his aunt quite well. He also remembered that she was definitely dead. She was wearing her good dark serge, the one she had worn often before that unfortunate attack of flu. Her expression was much more relaxed than Henry Gordon ever remembered it to have been, and she appeared to be consulting a road map as she walked through. Henry Gordon, shuddering slightly, kept a firm grip on the star plates as he closed the door behind him. He walked down the passage, his magnetic shoes clanking firmly on the floor, to the Developing Section, where he left the plates. He then proceeded to Personnel, where he filed an immediate request for return to Earth and a resignation on account of ill health, forms 2234 and 7166, in triplicate. After this, Henry Gordon had a fit of shrieking nerves, and managed, in spite of Service Rule 22, to get disgustingly drunk. * * * * * “Now, sergeant, I’m not trying to refuse you your permanent transfer if you really want it that way.” Doctor Vanderdecken smiled in a paternal manner. “Everybody wants you boys in our most difficult branch of service to be happy. If it’s a little too tough for you out there....” “I didn’t say that, doctor.” The bulldog face of the sergeant showed some irritation. Thought that would get a rise out of you, the doctor thought. He said aloud, “Well, you say right here on your request form that you feel you might get sick if you continued to remain on Orbit Station duty.” “That’s what I meant, doctor,” the sergeant repeated doggedly. “Sick. You know, funny in the head. I feel fine right now, and I’m gonna stay that way. That’s why I put in for a transfer. That’s why I ain’t gonna go up again if I can help it.” The doctor exhaled slowly, tapping his teeth with a pencil. He increased the fatherly tone a little. “Sergeant, what it amounts to is this. We need men like you, men that we’ve had to train for this special duty. That’s the first space station in history up there; you men are making history. Some day there will be more stations, there’ll be rockets going to other worlds, and we’ll need you for that job too. Now, if a good man like yourself is going to give up before the job’s even properly started, what do you expect the Army’s going to think about that?” The sergeant remained silent. “What I’d like to know, sergeant,” the doctor resumed, “is simply this: have you got any really good reason for wanting to transfer? You can trust me; believe me, you’ll get your transfer anyway, and we need to know.” The sergeant pulled very thoughtfully at his slightly cauliflowered ear. He knitted his brows. Then he shook his head. “I just don’t want to get sick in the head. And I ain’t got no other reason. If I had, I’d be really buckin’ for a Section 8, so let’s leave it that way, hey, doc?” Dr. Vanderdecken shrugged, and reached for the pen. He scrawled “Approved for transfer” on the sergeant’s form, and silently waved him out. * * * * * “That was the fourth one this month,” Vanderdecken said, slumping further down in the big chair. Young Dr. Prior, the newest man in the Center, had been listening as respectfully as became his junior status. He had also been losing his fourth chess game to Dr. Vanderdecken. Prior was an excellent psychologist in more ways than one, and he was also a very good chess player. “Ghosts?” Prior said. “Your move, incidentally, doctor.” “Ghosts,” Dr. Vanderdecken said, studying the board. “They keep walking through the space station. Certainly, I know it’s nonsense. So do the station personnel. So, when they ask to be transferred out, they give every reason but that one. That’s the reason, though.” Vanderdecken moved, and Prior carefully placed a rook in mortal danger. Then he asked, “If that’s the reason, but they don’t mention it, how do you know? Have you been there, up on the station?” “No, no, of course not. I don’t have to go up there to know. The first five or six that asked for transfers gave that as their reason. We had to have a couple of them committed, and the others got psycho discharges, of course.” Vanderdecken moved, obstinately missing the rook. “But of course, that’s made the rest of the station personnel a little suspicious of us, of course.” “Foolish of them,” Prior commented, absently. He regarded the board, realizing regretfully that he would have to win this one. “But what’s your theory, doctor?” “Oh, it’s easy enough to understand. The cultural complex contains the basic idea of Heaven being in the sky, and the dead going there. And, in addition, there’s the lack of normal gravity, the unusual environment ... all that sort of thing. It’s a neurosis. But stopping it’s the big problem. We need a full crew on duty up there, all the time. We’ve tried sending professed atheists up, but we stopped that. The first four of those went completely out of phase with reality after they saw their first ghosts.” Vanderdecken moved, exposing his king from three different directions. Prior studied the board, and decided to stretch it out one more move or two. “Saw ghosts, doctor?” Prior asked. “I should think an atheist wouldn’t have that particular delusion.” “Cultural syndrome, my boy,” Vanderdecken said. “Read Jung. Common undermind. Of course, trained scientific men like ourselves wouldn’t be likely to see anything. If we did, it wouldn’t mean that these superstitious notions had any basis. Just that we had—well, weakened a bit.” “What do these ghosts do, anyway, that disturbs the men so much?” Prior asked. “Nothing, nothing at all. They don’t even seem to notice the men or the station itself. They just walk straight through it.” “Oh, gosh, doctor, I’m afraid you’ve given away the game there,” Prior said, moving his bishop. “Check and mate, I think. But it’s almost certainly a complete accident; you’re a very much better player than I am.” Vanderdecken gazed at the board. “Umm. Yes, I think you have it. Well.” “Tell me, doctor, what is the upper echelon going to do about all these transfers, anyway?” “Eh?” Vanderdecken looked up. “Oh, well, I’ve been told to return any of those transferring to duty on the station after a two-week rest. Unless there’s a really valid reason, of course. But the top brass isn’t going to put up with any more ‘sick’ transfers. No, sir. Matter of fact, I’ve got one now, a young scientist on the civilian staff, name of Gordon. Going to ship him right back in a week, though he doesn’t know it yet.” “Gordon?” Prior asked. “Henry Gordon, in astronomy?” “That’s the one. Do you know him?” “Went to school together. I know him very well.” Prior looked puzzled. “Why, I ran into him a few months ago, just before he took the station job. Do you mean to tell me he’s been seeing ghosts? Why, he’s the most unimaginative....” Dr. Vanderdecken chuckled. “He didn’t say he had, but he muttered a long tale about having stolen some money from an aunt of his when he was ten, and feeling that he wasn’t honest enough to work for the government. Excuses, naturally.” “So you’re returning him to duty, doctor?” “Of course; he signed a contract, and the government’s going to hold him to it. Another game, doctor?” * * * * * In power section, quadrant two, an engineer was checking gauges on the giant sun-heated boilers. As a pair of children ran happily, but inaudibly, out of the face of the boiler and into the solid mass of pipes, he checked off three more readings. Instinctively, he moved aside to let the next one pass, an emaciated man who muttered and pulled at his hair as he walked through. Otherwise, the engineer paid no attention. He had been seeing them for a long time now, but he was a devout Presbyterian. He had expected to see them, and was not surprised. The only thing that really gave the engineer any feeling of disturbance was the occasional presence of a clerical collar among the passing crowds that wandered idly through. The occasional bearded, skull-capped orthodox Jew did not trouble him, but the presence of Papists, up here, did. * * * * * “My name is Prior—Doctor Prior,” the young man said, extending his hand. “Medical Center asked me to come up here, to see if there’s anything can be done about some of your personnel problems. You’re Doctor Welty, I presume?” “That’s right,” the gray man said, shaking hands limply. “You’re an M.D., I hope, Prior?” “Certainly, doctor,” Prior smiled. “Not one of the lay psychoanalysts. You’ve probably received notice of my coming up, then?” “Oh, sure.” The gray man closed the dispensary door, and sat down. “Take a chair. You’ll find the whiskey just behind you.” “But regulations....” “You’ll need it,” the gray man advised him. * * * * * Six thousand miles below, Henry Gordon sat at his desk and carefully reread his notice of refusal of transfer. When he had finished the last sentence, which said “... in view of the above mentioned contract, we find that you still have fourteen months to remain on duty,” he put the letter down. He opened the desk drawer and took out a Smith & Wesson, caliber .32, five-chambered, single action revolver. Henry Gordon then shot himself in the head, once. * * * * * Prior poured a small drink, studying the other doctor carefully. Obviously the neurosis was present, but a trace of alcoholism was also there. This man would have to be recommended for transfer, for the good of the profession. As for the ghosts.... Susanna Smedley (1948-1981) trotted hastily through the room, bisecting the examination table in her arrowlike passage. Prior spilled what was left in his glass. Dr. Welty refilled it for him. “I imagine you occasionally have a little trouble with—well, slight optical effects?” Prior asked, trying not to look at the bulkhead. The gray man chuckled, grimly. “Ghosts, you mean?” “Well, now, doctor, if the men call them that....” “Call them that? That’s what they are. Son, you’re sitting in the midst of the Great Beyond. The population of the heavens is continually walking through here, back and forth. And ... and a drink’s what I need.” He took one, quickly. Prior laughed, a little hollowly. “Come, now, doctor. We’re both too intelligent to fall prey to superstit—ulp.” He looked down at the table, but it was hard not to notice Elwell Thompson (1834-1863). The gray man chuckled. “Superstition, doctor,” Prior continued. “I realize you people up here are having some sort of difficulty, but I’m sure it can be worked out on a scientific basis. I can’t see that these things we see—you do see them too, don’t you, doctor?” The gray man nodded. “I see ’em, all right.” “Well. Now, there’s no reason to think these are the spirits of the dead. Gravity may have something to do with it, or possibly—well, there’s a fantastic idea which I’d still consider preferable to any pseudo-religious notions. Just suppose that these are some sort of projections which the Russians have rigged up to keep us from making a real success of ... oop.” Prior stared up into the pale, slightly transparent features of Henry Gordon, still carrying the impress of a .32-caliber slug. He walked slowly through the room, wearing a felt hat tipped back on his bullet-pierced head. Prior knew the hat; Henry had worn it all through college. He had been quite attached to it. In the middle of the room, Henry stopped, and looked back at Prior. He lifted the hat politely, and stepped out through the wall, walking in the general direction of the Lesser Pleiades. “Must be a friend of yours,” Doctor Welty said. “Never saw one of them take any notice of us before ... hey. Now, what’s the matter with you, anyway?” Transcriber’s note: This etext was produced from Science Fiction Adventures, October 1957 (Vol. 2, No 1). Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. Obvious errors have been silently corrected, but minor inconsistencies have been retained as printed. New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public domain. *** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GATES OF PEARL *** Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will be renamed. 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