*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 79917 ***




                           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.




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