Intermission Time

“We’ll find a new one, then,” he said fiercely. “We’ll find one on Earth that will hold us both. I won’t let you go.”

Sudden light from the corridor burst upon them as the heavy door flung open. They clung together spotlighted for an instant and broke apart as Bronson came towards them. Other figures hovered in the doorway.

“You’re making it harder for yourself,” said Bronson. “I’m sorry you didn’t take my advice, John; it will be necessary to confine you to quarters for the remainder of the trip. Please come along now.”

He felt Lora’s hand stiffen momentarily in his, and then release as she moved away.

“We’re going back,” John said to Bronson. “I demand that you send us back to Earth on the next returning ship.”

Bronson shook his head. “I guess you didn’t understand me. There’s no going back; no going back for any of us. In Human Developments you only go forward.”

The central continents of Planet 7 are dry desolation where nothing but the foot-long sand monsters exist. But near the poles are belts of verdure almost a thousand miles in width. At the boundary the ugly sand color shades into living green, and impenetrable forest flourishes beside the barren waste.

All the planet’s moisture finds its way to the hot rivers and lakes of these polar regions. Here the squalid settlements of native life are found; here Earth men have established their Human Developments Project.

In this fantastic jungle, every conceivable Utopian scheme has been laid out, tried and tested for practicability. Projects planned for a thousand years of time measure the effects of environment and the ability of man to conquer the universe by first conquering himself.

Conceived nearly seventy five years ago by Dr. James Rankin, a government sociologist, the project was first considered a wild impractical scheme to get public money to back fuzzy-headed theories. Rankin proposed the idea shortly after the final settlement of the Great War. Out of the conflict had come the discovery of the over-drive; the first flush of enthusiasm sent out expeditions to the Alpha system, where Planet 7 was found, and explored, and mapped. But that was when lethargy began to set in; world-weariness sapped human energies, and the reports were shelved, construction of star-ships dwindled off...

Rankin proposed the idea that it would take a new kind of man to survive upon the Earth, but no one knew what kind of man that would be, or if he could be found. Moon-colonies and Mars-colonies had been set up, but something was lacking there...

Rankin’s idea took hold, and finally, spontaneous acclaim forced its acceptance upon the government of the world; the leaders seemed to sense that it was the last spurt — there wouldn’t be another if this opportunity were permitted to die. Rankin lived long enough to see the first tiny colony established in the forbidding jungles of a far world, encircling an alien star.

Theoretically, it might have been done on some other world in our own solar system, but space-travel made all these worlds seem too close; there was something in the psychological appeal of a planet wheeling around another star — something that proclaimed here was a truly new beginning...

In three quarters of a century, the Project had increased to cover nearly all of the northern polar band with its various colonies. There was still controversy over the merits of Human Developments. Controversy that was hot and vehement. Demands were made that secrecy be stripped from the Project, and its record and processes be made public. But volunteering as a colonist remained the only way of gaining such information.

It was not a desire to hide its activities from the world, the Project leaders said, but prior knowledge of the activities there had to be kept from contaminating the thinking of those who wished to volunteer as the years passed. Government inspectors were allowed to investigate for evidence of mistreatment or mal-practice; they always gave the Project a clean bill of health, and there had never been a lack of volunteers. Those chosen were the result of careful screening to obtain proper specimens for the various environments and sociologies being tested.

John Carwell watched the planet slowly fill the port, replacing the star-specked blackness at which he had stared through five long days of imprisonment.

The ship flashed across the barren central zones. He watched the wind-torn wastes and crags, which faded gradually into the green of the polar region.

Then quite abruptly the ship was enveloped in mist, spearing through the perpetual cloud-blanket that rotated slowly about the polar bands. John stared at it, never moving from his position at the port, his hands clasped behind him, and head bowed low. There was mist, and the occasional flash of green that broke through. Rain cascaded down the sides of the vessel, foretelling the greeting that Planet 7 would hand them as they emerged from the ship.