One Step From Earth

+Indeed!+ Dehan said and felt cold at the thought, thinking about his room. It was embedded in the solid rock of a world whose name he forgot. He had never been on its surface because it was airless. At one time it had been mined for precious metal, and great tunnels were driven through the heart of the stone mountains. When the ore was gone the tunnels had been plugged with molten slag. At intervals. Doors had been left in the boxlike openings to be furnished as private quarters. Very private. Without the Doors they were but bubbles in the rock. It would be a lonely, forgotten death for anyone trapped in one of them.

+Logic forces us to a single conclusion+ Linkica said. +There must have been a time, unimaginable as it is to us, when mankind did not possess the Doors+

+It follows then, that you are a monolinearist, not a multifontist?+

+Of course. For one thing it is biologically impossible to have a single species occur in a number of different places. and then be able to interbreed. Just as there was a time when we had no Doors, so was there a time when we were confined to one restricted area of space+

+To but a single planet?+

Linkica smiled. +You said it — I did not. It carries the theory almost too far+

+Why? I do not tempt you into rash statements for I am as enthusiastic a monolinearist as you are, even though it is an unfashionable attitude to hold these days. I will go even further. I believe we did originate on a single planet at one time. Just as those creatures out there are natives of this world and incapable of leaving+

+You force agreement from me. I admit to physical change, but never considered that cultural change must accompany it. We may have originated from as crude a background as this one. If so — it had to be a single planet+

+I have long thought so, and during my work have traced mankind's movements backward as far as possible. Always I have found the simpler growing into the complex. My researches have been exhaustive+

Linkica shielded his eyes for a moment in the sign of great appreciation. +Can it be that you have discovered this proto world, this home world?+

+Perhaps. Though I doubt it. I have traced back all records, the oldest records, to an incredibly ancient world. I do not know if it is the planet, only that there are none older+

+I humbly request the code+

+A pleasure to share it+ Dehan spoke the digits aloud. +In fact we could go there now and see it+

+You are kinder than I thought possible+

+I am pleased to take you. So few show any interest at all+

Dehan led the way through the Door to a small and crudely furnished room.

+So rarely do people come here that it is sealed for the most part. See my visits on the graph. The first in many thousand units+ He examined the controls and nodded with satisfaction. +Air, temperature, all is well+

They passed through a sealing door into a long, corridorlike room. There were viewing ports set into one wall while everywhere else were cabinets and displays.

+Dead now+ Linkica said, looking out on the desiccated landscape. A sun, scarcely brighter than the other stars, shown as a cold, unblinking disc in the black sky. Air gone, water gone, life gone, bare sand and rock stretched flatly to the horizon. Yet nearby great monoliths, fissured and eroded, still bore witness of having been shaped by some intelligence.

+These cases contain the few identifiable objects found here+

Linkica turned with a high anticipation that slowly faded and died.

+These could be — anything+ he said, pointing to the eroded lumps of metal and stone.

+I know. But should we expect more?+

+Of course not. You are correct+

Linkica looked once more at the mute age-old shapes, then out again at the dead plain. He shivered, although the room was warm and comfortable. +I feel the weight of ages here. More time than I can possibly understand has passed for this world. I see how short my own individual span of existence is and how unimportant+

+I have felt the same thing myself, here, many times. It is said that a man's mind cannot encompass the idea of its own death, but when I am here I can begin to see how a species might die. If we had not had the Door we would be here, trapped here, dead here, if this were the only world we had ever known+

+Give thanks it was not. Mankind is universal. We rule everywhere+

+But for how long? Is not one galaxy — in the fullness of time — like one planet? Will it not die? Or could we not be displaced by some other creature? Something stronger, newer, better. I must admit that this is a recurrent nightmare I have. The Doors are everywhere. Might one of them not be in the wrong spot? A planet say where this other specie waits. To subtly move among us, displace us and end our existence for all time?+

+It is possible+ Linkica agreed. +All things are possible in the fullness of eternity. But it would be a painless conquest. We would never know. Why do you point? What is it?+

+There. I wished to talk with you first before you saw this last artifact+