The Next Time We Die
By ROBERT MOORE WILLIAMS
[Transcriber Note: This etext was produced from Amazing Stories February1957. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Now in the nooning, with the sun high overhead and the shadows huddlingdispiritedly at their sides, the threat that existed in this wild desertwas completely invisible.
The girl, Nora Martin, said, "What I don't understand is why we were sostupid as to come here in the first place. We could have stayed on Earthand had homes and families." Becoming conscious of what she had said,she hastily corrected herself. "I mean, each of us could have had a homeand a family."
Pike McLean shifted the muzzle of the Rangeley just a trifle, adjustingit so that the cross hairs in the periscope sight covered the exact spotwhere he expected, and hoped, the next native would appear. He tried todig the sand out of his eyes. Since he had sand on his hands, this onlygot more of the gritty particles into his eyes. He wished fervidly for adeep satisfying breath of the thick muggy air of Earth before he died.
"This air, there's not anything to it," he muttered.
The girl glanced sharply at him. She had eyes that were as blue as theskies of Earth on a sunny day. The dirt on her nose made her look human.At this moment, the eyes had anger in them. Back of the anger wereunshed tears.
"Did you hear what I said?" she repeated.
McLean shifted his long body so that it lay a little lower in thedepression in the sand. "I guess you came here because you're anarcheologist and you're getting paid to examine ruins. I came herebecause I'm a roustabout who is supposed to be able to do anything,which is what I'm getting paid for." He paused and removed an offendinggrain of sand from his right eyelid. "Dying is not much," he continued."Why are you so frazzled about it? It doesn't even hurt, when you reallyget to it, that is."
"You talk as if you have died before!"
"Why, I have," he answered, surprise in his voice. "Hundreds of times.Since we first crawled out on the mud flats and grew feet and left ourgills behind us, that's a long time. We've been dying ever since, that'sfor sure. And probably for a much longer time."
"I thought you were talking about reincarnation," the astonishedarcheologist said.
"So I was," the roustabout answered. "They're only different approachesand aspects of the same problem. We reincarnate in order to take anothercrack at the puzzle of evolution. Some day we'll solve it! Then we willfall heir to the farther stars instead of just this little old duck pondof a solar system."
"You sound very sure of yourself. What proof—"
"It's in the book," McLean answered. "We're homo sapiens. And thatmeans something. The mud flats didn't stop us. We crawled off of themand on to the high ground and into the forests and overran a planet. Theatom bomb didn't hold us up too long, even when we got to using it oneach other. Where in all that space—" His hand swept upward in an arcthat included all the vast expanse of stars dimly seen here on thisworld even at high noon. "—is anything that can stop us, when we cankeep coming back to take another crack at the problem? Any problem, Idon't care what it is, can be solved if we can keep wo