AMBITION

By WILLIAM L. BADE

Illustrated by L. WOROMAY

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction October 1951. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

To the men of the future, the scientific goals of today were as incomprehensible as the ancient quest for the Holy Grail!

There was a thump. Maitland stirred, came half awake, and opened his eyes. The room was dark except where a broad shaft of moonlight from the open window fell on the foot of his bed. Outside, the residential section of the Reservation slept silently under the pale illumination of the full Moon. He guessed sleepily that it was about three o'clock.

What had he heard? He had a definite impression that the sound had come from within the room. It had sounded like someone stumbling into a chair, or—

Something moved in the darkness on the other side of the room. Maitland started to sit up and it was as though a thousand volts had shorted his brain....

This time, he awoke more normally. He opened his eyes, looked through the window at a section of azure sky, listened to the singing of birds somewhere outside. A beautiful day. In the middle of the process of stretching his rested muscles, arms extended back, legs tensed, he froze, looking up—for the first time really seeing the ceiling. He turned his head, then rolled off the bed, wide awake.

This wasn't his room!

The lawn outside wasn't part of the Reservation! Where the labs and the shops should have been, there was deep prairie grass, then a green ocean pushed into waves by the breeze stretching to the horizon. This wasn't the California desert! Down the hill, where the liquid oxygen plant ought to have been, a river wound across the scene, almost hidden beneath its leafy roof of huge ancient trees.

Shock contracted Maitland's diaphragm and spread through his body. His breathing quickened. Now he remembered what had happened during the night, the sound in the darkness, the dimly seen figure, and then—what? Blackout....

Where was he? Who had brought him here? For what purpose?

  P 1/21 next