MESSENGER By William Morrison He had to find a single planet somewhere in the vast Universe. The trouble was, if he found it--would he remember what he must do? [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy July 1954 Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] He knew that there had been trouble, and he had been told what he had to do. The trouble was he had forgotten. He didn't remember where it was. He had been speeding past an off-color white dwarf when it happened. If he had taken the trouble to look around, he would have seen that the white star was going to explode. He knew a potential nova when he took a good look at one. But after all these centuries he had grown careless, and when the blast had come--the small star suddenly blazing into a billion-fold brilliance--the penetrating radiation had hit him with full intensity. There had been no ship to protect him, no clothing that might serve as a shield. His kind had done away with such things eons before, as they had learned to move through space by using some of the radiant energy that filled it. He had blacked out completely. When he came to again, he was far past the nova, in the dazzling brightness of a rarefied cloud of radiant hydrogen atoms. The nova itself had lost so much of its momentary brilliance that it was now indistinguishable from the myriads of other stars. He himself was speeding on with feverish haste toward a nebular cluster a thousand light years away. He slowed down. He had the feeling that the distant cluster was not his proper destination. But what was? What star, what planet was the spot in space he had to find? And what was he supposed to do once he got there? And who had given him the instructions? Where, in the vast immensity of the universe was the place called "home", the place where he could return for the information he had forgotten? He didn't recall. He knew only, with that same distressing vagueness, that somewhere there was something he had been ordered to do. And that once given, the order had to be carried out. He traveled aimlessly, by feeling alone. Time meant nothing to him as an individual, for his kind had long mastered the problems of age. But time meant much to those he had been sent to--to do what? Was it to help? They must be waiting for him now. They must be wondering why he didn't come. He would have to hurry. Hurry to do something he didn't yet suspect, but would sooner or later remember. After a few centuries, he began, in his anxiety, to talk to himself, as is the way of individuals too long alone. "That star cluster there could be it," he said to himself hopefully, and veered toward the right. "Doesn't look familiar, though," he muttered. "Maybe if I would get closer--"